Arcen Games

General Category => Starward Rogue => : Logorouge July 23, 2016, 02:38:32 PM

: Items, locked chests, etc
: Logorouge July 23, 2016, 02:38:32 PM
Thanks to insomnia I had some unexpected free time last night, so I decided to play some SR and write my thoughts as I went along. Hopefully some of it can be useful feedback.


-GravityWell energy weapon: Could a 1sec delay be added before the blackhole effect activates? If we had time to get out of the way, its usability would improve a lot.

-Could items like "-X hp/energy for +Y missile capacity" be added?

-Condemned Twin Sun: The biggest danger of this room is falling asleep (unfortunately I didn't). I think the hard mode Twin Sun should become the new Normal and then Hard mode be increased further. It still wouldn't be very dangerous, but it would be an improvement I think.

-Probation "Make it to next floor without damage": +1HP reward. Why? The guy is already untouchable if he succeed, he doesn't need that tiny hp boost. Instead, why not reward that player with a huge chunk of XP? Now THAT is a useful reward.

-SalvosUponSalvos item: +10% firerate, but enemies gain +20% movement and +20% firerate. Even if the movement part still use the old method (unintentionally increasing the player's movement too), the end result is still that you're giving the enemy a 10% firerate advantage. Why would you ever pick up that item?

-Grenade Launcher: Seems extremely common considering how powerful it is. Maybe that one is just the RNG playing tricks on me though.

-"+4HP until you use a missile": No one would use that. If it was +10HP I would use it for specific situations, as long as it doesn't kill me when it stops.

-Probation "Stop using whatever until next floor": Such disappointing rewards for those. How about they reward you with a piece of equipment of the relevant type instead? Stop using that energy weapon you hate for 1 floor and you'll get a new one on the next floor. Restrain yourself from using missiles until next floor and you might get a magnetic/incendiary/cooler missile launcher. Much more exciting.

-Could a +10% movement speed levelup perk be added? Would be useful for certain builds and give you a way to counter all those speed penalty items. Plus, some additional variety for the perks wouldn't hurt.

-Locked chests: It's all conditional buffs and consumables. Kinda boring. Could some rare equipment drops be added to their item pool? Would make spending keys on those chests worth it, even if you already have a consumable.

-Tiny Energy/Damage Boost: If their effects on gameplay are so close to non-existant, why are they even there? It's just a bummer to see spots for potentially useful items in the shop wasted with pointless junk like that.

-Could bigger blobs of XP be added to later floors loot where appropriate? Maybe even for regular chests. Health/missile/money over and over can get old after a while.

-Were mana potion style consumables (for energy) planned or were those deemed too exploitable?

-Revenge module: What does it do? I checked the code and it supposedly increase your shot size by 20%. For how long? Where's the retaliation part? I don't get it. Could someone shed some light on what its intended effect is?

That's it! The rest was pure sleep-deprived nonsense. Thank you for reading.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Tolc July 23, 2016, 04:37:57 PM
-Locked chests: It's all conditional buffs and consumables. Kinda boring. Could some rare equipment drops be added to their item pool? Would make spending keys on those chests worth it, even if you already have a consumable.

Got to agree with that one. I almost never bother opening them if I'm not already swimming in keys.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Pepisolo July 23, 2016, 05:40:27 PM
GravityWell energy weapon: Could a 1sec delay be added before the blackhole effect activates? If we had time to get out of the way, its usability would improve a lot.

I'll have to look into this, I barely recall this weapon for some reason. Seems like an easy improvement to make, though.

-Could items like "-X hp/energy for +Y missile capacity" be added?

Possible, aye. Got any specific numbers or a name in mind?

-Condemned Twin Sun: The biggest danger of this room is falling asleep (unfortunately I didn't). I think the hard mode Twin Sun should become the new Normal and then Hard mode be increased further. It still wouldn't be very dangerous, but it would be an improvement I think.

I'm not a huge fan of the Condemened rooms, to be honest. I presume at some point in the future they'll get an overhaul. This fix seems ok for now, though.

Probations stuff...

Yeah, these all need an overhaul. It probably won't make it for next build, though.

-SalvosUponSalvos item: +10% firerate, but enemies gain +20% movement and +20% firerate. Even if the movement part still use the old method (unintentionally increasing the player's movement too), the end result is still that you're giving the enemy a 10% firerate advantage. Why would you ever pick up that item?

Yeah, that doesn't sound right. Ptarth might have adjusted this in the latest build, I'm not sure.

"+4HP until you use a missile": No one would use that. If it was +10HP I would use it for specific situations, as long as it doesn't kill me when it stops.

I've actually removed this item in the latest build, I think. Firstly because it sucks, secondly because it can kill you, which sucks.

-Could a +10% movement speed levelup perk be added? Would be useful for certain builds and give you a way to counter all those speed penalty items. Plus, some additional variety for the perks wouldn't hurt.

Perk overhaul is due some time. A movement speed perk might work, yeah.

-Locked chests: It's all conditional buffs and consumables. Kinda boring. Could some rare equipment drops be added to their item pool? Would make spending keys on those chests worth it, even if you already have a consumable.

One thing that has been added to these is a golden credit, which gives you 10 credits. A few more things seeding in this pool might be good, though. Ptarth?

-Tiny Energy/Damage Boost: If their effects on gameplay are so close to non-existant, why are they even there? It's just a bummer to see spots for potentially useful items in the shop wasted with pointless junk like that.

Not sure. Ptarth says these are good value for credits, I think.

-Were mana potion style consumables (for energy) planned or were those deemed too exploitable?

These will actually be coming in the next build. A HP one, too.

-Revenge module: What does it do? I checked the code and it supposedly increase your shot size by 20%. For how long? Where's the retaliation part? I don't get it. Could someone shed some light on what its intended effect is?

Yeah, I actually would like to redo a lot of the modules, I really don't like most of them at all. This one you mention, I'm not sure at the moment, I'd have to look into it. A couple have been overhauled recently, the Cryofreeze Module and the Incineration Module.

Yeah, good feedback, cheers. The stuff you have problems with seem to be in areas that we know we are going to overhaul at some point. We've just got to get around to it. Improvements should happen in the future, though. Next overhaul after the next patch will probably be the level up overhaul. Probably.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Logorouge July 23, 2016, 06:12:54 PM
-Could items like "-X hp/energy for +Y missile capacity" be added?

Possible, aye. Got any specific numbers or a name in mind?

Haven't thought of that actually. Hm, for an advantageous small scale conversion item, probably 1 or 2HP and 5 or 10 energy for 2 or 3 missiles. As for names (I'm terrible at those): "Rocket Science" and the missile equivalent of "Ballistic Reconfiguration" would be the only ideas I can think of.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Tolc July 24, 2016, 06:57:28 AM
Just gonna leave a big thank you here for you Freaking Volunteers for still improving this game! You rock! :)

-Could items like "-X hp/energy for +Y missile capacity" be added?

Possible, aye. Got any specific numbers or a name in mind?

Haven't thought of that actually. Hm, for an advantageous small scale conversion item, probably 1 or 2HP and 5 or 10 energy for 2 or 3 missiles. As for names (I'm terrible at those): "Rocket Science" and the missile equivalent of "Ballistic Reconfiguration" would be the only ideas I can think of.

How about "Justice rains from above..."? ...Ok, ok, I'll see myself out...  :P Seriously, though, I like Rocket Science and Ballistic Reconfiguration.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Mánagarmr July 24, 2016, 07:45:58 AM
-Grenade Launcher: Seems extremely common considering how powerful it is. Maybe that one is just the RNG playing tricks on me though.
It seems awesome until you realize it actually has SELF DAMAGE. I never pick it up anymore. I have enough to do dodging enemy shots to have to dodge my own strays.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Logorouge July 24, 2016, 09:38:49 AM
Just gonna leave a big thank you here for you Freaking Volunteers for still improving this game! You rock! :)

[...]

How about "Justice rains from above..."? ...Ok, ok, I'll see myself out...  :P Seriously, though, I like Rocket Science and Ballistic Reconfiguration.

I'll also add my thanks toward the Volunteers for doing such dedicated work despite the hard times. You're awesome.

Tolc: You know, that name would be perfect for an Orbital Strike style consumable. :)


It seems awesome until you realize it actually has SELF DAMAGE. I never pick it up anymore. I have enough to do dodging enemy shots to have to dodge my own strays.

I wouldn't use it for a mech without a shield, but otherwise its bullet cancel effect alone makes it so incredibly OP that it's still worth using even with the friendly fire.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Misery July 24, 2016, 09:48:23 AM
As the Condemned stuff goes, I could always just redo some of their patterns, if that helps.

The one thing I DID do is take that maze one (and I think one other), and make all the walls implode when the thing goes down.  So that if you have to go through that stupid room again you dont need to be slowed down there, that always irritated me.

Yay for impatience!
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Logorouge July 24, 2016, 11:46:37 AM
The one thing I DID do is take that maze one (and I think one other), and make all the walls implode when the thing goes down.  So that if you have to go through that stupid room again you dont need to be slowed down there, that always irritated me.

Yay for impatience!

I feel better knowing I wasn't the only one annoyed by that.  :P

Oh, another thing I forgot to write in the first post:

-Acidic Maw: Very cool secondary weapon that does minimal damage, but increase your damage on that enemy for a few seconds. Unfortunately, it only increase the damage by 20%. I think it should be several times that amount. Since you're losing DPS from not having a good damage energy weapon and have to rely almost entirely on your main gun, in my opinion the damage increase should be pretty amazing.

Edit: With further testing, around 80-100% bonus damage makes the Acidic Maw feel very much worth using (it's fun!). But I guess it depends on how high tier the item is supposed to be.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: ptarth August 05, 2016, 02:09:39 AM
For some reason I've been unable to view the forums here for a while

Thanks to insomnia I had some unexpected free time last night, so I decided to play some SR and write my thoughts as I went along. Hopefully some of it can be useful feedback.
Thanks

re: GravityWell
Pepisolo fixed?

re:-Could items like "-X hp/energy for +Y missile capacity" be added?
I'm not a big fan of trading away my health. These types of items also overlap with the sacrifice shop in that they effectively use health as currency. Regardless, we have the idea down.

Re: Twin Suns
Fixed.

re:Probation
Probably the next system to be fixed. [Redacted] is coming.


re:SalvosUponSalvos item
Pepisolo made the ratio more favorable to the player. I'm actually thinking of getting rid of it entirely. It also ends up increase shot speed for enemies...

re: Grenade Launcher
I think all sources of friendly fire damage have been removed now.

re: Level Up Perks
This or Probations is getting the hammer next.

re:Lock Chests
[redacted] is coming.

re: Tiny Energy/Damage Boost
They are actually cost effective and multiplicative.

re:XP blobs
Right now there isn't a good way of scaling drop amount by floor. So.. it is possible, but would require  a sizeable effort.

re:Mana/heal potions
[redacted] is coming.

re:Revenge module
It adds a system that fires a 75 damage shot every time you take a hit. The size modifier increase the projectile size. Probably could be replaced by another shot image without resizing but it works for now.

re:Acidic Maw
That's Pepisolo's I think. I'll look at it later.

re:Oribital Strikes
There are actually 2 orbital strike weapons. I'm not sure if they are set to seed.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Pepisolo August 05, 2016, 09:46:04 AM
re: GravityWell
Pepisolo fixed?

Actually, I don't even remember that item, heh. I'll have to look into it.


re:Acidic Maw
That's Pepisolo's I think. I'll look at it later.

Yeah, upping the amount that it increases the damage enemies take seems fine. You can adjust these figures, Ptarth. Somewhere between 50-100% probably.

re:Oribital Strikes
There are actually 2 orbital strike weapons. I'm not sure if they are set to seed.

Yeah, these don't seed anymore as they need work.


: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Logorouge August 05, 2016, 11:04:55 AM
For some reason I've been unable to view the forums here for a while

Welcome back.

re: Tiny Energy/Damage Boost
They are actually cost effective and multiplicative.

If that is their intended concept, I think their magnitude should be increase substantially, to make the cost saving and effect actually noticeable. Currently, you need to buy 4 or 5 of them to even notice a minor effect and the single credit saved doesn't have any impact on gameplay. In my humble opinion, those items should have a more prominent impact on gameplay, as I think their concept is an interesting one.

Also the energy boost should probably be converted to multiplicative, as it is currently still additive.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Dominus Arbitrationis August 05, 2016, 11:31:37 AM
For some reason I've been unable to view the forums here for a while

Are you still having trouble? I've whitelisted your IP, so I'm not sure what the problem might be at this point. I can dive into the logs and try to find out what is happening though.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: ptarth August 05, 2016, 11:43:10 AM
The Cheap Item shop items are cheap, so we need to keep their prices down. The damage multiplier is fine, it might not look like a lot, but it is. The energy one can probably be increased to 10 energy. (done).

