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Changing Orange Elites

Discussion in 'Suggestions' started by Neapolitan Shark, Nov 23, 2014.

  1. Neapolitan Shark

    Neapolitan Shark Space Spelunker

    We've all had that time. whether you were playing with Glass, Honor, or just just a plain vanilla run, all of us have been unfairly shafted by one of these red rods of pure "fuck your shit"

    In hindsight it doesn't really make a lot of sense. Why would these Elites have rockets firing out of their backs? Sure the other special abilities are a bit far fetched, but there are some good explanations:

    Frenzied/Teleport: The Imps can do it through some lifeforce mumbo jumbo, maybe whatever gives them the ability has blessed some lucky Lemurian.
    Electric: Bioelectricity, like the Electric Eel but 100% for badass.
    Firetrail: Some sort of combustible chemical is created within the creature. Either that of he's a damn good rapper
    Healing: We already got a cell that can perform mitosis 4000x faster than anything in this universe, a medicinal fungus, and a seed that can sap life force, I'm pretty sure some AoE healing burst isn't out of the question.
    Rocket/Explosive: Um, MAJIK?​

    A bit of a sore thumb if you ask me. So here is my proposition:

    1. Remove the Orange Elites ability to launch Rockets
    2. Slightly increase it's main attacks blast radius (around 2-3 pixels)
    3. Buff it's health by around 50%
    4. Introduce more ranged attackers where elite mobs used to have free reign over.​

    So this way, instead of this elite being a stupidly unpredictable game ender, but more of a manageable opponent that relies more on skillful dodging to take down.

    Feel free to post your own ideas on this topic, of course.
     
      Last edited: Nov 25, 2014
      Bughunter likes this.
    • Dargona1018

      Dargona1018 Existential Complex

      The rocket elites are the only thing that can touch you most of the time, so this would unbalance the game tremendously, especially with your proposition.
      Also, for number 2, there is the explosive elite (also orange, same as firetrail) that pretty much summons the Brilliant Behemoth.
       
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      • Neapolitan Shark

        Neapolitan Shark Space Spelunker

        We have plenty of enemies that force you to move around without such random and unpredictable means. We got the Archer Bug, Evolved Lemurian with it's wing dive attack, Spitter, and the Black Imp (to an extent). All we need to do is add the jelleyfish to the Frozen Tundra and we'd have a even distribution of harassment enemies.
        The Exploding strike Elite and Rocket Elite are the same type, if any enemy is that color, it has both abilites, kind of a imbalace of elite power if you ask me.

        I've taken more thought into this topic, and have come up with another sollution.

        1. Remove the rocket lauching ability from the Orange Elite
        2. Give the rocket launching ability to a new Purple Elite (or whatever color is best able to distinguish between the other Elites)
        3. The Purple elite has slightly increased speed, but no health bonus.​
         
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        • Bughunter

          Bughunter Spaceman Spiff

          I completely agree with your statement. I would rather have the rocket ones replaced with ones that can climb or something, would eliminate some of the rope issues :p
           
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          • Dargona1018

            Dargona1018 Existential Complex

            The Exploding-Attack and Missile elites are two different elites.
            They just happen to have the same color, but they don't have both abilities.

            Also, those examples of flying enemies don't matter, as you can juke all but the Archer Bug.
            Trust me, if you took out the Missile Elite, the game would be quite horrendous as they are an essential hurdle in the game.

            And about the other solution, there is already the Yellow elite that is fast and can teleport.
             
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            • Neapolitan Shark

              Neapolitan Shark Space Spelunker

              No they aren't, I want you to put honor on and wait until a orange lemurian spawns, let him fire off a missile, and then walk right up to it and let it blow up your character. Then come back and try to tell me I'm wrong.

              Yes they do matter, those enemies serve the save purpose that the Missile elites do. They force you to move around instead of camping in one spot. And those enemies do it leagues better than what the missile elite does. Less RNG in the attack and more skill required to dodge it.

              The yellow elite doesn't move faster, it just teleports.
               
