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[crankykong]

Yeah, I was going to update my reply that having some speedrun videos doesn't necessarily mean that the game is speedrun "friendly" and would appeal to speedrunners.

No worrys , i totaly understand what you where saying and i agree.
The game would def. profit from a easy mode for all the Newcomers.
But i have the feeling that just colides with their game development philosophie or with what they want the game to be seen and experienced by the players.

I also understand that im overly critical about the game and often dont praise the game enough in this forum for its  cool setting,unique creature design and moody atmosphere. Under all this bad controls and forced gameplaymechanics like the timelimit this could be a really good game.

If they really work on adjustable settings,additional hardmode and try to kink out the controls and cant say anything right now,because they have to wait for the playstation 4 update greenlit by sony,which could very well be the case, than i apologize preventive for beeing such a dick.

But slugcat beeing a playable character in quake champions, has to become a thing anyways, even if they do the adjustable settings stuff.There is just no way around that!

[Wolvered]

I also understand that im overly critical about the game and often dont praise the game enough in this forum for its  cool setting,unique creature design and moody atmosphere. Under all this bad controls and forced gameplaymechanics like the timelimit this could be a really good game.

Still as of now the average rating on steam is a 9/10 with over 350 ratings, so there is no denying that it is a really good game

Controls aren't bad at all, instead, I sometimes felt the slugcat was a little too fast, so it's normal if he just makes a false step or a wrong movement in a rush.

As for the forced gameplay mechanics, (I think you mainly mean rain and karma), it's one of the things that makes the rain unique, there is a sense of beauty yet omnipresent danger. And the karma system is just good. If you didn't manage to get through an area without loosing too much karma, it certainly means you aren't ready for the next environment.

The game doesn't feel like it forces you to do anything in my opinion, it just puts you into a rather realistic setting and says 'well then good luck with surviving', and the rest is up to you

[crankykong]

I also understand that im overly critical about the game and often dont praise the game enough in this forum for its  cool setting,unique creature design and moody atmosphere. Under all this bad controls and forced gameplaymechanics like the timelimit this could be a really good game.

Still as of now the average rating on steam is a 9/10 with over 350 ratings, so there is no denying that it is a really good game

Controls aren't bad at all, instead, I sometimes felt the slugcat was a little too fast, so it's normal if he just makes a false step or a wrong movement in a rush.

As for the forced gameplay mechanics, (I think you mainly mean rain and karma), it's one of the things that makes the rain unique, there is a sense of beauty yet omnipresent danger. And the karma system is just good. If you didn't manage to get through an area without loosing too much karma, it certainly means you aren't ready for the next environment.

The game doesn't feel like it forces you to do anything in my opinion, it just puts you into a rather realistic setting and says 'well then good luck with surviving', and the rest is up to you

Thats your opinion of the game.
Many other people have a different opinion.
If i google "steam rateing rainworld" it shows me this site:

http://store.steampowered.com/app/312520/

And the only rateing i see on this page is the metacritic rating of more than 30 critics which gave it 64 average on pc and 57 average on ps4.
Where do you get your 90 from? The only number which comes close to 90 is the 84 of the user rateings for pc on the rainworld metacritics site but only because all the carebears and whiteknights in this forum went to the site and gave it a 10/10 like this one here:


http://www.metacritic.com/user/Traderman


 as James told you to do in one of his forum posts a few sites ago on page 317:

thank you for your kind words, friends!

if you'll pardon a request: for those of you who are enjoying our little rainy world, Id like to encourage you to write Steam / PS4 reviews! Launch day is super huge for us ofc, and getting past the "i died it was too hard 0/10, 0.2hrs played" crowd is going to take our supporters speaking out. TY!! 

But even if you look on the user ratings of the playstation 4 metacritics site of rainworld it has an average of 74 in user rateing and 57 in critics.

http://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-4/rain-world

Of cause , everyone can have his/her own opinion but acting like everybody finds this game perfect is total carebear stuff.


sources:

http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/rain-world
http://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-4/rain-world

[tortoiseandcrow]

Bug report:

The listed karma requirement for the gates between Subterranean and Drainage System is reversed on the map.

