Messages

31

Custom Maps / Re: [Campaign] [WiP] No name yet!

« on: January 15, 2014, 08:14:39 AM »

Okay, wow! That was a great improvement over the first run through. Overall the map looks so much better. There are still a few nitpicky things, such as your use of ledges around the entire map made the secret room rather obvious. Also, the silver key/door was rather lack-luster. I feel like it should have been worth more to me.

The shop-keeper dialog was quite fun, and I thought the signs reading the names of the floors was pretty awesome, however you might want to run a quick script to hide the text once you step away, so that you can't stack multiple texts on top of each other, and so it doesn't just float there as you walk away.

The level design felt MUCH better for the Hero's Demise, however, on the cells of the forgotten it still just felt way too big. I went through it for a few minutes, but then just kind of skirted around, looking at my mini-map so I could see and find the key, just to get out of there. When it comes down to it, I think there are just too many cells for the content you're getting. You could possibly try dividing it into cell-blocks, where you have to clear each one before you start the next, to give it some progression.

And now I'll go to my regularly scheduled complaining about the darkness.
Sorry, it's just not doing anything for me It worked a bit better this time, because since the level was directing me more, the darkness was less frustrating, and more of a gameplay modifier. However, I just didn't like not being able to see anything. I feel like a good example of what I'm getting at is Amnesia the Dark Descent. Amnesia is a game about darkness. The game loves it, and revels in it. However, when you're out of matches, unable to light any candles, and your lantern is out of fuel as well, it doesn't leave you blind. In game, your eyes adjust, and you get a greyscale, (still very dark) view of the world. Everything is still perfectly legible, and you won't be running into walls, but it's dark. It feels dark. The game punishes you for the darkness.

The point is, they took darkness, and instead of making in an everpresent difficulty, they just made it a flavor of the game, while still allowing you to function at 100%.
I was never frustrated with their darkness, because it didn't actual hamper me from playing. It just made me scared.

In your map, I don't think you're trying to scare anyone with the darkness. However, it can still be an important piece of the gameplay, without it being an annoyance. I played, and I was annoyed by the fact that I was essentially just playing the game at a horrible resolution. I got the point that it was dark, but I consistantly wished that it wasn't, only so I could stop straining my eyes at the screen. I didn't like that it was making it harder to play (Not as in more challenging, as in less desirable to continue). And on top of that, the torches are still just a formality. I go, I light the torch, I walk away, and it no longer matters that it's lit, because I'm not looking over there. I'm squinting at the middle of my screen to land these fireballs on swarms of bats.

Also, just something I thought of while playing, there should be a little "Nothing happens" notification when you press the buttons that do nothing. This isn't to make it easier, or to take away from the suspense of playing the game or anything like that. It's simply because when you play Hammerwatch (Which is what this is, even if it's a different campaign. I've opened steam to play hammerwatch, and mentally, that's that.), or hell, for that matter, any game, and you press a button, you expect SOMETHING to happen. It's just a given. Play a game, press a button, something happens. It could be a great art nouveau idea to fill a game with buttons that do nothing, but here, it just seems like something is wrong. Wrong on a "Game is broken" level, not a "game is disorienting". Going back to amnesia, I tried to open 100's of doors that told me "It won't open" or something to the effect, because I thought they might lead to the next room, and it never bothered me, because the game politely explained that they wouldn't open.

All in all, a huge improvement, and I'm looking forward to seeing more. (And hopefully next time I'll be able to see more )

32

Resources / Natural Cave / Cliff Theme

« on: January 15, 2014, 03:50:37 AM »

Ladies and Gentlemen! Hammerwatch Editors and Enthusiasts! Devs!

Behold and be amazed by, my first custom resource set! (Ooooh, ahhhh!) Simply download and extract the doodads and tilemaps folders into your assets, and merge the folders!

