6th Quest Invitational

[James24]

Just because we get along so well Gleeok, I'll make a point to check in in about a month or so just so I can see your lovely quest. I am really looking forward to it, this will be your first true Zelda quest and I'm happy to help you test. Your quest probably won't be well received by the ZC community but at least you and I can enjoy it and that's very important.

As for the later levels of LoH:IE I reworked a lot of them for version 1.2 (now on the database) feedback from Yloh and a few others. Level 4 with the 10 blue darknut room used to be the highlight but now its the later part of level 7. That thing pushes me to the brink and back every time I play it. I would highly recommend it to you if you ever decide to pick up the quest again.

Anarchy, I remember your name as well as playing a few of your quests. I remember one which had a large desert and I stopped playing for some reason although I remember that it was quite challenging. Probably because I got stuck finding an item or a bombwall or push stone or some other secret. Anyway, if you do make more challenge quests I'd be happy to try them out.

As far as easy mode is concerned, my experience is that if you spend your precious time and effort making a "true" easy mode (as opposed to a cheap nerf by just halving damage or something) then people will just play that and ignore your hard mode.

[Gleeok]

Well, I don't do "Easy Mode" anymore after experimenting with it a little in DI and GRIKARUGUN - it's just not worth the effort and impossible to get right, but instead am more inclined to do a Hard Mode. I purposefully didn't make the 6th quest too hard (The design was to allow speed-running and 0-deaths (even no-hit!) just like normal games, while still maintaining that it be the hardest Nth-NES-quest in the world. It's a difficult balance to achieve in practice I've found out the hard way. But anyway.


Anyway, If there is still support for an actual 6th quest contest then let me know. If there are enough people behind it we can still do one; a community-run and not an invite-only format.

Just because we get along so well Gleeok, I'll make a point to check in in about a month or so just so I can see your lovely quest. I am really looking forward to it, this will be your first true Zelda quest and I'm happy to help you test. Your quest probably won't be well received by the ZC community but at least you and I can enjoy it and that's very important.

As for the later levels of LoH:IE I reworked a lot of them for version 1.2 (now on the database) feedback from Yloh and a few others. Level 4 with the 10 blue darknut room used to be the highlight but now its the later part of level 7. That thing pushes me to the brink and back every time I play it. I would highly recommend it to you if you ever decide to pick up the quest again.

Anarchy, I remember your name as well as playing a few of your quests. I remember one which had a large desert and I stopped playing for some reason although I remember that it was quite challenging. Probably because I got stuck finding an item or a bombwall or push stone or some other secret. Anyway, if you do make more challenge quests I'd be happy to try them out.

As far as easy mode is concerned, my experience is that if you spend your precious time and effort making a "true" easy mode (as opposed to a cheap nerf by just halving damage or something) then people will just play that and ignore your hard mode.

Thanks, I'll let you know about any early-beta release or whatnot, although I doubt it.

Was the Anarchy_Balsac quest you played have 'Paradox' in the title? IIRC he lost that quest, so if you have a copy I think he would like to get a copy.

[James24]

The Anarchy quest I played was downloaded from the database, so I highly doubt that he could have lost something that he uploaded.

Since this is AGN and not PureZC, I feel more at ease to speak my mind about the difficulty problem and I have thought extensively about it. And you seem to be more open-minded than most other people so you might be able to comprehend this better than most. Here's my two cents...

I believe that everyone is inherently a passionate type A or type B player. That's just part of our brain chemistry - its fixed at birth and unchangeable. Now, when it comes to quest making, this involves a lot of time, energy and resources to be spent by that particular individual. Inevitably, that person's passion is going to come through and they are going to devote their precious quest-making resources to the type A or type B game that they are so fond of.

