One of the devs has replied to my criticism:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/610370/discussions/0/1736588252401977601/?tscn=1535279871
After initial hype I feel a bit disappointed. Firstly, while the idea behind the trailer is good (the whole savescumming simulation), the art isn't, especially characters who are fugly. Not ugly but fucking ugly. What's worse they all look like clones, the only difference is in the width and length of their faces (and the amount of hair). They're basically walking rectangles hewn here and there. What's more, the only woman there looks like a teenage girl with a down syndrome and all of the guys look like some bandits or other rapists.
Compare this trailer with cinematics in Desperados or Shadow Tactics:
Shadow Tactics is just perfect and Desperados one might be even better considering the time it was done. But this new Kaiji style I don't dig and I miss the good old simple and plain.
Also, while I appreciate the premise of the trailer it triggers me when I see someone like John Cooper acting so stupidly, even if it is by the hands of some retarded gamer in one of the variations. The real Desperados trailer should show how invincible Cooper's band is, period. They're like scores of Clint Eastwoods with Jackie Chan on top.
As for the gameplay, I'm not impressed either, it looks way too similar to Shadow Tactics.
Bear trap is just a bigger version of Yuki's trap (or that guy from Commandos which I don't remember) only this time it's much more stupid because of its size. How the fuck would anyone walk into a trap of this size is beyond me. Not to mention that it would be way harder to modify it in a way it would trigger unless you would have a mass of a bear. And once someone would walk into it it would be so messy (and noisy, the bear trap clenching would be super noisy and add screams to that) that an alarm would be imminent with a frantic search for a monster who would have done it (it's a different case when you have a dead guy with no trace of blood and you have no idea WTF happened but when you see guts and blood everywhere you go into panic mode and shoot everything that moves). And seriously, walking around with something as big on your back would be problematic on so many levels. Why not use something that already works (like Sam's snake)?
Coin toss is also way worse than Cooper's watch, not only because of a timer (which added a bit of "tactical nuance" as RPS guy said) but also because a coin like that wouldn't make much of a sound if it would land on a soil or some other soft ground (like a grass). Unless the game would take details like that into account (which is doubtful) and make it useless in some situations it will be a change for the much worse.
The rest isn't impressive either so we can forget about some interesting new ideas. Now it all comes down to missions and maps, if they will be varied and interestingly set up it might be a worthy successor of Shadow Tactics but I can already see that Desperados will still be the king.
BTW the RPS journalists seems to not be aware that Desperados also had synchronized Quick Actions (he only mentioned Desperados 2).
This is why me > you bootlickers.coru said:Hey! Thanks for the feedback
As usual, I'm just going to reply without any marketing bullcrap and my honest oppinion on thingsSo please don't get mad if I disagree on some things (i still prefer saying WHY we make the choices we do, which only works with honesty imo).
Regarding the trailer: I personally don't care much for trailers when looking towards gameplay. I like our trailer but of course I can understand why you don't like it. Honestly, though: It doesn't matter at all for the game. It will never dictate ANYTHING regarding the game or gameplay, in the end it's a marketing asset to generate attention and get people to look into the game!
Feedback regarding what feels right to you guys" and what doesn't (Bear Trap size for you) is always welcome! It is something we can always work on, if we think it is a good thing to do! So hearing the mood of the community is great there. We will keep listening regarding this topic!
Realism of the coin: I personally don't think that's a problem. Yes, a coin wouldnt make a loud noise on some surfaces in the real world. So would almost any other thrown item. If we look at any part of this (or basically any) game like this, there wouldn't be much left. Sometimes you have to make "realism" sacrifices to make good mechanics and i think the vision of "a thrown coin making a noise" is strong enough. Also a coin just fits cool with coopers personality and the setting we have.
A big portion of your feedback regarding ST that also comes into play now with the thoughts regarding the coin vs pocket watch:
One of our most important design mantras is that we want to create depth WITHOUT complexity. This informs a LOT of decissions we make and it is a huge part of why we managed to revive the genre like this with Shadow Tactics. Times have changed, design partices have changed and what players expect has changed.
Desperados 1 was a great game, but it is old. It is full of needless complexity and confusing systems, that are NOT necessary to it being the fun it can be.
Now to be clear: This does NOT AT ALL mean we are going "casual" or whatever people like to call it. Depth is important to us. It's what makes the game tick. But making the game great to use and readable is a huge part in this.
While you know the whole thing inside and out and it works great for you, if you take a step back and look at many of those things, you will realize that they are very hard to communicate and hidden somewhere in the game. For someone playing this genre for the first or second time they are basically non-existent and create a lot of frustration and questionmarks. The times where people put up with this are (luckily) over, and good design needs to make those things work. Sure, there still are the great complex games (which i love when done right!) like the big Paradox Strategy games etc. but Desperados shouldn't be one of them and doesn't have to be imo. We create other types of challenges and want to focus on those.
Now with this out of the way I'm going to talk about the pocket watch and why I think it was bad in Desperados and is even worse today:
The purpose of it is to lure guards towards it. The timer allows you to be somewhere else when that happens, which is a good concept that adds a lot to the game.
We replicated this with Kuma the Tanuki in Shadow Tactics. But what we did is that we removed the timer and allowed you to trigger it whenver you want to. Now why did we do that?
I don't think the timer adds any depth or interessting decissions. All it does, is offer potential of failure when setting the whole thing up. I have a plan i want to execute: Lure guards towards it in the right moment. Having to micromanage second-timings, quickloading any time i have put a wrong amount of seconds in (which i only realize after some time), just doesn't add anything but tediousness to the mechanic. I don't want players to have to manage 3 patrolling guard timings with a seconds-setup on a skill, when the IDEA oif what they want to do was good. I want to tell them "Great idea! Now use the skill and progress!" Not "Great idea! Now iterate 20 times on how to use the skill correctly and then progress!"
I don't want our players to quickload 20 times for something like this. I wan't them to quickload for something cool.
Now then there is the balance/character setup argument:
For how our character cast is set up it would be bad to give Cooper the possibility to lure guards towards a location. We prototyped versions of the coin that made character move towards it and it destroyed the game balance. It invalidates Hector, who is the "Lure with noise" character and makes you use (the already very strong) Cooper far too often.
The old games in the genre didn't pay too much attention to this, so it might be "normal" in D1, but we really try to have even splits and clear skillsets on our characters. So adding a "move guard" skill to Cooper just makes the game less fun.
NOW, regarding the "forget about new things" part:
Don't worry
There also is a lot more subtle new stuff, like the Civil Zones that change how you can approach some missions. The guns, which are VERY different from Shadow Tactics and allow for new strategies and tactics. And a lot more other stuff I can't talk about right now.
But to close this of: Thank you very much for critizing and giving feedback! There are always important parts in there, it also forces us to re-evaluate our designs and see if they are still valid and we still think they are the correct choice.
Please keep doing this, it really helps us to make a better game, even if sometimes we disagree or don't take the action you would like to have seen taken!
