Xiahou_Shake posted...
Economy hasn't really been an issue using them this way either - I'm usually scratching at the shard cap and I've got a bunch in my inventory for emergencies. They do feel very strong so I'm assuming the economy is there in the first place to A) Encourage you not to skip every non-pilgrim enemy B) Add a layer of hesitation from just dumping them nonstop against bosses and C) Give you a nudge to go check out another area if you're getting folded by a single boss to the point that you burn through your supply
If you're constantly hitting cap I don't think you're engaging with the economy at all actually. Let me explain what I mean by responding to these points:
A) This is a good reason in theory, however non-pilgrim lategame enemies are rarer and so foes tend to drop very few shards unless you are in an area like
Memorium
which seems designed for grinding and not incidental shard gain? Additionally, if rewards from enemies are as low as they are, you're still encouraged to skip fighting them to not waste resources.
B) If the fights can be trivialized by spamming tools without a specialized build, I simply don't think they are well-designed fights. There are, in fact, fights that give unlimited tool use and they are some of the most fun and engaging and difficult ones in the game! Additionally, many common enemies are designed to encourage frequent tool use (such as how every single flying enemy spams projectiles and backs away from the player).
C) I think the game has plenty of mechanisms to signal this already, additionally as mentioned not all areas even give plentiful shards so it's kind of inconsistent.
Take the design of
Architect Crest
for example, which is built to encourage extremely frequent tool use and give you ways to replenish your stock between rests. So it's made for long excursions, but will burn through shards faster than it receives them, so it actually can't do that. So instead, what the economy pushes you to do is completely ignore tools during exploration, not engage with the shard economy at all, hoard until you're at or near cap, and now you actually do have the leeway to take your tool burst build into bosses and absolutely spam the shit out of them (or save them for the final phase of the fight), invalidating the design goal of B.
The tools are very well-designed and balanced as part of a normal moveset. So maybe the real issue is that the full power tool specialist build is SO strong and the economy seems built around discouraging that level of spam, which then prevents the player from actually using them in the way that's balanced. This would seem fine except
Shaman and Wanderer's Crests
are equally if not even more busted as this build and they don't even have to deal with shards!