I worked out the problem with Mad Forest

[Chesshire]

A lot of people have complained since release that Mad Forest was frustrating. Enemies are too tanky, which means no experience, which means no killing the more tanky enemies. The curve is broken. I worked out why.

Poor enemy variety.

It clicked for me after beating it this morning, and I went to the bestiary to check my theory. Mad Forest has ~11 enemy types. Inlaid Library has around ~16. Gallo Tower has over 20. What does this mean? It means instead of gradually working your way up through incrementally stronger enemies, in Mad Forest you have to pull yourself up a handful of sudden tiers. You start out with bats, zombies, and skeletons, with 5-15 health apiece. Then the game drops you in with the *second* variant of the mudman enemy, with 150 hp. This is of course an event, so you're not meant to kill anything here, just Vampire Survive.

Then you hit the normal first variant of mudmen with...70 hp. Still too much. Then werewolves and giant bats with even more health than the green guys. Where are the enemies you kill in between zombies and mudmen? Well the flower wall guys have 30 hp but since you're not supposed to kill them either, they have that boss ability that levels up their hp. This also becomes a problem in a later wave where the game fills the screen with these and nothing else. You can't kill them then either, so you sit and do nothing for a while.

For sure the game objective here is that you just make it to 15m to unlock the next stage, or 30 to win, but in late game you aren't surviving, you're beating runs hard or losing. This level doesn't play any better in the late game than it does when you're fighting your way up so I imagine a lot of people just avoid it while other levels all get their share of runs.

[Moonbane]

Yes, things goes much smoother once you can chill in the second stage of inlaid library. Mad Forest is just unpleasant with difficulty jumps in the beginning.

[Chesshire]

I realize I forgot to propose the correction, but a glance in the bestiary makes it simple. Add the mummy and the twin snake to Mad Forest somewhere. There's already a big mummy in there, and twin snakes fit it in with the frequent flower wall events, except killable.