The Acid Maw damage boost is a 20% multiplier, which effectively removes 17% of total health of anything it hits. It costs 1 energy per use and lasts for 3 seconds. You can also think of it as a system that increases your damage by 20% for 3 seconds for 1 energy. It is probably the most powerful weapon in the game because of the 20% multiplier. It stacks with everything! I could see increasing the duration and energy costs, so, perhaps 10 seconds for 3 energy. The range could probably also be boosted a tad to maybe 500 or so. I can't test it right now, but I'll take a look later.

re:Dominus
I can have access now and I had the Suddenlink folks come out yesterday. I'm highly suspicious of that timing.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Logorouge August 05, 2016, 12:31:02 PM
The Cheap Item shop items are cheap, so we need to keep their prices down.
Items costing 20cr or more are frequent in the cheap shop. For example, Durable Cells cost 40cr.
I think you still have plenty of room for the price range. (Anything below 50cr is a good deal imo, considering the cash flow in this game)
By the way, there's already a +10 energy item in the cheap shop. Having two would be a bit redundant. I don't think there's a +% energy item though. :P

The Acid Maw damage boost is a 20% multiplier, which effectively removes 17% of total health of anything it hits. It costs 1 energy per use and lasts for 3 seconds. You can also think of it as a system that increases your damage by 20% for 3 seconds for 1 energy. It is probably the most powerful weapon in the game because of the 20% multiplier.
In practice it's currently one of the weakest weapons in the game. That 20% doesn't mean much when you have to sacrifice the offensive capacities of your energy weapon to get it. Short of having an army of attack drones combined with one of the top 3 main guns, using the Acidic Maw is always a losing proposition. The range/cost/duration are all great, but the multiplier really drags it down.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: ptarth August 05, 2016, 01:35:16 PM
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.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Logorouge August 05, 2016, 03:08:35 PM
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.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: ptarth August 05, 2016, 04:33:25 PM
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?
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Logorouge August 05, 2016, 05:51:38 PM
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.  :P (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.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: ptarth August 05, 2016, 08:00:05 PM
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.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Draco18s August 05, 2016, 08:03:51 PM
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. :D
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: ptarth August 05, 2016, 08:13:38 PM
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.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Logorouge August 05, 2016, 08:59:21 PM
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. :)
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Pepisolo August 05, 2016, 09:43:33 PM
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?
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: ptarth August 05, 2016, 10:08:41 PM
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.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Misery August 05, 2016, 10:39:13 PM
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.  :P (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
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Logorouge August 05, 2016, 11:11:12 PM
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.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: ptarth August 06, 2016, 01:35:31 AM
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
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Logorouge August 06, 2016, 07:05:48 PM
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.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: ptarth August 06, 2016, 09:17:03 PM
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.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Logorouge August 06, 2016, 10:29:42 PM
Ah, so it's not so much the DOT but the rounding up that made the early floors easier than I expected. Interesting.

Floor 6-7 tend to have so many in-your-face high HP enemies for each room, making it a less than ideal environment for the Maw to do its thing. But with the right build, I believe it could absolutely hold its own to the end. In my run, I didn't have that many drones and my attack speed wasn't as ludicrous as usual, so a different loadout would probably have had an easier time.

Anyway, I'm really happy how things turned out and will definitely have lots of fun doing runs with the new Maw. So thanks again.
Now, time to check that new thread. :)
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Logorouge September 10, 2016, 11:11:01 AM
It's been a while, so here's a bunch of small suggestions:


-Detonating Rose: Mine-style secondary. I think removing friendly fire from this one would make it a much more interesting option. It's definitely fun to use otherwise.

-Sabotage Circuit vs Rocket Man: Getting damaged by that circuit doesn't break the conditional effect of Rocket Man. I think it should.

-Open ALL containers / collect ALL health shard challenges: The wording should include "and explore all rooms", because you need to in order to complete the challenges, regardless of if the remaining rooms have a container/health shard or not.

-ZMC_DiamondMines: A room with a bunch of floating mines and one weak enemy. The battle ends in 2-3 seconds. That's way too short. There's enough space for 2-3 small enemies, which would make the player actually move around that sea of floating mines for a bit before the room is cleared. I think that would give a more interesting experience.

-Reath_Waves: That room is a gravity well nightmare. Removing some of them in an alternating fashion would allow the player to lure problematic enemies toward a gravitational opening while still allowing all the gravity-related hijinks.

-END_FreeMissilesWithSpawner: Nice room that teach you about missiles and spawners. Unfortunately, all the rewards (4 missiles) are in the outer part of the room, so you don't have any reason to bother reaching the center. If some of the missiles were moved to the center, it would be a nice reason (use 1 missile, gain 3) to actually beat the room instead of just skipping it entirely most of the time.

-Paragon: I'm more looking for opinions here. Is it just me or is Paragon's hitbox kinda weird considering his appearance? I never noticed before because he would die too fast, but while fighting him at low power lately, I was surprised to see so many of my shots go right through him.

-Old orbital weapons: Those didn't really work with gamepads and got removed. Could they make a comeback if they use a fixed range instead of the at-cursor aiming? Or is their wall ignoring property too problematic regardless of their range?

-New enemy: Is there plans to include energy munching enemies in the game, or were those deemed too annoying?


The end... for now!
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Pepisolo September 10, 2016, 04:56:45 PM
-Detonating Rose: Mine-style secondary. I think removing friendly fire from this one would make it a much more interesting option. It's definitely fun to use otherwise.
-Open ALL containers / collect ALL health shard challenges: The wording should include "and explore all rooms", because you need to in order to complete the challenges, regardless of if the remaining rooms have a container/health shard or not.
-Paragon: I'm more looking for opinions here. Is it just me or is Paragon's hitbox kinda weird considering his appearance? I never noticed before because he would die too fast, but while fighting him at low power lately, I was surprised to see so many of my shots go right through him.

I just put some fixes in for these, thanks. Yeah, good spot on Paragon, the hitbox was way too small. I'll leave the rooms for Misery to take a look at as he has a better handle on enemy placements and stuff.

-Sabotage Circuit vs Rocket Man: Getting damaged by that circuit doesn't break the conditional effect of Rocket Man. I think it should.

I'll have to look into this one.

-Old orbital weapons: Those didn't really work with gamepads and got removed. Could they make a comeback if they use a fixed range instead of the at-cursor aiming? Or is their wall ignoring property too problematic regardless of their range?

These could make a comeback but would need an overhaul. The last idea we had was to convert them more into timed airstrikes. So, for example, you place a marker and then a few seconds later a series of explosions would occur.

-New enemy: Is there plans to include energy munching enemies in the game, or were those deemed too annoying?
I don't think we've really looked into this type of enemy. Enemes that drain your energy you mean? Sounds like a decent idea to me.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Misery September 11, 2016, 01:48:34 AM

-ZMC_DiamondMines: A room with a bunch of floating mines and one weak enemy. The battle ends in 2-3 seconds. That's way too short. There's enough space for 2-3 small enemies, which would make the player actually move around that sea of floating mines for a bit before the room is cleared. I think that would give a more interesting experience.

-Reath_Waves: That room is a gravity well nightmare. Removing some of them in an alternating fashion would allow the player to lure problematic enemies toward a gravitational opening while still allowing all the gravity-related hijinks.

-END_FreeMissilesWithSpawner: Nice room that teach you about missiles and spawners. Unfortunately, all the rewards (4 missiles) are in the outer part of the room, so you don't have any reason to bother reaching the center. If some of the missiles were moved to the center, it would be a nice reason (use 1 missile, gain 3) to actually beat the room instead of just skipping it entirely most of the time.


I like these ideas, so I'm going to make these changes.

Speaking of rooms, I might add a bunch of new ones myself here for an upcoming update; I'd meant to make a bunch more to go along with the Humble update but didn't really have time to do that.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Logorouge September 11, 2016, 11:33:13 AM
-New enemy: Is there plans to include energy munching enemies in the game, or were those deemed too annoying?
I don't think we've really looked into this type of enemy. Enemes that drain your energy you mean? Sounds like a decent idea to me.
Yup, that's what I was thinking. Some kind of energy leech enemies would offer a very different kind of threat.

I'm glad you guys liked the suggestions.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Misery September 13, 2016, 06:29:18 AM
Well, made the room changes.  If you find any more screwball gravity well rooms in particular, let me know.

On a side note, I've totally revamped the Guard Flea's attack pattern.  The super-common enemy that has very low range and barely moves but stops your shots.  The third-tier one was proving problematic when encountered with slow-firing weapons (had the flare gun, and they were nearly unkillable, had to use missiles every time, which isn't the first time I've run into that sort of thing), so.... I gave them all a new set of patterns.  This also makes them a lot harder now (which also gives them more purpose).   They can still block your shots, they just have a totally new way of doing that now that wont make them take a million years to get at with slow guns.  The third-tier one is particularly unpleasant.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Misery September 14, 2016, 01:14:27 AM
Okay, this'll be more of an update than I thought.

I've got entirely new enemy categories active here; they have been in the game for awhile now (one of the others added them) but I never got around to doing stuff with them.  Now, I have.  A variety of new ships will come with this, and Anklebiters are making their return.

The new categories are:

Popcorn:  Very weak foes, very little health, small attacks.  They are threatening only in large groups.  No other enemy type in the game appears in large groups, because that'd be going too far...

Defensive:  Things very good at guarding specific areas.   When you deal with one, you often have to have a high focus on them; getting rid of other nearby things beforehand is a very good idea.  They will have placement only in appropriate areas.  Anklebiters are in this group.

Maze:  Designed for use in thin or tangled corridors.  A lot of enemies that have been around for awhile are actually very bad for this.

All three of those are available in the level editor, have been for awhile now, they just didn't do anything yet since there were no enemies of those types.

Also, some more rooms.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Pepisolo September 14, 2016, 10:12:26 AM
Sounds awesome! Return of the Anklebiter, yay! :)
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Logorouge September 18, 2016, 02:57:57 PM
Question of the day: Are the dps switcheroo items (x2 firerate+half power. or vice-versa) a bit too extreme in their effects?

I think they tend to make it a bit too easy/simple to reach extreme values for either firerate or power. A mere x1.5 would still be a pretty major shift in the firerate/power balance without instantly going to superspeed/superpower.

But on the other hand, would that become irrelevant once the power-related perks get re-balanced? I don't know. I'd like to hear what you guys think.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Pepisolo September 18, 2016, 04:23:23 PM
Question of the day: Are the dps switcheroo items (x2 firerate+half power. or vice-versa) a bit too extreme in their effects?

I think they tend to make it a bit too easy/simple to reach extreme values for either firerate or power. A mere x1.5 would still be a pretty major shift in the firerate/power balance without instantly going to superspeed/superpower.

But on the other hand, would that become irrelevant once the power-related perks get re-balanced? I don't know. I'd like to hear what you guys think.

Could be a bit too extreme, yeah. Fire rate in particular seems to cap at a certain point. Or maybe the engine can't handle anything beyond a certain fire rate. Reducing the boost amount would leave a bit more room to stack other fire rate boosting items with it rather than instantly just getting superspeed. I'm not sure how the perk overhaul and rebalance would affect this, since it's still in the early stages at the moment.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Logorouge September 23, 2016, 10:15:37 PM
Two things I wanted to mention without cluttering the other thread:

-Since a perk overhaul is coming, could the XP curve for levelups be made smoother?

Currently, at higher levels the XP requirements suddenly spike to the heavens, to the point where levels 18+ might as well not exist (and making XP boost items/perks almost pointless, since you end up being stopped by the same wall as everyone else). If there's an incoming floor 8-9-10 with exponential XP gains, then the XP curve might be fine the way it is. If not, then here's my suggestion for a smoother XP curve:

(http://oi65.tinypic.com/2lo2lb9.jpg)

Vanilla are the normal values for levelups, modified are the smoother version and the % are just the accelerated models I experimented with for my roulette mech.


-Mech menu order: I noticed that for some reason, many new players assume the upper-left mech is the recommended one to start with for your first run. Previously that was White Gloss which, although a bit dull for a first choice (in my opinion), was still a nice way to get used to the game. But now, the Humble mech has taken that spot. I honestly think his alternate ammo system and lack of starting shield makes him a very poor choice for a first timer.

My suggestion would be to move a more appropriate mech to that spot, that would allow new players that happen to choose it to have a smoother (the word of the day apparently) first run experience with the game. I think Flametank could fill that role nicely, with his 2 starting shields and wide-spread flamethrower. Green Envy might also work, since his special abilities are pretty easy to understand and don't really require any specific playstyle. But any mech with a starting shield would be an improvement here I think.

Thoughts?
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Pepisolo September 24, 2016, 11:00:04 AM
Since a perk overhaul is coming, could the XP curve for levelups be made smoother?

Yeah, I hadn't actually thought about the curve, yet, heh. I think we might need to trim the levels to the amount of perks we can fill the tree with. Not sure how to handle that super high level end game. Do we just have a level 16 cap for example, or allow the player to keep pushing up, but then we'd have to reuse perks a lot.

-Mech menu order: I noticed that for some reason, many new players assume the upper-left mech is the recommended one to start with for your first run. Previously that was White Gloss which, although a bit dull for a first choice (in my opinion), was still a nice way to get used to the game. But now, the Humble mech has taken that spot. I honestly think his alternate ammo system and lack of starting shield makes him a very poor choice for a first timer.

Good point, it made sense to have the Humble Mech first during the promotion, I guess (although that actually wasn't intentional!),  but now moving it further down seems more appropriate.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Logorouge September 24, 2016, 10:52:44 PM
Yeah, I hadn't actually thought about the curve, yet, heh. I think we might need to trim the levels to the amount of perks we can fill the tree with. Not sure how to handle that super high level end game. Do we just have a level 16 cap for example, or allow the player to keep pushing up, but then we'd have to reuse perks a lot.
Personally, I would much rather see repeats and variants of previous perks than hitting a level cap and see all future XP wasted into nothingness, with no more progression possible.

