Anomalies/Gems Beta Feedback (Gems not adressed here)

[Anxiattack]

 

 

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Anomalies/Gems Beta Feedback

 

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This document aims to address the flaws and any feedback or suggestions regarding the Teffra Anomaly Beta. I will not be addressing anything revolving around Gems here, as I would like to push all my focus into anomalies, as they seem to be more heavily associated with how the game is affected here. It should also be noted that I won’t be compiling all the anomalies here, as many of them feature little to no flaws whatsoever. 

 

Addressing a couple of main problems here 

- None of the Spore’s effects are working anymore. This applies for both the anomaly spores and Blisterbane ones too.

- Anomaly Effects are triggered during both Miniboss, and Boss Rot cut-scenes, causing unwanted, and unavoidable damage to be taken (because players can’t move during this period). (Lightning striking, Eggs exploding, Ice clouds freezing, etc). Basically any anomaly that can cause damage is affecting players in this way without control. So in a simplified summary, anomalies should basically not activate or be active until the boss fight actually starts.

 

On to individual Anomalies now

 

Anomaly Feedback and Suggestions

 

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Lightning Anomaly

-Lightning strikes could be more frequent for sure. They feel too simplistic of an obstacle to avoid as it stands.

 

Healing Winds Anomaly

- A suggestion to make this anomaly also periodically heal enemies would make for a much more interesting challenge, while also keeping the effects of improved healing for players. To make for  a balanced yet challenging gameplay feel.

 

Groak Spores Anomaly

- The main issue here is the case where Groak spores appear invisible to the player, resulting in unfair gameplay where the Groaks might randomly swallow said player because they unknowingly stepped on a groak spore. The consistency of the spores being visible to the player varies heavily and seems to just randomly be affected at times.

 

Menace Anomaly

This so-called “menace” suffers from many disadvantages that make it laughably easy to kill. (more so the early game ones as opposed to the late game ones)

• Health is the first obvious adjustment that should be made. At the very least its health pool should ideally be doubled to make for a more enduring, and challenging encounter. (This applies for the early stages only)

• Damage, movement speed, and attack speed should also be taken into consideration here to make the menace stand out more as a dangerous foe, rather than just a sized up Miniboss Rot.

• Finally, making the menace feature unique colors as opposed to the regular Rots would help them stand out even more. Maybe a purple Yammo, for example, rather than the standard yellow.

 

Juggernauting Anomaly (Rots grow in size when other rots are killed)

- While this is a very fun anomaly in concept, it does suffer from one major downfall, and that is the frequent “Error In The Woods” crashes that are associated with it. I’ve only really experienced this crash most frequently with this anomaly, and while it isn’t the worst in the world, with the crash simply making you restart said room, it can become a little annoying when it continues happening through a run. My only guess as to why this frequently happens with this anomaly in particular is the fact that the rots are constantly growing in size and sometimes when killing multiple rots in quick succession, the game is unable to process how big the rots should become, resulting in the “Error In The Woods” message to prompt players. (In general this is currently a game breaking anomaly).

Other than this however, this anomaly (in my eyes) suffers from no other flaws.

 

Windy Anomaly

My only notes to make here are that the wind in its current state seems a little bit too strong. I attempted a run playing as a medium build with the wind anomaly at its lowest level, and even still, I could barely move against it. I can only imagine what the medium or high levels of this would look like right now. But more than anything, I’m rattling my brain trying to comprehend how light builds would stand any chance against this anomaly. Adjustments should be made for sure.

 

General Feedback and Suggestions

 

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Regarding The Frenzy Music Remixes and Visual Changes

The frenzy music remixes are true masterful orchestrations and really do a great job at embodying the intensity of the frenzies with these new compositions. The new color pallets painted across the screen with the frenzy levels also allow for frenzy levels to hold their own uniqueness to regular variants of the stage. With that being said, I personally feel that these music remixes, and visual changes should only be present in the super frenzy stages. My reasoning behind this goes as follows:

• The music remixes would pair brilliantly with the imbued boss rots remixes, as both stage and boss remixes share a similar style of remix, incorporating rougher sounding and more intense instrumentation. I also feel that this would help the super frenzies stand out more from the easier variants of the stages, and would allow for the original orchestrations and style of each biome to have more time to be present to the players. (Right now we only hear the regular music and see the regular visuals in the standard versions of the stages, which to me, feels like those themes and music hardly have any time to even be noticed by the player. It also comes with the idea that super frenzies feel like the true step up from the standard stages, and thus should feature the substantial changes in music and visuals to pair with the sharp difficulty spike).

- As a final note here, the music remixes and visual overhauls would remain in all the hunts that don’t currently feature super frenzies, while Great Rotwood Forest, and Nocturn Grove would have their music remixes and visual overhauls moved up to be exclusive to super frenzies. As more super frenzies get added in the future those hunts would get the same treatment as the ones mentioned here with their music and visuals being updated to super frenzy only. This should give us an equal balance between both the hunt visuals and music.

