Sacrifice Item Brainstorming

[TheDauthi]

Hyper-Velocity Rounds - Double shot speed. (not fire rate, also increase range due to how shots decay at the end of their lifetime).

Like reflection, I kinda want to try that.  I'm not sure how it would work with a lot of weapons.

Magic Missile Box - Refills missiles back to full each new room.

A cleaner version of what I was trying to do with halving missile costs, but I thought that was too powerful without some negative.  I like this, and there are plenty of times I would take it.

Binge Diet - Double Max Health, Max Energy, and Max Health Changes (both losses and gains).

Trying something similar as a perk for white (but not for energy).  I haven't gotten "max losses" to work, but it shows up after sac rooms are empty (which we're trying to fix).

Abmoog Parade - Replace all standard enemy pools with 1x1_Pursuers and quadruple spawn rates

Does this mess with XP progression?  Seems more like an incredibility.

enter room you are in time dilation for X seconds

I think this was in the list earlier.

Edit: Heh, Pepisolo beat me to the punch on most of this.  Only thing I'd like to add on to is that, while I think his magic missile box is strong, I don't know that it affects the overall balance as much as halving their usage.  You could often enter the boss room with full-or-almost-full missiles anyway, if you're willing to backtrack the entire floor, or skip some breakables.  I'd be more worried about how it affects the normal rooms to know that you can use all of them and will always have more.  Can you refill it to 1/2 or even 1/4

[Pepisolo]

What if the crit booster also lowered range slightly (10%)?

I dunno, I kind of just like the clean, doubles crit damage, without any other stuff going on.

Cease-Fire: After you enter a new room, no one can fire for X seconds. (Similar to the teleporter anti-abuse effect)

Pretty good, maybe this would be annoying on bosses, though. Useful for scoping out normal rooms, but bosses don't really need scoping out. Might work better if only enemies were affected.

[ptarth]

Go ahead and add the critical damage boost, it is pedestrian, but still useful.

[Misery]

Also on that note, does Living Hull repair per room or per X seconds?

Yeah, what TheDauthi says. I'd assumed per room, but it's actually every 4 seconds, which Misery might actually have a problem with as it promotes that run and hide gameplay.

Yeah, that one isn't happening.

But if it's room-based, that's not a bad idea.  Gain 1 HP on new room entry, like a reverse version of that item that gives you a new shield if you finish the floor with it's health-drain-per-room effect on, you know.   That sort of thing.  It'd be a useful effect but not so much that you could get careless with it.

However, there already is a sacrifice room item that serves a similar purpose, which is that one that heals 1 HP for every 4 enemies destroyed.  Considering how many enemies there tend to be, this is a fairly strong effect.  Or at least it seems so to me anyway.



Magic Missile Box needs some sort of heavy downside.   Refilling just once each floor wont do it either, it'd be too weak in that case.   Hm.   I like the idea of something that can regen missiles for you over the course of a floor or something, because everyone always wants to have a lot of missiles at any given time, particularly when they get addicted to popping every health-shard block, but I'm not sure what a good way to do this would be.    Or what might be a good downside without breaking it and making it worthless. 


Abmoog Parade sounds like a pretty entertaining thing for an incredibility.   BUT, the chompers need dealing with first (at least I think those are part of the "abmoog" group, I'm not so good with names...).  You know the ones.   I'd been ignoring them for awhile.... and then my run last night happened.   Do you know what happens when that "Pacman" room fills up with them?  That's just one example...  The things aren't broken in the same way that the Anklebiters were, but there does need to be something done there.  I'm just not sure what.  Seen a lot of complaints about them. 

[Pepisolo]

How about missiles that refill maybe 1 per room or something. Also regarding the Chompers, I've actually kind of got used to to those lately, although they could probably still do with some tweaks. Their shot disintegration should be instant, I think.

[TheDauthi]

Yeah, that one isn't happening.

Living Hull currently exists as a pretty rare item?  I thought that was weird, TBH, since it's definitely not the preferred gameplay style.

However, there already is a sacrifice room item that serves a similar purpose, which is that one that heals 1 HP for every 4 enemies destroyed.  Considering how many enemies there tend to be, this is a fairly strong effect.  Or at least it seems so to me anyway.

I've taken it a few times, but usually, I've thought it was a mistake and would rather have had the max health, unless I was using TheCreator.  Health drops are just frequent enough that I generally don't need it, if I'm willing to backtrack.  I'm not the best person to ask about balance, though.

Magic Missile Box needs some sort of heavy downside.   Refilling just once each floor wont do it either, it'd be too weak in that case.   Hm.   I like the idea of something that can regen missiles for you over the course of a floor or something, because everyone always wants to have a lot of missiles at any given time, particularly when they get addicted to popping every health-shard block, but I'm not sure what a good way to do this would be.    Or what might be a good downside without breaking it and making it worthless. 

