Awesome game, secret hunting is a bit annoying - Proposal

[Mzlt. Minimiez]

Hi!
Just wanted to tell you devs that I really adore the game! The shooting, the effects, the difficulty - everything is on point!
Secret hunting is not my cup of tea, even though I love completing and experiencing a game to the fullest.I think it is destroying the pacing a bit, even whilst I am playing with a secret hunting guide.
My solution would be as follows: maybe add an option that disables secrets and "rewards" them at the level ending screen.

[Nexxtic]

Very scary coincidence. I just talked about something similar with one of the devs.

Keep your eye out for the patchnotes at the end of the month.

[Cadaver747]

Secret hunting was annoying in Wolfenstein 3D / Spear of Destiny, in Selaco there is a secret detector which makes it a trivial job. There are only 2 secrets which can't be identified easily.

[Mzlt. Minimiez]

Originally posted by Nexxtic:

Very scary coincidence. I just talked about something similar with one of the devs.
Keep your eye out for the patchnotes at the end of the month.

That's a really awesome coincidence! I would love that mode!

Originally posted by Cadaver747:

Secret hunting was annoying in Wolfenstein 3D / Spear of Destiny, in Selaco there is a secret detector which makes it a trivial job. There are only 2 secrets which can't be identified easily.

That's fine if you like it that way. I don't like the searching itself even with the detector. I want the shooter gampelay which is awesome. :)
That's also the reason I propsed it as a modifier / gamemode. That would give players the choice to experience the game the way they want it. Seeing as the game already has a few different modes (storymode etc) I hoped the devs would consider this.

[Cadaver747]

Originally posted by Mzlt. Minimiez:

I don't like the searching itself even with the detector. I want the shooter gampelay which is awesome. :)

Many old school FPS games have secrets. I wonder what is the real problem with just ignoring them if you don't like them that much?

[Mzlt. Minimiez]

The fact that you need them for ammo, upgrades and weapons parts. The game even states as much.

[metaboy]

Originally posted by Cadaver747:

Originally posted by Mzlt. Minimiez:

I don't like the searching itself even with the detector. I want the shooter gampelay which is awesome. :)

Many old school FPS games have secrets. I wonder what is the real problem with just ignoring them if you don't like them that much?

because it's annoying to have an option available even (especially) if you know you don't wanna take it

[Nexxtic]

Originally posted by Mzlt. Minimiez:

The fact that you need them for ammo, upgrades and weapons parts. The game even states as much.

That is not true. You can beat the game while barely looking for secrets and plenty of people have. The game is referring to exploring side areas like office rooms and desks to find additional ammo because we do want to encourage players to explore the world a little, it's a huge part of the game. These, in most cases, are not secrets.

[Nexxtic]

Originally posted by Cadaver747:

Originally posted by Mzlt. Minimiez:

I don't like the searching itself even with the detector. I want the shooter gampelay which is awesome. :)

Many old school FPS games have secrets. I wonder what is the real problem with just ignoring them if you don't like them that much?

The issue is related to quantity.

If you take Doom or Duke Nukem, most levels only had 4 or 6 secrets. For Selaco, that is not the case. Levels are gigantic and can easily reach 30 secrets. For me and you this can be really cool, for others it is not.

Granting players the option to permanently hide this stat and pretend like secrets do not exist is very beneficial to them. I've witnessed players first-hand who refused to leave a level due to their "OCD" wanting them to fully clear the level first.

Omitting this information will make the game drastically better for people like them without having it effect players who do like secret hunting.

In a way, this actually makes Selaco a lot more like Half-Life, given how secret prompts and intermission screens cease to exist.

[Mzlt. Minimiez]

Originally posted by Nexxtic:

Originally posted by Mzlt. Minimiez:

The fact that you need them for ammo, upgrades and weapons parts. The game even states as much.

That is not true. You can beat the game while barely looking for secrets and plenty of people have. The game is referring to exploring side areas like office rooms and desks to find additional ammo because we do want to encourage players to explore the world a little, it's a huge part of the game. These, in most cases, are not secrets.

Then I might have misunderstood that.

Originally posted by Nexxtic:

[...]
Granting players the option to permanently hide this stat and pretend like secrets do not exist is very beneficial to them. I've witnessed players first-hand who refused to leave a level due to their "OCD" wanting them to fully clear the level first.

