Beat differentiation

[The Trust Melon]

Gimmicks of the game are fantastic, granted it can be very difficult to sightread at times. I think this is mainly a good chunk of monster animation in the songs are on-beat, except for those that aren't, and those that aren't on-beat are an absolute nightmare to distinguish between monsters that are alongside all the gimmicks of each.

It would help song readability to separate all monsters on all beats into their own squares on the board (essentially double time) so it's easier to discern monsters requiring hits off beat, and to space out large clumps of enemies/notes in the higher difficulties. This isn't necessarily a problem with shields as the gimmick itself is double-hitting, whereas enemies that just require multiple hits are done on the same beat. Whether it be this change or potentially an indicator for enemies whose first hits are on the off-beat, but even now, the board is just very cluttered for a game that's revolving around gimmick-style gameplay.

[Wowie]

I'd appreciate it a lot if off-beat enemies simply stood half-a-step forward/back from their current position (standing on the edge of two tiles rather than centered in a tile).

Sightreading charts with lots of off-beat notes feels like a miserable spot in an otherwise-fresh game. It seems like a common-enough complaint if you scroll through the steam discussions, and each thread has a slightly different take on how it should be fixed.

[Fox Mcloud]

I fully agree with this. Off-beats feel very bad in their current implementation. Double speed would be an easy way to fix it, but I really like the "between the tiles" feel. Not sure how well it would translate in-game though, other than it having a smooth transition as you're supposed to hit the note.

If these notes were removed completely, that would be the absolute best decision in my opinion. Maybe they could be included on higher difficulties, but really, it just feels bad to play. It made me quit playing an otherwise incredible looking game.

Except maybe the bounciness of the characters being very distracting.

[alexa_byg]

I can't reveal anything too concrete, but know that we've heard the community loud and clear and we're working on solutions! This is by far the biggest piece of feedback we've received and we're confident we can solve the issue, just can't say much about our exact solution until we've finalized it :)

[Citalopram]

Publicado originalmente por The Trust Melon:

Gimmicks of the game are fantastic, granted it can be very difficult to sightread at times. I think this is mainly a good chunk of monster animation in the songs are on-beat, except for those that aren't, and those that aren't on-beat are an absolute nightmare to distinguish between monsters that are alongside all the gimmicks of each.

It would help song readability to separate all monsters on all beats into their own squares on the board (essentially double time) so it's easier to discern monsters requiring hits off beat, and to space out large clumps of enemies/notes in the higher difficulties. This isn't necessarily a problem with shields as the gimmick itself is double-hitting, whereas enemies that just require multiple hits are done on the same beat. Whether it be this change or potentially an indicator for enemies whose first hits are on the off-beat, but even now, the board is just very cluttered for a game that's revolving around gimmick-style gameplay.

I say this with zero intention to cause offence, but it's a skill issue. You need to spent less time trying to read the grid (since thats how you're having an issue with trying to match the beat to the grid) and more on listening to the song itself.

The game itself is good, because it's making itself different by experimenting with new things in a saturated STEPMANIA style game field.

[The Trust Melon]

Publicado originalmente por Citalopram:

I say this with zero intention to cause offence, but it's a skill issue. You need to spent less time trying to read the grid (since thats how you're having an issue with trying to match the beat to the grid) and more on listening to the song itself.

The game itself is good, because it's making itself different by experimenting with new things in a saturated STEPMANIA style game field.

I can agree on intentions of 'favoring music over reading' but that's also what kind of makes a rhythm game not good. All songs should be able to be sightread by players of exceptional skill, even the hardest tracks in the game should be so. Even gimmick games like ADOFAI, which revolve around a new gameplay style, is sightreadable because all cues are shown.

Listening to the music, memorizing the song, and playing the chart with attention more to music than sightreading should be done every time after the first because then you can play it through and assuming later equip gear to improve your high score depending on the specific track, but if players don't like how the song reads on first play, they're not going to replay the song for high scores that intensely, unless they enjoy the song itself.

[Citalopram]

Sorry man, I disagree. I think you're intentionally trying to dumb down the skill ceiling of the game.

