The following feedback includes general things regarding the penance system and the UI as well as thoughts about specific penances, and a few suggestions regarding changes and additional penances.
I will first talk about a few general things, and then comment on the three main aspects of the penance menu.
After that, i will go more into depth regarding a few specific penances that could use improvements, sorted by section (going through these sections from left to right).
I hope i did not forget anything, but i probably did.
General positives
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- The ability to track penances and view their progression at the press of one button while in missions and in the mourningstar, is a great addition.
- The display of requirements was improved. Penances with requirements like “complete each mission type once” or “kill every type of dreg” now come with a list of all mission types and dreg types, which is checked off as the player progresses. This is much better than it was handled before, where it only showed the number of how many mission types/dreg types there were and how many of them you had done (without telling you which ones, so you had to keep a list or make a guess).
- Many of the new penances teach players good behaviors. Players are told to use barrels to kill enemies. The name of the penance fits. Most of the new class penances are well balanced and teach the player to use the related thing correctly.
General criticism and suggested improvements
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- When claiming a completed penance, the entire thing is covered by the big medal symbol. Upon clicking on it, the penance disappears from the “Highlights” in an instant.
What did i do? No idea.
It would be nice, if we had a section similar to the Highlights, where the 10 most recently completed penances are displayed. Before the update, we had something like that. No idea why it got removed.
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There should be a search bar and a sorting function added to the penance menu.
There already is a mod that does this:
It adds a search bar that lets you search a Penance Subsection for keywords. Penances that have the keyword in their name or description, will be displayed.
The mod also allows to “show all penances”, “only show completed”, “only show incomplete” and “only show claimable”. -
Penances that require multiple other penances to be completed should provide links to those penances. The required penances already are listed by name, and we can see if we have finished them.
But we do not see what those penances are about. We should be able to interact with the icons of those listed penances via clicking or mouse-over, and get the full information of those penances displayed on demand.
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Penances with cosmetic rewards are lacking a proper display. When i put my cursor on a cosmetic from the penance point track, i get to see what exactly it is. Why not, when i do the same thing with a cosmetic that is displayed as penance reward?
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The character cosmetics menu is lacking information regarding penance cosmetics.
It tells me from which penance the cosmetic comes, but it does not tell me what the penance is about.
Let me press a button that opens the related penance in the penance menu, or at least display the requirements of the penance here:
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Recolors of penance cosmetics
We have a bunch of recolors of the OG penance cosmetics already, which is nice. But you made a mistake by simply making them available for dockets.
It would be much better, if the recolors of penance cosmetics were only available at the vendor, once the original penance cosmetic is unlocked by the player. That would make the recolors equally prestigious and give players more color options, when they want to show off their penance cosmetics.
Please add recolors of the newer penance cosmetics and of the penance point reward track cosmetics to the docket vendor. But only let the player buy them AFTER unlocking the original ones. -
Stat tracking penances got nerfed
These penances used to cap at 1500 missions completed and 1 million enemies killed.
Their nerf was completely unnecessary. The entire point of these penances is, that they take a long time and track your account stats. Why reduce their tracking capability to a lower number?
Please add a new top tier to these penances, with a new portrait frame.
Penances like these could even get a new tier with a slightly different portrait frame added with every major update.
If penance points are a concern, you could simply add new tiers without penance point rewards, that only grant portrait frames.
You have unused space right there. Add a “Heroic” section or something like that, where you put high number stat tracking penances with portrait frames and insignias, that do not grant penance points.
What makes the nerf of those penances very strange is, that these two penances below did not have their requirements reduced and will now likely take longer to get, than the ones for missions played and enemies killed:
The Penance point progression track
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It is well designed. Quite intuitive. There are various things in there and it is easy to understand how it works. The ability to mouse over a reward and get a somewhat proper preview is nice.
The last reward requires 4500 points. We currently have ~4855 points available, so there are quite a few penances that can be skipped, based on personal preference, which is nice (for example, you can probably skip all penances from one class).
Regarding the rewards themselves, the design and color scheme of some of the cosmetics is questionable. I won’t get into detail on that.
I find it strange, that all three titles from the progression track, even the one for 4400 points, are of green rarity. Make them green, blue and purple/orange.
The title for 4400 points also does not sound very “cool”. Considering the time and effort that go into getting it, it should be of orange, or at least purple quality, and it should sound cool and prestigious. Maybe change it to something like “Hero of the Ministorum” or “An Intellectual and a Scholar”.