When the opposing camp rejects the work and requests their version be made then it puts the quest-maker in an awful position. Either they spend a lot of time and resources making a game that they really don't enjoy at the end OR they ignore the request and are forever shunned by that group of players OR they make two versions of their work. The first alternative is absolutely unpalatable for a free quest-maker. Essentially the other camp is asking them to perform a job for them and the only thing they get in return is popularity, being played, fame, reputation etc... But I don't really believe that that is sufficient compensation. To do this kind of job requires financial payment since what you are asking for is for someone to devote their precious time and effort solely for your enjoyment knowing that they won't enjoy their own work at the end.

The second alternative is slightly better but its like choosing between the devil and the deep-blue sea. The quest maker will be very unpopular, reviled and hated with the other camp but at least they will conserve their resources for what they passionately love.

As for the third alternative, several quest makers have attempted to do this and its interesting to see what has happened with their attempts. But, to the best of my knowledge, there is not a single quest in the history of Zelda Classic that has ever won consensus acceptance by both camps.

1) Dark Flame Wolf's Extreme quests - I remember some of her extreme quests simply swapped red lynels for blue lynels. Blue octoroks instead of red octoroks etc... Essentially a cheap buff. There was Origins Extreme but the only difficulty there was getting started and once you got started the rest was a cakewalk. I don't know about you but I don't consider her Extreme quests to be type B quests.

2) Evan's IoR. Clearly designed for heroic mode. Such lovely balance and a true type B quest. I would proudly recommend this to other challenge quest players and say - you'll love this. Evan had three other modes that were cheap nerfs and these were only accessible after a player died 5 times. In these modes, he would simply reduce the damage taken by varying amounts. The result was rejection by the type A camp on the basis that he was very "condescending" and there was no "true easy mode".

3) Ouch's Armageddon Quest and AQF. Armageddon Quest is universally accepted by the type B camp as a true challenge quest. He then went on to make AQF which had some new rooms and a cheap nerf - increasing the player's number of heart containers. Result: AQF rejection by both type A and type B camps because it was "in the middle".

4) Nightmare's Easy, Normal and Kaizo mode quests. Easy mode is rejected by the type A camp because it isn't visually appealing and some still say its too hard. Kaizo mode is rejected by the type B camp. I can zero-game the early dungeons without even coming close to sweating and don't really feel motivated to continue. I also take a big issue with him hiding key items behind secrets and saying "whistle while you work" etc...

5) Jamian's The Forbidden City. Almost universal acceptance by the type A camp. He also made four other difficulty modes which are cheap buffs. But even these cheap buffs weren't enough and a playthrough has been made of his heroic mode being done without any ring. Clearly this demonstrates that he either is unwilling to invest the time balancing the quest to type B standards or he is unable to. The result is type B rejection.

So in short, this is a big dilemma and the root cause of the problem is that Zelda Classic is a free to play game. Nintendo and such don't have a problem with the first option because they are paid by both camps to make quests that are acceptable to them. And, even if the resource problem was to somehow be magically solved, I think you'd need to be a very, very, very good quest maker to accommodate for a taste that you yourself find distasteful. Better than any quest maker that has ever existed in ZC history.

What do you think?

[Anarchy_Balsac]

'The most annoying thing is when some idiot one stars your quest for being too hard, or because they were too dumb to figure out that they ventured out to a part that they lacked the gear to explore without getting outright clobbered, and the admins at pure do nothing about it. It's quite irritating.

[James24]

Players do have a right to express their opinions albeit dumb ones. Free speech is always a good thing even when the other side abuses it unknowingly. You are also free to speak your mind about what you perceive as player incompetence or lack of fighting ability leading to bad ratings. Granted it will make you very unpopular very quickly but you have a right to do that. Keep in mind that talk is cheap - you can simply ignore them and I can't see any harm coming from that.

My advice to you is to keep in mind what is your motivation for making the quest? Who are you trying to please? If its the type A players... well... you're going to end up like Nightmare who put in all that hard work only to get rejection by both camps. If its the type B audience (Gleeok, Yloh, me, OUCH!, Evan and other challenge quest players) then we're more sympathetic to dying, bad graphics etc... So if you pitch your quest just to us then you'll be a lot happier. If you're only making the quest to please yourself then hey, whatever goes right? In that case feel free to ignore whatever the audience says and do whatever you like.

