What ? Is Egg Rock Zone too hard for you ? Well...

Status
Not open for further replies.
The only complaint I have with ERZ is in act 1: At the start of the left path, you're instantly greeted by probably the toughest challenge in the entire act, and punishment is death. Right away. Maybe change it so instead of having the crushing platforms over a bottomless pit, put them over a spike pit or some sort of harmful floor instead. That way you're not brutally murdered within the first ten seconds. Of course, if you fail to react to the platform and its ceiling slowly squishing you, then you're dead. That's just your fault, plain and simple.

..Or you could do a simple spindash jump to the corner and then to the rising platforms from there.

Overall, I do not see the problem with acts 1 and 2. And act 4, I found that much easier than act 3 in 2.0. However, Metal Sonic is brutal. Seriously, I have only made it past the race as tails, and actually killed him while fooling around as HMS. So I can see the point with the metal sonic race/battle. Maybe add some more hidden shortcuts that all characters can take, such as have a hidden pipe through the room where the gravity is flipped and you platform over a bottomless pit. IDK what you would do, but I believe if nothing else, ERZ act 3 needs, for lack of a better term, "nerfed".
 
Adding a key input that changes the turn keys to strafe keys when held will allow non-mouse users to have some of that freedom even it's not as good as what you can do with FPS setups.

I'm not being mean or sarcastic about this, I'm legitimately curious: Why would anyone play that way over just using normal strafe keys?
 
If it's set next to the default jump and spin keys, arrow key users can switch between turning and strafing without needing two additional keys for each strafe button.
 
Well, one additional key, because "Strafe On" wouldn't be used if they used normal strafe keys.

...Meh. It just sounds really awkward to me. My personal control scheme is arrow keys for movement, S for jump, W for spin, and A/D for strafe left/right.

Putting the strafe keys on either side of the jump button isn't actually a bad idea for the default controls...
 
Can we return on topic please ?
This is not the "what are you controls setup/playstyle in SRB2 ?"

I don't want relevant posts to the actual topic to be flooded.
 
I'm not being mean or sarcastic about this, I'm legitimately curious: Why would anyone play that way over just using normal strafe keys?

Stafte on was very useful to me. You see, I could not decide what controls to use for match and coop. For coop, using the mouse felt weird. For match, using the keyboard felt weird. So I created a script that changes my entire control config with just one push of a button. For match, stafte left was "a" and strafte right was "d". HOWEVER, in coop, I used stafte on because it made life WAY easier to hold down "D", and use the arrows to stafte, then have to think "okay, what leu do I press..." Because I would have to make that choice every time I play coop. Right now, I feel like my skill level has dropped 45% in coop... I've been playing this game ever since Zim.DTA was out... For that long I've been using stafte on and now it's gone.

Dev's, ask yourself this. Does it HONESTLY bother you to have stafte on as a possible control? I beg of you guys to add this back...
 
I replayed both ERZ1 and 2, ERZ1 is still pretty easy while ERZ2 can be really easy at certain points as well.

With ERZ1 I was honestly expecting to see the corridors where you have to maneuver around corners in low gravity to be brought up. The left crusher room was not too bad, but I can see how the introduction can be a pain for other players just starting the zone though with the death pit and all.

ERZ2's left path is still easy to me, just takes a while to get through. Jumping at the right time with the constantly switching gravity is key. It is seeming like it is both the gauntlet design and the gravity gimmicks that gets to some but not others like stated before. The right path is not too bad up until you get to the Snailer with the Mega Man Yoku Blocks, which after a couple tries ended up being passable after playing jump rope with the enemy. Maybe that could be changed into an upper path that if you fail it you are led to an lower path with its own challenge.

Some areas of polish needed, but that is a given since this game is still in development after all. I personally do not find it too overbearing, but things can always be improved.
 
Last edited:
To throw my two cents in on ERZ-based specifics:

Personally, I think ERZ3 would be improved a fair bit if there was a single starpost in the middle of the race (somewhere between the room with spikes that are impassible until Metal Sonic breaks them and the room with the gravity switcher). Considering how frustrating the latter half of the level can be (especially to a first-time player), a checkpoint to keep them from redoing the entire level on every death would be pretty helpful. Metal Sonic replays would probably have to be reconfigured slightly to enable starting him in the middle of the race, but hopefully that won't be too much trouble to implement.

