[SM] Z-Factor Hack v1.3

[MATHGODpi]

I just have no idea on how to get into Lower Norfair.

[spoiler]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzkbmsYzdsE[/spoiler]

Question for anyone who has played through most or all of the hack
[spoiler]

What is he implying here? That there's a back way to enter Samus' ship?[/spoiler]

[LReyomeXX]

Edit : It seems JP dudes have already made a map for the hack  :blush:

Yeah but like anything else Z-Factor related, it's hard to use web searches to find it because web searches confuse Z-Factor with X Factor

[Zhs2]

Question for anyone who has played through most or all of the hack

It is a hint on how to reach the hack's secret room, and no, it doesn't refer to Samus' ship...

[Quote58]

So, to add to my last sb path thing, I think you can skip wave. I think (correct me if I'm mistaken) that the only thing wave is required for is croc, but you never need to fight croc, so in theory, you never need to pick up wave.

[MATHGODpi]

So, to add to my last sb path thing, I think you can skip wave. I think (correct me if I'm mistaken) that the only thing wave is required for is croc, but you never need to fight croc, so in theory, you never need to pick up wave.

If you dont fight croc, where do you get your first powers? Nm realized you're talking about the original... you can get to croc with powers... dont need wave for anything.

[Quote58]

what are you talking about? Cause I'm talking about zfactor. Where you need wave to fight croc to get power bombs...

[MATHGODpi]

what are you talking about? Cause I'm talking about zfactor. Where you need wave to fight croc to get power bombs...

Oh. You were saying that you never need to pick up wave so I figured you were refering to the original SM. In Zfactor, I'm pretty sure you need wave.

[spoiler]In Maridia, after you find a hidden passage in a left wall, it leads right to a blue gate that faces the opposite way.[/spoiler]

[Quote58]

Alright, as much as I hate zaridia, I ventured into it without the map mst gave me cause I lost it. I eventually found my way to the beaten path via hidden paths that I didn't think could be as ridiculous as they were. That's beside the point though. I've gone through it now and there are no gates that can not be ggg on the main path. Thus, wave is not required.

[Metaquarius]

We're a group of hackers, so ya we're probably going to ibj and ggg where we think it could give us an item.

I'm a "hacker" too and never goes ibj and ggg on the first playthrough of any hack, so that's why this is not convicing me. Thanks for telling me PEOPLEZ ARE CRAZY !!!  :lol:

Unlike SM, I wanted the LN entrance to be really hidden and not to rely exclusively on a combination of upgrades . And you don't need to bomb everywhere. Ever heard of power bombs and x-ray scope ? Most of the time, it is enough to find secret passages. The Norfair map station is not hidden at all, this is completely wrong. Its access is blocked off by suspicious pb blocks you can't miss on your first playthrought unless...... oh wait, was that you who was sequence breaking ? :razz:

[GoldenTorizo]

Finally found my way to Lower Norfair (Thanks to MATHGODpi's video) and I almost died because I thought the hack was made to be an acid run. Whoops.

[Mon732]

Yeah but like anything else Z-Factor related, it's hard to use web searches to find it because web searches confuse Z-Factor with X Factor

Try "z factor" with the quotes, that'll tell google to find exactly what you put.

[Quote58]

We're a group of hackers, so ya we're probably going to ibj and ggg where we think it could give us an item.

PEOPLEZ ARE CRAZY !!!  :lol:

"You're hack just lends itself to sb due to it's lack of good hints for the path without any sb"
Most hacks don't do that, people are not simply crazy.

Unlike SM, I wanted the LN entrance to be really hidden and not to rely exclusively on a combination of upgrades . And you don't need to bomb everywhere. Ever heard of power bombs and x-ray scope ? Most of the time, it is enough to find secret passages. The Norfair map station is not hidden at all, this is completely wrong. Its access is blocked off by suspicious pb blocks you can't miss on your first playthrough unless...... oh wait, was that you who was sequence breaking ? :razz:

x-ray scope should never be required to find the next area. To find little upgrades, yes. Area, no.
Power bombing counts as bombing. You still have to go around every spot on the map that could possibly be around it, and bomb.
And in my case, as I recall I had used a power bomb that didn't quite reach that one square (which looked just like any other square) so I didn't see it until I x-ray'd every square that could possibly lead to that room.
The map room is hidden. It's not very difficult to find, but it's easy to miss.
And yes, you can miss it on your first playthrough regardless of sb.

Look, I get that it's your hack, and you want to defend it, but this is just the way it is. I still love the hack, but it's important for you to understand how players other than you think.

