Arcen Games

General Category => Starward Rogue => : Monkooky November 14, 2016, 08:38:17 AM

: 1.502 First Impressions
: Monkooky November 14, 2016, 08:38:17 AM
Summary: yesssss new stufffffff

I love the new enemies. I love the perk overhaul. I love the new difficulty curve. I love that attrition is a thing.

I unlove how long a run takes- there is too much incentive to fully clear floors, and doing so is a time consuming process. Not sure how this could be fixed, though I have some bad ideas.
I unlove how many modules got dropped. I've got a blade module already, I don't need to see this rubbish!
I ++unlove how late game minibosses seem to drop basic pickups rather than permanent loot. I killed this guy for a reason, and that reason wasn't getting two missiles. (No loot from minibosses would be fine, as long as it was consistant)

That's it for general feedback.

Specific stuff! Quibbles ahoy
The swarm of tiny dudes is cool- extremely unthreatening and easy to wipe out, but cool.
EDIT: just ran into a billion of them in one room. Still not a threat, barely even a challenge. They definitely give too much XP for what they are.
The anklebiters are very cool but mildly unimpactful. Might be worth bumping their attack speed up slightly?
I really dig the level 2 perks, though I feel like savings interest might outclass the others? Pure speculation for now of course.
+Shield should probably not be a perk. It was super good before, and it's super better now that attrition is higher.
+Shield should definitely not be a perk available to flame tank, because there it's actually useless.
The new damage tooltips are confusing and inconsistant. Brute listed as a x10% damage boost- it's not clear that x10% is an additive multiplier. Every Shot Counts is listed as a x20% damage boost- it's not clear that x20% is a straight multiplier.
With all the "Location of X" perks, you may wish to remove Spire Knowledge as a purchasable, or at least make it's tooltip clearer.
I'm worried that missile damage might get silly. Will report back with results.

: Re: 1.502 First Impressions
: Misery November 14, 2016, 08:54:28 AM
Run length is an issue, yeah.

It's partly to do with the rooms themselves.  Their structure often causes it to simply take too long to get through them.  This is something I"ve noticed, and something that Chris had mentioned as well.  Having to deal with a laser/spike maze and whatever JUST to take down the one remaining enemy in a room gets irksome fast, and also makes things take much longer.  Some rooms are also a bit too crowded while still having lots of objects.   Trap-focused rooms shouldn't have many enemies, and the same the other way around (with exceptions).  Right now, a lot of rooms tend to be both at once.  Yet there are few rooms that are quick clears.

Opening things up more and generally making the game less berserk about traps is something I intend on doing.  Not for the expansion, this would be a simple for-everyone update (it's just room files, and it'd be altered current ones, not totally new ones).  Aint too thrilled about how freaking long it'll take though.  Gotta be done however.  Those runs really are too long and too many rooms drag on way too much when they don't have to.   I really should have curated these things when people were submitting them.  Bah.

I don't think module drops have changed actually.   Where are you seeing these?


Minibosses:  Cant have them giving out full weapons EVERY time.  Bad idea.  For the time being the current system works well enough.  The reason it was implemented is because it was very often that the player would not actually have a chance to switch to a new weapon/sub-weapon during a run, and with the new setup, that's a problem.  It's also just not fun to be stuck with starting guns all the way.


The swarmer guys actually shouldn't be giving you EXP at all.   Sounds like a bug.  Ugh.  Always something....

Biter things:  I'm never sure what to do with those blasted things.  They were actually in the game at launch; I removed them after they presented too many problems due to positioning.  Now they've been placed back in, albeit very carefully, yet their role is still really wonky.  Which is moderately annoying.
: Re: 1.502 First Impressions
: Pepisolo November 14, 2016, 10:32:59 AM
I love the new enemies. I love the perk overhaul. I love the new difficulty curve. I love that attrition is a thing.

Nice, we seem to have hit the main targets then! :)

I unlove how long a run takes- there is too much incentive to fully clear floors, and doing so is a time consuming process. Not sure how this could be fixed, though I have some bad ideas.

Yeah, the actual floor sizes have been reduced quite significantly, but that's probably been offset due to not being able to steamroller the game as easily. Maybe reduce the XP requirements, so you level up a bit more quickly? Misery's thoughts on this also sound good. A few more open, less nightmarish death trap rooms should help.

I unlove how many modules got dropped. I've got a blade module already, I don't need to see this rubbish!

Hmmm, yeah, not sure how else we fit the modules into the pools. The only place for modules in which you're not going to get annoyed because you already a good one, is in shops. Or any rooms with a choice of three items. On the other hand, modules are generally super powerful, so you kind of want them to drop from bosses (scratches head). Anybody in favour of just having them in shops and secret item rooms?

I ++unlove how late game minibosses seem to drop basic pickups rather than permanent loot. I killed this guy for a reason, and that reason wasn't getting two missiles. (No loot from minibosses would be fine, as long as it was consistant)

Originally minibosses would mostly only drop weapons, but Misery thought that was too much, so we added in resource drops.  I think it can be useful to know that a miniboss can drop some decent resources as it gives you some options when it comes to combating attrition. Most of the time you will probably be seeing weapon drops, though. There should be no difference between the early and late game ratio of weapons to resources drops.

The biter dudes are very cool but mildly unimpactful. Might be worth bumping their attack speed up slightly?

Just to clarify, do you mean the Anklebiters or the Chompers? If you mean the Anklebiters then I think one of the problems could be that since their ability to shoot through walls has been removed, a lot of the time they seem to be in positions that their attacks are stopped by walls and only minimally effective.

+Shield should probably not be a perk. It was super good before, and it's super better now that attrition is higher.

I kind of like it there as a late game anti-attrition option. If I'm really struggling with attrition then I would probably grab it, if not I'll go for something else.

+Shield should definitely not be a perk available to flame tank, because there it's actually useless.

Yeah, that seems like a fair point.

The new damage tooltips are confusing and inconsistant. Brute listed as a x10% damage boost- it's not clear that x10% is an additive multiplier. Every Shot Counts is listed as a x20% damage boost- it's not clear that x20% is a straight multiplier.

Yeah, getting this language correct has always been a struggle. If Brute says x10% then that's just a mistake, it should say +10%.  So generally, we're not liking the x10% for a multiplier, +10% for additive then? Anyone got any thoughts on this?

With all the "Location of X" perks, you may wish to remove Spire Knowledge as a purchasable, or at least make it's tooltip clearer.

I'll take a look at the clarity of the description, thanks.

I'm worried that missile damage might get silly. Will report back with results.

I've tested this a bit, and was surprised that things didn't seem to get too crazy. I believe I grabbed all the missile damage multipliers and a powerful launcher, then fought Terminus and things weren't crazily OP. Might need tweaking, though.

Thanks for the feedback! :)
: Re: 1.502 First Impressions
: Monkooky November 14, 2016, 12:30:25 PM
The module drops and resources from minibosses are probably just a case of small sample size.
I did a normal run and got 4 resources and 1 cluster launcher across 5 minibosses floors 5-7.
I have since moved up to Hard and my data collection stagnated.

