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Cheez posted:I feel as if that section with the "greyscale" water isn't intended, because I've never seen it like that and I'm aware that there's multiple versions of the rom because one doesn't play nice with certain emulators. I've never seen the glitchy lines, either. The way I remember it, it was orange-ish water like before, but each screen was "clearer" than the previous one. That was at the start of the level, when Megaman is running through the poo water.
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Nov 6, 2017 01:55
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I really like the concept of the final level, but it's completely ruined by the Kaizo-like midpoint that forces you to lose your powerups and the needless scarcity on spare mushrooms. If you got one mushroom when you started out and that mushroom respawned when you completed one of the courses, the level would be that much better. Why is this incredibly simple concept lost on the level's creators, and on ROM hackers in general?
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Nov 6, 2017 03:20
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They play with and abuse save states and rewind when playing their levels, so to them the idea of "this is too loving hard and obnoxious" doesn't exist. They can literally press a button, go back like a second in time or so, and know what's coming. Thus, to them, it doesn't matter if you don't get power ups when your ability to literally see the future allows you to avoid ever getting hit. They don't understand that having to do that isn't a positive, though. They're just abusing the idea of trial and error in miniature for every obstacle. Again, save states and such here, if you get fatigued on a level it's very easy, from their perspective, to drop a save state and come back later. That, and they want to feel clever. They assume you'll use save states and rewind, too, so they try to up the challenge regardless. Require levels of precision that ensure extremely minor mistakes are punished by death? Doesn't matter when you can reload immediately before the attempt, but they don't think about the idea of those players who are playing it "vanilla" or whatever and actually following the game's rules for lives and midpoints and stuff. Basically, if your level is trying to gently caress the player over because they have access to outside emulator tools, it doesn't matter if it's clever, it should go in the bottom of the pile. Make something fun, don't make something "fun". Other news, Minus Infinity remains my favorite Mega Man ROM hack, and also everyone should play Make A Good Mega Man Level Contest 2, it's good, it has a gently caress load of unlockables, and it's basically just a joy to play. Except for a few parts, but overall way less obnoxious bullshit than VLDC.
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Nov 6, 2017 03:49
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get that OUT of my face posted:I really like the concept of the final level, but it's completely ruined by the Kaizo-like midpoint that forces you to lose your powerups and the needless scarcity on spare mushrooms. If you got one mushroom when you started out and that mushroom respawned when you completed one of the courses, the level would be that much better. Why is this incredibly simple concept lost on the level's creators, and on ROM hackers in general? Same. Having a "boss rush" but with all the different worlds is a great idea but there's no need at all for the mushroom limit thing
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Nov 6, 2017 04:16
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Kurui Reiten posted:They play with and abuse save states and rewind when playing their levels, so to them the idea of "this is too loving hard and obnoxious" doesn't exist. They can literally press a button, go back like a second in time or so, and know what's coming. Thus, to them, it doesn't matter if you don't get power ups when your ability to literally see the future allows you to avoid ever getting hit. No I don't think this is the case. Like, think about how much ninja boy was decried for using save states and rewinds while judging. If it was so acceptable to test levels using those things why would people be mad at the judge for doing exactly that? Levels aren't typically designed with emulator tools in mind. I might have disliked Staff Invasion but I wouldn't go so far as to claim this. I've just noticed lately that powerup scarcity seems to be a recent trend in design and I want it to stop. Being able to take a hit in a level allows for more freedom and a faster flow when playing since you can get careless. Delaying a powerup or making it really dangerous to obtain defeats the purpose of having a powerup in the first place and it kinda sucks.
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Nov 6, 2017 04:38
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That's just a part of the wave of "creativity" taking over smw hacks recently. Because, y'know, being one step away from kaizo sure is creative in these modern times.
