Insoluble
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1637
Registered: 09-04-2014
IP: Logged

File: King Azbs Arena.demo (37.4 KB)
Downloaded 28 times.
License: Public Domain

For some reason the hold does not have the same hold ID as the version I had previously downloaded. It downloaded as a completely different hold. If you have multiple copies please try to make sure that you are uploading the same hold so that the testers do not lose all their progress.

I replayed through the levels I had played through before. I don't have much to add to the comments I had before. I will mention that the timer in Level 1.3 The hunt: 1N was a bit too tight to be enjoyable.

Round 2.1 Burly Brawl This level was pretty enjoyable on the whole. The difficulty level was a bit uneven with some rooms feeling super easy and others being very tight solution requirements. 2N1W verges on feeling like a magical move sequence and could stand to be toned down a bit.

Round 2.2 Fancy Footwork I like the mechanic of this level. I feel like it could actually be used for some interesting linchpin puzzles, but that wouldn't really fit in with the idea of this hold I suppose. It did feel a bit on the easy side.

Round 2.3 The Maze of Death This was my favorite of the new levels. The mechanics make for some interesting and fun rooms. That being said, quite a few of the rooms felt a little bit too similar. I wonder if some more differences between some of the rooms could be added in. The tunnels in 2N is very difficult to see. I wasn't sure how I was supposed to enter at first. It would be nice to have them not covered by the power token and speed potion.

2.4 Infested I had to stop playing here. The rooms on this level are just way too tedious. I'll try to come back and finish this off at some point, but I hope you'll consider replacing these or at least making them less of a slog.

____________________________
Links to neat forum tools that I always have trouble finding:

azb
Level: Smiter
Rank Points: 432
Registered: 03-08-2014
IP: Logged

As the hold is not officially published yet, please note I added a warp zone to the south in the First Level. This addresses A: having to replay old levels to get the new ones and B: quitting out of frustration due to a single level (in this case, Round 2.4), as you can just skip the levels you don't want to even try in favor of levels you want to try (note that there is still Round 2.5 to 3.5 uploaded).

Also, was 2.4 really that much of a slog? It might be just due to m y fighting abilities, but I found it not much different than other "spam" levels I made such as 1.4 and 2.2.

I appreciate the feedback! Don't give up... there's going to be much more to explore.

If it's any assurance, a handful of levels in Round 3 go back on the monster spamming in favor of things such as "quicksand" or extremely tight timers. Each round is different and thus some (like 2.4, 2.2, and 1.4) will intentionally spam monsters (it wouldn't be an arena otherwise) and others will have few monsters but demand tactical strategy (such as 1.1 or 2.3).

____________________________
Please feel free to test the ultimate arena: King Azb's Arena today!

---

[Last edited by azb at 08-12-2017 11:29 AM]

Insoluble
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1637
Registered: 09-04-2014
IP: Logged

I saw the level warp and very much appreciate it. I just like to have a full set of demos for things, I suppose it's not a big deal though.

And I didn't mean to give the wrong impression, I fully intend to test out other levels! I just may be skipping 2.4 for the moment. I'm not sure why but it definitely did feel like the rooms were much longer and more exacting that the previous levels. It may be that I hit some of the more difficult rooms in the level early on, I didn't even fully explore it. It may also be that I was getting tired as I had been playing for a couple of hours at that point! I may also just not be as skilled with large brained roach hordes in small quarters.

Either way, I'll probably move on with 2.5 tonight and press on from there. I'll also mention that I'm having a fun time with this on the whole, so thanks for working on it.

____________________________
Links to neat forum tools that I always have trouble finding:

azb
Level: Smiter
Rank Points: 432
Registered: 03-08-2014
IP: Logged

Thank you for clarifying. It would have been a shame if a single level changed your opinion of the hold and made you think the hold was worthless when the one level was entirely bypassable.

I decided not to revise 2.4 for now, but if there is a large number of people that find it unpopular, I will ask for suggestions for replacements while still keeping the theme of "roach queen survival."

Also, I've read about mentions of magic sequences as early as Round 1.1, but I would counter those with the fact that monster mechanics are entirely knowable with the right resources (Advanced Concepts holds, Mechanics of Monster Movement article, etc.) so it is not, in reality, a guessing game if you slow down to break the movement down.

