Long Time Orcs Fan | Deathtrap Feedback for Devs / Kyle

[(X-1)L8_2_DI]

THE GOOD
The stochasticity of each playthrough, and the gambling incentive is a winner and avoids the familiarity burnout of the earlier titles. Definitely a natural way forward, following Scramble from Orcs 3.

THE ‘BAD’
Three biggest issues:
1. Difficulty and balancing scaling methodology
2. Art style, music, atmosphere
3. Performance

DIFFICULTY AND BALANCING SCALING METHODOLOGY
Orcs 1 was a deeply satisfying game (and also novel). Co-op in Orcs 2 was a natural evolution. Two people and double fire power meant more balancing. One implemented solution was increasing orc health. The big problem with this was it prevented the insta-gibbing. There was nothing more satisfying in Orcs 1 than a swinging mace ploughing through a cloud of orcs and watching them splat. Or chucking an acid pot into a crowd of orcs, detonating it, and watching 50 skeletons collapse. Deeply satisfying. With Orcs 2, damage inflicted reduced. Swinging maces mostly resulted in rag-dolling and the acid attack just made them wet with less health. The satisfaction was reduced. The co-op provided a different dimension of satisfaction that partially compensated to keep overall satisfaction levels high. Unchained wasn’t for me for this reason; gradually grinding enemy health down eliminated the satisfaction. Orcs 3 further went down the path of enemy health grinding rather than instagibbing. Enemies were slower and had more health, relative to Orcs 1 and 2, and it felt less crisp and satisfying. Instead of a good killbox or two doing most of the work holding them back, gradual grind damage from scattered traps along their path was favoured, which didn’t feel as good and made the game more like any other generic tower defence game. Endless also never appealed for this reason, even though there’s an audience for that. It increased difficulty by making enemies ever harder to kill, with attacks and traps delivering ever diminishing damage until it felt like you weren’t doing anything meaningful and got overwhelmed. It removed the instant gratification, was frustrating, took away any sense of satisfaction, and lost the structure of a fixed wave level design. Deathtrap uses the ‘endless’ technique of effectively reducing damage you inflict with each gamble forward. The first level chosen is actually fairly satisfying, not because it’s ‘easy’, but because enemies are more likely to splat and gib quite easily. It feels good. The second level much less satisfying, and by the third level, you’re in dissatisfying endless territory, grinding for minimal damage, and I usually want to quit after that because it stops being fun and so never see the bosses.

So how do you make things harder, especially with more simultaneous players, without removing the satisfaction of crisp, insta-gibbable enemies (tanks and specials aside)? There’s the existing techniques used that will always work, such as more enemies at once, enemies running faster (e.g. apprentice vs normal vs nightmare in Orcs 1), and wider variety of enemies requiring different behaviour. But I thought of a new idea, and since I’m not a developer, there’s no point in keeping it quiet.

The levels in Deathtrap are too big and clearly designed for up to 4 players scuttling around. They also have a build-it-yourself approach—which means excessive and boring studying, tracing all paths etc. at the start. A wider variety of smaller levels is more fun. I realised it’s possible to have smaller levels which tie into the natural and very fun modern evolutions of 4-player co-op and stochasticity. The idea is to design levels like the early games, with potential for multiple good killboxes or trap layout designs, but which also have multiple distinct pathways built into them. On a given playthrough, the game only offers some pathways and parts of the level for active play. The number of such pathways available in a given run also scales with the number of players. In the simplest example by way of concept demonstration, a single rift in the middle with north, east, south, and west corridors. In 1-player mode, one of the available corridors is randomly open with each play, and the others are closed off, so it’s often different each time. With more players, more of the corridors / level sections are randomly active and open at once. The degrees of freedom that are available to play with stochastically yet scale with number of simultaneous players, are the number of separate paths, number of rifts, and number of orc entrances. With clever level design, you can allow for a method of difficulty scaling in co-op multiplayer without the dissatisfying technique of making enemies tougher and changing their feel, or altering the effectiveness of traps and weapons, all whilst retaining variability with each play through from which parts of a map are available plus the scramble / threads modifications. Best of all worlds and a possible new approach for a future OMD4 title or Deathtrap expansion to trial it with.

