Augmented Alpha feedback

[Ventifer]

Did a couple of runs with the new build. Man I've gotten bad since I've started playing Gungeon again.

Love the new aesthetics of the floor panels. Had to a trial and error on what the panels do.

Circuit Rogue boss on third floor normal was a lot of fun.

I'll try to get some more runs in this week and get some more feedback.

Saw the steam notice for the expansion, awesome to see it out there.

[TheVampire100]

Okay, finally made my first run, sorry, didn't notice the personal message earlier.
I don't have much right now, I will go more into testing later.
Here are some notes I took.

Phantom frame is too good. Make it a Sacrifice item. Seriously, I got this on my first floor and the thing took me to all the sweet loot, that I would have to bomb my way through, for free. It makes a really good sacrifice item but add to the description that you can move through missile blocks too because that wasn't made clear.

RPG is way too overpowered, even with the delayed impact.

There was one enemy type who throws shurikens which also throw another bullets at you. The amount of ullets is in my opinion a little much.

There was a bug where I phased through the solid walls with the Phantom Frame. I moved through one of these giant blocks that split into multiple fragments, if you destroy them. When I walked through one of them, i suddenly phased through a solid wall. Happened only once and I couldn't reproduce it after that.

Boss "Circuit something" is just unfun. Not in a sense that he is too hard but simply because it is not fun to chase after a big ball that moves constantly through a labyrinth of traps and bullets and blockades. It's simply annyoing to chase him and then wlalk right into another dead end. The boss basically needs you to have a lot of missiles with you because you end too many times in a dead end made of bullets while chased by his invulnerable companion.
At least make the companion vulnerable. Also his body is WAY to big, if he comes right at you, there is no way to avoid contact, taking even more damage.

[Misery]

Boss "Circuit something" is just unfun. Not in a sense that he is too hard but simply because it is not fun to chase after a big ball that moves constantly through a labyrinth of traps and bullets and blockades. It's simply annyoing to chase him and then wlalk right into another dead end. The boss basically needs you to have a lot of missiles with you because you end too many times in a dead end made of bullets while chased by his invulnerable companion.At least make the companion vulnerable. Also his body is WAY to big, if he comes right at you, there is no way to avoid contact, taking even more damage.

I'm not making any changes to this one for now.

The trick to him:  Don't chase him directly.  Not really meant to do that.  The fight isn't really about keeping up with the big guy (this is why he drops those big walls), it's about keeping a distance from the little guy.  Do what you can to stay far from that, and otherwise, let the big one come to you.  When you get an opportunity to strike, do so.  Dump all of your energy and such into it quickly.  And if you do move into the outer track for whatever reason, don't stay in it too long lest you get run over by the giant bowling ball of doom.

I find that the best way to deal big damage though is to get into his lane when he's starting to get near, and start running/sprinting away as he charges at you; stay near the inner walls so you can dive in before he gets you.  Of course, that's MY way of dealing damage.  The safe way is to strike from the inner section.

And don't waste missiles on what the big guy does (particularly the walls he drops, never use missiles on those, period).  Use those to escape the small one's beams if you screw up and get caught up in them.



What's this shuriken thing?  I'm not remembering that.

If you see it again, get a screenshot, if you can, and I'll have a look at it and see if it needs a change.  Do you recall what floor you encountered it on?

[Logorouge]

What's this shuriken thing?  I'm not remembering that.

If you see it again, get a screenshot, if you can, and I'll have a look at it and see if it needs a change.  Do you recall what floor you encountered it on?

That's the Tide enemy. I think a big part of the problem is that the elite green version shows up very early (3rd floor maybe?) and is super tanky so you can't stop it fast enough to prevent its non-trivial waves of bullets.

Edit:
For Circuit Rondure, trying to chase him is like trying to stand your ground with the Labyrinth boss. Don't.

[TheVampire100]

Yeah, it was Tide. And yeah, he appeared early.

Circuit Rondure is still no fun in any way, even if you don't chase him. I try to grasp what could make him a fun boss but cannot see it.

[Misery]

Yeah, it was Tide. And yeah, he appeared early.

Circuit Rondure is still no fun in any way, even if you don't chase him. I try to grasp what could make him a fun boss but cannot see it.

