Enter the Gungeon (Bullet Hell/Rogue-like)

[Pepisolo]

Just a query, this looks awesome, but one of the reviews said that there's a difficulty adjusting mechanism or something. For example, if you're doing badly then the game gets easier, if you're doing well then it gets harder. Is this true? I don't usually like mechanisms like this.

[Misery]

No idea.  You'd have to ask on their forums.

What you're thinking of is called a "rank" system, and usually it's hard to tell if it's there without playing the game many times.  It's traditionally used in scrolling shmups.   To see it in a roguelike would be bloody strange and kinda dumb, if you ask me.

[Mánagarmr]

It looks like a worse Isaac for me, tbh and Isaac is pretty darn boring to me. So yeah, I'll stick to Starward, tyvm.

[Wingflier]

I don't know where you read that Pepisolo, but I'm quite sure the game doesn't include a "feature" of that nature.

For one thing, if it did you would more than likely see it prominently advertised as one of the selling points in the store page:

*GAME ADJUSTS ITS DIFFICULTY BASED ON HOW GOOD YOU ARE. SHIT AT SHMUPS? NO PROBLEMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

Systems like this (what was in L4D2 called the "game director") are very rarely put under the hood. I'm not sure where you read that review, but the reviews I've read have been the opposite. A lot of people are complaining that the game only has 1 difficulty and that you can't make it easier.

I've done probably 10 runs myself, never having made it to the second boss yet, and it certainly doesn't seem to have gotten easier for me.

I don't think it would be so widely called the true hybrid of Nuclear Throne and BoI if it had a system like this either, given that neither of those games did.

It looks like a worse Isaac for me, tbh and Isaac is pretty darn boring to me. So yeah, I'll stick to Starward, tyvm.

It does have so much in common with Binding of Isaac and Starward Rogue that it seems like you'd have to pick one of the two yeah. All 3 games are too similar to play without experiencing some severe Deja Vu.

[Misery]

I don't know where you read that Pepisolo, but I'm quite sure the game doesn't include a "feature" of that nature.

For one thing, if it did you would more than likely see it prominently advertised as one of the selling points in the store page:

*GAME ADJUSTS ITS DIFFICULTY BASED ON HOW GOOD YOU ARE. SHIT AT SHMUPS? NO PROBLEMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

Systems like this (what was in L4D2 called the "game director") are very rarely put under the hood. I'm not sure where you read that review, but the reviews I've read have been the opposite. A lot of people are complaining that the game only has 1 difficulty and that you can't make it easier.

I've done probably 10 runs myself, never having made it to the second boss yet, and it certainly doesn't seem to have gotten easier for me.

I don't think it would be so widely called the true hybrid of Nuclear Throne and BoI if it had a system like this either, given that neither of those games did.

They don't normally work like that.

It's not that they make the game really easy if you're bad at it or give you tons of free stuff; typically, the changes are rather subtle.

Like I said, it's actually an extremely common game mechanic among shmups, or things that are like shmups.   The most prominent examples of this system, called "rank" as I stated above, are any of Raizing's old shmups, like Garegga or Batrider or whatever.   In those, the rank system is so out of control and unbalanced that you have to KILL YOURSELF, literally, to keep the difficulty from going totally bonkers, and reaching a point it'll never recover from.  That's part of Raizing's stupid shmups; suiciding at strategic times to control the deranged AI in the background.  Needless to say I am not a fan of Raizing.  I made a point of doing everything I could to keep Starward from being at all like one of their damn games.

But that sort of extreme change isn't how it's supposed to work.  It's usually NOTICABLE, but subtle.  Usually what changes is things like speeds of enemy bullets, thickness of patterns, how rapidly they fire... stuff like that. Well, maybe not so noticeable if you aren't very familiar with the genre; *I* notice it when a game does that but I've played a million of these.   Certain very specific games may also then give you the occaisional extra powerup or something but that's much more rare.


For this game, I doubt anyone would want to do something like the "director" from L4D or something, but I could easily see them sticking a rank mechanic into a game like this.

It looks like a worse Isaac for me, tbh and Isaac is pretty darn boring to me. So yeah, I'll stick to Starward, tyvm.

You don't like Isaac?   What's dull about it?

[Wingflier]

I wasn't a big fan of BoI either. For one thing it was way too mainstream, and I tend to hate things that are mainstream. Blah blah, call me a hipster but generally things that have mass appeal are like that for a reason.

Binding of Isaac just didn't have any appeal to me. Sure it was difficult, but the game didn't feel visceral whatsoever. It was more just float around shooting tears at poop. The art style was kind of gothic but also really childish.

I really liked the story. I read an article not too long ago by the designer. He said the plot had some significance to him. For those who don't know, the game's story is that Isaac's mom is basically trying to kill him as a sacrifice to "God", and in this way it's heavily referencing the Biblical story of Abraham and Isaac.

