Hello everyone!

The update is now live:

http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/gid/103582791440627938/announcements/detail/833541219402027371

@EndVoid: After a few months with my computer in the tech service, I reinstalled the game yesterday only to see how this new update has ruined one of the best occidental shmups ever made.

The Normal mode of Vector Strain with its original game balance can look directly at some of the greatest shmups in videogame history. It had a perfect Raiden feeling with its quick bullets and perfect fitted patterns. Plus some creative sections resembling some of the designs of Hiroshi Iuchi, such as Ikaruga and Gradius V.

When all my friends ask me for a shmup recommendation, I always cited Vector Strain, as well as Zenohell, as two perfect examples of occidental shmups as well designed as the Japanese classics, and that can fit in an arcade cabinet.

Now, with this new update, Vector Strain is a mediocre occidental shmup in the vein of Super Galaxy Squadron, and so many others.

Its normal mode it’s now too easy, with the slower bullets it has loss all of its adrenaline-punching sense.

I think that is very important to make the genre accesible to all the publics, but for this purpose there is an easy mode.

If you want to make the game accesible, put an option for infinite continues, because the hardcore shmups fans will aim to a 1CC run. And make an easy mode for beginners, to get familiar with the mechanics of the game.

But any shmup fan has an expectation of a normal mode that can fit in an arcade cabinet, with hundred of hours to learn its patterns.

The worst thing is that now, I can’t get back the previous version of Vector Strain, the version of Vector Strain that I love. The Vector Strain that coming from nowhere become one of the greatest surprises in the genre in the last year.

Also, if you want to really improve the game, put an option to deactivate the FPS counter, or at least put it in the interface part, not in the game screen section, this broke the sense of an arcade game, in none arcade game you can see a FPS counter, and for this purpose, if I want to see a FPS count, I can activate the Steam option in its overlay.

You should also include a VSYNC option in the graphics menu. I was using the Direct X9 version because the DX11 version has shuttering in my system. Only to see that the DX11 version works well in my computer, it was the lack of VSYNC, so I needed to force this option via my NVDIA control panel.

And make options that the hardcore shmups base will love, like online leaderboards.

But instead, you have added trading cards, because all the people that got the game in a cheap bundle and doesn’t really care about the game and the genre, want to get a few cents in the Steam market. Also you include mouse controls, that is a feature that none shmup fan will ever use.

And now the icy in the cake: change the game difficulty from a perfect designed game, to a boring easy, sub-par designed game.

Thanks for the throughout feedback Epilexia. It is indeed hard to make everyone happy. I hope people like you (hardcore fans of the genre) would have been more vocal on the forums :)
That being said a new update is coming next week and we will probably get the Normal difficulty close to what it was in the last version. Also making the fps counter and Vsync options can easily be done.

@EndVoid: I think that together with the VSYNC option, if is not activated by default in a first time install of the game, it should be a sticky message in the forum with the warning that maybe people experimenting drops in the framerate can find a solution by activating the VSYNC.

For example, one of the negative reviews is regarding the performance of the game. An at least on my part, I can now play the game with a stable 60 fps and all the settings in ultra with a cheap GTX 750, when with the VSYNC turned off, it oscillates between 58/60/62 FPS in its DX11 mode.

It’s weird, because NVIDIA by default, in a first install, don’t put the VSYNC as a default in all the games, but some people change this in the control panel. I’m sure that all the negative criticism regarding Vector Strain as a bad optimized game are as a fault of people don’t playing with the VSYNC activated in its NVIDIA control panel.

Regarding the difficulty level, I think that one of the great things of Vector Strain is that where a lot of contemporary games have imitated the bullet hell approach of recent Cave games, your game have a very special Raiden or Toaplan classic shooters feeling thanks to the high speed of the bullets.

Recent Moss games, like Raiden III/IV have included a more easy mode with slower bullets. But the normal/arcade modes always remain with this distinctive speed.

And this is a big praise, because Moss is one of my favorite companies.

As I see this, a lot of the changes (slower bullets in the normal mode, a new focus option when you press the fire button) have been oriented to change the game from a Toaplan or 90s’s classic shmup to a Touhou game, and people demanding these changes, simply have only played Touhou games and don’t have a knowledge of the shmups rich story. The risk of all of these recent changes is that in the end Vector Strain can loss its personality and distinctive feeling.

In its original release, Vector Strain had a design as good as the latest Moss games, some midd bosses sections based in memorization patterns resembling Ikaruga, plus an amazing artistic design with the most impressive lore seen in a shmup since Biohazard Battle, not to talk of its amazing soundtrack, or the also perfect Hardcore mode that fortunately, it remains unchanged.

Your team have does an impressive work, and if the game is so unknown is because of the generalized marketing problem between indie developers and a bad timing with the release. Also, bundle the game that is the equivalent of do a massive giveaway is not always the better marketing strategy, because yes, a lot of people will play your game, but this not implies that your core audience is between this people.