Chaco
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 3626
Registered: 10-06-2005
IP: Logged

Okay, I've updated the hold again. Just a couple of minor changes:

- Fixed the thanks and acknowledgement scrolls in Zeroth Level 1S1E to reflect everything in the hold right now.

- Fixed music not changing after Third Level 3N cutscene and Fourth Level 1E warp

- Fixed 2100 GR warning going off after player already got Serpentskin Suit.

- Decided not to change Third Level 2S's yellow door position.

All of these changes are aesthetic-only and don't require an update or a playthrough restart.

I'm looking forward to everyone's last round of comments on the hold! I'll probably leave this hold here for a couple more weeks, then submit it to the Hold Administrators.

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Quick links to my stuff (in case you forgot where it was):

Midootje
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 109
Registered: 03-05-2011
IP: Logged

Hey Chaco, the Tenth Level looks fantastic! It becomes clear that you really really really want to get all the ATK in the hold, while making sure you have enough keys from previous levels to keep your HP up. So far I don't see any problems with it, the puzzles are very nifty but very solvable, the enemies are balanced just right (although the RBS is very easily attainable). I am utterly confused about one thing though, and since the hold isn't released yet, I can't ask for it on Hints and Solutions:But anyway, the changes you've made in the last content update seem to have fixed every flaw and completed your piece of art! Chapeau!
EDIT: What is it with that 'posting leads to solving' syndrome?! It's getting very creepy. I literally solved it one minute after posting. No further comment

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Don't worry, be happy, and slice monsters. You'll probably do better than me at all three.

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[Last edited by Midootje at 03-28-2016 12:04 PM]

Suwako
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 145
Registered: 04-29-2011
IP: Logged

Awesome hold you've made, it's really wonderful. The shortcuts for any level are a excellent idea and saves a lot of time, they could be of use for any hold.

Been playing yesterday and today, only reached the level 6 so far. Some comments:

First Interlude: It's really needed the empty accesory in the level?. I really doubt if someone can get to the Belt Buckler or the Grappling Hook without visit that area of the third level. Anyway, it don't affect anything at all

Third Level 1N1W: Just realized, I can kill the brain holding no sword!. I always aim for the attack to kill the mud mother, so it didn't mind a lot.

Second interlude 2S still crashed the game, It only did when I tried to clear it at the first entrance, after some re-entrances it didn't crash.

My stats with the base squadron so far:
Base Squad
HP: 74
ATK: 267(only miss a gem attack from fourth level 1W and fifth level 1W?)
DEF: 60
Keys: 8/1/1

I'll keep playing this hold, and everyone should do too!, though the goblin area in fourth level is somewhat hard...

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A moment last forever, an eternity passes in an instant, the time I spent here was inevitable...

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[Last edited by Suwako at 03-29-2016 08:49 PM]

Suwako
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 145
Registered: 04-29-2011
IP: Logged

I continued playing though the hold. For now i am at the eighth level.
Comments:
Fifth Level 2S: You can save 1 yellow key by close-opening the door. It's somewhat unimportant because there are more than enough attack to kill in 1 hit both the mud mother and the babies.

Sixth Level 4W: Note that the same mirror can open both red doors (I don't know if that's intended). The Tar mother with both brains do too much of damage, so if aiming for the max attack, it don't have any sense to kill 1 brain and left the another alive.
An idea i have (if you want to change it) it's that you need to spend separately 2 green keys for each red door.

Seventh Level 6S 1W: Killed 1 guard and used 3 yellow keys and 1 green to get the blue one. It's really possible to get all with only three keys?

After eight level noted a secret room on 1N 2W. Luckily it didn't have attack, would have restarted everything for sure.

Stats for now:
HP: 1494
ATK: 451
DEF: (steel shield and belt-buckler): 100
Keys: 17/3/0

It's taking a lot of time to play this, nothing compared with the time you problably invested making it. The rest of the hold it's excellent

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A moment last forever, an eternity passes in an instant, the time I spent here was inevitable...

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[Last edited by Suwako at 04-01-2016 08:50 PM]

Suwako
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 145
Registered: 04-29-2011
IP: Logged

Well, last comment about the hold.

I managed to get to the ninth level (every time i play i get further), but with nearly no keys and health to spare, so will see what's around a bit and start again or play another thing for a while. Very well done . Comments:

Record of the mini-game in Seventh Level 9S 2W: 52 hits(1300 hp). Had to optimize the entire mini-game since i entered with ~~1450 hp. Noticed the detail that your record and the life you recover it's the same.

