[ GAMEPLAY ]
The "Radioactive" mid-run boss has had 2 major edits:
Now, only heals 5% per cursed stone in crate.
Drops significantly less cursed stones at start (previously, 6-12). Now it should drop 6, then 7, then 8, 9, etc.
Most mid-run bosses have had their max health decreased.
"Compressed" mid-run boss now mixes in regular attacks. It was a little too gentle unless angry, where it was too tough. Now it's hopefully somewhere in between (more average damage when calm, less average damage when angry).
"Reflective" mid-run boss now mentions that both Tar + Attack will increase as it's hit with stones.
[ BUGS ]
The "tower" of defeated enemies (for unlocking rewards) was not properly saving the mid-run or final bosses, and was replacing them with a particular midrun and final boss. It will now save it properly moving forward.
There was one song in the Mines that had a VERY long silent tail (8+ seconds). It has now been edited. (Because of this edit, the patch update is approximately 30 mb instead of the usual 3-4 mb).
Overall, my initial reflection is that maybe the mid-run bosses are still too tough, but maybe also too squishy. So I'm considering increasing the HP significantly, maybe even 50% or 100%, but decreasing the starting attacks to "normal enemy" levels, so that it is more of a gradual ramp up in damage. ("Bombadier" is kind of a special / separate case.). When I look through player feedback and the data of those who were kind enough to share anonymous data, I get the sense that the game might be currently too difficult at the lower depths. So overall, I expect future patches will be in the direction of making the game "easier" but hopefully also "more interesting".
[ ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS + FEEDBACK ]
Thank you to all the players who tried the new bosses, and especially grateful to those who were willing to give feedback on their experiences. (Replies below.)
I also want to thank HolyCowGames (the dev for Goblins For Good):View game pageIn a recent interview with Sunday Brunch games (View game page), they discussed a lot of interesting gamedev topics and expressed a lot of kind words for Rutrum in particular. Thank you!
You can view the podcast here:
Reflections on anonymous player feedback:
"Maybe a tweak on some items/enemies/nodes rolls. My first run was handle shops only without any shovels. The tar-dropping enemies are also a bit confusing, since they do something like "drop tar for every rocks erased" but they keep dropping tar before I could break any rocks."
Thank you for trying the demo and sharing your feedback. I'm sorry the mid run boss, particularly the one you mentioned, is too difficult -- I'm going to keep reflecting on this point. Possibly the Reflective boss should also occasionally attack without tar, or his health should be further reduced. I will keep reflecting on this.
Regarding the shop, all shop nodes on the map are handle shops, but you still receive shovel shops after every battle. I'm sorry for this confusion. I'm considering displaying these on the map as well, maybe with a UI option for players.
"Wasn't expecting the difficulty to increase this much. I don't mind it though. It's still my first time trying this level, so a learning curve makes sense. Flower Girl draws me in a bit as a character, also. Glad there's more to do with her after finishing the first depth level. "
Thank you for sharing your feedback! I'm sorry you started the game right at the launch of the mid-run bosses, which I believe are a little too difficult in general. In the demo there's a total of 10 depths for Flower Girl, and 3 for Beetle Bane + 3 for Merchant (once unlocked). In the full game, there's 10 depths for each character (and other crates, etc).
Some of the depth levels need revisions, particularly beetle bane depth 3. I keep iterating on polish -- enemies, depths, items, etc, trying to smooth out parts to the best of my ability. This addition of the mid-run bosses is definitely a big "shock" to that balance, but I will keep smoothing it out until it is hopefully fun + challenging.
"(continued) Sorry I'm leaving you so much feedback. At least it means I'm playing your game a lot.
I keep seeming to do well with rock destruction but running out of health really fast. Will need to figure out how to fix that. On your end maybe more options to keep health up? But it might be my fault for triggering the poison potions so much. "
Not at all, I love player feedback, it's my main source of energy and I reflect on it multiple times every day (including past feedback).
One potential reason for the difficulty jump is that I just added the Mid-Run bosses, and I think I overshot the difficulty target, making it considerably too difficult. Even now, with this hotpatch, I think I need to do another revision, but I like to go in half-steps.
There are still a few ways to get semi-broken healing builds, but they are generally tough to pull off. My main concern with adding more healing via items is that it might extend run time and promote overly defensive builds -- something the devs of Slay the Spire talked about in their interviews. This is one reason why I generally prefer creating "shield" items, where the shield exhausts itself at the end of the turn. Surprisingly, even the basic shield with +3 shield can go kind of a long way, even though it's a common and doesn't sound very impressive. Shield can also block poison vials (but not cursed stones). There is one "Bed" healing item that I'm fond of, that I sometimes desperately roll for in shops as a last ditch effort to save a run, but it never comes when I'm desperate for it.
