Augmented Alpha feedback

[Logorouge]

I love the smell of burning mechs in the morning, so here's my first batch of feedback/suggestions:

Intro8 (tutorial): While learning about generators, a turret is shooting through obstacles and eventually, at you. It's the most important addition to the tutorial, I don't think the player should be pressured to hurry up for this part.
Tutorial: Add distance between "Luckily for both of us..." and "Unluckily for you..." messages.
Tutorial: Add distance between "To use a door..." and "You're on the topmost..." messages.
D18_TwoFactor room: Noticeable FPS hit

Rooms missing Travelporter™:
Boss_Circuit
XI_Craig_FountainRoom
XI_Craig_Medal
XI_Craig_Cross

Alien Eggs (explosive blocks): Don't disappear after room victory but when shot, the explosion doesn't happen.
END_Bombable2 room: Alien egg explosion doesn't reach healthshard blocks on new tile. -See "Eggs" image for reference.
ForeShields challenge room: Starts you on top of pipe (near upper door), you're stuck for a moment.
Keycard blocks: Looks exactly like bombable blocks. Learned it wasn't by wasting missiles (Warhog). Please give them some key/lock aspect to avoid confusion.
Warhog: Walk/run cycle seems like spinning on ice. To avoid issue, I recommend using default speed/sprintspeed with a "MovementSpeed" modifier of (Multiply) .7 instead.
Double missile module: Awkward. Recommend a missile lifetime greatly reduced or explosion on impact with walls. -See "Double Missiles" image for awkwardness.

New music: Energetic but not aggressively so. Love it.
Vulcan Sentry Cannon: Turret beeping. Make it stop please. I'll hear that sound in my nightmares.
Rocketeers: High pitched sfx a bit much?
Gravity Totem: Sfx too loud (same for other totems?)
Bombardier (drone): Bombs fuse too long. Sfx feel like I'm in a Jig-A-Loo commercial.
Paladin: Phantom Blade projectile sfx too loud.
Penumbra: Shuriken Shot, tone down sfx please (use gentle wind-like fx if available?)

Circuit Rondure (boss): I was expecting additional phases with more spheres chasing you, but then it just died. Is that intended?
Rive (boss): Phase 1-2, firerate too slow.
Meridian (boss): Phase 2 is the same as another boss (Rive I think)?
X1_MinibossLargeQueenWhite (room): Fire Queen miniboss used ice?

Alpha Mech + Alpha Slugger: Match made in heaven. Perfect.
Alpha Mech: Alpha Ray, So strange, can't tell if strong or weak.
Kaiser Komando (energy weapon): Grenade cancel bullets? Charge weapon system (tap or hold, warning light) is excellent. Slightly too cheap energy cost for the power?
All in the wrist: Can still destroy missile blocks?
Workhorse Sentry: Keep firing after Backfire boss was dead.

Just awesome:
Flamethrower turrets
Energy Drainer enemies
Tag Team challenge room
Enemy-themed challenge rooms
Incendiary Grenade: So cool
Zephyr Mech: Nailed it
Paladin Mech: The cool factor is too damn high.
Cataclysm Launcher: Instant good time
Etc...

And that's all of it.
To avoid making Mantis about as useful as Steam's frontstore page, I'll probably stick to my usual forum format for feedback.

[TheVampire100]

Wasn't the tutorial in there before? Or do they have changed the tutorial?

I have some questions before I want to add my own thoughts.
First, do elemental properties now finally influence the damage? To be more specific, if I have a flamethrower 8which naturally does fire damage), would it now inflict more damage to ice carriers for an example? And other ice themed enemies?
Are the last three mech sprites still paceholder for the final art? I would think so because they are just reskins of the white mech, which we had with the initial mechs before release as well.
Is the chakram just a reskin of the boomerang or does it have any significant differences?
Is the arrt for the golden floors final or do you want to add more "bling" to it?

[Logorouge]

Wasn't the tutorial in there before? Or do they have changed the tutorial?

The tutorial received a massive expansion with many additional segments and even new voiced messages (previously unused files perhaps).

Is the chakram just a reskin of the boomerang or does it have any significant differences?

Very different behavior for the Chakram's attack. You can see it with the way it reacts to walls and the return of the shot.

