Author Topic: Items and balance, looking for feedback  (Read 3932 times)

Offline Misery

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Items and balance, looking for feedback
« on: February 04, 2016, 02:18:05 pm »
Okay, so, as the process of making changes to these starts going, I'd like to hear any thoughts you guys have about the current balance in the game.

What items seem OP to you, or seem like they're totally worthless?

Do you use consumables much, and if so, which ones?

Do you pick up items from the sacrifice rooms?

Weapons, energy weapons:  ever switch these out much?  Or do alot of them seem to be underwhelming or uninteresting?  I've seen varied responses on this one so far.

Are any items seeming to appear just much too often?


Any feedback that any of you can give right now would be super helpful!  Right now, current changes being done are just in the "testing it and hoping the game doesnt implode" phase, so nothing definitive has been done yet.

Offline evilution

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Re: Items and balance, looking for feedback
« Reply #1 on: February 04, 2016, 03:30:16 pm »
Those big blocks you can blow up, seem to give you health when you kill each piece if you have something that gives you hp on enemy death. Not sure if they give credits, if you have that. Seems way overpowered.

Best consumable I've seen is the "buy for free" thing because you can get a free sacrifice room item

Offline NickAragua

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Re: Items and balance, looking for feedback
« Reply #2 on: February 04, 2016, 03:48:59 pm »
As a note, I'm definitely a "casual", and I play on normal difficulty and have little to no intention of going beyond that.

I almost never pick up anything from the health sacrifice rooms. The benefit is usually hardly worth losing a third of your max health. For example, the +10% damage/destroy weak barriers one. I'd consider picking it up if it gave more damage bonus. The one with the seeker bullets is a non-starter, and I'll also take a pass on the one that recharges energy with enemy kills (I don't know, maybe it's more useful on higher difficulties?)

I almost always forget to use consumables. I'm generally not good at micromanagement though. Occasionally, I'll use the one that reveals the map. I'm reluctant to skip or restart a level. There's also the one that prevents you from dying that's nice because it works automatically. The ones like the tac nuke, I'll forget that I have them. My usually method of play is to save one-use items until a boss or other hard fight, and often I'll only start using them if I can't beat the boss straight up (die, reload, buff up with consumables and try again). Since that's not really an option here, well...

Weapons - I only swap out if the weapon is a direct improvement. There was some kind of long-range rapid green arrow gun that I found and liked on one run. I also remember seeing one that shot through walls that was a nice novelty but reduced overall damage which is unacceptable for bosses and the like. But usually, weapons drop very infrequently and when they do

Energy weapons - The torpedo launcher that destroys normally indestructible bricks that is amazing. I also like the dual machine guns one for raw damage. I don't remember whether there was a beam weapon, but if there was, I'd pick it up in a heartbeat. Most of the other ones I kind of ignore. I do enjoy it when I find an extra one that I don't need in a level where there's also that powerup that eats your current energy weapon.

Offline Misery

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Re: Items and balance, looking for feedback
« Reply #3 on: February 04, 2016, 04:32:40 pm »
Those big blocks you can blow up, seem to give you health when you kill each piece if you have something that gives you hp on enemy death. Not sure if they give credits, if you have that. Seems way overpowered.

Best consumable I've seen is the "buy for free" thing because you can get a free sacrifice room item

That one seems like a bug, I very much doubt that was ever intended.   I'll try to look into it but it might be something that Keith would need to fix.


As a note, I'm definitely a "casual", and I play on normal difficulty and have little to no intention of going beyond that.

I almost never pick up anything from the health sacrifice rooms. The benefit is usually hardly worth losing a third of your max health. For example, the +10% damage/destroy weak barriers one. I'd consider picking it up if it gave more damage bonus. The one with the seeker bullets is a non-starter, and I'll also take a pass on the one that recharges energy with enemy kills (I don't know, maybe it's more useful on higher difficulties?)

