raocow's talkhaus

The major difficulty catalyst in this level is the claustrophobia that comes from the spikes on the ceiling and the lava on the ground. If you were only to open up the terrain more for the majority of the level (probably much easier to do in Yoshi's Island due to the way the levels are formatted), it would become more palatable. I don't think the !-switch sections need a lot of "give" added to them because I'm like 95% sure they respawn if the player walks off the screen and comes back (something that can be abused if you mess up and don't think you can make it to the next one in time), but I don't think you should have long, continuous !-switch sections back to back without a small rest and/or midring between them, either.

Also, tucking away secrets in what appear to be death pits in a level like this is very mean!

I'm only going off of what I saw in raocow's video since I haven't played the level myself, but I hope that my feedback helps you improve this level, Yoshis Fan, because you've shown yourself to be a capable and above average level designer and it'd be a shame if this one single level were to mar what people think of your project or you as an author.

I played the original 2-E, and..

...what the hell did the author to do it now?

That looked like one of Franky's.

morsel/morceau wrote:That looked like one of Franky's.

Haha yeah, I was actually expecting raocow to say that at one point during the video.

Also I preferred this level when it was Obese Land

this was.. physically exhausting to watch.
I can't help but feel remorse about trying to leech entertainment off that.

Well, let's go watch today's DT video.

It seems like a decent enough idea plagued by a load of unfortunate design decisions. It's like the layout is fine but then there's stuff like the bat generator, podoboos exactly where you DON'T need them, disabling items and so on. Put it all together and it's too much.

Also wow, YouTube commentators sure are assholes.

also also alex should TAS this level glhf don't blow a blood vessel

Crunchy wrote:Also wow, YouTube commentators sure are assholes.

If raocow would have ended the video with saying he loved it, there would be comments about how brilliant the level is.

kilon wrote:

Crunchy wrote:Also wow, YouTube commentators sure are assholes.

If raocow would have ended the video with saying he loved it, there would be comments about how brilliant the level is.

I remember commenting on "Unreasonable Tomorrow" way back in VIP4. I said something about the level being made to use the cape it gives you and people thumbed me down 6 FEED UNDER OHIO TRAIN STATION AND CALLED ME AN IDIOT.

Good Times.

And now someone says that Distorted Travesty is hard. :D
Today's level was insane. I don't know how anyone who plays this level for the first time has the will to play and complete it 100 percent without using savestates. In my oppinion it was way too much. It is never good when a game requires timing based action and this timing based action is relentless. Sure, timing action in video games must offer a challenge to the player, but screwing up the entire puzzle by doing one small part of it wrong or too late and thus forcing the player to replay a large amount of content is not fun anymore.
And let's not forget that we play video games as a hobby. They should offer a challenge (esp in days where casual playing is normal) and I appreciate a high, but fair difficulty in games, but today's level was too much for said reason and for what raocow wrote in his video description.
BTW I watched the level while the sound was muted. :D

Holy hell raocow. Congrats on making it through all that! If you were to compare, was this level up there in difficulty compared with the other crap you've played, like the ridiculous flippy platform level in Vip 4?

That entire video was as close to PTSD as a kid's coloring book brought to video game form can invite from me.

The level is a complete misfire. The hacker's personality and worth as a person is not magically inferred from this fact. Try not to conflate the two, YouTube. Yeesh.

EDIT: Also, you could upload a 30-second video of a level where you just spawn over a pit and die, and some commenter would still find a way to get smug about it.

Crunchy wrote:Also wow, YouTube commentators sure are assholes.

Welcome to my world, though I would not stop at "assholes". raocow is surrounded by sycophants, though in this case, you can tell bad design from merely watching a video of it since the offending level was a severe example.

Am I the only one here who wants to play this level?

(On a GBA, ofcoarse)

@Sebby19:
Argh, screw the damn GBA already. I can port the level for you at any time, since the level formats are pretty much the same, but you will have problems because of the GBA screen being smaller.
Anyways, would you like to have it as difficult as raocow or do you want the easier version (which is still in the making)? Also, of course one level must be replaced. Choose which one and I can make a IPS for you.

As for the YouTube commentors, I haven't read the comments, since 90% of the commentators are gregarious animals, who blindly follow the shepherd. With less foaming at the mouth and without a plank blocking off the brain, nobody would insult people because of something this banal (as said, I haven't read, but if EiresWind is right, some are insulting).

