A2XT: It's Over

[Septentrion Pleiades]

Look at ASMT's position (in the second picture, incidentally along with SMWCP). Are you sure that's a good difficulty curve to replicate in an engine without states?

I'm pretty sure most hacks are much harder than A2XT.

1. No waifus
2. No husbandos

But that's the entire plot for a3xt.

[sedron]

The gimmick could just be explained from the get-go and the penalty for failing could be instant death (liberal use of layers and lava make this really easy to accomplish.)

No, see, the fact that failing /isn't/ instant death is what makes the challenge good. This would be the hardest level in the game if you were instant-killed for every failure and I wouldn't have played past this level at all if it were done in that insanely stupid way.

Making falling insta-death is just like taking away the normal exit. My point is that the normal exit is redundant.

When you want the secret exit, falling to the ground just makes it so you need to kill yourself or beat the level normally again. Insta-death literally just makes it faster. Shorter iteration time is a good thing.

If you wanna call something insanely stupid, maybe take the time to think it over first. Or risk looking stupid yourself.

[ano0maly]

How about having a switch that activates the instant kill? That would still allow you to practice the stage freely.

[Crow]

The gimmick could just be explained from the get-go and the penalty for failing could be instant death (liberal use of layers and lava make this really easy to accomplish.)

No, see, the fact that failing /isn't/ instant death is what makes the challenge good. This would be the hardest level in the game if you were instant-killed for every failure and I wouldn't have played past this level at all if it were done in that insanely stupid way.

Making falling insta-death is just like taking away the normal exit. My point is that the normal exit is redundant.

When you want the secret exit, falling to the ground just makes it so you need to kill yourself or beat the level normally again. Insta-death literally just makes it faster. Shorter iteration time is a good thing.

If you wanna call something insanely stupid, maybe take the time to think it over first. Or risk looking stupid yourself.

Making it insta-death removes the ability to play ahead in the level and practice sections further down the line. It makes the entire level a huge trial-and-error fest where you're doomed to make minimal progress at best each time you play the level because you have no way of knowing what's coming until you see it, and unless you have top-tier reactions you're likely to fail at many of the new obstacles presented.

Whereas, in this form, the level allows you to practice any single section by itself, but you're only rewarded for doing them all in succession.

Basically, it really reminds of of Dustforce the way it's set up, which might be why I like it a lot. It's a really good design principle that is inherently no less difficult, but removes the fake difficulty of having to replay all previous obstacles just to get another attempt at the newest one. I understand that that's kind of the mario thing to do in general, but I've already stated that I'm not a huge fan of how mario games tend to be. On a fundamental level, this is the most challenging and precise level of the entire game; but it's not the hardest.

I really appreciate the direct attack though, thanks.

have i ever mentioned that i love dustforce wholly and entirely because its design principles line up 100% with my own preferences

Also can I talk about how having the secret exit really makes World 9's overall map design much better? If it weren't for the split path right at the start, the entire place would be one huge linear string of levels. And the way it's set up, you either get the easy normal exit that lets you progress but locks you out of the life farm, or take the harder secret exit and be rewarded for it. Having both a normal exit and a secret exit doesn't even harm anything, honestly, does it?

[sedron]

How about having a switch that activates the instant kill? That would still allow you to practice the stage freely.

Is practicing the stage a thing players really do? I mean, there aren't any places that stand out as needing that, as the whole thing is pretty uniform in difficulty (save maybe that jump after the midpoint.) It's doable, sure, but I'm not convinced it's necessary. You'd also need to make sure the enemies reset when you hit the switch. Otherwise you could break it or make it unwinnable.

Edit:@Parama

First, I'll admit that my "stupid," comment was uncalled for and I apologize for it. I don't necessarily think your comment was much better but that doesn't excuse my words.

Onto actually rebuking your argument.

Trial and error is a thing when you need to, you know, try different things without necessarily knowing how they'll turn out. There aren't any parts of this level where you don't know what you need to do, though. The problem isn't figuring it out, it's pulling it off. The only place where I think an argument can be made for the next step not being obvious is the key part, and there are several ways to do it that aren't really difficult. So I'm not convinced that insta-death penalties would increase trial and error because there isn't any to begin with. The obstacles don't really come at you in such a way where you can't react in time, either. I thought the Love Frogs might do that, but even those are fine.

Again, there aren't any places where practice at that one jump is inherently necessary or even that useful. You either get the jump or you don't. Considering the level is, overall, pretty short, I'd also be hard-pressed to call replaying parts of it "fake difficulty." Would you call any game that makes you play for 30 seconds without a checkpoint "fake difficulty?" I agree that making a player play too long becomes the wrong kind of difficult, but I hardly think this level reaches that.

