Descent 1 1/2

[Alter-Fox]

Supervisor is a good idea. I'll switch it to that.

As for the homing missile bots, two things. For one, Charon only uses them in one room, only has you fight them one or two at a time. The first one can easily be killed before it sees you and the last three don't need to be fought at all on any difficulty. I think there were only five or maybe six in all, looking at the editor you have more than that in Ceres.

On Charon they're meant to create an appearance of difficulty and heighten the psychological tension without actually being difficult. The only reason you might think there's more than six is because I made each one count, in your mind.
Play it again and you'll see. I stack the odds heavily in your favour while keeping them in very visible locations, and allow you to figure out ahead of time where they'll be.

For two, even if you do think level 10 is too late for their introduction, level 4 is still too early. Especially if you're trying to put them in spots that make them easier to deal with then all you get out of it is an appearance of raising the stakes before the player has really gotten deep enough into the mission to know what those stakes were. It may as well be a medium hulk.
If all you want from that introduction is to appear to raise the stakes, it makes the most sense to do that somewhere in between the first and second boss. I guarantee Charon will do that more elegantly than any other map that's been built for that interval so far, because it's the only one that was actually designed for it.
If you want me to retexture Charon and move it to a slot that would be better for that introduction, or tweak the number of 'guards, I'd be open to that.


When it comes to ambushing the player at the start, you just said yourself that it doesn't really add to the difficulty or present a unique challenge. The only possible thing you get out of it, then, is taking the player by surprise. But you do it too often in the early game and people are going to start to expect it. And then it will just annoy them because people like having the chance to get their bearings before they pick fights.

Lastly, if your idea for hornets on level 4 is to use them in the same map as the mini spiders, I strongly suggest either removing the secondary lifters from the level or saving that combination for a later, larger level. Cause what you've got is three enemies trying to fill one role on a fairly small map, to get a decent number of all of them you'll have to start sacrificing the other roles which could be making the combat more engaging.

[Xfing]

As for the homing missile bots, two things. For one, Charon only uses them in one room, only has you fight them one or two at a time. The first one can easily be killed before it sees you and the last three don't need to be fought at all on any difficulty. I think there were only five or maybe six in all, looking at the editor you have more than that in Ceres.

Yeah. They felt just right to include though, for some reason. The two in the yellow area are harmless thanks to the distance they're at, and the one in the middle hub is easy to maneuver against. They could all be swapped out for medium hulks for all i care, though.

On Charon they're meant to create an appearance of difficulty and heighten the psychological tension without actually being difficult. The only reason you might think there's more than six is because I made each one count, in your mind.

I could argue the same's true for Ceres due to their placements. But I suppose one less green robot type wouldn't hurt all that much after all.

For two, even if you do think level 10 is too late for their introduction, level 4 is still too early. Especially if you're trying to put them in spots that make them easier to deal with then all you get out of it is an appearance of raising the stakes before the player has really gotten deep enough into the mission to know what those stakes were. It may as well be a medium hulk.

Yeah, it may as well be one.

If all you want from that introduction is to appear to raise the stakes, it makes the most sense to do that somewhere in between the first and second boss. I guarantee Charon will do that more elegantly than any other map that's been built for that interval so far, because it's the only one that was actually designed for it.
If you want me to retexture Charon and move it to a slot that would be better for that introduction, or tweak the number of 'guards, I'd be open to that.

Not necessary, it's ok the way it is.

When it comes to ambushing the player at the start, you just said yourself that it doesn't really add to the difficulty or present a unique challenge. The only possible thing you get out of it, then, is taking the player by surprise. But you do it too often in the early game and people are going to start to expect it. And then it will just annoy them because people like having the chance to get their bearings before they pick fights.

Doing that literally once in 5 levels neither is a lot, nor sets any sort of pattern to be expected. Just change that small hulk in level 5 to a supervisor and we're good.

Lastly, if your idea for hornets on level 4 is to use them in the same map as the mini spiders, I strongly suggest either removing the secondary lifters from the level or saving that combination for a later, larger level. Cause what you've got is three enemies trying to fill one role on a fairly small map, to get a decent number of all of them you'll have to start sacrificing the other roles which could be making the combat more engaging.

I don't feel the hornet and the spiderling fill even remotely the same role as the advanced lifter at all. Just because they all fire red lasers is not enough to postulate that they do. The former two are supposed to be "annoyers", while the latter is a full-sized robot meant to be a crafty threat in its own right. I believe there is room to put some more hornets in the map without sacrificing anything - we could even put 5 or 6 in the place of the red hulk in the reactor area or something.

D1 proves that even 1 single robot of a given kind can be enough to leave a memorable mark on the level, like the sole super hulk in level 5 for example. In this Martian level I'd say that the Smelter II is such a robot - there are only like 4 of them, but you're guaranteed to >feel< each and every one of them.

For that reason I feel it's OK to only have a marginal number of hornets in the level - they'll still be noticed. One Vertigo level used a mixed swarm of hornets and spawn, and we'll definitely be doing spiderling/spawn/hornet combos in some later levels down the line. Here spiderlings only come out of destroyed spiders anyway, so I think it's OK to have some pre-placed and matcen-spawned hornets as counterparts to them. They're pretty much re-modeled versions of each other anyway.

Would be nice if someone else chimed in on this too.

[Alter-Fox]

Yeah the smelter IIs are well done. I'll try to place hornets in the level with some care then.
Played level 5 -- besides the lou guards level 5's population is actually pretty good -- the large amount of backtracking is enough to ensure the player gets a little breathing room and doesn't just end up exhausted and holding down the fire button all level. And the introduction of Diamond Claw is very well done.
My only minor complaint is the number of enemies in the boss room -- it can be a little bit hard to move around and follow the boss once it starts spawning enemies as well. The number of invulns and cloaks means you're in no real danger, though, so I don't think it really needs to be changed.

When I mentioned attacks at the start I was talking about both level 3 and level 5. If these are the only levels of the pack people will get to play for a little while two out five is still fairly frequent.