I almost always forget to use consumables. I'm generally not good at micromanagement though. Occasionally, I'll use the one that reveals the map. I'm reluctant to skip or restart a level. There's also the one that prevents you from dying that's nice because it works automatically. The ones like the tac nuke, I'll forget that I have them. My usually method of play is to save one-use items until a boss or other hard fight, and often I'll only start using them if I can't beat the boss straight up (die, reload, buff up with consumables and try again). Since that's not really an option here, well...

Weapons - I only swap out if the weapon is a direct improvement. There was some kind of long-range rapid green arrow gun that I found and liked on one run. I also remember seeing one that shot through walls that was a nice novelty but reduced overall damage which is unacceptable for bosses and the like. But usually, weapons drop very infrequently and when they do

Energy weapons - The torpedo launcher that destroys normally indestructible bricks that is amazing. I also like the dual machine guns one for raw damage. I don't remember whether there was a beam weapon, but if there was, I'd pick it up in a heartbeat. Most of the other ones I kind of ignore. I do enjoy it when I find an extra one that I don't need in a level where there's also that powerup that eats your current energy weapon.

I've had that same thought on the sacrifice item that pops weak barriers.  It's right now extremely similar to a perk that does that, just that the perk doesnt have the damage bonus.  I'm not sure just what I'm going to do with this item, but I am going to try a few things and experiment with it.

That piercing weapon you mention, I'd be interested to see what others have to say about it.  It seems quite strong to me, worth the lowered damage it does on bosses, simply due to the shooting-through-walls bit; you can really wreck some things with that.  But that's just me... more players may disagree with my thoughts on it.  It also occurs to me that there's a probable exploit against Invader with the weapon.  Huh, only just now thought of that.


That's the fun part too, is how subjective alot of this is, heh.  I'll be considering everything everyone says, but none of it guarantees any changes.  There's plenty of things that arent going to be touched, at least for now.

Offline ptarth

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Re: Items and balance, looking for feedback
« Reply #4 on: February 04, 2016, 05:03:49 pm »
Consumables - In general I don't use consumables because I'm always saving them for a more serious problem. If they had more charges I'd be more tempted to use them. Such items include: tactical nuke, gravity thingie, one-way barrier. If I had 5 charges each time I picked them up, I'd be more free with my use of them. I also think we need gratuitous violence consumables. Examples include: a bigger nuke (the nontactical nuke), a gratuitous 300 pixel wide infinite pixel long laser gun with X charges, a homing mirv missile shot, and a bouncy high damage 120 pixel radius shot.

Actually, I think everything is in place so that you can do a megaman style kill-boss & get weapon system. Where an enemy can pull from a special drop pool, which would include their own unique consumable or weapon. Then after you kill an enemy you can have a one shot use of its weapon. The drop rate wouldn't be 100%, but still enough that you are filled with a desire of unholy vengeance if a Sideshot weapon drops. Given how high boss hp is relative to normal enemies, we also don't have to worry too much about boss abuse (except with the long life weapons).

On a personal note, I also need to rebind consumable use from select to R3.
Note: This post contains content that is meant to be whimsical. Any belittlement or trivialization of complex issues is only intended to lighten the mood and does not reflect upon the merit of those positions.

Offline Cinth

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Re: Items and balance, looking for feedback
« Reply #5 on: February 04, 2016, 05:21:34 pm »
The +10% damage/destroy weak barriers one and the homing shots ones are very much worth it to me.  I'm pretty much going to grab those.   

The level up perk that breaks blocks competes with other stuff that is usually better (HP/Crit)


Consumables - In general I don't use consumables because I'm always saving them for a more serious problem. If they had more charges I'd be more tempted to use them. Such items include: tactical nuke, gravity thingie, one-way barrier. If I had 5 charges each time I picked them up, I'd be more free with my use of them. I also think we need gratuitous violence consumables. Examples include: a bigger nuke (the nontactical nuke), a gratuitous 300 pixel wide infinite pixel long laser gun with X charges, a homing mirv missile shot, and a bouncy high damage 120 pixel radius shot.

Actually, I think everything is in place so that you can do a megaman style kill-boss & get weapon system. Where an enemy can pull from a special drop pool, which would include their own unique consumable or weapon. Then after you kill an enemy you can have a one shot use of its weapon. The drop rate wouldn't be 100%, but still enough that you are filled with a desire of unholy vengeance if a Sideshot weapon drops. Given how high boss hp is relative to normal enemies, we also don't have to worry too much about boss abuse (except with the long life weapons).

