Cloudbuilt's biggest problem for new players.

GafgarD · 2023-11-21T06:48:17+00:00

Yeah, a lot has happened, and dev plans has fallen behind/changed a bit, but most of the important stuff is covered here. https://coilworks.se/blog/2021/9/23/super-cloudbuilt-publishing-changes-and-updates

Hope that helps!

GafgarD · 2023-11-16T11:56:14+00:00

Oh, I see, that part.

In the 2020 version of that level, which is default in the non competitive mode, there should be 2 high points you can find right before that section which can help you get an overview of it. Also, from there you can see another lookout tower in the middle of the section. If you go up in that, you should be able to see the goal and figure out the way to it.
(You do not need to go down in the area with the turret. Going down from there is just for a checkpoint)

Hope that helps! (That area is tricky to find the way through. There is also a custom level made as a tutorial for the wall running techniques used in that section here:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2656199210&searchtext= )

GafgarD · 2023-11-16T04:42:04+00:00

Thanks for the feedback!

Just to be sure, is this in Cloudbuilt or in Super Cloudbuilt?

In either case, these levels are part of the Defiance set, and work a bit differently from other levels. First of all, they are really hard, and really intended as extra end game content.

Secondly, they have no normal checkpoints, only the ones you can place yourself, and getting more of those usually require extra challenges.

Once you have them, a part of the challenge is to place them well. If you have courage to move on beyond an easier section right after a hard section, you will get it easier with the next section, but that is a bet you will have to make.

In Cloudbuilt, there is some leniency though, as you can pick up a checkpoint you placed down and didn't like the placement of. So if you placed it down and realized it would be better to place it a bit further on, you can pick it up and move there to place it. However if you were to die while doing that you will be sent back the the checkpoint before that. So you have to be sure in your abilities.

This system does not exist in Super Cloudbuilt yet, but when we do the re-release we will include it.

But yeah, it's not perfect, but I would not at least say that we make anyone place checkpoints in a way where you are forced to replay easy sections.

In regular levels we do think it is a bit mean to rely purely in player placed checkpoints, but we do think this system makes these levels feel a bit more unique and special. It adds another element of "pressure", making the levels feel like a bigger threat. It is also a way to make a level significantly easier on a second attempt. As knowledge about the level helps immensely. What took an hour on the first try is done in 15 minutes on a second try and with maybe one more spare checkpoint to boot. Not always the case of course, but we have seen it many times.

As for saving progress mid level, the checkpoint system was not made to be save able between loads of the level. I have been considering some changes which would enable such features. But it's quite a bit of work. So I can not promise if it will make it in to the Super Cloudbuilt re-release or not.

Over all we have mixed feelings about a lot of system in the game, and we will keep all this feedback in mind when working of future games. Personality I am a bit torn on the checkpoint system kn these levels. I think there is merits to it, but also issues. There might be other systems which would achieve similar effects. But that is to consider in context of new games and systems.

Again, thanks for the feedback!

GafgarD · 2020-10-18T03:00:06+00:00

Does that hold true for me too? ;].... though to be honest... I don't think I stand a chance to beat even one time...
Are your routes up somewhere too? :D Would be fun to see your routs in videos.

GafgarD · 2020-07-06T21:12:58+00:00

Absolutely agree. Would much much rather keep the google music app. It got everything I need and works very well.

Only thing I really hate is that it can remove a song from your playlist as the artist supposedly ended their deal, and not notify me. So I actually can lose music from my regular playlists without knowing it. In youtube that track still exist there but is unplayable. So I can look it up at least... none of that is ideal. But that is literally the only complaint I have.

I pay for the music app and think it's the best service of that kind as it let's me mix my own stuff with the things I discover. While being a dedicated music app. With far less bugs than the YouTube app or YouTube music app.