As for missiles- I've been trying to get Explodifier and the missile perks. Even if this turns out to be stupid powerful, it's probably sufficiently difficult to get that it isn't a problem.
: Re: 1.502 First Impressions
: Mánagarmr November 15, 2016, 01:51:48 AM
Wait wait....bosses can drop resources as missiles and health? Uh...how about no? After having struggled to defeat a boss, you do not want a big, fat middlefinger in your face saying "HA HA you get nothing cool for your efforts!"

That's ragequit material right there.
: Re: 1.502 First Impressions
: ptarth November 15, 2016, 01:58:26 AM
mini-bosses.

Also, just relax a bit before starting to make changes. We need a slightly larger sample of runs before we change everything.
: Re: 1.502 First Impressions
: Misery November 15, 2016, 03:07:47 AM
Wait wait....bosses can drop resources as missiles and health? Uh...how about no? After having struggled to defeat a boss, you do not want a big, fat middlefinger in your face saying "HA HA you get nothing cool for your efforts!"

That's ragequit material right there.

To a degree they already do this, with their tendency to drop modules over and over.  Having a bit less of those in the boss pool might be a good idea.

Instead, maybe some of them could appear inside the defensive shop?  Quite a number of modules are defensive in nature, after all, and that shop could do with a better selection.
: Re: 1.502 First Impressions
: Mánagarmr November 15, 2016, 04:38:50 AM
mini-bosses.

Also, just relax a bit before starting to make changes. We need a slightly larger sample of runs before we change everything.
Oh. Somehow it sounded like you were talking about actual bosses up there. I'll reserve judgement on the minibosses. I seem to remember those dropping barely anything at all anyway.
: Re: 1.502 First Impressions
: z99-_ November 15, 2016, 10:10:46 AM
+Shield should definitely not be a perk available to flame tank, because there it's actually useless.

Yeah, that seems like a fair point.

I haven't had the chance to play this build yet - maybe over the holidays - but as this is something that has been present for awhile, I plead that you do not remove this. It works so well with the item(s) that do cool stuff at the expense of a shield. It leads to the interesting choice of 'Do I take one of these perks that are moderately useful, or do I take this perk that is currently useless, but can combine with certain rare items to make a REALLY powerful perk later?' To me, those are some of the most fun choices of the game :) I always pick it up, because although I rarely end up getting the accompanying item, when I do, it feels like I hit the jackpot.

In fact, I wonder if it would be possible to add similar things? Like minibosses and locked chests could have a chance of dropping 'puzzle piece' items, that separately are useless or even slightly detrimental, but if you happen to get all of them, it gives you a powerful superperk. IF balanced properly, that could be really cool.
: Re: 1.502 First Impressions
: Draco18s November 15, 2016, 12:16:33 PM
I seem to remember those dropping barely anything at all anyway.

They, in fact, drop nothing which is why the "mostly missiles, etc. with the occasional item" was proposed.
: Re: 1.502 First Impressions
: Pepisolo November 15, 2016, 01:40:24 PM
+Shield should definitely not be a perk available to flame tank, because there it's actually useless.

Yeah, that seems like a fair point.

I haven't had the chance to play this build yet - maybe over the holidays - but as this is something that has been present for awhile, I plead that you do not remove this. It works so well with the item(s) that do cool stuff at the expense of a shield. It leads to the interesting choice of 'Do I take one of these perks that are moderately useful, or do I take this perk that is currently useless, but can combine with certain rare items to make a REALLY powerful perk later?' To me, those are some of the most fun choices of the game :) I always pick it up, because although I rarely end up getting the accompanying item, when I do, it feels like I hit the jackpot.

In fact, I wonder if it would be possible to add similar things? Like minibosses and locked chests could have a chance of dropping 'puzzle piece' items, that separately are useless or even slightly detrimental, but if you happen to get all of them, it gives you a powerful superperk. IF balanced properly, that could be really cool.

Yeah, I suppose we could leave it in for those situations. The puzzle piece idea does sound cool. I did want to create a weapon, for example, that is made up of two parts. Maybe a main and energy weapon pairing that if you collect both, they combine to be something really powerful. That would need some engine work, though, for that functionality to be available.
: Re: 1.502 First Impressions
: Monkooky November 15, 2016, 02:11:09 PM
Found time for a second big run!
I died this time so, uh, this feedback might be a bit colored by salt.

Deep Blue is still bonkers. I got the blood avenger and steamrolled everything, except for the humble boss.

Can I get a new primary weapon please? I think the RNG is broken.

We can officially scratch "excessive module drop rate" from the records, the only module I saw in 4 floors was Energy Shield (I'm not willing to use it, since losing all my energy as deep blue ain't a good time)
I'm definitely in favor of migrating module drop rate towards shops to some degree.

The Humbled is way too beefy. Stage 1 and Stage 2 are absurdly threatening now that you can't take out any of the minions quickly, but stage 3 the main difficulty is that you have to dodge shots for so long that you're bound to mess up sometime. It is simultaneously boring and frustrating.
: Re: 1.502 First Impressions
: Misery November 15, 2016, 10:17:59 PM
Yay, salt!

Sounds like The Humbled is mostly doing it's job, though I'll have a look at it's third phase HP.

Also sounds like the blue mech is still an issue, then.   Shouldn't be steamrolling, no...
: Re: 1.502 First Impressions
: Pepisolo November 15, 2016, 10:27:36 PM
Yay, salt!

Sounds like The Humbled is mostly doing it's job, though I'll have a look at it's third phase HP.

Also sounds like the blue mech is still an issue, then.   Shouldn't be steamrolling, no...

Just a warning, Monkooky might be playing on Hard, so perhaps the pattern could be causing the difficulty? I tried The Humbled on normal earlier, and it seemed fine. Wasn't too difficult. For Deep Blue we should probably remove the energy multiplier? Wasn't that already removed, though? Or supposed to have been removed...not sure.
: Re: 1.502 First Impressions
: Misery November 15, 2016, 10:41:26 PM
The pattern it uses isn't what makes it tanky though.

I'll be able to tell just by a quick glance at a number (I have very specific HP ranges I use for boss phases to determine how tanky or not they should be). It's possible that number may be past the correct range.

That being said, it is indeed supposed to be a tough boss, and swarm-type things inherently take longer to defeat than single targets.  Something like a double-damage consumable, or that one that hits the entire screen (normally terrible on bosses, but it works on the swarms) could work really well against this guy.

On a side note, I had a minor idea:  What if the boss locator consumable also revealed which boss is going to be in that room?  Might make it a bit more valuable, you could use it and then say "Okay, it's that guy, it gives me trouble, but X consumable/whatever works well on it, I'll go grab that from the store before I go in there".
: Re: 1.502 First Impressions
: Draco18s November 15, 2016, 11:22:42 PM
On a side note, I had a minor idea:  What if the boss locator consumable also revealed which boss is going to be in that room?  Might make it a bit more valuable, you could use it and then say "Okay, it's that guy, it gives me trouble, but X consumable/whatever works well on it, I'll go grab that from the store before I go in there".

