Arcen Games

General Category => Starward Rogue => : Pepisolo December 21, 2017, 01:48:14 PM

: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Pepisolo December 21, 2017, 01:48:14 PM
If any expansion testers have any feedback on AuGMENTED, feel free to post that here, or start a new thread if you want. Cheers!
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: steelwing December 24, 2017, 12:21:02 PM
Very nice work on this expansion!
The only thing so far has been the weird error that I see popping up at the very beginning of each game.  I've not been able to get a screenshot of it yet, but as soon as I can, I'll post it here. 
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Pepisolo December 24, 2017, 03:51:32 PM
Very nice work on this expansion!
The only thing so far has been the weird error that I see popping up at the very beginning of each game.  I've not been able to get a screenshot of it yet, but as soon as I can, I'll post it here.

Yeah, if you can get a screenshot of that error, that'd be great. Are you using Linux? If so, then I probably know what the error could be. Thanks!
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Logorouge December 26, 2017, 10:01:59 AM
Now that I can take time to actually play the game, here's a few things I noted:

-After victory rewards (minor, consumable & chest) often are not working for me on Gold floors.

-Skeleton key (sac item): Cannot open more than 1 KeyBlock before being spent.

-Cluster Grenade secondary: Explosion can push around regenerating blocks.

-Flux Capacitor: Not affected by Deep Blue mech energy boost ability?

-TwoFactor challenge: Entering from the south door starts the player outside of the starting spot. Entering from the west spawns you on top of a turret for insta-damage.

-Defensive Shop: Offers the Hyper Protocol item (+15% damage, +15% crit). Would fit better in the weapon shop.

-Robot Shop: I see regular drones on golden floor shops. Not sure if intended. Kind of a bummer to reach a golden shop just to get some Tag Team drone and Bullet drone, etc.


-Too many Travelporters around. With the whistle-style teleporting, it's inconvenient that you have to jump through a bunch of useless rooms before you get to the important ones. Not sure miniboss rooms are really important enough to have one.


-SpikeSwitch: Looks more like a shootable rather than a switch. And the spikes on it indicate to stay away rather than step on it. Would recommend aiming for a more button-like appearance for it.

-Defense Leecher tile: Doesn't look like a negative effect tile. Looks like a neutral mechanism, not good or bad in appearance. Visuals should convey danger more.

-Explosive rune tile: Current look is like a computer device thing that I wouldn't expect to explode when stepped on. Was more a fan of the simplicity of a menacing dark red tile wired with explosives.

-Energy Drain and Defense Leecher tiles greatly reduce the mech's visibility, which I think is a big problem. Could effects closer to the energy charger electricity be used instead to avoid messing with visibility?

-Zephyr mech: Hard to see how close you are to running out of the Need for Speed effect and easy to miss when it turns off. (Elemental modules make it even worse.) Short story: It's too subtle. -image- (http://oi64.tinypic.com/359jv2x.jpg)
My suggestion is to forget subtlety and go for crystal clear feedback for this crucial aspect of the mech. Something similar to the early alpha system would be perfect in my opinion. -image- (http://oi63.tinypic.com/igggpj.jpg)

-Zeph Pistol vs Pelt Pistol: Stats don't indicate the superior range of the Zeph pistol.

-Crystallizer enemy: The footprint visual effect when hit by his attack sometimes become permanent. Although it looks cool, I don't think it's intended.

-Green Crystal Beamer drone: Not actually green at all. Although I think there's another Green Beamer that's really green in addition to this one which is white.

Phew, all done.
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: steelwing December 26, 2017, 10:43:20 AM
Yeah, if you can get a screenshot of that error, that'd be great. Are you using Linux? If so, then I probably know what the error could be. Thanks!

It just happens that I am on Linux, yes.  :)  I've not been back in the game since my OP.  The error appears as red text in the upper right corner, where the message log box lives, if that helps any.
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Draco18s December 26, 2017, 04:10:54 PM
-Skeleton key (sac item): Cannot open more than 1 KeyBlock before being spent.

I swear this was mentioned before.
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Logorouge December 26, 2017, 05:02:49 PM
-Skeleton key (sac item): Cannot open more than 1 KeyBlock before being spent.

I swear this was mentioned before.
I might have mentioned it in early alpha. I wasn't 100% sure if that was the case so I decided to include it here just to be certain it was listed somewhere.
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Whistler December 26, 2017, 10:34:45 PM
Had some time with the beta. I don't think I've seen all the new content yet and have ticketed some of the clear-cut stuff on mantis. Will have more comments as I play more but it's been fun so far!

First Impressions:

What happened to the Burst Guard Blue Whites!!! I don't remember their pattern being so difficult.

New mechs:

Alpha - The most "normal" of the new stuff. The ray, like the flamethrower has trouble in 1-tile wide areas and against reaper bosses.

Penumbra - Really tricky to get past level 1, but surviving to the first health upgrade is basically a win. Is it possible to add invincibility frames at the end of each lunge?

Warhog - Strong start, on par with the Humble mech (perhaps even stronger in early levels). Both main and secondary weapons are still useful for the endgame. Not sure if it's a little OP due to the massive burst and damage reduction. 

Zephyr - Enjoyed the speedy playstyle and experimented with rushing the boss room. Agree with Logo that it's hard to tell when the boost is active. It would be nice to know the magnitude of the bonus at the selection screen.

Paladin - The concept and theme are nice. I couldn't figure out how to use the main weapon properly -- the lunge attack makes kiting/evading difficult to control and Green Hunter killed me. Heh. Also, the missile launcher could use a slight cooldown increase as it's easy to inadvertently launch extra missiles when clearing blocks.

Gold floors:

- How often do they appear? I had a full run without any gold floors appearing. They are quite fun! Difficulty feels about the same as regular floors and flamer turrets are beautiful.

- I get a general feel of everything being bigger and busier when playing them.

- Had a metalmill spawn next to me in FreedomGauntlet2, bottom left door. Almost impossible to avoid damage from that.

- It is a little tricky to differentiate between the various floor buff/debuff pads. I never found the switch pads in the levels I played (or I just ran over them without noticing).

- The puzzle boss rooms are a nice touch. Have run into two of them so far. Banshee trap + bounce laser module. Ouch.

Other thoughts:

- Tutorial explains the new mechanics pretty well.

- Crimson death sniper rifle could use a recoil warning.

- Question regarding the damage stats on items. Is that DPS or damage per shot/salvo?

I am not sure if the following are bugs or my imagination:
- I noticed something strange with the cryofreeze, energy shield, and inferno/flame? modules. If you get hit just as the module visual effect fires, you don't take damage. Has anyone else seen this?

- Using the tactical advisor familiar the first time killed all other sound until the next room, after which it worked normally. Unfortunately I've only seen this bot once so I can't confirm this. 




: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Logorouge December 26, 2017, 11:13:40 PM
- How often do they appear? I had a full run without any gold floors appearing.
Last time I asked, they were at 20% chance. I don't know if it changed since then. I also get full runs without any gold floor every so often, which makes me think the chances could use a little boost.

- Had a metalmill spawn next to me in FreedomGauntlet2, bottom left door. Almost impossible to avoid damage from that.
Wow, that thing really does spawn right next to you. I'll do something about that.
Edit: Fixed. The metalmill just switched places with the ninja behind him. At least now you have a moment to react and move out of harm's way. I'll include that with my next batch of changes for the next update.
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Misery December 26, 2017, 11:59:23 PM
What happened to the Burst Guard Blue Whites!!! I don't remember their pattern being so difficult.

I may or may not have done a thing to them maybe possibly.

Now that I can get back to the game (ugh holiday month, and here I thought it was mostly going to be free time) I'll have a look at them... but dont expect anything.  I dont recall them seeming particularly awful.
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Misery December 27, 2017, 03:05:32 AM
Okay, having done a full run just now...

Yeah, those things, I'll probably change them after all.  I don't remember doing that to them.  That's a high-end pattern that they're not supposed to be firing right now.

I noticed a few odd things in that run actually.  Terminus for instance is suddenly missing a big piece of it's 6th pattern, which makes no sense, because I haven't done anything to it.  There hasn't been a reason to alter that boss in quite awhile (and the stuff for the golden version doesn't require I do anything to the original).  So I have no bloody clue what is up with that bit.  I'll look into it later today.

Golden Warden, uhhhh, looks like I outright forgot part of the 4th pattern there.  Oops.  Not the first time I've done that one, sigh...

Need at least two more Popcorn type enemies for the golden floors.  For whatever reason, I had thought there were already three.  I'm not sure what gave me that idea.

Those red pulsing floor tiles:  Those seem a little buggy?  They all begin their pulse at the same moment like they should, but some of them hold that pulse longer than others.  It's very random.



Now for good stuff:

Puzzle rooms are awesome.  I gotta try making a few myself.  This is a very fun concept.

The jetpack is hilarious.

I particularly love the Super Ultra Death Sniper or whatever it's called.  Really ruins bosses and heavy targets aside from certain unusually high HP ones (Terminus mainly) but has that wonderful risk-reward aspect to it.  Not so good for dealing with anything that moves fast, nope.  That turns out to be a bloody stupid move pretty quickly.

Acid Rain consumable is also awesome. 

And overall, this is the most well-balanced version of the game yet, and easily the most fun it's ever been.  Sure is a heck of a long way from what it was when it first released, where everything was constantly broken and you could become OP super easy every time. 