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              • ShadowlessWanderer

                ShadowlessWanderer Pangalactic Porcupine

                Yellow elites DO in fact, move faster. Outrun a regular sandcrab with a character (no items) and then try and outrun a yellow sandcrab with the same character and no items. In every case, a yellow sandcrab will catch and hit you. Same thing with golems and lemurians. Yellow bison are terrifying not because they can teleport but because they WILL chase your ass down extremely quickly.

                What do you mean by missiles are more RNG than flying enemies? They strike the EXACT same spot on your character and they ONLY deal damage when they reach their target point. Just like the wandering vagrant's and temple guards' shots. A simple jump will easily avoid a missile about 95% of the time.

                Missile elites are simply just a hurdle to jump over in a game that WANTS to kill you. I'm gonna have to side with Dargona with this one, Missile elites are the only thing that pose a real threat no matter where you are. Take out missile elites and the game becomes way too easy because simply nothing can touch you.Flying enemies aren't even a real pain, they're just an annoyance.
                 
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                • Neapolitan Shark

                  Neapolitan Shark Space Spelunker

                  Are you sure that their faster though? I've played 50 or so runs with Honor somewhere in the artifact pool, and it always seems like the Yellows only have the ability and the usual health/damage bonus. I share your disdain for the bison though, those guys always play a part in an end of a successful run.

                  I play on Monsoon, so the indicators for missiles, temple guard shots and cremator shots are all gone, with that out of the way there is almost no telling were exactly the missile picked up your position. Their are simply better ways to keep the player moving.

                  With all do respect every enemy is an annoyance alone, but it's the combination of the factors that make it deadly. Ideally we want every individual element to be easily dealt with and combinations taking prior planning and high skill to take down. However, when on part just doesn't fit in and is needlessly unpredictable, it should be edited in some way so it can fit in better with the rest of the challenges the game throws at you.
                   
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                  • Zawisza

                    Zawisza Astral Cartographer


                    Erm, nope? Do i need to remind we are talking about Rogue Like platformer here. As far as i can remember every rogue like is hard as nails. Essentialy removing the olny elites which can kill you from afar will make the game even easier than the patch introducing huntress/chef. And then we might as well boot up some SMB.

                    I also play on monsoon with almost all characters available. I have no complaits whatsoever about missile elites. They are shooting their little annoying things, but they have lower health than other elite monsters (as far as i can tell) and you can easily pinpoint and eliminate those. Monsoon is the difficulty, you need to at least pay attention, and paying attention also mean hearing the sound of missile launched at you. And thats about it. The rest was mentioned by Dargona and Shadowless
                     
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                    • Neapolitan Shark

                      Neapolitan Shark Space Spelunker

                      Not all rogue-likes need to be hard, but that's not what I'm implying we should do here. A game can be hard without being completely reliant on random and unpredictable factors. There are plenty of enemies that can snipe you out of the air. Spitters are the perfect example, they have an attack that is detectable, but you need to act quickly in order to successfully dodge it.

                      All elites have the same health pool when compared to a different elite of the same enemy. The problem isn't that a player isn't skilled enough to detect a missile, it's that the unpredictability of the attack is very lazily made when compared to the other specialized and more thought-out attacks of certain monsters.

                      This is a discussion about potential changes to a game mechanic, not a lesson on how to counter said mechanic.
                       
                      • Zawisza

                        Zawisza Astral Cartographer

                        My point here is, there is no need. Its not "random" attack, its one of the few things which missile elite can actually do except for being slightly stronger counterpart of the original monster. Hell, even we assume its random, because whatever, you can still clearly hear the "shwop" sound when they fire the missiles. And they will aim where the character was standing. Its so easy to predict the trajectory you would be in fact able to hurt monsters with those missiles if they could friendly fire. So i still dont see any point in nerfing the olny real threat in the monsoon run apart from shocking elite for meele.
                         
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                        • Neapolitan Shark

                          Neapolitan Shark Space Spelunker

                          It's not unpredictable because of a faint sound, it's unpredictable because the trajectory of the missile along with the path and time it takes to get to it's intended target can't accurately be judged. The orange elite already has a higher damage/slight AoE buff to it's main attack. It can go without the additional missile ability. Just because you have mastered the entire game doesn't mean the average player would want to spend the time to counter an ability that should never have needed such dedication to counter. You need more than just anecdotal evidence to hold up your case.
                           
