15/05/16

(EDIT NOTE: This is a kind of censored post. The full version has examples of levels and creators, but that felt like the main goal was blaming. And it's not. So I removed those parts ["xxxxxxxxxxxxx" now], hopefully making it feel more constructive than destructive. Still sounds pretty harsh in some parts, but please don't take any of that personally.)

This game has some serious issues to keep players, and I find it less and less surprising. Actually, I'm having a hard time finding some motivation to return to the game myself currently, let alone to continue to build. The ratio of levels which I leave frustrated in comparison to those that give me fun is increasing day by day. Soon I will have pretty much only frustrating ones left. And please, please don't start with the „you need more experience“ crap now. No. I have completed 800 adventures by now (and yes, that includes tutorials like advanced boot camp etc), with more than 95% of them perfected. Sorry, but it can't be lack of experience. A bird can show a fish how to fly, but no matter the fish trains he will at its best be able to jump. And many levels require the equivalent to the flying of the bird. Why is that? Well because the top players are the „loudest“. They give the most ratings, they give the most comments. And they build the most levels. Which leads to levels being build for their preferences, their skills, their opinions. And to the less loud/skilled players leaving frustrated.

I'm not even a particularly bad gamer. I have 100%ed (or in case of some 101%ed / 102%ed etc. ;D) many games that other players couldn't, and also already back that at time when you couldn't just google solutions (for example during the Super Nintendo era). And still, for somebody like me, many many levels of this game are still absolutely impossible and frustrating even after 800 levels of experience. And by now there is no doubt that I will never ever come close to 100%ing this game. And then: This world is full of players with less skill. And yet you are wondering why they leave? Seriously?

And it's a worsening spiral. Due to this frustration, only the exceptionally skilled ones stay in the game. Which means mainly they create levels. Which are then again based on their skills...

And most of this is absolutely unnecessary. Have you ever read a comment like “This level is the best, because it is almost impossible to do!”? No? Well, now guess why. Either the level is good in its story and/or concepts, or it is not. Making it incredibly hard makes it never better. Refraining from using enough checkpoints makes it always worse. “I really enjoyed replaying this very hard level from scratch a thousand times.” is another one of these comments that you won't read. At least not without sarcasm. Some people confuse being stingy with checkpoints with “the art of making levels hard”. Breaking news people: It's not art. Checkpoints exist for a reason. Use them. NO, and I repeat NO player enjoys replaying the beginning of the level despite already having been much further. And yes, that includes the very experienced ones. It almost made me laugh when one of you got stuck in one of my levels and complained about having to redo it. The same person who has created levels like xxxxxxx, or those levels with xxxxxxxxxxxx.

If you want to make a level particularly challenging, how about making that extra challenge optional? Every creator with a bit of building skills can easily implement several difficulty levels to choose. Those of you who played my levels should remember those “easy mode” or “hard mode” triggers. They weren't particularly hard to implement. And there are a million ways to use them. Starting from adding/removing a part of the obstacles like spikes up to obstructing/un-obstructing checkpoints. Even my Spoilerman NPC grants a kind of optional “easy mode”. So why don't you? Why do you prefer to build levels which only the top players of the game can possibly beat?

Whats even more ironic is that it turned out that most of the time even the top 5 players preferred to NOT use the hard mode buttons. As even they prefer levels which can be played without dying again and again. So for whom exactly are you building those hard levels? For those that can't complete them, or for those who could, but still prefer easier ones if given the choice?

Some advice for the easy modes if you want to keep players in the game:

1) I mentioned it before, but I can't stress it out enough: Use checkpoints! And the harder the level, the more there should be! Allow players to focus on the latest steps instead of frustrating them with replaying old parts they have already beaten a dozen times before. Nobody wants to do that, really.
Typical creators with that issue: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

2)Somewhat related: Don't overdo your concepts! Don't require something that is hard to do to be done several times and/or over a long distance without any checkpoint.
Typical creators with that issue: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Another typical example would be those air superiority orgies. Unfortunately used by lots of players. Especially those combinations with dragon mouths. We've had more than enough of those, btw. Horizontal, vertical, everything. Using that once again in a level is far from being innovative, I must say... >_>

3)Don't require to do jumps etc. which need to be timed 100% accurately and or which need to be positioned 100% perfectly. Most of the time, you can easily implement an environment where even with a slightly shorter distance/height the player will not reach the target without using the desired trick. So why not letting him/her reach with “only” 95% perfection of that trick?
Typical creators with that issue: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

4)Don't use time limits that can only be reached with almost perfect runs. Because only very, very few players can do those. Most players WILL do mistakes here and there. Not always the same, but always some. Allow for those mistakes. The longer the track, the more should be allowed. If somebody really wants to perfect the time, that can be done using race flags instead. Or in hard mode, with additional abstacles etc.
Typical creators with that issue: xxxxxxxxx.