On a personal note, I also need to rebind consumable use from select to R3.

Keep this guy away from the items   :o     The megaman style of acquiring unique weapons is an idea you got from me  :P  (stealing your enemy weapons). 
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Offline Misery

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Re: Items and balance, looking for feedback
« Reply #6 on: February 04, 2016, 05:26:28 pm »
Consumables - In general I don't use consumables because I'm always saving them for a more serious problem. If they had more charges I'd be more tempted to use them. Such items include: tactical nuke, gravity thingie, one-way barrier. If I had 5 charges each time I picked them up, I'd be more free with my use of them. I also think we need gratuitous violence consumables. Examples include: a bigger nuke (the nontactical nuke), a gratuitous 300 pixel wide infinite pixel long laser gun with X charges, a homing mirv missile shot, and a bouncy high damage 120 pixel radius shot.

Actually, I think everything is in place so that you can do a megaman style kill-boss & get weapon system. Where an enemy can pull from a special drop pool, which would include their own unique consumable or weapon. Then after you kill an enemy you can have a one shot use of its weapon. The drop rate wouldn't be 100%, but still enough that you are filled with a desire of unholy vengeance if a Sideshot weapon drops. Given how high boss hp is relative to normal enemies, we also don't have to worry too much about boss abuse (except with the long life weapons).

On a personal note, I also need to rebind consumable use from select to R3.

I dunno about a BIGGER nuke, but the current nuke is getting a damage increase.  The current one just saddens me.  300 damage, feh.  Doesnt help much. 

All the other stuff just scares me.   Sometimes I wonder how you come up with these things.

Offline ptarth

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Re: Items and balance, looking for feedback
« Reply #7 on: February 04, 2016, 05:43:22 pm »
Phaser (piercing weapon) - balance on this one is causing me to think, and not just because I'm reworking the Invader. If raw DPS is less than the average, then the amount of time you can shoot, should go up to compensate. However, on most bosses you don't get extra shots for the penetration (except for Invader) and the range loss really hurts. So you trade off mediocre boss performance with better regular enemy performance, which isn't really needed.
Note: This post contains content that is meant to be whimsical. Any belittlement or trivialization of complex issues is only intended to lighten the mood and does not reflect upon the merit of those positions.

Offline Hearteater

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Re: Items and balance, looking for feedback
« Reply #8 on: February 04, 2016, 05:54:06 pm »
First, Blade Module should be a sac-only item. Second, Secret/Sac rooms should not be opened by blowing up glowing blocks. That just removes the need for items that reveal their locations, which makes all those items/consumables/level-ups worthless.

All sac items need an improvement. Examples (3-5 health cost, sac-only unless noted):