As the expansion goes, the golden floors, new enemies and bosses are great and all, but this one really is all about the items and mechs and new floor tiles to me, those are the bits I think really make this what it is.  Though I will say I am pretty darned pleased with how the bosses have turned out and uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh I just realized I havent done their hard mode patterns yet argh argh argh.  How many times am I going to completely forget to do that?  8 billion?  It's not like it's even that bloody hard to do...  ugh.  Alright, I'm a little less pleased with the blasted things then.  At least they all WORK so far.  I still remember when the game originally released, that guy went and streamed it, he got to the Backfire boss, and the stupid thing just sat there and looked dumb at him. 
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Pepisolo December 27, 2017, 03:31:45 PM
It just happens that I am on Linux, yes.  :)  I've not been back in the game since my OP.  The error appears as red text in the upper right corner, where the message log box lives, if that helps any.

Oh, if you're on Linux then that's just a case sensitive typo type thing. I already have a report on that, so I can fix it based off that. Cheers! (fixed!)

-After victory rewards (minor, consumable & chest) often are not working for me on Gold floors.

Hmm, I'm slightly confused on how these actually work. It says on the wiki "This will appear after some rooms are complete" so does this mean that the item will appear, or the reward pedestal itself? Presumably you are seeing the reward pedestal, but no reward? Which is not the regular behaviour ( think)? You'd think I'd have learned this by now, heh.

-Skeleton key (sac item): Cannot open more than 1 KeyBlock before being spent.

Yeah, this is on the final batch of engine tweaks for Keith list.

-Cluster Grenade secondary: Explosion can push around regenerating blocks.

Hmm, that's a strange one. Fixed!

-Flux Capacitor: Not affected by Deep Blue mech energy boost ability?

I guess not. Is this a big problem? I can't imagine a solution to this at the moment. One thing I changed for the Flux Capacitor is I set it to only trigger on new rooms, so the player isn't trying to game that by going back and forth between rooms using the new room start invulnerability. 

-TwoFactor challenge: Entering from the south door starts the player outside of the starting spot. Entering from the west spawns you on top of a turret for insta-damage.

Oh, yeah, that's another long standing bug for Keith to take a look at. That's the same thing that happens with the Collideascope Miniboss. What's kind of happening is that for Miniboss style rooms of medium and large size, it is still using the starting position for a standard room...or something like that!

-Defensive Shop: Offers the Hyper Protocol item (+15% damage, +15% crit). Would fit better in the weapon shop.

Yeah, I had a steam user report this to me as well, plus another item that was also seeding in the wrong place. Fixed! Also, energy capacity upgrades...Weapons or Defensive Shop?

-Robot Shop: I see regular drones on golden floor shops. Not sure if intended. Kind of a bummer to reach a golden shop just to get some Tag Team drone and Bullet drone, etc.

The current behaviour is that the familiars are added to the general pools, not specifically just for the Gold Floor...although I'm not sure on that decision. Any thoughts on this? This is similar for the Sacrifice Items although it makes a bit more sense there as sacrifice rooms are kind of their own thing, plus that saves us from needing 20 plus new sacrifice items just for Gold Floors because the items don't reseed (which would be overkill anyway).

-Too many Travelporters around. With the whistle-style teleporting, it's inconvenient that you have to jump through a bunch of useless rooms before you get to the important ones. Not sure miniboss rooms are really important enough to have one.

You could trim those down a bit yeah. I think there are two options, get rid of the ones that just randomly appear in regular rooms or get rid of the new miniboss ones. I suppose there could also be a third option, get rid of them both. Currently the general theme is that those appear in important rooms, boss rooms, shops etc, so the ones that appear in regular rooms seem a bit more out of place and aren't as predicable when you're travelporting. If it were just important rooms that had them, you could more reliably just spam teleport until you get to a particular room that you were thinking about. Personally, I would lean towards getting rid of the ones in regular rooms, although I'm not strong on it, and I think Misery would prefer leaving those in. Miniboss rooms are often at the middle of dungeons...I think, though, so with travelporters in there the player might get good coverage without needing the random ones. Any more thoughts on this?

-SpikeSwitch: Looks more like a shootable rather than a switch. And the spikes on it indicate to stay away rather than step on it. Would recommend aiming for a more button-like appearance for it.

-Defense Leecher tile: Doesn't look like a negative effect tile. Looks like a neutral mechanism, not good or bad in appearance. Visuals should convey danger more.

-Explosive rune tile: Current look is like a computer device thing that I wouldn't expect to explode when stepped on. Was more a fan of the simplicity of a menacing dark red tile wired with explosives.

-Energy Drain and Defense Leecher tiles greatly reduce the mech's visibility, which I think is a big problem. Could effects closer to the energy charger electricity be used instead to avoid messing with visibility?

Yeah, Goldenwolf is going to be taking another look at these tiles as they aren't working out at the moment.

Zephyr mech: Hard to see how close you are to running out of the Need for Speed effect and easy to miss when it turns off. (Elemental modules make it even worse.) Short story: It's too subtle. -image-
My suggestion is to forget subtlety and go for crystal clear feedback for this crucial aspect of the mech. Something similar to the early alpha system would be perfect in my opinion.

Yeah, I've put in a change so that the colour now changes gradually to red, which should makes things a lot clearer. Especially if you grab one of the Zephyr boost perks. Hopefully that does the trick, let me know if it's still too subtle. Currently you start off a bit orangey but then turn to red once you run out of power, but if you get a Zephyr boost perk you go from Yellow down to Orange and then Red. On the one hand this gives you a bit of a visual aid to see just how much boost you have left, on the other hand this is more subtle than always going from yellow to red. I can make it so that the mech starts off yellow, but then goes to red as it runs out of power, but then you lose the ability to see just how much power you have left based on the colour. This is getting a bit confusing but basically, I can make it even a bit less subtle, but then you would lose being able to more closely track how much power you have left based on the colour.

-Zeph Pistol vs Pelt Pistol: Stats don't indicate the superior range of the Zeph pistol.


Fixed!

-Crystallizer enemy: The footprint visual effect when hit by his attack sometimes become permanent. Although it looks cool, I don't think it's intended.

I think I've put in a fix in for this, although I can't actually test it properly. It's probably fixed. Probably!

-Green Crystal Beamer drone: Not actually green at all. Although I think there's another Green Beamer that's really green in addition to this one which is white.

Hmmm, I'm not actually sure what you mean here, heh. I looked at the Crystal Beamers and they seem fine. Got any more info?

Thanks for the feedback. I'll commit these changes soon, and then tackle any more feedback a bit later. Cheers!



: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Logorouge December 27, 2017, 06:54:41 PM
-snip-

After victory rewards: When the issue arise I don't even have a pedestal, as if the room didn't even finish generating. Kinda like those shops that spawn with only 1 or 2 items despite the original file having 3.

Flux Capacitor: It's mostly for consistency. If it cannot be changed easily, I wouldn't worry about it. Good call on the "new room only" rule though. That'll prevent some future cha cha in the door frame.

Shop for energy upgrades: I would go for Defensive Shop. Energy isn't really offense or defense oriented per say, but the weapon shop already has a lot going on, contrary to the defense shop which is a bit lacking.

Robot Shop: I did see the new Stinkbot drone and others on regular floors, but I've never seen a crystalline Beamer outside of a gold floor (including the dozen devmode runs I did a few minutes ago). If they are supposed to be all globally available, then everything is good. On the other hand, if you can only get some of them on the rare gold floor shops and you lose your chance because it's filled with regular drones, then it's kinda annoying. As for the shop's global pool vs separate pools, I would personally prefer a global one because the drone selection is not vast enough to support 2 separate shops and still be satisfyingly varied. Speaking of variety... Could I convince you to re-add the Beaming Drone to the pool? The "BeamingMinibot" version seems ready to go.

Travelporters: I was leaning toward removing the miniboss pads, but you make a good point about them being well placed. Especially on later floors, there's often one per branch, offering a good coverage. The occasional random one might be good if made less common, so I would probably recommend just reducing their amount per room category.

Zephyr: Multi-colored gradual indication? That's even better! I was worried additional perks would make it harder to tell, but that takes care of that. I'm on board with the Yellow-Orange-Red implementation. Not to mention, the colors look good on the mech.

Green Crystal Beamer: Here's an attached screenshot of the very pale Green Beamer.
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Misery December 27, 2017, 07:09:09 PM
You could trim those down a bit yeah. I think there are two options, get rid of the ones that just randomly appear in regular rooms or get rid of the new miniboss ones. I suppose there could also be a third option, get rid of them both. Currently the general theme is that those appear in important rooms, boss rooms, shops etc, so the ones that appear in regular rooms seem a bit more out of place and aren't as predicable when you're travelporting. If it were just important rooms that had them, you could more reliably just spam teleport until you get to a particular room that you were thinking about. Personally, I would lean towards getting rid of the ones in regular rooms, although I'm not strong on it, and I think Misery would prefer leaving those in. Miniboss rooms are often at the middle of dungeons...I think, though, so with travelporters in there the player might get good coverage without needing the random ones. Any more thoughts on this?

The best thing we could do as far as the travel system goes would actually be pretty simple:  Find a less awful way of displaying where the next warp will be on the map itself.  I find that much of the time spent using the system is repeatedly passing by the room I wanted to go to, because it's bloody impossible to see where I'm headed on the map.  That little glowing effect.... not enough.

