Items, locked chests, etc

[ptarth]

That's why I changed them to be: +10 for $5, +20 for $15, and kept +40 for $40. 
The multiplier is best for late game play, and not very good for early game. The main interest in the cheap item shop is for the early game, so we'd want something that does the opposite.

Acidic Maw is actually still pretty good. Let's look at in context compared to the STG. STG does 2 damage, salvo of 3, 2 energy per salvo, 33.3 energy per second consumption, and 100 DPS. Acid Maw does 1 damage, salvo of 1, 1 energy per shot, and 10 DPS. However, it also grants 20% damage.

For the Flame Tank (20 energy) you get 10 shots of the STG, 60 damage.
For the Blue Mech (100 energy) you get 50 shots of the STG, 300 damage.
For the Flame Tank (20 energy) you get 20 shots of the Acid Maw, 20 damage.
For the Blue Mech (100 energy) you get 100 shots of the Acid Maw, 100 damage.

So raw damage, it does under perform, but its advantage isn't displayed here. The advantage comes from the long term impact of that 20% additional damage bonus and how cheap it is to use.

At Tier 2 (the level you'd expect to get the Acid Maw), you will  being using a main gun that does around 100 DPS, without any damage enhancements being included. With careful use of the Acid Maw, you'll gain an extra 20 DPS for 3 seconds, for however long it takes to kill the target because at 1 energy per shot, you shouldn't be running out very quickly. So you can have 100 DPS for 33 energy per second or 20% your total DPS for 0.33 energy per second.

Against regular enemies, it may not seem like much. It will reduce the time to kill it by 17%, which isn't going to be very noticeable on enemies that take 3 seconds to kill. But against a boss, it will cut your fight time by 17% (roughly). So that fight against Terminus, is a minute and a half shorter...

That's the kicker about the multiplicative bonus, it stacks and it is really impressive as the game goes on. Let's say you have a 100% damage boost consumable, now you would get an extra 40 DPS. How about late game when you have 3 offensive familiars, tons of damage boosts, improved crit... all of that is improved by 20%.

Let's consider boosting it to 100%. That means you are doing double damage. So you would effectively finish boss fights in HALF the time. Now, you might argue, but it is weak compared to other energy weapons. It is, if you only consider short engagements. When fighting regular enemies, energy weapons contribute damage quite nicely, because you get refills on room changes. When fighting a boss though, because the fight is so long, your energy weapon will typically run out without contributing very much. The Acid Maw is one of the few weapons that will endure, because of its cheap, long lasting effect. Now, one could argue that reapplying the debuff every 3 seconds is annoying, which... I have to agree with. This is why I proposed increasing the duration.

[Logorouge]

Acidic Maw [...]

A big thanks to you for taking the time to write such a detailed reply. I really appreciate it and hope I'm not being too annoying, as I tend to love debating these things.

Now, I do see your point about the long-term dps boost consistency the Maw brings, but I think there's several flaws in your presentation:

1-The STG is probably the most quick-burst energy-inefficient weapon available. Of course it won't compare in a boss fight context. However, how would the comparison go if it was things like the Boomerang Needler, Precision Railgun or Grapeshot? Those would quickly end any normal boss while the Maw would require an extended period of time to really do its thing.

2-Your premise assumes the player will stay with his initial energy reserve. But on a regular run, that just won't happen. Energy reserves of several hundred points are not uncommon at all, even on non-Blue mechs. As the energy capacity increase, the Maw's advantage quickly fades away. (Also, the energy-recovery item from the sac room is really cheap.)

3-It doesn't account for the gameplay impact of losing the flexibility of having an energy weapon/system with a different delivery/effect/approach. Basically, you're sacrificing your potential Plan B against situations to get a damage multiplier. The sacrifice should be worth it and currently I don't think it is.


As for the current delivery method and duration, I think those are already great and not annoying at all. In most situations, you can just keep firing the Acidic Maw and not worry, which is quite pleasant.

[ptarth]

STG energy efficiency is not that bad (3) which is very close to the median value (3.75) for all energy weapons. It is inefficient when it comes to hitting small targets. You also have to consider the Tier ranking for these weapons, comparing the elite high tier weapons against the lowly T2 Acid Maw is a bit unfair. (Also, grapeshot is possibly the greatest amount of cheese in the entire game.)

When it comes to energy, it seems our experience is very different, perhaps because I'm horrible at this game. I main the FlameTank which means my energy reserve is low. I very rarely see energy enhancements due to the focus on pure main weapon DPS. Probably 100 max energy would be my guess, which means that the high efficiency high energy weapons will give me one shot. Along those lines the Blue Mech gets the x2 Energy modifier, which will really distort energy usage.

Amusingly,  on 2 of my last 5 runs with the Flame Tank, I "won" the -20 energy mysterious circuit, which gave me a 0 energy cap...

I can't argue with your lack of diversity point, that's true. You give up diversity for more raw damage. Which is though, not atypical.

