Assuming the disc is the one that has the red shooters making said road...I dunno, I find it so much easier taking him from outside the road or from the front (it's remarkably easy to stay between his purple shots so long as you stay away from him). I've been able to manage them a bit better now, though I have to admit, I still don't like the shump still. It doesn't feel right in TLF at all. And I can't tank shots from these guys at all, I'm only playing on Normal and most of them take my entire shield away with one hit ._.
Except the guy who shoots out lines of shots that go at right-angles. Him I like.
Definitely would like it better if the Obscura were barred from tech, though they aren't advancing very fast at all in my current game. But given that the battles are half the draw of the game and are essentially knocked out entirely, leaving just the mildly boring "wait x time until thing y is complete"...dunno. So far I'm liking the Betrayal more, and that has saddened me with it's winning being borked XD But beta is beta, so I am waiting happily for that one to be fixed :3
Ehhh? Hm, the Disc, taking him out like that actually isnt supposed to work.... but I'll worry about that later.
As far as tanking shots... uhh... if you're on Normal, most of those actually SHOULDNT be dealing that much damage to you. Not "erase your shields with a single bullet" type damage. Not close to that. I can tank some even on Misery, which is why I say that, and I rarely power my shields more than halfway. I cant imagine which shots OTHER than the Disc's purple lawnmower shots would do such amazing damage. Note that I'm not saying "tanking 30 shots shouldnt do much", but just tanking one, from the Obscura as a whole, shouldnt have that effect.
If you can figure out a specific one that appears to be causing this issue the most, I can look into it. But it shouldnt be happening at all.... But yeah, if there's really specific problems with some of them that you can think of, feedback on that can really help alot.
As far as them having the wrong feel.... honestly, I have to disagree (and not because I made them). Typically when playing the base game, it could get just like this. The Obscura use so many bullets as a way to compensate for the fact that unlike all the others, they cannot summon squadrons of ships to help them out. For other races, they can still generate 10 bazillion shots as it is. Based on the way the whole battle system works, increasing the number of bullets *is* the way to increase difficulty. Expert or Misery VS Normal, for instance. Aggro ranges on every enemy, on those two, are much larger than on Normal. Quite alot larger. So alot more enemies will be firing at once, because alot more of them will be aggroed at once. This makes for ALOT of bullets. Tons. Everywhere. I could dredge up screenshots where the screen is seriously drenched in bullets. And I can get into Obscura fights that actually dont contain as many as that, even with more than one of those guys at a time. That's one of the reasons why I got into this game so much, was because it could create those awesome bullet-hell situations just via the RNG alone. And then it adds all the tactical abilities and strategy and such on top of that.
And one way or another... these guys really are just meant to be that much more difficult.
That all being said, this mode isnt going to be for everyone. Definitely not. But as with Arcen's other games, there's a bunch of different modes and options, and of course you always have auto-resolve.
And the feedback always helps regardless, too.
....HOWEVER, I do think the option to lower the amount of Obscura that appear per fight on average might be a good idea. 5 at once is fine for me, but can seem overwhelming to others. A "weaker fleet" option that can be chosen at start, maybe? Hmm.
Or an "easier patterns" mode.... hmm. Typically in shmups, lower difficulties will have the same patterns, but made up of less bullets to allow for more room, and often a little slower. Same neat attacks, but a bit less complexity. Theoretically, it's possible that I could make versions of each Obscura ship that adhere to that rule, if the devs were to want to add in such a mode, which'd probably be easy for them to do, but..... arrrgh, that wouldnt be a quick process, or simple to do. Well, no, it wouldnt take THAT long, it's all about numbers, not remaking the blasted things.... but I'll wait and see what they think though. It might actually be a good idea.