Omitting this information will make the game drastically better for people like them without having it effect players who do like secret hunting.

In a way, this actually makes Selaco a lot more like Half-Life, given how secret prompts and intermission screens cease to exist.

Yes, you phrased the part way better than I even could. I just had to run around for an hour in the parking garage because I couldn't find the last datapad. It wasn't hidden I just didn't stumble upon it. It was annoying and destroyed quite some fun for me. :(
But I just couldn't leave without having 100%ed that area.

[BlackTestament7]

I agree that the secret hunting is a bit annoying but I guess for me it's only annoying because it's not like there's a way to get the Weapon Kits and extra Weapon Parts for upgrades without getting them. Dunno, that's more aggravating that anything.

I understand the Secret level part and Security Clearances but everything else I'm just irritated that I'm not getting enough money and parts to unlock upgrades without getting secrets.

[Nexxtic]

Originally posted by BlackTestament7:

I agree that the secret hunting is a bit annoying but I guess for me it's only annoying because it's not like there's a way to get the Weapon Kits and extra Weapon Parts for upgrades without getting them. Dunno, that's more aggravating that anything.

I understand the Secret level part and Security Clearances but everything else I'm just irritated that I'm not getting enough money and parts to unlock upgrades without getting secrets.

Most Weapon Parts are not in secrets and are often in plain sight, just slightly harder to reach and put into corners of some side rooms. Getting upgrades for your weapons is always slow even if you get the 'hidden' Weapon Parts (which there aren't that many of). That's entirely by design because all upgrades are powerful and weapons are already powerful by default, so we had to limit the amount of upgrades to prevent power creep. Of course I'm not saying there isn't room for improvement here, we're always exploring better solutions, but I do think the exploration element in terms of weapon parts is in a good spot. Weapon Kits (the alt fires) thankfully show up on the automap nowadays which also takes away the tedium.

Most games artificially make all guns weaker so they can feed you a steady supply of upgrades, which I always find an awful design choice because it means upgrades only exists because they nerfed your entire arsenal to begin with; making it essentially meaningless. Ubisoft games are a prime example of this and that's not a route I want to take with this game.

Our guns are powerful, and slowly become better from there but at a much slower pace.

[J-12]

The problem with secrets is that they are only secret until you find out where they are just once. After that on any future replay they are just spots you visit for extra loot.

[Ribonizer]

I think it goes a little more than the quantity of the secrets versus other shooters. In other shooters, missing out on secret means missing out on maybe extra health, or some armor, and sometime getting a newer weapon early. Like even with a weapon, if I don't get it now, I know I'll run across it later in the game.

But Selaco upgrades are significant permanent upgrades, more health, more damage, new modes for my gun. And then all the credit and resources needed to upgrade my arsenal. The FOMO is REAL. I found a Multiscanner Mk 2 and made my way through every level hunting down every secret as a result. Which was fun but really did ♥♥♥♥ up pacing of the game, especially since I can't carry the thing with me when playing through a level casually so it always meant bring the scanner with me, put it somewhere safe and use a marker to remember where it is. Then play the whole level until it's clear and I can freely explore it, go back to get the scanner and then sweep around the level to find all the secrets. And I only knew about the scanner after a couple of level and I couldn't remember where I saw any so I had to run around past levels until I found out, then walk it all the way back to the hospital and then sweep all the levels I didn't clear.

Worse yet, I totally missed Startlight on my first playthrough and when reloading my oldest save I was already in the last level before the point of no return, and that area was cleared so I threw away the scanner and I forgot where. Thankfully you DO find a scanner in StarLight but it so happened it was in the third sector I checked so I meant again, going back and sweeping those sectors later.

It was still kinda fun and satisfying to find them mostly all by myself, there were still 2 or 3 that required looking up online, the ones with multiple switch usually were still impossible to find with the scanner since it just pointed me to last spot you needed to go where the secret sector is, so I still had to find all the switch by myself.

It was fun but I ask myself i wanna ever do that on subsequent playthroughs. It's cool you get to keep all upgrades on new games so at least it did remove some of the FOMO I get and I'm just picking up the ones I remember on my second playthrough, but I still get some FOMO since I still might miss some health upgrades.

Anyway, while an option to just give you all the stuff at the end of the level might be cool, I think maybe either an option, or an in-game upgrade that gives you the secret finding ability of the scanner without having to carry something along the whole game could be a nice halfway point.