The room with anti-gravity platforming could also stand to be made just a tad easier (maybe just with somewhat larger platforms), as right now it's a lot harder than the rest of the level, at least for me. Otherwise, IMO the level's perfectly fine.

I do agree that a few snailer placements in ERZ can be frustrating, but otherwise I can't really think of any changes that could be made to the first two acts. (Most likely because I've played them enough to know them by heart, so any comments I'd make wouldn't be very helpful anyway.) It is an issue that the game doesn't introduce the spin jump-cancel concept that the moving platform segment in Act 1's right path demands knowledge of, but since that seems more like a general advanced play technique than a level-specific gimmick, it might serve better to introduce (and use) the concept in an earlier level. (Dark City, perhaps? I could imagine a subway segment or two would be a very good way to introduce the concept in a very similar manner to the ERZ platforms.)
 
Dev's, ask yourself this. Does it HONESTLY bother you to have stafte on as a possible control? I beg of you guys to add this back...

How many times are we going to have to restate that Strafe On was removed because it caused control exploits?

I'm sure as hell not letting this game devolve into "mash left, strafe left, forward, and strafe on all at the same time if you want to be competitive for time attack", which was an actual possibility.

If I can reimplement it in such a way that it doesn't cause that, then maybe it'll return, but it's certainly not going to be called Strafe On because that's a terrible name for it.
 
Last edited:
I'm not being mean or sarcastic about this, I'm legitimately curious: Why would anyone play that way over just using normal strafe keys?

In the older versions of SRB2 including 1.09.4, when my defaults were set to Arrow Up, Arrow Left, and other things ((or maybe I changed it to that but I'm pretty sure those were the defaults)) I got myself used to the controls. All of the level designs were designed around this tankish controls. Sure, wasd could be more superior with strafing and whatnot, but the change in level design being instantaneous with strafing in mind I find it a little odd and slightly more difficult than it honestly needs to be. I'm aware this game was made through a FPS doom engine, but playing a Sonic game like a first person shooter feels odd. Sure the manual turning can be a bit clunky but it feels more right to me than using FPS controls. I'm not playing a FPS. I'm playing Sonic The Hedgehog.
 
I personally never strafed, I use the arrow keys. Like Eliwood above me, it was just the way I learned to play and it became comfortable for me, whereas strafing feels really alien and uncomfortable in a sonic game for me, it really does (and it ruins ATZ for me too, stupid current room, not looking forward to having to speedrun THAT again in 2.2).
 
To throw my two cents in on ERZ-based specifics:

Personally, I think ERZ3 would be improved a fair bit if there was a single starpost in the middle of the race (somewhere between the room with spikes that are impassible until Metal Sonic breaks them and the room with the gravity switcher). Considering how frustrating the latter half of the level can be (especially to a first-time player), a checkpoint to keep them from redoing the entire level on every death would be pretty helpful. Metal Sonic replays would probably have to be reconfigured slightly to enable starting him in the middle of the race, but hopefully that won't be too much trouble to implement.

The room with anti-gravity platforming could also stand to be made just a tad easier (maybe just with somewhat larger platforms), as right now it's a lot harder than the rest of the level, at least for me. Otherwise, IMO the level's perfectly fine.

I do agree that a few snailer placements in ERZ can be frustrating, but otherwise I can't really think of any changes that could be made to the first two acts. (Most likely because I've played them enough to know them by heart, so any comments I'd make wouldn't be very helpful anyway.) It is an issue that the game doesn't introduce the spin jump-cancel concept that the moving platform segment in Act 1's right path demands knowledge of, but since that seems more like a general advanced play technique than a level-specific gimmick, it might serve better to introduce (and use) the concept in an earlier level. (Dark City, perhaps? I could imagine a subway segment or two would be a very good way to introduce the concept in a very similar manner to the ERZ platforms.)
The problem with that would be the boss race data. It currently uses rob's(someone said it was rob's) time attack data, and I don't think that it can start somewhere in the middle of the level.

The Room with the anti gravity jumping parts needs to have lasers that don't hurt. The walls could be changed to noclimb, and the lasers kept for visual level effects.

SSNTails said that the snailer should've been removed in the megaman block part. I agree with that because the part already gets difficult by having smaller platforms.

Spin Jump cancel ? What's that ? I got past the crusher part but I don't know what this is. Can you please explain that ?

