Current difficulty balance?

[ptarth]

Wall hitboxes are probably not what you expect. Press F7 and see where they are.

[z99-_]

Now, granted, some are certainly meant to be easier or harder than others.  Bosses for instance, Sunder is the hardest, and Battleswarm the easiest... that's pretty much where they should be.  But if someone is getting wrecked over and over by, say, Crystal Mother, that's not right.   That sort of thing.

When Invader was showing up every run, I remember talk about restrictions on which floors certain bosses can spawn at. If Sunder is the hardest boss, should it be moved to appear on later levels only? I'm not sure which floor I just encountered it on, but I'm pretty sure it was 1 or 2. Was a bit of a surprise

[Misery]

Sunder isnt the hardest boss overall:  It's the hardest boss of it's group.

Bosses are grouped into multiple categories based on level ranges:  1-2, 3-4, 5 (Warden), 6, and then 7 with Terminus.

Sunder is usually considered the toughest of the 1-2 range.

[NickAragua]

Since the latest patch, I feel like you guys have hit a pretty good sweet spot in terms of balance, on normal difficulty. It's challenging (I got killed on the third level), but the enemies don't take half an hour to kill and I don't get a "this is BS" feeling. So, thumbs up.

[Bluddy]

Just wanted to chime and in say congrats on your achievement. I haven't played this game in a while, but I just booted it up, and the difficulty curve is excellent. Many interesting enemies, interesting strategic choices, and the difficulty curve is terrific, with health and credits balanced just right. Great job guys!

If there's one complaint I have at this point, it's that having several shops is overkill, requiring too many keys to observe what might be good items at prices you can afford, but quite possibly none of the above. Buying the skeleton key was a no-brainer (even at the cost of health) for this reason.

[TheVampire100]

I could finally finish the game as Redshift Mech with the last patch. Seriously, the thing is so goddamn hard to use. Overpowered for sure but only if you don't screw up int he first two floors. A single hit can basically screw you forever.
But if you manage to get past the first two floors, the Mech snowballs hard, with every single extra helth he becomes harder to defeat. I died once but I had the "Second Chance" Perk (very good idea). I also had the improved Cryofreeze module which is so goddamn strong. It's ridiculous how useful it is.

My final build was something like this: Grenade Launcher, Railgun (Energy), Cryofreeze Module, 21-24 hp, ~50% crit chance, Regeneration Hull (this thign is INSANE with Redshift) and soem other minor stuff. Really cool build overall with a lot of cool perks and pickups. And I got most of the stuff I needed at floor 1 and 2.

Edit: Also the new health pickups were an excellent idea. They fit so perfectly into the game that I wonder why no one has thought before of them. They make the "get double health from drops" more viable now.

[Misery]

Just wanted to chime and in say congrats on your achievement. I haven't played this game in a while, but I just booted it up, and the difficulty curve is excellent. Many interesting enemies, interesting strategic choices, and the difficulty curve is terrific, with health and credits balanced just right. Great job guys!

If there's one complaint I have at this point, it's that having several shops is overkill, requiring too many keys to observe what might be good items at prices you can afford, but quite possibly none of the above. Buying the skeleton key was a no-brainer (even at the cost of health) for this reason.

Well, with the keys, you shouldnt really be opening EVERY shop.  It's meant to be a decision:  Go for the weapon shop?  Maybe get a powerful consumable (or even a Bundle) for the boss?  Or maybe open some locked chests?  That sort of thing.

Skeleton key really is very good though, yeah.  That's one of my favorites to grab from sacrifice rooms.  Also the one that gives you 2 more missiles per room is another favorite.  Particularly with something like the huge homing missile.

I could finally finish the game as Redshift Mech with the last patch. Seriously, the thing is so goddamn hard to use. Overpowered for sure but only if you don't screw up int he first two floors. A single hit can basically screw you forever.
But if you manage to get past the first two floors, the Mech snowballs hard, with every single extra helth he becomes harder to defeat. I died once but I had the "Second Chance" Perk (very good idea). I also had the improved Cryofreeze module which is so goddamn strong. It's ridiculous how useful it is.

My final build was something like this: Grenade Launcher, Railgun (Energy), Cryofreeze Module, 21-24 hp, ~50% crit chance, Regeneration Hull (this thign is INSANE with Redshift) and soem other minor stuff. Really cool build overall with a lot of cool perks and pickups. And I got most of the stuff I needed at floor 1 and 2.

Edit: Also the new health pickups were an excellent idea. They fit so perfectly into the game that I wonder why no one has thought before of them. They make the "get double health from drops" more viable now.

Yeah, in retrospect those other types of health pickups do seem really obvious, dont they?  Particularly since pretty much every single game in this genre uses that exact concept.

[z99-_]

Coincidentally, I also just finished a Redshift run (first non-cheese win on the new normal (though Redshift is really a sort of cheese)!). My starting present was the air sniper rifle, so I did a total sniper run. I got every critical hit booster I could to add to the air rifle's 30% critical hit chance, so it ended up with like 80% - and the only sacrifice item I got was overcritical, of course Terminus was a cakewalk, but he at least got to go through all his phases (only 5 - 10 seconds each though). The 6th floor boss fight with Valor lasted less than 10 seconds, which seemed surprisingly short, even with all my boosts. He might need a health boost.

