It seems I have hit the update like a brick wall.

One thing I had had found rather loathesome about RoR's demo was that the limited number of items in the game often found me spending most of my time on "HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" difficulty jumping around, killing enemies through the mere exposure effect, all whilst being tailed by four Wandering Vagrants. Of course, this all assumed that I had at least three or four of Paul's Goats' Feet and thus maintained a high enough speed to avoide the wave of death that gurgled just behind me. While the item problem has been resolved in the beta, I feel this May 15th patch has reintroduced the problem I had with the demo.

While I am all for making the game difficult, I feel this is being achieved in an improper way. Risk of Rain, while a predominately skill-based game, has always put the player in the uncomfortable position of "demanding" certain items for success, items whose distribution is determined by a random number generator and a few tier constraints. If a player lacks these items in the early game, skill can bridge the gap until the player is able to receive them for the late game. Unfortunately, it seems that bridge is becoming longer and starting sooner.

Again, I would like to reiterate that a long and arduous bridge constructed on the sound or unsound foundation of one's skill is not an undesireable thing, but the update seems to drop the player directly onto this bridge from the beginning of the game. I recently played a run in which there were 55 enemies left after the teleporter had charged up, and this stood in stark contrast to pre-update runs where I'm not entirely certain 55 enemies would spawn at all on the first level. This trend continues as the game progresses, obviously, but it leaves the player in the frustrating position of needing to defeat large numbers of elemental elites and a few normal enemies without any of the items that are required for effective crowd management. It becomes less of a challenge and more of an empty feeling knowing that the eight Greater Wisps that spawned no more than ten blocks away from me are going to blend me up because I can only dodge-roll once, and the only available location for said dodge-roll happens to be filled with Black Imps and those mushroom dudes.

What I'm saying is that the difficulty curve in the early game has simply been made too steep. The only positive it provides to overall game balance is that it reduces the fequency with which players will arrives in the late game as ungodly over-powered weapons of mass destruction--only by the sheer virtue that it prevents players from getting to the late game at all. A good difficulty curve makes the game progressively more difficult, not a brick wall right out of the gate. I know I'm ranting a bit, but I really appreciate this game (especially because you guys made it in Game Maker, which making a good game in is a feat in and of itself), and I want to ensure that the product is as polished as possible. I know I'm not providing a lot of insight into how what I consider to be a problem would be resolved, but I do wish to at least posit the concern so that it will not go unconsidered.

Also, teleport-elite Black Imps are the spawn of Satan.

Edit: Let this be noted that these impressions have been formed under a "Normal Mode" experience whilst playing the Commando. Also, subsequent runs seem to be much easier, as in, the number of elites is less heinous, and I don't know exactly why that would be.

 

Hmmm.. I personally think normal mode is still too easy.

 

I don't know if this is exactly what he is speaking to but I found that in the recent patches that the elemental elites of normal seem to have gone crazy. In the demo and in 30.0.0 (maybe I was just obscenely lucky for many of my runs) the spawns didn't make it so that I just had to be lucky to get by. Now with the masses of missile launching explosive types firing missiles at infinite distance across the map, the hordes of teleporters that follow me, and those electrical field elites appearing as 4 or 5 at a time (at the according difficulty) I just keep running until I die.

Other roguelikes like stone soup and hack slash loot always make the choice to fight or run an important decision. If you fight you risk either losing hard to regain hp, resources or death but you if you succeed you get valuables. However you are also supposed to stay smart and not engage every group because certainly every group is not spawned with the intention of being defeated right off the bat or perhaps ever.

I was thinking it would add a tactical element of fight or flight if the range on missile launching elites was reduced and the cooldown on elite teleportation affixes raised so that you can escape these enemies if you have to. This would reinforce picking your battles rather than having to be forced to deal with each elite (specifically those darned missile launchers).

 

Haha, before I found out about that, I was wondering 'why are my first runs always so much better?!!'

