Roguelite Enemy Hell/Bullet Heaven/Survivor catch-all

Gavinmad · Oct 3, 2023

Aazrael said:
So is Slay the Spire impossible to beat without unlocking new cards and having super luck? Furthest I have gotten is like the 3rd part and hit a brick wall. Mainly the boss who I barely killed, then he respawned into a Phase two.

There's some good stuff gated behind unlocks but very few critical cards. My guess would be that you aren't optimizing your deck enough for act 3 (which is a huge spike in difficulty over acts 1 and 2), the usual culprits are lack of a focused strategy, too large of a deck, and/or not ditching most of your starter cards.

Caliane · Oct 3, 2023

yeah, slay the spire has ups and downs in difficulty. I'm not 100% certain its current balance.

but, last I played. it was beatable at first. However, actually got harder with your first few unlocks. as RNG goes up, and its harder to make a coherent build. new items, but not new builds.
as you keep going though, the RNG get bigger... but, you also then get more good then bad cards/relics. and can pick and choose. and those new cards/relics are actually forming new builds, for more options.

much of it is player skill then too. the rng goes up, but you know what to look for and how to pick good cards, and not take too many, etc.

Brikker · Oct 3, 2023

I managed to put a couple rounds into Deep Rock Galactic survivor.

I think it's interesting. The quality level is definitely there. Being able to break down walls and stuff via mining can be fun to funnel enemies the way you want to them to go. The upgrades are a bit boring, they're like Rogue: Genesia and Soulstone Survivors - increasing a state for a weapon type and adding a level to it. Doesn't appear to be any weapon evolutions. Gameplay is pretty basic but it's polished and looks like they will have 5 or 6 classes at release, plus specializations for each class.

If it's the typical $5 or less price range it will be a definite buy for me but since it's from a known IP I have a feeling they'll try to get more $.

Gavinmad · Oct 11, 2023

Brikker said:
I managed to put a couple rounds into Deep Rock Galactic survivor.

I think it's interesting. The quality level is definitely there. Being able to break down walls and stuff via mining can be fun to funnel enemies the way you want to them to go. The upgrades are a bit boring, they're like Rogue: Genesia and Soulstone Survivors - increasing a state for a weapon type and adding a level to it. Doesn't appear to be any weapon evolutions. Gameplay is pretty basic but it's polished and looks like they will have 5 or 6 classes at release, plus specializations for each class.

If it's the typical $5 or less price range it will be a definite buy for me but since it's from a known IP I have a feeling they'll try to get more $.

It's definitely bland as hell outside of the deep rock elements but hopefully they'll spice it up after next fest feedback.

Slaanesh69 · Oct 11, 2023

Man, I have just put another 25-30 hours into Soulstone Survivors. The amount of content on this game is pretty deep, with skill trees for each character now past level 40, and three weapons to craft for each one. The amount of workable build diversity is pretty broad.

I will say once you get to curse level 4 the game becomes a chaotic mess of just avoiding ground effects while hoping your skills are whittling down the bosses. And by the time your skills get really powerful they cover the screen AND all the ground effect warnings and you can't even dodge damage properly. I cannot find an opacity meter to adjust either.

It is the priciest of the bunch, I think, but I have 52 enjoyable hours in it so definitely worth it.

Void · Oct 11, 2023

Slaanesh69 said:
Man, I have just put another 25-30 hours into Soulstone Survivors. The amount of content on this game is pretty deep, with skill trees for each character now past level 40, and three weapons to craft for each one. The amount of workable build diversity is pretty broad.

I will say once you get to curse level 4 the game becomes a chaotic mess of just avoiding ground effects while hoping your skills are whittling down the bosses. And by the time your skills get really powerful the cover the screen AND all the ground effect warnings and you can't even dodge damage properly. I cannot find an opacity meter to adjust either.

It is the priciest of the bunch, I think, but I have 52 enjoyable hours in it so definitely worth it.

There is definitely an opacity meter, but I can't remember where it is off the top of my head.

I just played it for the first time in months last week, after buying a new wider monitor, and I didn't realize that vsync now allowed 144 fps (at a higher resolution as well) as opposed to my old 60. I about pissed myself and the cat jumped about 5 feet straight up when the jet engine started up in my computer due to it apparently being about to melt down.

Slaanesh69 · Oct 11, 2023

Void said:
There is definitely an opacity meter, but I can't remember where it is off the top of my head.

I just played it for the first time in months last week, after buying a new wider monitor, and I didn't realize that vsync now allowed 144 fps (at a higher resolution as well) as opposed to my old 60. I about pissed myself and the cat jumped about 5 feet straight up when the jet engine started up in my computer due to it apparently being about to melt down.

