SM Redesign: Axeil Edition FINAL

[advancedpillow]

I also might have to start over because I misread the bit about the Ceres Ridley fight and thought that shooting him more made him weaker.  I might have made him impossible to beat with my skill level.

That's exactly what happened to me. Touching Ridley took away an entire energy tank. I had to resort to using PB + Charge wave beam. It wasn't pretty.

[KP9000]

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[01:20] <Drewseph> I'd love to see them make a hack
[01:20] <Drewseph> since they seem to know exactly how to make one
[01:21] <Drewseph> as I recall Leno was neevr good at metorid
I've only poked around a little bit, so if I'm taking this out of context, well, that sucks.

But I fucking hate it when authors/artists/producers/chefs etc. expect consumers not to have an opinion. I also hate it when authors/artists/producers/chefs etc. discredit consumers because they can't or don't share in their creative endeavors. I don't make SM hacks, nor have I made ANY hack that's worthy of release. As an 'average joe', does that make me ineligible to comment (positive or otherwise) on something I've experienced? Sure, I lack the same perspective, but it's a two-way road. I know plenty of people who do creative things who ask for any kind of criticism so as to gain perspective, in hopes of employing said perspective in future works.

A lot of work went into Redesign, and I'm sure Axiel as well. Unfortunately, I gave up after 5 minutes of playing Redesign. That, in itself, disqualifies me from making direct comments about it- except that when I hear someone ELSE talk about it, it's 80% negative; and that's a conservative number. When you've got that kind of response to such a work that took a lot of time and effort to produce, it's only a matter of time before it wears down on you hard enough that you begin to lash out on people with comments like that.

</mad>

[Boomerang]

I also might have to start over because I misread the bit about the Ceres Ridley fight and thought that shooting him more made him weaker.  I might have made him impossible to beat with my skill level.

That's exactly what happened to me. Touching Ridley took away an entire energy tank. I had to resort to using PB + Charge wave beam. It wasn't pretty.

I think that's an awful trick to pull. It says in the readme that dealing damage to Ridley on Ceres will decrease his health when you fight him in Norfair, but what it neglects to tell you that Ridley deals more damage as a result. That is so incredibly grimy I couldn't believe it. But, here we are.

After dealing with a destroyed save that eliminated three hours of progress (thanks higan), I sucked it up and tried again. I have just finished the hack. Here are my stats.



I will post my full thoughts later and write a review on the beta site. Until then, I will leave you with a sneak peak of my review:

[spoiler]OH MY FUCKING GOD, TOURIAN[/spoiler]

[Zhs2]

Lots of stuff about how the hack was taken opinionatedly

I'm just thinking a lot of it was for a reason. Lots of time spent does not automatically equal good.

[Boomerang]

Okay, so... Super Metroid Redesign: Axeil Edition. I will preface this by saying that I have played the original Redesign and that I got to Tourian, but stopped due to school work piling up and other life things getting in the way. I should probably finish it to complete the Redesign legacy. I played version 1.4. I will also say that I'm not the greatest Super Metroid player; my any% PB for Super Metroid is 1:00 (in-game time), though that's just playing as fast as I can with my preferred though sub-optimal route without any actual practice. I've also completed Eris 2009 and 2012 Editions (my run through 2009 edition was on a keyboard!), Hyper Metroid and Stardust. I've also gotten a fair bit through Impossible and I Wanna Be the Guy. My PB for Guacamelee! 100% is 3:56:41 playing casually after having left it on for 30 minutes to eat dinner. At the time I completed it, it was ranked 43rd on the leaderboards.

Proof:

[spoiler][/spoiler]

It sounds like I'm (undeservedly, I admit) tooting my own horn at this point, but this is all to say that while I'm not the greatest Metroidvania-type player, I'm not bad. I'd venture to say I'm pretty good, actually, so no one can say "oh, you just suck at Metroid, then" if I bring up any criticisms of the challenge of the game (of which there are many, but more on that later).

Also, for the sake of simplicity, I'm going to refer to this version of Redesign Axeil as simply "Redesign." So, without further ado, on to the review!

I will begin by saying that I honestly overall enjoyed this hack. There are a lot of things to love about Redesign that I feel people aren't giving enough credit for because of all the other stuff weighing down the hack.

