raocow's talkhaus

I vote for progress

Personally, I prefer when there's some added challenge to the Dragon Coins. I don't usually find it interesting when the Dragon Coins essentially become "beat this level without the midpoint" because I don't feel like that is a fun way of adding difficulty. Not every Dragon Coin section needs to be in a part tacked on to the level to add something either. I find that it works well when getting a Dragon Coin makes an otherwise normal jump slightly harder.

The one exception to me was Grand Ultra Marathon of Finalness since that tied nicely into the theme of the level.

Lockirby2 wrote:Personally, I prefer when there's some added challenge to the Dragon Coins. I don't usually find it interesting when the Dragon Coins essentially become "beat this level without the midpoint" because I don't feel like that is a fun way of adding difficulty. Not every Dragon Coin section needs to be in a part tacked on to the level to add something either. I find that it works well when getting a Dragon Coin makes an otherwise normal jump slightly harder.

The one exception to me was Grand Ultra Marathon of Finalness since that tied nicely into the theme of the level.

I agree with the whole 'make this jump slightly harder' thing. I just don't like when they are in their own room or have a separate puzzle for each one, especially when it's life-threatening (risk your life for 1/5th of a life??). And yeah, it's a shame Grand Ultra was butchered in the new version (although if you look closely, the collection save feature wasn't added back in for some reason).

Skulliloquy - Cave Story - Balcony

Voting for Special-5.

QubicTom, every time I've tried Depraved Stronghold, I couldn't stop playing it (after about 5 attempts, you can't stop). There's no such thing as trying that level for like 30 minutes and then doing something else. It's best to have that level be a brick wall that you must get past, and if you want breaks, just don't play the game for a while.

That level WILL burn you out, and trying to do a bit of it each day won't work. While recording, you'll be afraid that if you stop, you'll forget everything that you've learned during your recording session. So you will keep playing until you smash your keyboard to pieces. 'tis how life works, man. Just do the level all in one go. I don't care if there's like episode 80a, 80b, 80c, 80d, 80e, ..., 80aa, 80ab, 80ac. Don't try to do that level in pieces... or do try, if you have enough will power to stop playing an exceedingly frustrating level.

To make you feel better (or worse), levelengine beat Depraved Stronghold in like 25 minutes on his blind run. So it shouldn't be THAT hard, right?? :/

I have a strange feeling he will struggle less with Depraved than everyone is expecting him to, not for any good reason, but just because that's how these things tend to go. It certainly would feel validating to me if it took him at least 10 hours though ;)

nathanisbored wrote:I have a strange feeling he will struggle less with Depraved than everyone is expecting him to, not for any good reason, but just because that's how these things tend to go. It certainly would feel validating to me if it took him at least 10 hours though ;)

It takes me hours to do any level that is mildly difficult, Depraved Stronghold cannot go well

ft029 wrote:QubicTom, every time I've tried Depraved Stronghold, I couldn't stop playing it (after about 5 attempts, you can't stop). There's no such thing as trying that level for like 30 minutes and then doing something else.
...
I don't care if there's like episode 80a, 80b, 80c, 80d, 80e, ..., 80aa, 80ab, 80ac.

Both of these statements are terrifying! I'm afraid to count the votes. I think I have 4 for Scaffolding Scuffle (a vote came through over facebook, haha), but everybody is talking about Depraved Stronghold!

This was recorded mostly last week, with the second exit recorded last night. All the votes from the last few videos count for the next recording session.
Ep71 - Tumultuous Thwomps

Oh, wow, I think I forgot to submit a post. Whatever.

We Haven't Had Enough Thwomps - Mega Man 9 - We're the Robots (Dr. Wily Stage 2)

aka homage to ycz ;)

(yoshicookiezeus is well known for using Thwomps a lot)

... this track reminds me so much so many attempts at Morsel's Swiss Hotel (which also uses this track). It's a quite fun level, IMO you should try doing it even if you don't plan to do VLDC9.

Interestingly, Rock Climbing Rush and this level are only World 7 levels that allow Yoshi. And Yoshi doesn't even help with Rock Climbing Rush due to its gimmick (it works as extra hit point, pretty much). Poor horse...

Voting for S P E C I A L F I V E.

GlitchMr wrote:Voting for S P E C I A L F I V E.

The Depraved Stronghold. Part a of ??
Ep72a - Depraved Demonstration

I found the first area easier when I just got hit immediately and played as small mario. You will waste time trying to keep power-ups, or will even die trying (as you found at Nelson's Column). You can collect power-ups after the first area without fear.

Another thing you should probably know for this level, even if it's spoilerish advice

morsel/morceau wrote:I found the first area easier when I just got hit immediately and played as small mario. You will waste time trying to keep power-ups, or will even die trying (as you found at Nelson's Column). You can collect power-ups after the first area without fear.

Another thing you should probably know for this level, even if it's spoilerish advice

if you should ever have to jump off a podoboo, do not anticipate it coming out but react to it after it's out. This is less comfortable but surer, and you may like to practice it in a safe level (Lava Gap?).