I actually made an effort.

Settings
Graphics
Special Effects Visibility slide bar

Much, Much better now. Just beat my first level 6 curse map.

Gavinmad · Oct 11, 2023

Slaanesh69 said:
I actually made an effort.

Settings
Graphics
Special Effects Visibility slide bar

Much, Much better now. Just beat my first level 6 curse map.

unfortunately the best thing about the game by far is how gorgeous all the effects are, but as you said it's basically unplayable without them turned way down/off.

Deathwing · Oct 11, 2023

Thought I was in the PoE thread for a minute. But then I saw that there was a setting for increasing visibility.

Void · Oct 13, 2023

Hatorade said:
God of weapons. Bullet heaven with an expanding attache case that lets you organize your weapons. Demo is out now, full release in a few days.

Put a little more time into this last night, and it has a ton of depth to it. I'm not a huge fan of the limited arena size and weird angle, but overall it has a lot more content than I expected it to. And since I have played Backpack Hero I'm used to the inventory minigame. Worth a look if you don't mind the play style.

Kuro · Oct 15, 2023

Been playing the deep rock survivor demo, didn't realize the level 18 weapon overcharges would actually be something cool instead of more +25% Fire & Reload, so had just been parking weapons at 12 and getting global buffs.

The +dmg/-move per nitra relic is a god damn trap and has killed me many times in my quest for the big numbers.

Only milestones left are the leveling past 60 ones and whether you can get to 99 or whatever seems massively rng-dependant with finding big exp boosters early and making sure to save any magnets for the end of the levels (which is awkward when they often spawn right on top of you).

I'd really like if overclocks had a reroll or skip option. Having a weapon's synergies fucked up by being forced to change its damage type sucks.

Brikker · Oct 15, 2023

I read that demo progress won't transfer over on release so I stopped playing it...

Just a heads up if you were hoping for that.

Aazrael · Oct 15, 2023

Saw that Halls of Torment had a auto aim option in a video. So went back to it and now I can finally play it. It feels hard though. Got the well keeper so have not gotten very far yet.

Brikker · Oct 15, 2023

Aazrael said:
Saw that Halls of Torment had a auto aim option in a video. So went back to it and now I can finally play it. It feels hard though. Got the well keeper so have not gotten very far yet.

Like most of these games it becomes trivial once you unlock some meta progression. Some of the characters are stronger than others, too. I've found archer pretty easy most of the time.

Kaige · Oct 15, 2023

I managed to crack into the game with Exterminator. Getting the well guy in the 2nd map is a definite game changer.

Aazrael · Oct 16, 2023

Yea I do best right now with the fire dude. I guess I need to continue grinding for items and upgrades.

I really like Vampire Survivors but that got really crazy when you have everything unlocked. Like all the weapons upgraded at 5 minutes and the whole screen exploding.

Brikker · Oct 16, 2023

I initially wrote it off as a mobile port but
Has grown on me. It's like a 20 mins til Dawn and VS mix.

Gavinmad · Oct 17, 2023

Brikker said:
It's like a 20 mins til Dawn

Brikker · Oct 17, 2023

Gavinmad said:
View attachment 495656

I read those posts, lol. Could be true. Who knows? It's definitely heavily similar to 20 Mins. My biggest issue is actually the difficulty. Some level + difficulty combos seem straight impossible. There's really only 1 viable build to go for to beat harder stuff, too. That's probably the biggest flaw.

Gavinmad · Oct 17, 2023

Kuro said:
Been playing the deep rock survivor demo, didn't realize the level 18 weapon overcharges would actually be something cool instead of more +25% Fire & Reload, so had just been parking weapons at 12 and getting global buffs.

The +dmg/-move per nitra relic is a god damn trap and has killed me many times in my quest for the big numbers.

Only milestones left are the leveling past 60 ones and whether you can get to 99 or whatever seems massively rng-dependant with finding big exp boosters early and making sure to save any magnets for the end of the levels (which is awkward when they often spawn right on top of you).

I'd really like if overclocks had a reroll or skip option. Having a weapon's synergies fucked up by being forced to change its damage type sucks.

So after playing enough to have completed a Hazard 3 dive it's not as bland as I originally thought, the deep rock elements really do spice it up quite a bit. Once you get some meta progression going it feels a lot better.

I agree that some of the overclocks are problematic since in actual DRG you're never forced to take an unstable overclock.

Roguelite Enemy Hell/Bullet Heaven/Survivor catch-all

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