Not sure due to difficulty adjustment + new way to mix but it's clicked for me.
Game is MUCH more enjoyable now, good shit no glaze.
One bug I've found, not even sure what happened, but I can't shoot, can't change weapon anymore and have to quit the run after killing a bunch of enemies and got hit a bit, other controls like movement and dash still works fine. I don't remember what enemies or what status I got hit with :(
I got the "increase attack speed 200% after received status effect" from the shop, 1 15% not consume stock.
finally the difficulty curve seems more balanced. i like the new enemies, they are much easier to deal with compared to the kamikaze drones, which makes sense when you first start the game the slow mo also greatly helps to make things feel less chaotic i still got smoked by the boss though, but that's on me
But during playing I felt it was an overwhelming amount of variables to try to think about during combat. After 30 minutes of play I still didn't' feel like all the fiddlyness with the elements had a significant payoff. Only made it to the big titty item lady once.
Almost wish the elemental menu was a full pause. Even after playing I'm not sure what element is meant to do what. Standing around and healing with the heal gun feels pretty bad. Why would I want to fire healing shots at the enemy? (if that's even what happens)
My brain will never get used to countering electricity with ice and water with electricity.
The UI for the elements should be arranged like the QWE-ASD keys imo, stacked on top of each other instead of in a line. Unless I'm mistaken, the barrier spell's calculations does not consider current elemental afflictions. So if you're wet and use fire on yourself the barrier breaks leaving you wet because it thinks you are going to be set on fire. Sometimes the melee bots gets confused and stand around, probably happens if their infighting target dies. There's one particular room which is a narrow rectangular box with a stripe of traps in the middle that on the third floor spawns an ungodly amount of turrets, completely packed. It killed a run and almost killed this one. Also the super narrow new one with the exploding bots is a nasty one if you stand to close to where they respawn without noticing. Glad to see that the chasms don't kill you anymore it was a very silly way to lose a run.
I love the new elemental look to the various rooms. The rooms look much more varied now. The cauldrons are a good idea to allow for spell progression. Between them and the challenges it's starting to feel like playstyles differ more between playthroughs. Although it does cause some "wait do I have that in this run?" moments. I know that there's an icon on the bottom left but it's not exactly immediate. I think volatile tar used to be harder to make, now it's much easier to use and combo with fire. The challenge rooms are a nice addition but I only manages to do the water and ice ones, the fire one explodes me instantly. The abyss summoner ability is really good because it zones enemies out and you can time your shot to spawn new one by getting the last hit on enemies inside the whirlpool. It's also really good on the fire boss variant because you can kill its summons in one hit and spawn a bunch of vortexes around it. Also it triggers on steam kills but I think that's intentional. My favorite new thing.
My brain will never get used to countering electricity with ice and water with electricity.
I think water being weak to electricity makes sense, but electricity being weak to ice is very arbitrary indeed. I don't really know how to structure the weaknesses in a fair way otherwise. It would make sense to have each element be both super-effective *and* weak to its counter, e.g. water is weak to electric and electric is weak to water, but wouldn't that simplify things too much? It would also mean that logical counters would no longer work without some sort of pattern breaking: fire wouldn't be weak to water anymore, for once.
Unless I'm mistaken, the barrier spell's calculations does not consider current elemental afflictions. So if you're wet and use fire on yourself the barrier breaks leaving you wet because it thinks you are going to be set on fire.
Yes, this is in fact how it works. I could make it so self-inflicted statuses don't trigger the barrier, but I'm not a fan of breaking generality like this.
[Recipes do] cause some "wait do I have that in this run?" moments. I know that there's an icon on the bottom left but it's not exactly immediate.
Yeah, it's an added cognitive load on the player. I could highlight the player's current recipes in a dedicated UI gizmo, perhaps icons running on the top edge of the screen or next to the alchemy text on the bottom right.
I think volatile tar used to be harder to make, now it's much easier to use and combo with fire.
It is in fact easier to make now, all the special chemicals had their recipes flattened to only use base stuff. I can tweak the numbers a bit on the tar, perhaps make it so it can't self-trigger when an attack has fire + tar, but I don't mind it being powerful. I want the player to have fun.
The chain itself is fine it's just that my brain sees blue and thinks "fire" and then it sees icy white and thinks "fire" and then it sees neutral white and things "fire?" and only one of this is correct and it always throws me off when I see a bunch of blue, white and cyan circles next to each other. Countering blue with purple is not as immediate as countering red with blue. Maybe electricity should be yellow? Please note that it's just my tired brain playing a hard game's hard mode after a long day, it's probably not that big of a deal if a player is paying attention and has a fresh brain.
I could make it so self-inflicted statuses don't trigger the barrier, but I'm not a fan of breaking generality like this.
Applying fire to myself would have resulted in me having no status effect so it felt unintended but if it's working correctly then I see no issue with it, it's just a quirk of the effect that the player can work around if needed.
I could highlight the player's current recipes in a dedicated UI gizmo
My first instinct was to check the almanac, maybe that can have an indicator of what you can currently make. Like a lock icon or something.
