Augmented Alpha feedback

[Misery]

For me it is. I would take Phantom Frame over anything, the ability to move through missile blocks and other stuff is way too good

I hadn't spoken up on this yet, but I'll put it this way:  something like this is the sort of thing that I have, in the past, locked up in the game's secret rooms.  Like that constant blade thing that made a win of any run it was in.

It reminds me of the Ring of Phasing from Crypt of the Necrodancer:  An item that was so absurdly overpowered, that even those devs realized it had no conceivable fix, and the game's expansion outright REMOVED it.  An item like this isn't just good at getting you more items.... it's good at EVERYTHING.  I guarantee you, players will also be using this one to cheese things to death in combat, too.  I can think of multiple ways to do that.

Honestly, this one is too much.  We already had an item that allowed the player to simply crash through shootable walls, but that one made more sense: Those were walls that your peashooter could pop anyway, and it destroyed them along the way.   Being able to go through anything else is so much harder to justify.

[Logorouge]

I hadn't spoken up on this yet, but I'll put it this way:  something like this is the sort of thing that I have, in the past, locked up in the game's secret rooms.  Like that constant blade thing that made a win of any run it was in.

So the question is, would limiting Phantom Frame to secret rooms or only floor 4+ loot be enough? The secret rooms can always benefit from some extra loot variety.

Edit: But I have to admit I already started cheesing fights with it, so I think you have a point there.

[Draco18s]

Would there be the ability to make it only function after a room clear?
Would that be a big enough nerf?

[Pepisolo]

I hadn't spoken up on this yet, but I'll put it this way:  something like this is the sort of thing that I have, in the past, locked up in the game's secret rooms.  Like that constant blade thing that made a win of any run it was in.

It reminds me of the Ring of Phasing from Crypt of the Necrodancer:  An item that was so absurdly overpowered, that even those devs realized it had no conceivable fix, and the game's expansion outright REMOVED it.  An item like this isn't just good at getting you more items.... it's good at EVERYTHING.  I guarantee you, players will also be using this one to cheese things to death in combat, too.  I can think of multiple ways to do that.

I don't think it's nearly as bad as the Blade Module, but it's likely you'd probably agree with me on that since the Blade Module is pretty ridiculous with its shot destruction.  The cheese factor is something I've taken into account, it's actually supposed to allow some situations of cheesiness like that. Some controlled cheese can be fun...that's a bit of a weird sentence, heh. Granted, it's a bit of a dangerous game allowing any form of cheesiness, though. The one major negative of the Phantom Frame is that it doesn't really directly give much of a boost on most bosses at all, since most boss rooms have very little cover. It is supposed to allow you to hide in shootables during regular rooms, and it is even supposed to allow you to hide behind bombables on occasion. On bosses, I believe that the only really cheesable one is Invader, for the rest you'd be pretty much better off with any other module.

Honestly, this one is too much.  We already had an item that allowed the player to simply crash through shootable walls, but that one made more sense: Those were walls that your peashooter could pop anyway, and it destroyed them along the way.   Being able to go through anything else is so much harder to justify.

I don't mind moving the item to a Sacrifice Room or even a Secret Room if that's necessary. I did test the item a lot a while back (I was actually thinking of making a Phantom Mech at one point) and the cheesiness seemed to be controlled enough to be allowable (and enjoyable to me) given that it's probably the worst module you can take for fighting bosses (except Invader). So, yeah. Not sure. Sounds like a move to either the Sacrifice Room or the Secret Room is probably likely, though.

Would there be the ability to make it only function after a room clear?
Would that be a big enough nerf?

Not sure, possibly, although the ability to move freely through certain obstacles and even allow certain amounts of cheesiness is part of the charm of the item for me. " Think you've got me cornered, Charger... think again...phases through some shootables...see ya!"

[Logorouge]

Just a general question, how is the expansion looking in terms of content at the moment? Here is the current list as a reminder:

* A New Golden Floor (a new level design added for this expansion)
* 100+ New Rooms
* 3 New Mechs, The Zephyr, The Paladin, and the Warhog
* 80+ New Items
* 30+ New Unique Enemies
* 6 New Minibosses
* 8 New Bosses
* 10+ Challenge Rooms (a new style of room)
* 8 New Tile Types
* 4 New Tracks composed by Pablo Vega, and The Overthinkers

From a player's perspective, the number of new rooms could really use a boost (I'll try to help with that) and if the number of new bosses was something like 10-12 it would be a major boon. (I know, easier said than done.) The 30+ new enemies sounds amazing but I think you're underselling the new golden floors. It's not a mere single floor you'll find at the end of a road, it's 7 new golden variants of the floors you can discover with their own enemies, bosses and treasures. It's awesome! Also, with the 8 new Tile types, the description make it sounds like they're just tileset additions, but they bring both beneficial and dangerous effects with them. I think it's important to mention it. And I just remembered you said no description feedback for now... Did that include the expansion store description? Oups. :P


Missile boosts affecting missile modules:
That's a slippery slope that brings many questions. If they do affect them, does the Explodifier sac item affect them too? Do the modules get the full bonus? Will missile-based secondaries (mostly Torpedo Cannon) be affected too? Etc.

