[RELEASED] - Ravenwatch - Act 1 BETA - 0.18

[Heretic]

Good thinking! Posting now!

[Heretic]

updated to 0.15

General:
-Updated Ravenwatch Preview Icon
-Changed minigame price from 200+ to 35 for both Easy Mode and Man Mode


Level1:
- Fixed collision bug that allowed you to walk outside the level

Level2:
-Fixed graphical bugs when walking into caves - all textures should disappear or remain properly now. (Thanks for the feedback to find these!)
-Fixed exploit that allowed you to walk around the obstacle area of hand traps

Level4:
-Fixed exploit that allowed you to avoid parts of the hand traps in the obstacle area.
-Fixed hand trap prefab to no longer damage during multiplayer (due to lag)

[Hathunter]

Hey, just finished playing Ravenwatch up until the 5th black candle (I died ). I'd dare say this is the best Hammerwatch map I've player so far, even beating the campaign itself.
Figured I'd give some feedback and play the rest through later at a better time.


First, I found some graphical glitches. I've compiled the ones I noticed in no particular order at this album here EDIT: apparently you just fixed a bunch of these. I'll remove the obsolete ones on my next playthrough. I've circled or drawn arrows pointing at the bugs. Sorry for the poor map visibility, couldn't figure out a good way to show it.

Found 3 other bugs as well:
1. In the village, the houses don't show up on the map (don't know if intentional).
2. Paladin (and maybe others too) can buy the chance to play the archery minigame, even though they lack a ranged attack.
3. When the shooting skulls with just their spines attached rise from a sarcophagus, they are layered (correct word?) under it. This partially hides them from view.


I've got a few suggestions as well that might be good additions.
1. Add signs on the shop walls in the village. Easier for first timers to find their class house. Or maybe make a doodad that only shows the sign on the map.

\/ !!! SPOILERS from here on !!! \/
2. In the crypts after the Grim reaper boss, there is a room in which there are 4 copper doors with keys hidden inside a lot of sarcophagi. You need to look for a silver key inside one of them.
   Right now you need to use only 1 key since there is no fog of war hiding the contents of the room (silver key room is visible).
   Hiding the contents of the room until opening would force the players to guess instead of just going straight for the important one.

3. Maybe reduce the damage on the timed grabbing hands in the 5th black candle map (at the vendor coin + silver key spot). 14 damage ticking quickly combined with a strong slow and a very short time window for moving cost many lives even on a paladin.

4. !!!IMPORTANT!!!
Reduce/limit the amount of crows spawning at the 5th black candle. The amount made my PC, which is not all that old, lag badly enough to be unable to hit, resulting in death.
Also, are these suppose to spawn infinitely? I sat in a corner for a while but they just kept on coming and the lag kept getting worse.

[DarkHaitsu]

Is it normal that crows don't deal any damage on easy mode ?

[Heretic]

Hey, just finished playing Ravenwatch up until the 5th black candle (I died ). I'd dare say this is the best Hammerwatch map I've player so far, even beating the campaign itself.
Figured I'd give some feedback and play the rest through later at a better time.

I'm really glad you liked it! Feedback is the only thing that's going to make it better, so let's address it all!

First, I found some graphical glitches. I've compiled the ones I noticed in no particular order at this album here EDIT: apparently you just fixed a bunch of these. I'll remove the obsolete ones on my next playthrough. I've circled or drawn arrows pointing at the bugs. Sorry for the poor map visibility, couldn't figure out a good way to show it.

Wow great job on compiling all of these! The graphical glitches for the caves and such were all fixed but that dirt/grass cutoff is kind of a glitch (don't shoot me, Myran!) with the editor. I'll have to go through and perfect those spots! Thanks for these screenshots it makes it a lot easier for me!

Found 3 other bugs as well:
1. In the village, the houses don't show up on the map (don't know if intentional).
2. Paladin (and maybe others too) can buy the chance to play the archery minigame, even though they lack a ranged attack.
3. When the shooting skulls with just their spines attached rise from a sarcophagus, they are layered (correct word?) under it. This partially hides them from view.