Actually, it might be better to
And I wouldn't consider it much of a spoiler, the level makes it pretty clear early on the kind of stuff it expects from you.

morsel/morceau wrote:I found the first area easier when I just got hit immediately and played as small mario. You will waste time trying to keep power-ups, or will even die trying (as you found at Nelson's Column). You can collect power-ups after the first area without fear.

You're totally right, the first room is easier in parts when small! Thank you for the advice :)

More attempts at The Depraved Stronghold. Got a little bit further this time!
Ep72b - Stronghold Strain

In this video, everything after the 64x speed-up is made from snippets from a Twitch stream I did while attempting the level. I thought it might be easier to keep on trying with a live audience. It was my first stream attempt, so it wasn't widely announced (only on Twitter) and it wasn't archived (but a chunk of the 2 hour session was recorded to the laptop via dxtory). I may stream attempts at this level again, so follow me at https://www.twitch.tv/qubictom if you're interested in that sort of thing!

I think you can definitely do this. You have about 16 screens or so left, and like 6 of those screens are filler stuff. I see you have lost like 300 lives or something already, but don't give up! With the slow and steady progress, this is definitely possible.

Might try streaming attempts? Warning, it'll be a live trainwreck
Starting now!
https://www.twitch.tv/qubictom

Edit: Stream over, 4+ hours later, still haven't made it to the midpoint...
https://www.twitch.tv/qubictom/v/107108119

In total that makes over 8 hours of attempts. I've apparently made it 3/4 of the way through the second room on my best attempt thus far. Any suggestions/advice? Should I keep streaming the level, or edit bits together into videos? Not quite sure what to do!

16 hours. I have so much video to edit that I had to offload it onto an external harddrive. Spoilers: furthest I've made it:

my advice is play better

haha, like, for serious though... it's just a long, difficult stage. This is what it is.

This was put together from 8.5 hours of video:
Ep72c - Depraved Deaths

Some of this was recorded during a Twitch stream, which you can find here: Twitch backup 1

There are still 6 hours of video left to edit. It gets to the point where I get to the second half on pretty much every life. But those last few obstacles are something. The problem isn't the difficulty, it's the length! I need practice at some of the obstacles, but it takes so long to get to them, and so many tries. That's why the hours pile up!

If that helps, second half is easier. And anonymousbl00dlust's fun times are easier than this nonsense.

As for this, yeah... sufficient to say that this broke raocow.

GlitchMr wrote: And anonymousbl00dlust's fun times are easier than this nonsense.

That's quite debatable. For instance, I beat each of the sections in this level in well under an hour, whereas the

---------Yoshi--------

section alone in anon's level took me a full hour. I'm not the only one either, just look at levelengine's first playthrough of Depraved Stronghold, where he died a grand total of one time in the first half, but anons level gave him some trouble. I know most people don't really share our experience with these levels; I feel like it depends a lot on one's romhack playing background. In my case, I played many hacks in the past with ultra long gauntlet-type levels, but I don't really play kaizo-type hacks that often, so I'm pretty used to the former but struggle with the high precision requirements of the latter.

As for Qubic, even though he has plenty of patience, he has not yet sufficiently developed his feeling for Mario's movement to be able to deal with a level like Depraved without learning. Since he has to cram each obstacle into his muscle memory individually, naturally the longest level becomes the hardest one as well. Therefore, I would not be surprised if he needed significantly less time for anon's level.

i don't think it's just a matter of developing a feel or understanding for Mario's movement. I tend to think I have a pretty good understanding of Mario's movement, and this level took me 3 times as long. Though I'll admit I probably would have played better with a keyboard since it tends to give me more precision with directional movement (and slightly less input delay). Although I think you're right that if you're someone who has experience with endurance levels, you will tend to do better at them (see also: raocow). Maybe it's just a matter of nerves. I was raised on kaizo hacks so it makes sense for me to be better at those sorts of levels. Then again there are a lot of kaizo sections in Depraved (riding the bowser statue for example).

nathanisbored wrote:i don't think it's just a matter of developing a feel or understanding for Mario's movement. I tend to think I have a pretty good understanding of Mario's movement, and this level took me 3 times as long. Though I'll admit I probably would have played better with a keyboard since it tends to give me more precision with directional movement (and slightly less input delay). Although I think you're right that if you're someone who has experience with endurance levels, you will tend to do better at them (see also: raocow). Maybe it's just a matter of nerves. I was raised on kaizo hacks so it makes sense for me to be better at those sorts of levels. Then again there are a lot of kaizo sections in Depraved (riding the bowser statue for example).

I don't necessarily mean understanding Mario's movevent in an academic sense. It has more to do with developing consistency in applying Mario's moveset. I also wouldn't really call the Bowser riding section kaizo, because I feel like it's very lenient in terms of execution, but I guess that's a fairly arbitrary distinction.

