The Frozen City.

[fluury]

Has been some time since we talked about stages in general, eh?

The Frozen City has a lot of problems, ranging from somewhat boring/weird level generation to "not really fearsome" enemies and mechanics in general which dont appear to work out at all. Currently I'd call it okay at best, and compared to the scrapyard it is probably a lot easier.

We have three Enemies in the Frozen City :

The Robot Wolf.

First of all, why are their shots 100% accurate? They are constantly jumping up and down and can actually fire very quickly yet their shots are 100% accurate. They also appear to be in a need of minimum-attack range due to the player being able to take 5 damage in less of a second by them if they are close.

Another thing is their movement in general, it is very, well, weird. They kinda ping pong up and down from walls which not only looks very odd (especially in these corridors which you constantly have in the frozen city)

The Snowbot.

Possibly the most common and most annoying, as I already stated in other threads they can attack through lil gaps of walls (the ones where you can shoot bullets and bolts through) and are just really really weird. They apparently can see me through walls, because many times I have a situation like this :

http://puu.sh/j8Wip/241f330677.png

Where they just constantly charge against the wall. Oh right, they also charge against stuff they cant get through. Like one-tile ways.

I guess you could fix this by allowing them to destroy tiles on charge but eehhhh.

Their Charge being cheap and all got fixed with the the contact damage change, so no problems with that.

The Snowtank.

A.k.a walking ammo chest which sometimes shoots you. This enemy is no threat at all, maybe if you ignore it for, well, a long time, but usually you can chill with it and it does really nothing.

They should be a tad more aggressive, so they can actually be called an enemy.

General question : Back then I remember there being a tweet about Vlambeer saying that they are planning on adding another enemy to the frozen city : What happend to that?

Then there is the, cough, "treat" of ice. Which basically makes no difference at all, sadly. They dont effect the movement in a very big way, and do, well, not a lot of anything.

The major problem : The level generation.

As it has been talked about for several times now, I'd call it the worst and most boring one. Not only does it work against the enemies in the area (since all of them work out the best in open field) but its also simply boring. Long corridors, a H room, six dots room, corridor, very big open square area, corridor. I know its a city, but being heavily cramped is not a lot of fun if you ask me.

I'd really love to see an experiement which is having the frozen city have the generation of the scrapyard, how much more difficult and interesting would it be with that one? We'll prolly never find out.

Also : Visual indication that we are in an actual city. Maybe its just me but, maybe it would be nice to change the outer-wall-tiles to have something like roofs so the player actually knows that they are in a city and not in some wasteland which it sometimes feels like.

The Palace problems are coming up soon, toh.

[Cmerecupcake]

Good post. My dislike for the frozen city comes primarily from snowbots. I actually like the wolves, but yeah they have pretty insane accuracy. The tanks are beefy enough to be a distraction, but as they are they aren't very aggro. They can kill you easily if they target you while you are pinned down, but generally prefer to walk around. In fact, everything in this level goes from completely non-threatening to totally destroying you in a few seconds. If your weapons don't consistently 1 shot the wolves or bots at this point, you're going to have a tough time. Adversely, if you have decent gear this stage is a total cakewalk- other than lil hunter.

[Solo Death]

I agree with every point in this post. The frozen city is probably my least favorite area in the game, currently. It's way too easy, it's boring looking, and the ice... well it exists. Also i dislike the boss for varying reasons, which only makes the place worse, but that's a topic for another thread.

[Boss Cipher%]

Agree with everything here and lets all agree with this....the long corridos are never fun,ESPECIALLY WHEN THERE ARE SNOW BOTS AT THE OTHER SIDE SHOOTING INCREDIBLY ACCURATE SHOTS AT YOU AND ALL YOU CANNOT EVEN DO MUCH.....god,that is like in my top 3 most hated things in this game...

[Solo Death]

Originally posted by Boss:

Agree with everything here and lets all agree with this....the long corridos are never fun,ESPECIALLY WHEN THERE ARE SNOW BOTS AT THE OTHER SIDE SHOOTING INCREDIBLY ACCURATE SHOTS AT YOU AND ALL YOU CANNOT EVEN DO MUCH.....god,that is like in my top 3 most hated things in this game...

Even better when it's a sniper shooting at you from 2 miles away during a loop. I've lost a couple of good runs cause of this stuff, so I completely get where you're coming from.

[Boss Cipher%]

The day the frozen city level regeneration gets changed and has no more such tight spaces and long corridors,is the day i will dance like there is no tomorrow.

[Yowaiko]

JW said something about how he hates the dogs with a fiery passion. Personally I think ice should stay (sliding cars, rare as they may be, are fun), but certantly shouldn't be the only trap.

The good ol' tile that stabs you if you stand on it for too long always works. Perhaps a variant that can still damage you for a bit after activation, keeping the player moving but forcing them to think about their movements. Like that game about that snake.

[stereobub]

I'll just drop a +1 to basically everything you said.

+1.

[Golden Boi]

Don't have a problem with it currently, but I agree that it should look more like a city.

[MimicMachine]

First I would like to say Flurry you never finished your thought on the wolves so I would like to see what you were going to say. (in the OP you stopped in the middle of your thought)

now back to the topic I think the wolves would actually be more of a threat if they had less of a spread on their shots and if they shot at you but slightly off. the bouncing is a littke strange but I've no clue what to change on that.

