Luftrauser vs LUFTRAUSERS

[Flutterbits]

I've played the original Luftrauser for a pretty long time before LUFTRAUSERS came out, to which I often achieved 3rd place in the weekly or monthly leaderboards. Now, it has been awhile since I've played that good, but I can still recall how flying the Luftrauser made me feel badass, graceful, and free... doing whatever tricks I felt like, killing enemies with accurately placed shots, and dodging bullets like I could sense exactly where they were going.

When I did pick up LUFTRAUSERS, I played it enough to beat every mission that was thrown at me, and unlocked practically every achievement. I enjoyed the sense of progression that came with doing missions to unlock parts as well as leveling up, but all that ended so quickly, and I wish it could have lasted much longer... but almost automatically, I set my priorities to the harder missions just to unlock the [CLASSIFIED], and felt like a slave for some of the missions. I would have played more for score like I did in the original Luftrauser, but I was too greatly overwhelmed by how the 20 times multiplier (MAX COMBO!) effected my score... and that changed the whole feel of the game.

Given all of my experiences between these two games, I would like to comment on how I feel about LUFTRAUSERS in contrast to its predecessor, and to pitch some suggestions that would make LUFTRAUSERS more balanced with its weapon, body, and engine parts, while implying some other changes along the way:

The original Luftrauser was praised (both by fans and the developers) for its ability to hold the player in a captivating, awesome sensation of badassery, and, subsequently, grace and freedom - but mostly badassery. At times, I would dodge through strings of bullets, strategically maneuver around and kill hordes of planes, boats, and battleships, perform several flips after cutting off the engine, only to boost right before hitting the water, and ultimately surviving the onslaught! For me, and for many people, this is one of many awesome experiences that we hoped to feel in the next game, but did they deliver?

In the new LUFTRAUSERS, I was disappointed that the badass sensation that I awaited had been replaced by an overt concern towards completing all the missions and, for the most part, sustaining a max combo, which consequently brought me a heavy dose of worry and discomfort with each flight.

I will say, however, that I did like leveling up and enjoyed the missions where collecting skulls can unlock new weapons, bodies, engines, and even a new mode... to which I wish both the leveling and the time to unlock stuff was extended longer, since I felt the most progression in the game there.

I may not have enjoyed many of the later missions because I felt like I was slaving over them, rather than feeling empowered to try new tricks and challenges, especially if it involved killing something at max combo. I pretty much loathed the whole combo system, and I originally got the impression that it should never have been in the game, but that was the wrong reason...

Turns out, I didn't like the combo system because the distribution of points was unfair because the multipliers inpact the score far too much. Getting 20 times the points for every kill put me under so much pressure just to sustain it, because this is the only way that a player can get an incredibly high score... and once I happen to lose that max combo, I generally felt discomforted because the difficulty got ramped up to a point where losing the first max combo can be a huge setback for one's potential high score. On top of this, sustaining a max combo requires the player to hastily kill things, which can inhibit the player from feeling badass, graceful or free... which really cripples the spirit of the original Luftrauser.

Case and point, when I do play LUFTRAUSERS, I will have the most fun when I'm not paying attention towards getting max combos for the sake of a high score... all that matters is that my enemies lay waste under the sea by my doing and that I feel awesome in all the dogfighting that takes place. I would feel much more at ease with the combo system, if the max combo was changed from 20 time multiplier to a 2 or 4 times multiplier (which still requires 20 consecutive kills), then I would not feel as bad if I lost it, and it would be far more reasonable. Still, I have a yearning to play LUFTRAUSERS like the original, where every kill was a solid kill, all adding up to one solid score, without the overinflation of the max combo's multiplier.

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Aside from my main concerns, there are also some weapon, body, and engine types that could be improved to mine and the community's liking, based on personal experience, and from what I have heard from others:

WEAPONS:
-Original:
Bullet spread between 3 degrees at random is kind of hard to use, and while it is a fair balance, it would be more appealing and more "original" if the bullets were fired in a straight and accurate direction.

-Laser:
An excellent weapon, weak to certain enemies where it creates a fair challenge, but strong in certain situations where it counts.

-Spread:
A fair weapon choice, but ultimately weak against most enemies. Its close range limitation prevents most players from taking down ships and other hard enemies. I would argue the range for this weapon should be extended, in order for it to be used properly... and maybe a slight damage increase.

-Missile:
Arguably the worst weapon in the game... (in my opinion)... since the homing missiles are pretty weak with their homing capabilities and the fact that only four missiles can be fired at a single time creates a small damage output compared to other weapons. This limit should be increased to six missiles, and the duration of a missile taking flight should be long enough so that it can at least reach a blimp easily enough.

-Cannon:
An arguably overpowered weapon, but with a health regen stall that balances its initially overpowered appearance. Takes timing, strategy, and experience to use. I am impressed by this weapon's design.

BODIES:
-Original:
As it stands, this is a fairly balanced armor type, but in comparison to the bomb body, I believe the original body type could use slightly more health.

-Armor:
A well-balanced body type. However, it might be necessary to increase its vulnerability to impact damage, seeing as to how this body type can be used like the melee body type.