Opinion time: It smells like a can of worm and I think you should limit the effect to weapons in the launcher slot to preserve your own sanity in the future. Grabbing a few missile-based perks in a run can quickly turn you into a boss killer that can blast through all patterns and shields, so I'm not sure they really need the buff even if specializing in them could be viewed as a bit of a niche.

And finally, I... forgot what I was gonna say. I should probably sleep, so good night everyone.

[Draco18s]

s/Tile Types/Room hazards
s/Golden Floor/Golden floor theme with unique treasures

[Misery]

From a player's perspective, the number of new rooms could really use a boost (I'll try to help with that) and if the number of new bosses was something like 10-12 it would be a major boon. (I know, easier said than done.) The 30+ new enemies sounds amazing but I think you're underselling the new golden floors. It's not a mere single floor you'll find at the end of a road, it's 7 new golden variants of the floors you can discover with their own enemies, bosses and treasures. It's awesome! Also, with the 8 new Tile types, the description make it sounds like they're just tileset additions, but they bring both beneficial and dangerous effects with them. I think it's important to mention it. And I just remembered you said no description feedback for now... Did that include the expansion store description? Oups.


Missile boosts affecting missile modules:
That's a slippery slope that brings many questions. If they do affect them, does the Explodifier sac item affect them too? Do the modules get the full bonus? Will missile-based secondaries (mostly Torpedo Cannon) be affected too? Etc.

Opinion time: It smells like a can of worm and I think you should limit the effect to weapons in the launcher slot to preserve your own sanity in the future. Grabbing a few missile-based perks in a run can quickly turn you into a boss killer that can blast through all patterns and shields, so I'm not sure they really need the buff even if specializing in them could be viewed as a bit of a niche.

And finally, I... forgot what I was gonna say. I should probably sleep, so good night everyone.

I can add a few more bosses to it, why not.

I've had some random inspiration for some today anyway... may as well make something out of it.

Gonna finish adding a few more enemies to categories that didn't get any attention first though.

On a side note, anyone want to try their hand at making a sniper-type enemy?  Would like to get another one in there but I blanked out for ideas.  I've found it to be kinda a hard category to design for.

[Misery]

I hadn't spoken up on this yet, but I'll put it this way:  something like this is the sort of thing that I have, in the past, locked up in the game's secret rooms.  Like that constant blade thing that made a win of any run it was in.

It reminds me of the Ring of Phasing from Crypt of the Necrodancer:  An item that was so absurdly overpowered, that even those devs realized it had no conceivable fix, and the game's expansion outright REMOVED it.  An item like this isn't just good at getting you more items.... it's good at EVERYTHING.  I guarantee you, players will also be using this one to cheese things to death in combat, too.  I can think of multiple ways to do that.

I don't think it's nearly as bad as the Blade Module, but it's likely you'd probably agree with me on that since the Blade Module is pretty ridiculous with its shot destruction.  The cheese factor is something I've taken into account, it's actually supposed to allow some situations of cheesiness like that. Some controlled cheese can be fun...that's a bit of a weird sentence, heh. Granted, it's a bit of a dangerous game allowing any form of cheesiness, though. The one major negative of the Phantom Frame is that it doesn't really directly give much of a boost on most bosses at all, since most boss rooms have very little cover. It is supposed to allow you to hide in shootables during regular rooms, and it is even supposed to allow you to hide behind bombables on occasion. On bosses, I believe that the only really cheesable one is Invader, for the rest you'd be pretty much better off with any other module.

Honestly, this one is too much.  We already had an item that allowed the player to simply crash through shootable walls, but that one made more sense: Those were walls that your peashooter could pop anyway, and it destroyed them along the way.   Being able to go through anything else is so much harder to justify.

I don't mind moving the item to a Sacrifice Room or even a Secret Room if that's necessary. I did test the item a lot a while back (I was actually thinking of making a Phantom Mech at one point) and the cheesiness seemed to be controlled enough to be allowable (and enjoyable to me) given that it's probably the worst module you can take for fighting bosses (except Invader). So, yeah. Not sure. Sounds like a move to either the Sacrifice Room or the Secret Room is probably likely, though.

