Enter the Gungeon (Bullet Hell/Rogue-like)

[crazyroosterman]

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

he fair enough that doesn't surprised considering you don't like slow games and stealth games tend to be slow in the extreme although invisible is a bit less slow than other games in the genera (usually) due to the alarm tracker (a timer to that increases each time you go to your next turn and makes bad things happen when it gets to persifick numbers) forcing to you to be more aggressive than usual.

[Draco18s]

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

Eeh.  There were just some mechanics of it that didn't appeal to me.  Such as not being able to knock guards out for more than a couple rounds.

[crazyroosterman]

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

Eeh.  There were just some mechanics of it that didn't appeal to me.  Such as not being able to knock guards out for more than a couple rounds.

the max amount of rounds you can knock out for is 5 (as I've been reminded of multiple times by the game when I'm cocking up) allowing any more wouldn't be great balance wise although I'm surprised you cant tweak that because the game lets you tweak a lot of mechanics in custom mode.

[Misery]

Well, after some more time with Gungeon....

....my opinion on it has gotten WORSE.   This might be the single worst game of this type I've ever seen. 

And you know what the biggest contributor to this is?

Ironically, it's the gunplay.  Not just the reloading.   I mean EVERYTHING about it.

In a conversation with someone else I know on Steam, who also disliked this game pretty much instantly, I was talking to him and a certain idea came up:  This is a game that's focused around having a zillion cool guns.... but you spend MOST of your time NOT firing them.   Just think about that for a second.

The game goes against it's own core idea in multiple ways:

1.  The reload mechanic.  Aside from utterly ruining the game's already slow pacing, any time you're reloading is a time when you're NOT using your gun.  Got a cool, fun to use gun?  Oh, wait, not so fun, it has to reload every second or two (and with many guns, that's NOT an exaggerated time between reloads, that's how frequent it ACTUALLY is).  When considered around rapid enemy HP scaling (oh yes, this game does this one, if you didn't already know) and monstrous amounts of boss HP, this is a problem.

2.  Dodge rolling.   Now, I've never liked this type of mechanic.  Chris actually has said the same thing; early on in Starward's development the idea of adding some sort of dodge move came up, and the both of us pretty much instantly said "No, not happening" at the same time.  The reasons are a few things:  1, games with dodge rolls make you feel like you HAVE to keep using it over and over again (this is something he said too) 2. Dodge rolls are often used to mask bad pattern design; oops, did the game just generate an undodgable situation?  Well, that's okay, the player has a dodge roll that provides invincibility, so no worries.  But then there's number 3:  When you are rolling, YOU ARE NOT FIRING YOUR GUN.  Most players will be encouraged to roll often, and some enemies produce attacks that REQUIRE it; other enemies have what I call the Lazy Spray attack, a type of rapid-fire attack that says "the devs weren't trying, so this enemy is just going to spray crap in random angles vaguely towards you for a few seconds".  This is a type of attack that can often produce an undodgable situation when combined with other attacks, and can force you to perform a dodge roll.  It's also just extremely annoying, but mostly... it means more rolling, which means more NOT FIRING.  Fortunately that specific attack doesn't appear all that often, but.... it shouldn't be appearing at all.  Anything that's firing that attack could be doing something INTERESTING.   But that's a whole other rant....

3. Ammo.  You have none!  You have two options in this game:  1. actually USE your guns that have ammo.  You can actually take down enemies sometime this century with this tactic!  ....too bad you'll soon be out of ammo, because if the shop guy isn't selling any, you're *not* getting more.  The only other option is to find more guns to replace the ones you drained, which means A: finding a key, AND then B: finding a chest that actually has a freaking gun in it.     Instead of using your guns though, you have option 2 also:  Use your starter weapon against lower-level threats.  Why?  Because you have no freaking ammo!  But, this makes the game take utterly forever.   It ALSO, though, means you are not getting much use out of all those cool guns the game is supposed to be about.

4. "Joke" weapons.   The game has ALOT of these, I'm finding out (and this is a complaint I'm hearing from others too).  Weapons that... really aren't actually USEFUL for anything, they're just haha so totally silly what fun OMG.   They don't make you want to USE them unless you want a good laugh.  When I find one, well... it's feed for the muncher box.  Other than that, I'll use my pistol, thanks.  Getting a joke weapon also means you're NOT firing something that's actually helpful/satisfying for awhile.   EDIT:  I'll also point out that there's a second definition for "joke" weapon, which is a weapon that just FEELS like a damn joke.  Something you get, and it SOUNDS cool, but... you know, despite it's design, where it LOOKS like it should be helping, somehow, it just isn't.   It's not a genuine "joke", not like "Hey this weapon is a funny reference to this game over here" or something, instead it's the sort of the thing where the weapon is just genuinely badly designed.   Or just worse than others yet while not really being on a different "tier".    The interestingness of the guns also starts to wear off when you realize one major thing:  ALOT of them, that aren't the "goofy" ones, end up being very similar.  I cant count the number of times I've found a new gun only to do "oh it's another shotgun actually" or "oh it's another rapid-fire gun actually".   Redundancy is something that I haaaaaaaaaaaate in games like this, and this one does ALOT of it.  Again referring to NT, it's something THAT game managed to avoid.  Most of the time, weapons are very different from one another.  Even among the most homogenous weapon class, bullet weapons.  Thinking JUST of rapid-fire weapons in that one class; there's stuff like the basic machine gun (your basic rapid-fire gun), assault rifle (instead of rapid fire, you get quick super-rapid "pops" of 3 shots each, making this gun particularly good for dealing with smaller foes, but not necessarily so good at concentrated fire), and then it just goes all over the place from there; next up is the triple-machine-gun, with it's super-wide spray that doesn't fire TOO fast; you get some lengthy use out of it but that spray means it's great for crowd control, not so great for anything else.  Or next up is the minigun, which just goes absolutely batshit insane and dumps most of your ammo into one monstrous assault, lasting for just a very short time but being so stupidly intense that it'll kill things so hard that they'll get back up and die again because they didn't die enough the first time to do it justice.  And then you get the "bouncing shot" guns, the "heavy" guns.... you get the picture.  Even in that most simplistic of weapon classes, that game just never has that issue.  There's only a bit of redundancy in it as the devs were very careful to avoid it, so you spend most of your time firing things that are useful and satisfying.  But in this... you get a lot of weapons that are reskins, so many things that aren't the triple machine gun or the minigun or the bouncing whatever, but are instead.... just that machinegun or shotgun over and over.   So for a game that's about weapons.... you're not firing interesting ones very often.

