Cells disappearing

[ButtahNips]

Genuinely cells expiring is not interesting, it does not make gameplay better, it feels like punishment if you miss them.
There is literally zero good reason for cells to disappear, unless the goal is to force all players to rush in and "risk" taking damage.
Which isn't really interesting, it makes the gameplay much more boring, I can run in fine I can beat the game fine, I just hate that the player is literally punished for playing a different way other than running into all the enemies to make sure you don't miss out on cells.

[Buntkreuz]

If the orbs make it a fast paced game, then its a bad game.
Removing the orbs does not make it slower. The games pace is controlled by level, enemy and weapon design.

[StuckInWashingMachine]

Originally posted by MissButtahNips:

I make the complaint because having played a lot, completing the game several difficulties often, it feels like ♥♥♥♥ to feel forced to do something in a game. You want the player to feel like what they do is their choice, even if it's not real. This is why a lot of rpgs have non-choices in conversations to give the player a feeling of choice even though there isn't one.0

different strokes for different folks brother. I hate rpgs.

[Brolando]

Originally posted by MissButtahNips:

I make the complaint because having played a lot, completing the game several difficulties often, it feels like ♥♥♥♥ to feel forced to do something in a game. You want the player to feel like what they do is their choice, even if it's not real. This is why a lot of rpgs have non-choices in conversations to give the player a feeling of choice even though there isn't one.0

Kinda depends on genre though, in shooters the "you want players to feel like it's their choice" is far less of a factor than it is in an RPG, because in an RPG the story telling and having the player make choices that affect the story are a much bigger factor while shooters are far more about the gameplay itself which can vary from different shooters and in this one it just seems like the devs really wanna focus on making the game fast paced and having the player play very aggressively.

But do you think my suggestion about the cell pick up gadget would solve your problem though? Because then you might as well start a thread suggesting that and maybe the devs will see it and do something with it.

[JudgeTy]

I play Nova Drift which is a completely different vain of Rogue-likes. Ship shooter. They also have exp orbs you have to pick up. They stay longer and there's a mod and ship that increases the range of pickup. Those orbs are literally everything in the game.. the score and the experience. They decay, they can get sucked in a black hole, they can hide on the edges of the screen. Unless you steer your ship near them, they will be gone.

I would say a big part of the game is ensuring you are getting those orbs. It makes it fun. I went from that game + Gunfire Reborn, into this game. I'm content with the current game design.

They have a lot they can tweak concerning pickups, if the affix isn't proc'ing on crits with other affixes, might want to report that as a bug instead?

[ButtahNips]

Originally posted by JudgeTy:

I play Nova Drift which is a completely different vain of Rogue-likes. Ship shooter. They also have exp orbs you have to pick up. They stay longer and there's a mod and ship that increases the range of pickup. Those orbs are literally everything in the game.. the score and the experience. They decay, they can get sucked in a black hole, they can hide on the edges of the screen. Unless you steer your ship near them, they will be gone.

I would say a big part of the game is ensuring you are getting those orbs. It makes it fun. I went from that game + Gunfire Reborn, into this game. I'm content with the current game design.

They have a lot they can tweak concerning pickups, if the affix isn't proc'ing on crits with other affixes, might want to report that as a bug instead?

I've played extensive Nova drift. Have 2+ million high scores
The orbs in that game are so easy to collect without research or ataraxia that it's really not comparable, and there's much more room for error. Losing exp to a singularity or not having the early dps to kill some enemy spawns doesn't really change that you typically get to around level 35+ by wave 100
Roboquest cells are literally static. Every enemy is calculated to ALWAYS be the same, the quarry path in the first stage doesn't get you to level 3 because the quarry secret gives you a bunch of bonus exp. The other 2 paths DO get you to level 3 and 10% so missing out on cells is so much more insanely detrimental on higher difficulties where you need those benefits (unless you just get lucky with early levels or have the wrenches to just re-roll flippantly)

Originally posted by Brolando:

Originally posted by MissButtahNips:

I make the complaint because having played a lot, completing the game several difficulties often, it feels like ♥♥♥♥ to feel forced to do something in a game. You want the player to feel like what they do is their choice, even if it's not real. This is why a lot of rpgs have non-choices in conversations to give the player a feeling of choice even though there isn't one.0

Kinda depends on genre though, in shooters the "you want players to feel like it's their choice" is far less of a factor than it is in an RPG, because in an RPG the story telling and having the player make choices that affect the story are a much bigger factor while shooters are far more about the gameplay itself which can vary from different shooters and in this one it just seems like the devs really wanna focus on making the game fast paced and having the player play very aggressively.

But do you think my suggestion about the cell pick up gadget would solve your problem though? Because then you might as well start a thread suggesting that and maybe the devs will see it and do something with it.

