Kleptolisk and higher version of the Chromalisk intend to appear at Mooncroft levels. This should be changed, or tweaked definitely. They hit through a fully-charged lvl9 2 star shield in 1 hit and take away 6-7 bars without problem. Very though to kill aswell.

After attempting a few emberlight runs, I can say that I definitely like the direction this update took. The game feels challenging again. There are a few things that need tweaking, though.

Health pills still only heal 3/6 health, which means they have been indirectly nerfed because this could be a much smaller percentage of your health than before. Perhaps larger types of healing pills could spawn below ember?

Hearts are slightly more plentiful as monsters can drop several, but it still isn't enough to keep up with the increased damage. Thus the focus of the game seems to have shifted away from fighting and more towards evading; you need to get hit very few times in order to survive a level because you just won't be able to get that health back. I would prefer the game to be more lenient in this regard. If I have the right armour, my healing should be able to keep up with the normal wear and tear of a few wolver bites. I should be able to focus on evading things I don't have protection for - so the stratgy in choosing equipment is in deciding what I want to evade, and what I want to go toe-to-toe with. The new armour system makes this type of gameplay possible, it just needs tweaking.

(Kharnor) the strategy in choosing equipment is in deciding what I want to evade, and what I want to go toe-to-toe with

*whole-heartedly agrees*

>pros till now that i found:
-Chalenging: yes, it looks like the monsters are more inteligent now;
-Vitapods: good way to distibue the life max between players, so players just joining at the middle will not be a problem.
-Some equipment balancing: till now, i liked some parts of the balancing, specially the part where swords really do a lot more damage now.
-helmets giving health, and armor giving more health.
-monsters hit with melled from behind a wall if a normal shot would pass through it...kinda the thing: want to trap it behind a wall? just remember to stay away from the wall.

>cons till now:
-Damage: it's a lot...really...too much..it's umbearable as it is now, even the damage without armor resist (using firebreak armor 9 heat complete set, including shield, against zombies at depth 20). I know that you want to people to make good matchups for some equips, but, at least, give some small defence bonus apart from the 2 main ones, based at the heat level of the equip...not too much, but enough to complement another piece.
-Vitapods: really, making a way to grab them without the atk button would be great, mainly because, at the heat of the battle, when you are fighting, and the next hit decides if you will spend your energy in another level, or to revive yourself, and using this very moment to pick a vitapod...i cryed when i died this way...
-Alchemer balancing: for me, you can reduce it damage, and reduce the chance that it will cause t stats, i don't care, but, please, don't remove the bullet ricochet! T.T...it was really sad when i shot..and didn't saw that bullet ricocheting from wall to wall...I understand now that the status effects are activated more usually, and was for this that i bought at first glance. But, after palying a little with the old alchemer, the fire status passed to be a second for me, and i was more happy in seeing my shots ricocheting wall to wall, hitting a lot of monster in a crowded area. If you don't want to put ricochet back to alchemers, at least make a serie of guns, maybe starting from 3* and going up, that have the only hability of ricocheting shots 2 times...
-heart drops: as said before, they simply don't top with the new vitapod system. Before, when you had a lot of life, and was at the last health, it was a strugle to cut every single grass to find a heart...and you would need to hope really hard that a heart could fall from a monster, so you didn't had to use energy to revive at the end of the level, at the last room.
-tiers: i understand that making such tiers is good for our balancing, but, making so tier 3 is for 4* and 5*....it's really something that i don't understand at all. When is the first time you can get a 4* equip? at emberlight, yes, but, what equip it is? a bomb...not really usefull to stop enemy attacks from tearing your flesh (?). I would suggest that, untiill the first lift at emberlight, it would be treated as a slightly harder tier2, but still not tier 3, because is at those lifts that players can buy some 4* recipes to top up themselves. i say this because i wasn't able to pass even the secnd room of depth 20..and i'm quite used in evading green kats and zombies attacks in a huge room. This render pwople impossible to get the tier 3 itens..because they can only get them inside tier 3 gates. Also, when someone do get a recipe now, it will need to strugle witha weaker weapon, because the 4* equip is weaker then a 3* lvl 10, what makes so that you need to go back so you can advance again. One could substitute, for example, a weapon for another, and use only a third one to level the one that he desires to level, but this would render the people unable to fight well enough, because they would be stuck in a ranged fight only wwith a sword, or in a close fight only with a gun...i would firstly suggest a reduction in prices of the upgrades, or simply remove the weapon upgrade, and put another upgrade in it place: one could go with 4 weapons at a time inside a dungeon, but he could buy an upgrade (costly), that lets him change weapons mid a dungeon (only weapons)...at least for now...

and i think that it is, more things, i edit this very topic.

Note: THIS IS PLAYING BELOW MOORCRAFT MANOR ALL CAPS TO SHOW THIS.

Overall I like the new changes, but it seemed like you went from one extreme to the other.

1. Instead of having most armors have 2 defense types, make them have 3. That way it's not as strong as 4, but not as weak as 2.

