[Polls Closed] Creepers in the demo

[slpwnd]

We have been getting quite some complaints from the users regarding the creepers in the 3rd level of the demo. A lot of people find them rather disrupting. They would prefer to build the factory, experiment with the concepts in the game and take things easy. Instead they had to fight off the attacking creepers and be afraid to leave their factory because the creepers would destroy the radars.

The truth is that people who know how to play the game would have little trouble dealing with the creepers. Couple of turrets would suffice to take care of them. And we are sure it can be challenging for some players. However this is demo. Its purpose is to present the game to the players who don't know it in the frist place.
The question is whether the attacking creepers in the demo are an interesting factor or just frustrates users.

We are not certain about this and we would appreciate to hear your opinion.

[HellEye]

For me you shouldn't completly remove creepers. Even if players are just learning, they should learn whole game, not only economic aspect. Personally when i played it first time Creeps were annoying, but not too hard to deal with. So my opinion: make attacks rarer and smaller, but don't remove them.
PS. It's hard to vote on mobile phone, so just leaving reply.

[Xinvoker]

Introduce a cap, so that the bigger a wave can get is say, 12 creepers.

[orbito]

It's a survival game, so enemies are expected to be deadly. That's part of the fun.

I do think there should eventually be more enemy types though. And more advanced enemies.

[wrtlprnft]

I think it should be more obvious that there is a cap to the number of creepers that can attack you at the same time (because the number of creeper spawners is fixed, so the number of creepers that are available for the script to order around is limited).

On the demo level, you can defend yourself against the final wave size by yourself as long as you have enough ammo, so you don't even need to build the better gun or turrets to survive. They're only required to protect your radars, and the game clearly tells you to build turrets…

[Ween]

Since it is a demo, reducing the number of creeper could help a larger number of player enjoying the game and get the basis. I know that it is a survival game, but let's be realistic, the purpose of a demo is not to show to the player the real difficulty of the game but to gave them a taste of the game. Up to you after to increase the difficulty in the campaign :p

[Wazzebu]

it sounds cool if everyone can choose, just want to test the concept ? Remove the creepers... More fun ? Add creepers...

[Hanse00]

I like the idea of being able to turn them on and off, being able to try playing it as a free play sort of thing, just experimenting with factory setups, or doing a survival thing.

[orbito]

I like the idea of being able to turn them on and off, being able to try playing it as a free play sort of thing, just experimenting with factory setups, or doing a survival thing.

You can do that already by using the Map Editor and creating a Custom game. Set it up so enemies don't bother you.

But the tutorial and main scenario are about teaching the player to survive on a hostile planet. Removing them would break the game.

[MF-]

Get a "Peaceful" and "Normal" difficulty setting then
With room for extensions in the form of "Easy" and "Hard".

But the campaign is trivial without creepers.
I guess that on "Peaceful" the level win dialogue should say something like "Level completed" instead of "Victory".
And maybe also hint that it's not an actual victory in the last level win dialogue.

[orbito]

Get a "Peaceful" and "Normal" difficulty setting then
With room for extensions in the form of "Easy" and "Hard".

But the campaign is trivial without creepers.
I guess that on "Peaceful" the level win dialogue should say something like "Level completed" instead of "Victory".
And maybe also hint that it's not an actual victory in the last level win dialogue.

No, that would not work. The developers would have to completely redo the tutorials and campaign because the story-line is about trying to survive on a hostile planet. The game would instantly lose all challenge and none of the missions would make any sense at all. Why build turrets? Why have a time limit on anything you do? Why research flight to "escape" to a different convenient? Without enemies, there is no reason.

Survival games simply are not fun without enemies. Without that interaction, there is no motivation.

[Hanse00]

As much as I can understand your argument, you have to accept not everyone is the same.
Some people simply don't enjoy it when there's enemies running at you while you're trying to figure out the controls, getting you killed. (Not that I'm saying I want them gone, only some might)

[slpwnd]

We are not talking about the whole campaign here. We are talking specifically about 3d level of the tutorial. That is a first level where player actually needs to figure something on his own (build radars, produce enough iron and copper plates, maybe build assembling machine, etc.) and at the same time he has to protect himself from the attacking creepers. In the following levels the creepers should stay for sure.

[MF-]

Yes, the campaign would not make much sense on Peaceful.
But minecraft on peaceful is the same thing, there is no reason for doing anything (except making a wheat farm in recent versions)
But people use "peaceful" anyway.

[Milaha]

I feel like warning when they spawn, along with small enough waves that you can easily manually defend (maybe even give hidden armor to make the player extra resilient) is the right approach here. Gives the intro to the idea of constant pressure, while keeping it very low risk. I feel like if you make no creepers then you will just get the same complaints about the next mission.

[Xisuma]

I think you should give the option to the player to play how they want to, we are first of all very interested in factories and setting them up, but after a while will want more of a challenge. I think the campaigns should be less focused on fighting, and maybe there should be other campaigns that focus on providing a challenge with them, so once we know our factory setups we can move on to combat

[evene]

I would keep the creepers, in small waves not very deadly just to get a sense of how it can be challenging in the full game. Rather than removing them, I would make them more obvious : waves should be announced (the radar could detect the enemies ? ).

Next wave in ...

With a cap, so there is no way the player gets overwhelmed. The result should be what happened to me. Lost a radar. Built a turret or two. Game was done. Shouldn't get worse than that.

[Blackmoor]

Keep the Creepers and add more types of aliens. With sufficient defenses, the Creepers are too easy.

[Darthlawsuit]

The creepers were hard? I just lul'ed them and continued to build. Got bored of fighting them and built 3 turrents on each entrance to take care of them.

Got bored eventually and raided their bases.

[Hanse00]

After having played a bit I started finding the creepers fairly easy too, but the first time I just got plain murdered.

Then again, a challenge isn't bad. Way too many games seem to be made easier not to accidentally thread on the players toes or something.
I want the game to try to smash a hammer in my foot, but thanks to skills I'll eventually be able to dodge it.