Sacrifice Item Brainstorming

[Draco18s]

Random rememberence from this talk about missiles:

"Your shots bounce off walls" consumable + Missiles = pain in the ass to blow up bombables.

Can we make missiles not bounce off bombables and instead blow up?

[Misery]

There is supposed to be a consumable that re-rolls shop contents once, yes.  If it's not activated yet, let's go ahead and do so.  I think it just got lost in the rush of release.

[TheDauthi]

I take it back.  Giving everything ricochet is not something I would pay health for.  It might be something I paid health not to ever see again.

Misery: The one thing it didn't make worse?  Blaze Cannons.  Is there a max_annoyance_level defined in the XML somewhere, and they're already at it?

Actually, there were a few other takeaways from 4 runs that might be worthwhile to note.  Would that be better discussed in mods, another thread, or can I just go ahead and share here?

[Misery]

Misery: The one thing it didn't make worse?  Blaze Cannons.  Is there a max_annoyance_level defined in the XML somewhere, and they're already at it?

Nah.  Blaze Turrets (blue ones, kinda rare) are a bit higher, hard-mode Blaze Cannons are much higher, and Inferno Cannons, well...  Those aren't in the version of the game you have yet.  They just might set the bar pretty high though.

Actually, there were a few other takeaways from 4 runs that might be worthwhile to note.  Would that be better discussed in mods, another thread, or can I just go ahead and share here?

Hmm, just make a new thread here for them.  It'll be less confusing.

[TheDauthi]

I'll do that sometime tomorrow.  I have some more pretty screenshots at 3-4 FPS.  Maybe actually make it to the endgame with it on first.

One thing that's directly related to the topic at hand: I was also wrong about shrinking the missile damage size to try to balance "efficient missiles".  As Draco18s pointed out, reflecting missiles makes them only take out the thing you're directly aiming at, then bouncing around the room a bit until they blow up.  Effectively, that makes it a smaller missile blast... and it's incredibly annoying.  Before, I only had ever had it for a room at a time, which didn't make me realize how bad it was.

[ptarth]

That's hilarious.
More systems need to have life times set.
It also occurs to me that frame rates would die because of the extra collision checking.

[TheDauthi]

Some changes to those earlier ideas:

• Improved Optics - The idea was to make enemies easier to hit, and I kinda chose the way that's funniest to me.  There's already something that does that: the magnetic offense upgrade.  There's another way of doing it: increasing range.  We already have several small-medium upgrades to range, but they're pretty inconsistent (in terms of whether or not I'll see one during a run).  I don't think it completely unbalances the game - in fact, I think it's a good trade, you're trading life now to avoid losing life later.  The range amount would require tweaking.
  
• Pizoelectric: I -did- mean both enemies and bullets.  I like this one over the existing clear/retaliation one: [I think] slowing gives you more of a chance to get out of whatever danger you're in, and... well, I don't think I've ever taken the retaliation one.
  
• Long Haul: I was making an estimate as to the average over the first 5 floors.  It's lower on the first few, higher on the latter ones.  Synergistic with "The Creator".
  
• Scoundrel: I changed this to make minibosses drop boss-level loot, and leaving out the "shops no longer sell stuff", giving it an average-level health cost instead.  It didn't seem terribly unbalanced after a couple of playthroughs, but that could just have been luck.  It is one place where I'd like to be able to add/copy/remove things to the pool instead, so that I could add everything but the really powerful stuff to the miniboss pool.
  

New stuff.  Idea dump.  More hoping someone can take something useful from here than suggesting them as-is

• Regenerating Battery - This is kind of the opposite of the Leaky Battery (I even took the leaky battery image and made it less leaky).  It regenerates energy.  The big problem is that it encourages the player to wait in a safe-ish location after using all of their energy.  That's probably a problem.  If it is, the best solution seems to be to slowly lower the ceiling (either while in a room or while it's regenerating).  I -think- the former is doable (Add a slow, invisible, always firing system that does it?), but the latter is probably preferable (due to the ability that regenerates energy on kill).  That way, the player is still able to get more usage out of the weapons, energy-based builds get a bonus, but you still can't just hang around too much, or you completely run out of energy.  Another option would be a -very slow- timer on health.  I don't like that unless it's definitely on regeneration; just strolling around a room for a minute shouldn't hurt me.  The final variation that I can think of is to refill when you completely run out of energy, at some cost (Health?  Missiles? Credits?  Destroying your current consumable?).  I like that for destroying your consumable (it makes it harder to trigger, while making consumables almost always useful), but I don't know if that's doable with the current engine.
  
• Boom Fire Blowy Up Thing - tl;dr adding a small amount of AOE damage to each shot/hit (not kill).  I cannot think of a way this works the way I want, because if I understand how the flamethrower works, it would just be a constant stream of AOE bullets.  Even short-range, that probably doesn't do anything like what I want.  Giving it a max time based on fire speed or something might work?  I kinda think this is implemented better something similar to how the railgun works.  Similarly, I don't think we can touch chain_particle or shot_aoe_chain_range without defining a new weapon, though I really, really want to try them with existing ones.
  
• Phasing Missiles - I like the idea of phasing out, but it seems pretty underwhelming currently.  Getting hit to trigger it doesn't seem good: I'd rather actively trigger it, somehow.  On shot enemy is overpowered.  On "not moved for X seconds": haven't I seen that somewhere?  On energy weapon usage seems... like it belongs in a different thread.  The only thing I can think of that it might work with is with missiles to enhanced bullet clearing.
  
