Cave Story - Rise of Ballos

That implies that I was supposed to have any of those by the time I got to the maze, when in reality it was likely that what few weapons I had were too deleveled to do anything. The Blade needed to be at least level 3, I had completely missed the Missile Launcher, I had completely missed the Fireball, and I chose the Blade over the Northern Star.


Yes. Aside from the absolutely ridiculous critter and falling icicle spam, the ice level was pretty neat. There hasn't been any kind of ice physics before, so it was fun to rush down the tunnel at top speed. The lava tank was also pretty creative aside from plastering death spikes onto its ceiling. Having to slow my descent with crumbling platforms and moving blocks caught me off guard, but it was something that I never had to do before in a mod.

Spoiler: No Fun Allowed

That's the point of testing, though. You need to point out what is wrong with the mod so it can be fixed later; this mod just has a lot of polishing that needs to be done. It's not like I could tell when the mod was supposed to end. One map just lead to another which lead to another and so on. Not my fault the forums have an image limit of 100 per post...

All that really matters is that the earlier sections of the mod get more attention before more sections are added onto it. For example, I hope that First Cave gets a redesign instead of getting ignored due to the skip he put in.

Pretty much the only reason for those spike/block mazes is that I just put them in because I didn't have other ideas. The Lava Tank and Frosty Grotto were the newest two maps that I made, which meant that those were pretty much the only places with ORIGINAL ideas.

 

Pretty much the only reason for those spike/block mazes is that I just put them in because I didn't have other ideas. The Lava Tank and Frosty Grotto were the newest two maps that I made, which meant that those were pretty much the only places with ORIGINAL ideas.

This is exactly why you need to put effort into your maps. If you put actual thought into your maps and make them original, the player actually has an enjoyable experience. Shocking, right? On the flip side, if you just go "hurr durr spikes and critters everywhere" the player will want to quit playing and delete the mod. It's not hard to understand.

 

Alright, new update, changes will now be written with a + if it makes the game easier, and - if it makes it harder, = if it's just an aesthetic modification or other.

+ Reduced amount of lava in Monster X's corridor
+ Made Monster X charge at you earlier, instead of while you are directly above lava/spikes.
- Allowed Monster X's first form to now shoot any projectile randomly selected from the list of 4 Gaudi projectiles
+ Reduced damage of Red Gaudi Projectiles
+ Reduced health of Black Critter
+ Reduced damage of Black Critter
+ Allowed more NPCs to damage other NPCs, currently there are 6, they use customised invisible bullets to damage other entities.
Falling Spike (Small), ~55 damage
Falling Spike (Large), 127 - 254 damage
Spiky Ball (Large), 4 damage/frame
Spiky Ball (Giant), 16 damage/frame
Lightning (White), ~55 damage
Lightning (Red), ~103 damage
+ Made more hints as to where things are hidden.
+ Fixed glitch in Labyrinth G
= Fixed out-of-tune notes in Eyes of Flame remix
= Fixed out-of-tune notes in White remix
+ Replaced Yellow Critter in the snow of Frosty Grotto with a White Sandcroc
- Reduced max Blades to 1 again
+ Allowed level 3 Blade to spawn miniblades that also damage entities
+ Made fake blocks in the Labyrinth even more obvious
- Made Labyrinth H send you back to the start when you get the Booster v0.8
+ Added Booster v1.6
+ Removed half of the lava on the ceiling of Lava Tank I
+ Halved Omega II's health, it still regens while open BTW
- Forced player to pick up the Blade first
+ Placed Northern Star in a chest in the Sand Zone
= Prevented player going beyond Reservoir for now
https://www.dropbox.com/s/86jtk2uecz8xfki/Rise_of_Ballos_v0.8.0.8.zip?dl=0

 

Alright, new update, changes will now be written with a + if it makes the game easier, and - if it makes it harder, = if it's just an aesthetic modification or other.