I agree that the snowbots should just break walls like Big Bandit (more so now that the contact damage is better now)

Snow Tanks aren't a threat ever and even if they shoot you only have a problem if you are right next to them or in a dead end in a tiny corrider (I've yet to see this happen). if they shot a little sooner and maybe instead of a beam like shoot change it too a circle burst (with small openings to dodge of course).

[splendid ledraps]

Just a pointer, JW said the Frozen City algorithm [for level gen] is changing next update or soon.

I think an enemy that's 100 percent accurate is fine. They got slow moving projectiles. Let them be, although their movement is just messy and annoying.

Snow bots dont feel like they even charge, rather they are just magnets to the player.

[Sentinel Greg]

Level Gen is an issue, although it can play out to be pretty interesting.
I think JW was originally going for an are composed of grids and straight-ways. Then he added the snow-bots to be an enemy to own those straightways. To be caught in a hallway with one is dangerous. But since they charge you, you can just fire straight down the hallway.

Snow tanks are supposed to make open areas dangerous, but they don't.

What about an enemy that fires a big stream of bullets in a wide, straight line? To be caught in a hallway with on of those is TRULY dangerous. Mini throne beams.

[iznaroth?]

A few ideas. Yell angrily at me if they're terrible

-A trap for the area. Something like flame turrets that limits mobility and makes the level less easy to navigate.

- A new enemy. Literally got no clue on what it could be. In planned features on wiki it says New enemy type added to Frozen City, so soon.

-(mentioned before) something new or just change the snow-tanks to shoot a beam, like a throne-beam or a laser for continuous damage to make it more risky to run around as much as you want.

-Decrease snow-wolf accuracy but make them fire *slightly* more (no smg ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥)

-Snow-wolf movement change

-snowbots are slightly more inclined to throw cars, but make a rather obvious noise a few seconds before, so if they're offscreen it becomes obvious.

-soda machine actually does something (saw a soda-gun design in one thread, unique drop?)

-Lil hunter has some affiliation with the IDPD, so some changes to them / unique units while they're in the city?

-Some change to background tiles and such, looks less like a city and more like a barren tundra.

-fix the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ snowbot hitbox like jesus it's the only broken one in the entire game

-snowtanks have a MUCH higher inclination to shoot

-give all the idpd fuzzy coats when in frozen city

-!!!! change the generation algorithm. Even with a large overhaul to the enemies, their design just isn't challenging when put up with the tight corridors and tiny rooms. The times that I genuinely have a problem with the City are when I spawn in huge open rooms, or lil hunter.

-

quote from wiki, not sure which dev - "Everything beyond 2_1 is considered very much early iteration."; "We'll change the frequency of the enemies and traps. In others, we'll tweak the generation algorithm. We might add or remove enemy types in certain areas, create all-new enemies or tweak other values. We've got some plans for the future regarding the graphics, too, but we haven't locked them down yet. Basically, the game will look very, very close to what it looks like now on release."

Even though rami hints at an upcoming release, still looks like we need some big updates before that's gonna happen.

[mad rad rat lad]

I don't like the snowbots because they're boring 90% of the time. They're the alligators in sewers. They have a 90% chance to sit around and do nothing and a 10% chance to go beserk and attack you. But you get so used to them never charging that they just become another boring enemy.

I feel like a huge opportunity is missed with the wolves. It would've been cool to experiment with a pack of them that work as a team and are more actively aggressive, albeit with no shooting stuff. Just to see how that kind of thing would work.

Snowtanks have the same issues as the snowbots.

[Sentinel Greg]

Originally posted by The Guy:

I feel like a huge opportunity is missed with the wolves. It would've been cool to experiment with a pack of them that work as a team and are more actively aggressive, albeit with no shooting stuff. Just to see how that kind of thing would work.

Great Idea. It could mimic some of the Bandit AI (the more bandits in an area, the more aggressive each one is.)

Maybe take out the shooting, give them AI that tries to group up. If one sees the player, they all try to make their way to the player, and maybe have a crystal spider like attack pattern, but also try to surround the player.

That could really make crossbows and sluggers less overpowered in those situations. Obviously the level gen might need to be changed up for this to work.

[silentdusk]

Originally posted by toaster profit margin:

A few ideas. Yell angrily at me if they're terrible

-A trap for the area. Something like flame turrets that limits mobility and makes the level less easy to navigate.

- A new enemy. Literally got no clue on what it could be. In planned features on wiki it says New enemy type added to Frozen City, so soon.

-Lil hunter has some affiliation with the IDPD, so some changes to them / unique units while they're in the city?

-Some change to background tiles and such, looks less like a city and more like a barren tundra.

-give all the idpd fuzzy coats when in frozen city

New Enemy: Recon I.D.P.D

Basically the enemy would be an upgraded sniper that shoots one fast accurate heavy bullet, and can lay mines that only the player can trigger. The main catch being that the enemy would be invisible until it shoots. JW brought up an invisible sniper character before, and I think that would be a great addition although, im not sure if the sniper being an I.D.P.D would break lore.