You can check it out and review it at http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/665650. You don't have to and there's nothing you haven't seen there, but... it would be appreciated.
Well it was crazy, huh? When AD2 came out, not a lot of people had much to say, but they were generally satisfied. For AD3... wow. No matter how much people loved or hated it, it unanimously drove everyone insane, haha.
Did you know that the site http://www.gamesofdesire.com/ has AD3 on their site? I don't know if they ripped it from Newgrounds or something but just thought I'd point it out in case you didn't know.
"This time you play as a commander the space station called Iacchus. The previous commander has died from the unknown zombie-like infection. So you're the new man in charge. EarthGov decides not to waste their money on rescuing you, so now you and your crew are on your own :)"
It looks like he transcribed one of my trailers... He thinks the station is called Iacchus. And he thinks you're a commander. I'm pretty sure he's thinking of another sci-fi game on that one.
and look at those comments... Get me my deal-with-it shades
Hey dudes. Just wanted to let you know that I'm STILL getting the white screen after clicking LiftOff even after clearing my cache on Firefox. Works fine on Chrome. Not sure if there's anything you can do about this?
Well we've done a lot about it already but I'm not sure what we can do. Sorry for the huge inconvenience, but perhaps chrome is the best browser to play ad3.
Well, I'll be honest. I should have tried beating the demo before making this purchase. It's a challenging, interesting game with good artwork, music, and story...but I'm not having as much fun with it as I expected. That'll probably get better as I keep playing it, but as you noted in your post six days ago, restrictive gameplay is not for everyone.
And that's not wrong of you, but there's a fine line between a challenge and a struggle. Struggles are unpleasant, even if they force you to grow--to man up and tackle your discomfort. When I decided, "Hey, this guy put a lot of effort into the game, he deserves some recognition for the work he invested," I was expecting to pay for something I'd enjoy.
At this stage I'm wondering things like, "Am I meant to lose after a set point to actually progress?" and, "Wouldn't it make more sense to assign the doctor to one person at a time, or to repair Carmen *or* the barricades?" or, "It would be interesting if we could track the movement of the infected throughout the zones and keep ahead of the really dangerous swarms, or raid areas for specific items at higher risk of attack," and so on.
I think you yourself referred to it as being "obnoxiously" difficult, and stated that you intended for the easy mode to capture as much of that difficulty as possible, but unless I can "git gud," I'm finding the experience very much...incomplete. And that sucks, because it seems like the game should be more enjoyable than this.
But there's always the chance that I'm a filthy casual who isn't even playing it right. I'd be interesting in hearing your thoughts on the matter.
...how about you try it yourself and then decide if it's still too hard? Or do you never leave your house before your scouts give you the "all clear"-sign?
I would if I thought it were worth my precious time. I've tried it before, only to find that my time was wasted. I will tread cautiously before making the same mistake.
Lol don't cry about "minding my own business" when you make a public post :) Now don't waste any more of your precious time by continuing this argument.
How am I a fanboy when I'm criticizing your (lack of) logic and not defending the game? :P Read what I said again and then decide if your pretentious e-tough guy attitude was called for.
Fanboy continues to fanboyby bringing up senseless logic. Well played, but I don't fall for your trap. And this is enough of your trollworthy argment. Regardless of whether you respond back, this is not the place for your attempts at flaming or trolling. If that's what you intend, then you need to leave.
Lol at anon. ur making ur look more pathetic. Seriously, if ur trying to burn Sanders, then you're doing a poor job right now.
Look, I don't care if you find it hard or not (ofc not all games are for every1), but maybe stop posting non-feedback comments before you make urself even smaller.
Seems like the a lot of the character stories don't even work. Terra's breaks at #7, Zoe's breaks at #7, Carmen at #5. For a game that makes you work as hard as it does to get these points, I figured they would at least let me progress. What gives??
I hear some characters' stories are linked. But I don't know if we're told in-game as to which are and which are not. I was told in this blog that Carmen and Olga are linked somehow. At least, that's what I remember.
Seriously? If the game were maybe half as hard that would be replay-value, but this is just another kick to the balls.
There's strategy games, survival games, and hentai games. You can blend most of those elements no problem, but hentai games can't exceed a certain level of difficulty before they become frustrating instead of interesting. Even if this is doable, AD3 is either appealing to the wrong audience or sending mixed signals to both.