For most rooms, though, I have tried to make sure this type of knowledge is unnecessary but just basic fighting skills are required (how to use terrain or your sword to block enemies, back slashing techniques, etc.)

____________________________
Please feel free to test the ultimate arena: King Azb's Arena today!

Insoluble
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1637
Registered: 09-04-2014
IP: Logged

File: King Azbs Arena.demo (56.3 KB)
Downloaded 23 times.
License: Public Domain

Finished most of 2.4 Infested. I did skip the central room. It turns out it was a matter of getting blocked by the most exacting room early on while most of the level was very reasonable. I enjoyed the rooms that let you carve out your playing area in crumbly walls. These rooms added an extra layer of strategy that lets the player make the execution much more reasonable just by setting the room up properly. The rooms that felt really tedious to execute for me were 1W and 1N1W. I think the rest of the level seemed much more enjoyable, especially the three rooms in the north. But those two rooms, 1N1W in particular, felt very long and repetitive. I know my demos for them are not the most efficient, but since you are essentially just plowing through roaches it's not really the most interesting thing to try to optimize. I guess rooms like this are just not my thing, others may disagree and enjoy them though.

Round 2.5 Stronghold I liked this level a lot. Especially the rooms that required me to come up with a repeatable pattern that would keep the outer area clear. Some rooms didn't really require that (the entrance for instance), but were still okay rooms. A few of the generator rooms could be done using basically the same pattern to keep clearing monsters until the doors opened, but that's probably fine since the rooms differed in other ways.

Round 3.1 Burlier Brawl Speed potion combat definitely has a different feel to it so this was an interesting variation on the previous golem level. The rooms did tend to feel very similar to each other after a while, but were still enjoyable. 2N1E is the standout room here and was refreshingly different. If you want to add more variety to this level it might be interesting to try doing a room with an invisibility potion instead of a speed potion.

Round 3.2 Blunderdome Difficulty level here was very mixed. The 20 second timer seemed very generous for easily predictable monsters like roaches. For the room with 6 wrathwings (effectively not predictable) I had to spend a much longer time brute forcing a solution.

I started Round 3.3 Cold War, but haven't finished yet. I'll try to come back to this soon since I'm close to the end of what you have so far developed. I'm still very much enjoying it save for a few rooms.

azb wrote: Also, I've read about mentions of magic sequences as early as Round 1.1, but I would counter those with the fact that monster mechanics are entirely knowable with the right resources (Advanced Concepts holds, Mechanics of Monster Movement article, etc.) so it is not, in reality, a guessing game if you slow down to break the movement down.

You can play through Advanced Concepts, read through multiple posts (the Mechanics of Monster Movement article is super basic and doesn't even come close to describing some of the more intricate mechanics that get used in more advanced holds by the way) and so on. It will not make a pack of wraithwings like the one in Round 3.2 Blunderdome: 2N 1E any more pleasant to try to predict. Some monsters like wraithwings in large groups exhibit behaviors that become unfeasible to predict with any precision due to things like movement order. You can rely on heuristics to get an idea of what kinds of moves and arrangements are likely to lead to solutions, but there really isn't a good way to see several moves ahead what the exact arrangement is going to be. That's not a huge problem as long as the solution to the room isn't too specific or exacting. That being said, I don't think anything in Round 1.1 (or in the rest of the hold for that matter) is really specific enough to qualify as a magic move sequence.

____________________________
Links to neat forum tools that I always have trouble finding:

---

[Last edited by Insoluble at 08-13-2017 07:50 AM]

azb
Level: Smiter
Rank Points: 432
Registered: 03-08-2014
IP: Logged

While Round 3 showed new ways to use old monsters introduced in previous levels (with the exception of the last level, which it seems you haven't reached yet), Round 4 will introduce new monsters, both built-in (such as Serpents or Guards) and scripted (such as, well... play to find out!)

____________________________
Please feel free to test the ultimate arena: King Azb's Arena today!

Resert On
Level: Delver
Rank Points: 37
Registered: 05-02-2017
IP: Logged

Is this hold has been in Holds board?

____________________________
Stuffs:

azb
Level: Smiter
Rank Points: 432
Registered: 03-08-2014
IP: Logged

Definitely not.

