Arcen Games

General Category => Starward Rogue => : Mánagarmr March 29, 2016, 02:39:46 PM

: Just tried Hard Mode...
: Mánagarmr March 29, 2016, 02:39:46 PM
Misery, where you at? You need a punch in the face (https://youtu.be/CkmTVLrKA08).
: Re: Just tried Hard Mode...
: Hearteater March 29, 2016, 05:23:25 PM
I find hard mode to be very fun. It is tough enough that I actually need to pay attention. I find the bosses a touch too hard, specifically the first floor boss who you often don't have many upgrades for, but after that I'm generally good. Then again, I also haven't gotten my controller setup, so I'm still playing with the keyboard.
: Re: Just tried Hard Mode...
: Misery March 29, 2016, 07:27:51 PM
In other cases I'd say "It's not entirely my fault" but this time around, yeah, that mode is my doing.

It sounds like it's fulfilling it's purpose well :D
: Re: Just tried Hard Mode...
: Mánagarmr March 29, 2016, 08:15:54 PM
In other cases I'd say "It's not entirely my fault" but this time around, yeah, that mode is my doing.

It sounds like it's fulfilling it's purpose well :D
I'm working on a fail video as we speak :P
: Re: Just tried Hard Mode...
: KingIsaacLinksr March 29, 2016, 09:50:13 PM
I approve this thread.
: Re: Just tried Hard Mode...
: Pumpkin March 30, 2016, 05:42:47 AM
In other cases I'd say "It's not entirely my fault" but this time around, yeah, that mode is my doing.

It sounds like it's fulfilling it's purpose well :D
I'm working on a fail video as we speak :P
I can't wait to see that!
: Re: Just tried Hard Mode...
: x4000 March 30, 2016, 01:27:05 PM
This thread deserves a sticky, like the "this AI is awesome" thread in AI War. :D
: Re: Just tried Hard Mode...
: Mánagarmr March 30, 2016, 05:17:30 PM
This thread deserves a sticky, like the "this AI is awesome" thread in AI War. :D
Lol XD
: Re: Just tried Hard Mode...
: Misery March 30, 2016, 09:13:55 PM
This thread deserves a sticky, like the "this AI is awesome" thread in AI War. :D

I find this endlessly entertaining.
: Re: Just tried Hard Mode...
: x4000 March 30, 2016, 11:34:38 PM
This thread deserves a sticky, like the "this AI is awesome" thread in AI War. :D

I find this endlessly entertaining.

I thought you might.  ;D
: Re: Just tried Hard Mode...
: Mánagarmr March 31, 2016, 05:11:50 PM
I'm working on a fail video as we speak :P
I can't wait to see that!

Delivering as promised: Youtube linkage (https://youtu.be/CkmTVLrKA08)
: Re: Just tried Hard Mode...
: x4000 March 31, 2016, 07:09:37 PM
I love it!  Man, we need to get you doing some voiceover work for us at some point, too...
: Re: Just tried Hard Mode...
: Misery March 31, 2016, 07:30:35 PM
I'm just starting to watch this myself here, and seeing... what looks like 26 runs lost to 7 won?  Hahaha, this is going to be a fun watch, isn't it?

I need like some popcorn here before I start or something.  Well actually I need to prepare my actual meal, but let's pretend it's popcorn.

Also reminds me that I *still* haven't done any videos of the game myself.  The boss things don't count.

But for right now.... *fake popcorn*
: Re: Just tried Hard Mode...
: Mánagarmr March 31, 2016, 07:47:01 PM
I love it!  Man, we need to get you doing some voiceover work for us at some point, too...
I'd be honored! I didn't know you found my voice that pleasing on the ears. ^^
: Re: Just tried Hard Mode...
: Mánagarmr March 31, 2016, 07:52:00 PM
I'm just starting to watch this myself here, and seeing... what looks like 26 runs lost to 7 won?  Hahaha, this is going to be a fun watch, isn't it?

I need like some popcorn here before I start or something.  Well actually I need to prepare my actual meal, but let's pretend it's popcorn.

Also reminds me that I *still* haven't done any videos of the game myself.  The boss things don't count.

But for right now.... *fake popcorn*
Shush. I have a long starting takeoff distance, k? :P
: Re: Just tried Hard Mode...
: Misery March 31, 2016, 07:59:34 PM
The moment you said "Let's hope it's an easy boss" I could tell that run was about to end.  That was indeed as entertaining as I expected.

