Stm1234

Newbie
Jun 27, 2018
20
20
Is there any canon, story-relevant reason why Simon is supposed to die so much in the new update, or did SL simply fuck up game balance?
 

Fulminato

Well-Known Member
Oct 17, 2017
1,204
849
His meaning of "fun" is pure maths, digging and cutting on the guts of the game.He created a calculator that is a fucking "insanity".
well i enjoy other thigs too, but yes, applied math is in my heart.

Well perhaps I am biased in the other way, as I greatly enjoyed the update deaths and all, but like I said I accept that you did not enjoy it personally.
it's not a question of enjoy or not the update. if a thing is conceptual flawed, is conceptual flawed, even if it's the best thing you have played ever. i love arcanum, but it's possessed one of the wrost gameplay in isometric rpg ever existed.

it's possibile keep the good in the section and remove or smooth the problems without losing or twisting the essence of the section.

You made points about having died more times then any other time in chapter 5, but let me ask you a question have you EVER died in in chapter 5 (save for the original skittering spiders)? Because I don't I've died in chapter five until now. While combat was never 'boring' as SL changed up enemies and forced certain party formations, but it's never been hard. Until now.
no, i said "since the first chapter five release". not only the chapter 5 content, i replay the game at least two or three time each year (mostly for calculator/min-max testing) i inclueded all the game over i see the time i have played the game since then.

a game need consistancy expecialy in the gameplay, and a so dramatic shift in the gameplay loop so late in the developement is usualy very bad for the game. for a numbers of reason, but mostly you alineate your playerbase with a gameplay strongly different from the rest of the game and the people should enjoy the new gameplay don't want play through the rest of the game to reach "the meat". this is before any analysis you can make for the gameplay loop.

perhaps twenty years ago a gameplay like this was accetable (i think we are more toward thirty, but it will be a digress). but since them the gameplay grow, evolved, and this type of gameplay isn't accetable anymore. not for any abstract evaluation about 'before' vs 'now', but because if thing change there is a reason. mostly come to technological advancemente allowing thing not even thinkable in the past.

We're different people, and the challenges you hated I loved. Deaths de-motivated you. But Deaths motivated me. I enjoy the challenge, and the ability to overcome them. Yes, some fights were too based on RNG and SL has already begun to nerf them, which I agreed to and was even one of the people first asking for on Patreon.
i can say some fights are all about rng and nothing about you, but it's another digress. again, the problem isn't the challenge, isn't in the danger, it's the way they are 'baked' in this update. if you had the ability to flee every fight (and not an arbitrary 1/3 of them without logic or consistency) half the problem will evaporate. you see the snake in the group? leave, equip the feather and try again, you see three stealing mana demons? you leave and avoid the groups at any cost. where the substancial difference form the situation of the *.0?

the problem isn't the danger to lose at any fight, it's the fact you lose alwasy the first fight, and many more until you guess the strategy. where lose mean die , die mean reach the "game over" screen, mean you need to select the save and load again, this is a massive distruption of the flow of the game, and this is the problem, not the danger or the challeng per se, but their effect in the gameplay flow.

However my main point is not to disagree with your experiences or tell you that YOU are wrong, I'm just trying to say that you are mistakenly projecting your feelings of dislike onto others and acting as if they are a near absolute truth.
the only one projecting the feeling in the discussion is you, you enjoy the update, this mean the update is good and you cannot stand even the slightest critic about the update.

The Demon's in the maze are a great example you gave! I know the EXACT trio you talk about. I survived that fight against them only with potions and even still just barely managed to live with little health and no mana, trapped with Demons on all sides. And trying to explore that plain while avoiding demons was FUN for me. It was intense and heart pounding, especially knowing that one mistep would mean I'd lose real progress with no easy saving.
the strategy for the demon maze is search the exit, avoid any fight, and after you can reliability find the exit you can start to clean the maze from the exit to the entrance.

but the maze isn't build for this, the long walkway wide only one single title mean you should fight the demon and find the exit after clean at least half of them. it's a clear design choice, if avoid the enemy group was intended you will have more path from point A to point B (think about the manor you rescue megail in chapter one, for example) large road between 'island' (tak'kan tower foundation for example) and this like this.

die because a enemy group had turn randomly toward you and you don't have any room to avoid this, and lose every progress you are done in the maze is simply wrong at conceptual level.
 