In the first post, I said I would only post a few levels at a time for testing/quality checking purposes. I didn't specify how much levels would be in the final version initially, but will now: There will be 60 levels (11 Rounds * 5 levels, 5 more bonus levels afterward).



____________________________
Please feel free to test the ultimate arena: King Azb's Arena today!

---

[Last edited by azb at 09-29-2017 07:55 PM : Clarified when project would be complete]

Insoluble
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1637
Registered: 09-04-2014
IP: Logged

File: King Azbs Arena.demo (62.6 KB)
Downloaded 24 times.
License: Public Domain

Sorry I haven't replied to this in a while. Mostly finished with round 3 at this point. I'll probably skip ahead to round 4 and come back to the last few rooms at some point.

Round 3.3 Cold War The difficulty level for this level was very mixed. Some rooms (golems and roaches for example) were very straightforward. The rooms that involved a whole mess of wraith-wings took a lot longer. The entrance was probably the most difficult room in the level, consider swapping positions with another room. 2N was my favorite here, mostly because it had a bit of a puzzle aspect to it instead of just being straight combat. The central room was, oddly enough, possibly the easiest one of the level.

Round 3.4 It's not Easy. Yet again one of the hardest rooms on the level is the entrance. Roaches provide the fewest opportunities for delaying monsters. 2N1W was also pretty tough. No checkpoints on this level. When this mechanic (half speed) has been done before it has always been scripted like this so that checkpoints don't work. Unfortunately I don't know of any workarounds for that.

Round 3.5 Gobbin' Goblins Very mixed difficulty here. The entrance seems very tight and quite hectic. I did not clear it. Some rooms though are quite easy. The room with the invisibility potion felt like a gimme. The rooms with direct belining monsters mixed in were much more forgiving, and, again, the thin ice room felt very fun and different given the fact that you could use logic to determine a survivable setup ahead of time. I'll try to come back and finish the entrance and a couple of other rooms I left soon. But first I'll probably check out round 4.


____________________________
Links to neat forum tools that I always have trouble finding:

azb
Level: Smiter
Rank Points: 432
Registered: 03-08-2014
IP: Logged

With a few exceptions (such as The Maze of Death), entrance rooms let you walk to other rooms if you can't beat them, so they aren't necessarily the easiest to do first. However, central rooms, as you must do them last, are either the hardest or have something special about them that other rooms don't (examples include Burly Brawl where the central room has a new layout or Gobbin' Goblins where the central room introduces a new monster).

In Cold War, though the central room is easy, it is unique from the other rooms in that it is the only one to feature Generators.

____________________________
Please feel free to test the ultimate arena: King Azb's Arena today!

Insoluble
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1637
Registered: 09-04-2014
IP: Logged

File: King Azbs Arena.demo (62.6 KB)
Downloaded 22 times.
License: Public Domain

azb wrote:
With a few exceptions (such as The Maze of Death), entrance rooms let you walk to other rooms if you can't beat them, so they aren't necessarily the easiest to do first. However, central rooms, as you must do them last, are either the hardest or have something special about them that other rooms don't (examples include Burly Brawl where the central room has a new layout or Gobbin' Goblins where the central room introduces a new monster).

In Cold War, though the central room is easy, it is unique from the other rooms in that it is the only one to feature Generators.

That makes sense.

I've moved on to Round 4 now. Thoughts and demos posted.

Round 4.1 Hammer clones. I was surprised at how much of this room I could do without the speed potion in the entrance. I did eventually take it though, but the fact that it doesn't impact the scripted guy is interesting. The speed potion was definitely welcome in all the rooms you included it though, especially 2N1E.

Round 4.2 Serpent Room Brawl This level on the whole felt a great deal easier than the few that have proceeded it. It felt like it could have fit better with the round 1 or 2 levels. The only one that felt a bit tricky was 1N1E, but that was more due to the goblins than the snakes. You might consider beefing this up a bit, but then again, it's nice to have a breather level mixed in too.

