Hello there, Mr Developer. This is a first for me.
Actually, adds are there for many reasons. 1) to have a way to infinitely spawn ammo (people might run out of money and not be able to afford ammo boxes, then be stuck), 2) to have an additional way to let you build mod power, 3) to be an "ad" (aka additional distraction) - without them, every boss would be a cakewalk. If you look at any boss fight in Destiny 2 up to Osirus (when I quit), every single boss that I can remember spawned adds... both in Leviathan and in any of the Strikes. In most cases, it's what made their fights hard as well.
I have over 60 ammo crates on my character: they cost 200 of the resource you have the most of. You're underestimating how easy it is to stock up on those (vendor -> buy). People can't run out of money, since enemies respawn and money is a common drop. Destiny 2 is a poor example because, again, you run a strike with a team and there you actually need the ammo. You don't have ammo replenishing consumables. I'll agree that removing every add would make (most) of the bosses less interesting, but lessening the fodder's aggression or speed or something would make the experience less frustrating when you're alone. They simply form a wall that eats your shots, and by the time you've reloaded to deal with the boss they're back or almost back again. If you don't deal with them again and again you just die, and there's no-one to get you up again like in mp. When your boss is the least threatening thing in a boss fight there's an issue.
Not sure what you are referring to in regards to enemies being immune to bullets when they are swinging. I can't think of any boss that is designed to work that way.
When they _aren't_ swinging. The pyramid head dual swordsmen, which are actually immune to bullets unless they charge or attack. A less literal example would be those giant guys in the first chapter with the swords. I couldn't figure out where their weak spots are, and they have a ton of HP to boot. They have weakpoints somewhere, right?
That isn't correct. You are not capped at +5 increments until you advance a chapter/biome. Once your gear is an average (all 6 slots) of +4 it will trickle (very low percentage) upgrade material for the next tier. When you get +5, it will drop more frequently. When you get into the next area of which the minimum level is "of the next tier" it will also show up. It's so you can get it early if you maintain all your gear, but also if you get to the next zone. It compels you to upgrade all of your chosen gear by giving you tons of the materials needed to do so and holding off on the resources for the next tier until you've raised the average level up enough.
Ah, now this is never explained in game and seems pretty important information. I kept pushing forward to try and find the next tier of upgrade material, meanwhile there's a system behind the scenes keeping it from me. Consider exposing this information to the player somehow, because upgrading mechanics are too important to obfuscate.
See my original reply up top... but yes, they are necessary. That being said, the rate/ratio (and add selection) could always use some fine-tuning. Also, you do not get swarmed by the same amount of adds in 1p compared to 3p.
Here's a thought: instead of tweaking the ratio of adds, how about tweaking the time it takes for them to come back? Let the player buy time to deal with the boss by swiftly dealing with the adds. In a team you have 3x the firepower, 3x the targets, 3x the abilities, multiple lives, etc. Alone you have...9 rounds in the magazine and a prayer.
I'd like to see video evidence of this. Our dynamic system will typically not generate enemies on tiles you have already "cleared" when making forward progress. I'd have to see an example to confirm what is happening.
I wasn't recording (I don't stream or anything). The scenario was chapter 1 in the section with the empty, multi-floor office blocks. I entered building #2 from building #1 via a walkway between the first floors. I walked into a room which I had cleared from a distance, heard the spawn sound, turned around and 3 or 4 of those automatic-rifle guy were on the ramp leading to the bottom floor, which was about 3 steps behind me. They all burst and I died. There were no sound queues to indicate they were right behind me, me turning was purely in reaction to the generic spawn sound which makes me look around for potential targets. There seems to be a general lack of directional sound queues.
Another example (more reproducible): would be the chapter 2 "alien" dungeons where the things spawn out of the walls. I've constantly had them spawn right behind without making a sound in a fight.
You really think extra health and stamina are virtually useless (2/3 starting traits)? Besides raw DPS upgrades, they are the most useful traits in the game. What about mod power generation (Cultist). Also one of the best traits in the game outside of raw DPS as the game leans heavy on mod usage.