As for the World Map thing, why couldn't one level lead both ways? Or the intro could lead to split paths. Heck, how quickly you kill yourself for Serac could lead to different paths. Having the secret exit absolutely harms things because it keeps a player (who's already done a hell of a lot by this point,) from reaching half of the postgame content because of one exit. Again, if it weren't a very naturally difficult secret exit to begin with I would not argue against it, but it remains very hard. There's nothing from a technological standpoint keeping these other options from happening and the game even sets precedents for them. Yes, a linear path through the whole thing would be boring, but there are other options.

[docopoper]

Having the ground be instant death would make the secret exit feel more like a genuinely really difficult level as opposed to an easy level made difficult because the player has accepted a challenge. It's like how if you've ever played minecraft in a city that someone has made parkourable (which I always do) it's a totally different feeling to doing a parkour challenge.

Also the power of the reveal is quite important. Having the player walk through the level either knowingly or unknowingly creates quite the moment of "what the hell are you asking me to do?!!" at the end.

Also as far as the difficulty goes... You know I know what you mean and it kind of makes me want to make it a bit harder again but I feel like it's too late now. There were sections of the level that always annoyed me so I finally got around to making them less random in that last update... But yeah - I feel like the level has lost a bit of its "that bastard of a level" charm from that. Overall it's definitely better designed now but that's an interesting and kind of disappointing result to end up with. When I say it's too late I mean that I'm hardly going to do and add the randomness back in but given how tightly controlled the level is it's actually very hard to make it more difficult anywhere without just reverting one of the changes I made since the difficulty is very intrinsic to the core of the level itself.

[KobaBeach]

On the subject of whether A2XT's difficulty curve should be more or less like ASMT's, there's a common infographic that gets shared around /v/ and /vr/ when romhacks are mentioned.

ftfy

P.S. I approve of the casting choice for The Artist
P.P.S. I actually PMed raocow those reccommended SMW romhack pics last year lol

His response was

Huh, can't say I'm surprised [at ASMT being in the 'play with savestates' league].

But hey, this means I beat games on the 'play with savestates' league!

[ano0maly]

Is practicing the stage a thing players really do? I mean, there aren't any places that stand out as needing that, as the whole thing is pretty uniform in difficulty (save maybe that jump after the midpoint.) It's doable, sure, but I'm not convinced it's necessary. You'd also need to make sure the enemies reset when you hit the switch. Otherwise you could break it or make it unwinnable.

The switch would be at the beginning of the level where you can't go back once you made your decision on whether or not to use it. If the only problem you have is the inconvenience of having to restart the level manually, this would solve it.

The secret exit is a form of an optimized run challenge, as are a time trial, "collect all X", etc. Having a secret exit means the level is presenting two goals at two different tiers of difficulty, which means you can try to beat the level itself before you aim for the challenge. That way, the player is able to take the skills of the initial run and refine it to meet the challenge. I can speak from experience that through this kind of refining process, I've been able to meet many challenges that seemed out of reach at first impression (such as getting gems & relics in Crash Bandicoot games).

Besides, having the floor lethal basically nullifies the idea of "The Floor Is Lava" since you can just replace many of the floor parts with pits, munchers, and whatnot. And it hampers the gimmick's amusement.

[Doctor Shemp]

On the subject of whether A2XT's difficulty curve should be more or less like ASMT's, there's a common infographic that gets shared around /v/ and /vr/ when romhacks are mentioned.

ftfy

I couldn't comment on /v/ (why would you go there?), but you got me on /vr/. /vr/ is surprisingly relatively mature and knowledgeable about these things though. Well, relatively, anyway. Certainly better than most gaming forums. That's not high praise though.

Anyway my point is that if you look at some people's demo counters, A2XT is very hard. Certainly harder than the vast majority of platformers released today, especially ones like the NSMB series with the ability to beat themselves. If you were to compare it to the platformers of the NES days, that's not really the case anymore, but the point is that those days have passed and games have gotten softer about these things. If you aim to eclipse the difficulty of NES games then you'll be testing people's patience, and have you looked at the average patience of level of people in 2014? It's not very high. There's a discussion in this thread right now about whether the additional second or two to kill yourself in The Floor Is Lava! is a heinous waste of time or not.

I'm not saying make it easy: I'm saying it's good where it is. If your idea of what's difficult it "what's difficult for raocow", you'll make it too hard for the majority of people, as raocow is better than the majority of people.

