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MaGL X2 Planning Thread! Please be civil Σ( ̄□ ̄|||)

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Re: MaGL X2 Planning Thread! Please be civil Σ( ̄□ ̄|||)

Post by LunarNeedle »

raekuul wrote:...Why not section off the levels based on what characters they're for, and then just scale them from there?
If this is true, I'd somewhat love single character levels. Sectioning each character into a HUB world that scales up to the best level for each character with the top 10 being in their own building. That would be really cool!
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Post by Zygl »

raekuul wrote:Also why not section off the levels based on what characters they're for, and then just scale them from there?

EDIT: Meaning a Mario Wing, a Luigi Wing, &c, with the levels ordered based on how well they did.
Then in order to play the entire contest in order by placement you have to keep running between the wings, which is quite frankly a horrible way of arranging things.
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Post by Hoeloe »

Zyglrox Odyssey wrote: Then in order to play the entire contest in order by placement you have to keep running between the wings, which is quite frankly a horrible way of arranging things.
I think the suggestion was to rank each character class independently, which means that's not really necessary.
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Re: MaGL X2 Planning Thread! Please be civil Σ( ̄□ ̄|||)

Post by raekuul »

Hoeloe wrote:I think the suggestion was to rank each character class independently, which means that's not really necessary.
Pretty much this, with the best level for each character being all together in a separate building. This way we don't have to worry too much about a Link Level losing the entire contest to a Luigi Level simply because sedron doesn't like Link. (Not that I'm specifically picking on sedron it's just their name most readily comes to mind for this sort of thing, plus I know sedron is going to outscore me anyway)
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Re: MaGL X2 Planning Thread! Please be civil Σ( ̄□ ̄|||)

Post by Zygl »

raekuul wrote:
Hoeloe wrote:I think the suggestion was to rank each character class independently, which means that's not really necessary.
Pretty much this, with the best level for each character being all together in a separate building.
In that case, well, it's still a really silly idea imo. We'd basically have five separate contests at that point.
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Post by raekuul »

We all know that a Link level isn't going to win 1st Overall, so this way it's fair to those few who do make Link levels.

EDIT: By which I mean this way we'll objectively have "Best <Character> Level" in addition to "Best Level"
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Post by Septentrion Pleiades »

Zyglrox Odyssey wrote:In that case, well, it's still a really silly idea imo. We'd basically have five separate contests at that point.
With four of them being indistinguishable.
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Post by Grounder »

Septentrion Pleiades wrote:
Zyglrox Odyssey wrote:In that case, well, it's still a really silly idea imo. We'd basically have five separate contests at that point.
With four of them being indistinguishable.
So Peach, Mario, and Luigi are all indistinguishable to you, then?

The only real super-duper similar character to Mario is Toad, IMO.
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Post by raekuul »

Again, it's only Mario and Luigi that are hard to distinguish. Toad gets a lot of oddness with the Tier 2 Powerups, Peach can float, Both Toad and Peach can "store" fireballs and iceballs over their head and throw things straight up without much issue, and Link is Link.
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Re: MaGL X2 Planning Thread! Please be civil Σ( ̄□ ̄|||)

Post by Septentrion Pleiades »

Grounder wrote:
Septentrion Pleiades wrote:
Zyglrox Odyssey wrote:In that case, well, it's still a really silly idea imo. We'd basically have five separate contests at that point.
With four of them being indistinguishable.
So Peach, Mario, and Luigi are all indistinguishable to you, then?

The only real super-duper similar character to Mario is Toad, IMO.
The levels are. I wasn't talking about the differences of the characters. The level design isn't going to change much unless you really try hard to make the level in assessable to other characters.
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Re: MaGL X2 Planning Thread! Please be civil Σ( ̄□ ̄|||)

Post by raekuul »

Septentrion Pleiades wrote:The level design isn't going to change much unless you really try hard to make the level in assessable to other characters.
Ah, now it makes a bit more sense. Though again, you can take into account the character differences. Heck, doesn't one of the characters basically get bombs forever from one of the Suits? A level built around that would be interesting. (Also tailoring a level to one specific character is not the same as making it completely inaccessible to all other characters, though given Lunk can bypass groundspikes this generally is the case for his levels)
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Post by Nimono »

raekuul wrote:We all know that a Link level isn't going to win 1st Overall, so this way it's fair to those few who do make Link levels.

EDIT: By which I mean this way we'll objectively have "Best <Character> Level" in addition to "Best Level"
Not necessarily- couldn't a Link level win 1st place if it's that well-designed? It's just that it's far easier to make a generic Mario/Luigi/Peach/Toad level than a Link level that has to be designed differently; thus it has more potential since people won't expect it, and a well-made one will surely gain bonus points due to that.