I've had a look over your original post, and I've thought of how you suggested it, and even then it looks insane. It'll go from showing 7 tiles oncoming to 14 tiles oncoming. I don't see how there could be consideration to make off beats look more obvious, aside from them standing off from centre.

[Fox Mcloud]

I have played a lot of rhythm games in my life. Friday Night Funkin', Rhythm Haven, and of course, Crypt of the Necrodancer are a few that come to mind. Games that have much more of a freeform feel to them are way easier to play after you nail down the song, but you can still sight-read a song like that pretty easily because either there's some back and forth that you can follow and expect to be somewhat similar to what you just saw. This game has none of that, expecting you to simply play from sight immediately.

Specifically also, Crypt of the Necrodancer is a grid-based game that revolves around absolutely everything being on beat. When you play it off-beat, you're punished. You'd expect a game directly based on this to also be the same way. Off-beat notes are fine, but the way they're presented in-game is just... Not good. It comes down to memorizing the timing since there's pretty much no auditory cue for something like a skeleton that's off-beat. If you miss it, there's no cue when it's missed to tell you when you were supposed to press it, resulting in fumbling or frustration. It doesn't teach you when it was supposed to happen; it just punishes you.

I'm glad they provided feedback and said that they're reworking the mechanic. I'm excited to see what they come up with. I don't want to be frustrated at the game!

[Inco]

As a Beatmania IIDX enthusiast (played all releases between 14 Gold up to 25 Cannon Ballers, consistently clearing 9s and 10s) I have hard time enjoying Rift... I feel like I spend more time trying to solve a puzzle instead of reacting o the music and notes.

"two blue bats, one will move to the right, the other will wrap around the field, need to press the other button; green and blue slime right after, blue slime will jump to a row with snake; next blue slime - attacking it will make a full row, better prepare for that. And remember to press 'whole row' button instead of 'fever' button".

This feeling will probably disappear once I know the game better, but my first impression is very mixed.

On top of that I feel like Skane's tail changes its shape and position with perspective, making it confusing there the snake ends.

Also the apples - if they needed to add apples after difficult sections, then they probably believed that most players will fail those sections.

[hydoc]

Publicado originalmente por Citalopram:

It'll go from showing 7 tiles oncoming to 14 tiles oncoming.

Tate master race.

[Doonis]

I'll say that at the beginning offbeat monsters are difficult to gauge, but at least to me that problem just subsided after a while, and not even mostly from memorization. Once I got to Ravevenge on hard I got an S on it first try, so it's not like it was just due to memorization.

I agree that offbeat monsters could possibly be conveyed a bit better, especially when burst is activated and thus all of their shadows are yellow, but just about everything else in this discussion seems shortsighted and like Citalopram says, dumbs things down and possibly takes some special things away from the game that make it unique and that many people have already said they quite like. This is not Rhythm Heaven, this is not Beatmania, this is not Muse Dash, this is not ADOFAI, this is not even Crypt of the Necrodancer, this is Rift of the Necrodancer's demo build. It's fine for it to not be your thing, but you have to differentiate that from objective negatives.

As far as the doubletime idea goes, frankly, making essentially the entire track go twice as fast (especially when we don't know what the other songs in the game will be like, much less extreme difficulty) sounds like a horrible idea, and instead of just having offbeats be a little unclear at first, it would make everything all the time unclear. I agree that offbeats could be conveyed better somehow, though I don't quite know how it should be done. Maybe a new demo version could come out to showcase some of these changes for feedback?

[gay]

love how people are like "just get good :)" in response to this while there's a developer comment that acknowledges it being a common issue. clowns

[Doonis]

If that is how you actually interpreted what I wrote, fine, I guess. Good talk.

[Citalopram]

Publicado originalmente por nikki:

love how people are like "just get good :)" in response to this while there's a developer comment that acknowledges it being a common issue. clowns

Calling us clowns doesn't make you better at the game btw

[alexa_byg]

Things are getting a little heated in here - I'm going to lock the thread as we don't want name calling in our community interactions.

To wrap this conversation up, I want to set some expectations - Rift is the game that it is, and that does mean that we'll have offbeat monsters! It does also play very differently from other rhythm games. We hope that our adjustments will be well received by the community when we release an updated demo at some point in the future. Thank you all for playing Rift!