I personally think that this boss was one of your best made ones. The problem is that the pattern isn't obvious to those who aren't the kind of people to look for said pattern. I could tell a few save-loads in that Jayborino wasn't gonna figure out the normal strategy on how to beat it.
I can see two possible solutions that won't detract from the difficulty. Neither are mutually exclusive.
Increase the boss's health so that you're fighting it for longer. To compensate, make the attacks significantly weaker and have them gradually increase in power so the first and second time it does the barrage attack it doesn't outright kill Mira Kel. Then have the heroes comment that the attacks are getting stronger after the second cycle - by then, it should be obvious that the only way to keep Mira from dying is to use the shields.
And/Or, put target markers on the targeted unit before the boss does the barrage attack. Maybe have the target marker be on Mira Kel slightly earlier than with Kyra Han
Said solutions make the boss a little less unfair. It still punishes players who don't figure out that you have to save your shield ability for Mira Kel but the punishment isn't as severe anymore
I have no idea what changed in mission 5. I played through it and it played basically the same way and nothing was different - easier in a way, actually.
I might be the odd man out here but I actually loved the epilogue. They took the term "Deus Ex Machina" to its logical extreme and turned Kerrigan into a literal god - a giant burning angel of death with phenomenal cosmic power that can shape the very nature of the universe. It was so absurd and stupid and I loved it.
Was it good in the context of SC1 and the SC universe? Hell no. Was it good in the context of SC2? I guess? Was it good, period? It was to me.
I just played the updated version of Paradise Lost
You somehow managed to make this the best pure-micro mission in this campaign to me. It's now shorter with less down time where you're just moving across the map with nothing to fight, the boss now has/uses more attacks and varies them up a bit more - an overall significant increase in quality imo. I'd probably bump my score up to somewhere between a strong 7 to a light 8 for the boss fight and a medium to strong 8 for the stage.
I played on normal and it was moderately difficult. I've yet to reach the boss on hard. Once I finish on hard, I'll try to record and have a video up. Probably tomorrow (today, technically) or Sunday, you'll see it
Edit
Due to internet troubles, the video won't be up until late this Monday.
I retract my previous statements. On hard mode, using exclusively Kaiser makes the mission laughably easy, as well as incredibly boring to both play and watch. When not cheesing it on hard, it's very difficult. Not impossible like before, but tedious and time consuming.
When cheesing with Kaiser, I recommend playing on the hardest difficulty. It's the only possible way there'd be anything at stake and even then it's still pretty easy.
When playing with a regular strategy, I'd recommend casual or normal. The difference in respawn rates make just enough difference between normal and hard that the latter is less fun to me than the former.
Good call on making Kaiser's Void Form consume life instead of energy. Their energy regen was just too slow for it to be really useful without being incredibly time consuming. Now it has much more utility
The boss fight was up to par with your other boss fights. The only thing I might suggest is changing the color of the purple markers on the ground when it shoots the stun. They're very hard to see through the red void fog. Unless that's intentional, in which case that was a clever way of increasing difficulty - still a dick move, but clever.
Got a bunch of recordings for this campaign. Just gonna post them all at once. I hate scheduling - it's too tedious. I need some way to automatically do it.
Fair warning, all of them are me playing the way I would normally play this game. That means I don't care about the story, I play my own music over it, and don't really try to make good commentary (not that I consider my commentary is good in the first place)
Edit
Attempted mission 7. It's frustratingly difficult on normal and basically impossible on hard. You might want to tone down the rate at which they send reinforcements/replacements.
Also, I saw your comment that Kaiser's void form would make it so that they're able to solo the entire map all on their own. I don't see how that's possible considering their energy regen is so slow and their damage output is actually lower than a regular Hydralisk. Care to help this sorry soul figure out what strategy you had in mind for that?
Wait, it does? Well, I was playing on low shaders so that explains why I didn't notice it.
Something to note about playability: If playability is negatively impacted by setting the graphics options to the lowest possible settings then you may have made a bad design decision. What about people with crap computers who can only get stable frame rates at the lowest graphics settings and resolution? Do you just not want them to be able to play?
Maybe make the aura more similar to the Sentinel's reconstruction or the Immortal's barrier. It'll be seen by anyone who can run the game.
(it still doesn't really give any indication of what directions the lasers will come out from)
Re: Designing boss fights
Yeah. I can understand what you mean. The are limits to what you can do with just the Galaxy Editor and there are some things that are just way too time consuming. Creating custom animations for attacks come to mind. It'd require 3D animation software, importing and exporting the target model to and from the software, animating said custom animations, implementing the new animations into the editor. Lots and lots of work.
Still though. Even something as simple as a split second target marker on the ground or the targeted unit would be enough of a tell.
