Requesting Player Feedback. (UPDATED!)

[Crashtour99]

Well, I think I've reached a point with my hack's item/upgrade system that I need some decent feedback on it. 

Some of the stuff I need to know about:

Charge beam healing.  Does it need to regen health faster?  When playing try to keep in mind that enemies won't drop any health, but there will be recharge stations.

Hover suit.  Does it need a timer for the hover effect?

Weapons damage.  Should it be more/less? (very doubtful it would ever need to be more)  Also, how difficult are the boss fights with the weapons damage, and how easy do you find it to accidentally kill yourself?  (I have a remedy if firing weapons too fast is a problem)  Also keep in mind that there will be enemies only vulnerable to certain things.

Please post your thoughts here (including stuff that might not be on the short list above).

This only modifies the item/upgrade system (for the most part at least).  All the leveling is vanilla except for a few things I had to change to get rid of permastucks.  Info on items and how to use them is included in the .zip along with the patch which can be picked up here: [redacted]

Any feedback you can provide on the game mechanics is greatly appreciated.
Thank you.

.........................................................................

Update:  Went through and made some changes.
Hover suit works like before, but now you have to have forward momentum for it to be active.
Accumulator has been sped up (about 4 times as fast now).
When Impact or Concussion are selected you fire a normal beam unless charged.  This should make it significantly more difficult to accidentally suicide.  (Item order has been tweaked to accommodate this)
Energy drops from enemies have been reduced to 0.
Energy stations refill reserve tanks as well now.

Download link: [redacted]

[herald83]

Took me a while to get through the full game with this stuff, mainly because I wanted to try to stress-test it as much as possible.  There were also a few glitches with the vanilla game that needed workarounds, so I had to crack this open with SMILE once or twice.

[spoiler=Speed of Game]It feels like you were trying to speed up gameplay with the movement/physics tweaks.  The increased jump height and conservation of momentum makes for nice twitch play.  This severly conflicts, however, with the very very slow-to-open door hatches, lack of wall jump, and the run button issue with the Hover Pack (I'll get into that below).
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=HUD]
Is there any way you could display how much energy each projectile-type consumes? I found myself only using missiles and supers to open doors until after I had collected enough tanks to get above 300 max energy.  I think if I knew how much I'd be burning per shot I'd be more inclined to use them.

Nice work on the new set of icons!

Bugs:
-If you have a beam upgrade activated, after going through a door, if you press and release the select button, it switches your currently selected beam to a different one.
-Holding Select while exiting the map/status screens seems to bork things.  The screen stays black, but you can hear the game running (Samus taking damage, doing things, etc.).  Pausing and unpausing again fixes it.
-Eye Doors don't seem to play nice with this.  It looks like you might already know that, since most of them had been removed, but the Tourian Eye Door was still in place.
-The HUD hack totally borks the hyper beam in the MB fight, as the game freezes when firing a beam weapon after you get it.  Hope you're not using her in the hack.  Also, for the record, taking her out with infinite supers is loads more challenging than with the hyper beam.  Couldn't escape either.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Ammo System]
I find myself avoiding the use of non-beam weapons unless necessary to open doors.  It's just too much damage early in the game, even with energy drops from baddies.  Crocomire pwned me at least three times, and I don't think I've EVER been killed by the Croc, even the first time I played SM when I was 9 (now you know how old I am).  I'm not exactly sure how many missile pickups I grabbed, but I couldn't kill off a Zebetite with missiles without blowing through over 700 hp (luckily supers weren't costing me any health at that point so I used those instead).  I can't imagine using them at all in a hack with no drops whatsoever.

It might be nice would be to limit the player's ability to fire projectiles without the requisite amount of health to prevent suiciding.

Bug:
I noticed that after collecting a two (I think?) Super Missile pickups, I stopped taking damage when firing Supers.  I collected one more, and then I started taking 1 point of damage for each Super.  I found another one, and now i'm taking 60.  One more again, and now 43 damage.  One more again, and we're back to no damage at all.  I think something in your code for reducing the damage taken isn't working right.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Hover Pack]

I can see what you're trying to do, and it could probably turn out to be pretty neat with some tweaks.  I think the main issue I'm having with it is the controls.  Having to press run and jump to jump up feels clunky.  I'm thinking that if you changed it so that the only button involved remains "Jump", it could be better.