I remain unconvinced, however that isn't particularly fair, so I'll counter with a challenge/question as a way to convince me.
For floors 3-5, what proportion of damage does your "typical" energy weapon do to the boss versus the proportion done by your main gun? Or what is your kill time for bosses on floors 3-5 with the Acid Maw versus other T2 energy weapons?

[Logorouge]

STG energy efficiency is not that bad (3) which is very close to the median value (3.75) for all energy weapons. It is inefficient when it comes to hitting small targets. You also have to consider the Tier ranking for these weapons, comparing the elite high tier weapons against the lowly T2 Acid Maw is a bit unfair. (Also, grapeshot is possibly the greatest amount of cheese in the entire game.)

I will admit I have no clue how the weapons are organized tier-wise. That's why my initial suggestion for the Maw was left vague number-wise, as the low/high tier divide would definitely affect the numbers greatly.

When it comes to energy, it seems our experience is very different, perhaps because I'm horrible at this game. I main the FlameTank which means my energy reserve is low. I very rarely see energy enhancements due to the focus on pure main weapon DPS. Probably 100 max energy would be my guess, which means that the high efficiency high energy weapons will give me one shot. Along those lines the Blue Mech gets the x2 Energy modifier, which will really distort energy usage.

Amusingly,  on 2 of my last 5 runs with the Flame Tank, I "won" the -20 energy mysterious circuit, which gave me a 0 energy cap...

And here is my greatest fear in all this: That my experience is slowly becoming an edge case that would end up too far from the average player to be useful data. I don't think I'm there yet, but just the fact that I know how many shots of Decimating Power it takes to kill most regular enemies is probably a bad sign.  (The answer is 6 in case you're wondering)

Also... ouch on that Mysterious Circuit. Lady Luck was pretty harsh with you there.

I remain unconvinced, however that isn't particularly fair, so I'll counter with a challenge/question as a way to convince me.
For floors 3-5, what proportion of damage does your "typical" energy weapon do to the boss versus the proportion done by your main gun? Or what is your kill time for bosses on floors 3-5 with the Acid Maw versus other T2 energy weapons?

That is actually very difficult for me to answer because of how different the ways we look at things are.
Let me explain: You look at it with damage proportion and kill time. But I never really think about those while fighting a boss. I look at it by the number of phases skipped or greatly fastforwarded and damage hits taken.

For bosses in that range, my energy weapon allows me to skip/fastforward an average of 2 phases.
Using an unmodified Maw, the lack of variation on phase clear speed probably gets me an additional 1 to 3 hits, depending on the boss. Being stuck on one phase for too long eat away my focus and greatly increase my risk of slip up.

I don't know how I would calculate the damage proportion but I can certainly try to time the boss fights somehow, if you're interested in the result. I'm still clueless about weapon tiers though.

[ptarth]

So, I think the difference is that you want a burst weapon instead of a DPS weapon.

Okay, so... how about something like:
Rage: x2 damage for 10 seconds for 50 energy. It would however, not come with a bullet producing system.

[Draco18s]

Okay, so... how about something like:
Rage: x2 damage for 10 seconds for 50 energy. It would however, not come with a bullet producing system.

Add it anyway.

[ptarth]

Rage and a Hair Cut:
50 Energy per shot, reload 5 seconds, 1 shot per salvo, 50 damage per shot, range 500.
Enemies hit by Rage and a Hair Cut take x2 damage for the next 10 seconds.

or 
Two bits:
1 Energy per shot, reload 0.1 seconds, 5 shots per salvo (cone), 1 damage per shot, range 500.
Enemies hit by Two bits take x2 damage for the next 0.1 seconds.

[Logorouge]

So, I think the difference is that you want a burst weapon instead of a DPS weapon.

Okay, so... how about something like:
Rage: x2 damage for 10 seconds for 50 energy. It would however, not come with a bullet producing system.

Meh, it's more that outside of Warden and Terminus, I don't see the encounters as lengthy enough to make the current % of Maw worth it compare to the effect of most secondaries.

If I had to put some numbers on it, my ideal Maw would be: Low Tier (+60%), Mid Tier (+80%), Top Tier (+100%).
Since you said it's intended to be low tier, my goal would be quite lower than x2 after all.

I especially like that even the low tier could be useful on both regular enemies and bosses, (Which wouldn't be the case with the Rage secondary you described, due to the sheer quantity of enemies in many rooms) and the 3 seconds duration makes it okay even if you don't hit the enemy constantly (which will quickly get annoying with the Two-bits I think).

I still think the Acidic Maw should be about constant boost, not burst. (There's already so many burst weapons.) I just think said boost should be of a greater magnitude to compensate the lost of flexibility. Ideally, I would have loved to hear a bunch of other players opinions on the Maw though, to see if I was missing something.

By the way, if you made that Two-bits weapon shorter ranged and added a cryo effect to it, you could rename it Frostbite.

[Pepisolo]

I think Logo's made a convincing enough case, Ptarth. Plus, he's a veteran player, of course, whereas we're just mere scrubs. How does a boost to 40% sound to everyone?

[ptarth]

Honestly, I need to think about it. Then hem and haw some, before counter suggesting something everyone will hate. That takes time!