The problem with ERZ is that you need to do it in 3 lives. If you are careful and take the right part in ERZ1, you can get 1-2 extra lives(depends if the crusher part glitches out or not) and complete the level without much trouble. ERZ2 is full of bottomless pits and crushers. Can't some of the crushers in the later part of the level be changed to lasers that do damage instead of instakilling the player ?
An other possible way to "fix" this would be to save after every act(which would be great for custom level wads and complete story mods), but continues would probably need to respawn you at the last checkpoint to not get useless.

---------- Post added at 05:34 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:29 PM ----------

Totally possible. Look, you don't even need to be ahead of him to win, either!

(I didn't bother doing the fight, just FYI)
I know that you don't need to be ahead of him, you need to beat the level under a time limit(timer starts going down at 1:23 in the level), but it's still difficult for sonic.
 
I never strafe either.


I am very sorry, I can't agree with you on this :
"If it´s your first playthrough, you should lose at the zone."
"First playthrough" should mean what exactly ? 1 live ? 10 lives ? 99 lives + continues ? 1 day ? 1 month maybe ? What is this first playthrough ? Why should I lose there ? I mean game designing wise ?

No game should ever teach you by making you lose on purpose... If that's the kind of difficulty you're talking about, maybe you like playing Ghost and Goblins. This game is not only dreadfully hard, but its gameplay near the end is bullshit. You have to play one specific way, using one specific weapon just so you can end the damn game. Oh ! And you won't ever know it before losing unless you use a guide. The game will just troll you.

I don't like it when people think challenge = cheap, instant death happy festival, every damn time, until you have just somehow become a master, and then, you are actually allowed to enjoy the game's "challenge". This is not "good" hard (challenge) but "bad" hard (fake difficulty).
There is losing because you weren't good, and losing because the game is sh**ing on you. If making player get game over perpetually until they are just pro players is good design I applaud you.
Game over is there to punish a player for playing badly. It is not integral to the design of the gameplay itself, except as a form a punishment and a limitation. If then, the player use his loss for motivating himself, that's on him, not because of the game.

At this point I was not even talking about SRB2 yet, I just responded to your view of gaming.


It means in a game based on lives, losing at the last level of the game should be common, specially on games like this where you can beat the entire game on a single evening. Lives aren´t a gimmick just to punish you if you don´t play well, they are a way too to make the game longer and to make you repeat parts of the level in the progress (just like grinding on RPGs). If this wasn´t the case, all games would feature an infinite lives system and you would respawn next to where you died. And you would finish them in a breeze.


When you have a lives system, it´s because you have a Game Over system. And I´m sorry, but if you are not a super awesome player or you don´t know the game, you shouldn´t be able to beat any game with a lives system on the first try. I got several Game Overs in most versions of Sonic Robo Blast 2, and knowing perfectly ERZ1 and ERZ2 got a Game Over on ERZ3. That´s perfectly fine and it´s not any designing error. It´s like saying a guitar is awful because if I don´t know how to play it, I can´t play a song. You need to practice and you need to fail in order to learn. That´s how most platforming games have been for a good reason.


ERZ is far from being cheap, except for some particular rooms or objects which aren´t that hard to fix.


SRB2 is not like SMW. SRB2 follows the pattern of a classic Sonic game. SRB2 is a linear game with tones of secrets and unlockables. And a last zone which disrupts totally the skill ceiling and the game flow. You have to beat this zone to finish the main game, but you just cannot beat it. You cannot. You have to learn it first, very carefully. How do you learn it ? BY DYING. Die. Die. Die, until you just know how to breaze through the zone because you were beaten to the pulp so hard and so often, you begin to walk/run string like a pro.

ERZ doesn't care about your mastery and adaptation skills (AKA good challenge) if your are not very already above average from the get go.
ERZ just use your pure memorization of traps and instant death every corner (fake difficulty).
Learn by dying. Then you can play it eyes closed, like a boss. That's quite shitty if you ask me.


Tell me just one platforming game with lives where you don´t need to die to learn how to play properly, that´s actually challenging. All platforming games require that to be hard, specially when you have gimmicks. I can easily agree that all non instant death gimmicks of a platforming game should be shown before a instant death room, but there aren´t that many examples on ERZ.


