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Abyss Odyssey |OT| A Warlock's Nightmare From Which I Am Trying To Awake

Vazra

irresponsible vagina leak
Ace Team posted these wallpapers on their facebook.
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Vazra

irresponsible vagina leak
On another note: am I the only person to see that this guy is just all over the place with this discussion?

I'm genuinely curious.

He doesnt get the rogue-like aspects of the game.
KuGsj.gif


LOL not him insulting me now lolololol. Interrupt his conversation in a forum. Im laughing hard in here.

EDIT: This shit is way too funny.
 

Silaerion

Neo Member
He doesnt get the rogue-like aspects of the game.
KuGsj.gif


LOL not him insulting me now lolololol. Interrupt his conversation in a forum. Im laughing hard in here.

EDIT: This shit is way too funny.

Man, he just exploded on you.

I guess I really did a number on him before you left your first comment. I just don't understand what the hell he's trying to say. One moment, he wants the inventory saved between play sessions, another moment he doesn't want anything saved, and now he's saying the whole damn system is screwed and beyond repair.
 

Vazra

irresponsible vagina leak
Man, he just exploded on you.

I guess I really did a number on him before you left your first comment. I just don't understand what the hell he's trying to say. One moment, he wants the inventory saved between play sessions, another moment he doesn't want anything saved, and now he's saying the whole damn system is screwed and beyond repair.

He exploded and I hosed his ass off. The dude seriously needs to get his thoughts together before actually typing all that. I mean I didn't said anything offensive until he went with the fucking fucks talk about learn to read. (I know how to read but I cant understand his ass)


IMO the whole equipment system as it is now works perfectly fine. Some seem to think this game is a lootfest while its not.

I think the Warlock amounts to kill in order to change to the next phase might need to be tweaked a bit . A survival mode would be pretty kickass seeing how low on the abyss the players can go.
 

misho8723

Banned
Fuck, this game is hard.. when i play as the first woman, i getting my ass kicked even at the easy levels... i play better with that average soldier than with her.. tokens are expensive as shit, so i never have enough money for them and so i must repeat every stage over and over again.. it's just not fun after a while
 

Volcynika

Member
Got the game when it was $9.99 on the Humble Store, seems pretty neat. Beat the game on my second attempt but was waiting for patch to come out to fix leaderboard stuff before progressing further.

Does the money needed to unlock the third character persist to multiple runs, or is it needed to have all the gold at once?
 

ViviOggi

Member
Got the game when it was $9.99 on the Humble Store, seems pretty neat. Beat the game on my second attempt but was waiting for patch to come out to fix leaderboard stuff before progressing further.

Does the money needed to unlock the third character persist to multiple runs, or is it needed to have all the gold at once?
Works with multiple runs, thankfully.
 

Strider

Member
Fuck, this game is hard.. when i play as the first woman, i getting my ass kicked even at the easy levels... i play better with that average soldier than with her.. tokens are expensive as shit, so i never have enough money for them and so i must repeat every stage over and over again.. it's just not fun after a while

How much time have you played? Game gets better and better as you keep playing and unlock more skills. The cancels are really important too.
 

Silaerion

Neo Member
He exploded and I hosed his ass off. The dude seriously needs to get his thoughts together before actually typing all that. I mean I didn't said anything offensive until he went with the fucking fucks talk about learn to read. (I know how to read but I cant understand his ass)


IMO the whole equipment system as it is now works perfectly fine. Some seem to think this game is a lootfest while its not.

I think the Warlock amounts to kill in order to change to the next phase might need to be tweaked a bit . A survival mode would be pretty kickass seeing how low on the abyss the players can go.

I don't understand why people want the inventory rules to be changed to something permanent. The game is pretty darn simple as is, and gold is essentially worthless after a set point considering the sheer amount you obtain versus the average amount spent per Abyss run.

As for the community progression system: they really need to tone down the total amount of Warlock defeats needed as there's a whole bunch of people growing more and more displeased by the hour due to lack of content and what-have-you. There's only so many times someone can be told new content is coming and to keep doing what they're doing before they just decide to pack up their bags and leave.

I don't know how many phases ACE Team plans to have unlocked, but if this is a preview... I don't see much longevity left for a large amount of the player base. I've defeated the Warlock 40 (45 if you count glitched runs) times now, and even I'm starting to get a bit tired of doing the same thing over and over again.
 

