donblas initial feedback

[donblas]

I figured I'd write down my initial feedback before sleeping on it.

- I suck at shoot-em-up games in general, never any good. Only trying this one because of Arcen name.
- Graphics aren't actually bad. Sound is pretty rough, but that is obviously known.
- I really like the maps with "slower" bullets where you have to think to surive. The one boss I hit 2 times (battleborn?) was rather enjoyable.
- Using missiles to clear a path was completely not obvious.
- So far, I'm not a fan of any of the secondary weapons I've tried. Shotgun was way too short range (and low burst).
- Like the theme, even if I didn't play much TLF.
- Keyboard + Mouse controls work fine.
- Afterburner "feels" too fast almost. Like I'm almost too fast with it. Could be my less that stellar control skills.
- I see some promice w/ the different enemy templates. Almost reminds of Bionic.
- Despite my hesitation and genre, I actually want to play more tomorrow. Which was the opposite I had with SBR, where I liked the genre but it didn't grab me on first play.
- I have no opinion on the roguelike vs roguelikelike debate.

[Misery]

Sorry, a late response to this, but glad that you seemed to enjoy your first go at the game!

A couple of responses to specific points:

1. Dont worry about your skill at shoot-em-ups.  In the end, this will cater to a very wide variety of skill levels.  Right *now*, it's competely all over the place.  Some of the bosses have altered patterns between normal/hard difficulties and such, but not all of them, and none of the enemies at all are gated in that manner.  Not to mention that MOST enemies are just spawning on any floor they want to.  These things will all change as time goes on and feedback comes in, so that the lower difficulty levels will be good for anyone.

2. Based on my design style a great many bosses and enemies will be using slower bullets; as a rule, the more complicated the pattern, the slower the shots will be.  This can be a little different at times on higher difficulties, and some things just arent quite balanced yet (or at least, not as much as the perfectionist in me says they should be).

3. Afterburner and movement in general is a bit in flux right now.  That's probably getting some tweaks soon.  Probably.

4. I dont care all that much about that debate either.  Everyone should just call it what they want...  Call it an "explody ship bullet zoom game" for all I care.  Just so long as it works without Windows having a heart attack and choking on it's own pathetic existence, it's all good to me.  Never had an Arcen game do that though!

[donblas]

More play today while kid napped.

- Hunter Killer needs some love. It feels worse that the default gun. It will often split and chase enemies out of range even when you target closest enemy. It runs into walls and "slides", which feels bad. The default range is way shorter than your main gun.
- Played the "Mother" boss. Liked it. Actually the bosses feel like the best part of the game right now IMO. Since they are boxed in, your gun and their gun are both in range, so you don't have any of that "their gun is longer than mind for no good reason" stuff I get in normal rooms.
- I understand we don't want to blind spam down long halls (though the enemy can), but every secondary weapon's range is way too short IMO.
- Mirror boss was a bit less fun. The length of the "map" was too long. Half the fight felt like reaching the boss. The shot timing felt strange, like much too slow to get to me originally, then too fast after that. Still fun.
- I completely 100% agree with the idea from another post of X seconds of invisibility when entering room / teleporting. For me, a noob, the real joy of this kind of game is looking at bullet patterns, finding the hole, and surviving. Unlike boss fights, I take most of my hits due to lack of "twitch" skills from super fast or super close enemies in rooms.

[donblas]

- Another example. Serrated Spine Launcher. Take a TON of energy. Low rate of fire. Single projectile. OK, I expect this thing to be awesome. And then I find out it has like 60% range of the main gun. But then I get "rain cannon" and it can shoot super crazy far. Off screen. And so far, range seems to be life in this game.
- Love enemies like "Green Iniform" with the pattern guns. Also the arc thing that shoots walls of arrows (though that one isn't fun in long halls, maybe reduce it's range?). Also persistence (feel like dog fighting w/ a bunch of shots trailing me). Bullet time might be a tad too long, dancing for 4 seconds after killing is kinda annoying.
- I'm assuming all of the credit / tech stuff I'm picking up is for meta-progression that isn't there? Or shops.
- Sniper Protocol seems crazy good.
- Some of the pickups seem just bad (10% slower. Reduce regen speed). But I get them from things that let me see before getting. Is this a bug?

[donblas]

A couple more thoughts.

- The orbital strike weapon about breaks the non-boss game. It's super powerful to nuke stuff that I don't even have LOS on.
- Apparently some of the things on the floor can damage you this is completely not obvious, at all to me.
- Secondary weapon range continues to disappoint. Maybe for people who are better at dodging than I, but weapon range > most things. The high pressure shotgun is the only "close range" weapon that I see even kind worth it, but I generally lose too much shields using it.

Overall, pretty stoked to see where this is going. Is there a better place for feedback (not sure any of this needs bug reports0.

[Misery]

The Mirror boss:  You know, that stupid thing, that thing will be getting some changes.  I made it and even I dont really like it much.  It's got a whole pile of problems right now.  The actual arena room it's in though probably isnt changing.  But the boss will.  Just.... ugh.  It practically is just one giant design flaw right now.

Now, as for where to put feedback, well, there's a couple of ways to deal with that.

For the most part, I think that most of those that are working on the game dont really have time to check these forums all that much, aside from myself.  I usually will then relay important things to them when necessary, but a better way to make sure they see really important stuff is to put it here:  https://arcengames.com/mantisbt/my_view_page.php     I know that looks like a site purely for bug reporting, and that's it's central purpose, but it's a really great place to put down suggestions or list balance issues or things like that.  Mantis basically guarantees that everyone will see it, and that they dont have to worry about forgetting about it or anything.

But making topics on the forums can be good too, with discussion and all.   In particular though, if you have feedback about bosses, enemies, or things that are in any way related to them, bullet patterns, or many parts of combat, feel free to simply leave those bits here, since bosses/enemies/patterns and such are all in my realm, and it's super easy for me to make any necessary fixes to those specific things. 


Also you have a good point about the range on special weapons.  That's not something I personally can fix directly (not my area of design) but now that you've mentioned it... that might be an issue that could do with some looking at.

[donblas]

Filed secondary weapon balance here - https://arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=17953

Invisibility on enter room / teleport here - https://arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=17954

[donblas]

I tried to file more, but I keep getting:

Invalid form security token. This could be caused by a session timeout, or accidentally submitting the form twice.

I tried relogging / switching browsers.

[donblas]

Now it is giving me APPLICATION WARNING #2702: Your session has become invalidated.

- So I don't forget:  MLRS missiles can hurt/kill you if you head same direction as they are or shoot point blank.
- Same thing regular missiles if shot into corner.
- Given low health, self damage seems unfair.

On this map:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/8791050/ForBugReport_2015_12_07_22_34_29.save

the bots on the left are circling into the wall.


And OMG, there is a zoom out button? Really.