This post is largely directed towards @Eerie upon their request.
Why this post is happening
I was recently(ish) asked to give feedback on the Skelotens changes, so I set aside a few days to try and find some hardcore strategies, wrote out my thoughts for the creators and called it good. After doing so, Eerie and Crane both took notice and asked about giving feedback on more maps.
I assume this is due to my willingness to write out my thoughts rather thoroughly and what feels appropriate to do in relation.
I enjoy giving feedback as I generally enjoy thinking through why things are the way they are, and I enjoy weighing struggles and frustrations with reward in my head a ton, so this seems like a lot of fun, and is something I’ve been meaning to dig my teeth into for a while regardless (as I was also asked to take on a Devil’s Reservoir rework in the past).
I dont actually have much experience with zombies.
I tested it out in the early days, and have played a good handful of times but given I’ve been on the server for over a decade at this point that doesnt mean much.
Thus, to me it’s a compliment that my feedback is worth people seeking out standalone.
I will definitely continue to give feedback where applicable, but won’t swear to it. I have lots of personal projects at any given time, too many to commit to something of the scale of a review of every individual zombies map in any timely fashion.
My process and notes learning Abandoned Aqueducts
Drop down for convenience of reading and hiding
This will verge on criticism, but may be worded a little bit harshly as it’s going to be rather matter of fact-like. Actual criticism and review will be written after this section, so please read that after this!
Additionally, all playtime and testing is being done with no ability, or dual wield.
Guests and anyone joining public lobbies is unlikely to know of abilities, and if they do the more complex abilities are likely to feel unapproachable. I generally see Dual Wield and Shaman as the best abilities to use if you aren’t going into more intricate and specific strategies with sentry, telekinesis, or similar.
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3-4 trial runs to get basic testing down, Railgunner is definitely not the preferred option while playing solo. I wager one or two people could get away with this as backup artillery, but the majority should definitely choose the Bandit class.
This map is Risk of Rain 2 themed, so both classes have unlimited ammunition, which is rather abusable with the vertical locations and unlimited range. -
Establishing proper farming methods with the shotgun took a few rounds of trial and error, and are still on the easy side to mess up even once settled.
My favorite option is to stand on the far left pillar with the health chest and shoot downwards, or towards the bridge once Gladiators start to spawn.It will never be perfect, farming with basic bullet shotgun is abysmally slow, making the difficulty of the map moreso a battle of attrition that ultimately seems rather fruitless.
I found I preferred to prioritize flying enemies while sitting behind the first vertical block, then prioritize killing Gladiators with the Revolver ASAP, even at the cost of points. You can spend so long farming on this map if you want to, no point sweating over the couple hundred Gladiator points you lose if it’s going to triple the already long grind. -
“Prioritization”, I would always grab cactus armor asap.
I decided to keep the shotgun unleveled until Round 9 but definitely could have gotten more points if I hadnt, although as mentioned already it’s a seemingly fruitless endeavor.
If you wish to get to Round 12 reasonably you can start upgrading the shotgun as early as Round 7 or 8.
My goal was to prioritize Revolver upgrades until after Round 5, namely so as to kill the first boss and have not spend too long killing eyes and slimers.
After Round 5, Moon Stone and Palladium Armor became the focus so as to increase odds of surviving a few gladiator hits. I do not think prioritizing health is necessary, but definitely isnt a bad option either.
Everything after Round 5 is simply more revolver and armor upgrades.
While I upgraded to Titanium, I would generally recommend sticking with Palladium or Mythril until you are able to skip it, as the set bonus often eats into enemies unintentionally, and was generally not worth it as a result imho.
Hallowed Armor is more than enough to get you to round 12, and Vortex Armor won’t save you from the difficulty spike that is round 12 -
Execution
Everything until Gladiators and the Round 5 boss can be done with little issue or need to camp on farming spots, but as soon as I approach the boss spawning I refuse to move off off the pillar until I had the boss dead. Generally the map is so large that this means Round 6 often starts without me getting a chance to upgrade, but this isnt a large issue.
Round 9 introducers Brain Sucklers, which are a near guaranteed death if you are not at Mythril Armor and 140+ HP, which should both be extremely attainable with some farming.
Snipers can be handled the same way Gladiators are, taking cover until opportune moment to take shots arises.
Round 12 is a near guaranteed loss, pirate cannons will hit you through most cover, and sand elementals are a significant problem with little to no cover in the map at all.
It took me nearly 2 hours to get to Round 12, and I lost instantly. Using god powers to get there again seems to tell me that Round 12 isnt REALISTICALLY feasible. I’m sure some sentry strategies or similar can do it, but it’s a pain in the butt that’s for sure. -
Conclusion
As mentioned, it took me nearly 2 hours of farming to a very large degree in order for me to ultimately end up one shot on Round 12 despite having ankh shield, moon stone, 240hp~ and vortex armor. You could definitely survive sand elementals and captain bombs if you put more focus on health instead of upgrading your revolver, but by that point you will have such little dps that it would take you nearly as long as it took to get to round 12 as it would to beat it.
Ultimately, Abandoned Aqueducts is not a viable map past the midgame, but it is viable to get to said mid game reliably.
Overal, I give the map a 5/10.
It has some interesting strategies and farming locations, is rather outdated but not offensive visually, and is mostly held back by abysmally slow farming options and terrible late game scaling on the weaponry.
Most of this is fixable without putting significant effort into altering the map, but I know Eerie intends to rework it entirely.