Round 4.3 Garden of Pain The new generators are interesting. They seem to be working properly for the most part. One strange thing I noticed is what happens when you are standing on one of the spawn tiles when it is time for a spawn. If you or another monster of any kind is on a spawn tile it seems to delay some of the spawned monsters (not just the ones you are standing on though not all of the tiles either). When you move the spawns will start to come in. This isn't really a big deal though. These rooms were pretty fun. Again, slightly easier than I would have expected for round 4, but not way out of line. Is it possible to replace the conquer tokens in the middle of each room with something else? They will make the high scores for all of these rooms trivial to attain, which is a bit of a shame.

I enjoyed these three levels, I'll try to come back to do the last two in round 4 soon.

____________________________
Links to neat forum tools that I always have trouble finding:

Nuntar
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 4413
Registered: 02-20-2007
IP: Logged

So I gave this a try, and managed to beat all of Round 1. My feedback will mostly echo what others have said, but I hope that helps encourage you to make some changes and not just progress with new levels

1.1: Probably my favourite level. It felt a big magic-sequency to start off, but then I noticed how the asymmetry of the initial setup provides a clue as to how to begin the room. The different setup in each room meant that slightly different strategies were required, but I agree that over nine rooms it felt a little samey. I think 2N was the easiest room.

One thing I didn't like much was that the announcer's text plays when you step off the central trapdoor, covering up the monsters until the text is finished. I'd prefer it if he says his line when Beethro enters the arena.

1.2: Not a fan of this. Every room came down to "find a safe sequence of moves, then repeat until the end of the time limit". If you want to keep this level in, I'd suggest reducing the limit to 30 moves, and looking again at the rooms that can be solved by holding down the battle key to see if you can make them more interesting.

1.3: Except for the central room, this was much easier than 1.1. The darkness felt unnecessary, but I guess it wasn't too annoying. In the central room, the time limit was really short and it felt like mostly luck that I eventually got a solution that worked, so that wasn't fun.

1.4: Also very easy, and I was just doing the same thing in every room.

1.5: Now this was quite a bit harder, especially the two speed potion rooms. Nothing unmanageable, though. 2N1W felt like I got it by luck, whereas its partner room 2N1E required strategical thinking.

____________________________
50th Skywatcher

---

[Last edited by Nuntar at 10-24-2017 12:26 AM]

azb
Level: Smiter
Rank Points: 432
Registered: 03-08-2014
IP: Logged

Round 5 has been uploaded, and it uses monsters from Round 4 (such as snakes and guards) in new ways, but also introduces its own monsters (from more harmless ones like preplaced mimics or scripted allies to more ... smarter and robotic ... enemies).

The reason levels like 4.2 and 4.3 are easier is because they introduce a new enemy that was not seen in previous levels, allowing players to get a sense of how to defeat the enemy in later levels that use them in more complex situations.

Round 1.2 is easy because of how early on it is (the limited pallete of monsters, and the fact you are just beginning). There will be a similar level in one of the last few rounds that does not have any safe spots like 1.2 did, however.

____________________________
Please feel free to test the ultimate arena: King Azb's Arena today!

Resert On
Level: Delver
Rank Points: 37
Registered: 05-02-2017
IP: Logged

Maybe you need make a variation the room layout a bit.

____________________________
Stuffs:

azb
Level: Smiter
Rank Points: 432
Registered: 03-08-2014
IP: Logged

The design of the rooms are 100% intentional. The variation is supposed to be solely in enemies and materials in the "arena" space of the rooms in the majority of levels, but there are some levels with varying rooms where combat differences alone don't quite provide enough variation to still be interesting (Round 1.5, most notably).

____________________________
Please feel free to test the ultimate arena: King Azb's Arena today!

---

[Last edited by azb at 12-08-2017 07:07 PM]

azb
Level: Smiter
Rank Points: 432
Registered: 03-08-2014
IP: Logged

Round 6 has been finished. It has the same similarity in design between rooms as the other levels, but introduces concepts new to the hold (besides monsters) such as non-sword combat in a handful of the levels.

In addition, there is a boss at the end, but unlike Round 1's 'Seather, this one actually has a sword like yours.

____________________________
Please feel free to test the ultimate arena: King Azb's Arena today!

Dying Flutchman
Level: Smiter

Rank Points: 406
Registered: 01-27-2017
IP: Logged

Hi azb,

I'm also playing through this a bit. Many comments have been made already, so I'll keep this short.

