Items, locked chests, etc

[Logorouge]

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.

[Tolc]

-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.

[Pepisolo]

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.

[Logorouge]

-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.

[Tolc]

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...  Seriously, though, I like Rocket Science and Ballistic Reconfiguration.

[Mánagarmr]

-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.

[Logorouge]

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...  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.

[Misery]

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!

[Logorouge]

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. 

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.

[ptarth]

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.

[Pepisolo]

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.

[Logorouge]

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.

[Dominus Arbitrationis]

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.

[ptarth]

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.

[Logorouge]

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.