my innitial thoughts on endless

[Herozen]

fair warning, i play exclusively on guardian difficulties. i played my 1st 5 rounds on G4, and 6 more rounds on G1 for testing

the good:

5 perks: oh, my, god, YES. this 1 simple change opens up SO MANY new powerful builds to try out. absolutely love

the stage design: honestly really love it. the enemy density seems to be in just the right sweet spot to keep you on your toes, while also still being fair

new enemies: honestly loving the new enemies we got. they add just the right amount of challange for how much they appear

singularities*: the singularities for the most part are good at their function, causing pain. most of them are pretty fair and fun to play around... with 1 exception

the bad:

that * on singularities: bunny shield... i remember seeing this brought up on the endless trailer and thinking "oh, that'll be neat, 1 or 2 enemies will require me to wait for the room to be done so i can headbonk them safely to kill them. what we got was rooms with 7 -8 enemies, often elites or rapid fire turrets with bunny shields (have you tried to reliably headbonk a phantom pawn? i'd rather scatter lego pieces on my bed and take a nap). bunny shield needs some tweaks, if not being completely reworked. 1 idea i have is that the shield is made to be a sort of umbrella type barrier that nullifies damage from above, forcing the player to deal damage from below the shield.

glitches: glitches for the most part do their job, being to restrict us, however the fact they are permanent just makes them borderline unfun. i really hope you wern't planning to play robo wizard elementalist or rocket spam commando, or god forbid, play a drone build on engie, because oops, you just got a massive cooldown increase to your ability, have fun using it every 30 seconds. as other people here have said, glitches should only apply for 1 stage, and then be replaced with the next. it would force the player to adapt on the fly without punishing them forever in a run.

the powercell shortage: it makes very little sense to present the player with every support bot at the start, if they only get about 8 cells per stage, and thats WITHOUT the glitch that reduces the amount of cells that drop. if you upgrade your gun, you don't get to upgrade the rarity or buy items, falling behind in damage and utility and dying. i'd suggest spawning more elite enemies per stage, about 1 per room, and make them drop 1 cell like before

the duo bosses: i refuse, REFUSE, to believe these were tested on any difficulty above standard without devhacks.

double diggies: the diggies take up positions on either side of the room and both start projectile spam, leaving you no place to dodge to, killing your run

justice squad: you either dodge judgeball and get blasted by duke, or focus on dodging duke while dodging the waves and minefield judgeball lays out

diggy + iris phase 2
iris wave spam in confined space. nuff said

uncle jim + dr turret: you dodge jim's beam by standing under him, only for the DR to light up the floor beneath you or swipe you with his own beam attack

uncle jim + mosquito: same as previous but swap the beam for shockwaves from 4+ flying bastards

catercoaster + ladybug: probably the most well balanced of the duo bosses. a challange, but doable as catercoaster's rail provides enough mobility to dodge and shoot at the same time reliably, provided you focus on not getting ran over by catercoaster

judgeball + coaster: would be a difficult challange normally, but removing half the floor makes it nearly impossible to dodge

solution? scrap em, or rework them so they follow a set pattern of movement and attacks that can be planned around. give downtime between their attacks so they don't spam attacks at the same time. and for gods sake, ENLARGE THE ARENAS. iris phase 2 minimum, probably larger for some spam heavy fights like judgeball and diggies

the odd:

lack of challange in the challange rooms. kinda disapointing to walk into 1 and just get the reward. maybe have the challange room be a mini form of "gang of elites" from ruins or one of the old fashioned parkor puzzles

no way of getting crystaline dust outside of lottery luke: an idea i just had would be to make a new bot spawn in the starting area that would trade your "s rank tokens" you earn during the run for getting an S rank for 3 different services: 3 sranks for 1 crystal dust, 1 Srank to purchase 1 booster at the start of the stage. 4 S ranks to add 1 alt fire to current weapon, or cycle the alt fire to a new one

["Donut☆]

Publicado originalmente por Herozen:

fair warning, i play exclusively on guardian difficulties. i played my 1st 5 rounds on G4, and 6 more rounds on G1 for testing.