Other thoughts:

I think there are 3 face ripper variants, but 2 of them just rush you and die like normal, while the other spawns 2 copies on death, and those then spawn 3 copies on death. It seems like this ability should be present in all variants, and just the intensity of it varies with the variants (like, Green Facerippers spawn a single copy when they die, and Brown Facerippers spawn a single copy, which then spawns 2 copies).

The Split Cannon has longer range than the Precision Railgun. As the Precision Railgun is the textbook long range sniper weapon, this seems odd to me. Would increasing the Precision Railgun's range make Redshift too OP?

Is it intentional for some of the glass blocks to drop nothing? I've noticed it a bit on other runs, but this time it seemed worse (10%, maybe?)

The secret room still seems to need some better items. Most of the time I went in there, I didn't bother picking up anything :/ I think only really good weapons and modules should be included, because if the RNG gifted you with good weapons already, you'll often be leaving the room empty handed . . . What about adding all the familiars to the secret room item list? Many of them are really awesome - and even with the meh ones, since they can stack you don't have to give anything else up to take them. Or just limit the items to Divine Purpose and Time Machine, that would work too

Speaking of really good modules, I had the TK module for 90% of my run, and it seems as awesome as the description says, if not more so. Didn't notice any problems with it.

The perk choices for level 11 (I think) where there was one that slowed down enemies and bullets a significant amount, and one that gave you a 75% chance of surviving a fatal blow, seemed very well balanced. I spent a long time agonizing over that decision

There was another perk with the same Small Hull Reinforcements issue I mentioned with White Gloss. Would fixing one fix the other, or are they defined separately?

While I was able to run away at the very end, the difficulty overall seemed pretty consistent. Mission Accomplished!  \O/

[Pepisolo]

Thanks for the praise on the current difficulty balance guys, it's been a hard road getting near where we want to be with the overall balance, but we seem to be in the right area now. Phew!

The Split Cannon has longer range than the Precision Railgun. As the Precision Railgun is the textbook long range sniper weapon, this seems odd to me. Would increasing the Precision Railgun's range make Redshift too OP?

Not sure. It probably wouldn't matter that much if we increased the range. Having a lot of range on energy weapons isn't so bad. For main weapons, though, we have to be a lot more careful.

Is it intentional for some of the glass blocks to drop nothing? I've noticed it a bit on other runs, but this time it seemed worse (10%, maybe?)

Yeah, I think so. I think things have always been like that and we haven't broken anything in the latest build, but I'm not 100% sure, surprisingly.

The secret room still seems to need some better items. Most of the time I went in there, I didn't bother picking up anything :/ I think only really good weapons and modules should be included, because if the RNG gifted you with good weapons already, you'll often be leaving the room empty handed . . . What about adding all the familiars to the secret room item list? Many of them are really awesome - and even with the meh ones, since they can stack you don't have to give anything else up to take them. Or just limit the items to Divine Purpose and Time Machine, that would work too

I'm presuming you do mean only the secret rooms and not the sacrifice rooms, too (just checking). If so, then yeah the secret rooms pretty much need a complete overhaul, heh. Not sure when we'll get around to that, though. What I have in mind is basically creating a bunch of borderline OP crazy items for the room. Stuff similar to Time Machine.

Speaking of really good modules, I had the TK module for 90% of my run, and it seems as awesome as the description says, if not more so. Didn't notice any problems with it.

I actually snuck a fix in for that before the latest patch, so I'm glad to hear that it seems a lot better now. It used to cause a lot of craziness with regards to certain enemy bullets, speeding them up and stuff, but it clears most of those shots now.

The perk choices for level 11 (I think) where there was one that slowed down enemies and bullets a significant amount, and one that gave you a 75% chance of surviving a fatal blow, seemed very well balanced. I spent a long time agonizing over that decision

Glad to hear that!

There was another perk with the same Small Hull Reinforcements issue I mentioned with White Gloss. Would fixing one fix the other, or are they defined separately?

Yeah, fixing one will fix the other. I've already fixed that in our internal build.

[carldong]

Stuff similar to Time Machine.

A ContrishooterX that costs 0.01 credits per shot? For everyone except Humble, who gets a 10% off of course

BTW I really really like the Contrishooter. It basically allows a different style of gameplay. Basically, it allows me to not enter shops at all, and dump those shiny metal to trade shot to shot with the hail of bullets.

Also a side note. I have not had this happening in the recent update yet(because of RNG, I haven't got the defensive drone yet), Defensive Drone seems to cause all sorts of problems. First, they really love to detonate mines in my face, or wake up a room of sleeping enemies. My memory is distant, but I think they shot at a Red Banshee one time, and filled the room with pain.

In boss fights, DD shots may destroy some big source bullets, and cause small bullets to split out prematurely, and then those shots combine with the subsequent pattern... It's undodgable, basically. Most of the time the DD is fine, and saves my life quite a lot. But then it kills just as much as it saves. Is it intended?

[Misery]

Probably best not to go too powerful with secret room items.  The reason: It's really not at all hard to find it.  Heck, you can get it opened on accident.  Or sometimes without doing anything at all, when the game decides to place it next to a room that has no health-shard blocks.

It would need to be tougher to get to before making the overall pool stronger.