Oh god, that'd be awesome.
: Re: 1.502 First Impressions
: Monkooky November 16, 2016, 03:33:55 PM
I second that awesome
: Re: 1.502 First Impressions
: Pepisolo November 16, 2016, 03:50:48 PM
The pattern it uses isn't what makes it tanky though.

I'll be able to tell just by a quick glance at a number (I have very specific HP ranges I use for boss phases to determine how tanky or not they should be). It's possible that number may be past the correct range.

Yeah, although, I think a really oppressive bullet pattern can make swarmy familiars that bit more difficult to take down, especially when you're trying to take out the last couple of minions. When the shots are really flying I lose a lot of my aiming concentration, that might just be me, though. Generally, I can take out the Normal Humbled easily enough. I've only had a few attempts at the Hard version, though.

On a side note, I had a minor idea:  What if the boss locator consumable also revealed which boss is going to be in that room?  Might make it a bit more valuable, you could use it and then say "Okay, it's that guy, it gives me trouble, but X consumable/whatever works well on it, I'll go grab that from the store before I go in there".

Sounds good. Also sounds pretty tricky to implement, though, in terms of engine and GUI work... although we could just have the boss name pop up in the terminal. That sounds doable.

: Re: 1.502 First Impressions
: Misery November 16, 2016, 09:07:39 PM
Yeah, just having it pop up in the terminal would work out fine.  Same way that the mystery circuits work.
: Re: 1.502 First Impressions
: eruanion November 19, 2016, 10:13:45 PM
Here are my impressions. Sorry if it is a bit on the long side.

I play on Normal. Before the beta patch, I could power my way through by stacking damage boost perks. So I was considering moving on to Hard. But with the new changes, I'll stick with Normal. So far, I'm mostly dying (by attrition) on floor 3 or 4; I made it to Terminus (and beat him) once. So I don't know how the changes work out on the later floors.

The damage rebalance seems good for the most part. I like that even peashooters seem to do reasonable damage right from the start of a run. So leveling up does present some interesting choices now that damage boost perks aren't the obvious best choice. Mini-bosses seem tankier now--that's good for the most part. However, Arcoris and Loco seem to have too much HP. Arconis took long enough to kill beforehand, what with his speed and being in 2-4 pieces. Now he takes a painfully long time to kill. And I think Loco should have relatively low health as a balance to his crazy movement and bullet patterns. Of the bosses I've fought, only Terminus seems to have too much HP.

Some rooms on floor 1 end up being more bullet-hellish than I would have expected so early in a run. This happens (in certain rooms) with new enemies like pink rampart and dissever and the (slightly more dangerous than before) golden fragments. Haven't decided how I feel about that yet, maybe it is okay. But it usually seems like an uneven difficulty spike compared to the rest of floor 1.

Didn't Energy Shield Module constantly drain energy prior to this version? I used to never pick it up. Now you only lose energy when hit. I had a couple runs where that seemed really powerful (absorbs a lot of shot damage). I guess it still isn't attractive if you want to use an energy weapon at all, so I'm not sure what the ideal balance for this module would be.

I'm opposed to changing modules to drop only in secret rooms and shops. Sure, it's annoying to see one when you already have one. But if you don't have one yet, you're glad when one drops. Such is the RNG.

I like the idea of boss locator items telling you who the boss is.

Things I hate more, now that health attrition is greater: loot containers completely blocked by spikes, and the giant barriers that break into pieces that can hurt you.
: Re: 1.502 First Impressions
: Misery November 20, 2016, 12:31:43 AM
Terminus HP:  I don't intend on changing this for now.  This boss is basically meant to be the master of attrition in the game, and it's patterns tend to be designed around this idea.


I'll have a look at some of the difficulty-related aspects for Normal mode.
: Re: 1.502 First Impressions
: z99-_ November 23, 2016, 02:43:52 PM
Ok, I've ran 4 runs on normal now. For background, I'd done 17 runs before the update, with a win statistic of 11/17. 3-4 of those were hard runs, which I always lost, and 4-5 of those were easy runs, which I almost always won. That leaves a normal win statistic of about 1/2. Also, I haven't played in a couple months, so I'm a bit rusty.

So, review in one word? Ouch.

I lost all runs, and the furthest I got was floor 5 with White Gloss. While some bosses certainly provided a challenge, I never was killed by one - it was always normal enemies. All of the deaths and near deaths involved me getting overwhelmed with massive swarms of bullets, or shots unexpectedly hitting me - I guess that just about describes every death for everyone, so I'll go into a bit more detail:

The Anangu seem a lot more dangerous than they used to be. Has their fire rate increased? It was especially bad when two of them spawned in a short, narrow corridor . . .

A Dissever or two aren't bad by themselves. But put a couple of higher-level ones in a smaller room with a Steel Persistence and two Fore-Shields? No amount of dodge will save you.

Another room (long, hourglass shaped) contained two White Lumiflares, A Golden Fragment, a Cross-Claw, a Pearl, and one or two other small guys. I was on floor 1 or 2 with Deep Blue, so sub-par weapons . . . if I hadn't transporter scummed, I definitely would have died there. Constant barrage of shots, with nowhere to run or hide, save a rapidly disintegrating shootable barricade at the entrance.

With all of this, I should point out that I had missiles in all of my deaths/near deaths, but didn't use them: as mentioned above, I either was frantically (and futilely) trying to avoid walls of shots while firing, so that I didn't even have spare time to look at my health bar, much less contemplate using a missile; or, I thought I had the situation in hand, when a shot unexpectedly hit me. In my mind, the primary difference between Normal and Hard is that on Normal, a person can regularly win without using missiles defensively, while on Hard, they cannot. From what I've seen with this update, it will no longer be possible to regularly win on Normal without using missiles defensively. I don't know if that was planned, but it seems like a bad idea, as now beating Normal will require not just some level of reflexes and hand-eye coordination, but also learned reflexive skills specific to schmups.

Positives:
When I first realized health pickups had been halved, I was kinda angry and frustrated. But, looking back, I don't think it contributed to my deaths. There was always just enough or close to enough pickups that I rarely had to enter rooms with major chunks of my health missing. It also had the benefit of making the Happy Face level-up perk and the Scrap Collector Sacrifice Shop perk much more valuable. Actually, now that I think about it, I took one of those two in 3 of my 4 runs, so maybe health attrition could be a real problem if someone misses both of those.

Other misc. thoughts:

I thought we were approaching too many map improvement items/perks before, but now it's ridiculous. There were at least 2 level-ups that didn't contain any nice perks - they both contained two of the reveal x-type rooms perks, and the other perk was All in the Wrist, which has debatable value; instakilling shootables is nice when they're blocking your path, but really really bad when you're trying to hide from a shot and accidently still have the fire button pressed when you go behind cover. At this point, getting map improvements is so easy, you might as well just show everything from the beginning and free up the space for better items/perks. But that could just be me; I explore the whole map, so I just don't see much value in seeing rooms that I'm going to discover anyway.

The Jack of All Trades perk seems way too OP relative to other perks - not that I was complaining at the time. It is Brute, Small Energy Tank, and Small Missile Pack all in one, I think?