1. The village doesn't have a minimap yet, I definitely need to get on that!
2. You're right I should change it to be ranger only - though the Thief is able to do decently too if you use his fan of knives!
3. Myran and Hipshot pointed that bug out to me on our playthrough on my Twitch.tv stream - I need to fix that and will do so today!

I've got a few suggestions as well that might be good additions.
1. Add signs on the shop walls in the village. Easier for first timers to find their class house. Or maybe make a doodad that only shows the sign on the map.

\/ !!! SPOILERS from here on !!! \/
2. In the crypts after the Grim reaper boss, there is a room in which there are 4 copper doors with keys hidden inside a lot of sarcophagi. You need to look for a silver key inside one of them.
   Right now you need to use only 1 key since there is no fog of war hiding the contents of the room (silver key room is visible).
   Hiding the contents of the room until opening would force the players to guess instead of just going straight for the important one.

3. Maybe reduce the damage on the timed grabbing hands in the 5th black candle map (at the vendor coin + silver key spot). 14 damage ticking quickly combined with a strong slow and a very short time window for moving cost many lives even on a paladin.

4. !!!IMPORTANT!!!
Reduce/limit the amount of crows spawning at the 5th black candle. The amount made my PC, which is not all that old, lag badly enough to be unable to hit, resulting in death.
Also, are these suppose to spawn infinitely? I sat in a corner for a while but they just kept on coming and the lag kept getting worse.

1. This needs to be done, and I'm sorry I overlooked this before releasing! Great suggestion!
2. Those doors are supposed to have prizes/rewards inside them besides just monsters. I'm not sure how they got lost or maybe I overwrote the wrong version of the level.xml, but I'll be fixing this today as well!
3. The damage is 1 - or at least it should be. Maybe I can reduce how quickly the damage happens so that it's not so brutal, but its an alternative to the spikes from the vanilla campaign that were insta-death (remember those damn things?) so I want them to be hard and make it so you avoid them. I'll try to rebalance these as well today!
4. I knew that part of the map was going to be a problem. I will limit the number of ravens and make them spawn less quickly - will fix this today! They will continue to spawn forever until

spoilers!
you pick up the candle.

I will have to make it less impossible to do so - and maybe add a hint that says "GET THE CANDLE" or something hahaha.


Great suggestions I really appreciate the time you took to do this post! I'll work on these fixes today and update it on the workshop. Will credit you for the finds as well!

[Heretic]

Is it normal that crows don't deal any damage on easy mode ?

Unfortunately there is not a minimum damage set by the engine - they do 1 damage on medium which is hard enough. The game reduces it to 0 apparently if you set it to easy. I'll have to change the XMLs somehow to make easy mode ravens harder (so they do 1 damage)

Thanks for this find sir!

p.s. they're ravens

[Heretic]

Patch 0.17

Notes

General:
-Changed minigame in town only viewable by Ranger, Wizard, Priest, and Thief
-While playing the minigame, the range will be increased to allow playing as follows:
--Thief fan of knives throws 2 knives and cost 0 mana, 2gold
--Wizard's fireball range increased to 6.5
--Priest Beam range increased to 8

The Palading and Warlock do not ahve abilities that allow the target practice.

-Removed custom skin for warlock - was accidently placed and not intended as part of Ravenwatch.
-Ravens now properly do damage in Easy mode.

Level2:
Tree Thorn projectiles now much easier to see.

Level 3:
-Spine Shooter now spawns properly in the sarcophagi
-Bronze doors now properly spawn loot.

[DarkHaitsu]

Maybe you could reduce the ravens attack speed by half, but make them deal 2 damage in medium mode ?

Edit : Nevermind

[DarkHaitsu]

-Removed custom skin for warlock - was accidently placed and not intended as part of Ravenwatch.

Was it a problem ?

[Heretic]

Was it a problem ?

It wasn't my artwork, and I didn't really care for it too much. It was cute and fun but not really what I had in mind as far as tone

[DarkHaitsu]

It wasn't my artwork, and I didn't really care for it too much. It was cute and fun but not really what I had in mind as far as tone

Well okay ...so does that mean you're going to make the custom skins by yourself ? I'm kinda tired of the warlock headgear going inbetween an iron helmet and spock's hair 

It would be nice to have custom skins for all classes !