As for sectioning off the characters, I'm on the fence. On the one hand, I do like the idea of being able to ensure every character is seen as equal to the contest, but on the other, is it really necessary? I'm not sure it is, for reasons I stated above.
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Post by raekuul »

Riolu180 wrote: It's just that it's far easier to make a generic Mario/Luigi/Peach/Toad level than a Link level that has to be designed differently; thus it has more potential since people won't expect it, and a well-made one will surely gain bonus points due to that.
By the same token, it's a lot harder to find people who (1) can make just such a good Link level and (2) people who are good enough with Link to be able to appreciate said level. Link won't win 1st Overall simply because the vast majority of eligible judges aren't going to be all that great with him - remember which game his mechanics come from, after all.
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Re: MaGL X2 Planning Thread! Please be civil Σ( ̄□ ̄|||)

Post by Zygl »

raekuul wrote:We all know that a Link level isn't going to win 1st Overall, so this way it's fair to those few who do make Link levels.

EDIT: By which I mean this way we'll objectively have "Best <Character> Level" in addition to "Best Level"
First of all, we don't "know" a Link level won't win - we can only reasonably guess based on how few people are likely to actually make one - and secondly, if I understand you correctly you're suggesting that we essentially split MaGL X2 into five separate contests so that the person who makes the 43rd best level can feel better about their "second-place Link level" placement than their 43rd place in the actual contest as a whole? Putting aside how silly I find that on a conceptual level, we don't need to reformat the entire contest for that; if it's at all necessary to explicitly point out it could just be put in the text box with the scores and overall placement.
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Re: MaGL X2 Planning Thread! Please be civil Σ( ̄□ ̄|||)

Post by raekuul »

Zyglrox Odyssey wrote:if it's at all necessary to explicitly point out it could just be put in the text box with the scores and overall placement.
Good point; between that and the fact that we can do invisible filtering via Luna (which I still haven't taken the time to play with, to be perfectly honest) my suggestion about separating the towers kind of is stupid.

I'm splitting the other part of my post into a separate thread since it's kinda poll-ish and kinda off-topic.
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Post by LunarNeedle »

I believe Link shouldn't be considered a character in this contest unless a person requests it to be included in the random characters. That's just me.
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Post by Zygl »

LunarNeedle wrote:I believe Link shouldn't be considered a character in this contest unless a person requests it to be included in the random characters. That's just me.
Except this is the entire reason you're given a choice of characters, so that if you get Link and don't want Link you don't have to use Link.
Granted, that does leave you with only one other character to choose from unless you take easy mode, which I can agree is a legitimate concern and is the reason why I suggested separate difficulty levels for characters in addition to names as a potential possibility at the end of the last page, so that people who are at all worried about that can get 3 characters to choose from.
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Post by sedron »

Septentrion Pleiades wrote:
Grounder wrote: So Peach, Mario, and Luigi are all indistinguishable to you, then?

The only real super-duper similar character to Mario is Toad, IMO.
The levels are. I wasn't talking about the differences of the characters. The level design isn't going to change much unless you really try hard to make the level in assessable to other characters.
If the level design won't change with different characters, then why force certain characters at all?

Making a level accessible by any character is easy enough. The problem comes from what you can't do. By default, if you need to use both characters you receive to get a maximum score, you can't actually make a level that only works for one character. There's a lot of cool stuff you could do with Peach's floating abilities, but not if you also need to get Toad or Link through the same section. Wanna do a boss fight? If you have Link, you can't let him get near them at all or he can just cheese them all. Wanna use Link for spike bouncing? Well, nobody else can do that. You can't require spin-jumping in any part of your level if you got Peach or Link. Toad and Peach get some unique power-ups, but you can't design around them because nobody else gets them. Hell, you can't even count on using tightly-timed auto-scroll if there's a large difference in mobility between your characters, such as a Toad/Luigi pairing.

There are more examples, but I don't think they're necessary. I just don't see the point of limiting designers like this.
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Post by Nimono »

sedron wrote:
Septentrion Pleiades wrote:
Grounder wrote: So Peach, Mario, and Luigi are all indistinguishable to you, then?

The only real super-duper similar character to Mario is Toad, IMO.
The levels are. I wasn't talking about the differences of the characters. The level design isn't going to change much unless you really try hard to make the level in assessable to other characters.
If the level design won't change with different characters, then why force certain characters at all?