A new visual there that makes it really stand out and says "here, THIS is where you'll go if you click that next" would be super.

The actual number of warps is fine by me as is.  It's just the bloody visual on the map.  It'd be so much easier to use if that could get fixed.  Has needed fixing for a bloody long time now.

One of the reasons also why there are many normal-room warps is because warps that ARENT normal rooms are often behind locked doors.  Going all the way down a branch, which ends in a shop you cant open (don't have a key) gets way more annoying if you absolutely must then go back through ALL of the rooms in that branch if you should then find a key and decide to go in later.

Question though:  How many of these warps have been added now?  The original way I went about putting the things in was to go through the room list, and have 1 out of every 7 normal rooms get a warp in it.  Do we now have more than that?

Speaking of minibosses:  I"ve been wondering, do we maybe have a bit too many of these?  Well, not just minibosses, I mean those plus condemned or challenge rooms, all the same to me.  They seem a bit oddly frequent to me.  But I'm not sure, what do you guys think?
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Logorouge December 27, 2017, 08:14:36 PM
Question though:  How many of these warps have been added now?  The original way I went about putting the things in was to go through the room list, and have 1 out of every 7 normal rooms get a warp in it.  Do we now have more than that?
I checked a few categories and regular rooms on normal floors seem to follow that rule pretty closely (+-1), but about 90% of minibosses/condemned/challenges rooms have warps now, so that's quite a few more guarantied warps per floor.

Speaking of minibosses:  I"ve been wondering, do we maybe have a bit too many of these?  Well, not just minibosses, I mean those plus condemned or challenge rooms, all the same to me.  They seem a bit oddly frequent to me.  But I'm not sure, what do you guys think?
Now that you mention it, yeah, they do seem a bit too frequent. Looking at the files, the first floor has more branches with obstacles than the sixth floor. That doesn't sound right.
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Pepisolo December 27, 2017, 08:26:31 PM
Alpha - The most "normal" of the new stuff. The ray, like the flamethrower has trouble in 1-tile wide areas and against reaper bosses.

Yeah. I'm not really sure what can be done about that without redesigning those weapons at this stage. Hopefully that's an acceptable or tolerable negative of using those weapons. If not, then more drastic measures need to be taken. 

Warhog - Strong start, on par with the Humble mech (perhaps even stronger in early levels). Both main and secondary weapons are still useful for the endgame. Not sure if it's a little OP due to the massive burst and damage reduction. 

Possibly, although I don't mind a mech being a little OP at least. It does have the disadvantage that it's a terrible resource gatherer, plus doesn't have shields, of course. So, I'm not sure at the moment.

Zephyr - Enjoyed the speedy playstyle and experimented with rushing the boss room. Agree with Logo that it's hard to tell when the boost is active. It would be nice to know the magnitude of the bonus at the selection screen.

Yeah, visuals should be improved in the next version. If I could think of a sufficiently succinct way to explain the boost, then we could probably add that. It has a mix of additive multipliers, multipliers, straight adds, though, so explaining it would be pretty tricky.

Paladin - The concept and theme are nice. I couldn't figure out how to use the main weapon properly -- the lunge attack makes kiting/evading difficult to control and Green Hunter killed me. Heh. Also, the missile launcher could use a slight cooldown increase as it's easy to inadvertently launch extra missiles when clearing blocks.

Adjusted the missile fire rate slightly, although I couldn't adjust it too much as I didn't want to lose the ability to do fast barrages with the launcher.

- How often do they appear? I had a full run without any gold floors appearing. They are quite fun! Difficulty feels about the same as regular floors and flamer turrets are beautiful.

Currently it's a 20% chance per floor apart from the 1st floor (which can't have Gold floors). That's definitely going to be upped to at least 25% as I've had a bit of feedback about the low chance of seeing the floors. Whether we up it further than that, I'm not sure, though.

- It is a little tricky to differentiate between the various floor buff/debuff pads. I never found the switch pads in the levels I played (or I just ran over them without noticing).

Yeah, those will be getting looked at, as they're not quite right at the moment.

- The puzzle boss rooms are a nice touch. Have run into two of them so far. Banshee trap + bounce laser module. Ouch.

Yeah, ouch! I'm glad to see you like those rooms.

- Tutorial explains the new mechanics pretty well.

Nice! Draco designed that. Thanks, Draco! :)

- Crimson death sniper rifle could use a recoil warning.

I may just be derping because I'm a bit ill at the moment, but recoil warning? Like some text in the description you mean?

- Question regarding the damage stats on items. Is that DPS or damage per shot/salvo?

DPS.

- I noticed something strange with the cryofreeze, energy shield, and inferno/flame? modules. If you get hit just as the module visual effect fires, you don't take damage. Has anyone else seen this?

Hmmm, not sure. I'll keep an eye out for it, though, thanks.

- Using the tactical advisor familiar the first time killed all other sound until the next room, after which it worked normally. Unfortunately I've only seen this bot once so I can't confirm this.

Hmm, that's another one I'll keep an eye out for. If that robot is indeed causing some audio problems I might be able to make tweaks.

I'll get to any more feedback tomorrow. Thanks!
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Draco18s December 27, 2017, 09:25:15 PM
Quote
- Tutorial explains the new mechanics pretty well.

Nice! Draco designed that. Thanks, Draco!

Yeah! I did a thing!
I was also responsible for the main tutorial update a while back.
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Pepisolo December 28, 2017, 10:52:04 AM
Those red pulsing floor tiles:  Those seem a little buggy?  They all begin their pulse at the same moment like they should, but some of them hold that pulse longer than others.  It's very random.

I haven't noticed any issues with those. Has anybody else?

Puzzle rooms are awesome.  I gotta try making a few myself.  This is a very fun concept.

The jetpack is hilarious.

I particularly love the Super Ultra Death Sniper or whatever it's called.  Really ruins bosses and heavy targets aside from certain unusually high HP ones (Terminus mainly) but has that wonderful risk-reward aspect to it.  Not so good for dealing with anything that moves fast, nope.  That turns out to be a bloody stupid move pretty quickly.

Acid Rain consumable is also awesome.

And overall, this is the most well-balanced version of the game yet, and easily the most fun it's ever been.  Sure is a heck of a long way from what it was when it first released, where everything was constantly broken and you could become OP super easy every time. 

Nice! Yeah, the current build does seem good. It also seems like the most stable version of the game, too.

After victory rewards: When the issue arise I don't even have a pedestal, as if the room didn't even finish generating. Kinda like those shops that spawn with only 1 or 2 items despite the original file having 3.

I always thought that there was only a chance of those pedestals appearing, so the current behaviour seemed to be working as expected. Whether this is actually just a bug or not, though, I'm not sure.

Flux Capacitor: It's mostly for consistency. If it cannot be changed easily, I wouldn't worry about it. Good call on the "new room only" rule though. That'll prevent some future cha cha in the door frame.

Yeah, I think we'll just have to leave that one as is for now.

Shop for energy upgrades: I would go for Defensive Shop. Energy isn't really offense or defense oriented per say, but the weapon shop already has a lot going on, contrary to the defense shop which is a bit lacking.

Defensive shop it is then!

Robot Shop: I did see the new Stinkbot drone and others on regular floors, but I've never seen a crystalline Beamer outside of a gold floor (including the dozen devmode runs I did a few minutes ago). If they are supposed to be all globally available, then everything is good. On the other hand, if you can only get some of them on the rare gold floor shops and you lose your chance because it's filled with regular drones, then it's kinda annoying. As for the shop's global pool vs separate pools, I would personally prefer a global one because the drone selection is not vast enough to support 2 separate shops and still be satisfyingly varied. Speaking of variety... Could I convince you to re-add the Beaming Drone to the pool? The "BeamingMinibot" version seems ready to go.

Actually the Crystal Beamers are only set to appear on Gold floors. I did this because that familiar really has the look of fitting in on the Gold Floors. I could go either way on that to be honest. Set those to appear globally as well? As for the beaming minibot, I think that's just a repeat of the Deep Blue's familiar, so I don't really find that super interesting to add myself. Plus, there are problems with those beam style shot in that the shot visual doesn't go through walls. We do actually have a new system for doing those beam shots, though, but since switching to that is going to be extra work, and since I'm not really sure on the Beamer anyway, I think we'll leave that for the moment. At least for this next expansion patch. I might take another look at it for a future build.

Travelporters: I was leaning toward removing the miniboss pads, but you make a good point about them being well placed. Especially on later floors, there's often one per branch, offering a good coverage. The occasional random one might be good if made less common, so I would probably recommend just reducing their amount per room category.

I'm not sure myself. Removing the randomly appearing ones seems cleaner to me, as those can't really be relied upon anyway. Having them in miniboss/condemned/challenge rooms should provide a reasonable amount of coverage of the middles of the floors. I'm happy to leave this to you to tinker with, if you want.

Zephyr: Multi-colored gradual indication? That's even better! I was worried additional perks would make it harder to tell, but that takes care of that. I'm on board with the Yellow-Orange-Red implementation. Not to mention, the colors look good on the mech.

I think it works, yeah. It's in the latest SVN if you want to test that.

Green Crystal Beamer: Here's an attached screenshot of the very pale Green Beamer.

Ah, right. That was just misnamed actually. Fixed!