Would there be the ability to make it only function after a room clear?
Would that be a big enough nerf?

Not sure, possibly, although the ability to move freely through certain obstacles and even allow certain amounts of cheesiness is part of the charm of the item for me. " Think you've got me cornered, Charger... think again...phases through some shootables...see ya!"

Yeah, I remember the blade module, that was one of the ones I complained about a lot and then stuck in the secret room.  I'd say moving this one into there as well is a good idea. 

[Misery]

Okay so I did a complete run just now, playing as White Gloss.

Firstly, I actually had Terminus bug out all over the place.  Something knocked it forward one phase while it's shield was fully up.   There were still two minions out.   I had these main items at the time:

Electro blaster

relentless crossbow

shockwave launcher

As well as some sort of funky bot that shoves things around.   I also need to make it's spawn bullets indestructible, I forget how to do that.  I could have sworn I already did it though. 

Basic enemies could honestly do with more HP in the late game (at least on the golden floors).  My base damage wasn't THAT bloody high.... Terminus took quite a bunch of hits to bring down, so I wasn't in rampage mode... but still, many things later on die pretty fast.  I have a few enemy tweaks to make

The crossbow might be a bit much.  The bolts stay out too long.  Otherwise it's a fun one.  Electro blaster is awesome, toxic gas gun is also awesome.  The enemy that slashes at you, that needs a change.  I honestly have no idea how to deal with it.  But not just that, I find it really hard to even see it.  I often don't realize it's there until I've been hit by it.

Anyone have any opinions on the game's overall difficulty as of the current build?  I'm not the best one to judge it here.

[Pepisolo]

From a player's perspective, the number of new rooms could really use a boost (I'll try to help with that) and if the number of new bosses was something like 10-12 it would be a major boon. (I know, easier said than done.) The 30+ new enemies sounds amazing but I think you're underselling the new golden floors. It's not a mere single floor you'll find at the end of a road, it's 7 new golden variants of the floors you can discover with their own enemies, bosses and treasures. It's awesome! Also, with the 8 new Tile types, the description make it sounds like they're just tileset additions, but they bring both beneficial and dangerous effects with them. I think it's important to mention it. And I just remembered you said no description feedback for now... Did that include the expansion store description? Oups.

Maybe we can push to 10 bosses, and by we I mainly just mean Misery, heh, but I'd rather keep that a low priority thing. If we get more bosses then great, if not, then there's still a good amount there. The main priorities for Misery currently should probably be room design, enemies, and continued polish work, of course. Thanks for offering to help out on the room front, much appreciated. Yeah, it kind of is 7 new floors, but also it's kind of not because of the overlap, so I'm not sure, but we could big that up a bit more. Yeah, we've definitely undersold the tiles there, though. We could add more information to that. It's just the item descriptions that need to be looked at. Any help we can get on store descriptions and stuff is great.

Missile boosts affecting missile modules:
That's a slippery slope that brings many questions. If they do affect them, does the Explodifier sac item affect them too? Do the modules get the full bonus? Will missile-based secondaries (mostly Torpedo Cannon) be affected too? Etc.

Opinion time: It smells like a can of worm and I think you should limit the effect to weapons in the launcher slot to preserve your own sanity in the future. Grabbing a few missile-based perks in a run can quickly turn you into a boss killer that can blast through all patterns and shields, so I'm not sure they really need the buff even if specializing in them could be viewed as a bit of a niche.

Yeah, that's probably a can of worms that it'd be unwise to open at this stage.

s/Tile Types/Room hazards
s/Golden Floor/Golden floor theme with unique treasures

Something like that, yeah.

Yeah, I remember the blade module, that was one of the ones I complained about a lot and then stuck in the secret room.  I'd say moving this one into there as well is a good idea. 

I'm not really seeing the level of OP-ness that the item needs to be locked away in the Secret Room myself. But if there is a consensus that that needs to be done, that's fine. I'll wait on a bit more feedback before making the changes at the moment, though. It might only go to the Sacrifice Room, I'm not sure.

I can add a few more bosses to it, why not.

The crossbow might be a bit much.  The bolts stay out too long.  Otherwise it's a fun one.  Electro blaster is awesome, toxic gas gun is also awesome.  The enemy that slashes at you, that needs a change.  I honestly have no idea how to deal with it.  But not just that, I find it really hard to even see it.  I often don't realize it's there until I've been hit by it.