Related gameplay gripes:

I went into Drainage System from Subterranean thinking that I'd be able to get back easily, only to realize my mistake after drowning for the nth time. There's basically no leeway to the slugcat's breath capacity as it stands, so I'm shocked to read in the patch notes that breath was extended. Now I'm stuck, can't progress in any direction, because the slugcat drowns just before each breathing hole, and can't get back to Subterranean because even if I could figure out how to get back up to the hibernation chamber near the gate (notwithstanding all that tedious wall jumping in both directions), there's not enough food to grind my karma back up.

I'm not sure if the water seeds provide air if you eat them while you're underwater - it seems like something they might do, but if that's the case I can't seem to eat them. I just drown.

I don't know if there's a creature that I'm supposed to have if I come this way or not. I'm not deliberately sequence-breaking - this was honestly the most intuitive progression path for me. People keep on talking about reaching The Leg after Shoreline, but the only gate I was able to find was to Subterranean.

Anyways, I can't see a way past this beyond starting a new game.

Query about passage:

I keep on wasting my passages. I open the map, guide the reticule to a new hibernation chamber, close the map, and hold down the button. And then wake up exactly where I started. What am I doing wrong?

Another thing:

I haven't found a karma flower since Shaded Citadel. What's up with that?

[Zorg]

Do you press A while swimming? It consumes a lot of air. If you wiggle the tail instead you can dive much longer. Fully regenerate your breath before diving again, use every air pocket. That's about it. My problem using this path were the RNG leeches. :/

If you visited Moon, your yellow helper should guide you to the Shaded Citadel and the Memory Crypts which are connected to The Leg. If you are glowing, the yellow ghosts guide you to the same connection. Why did you leave Subterranean?

[Wolvered]

Cranky

Well the first result I get when I search 'steam rainworld' is: 'Rainworld steam' / Avis (I'm French): 9/10 (347) and the price. It's the user rating, not the critics.

I don't say the game is perfect, I can perfectly understand that you might find this game absolutely terrible, it's your opinion, but based on 347 user rating, the game is a good game. However, the bad ratings aren't bad, they are very pertinent, but they just focus too much on the cons (which are indeed numerous) and not on the pros in my opinion.

Again, I'm not saying the game is perfect, because it isn't, it has many problems that could have been solved, and it might be bad for you, but the updates that would make the game potentially better for you would make it worse for others, and I think the devs are really struggling with that issue.

[tortoiseandcrow]

I don't press A when swimming. And yes, I allow my breath to fully regenerate (insofar as you can tell in each bolthole, considering that the slugcat's face is almost entirely obscured, to the point that it's difficult to tell whether you're fully inside the hole or not) before moving on. I managed to get to a bat room once, after almost an hour of trying, before promptly drowning in the next submerged section. I don't have the patience or the time to repeat an environmental challenge like this for longer than that. Environmental deaths are the least interesting way to die in this game.

I left Subterranean because I couldn't get past the things in the Depths, I had found a gate to a new area, and I was curious. I don't know what's on the other side, or its significance, or where it leads to. Why wouldn't I go through the gate? What other motivation is there in this game? The ghosts moving in a vague direction weren't enough to guide me to any specific location. If they point in the direction that you need to travel (ie. transport tubes, etc.), they're far too vague and dispersed for that. If they point in the overall direction (ie. from the perspective of the map, in terms of x/y directions), it was confusing enough to the point of being meaningless to me.


I don't mind not having any guidance, or having guidance being so obtuse to the point of being meaningless - that's fine. I was quite content exploring without being pointed somewhere explicit. What's bothering me is that I'm now functionally immobilized.

[Zorg]

I just wanted to know why you took that route out of curiosity. Your run seems pretty sequence-breaking to me. Which is of course something which should be possible, if you are presented an open world. I'm really sorry for you, i don't like diving, either.

[i.i]

im going to assume that the low metacritic score is because critics have confused games for bagels.

[crankykong]

Cranky

Well the first result I get when I search 'steam rainworld' is: 'Rainworld steam' / Avis (I'm French): 9/10 (347) and the price. It's the user rating, not the critics.

I don't say the game is perfect, I can perfectly understand that you might find this game absolutely terrible, it's your opinion, but based on 347 user rating, the game is a good game. However, the bad ratings aren't bad, they are very pertinent, but they just focus too much on the cons (which are indeed numerous) and not on the pros in my opinion.

