899 replies to this topic

[Air Luigi]

 

7. Make custom enemies to replace the more annoying LOZ default ones used at the moment.

 

 

That was something that cross my mind a lot of times during my (little) testing. I saw only two zones, so, I don't know if the normal enemies get more interesting later. The default Z1 enemies don't work very well for side view. This looks like a really long quest, and it's played very differently from other quests, so the new enemies could be very important in how enjoyable/balanced the quest will be and in how the combat works as a whole. From what I played, the normal enemies are a easy deal.

[newstarshipsmell]

From Cancer 11:4D, is there even still a Plasma Torch in the game? It used to be the candle, yes? I know that Leo 69 used to be dark, but it isn't anymore. So what does that string still do?

Alternatively, he could bring it back as a Body item, so it automatically activates, eliminating the previous item management frustration. Script the dark rooms so without it, it overlays an opaque black layer on the screen with a 32-pixel diameter circular hole centered on the player, and have possession of the item extend it to 128 pixels. (Possibly using semi-transparency along the edge of the hole so it looks less shitty.) Would that be hard to code? Or worthwhile?

As for TLOZ enemies to replace, the two I'd say ought to go first are the sand vortices in Scorpio, and those 2x2 round boss things, whatever they are. The latter are just tedious to fight, especially when they wander away and you can't get to them with a sword stroke. It makes for exceptionally uncompelling gameplay. The former, they're just too easy and predictable; most screens all you have to do is aim up and shoot, and collect their drops. If scripted, they could do more threatening things, like: spawning one after another, but without the 2-onscreen limit, and calculating where the player is moving towards, either along the ground or along a jump trajectory, so they spawn in your path. This would force you to slow down and fight them, and allow them to be designed to come at you from other directions aside from the one you're facing.

Edited by newstarshipsmell, 27 February 2015 - 10:42 PM.

[C-Dawg]

Replacing enemies is a big'ol job.  Maybe I'll tackle that on Sunday when I can toss most of a day at it.

 

For now, new uploaded upgrades the Shield Armor to function better.  Most of the boss re-dos at this point will not be total teardowns, but instead tweaks to existing codes to make them function more like the newer templates with invulnerability periods, visual cues that they're taking damage, etc.

 

I can't quite get the wraparound jumping to work as easily as before, even dialing back the collision detection to 6 pixels.  If I go further, I risk allowing you to hop through half blocks.  Might even risk that now.  So, I'm redesigning areas that demand this of you in recognition of how difficult the technique is to do now.

[newstarshipsmell]

"As easily as before" is certainly a good goal, but if the best you can manage is "less difficult than at present," well, that's still better.

BTW, here's a probably-infeasible, definitely-backburner (i.e. post-release) idea. How hard would it be to get ahold of the ZC source code and hack your own custom version of it? Or possibly ask one of the devs to make some changes to a special copy of the 2.50 client for you?

If you could change the engine so that it delays upward room scrolls until you hit the top edge of the bottom row on the room above (letting you jump up off the top of the screen, and fall back down without scrolling if you don't jump high enough) that would eliminate a lot of the annoying up/down/up(/down/up) scrolls you presently have to put up with, when trying to jump up onto a high platform in order to jump up into the room above. It would have to take into account which parts of the bottom row above are walkable and unwalkable, which might not be easy to change... but if not that hard to do, would massively improve that side of the gameplay. Plus, it would be useful to any side-scrolling/jumping quest, so it might be a feature worth working into the engine, rather than just hacking it for your particular quest.

ETA: Also, is it safe to resume swapping out the QST files again? Did you nail the corridor-reopening-bug?

Edited by newstarshipsmell, 28 February 2015 - 02:04 AM.

[ShadowTiger]

If you could change the engine so that it delays upward room scrolls until you hit the top edge of the bottom row on the room above (letting you jump up off the top of the screen, and fall back down without scrolling if you don't jump high enough) that would eliminate a lot of the annoying up/down/up(/down/up) scrolls you presently have to put up with, when trying to jump up onto a high platform in order to jump up into the room above. It would have to take into account which parts of the bottom row above are walkable and unwalkable, which might not be easy to change... but if not that hard to do, would massively improve that side of the gameplay. Plus, it would be useful to any side-scrolling/jumping quest, so it might be a feature worth working into the engine, rather than just hacking it for your particular quest.

