View Issue Details
| ID | Project | Category | Date Submitted | Last Update | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0018624 | Starward Rogue | Balance Issue | Jan 31, 2016 5:38 am | Jul 5, 2016 12:41 pm | |
| Reporter | ptarth | Assigned To | ptarth | ||
| Status | resolved | Resolution | fixed | ||
| Product Version | 1.010 | ||||
| Summary | 0018624: Feedback from the SA Forums | ||||
| Description | https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3563643&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=348#post455651227 I'm going to have to be the voice of opposition for this game. In the combination of bullet hell and binding of isaac gameplay, they hadn't learned from either source of inspiration. - There are issues with the visuals, that you can lose track of enemy bullets into the background or your own shots and end up taking a hit that you didn't see coming. Binding of Isaac gets away with it by generally keeping the bullet density down and when it amps it up enemy bullets are easily distinguishable. Bullet hells tend to have clear backgrounds and make your shots semi-transparent. A heavy outline on enemy bullets would do wonders here as would *not* having enemy shooting the same colour as the player. And HOLY HELL do not have a companion that shoots DIRECTLY at you. - Explosions from your guns hitting enemies block out their shots AND their tells. I didn't even know enemies had tells until I started writing this thing and took a closer look at some of the more problematic enemies. Explosions have priority over every other visual effect so in the case of small enemies they are entirely eclipsed by the particle effect. - Furthermore, on the final final boss, the first section has bullets that get entirely washed out by the light glare outside from the background. This is really bad because this section requires you to run from side to side and has a smattering of extra bullets in the direction you're running towards. - Your orbitals are about the same size and sometimes the same colour as the player. I've had a couple occasions where I've mistaken myself for my orbital. - It's unclear if this is supposed to be a precision game or a lenient one. The bullet hell sort of implies precision and some of the room environments demand being careful with how you approach them, but the majority of the time you're just auto-blasting everything that comes into range. Your own hitbox isn't defined well and is significantly larger than normal bullet hell games (although around the same size as euro arcade shoot em up games!). The fire walker enemies are really visually interesting but the lingering fire isn't something you want to get near during a tense situation for how fuzzy their hitbox appears to be. - You can get items that work until you get damaged but I've noticed there are occasions I've taken damage (into HP as well!) and it hasn't disappeared. I think that happens against FUCKING tiny transporters and the big blocks that disintegrate into visually hard to read asteroids. - You can 'activate' enemies from off-screen which allows them, in turn, to blast you without a visual tell. - Balance issues. There are rooms that are unholy affairs of turrets, attractors, repulsors, and spikes interleaved with small, bullet-happy enemies and some bosses that strike without notice (looking at you Invader and your laser if you get too close, fucker). There are rooms that have a couple enemies here and there and no noticeable restriction on movement and enemies that literally do nothing except move somewhat fast once they get activated. - Store-bought bonuses can be trade-offs, often never picked up because they are terrible options (turtle shell probably the most egregious: take less damage while slowing movement and dishing out less damage? No thank you) or always picked up because it's a no-brainer (-5 Energy for 1 HP!). - HP sacrifice rooms don't provide good enough bonuses that you rarely use them. And in ONLY 1 secret rooms, sometimes there's only one option! - Consumables are incredibly ubiquitous but not enough of them are good general room clearers. And there's an inordinate number of 'regen level' and 'skip to next level' that get spawned even though the former is tedious and the latter is dumb. - Backtracking is a pain in the rear but the final bosses are bullet sponges; rushing through to the end is just asking for a bad time. It's a pain because rooms can be large, convoluted areas that have you will end up bumping against walls when you're running and the level itself can be large, long, branching affairs. Not all room hazards are removed upon clearing them so you can't just run on auto-pilot. - I would have also pointed out that extending the run out to the real final boss was originally locked until you completed the game 10 times. But thankfully Arcen resolved that recently and I've got it open after only 3 wins. So the short of the long rant is, best wait on this Arcen game because it looks like they're doing their usual extensive iterative balance patching until long after the first release. It worked out well for AI war, maybe they'll work out the kinks here too. | ||||
| Tags | No tags attached. | ||||
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That bit with the repulsor/attractor fields is the big one that still needs to be dealt with for some rooms. There really should never be more than a couple of those things per room, in areas defined around them. Right now they're definitely an issue. Many of these other things have been fixed at least. |
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They seem to all be addressed now. |
| Date Modified | Username | Field | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 31, 2016 5:38 am | ptarth | New Issue | |
| Mar 1, 2016 4:59 pm | ptarth | Assigned To | => ptarth |
| Mar 1, 2016 4:59 pm | ptarth | Status | new => acknowledged |
| Mar 1, 2016 6:41 pm | Misery | Note Added: 0045310 | |
| Jul 5, 2016 12:41 pm | ptarth | Note Added: 0045537 | |
| Jul 5, 2016 12:41 pm | ptarth | Status | acknowledged => resolved |
| Jul 5, 2016 12:41 pm | ptarth | Resolution | open => fixed |