Again, I'm not saying the game is perfect, because it isn't, it has many problems that could have been solved, and it might be bad for you, but the updates that would make the game potentially better for you would make it worse for others, and I think the devs are really struggling with that issue.

I dont find the game terrible.
I reviewed it on page 315 in this topic and said that i would rate it between 70-80.
Since then i have repeated on multiple pages that i would rate the game around 70-80.

The real problem is that there are too many  10/10 fans out there who think that 7/10 is  a bad rateing.

I can understand the other side to a degree.
I personal love, for example,a lot of movies which got terrible rateings,on sites like rotten tomatos .
Becaues those movies did certain specific things,which no other movie did, at least not in this clarety.
And the things other people criticized on those movies, where not as important for me, even if the critics where valid.

"The Happening" from  M. Night Shyamalan for example,for most,if not all,people on this planet a terrible movie.
Not for me! I , very well maybe the only one on this planet who likes this movie, and im totaly fine with it.

But i would never try to convince the rest of this planet,that this is a great movie and get angry at them for not likeing this movie,or even telling them that they are totaly wrong!And thats the Point.They have a right to not like the movie at all or at least not like aspects of this movie.

When it comes to taste everything is total subjective.Them saying the movie sucks is,out of their perspective, as corect as me saying the movie is good,out of my perspective. But you cant expect the productioncompany of the movie to give M. Night Shyamalan millions of dollars to make "The Happening 2" when the first one flopt because most people didnt like it.

To stay in the picture, as i said , i dont hate rainworld , i find it a good but not a great game (70-80/100).But it could be a great game if they give the player more freedom to adjust settings and also kink out the controls.But that sadly colides with their artistic view of this game , which not many people share with them, which they sadly not understand...or just ignor, which is totaly fine,if this is a one time art project for them and they not expect from the playerbase to help them finance a 2nd game.

[tortoiseandcrow]

Sorry if I was terse - there's been a lot of talk in this thread about playing the game "properly" and I was perhaps reading into your comment the suggestion that there was something incorrect about the way I'd been moving through the game. It's not like I'm doing it on purpose I'm just moving through the world via the opportunities I'm able to find. I mean, it occurred to me that after I started glowing I should go back to the Shaded Citadel, but I wanted to explore Shoreline a bit more first. And then when I discovered Subterranean, I figured that this was a good enough place to move on to, since it too is a very dark area.

One thing I'm noticing is that there appear to be implicit directions of flow in the construction of rooms immediately preceding a few gates. For example, from Shoreline to Subterranean there's a very linear stretch of underwater tunnels that can't be traversed without the fish. I can imagine that stretch could also wind up being an area where someone as blindly sequence-breaking as myself could get themselves trapped, particularly since you have to have max karma to get from Shoreline to Subterranean. Die once in the tunnels (which is still possible even with the fish), and you'd be stuck.

I really do think that, barring a redesign of these screens, these issues could be easily resolved by making opening gates "free" after unlocking them once. And even still, I would want more lung capacity on the slugcat.

[Wolvered]

Cranky

I totally agree with you about the fact that 10/10 is too much (it would mean a game is perfect, which is never the case) and 7/10 is far from beeing a bad rating, I personally would give the game a 80-90

I personally find it very good like that, but it's true that to attract a larger audience, the game should have difficulty settings, but making the rain longer, the predators less efficient, the food more accessible etc would change a huge part of the game atmosphere, and it would change the atmosphere greatly, since most people would play the game in normal and find it too hard, and then go play in easy, and in the end most players would be playing in easy mode (which is great if they are able to experience the game at their pace), and the harsh, cryptic atmosphere of rainworld wouldn't be attached to the game anymore

So basically, if it's for the players, I guess most would indeed like variable difficulty settings, but the atmosphere the devs aimed for wouldn't be the same anymore. I don't think they are unaware of the fact that most people don't share their artistic view, but I think they would rather have less audience and keep the unique atmosphere of their game than make it more playable but less unique, so since it's their game, it's their choice

[crankykong]

Cranky

I totally agree with you about the fact that 10/10 is too much (it would mean a game is perfect, which is never the case) and 7/10 is far from beeing a bad rating, I personally would give the game a 80-90

