Author Topic: Just tried Hard Mode...  (Read 55352 times)

Offline Misery

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Re: Just tried Hard Mode...
« Reply #30 on: April 02, 2016, 07:16:27 pm »
These changes will be ready to go soon.  I need some time to test though.
Now that's some exciting news. The added variety by itself will already be a great improvement. (So many Bullrush!)

Yeah, that's putting it mildly.

Really I was kinda stunned at just how bad this had gotten. 

But if anyone's finding what seems to be massive balance issues with enemies right now, this is maybe a huge part of the reason.   Some enemies are also going to get re-classified too.  Just not sure exactly which yet.

Offline Hearteater

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Re: Just tried Hard Mode...
« Reply #31 on: April 02, 2016, 10:43:14 pm »
The face ripper needs something, at least in hard+. I recommend an on death bullet shotgun spray that only travels a fairly short distance, and maybe not even that fast.

Offline Misery

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Re: Just tried Hard Mode...
« Reply #32 on: April 03, 2016, 01:17:00 am »
The face ripper needs something, at least in hard+. I recommend an on death bullet shotgun spray that only travels a fairly short distance, and maybe not even that fast.

Oh, I had a different idea for them.

Something along the lines of what "slimes" traditionally do in many games.

Offline Logorouge

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Re: Just tried Hard Mode...
« Reply #33 on: April 03, 2016, 01:39:28 am »
I just realized I've never seen what's a Faceripper's attack. They usually run around until they catch a stray bullet and die. Are they like a less agressive Bullrush? Honestly, I consider the treasure transports a bigger threat. Now those things are fast!

Offline Misery

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Re: Just tried Hard Mode...
« Reply #34 on: April 03, 2016, 03:32:30 am »
Facerippers don't really DO anything.  They just come directly at you.   So yeah, like a crappier bull thing.

Offline Mánagarmr

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Re: Just tried Hard Mode...
« Reply #35 on: April 03, 2016, 08:54:33 am »

*whispers to everyone* He really is lazy. He's been working on a System Shock 1 series for like two years. Lazy person.

I technically never really started that one. I just couldn't find a mode or pace I was happy with.
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Offline Pumpkin

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Re: Just tried Hard Mode...
« Reply #36 on: April 04, 2016, 06:41:11 am »
I just realized the normal difficulty was easy for me. I guess it's my learning curve creeping up in the background; I thought I wasn't good at bullet hell games. I'm willing to try harder difficulties, however bosses are already challenging for me at normal difficulty. I just find myself overpowered against floor's hazard, maybe because of my Isaac's experience, yet I'm afraid of certain bosses. I remember TLF has two distinct difficulty levels: management VS fight, and I wonder how good (or bad) it would be for SR to have something like that. I would like to push up the challenges of the floors and resource scarcity, but the bullet hell thing is hard enough for me.

TL;DR: in my current experience, floors are near-boring and bosses are challenging enough. Does Misery Arcen thinks SR would actually benefit from splitting difficulty option between resources management VS bullet hell?
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Offline Misery

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Re: Just tried Hard Mode...
« Reply #37 on: April 04, 2016, 07:39:00 am »
I just realized the normal difficulty was easy for me. I guess it's my learning curve creeping up in the background; I thought I wasn't good at bullet hell games. I'm willing to try harder difficulties, however bosses are already challenging for me at normal difficulty. I just find myself overpowered against floor's hazard, maybe because of my Isaac's experience, yet I'm afraid of certain bosses. I remember TLF has two distinct difficulty levels: management VS fight, and I wonder how good (or bad) it would be for SR to have something like that. I would like to push up the challenges of the floors and resource scarcity, but the bullet hell thing is hard enough for me.

TL;DR: in my current experience, floors are near-boring and bosses are challenging enough. Does Misery Arcen thinks SR would actually benefit from splitting difficulty option between resources management VS bullet hell?

I don't want to go into too much detail just yet, but the game's difficulty balance will be changing.

Right now, it has issues.  Basically, the game's difficulty curve is effectively backwards; the further you go into the game the easier it gets on a given run as your power level skyrockets, causing even the game's final bosses to go down like paper in many cases if you've been choosing your build carefully enough.  Needless to say.... I intended for them NOT to die if you looked at them too hard.   But this sure does affect normal enemies too, which, like bosses, need to be able to stick around long enough to generate their attacks.

In other words, the mid/late-game's increase in difficulty, in terms of patterns getting more and more loopy, is mostly nullified.   

So we're working on some changes there.  Well, I say "we", but I myself am fantastically terrible at things involving math, and that's mostly where the problem is, in how player stats and boosts are handled.  The others are all good at it from what I've seen though, so that should get fixed soon enough.

....also normal enemy HP is too low.  This one is my fault, I wasn't really paying attention to this as I kept assigning them values (most new enemies that appear only in the late game are my design), so their HP is just all over the place and in some cases equal to early-game ones.  Yeah, oops.  Not JUST the late-game though but the mid-game is affected by this too. 