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Nov 6, 2017 04:50
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I think it's more to do with the skill of the designers. They know what's coming up, they know what they placed, they know what they're expected to do. When you do this is can be easy to overlook which parts are actually difficult or just plain unfun. For examples, look at all the "guess the right path or die" and "this solid wall of enemies is easy to get through if you dash immediately, jump right HERE and didn't hesitate" levels in Mario Maker. It's people designing for perfection. When you craft something you're proud of like that, it's tempting to force others to go through it exactly the way you designed, taking no hits and DEFINITELY not using a dirty cape! It's very, very difficult to forget the things you know, to look at what you've built through the eyes of someone just discovering it. That's why one of the key parts of design at any level is to have other people play through your stuff, and watch them without guiding.
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Nov 6, 2017 04:56
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Yeah, definitely. From what I understand though is that the whole staff invasion thing was kinda a last minute thing they added (because VLDC8 had something similar) and it didn't turn out the best balanced because of it. Strange to me the judges didn't get people to test their stuff in private but... Eh. I'm not entirely surprised. Again, like VLDC8 there was this idea of a secrecy behind it so it kinda makes sense. I always try to get other people to play my stuff, from people I know are good at Mario to those who aren't. It's really helpful to have someone who just doesn't know what's coming.
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Nov 6, 2017 05:10
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This last level doesn't seem to be *too* bad so far, except for the filter/powerups issue, and the sheer length of the thing. Each of the mini-sections don't seem to be very long, and are all pretty straightforward, while still giving a sample of the theme, so I've got no problems with that (so far). I think the stage would be better suited to either shorten the intro part, or cut it out all together, but that's just me. Personally? I like the idea of revisiting the previous themes or levels as part of a final challenge, and as long as the rest of the level isn't too awful, I don't have too many problems with this stuff. The bigger problem is how this messes with the filter and the powerups. Yeah, I get what they were trying to do here: it's a big final challenge to close out the game, show us what you got. But the idea of forcing you to use only small mario, forcibly filtering out any powerups you might have, and especially after clearing every single section, entirely rubs me the wrong way. The level should let you keep your powerups throughout clearing each section, and it should just let you have at least a mushroom to start out with every time you start the level up from dying. And with the filter, what is even the point of giving you those two mushrooms? The level wants to force you to have no powerups by default anyways, and it's going to take them away from you no matter what, so why even bother giving you mushrooms that won't stick around between lives? Just let players have a mushroom and keep their drat mushroom if they're skilled enough to do so.
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Nov 6, 2017 05:11
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Apologies if it's been asked before, but what are some other good SMW romhacks out there? I got an itch to play some after watching the VLDC LP.
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Nov 6, 2017 05:24
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Jade Rider posted:Apologies if it's been asked before, but what are some other good SMW romhacks out there? I got an itch to play some after watching the VLDC LP. Super Demo World and Second Reality Project Reloaded were the big ones from back in the day, but I haven't paid much attention to romhacks in years, so I'm curious about this too. I see VLDC 1, 7, and 8 also have collaboration hacks. How do they compare to this one? Rollersnake fucked around with this message at 05:42 on Nov 6, 2017 |
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Nov 6, 2017 05:35
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where are the donkey kong hacks
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Nov 6, 2017 05:43
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Mantis42 posted:where are the donkey kong hacks They're all poo poo sadly. 
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Nov 6, 2017 05:57
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I can't imagine what hideous monstrosities would be made with pre-rendered graphics in a level editor
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Nov 6, 2017 06:03
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From what I hear, DKC is really not that easy to hack due to reasons. I mean for one thing, every single barrel cannon in the game is coded as a separate object.
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Nov 6, 2017 06:19
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Mantis42 posted:where are the donkey kong hacks They're mostly Kaizo bullshit with very minimal ability to edit the actual layout of a stage, only add or change stuff in it. And the few that do exist that change stuff are bullshit hard.
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Nov 6, 2017 06:26
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Unacceptable. 
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Nov 6, 2017 06:30
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Hitlers Gay Secret posted:That was at the start of the level, when Megaman is running through the poo water.
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Nov 6, 2017 06:52
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Mantis42 posted:Unacceptable. Hold my beer.
