Dev Blog - Virtual World Arcade

10/24/2017

CYCOM Live Stream #13 - Reviewing Your Feedback!

2 Comments

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2 Comments

Jeremy

10/31/2017 10:55:55 am

Hey Dakota,

Thanks so much for taking the time to review the game! Sorry about the delay; I wanted to make sure I gave each point of feedback the attention it deserved.

Pro's
"knowing when the gauge was full"
This is interesting. The majority of other new players to the game or new players to VR had a lot of trouble either knowing when the gauge was full or the fact that it is more advantageous to bring up the programs than continue to use their lemonbuster. Perhaps this is because the most weak enemies don't force them to have to use their programs, and they're able to get by with the lemonbuster and dodging. Because we believe the gameplay is more fun when the players use their programs, we opted to test having the program menu automatically come up without button press in this release. The main benefits are more fun gameplay, and players do not need to learn or remember to use the menu button--simpler interaction model for beginners.

"I found myself using different methods each round"
Glad to hear! This is the type of strategizing we intended with this card game mechanic.

"shoot away the enemies energy"
Good feedback. We weren't sure if this was a good idea, so thanks for validating!

"I like the card selection"
We have 150 cards spec'd out, and we will be introducing more cards in 2018 that allow players to choose their own playstyle--agro, control, sustain, summon. It'll be interesting to see which playstyles different players gravitate towards. I feel I'm more of a control player; I enjoy cards like area grab and crackshot that control space and time.

"it did not take me long after getting the basics"
Excellent, we wanted to know whether our controls were easy enough to learn and remember and how effective the tutorial was. Thanks for validating!

"it was satisfying dodging enemy shots when I could with a simple duck or side step."
Great! We weren't sure if allowing this was a good idea, so thanks for validating!

"I found that the blasters worked well up until the boss, then they started to feel extremely under powered."
Thanks for the feedback! We've scheduled a Charged Blaster feature for Spring 2018 after basic multiplayer is released in December. The charged blaster is activated by press and hold, you'll visually see a large lemonbuster shot charging on the end of your lemonbuster and you can release trigger to fire it. It is larger and does 10 damage as opposed to 1 damage. Hopefully, this will help balance the usefulness of the lemonbuster on harder enemies.

"Some of the cards I felt had very little use (The rooks, lances) or only used with one specific enemies"
We anticipate this issue will be eased when we have more cards to build your deck with, and we implement the deck-building feature in Spring 2018. For players who do not see value in certain cards, then can opt to remove them completely. Sustain players--strategy is to heal and deal small damage over time like poison--would benefit from fortifying themselves in defensive barriers. Control players would benefit from using area grabs and fans to push their enemies to the back and using back lances. Back lance damage may need to go up in the next iteration of card balancing too.

"The canon launcher was very overpowered in certain situations"
Thanks for the feedback! We've scheduled a task to add a fire rate delay to balance the cannon launcher.

"The little spider things with bombs although only having 10hp I found to be a huge nuisance"
Thanks for the feedback! We weren't sure which direction to go with the spiderbot--high HP and make the player dodge, or low HP and make the player shoot it. We've changed this to 5 HP in the version out on Steam for testing.

"The swords worked well but it was hard to tell how long they actually lasted."
I'm not sure what the best design fix for this is for now. I've filed a P2 (Priority 2) bug to revisit the design and raise another design discussion on this in January after collecting more player feedback. Open to any suggestions you may have as well!

"The shotgun defiantly needs some visual upgrades"
We've been struggling with the design on how to convey where the shotgun went or where it's going to go. We tried looking for inspiration from FPS games, and it seems they solve this problem with hitscan guns by having scopes or guns designed such that it's easier for the player to aim down the top of the gun. We're in the middle of redesigning our lemonbuster, so we'll see if the lemonbuster design can help fix this. I've filed a P1 bug to re-test for this issue in January after lemonbuster resdesign. Open to any suggestions you may have as well!

"I would not long take any damage from him"
Thanks for pointing this out! This was one of this elusive bugs that only occurs in the exe build and not in the Unity editor while in development. I fixed this P0 (Priority 0, drop everything and fix) bug immediately after reading your comment, and the fix is out on Steam. Thanks!

Jeremy

10/31/2017 10:57:31 am

"On one or two occasions when I died the exit menus would not pop-up"
Good bug. I've filed a P2 bug for investigation in December.

"burst fire mode that does more damage but can only load one card or a stream fire that overheats"
We've never considered burst fire mode, so this is interesting. Overheating is a mechanism we tried before, and we've found players tend to feel frustrated if their weapon overheats, and there's nothing for them to do but wait. It may work if there's something else meaningful they can do while their lemonbuster is overheating. I've filed a feature request for assessment in January the same time we design the charged lemonbuster feature.

"it would be cool if you could make your own load out of sorts"
Coming Spring 2018!

"critical spots but I didnt see any"
We pushed this feature out to make time for multiplayer. Currently it's scheduled for January 2018. The feature is to put headshot spots on the enemies and boss. I've filed a P2 bug for the next November release to remove the voiceover about critical spots in the tutorial to avoid confusion in the meantime.

"having there own health bar"
Actually, that's a great idea! I can't believe we hadn't thought of that! Filed as feature for December release!

"my brain thought that it was directional based on the way I was looking, So in some instances I had to tell my self consciously to click up on the track pad instead of right (maybe a future menus option?)"
This is good feedback. We opted for a fixed controls system because we found in most tester scenarios, players were looking rapidly left and right at all the enemies but still wanted to move to with relative to the grid instead of their head. I think this is dependent on how quickly a player moves their head. For players who change head directions a lot and still need to move while looking around, movement relative to the grid will be more useful. For players who change head directions less frequently and spend more time looking in one direction, movement relative to their head may make more sense. Added as feature request for Spring 2018!

"more prominent flash or recoil from the enemies when they got hit"
Thanks for the feedback! P1 bug for December.

"base shield"
Thanks for the feedback. We had actually considered having a shield come up when you raise both hands up, but we were not sure how it would affect the gameplay, so we decided not to implement it yet. We liked how not having a shield forced the players to use summons like the Rook and Block to hide behind. Perhaps this can be designed as a last resort and cannot be used frequently. Added as Feature Request for Spring 2018!

"I'm already looking forward to the next iteration"
We're super fortunate to have you as part of our tester community, and we really appreciate all the time and effort you put into this! Thanks for making our game better!

CYCOM Live Stream #13 - Reviewing Your Feedback!

Follow our Weekly Live Stream Q&A Tuesdays 6pm PST here!

Join Our Alpha Tester Community And Get The Game Free!

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CYCOM Live Stream #13 - Reviewing Your Feedback!

Follow our Weekly Live Stream Q&A Tuesdays 6pm PST here!

​​Join Our Alpha Tester Community And Get The Game Free!

Leave a Reply.

Archives

Categories

Join Our Alpha Tester Community And Get The Game Free!