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I remember getting stunlocked by a pair of dark koopas in the sewers for far, far too long in one specific fight  Also, does Jr. Troopa have an infinite congregation of dark koopas? I will assume yes for maximum hilarity even if you'll realistically fight only 2 of them
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Sep 22, 2019 14:09
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I'm pretty sure you can still block the dizzy attack in MQ. It just doesn't use the block animation for whatever reason when you do, so it looks identical to the attack just failing to work when you succeed. Which, naturally, turns the Dark Koopas into yet another incredibly irritating "save or die" type enemy in this hack; no, I'm not annoyed at all, why do you ask? There's another design issue I have with the Dark Koopas here. A lot of enemies in this hack seem to have been changed in such a way to remove what little strategic depth they had in the original Paper Mario. Dark Koopas originally would stay down longer when you jumped on them, so if you were really worried about the dizzy attack (or saw it coming) you could prevent it from happening. Now yes, this does make them a bit easy when you know the correct strategy, which is probably what the hack is reacting to, but I still think that's better gameplay than what they've been turned into. On the other hand, Jr. Troopa bringing help is a big change to the fight, and I like that they at least tried to make these encounters different. (It does say something about Master Quest in general that my reaction to Boo's Mansion was one of intense relief, because since it has no enemies in it there was nothing for them to change. It just felt so much better to play than a lot of the surrounding conent.)
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Sep 22, 2019 14:14
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Alxprit posted:Ah, Quick Change, the most indispensable badge in the entire series. They made it cost so much in the second game, cause they knew it was too good for our mortal human hands. I honestly forgot that switching partners wasn't a free action since from the moment I got quick change i never unequipped it.
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Sep 22, 2019 15:25
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Explopyro posted:I'm pretty sure you can still block the dizzy attack in MQ. It just doesn't use the block animation for whatever reason when you do, so it looks identical to the attack just failing to work when you succeed. Oh, that's good, if so. I admit I didn't really try that hard, because... how do you know when to press the button? EorayMel posted:Also, does Jr. Troopa have an infinite congregation of dark koopas? I will assume yes for maximum hilarity even if you'll realistically fight only 2 of them As far as I can tell, he has the second one at 9 HP and below, and that's it. I dont know posted:I honestly forgot that switching partners wasn't a free action since from the moment I got quick change i never unequipped it. I have been doing a lot of strategic planning in the background to not be screwed over by this. Explopyro posted:(It does say something about Master Quest in general that my reaction to Boo's Mansion was one of intense relief, because since it has no enemies in it there was nothing for them to change. It just felt so much better to play than a lot of the surrounding conent.) Amusingly, a change in Pro Mode, which Master Quest reverted, was to make the Peach segments harder; the patrolling Koopatrols had larger flashlight bubbles and moved at double speed, etc.
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Sep 22, 2019 19:06
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Dark Koopas and their stunlock bullshit are such garbage. Hope you guard this hard-to-time attack or Mario's not doing anything for the rest of the fight! And once you're dizzy, you can't guard, so there's nothing you can do about it. Man, it'd be hosed up if something similar was used by a boss instead of by minor enemies you can Air Lift, right?
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Sep 22, 2019 21:04
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Quackles posted:Oh, that's good, if so. I admit I didn't really try that hard, because... how do you know when to press the button? I think there isn't a great cue and you basically have to memorise the timing, which sucks. The best I can figure is you learn to associate it with a certain point in the sound effects. As far as I can tell, you want to press the button right before the whirlwind animation would end and the "you became dizzy" animation starts. Quackles posted:Amusingly, a change in Pro Mode, which Master Quest reverted, was to make the Peach segments harder; the patrolling Koopatrols had larger flashlight bubbles and moved at double speed, etc. Haha, interesting. It didn't revert all changes of that type, though, as we'll see soon enough. Procrastine posted:Dark Koopas and their stunlock bullshit are such garbage. Hope you guard this hard-to-time attack or Mario's not doing anything for the rest of the fight! And once you're dizzy, you can't guard, so there's nothing you can do about it. Man, it'd be hosed up if something similar was used by a boss instead of by minor enemies you can Air Lift, right? Ahahaha which one are you talking about? There are so many I'm not sure which one to have flashbacks about. I wish I'd remembered abilities like Air Lift exist and can be used, though. I tend to ignore them because it's less fun not to fight the enemies, but seeing this there are definitely places that would have been made a lot less frustrating if I'd remembered.
