Monster balance! (Round 1, through version 0.800)

[Misery]

Ok, hasnt really been a thread about this that I can remember, so I figured I'd start one.

The point of this is to post thoughts on either individual monsters that could do with some tweaks, or on the balance of a certain biome type as a whole, depending on which enemies appear there.   The problems with the laser spiders are already known, so I'll skip those.    I'll start with just a few here based on my latest session with the game.


1.  Flying Eyeballs:   Reduce their health.... seriously.   These guys are alot like mosquitos in that they're incredibly difficult to hit, and unlike mosquitos they drop lots and lots of those bombs.   The attack pattern doesnt need changing.... just their health level, particularly if they are to remain common like they are in the craggy zones.   Aside from the spiders, this is probably the one enemy closest to being "broken" right now.

2. Urban Robots:  If that's the correct name, I forget.   The little guys on wheels that fire the splitting orange bullet.   Like the eyeballs, a bit too much health on them, so it gets kinda tedious to take them all out.  Considering the strong splitting shot, AND the ability to counter-attack, these guys definitely dont need a ton of health to put up a fight.

3. Clockwork Avian:  Again not necessarily getting the name right, but it's the bright yellow-ish bird that just charges at you.   A suggested change to these guys is simple:   have them make some sort of noise or something when they approach.   These guys can lead to some cheap hits currently, particularly in level-up towers, with the fact that there'll be nothing there for awhile, and then very suddenly one of these is on top of you;  the player character isnt quite fast enough to dodge these guys by pure reaction.   They're fine otherwise.

4. Sphinx:   This one is very simple: take these guys out of caves, specifically.   When they appear in a cave, it's most often in the sort of slice that has a super-low cieling, meaning there' no room to jump over their ice attack when you're up close to melee them.... you're pretty much forced to either take some damage, or waste ammo.   They're totally fine other than that one problem.



That's just a start, the ones I can think of at this moment.   I'll have more to add to this list later.

[tigersfan]

Thank you! This is an awesome list. I was planning to start a thread asking about this stuff today.

My only issue here is #3, and the problem I have with that is that not all players play with sound on, so that wouldn't help them. We'll have to see if there's something else we can come up with.

[Misery]

Thank you! This is an awesome list. I was planning to start a thread asking about this stuff today.

My only issue here is #3, and the problem I have with that is that not all players play with sound on, so that wouldn't help them. We'll have to see if there's something else we can come up with.

Hmm, that's a good point.

What if the bird gave off a strong glow?  There arent that many light sources in the caves, and when the glow appears, you would have a moment to realize what it is, and time enough to try to get out of it's way and into a better position.

[tigersfan]

Something like that might work...

[Misery]

Another one that just occurred to me when I was playing it just now, is those land crabs.... the ones that drop the little green energy balls that roll along the ground.   Actually a pretty good attack pattern on these guys, but in some situations they can make it so there's literally nothing to stand on.  Typically, this happens in the more cramped sections of buildings; in larger rooms or even many cave sections, it's not quite an issue because you just have alot more room to move around, and more room to jump over the parts of the floor that are covered in the energy blobs.

And the Swamp Gas, I thought I should point out that it's super easy to milk these guys for health and ammo.


And the clockwork piranha things, it seems like their caliber is a little too low?  It's really easy with many spells to break through their entire pattern and pop them easily, so they're not much challenge at all right now.

Finally, land sharks; it's REALLY tough to melee these, as they have this odd tendancy to have just a BIT of momentum after being struck so that they end up in a position where they can chomp you.  The idea with these guys seems to be to let them crash into a wall, and then dive down behing them and start pounding on them, but because they do that wonky bit of movement sometimes, this can lead to a good chomping when they SHOULD be stun-locked instead.   The bubbles do this sometimes as well.   This is mostly a problem with the punching spells;  the whips currently are all broken and dont work on these, so I dunno just how it is with those spells.

[madcow]

My biggest issue with the urban robots stems largely from the fact that they're so bloody common. I imagine that's set in stone, so a health decrease would be good.

