I Look AMAZING lol - HermitCraft Vault Hunters

Iskall runs vaults with the goal to collect 25 points in Velara to unlock the unique transmog.
Check out the whole unedited VOD from this segment here: • CHASING VELARA - Vault...
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My main channel: / iskall85

[@BrianMcAvoy13]

Can we get a series called "How to use in Vault Hunters" where either you or someone who knows how to set up filters, powah, or various other things. I can't figure out how to get filters to work in my backpacks

[@ArkenStorm7]

@hellfirem4ge has a few of these that I've looked at that have been really helpful.

[@strangepanthers]

I know if you just KZbin it there's a few guys who have refined storage mods tutorials that apply just fine, gl tho

[@Destroyer01105]

The only thing vault hunters really changes is the recipes, all of the tutorials for the base mods all apply to this pack

[@plantcraftie4141]

There are plenty of youtubers out there that have tutorials on it. Just google a bit. Indeed @hellfirem4ge has plenty of tutorials on the Vault Hunters mods.

[@Bob_Smith19]

There are plenty of tutorials for the base mods. Off the top of ny head ChosenArchitect does a good job of explaining the mods in his pack playthroughs. The mods he uses in the episodes are in the title making it searchable. There is also the in game books. They are still craftable in Vault Hunters.

[@Unbound_Shadow]

16:00 - Iskall, you have very specific knowledge about the spawn rates of various mob types in different vault themes that no average player has. You can't account for that knowledge and expect players to play around it when they run their vaults, because regular players don't have that knowledge and have no way to get it.

[@notfrankenbob]

You get a feel for it with experience and continuing to play vaults.

[@blacktuxwidow4318]

exactly what i was going to say @@notfrankenbob

[@dgris7944]

@Unbound_Shadow I agree with @notfrankenbob that some of the knowledge can be gained through playing, but yeah, Iskall is so in-tune with the game mechanics that he will always be more efficient. For example, @4:24 there was a village room where Iskall went straight to the stairs where I would take a 30s to find them - that's an advantage. People who can grind the game for a living will have the innate knowledge (and let's face it much greater mechanical skills) that an hour-a-day player will never have, and they can use their time more effectively to complete altars. And this is no fault of Iskall, but can he "dumb down" his playing enough to be the best judge of difficulty for your average joe?

[@laser_fps]

So you're saying an optional objective, that only appears after level 40 (well into the typical progression of a "casual" player) should be made easier to accommodate the minority of players who: Don't want to play on lower difficulties, want to complete altars, AND don't have game knowledge or skills enough to complete them at their level? Horrible take

[@youmustbejoke]

Precisely this

[@Dysonsfear771]

These god challenges used to be god dependent. I liked that very much. I refer to the time where one gave "kill mobs" the oter one made you sacrifice time, exp etc. I would love to have themed challenges like this again (but challenges like they are now, not give stats) You could have the red one only make you loot ornate, the yellow one gilded, green one living and blue one ores. Green one tanks, red one dweller, yellow one champions and blue one assasins etc. That way you can modify your vault based on which god you want favors for :)

[@JacksonOwex]

And adjust your build!

[@erinkarp]

Yeah I definitely agree it was more interesting when each one had their own challenge

[@Hannah_GBS]

That would definitely make his argument of using up your augments make more sense, if you knew you'd be hunting (eg) tanks when hunting for specific god reputation. Otherwise you'd just always use the theme with the most neutral spread of mob types.

[@apersonwhomayormaynotexist9868]

It might be cool if eating vault fruit could increase the amount of time left on an altar? You never really eat them mid-vault because of the health penalty but it'd be interesting to have to decide "do i want to lose half my health halfway through to complete or do I want to risk a curse?"

[@shttube9333]

Watching the living chest run where he got multiple velara alters, what it clicking a second altar of the same god gave bonus time. You lose the potential second challenge in exchange for making the first easier. Faster players can do more challenges in one run, newer players can use the extra time.

[@Spika94]

15:52 I am curious what you learned. The takeaway I got from that is that "I got unlucky because I was in a theme that barely have the resources required to complete this random task given to me". I don't really see much you could have done better here, because despite focusing on the task, you were barely 1/3rd of the way to completing it.

[@bananafax]

Agreed. Hard copium on Iskall's part. He was fine buffing jewels significantly, but he feels like it's balanced to have impossible normal difficulty God altars with devastating failure curses.

[@bananafax]

It feels a lot like Michael Scott trying to convince everyone that the copier isn't broken.

[@shalakabooyaka1480]

@@bananafax I watched a hot sauce video made by the guy who made the hottest pepper in the world. He said everything was weak until he got to the crazy sauces. Yea, no joke guy... You built up your tolerance to ridiculous levels.

[@Bob_Smith19]

Iskall needs to try again when he’s better level 40-50. They’re available that early and that’s why people complain about them waiting to level 100 does nothing for the average player. If it’s a late game mechanic make it only accessible late game.

[@let2367]

He learned that if you're running with the intention of doing god altars that theme is something to take into account, and to use augments if you want to focus on it.

[@Brandon-butterb1]

iskall i think the problem is the perspective. you are the creator of the mod pack you know exactly what to do, how to build properly, what traits and specialties to run, the difference between mob types, etc. nobody is more knowledgeable about the game as you are. but for the average person we might not exactly know what we are specing into, have the reaction times, know what gear is good, etc. so while killing 235 horde mobs, killing 12 tank mobs, mining 53 vault ore is a walk in the park for you, it is really hard for the average person that doesn't live and breath vault hunters.

