Spikey's feedback/bug reports from individual runs

[Spikey00]

I think this might be a good format for submitting my bug reports if I list a VOD timestamp and cite a bug, as it brings each "run" into context and you can observe what happens immediately in the VOD (and convenient for me to only have to submit a general page of bugs without all the clicks).  Just let me know if you'd prefer Mantis reports though, although these might be the last two days I can probably do thorough runs on before your launch.  VODs will automatically be purged in 14 days though.

I'll bunch the rest of any other future productive runs in here too.


0.900 run, no global unlocks (new save) - http://www.twitch.tv/spikey00/v/36524846
Unfortunately my mic placement and volume was pretty bad in this one, but I did have general commentary through the playthrough. 

Specific Bugs

Weapon reload cooldown bug - http://www.twitch.tv/spikey00/v/36524846?t=1h03m40s
No clue at all why this happens; had this happen in several rooms that gave me some extra reload speed, and some that gave me almost instant reload speed.  Toward the start of my run I picked up at least two reload items and one that gave me reload speed bonus upon enemy kill; I think by the third floor this started to occur.  Maybe one of these is somehow multiplicative with the others or something. 

Mirror Mark 1, too little HP - http://www.twitch.tv/spikey00/v/36524846?t=00h33m10s
It didn't have enough HP to really do anything dangerous during either of its phases.

Have 0 when leaving floor in order to keep buff:  0 Temporarily Grant Big Bonus - http://www.twitch.tv/spikey00/v/36524846?t=00h13m50s
The "have two familiars by the end of the level" challenge incorrectly displayed at the top left corner of screen after picking up

Terror Bubble miniboss trivial - http://www.twitch.tv/spikey00/v/36524846?t=00h16m15s
It seems all you need to do is bunch them up (even unintentionally) and run an outside lap of the track without even sprinting and get away with receiving any significant damage.  Maybe there should be some more hazards, like at least some wall-piercing bullet patterns covering the room in a random way.

Change the way the use-consumable key works when put on E (same key as use/interact) -  http://www.twitch.tv/spikey00/v/36524846?t=00h22m00s
In the VOD, when I have use-consumable on E and switch a consumable with another consumable, it will both use the old consumable and place the other consumable in your inventory in one key press.  In niche cases this would be a really undesirable effect (i.e. you blow yourself up with a nuke), which blocks the effective use of e as the use key.

When binding keys, it should point out any existing key in use
Since I use F as my mic button, I had to find another key to put use-consumables on; the other candidate was on T, which happened to be the multiplayer chat button that essentially blocked functionality of the use key.  Or maybe I somehow didn't see that part of the UI?

Mine Master, immune to explosive damage doesn't actually protect against damage received from mines
I chose this at 17:17, and I found that I was still receiving damage from mines until I confirmed by testing at one specific point.  Unless there's another type of damage you receive by ramming your face into mines (which it would still confuse a lot of people), this is a perk that doesn't work.  In earlier version runs, I think I picked this up and I still received self-damage from grenades too; unfortunately I overlooked testing self-damage missile splash.

The character stat modifier stats on the ESC menu become way too long and overlap the weapon/secondary/missile/weapon modifier info
Much of this stuff should be aggregated instead of being repeat entries.

Ability to make non-shot-blocking drone sprites transparent
I'm still a little sad at how the run turned out (and playing at 12pm while sick after work probably didn't help), but there should really be an option to make most of your unimportant drones appear mostly transparent to decrease most of the distraction.  Recommend making another option to make them transparent only while holding the slow-movement key.

General Thoughts

- Being able to pick up stuff like missile ammo and HP while at maximum capacity should be reverted to its previous behavior where it would just leave them on the floor to be possibly retrieved later; now a min-maxer would have to consciously make the effort to look at their current gauge and then avoid picking up these items.  Initially I thought it might be a good idea to convert them to maximum capacity fragments, but this would completely throw the current scale of the game.
- Minibosses are still way too easy and linear across the board; the theme seems to be "move in the opposite way and shoot them until they're dead".  A more quick fix rather than a complete overhaul is to add randomish bullet patterns to the room, but I'd honestly like to see a lot more diversity from these. 
- Would really love to see more weapon modifiers.  By far the most interesting thing to me in this game, but I can see that it's hard to balance attributes non-static like "bullets chain have a 50% chance to chain once to another enemy " "adds two additional projectiles but decreases damage modifier" "1% chance to summon sea worms from AVWW to do my bidding".  Railgun is my beloved universally good modifier to have; it adds rapid-fire DPS to slow-shooting stuff like grenade launcher and it also increases range of other weapons, but it's not unique to anything.  For me, the huge attraction in this sort of game would be how weapon upgrades interact with each other. 
- The noise for when a drone blocks a shot is quite annoying. 
- Polar opposite of amount of keys spawned for player compared to previous versions; I have all the keys in the world absolutely anything in my life.  This doesn't encourage the player to make meaningful choices by conserving their resources to best buffer their weak attributes when they can unlock literally everything.
- Giving the player a mission to obtain a conditional amount of items while not spawning at least one locked item room for that category is a tad mean.
- Really recommend giving some bosses adds to vary them up a bit in terms of mechanics, and allow them to occasionally drop ammo and HP to hopefully increase tension.  Of course you should probably also disable global perk procs like 'chance to regain HP.'
- Not being able delete alpha saves that don't work?  Probably noticed already by everyone unless I'm a genius and missed some obvious part of the UI, but then again I also clicked the fancy red icon at the bottom right to exit my game because I somehow correlated that to "delete save."
- I still feel in general long-ranged weapons are still by far the more superior option to stuff like the flamethrower, especially for newbies and blind runs.  Easier to maximize reaction time, spread out boss bullet patterns, and far greater effective DPS when I-need-to-survive mode.