Maybe a HentaiMode that's a joke to strategy players (but costs extra?) and a NightmareMode with less emphasis on Basics for pros? I don't really get the emphasis on restrictive gameplay; they're trying to combine a fun strategy game with fapping.
I agree. As a hentai game, it fails. You may never survive to see it. As a strategy game, it fails. It is just not interesting. They tried to do both and fell short on both accounts.
Why is it dissatisfying as a strategy game? The player currently lacks means to properly respond to certain threats--a wave of rats might be countered by Olga or Larissa's whip, but beyond that a wide-range option is limited to grenades and powers that you never know to plan for. The problem isn't a lack of tools as much as it is a lack of intelligence; there's no way to know which people would be best to put on guard duty on a given night, or which guns to set them up with. It would make sense for massive waves of zombies to spawn in the barracks, and rats in the mall for example.
On top of which, while we know that there are all sorts of operations going on backstage--workers doing stuff to keep things running for the main cast, Olga's experiments, various counts of substance abuse, etc--the player is fighting a losing battle because the enemies are somehow multiplying and growing stronger while the crew doesn't. Nobody gets better at using guns, learns to conserve stamina or increase the effects of their powers, upgrade the barricades, etc.
The battles never get more "challenging," because all that changes once you figure out how the guns, powers, and enemies work is how many there are (a lot more) and how strong they are (considerably). There's no room to be creative or develop an effective combat force as time goes on and people get tired or injured; you try not to fuck up and hope to Digknee's ghost that whoever's on shotgun or magnum duty doesn't miss at a critical moment. And even then, some of the nights leave you with an absolutely ruinous encounter; I ran into three moose, two roosters, three big healers, and two rats once with only one shotgun in play.
The crew doesn't adapt. You can only use what you start with ability and ammo-wise, and what you find or buy. Increasing your viewership should also do something, like make it easier to boost morale, and maybe clearing out wax in nearby areas would reduce the enemies coming that night. My point is, the game feels half-finished.
One of the things I like about the game is the fact that the enemy levels up and your characters don't. Truthfully at first, I kinda irked that I couldn't do any upgrades. But after I did a few run-throughs, it was actually quite rewarding to beat enemies larger than you.
I think the devs intend this game to be like the David vs Goliath scenario: where you are the underdogs fighting for survival as the enemy forces grow stronger.
I also like how the survivors have their own different powers that give them their own play style. While it is true that there is no survivor that is useful in all situations, I think it's good that not everyone has powers that can easily steamroll through enemies.
I doubt that everyone agrees with my opinion, but whatever.
Interesting perspective. My response to that is that David slung a rock towards an unarmored human skull with impressive speed and accuracy, one-shotting an infamous soldier through an avenue of combat that completely bypassed skill, experience, endurance, strength, and everything else that he was lacking by demonstrating that human bones cannot withstand a certain amount of force delivered by an object of particular density moving at or above a given velocity, no matter how big they are. So a David vs Goliath scenario would really involve battles which are utterly impossible without knowing what the enemy's weakness is--Larry and the Gnomes on Newgrounds is a good example of that, as the 2nd and 3rd bosses cannot be simply plowed through with rage mode or missiles unless the right cheats are active.
That said, the diversity of the survivor skillsets is actually a pretty big plus in the games favor...it's just that it currently isn't enough, and more could be done with it. Rather than two survivors having every skill, each survivor's equivalent of the skill is slightly different; Olga's whip might deal uniform damage (less than Larissa's maximum) and move nine squares in any shape, but they're still both power whips. Which brings up something else; it's interesting that Olga sucks as a shooter but has the only guaranteed one-shot ability in the game that doesn't fuck up the party (the nuke basically wipes everyone), but it would be even more interesting if she could upgrade her power to either fling more enemies into space or deal increased damage--then the player would have to choose between making use of her diverse skillset (repair, medical, etc) or putting her on guard duty in difficult areas. It would also be interesting to equip Carmen with auto-repair features by scavenging parts from Digknee bots, or having the option to put Olga or Elaine on production duty to use scrap parts to make one-time use drones the survivors can dump in a lane to buy time and do some damage while they fight enemies. Or something.
