Augmented Alpha feedback

[TheVampire100]

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.

Yeah, no, thsis is just a pest. For example, bullrushs. Once they hit you, you get knocked back hard and even get a movement speed debuff. But you can walk this off eventually and it's just the initial "WTF?!" moment, that comes across you. Side steps however cling to you nd deal damage all the time, because they are also so close to you, they are very easy to miss with your weapon. And they are small, that acts to that fact. They are just pushovers and I died because of them, either directly or because they brought me down enough for others enemies to finish the job. If they would be easier to hit, once they latch onto you, it wouldn't be much of a problem but that is exactly the problem.
It's worse, if you have a slow firing wepaon like the rail gun but easier with, let's say the flamethrower.

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

Comet Cluster sounds perfect, rolls perfectly off the tongue.

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

Yes, I think that was the one. It definitely wasn't Red Dwarf. It was a big immobile sphere that shoots out slow traveling bullets in every direction from itself.


Additional observations so far. Warhog missile launcher. Sounds awesome on paper, you get huge damage if you have a huge missile storage (great for bosses) but besides that, you literally cannot farm health shards with it. At all. Once you fire a msisile, you fire them all, you deplet your missiles all the time and it gets hard to get new ones for health shards. Plus, you cannot fully utilize the true power of the launcher. I like the concept though, so I would miss it. Can we make it, that you can charge the launcher and th elonger you charge, the more missiles you fire at once?

While we're at missiles, the missile shot modules behave kind of weird. I get that they don't break obstacle blocks but why do they bounce of walls (any of them)? Shouldn't missiles explode on contact. This kind of behaviour leads to soem very irritating results, the missiles strike the wall and... slide kind of across it until they loose momentum and stay still until they explode (which takes a lot of time in itself). Really weird to look at, it's just a visual thing but still...

I'm still not sure, what the Alpha Mech exactly does. This "prototype" thing does not explain anything except he has unique weapons. Does he get more xp/levels up faster? Does he get special upgrades once he reaches a certain stage? Is his growth in power bigger than other mechs (gets better upgraes earlier)?

Paladin mechs description says you can use his potion multiple times but you can in fact use it once. Maybe an oversight int he text, which isn't final as you mentioned.

[Logorouge]

I'm still not sure, what the Alpha Mech exactly does. This "prototype" thing does not explain anything except he has unique weapons. Does he get more xp/levels up faster? Does he get special upgrades once he reaches a certain stage? Is his growth in power bigger than other mechs (gets better upgrades earlier)?

Basically, the mech levels up quite faster than the others, but you never know what perks you'll get. It could be anything, with the exception of unique perks (like Time Master, etc). Although it starts out weaker than most, the rapid growth combined with the jumbled perks generally leads it to become very powerful later on. Just keep in mind that this one earned the nickname "roulette" for good reason. :P

Paladin mechs description says you can use his potion multiple times but you can in fact use it once. Maybe an oversight int he text, which isn't final as you mentioned.

I thought the same but strangely enough it reappeared later on in my consumable slot. I have no idea how it works though.
Edit: Couldn't replicate the item reappearance. I might have been more sleep-deprived than I thought and 2 runs kinda merged together in my mind. Sorry about that.

[Pepisolo]

Yeah, no, thsis is just a pest. For example, bullrushs. Once they hit you, you get knocked back hard and even get a movement speed debuff. But you can walk this off eventually and it's just the initial "WTF?!" moment, that comes across you. Side steps however cling to you nd deal damage all the time, because they are also so close to you, they are very easy to miss with your weapon. And they are small, that acts to that fact. They are just pushovers and I died because of them, either directly or because they brought me down enough for others enemies to finish the job. If they would be easier to hit, once they latch onto you, it wouldn't be much of a problem but that is exactly the problem.
It's worse, if you have a slow firing wepaon like the rail gun but easier with, let's say the flamethrower.