[@ToaZarayna]

My thought for altars: what if you treat them like the archives, where players get 2-3 options for quests. That would keep a vault from being rubbed because the quest was randomly too difficult

[@JacksonOwex]

That's a good idea. But that might be more difficult than just showing what the quest is similar to how Braziers show the traits it will add! Either way it becomes a better opt in than they are now(you don't HAVE to do them but you miss out on a large part of the game if you don't do them)!

[@miguelvl181]

Given the god challenges systems, it could be a good idea to contextualise those challenges to the given theme. For example, if the Nether theme as, for example, 40% fewer horde mobs than the average, then asking for the same nº of hordes mobs as other themes, will feel like an unjust challenge, so, you could ask for only 60% of them for the challenge. In other words, adjust the values of the challenge based on the themes, to provide a similar sense of "difficult but possible" on all themes. (depending on the code, this should be a simple implementation and the increase or reduction of the value could be calculated by the Expectancy, E(x), on the different themes)

[@JacksonOwex]

TL;DR It's the UNKNOWN that makes these difficult not necessarily the quests themselves. If you have God Altars show the quest they will give(like Braziers show the traits you get) it removes the unknown factor, which could make them FEEL easier without actually changing them. They will also feel more opt in as well because we can CHOOSE the quests we take to work better with our builds, vaults, etc. 27:21(I guess my edits are going to be backwards!) I feel like that's a good reason to look at changing things in SOME way, again, I like my idea of SHOWING us what the quest will be like you do with Braziers that way if it's something that is harder because of the theme or our builds we can skip it, the randomness AFTER that is all fine because we CHOSE to take the quest. Right now God Altars are like me showing you boxes of edible things but telling you NOTHING more than that. You could get anything from a great dish to bodily waste(it IS edible, not GOOD, or suggested, but you CAN eat it) 13:20(ish) This touches on another thing I thought of in SUPPORT of my idea below(the below stuff came first). Because there are different builds, ie your vampire kill a lot of things build and a build where you loot a LOT but are ignoring mobs and doing little or no damage to mobs. If the idea below doesn't work then each kind of altar should give the same kind of quest(if they don't already) that way we know which ones to skip and which ones to do based on our builds. Making everything the same is kind of boring though, at least in my opinion. (Original Comment) Maybe something to help make God Altars "easier" is to have the quest you will get for activating it show up over the top kind of like how the Braziers show what you'll get. That way people can see what they'd get so if they don't want to do that specific one they can skip it. This doesn't change the actual difficulty but it should make things FEEL easier because then it's more of an "opt in" thing than it already is.

[@JTSCORPIO30]

This series has totally got me through January thank you iskall and hermits been watching you all

[@AeAeRon]

The reason why God altars are hard is because you can get one for ore and literally spend 10 minutes just running through for ore rooms and not find enough, waste a lot of your run, and probably not complete the run. I've also had that happen with dwellers and assassins. Just bad luck popping all the spawners and not even killing anything except the target mobs. And still failing. And then not getting reputation when you do succeed... it just feels bad more often than good.

[@spicymattball7031]

I gotta disagree. If you don't want to waste your run, don't activate the god altar. You realise after the first few that the challenges are well, challenging and the curses are sometimes not worth the hassle. If you want to complete god altars, make a crystal with the specific intention of completing god altars like Iskall has done in this video. Only very rarely will you have a vault where you find a manageable dungeon, complete a god challenge, get a favour, get a trinket from ornates, and complete the objective all in one. IMO if that happened every vault it would make it less special when it does happen. I think the point is to always remember that realistically the crystal you craft costs basically nothing so if you do just one thing in a vault (even just getting a trinket), that's a win.

[@gme4236]

iskall maybe just adjust some of the altars based on the theme (less dwellers required on gummy bear themes for example)

[@plantcraftie4141]

Usually I've always defended RNG in this game, but this might be a good choice.

[@Bob_Smith19]

As much I don’t like the RNG stacking in the game limiting the types you can get will lead to people only trying them in one or two themes. W/ dwellers it’s already bad enough that you need to carry a tool w/ less than 100% trap disarm.

[@Andreeee75]

Yeah. Not everything should be completely scratched and remade. Sometimes they just need a little adjusting/polishing

[@JacksonOwex]

I think people would be less upset if all he did was show us the quest we'd get for activating the altar like the way we can see the traits that will be added if you activate a Brazier. Then it's EVEN MORE opt in than it already is! The point being however, that with this change we will KNOW what the quest is instead of it being completely random and could be very different from what our builds are made for.

[@kaneconqueror6560]

@@JacksonOwex this is a great point. I think a chunk of the unfairness people feel about the difficulty is due to feeling like they're on a roll and clicking an alter, just to get told they need to hunt champions or tanks in a vault where they have barely seen any of them yet.

[@Jaryt]

don't know if you read these comments, but I have a few ideas on how you could possibly improve the challenges. I think what you have right now is actually better than unique rooms, since like you said, you have to juggle the task of the challenge along side the objective of the vault. Imo, that's a good design. I would say if you had an option of 3 tasks that you can take, which have a certain % affinity based on the challenge level. Another idea would be to add something like "sacrifices", where you could use another alter block, or whatever, to give more time to harder objectives. This could be like the deep dark block that you kill mobs on top of it and it spreads. Going with that same concept would be pretty cool, where you "increase" that gods influence on the vaults. I think the randomness of getting a challenge that is easier in some themes vs others is just an annoyance at best. Giving a couple options of the challenge to accept would def help that. More objectives would also be welcome there so that they're a bit more fresh.