The rest I don't know.

[TheVampire100]

Tested a little more about the chakram. The weapon is way too overpowered. It costs only 10 energy, has a fast attack animation (easy to hit faster enemies), pinpoint accuracy, deals huge damage (tested it on multiple enemies, most die in 1-2 hits) and can hit enemies twice. Also, bounces on walls. I think you should increase the energy cost to 25, so players have to put more thought into it, when to use. I could simply spam it in rooms and wipe them.

Gas pistol. Sounds nice, damages nice, accuracy nice, animation nice, after effect not so nice. The toxic cloud is way too big and covers way too much of the screen. It's hard to see any shots, both yours and the enemie's. Add more transparacy to the gas cloud.

New harrier bosses are really painful to battle in close range because the spread attack in the first phase is very hard to dodge. There is so little room between poison/ice/fire trails when they start to fire out at high speed. At longer range it is no problem but at close range it's a pain, so it depends on your style of weapon, how effective you are against them.

Double Bounce Laser is a really cool weapon. the sound is not. It get's annoying really fast because he plays it after every shot.

Penmumbras Shuriken can clip through walls if you stand directly in front of it, so you can effectivly shoot through walls. Don't know if this is intended since its a ninja themed mech. Haven't heard however of ninjas that can shoot through walls. When I mean walls, I mean the small block walls that should block your movement and shots normally.

Edit: I almost forgot the most important aspect. i walked into a health storage and it was filled with a double flame thrower turret. Whoever thought this up, screw you. when I use a keycard, I want a reward for it, not  a trap. You can put something liek this in Misery difficulty but not in normal.

[Pepisolo]

Intro8 (tutorial): While learning about generators, a turret is shooting through obstacles and eventually, at you. It's the most important addition to the tutorial, I don't think the player should be pressured to hurry up for this part.
Tutorial: Add distance between "Luckily for both of us..." and "Unluckily for you..." messages.
Tutorial: Add distance between "To use a door..." and "You're on the topmost..." messages.

Tweaked these, thanks. I just removed the turret from the last room.

D18_TwoFactor room: Noticeable FPS hit

That's the sludge turrets. I've tried to not tweak those too much because Cinth created them and I didn't want to mess with his design, but the performance hit is a bit too great, so I've tweaked the fire rate a bit and I think the same general design is still there. They should be about 40% better on performance now. If this isn't enough I'll have to look into other tweaks.

Rooms missing Travelporter™:
Boss_Circuit
XI_Craig_FountainRoom
XI_Craig_Medal
XI_Craig_Cross

Added some to those rooms, thanks.

Alien Eggs (explosive blocks): Don't disappear after room victory but when shot, the explosion doesn't happen.

That's weird, is that new behaviour? Those haven't been touched so I'm not sure what's going on there.

END_Bombable2 room: Alien egg explosion doesn't reach healthshard blocks on new tile. -See "Eggs" image for reference.

Good spot! This seems to be the result of adding more wall_collision_reduction to all shots. I've added a new shot for the eggs with the old reduction value.

ForeShields challenge room: Starts you on top of pipe (near upper door), you're stuck for a moment.

I'm going to hold off on this fix until I've asked Keith what controls where the player spawns in certain rooms. If it's possible to alter the spawning location, then there are a couple of rooms which I need to do that. The DeathWheel boss for one, and it's going to be way easier to move the spawn point on that rather than go through adjusting the patterns.

Keycard blocks: Looks exactly like bombable blocks. Learned it wasn't by wasting missiles (Warhog). Please give them some key/lock aspect to avoid confusion.

I'll add a super rough way to tell them apart, thanks. (does thing) Sorted, now.

Warhog: Walk/run cycle seems like spinning on ice. To avoid issue, I recommend using default speed/sprintspeed with a "MovementSpeed" modifier of (Multiply) .7 instead.

Done, thanks!

Double missile module: Awkward. Recommend a missile lifetime greatly reduced or explosion on impact with walls. -See "Double Missiles" image for awkwardness.

The missiles sticking in walls behaviour? I think this actually works ok, but I need to rebrand the module as sticky missiles module or something. This was after testing a while back, though. Keep me posted on if the module grows on you or not.

