Fuel array and The Transendence have a broken interaction.

[Plær1]

You blow up at half shield instead of half HP

[shrimping]

shield counts as hp

[Plær1]

Shield and HP aren't the same thing. At a minimum some game text should be clarified to make that clear. Or even preferably if they were seperated there would be some new interesting mechanics to explore

[hiki]

when you have transcendence your your shield is your hp, meaning the game calculates your health as shields, which is why infusion still does something when you have trans

[Plær1]

I mean sure that's what the engine is doing. I did *not* ask _what_ was happening.

The fact is it displays you as having a shield, AND 1 hp c l e a r l y when you have the item. So regardless of *why* it's happening, it's either an engine, or cosmetic bug.

[Plær1]

If I could post screenshots here I would since ya'll clearly can't read the in-game interface~

[hiki]

and clearly you dont understand the concept of balance in doing a difficult task if you cant see how making it so that it only triggers it when you go down to half of your HP, you would have to die to even hit half of your HP so it would just never happen, which would trivialize the entire challenge, its not broken, youre just whining, get over it

[Plær1]

If that's how you feel about it, then the UI is *in fact* broken.

[Plær1]

Not to mention the fact that you aren't guaranteed to have this rare item on any given run, so when you were lucky enough to have it. It would just be a lucky fun thing. It's literally a more diverse gameplay interaction like this. But you don't even seem to be open to the idea that this is opinion based so, please move along...

[Jimmy Hunter]

Originally posted by Plær1:

If that's how you feel about it, then the UI is *in fact* broken.

Shields, Health, and Barrier are all part of your "HP" Bar.

When you fall under 50% of your "HP" bar, it lights on fire and begins to explode.

What exactly is the issue here?

[Plær1]

So in this one game, my health point and my shield point are arbitrarily defined as the same units, and y'all are really out here:

1. That that isn't in the least bit atypical.
   
2. That this atypicality is specifically defined *anywhere* in the game other than through gameplay, which brings me to:
   
3. That this is for sure intended behavior instead of a side-effect of something that would be programmatically *easier* in (an early access game where the devs are still refining basic interactions.)

I really don't feel the same way.

And I'd appreciate if non-devs left my bug report alone. you aren't going to solve my opinion for me, no-you, you're wrong etc

[Krull]

Originally posted by Plær1:

1. That that isn't in the least bit atypical.
   
2. That this atypicality is specifically defined *anywhere* in the game other than through gameplay, which brings me to:
   
3. That this is for sure intended behavior instead of a side-effect of something that would be programmatically *easier* in (an early access game where the devs are still refining basic interactions.)

1. You're right. It's weird. The reason is balance, and I really hope Hopoo gets a better idea, cause at the moment shield hurts you. The only reason to have shields instead of health is to be immune to fire and malachite debuffs.
   
2. Most of the people here on the forums already found out about this when the last update released, which included the challenges "Ethereal" and "Piercing Wind". These require you to stay at 100% hp or above during a period of time. This is the reason people talk about shields being hp as self-explanatory, when in reality we all forgot it isn't mentioned anywhere in the game itself. Again, I agree with you, that this should be clarified in the challenges involving hp.
   
3. I believe this is intended behavior, or else cheesing the two challenges I mentioned would be rather easy, while also making the challenge you're talking about very easy.
   It could very much be clarified in-game, that this is the intended behavior. Maybe transcendence should also make that 1 hp blue on the hp bar, so noone will believe they still have separate health and shield.

[Plær1]

Easy only when you'd get the correct items, on the correct stage of the game. Which isn't really under our control.

[Krull]

Originally posted by Plær1:

Easy only when you'd get the correct items, on the correct stage of the game. Which isn't really under our control.

You do have appreciable control over lunar items, if you compare them to the rest of the item pool. It's only a question of how many coins you're willing to spend.

[Plær1]

Originally posted by Krull:

Originally posted by Plær1:

Easy ... control.

You do have appreciable control over lunar items, if you compare them to the rest of the item pool. It's only a question of how many coins you're willing to spend.

That's really interesting, I haven't built up too many of the coins yet so I didn't have that kind of... "liquidity".

Do you think it's safe to say that people with a lot of lunar coins to 'cheese' the challenge would have maybe just unlocked the characters at that point? And if not, didn't I earn those coins? Isn't that a separate challenge in it's self?

I guess part of it comes down to how much effort you think earning enough coins to guarantee you can cheese the challenge is worth.

[Krull]

Originally posted by Plær1:

Originally posted by Krull:

You do have appreciable control over lunar items, if you compare them to the rest of the item pool. It's only a question of how many coins you're willing to spend.

That's really interesting, I haven't built up too many of the coins yet so I didn't have that kind of... "liquidity".

Do you think it's safe to say that people with a lot of lunar coins to 'cheese' the challenge would have maybe just unlocked the characters at that point? And if not, didn't I earn those coins? Isn't that a separate challenge in it's self?

I guess part of it comes down to how much effort you think earning enough coins to guarantee you can cheese the challenge is worth.

I realized while writing this, that you might want to find out some of these things for yourself, hence the spoiler tags. All spoilers are minor except if otherwise stated. The minor spoilers probably won't detract from your experience of the game.

There can spawn Newt Altars on all stages, allowing you to pay 1 coin to spawn a Blue Portal on completing the portal event. You're guaranteed to have at least one of these on all stages (except for Distant Roost?), meaning you could practically go to the Bazaar after 7/8 stages you complete. These altars also have 3 specific locations, in where they potentially can spawn, on each stage, making it easy to find them.

Lunar coins can be cheated in be editing a single value in your save. Besides this, you can also earn lunar coins by (larger spoiler)obliterating yourself at the Obelisk, which can be reached through the Celestial Portal on stage 7. It would not take many coins to cheese Power Plant and Piercing Wind, if they could be cheesed with Transcendence. You have a 30% chance of seeing at least one per Bazaar visit. You would statistically have to visit it no more than 4 times plus 2 coins for buying Transcendence, resulting in a theoretical maximum usage of 6 coins to cheese either of these challenges. It's a matter of replaying the first stage enough times. If you read any of the first two spoilers, this one is safe to read as well.

Earning 12 coins in total is, in my opinion, not an overwhelming challenge, and they would be better spent on (larger spoiler)freeing the survivor frozen in time, located in the Bazaar.

I must confess I'm losing track of what we're actually discussing, so I'll just sum up my thoughts:

1. I agree that shields should work differently. EDIT: Added in my quote:

   Originally posted by Krull:

   The only reason to have shields instead of health is to be immune to fire and malachite debuffs.

   - But I disagree that shields should allow cheesing challenges. There's no point in a challenge, when you can rather easily remove the challenging part of the challenge. Of course, cheesing it is an individual choice, but I would still prefer not having that choice in the game in the first place.
   
   
2. I agree that it should be clarified in game, that shield and hp are both counted towards total hp, for example by stating it in the challenge descriptions.
   
3. I agree the UI should indeed clarify how shield and hp interact as well. I believe the only way to make this more clear, would be making shield add upon the max hp and not the efffective hp.
   
4. Lastly, this is without doubt intended behavior. It is not so in accordance with the challenges, but with how one shot protection, abbreviated OSP, is calculated. If shield was not part of your health, you would only lose you shield upon being hit with a high damage hit. This is how it works in the first RoR, but how would you truly balance this? Having a shield would result in double OSP, from the shield and hp individually. Removing the hp OSP, would result in you instantly dying if you haven't picked up a shield giving item. Hopoo do not want double OSP to be a thing, seeing as they just removed that functionality from barrier.

Thanks for keeping the discussion civil.