It's the first time I've managed to reach this far, so I didn't know anything about the levels and their structure. In ninth level 1S 1E there is a yellow door which goes to a room with a knight shield.

Replayed a lot of rooms only because i aimed before for the wyrm piercer, and it was very late when i saw it. Showing what's in the room before opening it (like the steel shield) or moving the yellow door to the room would have been helpful, I hadn't any yellow key to use.

Final Score:
Drove Off Warlord
HP: 788
ATK: 626
DEF: 150
Keys: 2/0/0

An inmense adventure, which I haven't been able to end

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A moment last forever, an eternity passes in an instant, the time I spent here was inevitable...

karlpopper
Level: Master Delver

Rank Points: 263
Registered: 03-28-2009
IP: Logged

First Interlude: The Entrance - when I stepped on the special square I got a "well done on completing the hold" message.

Was that supposed to happen? I feel I have some more pie-seeking in me.

Engine v1.2.6.295 (from Steam) Hold version mar25_1

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76th SkyWatcher
When the only tool you have is a Really Big Sword, all problems start to look like Giant Roaches

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[Last edited by karlpopper at 04-14-2016 04:20 AM : Version Info]

Chaco
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 3626
Registered: 10-06-2005
IP: Logged

karlpopper wrote:
First Interlude: The Entrance - when I stepped on the special square I got a "well done on completing the hold" message.

Was that supposed to happen? I feel I have some more pie-seeking in me.

Engine v1.2.6.295 (from Steam) Hold version mar25_1

Nope, that particular level entrance was just misassigned. I've fixed it now and uploaded a new April 14th version. There's no changes other than fixing that one NPC.

I did a quick check and I don't think there are any other broken inventory squares. Still, if you do run into any more, let me know.

____________________________
Quick links to my stuff (in case you forgot where it was):

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[Last edited by Chaco at 04-14-2016 03:54 PM]

karlpopper
Level: Master Delver

Rank Points: 263
Registered: 03-28-2009
IP: Logged

Confirmed fix, thanks.

____________________________
76th SkyWatcher
When the only tool you have is a Really Big Sword, all problems start to look like Giant Roaches

Chaco
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 3626
Registered: 10-06-2005
IP: Logged

Okay, I've submitted the hold to the Hold Administrators now.

Thanks everyone for your comments, and I'm looking forward to future playthroughs and highscore competitions!

____________________________
Quick links to my stuff (in case you forgot where it was):

YungVenuz
Level: Goblin
Rank Points: 17
Registered: 07-08-2014
IP: Logged

I definitely didn't expect to beat that record. My first few attempts were in the 1800-2400 damage range.

This has been a fantastic hold so far, and probably the one I've spent the most time on. At one point I made it to the final boss and I was so far short on health that I nearly just gave up on the hold entirely; did another full reset just on a whim and noticed rooms where I had taken literally thousands more damage than necessary! I feel like every time I go through the hold I notice another few more superior room solutions that shave off another few hundred points of damage. The balance between puzzle solving and standard optimization is nearly perfect.

Chaco
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 3626
Registered: 10-06-2005
IP: Logged

Okay, uploaded a new version for HA review. Here's some changes that will make it into the final version on the Holds board!

- Hold is now You and Conquerors Edit

- The north part of Seventh Level 1S1E now has tar babies and greckle gates to lengthen the fuse by 2 tiles, instead of green doors. Still probably never worth taking, but it's less of an onerous penalty to skip that puzzle now.

- Used custom characters to speak noises like bloooomp.ogg, QuickScrape.ogg and HugeDoor.ogg so I only have to include those sound files once in the hold file. As a result, hold filesize decreased.

- Added more checkpoints.

- Added a few more lines of incidental speech.

____________________________
Quick links to my stuff (in case you forgot where it was):

Level: Guest
Rank Points: 0
IP: Logged

A fun and challenging hold that definitely has its replay value for optizimation. Several non trivial puzzles that took a bit to figure out. Overall the balance seemed to be on point for such a massive amount of rooms.

Managed to complete this hold on the 3rd try (5176 HP left, 0 keys). I've quit the first attempt on floor 5 or 6 and the 2nd on floor 9. Could probably have gone a bit further but without having a rough idea whats coming up soon mistakes are bound to happen.