Vulcan Sentry Cannon: Turret beeping. Make it stop please. I'll hear that sound in my nightmares.

I suspect that this is due to the turrets not being removed when you leave a room, so the noise hangs around for ages. The sound itself should be useful in battles as it informs you when your turret is still up. I'll make it so that the turrets disappear when a room is left. If that's not enough I may need to tone the sound down. (I also made the totems disappear on room leave)

Rocketeers: High pitched sfx a bit much?

Not sure. It's meant to be a screamy thing as they're launching themselves at you. I'll leave it for the moment until we get more feedback or if you start feeling a bit stronger about it.

Gravity Totem: Sfx too loud (same for other totems?)

The totems will be getting a big overhaul, so they should change a fair bit at some point.

Bombardier (drone): Bombs fuse too long. Sfx feel like I'm in a Jig-A-Loo commercial.

I've toned the SFX down for the moment. It might get replaced or removed in the future, though. Goldenwolf created this familiar so I'll ask him about the fuse. I'm not how sure he even did that, heh.

Paladin: Phantom Blade projectile sfx too loud.

Reduced the volume of that a fair bit, thanks.

Penumbra: Shuriken Shot, tone down sfx please (use gentle wind-like fx if available?)

Swapped the SFX out for a much more toned down one. I maybe toned it down a little too much, though. I may revisit this one.

That'll have to do for the time being. I'll get to the other stuff tomorrow. I'll just answer Vampire's questions, first, though.

Wasn't the tutorial in there before? Or do they have changed the tutorial?

Yeah, the tutorial has been updated a bit.

First, do elemental properties now finally influence the damage? To be more specific, if I have a flamethrower 8which naturally does fire damage), would it now inflict more damage to ice carriers for an example? And other ice themed enemies?

Actually, no. I didn't want to complicate things too much when adding the elemental stuff, I wanted it pretty basic. However, ice versus fire are such strongly opposed properties it might be good to do that for those.

Are the last three mech sprites still paceholder for the final art? I would think so because they are just reskins of the white mech, which we had with the initial mechs before release as well.

Yeah, placeholder art for the moment.

Is the chakram just a reskin of the boomerang or does it have any significant differences?

Quite different as Logo says, yeah.

Is the arrt for the golden floors final or do you want to add more "bling" to it?

The only art that isn't final for the floors is the new tile art. The new tile art is going to be created at some point.

I'll respond to the more bug related stuff tomorrow.


Thanks guys!

[Logorouge]

Alien Eggs (explosive blocks): Don't disappear after room victory but when shot, the explosion doesn't happen.

That's weird, is that new behaviour? Those haven't been touched so I'm not sure what's going on there.

Before, the eggs were removed on victory, leading to some in-the-way bombables blocks being left without on-site explosives. Now, they stay after victory but their explosions are negated I think.

Double missile module: Awkward. Recommend a missile lifetime greatly reduced or explosion on impact with walls. -See "Double Missiles" image for awkwardness.

The missiles sticking in walls behaviour? I think this actually works ok, but I need to rebrand the module as sticky missiles module or something. This was after testing a while back, though. Keep me posted on if the module grows on you or not.

The behavior itself is ok and fits quite well for sticky missiles, but the missiles just hang around for so long after the fact that it kinda feels weird.

Goldenwolf created this familiar so I'll ask him about the fuse. I'm not how sure he even did that, heh.

I don't know, but it made this "old" Bomberman player really happy. :)

[Pepisolo]

X1_MinibossLargeQueenWhite (room): Fire Queen miniboss used ice?

Not sure on this. The display names were wrong so maybe that caused the confusion. Corrected now.

Alpha Mech: Alpha Ray, So strange, can't tell if strong or weak.

We wanted the weapon a bit weird because of the protoype angle. It's probably not weak, although it might seem like it. The weapon is piercing so I probably did set the raw damage a bit lower than other starting weps, though.  (checks) It actually has a solid DPS of 70 for a starting weapon. 60 is the base DPS usually. So 70 with piercing should be fairly strong for a starting weapon. Although for some starting weps like the flamer we just throw that baseline out the window, heh.

Kaiser Komando (energy weapon): Grenade cancel bullets? Charge weapon system (tap or hold, warning light) is excellent. Slightly too cheap energy cost for the power?

