Enter the Gungeon (Bullet Hell/Rogue-like)

[Wingflier]

Well, even after 24 hours of in-game time, I'm still discovering all kinds of new things. In my last run I found 4 new weapons that I had never encountered before. That's pretty impressive after playing for such a long amount of time. The amount of weapons in this game trumps even Nuclear Throne, and I used to think that game had a lot of weapons.

Granted, not all of the weapons in EtG are equally useful, but most of them are worth using, if for no other reason than the comic value.

For example, there is a gun in the game called "The Banana", whose subtext is the hilariously appropriate "Planpain". It's pretty much a nod to the Worms series, which has a weapon called "The Banana Bomb". You throw it, after a few seconds it explodes into a bunch of smaller bananas which also explode for extra effect. The weapon in EtG is pretty much the same, and it's so powerful that it can clear a room. It's a hilarious experience, to say the least.

I've also learned several really interesting things about the game that make it even more fun to play. Initially, being able to hold countless guns at the same time seems overwhelming, especially if you're trying to swap through them all in battle, but they added a nifty thing called "the gun menu". If you open up the gun menu, it slows down the game to approximately 1/10th normal speed and allows you to choose which weapon you want for the situation. It's a really creative and clever solution to a genre which usually limits the amount of weapons you can carry to 1 or 2.

In addition, I found away around the reload mechanic that seems to bother so many people. Once you have two or more weapons, you almost never have to reload again. When you swap to a new weapon, the old weapon automatically reloads itself after a few seconds, so a player can infinitely switch through his stockpile of guns as the battle progresses, never missing a beat. The idea that the game design encourages using a ton of different weapons is a great feature in my opinion, and I'm glad they created it that way.

[mrhanman]

My favorite gun I've encountered is the VertebraeK-47.  It's made from an AK-47 frame and the spine of a dead adventurer.  It shoots some kind of homing, piercing, linked bullets, and that allows me to concentrate more on dodging.

I still haven't made it past the 3rd boss encounter, but so far I'm enjoying it quite a bit.

[Wingflier]

My favorite gun I've encountered is the VertebraeK-47.  It's made from an AK-47 frame and the spine of a dead adventurer.  It shoots some kind of homing, piercing, linked bullets, and that allows me to concentrate more on dodging.

I still haven't made it past the 3rd boss encounter, but so far I'm enjoying it quite a bit.

OMG that gun looks awesome! I've never seen it before. I'm definitely excited to pick it up.

Like I said, my favorite is probably The Banana, but the Hexagun and the Hotshot from Judge Dredd are close seconds. There's so many cool guns it's hard to choose a favorite.

[Misery]

In addition, I found away around the reload mechanic that seems to bother so many people. Once you have two or more weapons, you almost never have to reload again. When you swap to a new weapon, the old weapon automatically reloads itself after a few seconds, so a player can infinitely switch through his stockpile of guns as the battle progresses, never missing a beat. The idea that the game design encourages using a ton of different weapons is a great feature in my opinion, and I'm glad they created it that way.

I've had that thought.

What breaks it down:  It makes choices utterly meaningless, which was one of the issues I had with the game.

As a rule, in a game like this, I should be faced with interesting choice-making from the very start.  Wether to pick up or leave certain items, which weapons to choose from, whatever.   When you can grab ALL the weapons and just hold them.... it doesn't matter at all.   You just keep firing everything and there's no "Hmm... pick it up or leave it?  I better think this through" situations.  Yet again, it sounds like a Band-Aid to cover a problem that wasn't there (thus, in fact, creating a new problem).   In Nuclear Throne, there's a reason why you only hold 2 weapons at a time, and that's the reason.

That utter lack of decision-making was one of the big turn-offs for me with this game.  It just.... wasn't interesting.  Considering it's slow pacing as well..... yeah.  At this point honestly I'm glad I refunded it.   There's just no reason not to play Nuclear Throne or Isaac instead.


....also having to smash the "switch" button every time a weapon runs out instead of "reload" is just as damn annoying.  Really, that mechanic shouldn't have been there in the first place. 