5.  Travel time.  All that walking you have to do?  Guess what you're NOT doing while you're walking?  FIRING YOUR DAMN GUN.   What really gets me about this is that for the game's bloody amazing fast-travel system, THIS HAS THE WORST BACKTRACKING IN THE ENTIRE GENRE.  Rooms are WAY too big and empty, and even with the fast-travel, you're going to be doing a TON of slow waddling.  But what's more, there's not all that many interesting things to find on each floor!  MOST of your backtracking is for one, and only one reason:  Because there's some rooms you missed.  You know you're not going to find anything in them.  But you at least want the possible keys, and also money (probably to buy keys).  Notice how Isaac compacts most rooms into the size of a single screen?  Even despite that the characters in the game are fairly large?  In THAT game, each area is crammed with STUFF.  There's no big blank unnecessary zones.  The game has big rooms that can happen, yes, but even those are typically filled with stuff in interesting layouts; all sorts of interesting objects and possibilities.  But in this?   No.  There's tables, and sometimes switches that do things like drop chandeliers.   That's it.  Every room is just a big box.... and you're going to be walking through them a lot.

6. Keys and chests.  Guess what you need to do in order to fire those cool guns?  You need to NOT ONLY find a key, but then find a chest.... that actually has a gun in it.   The game has passive items, but no matter what they are, no matter what they do, getting a chest that does NOT have a gun in it is like opening a candy bar to find it filled with bees instead.  Useless and just makes me angry.  It doesn't matter how many passive items I find; none of them excite or interest me.  It's always "Oh, that again, bah, that's not a gun".  But it IS a waste of one of the keys that the game doesn't want to give me.

7. The need to take cover.  There's a reason why most games in this genre don't emphasize cover.  When you're taking cover, you are just WAITING for stuff to happen, instead of PARTICIPATING in the stuff that happens.  In Starward, that's the reason why I vetoed the hell out of ideas like health regen (which would encourage the player to constantly dive and hide behind things and WAIT, instead of doing exciting combat stuff).  It's also the reason why enemy bullets tend to move slowly, so the player can dodge them instead of having to run and hide all the time.  Isaac doesn't really create cover as a necessity either, and neither does Nuclear Throne, or... any of the games in this genre that I've found to be good.   When you're sitting behind cover, that's time the player could be using to do something exciting.  This isn't a AAA FPS or third-person shooter, people.  That mechanic belongs in THOSE.  It does NOT belong here.  Better enemy pattern design would remove the need to do this so constantly, and allow the player to keep IN the action instead of being forced into cover, or into dodge rolling.  Now, that's not to say that you CANT dodge things, of course you can.  But the nature of... everything... makes it into a bloody stupid risk that's pointless to take.   The reloading mechanic then further emphasizes the cover mechanic, because why stand in the open when you are reloading?

That's also not to say that you NEVER take cover in other games; of course you do.  But those games don't EMPHASIZE it, and they tend to create chaos with the EXPECTATION that you're going to be able to survive it... without cover.  NT in particular absolutely WILL put 10000 screaming maniacs and flies and exploding ninjas or whatever on the screen and you DONT have to just hide from them (and in many cases, you cant).  That's good, exciting design.... yet you CAN dive behind a wall (or even through a wall if you have Hammerhead) if you manage to make a mistake.  You just don't NEED to.  In this, chaos is created with the expectation that you are able to use cover.   The existence of the whole table-flipping thing just shows this that much further.  Rampant enemy HP increases also emphasize the need for cover because you cant get them out of your face sometime this year.    I could rant on... and on... and on... about this aspect of the game's design + the enemy patterns (and believe me, I know a lot about enemy pattern design, which is something I think I've proven by now) but that's not what this post is really about.


There's more than just these 7 points I could make here...  but you get the picture.


This is an overhead arena shooter that, like Nuclear Throne, is about having lots of cool guns, and shooting stuff with those cool guns.  But there's a huge difference.  In THIS, it feels like I'm actually USING those weapons about 35% of the time.  The rest of the time, well... look at any of the 7 points above.  Nuclear Throne though?  The devs have specifically stated that they wanted the player to be able to KEEP SHOOTING ALL THE TIME.  It's a game about having awesome guns, and firing those guns at stuff.  So they make sure that you DO that.  Ammo is everywhere, there are mutations and abilities that can get you even more of it, dropped guns are useful even if you don't grab them to use them because they ALSO give ammo just by touching them (yet they don't disappear, so you can still go back and pick them up if you want), guns are so absurdly frequent that you can easily switch from one ammo type that is depleted to another that you have plenty of by simply choosing one of the 50 freaking weapons that's lying all over the current level.    I play that game in an extremely aggressive way.   One tip I learned from a few of the best players:  Ammo convervation is a bad idea.   Let me repeat that:  In Nuclear Throne, ammo conserving is a freaking no-no.   Newer players will tend to try to do that for awhile (but even then, you're still attacking things really freaking often).  But the real key to getting good at the game is to learn NOT to do that.  Know why you have all those bullets?  To SHOOT THINGS WITH.  So that's what you should do.  I grab weapons that fire "heavy" attacks, which newer players tend to think are bad (something that eats 5 ammo per shot can seem a bit much at first, yeah?) but which, in reality, are good.   Do I fire those carefully, slowly, only every now and then?  Ye gods, no!  I fire them like a damn maniac.  But an interesting thing happens:  either A: I simply don't run out of ammo because I'm getting a lot of ammo drops, or B: I DO start to run out... but then notice that all of my other ammo types are filled.  So I got to make good use of that heavy weapon by flattening 10000 dudes with it, and even though it ran out... I can immediately grab one of the 50 guns around the level.  That's why there's no reason to conserve, and why it's a bad idea; enemies you ARENT shooting at are enemies that are a threat to you, after all, and the game emphasizes the hell out of shooting them and gives you all the tools you need to do it.   That's a GREAT way to emphasize it's core concept (having a bazillion entertaining guns) and also a great way to generate simple fun.


But this?  As I said, the game seems to do EVERYTHING to make it so you DONT fire your weapons.  You get all of these guns, and you don't get to do anything with them.  Or, more likely, you DONT get all these guns... because it's going to give you so very few of them (and really, doesn't that seem a bit odd in a game so STUFFED with that concept?) and you don't get to do much with the few that you DO have.

And I've tried both types of approaches in this game, too.  I tried the hyper-conservative approach, but knowing what I do about the best tactics in Nuclear Throne, I thought "Okay, in THAT game it seems like a good idea AT FIRST to conserve, but in reality it's a bad one; I'm going to try constantly USING these guns and never bothering to conserve by using the basic one".  In every possible way, that's a bad idea.  When you run out of ammo in this, you REALLY run out, and it happens REALLY QUICKLY.   Even if you're being super accurate, high enemy HP is going to suck the ammo out your ears.  And you're only refilling a gun's ammo if you BUY MORE, because ammo drops are THAT rare.  And you don't get ENOUGH guns that all of their ammo adds up to a lot of ammo; you get only enough so that you have something to fall back on when you really need it (which isn't interesting or fun).  Which then makes the slog even worse.  So when you use up all that ammo... well, you're back to the basic gun ANYWAY, and probably at a bad time (and even the easiest of bosses is a "bad time", because it'll make it take 20 million years...).