[MetroidMst]

Look, I get that it's your hack, and you want to defend it, but this is just the way it is. I still love the hack, but it's important for you to understand how players other than you think.

And here I come to his defense. Some of our playing probably did catch him off guard, but that doesn't mean he should make a hack how we want him to. It is his hack, and his ideas were made into a hack that most of us enjoyed, some of us loved, and that I think is the greatest hack to date. That wouldn't have happened without him doing things his way.

I do agree some parts needed tweaking, but it should end there. Any and all comments exceeding mentioning those points should not even be considered. Enjoy the hack for what it is, and thank Meta for making something different and unique. His viewpoints shaped the hack into what it is. I see no need, nor do I desire him to change his viewpoints. It is refreshing to see.

[Metaquarius]

should never be required

Who decided this ? Players ? Hackers ? God ? :eyeroll:
Don't tell me most hacks don't do this because most hacks are really badly "designed" and some of them not fun at all.
Want straightforward path to follow ? Play another hack I guess. :neutral:

In fact, I think I understand now, some (or many) players don't see my subtle hints because they don't take time to look for them. There's a wide-spread habit of rushing/bombing/sbing everywhere and thinking later. Just watch ElectrometerPrime's vids and see how he goes ibj even if he's not stuck at all...
Some hotspots are admittedly badly made and you can add to that occasional overuse of ornementations which is not helping either.
Guess I have to think about it...

that doesn't mean he should make a hack how we want him to.

Exactly. :^_^:
That said, it's good to share point of views.

[Eppy37]

Yeah I'm guilty of the ibj thing, though that's mostly because I very recently learned how to ibj so now I want to use it to try and get all sorts of things early <_<;

[Weterr123]

Just a quick one, and I apologize if this has been answered on a previous page (I won't read any posts before this due to spoilers), but I'm a little way into this on 1.1, not done much since my last post as I have been busy.

Just wondering if I need to get v1.2, anything major changed? And if so, will I need to start fresh or not?

I did say I would give my review soon, sorry for the wait Meta. I will have something substantial to talk about by the end of the week hopefully  :^_^:

[Crashtour99]

Meta, I think the main thing that needs work is how the terrain and level design lead the player forward.  Some areas in your hack are really good at this, while others fail miserably.

Consider the original Super Metroid for a moment, like when you first get to the bottom of the Red Brinstar shaft.  You can't go back up without ice beam, and the only part of Norfair you can access without heat runs is the high-jump room.  You're trapped in a relatively small area where the path forward is hidden (the super missile blocks to Kraid's hideout), and you won't progress without finding it. 

The main problem your hack has with hidden paths forward is that the player is never trapped in a small area where the hidden path exists.  This leads them to wander aimlessly and backtrack without any direction.  This will also cause players to use sequence breaking techniques if they're able just to find any path at all (unless they're an idiot and do so just because they can, then it's their own fault lol).  This doesn't even include parts that are tedious or difficult either (like dying multiple times trying to climb up frozen geegas while being constantly rammed by respawning bulls/puffers, or spending half an hour trying to grapple the ripper in the west crateria lake only to give up and cheat by giving myself spacejump for 30 seconds).

Now, I'm not trying to be mean or anything, as it's still a great hack.  It just has a few serious design flaws here and there.  (also note that I've only played v1.0, so I haven't played through any revisions you've done yet)

[Quietus]

I've seen a lot of people grumbling about the Grappling before Gravity, so I thought I'd mention this: When grappling, if you hold the run button, you keep most of your momentum from a swing, which makes those jumps a lot easier.  Also, if you morph as you fling across the screen, you can then unmorph in mid-air to squeeze an extra bit of distance out of your swing.

On the first swing, for example, I landed on about the fourth block along the platform you're aiming for. :^_^:

[Vorpal]

First off, let's go over some of the many sequence breaking there is to be done.
[spoiler]
-Wrecked ship can be broken into early and gravity can be obtained without both speed booster or grapple.[/spoiler]

Can you elaborate on this one?  I figured out how to get into the wrecked ship, but I'm stuck at the one big crateria room after the boss.

[Quote58]

Who decided this ? Players ? Hackers ? God ? :eyeroll:
Don't tell me most hacks don't do this because most hacks are really badly "designed" and some of them not fun at all.
Want straightforward path to follow ? Play another hack I guess. :neutral:

In fact, I think I understand now, some (or many) players don't see my subtle hints because they don't take time to look for them. There's a wide-spread habit of rushing/bombing/sbing everywhere and thinking later. Just watch ElectrometerPrime's vids and see how he goes ibj even if he's not stuck at all...