                          • Zawisza

                            Zawisza Astral Cartographer

                            Actually you do evidence more than anyone else. And it doesnt really matter if i mastered the game or not tbh. I played with people who are newbies. Hell, i played with peeps which chose RoR as their first title ever in gaming history (apart from Solitaire i guess). All of them we're frustrated at the explosive elites, but none of them even thought of nerfing those. They just sit down, brows crossed like in some cartoon, and they played the game until oranges were no issue. I mean, there is no point really, its all about playing enough time to get used to those kind of things. Missile ability is (i guess) not present at all in drizzle, present from the Frozen Tundra/Ancient Lake in rainstorm and present all the time on monsoon. If those are such an issue, go rainstorm, go to third level and kite them with the indicator on. Do it enough times to feel comfident, then go monsoon and do it again but without the circle. Thats all. Roguelikes, especially RT ones are just like that. After all you wont be the best whatever in the world without practice. And since you have issues with oranges, i guess you lack the forementioned.
                             
                            • Neapolitan Shark

                              Neapolitan Shark Space Spelunker

                              The proof is in the pudding my friend, I have the evidence of the games mechanics. It's blatantly obvious that a spitters shot and a elite missile both serve the same purpose. But the Spitter can do it that role much more fairly because of it's reliable trajectory and indicator. But at the cost of it being a quicker attack speed and less time between marker and commencement of the attack. I don't want the game to be easy, I just want the game to be fair.

                              There you go again with the anecdotal evidence, This is not a discussion on how to counter a attack to make it easier to deal with, this is a place to discuss potential changes to it. I don't know how many times I need to say this.
                               
                              • Dargona1018

                                Dargona1018 Existential Complex

                                Okay, I am going to intervene.

                                In previous comments, you said that there are plenty of enemies that can snipe you out of the air.
                                There are only the Missile Elites and the Spitter, as Jellies are only on the first level (I believe), and Flying Lemurians have never seemed to hurt me when I was on a rope.

                                With you saying that it's not a discussion of how to counter, its to make it easier to deal with, leave this game now. Just do it.
                                If you need a legit mechanic where you literally only need to move a centimeter to avoid it dumbed down or removed, you just can't handle the game.
                                The truth is, and I imagine most others will also say this, the game will not be changed so drastically because the minority has trouble.
                                It's as simple as that, but you can't seem to understand that, so that is why me and others are trying to hijack your thread to tell you how to counter, so you don't have to waste fighting this impossible battle.

                                As Zawisza said, you just need to play a little, learn to counter, and continue on.
                                Me playing mostly Rainstorm went into Monsoon and won, even while getting bombarded by missile elites and getting the Cremator.
                                And this is from someone who hasn't played Monsoon since I haphazardly chose it in my first 30 minutes!
                                You say that not having the things shown make it nearly impossible, make it overpowered, but if you took our advice and played some Rainstorm, actually learned the mechanic, then you would have no trouble.
                                That is all that anyone has trouble with in this game, apart from bugs. They have yet to learn the mechanic.
                                 
                                • ShadowlessWanderer

                                  ShadowlessWanderer Pangalactic Porcupine

                                  Contrary to popular belief, the indicators ARE NOT related to difficulty settings. They're related to the QUALITY settings you have on at the time(stupid I know but what can you do?). Low ALWAYS has them, medium and high never have them. Due to having a relatively shitty pc, this is something I found out extremely early on. Mushrum, Vagrant and Cremator attacks are the same way.


                                  And yes, yellow elites have a higher move speed than regular enemies. Like I said, go test it out. Its not hard to see the difference at all. Sandcrabs and golems show the most speed increase because they're usually slow and not able to chase you down.

                                  Missiles AREN'T random though. Like I said, THEY DO NOT deal damage when they're flying to their destination meaning you can easily avoid them. And since they target where you are at the time of the firing, just stay moving or jumping and you'll have no trouble at all dodging the missiles.

                                  I play on monsoon too and while I'm not the best at the game or anything by a long shot, I know how to dodge missiles with a simple jump. And isn't it common sense (after the first missile hit you notice and make the connection that missiles HURT) you'd see a missile being launched and start running in a single direction or use an Iframe ability to avoid it?
                                   