Sorry if I sounded harsh with that. I think I was being a little unfair with my criticisms.
It was was basically Agria from the Evacuation mission, with a couple of small tweaks.
The first part with handsome jack was fairly easy. There are three encounters, and you have three mines. Plant one in advance for each encounter, pull the enemies into the mines, and engage like normal. The next parts with Kyra and company were significantly harder but nothing too dramatic. You seem to have a knack for putting mines in inconvenient places, luckily I'm pretty well acquainted with that style by this point.
The boss fight was not very inventive - it's basically the Arch Angel/Stone Zealot fight all over again except easier now that all of your units are ranged.
There was a lot of waiting around while in front of a door. Really boring just standing there reading, especially when you don't really want to read. Either make it a skippable cutscene or cut down the wait time to 10 or less seconds.
Overall, passable map. Nothing new to the table except a change in units fought. Would definitely play mission 1 and 3 over this one. 6/10
Finished mission 5 and replayed mission 6 on hard.
So mission 5. I guess it was pretty easy, though that may just have been the way I played it.
The only unit that really needed to be cloaked was the Baroness as she had higher target priority whenever she healed. Otherwise, enemies would always be attacking the Cobra Commander. CC just does so much damage per shot that all enemies hit by him will immediately switch targets, especially when their original targets cloak or move behind him. Also, CC is really tanky - what with his Psi-shield basically increasing his health by 33%.
In any case, I ran past most of the enemies and the ones that were in my way I wiped out. I took the same route when I got to use the HoD crew and just hauled ass. Nothing to it.
The boss fight was my least favorite boss fight. I have no idea what tell Radgar has for his beam attack. There's no lines on the ground. It doesn't seem like it's aimed. It just seems random to me. Radgar doesn't even face the direction of whichever beam attack comes out of him. How can I possibly predict what attacks he does without suddenly dying to it and needing to reload?
4/10 - Not absolutely terrible but does not live up to the rest of your boss fights.
The other parts of the mission however get a strong 7 to a light 8.
Mission 6 on hard mode caught me off guard. Namely, the macro section
You have to play very scrappy. Once you kill the Ultralisks in the attack wave, you have to immediately destroy the closest hive. After that, you have to hold out for a good long while until you've got enough tanks that you can leave your SCVs and your now building Command Center and kill the western base. Rinse repeat unit you have so many units that you can kill basically everything the enemy has and still survive somehow.
The macro section gets a strong 8 from me.
The boss fight was about the same, though I'm starting to like it less after playing the other boss fights. It has the same problem I had with Radgar. Last Remnant has two attacks that have absolutely no way of predicting and can easily kill one of your units. Psi orb. Once again, no lines on the ground, no tracking, no indication of which unit its aiming for - how am I supposed to dodge it without knowing beforehand what direction LR will shoot?
These boss fights are slowly losing their novelty to me and the more I look at them critically, the less I find them appealing. 6/10
Although...
My standards for might be a little high, for this. Holding a dodge-micro boss fight in an RTS like StarCraft to a boss fight in a Bullet Hell shooter like touhou is pretty unfair. Still, it doesn't change the fact that I'm unsatisfied (not that it matters that me specifically am unsatisfied. It's just an opinion, just like anyone else's)
I'm talking about when it's not transparent for your own units. If you choose to hide enemy units behind walls then fine but I want to be able to see my own units when they're under doodads
Okay. Just finished mission 1-3 again. Played on hard this time.
Mission 1 is pretty much the same, even on hard mode. Nothing for me to really comment on.
Mission 2 still has the most interesting if a little tedious enemy placement. Reavers just wreck me, even in engagements I technically win. Also, the Colossus are not scary at all. You need like 4-6 at once if they're every going to be a threat. Unfortunately, by that point, it'd just be unfair as their total health pool would make killing them a nightmare. Nothing else really new to report other than the progression being somewhat more streamlined. There are still major terraining and doodading issues, though. You have several doodads that block the view of your units and they don't turn semi-transparent when there are units behind it. Similarly, high cliffs can block the view of your units, preventing you selecting them when they're pressed against them.
Mission 3 is still ridiculously easy. Which I'm fine with, I guess. I had music turned off but the game kept playing music so I just turned off sound. Word of advice, if you're gonna put music in a game with a volume slider for music, have the music actually be affected by the slider.
0
@JayborinoPlays: Go
@EDHRIANO: Go
I personally think that this boss was one of your best made ones. The problem is that the pattern isn't obvious to those who aren't the kind of people to look for said pattern. I could tell a few save-loads in that Jayborino wasn't gonna figure out the normal strategy on how to beat it.
I can see two possible solutions that won't detract from the difficulty. Neither are mutually exclusive.
