Game balance Thread - Gentrieve 2

So, let's talk about game balance, where it is and where it should be.
Since Metroid got mentioned in the game description I assume Gentrieve 2 is meant to have a similar game balance (more specifically similar to Super Metroid since that's usually considered the best one).

What's the current situation? Far as I can tell the game generates short level strips consisting of an item check room, 1-2 regular rooms and a boss room with the occasional minor powerup or save room attached. The first such strip is added to the starting room with no item check and a second strip is added that requires the item from the boss of strip 1, a third strip requires the item of boss 2 and so on with each new strip branching off from some previous strip. The regular rooms are populated by up to a half-dozen enemies that each take a large number of hits with the basic gun to kill and may or may not drop a health or ammo refill on death.

Now Super Metroid (apologies if my memories are too tainted by Metroid 1 which I played much more recently):
The level design itself consists of several hub rooms. From a hub room there are strips going off towards major (critical for the progression without sequencebreaks) and minor (strength boosting but not critical) powerups. A strip for a minor powerup consists of maybe 2-3 rooms, often with an item check among them. A major strip begins with an item check (wouldn't want people to realize they lack an item too late) and then follows with a lengthy sequence of rooms, 10 or more often happening. Those major strips may include a major enemy (boss or miniboss) or simply a setpiece of some sort before looping back into a hub room (the loop isn't traversable the other way around, whether because of one-way obstacles, requiring the item of the strip or simply being the only way to the ending hub). Items can also be hidden along any strips in breakable blocks or behind small item checks or challenges or whatnot. I assume that last part isn't terribly feasible with procedural generation.
Enemies are mostly cannonfodder, simple ones die to 1-2 shots from the kind of weapon you have at that point in the game and exist in part as a way to feed you refill items. Not all enemies are pushovers, some are major threats and will require many shots or using your limited ammo weapons but these are in the minority because you need some way to get refills faster than you use your health and ammo up.
Not all major items are guarded by bosses, some are just found through exploration.

As far as applying this to Gentrieve, well, here's my take on it:
The biggest hurdle to having many rooms is the map system. I understand that making a contiguous map like Metroid uses is not feasible. I would however advocate making all rooms in a strip have the main exit (the one that leads to the next room of the strip) be on opposite ends, that way rooms of a strip can be drawn attached to each other for easier understanding. Other strips and hubs can still be connected by floaty lines.
The map should have a network of hubs that are connected by shortcuts (2-3 rooms) but these shortcuts should do item checks for the highest item in the sequence that you need to get to the far hub. Or obstacles that can be permanently removed from the far end. Either way, a relatively fast network between already reached hubs so we can go nuts on the actual main strips.
Main strips should likely consist of about 10 rooms give or take (with large rooms maybe counting for multiple), possibly with a boss at the end. I don't think all of them should have bosses, G2 feels almost like a boss rush with how many of those it currently stuffs into a level. Especially during the early phases a lower rate of bosses would allow the player to build up a basic arsenal of gear. Optionally these strips could also have the item in the middle with the rest of the strip geared for the item (and the way back blocked off). These strips could end at the place they started from or at another hub that's within the progress the player has at the end of them. If you want to streamline things the next strip could start where the previous ends (or at least have a higher chance to do so).
Minor item strips would just be an item check, 1-2 regular rooms and an item room. They'd be dead ends, the player can just walk that little distance back.
The current enemy style would be reserved for major regular enemies, they could very well stay at the same numbers they currently have but with some minor enemies added that are rather low threat, die quickly and can drop small refills so you can get health and ammo from enemies that aren't hard to kill without expending health or ammo.
I think such a rework would be worth it and greatly improve the game's entertainment value.

Why is this damned forum software eating linebreaks???

Edited by: KDR_11k

Have you tried creating a custom game? The default setting for each "strip" length (e.g. rooms per item) is 3, which is a bit short, but new players generally want progression and new items relatively quick. You being a more seasoned player would probably enjoy custom games better. You can set each "strip" to be up to 15 rooms in length -- you should also give the "non-consecutive" rooms a try, which does some more crazy things with maps.

I'm not sure upping the strip length with the current game balance would work out too well, the regular enemies tend to become pretty dangerous quickly and making it alive through 10 rooms is pretty unlikely since refills come too slow to make up for the damage and spent ammo.