0.202 The Hunter's feedback

[The Hunter]

Done a run on Hard, with standard ship, SHMUP controls. "Ended" on floor 2 by going through door and getting spawned and then subsequently stuck in a wall.  (I have screenshot of room, can PM if needed)

Immediately noticed that afterburner is barely usable anymore, not sure whether its intended, even for backtracking waaay too uncontrollable.

Also not a particular fan of how shots move player ship by few pixels.

Enemy hp bars are nice.

Nice to see passives, though maybe increase chance for an active on floor 1? I never got one until floor 2.

Standard ship's weapon still can safely fire around walls without exposing hitbox, is that intended behavior?

Hard seems still to be too easy, even boss(Crystal Mother), never got hit past shield.(If difficulty haven't been implemented still ignore this)

Nice to see some new enemies, i liked ones with big shotgun-ish wall of shots.

I think there needs to be some obvious cursor as far as mouse aiming goes, i've managed to almost lose it once during boss fight.

There needs to be way to prevent getting hit on top of teleporter after teleporting, in a room with obligatory teleporter on that.

Also maybe pickup that spawns after clearing room should be more obvious on where it spawns(especially in big room), maybe special effects?

Sums up feedback for now unless i forgot something(i am good at forgetting alas), will try to do another run(or few runs) later/tomorrow, will try a different ship!

[Pepisolo]

Immediately noticed that afterburner is barely usable anymore, not sure whether its intended, even for backtracking waaay too uncontrollable.

This is interesting. I've been finding the afterburner changes great. It feels more like an afterburner and I'm finding that the sharp acceleration is allowing me to go for gaps during boss fights especially that I wouldn't have been able to under the old system -- the old acceleration was just too slow for that. I've also been using a tapping technique to skip around the floors, it felt pretty good, although this was in .201, but I don't think that there have been any changes since then on that front. I'm using joypad, I wonder if there is a disparity between keyboard and joypad on this. I always go Paladin, too, which I think is a bit slower than most of the other ships, so maybe that's been making a difference as well.

[Misery]

Hard seems still to be too easy, even boss(Crystal Mother), never got hit past shield.(If difficulty haven't been implemented still ignore this)

This isnt likely to change for awhile yet.

Normal enemies are completely unaffected by difficulty change, only bosses.  Crystal Mother specifically is a low-level easy one, that thing will never be all that difficult; it's not meant to eat your face.   That being said, the "hard mode" patterns for the bosses were actually intended to be normal mode patterns; most people were just finding them way too tough though, so that's why they've ended up being set that way.  What you'll probably want is the difficulty levels beyond Hard, which arent ready for use yet (right now, they wont do anything).

[TheVampire100]

May I hihack this thread? I don't want to make another "This are my impressions of version x" thread.
First I want to say, good graphical upgrade, especailly the health bars.
I'm also amazed that after hours of playing I STILL find weapons that I never had before. Amazing work on the varity!

So... I don't like the new control stuff. momentum and all that, it feels waaay to akward and I cannot get why people wanted this to begin with. The feeling of controlling the ship is just so weird now. I'm happy that you kept the old style as extra option because this is MUCH better to handle and way more accurate to control.
The walls... I don't know if I should like them or hate them. I appreciate that the tile style from before has vanished. But what the walls lack is visual depth. They look kind of flat right now and I often confuse them for ground. Not the sidewalls, more so the wall sections that appear in the middle of rooms as cover.
The new shooting patterns on the waiting widows is just NASTY. I mean, really, the old one was evil but dogeable but THIS. This is hell. It just pops up "SURPRISE!" and nails you into the wall. Even worse, they appear often in narrow paths were you cannot dodge the huge bullet made of bullets. I mean, nice idea but I think the attack is a little too big. It's like a cannon or a rocket that comes at you. And then it repeats this over and over and over and it's hard to get a clean shot without getting hit yourself.

I also wondered what I always disliked at the controls and now I finally get it: The mouse control is too accurate. Now don't get me wrong, people may like this, you point the mouse in any direction and it shoots there. The problem is, the mouse cursor itself is tiny compared to everything else ont he scree and when you are busy with dodging, the screen is filled with colorful pellets and more, you gonna have a bad time at finding your cursor. So what I would appreciate is a custom symbol, a crosshair, in thick red colors (or maybe matching to your ship type) so I can always follow it on the screen. Something like a turn rate instead of a directed pointing system (you pont at somethign and shoot directly there) would be also nice but the crosshair alone would suffice.
And, if it's also not asked to much, an option where your ship is always in the center of the view and when you move your ship, the camera moves with you (instead of the current "I follow you as good as I can but don't run so fast please" system).
I really prefer to play games like this with a controller just because of the reasons named above. But I cannot play this with a controller, so I want to improve the feel of controls for players that might have the same problem like me later (when the game is released).

