As far as the ghosts/homing flames go, I definitely saw them as a nuisance, although I did want to add some sort of element to the level to help it distinguish itself from the rest of the dungeon.
Perhaps I can change them drastically and make them function more fairly (maybe flames transforming into homing flames and not being able to clip through solid surfaces), alongside with increasing their hitbox by a considerable margin. I'll have to do try these out and see how it all works, but ultimately I may just remove them entirely.
It would be sad to remove them entirely, but fixing them seems hard as well. They are hard to hit and kill, and can't be avoided when they come from the ground suddenly. If you made them harmless and made them spawn projectiles, they would still be able to come from below and spawn stuff in your face. But there definitely is something to do with them. They are a meaningful addition to that eerie map, you should be able to find something that makes them work nicely.
As far as stating that the scout's weapon is obnoxious, do you mean it by just how it functions or how it sounds? I'm a bit a unclear about what your input was on that. I'd like to find a way to make the scout's weapon a little more balanced and less weak and clunky at some point in the future.
Yeah sorry I was being grumpy when I wrote this. I'm going to write my thoughts about the Scout's weapon as if the game were finished. I understand that you're still tweaking the balance and so I want you to take what I'm about to say as a warning rather than a complaint.
Anyways. My main problem with the Shooting Star is this:
Given that this gun is your main source of damage as the Scout (the Missile Launcher has limited ammo as well, except it doesn't reload automatically so you can't use it as your main weapon), you want to be able to spam it. Some boss fights and hard-to-hit enemies (read: the flame ghost things) require you to shoot lots of bullets for extended periods of time. Plus, since it doesn't even deal a lot of damage (compare with the Blade) or protect effectively against enemy bullets (compare with the Bubbler and also the Blade), you need to be able to spam it even more.
But since each bullet splits into several mini-bullets whenever you shoot, the gun's output is heavily throttled (because of limitations on the number of bullets that can be displayed on-screen). You can't have a consistent shooting frequency, because once a bullet splits you can't shoot anymore until enough bullets disappear. That means you can't spam the shooting button to deal optimal damage to bosses, and one press is not equal to one bullet. Moreover, the fact that the gun has limited ammo further limits your damage output.
The fight against Puu Black, for example, is atrocious. The gun can't destroy bubbles efficiently, does very little damage, can't hit the boss consistently, and on top of that, after a few seconds of spamming you can barely shoot bullets anymore. Plus, since bullets don't split when they hit something, it's actually better not to shoot bubbles directly but to stay away at a far enough distance that bullets split before they hit bubbles. Which means you can spam even less (because of the on-screen bullet limitation) AND deal even less damage to the boss.
I understand that the Scout should have a less powerful weapon since he has the best mobility, but his weaknesses are far superior to his strengths. Right now I would choose a traitless Frog or Mimiga over the Scout any day.
I suggest solving this spamming problem by somehow removing the hard limit on displayed bullets, and somehow making bullets split regardless of whether they hit something or not. If you do so, I think the ammo limitation and the damage can stay low (wouldn't want to make it OP).
Although I guess those two changes seem harder to do than just changing damage and ammo limit, so in the end it's up to you.
Edit: Oh yeah, I almost forgot the fact that one or two hits are enough to get a Level DOWN. I think it's a bit too frustrating since boss fights are already hard enough as it is.
Edit 2: oh hey it happened again.
It seems like it appeared at the exact spot where the bat mommy died. Maybe there's a correlation.
It's unkillable, even when I get closer (which wasn't the case last time, that's extra weird!), but it still hurts me when I touch it.
Edit 3: nevermind, it happened again, this time in the ground, even though the bat wasn't there at all. I think it just happens all the time but at different positions.
