HALI'S REVIEW THREAD (REQUEST YOUR GAME!)

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halibabica
RMN's Official Reviewmonger
16873
Lol, how reassuring!

Xeno, if you want this boss to not suck complete ass, here's my recommendation to you: don't make the defense doll tanky just for the sake of it. Decide how many hits the doll ought to take before dying, and adjust its defenses accordingly.

You have three characters in the party, and they can all hit decently hard. They can also use haste to get more turns and perma-slow the boss. If they focused attack on the defense doll, how many turns should pass before it's killed? Personally, I'd say any more than ten hits would be too much. That's three full rounds of actually striking it, plus one turn into a fourth, or potentially up to five rounds since missing is so common. Don't just slap resistances on it, give it a bajillion HP, and make it only defend. Balance the damn thing for a specific measure of staying power.

I'd say it should die after nine hits, tops. That's plenty of staying power and will likely still take four rounds due to missing. If it's not completely insufferable, Alice could even summon it more often.

As it currently is, I'd hate to see it show up more than once.
unity
You're magical to me.
12540
author=LockeZ
It's not reasonable. But I already bitched about it for five solid hours of real time over Skype and he didn't change it. All of the Alice fights are interesting but just take twenty times longer than they need to take.


This is part of what makes watching this saga unfold the most frustrating. Xenomic does not take 95% of criticism at all and much like these enemies that just block over and over, it's like bashing your head against a brick wall.

"Enemies that you HAVE to beat before you can hurt the boss that only defend IS A BAD THING" is not a controversial statement. This is NOT how to make a good boss battle. PERIOD. There are so much more interesting things you could be doing with the bosses' flunkies. And the fact that Xenomic had someone so talented as LockeZ at boss battles and didn't listen to him makes this all the more frustrating.

And normally, I'm 100% fine with a dev who wants to ignore all criticisms, even the super obvious ones. It's their game and they're 100% in their right to make whatever they want. And to be fair, Xenomic has been more open to changes that hali mentions than he has in the past.

But I follow this thread because I enjoy halibabica's comments and insights and the journey through playing these games. But for the last five months it's been "Xenomic, either intentionally or not, put something dumb in the game that makes progressing very difficult. And if it was intentional, it's gonna be hard to talk him out of it, even if multiple people who know what they're talking about are saying it."

I may need to just unsubscribe from this thread, wait another 5 months, and then come back. Might be better for everyone involved, really.
halibabica
RMN's Official Reviewmonger
16873
Has it really been 5 months? Christ, I suck. This is what happens when you let waifu game modding take over your life.

TBH this game got a lot less troublesome after I started doing two things: 1, play in Wait mode, and 2, level up for bosses. Disregarding the claim it can be beaten without grinding was the second best choice I ever made only because 2k3 is functionally broken in Active mode.

I see pieces of a good game lurking about in the mix of this, but it's like a big pot of stew where the only good bits are the meat/potatoes and the gravy is rancid. I really don't hate it as much as my complaining probably suggests, but it's a real piece of work that definitely needs more attention to detail, at the very least.
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
I check this thread every so often. I suppose I'm curious. Though, I kinda forgot that halibabica has done other games in this thread, not to mention the queue of games that are just sitting there, waiting to be played.

I dunno how closely it relates, but, I've written a number of LPs. I'm in the middle of one, as it happens. Sometimes, I find that it's really hard to sit down to play the game. Part of it is because of the nature of being an LP. It's not just playing the game, it's taking notes, and relaying what's happening. It takes a lot out of me, sometimes. Those are games I generally enjoy playing, too. To do that with a game that seems to mounts frustration upon frustration...

Sorry, I guess I needed a bit of rant too. ;_;
unity
You're magical to me.
12540
author=halibabica
Has it really been 5 months? Christ, I suck. This is what happens when you let waifu game modding take over your life.

To be clear, I'm not blaming you at all for taking this long. I'm just saying that this cycle has been going on for a while XD; And by waifu game modding, do you mean this game or is their a different waifu game you're talking about?

author=halibabica
TBH this game got a lot less troublesome after I started doing two things: 1, play in Wait mode, and 2, level up for bosses. Disregarding the claim it can be beaten without grinding was the second best choice I ever made only because 2k3 is functionally broken in Active mode.

I see pieces of a good game lurking about in the mix of this, but it's like a big pot of stew where the only good bits are the meat/potatoes and the gravy is rancid. I really don't hate it as much as my complaining probably suggests, but it's a real piece of work that definitely needs more attention to detail, at the very least.

Yeah, I definitely think there are good ideas in here. I certainly think Xenomic has ambition and tries neat things.

