Feedback on the fight

[Cez]

Hey everyone,

I've seen that people have been having troubles with the fight, and I want to hear feedback on how to make it better, especially since there is a similar sequence in the upcoming episode. I've heard some people wish there was a skip function, but I honestly do not to include a puzzle that people feel the need to skip. I want us to make something out of it that people can truly enjoy, maybe with two modes to choose from.

So, for those who had problems with it, would you say that the biggest problem with the fight was that it was timed? Would you have felt better if you had all the time in the world to choose your attacks/defense?

Let's say for example Shadrack began his attack, and you clearly saw what it was, then the game fully pauses, allowing you to think how to respond to it. Would this have been a better approach in your opinion?

In my mind, I always wanted to do this as an action-reaction thing, a bit more like the turn based system of JRPGs, where you have all the time to plan out what to do, but make it more adventure based, where the attacks and defenses are puzzles to figure out on themselves. And at one point it was like I described, but based on feedback from our team, we changed it to be timed, and only have a small window of opportunity to attack. I think this is what hurt the section a bit in the eyes of adventure gamers, but I want to hear your opinions so that we can implement that feedback into Episode 5.

Thank you!
Cesar

[spiritgamer]

HI Cesar.

I am following up on my post over at Gameboomers regarding this.  I would prefer to be able to attack/defend in an open fashion without the timer delay.

Also, I think a nice added touch would have been for the developer to put an option in to replay the end scenes!

[KQ5Fan]

I'd prefer to have it where you have more time to see what's going to happen.

[flitchard]

Me, I'd like it if there were an easy way to tell which side the opponent was aiming for. That

Spoiler (mouse over to reveal):

lightning attack

was BRUTAL, AND random!

[Cez]

Look at the sky

[Madd]

Hi 

I just LOVE what you are folks are doing with this marvellous series and have been a supporter since the start - but in adventure games I really do not want to have to "pass difficult and timed rapid reaction tests" in order to progress.

I want to "think" my way through puzzles 

So .... if a "skip" button is out of the question, can we at least lose the "timed" element, please  ??

Thanks.

Madd 

[AzzyGale]

Actuaslly I kinda like it... it operates on the idea of battle of wits. an element vs opposite element.
The only thing for me is timing and figuring out which attack is the best counterattack.

I like it.

[tessspoon]

I like it.

Me too.

[seir]

Personally I didn't have any problem with the fight, I thought it was pretty easy.  It took me two attempts to get through it--the first try, when Shadrack first rocked the boat, I fell off.  I got through the fight with no problem on the second try.

I thought the signs of which attack he was about to use were easily distinguishable, so it didn't take long to figure out which way to defend against each upcoming attack.

The fight probably took a bit longer than it needed though: At first I tried going back and forth between the earth and fire attacks, before realizing that the fire attack was probably only supposed to work later in the fight--so using the fire early really just wasted turns and served to needlessly lengthen the fight.

I may not have a traditional adventure gamer's stance on battles in adventure games though:  I've always liked adventure games, rpgs, action games and shoot-em-ups, so mixing fights in with adventure games has never bothered me at all.  The QfG games were always my favorite adventure games.

One possible option, to make everyone happy:  Rather than "Easy" and "Hard/Normal" modes for a fight, you could actually have two entirely different ways to do the final fight:  "Adventure" and "Fight".

The Adventure way would use a purely puzzle method to defeat the boss, much like most adventure games.  The fight method would instead do the action sequence.  Giving the Adventure/Fight option also wouldn't have the same sense of stigma that "Easy" vs "Normal" gives the player when faced with the choice -- Adventure vs. Fight are simply two different styles of play.

[Madd]

I too play RPGs and if I want a game with action content that's what I go install  !!   

[AzzyGale]

 this rock-paper scissor concept is to me the most adventury way of solving things. I would hate real time battle (Think Aquaria here) this one is a puzzle and I'd rater keep things this way.

[Lambonius]

I honestly do not to include a puzzle that people feel the need to skip.

But puzzles that intentionally frustrate are okay? 