I don't think you need to add too many perks to populate the upper tree. With the current floors, even if you used a smoother XP curve a player won't reach that high a level. The way I see it, you have maybe 3 standard levelups (lv15+)that could benefit from having a special perk (or 2 for extra variety) to spice things up for all mechs (be it new or just a repeat/variant). If you add 2 or 3 mech specific perks along the way too (every 5 levels or something), things will get very interesting indeed. Levels higher than that would only need to be freshen up after the addition of deeper floors or branches, which would probably be part of an expansion anyway.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Misery September 25, 2016, 12:34:47 AM
I would say that while having a level cap isn't a bad idea, it probably shouldn't be the case.  The reason is that if the player wants to dump a big pile of money into the XP machines in shops, which I have seen people do in videos and which I sometimes do myself, it should end up being possible for them to go a bit further with the perks than usual.  In the end it's just another way to use money to power-up, so it's not any more broken than just buying items.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: ptarth September 25, 2016, 02:44:13 AM
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Logorouge September 25, 2016, 09:40:58 AM
Probably useful to mention: Currently, without any XP boost, exploring 90+% of the floors allows me to reach level 15 or 16. That include a few thousand XP bought at the shop.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Logorouge October 04, 2016, 11:00:11 PM
Here's a few minor things I noticed while playing:

-CMP_HealthInward: Health upgrade room without a teleporter. Seems like it should have one.

-Conductive Hull: (-2hp, +80 energy) I think this item offers too much +energy for the mere 2hp cost. +60e would still be very good.

-Serrated Spine Launcher (energy weapon): "cause very toxic bleeding. Don't get it on you." Misleading description that suggest friendly fire but in reality it doesn't matter if you step on it.

-Tactical EMP: AoE slowdown for 10sec. Considering it's a non-lethal one-shot item, shouldn't the effect be pretty amazing? Currently it's quite underwhelming in my opinion. Could the duration or/and range be extended by a good amount?

-Large and in charge: Sacrifice item that enlarges your hitbox and make you very slow, on top of reducing your max HP of course. It does give you a 33% damage multiplier, which is awesome, even better than mere additional damage. But at that cost, with all those crippling penalties, does anyone ever take that item anymore?

Here's my suggestion: Reduce the speed penalty from -20% to -10%, so it's still playable (keep in mind the huge hitbox) and add a new 25% damage reduction bonus to it. Maybe adjust the hp sacrifice a tad. That way, the item now offers a slightly different playstyle kinda similar to Ptarth's brawlers, without the regen part. And if a player focuses on damage reduction, it could even be viable on Hard difficulty.


And that's all.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: ptarth October 05, 2016, 01:39:26 AM
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Pepisolo October 05, 2016, 12:10:10 PM
-Conductive Hull: (-2hp, +80 energy) I think this item offers too much +energy for the mere 2hp cost. +60e would still be very good.

-Serrated Spine Launcher (energy weapon): "cause very toxic bleeding. Don't get it on you." Misleading description that suggest friendly fire but in reality it doesn't matter if you step on it.

-Tactical EMP: AoE slowdown for 10sec. Considering it's a non-lethal one-shot item, shouldn't the effect be pretty amazing? Currently it's quite underwhelming in my opinion. Could the duration or/and range be extended by a good amount?

I put fixes in for these, improved the EMP aesthetics a little too. It now has more room sized AOE. It's more of a smart bomby thing now.

-Large and in charge: Sacrifice item that enlarges your hitbox and make you very slow, on top of reducing your max HP of course. It does give you a 33% damage multiplier, which is awesome, even better than mere additional damage. But at that cost, with all those crippling penalties, does anyone ever take that item anymore?

Having damage reduction does make sense, however with the new damage balance changes 33% multiplicative damage boost is HUGE, so this probably doesn't need a buff in the latest build. We'll probably just see how things goes with the new build for a bit.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Logorouge October 05, 2016, 05:30:35 PM
I put fixes in for these, improved the EMP aesthetics a little too. It now has more room sized AOE. It's more of a smart bomby thing now.
Thanks for the fixes. Can't wait to try the new EMP and I'll definitely give Large and in charge a few test runs once the update hit.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Logorouge November 06, 2016, 09:07:29 PM
Noticed a few minor things lately:

-B.B.S.150 Battle Stomper: That weapon is kinda loud. Ended up turning down my volume while doing a run with it. Could its soundfx be toned down a bit?

-Humble mech: His stats on the selection menu indicate no energy, but he actually has a decent 50 points of energy. Which one is correct?

-Battleswarm: His hitbox seems to be huge compared to his appearance. Not gonna lie, I noticed because I ran into it.

-Crystal Mother: Same as Battleswarm. Running around too close to the boss cost me a hit from the surprisingly large hitbox.

-Charge (enemy): That's the insta-spread energy arms enemy, for those wondering. Are his arms a bit long considering how small many of the rooms he end up in are? Also, can they reach a bit further than their visual representation would lead to believe? Never had the opportunity to push that F7 fast enough to make sure.

-Secret rooms (freebie): The vast majority of the time, there's only one item waiting for me in those. "You can only choose one and the others will disappear" doesn't mean much when there is only one to choose anyway. Is this intended? Having at least two items would be nice, so there's actually a choice to be made.

And that is all. Thanks for reading!
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Draco18s November 06, 2016, 09:25:04 PM
-Humble mech: His stats on the selection menu indicate no energy, but he actually has a decent 50 points of energy. Which one is correct?

The 50 energy is for if you replace your secondary weapon. The humble secondary just doesn't use energy.

-Secret rooms (freebie): The vast majority of the time, there's only one item waiting for me in those. "You can only choose one and the others will disappear" doesn't mean much when there is only one to choose anyway. Is this intended? Having at least two items would be nice, so there's actually a choice to be made.

Depleted item pools.  e.g. not enough items to actually offer you more than one, particularly a problem late game.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Misery November 07, 2016, 02:04:35 AM
I looked at the secret rooms just now, there's only four of them, and two of them only have one pedestal in them. 
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: ptarth November 07, 2016, 09:38:39 AM

: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Pepisolo November 07, 2016, 12:05:09 PM
B.B.S.150 Battle Stomper: That weapon is kinda loud. Ended up turning down my volume while doing a run with it. Could its soundfx be toned down a bit?

Reduced the volume by 2db, thanks!

: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Logorouge November 07, 2016, 12:38:08 PM
  • Humble Mech - 50 starting energy, but his primary uses credits, until you give it up. per Draco
Sure, but shouldn't the mech stats reflect the mech's actual capacities? Seems misleading to show 0 energy when there's a decent amount available for use.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Logorouge November 15, 2016, 08:14:13 PM
I don't think I'll be able to play for a few days, so I might as well write the feedback I got so far.

-First impressions for the new icons:
Great:
Savings Interest, Loot sense, All in the wrist, Shard Splitter, Hydration drink, Retail Therapy, Fight or Flight, Time Freeze (Item).

Fine:
Plasma Punisher Module, Telekinetic Repulsor Module, Missile Salvager, Bloody Rage, Big Game Hunter, Defense Orbital, Large Missile Pack.

Not so great:
Haste (why a door?), Improved/Enhanced/Advanced Warheads (rocket tail clash with the rest of the image), Energy Transfer (X over a chunk of metal? Hard to tell what it is), MapMaster (Out to lunch).
-Miniboss rewards: Very nice to get loot from those but aren't they a bit overboard at the moment? I got Torpedo Cannon, golden missile launcher and Turbo Blasters from them. Getting some top tier stuff like that from some minor encounter (as early as Floor 3 in some cases) is a bit much I think. Are they supposed to follow the floor index or do they have a static pool of items?

-Deep Blue mech: Typo, "maxmimum energy".

-All in the wrist perk: Didn't work with Flametank's starter flamer.

-Harmony sac item: Wasn't that one branded for removal? The effect didn't change, judging from the description.

-Conductive Hull item: Description is outdated, +80 -> +60 energy

-Gravity Cannon secondary: The repel effect on mech is too long. For the first 1 or 2 seconds it's great to protect against the initial activation of the weapon, but 4 seconds just make you nearly untouchable for way too long and make the mini blackhole almost irrelevant.

-FlakLauncher enemy: HP feels off compare to other non-boss enemies. I ended up killing the rest of the room and then just sat there, shooting at it for a long time.

-Terminus Core helpers: HP again. These guys felt like they still played by the previous rules where you're expected to have 300% bonus damage at that point. Even with my overcrit maniac machine, it took forever to kill even one of them.

-Room END_FreeLockedChest2: If you casually walk into that room from one side, you appear on spikes with no chance to react. Very unfair.

-RocketMan item: Tiny Transport impact damage doesn't count for losing the effect?

-Modules: I fully support the integration of certain modules into the Defensive shop. That'll give a good reason to visit it even if you're not planning on spending on extra HP.

-Anklebitters: Those are among my favorite enemies and I'm very happy that they're back in the game officially. They do seem less threatening for some reason. What changed about them?

I could go on and on about how much I love all the new content, the countless nice little touches and changes you guys made, but I'm thinking that wouldn't be very useful feedback. But still, I wanted to mention how ecstatic I am about this entire update. It's awesome!

This is it...for now.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Pepisolo November 15, 2016, 08:57:24 PM
-First impressions for the new icons:

Yeah, that's kind of how I see things too. I think all those you say are great can be put into the game as is, with minor tweaks from Blue. Some of the others will need to have new ones created, though, probably. Or they'll need to be reworked.

-Miniboss rewards: Very nice to get loot from those but aren't they a bit overboard at the moment? I got Torpedo Cannon, golden missile launcher and Turbo Blasters from them. Getting some top tier stuff like that from some minor encounter (as early as Floor 3 in some cases) is a bit much I think. Are they supposed to follow the floor index or do they have a static pool of items?

Hmmm, that's weird. I thought that these were all following the regular floor index tiers. That'll need some investigation.

-Deep Blue mech: Typo, "maxmimum energy".

Fixed it, ta.

-All in the wrist perk: Didn't work with Flametank's starter flamer.

That's weird. I'll look into it when I get the chance.

-Harmony sac item: Wasn't that one branded for removal? The effect didn't change, judging from the description.

Actually, I don't think that one was ever removed. Or maybe it was supposed to have been, but we forgot or some other confusion.

-Conductive Hull item: Description is outdated, +80 -> +60 energy

Got it, thanks.

-Gravity Cannon secondary: The repel effect on mech is too long. For the first 1 or 2 seconds it's great to protect against the initial activation of the weapon, but 4 seconds just make you nearly untouchable for way too long and make the mini blackhole almost irrelevant.

Reduced it to 2 seconds, cheers.

-Terminus Core helpers: HP again. These guys felt like they still played by the previous rules where you're expected to have 300% bonus damage at that point. Even with my overcrit maniac machine, it took forever to kill even one of them.

Yeah, I pointed this out on a couple of occasions and Misery actually took the HP down too, I think. Might need to be taken down a bit more, though.

-RocketMan item: Tiny Transport impact damage doesn't count for losing the effect?

Contact damage is treated differently to shot damage so that can cause a bit of weirdness. Maybe the engine guys can figure this one out.

-Modules: I fully support the integration of certain modules into the Defensive shop. That'll give a good reason to visit it even if you're not planning on spending on extra HP.

Sounds good, not sure on how things are currently set up.

-Anklebitters: Those are among my favorite enemies and I'm very happy that they're back in the game officially. They do seem less threatening for some reason. What changed about them?

I believe that their ability to shoot through walls was removed, so perhaps you are finding some that are having their shots blocked by walls? Other than that, I don't think there have been any other changes, it's just that they're placed in more appropriate locations in rooms.

I could go on and on about how much I love all the new content, the countless nice little touches and changes you guys made, but I'm thinking that wouldn't be very useful feedback. But still, I wanted to mention how ecstatic I am about this entire update. It's awesome!

This is it...for now.

Fantastic! :) Thanks for the awesome feedback! This was a pretty tough update because it changed so much, but we got it done. Phew. Glad to hear that you're enjoying it. Cheers!

: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Misery November 15, 2016, 10:16:08 PM
Yeah, Anklebiters were more difficult before because the game tended to place them into really awkward positions where they didn't fit and sometimes were outright broken.  Their pattern is very odd and rather hard to fit into room designs, so they've been placed in the new "defensive" category, and I've been very careful about where that group of enemy types can spawn.  Currently they're probably the easiest of that group.

I might actually be able to reactivate their ability to fire through walls so their pattern doesn't get caught on corners anymore, now that they're in positions where doing so wouldn't lock things up.  I'll have to test that.


I'll have a look at the Terminus things.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Logorouge January 07, 2017, 10:29:12 AM
Here's a few things I noted while doing a bunch of runs the other day:

Charger (enemy): Immune to damage until woken up. Is that intended?
Time Machine: Available from Locked Chests?
Harmony (sac item): Since that one isn't going away, might as well tweak it to make it worth picking up. How about making the effect "until hit, per floor" instead of one-time and it's gone forever?
Deep Blue: Description typo, inceases -> increases
Fragments: Small gun firerate a bit too high on normal?
Dual entrance boss room are a thing now? Nice.
Tanky enemies: I started testing values for the tankiest of the bunch and here's the ones that felt the most natural so far. Enough time to do their thing without overstaying their welcome.