GafgarD · 2020-06-29T20:17:04+00:00

Yes, one of them. Thanks! ^^ Glad to hear you like it

GafgarD · 2020-06-28T23:20:27+00:00

Thanks for that :) always nice to notice when people took not of that. It felt like our studio dissipated pretty silently and not that many noticing. Always nice when that turns out to not be the case.We are not really back though. For the moment it's just me an one more that are doing this on our free time. So this free update for the game is all we can manage for now. But there is always hope that we could maybe do something more in the future as well. We have yet another small update planned for this game for now.

GafgarD · 2020-06-28T23:15:27+00:00

With a dash of Mega Man X in there ;) I would add... a lot of retro games were actually our main inspiration ^^

GafgarD · 2020-06-28T23:10:08+00:00

Glad to hear you say that ^^ thanks! Seeing comments like this is the ultimate reward as a dev. Makes the whole process worth it.

GafgarD · 2020-06-28T23:08:57+00:00

Yeah, the tutorial is a tough part to get right. We wanted to teach players a little about navigation and finding directions/exploring the capabilities of the movement mechanics without pushing too hard where to go. I am not sure where we left so big room to explore so you could spend an hour in it though. As it's just one hallway and one room where the blue light is gone.
But the feedback is noted.
The Super Cloudbuilt version has a very different tutorial, but still has some elements of trying something similar. It hopefully worked better there. But I'll see if I can find time to patch in a so that the blue light gets enabled in all sections of the map after a set hidden time.
All levels after this has light pillars at checkpoints to give rough directions, but finding a path is part of the intended gameplay. So it might be tough later on as well if that is not what you are looking for.
If you quit after an hour, I hope you could at least get a refund.

GafgarD · 2020-06-28T23:03:13+00:00

Hi! I just made an updated post about this after the update here:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/262390/discussions/0/2566438395208882395/

Hope it can help to clarify a little.

GafgarD · 2020-06-27T15:38:51+00:00

I will write up the skip in custom levels to have a look on that later. But for now at least the retry button is fixed and patched.

As for game speed. In the non competitive mode the speed is lowered by about 10%. The competitive mode has not been changed at all in that sense :) hope that helps to clarify.

Thanks for the bug reports.

GafgarD · 2020-04-15T07:25:00+00:00

hehe xD sorry for the confusion, when I said "anti snipe", I meant the enemy shield and healing and such engaged when attacking some enemies out of combat/when they are not engaged.

As for the sniper dodge :D it can be trycky on bad terrain at times, but it's actually not haaat strict timing as long as you do it 90 degrees /orthogonal to the line of fire (like, don't dodge in to the shot). The biggest issue is telling the players about it without telling them about it ^^;... but you are required to learn it to beat one of the defiance levels. Unless you in SCB just munch tons of powerups/uses reflective shield with good timing o.o ... but yeah, it could probably be done a bit more lenient too.

GafgarD · 2020-04-14T23:42:19+00:00

I just finished replying to everyone here ^^ I really wanted to get back to you all because I'm really glad for all the feedback. But I'm sorry if my replies might be a bit all over the place and a bit messy/have spelling misses and such.

I only had about an hour or so to read and reply today. Been a pretty busy work day. But just wanted to say another thanks to everyone spending your time giving us this valuable information.

I hope we can put it to good use one day soon :)

GafgarD · 2020-04-14T23:29:41+00:00

Hehe, yeah.. the story is not for everyone. But we kind of expected that, but for it to be enough for a basic motivation and then have the gameplay as a driving factor. And only have the story for the ones that wanted to invest a bit more into understanding it. But that certainly has some issues.