• The world is absolutely gigantic and methodically crafted; it's abundantly clear that years worth of time and effort went into creating a sprawling, gigantic world that is both intimidating to look at on the map screens and beautiful to experience when playing. This is to say that clearly no effort was spared when creating this gigantic piece of work.
• The subtle changes to the tilesets also assist in creating an immersive world, to the point that Redesign looks leaps and bounds better than the original game. Everything looks like it makes sense, every tunnel looks natural and every structure looks like it was built onto the world in ways that just make sense.
• There are a lot of neat ideas, such as the new auto-morph mechanic which is a blessing for players troubled with the new physics, though there are definitely some tunnels that the auto-morph doesn't work in.
• The gravity is also less punishing, with horizontal jumps being made easier and Samus not falling like a rock the moment she reaches the apex of her jump.
• Shinesparking is made a little easier, as horizontal shinesparking in the original Redesign and vanilla Super Metroid was finicky and tough to accomplish.
• Auto-walljumping is also great as it does prevent hand cramps.
• The auto-map system has been ridiculously improved! This is probably the best map system of any Super Metroid hack out there. I'd be happy if every hack from hereon out incorporated some version of this map system; it prevents clutter, makes doors easy to spot, and is overall an incredible addition.
• The hint system is wonderful. It prevents a LOT of aimless searching and streamlines the game. I've heard of previous versions not incorporating hints for some of the Chozo Guardians, which is baffling to me. However, 1.4 did fix those issues.
• The endgame statistics screen is very neat and a nice way to cap off the adventure.
• Manual scrolling was a nice feature. The are unfortunately many places within the original Redesign that have you jumping blindly into enemies because they're too far below screen, but Axeil makes it somewhat more tolerable with this system. That being said, this feels more like a safety net for bad room design rather than a good mechanic in and of itself. Players shouldn't need to stop and look down for a couple of seconds when you could just structure the room in a way that players can see all they need to see at all times.
• The nameplates for the areas is a NICE touch. I suggest adding more in there in future editions! So far, I count: Crateria, Crateria Depths, Brinstar, Norfair, Lower Norfair, Maridia, Tourian Access and Tourian. There could definitely be more added in, especially in Brinstar and Maridia. One of my favourite parts of Metroid Prime is that every room has a NAME, which lends an identity to each area.
• Quicksand doesn't suck ass anymore. Thank god!
• Exiting water without the Gravity Suit is actually possible in this version! HUZZAH!
• The optional Hell's Run is very much appreciated. While the Hell's Run was something of an iconic moment of the original Redesign, it was the source of incredible frustration due to death pits and there being absolutely no room for error on the player's part.
• The early Power Bomb challenge is very neat. I won't say much more about it due to not having attempted the challenge, but it's still a very cool feature.
• Speedbooster and Power Bomb blocks staying destroyed even when exiting a room is great!
• The idea to weaken Ridley's health in Ceres to aid in your fight against him in Norfair was a very cool idea... HOWEVER... I will go into why it's super bullshit later on.
• The express elevators are a nice addition, which helps cut down on the backtracking somewhat. However, I didn't make much use of them myself because I honestly forgot where they would go and would rarely take me to where I needed to go if I did remember where they went. Maybe notating them on the map somehow would help?

AREA SPECIFIC

• CRATERIA: The early Power Bomb challenge is very well presented. There are subtle environmental cues to show which trip wires won't set off the alarm, which is a neat addition.
• BRINSTAR: Honestly, Brinstar was my absolute favourite part of the hack, especially Red Brinstar. Sidehoppers always will suck, and the Mega Sidehoppers taking off more than an Energy Tank is bullshit, but I still enjoyed it immensely.
• NORFAIR: Not much to say, as it didn't feel too different (though I admit I played Redesign a couple of years ago), though the added save points is a plus. Also, and I don't know exactly how to quantify this, but the Grapple section in Norfair wasn't as much of a nightmare, thank god.
• MARIDIA: Quicksand isn't stupid shit anymore.
• TOURIAN: Despite my outburst in my previous post, Tourian does have some neat ideas. The idea to destroy Zebetites to deactivate lasers is definitely pretty cool, though I'd totally scale it back a bit with how extreme it is. It's a well-crafted location... even if tedious.

The hack definitely feels more accessible this time around, with enemy damage being taken down and health drops being buffed (small energy now heals 10, and large energy heals 25). The additions really help new players ease into the game and I will definitely say that I had more fun at the beginning of the hack than I did in the original Redesign.

Now, all that having been said...

I have quite a few criticisms with the hack. As many people have vented their frustrations to you in this thread, which will always be a tough pill to swallow, I won't go full rage mode or anything.

