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#16 TheLegend_njf

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Posted 29 February 2016 - 11:06 AM

What about Jamian's Forbidden City?  Jamian had written several quests prior to his Forbidden City and yet we still see a cheap buff for "hero mode".  And from the rumours I've heard, Jamian didn't test his hero mode and some parts of it are near impossible and not balanced.

 

I played and beat this game on Hero Mode and can surely say without a doubt that this wasn't true. It was also my suggestion to add Hero Mode when I beat it during beta testing. While it's true Hero Mode was then thrown out on a whim, we were very confident that it was fair. We've had Lejes already beat that game on a Green Tunic run on Hero, so it's far from "near impossible". As for not balanced? I don't believe this is true either. The Forbidden City is another great challenge that is worth playing. It's not on the same level as Isle of Rebirth, but it will punish you at times while it refuses to give you a reasonable red tunic or a worth while potion.


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#17 James24

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Posted 01 March 2016 - 02:22 AM

Shane, on the point that no one (under the current communist structure) can make a quest that appeases both "casual" and "challenge" players we agree.  Yes we do agree.  Finally we agree on something.  And yes, you're right its due to the absurd differences between the two kinds of quests. Sadly, that's where the agreement stops.

 

As for the rest of your rambling:

 

1)  You might think LoH is very luck based.  To a small extent it is, but most of it is based on skill.  You think LoH is unfair - I play it all the time and I don't see any part that is unfair.  I seem to have a very different view of  mandatory death and mandatory damage though - I think these are fair if the challenge is on the whole doable.

 

2)  Providing optional upgrades through exploration would ruin game balance.  A good challenge quest player could find those upgrades and that would ruin the challenge experience for them.

 

3)  Quest makers are not going to care if the majority see their work in a positive light if it requires them to spend significant amounts of their precious time making a quest that the majority like but they don't.  Only $$$ will fix that.

 

4)  When LoH was initially made, I did try to appease both sides.  I wrote the quest to be challenging at my difficulty and then put in the standard cheap nerfs that other quest makers use - namely the gold tunic.  I called it "cheating" to try and discourage its use but I can see that most people have been put off by it.  The experiment failed and now I say that LoH and LoH:IE should only be played by those who posses the requisite fighting skills - price for that will be a very small audience but I'm willing to pay that price.

 

5) In relation to my beta testing, I put out LoH as an open beta before I released it.  But most of my beta testers quit because I refused to make it easier and more "casual" like.  Its not as if I kicked them out or anything - so I learnt from this and in future only accepted beta testers I knew would be likely to stay the course.

 

 

I would like to see a "casual" player make what they considered a good "challenge" quest - one that is specifically catered to the tastes of challenge quest players.  If I could see that it was clearly very nice to play (and not just a cheap buff from a "casual" quest) then I'd be encouraged to change LoH and LoH:IE to suit "casual" players.  So how about it?  Fair trade right?  "Casual" players start making "challenge" quests and in exchange "challenge" quest players start making "causal" quests.  This could work instead of $$$.


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#18 Shane

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Posted 01 March 2016 - 03:50 AM

I know I said the previous post will be my last, but you brought up some new points that I want to respond to.
 
1) I believe your "challenge quest" is luck-based in most cases. An example everyone can probably experience is Level 1's 9 Digdogger room. The movement pattern, or rather the lack of one makes it purely luck-based where skill is entirely irrelevent. I see it as a "challenge" in its own right where you have to tolerate it. I don't like these kinds of challenges. I want my skills actually tested, I want to learn from my mistakes. I like extremely difficult games that become easy after you make several mistakes. In Liberation of Hyrule's case, you learn nothing. If the enemy AI had a pattern you can eventually learn but still demands high levels of skill, I would be down for it. I like me a good challenge where my skills are put to the test and my skills get sharpened by countless game overs. But like I said countless times, Liberation of Hyrule never provides this and is simply not my cup of tea and that does not mean that I hate all challenges. Zelda Classic community never really provides that sense of challenge when it comes to combat. I prefer challenging puzzles, exploration and trap dodging if anything else.
 