Also I see you met the upgraded Blaze Cannons.  Arent they fun?

I also see a variety of enemies that I somehow missed in my campaign to upgrade the damn things for that mode.  I must rectify this unfortunate situation.
: Re: Just tried Hard Mode...
: Mánagarmr March 31, 2016, 08:02:55 PM
Glad you enjoyed! That was the whole purpose ^^
: Re: Just tried Hard Mode...
: x4000 March 31, 2016, 08:56:28 PM
I love it!  Man, we need to get you doing some voiceover work for us at some point, too...
I'd be honored! I didn't know you found my voice that pleasing on the ears. ^^

Indeed, you've got a great speaking voice.  It's also a tad more exotic (for lack of a better word, sorry) than the standard American or British accents, and I think that also can really add something.  You're Scandanavian, is that right?  I feel like that accent is about halfway between British and German, which is a really nice place to be.  You'd be awesome for dry humor in your regular voice as a computer character (isn't everybody a computer character in my games?).  Or maybe an actual human for once.  We've had a FEW human characters. ;)
: Re: Just tried Hard Mode...
: Mánagarmr March 31, 2016, 09:13:45 PM
I'd be happy to. If you get the need some time just shoot me an email and we can work out the details. I have pretty good equipment for recording and doing post. I'm just generally too lazy to do more than compression on my videos. I can spend hours on audio editing otherwise.
: Re: Just tried Hard Mode...
: Mánagarmr March 31, 2016, 09:19:05 PM
Also I see you met the upgraded Blaze Cannons.  Arent they fun?
In the most Dwarf Fortress of ways, yes.
: Re: Just tried Hard Mode...
: Misery March 31, 2016, 09:38:01 PM
Also I see you met the upgraded Blaze Cannons.  Arent they fun?
In the most Dwarf Fortress of ways, yes.

(http://i.imgur.com/GswqbTr.jpg)
: Re: Just tried Hard Mode...
: x4000 March 31, 2016, 11:14:09 PM
I'd be happy to. If you get the need some time just shoot me an email and we can work out the details. I have pretty good equipment for recording and doing post. I'm just generally too lazy to do more than compression on my videos. I can spend hours on audio editing otherwise.

Awesome!  If you can shoot me an email (chrispark7 at gmail), there might be some audio work on the raptor game for you.
: Re: Just tried Hard Mode...
: Misery March 31, 2016, 11:46:39 PM
How is that game coming, by the way?  Definitely interested to see previews of that whenever you've got them ready.
: Re: Just tried Hard Mode...
: x4000 April 01, 2016, 12:17:05 AM
How is that game coming, by the way?  Definitely interested to see previews of that whenever you've got them ready.

It's coming really, really well.  It's taking longer than expected in some ways, but partly that's because at each step of the process we're really going through and making sure that we nail each piece in terms of how it looks, plays, performs, etc.  Trying not to make a tower of things that are half-baked that then is impossible to optimize or refine later. 

Instead we're less far along than I'd expected, but the raptor is controlling great, animating great, looks great, etc.  The procgen level stuff is slower than expected, but a lot of that revolves around creating all the best components for it to work, and making sure that the game can actually make levels of any appropriate scale without absolutely eating the graphics card.

The net result right now looks ridiculously good, I think, for an indie game in particular.  I don't want to oversell it... but I'm doing lots of happy dances over here. :)
: Re: Just tried Hard Mode...
: Pumpkin April 01, 2016, 05:55:51 AM
I'm working on a fail video as we speak :P
I can't wait to see that!

Delivering as promised: Youtube linkage (https://youtu.be/CkmTVLrKA08)
Didactic and entertaining! I love it.

Also, as Chris said, your voice is very pleasant. You articulate and speak rather slowly, which is a relief for a foreign speaker (and listener, in that case) as me.
: Re: Just tried Hard Mode...
: Mánagarmr April 01, 2016, 06:17:48 AM
Didactic and entertaining! I love it.

Also, as Chris said, your voice is very pleasant. You articulate and speak rather slowly, which is a relief for a foreign speaker (and listener, in that case) as me.
And here I'm thinking I slurred and stumbled and coughed way too much. It really was a lazy video. I CAN do much better, I'm just too lazy to do that on a regular basis :P
: Re: Just tried Hard Mode...
: KingIsaacLinksr April 01, 2016, 10:49:45 PM
Didactic and entertaining! I love it.