Springball usage also feels neutered, which is only reinforced by the lack of bomb jumping.

When used in conjunction with the Space Jump, this feature actually got loads sweeter.  The multi-button controls were still pretty irritating, but the ability to jump, shoot to break the spin and start a hover, restart my spin, jump again in mid-air, then shoot to hover again was kinda neat.  Using it without the Space Jump, however, was a total pain in the ass.  I can see using this if the order of pickups was different, so maybe it's mainly an issue with testing in the vanilla order.

The hover timer you mentioned about might be a good idea if you want to limit the abuse of this.

Another potentially useful modification might be to segregate this from suit upgrades and have it be a stand-alone upgrade that the player could turn it on and off at will, like how X-Ray works perhaps.  I found myself leaving it disabled for the majority of the time I was playing through until I needed the Gravity Suit effects.  It would definitely be more useful in a game designed for it.

^ This was my initial reaction.  After playing with it for a while, I did end up getting more used to it and the level of irritation receded.  It still felt a little clunky, but having the Space Jump made a big difference.  I can definitely see this being a turn off for people with less patience.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Accumulator]
Definitely needs to regen faster. Maybe you could make use of JAM's charge accellerator pickups and make the regen rate upgradeable?  Another alternative would be to remove the need to hold a charge and just have it auto-regen Samus slowly.  I got into a few situations where I had to sit and hold a charge for a loooooong time to proceed, but that was also in part due to the fact that most of the PB blocks are now Super blocks for some reason (this made clearing space for the jump to Grapple a total bitch).
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Grappler]

Grappler (grapple beam) use energy, grapple onto certain blocks

O rly?  Didn't seem to drain any energy at all.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Charge Annhilator]
Love the gfx!  Will you be adding Screw Attack blocks with this?
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Inertia Boosters]
I'm digging the "Speedball" effect.  Timer could be neat in a hack designed for it.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Energy Controller]
This is pretty neat, but the full energy requirement could be a bitch to deal with, even without the ammo system or lack of pickups.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Stun Beam]
I love the use of the Hyper Beam rainbow!  Any chance you'll be changing the sound too?  The freezing sound doesn't match up well.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Conveyer Belts]
I took damage while standing on these?  Also, if you bomb the space above them, it looks like there's some "Bombable Air" blocks or something.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler="Ice Beam Block"]
Maybe this makes more sense in the real hack, but a block that is destroyed by the Ice Beam doesn't seem to make much sense.  I suppose since it's now the Stun Beam instead that could make a difference, but still...  This is a game, of course, so I guess it doesn't really matter.  New block types are always cool!
[/spoiler]

Anyways, I think that's all I've got for ya.  You've got quite a lot going on here, particularly with the Charge beam!  I think the main challenge will be deciding how much is too much, and which pieces really add useful new features that will make the hack unique without being too different.  I suppose you could also take the "Damn the Noobs!  Full speed ahead!" approach, but fewer people will find it enjoyable in that case.  Great work so far, and I'm looking forward to the next update, if/when that comes to be!

[Crashtour99]

This is some great stuff man.  Thanks for the feedback!
To address some of the comments:

[spoiler=Speed of Game]There really won't be nearly as many doors in the completed hack, so while they open slower you won't run into them very often (just in architectural structures, not in caverns).
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=HUD]Black Falcon already knows about the bugs with the HUD, and he's been reworking it and fixing things.  I'll definitely look into a method of displaying the energy usage.  Good idea on that one!
The problem with eye doors comes from how I rewrote the door animations.  I guess I neglected to mention that it pretty much ends by the time you get to Tourian.  And yeah, MB won't be used at all.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Ammo System]
Yep, I'll definitely have to implement something to keep players from suiciding.

I noticed that after collecting a two (I think?) Super Missile pickups, I stopped taking damage when firing Supers.  I collected one more, and then I started taking 1 point of damage for each Super.  I found another one, and now i'm taking 60.  One more again, and now 43 damage.  One more again, and we're back to no damage at all.  I think something in your code for reducing the damage taken isn't working right.