+ Reduced amount of lava in Monster X's corridor
+ Made Monster X charge at you earlier, instead of while you are directly above lava/spikes.
- Allowed Monster X's first form to now shoot any projectile randomly selected from the list of 4 Gaudi projectiles
+ Reduced damage of Red Gaudi Projectiles
+ Reduced health of Black Critter
+ Reduced damage of Black Critter
+ Allowed more NPCs to damage other NPCs, currently there are 4, they use customised invisible bullets to damage other entities.
Falling Spike (Small)
Falling Spike (Large)
Spiky Ball (Large)
Spiky Ball (Giant)
+ Made more hints as to where things are hidden.
+ Fixed glitch in Labyrinth G
= Fixed out-of-tune notes in Eyes of Flame remix
= Fixed out-of-tune notes in White remix
+ Replaced Yellow Critter in the snow of Frosty Grotto with a White Sandcroc
- Reduced max Blades to 1 again
+ Allowed level 3 Blade to spawn miniblades that also damage entities
+ Made fake blocks in the Labyrinth even more obvious
- Made Labyrinth H send you back to the start when you get the Booster v0.8
+ Added Booster v1.6
+ Removed half of the lava on the ceiling of Lava Tank I
+ Halved Omega II's health, it still regens while open BTW
- Forced player to pick up the Blade first
+ Placed Northern Star in a chest in the Sand Zone
= Prevented player going beyond Reservoir for now
https://www.dropbox.com/s/86jtk2uecz8xfki/Rise_of_Ballos_v0.8.0.8.zip?dl=0

You get countless complaints that the mod is too hard and that the levels are shoddily designed. So what do you do? You still fail to touch the level design for the most part and instead opt to make the mod harder. Sometimes I feel as though I'm talking to a wall.

 

You get countless complaints that the mod is too hard and that the levels are shoddily designed. So what do you do? You still fail to touch the level design for the most part and instead opt to make the mod harder. Sometimes I feel as though I'm talking to a wall.

I want to. I really want to. But for now I don't have time for that.
EDIT: Also, I did make the mod easier and better in many aspects. Did you even read my post properly?

 

I want to. I really want to. But for now I don't have time for that.
EDIT: Also, I did make the mod easier and better in many aspects. Did you even read my post properly?

It's fine if you don't have time for it right this second. Just keep it in mind.

EDIT: Also, I did make the mod easier and better in many aspects. Did you even read my post properly?

Yes, and I also read that you included features like Monster X shooting any of the Flying Gaudis' shots, ranging from blades with loads of HP to orbs that are invincible that all need to be dealt with over a bottomless pit, picking up the Booster v0.8 booting you back to the start of Labyrinth H, forcing you to redo it for no reason, and nerfing the Blade back down to a single shot weapon despite the changes you've made to the mod's enemies. I applaud you for trying to balance some of the more broken parts of the mod, but did you really have to add in these bits?

 

It's fine if you don't have time for it right this second. Just keep it in mind.


Yes, and I also read that you included features like Monster X shooting any of the Flying Gaudis' shots, ranging from blades with loads of HP to orbs that are invincible that all need to be dealt with over a bottomless pit, picking up the Booster v0.8 booting you back to the start of Labyrinth H, forcing you to redo it for no reason, and nerfing the Blade back down to a single shot weapon despite the changes you've made to the mod's enemies. I applaud you for trying to balance some of the more broken parts of the mod, but did you really have to add in these bits?

Well yes, because I intended for the player to fight Monster X over the start place with few lava pits and not the bottomless pit.
Also the Blade was becoming way too powerful over the Northern Star, I'd noticed that with the Blade, you could pretty much one-shot every enemy.

 

Well yes, because I intended for the player to fight Monster X over the start place with few lava pits and not the bottomless pit.
Also the Blade was becoming way too powerful over the Northern Star, I'd noticed that with the Blade, you could pretty much one-shot every enemy.

The whole "bottomless pit" thing conveyed to me that I had to ride on Monster X's treads over to the other side, especially since I don't think the other side was visible.

The Blade was one of the only things that made the enemies tolerable. You also make it sound like killing enemies in one hit is a bad thing when the projectiles of the level 3 Misery's Scepter do 127 damage each.

 

The whole "bottomless pit" thing conveyed to me that I had to ride on Monster X's treads over to the other side, especially since I don't think the other side was visible.

The Blade was one of the only things that made the enemies tolerable. You also make it sound like killing enemies in one hit is a bad thing when the projectiles of the level 3 Misery's Scepter do 127 damage each.

Misery's Sceptre is not supposed to be available the whole game, and only for a certain time during some missions.

