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Ice-Pick Lodge forums • The Void Easy Patch Project
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PostPosted: 18 Dec 2009, 20:12 
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Expanding on the already easy patch made, I would like to ask the other players what would they like to be made easier?

-Amount of Lympha per heart?
-Lympha processing speed?
-Movement speed?
-Sister feed colour amounts?
-Brother hitpoints?
-etc


Bear in mind this is a fan project not endorsed by the devs (yet ;) ), and I can only change properties, so don't ask me to change glyph pattern detection as I can't change them.

So, speak away players. :)


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PostPosted: 18 Dec 2009, 20:42 
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I would change tthe following to make an easy difficulty setting:
- decrease damage the predators deal and the maximum amount of predators
- decrease Brother's HP and slightly decrease sisters' needs for colour.
- increase domain HP
- decrease trees' recovery time.
- increase positive effect of some stats (primary those of Crimson, Violet, Gold and Emerald)
- decrease giants' HP and reduce the damage they deal to some "safe" level (the one that won't kill the player accidentally).
- increase "Memory" size (player's "inventory" where he stores lympha)

Glyph patterns, by the way, may be changed. But I need an EXACT shape of a certain glyph that doesn't work.
I can also reduce the threshold for "turgor" state. It is set in gameplay script, so I only need to change number and recompile the script. By default the threshold is 97% of total body+palette capacity.


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PostPosted: 18 Dec 2009, 20:46 
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Property wise I can help with TotalComander.

I never had any glyph problem so, no suggestion there from me :)

As for turgor threshold, what was the value in the original russian version? I found it easier to reach turgor there.


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PostPosted: 18 Dec 2009, 20:48 
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You didn't need to fill your palette in th original, only the body and the capillars. Besides, lympha for turgor was easier to collect, because you didn't need 300 of each colour.

The original threshold was also body+capillars capacity multiplied by some value close to 100%, like 99% or 97%.


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PostPosted: 18 Dec 2009, 20:50 
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Well, since nerva didn't auto collect in that version, I found it easier, but that is besides the point of the patch. ;)


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PostPosted: 18 Dec 2009, 22:06 
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My sugestion, two patches:

======Medium=====
-Heart capacity: x1.5
-Domain Damage: -25%
-Predetors amount: -25%
-Sister Feed: -15%
-Metabolism Speed: -25%
-Pangolin, Pelican and Worm HP: -25%
-Brother HP: -25%
-Plant Capacity: x2
-Predator HP: -15%
-Tree Capacity: x1.5

======Easy=====
-Heart capacity: x2
-Domain Damage: -50%
-Predetors amount: -50%
-Sister Feed: -25%
-Metabolism Speed: -50%
-Pangolin, Pelican and Worm HP: -50%
-Brother HP: -50%
-Plant Capacity: x3
-Predator HP: -50%
-Tree Capacity: x2


Opinions?


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PostPosted: 19 Dec 2009, 01:51 
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Looks pretty reasonable to me.


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PostPosted: 19 Dec 2009, 12:21 
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But i guess it will be only for the void? There is no way to make easy patch for tension? :>
As for the Void, i didnt played it but these medium and easy patches looks like it will help a lot of ppl ^^


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PostPosted: 19 Dec 2009, 14:11 
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My sugestion, two patches:


Opinions?
My opinion is that is too much. 15-25% reduction/bonus is fine for a easy patch... but here is too much because you are modifying 10 factors at the same time! Think of the accumulative effect of having both more color capacity AND less predators AND less domain damage AND more speed AND less hp in enemies AND more tree capacity AND well, etc etc.


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PostPosted: 19 Dec 2009, 16:50 
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My opinion is that is too much. 15-25% reduction/bonus is fine for a easy patch... but here is too much because you are modifying 10 factors at the same time! Think of the accumulative effect of having both more color capacity AND less predators AND less domain damage AND more speed AND less hp in enemies AND more tree capacity AND well, etc etc.
Yeah. But that's what I call "easy". Making the things "just enough for a novice not to die after three hours" isn't what the easy mode should be about. I usually think of "Easy" as a mode which is easy enough for a newbie to complete. For example, in Half-Life 2 computer helps you shoot, i.e. the bullets reach your target even if you don't aim EXACTLY at the enemy. On "Normal" and "Hard" difficulty settings the bullets fly exactly where you point your weapon, and the computer no longer changes the direction if your aiming is not perfect.

The only serious objection I have is metabolism speed. Low metabolism speed means that you get lympha for active actions SLOWER, which actually makes the game sonmewhat harder, as you cannot quickly fill you palette anymore. So the simplification should be focused on making combat easier and lympha plentiful. Conversion speed is, as I see it, very well chosen, and it is not mindful to fiddle with it.

Minor objections:
- plant capacity does nothing. Plants get their lympha from overall world update. If you make plants full of lympha, there'll just be less plants. The overall amount of lympha isn't going to change this way.
- Sister feed: I would rather make later stages easier to get. Now you need to use plenty of lympha to get Sister from 2nd stage to the 3rd, and some angodly amount to reach the last stage.
- Heart capacity also does pretty much nothing, and won't probably help you reach turgor easier (or will cause bugs when your reach turgor while barely filled to the half). I would rather suggest to make "Inventory" bigger. And perhaps, increase the capacity of several big hearts (so that you won't die for a day or so if your largest heart is full).


