Postby The GoldFish » Tue Feb 14, 2006 7:54 am
Yes, well, you see, Stricken was 'designed' so it was challenging *to me* while I was *designing and testing* it, (read, someone playing each level over and over again, many times, in a short space of time) - However, I feel like the last level is a total let down now. At first, it was an impossible concept, I couldn't see how anyone could ever achieve it. And now it's a real thing that anyone can do (or at least hopefully?).
By the way, when I say designed, what I really mean was, I bunged some stuff together, played it a bit, tweaked it a little, maybe even changed it a lot - it was almost always in responce to how it played for me - almost all the odd sidey bits in Gladiator actually have a roughly defined gameplay purpose for how I play the level. This is *probably* why I find it a leeetle bit easier than other people - I designed it for me to be badass at. Either way, my design process is, get something that's the right sort of shape, and then cut little bits off and stick little bits on until it's almost exactly what you want - I feel alot of modders might not play their levels enough when testing them (and frankly, I don't blame them). Balaal was literally that, I just bunged a load of triffids, a few piles of virii, spiders and a spam cube under half a fuel generator, and called it a level.
Stricken took months of on and off work. Droughtwinia took a day (more or less).
Having only one squadie isn't actually being as bad off as it sounds (even without the increased laser rate, I took down a spam cube one on one in insurrection, though died along with it after hurling my airstrike marker at the end of a torrent of grenades), nor is it much of a loss of firepower, depending of course on your choice of targets. The problem is, of course, if you miss...
As a note towards 'near misses', In my 'guide to gladiator' video, I had no fewer than 4 near misses. (and one was in fact a double) (note that near misses counts as, actually getting hurt). Knowing how to avoid instant death reduces the need for all those sluggish extra squadies - mainly it's changing direction suddenly and shooting the thing trying to eat you in the face. You really do have alot more health in Stricken - in fact, you move a third faster, have just under 3 and a half times more health and fire just under three times faster, kind of like having 3 squadies but with less explosive potential, making it less of a 'stand far away and bomb spiders' and more of a 'run around and hope a spider doesn't eat me'
To be honest, if I had expected people to actively kill spiders, I probably would have lowered their health in stats. I expected everyone to go for the things that were actually a threat even if they kept on their toes constantly ("ants" and "virii"). The idea wasn't to kill every enemy in the level - if you try that you'll almost undoubtably end up dead and having to restart. I would actually go against what's probably popular opinion and say that Retribution is the toughest level, not gladiator, too, mainly because of a bug relating to centipede kill zones, which I think is the main reason for 'sudden death' in that level.
If you were really having to restart every level through losing your squadie, then no, it wouldn't be much fun at all - if you find you don't have to restart, and really get into the dodging thing, then it's probably the most fun mod ever (it is for me). I certainly don't maintain that Stricken is for everyone, because obviously, it isn't, but for me, noting what you said in the insurrection thread, for me, *this* is Darwinia :P
It does worry me sometimes that a lot of people play Stricken and just stop midway through, and then don't *say* anything. I know alot of people think it's (too?) hard - I think in places it's far too easy. Not a lot of people really reported back...
