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Indivisible: Lab Zero's Action-RPG! (General Discussion)

Souls games are difficult and still enjoy massive popularity. If the problem is the level of difficulty, the solution is not to eliminate any challenge but to fine tune it.

I've said this before, but even though I love excitement driven by challenge and punishment, in my ideal world, there would be a difficulty mode for everyone. An ultra easy mode so that even grandpa and 3 year old can play, and a hard mode for people who have honed their reflexes, execution, and adaptability to almost perfect consistency. You would also be able to change the difficulty at any time if you realized you picked something too hard.

Obviously extra difficulty modes and all that is a lot of work if they are meaningfully implemented though, so it's just an ideal.

There's actually a discussion of this a few hundred pages ago between me and Mike and others. IIRC he says he prefers one difficulty that anyone can play, with harder stuff being optional/self imposed challenge. Me, I prefer the tension to be in main, essential part of the game, so extra challenges don't really do it for me most of the time (with some exceptions, ie I've taken to doing no death runs in Souls game recently and I've been scoring in shmups for a while).

Souls games aren't really hard insomuch as they're different.

This I disagree with though.

I've beaten a lot of difficulty single player games, and on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being Kirby's Adventure and 10 being a 2-loop clear of Dodonpachi DOJ, I would put Dark Souls as solid 6 or a 7. Then again, given the nature of the games grinding, it is possible to severely reduce this number depending on how much extra time you put into grinding, and whether you stumble upon some of the more abusable builds. But if we analyze it by the amount of time given to react to enemy attacks, how unpredictable they are, how difficult they are to read, etc. then I feel Souls easily stands amongst the older generation of games like Contra, Ghouls and Ghosts, Ninja Gaiden, etc. in terms of challenge.
 
We'll make sure Ajna starts with enough canned rations to survive for the length of the game, don't worry.

that was meant to be Incarnations written like, I dunno, a south Texan speaker, but now all I wanna hear is Ajna eat CalorieMate and go "That's DAMN good"
 
I mean, McPeanuts is pretty cool
wow... Mcpeanuts isn't THAT old...

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You have ever right to kill me McPeanuts, it would be an honor to have my life ended by you, One of The Best Peacock Players in The World.
 
kinda late for this, but i'll say it anyway
If people wanted to know the story, they should earn it by playing the game
 
kinda late for this, but i'll say it anyway
If people wanted to know the story, they should earn it by playing the game
Well, you say this as a player.

But ask yourself this: if you were a designer and could think of a way to let people experience the world and story (and subsequently purchase it when they might not) without impacting the gameplay you have planned are you saying you wouldn't do it?

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Something in the middle if fair for all, not sacrificing the experience, tought.
Even doing that there are going to be people on both sides of the spectrum that it won't be fair for: either they'll be too good and be bored or too bad and be frustrated. (This isn't an absolute though: there are those that relish a great challenge or don't care how easy things are).

This is why I try and think of things as a player *and* as a designer. I know the types of games I like but I also acknowledge all people aren't me. Just look at Bayonetta: that game is tough as hell and it's a lot of fun! But it still has a very easy mode you can literally play with one hand. Did that impact the core gameplay? Sure didn't


But really what it comes down to is what Lab Zero plans. And i trust them to give you a core experience that'll be fun. All I'm really saying is: be open to anything. I just like discussing different ways to get more people to buy a thing when they necessarily wouldn't.

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For my money it's sort of like persona arena's auto-battle mode. I prefer mashing buttons to watching the computer do it for me, but if someone else wants to watch it like a cut-scene then why should I care?
 
Btw, interesting news from tonight's stream ( hey @Ninja ). Looks like Mike's going to try and keep the Button-Hold method for Axe-Climb. Seems like multiple people trying out the alternate method didn't like the feel of it, including Mike. So, he spent the stream working on some tweaks, including adding new audio and visual cues to help make the timing more obvious. Looks like the right move so far!
 
Btw, interesting news from tonight's stream ( hey @Ninja ). Looks like Mike's going to try and keep the Button-Hold method for Axe-Climb. Seems like multiple people trying out the alternate method didn't like the feel of it, including Mike. So, he spent the stream working on some tweaks, including adding new audio and visual cues to help make the timing more obvious. Looks like the right move so far!

What was the alternate method??

Also, that scrape sound, eh.... It's just the same sound as Ultimate Showstopper. The spark, however, is to die for.