1) Do like the concept. No lynchpins whatsoever, just battling your way through. Fair deal. If you don't like it, don't play it and everyone's happy.
2) However, also if you do like it, it tends to get a bit tedious to have to play all of the rooms in every level. As a suggestion, I'd like to have a navigation hub to exclude levels (temporarily perhaps) to skip forward one or two levels and return to the boring/problematic sections later.
I guess you could also do this batch-wise, for example only granting access to rooms 2.x if 1.x have all been completed. Or, (would be nicer if you ask me), only let a player skip a fixed number of rooms/levels and no more. If the number is reached, some skipped rooms will have to be cleared to progress further.
3) Now stuck at 2.4. I must say: MUCH more difficult than all other levels combined imho. I'd advise to make the increase in difficulty a bit more gradual.


DF

____________________________
Autocorrect is not my friend. Apologies for the typos.

---

[Last edited by Dying Flutchman at 12-10-2017 05:20 PM]

azb
Level: Smiter
Rank Points: 432
Registered: 03-08-2014
IP: Logged

1) Glad you enjoy the theme/concept!

2) There is currently no room skip, but there is a level skip right beneath the entrance of the first level.

3) 2.4 1N is solvable just like the rest, despite the increased rate from the Generators. I'm not sure how you solved the other rooms, but the way I did it was to use terrain to block the roaches and take advantage of the speed potion by taking "shelter in corners", like this:

      PR
       SW
      RW

P = Player
R = Roach
S = Sword
W = Wall

If that isn't helpful, I can give you a victory demo myself.

Round 2.4 is admittedly more difficult than the levels before it, but in most levels from that point forward, the intensity only increases, with things like guards, serpents, brains and tarstuff in the mix.


____________________________
Please feel free to test the ultimate arena: King Azb's Arena today!

---

[Last edited by azb at 12-10-2017 06:05 PM]

Insoluble
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1637
Registered: 09-04-2014
IP: Logged

File: King Azbs Arena.demo (78.6 KB)
Downloaded 27 times.
License: Public Domain

Sorry it has taken me a while to get back to this. I just played through three more levels. Demos are attached as always.

Round 4.4 In the Army Now For about half of these rooms it was particularly tricky to find an opening sequence of moves that would allow me to survive. Specifically the rooms that felt like this were The Entrance, 1N1E, 2N, and 1N1W. I found that if I was able to make it through about 20 moves or so the rest of the room was pretty doable. I mostly relied on standard guard manipulation techniques, but with so many guards I had to brute force my way though the first 30 moves or so. I thought about copying my moves for The Entrance over in 2N, but the move order is different and the trapdoor and obstacles are shifted vertically by a tile so it won't work. These four rooms were actually pretty good once I made an initial breakthrough to survive the first 20 to 30 turns though.

The other four rooms on this level were a lot of fun. I particularly liked 1E. On the whole, I've really enjoyed the thin ice rooms in these levels, they lend themselves to a more strategic approach. I hope that you continue making rooms like this! My favorite in the level was definitely 1N. This room was almost more of a linchpin puzzle than a horde room, but still fit the theme of the level quite well.

Round 4.5 Beyond Blunderdome I tested the time limit in a few rooms to make sure that you actually do get cut off after 30 turns. In general though, the time limit was generous enough to never feel too tight while still being strict enough to encourage me to work efficiently. In other words, it was just right for a timer room. Most of these felt easier than the rooms on the previous level, but not to such an extent that I would recommend moving the level earlier in sequence. There is a way to break the timer, but it is rather silly and not really an issue since it doesn't actually make the rooms easier. I recorded a second play through of a few of the rooms to show this method off, so you can check the demos for details. The goblin knight element is interesting, though it took me a second or two to figure out how it worked. The exit stairs in 1N exit the hold instead of taking me to the next level.

Round 5.1 The 12 Knights The difficulty in this level seemed to fluctuate pretty drastically from one room to the next. Some rooms were a breeze, but 1N, 1N1E, and 2N were very tricky. Nothing felt too repetitive though. I stopped at 1N and am still working on this one.

In general, I am still enjoying this hold. But I also find it easier to appreciate in small chunks of 2 to 3 levels at a time. That's probably because of the focus on combat, and specifically very chaotic combat in which at least some brute force is necessary. That's not a bad thing by any means, but may be something to consider since this hold is getting pretty large. I might suggest having a level or two in each round that possibly focuses on strategic setup (like the thin ice rooms) to give the player a bit of a break and to change things up a bit. Just a suggestion though, obviously.

