+ THE GREAT BALANCE CONVERSATION +

[Pixeljam Games]

Discuss the eternal struggle of nerfs and buffs here.

[Simoko]

Get rid of nuke cancel enemy. Un-fun garbage.

[Ozzuneoj]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από 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.

...

- 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.

I have to strongly agree with these comments.

Also, I have read some other comments saying that instant death with zero warning seems to be what ends most rounds, and I 100% agree with this assessment. Personally, I find games that involve a lot of "random\instant player death" very frustrating and not rewarding.

I bought this last night, kind of on a whim, because of all the praise for the gameplay, aesthetic and soundtrack... and because I have been a pixeljam fan for years (backed the Dinorun 2 kickstarter from the beginning, 11 years ago, and started playing Dinorun when it was just a flash game). I was hoping it'd be for me, because from time to time I have enjoyed other retro-styled shoot'em up games with upgrades, like Titan Attacks (played this a lot 10 years ago). But, I guess I have just never been super excited by "perma-death" or "roguelike" games where all of your progress can be lost in a split second and absolutely nothing carries over from one attempt to the next. Add in a significant amount of randomness to the levels and unpredictable upgrade trees and it just exacerbates the problem for me.

At this point I have played about 2.7 hours, and my first playthrough was the best at 22 days with a score of 307,009. When that playthrough ended my shields were rarely taking any hits, and I had Hermit Protocol... but in day 22 there was a massive wave of those stinking flashing rainbow bombs that wiped everything out from 100% shields before I even knew which enemies would launch them. I just kind of sat there with my daughter (who was letting me know as my Flares recharged) as we stared at the screen, like... what just happened? lol

After that playthrough I have been trying different things and can never reach that point. So far, my second best has been day 19, but in that one there was a freak sequence of things that took all my shields down in about one second as a ship flew horizontally across the screen and crashed into my city, ending the game instantly.

I feel no sense of progression because of the randomness of the upgrades and the randomness of the enemy attacks. So, in a way, it feels like I experienced the entirety of the gameplay in the first playthrough (not sure how long it took... 30 minutes?), and since then I've just been rolling dice for over two hours hoping for a higher number of days survived.

I'll be honest, I don't know what the solution would be to balance the game better to increase the ENJOYMENT for someone like me. To me, playing a game for a couple of hours is a luxury, so having to spend it constantly replaying the first 15-25 days of this and then dying from something random just doesn't seem appealing. Not having unanticipated insta-death situations that negate 20+ minutes of gameplay would be nice, but even then, if the games just took longer and still ended in "you're dead, try again." after an hour or something, it would probably not give me a better feeling overall.

I guess I would prefer this gameplay but with an actual campaign and maybe some clear goal. Along with that, less punishing abilities for enemies, and less random combinations of them, would be nice too. Like when one of those stealth squid-like things spawns in and knocks my shields down (without even being visible on the screen before it goes in for an attack) while I have several rainbow-bombs closing in at the same time. End game scenario.

But again... I know people like stuff like this, so if people are happy with the gameplay loop I'll just admit it isn't for me. Right now, when I play it, it goes like this:

First 5 days = please just give me an interesting upgrade
5-10 days = okay, these are decent upgrades but I've already done this
11-15 days = I'm either dead already (poor upgrade choices) or I have made decent upgrade choices as before and avoided random deaths so I'm still alive
16-22 days = I finally have enough upgrades to make it feel like I can take on all the different types of enemies... then I blink and the game is over.

Regardless of when I die, I immediately look at the clock and say "welp, that was 15-30 minutes of my evening."

I love the atmosphere, music and graphics though. I will keep an eye out for updates and I am looking forward to seeing how the game progresses. I will also be cautiously optimistic about the possibility of the game having a more long-term campaign type mode in the future.

EDIT: Just tried again with the current beta that makes some balance adjustments and while the flail seems a bit better, I only made it to day 19. On day 19 two huge boss enemies flew in along with massive meteors and so many enemies and flashing rainbow bombs that I couldn't see anything. I died instantly. I fired three arc flares into the fray simultaneously, and my gun did absolutely nothing to penetrate the onslaught. I would have needed nukes (which aren't possible with hermit protocol) and several times as much firepower to handle this amount of enemies.

