Shadow Lords Impressions Thread

Shadow Lords
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I got a beta key yesterday after class and managed to finish my first run with Jago and Kim starting on the team. I rushed this one because I don’t have fun playing them, but after finishing, I started my first “real” run.

I really like this mode a lot, and the random scenarios before/after fights are one of my favorite features. I’ve got RAAM as my leader with Fulgore and Glacius following.

I see this mode as something I will keep coming back to. I will definitely spend more down time doing this whenever I get bored of pvp/other games.

Overall, I think this is a fun mode, and I really like that it’s a more fun way to grind EXP to level characters instead of playing survival/fighting regular CPUs. For now, this is all I have to say (only spent about two hours playing it), but I’ll try to complete my RAAM run today or tomorrow depending on how much work my professors assign me.

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Thanks! It’s only going to get better for the launch. We’re just weeks away!

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Nope, my mind got blown up when I say your video on your Youtube channel and… wow, just wow, I hope this little issue get fixed, because it’s not consistent when the other characters have the proper art flipped, and since we’re talking about the character arts. I don’t know why the game uses Gargos’ new design art when you chose him with the retro costume (during the tutorial you can see Gargos SL retro costume art), but I think every character will have a retro costume art and they actually put them to use once the public release is ready, anyway is just a little but very visible issue.

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I played through on normal, got the Astral Plane stage.
Here’s some ideas for future updates -

  • Stats screen at end of game (mission successes, failed missions, deploys, quests, astral gems earned,…)
  • Score/rating based on stats plus challenge level (better score/higher rating if you don’t use guardians/artifacts)
  • Special profile icon for beating Gargos on “GODLIKE” setting.
  • Mimics get win quotes if you lose.
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Played (and beat) on Normal, and a tried a bit on Challenging and Godlike last night. I really liked what I played - moreso than I was expecting. It’s pretty unlike anything I’ve played before, and I feel a lot of potential from it.

Some suggestions:

  • I think that more characters should be initially locked in the full release. IIRC, only Gargos and Eyedol are in the preview. I think it’d be fun to start with only a dozen or so characters available and unlock the rest by playing.
  • The pacing is marred a bit by various waiting times. Loading fights, the 2-second delay when you select War Room before the interface loads, all the different screens you have to go through for missions, etc. These should be reduced wherever possible.
  • The AI can be frustrating and/or boring to fight. Often I feel like outplaying the AI is much more about luck than skill + effort, and I’d like to see that improved somehow.
  • When the game gives me an option to spend materials for a mission, I’d like to see how many of that material I currently have.
  • I’ve said this before, but I think Mimics need a bit more flare to them.
  • The Healing Packs in the Emporium seem really generous, especially for the price they ask. I’m worried they’ll easily give the player too many recovery resources and make the difficulty feel too lenient, so I’d suggest looking into maybe making them offer less.
  • I’m worried that the guardians and consumables will throw off the balance too much in the player’s favor. The limited uses on the guardians and the cost to replenish them are pretty trivial, and I got the Perfect Snake guardian on my 2nd Rare Pack which made everything very easy from that point forward. Just watch out.

One final thing I want to say is that this is a type of mode that will always really benefit from additional characters and stages added to the overall game. I hope the developers stick with it and keep supporting this mode with if they continue to develop content for KI.

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Ran through it last night on stream and had a blast! I was able to defeat Omen a couple times without issue and got Gargos down to 25% health for my 3rd player, but still lost to him. Between the minions, the portal punches, and the stoneskin, it was tough, but very very fun. I didn’t mind losing one bit.

I have a question, as well as a few suggestions.

Question:

First, I couldn’t tell for sure, but if you equip a consumable and do not use it during the match, is it removed from your inventory after the match, or do you keep it? I’m not sure if I should be “saving them for emergency” or making sure I pop it at some point during the fight, even if it’s not really needed.

Suggestions:

1.) When using a consumable during a match, I sometimes had trouble telling if it actually activated or not because maybe I got hit out of the taunt, for example. Does it activate on the first frame of the animation? I know the icon goes from full to empty, then drains down, but an audio queue or visual effect, like a flash transition between the empty/full icon or something a little more eye catching, could help make it clearer that the consumable did activate. My buddy, who doesn’t have as keen of an eye for UI notifications, kept taunting over and over because he didn’t know if he triggered it or not, which in turn wasted the time on his buff.

2.) Another audio queue suggestion - maybe something more noticeable for when a tank chest drops, since you have a time limit to open it. It may just be because I’m not used to the mode yet, but once the match is over, I tend to let my guard down and sometimes take my hands off the controller, go get something to drink, take a piss, etc. I think 90% of the time a tank chest dropped, I didn’t notice it until there was like 2 seconds left to bang on it, so I never got it 100% destroyed.

3.) I think this may be a glitch, not sure. The ARES Battle Stim Mk 1 consumable is the only one I noticed that does not continue draining once the opponent’s life is gone. As you’ll see in the clip below, once Mimick Glacius is dead, the consumable stops draining, allowing for an infinite. This could get nasty if used in the multiplayer mode. I can see people exploiting that, just to be a ■■■■.

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Great feedback everyone. Thanks for sharing!