Specific Criticism
Summary
This will be directed towards Eerie, but for everyone else, feel free to read this at your leisure and take note of things to avoid with your own maps!
- Decoration does not need to be extravagant and over the top for Zombies as it is often a more grounded gamemode, however Aqueducts is showing its age. I will not harp on this point further, I and the creative team are available to help with decoration and visuals at a moments notice!
- The entire spawn area is a death trap, and the armor location is too. Both locations could have been made somewhat accessible with some sort of wall cling or platforms and a hole near the armor chest dropping onto spawn, thus allowing trapped zombies to be free, and allowing players a spot to loop zombies as necessary, thus breaking up monotonous grinding a bit
- It’s fun to utilize the pillars and vertical spaces to avoid zombies, but it ultimately does make the maps extremely cheesable. Fixing this without altering the layout significantly to include more interesting looping or defending spots would not be ideal, but this isnt a point I will go too hard on either, as this is something you would simply need to test when reworking the map and deciding what kind of playstyles to encourage
- The uneven ground surface causing zombies to jump sporadically is a bit of a nuisance. It’s not truly random, the zombies jump at specific spots but the point is that it makes running along the ground awkwardly challenging at times and heavily encourages the player to seek higher ground as much as possible, this can be fixed very easily and will generally allow a far smoother experience in my opinion, however it’s very realistic to learn the spots that zombies will jump at and play around it.
Jumping zombies take significantly more knockback, which can often disrupt clumps a lot, making it a bit more challenging to kill hordes, which isnt strictly a bad thing either. Always remember to consider what you value more for the map itself. A smoother experience is easier and more approachable, which is generally more fun for public lobbies and guests. A harder experience utilizing bumps on the surface to make zombies more difficult to hit is different and lends more to learn about the map, which is often more fun for experienced players. - As for the theme itself, it’s good and has a lot of potential, it can be expanded upon a ton both visually, and with gear and other references, which is why I’m so willing to give so much criticism on this map first (on top of it being alphabetically first
) - Armor is acceptable, however there could be a few more options, and titanium should likely be replaced. I would personally alter the order to Cactus → Ninja → Necro → Palladium → Huntress → Hallowed → Shroomite (or Red Riding) → Vortex
(This is a very standard ranger armor progression in vanilla terraria)
This just gives a few more options for more progression, while removing the sometimes awkward Titanium set bonus (and avoiding frost armor DoT that I feel is simply not worth losing points for on other maps) - Railgunner is a terrible choice of class. I already discussed this with you on Discord but the zombies mode thrives on farming low and slow to gain points, zombies is often a battle of personal attrition and choosing when to pull the trigger with your points towards the lategame, and Railgunner avoids this entirely.
I think MULT, Mercenary, Artificer, REX, Captain, and CHEF would all make for very fun and interesting classes to try. I would probably avoid having Bandit and Commando/Huntress due to how similar it would likely feel, and Acrid, Loader, and Engineer while all interesting would likely be difficult and awkward to implement properly (alongside Loader ahving similar issues to Railgunner, and Acrid running into a similar problem with DOT being that characters focus, and DOT not granting points in zombies) - On the other hand, Bandit is a very decent choice, the shotgun and revolver combo is totally fine, however I would definitely like to see some changes made overal to the class.
For starters, I heavily believe this class should come with a shortsword and ammo should not be unlimited. While this goes against the RoR2 theme, this makes cheesing innately significantly less… well, cheesy. Ammo management is another thing that allows the player to think about their point prioritization, and also lets the player eventually transition onto farming with shotgun more thoroughly through the use of bullets with minor pierce like meteor shot, and high velocity, into eventual exploding bullets and luminite bullets.
I believe this suspension of game reference accuracy is 100% worthwhile for the general gameplay of the map.
To cut short a long tangent, both the shotgun and revolver do not scale properly at all. The upgrades are too expensive past the early game (Which I consider to be around Round 9 when Brain Sucklers spawn), and too weak to get you through the mid game (which is Round 12) even when fully upgraded.
I will not go into a ton of detail, as this is something we both know can be fixed very easily with a bit of tweaking, however I will mention that it is a bit sad that the general interest of progression is lost when you realize that all weapons are simply a stronger version of what you just had. It would be more endearing to have the weapons be changed in more noticeable ways as you upgrade them. - Moon Stone as an accessory is a must grab, but unfortunately no longer scales when stacked together as of 1.4, so this should likely be either a once and done chest, or a chest that grants a number of damage increasing accessories ie Moon Stone → Destroyer Emblem → Sniper/Recon Scope → Celestial Shell
- Ankh Shield could be made more interesting in similar vain: Cobalt Shield → Ankh Shield → Worm Scarf, making Ankh Shield significantly more expensive than it is right now in exchange for a cheap and quick Cobalt Shield, and a more expensive late game Worm Scarf to aid in survival lategame
- Existing potions chest is good, the price discouraging users to spend those points poorly early on. I would maybe suggest a cheaper potions chest with regeneration, a well fed buff, and ammo reservation potions for the earlier game to gain small boosts when necessary? Just a small idea that isnt overly necessary
As always, I am active on Discord and relatively active in-game if you would ever like more details, I can and will respond where applicable on this thread, and if you’d like help with brainstorming ideas for new content that is more specific, I would love to help with that too!
Of course it is not my project to decide details on, and to what extent you are willing to sacrifice the theme in favor of gameplay is also not for me to decide