I think either the patch download got corrupted or didn't apply right.  Just to be sure I downloaded and applied it to a clean ROM and it seems to be working just fine.  Don't know what's going on, unless you found an item pickup that was in an orb or hidden in the scenery somewhere (those should all be gone because they WILL mess it up).
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Hover Pack]
I'll definitely be reworking this.  The input and suggestions are greatly appreciated.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Accumulator]
Duly noted and it will be tweaked.   :^_^:
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Grappler]
This should be using energy, albeit slowly (doesn't use any once you have gravity suit).  Don't know why it's not working for you either.  Most likely related to weapons damage not working right.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Charge Annhilator]

Love the gfx!  Will you be adding Screw Attack blocks with this?

Thanks!  And yep, the code for blocks is already in there, I just didn't actually put them in the levels anywhere.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Energy Controller]
The full energy requirement is only for auto charging a shinespark.  You can still use it to control shinesparks and refill reserve tanks just fine.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Stun Beam]
Will definitely be changing the sound, just not sure what to go with yet.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Conveyer Belts]
Hmmm...  I hadn't seen any bombable air above them, but the damage effect I haven't quite figured out why that happens yet.  I think it might be because of some other blocks I made and they're getting their code a little confused.  Still looking into this one.
[/spoiler]

Thanks again for the feedback.  It's greatly appreciated.

[herald83]

No problem, I'm always happy to help.  Really looking forward to seeing these in a full hack!

[personitis]

First thing's first:
[spoiler]Warning: this topic has not been posted in for at least 30 days.
Unless you're sure you want to reply, please consider starting a new topic.

Pffffff.
[/spoiler]
Anyways...

I'm pretty sure the reason I found it hard to pickup at first was how often I'm use to the basic SM and how BoR isn't basic. My first comment will be that thankfully, as you stated while I was streaming last night, the level design will be focused around the powers or at least will not conflict with them.

First thing's first: the Energy Collector could use a bit of a boost. If it's already four times faster than it was, I think doubling it may be a bit too fast. If you want to keep your original code, I would say that six times faster (compared to the original) is a good interval. Or do it like some people said during the stream: after holding a charge for so many seconds, instead of increasing by 1, start increasing by 2, then 3, and so on and so forth. Seriously, standing around and holding charge is not the most entertaining thing in the world. :nope:

Impact and Concussion: I don't have much to say about those. The charge before you shoot is a very, very safe and smart mechanic to implement. I caught myself a few times almost firing a charged Impact or Concussion and only once did I actually unintentionally do it. Everything seems good here.

Shockwave: Good stuff, but the way you've tweaked vanilla SM it doesn't seem to serve much use...

Inertia Boosters: Needs a fix. :=x: You saw the glitch it caused: I tried to shinespark and stopped the moment I left the ground with echoes left behind (though not the second time...). Still the same ol' Speed Booster though aside from the new 'timer' which I didn't really get to try. I'll talk about the glitch in a few.

Hover Suit: Most. Fun. Item. Ever. This is a great replacement for Wall Jumping and as such, I will say I find it just a little hard to use in conjunction with running. But I think that's mainly just me. As for needing a timer, I can't really say. That will be dependent on your level design. Otherwise the only other thing this conflicts with is game speed which I tackle in a moment.

Weapons damage: seems pretty legit right now. Unless you go making enemies harder, I wouldn't see there being a need for doing this.



Now, two biggies: Inertia Booster glitch and game speed. After looking at the text file included with the patch, you said the Energy Collector adds a timer for the boosters and that the boosters themselves have a timer. Make sure those aren't conflicting with each other and also remember that when the shinespark glitch happened, five rooms later I realized I couldn't see my charge beam and I didn't get any health from it, but I could still shoot a charge shot. Pretty sure the timers are conflicting in some manner.

And finally, the speed of the game. The running tweaks in which you immediately turn around and you conserve all your momentum while landing speeds the game up by a fair margin. The Hover Suit contradicts this just a wee bit, but didn't find it too much of an issue. I know there are people who will complain about physics changes but I just learn to put up with them. No complaints, no excuses (not slammin' on ya herald :wink:).

Final verdict: Being just for what you've displayed so far, things seems pretty solid and we'll be seeing some very fresh game play. A few tweaks and fixes here and there along with the level design you've yet to do should make this a very interesting. One in which I will actually play (I'm only saying this cause most of the time I don't play hacks <_<). Good work, keep it up.