[mrhanman]

I think you can only have one gun of a specific type.  If you have a shotgun and go to pick up another shotgun, it'll drop the first one.  At least, I'm pretty sure that happened to me.  I know you can only carry a certain amount of items.  I've had to make that decision many times.

As far as the reload mechanic, I'm kind of on the fence about it.  On the one hand, it is annoying.  On the other, it allows for greater weapon diversity.  I've gotten a few weapons that didn't require reloading, or were manual, or required charging.  So, it becomes a choice between using a weaker weapon with a larger magazine size, or a strong weapon that requires charging and reloading.  It was mostly when I first started that my progression was sometimes thwarted by forgetting to reload.  Now, I don't really notice it and do it reflexively.

Another reason for the mechanic is to allow the existence of items like this one and this one.  There are others, too.

All in all, I think they balanced the reloading pretty well.

[Misery]

....ugh, that second item there would just drive me totally up the wall.   I suppose I should have expected that they'd have a bunch of items related to that damn mechanic though.

Feh.  I think I made the correct decision in refunding this one.  It would never have agreed with me no matter how much time I gave it.

[Wingflier]

What breaks it down:  It makes choices utterly meaningless, which was one of the issues I had with the game.

As a rule, in a game like this, I should be faced with interesting choice-making from the very start.  Wether to pick up or leave certain items, which weapons to choose from, whatever.   When you can grab ALL the weapons and just hold them.... it doesn't matter at all.

Not to be contrary on purpose, but the idea of meaningful choice is pretty subjective. Technically you're making meaningful choices every millisecond when you decide you should dodge left or dodge right, move back or forward, hide behind cover or charge your target in the middle of an intense firefight.

1. The real question is how many choices should the player be presented with at any given time anyway. One of the main problems of the modern modern 4X genre is that they present the player with an overwhelming amount of frivolous choices that bog down to the game to such a degree that it's practically unplayable unless you're some kind of masochistic genius savant.

2. Furthermore, it's not as simple as just picking up every gun you see. Granted you can pick up every gun you see, but you can only use one weapon at a time, so in a battle there's still an important choice in terms of what weapon is most suited for the situation. This can vary wildly from room to room and enemy to enemy. Some rooms have water barrels that spill all over the floor, hitting those with some electricity will taze all the enemies that are wet. Some rooms have oil which spills on the floor, setting that on fire will light them ablaze. Some enemies die instantly when hit with sniper fire, others take so many shots that it's better to use explosive weapons or chip them down with an automatic weapon.

Another important mechanic to take into consideration is ammunition. It doesn't often come frequently, so another important decision is when to use each weapon. You may have an extremely effective weapon that you enjoy using, but if you waste all of your ammunition on an easier floor, then you may be kicking yourself when you needed it later on a harder floor. Maybe it would have been a better idea to use a less effective weapon until you were facing a harder enemy. Sometimes you'll have multiple weapons that you enjoy which are out of ammo, and when you find some you have to decide which weapon is the most important to reload. Sometimes you also have to decide whether it's worth buying ammo in the shop for a weapon you already have, or selling the weapon, buying a key and hoping to find an even better one.

Honestly there are a ton of choices the game gives you concerning the weapons. When to use them, how to use them, when to conserve ammo on the best ones, which weapons to reload, which weapons to keep, which weapons to sell, etc. etc.

3. In my opinion, Nuclear Throne had even less choice when it came to weapons than EtG. That's because in Nuclear Throne some weapons were just obviously better than others, depending on your build. If you're going a melee build, you're going to choose the best melee weapon available (it's pretty linear) and then the best frontloaded ranged weapon to use against bigger enemies and bosses. If you're playing Steroids you're probably going to pick up two machine gun-type weapons because they work the best with his passive.

You can generally tell what build you're going to have early on by what perks you're choosing, what character you have, and certain guns in that game are just better than others for whatever you're doing. Now granted, you could kind of do a 'whatever' build and just pick up whatever suits you're fancy, but that's much less effective than sticking with something specific because of the nature of the perks.

