Even with this change being fairer than the previous one, as someone who took Treasure Seeker I feel as though I 100% would have chosen Unnatural Selection instead knowing this was coming.
The fundamental problem here is that Unnatural Selection's guaranteed clue drop from superiors makes any generic clue improvements better for it than for Treasure Seeker, due to it having other non-clue benefits. Balancing these relics against each other is going to be almost impossible without actually changing the relics, for this reason.
In general I think this suggestion is better, but it still fails to solve the following problems:
- Getting clue steps you can't run just feels...bad regardless of whether you're able to make progress otherwise
- Master clues are still unrealistic to complete, especially relative to the tasks that apply to them
- This change still disproportionately buffs Unnatural Selection, which is already the stronger relic. One of Treasure Seeker's strongest relative benefits is that it makes juggling dramatically easier; removing the need to juggle, while good for gameplay, further extends US' lead over TS.
Personally, I believe the best change overall, if modifying the relics is off the table, would be to give players both T4 relics and region lock clue steps as per the first suggestion. This has the following benefits:
- Removes the imbalance between Treasure Seeker and Unnatural Selection
- Allows players to engage with both slayer and clues without significant FOMO in either direction
- Removes the frustration of needing to drop impossible clues
- Allows Master clues to be much more reasonably completed