Natural Caves and Cliffs
By Enjay

This is 100% a re-work of Theme_F, to fit the needs of the campaign I am working on. I changed the ledge pieces so that they looked like natural rock, as opposed to the tile stone-work that the native themes make use of for ledges. Also, the ledges going down have transparency (Similar to the shopkeeper's cliffs in the Survival level shop), so they can be used with parallax, or as long as there aren't any tiles underneath them, they'll fade to black as normal.

Since this is a natural theme, corners are a lot trickier, and as such there are many more doodads in the theme than in the others. These are for dedicated corner pieces so that there aren't any strange graphical issues. You can see these corners in the following image. There are both exterior corners, and interior corners.

The Interior corners are actually entirely unnecessary in some situations, depending on how the tile lies below it (Sometimes it just lines up to look nice), but having the interior corners makes it so it will always look neat and clean. You can use the interior and exterior corners to create diagonals. I messed with the collision on the interior corners, as well, so that it feels more natural when you decide to run directly into them. I could probably make it a bit better if I wanted to put preposterous amounts of detail into it, but I like it as it is now.

The wall pieces are almost entirely unchanged from the theme_f walls, and as such, they might be ugly in places! Sorry Myran and Hipshot, but they're just kind of icky every now and then. (Specifically the T-Intersection pieces, they just don't seem to line up like they should). I might fix this at some point, and re-upload it, but this is unlikely, because I've just been creatively using the other wall pieces to get things done.

The Door is also custom (No stairs, just the tilemap fading into black), and looking at it right now, I might do a second version that has the path going into it. (The path is just the default theme_f path)

Feel free to reply with questions and critiques, and I'll happily respond. I probably won't change anything all that quickly (Since I am entirely making this to meet my own needs), but if you bring up something that is bothersome, I'll probably get around to changing it eventually.

33

Resources / Re: Is there a big list of actors and their stats?

« on: January 15, 2014, 01:19:14 AM »

I have neither seen, not looked for, such a thing. It could exist, but I doubt that anyone has made such a thing.

If you've unpacked the game resources, you can go right in to them, and open the XML files to see them.

However, I would suggest that you merely pick the units that fit the theme of your levels, and then go in to the xml files and change them so that they are balanced. It's extremely easy to change the movespeed, health, and attack damage of actors, so that should be enough to rebalance them to fit whatever you need.

34

Custom Maps / Re: [Campaign] Tricks and traps - inspired by the Doom II level of the same name

« on: January 15, 2014, 01:03:39 AM »

Played through it with 2 friends of mine, going Wizard/Paladin, Warlock, and Ranger (Started as a Wizard, and changed to a Paladin for the 2nd attempt). Like you said, it become much simpler once you know what's going on and what to expect. The level was fun, however as someone who's never played doom, and had no idea what the level being recreated was, there were parts of it that definitely seemed pointless, or just out of place. For example, there were all of those upgrades lying about, and although they may have been beneficial, they seemed pointless, as there was no build up through the level. At the end there was just a Skeletal Knight mini-boss, which I ran past to the exit for the win. Having so many lives to start off with (It seemed like 5 per player) meant the playstyle was essentially throw ourselves at problems until we overcame them, and the abundance of food also took away from the feeling of anxiety. That being said, the food was entirely necessary, because by the end we had eaten every piece of it, and were low on lives.

The use of invulnerability potions were interesting, and enjoyable, however since it gave extras so many extras (1 for each player in the bottom room, plus one more at the end of the acid water), when you only needed the one potion to get the key, and the other potion and get out, it essentially allowed for abuse of the potions. In my personal opinion, this is just a fault with invulnerability potions, as they are immensely broken in the normal campaign as well.

The secrets in the level were also lacking, for a game that seemingly was focused on finding these secrets. My group found them all, but I honestly never felt like I found a single one. It's possible that I didn't, and my friends found them all, and didn't announce it, but there was nothing secret feeling about anything I encountered / opened.

Like I said at the beginning, it was fun, but these are just a few point that I feel could be improved upon.