Plus, ammo is much less of a factor in Nuclear Throne because it drops all the time. The only time ammo usually becomes a problem is when the game f*cks you and continues giving the ammo you pick up to guns which are already full of ammo instead the one you have which is completely empty. This happens surprisingly often and is extremely frustrating. That's one of the reason that having a melee weapon is one of the safest builds, because you can't get screwed over by bad game mechanics, and the way ammo works in that game is certainly a bad mechanic. If you have an empty ammo type, and all the others are full, it should fill up the empty ammo bar every time, not give you ammo for all the other types which are completely full (and you'll never use anyway). Being able to choose which weapon gets the ammo in EtG is vastly superior design in my opinion.

So there's certainly meaningful choices in Enter the Gungeon. You may not like them, but in some ways like I said I think the choices are more meaningful than in Nuclear Throne. Of course there's a lot of ways in which the choices in Nuclear Throne are more meaningful as well. I like both games for their own unique qualities.

[Misery]

Eh, NT's issues aren't really in that area.   It HAS issues, sure, but not when it comes to choice-making.

People tend to pick the same things over and over again because, frankly, people are dense that way.  To me it's like how everyone playing fighting games just uses the same damn combos because they're too bloody lazy to think up some themselves.

I've never really approached NT that way.  Like, "melee build", I don't know that there IS one.  I either have a shovel (or hammer or screwdriver or wrench or whatever), or I don't.  If I do, why did I pick up the shovel?  Was it because I have certain mutations?  For many players, yes.  For me.... no, it's a bloody shovel, so I picked the damn thing up.  Long Arms and that one with the rapid-fire upon kill can help that weapon, but I'll typically grab it either way when I feel like it.   Same with other things in the game.  But not even that, I don't just grab the same things over and over again or get the same mutations; a lot of players with that game get the idea that there aren't that many useful weapons;  I say, those players are lazy.  They never experiment (which is a running trend with a lot of gamers, I notice...) so they never really find out what use different weapons can have and will just stick to certain ones, even if, for the situation they are in, there's actually a better choice.  For example, who picks up a flare gun in the Scrapyard?  Pretty much nobody.  Having experimented with everything though, *I* use it.  As I actually understand it's use.  It's a good gun; that nobody uses it is their own damn fault and not surprising.  This sort of thing applies from the early game, into post-loop territory.

Perhaps, in a way, the game could sorta "explain" (no, I don't know how) the best usage for a given gun, but.... nah.  It's one of the closest games in this genre to a pure shmup, and THOSE sure don't explain themselves, you either learn or die, so that works out well enough. 


The ammo bit, when I think about it, I didn't care about.  Tending to use "heavy" weapons in NT, I have ammo issues in that frequently, but I don't really mind that.  The low appearance rate of it in Gungeon was.... bizarre, but that was immediately eclipsed by it's other problems.

On a side note, NT:  If you're getting ammo for just your gun that's filled, you're doing something wrong.  The game's tendency, with ammo drops, is to fill up whichever gun ISNT being over-used (in other words, the more drained a gun is, the more it'll tend to get filled) when you're grabbing ammo packs; only actual guns give only specific ammo types (running over a crossbow will *always* give you bolts, for instance), and ammo chests give whatever kind of ammo is for the gun you are holding in your hands at the time (not what you're holding in reserve); the exception is "blank" weapons like the shovel that have no ammo type, you'll just get a random ammo type from ammo chests when you are holding something like that.  Normal ammo drops, however, will ONLY give you ammo for the weapons you are actually carrying.  If you have a bolt weapon and an explosive one, you will get just bolts/explosives from ammo drops until you grab some other gun; refilling your OTHER ammo types will be dependant on you running over other guns to get their ammo, or even quickly grabbing another gun, and THEN grabbing some ammo pickups that are around or a nearby ammo chest.

