Enemies, bosses... all them things that kill ya.

[Misery]

So, there's been a whole lot of talk on here about things like item balance, and a lot of feedback that has been tossed back and forth.

But it suddenly occurred to me that I haven't really gone and asked about enemy/boss/pattern/stuff feedback.  Considering what my role is here, and considering the impact these things have on the game as a whole.... well, I really should have thought to seek some extra feedback earlier.


Some changes have been made to the game for the next patch that fixes some things about certain patterns, or perhaps makes small adjustments, enemy HP is being shifted around a bit (depending on the individual enemy and it's intended role/function), some other stats got minor alterations... and so on.

But I'm not always so good at spotting all the issues here, because some issues simply don't register with me.  Something being too difficult, for instance.  I often don't realize that something has gone overboard until someone yells at me about it.   You know, things like that.

So... I'll just go ahead and ask directly, and see if anything useful comes of this.

What I'd like to know:

How is the combat in the game in an overall sense?

How is the game's difficulty?  Too easy, too hard, too much of the flinging controllers at walls?  If the difficulty is too much in one direction or the other, is there anything specific that seems to make it that way for you?

Are there any enemies or bosses that just seem way too annoying?  Other than Blaze Cannons (I refuse to apologize!) and the Chompers (Ptarth came up with a possible fix for those guys, I just haven't tested it yet, but it sounds good).

Enemies, minibosses, bosses, whatever... are their patterns interesting enough without going overboard?  Are there any that seem like they could use something a bit more?  Or any that seem like they need a bit LESS?

Any nasty difficulty spikes in odd places?  I try to avoid that but that one is not at all easy to get completely away from. 

And lastly... any enemies that somehow just seem genuinely unfair?   I don't think there's anything at all undodgable right now.... but it's possible there's something I missed.  Or just enemies that have attacks that are way beyond the difficulty level they're appearing on.  That has happened a couple of times.



Currently, I'm MOSTLY pleased with the way things are, though there's a few thoughts I've had recently... As bosses go, I keep thinking Battleswarm could use something a bit more, I dunno, that pattern seems like it might be a bit stale to me.  Too simple.  I've had the same thought about Crystal Mother.  But again, I'm not the best judge... I've watched players get to those two bosses on Normal mode, go "OMG OMG OMG" and die a whole lot.  Seriously, I'm not one bit good at judging difficulty, but that's what my own thoughts on those two bosses in particular are.

And there's a few new enemies coming (to fill out certain categories a bit more, keep things varied, keep certain enemies from being TOO common) and a variety of old enemies that didn't have variants will now have some, finally.   The late-game is also likely to seem harder now. Hard mode Mirror got a nerf, Hard Mode Lady Staccato got a BIG nerf.  Boss HP is shifted a bit.  Inferno Cannons.

But I'm wondering what else might be needing to be done, if anything... thus this topic.

Not that suggestions or feedback will guarantee any changes, of course.  I might just laugh a lot, or something.  But it could end up helping, as things continue towards this update, and for future stuffs as well.

[Mánagarmr]

I'll get back to you on this after I've had a few runs with the new version.

[Mánagarmr]

Goodness. I need a few runs to warm up. I just got my butt handed to me on level 1 on Normal.

[Misery]

Uh... was it some sort of particularly nasty room, or something?

I like to think I got pretty much all of the broken rooms dealt with, but since there's so darned many, it's possible I missed a couple.  Broken rooms can be game-enders.

[Mánagarmr]

I don't have a screenshot, but it's a very long room with two horizontal corridors. It has a lot of those enemies that shoot out two rings of "arrows" that then in sequence track your position and "fire" towards you. It was very nasty.

EDIT: Infiniforms! That's the word I was looking for.

[Mánagarmr]

Welp. My computer REALLY doesn't like the Tri boss. About 4 our of 10 times I encounter that thing the game instantly crashes. The about 4 of 10 times it crashes during the fight. During the last 2 of 10 it works.