But I quickly gave up on this game when I tried playing it years ago because it does so many things wrong that I couldn't enjoy it enough to continue. And, by the sounds of it, that hasn't really changed significantly. Most players won't get to the good stuff if they have to slog through too much bad stuff to get there.
Honestly, I consider the game a colossal failure no matter what else I do to it at this point, I'm more or less just trying to clean up any bugs or bad things that may happen, such as Alice reviving the doll that she shouldn't be doing, or fixing status issues here and there, and whatnot. If I ever make another game, and that's a big "if", it'll definitely be more manageable than this piece of garbage game, that's for sure.

...Might sound harsh, sure, but I've said harsher things about it. I'm sure those who've talked with me personally know exactly how bad it gets.
halibabica
RMN's Official Reviewmonger
16873
from unity
by waifu game modding, do you mean this game or is their a different waifu game you're talking about?
I mean the projects that have kept me heavily distracted from this and my other hobbies all year. I've been modding Doki Doki Literature Club. Sadly, I can't make game pages for them here because mods of this sort are against site rules, but they are my current game design endeavors and they've taken up a lot of my time. One is complete, and I'm working on an extensive demo of another.

Xeno, I don't think you should be giving up on TF quite so much. Sure, the game has some major issues, but not all of them need sweeping changes to fix. Most of the trouble I've found is from singular poor decisions rather than overall poor design. A few tweaks here and there can go a long way. The only major thing I think needs to change is the skill system, and even that has enough in place to work with that it shouldn't be too difficult to implement.

Naturally, it's your project, and you decide when it's done and over with. Personally, I don't think this game is doomed to inadequacy, but the bottom line is going to be you.
unity
You're magical to me.
12540
author=Xenomic
Honestly, I consider the game a colossal failure no matter what else I do to it at this point, I'm more or less just trying to clean up any bugs or bad things that may happen, such as Alice reviving the doll that she shouldn't be doing, or fixing status issues here and there, and whatnot. If I ever make another game, and that's a big "if", it'll definitely be more manageable than this piece of garbage game, that's for sure.

...Might sound harsh, sure, but I've said harsher things about it. I'm sure those who've talked with me personally know exactly how bad it gets.


The point of my ranting wasn't to say "Geez, you suck, stop making games." It was "Geez, dude, learn to take criticism and learn how to grow as a dev." Just saying "screw this game, I'm probably done with game designing as a whole, too" feels like a waste of your talents and a refusal to improve, which kind of is the whole problem in a nutshell.

Now, if you want to just get this game done and move on, then honestly I can't blame you. A fresh start can honestly be really good for devs, especially if you've been tunnel-visioning yourself for years on a single project. It might be the breath of fresh air that you need to keep going.

I can see you improving a ton making a short project, where you strive for polish and good design overall, while implementing the cool ideas you seem to have the knack for into the overall game.

I never want to tell anyone to stop making games, but a dev has to improve and grow, and that often requires listening to other people. If you're unwilling to do that, then I'm not exactly going to be super sad to see you go (tho I still will a little, as you do have talent).

If you stop now, you'll just forever be that guy who the entire RMN community couldn't talk out of putting 500 megabites of music in his game. But if your mindset about how to make games hasn't changed at all since then, then maybe that's for the best.
I mean...the game was already technically done way back in November, just had to do a bunch of bug fixes and the like sooooo...also, I've taken plenty of criticisms and used them to improve things with the game since its release. Just some things I don't really FEEL needed to be changed here and there.

As for the game designing thing, it's more of a personal matter than anything else. Do I want to wind up spending 5-10 more years on another game? Will I be able to actually make my own original game without reusing currently existing assets? Things like that, ya know? I mean, after 11, probably 11 1/2 years (going past 12 now) of working on this game, it does kinda sour things a bit, heh.

...But yeah. I've listened to plenty of people, not only here and Skype, but on the Discords I go to as well. It's how I managed to find and fix some of the bugs I otherwise would've never noticed (there's been some REALLY weird bugs and bad coding that I don't even know how they happened to begin with so...). Also, the music thing was taken care of like...3-4 years ago. .___.
unity
You're magical to me.
12540
Yeah, sorry, that was a low blow. Sorry about that. And if you don't want to do any more games because of the time constraints, that's totally fair, too.

And maybe you've changed a lot and I could be totally unfair, and I apologize if that's the case. But sitting here in this thread, reading everything that comes in, and I'm still seeing things like LockeZ saying he couldn't talk you out of a very obviously bad game design decision, it's very hard to be anything but exasperated.

If you think the game's still hot garbage, then what was the goal of having halibabica play through it for this thread? One last round of bug testing before you abandon it? I just don't understand.

