Honest to God Feedback

Icarus · 2010-06-05 13:53:20

I've played IHM twice through, first time with Chet and two other valve guys, and then again with a custom TF2 mapper and two random people. I don't work for valve, I only develop custom maps for source games.

It all felt rather underwhelming. It was very well detailed, but everyone felt gameplay needed work. There is a very weak sense of direction in the maps. The only times we knew where we were going was because of the same "YOU WILL SURVIVE" sign that was a bit overused.

The multiple branching paths were a nice idea, but were executed in such a way that it was too easy to get lost and end up going in circles or backwards through the route we didn't use. It might help if you made them one-way drop downs where the paths converged again, so you stay on the right path. Very often, you have arrows that are completely pointless because you would need to take a 180 degree turn to see it. The many fallen survivor camps you have spread out all over the map was an interesting touch, but leaving ammo and machine guns everywhere did nothing more than throw us off the main path more than we already have been. (very often it was just another dead end, something you have way too much of)

The first stage wasn't really well paced. Survivors saw very little resistance or action, even on expert. traditionally, first stages are supposed to be rather easy, but the Woods was way too much of a cakewalk.

The second stage, the manor, was probably my least favourite. There are way too many arrows, even some that point the wrong way. The layout was confusing and unforgiving, and everyone was pretty much confused at how the crecendo event worked. Some people actually tried jumping out the window with the flares.

Funny enough, we were all expecting a helicopter to rescue us at the end of the finale. We all huddled around the helipad waiting for it. it wasn't until later that it turned out to be a seaplace instead, on the other side of the map.

There are a supreme lack of lights in the second and third stages. Chet said players need a break from all the repeated darkness from time to time. When the poor direction and confusing events, players really start to get fatigued. The roof of the manor was especially bad, since it was so dark you could not see where the edge of the roof was if you're being attacked by the horde.

My friend also noticed you took a lot of assets from HL2:Ep2, and even from TF2

It looked nice, but I didn't really have much fun until we got to the fourth stage. Which also turned out to be really short

Don't take my post the wrong way, I don't hate I Hate Mountains. I understand that development is an iterative process, and you guys have just released this yesterday. I hope you guys continue to work on IHM and improve on the gameplay.

-Icarus

Last edited by Icarus (2010-06-05 14:00:01)

NykO18 · 2010-06-05 15:03:27

Dr. Spud · 2010-06-05 18:01:02

Last edited by Dr. Spud (2010-06-05 18:06:21)

NykO18 · 2010-06-05 18:12:58

verbatim · 2010-06-05 18:30:24

Last edited by verbatim (2010-06-05 18:47:05)

NykO18 · 2010-06-05 18:52:48

verbatim · 2010-06-05 18:56:30

NykO18 · 2010-06-05 18:57:15

mhmm · 2010-06-05 23:20:18

I feel like these complaints boil down to the same general idea of those who didn't enjoy Portal: Prelude. People didn't like it because it was too difficult, and it strayed from the traditional simple Portal mechanics.

While I don't enjoy every design decision with I hate Mountains, I do understand its desire to be something different. Some of the things that I didn't completely enjoy were the darkness. I felt it was a little overly dark for me (although I do have the darkness turned all the way down in the settings) but I can tell it was a conscious design decision. One of the things I would have enjoyed better would be if you had used light more to guide players, and move them between bright areas.

Anyway, although I didn't enjoy all the decisions, this is most certainly the best custom campaign for Left 4 Dead, and while I do enjoy Icarus' and Spud's maps for TF2, Left 4 Dead is a completely different animal and I believe you are approaching the campaign in a completely incorrect way.

NykO18 · 2010-06-06 13:08:12

Lighting change is definitely something we're gonna give a try next week. We don't want to totally change the way it is, but we would certainly don't mind adding a little brightness to the ambient lighting and a few light hints here and there. We'll see what it can offer.

llod · 2010-06-08 06:42:22

Reading some of the feedback on here I can't help feeling the posters have gone into this with a negative mindset. (consciously or subconsciously I'm not sure)

I find it impossible to take someone seriously that claims a player felt the need to jump out of a window to get to the helipcopter. Such a statement renders the poster incompetent. No wonder they got lost.

Yeah it's not as accomplished allround as it could be if the guys that made this were professional full time game developers, but by gawd it's a damn enjoyable map. Many many thanks for taking the time to make it.

HeadHunter · 2010-06-08 07:48:30

Well, I'll be honest - that was the first thing I tried too. Not because of any lack of "competence", but because of the understanding that most levels in games like this don't have you backtrack through the entire level to proceed.

The objective is visible from that window, and for all I knew there was some path along the rooftops that would get a Survivor closer to the pad without fighting through the Horde. I don't think anyone's suggesting it would be a good idea to leap 50 feet to the ground - but it's not unreasonable to think there might be a way that begins just outside the window.

When I realized that was not to be the case, then I knew what I had to do. But the developers wanted feedback and that includes hearing about things people tried or what they expected that differs from the designers' intent. I don't think they'd want to discourage that by labelling any of their fans as "incompetent", do you?

NykO18 · 2010-06-08 08:12:23

llod · 2010-06-08 09:08:16

Prisoner416 · 2010-06-08 15:40:43

Zalbar · 2010-06-08 16:04:59

I haven't played the campaign as yet but...put bars on the windows and problem solved?

CosmicD · 2010-06-08 17:05:24

lol, my name is not bruce willis and i'm not suicidal so the first time that I saw that crecendo, I didn't think that the shortest route down is out of the window.

It actually has much more gameplay value that you can't do that and the "drop down 1 level at a time" to where the minigun is is genious, when you finally get to the attic and you see the glow on the window you think like umm, what ? do I get to do a crecendo now? I have to go down all that maze ? only to notice that because of your panic you suddenly see open overheads that you can jump down from starting from the atic hole. That gave alot of feeling of relief and at the same time you know you're not quite safe yet.

HeadHunter · 2010-06-08 18:25:43

Last edited by HeadHunter (2010-06-08 23:16:24)

NykO18 · 2010-06-08 18:59:04

HeadHunter · 2010-06-08 23:15:55

Again, it's not intended as a complaint - once I realized that out the window was not the right way, I figured out where I needed to go. But generally "back into the horde" is the least desirable option from a Survivor's mentality, so I suppose it's easy to understand why people would prefer to see if there's a way forward.

I suppose that another staircase or path to the helipad would kind of rob a little bit of the tension from the crescendo - and that's something you guys have done especially well in this chapter and the finale.

So it's no criticism of the design - more intended as a scolding for those who would put people down for a rather reasonable attempt.

NykO18 · 2010-06-09 04:30:27

Well fair enough, but even if they put us down, they often have a few good ideas. Tthe problem is not that they put us down, the problem is that they think they're forcefully right maybe because some higher power told them so, I don't know. We fixed two or three things that Icarus reported because he was partially right in what he said and we agreed. It's just that we can't fix everything and we don't want to.

llod · 2010-06-09 09:24:27

Fnilp · 2010-06-10 16:25:51

AtomicGaryBusey · 2010-06-13 04:19:13

NykO18 · 2010-06-15 05:51:48

I Hate Mountains Forums

#1 2010-06-05 13:53:20

Honest to God Feedback

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