It goes both ways. You have sycophants and contrarians who invent a fake opinion based on the video-du-jour. Everything is great and awful, raocow is the greatest, worst gamer conceivable, all levels are too easy, too hard, too short, too long, and too existent simultaneously, and everybody is an expert in all things ever, especially any challenge ever conceived that they could totally do on the first try man, you don't even know.

It's exhausting.

EiresWind wrote:It goes both ways. You have sycophants and contrarians who invent a fake opinion based on the video-du-jour. Everything is great and awful, raocow is the greatest, worst gamer conceivable, all levels are too easy, too hard, too short, too long, and too existent simultaneously, and everybody is an expert in all things ever, especially any challenge ever conceived that they could totally do on the first try man, you don't even know.

It's exhausting.

That is a legit point that can apply here, but the sycophants outnumber the contrarians by a huge margin and they tend to make themselves known when Rao takes a severe (negative) stance on something to "kiss his boo-boos" and/or launch half-assed, sometimes personal, attacks at the author/website "responsible" for such ire (Compare 2-E's 170+ comments to 4-1's 86+). Some of these clowns are very low-level trolls, but still.


All the more reason why he should lock comments more often.
And yes, it is exhausting as hell.


Of course, if raocow authored it, they'll give him a free pass no matter how much of a hypocrite it makes him look like.

True Eires. It is somewhat stupid to hear that. I do not udnerstand why people insult raocow for playing bad. He does his very best to entertain us every day.
Then again I see these kind of comments solely on his current YI LP. Neither the SMWCentral Contest, nor the Make A Good Level Contest, nor Distorted Travesty have that amount of dumb comments as this game.
And while I totally agree with you about comments concerning raocow I whole heartly have to disagree with you when it comes to criticizing this game (the part where you said people complaining about this game being too ahrd or having too long levels). I don't know any LPer I watched who did not complain about this game sooner or later. Even cstutor got pretty frustrated over this game.
This game offers too many, frustrating levels. But moreover the levels themselves would not be that bad if they were neither as long as a majority of them is right now, nor if some long levels wouldn't have so few checkpoints and thus make you replay lots of difficult areas.
I am sorry for the creator of this game, who apparently invested lots and lots of work into making a complete YI hack (which honestly deserves respect. Good work on accomplishing that since it takes lots of dedication and lots of free time), but on the long shot this game fails as an enjoyable hack due to difficulty and fair level design. I'm really sorry about that!

EDIT: On a further note I am REALLY glad once raocow finishes this game.
I really saw how much more fun he had with his previous projects like the two level contests. It feels so disappointing to see him getting frustrated and sad. I mean it is his hobby to Let's Play. He wants to entertain us viewers, who love his special and unique style of LPing (which I never encountered a second time on youtube). But isn't it against the dogma/ paradigma of a hobby to play a game that is not entertaining at all and just causes frustration and EVEn seems to ruin a day and thus affect the real life? I feel sorry for raocow and I guess many of you do so as well. It means something, that raocow took a break from that game. I know, that at this time he wanted to present the SMWCentral contest to us viewers who mainly know raocow from his SMW related LPs. However, I cannot deny that another, more subconscious reason for this break might have been, that he felt fed up, exhausted of this particular game. And you know what? I agree. It breaks my heart to ssee someone like raocow getting exhausted over a GAME. Poor guy. :(
This is not the purpose of any video game anymore. And due to this game being highly unfair at times, the player does not feel any accomplishment for beating a hard stage. He is just happy that he never, ever has to do this again. And this again is not what a good video game should be like. You should sense a feel of achievement for beating something hard (which can only be granted if said stage was fair OR fun).

MrDeePay wrote:

Crunchy wrote:Also wow, YouTube commentators sure are assholes.

Welcome to my world, though I would not stop at "assholes". raocow is surrounded by sycophants, though in this case, you can tell bad design from merely watching a video of it since the offending level was a severe example.

...uh, I think the level's perfectly fine? I mean, it really is just demanding you to combine speed and precision jumping. I certainly can't do it, but somebody else theoretically can. The only real problem I noticed was that there was a lack of focus in the first part of the level, and the Red Switch section was way too overly long, but that's really about it...and people seem to be fine with overly long and boring sections whenever raocow gives that level that oh-so-wonderful "seal of approval".

And while relying on raocow's opinion is somewhat bad, LPs are a visual medium allowing you to experience a game without playing it. The LPer's reactions does impact the final product...and I don't really see how that is a bad thing, considering many people watch LPs just for the LPer and not the actual game.