The best thing we could do as far as the travel system goes would actually be pretty simple:  Find a less awful way of displaying where the next warp will be on the map itself.  I find that much of the time spent using the system is repeatedly passing by the room I wanted to go to, because it's bloody impossible to see where I'm headed on the map.  That little glowing effect.... not enough.

A new visual there that makes it really stand out and says "here, THIS is where you'll go if you click that next" would be super.

The actual number of warps is fine by me as is.  It's just the bloody visual on the map.  It'd be so much easier to use if that could get fixed.  Has needed fixing for a bloody long time now.

Yep, I completely agree although I fear that this change might have to wait for a future build (beyond the expansion one). Chris, Keith, and Blue are just too busy at the moment to be bothered with issues that are just kind of niceties. I say kind of because having clarity on these warps would be a bit more than a nicety, but it'll probably keep.

Speaking of minibosses:  I"ve been wondering, do we maybe have a bit too many of these?  Well, not just minibosses, I mean those plus condemned or challenge rooms, all the same to me.  They seem a bit oddly frequent to me.  But I'm not sure, what do you guys think?

Just looking into this, I believe that some of Ptarth's testing settings for floor 1 have made it into the code. I'm going to reset these, and hopefully that should do the trick. Other floors than 1 shouldn't be affected.

: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Whistler December 28, 2017, 07:49:23 PM
I may just be derping because I'm a bit ill at the moment, but recoil warning? Like some text in the description you mean?

Yeah, I meant in the description. On reflection, I don't think it's necessary. I was just surprised by the recoil compared to other shotgun and sniper weapons the first time I fired it.
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: steelwing January 01, 2018, 07:44:28 PM
No clue what's going on now, but the game freezes solid during loading, and the screen gets covered in graphical artifacts.
(https://i.imgur.com/4gyY4kJ.png)
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Whistler January 01, 2018, 10:04:42 PM
I tried a few runs rushing the boss with Zephyr (possible due to the map-reveal perk). It was hilarious :D! The most successful hard run ended in 12 minutes.

Was curious and looked through the xml (see what you've made me do, heh :) ). If I understood it correctly, the buff is
base damage*(1 + 0.1*max(5-t,0))/(0.9)^max(5-t,0)
with the subsequent perks adding more.

Without considering stacking between floors, I think the rate of fire increase causes most of the OPness at higher levels. At the 15 minute version, if it stacks with the original bonus + 10 minute version, there is a 23x increase in rate of fire (unless there's a cap), compared to +3x base damage. If they don't stack it's about 5x and +1.5x.

My thoughts on a first pass at balancing it: remove the fire rate bonus and increase the base damage to compensate. Since the lower floors feel ok, I think increasing it to +0.3x per minute would keep the dps about the same. At the highest level, it would be 10x damage (if the earlier perks stack), which is still quite powerful but better than 23x(1+3) = 92.

Some other things to consider:
- Getting the SuperSpeed and SuperDuperSpeed perks are not guaranteed.
- If the perks stack with the earlier versions, changing them to just add duration could be enough with the current setup. (but with stacking between floors, rate of fire could still become huge)
- The mech is still really fun to play without using this trick so keeping the feel of the lower floors should be good.
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: x4000 January 02, 2018, 10:37:14 AM
No clue what's going on now, but the game freezes solid during loading, and the screen gets covered in graphical artifacts.

Hmm, my best guess is a driver incompatibility.  Are you using the latest Mesa drivers, or what have you got?  I'm no expert on all the various driver variants on linux by any stretch, but that tends to be the culprit.  Generally the newer the better in terms of those.  In works on my box, but I've just got a pretty vanilla install of uBuntu with an nVidia GTX 1060, so it's pretty much in the most-supported class.
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: steelwing January 02, 2018, 11:10:15 AM
Hmm, my best guess is a driver incompatibility.  Are you using the latest Mesa drivers, or what have you got?
That's a good guess, actually.  I'm using an ATI Radeon R7 240, which is supported by the still-experimental AMDGPU driver.  Sounds like I need to check whether any of that has updated recently.  I know I've had an update to Mesa within the past few days.
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: x4000 January 02, 2018, 11:21:37 AM
Ah, okay -- that might be the issue, then.
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Pepisolo January 02, 2018, 11:41:25 AM
I tried a few runs rushing the boss with Zephyr (possible due to the map-reveal perk). It was hilarious :D! The most successful hard run ended in 12 minutes.

Was curious and looked through the xml (see what you've made me do, heh :) ). If I understood it correctly, the buff is
base damage*(1 + 0.1*max(5-t,0))/(0.9)^max(5-t,0)
with the subsequent perks adding more.

Without considering stacking between floors, I think the rate of fire increase causes most of the OPness at higher levels. At the 15 minute version, if it stacks with the original bonus + 10 minute version, there is a 23x increase in rate of fire (unless there's a cap), compared to +3x base damage. If they don't stack it's about 5x and +1.5x.

My thoughts on a first pass at balancing it: remove the fire rate bonus and increase the base damage to compensate. Since the lower floors feel ok, I think increasing it to +0.3x per minute would keep the dps about the same. At the highest level, it would be 10x damage (if the earlier perks stack), which is still quite powerful but better than 23x(1+3) = 92.

Some other things to consider:
- Getting the SuperSpeed and SuperDuperSpeed perks are not guaranteed.
- If the perks stack with the earlier versions, changing them to just add duration could be enough with the current setup. (but with stacking between floors, rate of fire could still become huge)
- The mech is still really fun to play without using this trick so keeping the feel of the lower floors should be good.

Interesting thoughts thanks -- I could probably do with any help I can get on the balance math of this. Perks don't stack with earlier versions, they just swap out and replace the old version. I think I'd really rather not remove the fire rate boost entirely as that's quite important to the style of the mech. I'd much prefer to remove the damage bonus rather then the fire rate bonus, if that's necessary. This mech does have a lot more room to potentially become OP than any other mech, depending on how fast you go and how lucky you are in terms of map generation. The idea is that if you can ride the bonus well, then runs are going to be a bit steamrollery, but if you get slowed down, things can start becoming difficult until another wave of boosts kicks in.  So, having OP runs is desired, but of course we can't go too overboard, which makes this quite tricky to balance.

A 12 minute Hard run does sound a bit short, but I guess that kind of depends on how rare a 12 minute run is. If it's quite rare then it might be fine -- this is the speedrun mech after all! :)
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Whistler January 03, 2018, 01:36:57 AM
Interesting thoughts thanks -- I could probably do with any help I can get on the balance math of this. Perks don't stack with earlier versions, they just swap out and replace the old version. I think I'd really rather not remove the fire rate boost entirely as that's quite important to the style of the mech. I'd much prefer to remove the damage bonus rather then the fire rate bonus, if that's necessary. This mech does have a lot more room to potentially become OP than any other mech, depending on how fast you go and how lucky you are in terms of map generation. The idea is that if you can ride the bonus well, then runs are going to be a bit steamrollery, but if you get slowed down, things can start becoming difficult until another wave of boosts kicks in.  So, having OP runs is desired, but of course we can't go too overboard, which makes this quite tricky to balance.

A 12 minute Hard run does sound a bit short, but I guess that kind of depends on how rare a 12 minute run is. If it's quite rare then it might be fine -- this is the speedrun mech after all!

Good to know that it doesn't stack, and that it's intended to be a little OP! I think that the starting bonus is well balanced; it's only when the 10 minute version appears that things start to get crazy because of the huge bonus makes clearing floors very quick, and things snowball to the point of Terminus not getting a shot off.   

I tried a version with .3 additive and .97 rate of fire, but the rate of fire felt wrong and I agree that the style is important (though Terminus actually got to use all its phases!). I'm not really sure how to balance it unless there's a way to cap the rate of fire since the buff grows exponentially.
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: TheVampire100 January 03, 2018, 02:47:27 AM
As far as I understood Zephyr, he is really powerful if you speed-run through each floor but you will miss a lot of loot and xp that way, so he is all about finding the ideal line between farming a floor and rushing through it.
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Logorouge January 03, 2018, 05:08:24 PM
As far as I understood Zephyr, he is really powerful if you speed-run through each floor but you will miss a lot of loot and xp that way, so he is all about finding the ideal line between farming a floor and rushing through it.
The problem with it currently, is that you don't need to find that line between the two. As long as you get the second or third perk of Need for Speed, you can 100% rush to stack bonuses and win every time. Floors 5, 6 and 7 might as well not exist.

The two ways I see to prevent that would be:

1- Like Whistler mentioned, converting the stacking of intensity to a duration bonus instead. (The solution I like the most.)
2- Keep it like it is, but drastically cut down the upper tier perks duration. Something like 5-10-15min -> 5-7-10min. But is that enough to still be as fun?
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Pepisolo January 03, 2018, 05:34:18 PM
I tried a version with .3 additive and .97 rate of fire, but the rate of fire felt wrong and I agree that the style is important (though Terminus actually got to use all its phases!). I'm not really sure how to balance it unless there's a way to cap the rate of fire since the buff grows exponentially.

There might be a way to cap the fire rate...possibly! I'll look into it, thanks.

1- Like Whistler mentioned, converting the stacking of intensity to a duration bonus instead. (The solution I like the most.)
2- Keep it like it is, but drastically cut down the upper tier perks duration. Something like 5-10-15min -> 5-7-10min. But is that enough to still be as fun?

For 1), I think that the way the perk is implemented requires that the stacking happens. I think, although it's been a while since I looked at the code.

