Still more sugestions :) Thread - 3089

1: Really really really need to take part's rarity into account when crafting.
I have a level 8 84% rarity body part for my rifle, that I can not use because my Rifle is level 11.
That lv8 part is substantially better then the most of the lv11 parts I have found.

2: Conquer-able Towers, Structures, & Cities. Kill off the inhabitants and move in your fellow Reds, or something along those lines
Because that would give the game a nice solid direction. I may just not have come to this in the game yet.

3: Parts are dropped on death, rather then destroyed.
Makes it less frustrating when I die, also gives me a reason to go try and get the parts back.

4: Item weight needs to be balanced a better, particularly with the carry capacity of Grappling hooks etc.
Seriously, unbalanced... not sure if this is because I've been exploring quite a bit and not question so much, but
something feels really unbalanced. And particularly because the mobs only drop parts and not money. This is made
worse because my items put me over my hover board,hook, & teleporter's carry capacity.

5: Skills gained by killing other robots not just by questing.
To keep those who explore skills on par with those who quest...

6: Mobs drop money rather then only dropping parts.
A small thing that would mitigate some of the weight issue.

That is all I can think of at the moment.

Thank you for the feedback!

1) This is the reason why I limit crafting by level. If you could keep using low level, rare parts, the incentive to find new parts would be significantly decreased. Imagine holding onto a 100% rare rifle magazine, something you could do throughout the whole game if the level limitation was lifted. You have to decide, do I stick with a level 8 or 9 weapon so I can continue to use this part, or do I move on to a higher level gun?

2) You can go into those big buildings with spiked roofs and kill the leader at the top, which will cause a "Tower Triumph" and get you skill poitns.

3) Loss of parts on death is the primary penalty of death -- it is the reason you should fear and avoid death as much as possible. If this penalty was removed, you wouldn't fear death, and the need to avoid it would be significantly reduced. I want my game to remain challenging & with consequences.

4) What level items are you holding, and what level grappling hook are you trying to use? You can get higher level hooks and hoverboards to carry more stuff.

5) Doing quests are a central part of the game... however, I do provide another way to get skill points, as described in point #2

6) I don't really want to mitigate the weight issue -- I want players to have to decide between carrying lots of loot, moving quickly, or spending more points in Agility. There are other options available, like building a teleporter next to a storage bin or station so you can teleport back (at a small cost) and sell stuff.

1: No what it does is smooths out the transition from level to level my lv8 84% rare rifle body part is about = 10 points better then my 40% rarity lv13 rifle body part.
And why would I want to keep my my lv8 84% rare rifle body part when around 5 or 6 levels up, I am going to find parts that are low rarity and better then that my lv8 84% rare rifle body. This alone should negate your worry about hang onto my my lv8 84% rare rifle body part through the whole play through because it would become obsolete 5 or 6 levels down the line.
I would divide the rarity by 20 rounded down and use that as a level modifier for determining if I can combine parts. IE at 100% rarity it adds a +5 as a level adjust. Also it means I spend less time looking around in stores for parts that will attach to my gun, and more time playing the game.

This might help.
lv1 0-20% Crappy part should be gotten rid of at all cost,
lv1 21-40% adequate part, roughly equivalent of a lv2 0-20% crappy part. Keep it only long enough to get a better part
lv1 41-60% good part roughly equivalent to a lv3 0-20 crappy part. Keep it knowing you'll find much better
lv1 61-80% really good item, roughly equivalent to a lv4 0-20% crappy part. Sell only when better part is available
lv1 81-100% really really good part, roughly equivalent to a lv5 0-20% crappy part. Sell only when a much better part is available

2: Yeah I know that, I get quite a bit of points from them .
I am more interested in the idea of taking a group of my fellow redbots into a bluebot held town, tower, or structure, kill all the bluebots and drop off my redbot buddies, there by taking the town, tower, or structure for the redbots. At the same time the bluebots trying to do the same to structures the player already holds... I hope that made sense...

3: Fair enough.
But a couple of things then;
A: I don't think it makes it any less of a penalty, but rather it gives the player the satisfaction of getting their stuff back; look how devastating dying it is 9 time out of 10 in Minecraft, and more importantly look how satisfying it is to find where you died and get your stuff back.
B: If you do not change the item lose, then there need to have a means of preventing items you just bought to be on the potential lose list for say X amount of time, because losing an item I just bought that is rage quit fuel. >_<
C: I was trapped in my respawn building having killed off a surveyor and died a crap ton of times, this is just evil, and I lost quite a bit, not quite rage quit fuel because I got really good stuff from them in return.