(Also, just as an over-all thing, the scripting could stand being cleaned up a bit, such as not requiring everyone to teleport, not requiring everyone to be present to win, providing excess potions, even when only one person is playing, and so on)

35

Editor Discussion / Re: Custom Resource Naming Convention

« on: January 14, 2014, 01:53:09 AM »

yep, that's what I thought, thanks!

36

Editor Discussion / Custom Resource Naming Convention

« on: January 13, 2014, 10:22:24 PM »

So I've been in the process of making custom doodads and tile-sets for a campaign I'm toying with, and have run into a naming convention issue. Originally I was just writing over 'theme_f', but realized that was stupid, since I might want to use that later, even if I'm not using it now. Then I created a 'theme_g', and moved everything there, but when I got to creating a custom Color Cover, I realized g was also taken, which brought me to a key realization. If I want to continue using this theme, and package it for others to use, it should probably have a name that fits convention and won't eventually be made less functional due to releases from the devs.

So any input as to what I should be naming this? Three letter codes to dictate who created the pack, and then start at a?

37

Custom Maps / Re: [Campaign] [WiP] No name yet!

« on: January 10, 2014, 10:28:30 PM »

Yeah, you try to use good convention and you get punished for it

38

Editor Discussion / Re: Kinda cool.

« on: January 10, 2014, 05:45:57 PM »

Well, I feel a noteworthy distinction is that regardless of the level of randomization, roguelikes and dungeon-crawlers are still different games. For example, Diablo is a highly randomized dungeon crawler, but that doesn't make it a rogue-like. So even as a fan of RL's, I feel fine agreeing with Hipshot in saying that when it comes to crawls, the fully scripted maps are almost always better. I would argue, though, that it would be a worthwhile challenge to see if you could maintain high-grade level design, while randomizing enough that the end product is not noticeably repetitive.

Would be a fun thing to try.

39

Custom Maps / Re: [Campaign] [WiP] No name yet!

« on: January 10, 2014, 02:53:37 PM »

Starting at 1, here we go!

In your campaign folder you should have the levels.xml file, and in this file should be more or less, a list of all your levels (properly formatted and what-not, yadda yadda). I believe this is what determines the starting level, so simply rearrange this so that that Hero's Demise comes first. Then, in the editor, go through the start points in Hero's demise, and make sure that the one in the cell has the start id of 0.

Color tiles aren't all that bad once you get used to them, and if you want to use black to keep with the theme, but it's ugly because you can see exactly where it ends, download this resource:
http://hammerwatch.com/forum/index.php?topic=1687.0 (Courtesy of MasterPrior)
What it does is supply the editor with gradients in black, so that you can have the color covers fade to the black you prefer, avoiding that ugly cut-off line. I haven't used them myself, but it seems to do what you'd like.

I drew up a little msPaint sketch for this point, but it's totally unnecessary, because I'm pretty sure you've got the point But it just shows two lay outs that both utilize a grid of prison cells, but by blocking off certain points, and adding certain mechanics and objectives, it increases the playability by a good deal (Shown by a red line)

Only thing I have to say about enemy amounts is to try and limit how many enemies you put in areas where that's all there is. If I fight through three hallways of ticks, I expect a bit more than an apple or some mana shards at the end of it, I expect a little stash of gold to pick up. If I see a 1-up, or especially a key, I expect to be fighting through a good deal more, and probably a few elite monsters. If you're aiming for difficulty, I'd say the easiest way to add a bit of challenge is to surround a bunch of easy monsters (and probably a spawner so you can't just kite them away), and throw 2 or 3 elite monsters in the middle so they can't just power through it. (It turns out I have more than one thing to say about monsters, but sometimes put areas in where the player CAN just power through it! Act 1, Floor 3 of the campaign, where there were like 10 bat spawners, and hundreds of bats made me feel awesome from racking up the combo, and it's probably one of my favorite small-parts of the game).