2) is easily possible of course. Perhaps just straight up removing the perks would also be another option. Or perhaps just removing the 15 minute version one.
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Logorouge January 03, 2018, 07:01:12 PM
2) is easily possible of course. Perhaps just straight up removing the perks would also be another option. Or perhaps just removing the 15 minute version one.
Hm, based on that here's a 3rd idea:

3- Replace the lv11 perk with the lv6 perk, removing the old lv11 perk altogether. Since the best perk always overwrites the previous versions anyway, it wouldn't be a huge loss. Level 6 could instead provide a different kind of rush-oriented perk, like increasing the mech's energy reserve for the first 5 minutes of the floor. That would provide a nice bonus in power without touching the damages or the firerate directly. I'm thinking of something like a temporary stable flux capacitor style thing.
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Whistler January 03, 2018, 11:45:02 PM
2- Keep it like it is, but drastically cut down the upper tier perks duration. Something like 5-10-15min -> 5-7-10min. But is that enough to still be as fun?

Tried a 5-7.5-15 min version. levels 4-6 were still easy but didn't melt instantly, and Terminus killed me, though that was without stacking the tier 3 bonus.  5-7.5-10 with the current bonuses might work and still be a significant buff for a non speedrun.
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Pepisolo January 04, 2018, 10:51:13 AM
One extra consideration -- would the math work out better if we used an additive multiplier rather than a multiplier? At the moment, the best solution is looking like cutting the durations of the other two perks to 7.5 and 10 minutes, although that's not ideal. I'm currently investigating other solutions, but none seem viable at the moment.
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Pepisolo January 05, 2018, 11:26:36 AM
More on the Zephyr boost, one thing that was happening is that the overspill boost from one floor was getting stacked with the boost for the next floor. I actually kind of liked this behavior, but since I couldn't find a way to represent that extra boost visually, and it is also prone to making the player super OP, I've removed that in the latest build. Now, any existing Zephyr boost is removed before a new one is added. This should tone down the level of OP quite significantly. So, we'll just try that first. Next up would be to perhaps try to get only the duration to extend for the higher tier versions, that's if my latest changes don't do the trick. The next build will be available to test some time next week.
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Whistler January 05, 2018, 09:30:39 PM
More on the Zephyr boost, one thing that was happening is that the overspill boost from one floor was getting stacked with the boost for the next floor. I actually kind of liked this behavior, but since I couldn't find a way to represent that extra boost visually, and it is also prone to making the player super OP, I've removed that in the latest build. Now, any existing Zephyr boost is removed before a new one is added. This should tone down the level of OP quite significantly. So, we'll just try that first. Next up would be to perhaps try to get only the duration to extend for the higher tier versions, that's if my latest changes don't do the trick. The next build will be available to test some time next week.

That sounds pretty good and might be enough.
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Logorouge January 06, 2018, 10:16:21 AM
-Mysterious Circuit: +range circuit doesn't play nice with many of the new weapons. Grabbing two of them probably wasn't my best idea...
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Draco18s January 06, 2018, 09:52:54 PM
-Mysterious Circuit: +range circuit doesn't play nice with many of the new weapons. Grabbing two of them probably wasn't my best idea...

Yeah, range modifies have been a longstanding known problem with many weapons.
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Logorouge January 06, 2018, 10:16:33 PM
Yeah, range modifies have been a longstanding known problem with many weapons.
Yep, that's why the Railgun Module was modified to be about speed instead of range. I kinda forgot the mystery circuits had it until now though...
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: TheVampire100 January 06, 2018, 11:15:51 PM
Can't you make it, that some weaoins have a fixed range?
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Pepisolo January 07, 2018, 10:41:10 AM
Yep, that's why the Railgun Module was modified to be about speed instead of range. I kinda forgot the mystery circuits had it until now though...

Yeah, I think we'd settled on removing all range modifiers since they don't work with weapons that use bullet patterns, and since most of the weapons use bullet patterns, that's a bit of a problem. I'll just remove those range circuits. The whole mysterious circuit stuff needs an overhaul at some point, anyway.

Can't you make it, that some weaoins have a fixed range?

I think at this point, just removing those couple of range boosting items is the best solution otherwise things get a bit confusing if you have to say this weapon has a fixed range and this other one doesn't etc.
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: crazyroosterman January 15, 2018, 02:53:28 PM
righhhht so (I'm a bit tired right now sorry in advance if I don't explain this correctly) is the warthogs missile launcher meant to use all your missiles in every shot? if so it should probably be mentioned in the description of the mech it self.

edit just noticed the weapon descriptions in the menu....I don't remember this being there last I played was this introduced post release of the core game? or is my memory just bad?.
still think it would be sensible to mention the launchers unique property's in the selection screen though I feel it would save people some grief and it don't it would be difficult to do.

I'm not convinced by its combat worthiness(the launcher it self) either though I think id rather make a separate thread for that after I've put some real time in with it.
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: TheVampire100 January 18, 2018, 07:20:30 PM
The missile launcher is okay on my book. The explosion radius increases with the number of missiles as well, if timed right, you could wipe an entire room with it (a small room that is).
#I don't know however if there is a cap to the max damage and explosion radius.
The only problem I have, sometimes the missiles gets blocked by shots, explodes, takes a big amount of the bullets out but does no damage to the boss or enemies behind the bullets.
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Misery January 18, 2018, 07:36:41 PM
Yeah, the Warthog launcher is pretty darned good actually.

The issue is that it is so very different from every other mech.  All the others, you've got this constant defensive thing, not necessarily good at damaging enemies but good at stopping bullets that are about to hit you, and definitely important for dealing with complicated boss patterns.

The Warthog's launcher though will always use all missiles, so that takes some getting used to.  But you can do BIG damage with it.  It's not so good against some bosses (bring protective consumables instead) but it's true value is in dealing with nasty groups of enemies.  It will take out a huge pile of bullets AND most of the things that were firing them in the first place if used right.   The more missiles you had when firing it, the bigger the blast and the more damage it will do.  It'll also clear out lots of destructible blocks in one shot too.

The best thing to do with the Warthog though is to look for items/perks that can somehow give you more missile refills.   For example, my favorite item when using this mech is that one in the sacrifice room that gives you two missiles when you enter a new room.  That's good item on any mech but it's absolutely fantastic on this guy.   There are perks available when levelling up as well that do things like "10% chance of getting a missile when killing an enemy", that sort of thing, those are great too.

Items that increase max missiles are also good. 
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Pepisolo January 18, 2018, 07:46:38 PM
righhhht so (I'm a bit tired right now sorry in advance if I don't explain this correctly) is the warthogs missile launcher meant to use all your missiles in every shot? if so it should probably be mentioned in the description of the mech it self.

Yep, that's its special ability. It might be worth mentioning, yeah. I'll see if we can possibly fit it in.

edit just noticed the weapon descriptions in the menu....I don't remember this being there last I played was this introduced post release of the core game? or is my memory just bad?.
still think it would be sensible to mention the launchers unique property's in the selection screen though I feel it would save people some grief and it don't it would be difficult to do.

That's been there since launch, I'm pretty sure, yeah.

I'm not convinced by its combat worthiness(the launcher it self) either though I think id rather make a separate thread for that after I've put some real time in with it.

It's best for clearing rooms, and also taking down difficult threats. It's not super useful on bosses since it can only take down one phase at a time, but you can use it to skip any problem phases, or just annihilate single phase bosses.

I don't know however if there is a cap to the max damage and explosion radius.

There is a cap, but it's a huge cap that the player will practically probably never hit. I think if you build up to something like 40 max missile capacity, that's the maximum amount of missiles that can be used on one blast. Really at those levels the explosion should probably be clearing floors, heh, but I'm not sure that's a good idea, or even feasible in the engine.

The only problem I have, sometimes the missiles gets blocked by shots, explodes, takes a big amount of the bullets out but does no damage to the boss or enemies behind the bullets.

If the AOE doesn't quite hit the boss then that sounds fine. If that AOE should hit the boss but it doesn't then that might be some kind of bug.
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: TheVampire100 January 18, 2018, 07:59:57 PM
There is a cap, but it's a huge cap that the player will practically probably never hit. I think if you build up to something like 40 max missile capacity, that's the maximum amount of missiles that can be used on one blast. Really at those levels the explosion should probably be clearing floors, heh, but I'm not sure that's a good idea, or even feasible in the engine.
Challenge accepted. Now I will built a max missile capacity build so I can hit the cap.
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: keith.lamothe January 18, 2018, 08:55:58 PM
There is a cap, but it's a huge cap that the player will practically probably never hit. I think if you build up to something like 40 max missile capacity, that's the maximum amount of missiles that can be used on one blast. Really at those levels the explosion should probably be clearing floors, heh, but I'm not sure that's a good idea, or even feasible in the engine.
At 42 it should switch in the old version of the Epic Siege's Plasma Cannon from Bionic. With all possible aoe-size buffs.

That cleared floors.
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Misery January 19, 2018, 05:18:51 AM
Before I forget:  The Meteor Hammer module, some really weird stuff happens if the thing hits a vent or whatever those things are called.

I don't know if that's a "bug" really or just a bizarre interaction, but wanted to mention it before I forget.
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Pepisolo January 19, 2018, 10:16:20 AM
Challenge accepted. Now I will built a max missile capacity build so I can hit the cap.