Oh BTW, don't set robots to Static. That's a D2X-XL property that's the same as "Normal" as far as Rebirth is concerned but in D2X-XL it actually turns off their AI. It was introduced for Pumo so that he could include destructible storage boxes in Pumo Mines. Basically, it doesn't do what you want it to do.
Uploading a new version of the rebalanced hog with robot adjustments on all five levels. No midis or oggs in there yet. I moved all the hornets on level 4 to different locations (the room where they had been was too easy to miss), and added some to the reactor area as you suggested. I haven't had much time to test it yet so go ahead if you want. And let me know if I missed any robot types (besides the Lou Guards and Red Hulks), I did my best to make sure they were all still there but there's always the possibility of making a mistake.

[AlexanderBorisov]

Could you please share the link to the demo again, or pin it somewhere? Probably it is in some 3x or 4x page of the topic, but it gets too hard to find... Would also like to test the level 5.

[Xfing]

Could you please share the link to the demo again, or pin it somewhere? Probably it is in some 3x or 4x page of the topic, but it gets too hard to find... Would also like to test the level 5.

It's in the OP, at the bottom

[Xfing]

Yeah the smelter IIs are well done. I'll try to place hornets in the level with some care then.
Played level 5 -- besides the lou guards level 5's population is actually pretty good -- the large amount of backtracking is enough to ensure the player gets a little breathing room and doesn't just end up exhausted and holding down the fire button all level. And the introduction of Diamond Claw is very well done.
My only minor complaint is the number of enemies in the boss room -- it can be a little bit hard to move around and follow the boss once it starts spawning enemies as well. The number of invulns and cloaks means you're in no real danger, though, so I don't think it really needs to be changed.

When I mentioned attacks at the start I was talking about both level 3 and level 5. If these are the only levels of the pack people will get to play for a little while two out five is still fairly frequent.

Oh BTW, don't set robots to Static. That's a D2X-XL property that's the same as "Normal" as far as Rebirth is concerned but in D2X-XL it actually turns off their AI. It was introduced for Pumo so that he could include destructible storage boxes in Pumo Mines. Basically, it doesn't do what you want it to do.
Uploading a new version of the rebalanced hog with robot adjustments on all five levels. No midis or oggs in there yet. I moved all the hornets on level 4 to different locations (the room where they had been was too easy to miss), and added some to the reactor area as you suggested. I haven't had much time to test it yet so go ahead if you want. And let me know if I missed any robot types (besides the Lou Guards and Red Hulks), I did my best to make sure they were all still there but there's always the possibility of making a mistake.

Thanks for all that!

Whenever I take a longer break from mapping or populating, I forget what the different AI settings do. If I chose Static, I probably meant Still. Or vice versa. A robot that doesn't move around much, but stays in the same spot, kind of like a turret. That's what I was aiming for

EDIT: The mission name you chose in the MN2 file is probably too long, or something is otherwise wrong with it, as my Rebirth doesn't see it at all I wonder why that could be.

[TRUEpiiiicness]

Which AI setting would people recommend for the omega? Normal just makes it go random places and Still makes it not move unless you shoot it. Would station make it move towards you on sight only?

(Probably belongs in a different topic, but I saw the conversation about AI.)

[Xfing]

Which AI setting would people recommend for the omega? Normal just makes it go random places and Still makes it not move unless you shoot it. Would station make it move towards you on sight only?

(Probably belongs in a different topic, but I saw the conversation about AI.)

Maybe examine actual Descent 2 in a level editor and see what they put there? I never had problems with the behavior of the Omegas in the game.

[Alter-Fox]

Oh, rename the hog and mn2 to d15rebal. They're probably over 8 characters.
Silly beast didn't think of that, did he?

[LightWolf]

Rebirth kicked that limitation a while back.
The mission was specified as "anarchy" in the MN2 however.

[Xfing]

Oh, rename the hog and mn2 to d15rebal. They're probably over 8 characters.
Silly beast didn't think of that, did he?

Sure, I'll check it out after work. I was able to take a glimpse inside the level editor though, and I definitely did like what I saw. Once I get fully familiar, I'd be happy to replace the master file with this version.

So, what was wrong with the Static AI again? If memory serves, it was Still that had the robot do practically nothing, while Static did work. Station had the robot usually stick to a post, but move away from it on occasion for substantial distances pursuing the player or something.

[Alter-Fox]

Static doesn't mean anything to any Descent version except D2X-XL (it's the same as normal).
In D2X-XL it turns off the robot's AI entirely. It's there so Pumo can make D3-style crates and boxes in Pumo Mines.

[Xfing]

So "still" it is.

Ok, I've played through the new version of the demo, and it's good. Putting it up on Dropbox under the normal name (d15demo.hog and .mn2). I've made some minor changes:
- Changed the powerup drop for cloaked lifters to a 50% chance of dropping shield boosts rather than cloaks. I want the player to rely on static cloaks in that level (or cloak, if there's only one). Same thing was done in D1L4, the cloaked lifters in that level never drop cloaks.
- Fixed concussion missiles fading into a wall in level 4
- Fixed a small texture misalignment in level 4

Otherwise it was quite pleasant to play this demo. Guess I'll just keep adding subsequent levels onto the main HOG file and developing it from there. Level 6 is ready as far as the geometry goes, so we can easily start working on it.

Oh, and while this wasn't that important thus far - it will become more so in later, more difficult levels: balance testing should be done under the altered HAM. Not only does it change player weapons, but also brings back those pesky, powerful robot missiles and alters the bosses.

[Alter-Fox]

Yeah, I agree.
You know you don't need to change cloaked lifters drops in the HXM, just set each one to drop an energy boost (which is what D1 level 4 did).

[Xfing]

Yeah, I agree.
You know you don't need to change cloaked lifters drops in the HXM, just set each one to drop an energy boost (which is what D1 level 4 did).

Yeah, I thought I changed that individually, but it affected all of them then. I must have forgotten how to edit individual ones.