5)Provide optional hints for hard riddles/tricks.
Self-explanatory. If you come up with something entirely new, with which nobody came up before, it's pretty likely others still won't come up with it unless you give them a little push into the right direction.
Typical creators with that issue: xxxxxxxx

Some of the things have actually improved a bit recently. But only some, and only for new levels. Old ones remain as frustrating as ever.
Try for a moment to see it from my perspective – and probably of many who leave. I have limited time, but almost unlimited numbers of games I could play (many of them already bought but lacking the time to play). So do I choose the one that mainly gives me frustration, or one that could potentially give me fun?
There you are...

15/05/16

I understand all of this, and I've overtime been trying to conform to this a bit. All of my older levels are hellish difficulty, and overtime I've sort of been trying to conform with this sort of idea. For example: My second level, McKryll's Break In, I created because at the time I didn't see many difficult levels. Personally, I really enjoy levels that are really hard, so I wanted to start adding them. However, it had quite a few issues with it that I've fixed overtime now that I've become a better creator. Then started the Turnabout series.

The Turnabout series was originally going to be strictly puzzles, and at the start it was. I'm not sure why, but I guess I was obsessed with timers at the time and I put timers on literally everything for a bit before going all weird riddle on the third level. As that series went further on things got harder and harder to a point that I guess it never should have gotten to, and I was obsessed with making things EVEN HARDER for some reason. But I've seen over and over games fall due to one thing: Confusing "difficulty" with "unfairness". I honestly didn't want to fall down this hole, so I tried my best to keep checkpoints consistent and comply with the requests of other people. I'm not sure if this died over time or if I kept it going though... I can only hope that I've done it well enough. Now that I think back on things there are a lot of changes I feel I should make.

But moving on, I tried some different things. Super Meat-su Boy and O&O were meant to be alternate sorts of things... SMB was going to have a difficulty curve and O&O was going to try something new. SMB went well until I sort of hit a wall where I couldn't figure out how to do the difficulty curve of World 2... I had some players telling me it was two hard and others telling me it was just right, and when I finally returned to add another level on I had just lost it and the difficulty went off the charts. O&O was just some good story to start. It went fine, but I felt that a lot of people weren't REALLY enjoying it because it was a bit boring. But that was fine, because it was getting to the main part which was the turn based system I wanted to try out. But the system was flawed and complicated, and even when Gors made his level with a new system he was going to let me use, everything was still complicated and I wasn't sure if it was really worth it. Both those series are likely dead now simply because I have no idea what to do with them.

Things went in an odd direction from there. Skipping over Dave, the new main series was Speedy. The problem was I had no idea how in the hell to balance it for players at all. When I went through the levels, I could make three or four mistakes and still make it to the end, and I thought it'd probably be fine. However, only a few other players experienced this. I didn't want to leave the series to die, but it didn't seem like it was going how I wanted at all. So I just tried to pump out the rest of the levels so I could be over and done with it, because it was another situation where I had no idea what to do. If you'll notice a pattern, I simply can not figure out how to balance levels back at this point.

The next big one was Insert Adventure Name. I wanted to keep it a more of a comedic story based thing, but I kept finding my difficult levels seeping into it. Every now and then there were random other parts that were out of place difficulty and ONCE AGAIN I got to a point where I wasn't sure what I wanted to do to keep the series going. So I came up with a solution that anyone whose played through can probably agree was completely out of nowhere and nonsensical, and just wasn't a good way to end it in general. And now it's... Something.

I moved on with some random side levels up until what I believe is when I finally managed to make some actually good levels. Datru Krth. I feel like up until Datru Krth, almost none of my levels are really worth playing. I had no idea what I was doing with them, I was just trying to make... Well, SOMETHING. Datru Krth was actually well thought out plot and what I feel was balanced gameplay. It was pretty much the only series that once I finished it, I actually could sit back, look and it, and feel really proud of it. And you know what? The only reason it exists is because of you, Scheu. Your level design and artsy skills and EVERYTHING you put into your series is what I learned from and what inspired me to go ahead and make a level series I actually felt good about.