[Tenlade]

the difficulty for floor is lava was fine for me because I said screw it, and didn't do the secret at all because raocow would 100% this thing and show it off anyway. its optional stuff, so its fine.

[Joseph Staleknight]

In an alternate timeline, Demo and Co. find a strange blip on the ship's radar. Exploring it, they come across a future in-law and an incredibly strange dimension. Well, incredibly strange by our heroes' standards; the in-law's pretty much desensitized to its horrors.

HUB: Staff Quarters: Oh man, that's a pretty neat staff area. Also, nice XKCD reference, Hoeloe!

CoNS: Turn Into/Ride On Everything Rooms: That's actually a pretty neat place to get everything you could want for the adventure. It's too bad, then, that the power-ups and mounts get filtered when you tackle the first couple levels in Zebraspace.

an experience (raocow): Yep, if the slow music and Serac's ever-so-humble requests are any indication, this is going to be quite an experience. But hey, raocow said it wasn't canon so attempting the levels legit isn't important anymore!

Start of World 9 Cutscene: The Great Escape From Canon (SAJewers): Oh man, sports rivalries and TV references ahoy.

The Floor is Lava! (Docopoper): Yeah, I definitely didn't feel that confident in getting that secret exit legit, especially with all my powerups filtered out. I'd have to say that if it weren't for Spooky Surprise Ghost House, this would have been my least favorite level in terms of getting the secret. But hey, once that's done the level proper isn't so bad! Sure, you might lose some lives here or there, but at least you don't have to worry about keeping your feet high and dry to the end.

Refuge Town (Holy): As far as towns go, this one's pretty basic. All you really have to look for is the Leek Pillar Sanctuary and Sherlock raocow and you're golden. Of course, given that the Zebras have managed to corrupt most of the outside area, there really isn't much real estate to work with. Oh well.

Also, funnily enough, where the survivors of the Land of the Pacifists are, there used to be the Blood God and maybe some friends as well. I guess he was deemed to be in league with the Zebras and exiled.

Theatrhythm Notes from the Spire:

19. "When is a floor of lava not a floor of lava? When it's growing a vine after the midpoint!" (The Floor is Lava!): Well, I don't imagine anyone remembering this clue unless they're incredibly desperate to get the secret exit. Even then, there's still a bit of luck involved in exploiting that and staying away from the snow long enough for it to count.

[Lunikyuu]

What was changed besides the addition of the extra vines? I don't remember all that well. Regardless, raocow made that level look far easier than when I played it. Now I'm going to have no dignity whatsoever when I post my demo count not that I had any to begin with.

e: oh some parts that felt too random were changed apparently. Fair enough

[KobaBeach]

I couldn't comment on /v/ (why would you go there?),

Don't worry, I jumped ship when /vr/ was born

[YelseyKing]

What was changed besides the addition of the extra vines? I don't remember all that well. Regardless, raocow made that level look far easier than when I played it. Now I'm going to have no dignity whatsoever when I post my demo count not that I had any to begin with.

e: oh some parts that felt too random were changed apparently. Fair enough

One change I definitely approve of is making the first goopa in the stage red instead of green. In the version I played, if you didn't hold right as soon as you entered the stage, you'd basically screw yourself over, since the furba would walk right past you, and the goopa would walk off the edge soon after, giving you no choice but to jump down onto the ground. This gives the player a little leeway.

I'm not saying make it easy: I'm saying it's good where it is. If your idea of what's difficult it "what's difficult for raocow", you'll make it too hard for the majority of people, as raocow is better than the majority of people.

I couldn't agree more. A2XT was a challenge, but only in one instance did I truly feel like the problem was the game itself (Family Reunion, which felt glitchy as all hell). Since the primary argument for keeping SMW hacks at ridiculous difficulty levels ("just use save states", which is apparently somehow a morally superior option to allowing the player to bring powerups from other stages, as was demonstrated during the A2MT LP thread) does not apply, well...

That and, like Shemp said, raocow is a *very* good Mario player, which comes from all the LPing he's done, as well as just a general love of the genre. He also has a greater amount of patience and forgiveness than many gamers. I think he should only be considered if the game/hack is , as ASMT was, being made exclusively for him to LP.

Now, I know I won't change anyone's mind. People who want things "harder", are going to keep wanting it such. Those trying to avoid potentially audience-alienating "fake difficulty" are going to keep doing so, blah blah. I'm just rambling now.

[Doctor Shemp]

Those trying to avoid potentially audience-alienating "fake difficulty" are going to keep doing so, blah blah. I'm just rambling now.