Vazra

irresponsible vagina leak
I don't understand how people want the inventory rules to be changed to something permanent. The game is pretty darn simple as is, and gold is essentially worthless after a set point considering the sheer amount you obtain versus the average amount spent per Abyss run.

As for the community progression system, they really need to tone down the total amount of Warlock defeats needed as there's a whole bunch of people growing more and more displeased by the hour due to lack of content and what-have-you. There's only so many times someone can be told new content is coming and to keep doing what they're doing before they just decide to pack-up their bags and leave.

I don't know how many phases ACE Team plans to have unlocked, but if this is a preview... I don't see much longevity left for a large amount of the player base. I've defeated the Warlock 40 (45 if you count glitched runs) times now, and even I'm starting to get a bit tired of doing the same thing over and over again.


I see 4 locked characters for the new phase and they say they got planned more. They can lower the amount for the first masks while they add more content.
 

Silaerion

Neo Member
I see 4 locked characters for the new phase and they say they got planned more. They can lower the amount for the first masks while they add more content.

I'm aware that each phase will have a fair bit of content attached to it, and that there's at least another planned after this next one. I'm excited to experience it, however, it's getting increasingly easy to understand how a good number of people are just tired of the grind in the hopes of hitting some unknown number.

As it stands right now, you have the first page of the leaderboard largely consisting of players with 30+ Warlock defeats. Add those upon the many others with ten or more defeats and it begins to be a bit alarming how we're only halfway through this first phase.

Considering that, I honestly believe ACE Team needs to significantly cut down the total amount of defeats needed for this specific mask to break. Should future masks require the same amount of effort or more, those totals would need to be reassessed as well considering that the continued playerbase for Abyss Odyssey will only continue dropping in the long run rather than actually increase.

The most disturbing piece of information to me is the fact that ACE Team's genuinely surprised how fast the community has been progressing so far, and didn't really account for it in their development process. I don't mean to bash them nor their hard-work, but it's hard to fathom how they expected the game in its current condition to progress slower than it already has and still be totally good for it.
 

Vazra

irresponsible vagina leak
I'm aware that each phase will have a fair bit on content attached to it, and that there's at least another one planned after this next one. Personally, I'm excited to experience it, however, it's getting increasingly easy to understand how a good number of people are just tired of the grind in the hopes of hitting some unknown number.

As it stands right now, you have the first page of the Leaderboards largely consisting of players with 30+ Warlock defeats. Add those upon the many others with ten or more defeats and it begins to be a bit alarming how we're only halfway through this first phase.

Considering that, I honestly believe ACE Team needs to significantly cut down the total amount of defeats needed for this specific mask to break. Should future masks require the same amount of effort or more, those totals would definitely need to be reaccessed as well considering the fact that the continued playerbase for Abyss Odyssey will only continue dropping in the long run rather than actually increase.

The most disturbing piece of information to me is the fact that ACE Team's genuinely surprised how fast the community has been progressing so far, and didn't really account for it in their development process. I don't mean to bash them nor their hard-work, but it's hard to fathom how they expected the game in its current condition to progress slower than it already has and still be totally good for it.

It really should be faster progression on the community. I think I understand why they want to it to be slow so more people can experience the first phase but I think that will damage the existent players from Day 1. Im on the top 10 but Im sure I'll be giving the game a break once I finish leveling up Pincoya which is the only character left to level up to 70. Also we need the Online coop fixed cause otherwise we are stuck playing single player for most of the time since we rarely get to play coop local on computers. They say a big patch is planned for this week but I hope that patch adds more stuff to the game even if its stop they were holding up before launch. I love the game but I need more stuff in it.


Also fix the damn black fog glitch where anyone can avoid any encounter except the mini bosses.
 

TSM

Member
The developers really need to look at the itemization in this game. Right now it basically boils down to:

Does this item increase my damage?

Yes - buy it or pick it up

No - Save your money

Basically the item RNG just determines how much tedium is involved in battles.

They already have a level progression system. They should have considered a more interesting equipment progression.
 

Silaerion

Neo Member
It really should be faster progression on the community. I think I understand why they want to it to be slow so more people can experience the first phase but I think that will damage the existent players from Day 1. Im on the top 10 but Im sure I'll be giving the game a break once I finish leveling up Pincoya which is the only character left to level up to 70. Also we need the Online coop fixed cause otherwise we are stuck playing single player for most of the time since we rarely get to play coop local on computers. They say a big patch is planned for this week but I hope that patch adds more stuff to the game even if its stop they were holding up before launch. I love the game but I need more stuff in it.


