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1

Hammerwatch Discussion / Re: Pretty inactive

« on: January 02, 2014, 01:08:55 AM »

I did read everything you wrote Corion and I do agree with a lot of things.

Thanks.

I really think the editor could be easier to use in some aspects, certain things are just to annoying to do and figure out if you're not used to other map editing software.

Given the apparent simplicity of the architecture and objects in the game, I expected a tile-based editor that would let me edit the map on a grid, clicking spots to add or remove walls and have it automatically choose the correct wall section art based on a chosen tileset definition file. I was expecting something on the level of Motocross Madness 1's tile-based editor, Starcraft, or Portal 2's in-game editor.  I know it would take a lot of work to code something like that, but it could significantly speed up the level design process for official DLC and custom community maps.

I was just surprised it would take so much initial investment/effort to get a basic map up and running.  I've used a lot of more complicated editors, but most of them were for more complicated games (3d spaces, worrying about line-of-sight, poly budgets, z-axis gameplay, etc.) I was surprised you created so much content without the aid of a more quick-and-dirty editor doing more of the initial grunt work for you. 

Hopefully being a part of the holiday Steam sale will boost your game's visibility. I'm going to buy some extra copies for my friends. 

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Hammerwatch Discussion / Re: Ideas for the Rogue

« on: December 17, 2013, 07:58:06 AM »

Adding to the ideas thread...

Rogues typically focus on stealth, trap detection/disabling, poisons or bleeding, daggers, dodging, critical hits, thievery, and things of this nature. With this in mind...
A lot of people have suggested similar ideas above me. I believe we're mostly on the same page.


• Stealth: An ability to sneak up on flowers or powerful enemies such as the mages and do much higher damage. This would probably be their first or second skill. Using it would drain some initial mana and then mana over time.
• Thrown daggers in a frontal cone. A great basic attack, or maybe a skill. These would probably do damage per dagger and be upgraded to have a % chance to poison/bleed enemies. If you wanted to execute enemies with these you could sneak up behind something and launch them all into one enemy - which would basically guarantee the dot. Otherwise, you could use these to clear out groups of enemies. Some great potential upgrades for these would be increased distance and number of daggers thrown. They should have an extremely short range and initial attack cone. Maybe you'd just start with one.
• Passive detection of traps and hidden passages.I know that this could be difficult to implement given how the game works, but it seems like a great addition. Let rogues see where walls can be broken down by highlighting them with a glow. Let rogues see which floor panels flip up as flame traps, and where traps will shoot from the walls. Highlight squares red that are about to turn into spikes. Players with a rogue should be able to easily navigate trapped and hidden areas.
• Let rogues dodge projectiles and over traps as one of their abilities. It would be great if rogues could dodge around 1 big square at a time. This should make them invulnerable to attacks, traps, and proejctiles for the duration of the dodge. You could still block routes off from players with traps 2 squares wide, but rogues could bypass some traps in levels to access areas out of order or get to ranged enemies or turrets.
• Let rogues take more damage from traps.Give rogues a stacking armor, dodge, or damage reduction for traps. By the end of the game you shouldn't really have to worry about darts, wave off flame traps, barely have to worry about spears, and not fear accidentally stepping once onto the otherwise insta-kill spikes.
• Pick-pockets.Give rogues a skill that grants the party (or maybe just the rogue) slightly extra gold for killing enemies.

In my mind, all of the current characters kind of have their own fortes and weaknesses, and have something to offer the party.  Playing with one in the party should feel natural, but then playing the same level again without one should make its value stand out. "If only we had a ________."

In my mind, the rogue should be kind of weak in most situations but good at getting into groups of enemies to take out high-priority targets such as flowers/mages/spawners, and then getting out alive. The major benefits of having a rogue would be the trap avoidance, additional gold, secret detection, and taking out high-value targets (flowers/turrets). He should not be that great at taking out huge groups of enemies quickly, dealing with archers, etc. or any of the other things that the other characters excel at.

3

Hammerwatch Discussion / Re: Pretty inactive

« on: December 17, 2013, 07:03:16 AM »

I'll play-test any maps for anyone. I used to review levels and make maps myself (Ut2k4, L4D, TF2), but I don't have the time to sink into creating them anymore.
I give plenty of constructive feedback, I'm through and detail-oriented, and I love playing Hammerwatch. If that's what you guys need, I'm here. Send me a message on the forum if you've got something for me to test.

As for the game being inactive and how to publicize - I'm not sure. I think perhaps the nature of the game isn't appealing to the majority of today's gamers.
It can be difficult and somewhat repetitive. It's a huge challenge to play it alone. It's possible to essentially run out of lives and have to start over completely.
And then there's the ending... the ending is brilliant but will frustrate a lot of non-completionist players.
Most people need more gamification to hold their hand through this kind of gameplay, whether it's loot, experience, big numbers, HEADSHOTS, etc.

Some things to help the game do better, in my opinion:

• Full controller / big picture support. This is very much a couch co-op-friendly game. It's not listed on Steam as a full Big Picture Mode game, though.
• Drop-in drop-out multiplayer. I have no idea how to manage this given the current structure of levels and campaigns, but this is something a lot of players thrive on these days. People need a way to grab a character they have in an act of a campaign and hop into a friend's game. An easy way to do this would be perhaps to track the gold of one of the players and just let the new player upgrade on their way in?
• Easier editor. I had a lot of hope for this. I thought you guys would have created a more tile-based solid/non-solid editor that picked out doodads and walls automatically if I just drew the shape of the level. When I opened it up, I was sad. It's super-complicated for a new person to learn, and it's not well documented. Spending development effort on the editor would do much to allow you to make more content and get your community to build it for you. If you make the editor and its file format simple enough, you could potentially leverage that for random level generation.
• More content. Making the editor easier would let you pump out more content faster. There's a lot of players that play until the end of unique content and quit. If you want people to keep playing, you need more content.
• More enemy variety/ai. This is kind of the same thing as the one above. I know that adding a ton of different enemies kind of goes against the gloriously simple design of the game, but it would help relieve some of the repetitive nature.
• Different control schemes.I have a friend who was immediately turned off by this game when he couldn't use the mouse to aim and fire. I'm not sure why he would want to, but there are apparently players out there who instinctively desire this control scheme.
• Singleplayer love.New players need to be cautioned to use an easier difficulty when playing singleplayer. Having friendly AI or something to compensate for the increased difficulty (more health? gold? extra lives?) would go a long ways to making the game more appealing for players. However, you should still probably STRONGLY RECOMMEND people play with friends rather than alone.
  

I thoroughly enjoy the game and don't want it changed too much from its current formula... but I'd like to see it become more popular and easier to convince friends to play with me.