Secluded Thicket Feedback Thread: Welcome (Back) to the Jungle!

#41

No

#43

yah

#44

also i really hope the boss is called Euryale
so it can have sense

#45

So I’ve had the chance to play through the new dungeon a few times :3

I really enjoy the first boss, it’s not too tough but very fun! The second boss is interesting. I like the variation in the tribesman spawn order (although I do think they have a bit too much health and look a bit ugly), I found the zoning coupled with all the colours flying about really confusing and so I was surprised the fight didn’t capitalise on the hallucinating debuff as much as I thought it would. I found myself actually loving the idea of three conjoined boss dungeons that form a sort of mini journey, can’t wait to see what more can be done with this concept! :smiley:

The third boss is also pretty good, I do like his lightning strike mechanic and overall the fight is really engaging. I do have one small gripe with it though, and that is the arena. I am so tired of stationary entities firing off low damage debuff shots (like in the Parasite chambers and Lost Halls, while the bosses of Encore and Reef also have the incessant pet stasis/daze shots which serve the same function). I know that its good for group balance, and that its suitable for a bullet hell game, but I find it so uninspired and tedious at this point. Surely there’s something else to be done? Even aura debuffs would be more interesting if they switched places every now and then. Furthermore there is the shape of the arena itself. It might just be that I’m getting cranky, but I’m so bloody tired of undersized arenas with a moat of damaging liquid. The Nest, Void, Halloween Cemetery, Deadwater docks. If I have to fight one more boss on a tiny island with some damaging liquid around it I am quite frankly going to smash my head repeatedly against the desk until my spine comes out of my nose.

And another thing. Seeing the same original forbidden jungle environmental sprites used AGAIN left me utterly thunderstruck (pun intended). The courtyard in the Shatters still looks like a complete poo (possibly the worst part of all in that aesthetic catastrophe) thanks to those stupid skulls on spikes, and seeing them again made me want to kill everyone starting with myself. Not to mention the same original floor tiles and plantlife which clash so abominably with Piggby’s sleekly refined lightning projectiles and those shaded totems. Even if everything was but a shade or two darker, representing a deeper part of the forest, I would have no qualms - or if it darkened as the bosses progressed. Speaking of, I reckon the last boss should be in some sort of temple chamber rather than his random glade, so that the ‘narrative’ - the basilisk guards the gates, leading into a sort of conquistador treasury, proceeding into the heart of the ziggurat and its resident divine - flows a bit better?

Finally, the name ‘secluded thicket’ is very underwhelming in my opinion. The recently added dungeons just sound like someone went overboard with a thesaurus… why is it a ‘Cnidarian’ reef again? Secluded Thicket just sounds like a retirement home. If you’re going down that route, how about ‘Tenebrous Teocalli’? I’d just call it something like ‘Jungle Temple’ or ‘Forbidden Ruins’ to be honest.

Anyway despite my minor irritation I think this is a pretty good dungeon and I can’t wait to see what it drops! c:

#46

From what I’ve seen it looks amazing! Great boss fights, I’d like to see the loot tho

#47

I like it. It’s hard, but it’s not LH hard.

#48

Agree, a thicket is a kind of overgrown hedge, and doesn’t evoke jungles or Aztecs/whatever-mythology at all. I was thinking it was a placeholder name but in the case that it isn’t, it does need mentioning.

Much better IMO.

#49

Needs more hallucination, definitely.
Maybe for first and third because theyre surrounded by trees. The second boss only has 4 enemy sprites other than fires, so I dont think it would be very interesting.

#50

Ok did it as promised. Sorry its a long video I played like a pussy on top of lack of skill.

First is my personal favourite and is really fun even petless. Some phases feel nest-esque and the rage is especially fun.

Second as everyone said, reduce hp of tribesman. Also, 2 of the same tribesman can spawn in a row? Didn’t know that. Green is my least petless especially during tight rotations. Boss HP is also kinda high, I was using a high dps setup and still took a while to chip down it’s health during last phase.