Also fix the damn black fog glitch where anyone can avoid any encounter except the mini bosses.

The reasoning for why ACE Team wants progression to be slow is pretty lackluster since it has been made apparent that the Warlock fight won't be any different except for an additional phase for each mask broken. New players will still be able to experience everything the older players did, only they'll instead be subject to the new content as well such as additional enemies and environments.

I'm pretty much burnt out at this point after getting each character to level 70 and unlocking everything remotely possible. I wanted to continue helping out with the community effort, but I'm starting to realize the heavy flaw to it being so dragged out. You already have the "top" player in the leaderboard with 110+ Warlock defeats and a handful of others, including me, following with 40+ defeats with nothing to really show for it.

There hasn't been crack in the mask since the v1.01 patch, and that was when the leaderboard had no one beyond 26 defeats of the Warlock.

Like you've pointed out, they really need to fix the extra modes and perhaps make some more appeasing than they already are. Adding new features would do wonders too such as the Survival Mode you briefly mentioned before.

There's a lot of potential with Abyss Odyssey, and it'll be a damn shame if it doesn't get to fully embrace it due to hiccups such as these.
 

TSM

Member
The reasoning for why ACE Team wants progression to be slow is pretty lackluster since it has been made apparent that the Warlock fight won't be any different except for an additional phase for each mask broken. New players will still be able to experience everything the older players did, only they'll instead be subject to the new content as well such as additional enemies and environments.

I'm pretty much burnt out at this point after getting each character to level 70 and unlocking everything remotely possible. I wanted to continue helping out with the community progression, but I'm starting to realize the heavy flaw to it being so dragged out. You already have the "top" player in the Leaderboards with 110+ Warlock defeats with a handful of players, including me, following with 40+ defeats with nothing to really show for it.

There hasn't been crack in the mask since the v1.01 patch, and that was when the Leaderboards had no one beyond 26 defeats of the Warlock.

Like you've pointed out, they really need to fix the extra modes and perhaps make some more appeasing than they already are. Adding new features would do wonders too such as the Survival Mode you briefly mentioned before.

There's a lot of potential with Abyss Odyssey, and it'll be a damn shame if it doesn't get to fully embrace it due to hiccups such as these.

Yeah, I'm not sure I get the reason we have to "earn" a new phase on the final boss. It's also not much of a reward unless there's something more attached to it like a new skill.

The leaderboard in this game is truly terrible. It's basically just "played the most". You can't spend hours optimizing your runs and place in the top 10. It's just about how many times you can force yourself to grind through to the boss.

When you put these 2 things together is comes across as the developer just wanting you to play excessive amounts of game time without having any real end game content at this time. Maybe something worthwhile is coming down the line, but it's definitely not there yet. If they really want players to invest that much time in the game, then they need completely rethink their itemization among other things.
 

Silaerion

Neo Member
Yeah, I'm not sure I get the reason we have to "earn" a new phase on the final boss. It's also not much of a reward unless there's something more attached to it like a new skill.

The leaderboard in this game is truly terrible. It's basically just "played the most". You can't spend hours optimizing your runs and place in the top 10. It's just about how many times you can force yourself to grind through to the boss.

When you put these 2 things together is comes across as the developer just wanting you to play excessive amounts of game time without having any real end game content at this time. Maybe something worthwhile is coming down the line, but it's definitely not there yet. If they really want players to invest that much time in the game, then they need completely rethink their itemization among other things.

The community progression system itself is interesting and motivating, however, the current implementation seems to be doing more damage than good. I love how there's new content attached to destroying the Warlock's mask each and every time, but I don't care at all for just how long they're delaying damage to said mask.

I can't really criticize the new content they have planned as there's no real confirmation to just what would and wouldn't be added. The only details known at the moment are that additional enemies and environments will be introduced alongside a new phase to the Warlock fight.

As for the leaderboard: you won't see me defending how it works. I get what they were going for, but it's really nothing more than a scoreboard demonstrating who has dedicated the most time to defeating the Warlock on and on and on as you said.

It looks like ACE Team expected a huge following and dedicated player base who would help with the community effort over a long period of time. There's nothing wrong with that belief as it makes perfect sense from their perspective. At the moment though, there's really nothing here that would give any reason as to why most players wouldn't drop the game by the end of the month should no new content actually arrive.
 