When I said rewards, and reasons for going places, the collectible rewards are part of that, but mostly what I meant are things that provide a linear progression. Hammerwatch might let you choose to go 5 different places on one floor, but the progression always follows a (slightly-erratic) line. You have to get keys before you can open doors. You have to press buttons before you can explore secrets. Add keys and doors to have people doubling back and exploring those other areas to continue (Not too far, we don't want keys to become an annoyance). Add buttons that let you take short-cuts back to where you were, so when you DO need to double back, it never takes as long as the first time. The goal isn't to get the players to say "Oh yay, an orange!" (Although, strategically placed oranges can be the best feeling in the world), the goal is to make sure they NEVER say "I've been stuck on this part forever". (Please note the difference between being stuck because of a legitimate challenge [which is fine], and being "Stuck" in the sense that it feels like they're sloshing through a swamp to get to a swamp).


And yes, the darkness
This will take us right back to the link I posted up there with the gradients. What the creator originally made that for was so that he could hide areas of the map that the players weren't in. Here are a few ways you can adapt that to the game-play that (I believe) you are trying to create:

Have three to five torches per area, and Legend-of-Zelda style don't let the player progress to the next (blacked-out) area until they're lit.

Have a few torches in an area, with the extremely low ambient light, that increases the light dramatically once they're all lit.

Combine the two, creating a one room at a time progression, where it's aesthetically apparent where you've already been, and what you've accomplished.

Again, those are just my ideas of how to incorporate this torch-lighting mechanic, I'm sure there are more (and better) ways to do it. I encourage you to play with it on your own until you get something that feels right for you the creator, as well as the audience (Does this get to be me? )

Keep at it, and even if it gets discouraging at time, I promise it'll be worth it in the end!

(Again, I'll be here for a good long while, so feel free to keep putting thoughts out there)

40

Custom Maps / Re: [Campaign] [WiP] No name yet!

« on: January 10, 2014, 01:02:42 AM »

Sorry about not using room names, I didn't remember them from the play-through, and was to lazy to go back and find them out. The numbers were 1 through 4, with 1 being the furthest to the left in the hall, and 4 being furthest to the right. I didn't number the room that was two bronze doors with the prizes inbetween them because I didn't comment on it.

From what you've written, it's currently a bug that you spawn in the hall, as opposed to the cell in Heroes demise.

About the golden ticks, you understood correctly, that was merely me throwing an idea at you about how you could possibly use them. If they drop more money then you would probably want to change the coding so that they just act as normal, though, so you don't flood them with money.

As for the color covers, they are a pain, but using them makes the levels look a million times better than without. Just use whichever matches the theme of the walls you're using, and they'll still appear black in the shadows (With your current lighting scheme), and youll only see the gray of it when you're close enough to see the gray of the walls, so I don't think it will take away too much from the aesthetic theme.

In regards to my saying to always have a reason, I believe you misunderstood me slightly. What I mean is that everything should have a reason in the sense that if you have empty cells, make them empty for a reason. That reason can be whatever you'd like, whether it's to pad out the dungeon, so it's not as linear, or to throw a few extra monsters at the players.

Let's look at it this way. You have a dungeon level that you want to contain 3 keys, 2 1-ups, and 1 power-up. You want all of these things to be located in cells along the dungeon (For the sake of this being a simple example). You could have one cell, with all 6 items, but that would be incredibly boring. You'd go in, collect everything, and leave. You could have 6 cells, one item in each, but that would be even worse. You would have the exact same feeling of, okay, everything's here, but you would be dragging it out over a longer collection time, creating an exasperating feeling. Ideally, what you'd do is throw in a bunch of empty cells to explore, so that it's not always the same thing. That way you're actually PLAYING the game, instead of just walking through it. So those empty cells all have a specific purpose, and are placed specifically to spread out the objectives in an organic way. Now, if we go to the other extreme possible, and have 6 cells with goodies, but 50 cells total, leaving 44 of those cells empty, it starts to feel like there's no purpose to ANY of the cells (even when there is).