There's no shortage of ideas you can have anons dump on you, but I'll go back to the first point: you aren't given enough to succeed. I mean, the game is beatable--people were clearing original mode left and right--but it's a frantic, frenetic kind of beatable rather than pleasantly strenuous and demanding of ingenuity. One thing the game *really* has going for it is the random aspect of enemy spawns; even if the option did exist to allocate time and resources to specific weapons, survivors, and abilities, there's no guarantee that it would be enough...but it wouldn't be quite so imbalanced.
As things stand, increasing the availability of ammunition would change the game drastically; replacing the backup pistol with regular guns increases a guard crew's odds tremendously, but that kind of gameplay isn't just difficult, it's currently unsustainable. This could be achieved by making it possibly to use "energy rounds," which draw on the solar reserves and make farming the Hangar more important, while conserving regular ammo for trips to looting grounds. It would also make it necessary to buff or alter Carmen to make her worth using, but that's another issue--maybe if character trees become a thing, she could become entirely oriented on repair, entertainment, or combat?
I agree that the game doesn't need to be a cakewalk to be playable, but as Anon 6:23AM pointed out: many of us have played more interesting strategy games, and many of us have played more gratifying hentai games. AD3 is being judged twice as hard because it's competing in two categories and if people are so frustrated or bored with the strategy that they never reach the hentai, it's like scoring a zero on the second half of it's rating and tanking the average.
I'm glad people like it. I'm just frustrated that a game that looked so appealing fell so short of my preferences after I'd paid for it.
We are working hard to resolve some of the loading issues people have been sending to us.
I'm not entirely sure why it's like this to most players... However, my guess is probably due to the server capacity issues. I know HC would disagree with me on that, but what we both agree on is that this is something beyond our expertise, but we know that this issue must be properly dealt with.
Once we release the next patch, which is coming in a few days or so (I don't have a good estimate), we're giving players options to skip loading, or even reload. Keep in mind that if you skip loading, not all sounds and videos will play out. However, it does at least solve the issue of players having to reset manually.
@Anon 9:05 PM Well sure your suggestions are all interesting to consider.
"mike moose bots drop stuff for carmen" Neat concept, but why does it matter from a game design sense? It's imaginative but not strategically incentivising.
Consider that the assault rifle spawns the mike moose bots. It's surely imaginative, a bit unrealistic, yeah, but it has its own unique strategy around being strongest rifle with a huge drawback that you have to plan for.
Level ups ultimately fall out of AD3's design philo. They can be strategic, and if any video game characters have room for improvement with shooting skills, it's gonna be AD3's survivors, lol. The reason they're not in is because it's hard to account for them in terms of player progression versus enemies.
AD3's battle design concepts: -It's a survival game. You can date as much as you can survive. -As a result, the enemies must get better over time, not the crew. -Since the crew is continuously degrading in capability, player skill is the main factor, not rpg grinding. (apparently this is supposed to be fun) -Every turn counts. Even spamming pistols at the end is important. -Since the game doesn't ever completely refresh itself like how you'd go back to full health at the beginning of a level, the amount of possible mistakes is maximized. This is an interesting design philosophy that I believe is the main contributor for player concern. Take an FPS for example. On medium difficulty, you might have to make 5 mistakes to die. On the hardest difficuty, you'd just have to make 1 mistake. AD3 corrects this for hardcore gamers because it's more like you have to make 20 mistakes to die, and for its easier difficulty, you need to make 100 mistakes. What we may not have accounted for was how discouraging making those 100 mistakes can be, heh. -Make the player's options strategic yet easily calculated. The game uses pretty simple numbers.
What qualifies as a mistake? Is it the tiniest error, such as a difference in judgement between a pistol and a shotgun round? If so, then I imagine 20 mistakes over 35 days is harsh.
I was voting 5 on both previous games every day for years, until the voting system was changed.
ReplyDeleteI feel like you died a little inside adding an easier difficulty. I would've.
DeleteWell it was crazy, huh? When AD2 came out, not a lot of people had much to say, but they were generally satisfied. For AD3... wow. No matter how much people loved or hated it, it unanimously drove everyone insane, haha.
DeleteDid you know that the site http://www.gamesofdesire.com/ has AD3 on their site? I don't know if they ripped it from Newgrounds or something but just thought I'd point it out in case you didn't know.
ReplyDeleteI didn't know.
