Post by invadererik in Another update on the update (Build 2263e8f) comments

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So, I guess this is my second play through of the whole game:

* I enjoyed the new added pieces that I ran into, temple, smithy, wife quests.

* I think the play session was smoother, so probably fixed a few smaller bugs, or quality of life things... cant really point out exactly what, I think just call outs that guide you in general.

* achievements and collectibles I feel are a good addition, but not because you collect them, mainly cause they add more lore and content, they liven up the world and such.

However, some things I would still love to see for the "final" update?

* I'd still like to see better AI and variety for the soldiers, specially if they run away, at least they should not just walk into walls forever. They could also try to get around you to strike from other angles if there is another solider in front of them,? Also its pretty hard to get a hit on them with out them hitting you, I wish there was a basic windup timing so you could see them prepare their strike before it goes off. Would also be cool to see a few sword guys to mix it up with spear guys or other weapons?

* I really feel that you can add that sword sheathing/unsheathing ... Its a minor thing, but I really dislike walking around with the sword out all the time. It should also maybe lock out magic... that way you don't stupidly press a key and dash through some people by mistake.

* minor but in intro I think it could lead you to the right direction / doors, given that she knows exactly where she is going. Not that its hard to find the way, but just smoother and more in line with story. Also I think intro is pretty well done, one little thing I would add is maybe an extra frame where she drags herself and picks up the sword. I guess if you want to leave it up for interpretation whether the "ghost" handed her the sword or she picked it up herself its fine to skip that...

* Another minor thing, when switching levels where there are hostiles please allow a pause of some sort. Like when diving through the castle side door I pretty much died almost instantly by having the player dash right into the trap. Or once you get out past the trap and open that door into the open area, its a really harsh fast transition into almost instant death. Thankfully you are literally saved by the autosave feature, but it still sucks to die from lack of control due to the transition.

* I think there are a few more places where you could put a reminder dialog to go to sleep for next day... one that got me was the worms at the smelter, would have been nice if she said something like "the smithy said the worms might not show up today, I should try tomorrow" ( if you have the quest and you go to the place) ... Another one for the people behind the barricade.

I enjoyed the 2nd play through more I feel, I think mainly cause I knew where I was going and doing so overall it went smoother and faster and I wasted less time sort of being confused or being sort of hung up on choices ...

Anyhow, its a nice game and all these add-ons are great.

Random thought: adding a day/night cycle could add some venue for adding content to the game if you wanted to add more.

XCVG2 years ago

Thanks for playing!

I think I've mentioned this before, maybe not in this devlog though, but expanding the world and the lore has been a major focus of the update. So I'm glad that new quests, collectibles, and achievements are working that way.

Some of your points are things I haven't thought of before. Some of them are things I wish I could do, but had to cut to keep myself sane. Some of the tweaks you've suggested might make it in. Going through them in order:

AI changes are firmly out of scope. I know that actor AI is a major weakness across many of my games, but it's not something I've had the time to sort out (or, at this point, probably ever will). The actor logic is an absolute mess of kudzu code, and the last time I tried to add something (line-of-sight dependent chasing) it didn't work. Takagi hacks around this with scripting, which could maybe apply to some limited cases here, but I don't feel it's worth the effort.
More enemy variety is also firmly out of scope. That's one major downside of the 2.5D style I chose, which is that to make an enemy with a different weapon requires redrawing several rotations and animation frames. Adding a variant is almost as much work as adding a completely new NPC. Even palette swaps are annoyingly tedious.
Unlike the previous, I'm not going to definitely rule out implementing sword sheathing/unsheathing, but it probably won't happen. This is something that kind of cycled in and out of scope for both the base game and the update. It's definitely something I'd like to have, but it would need some new art assets and there are some open questions around how it would actually work.
I think having more signposting in the intro has come up before, but I'm not really sure how to do it. If there were markers or highlights or some other system used in the rest of the game, we could use that here, but there isn't, and I don't feel it makes sense to have something that's used only in the intro and then completely left by the wayside for the rest of the game.
I thought it would be nice to show Elisa taking up the sword, but I wasn't convinced I could do it justice. Rather than have something that looks horrible, I felt it was better to just leave it implied.
I'm not sure if this is what you have in mind, but I think these sections could be made more forgiving with some minor tweaks to the level design and I'll look into that. It's worth noting that the gatehouse is intended to be a trap. You're supposed to have to be careful here. I do agree that the bailey is overly punishing and gives you no break before you have to move, and I think that can be mitigated with some tweaks to the level design and possibly enemy placement.
There's a new hint mechanism coming in the update- it's sort of in already, but only used for one quest. You can now talk to Cheril for hints on what to do next. I'll keep in mind that those particular quests caused some trouble when I start writing that dialogue. I might also tweak the bartender's "what's the word on the street" dialogue, we'll see.
Early plans for Shattered 2 actually did include a day/night cycle and game time that ticked forward, but this was scrapped pretty early on. I felt it was just going to be way more trouble than it would be worth.

For now, I'm taking a bit of a break from Shattered 2. Maybe I'll have some ideas by the time I get back to it, who knows!

itch.io

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