Enter the Gungeon - The Bear and Badger

JonB

Select where?

I mean I don't get it at all - I bought some guns from the shop, how do I use them?

Dark Soldier

From the breach shop or one of the floors?

tin_robot

JonB wrote:

A few mores goes, still only got to floor 3 - it gets tough there. One thing I don't get - what happens to the stuff I buy in the shop? I seem to be missing something.

It just gets added to the pile of stuff you might stumble upon in the dungeon I think. Which irritated me as I was hoping I could take it with me, and thus not suck quite as badly. (I still haven't made it to the third floor, or completed the oubliette...)

JonB

Dark Soldier wrote:

From the breach shop or one of the floors?

Sorry, I meant the breach shop.

tin_robot wrote:

JonB wrote:

A few mores goes, still only got to floor 3 - it gets tough there. One thing I don't get - what happens to the stuff I buy in the shop? I seem to be missing something.

It just gets added to the pile of stuff you might stumble upon in the dungeon I think. Which irritated me as I was hoping I could take it with me, and thus not suck quite as badly.

So there's not a lot of point to it then?

Dark Soldier

There is. Every weapon you buy in breach shop enters the item pool and has potential to show on a run. Dependent on item, it'll have a higher or lower chance to appear.

Dunno if, like Isaac, you can force the pools to drop what you want however.

Tempy

I've got a real love/hate thing with this going on but I can't invest too much as I pirated it.

I feel like the numbers need heavy tweaking. It isn't uncommon to have a first floor stuffed with health items and then the sprawling third floor have zero, or you get a billion coins from a room with a handful of regular Kin in, but fuck all from something much tougher. The fact that the only way to guarantee a health up is to finish a boss with no damage is all something that can fuck right off, especially as they have such dumb health pools and Lead King/Trigger Twins don't have enough of a pattern to get used to IMO (The former can combo you with stuff that is nearly unavoidable without a blank, the latter spawns fucking ADS which throw things off, plus they can move in ways that are just scummy.)

Still, the mechanics are really tight, and a lot of the guns are really cool - though I'd like a bit more upfront info on damage numbers etc - and the enemy pool is varied and they often mix really well, plus it has more secrets than you can shake a stick at, so many it makes Dark Souls look perfectly transparent.

It's a tight little game mechanically, aesthetically, and conceptually, but I feel it's balanced for the hardcore/skillful set and needs some smoothing on the magic numbers in the background before it feels right.

AndCallMeCharlie

Agree with Tempy, I know it's auto generated every time but there is something about the pacing which doesn't feel right.

Dark Soldier

Tempy wrote:

The fact that the only way to guarantee a health up is to finish a boss with no damage

That's factually incorrect

nick_md

I'm liking this, could use a boss rush tho.

Dark Soldier

nick_md wrote:

I'm liking this, could use a boss rush tho.

Keep playing

nick_md

Sweeeeet.

I forgot entirely there were blanks until temps mentioned it. I suffer the same in this as danmaku, always believe I can make the gap. Death is more honourable than bombing.

Tempy

Dark Soldier wrote:

Tempy wrote:

The fact that the only way to guarantee a health up is to finish a boss with no damage

That's factually incorrect

Well don't just wink, explain

Dark Soldier

Tempy wrote:

The fact that the only way to guarantee a health up is to finish a boss with no damage

That's factually incorrect

Well don't just wink, explain

Was seeing if you'd Google so I didn't have to bang it in a spoiler. But then I didn't see the 'guarantee' in your post until reply now lol.

Spoiler:

I have been through Isaac runs multiple times without any extra red/black heart containers though, happens in both. Its just harder in this is all.

But then Isaac was hard as shit when starting out too.

Tempy

Yes the guarantee was the main bit. I've seen a few. It just seems so far that Isaac is more generous on the whole. It's not that I don't like Gungeon, I just think it's a few smoothing tweaks away from being incredibly compelling.

Dark Soldier

I'm in full agreement with that, I'm still playing Isaac more currently as I can start a run and with a couple of good drops I'm OP by third floor.

Roujin

I agree with that as well.

I would say one caveat, Isaac Rebirth/Afterbirth are a complete re-working of the flash original versions of the game, they have already had a bunch of tweaking.

Hopefully Gungeon will receive the same treatment if it does the numbers. I think all that's needed is possibly a tweak to the number of 'empty' rooms on the first and second floor so they don't feel like they are dragging on, which sometimes they do, when you just have your basic gun, no passives and no keys. Initially I thought it needed to give more health and armour but now I'm not sure, I've done the first floor without taking a hit several times now and almost cleared the second floor without a hit as well now that I've learned the bullet patterns and shot timing for enemies.

JonB

I haven't played it that much yet, but it seems quite generous to me. I've nearly always had a good few guns by the end of floor 2, some of which are good for bosses. Heart supplies seem about right too.

JonB

Getting into this more now. The lack of keys is a bit of a downer, but overall I think the balance is good.

Got to level 3 bosses a few times, but haven't beaten one yet. Nearly did this level 2 boss without a scratch though, which is nice:

Spoiler:

Tempy

What's that gun Jon? Seems pretty neat. I've fought her too, not quite got her cross-arm spray down yet, but I had an annoying thing happen last night where she was doing that radial bullet hell nonsense that you can easily walk through, but she suddenly rotated the pattern like 45 degrees meaning there was suddenly nothing but wallks of bullets in front of me and I forgot I had blanks, ha!

JonB

I always forget the blanks. Just starting to get used to them a bit, and assigned it to the circle button.

I think it was the magnum I was using. Quite powerful, unsurprisingly.

I also had a speed boost on that run, which was helping.

AndCallMeCharlie

still unconvinced - the dropping in of additional enemies to the same room doesn't feel right to me. Having said that rouge likes are very much growers so will stick with it.

Tempy

I actually quite like that feature, especially as you can see where they're landing - I don't like it in bigger rooms though, getting hit by a Book that's conjured a swarm of bullets offscreen is prime RQ material.

JonB

Just about managed a level 3 boss today and got to floor 4 for the first time. Had a good selection of guns on that run, but ended up using the Scrambler mostly. Only the second time I've seen this boss so it's clear I don't know what I'm doing:

Spoiler:

Was trying to unlock the first shortcut after that, but haven't managed it yet. Need 120 in cash and 3 keys for the chap before going to floor 3. Had one go where I got tons of money, but couldn't get a 3rd key anywhere.

JonB

OK, how about the same floor 3 boss again, but this time without getting hit:

Spoiler:

From there I managed to get to my first floor 4 boss. It's a bit of a step up, and didn't go too well:

Spoiler:

I've also unlocked the first shortcut since then.

Finally, favourite gun of the day:

Spoiler:

JonB

Probably just talking to myself at this point, but I have just reached floor 5.

Didn't last long, unsurprisingly.

Managed to get an M16 quite early, plus bullet powerups, and was able to deal some major damage. First time I've done a floor 2 boss without getting hit as well:

Spoiler:

acemuzzy

I read some of the words

Tempy

Good work Jon, I've still not managed to get to the 3rd floor boss yet. That said I've hardly played it bar about 4 runs over the past 4 days.

JonB

The more I play this BTW, the more I find the balance to be very good. I generally go for the 1st boss with the basic weapon and save keys and money for later now, and it rewards that sort of approach. If you get a decent gun at the end of floor 1, there's no need to open any chests there.

AndCallMeCharlie

Still wish it was on the vita as well

JonB

AndCallMeCharlie wrote:

Still wish it was on the vita as well

In theory, yes. But I wonder if those analogue sticks would be up to it.

Mine wouldn't anyway, one of them's gone off.

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