Progression is boring

[Serene Peace]

After getting to the 2nd galaxy and seeing how painfully hard it is, I realized I'm just going to have to grind the same ♥♥♥♥ over and over with no reward other than seeing a season pass indicator go up. So that I can get strong enough to complete the 2nd area. Who came up with such a dumb progression system? Why is there no permanent gear outside of relics, which is literally just starting with an extra point in the relics you already find? Why am I rewarded with a 1% increase in weapon damage for grinding enough to get an upgrade point from the season pass thing?

Also, complete side note, but since relics are shared people are literally incentivized to not revive each other so that they can get more relics to themselves. I feel like in general, this game suffers from a lot of bad decisions, and early access isn't an excuse. These are core gameplay mechanics that have already been decided, and definitely need to be changed.

[Bog the Builder]

There's nothing more off-putting and cringe-inducing than "season/battle passes" and "seasonal activities". A damn shame too, since twin-stick shooter Rogue-likes/Rogue-lites are quite rare. The premise is kind of cool too and I tried the "demo" (since when did demos become previews of incomplete builds?), which pushed away any desire to continue past the first map.

For starters, the way passive stats and modifiers are granted is not only ugly in UI design, it's so frequent that most of the time spent in the maps is idling in these menus trying figure out which passives are worth investing in. Would it not make more sense to provide access to them in the hub? Likewise, I first believed that the cosmetics would be nifty armour pieces but they're simply recolours. Disappointing.

The pets are cute though.

I 100% agree with you, even as a consumer of the preview build: at the core level of ANVIL's game design, there are critical issues that need to be redesigned. The first major problem being the boss fights. I haven't had the will, nor the desire, to even make it to one but I've seen enough threads and videos about them to justify this critique. The second being the user experience (UX).

I get that this is a preview build, but bro: for a Twin-Stick Shooter game, it needs to be 'functional' and 'reliable'. The aiming is atrocious, even for an alpha build. The reticle exists but it shouldn't, right? The core function of a twin-stick shooter is to have the character aim when the right analog-stick is moved which means they are always aiming at something. ANVIL moves in the opposite of this direction, only ever "aiming" when 'shooting', which makes it snappy and jarring. Therefore the first UX critique is poorly 'functioning' (see Livelock for a good example of a fantastic Twin-Stick Shooter).

'Reliability'. Some of the weapons I picked up either didn't register a hit, or perform the way their description text said they should. For example, the shotgun that can use a gravitation field to pull enemies in and stun them. It certainly pulled mobs in at times, but the stun modifier rarely ever actually worked. I saw maybe one stun effect in the 10 minutes I was using it (perhaps the stun effect isn't supposed to proc more than 40% of the time? I'm willing to accept my ignorance or lack of understanding in this regard if so). Hit register in general is... hit-and-miss ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) Seriously though, the hit register is very unreliable at the moment and should be addressed simultaneously with the aiming issue and so some of the shooting mechanics and firearms in ANVIL are not always reliably 'usable'.

There's also a lack of feedback. Not in regard to transparency or constructive criticism: in-game feedback. A good UX in a game like First-Person, Third-Person, and Twin-Stick, shooters, provides good feedback. It's usually haptic, visual, or auditory, right? In Twin-Stick Shooters specifically, good feedback is visual and auditory. When you shoot something excellent feedback involves hit registry, hit markers (a visual of hit registry), and impact (which is done via sound effects). ANVIL, in its current state, offers little-to-none of these feedback rewards. Without rewarding feedback, the UX is very poor and so (even with the health bars which, by the way, are a brilliant addition) shooting is neither 'convenient' nor 'enjoyable'.

Finally, we reach the apex of the UX Pyramid: 'Significance'. Now, I have not played enough of the preview build to offer truly in-depth criticisms so this critique will mostly draw from other consumers' laments. Let's look at this awful corporate business model as a prime example: Games as a Live Service (GaaLS). With "Season/Battle Passes" running rampant and tainting every good video game genre we used to love eight years ago, the significance of the application of these greedy business practices must be addressed. Twin-Stick Shooters have not seen "always online" or even 'co-op' functionality until the mid-ish 2000s (Alien Swarm in 2010 comes to mind). Even when co-op TSS began to innovate, we never saw any desire to implement what is now considered to be the ultimate evil in the modern gaming industry: GaaLS. It has led to low cost, low resource, and quick distribution, video games that slowly complete their skeletal framework over the span of their "X amount of years" life cycle. The GaaLS business model has saturated the video game market with poor quality games that drip-feed content at a consistent enough pace to appease the boredom of many gamers looking for a quick fix. So what's the significance of a GaaLS "Season Pass" in a Twin-Stick Shooter? Absolutely none. We never relied on them for cosmetics or gear in the past, so why now? Why now, when the business practice is abhorred by many? A "Season Pass" in ANVIL does *nothing* to improve the UX and so it is therefore insignificant since it does not meet a majority of consumers' interests nor does it help to improve their skills, and/or their lives. In fact, GaaLS tend to feed the Whales of society (Whales are people who dump thousands of dollars onto these corporate business models) which is more detrimental than productive and desirable.

To summarise:

- ANVIL does not meet the criteria found in the standard UX Pyramid (based on Maslow's
hierarchy of needs).
- Although it is a guideline in design, the UX Pyramid is a staple in product design and
should be the core template that a product is built upon.
- Implementing an unnecessary GaaLS business model does nothing to improve subjective
characteristics and so three things must be put into serious consideration:
- The single-player experience.
- The co-op multiplayer experience.
- The Season Pass significance.
- The objective characteristics must be redesigned and/or fixed.