Flak Launcher: 1800->1200 HP
Rusted LumiFlare: 605->405 HP
Blue Larva: 650->450 HP
Green Larva: 700->500 HP
Purple Larva: 820->620 HP
Core Blade 1: 1900->1300 HP
Core Blade 2: 2200->1600 HP
Core Razor 1: 1950->1350 HP
Core Razor 2: 2200->1600 HP

I also collected a whole lot of room names to be checked for potential overcrowding, but I'm running out of time so I'll have to post those later. Thanks for reading!
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Frumple January 07, 2017, 10:44:37 AM
... huh. So do lumiflares have some kind of damage resistance or somethin'? Because I've unloaded 9 torp cannon shots directly into a(n already about a sixth or seventh dead, so missing a hundred-ish HP or thereabouts) rusted without it dying, and checking those things are supposed to be doing 200 damage a shot, or something close to it. According to that HP number the thing should have been dead a bit less than three times over from that kind of damage output, and it wasn't dead at all.

Guess I can just check, now that I think about it. And checking seems to say no, which now has me horribly confused.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Pepisolo January 07, 2017, 04:06:50 PM
Charger (enemy): Immune to damage until woken up. Is that intended?

I think that's intentional, yeah. Misery can answer for sure.

Time Machine: Available from Locked Chests?

Yeah, it was set to that, but I'm not sure if that should be the case or not. Seems a bit more like a secret room only item, so I changed it to only seed there. Thanks!

Harmony (sac item): Since that one isn't going away, might as well tweak it to make it worth picking up. How about making the effect "until hit, per floor" instead of one-time and it's gone forever?

I'm not so sure this is such a bad item as is for the cost, although it is a risky one. In any case, people do rarely tend to take it, so let's try making it give you the buff per floor to see how that works out. I'm a little concerned it may be a bit OP like that, though. Is this item auto-win if using repulsive hornet mines?

Deep Blue: Description typo, inceases -> increases

Fixed, thanks!

Dual entrance boss room are a thing now? Nice.

Not sure! I can't recall any feature like that being put in. Maybe that was always there?

Thanks for the tanky enemy list. That should be useful for Misery. The list of overcrowded rooms should be useful, too. Cheers!

huh. So do lumiflares have some kind of damage resistance or somethin'? Because I've unloaded 9 torp cannon shots directly into a(n already about a sixth or seventh dead, so missing a hundred-ish HP or thereabouts) rusted without it dying, and checking those things are supposed to be doing 200 damage a shot, or something close to it. According to that HP number the thing should have been dead a bit less than three times over from that kind of damage output, and it wasn't dead at all.

Guess I can just check, now that I think about it. And checking seems to say no, which now has me horribly confused.

There is also some enemy HP scaling per floor, so that may account for the extra tankiness. The HP on that enemy is probably getting reduced a fair bit.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Logorouge January 07, 2017, 10:35:01 PM
Harmony (sac item) [...]
I'm a little concerned it may be a bit OP like that, though. Is this item auto-win if using repulsive hornet mines?
Hm, good question. Between traps, melee enemies, surprise attacks and some specific bosses where magnets just won't work, I would probably lose it rather quickly anyway. But good call on making it a secret room item, that's a nice addition to that item pool I think.

Dual entrance boss room are a thing now? Nice.

Not sure! I can't recall any feature like that being put in. Maybe that was always there?
Previously, it would indicate two doors on the map but one of them would always be a phantom door not actually there to use. For once, both were there and useable. I'll keep an eye out to see if it happens again.


Now, here's a couple of rooms that I felt were overcrowded or a little too in-your-face. (Some of that might be caused by the specific selection of enemies I got):

PT_Pacman
BGS_DynamicEntry
BGS_TheArena
ZMC_SniperPassage (3 inferno cannons + 1 blaze cannon + rearguard snipers for the rest. Don't know how I escaped unscathed.)
CMP_BridgeTrolls
BGS_ConfinedWithTurrets
Reath_X
ZHA_Dumbell
ZHA_CrossDefence

That's it for now.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Cinth January 08, 2017, 04:31:26 PM
Dual entrance boss room are a thing now? Nice.

Not sure! I can't recall any feature like that being put in. Maybe that was always there?
Previously, it would indicate two doors on the map but one of them would always be a phantom door not actually there to use. For once, both were there and useable. I'll keep an eye out to see if it happens again.

It's always been there, iirc.  The specific boss room has to have multiple entryways and the mapgen has to connect to them.  2 or 3 entrances is just a rare occurrence (3 is the most possible and should be incredibly rare).

Charger (enemy): Immune to damage until woken up. Is that intended?
All enemies that have a sleeping state should be damage immune until woken up.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Misery January 08, 2017, 05:43:36 PM
Here's a few things I noted while doing a bunch of runs the other day:

Charger (enemy): Immune to damage until woken up. Is that intended?
Time Machine: Available from Locked Chests?
Harmony (sac item): Since that one isn't going away, might as well tweak it to make it worth picking up. How about making the effect "until hit, per floor" instead of one-time and it's gone forever?
Deep Blue: Description typo, inceases -> increases
Fragments: Small gun firerate a bit too high on normal?
Dual entrance boss room are a thing now? Nice.
Tanky enemies: I started testing values for the tankiest of the bunch and here's the ones that felt the most natural so far. Enough time to do their thing without overstaying their welcome.

Flak Launcher: 1800->1200 HP
Rusted LumiFlare: 605->405 HP
Blue Larva: 650->450 HP
Green Larva: 700->500 HP
Purple Larva: 820->620 HP
Core Blade 1: 1900->1300 HP
Core Blade 2: 2200->1600 HP
Core Razor 1: 1950->1350 HP
Core Razor 2: 2200->1600 HP

I also collected a whole lot of room names to be checked for potential overcrowding, but I'm running out of time so I'll have to post those later. Thanks for reading!


Ahh, yeah there really are some typos in the bloody numbers.   Flak Cannon was supposed to be at 1200 to start with, and I thought the Rusted Lumiflares were at 350.  Ugh.

Now as for that Harmony item, honestly, I think that just plain shouldnt be there.   That seems more like a "very rarely found in locked chest" sort of item, not something that sould be taking up space in a sacrifice room.  Yet at the same time, yeah, for the purple mech it'd make it invincible. 



For the bit that was mentioned about enemy immunity, it's not the case for ALL of them, but yes, some are immune to damage until you get close.  Typically this applies to anything considered to be a "jumpscare" enemy.   Wheras other things, like Facerippers, have no such immunity and will wake upon being shot.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Logorouge January 08, 2017, 06:14:31 PM
Dual entrance boss room are a thing now? Nice.

It's always been there, iirc.  The specific boss room has to have multiple entryways and the mapgen has to connect to them.  2 or 3 entrances is just a rare occurrence (3 is the most possible and should be incredibly rare).
Interesting. Any chance the mapgen could be slightly modified to make it more frequent? It's kind of a bummer that it doesn't happen more often. First time I've seen it despite my unholy amount of hours played.

Now as for that Harmony item, honestly, I think that just plain shouldnt be there.   That seems more like a "very rarely found in locked chest" sort of item, not something that should be taking up space in a sacrifice room.  Yet at the same time, yeah, for the purple mech it'd make it invincible.
I'm curious to test the modified version Pepsisolo sent into the secret room. It will be nice to see something new pop up in there and not see the old version in the sacrifice room. But I think I'll do a couple of test runs with Dipole to see how easy/hard it is to keep the effect with the current item.

Also, more rooms in-your-face and/or overcrowded:

ZMC_PowerGrid
BGS_ForgingTheRiver
BGS_HaveToBreakAFewEggs
END_Square2_Snipers(F4)
END_StandardNS2_BigWindow(F4)
END_StandardNS1_GuardedCrossing(F4) (That sleeping enemy behind the central turret...)
BGS_AbsoluteChaos(F3)
END_Square1_Clockwise(F3)
BGS_TwistsAndTurns
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: z99-_ January 12, 2017, 04:09:35 PM
For rooms, I've got:

QuadNN/BGS_TheNoose

and, from a run back during Thanksgiving that I just found the notes to:

Standard/Reath_Chase
StandardEW/BGS_SplitPathway
FatVertical/ZMC_Quarantine
SquareNE/GlassZoo(6)

I also put down BigWindow(F4), but Logorouge already mentioned it.

It seems like, for me at least, how difficult a room is is directly proportional to how many Dissevers I encounter. The issue isn't really their health, it's that they always spawn in these corridors that become either filled with their shot blocking balls, or the 1000 needles that erupt from them. I think maybe either their pattern needs to be nerfed, or they need to be moved to a higher class. Maybe make it so that player shots cause the balls to explode prematurely, instead of just outright blocking them? Or remove the shot blocking ability entirely? IDK.

Other stuff:

On Level 7 perk list for White Gloss, I see a Small Hull Reinforcements that gives +4 HP. I thought Small is +2, and Medium is +4? The other choices were Medium Energy Tank and Missile Pack, so it should probably be changed to Medium.

Sacrifice Item idea: Instant Gratification - restores all your health like an infinite health pickup, but at the cost of your max health. It's simple, could be really useful in certain situations, and all you need is one of the unused health pickup images for the item image!

I know this is Really Really Nitpicky, but could the colors of the health pickups be changed to match the different levels of exp pickups? It just seems like it would make sense (to me, at least)

Pics are of White Gloss perk thing, and what I, personally, consider Too Much Dissever
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Pepisolo January 12, 2017, 07:18:56 PM
On Level 7 perk list for White Gloss, I see a Small Hull Reinforcements that gives +4 HP. I thought Small is +2, and Medium is +4? The other choices were Medium Energy Tank and Missile Pack, so it should probably be changed to Medium.

Sacrifice Item idea: Instant Gratification - restores all your health like an infinite health pickup, but at the cost of your max health. It's simple, could be really useful in certain situations, and all you need is one of the unused health pickup images for the item image!

I know this is Really Really Nitpicky, but could the colors of the health pickups be changed to match the different levels of exp pickups? It just seems like it would make sense (to me, at least)

Ah yeah, probably just a typo that hull thing, good spot, thanks. Yeah, that sacrifice item might work. Sacrifice 3 max health for a full heal. Regarding the colour of the new HP pickups, we were really not sure what colours to go with. In the end we just went with the icons going lighter from red to eventually gold. We could switch to Blue, Green, Gold, yeah, but I'm not sure what would be best. I might have to start a poll at some point or something.

: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Misery January 12, 2017, 07:36:47 PM
Dissevers:  Their ability to guard/block passages is actually the intention of their entire design.  Defensive-class enemies are placed for that purpose.

The trick to defeating them is to NOT move much when dealing with their attack.  It's a "panic" pattern... it's designed to get you to flip out and panic-dodge, which causes the shards to go all over the place.  That attack doesnt have any RNG in it:  It's a purely aimed attack.  Dodging it actually doesnt involve moving all that much.

Also, remember that the starting position of the wall they produce is ALSO aimed.  Make them put it in a position that makes it easier for you to get at them.  There's some tricks you can do here, but I'm not going to go TOO far into hint-giving here.

For the time being at least, I'm not going to make any changes to them.



Also, I support the idea of changing the colors of the health items to match the EXP items.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Logorouge February 02, 2017, 11:06:18 PM
Now that I'm able to play again, here's a few things I noted and the related suggestions:


-Deep Blue: Description, inrcease -> increase

-Warhog: Description, sentry turrent -> sentry turret (Ok that one isn't from playing, but I could not not mention it :P)

-TinyDamageBoost: Typo in the game files, "MissileShotDamage = 0..02"

-AllInTheWrist: Icon in pause menu disappeared after a few rooms.

-Viper Strike (secondary): Friendly fire

-Abmoog Shooter: Is their movement pattern kaput? I'm sure they used to do more than just running into a wall and wait for death.

-Crystal Mother: Last phase green arrow incomplete on Normal?


-CMP_CrazyTest3 and CMP_CrazyTest4: Secret rooms with only a single item. I think they need 2, so there can be some agonizing choices between the different options.

-BGS_GettingTighter: Overcrowded room

-BGS_TwoFaced: Spawning vipers in that room is a big problem. It only take seconds before you have a huge wall of snakes completely blocking the tiny opening to the other side.

-Condemned room Hunter: Obligatory damage to grab the reward. I recommend changing 1 spike to a see-through block that pops when cleared.


-RocketMan: Upperscreen message, add "for current floor" for clarity.

-Autobot: Is it just me or could that drone really use a buff? More range maybe?

-Temporary Orbital (consumable): Too much HP? Seems extremely durable for a cheap one-time item. Does it regen between rooms?

-Lorentz Factor (sac): 10 -> 8 sec. Just like pre-nerfed Phasing Grace, 10 seconds is a looong time in battle and this one makes Condemned rooms a joke. But since it doesn't make you invincible, the duration still needs to be a fair bit above Phasing Grace.

-Harmony (secret room item): After several test runs with this one, I think it should be limited to 1 floor only just like RocketMan. Energy is just too easily exploitable and the effect coming back at the start of each floor just felt weird.