-Melee:
Very weak... and able to die in a matter of two shots. If you are lucky and choose not to fire, you can survive two shots with a little bit of health from the regen. Not sure if the health needs to be increased slightly, as this body type is fun to use, despite its weakness. A fine body type as it stands.

-Nuke:
Able to kill everyone on the screen after death, and often exploited to complete a lot of missions. But once missions are no longer a concern, this body type fails to prove its worth. Instead, the nuke should be able to reap a fair amount of points after death, with the exception that you can only gain points from the enemies near you, but not after a certain distance. Of course, all enemies will die on screen... but now it matters where you die, whether you charged into a blimp courageously, or decided to avoid danger only to trip up on a few bullets.

-Bomb:
An ideal pick that can easily replace the original body type, but would be more balanced if the original body type had a little bit more health than this one. As another possible balancing option, the health regen could be a bit slower. I do not suggest that the bombs it drops should have their damage reduced, so as long as it can still kill a boat with one bomb.

ENGINES:
-Original:
A fair engine to use. It should, however, utilize more of the sound and feel of boosting from the original Luftrauser. Woosh woosh!

-Superboost:
Hard to use, but rightfully so. A real awesome engine where overcoming its challenging maneuverability will eventually lead to a hidden Luftrauser strength.

-Gungine:
A painful engine to use... hard to maneuver around with this, let alone to get off the ground, and being able to hit enemies from behind is not enough to balance out the pain. This engine needs to have a little more boost per shot to increase its usability and appeal.

-Underwater:
No water damage whatsoever, but can hardly be used to a worthy potential unless a lot more time is spent in the water. So as an improvement, this engine needs to give the player the ability to travel in the water longer... but not to the point where a player can stay submerged exploitatively.

-Hover:
An engine that could be used for exploitative score farming, but has a slight touch of gravity and acceleration difficulty that keeps this from happening... most of the time. A unique and well-balanced engine.

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With all of this in mind, LUFTRAUSERS is still a very graphically pleasing game with creatively-synced music, but it is far from the gameplay "feel" that was achieved in the original. Fortunately enough, I would say that it only takes a fairly simple change to faithfully preserve the spirit of the original Luftrauser, a change I hope the developers will consider. However, it may require a handful of changes to make the most out of all their combination types.

[lotuspulse]

If you don't care about high score then I would say this is better, the missions give a nice progression system where you can choose what challenges to take on, and as for just playing for fun and doing tricks, you know that all your points go towards your total level, which adds a nice little bit of extra progression. I don't really see how removing combos could make the game more comptetaive high score wise.

[Flutterbits]

Okay, just now I've discovered what I'm really fussing about...

I like leveling up and I wish I could level up more. I've also enjoyed the missions where collecting skulls can unlock new weapons, bodies, engines, and even a new mode... to which I wish both the leveling and the time to unlock stuff was extended longer, since I felt the most progression there.

I may not have enjoyed many of the later missions because I felt like I was slaving over them, rather than feeling empowered to try new things and challenges, especially if it involved killing something at max combo. I pretty much loathed the whole combo system, but for the wrong reason...

Turns out, I don't like the combo system because the distribution of points is unfair because the multipliers inpact the score far too much. Getting 20 times the points for every kill puts me under so much pressure just to sustain it for the sake of getting an incredible amount of points for a good score... once I lose the combo, I generally feel uneasy because the difficulty gets ramped up to a point where losing the first max combo can be a huge setback for one's score. However, if the max combo was at a 2 or 4 times multiplier instead of 20, I would not feel as bad if I lost it, and it would be far more reasonable. So I do care about score, but mainly on how someone gets that score.

So do you get what I'm saying? (I might have to edit the OP to include this realization)

[iSurvivedRKelly]

I dont have the game and was looking to purchase. I have similar thoughts to the op regarding score multipliers. I find the mulitplier systems just mess everything up. Normal scoring, including penalties for death is much more preferable.

Beat hazzard was one of my previously favorite games, but i was also disappointed that they took the same approach. Sometimes you could play absolutely awesome for 90% of the game but depending on which stages of the mission you lost your multiplier, the results would vary greatly.

Its ok to die 3-4 times at the end of a mission and you still get a higher total score than say if you die 2 times but those 2 times are in the middle of the mission..

So yea, i don't really like multipliers it puts me off wanting to really put max effort into a game.
It wont make me not enjoy a game. But, it would be more ideal for me if they scrapped the multiplier fad.

[Flutterbits]

Originally posted by Wolf:

I dont have the game and was looking to purchase. I have similar thoughts to the op regarding score multipliers. I find the mulitplier systems just mess everything up. Normal scoring, including penalties for death is much more preferable.

Beat hazzard was one of my previously favorite games, but i was also disappointed that they took the same approach. Sometimes you could play absolutely awesome for 90% of the game but depending on which stages of the mission you lost your multiplier, the results would vary greatly.

Its ok to die 3-4 times at the end of a mission and you still get a higher total score than say if you die 2 times but those 2 times are in the middle of the mission..

So yea, i don't really like multipliers it puts me off wanting to really put max effort into a game.
It wont make me not enjoy a game. But, it would be more ideal for me if they scrapped the multiplier fad.

Yea, same here. I can still enjoy the game, it just won't be ideal for me to shoot for a good score on the leaderboards... which is ironic considering that most of the original Luftrauser was all about score.