Though, the other idea in that is, when you are running out of ammo for something.... you're supposed to grab a different gun.  The idea is to encourage the player to not just constantly stick with JUST the same weapons throughout a given run.  When playing well, you're going to be watching ammo levels and enemy drop amounts, and switching to new weapon types when the time is right.  If you're NOT doing this, you're much more prone to actually running out.   There's also the "overdrop" mechanic, but that one's really hard to explain, but it has to do with getting more ammo to appear; it's one of those things in these sorts of games that's a mechanic in the game, and using it takes skill, but the game wont tell you about it.  THAT kinda bugs me, but I cant remember the last time I found a game that didn't do that SOMEWHERE.  Even Starward doesn't escape this, though partly in that game's case it's because the tutorials are hyper-limited.   Though in NT it's actually fairly easy to figure out if you're paying enough attention, when I think about it.

On a side note with NT though, melee setups aren't actually "safe" as ammo goes.  Only early-game melee weapons (and most players wont stick with those long, preferring to grab energy-types ASAP) take no ammo.  Mid/late/loop melee weapons all require ammo.  The only exception is the Lightning Hammer, which bafflingly requires not even energy ammo, because.... I have no idea. Maybe they forgot? But typically by that point in the game the other non-ammo melee weapons aren't strong enough to keep using, and all of the others take ammo to swing.  Though the Ultra Shovel doesn't use normal ammo, but instead costs radiation to swing, as ultra weapons all do.


As for how many choices the player should be presented with?  Gungeon partly was dead to me because it wasn't presenting me with *any*.   Not even ONE.  Something like Isaac, for instance, is throwing choices at me on the FIRST FLOOR.  Hell, Starward does this.  NT does this.  It starts out interesting, none of that "the real fun begins at level 60!!!!111" type of design.   That, to me, is how it's done properly.  When you have something like that that takes bloody forever to kick in whatsoever, something is very wrong.  The game wasn't handing me ANY choices or interesting situations, yet had long, overly easy early floors (and bosses that take way, way too long) and so my attention wanders.   Typically where it wandered to is "what damn idiot thought this reload thing was a good idea?" which didn't help.

And yeah, I know that technically even which direction to move is a decision, but I'm not even *thinking* about that sort of thing whatsoever, so I'm not counting things like that. 

[Wingflier]

On a side note, NT:  If you're getting ammo for just your gun that's filled, you're doing something wrong.  The game's tendency, with ammo drops, is to fill up whichever gun ISNT being over-used (in other words, the more drained a gun is, the more it'll tend to get filled) when you're grabbing ammo packs; only actual guns give only specific ammo types (running over a crossbow will *always* give you bolts, for instance), and ammo chests give whatever kind of ammo is for the gun you are holding in your hands at the time (not what you're holding in reserve); the exception is "blank" weapons like the shovel that have no ammo type, you'll just get a random ammo type from ammo chests when you are holding something like that.  Normal ammo drops, however, will ONLY give you ammo for the weapons you are actually carrying.  If you have a bolt weapon and an explosive one, you will get just bolts/explosives from ammo drops until you grab some other gun; refilling your OTHER ammo types will be dependant on you running over other guns to get their ammo, or even quickly grabbing another gun, and THEN grabbing some ammo pickups that are around or a nearby ammo chest.

I feel like we should clear up the discrepancy about the way ammo works in NT right now.

From the wiki: "Small Ammo Chest: Dropped by enemies. Gives ammo for either your primary or secondary weapon (50/50 chance). Having full ammo or a melee weapon will give you ammo for a random type. Someone with a Sledgehammer and a Slugger picking up a mini chest will have 60% chance to get shells, and 40% chance to get a different ammo type."

Generally speaking, you only need ammo for one weapon, i.e. the weapon that you're currently using. Even if you're using both weapons frequently, you'll still probably need ammo for one weapon more than the other simply because some weapons are more ammunition consuming than another.

Using Nuclear Throne's retarded ammo mechanics, it basically means you have a 50% chance to get screwed. So no, you're very very wrong. Normal ammo drops do not only give you ammo for the weapons you're carrying. It has a 50% chance to give you ammo for either weapon you're carrying, but if the weapon it randomly chooses is full, it basically gives you absolutely nothing (ammo for guns you don't have).