From there, DIM felt a bit more lazily done to me, but I still liked it. To be honest it started as more of a representation of an inner struggle I was having at the time, and I came up with an actual logical plot that tied in with what else I wanted to do as I was making the first level or two. It does still have those parts I should probably iron out though. Now I've gotten to my most recent series I'm dubbing "Hell". I want it to follow more of a Datru Krth sort of thing than anything else, and despite the name I don't really want it to be hard.

But what did all of that really have to do with your post? Because... That was A LOT, and it probably feels like I got off track quite a bit. Well, it's just because I wanted to make it clear that... Well, I'm listening, Scheu. And you've helped me listen and improve more than anyone else, because your series really showed me what I needed to improve upon. I think I really got off track from my original plan of keeping difficult and unfair separate, and I need to get back to that. I look back at my older series all the time and think that it's not what I wanted it to be, and half the story (especially in the Turnabout series) makes ZERO SENSE. Anyone who can, go and look at the story with Chaon and with Sally and try to HONESTLY TELL ME that it makes sense in any way. You can't, because it doesn't. These are the things that I need to fix, and I'm glad that you came along with your series and with this post to really push me to actually want to fix it. Over the next month or so, I'm going to try and go back to some of my older levels and clean up the issues.

Thank you.

• Edited on 15/05/16

15/05/16

Wow. Lots of text. And yes, I noticed some of those improvements in the recent levels. Thanks for that!

And I certainly don't agree that your adventures before Datru Krth are not worth playing. I like pretty much all of the earlier series. If I could reach them. And as far as I could get in them. But that makes it even worse if the story you like remains forever unresolved. As you fail to complete part 7 of 8, for example. After investing so much time and emotions in it. In such a case it would be great to have an optional easy button, for those that can't continue otherwise, but still want to experience the resolution of the story.
Furthermore, a bit of randomness in the story at times (what you describe as issue above) does actually fit into your universe/multiverse. Especially those that feature F. and/or start to be corrupted. I never really minded it.

And just to be clear: By your answer its indicated that you expect your name to be in these "xxxxx". But don't worry, it's not like every "xxxxxx" up there equals "Eeveeiott". XD
Several of them don't concern you, are not specific to you and/or are worse in other levels.
Anyway, keep me updated about the changes, I will certainly revisit then.

And I feel so proud for inspiring you. Thanks for the praise! ;_;

16/05/16

First of all, I totally understand your points Scheuchevogel. With that out of the way, I have to say I don't totally agree with you.

For starters, I think players who leave do so before running out of levels they can beat and surely way before reaching some of the hardest and/or more frustrating levels. Unfortunately, the game has issues retaining its players but I don't think the hard levels are to blame.

Secondly, I find it somewhat contradictory that you blame the hard levels in the game when you also stated that you have beaten 800 levels, meaning there are a whole 800! levels new players can play. Low player attachment is not because the game lacks easy levels. The remaining 200 levels are just not for everyone but every game with community made levels will have this kind of levels just for the hardcore/obsessive players. Removing the from the game would certainly NOT increase player attachment.

As for some of your particular points:

>Have you ever read a comment like “This level is the best, because it is almost impossible to do!”? No? Well, now guess why.
Well, guess what? "A Path of Destiny" is my favorite level in the game. I certainly did not enjoy dying thousands of times there but once I figured the solution (multiple times) it was really satisfactory and it is a level that I keep replaying every now and then because it's really enjoyable. Could the game be better without the level or with its difficulty lowered to the average player? Not for me. Making those final levels in the Turnabout saga easier would only make sense story-wise to let players reach "Heart of Chaos". Otherwise, it has little with new players sticking to the game. These are just some levels out the 1100 levels in the game that are not for everyone.

> how about making that extra challenge optional?
Most of my levels let the player go directly to the shrine or at least continue to the next level. I know some players won't like my levels or won't have the skills to beat them so I would not force them to go through them. That may not be true for all of my levels but I'm sure it is for most of them. Players can't solve "Madness" or "Out for a Walk 3"? Simply enter from the west!. Even "Mook Bending" and "Mook Infestion" could totally be completed if players build their way from the west!.

> 5)Provide optional hints for hard riddles/tricks.
I know this mostly apply to me but you know what I think about it. Giving hints about how to do some of the tricks I use would make some of my levels just too trivial to solve, effectively removing all challenge.

Don't get me wrong, I think that in the short time you've been around, you have created some of the best levels in the game. The points you stated are certainly worth noting. I admire how talented you are but I think your thoughts about why players leave might not be the real issue.

