[10:47 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: @「Fayt」 @maple I have collected my data
I used an old version of monster monarch for the fun of it, because I think it should be interesting to see which things have already been fixed, and which haven't -- although it doesn't take into account the possiblity of new issues!
[10:47 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: Lots of text incoming
10:47 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: The very first thing I noticed about your map was this pfffft
[10:47 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: It's a small chance you'll get stuck in places like this, but
[10:47 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: there is a chance
[10:48 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: a stray orbi knocking you around, may hit you wherever
[10:48 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: It's why I hammer on closed circuit level design: if you can get there, should you be able to? And if you can, make sure you can get out
[10:48 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: I always try to poke around the scenery objects in a map, just to see how much they can screw you over
10:49 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: I felt the same way about things like this
[10:49 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: (gosh, why does srb2 save gifs and pngs out of numbered order? it makes it such a pain, hold on)
10:49 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: I just have to say
[10:49 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: the inside of this looks so cool.
[10:50 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: You have fantastic usage of lights and darks, and I like the way the main road uses a checker pattern, while the tiles are diamond
[10:50 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: (hold on, battery running low)
[10:52 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: And your portrait idea! SO awesome. It's such a neat community sourced sort of thing. It's the kind of level that gives you some extra enjoyment just strolling through and seeing them all.
[10:53 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: Your level has a lot of sharp turns, and you get a lot of mileage out of my crimson core arrows. This is great!
[10:53 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: So what completely baffles me is:
10:54 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: How those arrows wouldn't be enough to indicate a u-turn, but you haven't even tried them here
[10:54 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: u-turns are very hard to communicate, but important to. An arrow doesn't really do the job, unless you're going to make some special u-turn arrow
[10:54 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: I know Toxic Palace doesn't even try, in the vanilla rotation, and it's a great map
[10:55 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: but, these ARE still issues, and I think the ones in here are more exascerbated by all the turns in this section looking the same, making it very hard to grasp and memorize on even the third or fourth time through.
[10:55 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: Even very close to it, you still can't tell it's a u-turn. What you NEED here
[10:55 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: is to cut out that wall
[10:56 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: and replace it with a nice staircase banister.
[10:56 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: So that you can SEE the path on the other side, continuing.
[10:57 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: This entire spot in your level has most of the worst problems, so I'm going to spend a lot of time, here
[10:58 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: First of all, full on flat walls in your face are a huge no-no in kart. There's VERY few legitimate applications. But even moreso, ones with so little warning? Definitely not okay. It reminds me of that awful fence in Final Mall right after the escalator, which speeds you right into it. :ytho:
[10:58 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: Additionally, that texture does not register as "fence" upon initially seeing it. On my first playthrough, I thought it was a ramp over something.
[10:59 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: And you have speedpads which point right into it which further makes it look like something of the sort, anything but a flat out stop to your momentum.
[10:59 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: The player, in a racing game, is drawn to the center of the track, and you've been teaching me up to this point that the red carpet is the track. Randomly throwing a wall in the middle of this feels completely wrong.
11:00 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: And in fact, look how little of the road there actually is to drive on!
[11:00 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: The tile is offroad, that tiny stretch of carpet is the only safe place to drive.
[11:01 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: The arrows pointing down into the fences are just another cue telling me to hit it
[11:02 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: In the midst of all this confusion, you have treasure chests, too!
[11:02 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: Which means that even if you don't smack into the walls, you have a high chance of smacking into these.
[11:03 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: This might all be better if you had some more time to react to it, and it was cued clearer, but this is all happening immediately after a right angle turn, and by the design of the course, while you have a speed boost.
[11:03 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: There's one more ugly sin there, too, and that's those item boxes
[11:03 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: I almost didn't even notice it, but why is there item boxes in only one single, easily missable gap, of this section?
[11:04 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: Item boxes are VERY important, so they shouldn't be so easily missable like this. It's okay to have a few "bonus" item boxes around, but there is actually three sets like this in the level, which I'll show ya later
[11:04 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: Items are really important, especially for players who have less of a mastery of the course -- they'll depend on them for invulnerability and rocket shoes.
[11:06 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: Right after those gosh darn fences, you throw this at me, a very puzzling rectangle surrounded by the exact same border as the fences
[11:06 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: which might be a hazard?
[11:06 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: But nope, it's just a normal thing you're supposed to go through
[11:06 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: but it DOES send me the message "the water, this color, is safe"
11:07 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: Which is then broken, albeit obviously, in the very next step
[11:08 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: (me slamming on that wall like an idiot is not a relevant part of the criticism, although I did wonder why that gap was there)
[11:08 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: Do you see what I see, here?
