Ice Cave

#21

…At first I thought you were giving us a chance to suggest changes for the Ice Cave before scrolling down a bit and realizing that, in fact, there were already changes made!
Sadly, my laptop is very iffy in getting the site to load (even though I did install Flash) nor making the FPP work, so I haven’t been able to do them myself.
But from what I’ve seen and read in this read, I can make up the following:

Minions:

The Mini Yetis deal 80 AP damage now, while Big Yetis throw a ?-coloured bomb at a rate of ? per second that deals 250 damage. The Snow Bats have remained unchanged; Snow Bat Mamas, however, have a new shot pattern similar to the Crystal Prisoner’s first phase, with ? bullets dealing ? damage, inflicting ? for ?s.
New minions have also been added: a Snow Drake-like entity and a Snow Scorpion-like entity. The Drake shoots Icicle shots that deals ? damage, and the Scorpion shoots White Boomerangs that deal ? damage.
The method to unlock the Inner Sanctum has remained the same: however, players are now spawned at different parts of the dungeon, each leading to the centre, where the snow pad will be located. The map itself is somewhat smaller; however, considering players will only have to walk through approximately a third of it, it’s a tremendous difference compared to the old version.
Another new feature is the addition of ? tiles, which damage players for 60 damage per ? when walked on.
The fight with Esben has remained largely unchanged: in his second phase, he is now completely invulnerable. His health also scales to compensate for the removal of a Test Chest.
Both the Staff of Esben as well as the Skullish Remains of Esben have remained unchanged.

That’s all I could gather, so feel free to correct me if I missed anything.

As for my own opinion, I think these changes will make the Ice Cave feel much more endgame-ish-like. The new mini-bosses, the new tiles, the overall change in how to reach the Inner Sanctum (mostly) preventing leeching now, the instant-kill fix…
However, I share in the opinion that the Staff of Esben might need to be looked at a bit. While it does have a very, very specific niche for killing the second Shatters switch, that’s about all most people think of when talking about it.

#22

gay

skull is good, but staff definitely needs a change

jesus christ that scares me

i sincerely hope droprates were increased, especially with the sudden spike in difficulty

#23

idk how frequently he throws them, but it takes a solid 2.5 seconds to land, even if it has a range of ~4 tiles. I believe it’s also actually like 300 or 350 base.

#24

Snowy Subterrane xd

#25

Haven’t gotten on yet so I was wondering if they disabled teleporting, because you could still theoretically leech in starting area of the updated version.

#26

I was able to duo clear an Ice Tomb, just the annoying part was the huge patches of (harmful?) ice. It’s good, but it would be better to have smaller patches of ice.

#27

its really hard and even more tedious
not enough people in testing to do it…

#28

Tried it with my semi-maxed wiz with a 30/12 pet. First few times I had to nexus but eventually I got the hang of it and cleared the main cave. Hard to really compare with such a poor char and pet, but seems shorter and easier. I’ve soloed the prod one with 6/8 Ninja and Huntress, 90/90 pet and I’m sure that takes longer.

The damaging ice was a nasty surprise: almost died on it first time, thinking it might be new non-slippy ice. Eventually was able to stay off it easily though. Would be harder with a non-ranged char.

Yetis seem easier, far fewer and less annoying minions. The Snow Bats seem about the same but with a new shot. The new enemies are interesting, but pretty easy with a ranged char once you know their shot patterns.

Layout is better: the current layout is interesting but often frustrating due to complexity. With a more linear/branching map it will be easier to clear without missing things.

There were two Portals of Cowardice, both at extremes away from the start, which seems an odd placement.

#29

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I like the dungeon layout, it feels like an actual dungeon now.
It took a while to do it without pets and Bud being unleveled trash, but we did it, and the fact that Esben drops stuff itself and that chest isnt there anymore is a lot better

#30

I don’t like the new sprites, I don’t think they match with the dungeon. Otherwise the changes are good.

#31

I started writing this while in my 5th or so Ice Cave. This post is about that dungeon.

Once again, the projectiles are bad. I hate the snowballs, they leave too little for the imagination, aren’t abstract enough. It makes no sense that a snowball, a blunt weak physical object, deals armor piercing damage. It made sense before, when it was more abstract and you could imagine the yetis were just throwing pure cold at you, but now it’s terrible. In addition, the projectiles are too fast to have 80 armor piercing damage in a dungeon like this.

I’m not pleased with the sonic pulses (you made me IMAGINE they’re that - good job!) shot by the snow bat mamas, they could be a bit better if you made them buzz towards a player at a minisucule speed (like that Swirl trick) and then had the monster fire at its facing. If you do whatever it’s doing with projectiles that 1. don’t increase in size and 2. are too fast, it’ll look scuffed like the fairy that fires a slow-moving shot with that cone particle effect. I call what I just suggested a “burst” pattern.
The projectile sprite of that attack is fine.

I love the way the small snow bats fire. Their shots stay still, yet I stumble onto them far too often. The sprite is fine.

The gunk on the floor is lovely and placed well, but the damage is too high. I’d suggest lowering it to 40 or 45.

The mana heal particle effects have red borders. I don’t know how the health heal particle effects look here.

It seems that the monsters are glass cannons. I guess the intent was to decrease their health, so that’s a success. In my opinion, the high damage shots should be split into much more lower damage shots, but not all of them so that there still are things you can and should put effort into dodging.

