326 replies to this topic

[Moosh]

Any tips? I might try and download it right now if i can. (Yet my internet still hates me >: (  )

Abuse the hell out of those heart rooms. When I first played this I came in with my usual "I'm gonna save all my rupees" mentality and LoH would have none of that. Also save when you make any amount of significant progress. That's kinda obvious though.

[James24]

Hey guys.  Took a long break from this game, but I've decided to come back and finish off my Insanity's Extreme.  I've finished up to level 6 and I remember I hit a bit of a writer's block - so I stopped questing for a while and did other things.  To be honest, I wasn't really happy with level 7 past the bubbles and the first part of level 8 excluding the part past the fairy key - those were put together in a matter of hours coz I couldn't think of anything else and I wanted to release what I had done so far.  I also didn't think anyone would get that far.  But this time I want to take my time with them.

 

But I would like to make what I've done so far an open beta amoungst us challenge quest players.  As I finish the remaining levels, I'll release them.  I also need help with scripting, testing, reviewing (especially before I release it and you don't like certain parts) and the usual stuff that goes into quest making.  I think I'm an ok scripter now, but it took a while to get there.  I still haven't figured out the bits to do with enemies and weapons though, just the screen stuff and some things are still buggy and I don't know how to fix them.

 

When Insanity's Extreme is finished, I would want it to be kept, shared and played just amoungst players who appreciate a good challenge.  It should not go onto any database.  One glance at the reviews on LoH's or AQ's page will tell you why.  I made a big, big mistake last time when I released it to the public and I caused a lot of people a lot of discomfort when they tried my (in their view) impossible  quest.  I regret that very deeply.  I did not make LoH for any glory, fame or ratings, I just wanted a nice quest that I could enjoy myself and if anyone else liked it then I would be happy for them.

 

So - Gleeok, OUCH, Yloh, Yowza, Evan, Straysheep, LoveForFire, Jerome and anyone else who's completed either AQ or LoH (without cheating), just send me an email to jamesng323"at"gmail.com (replace the "at" with @) and I'll reply you with the IE beta + the death knights as a standalone level.  I love the death knight temple the most  Plus, would you do me a favour and tell me about any good challenges that have arisen during my vacation.  I love a good fight and love to be seriously challenged.

 

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As for Yloh's, Evan's and Gleeok's criticisms of LoH.  Evan and Gleeok, can you tell me where your full review is?  I'd be very interested to know your full thoughts on the game.

 

The "money grinding" was the main challenge of level 3.  The idea was that it would be very challenging to get your money to 255 whilst simultaneously keeping alive - each time you get hurt you effectively lose money.  I see that this has been interpreted as a "money grind" because the enemies weren't difficult enough. I still think it is a good idea to save money like that - but perhaps I need to make the enemies more difficult - IE has done just that

 

As for the 1 heart containers - well, the thing is that if I sold 3 or 5 heart blocks then some money would go to waste and in a dungeon where the main thrust was to save up 255 rupees that could backfire if the player bought excess health and wasted their rupees.  Plus I liked the idea of a discount - so one of my slots had to go to the blocks.  So therefore, it had to be kept at one heart per entry.  I knew it wouldn't be popular coz players would have to reenter the room several times, but the alternative was worse and at the time I was a quest writing novice.  I could probably script something now - but its not necessary in IE.

 

As for the restarts wasting time, I think I answered that before and I still think its a valid argument.  If players can load/save wherever they liked then it would ruin the fun and enjoyment of the game.  There has to be a "penalty" for making mistakes and losing to ensure that when you do succeed there is truly a satisfying feeling.  If you can make a mistake and simply rectify it with a push of a button then when you win, it simply won't be fun anymore.  It also is fun when you get to the end and there's something really easy but you know that if you stuff up then it'll be a long restart to get back to it.  If it weren't for that long restart then the "really easy" part will be played half-heartedly and there won't be a nice feeling when you beat it.

[strike]

I'm glad progress on you quest is going well!

Are you ever going to add the other winners names to your signature?

