A few remarks from someone that extensively played Trine 1, 2 and 3

[Skignovilous]

Hi, this is a message for the developers. Frozenbyte is one my favorite developers and I thoroughly enjoyed all the games you guys made so far. I am having a blast with Trine 4, it is really great and (even though I really liked Trine 3) I think Trine feels at home in a 2.5D environment. Said that, I have a couple of questions about some things I've noticed on regards to gameplay changes and I was curious if the developer could give an input of why this was decided:

Zoya

1) Why making the change where we can't hook wherever we want (wooden surface) and now we have specific “hookable” areas? It was fun to save yourself from falling by desperately trying to hook yourself on a wooden beam.

2) Why when she swings, she can barely even do a 180? On previous games she could pull out a 360 easily. It seems like the swinging motion is more limited.

3) Why her arrows don’t stay stuck on wooden surfaces? Before it was fun to stick a bunch of arrows everywhere and when shooting an arrow on a rock/metal the arrow would "act like it in real life".

Amadeus

1) Why can't I make boxes of different sizes? It was fun to create interesting towers and to solve puzzles in tight areas.

2) Why, when making a box, the box doesn't spawn where I drew it and instead spawns on top of Amadeus? Every time that I need to put a box in an obvious platform, I need to conjure it and drag to that place while, on previous games (1 and 2), I could just draw it in the place I wanted it to be.

Pontius

1) Why does his shield breaks during combat? I see it adds to the gameplay, but it was something that didn't happened to his trusted shield before.

I want to reiterate that I LOVE TRINE 4 GAMEPLAY, I'm just curious about this changes.

Thanks for the attention.

[ChodTheWacko]

I played some of trine 4 and I've also played 1,2,3 extensively.

Some noticable differences
1) You can't do the cheesy thing where player 2 can hop in/out of the game to teleport to player 1. This makes it a lot easier for the kids when the youngest is not very good. The other two players can advance and the other can 'catch up'. I prefer this - it should be allowed in 'easy' mode, if it isn't.

2) Not being able to grab wood stuff with the mage I think will make for a harder game, which I don't mind.

3) I REALLY miss seeing the wizard 'hand' which allows you to (try to) grab things and draw box sizes. Also it's an nice visual aid in guiding the other player what to grab as you can visually see where they are pointing their joystick. Also I find it confusing to know what I'm trying to grab since there's no visual input unless you get a "lock".

4) Court is out regarding the upgrade tree changes (stuff locked by level, not by upgrade points).

Outside of that, I'm enjoying the game quite a bit so far.
Feels like there is more coop interaction in the puzzles (for 2 player) and I like that a LOT.

[EllaFB]

Thanks for the great questions!

Unfortunately I'm not a designer so I can't directly answer your questions at this point, but I will do some asking around.

I do know one reason that might have affected Amadeus and why he conjures objects on top of his head nowadays. Most of the puzzles are designed in a way that prevent you from placing objects past some points, so conjuring them there in the first place would have an effect on how the puzzle could be solved. Basically you could just insert box on a ledge and pull yourself up by attaching a rope to it.

As for Zoya's hook and why it connects to rings and not wood. Well, we had this level called "Redwood Forrest" in Trine 3 which would have been a design issue as there is wood basically everywhere. With the hooks the art can be used more freely as you can add those wooden surfaces without having to think about the hook.

I'll get back to you later with rest of the answers! :)

[Skignovilous]

Originally posted by EllaFB:

Thanks for the great questions!

Unfortunately I'm not a designer so I can't directly answer your questions at this point, but I will do some asking around.

I do know one reason that might have affected Amadeus and why he conjures objects on top of his head nowadays. Most of the puzzles are designed in a way that prevent you from placing objects past some points, so conjuring them there in the first place would have an effect on how the puzzle could be solved. Basically you could just insert box on a ledge and pull yourself up by attaching a rope to it.

As for Zoya's hook and why it connects to rings and not wood. Well, we had this level called "Redwood Forrest" in Trine 3 which would have been a design issue as there is wood basically everywhere. With the hooks the art can be used more freely as you can add those wooden surfaces without having to think about the hook.

I'll get back to you later with rest of the answers! :)

I imagined that most changes were made with two things in mind: balancing the characters because, lets be honest, Zoya was way too OP... if the perfect scenario was finishing Trine by using roughly each character 33.33% of the time, I think Zoya was being used at least 50%. And second reason is to avoid puzzle/area skipping, as you mentioned. I don't mind the changes at all, I think its even good because now I am paying more attention to the puzzles. Hope to see the other responses, take your time though :)

[EllaFB]

Got some answers from the design team. :)

180 swing: "Trine 4 puzzles and platforming scenes were designed so that they should never require 360 swinging and together with the fact that everything was done from scratch in Trine 4 in code perspective means that the swinging feel somewhat differs from the previous Trine titles."