The “Highlights” section
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It allows us to get a quick look at penances that are near completion as well as those that we are currently tracking.
It shows all relevant information regarding the penance, including a little icon in the top left corner (see images below), indicating the sub section to which the penance belongs, which makes them easier to find in the other menu.
Very nice.
Overall, the “Highlights” section is well made.
However, the icons in the top left corner of each penance card, should probably get a slight improvement to their visibility. It would not surprise me, if most players never noticed these icons.
I am quite a keen observer, but i only noticed the icons for the first time, while writing this feedback.
I would suggest to simply replace the simple icon with the selection button from the penance menu.
It would be nice if the icon could then be clicked to instantly open the penance in the “Penances” menu, but most importantly, this visual change definitely makes the icon much more visible and it is more clear, what the icon means.
The solution would look like this:
The “Penances” section
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The penances are sorted into categories
The icons for the categories are somewhat intuitive.
The allocation of the penances to those categories is mostly coherent.
Within some of the categories, the penances are sorted into sub-categories. Those sub-categories make sense and it was a good idea to add them (especially for Exploration and Endeavours).
The penance progression within each category is immediately visible. Very convenient.
Something thing that i would like to see added, is the progression regarding penance points within each of the 10 categories.
It could look something like this:
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Once a penance has been completed, the description goes into hiding and the requirements are only shown, when clicking on the penance.
When looking for a specific penance, this is quite annoying. You now have to click on every completed penance until you find the one you are looking for.
I suggest to add the option to show/hide the requirements of completed penances.
The “Penance Completed!” text could be placed below the requirements (magenta box).
I also suggest to change the color of the laurel icon for completed penances to the same color as the “Penance Completed!” text.
“Account” Penances
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Not much to say there.
The penances make sense and you get them all by leveling all 4 classes to 30.
Would be nice, if we got a penance with some cosmetic (maybe a title or a weapon dongli) for completing ALL class penances.
That one would probably fit in this category.
“Veteran” Penances
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Most of them are good.
Some of them could certainly be improved.
Here they are:
Krak grenades automatically fly towards carapace armor and stick to it, before exploding.
This makes them great for dealing with Maulers, Crushers and Bulwarks.
As of now, the easiest way to get this penance done, is to throw krak grenades into groups of flak armored trash mobs or shooters.
A Krak grenade penance should teach the player something useful about krak grenades.
Teach the player about the special interaction of the grenade with carapace armor.
Reduce the number of kills required, but tell the player to use the homing function of their Krak grenade to take out the elites with the strongest defense.
“Kill 75 heavily armored enemies (Mauler, Crusher or Bulwark) by sticking a krak grenade to them and blowing them up.”
One massive benefit of guaranteed critical hits is, that they allow you to 1 tap a bunch of enemies with a bodyshot.
Aiming for the head, when you have a guaranteed crit in the chamber is often redundant.
Teach the player to make use of the guaranteed crit upon swapping to their ranged weapon, by NOT requiring them to also hit the weakspot.
Remove the weakspot requirement and slightly up the number of kills required.
Smoke grenades are mostly useful to prevent ranged attacks.
The penance should teach players to use smoke grenades against enemy shooters, not to throw them into hordes of melee enemies.
Change it to “Engulf 350 ranged enemies in smoke, using the Smoke Grenade.”
“Zealot” Penances
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Most of them are good.
Some of them could certainly be improved.
Here they are:
This is NOT the Shroudfield penance. This is the Loner penance.
For the Shroudfield penance, the backstab requirement makes sense. For the Loner penance, it does not.
When you rush down ranged units, you get them into melee combat. The tutorial teaches that. Stopping them from shooting is what brings value to rushing them in the first place.
So the shooters stop shooting and now try to spank you.
That is not a scenario in which it would make sense for you to try and backstab them.
Increase the number of required kills and remove the backstab requirement.
A lot of value from stun grenades comes from their ability to stun elite enemies, and from their ability to allow you to revive a teammate, while surrounded.
Simply throwing them into hordes is not very useful, but that is what this penance teaches the player to do.
Maybe change the requirement to “Stun at least 5 specialist/elite enemies with a single Stun Grenade, 50 times”.
“Psyker” Penances
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Most of them are good.
Some of them could certainly be improved.
Here they are:
This one is far too easy. Similar penances require you to do something like this multiple times.