I believe that the versions of the SideSteps in my build are a bit different from the ones in the build you have, so I won't make any extra nerfs just yet. If the ones in the next build are still too annoying, then I can look into some tweaks, though. Probably making them a bit slower might help.

Comet Cluster sounds perfect, rolls perfectly off the tongue.

Sounds pretty good to me. I'll try and gets Ptarth's feedback on the name at some point, though, since he mostly designed the enemy.

Yes, I think that was the one. It definitely wasn't Red Dwarf. It was a big immobile sphere that shoots out slow traveling bullets in every direction from itself.

Yeah, that sounds like the Eyelet. It's not the most difficult enemy, but it might also depend on the positioning of the enemy in the room. It is more effective when it has a bit of space, I think.

Additional observations so far. Warhog missile launcher. Sounds awesome on paper, you get huge damage if you have a huge missile storage (great for bosses) but besides that, you literally cannot farm health shards with it. At all. Once you fire a msisile, you fire them all, you deplet your missiles all the time and it gets hard to get new ones for health shards. Plus, you cannot fully utilize the true power of the launcher. I like the concept though, so I would miss it. Can we make it, that you can charge the launcher and th elonger you charge, the more missiles you fire at once?

Charge weps have been a bit of a nightmare so far. The engine just doesn't have the functionality to make charge weapons other than simply having tap and hold style weapons like the Kaiser Commando. I actually like the restrictions on the Warhog, though, as it changes your playstyle a bit. The mech is just plain bad at resource gathering, but that can be balanced out by making the mech more powerful, which kind of suits the style of the mech, I think.

While we're at missiles, the missile shot modules behave kind of weird. I get that they don't break obstacle blocks but why do they bounce of walls (any of them)? Shouldn't missiles explode on contact. This kind of behaviour leads to soem very irritating results, the missiles strike the wall and... slide kind of across it until they loose momentum and stay still until they explode (which takes a lot of time in itself). Really weird to look at, it's just a visual thing but still...

I believe that the style was inspired by one of the variants of missiles from Gradius iirc. I think there are some sliding style missiles in that game -- however, there are also more traditional variants, too, so I think I might make the modules a bit more traditional, and then maybe add a new module with the sticky behaviour.

I'm still not sure, what the Alpha Mech exactly does. This "prototype" thing does not explain anything except he has unique weapons. Does he get more xp/levels up faster? Does he get special upgrades once he reaches a certain stage? Is his growth in power bigger than other mechs (gets better upgraes earlier)?

The main thing is that it jumbles up all the perks, as Logo says. So, you could get a 30% damage boost at level 1 for example, although perhaps I haven't added this to the description.

Paladin mechs description says you can use his potion multiple times but you can in fact use it once. Maybe an oversight int he text, which isn't final as you mentioned.

Yeah, I originally did want that as a multi-use item, but the engine functionality was not available, so I changed it to just a regular consumable, but must've forgotten to change the text. Oops!

I thought the same but strangely enough it reappeared later on in my consumable slot. I have no idea how it works though.

Hmmm, that might be a bug then, it is actually supposed to just be like a regular consumable since I couldn't get it to work as multi-use.

[Misery]

I'm gonna agree with the bit about the Warhog mech.

I'd say it's a higher-skill mech, honestly.  Since it's bloody terrible at resource gathering, and knowing when to use the crazy missiles is difficult.  Not to mention that it actually makes max missile count important; on other mechs, this isn't really too important overall.  It's definitely meant to use missiles in combat situations rather than to get at stuff deposits.

As for charge weapons, yeah, as said above the game just doesn't do them well.  I'd prefer we avoid them altogether.... they just don't end well at all.  Frankly they're infuriating.  I'd love to see a fix for that, but that's a Chris/Keith sort of thing, and they're busy with other stuff, so that's not happening for now.

[Ventifer]

Some stuff I've noticed so far.