The difference is is the sheer quantity and concentration of instant death in one spot. One centimeter wrong and you die. That's harsh.
Reverse gravity with pits. Crushing. Conveyor belts. Yellow snails shooting you.
Now combine 2 to 3 of the above together with bottomless pits before, during, and after rooms. Sure it is possible to complete it. And it is also very bad and long.
Oh and a race to the finish, when you never had to before, above reverse gravity, conveyor belts and bottomless pit festival ? Sure, let's go drink some tea some day.


The only one to blame here is the disruption of skill level between the elit players, mostly found here in this community, especially the dev team, and the playerbase, which includes average and lesser but motivated folks. I may complete it today or tomorrow who knows ? I will still say ERZ is BS, but it is just exactly that. I should not be the one pointing it. The developers should have known about it all along. SRB2 is a Sonic game, not some Kaizo SMW bad hack.


I´m totally sure we´ll see more pits on the missing acts, and probably a racing boss (if ACZ plans haven´t changed) before Metal Sonic. Of course there´s a huge change on difficulty, the last completed zone is CEZ, and I´m sure all 2nd acts will be harder than the 1st ones, just as CEZ2 is actually harder than most of ACZ1. And I´m sure Metal Sonic will be nerfed, as the final boss was nerfed on the last game.


Developers actually know that ERZ is a lot harder than the rest of the game. They have a hole to fill between zones and they will make it smoother as they progress. THZ, DSZ and ECZ were a lot harder in their previous versions, because there wasn´t content after them. Now that there´s content, they have been nerfed. The main difference is that ERZ is not a previous zone, but a last one, and you are missing 4 hard acts and 3 hard bosses between them where you should keep learning how to play.


I hear you, who think I am just a sucker, whereas you are awesome because it gave you no problem. I say : Just look at it, how and when it was implemented in the game, and imagine some new SRB2 player sweating his way through the limiting Act 2, and then facing that. Not cool to be him, even if the concept of the race is very epic, his game over screen is not, neither is his save blocked at Act 1.
I actually congratulate any newbie actually reaching ERZ Act 3. *clap clap clap*


I clearly told you on my answer that you are not a sucker. You are playing the hardest zone of the game with the hardest character to control. It´s expected for you or anyone else to have trouble on it. The game clearly states now when you select Sonic that it´s for expert players. That´s the main reason I never play a new version of SRB2 as Sonic first. You did it, and you made it to ERZ3. You are not a noob or a bad player.


I will end by saying that the final levels Sonic 1, 2, 3&K never had bottomless pits combined with so many threats and were still challenging. If you managed to take an upper route, you were not forced into them.
_ Scrap Brain (Sonic 1) had some sometimes, crusher other times, converyor belts other times again. It also had a harder water section without instant death, and a secret shortcut.
_ Air Fortress (Sonic 2) ONLY had bottomless pit as a real threat.
_ Death egg (Sonic & K) didn't even really need them.
It is all about moderation and measure.


I clearly remember getting a Game Over on all three games on the last boss of the game (none of which have any rings, BTW), and having to restart the entire game on all of them (yeah, back on the day I didn´t have Sonic 3 so I couldn´t save on Death Egg Zone). I´m not saying those games were harder than SRB2 (they are clearly not), but you may be forgetting how those games were the first time you played them. Scrap Brain, Metropolis and most of the final bosses seemed cheap for me too back in the day. And yeah, you die instantly on many parts if you don´t know the level or the boss. But again, it´s expected.




I just want to state a different point of view from yours. If I breezed through ERZ on my first playthrough I would have been dissappointed for sure. You see deaths like a punish for bad players or bad design. I see it like a way to learn a game and repeat an already known part to become better at the game. It doesn´t matter if you are a good or a bad player. Mastering a game means learning both the controls AND the levels. If mastering the controls on GFZ meant you could beat ERZ, then why add that zone? Gimmicks are there just so the level is intereseting even if you mastered everything else on the game. That´s good level designing.


Again, that doesn´t mean there are some parts of the levels that need improvement IMO:
1) The snail on the start of the crusher part on ERZ1. It´s not a challenge for anyone who knows the room, but it may be annoying to new players.
2) Pit rooms with lasers on the walls may be too hard comparing to other rooms, I think they should have either more platforms or walls shouldn´t damage you.
3) The snail on the Megaman part on ERZ2.
4) I would separate ERZ bosses from ERZ1 and ERZ2, so people who beat both zones shouldn´t need to replay both of them. That way they can keep being challenging while not destroying new players as much.
5) ERZ3 needs some nerfing. On the race, I would either slow down Metal Sonic or make some rooms easier. The battle is okay for the most part, but I think it should be a little harder to fall to the pit.