 

I had a few issues with the mod (I'm going to assume the instant-death that EVERYTHING seems to like performing was an attempt at imitating the freeware game "N" in terms of difficulty and the implementation of such),
but I'm not going to repeat that. Repeating it's more or less a waste of everybody's time, and hopefully now the endless ASMing has been performed the author of the mod can start to focus on gameplay. (I hope.)
Instead, I am going to give you *one screenshot*.
I didn't see the actual location of the First Cave -> Mod Testing entrypoint mentioned, so:

Given the way the map was designed, you are practically lead in this direction.
(and yes, I did cheat, I was interested in playing the mod instead of screaming about the difficulty endlessly.)
(Additional edit: That screenshot was v0.8.0.6 - may be outdated)

 

I had a few issues with the mod (I'm going to assume the instant-death that EVERYTHING seems to like performing was an attempt at imitating the freeware game "N" in terms of difficulty and the implementation of such),
but I'm not going to repeat that. Repeating it's more or less a waste of everybody's time, and hopefully now the endless ASMing has been performed the author of the mod can start to focus on gameplay. (I hope.)
Instead, I am going to give you *one screenshot*.
I didn't see the actual location of the First Cave -> Mod Testing entrypoint mentioned, so:
View attachment 3036
Given the way the map was designed, you are practically lead in this direction.
(and yes, I did cheat, I was interested in playing the mod instead of screaming about the difficulty endlessly.)
(Additional edit: That screenshot was v0.8.0.6 - may be outdated)

Yeah that's outdated. I fixed that a while ago. Also the start of the mod was meant to be one of the hardest parts, which is why I added an option for it to be skipped.

 

I wouldn't really say the start is harder than the rest of the mod, if the rest of the mod is on the same difficulty, or on some parts, even harder than the start.

 

New update again! Certain changes were made, especially to the Berserk Core:
+ Removed most of the lava drops
+ Removed most of the spikes
+ Removed all Buyobuyo bases except one
+ Removed half the critters
+ Redid the design of the block placements
- Increased Berserk Core health
+- Berserk Mini cores now can shoot bouncing glaives (and their original blades). This means that some of them won't go through walls, but also that the ricochet might hit you.
- Berserk Core now fires volleys of three (5 if on low health) large energy orbs instead of 1 every shot! Very hard to dodge all 9 (or 15) orbs

Spoiler

but I removed most of the spikes, so you can go between them, dodging them with the Level 3 Machine Gun + Booster, as long as you are far away.

Will fire super orbs that are black, move faster, and deal 127 damage to the player, when the Berserk Core is on critical low health.
+ Allowed Core Energy projectiles to deal extreme heavy damage, at 12,700 dps, to normally shootable entities. They start dealing damage after a delay, to prevent the Berserk Core destroying itself!
Super orbs deal 3x the dps, amounting to 38,100 dps each on entities, not that it matters too much...
+- Fixed being able to exit the Core map during the boss fight, I'm surprised that nobody noticed this

+ Also a few other minor level improvements
+ Made Level 3 Blade pierce small enemies/projectiles, with the same amount of pierce as the Level 2 Blade in the original game.

 

New update again! Certain changes were made, especially to the Berserk Core:
+ Removed most of the lava drops
+ Removed most of the spikes
+ Removed all Buyobuyo bases except one
+ Removed half the critters
+ Redid the design of the block placements
- Increased Berserk Core health
+- Berserk Mini cores now can shoot bouncing glaives (and their original blades). This means that some of them won't go through walls, but also that the ricochet might hit you.
- Berserk Core now fires volleys of three (5 if on low health) large energy orbs instead of 1 every shot! Very hard to dodge all 9 (or 15) orbs

Spoiler

but I removed most of the spikes, so you can go between them, dodging them with the Level 3 Machine Gun + Booster, as long as you are far away.

Will fire super orbs that are black, move faster, and deal 127 damage to the player, when the Berserk Core is on critical low health.
+ Allowed Core Energy projectiles to deal extreme heavy damage, at 12,700 dps, to normally shootable entities. They start dealing damage after a delay, to prevent the Berserk Core destroying itself!
Super orbs deal 3x the dps, amounting to 38,100 dps each on entities, not that it matters too much...
+- Fixed being able to exit the Core map during the boss fight, I'm surprised that nobody noticed this

+ Also a few other minor level improvements
+ Made Level 3 Blade pierce small enemies/projectiles, with the same amount of pierce as the Level 2 Blade in the original game.

- Berserk Core now fires volleys of three (5 if on low health) large energy orbs instead of 1 every shot! Very hard to dodge all 9 (or 15) orbs

Spoiler

but I removed most of the spikes, so you can go between them, dodging them with the Level 3 Machine Gun + Booster, as long as you are far away.