[karamazov]

I  think the fight was fine. I got it right the second time around and it was a puzzle not an action fight. Old SIERRA games had more difficult arcade sequences sometimes. Overall I found it tense and enjoyable. One thing though: After a long stretch of relaxed adventure gaming, there were two potentially frustrating puzzles the one right after the other (Pandora's box and the fight). I didn't mind it, but I can see how it might frustrate some people.

[Arkillian]

I'm not an action gamer. I don't mind timed sequences, but lets try to not give me a heart attack with the next one- please T.T Shadrack scares the heck out of me now T.T *clings to Graham* The battle strategy wasn't obvious to me. Once I looked up on the hints the timing was actually alright for me. It just freaked me out deciding which move to use out of 4 (my heart is still racing D: ). The snakes one was fine cause there was two options, but 4 was getting too much for a non gamer like me. I play King's quest for puzzles- not battle sequences. I don't mind them, but if you want battle sequences that are hard, play an action game.

That's my POV. Simplify it, or have the option to simplify it.

I love Ranger intervention  

Funnily enough too- I enjoyed the Pandora's box one when I figured it out. Shadracks pressure made it exciting ^^

[SilverBall10]

I wish there was the possibility to save just after the Pandora's Box scene, even if it does it automatically as "Shadrack fight" AND after that long battle, in order to see the end sequence without doing it again every time.

I hope that in Episode 5 the final sequence will be selectable from a save game point without doing again battle sequences or else.
Thank you.

[Damar]

I would agree that the skip option is something I wouldn't do.  Likewise, freezing time for reaction would take me out of the game even more.  Call me a masochist, but if it's there in the game, I have to play it just so the game doesn't defeat me.  Seir's ideas of having it be shorter is nice, as well as possibly having an adventure mode.

Honestly, though, my advice about tweaking the battle is this: Cut it entirely.  If you want a game to have an RPG element, do an unofficial sequel to Quest for Glory.  Or use the ideas in a new game.  Don't try to graft it to King's Quest, particularly when you have so much more story to tell.  You like RPGs, that's fine.  But King's Quest is not an RPG.  This attempt to combine other non-adventure elements to an adventure game is one of the reasons why Mask of Eternity was so maligned.

Look, I understand that these fights are your babies and that you want to infuse something new into King's Quest.  But firstly, you're doing this project because King's Quest has endured on its own due to great gameplay and nostalgia.  It doesn't need a shot of the modern and other genres to keep it relevant.  The fact that you can make an unofficial sequel to it and people will play it means it's relevant enough.  The fact that AGDI and IA already released great games means that the series doesn't need revived.  Secondly, while cutting the fights might sound extreme, it's not without precedent.  You guys have made it clear that this game was originally going to be massive with a lot more visitable areas, more plot points, and so on.  You had to cut those because there wasn't enough time, it wasn't feasible, and so on.  I'm sure some of those plot points were your babies too, but you cut them for the good of the game, because you realized that the game, as originally envisioned, just wouldn't work because it was too big.  You can still use those ideas and concepts in your upcoming commercial games.  So there's a precedent here and I feel I can offer this suggestion without coming across as a jerk.  Cut the battle.  This isn't the game for it.  And in this final chapter where so many plot points are still to be fully resolved and explained, it's really not the place for it.

And again, I'm not emotional about this.  You're not raping my childhood, you're not killing King's Quest.  But you are making an uneven game.  Cut the battle.  That's my suggestion.

[AzzyGale]

But this battle does add to this chapter; it was high tme for Graham to have a first confrontation with Shadrack and we will never get any full answers or solutions anyway. I really think this battle was called for and the way it was handled does not take anything away from it. It;s not a shot of the modern.  it;s a classic battle cocnept; even quest for glory had some battles, basing on using opposing counter attacks.
I feel mix of adventure and rpg is very interesting.....and I appreciate it being impleneted here in a classic way. Then again, of course Quest for Glory was built like this from its very conception-with character stats. I absolutely loved that.

But I felt that battle was needed for the chapter, plot-wise. Because of all the backstory related to Pandora and black cloaks and silver cloaks and because it was high time for Graham to meet his enemy. Actually, I thought this should have happened in earlier chapter chapter because I was hopinjg that thry would somehiw manage to squeeze all trilogy into this five episodes lol. Not going to happen and it would probably be impossible to hope for. 

I feel this very justified.  

