Author Topic: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread  (Read 35706 times)

Offline Pepisolo

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Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
« on: December 21, 2017, 01:48:14 pm »
If any expansion testers have any feedback on AuGMENTED, feel free to post that here, or start a new thread if you want. Cheers!

Offline steelwing

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Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
« Reply #1 on: December 24, 2017, 12:21:02 pm »
Very nice work on this expansion!
The only thing so far has been the weird error that I see popping up at the very beginning of each game.  I've not been able to get a screenshot of it yet, but as soon as I can, I'll post it here. 

Offline Pepisolo

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Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
« Reply #2 on: December 24, 2017, 03:51:32 pm »
Very nice work on this expansion!
The only thing so far has been the weird error that I see popping up at the very beginning of each game.  I've not been able to get a screenshot of it yet, but as soon as I can, I'll post it here.

Yeah, if you can get a screenshot of that error, that'd be great. Are you using Linux? If so, then I probably know what the error could be. Thanks!

Offline Logorouge

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Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
« Reply #3 on: December 26, 2017, 10:01:59 am »
Now that I can take time to actually play the game, here's a few things I noted:

-After victory rewards (minor, consumable & chest) often are not working for me on Gold floors.

-Skeleton key (sac item): Cannot open more than 1 KeyBlock before being spent.

-Cluster Grenade secondary: Explosion can push around regenerating blocks.

-Flux Capacitor: Not affected by Deep Blue mech energy boost ability?

-TwoFactor challenge: Entering from the south door starts the player outside of the starting spot. Entering from the west spawns you on top of a turret for insta-damage.

-Defensive Shop: Offers the Hyper Protocol item (+15% damage, +15% crit). Would fit better in the weapon shop.

-Robot Shop: I see regular drones on golden floor shops. Not sure if intended. Kind of a bummer to reach a golden shop just to get some Tag Team drone and Bullet drone, etc.


-Too many Travelporters around. With the whistle-style teleporting, it's inconvenient that you have to jump through a bunch of useless rooms before you get to the important ones. Not sure miniboss rooms are really important enough to have one.


-SpikeSwitch: Looks more like a shootable rather than a switch. And the spikes on it indicate to stay away rather than step on it. Would recommend aiming for a more button-like appearance for it.

-Defense Leecher tile: Doesn't look like a negative effect tile. Looks like a neutral mechanism, not good or bad in appearance. Visuals should convey danger more.

-Explosive rune tile: Current look is like a computer device thing that I wouldn't expect to explode when stepped on. Was more a fan of the simplicity of a menacing dark red tile wired with explosives.

-Energy Drain and Defense Leecher tiles greatly reduce the mech's visibility, which I think is a big problem. Could effects closer to the energy charger electricity be used instead to avoid messing with visibility?

-Zephyr mech: Hard to see how close you are to running out of the Need for Speed effect and easy to miss when it turns off. (Elemental modules make it even worse.) Short story: It's too subtle. -image-
My suggestion is to forget subtlety and go for crystal clear feedback for this crucial aspect of the mech. Something similar to the early alpha system would be perfect in my opinion. -image-

-Zeph Pistol vs Pelt Pistol: Stats don't indicate the superior range of the Zeph pistol.

-Crystallizer enemy: The footprint visual effect when hit by his attack sometimes become permanent. Although it looks cool, I don't think it's intended.

-Green Crystal Beamer drone: Not actually green at all. Although I think there's another Green Beamer that's really green in addition to this one which is white.

Phew, all done.
« Last Edit: December 26, 2017, 11:05:25 am by Logorouge »

Offline steelwing

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Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
« Reply #4 on: December 26, 2017, 10:43:20 am »
Yeah, if you can get a screenshot of that error, that'd be great. Are you using Linux? If so, then I probably know what the error could be. Thanks!

It just happens that I am on Linux, yes.  :)  I've not been back in the game since my OP.  The error appears as red text in the upper right corner, where the message log box lives, if that helps any.

Offline Draco18s

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Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
« Reply #5 on: December 26, 2017, 04:10:54 pm »
-Skeleton key (sac item): Cannot open more than 1 KeyBlock before being spent.

I swear this was mentioned before.

Offline Logorouge

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Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
« Reply #6 on: December 26, 2017, 05:02:49 pm »
-Skeleton key (sac item): Cannot open more than 1 KeyBlock before being spent.

