hexceed Chord fail state change

[ToastieLabs_Lee]

In the most recent update to hexceed, we changed chording so that incorrectly middle-clicking a tile will lead to a fail.

We made this change because many players, along with our testers and ourselves, realised that adding a middle click to clear without any consequence leads to you mindlessly clicking everything until it no longer works and then taking a second to look at the puzzle.

Ultimately what this means is that you no longer need to pay attention to the game and the puzzles become a lot easier. The current state of the chording mechanic means that you can still clear tiles much quicker than you originally could but you also still need to actually pay attention to the level to progress.

However, we are listening to our players and we can see a few of you are not happy with the change. I am starting this discussion so you get full clarity from ourselves and to give you all the chance to voice your opinion to us.

Essentially I am making sure that making chord fail state optional is what most players want and not just what a smaller but louder group of players want.

At the moment we are against making it optional as it is a intended part of the game to fail if you get a tile wrong. Please let me know your opinion and be respectful of what other players say in this discussion.

Thank you!

[Caramon]

Why is it wrong to make it optional?. The reason cheats for single player games exist is that developers don't give options to players to play the games the way they would like.

When you guys say "it is an intended part of the game", when I've completed all non-DLC worlds playing it the old way, sourds really funny. I do not mindlessly click chords to make things easier for me, I click chords without thinking because I want to think when I have to apply logic, not when I have 5 0's and now I have to think "oh, click that zero". Which BTW should be done automatically.

Also, if you want us to think while clicking chords, it would be really helpful to make a lot clearer which hexes are affected by a blue arrow, for example, since, the shape affected is usually completely different each time. And that goes double for anything that affects "beehives". Changing the background and not just the borders would be swell.

Finally, I can't for the life of me understand thinking about something that should be really easy to do and would make everyone happy. "Hey, everybody, we think the game should be played like this and having this setting on is what we intended, but hey, you paid for the game (or the DLC really) and here you have this setting, do what you want".

I mean, there are lots of us who have 20-30 hours played in the game, and now you're telling us that we've been playing wrong?.

Thanks, but no thanks. Developers need to give more options to gamers, and a lot less of "you're doing it wrong" scolding.

[gamer]

Making it optional would be in my opinion the best course of action. Players that want to experience the game ''as intended'' can still do so, but players who are like me who find this change annoying can just turn it off. There really is no downside.

[MirrorImage]

I would have functionality depend on the Hardcore state, at worst. I definitely agree that unrestricted chording trivialized Hardcore mode because it meant I never needed to use left-click. It gave me a free opportunity to just spam-click everything to try and find a hint I might have been missing, and made it far less dangerous to try and clear sections of the board quickly without actually looking at the logic until a chord suddenly failed to resolve.

So yeah, Hardcore should definitely still cause a failure on an invalid chord attempt. I don't have a particular opinion on non-Hardcore mode. However, since you can still get credit for Hardcore completion of a level as long as you complete it perfectly, I would still have the invalid chord attempt fail the Hardcore completion even if (especially if) Hardcore mode is not specifically active.


As a middle-ground though, maybe auto-chording of 0s could be considered? Since it's impossible for a 0 to ever fail chording, it just means additional mindless clicks to expose them.

[Napolegnom]

You COULD NOT solve a level by chording alone. There was never a point in this game's development where chord-play would make levels beyond the tutorial isle mindlessly easy. You still need to put though into where your fail tiles are when you have multiple different positions available as options. And even if the mines position is obvious, you still need to mark them manually.

I can understand that some dislike the option of a quick-reveal option, but there are atleast just as many who thought that the old chord mechanic sufficed. There is no reason at all to not make it an option, other than deliberatly wanting to annoy one side of the playerbase.

You can of course still play the game with the new mechanic in place, but not giving a player an option as simple as turning something on or off seems to be unnecessary.

Also, as others already suggested, 0-tiles should be auto-chorded, as in other popular puzzle games of the genre.

[Apoc]

Making it optional would be the best course of action, make Chord Fail on by default since it's what you feel is intended. You could even make it an "in-game" achievement like doing a puzzle without fail or hint.

I preferred the old way because it required some thinking to find the flags while the old Chord would ease things up a bit, now I would be too afraid to use the chord in case I missed something by habit. Some of the puzzles were too big for my taste but Chord kept it enjoyable. I would probably not keep playing the game because I'm too used to the old Chord and find something a bit more relaxing if it stay like this.