                                    Last edited: Nov 27, 2014
                                  • Neapolitan Shark

                                    Neapolitan Shark Space Spelunker

                                    Jellies are sadly not found on any other level aside, it would be a perfect enemy to add to the later levels. Lemurians can do quite a good number off of your health bar if they swarm you, and is another good candidate.

                                    Maybe instead of insulting my play, how about you bring up a reasonable argument. And it's pretty sad that you admit to hijacking my thread just to tell me to get good. This isn't about an individual's skill for the love of god. I have stated multiple times that I do not intend to want this change out of the desire to make it easier, but to strip it of a RNG-dependant element in place of another one that takes more skill than luck to avoid.
                                     
                                    • ShadowlessWanderer

                                      ShadowlessWanderer Pangalactic Porcupine

                                      No offense mate, but maybe you should actually read comments. Missiles ARE NOT random or RNG. They CANNOT hit you when they're flying towards their target, they DO NOT chase you if you stay moving and/or jumping, and they're easy to dodge. Also the fact that almost every class has invincibility frame moves or ways to move quicker (acrid's slime trail) or ways to completely shift targeting off of them (engie's turrets) its extremely easy to avoid missiles.

                                      About your suggestion to add jellies to later levels: Why? Jelly fish on the second level are just an annoyance and not a threat at all. By the time you would see them again (which is only if you loop and if you get that far) you're more than equipped to easily kill them. Also Jellies are found on the first two levels and the Sky meadows (2nd level)
                                      Flying Lemurians don't deal contact damage UNLESS they're flashing blue. That's their attack animation and the only time they deal damage when they're flying.
                                       
                                        Last edited: Nov 27, 2014
                                      • Neapolitan Shark

                                        Neapolitan Shark Space Spelunker

                                        That's pretty crazy. But they why would they cut out missile, cremator, and vagrant attacks before a mushroom's? The later obviously has a more complex animation. What you're saying sounds kinda fishy, but I'll belive it.


                                        Thank you for clearing that up man, after a few minutes of closer observation I can confirm what you said.

                                        Missiles can be launched 1-3 at a time and can lock onto you within a undetermined time interval when they are shooting up. There zig-zag pattern also changes their trajectory a bit, so the missiles life-time has a second of deviation either way. Please correct me if I'm wrong

                                        The more types of enemies a level has the ability to spawn, the more combinations of enemy groups there can be. Even if they are laughable alone, any enemies damage can stack up if ignored.

                                        Sorry if I was unclear, I wasn't refering to a Elite Evolved Lemurian, I was refering to it's dive attack (wings flash). I might still be mistaken and that could just be a movement boost and I didn't notice the small *tick* sound of an electric shock, could have been an elite all along.
                                         
                                        • Zawisza

                                          Zawisza Astral Cartographer

                                          This topic is clearly getting out of control here. Its the "missile should be nerfed whine whine" vs comments completely destroying that statement. Sorry mate, but as of right now I see you as someone who can't handle the obvious game mechanic, which is implement specifically for harrasment of ranged characters. I wonder too why are you so eager to nerf missiles and not chain lightnings, which are way deadlier and can easily one shot even really lucky survivor if handled carelessly. That being said, all you do is to attempt to nullify our points with the one constant argument which is, quoting: "you dont understand my pain, the game must be as I want because fuck you". That is really uncool for starters, but even if we do treat it seriously, we just flat out told you how to counter your problem, which you just pissed on, because the game is unfair towards whatever your main is. Wow, man. I can easily pinpoint and present you here a summary with every single enemy, boss and their elite variants here, and believe me, explo ones will not be the most deadly. Yet again, i wont, because i prefer to play the game and get better at it. FYI, I just completed the monsoon diff as Sniper, which sucks hard and is basically unplayable, and the olny really deadly enemies for him were fast (yellow) variant.


                                          ed. Oh, right, and about spitters. Sure, so much difficulty, much overpower, blah blah. They are far easier than Spider Bots and spawns on two variants of the lever (Fungal Haven and Hive Cluster). So most of the times you wont even see them, less likely be threaten by them.
                                           
                                            Last edited: Nov 27, 2014

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