Ragefest IV: Trolls & Tribulations

[MCProductions]

I love the first idea, especially since it would give me, a novice hacker, a way to contribute.

[MrNight48]

Honestly, I'm not sure on it. I already have a theme for my part in mind and even a custom animation idea for myself that I could share. However the biggest reason I have always never worked with others when it comes to projects like this because timing/pacing is everything. I'm the kind of guy who works better if I don't feel the pressure of someone needing me. I have always valued the option of simply not doing it when I feel like something is too much work or taking a break. (honestly I still have animations I said I would finish still not finished for another project, sorry to the people it concerns)

It would be cool to see but the execution however I am skeptical about.

[47948201]

Yeah that's part of why I was thinking of it like a Mario hack type of collab, where everyone makes their own chapters as they have been before, but rather than a contest format where they submit their chapters separately, they get put together in the same game and people can play them and give feedback and such.

[MrNight48]

Yeah that's part of why I was thinking of it like a Mario hack type of collab, where everyone makes their own chapters as they have been before, but rather than a contest format where they submit their chapters separately, they get put together in the same game and people can play them and give feedback and such.

ah now that idea I would support far more than just a team hack. Although we will have to be careful about slot space. I tend to use tons of slots that is never seen by the player. i.e me putting in a all powerful character to test my custom events and if they are working like they should.then comment him out the code.

[47948201]

Yeah even I have to admit FE7 would probably be used

but

fexna would make this a non-issue

[Alusq]

I dig the collaboration idea. As for character/text/etc slots, that's nothing a little management wouldn't fix (e.g. expanding the character table and allotting ~20 slots to each person making a chapter, with more/less requestable).

[MarkyJoe1990]

>Waiting for co-commentator to join me for FdRStar's submission

>Decides to play a different submission. Gets stuck and asks the creator for help. Awaiting response.

>Decides to play ANOTHER submission. Video reactions consist almost entirely of...

"OH GOD WHAT HOW DO I LIFE!? THIS DOES A DIFFERENT THING AND FLOW CHART GAAAAAHHHH"

So yeah. This mysterious third submission is probably the most mind fucky thing I've ever played.

[SilverHairedFreak25]

>Waiting for co-commentator to join me for FdRStar's submission

>Decides to play a different submission. Gets stuck and asks the creator for help. Awaiting response.

>Decides to play ANOTHER submission. Video reactions consist almost entirely of...

"OH GOD WHAT HOW DO I LIFE!? THIS DOES A DIFFERENT THING AND FLOW CHART GAAAAAHHHH"

So yeah. This mysterious third submission is probably the most mind fucky thing I've ever played.

This oughta be good.

[the cool guy]

>Waiting for co-commentator to join me for FdRStar's submission

>Decides to play a different submission. Gets stuck and asks the creator for help. Awaiting response.

>Decides to play ANOTHER submission. Video reactions consist almost entirely of...

"OH GOD WHAT HOW DO I LIFE!? THIS DOES A DIFFERENT THING AND FLOW CHART GAAAAAHHHH"

So yeah. This mysterious third submission is probably the most mind fucky thing I've ever played.

I am very hyped now

[MarkyJoe1990]

Oh my god, that was the most hilariously anti-climatic ending I've ever seen in a submission.

So. Turns out that third submission was the easiest one of the three. DX

I don't think I beat it the intended way though.

[47948201]

The greatest mindflip is

how do you number them now?

[MarkyJoe1990]

The same way I did when I uploaded the submissions out of order in Ragefest 1.

The ones I recorded first get labeled before the others.

[RandomSwordmaster]

the third one sounds like mine, but at the same time, it probably wasn't

[TheMoniker]

the third one sounds like mine, but at the same time, it probably wasn't

Did you get a PM asking for help? If you did/n't then we know

But your submission isn't too possible to beat any way BUT the intended way

[RandomSwordmaster]

Did you get a PM asking for help? If you did/n't then we know

But your submission isn't too possible to beat any way BUT the intended way

didn't get any PM, probably wasn't mine.

There is one way one could theoretically glitch their way through

torch staff glitch on "that guy"

Edited January 13, 2016 by RandomSwordmaster

[MarkyJoe1990]

Just giving everyone a status update.

Marc's Precious: Almost complete, but I've hit a snag.

Money Man's Last Stand: Hit a snag, but the author gave me a hint. I face palmed at how obvious the solution to my problem was.

