mgiuca wrote:
Daarkarrow wrote:
Note to make, this is not like a Dungeon of the Endless 2
I actually was expecting DotE 2 so maybe those expectations do need to be reset a bit. It makes sense that this is trying to be a different game in terms of how the action plays out (twin-stick shooter instead of RTS controls), but the change to a fully real-time game (basically due to waves spawning at random times) doesn't make sense to me, given that you're keeping so many of the slow-paced planning aspects of DotE, but not giving us time to really think through them.
If we remove the preconceptions of this being related to DotE, and just look at it as a fresh game, I still don't think it really works. By making things spawn at random times, you're basically asking players to play as fast as possible all the time. There isn't time to think or plan, you just need to smash down as many turrets and open as many doors as you can before the next wave arrives. Your survey suggests that you want to get the balance right between strategy (high-level planning) and action (moment-to-moment gunplay), but I don't think that balance really even exists right now, because you're asking us to play so quickly.
I think SpikedWallMan is right: if you really want to make this game have spawns at random times, then you need to rethink everything, and remove most of the strategic elements to pare it back to a basic action game. But I would very much prefer that you don't remove those elements, and instead give us time to plan in between waves (by letting us trigger the wave by opening doors).
I also think it's a misconception to think "we're making an action game, therefore we can't have boring parts where you're just building and planning and nothing is happening." Virtually all games have downtime where the player has unlimited time to trigger the next bout of action. In another thread, I compared this to Diablo but if the town got randomly attacked by monsters every few minutes, so you never had time to slow down and do any thinking about your build. There's a reason basically every RPG has a town where no enemies can attack. FPS games have quiet moments where you can collect yourself before continuing on to the next action segment. The only genre I can think of that doesn't really give you a moment of downtime is RTS, where similar to ED, you get harrassed constantly and have to make decisions on the fly. But RTS games don't include random elements that require careful consideration; typically you can go into, say, a StarCraft mission with a plan of what to do, so you don't really need time to pause and decide. (e.g. in StarCraft I have the same research options in every game, whereas in ED I get presented with 3 random options and need to think which best applies to my situation.)
Daarkarrow wrote:
There need to be adjust as well on the waves, but, peronally,I like the tension that created the not knowing when will happens
I personally didn't feel any tension (unlike in DotE where there's a definite moment of tension before opening each door). In my first run, I was playing very slowly like I would play DotE, taking time to think over all the decisions presented, and then when a wave happened (often while I was browsing the merchant or pondering a research choice), I was just frustrated that my planning phase was interrupted. In my second run, I tried doing everything as quickly as possible to try and reduce the number of waves, and then there was no tension, just a feeling of being completely overwhelmed.
Apologies if I sound overly negative. I appreciate the opportunity to test an early build of the game and give feedback. I'm just a bit frustrated with essentially a single design decision that appears to have sucked all the enjoyment out of one of my favourite game design systems of all time.
No worries, all feedback is nice and you didn't sound, to me, super negative, just constructive criticism which is nice. From the different feedback I saw, its like you like it or hate it (wave system). So perhaps there should be some moments of not counting to waves (like merchant, hero upgrade machine), like safe spaces? But we will need to see with the team.