TSM

Member
It looks like ACE Team expected a huge following and dedicated player base who would help with the community effort over a long period of time. There's nothing wrong with that belief as it makes sense from their perspective. At the moment though, there's really nothing here that would give any reason as to why most players wouldn't drop the game by the end of the month should no new content actually arrive.

You are very optimistic. The game took me less then 2 hours to beat on my 2nd try. I had Pincoya unlocked before the monk. I'm willing to bet more then half the players have moved on at this point since the mask stopped progressing. There's just not enough content in the game.
 

Vazra

irresponsible vagina leak
Haven't tried co-op yet. What's wrong with it?

Online coop basically the netcode is terrible, the guy who joins falls through the stage often, jumpy laggy play and they one joining doesnt seem to save progress.

The reasoning for why ACE Team wants progression to be slow is pretty lackluster since it has been made apparent that the Warlock fight won't be any different except for an additional phase for each mask broken. New players will still be able to experience everything the older players did, only they'll instead be subject to the new content as well such as additional enemies and environments.

I'm pretty much burnt out at this point after getting each character to level 70 and unlocking everything remotely possible. I wanted to continue helping out with the community progression, but I'm starting to realize the heavy flaw to it being so dragged out. You already have the "top" player in the Leaderboards with 110+ Warlock defeats with a handful of players, including me, following with 40+ defeats with nothing to really show for it.

There hasn't been crack in the mask since the v1.01 patch, and that was when the Leaderboards had no one beyond 26 defeats of the Warlock.

Like you've pointed out, they really need to fix the extra modes and perhaps make some more appeasing than they already are. Adding new features would do wonders too such as the Survival Mode you briefly mentioned before.

There's a lot of potential with Abyss Odyssey, and it'll be a damn shame if it doesn't get to fully embrace it due to hiccups such as these.

How hard could it be to implement more floors after lets say beating the game with all 3 characters and those new floors could have new beasts and powered up versions of existing ones. (Nightmare versions of the creatures perhaps?)
The game its great but as it has been mentioned it lacks content or reasons for continuous play thanks the slow pace of progress with the mask breaking. There are easy alternatives to expand it while the mask progress happens like I mentioned adding a few more floors for those who beated the game with the 3 characters like my previous mentioned Survival Mode.

Something in the future maybe a map editor to make crazy trap based platforming with some battles in between.
 

Silaerion

Neo Member
You are very optimistic. The game took me less then 2 hours to beat on my 2nd try. I had Pincoya unlocked before the monk. I'm willing to bet more then half the players have moved on at this point since the mask stopped progressing. There's just not enough content in the game.

I am, and I'm not at the same time. There's a fairly sizable loyal following and I considered myself one of them, but the delay with new content is getting harder and harder to ignore.

I've managed to be able to consistently complete runs through the Abyss in roughly 10-16 minutes. This apparently really shocked ACE Team when it was demonstrated that I, obviously, wasn't the only one to be able to accomplish such clear times.

It's safe to say that's a problem when regarding ACE Team's scope on the longevity of their game. As mentioned before, they really need to reassess their goals and time-tables as its clearly not suitable for the working audience they have.

How hard could it be to implement more floors after lets say beating the game with all 3 characters and those new floors could have new beasts and powered up versions of existing ones. (Nightmare versions of the creatures perhaps?)

The game its great but as it has been mentioned it lacks content or reasons for continuous play thanks the slow pace of progress with the mask breaking. There are easy alternatives to expand it while the mask progress happens like I mentioned adding a few more floors for those who beated the game with the 3 characters like my previous mentioned Survival Mode.

Something in the future maybe a map editor to make crazy trap based platforming with some battles in between.

The problem is that they seem to have tied any and all significant content additions to the community progression system.

There would be nothing wrong with this form of system if it didn't demand so much damn time and effort from the players. In fact, demanding a lot of time and effort from players wouldn't even be a grand issue if the core game itself was compelling enough to justify such a request. Unfortunately, that's not the case with Abyss Odyssey in its current form as you, myself, and many others have stated.
 

Vazra

irresponsible vagina leak
I am, and I'm not at the same time. There's a fairly sizable loyal following and I considered myself one of them, but the delay with new content is getting harder and harder to ignore.

