Flare Shot poll 2! (Patreon)

Hey everyone! There isn't going to be a traditional weekly update this week; to be honest, I was barely able to spend any time at all working on Crisis Point, the move has taken my full attention. Because of that I just don't have anything to post about; the move is going well though, we're super exhausted but on schedule so far. Unfortunately our AC decided now was the perfect time to break, so we've been dealing with a temporary portable unit that's not aaaanywhere near as good at keeping our house cold, so it's been hot as hell on top of all the moving labor :' )

Anyway, that's not the point of this post! I ran a poll about the Flare Shot last week, and the results were more or less what I expected - very few people use the Flare Shot frequently, and I get the impression that most people who use it only use it for the Orbital Flare ability that lays down an automatic spinning Flare Shot, rather than the primary fire. In addition to that, there's a sizable amount of players who don't use it at all, outside of the places where you have to use it for progression - a whopping 35% of players chose that option.

These results are more or less what I expected (though to be honest I expected even MORE people to not use it at all in combat), and they're the main reason why these polls exist in the first place: to determine if the Flare Shot is a worthwhile upgrade to keep in Crisis Point, or if it should be reworked/replaced in some way.

My current thoughts are thus: the Flare Shot itself is a pretty worthless weapon, and all of its combat value lies in how easy it is to lay down the Orbital Flare and essentially deal free damage. That said, the Orbital Flare itself is FAR TOO POWERFUL for how easy to use it is; it deals a lot of damage (enough to completely shut down enemies like the Edovex), the upgrades allow it to massively amplify your other attacks, and the intrinsic cost of using it (flare shot ammo) is nearly inconsequential. On the other hand, the extrinsic cost (swapping subweapons) is extremely clunky in the heat of combat, and not fun at all. If the Orbital Flare were usable in its current state without needing to swap subweapons, it would be TREMENDOUSLY overpowered; the clunkiness is its only real limiting factor, but it's not the GOOD kind of limit that makes the gameplay choice to use it more interesting or engaging, it just makes it tedious.

With all that in mind, there's one thing I'm definitely going to be doing, and that's removing the Subweapon Switch functionality in favor of giving each subweapon its own button. This is something I was already going to be doing for the Wire Shot, which would leave only two subweapons to swap between.. and at that point, I might as well just give Force and Flare their own buttons, since there's already two buttons in use anyway (Switch Subweapon and Use Subweapon).

With all that in mind, what should I do with the Flare Shot?

• Give the Flare Shot its own button, make the Orbital Flare the primary function of the Flare Shot (removing the ability to spray fire normally), and rebalance it accordingly
  
• Rework the upgrade entirely, tying it to the player's Melee attack instead (would also likely come with some general melee improvements)

Note that the melee option doesn't necessarily mean the Orbital Flare will be removed; I can easily still tie it in with the melee attack. In general, I'm leaning more in favor of the melee attack integration, giving another long-underutilized aspect of the game a much needed facelift. Still, your opinions matter greatly to me, and I wanted to know what everyone else thinks before deciding!

Like in the last poll, if you have a suggestion that ISN'T listed in these poll options, feel free to post it in the comments below - if you see a suggestion you're fond of, give it a Like so I can see the general sentiment towards the idea! Thank you very much for taking the time to vote!