2. OMGWTF GRAY WOLVES. There was one level that was filled with Gray Wolves and there was even a boss one that increased all their attack. We got wiped so bad. They're probably harder than the shield gremlins. Wolves' Den is almost impossible. We had to beat it by just running and skipping all the wolves.

3. Speaking of which, why are there shield gremlins in Moorcraft? They're super annoying.

4. The new Vitapod system is awesome but currently broken. It gives way too much health. By around the 3rd or 4th level I already had a +10 health vitapod, and a couple levels after got a +16 health vitapod. This makes any health bonus you get from equipment pointless as you'll reach the max health without it. You should be more conservative with how much life the vitapods give. A normal vitapod should NEVER give 18 health. Even 10 is a lot.

5. I really like how some monsters can drop 2 hearts. However on grass levels where you can get hearts from grass, sometimes there can be hearts all over the place.

6. Before shields were slightly too strong. Now they're too weak. They break just after a couple hits. The fact that you nerfed overall defense AND shields makes using shields almost pointless and they'll just break really fast. Please make shields a bit stronger.

Above, a point is made about the toughness of the gun puppies. This bears repeating, for 2 reasons:

1. Gun puppies are often found on pedestals, where they can only be reached with guns. (Or by carrying pots over and throwing them one by one, which is a much more tedious process)
2. Gun puppies are often found on pedestals... which means that once they are killed, you don't get the item drops from fighting them. But given the bullet spread attack, it's very much recommended that they be destroyed before walking through a path full of the little guys.

Together, this makes gun puppies dangerous to avoid, but slow, tedious, and unrewarding to fight... their previous killability with guns was desirable, as a way to make the fight go at a reasonable pace.

(As perhaps the only enemy that is often completely safe from swords or bombs, I suppose they really are a special case)

EDIT: Also, I can't help but notice that each type of armor protects against 2 types of damage- but there are only two types of gear that can be worn (Helm +Armor); shields only provide protection when active.

The result is that there's almost always going to be one type of damage that the player is completely and totally unprotected from. And since levels are randomly generated, we're likely to encounter all types during the course of a run.

Because of that, I'd definitely second the suggestion that we be allowed to change armor more often. Otherwise, no amount of mixing and matching will provide us with the protection we need against a diverse array of foes.

now i will not complain about vitapods, monster health (but it will depend on its dificult level, from chalenging to impossible), lack of itens (for now @.@), and heart drops..also, for now...

But i still think that something could be done, mostly, with these things:
-I get the same amount rate of minerals in haven as i get in emberlight...so, if we could get more in ember...just a little...would be fine with me
-after the balancing, where monsters became really more chalenging, the reward could reflect this new chalenge, as making a readjust in the drops of higher tier monsters, a little tweek only (if you got 10k from a ember>core run, now you would get 12k, and if you got 5k from manor>ember, you would get 6k...something like this, is just a ssuggestion anyway).
-bombs of mass dps destruction *¬* (alright, alright...just a bomb that stays exploding for more or less 3 seconds is good ^_^)
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Keep up the good work, i know that you are doing your better, and i know that sometimes i see wrong in the right and wrong in nothing at all.

By the way, I've noticed that the spikes stop hurting you in the dungeons. I think the same goes for bombs. I'm guessing that's a bug?

THIS IS BELOW EMBERLIGHT.

1. I finally figured out how the health system works. You have 40 health you can get up to, but when your team mates have over 20 it looks like they still have 20. This is a problem. The health bars need to be reworked to make it less confusing.

2. Big hearts are cool.

3. Emberlight is too hard. Before with the same equipment I could go through emberlight without wanting to pull my hair out. Now every level below emberlight makes me want to pull my hair out. Enemies that were easy before (like skeletons) now roflstomp me. They take me out in only a few hits. It doesn't help that my gear seems weaker and that shields are worse. Going into melee range is suicide and they nerfed my gun to make it do less damage. This results in encounters that would normally take a minute or 2 instead now take 10 minutes long. I would really, REALLY hate too see what it would be like in the fire citadel levels. Would probably be impossible.

4. OMGWTF VINES.

5. Overall I'm not liking the "you have more max health but take more damage" system. It makes the game extremely difficult when you're low on life.

6. Why do rock jellies move so fast now? I thought they were made out of rock.

So one thing I noticed with the new update.

I have a jelly shield. When on and walking over spikes, it "tink"s more frequently -- sounds like twice as often -- but takes less damage per "tink". It still survives.

I think the "more frequent, less per" idea is good.

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Side note: Why can't I walk faster trying to leave bramble or spikes? Lag seems to get me deep inside them :-).

BELOW EMBERLIGHT

Last time i had been playing I was using a Spur which was the weapon I was using before the rebalance and things were really hard. Now I'm using a Khorovod and now things are (with some exceptions) super easy again. My Khorovod does over 300 damage a hit and the charge attack does over 500 damage. Gray wolves die in 2 hits.

For anyone who is wondering: we made it to the core just now. And nothing was really changed in the last update- we got a ton of vials, some heat and coins (not much), scrap metal, and an iron gear. And that's pretty much it.

I wasn't expecting anything new- especially given all the amazing work elsewhere- but thought I'd save people the cost of trying to visit just yet. :)