So I've done a Weapon Jam Zealot run...

[Hydremajor117]

Having had some time to let things sit and organize my thoughts here's my opinion on thoses


First up weapon jam, how it works and you:
Weapon jam is pretty simple, guns get a health bar (in this case a percentage), each shot you take decreases that percentage, for context: Auto-rifle drops 1% per 5 shots
most guns obey that rule with a few exceptions

Whalegun: drops HP faster than average at 1% per 1 or 2 shots
SMG: drops HP slower at 3% or so per FULL CLIP

note: secondary firing modes using energy cells (Bombast Laser and Chaingun Flamer) DOES NOT drain weapon HP, while secondary firing modes using grenades DO drain weapon HP

Energy weapons such as the Zeus and the Redeemer have unlimited weapon HP to compensate for the fact their ammo is exceedingly rare outside the shop and prohibitively expensive to puchase...

Next, automatic weapons can experience "failure" in that they can lock up with every single shot taken , a personnal suspicion of mine is that the lower the HP of the gun, the more likely you are to proc a failure...
(Post Scriptum: the game considers the Shockhammer as capable of failure and it can happen though it is VERY unlikely)

To fix a failure, simply hit the reload key and your character will ♥♥♥♥ the gun after wich you can resume firing, it takes a single second but when you are under fire from a boss it CAN make you a bit anxious

WARNING: Failure can occur at every single shot you take, this means the shot you take right after fixing a failure may proc ANOTHER FAILURE (happened to me on Vekktra of all places) though it is rare that this happens

and finally "what happens when your gun's HP reaches 0 ?"
your character quite simply ditches the gun at the last second after wich you see the gun drop to the ground before "exploding" and despawning, I like to refer to that as "Total Failure"

upon reaching zero the gun sprite "may" be replaced by a "explosion" animation that may impair visibility a split second or so (not sure)


Secondly, Zealot difficulty:
its really not that complicated, ennemies hit REALLY FRIGGIN' HARD !

A single auto-rifle burst from a soldier (5 shots or so) can bring you from 24 ~ 23 health to around 3 or 5...
you'll get the same result from say, a full volley from a Guard's shotgun or a Penitent's grenades/Kamikaze attack.

Healing that damage will take anywhere between 2 or 3 bloodpacks.

while not horribly taxing, the fact just about any ennemy can do this to you can rapidly deplete your reserves.

To counter this the player should focus bringing down ennemies one by one as fast as possible , making full use of corners and chokepoints.

While ennemies don't fight between themselves should they hit eachother they also don't damage eachother but their projectiles also won't just phase through ennemies in their way.

The added damage they have however DOES play against you when needing to use the rocket launcher, rockets being as large and slow as they are, it won't be uncommon for them to get shot down by mechs and tanks trying to get at you, in thses situations popping a O2 slo-mo and sprint-jumping sideways prior to sending out a volley of rockets may improve your chances of hitting your target significantly ...

Bosses are a little different in that their damage output makes it a bit of "Red light/Green light" sort of game, Harkonnen for example will pound you flat in less than a second should its barrage catch you, using the Chaingun to stunlock them out of using their full fire rate will be your best chance, however stopping them from attacking completely is impossible plus your chaingun's durability and clips aren't endless, eventually you'll need to reload, during wich you'll get a choice between:

Reloading and focus on avoiding oncoming fire during that

or

Switch to another weapon and hope its clip will be enough to bring down the boss BEFORE you wind up with multiple guns needing to be reloaded

Gaussia's boss fight is here solely to punish you for not having the O2 slomo, I don't care what anyone says, fighting a boss spewing that many projectiles in THAT cramped an arena WILL make you have a bad time regardless of how "OP" you think you are

Kronne's grenade dischargers are also a huge threat, though he IS capable of killing himself with them however thats assuming you survive the explosions yourself and the arena isn't exactly what I'd call "spacious"....


and with that I think I covered both of thoses points pretty well....
next what I'd like to see happen:


first regarding weapon jamming: it could use having the weapon HP decay rate being doubled, and even so it would still be plentiful with weapon spares....

now assuming the Dev implements my idea for Crusader and Angel modes then that would be a bit on the SPICY side of things but I believe still manageable should the removed pickups be replaced with 10 gold pickups

the Weapon Jam we have right now is a great way to get introduced to the game mechanic and learn by ourselves how it works without too much strife involved, however should someone want a truly miserable time playing through, weapon jam won't be giving them that as weapon spares are handed out almost every level, actually breaking a weapon from overuse requires you to go out of your way to do it

secondly: the kick
PLEASE give me the ability to channel my inner captain tsubasa and punt grenades right back at Penitents like they are rockets, we can already kick thrown axes and BULLETS out of the air and weaponize beheaded penitents as makeshift grenades, I WISH TO COMMIT TO MY STUPIDITY...


and I think thats about it, sorry about writting a short essay about it but its rare for me to enjoy my time with a game nowadays and felt like expressing my enthusiasm....

[Galerina]

Quality post.