New thread for the new updates. For referense, old thread is here:
http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/28261
Follow the format:
1. What did you think of the difficulty level?
2. How many revives did you use?
3. What did you like about the level?
4. What needs improvement?
5. Anything else you want to add in?
~~~~
1. Difficulty level
Really smooth most of the time. But there are just a few rooms that standout as more difficult than necessary.
2. Revives
Outside of the problem areas, only a few.
3. Level design
The dual status adds a new element to gameplay. I might have to craft some Grey Feather. The only shock protection I have now is Mercurial and that piercing isn't going to be of much use here.
4. Improvement
First Floor
The lag is crazy. Continuous spikes, I'm running Low/Compatibility mode too. It wasn't quite this bad in the last test session.
The first arena room on the right that is half missile/half spikes - there just isn't enough room in there to maneuver given the number of mobs in the last two waves. I can't really describe it as a challenge. The spikes stay up too long and are down for too short of a time to make it viable to run across to get away. I'd recommend either removing the spikes or adjust their timing so that you can run across occasionally, or maybe just make the spikes a strip instead of the entire floor. Or alternate the spikes, so you can walk across them but have to do so in series. I died over and over in here, if I didn't have free energy I would have left at this point.
Party button with the long row of bombs with missiles heading down... the missiles explode 5 squares before they reach the edge or the platform and the blast hits you unexpectedly. Retrodes shooting offscreen from below is pretty evil, with any lag you can't dodge or shield in time to avoid a hit and with all those explosions there is a ton of lag. I think that is just a general issue with Retrodes, so not sure how to fix that.
In the room with the bridge with the eternal quicksilvers/oilers in the middle that immediately go off - the room isn't too hard it is just that it is impossible to cross the middle in any strategic manner. Since the quicksilvers are killing the oilers the entire middle is filled with oil which then catches fire. It is also difficult to hit the switches without pulling out and aiming a gun, and that is too hard because you need the sword active to keep constant mobs away. I think this area needs to be reworked a bit, conceptually it is really cool but in practice it is frustrating. If the switches were more accessible, if it were longer/wider in the middle, if they spawned less frequently... I think it would be very enjoyable. I died too many times here too.
Final arena - I found it really easy once I started just kiting the mobs down to the fire grates. Not sure that was an intentional strategy (felt rather cheap) but fighting them all up there was too crowded with that oiler chasing me around constantly.
Second Floor
Very fun. The only area I thought was too difficult was the room with the zigzag toggling walls and the Mario rope in the middle. Just had a really hard time with the Retrodes there. They would shoot me from offscreen and I'd get hit even though I shielded in time due to lag. This happened repeatedly.
The room with the Van De Graaff was fun. The respawning Retrodes had me kiting the perimeter constantly. Gremlin bombers are super jumpy, I'd bring a Callahan or Flourish just for them but I'm lacking weapon slots. I was carrying two heavy sword, and that doesn't cut it when facing them, so to speak. If only we had 5 slots, hmm... ;)
Boss
I tried soloing the boss. I'm not sure about the stun area. Is the damage to knock it back scaled by party size? It took an incredibly long time to bring it down, then it was back up just seconds later. Without it down though it is hard to get to the boss before the yellow arrow goes away again, not to mention that it makes dealing with six toasters more difficult than it should be. I got to Phase 2, got bored and left. A party should make that easier, I was having a hard time finding people who wanted to do IMF though, haha, ha. Seemed most already rage quit that boss.
5. Comments
It is getting there!
1. What did you think of the difficulty level?
I thought it was really difficult, and that's great. I feel it's right about where it needs to be as an Ultimate area.
2. How many revives did you use?
Too many to count, but I was a bit reckless.
3. What did you like about the level?
Lots of things. In particular, that one encounter in Warfare Workshop with the spiraling energy balls and the loads of gremlins, that was great. I also really liked the changes to the final encounter of Abandoned Assembly.
4. What needs improvement?
There's some inconsistency in the difficulty of the encounters in AA, but otherwise I thought UIMF was really well done. The Twins might still need some tweaking, but even in their current state I thought they were pretty good.
5. Anything else you want to add in?
So I know I keep pointing this out, but here it is again: Vitapod Dispenser/Health Refill Pad in Warfare Workshop. Seems like it isn't supposed to be there.