*shrug*

What am I missing here? It just seems like some days in some play-throughs are 10x harder than what the player could conceivably handle. I am really trying to get into this and understand the goal, but it is always the same thing... several days of either barely scraping by or totally mopping up the enemies, and then sometime after day 16-17 there are some days that are hopelessly overpowered and you just lose instantly. Is the game trying to teach us a lesson about futility or something? Because I enjoy the gameplay and would like to just keep playing without unpredictable exponential spikes in difficulty\hopelessness.

[Grackopolis]

For the record, the rainbow bombs are, in fact, destroyable. You just have to know how enemy explosions often hurt their own. (e.g. red clover bombs falling on tanks/bubble/walking sticks blow their own ground crew up. ....the same applies in the air. Other than that...yes, they are currently indestructible through direct attacks...you just need to do it vicariously ;D

[Sparra]

I don't have a comment on most balancing so far since I haven't played the game enough, BUT I really think waves that include the fast orange bomber that drops a huge payload of very dangerous bombs onto the player needs to give a warning to the player before the wave begins. Like have a statement somewhere where "WARNING: INCOMING EXTREME DANGER: BOMBERS" or something. Or if you want to expand that idea, give a vague "radar warning" of what the player should expect the next wave. If you really want, maybe mess with the player with "false positives" every so often (but never, EVER undervalue a wave via warning, that'll only make players frustrated imo).

[Grackopolis]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Sparra:

I don't have a comment on most balancing so far since I haven't played the game enough, BUT I really think waves that include the fast orange bomber that drops a huge payload of very dangerous bombs onto the player needs to give a warning to the player before the wave begins. Like have a statement somewhere where "WARNING: INCOMING EXTREME DANGER: BOMBERS" or something. Or if you want to expand that idea, give a vague "radar warning" of what the player should expect the next wave. If you really want, maybe mess with the player with "false positives" every so often (but never, EVER undervalue a wave via warning, that'll only make players frustrated imo).

Cool idea of a warning system. You are right. It always surprises me too^^ Fortunately the bombs linger long enough before falling to give you a bit of a start. ...but it's not much ;D

[SeedyE]

I suggested elsewhere that self-collision could help us deal with those bombs. Instead trying to deflect every single one, or catch them in explosions, some more 2D physics would let you blast the nearest ones, and those could (at the very least) knock into other bombs to slow them down or push them off-target.

As for the warning system, it could be argued that the orange bomber *IS* the warning, indicating that bombs are coming your way. Still, it would be nice to have some kind of alert, perhaps also for the ground-based tanks because they're so much more dangerous than the slimes and tentacles.

Instead of a text warning, why not decide "orange enemy vehicles have something like 'headlights'," meaning that you see an animated < shape at the edge, or some other representation of an off-screen light source, for a second or two before the enemy appears?

We already have warnings in practice, like the nuke-stealing enemy appearing as an inactive wobbling shape, so this should be possible whilst sticking with the existing design language of the game, & clearly telegraphing more upcoming hazards.

[Ozzuneoj]

Well, I played again (beta) and this time chose no nukes and no hermit protocol... apparently you just can't do that? As far as I can tell, it never gives any upgrades that would ever be useful beyond maybe day 20. I made it to day 20, had a twin gun (not even cobalt bullets or whatever it is... I never got the option), upgraded arc flail and three laser towers... but I had no nukes and nothing that could even remotely penetrate walls of enemies. I thought I'd still get arc flares or something, but this also never showed up.

Honestly, I think my two biggest issues with the game involve the randomness.

With the random upgrades: I want to upgrade to a certain thing because that is what I need for this playthrough... and I never get the option and then I die.

Or, with the random enemies: Everything is going basically okay and then a stealth octopus thing spawns in on the other side of a swarm of enemies (so you cannot shoot it before it goes stealth), then once there is a wall of bombs coming at you the octopus reappears and you either lose 80% of your shields to it and then die from one or two bombs, or you shoot it and die from 10 bombs. It's so random where these game ending things happen... I am really trying to like this but it just makes me go... "uh... okay, I guess it's over now." because of the way the rounds tend to end. If having 20+ nukes by day 20 is the only way to get through the game, then making that optional is just wasting everyone's time.