Hyper-X Capacitor: Energy recharges constantly, but is drained to zero when entering a room.
Gold-Plated Battery: Adds credits to energy, sets credits to zero. (costs only 2 health, not exclusive to sac shop)
Platinum-Plated Battery: Adds credits to energy, halves credits.
Gift Box: Pops out 3-5 basic loot and 2-3 consumables when purchased. (costs only 2 health, not exclusive to sac shop)
Shotgun Missile Launcher: Fires 3 missiles in a shotgun pattern. Uses 3 ammo per shot.
Deadshot: +100% damage, bonus decreases 20% per shot (down to -20%...aka 80% of base). Recharges back to +100% when not firing (+10%/sec).
Aegis System/Module: Grants an orbital destructible shield whenever you enter a room (see the new enemy ship White Aegis in mantis/mod forum)
Chain Reaction: Your main weapon shots bounce (re-fire) to another nearby enemy after hitting an enemy ship. (Module)
Limit Breaker: Gain +100% fire rate and damage immunity for 3 seconds after killing 3 enemies in a room (once/room)
Shock Rounds*: Enemies hit at full health are stunned for .5 seconds (so the first hit on any non-boss enemy)
Freeze Rounds*: Enemy fire rate reduced by 20% for 3 seconds (maybe need an "immune to fire_rate_slows" flag on systems, or just make bosses immune naturally)
Petrifier: Enemies killed turn into "stone" after death, blocking shots. They take damage and break, just like the big blue blocks. Keeping momentum at death and bouncing off walls a plus. (stoned ships are grey-scaled, shader maybe?)
Mirror Armor: Immune to laser traps and moving threw a laser shots out a spray of bullets that hurt enemies. -20% damage from laser damage type.
Void Shields: When entering a room, you are immune to damage as long as you have shields up. You lose 1 shield/3 seconds (so Flame Mech would get 6 seconds of immunity/room, maybe color shield bar UI purple instead of blue)
Emergency Shield Generator: The first time you take health damage in a room, you gain 1 shield back (module).
Burning Shields: You deal damage to enemies around you while your shields are up. More shields up = more damage.
Death Ray (energy weapon): Slow ROF. Deals 5 damage per 1 energy. Spends exactly enough energy to kill target. You gain 10 energy whenever an enemy dies (for any reason).
Exotic Alloy Chassis: +4 max health, health pick-ups heal for half (not exclusive to sac shop)
Blood Money: Gain 1 max health per full 25 credits. Credits set to zero. All health pick-ups give 2 credits instead.
Cyber Vampire: Current health reduced to 1 at the start of each room. Gain 1 health for each enemy destroyed.

Other power-up suggestions (may or may not be modules):
Tank Treds: Immune to caltrop damage and movement slows.
Stealth Module: Enemy wake-up range decreased by 25 or 50%. +25% damage against enemies that are not awake.
Exploding Rounds*: Shots exploded on impact, dealing 10% of base damage in a small area around the target.
Chaff Launcher: When you are hit, sprays out random bullet-blocking projectiles that expire after a few seconds. Only triggers once every 5 seconds.
Power Diverter: +25% damage when you have no shields up.
Leg Stabilizer: Increase damage by 8% per second standing still, up to +40%. Resets when you move.
Buy One Get One Free: When you buy an item in a consumable shop, you get a duplicate free.
Omni Power Module: +100 energy, -20% energy costs. If you have all 3 omni items, all your damage increased by 25%.
Omni Cannon: Same as the white mech basic minigun, but gain 2 energy when you hit an enemy.
Omni Energy Beam: Narrow version of the incinerator, more attacker power, 40 energy/sec.
Second Wind: Heal to full when you level-up.
Threat Detector: You can tell a room is a mini-boss before entering (So the purple door and map icon for mini-bosses is gone without this. On Very Easy and Easy, you have this item for "free" though. A map of the level still reveals mini-bosses).

*Ammo: Maybe we could use an ammo slot, like for modules. Some weapons would use ammo, others (like the flame thrower) would not.

Consumables:
Box of X Ammo: Multiple items. Gives the effect of the X Rounds power-ups above (plus the poison ammo already in game), but only for the current room.
Time Bender: Slows all enemy ships and shots by 50% for 10 seconds.
Manufacturer Recall: Rerolls all items in your current shop.
I Am Your Father: Creates a clone of yourself that mirrors your movement and fires when you fire (orbitals not cloned, direction keys are reversed on clone). Last until you leave the room or it dies.
Sympathetic System Shutdown: All enemies in the room are set to your percentage of max health, and stunned for 0.5 seconds.
Extinction-Level Virus: Homing projectile that poisons the target for 75 damage/second over 5 seconds. When the target dies while the poison is active, three new homing shots fire from its wreckage. Also, do_not_stack="false".

Offline ptarth

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Re: Items and balance, looking for feedback
« Reply #9 on: February 04, 2016, 05:54:27 pm »
All the other stuff just scares me.   Sometimes I wonder how you come up with these things.

It's not that bad. Look at it this way. If the net effect of a consumable item is to just clear 1 room, then does it really matter if it is powerful? It is not like you get them that often, so its net effect is negligible. That being the case, then make them obscenely powered, so that it feels awesome to use them.
Note: This post contains content that is meant to be whimsical. Any belittlement or trivialization of complex issues is only intended to lighten the mood and does not reflect upon the merit of those positions.

