Items, locked chests, etc

[Pepisolo]

-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?

[Pepisolo]

-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.

[Draco18s]

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.

[Logorouge]

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.

[Misery]

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. 

[Logorouge]

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.

[Pepisolo]

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.

[Draco18s]

I have SVN access yes.
And I've seen the unused audio, but it never seemed like it was useful for the tutorial.

[Logorouge]

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!

[Pepisolo]

-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!

[Logorouge]

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

[Pepisolo]

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.

[Logorouge]

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.

[Pepisolo]

-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!