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Something I’ve noticed about the mission select screen. It is very cumbersome and awkward. I would switch between the thumb stick and the D pad and nothing would happen. Then the map will spaz out and spin around. The missions need to be more easily selectable. Up, down, left, right or just have a panel on the left side that will list the available missions that I can scroll up and down in, and the applicable location on the map as I scroll up and down the list.

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Thanks for pointing that one out. I know for a fact people would use that trick just to be a d d-bag. Nothing like being trapped for 5 min while someone wants to be a jerk. Thanks again for pointing this out.

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Only got a chance to play a little so far late last night so my thoughts are few and random.

It did seem a little heavy on the transition screens, like the screen just showing you defeated the enemy with the animated crossout. Some of that felt redundant.
Also, I felt like going back to the vs screen just to see a couple boxes of dialogue was a little much.
Streamlining that or showing more on the post-game screen might help. It sounds like they have something worked on already though.

Also on the screen where it’s revealed what post-match items you got, I would like it to show how rare the items are when revealed. I had no idea if I got anything rare so it wasn’t very exciting. If I recall I had to later go into the inventory to see. (apologies if I missed this).

I also found the common/rare heading in your inventory screen you select via LB/RB a little confusing to tell what was selected.

I haven’t used KI gold in this, and likely won’t in beta, but I hope there’s a second confirmation press just so I don’t accidentally spend something with an extra errant ‘A’ press. I lost some of my pre-order gold on a character accessory piece I would have earned in the next match or two a while back by accident that way. I’m afraid of something similar here. If I recall SL mode switches things up on you at some point when quitting by making you confirm with an ‘X’, so maybe that would be useful here.

My first thought on the mimics was that they look cool, but I could see myself getting really tired of fighting green smoky characters all the time. I know that’s baked into the story, but I would love to have the option of the enemies using random colors and accessory combos. That would keep it way more for fresh for me visually if I’m going through this over and over. Anything that lessens the feeling of repetition is good.

I did love the comic book style narrator intros. I hope there are more.
The UI looks really slick and very well done.
I love Kan-Ra as a character, so I’m happy he’s so prominent in this.

Again, this was only on a first quick pass when I was getting sleepy, so I may have missed an aspect of something I commented on.

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I agree on the loading screens and the ‘character defeated’ transitions- not sure how you can minimize that, but the minute to wait for the image and a red X over it could be replaced by a cool new art of the winning character ( like KI gold)

I don’t remember having a time frame to open my chests.
I stayed on stages and hopped to either side without anything counting down.

I just am not a fan of the celery skin human mimics.
Smoke I could get behind, but the green is idk
I know it’s here to stay but if there is content to be added, we will just see hulk inspired versions of the new chars in season 4 season 5;)

All in all so unique aside from the odd waiting (‘select a’ )and the globe that responds erratically!

So there’s no chance of an MKX style character viewer with zoom for KI???

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I believe the outline around the items on that screen are all color coded (green=common, blue=rare, purple=epic, etc), but I can see how not everyone would know this. Just my past WoW experience helping me out there.

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OK, cool. Yeah, I did not get that on my first plays. I’ll have to pay attention next time I play. Thanks.

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So I just finished Gargos on Godlike and I received relatively the same rewards as I would have on normal. Are there plans to make Godlike mode more rewarding other than the challenge difference. Like will you have a higher chance to get better rewards? If anyone else has noticed a difference, please let me know.

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How many gems did you get?

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I received 920. Which falls in the realm of the 700-1000 something of normal. I wasn’t really paying attention to the rewards before the fight, just thought it would be much higher.

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Im really enjoying S lords! It moves a bit slow but over all its very impressive! It would take forever to play through it with every character…so the replay ability is definitely there.

I do wish you could see you health at all times in the main menu and how many items you have when you have to trade or give them away to homeless people or whatever. lol

Some parts are hard to figure out when creating crafts and then cycling through the 3 tabs…but i figured it out eventually.

Great job team!

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Just finished my first play though. It is nice to have the new stage unlocked finally.

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As I have to have relatively continuous help to get through the menus etc, it’s going to take a very long time before I even get a shot at beating Gargos. I like what the mode is, but just wish that the accessibility team didn’t have to compromise on narrator’s reading ability to allow the entire mode to be read and all those with no sight who want to play the mode to be able to without needing assistance.

Who knows though, the future might just enable that to happen, you never can tell.

Well done IG.

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Forgive me for what is sure to be shallow and repetitive feedback.

I didn’t get a code (probably because I didn’t sign up) but I have made a couple of attempts to watch SL on stream. Unfortunately it’s not very stream friendly because it’s so menu heavy. The fights are interesting but it takes a long time to get to them. So I would definitely echo the sentiment that anything you can do to speed load times will have good returns.

Also, the mode is aesthetically pleasing but it’s hard to follow on stream because it’s so text driven. B recognizing that glamorous visuals might be out of reach, even small indicators (green up arrows by items that up health etc.) that make it easier to follow would be helpful. I understand that learning the ins and outs of the system is part of the game for a Roguelike (which this is clearly modeled after - reminds me of FTL), but it’s going to be tough to get much stream/YouTube coverage of the mode without a little help.