I personally find it very good like that, but it's true that to attract a larger audience, the game should have difficulty settings, but making the rain longer, the predators less efficient, the food more accessible etc would change a huge part of the game atmosphere, and it would change the atmosphere greatly, since most people would play the game in normal and find it too hard, and then go play in easy, and in the end most players would be playing in easy mode (which is great if they are able to experience the game at their pace), and the harsh, cryptic atmosphere of rainworld wouldn't be attached to the game anymore

So basically, if it's for the players, I guess most would indeed like variable difficulty settings, but the atmosphere the devs aimed for wouldn't be the same anymore. I don't think they are unaware of the fact that most people don't share their artistic view, but I think they would rather have less audience and keep the unique atmosphere of their game than make it more playable but less unique, so since it's their game, it's their choice

If it would have adjustable settings, everybody could adjust it after their own taste. You could not only make the game easier you also could go the oposite route and make the game even harder. It would be a win-win situation for everyone,so i dont understand all the argueing about it.

What we should also keep in mind is, that you probably see the product/game you have created with your own hands and mind,as a gamedeveloper, in a very different way then someone who was not involved in the production of the game and experiences it for the first time when he starts the game! As a game developer you have all those pride and other positive emotions from the productionprocess of you makeing something and seeing it come togeter piece by piece ,attached to the game. A player has none of that. He sees the game more "clear", for what it is for him/her and not for what it should be. If the player plays it,he looks at things like:

-Is the moment to moment gameplay fun
-are the controls "good"
-is there enough content
-are there enough different creatures per area
...


And not:

-Look at creature/gameplayfeature x,y that turned out really well for how hard it was to code/create

kind of stuff.

Developers often dont see the forest from all the trees anymore.They tend to totaly lose the feeling if certain aspects of their own game/book/movie.. are good or bad,if development goes on for so long and they have the product around them every day.

They,for example,probably didnt even recognize that the controls are clunky,because they where so used to work around the kinks of the control sceme and avoiding certain controlinputs ,because of their every day play over years, which a new player would immediately  fall into...

[Wolvered]

Well what I'm trying to say is: See Darksouls? If it had variable difficulty settings, most people would play it in the easier difficulty out of rage, and Darksouls wouldn't have it's unique reputation for it's great difficulty yet balanced gameplay etc. Rainworld would be the same I think, adjustable settings would just mean that the game would loose it's cryptic and hard reputation.

But since rainworld's difficulty has achieved more critics than praise, perhaps you are right on that one, and I too would like to make the game more difficult so you are right that it would be a win-win but I'm trying to understand the devs position on that (or maybe they are just working like crazy for those difficulty settings and don't have time to answer or post updates notes, like what it was near the launch)

And I agree on the developer/player viewpoint difference, and that's why the testing phase was made, otherwise they wouldn't know at all what their game is like from an outsider viewpoint. Even I probably don't have the outsider viewpoint, as I read the totality of this devlog, waited for it during more than a year, and spent 30h+ on the beta, which granted me huge knowledge of the game mechanics and got me used to the controls.

Their personal answer to the fact people were having a hard time was mainly the huge help that the yellow helper gives us (in the beggining, the devs didn't want any tutorial except the basic controls), and here he tells you how to open up such plant, that this creature is dangerous etc.

[Dinomaniak]

@tortoiseandcrow : I mapped about 98% of the game so far.
subterranean to drainage system - is possible. I actually did it today while mapping drainage. Open your map and you'll see there are often pockets of air. To take advantage of those, push the slugcat up into the pocket, and then against the wall, wait for ~6-7 seconds.
I agree the visibility could be better, and that water breathing still needs 1-2 seconds more.

To properly use your "passage", you have to do things like this :
- press "passage"
- find the area you want to go to by using "previous" / "next"
- when faced at the area you want to go to, press "map" so that it's map opens up
- move the map until you find the shelter you want to spawn in, and place it in the center of your screen, under the white circular UI part
- when the shelter is focused ( it'll scale up a bit ) , press "GRAB". The shelter will be selected and have a new visual
- press Map again
- press and hold Enter.
Most people forget to GRAB/select the shelter .

Generally I've found flowers (except drainage), but they are placed in difficult-to-reach locations or you need to seriously look for them. Not worth it if you ask me.