That will certainly be a challenge! You should be able to get into the 20s easily enough. I think getting 40, or whatever the cap is, I think it's 40, will rely on certain items dropping, though. For example, you'd have to get More Munitions and Manifold Munitions.

At 42 it should switch in the old version of the Epic Siege's Plasma Cannon from Bionic. With all possible aoe-size buffs.

That cleared floors.

That sounds like fun! :) I actually quite like the idea of stuff like this, do X and then certain weapons power up to some other weapon. Stuff like that.

Before I forget:  The Meteor Hammer module, some really weird stuff happens if the thing hits a vent or whatever those things are called.

I don't know if that's a "bug" really or just a bizarre interaction, but wanted to mention it before I forget.

Hmmm, I'm not sure. I don't think I've seen that before. Hopefully it's just an odd cosmetic thing that doesn't really matter than much. I'll look out for it, though.
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: crazyroosterman January 19, 2018, 04:03:13 PM
forgot I made that post btw I've changed my mind about that launcher I still don't like but I don't think its ACTUALY bad in any way it just doesn't jell with what I like to use missiles for (breaking those hardened blocks and interrupting boss bullet patterns when I'm feeling over whelmed)
same for most of its kit really the shotguns fantastic but I just prefer the way faster firing weaponry feels In this game over all. 

I'm really not convinced by the turrets though they felt really underpowered to me in my last session
haven't realy done any toying around with the fact they block bullets though might end up changing my mind on them as well if that functionality works well for me.
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Logorouge January 19, 2018, 09:13:26 PM
Before I forget:  The Meteor Hammer module, some really weird stuff happens if the thing hits a vent or whatever those things are called.

I don't know if that's a "bug" really or just a bizarre interaction, but wanted to mention it before I forget.
It's a weird-looking interaction but it's normal. The vents send the different parts of the hammer to random vents (like usual) and the hammer returns to the user no matter what, resulting in a chaotic display.
___

I had a bit of feedback and suggestions:

-Mystery Missile Crate/Used Battery/Random Buffet: Don't work with Redshift. Timing problem?

-Rogue Communicator: The size of the explosions is a bit small.

-Random Buffet pickup: Remove empty stats space.

-Flux capacitor pickup: Remove empty stats space too.

-Reflex Amplifier pickup: Remove irrelevant stats display.

-Spike Switch: That new art looks like something I'd want to activate. It's perfect.

-Defense leecher pad: Also like the new look.

-QuadPuzzle room: It auto-resolved? Don't know why.

-Crystal Beamer: Cost, 60 -> 70cr. It's just that good.

-Jump or Jumprope room: Square -> SquareNE. More variety for SquareNE, less repetition for Square. It's win-win.

-Armada (secondary): The flight sfx of the bulletships seems unnecessary and quickly leads to sound silencing.

-Paladin mech: Both the blade and the shield are wonderful to use now. Great (future) update. But the projectile part going through walls feels like overkill, even though it makes sense thematically.
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Pepisolo January 20, 2018, 12:28:11 PM
-Mystery Missile Crate/Used Battery/Random Buffet: Don't work with Redshift. Timing problem?

Ouch, those Red Shift edge case problems can be pretty tricksy to fix...but fortunately, I seem to have found a solution. The solution is not super ideal, as you will have to progress time for the buffs to kick in, but they work at least. So we currently have the health buff that kicks in immediately, the other buffs need to have time progressed to for them to kick in. Plus, the nicety of filling the energy tank when you get an energy buff doesn't work correctly, but these are such minor issues for such a crazy mech that things are just about fine -- messing with time can cause weird things to happen I guess!

-Rogue Communicator: The size of the explosions is a bit small.

I'll leave this for Goldenwolf to take a look at.

-Random Buffet pickup: Remove empty stats space.

-Flux capacitor pickup: Remove empty stats space too.

Yeah, I'm not actually sure we can remove those without engine work (investigates)... actually we can, phew. Basically, rather than using on_pickup_grants_ship_system you need to use <modifier target="OnPickupGrantToPlayer" type="TemporarilyGrantSystem" />. Systems that use on_pickup_grants_ship_system are treated as weapons, which always have a stat block. Or something like that! Anyway...fixed! :)

-Reflex Amplifier pickup: Remove irrelevant stats display.

Fixed, thanks!

-Spike Switch: That new art looks like something I'd want to activate. It's perfect.

-Defense leecher pad: Also like the new look.

Nice!

-QuadPuzzle room: It auto-resolved? Don't know why.

I think I've fixed this, but it's super awkward to test, so I'll just leave my fix in and hope that it works, which it probably should.

-Crystal Beamer: Cost, 60 -> 70cr. It's just that good.

Changed, thanks. Feel free to make any credit cost adjustments your self, as I only did one pass on the costs, and any changes you want to make will probably be good.

-Jump or Jumprope room: Square -> SquareNE. More variety for SquareNE, less repetition for Square. It's win-win.

Change those from being in Square to being in SquareNE? Seems good, I don't think Draco will mind if I change that. Fixed!

-Armada (secondary): The flight sfx of the bulletships seems unnecessary and quickly leads to sound silencing.

I haven't noticed any problems with that, but if it's causing sound to cut out then, yeah, I'll remove it. Cheers!

-Paladin mech: Both the blade and the shield are wonderful to use now. Great (future) update. But the projectile part going through walls feels like overkill, even though it makes sense thematically.

I think that removing the ignoring walls is going to complicate the implementation a bit more which will cause some extra work. If it's really too much then we can look into removing it, but there aren't any mechs that start with a weapon that ignores walls so it seems like an interesting thing for the Paladin. Plus, the phantom blade projectile is actually one of the weakest starting main weapons, I think, (if you don't use it to melee with) so if a mech starting with an ignores all walls weapon is going to work, then it's most likely to work for the Paladin.  So, perhaps we'll give it a bit more testing time?

Thanks for the feedback! Oh, I'll commit these changes to SVN pretty soon, probably. :)
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Logorouge January 20, 2018, 01:21:17 PM
[...]
Jump rooms: Just one of them is to transfer actually, for a nice spread of puzzle rooms.

RedShift: I think your fix sounds perfectly reasonable. I doubt anyone will mind that you to let a moment pass for the effect to kick in. It's similar to chests, so Redshift players should be pretty used to it.

Paladin: You're right. More testing time would be good.

Thanks Pepisolo!
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Pepisolo January 20, 2018, 06:17:48 PM
Jump rooms: Just one of them is to transfer actually, for a nice spread of puzzle rooms.

Doh! I moved both over. I'll move one back then! :)

Yeah, that Redshift fix should be fine. Making a better fix than that would probably require engine work, but it's not really worth it for a fairly trivial edge case problem.
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Whistler January 22, 2018, 01:13:57 AM
A few more comments:

- Good to hear about the paladin rework!

- Agree about the crystal drones. Their ability to destroy missile blocks/ignore enemy shot blocking is quite powerful. The white drone is also described as "green crystal beamer" in the shop.

- In the 1.800 version Paragon's main pattern (blue-white stream) only partially appears. This could be my machine as I have the same problem with the last phase of Crystal Mother, where the green part of the pattern only sometimes appears.

- Firefly pistol's range is surprising long and has the same range as sniper rifles. Thematically it feels like it should have standard range.

- Flamehose (secondary) could use a slight increase in energy cost.

- Incidentally, is there a reason why so many of the weapons have a small knockback?

- Shadowfang (sacrifice). Description suggests there is a penalty for missing, but no damage is taken. Also has the same lunge issue as the paladin sword.

- Slime pump leaves a really bright green residue. Could the colour be toned down a little? Felt like I was painting the floor. (May have been plague pistol -- I can't remember).

- X4 burstomatic (main weapon, vanilla) -- feels a little powerful for something that can appear on level 1.

- Warhog + Large and in charge is huge! (and slow). Might be amusing to have an achievement for this :)

Overall, having fun and still haven't seen all the new stuff!
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Logorouge January 22, 2018, 08:28:54 AM
- In the 1.800 version Paragon's main pattern (blue-white stream) only partially appears. This could be my machine as I have the same problem with the last phase of Crystal Mother, where the green part of the pattern only sometimes appears.
Me too. Although the partial Paragon attack only started recently, I always had that problem with Crystal Mother. No clue why.

- Shadowfang (sacrifice). Description suggests there is a penalty for missing, but no damage is taken. Also has the same lunge issue as the paladin sword.
That one is a bit more subtle. To test it, throw it in the middle of an empty room and be ready to dodge.
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Pepisolo January 22, 2018, 10:32:01 AM
- Agree about the crystal drones. Their ability to destroy missile blocks/ignore enemy shot blocking is quite powerful. The white drone is also described as "green crystal beamer" in the shop.

I could've sworn I'd fixed that but checking again, it seems I didn't. Strange, oh well, its fixed now.

In the 1.800 version Paragon's main pattern (blue-white stream) only partially appears. This could be my machine as I have the same problem with the last phase of Crystal Mother, where the green part of the pattern only sometimes appears.

It seems fine on my PC. That might require a fair bit of investigation, so I'm not sure if we can fix that soon. Seems performance related, so it probably only affects certain setups.

- Firefly pistol's range is surprising long and has the same range as sniper rifles. Thematically it feels like it should have standard range.

Good point, Goldenwolf has reduced the range on that a bit, thanks.

- Flamehose (secondary) could use a slight increase in energy cost.