Now, I still believe that no matter how you arrange these cells and rewards, it's still going to be a boring example. I used it because it was simple, and relates directly to what you're working with. If you're trying to add more excitement to the game, you would need to vary it even more. I am 100 percent sure you can do this, because rooms 3 and 4 (Sorry, still don't know their names), had pretty great lay-outs. They drew you to different areas, unlike the first room, where if I were actually playing your game, I would have no desire to go anywhere, I would just try to get out as soon as possible.

The gist of this is

It's OK to stumble across a malfunctioning cell door button, a relatively empty corridor, or whatever.

You're 100% correct, just currently as it is, there's about 5 times too much of these things I'm stumbling it to, and it feels dry.

So TL;DR You want to keep your players guessing, but don't make it so hard to guess that they give up.

Hopefully that clears up some of what I meant. Feel free to keep asking questions, and I'll gladly keep trying to help

41

Editor Discussion / Re: Is it possible to spawn or show a script shape when the player hits a button?

« on: January 09, 2014, 08:55:22 PM »

I haven't found any way, but it's usually not too much trouble to just shove it out of the way for a bit while working. I usually make any scripted doodads away from the actual level, and just drag them over when the scripting is done.

42

Editor Discussion / Re: Is it possible to spawn or show a script shape when the player hits a button?

« on: January 09, 2014, 07:56:28 PM »

What Pwnography said is correct, just rewording it a bit.
Essentially, you already have the shape there, so you don't have to spawn it.

So you walk down the corridor, pass over the shape that will eventually teleport you, it checks to see if a variable is equal to something, it isn't, and nothing happens. You hit the button, it spawns the doodads, and changes the variable to whatever it should be. Now you walk back, again it checks to see if the variable is equal to whatever, and now it is, so it teleports you.

Edit: I don't quite know what you mean by showing the shape, if what you want is to show the players that the shape is there, I imagine it's possible with a show effect, and then making a custom effect that is the rectangle? I feel like that's probably not what you want, but if it is, hey, there you go.

43

Custom Maps / Re: [Campaign] [WiP] No name yet!

« on: January 09, 2014, 07:10:31 PM »

The Good:
Lighting the torches is fun, and a seriously cool mechanic. I'm definitely going to play around with that idea for my maps.

The second two rooms has engaging level design. The floor itself drew you forward, and gave you reason to keep goin.

Those glowing ticks. I don't know if they do anything special attack wise, but they glow! If you're going to stick with the dark theme, my lord, use those ticks! It's fun (in moderation) to not see the land, but still be able to see a swarm of glowing ticks charging at you through the unknown.

The Bad:
Waaaayyyy too dark. That engaging level design I mentioned? It was rather inneffective because even though logically I knew it was there, I couldn't see it, so it felt exactly the same as the first two room. The darkness is fun at the very start, where it's new and exciting, but it quickly becomes "Okay, I'm just playing through blind (Or with my minimap)" Time to just spam attacks in front of me to kill everything" I would recommend raising the base light level to at least something visible, if you want to keep the all-over dark feel. Otherwise, ditch the darkness, and save it for particular areas.

On that note, the first two rooms are just boxes stuck on boxes. I understand it's a prison, however simply going through box after box is not fun. I would recommend switching it up a bit if you want to keep the strict prison layout, and have some cells be closed, others decayed and broken down, and perhaps a few that are connected by broken walls, leading into otherwise inaccessible cells.

The Arrow traps in the third room are seemingly pointless. I felt they added no significant threat, or puzzle to the gameplay of the level. I would recommend scrapping them entirely, or working them in to a puzzle. (The exception to this is the hallway at the top, where it has the timed arrows. That was fun, but altogether pointless. I would keep those arrows, but give the character a reason to brave the arrow traps, as opposed to fighting through the enemies to get there from the other side. As it is, going through the "shortcut" just gets you to more enemies)

The Ugly: (Things I just think you didn't intend, but are broken nonetheless)
In the third room, all the apples are stacked a million high. I never actually found an apple where it disappeared when I ate it, so they all filled me up to full health, and stayed there to heal me if I ever came back. The one time I found an orange it was actually worse, because it disappeared, only healing me for 25, instead of healing all the way to full.

