A Better Sensory Stone

This mod is meant to redesign the Event "Sensory Stone" into something more useful and fun for the player.

The Event "Sensory Stone" has reworked options revolving around the event’s theme of "Recalling" something. The option of adding colorless cards to the player’s deck has been consolidated to one option.

Additionally, the event has been opened up to be available in all 3 acts with a scaling reward structure based on when the player encounters the event.

In later Acts:

– The player now has an additional option to add a specific "Form" card (e.g. Wraith Form) related to the player’s current class.

– The player has an additional new option to select a card from the deck of their previous run with the same character class and add that card to their deck.

For players with "A Better Note" installed, there is also an additional option allowing for a unique interaction between the two events. This option is designed to increase decision making opportunities across a run.

Lastly, the mod contains a configuration option to limit the event to just Act 3, for a closer experience to the original event, and an option to allow the Better Note interaction beyond Ascension 15.

The normal event is useful because it is one of only a rare few ways for the player to add colorless cards to their deck. Unfortunately, the end result for most players is to choose the option with no cost, and then skip the reward choice. This problem is the result of a few different causes.

First, colorless cards can vary wildly in usefulness depending on the class chosen and the type of deck being played. What this means is that often the colorless cards offered do not synergize with the deck being built, and there are at most only a couple that are generally useful across most or all decks.

Additionally, the event options are structured in such a way that the middle option would almost never be chosen. In the case that the player doesn’t care about colorless cards, they choose the first option and move on. In the case that the player wants colorless cards, they will choose the third option to get the most options. The middle option is only chosen when the player has less than 10 remaining HP and also wants colorless cards (A situation which nearly never occurs).

As a solution, "A Better Sensory Stone" reimagines the event by consolidating the option of colorless cards to one possible outcome, and creating new options centered around the event’s core theme of recalling past events. In this way, a player looking for colorless cards will still have a viable option for finding them, but the majority of players who will not be able to make use of those cards will have a new set of interesting options to consider.

Another problem this event runs into is that it is only available in Act 3, however, by the time the player has reached Act 3 they are rarely looking for new cards beyond a handful of very specific ones to finish out their deck. Most of the colorless cards are designed to be generalist cards, and lack very specific synergies that an end game deck would want. Many colorless cards are much more viable in the early stages of a run due to the deck’s direction still being decided.

In order to address this issue, "A Better Sensory Stone" opens the event up to be available across all 3 Acts with it’s options and reward value increasing the later it is found. The scaling act progression was chosen as a measure to handle keeping the event fair and balanced while also opening up interesting decisions to be made by the player. Since colorless cards tend to be more viable options earlier in a run, that option can be chosen if the event is found early. However, if the player finds the event later, when colorless cards are much less desirable, they have more options to pick cards that could still be useful to them.

I hope you have a good time with this mod, and I welcome any and all feedback.
Special thanks to 旅渚Lastcel for the Simplified Chinese translation!

If you enjoyed this mod, consider checking out some of my other mods:
A Better Note
A Better Match
A Better Knowing Skull
A Better Forgotten Altar
A Better Third Choice
A Better Lab