Offline Rythe

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Re: Items and balance, looking for feedback
« Reply #10 on: February 04, 2016, 06:13:41 pm »
The +10% damage/destroy weak barriers sacrifice item is one I always skip. The health cost isn't worth the damage increase, and there's plenty of other things to blow up those barriers with. (Like phaser gun and/or patience)

The one and only sacrifice item I find worth it is the magnetic bullets one, because then I can do bendy shots around corners and it amps up the scatter gun if you're lucky enough to find them both.

The credits and whatever on kills don't seem worth it to me because they're not going to help you much with bosses, if at all, and also don't provide huge bonuses to exploring around. The health/shields/energy on kill only matters on hard rooms where you barely scrape by, but probably won't help you with a boss at all, so might be worth it at higher difficulties but really isn't on 'normal'. I ignore the credits one because I take the level up perk that doubles credit drops. I might care more about credits once orbitals/companions get addressed, but it's only the first level or two where credits are a huge problem to begin with. Either key cards limit my ability to shop, or the shops aren't providing things I feel I need-need half the time, or they're cheap enough (health shard, most energy buffs, tiny damage boost) that I probably have credits on hand and then some. So this whole class of sacrifice items cost too much at the moment.

Likewise, the map of the stars was tempting, but seemed too expensive in what was mostly a time-saver type item (in that revealing the map let's you reduce backtracking or head straight to the floor boss).

-

The railgun primary weapon is a skip because of the slow fire rate. It needs an extra shots attachment of some sort or greatly improved fire rate bonuses to be generally viable (just think of trying to hit those shuttles). Also didn't look/feel impressive with my very brief trial of it.

The phaser is a very powerful primary weapon because of the shoot through objects deal. Hurts you a bit on bosses, but feels balanced in that regard. I enjoyed my romp with it.

The scatter gun + magnetic bullets is a dream come true.

I didn't even bother with the short range, melee-ish primary weapon because the white gloss' starter weapon was plenty short-ranged enough.

I could see the riot shield being very useful, but wasn't really to my tastes.  It would be interesting to see what someone could do with it paired to the red shift mech.

The random-ish tri-shot secondary weapon is my favorite so far because it's the closest thing I've found to a minigun of doom. It lets me be much more aggressive about things.

There was a spear secondary weapon that seemed alright - powerful, but a bit clunky in execution, and had the problem of being half invisible when the action ramps up.

The missile-like secondary weapon, possibly railgun, did destroy those missile-only blocks which was a huge draw of the thing.

There was a poison secondary weapon that left pools on the floor that seemed some combo of situational and a bit weak.

Haven't tried the kunai yet.

-

The Imperial Tab, reveal a floor and mystery circuit items are good. Skip a floor situational. And restore on death a nice safety blanket for those that want it. The more attack oriented items have the player induced problem of being saved for a worse situation and then never used because you're already dead. I'm trying to untrain myself on that one, but I blame RPGs and the item hoarding tendencies that those things ingrain into you. Starward Rogue throws enough items at you that you should be popping the attack items like candy, really.

I managed to use the black hole item once in combat, and it felt short-lived to me.

-

The cryo attachment needs an aura-like effect around your mech. The little on-mech explosion on activation is misleading and confusing.

-Edit-

Oh right, I forgot about the compact molecules sacrifice item that shrinks you. I'll take that if I have plenty of health to spare.
« Last Edit: February 04, 2016, 06:42:27 pm by Rythe »

Offline Cinth

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Re: Items and balance, looking for feedback
« Reply #11 on: February 04, 2016, 06:50:04 pm »
First, Blade Module should be a sac-only item. Second, Secret/Sac rooms should not be opened by blowing up glowing blocks. That just removes the need for items that reveal their locations, which makes all those items/consumables/level-ups worthless.

All sac items need an improvement. Examples (3-5 health cost, sac-only unless noted):

*snip*

I disagree with the Blade Module comment.  I think I disagree about blockers in general but that's not for here.