Given that, as I said, typically speaking you're going to be using one gun more than another, or that one gun is going to use ammunition much faster than another, the chance that when you pick up ammo, the game will attempt to give the full gun ammo is 50%. One could safely say that Nuclear Throne's ammo mechanics have a 50% chance to screw you.

Not 5%. Not 10%. Not 20% or 30% or even 35%. 50. 50 percent.

It's a bad mechanic. It's so bad in fact that it makes some weapons unusable. The Energy Hammer is one of the coolest weapons in the game. However it uses 5 ammo per swing, and you'll probably be swinging it a lot (it's a melee weapon). Guess what, once you run out of ammo you're basically counting on a coin toss to even get the slightest amount of ammo ever again. This makes it unusable. You would have to have a GUARANTEED source of ammo in order to use that weapon, not a 50% chance on the off chance that you find an ammo crate. It's ludicrous. Why not just use another melee weapon instead? Sure they'll be inferior but at least you can use them. They may as well take the Energy Hammer out of the game because NT's terrible mechanics make it unusable for more than a few swings. The Ultra Shovel is actually logical because you pick up enough Rads during the loops to continually keep using it, and it doesn't use any other ammo type. You don't have a 50% chance to pick up rads and a 50% chance to fall through the level and explode. You have 100% chance to pick up Rads which are then used by the Ultra weapons in a logical fashion. That's a rational mechanic.

Well anyway, the point isn't to knock on Nuclear Throne. I have 250 hours with the game and I love it. The point is that no game is perfect.

I actually agree with you, the Flare Gun is decently strong, but I wouldn't advise keeping it after level 5. By then you should have a better alternative (Heavy Crossbow, Heavy Grenade Launcher, Cluster Launcher or better). But up to Level 6 it's a perfectly usable weapon, even it does take a few extra shots to kill bigger enemies.

The weapons I generally find useless are those that are ridiculously ammo consuming (reasons mentioned above), subpar damage (anything Disc-related, Energy Screwdriver, Flamethrower, as well as the Laser Rifle and Gatling Laser badness), or just inferior to the other alternatives (Splinter gun, seeker pistol, etc.)

Don't even get me started about the Jackhammer. We don't talk about the Jackhammer.

On a side note with NT though, melee setups aren't actually "safe" as ammo goes.  Only early-game melee weapons (and most players wont stick with those long, preferring to grab energy-types ASAP) take no ammo.  Mid/late/loop melee weapons all require ammo.  The only exception is the Lightning Hammer, which bafflingly requires not even energy ammo, because.... I have no idea. Maybe they forgot?

Actually both the Lightning Hammer and the Blood Hammer are "safe" late-game melee weapons which can carry you through the loop until you find an Ultra Shovel. By safe I mean, you don't have to worry about ammo, which can be a problem for the reasons stated above. One can increase the chance of receiving these drops by using both the Crown of Guns and activating the Heavy Heart Mutation (it's one of my favorite strategies as Robot). Also, Fish's Banjo is a guaranteed melee weapon for him that's pretty dang strong and doesn't use ammo either if you're going for a "safe" strat. You're supposed to be able to get Chicken's black katana but I've never been able to find it.

[Misery]

On a side note, NT:  If you're getting ammo for just your gun that's filled, you're doing something wrong.  The game's tendency, with ammo drops, is to fill up whichever gun ISNT being over-used (in other words, the more drained a gun is, the more it'll tend to get filled) when you're grabbing ammo packs; only actual guns give only specific ammo types (running over a crossbow will *always* give you bolts, for instance), and ammo chests give whatever kind of ammo is for the gun you are holding in your hands at the time (not what you're holding in reserve); the exception is "blank" weapons like the shovel that have no ammo type, you'll just get a random ammo type from ammo chests when you are holding something like that.  Normal ammo drops, however, will ONLY give you ammo for the weapons you are actually carrying.  If you have a bolt weapon and an explosive one, you will get just bolts/explosives from ammo drops until you grab some other gun; refilling your OTHER ammo types will be dependant on you running over other guns to get their ammo, or even quickly grabbing another gun, and THEN grabbing some ammo pickups that are around or a nearby ammo chest.