-Strike

[Moosh]

The sequel? THE SEQUEL? AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

 

 

Will you be allowing Yloh to record a playthrough? I understand you don't want the quest getting negative reviews so you're only giving the file to some people, but it would be nice if you'd let the rest of us see what the quest has to offer.

[James24]

Moosh, I do welcome negative reviews provided that the person in question has played a sufficient chunk of my quest without cheating.  For instance, I welcome Evan's criticisms about LoH because he's played it - even though it is a negative one.  But what I don't like is people playing for 5 minutes - rage quitting and then giving 1 or 2 stars - or for people to have used the cheat items and then claimed that they've played the quest and then give it a negative review.  LoH should be played with no cheats for a review to be legitimate.

 

If Yloh can beat the IE then fine, walkthough is welcome.  Trust me on this IE will push even very pro players like Yloh, Gleeok, myself, OUCH, Yowza and Evan to breaking point.  If the feedback i get during beta is that its too easy then it will be ramped up.  But even I struggle to beat parts of it.

 

Strike - did you ever finish LoH?

[Moosh]

Well here's a couple important things that I'd recommend you keep in mind while designing IE (what an...unfortunate abbreviation) or any future challenge quests:

• The dangers of the inverse difficulty curve: This is something that basically all challenge quests so far have suffered from in some way. Basically the way it goes is that the more you increase Link's HP the the harder it becomes to create difficulty. The highest difficulty in a challenge quest tends to come from the earlier levels because Link doesn't have enough HP to survive hits. As his health increases, some of the more interesting enemy types like pols voice and batrobes lose a lot of their threat. You could just use deathknights and patra 3's when a shitslapping is needed, but those aren't interesting enemies. Of course this is where our good friend the enemy editor comes into play. It can be used for both great and terrible things. No longer to the later levels of a challenge quest have to rely entirely on annoyance and enemy spam to create difficulty. Of course if you do use the enemy editor a lot in LoH2, I'd suggest you make an area where the player can observe the custom enemies without any risk of progress loss. There's nothing worse than going through a brutal gauntlet of familiar stuff only to face something new and unexpected at the end.
• The RNG: The RNG will basically always be a big factor in your quest if you're using the enemy editor because enemy editor enemies for the most part aren't all that smart. Because of this, a terrible player could eventually beat LoH if they were stubborn enough and the best player in the world could get royally screwed by bad RNG. This is actually probably one of the reasons I subconsciously avoid the falling rock enemy type. Those things are way too random. But how do you know if RNG is a factor in your victory? How do you know if you're winning by your own skill and not just good RNG? It's all about the consistency of success. When you're able to succeed at a section consistently, that means you've got a good balance of skill and RNG. And example of bad RNG is the final boss of my quest Tales of Christoph where I didn't put enough time into testing, got a couple good runs, and declared the boss finished. And as it turned out it was way too hard and ended up taking some people hours to beat.
• Mandatory damage: Is Liberation of Hyrule a 3-heartable (or in this case 1-heartable) quest? Of course not. Why? Our good friend mandatory damage. This is just my philosophy, but I think any quest, no matter how difficult, should be theoretically possible to do a minimalist run of. If you've already built most of LoH2 around tanking spikes, I won't tell you to stop now, but for any future projects please consider making damage at least theoretically possible to avoid.
• Above all else, be original: One of the big problems with LoH was that it reused a lot of ideas from Armageddon Quest. There's so much you can do with this editor so why bring back the tired idea of a spiral room where you dodge red wizzrobes? You can be more creative than that.

[James24]

Moosh, have you beaten AQF, AQ or LoH without cheating yet?  I find it a little presumptuous that you're telling me what a good challenge quest should or should not be about.  Why should I listen when you haven't properly reviewed my quest yet?  I know that you played with the gold ring and got halfway, but that doesn't entitle you to critique my quest.  If you are going to argue that you're a player and that a quest creator should pander to the enjoyment of most players then I'm afraid that argument doesn't hold with me.  I make quests for my enjoyment only - and if anyone else enjoys it then I'm happy for them.  If I was paid to write quests like Nintendo however, then I might pander to the enjoyment of most players - and that's probably why Nintendo writes such easy quests.