It's bloody impossible to make every single part of a given game fun for absolutely everyone.  Hell, just in this one page there's someone saying that the boss was fun, and another saying that it isn't.  No matter which game it is, everyone always has "that one boss" that will drive them up the wall, or that is just bloody irritating.  But others will often disagree and choose something else for that slot.  It's how it usually is. 

Now as for Tide, I had a look at which one it is.

Firstly:  This is a jumpscare enemy.  It wont go bonkers until you provoke it, so stay out of it's line of sight until you are ready.  This is also why it's so dangerous:  Jumpscares are specifically meant to be rather nasty foes, to encourage the player to be careful around them and only activate them when ready.

Now, that being said, there is a secret to dealing with this guy, and I know this will sound totally backwards, but... GET REALLY CLOSE TO IT.  No, seriously.  Do NOT keep a huge distance from it, get right up in it's face instead.  The shurikens are super easy to dodge by themselves.  But the real reason to get close to it is because it will mean that EVERY shuriken it fires will be at a high distance from it before it starts launching bullets at you.  With wave attacks (which those are), the further the wave travels, the more space there is between it's shots.  And these shurikens are very dangerous if you're too close to them when they're specifically firing.  So, the tactic is to not wake the thing until you're ready (if you can, that is), and when you are, charge straight at it before it can fully build up a set of flying shurikens.

And like with all Jumpscare enemies, saving your energy to use on it is recommended.  Don't be afraid to dump all of it into an enemy like this.


Now, all of THAT being said, I indeed might make a change so that it appears a floor or two later than it is.  I still have a lot of testing of my own to do here, so I'm reluctant to make any changes just yet, so don't expect something like that right away.

[Pepisolo]

Sorry about the delay.

-Trickshot secondary: Tricky to use (pretty fitting considering the name), but worth having. Failure rate isn't too bad after all.

Good to know, thanks.

-Turrets: Sorry to insist on that one but a turret beeping when it's okay, is like a smoke detector beeping when there's nothing wrong. (3+ turrets at the same time gets very annoying) I would recommend making the turret's death sound more noticeable instead and getting rid of the beeping altogether and toning down the "taking damage" sounds so they don't cover the death sfx.

Cool, no worries. If it's annoying, it's annoying and probably needs to be changed. Goldenwolf is going to be making some changes here. I think the main beeping will become barely audible, but the volume will increase when the sentry is on low HP.

-2-Way Missile Module: I like the change of making them on-impact. They do destroy your scrap shields though. Is that intended?

Not intended. Fixed!

-RPG secondary: Energy cost is a bit too cheap for such a badass weapon with bullet cancelling.

Upped the cost from 20 to 33.

-Alpha Slugger (Shockgun?) secondary: Energy cost seems a bit low.

Upped the cost from 7 to 10, we'll see how that works out.

-Meteor Hammer Module: Awesome name. Magnetic Offense makes it a near-unlimited attack combo.

Not sure what do to about that interaction, I'm kind of just hoping that it's one of those rare interactions that just clicks, and doesn't have to be nerfed. Or is it completely broken?

-Meteor Storm consumable: Instead of the usual chaotic storm, it only shoots a quick string of meteors in one direction and stops.

Oop, it seems that I broke that item. I've de-broken it now.

-Discount sac items: I willingly grabbed one in a Penumbra run, so definitely worth it now.

Good to know those are better now.

-Skeleton key: Can only use once on key blocks. After that the "1" key is spent and key blocks cannot be opened until another key is acquired. Other locks will still open normally though.

I had a quick look at the engine code for this, but seems more like a Keithy fix to me. I'll add it to the list.

-Penumbra mech: With the cleaned up perk selection, this one feels great to play.

-Warhog mech: Is the starter shotgun a lot more sparkly and smokey than before?

Good to know on the Penumbra. Most of the weapons have actually had extra particle work done by Goldenwolf, so a lot of them will look a little fancier.

-Eyelet Lair (challenge room): Center eyelet hard to hit with Roulette mech starting main weapon. I gave up after several minutes.

I've reduced the health of the center enemy to 10%, so you barely have to hit the enemy now to kill it. I'm presuming that you could actually hit the enemy. It's more a case now of just realizing how to target the enemy, and once you do that the enemy should be easy to defeat with only a few hits depending on the weapon you're using.

-Charger enemy: Still think the tentacles length on those things and their turning speed especially is too much. The Charger challenge room reminded me how frustrating they are.

