Thread 101: Metroidvaniae - The Bear and Badger

mrsmr2

Ha, so by ignoring the marker I was making the boss harder. The time I picked it up and it removed all the roots in one go was when I killed the boss.

acemuzzy

The marker also recharges health a bit, which can be helpful.

acemuzzy

In terms of potions,

Spoiler:

Moot_Geeza

I've only got three tiddlers.

Just did the first boss that I'd call annoying. Did not like the trajectory of his throwing knives as they often didn't seem to give you any safe zones. Anyway, he's down and [hohoho] now I have a

Spoiler:

mrsmr2

If he is the whetstone dude that's what I'm currently at.

Moot_Geeza

Yup.

Moot_Geeza

Modern gaming bugbear: most of these games don't seem to let you make a copy of your save file. I like to do this now and then as a safety net, it's been a habit since the 90s. It could be the best game ever but if I was 10hrs in and I got stuck in a room because of a glitch I'd be done forever. Luckily I have a Switch online sub atm so I can manually create a backup just in case, but that shouldn't have to be the case. Why don't devs want you copying files these days? Seems mad having all your eggs in one basket.

acemuzzy

Trophy abuse n stuff, maybe?

Moot_Geeza

I guess, but that's extra annoying as I think I've looked at those twice since they were implemented, and that sort of thing doesn't exist on Switch (barring certain games that have their own in-game achievement lists like Shovel Knight).

acemuzzy

Was even more annoying is that sackboy doesn't even let you have multiple plays in parallel (which I wanted so my kids could play from the start, without fucking about with multiple accounts). At least this keeps you cook up three builds in parallel should you do wish.

Yossarian

I’ve never copied a save file in my life, nor have I ever even thought about doing so. I’d imagine that the vast majority of people are in the same position as me, so why spend time on a feature that very few people will ever use?

Moot_Geeza

How much time do you think a feature like that would take to implement? Also, in all your years of gaming have you never encountered a progress scuppering bug and wished you could return to an earlier save? Or made a decision you wanted to change? I get not giving a fuck about a feature you never use, I don't get defending its omission because you don't use it and therefore assume no-one else does. I couldn't care less about trophies or achievements but I don't want them not to exist, and I bet they're more of a headache for devs to implement than making a copy of a save on the select your file screen (which games with battery back up often allowed you to do).

Edit: it's probably even more useful now that games can be fixed post launch and only need to be about 90% finished before they're released.

Moot_Geeza

acemuzzy wrote:

Was even more annoying is that sackboy doesn't even let you have multiple plays in parallel (which I wanted so my kids could play from the start, without fucking about with multiple accounts). At least this keeps you cook up three builds in parallel should you do wish.

Almost as annoying as needing multiple PS5 pads to play it when the console recognises DS4s.

Local co-op games where the second player has their own XP/stats and equipment is shit too - if player two doesn't tag along for the whole game their character is often useless if they press start to join in (Castle Crashers, River City Girls). 'Drop in co-op' my arse. Just allow an option where the guest gets a character on par with player one, it won't break the universe.

mrsmr2

I used to have a .bat file to copy my saves to a location and then zip those copies.

Don’t bother now but that would allow me to get back to past saves as long as I hadn’t run the .bat file again.

I occasionally make the odd manual back up of saves or even an executeable if I read there are problems with a software update.

yourfavouriteuncle

Moot_Geeza wrote:

How much time do you think a feature like that would take to implement? Also, in all your years of gaming have you never encountered a progress scuppering bug and wished you could return to an earlier save? Or made a decision you wanted to change? I get not giving a fuck about a feature you never use, I don't get defending its omission because you don't use it and therefore assume no-one else does. I couldn't care less about trophies or achievements but I don't want them not to exist, and I bet they're more of a headache for devs to implement than making a copy of a save on the select your file screen (which games with battery back up often allowed you to do). Edit: it's probably even more useful now that games can be fixed post launch and only need to be about 90% finished before they're released.

Hello to The Ori sequel that meant I couldn’t progress to the literal final stage because the penultimate boss wouldn’t appear for because I’d done two specific jumps when I shouldn’t have back in act 1. That was turning out to be an all timer for me - preferred it to the first and then I got that. Never going back either.

yourfavouriteuncle

Devs were aware of it apparently and they patched it out about nine months in.

Moot_Geeza

Last boss was terrible but I feel your pain. Happened to me during towards the end of Below.

Yossarian

Moot_Geeza wrote:

How much time do you think a feature like that would take to implement?

I don’t know, but it’s definitely not zero time, and time spent on that is time that can’t be spent on other things.

Also, in all your years of gaming have you never encountered a progress scuppering bug and wished you could return to an earlier save? Or made a decision you wanted to change?

I can probably count on the fingers of one hand the number of times this has happened to me. That’s not nearly enough for me to start worrying about copying save files as a matter of course.

I get not giving a fuck about a feature you never use, I don't get defending its omission because you don't use it and therefore assume no-one else does.

It’s not simply based on me not using it, it’s based on knowing that human beings are generally pretty lazy when it comes to stuff like this.

Moot_Geeza

Yossarian wrote:

Moot_Geeza wrote:

How much time do you think a feature like that would take to implement?

I don’t know, but it’s definitely not zero time, and time spent on that is time that can’t be spent on other things.

Yossarian

It’s prioritisation, it happens constantly in software development.

Here’s a long list of things we’d like to add, here’s how much time we have left to add them. We clearly don’t have time to do them all, so which should we choose to work on?

In that scenario, a feature which is only used by a small number of people is unlikely to make the cut.

EvilRedEye

Suspect some games want you to manually create a second save so the game always understands which save to load when you hit Continue on the title screen. If you have two saves with an identical time stamp the game will be like ???

Moot_Geeza

Continue could just take you to the last game saved, it might not necessarily have to sort them by timestamps?

Devs prioritise what features to add, sure (and no doubt some possibilities aren't even discussed during development)....but does that mean I shouldn't grumble if something I care about is too low down their list to care about? Is being disappointed by the lack of split screen in Halo a permissable grievance?

Yossarian

I’m not suggesting that you can’t grumble about it.

Moot_Geeza

Grumble.

acemuzzy

My suspicion is:
- it's not very hard to implement, in a game like this
- not many people would use it
- it would sightly reduce player engagement time, cos trophy people would crest to get both endings, which is A Bad Thing for devs who care about that metric

So I suspect old man grumbles at sky

acemuzzy

It can kinda be done at the console level, sometimes - but I suspect discouraged for similar reasons

acemuzzy

Anyway, final boss from second set down. So I think end have o'clock. Might try to figure out some other stuff before going for it tho, cos I'm assuming mojo will plummet once I see the credits.

Speaking of which (likely some spoilers, bit me still trying to figure stuff out...)

Spoiler:

Don't imagine I'll find everything without a guide tbh. Would be nice if there was a charm that gave a bit of a hint on the map, Hollow Knight stylee. Cos if it's just somewhere in a random wall, anywhere in the map, that's needles and haystacks.

acemuzzy

Map at 99%. At presumably final boss. Lead-up section annoyed me. Boss is also annoying me

Spoiler:

but I've applied the Curtis for of five and gone to bed.

Hope that's not a final final boss cos I feel kinda done with it now...

Moot_Geeza

I think that's where I am now. Second phase not at all suited to either the weapon I've been levelling up for the whole game or the way I've been approaching the combat. Not happy.

mrsmr2

Only just got double jump. That boss took me ages. Switched to the flail as the range made it a lot easier as it affords patience whereas you get punished for being up close when using the dual swords. Still got the 3rd original boss to find so that's next job.

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