Post by clangmuir in Gameplay Discussion

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Heyo, I can reliably get to the desert. Still haven't hit the winter area.

I'm finding I'm really struggling with the "monsters take multiple hits" thing now. It means my playstyle has changed from very methodical to quite a bit more frenetic. Before, I just had to make sure I'd hit something once, and there was a natural risk-reward relationship with thorns. You have one, it's hard to aim, but if you have many and you fail at aiming and get hit, you lose them all! (which always felt horrible, but it meant you tried to avoid it) So I didn't have to worry about where I need to go next, or the next bit of path, etc. (I pretty much never use any of the other weapons because they're slow, hard to aim effectively, and are usually dangerous to me. I really don't need _more_ hazards.)

But now all these things take multiple hits. The turrets (of all types, it seems) and the shai hulud (yellow worm that follows me), etc. Those taking multiple hits is brutal. I've killed them, but it never feels worth it. It's always a pain the butt, and a waste of seeds.

So it means my play style has moved much more towards checkpoints and rushing strategies. Which works, but it means I often look at multiple hit enemies as almost purely environmental hazards (i.e. something to be avoided) instead of enemies (i.e. something to be defeated)

clangmuir7 years ago

Oh, and the eyes that swipe at you were really tough before, but they reminded me of chests in Dark Souls and Nuclear Throne. Something you had to be vigilant against. Now they seem really easy because it feels like their reach is less (is that true or just me?) and they are super easy to spot.

clangmuir7 years ago

And the curves on the walls feel really bouncy now. Has that changed?

benedictfritz7 years ago

The walls haven't changed in a long time afaik so they should be pretty much the same

clangmuir7 years ago

Is there an other item that uses that A button for an action like the Teleseed? It seems really out of place.

benedictfritz7 years ago

I don't think there is right now, but, I sort of like having that option as another thing we can use to design with. I agree it does feel strange that it's the only one right now

clangmuir7 years ago

I pretty much always use the banker, because I get to the desert pretty much every time, so it's always a good call.

clangmuir7 years ago

After playing for a few hours with monsters having multiple hit points, I gotta say I'm not sure that's a great call.

The game is already _really_ hard, and for non-experts hitting one of the turret or homing monsters with multiple hit points is a guaranteed game over, and that feels really crappy. Part of why I've stuck with the game for so many hours is because I felt like it was possible. I'm not sure I would have felt that way if I was regularly hitting (what appear to the novice to be) game ending moments.

Maybe that should be New Game plus? I'm certainly able to almost beat the game with these multiple-hit monstrosities, but having them be in vanilla is def alienating to people who are still learning the mechanics of a rolly-like.

benedictfritz7 years ago

I think part of the goal of multi-hit enemies is to force players to use seed types besides the defaults, because thorns are explicitly bad against multi-hit enemies. I understand the frustration since I had a similar reaction when they were first added, but once I shifted my play style to be more reliant on non-default seed types it felt like it made sense. But maybe that shift is non-intuitive/unclear?

clangmuir7 years ago

Nono, I think that makes sense and is clear.

And I think you might be right. It's just very jarring to go from "everything is one hit" to "things have hit points". Most players won't have this experience so maybe it's fine. :)

clangmuir7 years ago

So far the only controller throwing frustration from this game is pre-planted vert lasers. NOTHING is as aggravating as being hit by one of those as they enter the screen. No warning, just if you're the unlucky sucker who happened to be going up in line with one, you get hit.

That has ended literally all three of my winter area runs. At least with the rotating turret laser bad guys there's some safe distance. The vert lasers are if you're on screen and they're hitscan damage. Feel impossibly unfair.

benedictfritz7 years ago

Agreed, I think we turned the range way up on them since they felt underpowered for a while, but we changed how their damage works and I think they're preeeetty strong now so I think we can turn down the detection and laser distance

clangmuir7 years ago

The biggest problem is the lack of tell.

If there was a visual pre-laser that took a ~1s to turn into the damaging laser, I would have absolutely no problem with it. But a hitscan weapon with no tell is rage-inducing.

benedictfritz7 years ago

A pre-laser is good idea!

itch.io

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