[@ToaZarayna]

I was also thinking of that! Giving the player options to choose from would keep the vault from being rubbed but an unnecessarily difficult quest

[@deloreigames8641]

Personally, while clearly the altars are ok when you developed a strategy exclusively for them, I think the first failures based on theme are much more important results. Altars are a sidequest that you do while focusing on other objectives. And sure, when you get one, you focus on it. But at that point we havent focused on getting the best themes, we havent gotten the best braziers or are in another objective. Im not sure if balancing around the fact that you made every choice in order to get the best completion rate is the correct angle, cause you are skewing the results to be favorable

[@iburn36360_]

A friend of mine gets credit for this idea, but you could both have a quest to obtain an augment and have augments describe their effects, either as flavor test or as list effects: Flavor text: [Lush Caves]: "These caves are teeming with larger numbers of weaker hostile life" [Warped]: "These fields are inhabited by a lower population of tougher creatures. Their civilization values Opals and they ensure that there is more to be found" [Void]: "The condensed failures of previous vault hunters whom failed Wendarr pool here, ready to sap time itself away. The dense presence of the gods seems to have an effect on the gems" Tooltip info list effects (Format would be somewhat similar to how loot info is shown for vault items): - Mobs are more dangerous - Hordes are more likely - Tanks heal - More Echo - More Opal - More Player Gems - Ranged Assassins - Slimy Assassins - Chromatic (Chromatic caves can spawn) - Rich! (Diamond caves can spawn) - Doors for sale (More doors present, assuming that could be an augment modifier) - Touched by the gods (More altar spawn chance if that can be controlled per theme)

[@vodskall85]

I love this! Thank you

[@MuhammadQadri]

Iskall toying with our hearts at 27:06

[@ImAdonai]

Iskall: "let me serve as a viable example of how easy it is to complete god altars" also Iskall: "stands there and casually chats while facetanking hits from impossible dungeon champion" I do get the point about focus rushing the altar objective, but that's only applicable if you're ready to jeopardize any other objective you've had in mind. What happens in reality is you having a specific goal you've wanted to achieve and you stumble upon the god altar casually. I learned not to do altars unless that's my explicit goal in the vault, but I've played a lot and I've been stung by the curses already, so I know better. Any less experienced player that casually strolls into the room with a god altar and casually, without try-harding, attempt to do it while also having their original objective in mind will in most cases fail. And yeah, it's that they've misunderstood the way altars are supposed to be played, but it's an obvious misunderstanding since the altars are just right there, next to the pylons and between some chests and some ores. It's not something that says "you need to give up on your previous objective", it seems casual. Taking this risk on requires consideration, one that you took tailoring the vaults specifically to suit your objective of finding and completing god altars. I absolutely don't mind god altars being difficult, it's just that they don't mesh well with the casual nature of encountering them. As you've mentioned, them being an vault objective could be a way to make them fit better, though I believe a god altar objective and a casual god altar encountered in regular vaults, that acts as neutered version of a god altar objective, could coexist, or one could act as a pipeline for encountering the other. But since you've said that redesigning this is not economically viable due to your team resources being spread too thin it's kind of pointless to ponder what-ifs. Personally I believe the current system itself is good, including the difficulty, however the player is introduced to it way too casually and there is going to be a lot of misunderstanding coming from that.

[@stefansauvageonwhat-a-twis1369]

27:00 The Ultimate clutch Also looks so cool, the Iskall Phoenix, with health that rises back up, and that burns enemies that touch him (thorns)

[@courtneyhigh3442]

I think part of the difficulty of the god alters is knowledge. I don't know off the cuff how the theme of a vault is going to impact particular challenges I am doing within it. Or what the mobs I need to focus on look like. Or what special rooms do and don't have them. Or if they appear in dungeons. That sort of thing. It's sometimes a barrier or knowledge and not skill.

[@macfeej]

It could be interesting to allow affinity to go over 100% - that is, 110% affinity gives one guaranteed favour and a 10% chance for a second, and 200% gives two guaranteed favours. It'd allow you to get a lot of favours in one vault, but with quite a large risk.

[@teutates1989]

I like to see the challenges and honestly I'm not sure if they do need changes(I'm not that far yet with vaulthunters). i do have some small observations about them though. 1)Most people interact with it while progressing and not as single focus. And it sometimes makes them give up runs especially with fading (which probably causes a decent amount of hate about it) (maybe it's more of a perspective shift that they need, simple Don't interact with them until you need it, instead of because you want to) 2)The theme things you can only influence in 'normal' runs is by not interacting with the alters because your going into the challenges blind. you can't see what the challenge is before you press it. (Rng gives it more spice so i'm not sure if this changing would make it better) 3)the 'problem' challenges one that i see by youtubers / twitch , is mostly the dweller one (wrong theme) + ornate/gilded ones. (especially if they are already speced with hunter) Having terrible rng and luck with finding the right dungeons etc. (ornate i have seen wreck people xD ) 3a) Sometimes people fail the champion once as well, but from what i see, they don't get that frustrated with it. it feels fair for them to fail, as it feels doable. So i'm not sure if those people that dislike the system dislike all challenges or just specific ones that have a higher fail chance for them. 4) most of those i watched did switch gear and go all in to try the challenge though, so they do try to complete it, instead of not focusing on it and getting upset that they failed. (small sample size though) 5)how earlier they interact with it, the lesser time they had to perfectly build their build (talents, specialization, etc) that makes it a bit harder for them then for you now doing them on level 100. (could be interacting with it perspective like i typed earlier) Thanks for the episode and the perspective :)

[@KillerMat317]

I have an idea for a new, rare curse on partied vaults : Shared Hearts That'd be probably more terrifying one than Fading 😅

[@oscollective]

Oh that's evil! I love it!