I've managed to be able to consistently complete runs through the Abyss in roughly 10-16 minutes on average. This apparently really shocked ACE Team when it was demonstrated that I, obviously, wasn't the only one to be able to accomplish such clear times.

It's safe to say that's a problem when regarding ACE Team's scope on the longevity of their game. As mentioned before, they really need to reaccess their goals and time-tables as its clearly not suitable for the working audience they have.

They expected runs to be 40 minutes each.
KuGsj.gif


Each run with Verbum Dei 15-20 mins wrecking everything.
 

Silaerion

Neo Member
They expected runs to be 40 minutes each.
KuGsj.gif


Each run with Verbum Dei 15-20 mins wrecking everything.

Oh lord, it looks like their largest concern now is whether or not to increase the difficulty of Nightmare Mode.

I can see how some players find it fairly simple as is, but its hardly an issue that needs to be addressed at the moment.

I decided to leave some feedback on the discussion concerning that specific change and how it lacks perspective versus a change on the current implementation of the community progression system.
 

TSM

Member
I am, and I'm not at the same time. There's a fairly sizable loyal following and I considered myself one of them, but the delay with new content is getting harder and harder to ignore.

I've managed to be able to consistently complete runs through the Abyss in roughly 10-16 minutes on average. This apparently really shocked ACE Team when it was demonstrated that I, obviously, wasn't the only one to be able to accomplish such clear times.

It's safe to say that's a problem when regarding ACE Team's scope on the longevity of their game. As mentioned before, they really need to reaccess their goals and time-tables as its clearly not suitable for the working audience they have.

A "sizable" following may only be a couple hundred people at this point.

Them trying to time throttle runs should actually be a negative. The dev's philosophy seems to be to make people spend as much time as possible playing. There's no interesting loot to speak of and the only interesting encounters are bosses once you've captured all the souls. Gating players in kill rooms and forcing them to finish off scrubs is bad design for a game meant to be replayed multiple times. It seems like they are intentionally trying to deter speed running among other things.

Oh lord, it looks like their largest concern now is whether or not to increase the difficulty of Nightmare Mode.

I can see how some players find it fairly simple as is, but its hardly a huge concern that needs to be addressed at the moment.

I decided to leave some feedback on the discussion concerning that specific change and how it lacks perspective versus a change on the current implementation of the community progression system.

I think their next step should be taking player feed back into account. There's a lot of minor stuff they could do to make the game more appealing for repeat play that wouldn't take a tremendous amount of effort on their part. Just adding a lot more content isn't going to address some of the core issues with the game's replayability.
 

Silaerion

Neo Member
A "sizable" following may only be a couple hundred people at this point.

Them trying to time throttle runs should actually be a negative. The dev's philosophy seems to be to make people spend as much time as possible playing. There's no interesting loot to speak of and the only interesting encounters are bosses once you've captured all the souls. Gating players in kill rooms and forcing them to finish off scrubs is bad design for a game meant to be replayed multiple times. It seems like they are intentionally trying to deter speed running among other things.



I think their next step should be taking player feed back into account. There's a lot of minor stuff they could do to make the game more appealing for repeat play that wouldn't take a tremendous amount of effort on their part. Just adding a lot more content isn't going to address some of the core issues with the game's replayability.

I agree with you on the fact that additional content alone won't alleviate all the problems present in the game, however, it would certainly help to paint a better picture on the overall outlook.

The way I see it is this: being able to finally witness and participate in this first batch of additional content will allow players to judge just what ACE Team has planned for the future considering the hype they've created for it and its relevance to the game's core design.

If it fails to attract new and old players, it would be safe to assume that Abyss Odyssey is doomed unless a radical change in design is adopted by the developers. This is where player feedback and ACE Team's level of acceptance toward said feedback would be most crucial.
 

Ozium

Member
I want a speed run leaderboard

edit: also enemies should scale to your level.. the way it's set up now once you reach the max level the enemies stay the same and you can just mow through them
 

Silaerion

Neo Member
I want a speed run leaderboard

edit: also enemies should scale to your level.. the way it's set up now once you reach the max level the enemies stay the same and you can just mow through them

I actually like the idea of an additional leaderboard showing each and every player's quickest run through the Abyss a lot as it motivates people to optimize their runs all the while helping the community effort with the Warlock defeats.

It's certainly better than the current scoreboard we have at the moment that provides no useful information besides how much time someone has dedicated to defeating the Warlock on and on.