Last boss is cool, didn’t get much of a chance to actually learn shot patterns since I always died before lol. It’s pretty challenging petless (used all my hp pots there) but maybe if I learnt the phases and better dodging it wouldn’t be too bad. Ofc w/ a divine and jugg it’s trivial. The survival phase is pretty neat +1.

#51

I guess my brain is on par with Martskart’s.

I completed 2 Thickets through the final survival phase, and my second “completion” I completed the survival phase 14 times (yes, I counted) before running out of hp potions and dying.

I have chat bubbles off, and I was so focused on dodging the lightning strike so as to not be petrified at the beginning of the next survival phase that I didn’t realize the hint(although I might still not have gotten it). I thought there would be a small window during the phase in which he could be damaged, and that he only had a single health point left. Didn’t figure it out until I came to this realmeye post where I read your hint “You may end up needing to use his own strength against him somehow.”

It was probably just me being closeminded, but if more people are having this issue, maybe there could be an even more obvious solution for those like myself. Or I think it would just eventually become common knowledge, just how people know about the Secret Switch in Shatters. It could just be another endgame thing that is learned from the spread of knowledge.

#52

The new ability tester spawn thingy has 50,000.
Which is why I have like 5 chests full of them.

Onto feedback, in the Testing thread I said I’d post a video, but .mov files take forever to render, so I’m doing it minute by minute (which still takes 15-20 minutes). I’ll upload it later here with some extra feedback - some that’s probably more precise than what I’ll give here, since I don’t have a reliable reference point.
But, these are my overall thoughts per boss:

Tezcacoatl: A pretty fun boss. It’s not too challenging, and the phases are fairly unique. I like how the minions are used as phase additions, like you intended - it’s very nice to see that!
Like others, I’m still a bit on the fence about the phase where his minions become vulnerable. It feels a bit like a chore to go around and kill them one-by-one (though I do like how bombs are continually thrown to keep you on the move!). The last phase is also pretty neat, combining different attacks together. That said, I, too, think adding an AoE blast centered on Tezca itself would be a good addition, as @Martskart suggested.

El Dorado: An interesting boss concept for sure. The Janus-like phases are well-understandable, though like pretty much everyone else, I agree that the Tribesmen’s HP should be lowered a tad.
Additionally, @Martskart’s suggestion of cycling through the Tribesmen’s attacks also sounds good. You’ve got a nice mind up there.

Xocotl: I feel like this is seriously the easiest of the bunch. Though I struggled to keep up with the flow of thunder projectiles in the last phase as a Knight, the rest of the fight was…surprisingly easy. I only died once in it because I sat on him as Ninja during his circling phase (a somewhat boring one, to be honest…). The mechanic of ending him is very unique, however, and I think that should remain unchanged. That said, the last phase is not too pressuring into going with the flow, as demonstrated in @Gleff and @Tmtoon’s Speedrun.

#53

A thing to note cause I actually did this on my very first thicket, is that for some reason, going far enough away from Xolotl can end the last phase early. I think it might be like how the Cursed Blasts explode into 4 when you’re too far away, the lightning bolts may have a similar effect, I’m not entirely certain though.

#54

fyi, if you are in the central parts of the hexagons (inner parts) the bombs are not thrown at you whatsoever, so you don’t have to move.

#55

Finally done with this video.

Overall, I find that the Tribesmen take too long to be killed when soloing, and the last phase of El Dorado can be improved upon as well, by adding all of the Tribesmen’s attacks in there instead of just that of the last one. Cycle through them, maybe.
Xocotl is a bit too stale/easy. His final phase is interesting for sure, but the other ones are just…kinda meh. The amount of attacks he has is very limited, with the parametric shots and the thunder spirals only seen in his last phase. It’s a bit disappointing.

#56

omg i read ‘‘killed by el dorito’’

#58
#59

But why?

#60

Tbh Oryx could just throw me into the Halloween nexus maze without the map and that would do the trick.

#61

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