I've also edited Eris a little bit, added more eye candy here and there. Made a bit of mess in the meantime, had to clean up after myself but it's alright now.

[LightWolf]

Should mention that level 5 (and possibly others; haven't checked) is called "(Untitled)".

[AlexanderBorisov]

Could you please share the link to the demo again, or pin it somewhere? Probably it is in some 3x or 4x page of the topic, but it gets too hard to find... Would also like to test the level 5.

It's in the OP, at the bottom

Tried to guess what OP means; no luck Probably P is page but here I came to a stop ... So found the old demo link around page 30 of the thread, and after several attempts foung the hog which contains 5 levels; not sure if it was the right one as the fifth was not added to the mission file. Well opened it in DLE and added as the first level and played it Insane cold start. What can I say? A very beatiful level, I am becoming a fan of those D1 textures. Especially I liked that it was not TOTALLY green, this icy area with hostages, and some others, few "lakes" around... Very impressive! The green robot cast did very well. Although I'd add some class 2 drones (blue from D1) in some areas, probably... Flash modulas can be introduced very soon, I believe, you also could have some in this level. Both Lou Guard and Diamond Claw introduced very well, with a massive fight centered around them... I mean that area before the red key, and after the red door of course. Level has a ton of secrets, literally every wall is a secret, on one hand it is cool but it should not become a rule.

Item and weapon balance is good, but why don't you give the quad laser for the boss? Should be natural thing to do, probably I just haven't found it... Although I probably played with standard spreadfire and not the buffed up version. For the boss you probably should give just 3 powerups (like 2 cloaks and one invulnerability), you need like 3 attacks with spreadfire and missiles to take it down. At least 1 invuln and 1 cloak are redundant near the boss room - as well as 2 cloaks in the level which don't have obvious usage. The difficulty - it took me a few attempts (like 5) to beat it no save, unfortunately boss glitched by not teleporting again, but don't think it makes a lot of difference. The level has nice amount of roaming and does not become too predictable. I'd say it is appropriately hard for it's role, although this room with 4 lou guards... Very random and risky, those at the distance usually hide when you try to snipe them and attack from the corner, and there is no room to dodge and you don't even have the afterburner... The second two also are very unpredictable. Well for me it is ok (you can take them down with Vulcan and homers if you have very fast reaction and dodging skills), but could be too hard for some... The first Lou guard around the blue key is also quite dangerous at times, could block your way through the grated catwalk.

But I still think you could use more medium hulks in this level (maybe even cloaked ones?), and probably some other types occasionally (ITSCs? Canary? Maybe Plasma Driller?), too many rooms with PEST, small hulks and fervids, a bit more variation could be better. Still it's your decision, level population is almost perfect anyway.

[TRUEpiiiicness]

OP probably means Original Post

[Xfing]

Tried to guess what OP means; no luck

Yeah, it's the original post. The link to the current version is linked to near the bottom of the post. But since you liked the version that you found, this updated one you'll probably find too easy. I believe Fox added yet another invulnerability that wasn't there in the initial version, making the boss pretty much harmless. But that's quite consistent with what we're going for here, so it's OK.

Quads are not coming until after the boss. With such a huge number of levels, new weapon introductions have to be spread out thin. Also, there's an "only D1 weapons for the Solar System" policy, which is made even stricter by the fact that Fusion and Megas are most likely not coming, due to them being top-tier weapons in their own right. So yeah, making do with limited armament is the name of the game, at least for the Solar System portion. The D1 Spreadfire and stronger lasers ought to make things easier though.

[TRUEpiiiicness]

I don't think I've ever seen a boss fight without quads in any mission set. (Maybe revenge of dravis lvl 4 but I don't remember.) So this is a nice change imo.

[Xfing]

I don't think I've ever seen a boss fight without quads in any mission set. (Maybe revenge of dravis lvl 4 but I don't remember.) So this is a nice change imo.

The boss after the rebalance will also quite likely start out with even less HP than it had in the vanilla HAM.

This fight is where you let Spreadfire shine, plain and simple. It's a painfully under-appreciated weapon, but in D1 it really held its own thanks to the projectile speed. Which has been brought back in the balance tweaks, so yeah

[Alter-Fox]

Hmm, nope I didn't add any extra invulns. Barely changed anything in the boss room at all apart from adding a (empty) supervisor mech for flavour.
May have taken out a couple of medium lifters because combined with the diamond claws the boss would spawn there were enough of them to make it difficult to move around the room either to focus fire on the boss or reach the exit afterwards -- and that exit run is a fairly long one as it is.

[Xfing]

Ok. I've managed to get Haxmed32 running again after the system swap (needed to install the dll pack), and made one edit to the altered game HAM - ensuring that the thief bot only has the same amount of hp in level 19 as he does in level 1 in vanilla, as he'll be introduced outside the Solar System. This unfortunately makes the HAM even more specialized and less suitable for playing other missions, but oh well

[Alter-Fox]

Haha, that's a good catch.
But are you sure you might not want it a little bit lower, since between there and the end of the mission there's still half again as many non-secret levels as D2 had. Making thief a little more difficult by the end is understandable, but with 15 levels past the regular 21 (D2 had no thief past level 21) it might end up closer to unkillable.
Plus (unless I'm mistaken) we're not giving players gauss or helix until a fair ways into the Descent 2 section of the campaign, which is going to make the early thieves a lot harder than they were in D2.

It's up to you-- I doubt any of this is an absolute game-breaker. I'm just pointing out factors.

[AlexanderBorisov]

Could not find it in the original post because the link is hidden under the word "here", that is of the same color as surrounding text... Not hard to find if you know exactly where it is, like some of the Descent secrets

Too bad the levels keep getting easier, level 4 was already quite hard in D2 CS, you didn't even had powerups to beat the boss (except in secret level, of course), I think D1.5 levels 4 and 5 even in original "hard" form, were easier than D2 levels 3 and 4. Especially due to tons of Vulcan ammo it gives. And Spreadfire is also quite good weapon in this map. Introducing Lou guards in first boss level seemed very logical like it was done in D2 or Maximum; without it level 5 was definitely easier than the second one. Even Descent Maximum bumped up the difficulty a bit on level 4! Also, easy boss fight is not too satisfying - one can surely beat this Red Fatty with one cloak and one invuln even with old Spreadfire, having one extra cloak (well hidden) can be still a good thing to do, and it would be too much to cut the boss HP, increase your weapon power, and give 2x more powerups than you need to beat it.
Same as play the level on Trainee IMO...