The map generation looks organic and I love it. It really paves the way to the Swamp of Lost Souls…

I just finished solo clearing an Ice Cave as a Mystic. It wasn’t too hard or time-consuming, actually. If anything, it should be about 2/3 as time-consuming as the boss. The boss is difficult for small pub testing groups, hopefully that scales to accommodate entire realms :slight_smile:

I love how simple the Small Snow Bat movement is, it just circles the player and if you stand still, it leaves voids in an octagonal shape. Though since there is no such thing as an overly complicated monster dance, it really could use a tiny period where it Follows at 0 distance instead of circling at 1.
I’ve noticed some stacked small snow bat shots, though.

I like how the scorpions use the stinger projectile!

The damaging floors also make the player slide, that’s a nice touch. I’m certain there’s a way to control the slipperiness of floors, you should turn their slipperiness way up! If you do that, please lower the damage to 10, as the slipperiness will be far more threatening than the damage. (Hackers will, of course, disable the slipperiness.)

The scorpions and dragons are so lonely! Give at least one of them some buddies.

To compensate for their strong attacks, give the enemies some more exp.

The ice walls should not occupy an entire square with their hitbox as a wall does. I’d feel a whole lot safer near the walls if they had the hitboxes of trees and such.

Edit: 7 Ice Cave maps

#32

That seems like a great idea to somewhat force players into clearing, or at least force them to do something - though I imagine it will be rush to the portal site and stand there waiting for the work to be completed.

Like @CaesarVIII also mentioned, am guessing that TP is disabled in the dungeon same as Castle & WC which each have the multi spawn sites. Would this be frustrating for a lone clearer stranded away from the portal spawn location?

You reminded me that I was thinking about that earlier this week: Is Puppet Theatre dropping from Leviathan a good fit?.

#33

Actually TP is not disabled in ice caves and mostly people all just teleport to one lane and steamroll the whole dungeon (if you can call 4 3-5/8s a steamroll)

#34

It would be a great idea to disable teleportation. As mentioned above, people simply tp together and steamroll one lane.

And also it’s the only end game dungeon that allows teleportation so they should probably fix it so it matches all the other ones.

#35

At least this way it’s not annoying to be the one clearer left abandoned & unable to TP back, while all the leechers on the portal site could laugh and go straight in.

#36

Yes, the design is much more rational than before.

The problem with the current layout is you don’t know if you are finishing until you do. The varying lengths of paths, the way they join and re-join, and the uncertain number of them (or at least that’s always how it seems – there is probably some underlying logic but it is obscured by the way paths rejoin). So suddenly you end up killing the last large enemy and are scrambling to zoom out your map to see where you need to get to.

Thankfully in my experience people always wait. If it‘s a large group there are always non-selfish players that wait for you to TP. A small group and it’s in their interest to wait as they need all the help they can get. Especially now there’s no chance of having to wait 10 sec for another chance. I have never been in an Ice Cave where no-one waits.

The new design is much better in two ways. First everyone will know where the pad is: it’s not at some random location but is essentially in the middle. Second it will be much easier to predict when the last enemy dies, whether it’s as two or three groups converge on the middle, or as one or a small group does each branch in turn.

#37

This is a brilliant change overall. The ice lizard dino thing would be a much cooler pet than enemy. The scorpion looks cool but feels more mechanical and alien than ice. Doesn’t fit.

I love the thin corridors. The ice lava (lol) is really good too. Hits hard and fast. Without that it wouldn’t be very dangerous. Honestly, don’t nerf the ice lava! It will be too easy (and therefore boring) without it.

I solo’d on Priest (lvl 30 mheal pet). I solo’d on Trickster and Warrior. I duo’d and trio’d with a few others. The HP scaling is solid. I can tell. If the classes compliment each other (curse, berserk) it dies fast. If they don’t (a few mystics, assassins) it can take a bit. They might’ve not been maxed though I’m unsure. It’s hard to test large groups as large groups don’t really exists.

As of right now the Ice Salamander (srsly what is its name?) is way too easy. The only danger is running over it after it’s dead and getting shotgunned. He definitely needs some minions. I’m too tired to think of ideas RN.

Scorpion dude is great. Mama bats are great. Bats are great. The Yetis themselves are great. The Yeti minions however I think are a little too overpowered. Either lower damage a bit or lower shot speed (either their dex OR their snowball projectile speed). When soloing I ran up to a group that already amassed quite a few minions and I had to run/kite all the way back to snow pad from far into a lane. Nearly maxed Warrior. Hitting often.

Boss is good. I believe the breakable walls are waaay easier to break so be more careful (trolls gonna love this one). First time I tried Warrior solo I had T4 sword. The Cool Ranch Doritos (blue tornados) overran me. Not enough DPS to kill them all. : ( Had to Nexus.

My only real complaint is something I don’t think is easily fixed and that’s the walls. They are clunky and it feels like you can walk against certain parts but there’s space that acts like a wall. Willing to live with it as it makes the dungeon more dangerous but it feels like a cheap unfair danger.

#38

Well I think since it is an icy weapon it should have the slow ROF and slow projectile spd. Damage is fine as it is since it pierces. But less amplitude might be nice.

#39

Staff is good for rushing too cuz the spd.

#41

can you make staff of esben more useful?

rework it plox