I feel like we should clear up the discrepancy about the way ammo works in NT right now.

From the wiki: "Small Ammo Chest: Dropped by enemies. Gives ammo for either your primary or secondary weapon (50/50 chance). Having full ammo or a melee weapon will give you ammo for a random type. Someone with a Sledgehammer and a Slugger picking up a mini chest will have 60% chance to get shells, and 40% chance to get a different ammo type."

Generally speaking, you only need ammo for one weapon, i.e. the weapon that you're currently using. Even if you're using both weapons frequently, you'll still probably need ammo for one weapon more than the other simply because some weapons are more ammunition consuming than another.

Using Nuclear Throne's retarded ammo mechanics, it basically means you have a 50% chance to get screwed. So no, you're very very wrong. Normal ammo drops do not only give you ammo for the weapons you're carrying. It has a 50% chance to give you ammo for either weapon you're carrying, but if the weapon it randomly chooses is full, it basically gives you absolutely nothing (ammo for guns you don't have).

Given that, as I said, typically speaking you're going to be using one gun more than another, or that one gun is going to use ammunition much faster than another, the chance that when you pick up ammo, the game will attempt to give the full gun ammo is 50%. One could safely say that Nuclear Throne's ammo mechanics have a 50% chance to screw you.

Not 5%. Not 10%. Not 20% or 30% or even 35%. 50. 50 percent.

It's a bad mechanic. It's so bad in fact that it makes some weapons unusable. The Energy Hammer is one of the coolest weapons in the game. However it uses 5 ammo per swing, and you'll probably be swinging it a lot (it's a melee weapon). Guess what, once you run out of ammo you're basically counting on a coin toss to even get the slightest amount of ammo ever again. This makes it unusable. You would have to have a GUARANTEED source of ammo in order to use that weapon, not a 50% chance on the off chance that you find an ammo crate. It's ludicrous. Why not just use another melee weapon instead? Sure they'll be inferior but at least you can use them. They may as well take the Energy Hammer out of the game because NT's terrible mechanics make it unusable for more than a few swings. The Ultra Shovel is actually logical because you pick up enough Rads during the loops to continually keep using it, and it doesn't use any other ammo type. You don't have a 50% chance to pick up rads and a 50% chance to fall through the level and explode. You have 100% chance to pick up Rads which are then used by the Ultra weapons in a logical fashion. That's a rational mechanic.

Well anyway, the point isn't to knock on Nuclear Throne. I have 250 hours with the game and I love it. The point is that no game is perfect.

I actually agree with you, the Flare Gun is decently strong, but I wouldn't advise keeping it after level 5. By then you should have a better alternative (Heavy Crossbow, Heavy Grenade Launcher, Cluster Launcher or better). But up to Level 6 it's a perfectly usable weapon, even it does take a few extra shots to kill bigger enemies.

The weapons I generally find useless are those that are ridiculously ammo consuming (reasons mentioned above), subpar damage (anything Disc-related, Energy Screwdriver, Flamethrower, as well as the Laser Rifle and Gatling Laser badness), or just inferior to the other alternatives (Splinter gun, seeker pistol, etc.)

Don't even get me started about the Jackhammer. We don't talk about the Jackhammer.

On a side note with NT though, melee setups aren't actually "safe" as ammo goes.  Only early-game melee weapons (and most players wont stick with those long, preferring to grab energy-types ASAP) take no ammo.  Mid/late/loop melee weapons all require ammo.  The only exception is the Lightning Hammer, which bafflingly requires not even energy ammo, because.... I have no idea. Maybe they forgot?

Actually both the Lightning Hammer and the Blood Hammer are "safe" late-game melee weapons which can carry you through the loop until you find an Ultra Shovel. By safe I mean, you don't have to worry about ammo, which can be a problem for the reasons stated above. One can increase the chance of receiving these drops by using both the Crown of Guns and activating the Heavy Heart Mutation (it's one of my favorite strategies as Robot). Also, Fish's Banjo is a guaranteed melee weapon for him that's pretty dang strong and doesn't use ammo either if you're going for a "safe" strat. You're supposed to be able to get Chicken's black katana but I've never been able to find it.

