Enemy balance Thread - Gentrieve 2

A couple of things related to the enemy balance that I wanted to bring up:

1: The biggest issue right now, from what I've seen so far, seems to be that enemies have WAAAAAYYYYYYYY too much health. To a degree of being ridiculous. And when combined with their movement patterns, well.... it's one thing to have to hit a single basic enemy 50 times, it's another to have to do it while they're wobbling back and forth wildly, AND while I have to keep a distance due to their weaponry. The game seems to occaisionally produce impossible (or seemingly impossible, anyway) situations based on this; in my current game, there's a room that I NEED to get through, there's no other way to go, and it's got lots of these teleporting railgun things that roll all over the place. Big flat area; there's SOME cover, but cover simply doesnt work against railguns. I need to hit each one a rather absurd number of times with the basic shot to kill them, while they randomly ricochet off of walls and zoom all over, being nigh impossible to hit. THEY only need to hit me about 5 times (with a literally undodgeable weapon), as the game hasnt given me any health-max increases yet (and there's no unopened doors that I can actually get to right now, so I do have every item that it's possible to get without going through this new place). And since they're all using railguns, are ALL faster than me, and all teleport..... yeah. It's a bit of a problem. I do have super-missiles, but.... they bounce off! Which is kinda annoying; I can understand that the best tactic, usually, to use against a very high-health, dangerous foe is to use a different attack. But this time, it's FORCING me to use the basic shot, and ONLY the basic shot, against these. (edit: only way through ended up being just charging past them and hoping their shots didnt hit. The RNG being what it is in this sort of game, OF COURSE the first health pickup was just beyond that room)

This also applies to bosses; even easy bosses take about 50 squillionty shots to kill most of the time.

2: Enemy speed, also a bit much usually. This is mostly a problem, again, when dealing with railguns. The idea seems to be to keep your distance from that type of attack... if there's some other way to deal with them, I've yet to find it. But this is impossible when the enemy also A: flies, and B: is 3 times faster than the player. AND takes 8 kerzillion hits to kill. That's not to say there shouldnt BE speedy enemies, but right now there seem to be only two speeds for them: either super duper fast, or totally motionless.

3: Health pickups, I dunno, these seem a little too rare to me. Though it might just be me. I've lost count of how many times I've had to backtrack through like 6 or 7 rooms JUST to go heal at one of those recharge rooms, because enemies keep either dropping missiles, or nothing. Granted, I get hit more than I should by actual projectile weapons, so some of that is me needing to dodge better. But still, thought I'd mention it.

So, yeah, thought I'd mention these things, as I run into these issues OFTEN while playing this. Nothing really game breaking or anything, but still.

Edited by: Misery55

Hrrrmmmm...... let's see...

The problem may not be that the enemies have too much health, but instead you can't kill them fast enough. I can't just universally lower enemy health, or else the randomness will create too many areas that are just too easy. Instead, we should find a way to make sure rooms are not "too" difficult, but still challenging. In your specific case, stopping those enemies from being generated immune to the Super Missiles would help.

Maybe these two changes will help:

1) Always drop health pickups instead of nothing if the player is <50% health.
2) Make sure enemies are vulnerable to at least 1 ammo-type weapon you should have.

I know Super Metroid goes into health spawn mode when you drop below 30 health until you get back to 50, 50% may be a bit too high but then again you take damage much faster in G2 than Super Metroid so maybe not.

The only way to keep your distance from a fast enemy is to nail him to a wall with the tether beam but that only works on one enemy at a time.

Phr00t wrote: Hrrrmmmm...... let's see...

The problem may not be that the enemies have too much health, but instead you can't kill them fast enough. I can't just universally lower enemy health, or else the randomness will create too many areas that are just too easy. Instead, we should find a way to make sure rooms are not "too" difficult, but still challenging. In your specific case, stopping those enemies from being generated immune to the Super Missiles would help.

Maybe these two changes will help:

1) Always drop health pickups instead of nothing if the player is <50% health.
2) Make sure enemies are vulnerable to at least 1 ammo-type weapon you should have.

Hm, it's not always so much an issue of them being too difficult.... there have been plenty of times where it's more an issue of them being extremely tedious. Too much health for enemies tends to mean that what could be a fast, exciting battle tends to turn into a somewhat dull and REALLY REALLY LONG shootout from extreme range. Particularly when it's one of those enemies that just sprays a few basic shots every now and then; though, since most of them that I'm seeing currently also have railguns, it's a very dumb idea to try to get closer. Most fights consist of me standing in one spot, occaisionally moving out of the way to avoid a laser shot or two, and just spamming the main weapon for minutes on end. And note, this is the case even when the enemies are not moving (the type that's stuck to the floor) and ALL of my shots hit; it still takes an absurd amount of time for them to blow up, and obviously I cant fire missiles at every foe, since they only DROP missiles so often *(and I have all of 5 of them anyway, so I cant shoot many, period). Bosses are getting worse as well; the last one I did was bizarrely easy.... only fired a couple of basic laser shots every now and then, and was huge and slow; but it took forever to kill, despite every shot hitting and 5 super missiles also hitting. I ended up stopping for the night after that just because it was getting a bit dull.