That said, do you want to know what I think might be an issue? The fact that, starting from 0e0, soon you will find yourself with nowhere else to go. I think that might actually explain why players leave so fast. Go ahead, try it, without going back to the base floor, and tell me how many levels can you reach before finding yourself stuck. Maybe teleporting to the base floor is not so obvious for new players?.

16/05/16

woo lots of text :)

well, as you all probably know I don't try to perfect (or even finish) levels that I feel are too hard for me. i'll give a level quite a few tries though, and I think I can 'break down' the reasons when I give up on a level to these:

• when a level is quite long (gameplay takes a long time) and late in the level I find out that I need to restart completely for whatever reason (and that is for finishing the level, i'll definitely give up on perfection if given the chance in this case) - the level doesn't even need to be super hard in this case, just very long/tedious or just not that fun to play.

• when a specific spot in a level is hard (far from impossible though) to execute, but makes me respawn quite before reaching that point over and over

• when a specific spot in the level is just way too hard and unforgiving

• obviously I don't get to even try levels that are followed in these series's because I can't reach them to begin with

I sometimes leave a comment in such levels about the issue I didn't overcome, but in many cases when the entire vibe of the levels seems just to not be fun for me (too hard / too tedious) I just leave and don't come back without writing anything. I usually tag the levels with hard (if they are too hard) or with a sad face (if they are too tedious) - or both! :)

I don't feel bad about levels I didn't finish or perfect (though it's sometimes sad that I don't even get to see the levels that follow them) - I know that some people around here love 'conquering' these super hard levels - and I definitely respect their dedication and skill for doing so.

being around for so long, I learned that it's much more fun to play the game when you don't feel the pressure to finish every level you reach, and just move on if you reach a place that is just not fun for you to play, for whatever reason.

17/05/16

text , text , text ... :)

as ive been around a while but not really created anything i can only really comment from a players point of view and i have to say i agree with scheu's points in general . ive noticed a drop off of players recently and a rise in the almost impossible type of level - and i have personally been getting disillusioned with the situation ( as discussed with teb a while back )

i understand peoples frustrations and would always advise trying to pm someone if your having trouble with a level , ive done this many times and most are happy to help ... this has led to many " why didnt i think of that ? " moments ...

i dont really know what the solution is to keep everyone happy , i dont really think there IS a solution to be honest apart from to just accept there are levels that you will never be able to complete and move on - speedy mcspeeder is a prime example for me , couldnt even do the 1st one !

all we can do to keep this thing going is encourage new players/creators when they start out and try and inject some fun back into the experience instead of frustration .

sorry my thoughts are not as eloquent as the rest !

17/05/16

> ive noticed a drop off of players recently and a rise in the almost impossible type of level - and i have personally been getting disillusioned with the situation ( as discussed with teb a while back )
As harsh as it may sound, that is to be expected given the current situation of the game. Since Scheuchevogel arrived he has published some nice levels but think just before he arrived, the game had like 5 players on average of which only a few were publishing levels regularly (including Eeveeiott and, to a lesser extent, me). So, what can you expect?!.

There are more hard levels published and more hard levels with low completions/perfections as a consequence of the game having a low player attachment ratio and NOT the other way around.

17/05/16

not disagreeing with you mostro , was just stating a fact ...

17/05/16

revisting this mostro and its a bit of a chicken and egg situation , which came first ? impossible levels or general drop off of players ?

personally i dont think its clear cut , i think the devs have done a really poor job of keeping this game alive , ive seen zero input from them in the last 6 months to the point where i dont even know who is in charge anymore ...then as said before top 10 players will make levels for top 10 players only and its a spiral down from there ...

17/05/16

Well, like I said, jus, I'm trying to change to accommodate.
But as for the impossible levels relation to low amount of players, I don't think it matters which happened first or which caused what, because the fact is that they BOTH caused each other. No matter which happened first, the amount of players lowers due to difficult levels and therefore the amount of difficult levels increases as the target seems to become the more hardcore players.

18/05/16

> which came first ? impossible levels or general drop off of players ?
The second, surely. I mean, blaming the hard levels is like turning a blind eye to the real problem, whatever it may be. The game never got that many players, it was always an average of 5 players with some occasional spikes in activity that never lasted. Besides, those spikes in activity had players that barely return so I'm pretty sure they can't get too far from 0e0 to reach some of the harder levels, even less to reach floors 17 and 18 that feature the hardest levels. The game simply can't hook new players.

Sadly, it has nothing to do with hard levels. In the world of indie games, some games succeed, most don't.

That said, despite how this thread sounds, the game is not dead yet; there's still a chance for it to get the attention of the right group of people. As long as the servers are up, there's still hope :P.