• The physics, while made better, are still annoying to deal with. The most important question you should ask yourself when creating a game or making a hack is "what does this bring to the table?" For example, what do the heavier physics bring to the table? You mentioned in your readme for the original hack that they add a sense of unfamiliarity, which might be true to an extent, but I still felt like I was playing Super Metroid, anyway. After that, they just lend a sense of frustration to players trying to navigate the often tight, methodically constructed rooms and maps of the game. Another member mentioned that they'd have more fun if the original physics were present, which is a statement I'm going to support. Also, as an aside, you mentioned in the original hack's readme that your decision to add in the heavier physics was supported by a Pirate Data Entry in the Logbook which states that Tallon IV and Zebes have similar masses... but, you don't jump as high in Metroid Prime, and if you adjust for that I think you'd find that Tallon IV and the original Super Metroid Zebes do have similar gravity. Just something to keep in mind.
• Similar to the different physics, why was the crumble jump removed? I know crumble jumping allowed players to circumvent your puzzles, but wasn't that part of the reason why people liked Super Metroid in the first place? The important thing to note is player agency here, in that in Super Metroid you're given all these different options as to how you can approach the game. It lends a sense of replay value that isn't found in other games that Metroidvanias excel at. I know it sucks to work super hard on a puzzle just for people to ignore it in favour of a different solution, but sometimes the developer must make concessions for the players: Miyazaki of Dark Souls fame speaks of this in an interview in which he says that despite there being sequence-breaking bugs in his games (I think the skip in questions is the skip to the Adjudicator in Demon's Souls' Shrine of Storms 1), the fact that they add something to the game and become a part of its identity is something that must be considered or even kept in when designing games in this era in which we can patch out bugs and the like. Totally restricting player agency like that is BOUND to frustrate players, and strips Super Metroid of something that helped make it so loved in the first place.
• Similarly, why the heck did you make arm-pumping slower, dude?!
• The Morph Ball rolling speed is way, way too slow. I realize you wanted to give an added benefit to getting the Hi-Jump Boots, but why? What purpose did it serve? The fact that you can jump higher and while in a ball is reward enough. The default rolling speed should be the speed you have with the Hi-Jump Boots equipped, because as it stands it's just tedious.
• Those Morph Ball maze tunnels also suck the big one. You know, the ones where you need to make these incredibly tight jumps or else you risk falling onto a crumble block (which, need I remind everyone, you can no longer jump out of and save yourself losing a shit-ton of progress). I'll admit I save-stated the HELL out of those sections to save myself the immense frustration. And, to add insult to injury, you're given measly rewards like 2-Missile Packs once you've completed them.
• That brings me to my next point, which is also true of the original Redesign. The different sizes of Missile packs, while a neat idea, don't add much but frustration to the game. Early on, you're forced to deal with criminally low Missile levels which makes the player farm for ammo, which is never a good thing. This combined with those fucking Purple Doors, makes resource management all the more tedious.
• Purple Doors. Why, Drew? What do they add to the experience? People were never really big fans of the 5 Missile Doors in Super Metroid and the addition of 1 Missile Doors in Zero Mission was universally praised, so why make it even more extreme and tedious? Again, you have to ask yourself what Purple Doors bring to the table. Missile Doors are basically locks to prevent the player from exploring until they have the appropriate power up, this case being the Missiles. While maybe having one Purple Door might be good to force players to explore and find the appropriate amount of missiles, there's like a fucking million of them in the hack. Super Missiles also fire more slowly, so you're forced to sit and wait for longer than what is reasonable to open these damn doors. I say take them out and replace them with 5 Missile Doors or Power Bomb doors or whatever. Or, even better, 1 Missile Doors!
• Which reminds me, why do Supers fire slower? Supers were already made somewhat pointless by Charge+Ice+Wave+Plasma totally out-damaging them, so lowering their firing speed is just a totally ridiculous nerf. Maybe if they were godlike like they are in Zero Mission would this be an okay decision, but here it's just silly. They're totally useless, after a certain point.
• The shot block that looks like a bomb block is stupid and only serves to confuse players. There's no reason for its inclusion.
• Crateria Depths was increased? Why? WHY? It's easily the worst part of pre-Tourian. Underwater suitless isn't challenging or fun, it's just annoying and tedious. And why the heck did you keep it as part of the escape sequence?! Again, you must ask yourself what it brings to the table. Fighting the Elite Pirates was the only interesting part of it all.
• The abundance of Morph Ball Tunnel Puzzles. I like them as much as the next guy, but there's just too much. Add in the fact that many of them need double bomb jumping, and you have yourself many needlessly tedious sections of the game that could have easily been much more enjoyable had they been designed with reducing tedium in mind.
• The Speed Booster escape killed me like 4 times because of the incredibly tight window you're given to escape. You need to have a perfect run or else you're toast. After the vertical shinesparking section, if the lava gets too high you simply cannot escape. Make it so that you can escape even if you're stuck in the lava at that point.
• The Screw Attack puzzle is a bit too nebulous for my tastes. I had to look up the solution because I honestly never noticed that the switches ran on timers with differing lengths. This puzzle, along with the Lost Caverns, is easily the most "esoteric" for lack of a better phrase of the puzzles in Redesign. It's certainly a neat idea, but it will be the source of endless frustration for the vast majority of players unless this problem is addressed. The thing is with Metroid puzzles is that the player is taught to look for environmental cues and hidden passages and the like to discover items, and this is also true for the rest of the hack. However, the Screw Attack puzzle throws all preconceptions and intuitively-thought mechanics out the window in favour of a puzzle that will frustrate people. Players can easily miss out on the cues already given by not noticing a mere ONE SECOND of different between two separate switches. I realize you don't have problems with this puzzle, Drew, but that's because you created it.
• Fucking sandfalls in Maridia. They're just there to frustrate you and prevent you from reaching Botwoon early, the latter of which is absolutely fine, but did it have to affect the rest of the hack?
• Other than that, Maridia was honestly just kind of boring. Power ups were super scarce in comparison to other areas, especially Brinstar, and the enemies were damage sponges which would have been totally alleviated had we been given the Beam Combo earlier, but alas.
• Why was the Plasma Beam kept until after Ridley? At that point, all you need to do is hunt down the Guardians and enter Tourian. There's just not much use for it outside of those instances. There's just not much to use it on aside from the Space Pirates in Tourian. Make it so that you can use it against Ridley, at least!
• Ridley's boss battle in Norfair. Attacking Ridley on Ceres was a SUPER cool idea, but your little readme neglected to mention that he'd deal more damage as a result. He shouldn't be taking off 3 energy tanks worth of health, god dammit. Either take out the damage buff or at least mention it in the readme before unsuspected players get gored on a totally bullshit and grimy trick.
• Acid. Now, this is a bit of weird point because I played 1.4 which cut back on the ridiculous damage given by Acid in favour of a suit integrity damage system, but it brings to mind a sort of cognitive dissonance that always pops in my mind whenever I think about Axeil: for a hack designed to be more accessible, why are there so many mechanics that are harder for the player?
• And now... for the big one. Tourian. Oh my gosh, Tourian. This was easily one of the least enjoyable experiences I've had playing a Metroid hack. I was not fucking ready for Tourian. No amount of trials and tribulations could have prepared me for the sleeping beast that lied dormant until I awakened those twelve fateful Chozo Guardians. Now, I realize I played version 1.4 which apparently cut back on the Metroids outside of the Ffff-ffEEEEDIng PIT aREAs... sorry, my rage peeped out for an instant. I'm sorry about that! Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes, Tourian. As stated before, disarming the lasers was a cool idea, but it was pretty darn extreme. It's just super tedious, which you say is intentional but again you must ask yourself what the point of the tedium is. If you're designing a hack made to be more accessible, why would you deliberately design something more tedious? It's another sense of the cognitive dissonance I was talking about, and others have touched on this as well.
• The mega uber death lasers are a bit much. Tone down the damage because falling into one or jumping into one is instant death. Just make them a solid block that takes of a chunk of damage instead of sapping your health 300 HEALTH A FRAME.
• THE METROIDS. Ooooooooh man, the Metroids. I will admit I was pretty jazzed getting into Tourian as I honestly enjoyed myself despite all the criticisms I had for pre-Tourian sections of the game. I honestly, truly enjoyed myself, despite all the railroading and the blatant hate for sequence breaking and letting the player find their own route through the game, but then the Metroids attacked. The earth cracked and the sky shook with the ferocity of their attacks. I was emotionally spent after having completed the hack, and by golly god damn holy crap did those Metroids ever take a toll on me. There are just too much, they are too plentiful, they aggro from too far away, they hunt in these fucking packs, they take too much to get off, they're too fast, Supers are way too slow, they're too relentless, holy shit oh my gosh why
• THE FEEDING PIT. Wait! Let me... let me collect myself. I'm sorry, bad memories. Anyway, yes, the feeding pit. That feeding pit is the worst part of the hack, easily. I yelled, I was frustrated, it took forever, I had to make multiple trips out of Tourian and to my ship in Crateria to efficiently farm all that health back, and why did you put it in? Why did you put the feeding pit in a hack designed to be more accessible for players? WHY?! DREEEEEWWWWWwww... Anyway, yeah, they're a pain. Why do they dodge? Why do they take less time to freeze? Why don't Power Bombs work at all? Why do you need to kill them in an insanely fast amount of time? I got lucky and the Metroids decided to stay stunned for longer in the final feeding pit area, which was the sweet song of seraphim heard in my lover's bosom to me at that point, but AGAIN I must ask why it's included in a hack that's designed to be more accessible. If this was a challenge hack, great! Mission accomplished! However, neither this nor the original Redesign (though it's to my understanding that the Metroids weren't this insane in the original hack) were designed to be challenge hacks. In fact, as I've brought up doubtlessly countless times at this point, Axeil Edition was designed to be more accessible! So why, man? Why?