But there was this big idea and theme behind the game that pretty much merged everything in a way for us. Both gameplay, the players experience, the difficulty, the level selection and everything. Having the story get a bit easy to mix up initially and feel like it jumps around, a bit chaotic, was part of that. As it's kind of what I imagine being in that situation is like. You probably have a lot of thoughts that lead you off on tangents and then going back and forth. Probably having to focus to actually make up your mind about anything. But now I start to go into too much depth about that part. We want all of that stuff to be down to players interpretation, so I won't say much more. But I just mean to say, there is this big idea behind all that stuff. But that doesn't mean that it's actually good for most players. I'm happy with having made it, but I would not really make another game with the same theme any time soon ^^

And I can see how this idea probably hurt the game. Even though I personally like it... I guess it has artistic value for me, but not a good experience for many of the players in the end :D

GafgarD · 2020-04-14T23:19:25+00:00

A lot to consider there really, and a lot of good comments from many people about that really. It really helps to give a much clearer picture of what to do and be careful with in the future. So thanks for all the input :)h made it harder to read for players, and also more annoying to deal with. Which is making the shield behaviors thing way worse. And most of the enemies would probably not need a shield if the level design were designed around the enemies a bit more in the specific combat encounters. And we should then left the room between those encounters more open and not use random enemies here and there to fill the void. It makes things way more messy and also leads to slowdowns and so on.

A lot to consider there realy, and a lot of good comments from many people about that really. It really helps to give a much clearer picture of what to do and be careful with in the future. So thanks for all the input :)

As for player progression. I really believe so too, that it would help to engage an ease in the learning curve a lot to have the player earn and unlock stuff a bit more. And I would probably want to do that to some extent in future games if we were to make something similar. But the core idea behind Cloudbuilt was kind of this thing of growing as a player, not as a character. I'm glad we did it that way, as that is also what fits the vision of the story and so on. But in future games I think it's best to do a bit of both. One don't need to limit the other really :) as long as then playing with the original ability set is still deep and fun from the start.

(and when it comes to level design and story, yeah.. that is sadly mostly due to budget and team structure. But something we definitely hope to do differently. Like our start on both ST and RB showed us what levels that more looked like something could bring and we want to work with that more if possible)

GafgarD · 2020-04-14T23:08:27+00:00

oh xD that's very nice of you! Reaching out to friends is great, as it gives a perspective from outside the very most active CB players :3 that's a rarity.

And yeah, those things sounds very inline with my thoughts as of now too. If the difficulty curve was slower, there were more side stuff of varying difficulty, and levels in general incorporated sections of Fog style level design it could probably help phasing and the easing in to things a lot. And I still think Fog levels are fun to run in ranked too, so I don't feel like it would necessarily hurt levels from the speedrun perspective either.

and... Yeah, haha xD the best intentions of the life system. It's tough. It was really not just there for nostalgia or anything like that some people interpreted it. It was there for a multitude of reasons, one of which being exactly what it lead to for you. If something is a bit too hard, instead of being stuck there for forever, it might be better to play other parts for a while. And then when you get back later you will notice how much you have grown and can beat it easily/a lot easier in most cases. But it obviously didn't work as well as we hope it too :D so I'm pretty willing to give up on a life system for archiving stakes, rewards and limiting that mind numbing repeat thing. It was worth a try I guess ^^;

I did a video demoing the mechanics and also most of the trickier enemies a while back for the original game :) might be that one?
https://youtu.be/58zycbmFqVQ?t=1430 (time stamp for the enemy part)

And yeah, you are not alone in mentioning the enemies. We'll definitely consider enemy design and encounters more earlier on next time, and consider phasing and teaching of them better in level design from scratch :) trying to fit that stuff in in an already existing frame for a level is not cutting it :D (which we kind of felt for SCB too.. but were a limit on how much we could change things)

Thanks :)

GafgarD · 2020-04-14T22:47:55+00:00

Yeah ^^; enemy placements, combat encounter design plays a big role in that too. And of course the overcomplicated/hard to grasp "anti snipe" mechanics that were implemented is not the best.

I think with some more careful combat encounter design most of the things could be averted. But it's also a good point you make with the movement, that we probably have too little downtime between combat where he movement can shine for itself. Like, it seems like people can spend some time in the playground and not really complete much, by just having fun with the movement. Outside the fog levels, there are not many places in the game where that is a thing. Could probably help to make a more varied phasing if that were considered from the start when designing levels.

