#Repost - Feedback & Observations on HLB & Suggestions on the world of Hyper Light

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

shut dust
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Repost of original post from the old channel.
Warning: This is going to be a LONG post

Introduction

Hello! I want to just express that I understand this game is in early access, and the notice at the start of the game, informs us to leave feedback, suggest improvements and report bugs. That's what I'm here to do. Some are just general ideas and things I would like to see in the game. Others are bugs or things I've noticed while playing. I understand it's no where near finished and subject to change, but I wanted to give my 2 cents on the direction the changes should go. This isn't going to focus on rouge-lite or extraction elements of the game, but more so on the world and feel of the game.

From drifter to breaker

It's hard to translate the feeling of a game into a new genre and into a new dimension, going from a hand crafted world like hyper light drifter to a procedural generated one for hyper light breaker, it's always going to cause certain elements to be lost. Even more so when you go from 2D to 3D, and then again from a exploration focused action RPG to a open world extraction rogue-lite. It's because of this, that I wanted to try and suggest ways to capture the same feel of hyper light drifter, within breaker.

Post structure

Because I've decided to grab photos and videos for these issues, I've broken each one up into its own message, this way the photo and video related to it will be left right underneath. I've tried to make sure its all digestible and readable no matter what device you're on. I hope the gifs all work!

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Bugs

Spear attack goes through walls.

Self explanatory, kinda funny, but also kinda cheesy. I tested this on a few falls and tehy showed similar results. It will target lock through a wall, and then even hit the enemy through it. Not too big of an issue, but still worth mentioning.

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Mouse lock when selecting restore default controls

When in the menu, you can move your cursor around like normal, however the moment you select 'restore default controls' it goes back to moving your camera. Causing you to close out of the menus, and go right back into them, to continue changing your controls.

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Differences between teleporter upgrade screen, and inventory upgrade screen

  • Resource totals such as cores aren't visable
  • The name is slightly different, going from 'Breaker & Loadout' to 'Breaker + Loadout'
  • Not really an issue, but worth mentioning, everything is slightly aligned differently, EG: the title is slightly smaller, the character info box is lower too.
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ADS Lock when moving over a menu based item

Some of these are hard to show in gif form, as I don't have a way to show the key I'm holding down, you just gotta trust me.

  • Can't ADS over the item.
  • Pulls you out of ADS as you walk up to the item
  • Locks your currently held down movement key once you walk over the item (if you were ADS)
  • Dashing through an item also disables the movement key you're holding
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Stuck in elevator

I know this is technically not a bug, as you always get teleported to the top. But it does feel unpolished as a result.
Just giving my two cents, I know this game is early access.

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Glitch equipped weapon when loading in.

Kind of a weird one, hard to really show. However each sycom gives you a different starting weapon, if you don't like it, you can just quickly swap between two breakers and steal the other starting weapon that you do like.

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Gun vanishes during and after boss fight

Sometimes, only sometimes, your gun's model will straight up fail to load. Only noticed it after clearing a boss fight. Or during a boss fight.

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Suggestions

This is going to focus on already established systems. Mostly.

Misplaced amp in inventory

Why does it move?

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Sell menu improvements

  • A sort function, this goes for all menus too, even the vault. Would be nice to be able to sort by: Rarity, Level, Type, Durability
  • Sell menu itself is just a long long list, I think it should be more of a grid, make it easier to see more of what you have. Similar to the vault layout.
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Feathering movement keys feels unpolished

I will say, only tested on mouse and keyboard, unsure if its different on controller. But there is no walk animation when moving 'on the spot' For a lack of better words. A good example of this would be risk of rain 2

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Dash & Flash Step - Aggressive auto lock

This is less of a bug, and more of something I just noticed, and dont' really like. Dash has a set distance that slightly varies, however if there is a enemy in the path of your dash, it will pretty much push you an extra half dash towards them. This is fine in terms of assisting a player to confirm a hit, but I feel its over tuned and too strong.
The first example showcases how far you can normally dash, and then showcases the aggressive autolock and auto pull to enemy.

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Alternatively, if you want to cover the same distance, make it a skilled action. Eg: You have to time your dash flash step to get the distance of your dash, into your flash step. This gif here will showcase what I mean.

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Wall dashing - only works for the first two charges

Even if you have 3, or 4 charges of your dash, you can only use two of them to scale upwards.
I feel like this is a missed opportunity to make it rewarding for players who invest into their stamina, giving them more options to traverse the map.
Especially when sometimes you're just a few inches away from scaling the wall you want to climb.