I've been trying to work on this one, and I very much want something like this to make it.  Especially if you're allowing a new missile-based build type (the 4x damage) and have an existing one that I don't think gets the full usage it should, since missiles have to be used for more than one thing (indigo).  I'm not a huge fan of 1-per-room.  2-per?

Some sort of nerfed Magic Missile Box is going to be added as a perk for indigo in what I'm playing.  It's distinctly better than halving the usage.

[Pepisolo]

Might be adding a couple more then, bringing the total count to 23 items.

Phase Factor -- Gives you 10 seconds of invincibility on entering a new room. Maybe needs a better name, though?
Magic Missile Box -- How about a sac item that gives you 2 missiles per room then? Different name needed, though?

I also tried to implement the Cease Fire thing, but I couldn't immediately figure out how to stop the enemies from making their first shot fire. There's probably a solution, but I think we have enough items now to start getting these into the game, proper. Also, not being able to fire on bosses might be annoying.

[Logorouge]

I've been trying to work on this one, and I very much want something like this to make it.  Especially if you're allowing a new missile-based build type (the 4x damage) and have an existing one that I don't think gets the full usage it should, since missiles have to be used for more than one thing (indigo).  I'm not a huge fan of 1-per-room.  2-per?

If it's trackable, another way to do it could be to use a raised minimum for missiles instead. So you would always have at least X missiles when you enter a room. (X=3? 5? idk)

[ptarth]

Phase Factor -- A Phasing Grace
Magic Missile Box -- +2:3 missiles per room is fine with me. The name is fine.
Cease Fire - We'd need to add a entering room shot delay to everything. To be honest, we need to anyway. Normally enemies fire at time 0 and then reload rate seconds later. Time 0 * anything is still time 0.
Missile to soft max - Not really possible. We can however use ceiling to make missile storage max out at X.

I still think the Abmoog Chompers are fine.

The Abmoog Parade was just a funny name, it would have to choose an ship spawning category (although the Abmoogs are generally in the same category, hence the name).

[Pepisolo]

I still think the Abmoog Chompers are fine.

I've gotten used to them a lot more lately. Shot disintegration should be faster, though. At the moment once one set of teeth disappears there is still the potential for some slowly disintegrating shots to be left behind causing some overlap. Also, maybe slow the teeth down a little so that you have a bit more time to run through them. I wouldn't make any drastic changes, though. Also, lol on A Phasing Grace.

[Pepisolo]

Final list of items with proper names:

Coupon Cutter (shop discount)
Nanite Hull (health regen)
Grin and Bear It (avoid damage chance)
Explodifier (x4 missile damage)
Skeleton Keycard (unlimited keys)
Photoelectric (40 energy gained when you take damage)
Lorentz Factor (10 second dilation on room entry)
Blood Avenger weapon (gets more powerful on low life)
Scourge Spread weapon (Thoraxian technology)
Overcritical (x2 crit damage boost)
Dead Eye Module (stackable time dilation on kill)
A Phasing Grace (10 second invulnerability on room entry)
Magic Missile Box (2 missiles per new room)

That's 13 new ones to add to the existing 10. We've more than doubled the count. Only thing left to do is to sort out the icons, do a bit of testing, and make some final adjustments. Thanks to everybody who contributed ideas and joined the discussion. We're taking the game to a new level!

[Draco18s]

I've gotten used to them a lot more lately. Shot disintegration should be faster, though. At the moment once one set of teeth disappears there is still the potential for some slowly disintegrating shots to be left behind causing some overlap. Also, maybe slow the teeth down a little so that you have a bit more time to run through them. I wouldn't make any drastic changes, though. Also, lol on A Phasing Grace.

I agree with this.  I've occasionally had two sets of chomper teeth overlap (from what appeared to be a single chomper!) where there wasn't a safe location TO stand.

[Misery]

Just to add to the chomper bit, I finally got a screenshot of the sort of situation I meant here:

[TheVampire100]

Just to add to the chomper bit, I finally got a screenshot of the sort of situation I meant here:

*chomp*

[ptarth]

The Why This Happens
SmallEW/PT_Pacman.txt uses LocalGuard_1x1 ships. The current list (abbreviated) of local guards are: Fleas, Sheeple, LumiFlares, and Abmoogs. If you have removed or floor limited enemies from this list, you are going to see more of the AbmoogChompers. In the image we see 5 chompers out of 11 local guards. That's a little higher than average, but nothing outrageous.

Perhaps make the Chompers require LOS, Sleep til in LOS, or 1 second of entry required before activating.