As for the gear aspect, I think that challenge quests should check that the player has adequate gear before entering a hard region and warn the player if they don't. Should be a simple script to do that. Also if the gear is very well hidden then its not really the player's fault for not getting it.

[Dimentio]

The contest sort of died due to a lack of judges and existing ones dropping out. *glances around nervously*

Anyways, my 6th quest beta should still be up there. You should try it out, James! (as a side note, you may need to enter a later level early to get the bow before you can enter level 1)

[Gleeok]

What do you think?

Interesting.
I can't really comment on other peoples' creative process, but I can offer some insight to my own (I don't think I even qualify as your definition of Type A or B, so I'll try to explain):

In general I have to be motivated and/or inspired to work on anything having to do with gameplay. This includes levels, maps, enemies, gameplay code/mechanics, etc.; this is probably the biggest factor why I hardly ever even come close to finishing a project! The funny thing is that when I do sit down and work on something I don't try and make it difficult at all, in fact difficulty doesn't even enter the equation 90% of the time. What I try and do is hash out some concept or idea the best I can and make it playable; I try and think what problems the player will face and what possible solutions they have at their disposal; I basically think of something I find interesting, or potentially fun, complex, or challenging and try to work with that--in the ZC realm, if it's a single enemy, single room, single puzzle, series of rooms, maze of puzzles, horde of enemies, strange scripts, powerups, what have it. In a sense I try to problem-solve how I want the player to problem-solve and this is where the shit hits the fan for me: Without even getting into a difficulty balancing mindset and just getting together something to playtest, almost always without fail, that game prototype I put together is just brutally difficult! In fact, anything I decide to keep I have to painstakingly go through over and over again making it easier to play each time until I think it's OK. This is why I find it amusing when people complain about the difficulty of my stuff. You remember "Dungeon Impossible?" That was originally just LV 3 of my first quest I tried to make-it was not supposed to be semi-hard until LV 5 or 6!!! I thought it was funny like that so I added a few bosses and released it mostly as-is. I did a quick prototype of a quest Green Ninja and purposely made it easy because it was for a purezc quest contest event. [Yes, on purpose, easy...] Turns out most people couldn't beat it and they thought I was being mean or trolling them or something (I wasn't!). So anyway, I do like casual and easy games as well, but generally I prefer to solve harder problems than easy ones and I think that comes out in whatever I do, in that I tend to contrive problems that are more unreasonable than reasonable, whether it's a good idea to do so or not.


Did you ever check out the 2nd Green Ninja demo (Kaizo Impossibru I think it was called)? I think you would get a good laugh out of that, as well as an increased death count. haha.


[edit]RE:Motivation:
-That one's easy. I don't make quests to appease other people, I make it more or less how I envisioned it. I think this is why no one would be able to predict what weird quest idea I will come with next, because not even I know yet!
Other than that, I experimented with easy modes and such more because I genuinely needed work at difficulty balancing and was trying different things. It wouldn't bother me if no one could beat one of my quests. I would simply declare complete victory over you human scum and all caps and bold it in my signature.

[Anarchy_Balsac]

Stuff

The point is that if some dumbass downrates you b/c it was too hard or they didn't know how to play, the lower rating still turns people away, who might not have been so reckless and may have either offered legit criticism, or even enjoyed it, not that everyone has to like what you produce. But quests should get a fair chance, it's one thing if someone downrates you based on a legit greivence, but turning other payers away with low rating because they sucked at the quest or played it like a retard shouldn't be considered okay or tolerated.

I know the difference between someone who just didn't enjoy my quest, and an idiot who is judging and downrating it unfairly, and no, ignoring it doesn't make the bad rating go away.

[James24]

Anarchy - I agree with you that it is unfair and that in a perfect world then yes everyone should give the quest a fair chance. But you also have to understand the type A mindset and to them it seems perfectly logical. Type A players think very much alike and are heavily influenced by each other's opinions because they have a history of liking similar quests. When one of them say a quest is good/bad it is a very good indicator for the others on whether or not to spend their time playing it.