Thank you for listing this. Since I'm getting tired of people saying Endless mode is easy and then later finding out they play on standard.

Publicado originalmente por Herozen:

the duo bosses: i refuse, REFUSE, to believe these were tested on any difficulty above standard without devhacks.

I have the very same feeling. I exclusively play this game G4, but the dual bosses in G4 feel nearly impossible to beat. There is too much unavoidable damage going on, which you can probably afford afford on standard, but not on G4. Especially since the fight takes so long because of the insane amount of health they have.

The most unfair attack I've seen so far is the double diggies doing those red energy ball spam at the same time. Also agree with uncle Jim doing the Laser is unfair since the only way to dodge it is to get underneath him, which is also nearly impossible without getting hit by anything else.

Solutions:
- Arenas at least twice as large. This would solve most of the balancing issues ing G4.
- Get rid of the shared health bar. Let us focus down 1 boss. A shared healthbar is already a lame and lazy design choice in general.
- Let at least the first (and maybe also the second) boss encounter be a normal one, so we have the chance to set up a build.

[Ser Pounce]

Publicado originalmente por Herozen:

fair warning, i play exclusively on guardian difficulties. i played my 1st 5 rounds on G4, and 6 more rounds on G1 for testing

the good:

5 perks: oh, my, god, YES. this 1 simple change opens up SO MANY new powerful builds to try out. absolutely love

the stage design: honestly really love it. the enemy density seems to be in just the right sweet spot to keep you on your toes, while also still being fair

new enemies: honestly loving the new enemies we got. they add just the right amount of challange for how much they appear

singularities*: the singularities for the most part are good at their function, causing pain. most of them are pretty fair and fun to play around... with 1 exception

the bad:

that * on singularities: bunny shield... i remember seeing this brought up on the endless trailer and thinking "oh, that'll be neat, 1 or 2 enemies will require me to wait for the room to be done so i can headbonk them safely to kill them. what we got was rooms with 7 -8 enemies, often elites or rapid fire turrets with bunny shields (have you tried to reliably headbonk a phantom pawn? i'd rather scatter lego pieces on my bed and take a nap). bunny shield needs some tweaks, if not being completely reworked. 1 idea i have is that the shield is made to be a sort of umbrella type barrier that nullifies damage from above, forcing the player to deal damage from below the shield.

glitches: glitches for the most part do their job, being to restrict us, however the fact they are permanent just makes them borderline unfun. i really hope you wern't planning to play robo wizard elementalist or rocket spam commando, or god forbid, play a drone build on engie, because oops, you just got a massive cooldown increase to your ability, have fun using it every 30 seconds. as other people here have said, glitches should only apply for 1 stage, and then be replaced with the next. it would force the player to adapt on the fly without punishing them forever in a run.

the powercell shortage: it makes very little sense to present the player with every support bot at the start, if they only get about 8 cells per stage, and thats WITHOUT the glitch that reduces the amount of cells that drop. if you upgrade your gun, you don't get to upgrade the rarity or buy items, falling behind in damage and utility and dying. i'd suggest spawning more elite enemies per stage, about 1 per room, and make them drop 1 cell like before

the duo bosses: i refuse, REFUSE, to believe these were tested on any difficulty above standard without devhacks.