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Nov 6, 2017 07:22
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As well-made as Rockman 4 Minus Infinity is, they really like putting way too many sprites for the NES to handle at this point. It's my only gripe.
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Nov 6, 2017 07:59
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Since i just now found out that it's possible to flash the SNES Classic, has anyone tried loading the VLDC onto it?
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Nov 6, 2017 08:59
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Dr. Fetus posted:I mean for one thing, every single barrel cannon in the game is coded as a separate object. What.
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Nov 6, 2017 12:48
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Instancing is for nerds. I assume that in practice that means that every level just contains a unique set of factors for movement, launch speed, timers, etc for every single barrel, and maybe extra code for barrels that have to do especially weird things like spin while moving on a unique path? If so, while that's inefficient, it isn't that crazy. There is an extraordinarily large number of unique barrel cannon configurations in the first two DKC games, so I'd guess that making every barrel it's own special little art piece was a development compromise over developing a small number of generic barrel behaviors and then trying to design levels around those limitations, or spending the extra time to fit everyone's special unique barrels into some kind of sensible object-oriented framework that can still address every level's needs.
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Nov 6, 2017 13:33
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Jade Rider posted:Apologies if it's been asked before, but what are some other good SMW romhacks out there? I got an itch to play some after watching the VLDC LP. Yeah, same. Haven't played many SMW hacks myself, Kaizo kinda convinced me to stay clear for a long time.
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Nov 6, 2017 14:49
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Shady Amish Terror posted:Instancing is for nerds. I messed with the DKC2 editor for a while last year and this is basically what happens. I started trying to document how the Barrels Cannons work because in-editor documentation is almost non-existent. I don't have time to do a big writeup but I can copy my notes and the image I was starting to make as reference.  code: I also investigated the Invincibility Barrel just to see how the duration was handled:  DKC2 Objects/Sprites are very complex.
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Nov 6, 2017 16:05
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what happens if you turn into an animal with a barrel and then jump on a crate? is the game about to process animals riding animals or does it crash or what.
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Nov 6, 2017 16:12
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XavierGenisi posted:And with the filter, what is even the point of giving you those two mushrooms? I think you understood the on-the-face point of this, but since it took me awhile to figure out: giving you two mushrooms means that whatever's in your hold box (up at the top of the screen) gets overwritten by a mushroom, that then gets dropped automatically when you get hurt, so when you emerge from the pipe, you're guaranteed to be small Mario with nothing in the hold box. And yeah, it's dumb.
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Nov 6, 2017 16:30
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:I think you understood the on-the-face point of this, but since it took me awhile to figure out: giving you two mushrooms means that whatever's in your hold box (up at the top of the screen) gets overwritten by a mushroom, that then gets dropped automatically when you get hurt, so when you emerge from the pipe, you're guaranteed to be small Mario with nothing in the hold box. Yeah, you got it. If these sections were giving you anything more than the basic mushroom, then maybe I could see the filter having an actual use, but no. It's just enforcing difficulty in a really stupid way.
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Nov 6, 2017 19:40
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Not to mention it means that even if you use a safety mushroom and get through a segment without getting hit, you'll lose the safety mushroom permanently because there's no way to keep it between segments. What a good filter.
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Nov 6, 2017 20:01
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Hemingway To Go! posted:what happens if you turn into an animal with a barrel and then jump on a crate? I'm pretty sure I've done this with rambi in the base game, and a 1up pops out of the crate. Scratch that, I know I've done this with either winky or squitter to farm lives from a repeatably enterable area in a cave level.
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Nov 6, 2017 20:13
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FPzero posted:Not to mention it means that even if you use a safety mushroom and get through a segment without getting hit, you'll lose the safety mushroom permanently because there's no way to keep it between segments. What a good filter. I don't know, it looks like they have the system to be set up similar to how it is when you go between the levels and the map in this hack. Then if something is giving you trouble and you're tired of trying to get through it without help you just hit a box for a mushroom.