To be perfectly honest, I just turn off the scrolling animation. It makes for an infinitely better play experience, and as far as I can tell, it hasn't broken a single thing. It makes for a far, far better play experience. With screen scrolling on, it's like two people with the worst speech impediment holding a conversation. (And in Seinfeld style, I can say that because I am one of those two people.)

[newstarshipsmell]

To be perfectly honest, I just turn off the scrolling animation. It makes for an infinitely better play experience, and as far as I can tell, it hasn't broken a single thing. It makes for a far, far better play experience. With screen scrolling on, it's like two people with the worst speech impediment holding a conversation. (And in Seinfeld style, I can say that because I am one of those two people.)

How do you turn it off in ZQ? I didn't bother trying to figure it out before since others complained that it was even worse with it turned off, but I suppose that's a matter of personal taste.

[ShadowTiger]

Quest -> Rules -> Animation -> No Screen Scrolling.

Yes, it would appear as if it's a personal choice, apparently. It's not the motion of the scrolling that I mind. It's that in order to jump vertically between screens, only to bump your head, and having to go back down a bit, takes a little while where it feels like it shouldn't have to.

Even if the screen never actually scrolls, and you don't know where to jump, at least you can always jump again immediately with screen scrolling off. There's no waiting. The power is completely in your hands!

[newstarshipsmell]

Ah, I see. This definitely has... trade offs. Too bad there isn't an option to simply speed up the room scrolls, to like 4x or 8x. Speaking of things that scroll needlessly slowly - is there a similar option for instantly loading the subscreen? I tried to mess with AutoHotKey/Joy2Key to set it up to do F1+Enter, pause, then F1 again, but I couldn't finetune it to avoid having stuff speeding around the screen when you resume the game.

ETA: C-Dawg, now that I think about it, it might not be a bad idea to add an option for players to pick whether room scrolling is turned on or off. All you'd have to do is upload an archive to a filehost, explain the option and link to the download in the Quest Description, and tell the player to unpack it in the same folder as the QST file.

Archive:
ZodiacGS scrolloff.bat
ZodiacGS scrollon.bat
ZodiacGS RoomScroll\ZodiacGS-scrolloff.qst
ZodiacGS RoomScroll\ZodiacGS-scrollon.qst

Then have the batch files just copy/overwrite the proper quest file over the original quest file in the root directory.

So if a player gets tired of one during the game, they can quit and toggle it, and resume where they were. Only downside is you'd have to clearly remind people to grab a new version of it if you update the QST file, or they'll overwrite their new QST with the older versions. But it has the advantage of offering the option to players that want it, without bloating the actual game download, which you can leave scrolling on by default.

Edited by newstarshipsmell, 28 February 2015 - 10:45 AM.

[C-Dawg]

That sounds like way too much baggage to dump on the player.  Certainly there could be a non-scrolling version available, but I don;t think I'd clog the players' arteries with all that mechanics.

 

Would the ZQuest devs do something for me?  Probably not, seems strange to ask.  Still, they've made special builds in the past, as I recall.  I think the person to talk to about a special build that basically just speeds up screen transitions would be Gleeok.

 

Anyway, I added the Mega_Pheagon2 boss as the new guardian of the Supernova Armor so far today.

[Air Luigi]

I agree with Shadowtiger, I think the game would be smoother without scrolling.

[ShadowTiger]

I feel like the downside to no screen scrolling, the bumping of the heads when jumping upward, can easily be solved by extending a fully walkable background tile beneath the platforms the player is intended to jump onto. This way the player has a very clear idea of what is above them on the screen above, and where they may be able to jump.

Here's a picture.

Spoiler

Two different screens, divided by that red/orange line. Top one was unaltered. Bottom one has a hypothetical background tile altered and placed below a walkable platform. The player sees the background there, and knows exactly where they need to move in order to not bump their heads.

I'm not entirely sure if there is a disadvantage to having this. Does it add that much of a challenge to be able to bump your head in-game?