[11:08 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: It looks like it's safe to slam into that fence!
[11:09 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: It's not, though, that's just a perspective confusion
[11:09 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: (that water bounce was lucky)
[11:09 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: There's no reason to have this fence texture on the wall, when it's not even functioning as a fence, all it does is look like it's safe, from a certain angle
[11:10 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: You're already asking a lot of the player, to handle such a sharp blind turn, while boosting
[11:10 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: Now! We're finally out of that section!
[11:11 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: :gasp4: Is this more missable item boxes??
[11:11 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: :gasp3: :gasp2: is this an item box vs booster tradeoff?
[11:12 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: That's bad design, we try to avoid it as much as possible. All it means is that 1st place gets, essentially, a sneaker, while lower places have to go for the item boxes, and miss out on the boost. Shortcuts and skill based speed pads should favor the people behind, not the ones in front.
[11:13 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: This section is very curious
[11:13 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: Mostly because that fountain is... not a bad thing, in and of itself. But it can be smacked right into, way too easily
[11:13 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: A case in point:
[11:14 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: This can also happen with the red springs, at a low speed.
[11:14 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: Also, these item boxes are easily missable, again. In fact, there's so few, they WILL be missed, even by players who successfully aim for them, if players are too clustered.
[11:15 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: (example of the red spring)
[11:15 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: If there's one thing this section taught us, though, it's that fountains that look like that are something we should drive around, right? :FeelingIt:
[11:16 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: This is the NEATEST shortcut.
[11:16 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: I really like it, because it's the risk v reward kind.
[11:16 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: You can use it to cut a portion of the track, at your discretion!
[11:16 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: And that's something I don't see very often!
[11:17 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: It might seem unnecessary, but I would like some more directioning here. Merely because of the light and dark play, it makes it confusing to me, at a glance, what is a wall and what is a pit and what isn't.
[11:18 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: Obviously it's a cinch when you grasp it, but it made me double take once or twice when I first played your map. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to go left, or go "betweeen" the things on the right, because the light spot looked passable. This is partly due to using the same texture on floor and walls, here.
[11:19 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: This pillar pissed me off when I first played, but
[11:19 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: it's actually fine, in and of itself.
[11:19 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: It just frustrated me because of how many other things i already had smacked into, at this point
[11:19 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: ALSO I forgot one thing
[11:19 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: from a previous section
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/570527387318747166/611036305882873867/kart0189.gif [I have run out of image uploads for this post :notlikethis:]
[11:20 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: Speaking of pillars, in this section, I'm more focused on avoiding the treasure chests, than I am watching out for a red pillar which blends into a red background
[11:20 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: that pillar is also fine, but the color should be changed
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/570527387318747166/611036578307112980/kart0199.gif
[11:21 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: I'm pretty sure you've tweaked this in the newest version, because it's infamous
[11:21 PM] 「Fayt」: FINALLY
[11:21 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: I shouldn't need to mention this, lol
[11:21 PM] 「Fayt」: I've been waiting for this.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/570527387318747166/611036741683380245/kart0201.gif
11:21 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: Is this boostless shortcut intentional? There's no reason to ever NOT take it
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/570527387318747166/611036925301751820/kart0200.gif
[11:22 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: Now, if there's one thing I've learned!
[11:22 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: It's not to smack into that fountain! :cory:
[11:22 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/570527387318747166/611037054511480833/kart0202.gif
[11:23 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: But you need to go through it, anyways, hehe
[11:23 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: But wait, this isn't a relative teleport?
[11:23 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: Isn't this the most trappable spot ever?
[11:23 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: This should DEFINITELLYYYYYYY be a relative teleport, where the section you enter the teleport is also the same section you exit it
[11:23 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: rather than being plopped into the center
[11:24 PM] 「Fayt」: (Flash tic linedef for a second on that one. It's why you're blinking)
[11:24 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: And with that, that concludes my criticisms! It's a very pretty map, and it's certainly good in a lot of ways, in THIS specific iteration, these issues matter of factually make me consider .rtv
[11:25 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: (also, I didn't notice that, I see. I guess that's a hackish way to do that, but that doesn't help for, say, a thrown spikeball, does it?)
[11:26 PM] 「Fayt」: (Not sure, actually.)
[11:26 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: It should still shove a flashing player back, I believe
[11:26 PM] Charyb, with a bug jar: Also, flashingtics doesn't stop you from being launched by a bomb, I believe.