P.S THANK YOU BASED MIKE for linking this http://zachd.com/mvc2/resources/mvc2/ because I'm a massive audiophile.
 
What was the alternate method??
A separate "action" button for wall hanging. I don't know if the action button was pressed or held, nor do I know if they're keeping the "action button" idea for other weapons or not. At any rate, I think he said it "was tested and unanimously felt worse."
 
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My 2 cents on why keeping it on the attack button with hold makes sense:

I mean I think other weapons will have alt-actions using a different button - for instance, it wouldn't make sense to really use the pole-vault with the spear by using a crouch attack or something.

That said, for something like the axe's "hit the wall", using the attack button w/ hold makes sense. It's the same button function (swing) so why bring it across two buttons? For instance, the arrow's puzzle solving ability (shoot from distance) wouldn't make sense to have a lethal for fighting and non-lethal for puzzles options on buttons.

Plus, the chunky feeling with pressing and holding the axe to wall hang is divine. It's that great delay, sound and visual combo that FEELS good. I wouldn't trade what's already in the game for the world.

edit: it is very late and I have no idea if what I posted actually makes sense to anyone but me
 
Is it even necessary to distinguish between tapping and holding the button here? What if it's just automatic any time the player swings the axe at a wall? I'm not sure it's that important to have Ajna be able to swing at a wall and not cling.
 
Is it even necessary to distinguish between tapping and holding the button here?
Maybe they might add some toggle options to it, but personally I think it's good to have that level of control over it. You never know when it might work in your favor.

Say, imagine a scenario where you're on a platform above some enemies that are positioned against a wall, and you want to jump down and get the initiative on them with a jump-axe. It'd suck if your attack was spaced just a little too close to that wall, and it caused you to auto-snap into a wall cling just as you were about to hit the enemy, allowing them to whack you instead.

There are also some points in the Prototype where it's useful to hit something with a jump-axe, but the axe usually needs to swing through part of a wall (where it clings if held) to work. A couple of the Vine obstacles are faster to clear that way.
 
Is it even necessary to distinguish between tapping and holding the button here? What if it's just automatic any time the player swings the axe at a wall? I'm not sure it's that important to have Ajna be able to swing at a wall and not cling.
Suggested by multiple people, tried, and I disagree. Aiming for an enemy and having it cling first WILL be annoying in some situations that are unavoidable.

Mostly the issue with axe hang in the prototype was that it wasn't presented in the game at all, either by a teaching-pit or by a tutorial/introduction. That's a shortcoming we can remedy.
 
Extra Credits made an episode on Souls actually already having easy mode. You just use spells or bow and that really simplifies things for you. By adding exploitables skills/items/tactics devs can let people decide for themselves how challenging the game should be. As a slacker kind of player I appreciate that.

Honestly, I never liked this method that much in any game when it's done. Like, if the item to do so was something that was locked away and required effort to get like the Temmie Armor in Undertale, that's at least a little more okay since it means you have to go out of your way for something exploitable. But when that exploitable thing is just given to you for free, it throws off the balance of a normal playthrough enough that it becomes disappointing for higher level play, which extra hurts if the said exploit isn't fun (which most of the time, it isn't). It becomes "Why not use X exploit?", and while you can always purposely limit the speedrun/playthrough to cater to such specifics, stipulations like that have always been lame as a concept in general (see complaints about Competitive Smash), and the feeling of having your other tools be almost if not exactly as strong has always been way more satisfying as a gameplay experience.

Or at least, there is a difference when stipulations for challenge feel forced from players rather than something designed/allowed from developers. A low level run in any Final Fantasy, while fun, is usually just tiring as a concept for how many hoops you have to go through to make it work. In contrast, the KH series with the EXP zero ability feels welcome, especially when they give nice bonuses that fit to make it a good experience (KH2 EXP zero/Critical Mode is great, BBS and KH1.5 EXP zero is awkward since it gives you too many bonuses).

To sum up, if a dev puts in an exploitable item that I have to get, I feel compelled as a player to think "I guess I'm supposed to use this?", and it feels lame when I have to go out of my way to avoid it. In contrast, it feels better if the exploit must be earned/locked away, so I think instead, "Oh, maybe I'm not supposed to really use this?" if I have to go out of my way for the exploit, and doesn't hurt any normal/high level play.