It's possibly not what you meant to say, but A2XT could have been made quite a bit harder without verging into what's usually accepted as "fake difficulty". I just don't think that it should have. It's important to not just do something because you can. For instance, it was discussed for SDS whether or not it's possible to do wind with LunaDLL, and the answer was that wind is possible, but the better question is whether or not wind should ever be included. Now wind is usually counted as "fake difficulty", although I'd only agree on that if it changes without warning, so that's not the best example. Basically though, just because you can do something doesn't mean you should, and pleasing some people shouldn't be done if they were already happy and the cost of it is displeasing more people.

[Lunikyuu]

What was changed besides the addition of the extra vines? I don't remember all that well. Regardless, raocow made that level look far easier than when I played it. Now I'm going to have no dignity whatsoever when I post my demo count not that I had any to begin with.

e: oh some parts that felt too random were changed apparently. Fair enough

One change I definitely approve of is making the first goopa in the stage red instead of green. In the version I played, if you didn't hold right as soon as you entered the stage, you'd basically screw yourself over, since the furba would walk right past you, and the goopa would walk off the edge soon after, giving you no choice but to jump down onto the ground. This gives the player a little leeway.

Oh yeah, I forgot about that. That was a welcome change too as there were some moments where I forgot I needed to go as soon as the level began and thus wasted my chance to get the secret exit.

[pholtos]

You know... now that I've seen how your SUPPOSE to get the key, I truly feel silly.

[YelseyKing]

Those trying to avoid potentially audience-alienating "fake difficulty" are going to keep doing so, blah blah. I'm just rambling now.

It's possibly not what you meant to say, but A2XT could have been made quite a bit harder without verging into what's usually accepted as "fake difficulty". I just don't think that it should have. It's important to not just do something because you can.

Right. "Doing something just because you can" and "difficulty for difficulty's sake" are, in my opinion, what led to all those horrible gimmick stages in A2MT that screwed with the controls, the physics, and the visibility. I'm *strongly* against games that introduce difficulty by screwing with the established gameplay; that, to me, is where it becomes... fake. And that A2XT didn't tend to *do* that, is one thing I really appreciated about it. Even the hardest stages, for the most part, tended to stay firmly within the engine, and their challenge was from competent level design over a shoehorned in gimmick.

[Crow]

Even the hardest stages, for the most part, tended to stay firmly within the engine, and their challenge was from competent level design over a shoehorned in gimmick.

I actually found that worlds 8 and 9 were the most enjoyable worlds overall because the hard levels there were designed to be hard and done quite well; the "hard" levels in earlier worlds weren't quite as good and ended up feeling out of place as a result.
But yeah, this is something that I appreciate about the game as a whole; it's not an easy game but it's not stupidly hard, either, and quite fun to play more often than not.

[Alice]

in a2mt it would have been nitori, but in asm3 it would have been revealed not to be nitori, but a spider egg sack shaped like nitori. And then it bursts open. Into thousands upon thousands of tiny spiders.

This is the best idea you've ever had.

[Kil]

These are simple rules that everyone can understand and follow. Besides, we've already decided on who The Artist is. It's

Bob_at_Easel.jpg

This is now canon right? The only way I will accept the artist not being nitori or spiders is if it is.

[Voltgloss]

The Floor Is Lava does not filter sacks (including a blue sack from the Turn Into Everything unlockable reward).

[jayScribble]

Hard surprises are about in this video.

"Action of Syo and Bon" is full of traps for a short and "basic" level. This level requires a lot of memorization and trial and error to complete.

"Unseen and Mysterious Future" has 7 sub sections (main path included), and most of them contain one problem: enemy spam. This level requires you to move through the sections quickly and precisely across all of it, but the problem for some of them is waiting. If you don't perform well within a subsection and more likely not improving in progress, then getting that one by random chance is a guarantee death/demo for you. Overall, a difficult and long level dictated by random sections.

[Oddwrath]

The Unseen and Mysterious Future. One of the levels that gave me 100 demos and probably the second hardest level in the game. Unlike

Family Reunion

, though, at least it feels fair. I like the idea of hordes of enemies/projectiles chasing you the entire time. Even though, like raocow, I've only beaten the desert and the goopa chase sections.

The castle section smells of fake difficulty, though,

with the rotodiscs that come later

.

[Willhart]

Having multiple sections helps with the difficulty, since there is always at least one path that is easier for someone. The length vs. difficulty balance was pretty good between levels in each section, so I was very hesitant to make larger changes to any single part.

"Action of Syo and Bon" is a nice remake of the original level. Some of the traps got raocow couple of times and it was not too long to play through.