Also, as Chris said, your voice is very pleasant. You articulate and speak rather slowly, which is a relief for a foreign speaker (and listener, in that case) as me.
And here I'm thinking I slurred and stumbled and coughed way too much. It really was a lazy video. I CAN do much better, I'm just too lazy to do that on a regular basis :P

*whispers to everyone* He really is lazy. He's been working on a System Shock 1 series for like two years. Lazy person.
: Re: Just tried Hard Mode...
: Misery April 02, 2016, 04:23:46 AM
Okay, so, just so it's known, some things in Hard mode will get less frustrating soon; I'm going through and doing some "renovations", AKA, removing tons of problems I'm finding with a variety of rooms.  I think some of these were added while I've been trapped in the damn boss rooms as I've not run into them before.   But looking at them... I'm finding explanations for why certain enemies are seeming to be WAY too common right now, which I've noticed in videos and am seeing now.    Getting tired of boomerang things and bulldogs every 3 seconds, for instance...

I mean, yeah, Hard mode is supposed to be... well, hard... but messing with it, and watching videos, it's a little overboard.  Not by all that much, but enough to warrant alterations.

So there's going to be a whole pile of changes here as I'm going to stick to this for awhile.  I really meant to do this quite awhile ago, but, ah... that's just how it goes I guess.  I blame the weather.  And Microsoft. 

I mean, really, I'm finding ALOT of issues here.  Going to try to deal with a ton of these and see if I cant get both this and Normal mode to be more fun and have more variety than they do right now.

Seriously, I should have done this earlier.  Bah.

Will be tweaking some enemy patterns also.  But not that much, most of them are fine. 

EDIT: Agh there's way more issues than I thought.  Ugh, I let this issue sit muuuuuuch too long.  Not on the ball here, am I?  Argh.

EDIT 2: Okay, I've changed a huuuuuge number of rooms.   Some had really bad problems (for example, snipers with clear views of doors, cant allow that one) or other things... Enemy variety should also increase. That's the problem when you've got this many rooms, it's hard to really give them all a proper testing as they come in.  I can definitely understand why Isaac has as many broken rooms as it does despite the skill & talent of it's developers.

These changes will be ready to go soon.  I need some time to test though.
: Re: Just tried Hard Mode...
: crazyroosterman April 02, 2016, 02:00:59 PM
How is that game coming, by the way?  Definitely interested to see previews of that whenever you've got them ready.

It's coming really, really well.  It's taking longer than expected in some ways, but partly that's because at each step of the process we're really going through and making sure that we nail each piece in terms of how it looks, plays, performs, etc.  Trying not to make a tower of things that are half-baked that then is impossible to optimize or refine later. 

Instead we're less far along than I'd expected, but the raptor is controlling great, animating great, looks great, etc.  The procgen level stuff is slower than expected, but a lot of that revolves around creating all the best components for it to work, and making sure that the game can actually make levels of any appropriate scale without absolutely eating the graphics card.

The net result right now looks ridiculously good, I think, for an indie game in particular.  I don't want to oversell it... but I'm doing lots of happy dances over here. :)
hey if you don't mind me asking is Keith any closer to deciding that stars is ready for testing? just asking because if that game gets back to being tested I won't have the time to test release raptor (provided you are going to be having testers of course I'm just assuming there really) I wouldn't even be asking really but it feels like that games never going to get finished especially with the financial issues.
: Re: Just tried Hard Mode...
: Logorouge April 02, 2016, 02:34:27 PM
These changes will be ready to go soon.  I need some time to test though.
Now that's some exciting news. The added variety by itself will already be a great improvement. (So many Bullrush!)
: Re: Just tried Hard Mode...
: Misery April 02, 2016, 07:16:27 PM
These changes will be ready to go soon.  I need some time to test though.
Now that's some exciting news. The added variety by itself will already be a great improvement. (So many Bullrush!)

Yeah, that's putting it mildly.

Really I was kinda stunned at just how bad this had gotten. 

But if anyone's finding what seems to be massive balance issues with enemies right now, this is maybe a huge part of the reason.   Some enemies are also going to get re-classified too.  Just not sure exactly which yet.
: Re: Just tried Hard Mode...
: Hearteater April 02, 2016, 10:43:14 PM
The face ripper needs something, at least in hard+. I recommend an on death bullet shotgun spray that only travels a fairly short distance, and maybe not even that fast.
: Re: Just tried Hard Mode...
: Misery April 03, 2016, 01:17:00 AM
The face ripper needs something, at least in hard+. I recommend an on death bullet shotgun spray that only travels a fairly short distance, and maybe not even that fast.