-Disruptor (secondary): Damage is too high. Its debuff is already extremely good, I don't think it needs the high dps on top of that.

-Saving Interests (perk): 20% -> 30%. Contrary to the competing perks of that level, you actually need to save up money (and not buy power ups) to benefit from the effect. I think the interest rate should reflect that and make it worth your while.

-Missile Salvager (perk): 5% -> 10%. If Rex taught me anything, it's that anything below 15% missile regain on kills is barely noticeable. I don't think players should have to stack three perks like this before they begin getting a noticeable effect on their gameplay. It would be nice if there was another good option for the incoming Warhog too, instead of just making a beeline for the sac item. (You know that's going to happen. :P)

-Holy Fire (secondary): Very cool late game weapon, but has as much punch as a sick kitten. Please give it some love...ideally in the form of added damage or fire duration.


-Bloody Rage (perk): Visual cue? I never know if it's working or not.

-Second Chance (module): While watching InkEyes play, I didn't even notice when he used his second chance (I rewinded the video to find the moment). I think it needs a special effect and/or sfx when you get rez. It's not the kind of thing you wanna see go unnoticed during battle.

-Rush Hour (challenge): "Make it to the next floor in 3min" -> 10min (so it's usable until overhaul) or deactivate till then.

-No Pain No Gain (challenge): Pick up 3 sac items -> 1 item (again, so it's usable until overhaul) or deactivate till then.


-Tutorial level: Make players go down stairs at the end to avoid the current confusion of newbies when they first reach the end of the tutorial and introducing them to the fabled yellow stairs of level-ending.

-Secret rooms are too easy to find at the moment, since they auto-open if there's no health shard block in the room. Could it be changed that at least throwing a missile at the wall is required to open the entrance if there's no shard block? (Spawn an invisible bombable activation block on the would-be entrance so you can missile your way in regardless of the room?)


Woo, that might have been a bit more than "a few things" after all...

: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Pepisolo February 05, 2017, 08:33:06 PM
-Deep Blue: Description, inrcease -> increase

Got it, thanks!

Warhog: Description, sentry turrent -> sentry turret (Ok that one isn't from playing, but I could not not mention it :P)

Got it. For a second I thought we'd accidentally pushed that code or something, heh. I forgot that Misery posted screenshots.

TinyDamageBoost: Typo in the game files, "MissileShotDamage = 0..02"

Got it, thanks!

-AllInTheWrist: Icon in pause menu disappeared after a few rooms.

Good spot! This was caused by me setting those systems to be destroyed rather than simply having them run out of ammo. I fixed a few other perks that were set up wrongly like this too.

-Viper Strike (secondary): Friendly fire

Fixed, ta.

Abmoog Shooter: Is their movement pattern kaput? I'm sure they used to do more than just running into a wall and wait for death.

Not sure. Something doesn't look, right, yeah. I'll get Ptarth to take a look at them seeing as he designed them. I tested them quickly and they seem to be immobile for some reason.

Crystal Mother: Last phase green arrow incomplete on Normal?

The big arrow thing? Seems to be fine on my computer. The fire rate on this pattern is maybe too high, which perhaps can cause problems on other setups. I'll get Misery to take a look.

-CMP_CrazyTest3 and CMP_CrazyTest4: Secret rooms with only a single item. I think they need 2, so there can be some agonizing choices between the different options.

I'll add this and the other room stuff to Misery's list, since he kind of takes charge of rooms.

-RocketMan: Upperscreen message, add "for current floor" for clarity.

Fixed, thanks.

-Autobot: Is it just me or could that drone really use a buff? More range maybe?

I upped it's range a little for now. I might need to take a longer look at the bot some time, though.

-Temporary Orbital (consumable): Too much HP? Seems extremely durable for a cheap one-time item. Does it regen between rooms?

Not sure. I'll need to test a bit more in game proper. I never seem to take this one myself usually. I'll have to make a note to take it on my next runs.

-Lorentz Factor (sac): 10 -> 8 sec. Just like pre-nerfed Phasing Grace, 10 seconds is a looong time in battle and this one makes Condemned rooms a joke. But since it doesn't make you invincible, the duration still needs to be a fair bit above Phasing Grace.

Seems good, thanks.

-Harmony (secret room item): After several test runs with this one, I think it should be limited to 1 floor only just like RocketMan. Energy is just too easily exploitable and the effect coming back at the start of each floor just felt weird.

Yeah, seems good, cheers!

-Disruptor (secondary): Damage is too high. Its debuff is already extremely good, I don't think it needs the high dps on top of that.

What makes me slightly hesitant to nerf this one is that the weapon seems to be not the most desirable due to its short range. I'm going to need to do a few more runs with this, first,  I think.

-Saving Interests (perk): 20% -> 30%. Contrary to the competing perks of that level, you actually need to save up money (and not buy power ups) to benefit from the effect. I think the interest rate should reflect that and make it worth your while.

I'm not sure on the numbers of this one. It may be that major coinage is too powerful in comparison. Any maths people got any thoughts on these numbers? Major coinage gives 20% chance to receive double credits, Savings Interest gives a 20% bonus on your current credits at the start of a new floor. Major coinage might perhaps need a nerf?

-Missile Salvager (perk): 5% -> 10%. If Rex taught me anything, it's that anything below 15% missile regain on kills is barely noticeable. I don't think players should have to stack three perks like this before they begin getting a noticeable effect on their gameplay. It would be nice if there was another good option for the incoming Warhog too, instead of just making a beeline for the sac item. (You know that's going to happen. :P)

As the creator of Rex, I bow to your knowledge on this one. 10% it is!

Holy Fire (secondary): Very cool late game weapon, but has as much punch as a sick kitten. Please give it some love...ideally in the form of added damage or fire duration.

Interesting. This was set way too low actually. The numbers were set correctly by Ptarth way back, but the system also had max_damage_per_entity_per_salvo set to 50, which probably wasn't taken into account. I've removed the max damage per salvo, and also buffed the DPS a bit, so this should be a lot better in the next build. Thanks!

-Bloody Rage (perk): Visual cue? I never know if it's working or not.

Yeah, I'm not sure if I even like this perk. I might just remove or replace it.

-Second Chance (module): While watching InkEyes play, I didn't even notice when he used his second chance (I rewinded the video to find the moment). I think it needs a special effect and/or sfx when you get rez. It's not the kind of thing you wanna see go unnoticed during battle.

I've added a quick screen flash for now which seems to do the trick. Maybe I can look into an SFX too some time.

Rush Hour (challenge): "Make it to the next floor in 3min" -> 10min (so it's usable until overhaul) or deactivate till then.

-No Pain No Gain (challenge): Pick up 3 sac items -> 1 item (again, so it's usable until overhaul) or deactivate till then.

I've just deactivated these until the probations gets overhauled.

Tutorial level: Make players go down stairs at the end to avoid the current confusion of newbies when they first reach the end of the tutorial and introducing them to the fabled yellow stairs of level-ending.

I'll look into this some time in the future, thanks.

-Secret rooms are too easy to find at the moment, since they auto-open if there's no health shard block in the room. Could it be changed that at least throwing a missile at the wall is required to open the entrance if there's no shard block? (Spawn an invisible bombable activation block on the would-be entrance so you can missile your way in regardless of the room?)

Yeah. I don't know what's going on with these secret rooms. They are quite poor in comparison to the ones in Isaac, for example. Finding the rooms in Isaac seemed interesting and fun. Finding them in SR is a bit...bloik, heh. We need to look into them a bit more.

Woo, that might have been a bit more than "a few things" after all...

Awesome feedback, thanks! :)
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: ptarth February 05, 2017, 10:12:17 PM
Major Coinage versus Saving Interests

Major Coinage: 20% chance of double credits
120% average income, with variance spikes


Saving Interests: +20% credits on floor change
+20% each floor,no variance, requires you to keep the credits, but can only be used multiple times on the same cash.

Let's pretend you get 100 credits on each floor, go down 5 floors, and assume there isn't a credit limit.
(These are all very wrong, you don't and it scales, but that's not important. It is a okay proxy for the best case scenario for Saving Interests)
Major Coinage:
1: 120
2: 240
3: 360
4: 480
5: 600

Saving Interests
1: 100
2: 220
3: 364
4: 536
5: 743

Well, that's a marginal gain to Saving Interests, in its best case scenario. And that isn't going to ever happen. What's most likely going to happen is you spend almost all your money every floor, and you get nothing from it.

So, let's guess about a desired behavior. Major Coinage is 20% income boost. Which is baseline okay. I know that Pepisolo said Major Coinage might be overpowered, and I can't really argue. But I've never been excited about picking up the perk ;).
So, how about 50% boost for Saving Interests.
Why you ask? Well, if the player saves 170 credits, then they start the next floor with 255 (max). So the player gets an extra $85 credits per floor, once they manage to collect the 170. That should occur around floor 4ish. That would get them 4*85=340 extra credits over the course of the game. This would be compared to the straight +20% total credits that comes from Major Coinage. The variability in credit gaining schemes make my estimate there very poor, but it is around 200.

So, I propose 50%.

Rush Hour - Quick Fix - You teleport to Boss if you pick it up?
Probation: End Floor with <$X credits. It has actually been <=$5 for ages now, but one of the language files wasn't changed. I fixed that.
Secret Rooms - Didn't it used to be you had to use a missile on a wall or break the health shard block?

re:Abmoog. That's strange. I'll look into it.


: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Misery February 05, 2017, 11:50:11 PM
I'll get Misery to take a look.

UGH FINE

Yeah. I don't know what's going on with these secret rooms. They are quite poor in comparison to the ones in Isaac, for example. Finding the rooms in Isaac seemed interesting and fun. Finding them in SR is a bit...bloik, heh. We need to look into them a bit more.

Originally, they did work like Isaac (this being super early in development).  But.... nobody could find them.  It was always rather unclear as to where potential door spots are in the rooms, and there wasn't much in the way of rules as to where the things appear.  So it was changed to the current method.

If anyone can come up with a better, more interesting idea, by all means, let us know.  These rooms really are too easy to find.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Draco18s February 06, 2017, 11:09:16 AM
They're too easy to find because glowing blocks hold health shards and once you learn that you're going to explode all of them, every time.
(Ok, there's like two I skip in one room just because it takes two missiles to get one shard and I often don't want to spend that many missiles in one place).
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Pepisolo February 06, 2017, 12:20:56 PM
So, I propose 50%.

Seems like a fairly convincing case. We'll see how 50% works out.

Rush Hour - Quick Fix - You teleport to Boss if you pick it up?

It could be converted to a different type of item, I suppose. I think we might as well just keep the icon, though, for a probation overhaul, whenever that takes place. Feel free to take charge of that project if you want, I know in the past you've shown interest in that.

If anyone can come up with a better, more interesting idea, by all means, let us know.  These rooms really are too easy to find.

Yeah, these could do with working differently, I think. How about going back to Isaac style, but the wall would appear slightly cracked, thus making them easier to find?
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Logorouge February 06, 2017, 07:10:43 PM
Thanks for going through my wall-of-text feedback. Much appreciated.

So, I propose 50%.
And I thought I was being bold by proposing 30%. :P
My % was merely to make it on par with Major Coinage, but it does make sense for it to be a fair bit better, since you still need to save credits to get any benefit.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Draco18s February 06, 2017, 08:03:38 PM
So, I propose 50%.
And I thought I was being bold by proposing 30%. :P
My % was merely to make it on par with Major Coinage, but it does make sense for it to be a fair bit better, since you still need to save credits to get any benefit.

He did the math. And the math at 50% (despite being hyperbolic) was not unreasonable.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Logorouge February 06, 2017, 08:39:03 PM
He did the math. And the math at 50% (despite being hyperbolic) was not unreasonable.
Even though the way I phrased my previous post might suggest otherwise, I completely agree.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Draco18s February 06, 2017, 09:42:41 PM
He did the math. And the math at 50% (despite being hyperbolic) was not unreasonable.
Even though the way I phrased my previous post might suggest otherwise, I completely agree.

I was just agreeing too. ;)
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Misery February 06, 2017, 10:44:34 PM

Yeah, these could do with working differently, I think. How about going back to Isaac style, but the wall would appear slightly cracked, thus making them easier to find?

They'd still be too easy in that case.  Visual cues usually don't work out too well with this sort of thing.  Which, of course, is why it's such a total pain.  Isaac is really the only one of these games to have ever gotten this right, or at least mostly right.  Usually secret rooms are all sorts of wonky in most roguelikes of any sort.  They're often either way too easy, like here, or stupidly hard to find, like Gungeon (where if they aren't in a treasure room, you're probably never finding them).
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Draco18s February 06, 2017, 11:44:22 PM
Reminds me of Tower of Druaga where the "puzzles" for finding the chests (chests being 110% required to actually beat the game) were arcane and every floor was different.  And there were no clues about what the puzzle was.  They could be literally anything from "break your pickaxe" (the pickaxe being the only item that lets you break walls, and the outer wall is unbreakable, if used its maximum times it breaks forever, and the outer wall insta-breaks it) to "stand still for 30 seconds" to "walk into the north outer wall for 7 seconds" to "wait until the timer turns red, then kill every monster on the floor" to "walk over the (locked) exit before killing any monsters."