So, after having given an all-too-large bullet point list of my likes and dislikes of the hack (though I'll admit that I probably forgot a lot of stuff, though I feel others have stated their criticisms enough to cover the ones I forgot), I'll finish with my closing thoughts. I will restate that despite my criticisms, I still had fun with this game. There's still a lot of bullshit, and Tourian makes me never want to play it again, but I DID have fun with it and it isn't unsalvageable from the bullshit mentioned. There's a lot of room for improvement and changes can be made to make this the Axeil Edition people like myself and others have powered through the pure, distilled nightmare that was Tourian (my greatest regards go out to those who managed to fight through Tourian on version 1.0) expected, so I await what Drew has in store for us.

I know it's a super tough pill to swallow when you work so, so hard on a hack as ambitious and gigantic as this to hear that people dislike it or even find it abhorrent, but you can either listen and try to build a better hack with the knowledge gained from such criticisms, or get defensive and say that we suck or something. I hope the former is what happens, and to an extent that is indeed what is happening, but more drastic changes need to be made for Axeil Edition to fully deliver what it promised to deliver in the first place: an accessible Redesign.

Right now, I rate it 3/5. Pre-Tourian sections are a 4/5, but Tourian scarred me so emotionally that I'm going with a 3/5. Overall, a wonderful hack with some very key flaws that need to be--and still have hope yet to be--addressed.

[Drewseph]

Thank the heavans!  A usefull review instead of seething hate!  Boomarang, thanks for the list of the good and the bad!  I''m well aware of the issue in tourian and I plan to change that (no thanks to techno making it seem like I am not willing to fix anything).

a lot of your points are valid, and I'd love to try and address what I can change.

a few things I'll talk about here:

Purple doors:  They are there to prevent early access, and also an homage to the 10 missile doors in M1, they also serve as an obstacle for ammo managment to important areas.  All purple doors will lead to important areas, transition hubs connecting to new areas, or guardians.  1.5 will fix this even further by removing mroe unnessesary purples.  pueples were coded over powerbomb doors, so none of those are in engine.

Crumble blocks:  IN redesign I wanted this but couldn't code at the time.  because mzm and fusion prevented crumble jumping.  The mazes are difficult, and the reason most of them have small missile packs is so that if a player can't perform the tricks then its not always a total loss. I'll be adjusting some of the worst offenders again in 1.5.  but for ex, the powerbomg maze in east crateria, there is an optional path that doesn't require any crazy bj.

Supers slow because I raised the damages done to enemies in redesign, the higher damage rate is slowed to balance the rate compared to missiles. Speaking of damages 1.5 will have those tweaked so beams are actually more useful against enemies.

The shot block... what?  there are no bomb blocks in crateria that don't look like bomb blocks.  not sure why people think thats a bomb block, but I'll add one earlier to teach you what can be shot.

Crateria depths is the same length as it was before.  the pirates are easier to fight now with the new beam adjustments.

Since lower norfair can be accessed as soon as you have gravity suit and space jump plasma was made after ridley so it could be optionally used against draygon.  I'll see about possibly changing this and allowing access for 1.5

Ridley only does a little extra damage based on the times you shot him in ceres.  the formula is Shots/2+damage, so if he deals 50 damage to you, and you shot him 200 times he's going to deal 100 damage. When I did testing I assumed a hit of 256 on ceres and felt that was a good fight if the player had 8 tanks.  it seems I should probably tweak this.  yeah and of course add that bit to the read me. I honestly forgot because I spoke about it so much in the irc. as I mentioned in an earlier update, ridley probably needs more balancing because the damage buff was partnered with the idea that his vulnerabilities would be upped based on hits, which made the batter really really short.