For the record, I've pretty much gotten used to those enemies now myself. They fit into the "good" kind of annoying for me, although I'm also not too opposed to some slight tweaks, either.

-SpecialFX panels: New appearances and sounds make it clear which is good or bad. Many thanks for that.

Cool, another good to know thing.

-Energy recharge panel visual/sound effect stayed forever on mech. -see attached bug report save-

I think I have a fix in for this, but it's a bit tricky to test. In any case, I think this should be fixed. If not, it'll be back to the drawing board.

CMP_regeneratingBlocks2x
CMP_Mines3x
X1_Craig_SecretStash

Fixed, aside from Stash. I think the rewards in there are enough for that room.

-X1_Craig_Treasury room: Could the cost and reward be toned down slightly to make it more accessible? (4 keys with less credits or 3 keys with less chests and credits?)

I think this is probably alright as is, since it's a Treasury. We can do a similar room with less keys required and less reward as a variant, probably, though.

-MotherLode (Secret room): Didn't expect that. Really like it.

Cool, yeah, some secret rooms that offer something a bit different seems good to increase variety. If anybody has any other fresh ideas, that'd be cool.

And done. I'm having even more fun than before with this build, so that's a good sign.

That's definitely a good sign, yep.

Oh, and as for the bit about the Eyelet challenge room:  Yes, that one needs a change.  I went in there with that sniper weapon, and, well...... yeah it took quite some time.  I didn't exactly have much of an energy weapon to use instead.

Yeah, as mentioned above, I've now reduced the health of that enemy to 10%, so it's probably only going to take 1 or 2 shots to defeat it now. Should be a lot more manageable.

Love the new aesthetics of the floor panels. Had to a trial and error on what the panels do.

Cool, I'm glad that the feedback of those has been positive so far.

Saw the steam notice for the expansion, awesome to see it out there.

Yeah, we're trying to start getting some awareness of the expansion going now.

Phantom frame is too good. Make it a Sacrifice item. Seriously, I got this on my first floor and the thing took me to all the sweet loot, that I would have to bomb my way through, for free. It makes a really good sacrifice item but add to the description that you can move through missile blocks too because that wasn't made clear.

Not sure on this. Moving it to a sacrifice item seems like that would actually be buff. Modules are the kind of item that we can push pretty hard in terms of their power since you can only ever have one at a time, whereas with sacrifice items you can have as many as you want as long as you can afford the health cost. So, if you take Phantom Frame as a module, it's fun and cool, but you're probably trading a lot of DPS in order to bring it along. Phantom Frame as a sacrifice item seems even more of a no-brainer  than having it as a module to me.

RPG is way too overpowered, even with the delayed impact.

Yep, the energy cost on that has gone way up now.

There was a bug where I phased through the solid walls with the Phantom Frame. I moved through one of these giant blocks that split into multiple fragments, if you destroy them. When I walked through one of them, i suddenly phased through a solid wall. Happened only once and I couldn't reproduce it after that.

As long as you didn't get stuck as a result, this might be ok if it's super rare. The one bug I'm fearing is if someone gets stuck in a wall when using the Phantom Frame. If that happens I'll probably have to remove the item as I can't imagine being able to fix that.

Thanks for the feedback, everyone.

[TheVampire100]

Okay, good point on Phantom Frame, but at least make it a rarer item, let it seed on deeper floors. I got it on floor.
I woudl let it start at floor 3, that's not too late to profit from it but not too early to powerspike quickly.

Again, to Circuit Rondure, I made some somments how to improve him (like making the companion vulnerable since he blocks my shots all the time) or at least let my shot phase through him.
he simply blocks all my shots, I cannot even see how to defeat him that way unless I get lucky. The spread of the bullets is also very narrow, almost impossible to dodge unless you are very far away. Which is tricky in itself because you have almost no room to move around.

More room would be another good solution actually, everything is so narrow in this space because of the big boss himself, his just a little bit smaller companion and all the walls, blocked patchs and shooting patterns.
And not everyone has lightning quick reflexes to pass through these tiny gaps.

[Logorouge]

Again, to Circuit Rondure, I made some somments how to improve him (like making the companion vulnerable since he blocks my shots all the time) or at least let my shot phase through him.
he simply blocks all my shots, I cannot even see how to defeat him that way unless I get lucky. The spread of the bullets is also very narrow, almost impossible to dodge unless you are very far away. Which is tricky in itself because you have almost no room to move around.