Durable Cells shows up it the secret-special item room. Getting an item that sells for 40 at a cheap shop doesn't feel all that secret-special.

The defender drone (I think that's the one) seems to have a typo in the description:
Shoots darts protect itself (and you!)
I would suggest changing to:
Shoots darts to protect itself - and you!

Anyways, that's all for now. I'm kinda bummed out by my repeat crushing defeats, but maybe I'll play another game or two later to test out Easy beta and Normal released.
: Re: 1.502 First Impressions
: z99-_ November 23, 2016, 04:50:45 PM
Sorry for the double post, but I thought of a couple more small things worth mentioning:

I ran into Sundered, and Toxic Reaper (I think those were new?). They both seemed well balanced.

I also noticed the small groups of enemies (Trebuchet + others), and they seemed well balanced in rooms where they are the only enemy type, but maybe less so in rooms where there are other enemies (maybe this is just because of the more shots in general I talked about in my initial post).

While I maintain there are too many map items, I want to say I do see value in the reveal Secret/Sacrifice Room perk, as I remember runs in the past where I had to miss accessing them because of running out of missiles. I also support the Boss Locator consumable showing the boss type.

Speaking of missiles, I just realized that while my missile use habits never changed, I never was close to running out of missiles in any of my beta runs, while for previous runs,it was a constant issue on lower floors. I recall that there were some new missile perks early on, or maybe some new items that increase missile capacity?

Anyways, I hope some of this helps. I'll try a couple more beta runs on easy tonight and report back.
: Re: 1.502 First Impressions
: z99-_ November 23, 2016, 08:24:30 PM
Welp, I just finished a run on Easy. I was steamrolling even before I met the Warden, and I killed Terminus in less than 30 seconds. He wasn't even able to get his forcefield up or summon his helpers. I guess no matter how hard you try to balance, the RNG is the one with the final say in how easy a run will be. I attached a pic with my final stats after beating Terminus (the second Brute perk I got from leveling up after beating him).

Some things I noticed:

I got the Time Machine consumable on floor 2 from a regular, opens-when-you-pass-by chest. As Misery's stickied tips and tricks post says that it was locked away in Secret Rooms, I was happily surprised, to say the least :D.

I don't know what you guys did to the Cryofreeze module, but it is now easily the most OP weapon in the entire game. With it, I was able to clear the vast majority of rooms in the game without firing a single shot from any of my real weapons. You see, the way it works is:

          1) The radial blast is supposed to follow you. This was achieved by giving the blast the player's current velocity.

          2) The blast can go through everything except shootables.

          3) Each blast is capable of a surprising amount of damage, which I believe was effected by all of my global damage multipliers.

Which leads to:

          4) Sprint in the enemy's direction right before the blast, stop and back up right after the blast, and watch with unsuppressed sadistic glee as your giant arctic sawblade instakills most enemies in that general direction. Repeat as needed.

It also works with the Nova module, though that one actually seems to do less damage, despite what the stats say.

10/10 best Avatar Simulator 2016
: Re: 1.502 First Impressions
: Misery November 24, 2016, 03:31:48 AM
Bloody Time Machine, how the heck did that get into other parts of that game?  That'll get fixed ASAP.

For your steamroll run, it sounds like the cryo thing is the main culprit?  Ugh.  It's always something.  Other than that I don't have thoughts on it, the item balance isn't exactly my realm.


For other things:

Anangu:  Havent changed them.  Far as I know, nobody else did, either. 

Dissever:  This'll be tweaked.   Somehow.

Room filled with doom:   Yyyyyeeeaaahhh... that's a thing right now.  Some rooms are a little overboard in terms of what they have in them.  This was much harder to notice in previous versions, but now it's a lot easier to spot.  I'm going to be cleaning up a bunch of these.  Which isn't to say they'll all get easier, just more... smoothed out.  In particular, less of the "a bazillion enemies crammed into a tiny space" sort of thing.  That shouldn't really be a thing to begin with.

Missiles:  You don't absolutely *need* these to survive.  Even on Hard, nothing is undodgable; I'd have spotted it by now.  There's always a way out.  Sometimes though this means manipulating certain enemies into firing in certain directions (even in proper bullet-hell shmups, this is often the case);  for example, Pearls can get really bad really fast if they fire at certain angles in cramped areas, but you can manipulate them into firing towards the walls by approaching them properly and staying close.  Otherwise, it's much harder to dodge their big wall of pain.  Positioning is a really important thing in this game (well, in the entire genre, really) and it's a lot more apparent with the new update.  But yeah, you don't *have* to use missiles... it's just harder now.  That being said, aint anything wrong with using them, definitely not.  Consider going after that sacrifice item that gives you two more missiles per new room that you enter.  Also consider seeking out defensive consumables (of which there are many). 

Not running out of missiles:  Er.... I don't know what to say for this one.  Maybe the others have thoughts on that part.

Health attrition:  It's SUPPOSED to be a problem :D   It's a major part of the game's difficulty (usually the case in this genre as a whole).  If you're having trouble healing without those two specific things you mentioned, consider also finding things like the "instant full heal" consumable, or the Healing Nanites.   There is also an item in the defensive shop that halves incoming damage.  Some orbitals can help too.   There's certainly more that can help than just the things you named, it's just that a lot of the other things don't have direct effects on your current HP.  The funky mines that the purple mech uses are also a fantastic defensive tool.

Perk issues:  Hm, yeah, I rather agree on this bit.  The map ones aren't all that necessary, and the Jack one is a little too much.  It's one of those "why take anything else?" sorts of things, so that needs a looking at.

Durable Cells:  Clearly this is some sort of conspiracy.  First the Time Machine, and now this? 


Any further feedback, let us know!
: Re: 1.502 First Impressions
: Pepisolo November 24, 2016, 12:21:51 PM
Just catching up with all the feedback, sorry about the delay.

I play on Normal. Before the beta patch, I could power my way through by stacking damage boost perks. So I was considering moving on to Hard. But with the new changes, I'll stick with Normal. So far, I'm mostly dying (by attrition) on floor 3 or 4; I made it to Terminus (and beat him) once. So I don't know how the changes work out on the later floors.

Sounds around about what we were aiming for versus the old versions. Attrition may be a bit too strong, I'm not sure yet, though.

The damage rebalance seems good for the most part. I like that even peashooters seem to do reasonable damage right from the start of a run. So leveling up does present some interesting choices now that damage boost perks aren't the obvious best choice. Mini-bosses seem tankier now--that's good for the most part. However, Arcoris and Loco seem to have too much HP. Arconis took long enough to kill beforehand, what with his speed and being in 2-4 pieces. Now he takes a painfully long time to kill. And I think Loco should have relatively low health as a balance to his crazy movement and bullet patterns. Of the bosses I've fought, only Terminus seems to have too much HP.

The miniboss HP was increased a bit across the board. Might have gone a little too far with Arcoris and Loco, although a few more opinions on  this would be good. I do agree that Loco's HP should be relatively low given how crazy the boss is.