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falafelswoop

Active Member
Oct 4, 2019
751
1,127
the only one projecting the feeling in the discussion is you, you enjoy the update, this mean the update is good and you cannot stand even the slightest critic about the update.
I can't believe Waxer's feelings about the update are wholly positive. For one thing, the update doesn't have any NTR in it.

(...it doesn't, right?)
 

WazaQQXOXO

Member
Jul 10, 2021
200
1,072
if for "not nice" you mean a brutal, merciless and unyielding section...
From what I’ve read, it seems this new section is more a “die and retry” section than a gruesome dungeon.
Don’t get me wrong, I am fine with being punished for making an obvious mistake, but being run in the dirt right after the enemy first turn because RNG wasn’t on my side; that’s a no-no. Same if the developer expects only one course of action; I dunno what to expect, I make an uninformed choice, I wipe, I’m gonna be pissed.

So far, my main reaction to this new update can be resumed by: F5B93F69-63BC-4114-A776-20AD8B9A20DC.jpeg
 

Warwhale

Newbie
Dec 27, 2017
77
84
FFS, is Fulminato who we are talking about. He is not some mediocre player, or some noob. His meaning of "fun" is pure maths, digging and cutting on the guts of the game.He created a calculator that is a fucking "insanity".If he is telling that is not good and he is frustrated, there are problems, big big problems.

For myself I am a hardcore player, but this is ridiculous mechanically speaking.And the whole error that SL made was that he made this "update"seeing from her point of view, not from the point of view of someone who doesn't know what to do.She made a novice mistake as a developer, you cannot escape without dying, you dont have "hints"It is frustrating in a bad way.Sometimes you don't even have the time to study the enemy because you die in the first turn, it is not enjoyable as a hardcore player.
I made the mistake of doubting him about this update and now am forced to agree with his assessment.
 

Waxer

Active Member
Sep 11, 2017
713
825
well i enjoy other thigs too, but yes, applied math is in my heart.



it's not a question of enjoy or not the update. if a thing is conceptual flawed, is conceptual flawed, even if it's the best thing you have played ever. i love arcanum, but it's possessed one of the wrost gameplay in isometric rpg ever existed.

it's possibile keep the good in the section and remove or smooth the problems without losing or twisting the essence of the section.



no, i said "since the first chapter five release". not only the chapter 5 content, i replay the game at least two or three time each year (mostly for calculator/min-max testing) i inclueded all the game over i see the time i have played the game since then.

a game need consistancy expecialy in the gameplay, and a so dramatic shift in the gameplay loop so late in the developement is usualy very bad for the game. for a numbers of reason, but mostly you alineate your playerbase with a gameplay strongly different from the rest of the game and the people should enjoy the new gameplay don't want play through the rest of the game to reach "the meat". this is before any analysis you can make for the gameplay loop.

perhaps twenty years ago a gameplay like this was accetable (i think we are more toward thirty, but it will be a digress). but since them the gameplay grow, evolved, and this type of gameplay isn't accetable anymore. not for any abstract evaluation about 'before' vs 'now', but because if thing change there is a reason. mostly come to technological advancemente allowing thing not even thinkable in the past.



i can say some fights are all about rng and nothing about you, but it's another digress. again, the problem isn't the challenge, isn't in the danger, it's the way they are 'baked' in this update. if you had the ability to flee every fight (and not an arbitrary 1/3 of them without logic or consistency) half the problem will evaporate. you see the snake in the group? leave, equip the feather and try again, you see three stealing mana demons? you leave and avoid the groups at any cost. where the substancial difference form the situation of the *.0?