I will respect your decision either way, balancing your vision of the game with what the players wants is something very difficult without a clear better option.

[Arkabed]

I do not use chording so I don't care, but I think that the best option is to give every player the choice to play as they wish. As Apoc said "Making it optional would be the best course of action, make Chord Fail on by default since it's what you feel is intended". I decided to not use chording in this game because I like to click onto the zero to progress, I think it's funnier. (but I'm using chording on other minesweepers).

[Yasten]

Well, when you misclick chords that's a problem too...

[Gibus Wearing Brony]

Just to throw in my two cents, seeing as my thread seems to have started this discussion: In every other Minesweeper-like game I've played where chording is a feature, it only clears all unflagged squares if the correct number of adjacent squares are flagged. I'm not a Minesweeper person, but it appears that that behavior is industry standard. Per the Minesweeper Wiki[www.minesweeper.info]: "When an uncovered square with a number has exactly the correct number of adjacent squares flagged, performing a click with both mouse buttons on it will uncover all unmarked squares[.]"

[Rika]

I just discovered the game thanks to MATN and have been playing exclusively Hardcore and making very heavy use of the chord. While the fail behaviour took me by surprise (I expected it to work like Minesweeper), I also think it was the right call: I'd almost never fail a level if it weren't for chord-fail, which wouldn't feel challenging.

Now, since this is a single-player game, I have no issue with it being an option. But unless you make it a part of hardcore, I'd suggest you add another per-level award for not using the chord on an unresolved tile. It would be awarded even if chord-fail was disabled but one never relied on it, similar to the no-highlighting award, so players who disable chord-fail can still treat it as an optional goal.

[Sanding Glove Handjob]

Not to put a fine point on all this: but it doesn't fail in Minesweeper, and that game pretty much nailed the "comfortable play" aspect. That's the same aspect that made this game attractive, and unfortunately the chord change killed it.

I put up a negative review until this is changed back, or made optional. Single clicking every hexagon may seem like a good design decision, but it absolutely breaks the flow of the game. Most people just don't need to stare at the board for more than a microsecond to see what comes next, and chord let us get through that stage until we hit legitimate logic problems that take a few moments to solve. Solving those problems were the fun, not micromanaging each individual hex because "be careful guys don't let your hand slip".

Quick Edit: And to make the issue more specific, I've only been playing on Hardcore because with chord, it makes sense for logical mistakes to reset the board. Turning off hardcore specifically so chord doesn't screw it all up then ruins the fun of "don't get your logic wrong", which is as well the fun of the game.

[Escher0]

I'll add my voice to supporting this to be an option. I've put in ~5 hours into the game and honestly will not play anymore if this change is permanent. There are enough other similar games (cough cough Hexcells Infinite) that don't punish players the same way. For the record, I play with hardcore mode on but as others have stated, I like the challenge and time to come from logic, not mindless clearing. To be frank, the level design I've seen so far is not tight enough to warrant the slow methodical counting that this change is enforcing; there are far too many unnecessary clues and areas which require zero logic. If the developers think that is a critical part of the "difficulty" of the game then that's fine but it's not a ride I need to be on.

[Fyzzu]

Adding support for changing this back (or making it an option).

This was a cosy game to play with each level also requiring some proper logical thought. This change has basically removed the "cosy" aspect. It doesn't make the game more logically challenging, per se; it just makes it take longer, adds more fail states, and makes it more frustrating. I'm fine with it being an option, but I can safely say I won't be playing this again until the change is reverted.

I'm sure some people like it and that's fine - it's just that this has kinda removed the way I play, and the reasons I play it.

[Mal-ee]

Chord propagation across known 0s and automarking knowns, like with a 1 only having 1 unmarked in range, would be good.

note that I stuck Chord on Space, so I don't accidentally chord on Zoom and stuff.

[Taniith]

The old way made the game a very nice relaxing zen experience. The new way takes that away and makes the game more frustrating. My vote is that you should make it an optional setting. There's no downside... let people play the way they enjoy.

[Reguai]

>We made this change because many players, along with our testers and ourselves, realized that adding a middle click to clear without any consequence leads to you mindlessly clicking everything until it no longer works and then taking a second to look at the puzzle.

I beg your pardon, how can I thoughtlessly click chords without placing the "markers" before? And how do the chords help me mindlessly go through the puzzle if they don't provide any additional information about the location of potential mines? As before and after the changes, only the values on the tiles speak about them.
(google translated)

Read the discussion above and I completely agree with Shingles about the changes.