It's hard for me to say what I want in a Ragefest submission because my opinions tend to change over time, but I can at least say what I'm looking for in Ragefest V.
1a) I used to think the "only one strategy" type of design was ideal since it maximized difficulty and frustration. Nowadays, I passionately hate this kind of design because of how boring it makes repeated runs, and how it hurts the replay value of a submission. It also has an enormous fundamental problem in that sometimes the dice will roll against you and make the submission impossible, or utterly trivialize it because of an extra turn of unintended leeway. That, or I just do something the author didn't intend and completely break it apart. So this kind of approach either needs to stop happening, or be revamped in such a way that covers up its flaws.
1b) Knowing this, I think a very consistent theme with me is that I tend to enjoy submissions with more freedom to them. Rondo Of Madness and Ragefest Revengeance come to mind because in both, you can in theory miss lots of content or make a lot of mistakes and still manage to beat the submission. I beat the latter without getting Kyo another thunder tome, nor promoting anyone but Lyn, and this sort of makes me wonder how well I can optimize my playing for the chapter and want to go back to it. Not to mention, a lot of people in the comments actually went and said they wanted to play the submission themselves, which is kinda rare with Ragefest.
That being said, Revengeance I think could have benefited from a bit more pressure, so I guess balance is key here.
1c) Even though Ragefest is fundamentally about frustrating me and making things hard, I think Angel Of Darkness shows that you can get a positive response from viewers if you try to empower me as well. I've noticed that people like to see me getting drunk with power. I mean, just look at that whole bit where I use Kirby to wipe out a legion of warriors. The chat is losing their shit. Poor Lumamaster is dying of laughter.
1d) I more readily appreciate difficulty that puts me in strange, innovative scenarios, but I have a lot of respect for people who are extremely good at enemy placement and functional map design. Something I think people don't realize is that enemy placement is probably THE MOST important aspect of FE level design. You can have a totally flat map with no trees, mountains, or walls and STILL make it interesting by the way you place your enemies. I think the first turn of BladeHero's submission actually does this quite well. Look at the way the enemies are placed, their ranges, and how I consider what the optimal movements are. Even with weak, relatively sparse enemy counts such as those, you can make something difficult if you are skilled with enemy placement. Though, I can't tell if BladeHero intentionally made that interesting or not, based on how the rest of the submission plays out.
2a) In terms of story writing, I feel like this can go a lot of directions, but I think most importantly, the writing should reflect the personality of the creator. Knowing Orange as much as I do (Which is admittedly not much), I could tell he did most of the writing in Angel Of Darkness. Like, just watch some of Orange's youtube videos and you'll know what I'm talking about. It's pretty spot on, and I like that. And of course, I have to mention Tales Of Purt here. Goofy under dog characters, doofy intro themes, ending epilogue text, etc.. However, I totally think that Ragefest can have other styles of writing applied to it. Even though The Corruption Of Roy was a dark tale, a good number of people voted it for Writer's Award, which to me indicates that I'm not the only one who wouldn't mind more dark and edgey in my Ragefest. Albeit, better written.
2b) However, I also wanna see less money man. WAY less money man. Hell, less memes in general. Some markyjoe memes are so obscure that no one (including me) but my fans will get them, and I want to emphasize how important it is to make humor that appeals to more than just me and my viewers. A phrase I like to toss around is something like "Make your writing so good that it generates its own memes". Do that. Maybe you'll create the next Manphia. I've also noticed some of my viewers are getting sick of this as well, so by Ragefest V, this might be something counted against you even by the viewers. That said, I think memes are acceptable so long as they aren't central to the submission's writing. Moderation, I suppose.
2c) DO NOT try to manipulate me by putting Reisen in danger, especially if you don't know her character. Years of having my former waifu Misuzu Kamio slammed and fatalitied several times back in my days of MUGEN have steeled my ability to rationally disconnect myself from the character, and several sessions of analysis and role playing has given me a very specific image of Reisen, one that is NOT parallel to her shitty fanon depiction. Which is extremely inaccurate. I liken her fanon depiction to how Fire Emblem fanon depicts Serra without any of her sympathetic qualities. To write a convincing Reisen (to me), you have to seriously dig into the games and written works of Touhou. You might also want to look at my character re-analysis on my forums, which might be a little out of date, but is nonetheless what I consider accurate. If you somehow manage to write a Reisen I can become emotionally invested in, this can actually become a powerful tool that tugs at my heart strings. But also think this would show a much more... quiet and serious side of me, and I'd probably not be entertaining to watch...
That reminds me. Don't kill off Reisen either, cause I role play a lot, and... well, it's hard to take that stuff seriously when meanwhile she's totally fine in my own role plays.
Basically to use Reisen against me effectively, you need to do a million things right. =\
2d) I do like being the main character of these submissions, but 1) This might not do much for people unfamiliar with my videos, 2) Some people just depict me as endlessly negative, and 3) I think it'd be cool to see me in positions other than the main character. Actually, I'd like to be the final boss some more~ :P Anyway, uh... Yeah, I feel like the best depiction of me would be something like... make me snarky and complainy, but also insightful and, y'know, actually able to have fun. Like, I could totally picture a cutscene where castlevania music goes on, and the in-game me goes "FUCK YEAH!" or something like that. For a character to be likable, I feel you have to show their bad traits AND good traits. I dunno. It's hard to explain.
2e) More on the previous point, I kinda also like being direct adversaries of the creator. Actually... I think it'd be cool if someone made a Ragefest submission that's more or less a satire of when I played BladeHero's submission, where I'm breaking the submission apart and the author's in-game commentary is just like "Oh... I uh... I wasn't expecting that". There's a lot of comedy gold potential there, I think.
3a) Avraxas is spot on with music. Music has a HUGE effect on me, especially Castlevania music. And to be honest, I don't like FE7's soundtrack much. FE8 and FE6 are where it's at, dog. Also fuck Inescapable Fate. That song is so god damn over the top and OOOH SO SERIOUS DARK EVIL OMINOUS horseshit fuck. It comes off as ESPECIALLY pretentious on a map that thematically wants something quiet or stealthy. But yeah, people need to learn music hacking cause this is a huge boon. And uh... avoid copyrighted music so I don't get claims. DX
3b) We need more hot chicks with extremely long hair :P
3c) This is probably THE MOST IMPORTANT thing, but contestants NEED to communicate with each other more often so they don't end up repeating ideas. Just look at how often the Money Man shows up in this bloody contest. >_<
Hopefully I got everything. Let me be clear that I DON'T KNOW WHAT I WANT ALL THE TIME. The things above are probably not everything, and you might even be able to take an idea I hate and convince me to realize its potential. DO NOT take my word as law or the best possible advice. DISCUSSION is important here, and you should also consider what you like and consider good.