 

Making a good game with Game Maker isn't a feat. Successful marketing for a game made with Game Maker, and the knowledge of the tools used available to the public, is the true feat.

Okay, got that out of the way.

Every single paragraph I come up with on this topic ends up being too mean for me to be able to post it honestly. I apologize if I come off as rude, it's hard when there isn't a large thread that's all about fixing minor things. Not just glitches, but topics that include balance problems, and player confusion. In fact, the nature of this very thread seems to attract harsh rants about the game's shortcomings. It may be best if you wouldn't read the following paragraph.

The difficulty curve is impacted by many things, but I feel like these aren't balanced together. Balanced separately, and then placed in the same room. Monster spawn frequency in particular, as that seems to increase regardless of how difficult the monsters actually are. I see way more Snow Golems than Clay Men in the Frozen Tundra, and everything is nearly impossible to outrun after the first level. I can't stand still to take out one monster, as more keep spawning and getting in the way.
This may seem harsh, as these are criticisms of something of a game that seems to be frivolous. Every little thing counts; adding an entirely new mechanic may not have as much of an effect on the game's balance, when something as simple as an animation that's two frames too long can ruin everything.

 

I'm with Excavater9 (it is hard to comment about the minor balance details in the midst of a beta without sounding ungrateful or outright nasty). Specifically one of the larger problems seems to be the lack of balancing the spawns as a group. Certain combinations prove absolutely lethal and especially on places like stage 3 where wide spaces are sparse.

 

Wow, of all of the conversations I have simulated in my head, this was probably the best case scenario. You are amazing.

Well, the thing with the Snow Golems seeming to be more common than Clay Men isn't easy for me to test, it being in third stage. I mostly encounter large hordes of Snow Golems that have a very large amount of health, so they amass easily if they aren't killed immediately. And I noticed that the Clay Men tend to jump off of the cliff more frequently than any other monster.
I have a feeling that in a stage like this, where there isn't much room to move around, even a single monster poses a larger threat than it usually would. One idea is making the monsters' likeliness to spawn based upon how much ground is quickly accessible. This of course may also induce future problems, but it's worth a shot if you think it'll help.

By the way, is the "AI Director" one or more ds_lists?

 

I think the 'problem' is, that in Alpha there were only a handful of items and as such you could easily amass a big chunk of regen, damage, etc...
While item diversity is good, some items are more sought after than others and it basically comes down, what you could find in the first 5-10-15 minutes of the game. If you have found 6 piggybanks and 2mushrooms, you will lack the damage on the later levels. It happened a quite few times, but I found only on-use items on the first level and no passive items at all. I think the items should be grouped to 2-3 groups (damage, support, ...) and on each level, some percentage (>0%) should contain 1-1 item from each category.

Edit: Shouldn't normal monsters have a very slim chance (0.5%, whatever) to drop items as well?

 

I think 5 percent would be way too much but it would be cool to have a 0.01% chance or something to get a random drop.

 

Random drops would indeed be really neat, but perhaps only from Elites, and maybe even lower than 0.01%, or else they would be way too easy to simply farm. I mean, it's clear that some really good players already have bosses on farm, to just camp out until they spawn naturally (no teleporter) and amass items that way. If there were a chance on drop from normal enemies and it's not balanced right, items would be way too easy to come by, if you go to the "Highest Scores" thread and look at the kill counts of the higher-end players. It'd snowball after a point, because there comes a point in a really good run where you can just mow enemies down by standing still and holding down a button.

 

Drop chance from normal monsters would be a great addition. Items are absolutely necessary for progress, and with such a chance those who focus on battle only still have a hope of accumulating something, as opposed to those who choose to roam around the level a bit and buy all the items.

As for percentages, let's take this example:
2 hours 7 minutes, around 150 total items, 103 of which are from bosses.
With 2243 non-boss kills, 0.5% drop chance would yield approximately 11 more items, which is around 7% of increase or one extra item every 11 minutes on average.
A 0.01% chance will give an amazing bonus of 0.22 items, which in reality is closer to 0. Getting one extra item over two hours of play would be a lucky occurence.

