Bug reports, observations, suggestions

[eGhpGZeMqhlAIRtA1soVFK4JCDnrsxAXjirz97L]

Bugs/Observations (very minor stuff, haven't found anything else "wrong" with this mod)

• As of 0.6.7, this mod adds a duplicate logbook entry for the Lunar Chimera Golem, with lower HP but otherwise identical model and stats.
• Setting Increase Monster Level Cap config option to false doesn't actually disable it, you have to manually change the max level in the config below back to the vanilla 99.
• Milky Chrysalis still has a 60 seconds cooldown despite the change list claiming it's been lowered to 45 seconds.
• Bandit Skull buff still says "+10% Desperado damage per stack" on hover, using BetterUI.
• Bandit's misc abilities Gunslinger and Desperado could be placed at the top of his loadout screen, above the primaries, like in other survivors' cases.

Suggestions

• On the subject of misc abilities, Hopoo shows Railgunner's Magnetic Accelerator and Void Fiend's Void Corruption abilities on their Loadout screen (despite not having any alts like in Acrid's case), this made me think it would make sense for every other survivor to also have their own misc ability shown on this tab, both for consistency and clarity (Bandit's Backstab, Artificer's ENV Suit, Mercenary's Cybernetic Enhancements, REX's Natural Toxins, Loader's Scrap Barrier and Captain's Defensive Microbots).
• Commando's Frag Grenade should imo stick to enemies; it would make it possible for you to target flying enemies aswell as guarantee max damage to a specific monster. It should also have its self-damage either lowered or removed entirely; 60% of your hp or so and killability on a single timing mistake is pretty unforgiving and the only instance of self damage penalty with no kind of benefit out of all skills.
• Turn Executive Card into a red item. It's incredibly powerful especially in the long run, can be obtained as early as stage 1, and awkwardly takes up the useful equipment slot (to me, equipments that you can't actually activate have no business existing to begin with, and this is not an aspect). Making it a red would also synergize it better when playing multiplayer using ShareSuite, since the entire team would benefit from the item, and any player could purchase from multishops or deliveries without worrying about them locking the other items away.
• Red Whip seems a bit too extreme especially in the event you get 2 or 3, Rose Buckler is underwhelming. I would balance both at the same level, respectively 10% move speed +20% out of combat, and 10 armor +20 when sprinting. This should still incentivize you to go out of combat or to sprint more often to gain those huge bonuses, but give you a smaller bonus at any time to make these green items worth it in the first place.
• Change Voidsent Flame to work the same way Crowbar does (your first hit against an enemy).

Featured I disabled and why

• Void Locus Changes: The Void Fog is an intrical part of the void in all senses, and I personally haven't had many issues getting my teammates to stick together to charge the Deep Void Signals.
• Commencement Changes: I'm not a fan of more ways to obtain items in a given run, and I see the Pillars as the moon counterpart to the Deep Void Signals, which don't award anything on activation. For now Commencement has 3 purposes other than Mithrix, that being an Order Shrine, Lunar Pods, and Cauldrons. Perhaps putting some portals around the map similar to the ones that appear in the ending sequence would make moving around less tedious. Maybe even turn the Pillars into devices you can use to move from one to the other.
• Shrines of Combat: I think every vanilla shrine already serves their own specific purpose, and this change makes Combat feel like an alternate Chance.
• Tele expand on boss kill: it happens very often for me that a stubborn Shrine of Chance will cost absurd amounts of money, or my friends and I save the legendary chest for later throughout the teleporter event, so we stay outside the zone and grind some more. This can't be done with this tweak since after the boss dies you'll charge the teleporter constantly and eventually run out of enemies, if not planned well.
• Lensmaker's Glasses: after the dlc's release and all the new white items (and Lost Seer's Lenses) it's become considerably harder to amass crit chance. I find the vanilla glasses' 10% crit chance and the knife's 10% bleed chance make sense and are already well balanced, not to mention easy to calculate. 7% seems a bit forced.
• Beetles: increasing movement speed and attack speed makes them look jerky and unnatural, not a fan. I'd either not touch them at all or increase their damage/have them inflict a debuff like Beetle Juice or something.

