So. Sacrifice Shops.

[crazyroosterman]

Really like this idea. I don't know what the bonus is for clearing the floor in 3 minutes (never ever tried for it), but I'd be very surprised if it was better than the XP gain for clearing each room PLUS the items in secret rooms PLUS the chest items and keycards you're passing up by exiting early.

Semi-related, the challenge of "don't use missiles this floor" has really crappy rewards.  You get FIVE MISSILES (plus some other stuff, like keys and credits).  How the hell am I going to finish a floor while not using missiles and not be at max by the end?  Seriously.  Only two mechs (that I can think of offhand) even have enough capacity for 5 to not just insta-max, 8 and 20, respectively.

What about "+X life until you use a missile on an enemy"?

i second this finding the boss and then killing it in 2 minutes is pretty impossible and even if I did id miss out on so much that's its not worth taking at all.
I would probably pick that up.  I rarely use missiles on enemies.

Probation rewards are something I intend on altering a bit.

ALOT of them are like that; just not very good for what they ask you to do.  It's been bugging me for quite awhile.  Weapons are more of a priority right now though.

Also, the more I think about it, the more I think the time one is just a bad idea; it's more about pure luck, rather than skill or decision-making, since it's going to end up being entirely about how your current DPS is at the time of grabbing the thing.

what i meant to say when i quoted this was that i never took that challange my self the considering how its completly reliants on getting to the boss room and killing the boss before it runs out(some how) and missing out on just about evreything along the way not sure what happened there i must have had a brain fart and some how deleted what i said and posted it any way? 0_0

[Hearteater]

Best bet on the timer one would be X minutes to enter the boss room. That means you can fight him as long as needed, and come back and still clear the level. But you can't fully power-up in the current level before facing the boss.

[Misery]

Best bet on the timer one would be X minutes to enter the boss room. That means you can fight him as long as needed, and come back and still clear the level. But you can't fully power-up in the current level before facing the boss.

Even that's still EXTREMELY dependent on luck. The game typically generates multiple paths branching out from the starting room in a rather linear fashion, and this would end up not only be about totally randomly choosing the correct path from the very start, but it'd also involve how LONG the path is, the contents of all of the rooms (some take way longer than others to clear) and other things.

Worse, the average time to reach a boss room (or do basically anything else) rises very drastically over the course of the game. 

And one way or another, it's pretty much ALWAYS wise to explore the floor first before fighting the boss.  Particularly on higher difficulties, you want to be as powered up as you can before taking them on since they're so dangerous.  Particularly "major" bosses like the Warden.

Generally I'm always against any time-restriction mechanic in a game like this.  I've never seen even a single game of this type *ever* pull this off without it being either A: stupid, B: pointless, or C: just really annoying.  Even Isaac, arguably one of the most pure fun games in the genre, gets this utterly and totally wrong in every way. 

Now as for the sacrifice room one, I'd be VERY against anything that only temporarily increases max HP and then takes it back later.  Nobody likes that mechanic when it appears, and it just leads to items that simply never get touched.  It's just too easy to forget to do these things (and no, the warning at the top of the screen wont really stop this; it's natural to just stop noticing it's there after a couple of rooms... this happens in alot of games), and thus you get the frustration of just arbitrarily dying when the effect breaks, because the game's been throwing ten million distractions at you over the last 20 minutes as you explore a gigantic floor.  But it gets worse:  This is ALSO assuming that the player can even find the sacrifice room.  If the game is being stingy on the missiles... which it definitely can... or if the player is just outright on a big floor that has ALOT of rooms with health shards, such an item could be downright suicidal to ever grab. For an item that can kill you, there's too much RNG here. And if they DO find the room, this item essentially would then make it WAY too easy to get the items in there, which tend to be at least a bit OP even just one at a time.  It has a very high chance to be an outright broken item in multiple ways rather than just one.   But the biggest factor of all is simply that most players would never touch it.  It ends up taking the spot of something else that could be interesting and fun.


Now, something else has occurred to me just now regarding all of these things:  The rewards.  The way the game gives resources to you can be... a little bit of a mess, leading to players running around with like 30 keycards and constantly having 256 credits, or something like that.  Heck, JUST within the perks alone are very easy ways to get both alot of keys and alot of credits.  These probation items end up only REALLY being of much use very early on; in the mid/late game, they often just dont matter much.  So they end up being a very inconsistent mechanic.  What might be done to fix this up a bit, and make these stay mostly relevant?

[Cinth]

I had the thought of giving the sacrifice room probation a % discount on shop items or something like that. 

[Logorouge]

What might be done to fix this up a bit, and make these stay mostly relevant?

In my opinion, less ressource-based rewards, more minor buffs. I would try a risky challenge if I can get some small +damage or +firerate reward. Those are always useful to get, from floor 1 to 7.

[Draco18s]

Disarmament, there's no reward worth holding back ALL missiles for the entire floor.  You typically miss out on countless opportunities for items (losing WAY more than you could gain from winning that), chances to enter secret/sacrifice rooms, and the ability to defend yourself.