double diggies: the diggies take up positions on either side of the room and both start projectile spam, leaving you no place to dodge to, killing your run

justice squad: you either dodge judgeball and get blasted by duke, or focus on dodging duke while dodging the waves and minefield judgeball lays out

diggy + iris phase 2
iris wave spam in confined space. nuff said

uncle jim + dr turret: you dodge jim's beam by standing under him, only for the DR to light up the floor beneath you or swipe you with his own beam attack

uncle jim + mosquito: same as previous but swap the beam for shockwaves from 4+ flying bastards

catercoaster + ladybug: probably the most well balanced of the duo bosses. a challange, but doable as catercoaster's rail provides enough mobility to dodge and shoot at the same time reliably, provided you focus on not getting ran over by catercoaster

judgeball + coaster: would be a difficult challange normally, but removing half the floor makes it nearly impossible to dodge

solution? scrap em, or rework them so they follow a set pattern of movement and attacks that can be planned around. give downtime between their attacks so they don't spam attacks at the same time. and for gods sake, ENLARGE THE ARENAS. iris phase 2 minimum, probably larger for some spam heavy fights like judgeball and diggies

the odd:

lack of challange in the challange rooms. kinda disapointing to walk into 1 and just get the reward. maybe have the challange room be a mini form of "gang of elites" from ruins or one of the old fashioned parkor puzzles

no way of getting crystaline dust outside of lottery luke: an idea i just had would be to make a new bot spawn in the starting area that would trade your "s rank tokens" you earn during the run for getting an S rank for 3 different services: 3 sranks for 1 crystal dust, 1 Srank to purchase 1 booster at the start of the stage. 4 S ranks to add 1 alt fire to current weapon, or cycle the alt fire to a new one

Honestly, you nailed it. For most things at least; I don't agree with all your issue on all the bosses (some of those duos were pretty, for me at least) but it would be much better if the bosses didn't both spam attacks like crazy. That's my main issue.

The already restrictved movesets they got kinda take the fun out of it, so spamming the same attacks again and again ? This is not enjoyable.

There's nothing funny about having to dodge the same ability every 1s and leaving no room for you to strike back.

[Rye Encoke]

ummm, this might be a stupid question but what is this thing about 5 perks? I didn't know there was a limit at all. I have always just thought all the perks applied as you got them. Or is this just an Endless thing and in regular play there was no limit to perks?

[Herozen]

Publicado originalmente por Rye Encoke:

ummm, this might be a stupid question but what is this thing about 5 perks? I didn't know there was a limit at all. I have always just thought all the perks applied as you got them. Or is this just an Endless thing and in regular play there was no limit to perks?

in regular play, you are limited to 4 major perks, their upgrades, and a few of the generic upgrades. endless allows for 5 major perks, their upgrades, a few more generics, and then it starts giving you boosters

[Rye Encoke]

Publicado originalmente por Herozen:

Publicado originalmente por Rye Encoke:

ummm, this might be a stupid question but what is this thing about 5 perks? I didn't know there was a limit at all. I have always just thought all the perks applied as you got them. Or is this just an Endless thing and in regular play there was no limit to perks?

in regular play, you are limited to 4 major perks, their upgrades, and a few of the generic upgrades. endless allows for 5 major perks, their upgrades, a few more generics, and then it starts giving you boosters

Wow don't know how I never noticed that before. Thanks for the info.

[Sea Base]

Its sad you cant get more Major Perks, I'd love to play the long game to see what all 16 look like on one character.

[Jimmy Hunter]

Publicado originalmente por Sea Base:

Its sad you cant get more Major Perks, I'd love to play the long game to see what all 16 look like on one character.

This is such a missed opportunity to push the bounds of what a class can do. But with the whole Duo Bosses not being thought out on any difficulty past Discovery, it's not really much of a surprise.

[Toshio]

Bunny shield sucks. Oh yeah, it ruins game flow.
Bosses. They definetly were not tested. On half of them ricochet and multi hit do not work - this means dat it is one hitbox, not 2 diffirent bosses. Also - 1 hp pool? really!? What reason for 2 bosses then? Did devs were in cave last 15 years? Darksouls showed how Ornshtein and Smauf should be done in 2011!!!
Also i do not get lvl 25 cap. it is endless. Thus let us get at least all perks, not like you have more than 7 working at best.
Money simply non existing in this mode - 8 coins from map, on hard on S rank is a jocke - i can start buying stuff only at lvl 25 gun! And then.... i alwasys have some ♥♥♥♥ like +2 to price or so! WTF?! Why on lvl 25 endless i have less items than in regular run lvl 12? Like half items? And why there are "secret" zones only every 2 levels? Are you really so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ scared of us being able to grab "pogojump area +5% in moonless night friday 13!" scrap, dat is 90% of loot in this game anyway?