 

I don't believe that the enemy editor should be used unless absolutely necessary (like getting rid of the splitting super darknut ability).  If there are too many new enemies then players will get confused and have to learn many new things.   Best to stick to the enemies that are well known.  As for needing the enemy editor to create difficulty with the bats and so forth, that isn't necessary either.  I can control the amount of health a player can get so if they can't refill that health then bats, pols voice etc... become more threatening again.

 

I don't know about the RNG thing you're talking about.  As I said, I never touch the enemy editor except on a few rare occasions when the game absolutely demands it.  Yes, I'll admit there is a little bit of luck with regards to enemy movement.  You can't have a game where the enemies move the same way always otherwise it'd become too boring and very easy.  As for consistency of success I will let you know that I can consistently beat all parts of LoH.  Plus, they've been beaten by other skilled players too.  I saw Yloh's videos and its like watching myself play - same tactics - same reflexes - same style.  Isn't it any wonder why we can both beat LoH?

 

Minimalist is absolute nonsense imo.  A win is a win is a win - no prizes for prestige.  You do what you have to to survive and win in challenge quests.  Plus, I think some of the mandatory damage parts are rather fun - and its a good new inventive idea that I haven't seen anywhere else.  The vire room especially so.

 

And yes I did borrow from OUCH, but I extended on some of his ideas.  The only ones I didn't modify were no ring, lens of truth, dodongo fire, dark spike rooms and the infamous bubbles.  Those were good ideas and deserved to be passed down from one challenge quest generation to the next.  Lest it die out and never be used again.  And if you say borrowing ideas is so bad we all wouldn't be here coz we all borrowed from Nintendo's original Zelda idea.

[Shane]

(this may come off as rough, but I tried to be tolerant as possible and it is as like your post(s), an opinion)

 

There should be an obvious (at least, to me and most) difference between "fair" and "easy" difficulty. Fair actually doesn't always mean easy, and with that aside, you can make a good - if not, better - challenge quest with trustworthy difficulty and overall quest design. But hey, that's just me with an opinion that's just as valuable as yours and Moosh's. We hope you can be at least a little more considerate and more open to suggestions. Also, minimalist isn't nonsense; it's a style of play, just like tanking and enduring damage. Or at least, I, another ZC player and gamer, thought so...

 

With that aside, I've beaten this quest a year later after release without cheating. Not interested in a harder quest, sorry. But as a person who did took the time to complete the quest as suggested by you, I can agree with Moosh on all this and what I said in the past (I'm still not sure how beating a quest will prove me more right on the screen design or certain elements, but eh). Of course you can dismiss all this, you're entitled to do so, but I don't think you should then otherwise complain more when people harp the same thing.

 

Design and difficulty that makes you tank damage, maybe a few deaths and a dungeon leaving you finishing it off with heart, yeah, I can accept. But a quest that just drags you to the game over screen more than enough times? I can't because it says "game over", and a challenge game is over when you die. It's not part of the challenge. It's taking you out of the game and out of the immersion constantly. But hey, now we're getting into really personal beliefs and I'll let you decide to accept this (=/= agree) or not.

Edited by Charizard, 23 January 2014 - 06:51 AM.

[Moosh]

I have gotten about halfway through Armageddon Quest and Armageddon Quest Forever and those quests obviously don't have cheats. Every attempt at beating LoH I've made has been abruptly ended by some external circumstances (usually ZC deciding to wipe my save) but I've played long enough to form a pretty solid opinion of it. And obviously what I haven't played I've seen through Yloh's walkthrough and walking around with the gold ring (why did you even include that?). I've also talked with people who have beaten it and their opinions pretty much line up with my own, in particular the bit about the quest getting easier as it progresses. You said you'd be open to criticism as long as we give your quest a fair shake. I gave it my best and I'm still giving it my best every now and then and I've given my thoughts and you're free to accept or ignore them as you please. And if I ever do beat it I'll play the second and be sure to give my thoughts on that too.