Honestly, the impressions I'm getting as I keep not just messing with it, but seeing it in videos and also seeing what people say about it, is that it's one of those games that is hitting players with the "wow" factor... shiny graphics and art, explosions, wacky attacks, enemy art design/appearances, stuff like that... but also using that to hide all sorts of internal problems.  It's also one of those games that Youtubers keep playing, which gets others playing whatever game it is at the time even if it's kinda "meh".


And really, the problems I mention... those are just the start, though the "when do I get to FIRE this stupid thing?" is definitely the biggest of all of the problems.   Other big problems that remain are things like the absolute freaking lack of any interesting decision making (I haven't had even one instance of that happening so far.  Not.  Even.  ONE.   In a freaking roguelike!  No other game has managed this problem before!), rather simplistic enemy attack design (to be fair, it's known that I'm a bit picky about this aspect in any game), and an overall general shallowness to it.  This is not a game with depth, strategy, thinking... any of that.  You JUST shoot... but the game pulls all sorts of crap to keep you from even doing THAT.


Ugh.


As I said I'm still stubbornly not going to give up on it, not yet.   But if I'm being absolutely and totally honest... this post is the result of my time with the game so far.   And yet there's still OTHER issues I haven't taken the time to mention...

[crazyroosterman]

I played it for an hour and a half and couldn't really see a reason to play it over star ward oddly enough despite the fact that star ward isn't as focused on its weaponry as gungeon the weaponry still feels better to me than in gungeon even the shotgun I got at one point which should have felt good didn't
btw I've been thinking to take a break from invisible that I'm going to go try nuclear throne the problems id heard about it made me a bit reluctant but misery's post has made me decide to try it for my self.

[Wingflier]

Since Misery and I have been going back and forth on this subject, I should preface my comments by explaining that I enjoy the spirit of debate. It's actually something I do for fun. I had a debate on my college campus not too long ago about the theistic problem of evil just for the hell of it. I have nothing against Misery, for the most part I think he's a cool guy. We simply have different tastes (and skill levels) when it comes to video games. I think it's an interesting topic to discuss.

1.  The reload mechanic.  Aside from utterly ruining the game's already slow pacing, any time you're reloading is a time when you're NOT using your gun.  Got a cool, fun to use gun?  Oh, wait, not so fun, it has to reload every second or two (and with many guns, that's NOT an exaggerated time between reloads, that's how frequent it ACTUALLY is).  When considered around rapid enemy HP scaling (oh yes, this game does this one, if you didn't already know) and monstrous amounts of boss HP, this is a problem.

As I mentioned before, this problem is almost completely solved by switching between guns instead of reloading them.

In some ways the reloading mechanic is there to encourage you to use more than one weapon in a fight. I mean think about it, if you could just the same weapon every fight without every having to reload, WHY would you even use any of the other guns anyway? You'd just keep using your favorite and picking up or buying ammo for it indefinitely. To me that's what would kill the diversity of the game.

2.  Dodge rolling.   Now, I've never liked this type of mechanic.

Well, the company's name is "Dodge Roll", so obviously they disagree with you about their preference for this mechanic. Personally I don't mind it. It's even in Nuclear Throne for the types of players who prefer it. Yes, in EtG you're pretty much forced to use it but I really like the way it works. Though I don't expect everyone to feel the same way obviously.

3. Ammo.  You have none!  You have two options in this game:  1. actually USE your guns that have ammo.  You can actually take down enemies sometime this century with this tactic!  ....too bad you'll soon be out of ammo, because if the shop guy isn't selling any, you're *not* getting more.  The only other option is to find more guns to replace the ones you drained, which means A: finding a key, AND then B: finding a chest that actually has a freaking gun in it.     Instead of using your guns though, you have option 2 also:  Use your starter weapon against lower-level threats.  Why?  Because you have no freaking ammo!  But, this makes the game take utterly forever.   It ALSO, though, means you are not getting much use out of all those cool guns the game is supposed to be about.

Not sure what your experience is like in this regard, but I tend to find ammo all over the place, especially on the lower floors. Between finding it naturally at the end of the room, or being able to buy it from the shopkeeper, it's rarely a problem for me. Keep in mind you can't keep all your guns at full capacity, you generally have to make a decision of which (say 6 out of 8 guns) you want to be able to use. But the game also has ways to sell guns you don't want anymore, or to salvage two old ones into a new one.

It's possible to get REALLLY unlucky (this happens in Nuclear Throne as well), but you can increase your chances of finding items with The Hunter, or reduce vendor Prices with the pilot.

One other thing is, if you're having problem finding enough keys to open chests, play Pilot. Not only does he come with the activatable item which allows you to lockpick chests, but the reduce vendor prices means he can buy more keys than other characters. Chests in EtG operate on a rarity scale. Brown is the lowest rarity (Blue, Green, Red, Black, and Rainbow). According to what I've been reading, Brown isn't usually worth wasting a key on. So you can use the lockpick with Pilot, and if that doesn't work simply destroy the chest and it still usually drops something.

With Pilot, I rarely ever run into a worthy chest that I don't have a key for, and even if I don't I can still try the lockpick.

Anyway, most of the rest of your issues seemed to be problems with the game's pacing. A lot of people don't like the "bullet sponge" enemies mechanic, personally I don't mind it. I always liked the lieutenant or 'mini-boss' monsters in RPGs because they give you a break from the monotony of killing another 5,000 useless minions. Having that one bad ass dude in the midst of all it that buffs all the other guys makes you feel like you're suddenly in the plot of the Lord of the Rings or something.

I absolutely LOVE the necromancer enemies in EtG. It's a neat mechanic because they only take 1 or 2 shots to kill, but if you leave them alone for too long they start summoning ungodly powerful shit that just makes you want to curl up in a ball and cry. So a lot of the time it's making your way through a literal bullet hell to kill them as fast as possible, or sniping them from afar before they can unleash the madness. There's also some necromancer types that can buff other enemies as well, giving them more hp, move speed, fire rate etc. Those are generally pretty squishy as well, but hard to get to.

But anyway, my main point is that the game doesn't rush you through it. You could spend about 10-15 minutes per floor, but of course the teleports allow you to traverse almost anywhere you want in an instant. Most of that time is spent actually fighting monsters or looking for secret rooms (for me at least). Some of the rooms are big...so what? I takes less than 10 seconds to walk from one side of the biggest room to another. That hardly seems like a slog.

