My feedback/gripes with the game

[Chubzdoomer]

I bought Ion Maiden expecting a really fun throwback to the old Build engine games, but I'm sorry to say that I'm simply not enjoying the game. It looks outstanding, that much is for sure, and it's clear the Build engine is being pushed to its absolute limits.

But beyond that, Ion Maiden just frustrates me.

The ammo, or lack thereof, is my first complaint. You run out of ammo way too fast, and there's far too little ammo spread throughout the levels to account for this. The fact that enemies rarely drop ammo makes it even worse. It feels like you're forced to find and memorize secret areas just to scrape by, even on the Medium skill level. This, to me, is completely unacceptable and results in an experience that's much more frustrating than it is fun. (Who likes never having enough ammo to feel comfortable using weapons in combat? Anyone?)

The level design is my second complaint. It throws too much at the player too soon. No first level in a shooter should ever be as confusing and complicated to navigate as the one in this game. I'm all for large, complex levels with nonlinear design (hence why I enjoy DOOM, Quake, and Duke 3D so much), but there must be a curve. You should start with something relatively straight-forward to ease the player into the game, then work your way up. Ion Maiden fails miserably at this.

Other complaints include wonky mouse movement (noticeable "mouse lag" regardless of the settings) and poor performance (even with an i7-4770, 16 gigs of RAM, and a GTX 1070, I drop near/below 60 FPS in certain areas).

Perhaps I'm in the minority, and maybe this game will grow on me. But I'm finding little reason to carry on and am seriously considering a refund. For what it's worth, I also have Dusk (which is also in Early Access) and I find it to be a much better game. This one could learn some lessons from it.

[Doktor Mandrake]

Originally posted by -|Nur|-:

Originally posted by Lord casque noir:

Wolfenstein 3D , it is sure. But if you are not a console player, you know that only recent FPS made for console first have an aim assist.

Wolf3D is a terrible example to begin with because it doesn't even have height differentials. Doom & Duke3D relied on autoaim. Hell, Doom doesn't even allow you to aim vertically with your mouse (unless you use a modern port).

This.

Games like doom very much needed that autoaim for enemies on higher ground and stuff

[Mr Hanky]

Member playing doom with arrow keys and right contrl as shoot lawl, don't know how we did it back then lawl.

[Doktor Mandrake]

Originally posted by The Beyond:

Member playing doom with arrow keys and right contrl as shoot lawl, don't know how we did it back then lawl.

Yup, and the low AF draw distance, you can see enemies coming a mile off in modern source ports

[Mr Hanky]

Originally posted by Doktor Mandrake:

Originally posted by The Beyond:

Member playing doom with arrow keys and right contrl as shoot lawl, don't know how we did it back then lawl.

Yup, and the low AF draw distance, you can see enemies coming a mile off in modern source ports

And it was still the best ♥♥♥♥ ever

[David Kay]

I'm not any FPS pro but on my first run I played on medium and I had a blast, altough I had to die a few times before I learned how to play. Initially my aiming was awful because I was used to doomstyle circlestrafing and here the enemies have pretty good mobility and fairly small hitboxes so it's way more difficult to actually score a hit. I had to adapt and play a little more carefully. I finished the medium run and now altough I'm playing on hard mode I have better understanding of the enemies behavior the game feels even easier then on my first playthrough. I'm also deliberatlely hunting for secrets this time so I have more than enough resources.

One thing I didn't realise that this game supports headshots... no wonder the wepons felt a bit underpowered. Well, shame on me:) Now I suppose the game will be even easier. This game wil need more difficulty modes:)

I'm so in love with this game.

[Morbsexual]

Originally posted by Chubzdoomer:

It throws too much at the player too soon. No first level in a shooter should ever be as confusing and complicated to navigate as the one in this game. I'm all for large, complex levels with nonlinear design (hence why I enjoy DOOM, Quake, and Duke 3D so much), but there must be a curve. You should start with something relatively straight-forward to ease the player into the game, then work your way up. Ion Maiden fails miserably at this.