 

Edit: Also I realized something while replaying level 1. I think the trick where the patra took more damage from the right side was patched out since LoH's release. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

Edited by Moosh, 23 January 2014 - 07:52 AM.

[strike]

No, I didn't finish it. I play the first level every now and then for kicks and giggles.

A good number of people have though including Shane. It's bothered me for a while that it hadn't been updated (you weren't here so you have a pretty good excuse). I was just wondering when you would update it which I see you have (at least a little bit).

And I do sympathize with the bad (as in nonconstructive and first level quitting) ratings. It probably is a good idea not releasing it publicly.

Anyway good luck!

-Strike

[James24]

Charizard (formerly known as Shane I take it?) - I'll take your word that you completed my quest without cheating, so I am more willing to listen to what you have to say now.  But please understand that people who play for only 5 minutes, rage quit and then rate/review badly annoy me a lot.  I mean why can't they just say "It was too difficult for me" and leave it at that?  Its just a game - no need to rage about it.  When you said you only played one and a half levels and given our past history of argument, it just looked really bad.  On hindsight, I probably went a bit too far with my comments and I'm very sorry about that but I was temporarily insane at the time.  

 

As for your comments now - when I made LoH, I believed that the difficulty was evenly balanced.  I playtested it myself without anyone else and I found that it was evenly balanced not with respect to number of deaths per level but the overall difficulty (I mean, bubbles and the like don't kill but they're difficult).  I've since found out that a lot of well-respected players don't think so.  They think level 1,2,7 and 8 are difficult and 3,4,5 are not.  I'm starting to lean in that direction.  But its very hard for me to know about these kind of things when only I playtest the game.  This is why I'm giving out IE as a beta version, so that things like difficulty can be properly balanced before the final version.

 

And as for design, can you tell me exactly which screens are badly designed?  Please keep in mind that cosmetic things like story, beauty and such are very low on my list of priorities for design.  Challenge quest players/writers don't normally care too much about those things - unlike normal quests.

 

And as for dying too often and going to the game over screen, I'm afraid we'll never agree on that.  In my view, dying and failing is a necessary part of having fun.  I know what its like to walk around nearly invincible in a beautiful, well-storied quest that everyone rates 5/5 almost (Lost Isle comes to mind).  Its horrible and any quest I make will never allow that.  Dying is not fun, but it makes the fruit of success all the more sweeter.  Plus, there's no compulsory dying - its all up to your own skill.

 

Charizard, congratulations on your win in LoH - you are a great player.  I will add you to the hall of fame and invite you to beta test IE if you wish.

 

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Moosh, hearsay and watching videos can't be compared to the real thing of actually playing and winning.  Its armchair criticism - even worse than cheating in my opinion.  Please play it yourself and if/when you do beat it without cheating then I will be open to all your criticisms.  And yes, I did notice that the devs patched the patra thing and the armos thing - go Gleeok!  As for the gold ring - I put it in there to allow normal players to see what a challenge quest was like.  I also felt a bit sorry for people who tried their best but got very frustrated so I put it in as a sort of consolation gesture.  Its sort of like me saying - "Well, you tried your best - sorry you didn't make it.  Here's something for your troubles".  Obviously, this hasn't worked and I still get rage-quit reviews or reviews from people using the ring so I won't be putting cheats in IE.

[Shane]

Yeah, I was formally known as Shane back in 2012. I just had a forum display name change and I apologize for not mentioning this beforehand.

I'll admit I'm not the demographic target for the quest, and I'll also admit I did feel successful when beating the game. But maybe it was just me, but I pondered was the effort and frustration really worth it in the end? I mean, I felt more frustrated in the game - and I'm expressing an opinion on the game. The success is only an after effect once you've beaten it. You lined yourself up with a truly brutal game, yes, but even challenge quests can have flaws in their design.

 

The way I see it, when you say the screen design isn't a high priority due to the nature of this quest I imagine a angry person thinking tact isn't a first priority due to how he is feeling. I'm not saying for you to make it a first priority, but it should be heavily considered.