the problem isn't the danger to lose at any fight, it's the fact you lose alwasy the first fight, and many more until you guess the strategy. where lose mean die , die mean reach the "game over" screen, mean you need to select the save and load again, this is a massive distruption of the flow of the game, and this is the problem, not the danger or the challeng per se, but their effect in the gameplay flow.


the only one projecting the feeling in the discussion is you, you enjoy the update, this mean the update is good and you cannot stand even the slightest critic about the update.



the strategy for the demon maze is search the exit, avoid any fight, and after you can reliability find the exit you can start to clean the maze from the exit to the entrance.

but the maze isn't build for this, the long walkway wide only one single title mean you should fight the demon and find the exit after clean at least half of them. it's a clear design choice, if avoid the enemy group was intended you will have more path from point A to point B (think about the manor you rescue megail in chapter one, for example) large road between 'island' (tak'kan tower foundation for example) and this like this.

die because a enemy group had turn randomly toward you and you don't have any room to avoid this, and lose every progress you are done in the maze is simply wrong at conceptual level.
I'm sorry if I've given the impression that "Can not stand even the slightest criticism about the game" as that was not what I meant to do. I felt like I've stated repeatedly that I do not want to discount your opinion of the update and I agreed with you on several instances citing places where RNG was balanced unfairly, and was one of the first to ask SL to add escape to most if not all combat encounters. It's not as if I've posted any comments on SL's patreon feed saying "BOO NO NERFS".

My main disagreement has been your generalized statements of "90% of players will find it unplayable" as that is a wildy unfair description.

I don't want to discredit your own thoughts of the update and you are free to find flaw in it, but saying no one else will find fun in it, is not a fair assessment. Unfun for you, might be fun for me.

I can't believe Waxer's feelings about the update are wholly positive. For one thing, the update doesn't have any NTR in it.

(...it doesn't, right?)
Who dares know my secret fetish!
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BBM62

Newbie
Aug 18, 2017
27
14
I am seconding the opinion, that Sierra made a mistake of gauging the experience of the update from the devs standpoint, and not considering how the update is going to be played by a player. She designed it, she knows the intended sequence of where to go, what to fight, what to avoid and what to equip to pass any given fight.
From players standpoint you lack any of that information. At the start you are stripped of all levels, items, skills and party members. Your resources are very limited. You have points on the map that automatically heal you to full. Also those points are the only points where you can save your progress. So you walked into a combat encounter you can't handle? Well, too fucking bad, say hello to the Game Over screen.
A lot of encounters require stacking of a specific stat to not die. Like speed, to outspeed an enemy that will oneshot you, or stacking def/mdef to survive. Some encounters require a physical build, some require magical build instead. You do not know what enemies await you in any particular encounter until you fight them and likely die, because you were not prepared for that particular combination of enemies.
All in all, you're like a blind kitten stumbling around a labyrinth where walls are made of serrated saws.
 
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Grim8P

New Member
Jul 29, 2017
4
6
For what it is worth I've seen a bunch of people post on Patreon that they completed all of the content in this section, myself included. I even did it without spending any Sx because apparently I hate myself.

Lots of people gave SL a lot of feedback on this update that will certainly make the update significantly better. While I personally really enjoyed it, I think it is most likely that a lot more people will dislike it than not. Thankfully one of the pieces of feedback SL has stated that she is going to pursue involves an easy path.

I don't think it is fair to say that this update would make a significant number of people quit though. This is like 100+ hours into an otherwise amazing RPG and even if there wasn't an easy route one of us would write a walkthrough eventually that others can reference. I don't think most (hopefully all) people who are following a specific walkthrough will have any trouble at all.
 