4 & 6: Most of my items are 13+/- and my hook is around 16
1 lv18 helmit and around 3 health kits total weight 561 total for the hook is 560.
The problem is with random terrain generation it makes hooks & teleporters a necessity, not a choice.
I need at least hook to get around in my world because the seed gave me really high mountains and really deep valleys.
And this problem is further compounded by having mobs only drop items, hence why I think money should be a drop as well.

5: Hmmm... nope... not for me; Exploration is the main point of the game for me.
(Not trying to be mean) I find the quests to be rather repetitive, so I don't want to do them.
I also think this is compounded by my suspicion that my equipment is far far better then what I should have at my level, putting me in an awkward situation of being over equipped for most low level quests and being under stated for most higher level quests.
Look how Diablo handles it, Quests give you nice fat chunks of exp, but killing monsters also bumps your exp up at a nice steady pace.
Trust me when I tell this is very very very needed. Again look at Diablo, and how Blizzard does things in their game.
Also restriction might help remove that awkward situation of being over equipped and under stated, and a lot of the weight issue.

A developer should endeavor to try to remove as much frustration as possible form their game,
that is not to say don't make it difficult. It is a fine line to walk between challenge, and throw the mouse at the wall, so what I am trying to point out are really egregiously aggravating things I have found playing, so you can smooth them out,
and so you can make this a game that eats peoples lives, because this has so so so much potential to be a life eating game.

If you have not looked at this these are the rest of my suggestions.
Indiedb.com

Quite thorough rebuttal, thank you for that!

There is a fine line between frustration & challenge... removing things that are frustrating for some players will remove the challenge for many others. It is a tough balance, so I plan on making small, incremental changes over time to see how things play out.

I am nothing if not thorough.

I am very aware of that.
But, the important difference between frustration and challenge, a challenge is something a player
will want to keep coming back and trying to overcome. Frustration will just cause your players to quit.
And there are a lot of little frustrations I have noticed that all added up to me posting this and my other post
Indiedb.com
(Also don't know if you have looked at these ones, but you should give my other post a look if you have not... and yes, yes I am pimping my other post. )

Also, there is another factor to take into account, and that is satisfaction, which is in many respects more important then challenge.
And finding really high rarity items is satisfying, then not being able to use them is frustrating.
(Not trying to keep coming back to that it is just the easiest example I have on hand)

The trick is to smooth over those spikes of frustrations into a nice wave of challenge and satisfaction. With each valley of satisfaction giving
the player the chance to prepare for the next wave. A good example of this is that chart I have on 1.

If you would like, I am happy to lend you my help.

Ahh yes, I did respond now to that other post. Lots of stuff on my plate, so I do get to reading all this stuff, I just don't always have time to respond in full.

I'd rather it be easier to find the parts to complete an item than to have parts fit a wider range of items. I'm worried rare parts would be overpowering and unbalanced if not only they had great stats, but also could fit a wide range of leveled items. Stores are suppose to stock parts similar to the ones you have to help complete items -- maybe I can expand on this.

Hey no worries,
That is why kept pimping it

Well the game is still in alpha so I would not worry too much about unbalancing things, because you can always alter things to balance it again.
This is one of the very nice things about being in alpha.

Also I have only found like 1 or 2 highly rare pasts that are worth keeping over to a higher level, so I would not worry too much about it.
The thing is if you make a consented effort to keep parts fitting into the chart, and keep high part rarity parts rare I think the balance should be kept nicely,
As well as making sure people get value out of those high rarity parts.
You can look at Borderlands for a good example, I have had many items in that game are several level lower then many of my items, but because they are a higher rarity they keep their utility for longer.

Further I am not sure it will unbalance the game, because right now I am starting to see parts that have a much lower rarity and are about 4 levels higher that are about equivalent to or better then the lower level part I was talking about. A level 8 part with a rarity of 84% is about equal to a level 13 part with a rarity of around 20% which is about spot on for that chart I have.

And always remember you can fix and change things more or less at will, because you are still in alpha.
Take advantage of being in alpha and experiment.

But one thing I would very very make sure you do is let your players know before you make large changes,
which given the responsiveness I've seen form you I don't think I really needed to tell you.

I really have to agree that the chance of having your stuff get clobbered upon death is way to infuriating. Death in this game is already infuriating because usually you die in the most cheap way ever (Pretty every one of my deaths involved like 20 airplanes circling around my head obliterating me while I cant aim high enough to get a good shot while they move faster than the speed of light itself). The best example I can think of where death wasn't all that expensive was system shock 2. Every time you die you would just respawn in a nearby reconstruction chamber at a nominal fare of just 5 nanites ( Which is like a dollar, death costs next to nothing) but the game is still bloody terrifying and even then that alone is enough to motivate you NOT to die.

On the whole, I find some people underestimate how much death, just as virtue of being death, is quite frustrating. The mix of embarassment, agitation, and inconvenience of it is enough to make plenty of people avoid it. In this game, it is topped off by the potential to lose missions, for example, which is quite a reason to not die.