But honestly, it could also be about the reason you play video games. I play games to relax, but also to be challenged. Sometimes being challenged is relaxing (I know it's kind of counter-intuitive, but human competitive instinct and all that). However, the level of challenge that I desire heavily depends on my mood.

Lately I've been played a lot of CS:GO. Well that game is about as hardcore as an FPS gets, and it's also known for its extremely prolific hacking community, something that Valve hasn't been able to slow down since the late '90s. You can easily die in one headshot from a variety of guns, even with a protective helmet, and some weapons can kill you in one hit to the body. There's also when you die you have to wait until the next round (at least in competitive), which seems like a mechanic you would hate (because you're not shooting) but I digress.

The reason why games like Counter-Strike and Enter the Gungeon are so popular (EtG is still on the first page of the Steam top seller list and continues to have a 90% approval rating after ten billion reviews) is because developers understand that, at least for the average person, when you're not shooting is just as important as when you are. Those important pauses between combat make the fights themselves that much more exciting. It's the same way that in any worthy Suspense or Horror movie, the majority of the plot is building up to something truly terrifying, not just a bunch of cheap jump scares. Jump scares ad infinitum are what make crappy horror movies.

It's the same way with a good game. Some games allow you to fire 24/7 (any kind of unreal tournament, quake whatever, tribes etc.) but usually those games have a much smaller and more hardcore fanbase (I predict that Doom 4 will be the same way after a few weeks). Those game are also share a similarity in that they generally don't encourage using cover as a game mechanic. Things like having no cover, no reload, and firing your weapon 24/7 is something which hardcore players may enjoy, but I think the average player needs breaks in action to gather their wits and assess their situation. That's why I believe games like Counter-Strike and Enter the Gungeon are more popular than the faster-pace alternatives.

[Draco18s]

I have a feeling that the reason Misery never finds guns and ammo is that he's too damn good at the game.

Which brings us back to the "rank" thing.

[Wingflier]

I have a feeling that the reason Misery never finds guns and ammo is that he's too damn good at the game.

Which brings us back to the "rank" thing.

I'm extremely skeptical about the hidden "rank" mechanic. Aside from that one obscure review, I've seen no evidence that there's anything like it in the game. It's not listed in the features, the forums, the website, or on any of the popular PC gamer review sites (and you'd think they'd be the first to mention such a mechanic).

It could just be bad luck? It seems like every run I find tons of different guns and ammo to use it with. Occasionally I get screwed, but that's like 1 out of every 20 runs or so, and from everything I've experienced they're all like that (even SR).

[Misery]

The existence of the "rank" mechanic is, at this point, debatable.

Originally, I was sure it must be there.

But.... after talking with others, and seeing complaints about the game.... you'll often get not a damn thing regardless of if you're doing awesome, or if you're doing so bad that you shoot YOURSELF in the foot every time you fire.   Don't think that professional reviewers will notice that mechanic, though, if it does exist.  IF it's in there, and if it's implemented like it is in a shmup, it'll be very, very well hidden.  That mechanic is almost never, ever shown or admitted to the player; it's there, and it's buried.  Only people that are absolute experts at the game in question will A: know for sure it's there, and B: know how it works; that's in the shmup genre though, but in other genres it often is very similar.  But right now, it's very hard to say if it's real or not.

Overall... the big complaints, right now, usually boil down to "drop rate and chest appearance rates are terrible".  Wether it's rank or just overall math, I suppose, doesn't matter much.  It's THE complaint I've seen with the game.  Heck, one big common complaint that I didn't mention myself, but have seen frequently from others, is restarting; a lot of players, apparently, will just instantly restart the game if they don't leave the first floor (or sometimes the second floor) with at least a couple of guns that aren't bloody awful.  I've seen a few players that say they don't leave the first floor until they've found a GREEN chest or better (and good luck with that one) so they can be guaranteed to get some item that isn't useless or a good gun out of it.   This shouldn't be happening and is just another thing showing that something is really off with those drop rates.

And the sad thing is, if they just fixed those couple of things.... to actually give you the damn guns and ammo to use.... it'd be a MASSIVE improvement to the game.  I mean, seriously.... it wouldn't fix the trouble caused by the goddamn reloading (I'll not bring the dodge roll into it as some players do like dodge rolling) but it'd be a gigantic step towards fixing... everything else.  Let the player USE the damn guns!   That's all they have to do.   That's what it's supposed to be about, right?   The reloading would still be annoying, the backtracking would still be annoying (or would it?  With more STUFF to find, the exploration might be more fun as you get rewarded for doing so; the entire reason it's bad right now is because there ISNT anything to find) but the other problems would pop like soap bubbles.


Which is why I'm still not giving up on this.  I know how bloody difficult it is to make and balance something like this and I bet that one way or another, the devs have their hands full right now; I don't envy them for what they're probably waist-deep into at the moment.  They haven't made much in the way of balance changes YET, but I suspect that bugs take precedence as is the norm, so I didn't expect any yet anyway.

But yeah, I'm not going to stop with this one.   There's so much POTENTIAL here.  It's not meeting that potential, but it could. 


Wingflier:  I'm curious, how many guns are you typically finding on a particular run, and how far do you typically get?   I'm pretty curious as to just what the game's overall drop rate for guns is here; I mean, really, it just never seems to give any.  And in this game, even having like, 5, 6 guns, really just isn't all that many if you want to actually USE them.   Ammo drop boxes are so freakishly rare that I almost never, ever see any ever.  MOST runs, I never see an ammo box.   If I DO see one, it's always in the store.   MAYBE two times I found one outside of the store.  I figured the world must be ending or something. 

And as for guns, it's not like I don't open chests or anything... better believe I open all the ones I can, I'm too obsessive to miss any.  AND I'll feed old/dead guns to that gobbley chest thing to get a new one too, when given the chance.  So I'm wondering how many guns some of you guys are ending up with.

[Misery]

Well I FINALLY had a run where it actually bothered to give me some guns.

This has actually worsened my opinion of the game even further.

Why?

They were all the same goddamn gun with a different coat of paint!  They fired a single heavy shot.  That did nothing else.  ALL of them. SEVEN freaking guns, and ALL of them did that. And none of them were very strong.  I *still* ended up just doing a lot of fights with the rusty whatever, because why bother with weapons that don't do anything?  Trying them on bosses (to see how much damage they did) none of them did more than a full barrage from the basic weapon.  That just.... WHY?!

Seriously, who the hell thinks this is good design?   At this point I'm developing an utter loathing for this developer.   It seriously feels like this wasn't tested AT ALL.  I now understand why people restart so often without actually dying.  Because NOT doing so is like saying "Yes!  I *do* love it when each battle takes 10 million years!"

The run AFTER this was yet another "no guns, no keys, no money" one.   Siiiiigh....

