+ THE GREAT BALANCE CONVERSATION +

[Pixeljam Games]

Discuss the eternal struggle of nerfs and buffs here.

[Kago]

Highest I've made is to about day 25. I reckon the arc flail needs a bit of buffing, just feels near pointless in the later days, I'd also say turrets need a bit more health, they nearly insta-die on 20+ days. I could be wrong, but I'm only finding long-term success upgrading the primary gun and nukes.

[herbert]

Originally posted by IrishmenS3:

Highest I've made is to about day 25. I reckon the arc flail needs a bit of buffing, just feels near pointless in the later days, I'd also say turrets need a bit more health, they nearly insta-die on 20+ days. I could be wrong, but I'm only finding long-term success upgrading the primary gun and nukes.

what score did you get on day 25?
for that matter, is there a place i can see what day i ended on? I only see my high score

[Exvhius]

Originally posted by IrishmenS3:

Highest I've made is to about day 25. I reckon the arc flail needs a bit of buffing, just feels near pointless in the later days, I'd also say turrets need a bit more health, they nearly insta-die on 20+ days. I could be wrong, but I'm only finding long-term success upgrading the primary gun and nukes.

This sums up a lot of my feelings on the matter of balance.
After getting a couple of late runs, I'm inclined to believe that everything starts to fall off once you get to that point. If you're not running Hermit Protocol, arc flail's kind of just a projectile zapper. If you are, you have to keep flares up as often as you can to avoid having it get overwhelmed by there being Just Too Many Things.
Focusing on upgrading the primary gun seems to be the most consistent for me - which I suppose makes sense, given it's your primary gun. It would be nice to be able to more fully put the sub-weapons into the spotlight of a build from the get-go, but I think that degree of specialization is something that'll come naturally over time as more upgrade groups are made.
100% agree with the turrets - them dying in 1-2 hits from just about anything makes them feel like an "I mean I don't want the other things on offer, so..." choice. The doubled rebuild time on the turret upgrades definitely aren't done any favors with their fragility.

[rwb36]

My first non-demo full game attempt was 28 days, 41,5817 final score. Hermit protocol.

[EmperorBeef]

I find the big slow missiles (fired from orange craft and ground-based tanks) quite difficult to counter, especially when there are multiple of them. They are a much more significant threat relative to the double missiles fired by the red craft, despite showing up around the same time. I feel like the missile should either be slower, or have slightly less health.

[Bellatrix]

That thing that swoops in and carpet-bombs you around day 22-23 seems like complete overkill, you don't get a chance to learn to deal with it since you just die immediately.
I mean, there's no doubt some way to counter it since people are managing to get past that day, but it instantly ended both of my runs that got up to that point the first time it showed up.

[スマイル]

What I've done to deal with the orange bomber is to focus fire on the initial bombs it drops. I've generally had the fortune for them to start popping when they're 3/4ths or so of the way to the city and that usually generates a nice little chain reaction arc juust above my city that clears up the whole mess.

I haven't managed to nuke it in time (probably have to react quickly and massively lead it) but if you do you get a big upgrade bonus, so that's pretty nice. Staying ahead of the curve upgrade-wise is the only way to get further in.

[Bellatrix]

I think that the current meta of focusing on your main gun above all else is because a lot of upgrades for other things really don't do that much.
*All* gun upgrades are big jumps in capability for your main damage source.
With anything else, you get upgrades that do nothing on their own (spending a point just to open the upgrade branch) or are just an incremental improvement for something that isn't even your main source of damage.

Half-upgrades might be an interesting concept to play around with, essentially upgrades that cost half an upgrade point.
Things like +50% nuke speed, +30% fireball duration, and blackout protocol would be half-upgrades.

[Thermococcus gammatolerans]

I think the game could benefit from having more upgrade resources. One for Offensive/Utility and perhaps one for Defensive/Research, or some tiered system or perhaps a rework, right now the scaling of power is off. It flattens out in the end making it impossible to keep up, which I know is intentional, but with no strategies for longer games it also feels quite flat, a bit uninteresting and limited. Another meta is the constant flicking i need to do with the mouse to get optimal spray patterns, it is tiring and my hand wrist starts to physically hurt after a few games. I can see with outpost that the foundation to have more guns, with programmable targeting / auto firing is there. In my ideal version of this game the only thing I want direct control over is the nukes. I am the defense commander, let the gunners handle the the guns. I want to set it up, make smart decisions, take tactical gambles and watch it payoff. Just because you have your players constantly engaged with the game by moving the mouse around, doesn't mean it is worth a lot. Try approaching this more as a hybrid game, with less focus on the direct shooting, but perhaps with upgrades and special guns that allow you to have that if you want. More emphasis on player choice and variability. With a tiered upgrade system, you could make it feel like a TD or like an arcade shooter, depending on what the players wants. Increasing accessibility and maximizing fun.