Arrows + wood: No design reason for this, we'll have a discussion whether adding this would be possible, no promises yet though. :)

Why boxes come in one size that suits all: "Conjuring different sized boxes and other objects was dropped for two reasons: Firstly it caused situations where players ended up accidentally conjuring too small boxes when the game never even required any other but a standard sized box and secondly it didn't work all that well with the gamepad."

Pontius + shield: "Non-breaking shield allowed player to stay in a corner having shield raised up while the enemies were powerless in that situation. Breaking shield makes fights also more tactical as player has to decide which attacks to block and which attacks to dodge."

Did I miss anything? :)

[Skignovilous]

Originally posted by EllaFB:

Got some answers from the design team. :)

180 swing: "Trine 4 puzzles and platforming scenes were designed so that they should never require 360 swinging and together with the fact that everything was done from scratch in Trine 4 in code perspective means that the swinging feel somewhat differs from the previous Trine titles."

Arrows + wood: No design reason for this, we'll have a discussion whether adding this would be possible, no promises yet though. :)

Why boxes come in one size that suits all: "Conjuring different sized boxes and other objects was dropped for two reasons: Firstly it caused situations where players ended up accidentally conjuring too small boxes when the game never even required any other but a standard sized box and secondly it didn't work all that well with the gamepad."

Pontius + shield: "Non-breaking shield allowed player to stay in a corner having shield raised up while the enemies were powerless in that situation. Breaking shield makes fights also more tactical as player has to decide which attacks to block and which attacks to dodge."

Did I miss anything? :)

I don't think you missed any. I really appreciate your answers and its nice that you guys are so attentive to the users. I am also kinda glad that I half guesses why the changes (better gamepad support, more intricate puzzle design, balancing characters, etc). To be completely honest, these are all valid and good changes.

I don't think I ever posted on the Trine 3 page, but I'll just use this paragraph here to express my thoughts on this (somehow) controversial topic: I think it was a great decision as a developing studio to get away from the comfort zone and change your franchise. Many people complain that the annual games (sports and shooters) are all the same every year. Considering that, I was confused with the backlash it received. It is a weird moment when you are having so much fun with something that is getting so criticized. I just want to congratulate you guys, Trine 3 is an achievement and I am certain that it was a big step for you guys.

Now to finish my remarks on Trine 4, I am having fun with the game. I did 100% on all other games and my goal is to finish this one too. I hope you can implement the arrows on wood thing, but it is no big deal. I have one final question that I'm not even sure you can give info about it: On Trine 2, the Goblin Menace DLC expanded the game almost twice... like, it was pretty impressive stuff, with new mechanics and AMAZING levels. Is there something similar intended for Trine 4? I mean as a DLC with a storyline and all.

Thanks again Ella.

[EllaFB]

Unfortunately at the moment I don't have any news about a DLC, there are still a lot of bug fixes to look into and these are keeping us busy. :)

Glad to hear you liked Trine 3! It was quite ambitious from our side to try it in 3D. Even though most people didn't like it, it was an important step to our company as making all the changes to our editor made Shadwen, Nine Parchments and Starbase possible. I also personally think that Trine 4 took the best things from previous games, like the rope from Trine 3 and enemy levitation from Trine 2.

Thank you also for your support! :)

[Skignovilous]

Hello @EllaFB, I've been following the announcement of the DLC. I'm very excited about it. On another hand, I heard that there was no plans for new achievements. Hunting for 100% on the other Trine games was a lot of fun. I think more achievements would be welcomed. Is there any plans to implement achievements in the future?

[AuraFB]

Originally posted by Skignovilous:

Hello @EllaFB, I've been following the announcement of the DLC. I'm very excited about it. On another hand, I heard that there was no plans for new achievements. Hunting for 100% on the other Trine games was a lot of fun. I think more achievements would be welcomed. Is there any plans to implement achievements in the future?

I'm jumping in for Ella here. :) Currently we're not planning to add new achievements to Trine 4 for the DLC release or after that. We did a lot of thinking about this, but decided against it as it would be unfair to the players who have already 100% completed the game before the DLC release. It would also make completing all achievements impossible for players who don't want to purchase the DLC and only want the base game.

[Skignovilous]

@AuraFB, Hey, thanks for the response. That does make sense since is not a "GOTY" version with all dlcs packed in. One more question though: will the DLC still have a tracking system of how many exp points were collected/enemies killed/letters/secrets/etc, so you know when you got it all?

[Skignovilous]

@AuraFB, oh, one more question: will the DLC be added to the Frozenbyte collection bundle? Just bought it too! :D very excited!

[76561198331680973]

@Skignovilous, Melody of Mystery will include new collectibles as well as tracking of the experience points in the new levels :)

[Skignovilous]

@All Frozenbyte Devs: THANKS FOR ALL THE AMAZING GAMES! Now, waiting anxiously for Starbase