Delete"This time you play as a commander the space station called Iacchus. The previous commander has died from the unknown zombie-like infection. So you're the new man in charge. EarthGov decides not to waste their money on rescuing you, so now you and your crew are on your own :)"
It looks like he transcribed one of my trailers... He thinks the station is called Iacchus. And he thinks you're a commander. I'm pretty sure he's thinking of another sci-fi game on that one.
and look at those comments... Get me my deal-with-it shades
-Deal-with-it shades provided-
Deletelol
DeleteHey dudes. Just wanted to let you know that I'm STILL getting the white screen after clicking LiftOff even after clearing my cache on Firefox. Works fine on Chrome. Not sure if there's anything you can do about this?
ReplyDeleteWell we've done a lot about it already but I'm not sure what we can do. Sorry for the huge inconvenience, but perhaps chrome is the best browser to play ad3.
DeleteWell, I'll be honest. I should have tried beating the demo before making this purchase. It's a challenging, interesting game with good artwork, music, and story...but I'm not having as much fun with it as I expected. That'll probably get better as I keep playing it, but as you noted in your post six days ago, restrictive gameplay is not for everyone.
ReplyDeleteAnd that's not wrong of you, but there's a fine line between a challenge and a struggle. Struggles are unpleasant, even if they force you to grow--to man up and tackle your discomfort. When I decided, "Hey, this guy put a lot of effort into the game, he deserves some recognition for the work he invested," I was expecting to pay for something I'd enjoy.
At this stage I'm wondering things like, "Am I meant to lose after a set point to actually progress?" and, "Wouldn't it make more sense to assign the doctor to one person at a time, or to repair Carmen *or* the barricades?" or, "It would be interesting if we could track the movement of the infected throughout the zones and keep ahead of the really dangerous swarms, or raid areas for specific items at higher risk of attack," and so on.
I think you yourself referred to it as being "obnoxiously" difficult, and stated that you intended for the easy mode to capture as much of that difficulty as possible, but unless I can "git gud," I'm finding the experience very much...incomplete. And that sucks, because it seems like the game should be more enjoyable than this.
But there's always the chance that I'm a filthy casual who isn't even playing it right. I'd be interesting in hearing your thoughts on the matter.
Easy mode is still too difficult, huh? Guess I should keep waiting before playing some more.
Delete...how about you try it yourself and then decide if it's still too hard? Or do you never leave your house before your scouts give you the "all clear"-sign?
DeleteI would if I thought it were worth my precious time.
DeleteI've tried it before, only to find that my time was wasted.
I will tread cautiously before making the same mistake.
How about you mind your own business?
Lol don't cry about "minding my own business" when you make a public post :)
DeleteNow don't waste any more of your precious time by continuing this argument.
Wow, fanboy gonna fanboy over a game he's wasted his hours on. The massive erection he has for this mediocre pursuit is so strong.
DeleteHow am I a fanboy when I'm criticizing your (lack of) logic and not defending the game? :P
DeleteRead what I said again and then decide if your pretentious e-tough guy attitude was called for.
Fanboy continues to fanboyby bringing up senseless logic. Well played, but I don't fall for your trap.
DeleteAnd this is enough of your trollworthy argment. Regardless of whether you respond back, this is not the place for your attempts at flaming or trolling. If that's what you intend, then you need to leave.
Lol at anon. ur making ur look more pathetic. Seriously, if ur trying to burn Sanders, then you're doing a poor job right now.
DeleteLook, I don't care if you find it hard or not (ofc not all games are for every1), but maybe stop posting non-feedback comments before you make urself even smaller.
Seems like the a lot of the character stories don't even work. Terra's breaks at #7, Zoe's breaks at #7, Carmen at #5. For a game that makes you work as hard as it does to get these points, I figured they would at least let me progress. What gives??
ReplyDeleteI hear some characters' stories are linked. But I don't know if we're told in-game as to which are and which are not. I was told in this blog that Carmen and Olga are linked somehow. At least, that's what I remember.
DeleteSeriously? If the game were maybe half as hard that would be replay-value, but this is just another kick to the balls.
DeleteThere's strategy games, survival games, and hentai games. You can blend most of those elements no problem, but hentai games can't exceed a certain level of difficulty before they become frustrating instead of interesting. Even if this is doable, AD3 is either appealing to the wrong audience or sending mixed signals to both.
