Author Topic: Huge new alpha build 0.204!  (Read 22699 times)

Offline x4000

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Offline mrhanman

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Re: Huge new alpha build 0.204!
« Reply #1 on: December 16, 2015, 05:45:48 am »
I'm loving the new robot player character!  The animations are awesome!  8)

Not sure what the laser thing is supposed to be, as it doesn't seem to damage anything.  Then again, I did just start.

I'm also liking the new bosses and enemies I've run into.  I can't remember their names offhand, but the boss patterns in particular are very nice.  I got an acid sprayer weapon that was very useful.  I don't think I would have beaten a boss without it, but it felt balanced because I still had to get in close and dodge well to use it.
« Last Edit: December 16, 2015, 06:10:12 am by mrhanman »

Offline TheVampire100

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Re: Huge new alpha build 0.204!
« Reply #2 on: December 16, 2015, 06:12:06 am »
So you've changed from starships to mechs? I guess this works too. Hope there won't be any stairs *wink wink*

Also, i noticed a small bug (if it's any). Shooting your main gun pushes you veeeery slowly backwards. I mantis this but I'm not sure if this intended.

Offline mrhanman

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Re: Huge new alpha build 0.204!
« Reply #3 on: December 16, 2015, 06:14:52 am »
I noticed the backwards movement too, but since adding "weight" to your shots has been talked about, I assumed it was related to that.

Offline Misery

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Re: Huge new alpha build 0.204!
« Reply #4 on: December 16, 2015, 06:38:40 am »
I noticed the backwards movement too, but since adding "weight" to your shots has been talked about, I assumed it was related to that.

Yeah, that one's not a bug.


As for the player mech or whatever, I'll add my own feedback a bit later, I actually havent seen it yet!  I'm surprised to see it already ready to go! 

I swear, everyone at Arcen just works so amazingly fast...

I'll say though that I like the idea of the mechs alot more than the flying ships.  It just makes more sense for that internal environment.


Also I'll just reiterate to everyone here that new bosses & enemies are not exactly super balanced yet, probably.  A couple of things are indeed meant to be pretty darn tough though.   The new boss added yesterday in particular is not actually finished, it is meant to have multiple patterns but has only one right now.   And the new version of Mirror should appear now, and THAT one, ahh... I think I mighta gone overboard on it?  I'm pretty certain the exploit is sure gone though!

Offline Misery

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Re: Huge new alpha build 0.204!
« Reply #5 on: December 16, 2015, 09:06:14 am »
The new art looks good! Overall the mechs just look better than the ships did. The walking animation adds to it alot. I see that shops are implemented too, that's nice.  New fun items in here too.

On another note, ARGH there's alot of balance issues with enemies right now.  Some of them are related to the category spawning.... that might have to be looked at, but I cant think of an easy solution right now.   But yeah, if you guys are finding that things are just a BIT nuts at times, it's definitely a known issue right now.   I can fix some parts of this on my own.  A couple of these things are just stuff I forgot; the Shifter Core (which has the wrong name, it's not a blasted Crystochet, I could have sworn I changed that...) which is the thing that sprays bouncing blue doom everywhere, isnt supposed to spawn in a normal fashion but is instead only supposed to spawn when a Shifter is destroyed.  I kinda forgot to set that though, so when you encounter THAT loopy thing, that's why it's just there abruptly.   I'm also going to slow the thing down a bit.

Also, player base range REALLY needs to be addressed at this point.  Some things are just too dangerous to get so close to, the Mirror boss right now being a great example.  Anything that uses spreadshots at all becomes exponentially more dangerous the closer you get to it.  Or a variety of other attack types.

A few problems to report also but Mantis isnt working right.  I'll try again a little later.

For example, is anyone actually getting any items out of glass breakables?  I'm not seeing them ever drop anything at all.

Offline Bluddy

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Re: Huge new alpha build 0.204!
« Reply #6 on: December 16, 2015, 02:45:48 pm »
I saw one item drop from a glass breakable.

I really like the new mech animation. Some of the enemies should also be converted to mechs IMO, otherwise it feels weird that you're only fighting ships.

My feedback on the gameplay so far is that it seems like our stats start out too high. Shot speed is super fast, and range is very long. As a result, I can take on most enemies pretty easily -- it's only the bosses that give me trouble. Additionally, most of the upgrades don't have an observable effect. Adding 10% of something doesn't do much.

Offline Misery

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Re: Huge new alpha build 0.204!
« Reply #7 on: December 16, 2015, 02:55:17 pm »
I saw one item drop from a glass breakable.

I really like the new mech animation. Some of the enemies should also be converted to mechs IMO, otherwise it feels weird that you're only fighting ships.