 

Minor Bugs and Feedback with New Shop Purchasables

Gems and Fortifying Ingots - Currently there seems to be visual bug where when these items are purchased they either spew out multiple of the said item and remain on the ground unable to be collected, or they just simply don’t display as being collected but still appear in the player’s inventory when hunts are concluded. A minor bug, yet one that can be misleading or confusing to newer or experienced players alike who may think that Alphonse has scammed them of their Teffra. Why would you do this to us Alphonse!!!!!

Materials Sack - Yet another visual bug I’ve run into where when purchasing the materials sack, it just completely disappears and doesn’t even seem to give us the materials we spent all that hard earned Teffra for!

• Also some feedback for this item. The cost to buy a materials sack compared to what materials we gain for this price seems heavily unbalanced. The materials sack should include a moderate assortment of materials for said biome for that ridiculous price Alphonse insists on charging us. Nearly 300 Teffra for 4 molded grave vines? I’ll pass.

 

 

Miniboss Rot Health Bar Not Visible

Title just about sums this one up. Me and my friend were fighting the Bullrog in Splintershard Cavern with the night anomaly active, and the boss’s health bar was not visible, so we were unable to tell how close they were to death. Not sure if this has to do with the night anomaly or if it’s more of a generalized problem spanning across all minibosses sometimes, but thought I would report our findings nonetheless.

 

A Couple Multiplayer Issues

- This first issue was actually discovered by my friend when playing online as I haven’t encountered this issue yet. I’ll include the exact quote he gave me, in his words, 

“In multiplayer the gem table is locked for everyone aside from the host. After a hunt completes they have to rejoin the room to refresh it.” 

This problem persists for players even if they have completed the gem cutter quest. This should explain the issue with adequate details to fix whatever might be causing this.

- The other issue I encountered when joining up with my friend is that for players who are joined up in a game and not hosting, the ghost rot sprites feature a bright orange hue with pixelated texture covering their entire body. Not sure why this is, but it’s weird. It should also be noted that the host cannot see this weird sprite, only the joined players can.

 

Teffrometer UI Adjustment

Rather than the sticks icon being used to illustrate that players can receive materials from reaching stages in the Teffrometer, a materials sack icon would better fit as a replacement for the sticks icon in my opinion. This would help present players with the information that the materials received from the Teffrometer are generalized to any material in the game, rather than players getting confused with the sticks icon and thinking that sticks are all they can get from anomaly runs.

• Adding lines along the Teffrometer to help justify and pinpoint the exact spot where Teffrometer rewards are unlocked could be a fun little minor addition to this as well. Similar to the lines you see on a ruler or thermometer. 

 

“Anomameter” (the scale thingy that shows the three different anomalies present) Minor Bug

- There are times during an anomaly hunt where the “Anomameter” wouldn’t be visible before the next room, causing the inability to know what anomaly would be in effect next.

 

New Anomaly Suggestions/Ideas

 

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Bonzai!! - “Paincones continuously rain down from the sky.” 

Through Thick and Thin - “A dense fog envelopes the clearing” 

(reduced visibility. Harder to see with each anomaly level).

Block-and-Bunt - “The floor is ice!! Careful not to fall.” 

(The clearing floor is covered in ice. The player will slide around on this when moving around and can randomly slip and fall). You slide more, and have a higher chance of falling the higher the anomaly level. This also affects rots too!

 

• These are a few that I thought could be cool for the game. Let me hear your thoughts;)

 

Images Of Bugs/Weird Beta Things

 

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The strange case mentioned before, where the boss health bar did not appear visible.

A minor visual bug where the "Anomameter" for the next clearing is already showing before the next room type is even revealed on the map.

Strange orange pixelated ghost rot visual when playing a server as a guest and not a host.

Hovering over the different options in the redesigned load-out menu appears off center.

"Set gem" and "Dust gem" UI might need to be down-scaled in size a bit. It just looks a little off to me.

Bought the new fortifying ingot that can purchased in the shop now, however it spewed out multiple when I purchased it, and I couldn't pick up the ones seen sitting on the ground near me. I believe there is only meant to be one fortifying ingot that is given to the player when bought.

 

Those images were just some visual examples on what has been thoroughly discussed in the sections above, just to give some clearer intensive on what I'm trying to communicate with this feedback. Obviously a large majority of what I have covered is not shown in image form, but hopefully I have explained this all well enough to make sense for any readers regarding this document. I'd like to believe my work on this beta is done for now, (still gonna play the crap out of this tho) so this document is now published for everyone to see. Hopefully there will be some discussion around what has been said here, and these ideas and feedback can reach the minds of Klei in the long run.

P.S. Please add a cat breed to the game. Society is heavily divided by both cat and dog lovers. We have dog. Now. We need cat. Thank you.