Honestly, it's more the first half of the game that's pretty terrible IMO. The second half is infinitely better, but that might be after having taken like a 2-4 year break from working on the game (this includes going back to remap and change boss fights and all that stuff). This also includes the story, which I think is infinitely better there. Which...kinda makes the first half look even MORE worse in retrospect (which some people that's managed to get there might be able to agree with??). Sure, the status problems persist in the second half, but by that point the player should be able to deal with statuses anyways I'd imagine so...it shouldn't be THAT bad?

I mean, as mentioned earlier too, people that's talked to me know how I tend to get sometimes. Sometimes I'm just a bit too mean on myself with the game, sometimes I don't let it bother me at all. It's all a mental thing for me in regards to that. That's another thing LockeZ can tell you alllll about, I'm sure.

Speaking of terrible designs...say Hali, how did the Poltergeist Mansion bosses go?
unity
You're magical to me.
12540
Well, whatever the case, it's clear I'm being pretty negative and not helping things, so I'll just unsubscribe from this thread for now and let you and hali continue in peace.

Best of luck with the project, wherever it goes. Clearly it has merits, despite everything, so maybe hali can help you get it to a good place.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
To be fair, the game was so much worse two years ago when I started testing it. It's not like he didn't listen to any advice. I helped him redesign dozens of character skills, at least a dozen bosses, and every piece of equipment in the game. I suspect other people gave him advice too. I just had a lot of advice because I felt like there was a lot wrong with the game, and only some portion of it got followed. I got him to let me entirely redesign Sanae and Koishi's skillsets, but I wasn't able to convince him to delete Keine and throw her in the trash can and replace her with nothing, like she deserves. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
unity
You're magical to me.
12540
Haha, so it does sound like I was being too harsh. I apologize, Xenomic. I shouldn't have been so harsh on you.
halibabica
RMN's Official Reviewmonger
16873
The Poltergeist Mansion fights were no trouble at all. I can't even remember what Alice's gimmick was then because we ripped her and her dolls to pieces.

Speaking of, ice cave Alice is no more. After grinding until mouse girl was L40 and with her behavior fixed, she went down quickly enough after the defense doll fell. She didn't get to summon two, but that doesn't mean it's not annoying.

Anyway...some new bugs to report. When I started the game up, it threw a string of errors that did not halt play once I OK'd them away. In my last bit of ice cave grinding, I encountered an invisible enemy that I think used to be Krysta??? It dropped Heavenly Drops when defeated; that's my only clue.

I took on the next chain of events and beat Order. Then, after the ensuing cutscene, I got an error that crashed the game: "Event script referenced a 'shigunichi' that does not exist."

Um...help?
Alice had no gimmick, it was just a normal boss fight. I was referring to the Poltergeist Sisters, since that's the first fight that took myself 2 hours to beat. ^^;;

An...invisible enemy???? Krysta dropped the Guard Crystal, so it wasn't that....was it still visible or was it transparent? Because if transparent, might've been Spirit Dragon?? I'd have to look at the enemy list to see if it was it. And string of errors???? And a "shiguinichi"??? What???? I've never heard of THAT one before, wtf o_O
halibabica
RMN's Official Reviewmonger
16873
The monster literally had no sprite. I grinded in that area for a while before, so I can't imagine it was something super rare. Maybe a file path somehow got broken. That would make sense with all the weird errors. I'll redownload the game and see if it happens again...

Anyway, the Poltergeist sisters were no trouble at all. I just divided and conquered them. I also had decently high-level characters that could exploit all their weaknesses.
Yeah, that would be really weird if me just removing a monster broke the game somehow. Never has before, the only time a game would break is if I changed anything on a character in the Character tab in terms of adding/deleting characters...

Yeah, that's what I tried, but they loved to spam their ultimate on me like...constantly. I don't know if my luck was THAT bad or not, but they did it 7 times in a row lol (they all have a chance to use it as long as all 3 are alive...).
halibabica
RMN's Official Reviewmonger
16873
Well, I don't know what went wrong last time, but I re-downloaded the game, got no errors on startup, and it didn't crash after the cutscene. Computers are weird.

I guess it's possible I got lucky with the sisters, but since I did my best to pick one off right away, they only had a small window to use their ultimates. RNGeezus is a fickle diety.
Yeah....that's really bizarre. Wonder what caused that. The whole thing with the "shiguinichi" bit really threw me for a loop, as I don't even know what that would be!

Yeah, probably. The quicker you get rid of one, the better off since if one's dead, the ultimate attack is disabled for the rest of the fight, thus making it SIGNIFICANTLY easier. My problem was I wasn't getting one of them dead fast enough heh. Lack of Ghost-resist equipment MIGHT have contributed to that on my end though...

Keep in mind, this is coming from the guy that ALSO sometimes gets bullied by Hina on Youkai Mountain from time to time! lol