I'll try to work on ledges for the horizontal death beams, but the damage they do needs to fit how they appear, which looks pretty devastating.  Also the nature of the appearance is supposed to discourage jumping directly into them.  Rinkas will be changed to be killed via SA.  I'll find a way to change metroids (inside the feeding pit) again.  feeding pit though.  since supers are really slow and regular missiles were intended to take out the 3 metroid groups. but again I'll find a better way to handle those battle. somehow.  For example, instead of 2-4 bombs to shake a metoird, making it require 6-9 bombs, but instead of incremental stun time, they will always stun for 8 seconds after detach.

There are many other issues being adjusted for 1.5 and hopefully this should make the end game a little less sour.

Thanks again for the awesome feedback!

BTW, Atma dug up a super duper OLD pre Alpha version of axeil which can be completed form start to finish,  maridia is the only unchanged area, there is no map changes as no map editor was available at the time.  should I make a topic for it?

[MetroidMst]

(no thanks to techno making it seem like I am not willing to fix anything).

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[00:04:33] <Technomagus> Also, FIX RESPIN.
[00:04:35] <Drewseph> we already talked about that one
[00:04:44] <Drewseph> nothings broken about respin
[00:05:01] <Drewseph> its exactly the same as in redesign
Techno was not talking about Tourian when he made that comment. He was talking about all the other stuff he brought up you just brushed off or completely ignored entirely. His comment is 100% justified. Now onto the basics of difficulty and how they're measured.

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[01:19:08] <Drewseph> I'm fucking sick of people calling this hack impossible and to stay away
[01:19:12] <Drewseph> its not that fucking hard
[01:19:23] <Drewseph> and contrary to what tech says I"M FUCKING TRYING TO FIX IT
[01:19:33] <Drewseph> its not stupid hard to be stupid hard

Here is where your problem lies. You made the hack easier overall, and that's great. Here is the issue, and my expertly made chart below will demonstrate it.

Difficulty level is represented by the vertical bar on the left, and the spikes are at certain lengths in the hack, with 10 being the end.
Axeil overall is much more mellow than Redesign was. With only maybe a spike up to 3 at some point in the game, whereas Redesign would average at least a 3 and often jump to 4/5 on occasions. So yeah, in that sense, Axeil is easier! But that thinking is completely flawed in this instance. Here is why:
The majority of the hack is passable, and probably not going to give the average player too much of an issue. But the spikes are important in this instance. Difficulty is not an average for a player. A hack is only as easy as the most difficult portion of it. Why? Because no matter what, to beat the game, the player will have to cross that difficulty spike to finish. The hack isn't going to be a 2 or 3 on the difficulty scale, it is a 5 because that is where the peak is. It isn't an optional part of the game, it is required. And like I said in my last post,the hack is going to be easy for you. You played v1.0 and thought it was good. You've toned down the Metroids so they seem even easier to you than before. But like I said, you made the hack, it is going to be easy for you. The hacker is always going to be the worst judge of their own hack, which is why a wide swath of beta testers of differing skill levels is needed to get some decent feedback. These statements of how difficult it is, are entirely your opinion, which is the worst to give for your own hack and are utterly meaningless to the average player.

The fact you've been toning things down and reworking things to v1.4, and are now working on v1.5 to make things even easier, shows you aren't grasping what players are saying. This gem completely demonstrates that:

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For example, instead of 2-4 bombs to shake a metoird, making it require 6-9 bombs, but instead of incremental stun time, they will always stun for 8 seconds after detach.
Here is your circular logic that is blinding you to the obvious. Easier means easier. What is easier? Same amount of Bombs, full stun timer. Your circular logic is "I made them easier, they have a full stun timer now." However, that full stun timer is now negated by requiring over twice the amount of Bombs to detach them. Also, I should mention that it is not currently 2-4 Bombs to detach them, it is 4 Bombs. (Which you described as "3" Bombs. "3" being 3-2-1-0. After playing through this I can safely say I never once had a Metroid detach for less than 4 Bombs. Just come out and say what it actually is.) And to delve further, let's get into this:

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The shot block... what?  there are no bomb blocks in crateria that don't look like bomb blocks.  not sure why people think thats a bomb block, but I'll add one earlier to teach you what can be shot.
Yes, because removing the block and/or making it look like an actual shot block is way too much trouble to go through than stating "here is what a Bomb block looks like." Which again does absolutely nothing for the player, seeing how that will then teach them Bomb blocks look like that, and they won't bother Bombing all the other Bomb blocks of different looks because hey, they don't look like Bomb blocks.

Just to break this down for you: Easier means easier. It isn't toning one thing down (Stun timer) for turning up another. (Amount of Bombs to detach.) It means toning one thing down, and not turning anything up. All that accomplishes is bringing it back to level.

[Vismund Cygnus]

Fixt that for ya Mst.


Tourian was ridiculous and marred what was otherwise a near perfect experience for me, but you've heard all the reasons why before Drew, and it's up to you to fix it.

Basically, easier is easier, but fixing something and adding a tradeoff in exchange (a la your comment about making metroids take more bombs) is just silly.

[Metaquarius]

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[01:19:12] <Drewseph> its not that fucking hard
Drewseph, you really said that ?.... you haven't learn anything then.

Tricks that I had always considered to be "easy" to perform took him dozens of tries and hours to execute.