I swear this was mentioned before.
I might have mentioned it in early alpha. I wasn't 100% sure if that was the case so I decided to include it here just to be certain it was listed somewhere.

Offline Whistler

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Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
« Reply #7 on: December 26, 2017, 10:34:45 pm »
Had some time with the beta. I don't think I've seen all the new content yet and have ticketed some of the clear-cut stuff on mantis. Will have more comments as I play more but it's been fun so far!

First Impressions:

What happened to the Burst Guard Blue Whites!!! I don't remember their pattern being so difficult.

New mechs:

Alpha - The most "normal" of the new stuff. The ray, like the flamethrower has trouble in 1-tile wide areas and against reaper bosses.

Penumbra - Really tricky to get past level 1, but surviving to the first health upgrade is basically a win. Is it possible to add invincibility frames at the end of each lunge?

Warhog - Strong start, on par with the Humble mech (perhaps even stronger in early levels). Both main and secondary weapons are still useful for the endgame. Not sure if it's a little OP due to the massive burst and damage reduction. 

Zephyr - Enjoyed the speedy playstyle and experimented with rushing the boss room. Agree with Logo that it's hard to tell when the boost is active. It would be nice to know the magnitude of the bonus at the selection screen.

Paladin - The concept and theme are nice. I couldn't figure out how to use the main weapon properly -- the lunge attack makes kiting/evading difficult to control and Green Hunter killed me. Heh. Also, the missile launcher could use a slight cooldown increase as it's easy to inadvertently launch extra missiles when clearing blocks.

Gold floors:

- How often do they appear? I had a full run without any gold floors appearing. They are quite fun! Difficulty feels about the same as regular floors and flamer turrets are beautiful.

- I get a general feel of everything being bigger and busier when playing them.

- Had a metalmill spawn next to me in FreedomGauntlet2, bottom left door. Almost impossible to avoid damage from that.

- It is a little tricky to differentiate between the various floor buff/debuff pads. I never found the switch pads in the levels I played (or I just ran over them without noticing).

- The puzzle boss rooms are a nice touch. Have run into two of them so far. Banshee trap + bounce laser module. Ouch.

Other thoughts:

- Tutorial explains the new mechanics pretty well.

- Crimson death sniper rifle could use a recoil warning.

- Question regarding the damage stats on items. Is that DPS or damage per shot/salvo?

I am not sure if the following are bugs or my imagination:
- I noticed something strange with the cryofreeze, energy shield, and inferno/flame? modules. If you get hit just as the module visual effect fires, you don't take damage. Has anyone else seen this?

- Using the tactical advisor familiar the first time killed all other sound until the next room, after which it worked normally. Unfortunately I've only seen this bot once so I can't confirm this. 





Offline Logorouge

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Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
« Reply #8 on: December 26, 2017, 11:13:40 pm »
- How often do they appear? I had a full run without any gold floors appearing.
Last time I asked, they were at 20% chance. I don't know if it changed since then. I also get full runs without any gold floor every so often, which makes me think the chances could use a little boost.

- Had a metalmill spawn next to me in FreedomGauntlet2, bottom left door. Almost impossible to avoid damage from that.
Wow, that thing really does spawn right next to you. I'll do something about that.
Edit: Fixed. The metalmill just switched places with the ninja behind him. At least now you have a moment to react and move out of harm's way. I'll include that with my next batch of changes for the next update.
« Last Edit: December 26, 2017, 11:26:17 pm by Logorouge »

Offline Misery

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Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
« Reply #9 on: December 26, 2017, 11:59:23 pm »
What happened to the Burst Guard Blue Whites!!! I don't remember their pattern being so difficult.

I may or may not have done a thing to them maybe possibly.

Now that I can get back to the game (ugh holiday month, and here I thought it was mostly going to be free time) I'll have a look at them... but dont expect anything.  I dont recall them seeming particularly awful.

Offline Misery

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Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
« Reply #10 on: December 27, 2017, 03:05:32 am »
Okay, having done a full run just now...

Yeah, those things, I'll probably change them after all.  I don't remember doing that to them.  That's a high-end pattern that they're not supposed to be firing right now.

I noticed a few odd things in that run actually.  Terminus for instance is suddenly missing a big piece of it's 6th pattern, which makes no sense, because I haven't done anything to it.  There hasn't been a reason to alter that boss in quite awhile (and the stuff for the golden version doesn't require I do anything to the original).  So I have no bloody clue what is up with that bit.  I'll look into it later today.