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Sep 22, 2019 21:26
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Explopyro posted:Ahahaha which one are you talking about? There are so many I'm not sure which one to have flashbacks about. General Guy, I never got past Lava Piranha so I don't know anything past there Yeah, I don't use death spells usually, especially in Paper Mario where you get no experience from them, but in this hack, against some enemies, 
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Sep 22, 2019 21:51
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Started playing the original again today. I forgot just how charming the Mario RPGs are.
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Sep 22, 2019 22:07
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Procrastine posted:General Guy, I never got past Lava Piranha so I don't know anything past there Heh, I didn't even remember that being a problem with General Guy, I guess I must've been decent at blocking against him? The two that immediately came to mind for me were Big Lantern Ghost and the Crystal King. I'm sure there are others though. That's probably enough "talking in all black bars" for now though.
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Sep 22, 2019 22:18
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And see, this is what I mean. Yet another difficulty hack turns a creative problem solving experience into strict puzzle solving as you work out the One True Solution to each encounter. This one commits the further sin of making the One True Solution not work unless you also ace an arbitrary timing test. At which point your actual role in the gameplay is zero - the developer designed the Solution and the programmers implemented the timing. You're just a glorified spectator doing busywork. Goddammit. Sorites fucked around with this message at 22:22 on Sep 22, 2019 |
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Sep 22, 2019 22:18
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Sorites posted:And see, this is what I mean. Yet another difficulty hack turns a creative problem solving experience into strict puzzle solving as you work out the One True Solution to each encounter. This one commits the further sin of making the One True Solution not work unless you also ace an arbitrary timing test. Are you saying paper mario: master quest is actually pokemon reborn?
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Sep 22, 2019 22:24
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EorayMel posted:Are you saying paper mario: master quest is actually pokemon reborn? It's more like Final Fantasy Tactics 1.3. "The appeal of this game is that it gives you varied options for how to tackle it. I, a genius, have invalidated 99% of them. I just won't tell you which 99%. That's an improvement, right?" Sorites fucked around with this message at 22:31 on Sep 22, 2019 |
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Sep 22, 2019 22:28
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EorayMel posted:Are you saying paper mario: master quest is actually pokemon reborn? Reborn was active concentrated malice and incompetence: Malincompetent, if you will. A game so horrifically awful and at times outright evil that making any distinctions are distinctions without differences. I have never looked at a game (thank god OFS tackled that nightmare on a different thread) that was just maliciously stupid to the core and utterly repulsive to the series, the lore, and the playerbase. This hack is just the bog-standard hard mode mod with the usual problems and pratfalls that aren't unique to this game alone. "Hey, I've got this amazing idea to up defensive stats in battle so every one of them takes much longer than the alloted time in your day you have to play this; and they can still hit you in wild, innovative ways which invalidate the point of 'tactics' because gently caress you." Do-able if your idea of a good time with a video game includes throwing the controller against the wall once in a blue.
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Sep 23, 2019 01:51
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What's even the point of raising the price of the Mystery from 1 to 3?
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Sep 23, 2019 08:52
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Ometeotl posted:What's even the point of raising the price of the Mystery from 1 to 3?
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Sep 23, 2019 11:35
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Sorites posted:It's more like Final Fantasy Tactics 1.3. Oh no. The romhack intentionally designed to break Paper Mario challenge runners who already know the game inside and out and use the block timing on everything is doing its job. That's so terrible.  I can't believe how many of the complaints here are based on the idea that it isn't accessible to you personally and therefore is bad. And all the snarky comments like you've personally dove into the mind of the creator and figured out his motivations. If you all desperately want a semi-regular game experience with increased difficulty just go play Pro Mode, as that already exists. You'll get your debuffed Master Quest soon enough.
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Sep 23, 2019 14:22
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Ya its pathetic to see people here crying about the rom hack because they don't agree with what it's going for lol.
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Sep 23, 2019 15:23
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Seriously? You two are gonna ignore the very valid complaints to 'git gud' at us. If you can explain why the changes aren't ill-conceived, then explain why they good changes for a hard mode.
