Crossposting discussion begun in the like what you're playing thread:
I still can't get to level 30 in the forest; I think the all-direction spread makes it harder to collect experience as it's spread around more; harder to focus-fire enemy groups or rely on passthrough weapons; easier to get your path blocked off; random-fire weapons have more directions to go with lower or the same density of enemies cleared each time Ugh.
I did get my first 30-minute finish with an area-buff focused build - The character with the automatic +30% to area plus candelabras; rune tracers, lightning ring,holy santa water, plus fire wand and evolved magic-wand, ... Not everything actually got better with area since they only hit a limited number of targets, but it does prevent some from passing by nearby enemies? Anyway, the build passed the final test which is the "stand still" test - just stand in the middle of a room and it slays everything around it. Things had pushed in very close by the very end but I stuck it out til that 30 mark and completed the stage. This also taught me that I'd seriously underestimated the benefit of stacking area-increase effects, especially with a character making them even bigger - lightning wiping out entire rows of enemies as soon as they enter, santa water covering an entire unbroken arc of the floor to the ceiling, and rune tracers hitting so many more things than usual. Later I evolved axes and crosses with the same character (on different runs) and the huge swathes they cut through crowds... amazing.
Later, as I attempted to get weapon evolutions, I realized you actually can have more than one evolution in a run, so I later decided to do an all-evolutions run. I only picked up weapons that could evolve and their corresponding items. You can only have six weapons and there are seven total, but I got the whip, axes, king bible, fire wand, magic wand, and daggers (the starting weapon with Gennaro, who I went for to get that extra projectile); that meant I got the max-hp, area, duration, damage, cooldown, and speed bonuses. I couldn't get any of my normal standbys this way - no armor, no pummarelo or whatever, no garlic, no laurel. The big one was no duplicators... But even so this still led to my second 30-minute run because I did indeed evolve every one of those weapons and it was indeed fucking insane. The max hp and health-drain from the evolved whip basically solved my rare damage issues, the whip + book was a whirlwind of death keeping everything at bay, the axes helped thin the entire crowd, the wand provided random focused damage and the hellfire provided random total-clear areas, and the daggers funneled damage at a direct target line.
If/when I do it again I'll probably drop the daggers for the evolved crosses, because Holy Sword is fuckin sick and also looks sweet as hell, but I wonder if the lack of speed from losing the bracers would have too big an impact. Magic wand is less impressive but the cooldown reduction is huge for axes, crosses, and hellfire... Hellfire itself, being randomly-targeted, might be a good sacrifice, but then I'm losing spinach. Axes and area, that'd lose a lot of targeting from crosses, hellfire, and whip, plus shrinks the book circle. Duration is the easiest to sacrifice since it doesn't effect any of the evolved weapons iirc, but the bible circle itself is so clutch. No, I think daggers and bracers are the ones I'd try to drop to do another run like this. (That means I'll need a different starting character, so my starting weapon would have to be the whip, wand, or fire wand, and instead of an extra projectile I'd get damage, experience, or what was it, speed? as my character bonus. I wonder if the damage or speed would make up for it...
Or I could of course start with the lightning ring or bone and not do every weapon evolved. That also opens up a slot for sub-items like duplicators...
Vampire Survivor is a game that dares to ask, "What if Hades was Smash TV?"
Several of my friends are into it right now. "You are the bullet hell" is a helluva pitch, even before you add the not-Castlevania skinning.
One neat thing about it that I noticed in the Steam reviews is that it scores high on accessibility, given that the entire game is played with just a single analog stick and a single button (and the button only rarely, since I think you need to press A to open chests.
I bet it would have been fun on atari or an arcade cabinet!
I'm playing it a lot ugh. Very addictive. I spent a chunk of yesterday on the browser version before getting the steam version and it's worth noting the steam version is more updated - mostly UI stuff, gold prices I think, but probably some mechanical tuning in there too. But there's also at least one extra stage (not sure if that wasn't in the browser version or I just never got to it) besides the basic forest, which I tend to find a little easier; not sure why but it's probably the fact that the top and bottom are walls so you can only scroll east/west, which limits where enemies can come from so it gets them closer together for area attacks to take out. Also at least one more character (see above as to whether he's actually specific/unique).
