Arcade mode Highscores

Sekibanki

Green Slime
Now that the arcade mode updates are out it's as good a time as ever to start a highscore thread. There was an old one but it's been dead for a year, anyway here we go.

710482 - Used insect swarm and finally beat floor 9.
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Should probably limit it to v0.599d scores.
 

Own

Moderator
So the trick to beating Frostling Boss on floor 9 really is just to circle strafe the room and spam insects? Or to guarantee health potions every floor by circle strafing with insects?

Huh.

Or did you encounter a different boss on floor 9?

Anyhow, here's my highscore from the previous version.

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Sekibanki

Green Slime
You fight Marino on floor 9 now, don't know if there's someone else to fight there just yet.

Edit: The other boss for floors 9 and 10 is the toy machine.
And my new high score is 1062469. Was so close to beating the Hydra, at least I cleared a million.
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Own

Moderator
Well, I decided to finally give in and try out this insect build everyone else is using.

On my first attempt, this is how far I got.

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This feels a little... undeserved? :p It required no enemy attack pattern memorization or combat, just room circling and spamming insects. Also, I got Winter as my Floor 11 boss. Shouldn't he be the floor 12 boss, like Gundam? Or is he one of three random bosses that get generated on either floor?
 

Marsch

Green Slime
my build is
skill : Whirlslash & Protect
talent : Atk10% & HP10% & other

When I went to go 12F . There wasn't 11F's boss.
Into 11F's boss room → displayed "Result" → displayed "FIGHT" → But there isn't the boss & drop Item
 

Teddy

Developer
Staff member
When I went to go 12F . There wasn't 11F's boss.
Into 11F's boss room → displayed "Result" → displayed "FIGHT" → But there isn't the boss & drop Item

Did you reach the 12F boss room, but there wasn't anything there? :eek:
 

Own

Moderator
Yikes. It seems like the Arcade is filled with a lot of nasty little bugs on the new floors.

I'm fine with dealing with bugs and I'm all too happy to report them, but spending 30-60 minutes just to encounter them and lose all that time invested is rough. According to IHeartPie's twitter feed he got to Seasonne only to have it crash on him as well, losing all his footage as a result. That must have been horrible.

Do you think these crashes and progress enders will be fixed soon, Teddy? I can't dedicate 30-60 minutes to running through 8 floors to try and bughunt on floors 9-12. :p
 

Teddy

Developer
Staff member
NO.
In 12F boss room, there was "Winter"

Oh, was the 11F boss missing? But you could still walk to the next floor?

Well, I decided to finally give in and try out this insect build everyone else is using. This feels a little... undeserved? :p

The only comfort is that you'd get much better scores using your skill based builds, but yeah, Insect Swarm is a... tough spell. It's enjoyable for regular players, because it's kind of fun, because... it's a swarm of insects! Since it's a neat spell in non-competitive gameplay it's a shame to have to rework it.

I was kind of hoping it would take a bigger hit from the removal of its slow, which I thought was one of the reasons people managed to survive with it. I'm a bit too tired to think right now... but the Fireball doesn't feel nearly as overpowered, does it? In theory you can run around and kite with that, too, but for some reason it seems to fare much worse than Insect Swarm.

Perhaps a way to stifle too lame tactics would be a "timer of death" that activates when you're way below C rank in time, starting to spawn invincible thorns or something... but that's a scary road!

Do you think these crashes and progress enders will be fixed soon, Teddy? I can't dedicate 30-60 minutes to running through 8 floors to try and bughunt on floors 9-12. :p

Really sorry about those

:(

I jinxed myself by starting the rather large task of adding Steam networking functionality, effectively hindering my ability to put out new builds until I'm done with that.

For the time being it's probably best to avoid playing the new floors, considering the risk of stuff getting bugged.

With these things in mind, I think I'm going to add some system for you guys that will help with testing and alleviate the blow when the game crashes. I haven't thought it through entirely, but the core idea is that the game will save checkpoints of the run (say, a snapshot of your progress at the start of every floor). This save will remain intact until you enter a new run.

Then, in Arcadia, you could type "/reload same floor 6" for example, and it will clone your run and take you to floor 6 with all your equipment and talents etc intact. Not sure about score though.

And, for optimal bug testing (and training), you could type "/reload floor 6", without the 'same' keyword, to clone the run up until that point, but generate new seeds for the coming floors, to spread a wider net to catch bugs. Also useful if you've been hard crashed by some level generation thing and want to be able to circumvent it by generating a new floor layout!

Last but certainly not least, this system would allow you to send me the save file and let me replicate the exact conditions of generation related bugs!
 