Incidentally, some feedback on Deathtrap threads:
Satisfying debuff threads I want to pick:
• Ones which introduce new enemy types that don’t otherwise appear in a level
• Unstable rifts which generate more enemies in random locations

Dissatisfying debuff threads that make the game less enjoyable:
• Anything that increases enemy health or reduces weapon damage. These change the character and feel of the kills in a bad and dissatisfying way.
• Excessive trap price changes.

Also, not being able to recover barriers when lost mid wave is a recipe for feeling cheated out of a lot of time invested to get that far and deeply frustrating. Cap the number out at once but pay to restore mid match if lost is the obvious solution. This would also mean needing the ability to sell mid battle in case you place it wrong in the panic and end up with the same situation. I also like the removal of the binary 5-skull-or-nothing feel, with rift points now acting more like a health bar with no real value in finishing full. (Technically, rift points could carry over between gambles if enemy health was ever held constant.)

ART STYLE, MUSIC, ATMOSPHERE
The first game was deeply immersive and had a great, distinctive, and characteristic atmosphere. The music was the main reason for this, and secondarily, the art style. Orcs 1 had a fairly iconic soundtrack. It had moody level setup music and strong, distinctive, and catchy battle and victory themes. The new music was less effective to me in Orcs 2, despite the same composer. The music in Orcs 3 onwards changed hugely and was very different. I found it much less effective and immersive and didn’t seem to capture the mystical and magical setting of the first two games, so I never bonded with it. Emotional design is key to capturing a fanbase.

The look of Orcs 1 also felt the best in the series. Strong cartoon art in cutscenes. Very moody lighting in the levels and still some of the best orc death animations. Skeletons for acid, gibs for impact, and the orcs reaching to the sky before blackening and crumbling to sparkly embers and ash when burned. The way the physics felt with enemies when attacked was crisp and satisfying. They never felt the same in Orcs 2 onwards, although 2 was most similar. Deathtrap does have a feelgood with the corpse skeletons (albeit after burning for some reason) and being able to kick the skeleton corpses around is also very enjoyable. The dismemberment in Deathtrap is also satisfying. The destructible scenery objects are also very satisfying when they explode (rather than just fall to pieces), although the pieces could last twice as long before fading so you can appreciate your influence.

The characters since Orcs 3 have also felt less iconic, distinctive, and in the spirit of the original world. The two new teen protagonists in 3 were quite irritating. The new characters in Deathtrap are alright, but don’t feel right. Arbitrary bears and cats, and a bunch of quippy teens again. Where are the fantasy mages, wizards, and sorceresses that are beyond fearful demographic box ticking and that fit the original, tight, fictional universe of the first game? The victory emotes in Orcs 1 and 2 were also amazing and have never been bettered. Incidentally, I like Deathtrap’s tying weapons to characters, unlike some, and the specials, character specific traps, and overdrive are nice gameplay expansions that deepen the gunplay.

PERFORMANCE
Orcs 1 still looks artistically the best to me and runs extremely efficiently, showing great art doesn’t need a supercomputer. Modern engines seem to have resulted in a regression in this regard. I’ve got a 4090 and if Shadows or Global Illumination settings aren’t on low (everything else can be on ultra), there is a huge relative performance hit that doesn’t change based on whether you choose medium up to ultra in those settings. Worse, the game looks like an unpainted white canvas without those settings on. Not a criticism of the devs, but modern engines seem to encourage the production of final art via very computationally expensive pre-made effects that don’t end up looking as good. Also, the contrast in lighting on some of the levels is extreme and it’s easier to see some darker regions if you turn shadows off. The engines seem to encourage people to produce these realistic global cast lighting effects, and the result in this game is weird looking and distracting bright realistic lighting instead of ‘fake’ but artistic and moody. Related, in Deathtrap, many of the levels are outdoors and lost that wizard’s castle vibe that fit the universe.

OVERALL
I’d love to see future Orcs games that restored the original’s feel, whilst keeping the co-op potential and gameplay stochasticity (Rogue). Well-designed traditional levels that variably reacted to the number of players, increasing the number of threats to distribute the increased manpower and restore balance. With more people in play, increasing orc numbers, enemy speed, enemy types, number of primary enemy sources, number of pathways that need managing (but not to excess), and number of rifts to guard. All in a way that doesn’t rely on changing the enemies’ nature, health, or the effectiveness and feel of weapons or traps, yet allowing it to not play the same twice.