I can't usually get past being level 29ish on the forest, but I've had 3 different characters make it to "maxed out every upgrade until you just get gold/floor chicken on each level" in the library, 60+ish? I've only managed to evolve 2 weapons, the magic wand and the knives, so I'm trying to get a few of the others and see how they work out; not sure if I just have to stumble upon the item combinations to allow those, or just push them to max level and pray.
There are two objectives in each stage you might care about:
- Defeating a specific boss (which I think appears at the 25:00 mark in both stages) unlocks the "Hyper" version of that stage. The Hyper version isn't appreciably more difficult, largely because the increase in enemies has a corresponding increase in experience, but it awards more gold.
- Reaching the 30:00 mark despawns all enemies, summons Death to kill you basically instantly, gives you a "Stage Complete" message, and grants 500 gold, which is fairly minor compared to how much you'll have gathered on your own by then. There's no unlock associated with this, so the extra gold is the only bonus.
The second stage is quite a bit easier than the first. You'll want to focus on that stage until you're satisfied that you're doing well enough to go back to the forest.
All evolutions are contingent on the weapon being maxed out and having a corresponding passive item. Not all weapons have evolutions. The evolution is guaranteed on your next chest once you've met the conditions (except possibly if you have multiple evolution-ready weapons and the chest drops only one item).
"Floor chicken" is a delightful alternative to "wall meat."
I still can't get to level 30 in the forest; I think the all-direction spread makes it harder to collect experience as it's spread around more; harder to focus-fire enemy groups or rely on passthrough weapons; easier to get your path blocked off; random-fire weapons have more directions to go with lower or the same density of enemies cleared each time Ugh.
I did get my first 30-minute finish with an area-buff focused build - The character with the automatic +30% to area plus candelabras; rune tracers, lightning ring,
Later, as I attempted to get weapon evolutions, I realized you actually can have more than one evolution in a run, so I later decided to do an all-evolutions run. I only picked up weapons that could evolve and their corresponding items. You can only have six weapons and there are seven total, but I got the whip, axes, king bible, fire wand, magic wand, and daggers (the starting weapon with Gennaro, who I went for to get that extra projectile); that meant I got the max-hp, area, duration, damage, cooldown, and speed bonuses. I couldn't get any of my normal standbys this way - no armor, no pummarelo or whatever, no garlic, no laurel. The big one was no duplicators... But even so this still led to my second 30-minute run because I did indeed evolve every one of those weapons and it was indeed fucking insane. The max hp and health-drain from the evolved whip basically solved my rare damage issues, the whip + book was a whirlwind of death keeping everything at bay, the axes helped thin the entire crowd, the wand provided random focused damage and the hellfire provided random total-clear areas, and the daggers funneled damage at a direct target line.
If/when I do it again I'll probably drop the daggers for the evolved crosses, because Holy Sword is fuckin sick and also looks sweet as hell, but I wonder if the lack of speed from losing the bracers would have too big an impact. Magic wand is less impressive but the cooldown reduction is huge for axes, crosses, and hellfire... Hellfire itself, being randomly-targeted, might be a good sacrifice, but then I'm losing spinach. Axes and area, that'd lose a lot of targeting from crosses, hellfire, and whip, plus shrinks the book circle. Duration is the easiest to sacrifice since it doesn't effect any of the evolved weapons iirc, but the bible circle itself is so clutch. No, I think daggers and bracers are the ones I'd try to drop to do another run like this. (That means I'll need a different starting character, so my starting weapon would have to be the whip, wand, or fire wand, and instead of an extra projectile I'd get damage, experience, or what was it, speed? as my character bonus. I wonder if the damage or speed would make up for it...
Or I could of course start with the lightning ring or bone and not do every weapon evolved. That also opens up a slot for sub-items like duplicators...