Augmented Alpha feedback

[Pepisolo]

-Trickshot (energy): Quite awesome when it works, but the shot tend to get cancelled too easily.

Do you mean via other shots, or by walls? If walls, then the richochet code is inconsistent, which is unfortunately something we probably can't fix. I've tried tweaking the wall_collision_reduction and stuff to improve that as much as possible, but there's only so much that can be done.

I was afraid that might be the case. The shots tend to immediately go splat when thrown at certain angles against walls and it gets expensive really fast energy-wise. If only the shot could be made immune to cancelling until its time was up. But I don't think you can do that, right?

Not that I can think of. Perhaps I can ask Keith about it, but I imagine that it's something that we're just not going to be able to fix. Would you still want the weapon in the game as it is, or should we perhaps think about removing the weapon?

[keith.lamothe]

If only the shot could be made immune to cancelling until its time was up. But I don't think you can do that, right?

Not that I can think of. Perhaps I can ask Keith about it, but I imagine that it's something that we're just not going to be able to fix.

The engine makes 100%-correct ricochet untenable. But are you asking that the "wall eats bullet" behavior be suppressed for those shots, or suppressed for them when they've been alive for less than X seconds, or something like that?

That would presumably be possible, though in those ricochet-fail cases it would probably just pass through the wall instead of being cancelled by it.

[Pepisolo]

If only the shot could be made immune to cancelling until its time was up. But I don't think you can do that, right?

Not that I can think of. Perhaps I can ask Keith about it, but I imagine that it's something that we're just not going to be able to fix.

The engine makes 100%-correct ricochet untenable. But are you asking that the "wall eats bullet" behavior be suppressed for those shots, or suppressed for them when they've been alive for less than X seconds, or something like that?

That would presumably be possible, though in those ricochet-fail cases it would probably just pass through the wall instead of being cancelled by it.

Yeah, I was thinking that perhaps the "wall eats bullet" behavior could perhaps be suppressed purely for that shot, but somehow retaining the collision detection logic so that ricochet would still work...somehow! It sounds like that's not really a possibility, though?

[keith.lamothe]

Yeah, I was thinking that perhaps the "wall eats bullet" behavior could perhaps be suppressed purely for that shot, but somehow retaining the collision detection logic so that ricochet would still work...somehow! It sounds like that's not really a possibility, though?

It's possible, but the consequence is that when the ricochet logic fails, the bullet goes through the wall or ricochets off at some strange angle.

[Pepisolo]

Yeah, I was thinking that perhaps the "wall eats bullet" behavior could perhaps be suppressed purely for that shot, but somehow retaining the collision detection logic so that ricochet would still work...somehow! It sounds like that's not really a possibility, though?

It's possible, but the consequence is that when the ricochet logic fails, the bullet goes through the wall or ricochets off at some strange angle.

Hmmm, that's probably not going to work then...drat! Hopefully the weapon is good enough as is, otherwise I'll probably just have to remove it.

[Logorouge]

Hmmm, that's probably not going to work then...drat! Hopefully the weapon is good enough as is, otherwise I'll probably just have to remove it.

I'll do more testing to see just how failure-prone the ricochet really is. If it's not too bad, maybe changing the shots to be weaker lower cost attacks with a faster firerate could be enough, dividing the risk among more shots. Or including in the description that finding the right angle might be tricky, making it part of the concept to begin with (powerful but tricky). I have to say though, making a successful multi-bounce trickshot is super satisfying.

[Misery]

Just a quick thing:  The update I was going to send out today will be tomorrow instead.  Everything is going along well enough, but I had a godawful allergy hell day yesterday.  Cant concentrate on much when that happens.  Anyone that's ever gone through that one probably knows exactly what I mean.  And heck if I even know what set it off.  All I ended up doing yesterday was making really awful attempts at Necrodancer over and over while trying not to go insane.

Anyway, the 8th boss is done finally. The one with the attack that was from another boss has had that changed (I really don't know how I managed to screw that one up and then not even notice it).  I have a couple of jumpscare enemies to finish here.  The misery mode stuff is separated and wont be in the update lest I break something since it's in an unfinished and jumbled state. 

And a couple of small tweaks here and there.  Plenty more tweaks will likely come later.  If any problems seem to exist with current enemies, by all means let us know. 

I'll likely add enemies at random intervals after that, and I need to make the alterations to create hard mode patterns for the new bosses (if anyone has any specific feedback on the difficulty of any of them in their current state, now's the time to point it out). Want to up the roster for the gold floors up a bit.  Things repeat a bit too much in there right now in my opinion.  Going to also start doing some rooms of my own, I never really got the chance to dive into that previously. 

On the note of rooms, if anyone wants to try their hand at making some and submitting them, by all means, go ahead.  We cant have too many rooms in a game like this.  Just be sure to test them fully before submitting.  As in, test them a whole bunch of times, not just once.

[Pepisolo]

Oh, if anybody has any good ideas, I have a half complete sacrifice item, Parasite Armour which leeches the player's health over time. What would make a good bonus for this item? Basic stuff like damage reduction and maybe damage boost? Or something more interesting? Just thought I'd see if anybody has any cool ideas.

