Late game feels incredibly luck based.

[THEREALSPARTAN]

So after completing the game and going onto the "free play" mode, some of the major flaws in the game really show themselves.

Most notably the lack of player interaction. For example; I sharted a mission with 2 slots for gear, so I chose a weapon and a cap to make a good combo once I get a connector for them. After the first room I have 1 coin for a connector only to see that the shop only has 2 connectors for sale, those being an L connector and a 2-sided cylinder. Since neither of these connectors are capable of firing a gun without even more connectors on them, I'm forced to go through another room for a shop with a working connector in it. Sadly room 2 doesn't have a shop in it to get anything from, and how unfortunate that room 3 doesn't have one either. It just feels unfair and unfun to have your run ruined with no shops to buy stuff and even then they can contain nothing that can help you.

Next up is the economy in the game. The smuggler is the only way to buy guns and they're far too expensive, with the exception of the lost and found which is a good price for that sort of thing. Gold level guns cost 2400 gold, and considering you get about 200 or so gold from a mission that gives it that's 12 missions to buy 1 endgame gun. Note that I said "from a mission that gives it" because missions can just give experience instead of gold which leaves you making little to no progress and you'll only scrape together about 5-30 gold per mission on your own and there's no way of re-rolling missions so you have to do them or you're not getting any more. Also the gold droprate of enemies is luck based as well. I've had scores of rooms give absolutely no gold and others that give 15 or so (no they weren't dice rooms of any kind). This stacked with the shop rate makes the game very inconsistant in terms of run quality, and not in a good way.

Point 3: Secrets feel very lacklustre. In Tower of guns secrets felt awesome to get, from badges to money and even sometimes new guns entirely! But in Mothergunship they just feel bland and unimpactful, with only 3 things that show up. Sure extra jumps are good and HP can save a run sometimes, but I've literally never been pleased to see a max energy boost since most of the time it's un-noticable. I understand that the secrets have been revamped so they're not just in the same places all the time, but this means you just have to rub your face against the wall 90% of the time and the boosts aren't enough for most people to be bothered to do this (especially on the neon ships)

Last point: Forced gun missions shouldn't be in the mothergunship quest lines. You're at the mercy of the game when this happens. And if it says you're getting an L piece for a connector, you're just going to have to sit through a room (or more if you're unlucky with money drops) until you can buy a connector to do anything with the gun you're given. Even they you could get a gun that's too weak for the late game, where your golden gun from the mothergunship is the only thing that does decent damage right off the bat. This wouldn't be so bad if dying didn't mean losing al your progress.


Possible solutions:

Add gold as a secret reward. This would potentially solve both the factor of secrets being not worth it and money being in short supply, giving the player more control and giving them a sence of satisfaction when their exploring gives them the exact amount of money they need for an upgrade.

Reduce gold gun cost to 1200. It's still 10X what you'd pay at the lost and found if you lost one of yours, and makes grinding less tedious.

Allow ship rerolling. Add a "re-scout" button that allows you to reset a ship for every mission you complete. This makes it so you have to only do 1 mission to get 2 new ships. 1 taking the space of the ship you destroy, and 1 being the re-rolled ship.

Remove forced gun mothergunship missions. Pretty self explanatory.

Thanks for reading. As someone with almost 120 hours in Tower of guns I really want this game to be as good as it can possible be. I still think the game is pretty good, just that lategame is a bit of a mess. Good luck with future patches at any rate Joe, keep being awesome.