To me it's ok to have 2-3 starting levels relatively easy, but few will have the patience to get to more challenging levels - if you will have 7or 10 super easy levels, continued by just easy ones, it will induce monotony, especially if there will be no real difficulty spikes... To me #1 thing is gameplay - even in the most beatiful level, I mean challenging gameplay - not necessarily mazochistic - and equalizing the beginning of the mission to "baby difficulty" is, IMO, not right way to go. Especially making it so much easier than all other good mission sets. Probably it is better to make "baby difficulty" and "normal" version of the mission? I would not insist on "super hard" version, even CS has some places when difficulty can be reduced without losing anything. I can understand the idea that one wants to fly through the level just looking at the design and atmosphere without being absorbed by fighting, but IMO they should just play on Trainee for that, no need to make the mission easier. How one can create any tension or pacing by making everything easy? One does it by making hard parts harder and easy parts easier. One can say you have 45 levels ahead to make it diffucult but most people judge the mission by a number of starting levels (including me).

[Xfing]

Haha, that's a good catch.
But are you sure you might not want it a little bit lower, since between there and the end of the mission there's still half again as many non-secret levels as D2 had. Making thief a little more difficult by the end is understandable, but with 15 levels past the regular 21 (D2 had no thief past level 21) it might end up closer to unkillable.
Plus (unless I'm mistaken) we're not giving players gauss or helix until a fair ways into the Descent 2 section of the campaign, which is going to make the early thieves a lot harder than they were in D2.

It's up to you-- I doubt any of this is an absolute game-breaker. I'm just pointing out factors.

Sirius calculated this and said that the thief would be gaining in strength at a slower pace than he did in vanilla, because he starts out with 138 HP now, as opposed to 450. This'll have im in fact marginally weaker in level 19 than in vanilla, as he'd have to be closer to 138,6 to scale perfectly to 450 at level 19. Still, he'll be getting stronger at a slower pace, so I assume smart mine traps and ambushes will still work late into the game.

[Xfing]

Could not find it in the original post because the link is hidden under the word "here", that is of the same color as surrounding text... Not hard to find if you know exactly where it is, like some of the Descent secrets

Too bad the levels keep getting easier, level 4 was already quite hard in D2 CS, you didn't even had powerups to beat the boss (except in secret level, of course), I think D1.5 levels 4 and 5 even in original "hard" form, were easier than D2 levels 3 and 4. Especially due to tons of Vulcan ammo it gives. And Spreadfire is also quite good weapon in this map. Introducing Lou guards in first boss level seemed very logical like it was done in D2 or Maximum; without it level 5 was definitely easier than the second one. Even Descent Maximum bumped up the difficulty a bit on level 4! Also, easy boss fight is not too satisfying - one can surely beat this Red Fatty with one cloak and one invuln even with old Spreadfire, having one extra cloak (well hidden) can be still a good thing to do, and it would be too much to cut the boss HP, increase your weapon power, and give 2x more powerups than you need to beat it.
Same as play the level on Trainee IMO...

That's why my first intuition was to make the levels as hard as I did - I also enjoyed the challenge of them then. For someone who played the game solely on trainee for at least 10 years, I surely learned to appreciate the feeling of conquering a diffuclt level on Insane. That way your whole experience feels much more earned. But I'd say there's still difficulty to be had here, even after the nerfs - quite possibly more of it than there was in D1. It's unfair to compare a 54 level set to a 24 level one and expect that level 3 here should at least be on par with level 3 there, especially since level 3 of D2 was seriously hard and my first wall when playing the game.

To me it's ok to have 2-3 starting levels relatively easy, but few will have the patience to get to more challenging levels - if you will have 7or 10 super easy levels, continued by just easy ones, it will induce monotony, especially if there will be no real difficulty spikes... To me #1 thing is gameplay - even in the most beatiful level, I mean challenging gameplay - not necessarily mazochistic - and equalizing the beginning of the mission to "baby difficulty" is, IMO, not right way to go. Especially making it so much easier than all other good mission sets. Probably it is better to make "baby difficulty" and "normal" version of the mission? I would not insist on "super hard" version, even CS has some places when difficulty can be reduced without losing anything. I can understand the idea that one wants to fly through the level just looking at the design and atmosphere without being absorbed by fighting, but IMO they should just play on Trainee for that, no need to make the mission easier. How one can create any tension or pacing by making everything easy? One does it by making hard parts harder and easy parts easier. One can say you have 45 levels ahead to make it diffucult but most people judge the mission by a number of starting levels (including me).

It was never my idea in the first place to make this deliberately easy so that you can be immersed in the atmosphere. Combat is part of the atmosphere too, not just exploration. I think the difficulty of these levels is acceptable - level 6 can and will be a significant spike, after which things will level off for a while again and keep picking up slowly again. I expect there to be drillers and super hulks by the end of the Solar System.

[Alter-Fox]

Yep, the curve is a bit more gradual but it is still there.
And it's worth pointing out that by the time I did level 4 and 5 I was barely making any nerfs at all, just moving certain encounters to different places on the map where I thought they would create a better atmosphere. In fact I'm fairly sure I made the end of level 4 harder, not easier.

So 2-3 easier levels is, in one sense, exactly what I was creating. Lou Guards on level 5 weren't exactly much harder than medium hulks where they were placed, that's the reason they got changed.
The aim wasn't to reduce the difficulty so much as create difficulty curves within the levels. Much less boring than difficulty straight lines. Holding off on certain of the lavels enemy types until farther into the map is a good way to create interesting challenges too-- and keys are a good way to control that.
And I agree with X that a difficulty spike on level 6 is exactly what's needed.