Its the same with type B players. If Gleeok, Yloh, Evan, OUCH! or even you were to say to me "hey James, this quest is a top notch challenge quest" that would have a lot of influence with me. Similarly if they said "You'd better not go near this, its difficulty absolutely sux" that would also have a lot of influence with me, although if the quest claimed to be challenging I might just have a peek at it anyway to see for myself. Type B might not 1-star a quest and say bad things about it in public but we would do it in private and so there is very little material difference between the two approaches except that type A is more public.

At the end of the day only you can answer this question - are you prepared to commit the time and resources to making a type A quest like Light of the Heavens in order to gain type A acceptance? If yes, then I wish you the best of luck and if you are successful then you'd be the very first quest maker in the history of this great game to win consensus acceptance by both sides. If not, then I would advise that you simply accept that they aren't going to play your quest and not bother about trying to appease them or win them over. It will only end in heartache.


Gleeok - I don't remember trying a quest by that name but if its on the database I'll go check it out right after this post. As for making your quest difficult without even having to consciously balance the game - that is pure genius. Do you know how long I spent balancing LoH and LoH:IE so that the balance is just right? Without question the biggest time consumer ever - even longer than learning how to script! If you can balance your game without even having to think then that's a skill which I'll never have. Wow!

Edit: Can't find it on the database. Can you send it to me?

And yeah I can totally sympathize with the part about type A thinking you're trolling them. To them, they see it as if you're making quests to try and appease them and win them over when in reality you are simply sharing with them what you think is a very good quest.

As for motivation - I 100% agree with you. Quests should only ever be made to appease the quest maker. If anyone else is appeased that's a bonus. The only way I can see that wavering is if someone made me a very attractive financial offer. Then I would make a quest to appease them - but short of that its very going to happen.


Dimentio - yeah I gave your quest a shot. Couldn't find a key item after searching for a while so I gave up. Plus the fact that it was abandoned didn't help either.

[Dimentio]

@James24 : You had to go into level 3 first (bottom left corner) to get the arrow, and then buy the bow from one of the shops. With that you can enter level 1. Technically, levels 2 and 3 are "complete", but level 1 is the only one set in stone. I tried to add a lot of hints towards "you need to enter level 3 first", but ultimately I think I failed at showing it to the player.

I also really don't agree with type A/type B, simply because the two aren't black and white, they almost always overlap. Most challenge players I know like pretty things, and they also like challenge. It's the reason why things like Armageddon Quest and Isle of Rebirth are so popular with them. I think it's better to split them into two groups: determined, and relaxed. Determined players will commit themselves to beating challenge quests, partly for bragging rights, partly for the challenge, and partly because they're completonists at heart and cannot stand a loss. Relaxed players are more easygoing, and are able to drop something if they don't like it, unlike a determined player who will keep on going at the challenge unless it's complete garbage.

The difference is, both type of players will sometimes act more like the other group. This is why you drop quests you find too easy: that's the "relaxed" player kicking in. It's also the reason why relaxed players are able to beat and like Isle of Rebirth: because the determination kicks in. Sometimes, a relaxed player who plays a hard quest goes into determination mode and never comes out: they've become a determined player, and sometimes a determined player gets lazy, drifts away from videogames, and becomes a relaxed player. This is why I feel type A/type B is incorrect; because it assumes it's locked at birth, when in reality it' more of a state of mind that mot people are accustomed to, but can change with enough of a push. It's also why you try to make your challenge quests inviting: because it allows for the conversion of relaxed players to determined players. Some of the best challenge quests out there, like Isle of Rebirth, start out tough, but not too tough, but then grows more and more challenging until it's teeth-grindingly difficult; and that's why both types of people like IoR: because it's successful, at least temporarily, at converting a relaxed player to a determined player. Everything in IoR is designed around this, and that's why it's so beautiful.