The on use item that summons meteors seemed to be kinda ineffective when I used it in a boss fight.

The tank launcher seems to be pretty overpowered on non boss rooms. Maybe limit the number of shots the tanks can shoot.

The sound effect on the paladins main weapon is kinda annoying having both the sounds for the swing and the flying blade. Might just be me though.

Only new boss I've ran into so far was circuit rogue which was already mentioned that his attack pattern seemed somewhat simple.

The new visuals seem like a huge improvement so far.

[Draco18s]

In trying to locate something else the other day, I did do a couple of runs.

Ran into some of the new weapons / modules that add weapony effects.

Nice stuff! Seriously. The grenade launcher that shoots over walls? Love it. Also probably OP as hell, but I love it. The animation effect on it is spot-on too.

The module that has secondary side lasers that bounce off walls: the SFX on that could probably be toned down a bit (slightly lower pitch, lower volume), not a lot, but it did irritate me after having to listen to it a lot.

Secondary homing missiles that shoot out backwards weren't as effective (I had to make a choice!) but I still liked it as an option.

[Pepisolo]

The on use item that summons meteors seemed to be kinda ineffective when I used it in a boss fight.

That might be ...ok, I think. As long as it's useful in regular rooms that should be fine. There are already quite a few items that are more effective on bosses versus regular rooms and vice versa. It kind of helps mix up whether you try to use those items up or whether you save them for bosses.

The tank launcher seems to be pretty overpowered on non boss rooms. Maybe limit the number of shots the tanks can shoot.

I experimented with this a bit, I think that just increasing the energy cost a bit seems to do the trick. You can probably put out too many tanks at the moment.

The sound effect on the paladins main weapon is kinda annoying having both the sounds for the swing and the flying blade. Might just be me though.

Yeah, I've toned that down a lot for the next build.

The new visuals seem like a huge improvement so far.

Yeah, the aesthetics are a lot better, mostly thanks to Goldenwolf who has a bit of knack for that type of thing.

Nice stuff! Seriously. The grenade launcher that shoots over walls? Love it. Also probably OP as hell, but I love it. The animation effect on it is spot-on too.

Cool! I'm glad you're liking the new stuff. Yeah, that launcher is Goldenwolf's work. It's kind of like the launcher in SMASH TV, I think.

The module that has secondary side lasers that bounce off walls: the SFX on that could probably be toned down a bit (slightly lower pitch, lower volume), not a lot, but it did irritate me after having to listen to it a lot.

Yeah, I've made a few tweaks to that sound. It should be a lot better in the next build.

Thanks for the feedback!

[Logorouge]

New weekend means new batch of feedback. Here goes:

Rusty Rocketshot (main): That thing is loud.
Shrinker (energy weapon): Energy cost is too high. 1.6sec max duration with default energy reserve (about 4 dodges if timed right) is too low.
Smoke Bombs (launcher): How do you destroy a generator with them?
Crimson Death Sniper: Miss penalty -2HP -> -1HP (too harsh to be worth the risk at the moment)
Double Missile Module + Crits + White Blocks (walkable bullet blockers) = FPS disaster
D18_WandererTrap is a good room to test it.

Cataclysm Launcher (Warhog) with RocketMan is hilarious.
Keyprentice perk (+5 keys version): Unused except for Roulette. Could be useful early game when Lady Luck doesn't want to give you any key.
Warhog sentries can die from friendly missiles explosion. Intended?
ChromaticArray (energy weapon): Shots sometimes stay around. -see "Chromatic Stay" image-
Bull Charge drone: Can break bombables blocks?
Zeph's Mech: Let's talk about the "Need for Speed" power. -See related video- I don't think the effect should stack or even increase with additional perks. The duration increase alone is already a major boon. In other news, it crushed Terminus in 8 seconds flat.

X1_Craig_MonoStreamGauntlet room: Adding some cover would be highly appreciated.
X1_Craig_SecretStash room: Missing travelporter
BGS_WatchYourStep room: On golden floors, enemies tend to autokill themselves.