Own

Moderator
I wouldn't mind a system that let me type /floor # in Arcadia, spawned me on that floor with a random assortment of equipment, spells, skills and talents and created a test save file of that point. That way I could just keep hitting that command over and over, running through that floor or the ones past it and do ridiculous things trying to break the game. :) The random equipment/spells/skills/talents would be helpful in sniffing out strange causes of crashes, since it'd give me a reason to use things I normally ignore.

I can't imagine it'd be abused if it awarded nothing to overall score or essence count.

I was kind of hoping it would take a bigger hit from the removal of its slow, which I thought was one of the reasons people managed to survive with it. I'm a bit too tired to think right now... but the Fireball doesn't feel nearly as overpowered, does it? In theory you can run around and kite with that, too, but for some reason it seems to fare much worse than Insect Swarm.

Perhaps a way to stifle too lame tactics would be a "timer of death" that activates when you're way below C rank in time, starting to spawn invincible thorns or something... but that's a scary road!

People didn't spam it because it slowed enemies, but because it requires very little targeting and does a lot of damage over time.

Fireball requires aiming, insects have some wiggle room in where they can hone in on enemies. Fireball puffs out after one hit, insects linger and can switch over to other enemies after they get a kill.

If a skill just requires you run along the outside of the stage and tap the button every so often, it's a little broken. :p Spirit Slash at least requires you be near enough to your enemies to potentially be hit by them.

I could think up a few quick ways to balance insect swarm, possibly.

1) It behaves like a summon. When one swarm is out, the EP required to cast it is blocked and doesn't unblock until every insect in that swarm is dead. Doesn't stop circlestrafe-spamming, but it would slow it down considerably. Not sure if this is a good idea.

2) Similar to 1, but every insect summoned acts like an EP blocker. As each individual insect dies your EP is unblocked. Still not sure if it's a good idea.

3) If you move too far away from the insects, they immediately die. No more spraying and running endlessly. If you move too far away from Snowman, he flees back to you. Same with Cloud Buddy. There's consistency in applying some sort of proximity requirement to the insects. I kind of like this one, requires that I actually have to get near my targets somewhat.

4) Every time you cast insect swarm you have a brief Movement Speed debuff applied to you, temporarily weakening you somehow? Would make spraying and running a lot harder.

5) Make Insect Swarm a TRUE spray-and-run-away spell. If the enemy they're targeting dies and you're the next nearest target, they'll turn on you and fly after you instead, draining your HP like Bat Swarm does.

Any one of those would make it not quite so skill-less. You've got people who were struggling with beating Flying Fortress sailing all the way through Seasonne using just this skill, it's far superior to Shadow Clone which actually requires constant enemy proximity and danger of being hit. :p
 

Own

Moderator
Oh, and as for taking too long in a room? It wouldn't be the worst idea to do what Bomberman does. A slow, steady reminder that "Hey, you're taking too long" in non-boss rooms. In Bomberman they plopped down one block in the top left corner and then gradually began filling in the stage in a clockwise rotation. Invincible thorns don't pop up and get in your way, they just make the room smaller, and smaller, and smaller until you're forced to get up close and personal with your enemies.

I doubt this would solve too much with Insect Swarm, though, since... it does a ton of damage when you're fully geared out with MATK. You can get steady B's and decent C's with it.

An alternative would be to use the stalking-death method that many roguelikes have. Spend too much time on a floor? It spawns a slow moving enemy that constantly hunts you. An evil version of Cloud Buddy that drifts towards you and zaps you if you take far, far too long in a room would be... interesting? I dunno.
 

Marsch

Green Slime
Oh, was the 11F boss missing? But you could still walk to the next floor?
I'm sorry that my explanation and English are not good.

There wasn't a boss on the 11F , and the gimmick of the ivy did not operate.
So I entered in boss room again , then ivy was growing up . and I could go to 12F in that time.

But other time . "winter" was in the 11F boss room . Mmm... :-(
 

Own

Moderator
I tried a new build.

Insect Swarm SilverRank, Cloud Buddy Level 1, Earth Spike SilverRank. Went into this with 5 HP pots and full HP.

I switched Cloud off for late boss battles and focused purely on Earth Spiking them down to overcome Winter's ridiculous damage reduction. Scraped by by the skin of my teeth. I swear that little thing where Winter hides in the corner has a tad too narrow spikes, I can't get to him without taking at least some damage. :p I find it best to hide and wait it out.

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Own

Moderator
Did you have to fight Winter, or did you luck out and get Hydra / Fairies? :p I've yet to have a run where Winter didn't deem fit to try and screw with my day.
 
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