When you're alone the extra health and stamina don't make a difference. There's no-one to kill things while your run or cover you while you try to heal. Taking an extra hit or two doesn't matter when you're being swarmed: it doesn't stop you being staggered, it doesn't stop your animations being interrupted, it doesn't let you aim while your knees are being eaten by a horde of little guys. Plus, the damage on large enemies kills you in 2 or 3 hits anyway. The health upgrade doesn't even give you an extra hit where they're concerned. Raw DPS traits are so much handier when playing alone. I'd trade the health trait for a "increased clip size" or "increased run speed" or "% to ignore stagger" trait in a heartbeat.
Also: consider unlocking more traits for the player at the beginning. When I opened the trait screen for the first time and only saw 3 basic traits I thought "
ah, janky budget title, I guess" which is misleading. Maybe put down big question marks where future traits will appear, so the new players know that traits "become a thing" as you progress. Just a thought.
Low ammo count but you can buy (very cheaply) ammo boxes that reload both weapons to the max faster than most reloads actually do. Adds also drop ammo. You have to think of it as a "sharpening stone" in MH. It's basically free, but it takes time, and it slows you down. Hotkeying sharpening stone is also busywork.
So is or isn't the game balanced with the ammo boxes in mind? If it is, then you can lower add counts during bosses since we have ammo items. If it isn't, then you can up our ammo counts. Or you can add a trait for ammo capacity levels. Or a trait for clip sizes. I love my repeater rifle and you would be endorsing that love if you gave it the ability to hold more rounds, sir.
That being said, of all my criticisms of the game, this one is the least relevant. Now I know to just buy ammo crates and forget the ammo system exists.
Enemies should be taking damage and getting staggered from other enemies. Quite often Root Axes will hit other Root and stagger them. I've also seen bosses set their own minions on fire. Would need an example of this not happening so I could take a look.
So those Root Axes (the initial enemies, they throw something at you?) would be my example. I'm of the opinion that they probably should friendly fire, but the hitboxes for the game are kind of...well, spotty. Enemy shots clipping through enemy models. Like I said, I've seen other ranged friendly fire happening, like with the teleporting archers that shoot the explodey arrows and the exploding spear guys. I think you'll be seeing video evidence of the shots going through models at some point as people stream/Let's Play the game.
You sure you just didn't get better at the game?
Probably not. Those tribal guys in the skull helms literally fall over if you shoot them center mass. Then you just shoot them again while they're on the ground. Compare that to the assholes at the end of chapter 1, with their ground explosions, grenades, machine guns,. etc.
I agree with you about "obviously flawed" (lots of things to address). The good news is, Steam was 94% earlier. It won't stay there obviously - we have a lot of bugs and some other stuff we really want to take care of - but it's been received pretty well, which is great. That being said, we are definitely aware of the general opinions regarding many elements of the game and are thinking about potential solutions in areas we think we can improve. It's definitely a learning experience, we don't have all the answers, just a foundation we want to build on.
Dude, game is great. It needs some tuning (imo), but it's a fun romp. Maybe I'm terrible at the game and my criticisms are completely invalid. I'm sure other feedback will either echo some of what I've said, or give you compelling reasons to ignore me. Either way, thanks for posting here. I hope your game performs well.
The game was balanced on solo (both normal and hard) first, before any tuning was done for multiplayer. Solo does not have revive, which makes it a much more daunting experience. Solo and MP are like two different games in some regards which makes it (for some people) an exciting proposition. It's like the Souls in solo vs mp... not the same thing (not even close difficulty-wise).
I don't know what you intended, but as more players play your game I think you'll find that the solo experience you've created is a shitton harder than playing with people. I'm seeing people post on Steam about how easy the game was, and how they beat it in 20 hours...then you realise they did it with 2 other players and it all makes sense.
It was made with both solo and coop in mind (see above). The number of enemy spawns and the hp/dmg of enemies in coop is nowhere even remotely close in coop vs solo.
Got some numbers for me on that? I don't doubt you, I just want to know what the differences are. In solo I'm routinely assaulted by groups of 8+. During boss fights 6+ adds are the norm so far. You're telling me that's been scaled down already.
www.gamersyde.com
tragic please patch the game and remove the infinite spawning adds. It makes the game broken and not challenging