• Secret Pass - I've played with this one, but haven't come up with a version I like yet.  Basically, once this is purchased, the cheap store's item pool is replaced.  The problem has been what to replace it with, as well as some cost problems.   Again, modifying the pool would work better.
  

May tinker some more tonight.

[Pepisolo]

Improved Optics -- I'm kind of reluctant to do a significant range booster as it opens a bit of a can of worms in terms of allowing the player to off-screen enemies and such. Misery's thoughts on this one would be good.

Pizoelectric -- Maybe better as a module?

Long Haul -- Hmmm. Not sure about this one.

Scoundrel -- I think that maybe the miniboss drops -- or lack of drops -- just need looking at some time, maybe they should drop stuff.

Regenerating Battery -- Super tricky to get this right without Misery quite rightly going "Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!"

Boom Fire Blowy Up Thing -- Worth looking into maybe, but probably a longshot.

Phasing Missiles -- Pretty good idea yeah. Maybe would work as a new mech missile weapon. Ghost mech anyone?

Secret Pass -- Some kind of pool replacement item might work, aye.


Regarding my initial implementation attempts. So far CouponCutter, HealthRegen, EvasionBooster, X4MissileDamage, SkeletonKey (also removes keycards from seeding), PhotoElectric, CritDamageBoost, and LorentzFactor (less the shrinking effect) have been implemented without too many problems.

More resource drops -- couldn't work out how to do this in a non-hacky manner.
Chance to not use ammo -- couldn't work this out either.
Demolitionist -- also surprisingly couldn't get this to work.
Recycling -- Looking at it, this kind of seems like a different way to do More Resource Drops, so I left this one.

So: CouponCutter, HealthRegen, EvasionBooster, X4MissileDamage, SkeletonKey, PhotoElectric, and LorentzFactor seem ready. CritDamage is also there, but there was some objection to this one, so I'm not counting it. Add in the Bloody Avenger Weapon, and that makes 8 new items so far. The existing roster of sacrifice items totals 10 (I think!) so if we go with these new ones, we're up to 18 in total. We need at least another 3 to fill every pedestal for a 7 floor run.

[Misery]

Let's see.... Regenerating Battery isn't happening, though I'm guessing that this was fairly expected.

The range booster... Chris and I had discussed a similar thing during development, and it was decided that giving that extreme range would be way too much; all patterns in the entire game are balanced around the usual ranges.  This is why this trait is attached to Risky Assassin, which is one of the most dangerous Incredibilities to use because of how powerful it is.   So that one's probably a no.

What is "phasing missiles"?  I'm not spotting an actual description anywhere, I must be missing it...

Scoundrel:  Probably a no.  There's just too many minibosses over the course of a given run for them to be dropping loot.  That's why only the Condemned rooms do that.

Secret Pass:  Huh.  I dunno.  I kinda like the idea... like opening up a secret shop that otherwise doesn't exist... but I cant think of any way to make that shop's item pool have enough meaning to warrant a purchase.  Now, that being said, there IS the fact that the cheap item shop appears on every floor, unlike every other shop...  that might mean something.  If this shop had a decent variety of item types it might be worth it since you'd be guaranteed to find it over and over. 


Retaliation module:  Okay this isn't a new concept, but this module does bother me.  Any suggestions on what might be done to make this one not suck?

Pizoelectric:  Yeah, I can see this working as a module too.

[TheDauthi]

Let's see.... Regenerating Battery isn't happening, though I'm guessing that this was fairly expected.

Yeah, pretty much.  Didn't know if any part of the idea was salvageable.

The range booster... Chris and I had discussed a similar thing during development, and it was decided that giving that extreme range would be way too much; all patterns in the entire game are balanced around the usual ranges.  This is why this trait is attached to Risky Assassin, which is one of the most dangerous Incredibilities to use because of how powerful it is.   So that one's probably a no.

I'm a little more surprised on that, but I cede your point.  Making the range increase enough to not be unbalanced probably makes it too low for a player to want to spend a lot of health to buy it.

What is "phasing missiles"?  I'm not spotting an actual description anywhere, I must be missing it...

Missile launcher that phases you out [for a few seconds] when you use it.  Basically, trying to make phasing a limited active instead of passive.  The only things I can think of to make that work is to attach it to an energy weapon or a missile launcher.

[ptarth]

Does the Cheap Item Shop always appear? I hadn't known that.

[Misery]

Does the Cheap Item Shop always appear? I hadn't known that.

I think so.  Or at least, it's extremely common.  It seems to pretty much always be there in my experience.   Unless the RNG has just been toying with me all this time.

[ptarth]

I hadn't noticed anything when I went through the floor generation code. I suspect it is just the RNG playing with you.

[Pepisolo]

Current lineup of new mostly implemented Sacrifice items, with better names (thanks, Ptarth!)

Coupon Cutter
Nanite Hull (health regen)
Grin and Bear It (evasion/avoid damage one)
Explodifier (x4 missile damage)
Skeleton Keycard
Photoelectric (keep that name?)
Lorentz Factor (keep that name?)
Blood Avenger weapon
Scourge Spread weapon (thanks Goldenwolf!)

Thoughts on these names, guys? We're still a little short, also one potential problem, I recently noticed that there is already a health regen type item in the game, Living Hull, which regenerates health but doubles the damage you take. Doubling the damage you take seems like way too much of a negative. Maybe just stop this item seeding and have this new one in the sacrifice room instead?

Also, theoretically would anyone like a bigger bullets Sac item?

[Draco18s]

Double damage? Holy hell, I'd never take that.  Not even on Easy.