Mirror V2: Last Phase moves forward until it hits the wall. Then what? Is it intended?
Circuit Rondure boss: Big sphere got stuck on center corner wall a few times.
Eyelet enemies: They don't do much. No movement and rare, easy to dodge attacks. I suggest making them inactive until they get a line of sight and are at a reasonable range, then start firing waves at rapid pace.
Repose enemies: Toned down Pearls? They need their own pattern or might as well be replaced by actual Pearls.

Melee weapons: Really fun. But does the lunge effect need to be so strong? It's problematic against bosses and most bullet-heavy situations.
Got UnlockAllItems achievement out of nowhere.

All intended top tier weapons?:
Poison Pistol (main)
Electro Blaster (main)
Armada (energy weapon)
Behemoth's Fist (energy weapon)
Firebug Flame Hose (energy weapon)
Chromatic Array (energy weapon)

Once you grab those, there's little reason to switch out apart for novelty and they often mark the beginning of steamrolling (maybe not so much for Poison Pistol). If they're supposed to be late floors rares that's fine, otherwise all of them will need a good nerf.

And done. Thanks for reading.

[Ventifer]

I've won a couple normal runs with the new mechs. Won it with the zeph and paladin/ Getting the upgraded need for speed perk made it seem overpowered and forced me to rush a bit more which was nice to change my playstyle a bit. I didn't notice the effect of the melee master perk for the paladin. Maybe increase the range of the melee when you get that perk?

Rive boss on floor 1, his first phase pattern seems to be pretty tight on slipping through the first shot to avoid the second shot or I could just be missing something. His phase 2 seems okay though.

Forget the name but I got the module that generates energy as you walk. The energy generation rate seemed to be okay.
The phantom frame module says it allows you to sprint through walls but you can just walk through walls with it too.

Eyelets seem to be somewhat ineffective except when they are next to the entrance to a room.

I had a health upgrade room with just a enemy flamethrower turret in it and no health upgrade.

The twinshot revolver seemed to be a bit expensive on its energy cost for the low amount of damage it does even at close range.

[Draco18s]

I had a health upgrade room with just a enemy flamethrower turret in it and no health upgrade.

That shouldn't even be possible. None of the health upgrade rooms (or the secret rooms or shops) have turrets in them except X1_Craig_FountainRoom (which has four sludge turrets in the corners).

Aside from that, it is potentially possible that the game "didn't have a health thingy" to seed for the room.

[TheVampire100]

    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!

[Pepisolo]

Rusty Rocketshot (main): That thing is loud.

Reduced the volume, thanks.

Shrinker (energy weapon): Energy cost is too high. 1.6sec max duration with default energy reserve (about 4 dodges if timed right) is too low.

Reduced the energy cost. Hopefully that does the trick.

Smoke Bombs (launcher): How do you destroy a generator with them?

It took a while, but I found a fix for this. Now you can destroy generators by standing close to the generator when you use the smoke bomb. It destroys the generator in one bomb. That's more of a convenience than a buff given that Penumbra already has immunity to traps, I think.

Crimson Death Sniper: Miss penalty -2HP -> -1HP (too harsh to be worth the risk at the moment)

There's a bit of a problem with this, since I can only set the percent_penalty to a percentage of 1 or more, so it makes it hard to balance. I'll have to put this on Keith's list, I think. Perhaps I can get something like miss_penalty_amount rather than a percentage. I can just set it to a straight 1, then.

Double Missile Module + Crits + White Blocks (walkable bullet blockers) = FPS disaster

So, I've put a quick fix in for that particular combination, but crits really need to be disabled for that particular block. I'll have to add that to Keith's list.

Keyprentice perk (+5 keys version): Unused except for Roulette. Could be useful early game when Lady Luck doesn't want to give you any key.