A would propose a mode with a non-randomized tech tree for those of us that like the gameplay but really hate all these layers of RNG. Being able to choose upgrades that fit my needs may help to make the insta-death enemy spawns more manageable. Maybe even if there were separate tech trees going, with one being random and one being preset... like, give me some randomness to main gun upgrades, but the ones that define the direction of the playthrough (nuke vs hermit paths) should always be available at the end of each day.

[Napalm Sushi]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Ozzuneoj:

...I thought I'd still get arc flares or something, but this also never showed up.

Arc flares are an Operation Hermit-specific upgrade. If you're just not using nukes without Operation Hermit, you're basically just playing a rather brutal self-imposed challenge mode.

[Grackopolis]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Napalm Sushi:

Arc flares are an Operation Hermit-specific upgrade. If you're just not using nukes without Operation Hermit, you're basically just playing a rather brutal self-imposed challenge mode.

;D

[RoccoErnest]

I just had a couple of 500k runs of the game and have some observations.

1. Interest level wanes as I go. Due to the enemies constant rate of improvement and the much slower ramp the player has, at some point it just becomes boring. I know I'm not going to survive. The upgrades run out and then it repeats. And maybe that's the plan, but since I don't have a lot of options on play style, now that I've done this I'm not sure if I keep wanting to do it.

2. I understand there's limited upgrades still and that will be improved, but I don't see why you can't have an upgrade that just keeps going. Like the NovaDrift one that just keeps giving bonuses if you save upgrade points. Why can't there be an upgrade that simply is "spend this to get +2% more damage and velocity" and it keeps showing up, especially when the other ones run out. Or one that increases based on saved re-rolls.

3. Lack of real automation. I don't know if by design or whatever, but there gets to be a point where I simply can't move fast enough to shoot down all the bombs raining down. God forbid if a meteor is also falling, soaking up all the shots and the bombs are dropping behind it. And while I'm trying to shoot down and deflect everything point blank, little to no damage is being done to the enemies dropping them. the automated defenses have a limited range, but then don't shoot at so much stuff in range either. Like, give increased range bonuses to cover the screen for the arc and the towers. If they can't shoot down rainbows they can shoot down the enemies dropping them and I'LL shoot down rainbows.

4. Towers being so useless. I get to a point where the towers are down 75% of the time. By the time they come back online they instantly get killed again.

5. Very little upgrade feel good moments. What I mean by this is in most games that do upgrading, after you buy one, there's a window after where you get a feel good as your new upgrade tears through ♥♥♥♥. That only ever happens in the first 10-15 levels, where after a rate or rail upgrade you get a level or two where you cut them down faster. After that, each upgrade is basically fighting a losing battle to how much better the enemies are getting. I never get many fiero moments from 15 on where I buy something and it's like ha ha, I'm mowing them down!

[Grackopolis]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Napalm Sushi:

I wouldn't want it to take exactly the Nova Drift approach by just, like, straight-up skipping week 1 though, because Never Give Up is my favourite track on the soundtrack

Insert JukeBox option to change music in-game

[Napalm Sushi]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Grackopolis:

Insert JukeBox option to change music in-game

I like how the current music progression invokes the stages of grief though and I feel like that's a very intentional artistic decision

[polyabolo]

It's more graphics quality suggestion related to balance: enemeies' HP should not scale with days. Newer enemies or at least some color variation of the old ones should appear instead.

[Grackopolis]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από polyabolo:

It's more graphics quality suggestion related to balance: enemeies' HP should not scale with days. Newer enemies or at least some color variation of the old ones should appear instead.

I 100% agree with this! I absolutely hate how the same enemies get harder and harder to shoot. I'd rather see more enemies w the same hp than fewer that keep mysteriously getting thicker and thicker skin at a faster rate than my own weaponry improves.

[Grackopolis]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από RoccoErnest:

I just had a couple of 500k runs of the game and have some observations....

Very well thought out. And I also agree on every point you made. Also 500k is a great run!