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PostPosted: 19 Dec 2009, 17:22 
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I can see the other objections as fair, but on metabolism speed, I think the player gets bigger live span and a bit more time to think on their actions, If they want faster nerva they could always use amber :)

Everything is still in the open, so the more suggestions the merrier. :)


Oh, another point, heart capacity. Since the increase could be percent, it ends up doing what you said. 25 cap hearts only grow to 30 or so, but 75 cap hearts end up with 100 or so, and by inventory are you talking about the Memory or Palette?

Percent changes have the advantages of smaller things don't increase much, but bigger things can become much bigger.

Oh another thing, if everyone could pick up my list format and put their own values/changes as per their sugestions it would make comparing them much easier. :D


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PostPosted: 20 Dec 2009, 06:09 
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Nice project, sounds good so far.
It would be great if IPL could really officially patch it, so that there are ingame options to chose "Easy", "Medium" and "Hard" and not "only" files that you have to replace yourself.
My suggestion is that there is a bigger difference between Easy and Medium. I think for Medium it would be enough to change either the fights or the amount of lypha you get and need to use for sisters. One thing will "correct" the other thing, too, without making it too easy.

======Medium=====
-Heart capacity: x1.0
-Domain Damage: -20%
-Predetors amount: -20% (-15%?)
-Sister Feed: -0%
-Metabolism Speed: -0%
-Pangolin, Pelican and Worm HP: -25%
-Brother HP: -15% (or only -10%? They should stay challenging.)
-Plant Capacity: x1
-Predator HP: -15%
-Tree Capacity: x1 (maybe 1.25% or something)

======Easy=====
-Heart capacity: x2
-Domain Damage: -50%
-Predetors amount: -50%
-Sister Feed: -25%
-Metabolism Speed: -50%
-Pangolin, Pelican and Worm HP: -50%
-Brother HP: -50%
-Plant Capacity: x1
-Predator HP: -50%
-Tree Capacity: x2


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PostPosted: 20 Dec 2009, 16:14 
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The game's default difficulty is, in my opinion, exactly what the hard setting should be - very tough, but possible with a lot of planning and skill. I usually pick a normal difficulty setting when I play a certain game for the first time though, and I guess this is what I'd find appropriate (including a few things at the end of the post):

======Medium=====
-Heart capacity: x1
-Domain Damage: -25%
-Predators amount: -25%
-Sister Feed: 3rd Heart -25%, 4th Heart -20% (200,400,600,800 instead of 200,400,800,1000)
-Metabolism Speed: -0%
-Pangolin, Pelican and Worm HP: -25%
-Brother HP: -25%
-Plant Capacity: x1
-Predator HP: -25%
-Tree Capacity: x1

======Easy=====
-Heart capacity: x1
-Domain Damage: -50%
-Predators amount: -50%
-Sister Feed: 2nd Heart -25%, 3rd Heart -50%, 4th Heart -50% (200,300,400,500 instead of 200,400,800,1000)
-Metabolism Speed: -0%
-Pangolin, Pelican and Worm HP: -50%
-Brother HP: -50%
-Plant Capacity: x1
-Predator HP: -50%
-Tree Capacity: x1

I'd recommend the easy setting to a friend (/girlfriend :D) who has minimum to no expirience with FPS games or maybe most games for that matter, but was drawn to the game because of it's beautiful design/music/poetry (I know at least 5 people who fell in love with the game upon seeing it, but have insufficient skill in order to enjoy it the way I did :().

If there is a way to adjust the amount of color needed to fill the traps in the gardens, I'd adjust that to: -25% for normal, -50% for easy.

What exactly is meant by tree capacity - the amount of color needed to fill it, or the amount you get from it, or both?
How does the amount of color needed to fill a tree work anyway? Is it linked with a multiplier to the amount of color you get from that tree in the next cycle? If not, how hard would it be to lower the amount needed to fill the tree to the max while leaving the amount you get the way it is now? That would be something I'd lower too, probably by 15%/30% or maybe even 25%/50%.

If there is a possibility of needing less color to travel faster on the map, I'd lower the amount by 15%/30%, but only for the easy setting.

I hope this helps.
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PostPosted: 21 Dec 2009, 02:32 
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That reminds me... the option for used lympha to affect The Void is turned off... should I turn that on? :twisted:


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PostPosted: 21 Dec 2009, 03:05 
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For starters you could make the sisters grow an additional heart with each cycle. :lol:
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PostPosted: 21 Dec 2009, 03:09 
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That reminds me... the option for used lympha to affect The Void is turned off... should I turn that on? :twisted:
Definitely.

While I usually play most games on easy mode, I think that even easy must have some degree of challenge to it. This in particular must stay active across all the modes. To paraphrase Friedrich Neitzsche; "When you gaze into The Void, The Void gazes also into you."