[AlexanderBorisov]

Well I played L4 and 5 again in the new version, and I'd say both were almost trivialized by those nerfs. And I see downwards difficulty curve from L4 to L5. And as far as I remember levels 2 and 3 were harder than L4 too (at least they featured more dangerous robots like ITDs and ITSC's), don't know how it is after the nerfs. With L5 being much easier now, a shield feeder if you don't make gross mistakes. All robots have small damage, tons of Vulcan ammo (which in general makes D1.5 levels much easier compared to D1 - as Vulcan stuns enemies in D2 - also D1 wasn't too generous with Vulkcan ammo), medium hulks are placed at the distance so you can see them and snipe from afar in all cases. Removing Lou guards indeed eliminated the "thrill" from the level 5, as those rooms with lou guards were the only "difficult" spots. Adding supervisor in the boss room is not a good idea, with bad luck it can turn everything into snipe mode - as it is D2 not D1, it is not a good kind of difficulty IMO. At least very questionable choice. In my case it created zero problems but I don''t know how it will work with less experienced players not knowing about the feature. Hope supervisor can not turn the boss into snipe mode, at least.

If one compares to D1, level 3 in D1 was not very kind to the player either (drones behind every corner, dangerous matcens, hard to get to energy center - of course for person who does not play this level regularly), and it was quite big. L5 in D1 already had a number of red hulks IIRC. As well as L4. Anyway, levels that are already easy on blind or semi-blind play will have zero replay value, and I don't want it to happen.

L4 in new version also removed nearly all challenging spots, for example the beginning, 4 hornets in the room near the start, 2 advanced lifeter beyound the blue door etc), hornets behind the yellow door was the only addition that can increase difficulty, but in fact you don't have the room to fight them and it becomes mostly luck test. Alter-Fox, you probably did not thought that on high difficulty (ace, insane) they roam a lot, and you nearly always need to fight them from one of yellow door corridors. Still I like the old variant of red key room population more. Despite it being slightly easier.

Reactor room - you don't even need to enter it, just snipe the reactor from entrance. Anyway I cleared it just as a test - now you don't even need a cloak, it became MUCH easier. Just kill medium hulk and Smelter 2 with homers from the corner, enter and back off, and destroying those hornets is trivial. Probably this robot placement suggests that player will run blindly into reactor room, but most will NEVER do it. I also saw a lot of this in other missions, even good ones, authors contantly forget that reactor can be sniped from afar or from behind the corner that render all reactor room traps useless.

Idea that medium hulks compensate the difficulty of removed Lou guards and Super Hulks - no, it does not work this way. Completely wrong. At least on high difficulty and if player is not suicidal. Medium hulks are very fragile and very slow compared to Lou guards, at long distance completely harmless, homing missiles on Ace and especially Insane are completely different thing than concussion.

If i'd try to make L4 easier in a good way I'd start with matcens, first one on the road to blue key is ok in general, but if you activate the upwards trigger before taking the key, you need to return to the energy center and repeat clearing it from the beginning - quite annoying (so i'd make it one-shot). Those matcens around the red key have very illogical triggers and you can easily get stuck around the red key without being able to get out. Literally, way upwards blocked by robot bodies and if you try to fight them you trigger the matcens again.... Probably move the triggers or make exit from the key room trigger one-shot (probably, all other triggers for those matcens too), yes I know one can completely avoid the trigger on return but it is hard to find.

About difficulty spike on L6, it is not in the demo so people including me will not see it for very long time... And there will be some who will just play 5 levels, decide it is too easy and put it off (that is what happened with me when I played Descent Maximum).
If you think I am too biased towards difficult gameplay you can get more input from other experienced players on that mission about pacing, robot placement and the difficulty. Anyway relative difficulty of robots, their groups and placement changes dramatically with skill level (at least Ace and Insane), it's a fact and so final placement should ideally be done by one whocan play it on Insane difficulty himself. Also it changes a lot with play style - what is ok for play with saves is not ok for no save no death play. Otherwise you will plan increasing difficulty curve but get the decreasing one for other players...

[Alter-Fox]

I play the game on Ace normally and sometimes insane, believe me I think about it.
If you have suggestions beyond "put it back to what it was" we'll at least listen to them, but keep in mind that a flat difficulty curve is not interesting to play however challenging it might be, and will only make players tired.
I know this because when I played the demo the first time I gave up before I reached level 4, not because it was hard, but because it wasn't fun to just hold the fire button from game start to game end.

I'll take another test of the maps tomorrow and see if I can fine-tune some of this, but I do think the goal in the early levels is to find the fun, and in this game also to find the fear.
The first few levels of a mission should focus on interesing challenges instead of punishing ones, because later levels are going to have much less room to play around as the challenge ramps up.

It's not as if D1 and D2 didn't have any unfair moments in the early game, and it's not as if the difficulty curves level-to-level were a completely flat slope in either game. But I also think relying too heavily on examples of what came before is a bad idea because you wind up making the same mistakes as well.

And I completely disagree with you on replay value. The challenge may be the only thing in the world that appeals to you, but many of us players find our fun in more than one place.
Myself I love a level that gives me room to toy with enemies before I kill them, and I'll play a level like that over and over again.

[Alter-Fox]

Part of the problem, I think, is that the two of us have completely different ideas on what is a "good" level. You see a space and see all the most effective potential challenges that could be in there -- if the space isn't used that way then it may as well not be there.
I see the map itself as a stage in the theatrical sense, a place where I can create moments that can excite, scare, wow or even infuriate the player and some space as necessary downtime between them so that those individual challenges will stand out in the mind and, if I'm really lucky, maybe even be remembered.

Xfing, being the wonderful manager he is, sees the value in both ideas and how they both have a place in a good mission design, and welcomes lively debate. Honestly I wish he was my boss IRL. He just sometimes gets a little bit excited by new ideas.