Though, normal enemy HP doesn't mean all that much till the wonky math bits are dealt with anyway, so right now isn't the time to change them.   Currently I'm still dealing with the blasted rooms.


Certainly try Hard if you like, though be aware that in your version Hard mode is wildly imbalanced due to the room issue.  That issue isn't AS noticeable on Normal, but tends to go into overdrive on Hard as I tended to get a bit enthusiastic in my hard-mode designs (so, ALOT of things not fit for the rooms they're in, way more than on Normal). For example, Blaze Cannons that fire side shots that fire more piercing bullets. About as fun as it sounds! But the rooms are a mess with stuff like that, though as I said, that fix is coming.


As for the idea of a difficulty split?   I think I have an idea as to what you mean by that, but I cant even conceive of how that'd work.  That would likely take too much time/effort to do.  In the end, dealing with the math is one huge thing that'll make the resource bit more interesting (since right now you barely have to even think about your build in order to go all-powerful), and there's still changes coming for actual items and also item pools too. 

So, hopefully, that aspect will just outright get a lot better.   I agree, it's not in a good place right now.
« Last Edit: April 04, 2016, 07:41:34 am by Misery »

Offline Hearteater

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Re: Just tried Hard Mode...
« Reply #38 on: April 04, 2016, 02:36:17 pm »
Is the floor 1 hard boss the approximate difficulty level you are aiming at for later levels? Or will the floor one be getting any easier on hard? For example, Mirror Mark I takes about 46ish seconds (iirc) to beat without your energy weapon or consumables. With 10 health + shield, you can only take 6 hits meaning you can only get hit once every 7 seconds. That seems maybe a little too difficulty for hard on level 1. But maybe I'm spoiled by getting great upgrades and blasting through later bosses with ease.

Offline Misery

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Re: Just tried Hard Mode...
« Reply #39 on: April 04, 2016, 07:24:53 pm »
Is the floor 1 hard boss the approximate difficulty level you are aiming at for later levels? Or will the floor one be getting any easier on hard? For example, Mirror Mark I takes about 46ish seconds (iirc) to beat without your energy weapon or consumables. With 10 health + shield, you can only take 6 hits meaning you can only get hit once every 7 seconds. That seems maybe a little too difficulty for hard on level 1. But maybe I'm spoiled by getting great upgrades and blasting through later bosses with ease.

No, the floor 1 hard bosses are indeed setup properly to be floor 1 hard bosses.  Heh.   It's supposed to then get a lot tougher from there.  They just get nastier after that!

Offline Hearteater

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Re: Just tried Hard Mode...
« Reply #40 on: April 04, 2016, 08:53:36 pm »
Figured :) . Then the floor needs to get quite a bit more difficult on hard and misery if you want to avoid the huge difficulty ramp up from the last room to the first boss.

Offline Misery

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Re: Just tried Hard Mode...
« Reply #41 on: April 04, 2016, 09:32:51 pm »
Yep, that's the goal that's being worked on.

Hopefully it wont take too long to fix.

Offline Pumpkin

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Re: Just tried Hard Mode...
« Reply #42 on: April 05, 2016, 05:28:20 am »
Well, thanks for you answer. I'm confident about that game's future.

I thought the split difficulty was a bad idea even before posting it. It was just a proposal for that "problem" but as far as you consider the current balance isn't polished, I'm totally okay with it. No split difficulty. Good.

Then good luck for the balance. I bet there is little I can do without a global view of the game and enemies.
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Offline zoutzakje

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Re: Just tried Hard Mode...
« Reply #43 on: July 03, 2016, 09:31:55 am »
I just tried hard for the first time... And I was still alive after the first boss! woohoo! My boss was also the mirror and somehow I survived the last quarter of his life with 1 hp. I guess that's when adrenaline tunnel vision kicks in with me or something like that. 2nd floor boss killed me though :D It's certainly a big step up from normal dif. Blaze cannons are fun too. I think I got the hang of normal now but I certainly got a lot to learn on hard.

Offline Mánagarmr

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Re: Just tried Hard Mode...
« Reply #44 on: July 04, 2016, 02:35:29 am »
I just tried hard for the first time... And I was still alive after the first boss! woohoo! My boss was also the mirror and somehow I survived the last quarter of his life with 1 hp. I guess that's when adrenaline tunnel vision kicks in with me or something like that. 2nd floor boss killed me though :D It's certainly a big step up from normal dif. Blaze cannons are fun too. I think I got the hang of normal now but I certainly got a lot to learn on hard.

Quote
It's certainly a big step up from normal dif. Blaze cannons are fun too. I think I got the hang of normal now but I certainly got a lot to learn on hard.

Blaze cannons are fun too.

Blaze cannons fun.

I don't think we can be friends anymore.

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