[@miniciominiciominicio]

This was such a great personal objective! “What is on your head, a shoe? Oh, it’s Welsknight.” xD ahahaha

[@kamiza6802]

I think you made a great point of there is no 'must do' in a vault, everything is a choice of what you want to FOCUS on...either looting chests or killing mobs for soul shards or doing the objective (as that is OPTIONAL) or focusing on dungeons or omega rooms or god altars...but people feel entitled that this should be AND / ALL and then feels bad when don't get them all, but that needs to be a perspective change on the player. Also grats on the transmogs!

[@bowenbax]

This might be an awful idea, but what about turning axes into offensive off hands? Youve said before that youre not a fan of axes and dont really see their purpose. Making them into an off hand that can add offensive effects or even make it so you can use 2 competing modifiers like attack damage and chaning or multiple cloud effects.

[@JacksonOwex]

I like that idea! Then we could have a Defensive offhand(shield), Magically offhand(Wand), and a Damaging offhand(Axes/small weapons like daggers; basically to kind of simulate dual wielding). Focuses could probably just get scrapped too, or better yet, just make them part of the magic offhand items so the models are still in game. Then people could have a book, a wand, or other magical looking item if they want but the stats are the same either way.

[@CheaterSama]

Yeah, I think I agree. How difficult it is to complete a certain objective is linked to your priorities in the vault. If someone aims for the whole cake, they might bargain for more than they can chew and feel dissatisfied with the situation. XD

[@Jack-qs6gh]

I think maybe for a future update god altars should be in their own custom challenge rooms with the challenge themed around the god itself. So the red one will be a wave based raid, blue could be a puzzle or riddle, yellow could be a mini scavenger hunt / time-based parkour and green could be a defend a creature or heal a creature. Then once the player completes the challenge room they have a chance to win a reputation point for that specific god and some loot which can be altered depending on the god. So for example, Red = gear / coins / components to craft gear / top tier jewels Blue = Knowledge shards / mod boxes / gems for pogs Yellow = Relics (for a time god, them giving you more time in a vault makes sense AND it means the only way you can have a chance to get relics is by completing this challenge) / vault fruit Green = Omega living room / inscriptions / catalysts (Living is difficult to figure out what the challenge is and what you get as a reward)

[@Pineapple0nPizza]

Adjusting challenge amounts based on theme is my favorite idea from the comments here so far. I really don't like the idea that you have to figure out spawn rates of each theme and use rare augments in order to be able to participate in the god challenges. I'm not sure I'd even have realized there were difference based on theme if I didn't watch your streams. I feel like some extra balancing of the max requirements based on theme would be much more fun as a player. If not then perhaps the theme differences need explained to the player. Maybe as description text on an augment? E.g. Void theme augment: more echo ore in ore POIs, less tank mobs, more horde mobs (or whatever it is - I'm making those up because I still don't actually know what the differences are.) I think this video really highlights that the issue people have with god challenges is the range they can have. Of course with RNG based requirement rolls there will always be some challenges on the easy / lucky end of the RNG, but the issue for most players is that the hard / unlucky end of the RNG rolls feels practically impossible. This is what I personally mean when I say "god challenges are too hard". Not every challenge is too hard, but many absolutely are. The range of punishments for failing a challenge also feels very wide - I honestly don't care in the slightest if I get soulless, but getting fading means I will leave the vault. I have attempted so many god challenges and am failing them upwards of about 60% of the time. It may well be a skill issue that I can't complete them but I think if you are also failing a few times on normal difficulty, that would seem like evidence that this is perhaps too much of a challenge for a "normal skill level player" like myself. I don't want to drop a difficulty level for god challenges alone - I feel like the normal difficulty level is the perfect challenge level for me with all other aspects of the game (mob health and damage, dungeons etc.). The difficulty of god challenges feels out of balance for the difficulty mode. Vault hunters has taught me that RNG can be fun and exciting, but in this specific case it makes me anxious to ever click on a god altar and frustrated at how slow my progression towards divine paradox vaults is going. I'm really looking forward to update 13 so I can improve my chance to get a reputation point. I'm currently sitting on zero despite completing about 12 - 15ish Velara challenges with a 30% charm - that at least is the kind of terrible luck I can laugh about!

[@randomplay7655]

This video is making me want to get every God to 25 rep, one by one and put those armor sets on display in my base

[@brentos3674]

One suggestion I have for altars is to make reputation gain roll when you click the altar, and to massively reduce the difficulty if no reputation is gained. This way, everyone should be able to complete altars without focusing too much on them, but it wouldn't affect the balance of divine paradox which is already really OP. It makes it more of a feel good for players, as they will be able to complete altars much more often inside vaults, and are only really challenged if they want to hunt for reputation. You can also justify it thematically. The god sees your affinity and finds you worthy of an oppurtunity to challenge yourself to earn the reputation.