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Sep 23, 2019 15:40
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The Jr. Troopa stuff is probably the best part of the hack so far because it doesn't feel like a cheap gotcha. It builds on the original encounter design and challenges of his fights (removing one or more attack options forcing you to defeat him in different ways) while adding an additional challenge to juggle with his support enemies. Even though I dislike the change to the Dark Koopas, it still feels appropriately challenging without relying on trial and error. The Boo fight is an example of exactly the wrong type of challenge for this type of game. It's a miniboss at the end of a pretty long and difficult dungeon that's explicit purpose from a design perspective is a hard max HP check. If you just barely got through the dungeon and used most or all of your healing up to that point, then you're completely hosed and no amount of correct or proper play will change that. What's worse to me is that you could force the player to take the max HP check AFTER the save block and HP/FP refill to make it far less tedious, while still accomplishing the same exact goal. There's a better solution for the design goal literally five feet backwards and they didn't do it. That's bad design, I don't care what your romhack is trying to do.
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Sep 23, 2019 15:54
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Look, I've gotten into the postgame content of this hack. Clearly I'm at least adjacent to if not within the target audience. I like difficult games. I like Paper Mario. I'm not complaining or "crying" or whatever insulting term you assholes want to call it because the hack is inaccessible to me; clearly, it isn't, or at least not for the most part (I'm not going to claim I'm amazing at this game, I'm not a speedrunner or anything close to that, but clearly I'm not incompetent). I am criticising the hack because the type of difficulty it chooses to use very often isn't fun or interesting to engage with irrespective of difficulty, not because it is too hard. I am criticising the hack because it does have a lot of good ideas, and it could be so much better. There are plenty of elements of good design here, which only make it more frustrating that it so often chooses not to use them. I don't see why this is so hard to understand. Likewise, it's a known phenomenon that "hard mode" hack creators often fall into a few kinds of toxic mindsets that lead them to make bad design decisions. We've seen this happen plenty of times. We don't need to know what's going on in these particular creators' heads to be able to say "hey, it looks like they're doing that thing we've seen before!".
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Sep 23, 2019 16:05
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Hey, isn't Bow going to basically be unable to do any damage ever? All the enemies seem to have defense points and that makes her completely irrelevant... In fact, I'm going to call that the heart fight will effectively require Quick Change because they gave it a defense.
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Sep 23, 2019 17:31
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bio347 posted:Hey, isn't Bow going to basically be unable to do any damage ever? All the enemies seem to have defense points and that makes her completely irrelevant... I'd hope they'd have boosted her attack so she's not completely useless before getting super status, but then again, I also can't put it past them to not do that.
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Sep 23, 2019 17:34
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They've made some changes to Bow (which I'll let Quackles cover when he gets there) that make her less useless than I expected. Unfortunately, those don't include changes to how Smack does damage, but there are plenty of enemies without defence in the next chapter or two that allow her to make good use of it anyway. She's plenty good, and in the midgame she was one of my most-used partners. Quick Change is basically essential from this point on, I think. I never removed it once I got it, and it meant I was free to use Bow when the situation called for it while not being crippled otherwise.
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Sep 23, 2019 17:46
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Robindaybird posted:Seriously? You two are gonna ignore the very valid complaints to 'git gud' at us. If you can explain why the changes aren't ill-conceived, then explain why they good changes for a hard mode. I suck rear end at Paper Mario sorry dude. The other guy explained why though
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Sep 23, 2019 23:21
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heeheex2 posted:I suck rear end at Paper Mario sorry dude. The other guy explained why though The explanation amounted to "you should just know the solutions already".
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Sep 23, 2019 23:29
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heeheex2 posted:I suck rear end at Paper Mario sorry dude. The other guy explained why though Gotta say I wasn't particularly impressed with either their explanation or yours, especially since "the other guy's" explanation was weak tea "Git Gud". And does it matter whether you're personally good at a game? People who suck at Dark Souls can be elitist gitgudnards about Dark Souls, and I see no difference here.
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Sep 24, 2019 00:09
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Still amused that allegedly the insane numbers do level off according to one poster and that the creators actually did blow their numbers load too early. Pacing for these hard mode hacks is probably the most common and biggest issue they have. Also, echoing that the boo fight should've been put inside the mansion after the save block. That's just mean.