Anyways, that's all I could remember to list for now it being 2AM. 

[Misery]

I'll give my usual specific responses here, well, for things I can actually answer anyway:

Mirror I: One big, big issue with the game right now is that damage levels are totally all over the place.  I see you had that... item with the name I cant remember.  That triple red shot.  It's WAY too strong right now.  Plenty of items have this issue (particularly anything rapid-fire).   That being said, this boss is a low-level boss, and it's possible for the player to encounter it having picked up no weapons whatsoever.  It's HP needs to be relatively low, and it's not meant to be hard at any rate.  That, and it's also actually not the original version of that boss.  The original one is much harder, and cant be fought until floor 6.  This weaker version was created to add another possible boss to the mix for floors 1-2.   .....but I see you encountered it on floor THREE.   Uuuuuugh.   Yay, number typos!  I'll have to fix that.

That all being said, the nature of the game DOES mean that even when balanced, you're going to be kinda OP in some runs.  And underpowered in others.  Which is fine.

Drones:  I agree they should be at least translucent or something.  Well, for the orbital ones anyway; for the followers it's important to be able to easily spot where they are.

Various glitches:  best to put these up on Mantis, if you could; it makes it very easy for everyone to track them.  Right now, I'm the only one that has time to prowl the forums at all.  The others are often way too busy for that (usually).

Bosses: For normal mode, the bosses are basically complete.  I cant vary them TOO much or people will get stuck on them, as I've already found out.  They get alot more loopy on higher difficulties.  There is another thread showing a few of them.  If you mean the fact that many are immobile though, that's because the engine makes it very difficult to make mobile bosses, since all mobile entities of that sort are controlled by pre-set AI.  Preset AI + complicated patterns can = undodgable attacks, which is basically the cardinal sin of this sort of game.  So only certain bosses move.   Bosses dropping any items at all during the fight isnt happening.

Weapons:  Range.... is an issue right now.   Basically, if it has less range than the default mech's starting gun, it's useless.  This just gets worse against tougher things.  That, too, is something to put on Mantis.  It's been put on it before, but it deserves some extra emphasis.

[Pepisolo]

Minibosses are still way too easy and linear across the board; the theme seems to be "move in the opposite way and shoot them until they're dead".  A more quick fix rather than a complete overhaul is to add randomish bullet patterns to the room, but I'd honestly like to see a lot more diversity from these.

I'd love some more feedback on the individual minibosses if you could give it. Reaper is kind of intended to not let you circle and fire, you pretty much have to go into its danger zone. Arcoris is intended to force you into the center of the room and keep an eye out for the exploding prism bombs. Tri is way too easy and linear, I agree. If you can be more specific I can certainly look at implementing changes. Cheers!

[ptarth]

Perhaps after they get a shot off on you, rather than give you the hug of death, they instead teleport away?

[Pepisolo]

Perhaps after they get a shot off on you, rather than give you the hug of death, they instead teleport away?

For Reaper you mean or just generally? That's certainly a mechanic I can think about, probably for a new miniboss, though.

Actually I've realized that Bastille already kind of does do that. His bombs explode knocking you back. Not quite a teleport, though.

[ptarth]

The Reaper teleports away, effectively creating a series of minicombats. Every time he hits you, he heals and then teleports away. Then the next duel starts as he comes right back at you. That way the player can try things instead of just dying once he gets on you and the panic sets in. There are some teleport options in the system xml, but I haven't gotten to play with them yet.

[Pepisolo]

The Reaper teleports away, effectively creating a series of minicombats. Every time he hits you, he heals and then teleports away. Then the next duel starts as he comes right back at you. That way the player can try things instead of just dying once he gets on you and the panic sets in. There are some teleport options in the system xml, but I haven't gotten to play with them yet.

Yeah, I was thinking of using the teleport stuff for a different enemy. There's some good xml stuff to tap into. I'll try to make the next miniboss (hopefully there is one!) a lot more different than the current ones, although I was actually trying that with Arcoris and Bastille, guess I'll try harder then!