[@Petrix49]

Only problem with gold altars I see is the harsh run ending curses. I think it would be way better if failing god altars would only apply like negative perks like failing would give you 1x rapid mobs and 1x chunky mobs and so on. Because it is really annoying when you get quest that cant be completed in your vault and you get fading for it

[@finntheunreliable]

I think its makes sense how hard and rare you get a reputation for the gods cause of how op the paradox is, it makes sense that the God altars are hard

[@mightymaurader2339]

I'm not sure if it's in the game already or not, but for a small detail if you have the wings trinket it would be nice if the god armour transmogs wings also flapped while you're flying with it

[@jeremykeegan8090]

Congrats Iskall! And thanks for doing this. I’m lvl 94 and will be waiting for others to catch up once I hit 100, so this gives me something to chase for a while that I wasn’t aware of. Looking good!

[@NagKai_G]

It'd be cool if, when you were to add an off-hand transmog to each god, it be that each of the gods would have a specific off-hand item corresponding to them. So for example maybe Tenos would have the focus, Velara would have the shield, Wendarr would have the wand, and Idona would have a dagger

[@mrtoast244]

He went from Princess to Win-cess

[@Vulcan2405]

I love the look of the new armor. Would be cool if when using the wings trinket the wings on the armor fold up and down like the elytra

[@brick5669]

As an alternative to alters should you want to change them, an idea could be God themed dungeons. You have a door with a god's image on it and you put your charm in the door to open it, then if you complete the challenge in the room you get your charm back and have your charm's % of getting an affinity. If you fail you loose the charm. or if you want to go harder you expend the charm to enter any room and still have only the charm's % chance of getting affinity. That way charms are used up quicker. Just an idea. Love the game and love to see it develop!

[@SnyperMK2000JclL]

Awe man, being half a heart away from 90HP is such a tease.

[@lilpixie25]

That transmog looks amazing! Good job

[@tyrsia]

So you have created a game that requires me to pay attention to time and avoid distractions in order to complete an objective. At the same time you have the most satisfying distractions (I love the sounds of breaking chests and vault ores!). This game is extra difficult for those of us with ADHD! I'm still loving the game even though I kind of suck at it. I normally wouldn't even try a game like this but its still Minecrafty enough to interest me and I think I'm developing some new skills in the process.

[@kaneconqueror6560]

I think the disconnect with the altars is that before they felt like "bonus" objectives that could be casually completed along side you main objective. Now they are alternative objectives that replace your main objective and that's a mental switch I didn't make until this video. Additionally, they feel worth focusing on at high level with lots of charms, but at lower levels they feel like an empty completion crate.

[@griff8572]

I'm not a fast vault-hunter. 100 chests is very good for me. I'm also not a proficient min-maxer. These two points are why I play on Normal difficulty, so I don't have to be super fast or super min/max. And yes, at level 90, the god altars and scavs are hard to complete. That, my dear Iskall, is how some people can say they are hard. NGL, your question "How can anyone call this hard?" was quite elitest and offensive. Don't worry, though, I still love Vault Hunters and appreciate the work you and your team put into it.

[@blacktuxwidow4318]

i think its important to realise that you cant do everything at once and get high value on each of the things you are doing in the vault. example: doing scav u have to focus the scav. that means that you cant complete every single room fully. i used to play like this where i would loot every single POI i saw. a different example migth be looking for dungeons, or looking for altars and completing them. i think people chose to see every vault as the same sometimes, they will play an elixir and a scav close to the same way. i started focusing on my scavs at lvl 100 because i failed a lot of them. and now i almost never fail. its about focus and planning (a part of skill that iskall migth not mention clearly always but i think that is a part what he means when he says "skill")

[@msteins_13]

You could make the armor set red using dye system not runes, it’ll solve the glow problem that runes have

[@greganderson6371]

33:06 THEN THE WINGED HUSSARS ARRIVED

[@ferdymommers7022]

How about making altars a bit more controllable by letting you overwright the objective. Maybe if you click a second altar before your first one runs out it will give you a different objective, but keeps the time ticking down where you were. This way, if you get super unlucky in like a dweller quest in sweets or a horde mobs in a nether vault theme you could kind of reroll to a better or most focussable quest in the specific vault, but you are going to have to start over in whatever time you had remaining

[@cyberworldcatgirl4188]

From my minor experience, I will say: it feels like in many cases, depending on the theme, it might just not be worth it to do the God Altars AT ALL. I get that their boons are powerful, but they are also only one at a time, and you in many cases just ignore them out of safety. Why bother snagging a potential boon when you need to focus hard, on an unfun task, that depending on your roll may completely leave you flattened simply due to RNG and make your vault brutal to exist in? With modifiers like "you regenerate basically no mana" and "damage reduces max HP for the rest of the vault" being possible, LOSING a God Altar has a chance to be EXTREMELY punishing, and if you were already doing well enough to complete a God Altar, there's a very high chance you didn't need the boon in the first place--sure it's NICE, but at that point you probably are good enough you don't need it, which makes it pointless. I'm not even talking from a "completing five altars in one run" point of view or anything--I don't even think that's supposed to be the goal there?--but it's just SAFER to...not engage, at all, until you're strong enough to utterly dominate the vault, while in a theme like Lush Caves that has a decent smattering of everything. I am also not a very good player so take this with a grain of salt, but I AM watching your videos to get a better feel of game desigh for my own silly hobbyist projects.