Maybe a HentaiMode that's a joke to strategy players (but costs extra?) and a NightmareMode with less emphasis on Basics for pros? I don't really get the emphasis on restrictive gameplay; they're trying to combine a fun strategy game with fapping.
I agree.
DeleteAs a hentai game, it fails. You may never survive to see it.
As a strategy game, it fails. It is just not interesting.
They tried to do both and fell short on both accounts.
This is my opinion ofc, but I find the strategy to b quite intricate. Would be interested to hear you guys on why u think it's boring.
DeleteAnd no, this is not a hate comment directed at you guys.
I have no problem with the strategy. I just want the character stories to actually load and well. Work.
DeleteWhy is it dissatisfying as a strategy game? The player currently lacks means to properly respond to certain threats--a wave of rats might be countered by Olga or Larissa's whip, but beyond that a wide-range option is limited to grenades and powers that you never know to plan for. The problem isn't a lack of tools as much as it is a lack of intelligence; there's no way to know which people would be best to put on guard duty on a given night, or which guns to set them up with. It would make sense for massive waves of zombies to spawn in the barracks, and rats in the mall for example.
DeleteOn top of which, while we know that there are all sorts of operations going on backstage--workers doing stuff to keep things running for the main cast, Olga's experiments, various counts of substance abuse, etc--the player is fighting a losing battle because the enemies are somehow multiplying and growing stronger while the crew doesn't. Nobody gets better at using guns, learns to conserve stamina or increase the effects of their powers, upgrade the barricades, etc.
The battles never get more "challenging," because all that changes once you figure out how the guns, powers, and enemies work is how many there are (a lot more) and how strong they are (considerably). There's no room to be creative or develop an effective combat force as time goes on and people get tired or injured; you try not to fuck up and hope to Digknee's ghost that whoever's on shotgun or magnum duty doesn't miss at a critical moment. And even then, some of the nights leave you with an absolutely ruinous encounter; I ran into three moose, two roosters, three big healers, and two rats once with only one shotgun in play.
The crew doesn't adapt. You can only use what you start with ability and ammo-wise, and what you find or buy. Increasing your viewership should also do something, like make it easier to boost morale, and maybe clearing out wax in nearby areas would reduce the enemies coming that night. My point is, the game feels half-finished.
Why do you, Dr Who, think it's intricate? I want you to expand on that. I'm in agreement with Anon up here.
DeleteWell if you want to know...
DeleteOne of the things I like about the game is the fact that the enemy levels up and your characters don't. Truthfully at first, I kinda irked that I couldn't do any upgrades. But after I did a few run-throughs, it was actually quite rewarding to beat enemies larger than you.
I think the devs intend this game to be like the David vs Goliath scenario: where you are the underdogs fighting for survival as the enemy forces grow stronger.
I also like how the survivors have their own different powers that give them their own play style. While it is true that there is no survivor that is useful in all situations, I think it's good that not everyone has powers that can easily steamroll through enemies.
I doubt that everyone agrees with my opinion, but whatever.
Interesting perspective. My response to that is that David slung a rock towards an unarmored human skull with impressive speed and accuracy, one-shotting an infamous soldier through an avenue of combat that completely bypassed skill, experience, endurance, strength, and everything else that he was lacking by demonstrating that human bones cannot withstand a certain amount of force delivered by an object of particular density moving at or above a given velocity, no matter how big they are. So a David vs Goliath scenario would really involve battles which are utterly impossible without knowing what the enemy's weakness is--Larry and the Gnomes on Newgrounds is a good example of that, as the 2nd and 3rd bosses cannot be simply plowed through with rage mode or missiles unless the right cheats are active.
DeleteThat said, the diversity of the survivor skillsets is actually a pretty big plus in the games favor...it's just that it currently isn't enough, and more could be done with it. Rather than two survivors having every skill, each survivor's equivalent of the skill is slightly different; Olga's whip might deal uniform damage (less than Larissa's maximum) and move nine squares in any shape, but they're still both power whips. Which brings up something else; it's interesting that Olga sucks as a shooter but has the only guaranteed one-shot ability in the game that doesn't fuck up the party (the nuke basically wipes everyone), but it would be even more interesting if she could upgrade her power to either fling more enemies into space or deal increased damage--then the player would have to choose between making use of her diverse skillset (repair, medical, etc) or putting her on guard duty in difficult areas. It would also be interesting to equip Carmen with auto-repair features by scavenging parts from Digknee bots, or having the option to put Olga or Elaine on production duty to use scrap parts to make one-time use drones the survivors can dump in a lane to buy time and do some damage while they fight enemies. Or something.
