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[LaughingThesaurus]

There are ten types of classes.

[Misery]

Also, is there any real difference between Stonebinder and Technozoologist's first two spells? Both have the exact same description with different names and animations.

Until you mentioned it, I had no idea there were more than just 5 classes. I didn't even have Technozoologist as one of my options. I tried creating a few new worlds just now and found that there are several others. Huh.

Also, I join in the hatred for bats. If you don't have a homing shot they will end your day. I guess it would be possible to roll up a world where you couldn't select a class with a homing shot at all, and that would be seriously rough.

Ehh, other classes do have things that work on bats, but it's somewhat dependant on playstyle.   I have trouble hitting the horrid things with some of the long-range attacks.

With Technozoologist I was mostly using Feather Trident to kill bats, which was very effective.   For Forgician, I actually mostly use Campfire against them.


They do need to be a bit more visible though, yes.

EDIT:  Also, not liking those damn crawler monkeys either.   Normally enemies like that are weak, but these guys are SO glitchy that the extreme bugginess can kill you.   Particularly when they sorta sink into the blocks they're walking on;  cant see them AT ALL half of the time.

[Misery]

On another note.... the lighting and darkness.    IS there a non-irritating way to light up dark areas?   The first game had this issue too.... I absolutely HAAAAATED the lighting mechanics for the most part.   The thing that let me keep going with that game was that Flash of Light allowed me to just ignore the whole thing.    This one though..... quickly getting on my nerves, particularly since 95% of the game seems to be dark areas.     There's ONE light spell I'm aware of, in the.... er.... set that also has the exploding light ball, but that lighting spell is mostly worthless, since it's AoE is so very small.  Doesnt help whatsoever.  AND they blink out after 10 seconds.    Dark areas seem to mostly consist of a very simple pattern:  Take a few steps, spam anti-bat spell in random directions.   Take a few more steps, spam more anti-bat spell.  Repeat.... and repeat..... and repeat..... a bit too tedious for my limited patience.   If caverns werent so absurdly long, it wouldnt be AS bad, but..... the extreme abundance of bats and darkness would kinda ruin it regardless.

And then I tried one of those skelebot facilities, and...... argh.   ANOTHER rather dark area full of more bats, and that "get out quick!" bit sorta went over the line.  As best I can tell, it not only respawns all of the enemies, but then just KEEPS spawning more and more (almost all bats).   Considering the very careful nature of the combat in this game, I dunno, this bit just doesnt seem to work out very well.     The first game woulda made sense for it, but.... not this one.

At the very least, the bat spawning in all areas needs to be really dramatically dialed down.... I think they've actually become even more annoying than eagles at this point.     For the time being, I'm probably just going to take a break from it and wait for the next patch before continuing.

[Coppermantis]

Agreed, the lighting is basically preventing me from ever going into caves because I get instakilled almost by a bunch of crawlers and bats that I cannot see. Unless there's some light-producing method, I'm not going to bother going down there; I have no homing spell or anything to take out the stuff I can't see. All I ever do in caves is die.

[Misery]

Agreed, the lighting is basically preventing me from ever going into caves because I get instakilled almost by a bunch of crawlers and bats that I cannot see. Unless there's some light-producing method, I'm not going to bother going down there; I have no homing spell or anything to take out the stuff I can't see. All I ever do in caves is die.

The crawlers are really only invisible because they're glitchy;   frankly, I crash into the damn things pretty often even in well lit areas because of this.   But the bats, yeah.  Though, the bats are still hyper-obnoxious even when they ARE clearly seen!

One thing that might help, try using Light Snake often in caverns.... this is a good spell just in general (though it doesnt hit very hard), but it's AMAZING in caverns, or even in any area with alot of vertical movement like that.   I probably wouldnt use that particular spell class all that much if it wasnt for that one.   It can even clear out some bats depending on the way the area generated.

....that is, if the game gave you that particular spell class, heh.    I think the different spells are, so far, very well done, but the RNG still has a chance to be a snot about which ones it gives access to in a particular game (I do like that whole system, though).

[tigersfan]

So, I'm considering adding a bit of light to the bats, sort of like you have, but much less intense. Would this help do you think?

And yes, at each tier, there are 10 classes.

[Misery]

So, I'm considering adding a bit of light to the bats, sort of like you have, but much less intense. Would this help do you think?