I swear, every time I think this game has hit rock bottom, someone throws it a nuclear jackhammer, and down it goes...   I'm beginning to seriously wonder why I'm bothering with this one.   I said it had potential, but.... now I'm beginning to seriously doubt that.

And it doesn't even have a save & quit option.   What... what kind of idiot developer DOESNT do that nowadays in this genre? Especially in a game so SLOW!  Ugh.

I'm HOPING that some of this might start to turn around once some damn NPCs are unlocked.  Frankly, I'd just FORCE the unlock if I could at this point (I haaaaaaaaate RNG-based unlocks), but still.  Maybe once more of them are available, more options and such will also appear.  But I'm not too confident in that actually happening.

[Misery]

I take back what I said about the "Lazy Spray" attack not showing up all that often in this game.

Spend enough time with it.... and you're going to see it over... and over... and over.... and over... and over... and over.... and over....

I don't think I've seen even ONE boss that DOESNT use this (and after a look at the wiki, I only just now saw how very few bosses are possible on each floor range).  Plenty of normal enemies also use it.  I just....

Argh, normally I'd put a facedesk gif right here but I'm too lazy at the moment.

[Misery]

Since Misery and I have been going back and forth on this subject, I should preface my comments by explaining that I enjoy the spirit of debate. It's actually something I do for fun. I had a debate on my college campus not too long ago about the theistic problem of evil just for the hell of it. I have nothing against Misery, for the most part I think he's a cool guy. We simply have different tastes (and skill levels) when it comes to video games. I think it's an interesting topic to discuss.

1.  The reload mechanic.  Aside from utterly ruining the game's already slow pacing, any time you're reloading is a time when you're NOT using your gun.  Got a cool, fun to use gun?  Oh, wait, not so fun, it has to reload every second or two (and with many guns, that's NOT an exaggerated time between reloads, that's how frequent it ACTUALLY is).  When considered around rapid enemy HP scaling (oh yes, this game does this one, if you didn't already know) and monstrous amounts of boss HP, this is a problem.

As I mentioned before, this problem is almost completely solved by switching between guns instead of reloading them.

In some ways the reloading mechanic is there to encourage you to use more than one weapon in a fight. I mean think about it, if you could just the same weapon every fight without every having to reload, WHY would you even use any of the other guns anyway? You'd just keep using your favorite and picking up or buying ammo for it indefinitely. To me that's what would kill the diversity of the game.

2.  Dodge rolling.   Now, I've never liked this type of mechanic.

Well, the company's name is "Dodge Roll", so obviously they disagree with you about their preference for this mechanic. Personally I don't mind it. It's even in Nuclear Throne for the types of players who prefer it. Yes, in EtG you're pretty much forced to use it but I really like the way it works. Though I don't expect everyone to feel the same way obviously.

3. Ammo.  You have none!  You have two options in this game:  1. actually USE your guns that have ammo.  You can actually take down enemies sometime this century with this tactic!  ....too bad you'll soon be out of ammo, because if the shop guy isn't selling any, you're *not* getting more.  The only other option is to find more guns to replace the ones you drained, which means A: finding a key, AND then B: finding a chest that actually has a freaking gun in it.     Instead of using your guns though, you have option 2 also:  Use your starter weapon against lower-level threats.  Why?  Because you have no freaking ammo!  But, this makes the game take utterly forever.   It ALSO, though, means you are not getting much use out of all those cool guns the game is supposed to be about.

Not sure what your experience is like in this regard, but I tend to find ammo all over the place, especially on the lower floors. Between finding it naturally at the end of the room, or being able to buy it from the shopkeeper, it's rarely a problem for me. Keep in mind you can't keep all your guns at full capacity, you generally have to make a decision of which (say 6 out of 8 guns) you want to be able to use. But the game also has ways to sell guns you don't want anymore, or to salvage two old ones into a new one.

It's possible to get REALLLY unlucky (this happens in Nuclear Throne as well), but you can increase your chances of finding items with The Hunter, or reduce vendor Prices with the pilot.

One other thing is, if you're having problem finding enough keys to open chests, play Pilot. Not only does he come with the activatable item which allows you to lockpick chests, but the reduce vendor prices means he can buy more keys than other characters. Chests in EtG operate on a rarity scale. Brown is the lowest rarity (Blue, Green, Red, Black, and Rainbow). According to what I've been reading, Brown isn't usually worth wasting a key on. So you can use the lockpick with Pilot, and if that doesn't work simply destroy the chest and it still usually drops something.

With Pilot, I rarely ever run into a worthy chest that I don't have a key for, and even if I don't I can still try the lockpick.

Anyway, most of the rest of your issues seemed to be problems with the game's pacing. A lot of people don't like the "bullet sponge" enemies mechanic, personally I don't mind it. I always liked the lieutenant or 'mini-boss' monsters in RPGs because they give you a break from the monotony of killing another 5,000 useless minions. Having that one bad ass dude in the midst of all it that buffs all the other guys makes you feel like you're suddenly in the plot of the Lord of the Rings or something.

I absolutely LOVE the necromancer enemies in EtG. It's a neat mechanic because they only take 1 or 2 shots to kill, but if you leave them alone for too long they start summoning ungodly powerful shit that just makes you want to curl up in a ball and cry. So a lot of the time it's making your way through a literal bullet hell to kill them as fast as possible, or sniping them from afar before they can unleash the madness. There's also some necromancer types that can buff other enemies as well, giving them more hp, move speed, fire rate etc. Those are generally pretty squishy as well, but hard to get to.

But anyway, my main point is that the game doesn't rush you through it. You could spend about 10-15 minutes per floor, but of course the teleports allow you to traverse almost anywhere you want in an instant. Most of that time is spent actually fighting monsters or looking for secret rooms (for me at least). Some of the rooms are big...so what? I takes less than 10 seconds to walk from one side of the biggest room to another. That hardly seems like a slog.

But honestly, it could also be about the reason you play video games. I play games to relax, but also to be challenged. Sometimes being challenged is relaxing (I know it's kind of counter-intuitive, but human competitive instinct and all that). However, the level of challenge that I desire heavily depends on my mood.

Lately I've been played a lot of CS:GO. Well that game is about as hardcore as an FPS gets, and it's also known for its extremely prolific hacking community, something that Valve hasn't been able to slow down since the late '90s. You can easily die in one headshot from a variety of guns, even with a protective helmet, and some weapons can kill you in one hit to the body. There's also when you die you have to wait until the next round (at least in competitive), which seems like a mechanic you would hate (because you're not shooting) but I digress.

The reason why games like Counter-Strike and Enter the Gungeon are so popular (EtG is still on the first page of the Steam top seller list and continues to have a 90% approval rating after ten billion reviews) is because developers understand that, at least for the average person, when you're not shooting is just as important as when you are. Those important pauses between combat make the fights themselves that much more exciting. It's the same way that in any worthy Suspense or Horror movie, the majority of the plot is building up to something truly terrifying, not just a bunch of cheap jump scares. Jump scares ad infinitum are what make crappy horror movies.