DISTORTION/DISPLACEMENT: Complete.

I've recorded varying amounts of each of these submissions. I'm either close to done, or completely done with them. This should give us... six more submissions to do.

Here's to hoping they aren't bone crushingly hard like nearly every submission so far. ;-;

Like, seriously. Wow. People cranked up the brutality this contest.

Also, I think Distortion is gonna have the best video. I might edit that one first and upload the others after.

EDIT: CONTROVERSIAL STATEMENT TIME

So. Y'know how Ragefest is about me raging and stuff?

I'm totally fine with that. However, I'm starting to think maybe we should tone down the difficulty from now on. Having to redo segments over and over again is time consuming and my time's becoming more limited. Not to mention, the harder a submission is, the more care and polish it needs in order to avoid becoming luck based. What I'm suggesting is that in Ragefest V, for the first time, I'm gonna be discouraging cheap/unfair design and suggest people find different ways to torture me instead.

Distortion is a perfect example. And if I remember right, Marc's Special Day is hardly a shining example of difficulty either, but that got under my skin hardcore.

I also think a lower difficulty will make long submissions feel way shorter, because I'm redoing way less often.

Beyond that, I also feel like... what we want out of ragefest is different from what ragefest actually is. I feel that people are typically more interested in submissions that are well designed and creative, even though Ragefest implies the opposite of the former. I think people also get more excited about submissions that look fun to play.

I dunno. Just tossing thoughts out, but - to sound like a business man for a second - I think the contest needs to adapt and evolve.

Edited January 14, 2016 by MarkyJoe1990

[47948201]

Yeah I 100% agree, this has been something I've been trying to figure out about your views since this iteration of the contest began. At any rate, it's a lot harder to create something that has creative trolling than one that's nearly impossible to beat, and we've seen that the latter produces little in the way of actual footage. Something that's worried me about my submission is that, since my singular goal was to make the most difficult chapter the contest has seen, most of what Marc would do would end up being off-camera, so if anything happened it might be lost. (EDIT: on a related note, I'll be looking out for the streamed submissions (lol why are they all coming at the end) and if I think it would work well for it, I'll say after the first episode or two of ℱ⋆ℰℵℰ, some streaming of that can be done. I honestly have some doubts you'll beat it even with viewer help~)

So yeah, I think maybe it would be best for people to just choose a difficulty level appropriate for how they intend to troll, without the difficulty becoming the trolling. We've seen many of those throughout the past 20-ish games, we'll probably see even more in the 10-ish to come, so while people are doing a good job of being creative, let's see what else they can come up with when not being forced to design around the idea they have to make their game hard.

Edited January 14, 2016 by 47948201

[MarkyJoe1990]

Right. That said, I'm also totally okay with people trying to make a normal, challenging submission as well. As in, pure, fair challenge. Something a player could in theory beat on their first try if they're careful and thoughtful enough. I've been craving something like that for a while, especially since I've been playing FE12 Hard lately, which took all the intuitive, thoughtful design of FE3 and threw it out the window. =\

Edited January 14, 2016 by MarkyJoe1990

[Avraxas]

CONTROVERSIAL STATEMENT TIME, OH JOY!!!

Fair enough. Difficult but completely fair design is pretty hard to do, though, which is more what I'd attribute the insane difficulty of RF4 submissions to.

Unless everyone in this contest is a total sadist, not that it matters since Marc cuts the tedious parts out of the videos anyway.

It seems like the way to go is to make it difficult (though not punishingly, gut-wrenchingly so) and mix in slight doses of "WTF!?", like Giant Eliwood Fire Dragon Heads

or Assassins that turn into Great Knights halfway through their attack animation.

Also, future submissions need more bread.

Edited January 14, 2016 by Avraxas

[47948201]

all the intuitive, thoughtful design of FE3

why is it so hard to post a video here omg (wait it happens automatically never mind lol but what

Also! Yes!

After watching your submission I became ashamed of myself for not filling my game with bread DX

Edited January 14, 2016 by 47948201

[MarkyJoe1990]

@Numbers: ... >_> That's just one chapter. I can name plenty others in that game that are really well designed.

@Avraxas: Funny you say that, Avraxas, because out of all the submission so far, I'd say yours is probably the most intuitive and fair.

But yeah. I think submissions with lots of shock value tend to get far. Also ones that take joy in screwing with the player too (Distortion!!). Of course, the icing on top is good comedy writing. The intro to Trapped In Painful Places is, like, the single best cutscene of any Ragefest submission IMO.