Yoshis_Fan wrote:@Sebby19:
Argh, screw the damn GBA already. I can port the level for you at any time, since the level formats are pretty much the same, but you will have problems because of the GBA screen being smaller.
Anyways, would you like to have it as difficult as raocow or do you want the easier version (which is still in the making)? Also, of course one level must be replaced. Choose which one and I can make a IPS for you.

Oh, wow, I didn't know you could actually do that. You got skillz, I give you props for that. I was just spouting wishful thinking about a physical GBA.

I would like to play, but I don't think I actually will though. Thanks for the offer.

Glad to know I'm not the only who thought this level was BS. There is such a thing as making something difficult and making something Kazio Difficult and this level honestly,went past Kazio. It also doesnt help that this was an Extra 2 level where it didnt even belong in world 2. Sure,the Extra levels are supposed to be harder then the regular levels but this just went beyond that. I really hope this will get redesigned and take out some of the crap that created artifical difficulty. Some of the ! Switch sections for example,should be take out IMO.

Yoshis Fan, while I've got you online, from what you've said about the level recently it seems you already went about addressing the complaints people raised, but another way to alleviate some of the ridiculousness while not sacrificing much of the point that I forgot to mention would be having some rest stops throughout the red switch section. It's simply too overwhelming on the mind to get through one precise bout of fast platforming only to be slapped with another with no moment to gather thoughts and adjust to new obstacles between them. I think sectioning the entire gauntlet into more of a series of smaller ones would go a long way.

Servant wrote:And while relying on raocow's opinion is somewhat bad, LPs are a visual medium allowing you to experience a game without playing it. The LPer's reactions does impact the final product...and I don't really see how that is a bad thing, considering many people watch LPs just for the LPer and not the actual game.

Watching someone play X and playing X for yourself are not the same thing. There are simply things you cannot gain from a simple watch through such as the personal enjoyment and thrills. A shitty player can give off the wrong impression of a game that, depending on the LPer and/or viewer, may never quite be shook off.

CountBleck222 wrote:Glad to know I'm not the only who thought this level was BS.

You're several hours behind.

Short of maybe placing this level in a different world closer to the end game and maybe giving the player a little bit of a bigger window for failures in the switch runs, I think it's fine as-is.

It's not very often you can find beatable levels that have this much challenge in them. Nothing in any of those sequences was 'impossible' ... it just took raocow time to learn/adapt to the various tasks that the author asked of him.

The argument to make might be that it crosses the line of being a 'game' when you have to grind through lives just to learn the sequences but I wouldn't put this over the kaizo line unless it had to be played in slow-down as a TAS.

Servant wrote:...uh, I think the level's perfectly fine? I mean, it really is just demanding you to combine speed and precision jumping. I certainly can't do it, but somebody else theoretically can.

The problem isn't just that the series of actions you need to take is extremely difficult. It's also that things are too rushed and punishing to let you learn that series of actions in the first place. You need to get exceptionally good at one screen to even see the next screen and reach it often enough to start learning it. You need to preform a very difficult jump to get to the point where you can start learning the next difficult jump.

Normally, in such an insta-death gauntlet, the best strategy is to go carefully so you can look at the next obstacle before you attempt it. That's not even allowed in this level, because of the demanding time limit, so the only way to learn an obstacle is to die to it multiple times.

Even that kind of extreme punishment can be alright (to the minority who like trial-and-error gameplay) if the challenge is suitably rewarding. But the new 2-E is just so sloppy and cruel that frustration overwhelms any pride of success.

This game's engine wasn't designed for this much insta-death, this much trial-and-error. Super Meat Boy, for instance, has levels much more difficult than this, but it also has controls suitable for that sort of precision, and a fast respawn that alleviates frustration.

Slit08 wrote:But isn't it against the dogma/ paradigma of a hobby to play a game that is not entertaining at all and just causes frustration and EVEn seems to ruin a day and thus affect the real life? I feel sorry for raocow and I guess many of you do so as well. It means something, that raocow took a break from that game. I know, that at this time he wanted to present the SMWCentral contest to us viewers who mainly know raocow from his SMW related LPs. However, I cannot deny that another, more subconscious reason for this break might have been, that he felt fed up, exhausted of this particular game. And you know what? I agree. It breaks my heart to ssee someone like raocow getting exhausted over a GAME. Poor guy. :(

This is not any games fault though. It doesn't matter how unfair, hard and frustrating a game is. If you let your day get ruined by it, there is something horribly wrong with you. And yes, it's probably exaggerated and/or used in a jokingly manner.