You literally needed a walk-through guide in order to play.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Misery February 07, 2017, 12:09:44 AM
....wow.  Even I wouldn't be THAT cruel.

Yeah, let's not do something like that one.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: z99-_ February 07, 2017, 07:54:29 AM
If Isaac got it right, how did Isaac do it exactly?
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Misery February 07, 2017, 09:25:28 AM
If Isaac got it right, how did Isaac do it exactly?

In Isaac the rooms are secret, but you can use your head to determine likely locations based on the map.  So you don't exactly have to go around just bombing EVERY wall to find one.  Normal secret rooms have one type of generation (will always have 3 rooms bordering them), and super secret rooms will always only have one room bordering them and will tend to be somewhere near the boss room.  There's more to it than just that, but that's the basics of how they generate.  And it's easy to know where your bombs need to go when blasting a wall to check for one.

Because of this, they're absolutely viable to find, yet you definitely aren't just going to find them every single floor.  Sometimes you just cant quite locate them; maybe you don't have enough bombs, or maybe you have some but the number of potential spots you're seeing on the map isn't worth the possible wasting of those bombs, or whatever.  The main point is that you don't end up in said rooms on EVERY floor.  Right now, in this game, you'll pretty much always open up one on every floor, and without even trying.

: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Draco18s February 07, 2017, 11:03:33 AM
....wow.  Even I wouldn't be THAT cruel.

Tower of Druaga dates back to the arcade box days. The game was designed to eat quarters.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: z99-_ February 07, 2017, 03:55:55 PM
What about linking them to the miniboss rooms? Have one of the sides be bombable (without any other outward indications) to reveal the door. With a normal miniboss room, there are 4 door locations, with 2 leading to other rooms. This would leave 2 locations open to having the secret room. At the beginning when there is only 1 miniboss per floor, it would be rather easy to find the right location, but on higher floors with multiple minibosses it becomes somewhat harder, providing a nice natural difficulty increase. At the same time, the increased variability of missile ammo on earlier floors due to having generally less rooms makes sure that getting to the secret room isn't always a no brainer.

It also provides players an additional reason to enter miniboss rooms when they might not otherwise. For instance, I sometimes avoid miniboss rooms until the end to make sure I'm as strong as possible and I don't have any problems dealing with whatever's inside; but if I were really struggling, I could see myself deciding to go for the miniboss  in the hopes of getting a good secret room item.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Logorouge February 07, 2017, 06:16:52 PM
Could be fun to think of a few sets of rules for those rooms generation so shooting missiles at walls becomes a valid method despite the later floors size, but it would be nice to know upfront how restricted we are as far as rule-making goes.

Are sacrifice and free stuff secret rooms generated under different rules currently?
Can you specify which type/size of room can get a neighboring secret room?
Can you do the Isaac-style 2-3 adjacent rooms requirement (or the opposite)?
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Draco18s February 07, 2017, 08:35:43 PM
I'm now tempted to come up with a series of rules, which when stated, are very easy to follow and go "I found the room" but which would be very difficult to discover.

Not in a "walk into the outer wall for 7 seconds" type, but in a "[under some condition], find the southern-most room and use a missile on a wall" kind of way.  The condition would be something the player would be able to be aware of (e.g. "Floor 3") but not necessarily readily apparent (e.g. "If playing as white gloss Floor 3, else Floor 4 [for this rule]").
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: z99-_ February 07, 2017, 09:19:29 PM
And the complexity of the ruleset could vary based on difficulty! :)
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Logorouge February 07, 2017, 09:49:32 PM
The most straightforward rule set I can think of for bombable secret rooms:

-Secret rooms must be adjacent to a 1x1 non-special room and nothing else.

Easy to understand, easy to remember. Plus that kind of rule will naturally scale in difficulty on later floors due to their increasing size.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Draco18s February 07, 2017, 10:23:26 PM
I disagree. I feel secret rooms should be something where the player shouldn't have a good idea of where they are, because they don't know the rules.

"Always adjacent to a 1x1 and nothing else" is too simple. It's an easy pattern to recognize and look for. It's only marginally better than the "break a shard block."

It should be something that the player has a notion of what to look for, but it isn't always there: there's some element that they don't know and have to stumble across here and there.  It should be something that can happen by accident, but which the trigger is unclear.

Lets see...
"Visit every (non-secret, non-shop, non-boss (condemned and miniboss required)) room on the level."
"Stand (walk through) a spot in the room based on how much money you have" (the locations in this case would be large and very hard to avoid walking through, and not all possible monetary values would have an assigned location)
"Secret room is only visible when the pause screen is activated."
"Mysterious circuit teleports you there" (this MC would have to be always unidentified)
"Take damage in the room the secret room is adjacent to"

Stuff, that when it happens, the player goes "oh! hey! awesome!" and while they might be able to recognize some patterns ("many times I've come through this room on previous runs, I've gotten it...") it's far more trial-and-error.  Even when you know what the rules are they're still things that are hard to do intentionally, but they're things that you can go "hmm, I know that when I did X last time I got one, let me try that..."

Not completely arcane, but not so blatantly transparent.  Stuff that's inbetween.  Stuff the player should have to try more than one thing, or more than once, to accomplish.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Logorouge February 07, 2017, 10:49:18 PM
Not completely arcane, but not so blatantly transparent.  Stuff that's inbetween.  Stuff the player should have to try more than one thing, or more than once, to accomplish.
I'm so bad at figuring out untold enigmas like that, I probably wouldn't ever see a secret room again. :P
I don't know, I think secret rooms should be a bonus you can actively seek out, which I'm not sure you could reasonably do with that kind of rules.

I might be too used to Isaac's approach...
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Misery February 07, 2017, 11:28:47 PM
I disagree. I feel secret rooms should be something where the player shouldn't have a good idea of where they are, because they don't know the rules.

With the way things are now, we do need to give the player at least something to work with.  Sacrifice items are pretty important to the game as a whole (and also just fun to use), and making them too obtuse to find would not end well.   It'd end up being like Gungeon's secret rooms (which again, are bloody awful, to the point where many players just don't bother).

The actual "secret" rooms, on the other hand, with the totally free stuff, is another matter... but again, we don't want them being so hard to find that nobody ever gets to use the cool stuff in them.   And if we were to make them overly different compared to the sacrifice rooms, that's just a recipe for confusion.

All of which I suppose is why Isaac does it the way that it does.  You can reason out their location, but it's no guarantee, and sometimes, you'll just not manage it.  Sometimes you may end up just wasting like 5 freaking bombs looking for the door only to not find it.   It ends up being one of the choice-making moments of the game, in that you have to decide wether or not to spend the resources to MAYBE open up a secret room.    Giving the player that interesting choice aspect is what I'd like to see here too; right now there is no difficult choice to make, there's just "blow up the glowy things".


Here's the problem though, even with something like Isaac's approach:  How exactly do you communicate ANY of it to the player?  Obviously you cant just outright TELL them the rules of a secret room.  Even in Isaac, it works for a very specific reason:  Isaac is super popular.  If you've been introduced to the game by seeing others play it, you probably go into it having at least a basic knowledge of how this works.  Or if not, there's still the fact that the game is popular enough to have gotten a massive, extremely comprehensive wiki.  So you can easily look up the details, and that gives you what you need to know to choose the best possible spots to bomb.

....But the game itself, BY itself, doesn't help the player learn any of it.  Heck, the player wouldn't even know there WERE secret rooms until one of two things happened:  1, an enemy (probably the green walking guys) accidentally blasts a secret room open, or 2. You find one of the game's items that points you towards them.  And back in the original Isaac this sure wasn't something you found very often (this changed with Rebirth). 

We cant just have the player relying purely on the internet for learning mechanics here.  Not only does the game not have that kind of popularity, frankly it's just best to avoid the player feeling like they need to do that anyway.

So.... how could we change things up while actually making it both possible and actually likely that the player will get the info they need to begin searching for these rooms (yet still not being anywhere near a guarantee of actually finding them)?
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Draco18s February 08, 2017, 12:28:29 AM
I agree, Misery.  Which is why some of the "triggers" I had are things that people are going to do and it'll trigger it on accident (such as viewing the pause menu).

And then there's the sorts of stuff I want to do with the challenge rooms.  Something that requires skill (and a little puzzle detective work) in order to "pass."  If this room always spawns a secret/sacrifice room adjacent to it, solving the puzzle/challenge would reward the player with that room.

The problem is one of communication. If you use a visual clue that's always 100% accurate the room isn't secret (see: The Enchanted Cave II (https://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/716417030279185069/31685A0124FA0135C3DF644BEB7EF613CE2E4D2D/)). We're only one step away from that right now: here's the trigger, it has good stuff and better stuff under it. Break all the blocks!

We need something where the player can look at it and go "ok, sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn't" but have a rigid mathematical rule behind it.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Misery February 08, 2017, 03:56:24 AM
The one problem with those types of triggers you mentioned is mostly just inconsistency.  Other games of the same genre train the player to think "OKay, when I did THIS, a secret room opened, it's clearly connected to X action, so that's how I do it in this game".   If the trigger kept changing though, well... I'm not sure how absolutely everyone would react, but I personally would instantly suspect that I'd glitched my way into something, or that some item I picked up was having a secondary effect.  Eventually I'd probably just ignore the whole thing after awhile due to not wanting to have to spend time figuring out which one is active on a floor. The only way I could see it working is if there were, I dunno, clues dropped in various places along a given floor.   That could be interesting, though that also would add a bit of backtracking and sounds like engine work.

Puzzles I'd prefer to keep to an absolute minimum.  I'm not going to get overly arguementive about that aspect as it's not my part of the game really, but.... my general opinion on puzzles in roguelikes is usually "they shouldn't be there".  Every now and then I see a game like this try to do puzzles:  Not even once have I ever seen it work out.  Not once.  It's usually the sort of thing where you puzzle out the solution the first time, and then it's just really obnoxious every other time.

That's for "pure" puzzles though.  I'm not actually sure what you're thinking of there (if challenge rooms are testable yet in the dev build, I've not had a chance to try them yet).  I'm thinking of the sort that's like, I dunno, block/switch puzzles or mazes or stuff like that, and that's all there is to it.  You know, the "pure thinking" sort.  If you mean "puzzle" as in "HERES A MILLION DEATHRAYS, DONT GET HIT, oh and hit those two switches, thanks" that's a different story.  Half the time I don't know what people are talking about when they refer to puzzles nowadays.  Like how every platforming section in any game is a "jumping puzzle".  That damn term confuses the hell out of me.

Also yes a visual cue wouldn't work here really, for the secret rooms.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: z99-_ February 08, 2017, 10:14:30 AM
If they were always attached to miniboss rooms, you could just design a new miniboss that uses explosive attacks and set it to always spawn on the first floor for, say, the first 3 runs after the update. Just make sure the pattern will always be able to hit the right spot (either through usual methods or a Paragon-esque 'cover the room in bullets' end pattern), and then mention in the update 'we hid the secret rooms a bit better, but we made sure you can figure out how to find them *winkwink*'.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Draco18s February 08, 2017, 12:37:48 PM
That's for "pure" puzzles though.  I'm not actually sure what you're thinking of there (if challenge rooms are testable yet in the dev build, I've not had a chance to try them yet).  I'm thinking of the sort that's like, I dunno, block/switch puzzles or mazes or stuff like that, and that's all there is to it.  You know, the "pure thinking" sort.  If you mean "puzzle" as in "HERES A MILLION DEATHRAYS, DONT GET HIT, oh and hit those two switches, thanks" that's a different story.  Half the time I don't know what people are talking about when they refer to puzzles nowadays.  Like how every platforming section in any game is a "jumping puzzle".  That damn term confuses the hell out of me.

I mean in the sense that the player has to, at some point, say "Oooh, I gotta do X" but that's not enough, they still need to actually do X which is still going to require their wits and reflexes in a bullet hell sort of way. (e.g. "follow this path" like we have is too simple)

For example, take the rooms full of one-way floor tiles, right?  Now in the center with the chest, put a blaze cannon.
Have fun.

The puzzle is figuring out the path necessary to reach your destination.  But you've got to walk that tight rope while also dodging enemy fire, which might make you fall off and have to start over.

I mean, yeah, we've got those rooms with the rotating turrets but those rooms aren't nearly deadly enough.  Sure, a few of them I ignore, but that's because they've gotten to the point where there's so many bullets, a safe path doesn't really exist at all (and the designer said as much by putting 3 health pickups on the floor).

In terms of secret rooms, there should always be some level of ambiguity to opening them.  In Issac its the chance that there's too many possible locations and the player doesn't have the resources to check them all.  I'm looking at it from the point of view of the trigger conditions being unknown.  As in, some aspect that the player can't be aware of, but that despite that, can still trigger the room by performing some action.  You'll jump up and down and spin around and muter "Alakazam" a few times, and if it doesn't work this time, you'll try next time.  And about half the time it works.  You don't know if it's the jumping, the spinning, or the magic word, where you're standing, or the phase of the moon, but gosh darn it, it works.  Sometimes.

The problem right now is that I'm almost always disappointed to get a secret room instead of a health shard.  Sure the rewards are generally worth looking at and taking one, but 90% of the time I'd rather have the health shard.