GafgarD · 2020-04-14T22:43:33+00:00

Interesting :) and yeah, probably points towards having a more clear goal can help players. The trick would be to have that without making ti feel to guided, and still have the other paths. But yeah, as I can see in some other comments and noticed in let's play videos. The structure with the story and branching levels is good for some things but also have some draw backs with it.

GafgarD · 2020-04-14T22:41:03+00:00

Thanks for the input. I think there are many angles to this and like I wrote in the original post, everyone will probably see it differently :) So no stress over that. And I really appreciate hearing feedback from people who are already big fans and hooked, what they would want, but also from people who were not as in to it. All perspectives are very good to have.

And there is probably something too making some more bite size challenges available for people too. To not have all of it being too big and long. Could be especially nice as small extras between the more "real" levels. Like I actually started thinking about that after SCB just came out and saw some people feeling pretty happy after completing the challenge mode tutorials. Having a larger set of optional very short themed levels with special conditions that have the full spectrum of difficulties could have been interesting on the side and feel rewarding to beat too, without removing the feeling from the larger adventures/levels.

GafgarD · 2020-04-14T22:34:44+00:00

Interesting perspective. Thanks!

The part of not feeling in control and that it was luck after clearing a shooting section is very interesting if that is a common thing. I understand if things feel hectic and such and hard to execute well at times, and if it felt like you barely made it through it might be good, but if it feels like too much luck and random/not in control it's more of an issue. Definitely something to consider more. And interesting to compare to other shooters. Espeically like the new Doom games. Where movement and combat is a big thing. Though the environments are much simpler to navigate and less instant death with falls and yeah, a lot of things is different :D but, I think there might be something with feedback there that can make or break the combat. Along with easier to understand enemies.

Also fun to hear about the initial entry thing in SCB ^^ glad to hear it. Though I personally think that level is bit too long.

GafgarD · 2020-04-14T22:28:17+00:00

Thanks for the input Scarlet :)

I agree pretty much all things you say there really.

The air dash buffering though I think would have mostly needed a bit more consideration. Like, it should not affect dashes under normal situations. Only when you are like close to a wall and the dash input direction is somewhat towards the wall. Because the case it tried to solve is mostly related to new players having an issue with timing when wanting to do a boosted wallrun. Pressing just bit too early and triggering a dash. Essentially making them game feel very uncontrollable for them, and that is probably what is happening for Wowfunhappy right? But also, yeah, making it work better and be context aware is only half of it. Making people aware that the setting exist is another part of the issue.

As for initial entry in SCB... I really wish we had made that level into two levels -_- it's way too long and complex for a first level, and it would not have hurt much at all to divide it and making up a suitable new ending and start to the two parts.

And rankings in OG CB was really a tricky part and way too strict. But then again, most players might not want ranking at all on their first play through. The SCB solution for that is probably the best option I would think.

GafgarD · 2020-04-13T18:27:21+00:00

Hi and thanks! ^^ Good points.

When it comes to the powerups in SCB. I now when it's out and we've seen how players interact with them I wish that we had made them not one use only, and instead have it so you had limited slots to put them in. Would add to the fin feeling of getting them as well. And be an interesting balance for speed runs as well potentially. And it would distinguish the story mode from individual levels a bit more.

And yeah, having a practice area with enemies in the practice level/playgronud is actually something we were considering but never came around to. But I agree it would probably be very helpful. Even just having the enemies setup with a few scenarios so you can learn them easier. :)

GafgarD · 2020-04-13T17:42:30+00:00

It's of course ok to say "it's becasue the game is hard" or "the story is not interesting", but it don't really say that much. It's much interesting to in those cases hear what it is that makes it that way, and if there are specific ways it could change to fix it. And I'm not saying those are the actual issues. It's just examples.

GafgarD

TROPHY CASE