The problem though is either the magnet is useless and not worth the trade off of the slot (like it is right now) OR it's TOO good and invalidates the entire point of cells disappearing in the first place.
Also the example of rpgs I was using as a clearer comparison to choice. But in the doom games, you decide exclusively how to handle each encounter with various environmental tools provided to you along with different abilities of yourself to defeat each encounter how YOU personally want to.
This isn't the case in this game, to get abilities to augment how you play the game, you need to collect the STATIC cells, which in turn FORCES you to deal with encounters in a specific way to make sure you don't miss out, which takes away player autonomy.

[JudgeTy]

I have over 500+ hours in Nova Drift. Loosing the exp pickup does nerf your score, the game is significantly harder now, and I also have 2.5mill+ scores. You can easily do a wave calculation to score to see your score nerf. You just don't realize it is all. There are a few wild mods that can get around level to exp wave like Grandeur farming, but even with that consideration, you are still getting score nerfed with each orb you failed to pick up. Each wave has set cell possibilities with an exp cap. There isn't a catch up exp mechanic. Try not picking the orbs up to see. The only major run variance that is different is cargo train spawning.

[Hearts]

You know what, just rip off ULTRAKILL's blood healing mechanic for cells (you only get them when dealing damage to nearby enemies) and have you just earn xp whenever an enemy dies wherever they're at.

There, now everyone can play however they want and level up at the same rate but you need to get reckless if you want to heal and have a higher score.

[Buntkreuz]

Originally posted by The Enclave:

You know what, just rip off ULTRAKILL's blood healing mechanic for cells (you only get them when dealing damage to nearby enemies) and have you just earn xp whenever an enemy dies wherever they're at.

There, now everyone can play however they want and level up at the same rate but you need to get reckless if you want to heal and have a higher score.

That was exactly the suggestion in the other thread i linked above.
Orbs should just replenish heal, exp should be automatically applied.
So you just heal when you take the risk, but you gain exp no matter what.
Best of both worlds.

[that's what she said]

I don't want to hunt them down anyway. That's be boring. They should disappear anyway.
But I can agree on balancing, I'd honestly prefer devs to split exp and healing, you get exp either way for kills and orbs only heal you so you can play aggressively with close ranged weapons and such. See, the whole precise gun category seems redundant since you still need to be close to level up anyway, it feels weird that the game punishes you for using sniper rifles and forces you to use long range weapons with scopes as a mid range semiauto rifles. It's just a weird decision. The thing is the game will be vastly easier if played with scoped weapons this way, so enemies had to be rebalanced too since the game only has like two enemies that can mess you up at long range - everything else has slow projectile attacks designed around close range encounters. The game definitely needs another balancing pass and something should be back at drawing board, since not every design decision is working in tandem.

[Hearts]

Originally posted by orchid9_:

The thing is the game will be vastly easier if played with scoped weapons this way, so enemies had to be rebalanced too since the game only has like two enemies that can mess you up at long range - everything else has slow projectile attacks designed around close range encounters.

I know the AI will start pre-firing on you if you try and peek around corners and I think they rush you if you sit still for too long, although that might be a heroes+2 thing since it increases enemy aggression.

[Hearts]

Originally posted by Argentum:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/692890/discussions/1/3115896179304403534/
The Assassin for example is mostly a ranged character.

This isn't entirely true, recon's passive gives them bonus melee damage and I've done runs where my most of my perks were for melee.

Honestly, it seems like the game was designed for fast tight close range game play, with most enemies having slow projectiles and every single enemy having a visual wind-up complete with arrows letting you know when enemies you can't see fire at you. Honestly it feels like the entire precision category and all the perks related to long range and staying still are at odds with the game's design, as well as the various things that can sap your movement and make you a sitting duck. The guardian used to have the rocket instead of his shield, and I still feel like a close range aoe damage effect that has some sort of defensive quality would be a better fit for him to match the pace of the game.

I feel like the game wants to be have fast tight game play were you fight up close and constantly move to dodge incoming fire but there's things are in the game that work against, like the tracking sniper turrets or the enemies that stun for getting too close as well as certain classes having a mix of stuff that makes you want to be fast and close or slow and far.

The Recon class for example has perks that reward you for staying still or not firing when they also have perks for moving faster or shooting faster the more you use your melee. The engineer well always be overpowered and not as interesting to play as long as their ability gives them free damage and bullet sponges to soak damage for them, the most fun I had with him was when I had the perk that had your drones turn into rockets when they died and I used it along with my mining laser perks the be a budget commando.

I know a lot of people will hate it but I really think everything should be shifted towards this idea of fast moving close range combat, and anything that slows you down or encourages you to sit in one spot or hide and let something else do the work should be tuned or removed.