Honestly, if the ammo mechanic ACTUALLY was that bad, they'd have gotten SO many complaints that it wouldn't have made it out of EA.

I've used the energy hammer.   I don't have problems getting ammo for it.  So either that info *isn't* correct (which wouldn't surprise me: wikis aren't perfect, as such I prefer not to rely on them), or the player isn't doing something right.   I use heavy weapons constantly (not just the energy hammer) and I fire/swing/whatever really often as I have no patience.  Hell, Energy Hammer, I *will* swing it just to deflect bullets that I probably could have dodged, simply because it entertains me.   Still don't have ammo problems.  And no, I'm not using Fish (don't like dodge rolls in these games, all they do is get me hit more, so I don't really use him unless I pick Random and he's chosen).  It is of course easier with Fish, or Robot, but it's still fine with the others.  You can also see this in videos of expert players; they tend to fire just as often as I do, not conserving at all.... yet they wont run out.  As the developers put it, they don't want the game to be about having to fire super carefully, they want the player to be able to keep firing, because that keeps it fun.   If the player IS finding they're running out of ammo a lot, they need to examine how they're going about it exactly.  I mean, really, if even I can do it just fine with my extreme impatience, it cant be THAT bloody hard.

Also, by "will only give you ammo for the weapons you're carrying" I didn't mean "for the weapon you are HOLDING and firing with".  I know it means either of the two you're using.

However, this ALSO means that you can guarantee specific ammo types by simply carrying two weapons of the same type at a time.  Some players will do this depending on the situation, though it depends on the player's style (I don't do it, but I've seen it used effectively, weapon choices are important though when doing this).


As for the weapons, some of that is subjective.

Jackhammer, for instance.  Actually one of the best in the game to me, for one reason:  You cannot be hit by ranged attacks from the front while you keep hitting the button.   Hell, it's nearly an insta-win against Lil' Hunter (the most irritating boss in the game) who cant hit you whatsoever while you're using it and shoving it up his nose, and prevents even the Throne from being able to do much to you (allowing you to not only pop the huge orbs, but to actually stop the machine-gun bolts by standing right in front of the spots they come out of.   With other melee weapons, you have to TIME your swing to block stuff.  But not with the Jackhammer.   The only boss it doesn't really work on is the Crystal (cant block deathrays with anything).  Not recommended for Ballmum also just because her HP is oddly high (I always wonder WHY it's that high).  Also shouldn't be used against Dog Guardians but I'll occaisionally do this anyway, because... I don't know why.  It's just fun, I suppose.

Energy Screwdriver is pretty good too as it can be swung fast (I use this against the Throne often).  But of course you have to get very close, so that's dependant on gameplay style.  I actually like this more than the energy sword. 

Flamethrower and Gatling Laser... those are interesting in that I"ve never understood why people don't use them.  The Gatling Laser in particular:  That's a room-clearer.  A few seconds with that and much of the room is just dead.  Particularly as it pierces.  And that's WITHOUT Laser Brain.   Flamethrower, hmm, I guess I understand a bit, that one takes some practice to use, but I'll often take that over many other things (it seems rare though, or the RNG just doesn't like me sometimes).  It has similar use to the Flare Gun but can keep up a constant stream, with it's "projectiles" that stay on screen for an oddly long amount of time. 

Well, okay, there are those that use the gatling laser;  if you watch Sleepcycles play the game (very, very good at the game, also hilarious) he'll typically grab that weapon over basically any other thing in the room.  I originally didn't like the thing all that much until I saw just how he was using it; now I'll happily expend all energy ammo firing it because of the devastation it can cause for the time in the game when it appears (though even on loop, it can do a lot, just not as much as the super plasma cannons and whatnot).