With all that being said, kudos to you though; I'm excited to see where this mod will end up, and I'm very happy with the direction it's going. Monster pools especially need some cleanup and I'm glad you're going to address that eventually.

[Moffein]

Late response, but I did read your post earlier:

Bugs/Observations

• Monster Level Cap bug has been fixed.
• Milky Chrysalis changes not being active has also been fixed.
• Not sure if I'll be doing BetterUI support due to the amount of work required to add accurate text for every change the mod makes.
• I have the Bandit Passive placed down below both for technical reasons, and also because they're right next to his Revolver skills, which are the only skills they affect.

Suggestions

• Frag Grenade is designed around being able to nail down the cook timing instead of simply chucking it the moment it's off cooldown, though I will admit that this does break Commando's gameplay flow a bit. I'll look at lowering the self damage to something like 33%-40% since it is really harsh currently.

• Balancewise Executive Card being a red would make sense, but I don't want to shift around item/equipment tiers and such for this mod. I do agree that it impacts the game negatively, but I don't have any plans to change it currently.

• I think Red Whip is fine as-is. The potential move speed boost per stack is high, but it is locked behind the restrictive condition of not being allowed to attack, making it only relevant when scavenging or running away. I believe this much is needed to make it something worth taking at a multishop when lined up with other Greens like AtGs and Feathers.

• Rose Buckler change sounds good, I'll add that in.

• Voidsent Flame doesn't share reworked Crowbars' activation condition since it would allow multiple players to trigger it off of a single enemy, which would make it undisputedly better than Wisps.

Disabled Features

• Void Locus's Fog is probably workable in smaller lobbies where everyone is communicating, but in larger 6+ player lobbies, it often results in a single person activating a Signal on the other side of the map, causing everyone to die. Additionally, having played it multiple times in Vanilla MP/SP, I've come to the conclusion that in my personal opinion, while the Fog is thematically cool, it's simply not that fun to play around (and the same goes for all the wait in a tiny circle objectives in the game), and is pretty much the antithesis of what Risk of Rain 2 is about.

• The two main reasons behind Pillars dropping items on Commencement are that usually people opt to outright skip them with the Eccentric Vase due to how tedious it is to traverse the map to charge them, and also because it's meant to emulate the Contact Light, the final stage from Risk of Rain 1 which is full of loot, though of course, it's still nowhere near fun and exciting as that.

• I wanted Shrines of Combat to feel like a mini bossfight where everyone is incentivized to go to the Shrine's location to fight the enemies, instead of having people randomly hit them and lead super tanky Elites across the map. Additionally, while they drop a lot of money, it doesn't feel as satisfying or significant as getting an item, and oftentimes people will simply leech off of the teamwide money bonus and buy items while others are occupied with fighting the spawned enemies.

• Tele expand on boss kill is meant to be a halfway compromise between keeping the teleporter zone (which encourages people to group up to fight the boss), and running the mapwide teleporter mod (since having to be constrained to the teleporter bubble with nothing to do for a good minute or so ends up getting boring).

• Lensmakers were nerfed to their RoR1 values because it was really easy to print your build into 9 and steamroll, but you make a good point about the item pool being more diluted now compared to before. I'll give it some thought, but no guarantees.

• I agree that Beetles definitely do look jank with their current animations. The only ways to make beetles relevant are to either increase their speed so that they can actually hit players, or boost their HP so that they don't die instantly. In Vanilla, it's practically impossible to get hit by beetles, so increasing their damage/adding a debuff on hit won't have any effect. I considered the increasing their HP route at one point, but decided not to do it because it affects the satisfying 1shot breakpoint that certain characters are built around.

[eGhpGZeMqhlAIRtA1soVFK4JCDnrsxAXjirz97L]

Thank you for taking your time to read this and applying those tweaks. You've made great points all around and I realize that people will have very different stances on most subjects, either because of personal preference or the context of their current run.

[Agitatio]

Honestly think that increasing Beetles HP or armor is still a better solution. Sure, it affects the 1shot potential of some characters. However it would make them stand out from the rest of low tier fodder. And being tanky fits their visual perfectly. Could also maybe toy with lowering their price and spawn speed.