Some rooms on floor 1 end up being more bullet-hellish than I would have expected so early in a run. This happens (in certain rooms) with new enemies like pink rampart and dissever and the (slightly more dangerous than before) golden fragments. Haven't decided how I feel about that yet, maybe it is okay. But it usually seems like an uneven difficulty spike compared to the rest of floor 1.

Yeah, I think that generally there's too much dangerous crazy stuff throughout the floors. Misery is going to take a look at the rooms at some point, I think, to reduce the enemy density a bit. I also think that perhaps some of the more dangerous enemies shouldn't be spawning that early on.

Didn't Energy Shield Module constantly drain energy prior to this version? I used to never pick it up. Now you only lose energy when hit. I had a couple runs where that seemed really powerful (absorbs a lot of shot damage). I guess it still isn't attractive if you want to use an energy weapon at all, so I'm not sure what the ideal balance for this module would be.

Yeah, there were complaints that since the energy drain cost was increased, the module seemed like it wasn't ever worth picking up, so I just removed the drain to see how that works out.

I'm opposed to changing modules to drop only in secret rooms and shops. Sure, it's annoying to see one when you already have one. But if you don't have one yet, you're glad when one drops. Such is the RNG.

Not sure what to do about this really, I'll maybe just decrease the drop frequency of modules, although I can add them to the appropriate shops too.

I like the idea of boss locator items telling you who the boss is.

It's good, but I think that will require engine work, so I'm not sure on how feasible it currently is to be honest.

Things I hate more, now that health attrition is greater: loot containers completely blocked by spikes, and the giant barriers that break into pieces that can hurt you.

The player usually has at least 1 shield in order to access that loot, although then it does become a bit cheesy, exiting and re-entering just to access those. Should we just remove that type of challenge? Not sure, but maybe.


The Anangu seem a lot more dangerous than they used to be. Has their fire rate increased? It was especially bad when two of them spawned in a short, narrow corridor . . .

Nope, no changes to these guys.

With all of this, I should point out that I had missiles in all of my deaths/near deaths, but didn't use them: as mentioned above, I either was frantically (and futilely) trying to avoid walls of shots while firing, so that I didn't even have spare time to look at my health bar, much less contemplate using a missile; or, I thought I had the situation in hand, when a shot unexpectedly hit me. In my mind, the primary difference between Normal and Hard is that on Normal, a person can regularly win without using missiles defensively, while on Hard, they cannot. From what I've seen with this update, it will no longer be possible to regularly win on Normal without using missiles defensively. I don't know if that was planned, but it seems like a bad idea, as now beating Normal will require not just some level of reflexes and hand-eye coordination, but also learned reflexive skills specific to schmups.

I think a lot of the difficulty is probably coming from rooms crammed with too many dangerous enemies and these need to be thinned out a bit.

When I first realized health pickups had been halved, I was kinda angry and frustrated. But, looking back, I don't think it contributed to my deaths. There was always just enough or close to enough pickups that I rarely had to enter rooms with major chunks of my health missing. It also had the benefit of making the Happy Face level-up perk and the Scrap Collector Sacrifice Shop perk much more valuable. Actually, now that I think about it, I took one of those two in 3 of my 4 runs, so maybe health attrition could be a real problem if someone misses both of those.

Yeah, attrition is meant to be something that the player can adjust to over the course of a run, depending on how the run is going at the time. If it's not a problem with your current build then just forget about it, if it is then there should be a few choices that you can make to help counter the problem. Grabbing the Bloodlust perks is a major one. If you're unlucky enough to have missed all the more direct options available, then you might need to adjust your playstyle to be more defensive on the run, or seek out healing consumables.

I thought we were approaching too many map improvement items/perks before, but now it's ridiculous. There were at least 2 level-ups that didn't contain any nice perks - they both contained two of the reveal x-type rooms perks, and the other perk was All in the Wrist, which has debatable value; instakilling shootables is nice when they're blocking your path, but really really bad when you're trying to hide from a shot and accidently still have the fire button pressed when you go behind cover. At this point, getting map improvements is so easy, you might as well just show everything from the beginning and free up the space for better items/perks. But that could just be me; I explore the whole map, so I just don't see much value in seeing rooms that I'm going to discover anyway.

That level of perks is probably the laziest group of perks I made, as at that point I was struggling a bit to come up with good stuff. I could remove all the locate room perks and try to add in a few more new ones, but I'm not sure. Anybody like these options? All In the Wrist was originally intended to provide the ability to destroy missile blocks too, but I moved that to Heavyweight to beef that perk up a bit.

The Jack of All Trades perk seems way too OP relative to other perks - not that I was complaining at the time. It is Brute, Small Energy Tank, and Small Missile Pack all in one, I think?

I did reduce the numbers on this a bit after Misery mentioned that it seemed a bit OP, but that version should be in the beta. Currently JOAT is up against BloodyRage,BigGameHunter,TrapMaster,EnergyTransfer, and SecondChance giving the player +10% damage, 2 health, x5% fire rate, +25 energy and +2 missiles. Big Game Hunter gives a straight x10% boost on bosses which is pretty strong, although JOAT is probably still stronger.  I think that maybe reducing the JOAT damage boost to +5% would even things out, though. Either that or removing the fire rate boost entirely.

Durable Cells shows up it the secret-special item room. Getting an item that sells for 40 at a cheap shop doesn't feel all that secret-special.

Secret item rooms need an overhaul generally, I think, to make just super cool unique items seed there. The seeding is a bit all over the place at the moment, I think.

The defender drone (I think that's the one) seems to have a typo in the description

I'll adjust that, thanks.

Speaking of missiles, I just realized that while my missile use habits never changed, I never was close to running out of missiles in any of my beta runs, while for previous runs,it was a constant issue on lower floors. I recall that there were some new missile perks early on, or maybe some new items that increase missile capacity?

I don't think things have changed massively on this front. Before the Beta release, I had actually pushed the starting mech missile capacities way down, but there were complaints so I put them mostly back up to where they once were. I did also add a couple more missile capacity boosting items. One other change is that the perks now also give ammo as well as capacity, so overall, yeah, it's probably a bit easier to keep your missile ammo up.

I got the Time Machine consumable on floor 2 from a regular, opens-when-you-pass-by chest. As Misery's stickied tips and tricks post says that it was locked away in Secret Rooms, I was happily surprised, to say the least

That's super weird, regular chests shouldn't be dropping any consumables, probably just a bug, I'll take a look.

I don't know what you guys did to the Cryofreeze module, but it is now easily the most OP weapon in the entire game.

That probably just has its damage set too high then. I'll take a look.

Thanks for the awesome feedback all! :)
: Re: 1.502 First Impressions
: z99-_ November 24, 2016, 01:49:42 PM
For your steamroll run, it sounds like the cryo thing is the main culprit?  Ugh.  It's always something.  Other than that I don't have thoughts on it, the item balance isn't exactly my realm.