Shovel Knight's phase locket that someone brought up is the exact kind of thing that I don't/didn't like to see. For a general playthrough, most of the relics are too specifically used and in general balanced very weak and way too specifically, which made 5/8 of them feel nigh useless to experiment with and as a result they felt very lame. Then you get Phase Locket, which is stupidly good that you can use it almost all the time for pretty low cost, or the Propellar Dagger and Dust Knuckles which round out the rest of the gameplay when there are no obstacles or only dust blocks in the way. Be it a speedrun or a casual playthrough, I find myself just always going to those for 90% of the game and by the end they felt like the only things worth using.

Plague Knight's balancing is far more ideal. Not only does it basically have the phase locket but slightly balanced to not be quite as good, but it reverses the tides where instead 6/8 arcanas felt strong and super useful at multiple times across almost every level. It was way more fun to go through any given Plague knight level and mess around with the powers because they all felt good and useful, instead of just 1 or 3 of them. When I played throgh Plague Knight casually not too long ago, I wanted to go back through the levels and figure out certain sections with different items because it all felt good, which is way more than could be said for my normal Shovel knight. As a result, watching any Speedrun of Plague Knight has usually been way more interesting than any given Shovel Knight run, and that's not including the fact that Plague Knight just has more interesting mobility; this is purely from the different item usage and the creative things that come up.

A different example I guess would be Kingdom Hearts BBS versus DDD. Keep in mind, both of these games put in ridiculously strong options for the player, but DDD goes overboard when it took an extremely strong spell with Mine, made it STRONGER while also taking away a lot of other super strong commands so that everything else felt weaker, making it feel like a staple even for a casual playthrough when the endgame toughness gets going. DDD is still fun since Balloon doesn't win you every fight, but the balance does not feel right at all in comparison, so it's a game a lot of KH players couldn't get into (beyond other reasons) and was a lot less fun to go back into versus BBS which was much more well rounded despite Shotlocks being stupidly good there.

tl;dr - If they were going to put in accomdations for a "super easy" playthrough, I'd rather something as obvious as an Automatic mode or Mario-esque level skips, rather than something thrown in that ruins the balance for other levels of play. Or, if they did go that route of adding in some exploitable item, it was something that in someway somehow felt separated from normal play so that it really gave the distinction of not being "normal".


VVVVV Eh, I don't like that either but that's also way more personal and my justification is a pretty weirdly specific, but that would be better than just putting it in normal stuff
 
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Hm. Here's a fun hypothisys: Using the "broken item" thing, we can combine it with the "easy mode" switch. Result? Items that make the game "broken" to only show up in Easy Mode playthrough while removing any chances of earning Achieves/Trophies and unable to get a NG+ (But hint at the end of an easy run to try normal) for that save file. Kind of a win all around. Those who play the game on Normal (or higher if there's an option for it) will never see these overstated goodies, while keeping the core battle system mostly unchanged.
 
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If the point of an Easy Mode is to allow less skilled (or just lazier) gamers to finish the game, it has to be available from the start, not as some unlockable gimmick that makes it easier.

As gamers, sometimes it's easy to forget how few people actually finish videogames. Like, just take Transistor, for example, a popular indie game that was pretty much on easy mode to begin with. Me and 11.11% of players got the platinum, sure... but only 21.69% of players got the trophy for beating the game once. Basically, 4 out of 5 people who played that game, never beat it. AND! it actually had several very easy to acquire combinations that turned the game into a complete cakewalk (one hit kill on the last boss, anyone?). That did not make more people finish it, it just made the people dedicated enough to already finish it, find even more laughably easy ways to finish it.

Presenting players with a Story-Focused Mode from the start is the only way to get players to use it, imo.
 
I don't think people should have to earn anything, yeah.

I don't have any disdain for people who prefer easier gameplay, either. But I do wish people would be open to at least trying modes which they have the aptitude for, and being open and inquisitive to new experiences and ideas in general.
 
If the point of an Easy Mode is to allow less skilled (or just lazier) gamers to finish the game, it has to be available from the start, not as some unlockable gimmick that makes it easier.

That's all fine; nothing about what I was saying was about whole modes. This is about in-playthrough items or techniques/mechanics. Having all mode options, Easy to whatever hardest mode, imo should always be playable from the start. Something I never agreed with from Platinum Games.

I don't think people should have to earn anything, yeah.

Not sure if serious? Lots of things in games have to be earned. That's part of balance.
 
