Cave Story - Rise of Ballos

Let me try this again with bold formatting since you clearly missed my point.

There are only 3 maps with that sort of puzzles

Please see:

I didn't say they were hard, I said they were composed of fake difficulty. It's not hard, it's tedious to the point of frustration. It's possibly the worst thing you could do to the player.
Judging from Seasons' playthroughs, it appears that this same statement can be applied to a large portion of, if not all of, your mod's content.

 

Let me try this again with bold formatting since you clearly missed my point.


Please see:

I don't think so, I don't understand what you're trying to say

 

What everybody is saying is that they aren't fun. Mazes in themselves are okay, but you don't usually put mazes into a platformer because of how you have to jump. Even if you can see them, it's tedious to have them in. Pixel only added a couple into the Sandzone, and the only one that had vertical jumps and the like was the path to an easter egg. The other paths that are hidden aren't actually mazes, they're paths, meaning going from point A to B.

 

What everybody is saying is that they aren't fun. Mazes in themselves are okay, but you don't usually put mazes into a platformer because of how you have to jump. Even if you can see them, it's tedious to have them in. Pixel only added a couple into the Sandzone, and the only one that had vertical jumps and the like was the path to an easter egg. The other paths that are hidden aren't actually mazes, they're paths, meaning going from point A to B.

The point I'm trying to make is that my mazes are a lot easier to see than Pixel's ones, plus I'm planning to make them have cracks in the next version to make them more visible. Otherwise they're mainly parkour platforms.

 

The point I'm trying to make is that my mazes are a lot easier to see than Pixel's ones, plus I'm planning to make them have cracks in the next version to make them more visible

Yeah, but the thing is you can't punish the players with spikes, and you can't make them all that long, otherwise the player feels annoyed that they have to backtrack through that section of the maze. Unlike when it's just the maze itself, that backtracking takes time, which could have been spent advancing in the game.

 

I don't think so, I don't understand what you're trying to say

Most of your mod isn't enjoyable in the slightest. It is tedious, it is frustrating, and you refuse to acknowledge that there is anything wrong with it a majority of the time.

The point I'm trying to make is that my mazes are a lot easier to see than Pixel's ones, plus I'm planning to make them have cracks in the next version to make them more visible

Stop. No, really, stop. What Doors and I just said clearly went through one of your ears and out the other. Pixel's "mazes" were never this bad, and he let you use the Map System on all two of them. These "mazes" are fucking stupid no matter how easy you make it to tell which blocks are fake and which aren't; as long as the player can't see their own model clearly, it is shit. Instead of applying another coat of paint to these tumors on your mod, just wipe them clean and think of a proper obstacle to replace them with.

 

Most of your mod isn't enjoyable in the slightest. It is tedious, it is frustrating, and you refuse to acknowledge that there is anything wrong with it a majority of the time.


Stop. No, really, stop. What Doors and I just said clearly went through one of your ears and out the other. Pixel's "mazes" were never this bad, and he let you use the Map System on all two of them. These "mazes" are fucking stupid no matter how easy you make it to tell which blocks are fake and which aren't; as long as the player can't see their own model clearly, it is shit. Instead of applying another coat of paint to these tumors on your mod, just wipe them clean and think of a proper obstacle to replace them with.

If I removed the fake blocks, but kept the mazes, what do you think of that?

 

I literally could not make it clearer to you. Remove the mazes because they are inherently tedious and unfun.

 

If I removed the fake blocks, but kept the mazes, what do you think of that?

If you remove the fake blocks, then it removes the whole point of the obstacle. It turns into a complete waste of time, whereas the exact same purpose could be achieved with a straight corridor. Again, I'm not going to design your mod for you; come up with an actual obstacle if you want one.

 

If you remove the fake blocks, then it removes the whole point of the obstacle. It turns into a complete waste of time, whereas the exact same purpose could be achieved with a straight corridor. Again, I'm not going to design your mod for you; come up with an actual obstacle if you want one.

But that's saying that the fake blocks are at least more fun than without them.

But seriously, if you're going to keep pestering me, I'll probably remove the fake blocks and replace it with spikes you have to machinegun/boost over. I won't spam the spikes though. Hopefully that'll be more interesting to you guys

 

https://www.twitch.tv/diachromatic streaming easy mode because of boredom

 

But that's saying that the fake blocks are at least more fun than without them.