____________________________
Links to neat forum tools that I always have trouble finding:

azb
Level: Smiter
Rank Points: 432
Registered: 03-08-2014
IP: Logged

Hello everyone,

I am happy to say that I am back to developing this project, as I am taking a break from the Final Reckoning and Forgotten Civilization holds for right now, owing to how long they are and that I am near completing them anyway, so I felt this needed the most attention first because not only do I have more levels that still need developing in this one, but also because this one is the most original project of them all and would most likely develop the most interest, whereas the others were retellings of the official canon.

I will take the suggestion to develop only 2 to 3 levels at a time, as opposed to batches of 5, because not only is it easier for testers but also because the levels will be more difficult from now on (think of the hold progression wise as two halves: the first half is intro stuff, getting used to enemy AI, and the other half is the challenges and applications, although there will be new enemies exclusive to the second half, like rock giants, seeps that go through floors called ghosts, slayers etc, which will be more difficult to defeat than the monsters so far).

____________________________
Please feel free to test the ultimate arena: King Azb's Arena today!

azb
Level: Smiter
Rank Points: 432
Registered: 03-08-2014
IP: Logged

Insoluble wrote:
Sorry it has taken me a while to get back to this. I just played through three more levels. Demos are attached as always.

Round 4.4 In the Army Now For about half of these rooms it was particularly tricky to find an opening sequence of moves that would allow me to survive. Specifically the rooms that felt like this were The Entrance, 1N1E, 2N, and 1N1W. I found that if I was able to make it through about 20 moves or so the rest of the room was pretty doable. I mostly relied on standard guard manipulation techniques, but with so many guards I had to brute force my way though the first 30 moves or so. I thought about copying my moves for The Entrance over in 2N, but the move order is different and the trapdoor and obstacles are shifted vertically by a tile so it won't work. These four rooms were actually pretty good once I made an initial breakthrough to survive the first 20 to 30 turns though.

The other four rooms on this level were a lot of fun. I particularly liked 1E. On the whole, I've really enjoyed the thin ice rooms in these levels, they lend themselves to a more strategic approach. I hope that you continue making rooms like this! My favorite in the level was definitely 1N. This room was almost more of a linchpin puzzle than a horde room, but still fit the theme of the level quite well.

Round 4.5 Beyond Blunderdome I tested the time limit in a few rooms to make sure that you actually do get cut off after 30 turns. In general though, the time limit was generous enough to never feel too tight while still being strict enough to encourage me to work efficiently. In other words, it was just right for a timer room. Most of these felt easier than the rooms on the previous level, but not to such an extent that I would recommend moving the level earlier in sequence. There is a way to break the timer, but it is rather silly and not really an issue since it doesn't actually make the rooms easier. I recorded a second play through of a few of the rooms to show this method off, so you can check the demos for details. The goblin knight element is interesting, though it took me a second or two to figure out how it worked. The exit stairs in 1N exit the hold instead of taking me to the next level.

Round 5.1 The 12 Knights The difficulty in this level seemed to fluctuate pretty drastically from one room to the next. Some rooms were a breeze, but 1N, 1N1E, and 2N were very tricky. Nothing felt too repetitive though. I stopped at 1N and am still working on this one.

In general, I am still enjoying this hold. But I also find it easier to appreciate in small chunks of 2 to 3 levels at a time. That's probably because of the focus on combat, and specifically very chaotic combat in which at least some brute force is necessary. That's not a bad thing by any means, but may be something to consider since this hold is getting pretty large. I might suggest having a level or two in each round that possibly focuses on strategic setup (like the thin ice rooms) to give the player a bit of a break and to change things up a bit. Just a suggestion though, obviously.

I really love the thin ice suggestion, and I definitely plan on making more strategy rooms (but not puzzle puzzles, like orbs, trapdoors or anything). I also think the timer break with you stepping on the walls and killing monsters while they're raised isn't a big deal either, since like you pointed out and the demo shows it's not any simpler than solving it off the yellow area.