As for enemy scaling: I don't believe levels provide any benefit besides additional max health, so it wouldn't make much sense to have them scale up to you unless you want filler enemies to be even more of a nuisance with their health amounts.
 

Vazra

irresponsible vagina leak
I like how they are addressing the feedback of the game and how they are being honest of the intentions or things they are about to do. The thing they have to fix on Nightmare mode and also applies to the normal run is the black fog walls. No need to nerf moves really. The AI messes up like hell when you are near the fog walls and makes it easy to get away from them either fighting or staying like a statue on the damn corner.

They need to add more game modes which they say they are planning but some things need to move faster.
 

Easy_D

never left the stone age
Honestly, Nightmare should be "Hard". Take out the boss helpers. Keep Nightmare and make it truly nightmarish.
 

drotahorror

Member
Unless nightmare difficulty is horrifically hard, this will be the second game on Steam that I get 100% achievements on. Rogue Legacy is my only one.
 

Vazra

irresponsible vagina leak
Unless nightmare difficulty is horrifically hard, this will be the second game on Steam that I get 100% achievements on. Rogue Legacy is my only one.

IMO was easy. There were one or two near death moments but it aint as hard as expected.
 

Silaerion

Neo Member
Looks like ACE Team will be modifying the progression rate of the current Warlock mask so that it will be completely broken by the end of next week as a result of the many players calling for content addition and the recent leaderboard issue brought upon by patch v1.01.

Here's what [ACE] cbordeu had to say in full regarding the matter:

Hi guys. Some of the programming team is back on Monday and we're going to be making adjustments so that the milestone is met this upcoming week, because I know a lot of you are waiting for it.

Just as a note: The mask feature was intended as a way of making players have an incentive to come back and play the game again once the community milestone was achieved. We didn't expect people to be "grinding" through the game as much as you have (honestly I am pretty surprised to see many people that have played the game over 20 hours - we didn't think it would be so much).

The reason we've told people to join the Abyss Facebook, Twitter or Official Game Group is because through these channels we will announce these milestones being achieved, and the new content being unlocked. We didn't create this feature expecting people to endlessly replay the game and beat the Warlock hundreds of times in order to push the deadline earlier. We thought that most of you would kill him a few times, but not as many as you have (which is quite a pleasant surprise) and then just wait for the announcement when other players had helped out with the process.

The very quick shattering of the mask at the beginning is quite in line with the expected behavior for a launch, where the great majority of the people play the game upon release and then you have a much slower and steady pace from then on (In the first two days the Warlock was being defeated every 5 seconds). We understand that the slowing down was aggravated by the patch 1.01 problem, so that's why we will be adjusting the progression next week to make sure you can all see the new stuff soon. But just as a note, our projections before launch were that the mask would break between 2 weeks and a month - and that was our intended pace for the feature.

Since we want the mask phases to be more interesting, we're also taking this time to add more additional content than the one that is already locked in the game. This feature will allow us to add a lot more variety to the Abyss over time, making it a more complete game than what you got at launch.

For those of you who haven't joined the Official Game Group, you can do it at the following link:

http://steamcommunity.com/games/abyss_odyssey
 

Munin

Member
Guess the consensus is this should have gone into Early Access first? I got the game on release but just got back from holiday and haven't played since. It felt as if there was a lot of potential and now I'm scared they might just abandon the game because it didn't look it was selling extremely well or anything.
 

Silaerion

Neo Member
Guess the consensus is this should have gone into Early Access first? I got the game on release but just got back from holiday and haven't played since. It felt as if there was a lot of potential and now I'm scared they might just abandon the game because it didn't look it was selling extremely well or anything.

Classifying it as an Early Access game in disguise is a bit too harsh in the criticism department if you ask me. From what has been described, there's a ton of content available that's locked behind the community progression system.

While it's certainly unique, I find that ACE Team has pretty much dropped the ball in regards to the implementation. They just finished stating how they built the system around the intention that each phase would take anywhere between two weeks and a month to unlock.

That's a bit of a problem judging by what we've seen so far in these first two weeks of release. Activity, for all intents and purposes, has already dropped to near nonexistent levels judging by the lack of additional cracks done to the Warlock mask.

Unless this next phase introduces an insane amount of content double if not triple that of launch, I just don't see how this same issue won't continue to pop up with each and every phase due to the lack of hold the core game provides. It's just not all that entertaining to continue defeating the Warlock on and on after you've accomplished everything remotely possible up that certain point.