Woah man. Hold up.
See there's a difference between a hint being subtle, and a hint being subtle only to the maker.
I love this hack, but there is one thing you just did wrong. See the original super metroid had a few things that made it so brilliantly designed, and very few hacks have come close to what sm did. You got a few of them right, but one major thing wrong.
Before I explain this though, you're getting pretty indigent about this and I think it's simply being defensive because it's your hack. So before the major thing I'll just go back to the x-ray bit. X-ray in the original was an optional upgrade, nothing ever needed it. This is why it was put in a hidden(ish) place. In your hack, you put it in a hidden place (with no hint I may add[in the room that is]), but you didn't get the it's an option part. It's a useful tool, but it should never be required. You ask who decided this? The creators, and smart video game developers in general. This is not something specific to super metroid, it's something in video games in general.
Now, on to your hacks fatal flaw.
I've linked this article like, 10 times already, but I'm going to do it again.
http://gamasutra.com/blogs/HugoBille/20120114/9236/The_Invisible_Hand_of_Super_Metroid.php

Now, lets talk about hints. And I'm going to use my own hack as something to compare with yours.
The original super metroid had hints down pat. They managed to make a game where the developers were holding your hand the whole way, feel like a totally free and open game. They did this by using hints that were sometimes very clear, and sometimes not even conscious. Also by using various methods of trapping the player in a given area, but making sure the are felt like it had a way out. They were trapping the player while never making the player /feel/ trapped.
So, lets find an example from your hack and an example from mine.
Okay, from mine I'll go with getting into the underwater area, and from yours, we'll use getting into lower norfair.

In my own hack (Advent for reference), there is a point where you go into a new area (chozo ruins for reference). This area is small but at the end you reach a room with three doors. The one you came from, one that leads to a save station, and one that leads to an elevator room. Now one can go to either room first, it doesn't matter. The elevator room looks like this:
[spoiler][/spoiler]
The save room looks like this:
[spoiler][/spoiler]
See the hint? It's the one purple block that's in both rooms. Not the same position, but it's there. Same with the right hand wall. Those two together make up the hint that something to do with that elevater is connected with the save room.
The save room has another hint though, the right hand wall. You can bomb part of the wall, which you need to do to progress. That part of the wall however, looks similar enough to the other parts that it isn't an in your face hint. But when you see the wall in the elevater room, or which ever order you see them in, you'll notice the difference. The last hint in that save room is the darker background block that looks like the out of place one. That's just an extra hint though, you might notice, you might not.
All of this however is only useful if you can't progress after the elevater, which you can't. You get to this room:
[spoiler][/spoiler]
This room is underwater, so without springball or gravity, you can't get through. Where do you get gravity? After that save room.
So those are the hints for progression, but there's also the question of openendedness.
That whole area, the chozo ruins + two rooms of underwater area, are all open. So you can go back through the chozo ruins, and into the jungle again. But you can't progress further in jungle without something from subaqueous, nor can you progress in subaqueous without something from the chozo ruins. This way, you have a whole bunch of rooms to go back through, so you don't feel constrained, but I'm also making sure you have gravity before the next area. And how do I hint at gravity? The three aforementioned save room hints.

Now, as for your lower norfair. There is a very small hint at that one block with the background pillars, I'll give you that, but that hint alone is not enough.
To get into lower norfair, you need gravity (good for comparison as mine also required gravity) and you have given the player 3 hints. Unfortunatly, these three hints don't tie together properly.
In theory they might. The hints being the background, the map, and the other room. So they should connect like so: The map shows there is an elevator, with prior knowledge of sm, it is clear that is the ln elevator. Good. The other room shows you have to go around, not direct. Okay. The background block shows the block to bomb. Alright then.
Unfortunately, the map is a little annoying to find, meaning you might find these hints in a very different order. The other room felt(at least to me, like there was still somewhere to go in it), and the background block needs a little help. There needs to be more hints in that room for it to work.

Blah, I have to go, I will finish this post later.

Edit:
Alright, lets finish this. So although the hints almost work, you have another problem that stops it from working.
It's exactly as you said, 90% of the planet is open. which means since the hints don't work properly, people will assume they need to go somewhere else. In this case though, the somewhere else is huge. Which means people may assume sequence breaking is going to get them somewhere (before you go all 'but there's no where else to go anyway so hah', this is a general point, not just about lower norfair. I'm trying to show you why people sequence break your hack).