On that note, I also don't get why people don't take the "heavy" bullet weapons, either.  I freaking LOVE those.  I don't get to use them very often, but they're superb when I do get to.


Blood Hammer:  I'd forgotten about that.... because it's not a safe weapon; worse than the disc-gun to me, so I never use it.  Miss, and you lose HP (...wut?). Hitting bullets instead of enemies or props counts as a miss (and that's why I don't use it). It's not very strong either (when the risk of use is considered, that is)... better to just keep the actual Sledgehammer, shovel, or laser sword/hammer.   The Blood LAUNCHER's mechanic makes more sense (only takes HP if you actually run out yet keep firing).   And the Blood CANNON is... er... well, it sure is.

Fish's banjo I know about, but you can only get it with him.  Others cannot use it.

Disc Gun is just a joke, I think.  I mean an actual joke.  Partly also just a reference to Super Crate Box, a previous game from them, where it's a dangerous weapon that can kill you in a single hit, and you never know just when you'll be stuck with it till you grab the next crate (when you unlock it, you also get a message that says "We're so, so sorry...").  In NT it's not THAT dangerous, no one-hit death for the player, but yeah, I think it's just there as a joke and a reference.  I'll grab it every now and then because hitting rats or crows with it is.... satisfying.

Chicken's black katana, you know, I've never seen it either, come to think about it.  Now I'm curious.  Clearly, experiments and science must be applied here.  !!SCIENCE!! that is, as I'm not very good with Chicken...


Ack, all this talk about NT's weapons gives me the urge to play it again; I've been so sucked into Starward that I've not touched NT or Isaac in some time.   All that damn boss testing, you know...   But at least the big balance patch is finally coming.

[Misery]

So in a wacky twist, I decided:  You know what, I'm going to give the goddamn game another shot.   Someone I know wouldn't shut up about it, and pointed out another game that I *almost* dropped initially, which is a game called Baroque (PS2/Wii), but after giving it another shot, it's possibly my favorite game of all time and I've got some damn absurd number of hours in it.

Cant deny his point, and he knows me well and has been right before, so.... bah, fine.  I'll refuse to judge it fully until I've had a whole bunch of hours with it;  aside from working on Starward and a certain other thing soon, I don't have much else to do.  Doom and Stellaris aint out yet.  Only other games I've been playing a lot are SUPERHOT and Viscera Cleanup Detail (don't ask why on that one, just smile and nod).  So I'll give this another try.

I was going to start on it today.  I got about 30 minutes in, right?  Nothing special happening, shot some dudes, did some... er... more shooting, as you'd expect... and then OMG USB POWER SURGE, ABANDON COMPUTER!!!  I just... what.

And then I used scissors on the cable out of anger after pulling it out.  Didn't accomplish anything, but made me feel better, sort of.  Damn thing was clearly dying anyway.  I swear, I go through micro-USB cables like candy.

SO THAT'S BLOODY IRRITATING.

Agh, don't mind me, I took a damn Tramadol pill earlier, I space out really easy with that damn stuff so if I seem odd & disjointed at times, that's why.  Well, more odd than usual anyway.  Probably.  Had to do it though.

[crazyroosterman]

since we appear to have gone of topic a little bit may I ask if any of gentlemen have played invisible ink?(a turn based roguelike/lite stealth game by klei for those that don't know) I've put over 80 over it which is like way more than all of the other roguelikes/lites I own I think the games fantastic and well worth trying out particularly if your into stealth games.

[Draco18s]

I saw TB's WTF is? and was not terribly interested in it myself.

[crazyroosterman]

I saw TB's WTF is? and was not terribly interested in it myself.

I remember you saying back in a thread I made saying you liked deus ex because it wasn't required personally I got up to china and got bored with it because I found the stealth way to easy invisible on the hand invisible is faloot'in hard with 80 hours into it I think I  Have beaten it about twice I like it because unlike other stealth games I  Have played it actually challenges me.

P.S. is there any persifick reason you don't like invisible?

[Misery]

I'm aware of Invisible Inc. myself, but.... ugh, cant stand stealth games at all ever, so I never bothered with it.