Golden Warden, uhhhh, looks like I outright forgot part of the 4th pattern there.  Oops.  Not the first time I've done that one, sigh...

Need at least two more Popcorn type enemies for the golden floors.  For whatever reason, I had thought there were already three.  I'm not sure what gave me that idea.

Those red pulsing floor tiles:  Those seem a little buggy?  They all begin their pulse at the same moment like they should, but some of them hold that pulse longer than others.  It's very random.



Now for good stuff:

Puzzle rooms are awesome.  I gotta try making a few myself.  This is a very fun concept.

The jetpack is hilarious.

I particularly love the Super Ultra Death Sniper or whatever it's called.  Really ruins bosses and heavy targets aside from certain unusually high HP ones (Terminus mainly) but has that wonderful risk-reward aspect to it.  Not so good for dealing with anything that moves fast, nope.  That turns out to be a bloody stupid move pretty quickly.

Acid Rain consumable is also awesome. 

And overall, this is the most well-balanced version of the game yet, and easily the most fun it's ever been.  Sure is a heck of a long way from what it was when it first released, where everything was constantly broken and you could become OP super easy every time. 

As the expansion goes, the golden floors, new enemies and bosses are great and all, but this one really is all about the items and mechs and new floor tiles to me, those are the bits I think really make this what it is.  Though I will say I am pretty darned pleased with how the bosses have turned out and uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh I just realized I havent done their hard mode patterns yet argh argh argh.  How many times am I going to completely forget to do that?  8 billion?  It's not like it's even that bloody hard to do...  ugh.  Alright, I'm a little less pleased with the blasted things then.  At least they all WORK so far.  I still remember when the game originally released, that guy went and streamed it, he got to the Backfire boss, and the stupid thing just sat there and looked dumb at him. 

Offline Pepisolo

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Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
« Reply #11 on: December 27, 2017, 03:31:45 pm »
Quote
It just happens that I am on Linux, yes.  :)  I've not been back in the game since my OP.  The error appears as red text in the upper right corner, where the message log box lives, if that helps any.

Oh, if you're on Linux then that's just a case sensitive typo type thing. I already have a report on that, so I can fix it based off that. Cheers! (fixed!)

Quote
-After victory rewards (minor, consumable & chest) often are not working for me on Gold floors.

Hmm, I'm slightly confused on how these actually work. It says on the wiki "This will appear after some rooms are complete" so does this mean that the item will appear, or the reward pedestal itself? Presumably you are seeing the reward pedestal, but no reward? Which is not the regular behaviour ( think)? You'd think I'd have learned this by now, heh.

Quote
-Skeleton key (sac item): Cannot open more than 1 KeyBlock before being spent.

Yeah, this is on the final batch of engine tweaks for Keith list.

Quote
-Cluster Grenade secondary: Explosion can push around regenerating blocks.

Hmm, that's a strange one. Fixed!

Quote
-Flux Capacitor: Not affected by Deep Blue mech energy boost ability?

I guess not. Is this a big problem? I can't imagine a solution to this at the moment. One thing I changed for the Flux Capacitor is I set it to only trigger on new rooms, so the player isn't trying to game that by going back and forth between rooms using the new room start invulnerability. 

Quote
-TwoFactor challenge: Entering from the south door starts the player outside of the starting spot. Entering from the west spawns you on top of a turret for insta-damage.

Oh, yeah, that's another long standing bug for Keith to take a look at. That's the same thing that happens with the Collideascope Miniboss. What's kind of happening is that for Miniboss style rooms of medium and large size, it is still using the starting position for a standard room...or something like that!

Quote
-Defensive Shop: Offers the Hyper Protocol item (+15% damage, +15% crit). Would fit better in the weapon shop.

Yeah, I had a steam user report this to me as well, plus another item that was also seeding in the wrong place. Fixed! Also, energy capacity upgrades...Weapons or Defensive Shop?

Quote
-Robot Shop: I see regular drones on golden floor shops. Not sure if intended. Kind of a bummer to reach a golden shop just to get some Tag Team drone and Bullet drone, etc.