Not much more to say, personally no air rooms have been greatly improved from last version, which personally were some of the hardest parts on the level.
 
Just to bring a new point to the discussion: Game design not only refers to fairness and diversity in level design, it also refers to every single player's fun.

I have watched a video walkthrough about a video game that sold pretty well (a platformer, to be exact) by two people who were part of the level design group in the development of the game. The walkthrough was long enough for them to talk about many different points regarding this, but there was one point that was especially brought up multiple times: The intended difficulty for a platforming game (at least back then, the game was released in 2003 I think) is NEVER supposed to primarily please a fan or a developer, it is mostly intended for the playerbase that is new to the game. Often, a level has to be significantly nerfed, even if the dev doesn't like it because it's too easy for him. If there's a very big amount of people wanting the game to be very difficult, a "Hard Mode" is the best thing to do this.
However, the main game should never frustrate a player like sonoob or Rex so much that they don't really have that much of a motivation to beat it.
Let's say an average player (of the game, not on the forums) needs about 30 minutes to get to ERCZ after figuring it out. However, before that, he goes through all the stages, trying to memorize all important gimmicks, try to figure out a tactic on how to play through the levels. And after 45 minutes of memorizing important key gimmicks to be able to beat the stage, he goes "Game over" and has to do it again. I think this is the primary reason for frustration here: The level want's the player to learn it, find out how to pass its numerous obstacles... , but it's just too long and frustrating for that.
I see a lot of people here saying that maybe some things like the Megaman block snailer should be removed (which would be a cool setup for a very hard mode for people like Ors, by the way), but this game (being a kids game after all) just needs to be more player friendly not only in regards to the difficulty curve.


However, if a vast majority is of the opinion to let Egg Rock stay like it is apart from minor differences, that'd be okay in my book. Though then, I'd sign Unknownlight's request for a mode with unlimited lives and saving opportunities between acts (or at least, before a boss). That is because you also have to acknowledge the fact that not every player has enough time to play through such a long and difficult zone in one go (or is restricted to do so). Maybe some player has more than enough lives to beat ERZ, but wants to stop at ERZ3 and continue the next day. Well too bad, but he has to play the whole stage again the next day.


Just some of my thoughts ;)
 
but this game (being a kids game after all) just needs to be more player friendly not only in regards to the difficulty curve.
I'd like to note that back in the old days of the 80s and 90s (I know, dinosaurs roaming the earth and all) games were actively designed to make you lose repetitively and often. Video games were also entirely assumed to be toys for children. As a child, I played many games and many of them I never beat until I got older, because that's how games were designed. In particular, Super Mario Brothers 3 comes to mind as a game I absolutely loved as a child but didn't beat until a couple years later when I was smart enough to figure out the world 8 mini-fortress. If you turned the system off, you had to restart the entire game from scratch, too. SMB3 isn't even a particularly hard game, either. Many games of that era weren't just hard, they were patently unfair, REQUIRING the player to put levels into muscle memory before they had any shot in hell of beating the game.

While SRB2 isn't intending to be unfair like Battletoads or Ninja Gaiden, it IS trying to emulate an era in gaming where failure was an actual option. This is not the modern era, where every game was designed to make sure every player succeeds. The player is expected to lose their first few attempts at Eggrock, and that's actually okay! What's not okay is when the player feels discouraged to the point where they feel they have no chance of winning if they put in the time and effort to practice. Finding that line between temporary failure and permanently giving up is what difficulty testing is all about.

To that end, the goal is to change things that are SO difficult the player will ragequit from frustration, but keep things at a high level of difficulty. There are definitely things we've learned from 2.1's release, and as always SRB2 is a work in progress. 2.1's difficulty curve is far better than 2.0's, and the plan is that 2.2's difficulty curve will be far better than 2.1's.
 
Last edited:
I never strafe either.





It means in a game based on lives, losing at the last level of the game should be common, specially on games like this where you can beat the entire game on a single evening. Lives aren´t a gimmick just to punish you if you don´t play well, they are a way too to make the game longer and to make you repeat parts of the level in the progress (just like grinding on RPGs). If this wasn´t the case, all games would feature an infinite lives system and you would respawn next to where you died. And you would finish them in a breeze.