 

Visually, screens felt uninspired. Colours and tile usage was questionable and things like the waterfall used as a rapid looks kinda bad. Sometimes realism should be dropped if things start to look a little whack when being converted into a 2D pixelated environment. Things like the Windmill being used as a dungeon always left me feeling the quest had lazy and thoughtless decisions made rather than putting screen design second. Yes, I can't say windmills shouldn't be used as dungeon, but I feel like stone ruins could suffice you know? Tiny things like that can make the design better - not beautifully remade screens.

 

I haven't got much time at the moment, so I'm sorry if I barely covered much up - I hope to continue this post ASAP. Thanks for putting me on the hall of fame, I guess. Sadly I'm not interested in playing IE. Maybe if a LP or stream comes eventually maybe I could see some gameplay from there.

[James24]

I can see that you're the regular kind of Zelda player Charizard.  The type who likes looks and appearance and considers difficulty and tactics as something of a very low priority.  Challenge quests are not meant for you then.  Think about it this way, how do you feel about level 6 in the first quest?  I love it - but I know that many regular zelda players think its the worst thing in the world.

 

Yeah, visuals are not important for a challenge quest in my view.  So I didn't spend a lot of time on those.  I just picked what seemed like a nice appearing object and used that - not really caring about cosmetic looks.  And I didn't spend time on picking the right tiles or colours.  If you play any of the other challenge quests - James quests, Demo quests, AQ, AQF, Gleeok's quests, Moosh's quests even - you'll see that none of them are really visually appealing. They're ok, but never the best.  Its the challenge quest culture.  We couldn't care less about how our quests look - which is a big no-no for regular quests/players I'll admit.  The only things challenge quest players truly care about is difficulty, tactics and *skill* to beat the quest.  IE uses DoR tilesets but I don't think my art will ever be as good as Russ's or DarkFlameWolf's quests.  And I know the horrible truth that most regular players judge a quest by its appearance, which is another reason why IE will never be released to the regular Zelda community.

 

I will say I do care about your claim that some of the difficulty is "cheap" as mentioned in your review.  I am interested to know why you think things are cheap - coz I specifically spent a lot of time ensuring that in each room the player is given a fair chance to succeed.  Again, I'd appreciate it if you point to specific screens instead of a generic "difficulty was cheap" brush.

[Gleeok]

Konichiwa. This thread is like the tl;dr version of iTunes termas and conditions (still lengthy...get it? Because that's the joke *cough*).

Plus, would you do me a favour and tell me about any good challenges that have arisen during my vacation. I love a good fight and love to be seriously challenged.

...snip...

As for Yloh's, Evan's and Gleeok's criticisms of LoH. Evan and Gleeok, can you tell me where your full review is? I'd be very interested to know your full thoughts on the game.

Hmm... That's a tough one. Nightmare released a slightly harder version of James quest, but I think you saw that already. There might be a few in the works but none that I am aware of, or at least none that have been finished anyway.

I prototyped a new type of challenge quest last year for the 2-week contest, which wasn't supposed to be super hard but ended up causing people fits--both in terms of difficulty in spots and the inability to use skills properly--and I had to give out cheat codes so people could beat it.

I have a lot of fun with it anyway so if you are anything like me you may get a kick out of it as well. (Just think of it as the "easy" version.. if I ever finish the full quest anyway. It's sort of on hold for a while.)

http://www.purezc.ne...ests&id=411

Those two are all I can think of right now.


For a full review it's basically whatever I posted last in this thread. I generally don't do "full" reviews on anything but if you have any specific questions I'd be happy to answer them.

[James24]

Gleeok  May I be the congratulate you in person on your win in LoH.  You are a very good player.

 

I played your Green Ninja quest.  I didn't need any cheats, but I got stuck in a shutter room in level 2 where there were the blue goriyas.  Is that a bug or is it the end of the game coz you ran out of time?  The red candle helped a lot in clearing the rooms very quickly.  Also, I could never get the magic shield in the middle of the lake at the start.  I can see that that kind of difficulty will cause people fits though, even though its nothing compared to your dungeon impossible.

 

As for the full review, I thought you said something about it in your last post, but I must be mistaken.  Never mind.