It's the same way with a good game. Some games allow you to fire 24/7 (any kind of unreal tournament, quake whatever, tribes etc.) but usually those games have a much smaller and more hardcore fanbase (I predict that Doom 4 will be the same way after a few weeks). Those game are also share a similarity in that they generally don't encourage using cover as a game mechanic. Things like having no cover, no reload, and firing your weapon 24/7 is something which hardcore players may enjoy, but I think the average player needs breaks in action to gather their wits and assess their situation. That's why I believe games like Counter-Strike and Enter the Gungeon are more popular than the faster-pace alternatives.

Sorry, I actually only JUST noticed this big post of yours;  I've been very distracted the last few days (got a new dog, and he's just 8 weeks old, so that means I have a lot to do right now) so if I miss stuff in conversation sometimes, that's why.


Anyway.  I'll preface as well and say I don't mind debate either.  I just hope people understand that if I sound angry or unpleasant, I'm (usually) not angry at THEM, I'm just angry because I'm usually angry.  Well, not usually full anger, more of a constant low-grade disdain for basically everything.  So I sound negative all the bloody time.  I suspect though that on THIS forum, at this point, I no longer need to explain this.  Hell, I even complain about content in a game that I myself designed (Warden, Obscura Disc... to name a couple.  Chris found this hilarious during TLF's expansion design because I'd keep ranting randomly about the damn Disc, which I made).  So I hope everyone takes what I say with a grain of salt.  It occurs to me that I'm not entirely sure what that phrase means, but I think you get what I mean by using it.

But yeah, I don't mind some back and forth debate.  Typing gives me something to do that isn't JUST gaming and is cathartic.


Now, I know I already did a big damn quote box there (just to make it obvious that I suddenly noticed your post when I hadn't before) but I'm going to use small ones now to pick out specific bits.  NOBODY CAN STOP ME.

In some ways the reloading mechanic is there to encourage you to use more than one weapon in a fight. I mean think about it, if you could just the same weapon every fight without every having to reload, WHY would you even use any of the other guns anyway? You'd just keep using your favorite and picking up or buying ammo for it indefinitely. To me that's what would kill the diversity of the game.

Nuclear Throne already solved this one.   You don't have to reload in that, but players will constantly switch up weapons.   Everyone has their favorites, but... the thing about NT's weapon design is that each one is good at different things, and bad at different things.  Many players, including myself, generally play the game without really running out of ammo at all.  So in that case... why do we switch out weapons?   Because the situation changes, and our current weapon selections may not be the right ones anymore.   Even if those weapons are our favorite ones.  For example, I love using the shovel in that game.  Love it.   I also love using bolt weapons when I can get Bolt Marrow to go with them.  But... those things aren't always right for the situation at hand, or a situation that I know to be approaching.   For example, let's say I'm approaching area 5; Lil' Hunter's territory, which also contains enemies like Snowbots and dogs.  Melee weapons don't help me all that much in this zone, so this might be a good time to drop the shovel.  Also, I want certain things to deal with Lil' Hunter himself.  I like to have a "heavy impact" weapon; something that deals a single monstrous attack, the sort of gun you use on single powerful targets or extremely compact enemy groups, instead of crowds or isolated small foes.  That might be a good time to switch my crossbow out for something that can fulfill this.   However... those aren't the only possibilities.  Sometimes, depending on which weapons and mutations I have, I might decide... you know what... Laser Minigun is available, and THAT is a room clearer.  I can use that to take out his buddies FIRST, and then attack him instead of the other way around.  Sometimes that's a good idea.  Sometimes it's not.  I have to actually think about this decision and choose carefully.

But the point is, I never just use the same guns all the time once I have them.  Neither does anyone else that plays NT.  Even despite that the game doesn't really do anything to say "you need to stop firing that for awhile".   


Gungeon has, already, the potential to do the same thing.  A heavy-hitting single shot weapon for example is something that might not be so good when you're running around in the open and surrounded by jerks... but it might be just the thing when you can dive behind a table, and pop out to fire occaisionally.  Same goes with "charge" attacks.  I've seen some weapons that do things like explode into tons of shots upon impact, or perhaps pierce enemies;  these are good against groups, wasted against single targets.  Or perhaps something like the RPG (which I found in my run I did just now).  One of the few guns where the reload mechanic actually makes sense (though in ANY other game, it would just be fire-rate...) the RPG takes 10 billion years to reload but hits like a freight train.  Totally wasted against smaller guys, and not so good even against bosses because of how many times you'd have to reload.  But against strong or Jammed enemies?  You bet it's going to be a good one.  Either one hit implodes them, or you fire it, and then quickly select something else (preferably a rapid-fire gun) to finish them off right after the blast hits them.

I can keep going on and on, but my point is that the actual weapon design, when done right, creates the reasons as to why, exactly, you would want to switch weapons.  In addition, this is the reason why, in games like this (and Nuclear Throne does it for this reason as well) you have an "ammo" count at all.  It means that EVENTUALLY, unless you're finding plenty of ammo, you'll have to switch.  So that factors in.  That of course doesn't excuse the bizarre terrible drop rate of ammo, but I'm hoping that might get altered in a later patch (since it's such a constant complaint from players).

So you don't need the reloading in order to encourage the player to keep switching weapons.  It's all about design and balance.   Keep the weapons interesting and unique, and keep them balanced out, and make sure each is good at something, bad at something else (unless of course you're making a "rare" type of weapon that's made just to be crazy; any game of this type worth it's salt MUST have a few such guns, of course).  When done right, the situations generated by the game will give the player all sorts of potential reasons to switch, and more importantly, make them THINK about it.  Simply switching randomly because of reloading isn't interesting OR deep at all.  There's no thinking to that... you just mash the button and keep firing.   It just seems silly to me.

Well, the company's name is "Dodge Roll", so obviously they disagree with you about their preference for this mechanic. Personally I don't mind it. It's even in Nuclear Throne for the types of players who prefer it. Yes, in EtG you're pretty much forced to use it but I really like the way it works. Though I don't expect everyone to feel the same way obviously.

Oh, I know that the dodge roll thing is... extremely subjective.  As a rule, this mechanic isn't exactly a game-ruiner for me.  I hate it, but I can tolerate it, sort of.  Some of my favorites use this irritating concept (such as Our Darker Purpose).   But in THIS game it very specifically compounds the problem of just not being able to attack very often, and compounds the OTHER problem of the game's ultra-slow pacing.  This is the WRONG game for this mechanic, unless some changes are made.  It also forces it's use more than any other game of this type I can think of (NT only puts it on ONE character and pattern design never, ever pushes you to use it, and even in ODP, you HAVE it... but you don't HAVE to use it, and can instead learn to dodge by understanding where and how big your hitbox is; confident players can do that, but less confident have the option to dodge roll, nobody HAS to use it in that game). 

