Topic: Castlevania: Symphony of the night HACKED! I bet you thought I had quit? ;)

[Esco]

There are several reasons for this, I've heard:

He/She does not want his or her project revealed until completion. A surprise if you will.

Redundant; it should not be on the net then, or should be on a private site on a private server that can only be accessed or pulled up by the members of the project's team using a login and password. In that case linking to it would not matter, since it would be inaccessible.

He/She is concerned about theft of their own work. (I can definitely get behind this one)

Also redundant: if this did occur hotlinking in the past  a lot would help, and spreading the word about WHOSE project it is in general because then everyone would know who the project really belonged to. Hence why I make sure to make it WELL KNOWN who made the SOTN hacked project. If when I release the source, someone tried to call it theirs, it would be futile.

He/She might never finish their project, so for them it would be better not to announce anything.

Yet again redundant: then why even make a site, which is in essence announcing it in the first place?

There's probably a boat-load more but these three are the ones that stick out the most.

.................... probably are. And they are all probably just as redundant. Hence why my question above about not understanding why people would object was a rhetorical one. 

Here's an even worse idea though: people who spend all kinds of time making tools, coding engines, and ripping hard to get things out of games.... yet REFUSE to make them publicly accessible when they themselves no longer have interest in them at all. It's sickening. 

[X]

Unless it is somewhere else besides the pages for POR and OOE, no they do not. 

Redundant

Also redundant

Yet again redundant

Have I unknowingly got on your bad side or something? While the above might not seem that big a deal for you, but to me I cannot help be feel my negativity rise. Please forgive my misunderstanding you if there is one.

[Esco]

Have I unknowingly got on your bad side or something? While the above might not seem that big a deal for you, but to me I cannot help be feel my negativity rise. Please forgive my misunderstanding you if there is one.

Not at all; if you had you would be blocked (I do not have time for confrontations with strangers on the internet). I am just stating the obvious, that is all.

Also, in the future if you have a personal question like this, please use U2U instead. 

[X]

Also, in the future if you have a personal question like this, please use U2U instead. 

Sure thing, thanks.  I just gotta remember it next time, knowing the gray matter in my skull, lol!

[Claimh Solais]

Yo, Esco, check yo U2U's.

[Esco]

Version A14 R2 of the engine is out!
Version A14 R3 of the engine is out!

This release corrects several small bugs in the previous versions, AS WELL AS THE JOYPAD SETUP BUG IN OPTIONS (sorry about that peoples). It can be found on the blog here: http://sotnhacked.wordpress.com/2011/11/22/place-all-bug-reports-here/

[Claimh Solais]

Just out of curiosity, what does A14 R3 and such mean? I'm a n00b when it comes to stuff like that.

[Las]

I probably shouldnt respond here but i'm assuming A might mean assembeled. And R might mean Revision which would be my first guess or recompiled. Probably revision....eh idk. Just guessing at this point. Sorry to probably be of little help there Claimh!!

[Pemburu Vampir]

Probably Alpha 14 Revision 3.

[Las]

Oh your probably right. I didn't know that term applied to coding aswell. I know it is used in various things like college frats,astronomy, and a veternarian term. Also it's a greek word. I think it means dominant. Say for example an alpha male wolf is the head of it's pack. Yeah that makes sense. Didn't think of that. Good read!!

[Pemburu Vampir]

Well, it's just my guess.

and wow, what you just said was deep for me.

[markyjoe1990]

I am rather pleased with the Dracula Boss fight shown in the demo, however, I have a few criticisms.

I strongly dislike the scoring system.

One thing I noticed is that even though I defeated Dracula in 2 and a half minutes without taking a single hit (Both of these earned me perfect scores in the damage and time department at the end of the fight), I only received a C rank because I used so many hearts (Which, by the way, if you don't grind for hearts before the dracula fight, your score will be hindered anyway... so the scoring system makes you do pointless, uninteresting grinding).

To remedy this, I attempted to go into the fight with 99 hearts, but only use 9 of those hearts (The scoring system for hearts maxs at 90, implying that 90 hearts is the minimum for a perfect score in the hearts section of the end-level scoring thingy), however, because Dracula's health depletes so slow without the assistance of item crashes and sub weapons, my time took a hit and I got a C rank again.

It seems to me that the system is counter intuitive, since it discourages you from using sub weapons and item crashes, which reduces you to the boring method of whipping Dracula over and over again to kill him. Thus, strategy is limited.