While it definitely let me wipe all of the regular rooms, it didn't really contribute to my rekkage of the late bosses, most notably Terminus. That was more a function of my insane energy level (780, + antimatter), good weapons (I think the plasma shotgun's effect, which is incidentally the same as the cryo module, played a big role in stun-locking Terminus), and lots of damage and fire rate multipliers. I just realized it's not visible on the screenshot, but my health was 53 by the end of that run (not that I needed it - I never lost more than 5 health points a room in the later floors, and that was with me goofing off with the cryo module). So, I guess my point was, on easy at least, it is still very much possible to become God of the Hydrals in the beta, which I understood was supposed to prevent that with all of the new dangerous enemies and less health drops and lower damage multipliers.

Also, if a cheat menu gets added, could the current version of the cryo module could be added for fun as a bonus starting module? You could maybe call it the Airbending Module, and have the unlock condition be defeat Terminus with a normal cryo module :P

Missiles:  You don't absolutely *need* these to survive.  Even on Hard, nothing is undodgable; I'd have spotted it by now.  There's always a way out.  Sometimes though this means manipulating certain enemies into firing in certain directions (even in proper bullet-hell shmups, this is often the case);  for example, Pearls can get really bad really fast if they fire at certain angles in cramped areas, but you can manipulate them into firing towards the walls by approaching them properly and staying close.  Otherwise, it's much harder to dodge their big wall of pain.  Positioning is a really important thing in this game (well, in the entire genre, really) and it's a lot more apparent with the new update.  But yeah, you don't *have* to use missiles... it's just harder now.  That being said, aint anything wrong with using them, definitely not.  Consider going after that sacrifice item that gives you two more missiles per new room that you enter.  Also consider seeking out defensive consumables (of which there are many). 

I would be very interested to see how you dodge 2 Anangu boomerangs that are wider than the hallway you're currently in ;). While there may always be a way out, the question is, how long does that way out last, and what level of skills are required to recognize that way out and use it. The point that I had (poorly) been trying to make is, the skills and reflexes that are required to use those ways out on beta normal are skills primarily developed by playing more of the bullet-hell and 1-hit-kills-you shmups that few people play. Before, using the ways out on normal only required skills and reflexes developed in much broader video game categories, like FPSs and RPGs, allowing a much broader appeal. This is in line with how most other games do their difficulty levels: easy/super-easy is new to gaming, normal is experienced gamer new to the genre, and hard/ultra-hard is experienced with the genre. Obviously everyone is different, so there are probably people who would be happy putting in 100 hours on super-easy, but those are the general guidelines most games with variable difficulty go by to make sure players get a consistent experience., and straying away from that seems like a bad idea.

Missiles seem to be in place to counteract this by allowing players to make their own ways out, which sounds good on paper; however, in practice, recognizing that you messed up and you're in a situation that requires you to use a missile requires nearly the same amount of forethought as recognizing and using those small ways out in the first place, so they aren't really effective at solving the problem.

So, my balance proposal, assuming no real difficulty changes in terms of enemies:

     - Increase starting player health across the board a little to survive early floors

     - Decrease the gains from health boosts, so players cannot possibly end with ~30 health more than they started (I realize health gains from shards change by difficulty, but the vast majority of my health gains were from items)

     - Increase player base damage, so they can more easily defeat early floor enemies

     - Further decrease gains from damage boosts, so players cannot steamroll later floors

     - Find a way to make sure the player has an opportunity or two to get a new weapon before they leave floor 2 (besides weapon shops, as the player rarely has enough money to buy something on the early floors - maybe start the player off with ~20 credits?)

     - Decrease the gains from energy boosts so players cannot possibly end the game with ~350 more energy than they started (350 should be enough to create an energy centered build on any mech, without allowing them to kill Terminus with only their energy weapon (unless they try reeeeally hard :D))

Of course, this all comes with the usual caveat of 'this is just my opinion based off of my limited experiences'. As I seem to be the only one with a real problem, maybe there is no problem, and my sample size of 4 isn't enough to accurately make statements about balance problems :). I'll play a few more rounds to see.

Well, it looks like while I was writing my novel, Pepisolo responded to most of my points :D. If the enemies get thinned out, there shouldn't be a real problem; although, for steamroll prevention, some of my points may still be valid.

Anyways, Happy Thanksgiving!
: Re: 1.502 First Impressions
: Pepisolo November 24, 2016, 02:17:52 PM
Couple of notes after looking into a few things:

1) I checked the seeding on Time Machine and everything looks fine, so I'm not sure what went wrong there. We might have a trickier problem....drat!

2) Cryofreeze module was indeed set to a way too high damage -- more DPS than the Incineration Module -- so I've backed that way down given that the debuff effect is also pretty strong.
: Re: 1.502 First Impressions
: Logorouge November 24, 2016, 06:39:37 PM
That was more a function of my insane energy level (780, + antimatter), [...] but my health was 53 by the end of that run [...]
Concerning the health: Keep in mind Easy doubled your starting Health and Health gains (unless that changed). Also, how many sacrifice items did you grab during that run? (I see one on the screenshot) It just doesn't seem that high for an Easy run.

Energy: With Deep Blue's double max energy (which I'm guessing is the mech you were using), reaching that level of energy isn't exactly uncommon. Cut that in half on other mechs and you're pretty close to your suggested value already.


But here's a question for everyone: Is Deep Blue special ability too much? Should it be toned down to x1.5 energy instead of x2? As much as I enjoy doing things like this (http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=744051573) (Don't look at the floor number), it does go into crazy territory a bit too easily.
: Re: 1.502 First Impressions
: Pepisolo November 25, 2016, 12:08:48 PM
But here's a question for everyone: Is Deep Blue special ability too much? Should it be toned down to x1.5 energy instead of x2? As much as I enjoy doing things like this (Don't look at the floor number), it does go into crazy territory a bit too easily.

I think that maybe just giving the Deep Blue a 200 energy starting capacity might be best. Removing multiplier stuff completely? Or would you prefer a change to x1.5?
: Re: 1.502 First Impressions
: Logorouge November 25, 2016, 05:58:53 PM
I think that maybe just giving the Deep Blue a 200 energy starting capacity might be best. Removing multiplier stuff completely? Or would you prefer a change to x1.5?
Personally, I think losing the ability altogether would be unfortunate. Even though it was an unintended effect at first and it is extra work for balancing, it did give Deep Blue something unique that can change the way you play in a very concrete way.
: Re: 1.502 First Impressions
: Pepisolo November 25, 2016, 07:41:04 PM
I think that maybe just giving the Deep Blue a 200 energy starting capacity might be best. Removing multiplier stuff completely? Or would you prefer a change to x1.5?
Personally, I think losing the ability altogether would be unfortunate. Even though it was an unintended effect at first and it is extra work for balancing, it did give Deep Blue something unique that can change the way you play in a very concrete way.

Cool, just adjusted the multiplier down to 1.5 then. Thanks!
: Re: 1.502 First Impressions
: Misery November 25, 2016, 08:26:10 PM
I would be very interested to see how you dodge 2 Anangu boomerangs that are wider than the hallway you're currently in . While there may always be a way out, the question is, how long does that way out last, and what level of skills are required to recognize that way out and use it. The point that I had (poorly) been trying to make is, the skills and reflexes that are required to use those ways out on beta normal are skills primarily developed by playing more of the bullet-hell and 1-hit-kills-you shmups that few people play. Before, using the ways out on normal only required skills and reflexes developed in much broader video game categories, like FPSs and RPGs, allowing a much broader appeal. This is in line with how most other games do their difficulty levels: easy/super-easy is new to gaming, normal is experienced gamer new to the genre, and hard/ultra-hard is experienced with the genre. Obviously everyone is different, so there are probably people who would be happy putting in 100 hours on super-easy, but those are the general guidelines most games with variable difficulty go by to make sure players get a consistent experience., and straying away from that seems like a bad idea.