Good spot, I was almost tempted to leave the bullet canceling effect since it's not as bad as having it on a main weapon, but you could probably still stack a bunch of energy and become almost invincible, so I removed it. Also increased the energy cost of the Kaiser a bit.

All in the wrist: Can still destroy missile blocks?

I can barely remember, but I believe that I removed the Heavyweight perk and moved AITW to a later perk slot, but kept the missile block destruction, yeah.

Workhorse Sentry: Keep firing after Backfire boss was dead.

Fixed that now, just set it to OnlyInRange rather than AllTheTime firing timing.

Just awesome: ...

Nice to hear you like all that stuff!

To avoid making Mantis about as useful as Steam's frontstore page, I'll probably stick to my usual forum format for feedback.

Works for me!

Tested a little more about the chakram. The weapon is way too overpowered. It costs only 10 energy, has a fast attack animation (easy to hit faster enemies), pinpoint accuracy, deals huge damage (tested it on multiple enemies, most die in 1-2 hits) and can hit enemies twice. Also, bounces on walls. I think you should increase the energy cost to 25, so players have to put more thought into it, when to use. I could simply spam it in rooms and wipe them.

I'm going to take it a bit slow with some of the tweaks (energy weapons especially), so I've upped the cost to 15 energy for now. Still a pretty big nerf.

Gas pistol. Sounds nice, damages nice, accuracy nice, animation nice, after effect not so nice. The toxic cloud is way too big and covers way too much of the screen. It's hard to see any shots, both yours and the enemie's. Add more transparacy to the gas cloud.

For the next build the spread and duration of the gas has been reduced a bit. Thanks!

New harrier bosses are really painful to battle in close range because the spread attack in the first phase is very hard to dodge. There is so little room between poison/ice/fire trails when they start to fire out at high speed. At longer range it is no problem but at close range it's a pain, so it depends on your style of weapon, how effective you are against them.

The on transform attack you mean? If you're standing at close range you'll probably get caught, yeah. I think at mid range you have a fair chance to be able dodge it, though. I'll keep an eye on this one, and if necessary I can perhaps slow down the attack or create more space. I think I'll wait on a bit more feedback first, though.

Double Bounce Laser is a really cool weapon. the sound is not. It get's annoying really fast because he plays it after every shot.

I've reduced the volume a bit for now, plus a couple of tweaks to the sound. Additionally, the sound didn't have variants, so I've added a couple. If that doesn't do the trick I'll have to try and get a new SFX for that at some point maybe.

Penmumbras Shuriken can clip through walls if you stand directly in front of it, so you can effectivly shoot through walls. Don't know if this is intended since its a ninja themed mech. Haven't heard however of ninjas that can shoot through walls. When I mean walls, I mean the small block walls that should block your movement and shots normally.

Can you physically shoot through the walls? I tried to recreate it but I didn't seem to be able to shoot through walls. I'll keep an eye out for this, though. If the shots only clip into the walls a bit, that should be fine.

Edit: I almost forgot the most important aspect. i walked into a health storage and it was filled with a double flame thrower turret. Whoever thought this up, screw you. when I use a keycard, I want a reward for it, not  a trap. You can put something liek this in Misery difficulty but not in normal.

That's weird, I don't recall that room! (checks) Oops! That seems like one of my test rooms that was meant to be taken out, heh. Sorry about that! Hopefully that won't be in the next build, unless it manages to sneak its way in somehow....doh!

Oh, one more thing. I reduced the timer on the Bombardier bomb to 3 seconds (Goldenwolf showed me how the fuse works!).

[TheVampire100]

Ion shot module is very strong with fast firing weapons. I tested it with the primary weapon of the Alpha mech and you caan almost immobilize enemies. I think this would be an issue with other fast weapons (flame tank mech) as well.

[Logorouge]

That's weird, I don't recall that room! (checks) Oops! That seems like one of my test rooms that was meant to be taken out, heh. Sorry about that! Hopefully that won't be in the next build, unless it manages to sneak its way in somehow....doh!