The debate is what will make this mission great, and I agree with you that we need to focus-group the demo with community members of different skill levels before we go on. That's what I'm trying to help prepare it for and rest assured I'm not nearly done.
That being said, while I agree the game should be balanced by players who know insane, it should not be entirely balanced by the best of the best, which you are. Because if we take the single best player of a game and build the game to that player's comfort zone, then that player is the only one who will be capable of understanding it.

[Xfing]

About difficulty spike on L6, it is not in the demo so people including me will not see it for very long time... And there will be some who will just play 5 levels, decide it is too easy and put it off (that is what happened with me when I played Descent Maximum).

For the record - the demo is not going up to DMDB, nor is it going to stay as it is right until the release of the real thing. The HOG will serve as a basis for adding subsequent missions as we go. It's only called a demo because in its current form, it can pretty much serve as one. Of course we can keep a separate, 5-level variation as a showpiece - though to be fair, a 15-level demo featuring 5 Counterstrike and 5 Vertigo levels in addition to 5 randomly selected rather than consecutive Solar System level would give people a much better overall idea of what to expect from the mission. The creation of one such HOG would probably be warranted, but personally I'm just content to keep working with consecutive levels to maintain better control of the progression.

Regarding this whole difficulty discussion - I'm beginning to think a good compromise between atmosphere and difficulty would be to follow D1's route - empty areas a lot of the time, providing the sense of foreboding and seclusion, with difficult encounters interspersed in between. This is not always achievable with any given geometry and if not built for in advance, but there's still room to take this into account when populating. What are the most atmospheric levels of D1? I'd say Secret levels 1 and 2. Nothing from D2 comes close to matching those, that's for sure. And why is that? Many areas in these levels are plain empty. There are no robots in the entire hallway leading to the exit, none in the main hallway leading to the huge red door chamber - then there's of course the chamber itself. Darkness really serves to create an amazing atmosphere here. And what about S2? You can see the packs of drillers in the distance, with their spikes the only thing flashing brightly in the darkness. You see three of these, in idle distance, realizing full well that closer up they could totally rip you to shreds before you could even lift a finger. They're there, and yet you're safe, as you're far enough away. A similar action was taken in level 21, immediately preceding the secret one, but it was not as atmospheric due to brighter lighting. And it's actions like this that can make you stand in awe of your enemies and appreciate every small advantage you have. Counterstrike, while its geometry was prettier and more elaborate, rarely if ever bothered itself with such details, unfortunately - it did have an atmosphere of its own, though (much different from D1's though it was).

Not to say here that bright lights can't be good - for example the nicely lit level 1 made a huge impression on me when I was a kid, creating an unique atmosphere matched by few things since. The bright gray walls, the white lablike sections - this only made me imagine even more lablike lunar locations and evoked the best kind of retro nostalgia. This time, it had very little to do with the level's difficulty - so like Fox suggested, there is more than one way to make a mission enjoyable - it would definitely be optimal to borrow from all of them.

I do think the current form of the five levels is a wee bit too easy, and I did enjoy the somewhat punishing, yet stimulating difficulty of the previous variations of levels 2, 3 and 4. I would die, or almost die, but I still felt like I had to work for beating the levels. To be fair- I did have a rather prolonged and stressful firefight in the new version of level 5 in the chamber to the right of the starting area, which did feel invigorating.

I would leave at least level 1 precisely as it is now (though I might be inclined to add a little bit more eye candy to it, to improve its presentation, but that's another issue).

[Alter-Fox]

Regarding this whole difficulty discussion - I'm beginning to think a good compromise between atmosphere and difficulty would be to follow D1's route - empty areas a lot of the time, providing the sense of foreboding and seclusion, with difficult encounters interspersed in between. This is not always achievable with any given geometry and if not built for in advance, but there's still room to take this into account when populating.

This is kind of what I mean when I say not making a difficulty curve that's a flat line. 'Cause a flat line has no heartbeat and no life.
D2 worked this into their design in only a slightly different way, you had a near-constant stream of small enemies unless you were backtracking (and sometimes even then) but the really difficult encounters were still deliberately placed, spaced out, and often used more effectively than D1's in the mid to late game -- because at that point in D1 every encounter was already punishing in some way. Like, look at what happens after you pick up the red key in level 15, when you're going for the reactor in level 17, or just on your way to the blue key in level 21. Really gives you the sense that the mine itself might be alive and pulling out all the stops to try and get rid of you as you get closer and closer to destroying it.
D2 did have some levels where the difficulty was high all the way through (8, 10, 18, 22, 21 at least until all the boars get packed into their sheds, hehe) but those were far-between enough you get the sense that was also deliberate, and the next level almost always gives you a breather.

My points are two; first, that you don't need completely empty space for downtime between challenges, just mindfulness that some fights need to be easier than others, even into the late game. And second, that there are multiple ways to create an effective map and we have room for plenty of them later on in the game; as you said we don't need to try and shove them all into the first five levels.


I've been on this DBB a long time, and I think what Alex may not realize is that no other player has taken insane cold starts for the challenge nearly as far as he takes them for fun on a regular basis. When I say he is the best, at least at the singleplayer game (and among people who talk about it online), I am not exaggerating. I'd say he's better at this game than anyone else by a fairly wide margin too.
So while I would never call his advice bad, I definitely mean what I said when I said that if we take his perspective and nobody else's, we're going to end up with a game that only one person can understand. We need to open this up to more people before we go farther than the five level demo.

[AlexanderBorisov]

I've been on this DBB a long time, and I think what Alex may not realize is that no other player has taken insane cold starts for the challenge nearly as far as he takes them for fun on a regular basis. When I say he is the best, at least at the singleplayer game (and among people who talk about it online), I am not exaggerating. I'd say he's better at this game than anyone else by a fairly wide margin too.
So while I would never call his advice bad, I definitely mean what I said when I said that if we take his perspective and nobody else's, we're going to end up with a game that only one person can understand. We need to open this up to more people before we go farther than the five level demo.