Making a level accessible by any character is easy enough. The problem comes from what you can't do. By default, if you need to use both characters you receive to get a maximum score, you can't actually make a level that only works for one character. There's a lot of cool stuff you could do with Peach's floating abilities, but not if you also need to get Toad or Link through the same section. Wanna do a boss fight? If you have Link, you can't let him get near them at all or he can just cheese them all. Wanna use Link for spike bouncing? Well, nobody else can do that. You can't require spin-jumping in any part of your level if you got Peach or Link. Toad and Peach get some unique power-ups, but you can't design around them because nobody else gets them. Hell, you can't even count on using tightly-timed auto-scroll if there's a large difference in mobility between your characters, such as a Toad/Luigi pairing.

There are more examples, but I don't think they're necessary. I just don't see the point of limiting designers like this.
I'm sure it'd be perfectly acceptable to create different routes for each character depending on their specific skills so you don't have to worry about the exact same route needing to be accessible by all, thus creating just generic, nonspecific level design.
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Post by sedron »

Riolu180 wrote:I'm sure it'd be perfectly acceptable to create different routes for each character depending on their specific skills so you don't have to worry about the exact same route needing to be accessible by all, thus creating just generic, nonspecific level design.
Having separate routes is a lot like just having separate levels altogether. Multiple paths should be a tool for designers to use, not a requirement if they want to use a character for any of their unique qualities.
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Post by Dragon Fogel »

I think I know what it is that's making me feel iffy about the character restriction.

It's that it's more of a restriction on the player side than on the designer side. As has been pointed out, unless you go out of your way to make the level inaccessible to other characters, a level designed for Mario will probably be doable for Luigi, Toad, and Peach, and there's even a decent chance it will be doable for Link. But under the restrictions of the contest, I won't be able to play through as any of those characters, which might be something I find more fun.

Now, yes, people can actively try to design levels around the unique aspects of the character they've been assigned. But this introduces a new potential problem: the same few gimmicks being reused over and over. We might get distinct Peach levels; or we might get lots of people just making sections where you need her floating ability but otherwise not doing anything particularly special. I guess I'm basically not seeing what it adds that's worth the restrictions. I think I agree with what Sedron said earlier in the thread: if someone has a great idea for a Peach level or a Link level, let them make it on their own and get points for Uniqueness.

I like seeing distinctive levels designed around each character; I'm just not sure this actually gets us that result, and if the levels aren't about a specific character's ability, or don't have a "plot" to them relating to which character you use, it feels less interesting to restrict the character choices. There are lots of good levels that let you use any character you like, and this contest doesn't let you make one of those levels unless you're willing to take a significant penalty.

Besides, how is Zyglrox going to speedrun everything with Toad this way.
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Re: MaGL X2 Planning Thread! Please be civil Σ( ̄□ ̄|||)

Post by ano0maly »

Re: 5 separate contests

Having multiple win criteria isn't a bad thing. If there's a variable restriction that makes the contest experience quite different to different contestants, then it can help to recognize that. And it wouldn't fundamentally change the judging process of individual levels; all you have to do is rank the scores per character in addition to overall. It can still mostly be processed in the context of a single MAGL X2.

About the characters: this is really a problem of SMBX itself. It took the USA Super Mario Bros. 2 characters (Mario, Luigi, Peach, Toad), which all blend reasonably well in a Mario platforming game, and then added a Legend of Zelda character into the mix, without adding anyone else. So the imbalance would remain as long as we use SMBX at its face value. Removing Link as an option would fix the problem contained in the engine, but at the cost of weakening the character gimmick substantially.

On the other hand, I don't think the similarity among the other four is that much of a problem. If the judges test each level with one specific character, they're not going to make comparisons with how other characters would fare in that same level. So I would say just have each contestant make a level for one character selected from a choice of two or three or however many, and remove the bonus for compatibility with multiple characters.
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Post by sedron »

Horikawa Otane wrote:I have removed the bonus for the use of multiple characters.
I think that solves all of the problems I thought of. Being able to use either character, but not necessarily both, gives a lot more wiggle room to level designers and avoids the issue of making areas one character cannot cross.

I still have some reservations about whether or not this will actually create more variety across levels, but I'm happy to see this change nonetheless.
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Post by SAJewers »

Dragon Fogel wrote:I think I know what it is that's making me feel iffy about the character restriction.

It's that it's more of a restriction on the player side than on the designer side. As has been pointed out, unless you go out of your way to make the level inaccessible to other characters, a level designed for Mario will probably be doable for Luigi, Toad, and Peach, and there's even a decent chance it will be doable for Link. But under the restrictions of the contest, I won't be able to play through as any of those characters, which might be something I find more fun.
IIRC, the only things that won't make a level doable as Link are some running jumps (mainly on short platforms), Yoshi/Boots, and nets.
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Post by raekuul »

I'll run some tests. I know for a fact that Mario has 1 block lower jump height than Luigi but his running is better - I can't remember if it's better acceleration or simply higher top speed.
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