Losing parts? Yeah, for me and no doubt alot of people, it is rage quit fuel. Literally, most times I have ended the game not on it having run its playthrough, but because I just didn't want to continue getting annoyed by losing valuable parts who can only randomly be replaced in terms of specific value to me. For example, I was using a launcher with a very lucky part I found, one with alot of homing and explosion. The combo was a sorely needed buffer against how dangerous the enemy bots' own weapons seem to make them. Sure enough, I die at some point, and the exact piece lost... is the one that gave homing. That was not a common pick of the crowd. I have no clue when I can get that back. So long as there is not some sense of "well, I can at least recoup from that and get something similar back", then part lose is more than just a consequence: it is a very severe hindrance.

Like Pesto said, and trust me, Minecraft's drop on death is very much an extremely effective buffer against death. You still are going to try your darnedest not to die because of all the variables involved in getting those parts back. But at least in the back of your head you know you can replace them, either by picking them up or making a new item. In this game, however, that part may not be replaceable until well after the dust has cleared from its loss. Just some food for thought.

Also... yeah, I can agree with the combination of weight and mob drops creating a sort of odd issue. Weight feels... off. Like, part of it really is not having much of a comfortable "feel" for how much agility is appropriate for what level. Not going to lie, this was one of the few "failure creates growth" skills in 3079 that maid alot of sense and was quite nice to have, as eventually it would even itself out. Now, like Pesto said, it is unclear really when one should move from one level to the next, how many quests are needed to be there on par with the challenge, and how much weight to be able to carry. It gets somewhat topped off with how suddenly the levels can change, with what feels like only a few steps getting you a good 2 levels higher in mobs and gear. Something between either what mobs drop (money so that you are not weighed down by your future currency) or evening the weight transition would help here.

Also, that tower triumph you talked about, does it require a certain level to find these leader bots? Because I have raided them a couple of times, and found no such enemy at the top. Was definitely wondering what these were about because of that...

Anonister wrote: snip

Also, that tower triumph you talked about, does it require a certain level to find these leader bots? Because I have raided them a couple of times, and found no such enemy at the top. Was definitely wondering what these were about because of that...

You need to have defeated at least one red X boss to unlock tower bosses, however other players have also reported not having the tower bosses spawn. It may be related to the size of the "penthouse" room and the height of the tower boss, making the boss spawn inside the ceiling or in some other odd place.

YetiChow wrote:

Anonister wrote: snip

Also, that tower triumph you talked about, does it require a certain level to find these leader bots? Because I have raided them a couple of times, and found no such enemy at the top. Was definitely wondering what these were about because of that...

You need to have defeated at least one red X boss to unlock tower bosses, however other players have also reported not having the tower bosses spawn. It may be related to the size of the "penthouse" room and the height of the tower boss, making the boss spawn inside the ceiling or in some other odd place.

Another issue is that meteor showers may kill the tower boss before a player can get to the top. I've failed at least two towers because of that.

Hrm... that is a bug if Tower leaders are not always spawning at the top. You shouldn't have to defeat at least one red X boss for them to spawn... also, the leaders should be protected inside the Tower from meteors (but I suppose it is possible for a meteor to hit a nearby window, if the leader is right next to it?)... did you see the leaders die from a meteor hit, or did you assume that is what killed them?

Phr00t wrote: Hrm... that is a bug if Tower leaders are not always spawning at the top. You shouldn't have to defeat at least one red X boss for them to spawn... also, the leaders should be protected inside the Tower from meteors (but I suppose it is possible for a meteor to hit a nearby window, if the leader is right next to it?)... did you see the leaders die from a meteor hit, or did you assume that is what killed them?

It's an assumption. I've had numerous instances where I was killed by meteorites when standing next to windows. Same with friendly and hostile mobs.Didn't matter if the window was on the ground floor or was on the fourth floor, being close to a window is risking death.

It'd be easy enough to see if it actually happens, though.

The weight issue becomes a problem when killing high level enemies is more satisfying than completing normal level quests. If I kill an enemy, that area is safer until I leave and I get an instant reward (an item). This item is tangible, I can see it and use it.

If I complete a quest, that quest gets replaced by equally rewarding and randomly challenging quests. As far as I know there is no reward for completing all quests on a given questbox. The reward for the quest is skill points, which are intangible. I can see the stats on my screen but won't notice them the way I will an item.

Three things need to happen: Quest lines of multiple quests of increasing rewards and difficulty, quests that end at quest boxes, and a better explained skill screen (how much damage does a point of defense reduce on average? Does stamina = hp or is there a formula? How much Computer skill do I need to not break level 5 CPUs? What's the @#$$@% point of increasing energy if my weapons take a % of energy anyway???)