Fantastic altogether. UI is great, tutorial explains mechanics perfectly, gameplay loop is solid and I haven't seen a single mistake in generating map. I was pleasantly surprised by friendly fire between enemies, good mechanic, encourages playing with positioning.
Suggestions:
During tutorial I've had trouble telling what things on the ground are meant to be picked up, some shimmer could help.
It might be because I'm fresh off poe, but the game feels extremely slow. In the end of the day it's a personal preference, but damn, it made both combat and exploration feel very sluggish.
Still it's easily one of the best games I've played this DD. (It's the first one, but I'm sure it'll remain at the top)
Thanks for playing and for the kind words! I think I know what you mean by the game being slow, there's a lot of downtime. What do you think would help speed it up? Faster movement speed for both the player and enemies is what first comes to mind for me.
Faster movement for both seems like the best option. But being the roguelike speeding up the tempo of the game could be a bonus mechanic - faster game, greater challenge, greater reward.
movespeed is slower than before, no? feels good either way
the tutorial is much improved i think. no wasted time, and all the needed info is conveyed.
made it to end of floor 2 where i promptly got 2 suicide bombed spawned on top of me, and there was not much left but a fine red mist. the first challenge room on floor 1 (statue room?) gave me a nice fire buff so fire was my bread and butter. those rooms are cool, keep them.
one bug found: rebound Map to N (from M) last DD. now it says its bound to M in the keybind setting - but thats a lie, it's still N
annoyance:
-switching arenas resets you to the scythe, even if you held the gun -not an annoyance and not a bug, but i entered a room with a plus-shaped lava pit, leaving 4 islands to dash to. mostly melee enemies spawned, so i just stood still and shot them as they were all on separate islands. probably make it so that only ranged enemies spawn there? not sure, but while the layout was tough, it didnt lead to any difficulty.
The new tutorial is an improvement since it's shorter and has some enemies to fight. First room has this green static effect that loops forever, Alt-tabbing pauses music as it should but torches still animate and the element bars refill. I feel like the circular robot should have a cap on how many henchmen it can spawn so the player can clear out all of those before fighting that one. Might want to update the shop so that hovering the mouse over something pops up the item description so the player doesn't have to walk over there multiple times.
I closed and opened the game and it works now. It's either an issue with the first boot or it's random. Either way it's worth looking into. Playing on PC btw
Another feedback, I'd make the button to open the map closer to WASD, like C or Z or something. M is pretty out of the way for my left hand on WASD and my right hand on the mouse. Super fun game though, played the first few levels. This is gonna do numbers man.
Comments
Not sure due to difficulty adjustment + new way to mix but it's clicked for me.
Game is MUCH more enjoyable now, good shit no glaze.
One bug I've found, not even sure what happened, but I can't shoot, can't change weapon anymore and have to quit the run after killing a bunch of enemies and got hit a bit, other controls like movement and dash still works fine. I don't remember what enemies or what status I got hit with :(
I got the "increase attack speed 200% after received status effect" from the shop, 1 15% not consume stock.
finally the difficulty curve seems more balanced.
i like the new enemies, they are much easier to deal with compared to the kamikaze drones, which makes sense when you first start the game
the slow mo also greatly helps to make things feel less chaotic
i still got smoked by the boss though, but that's on me
Thanks for playing!
It definitely works, and implemented well.
But during playing I felt it was an overwhelming amount of variables to try to think about during combat. After 30 minutes of play I still didn't' feel like all the fiddlyness with the elements had a significant payoff. Only made it to the big titty item lady once.
Almost wish the elemental menu was a full pause. Even after playing I'm not sure what element is meant to do what. Standing around and healing with the heal gun feels pretty bad. Why would I want to fire healing shots at the enemy? (if that's even what happens)
Thanks for playing!
My brain will never get used to countering electricity with ice and water with electricity.
The UI for the elements should be arranged like the QWE-ASD keys imo, stacked on top of each other instead of in a line.
Unless I'm mistaken, the barrier spell's calculations does not consider current elemental afflictions. So if you're wet and use fire on yourself the barrier breaks leaving you wet because it thinks you are going to be set on fire.
Sometimes the melee bots gets confused and stand around, probably happens if their infighting target dies.
There's one particular room which is a narrow rectangular box with a stripe of traps in the middle that on the third floor spawns an ungodly amount of turrets, completely packed. It killed a run and almost killed this one. Also the super narrow new one with the exploding bots is a nasty one if you stand to close to where they respawn without noticing.
Glad to see that the chasms don't kill you anymore it was a very silly way to lose a run.
I love the new elemental look to the various rooms. The rooms look much more varied now.
The cauldrons are a good idea to allow for spell progression. Between them and the challenges it's starting to feel like playstyles differ more between playthroughs. Although it does cause some "wait do I have that in this run?" moments. I know that there's an icon on the bottom left but it's not exactly immediate.
I think volatile tar used to be harder to make, now it's much easier to use and combo with fire.
The challenge rooms are a nice addition but I only manages to do the water and ice ones, the fire one explodes me instantly.