More room would be another good solution actually, everything is so narrow in this space because of the big boss himself, his just a little bit smaller companion and all the walls, blocked patchs and shooting patterns.
And not everyone has lightning quick reflexes to pass through these tiny gaps.

That's so strange. Narrow space, blocking companion and tiny gaps sounds like the exact opposite of Circuit Rondure. It might simply be a Wallmaster situation where different players get a vastly different experience from the same boss, but please take a look at this quick video and let me know if the boss patterns are any different from what you faced or if my method is weird.

Edit:
Concerning the Phantom Frame: The discussion seems to be about making it a module or a sac item. Here's a thought: Why not both? The Dead Eye Module already does that so it wouldn't be a problem.

Also, thanks for the detailed reply Pepisolo. Always appreciated.

[Misery]

It might simply be a Wallmaster situation where different players get a vastly different experience from the same boss

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking.  This is why balancing these blasted things is such a massive pain.  One player will have no trouble and find it so easy and another will get totally shredded, yet they might be very close to each other in skill, so that just makes it more confusing.

The video there shows what I think is a good approach to it.   However there will always be an element of luck in a fight like this, in this case the way the boss moves.  If it's giving you lots of opportunities to safely back away from it while firing, the fight will be easier, but sometimes the RNG is going to be a snot and it'll constantly be forcing you to navigate through swarms/walls of bullets just for the chance at hitting the thing.  However, this approach doesn't stop being a good one in that case.  Still works, just means more danger, so it's good to keep at it even if the thing's movements are being frustrating.

But the important thing is that when you get a chance to get close and deal some damage, really throw everything you've got at it.  This boss doesn't have as much health as many of the others due to it's quirky nature, so it cant take a focused assault very well.

[TheVampire100]

For soem reason, the companion does not follow you very far in that video. it seems it got stuck on wall in an attempt to follow you. Because of that, it was way easier then my attempt. the thing was always right at my ass which turned the whole thing to a nightmare. if you are far away from the pattern, its easy to dodge, I noticed this as well, but from the front its a nightmare.
Also, I had a closecombat weapon, this might be also one of the issues. i don't know the name, it was the one whcih descriptions states "Brawlhalla".
Also, for some reason your mech can keep up with the boss. Did you turn on sprint? because on normal movement my mech was slower and I had Zephyr.

Edit: I just had the most weird bug encounter. This never happened before and I don't see what woudl have caused this.
I played Alpha Mech, I fiught the Reaper Miniboss, I got hit by the Scythe, suddenly the mech moves very sluggish and I couldn't spritn anymore. needless to say I died shortly afterwards. I would have shrugged this off if this wouldn't persist to the next run I played. Okay, maybe I use another mech insetad. Nope, same problem, suddenly the mech moves awefully slow. Only restarting the game entirely fixed it.
I don't know what exactly caused this but I had the Meteor Hammer Module and a perk that gives me more attack speed for fice seconds after killing an enemy. Also, Spread Shot as main weapon.

While we're at Spread Shot, I guess this is a tribute to the classic shmup weapon? But don't have these weapons normally 3 shots? I guess five in this case because balancing reasons.

Does the Improved Warheads perk also affect missile modules?

[Misery]

For soem reason, the companion does not follow you very far in that video. it seems it got stuck on wall in an attempt to follow you. Because of that, it was way easier then my attempt. the thing was always right at my ass which turned the whole thing to a nightmare. if you are far away from the pattern, its easy to dodge, I noticed this as well, but from the front its a nightmare.
Also, I had a closecombat weapon, this might be also one of the issues. i don't know the name, it was the one whcih descriptions states "Brawlhalla".
Also, for some reason your mech can keep up with the boss. Did you turn on sprint? because on normal movement my mech was slower and I had Zephyr.

Edit: I just had the most weird bug encounter. This never happened before and I don't see what woudl have caused this.
I played Alpha Mech, I fiught the Reaper Miniboss, I got hit by the Scythe, suddenly the mech moves very sluggish and I couldn't spritn anymore. needless to say I died shortly afterwards. I would have shrugged this off if this wouldn't persist to the next run I played. Okay, maybe I use another mech insetad. Nope, same problem, suddenly the mech moves awefully slow. Only restarting the game entirely fixed it.
I don't know what exactly caused this but I had the Meteor Hammer Module and a perk that gives me more attack speed for fice seconds after killing an enemy. Also, Spread Shot as main weapon.