So I let you imagine what happens when you consider things to be "not that fucking hard"......... it means IMPOSSIBLE. You don't like that word, me neither. I don't know how people managed to get past the Metroids, I played on half speed the whole time.

[Drewseph]

now that i'm being quoted out of context, I was saying the endgame was hard, that I'm not denying, but its not hard enough to warrant calling the entire hack a train wreck.

Also contrary to what metroidmst says I'm not the one who tested the game and said the metroids were a-ok.  My testers complained about them being hard and I adjusted, after that they said they were fine.  Then I had other testers test, they said they were challenging but not too hard, and then I made them easier.  and thats when I decided to release 1.0  and the world screamed.

[Cpt.Glitch]

I should still probably finish this hack. Stopped before the norfair heat run lol.

[squishy_ichigo]

Due to drew complaining in irc about mst misquoting him, I've been assed enough to write a few things about how I feel about Axiel edition in this thread, not only for transparency, but as a reference.

I do not know what is going on with this 'misquoting' and as such will not weight in on that, but I do know what I've seen myself. Drew has been more than willing enough to fix things that he thinks need fixing in his game, that I will not argue with. Again and again, he has made changes to Axiel, probably to the point that it is at a playable point for me now. However, he has been stubborn about other problems that I have mentioned, that he doesn't believe should be changed.

At the end of the day, this is Drew's hack, his vision, and we are just the players. We can try and convenience him that the changes we want have merit, but its really not our decision to make.  There is a limit to how much you listen to your players, and how much you trust your own decisions, and drew is having to deal with that.

Axiel is difficult is some parts, and annoying in others, but if it was just this as a standalone that wouldn't bother me as much, it would just keep me from finishing it. What DOES bother me, is that for the longest time (not sure if he is still playing this card or not, I assume the latter), drew was convinced that Axiel was significantly easier than it actually is, to the point that he even wanted to submit the hack to the (currently as of this writing) beta version of the site as a 'beginner' difficult hack. THIS bothers me. To the point that I find it really difficult to even take drew seriously sometimes when he talks about Axiel.

It was mine, along with several others, impression that Axiel version was being developed to be an easier version of Redesign, and being given the namesake of Axiel after the player that had soooo much trouble, that he wanted to fix it so that even he could beat it. But then, near release, it came to all of our attention, that this was not the case. Drew was marketing it as, 'I wanted the player to feel as if they where Axiel'. That turned me off a lot when I heard it, and I was vocal about it (to a point) but waited to play the game to truely weight in on how I felt about it.

Many parts of Axiel are indeed easier. Many parts of the first released version of Axiel are pretty bullshit. Drew has fixed many of these things, from what I hear, but I also keep hearing people complain, so its apparently not quite done just yet.  I was pretty vocal about how I felt about the difficulty spikes to drew on irc. I could have been more tactful in what I said, but I was pretty frustrated, due to the reason that I mentioned above.

At this point, I don't really care what happens with Axiel anymore, the hype died for me. If it gets fixed to the point I enjoy it from start to finish, that will be a relief, but I'm not gonna care much if it doesn't. Good luck everyone else.

[advancedpillow]

The less we "review" Drewseph and the more we stay on topic, reviewing the game, I think we'll all benefit, as a community and as fans of Axeil. We have to be careful of this being a pile-on about the person who is Drew. We've said our pieces about the problems we have in the game, if he wants to fix thise pieces, great; if he choses not to, so be it. I'm not mini-modding here or anything like that. Just trying to help us avoid too much of a focus on the hacker for saying something, whether it be misquoted, or said in anger, or even said honestly--and not the hack itself.

[MetroidPeter]

Wow, people really hated Tourian didn't they? I thought it was a cool challenge. Regarding the feeding pit, I managed to do it on my first try (after being almost completely sucked dry on energy tanks) without dying, and I didn't use tools either. Hope I didn't make anyone mad by saying that. :neutral:

[DonnyDonovan]

I'll weigh in here as a player who completed the original redesign but thought, overall, it was quite overrated.  I hated the physics.  I hated the fact that Samus handled like a tank.  I hated the sandfalls in Maridia with every fiber of my being.  I've been playing through 1.4 of Axeil and, overall, I've enjoyed the experience MUCH more.  While the morph ball is still too slow the overall feel of the hack, and the rewards of exploring such a huge world, are MUCH better this time around.  I didn't mind the suitless underwater parts at all.  I actually look forward to getting back to playing this where the original felt like a chore.  The map and the hint system are fantastic. 

My only real gripes thus far are similar to those expressed by others and are 1) removing crumble jumping, this is so annoying I don't know where to begin, 2) too many purple doors, 3) super missiles are too slow, 4) the jumps up to Draygon need to be too pixel perfect, 5) Lost caverns is a bit too obscure, 6) the screw attack puzzle is a bit much (I'd make the differences more obvious), 7) Plasma is obtained far too late to be of much use, I would have loved to have it for the Ridley fight, and 8) escaping the area after obtaining the speed booster requires too much perfection.  One mistake and it must be redone.  That's all I have off the top of my head.  If these things were tweaked this would be getting real close to my favorite hack of all time.  I'm enjoying myself that much.

But, I am pre-tourian.  My game status is fully powered (all beams and upgrades), all bosses dead, looking for tanks and expansions and collecting guardians.  After reading through this thread I think I'm waiting for 1.5 before heading to the final area.

[Retroo]

Wow, people really hated Tourian didn't they? I thought it was a cool challenge. Regarding the feeding pit, I managed to do it on my first try (after being almost completely sucked dry on energy tanks) without dying, and I didn't use tools either. Hope I didn't make anyone mad by saying that. :neutral:

This.