Increase the boss's health so that you're fighting it for longer. To compensate, make the attacks significantly weaker and have them gradually increase in power so the first and second time it does the barrage attack it doesn't outright kill Mira Kel. Then have the heroes comment that the attacks are getting stronger after the second cycle - by then, it should be obvious that the only way to keep Mira from dying is to use the shields.
And/Or, put target markers on the targeted unit before the boss does the barrage attack. Maybe have the target marker be on Mira Kel slightly earlier than with Kyra Han
Said solutions make the boss a little less unfair. It still punishes players who don't figure out that you have to save your shield ability for Mira Kel but the punishment isn't as severe anymore
0
@EDHRIANO: Go
I noticed the cinematics but none of that other stuff. Maybe I wasn't looking hard enough?
Edit
Ah, I guess I noticed that. Small stuff. Okay that's cool.
0
I have no idea what changed in mission 5. I played through it and it played basically the same way and nothing was different - easier in a way, actually.
0
I might be the odd man out here but I actually loved the epilogue. They took the term "Deus Ex Machina" to its logical extreme and turned Kerrigan into a literal god - a giant burning angel of death with phenomenal cosmic power that can shape the very nature of the universe. It was so absurd and stupid and I loved it.
Was it good in the context of SC1 and the SC universe? Hell no. Was it good in the context of SC2? I guess? Was it good, period? It was to me.
0
It's sad I won't be able to play it but I'm very excited for Jayborino's playthrough of it (and possibly Deltron's as well)
0
I just played the updated version of Paradise Lost
You somehow managed to make this the best pure-micro mission in this campaign to me. It's now shorter with less down time where you're just moving across the map with nothing to fight, the boss now has/uses more attacks and varies them up a bit more - an overall significant increase in quality imo. I'd probably bump my score up to somewhere between a strong 7 to a light 8 for the boss fight and a medium to strong 8 for the stage.
0
It's been 2 days so I might as well bump. Here's the video for mission 7. I've yet to record a successful attempt at it playing normally.
0
@EDHRIANO: Go
I played on normal and it was moderately difficult. I've yet to reach the boss on hard. Once I finish on hard, I'll try to record and have a video up. Probably tomorrow (today, technically) or Sunday, you'll see it
Edit
Due to internet troubles, the video won't be up until late this Monday.
I retract my previous statements. On hard mode, using exclusively Kaiser makes the mission laughably easy, as well as incredibly boring to both play and watch. When not cheesing it on hard, it's very difficult. Not impossible like before, but tedious and time consuming.
When cheesing with Kaiser, I recommend playing on the hardest difficulty. It's the only possible way there'd be anything at stake and even then it's still pretty easy.
When playing with a regular strategy, I'd recommend casual or normal. The difference in respawn rates make just enough difference between normal and hard that the latter is less fun to me than the former.
0
@EDHRIANO: Go
Good call on making Kaiser's Void Form consume life instead of energy. Their energy regen was just too slow for it to be really useful without being incredibly time consuming. Now it has much more utility
The boss fight was up to par with your other boss fights. The only thing I might suggest is changing the color of the purple markers on the ground when it shoots the stun. They're very hard to see through the red void fog. Unless that's intentional, in which case that was a clever way of increasing difficulty - still a dick move, but clever.
0
Got a bunch of recordings for this campaign. Just gonna post them all at once. I hate scheduling - it's too tedious. I need some way to automatically do it.
Fair warning, all of them are me playing the way I would normally play this game. That means I don't care about the story, I play my own music over it, and don't really try to make good commentary (not that I consider my commentary is good in the first place)
Edit
Attempted mission 7. It's frustratingly difficult on normal and basically impossible on hard. You might want to tone down the rate at which they send reinforcements/replacements.
Also, I saw your comment that Kaiser's void form would make it so that they're able to solo the entire map all on their own. I don't see how that's possible considering their energy regen is so slow and their damage output is actually lower than a regular Hydralisk. Care to help this sorry soul figure out what strategy you had in mind for that?
0
@EDHRIANO: Go
Re: Radgar's beam attack telegraph
Wait, it does? Well, I was playing on low shaders so that explains why I didn't notice it.
Something to note about playability: If playability is negatively impacted by setting the graphics options to the lowest possible settings then you may have made a bad design decision. What about people with crap computers who can only get stable frame rates at the lowest graphics settings and resolution? Do you just not want them to be able to play?
Maybe make the aura more similar to the Sentinel's reconstruction or the Immortal's barrier. It'll be seen by anyone who can run the game.
(it still doesn't really give any indication of what directions the lasers will come out from)
Re: Designing boss fights
Yeah. I can understand what you mean. The are limits to what you can do with just the Galaxy Editor and there are some things that are just way too time consuming. Creating custom animations for attacks come to mind. It'd require 3D animation software, importing and exporting the target model to and from the software, animating said custom animations, implementing the new animations into the editor. Lots and lots of work.