While we're at Spread Shot, I guess this is a tribute to the classic shmup weapon? But don't have these weapons normally 3 shots? I guess five in this case because balancing reasons.

Does the Improved Warheads perk also affect missile modules?

Enemies meant to chase you can get randomly caught on things, yeah.  There's never really been a way to not have that happen.  Well, unless I had the thing simply phase through the walls, but I decided against that.  But yeah, the game's pathfinding AI has issues at times. I strongly suspect that somehow the hitbox sizes matter when it comes to this.  I remember when I was adjusting it and testing, for some specific settings it would be mostly okay, but others it'd hit a wall and get utterly stuck every time.  The way it is currently is the best I can do... at it's core it's an engine issue, so not something I can fix.

And don't be afraid to sprint in a fight like that if you see the need.  But no he wasn't sprinting the majority of the time in that video.  The only way he would have been going too slow would have been to hold down the slow-movement button.  So I'm not too sure what's up with that.  But I might run a few tests on my end now that it's on my mind.


Now as for the spread shot, eh, it could be any number of bullets, but yeah that sort of thing is a classic shmup weapon indeed.  3, 5, or 7 shots seems to be the most common numbers at least among games that I'm familiar with. 

[Logorouge]

For soem reason, the companion does not follow you very far in that video. it seems it got stuck on wall in an attempt to follow you. Because of that, it was way easier then my attempt. the thing was always right at my ass which turned the whole thing to a nightmare. if you are far away from the pattern, its easy to dodge, I noticed this as well, but from the front its a nightmare.
Also, I had a closecombat weapon, this might be also one of the issues. i don't know the name, it was the one whcih descriptions states "Brawlhalla".
Also, for some reason your mech can keep up with the boss. Did you turn on sprint? because on normal movement my mech was slower and I had Zephyr.

The companion was chasing me relentlessly until it got stuck (right in front of my escape route) 10 seconds before the main boss died. The thing that made it easier for me was that the main boss didn't do as much back and forth movements, so I was able to quickly moonwalk my way to victory. But the method would have remained unchanged even if the length of the fight was extended. As for sprinting, I mainly used it when I was positioning myself to cut off the boss at the pass.

The Brawlhalla weapon must have been the Splattershot shotgun. To be honest, I would have preferred using that instead of the basic minigun. The fight would have been even quicker. But I would still recommend you try the boss in the test room with the White Gloss, without any possible speed debuff and see how that goes. At this point, I think it's just a difference in the approach though.

And I'm gonna go test Alpha against Reaper to see what's going on there.

Edit:

-Meteor Hammer Module: Awesome name. Magnetic Offense makes it a near-unlimited attack combo.

Not sure what do to about that interaction, I'm kind of just hoping that it's one of those rare interactions that just clicks, and doesn't have to be nerfed. Or is it completely broken?

Forgot to respond to this part. It is very broken. The thing clings to the enemy until it dies and then jump on a nearby target if available and cling to her until she dies, etc etc. Sometimes it will detach from the target early, but even a slow firerate will allow you to keep on shooting death constantly. It was so broken, I just abandoned my run as everything was now pointless.

[Pepisolo]

Concerning the Phantom Frame: The discussion seems to be about making it a module or a sac item. Here's a thought: Why not both? The Dead Eye Module already does that so it wouldn't be a problem.

Good point, I hadn't considered that for some reason....doh! That's certainly an option, but for the moment I'm not quite convinced enough that it's overpowered compared to some of the DPS boosting modules. Is it so much of a no-brainer to take Phantom Frame over the Homing Missile Module or Meteor Hammer, for example? Phantom Frame gives a really nice utility ability for sure, but the others give extra DPS, which is always going to be pretty big. There is one other slight problem in that the Sacrifice Room already has an item that kind of does what Phantom Frame does, in Necro Mech, so there is some overlap there. So, yeah, I'm not quite convinced enough to make it a sacrifice item...yet!

Also, thanks for the detailed reply Pepisolo. Always appreciated.

No worries, thanks for the feedback.