And yes, at each tier, there are 10 classes.

I think it would, yes.  The bats really are oddly dangerous (for something that doesnt even shoot at you!) even when they're very visible and obvious, so something like that might make them muuuuuch less irritating without changing the cavern balance too much.

And since bats pretty much are THE thing that makes caverns & darkness in general so annoying, it might help quite a bit with that too.

Caves would be much less tedious if I dont have to spray every little corner with bullets every 3 steps just to check for bats, heh.

[Gemzo]

That would help in the dark, but they're still hard to hit for many classes and do too much damage to earlygame characters. Also they would still be hard to see against certain backgrounds as well, but that's going to be true of a lot of things... So yeah, if they glowed a little bit that would make them less "ARGH BATS" most certainly. Definitely should at least try it.

[Neko_Baron]

So, I'm considering adding a bit of light to the bats, sort of like you have, but much less intense. Would this help do you think?

And yes, at each tier, there are 10 classes.

I think you can solve the annoyance of bats more easily by tweaking their AI/damage, they're mostly a complete annoyance because they sit inside you and keep attacking, plus due to their nature to move in an exact line towards you means they don't line up at a good angle to be shot.

Personally I haven't been too bothered about the AI for now since its still being worked on, I would reckon you could try and make bats possible detect when your nearby > hover in close for a strike to give you time to attack > hit and run > hover again.

I will admit in SP I'm just spamming homing shots to kill em though.

[tigersfan]

Well, homing shots are getting nerfed soon, probably in the next update.

That said, I think I know what I'm going to do with the bats, but, I don't want to say right now. Watch them in the next update, and let me konw what you think.

[Mánagarmr]

You guys are such epic teases, you know that?

[tigersfan]

You guys are such epic teases, you know that?

I've learned from one of the best.

[Misery]

So, I'm considering adding a bit of light to the bats, sort of like you have, but much less intense. Would this help do you think?

And yes, at each tier, there are 10 classes.

I think you can solve the annoyance of bats more easily by tweaking their AI/damage, they're mostly a complete annoyance because they sit inside you and keep attacking, plus due to their nature to move in an exact line towards you means they don't line up at a good angle to be shot.

Personally I haven't been too bothered about the AI for now since its still being worked on, I would reckon you could try and make bats possible detect when your nearby > hover in close for a strike to give you time to attack > hit and run > hover again.

I will admit in SP I'm just spamming homing shots to kill em though.

Personally I dont think their movement method should really be changed much;  if they tended to come at angles that made them easy to hit, they would become extremely trivial.    And selecting classes based on what you're up against seems a major part of the game anyway, and some classes are going to be pretty good at taking down bats.   I still find that (early on at least) stuff like Feather Trident is really good against them.   Either of the whip spells are good too.

But yeah, having them just sit on your head upon contact is annoying.  I dont think the bats in the first game do that?  I'm not sure, always tended to flatten them before they got close.    But it'd make more sense and be less irritating if they did something like, hit you, and then keep moving forward for a second or two after, and THEN turn around and try to hit again.


I'll be interested to see what change is made with these guys.  Particularly since they seem like an enemy type that's going to be pretty common throughout the game.

[tigersfan]

Actually, the plan is to not have them be all that common. I only see bats planned for being in a couple different areas. We have 112 different enemies planned, and most of them will be specific to only one or two areas. For now, we really only have one enemy of each type in the game. But, we have lots of each type planned.

[BobTheJanitor]

The problems I see with bats, besides the mentioned issues of them being hard to see and hard to find a good angle of attack on, is that their hitboxes seem to be incredibly tiny. Either that, or the hitbox for my spell bullets is smaller than they would appear from the graphics. I've had shots and whips go right through a bat's wing and do no damage to it. And yes, their attack pattern is brutal. Other games with small flying melee attackers will have them swoop at you and then away, giving you time to recover. Plus, most any other game of this type will give you some few seconds of invincibility frames after you're hit. Bats seem designed to take advantage of the quirks of this game by having an AI that just says 'beeline for player, stay there'.

If homing shots are getting a nerf (which they do need, I agree. My attack pattern has been 'hold clinging nettles' and that's about it) then I hope the bats are going to be a lot less evil. They should be the minor annoyance enemies who do piddly damage, not the enders of worlds.