I also don't understand the aurrok warriors pattern completely. Is it timing based or location based?  It's seemed timing based from what I've played, but location based would kind of make more sense (hit above/below the shield or jump over him)

The monsters with invincibility except for right before they attack in general have felt like the attack window is way too small. This is especially true when you have slower moving spells. The common tactic for them is to either skip them entirely. Or spam attacks until hey miraculously work - even then it can take several attack cycles and isn't really worth it.  Additionally, something I've mentioned before - whip spells ought to pierce these enemies in addition. To aurruck warriors.

Completely agree on be eyes.

Lastly medieval traps - those flags that machine gun shoot thorns. Good god they need to be toned down. I've typically found them in caves and they are just undodgable.  My recommendation on these guys is keep their rapid fire, but increase the time between volleys.

Edit:  one last thing. I've had occasions where I'll be standing on solid ground over water and eels will zap me through the ground, with no chance for me to attack back.  Feels very unfair when they do that.

Double edit: c4 fliers were changed to decelerate slower AND be kill able at lower speeds, I think the deceleration change would have been enough - the speed at which they're damagable can be moved up a little closer to where it originally was.  As it is since the change they've never blocked my attacks for moving too slow.

[tigersfan]

Madcow, if you see that eel zapping you through the ground thing again (or if anyone sees it). I'd like a save where that's happening please.

[Coppermantis]

Agreed on the Flying Eyeball point. Those things brutalize me whenever I go into craggy highlands regions.

[Pepisolo]

I also don't understand the aurrok warriors pattern completely. Is it timing based or location based?  It's seemed timing based from what I've played, but location based would kind of make more sense (hit above/below the shield or jump over him)

There's a Mantis report on this, too.

http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=10394

[madcow]

Supported!

And if I see eels zapping through the floor again I'll mantis it with a save file.

[Gemzo]

The zap going through walls was considered "working as intended" back in Valley 1 IIRC. I personally don't like how the mechanic works either way, it just seems to check every X interval if you're in range and then fires if true. I think it should start a timer once you enter range, and zap you when it hits 0. If you leave range the timer would stop and reset. That way it feels more consistent about when you get hit, rather than getting unlucky and getting into range right before the timer is up so you instantly get hit. Forgive me if I'm incorrect about how this all works, though; I haven't seen the code or anything.

[x4000]

First batch:

* The urban droids have been majorly toned down.  They no longer have a counterattack (it was really hard not to hit their eye), and their health has been halved.  Their shot is still really hard to dodge in general.

* The health of flying eyeballs has been thirded, since they are so hard to hit.

* Clockwork Avians now give off a much brighter glow so that you can know they are coming in caves and buildings where there is otherwise not enough time for reaction time.

* Sphinxes are now swapped out in favor of leaping/crazy monster types in caves, given the near impossibility of dodging the sphinxes otherwise.

[x4000]

Second:

* Auroch Warriors have had their shielding hitbox updated so that it is only where the shield visibly is, on the back of them.  To compensate (given that these are for the ice age, where it's supposed to be more difficult):
** They now have 50% more health.
** Each of their fusillade shots now does 5x more damage.
** They (and the Dark Auroch) now both shoot 7 fusillade projectiles instead of 4.

* The Robot Pirhana water fusillade attacks now have a far higher caliber than before.

* The Elephant Snails now do a 50% longer telegraphing time so that you have more of a chance to hit them.  The Floating Slime Mass telegraphing time is 3x longer.

* Swamp Gaslets are now disallowed from dropping ammo or health, since they were so easy to farm.  The same was already true of laser spiders.

* The cooldown on the medieval trap spike shots (both the flag variant and the ceiling variant) has been tripled to give you more time between volleys.

* The speed at which C4 Fliers have to be moving before you can shoot them has been increased back from 350 to 400, since their adjusted deceleration speed already was apparently enough.

[x4000]

Last one from this thread:

* The electric eels have been given a completely new attack in place of the much-hated static discharge attack from the first game.  Their new attack is also electric, but it's another fun variant of the new "unwinding circle attack" that the scorpion also now uses as of this release.  The timing and sizing and such is different here, though.
** Note that if there are any eels that were created in past versions of the game, they may still have the static discharge ability on them.  This isn't a bug, but once you kill those eels and run into fresh ones, you won't see that anymore.

I don't want these threads to get too large and too confused about what version is even being discussed, so now I'm going to lock this one and start another.