I don't like how it works. Item crashes and sub weapons help make Ricther's gameplay more interesting, yet the system discourages us from fully utilizing it. I suggest removing hearts from the scoring system entirely, and instead make the time score more strict so that it encourages us to strategically use item crashes and sub weapons to get a good time.

I timed the battle and realized that grinding to get 99 hearts and fighting dracula actually takes LESS time than defeating dracula with the immediately available 40 hearts. Something seems wrong about that.

Aside from the scoring system, I also noticed that Dracula CV3 fire pillar move is slightly broken. If you haven't memorized the exact order of Dracula's attacks, and are positioned at the edge of the screen, you'll get hit by one of the pillars, meaning the move is slightly trial-and-error-esque. If you aren't positioned at the edge, but are still close to it, you'll be squeezed in between the two generated fire pillars and have to use the super jump to escape before the third pillar appears... and since the super jump requires full MP, that means the attack is impossible to dodge under certain circumstances. Additionally, I noticed Richter's collision box extends horizontally when he swings his whip, meaning I could avoid damage if I'm just baaarely touching the fire pillar if I don't attack, but the moment I do attack, I will get hit. I can understand why you gave Richter that horizontal extension in his collision, since it makes sense physically, but sometimes I can't help but feel cheated when I get hit under those circumstances, especially since the collision extends before Richter fully stretches his arm forward. It's a minor nitpick, perhaps not big enough to influence you to change this, but I would certainly be pleased if you did.

I have a few more criticisms, but I suspect they are towards intentional design decisions, so I'll avoid complaining about how, for example, Dracula's Second Form's lightning wave attack requires near-perfect precision to dodge (I'm still able to avoid it consistently, but it still seems a bit too precise. This is coming from someone who has beaten levels in Super Kaizo Mario World without savestates, mind you).

Overall, the product looks good and I do hope my feedback is helpful. Until next time.

[Esco]

I am rather pleased with the Dracula Boss fight shown in the demo, however, I have a few criticisms.

Thanks for the compliment and the feedback. Normally I don't tend to respond to critiques at all, but since you took so much time and were so detailed, and your post is truly a good one, I will respond to it.

The Dracula fight was designed with a strategy behind it; a very in depth one that was play tested to a GREAT extent in fact. The idea is that it is not too hard to beat Dracula, and come out with descent starting stats. You can easily use crashes, and sub weapons to your hearts content and easily come out with max mp, max hp boosts, and lose only about 3 max hearts (that is using less than 60 hearts I believe) in the process. That still results in the fight being a descent challenge as long as you use some kind of strategy. This bit was designed with the average casual gamer in mind since it is only the intro stage.

............ getting S-rank however is truly challenging. This bit is in fact designed for those of use who are less casual, and more the perfectionist types who just HAVE to get everything in the game. No one HAS to get S-rank (all you lose is one item not doing so) to start with descent stats at all; it is completely optional. But if anyone wants it, they will have to limit sub weapon use, and rely more on whipping and tackling. Which if you use your cross well, 9 of them will do a LOT of damage to Dracula's 2nd form. Basically if you want a PERFECT rank, you must play almost PERFECT as well.

The flame pillars were intentionally designed so hiding in the corner would not be an option; dracula has a pattern and you know what is coming. In fact if your properly time things, you will only see this attack twice at extreme most; and you should have a tackle saved up each time to go thru it. So you should be prepared for it; simple.

Gigavolt like all other attacks has a visual queue to it; before firing Dracula slightly moves his arms. It is a quick animation, but if you get as far away as possible, and watch dracula (instead of the huge electric wave of death, which most people focus on) you notice it and the attack becomes much easier to dodge.

One thing I do agree with is that getting 99 hearts can be slightly tedious in all honestly; I may set it later instead to depend on # of hearts used when fighting dracula. That is a good point

[uzo]

a great post

That is absolutely right. You should never encourage a player to dumb down his strategic options, threatened with a penalty. It makes absolutely no sense to encourage more repetitive and boring behavior.

Let me buy you a cold one.

[Esco]

That is absolutely right. You should never encourage a player to dumb down his strategic options, threatened with a penalty. It makes absolutely no sense to encourage more repetitive and boring behavior.

Let me buy you a cold one.

........ the irony of you stating that he is right, then stating that you should "never encourage a player to dumb down his strategic options" boggles my mind.

What's worse, is I know other people on here who will also agree with what you just said, and think I am just talking crazy with that statement. The irony of it all just kills me. But it's all good, and you are all entitled to your opinions. I in fact encourage responses like markyjoe's that are respectful and detailed.