I'll agree here. As much as I'm enjoying the game, I was pretty bewildered to realize that after 40 minutes of gameplay I had only just completed the very first mission.

I'm not some noob either, I've completed Duke Nukem 3d, Doom, and Wolfenstein multiple times. It almost seems like the first level is 2 or 3 levels glued together.

Back in the day memory limitations would have forced you to split them up but now It's just a design choice, and I'm not sure you guys made the right one. Lead the player in slowly. Doom's E1M1 was tiny, but it left you wanting more. After finishing the first level of Ion Maiden I just felt like I wanted a break.

[breadfan]

Not really getting what are you complaining for, OP.

I had no issues with ammo quantity whatsoever. On any difficulty, to be honest. I don't know, try to aim more precisely or just be more stingy for what it's worth.

The level design shows its strength with non linear paths and branching ways, that's for sure, but it doesn't seem to be a starting point from the full game. With Early Access devs clearly wanted to show that they stick with old way of doing level design. You can't do that with straightforward first maps where you basically go from A to B. Besides, I think, as a level design goes, you should create those first simple maps in the last cycles of development process, where you as a map creator already have learned all the tricks of your game, you know what kind of first effect you are going for, what first impression you want to provide, first maps are basically a showcase of your game as a whole. And _that_ takes a lot of mastership, one simply cannot gain such skills early in development process.

Mouse lagging issues are legit and that's what EA is for. Sooner or later it'll be fixed for you.

And at last, when you mention that other game Dusk, that's when every complain of yours became clear to me. I don't know why you guys show up here everytime just to mention Dusk. If you like it that much that's cool and I'm glad for you, but to me that's kind of a shameless plug type of behaviour, if you know what I mean. Both games have very different approach to design and quality, so... I don't really think you can put them side by side and compare.

[lupus.ferus]

I think there is a difference between a Shareware version and a Preview Campaign. The shareware is the first portion of the game, up to 1/3. When you beat it it shows you some screenshots of the weapons and the enemies of the registered version and urges you to buy a copy; this was the most common practice in the Apogee days.
A preview campaign is designed to show you a more condensed version of the game so it already starts midgame instead of slowly introducing enemies and weapons and it becomes a bonus mission for the owners of the registered game. The best example I cant think of from back then would be "Half Life: Uplink".

[David Kay]

Yep, Dusk and Ion Maiden are so wildly different you cannot really honestly say any of them is generally superior than the other. It depends on your personal preference. Ion Maiden aims to be visually impressive and the combat so far revolves mostly around headshots. Dusk is more about creepy atmosphere and the combat requires insane mobility centered around speed and verticality. Both of these games excell at what they aim to be. But if you play one of them and expect the other one to be similar, then you might be slightly disappointed.

[Retodon8]

Yeah, the preview campaign is a so called vertical slice, indeed including a bit of map of every part of the full game, just with a more limited set of enemies, to address that complaint. I don't know if the full game will start out simpler, or if players will be dropped right into the deep end.

Hmmm, they could have the lower difficulty settings include relatively few enemies, but have the higher, especially highest difficulty settings make even the very first map filled with enemies for a challenge. (You know how when you get good at an arcade-type game it sucks having to play through the first few boring, way-too-easy levels everytime you start playing?)

The very first time I played Ion Maiden I ran out of ammo, but then I got used to the weapons, got used to looking for ammo sort of hidden behind stuff, and then it really wasn't a problem. I realized I never even used (or needed to use due to low other ammo) weapon 4 until the boss. What's it called, the SMG kind of weapon. It feels a bit underwhelming to me for some reason.

[Sgt Bulge Temptingley]

Played on the default difficulty, ammo was not a problem, nor was difficulty. Found it too easy if anything. The hardest thing was finding all the secrets. Still, it's a preview.