The trial and error in In the Army Now is intentional, since I wanted you to run around the guards to manipulate them first and make them easier to handle. Good catch with the stairs error in Beyond Blunderdome though; that is most certainly fixed.

____________________________
Please feel free to test the ultimate arena: King Azb's Arena today!

azb
Level: Smiter
Rank Points: 432
Registered: 03-08-2014
IP: Logged

Okay, I have added one extra level, this one introducing seep that move on the floor in addition to the walls called ghosts.

The next levels will be about fighting the armed characters (Royal Miners, Royal Guards and Red Guards) in combination with each other, and fighting a whole mixed bag of almost every single monster the player has encountered up to that point. The last two levels will be strategy levels after that, with one involving engineers, and one involving close combat with more monsters at a time than you usually fight per round, so expect a lot of golems and constructs.

____________________________
Please feel free to test the ultimate arena: King Azb's Arena today!

azb
Level: Smiter
Rank Points: 432
Registered: 03-08-2014
IP: Logged

Also in the future,

There will be in Round 8:

* The floor turning into pits in a Snake-esque sequence, similar to the floodgates in Round 2

* Another level like Infested, but worse given the new monsters introduced after then (including using brains)

* A level dedicated to platforms over pits without a sword, so dropping monsters instead of slashing them

* A level introducing Puffs and Vents

* A level introducing Rock Giants

In Round 9, there will be:

* A level about fighting all kinds of monsters, including Rock Giants and snakes, using the dagger rather than the traditional sword

* Another "save/defend the prisoners" level, this time involving bandits

* A level focusing on Gel Mothers and how to manipulate them in combination with the tar and mud introduced earlier

* A level focusing on dodging dart cannons while fighting monsters

* A level focusing on an invulnerable sworded enemy, but this one also uses tokens, pushes mirrors, uses platforms etc

In Round 10, there will be:

* Another "giant a la carte of everything" level, but this time worse than in Round 7 because of how many new things were introduced since then

* A level introducing a custom monster made for the hold specifically, but is themed on an existing custom monster in Architecture (in particular, robot guards that are invincible to swords but die when the orbs that give them life are removed)

* Another ice level, like in Round 3, but worse because of how many new elements there are

* A level using Pulse/Raygun Cannons

* A level involving you-know-who and his army of builders from the last part of TCB

In Round 11, the final official round, there will be:

* A level involving a custom monster that is like the Pulse Cannon, but faces the player at all times and walks toward them each step, so can kill by stepping as well

* A level introducing Gentryii

* A level involving massive amounts of briar

* A level introducing Slayers

* A fight with the arena's champion, who can cross pits and water, and who shoots 8 raygun blasts at a time

The last levels I will create, the Bonus Rounds, involve:

* A challenge to see how many monsters you can kill with Fegundos

* A challenge to see how many monsters you can kill with Puffs

* An extremely difficult version of Round 4's Garden of Pain, with plants that spawn more frequently and deadlier enemies (Constructs, Slayers etc)

* A monster that summons entire waves of different monsters at once, instead of spawning only a few and only one type like a Roach Queen or Generator would

* An ultimate battle that involves way more monsters than seen in the main levels, including an extra hard secret boss that changes the terrain of the level at a moment's notice and in an intelligent and active manner a la the Neather (so sort of like an evil wizard).

____________________________
Please feel free to test the ultimate arena: King Azb's Arena today!

---

[Last edited by azb at 04-19-2022 09:01 PM]

azb
Level: Smiter
Rank Points: 432
Registered: 03-08-2014
IP: Logged

Hello everyone,

Does anybody have commentary on Round 5 and 6's material (excluding the first level of Round 5), or feedback on the ideas for the later levels? I am still sticking to not implementing them until I get up to Round 7.1 tested through, to make sure that there isn't any obvious problems in the previous levels, like impossible rooms - note that sometimes though, trial and error as long as the room is solvable is 100% intentional, like in Round 4.4 entrance.

____________________________
Please feel free to test the ultimate arena: King Azb's Arena today!

Kaelyn
Level: Delver
Rank Points: 76
Registered: 01-21-2019
IP: Logged

I played through a lot of the hold.