[(X-1)L8_2_DI]

Just a few additional comments / feedback

Bugs
• If holding right mouse to zoom, after a reload, it stops detecting you’re still holding right click and doesn’t zoom, costing valuable time.
• The trap-spawned round bombs don’t roll onto cursed ground from some angles and bounce off an apparent invisible edge
• Traps placed near Wren’s time crystal’s trap during active round when fighting orcs don’t register as buffed. Only seems to work when placed between waves with no orcs, and adjacent traps have to be replaced if done during round to be buffed.
• Poison is too opaque and blocks view of anything

Requests:
• The ability to quicksave after starting match solo and with more than one save slot
• In the spell book, on the all traps page, being able to list all traps by floor, wall, ceiling and set that to default
• Stats feedback when hovering over a trap mid-game so you can see which traps are doing damage

Debuff threads that aren’t fun to choose:
• Not being able to remove traps (too unforgiving and frustrating)
• Destroyed barricades not returned at end of wave
• Anything that increases enemy health or reduces weapon damage. These change the character and feel of the kills in a bad and dissatisfying way.
• Excessive trap price changes.

[kyle]

Thanks for the detailed feed. Appreciate you taking the time. A lot to digest. We're hard at work on some changes that will address some, but not all, of these issues. Keep an eye on us over the next month. Big patch coming in a few days with barricade changes and a ton of Thread changes.

I do take issue with this, "beyond fearful demographic box ticking." There was nothing fearful or box ticking about it. These were my choices because it's what I wanted. No one asked me to include a black and an Asian character. I wanted to, and then art and VO brought them to life. And the bear and the cat aren't random. They're deliberate callbacks to characters from Unchained.

This first group of War Mages was meant to be a cohesive team. Future War Mages don't need to fit in as well, and will draw from different influences.

Again, the level of feedback is helpful. And we are making a lot of changes to address the early push back. I hope people gives us another look at some point if we gave them a poor first impression.

[DUKAPb]

Originally posted by kyle:

Thanks for the detailed feed. Appreciate you taking the time. A lot to digest. We're hard at work on some changes that will address some, but not all, of these issues. Keep an eye on us over the next month. Big patch coming in a few days with barricade changes and a ton of Thread changes.

I do take issue with this, "beyond fearful demographic box ticking." There was nothing fearful or box ticking about it. These were my choices because it's what I wanted. No one asked me to include a black and an Asian character. I wanted to, and then art and VO brought them to life. And the bear and the cat aren't random. They're deliberate callbacks to characters from Unchained.

This first group of War Mages was meant to be a cohesive team. Future War Mages don't need to fit in as well, and will draw from different influences.

Again, the level of feedback is helpful. And we are making a lot of changes to address the early push back. I hope people gives us another look at some point if we gave them a poor first impression.

Hey. Pls read another opinion of another veteran.
https://steamcommunity.com/app/2273980/discussions/0/599643178892596523/?tscn=1738345042

https://steamcommunity.com/app/2273980/discussions/0/599643530220064306/?tscn=1738688430

New achievements will be added with new updates? I want more same brutal achievements

[(X-1)L8_2_DI]

Originally posted by kyle:

I do take issue with this, "beyond fearful demographic box ticking." There was nothing fearful or box ticking about it. These were my choices because it's what I wanted. No one asked me to include a black and an Asian character. I wanted to, and then art and VO brought them to life. And the bear and the cat aren't random. They're deliberate callbacks to characters from Unchained.

This first group of War Mages was meant to be a cohesive team. Future War Mages don't need to fit in as well, and will draw from different influences.

Yes, apologies. It was an error to have implied it was the case with certainty. I wrongly extrapolated from social observations taken over the last fiery 10–12 years in particular. Thanks for clarifying their origin—and taking the time to respond at all. The new characters are growing on me with familiarity; I hadn’t experienced Unchained.

Appreciate the upcoming patches and looking forward to them. It wouldn’t be reasonable to expect all of the feedback above to be addressed in this game, since some may require fundamental changes to the core design. In fact, it’s a privilege to even be heard, so thank you.

I hope the idea of variably reactive and stochastic level regions/paths was intriguing for a future title. I mentioned it to a coder friend recently (web, not gaming) whilst co-opping, who found it quite captivating.

I also hope anyone who knee-jerked from first impressions makes a full judgement only once the game is considered complete, post-tweaking. Early on is the time to give feedback to listening developers rather than pout and turn off. If you don’t ask, you don’t get. If people don’t play, then it’s not economically viable to keep the game updating—which we want. Thanks for your efforts.