2) Adding optional upgrades that require additional exploration and uncovering secrets can indeed decrease the challenge, but isn't that the point of the game I was trying to propose? A quest where challenges demand skill but can be toned down through getting that extra boost that requires you to work hard and go out of their way for it. I don't see much of a problem. You can still enjoy the challenge, just don't go finding the optional resources. Don't go buying a potion. Don't chase a fairy. You have the free will to make this as challenging or not as you want. If you believe any other way of playing the game is unbalanced, more power to you, play it the way you think is balanced.
 
3) It's true that designing fan games are mainly to appeal to your own tastes, but I don't think it's impossible to design a fan game for yourself and the majority. It depends on the designer and how open and comfortable he or she is to broaden their fan game ideals. It's not just money that can make this work. As I said, money is just something that triggers motivation. Anyone can have that motivation. It's how we use that motivation is the question. There was never really an issue with designing a quest that's both fair and challenging because the Zelda Classic community was content with it being divided into "casual quests" and "challenge quests", but I say it's certainly not impossible to design a quest that could have a level of fariness and acceptable challenges. It's just that no one has bothered to try it.
 
Also despite Zelda 2 (I do not consider Zelda 1 challenging and I consider myself a "casual player"), Zelda was never really known for extreme challenges in the first place. But even Zelda 2 was easier than most "challenge quests" I have played here. I think Zelda 1 (or maybe even 2nd Quest) would make a good baseline for this potential quest's difficulty since Zelda 2's difficulty comes from bad design choices and sideview gameplay. Everyone should be familiar with the difficulty, and we could boost it up as the game goes along if we wanted to while providing secret optional upgrades for those who find it too rough for them to overcome but need to explore so it doesn't feel like it's being handed down to them on a silver platter. Of course, cut out all the unbalance and cryptic design choices Zelda 1 had and we should be good to go. Of course, I'm sure to most "challenge players" this might not be the most ideal, but we're trying to make an accurate challenging Zelda fan game here. We got to be reasonable and compromise where it feels most logical.
 
And let's not forget challenge doesn't come from just enemies and bosses. It comes from tricky puzzles, extensive exploration and even trivial things like dodging traps and what not. So let's not resort to tough enemies and bosses for a challenge. Any player should be able to learn from their mistakes and overcome this without resorting to praying that enemy AI spam doesn't rig them every time. Death will play an important factor for each time it happens, it should become a learning tool for players to know where they went wrong. Game overs should not be a realization that they were simply out of luck this time around. If that's what you want from a challenge quest, sure, but what I am discussing is something that could appeal to at least those who want a decent reasonable challenge but also want to play this game within their own comfort zones. It will be a little more challenging (no pun intended) to design but that's the fun, right?
 
TL;DR Let's make a challenge quest that feels more like a professional Zelda game for the NES rather than a ZC quest with zero limitations and consquence as to what we design as a challenge.
 
4 and 5) Hm, fair enough. In my opinion, using cheap and basic means of nerfing the game isn't really exactly trying to appease "casuals". I would say actually designing a whole quest to appease both is trying. Open betas are pretty risky to do since not everyone is a good beta tester or critic, you got to try and find reasonable beta testers and critics in my opinion and get clear-cut insight and feedback. You don't have to agree with everything they say, that's the beauty of critique: it's subjective. But I guess for it to truly work you must have a reasonable and open mind in order to adapt, to expand. Not everyone has that I suppose, and like I said in my previous post, it's all good, but there are quest authors out there that expand to different genres and design choices and still enjoy their products.
 
I don't think an existing quest needs to be nerfed, or buffered. Liberation of Hyrule was designed to be on one end of the spectrum. [Insert "casual" quest here] is designed to be on the opposite end. It's like making Wind Waker a dark and grim Zelda game and Twilight Princess a bright cartoony game. It loses their identity. But if you're up for it, and someone else is, I won't object to it. I just wanted to propose a potential quest that might still be "casual" but demands some semblence of challenge that can be toned down optionally and with extra work that is exploration. It won't be universally accepted as a masterpiece, but I am sure it will be a challenge quest to behold among "casuals" and perhaps "challenge players".
 