The abyss summoner ability is really good because it zones enemies out and you can time your shot to spawn new one by getting the last hit on enemies inside the whirlpool. It's also really good on the fire boss variant because you can kill its summons in one hit and spawn a bunch of vortexes around it. Also it triggers on steam kills but I think that's intentional. My favorite new thing.
Anyways, good progress, had fun.
Thanks for playing as always!
I think water being weak to electricity makes sense, but electricity being weak to ice is very arbitrary indeed. I don't really know how to structure the weaknesses in a fair way otherwise. It would make sense to have each element be both super-effective *and* weak to its counter, e.g. water is weak to electric and electric is weak to water, but wouldn't that simplify things too much? It would also mean that logical counters would no longer work without some sort of pattern breaking: fire wouldn't be weak to water anymore, for once.
Yes, this is in fact how it works. I could make it so self-inflicted statuses don't trigger the barrier, but I'm not a fan of breaking generality like this.
Yeah, it's an added cognitive load on the player. I could highlight the player's current recipes in a dedicated UI gizmo, perhaps icons running on the top edge of the screen or next to the alchemy text on the bottom right.
It is in fact easier to make now, all the special chemicals had their recipes flattened to only use base stuff. I can tweak the numbers a bit on the tar, perhaps make it so it can't self-trigger when an attack has fire + tar, but I don't mind it being powerful. I want the player to have fun.
The chain itself is fine it's just that my brain sees blue and thinks "fire" and then it sees icy white and thinks "fire" and then it sees neutral white and things "fire?" and only one of this is correct and it always throws me off when I see a bunch of blue, white and cyan circles next to each other. Countering blue with purple is not as immediate as countering red with blue. Maybe electricity should be yellow?
Please note that it's just my tired brain playing a hard game's hard mode after a long day, it's probably not that big of a deal if a player is paying attention and has a fresh brain.
Applying fire to myself would have resulted in me having no status effect so it felt unintended but if it's working correctly then I see no issue with it, it's just a quirk of the effect that the player can work around if needed.
My first instinct was to check the almanac, maybe that can have an indicator of what you can currently make. Like a lock icon or something.
Fantastic altogether. UI is great, tutorial explains mechanics perfectly, gameplay loop is solid and I haven't seen a single mistake in generating map. I was pleasantly surprised by friendly fire between enemies, good mechanic, encourages playing with positioning.
Suggestions:
During tutorial I've had trouble telling what things on the ground are meant to be picked up, some shimmer could help.
It might be because I'm fresh off poe, but the game feels extremely slow. In the end of the day it's a personal preference, but damn, it made both combat and exploration feel very sluggish.
Still it's easily one of the best games I've played this DD. (It's the first one, but I'm sure it'll remain at the top)
Thanks for playing and for the kind words! I think I know what you mean by the game being slow, there's a lot of downtime. What do you think would help speed it up? Faster movement speed for both the player and enemies is what first comes to mind for me.
Faster movement for both seems like the best option. But being the roguelike speeding up the tempo of the game could be a bonus mechanic - faster game, greater challenge, greater reward.
we cookin
movespeed is slower than before, no? feels good either way
the tutorial is much improved i think. no wasted time, and all the needed info is conveyed.
made it to end of floor 2 where i promptly got 2 suicide bombed spawned on top of me, and there was not much left but a fine red mist. the first challenge room on floor 1 (statue room?) gave me a nice fire buff so fire was my bread and butter. those rooms are cool, keep them.
one bug found: rebound Map to N (from M) last DD. now it says its bound to M in the keybind setting - but thats a lie, it's still N
annoyance:
-switching arenas resets you to the scythe, even if you held the gun
-not an annoyance and not a bug, but i entered a room with a plus-shaped lava pit, leaving 4 islands to dash to. mostly melee enemies spawned, so i just stood still and shot them as they were all on separate islands. probably make it so that only ranged enemies spawn there? not sure, but while the layout was tough, it didnt lead to any difficulty.
keep it up. no thoughts or comments otherwise.
Thanks for playing!
The new tutorial is an improvement since it's shorter and has some enemies to fight. First room has this green static effect that loops forever, Alt-tabbing pauses music as it should but torches still animate and the element bars refill. I feel like the circular robot should have a cap on how many henchmen it can spawn so the player can clear out all of those before fighting that one. Might want to update the shop so that hovering the mouse over something pops up the item description so the player doesn't have to walk over there multiple times.
Thanks for playing! The spawn cap is a good idea with the miniboss, and I'll investigate the green VFX that never goes away.
What's new:
Not sure if this is a bug, but there's no text in any of the menus. I can't figure out what to do. All the UI buttons are blank.
I closed and opened the game and it works now. It's either an issue with the first boot or it's random. Either way it's worth looking into. Playing on PC btw
Another feedback, I'd make the button to open the map closer to WASD, like C or Z or something. M is pretty out of the way for my left hand on WASD and my right hand on the mouse. Super fun game though, played the first few levels. This is gonna do numbers man.
Thanks for playing! I'll try out your mapping suggestion.