[Heretic]

It wasn't my artwork, and I didn't really care for it too much. It was cute and fun but not really what I had in mind as far as tone

Well okay ...so does that mean you're going to make the custom skins by yourself ? I'm kinda tired of the warlock headgear going inbetween an iron helmet and spock's hair 

It would be nice to have custom skins for all classes !

I agree! And yes I plan on re-theming all classes. It's right up there on the to do list next to the new custom GUI. I also have to do new art for the keys and doors - Oh so much work to do!

[t0werblade]

I have a suggestion from a design standpoint regarding the ravens.

Currently, ravens are not fun imo. They don't even feel challenging, they feel cheap. Now this is a big problem considering the campaign basically revolves around this enemy type. Ravens should be "fun" to kill. That doesn't mean that they shouldn't be challenging at times, because challenges are often fun, but it does mean that they shouldn't be frustrating to kill. You don't want the player to be thinking, "Holy shit if another raven pops out from behind a tree I'm going to asdhfoasuidvhals..."

Here's my suggestion:
1. Don't hide ravens behind things often. The last version I played all the way through was plagued by ambush after ambush. I started dreading whenever I had to move forward because there were always hidden ravens in every other tree.

2. Visually design things for visually challenged people. What I mean is, make things obvious. If an enemy is fast-moving, you can't also make them very small and a drab color. The visually challenged player won't see it. "But I'm not making an experience for blind people", you may think. But your players are, at times, effectively blind. When you've got crazy weather effects, and animations going off, the priests fucking God beam, numbers popping up, and noises are happening, you can't see the single raven right behind you. Then the player finally notices the thing after it's knocked off 10 points of health and they become frustrated because they just couldn't see it.
You need to balance the raven's speed, contrast, and size. If the raven stays black (which makes sense) then it has to be slowed down a notch and scaled up a little or else your players will be blind to it whenever there's more than nothing happening on screen.

3. The physics are too small. The other melee classes (any class with a sword) don't have the extreme damage angle that the paladin can have. What happens is the ravens will get either a little to the left or the right of where the player's swing counts, and it misses. Fair? Yes, it's fair. Fun? It's really not. They play like mosquitoes. A constant game of "oops, you missed!". If ravens are to be as prominent as they currently are I would bump up the physics to make them more hit-able.


That's all I got. The mod is great fun and I can't wait to see more, I just wanted to explain my frustration.
And also I don't blame you for taking your time on the custom player sprites. They're quite tedious to work on.

[Hathunter]

Currently, ravens are not fun imo. They don't even feel challenging, they feel cheap. Now this is a big problem considering the campaign basically revolves around this enemy type. Ravens should be "fun" to kill. That doesn't mean that they shouldn't be challenging at times, because challenges are often fun, but it does mean that they shouldn't be frustrating to kill. You don't want the player to be thinking, "Holy shit if another raven pops out from behind a tree I'm going to asdhfoasuidvhals..."

Here's my suggestion:
1. Don't hide ravens behind things often. The last version I played all the way through was plagued by ambush after ambush. I started dreading whenever I had to move forward because there were always hidden ravens in every other tree.

Personally I actually loved the way ravens are. A small, fast mob killed in 1 hit, yet attacking fast enough and in flocks from places I didn't expect made a simple mob challenging and, quite frankly, somewhat intimidating (in a good way) at times. Opinions, I suppose, but I loved them.

Way better than the campaigns bats, at least...

2. Visually design things for visually challenged people. What I mean is, make things obvious. If an enemy is fast-moving, you can't also make them very small and a drab color. The visually challenged player won't see it. "But I'm not making an experience for blind people", you may think. But your players are, at times, effectively blind. When you've got crazy weather effects, and animations going off, the priests fucking God beam, numbers popping up, and noises are happening, you can't see the single raven right behind you. Then the player finally notices the thing after it's knocked off 10 points of health and they become frustrated because they just couldn't see it.

Again, I liked them hiding around and ambushing the player. Their eyes are red so they aren't that difficult to spot in my opinion.

[Hipshot]

Me and Christian just played the level, way, WAY to many ravens spawns at that cemetery =) Our computers started to lag, until it was almost completely unplayable.