Bibliography

Syndicode Team 2018, The UX Design Pyramid With the User Needs, accessed 3 December 2021,
<https://syndicode.com/blog/the-ux-design-pyramid-with-the-user-needs/>.

Venturelli, M 2015, Everything I Learned About Dual-Stick Shooter Controls, accessed 3 December 2021,
<https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/everything-i-learned-about-dual-stick-shooter-controls>.

[Serene Peace]

Personally, I don't have a big issue with the boss fights other than the stupid timing based mini bosses that spawn during them which screw up the fight pacing and give the boss ridiculous buffs. After getting bodied by some of the bosses, I realized I have to slow down and make sure I learn the boss mechanics and dodge them. I just got done beating Mortal Shell (a souls-like) so maybe I'm just in the right mindset of dying and getting destroyed to learn the mechanics and beat them next time. I enjoy the challenge.

The single biggest problem is that the challenge isn't worth anything to beat. I mean I don't even have an issue with resetting seasons, it works great for PoE and Diablo 3, both of which do seasons very well and I've always enjoyed them. What both of them dont do is boil the entire progression system down to a pointless and boring battle pass. Why would I subject myself to an intense boss fight, and finally beat it to earn literally like what, a couple extra vault points vs if I had just died to the boss, and then get 100 crons for it which is 1/10th of a new character?

In my opinion, the major fixes that need to be happen are giving per-character skills/stats to upgrade as you use them, give crons for playing and not just as a battle pass reward, reward players with 2x or 3x the exp and crons for successfully finishing a run vs dying early, increasing the impact of the stat point bonuses (because a 1% increase in weapon damage isn't even noticeable, hell 5% isn't either). I think the battle pass BS is okay if it's kept as an added bonus rather than the only source of progression.

[ominumi]

I can understand that the game is still Early Access. The developers just want to focus on core gameplay before introducing more complex systems tied to the gameplay.

[Trashbag]

Honestly I don't mind the progression that much myself. But I will admit my bar is set pretty low, especially since I just jumped on this game after trying...*shudders* DARKSBURG...


...man I wish Darksburg coulda been even a little bit interesting.

[Tyrian Mollusk]

Originally posted by Serene Peace:

it works great for PoE and Diablo 3, both of which do seasons very well and I've always enjoyed them.

Both of those games let players play outside seasons and everything you earn in seasonal play drops down to non-seasonal for you to use after the season is over. They don't just erase your investment every season. It's perverse of devs to suggest we accept such a model.

[m99noble]

Early Access is No Excuse! A great many issues with the title have been brought up every time the demo was available to play. They have not addressed any of the previous feedback given concerning difficulty, limited multiplayer, boss one shots, the timer or Relics not being instanced.

Now the devs are saying "maybe we will address it if the team thinks it needs to be addressed" from 12/3 patch notes that really just say "patience we might get to it later"

And there are plans to monetize the ♥♥♥♥ out of a game we have to pay for? 😒 why is there going to be a premium battle pass? What added value does it have on the game?

Imagine paying for a game to play, then paying for the ability to unlock in game stuff, lol then having all your time invested reset because it keeps you on the carrot chasing treadmill. xD

Stop letting devs get away with trash design and predatory monetization.

[m99noble]

Originally posted by Dougloo:

Honestly I don't mind the progression that much myself. But I will admit my bar is set pretty low, especially since I just jumped on this game after trying...*shudders* DARKSBURG...


...man I wish Darksburg coulda been even a little bit interesting.

Darksburg at like 10 bucks is pretty great. Repetative yes, ridiculously inflated artificially difficult yes, but at 10 bucks its a very competent Action Horde Brawler Rogue-Like.

Anvil is just a pretty thirst trap waiting to take your money.

[GoldenNuts1025]

From playing this game on xbox game pass, i honestly think that game difficulty is somewhat not bad. Basically, don't hit -> win mechanics are what i seen on vermintide 2 weave seasons 1 and back 4 blood nightmare. On vermintide, they set dmg like 1000% so you will die with one arrow or 2 bullet from rattling gunner. On back 4 blood, speical zombies spawn just behind you got insta dmg so player using runner decks and grenade glitch.

YES, theses are Poor game designs but usually mediocre (bad skilled) co op games devs don't know how to balance their games by using various mechanics so they only set up only HP and DMG so high. IMO, Avnil's dev are better than them because there are gold tier relics that gave you 100% dmg or 100% HP or Def(on third galaxy only maybe? i saw there).

If we can replicate these relics so we can start with theses relics, maybe something can be different. Real problem is... you will lose relic, trait point, season pass all of them each season ends(90 days).

Losing progress is totally disaster. If i want to do this game after 3~6 month and found that all my reward from time consuming gone, why should i play this game? To be frank, i wouldn't play this game if this is not on game pass

[Kit Reil]

Originally posted by Space Jelly King:

IMO, Avnil's dev are better than them because there are gold tier relics that gave you 100% dmg or 100% HP or Def(on third galaxy only maybe? i saw there). If we can replicate these relics so we can start with theses relics, maybe something can be different.

you can get these before galaxy 3 and they dont help. see, the main problem is that the enemy scales too much and too fast. in the time it takes you to gain, say, 20% more HP, the enemies are dealing 50% more damage. you cant keep up.