However, the reason he chose this particular theme was because modern religious people have attempted to sacrifice their children to God, with the belief its what God wanted, and we think they're crazy. His overall message is that Abraham was just as crazy, but for some reason it's legitimate because it's written in an ancient book by an anonymous author.

Anyway, I thought that was an interesting message to put into a video game, and I can definitely see the appeal of it, but like I said I enjoy my shmups to be visceral and engaging instead of silly and laid back. Just personal preference really, I respect that it's a great game.

[Pepisolo]

I don't know where you read that Pepisolo, but I'm quite sure the game doesn't include a "feature" of that nature.

Yeah, seems unlikely, I think I read it in the comments section of a review somewhere, but I can't find it now... (it was bugging me so....I eventually found the comment).

"I'd also like to add the fact that the game has dynamic difficulty scaling, which means the better you do, the less stuff you get and the more enemies can spawn in a room, or even give you a boss of a higher chamber!
It really discourages to try flawless runs because you will most likely get a spammed room at one point, and once it drains half your health, the next rooms will just have one or two enemies. Same goes for ammo and health drops. The fact they are rare and expensive really doesn't work well with tanky bosses and annoying bullet hell."

[Wingflier]

I mean I guess it would explain how a player like Misery was getting such bad luck while a player like myself seems to be finding several items per floor. But once again, that could just be coincidence. I'd like to see something more than just one reviewer's hearsay to confirm that.

[Pepisolo]

I mean I guess it would explain how a player like Misery was getting such bad luck while a player like myself seems to be finding several items per floor. But once again, that could just be coincidence. I'd like to see something more than just one reviewer's hearsay to confirm that.

Yeah, I dunno. IF true, I'm not a big fan of it, but that commenter may have just gotten it wrong or something.

[Wingflier]

I've tried googling it several times with no results. No game review sites seem to mention it, I can't find anything about it in the forums, or anywhere else. It seems extremely unlikely.

In fact most of the professional game reviews seem to tell you to steer clear of it if you don't like brutally difficult games.

[Pepisolo]

I've tried googling it several times with no results. No game review sites seem to mention it, I can't find anything about it in the forums, or anywhere else. It seems extremely unlikely.

In fact most of the professional game reviews seem to tell you to steer clear of it if you don't like brutally difficult games.

Yeah, I'm assuming it's not true. Seems a bit odd that something like that would be in the game.

[Misery]

I'll be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if there really IS something like that in here.

I mean, my experience with the game was "finding it to be too easy" + "never gives items" pretty much every time I tried.

And for whatever reason, each player seems to find that the game ALWAYS goes in one direction, but never in the other, as they keep playing it.   It either gives them lots of stuff, or it never gives them anything. 

It really does sound like there's a very badly set up rank system in here.  Much as it's used in shmups I don't really think THIS specific sub-genre is the right place for such a thing.

That being said, even with a system like that, "brutal difficulty" is usually still the norm.   There's always a base difficult that the ranking system wont go lower than, and over the course of a given game, well... it's kinda like AI War's "AI progress" mechanic.   There's things that you do that influence it to go up or down, or whatever, but no matter what you do, over the course of an entire game, it *will* constantly rise.  At the end it'll be a lot higher than it started as.   That's how rank systems work.  You cant just keep it down, or lower it past it's starting point, or prevent it from going up at all; you influence it, but the end result will always be harder than the game started out as.

[crazyroosterman]

it seems that there's a bit of mixed feelings here I think I'm going to try it my self sometime when I'm finished with hyper light(while I'm bringing it up have any of you played it? not trying to derail just curious really since I really like it apart from the frames nonsense) from what I'm hearing I probably won't find a reason to play it over star ward but it won't hurt to try.

ps to the gentlemen who pointed out the mess that was my last post I've done my usual thing and split it up so It doesn't look like a giant bowl of text soup I was a bit over enthusiastic when I made that post

[Mánagarmr]

It looks like a worse Isaac for me, tbh and Isaac is pretty darn boring to me. So yeah, I'll stick to Starward, tyvm.

You don't like Isaac?   What's dull about it?

My #1 complaints are the theme and aesthetics. Other than that, I find the combat to be very dull early on and a run being extremely reliant on RNG, unless you want to put in an inordinate amount of effort to win. But I'd say the thing that really breaks it for me is the theme. I could probably learn to get around the dullness of early combat and the quirkiness of the RNG, but the theme just kicks me in the balls and sucks out any will to do so.

[Misery]

Technically, you could always use a graphics mod to undo some of that.  There's a ton of them at this point.  I personally have never used any of them, they'd just confuse me, but they are there.

The theme never bugged me though.  I'm not very easily offended and in an overall sense, tend to not really care too much in most cases.  Granted, there are some things in there that are a little disturbing (and even more disturbing when you actually know WHAT they really are, for certain ones;  I made the mistake of looking up the term "teratoma" once to see what that was... don't do that...), but... yeah, I don't really mind.