So, lets recap.
You're mad that people are sequence breaking your hack. I'm trying to explain why we do so. And you're annoyed with my response since you're being too defensive about your hack.
Alright, well people sequence break because your hints don't work together. But don't let that sound like a general statement for the whole hack, as there have been plenty of times in the hack where your hints are perfectly fine. As we all keep saying, we love your hack. On the whole, it's fantastic. But right now I'm simply trying to show you why you need beta testers, and to know how different kinds of players think.
Probably the biggest thing to note about your hints is this:
You make hints that you think people will understand. But you obviously didn't have people test them to see if players would indeed, understand. The hints in zfactor were made for you. Now since you're much like all of us, many of the hints worked just fine. But because you didn't have beta testers to see a range of how people interpret various aesthetics, your hack falls short in that way.

[ProjectXVIII]

X-ray in the original was an optional upgrade, nothing ever needed it. This is why it was put in a hidden(ish) place. In your hack, you put it in a hidden place (with no hint I may add[in the room that is]), but you didn't get the it's an option part. It's a useful tool, but it should never be required. You ask who decided this? The creators, and smart video game developers in general. This is not something specific to super metroid, it's something in video games in general.

So, you're telling me that whatever was done in vanilla should always be done in hacks? There is no reason why X-Ray should not be a required upgrade. Screw Attack wasn't a required upgrade in vanilla, but I doubt I'd see anybody complaining if somebody came along and made Screw Attack blocks. And I'm not sure who these "smart video game developers" are (Aren't we all basically video game developers anyway? Are you implying that we aren't smart enough to stray from these "rules" that the creators of Super Metroid apparently made?), but if I recall correctly, there was a segment in Castlevania: SotN that required that game's equivalent of the X-Ray Scope to get through a room filled with spikes. So yeah, this is actually something entirely specific to Super Metroid, and vanilla Super Metroid at that.

Yes, it was hidden, and I don't believe that required items should ever be hidden (nor should the main path of the game), but that has nothing to do with the item itself, that has to do with where metaquarius had put the item. Hiding required things in a game where one of the biggest things is finding hidden optional items is, simply put, bad. This is something that is not specific to Super Metroid, this is something to video games in general.

[GoldenTorizo]

Ok how do I get to Tourian? The path that looks like you'd normally get there was just leading me to a Super Missile Tank (which I needed)
Never mind... found it...  :mad:

[Metaquarius]

The whole point "being trapped in a given area" doesn't apply for LN entrance like it doesn't apply to SM either to that specific sequence, so I think it is really bad comparison here. At this point, players can move freely around 90% of the planet.

Strangely enough, in Advent, I haven't noticed your hint in that save room because I exited the room as soon I entered it. The fact is, I was not needing to save, and in my mind, hiding the main path in a save room was just not possible. I was not expecting to progress this way because guess what ? SM never does this. SM taught us those are safe rooms. Just like X-ray is not needed. See how everyone builds its own mental rules, eh ?  :wink:

[GoldenTorizo]

I finally beat the hack (hours ago). 11:54, 76%.
I'm gonna try and beat it again only for a shot at 100% and a better time.

[Quote58]

@metaquarius
Maybe you should, idk, read the end of that post before you reply.
I said I would finish it later, as in, I wasn't done with the comparison.

And about your save room thing, you're not the only one who left the room without seeing what to do, however, thanks to the fact that you're closed in without feeling trapped, you will get it at some point. It may not have even been a conscious thought to go back once you had seen the elevator room. The point was not to immediately think oh, I need to bomb the save room wall. Because hints shouldn't always be obvious.
On a side note, in the metroid series, save rooms have at times had rooms after them.

Edit:

Okay, last thing I am going to say about your hack aside of course from new sb and helping people find shit.

Your updates. They need work. The problem with your updates is that you are treating a symptom, but not the disease.
The perfect example is the gate you took out that mst is in love with. You took out something that people were saying needed fixing. You took away a symptom, but by not dealing with the bigger issue, this shows you didn't understand why people were annoyed with the gate in the first place. You need to realize that the problem with your hints and suggestion in the hack is not simply a collection of bad invisible walls, or poor background hints. If you take away all those things, you're taking away a part of the hack when you should instead be fixing it.

Now, you don't need to take my advice, you don't need to care about what I've said.
But please do one thing. Instead of trying to defend your hack or say I'm wrong, just read what I've said, and think about it. Take it into consideration, and leave it at that. Arguing about it will get you no where. And the reason I'm telling you all this is because I love your hack.
It's like Dman said,

Code Select Expand

<DMantra|TAS> meta doesnt realize it even tho we've said it to him. we only hate on it with complaints because we see its true potential