Nakkers.8635 Posted January 8, 2019 Share Posted January 8, 2019 So the episode was amazing! The ending shocked me, I was shocked for a little while... It's a nice cliff hanger[?] It left a lot of room for a lot of possibilities now. For fractals what made y'all decide to make those particular new instabilities? As for the final mission, that touch with Kralk blasting at us and having all of the previous magical imbued dragons/gods shown before he blasted us was a really nice touch! What made y'all decide to put it in there? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blur.3465 Posted January 9, 2019 Share Posted January 9, 2019 Absolutely agree with you!!! That ending though...when your character is wounded, then those voices in the distance...the entire tragedy engulfing you, the fear of failure, the total fear for Aurene's life...and then you just hear Taimi scream and come across the grim scene. That was the best and the saddest part that totally pierced me. Just...amazing and tragic :'( <3 Really can't wait to see how the story will progress after this. How will 'we' as commanders feel, how will we go on etc. I never expected this, but I am blown away by the story twist! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benjamin Arnold.3457 Posted January 9, 2019 Share Posted January 9, 2019 > For fractals what made y'all decide to make those particular new instabilities? Designing instabilities is pretty difficult, since they need to work well for as many fractals as possible, which means they need to not compound badly with existing mechanics in fractals. Things that have lots of AoE spam or visual noise tend to get messy so a lot of the new instabilities are an attempt to reduce the visual nature of instabilities. For example, fraility reduces your health and makes you faster, which doesn't need anything visual other than a reduction in your model size to sell it. We spent many many sessions brainstorming new instabilities, prototyping them, and testing them, often to go back to the drawing board. The ideal instability will change your gameplay experience in a noticeable but manageable way, but hitting that mark consistently is no easy task. For example, originally for slippery slope we had some additional counterplay in that stability would disable the sliding. However, that ended up feeling worse, since you would randomly be getting slippery slope turned on and off as stability was applied and stripped, and made controlling the character harder. Some of the current changes came from community suggestions, and others from internal brainstorming, but there were many more that were prototyped and cut. Slippery Slope is the one everyone is talking about right now, partly because of a bug that makes it present in Cliffside and Underground Facility, but also because of how much it changes the core feeling of the movement. As it is one of the more experimental instabilities, along with social awkwardness it is excluded from many of the fractals. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MHaastrup.6978 Posted January 9, 2019 Share Posted January 9, 2019 Do you have any good stories or screenshots from the prototyping phase? I would love to see that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benjamin Arnold.3457 Posted January 9, 2019 Share Posted January 9, 2019 No screenshots to share, but we tried doing uncategorized internally with slippery slope and social awkwardness and it was essentially impossible. A few testers were having fun with the challenge and actually managed to legitimately beat the first JP in about three hours. Needless to say, slippery slope is disabled for uncategorized. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MHaastrup.6978 Posted January 9, 2019 Share Posted January 9, 2019 Oh boy, I wish I could have seen that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nakkers.8635 Posted January 9, 2019 Author Share Posted January 9, 2019 > @"Benjamin Arnold.3457" said: > No screenshots to share, but we tried doing uncategorized internally with slippery slope and social awkwardness and it was essentially impossible. A few testers were having fun with the challenge and actually managed to legitimately beat the first JP in about three hours. Needless to say, slippery slope is disabled for uncategorized. Actually just went through T4s and I gotta say so far... Sugar Rush is a nice little bonus that ups the DPS a bit, it felt like Shatterer was actually T1 instead of T4 Birds ... Birds... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cryorion.9532 Posted January 9, 2019 Share Posted January 9, 2019 So far the best episode of LS4 for me. I really like the new map design and it is definitely one of best looking maps in game. There were moments when exploring map/doing story that gave me goosebumps which I appreciate. That also includes music :) The ending was shocking and rough. I find it refreshing how things changed and turned dark after a while. The walking part at the end when the commander was wounded reminded me Mass Effect 3 ending, ah the nostalgia. Well done! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zealex.9410 Posted January 9, 2019 Share Posted January 9, 2019 > @"Benjamin Arnold.3457" said: > > For fractals what made y'all decide to make those particular new instabilities? > > Designing instabilities is pretty difficult, since they need to work well for as many fractals as possible, which means they need to not compound badly with existing mechanics in fractals. Things that have lots of AoE spam or visual noise tend to get messy so a lot of the new instabilities are an attempt to reduce the visual nature of instabilities. For example, fraility reduces your health and makes you faster, which doesn't need anything visual other than a reduction in your model size to sell it. > > We spent many many sessions brainstorming new instabilities, prototyping them, and testing them, often to go back to the drawing board. The ideal instability will change your gameplay experience in a noticeable but manageable way, but hitting that mark consistently is no easy task. For example, originally for slippery slope we had some additional counterplay in that stability would disable the sliding. However, that ended up feeling worse, since you would randomly be getting slippery slope turned on and off as stability was applied and stripped, and made controlling the character harder. > > Some of the current changes came from community suggestions, and others from internal brainstorming, but there were many more that were prototyped and cut. Slippery Slope is the one everyone is talking about right now, partly because of a bug that makes it present in Cliffside and Underground Facility, but also because of how much it changes the core feeling of the movement. As it is one of the more experimental instabilities, along with social awkwardness it is excluded from many of the fractals. Thank you for the insight Ben. Im curious did you ever considered having instabilities be more like actual mechanics specific to each one fractal that in concept give off the idea of the fractals being unstable and weird? I mean in addition to each fractal being as is with its own boss and mob mechanics u could have specific mechanics tailored around each specific fractal and themed after anomalies inside the fractals and in general the fractals being unstable. As you go higher in the tiers the more unstable each fractal gets and more mechanics pop. Ofc this would require custom tailored instabilities for each fractal and thats alot of work, but i think it would also remove alot of stress from having to design these with all fractals in mind and isntead focus on one fractal at a time and realy polishing them to fit each one fractal and its setting. Just my brainstorm and 2 cents. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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