In the first room, the secret room you can either enter through the glowing eyes, or break into from a cell is empty. Finding secrets is fun, finding empty secrets just makes you question what you're doing with your life.

Your map doesn't use the color cover doodads in the editor. You probably want to find these and use them, as it will make your interior spaces feel like they're inside (Creating a sharp contrast between walls that you can be on either side of, and walls where you're on the only side of).

Rooms one and three have no purpose. They have tons of enemies, but there aren't any keys, shops, or hordes of wealth to gather. They are entirely skippable as it currently is.

The ledges in the maps are placed poorly, so that they are aesthetically unappealing, just go through and re-position them until they don't look like they're all bunched up at the corners.

Over-arching themes and ways to improve:
My only qualifications here are having played a lot of video-games, so take this with a grain of salt, but here are some general tips that you might want to follow to better your levels.

Always have a reason for everything. Those buttons at the beginning that open the doors right next to them? They're decent, in the sense that they allow you to bypass all the enemies in the cells if you want to, but then what reason is there for pushing them? An apple? Well, you're not fighting anything, so there's no need for that. Maybe try ditching the individual buttons, and at the furthest corner of the level, have one button to open all of the cells, letting loose the hordes of baddies, and allowing you to go in and collect that sweet sweet gold, and those precious bronze keys.
Give the player reasons to want to do things. As it was, I made it up to the fourth level (The one with tons of slimes and the elite skeletons thrown in) before I stopped, and I only made it there because I had a reason for playing (Helping out the custom level community, by giving the advice you're reading here). If it weren't for that, I probably would have made it half way through the first set of cell-blocks, in to the second set, saw it was the same, and then quit. Give reasons to continue. Oh, you want that 5-up? You want those stacks of fat cash, to purchase the upgrades from the vendors, hidden behind the silver doors? Well, now you've gotta find those keys, and that cash, you have to find the secret passages, to solve the puzzles, to get the rewards.

And don't just think this stops at the collectibles, apply this to everything. I already said above, give that arrow hallway a reason to exist, some perk to going through it, instead of around. The torches? Lighting them is hardly a worthwhile reason, since you move away from them seconds later, and you're back in to the dark. Make a room dark, but have three unlit torches, after the torches are lit, run a quick script and light the entire room, or reveal a secret, or do something to make it worth my time.


You have some skills, that's for sure. The layout of the 3rd and 4th floors are better than anything I've managed to get done so far, just work on making sure it feel like a game, and I'll gladly give this another play once it's more finished. Good luck!

44

Editor Discussion / Re: [feature] "New campaign" option in editor

« on: January 09, 2014, 02:32:04 AM »

But then what will there be to weed out the weak?

In all seriousness though, that is probably something that would benefit the game a good deal. Hammerwatch so far has been an amazing game, but as it currently stand it's pretty easy to run out of content. I feel ease of access in regards to the editor would give this game the potential to amass an amazingly large and productive community.

I mean, Warcraft 3 was a good game and all, but it's editor was phenomenally powerful, as well as easy to use, and that custom mapping community was amazing.

45

Editor Discussion / Re: Area player buffs

« on: January 09, 2014, 02:25:29 AM »

As far as implementation goes, I'm not 100% on how to do this, but I believe that if you make exact copies of all of off1 and off2, and make them some separate catagory (Let's call it offp), then you would be able to have the players purchases of the original upgrades (off1 and off2) be separate from the granted upgrades in the temple (offp).

The only problem I can foresee with this is that it might accidentally double the upgrades if they have already purchased them, giving too much damage, but I don't know how exactly the buffs work.