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Health is set to default value when loading into the map

Health upgrades don't actually raise your starting health when you first load in.

Additional features

  • Be able to use dead player's stims to revive them
  • Be able to unequip gear

Combat feel

  • Animation locking certain strong attacks is fine, however it should be adjusted to have less end lag / locked movement. Make it so the end animation can occur while moving at least. EG: the soldier's light blade special does a massive X attack, and then you can only move once the sword has finally disappeared. I believe it would be better if after the attack goes out and during the sword behind back animation, you're allowed to walk at the least, and then once it's done, you can run again and perform other attacks.
  • Occasionally the snap between ADS and your Melee is a little jarring in the heat of combat, mostly because the crosshair zooms in with you, making it offset from centre screen down and to the right, when you go between Melee and Rail a lot, this gets a little difficult to pinpoint your aim prior to ADS'ing , causing combat to have a little bit of lag, and causing you to either miss a quick shot, or adjust constantly.
  • I do want to point out that I love how quickly you can snap between melee and rail.

Breaker and Sycom

This is mostly a pet peeve, but there is no difference between breakers, just between what sycoms they have available. Because the stats and perks are purely tied to the sycom. If you made all sycom's available to every breaker, all breakers would effectively become skins at best.
This is fine for early access, but I feel the game is lacking in terms of build variety and character diversity.
My suggestion is make each breaker unique to encourage a different playstyle.
EG:

  • One breaker is focused on rails and has the unique passive to absorb battery from projectiles during their i-frames
  • One breaker is capable to chain dash (similar to HLD) and each successful chain dash adds damage to your flash-step
  • One breaker is a tank, and they gain a temporary over shield when using a blade special.
  • One breaker is focused on parrying and decreases cooldowns for blade special and amp (not fully, just a little)
  • One breaker is focused on elemental effects and depending on your weapon, successful parries and (dodges), causes the enemy to receive the status effect
  • One breaker is a support and has stronger healing from heal gems, orbs, and stims, and when coop using your stim sends out a pulse of healing that is as effective as 50% of a regular stim.
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The world of Hyper Light

This is just some thoughts I have on the world itself, focusing on what HLD has that made it unique, and that could be incorporated into HLB. Take these as just general suggestions, more or less, ideas to think about.

  • The enemy variety is a little random and while there are some enemies that are region specific, I feel you can take this further. Make each boss have a unique set of enemies related to them, that will now spawn in that region, effectively showing their control of the area.
  • Alternatively, think back to HLD, each region has a theme and enemies that fit that theme. It's hard to do in procedural generation, but it goes the distance in terms of making the world feel lived in.
  • Similarly, make enemies have idle animations, have some of them sit around a camp fire, while others are on lookout above in some ruins.
  • Add some puzzles and some platforming areas, make it not always combat focused for the POIs, think back on HLD, how you had some chain dash puzzles and some invisible platform sections off the beaten path.
  • Add in caves / dungeons, similar to the elevators you go down in HLD. And that are key locked in HLB. Make them larger or just, have a little more too them, make some of them multi roomed or just have more variety. Could make them instance based similar to the boss rooms. Give us more reasons to explore, maybe it have a mini-boss or a elite enemy at the end, give us a platform section for some, or a puzzle for others, maybe finishing them provides a rare currency.
  • With the amount of vertical movement we have, I reckon the game would benefit from more vertical structures without jump pads. There are a few small POIs with no jump pads, but they're too small in scale and I'd love to see a more keen focus on our movement tools for both platforming and puzzles.
  • Additionally to the last point, add in the teleporters that were found in the north zone of HLD, or something to that effect, we already have the teleporter into the map, add some that bring us either to the floating islands we see, or somewhere else entirely. Allow us to get lost in the world, and go somewhere unexpected, high up, underground, or a locked room.
  • Add some lil guys, bugs, birds, etc. HLD has this and made the world feel more lived in, bring that feeling back.
  • Add some region specific structures, or even some random generation that is more building focused, rather than always grass land. (EG, a broken city, or the east region from HLD, something like that)
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And once again, thank you for reading my uhh, thoughts and feedback on your game!

median geyser
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Once again, this lunatic, me, gas station discord call. 3 Hours.

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Really, really love the breakdown of all the bugs and your discussion regarding the world, gamefeel and productive change suggestions are very well done