But seriously, if you're going to keep pestering me, I'll probably remove the fake blocks and replace it with spikes you have to machinegun/boost over. I won't spam the spikes though. Hopefully that'll be more interesting to you guys

What I said is that without the fake blocks it becomes a massive waste of time with no challenge. With the fake blocks, it's a load of bullshit difficulty and tediousness, but without them it just becomes "jump up over several walls and then fall down several more while not touching spikes." It slows down the player's progress for no reason other than "no fun allowed." I don't necessarily condone spikes being the go-to obstacle, but as long as it doesn't force the player's advance down to a crawl it'll be an improvement.

By the way, when you do use spikes as an obstacle, you don't need to go overboard all the time. A few spikes here or there will suffice; literal walls of spikes are not okay.

 

https://www.twitch.tv/diachromatic streaming easy mode because of boredom

Was that you?

 

Was that you?

That is Doors, yes. He's still streaming as of me typing this.

 

Okay, so I noticed that Doors was sorta ragequitting at the pitfall. If you'd like some advice, it's to save the machine gun ammo for getting you back up, and not for shooting at the critters.

 

Buddy I went through Over Grasstown or whatever so many times and every single time those red critters punted me off a platform I had literally no way to recover even with max ammo.

Anyway if you want examples of puzzles I suggest you take a look at Jenka's Nightmare, and I think there were one or two puzzles in Ama too though they were simple. Try to make something that requires the player to think, not to run around and die repeatedly to find a way through.

 

Here are Doors' deaths and other stats over the course of the stream:

Please keep in mind that this was on "easy" mode. Despite him getting 50% armor right off the bat, he was still below half health for a majority of the stream while between save points. Above Grasstown wouldn't have murdered him quite as hard if you didn't make every critter and its mom have bouncy hitboxes, but you did. The red ones are a special kind of cancer because even their bullets have bouncy hitboxes. In my opinion, those bouncy hitboxes need to go.

You also can't always expect the player to have access to a Level 3 weapon at all times. Damage happens, and when you take enough damage you lose your ability to fly with the Machine Gun.

 

Here are Doors' deaths and other stats over the course of the stream:

Please keep in mind that this was on "easy" mode. Despite him getting 50% armor right off the bat, he was still below half health for a majority of the stream while between save points. Above Grasstown wouldn't have murdered him quite as hard if you didn't make every critter and its mom have bouncy hitboxes, but you did. The red ones are a special kind of cancer because even their bullets have bouncy hitboxes. In my opinion, those bouncy hitboxes need to go.

You also can't always expect the player to have access to a Level 3 weapon at all times. Damage happens, and when you take enough damage you lose your ability to fly with the Machine Gun.

Buddy I went through Over Grasstown or whatever so many times and every single time those red critters punted me off a platform I had literally no way to recover even with max ammo.

Anyway if you want examples of puzzles I suggest you take a look at Jenka's Nightmare, and I think there were one or two puzzles in Ama too though they were simple. Try to make something that requires the player to think, not to run around and die repeatedly to find a way through.

Okay, so I'm going to remove the red critters' projectiles being solid, but I wanted them to be useful later in the game for other entities... sigh... I'll just make a different version, I guess.
The red critters, although they can both fly and shoot, they can't change direction while flying, so you can use that to your advantage.
Also, it's surprising that you got past the rainbow critter even though there was a glitch that quadrupled its health.

 

I facefucked it with missiles from a level 3 hidden weapon that I had to grind to level up before stepping in the boss room. The rainbow critter boss is not something you can justify as fair.

Thomas giving me hints on how to get past enemies does not take away the fact that in the very likely scenario you get hit by one tiny projectile in a sea of enemies and bullshit, you have a very good chance of losing your balance and falling into a bottomless pit with minimal chance of recovery.

 

Okay, so I'm going to remove the red critters' projectiles being solid, but I wanted them to be useful later in the game for other entities... sigh... I'll just make a different version, I guess.
The red critters, although they can both fly and shoot, they can't change direction while flying, so you can use that to your advantage.
Also, it's surprising that you got past the rainbow critter even though there was a glitch that quadrupled its health.

The red critters not being able to change their direction in mid-air made virtually no difference in Above Grasstown or any other map for that matter. More often than not, they are still able to shoot you or collide with you.

I also like how you ignored the whole "Doors was nearly most of the time even with 50 armor" bit.