Oh, I had a different idea for them.

Something along the lines of what "slimes" traditionally do in many games.
: Re: Just tried Hard Mode...
: Logorouge April 03, 2016, 01:39:28 AM
I just realized I've never seen what's a Faceripper's attack. They usually run around until they catch a stray bullet and die. Are they like a less agressive Bullrush? Honestly, I consider the treasure transports a bigger threat. Now those things are fast!
: Re: Just tried Hard Mode...
: Misery April 03, 2016, 03:32:30 AM
Facerippers don't really DO anything.  They just come directly at you.   So yeah, like a crappier bull thing.
: Re: Just tried Hard Mode...
: Mánagarmr April 03, 2016, 08:54:33 AM

*whispers to everyone* He really is lazy. He's been working on a System Shock 1 series for like two years. Lazy person.

I technically never really started that one. I just couldn't find a mode or pace I was happy with.
: Re: Just tried Hard Mode...
: Pumpkin April 04, 2016, 06:41:11 AM
I just realized the normal difficulty was easy for me. I guess it's my learning curve creeping up in the background; I thought I wasn't good at bullet hell games. I'm willing to try harder difficulties, however bosses are already challenging for me at normal difficulty. I just find myself overpowered against floor's hazard, maybe because of my Isaac's experience, yet I'm afraid of certain bosses. I remember TLF has two distinct difficulty levels: management VS fight, and I wonder how good (or bad) it would be for SR to have something like that. I would like to push up the challenges of the floors and resource scarcity, but the bullet hell thing is hard enough for me.

TL;DR: in my current experience, floors are near-boring and bosses are challenging enough. Does Misery Arcen thinks SR would actually benefit from splitting difficulty option between resources management VS bullet hell?
: Re: Just tried Hard Mode...
: Misery April 04, 2016, 07:39:00 AM
I just realized the normal difficulty was easy for me. I guess it's my learning curve creeping up in the background; I thought I wasn't good at bullet hell games. I'm willing to try harder difficulties, however bosses are already challenging for me at normal difficulty. I just find myself overpowered against floor's hazard, maybe because of my Isaac's experience, yet I'm afraid of certain bosses. I remember TLF has two distinct difficulty levels: management VS fight, and I wonder how good (or bad) it would be for SR to have something like that. I would like to push up the challenges of the floors and resource scarcity, but the bullet hell thing is hard enough for me.

TL;DR: in my current experience, floors are near-boring and bosses are challenging enough. Does Misery Arcen thinks SR would actually benefit from splitting difficulty option between resources management VS bullet hell?

I don't want to go into too much detail just yet, but the game's difficulty balance will be changing.

Right now, it has issues.  Basically, the game's difficulty curve is effectively backwards; the further you go into the game the easier it gets on a given run as your power level skyrockets, causing even the game's final bosses to go down like paper in many cases if you've been choosing your build carefully enough.  Needless to say.... I intended for them NOT to die if you looked at them too hard.   But this sure does affect normal enemies too, which, like bosses, need to be able to stick around long enough to generate their attacks.

In other words, the mid/late-game's increase in difficulty, in terms of patterns getting more and more loopy, is mostly nullified.   

So we're working on some changes there.  Well, I say "we", but I myself am fantastically terrible at things involving math, and that's mostly where the problem is, in how player stats and boosts are handled.  The others are all good at it from what I've seen though, so that should get fixed soon enough.

....also normal enemy HP is too low.  This one is my fault, I wasn't really paying attention to this as I kept assigning them values (most new enemies that appear only in the late game are my design), so their HP is just all over the place and in some cases equal to early-game ones.  Yeah, oops.  Not JUST the late-game though but the mid-game is affected by this too. 

Though, normal enemy HP doesn't mean all that much till the wonky math bits are dealt with anyway, so right now isn't the time to change them.   Currently I'm still dealing with the blasted rooms.


Certainly try Hard if you like, though be aware that in your version Hard mode is wildly imbalanced due to the room issue.  That issue isn't AS noticeable on Normal, but tends to go into overdrive on Hard as I tended to get a bit enthusiastic in my hard-mode designs (so, ALOT of things not fit for the rooms they're in, way more than on Normal). For example, Blaze Cannons that fire side shots that fire more piercing bullets. About as fun as it sounds! But the rooms are a mess with stuff like that, though as I said, that fix is coming.