Might be worth putting in early. I've added it early, and moved Keymaster to a bit later on in the tree.

Warhog sentries can die from friendly missiles explosion. Intended?

Not intended. I've put a fix in for this which prevents the sentries from being damage by explosive damage. There aren't any enemies that use explosive damage yet, but if there are we can just use the LowExplosive damage type for those.

ChromaticArray (energy weapon): Shots sometimes stay around. -see "Chromatic Stay" image-

That's weird, I'll have to keep an eye on that one. Hopefully someone can find a way to reproduce it.

Bull Charge drone: Can break bombables blocks?

Yeah, I put that in as it seemed appropriate. It doesn't seem too abusable, if it is, though, I'll take it out.

Zeph's Mech: Let's talk about the "Need for Speed" power. -See related video- I don't think the effect should stack or even increase with additional perks. The duration increase alone is already a major boon. In other news, it crushed Terminus in 8 seconds flat.

Yeah. I'm not sure about having the refresh on level up, that seems to be a bit abusable. I think if I make it so that you only get the boost at the start of floors that should help a lot. I like the idea that if you're fast enough, you can get to the next floor and then stack that bonus, so we'll persevere with that for a bit. Having to change that would actually cause significant problems for the current implementation. Removing the refresh on perk level up should make a big difference, then we might have to start adjusting the boost numbers, if that isn't working. (does thing)

X1_Craig_MonoStreamGauntlet room: Adding some cover would be highly appreciated.

I think it's a bit tricky to add cover to this room. As I recall, it had very specific patterns that need to be recognized if you're going to be super comfortable in there. Temporary cover is not going to last long, and permanent cover is probably going to kind of break the original design a bit. I'll leave this for now to see how you get on after a bit more playtime. If it's still too tough, I'll have to make some changes.

X1_Craig_SecretStash room: Missing travelporter

Fixed!

BGS_WatchYourStep room: On golden floors, enemies tend to autokill themselves.

This won't be a problem in the launch release, since Gold floors are going to be made up of a completely new batch of rooms. The BGS rooms are all base game. Phew!

Melee weapons: Really fun. But does the lunge effect need to be so strong? It's problematic against bosses and most bullet-heavy situations.

Yeah, I think it was a bit strong. I've toned it down a bit.

Got UnlockAllItems achievement out of nowhere.

I believe that there is only 1 locked item in the game at the moment, did you grab that? The Hydra energy drink? SR is really bad for unlocks. You get the extra floors which is awesome, but there are hardly any other unlocks. The unlock visuals also...don't exist, heh. It's annoying, and hopefully something we can fix in the future.

All intended top tier weapons?:
Poison Pistol (main)
Electro Blaster (main)
Armada (energy weapon)
Behemoth's Fist (energy weapon)
Firebug Flame Hose (energy weapon)
Chromatic Array (energy weapon)

Those are all top tier weapons aside from the Plague Pistol and Behemoth's Fist. So, I decreased the power of those two a bit.

I didn't notice the effect of the melee master perk for the paladin. Maybe increase the range of the melee when you get that perk?

At the moment that actually gives a bonus to all weapons, I think. I need an engine tweak to set it up for melee weapons only. I don't think that a melee range increase is possible, unfortunately. At least I can't think of a way to do it at the moment. The damage boost is currently x2 so it should be pretty significant, but I guess it's hard to notice because there aren't any effects or anything.

The phantom frame module says it allows you to sprint through walls but you can just walk through walls with it too.

Ah, that's just a bad text description probably, you are meant to be able to walk through walls too. Fixed!

I had a health upgrade room with just a enemy flamethrower turret in it and no health upgrade.

Yeah, I accidentally left a test room in the build. Oops, sorry about that.

The twinshot revolver seemed to be a bit expensive on its energy cost for the low amount of damage it does even at close range.

Hmmm, I'm not 100% sure of the weapon you mean. If you see it again, if you can please get the name of the weapon that'd be great, cheers.