I really dislike the term "casuals" and whatnot. It's all well and good, but everyone is a gamer to me and that's that. There's no need for labels in the gaming community IMO. Just say you like a good challenging game and that's that. Maybe it's just me though.
 
(Also as a small request, could you please change my name from "Charizard" to "Shane" in your signature? It slightly bothers me is all since I reverted back to Shane back in July 2014.)


#19 James24

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Posted 01 March 2016 - 08:15 AM

Long post Shane - I skipped over most of it sorry.  Could you try to keep it short next time?  Did read the first part about the 9 digdogger room.  First, its a 10 digdogger room and second I can get through it about 90% of the time which means its not luck based.

 

We will never agree on any of the points you raised in your past rambling - and if I am going to make a quest that suits your rambling I will want a pretty nice reward - a challenge quest that I enjoy would fit that bill perfectly.  I am willing to make a version of LoH or LoH:IE to suit the players who like easy difficulty provided that some player who likes easy quests is willing to do likewise with respect to making their quest difficult to the standard of AQ, LoH, DI, or IoR on hero mode.  So any takers for this golden opportunity?  It'll be interesting to see if any easy players take this up.


Edited by James24, 01 March 2016 - 08:16 AM.


#20 TheLegend_njf

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Posted 01 March 2016 - 10:13 AM

Since you didn't read his entire message, you might have missed his request to change his name to Shane in your signature. It's still Charizard. Also, wouldn't it be fair to add Dimentio in your signature as well since he's beaten your quest without cheating?

Edited by NewJourneysFire, 01 March 2016 - 10:14 AM.


#21 Deedee

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Posted 01 March 2016 - 11:40 AM

Wouldn't it be nice if there was a "casual mode" of Liberation? Too bad it'll never happen...


Edited by Dimentio, 01 March 2016 - 12:01 PM.


#22 James24

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Posted 01 March 2016 - 10:33 PM

Oh but it can happen Dimentio - provided that those who enjoy "casual" mode are prepared to reciprocate likewise.  That is, make a quest that they really don't like to appease the challenge quest players.  The silence is deafening so far.  

 

And Dimentio, did you beat LoH without cheating? - I looked at your review and I didn't see it there.



#23 Mani Kanina

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Posted 16 March 2016 - 01:50 PM

Flow, what is it, and how do you use it?

It's often that you hear people say that a game has bad flow when it comes to criticism, in fact, it's the type of criticism that I often level at quests. But what IS even flow? It's somewhat of an abstract concept, and people telling you that your game doesn't have any flow really don't mean anything unless you understand the concept.

This? This is an introduction to flow.

Flow in game design refers to how the player progresses through the game environment. Note that there is a difference between moving through the game environment and actually making progress through it. For example, if a player keeps walking in circles in a dungeon they are moving around a lot, but they are not making any progress.

A game has better flow the easier it is for players to figure out how to make progress through it. And again, there is a difference between figuring out what to do, and actually doing it. This does not necessarily mean that a hard puzzle breaks the flow of the game, as long as it does it for the right reasons and if the player is not stuck on it for a very long time. Because if they are, it's probably a peak on the difficulty curve, and should be addressed.

Speaking of which, and uneven difficulty curve often hurts the flow of a game. If the curve keeps jumping around the player will probably advance too fast through some content, while getting stuck at other parts. Note that a lack of flow does also not necessarily make a game bad. (Then again, "good" or "bad" is a matter of taste). One game I really like quite a bit is La-Mulana, but you can't with a straight face say that La-Mulana has good flow, because it does not.

The biggest hurdle when it comes to flow in a game is the fact that you, as in the creator, can't test flow yourself. Since flow is very heavily tied to what knowledge the player has about the game, so it becomes impossible for the author to test it, barring cases of amnesia. This is why bad flow is in general not a problem on repeated playthroughs, because the player is better prepared to deal with the obstacles. (This also makes it one of those things where you'll probably need a new play-tester for each iteration of your game if you want to test it, or one who has a deep understanding of how flow works).