As for the idea of a difficulty split?   I think I have an idea as to what you mean by that, but I cant even conceive of how that'd work.  That would likely take too much time/effort to do.  In the end, dealing with the math is one huge thing that'll make the resource bit more interesting (since right now you barely have to even think about your build in order to go all-powerful), and there's still changes coming for actual items and also item pools too. 

So, hopefully, that aspect will just outright get a lot better.   I agree, it's not in a good place right now.
: Re: Just tried Hard Mode...
: Hearteater April 04, 2016, 02:36:17 PM
Is the floor 1 hard boss the approximate difficulty level you are aiming at for later levels? Or will the floor one be getting any easier on hard? For example, Mirror Mark I takes about 46ish seconds (iirc) to beat without your energy weapon or consumables. With 10 health + shield, you can only take 6 hits meaning you can only get hit once every 7 seconds. That seems maybe a little too difficulty for hard on level 1. But maybe I'm spoiled by getting great upgrades and blasting through later bosses with ease.
: Re: Just tried Hard Mode...
: Misery April 04, 2016, 07:24:53 PM
Is the floor 1 hard boss the approximate difficulty level you are aiming at for later levels? Or will the floor one be getting any easier on hard? For example, Mirror Mark I takes about 46ish seconds (iirc) to beat without your energy weapon or consumables. With 10 health + shield, you can only take 6 hits meaning you can only get hit once every 7 seconds. That seems maybe a little too difficulty for hard on level 1. But maybe I'm spoiled by getting great upgrades and blasting through later bosses with ease.

No, the floor 1 hard bosses are indeed setup properly to be floor 1 hard bosses.  Heh.   It's supposed to then get a lot tougher from there.  They just get nastier after that!
: Re: Just tried Hard Mode...
: Hearteater April 04, 2016, 08:53:36 PM
Figured :) . Then the floor needs to get quite a bit more difficult on hard and misery if you want to avoid the huge difficulty ramp up from the last room to the first boss.
: Re: Just tried Hard Mode...
: Misery April 04, 2016, 09:32:51 PM
Yep, that's the goal that's being worked on.

Hopefully it wont take too long to fix.
: Re: Just tried Hard Mode...
: Pumpkin April 05, 2016, 05:28:20 AM
Well, thanks for you answer. I'm confident about that game's future.

I thought the split difficulty was a bad idea even before posting it. It was just a proposal for that "problem" but as far as you consider the current balance isn't polished, I'm totally okay with it. No split difficulty. Good.

Then good luck for the balance. I bet there is little I can do without a global view of the game and enemies.
: Re: Just tried Hard Mode...
: zoutzakje July 03, 2016, 09:31:55 AM
I just tried hard for the first time... And I was still alive after the first boss! woohoo! My boss was also the mirror and somehow I survived the last quarter of his life with 1 hp. I guess that's when adrenaline tunnel vision kicks in with me or something like that. 2nd floor boss killed me though :D It's certainly a big step up from normal dif. Blaze cannons are fun too. I think I got the hang of normal now but I certainly got a lot to learn on hard.
: Re: Just tried Hard Mode...
: Mánagarmr July 04, 2016, 02:35:29 AM
I just tried hard for the first time... And I was still alive after the first boss! woohoo! My boss was also the mirror and somehow I survived the last quarter of his life with 1 hp. I guess that's when adrenaline tunnel vision kicks in with me or something like that. 2nd floor boss killed me though :D It's certainly a big step up from normal dif. Blaze cannons are fun too. I think I got the hang of normal now but I certainly got a lot to learn on hard.

It's certainly a big step up from normal dif. Blaze cannons are fun too. I think I got the hang of normal now but I certainly got a lot to learn on hard.

Blaze cannons are fun too.

Blaze cannons fun.

I don't think we can be friends anymore.

: Re: Just tried Hard Mode...
: Misery July 04, 2016, 10:29:10 PM
Blaze cannons are fun too.

So I need to buff them then, is that what you're saying?

I'll do it, too.  You just see if I don't.
: Re: Just tried Hard Mode...
: Mánagarmr July 05, 2016, 03:51:13 AM
Blaze cannons are fun too.

So I need to buff them then, is that what you're saying?

I'll do it, too.  You just see if I don't.