Edit: I just had the most weird bug encounter. This never happened before and I don't see what woudl have caused this.
I played Alpha Mech, I fiught the Reaper Miniboss, I got hit by the Scythe, suddenly the mech moves very sluggish and I couldn't spritn anymore. needless to say I died shortly afterwards. I would have shrugged this off if this wouldn't persist to the next run I played. Okay, maybe I use another mech insetad. Nope, same problem, suddenly the mech moves awefully slow. Only restarting the game entirely fixed it.
I don't know what exactly caused this but I had the Meteor Hammer Module and a perk that gives me more attack speed for fice seconds after killing an enemy. Also, Spread Shot as main weapon.

I've no idea about that one. That sounds pretty crazy! The Reaper Scythe doesn't affect mech movement so I can't imagine how that would have caused it. Yeah, I'm at a bit of a loss on that one. I guess we'll just have to keep an eye out for issues like that. Hopefully it was just some freak occurrence.

Does the Improved Warheads perk also affect missile modules?

It doesn't ...but it could, I suppose. I'm just not sure on whether that is a behaviour we want or not, though.

Enemies meant to chase you can get randomly caught on things, yeah.  There's never really been a way to not have that happen.  Well, unless I had the thing simply phase through the walls, but I decided against that.  But yeah, the game's pathfinding AI has issues at times. I strongly suspect that somehow the hitbox sizes matter when it comes to this.  I remember when I was adjusting it and testing, for some specific settings it would be mostly okay, but others it'd hit a wall and get utterly stuck every time.  The way it is currently is the best I can do... at it's core it's an engine issue, so not something I can fix.

Yep, that's pretty much just an engine thing that we can't really do much about. It's something to do with the engine not taking into account the size of an enemy's wall collision box when pathfinding. The hack I currently have is that I set a really high wall_collision_reduction. The problem with that is that it also affects the enemy's touching collision box, so I also have a fake touch collision system set up to cover that up. Which works somewhat, but enemies can still occasionally get stuck, unfortunately, so the whole thing is a bit ...bleh!

Forgot to respond to this part. It is very broken. The thing clings to the enemy until it dies and then jump on a nearby target if available and cling to her until she dies, etc etc. Sometimes it will detach from the target early, but even a slow firerate will allow you to keep on shooting death constantly. It was so broken, I just abandoned my run as everything was now pointless.

Hmmm, this is a bit of a problem. The root is kind of that magnetic offense just really does some quite screwy things -- I'm surprised that we haven't encountered more problems, actually. With hindsight the game would kind of be better off without that item, I think, but it's probably too late for that now. I have one solution to this problem, which will nerf and slightly break the Meteor Hammer Module, but I can't really think of another solution. (investigates for a bit) OK, so that's actually a pretty nice synergy, or it would be if it wasn't so OP. Fortunately, I managed to find an easy solution. I fixed it so that the Meteor Hammer beam can only latch onto an enemy for a couple of seconds rather than latch on for ages, so the shots can't stack together now. That was an easier and nicer fix than I thought. Yay!

Oh, one word on that Death Sentinel Miniboss/Boss. I looked at the Hard pattern and I'm not sure if will hold up as a second phase pattern without a bunch of work. It seems too similar as is to me. Given that some of the current minibosses are a bit crazy I think it could still work as a miniboss, too, but I'm not sure. I think we might have to put that to the bottom of the priority list, so it might not even make it into the expansion. I consider the expansion as kind of in content lockdown aside from rooms and maybe a few more enemies to round out certain categories, and I'm trying to be disciplined by focusing on the polish work now, rather than adding more content. That is, unless there's a bunch of feedback saying that the expansion is too light on content in certain areas, of course. 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

I know it depends on the price, but that has yet to be determined. Very roughly, it's probably going to be around half the cost of the game, or something like that. Maybe slightly more maybe slightly less, I'm really not sure. It should be in line with the cost of previous Arcen expansions, though.

[TheVampire100]

Is it so much of a no-brainer to take Phantom Frame over the Homing Missile Module or Meteor Hammer, for example

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. Not for health shards but missile blockades will block also the entry point to loot like chests, key cards and credits. Never having to worry about this seems to be way too good, not even the Meteor Hammer, who can fire through solid walls, can compete against this. Maybe it's just my opinion though?

It doesn't ...but it could, I suppose. I'm just not sure on whether that is a behaviour we want or not, though.

I would like this because missile damage is so unappealing to me right now (like, I never use my missiles as damage source or let's say, rarely enough to benefit from this). Affecting missile modules too would maybe convince me to grab that perk. Maybe you can make it, that it affects missile modules less? So only 30% damage boost on them?