Items, locked chests, etc

[Logorouge]

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.

[Logorouge]

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.

[ptarth]

• Actually.... giving Large & In Charge health regen... is genius. Glad I thought of that

[Pepisolo]

-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.

[Logorouge]

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.

[Logorouge]

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!

[Draco18s]

-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.

[Misery]

I looked at the secret rooms just now, there's only four of them, and two of them only have one pedestal in them. 

[ptarth]

• Stomper - Pepisolo. What is loudness?
• Humble Mech - 50 starting energy, but his primary uses credits, until you give it up. per Draco
• Battleswarm/CrystalMother - This was brought up a while ago, I've reminder Misery about it.
• Charger - There are 2 extra bullet hitboxes at the end of the arms that are not visible, but present due to decay speed. I'll see if I can deal with that. I
• Secret Rooms - Misery looked into that earlier. I think the answer is to make the pedestal counts: 3, 2, 2, 2. But that's just me.

[Pepisolo]

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!

[Logorouge]

• 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.

[Logorouge]

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:

Spoiler for Hiden:

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.

[Pepisolo]

-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!

[Misery]

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.

[Logorouge]

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!