Not to mention that the reward of +5 missiles is pointless.  You're going to be at max (unless it means +5 max missiles!).  But yeah, holding back on missiles entirely ruins your options.  If you couldn't use missiles on enemies (see upthread) it would be more balanced.

Pauper - The XP converter will allow you to get rid of money in 5 credit chunks, perhaps change it to be less than 5 credits remaining?

...And make the reward a little more than a measly 10 credits?

It has a very high chance to be an outright broken item in multiple ways rather than just one.   But the biggest factor of all is simply that most players would never touch it.  It ends up taking the spot of something else that could be interesting and fun.

What if it was "buy 1 sacrifice item"?
For a new player it would be a way to experiment with the sacrifice shop items at a reduced cost.

Oh, the Familiar one, "have 4 robot drones."  That one is almost impossible unless:
Either:
  a) you started with 1
  b) find two robot shops
And:
  have enough credits

Which would be on the order of 200ish, as the blocks-bullets drone is freakishly common (and costs 90).

Even when I've capped out my credits I've never had that many companions.  Most was 3 (started with one, bought the acid and bullet blocker).

[Logorouge]

Oh, the Familiar one, "have 4 robot drones."  That one is almost impossible unless:

I actually got that one when I first started playing the game, but luckily on the same floor was the consumable of the 4 floating scraps which apparently still counts as drones. But I do agree, if it's not exclusive to later floors, the 4 drones requirement is quite harsh.

[ptarth]

...boss random path...too long...not fun (for me)...
...playing with max health is bad....
...sacrifice room random...
...bad items take spaces of good items...
...economy is unbalanced...

• The modifier RevealsShopsItemRoomsAndBossRoom can be used to show where the Boss is on the Race item. The amount of time can also be scaled by floor. If the rewards for finishing it are related to the rewards for finishing a level, I think it would be worthwhile.
• The modifier RevealsSecretHealthRooms is used on the Sacrifice item.
• There is no limit to the number of slots available for probation items. It does dilute the pool, but there is room for less desirable probation items.
• The economy balance is partly due to RNG. The other is that that item tiers and price tiers are not consistently applied, we have 90 credit cost items showing up on floor one. The loot needs to be broken down and organized more thoroughly. Say 5 tiers, each tier is aim to show up for 2 floors (this is arbitrary, and the item pool generation does allow blending). Have the majority of items be direct upgrades of each other, but also have items that are unique for each level. This gives you the option of progression or switching to something new. Additionally, the credit generation modifiers are stacking to generate obscene amounts of credits. Along with that, money is also being given out by obstacle breakables, which probably should be changed.

[Misery]

If the "reveal secret rooms" one is used on the probation item related to it, it'll instantly become a broken item with the proposed changes to it.  It'll just make it REALLY EASY to get all the probation items on the floor.  That's part of the problem with it.  Probation items are meant to make things difficult or very restrictive, and then give you a reward for them.  But making it easy to get sacrifice room items would make for the single most OP item in the entire game.  Which is what would happen with a probation item that, in fact, gives you the HP you need to pay for the items with.

Not to mention that the reward of +5 missiles is pointless.  You're going to be at max (unless it means +5 max missiles!).  But yeah, holding back on missiles entirely ruins your options.  If you couldn't use missiles on enemies (see upthread) it would be more balanced.

I've had the idea about the "dont use missiles on enemies" but it wouldnt work for one simple reason:  missiles often dont work very well against enemies to begin with.  I think this probation item was one that was designed VERY early on in the game's development, at a point when using missiles to deal actual damage was a common function for them.  But right now, their entire existence is focused on two things: opening paths, and blocking bullets.  And it's that second one that breaks this idea down, because many enemies just wont be directly struck by those anyway (unless you fire like, a TON at them in a row, and even then their pattern has to be very not-rapid).  So there's no real skill or whatever involved in not striking enemies with them.  Particularly on higher difficulties.

The only exception is the purple mech's bizarre gravity missiles.  THAT missile will always eventually strike something.


There's more to say maybe but I'm heading off to bed. 

[Hearteater]

My only use for missiles is collecting health shards. I might use them to block a boss shot on very rare occasions, but I generally forget about them.

Speaking of Indigo Dipole, its magnetic missiles need help. It's basically suicide to use them on a boss once they have bullets behind your mech. So overall, his missiles are a disadvantage. For every situation you can find where they would help, there are likely ten that just cause you to take damage you otherwise could have avoided. A better replacement would be to make it function like a snow plow and push all missiles out of its path in a wide swath, giving you room to move forward in more safety.

[Misery]

My only use for missiles is collecting health shards. I might use them to block a boss shot on very rare occasions, but I generally forget about them.

Speaking of Indigo Dipole, its magnetic missiles need help. It's basically suicide to use them on a boss once they have bullets behind your mech. So overall, his missiles are a disadvantage. For every situation you can find where they would help, there are likely ten that just cause you to take damage you otherwise could have avoided. A better replacement would be to make it function like a snow plow and push all missiles out of its path in a wide swath, giving you room to move forward in more safety.

Fire the missiles in a barrage at the early part of a pattern, just before the outlying shots get to you.   You can get in a TON of free damage that way.

Actually, consecutive missiles tend to be a really good idea with that mech in a general sense.