On my own, I've been toying with a DOT build. I took the PlayerMain_IncineratorEnergy on the FlameTank along with an Acid Maw variant that has a 3 second 5 damage DOT. Actually, looking at these numbers, I think something is janky with the DOTs again. Things were dying too fast for this to match up. I also want to know if the damage multipliers are giving boosts to the DOTs. My gut feeling is they aren't.

[Misery]

And here is my greatest fear in all this: That my experience is slowly becoming an edge case that would end up too far from the average player to be useful data. I don't think I'm there yet, but just the fact that I know how many shots of Decimating Power it takes to kill most regular enemies is probably a bad sign.  (The answer is 6 in case you're wondering)

Every time someone says something like this, I have to resist the urge to make things more murderous to counter it.

On that note, I forgot to add in the Inferno Cannons to the game.  I'll remedy that later.

For bosses in that range, my energy weapon allows me to skip/fastforward an average of 2 phases.

argh

[Logorouge]

Every time someone says something like this, I have to resist the urge to make things more murderous to counter it.

You're already doing that with Hard mode and the soon-to-be Misery mode. Looking forward to seeing those Inferno Cannons in action.

For bosses in that range, my energy weapon allows me to skip/fastforward an average of 2 phases.

argh

Please don't feel bad about that. Before you guys started the huge rebalancing sweep, I used to skip bosses altogether and sometimes entire floors because it didn't matter. Compared to that, accelerating one or two phases is minimal.


And for what it's worth, I would be on board for 40% Acid Maw. It'd be a niche weapon, but that's not a bad thing at all.

[ptarth]

Well, let's see how it handles then? I've made the changes on the SVN. If you want to update your own copy its in RuntimeData\Configuration\EntitySystem\Dayton_PlayerAmmoSystems.xml line 504ish

[Logorouge]

Well, let's see how it handles then? I've made the changes on the SVN. If you want to update your own copy its in RuntimeData\Configuration\EntitySystem\Dayton_PlayerAmmoSystems.xml line 504ish

I did a test run on Hard mode, starting with and keeping the Acidic Maw as a secondary all the way through. I stopped half-way through to check the files as I wasn't sure if it was really using 40%, considering the amount of butts it was kicking in the early floors. Is it really that dot effect that does such a difference on early enemies? Anyway, it's impressive as it held pretty well up to the Warden (didn't feel like it was holding me back or anything). I only started having trouble keeping up with the threat level on floor 6-7, which is expected since it's not supposed to be top tier.

There were a few items along the way that were tempting to switch the Maw with, but despite their greater damage potential I would have kept the Maw even in a regular run, because of it's low energy consumption, general lastability and synergy with my item loadout. With a different loadout, I might have switched. The fact that I had such hesitations for my choice of secondary weapon is a pretty good sign I think. It made me consider my options and wasn't a no-brainer.

In conclusion, the Acidic Maw currently feels like a Mid-Tier weapon compatible with most builds.
A slightly toned down dot might move it to the rank of an excellent Low-Tier weapon, if that's more in line with what you had in mind.

Phew. I hope some of this will be useful information. Hard mode is quite a taxing way to test these things.

[ptarth]

Time for some sausage making. The DOT isn't that big of a deal, it is just 20 damage (4 ticks, 3 + 1 from shot speed differences). I added it to help the player keep track of if the debuff was running. The difference is coming from the regular Acid Maw shots. For better or worse, damage in SR is in may places converted to an integer. This matters because X - 1 * 1.1 = X - 2. In other words, if you have a 1 damage weapon, and any sort of damage multiplier (between 1.0 and 2), it turns into a 2 damage weapon. This is especially relevant for the Acid Maw, because it looks like a terrible weapon 1 damage per shot. BUT it shoots 5 shots per salvo and costs 1 energy per shot. That actually means that the new Acid Maw (that we revised) is a 100 DPS weapon and its energy efficiency is 10 to 1. This is only a little less powerful than the TurboBlaster. I had forgotten about this since the last time I discovered it. For most things, it doesn't really matter. It does have the impact of increasing the effective power of low level weapons and low level boosts much higher than expected. It really only makes a massive difference when your multipliers are between 0 and .5 and with 1 damage shots. And there aren't many one damage shots. It will continue to scale beyond this, but the damage for the Acid Maw is actually starting out with floor 4ish level damage, and then scales normally beyond that. Once you get up to level 4 or so, you won't notice its performance being very different than what you'd expect without the numeric conversion.

I'm surprised that it wasn't holding up on Floor 6+, but since so much depends on build, I can't really say how much. An important note is that the bonus damage doesn't start until AFTER the first hit of the Acid Maw, most of the time it doesn't matter, but if you "hold down both triggers" the damage may be less than expected until the Acid Maw shots get there.

I'm reasonably happy with it right now, and unless you guys think it needs further modification see no great reason to make further changes. Thank you for the insight and testing. Amusingly, you've inspired me to make another forum request that should be visible in a new thread I'm going to start after this.