I remember watching you stream some JUMP back when you were on your first playthrough and I must admit I was surprised you had as much difficulty with Depraved, because I had seen you beat Disarray and Pixel Perfect quite a bit more quickly then I did, so I assumed it would be the same for Depraved. But what I noticed, and pardon me if that sounds a bit offensive, was that many of your deaths in Depraved didn't come from lack of skill or knowledge, but lack of focus. Maybe that's where the difference to kaizo type hacks are, where you usually need intense focus for brief periods, whereas in marathon levels you need some focus for long continuous periods. May I suggest you try Way of the M one of these days (bear with the uneventful early game though) or, god forbid, Super Mario Infinity? I'm not sure you'd enjoy them, but they provide a different type of difficulty then your usual kaizo hack.

I will say that Depraved does feel out of place in JUMP, it really doesn't fit with the general level design approach of the hack. Personally, I would enjoy a full hack of that, but unfortunatelly the rest of Jolpe's work (Gah 1&2) is a bit too kaizo for my taste.

Well Jolpe... looks like one person likes your works LUL

It might have a little to do with learning, as my first playthrough was 3 hours, and now I can beat it in under 15 minutes.
Playing through Bits and Pieces (by levelengine of course) may have helped. All of those levels are like 400 SMW seconds of sprite spam and other RNG obstacles, which is different from Depraved Stronghold's simple but deadly jumps. However, it's still basically endurance. I haven't completed that hack yet (currently at the postgame), as it's been breaking me mentally.

I think another bit of Depraved Stronghold is being able to calculate out your actions with care.

cozyduck wrote:As for Qubic, even though he has plenty of patience, he has not yet sufficiently developed his feeling for Mario's movement to be able to deal with a level like Depraved without learning. Since he has to cram each obstacle into his muscle memory individually, naturally the longest level becomes the hardest one as well.

All very true! I don't have good reactions, can't improvise on the spot with Mario's movement. I need to learn something that works. But I do think I'm getting better.

For example :D
Ep72d - Depraved Desperation

cozyduck wrote:As for Qubic, even though he has plenty of patience, he has not yet sufficiently developed his feeling for Mario's movement to be able to deal with a level like Depraved without learning. Since he has to cram each obstacle into his muscle memory individually, naturally the longest level becomes the hardest one as well.

All very true! I don't have good reactions, can't improvise on the spot with Mario's movement. I need to learn something that works. But I do think I'm getting better.

For example :D
Ep72d - Depraved Desperation

cozyduck wrote:

nathanisbored wrote:i don't think it's just a matter of developing a feel or understanding for Mario's movement. I tend to think I have a pretty good understanding of Mario's movement, and this level took me 3 times as long. Though I'll admit I probably would have played better with a keyboard since it tends to give me more precision with directional movement (and slightly less input delay). Although I think you're right that if you're someone who has experience with endurance levels, you will tend to do better at them (see also: raocow). Maybe it's just a matter of nerves. I was raised on kaizo hacks so it makes sense for me to be better at those sorts of levels. Then again there are a lot of kaizo sections in Depraved (riding the bowser statue for example).

I don't necessarily mean understanding Mario's movevent in an academic sense. It has more to do with developing consistency in applying Mario's moveset. I also wouldn't really call the Bowser riding section kaizo, because I feel like it's very lenient in terms of execution, but I guess that's a fairly arbitrary distinction.

I remember watching you stream some JUMP back when you were on your first playthrough and I must admit I was surprised you had as much difficulty with Depraved, because I had seen you beat Disarray and Pixel Perfect quite a bit more quickly then I did, so I assumed it would be the same for Depraved. But what I noticed, and pardon me if that sounds a bit offensive, was that many of your deaths in Depraved didn't come from lack of skill or knowledge, but lack of focus. Maybe that's where the difference to kaizo type hacks are, where you usually need intense focus for brief periods, whereas in marathon levels you need some focus for long continuous periods. May I suggest you try Way of the M one of these days (bear with the uneventful early game though) or, god forbid, Super Mario Infinity? I'm not sure you'd enjoy them, but they provide a different type of difficulty then your usual kaizo hack.

I will say that Depraved does feel out of place in JUMP, it really doesn't fit with the general level design approach of the hack. Personally, I would enjoy a full hack of that, but unfortunatelly the rest of Jolpe's work (Gah 1&2) is a bit too kaizo for my taste.

yeah lack of focus is definitely an issue for me when streaming. what i meant by the golden bowser statue thing was that it's harder than the spiny riding in 1-1 of kaizo, for example. for one thing it's a lot longer, and for another there's no real rhythm to it, so the interval of your bounces doesnt sync with the interval of his jumps, so you land on him at a different height every time. also his hitbox is more misleading. also there are definitely several instances of absurd precision in Depraved (especially the first half). in fact most obstacles in 1-1 of kaizo are more lenient than some of the more notable obstacles in depraved, although kaizo has more traps you cant predict, so it's more "unfair" in that sense.