[47948201]

Yeah I know, but while this is kind of off-topic I feel like mentioning one of FE3's famously bad earlygame maps, on FE12 Hard, uh, maybe it was Hard 2? But the increase in enemy stats, at least while I was playing, made the chapter way more interesting.

But yeah since this goes up at the top of the next page I should tell people, check the previous page! Important post!

EDIT: Actually while I'm making a mostly-useless post I may as well include what I decided not to say yesterday

uh
one thing led to another and I drew a kinda cool 'official' art for Frickblade

I can't show it now but if Marc remembers this when he gets that far in my game then yeah, if not no problem I just figured since it was related to Ragefest I may as well mention it because uhhhh yeah *rolls away*

Edited January 14, 2016 by 47948201

[MrNight48]

I say it's fine however not my design style.

For me, when I make mods, I need to have a purpose that is fundamentally different than the original gba fire emblems other wise why bother? I excel at difficulty and new mechanics because that is what I enjoyed most out of those games. Until I got too good at them and all challenge was lost. Designing these hard hacks is my way of saying that these games still have some serious fire left. Untapped power the engine was force to hide for IS feared the western audience couldn't handle it. I am a guy who is into chess, which is why I love fire emblem so much because they took the chess idea and made it far more cooler. I want to make something that helps any player share the joy I had on those long quiet nights playing this game, coming up with strategy after strategy for the various challenges gba fire emblems threw at me while I mastered them. To push the player into that "how am I going to survive this with all my valuable soldiers?" and the crowning moment when they do.

For more of an idea of what I am taking about, my submission was more of a test sample to prove my theory of your playstyle. There are 2 main ways I noticed how you beat submissions. You either demonstrate how much knowledge you have more than the creator on how the engine works and what you can get away with, or you cheese the hell out of it with the safe low risk strats. ( i.e turtling/bait and switch/overleveling the best unit, etc.) I also wanted to see what you was confident in, arrogant even where I can exploit it and turn all your favorite strats against you and force you to get creative.(again just a theory so I could be wrong overall but still) You have said that you get silent when faced with a hard challenge and that is boring but to me, that is the calm before the storm. I know because I have pushed my friends into that very state with very heated soul caliber matches until I caused a breaking point which results in broken controllers. I know because I have also gone into the silent state to channel all my focus only to snap and roar like a lion because something did not go according to my plan no matter how much skill I put into it. I am not going to say what kind of submission I was cooking up for RF V because I still might make it and release it for the public anyway. (Just tweaked to counter more playstyles)

With all this said, however I get it. Time is cruel and we lose more of it only when we know what to do with it and it sounds like you have hit that point in your life. I just been hit with that lesson when I realized I couldn't keep up the hardcore player of mmo lifestyle. That when my guildmates left for another game, I couldn't go with them because the game they wanted to play was too time consuming to a new filthy casual like me. So I get that you may not be able to deal with submissions that require some time to go through. Going to end my comment here because I lost my train of thought :/

[Avraxas]

Seems like we're opposites on the scale of game designing then, Mr.Night!

My focus was to provide multiple options (i.e, choosing what character to promote/focus on leveling), to see what creative solutions Marc could pick up with the tools available. Yours seems to have been to force him to use creative strategies by using his habits against him (if I understood your message correctly). I'd like to see how that works out for you, or if your submission played out as you intended it to.

Also, sweet more Frickblade art lol

I might have made some too.

[MarkyJoe1990]

@Night: Your submission was short, so it wasn't really an issue. I honestly would like to see more of you in the contest. =X

Which... leads me to believe that perhaps people should either make their submissions short and brutal, or long and easy. Either way, I'd want progress to be consistent. It becomes very demoralizing when I've wasted a lot of time on my days off on a submission without anything to show for it.

Also yes, your assessment of my strategies sounds just about right. Congratulations. You figured that out faster than one of my old friends did. He acted like he was smart and stuff, and that he could design a truly horrific submission by studying my play style, and guess what? Never happened.

I wasn't always like that, mind you. I used to grind up my units, avoid the jeigans, and so on, but that got old after a while, and during commentaries, I prefer to use strategies that take the least amount of effort so I can focus on just talking instead of playing well (Hard to do both). Midnight Sun shows just how little I care about abusing the Jeigan unit. DX