Hmmm, it's actually a bit weird for me to up the cost on that since it's currently at a cost of 1, and it's probably best to avoid using decimals for energy cost. So, I can only really up the cost to 2, which would presumably be too much of a nerf. Reducing the power of each shot from 4 to 3 is an option.

- Incidentally, is there a reason why so many of the weapons have a small knockback?

It's mostly for the feel of impact.

- Slime pump leaves a really bright green residue. Could the colour be toned down a little? Felt like I was painting the floor. (May have been plague pistol -- I can't remember).

Although the colour hasn't changed on the Slimp Pump, Goldenwolf has changed the particle on that a bit, thanks.

X4 burstomatic (main weapon, vanilla) -- feels a little powerful for something that can appear on level 1.

Actually, looking at the damage on that, it seems perfectly in line with the general Tier 1 level -- the problem might be that the stats are set wrong, so it's actually damage 4 and not damage 6. So, I've fixed that, thanks!

- Warhog + Large and in charge is huge! (and slow). Might be amusing to have an achievement for this :)

Interesting! I haven't seen that combination. Achievements are actually a super pain to code in, especially as the team only has limited coding ability, so we probably won't be doing much in terms of new achievements, as cool as that particular one might be. Drat!
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: crazyroosterman January 22, 2018, 11:43:33 AM
is it intended for the 2 way missile module to not set of the ,do not use missiles in till you leave this floor for reward, opportunity?. 
I think its fine if it is since there just straight damage and don't do any of the things I actually like to use missiles for.

also I've been wondering I'm on that gold floor I mentioned on mantis (the save puts me back at the start of floor (: ) and I've been wondering if your meant to get gold floors at any persifick floor level normally? as in you cant get one in till floor 3 or you can only get one between floor 3 and 5 ect ect more so I know how to look at them balance wise than anything.
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Logorouge January 22, 2018, 01:09:43 PM
is it intended for the 2 way missile module to not set of the ,do not use missiles in till you leave this floor for reward, opportunity?. 
I think its fine if it is since there just straight damage and don't do any of the things I actually like to use missiles for.
That's intended. The "no missile" probation only apply to launchers aka weapons that spend missile ammo, same as the missile damage boosts.

[...] I've been wondering if your meant to get gold floors at any persifick floor level normally? as in you cant get one in till floor 3 or you can only get one between floor 3 and 5 ect ect more so I know how to look at them balance wise than anything.
You can't get a gold floor on the 1st floor. That's the only restriction per say. Otherwise, it's just a % chance that the next floor will be golden.
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: crazyroosterman January 22, 2018, 02:33:58 PM
is it intended for the 2 way missile module to not set of the ,do not use missiles in till you leave this floor for reward, opportunity?. 
I think its fine if it is since there just straight damage and don't do any of the things I actually like to use missiles for.
That's intended. The "no missile" probation only apply to launchers aka weapons that spend missile ammo, same as the missile damage boosts.

[...] I've been wondering if your meant to get gold floors at any persifick floor level normally? as in you cant get one in till floor 3 or you can only get one between floor 3 and 5 ect ect more so I know how to look at them balance wise than anything.
You can't get a gold floor on the 1st floor. That's the only restriction per say. Otherwise, it's just a % chance that the next floor will be golden.
unless you use the golden ticket (:
was able to rip through that golden floor without much issue but then maybe the warthog really is just that strong even the turrets which I initaly didn't like can be pretty brutal if you invest in the energy storage to have up to 4 or 5 of them.
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: tombik January 22, 2018, 05:02:49 PM
The latest patch broke the game for me. I got many red lines when the game first loaded, saying things like could not access to nonexistent rooms and such, and when I try to start a game, it got stuck on the `audacity` line.

I am attaching my log file in case it is useful. Since the game did not actually crash, I dont have a crash log.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/09nvqrk9ow3tanh/ArcenDebugLog.txt?dl=0
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Pepisolo January 22, 2018, 06:28:49 PM
Yeah, Chris pushed the build a while back and I didn't check it on Steam for some reason...........doh! I've emailed Chris about it, and hopefully he should be able to fix it soon. Thanks for the report!
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: x4000 January 22, 2018, 06:48:40 PM
Yikes!  I didn't check it either, my bad.  I'm pushing an update right now that should fix it.
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: x4000 January 22, 2018, 07:01:11 PM
The fix is live.  My bad!
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: TheVampire100 January 23, 2018, 03:19:12 AM
Can someone please specify the changes for me?
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: tombik January 23, 2018, 07:56:47 AM
I got a crush on the first floor with my Warhog run. Was attacking some miniboss, when I killed it, I leveled up, and the game crashed.

Here is the crash file.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/zahng2gru937h4k/2018-01-23_134530.zip?dl=0
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Pepisolo January 23, 2018, 07:01:41 PM
Can someone please specify the changes for me?

The changes for the latest patch? Actually it's pretty significant, 3 new enemies and 3 new rooms. The build is in lockdown now for the launch -- which is a bit of a shame as I just realized I forgot a couple of things, but it'll keep. I didn't tweak the description of the Warhog to explain the missile usage of the Cataclysm Launcher...drat!
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: crazyroosterman January 24, 2018, 10:45:59 AM
hey hey I've been running with the paladin for an hour (the majority of my testing's been with the warthog) and I've been thinking that it would be real nice to have the option to make that shield toggle able I get hit all because I'm manovering for shielding but forgetting to hold the button.
do any of you like this idea? or am I in the minority here?.
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: tombik January 24, 2018, 11:57:32 AM
hey hey I've been running with the paladin for an hour (the majority of my testing's been with the warthog) and I've been thinking that it would be real nice to have the option to make that shield toggle able I get hit all because I'm manovering for shielding but forgetting to hold the button.
do any of you like this idea? or am I in the minority here?.

I voted against this in the past, but there was not much debate about it.
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Draco18s January 24, 2018, 08:38:53 PM
- Warhog + Large and in charge is huge! (and slow). Might be amusing to have an achievement for this :)

Interesting! I haven't seen that combination. Achievements are actually a super pain to code in, especially as the team only has limited coding ability, so we probably won't be doing much in terms of new achievements, as cool as that particular one might be. Drat!

I'll start a thread for this. No gurantees on anything, but I'd love to hear suggestions and I can poke my nose in and see what I can accomplish. Large Charge Warthog is certainly amusing (clever name?) and of course, would need art from Blue, which isn't free.
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: windlesszephyr January 24, 2018, 10:18:30 PM
Yo, can I drop crash reports in here?
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Logorouge January 24, 2018, 10:23:00 PM
Yo, can I drop crash reports in here?
Yep. Here is good. Mantis too.
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: windlesszephyr January 24, 2018, 11:14:42 PM
Yep.
Sweet, thank ya. The crash files should be attached here assuming I understand how forums work, and you'll get to see exactly what happened when the video goes live soonish.
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Pepisolo January 25, 2018, 10:53:56 AM
Sweet, thank ya. The crash files should be attached here assuming I understand how forums work, and you'll get to see exactly what happened when the video goes live soonish.

Thanks! I'm super looking forward to the video...although not the crashing bit, of course...drat! We've tried hard to improve the stability of the game, which I believe we have done, but we do still get those occasional crashes. Sorry about that, it's quite a frustrating problem!
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: x4000 January 25, 2018, 11:36:29 AM
Unfortunately when it comes to those crashes, it seems to be something random and internal to unity that we have no way of tracking down.  I've thrown this across their transom a couple of times -- a few other games also get this same crash -- but no response. :/
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Misery January 25, 2018, 12:05:57 PM
Is this sort of thing frequent with Unity in general?

Pretty irritating to see a crash that nobody can do anything about.  I mean, bugs are one thing, gotta expect those, but unfixable bugs, because of the underlying tech?  Ugh.  That seems extra frustrating. 
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: x4000 January 25, 2018, 01:20:53 PM
Is this sort of thing frequent with Unity in general?

No, it's incredibly, incredibly rare.  Out of hundreds of thousands of unity games, it affects a few dozen from the sounds of it.

Pretty irritating to see a crash that nobody can do anything about.  I mean, bugs are one thing, gotta expect those, but unfixable bugs, because of the underlying tech?  Ugh.  That seems extra frustrating.

Yeppers.  I have a feeling that we're actually the ones triggering it SOMEHOW, but there's no way for us to tell how.  It's like if you send a lot of packages through UPS, and everything seems fine most of the time.  But every so often a UPS truck catches on fire, and pretty much ONLY when it's carrying your packages... particularly certain kinds of packages but not always... and the package is something harmless like milk anyway... well, you start to get suspicious.

Why, exactly, do some UPS trucks catch fire when a certain volume of milk is shipped in them?  Why only when I do it?  Is there some trace chemical in my milk jugs?  Don't lots of people ship milk?  I mean, it's not the most common thing to ship, but it's also not that rare.  Also, isn't milk really not supposed to be flammable?  And the fire isn't in the area with the milk anyway?  But no fires if no milk?

*X-files theme plays...*
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Logorouge January 29, 2018, 10:17:56 PM
Facing the Gold Warden on Hard difficulty, the patterns reverted to the regular non-gold Warden attacks. That was weird.
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Draco18s January 30, 2018, 02:06:10 AM
All (non-keycard) containers have contained only health shards.
Which has lead to some silliness (I have 26 health on Easy and two or three sac items and haven't picked up any +hp perks).
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Logorouge January 30, 2018, 07:38:34 AM
All (non-keycard) containers have contained only health shards.
Which has lead to some silliness (I have 26 health on Easy and two or three sac items and haven't picked up any +hp perks).
Without any incredibility involved?
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Draco18s January 30, 2018, 11:50:29 AM
All (non-keycard) containers have contained only health shards.
Which has lead to some silliness (I have 26 health on Easy and two or three sac items and haven't picked up any +hp perks).
Without any incredibility involved?