[@johndowning5826]

GG Iskall!! That transmog looks sick!!

[@bearchaser8621]

Congrats, IskallMan! The new armor and weapons look poggers.

[@Spectervamp1]

When I heard you say that each of the gods had their own armor transmog my mind went to the lunar armor sets from Terraria. Which is strange, because I’ve never actually played Terraria, only watched Etho play it

[@duanefouche378]

Hey Iskall, what about trying a Mana Shield Retribution build in the future if you'd like? Take damage either by falling, or let the first mob get a free shot, then clear the room on your next swing. It's very satisfying. Only issue is it seems bugged, the main target of your attack takes no damage when you proc Retribution (not even your base sword damage).

[@iakan6937]

I think something that could help would be something in game to point out what the actual differences between the mob types and the theme differences. For example I've been watching this series as well as the previous and I had no idea what was a brute vs a horde mob, and assassin mobs I only know about from a passing comment here. Perhaps something to help learn those differences without external tools or pure trial and error could help alleviate the frustration. Get an altar for brutes but your theme has the fewest brutes? If you knew that then it'd make more sense why it's hard to do instead of feeling like you're just getting screwed by rng. Granted rng will always be a factor but that could be something to give a better answer to why you failed an objective beyond purely "guess you got unlucky"

[@Bob_Smith19]

The bounty table tells you what mobs are which type. This is one area where the game actually has decent documentation. You will be selecting bounties before his altars so the bounties teach you which mobs are which type.

[@youmustbejoke]

I learned from this vid. I mainly learned to completely ignore the god altar/favour/paradox system, because when we talk about why we don’t like it we get gaslit and the opinions of a few sycophantic followers outweigh the large number of people who want to actually have fun in a game.

[@Em0srawk]

One thing that might help convey the idea that players are supposed to focus on the challenge tasks is to give activating them a bit more fanfare. Something like how the dungeon difficulties pop up center screen, or how vanilla boss/raid health bars are presented. Quietly tacked on to the side of the screen makes it *feel* like it's a less-important side objective.

[@victornoname7269]

I'd love to see what Idona's armor looks like. Red and black is one of my favorite color schemes.

[@montymccabe8358]

I wonder if balancing the god altars around changing the number needed for mobs depending on their spawn rates in the theme you roll. If you want to make it easier and less dependent on the type you get

[@Thunder-bw9xm]

Based on the comments and my own observations, you need to either have the god altars be theme independent, or tell the user via tooltips what the themes do, or some combination of both. Love the progress, I've been watching since early VH1 and theres been so much progress and accessibility increase it's fantastic

[@joelvarney5091]

That is awesome! I have never seen the god armors before and now I want one!

[@adorablecactus4]

Iskall at around 6:42 you used knowledge to assit your god alter challenge that I did not even know was a thing, you knew tank mobs didnt spawn at that poi, i thought it was random, ive played over 4 irl days of vault hunters (in one world) and I had no idea that was a feature now imagine how its like for others who cant play everyday or only an hour or so a day. It is avisual knowlegde you learn from playing hours upon hours every day, not everyone can commit to that. One thing about Vault hunters I love more than any other modpack or mods is the quest system and the books that tells you how to play and progress, and as other comments have said god alters just look like casual things you can do and as you unlock them at level 40 and the divine paradox quests are after and blocks the quest path in current release (3.12) it can be seen as manadatory to do them and as fading is a curse you can get it can off put people from doing them at all. IMO there is a fix which is have them have their own difficulty like dungeons idk if this goes against your design philosophy but others have suggested it says the challenge above the alter which i think removes a ton of RNG so instead have their own difficulty with different values like for kill dwellers and easy on is 15 or something and impossible is like 75 for example. It still has the RNG elements but for more casual players they will know what they are getting into and if they want a harder challenge they can like dungeons and maybe the curses could vary aswell for each say impossible challenges have a higher fading than easy ones but better favours and the harder the challenge the higher percent change you get a reputation. Just a thought I had to maybe make god alters more friendly for the average player but still be a challenge.

[@dukeandnukem9654]

You look incredible. Thank you so much for the ride

[@ScruffyTheIridescent]

14:37 I agree that there should be specific things that should be mechanic you need to put all your focus into, but I think that like the first vault where you couldn't get enough dwellers because of the theme is something that I myself, would find extremely infuriating to put all my focus into something only to fail because of the hand I was dealt.

[@quilavabucket]

24:37 “Copiously chanoe” XD im pretty sure that thats just yt compression but thats hilarious

[@srgos2179]

8:04 The potion in hotbar suddenly decided to enlarge itself xd

[@shadowcrafter01]

You could add a pylon which instead of adding time to the vault timer adds time to god altar challenges

[@piro313]

I think the requirements need to be balanced around the themes. So raising and lowering the requirement bounds in accordance with the spawnrates in that particular theme. That would give a more consistent fairness with the requirements, while still keeping the occasional loss if they aren't focused

[@adentravis]

That transmog is so good!!! I want to grind for it now haha

[@iPengusYT]

You should definitely go for another set! I really want to see what they look like :D

[@tricmagic]

Do any augments exist to apply more mobs in spawners. Add Onslaughts to it ahead of time. As for gods, might be nice to be able to get multiple tasks and a completion bar to fill. Horde mobs are the worst since it can go from 100 to as high as 250+? 30 Tanks are at least doable with luck in the time alotted, hordes in the wrong vault type are an automatic fail. (If it were percentage based based on the vault type maybe. Instead of the disconnect.) Can say it's nice you finally earned your true wings. They're very green.