18/05/16

agreed mostro and eeveee , after all there are 800 + levels here that are totally do-able with even basic gaming skills so hard levels cant be blamed , and those 800 + levels have kept me hooked for a long time - i just cant understand why players seem to come in then quit so early and not come back , is it lack of promotion of the game or something else that's fundamentally wrong with the whole set up... ?

personally i think the level boundaries are too small , i would love to see larger maps that take up 8 of the current sized blocks so you have a real quest type of level that you have to work through ( obviously thats been done by scheu , eevee etc with the current size ) , but i think a more expansive size would work better for the art , creating worlds etc ...

ps , wasnt having a dig at you eevee , mostro - was just saying it how i see it from a players perspective :)

19/05/16

So much text, so little time...

Just reacting to a few things

@mostro:

> For starters, I think players who leave do so before running out of levels they can beat and surely way before reaching some of the hardest and/or more frustrating levels.

Nope, Many of them can be reached really really early. The ratio gets higher for me, but that doesn't mean I haven't encountered them and left frustrated before.

> there are a whole 800! levels new players can play.

Also no. Many of those would have been impossible with starter skills/knowledge.
And like I said, my skills are not the average ones. There are certainly players that couldn't even do those 800.

> Most of my levels let the player go directly to the shrine or at least continue to the next level.

Yeah, exactly. It's not like levels like the "The floor is lava ... or spikes" are blocking entire sections of the game for me. No, not at all.

> Giving hints about how to do some of the tricks I use would make some of my levels just too trivial to solve, effectively removing all challenge.

Another no. As you have experienced often even with hints it's still not trivial. (You gave hints to players who were in the levels, and they still pondered for quite a while.) The challenge is to come up with just the right grade of hint. Also, most of your levels are still quite a challenge even if you know the trick. I know you think otherwise, but I don't agree.

> That said, do you want to know what I think might be an issue? The fact that, starting from 0e0, soon you will find yourself with nowhere else to go. I think that might actually explain why players leave so fast. Go ahead, try it, without going back to the base floor, and tell me how many levels can you reach before finding yourself stuck. Maybe teleporting to the base floor is not so obvious for new players?.

I never considered that a problem. But if it was, we just needed a few early creators who have levels around 0e0 to put signs explaining the teleporting. But I don't think thats it. I have seen many new players around really far to East or West (in the new adventures of level 1), and still leaving afterwards.

And none of your points gives me a valid reason why there shouldn't be two difficulty levels then. Then you can have your challenge, and other players can still enjoy the level anyway.

@zubit:
My 100% mentality kinda doesn't let me see it that relaxed. XD

@jus:
Little to add there, I agree with many of your points.

• Edited on 19/05/16

19/05/16

> Yeah, exactly. It's not like levels like the "The floor is lava ... or spikes" are blocking entire sections of the game for me. No, not at all.
Except it isn't. You can enter "The Floor is Lava... or Spikes" from the top and go directly to the shrine. As for the blocked exit, it leads to Sensei Satan, which only entrance is from the west.

> And none of your points gives me a valid reason why there shouldn't be two difficulty levels then. Then you can have your challenge, and other players can still enjoy the level anyway.
Hmm... Removing all spikes, replacing all mook stepping with plain platforms? that would make the levels boring. Like, doing it in levels like "Enemy Mine" or "Out for a Walk" would make those levels just "walk, jump and pray", or doing it in "Madness" would be like "jump into the platform and there, you win"; that's pretty much the kind of levels that gets downvoted for lacking content. Although adding a hard mode option could be doable in some levels (not all) by locking the last shuriken like Eeveeiott did with hard mode in his levels.

I still think that it wouldn't help much in making players stay.

• Edited on 19/05/16

19/05/16

Yes, because my easy modes totally remove all spikes from the level, and not only selected ones. Now you are just playing dumb. >_>

19/05/16

I'm not. I have not the level making skills of people like you or Eeveeiott, so what might seem like an obvious level making choice for you is not so obvious for me.

22/05/16

Your skills are far better than you think. But if that wasn't clear:
An easy mode would surely not remove all spikes from a level. But for example for one difficult jump only one at target of the jump, so that less precision is required for the landing. Or in the caverns, you can for example give a little support by closing a bridge to create a platform which does not exist in hard mode.
Have a look at Kryllsylvania 2 in both modes, and compare. You will see that some changes look very subtle, but have actually a big impact on the gameplay.

23/05/16

Fair enough. This is a really good advise, will keep it in mind next time I build a level.