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Sep 24, 2019 05:04
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MR. J posted:Still amused that allegedly the insane numbers do level off according to one poster and that the creators actually did blow their numbers load too early. Pacing for these hard mode hacks is probably the most common and biggest issue they have. Upside of the Mario RPG games using low numbers: a single point of something makes a big difference. Downside: a single point of something makes a big difference.
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Sep 24, 2019 05:27
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Quackles posted:Actually, yes. I've spoken to Thamz, and his goal (paraphrased) is that no single strategy works on every battle in the game (or even most of them). So basically, the goal is to require people change up their strategy on the regular in responding to challenges the game presents. Could this design goal statement thing go in the OP? It seems like a reasonable standard to measure the game against in our discussions, at least in part.
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Sep 24, 2019 17:06
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The problem with that design strategy, or at least how the dev seems to understand it judging by the comments I've seen from him in the discord channel, is that while he doesn't want the game to be winnable with a single strategy the whole time, he also doesn't seem to have an issue with there only being one single strategy for a given fight. I was reading people talk about a really hard enemy that would theoretically be hell to face in a group on floor 99 of the Pit, and they were saying it'd be way too hard outside the confines of its own battle. The lead dev agreed, but then also said that even then the fight isn't so bad because there's one singular method that apparently makes him easy. But I imagine that there's nothing that gives the player a hint to its weakness, not to mention if this is a miniboss fight of some kind you probably can't run from the fight to try a new strategy, and also you need to hope you have the badge that gives you access to that strat in the first place. The hack is fast becoming an extended lock-and-key puzzle, except you're mostly blind as to what the key is in these tougher fights. It also doesn't help that the majority of feedback comes from players who just eat up the difficulty and keep asking for more, more, more. Some guy who's been streaming the game for months made a tier list of how useful all the badges are in the game, that "takes the highest caliber of player in mind". The intent here seems to be to let the dev know which badges could use buffs and which could use nerfs, probably in the forms of increasing or decreasing BP or FP costs. The streamer said there was another tier list someone else had made but that that list was "taking into account those who can't reliably block things 95% of the time. LOL". And with the announcement of MQ Lite, it seems like most complaints about MQ's difficulty are usually met with something like "well just wait for MQ Lite if you think it's too hard" as if that's a true band-aid for the rough time players are in for. Needless to say, these sorts of comments brushed me the wrong way as someone who likes to try and balance things around lower common denominators when doing game design. But I suppose that's what I get for looking into the community surrounding a hard-mode romhack. I made it to chapter 4 some weeks ago but I haven't really felt like continuing my run after narrowly finishing chapter 3. From what I've heard it just keeps getting harder and harder in terms of boss and miniboss fights and I think I'm all finished experiencing it for myself. Thankfully this LP is still going. Good luck to you, Quackles!
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Sep 24, 2019 17:39
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Now I gotta know if the "highest caliber of player" equips the sound effect badges or not
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Sep 24, 2019 17:43
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Nah he put them all in the lowest tier, below F, presumably because they serve no purpose and fun doesn't matter for it.
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Sep 24, 2019 17:45
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Okay, I got to see this tier list.
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Sep 24, 2019 20:01
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The streamer I mentioned in my last post, named kappy, reached out to me after he saw my post and wanted to clarify a few things. We had a pretty nice chat about MQ, difficulty, and where we were each coming from. -He says his tier list wasn't made with the intent to be used as buffs and nerfs by Thamz, but merely because he says he likes to make tier lists for fun. If Thamz chooses to use it as feedback for a future update, that's his decision. The reason his list has very skilled players in mind is simply because he's been streaming Paper Mario challenge runs for the last 4-5 years, so that's going to be the way he thinks about things. -He's had a number of conversations with Thamz about toning certain things down in the past, or trying to open up more possible solutions for big fights. He feels that with his mastery of Paper Mario in mind he can suggest good changes that still make MQ difficult but not stupidly hard. -We agreed that maybe there isn't "one true solution" to many fights, but there are "few true solutions" to them. And this comes down to preference really. It depends on how much you enjoy puzzling out the battle system and crafting strategies. We're also in agreement that some things need better signposting, or better use of Tattle texts to hint at weaknesses, and that there are still a few fights that are really low on strategic options that could maybe use some adjustment. -Also, he wasn't the person snidely saying that if people find the game too hard then just wait for MQ Lite. I hadn't intended that in the last post, but due to the way I worded things it did look like that. I wanted to make this post to clarify a few things because I made some poor assumptions. Turns out kappy was pretty chill about it, so I at least wanted to do him the favor of correcting myself here. If you want to see the tier list he made, you can click here. I don't want to embed it in case there are spoilers beyond the pictures of badges. Remember that it takes into account the usefulness of a badge across the whole game, not just what we've seen so far.