(http://i0.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/007/423/untitle.JPG)
: Re: Just tried Hard Mode...
: zoutzakje July 05, 2016, 05:13:36 AM
well, I meant they're more !!fun!! really. They're a pain in the ass in tight spaces but they die pretty fast when you get close to them. There's other stuff I find harder to deal with though. Flak Launchers must burn in hell. It'd be fine if they'd die fast. But they don't.
: Re: Just tried Hard Mode...
: Misery July 05, 2016, 05:41:28 AM
Flak Launchers wont seem as bad once the next update finally hits.

Not because they'll get nerfed or anything, nope.   Just because there'll be something much worse to compare them to. 

Actually I think the Flak Launchers though will have more HP when the update hits, so there's that too.  You're welcome.
: Re: Just tried Hard Mode...
: zoutzakje July 05, 2016, 06:45:09 AM
hahaha that's just mean. They're already one of the hardest ones to kill. Heck, even most minibosses are easier to kill.
: Re: Just tried Hard Mode...
: Misery July 05, 2016, 07:11:42 AM
Minibosses honestly could use a bit of a boost in a general sense.  Arcoris is fine, that one's difficulty rises properly over the course of the game, and Hunter is fine too (mostly), but the others tend to start out a bit easy, and stay that way.

They're not my design though, so I wont make any changes to them myself.  That's all up to Pepisolo, he's the one that did the minibosses.  He's busy with other aspects right now though that are more important/pressing.


Enemies like the Flak Launcher are indeed meant to be very hard though.  They're categorized as "Fearsomes" in the game engine, and are designed to be the most dangerous things that aren't full bosses.  Normal Demesne is probably the easiest to beat of that group; it's job is mostly just to complicate everything else, it's not very threatening once you've gotten rid of it's nearby allies.  The others tend to just be designed to kill you.

The funny thing is, the Flak Launcher wasn't originally categorized that way.  Originally, very early in development, I had misjudged it's difficulty (which is normal for me) and had it categorized as something much lower, a mid-level Wanderer (fairly common enemy type) if I recall correctly.  I thought "this thing isn't too tough, this should do".  Chris went "NOPE no no, nada, no sir" and upped it to Fearsome, which gave me an idea as to how far NOT to go, heh. 
: Re: Just tried Hard Mode...
: Pepisolo July 05, 2016, 10:46:22 AM
My bad on the miniboss difficulty front. I'm slowly getting there. I recently improved the base version of Paragon.

Reaper has Hard and Misery mode versions. Check out the Misery mode one, Reaper does a scythe spin attack.
Tri and Hunter also have Hard and Misery mode versions, although the base version of Tri is maybe still a bit easy.
Bastille needs a little work. Arcoris needs Hard and Misery versions.

I'll try to get a lot more work into these before the next patch.
: Re: Just tried Hard Mode...
: zoutzakje July 05, 2016, 02:30:29 PM
oh no worries. I wouldn't even know how to begin with making enemies and minibosses more difficult, yet keeping them balanced at the same time. I'm just a gamer.

Reaper is definitely the hardest one and the most fun one to play right now.
Still, it feels like most of them are a balanced challenge in the early game but lose their edge in the late game. Arcoris seems to have solved that problem by simply having more of them (going to be fun once they have a hard pattern). Couldn't something similar like that be done for the others as well? Like from floor 5 and up all the minibosses appear with doubles. Or a slightly different version added with the regular, in case simply cloning them seems too cheesy a solution. I have no idea what that would be like, but could be fun to experiment with.
Unless you already have better ideas in which case just ignore me :P
: Re: Just tried Hard Mode...
: Pepisolo July 05, 2016, 04:42:07 PM
oh no worries. I wouldn't even know how to begin with making enemies and minibosses more difficult, yet keeping them balanced at the same time. I'm just a gamer.

Reaper is definitely the hardest one and the most fun one to play right now.
Still, it feels like most of them are a balanced challenge in the early game but lose their edge in the late game. Arcoris seems to have solved that problem by simply having more of them (going to be fun once they have a hard pattern). Couldn't something similar like that be done for the others as well? Like from floor 5 and up all the minibosses appear with doubles. Or a slightly different version added with the regular, in case simply cloning them seems too cheesy a solution. I have no idea what that would be like, but could be fun to experiment with.
Unless you already have better ideas in which case just ignore me :P

Yeah, harder variants for the higher floors is something I'm looking at. Or going to look at, but I never seem to get around to it, heh. I think Toxic Reaper is a variant I'm going to be adding.