2nd interlude seems to still have crash issues at twice south. Seems to happen when the mimic is at 3,14 a lot of the times.

Managed to even gain a bunch of health on the 'eyeball arena' by taking only 31 hits


Some small things that could eventually be done better:

- general information about items coming up soon like it was done in f3 with the scout
- the majority of hidden rooms were more like regular rooms instead and pretty much impossible to miss
- the reward for the 2nd interlude was honestly disspointing
- eventually reduce the vending machine at f3 1s4w to 3 yellow, there really isn't any point in the game a 4:1 trade would make sense (even 3:1 noone would probably do it)
- did the trapdoor puzzle in f5 1s8e (before hook) seriously had no point? Its certainly possible with the hook but without? I doubt it
- greckles become irrelevenat past floor 6. It wouldn't hurt to hide some of the free health behind 1k gates or sth so it doesn't feel wasted

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[Last edited by Shinis at 06-07-2016 02:15 PM]

Chaco
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 3626
Registered: 10-06-2005
IP: Logged

Thanks very much for the feedback! I agree with most of your points raised; while I don't think I'm going to update the hold I'll definitely take all this into account the next time I build an RPG hold.

Shinis wrote:
- the majority of hidden rooms were more like regular rooms instead and pretty much impossible to miss

After thinking about this for a while, I think there's no point in hiding rooms with secret walls or hard-to-spot paths. All it does is delay people finding the resources inside them, and make the first couple of iterations (where people don't find the rooms) sub-optimal. That said, it's certainly fine to hide rooms behind powerful monsters, or tricky room contraptions such that you can only get to them by performing certain actions or solving puzzles, and thus putting appropriate rewards behind them, as in that case the "hard-to-get-at" room is easily visible and a goal right from the first playthrough.

- eventually reduce the vending machine at f3 1s4w to 3 yellow, there really isn't any point in the game a 4:1 trade would make sense (even 3:1 noone would probably do it)

Definitely agree that this is kind of pointless; the vending machine was just a quickly-made failsafe to "guarantee" that the player would never run out of green keys, but running out of green keys entirely isn't ever actually a problem if the player isn't spending green keys left and right.

- did the trapdoor puzzle in f5 1s8e (before hook) seriously had no point? Its certainly possible with the hook but without? I doubt it

It's solvable without the hook; you don't need to spend a yellow key there. To give a small hint without spoiling it entirely, there's a big difference between a pressure plate and an orb.

- greckles become irrelevenat past floor 6. It wouldn't hurt to hide some of the free health behind 1k gates or sth so it doesn't feel wasted

That's sort of what I did in floor 6 itself, but afterwards I figured there was no difference between having those kinds of greckle barriers and not having them, since the player's greckle counts would be so high. At that point, yellow/green doors and monsters blocking the way are more meaningful, and this just saves the player time bumping into a bunch of doors.

____________________________
Quick links to my stuff (in case you forgot where it was):

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[Last edited by Chaco at 06-07-2016 03:09 PM]

Chaco
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 3626
Registered: 10-06-2005
IP: Logged

Here's an update that makes the final level a bit easier, after it was brought to my attention by Nuntar and ThemsAllTook that the final level could be really difficult if you got there without getting all the ATK in the hold, or were low on health.

A complete changelog:

Ninth Level
1N4W: Added Opticon -> yellow key trade, to give a preview of a monster that can be seen in the next level.

Tenth Level
2N: Added +2000 HP
3N: Added +10 ATK
7N1W: Added +10 ATK and +500 HP. Added +500 HP behind a yellow door.
3N2W: Added +500 HP
6N3W: Added +500 HP
7N: Added +150 HP
5N3E: Added yellow key -> +500 HP trade. Added Steel Knight -> 2000 HP trade.
2N2E: Added yellow key -> +450 HP trade
3N1W: Added yellow key -> +450 HP trade
2N2W: Added green key -> +800 HP trade. Added 2 cave fegundo -> yellow key trade.
9N: Added two (2 green key + 1 yellow key) -> 2150 HP trades
7N3E: Removed a green door and moved a +500 HP potion so it wouldn't get blown up by a bomb. Now the green door path is probably actually worth taking if you can spare the key.
3N2W: Moved inventory square so it's not in the way of auto-travel.

____________________________
Quick links to my stuff (in case you forgot where it was):