Oh is that what Life Harvester does. Wow.
Ok.
I picked it up because I didn't like the other two (I rarely play with incredibilities, because I forget they exist a lot) and the description did not tell me a whole lot :D
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: keith.lamothe January 31, 2018, 11:29:47 AM
Neat, I didn't know about that Incredibility. A small mechanical change makes for a very different game.
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Draco18s January 31, 2018, 08:47:16 PM
Neat, I didn't know about that Incredibility. A small mechanical change makes for a very different game.

Its base, there's an achievement for it.
But it sure did make things different.
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Logorouge January 31, 2018, 08:53:09 PM
Now that I think about it, combined with the Healing Shard Refiner it would mean healing pickups galore!
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Draco18s January 31, 2018, 09:13:33 PM
Now that I think about it, combined with the Healing Shard Refiner it would mean healing pickups galore!

50% more shards? I did! #Roulette
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Logorouge January 31, 2018, 09:24:12 PM
Now that I think about it, combined with the Healing Shard Refiner it would mean healing pickups galore!

50% more shards? I did! #Roulette
But what about 50% more shards that also heal you? :)
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Draco18s January 31, 2018, 10:48:17 PM
But what about 50% more shards that also heal you? :)

Bahahaha. Yeah, I didn't need it :D
I had the zombie sac item and it never came up.
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: keith.lamothe January 31, 2018, 11:05:33 PM
Mental images of a player carving through the whole run with a rusty butterknife while wearing cement overshoes, just because the mech had way too much health to ever die.
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Draco18s February 01, 2018, 02:03:33 AM
Mental images of a player carving through the whole run with a rusty butterknife while wearing cement overshoes, just because the mech had way too much health to ever die.
Haha.
Now we need a Rusy Butterknife weapon.

Damage ##
Speed #####
XFactor ##########
+1 health restored on kill
Short dash (like Penumbra's secondary, only half as far).
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: keith.lamothe February 01, 2018, 07:40:55 AM
+1 health restored on kill hit
Fixed that for you.

(after I fixed my knuckle-headed edit-instead-of-quote of your post; been a while since I made that slip)
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Soupinator February 01, 2018, 01:34:26 PM
While I'm not a tester, this seems to be the place for feedback so...

Does anyone else feel like the Banshee challenge room (I think that's what it's called) is absolutely absurdly broken?  Within a couple seconds of entering, literally the entire room is filled with projectiles to a density that's impossible to avoid, the game framerate absolutely tanks, and it's nearly a guaranteed death - I've only made it out of there alive once.
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Draco18s February 01, 2018, 01:49:26 PM
+1 health restored on kill hit
Fixed that for you.

Hehe. :P

(after I fixed my knuckle-headed edit-instead-of-quote of your post; been a while since I made that slip)

No worries, I've done that before on another forum. I wrote some custom CSS on my end to outline the "edit" button in red so I wouldn't be so quick to click it.

Edit:
I took a stab at doing it, but making it a primary weapon is beyond my capabilities, as the main weapon system needs to be "always active" in order to aim (otherwise you can only aim in the direction you're walking) but the dash effect needs to be "only when you fire" or you constantly dash (into the nearest wall) and I don't know how to reconcile that.

Aside from that, it's freaking hilarious.
https://youtu.be/oLiknrR1zAU
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: keith.lamothe February 01, 2018, 02:50:27 PM
I've only made it out of there alive once.
Bug report, someone survived! Crack down!

(just kidding)
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Misery February 01, 2018, 03:41:52 PM
While I'm not a tester, this seems to be the place for feedback so...

Does anyone else feel like the Banshee challenge room (I think that's what it's called) is absolutely absurdly broken?  Within a couple seconds of entering, literally the entire room is filled with projectiles to a density that's impossible to avoid, the game framerate absolutely tanks, and it's nearly a guaranteed death - I've only made it out of there alive once.

Banshees:  Never, ever hit more than one of them at a time.  Concentrate fire on just one, make absolutely sure you're not including another in the attack by accident.  When the thing is about to fire, dash behind it, far as you can go.  DONT attack a banshee that has it's back to a wall (because you wont be able to rush away behind it).   If you use a missile to just as the thing is about to fire... striking it right in the front... you'll actually cancel it's entire attack.

I've been through that room a few times now, never really had any problems with it.  Granted I'm aware I'm an unusual case, but still.... proves that it's possible to do it without getting hit.   Banshees are annoying, but they're not exactly one of the really dangerous enemies in the game.
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Soupinator February 01, 2018, 05:55:42 PM
So they're only supposed to shoot back after you hit them?  I'll have to keep that in mind but I swear they all start firing as soon as I hit one of them, and it's literally just a room full of nothing but projectiles at that point.  The only way I've been able to get through it so far was one run where I was so powerful I could pretty much one-shot them and killed them all within about 2 seconds.
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Draco18s February 01, 2018, 06:05:48 PM
So they're only supposed to shoot back after you hit them?  I'll have to keep that in mind but I swear they all start firing as soon as I hit one of them, and it's literally just a room full of nothing but projectiles at that point.  The only way I've been able to get through it so far was one run where I was so powerful I could pretty much one-shot them and killed them all within about 2 seconds.

Yep, banshees don't do anything until you hit them (and only the one hit starts attacking).
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: ptarth February 01, 2018, 06:33:25 PM
Make it an energy weapon with a very low energy cost?

: Draco18s
I took a stab at doing it, but making it a primary weapon is beyond my capabilities, as the main weapon system needs to be "always active" in order to aim (otherwise you can only aim in the direction you're walking) but the dash effect needs to be "only when you fire" or you constantly dash (into the nearest wall) and I don't know how to reconcile that.

Aside from that, it's freaking hilarious.
https://youtu.be/oLiknrR1zAU
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Draco18s February 01, 2018, 06:38:23 PM
Make it an energy weapon with a very low energy cost?

I mean, I could. Would be easy.
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Draco18s February 01, 2018, 07:22:53 PM
Hum, noticed something else.

The probation items aren't (always?) showing up at the top of the screen when active.

As in, I pick it up and the next never appears.

https://youtu.be/ZwtXP0v4OH0
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Misery February 02, 2018, 04:12:08 PM
Quick thing:  I was watching an LP vid earlier, and the player grabbed the "don't take any damage" probation.  He went into the very next room, which was one of those rooms without enemies but with spikes and turrets, and promptly stomped on a bunch of spikes, taking both shield and HP damage.  The probation condition didn't activate here... it persisted anyway.  In the next room, with actual enemies, it did respond to another hit he took there.

So.... not sure what's up with that.


So they're only supposed to shoot back after you hit them?  I'll have to keep that in mind but I swear they all start firing as soon as I hit one of them, and it's literally just a room full of nothing but projectiles at that point.  The only way I've been able to get through it so far was one run where I was so powerful I could pretty much one-shot them and killed them all within about 2 seconds.

Well, even just one Banshee fires *alot* of bullets and can fill an area with pain.  That's why you have to be so careful with them.  After enough practice, you'll find they're actually not nearly as tough to deal with as they look.... plenty of other enemies are more dangerous.  But their pattern is definitely intimidating.   When it's too much, just remember that a single missile can completely stop it if you hit the bullet that's forming in front of them. 

The biggest risk though is if you have the sort of robot familiar that attacks things automatically.  In any situation with Banshees around, this can set them off when you're not ready.
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: ptarth February 02, 2018, 08:43:52 PM
IIRC 'taking damage' doesn't include collision damage.
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Draco18s February 02, 2018, 09:46:25 PM
IIRC 'taking damage' doesn't include collision damage.

It absolutely does. I took that very same probation in my last run, as Penumbra, and took shield damage for walking on Spikes and it poofed.

Not sure why it didn't poof for that guy...

Something's clearly up with the probation items...
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Soupinator February 02, 2018, 10:03:19 PM
I actually got a perfect on a boss after taking one collision damage from him today.  That was a bit odd.
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Logorouge February 03, 2018, 09:57:57 AM
Hum, noticed something else.

The probation items aren't (always?) showing up at the top of the screen when active.

As in, I pick it up and the next never appears.

https://youtu.be/ZwtXP0v4OH0
Did some investigating and it turns out repeats don't work for probations at the moment. You probably already had that one on a previous floor, so it didn't trigger at all that time. Minor problem, but still a problem.

As for the damage related discussion: Running into an enemy doesn't count, be it for a probation or counter-attack style powers. Stepping on spikes definitely should though.
: Re: Starward Rogue -- AuGMENTED testing feedback thread
: Pepisolo February 03, 2018, 10:56:01 AM
As for the damage related discussion: Running into an enemy doesn't count, be it for a probation or counter-attack style powers. Stepping on spikes definitely should though.

Regarding the damage stuff, that's a longstanding oddity about the engine that it would be nice to correct. For some reason contact damage is treated differently to shot damage, which has caused problems in the past, and which will probably continue to cause problems. If we could make those two damage types be treated the same way, then that should be much better. I can't currently think of a downside to that.