 

I agree completely, except for the fact that monsters can easily die offscreen without you caring about them. When playing as HAN-D with spirit bolts and missile launcher active item, you can easily destroy droves of offscreen enemies and simply move on, waiting for the loot to trickle in.

However, I would love it if there was a special arrow that pointed towards items, as this would make it much easier to notice when they had been dropped.

Also: I just realized that was my high score

 

Perhaps items could trickle in along with exp and money then?

 

Okay, before I go to bed, I have one more idea. Replace experience and levels entirely, with individual stat boosts gained from certain monsters. The stat boost gained would be based upon the skill needed to defeat that monster, e.g. killing a stone golem would result in a boost in base damage and max health, while Lemurians would increase attack speed. There may be some class specific exceptions, like making the death of a black imp result in movement speed for Commando, and total health for HAN-D. There's always the worry of including monsters that boost max HP and base damage in each level, (and the challenge of a stage lacking monsters with one or both of those stats).

Inspired by this post.

 

I think the fact that items don't come towards you sort of adds to the challenge without it feeling cheap or anything. Imagine a boss drops a brilliant behemoth (to name a commonly known legendary tier item), it probably feels more rewarding to dash through heaps of enemies to retrieve it than it would to just run off and watch it come at you. It's a minor element that can go a long way in balancing the game out. It would also of course be a different story with active items, since those shouldn't fly at you. If you were to open a chest while an active item you don't want is orbiting around you, you'd have a chance to accidentally pick up said item. Again though, like many tweaks the game could have, the probability of this being possible depends on how the items are programmed in.
An alternate option could be an arrow, like previously mentioned by Seria-Myouna, pointing towards an item that just spawned. To avoid cluttering the screen it would probably be a good idea to not keep the arrow around as long as the item is, though, maybe something like 5 to 10 seconds. Or a distinct sound could play when an item drops, maybe even with a certain audio balance to it to indicate if it's to the left or right of the player (if possible. I know very little about GML). The trick there would mostly be to find a sound that wouldn't be obnoxious, as of course there are many items to be found.

In short, I don't think items should move towards you. It adds a little bit of challenge, even if it's not much. An option to make an item drop more noticeable could potentially be a good idea though.

 

I really like this idea and would be interested in seeing how this turns out, if implemented. It is very true that all classes have their unique playing style, and rewarding a player for using a class correctly sounds like a good idea. Han-D would, like you said, need a steady HP builder as he progresses, because he really is the Tank of the game and his playing style is standing in the middle of a crowd, dealing his punishing blows and collecting HP regens (i.e. his drones) to keep his sustain up long enough to be able to do so later on (or at least that's what I always do). The Commando is far more of a long-ranged, almost sniper-like character and attack speed increase is definitely one of the biggest advantages he could get. The Miner I'm not too familiar with, so I won't wander into uncharted territory. The Bandit could perhaps gain movement speed or attack damage.

However, using stat-ups like this could force a certain playing style onto players and we probably don't want to do that either. Maybe you could have the XP we have now, but have level-ups focus on what the player has seemed to be focussing on? This would require the game to track the player's stats as he plays, and would require it to predict the player's method of operation: if it's detected that the player is suffering from large HP drops, "possibly he's playing as a Tank, and the next Level Up should focus on HP Regen increase".

This thread is very good at 'kicking up some dust', as the people in my country say, - it discusses matters that others would maybe shy from to not hurt each other's feelings. However, it is very good to speak your mind in the process of testing; only then will the developers hear your cries and maybe listen. They can only benefit from your feedback if you actually give it to them.

As a general tip: you can avoid Wisp's fire by jumping at a key moment. I know, however, how difficult this becomes in larger crowds of them.

Yes, indeed they are. Perhaps certain Elites shouldn't be allowed to occur?

 

This is pretty much exactly what I was going for, making the player character better at what it does best.