The current behaviour is that the familiars are added to the general pools, not specifically just for the Gold Floor...although I'm not sure on that decision. Any thoughts on this? This is similar for the Sacrifice Items although it makes a bit more sense there as sacrifice rooms are kind of their own thing, plus that saves us from needing 20 plus new sacrifice items just for Gold Floors because the items don't reseed (which would be overkill anyway).

Quote
-Too many Travelporters around. With the whistle-style teleporting, it's inconvenient that you have to jump through a bunch of useless rooms before you get to the important ones. Not sure miniboss rooms are really important enough to have one.

You could trim those down a bit yeah. I think there are two options, get rid of the ones that just randomly appear in regular rooms or get rid of the new miniboss ones. I suppose there could also be a third option, get rid of them both. Currently the general theme is that those appear in important rooms, boss rooms, shops etc, so the ones that appear in regular rooms seem a bit more out of place and aren't as predicable when you're travelporting. If it were just important rooms that had them, you could more reliably just spam teleport until you get to a particular room that you were thinking about. Personally, I would lean towards getting rid of the ones in regular rooms, although I'm not strong on it, and I think Misery would prefer leaving those in. Miniboss rooms are often at the middle of dungeons...I think, though, so with travelporters in there the player might get good coverage without needing the random ones. Any more thoughts on this?

Quote
-SpikeSwitch: Looks more like a shootable rather than a switch. And the spikes on it indicate to stay away rather than step on it. Would recommend aiming for a more button-like appearance for it.

-Defense Leecher tile: Doesn't look like a negative effect tile. Looks like a neutral mechanism, not good or bad in appearance. Visuals should convey danger more.

-Explosive rune tile: Current look is like a computer device thing that I wouldn't expect to explode when stepped on. Was more a fan of the simplicity of a menacing dark red tile wired with explosives.

-Energy Drain and Defense Leecher tiles greatly reduce the mech's visibility, which I think is a big problem. Could effects closer to the energy charger electricity be used instead to avoid messing with visibility?

Yeah, Goldenwolf is going to be taking another look at these tiles as they aren't working out at the moment.

Quote
Zephyr mech: Hard to see how close you are to running out of the Need for Speed effect and easy to miss when it turns off. (Elemental modules make it even worse.) Short story: It's too subtle. -image-
My suggestion is to forget subtlety and go for crystal clear feedback for this crucial aspect of the mech. Something similar to the early alpha system would be perfect in my opinion.

Yeah, I've put in a change so that the colour now changes gradually to red, which should makes things a lot clearer. Especially if you grab one of the Zephyr boost perks. Hopefully that does the trick, let me know if it's still too subtle. Currently you start off a bit orangey but then turn to red once you run out of power, but if you get a Zephyr boost perk you go from Yellow down to Orange and then Red. On the one hand this gives you a bit of a visual aid to see just how much boost you have left, on the other hand this is more subtle than always going from yellow to red. I can make it so that the mech starts off yellow, but then goes to red as it runs out of power, but then you lose the ability to see just how much power you have left based on the colour. This is getting a bit confusing but basically, I can make it even a bit less subtle, but then you would lose being able to more closely track how much power you have left based on the colour.

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-Zeph Pistol vs Pelt Pistol: Stats don't indicate the superior range of the Zeph pistol.


Fixed!

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-Crystallizer enemy: The footprint visual effect when hit by his attack sometimes become permanent. Although it looks cool, I don't think it's intended.

I think I've put in a fix in for this, although I can't actually test it properly. It's probably fixed. Probably!

Quote
-Green Crystal Beamer drone: Not actually green at all. Although I think there's another Green Beamer that's really green in addition to this one which is white.

Hmmm, I'm not actually sure what you mean here, heh. I looked at the Crystal Beamers and they seem fine. Got any more info?

Thanks for the feedback. I'll commit these changes soon, and then tackle any more feedback a bit later. Cheers!




Offline Logorouge

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Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
« Reply #12 on: December 27, 2017, 06:54:41 pm »
-snip-

After victory rewards: When the issue arise I don't even have a pedestal, as if the room didn't even finish generating. Kinda like those shops that spawn with only 1 or 2 items despite the original file having 3.

Flux Capacitor: It's mostly for consistency. If it cannot be changed easily, I wouldn't worry about it. Good call on the "new room only" rule though. That'll prevent some future cha cha in the door frame.