The crossbow has recently had a nerf, I think, so I'm reluctant to make another nerf so soon, but reducing how long the bolts stay out is easy enough if necessary. Any more thoughts on the Shinobi enemy, everyone? That's another thing that has only recently just had some significant nerfs put in. It might just be the late game variants that are too much as the early game ones I haven't really been struggling with. Bear in mind that I like to try and preserve the good kind of annoying in enemies, which is why I'm cautious with nerfs.

I've had some random inspiration for some today anyway... may as well make something out of it.

Yeah, but don't push too hard on the boss front, we already have 9, if you want to do one more then great. Of course, if you want to do a bunch more I'm not going to stop you, of course, but I think your priorities should more be on room design, maybe one last small batch of enemies, and then polish work.

On a side note, anyone want to try their hand at making a sniper-type enemy?  Would like to get another one in there but I blanked out for ideas.  I've found it to be kinda a hard category to design for.

Goldenwolf might take a crack at that, if not I can probably think of one or two.

Firstly, I actually had Terminus bug out all over the place.  Something knocked it forward one phase while it's shield was fully up.   There were still two minions out.   I had these main items at the time:

Electro blaster

relentless crossbow

shockwave launcher

As well as some sort of funky bot that shoves things around.   I also need to make it's spawn bullets indestructible, I forget how to do that.  I could have sworn I already did it though. 

I'll probably try taking on Terminus with that setup to see if I can spot the bug. Sounds like a bit of a strange one, though.

[Logorouge]

Any more thoughts on the Shinobi enemy, everyone?

Funnily enough, I had a note about them in my next feedback batch:
"Side-stepping Shinobi enemy: Now that they are less crazy, I love them. It's a fun enemy that I kinda want as a familiar now."
I'll keep an eye out for them in term of dodgeability (is that a real word?) and visibility. I only noticed they weren't death magnets anymore and their funny movement pattern.

Phantom Frame: I think it would be fine as a floor 4+ item. It's not as OP as the likes of the Blade Module or the Time Machine after all. But it's a bit too cheesy for the first few floors in my opinion.

[Draco18s]

On a side note, anyone want to try their hand at making a sniper-type enemy?  Would like to get another one in there but I blanked out for ideas.  I've found it to be kinda a hard category to design for.

You know that over-the-wall grenade launcher we have?
Take that effect and merge it with the mortar turret we added to Last Federation.
If the grenade (gets bigger, then smaller again) bullet itself could be made to not hurt/connect with the player/shrubbery that'd be extra good.

[Pepisolo]

Funnily enough, I had a note about them in my next feedback batch:
"Side-stepping Shinobi enemy: Now that they are less crazy, I love them. It's a fun enemy that I kinda want as a familiar now."
I'll keep an eye out for them in term of dodgeability (is that a real word?) and visibility. I only noticed they weren't death magnets anymore and their funny movement pattern.

Cool, good to know that last nerf seemed to work.

You know that over-the-wall grenade launcher we have?
Take that effect and merge it with the mortar turret we added to Last Federation.
If the grenade (gets bigger, then smaller again) bullet itself could be made to not hurt/connect with the player/shrubbery that'd be extra good.

Could work, aye, although I'm not familiar with the mortar from TLF.

Oh, one more note on Bosses, we're running desperately low on new unique boss art. I think we have one more that is currently unused. All the rest are just hue changes of other bosses. So far, most of the bosses have unique boss art aside from perhaps a couple. I don't think we want to start making a habit of adding many more hue changed ones, especially for an expansion, as that looks a bit cheap. For future extra bosses maybe. I'd say 1 more extra boss for the expansion at the most.

[Logorouge]

Funnily enough, I had a note about them in my next feedback batch:
"Side-stepping Shinobi enemy: Now that they are less crazy, I love them. It's a fun enemy that I kinda want as a familiar now."
I'll keep an eye out for them in term of dodgeability (is that a real word?) and visibility. I only noticed they weren't death magnets anymore and their funny movement pattern.

Cool, good to know that last nerf seemed to work.

Yeah, about that...
While testing my room of the day, I noticed the Black Shinobi's forward lunge sometimes goes hyper and makes him leap about 4-5 tiles (maybe more) in one go. It's a bit excessive and very hard to dodge, not to mention it got him stuck in a wall at one point.

[Pepisolo]

Yeah, about that...
While testing my room of the day, I noticed the Black Shinobi's forward lunge sometimes goes hyper and makes him leap about 4-5 tiles (maybe more) in one go. It's a bit excessive and very hard to dodge, not to mention it got him stuck in a wall at one point.

Cool, I thought the later variants might still be a little over the top. I've reduced the craziness of the lunge a bit now. Thanks!