That reminds me, I found another test room left in the normal room generation. Just a row of turrets and a wall of indestructible blocks. Luckily the boss was in a different path so I didn't have to restart. CNT_TurretTest (screenshot attached)

[Pepisolo]

Ion shot module is very strong with fast firing weapons. I tested it with the primary weapon of the Alpha mech and you caan almost immobilize enemies. I think this would be an issue with other fast weapons (flame tank mech) as well.

Yeah, a bit tricky to balance time dilation stuff. Let's just keep progressively nerfing those type of things until they feel right. I've put a bit of a nerf in for the Ion Shot Module.

That reminds me, I found another test room left in the normal room generation. Just a row of turrets and a wall of indestructible blocks. Luckily the boss was in a different path so I didn't have to restart. CNT_TurretTest (screenshot attached)

Doh! I'll make sure to get rid of that for the next build. Cheers! (I moved the room to TestOnlySquare)

[Logorouge]

Circuit Rondure (boss): I was expecting additional phases with more spheres chasing you, but then it just died. Is that intended?

I'd like to come back to this. Turns out the problem with this boss is that the big sphere's attacks don't trigger on Normal difficulty or below, causing the encounter to be rather underwhelming. On Hard mode or above, everything worked as expected and it was loads of fun to fight.

[TheVampire100]

Side Step abmoogs are a pest, once they cling to you, they are really annoying. And deadly.

Also you missed the opportunity to name the clusters "comets" or "meteorites".

There was oen enemy, I don't remember his name, who seems a little useless to me. It was a really big sphere but the attack pattern is underwhelming and easy to dodge.

Also, Zephyr + Overcritical + Sniperprotocol + 10s speed bonus on each floor is awesome.

[Draco18s]

There was oen enemy, I don't remember his name, who seems a little useless to me. It was a really big sphere but the attack pattern is underwhelming and easy to dodge.

I think you're thinking of Red Orb (or similar). It's "goal" is to aoe-lockdown a zone and prevent you from going there while dealing with other threats.

[Misery]

Circuit Rondure (boss): I was expecting additional phases with more spheres chasing you, but then it just died. Is that intended?

I'd like to come back to this. Turns out the problem with this boss is that the big sphere's attacks don't trigger on Normal difficulty or below, causing the encounter to be rather underwhelming. On Hard mode or above, everything worked as expected and it was loads of fun to fight.

I knew there was going to be at least SOMETHING of mine pulling this kind of thing.  Ugh.

I cant fix it right now, I'm stuck with my laptop until after the weekend (game doesn't work right on that).  If anyone else wants to do a quick fix for that boss to set the pattern for normal, it should be a nice and easy fix.

I'll look into other enemy/boss related feedback when I actually get the chance to.

I seriously cant figure out why this game doesn't work on that blasted laptop though. 

[Pepisolo]

Side Step abmoogs are a pest, once they cling to you, they are really annoying. And deadly.

Yeah, I might need to tone those down a little. Are these guys TOO much of a pest, though? There are some enemies in games which can be a pest, but in a respectable way. Red Arremer from Ghouls and Ghosts, for example. That enemy can be annoying, but it's kind of annoying in a charming way -- just about! That's why I'm a bit cautious about changing annoying enemies, because I want to figure out whether the enemy is annoying in the correct way or not. I believe that I did actually make a change to those after the build went out, though, which should make them a bit less aggressive. I'll keep a close eye on them.

Also you missed the opportunity to name the clusters "comets" or "meteorites".

The names are still quite working title-y, so we could go with comet or meteorites. Comet Cluster, for the alliteration, perhaps?

There was oen enemy, I don't remember his name, who seems a little useless to me. It was a really big sphere but the attack pattern is underwhelming and easy to dodge.

I'm not actually sure which enemy that is -- it sounds like the Eyelet, perhaps.

I think you're thinking of Red Orb (or similar). It's "goal" is to aoe-lockdown a zone and prevent you from going there while dealing with other threats.

That sounds a bit like the Red Dwarf enemy, but that has been taken out of the game since I couldn't find a way to stop it from getting stuck in walls. I might be thinking of a different one, though.

I cant fix it right now, I'm stuck with my laptop until after the weekend (game doesn't work right on that).  If anyone else wants to do a quick fix for that boss to set the pattern for normal, it should be a nice and easy fix.

I'll put a fix in for that then.