When you have a lives system, it´s because you have a Game Over system. And I´m sorry, but if you are not a super awesome player or you don´t know the game, you shouldn´t be able to beat any game with a lives system on the first try. I got several Game Overs in most versions of Sonic Robo Blast 2, and knowing perfectly ERZ1 and ERZ2 got a Game Over on ERZ3. That´s perfectly fine and it´s not any designing error. It´s like saying a guitar is awful because if I don´t know how to play it, I can´t play a song. You need to practice and you need to fail in order to learn. That´s how most platforming games have been for a good reason.


ERZ is far from being cheap, except for some particular rooms or objects which aren´t that hard to fix.





Tell me just one platforming game with lives where you don´t need to die to learn how to play properly, that´s actually challenging. All platforming games require that to be hard, specially when you have gimmicks. I can easily agree that all non instant death gimmicks of a platforming game should be shown before a instant death room, but there aren´t that many examples on ERZ.





I´m totally sure we´ll see more pits on the missing acts, and probably a racing boss (if ACZ plans haven´t changed) before Metal Sonic. Of course there´s a huge change on difficulty, the last completed zone is CEZ, and I´m sure all 2nd acts will be harder than the 1st ones, just as CEZ2 is actually harder than most of ACZ1. And I´m sure Metal Sonic will be nerfed, as the final boss was nerfed on the last game.


Developers actually know that ERZ is a lot harder than the rest of the game. They have a hole to fill between zones and they will make it smoother as they progress. THZ, DSZ and ECZ were a lot harder in their previous versions, because there wasn´t content after them. Now that there´s content, they have been nerfed. The main difference is that ERZ is not a previous zone, but a last one, and you are missing 4 hard acts and 3 hard bosses between them where you should keep learning how to play.





I clearly told you on my answer that you are not a sucker. You are playing the hardest zone of the game with the hardest character to control. It´s expected for you or anyone else to have trouble on it. The game clearly states now when you select Sonic that it´s for expert players. That´s the main reason I never play a new version of SRB2 as Sonic first. You did it, and you made it to ERZ3. You are not a noob or a bad player.





I clearly remember getting a Game Over on all three games on the last boss of the game (none of which have any rings, BTW), and having to restart the entire game on all of them (yeah, back on the day I didn´t have Sonic 3 so I couldn´t save on Death Egg Zone). I´m not saying those games were harder than SRB2 (they are clearly not), but you may be forgetting how those games were the first time you played them. Scrap Brain, Metropolis and most of the final bosses seemed cheap for me too back in the day. And yeah, you die instantly on many parts if you don´t know the level or the boss. But again, it´s expected.




I just want to state a different point of view from yours. If I breezed through ERZ on my first playthrough I would have been dissappointed for sure. You see deaths like a punish for bad players or bad design. I see it like a way to learn a game and repeat an already known part to become better at the game. It doesn´t matter if you are a good or a bad player. Mastering a game means learning both the controls AND the levels. If mastering the controls on GFZ meant you could beat ERZ, then why add that zone? Gimmicks are there just so the level is intereseting even if you mastered everything else on the game. That´s good level designing.


Again, that doesn´t mean there are some parts of the levels that need improvement IMO:
1) The snail on the start of the crusher part on ERZ1. It´s not a challenge for anyone who knows the room, but it may be annoying to new players.
2) Pit rooms with lasers on the walls may be too hard comparing to other rooms, I think they should have either more platforms or walls shouldn´t damage you.
3) The snail on the Megaman part on ERZ2.
4) I would separate ERZ bosses from ERZ1 and ERZ2, so people who beat both zones shouldn´t need to replay both of them. That way they can keep being challenging while not destroying new players as much.
5) ERZ3 needs some nerfing. On the race, I would either slow down Metal Sonic or make some rooms easier. The battle is okay for the most part, but I think it should be a little harder to fall to the pit.


Not much more to say, personally no air rooms have been greatly improved from last version, which personally were some of the hardest parts on the level.

In that case, let's agree to disagree then. Also thanks for mentioning the pit room with laser walls. I forgot about them and their cruelty.

Still, you asked to mention a platformer that doesn't teach playing making you lose : Mega Man in most case. The exceptions I can think of are the wall bombing boss in Mega Man 2 (which was stupid), and mayyyybe the Yellow devil in Mega Man 1, since it is so fast you have to learn by trial and error. But those are never levels.
I don't want to cite badly made Mega Man games like Mega Man X6 or Mega Man & Bass, which had awful level design that never let you any chance.