Btw, where did you get the Elo avatar, Throdax? And can I get a Nameless Sister one from there? =3


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PostPosted: 21 Dec 2009, 03:17 
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Btw, where did you get the Ole avatar, Throdax? And can I get a Nameless Sister one from there? =3
..That reminds me of our bonus disk. Have your tried downloading it? You can find the link at the torrent in the news at the official site (http://www.tension-game-com).


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PostPosted: 21 Dec 2009, 03:21 
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Correct, it is from the Ole artwork from the bonus disk.


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PostPosted: 21 Dec 2009, 03:37 
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Will have to wait until the weekend - limited download limit while I'm away from home. =/

But hey, it will be an early Christmas present when I get back =D


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PostPosted: 22 Dec 2009, 06:05 
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I think one change that could be very valuable for an easy mode would be to change the way the donor glyph on trees works. At the moment if you screw up the glyph the colour is still used and you are penalised with poor colour production for that tree. This is a particular problem since the donor glyph is a little picky, especially with the slightly odd demo video. Since colour is so scarce and the trees are your best way to get more colour it seems a bit mean to have it punish you for a crappy glyph when 99% of time drawing a bogus glyph (including the somewhat similar situation of using the donor glyph on the sisters) just means nothing happens. Now I know some are going to come along and say "well I had no problems with the donor glyph", and indeed once I figured out the right way to do it I was fine, but the fact is that I've drawn some pretty ropey M/W/triangles etc and still had them recognised while some pretty close donor glyphs were denied. It's been a bit of a deal breaker with people that I've shown the game too and creates a negative impression of the painting recognition system.

So my suggestion would be to either:
a) tweak the acceptable boundaries for the donor glyph
b) make the application of the donor glyph on trees work like it does when applying it to sisters, that is if you bugger it up it doesn't use the colour.
c) a combination of the above


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PostPosted: 22 Dec 2009, 14:30 
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When I played the game I think the most trouble was feeding the Sisters' hearts - damned wretches are really ravenous, and sometimes it took several trips to feed one up (which took time, and colour!). After spending so much, I really didn't want to allow a Brother to come to rip his Sister's hearts out, and had to spend whatever I had collected at the moment on the battle. Lowering the amount needed for filling Sisters' hearts would let the player establish more colour production across the Void and find new hearts faster. (I wonder though, if this wouldn't make it too easy? Would there be enough to do near the endgame? Maybe just lowering the amount needed for later stages would be enough, as Halfgild said.)

For an easy patch, I think I'd like to see more free colour appearing in the Void - when I started doubting if I'd make it to the end, nothing cheered me up better than seeing lots of those plants in a location at the beginning of a new cycle - more colour without having to work it through mines/trees/hunting. So I suppose that having more colour appear would be really great - either more at each of the few locations, or maybe have it appear in more locations each cycle. Having more colour (I'm afraid it would be easy to overdo this, though - we still want new players to use trees and mines, right? But maybe with more "free colour" players wouldn't have to choose between feeding a tree/exploiting a mine (minings glyphs were pretty costly, and sometimes the harpoon could miss...) and using it for example for the Sisters to get to new locations faster.)

I suppose more "free colour" would mean you don't have to lower the HP of Brothers and creatures - you want the battles to last, and since you have the colour, you don't need to worry about spending too much. Maybe you wouldn't need to decrease the Sisters' hunger with this too? (Is having more colour appear in the Void the panacea for all the problems of a new player?)

I would like to see the damage the Brothers and creatures deal lessened - there's little worse than getting hit and seeing those hard-earned colours escape from your body. Otherwise the battles weren't that tough for me once I figured out an effective tactic (which usually took a few tries :P ) - and with first and second points from this post included in the easy patch, having more hearts faster would mean more offensive options, and more colour would ensure you always have the right one for doing double damage to the Brother.

I wouldn't tinker with heart capacity or metabolism speed - I found those to be pretty well balanced.


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PostPosted: 20 Jan 2010, 22:57 
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Hi there, are there any news on this project? is it to be continued? can I help anyhow?


Regards.


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PostPosted: 20 Jan 2010, 23:25 
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Also, has anyone suggested tweaking the player movement speed? I wouldn't want it increased by much, but as is, with 0 Azure you're slow as molasses and even at 100, you're not THAT fast, so a slight bump would be good, IMO.


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PostPosted: 21 Jan 2010, 01:06 
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I think, for an easy difficulty you should do the following:
Default Pallete Capacity x2
Default Memory Capacity x2
Predator and Brother health -50-25%
color needed to fill sisters hearts: 150, 300, 450, 600.
I would only increase plant capacity if it meant a greater return on investment (instead of the 1-1 ratio on the first cycle we have now, to a 1-1,5 ratio).

The purpose of an 'easy' mode should be to make the game easy enough to let anyone play it. And while I would get less entertainment from a version like this, I know people who have refused my commands to buy The Void because it is too hard. The 'easy' mode should be for those people.


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PostPosted: 21 Jan 2010, 14:14 
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I'll try and create the medium and easy patch this weekend.


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