Some Lava Escape Feedback

[rchaneberg]

First let me say that the game has come a phenomenal way since early beta, and I am really looking forward to spending time on this when I can pull myself away from AI War.

However, in my relatively short time playing a recent build, the missions with the rising lava level seem extremely punishing.
I know for a fact that I'm not the best at platformers, but maybe the early missions should have the lava rise slightly slower.
Also it needs to be more obvious that you don't have access to your map for those missions, as the first time I was playing I spent my first precious few seconds trying to turn on the map.

I don't have ride the lightning yet, nor any of the double or triple jump enchants that I've read about, and maybe these make it easier, but it also seems like touching the lava makes it impossible to extricate yourself from it, and watching my character die over 4-5 seconds without being able to do anything about it is very frustrating.
Any advice would be appreciated, as it is entirely possible that I'm just not very good at this yet.

[Terraziel]

These are purposefully punishing, frankly they should have a warning message on them.

[zebramatt]

Although they are meant to be brutal, I think you make some good points.

[BobTheJanitor]

Maybe someone who likes these can give you advice on how to complete it. I tried it once and decided that's it. Without heavy changes the risk to reward ratio is too far out of whack for me. As is, it is entirely possible to play perfectly and still fail, simply because the randomly generated cave produces long dead ends that can trap you. The only escape mechanism that can save you is an elusion scroll, and they're so ridiculously rare that it's not possible to rely on always having one. Maybe if you always got an elusion scroll when you started one of these missions, it would be worth it. Otherwise my advice is avoid avoid avoid!

[Terraziel]

Maybe someone who likes these can give you advice on how to complete it. I tried it once and decided that's it. Without heavy changes the risk to reward ratio is too far out of whack for me.

Sentiments i wholeheartedly agree with.

Actually I had considered suggesting making them an optional extra for the game as a whole, as i have no intention of playing them having a bunch take up mission slots is sort of annoying.

[x4000]

Coming up next version:

* Lava escape missions can no longer be seeded on the world map as missions.  You'll now only find them as secret missions.
** These are meant to be very punishing for players who like that sort of thing, and as such having them relegated to secret-only status makes good sense.


And yes, they do have a warning message on them, if you read the mission description.

[zebramatt]

Maybe they could also be spawned through use of a specific guardian power, and completing them that way would always give you something awesome but totally unnecessary, like a random enchant appropriate to your enchant level but with a guaranteed additional effect: you leave a harmless trail of flames in your wake for a few feet everywhere you go! 

[x4000]

Sounds like a good one for mantis.

[rchaneberg]

And yes, they do have a warning message on them, if you read the mission description.

whoops, guess I should read a little more carefully.

Having these as secret missions sounds excellent, I was just hunting down all the missions I could see on the map and managed to get three of these in a row. I did not survive, though I tried to give it a run for it's money.

As an aside, I think I would enjoy vertically-oriented missions with a slowly rising lava level to encourage precise platforming as regular missions, I was simply not prepared for the breakneck pace necessary to survive these in their current form.

[keith.lamothe]

One lesson all RPG Characters should have learned but have not: If you want to live, STAY OUT OF THE VOLCANO

[x4000]

The pace of these actually varies based on your difficulty setting -- so if you've got the difficulty level set high because you're good at dealing with enemies, it means these are also breakneck.  If you tone down the difficulty, the speed decreases.

It may be that we need to split the difficulty again: combat difficulty and platforming difficulty, perhaps.  We used to have action and strategic, but now strategic doesn't really need its own difficulty.

[TechSY730]

It may be that we need to split the difficulty again: combat difficulty and platforming difficulty, perhaps.  We used to have action and strategic, but now strategic doesn't really need its own difficulty.

I would support that. Tricky Platforming and 2D shooting are different enough skill sets that being good at one doesn't mean you are good at the other, and just because you find one being challenge fun doesn't mean you would find the other being a challenge fun.
It would also allow for an elegant fix to many of the "split opinions" of fall damage, the magnitude of fall damage. On lower platforming difficulty, falling damage is lessened in impact. And of course the other way around on higher platforming difficulty. (Of course, even at the lowest, it should still be enough to think about, and even on the highest, it shouldn't be enough to make people fear jumping at all)

[Mánagarmr]

Huh, odd. I was scared crapless of these missions after having read about them, but I had my first yesterday and it was really easy. I didn't have  double/triple jump, ride the lightning or any of the fancy-schmancy spells and I didn't find it that hard. I finished with a good 60 meters to go.

Was I just lucky?

[Terraziel]

Huh, odd. I was scared crapless of these missions after having read about them, but I had my first yesterday and it was really easy. I didn't have  double/triple jump, ride the lightning or any of the fancy-schmancy spells and I didn't find it that hard. I finished with a good 60 meters to go.

Was I just lucky?

Yes, for example when i tried it the first upward route i found was a dead end, literally. and frankly I'm not going to put up with that if i don't have.

[BobTheJanitor]

Was I just lucky?

Yep. It's just as possible that you can jump up a pathway for 5-10 seconds and reach a dead end and that's it. Game over. Your only option is to drop down into the lava and accept your fate. Or use an elusion scroll, of course. If the rooms could be forced to generate in such a way that all the pathways would interconnect and there were no dead ends, that would be fine. I'm fine with dying to bad skill if I can't jump and dodge monsters well enough. Dying to a random room generator is just no fun at all.