However, this balance is something I will keep iterating on and reflecting on -- for example, Beetle Shield and Depth 3 challenge for Beetle Bane are currently at odds with one another, and one or the other (or both) need adjustment. I'd love to hear any reflections you have on the game now that I toned down the mid-run bosses.
"So, the boss I fought, Radioactive, the enemy that spawns cursed rocks that you have to pop to prevent it from healing 10% of it's max health per turn.
Well, just a smidge overtuned. And by a smidge, I mean it's pretty bad imo. The chap scales infinitely basically, because each round, it spawns an additional cursed rock to the pile it already sends, which popping them doesn't damage the chap, just stops the damage & healing. However, because of that, even if you focus on popping all the cursed rocks, if you miss one, it heals 10% of 3332. That being, about 333 health. Now, popping 10 normal rocks can get you close to dealing that much damage, BUT the thing is, the chap starts spawning 10 of the rocks from the start, & as stated, keeps scaling infinitely. With sheer raw damage, I killed the chap multiple times over from his max hp, BUT because I didn't have enough raw damage as a stat, even when I popped EVERY rock on the screen at once via comboing a few geodes, that wasn't enough damage to get it below half. Combine that with the fact that the cursed rocks Radioactive spawns not counting for damage either, it led to a headache of knowing I couldn't outdamage it's healing while also knowing that I had no way to actually scale to the amount of cursed rocks that were getting fielded. Just felt really unplesant. Also, feels difficult to get the chests to open, even when focusing on that, which is ironic because the issue with that seems to be the enemies dying too quickly, which is an amusing dichotomy between that & my issue with Radioactive. Wouldn't say the game was too easy or hard, though if I had to choose between, I'd lean towards 'too easy' with a stab of direct unfairness from the existance of Radioactive Spider Bastard, but it's quite a novel game idea, & even with my, frankly, bitching, it was fun. Until Radioactive. Irked at that bastard. Quite a nice style ye have for it, & it was incredibly amusing to stick a shovel handle onto the blade end of a saw lmao. Might be worth having more music variety, varied between 'zones' or what have you depending on how development goes, but I like how it sounds quite a bit."
Thank you for your feedback and clear outlining of the issue, which I completely agree with. As a result, for that mid-run boss: I've reduced the health slightly, the attack substantially, but more importantly, reduced healing from 10% per cursed stone to 5%. However, I will keep looking at feedback and playing the game myself as well to further refine these new bosses. (And at some point, get UI working so players can avoid bosses their build doesn't like.)
Regarding the sound variety, each zone has 5 unique songs at the moment, but some of the songs are possibly short (~2 minutes). I'm considering doing something like "play one song on loop" for each battle, so that each battle has it's own "flavor" so to speak. I need to double check, but I think Monster Train might have done something similar to this. (But I will probably add two sound options under menu, one for "Don't loop songs", i.e. the current standard, and one for "Songs ignore zone" (1 random song out of the 15 songs)).
(continued from above) Something I'm curious about that might be interesting is if the rocks ye pop could be made to be dropped at the end of the round, after ye click the 'end round' button; it'd let ye focus on popping open chests without worrying about the enemies immediately popping themselves from you merging on accident, while also letting you see how much outgoing damage you'll be having before it happens (so ye can plan around that). That'd probably throw balance off though, so I could see that being a bit busted, or not exactly what's to be planned for the vision of the game as a whole. Cheers for making this though!
This is an interesting proposal I've never considered before. I can certainly see the merits you touch upon. My initial concern would be confusion from players about "why did these rocks hit the enemies when I click end turn", but to some extent that confusion is already a concern in the current setting, so it might be worth considering further. But even if it doesn't become the default, I often try to find ways to work fun variants like this into alternate crates, special rule-changing shovels, or UI options.
Possibly one iteration of this idea is that rocks fall immediately, and enemies disappear, but the enemies' chests stick around until End Turn button is clicked, or possibly until "Next Wave". This might solve the visual communication issue but keeps the core idea (more time / less stress to unlock chests).
My rough sense is that this might work well as a shovel (item). Like the base form of the shovel keeps the chests around until "End Turn", and the upgrade form of the shovel keeps the chests around until "Next Wave", and the handle might be "Popped rocks target enemy with most health". I will need to keep reflecting but please feel free to let me know your thoughts on discord, the steam discussion page, or through the games form.
Thank you everyone for all of your thoughts and feedback! I will keep polishing to the best of my ability.