Also remember that we have a thingie (a "restriction"? whatever those start-of-level things are) that shows you where the sac room is.  I think there's a perk for it too.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Cuedon February 14, 2017, 04:06:30 AM
I'm very much against any kind of metagaming element as a trigger unless there're specific reasons why they'd exist (Psycho Mantis and Deadpool kind of fourth wall breaking atuff) or solidly in the realm of easter egg. Pausing shouldn't be a trigger.

Neither should failure states, unless the reward is directly tied to that. Take a hit in the room? Well, here's a secret room with a missiles-to-health item, if you want to make the trade... Otherwise, I'm going to just start getting grouchy about having to intentionally take a hit in every single room just on the off-chance... And even worse if it has to be an hp-damaging hit, not just shields, because that'll just add more backtracking to pick up health.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: ptarth February 14, 2017, 10:28:08 AM
Add 1 health shard to each secret room. This fixes the 'boo secret room not health shard problem'.

And I'm not convinced that the current secret room spawning pattern is bad. It isn't perfect, but does have the function of adding a little bit of surprise to things. Adding an obscure opening mechanic would either be frustrating, immediately revealed via the internet, or easy enough to do that it puts us back at where we are now.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Draco18s February 14, 2017, 12:06:14 PM
Add 1 health shard to each secret room. This fixes the 'boo secret room not health shard problem'.

That it would.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Logorouge April 19, 2017, 10:14:36 PM
Here's some notes and suggestions I wrote down as I was playing lately:

-DeadEye Module (Sac item): Flying debris count as enemies killed, allowing you to literally stop time.

-Credit to Energy (consumable): 5cr for 10e, expensive/obsolete now that energy drinks were added to the game.

-Descriptions: x10% -> x1.1 for clarity, or x110% so it's accurate.

-Revenge Rams (sac item): Description, add "Doesn't trigger on contact damage".

-Sac Items: Double Crit cost+1 (still great for the prize).

-Orbital Drone (Consumable): Description, "temporary" -> destructible/vulnerable. As long as it survives, there's no time limit to it.

-Torpedo Launcher: The energy cost is pretty cheap for such a top tier weapon. +5 or +10 cost would be more in line with its current power I think.

-Cluster Launcher/Grenade Launcher: Description, Not explosive -> Cannot break blockages like missiles. Less cryptic that way.


-Big Game Hunter perk: Description says x10%, but files say x1.2. Which one is right? Also the icon disappears after a few rooms (that part might have been fixed along with AllinTheWrist).

-Energy transfer perk: List the benefits in the secondary slot description as a reminder.

-Keyprentice perk: I think it's too similar to Keymaster. If instead Keyprentice used the old version, they would have different pros and cons. The apprentice would give you some benefits right now, but none later and the master, despite not giving you keys on the spot, would give you more benefits on the long term. In my opinion, that would help differentiate them better and make them more interesting.

-Overkill perk: Could you bring it back, just with less bullets and much more damage? The mere concept of making your enemies explode after you killed them is fun, but as it is the perk had very negligible effects on gameplay and the number of bullets made things overly chaotic.

-Out to Lunch perk: Another one I think you could bring back. 100% skip chance, no treasure/XP. Or slip by the first time only, finding a useless junk item (OuttoLunch icon) with a description along the lines of "Come again, I'll be there." Either way you get an interesting choice between more treasures/XP or more safety.

-Indomitable perk: Description, "chance to tough things and out and not die [...]" Too many and.


-Paragon(Hard dif): Very high movement speed and constant heat-seeking projectiles. He's a bit much at the moment. Could one of those two be toned down a bit?

-Blue Fragments (+the color above): Their rate of fire seems excessive. In rooms with some space to move it's fine, but in restricted sections it's a never-ending barrage of projectiles. Could there be a tiny pause at some point in their attack?


-Condemned rooms: Even after being cleared, spikes in those rooms keep stealing HP (+pickables), over and over, very rapidly. Is that intended? It can be quite the run ender.

-Tutorial: Add room with generator+missiles pickables to get past wall of lasers and bullets section. Because knowing is half the battle.

-WarpPads: Is it possible to add a different colored frame around the next room to teleport for extra clarity? Icons often make it difficult to see the flashing background.

-Pepsisolo's test CMP_Bullets.xml: name="BulletBrightBadge" category="Shot" wall_collision_reduction="8" (8 -> -8) +missing bullets error messages

-Secret room (free stuff): To mix things up, add secret rooms with many no-lock chests, star-shaped formation of credits with consumable in the middle, large bunch of health pickups, etc. That would also make the OPness of the occasional secret items less of an issue.

-Cheap Shop: Found a shop with only one minor item for sale. Screenshot attached below. I know it says "Cheap", but come on.

-ZMC_LaserGrid (room): Can easily get stuck behind constant lasers without a chance to get away. Adding a few more destructible obstacles in front of the lasers or moving the enemies away from the door would give the player a few seconds to move out of the starting spot before it's too late.


And I'm done. Thank you for reading!
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Misery April 20, 2017, 06:05:50 AM
-DeadEye Module (Sac item): Flying debris count as enemies killed, allowing you to literally stop time.

I could be wrong on this one but I think this is an engine issue.  In other words, not easily fixed, which is why it still is that way.  Probably a "Keith would have to do it" sort of thing.


-Torpedo Launcher: The energy cost is pretty cheap for such a top tier weapon. +5 or +10 cost would be more in line with its current power I think.

Some energy weapons overall right now do need their costs increased. Definitely a thing that needs to happen.


-Paragon(Hard dif): Very high movement speed and constant heat-seeking projectiles. He's a bit much at the moment. Could one of those two be toned down a bit?

I'd rather not change it too much, but I'll have a look at the speed.  Nothing should be moving stupidly fast really, even in hard mode.

-Blue Fragments (+the color above): Their rate of fire seems excessive. In rooms with some space to move it's fine, but in restricted sections it's a never-ending barrage of projectiles. Could there be a tiny pause at some point in their attack?

(http://i.imgur.com/7nnPxTb.gif)




-Secret room (free stuff): To mix things up, add secret rooms with many no-lock chests, star-shaped formation of credits with consumable in the middle, large bunch of health pickups, etc. That would also make the OPness of the occasional secret items less of an issue.

Hm, another idea:  Add a few more items, specifically ones that are a bit lower level, to dilute the pool a bit.  But yes you have a good point here.


-ZMC_LaserGrid (room): Can easily get stuck behind constant lasers without a chance to get away. Adding a few more destructible obstacles in front of the lasers or moving the enemies away from the door would give the player a few seconds to move out of the starting spot before it's too late.

Always with the bloody broken rooms.   I know which one you mean here.  Not sure why it never occurred to me to fix it.   If you spot other rooms doing a similar thing, list them as well, they might do with being checked.  I know this particular thing can be more than a little frustrating to deal with.  Particularly if you've got big spread weapons of some sort.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Draco18s April 20, 2017, 09:12:46 AM
-Tutorial: Add room with generator+missiles pickables to get past wall of lasers and bullets section. Because knowing is half the battle.

That was actually a thing I did, as part of a tutorial revamp. But it hasn't gone in yet.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Misery April 20, 2017, 09:29:53 AM
-Tutorial: Add room with generator+missiles pickables to get past wall of lasers and bullets section. Because knowing is half the battle.

That was actually a thing I did, as part of a tutorial revamp. But it hasn't gone in yet.

That'll be a nice addition.  The tutorial has always been pretty lacking.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Pepisolo April 20, 2017, 09:43:00 AM
-Tutorial: Add room with generator+missiles pickables to get past wall of lasers and bullets section. Because knowing is half the battle.

That was actually a thing I did, as part of a tutorial revamp. But it hasn't gone in yet.

That'll be a nice addition.  The tutorial has always been pretty lacking.

I think I'll try adding those tutorial changes today. I'll also clear that list of fixes from Logo.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Pepisolo April 20, 2017, 10:13:27 AM
-DeadEye Module (Sac item): Flying debris count as enemies killed, allowing you to literally stop time.

Yeah, as Misery says, that would require Keith's expertise so it's not something we can quickly fix. Keith is going to do a bunch of engine tweaks for the expansion some time, so I'll probably add this to the batch.

-Credit to Energy (consumable): 5cr for 10e, expensive/obsolete now that energy drinks were added to the game.

Yeah, it's not a great consumable, although if you don't have anything better on hand, it could still be worth using, I guess. Worth still keeping in the game? Or maybe we should just remove it.

Descriptions: x10% -> x1.1 for clarity, or x110% so it's accurate.

We've struggled with being clear about our numbers , especially since the introduction of additive versus multiplicative bonuses. OK, so for additive bonuses what do we think is clearest? +20%? Then x120% for multiplicative? This then makes the difference between additive and multiplicative seem massive and maybe even a bit confusing, though. Does anybody have a better way to  represent our numbers?
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Pepisolo April 20, 2017, 01:09:04 PM
-Revenge Rams (sac item): Description, add "Doesn't trigger on contact damage".

Fixed, although I'm not really happy with having to add this contact damage disclaimer to things. Eventually I'd prefer it if contact damage was treated the same way as other damage, in terms of triggering things etc. For the moment, though, yeah, this is our best solution.

-Sac Items: Double Crit cost+1 (still great for the prize).

Changed, ta.

-Orbital Drone (Consumable): Description, "temporary" -> destructible/vulnerable. As long as it survives, there's no time limit to it.

Got it.

-Torpedo Launcher: The energy cost is pretty cheap for such a top tier weapon. +5 or +10 cost would be more in line with its current power I think.

Upped the cost to 30, cheers.

Cluster Launcher/Grenade Launcher: Description, Not explosive -> Cannot break blockages like missiles. Less cryptic that way.

I just removed the reference to explosive damage. I think it's pretty much assumed that these won't break bombables. I think the mentioning of explosive damage was probably  just causing confusion.

Big Game Hunter perk: Description says x10%, but files say x1.2. Which one is right? Also the icon disappears after a few rooms (that part might have been fixed along with AllinTheWrist).

It seems I've already fixed these.

Energy transfer perk: List the benefits in the secondary slot description as a reminder.

Got it, cheers.

Keyprentice perk: I think it's too similar to Keymaster. If instead Keyprentice used the old version, they would have different pros and cons. The apprentice would give you some benefits right now, but none later and the master, despite not giving you keys on the spot, would give you more benefits on the long term. In my opinion, that would help differentiate them better and make them more interesting.

I think Keyprentice was removed, so there's just Keymaster now. We might be able to put Keyprentice back in with the old bonuses, though. Not sure where to fit it, though.

Overkill perk: Could you bring it back, just with less bullets and much more damage? The mere concept of making your enemies explode after you killed them is fun, but as it is the perk had very negligible effects on gameplay and the number of bullets made things overly chaotic.

Could do yeah, I think I'll try replacing it for Bloody Rage. I don't really like Bloody Rage at the moment.

Out to Lunch perk: Another one I think you could bring back. 100% skip chance, no treasure/XP. Or slip by the first time only, finding a useless junk item (OuttoLunch icon) with a description along the lines of "Come again, I'll be there." Either way you get an interesting choice between more treasures/XP or more safety.

We could try it with 100% skip chance, although it still doesn't seem too attractive to me. You're still losing XP and an item, so I dunno. Meh, I can put it back in to see what people think of it. I've put it in alongside the defense orbitals for the moment.

Indomitable perk: Description, "chance to tough things and out and not die [...]" Too many and.

I seem to have already fixed that one.

Paragon(Hard dif): Very high movement speed and constant heat-seeking projectiles. He's a bit much at the moment. Could one of those two be toned down a bit?

I've toned the movement speed down on Hard and Misery a bit. Also fixed a bug on Misery mode. Paragon didn't have its homing missile attacks on that mode.

Condemned rooms: Even after being cleared, spikes in those rooms keep stealing HP (+pickables), over and over, very rapidly. Is that intended? It can be quite the run ender.

That seems like a bit of an engine quirk. I'll look into that at a later time.

WarpPads: Is it possible to add a different colored frame around the next room to teleport for extra clarity? Icons often make it difficult to see the flashing background.

I believe Ptarth put in some engine changes for the clarity of the warp pads, but I'll have to check to see if it made it in.

Pepsisolo's test CMP_Bullets.xml: name="BulletBrightBadge" category="Shot" wall_collision_reduction="8" (8 -> -8) +missing bullets error messages

I've actually changed the shots to have 70% wall collision reduction now, so I'm not sure these bugs are relevant anymore. I'll check for problems, though.

Secret room (free stuff): To mix things up, add secret rooms with many no-lock chests, star-shaped formation of credits with consumable in the middle, large bunch of health pickups, etc. That would also make the OPness of the occasional secret items less of an issue.

Something like this would be good, yeah. Feel free to submit any rooms if you come up with any, of course.

Cheap Shop: Found a shop with only one minor item for sale. Screenshot attached below. I know it says "Cheap", but come on.

I'm not sure what's going on there. I checked the rooms in the editor and they all have 3 item pedestals. Some kind of seeding quirk? I'm not sure.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Draco18s April 20, 2017, 06:52:51 PM
I think I'll try adding those tutorial changes today. I'll also clear that list of fixes from Logo.

The new tut-rooms could really use more voice over, that's the only thing. :(
But yeah, I'd love some feedback on them. Did some stuff without any real guidlines.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Logorouge April 20, 2017, 08:44:05 PM
Thanks for the replies, guys.