There's no shortage of ideas you can have anons dump on you, but I'll go back to the first point: you aren't given enough to succeed. I mean, the game is beatable--people were clearing original mode left and right--but it's a frantic, frenetic kind of beatable rather than pleasantly strenuous and demanding of ingenuity. One thing the game *really* has going for it is the random aspect of enemy spawns; even if the option did exist to allocate time and resources to specific weapons, survivors, and abilities, there's no guarantee that it would be enough...but it wouldn't be quite so imbalanced.
As things stand, increasing the availability of ammunition would change the game drastically; replacing the backup pistol with regular guns increases a guard crew's odds tremendously, but that kind of gameplay isn't just difficult, it's currently unsustainable. This could be achieved by making it possibly to use "energy rounds," which draw on the solar reserves and make farming the Hangar more important, while conserving regular ammo for trips to looting grounds. It would also make it necessary to buff or alter Carmen to make her worth using, but that's another issue--maybe if character trees become a thing, she could become entirely oriented on repair, entertainment, or combat?
I agree that the game doesn't need to be a cakewalk to be playable, but as Anon 6:23AM pointed out: many of us have played more interesting strategy games, and many of us have played more gratifying hentai games. AD3 is being judged twice as hard because it's competing in two categories and if people are so frustrated or bored with the strategy that they never reach the hentai, it's like scoring a zero on the second half of it's rating and tanking the average.
I'm glad people like it. I'm just frustrated that a game that looked so appealing fell so short of my preferences after I'd paid for it.
We are working hard to resolve some of the loading issues people have been sending to us.
ReplyDeleteI'm not entirely sure why it's like this to most players... However, my guess is probably due to the server capacity issues. I know HC would disagree with me on that, but what we both agree on is that this is something beyond our expertise, but we know that this issue must be properly dealt with.
Once we release the next patch, which is coming in a few days or so (I don't have a good estimate), we're giving players options to skip loading, or even reload. Keep in mind that if you skip loading, not all sounds and videos will play out. However, it does at least solve the issue of players having to reset manually.
@Anon 9:05 PM
ReplyDeleteWell sure your suggestions are all interesting to consider.
"mike moose bots drop stuff for carmen"
Neat concept, but why does it matter from a game design sense? It's imaginative but not strategically incentivising.
Consider that the assault rifle spawns the mike moose bots. It's surely imaginative, a bit unrealistic, yeah, but it has its own unique strategy around being strongest rifle with a huge drawback that you have to plan for.
Level ups ultimately fall out of AD3's design philo. They can be strategic, and if any video game characters have room for improvement with shooting skills, it's gonna be AD3's survivors, lol. The reason they're not in is because it's hard to account for them in terms of player progression versus enemies.
AD3's battle design concepts:
-It's a survival game. You can date as much as you can survive.
-As a result, the enemies must get better over time, not the crew.
-Since the crew is continuously degrading in capability, player skill is the main factor, not rpg grinding. (apparently this is supposed to be fun)
-Every turn counts. Even spamming pistols at the end is important.
-Since the game doesn't ever completely refresh itself like how you'd go back to full health at the beginning of a level, the amount of possible mistakes is maximized. This is an interesting design philosophy that I believe is the main contributor for player concern. Take an FPS for example. On medium difficulty, you might have to make 5 mistakes to die. On the hardest difficuty, you'd just have to make 1 mistake. AD3 corrects this for hardcore gamers because it's more like you have to make 20 mistakes to die, and for its easier difficulty, you need to make 100 mistakes. What we may not have accounted for was how discouraging making those 100 mistakes can be, heh.
-Make the player's options strategic yet easily calculated. The game uses pretty simple numbers.
Ah, better get back to work.
What qualifies as a mistake? Is it the tiniest error, such as a difference in judgement between a pistol and a shotgun round? If so, then I imagine 20 mistakes over 35 days is harsh.
DeleteI love RPG grinding.
ReplyDelete