Shop for energy upgrades: I would go for Defensive Shop. Energy isn't really offense or defense oriented per say, but the weapon shop already has a lot going on, contrary to the defense shop which is a bit lacking.

Robot Shop: I did see the new Stinkbot drone and others on regular floors, but I've never seen a crystalline Beamer outside of a gold floor (including the dozen devmode runs I did a few minutes ago). If they are supposed to be all globally available, then everything is good. On the other hand, if you can only get some of them on the rare gold floor shops and you lose your chance because it's filled with regular drones, then it's kinda annoying. As for the shop's global pool vs separate pools, I would personally prefer a global one because the drone selection is not vast enough to support 2 separate shops and still be satisfyingly varied. Speaking of variety... Could I convince you to re-add the Beaming Drone to the pool? The "BeamingMinibot" version seems ready to go.

Travelporters: I was leaning toward removing the miniboss pads, but you make a good point about them being well placed. Especially on later floors, there's often one per branch, offering a good coverage. The occasional random one might be good if made less common, so I would probably recommend just reducing their amount per room category.

Zephyr: Multi-colored gradual indication? That's even better! I was worried additional perks would make it harder to tell, but that takes care of that. I'm on board with the Yellow-Orange-Red implementation. Not to mention, the colors look good on the mech.

Green Crystal Beamer: Here's an attached screenshot of the very pale Green Beamer.

Offline Misery

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Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
« Reply #13 on: December 27, 2017, 07:09:09 pm »
You could trim those down a bit yeah. I think there are two options, get rid of the ones that just randomly appear in regular rooms or get rid of the new miniboss ones. I suppose there could also be a third option, get rid of them both. Currently the general theme is that those appear in important rooms, boss rooms, shops etc, so the ones that appear in regular rooms seem a bit more out of place and aren't as predicable when you're travelporting. If it were just important rooms that had them, you could more reliably just spam teleport until you get to a particular room that you were thinking about. Personally, I would lean towards getting rid of the ones in regular rooms, although I'm not strong on it, and I think Misery would prefer leaving those in. Miniboss rooms are often at the middle of dungeons...I think, though, so with travelporters in there the player might get good coverage without needing the random ones. Any more thoughts on this?

The best thing we could do as far as the travel system goes would actually be pretty simple:  Find a less awful way of displaying where the next warp will be on the map itself.  I find that much of the time spent using the system is repeatedly passing by the room I wanted to go to, because it's bloody impossible to see where I'm headed on the map.  That little glowing effect.... not enough.

A new visual there that makes it really stand out and says "here, THIS is where you'll go if you click that next" would be super.

The actual number of warps is fine by me as is.  It's just the bloody visual on the map.  It'd be so much easier to use if that could get fixed.  Has needed fixing for a bloody long time now.

One of the reasons also why there are many normal-room warps is because warps that ARENT normal rooms are often behind locked doors.  Going all the way down a branch, which ends in a shop you cant open (don't have a key) gets way more annoying if you absolutely must then go back through ALL of the rooms in that branch if you should then find a key and decide to go in later.

Question though:  How many of these warps have been added now?  The original way I went about putting the things in was to go through the room list, and have 1 out of every 7 normal rooms get a warp in it.  Do we now have more than that?

Speaking of minibosses:  I"ve been wondering, do we maybe have a bit too many of these?  Well, not just minibosses, I mean those plus condemned or challenge rooms, all the same to me.  They seem a bit oddly frequent to me.  But I'm not sure, what do you guys think?

Offline Logorouge

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Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
« Reply #14 on: December 27, 2017, 08:14:36 pm »
Question though:  How many of these warps have been added now?  The original way I went about putting the things in was to go through the room list, and have 1 out of every 7 normal rooms get a warp in it.  Do we now have more than that?
I checked a few categories and regular rooms on normal floors seem to follow that rule pretty closely (+-1), but about 90% of minibosses/condemned/challenges rooms have warps now, so that's quite a few more guarantied warps per floor.

Speaking of minibosses:  I"ve been wondering, do we maybe have a bit too many of these?  Well, not just minibosses, I mean those plus condemned or challenge rooms, all the same to me.  They seem a bit oddly frequent to me.  But I'm not sure, what do you guys think?
Now that you mention it, yeah, they do seem a bit too frequent. Looking at the files, the first floor has more branches with obstacles than the sixth floor. That doesn't sound right.

 

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