In Mega Man you learn in way that a blind player could actually not die while still feeling a great challenge.
I also feel dumb in mentioning : Super Mario World... because it was just right there.


But it's alright, let's just agree to disagree.
 
Last edited:
Adding on to what Sonoob said about Act 3, it is an absolute pain in the ass for slower characters.

I understand that with Tails and Knuckles, you can easily take shortcuts, and I am very thankful for those. But there gets to the point with the spike room (with the platforms you have to jump on to proceed, or wait for metal) that Metal WILL get ahead.

He breaks through the spikes or outruns you at that point. That EXACT point. The gravity room is a piece of cake with Tails or Knuckles, but Metal absolutely tears through it nearly as fast as you do.

And finally, the red hallway. At this point, if Metal isn't behind you, you're screwed. Spindashing or Spinflying does absolutely nothing at this point, because the timer has started and you have no chance.

I blew about 12 lives as Tails on this level before finally succeeding, but BARELY. By barely I mean Metal was right on my heels.

I also tried the level as Sonic, and it becomes hell. The platforms should be a bit wider at least, but I kept finding myself overshooting and landing in the pit. Only a minor complaint there.
 
I'm a little late to this, but seeing as Brak was the only one I personally worked on, my thoughts on some suggestions for that:

1. Give a bit more reaction time for the bomb shots
The napalm bomb? I suppose I could add a delay as he fires it, although its full potency generally takes a fair bit to kick in anyway, since it has to come to a rest before exploding. I've never really had issues with timing there, though.

Unless you meant the rocket attack. I dunno, I'm really hesitant to touch that one because I like how twitchy it forces the player to be to dodge it - to stay on their toes, as the idiom goes. It's also trivial to dodge - easier with strafing, but as long as you keep running around and not sticking around in the same area, he'll consistently miss, so it should be easy in analog or arrow keys-only control schemes as well. At the very least, he's not doing the same attack back-to-back like he used to - there's a forced cooldown in there to allow the player to counterattack, if Brak's vulnerable.

2. Decrease the knockback on some of those attacks! Geez!
This one's almost certainly the missile attack, and I'm gonna have to disagree - I like the idea of having at least one attack with the insane, disorienting knockback as additional impetus to not get hit. Plus, it makes recollecting your rings more difficult.

The only other attack with notable knockback would be the line-of-sight one, which I only really have vertical knockback for because id did. It's not especially notable, either, unless you're playing on low-gravity for some reason, or are just close enough to the edge and facing the wrong direction, such that it knocks you over the wall there - which is actually not intentional, but easy enough to avoid (stay further from the wall!) and amusing enough when it does happen that I'm not inclined to change it.

3. When the barriers go down, have Eggman JUST shoot the flame capsules. It's too easy to get knocked off the platform at this point.
Absolutely not. Making it easier to get knocked off is the entire point of destroying the barriers. Besides, at the point that they've collapsed, the only attacks he'd do of his own volition are the napalm area-of-denial attack and the Archvile line-of-sight attack, which actually aren't really any more potent with the walls down.

4. Make flame pools smaller
Possible. I haven't really had much issue with them, but it's a simple value change in info.c. (Not really planning on doing this, mind.)

5. Give the player more space to lure Eggman into the lava
Also possible, since they are pretty close to the edge - although, being close to the edge does add additional potency to the wall-collapsing pinch phase, which I kinda like.
 
I'm a bit late to this thread too, (Too far behind to read the backlog, jeez Sonoob your posts are massive, haha.) but there is one thing I have to add : "Git good or get wrecked, son." *bricked*

In all seriousness, nothing in a game is actually hard once you've figured out the pattern. I think it's the discovery of that pattern that needs to be more or less difficult when designing a game. I love Dark Souls for this because you might have to fail a few times before you find all the weak points in a boss yourself, it won't give you any direct hints. It's pretty refreshing in this day and age where the enemy's keister is served to you on a silver platter before the battle even starts.

So if the number of enemies need to be toned down or what, the developers will figure that out with feedback. I don't know why this sparked such a huge discussion.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Who is viewing this thread (Total: 1, Members: 0, Guests: 1)

Back
Top