[newstarshipsmell]

Aquarius 60: Unwalkable:


Aquarius 40: This still has a three-tile high jump required to backtrack. Is it your intention to force the player into Scorpio once they come down this way?

First Zodiac Weapon: It seems like there's a huge delay between the end of the text and when the cursor appears, compared to the subsequent "do you want to switch" messages.

By the way, one of the questions the plot raises that I really like is:

Spoiler

Have you been wiping out entire virtual alien civilizations every time you shoot some random enemy in the game?

Pisces 6B: F6 trap. With only the High Jump, it is now impossible to jump up out of the hole from 7B.

Anyways, as far as No Screen Scrolling goes, I have to say, the screen scrolling is less of a nuisance than being unable to see the screen above when you're jumping up and bouncing off stuff, but the former is more prevalent than the latter, so it's about an even tradeoff. With persistence, you can figure out how/where to jump up with problematic transitions without scrolling (or whether it's not even possible to jump up) but it's extremely aggravating, far more so than the nuisance of repetitive scrolls. So I'd definitely say that scrolling ON ought to be the default for the quest, and a modified version with it turned off offered as an alternative.

Edited by newstarshipsmell, 01 March 2015 - 02:02 PM.

[ShadowTiger]

Oh hey, DCEnygma gave a shout-out to ZODIAC in the ZCast segment today. It's about an hour into the segment.

[C-Dawg]

I listened to the podcast.  It was short, and the guy didn't have much to say except that the bosses were cool and hit detection was annoying when damage combos were larger than the graphics they use might indicate.  He seemed unaware that it was the entire game in rough draft mode, as he wasn't sure when he reached the "end of the demo."  Hah, he's in for a surprise!

 

I appreciate the shout out!  The more people who are playing this, the more input I get into improving it.  

 

So far today and yesterday I have a general sidescrolling enemy script working.  It currently handles spawning and removing enemies properly, but I'm having some headaches getting the movement correct.  This is a big pain in keister, but it's functional.  At this point, each new enemy I want I can just plug into the existing shell, making the assignment of new side scrolling enemies about as easy as making a new custom boss.  So, like one new enemy a night or so, on average.

Edited by C-Dawg, 01 March 2015 - 01:48 PM.

[newstarshipsmell]

=========== CONFIGURATION ==============

[...]

L is used in flying levels to deploy a massive laser blast which clears out enemies but also consumes your energy at a very fast rate. The key to doing well in the flying level is knowing when to hit the blast so you can refill your energy with drops from the result.

L is used in side-scrolling levels to jump. Bear in mind that the Guardian has a limited wall clinging ability. If you can maneuver just below a solid block and jump just a few pixels inside that block, the Guardian can cling to the wall and ascend. Master this technique early, as it makes much of the labyrinth much easier.

[...]

You may want to edit your OP and remove this text, now that you've removed the bug. It's also in the Quest Project Description, as well as your comment on the Quest Project page.

Gemini corridors:

This enemy's spinning shots veer offscreen and disappear. I don't think they used to.

Gemini 5C/6C: F6 trap. Once I fall into 6C, it is impossible to backtrack back up into 5C. I only have High Jump, but even with DJBs, I can't reach the ledge on the right side.

Gemini 64: I killed this boss quickly on my first try with 3 or 4 charged Scorpio shots. The damage-invulnerability graphic on him doesn't seem to last very long, so each shot hit him 3-5 times and knocked off a huge chunk of his life.

The scripted enemies in the three Gemini rooms, that spawn two smaller versions - these enemies are way too easy to pen with their knockback from your weapons, making them pretty trivial to fight. This actually applies to pretty much all the scripted enemies that get knockback like that, and leads to the last area being mostly tedious since most of those larger enemies are easy to kill, but take a number of shots to kill them off. I would suggest recoding most/all of them so they simply don't get knocked back - maybe give them a damage graphic with temporary invulnerability like the bosses are getting, but otherwise, don't have damage affect their movement (or perhaps just have them stand still/stunned momentarily.)

Edited by newstarshipsmell, 01 March 2015 - 05:21 PM.