But yes, conceptually it's a very subjective thing.

Not sure what your experience is like in this regard, but I tend to find ammo all over the place, especially on the lower floors. Between finding it naturally at the end of the room, or being able to buy it from the shopkeeper, it's rarely a problem for me. Keep in mind you can't keep all your guns at full capacity, you generally have to make a decision of which (say 6 out of 8 guns) you want to be able to use. But the game also has ways to sell guns you don't want anymore, or to salvage two old ones into a new one.

Really, I'm just not finding the stuff.

I have learned how the characters work;  the Pilot's lockpick, the Hunter's.... dog.  The lockpick isn't really useful for getting ammo of course, that's not it's point.  But the dog should be, yet even with the Hunter... it just doesn't happen.

There was one run I did just earlier where I did, somehow, find like 3 ammo boxes outside of the store, right?  So that SOUNDS good on paper.  In practice.... no.   Two of them appeared on the first floor.  The first appeared JUST after I'd gotten an ammo-using weapon and fired it like, 5 times in a room (really, Gungeon?  Really?) and the second appeared like, two rooms later when I'd barely used much more and sure as heck didn't find any more guns yet.   The third appeared numerous floors later.

I know there's ammo in the shop, but I don't see it as a solution.  It makes the shop more boring to me.  It feels like money isn't a thing I use to make interesting purchases or choices.  It's a thing I pump into a specific room to get that room to produce more keys and ammo.  That feels like that's ALL it does, because the game sure as heck does it's best to make sure that's all I can buy.  NOT buying keys and ammo means I'm not going to have any keys or ammo.  Even with the Hunter (though I do seem to get at least the occaisional extra key, but not really any ammo with her).

Now, having very abruptly unlocked a couple of NPCs finally, I've then run into their special shops; now those were more interesting.  They're not just selling keys and ammo but are selling other things that are worthy of purchase enough (without being hyper expensive) to make me delay a key/ammo purchase.  Like I bought a pitchfork at one point, that was a good buy and was actually an interesting choice to have to make (considering the other items that character was offering).   I'm hoping the game does more of this.  But... the normal store itself could be more interesting too if I didn't have to focus so freaking much on keys, ammo, and keys.   And in the end that focus on those is likely to also make me not use special shops as much as I otherwise would, because one way or another, I have to pump money into keys.


I am aware of the chest rarity thing, too, by the way.  I try not to use keys on brown chests in particular except in the rare occaision where I figure that I've got a good amount of general stuff, so why the heck not.   Rare though, that.

Anyway, most of the rest of your issues seemed to be problems with the game's pacing. A lot of people don't like the "bullet sponge" enemies mechanic, personally I don't mind it. I always liked the lieutenant or 'mini-boss' monsters in RPGs because they give you a break from the monotony of killing another 5,000 useless minions. Having that one bad ass dude in the midst of all it that buffs all the other guys makes you feel like you're suddenly in the plot of the Lord of the Rings or something.

See, I don't mind that mechanic in the way you phrase it.  Isaac does this, with Champion enemies, which have way more HP and DO things, because why not.  We're adding a similar thing to Starward, even, later on.   But there's a difference here:  When I talk about enemies being bullet sponges in this game, I *don't* mean just the Jammed.  I mean *all* of them.  EVERYTHING has too much HP.  This includes very weak things, like basic shotgun guys (really, these guys are simple and easy... do they need THAT much HP?).  Which is just made worse by rampant HP inflation as the game progresses.  As many guns just don't hit very hard.... this is a problem.   I don't mind the appearance of the occaisional "Elite" monster or miniboss in a game like this.  Even Nuclear Throne does that with things like Golden scorpions/tanks, Buff Gators, stuff like that.  And in THIS game I expect things like Iron Maidens to take more hits than normal enemies.  I just don't expect those NORMAL enemies to already need to be shot as many times as they do.  It's just too much.

But anyway, my main point is that the game doesn't rush you through it. You could spend about 10-15 minutes per floor, but of course the teleports allow you to traverse almost anywhere you want in an instant. Most of that time is spent actually fighting monsters or looking for secret rooms (for me at least). Some of the rooms are big...so what? I takes less than 10 seconds to walk from one side of the biggest room to another. That hardly seems like a slog.

Oh yes, I know the game doesn't rush me.  These games rarely do.  And NORMALLY, I don't mind backtracking (to a point).  But in other games, there's usually better reason to, and more interesting things to find.  Isaac, for instance.   There are a HUGE number of reasons why you might want to backtrack... particularly for a min-maxer such as myself (but even players that don't do that will still find many reasons).   Those reasons generally lead to interesting and useful things each time.   NT is the one that doesn't do this, because that developer decided "screw backtracking I hate it" and the game doesn't have any at all.  So there's no comparison to be made to THAT game.    But either way, for THIS one, I warp, and then walk bloody slowly through an inflated room, to reach another room... that doesn't have anything interesting in it yet leads to more rooms that probably don't have anything interesting in them either.  MOST rooms don't have interesting things in them.  In Isaac, this is not the case.  There are rocks to bomb, traps to navigate for a variety of useful pickups, all sorts of things even in just NORMAL rooms, and then tons of special rooms all over the place, breaking up the flow of "normal" rooms.  We've tried to do this with Starward as well, and this is usually the case also in games that aren't Nuclear Throne.  In this though... they're just not INTERESTING.  I never feel like I'm going somewhere.  I feel like it's just more plodding along, the same plodding along as I was doing a few minutes back, the same plodding along I was doing before.   And character movement is... so slow.... when that's combined with a lack of "hey there's interesting stuff here" it becomes a slog to me.

But honestly, it could also be about the reason you play video games. I play games to relax, but also to be challenged. Sometimes being challenged is relaxing (I know it's kind of counter-intuitive, but human competitive instinct and all that). However, the level of challenge that I desire heavily depends on my mood.

Aye, I play games for a few reasons:  1, I'm bored out of my mind otherwise, and the other big one is 2, it actually gives me something to focus on.  BUT, I do need a challenge to hold my attention.  And there needs to be ENOUGH challenge.  I've mentioned before in other places on the forum that I'm autistic; one side effect of this seems to be my ability to focus on a huge number of things at once.  The other side effect is an INABILITY to focus on only one.  When there's not enough THINGS, I start to lose interest and get both bored and agitated and after a time I'll begin spacing out.   A challenging game will put a great number of things to focus on into the game all at once, keeping my attention on the game.   I know all games have slow moments and all, but if a game has too many, my attention wanders and also splits.