A lot of your items sound really cool, some of them are definitely possible to make.  Others just aren't with the tools we have right now (its in the XML).

All the other stuff just scares me.   Sometimes I wonder how you come up with these things.

It's not that bad. Look at it this way. If the net effect of a consumable item is to just clear 1 room, then does it really matter if it is powerful? It is not like you get them that often, so its net effect is negligible. That being the case, then make them obscenely powered, so that it feels awesome to use them.

Ok, I'm going to make an item that one shots everything in ptarth's systems passively because it would just be so awesomely obscene (facetious I know). 

@Rythe: Great info, Thanks!
Quote from: keith.lamothe
Opened your save. My computer wept. Switched to the ST planet and ship icons filled my screen, so I zoomed out. Game told me that it _was_ totally zoomed out. You could seriously walk from one end of the inner grav well to the other without getting your feet cold.

Offline Cinth

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Re: Items and balance, looking for feedback
« Reply #12 on: February 04, 2016, 06:58:06 pm »
Misery, I cross posted this on the Steam forums with a link here. 
Quote from: keith.lamothe
Opened your save. My computer wept. Switched to the ST planet and ship icons filled my screen, so I zoomed out. Game told me that it _was_ totally zoomed out. You could seriously walk from one end of the inner grav well to the other without getting your feet cold.

Offline Hearteater

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Re: Items and balance, looking for feedback
« Reply #13 on: February 04, 2016, 07:20:15 pm »
Nanite Leeches: I would like this to spray out more nanites to possibly hit multiple targets. I've included a draft of the changes I'd make below. They aren't perfect due to how unique_shots works. Ideally, unique_shots would pick the closest targets first.

Changes: 3 shots against unique targets, less healing/target, more total healing (was max 10 heal, now max 15), slightly slower shot speed so you can actually see it working, stacking added to DOT so max single target damage up from 40 to 120.

Code: [Select]
  <!-- System -->

  <system name="PlayerConsumable_NaniteLeeches" related_item="NaniteLeeches"
          display_name="Nanite Leeches" description="These homing nanites will disable an enemy and heal you."
          only_fires_on_keybind="UseConsumableSystem" ammo="1" category="PlayerDirectedWeapon" image_name="Invisible" flagship_ability_type="DirectFireWeapon"
          shot_type="BarbedNeedleRed" damage_type="Ballistic" targeting_logic="Direct" one_shot_per_target="true"
        attack_power="10" fire_rate="1" range_actual="2000" shots_per_salvo="3" shot_speed="900" shot_disintegration_speed_mult="6"
          hull_health_siphon_portion="0.5"
          special_bullet_patterns="NaniteLeeches"
          sounds_on_system_activated="Items/CreepyCrawly1"
          is_destroyed_after_finite_uses="1"
          shots_can_withstand_x_shot_interceptions="3">
 
    <modifier target="EntitiesMyShotsHit" math="Add" type="DamagePerSecond" damage_type="Ion" magnitude="30" duration="5" do_not_stack="false" />
    <modifier target="EntitiesMyShotsHit" type="MovementSpeed" math="Set" magnitude="0"  duration="5" />
    <modifier target="EntitiesMyShotsHit" type="FireRate" math="Multiply" magnitude="2"  duration="5" />
  </system>

  <!-- BulletPattern -->

  <bullet_pattern name="NaniteLeeches">
    $LOSBullet SPEED=900 SHOT_TYPE=CrabTrueBlue TIME=2
  </bullet_pattern>

Offline Rythe

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Re: Items and balance, looking for feedback
« Reply #14 on: February 04, 2016, 10:07:21 pm »
Twin-machine gun - It's somewhere between okay and above average. A strong boost to your damage output, but either burns through energy a little too fast or doesn't quite do enough damage. STG being one of the weapons that weigh against it a bit.  Mostly, I think it could do to consume less energy given it's not flashy in any other way.

Canister primary weapon - this one I quite liked, but the shorter range made me feel really nervous using it because I knew it was going to bite me at some point. Magnetic bullets helped quite a bit there, but even so, made me have to position myself more intently and hurt me a bit fighting the warden.