Large/Medium Astroids Broken While In Contact With The Ship Create Far Too Much Debris

[Noodlemire]

I had noticed this several times before, but after enough experimentation I found a setup for it that's relatively easy to achieve, and long before the 10 minute mark at that. By itself it's relatively minor (mostly just causes lag), but with Vampiric Core it grants the player semi-immortality.

The setup to replicate it consistently requires Vampiric Core, Cryo Field, and fast-firing weapon(s) of your choice, as long as they can consistently break meteors that are on top of the ship. With so many extra fragments being spawned, Vampiric Core becomes over 10x more effective at healing, and only becomes stronger as meteor spawns increase.

BugAbuse.mp4

[PubDeer]

What an awesome way to break the game. Seriously, thank you for your extensive testing.

[PubDeer]

We'll obviously get it fixed. As said in a different ticket, we'll do a big balance pass in a later release.

[PubDeer]

Quick and dirty fix would be to limit Vampiric Core to five targets or so, what do you think?

[Noodlemire]

I'd do six instead, just to be generous to Vampiric since it's tricky to use normally, but the general idea would work fine.

[drjaska]

Hey, this is an issue enabled by Nova Blast somehow exponentially multiplying meteorites to an absurd degree. Cryo Field makes it much easier to execute but is not necessary. Vampiric Core is then able to provide an absurd amount of healing.

However note that if this is changed by just applying a cap to Vampiric Core, it will be dogshit compared to Medic's HP regen because the range and normal rate are too low.

If Nova Blast is combined with the Energy Saw, it is possible to crash the game due to an infinite calculation chain as they both seem to multiply meteorites somehow. It would be nice if there was a watchdog for the physics or rendering which aborts the run instead of forcing the user to kill the application.

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[Onion2222]

I have the same problem with the energy saw

[Quantaly]

The infinite-healing issue isn't unique to Vampiric Core. With the fire-rate boost from Revenge Protocol, Siphon Needle can just barely top you off before your i-frames expire.

astro-loop-siphon-needle-infinite-healing.mp4

I think it makes sense to turn off all HP recovery during i-frames, rather than limiting Vampiric Core's effectiveness specifically.

[Amplifiction]

I don't feel Vampiric Core needs a (big) nerf. As has been pointed out, it needs to be able to clearly outheal Medic in specific situations. Otherwise Medics consistency will make it the better choice.

Imo, the amount of debris one asteroid can create is the real issue.

I have seen one asteroid generating a large amount of debris around the first minute, using level 2 Saw and level 1 Solar. Pretty sure it was the Saw that destroyed the asteroid. (Screenshot has been taken right after taking out the debris, which netted me around 9k in one blow, which felt like too much.)

The evolution I have been most successful with by far is Phoenix Flare (Solar Storm + Phoenix Core). If I get this evolution before the eighth minute, 130k Yen is very doable in a 10 minute game, as opposed to other evolutions I have tested. (I have yet to figure out how to unlock longer game modes.) Therefore, Phoenix Flare might be worthy of rebalancing.

Today I combined that evolution with the Saw, and the debris made the game go off the charts. I went from 100k to 1M in 5 seconds. 5 seconds of game time at least, because my frame rate dropped to next to nothing. In reality those 5 seconds plus 3 more before I died lasted 10 minutes.

I did not record the gameplay, but I do have additional screenshots if need be.

Sidenote: those final 3 seconds my Yen stayed at 1.0M. Is that the cap for a single game?

[Noodlemire]

You can go above 1.0 million, it can just take a while to update the number since it only goes up in increments of 100k at a time.

[Amplifiction]

You can go above 1.0 million, it can just take a while to update the number since it only goes up in increments of 100k at a time.

Good to know that is not the cap. It seemed that way because I got about 900k in 5 seconds, up to 1.0m, and then (seemingly) 0 in the subsequent 3 seconds.