ACE Team claims that the lack of activity from a specific amount of players was expected and accounted for in the design of the system, but I don't think they realize that this level of apathy goes across the board and not just for a certain group of players. I don't know why they keep expecting this game to have very long legs in its current state when everything has pointed to otherwise.

All in all, I wouldn't worry about ACE Team abandoning the game... rather, I'd worry about the players abandoning the game before ACE Team shows their entire hand.
 

Munin

Member
Classifying it as an Early Access game in disguise is a bit too harsh in the criticism department if you ask me. From what has been described, there's a ton of content available that's locked behind the community progression system.

While it's certainly unique, I find that ACE Team has pretty much dropped the ball in regards to the implementation. They just finished stating how they built the system around the intention that each phase would take anywhere between two weeks and a month to unlock.

That's a bit of a problem judging by what we've seen so far in these first two weeks of release. Activity, for all intents and purposes, has already dropped to near nonexistent levels judging by the lack of additional cracks done to the Warlock mask.

Unless this next phase introduces an insane amount of content double if not triple that of launch, I just don't see how this same issue won't continue to pop up with each and every phase due to the lack of hold the core game provides. It's just not all that entertaining to continue defeating the Warlock on and on after you've accomplished everything remotely possible up that certain point.

ACE Team claims that the lack of activity from a specific amount of players was expected and accounted for in the design of the system, but I don't think they realize that this level of apathy goes across the board and not just for a certain group of players. I don't know why they keep expecting this game to have very long legs in its current state when everything has pointed to otherwise.

All in all, I wouldn't worry about ACE Team abandoning the game... rather, I'd worry about the players abandoning the game before ACE Team shows their entire hand.

Well it's a two way street isn't it? If nobody is playing the game and/or ensuring that word of mouth ensures continuing sales, then at some point it becomes a financial problem for ACE to continue supporting it.

I guess the question is how much content do they already have done, just waiting to be unlocked, and how much would they have to actively work on still over the next few months.
 

Dice

Pokémon Parentage Conspiracy Theorist
It's just not a game to play a lot. The mechanics aren't that cool and even if they were, the levels and AI wouldn't utilize it. Doesn't help that the never-fading wonky feel of the gameplay will get in the way even if the mind really grabs on to the concept. If added content isn't something really dramatic it will just feel the same, and the feeling is nothing special. It would only be like continually going to the same mediocre Chinese restaurant to read the fortunes in the cookies after the meal. I don't know if they think they made a Diablo or something, but they definitely did not. There isn't even any skill-related thing to keep track of to compare runs and get a "one more" sense going like best time or skill-based money levels, so it won't compete with something like Spelunky or Windows Solitaire.
 

Silaerion

Neo Member
Well it's a two way street isn't it? If nobody is playing the game and/or ensuring that word of mouth ensures continuing sales, then at some point it becomes a financial problem for ACE to continue supporting it.

I guess the question is how much content do they already have done, just waiting to be unlocked, and how much would they have to actively work on still over the next few months.

It is, but the more immediate problem is player retention rather than ACE Team calling it quits. It would make absolutely no financial sense for them to abandon a game that's only just been released no matter how bad sales have been. In fact, it's not even clear whether or not the game has actually sold terribly or below expectations.

That said, they're supposedly developing some extra additional content to be included with this upcoming phase, but since we don't know what exactly each phase entails... it's unknown how much work they're actually putting in. Aside from that new development, ACE Team doesn't have anything in the pipeline aside from Online PvP in regards to content generation.
 

ArjanN

Member
It's just not a game to play a lot. The mechanics aren't that cool and even if they were, the levels and AI wouldn't utilize it. Doesn't help that the never-fading wonky feel of the gameplay will get in the way even if the mind really grabs on to the concept. If added content isn't something really dramatic it will just feel the same, and the feeling is nothing special. It would only be like continually going to the same mediocre Chinese restaurant to read the fortunes in the cookies after the meal. I don't know if they think they made a Diablo or something, but they definitely did not. There isn't even any skill-related thing to keep track of to compare runs and get a "one more" sense going like best time or skill-based money levels, so it won't compete with something like Spelunky or Windows Solitaire.

To be honest I think that's OK though. Not everything is Spelunky, and even that took years of iteration to get to where it is now.

I don't see the rate at which stuff unlocks as much of a problem, as they can easily adjust that if it's going too slow or fast.
 
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