My feedback on the gameplay so far is that it seems like our stats start out too high. Shot speed is super fast, and range is very long. As a result, I can take on most enemies pretty easily -- it's only the bosses that give me trouble. Additionally, most of the upgrades don't have an observable effect. Adding 10% of something doesn't do much.

Dont forget that plenty of enemies arent really meant to put up all that much of a fight.  Ya gotta have Goombas in a game like this, after all.  They are there to be exploded, or to embarrass you if you manage to take damage from them anyway.  I have done this many times.

For many things, including bosses, the range isnt going to save you.  My thoughts are that it actually needs to be INCREASED, not decreased.

The ONE problem:  The "jumpscare" enemies.  The ones that simply dont move until approached or shot.  Something needs to be done about them, and I'm thinking that it's probably going to be that they'll have invincibility (possibly a glowing outline to show this) while stationary, and wont actually ACTIVATE until you get CLOSE.  As opposed to firing at them from afar.

Also dont forget that enemy HP values are all over the place right now.  Some things are dying WAY too fast (like those "Widow" things) and thusly cannot put up a fight.  It's hard to fight when you've been exploded into a pile of pixels, after all, and many enemies need time to generate the threat that they should.  I dont intend on REALLY balancing this out yet, because player stats and items and such are just going to keep changing and changing over time for awhile (also because other things have priority right now), but I might up their HP overall as a temporary measure to allow them time to actually fight you.

Of course, some of this will also depend on room design.  In many rooms, that range wont do a thing for you, and different enemies become more or less dangerous depending on the structure of the room.  Which is intended, of course.  And the room designs sure do get interesting....  Some enemies however are definitely appearing in rooms that are not at all appropriate for them, this will be addressed later on, I've a couple of ideas that might work on this. 

Offline Bluddy

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Re: Huge new alpha build 0.204!
« Reply #8 on: December 16, 2015, 03:03:19 pm »
Fair enough, Misery. I understand stuff isn't balanced yet. I just want to lay out the principles: we need to start out weak, and upgrade certain aspects of our mechs as we go, and those upgrades should feel palpable, not just 10% tacked on to some stat. I shouldn't just want to head straight to the boss on each level, as I do now.

Mantis is definitely broken. I had a whole bunch of ideas, barely managed to submit some, and now I can't post the rest. I'll write the remaining ones here so I don't forget.

- Walking Traps
Now that we're walking, it makes sense to have surfaces that have different effects on us, like slippery ice, shock floors, floors that slow us down, etc. We could also have items/upgrades to counter those traps.

- Narrative issues
Even though the intro has been improved to give more direction, I'm still unclear on my motivation. Why am I here? What is there to be found here? Why am I fighting these enemies? In Isaac, I'm escaping my mom into the dungeon. In Nuclear Throne, I'm fighting to reach the nuclear throne. In FTL, I'm delivering a secret message to the federation (and for some reason when I get there I'm the only one who can fight the big boss). There's some text about saving the universe, but what does that mean? The universe is about to end anyway. And how is fighting some ships in some spaceship going to do anything about the universe? There's no connection there, and therefore no motivation.

Offline TheVampire100

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Re: Huge new alpha build 0.204!
« Reply #9 on: December 16, 2015, 03:10:07 pm »
I saw the new Mirror boss and HOLY SHIT was he buffed. Nothing like he was at the beginning. His new pattern looks also a lot better. As with most new boss patterns I have first to understand how he works to defeat him effectivly. Currently i loose to the most bosses too much health (except battleswarm and another, don't remember the name).

The Mech animartion looks a lot better what the ships had to offer, more lively (even if the ships "hovered", they still looked rather static). Somehow the mechs remind me of Earth 2150 (which is good, because I loved the game). The new weapon system is a little confusing at the moment but at least I get it that missiles now count as secondary system and not as tertiary system anymore, meaning you have to switch to your energy based gun. I also don't get how hulls works.
I got one that "renders me invulnerable while standing still" but I stood entirely still and didn't even shoot and still got damaged (and killed). Do I have to activate something so that they work?

Offline Misery

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Re: Huge new alpha build 0.204!
« Reply #10 on: December 16, 2015, 04:29:31 pm »
I saw the new Mirror boss and HOLY SHIT was he buffed.

After a million comments of "this boss is so easy!" and multiple exploits being found with that fight, I was kinda getting tired of the damn thing, so I thought "ARGH fine, you know what, HERES A WHOLE PILE OF BULLETS FOR NO REASON there it's fixed now".

Apparently there's still one exploit after doing this.



That sums up my thoughts on the matter pretty well.