And if a room spawns too many of these high health basic foes, there's no point in even attacking them, because they're NOT going to explode. A couple of bosses later and I STILL have only super missiles and bombs as secondary weapons, and the health level of the enemies rises even further. The game went from actually fighting most of the enemies, to being absolutely forced to try to entirely AVOID all of them, depending on how the room spawns. I met up with one particular foe when I was playing it just a few minutes ago, who was immune to super missiles, and took 3 or 4 bombs and lots of my main gun to kill (and since it stayed really close to me the whole time, it was easy to hit) and even then I only attacked it to see just how much health it had; I died immediately afterwards, since the thing had pretty much melted my health. Reloading, and re-entering that room, the only viable tactic went back to "avoid everything, dont bother firing". The further into the game I get, the more often this is the case.

The problem with the high health is that it doesnt actually increase the difficulty level in most cases; an easy enemy will REMAIN easy, but it'll merely take ages to kill; when meeting THAT type of foe, I dont attack them anymore unless I want some possible item drops; otherwise, it's frankly kinda boring to sit there and fire at them for that long. That type can be ignored without them ever becoming a real threat. However, a room that spawns ALOT of enemies that all have nasty weaponry jumps from "difficult" to "impossible" very easily when that level of health is used. Increasing the health drop rate at this point wouldnt help, because not even one enemy is going to be destroyed. There's too many of them, in a crowded room, and it can take 50-100 hits to kill one (or two super missiles AND a few more basic shots).... but THEY need only hit me a few times. No point in fighting back, just run.

With that keeping up, eventually it's going to become a matter of never actually attacking basic foes... because there's no point... and only attack the bosses, because I have to.

I have to wonder how the game determines the health level of these things; it's almost like it's spawning them as if I had a larger, more deadly selection of weapons beyond just the crappy basic shot and 5 missiles. The early game isnt like this; enemies seem to have pretty much the right amounts of health early on. After a few bosses though, it dramatically changes.

KDR_11k wrote: I know Super Metroid goes into health spawn mode when you drop below 30 health until you get back to 50, 50% may be a bit too high but then again you take damage much faster in G2 than Super Metroid so maybe not.

The only way to keep your distance from a fast enemy is to nail him to a wall with the tether beam but that only works on one enemy at a time.

Aye, of course you have to have the beam first, heh. I've yet to see it.

EDIT: And I do hope I dont sound TOO complainy here. Even with this particular problem, this is still a pretty amazing game, had a great time with it so far, and it's not going to get old at all anytime soon, I think.

Edited by: Misery55

Most of my runs gave me the tether as one of my first items with actual weapons coming only WAAAY later.

Seems that health and damage scales with the number of bosses you have defeated to get to the room, no matter whether defeating those bosses actually made you stronger.

The theory goes that even if a boss kill didn't give you a stronger weapon, you should be finding shields, charge beams & health upgrades to make you stronger. Anyway, with that said, I am going to slow down health increases over time. Hopefully this will help with my other earlier proposed changes..

Phr00t wrote: The theory goes that even if a boss kill didn't give you a stronger weapon, you should be finding shields, charge beams & health upgrades to make you stronger. Anyway, with that said, I am going to slow down health increases over time. Hopefully this will help with my other earlier proposed changes..

Aye, though the RNG sure can be a snot at times.

Though, even shields and health dont help when the enemies simply wont die and all have railguns and rockets in a thin, cramped room. I have, ah, 2 shields, the anti-fire thing, and one health pickup, as far as defensive stuff goes, in my current game. But I still die *really* fast if I try to fight a group of things like that, since I cant kill them without subweapons (and even then, those just bounce off sometimes).

One other small thing I've noticed; kinda unrelated, just mentioning it when I think of it, is that those rolling enemies seem to usually TRY to avoid falling offa platforms they start on, but half the time they end up falling anyway, which can lead to a great heap of them on the lowest part of a given room, and make it super dangerous if you have to go down there for some reason. Dunno if they're supposed to do that at times or if it's a bug or something, figured I'd mention it.

Phr00t wrote: The theory goes that even if a boss kill didn't give you a stronger weapon, you should be finding shields, charge beams & health upgrades to make you stronger. Anyway, with that said, I am going to slow down health increases over time. Hopefully this will help with my other earlier proposed changes..

Depends on the rooms per item, at the default value you'll go through several bosses before you find even ONE health upgrade. The charge beam is pretty common early on but judging by the HP bar of bosses it does less damage than simply rapid firing so it's only good for those times when you take cover or the enemy teleports and you want to greet him with something more damaging once he becomes hittable again.

Started up a new game with the most recent patch in place,

and it seems like the balance issues are, for the most part, fixed. Enemies havent become any less of a threat, but it doesnt take 8 zillion hits to destroy them, either. Yet they cant be killed TOO fast, so subweapons are still quite important.