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Zaiaku

Active Member
Jul 1, 2017
669
467
download the game, then seach for Rpgmaker Decrypter on this site. decrypt the game, then find the pictures subfolder in the game folder and badda bing badda boom.
 

fakitap

Member
Aug 1, 2017
125
422
I'll second that the challenge itself is definitely not the problem this update. It's the combination of the challenge of the fights themselves, the lack of information leading to constant trial and error restarts to gather tiny bits of information each time and the rng element forcing you to still reset when you already know what to do and what order to do it in.
The first quality makes it a really fun challenge, the second part turns it into a brutal but (in my masochistic opinion) still enjoyable experience but the rng element on top of all that is what turns the section into a genuinely bad experience and terrible design.
I like that Sierra seems to understand this and will change things but I especially like the fact that she isn't planing on just forcing everyone down an easy path. Instead it sounds like the ones that simply don't care get the easy path but people who actually liked the more challenging optional content of the game and wanted something more along those lines will get a fun challenge instead of whatever mess the current version is.
There is no feeling of accomplishment in "rolling a d20 until you roll a 20 4 times in a row, but each time you roll something other than a 20 you have to throw the dice out the window, blindfold yourself and find the dice before you can try again". Once you're done you don't feel like you improved in any way. The improvement happened once you gathered all the information you needed and had a plan how to get through each fight. All the resets due to 3-4 layers of rng halting your progress afterwards accomplish nothing but wasting your time.

And I genuinely doubt that Fulminato literally meant "90% of players will stop playing the game/never touch it because of this" and the number was just an exaggeration for effect. His sentiment is right though. A single terribly designed section that disappoints/frustrates users that have been waiting for an update for months can easily lead to discussion about the game being mostly negative all of a sudden. Negative discussion about a product then leads to potential new players losing interest and looking elsewhere. It's nothing massive like 90%, but seeing how negative the exchanges on patreon have been recently it's hard to argue that deciding to keep the game in this state wouldn't have hurt it a lot.
 

vusun123

Newbie
Sep 13, 2017
45
45
I am seconding the opinion, that Sierra made a mistake of gauging the experience of the update from the devs standpoint, and not considering how the update is going to be played by a player. She designed it, she knows the intended sequence of where to go, what to fight, what to avoid and what to equip to pass any given fight.
From players standpoint you lack any of that information. At the start you are stripped of all levels, items, skills and party members. Your resources are very limited. You have points on the map that automatically heal you to full. Also those points are the only points where you can save your progress. So you walked into a combat encounter you can't handle? Well, too fucking bad, say hello to the Game Over screen.
A lot of encounters require stacking of a specific stat to not die. Like speed, to outspeed an enemy that will oneshot you, or stacking def/mdef to survive. Some encounters require a physical build, some require magical build instead. You do not know what enemies await you in any particular encounter until you fight them and likely die, because you were not prepared for that particular combination of enemies.
All in all, you're like a blind kitten stumbling around a labyrinth where walls are made of serrated saws.
I haven't touched 0.58 yet but sounds like Dark Souls just got RPG Maker'ed (not counting Black Souls). My guess is that the provisional update will be about mob sprites so you know what you are likely to encounter based on previous retries, so it will be less tedious.
 

Medak

Member
Oct 11, 2019
187
502
I played it a while ago, like when there were no pictures at all and finished all the content then, decided to wait for the game to finish before picking it up again.
So my question is, are there any plans to when it will end or is the story coming to an ending or is it still far from it?
 

AgumenticR

Member
Sep 6, 2018
165
290
I played it a while ago, like when there were no pictures at all and finished all the content then, decided to wait for the game to finish before picking it up again.
So my question is, are there any plans to when it will end or is the story coming to an ending or is it still far from it?
The game is in its last stretch, but it'll still take a while. Should be complete by around this time next year, I'd wager.
 
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Sotman

Member
Mar 18, 2018
264
122
For Pete's sake. 0.58 had to drop today when I gave my laptop for service. Time to suffer through Joiplay.
 
4.50 star(s) 181 Votes