But you need to get really close to the middle in order to damage the Core, and combined with water physics this makes it really hard to dodge anything.

Will fire super orbs that are black, move faster, and deal 127 damage to the player, when the Berserk Core is on critical low health.

 

- Berserk Core now fires volleys of three (5 if on low health) large energy orbs instead of 1 every shot! Very hard to dodge all 9 (or 15) orbs

Spoiler

but I removed most of the spikes, so you can go between them, dodging them with the Level 3 Machine Gun + Booster, as long as you are far away.

Will fire super orbs that are black, move faster, and deal 127 damage to the player, when the Berserk Core is on critical low health.
+ Allowed Core Energy projectiles to deal extreme heavy damage, at 12,700 dps, to normally shootable entities. They start dealing damage after a delay, to prevent the Berserk Core destroying itself!
Super orbs deal 3x the dps, amounting to 38,100 dps each on entities, not that it matters too much...

I'm convinced nobody could accidentally mess up at game design this bad so many times.

 

Yes, I know there's a skip First Cave option, but a small, sick, disgusting part of me wanted to see if First Cave changed.

- Some of the large critters have glitched graphics in the Start Point.

- Ah, the spikes are still there. But hey, you gave us the option to skip First Cave, so that means the spikes are removed! :^)

- The real shitshocker, I can't leave the First Cave if I make it to the very end! It just says "The door is jammed." What the fuck do you want me to do in this spike hell? It's almost as if you WANT us to skip the First Cave on purpose! There are people who are new to Cave Story mods still, and they'd say "hell no" to the First Cave skip option, because what could pawsibly go wrong? And after 30 minutes of bullshit later, they reach the Door and they realize that they can't leave the First Cave.

PS - Between you and me, I find this game over message much more motivating than "Want to re-die?"

Spoiler

 

Yes, I know there's a skip First Cave option, but a small, sick, disgusting part of me wanted to see if First Cave changed.

- Some of the large critters have glitched graphics in the Start Point.

- Ah, the spikes are still there. But hey, you gave us the option to skip First Cave, so that means the spikes are removed! :^)

- The real shitshocker, I can't leave the First Cave if I make it to the very end! It just says "The door is jammed." What the fuck do you want me to do in this spike hell? It's almost as if you WANT us to skip the First Cave on purpose! There are people who are new to Cave Story mods still, and they'd say "hell no" to the First Cave skip option, because what could pawsibly go wrong? And after 30 minutes of bullshit later, they reach the Door and they realize that they can't leave the First Cave.

PS - Between you and me, I find this game over message much more motivating than "Want to re-die?"

Okay then, I'm removing the First Cave for now. I'll put it back once I've improved it. Also fixed NPC graphics for critters.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/xj9tlqz8lc99lhj/Rise_of_Ballos_v0.8.0.9B.zip?dl=0

I'm convinced nobody could accidentally mess up at game design this bad so many times.

What in hell's name is wrong with you? From reading your posts, you probably haven't even downloaded the mod yourself. If so, why are you posting all these hate posts? You don't even know anything about it apart from everyone else's comments.

But you need to get really close to the middle in order to damage the Core, and combined with water physics this makes it really hard to dodge anything.

It's not that hard once you get to predict its patterns. Also I added an extra sound effect (the Undead Core's one) whenever the Core is about to shoot energy balls.

 

Okay then, I'm removing the First Cave for now. I'll put it back once I've improved it. Also fixed NPC graphics for critters.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/xj9tlqz8lc99lhj/Rise_of_Ballos_v0.8.0.9B.zip?dl=0

What in hell's name is wrong with you? From reading your posts, you probably haven't even downloaded the mod yourself. If so, why are you posting all these hate posts? You don't even know anything about it apart from everyone else's comments.

It's not that hard once you get to predict its patterns. Also I added an extra sound effect (the Undead Core's one) whenever the Core is about to shoot energy balls.

never the less you've given a boss an instakill attack that even you admit is really hard to dodge. There is a reason why pixel never did that shit.

 

never the less you've given a boss an instakill attack that even you admit is really hard to dodge. There is a reason why pixel never did that shit.

No it's not instakill and from my testing I've made sure that it's possible to win even if you get hit by the dark energy orbs, and that it is also possible to avoid that attack altogether by killing it faster.