Maybe change the requirement to do the thing 5 times.
Since the requirement was reduced so much, there is no longer any reason to limit the penance to private lobbies.
Either make it available for public games, or increase the damage requirement to 80% or so.
It has been an eternity, since i completed this penance (long before warp charges were reworked).
I am not sure how exactly it works now.
If the requirement is 120s overall, it is too easy and the time should probably be slightly increased.
If the requirement is 120s continuously without interruption, it is probably fine.
“Ogryn” Penances
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Not sure why the ogryn has 61 penances, when all of the other classes only have 60.
Not an issue, but a bit strange.
This leads to the weird circumstance, that the ogryn is the only class that does not need to complete all other penances in order to get this one:
Again, most of the ogryn class penances are good.
Some of them could certainly be improved.
Here they are:
A lot of the bomb’s value comes from the ability to instant kill a bunch of elites.
Throwing bombs into trash hordes is pretty wasteful, but that is what this penance teaches.
Maybe the requirement should be changed to
“With one Frag Bomb kill 5 elite enemies, 25 times.”
or
“With one Frag Bomb, kill 25 enemies, 30 times. Elite kills count 5x.”
The number of kills required is too high.
Not only in my personal opinion, but also in the context of other penances.
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The Ogryn penance “Pile On” requires the same number of heavy attack kills, but it does not require you to have 5 stacks of anything . It only requires you to have the aura equipped and it also counts heavy attack kills from teammates.
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You can expect that it takes more than 15 rounds of damnation high int+ to complete this penance (333 heavy attack kills at 5 stacks per mission). Other class penances (any class) can usually be completed within <10 missions.
Slightly reduce the kill requirement, or allow ANY melee kills. After all, the penance boosts melee damage in general, and it can be refreshed by hitting enemies with light attacks, too.
This one is a bit whacky.
Some quick maths incoming:
With this additional talent, the Burst Limiter Override has a 12% chance to apply.
With a 12% proc chance, it takes an average of 4500/0.12 = 37500 shots to complete this penance.
This is the weapon with the highest firerate, that the ogryn has access to:
These are the highest stats that you can get on this weapon:
In order to trigger the required 4500 Lucky Bullets, you have to fire 37500 shots.
At a rate of 10 shots per second, this takes 3750 seconds or 62.5 minutes of continuous firing.
Missions take around 25 minutes.
In order to complete this penance within ~10 missions (which would be comparable to other class penances), you would have to spend 1/4 of your time in every mission by shooting.
The requirement could easily be reduced to 3000 lucky bullets.
It would still take 41.67 minutes of RATATA.
This could easily be inreased to 5 instead of 3 enemies per charge.
“Tactical” Penances
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The penances are fine.
Although some of them could just as well be put into the “Heretical” category.
This one could be tuned down slightly. For those who play damnation only, this penance will take quite a long time.
As mentioned in “General criticism and suggested improvements”, this penance should not have been nerfed.
The nerf should be reverted, or a new top tier with a new portrait frame should be added.
“Heretical” Penances
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They are fine.
Although some of them could just as well be put into the “Tactical” category.
Considering that we have the two penances above, i would like to see two other penances added as well:
Spit it out!
“Free a teammate who has been eaten by a beast of Nurgle, by staggering it.”
This teaches players, that they can get their teammates out of the belly. Apparently, many players are not aware of that.
Club of Friends or A Friendly Smack or Smack! Not Snack!
“Get a chaos spawn to hit you with one of your teammates, whom it was about to eat.”
This teaches players that they can prevent the chaos spawn from munching on a grabbed teammate, by getting close to it and forcing it to attack.
“Missions” Penances
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Not much to say here. They are fine.
As mentioned in “General criticism and suggested improvements”, this penance should not have been nerfed.
The nerf should be reverted, or a new top tier with a new portrait frame should be added.
Why do we get the cosmetic on T4, but nothing on T5? Don’t know.
“Exploration” Penances
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They are fine.
I like these. can we get more of these?
For example:
- Smelter Complex: “Push x enemies into the burning pit in the middle of the final arena”
- Power matrix: “Bring all 3 power cells to their destination, without dropping them”
“Endeavours” Penances
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Not much to say about them. They are fine.
Since diff 1-5 as well as auric 4 and auric 5 are covered, maybe add “Complete any auric maelstrom version of this map” of each map.