Also it is can be me, but wtf with weapon drop rate in endless? I got like 1-2 chainsows mostly every level and same for knifes, bows, melee gloves and other unplayable ♥♥♥♥ like pans. And i never see a single heavy weapon - no minigun, no turret, no cannons! I saw bazooka 1 time in 4 runs! ONE TIME!

[Españoleitor tres mil]

excuse me, is Endless difficulty affected by the selected main campaing difficulty? I honestly assumed it always started on standard and it got increasingly more difficult with each level, regardless of the main campaing difficulty selector

[Toshio]

Publicado originalmente por Españoleitor tres mil:

excuse me, is Endless difficulty affected by the selected main campaing difficulty? :nonplussed_creep: I honestly assumed it always started on standard and it got increasingly more difficult with each level, regardless of the main campaing difficulty selector :TangoShocking:

Yep. It is affected. It starts on company and "ends" on it. It did not getting more harder than it would in campain... if we are not counting ♥♥♥♥♥♥ mutators.

[Nickolasha]

Played with friend on G4 difficulty with all the mutators (I don't know if they have an effect). Best try was 11 stage. Bunny shield is just retarded - need rework. Above 10 stage mobs have insane amount of health and you stop getting major perks. How to get even further is a big question.

[Sea Base]

Publicado originalmente por Nickolasha:

Played with friend on G4 difficulty with all the mutators (I don't know if they have an effect). Best try was 11 stage. Bunny shield is just retarded - need rework. Above 10 stage mobs have insane amount of health and you stop getting major perks. How to get even further is a big question.

I ended up saving up the 90 second damage boosts for when I really needed them, that helped. But it does feel very sucky playing like that, basically pausing every couple of minutes to pick a damage boost. Really upsets the game play flow.

[AdeptStrain]

Ditto on Duo bosses. Buddy and I play on G3 and have no problem with the campaign, but Duo bosses besides Cattercoaster + Lady bug seem overtuned.

[Nickolasha]

new record for me, duo G4 stage 14, got wrecked on boss.

[Mr. Rubber Ducky]

Yeahhh felt the same about Duo bosses. They're just insane and overtuned, it feels even unfair at times and it's any difficulty above Standard really. G1+ to be precise, it just makes it really painful to push past first or even second boss which in Endless seem to be early-run defining bosses.

Good luck though if you get Diggy + Iris p2 at the very beginning, oh the joy I felt when I got massacred while lacking any good movement options aside from a hook that has cooldown and abusing pogo-stick only to lose terribly anyways. Not my play style either, I hate being reliant on gadgets and rather just zoom around by sliding or use my jetpack.

Early-game sucks due to lack of powercells or good perks, Late-game sucks even more once game just slams a punishing to your playstyle singularity that makes some rather fun builds completely unviable and at that point may as well just forfeit the run completely because you'll be massively at an disadvantage, permanently. I mean come on, -1.75s jetpack duration when it's only thing keeping me alive on boss stages... just yikes.

Speaking more about bosses, I was appaled that bursting 50% damage to any of them doesn't just... get rid of one of them. Why? Why not make it a split HP pool where one boss permanently goes down during a fight so you can make it easier for yourself, it just feels like a giant middle finger at times. I also don't understand the logic where hitting one boss roughly amounts to killing both of them once health bar runs out.

I suppose it wasn't tested much, especially considering that Endless is not really Endless (as expected, coding limits) and it seemingly breaks after 256 levels... granted they probably didn't expect anyone to get that far and it's probably impossible to go higher the more you crank the difficulty anyways. Would argue that reaching 20 on G4 seems like a feat in it's own.