Hm. Here's a fun hypothisys: Using the "broken item" thing, we can combine it with the "easy mode" switch. Result? Items that make the game "broken" to only show up in Easy Mode playthrough while removing any chances of earning Achieves/Trophies and unable to get a NG+ (But hint at the end of an easy run to try normal) for that save file.
I think that's the Golden Tanooki suit in one of the newer Marios? Seems pretty reasonable. Have the item only show up after a fairly long delay on the same screen, and a big, clear warning upon activation, and you're golden. Of course, that means implementing a timer, and you have to watch out for people staying on the same screen who think there's a secret...

but only 21.69% of players got the trophy for beating the game once.

Don't those numbers also include people who bought the game but haven't started it? I know I have a tendency to launch a game once to make sure it works, and then go back to whatever I was playing before I bought the new game. And then I forget it's in my library at all...

Still, from a sales perspective, buying and not playing the game's the exact opposite of the problem at hand: Getting people who aren't into the gameplay to buy the game anyway.
 
Not sure if serious? Lots of things in games have to be earned. That's part of balance.

Pretty sure they're going off Kai's point about an easy/story mode not being something that should have to be unlocked or found in game first.
 
they could always pull a Platinum and put in a easy story-only mode but make it so the game lets you KNOW you aren't getting the full experience. I don't wanna use the term "shaming the player" but...
for instance:

the-wonderful-101-review-difficulty.png


Normal is regarded as literally normal. It's the PROPER and SET way to play and the game makes sure you know that. Versus...

170


Easy, where it's like, you still get some challenge but it's for a more casual playthrough if you want. And finally...

projectk2013081214014901_thumb.jpg


very easy, you lazy bones, for if you want story and NOTHING BUT. And if you're okay with that, then it's there for you - but the game should let you know it's not the exact experience designed for the general audience.
 
re: Platinum's difficulty settings, people naturally reject options that they feel condescend to them. Something like the Witcher's (and many other games) options would actually get people to pick what's right for them.
MguasNV.jpg
 
Candy crush 10
The un-sweet tooth
 
Dude, when can I buy that?

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His current plan is to keep it free, but several people (myself included) have tried to convince him to sell it on steam or something eventually.

The unfinished version is available for free on his website here.
 
I think that's the Golden Tanooki suit in one of the newer Marios? Seems pretty reasonable. Have the item only show up after a fairly long delay on the same screen, and a big, clear warning upon activation, and you're golden. Of course, that means implementing a timer, and you have to watch out for people staying on the same screen who think there's a secret...
Nah. When you goto make a save file, you pick your difficulty. If set to easy, many of the items' stats are set to stupid settings where it's in favor of the player, where as you set to normal, it'll make all the stats akin to what we are "used too".

I was originally thinking like, say the axe, would have a special version pick up that has wonky stats that makes it easier to slay foes. Doing the other idea I just typed sounds far easier to do, since it's just a code sting that points to new variables instead of hiding a collectable under a difficulty (though might need to do that for "easy" runs anyways XD Make it discoverable under normal settings XD)
 
If set to easy, many of the items' stats are set to stupid settings where it's in favor of the player, where as you set to normal, it'll make all the stats akin to what we are "used too".
I just figured a palette swap with endless "double" jumps, 9999 hp, and deals 9999 damage would do the trick.
 
@fenster Those are solid points. Slightly-unbalanced-on-purpose items are tend to cater towards competent but lazy players while our goal was to help incompetent ones. Although with sheer number of incarnations in Indiv I'm pretty sure some of them will end up more versatile then others anyways.
As for shovel knight, I agree that plague run was more interesting but you could treat him as advanced mod in and of itself, hence less lazy stuff.
 
RE: Players getting stuck figuring out the mechanics- I recently started playing Alice: Madness Returns, and it has something I like: There's a "shrink mode" for solving puzzles you can activate to shrink the character, as well as applying a visual filter and displaying hints for hidden secrets as chalk outlines on environment objects. Kind of like "Detective Mode" from the Batman: Arkham games, only balanced (you can't jump or attack while shrunk). Perhaps a mechanic like that could be useful? It would need balance to avoid the "Permanent Detective Mode" problem- say, a limited duration or only usable with certain weapons equipped? Come to think of it, since axe-climbing led to much of this discussion, and climbing has been re-incorporated into the attack button again, perhaps this can get the "action button with axe" slot?