[@ColeCorvin]

I will say this, i have gotten "kill 15 tank mobs" in hard and not been able to succeed even though i run through triggering every single poi. There is a lot of luck involved with those that is somewhat out of the players control. And failing due to something out of your control never feels great as a player. I dont rhink it is a major problem but it might just need the smallest of tweeks.

[@Legend-ij8yk]

Even though there will be no definite date on the release for version 13, can you specify which bugs and goals are left uncomplete/unfixed in specific, so a lot of people can see what is being worked on plus get a good idea on why it is being delayed.

[@JacksonOwex]

They are mostly reworking the Ascension vaults because they are too powerful and feel like you HAVE to do them, which is NOT something they wanted.

[@quilavabucket]

oh that looks siiiiick, love the armor!

[@fazljr9349]

Iskall, i once again beg you to add a coin pouch/purse or any coin storage like soul shard pouch .

[@-Porg]

Nah we need danks back. Bro I miss them so much

[@govyazhiydoshirak4629]

Also he need to add Equipment pouch, Jewelry pouch, Key pouch, Trinket pouch and Charm pouch at least

[@robertbeke1170]

Bro we don’t need it. We can just compact to gold

[@Bob_Smith19]

@@robertbeke1170he could whitleist bronze/silver/gold and enable the compacting upgrade for the backpacks.

[@adentravis]

I understand what you're saying early game it can be tricky in the vault but I think once you get stack upgrades for your pouches you don't even notice it

[@Bob_Smith19]

I just want to point out that the altars are available at low levels. They are significantly harder due to trash gear and low movement speed. If it’s a late game mechanic don’t make it available so early. People do feel like they have to complete them if available.

[@aelin88]

and he started with a trashcan on his head! How quickly they grow up

[@SeveredSanctum]

I would love to see you do the god altars without the use of elytra. You have made the "god altar challenge" easier for you because of movement speed and spamming POIs. With builds that use other trinkets, they will not nearly have enough movement to make it worth wild. It would be better to know which types of "challenges" you will get with specific altars. We knew this previously in vh2 and early vh3. You know with Idona you had to kill mobs. You are "testing" this at level 100 with all of your abilities unlocked. Most people start to see them at level 40, and are not nearly as skilled / biased as you towards the system. I much rather a smaller time window to complete a mission, instead I have to run around for 10 mins and hope i find all the chest i need. Or the fact that I have to hope that if doing multiple altars that they are the same hunter skill. The whole system is just crap, and while it is easier at level 90, I just detest the entire system.

[@Bob_Smith19]

You hit the main points. He needs to try at level 40-50 when you have trash gear and low movement speed.

[@matthewparker9276]

The kill mob god altars are balanced (or even maybe a little easy) the ones that are too dificult imo are the ones that ask you to find about 30 of a certain chest type. You need to find so many that running around each room checking for appropriate pois is detrimental, because you really need a challenge room, like a village.

[@matthewparker9276]

Having said that, if you're trying to complete god altars, chaos vaults are the way to go.

[@Bob_Smith19]

You need luck and find a dungeon. But that’s an issue in itself when you get the kill dungeon mobs quests. Even w/ a low kill number you’re still depending on RNG to spawn in a dungeon.

[@Beschaulichkeit]

ooh that chest piece is soo cool!

[@bad21718]

That armor set looks like a wood elf version of Goldar!

[@isobarkley]

that armor set is INSANE

[@BackyardFilms2]

If you want alters to need to be focused in a vault then that's fine. I think most people are used to the old alters that could be completed while also not sacrificing most of the vault

[@natncat]

I appreciate *seeing* a developer test a feature that has received criticism for themselves, but this testing isn’t really 1:1 in terms of player experience, and almost doesn’t qualify as a “real world scenario” and here’s why: you’re level 100 and aren’t playing to loot or to finish the objective. The vast majority of the time I pick up a god challenge, I’m looking for a side quest, not something that i have to 100% focus on to the detriment of all else or risk jeopardizing failing the overall vault objective (scav, braziers, etc). A concept you’ve touched on in the discussions that have been uploaded here is that you can tweak things, but until you experienced it as a player it’s sometimes difficult to know if an addition or change is balanced. I’d argue this isn’t really representative of the player experience, unless you think god alters shouldn’t be a main concern of the player until end game.

[@dgris7944]

The god altars could certainly be tuned to the theme they're in however I'm more or less okay with the RNG aspect of the tasks themselves - at least you have a target and can strategize somewhat. The most unenjoyable aspect for me is trying to find the damned altar I'm looking for, so I always spec observer and deny myself the ability to spec into chests. When loading the vault could you look for the player's charm and tweak the percentage chance each altar will be for that god? For solo players like me completing the game is pretty much locked behind the paradox vaults, which is locked behind the god altars. God altars feel like a RNG grind

[@Cobalt322009]

The issue I have with this testing is that you're doing it at level 100 with uber gear and stats. Try it at lvl 30 or 34 or something.

[@mariormr10]

Have you thought about the idea of going into another Vault in the Vault? Like an inception of Vaults.

[@IanDalton]

And just like inception you have a timer in the main vault that runs slower than the timer in the sub vault. That sounds so sick

[@AeAeRon]

Isn't that just dungeons?