Missiles seem to be in place to counteract this by allowing players to make their own ways out, which sounds good on paper; however, in practice, recognizing that you messed up and you're in a situation that requires you to use a missile requires nearly the same amount of forethought as recognizing and using those small ways out in the first place, so they aren't really effective at solving the problem.

So, my balance proposal, assuming no real difficulty changes in terms of enemies:

     - Increase starting player health across the board a little to survive early floors

     - Decrease the gains from health boosts, so players cannot possibly end with ~30 health more than they started (I realize health gains from shards change by difficulty, but the vast majority of my health gains were from items)

     - Increase player base damage, so they can more easily defeat early floor enemies

     - Further decrease gains from damage boosts, so players cannot steamroll later floors

     - Find a way to make sure the player has an opportunity or two to get a new weapon before they leave floor 2 (besides weapon shops, as the player rarely has enough money to buy something on the early floors - maybe start the player off with ~20 credits?)

     - Decrease the gains from energy boosts so players cannot possibly end the game with ~350 more energy than they started (350 should be enough to create an energy centered build on any mech, without allowing them to kill Terminus with only their energy weapon (unless they try reeeeally hard ))

Of course, this all comes with the usual caveat of 'this is just my opinion based off of my limited experiences'. As I seem to be the only one with a real problem, maybe there is no problem, and my sample size of 4 isn't enough to accurately make statements about balance problems . I'll play a few more rounds to see.

Technically the boomerangs can still be dodged in that situation you mention, heh.   But yes, most players wouldnt be able to do that.   Though, in the case of an enemy like that, simply pulling them into a better area is the key (since they always chase you).   Now, if you're finding a room where the game is generating this situation yet the room does NOT have somewhere you can pull enemies like that into (or similar situations), feel free to report the room here so I can change it.   F3 to see the room name (bottom right corner of the box that pops up).

As for the game's difficulty, dont forget what genre this is; by default this type of game is simply harder than the sorts you mention.  Heck, many of these games start out quite a bit harder than this one does on Normal (Enter the Gungeon being the most prominent example right now).  Isaac is the exception to the rule in that it's easier than the rest of these.

Of course, as I said, I'll be fixing the difficulty as the early floors go.   The game shouldnt be drowning you in doom THAT early. I dont want this to be as easy as Isaac, yet it's not supposed to be as murderous as Gungeon when played on Normal (where alot of players cant even beat the FIRST floor...).  Gotta keep it at least somewhat accessible. Should be a pretty easy fix since it's mostly just about enemy selection and some rooms being overloaded.  I'll be able to get to that on Monday.  I'd do it now but I'm at a hotel with my stupid laptop of stupid which cant run the game without exploding.


As far as finding weapons early on, right now, you've got a pretty good chance of finding them with the change to miniboss drops.





Now, as for the blue mech since that's being talked about alot here:   Should we be going with a multiplier at all?  I mean, one way or another, energy upgrades are pretty easy to come by in this and many of them are quite large, particularly if you get things like the battery or that big red button thing.   

What about simply coming up with something different for that mech?  I mean, "more energy" isnt even that interesting of an ability, particularly if you're not finding very interesting energy weapons.  The blue mech starts with a crappy gun and a familiar.  Maybe something that affects familiars?
: Re: 1.502 First Impressions
: Monkooky November 27, 2016, 10:16:33 PM
Whoo been away for a while.

On Health: I rather agree that starting health/gains should be fiddled with. Redshift in particular is a good example: on Hard, you can quadrouple your health by gaining a single lucky item, and any health item at all is guaranteed to at least double your health.  That is a rather sharp survivability spike, even in the smallest case.

I find floor one damage to be perfectly acceptable in the general case. Normalizing room difficulty will fix what remaining problems I have with it.

On Deep Blue: I very much like having a mech focused on energy weapons, though Deep Blue is far too good at it. Reducing the energy multiplier should help.
 I like the idea of having a mech which relies on it's familiar, but Deep Blue is not that mech as the familiar is only barely impactful, particularly on later floors.
 It might be an idea to split Deep Blue into two different mechs?

On map revealers: I Only ever get the secret room revealer. To make the others useful at all, there needs to be a reason to not explore the entire map. Maybe some warning system about how scary adjacent rooms are? I imagine that would take engine work though.

On steamrolling: I feel like this is more of a consequence of broken weapons and sometimes Deep Blue than anything else. 


New feedback:
Harmony is still in the game! 

You know how there's always a free item right next to your start? I've taken to restarting if that item is sufficiently trash, as it really makes a big difference. This is probably a behavior that should be discouraged somehow, but I'm not sure if that's feasible. Probably just ignore this feedback.
The insta-restarts: +missile capacity (Unless you are using your entire missile capacity in a room, this does nothing1.
Big Leaky Battery, sometimes. Unless you run through your energy capacity in 20 seconds2, this item is strictly detrimental. Sometimes that is a good bargain, sometimes it's clearly not.
Limiter Removal. I like this item a little bit, it's not detrimental. When I can reset right off the bat- I'd rather anything else that's not on this list.

The level 2: x2 from pickup X passives- these discourage you from actually picking stuff up until level 2. Not a huge deal, mildly obnoxious.

1: Okay, not nothing. It means you start the floor with more missiles IF you are able to refill everything. It saves you from some backtracking. It isn't significant compared to the other passives available.
2:40 seconds for Deep Blue
: Re: 1.502 First Impressions
: Draco18s November 28, 2016, 01:03:02 AM
Just tried a few runs.

Got a perfect on Backfire, but also picked up Risky Assassin (the Skeleton Key was nice, too) and got killed by a tiny transport because my fire aura hit it and it shot straight into me.
Second run I was doing well, but encountered my long time nemesis, Labyrinth.  I think I finally worked out how to deal with its tracer shot, but I took too many hits and wasn't able to hold out at that point.
: Re: 1.502 First Impressions
: Draco18s November 28, 2016, 03:53:19 PM
New day, new run.

Can someone look at CMP_EWPlatform? (This is assuming that when you die, hitting F3 still shows the last room you were in) Faux edit: does not appear to be the case; that's a starting room.  Huff.

Whatever room it was, was a very claustrophobic room (little maneuvering room) with slow-blinking lasers down center of the accessible side horizontally (I entered bottom leftish, most enemies started on the right half and came though the narrow opening) with several (at least two) very high health kinda small plane looking things (Faceripper?) chasing me with a medium sized red-something (fires four "spears" that leave behind stationary sparkle-mines).  Went from ~13 hp +2 shields to dead rather quickly, and this was just after fighting the Aberration floor boss (floor 4) for the first time and getting a Perfect.