Offline Pepisolo

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Re: Huge new alpha build 0.204!
« Reply #11 on: December 16, 2015, 04:32:50 pm »
The change to mechs seems a bit unnecessary to me. The ship flight had reached a point where I was quite enjoying zipping around. Especially using the afterburner. I know the afterburner is sort of still there, but it doesn't seem the same. I think that only a few tweaks were necessary and things would've been good. Now, you're a mech and all the other enemies are ships. Walking over the window sections seems weird. Even the title of the game seems wrong now -- Starward Rogue summons up images of spacecraft to me. The change seems to have opened up a few inconsistencies. That being said, I was never too enamoured with the old ship art, so at least the new mech design is better. The point about having spaceships in such an enclosed space also makes sense. Just seems like a pretty drastic change.

First thoughts on the new weapon switching thing -- on joypad this seems super awkward, being on one of the analog stick clicks. A couple of the weapons seem to have improved, also there was one item, ram spawner or something which was pretty cool. That's it for now, still getting used to the whole mech change thing.

Offline x4000

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Re: Huge new alpha build 0.204!
« Reply #12 on: December 16, 2015, 04:47:44 pm »
Various responses:

1. Glad that people are happy with the mechs. :)  We do plan on adding legs to a variety of enemies as well, and having a mix of hovering and walking ones.  Just have not had time yet on that one, and it's a fairly minor detail compared to the player stuff.

2. The pushback when you are firing your guns is indeed intentionally pushing you back.  However, that may no longer be needed because we are going to be adding a recoil animation to the guns themselves.  So that will give the sense of weight and pushback without actually needing to push you back.  Thoughts there?

3. The mech art is super temporary, I should remind you.  It was stuff I cobbled together from IGB to test out sizing and general feel, not actual art done in the proper style of the game.  Except for the feet -- those were done by Blue for the actual game.

4. The laser coming out of your mech's inactive gun is a laser sight.  If it's confusing I can turn it off, but it is the place that either your missiles or your special weapon will fire from.  I figure it's a good guide so that you don't blow yourself up (plus it looks cool).

5. In terms of some enemies being to crazy sometimes, Misery, I think that's not an indictment of the categories system -- but rather, an indicator that some new categories are needed.  No big thing.  If there are certain enemies that you have that you would like to see used only in certain ways, and we can make a new category out of that, then let's definitely go for it.

6. I'll check on the glass pots.

7. Most of the new enemies don't have actual art assigned right now, I should also mention to folks.  We have a huuuuge amount of art completed, but I haven't had a chance to integrate it yet for these guys.  I was out of the office all last week.

8. Now I have commentary that is conflicting: we need longer-range guns, and we need shorter-range guns. ;)  Honestly, I feel like shorter-range guns are the order of the day, and then grow up from there.  I agree that something like 10% is not a good addition.  Instead we should do something that is actual distance-based, like "add 100px to shot range."

8.a. In terms of enemies that have spreadshots that are too dense... well, that's pretty much just bosses.  I guess we either need to make those lower-floors-only, or provide holes, etc.  In general I don't want to be sniping enemies from way far away, because that is far too easy and boring.  I want to be having to move into mid-range, where the big fun is.  Too far away and it's too easy.  Too close and there's not time to react to stuff that is emitting.  Some of the bosses are holding me just too far away from themselves at the moment.  Possibly simply making it so that their initial shots come out of them from slightly further back on their bodies would fix that completely, to be honest.  We can make visible guns on them and put those further back on the boss so that it visually makes sense.

9. Mantis is all kinds of buggered.  I'm working on it.

10. Understood on the narrative issues.

11. I like the idea of surfaces that do various things -- very nice. :)

12. The shift to mechs might seem like a drastic change, but the core thing was that it was a paradox before: I wanted it to move like a mech but look like a ship.  Other people saw it looked like a ship and felt like it was buggy/cheap when it didn't fly like a ship.  I never wanted it to move like that, honestly.  So this gets back to the original way I wanted it to move, but without people complaining it seems cheap, hopefully.

13. Points taken on the weapon switching, but we're kind of out of room there.  There may be something better we can do, but I'm not certain yet.
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Offline x4000

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Re: Huge new alpha build 0.204!
« Reply #13 on: December 16, 2015, 05:06:39 pm »
Mantis now works properly with submitting multiple bugs in a row!
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Offline Pepisolo

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Re: Huge new alpha build 0.204!
« Reply #14 on: December 16, 2015, 05:26:22 pm »
Quote
2. The pushback when you are firing your guns is indeed intentionally pushing you back.  However, that may no longer be needed because we are going to be adding a recoil animation to the guns themselves.  So that will give the sense of weight and pushback without actually needing to push you back.  Thoughts there?

I think that the having a real recoil feature would be useful for weapons design if it were tweakable in the xml in a similar way to how knockback is. For example, if you've designed a real monster of a weapon then adding some real recoil to that might be nice. For the main guns, though, recoil animations only would probably be better. They're only pea-shooters after all.