Of course, sometimes I can use the words "complex" or "deep" in place of "challenging".  Something like Isaac grabs me because there's a million things to do, a million ways to go about the game, all sorts of possibilities to think of and ways to min-max my character (and when I'm having really bad RNG, THEN the challenge will also step up a bit).  In something like Dwarf Fortress, or maybe Anno, there's 10 squillionty things going on at once, all this incredible depth and complexity happening, so even when things aren't being difficult, enough stuff is happening to allow that focus (or what passes for focus for me) to occur.

Thus, when this game ISNT doing those things.... yeah.  And while I do think that (Lazy Spray foes aside) enemy patterns are pretty interesting in this game (like you said, those Necro-jerks... they're irritating, but they're INTERESTING) the fact that BASIC enemies are such damage sponges just slows it down too much.  I spend too much time fighting the simple guys, which isn't very interesting.

Lately I've been played a lot of CS:GO. Well that game is about as hardcore as an FPS gets, and it's also known for its extremely prolific hacking community, something that Valve hasn't been able to slow down since the late '90s. You can easily die in one headshot from a variety of guns, even with a protective helmet, and some weapons can kill you in one hit to the body. There's also when you die you have to wait until the next round (at least in competitive), which seems like a mechanic you would hate (because you're not shooting) but I digress.

The reason why games like Counter-Strike and Enter the Gungeon are so popular (EtG is still on the first page of the Steam top seller list and continues to have a 90% approval rating after ten billion reviews) is because developers understand that, at least for the average person, when you're not shooting is just as important as when you are. Those important pauses between combat make the fights themselves that much more exciting. It's the same way that in any worthy Suspense or Horror movie, the majority of the plot is building up to something truly terrifying, not just a bunch of cheap jump scares. Jump scares ad infinitum are what make crappy horror movies.

It's the same way with a good game. Some games allow you to fire 24/7 (any kind of unreal tournament, quake whatever, tribes etc.) but usually those games have a much smaller and more hardcore fanbase (I predict that Doom 4 will be the same way after a few weeks). Those game are also share a similarity in that they generally don't encourage using cover as a game mechanic. Things like having no cover, no reload, and firing your weapon 24/7 is something which hardcore players may enjoy, but I think the average player needs breaks in action to gather their wits and assess their situation. That's why I believe games like Counter-Strike and Enter the Gungeon are more popular than the faster-pace alternatives.

I'm.... not going to go into my opinions of CS:GO.   I see it as a very boring game with ONE map where you do the same thing over and over and over and over and wait 10000 years each time you die.  I'll refrain from going further than that.

My own theories though on why slower-paced games are more popular is different though:  to me, it's because most people are slower than a box of rocks.  I don't mean "slow" as in stupid or unintelligent.  I mean slow/fast as in sheer speed.   Speed of reaction, speed of processing. 

This honestly is one area where I have ALOT of problems with tons of games.  My own speed is very abnormal.   I am *fast*.  Really fast. Both in reaction and processing. Something has to be moving at warp speed for me to consider it fast at all.  It's why I do not, for example, play Street Fighter, despite loving that genre;  the game is just too freaking slow to hold my attention (and frankly, even stuff like Guilty Gear Accent Core could be faster).  May as well be watching a sloth cross a road.  This issue gets at me with tons of different games (even ones I like, such as Isaac, will irritate the heck outta me with this sometimes).  It's one reason why I tend to use a berserker style in competitive games, because eventually my patience snaps, and thus so do I. 

It's why I always rant about what I call "hide-n-snipe" FPS games VS "run-n-gun" games like Doom.  The second one is constantly exciting with fireballs all over the place and explosions and lasers to dodge... the first one involves a lot of me not moving. 


Now, that being said, I understand what you mean about understanding the importance of the stuff you're doing when NOT shooting.  Even the most explosively violent games, like Doom, have non-shoot moments.  In Doom, this means exploration, and searching for secrets, and sometimes running back to grab ammo or health that you spotted earlier but didn't need.  But the issue comes depending on WHAT it is you're doing in those times.  In Gungeon, the "not shooting" comes DURING combat, which is part of the issue.   As opposed to something like Isaac, where you're attacking pretty constantly while enemies around, but then the important stuff, related to building your character, comes during the sections BETWEEN combat.   The combat itself is constant pressure, but there's still plenty of "gotta do things other than clobber stuff" moments.  Only NT really gets away with not needing as much of that (though a lot of players will still roam around levels after clearing them, checking for weapons they might have missed and making decisions on those).  I'd be more fine with it in Gungeon if the non-shooty bits during combat ADDED something to that combat, but... to me, it just doesn't.  I'm JUST waiting during those moments.  I'm not doing or thinking about much of anything.  Just waiting.

And to a degree, I find it important to keep in mind that one way or another, this IS an arena shooter.  It's not an FPS; constant firing is the norm here.  When you go outside of that... you better have one hell of a good reason for doing so.  This game has NO reason for doing so.  And that's where my theory tends to come into play;  the reloading and cover bits aren't REALLY to actually ADD anything to the gameplay; they just work easier with the slow reactions and processing and whatnot that most players have.  I've often had this very same theory when it comes to modern FPS games VS old Doom-style ones.   



Though, I'm well aware that all of that is A: subjective, and B: somewhat related to me just not exactly being normal.  But still, it factors into my own experience with the game and other similar games.  I don't need that additional time, so that extra "not shooting" time is just "blank" to me, if that makes sense.


Anyway, all an interesting debate.

And I do apologize if I've seemed a bit more ragey than usual in this thread (particularly in my few posts previous to this).   I've not exactly been in a good mood lately; though this is one reason why I'm refusing to give up on this game yet, because I recognize that that mood is affecting me somewhat yet will eventually fade.   So for now, I've no intention of dropping this and will keep at it.  That and also I'm still hoping for some balance patches (for the drop rates) at some point, when bug-fixes aren't a priority.   So we'll see what happens!

[Mánagarmr]

I'd been thinking about getting in on this discussion. Then suddenly a whole page of walls of text. Alright then!

[Draco18s]

I'd been thinking about getting in on this discussion. Then suddenly a whole page of walls of text. Alright then!

I'll keep this short then:
I read some of those words.

Chris found this hilarious during TLF's expansion design because I'd keep ranting randomly about the damn Disc, which I made

You mentioned that to me for my expansion, too, when I utilized one of the patterns and wanted to tweak it.

[crazyroosterman]

I'd been thinking about getting in on this discussion. Then suddenly a whole page of walls of text. Alright then!

my sentaments exactly I was thinking of doing something of a first impressions on nuclear throne since I finally decided to play it(and I'm loving it so far!) but I figured that might derail the conversation and its been far to interesting for me try to derail it yet.