[@cawcawbang90]

i think its good that the altars are difficult sometimes considering they give you access the the most op vault in the game. its a tradeoff

[@NeroKosonen]

I was thinking the other day, that when people complain about the side quests, they're probably feeling a bit over whelmed and they don't know how to prioritize what they want to do, because they're in the vault to do something they like. Whether it's killing mobs or looting. They don't want to give that up for a side quest, even though the side quest feels like a fun thing to do. So they get upset, when they fail the quest (god altar), they fail the main event (monoliths, scav, what ever) and they die trying to get out of the vault with half a heart left, because their favorite streamer can make it out like that and now he's talking about taking away their time bonus! So, could the answer be spreading these side quests into a different section of a vault? Would this area have a separate timer? Or is it a modified vault with the god altar as the main task?

[@dgris7944]

The time bonus from relics should be tied to difficulty. Play on normal, get your full 30s bonus per relic. Play on hard, reduce it by half, etcetera.

[@nilesh2489]

Maybe the divine can be a percentage base like trinkets 20%of the affinity that u have something like that level 1=20% Level2=50% Level3=70or80%somethine like that

[@benedictcucumberbatch7734]

i think one problem with the god altars is they’re basically just bounties with a different reward, so i think making a new system could add a lot to the vault or removing altars altogether and having a different way of proving your worth to the vault gods

[@lisastone345]

You're a Green Fairy always and forever!!!!

[@elliottoland]

I think the tears will help a ton with god altars. They are tough and luck based, but doable. I just don't like when i throw away my vault to complete them, but then at level 76 I still only have 30% chance to get a point.

[@chaosdestructionlove]

I'm realising after watching hours and hours of vault hunters that I don't think I've ever heard what fading actually does to the vault.

[@StefLynn]

I think it's that when you get hit and take damage, the hearts you lose can't be healed back - they're just gone

[@Yorick257]

Oh yeah, everyone is like "fading is so hard, it's so hard!" but there's nothing on wiki, there's no description, and no one says anything

[@IanDalton]

Yeah this guy above had it. Hearts you lose to damage disappear permanently (in that vault, you get them back when you leave) So imagine it’s ultra hardcore and you can’t heal at all 😊

[@chaosdestructionlove]

@@StefLynn omg that explains why everyone absolutely hates it. Ultra hardcore mode x-x i remember the days of challenge maps like that so well...

[@Pineapple0nPizza]

@@chaosdestructionlove plus there's been a bug which seems to be fixed in update 13 where fading instantly dropped you to half a heart sometimes - made for a few very scary runs to the exit for me and more than one death! At least that won't happen any more once we get the update!

[@hacklex974]

Nice of you to show that off while it's not as easy for us (altar spawn rate/ no return to altar) The player base is always so many steps behind, and that's fine for a game in alpha but i'm not even sure it will ever leave alpha at this point... maybe 5th Edition who knows ? You need to stop announcing updates on a given day and then delay it for weeks, it's like an actual thing now... Iskall says "that day" day and we know for a fact that it's more like "that day +20"

[@hacklex974]

Even blaming the first failure on the theme LMFAO

[@Vibecisco101]

Iskall with your new thorns shield u should give porcupine a try

[@begrs8156]

I find them a bit too hard as well, I complete 1 in 6 if I am lucky while focusing them fully (on hard). But not having to go back will do a lot for that. Apart from that, I would give a bit more time, same objective difficulty (which can be hard to do because of rng but I like that) but have a bit more time. And then maybe a chance for a short one with lover objective count from time to time. Fading is really annoying to me, because most of the time the vault is useless after that for more altar hunting, maybe change it to just do periodic damage to the player? So you can outheal it, but it is difficult. Or switch it so you will still have fading, but get only 1 heart of damage from each hit - because they suck out your soul/essence instead of doing damage (lore), Would balance crits etc a bit in fading vaults. PS: I like the reputation system like it will be in update 13 a lot :) just a tad to difficult for me/my build on hard.

[@IanDalton]

One thing I think vault hunters needs is some lore. We’re so close. Could be something simple like the vault gods need your help to stop the diving herald. But I think that will add a lot of depth to the pack really easily

[@plantcraftie4141]

Nah, I don't like lore. It's good as it is.

[@IanDalton]

@@plantcraftie4141 I thought the same until I played a pack that does have some and it makes a huge difference to the motivation to play for me. To each their own

[@Bob_Smith19]

Who cares about lore? Minecraft is a sandbox game. It’s not some grand epic like Mass Effect. Make up whatever lore you want for yourself.

[@IanDalton]

Sure, or why don’t you play the way you want and ignore the lore lol why are we having this conversation

[@TacoShade]

Dweller is honestly the hardest for me

[@quilavabucket]

i will say, from a testing perspective, theres an imbalance because most players are working to do the gods favour while completing the vault rather than focusing the quest cuz its an extra focus issue rather than necessarily a time one. from what ive seen, it does seem to be an experience thing to improve running the altars, but aside from adjusting the quests a bit for the themes im not sure theres many changes you can make that wont devalue them for high level play oh lol you said the same thing later

[@yoshiscool6336]

Letting Fruits affect the Timer for the God Challenges would be awesome!!

[@bryanperez8636]

17:46 What about GOD doors kinda like dungeons they are randomly generated and they are challenges. like the ones you said and maybe GOD doors have a high percentage chance of giving points maybe even more then one point.