Above all, I'd restart the game if I were you, happy with the map I have. Then again I restarted the game about 10 times by now, finished it, mapped around 98% of the game and will go map what's left in a couple of days . Find us on discord, we're a happy bunch and we'll help a lot.

[tortoiseandcrow]

Oh my God, it's not even the standard "A" to select? That's so bizarre. It never would have occurred to me to hit "grab", it is so outside of any control scheme norms.

I'm certain it's possible, it's just not remotely enjoyable. I don't have the patience for it without those extra few seconds of breath - there isn't enough room for error. I'm basically done with the game for the time being. I will happily return and give it a shot after the next big patch, but I'm not into repeating that much of the game from scratch at the moment. I have other things I can spend my time on.

[crankykong]

Well what I'm trying to say is: See Darksouls? If it had variable difficulty settings, most people would play it in the easier difficulty out of rage, and Darksouls wouldn't have it's unique reputation for it's great difficulty yet balanced gameplay etc. Rainworld would be the same I think, adjustable settings would just mean that the game would loose it's cryptic and hard reputation.

But since rainworld's difficulty has achieved more critics than praise, perhaps you are right on that one, and I too would like to make the game more difficult so you are right that it would be a win-win but I'm trying to understand the devs position on that (or maybe they are just working like crazy for those difficulty settings and don't have time to answer or post updates notes, like what it was near the launch)

And I agree on the developer/player viewpoint difference, and that's why the testing phase was made, otherwise they wouldn't know at all what their game is like from an outsider viewpoint. Even I probably don't have the outsider viewpoint, as I read the totality of this devlog, waited for it during more than a year, and spent 30h+ on the beta, which granted me huge knowledge of the game mechanics and got me used to the controls.

Their personal answer to the fact people were having a hard time was mainly the huge help that the yellow helper gives us (in the beggining, the devs didn't want any tutorial except the basic controls), and here he tells you how to open up such plant, that this creature is dangerous etc.

I personaly do not find the game too difficult, i would rather love it to be even harder with additional hazards on the map and an additional different colored versions of the normal monster/creatures,which have additional special abilitys and are more agressive."Special mobs" like you see them in diablo 2/3 for example. But i could very well do without all the cheap unavoidable death situations where you almost cant get out off anymore.

But what i really cant stand at all,but thats just my taste, is the timelimit.It gives me nothing and only takes away part of my freedom to explore as long as i want to. If i can survive all the monsters and hazards in a region/area why should i then not be allowed to explore this region as long as i want, thats absolute beyond me.But different people have different taste.

Dark Souls vs. Rainworld

In Dark Souls all the enemys spawninglocations are handplaced by the leveldesigners.
The enemys are at the exact same locations every run through the game.
So it has not those cheap unavoidable deathsituations where suddenly out of nowhere 3 creatures drop down,or pop out of a pipe.I think the problem is not that rainworld is hard, the problem is that it is often unfair.And dark souls is hard but it is almost never unfair.Or only on very few points in the game when you accidentialy agroed/pulled to much enemys at the same time...
Beside of that, dark souls has :
-no timelimit mechanic
-no karma/karmagate mechanic (the hollowing mechanic dosent prevent you from reaching new areas)

I personaly have nothing against the "creatures moveing around on the map in a free way" mechanic of rainworld because every playthrough feels fresh and you see ridiculous stuff , like 5 enemys fighting with each other at the same time... but it also has its downsites because it leads to so much cheap death situations.So when you have in rainworld so many random factors through the unpredictable enemy movement , which you do not have in games like dark souls , it would def. be better when rainworld has adjustable settings to finetune certain aspects after the own taste, even when dark souls has none of that, because of the reasons i explained above.



regarding the playtesters:

I watched a youtube video with James, where he explains in an interview that they have playtester from outside and that one of the main  feedback of the playtester was that the game felt "too hard" for them. And then he said he can understand their standpoint and that they are finetuneing it with this feedback in mind.

What i cant understand is that even with all those playtester/feedback the game had at release still:

-bad controls (at least in my and many other opinions)
-the timelimit mechanic cant be turned of in the option menu(cant remember dark souls has a timelimit)
-karma gates dont stay open after you unlocked them once
-you lose karma for exiting out of the game ,wtf!!

If they only would have changed those four factors, the review scores would have went up prob. from 64 to at least 74 maybe even 80. The playtester must have said that to them.