[Shadetail]

Opportunity cost of nukes are too high. My best runs (30+) were no yellow upgrades.
I get further with a better gun, or an arc flail upgraded where it becomes useful on higher tiers.
I like the concept of the red and yellow upgrades, but I can't trust the lazer towers to handle most side stuff. I don't expect an upgraded lazer tower to even shoot down a missile without help.

[herbert]

Originally posted by Shadetail:

Opportunity cost of nukes are too high. My best runs (30+) were no yellow upgrades.
I get further with a better gun, or an arc flail upgraded where it becomes useful on higher tiers.
I like the concept of the red and yellow upgrades, but I can't trust the lazer towers to handle most side stuff. I don't expect an upgraded lazer tower to even shoot down a missile without help.

you know that's somewhat interesting, my highest runs, also with 30+, were with nukes. how are you dealing with screens where there's a ton of otherwise indestructible projectiles?

[Skyrk]

- There is a rainbow bomb that some enemies drop that is invincible, all you can do is shoot to change its direction. These bombs are the sole reason of most of my losses. And they drop 5~10 of them, there is no way to avoid them. They destroy all the lasers making them useless. Either make the bombs killable, or reduce the number to 1~2 so they can be manageable.
- Remove the need to spend points for research upgrades, it feels very lackluster to spend a point that do nothing on the moment. Either give the research some small bonus, or lock in the research with some perk. For example, buying a upgrade just to buy lasers feels just an extra expensive bureocracy.
- Add more upgrades that meaningfully change how the guns operate, most upgrades are damage/speed buffs. I played the game for a few hours now, most I've managed to do was triple shot and ricochet. (Maybe there are higher tiers I didn't find)
- Make the different trees interact with each other. For example, an upgrade that your shots have X% chance to fire a lightning bolt from your shield, or deploy a weaker nuke on hit, or lifesteal enemies to regenerate your shield, etc.
- Laser turrets are so squish that on later levels they die as soon as they respawn, making them useless. Either make them invincible, or buff how much they can tank by a lot.
- That snake enemy is a pain to kill if you go the no-nuke path, making only a small fast moving head hitable is frustrating. Make it receive damage, albeit smaller, from hitting the body.
- That invisible enemy can be dealt if you have nukes, but on the no-nuke strategy, they are also very painful. Sometimes they wander the map a bit before attacking, but sometimes they teleport right away to attack. Make them wander the map 2~3 cycles before attacking, to give us some time to deal with them.
- The tank enemy is hard to deal with, that bomb tanks a lot, and it attacks just after appearing. Either make the bomb weaker/slower, tank weaker, or delay the attack somewhat, so we can have time to deal with it.

[Soup Dragon]

Originally posted by Skyrk:

- There is a rainbow bomb that some enemies drop that is invincible, all you can do is shoot to change its direction. These bombs are the sole reason of most of my losses. And they drop 5~10 of them, there is no way to avoid them. They destroy all the lasers making them useless. Either make the bombs killable, or reduce the number to 1~2 so they can be manageable.
- Remove the need to spend points for research upgrades, it feels very lackluster to spend a point that do nothing on the moment. Either give the research some small bonus, or lock in the research with some perk. For example, buying a upgrade just to buy lasers feels just an extra expensive bureocracy.
- Add more upgrades that meaningfully change how the guns operate, most upgrades are damage/speed buffs. I played the game for a few hours now, most I've managed to do was triple shot and ricochet. (Maybe there are higher tiers I didn't find)
- Make the different trees interact with each other. For example, an upgrade that your shots have X% chance to fire a lightning bolt from your shield, or deploy a weaker nuke on hit, or lifesteal enemies to regenerate your shield, etc.
- Laser turrets are so squish that on later levels they die as soon as they respawn, making them useless. Either make them invincible, or buff how much they can tank by a lot.
- That snake enemy is a pain to kill if you go the no-nuke path, making only a small fast moving head hitable is frustrating. Make it receive damage, albeit smaller, from hitting the body.
- That invisible enemy can be dealt if you have nukes, but on the no-nuke strategy, they are also very painful. Sometimes they wander the map a bit before attacking, but sometimes they teleport right away to attack. Make them wander the map 2~3 cycles before attacking, to give us some time to deal with them.
- The tank enemy is hard to deal with, that bomb tanks a lot, and it attacks just after appearing. Either make the bomb weaker/slower, tank weaker, or delay the attack somewhat, so we can have time to deal with it.

Pretty much all this, the single biggest frustration is the rainbow bombs as they are the reason most runs end. Although I think they can be destroyed the only effective weapon is the main gun as nothing else will even target them and they come down in such numbers that laser turrets become useless as they get carpet bombed out of existence.

Also research upgrades not giving any benefits beyond new later options doesn't feel good, it feels like a "wasted level up".

[AtomicBanana]

A neat way to fix the squishyness of the turrets would be to have an upgrade that gives them shields and then another that gives them the same upgrades as your main shield but with slightly less power. Makes each one more like the city, and adds further synergy with the arc flail and other shield stuff.

[rwb36]

An optional upgrade for the Turrets along the lines of "Turrets are invincible. Turrets only fire while the city is shielded" would be helpful & interesting.