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v0.4.0 Initial Reaction - I’m still in the middle of my first Endless run (The Wall) and since I’m sitting in the corner waiting for kills, then collecting experience and repeating… with the wave counter at 62 (so far) I figured I’d take a moment and share my thoughts on the update.

Please note that I’ve only just scratched the surface and this is my second run of the new update. First run was story mode with Maniac, because I wanted to get back into the feel of the game before tackling Endless, but I lost on wave 7 because I derped out and had some terrible RNG on the level ups… more on that below.

1. New Boss is AWESOME - This is exactly what I was hoping for with this update. New boss is much more difficult without being impossible to beat. That shield/barrier is annoying as hell, though. Maybe that’s intentional.

2. Enemy Scaling - I don’t think enemy scaling is working properly. Current damage is 10 and I’m on Wave 62 (30+ minutes into the run) and I’m still one-shotting the weaklings, and 2-3 shotting the ‘tanks’… which feels wrong 30 minutes into a run. More feedback to come when I actually take damage this run.

3. Ricochet is OP - I cannot stress enough how overpowered this effect is for early game. I highly recommend disabling it by default and having it available as a skill to purchase. Same for the other characters’ unique abilities (though Maniac probably needs some rebalancing… more on that later)

4. Ricochet is OP (Part 2) - Yes, this one needed a second bullet point. That’s how strongly I feel about this one. Once you get a couple of upgrades for each ‘path’ of Ricochet… you basically only need to worry about the bosses. But if you are already past both bosses it’s just a question of how long it will take for the enemies to scale up high enough to actually hurt you. (As previously stated, I think the scaling is non-functional in this update) Maybe I just got insanely lucky with the RNG on this run, but I doubt I’d have much trouble playing as The Wall for Story or Endless. Curious what other players think about this, though.

5. Maniac + RNG = Death - I’ll be further testing this, because I like her design and the rotary damage type weapons are among my favorite in this style of game… but so far she feels extremely underpowered. Seems like if you don’t get great RNG for level up rolls you are effectively going to lose regardless of skill. Of course, I will test further… and hopefully ‘git gud’ so I can provide more detailed feedback. (Don’t make any changes based on just what I’ve said here for point #5; I intend to test further and provide more details and more specific opinions about her)

6. Rerolls - The next logical inclusion for this game, in my opinion, is the ability to reroll once per level up. The unique abilities really seem to clog up the works with v0.4.0 and if you are trying to get some specific upgrades early on they can completely screw you over, or so it seems. Most games of this style have some kind of reroll feature and I suggest you start thinking about how you’d like to handle that with your game. My request would be as follows: Once per level up you can reroll and for the early levels (level 9 or below) you are guaranteed not to get any of the same upgrades from the rerolled selection. (For level 10 or above, this guarantee vanishes, because the higher your level, the fewer options will be in the pool)

7. Additional Enemy Types - Love the new boss, but the lack of new ‘mob’ type enemies was a bit disheartening. Especially considering endless games can continue for an hour or more… there really isn’t enough variety in the current version. I’d certainly appreciate some effort (or at least planning) related to new enemy types moving forward.

8. General Balance Changes - Take this one with a grain of salt, as it depends on dozens of variables and facets of gameplay… but right now the game feels like a “one trick pony” and I think one of the best ways to address that would be to slow the game down a bit. Reduce enemy speeds, increase enemy health, reduce overall experience gains (or reduce experience required to level; either or) would be my suggestion at present, but this is a much more general gameplay opinion and could very well be addressed through other changes to the game. It just feels like it’s either impossible (shit RNG) or brain off easy (great RNG) with nothing in between, and that leaves me desperately wishing for change.

9. (EDIT) Maniac still feels way too fast - When I allow my concentration to waver while playing Maniac I find myself slamming into enemies and taking damage that could be easily avoided. Even with no movement speed upgrades I struggle quite a bit with her because of this. Maybe this is a “me” problem, so please wait for additional feedback related to this before making any changes.

Allow me to reiterate: I’m still on my first Endless run, so the opinions shared above reflect only a first look at the new update. As always, I’ll keep playing and try to provide more specific and/or detailed feedback with more time invested.

Thanks for the update! I’m loving it! (I sincerely hope you don’t think otherwise due to my opinions above lol)