[Lenophis]

At the end of the day, this is Drew's hack, his vision, and we are just the players. We can try and convenience him that the changes we want have merit, but its really not our decision to make.  There is a limit to how much you listen to your players, and how much you trust your own decisions, and drew is having to deal with that.

100% true. However, what is also true, is that if Drew wants people to play this, the people are going to tell him what is wrong, and then it is up to Drew to decide if he's going to listen to what is specifically wrong and fix it or not. If he's not going to fix it, people won't play it. Both sides win in that case. At the same time, if Drew is going to lobby and call it something that it's not, that will cause an uproar.

but its not hard enough to warrant calling the entire hack a train wreck.

I disagree. After seeing Tourian (death lasers, neat idea, horribly implemented, Metroids of drew, again neat, horribly implemented, Morph mazes you can't use PBs in because they're shot blocks, also Morph maze again because you just had to keep something from the original escape), after seeing near-pixel perfect jumps changed in Maridia (yay sandfalls), after seeing 70+ purple doors (horribly implemented), all I can determine is that you want to punish the player. Others posting here are generally confirming this theory. You say "its not hard," but you are comparing it to you. Everyone here is saying it's hard. I can get if there's a small group, maybe 1, 2, or 5. But if the overwhelming response here is disagreeing with you, then I'm having a hard time believing that everyone else is wrong here. You are the master of your own engine, of course you won't think it's that hard. You know all the quirks, all the nuances. You programmed the AI of the Metroids, so you know exactly where, when, and how to strike. Are you expecting everyone else to read your mind, and instantly know how to do this? If so, that's what makes it poor design. If your wife was a major in design as you keep claiming, and if you were getting her input, then she would be drilling your skull with this info. It's up to you to drop the stubbornness and admit, hey, maybe there's a mistake or two here. It is still your baby, and fixing any potential flaws only helps everyone all-around. Nurture your child, Drew.

[MetroidMst]

At the end of the day, this is Drew's hack, his vision, and we are just the players. We can try and convenience him that the changes we want have merit, but its really not our decision to make.  There is a limit to how much you listen to your players, and how much you trust your own decisions, and drew is having to deal with that.

Which is perfectly fine and good. In fact, had the hack not be "marketed" as something other than a Redesign that average players can beat, I would not have an issue with how his Tourian turned out. I would still be frustrated by it, but big deal, player beating the game weren't his consideration. But the whole continuing on with "it isn't that hard because the rest of it isn't hard" is bogus as I pointed out in the last post, and seeing how the hack is supposed to be beatable by average players, it should be beatable by average players without an issue to be considered "not that difficult."

Code Select Expand

Just to break this down for you: Easier means easier. It isn't toning one thing down (Stun timer) for turning up another. (Amount of Bombs to detach.) It means toning one thing down, and not turning anything up. All that accomplishes is bringing it back to level.

[Boomerang]

Wow, people really hated Tourian didn't they? I thought it was a cool challenge. Regarding the feeding pit, I managed to do it on my first try (after being almost completely sucked dry on energy tanks) without dying, and I didn't use tools either. Hope I didn't make anyone mad by saying that. :neutral:

This.

I have to wonder what the secret is, then, behind fighting the feeding pit Axeil Metroids. I got totally rocked by them, so I'm all ears. Please, let the world know how to fight Redesign's ultimate monster.  :heheh:

Anyway, the core of the issue here is that despite being advertised as an accessible hack, there are many portions of the hack that are a little too difficult (the Speed Booster escape requires the perfect run, Maridia's jumps are a bit too ridiculous, Plasma is held back too late) or are crushingly difficult (Tourian). I know it's tough to listen to people criticize something you've spent several years of time, effort and creative energy trying to produce (and trust me, the unparalleled size, scope and detail of the world completely shows this), and it's great that you're willing to listen to concerns, but concessions have to be made on issues like these, especially when the second line on your website reads, "Tricks that I had always considered to be 'easy' to perform took him dozens of tries and hours to execute."  :heheh: I'm willing to give even more input and discuss the hack with you, Drew, to aid you in accomplishing this. I really liked the original Redesign, and Axeil Edition is no exception, but I did have issues with them. I want to see people like the hack and be excited to play it because I can tell you poured a lot into creating this hack and it kills me to see such a polished, methodically crafted hack held back and criticized because of a few fatal design choices.

[Lunaria]

Still not through with hack so far, but some random thoughts after todays one and half hour of streaming. The segment being, from powerbombs, to some brinstar exploration, to grappling beam, and then back to brinstar elevator:

1. Purple doors. Often I can get to them and open them before I can even do something on the other side, effectively wasting all my spare ammunition on shit I can't do anything with yet.

2. Supplies in general. This hack seems to be designed around the fact that the players should farm on respawning enemies all over the place. This is terrible, and I'd fucking hate to be the guy who play this on console without autofire and fastforward. (Not to mention you'll want to go into the inventory and disable/re-enable ice beam every bloody time you do it.)

3. Blind jumps, blind jumps everywhere. Some places are not too bad, but the sheer amount of places where you fall down and have danger below that you'd have no way of know about is ludicrous.