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Nov 6, 2017 22:45
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Cheez posted:I don't know, it looks like they have the system to be set up similar to how it is when you go between the levels and the map in this hack. Then if something is giving you trouble and you're tired of trying to get through it without help you just hit a box for a mushroom. Then they didn't do a good enough job of informing the player of that. Players would read "You have two mushrooms to use for all of these levels" and a reasonable takeaway is that they would keep the mushroom they used until they lost it, and have a second. This leads to the player using the mushrooms up unwisely because the mechanics weren't properly explained, and either restarting the level entirely or doing the parts over and over until they get it right.
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Nov 6, 2017 23:14
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Cheez posted:I don't know, it looks like they have the system to be set up similar to how it is when you go between the levels and the map in this hack. Then if something is giving you trouble and you're tired of trying to get through it without help you just hit a box for a mushroom. Yeah in theory it's a decent idea to have everything be fairly beatable without a powerup and offer extra mushrooms as a bonus if need be. The problem as mentioned was that the message wasn't communicated well. It might have been because I was really tired by that point but I interpreted it as "you only get two mushrooms from here every time you die", not the use them and lose them principle that's actually in place. Also more generally, I kinda feel bad about this level because over half of the segments are actually fine and I really have no problem with them. But when taken as a whole at a time when we weren't expecting a mega-long level and we were both very tired because we thought the judge world would take about 45 minutes at most, our tempers had soured and even minor annoyances were projected pretty harshly. It's not a terrible quality level overall but the length of what's being asked of the player mixed with the context of when and how we played explains so much of our opinions. I wish we'd played it under different circumstances just so the opinions might have been a little better (as well as our commentary) but that's how it goes.
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Nov 7, 2017 01:11
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FPzero posted:Yeah in theory it's a decent idea to have everything be fairly beatable without a powerup and offer extra mushrooms as a bonus if need be. The problem as mentioned was that the message wasn't communicated well. It might have been because I was really tired by that point but I interpreted it as "you only get two mushrooms from here every time you die", not the use them and lose them principle that's actually in place. FPzero posted:Also more generally, I kinda feel bad about this level because over half of the segments are actually fine and I really have no problem with them. But when taken as a whole at a time when we weren't expecting a mega-long level and we were both very tired because we thought the judge world would take about 45 minutes at most, our tempers had soured and even minor annoyances were projected pretty harshly. It's not a terrible quality level overall but the length of what's being asked of the player mixed with the context of when and how we played explains so much of our opinions.
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Nov 7, 2017 01:25
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I streamed a little bit to some SMWC folks and the opinion on save states there is actually pretty sour, lol.
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Nov 7, 2017 01:26
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 It's 3:30 AM, do you know where your kids are? They're finishing VLDC9 that's where they are. And what do we get for spending an hour on the final final final level? Some semi-Kaizo junk and an ending that didn't satisfy. But we still finished the game and overall I had a lot of fun doing it. I think most of the people watching have too. Hopefully you learned some things about SMW romhacking along the way and maybe a little bit about level design Do's and Do Not's. Thanks for watching.
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Nov 7, 2017 19:04
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Thanks, it was fun to see what people can do with Mario world and learn about all of the weird tricks people have found
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Nov 7, 2017 19:29
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There is no way I would have made it through VLDC9, and even less chance I would have gotten to the developer levels for that Waluigi level. Thanks for showing it off!
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Nov 7, 2017 19:57
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So I don't claim to know anything about the inner workings of Super Mario World, but that last Koopa in the Ice gauntlet was walking after you knocked his wings off, right? Couldn't you have just walked instead of worrying about timing the jump?
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Nov 7, 2017 19:58
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Rabbi Raccoon posted:So I don't claim to know anything about the inner workings of Super Mario World, but that last Koopa in the Ice gauntlet was walking after you knocked his wings off, right? Couldn't you have just walked instead of worrying about timing the jump? It was on a tile that enemies and objects can stand on but isn't solid to Mario.
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Nov 7, 2017 20:01
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