[Logorouge]

Oh, if anybody has any good ideas, I have a half complete sacrifice item, Parasite Armour which leeches the player's health over time. What would make a good bonus for this item? Basic stuff like damage reduction and maybe damage boost? Or something more interesting? Just thought I'd see if anybody has any cool ideas.

How about a powerful poison DoT effect? Mere damage boosts are pretty common, but DoT not so much. That'd give the hit & run tactic an interesting option I think.

[Misery]

Oh, if anybody has any good ideas, I have a half complete sacrifice item, Parasite Armour which leeches the player's health over time. What would make a good bonus for this item? Basic stuff like damage reduction and maybe damage boost? Or something more interesting? Just thought I'd see if anybody has any cool ideas.

It'd have to be pretty strong if it's going to constantly drain the player's HP.

My first thought was "something to help speed up the run", because the speed would be warranted with this idea, but what would that be?  Just a damage boost is boring.  We've got enough of those.  An actual speedup is usually not a very good idea.

You could have it do something involving health draining of enemies, which'd make sense given the name.  You get a bit stronger somehow, and can heal by wrecking things, but you're constantly drained so you need to keep smashing to keep the health coming in.

I dunno, I'm not very good at item ideas.

[TheVampire100]

If it's called Parasite Armor then I guess it could reduce all incoming damage to 1?

You loose more than enough HP anyway with this item. Could also leech HP from kills like Misery suggested.

[Pepisolo]

For the Parasite Armor how about a combination everything, I'm thinking:

-1 health per 60 seconds
-1 to incoming damage (armor boost)
1 health restored per 5 kills
some poisonous DOT added to shots

[Logorouge]

-1 health per 60 seconds

Isn't that part basically a death sentence? With bosses and backtracking I think the player will be dead long before he reaches the end. It'll be game-changing for sure though, so it's definitely interesting, but I'm not sure the current numbers are survivable.

Regardless of the numbers, an important question is: Apart from the challenge aspect why would the player subject himself to the armor's effect and sacrifice max health for it too? The current bonuses don't look like enough of a reason to do it. If the draining effect is terrifying, I think the reward should be equally terrifying.

Offtopic, but that "-1HP every x seconds" effect would be a pretty good match for the Corrupting Power incredibility (crazy energy levels, but it's consuming you).

[Pepisolo]

Isn't that part basically a death sentence? With bosses and backtracking I think the player will be dead long before he reaches the end. It'll be game-changing for sure though, so it's definitely interesting, but I'm not sure the current numbers are survivable.

I'm not actually able to test it for the moment, but you're not going to want to do much backtracking with this active, yeah. Bosses might be a problem, but we can probably balance that with the buffs you get. Bit of a tricksy item to get working correctly.

Regardless of the numbers, an important question is: Apart from the challenge aspect why would the player subject himself to the armor's effect and sacrifice max health for it too? The current bonuses don't look like enough of a reason to do it. If the draining effect is terrifying, I think the reward should be equally terrifying.

It'd pretty much be a speed runny style sacrifice item. A player like Windless Zephyr might grab something like this, but if you're more of safety first backtracker then you're not going to want to touch it. It seems like the reward needs to be even better then? Damage or fire rate boost is the most obvious boost, but also the most boring, I guess.

Offtopic, but that "-1HP every x seconds" effect would be a pretty good match for the Corrupting Power incredibility (crazy energy levels, but it's consuming you).

Yeah, sounds like a good match. What does Corrupting Power currently do? I can't recall. I never grab Incredibilities. An item that drains HP but regens energy would be perfect actually. It directly prevents the player from spending time hiding because if you waste time doing that you'll die. Maybe that should be the sacrifice item instead? Your health depletes but your energy regens, and forget the armor aspect of it.

[Logorouge]

Yeah, sounds like a good match. What does Corrupting Power currently do? I can't recall. I never grab Incredibilities. An item that drains HP but regens energy would be perfect actually. It directly prevents the player from spending time hiding because if you waste time doing that you'll die. Maybe that should be the sacrifice item instead? Your health depletes but your energy regens, and forget the armor aspect of it.

Corrupting Power is very similar to Risky Assassin (with energy max/regen bonuses instead of attack power) and sets your max HP to 1 but I think you keep 1 shield. Kinda meh in my opinion. One thing to note: The energy regen of the incredibility is something like 50/sec and will probably need adjusting if the negative aspects are changed. It would be a shame to lose it as an incredibility as soon as it becomes more unique though.

I also think the Parasite Armor is worth having as a sac item. There's currently not enough defense-oriented sac items. Suggestion: Why not focus almost entirely on 1 bonus? The Armor part gives you a massive 50% damage reduction but the Parasite part is slowly consuming you. Simple and straightforward. Outside threats are significantly less dangerous, but your own pace becomes a threat. Also, life leech items/perks suddenly become very desirable. Having the armor already start with some life leech could be nice, but it would be like giving the problem and the solution to counter it at the same time. It might be more interesting if you have to seek out the solution. But depending on the intensity of the draining effect you're aiming for, the initial vampiric headstart might be necessary. As for my DoT, I don't think it fits anywhere in there and should just be ditched. How does that sound?