My DPS was pretty solid, too, just not against whatever those things were chasing me.  Had that attachment that gives +100% base + bullet spread (though still using my Pea Shooter starting gun, but I'd taken the +50% damage perk and bought two +2% damage items). I'd been meaning to hit a weapon's shop, but the only one I saw was on Floor 2, and I didn't have the credits or keys to bother (picked up two 30 credit drones instead; one was the "fires bullet intercepting darts" one).  For an idea how how terrible I was doing against those pursuers, at point blank trying to avoid running into them and everything else, I got one of them down to maybe 90% before I died (the other I don't know because they stacked themselves one atop the other).  If there was more than two (pretty sure there was, because I kept seeing "enemy died explosions" only to find that I still had two enemies to deal with) then that's a different, but related problem.
: Re: 1.502 First Impressions
: Pepisolo December 01, 2016, 01:23:32 PM
New day, new run.

Can someone look at CMP_EWPlatform? (This is assuming that when you die, hitting F3 still shows the last room you were in) Faux edit: does not appear to be the case; that's a starting room.  Huff.

Whatever room it was, was a very claustrophobic room (little maneuvering room) with slow-blinking lasers down center of the accessible side horizontally (I entered bottom leftish, most enemies started on the right half and came though the narrow opening) with several (at least two) very high health kinda small plane looking things (Faceripper?) chasing me with a medium sized red-something (fires four "spears" that leave behind stationary sparkle-mines).  Went from ~13 hp +2 shields to dead rather quickly, and this was just after fighting the Aberration floor boss (floor 4) for the first time and getting a Perfect.


My DPS was pretty solid, too, just not against whatever those things were chasing me.  Had that attachment that gives +100% base + bullet spread (though still using my Pea Shooter starting gun, but I'd taken the +50% damage perk and bought two +2% damage items). I'd been meaning to hit a weapon's shop, but the only one I saw was on Floor 2, and I didn't have the credits or keys to bother (picked up two 30 credit drones instead; one was the "fires bullet intercepting darts" one).  For an idea how how terrible I was doing against those pursuers, at point blank trying to avoid running into them and everything else, I got one of them down to maybe 90% before I died (the other I don't know because they stacked themselves one atop the other).  If there was more than two (pretty sure there was, because I kept seeing "enemy died explosions" only to find that I still had two enemies to deal with) then that's a different, but related problem.

You appear to be still on the old version. The latest build was released as a Beta branch that you need to opt into on steam. Damage boosts have been reduced a lot since they were 50% and 100%  The room feedback should still be valid, though, as rooms haven't been changed since the last build.
: Re: 1.502 First Impressions
: Draco18s December 01, 2016, 01:55:09 PM
You appear to be still on the old version. The latest build was released as a Beta branch that you need to opt into on steam. Damage boosts have been reduced a lot since they were 50% and 100%  The room feedback should still be valid, though, as rooms haven't been changed since the last build.

Ah, you are correct sir.
I looked and there's like 6.  A couple of them have version numbers, others do not.
: Re: 1.502 First Impressions
: Pepisolo December 01, 2016, 02:35:29 PM
You appear to be still on the old version. The latest build was released as a Beta branch that you need to opt into on steam. Damage boosts have been reduced a lot since they were 50% and 100%  The room feedback should still be valid, though, as rooms haven't been changed since the last build.

Ah, you are correct sir.
I looked and there's like 6.  A couple of them have version numbers, others do not.

Yeah, there should be one marked Beta. It's a bit confusing with them not have versions, but there should be one that is only listed as Beta, which is the latest version.
: Re: 1.502 First Impressions
: Draco18s December 01, 2016, 02:45:52 PM
Gotcha!
Giving that a go
: Re: 1.502 First Impressions
: Draco18s December 03, 2016, 04:06:03 PM
On actually 1.502 this time.

Played around a couple times, almost made it to the Warden on normal using the blue mech.  I encountered a complete and utter lack of HP pickups on level 4 and 5.  I went into level 4 with ~10 hp (of 14).  Went into level 5 with 7.  Combined between the two floors I found maybe 4 health pickups (only one of which was on floor 5).

Found an awesome missile launcher (the 3-way-spitter).  In most destructible situations it'll save you a missile, in a few very specific ones it'll cost you a missile, as the AOE is smaller.  But definitely fun to use.  Also swapped out my guns for other things. At one point I had a grenade launcher, but I think I swapped again but I don't remember to what.  My energy weapon I swapped out for the 3 homing spines gun, which was very nice.  Firing around corners was very handy.

Finally got a perfect win against Invader (did it the other day, don't remember what I was using).

Only one room complaint.  Forgot to grab its name (doh!) and it's more a case of "the room is fine, but the enemy that spawed was not."  The room is one of those semi-wide ones with the two horizontal lines of "actually indestructible black blocks" along the top and bottom with a giant area in the center.  One of the enemies that spawned just inside that barrier was a new one that I've only seen since v1.500 that fires VERY LARGE shots (that look like fork tines with smaller blue galaxy-shaped ones) that aim right at you when they spawn.  Having that thing start directly on the other side of a wall you can't shoot through, two tiles away, is very uncool.  Basically "take damage you can't avoid" due to shot size and restricted player movement.  I only managed to deal with it because I had the icy burst attachment, so when it pulsed the enemy died (and due to that low health I've never learned its name).
: Re: 1.502 First Impressions
: Pepisolo December 04, 2016, 07:12:04 PM
One of the enemies that spawned just inside that barrier was a new one that I've only seen since v1.500 that fires VERY LARGE shots (that look like fork tines with smaller blue galaxy-shaped ones) that aim right at you when they spawn.  Having that thing start directly on the other side of a wall you can't shoot through, two tiles away, is very uncool.  Basically "take damage you can't avoid" due to shot size and restricted player movement.  I only managed to deal with it because I had the icy burst attachment, so when it pulsed the enemy died (and due to that low health I've never learned its name).

I'm not sure which enemy that is, perhaps Fragment? The Cryofreeze Module is currently OP so that probably helped you a lot, too.
: Re: 1.502 First Impressions
: Draco18s December 04, 2016, 08:05:01 PM
One of the enemies that spawned just inside that barrier was a new one that I've only seen since v1.500 that fires VERY LARGE shots (that look like fork tines with smaller blue galaxy-shaped ones) that aim right at you when they spawn.  Having that thing start directly on the other side of a wall you can't shoot through, two tiles away, is very uncool.  Basically "take damage you can't avoid" due to shot size and restricted player movement.  I only managed to deal with it because I had the icy burst attachment, so when it pulsed the enemy died (and due to that low health I've never learned its name).

I'm not sure which enemy that is, perhaps Fragment? The Cryofreeze Module is currently OP so that probably helped you a lot, too.

The shots are....SauronMediumHaloGold shots, maybe?  Along with I think WhirlMediumTrueBlue.
/me examines the XML files
Yeah, looks like it's Fragment.  The enemy itself is fine generally, definitely belongs in the category of "jump scare."  Just not in that room.
Edit: the room is BGS_TheArena