[Pepisolo]

Yeah, Tri crashing was mentioned before. Myself and Ptarth tried to recreate the problem, but we couldn't. If you have the logs then we'll probably have to try and get Keith to look at it some time. It seems like it only affects certain PC set ups.

[ptarth]

I'd really like a save and the error logs that come from that if you can. (with the Save being prior to tri room). Is the crash before the room loads or after?

[Mánagarmr]

I'd really like a save and the error logs that come from that if you can. (with the Save being prior to tri room). Is the crash before the room loads or after?

Unfortunately I don't think I have anything left. When I started the game up again the level had reset (and did not crash on Tri). It crashed instantly on entering the Tri room, btw. If there are logs, where can I find them?

[ptarth]

/RuntimeData/ contains the logs. Basically anything with a recent timestamp that matches the crash would be good to have. It's tedious, but if you can save before entering each challenge room and try to replicate that would be great. The save file that was posted didn't have a problem for me. There was one that suggested that RAM was full, but i'm not too familiar with the bits and pieces to confirm anything more about that. In summary, I need more data about the event.

[Mánagarmr]

If it's happening again, I'll try to recover logs.

[zoutzakje]

I started playing this awesome game recently and so far I've won a bunch of normal games. By the time I finally got the hang of how to beat the Warden and do a perfect run on him, I met Terminus. He was quite a big step up, but I'm learning him too.

Some enemies are annoying as hell, but none seem overpowered, not on normal anyways. Blaze cannon or whatever they're called can be annoying but is honestly not that bad. I generally have more trouble with banshees if I spot them too late. The fact that it's massive spray bounces off walls always gets me. But they're not so bad that I think they need a nerf. none of them are.

Except this one boss that completely got me by surprise and almost killed me. It's the first time I fought against him so maybe that's why I nearly ripped. But none of the other bosses even came close to killing me on my first encounter with them. Metal Legion is it's name. It seems more rare then some of the other boss spawns. Maybe that's why it was harder. First there's his legion protecting him from any of my damage. Took forever for them to die. And then it's patterns are just nasty. First stage they were doable but in the second stage I failed miserably at dodging them. My weapons and it's upgrades were epic so at least I was able to kill him fast. I'll need to fight him again to see if he's really OP. But so far he seems like a big step up compared to the other regular bosses. Even Terminus felt easier.

Anyway, that's the only one I found so far. Let me know what you think.

EDIT: I expected the enemy Demesne to have a serious upgrade on hard, but he's exactly the same. I was looking forward to seeing what new thing he'd do to boost him from a joke to a challenge. I assume he's already on your list for a buff Misery?

[Mánagarmr]

Banshee's are terrifying. Especially now with the health buff. Quite often, unless you go full glass-cannon, they get a second volley off. They're really crazy.

EDIT: Though not really that difficult if you spot them and avoid taking them on till last. I've gotten the impression they don't fire first, but will only fire if you rouse them.

[Misery]

I started playing this awesome game recently and so far I've won a bunch of normal games. By the time I finally got the hang of how to beat the Warden and do a perfect run on him, I met Terminus. He was quite a big step up, but I'm learning him too.

Some enemies are annoying as hell, but none seem overpowered, not on normal anyways. Blaze cannon or whatever they're called can be annoying but is honestly not that bad. I generally have more trouble with banshees if I spot them too late. The fact that it's massive spray bounces off walls always gets me. But they're not so bad that I think they need a nerf. none of them are.

Except this one boss that completely got me by surprise and almost killed me. It's the first time I fought against him so maybe that's why I nearly ripped. But none of the other bosses even came close to killing me on my first encounter with them. Metal Legion is it's name. It seems more rare then some of the other boss spawns. Maybe that's why it was harder. First there's his legion protecting him from any of my damage. Took forever for them to die. And then it's patterns are just nasty. First stage they were doable but in the second stage I failed miserably at dodging them. My weapons and it's upgrades were epic so at least I was able to kill him fast. I'll need to fight him again to see if he's really OP. But so far he seems like a big step up compared to the other regular bosses. Even Terminus felt easier.

Anyway, that's the only one I found so far. Let me know what you think.