[snabbott]

The battle wasn't particularly functional until pretty late in development, so I didn't get a chance to get used to it. I still didn't find it overly difficult. I had to try it a number of times before I got through it (mostly because I didn't read the directions carefully and didn't realize the dodge arrows were actually on the amulet), but it wasn't too hard to recognize the various attacks. If I were designing it, I would probably make it more puzzle-y and less action-y, but I think it was ok the way it was, too.

I was much more frustrated with the Pandora's box sequence. When I first played it, it didn't have the disappearing symbol wheels. I think I would have left it that way, at least for the easy mode. Still, I did manage to get through it (in easy mode) even though I was half asleep at the time. (After Benjamin's bedtime is about the only time I have for that sort of thing these days. )

[AzzyGale]

Pandora's puzzle was easy enough for me in  easy mode. And besides Valanice has all te hints she needs to look at  right in front of her on that wall...in order not to blindly click at anything.  We get the puzzle and basically the instructions and hints all together.

I also like the "red mode" to prevent players from just blindly clicking at any element for an infinite number of times..it pulsates red twice and if you don;t get the right element the third time..uh oh, start again, buster!  

However I did write elsewhere that i could not see what I was doing because the upper part of the mirro was impossible to see..therefore, especially the left hand and  right hand upper corner of the image I was building left me doing a bit of intuitive guesswork, I really would have preferred to the see the whole image, rather than have the upper part of it cut. Also, I would have removed/disabled the advenutre bar for the duration of the puzzle, because I found it irritating to click on it instead of the puzzle piece.

other than that, this really isn't an overly complicated puzzle. And there has to be some difficulty. I would have hated it  personally, if the difficulity/challenge lay only in increasing the speed to demonic degrees...although perhaps iut would have been logical.

But then disappearing is also logical given Valanice;s situation.

She is threatened by Shadrack, Rosella is in danger. er heart is beating fast, she is probably trembling on the inside. Tears are in her eyes maybe and she has difficulty seeing--hence the disappearing. The fact that thiose wheels start moving faster --her heart is racing, her pulse is skyrocketing. In other words, the puzzle reflects the pressure Valanice is feeling.

[Damar]

Just played through the double whammy of Pandora's Box and the fight again.  This time I did the box on easy just to see how dumbed down it was.  Pandora's Box on easy is just plain tedious.  Pandora's Box on normal is infuriating.  Honestly, I don't know which version is worse.

As for the fight, on my second playthrough I beat him without a problem.  I think I was able to do better because I was less frustrated about the sudden tone and genre shift.

I also reread the original post and realized that this is more about the difficulty of the battle.  So let me reiterate as one of the vocal dissenters of the boss fight, this isn't about difficulty.  This isn't about not getting the vision.  It's about not liking the fact that the boss fight exists at all in place of actual puzzles or storytelling and that it stands between me and a job well done completing the tasks of exploring and collecting the ingredients.  I'm not bad at games and I'm not a philistine.  I'm just an adventure gamer who doesn't like RPGs.

So if this is a topic about how to improve in general, then my suggestion is to dump the boss battles in the final episode in favor of puzzle based game play or just a cutscene.  If this is a topic that is saying, "Well there's going to be a battle regardless, now do I really have to dumb it down for you?" then the answer is no.  The battle is playable, Shadrack is beatable easily enough.  Making a skip option isn't really going to appease anyone and making it easier would just be a waste of time because the battle is easy enough.  It just seems to take forever because I'm getting thrown into an RPG-type minigame and forced to play in order to advance.  Honestly, it's like I'm a kid again and being forced to eat my peas.  Yeah, I can do it, but I'm going to hate every minute of it and it's going to feel like it takes forever.

So, like I said, if you're going to include the battle (I hope and pray there's only one and that the whole final episode isn't centered around it as you made the statement that the amulet of dreams was central to the final episode) and that is simply that, then there's no point in changing what you've done.  Dumbing it down won't help.  In fact, it would probably frustrate me even more to be taken out of an adventure game to do a simplistic fight.  Asking how to make it simpler is missing the point, which is it just doesn't fit in the genre of the game.  It's like the fighting in Mask of Eternity genre shift mixed with the unnecessary annoyance of Cedric.  For me, anyway.