-Maka laugh-
Hm, I'll interpret that as saying I'm missing something and bullet cancelling abilities are not the only way to deal with them. Am I on the right path?

Always with the bloody broken rooms.   I know which one you mean here.  Not sure why it never occurred to me to fix it.   If you spot other rooms doing a similar thing, list them as well, they might do with being checked.  I know this particular thing can be more than a little frustrating to deal with.  Particularly if you've got big spread weapons of some sort.
In my case, I started the room with an enemy (Guardian?) that shot a cartwheel of bullets and destroyed all the laser obstacles in one fell swoop. He died a very violent death.

That was actually a thing I did, as part of a tutorial revamp. But it hasn't gone in yet.
That's awesome! An expanded tutorial will be quite the improvement for the game.

Yeah, it's not a great consumable, although if you don't have anything better on hand, it could still be worth using, I guess. Worth still keeping in the game? Or maybe we should just remove it.
If the conversion rate was much cheaper and the item was placed in item pools where the energy drinks are not and the price stayed low, it could be worth keeping around.

We've struggled with being clear about our numbers , especially since the introduction of additive versus multiplicative bonuses. OK, so for additive bonuses what do we think is clearest? +20%? Then x120% for multiplicative? This then makes the difference between additive and multiplicative seem massive and maybe even a bit confusing, though. Does anybody have a better way to  represent our numbers?
I think +% are fine on their own, but having +% and x% is causing confusion for many players, so I think the multiplier bonus description should ideally do away with % to differentiate it more clearly. Maybe even add a mention that the multiplier goes on top of regular boosts. Something like: "x1.2 global damage on top of other bonuses" or "x1.2 global damage multiplier, stacks with other boosts"

We might be able to put Keyprentice back in with the old bonuses, though. Not sure where to fit it, though.
To make it tempting to pick, it would have to be as soon as possible. The level 2 perk selection is a bit too amazing to compete with, but level 3 doesn't have much going on.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Misery April 20, 2017, 09:50:52 PM
Hm, I'll interpret that as saying I'm missing something and bullet cancelling abilities are not the only way to deal with them. Am I on the right path?

Aye, the patterns on these guys are all quite workable.  Tough, but they were pretty carefully set up.  Even in tight areas they're doable.

Now that being said, if you're running into any specific situation that just seems way too much, or broken somehow, get a screenshot of it so I can see, and perhaps the room name.  As always there's a chance of an enemy appearing in very specific areas that genuinely aren't appropriate for it, usually in combination with some other enemy. 
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Logorouge April 20, 2017, 10:27:06 PM
Aye, the patterns on these guys are all quite workable.  Tough, but they were pretty carefully set up.  Even in tight areas they're doable.
Alright. Reading that makes me look forward to facing them again so I can experiment with a few tactics that might break through their attacks. Thanks. :)
I'll make sure to grab a screenshot and room name if I ever encounter an overly deadly enemy setup.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Pepisolo April 21, 2017, 12:52:28 PM
he new tut-rooms could really use more voice over, that's the only thing. :(
But yeah, I'd love some feedback on them. Did some stuff without any real guidlines.

I've been looking at the tutorial stuff you did. Most of the additions look good, I think. I found a bunch of unused voiceover, so I'm trying to fit that into the correct areas. I think that if we both iterate over the new tutorial a few times, we should get something good. Hopefully you have access to SVN? If so, then once I've made some tweaks and additions, then perhaps you can take a look and we can go back and forth on it a bit.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Draco18s April 21, 2017, 04:29:46 PM
I have SVN access yes.
And I've seen the unused audio, but it never seemed like it was useful for the tutorial.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Logorouge August 21, 2017, 11:40:22 PM
Here's some feedback and suggestions that didn't have anything to do with the expansion, so I'm posting them here instead.


-Default music volume setting: 100% -> 80% (Let's Plays always start with "Wow, let's go lower the volume a bit.")

-End credits: Increase text scrolling speed


-Cryofreeze module: Sfx is slightly too high, especially for long runs with high firerate.

-White-Green Ice Carrier (enemy): Frozen orb volume is too loud.


-CMP_GlassZoo(6) room: Badly needs a 2nd entrance for the center (up?) to avoid never-ending stream of bullets with certain enemy combinations.

-Blade module: Description, "Equipped with a rotating blade!" add "that can cut through bullets."

-Signal Triangulator consumable: Replace icon with "BossTracker".

-Magnetic Personality: Enable please. Disable effect on chests if possible.

-Immolated Minibot: Underwhelming. Faster rotation or longer flametrail duration?

-Relentless Interceptor Crossbow: Very cool weapon, not easy to learn to use effectively. But the energy cost is prohibitive. I think if the energy requirement was lowered significantly, even at the cost of power, it would allow adventurous players to experiment with it more.

-Interceptor Drone: Cost 30cr -> 45cr (Still amazing for the price)

-Shop discount (sac items): 10% -> 20% (For a max combo of half prices with the Humble mech)

-Mini-bosses reward: Missile 2pack -> 4pack minimum.

-Consumable Shop: Make it unlocked like Cheap Shop. Consumable Shop is basically a Cheap Shop for active items after all.


-Add "Bulletstorm Circuit": For one room, gain bullet sprinkler attack like the Hardening Module used to have.

-Add "Locksmith" probation: Unlock 4 locked chests or doors. (use "TheKeyToWinning" or "HarmfulLockpicking" icon)

-Add "Energetic Overload" perk(item?): +400 temporary energy at the start of each floor (use same name icon)

-Add "Ricochet module": Icon is already available too.


Too sleepy to write the rest, but that's already a good amount I think. Good night!
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Pepisolo August 24, 2017, 07:42:40 PM
-Default music volume setting: 100% -> 80% (Let's Plays always start with "Wow, let's go lower the volume a bit.")

Yeah, it is a bit loud. I think we can just set the default volume to 40 rather than the 50 it currently is? I'm not actually sure how to set this, but I'll try to remember to have it changed when Chris does another build.

-End credits: Increase text scrolling speed

That's another Chris thing, I think. I'll make a note of these, cheers.

-Cryofreeze module: Sfx is slightly too high, especially for long runs with high firerate.

Reduced the volume by 3db. Hopefully that does the trick.

-White-Green Ice Carrier (enemy): Frozen orb volume is too loud.

Reduced that 3db.

-CMP_GlassZoo(6) room: Badly needs a 2nd entrance for the center (up?) to avoid never-ending stream of bullets with certain enemy combinations.

I think I fixed this how you would want. If not just let me know.

-Blade module: Description, "Equipped with a rotating blade!" add "that can cut through bullets."

Done!

-Signal Triangulator consumable: Replace icon with "BossTracker".

And done!

-Magnetic Personality: Enable please. Disable effect on chests if possible.

Seems a bit screwy...but hey, it is an incredibility, I guess! :) I can't disable the chests behaviour, though, I don't think. If this causes too many problems for you I'll have to disable it again.

-Immolated Minibot: Underwhelming. Faster rotation or longer flametrail duration?

Increased the duration a couple of seconds, thanks. We'll see how that works out.

-Relentless Interceptor Crossbow: Very cool weapon, not easy to learn to use effectively. But the energy cost is prohibitive. I think if the energy requirement was lowered significantly, even at the cost of power, it would allow adventurous players to experiment with it more.

I've reduced the cost to 25, so an extra shot. I've got to be careful with these shot blockers, though. Can't really allow the player to have a lot of uses of these as it can become OP.

-Interceptor Drone: Cost 30cr -> 45cr (Still amazing for the price)

Done! :)

-Shop discount (sac items): 10% -> 20% (For a max combo of half prices with the Humble mech)

Yeah, those need a buff, good call.

-Mini-bosses reward: Missile 2pack -> 4pack minimum.

I've removed the 2 pack from the Miniboss pool then.

-Consumable Shop: Make it unlocked like Cheap Shop. Consumable Shop is basically a Cheap Shop for active items after all.

Hmmm, not sure. I'll have to think on this one a bit, plus I'm not sure how to do that in the engine. Maybe in time. Maybe!

-Add "Bulletstorm Circuit": For one room, gain bullet sprinkler attack like the Hardening Module used to have.

-Add "Locksmith" probation: Unlock 4 locked chests or doors. (use "TheKeyToWinning" or "HarmfulLockpicking" icon)

-Add "Energetic Overload" perk(item?): +400 temporary energy at the start of each floor (use same name icon)

-Add "Ricochet module": Icon is already available too.

Possible ideas, yeah. Eventually the whole circuit thing is going to be overhauled, I think, so that'll keep until then. Probations too, actually. Those need a overhaul as well. Energetic Overload sounds like a good idea. Perhaps +400 that drains over time. That's how I imagine the implementation at the moment. Ricochet module...I'm not sure. That sounds like the bouncing lasers module somewhat. I suppose having a module that gives all your shots ricochet might work, but then you get bouncy missiles which can be annoying, I think. Got any ideas for an implementation. I'd say that the Energetic Overload perk is something I might try to create sooner rather than later. The others will probably have to wait. I'll make a note of them, though. Cheers!

Great, feedback, thanks! :)
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Logorouge August 24, 2017, 09:13:58 PM
Many thanks for your reply, Pepisolo. :)


-Magnetic Personality: Enable please. Disable effect on chests if possible.

Seems a bit screwy...but hey, it is an incredibility, I guess! :) I can't disable the chests behaviour, though, I don't think. If this causes too many problems for you I'll have to disable it again.
Eh eh. Yeah, it's a weird one for sure, but it's a fun one too so I think it's worth having around. (I don't mind the chest thing personally, but if I knew how, I would add tiny sparks on the chests when they get dragged around, so it's less visually weird. But I don't know if that's even possible.)

Energetic Overload sounds like a good idea. Perhaps +400 that drains over time. That's how I imagine the implementation at the moment.
Nice. A slow drain definitely fits the perk's theme.

Ricochet module...I'm not sure. That sounds like the bouncing lasers module somewhat. I suppose having a module that gives all your shots ricochet might work, but then you get bouncy missiles which can be annoying, I think. Got any ideas for an implementation.
Hm, Ricochet and Bouncing lasers would indeed compete against each others. That's a good point. But on the other hand, the extra long range/duration of the lasers and the all-encompassing effect of the ricochet gives each of them a different kind of appeal I think. I'm actually not a big fan of bouncing shots in general, but watching an old Windless episode where he used ricochet attacks to great effect convinced me it would be a fun addition to the game. Plus, since it's a module, if the effect becomes an annoyance with your current weapons/missiles, you can swap it later (unlike a sac item or similar). Just imagine: Permanent multi-homing bouncing mini-missiles. Simply glorious. >D
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Pepisolo August 25, 2017, 02:01:23 PM
Nice. A slow drain definitely fits the perk's theme.

Unfortunately, I had implementation problems with this. If you drain max capacity you get a visual notification, which makes that approach spammy. A tried a couple of other approaches, but wasn't really happy with them. I'll have to leave this for the time being. Perhaps a better implementation will hit me some time.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Logorouge November 09, 2017, 05:35:22 PM
I had a few notes concerning the base game:

-The Warden: His minions give 2000xp each. I know it's the "final" boss, but isn't that too much?

-Shield Tech in defensive shops. Should it be there? Not sure additional shields should be so common and having an item for sale disappear is kinda annoying.

-Redshift: Low Range Minigun, is that ok? Against certain bosses and on higher difficulties, that's sort of a death sentence. Plus, unlike the fast/slow variants this one has no upside, which is meh.

-Telekinetic Repulsor Module: Knockback effect is way too strong. An enemy got pushed inside an unreachable part of a room. Had to abandon the run.


-Interceptor Drone: Icon name, giant paper weight -> Interceptor Drone

-Green Envy: Missile launcher could use a unique name.


That's it for now. Thanks for reading.
: Re: Items, locked chests, etc
: Pepisolo November 19, 2017, 11:19:09 AM
-The Warden: His minions give 2000xp each. I know it's the "final" boss, but isn't that too much?

I'll leave this one to Misery.

-Shield Tech in defensive shops. Should it be there? Not sure additional shields should be so common and having an item for sale disappear is kinda annoying.

Seems a fair point, I'll remove it from the shop pool.

-Interceptor Drone: Icon name, giant paper weight -> Interceptor Drone

Fixed, ta!

-Redshift: Low Range Minigun, is that ok? Against certain bosses and on higher difficulties, that's sort of a death sentence. Plus, unlike the fast/slow variants this one has no upside, which is meh.

Not sure. Keith actually mentioned the other day that he would like it if the main gain for the Redshift was toggleable and didn't move time forwards, so only movement would move time. We could try something fresh like that for the main of the Redshift, a toggleable main gun.

-Telekinetic Repulsor Module: Knockback effect is way too strong. An enemy got pushed inside an unreachable part of a room. Had to abandon the run.

I reduced the knockback on this, hopefully that does the trick. I'm always wary about knockback, though, I'm fearful that pretty much any amount of knockback can cause things getting stuck into walls in certain circumstances, although up until now we've hardly had any reports of that type of thing.

-Green Envy: Missile launcher could use a unique name.

Hmmm, I'm open to any suggestions if anyone has any? Basically the launcher is a regular launcher but with a much bigger AOE for those that don't know what it does.

Oh, sorry for the delay in responding, cheers!