In my opinion, the name of these levels is repetition. Most rooms in a given round feel pretty samey. There's a few gems (like the 'Seather levels), and a few ideas that could prove interesting if given the space to flourish (like 5.3 1N 1W, or 5.5 as a whole), but as it is, there's a lot of rough between those diamonds.

I think the biggest improvement you could make to the hold would be to pare it down. Instead of stuffing each level with nine rooms, have them feature four or five of the best and most distinct of the bunch. Instead of having several levels repeat a single theme (like 2.1 and 3.1), consolidate them into one level that showcases the best puzzles. Yes, this might prevent you from making twelve rounds of four levels each, but quality is always better than quantity.

A few other notes:

The levels 1.3, 2.3, 3.3, 3.4, and 4.3 are too dark.

The monster generators have a habit of placing new monsters on top of walls. The evil eye generators don't try to place new evil eyes if one already exists in the tile they'd normally spawn in.

The waterskipper nests in 2.5 1N 1W can be killed before the player has to enter the base.

The allies in 5.5 tend to wander across the room (or even into the corridors) after the room is clear. I have no idea where they're going.

azb
Level: Smiter
Rank Points: 432
Registered: 03-08-2014
IP: Logged

The amount of levels and rooms is 100% intentional, because I wanted the arena layout to be the same with the only difference the monsters (unless it's something special that requires a special script, like 1.5), even if it feels repetitive, so I will keep the examples you mentioned (like 2.1 vs 3.1) as is, but the darkness I will definitely fix.

I had to leave the generators putting on walls as is unfortunately, cause I didn't know how to implement a script, and a similar problem for the allies in 5.5: I am not sure how to fix the script so that they don't wander away when you clear the room, because of how the behavior is built in by the developers to the particular script I used.

The water skippers in Round 2.5 I can definitely fix though.

____________________________
Please feel free to test the ultimate arena: King Azb's Arena today!

azb
Level: Smiter
Rank Points: 432
Registered: 03-08-2014
IP: Logged

Okay, I tried using the "Wait for open move" script and looked at Xindaris' reference for _MyScript to figure out how to relate the orientation to the direction I needed, and it was a simple setting the X parameter using _MyScriptX, which I used in the script already for checking the direction, but sadly and strangely it only works for the top generators in Round 1.4, and the other ones don't generate anything even though I think I have the script coded properly (like put the Wait for open move before and after the If statement in the Generate block to test it both times, same result).

Do you guys know a good fix?

____________________________
Please feel free to test the ultimate arena: King Azb's Arena today!

hyperme
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 906
Registered: 06-23-2006
IP: Logged

"Wait for open move" uses an orientation value as it's X parameter, but you're setting _MyScriptX to something that will probably not fall in the range of valid orientations.

What you'd want to do is set _MyScriptX to be equal to the character's _MyO value, which cause it to look at the tile it's facing to decide if it should spawn. Then you can set _MyScriptX and _MyScriptY to the tile coordinates you want to spawn a monster on.

You might also want your generators to based on the monster types they're going to generate, since if they're all based on Roach, they couldn't do something like spawn a Wraithwing over a pit.

Also, while the editor doesn't mark it as an error, you can't actually use "Generate entity" as the condition for an if command.

Finally, I didn't think I'd see some Loonyland 2 references in a DROD hold.

____________________________
[Insert witty comment here]
Qzvlkx?

azb
Level: Smiter
Rank Points: 432
Registered: 03-08-2014
IP: Logged

At that last part: Drat! I didn't think anyone would get the references... cause the entire hold, in fact, is based on the Loonyland 2 Tina's Arena (every single round is named after a round in that game, and there are an equal amount of rounds/levels as well, although the limitation is that I had to change some round names if they didn't work with the DROD elements, like Sock it To Ya or Klones etc)...

But on a more useful note, thank you for the scripting help. I am going to implement it right away.

____________________________
Please feel free to test the ultimate arena: King Azb's Arena today!

---

[Last edited by azb at 05-16-2022 11:24 PM : Caveat related to level titles]

azb
Level: Smiter
Rank Points: 432
Registered: 03-08-2014
IP: Logged

Kaelyn,

Do you have any comments on Round 6, either in general like your above post about the previous rounds, or specific rooms that need reworking or that you found particularly enjoyable?

____________________________
Please feel free to test the ultimate arena: King Azb's Arena today!