EDIT: I expected the enemy Demesne to have a serious upgrade on hard, but he's exactly the same. I was looking forward to seeing what new thing he'd do to boost him from a joke to a challenge. I assume he's already on your list for a buff Misery?

The reason Demesne doesn't have a buff on Hard mode is.... actually because I forgot to give it one.  Yeah, I know, not very professional, but I tend to do that. 

However, the next major update for the game adds a lot of variants to enemies that do not already have them, and that includes that one.  The "Dark" version of that enemy is quite a bit more dangerous but wont appear until the late-game.   Though, it's not even close to the nastiest thing that'll be added with that update.   There's one very specific new enemy, a "fearsome" type (same category as Demesne) that I'm expecting players to just die to over and over and over....  so look forward to that.

No word on a date for that either, before someone asks.  There's some, er... things... about that update.   We'll see what happens.  Always with the unexpected things, I tell ya.  But it's a MUCH bigger update than the little one I'd originally planned (that was just going to balance enemy HP a bit better).  I've shown off bits of new content (particularly a boss) elsewhere on the forum here.


As for Metal Legion:  Hmm, that depends on the difficulty you're on.  If you're playing on Normal, it shouldn't really be much harder than any of the other bosses at that floor range.  If you're on HARD, well...  yeah, it's one of the more unpleasant ones.   Not to mention one of the ones that eats processing power.  I'll have to be careful of that when I make a misery-mode pattern for it.

Oh, and the rarity of this boss is.... a bug.   My fault.  Notice how you see Invader ALL THE FREAKING TIME, generally on floor 3?   And there's one other boss that pretty much NEVER appears, which is Labyrinth, the strangest of all of the bosses.   Yeah, I kinda got some numbers wrong because of an oddly unintuitive XML thing that confused me, and... yeah.  That's in the version of the game you have.   The update will fix that.

Blaze Cannons:  Sounds like they're doing their job.  I figure, every game has to have it's "Goddamn Stupid Flying Medusa Head" enemy.  You know, the hyper-irritating thing in the first Castlevania.  Or maybe the Stupid Birds in Ninja Gaiden.  In this game, the Blaze Cannon is that enemy.  As always I refuse to apologize for it.  Instead, the next update adds a worse one, "Inferno Cannon".  That's late-game only though.   


Banshee:  Not my fault.

[zoutzakje]

yeah I went against Metal Legion again today and this time he seemed somewhat more doable. Still a big pain in the butt and I still almost died, but I played it on hard this time so that makes sense. I was probably build my character a lot better too so that helped.

I've played enough games now to always expect Invader on floor 3. Even on hard I almost got him down to a science now. Making the occasional perfect run depending on my build. I still think he's a lot of fun though, very unique boss.

I found Labyrinth today for the second time ever. My god he's nasty on hard. Only reason I managed to beat him is because I was kind of overpowered at that point. Not sure yet on a good strategy for him.

Don't worry about forgetting Demesne's buff I was just curious is all. I'm looking forward to his new version and the new fearsome enemy you're introducing. More stuff that can kill you is always good. Though I always have massive issues with the flak launchers. If the new fearsome is going to be harder than them, I'm in big trouble.

I'm starting to get the hang of hard blaze cannons actually. They're annoying still, but there's worse enemies out there. Staying mobile is key for dealing with blaze cannons and looking at it's main sparky projectile will generally give you an idea where it came from. I recently had a room with 2 blaze cannons in it though, that was more painful. Had to play that room really aggressive in a zigzag sort of way. Looking forward to the Inferno's.

I found another enemy that maybe could use a buff. I assume Wall Launchers (I think that's what they're called) are part of the fearsome group. Right now they die way to fast. His hard dif pattern is tough, but once you get close to him he's a goner. Those red laser thingies he shoots don't come directly at you, but they go right past both you if you stand still. Bit of an hp buff might seem appropriate too. Right now it seems similar to the hp of a blaze cannon, maybe even worse.
His purple crap is still annoying as hell though so maybe he's the way as he was intended.

Looking forward to the next patch whenever it may be released.