I still think I am far from being the best one when singleplayer is concerned (of course MP too, I only played once for fun); I think Sirius is much better, Marvin of course is absolutely stunning with his speedruns (although it is D1), Calmarius did great runs and was more serious than me in the matter of Insane cold starts, think there are some other great players here but some don't record it probably. Anyway, I am not insisting on making beginning D1.5 harder than beginning of D1 and D2 in general; but there is no point in making it significantly easier, too. Of course I would like to see more challenge as the mission progresses, to become on-par with other missions I played at some point -or even better in challenge aspect - but probably it can be achieved by other means than those do. But this is far away future, we are now discussing the beginning and it should not be harder than L1-4 of D2 and probably a bit easier as it is only D1 part. Probably smth in between D1 and D2 as the mission name suggests... Hope we all agree on this. Also I don't ignore the level's aesthetics and see only fighting space in every map, and also want it to be better than challenging but often very generic D2 CS levels. However some of them like 7, 10, 16 and 21-24 still have the vibe IMO. Not perfect in every part but memorable for the whole concept including texturing and geometry. In D1 24,25 were very good examples of concept levels that I liked a lot. Even though 25 was quite easy.

Xfing's initial population was quite right in the difficulty aspect IMO; as well as selected robot types. There were some problems also. I do fully agree that you should not have too much of the same in any level - which happened in level 2 - although general difficulty and placement was ok. In this case, yes, one should keep some meaningful encounters (especially in key areas - I still believe getting each key should be an achievement and have at least one memorable fight) - and drop some others which only distract and annoy the player. In other words, I agree that in level 2 and possible 3 one has to free some areas, but without reducing the difficulty too much. Unfortunately I did not tested rebalanced levels 1-3 so it is hard to elaborate, I will just focus on 4 and 5 now. And on the issue of holding the fire button from the beginning of the level to the end until your hands and brain gets numb. If you want I will look on the starting levels once more.

First of all, making enemies more sparse to some extent should be done in L2,3, relatively to initial population. Anyway key points that contain relatively dangerous bots (ITSC, ITD, Canary) should be kept, maybe key areas reinforced a bit as you remove opposition from the remaining part.
Thats true, it is good to have some empty (or nearly empty) corridors and enemies that frighten you from afar, just not make it a rule.

L4. I think that being a Martian level, and a very compact one, tense atmospere with "finger on the trigger" is ok for this map. You don't have much to look at, anyway, unlike levels 2,3 and 5. Initial population worked rather well, the level was not harder than the previous one, the things I would change is make matcens near the red key one-shot (unless Xfing insists it should be a deliberate death trap). Removing the 4 hornets, some robots at the beginning, one at the energy center, and two advanced lifters at yellow key are the changes that I don't like. I'd probably add some resistance in yellow key area - that medium hulk is completely harmless, you blow it up with lava, 2 drones guarding the key? Probably should be spiders or Smelters, probably one snipe mode, you can blow it by lava anyway. It is better to do smth a bit harder near the yellow key than this red key infinite matcens trap. I'd find more satisfying to have one shot matcens there and clear the whole red key area, then just run away from it with a high chance of being blocked. Area behind the red door lacks tension compared to yellow and blue key areas. The reactor room also, old population at least justified having a cloak but I'd prefer forcing the player to enter and clear the reactor room in order to open the reactor - so he would have the real need to use the cloak. Smth like making a fly through trigger in a far away part of the reactor room, or having a shootable trigger in the corner, that cannot be seen from the entrance

L5. I found that we have a bit too much similar mosquito fights (energy center, blue key, area to the right of the start where Alter Fox added the supervisor. The later was a good idea; improved this one particular area a lot - although one should check how often the supervisor will make those mechs snipe mode - in my only run I was lucky and just circled at the entrance with fire button pressed until everything was dead.
This level was significantly easier than L2-L4 except one dangerous area with Lou guards around the red key. Removing it made the level nearly empty for me. The boss fight was not very satisfying, on any difficulty up to Ace one invulnerability is enough to kill it easily, one additional cloak (but not in the boss room, it is too obvious a place) is ok for those who play on Insane, and probably one more to aid in clearing the boss room. In fact it took me one cloak and invuln taken at the same moment to kill the boss on 1-st attempt on Insane... And invulnerability elapsed right when the boss was done. Probably one should restore the Lou guards but arrange things in a way that one cloak could be used to take care of at least 2 of them on the way to the red key, also medium hulks can be added around blue and yellow keys (later is real mosquito fight, there should be smth more substantial guarding the key; blue key area - you can snipe all enemies from the doors, if one will add one or two medium hulks shooting at the grated catwalk it will suggest the player to use another cloak to get past them - and probably to partially handle the blue key room itself - it will not increase difficulty but will improve the gameplay. And probably you need to cut down the Vulcan ammo in L5 a bit, but this depends on how much Lou guards will you leave in the level. I'd remove the supervisor from the boss room, too, I said earlier about it.

I too like the way Xfing manages things, and think final decision is his - a ship can have only one captain, like Russians say. And it will be interesting what Sirius will say about the difficulty issue, how D1.5 compares to the start of D1 and D2 both in terms of difficulty, robot cast and impression/atmospere.

[Alter-Fox]

I do think introducing cloaked hulks on level 5 is a really good idea, if X agrees. IMHO D1 waited too long to put them in probably because they wanted to limit how much content would be in the shareware-- but we're free of that particular problem here. My main problem on level 4 was the advanced lifters could be a little bit too cunningly placed, if they're going to sneak up on you in the middle of a fight that's well and good but if it's every other fight that's frustrating at best, "fake difficulty" at worst especially on ace and insane where one can kill you faster than you can turn around if it hits you from behind. I'm all for having that happen but in a controlled way where the player's emotional response to it isn't as negative as mine was.
Still think level 5 is too early for homing missile bots in a mission this size. The psychological payoff those guys have is too big to waste when the player is still getting settled into things. D1 did this very very right, D2 did it very very wrong.
Having a boss use the homers first also gives that boss a bigger impact (part of D2's mistake). And I'd argue the first boss should not be that hard, even in D2 on insane he was a pushover for me and that's not a bad thing in a game where the boss fights are fairly frequent (as they will be here too). You don't want to give players a full bottleneck every 5-6 levels. 'Cause somebody who's finally got a good afternoon lined up for a play session will probably go through at least two of them in one sitting, and if they get frustrated and stuck on both they're probably not going to continue the mission for much longer.