All in all, much, much better.

Thanks for the report -- glad to hear

Hmm, getting a little further into this particular world, it seems the game is still producing impossible or near-impossible situations every now and then.

The newest area I've gotten to, every single enemy type.... *all* of them.... are teleporters. All of them fly. All of them are tiny. All of them use spray shots with many high damage bullets. At least some of them seem to have missiles as well. There is a room with no less than 15 of these all at once. ......and 5-6 boss fights down, and the game STILL has yet to give me even ONE health increase. No missed doors, either. All I've gotten, defense-wise, is a single level of shielding (which is pretty much gone the instant I step into that room or either of the two before it, since 2-3 enemies seem to spawn in front of each door in that area). I have super missiles, but they're pretty much useless against these things. Got bombs, those work.... IF they get close enough. Trying to fire at them otherwise seems futile. My health melts before I can take even one down with the normal weapon. Their actual level of health is fine, that aspect has really been much better, but.... there's just no way past that swarm that I can see. I cant just rush past into the next room, either, because it's a huge open room with a line of platforms going in the vague direction of the next door. I've even tried jumping in there, bombing the couple near the door, and just spraying super-missiles at the horde, but.... yeah. Doesnt do anything. There's no room to do any dodging, either.

I'm gonna have a few more attempts at it, but so far, I can barely even get a short distance into that room without getting wrecked. Normally, I'd try to take cover, but.... teleporters. Cover doesnt do anything at all here. ..... I dont think there really is any in that room anyway. The RNG really is being a snot today, it is. Mostly, the lack of health powerups is the main problem here; even just one more and I MIGHT be able to do something against these guys, because I could last longer.

EDIT: I swear, this always happens. Posted that, immediately got through the room. Still worth mentioning the situation though, just for feedback's sake; I didnt get through it via awesome combat and action, I got through it by noticing a second door that was halfway into the room, and diving into it. Jumping back out of it, they seem to just NOT fire for a few seconds upon entry? Well, it worked, anyway. Edit again: Ok, I DIDNT get through it. Died on the return trip; I musta gotten hit by ALOT of things at once, because I was at 1000 health, took ONE impact, and that was it. Cant seem to get through a second time now.

Hmm, yeah, there's no way through this one: I hadnt even noticed it at first, but all or most of these things seem to have railguns, too. And *all* of them start the room in range of hitting me with those. My getting through it even once was pure luck. I'll have to just start another world.

The game is, however, producing a lot of boss rooms with zero cover; considering the fact that health powerups.... just dont show, this ends up being a situation of just repeating the room until I get lucky, since the bosses are too fast to run from.

Other than this that, the game's been pretty darn great so far. Definitely enjoying it.

Edited by: Misery55

Hrm.. probably help to make more consistent health upgrades. The 3089 KickStarter is just ending today, and I will need to tend to that for a day or two. However, I'll try and get out an update for Gentrieve 2 that has more consistent health upgrades in about a week.

Aye, that might help quite a bit.

On my last 4 or 5 game worlds, I'd get quite a number of bosses down, like 6 or 7, without finding even one health increase thing. I know there's hidden rooms that might have things like that, but I've not the foggiest idea how to find them without the sight item.

And good luck with the development of 3089, by the way! Saw the kickstarter like, yesterday or so, tossed some money at it. Looking forward to that one!

Hrm.. that is very odd. I was also thinking of trying to help this problem another way: when you take damage, enemies would stop shooting for just an extra moment. Not only should there be more health upgrades, you shouldn't have to lose 1000+ health in a single room...

I just posted in another thread about a game I'm playing atm. No health upgrades at all. No weapon upgrades bar a useless one....and a boss that kills me from 1000 health to dead before I can even try and reach cover.

I've uploaded v1.7 to Desura which is awaiting approval -- I made health upgrades spawn in every 3rd "item" room found (among other improvements). This should help out greatly. If you have BMT Micro, you can get the update now and tell me how it is working.

Awesome! I think that'll help quite a bit.

It was never so much an issue of enemies firing too often or anything like that.... it makes sense that they be nasty like that at times, but it only really works if the health is scaling up at least somewhat. Bosses in particular; In my current game, I met up with a particular boss that I just could not defeat without at least 3000 health, and even then he almost got me.

The game seemed to have been mostly placing the health items in secret rooms? Is how it seemed, anyway; I've got 4000 in my current game, but all 3 health powerups came from secret rooms (and those are the only secret rooms I've found so far), and I've taken down about 5 bosses. Surprised I found them, dont have the sight thing yet.

Anyway, I dont have BMT, just Desura here, so I'll let ya know how it goes once that updates.

How do you find secret rooms? I've not found any so far.

They are quite hard to find.. you have to look for paths going to "nothing", which might be a door -- shoot at random walls and it might appear. However, the best way to find secrets is to find the Advanced Vision upgrade, and then look for new doors you couldn't see before.