4. That one fucking giant side hopper. You know, the one on the way to grappling beam? Yeah, that one suck. There is NO fucking way to tell that it's going to break those blocks, that combined with the fact that super missile fire once per hour. Firing 10 missiles is more effective and faster than two supers, making them useless aside from purple door buster and when you run out of missiles. Which is something I learned from this encounter. It's also REALLY not obvious that you need to kill it to open the door. I know it would be required, because I'm genre savvy, but most gray doors prior to this point in the game would suggest that the player missing a hidden path or a miniboss, not a need to clear the room. If players then die, they are likely to look elsewhere. (Kudos for making it so you can't backtrack out of that area alive though!) You should have another look over this whole thing.

5. That one E-tank in brinstar with the water room that you have to freeze fishes in. That whole thing is terrible, I feel sorry for those without save states. It's lots of slow and tedious backtracking out of the room if you accidentally kill anything. Not to mention the lowest fish can leave the climbing area. (In fact, it's on the way to do so right as first find it!) If you don't want to re-evaluate this entire puzzle, then at least fix it so that lowest fish can't leave the climbing area.

6. There is way too many morph ball mazes in norfair, and not a single of them are enjoyable. (Have fun rolling around and hitting gate switches in a maze while doing tedious amounts of bomb jumping and realizing how much fun less tedious this would be if the morphball physics weren't ass slow!)



I didn't stop playing today because I got tired or needed to do something else. I stopped because I was not having fun, it was just tedious.

[Daltone]

I feel like people are whining because they arent patient enough to find a solution to the challenge given.

I diddnt read on this http://drewseph.metroidconstruction.com that average players can beat it, doesnt mention finishing or completed on it at all, it says 'expert skill made automated' a little confusing maybe it automatically makes you boss for playing the game.

people should be complaining about the EPB challenge instead, its wayyyyyy harder then the normal game, requires alot more patience.

the metroids are tedious to fight i agree, but there is a simple solution to them. calm down and deal with them as a group, when theres 3 go for the sides before the guy in the middle.
complaining about a lazer beam that is stationary is funny too, you touch it like a hot stove and learn a lesson. die and learn. nintendo.

[Boomerang]

It's fairly obvious that Axeil Edition was meant to be an easier, more accessible version of Redesign. The inclusion of mechanics like auto-morph, auto-walljumping, lowered damage from certain enemies, and a bunch of other additions more detailed in the readme makes it so that Axeil Edition is meant to be more accessible. Calling our criticisms "whining" is a lame way to try to discredit them.

The EPB Challenge has nothing to complain about: it's advertised as a tough challenge, and that's what it is. Drew even warns that there are certain tricks absolutely required to finish and that savestates are a must to complete the challenge due to permastucks and whatnot. People who play the challenge know what they're getting themselves into when they choose to do it.

That strategy to beat the Metroids doesn't always work, I'm afraid, especially in the feeding pit. Say you bombed two Metroids off of you: the stunned Metroids go back into their triangle formation by taking up the top and left spots. You have a choice to either shoot the left or right Metroid. If you shoot the left Metroid--the one that won't dodge--you run the risk of the right Metroid who is not stunned totally charging you. At this point, you can try to dodge the charging Metroid, but at that point you the two other Metroids are no longer stunned. You're back to square one. So, say you try to shoot the right Metroid while the other two are stunned. The right Metroid totally dodges your beams and the other two thaw out. You're back to square one.

There's no good strategy to fighting these things, at least from what I can tell. I managed to beat them because maybe once in a while a Metroid wouldn't dodge my beam or maybe they would stay stunned for a second longer. Either way, there is absolutely no justifying the behaviour and challenge of the feeding pit Metroids. The Metroids in the other parts of Tourian are tedious to fight as well, but they're not the pure, undiluted nightmares that are the feeding pit Metroids.

[Hitaka]

There's something to keep in mind when fighting groups of three metroids that I think a lot of people forget.
[spoiler]Enemies don't respawn until their drops are collected or disappear. Don't grab their loot until they're all dead, and you get a lot more time to finish them all off before the first one respawns. As for the best way to deal with them? Just don't freeze any of them until all of their stun timers are maxed. Then kill them in sequence, starting with the one you knocked off first.[/spoiler]

Anyway, it's clear that regardless of what else may or may not be wrong with this hack, the number one issue that people won't stop hating is the metroids. They're just so OVERWHELMING that they drive people to frustration and anger, making it difficult to bring the situation under control even if you know what to do. Drew seems unwilling to abandon the new mechanics that make them so hated, and I suspect that's because it probably took a lot of work to code in all the new behaviors and mechanics, and he doesn't want to just abandon all that work, which is understandable. I think the only way to reconcile these two positions is to keep them as they are, but give them a crippling weakness.

In the EPB challenge, you get to Tourian severely underequipped. No gravity, no plasma or beam combo. BUT, to make up for it, instead of being immune to PBs, metroids are weak to them. They instantly knock off and maximum stun all metroids. I think the solution is to add this in a normal game. It makes sense. Bombs knock them off and stun them gradually, and power bombs are really strong bombs. This would do three things. 1) Keep the new mechanics Drew programmed, 2) Give players a way to deal with them quickly and with little frustration, and 3) Make PBs useful in the endgame outside of crystal flashing.

So that's my idea to fix the most divisive issue in this hack. I'd like to hear other people's opinions on this suggestion.

[MetroidPeter]

Well, if Metroids do become so abrasively weak to Power Bombs, then people would just constantly spam them. It does sound like an interesting idea, but one that could be a game breaker. How about this: make them weak to PBs like you said, but make it so no enemies in Tourian drop Power Bombs; ammo stations would still refill them though.

[Boomerang]

That wouldn't stop people from spamming them, and it'd incentivize people to do more backtracking to refill (which is already happening due to the damage done by the Metroids and the lack of a way to quickly farm health and ammo).