That shouldn't even be possible. None of the health upgrade rooms (or the secret rooms or shops) have turrets in them except X1_Craig_FountainRoom (which has four sludge turrets in the corners).

Aside from that, it is potentially possible that the game "didn't have a health thingy" to seed for the room.

Yeah, that was my fault oops! That test room isn't (or wasn't) even in the SVN build of game. It somehow just snuck into the alpha build that was sent out due to being present in my local build... or something!

Thanks for the feedback all!

[Logorouge]

I like the idea that if you're fast enough, you can get to the next floor and then stack that bonus, so we'll persevere with that for a bit.

Oh! That's what was happening? I thought entering a new floor reset the effect and that "need for speed", "need for super speed", etc, were stacking on top of each other, giving you 3 layers of bonuses every floor. But looking at the code now, I see there's a "remove system" in there. Ok, that's pretty neat actually. Once I play some more, I might have some duration suggestions for the super speed and super duper speed perks though. :) Thank you for clearing my confusion.

I think it's a bit tricky to add cover to this room. As I recall, it had very specific patterns that need to be recognized if you're going to be super comfortable in there. [...]

Tricky indeed. My issues with it are that the pattern doesn't seem to take into account that there's enemies trying to rip you apart while you navigate it and that there's no safe hub halfway through to take a break or retreat to when things go south. But like you said, I will give it more playtime and see how things goes.

I believe that there is only 1 locked item in the game at the moment, did you grab that? The Hydra energy drink?

Not sure. What's more strange is that I still have 1 item locked according to my save's stats.

The twinshot revolver seemed to be a bit expensive on its energy cost for the low amount of damage it does even at close range.

Hmmm, I'm not 100% sure of the weapon you mean. If you see it again, if you can please get the name of the weapon that'd be great, cheers.

That sounds like the Triggerking Revolver.

[Ventifer]

Dumb question, does the undead revival perk from the sacrifice shop prevent you from picking  up any resources(credits,health,missiles),  does it grant you one health upon clearing a room, and the ability to walk through blocks that can be destroyed by missles and normal bullets? If so that makes it an interesting way to play with it. It could almost be an incredibility. If it doesn't then something was off since it gave me all of that.

Beat a run with Penumbra and Warthog now. Penumbra is rather intense until you get a health up of some sort. After that it becomes fairly easy with the primary and secondary weapons being so useful. The unique perk for it seemed rather amazing too. Penumbra is a good choice to pick with some of the incredibilities. Mind you I spent about 20 runs trying to get a run with a good heath up but eh.

Warthog seems so slow compared to the others but it does make sense. His turrets are kinda bland to me. Maybe have a random turret  spawn when used; bullet,missle,acid, ect. There seems to be a delay time between how often you can set a turret down.

That sounds like the Triggerking Revolver.

That sounds like the correct the name to me.

The Alpha Ray from the Alpha mech doesn't seem to fire if you are right against the wall of a room and
shooting at 20 degree angle or so. Even if you take one step away, it lets you fire from all angles.

I've gotten the room clear notice with an Evaporater Blue still alive in the room. Lets me exit and enter the room again. The enemy doesn't seem to be aggressive anymore either though and doesn't cause damage if I walk into it. Had it happen in a couple rooms.

[Draco18s]

Quote from: Pepisolo on Yesterday at 08:29:15 PM
I think it's a bit tricky to add cover to this room. As I recall, it had very specific patterns that need to be recognized if you're going to be super comfortable in there. [...]
Tricky indeed. My issues with it are that the pattern doesn't seem to take into account that there's enemies trying to rip you apart while you navigate it and that there's no safe hub halfway through to take a break or retreat to when things go south. But like you said, I will give it more playtime and see how things goes.

Try using one or two Shot Blocker blocks. If shots are coming from both sides, the player has to embed themselves in them order to be safe. It also means they can't shoot back.