I hope you don't take this too harsh now.

[Misery]

The waiting widow?

I'd like to check the release notes to see if something was changed about that enemy, but the release notes site thing is glitching or something, because all I get is "OMG SO YOU WANNA DOWNLOAD INDEX.PHP? OKAY I DONT NEED AN ANSWER I'LL JUST DO IT FOR YOU" when trying to load it.

Considering that you said "huge bullet made of bullets" though, I think you might be talking about the Arc instead, which uses the same art as the Widows for now.

The Arc is designed for a super-direct assault; as such, simply strafing all over the place when it's around basically shuts the thing down.  And like all enemies, it's not exactly the brightest bulb, and absolutely will happily shove it's own attacks into a wall, instead of firing those shots down a tunnel, you can use this to get it to angle it's shots a bit, and then pop out, fire at it, and dive back behind something.   This enemy though is most easily defeated in the open.  One thing I might do is change up it's actual movement pattern though, so that if encountered in a tunnel, instead of waiting for it to bounce around like a moron for 20 years so the thing eventually does get "out in the open", it'll simply come after you after waking.  That might be a good change and would fit the "direct assault" idea better.  So I think I'll do that.

Other than that, note that each individual attack it uses does not form instantly; it fires a single bullet, which waits a moment before "expanding" into that one huge bolt.

Aside from altering it's AI choice and such, I might alter the shot speed a bit, but other than that, no intended changes for now.

Note though that it's not meant to be an early-game enemy.  Probably the Widows wont appear in the super early game either.  The early floors are meant to be not at all too threatening, but right now, almost none of that is set up.  There's like, what, THREE enemies, I think, that are gated by floor right now?  I think it's three.  All of the others just appear whenever.

So, theoretically, when you encounter things like the Arc in the full game, you'll have gotten a variety of powerups and such by then to even the odds a bit.  But for now... well, the odds are a little funky, heh.

[TheVampire100]

Yeah, it's the Arc, I mistook it because it has the same art and the same movement pattern. Ut doesn't change the fact that it's annoying.

Okay, it sounds reasonable enough as late game enemy but it's currently a pain in the ass when you encounter it in the first room you enter (which happened to me three times in the room, how odd are tha chances fort this?).

[Misery]

Yeah, it's the Arc, I mistook it because it has the same art and the same movement pattern. Ut doesn't change the fact that it's annoying.

Okay, it sounds reasonable enough as late game enemy but it's currently a pain in the ass when you encounter it in the first room you enter (which happened to me three times in the room, how odd are tha chances fort this?).

Hmm, lemme ask this:  Is this enemy appearing really close to you when you enter some rooms, so that it's active immediately?

If it is, THAT is a problem.  That shouldnt be happening.  Like all "jumpscare" enemies (which this is) it's meant to start away from the door, and not activate at all until you get close enough.

I'm going to have a look at it's activation range though.

[crazyroosterman]

May I hihack this thread? I don't want to make another "This are my impressions of version x" thread.
First I want to say, good graphical upgrade, especailly the health bars.
I'm also amazed that after hours of playing I STILL find weapons that I never had before. Amazing work on the varity!

So... I don't like the new control stuff. momentum and all that, it feels waaay to akward and I cannot get why people wanted this to begin with. The feeling of controlling the ship is just so weird now. I'm happy that you kept the old style as extra option because this is MUCH better to handle and way more accurate to control.
The walls... I don't know if I should like them or hate them. I appreciate that the tile style from before has vanished. But what the walls lack is visual depth. They look kind of flat right now and I often confuse them for ground. Not the sidewalls, more so the wall sections that appear in the middle of rooms as cover.


I also wondered what I always disliked at the controls and now I finally get it: The mouse control is too accurate. Now don't get me wrong, people may like this, you point the mouse in any direction and it shoots there. The problem is, the mouse cursor itself is tiny compared to everything else ont he scree and when you are busy with dodging, the screen is filled with colorful pellets and more, you gonna have a bad time at finding your cursor. So what I would appreciate is a custom symbol, a crosshair, in thick red colors (or maybe matching to your ship type) so I can always follow it on the screen. Something like a turn rate instead of a directed pointing system (you pont at somethign and shoot directly there) would be also nice but the crosshair alone would suffice.
And, if it's also not asked to much, an option where your ship is always in the center of the view and when you move your ship, the camera moves with you (instead of the current "I follow you as good as I can but don't run so fast please" system).
I really prefer to play games like this with a controller just because of the reasons named above. But I cannot play this with a controller, so I want to improve the feel of controls for players that might have the same problem like me later (when the game is released).

I hope you don't take this too harsh now.

1 I don't have a problem with depth perception most of the time(only very acasionly) personally.

2 cant agree more having a visible cursor would be fantastic it would stop me from getting lost so very often.