Now that all the review scores are already out there is a high probability that they stay this way because reviewers are too lazy to make a 2nd review even when the devs have patched the game.

But they can get out of this situation, they have the skill and talent nessesary for that.
All they have to do is make good dlc content which proves that they have listend to the player feedback!

The game is so unique , it would be a shame when this game was the last one of its kind.

[Dinomaniak]

-bad controls (at least in my and many other opinions)
-the timelimit mechanic cant be turned of in the option menu(cant remember dark souls has a timelimit)
-karma gates dont stay open after you unlocked them once
-you lose karma for exiting out of the game ,wtf!!

- Controls are great to me, 99% of the time. I think one simply needs a serious amount of time put in ( or a highly intuitive and experimentative nature ) to get used to them.
- The time limit makes the world feel different, unique. It's the type of pressure one would want in the game.
- I entirely disagree with the Karma system, so I'm there with you .
- they fixed the karma exit punishment to be there only 30 seconds after exiting the shelter. So during that time you're safe. Otherwise it's sort of a protective way against exiting right before you get eaten or whatnot .

I can't agree more about the unpleasant deaths that happen when :
- you simply enter a room and CHOMP, you're dead
- when you're about to exit a room and there's a very short line to the next room, then a lizard shows up unexpectedly right before your exit and eats you, then you wonder what just happened ?!
- the next room you enter, though the only way to the target has 3-4 lizards in it that simply stay near the entrance and/or exit ( way too often in farms, The Wall )
- when going to the Moon, a bird shows up when you're halfway there and you have the option to drown or get eaten ( 5 times today...)
***SPOILER - you're in 0 gravity trying to float to the next screen and a big daddy appears suddenly in the next screen as soon as you enter it, and extends an arm in front of you and then  an unpleasant hug occurs )
- hundreds of other similar examples where the game simply takes all your progress away and there is NOTHING you can do about it.
Although these do make the nature of the game feel a lot more close to being a real world, Rainworld is a game, and these are and feel totally unfair no matter how skilled you are.

[crankykong]

-bad controls (at least in my and many other opinions)
-the timelimit mechanic cant be turned of in the option menu(cant remember dark souls has a timelimit)
-karma gates dont stay open after you unlocked them once
-you lose karma for exiting out of the game ,wtf!!

- Controls are great to me, 99% of the time. I think one simply needs a serious amount of time put in ( or a highly intuitive and experimentative nature ) to get used to them.
- The time limit makes the world feel different, unique. It's the type of pressure one would want in the game.
- I entirely disagree with the Karma system, so I'm there with you .
- they fixed the karma exit punishment to be there only 30 seconds after exiting the shelter. So during that time you're safe. Otherwise it's sort of a protective way against exiting right before you get eaten or whatnot .

I can't agree more about the unpleasant deaths that happen when :
- you simply enter a room and CHOMP, you're dead
- when you're about to exit a room and there's a very short line to the next room, then a lizard shows up unexpectedly right before your exit and eats you, then you wonder what just happened ?!
- the next room you enter, though the only way to the target has 3-4 lizards in it that simply stay near the entrance and/or exit ( way too often in farms, The Wall )
- when going to the Moon, a bird shows up when you're halfway there and you have the option to drown or get eaten ( 5 times today...)
***SPOILER - you're in 0 gravity trying to float to the next screen and a big daddy appears suddenly in the next screen as soon as you enter it, and extends an arm in front of you and then  an unpleasant hug occurs )
- hundreds of other similar examples where the game simply takes all your progress away and there is NOTHING you can do about it.
Although these do make the nature of the game feel a lot more close to being a real world, Rainworld is a game, and these are and feel totally unfair no matter how skilled you are.

People can have very different taste.

I for example like the karma system in general (i only hate that the karmagates dont stay open when i have already unlocked them) but i hate the timelimit.

You hate the karma system but you like the timelimit.
A third person maybe likes both or dislikes both.

So that shows very well the need for adjustable game settings.
There is just no "one size fits all" soulution. And there never will be,except when we live in a " Aldous Huxley/Brave new World" kind of scenario.And who wants that?

[Deity Link]

Game is too easy, had only 3 deaths in my last speedrun, I think I'll go for a no-deaths run next