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Sep 24, 2019 20:09
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FPzero posted:I was reading people talk about a really hard enemy that would theoretically be hell to face in a group on floor 99 of the Pit, and they were saying it'd be way too hard outside the confines of its own battle. The lead dev agreed, but then also said that even then the fight isn't so bad because there's one singular method that apparently makes him easy. Important information the way for anyone who hangs around the Discord: Thamz jokes around and talks about ideas that are not planned to be implemented sometimes. The thing is, he has a bit of a perfect deadpan, so it can be hard to tell! So the idea about the four Malpractice Guys on Floor 99 was fictitious... probably. I can't always tell when he's joking either. Quackles fucked around with this message at 20:30 on Sep 24, 2019 |
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Sep 24, 2019 20:18
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Bloody hell I hope that was a joke. It sounds like there's at least some sensible feedback getting through from playtesters (based on that conversation, it sounds like Kappy is pretty reasonable), so at this point if Thamz doesn't take that into account, it's purely on him. I might have more thoughts later. Edit: I've finished the Pit. No Malpractice Guys, so at least so far that seems to have been a joke. Also, I'm actually pretty impressed how reasonable the final 10 floors were, compared to what I'd been expecting given how unpleasant I found 70-80 and 80-90. Some of those fights were pretty dicey, and can kill you very fast if you slip up. I did use savestates a bit, and I'm not completely proud of all the strategies I ended up using (I may have exploited a bug, I'm not sure), but I got through it. Explopyro fucked around with this message at 02:41 on Sep 25, 2019 |
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Sep 24, 2019 20:36
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Explopyro posted:No Malpractice Guys, so at least so far that seems to have been a joke. Yeah. Thamz ended up saying that that enemy is not suited to any fight apart from the one it's already in.
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Sep 25, 2019 08:51
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partner spoilers sorta are the partner abilities all the same? can you just use sushie's ultra-rank move to power through things (like the pit)? or is the FP needed for it absurd to prevent that
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Sep 25, 2019 17:09
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heeheex2 posted:partner spoilers sorta are the partner abilities all the same? can you just use sushie's ultra-rank move to power through things (like the pit)? or is the FP needed for it absurd to prevent that Answer behind more black bars: Quite a few abilities have been changed, and even the ones that are functionally the same tend to cost more FP. As for that specific strategy, by the end the enemies have enough HP that it's generally not possible to take them out in one turn, and it costs 10 FP so you can't just spam it. There is a strategy I've found punches well above its weight and that's much more FP-efficient (it involves the Quake badges' set bonus which Quackles mentioned a while back) but even that doesn't trivialise it.
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Sep 25, 2019 21:36
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I had a similar problem with the design on my own modding project. Qualitative changes to difficulty and player strategy are often the most rewarding; you come up with a badge synergy or strategy that does something new and go "oh wow, that feels great"! And you want to share it with people. You want them to feel that "aha moment" of figuring out the solution. You can try to design fights or challenges that require these things you've discovered. quote:Example (feel free to skip this digression): quote:Example, continued: Designing combat scenarios (or, in my case, level objective changes) to try to get players to have these aha moments that give them new qualitative tools or strategies requires that you design the hell out of the challenge so that their discovery feels unplanned, but is actually tightly designed to induce that outcome rapidly for a majority of players. It feels hard, but is actually teaching you the new concept or response. (Blow talked about this teaching model extensively with the hyperdetermined design of Witness). Well-designed difficulty increases the amount of stuff that the player learns over time, so that they're mastering and managing and attending to more cognitive tools in response to the game's challenges. Badly designed difficulty can ask the player to do the same thing, but it doesn't give you the cognitive tools to make that leap. It's like you're getting tested on a subject without having any chance to read the book beforehand. This is very hard to do in modding because you have fewer opportunities to tell the player new things. Think about how heavily our host is having to lean on outside documentation! Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 23:47 on Sep 25, 2019 |
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Sep 25, 2019 23:28
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