Still though. Even something as simple as a split second target marker on the ground or the targeted unit would be enough of a tell.
Sorry if I sounded harsh with that. I think I was being a little unfair with my criticisms.
0
Just finished mission 4
It was was basically Agria from the Evacuation mission, with a couple of small tweaks.
The first part with handsome jack was fairly easy. There are three encounters, and you have three mines. Plant one in advance for each encounter, pull the enemies into the mines, and engage like normal.
The next parts with Kyra and company were significantly harder but nothing too dramatic. You seem to have a knack for putting mines in inconvenient places, luckily I'm pretty well acquainted with that style by this point.
The boss fight was not very inventive - it's basically the Arch Angel/Stone Zealot fight all over again except easier now that all of your units are ranged.
There was a lot of waiting around while in front of a door. Really boring just standing there reading, especially when you don't really want to read. Either make it a skippable cutscene or cut down the wait time to 10 or less seconds.
Overall, passable map. Nothing new to the table except a change in units fought. Would definitely play mission 1 and 3 over this one. 6/10
Finished mission 5 and replayed mission 6 on hard.
So mission 5. I guess it was pretty easy, though that may just have been the way I played it.
The only unit that really needed to be cloaked was the Baroness as she had higher target priority whenever she healed. Otherwise, enemies would always be attacking the Cobra Commander. CC just does so much damage per shot that all enemies hit by him will immediately switch targets, especially when their original targets cloak or move behind him. Also, CC is really tanky - what with his Psi-shield basically increasing his health by 33%.
In any case, I ran past most of the enemies and the ones that were in my way I wiped out. I took the same route when I got to use the HoD crew and just hauled ass. Nothing to it.
The boss fight was my least favorite boss fight. I have no idea what tell Radgar has for his beam attack. There's no lines on the ground. It doesn't seem like it's aimed. It just seems random to me. Radgar doesn't even face the direction of whichever beam attack comes out of him. How can I possibly predict what attacks he does without suddenly dying to it and needing to reload?
4/10 - Not absolutely terrible but does not live up to the rest of your boss fights.
The other parts of the mission however get a strong 7 to a light 8.
Mission 6 on hard mode caught me off guard. Namely, the macro section
You have to play very scrappy. Once you kill the Ultralisks in the attack wave, you have to immediately destroy the closest hive. After that, you have to hold out for a good long while until you've got enough tanks that you can leave your SCVs and your now building Command Center and kill the western base. Rinse repeat unit you have so many units that you can kill basically everything the enemy has and still survive somehow.
The macro section gets a strong 8 from me.
The boss fight was about the same, though I'm starting to like it less after playing the other boss fights. It has the same problem I had with Radgar. Last Remnant has two attacks that have absolutely no way of predicting and can easily kill one of your units. Psi orb. Once again, no lines on the ground, no tracking, no indication of which unit its aiming for - how am I supposed to dodge it without knowing beforehand what direction LR will shoot?
These boss fights are slowly losing their novelty to me and the more I look at them critically, the less I find them appealing. 6/10
Although...
My standards for might be a little high, for this. Holding a dodge-micro boss fight in an RTS like StarCraft to a boss fight in a Bullet Hell shooter like touhou is pretty unfair. Still, it doesn't change the fact that I'm unsatisfied (not that it matters that me specifically am unsatisfied. It's just an opinion, just like anyone else's)
0
@EDHRIANO: Go
I'm talking about when it's not transparent for your own units. If you choose to hide enemy units behind walls then fine but I want to be able to see my own units when they're under doodads
0
@EDHRIANO: Go
Okay. Just finished mission 1-3 again. Played on hard this time.
Mission 1 is pretty much the same, even on hard mode. Nothing for me to really comment on.
Mission 2 still has the most interesting if a little tedious enemy placement. Reavers just wreck me, even in engagements I technically win. Also, the Colossus are not scary at all. You need like 4-6 at once if they're every going to be a threat. Unfortunately, by that point, it'd just be unfair as their total health pool would make killing them a nightmare. Nothing else really new to report other than the progression being somewhat more streamlined. There are still major terraining and doodading issues, though. You have several doodads that block the view of your units and they don't turn semi-transparent when there are units behind it. Similarly, high cliffs can block the view of your units, preventing you selecting them when they're pressed against them.
Mission 3 is still ridiculously easy. Which I'm fine with, I guess. I had music turned off but the game kept playing music so I just turned off sound. Word of advice, if you're gonna put music in a game with a volume slider for music, have the music actually be affected by the slider.
0
@EDHRIANO: Go
Gonna try and go through all of the maps in quick succession and see what's new. Then I'll play mission 7. I'll post my thoughts when I'm finished