Does that accurately explain what flow is? I'm trying to be very surface level here, but I might need to go into more details, let me know if so!


Now if we know what flow is and where the shortcomings may be, how do we design a game with good flow? Well luckily it goes hand-in-hand with a lot of other design principles, so barring edge cases (which your play testers should inform you about), there is not too much to it. Firstly, making sure you have an even difficulty curve. You'll never make a game that has a completely even curve, but striving for it should be enough. Another thing to keep in mind is to not have a too steep difficulty curve. Players need apt time to learn the things and mechanics you want them to display mastery of. (And in regards to new concepts it's worthwhile to spread them out over several, theoretical, play sessions so that the player has a chance to sleep in between).

Another important factor in making flow better is to avoid tedium. Games will inherently have repeating elements, but you have to make sure that they are enjoyable. To take an common example that happen in quests here: Starting the player with a low amount of life when they die or continue. The only thing this does is add extra tedium and grinding before the player can try whatever it was they were attempting again. It's not enjoyable to grind life on re-spawning bugs in Metroid 1, so I'm not sure what makes you think it's a good mechanic to include in your quest.

And to further expand upon that, if your game routinely asks the player to farm life on re-spawning objects (pots, etc) in other situations, consider just increasing drop rate of life from enemies and removing most of the re-spawning objects. If the player is not doing something that they feel is meaningful, it's probably a tedious task that needs to be looked over, and chances are that the task in question hurts the flow, though not necessarily by much.

Quite a bit of flow ties in to level design, but in general, previous principles apply. If an element in a dungeon causes the players to ask themselves "what the fuck am I suppose to do?", then that element breaks the flow. Again though, it's more of a knowledge thing than anything. If the biggest hurdle of your puzzle is figuring out how to interact with it rather than solving it then that should be a good sign that you're not conveying enough information to the player.

It's worth noting that too high difficulty, in relation to the difficulty curve, does ruin flow. If the player keeps dying too much then the task they are trying to do becomes tedious. Same goes with puzzles, if they are to steep of a jump up in difficulty, the players will just sit there for 20+ minutes staring at the screen without actually figuring out how to solve it. (And in such an instance, I'd say the game was poorly designed).

I think the reason why most puzzles in zelda games are overly simplistic is to make sure they don't stump players and break their flow. After all, the meat of Zelda games is exploration and combat, not puzzles.


So, if someone now tells you "The iron boots in OoT breaks the flow of the game, I'm glad they fixed it in the port", you should have an apt understanding of exactly why, rather than just a surface level feeling that you agree with it.


For further reading, you can look into: Learning From The Masters: Level Design In The Legend Of Zelda. In which the author analyses a few modern design philosophies in Zelda 1. Zelda 1 is an old game and it did a lot of things wrong. But it's also important to know that it did a lot of things right, and many of the design practices pioneered in that era has since grown and become standard.



That would be all for this time,
~Lunaria


Controversially, one of my biggest complaints about The Flow of Time was indeed the lack of flow. (It got a bit better though, hooray for past launch patching!).

Edited by Lunaria, 16 March 2016 - 02:49 PM.

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#24 Deedee

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Posted 21 June 2016 - 11:19 AM

And Dimentio, did you beat LoH without cheating?

 

I remember beating it legit once. I think. My memory isn't all that good, but I do believe I did beat it legit.



#25 Mani Kanina

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Posted 10 July 2016 - 09:33 AM

Idea, tangible elements, and what you shouldn't look at when copying successful games.

Okay, different structure this time around. I haven't really gotten around to writing as many of these as I would have liked, mainly because I have a hard time getting into writing as a medium. So I decided to do a un-edited sort of vlog/podcast/callitwhatyouwant thing instead where I talk about the subject instead (and get sidetracked every now and then). I'll see how well this does before I decide on if I want to continue this style.

Today's subject matter has to do with the sort things people look at when they try to recreate a successful game, and why some of those things may actually not be the things that matters.

[Video containing the actual discussion is here, click me!]



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