What I've got in the levels right now are basically sketches of what I think good encounters might end up looking like, but they're not as refined as I want to make them. I didn't get the chance to test today after all, next week's a little busier for me but I will try to make time.
"Overall difficulty" of a map is a very tricky thing that might not really exist at all depending how you go about it. Level 3 of D1 on ace or insane for example is overall not much harder than level 2, apart from a single extremely difficult area near the end. And the next two levels (at least on a continuous run) don't really match the difficulty of that moment at any point, but are generally harder than the rest of level 3. How do you judge overall difficulty level-by-level in a situation like that?
It's much easier for a designer to try and control what areas of a map players will remember. When a person says "level 3 of D1", you immediately think of the matcens, don't you? If I was building a map, and I went all weird and said I had a room in there that was going to "level 6 you" you wouldn't need any context to know exactly what I meant.

Also, "mosquito fight". Interesting choice of words. I guess you've never visited Winnipeg in the summer.

[AlexanderBorisov]

Agree on cloaked hulks in L5 . They could be used around the blue and yellow keys, or in the big chamber near the boss where the diamond claws are . About Lou guards, it was nice to have them because the rest of the level was rather easy, also they blend well with the surrounding. And I like seeng smth hard (even if it is only a few robots) in the boss level. Don't think it will become a bottleneck as there is a cloak for both the blue key and red key areas (however I did not tried to use any of them, maybe those are too far).

About the boss, true that not giving at least a cloak and/or invulnerability for the first boss was an error; of course sniping it from the entrance is not too hard and can be called strategic, but not that interesting. Probably fighting it with the cloak (but no invulnerability) would be more fun. In our L5, I think having more than one invulnerability is overkill, you should give the player chance to die if he does it completely wrong way.

About having more than one bottleneck in 5-6 levels... Well that again depends on how you play it. When I play for fun I use save states, one can also lower difficulty, or just restart the level from the beginning, since we are fully cold start compartible. I never play it from the beginning until the gameover screen shows up. And believe very few do it. And probably if you do a mission that will be ok on a blind continuous run, it will be too easy for others. In D2 every boss starting from Brimspark should be considered a bottleneck, if you don't know what to do, but that's not a bad thing IMO.

Overall difficulty is a tricky thing. For me depends on how much time I spend to get a run without deaths and saves. But this only works for the way I play it. First thing I do with a new level is to get through it with regular saves, and I repeat each difficult area several times to make sure I handle it reliably. Then I try to find all useful secrets, and plan my way through the level so that I have maximal chance to not die, plan which weapons to use in each situation, etc. If the level is very difficult I try to do some long segments no save; otherwise I just proceed to running it from the start until I succeed. Maybe allowing deaths in the beginning of practice - to avoid playing only the beginning. The time one needs to get through the level with saves is another measure of difficulty. But of course continuous run and cold start can vary in difficulty a lot, also probably DX-XL can change difficulty as the robots behave slightly different way...

Surprisingly the first thing I remember from D1 L3 it is how I was searching for the energy center on couple initial attempts... Then, yes, those dual matcens in the room with coloured doors. And of course it's more advanced "vertical" geometry. And those yellow drones are very underestimated in D1, they were very fast, did 8 damage per hit, at least it looked that both their speed and projectile speed were faster in D1, also they were placed behind every corner... Of course it all gets easy once you remember where each enemy is placed but on blind run this level is tough. L4,5 in D1 are not very memorable to me, IMO not the best levels. Don't remember 4 at all, L5 had all those long corridors, at least smth different but not too fun. But probably it is a bit harder than L3.

About the mosquitoes, we also have plenty of them here in Russia (at least in the forests). Even jogging/running through the forest trails becomes problematic in June, some of the mosquitoes definitely have an afterburner....

[Alter-Fox]

Haha. I meant to say, the mosquitoes around here have somehow gotten very clever.
I've heard tell from people who visit here from elsewhere in the country that Winnipeg mosquitoes are very hard to actually swat. And that when a Winnipegger goes to another city they don't tend to get any bites cause the bugs are so much easier than they're used to. I've definitely noticed the latter in places like Toronto and Edmonton.

Not that other places don't have mosquitoes but that a "mosquito fight" to me, might mean something entirely different.

[AlexanderBorisov]

Cool, maybe Winnipeg mosquitoes are in snipe mode The ones here just try to take you by numbers. You kill one and 10 more are around you.

[Xfing]

I don't mind trying bringing in cloaked hulks to level 5 if that's what you'd like to see. I don't recall a boss level ever introducing new robots in either D1 or D2, but guess we could create a precedent here.

Theeeen again, I'd rather stick to the well-known cast and then go ham on the cloaked hulks starting from level 6, personally. That level will also probably have lots of ITSC's (and by extension ITD's) and introduce the PTMC defense prototype, and maybe some other bot too, like the BPER? I don't want to introduce something stronger than the C1 Driller before the actual Driller is in. We've got so many robots to choose from and all of them require some love. Two or three levels from now we'll definitely have to add the Fox too (Spreadfire will have been given out as static pickups in several levels already). But yeah, we can definitely compensate for level 5 being easy by making level 6 hard.

[Alter-Fox]

Save Bper for a little later in my opinion, it's too much of a mid- to late-game sort of bot. Fairly simple to deal with on easy difficulties but brutal on the harder ones.
If you really want something else in level 6, although it sounds like what you plan will be difficult enough, you could introduce FOX there, or pick another interesting/difficult robot that was only used sparingly on one previous level (like compact lifter or canary, for example) and go wilder with it than you did before. That would be my preference if it were up to me.

I seem to recall level 4 of D2 and level 7 of Vertigo introducing new bots, so that is not unheard of.