The game that is frustrating and punishing you for its own failures

[amyodov]

20 hours and 14 levels after, I finally summarized why Hot Brass in its current stage worths a “negative” review on the Steam, even though I was excited to see it first and instabuyed it.
No, these are not the tiny glitches like “non-arrestable suspect on the bed in the motel” (yes, I also faced it) or “getting stuck by the train carriage in a place where you probably shouldn't be anyway” – these are minorities which are easy and fast to fix.
I'm mostly speaking about the overall gameplay attitude and feeling.

First and foremost, it was an incredibly bad idea to base so much of the game decisions on the colorcoding (compliant/neutral/hostile suspects),... and then make two of these colors rather indistinguishable. “Orange” and “Red”, seriously? Have you thought that orange is actually red with a yellowish hue? Launch a mission on a map where the primary colors are red (like the rail station), and, when most of your map is reddish, you'll restart the level dozens of times just because you shot someone who “wasn't red enough”.

Solution: white. Seriously, it could be THIS simple. Neutral is white, hostile is red, compliant is green. But definitely no having two colors, which separate the “deadly danger” and “maintainable” states of an enemy, indistinguishable (or various background, or altered with the greenish hue of NVG).

Using a shocker on an armed suspect? Okay, it can never be wrong (NEVER). Held the shocker trigger for a millisecond too long when he already dropped his gun? or double-shocked him to be sure? – “you were tazing an unarmed suspect, restart the level” – come on, he was armed with a shotgun just a millisecond ago, STOP IT. And god forbid you face a crowd of three suspects, two of them already just became compliant (green) but one in the middle of them is “angry red” and wields a shotgun at you. Try to shock the “hostile” guy but slightly touch the compliant one? “Restart a level”.

Stubborn armed suspects which don't drop the gun after being yelled directly at them for TEN times? (well, even two is enough, I had a situation with a suspect standing 2 meters from me on an open area, without any cover between me and them, I yelled directly at him several times and he resisted to drop the weapon). Which then turns to the officer while still having the weapon in their hands? Do you know how these people are called in real-life? “Non-compliant”. You don't have to think “are they red enough or is this shade of red, in the eyes of Hot Brass art director, is still orange”. You shoot them.

Yes, there may be a legal reason for a suspect to have a gun in hands even during a hostage/robbery situation (especially in gun-crazy US, where everyone and their granny has a concealed carry license). But there is no legal reason for a suspect to have an SMG during the robbery attempt, and resist to drop it after several orders from the SWAT officer (and don't even start this “this suspect was a retired police officer himself, who was conceal-carrying a civilian-use H&K SP5 in a pistol configuration under his baggy hoodie, and casually brought it to casino”).
Or at least give us a proper (ranged) Tazer as a sidearm, and a beanbag-shooting Remington as a primary.

But probably the most annoying of them all is the AI reaction to officer yells. The game hints you that you can yell at suspects even staying behind the cover, and they will react. But what the game doesn't hint – and what you start to suspect after long hours of plays (and replays, due to the game punishing you again and again).... it seems like the suspects do not react to sounds if solid walls are directly on the line between you and them.
It is not said anywhere – but after 20 hours, I really suspect it.
For a sub second, this even does make some sense. “The yells of the officer inside the building should not startle the suspect outside the building”. Kinda, reasonable.
... but not until you apply it to real missions.
Be in the motel, inside the motel room, covered under the window, with the enemy staying outside directly after this window. While the window has been broken.
Stay by the doorway – not directly in the doorway, to avoid being in the “fatal funnel”, but just a meter left. When the enemy stands just on the other side of this wall, inside the room. And the door is open. (Though seriously, I doubt that you somehow miss police officer screaming behind the closed door, when you are staying on the other side of it).
Most ridiculously: I had MULTIPLE standoffs just at the outside walls of 90-degree corners (this can easily happen outside; but happens also inside of some large levels like casino, where some rooms have these corners). You and your enemy basically stand on a meter distance of each other, looking at the corner who peeks first. You scream at him for 30 seconds straight. Then he finally moves, you shoot him after the 30 second standoff,... “ah, he wasn't red enough”. Haha, sure.

Yes, I fully understand (being a software developer myself) the proper (or even “more-or-less-realistic”) calculation of sound movement is a bit too large task for a game that tries to be rather straightforward otherwise. Like “adding the Pejsa-model bullet ballistics to a basic arcade Crimsonland-style shooter ”. But at the current stage it doesn't seem resembling anything real.

And a small sub-problem of the same “officer yells”. Yes, you yell and the suspects are expected to hear it. But do they? At what distance? When you are standing at one side of the screen, yelling at a suspect on another side of the screen, and you even see them – but did he actually hear you? Would be so nice to have a tiny “echo” visualization on the enemy icons to be sure if they did or didn't hear you at all. For now it's rather unpredictable.


Summarizing: the game has a nice potential. But for now its bugs are completely frustrating, and the longer you play, the more the frustration accumulates.

[Walk with Kings]

Hey, thanks for the feedback! Sorry to hear you didn't enjoy the game. Just wanted to clarify a couple of things:

• You can select your own token colours from the Main Menu via Settings -> General -> Customise Colors.
  
• You shouldn't be receiving an infraction for accidentally tasing someone (briefly), or tasing someone just after they became compliant from hostile. There's a fairly sizable buffer to prevent both of these situations. Unfortunately I can't replicate any issues with it on my end, but if you have some video of this occurring, or can describe how to reproduce it I can try and figure out why the buffers aren't working for you!
  
• You're correct that shouting doesn't work through walls. We made an exception for crouching behind cover, but the basic rule is that shouting requires line of sight. We understand it's not entirely realistic, however the idea is that there is supposed to be some danger in confronting a suspect. If the suspect can't see you, there's no danger. (You're still susceptible to thrown equipment behind cover.) So while shouts do work through windows, they don't through curtains, which is why you couldn't shout at a suspect in the motel.
  
• In terms of knowing whether a shout registers or not, there should be both a visual and an audio cue to let you know: a shield/badge will animate underneath them, and a metallic whoosh sound (or stubborn buzzer) will play.

Either way, thanks for taking the time to write up your thoughts! Sorry you didn't enjoy it, but the feedback is appreciated!

[amyodov]

Customizing colors may actually solve a lot of that. Need to check, thanks (I thought it is mostly for “multiplayer mode”, to distinguish between the teammates, so completely ignored it) – but as it DOES allow you to set Neutral to “golden yellow” or even “white”... well. Let's play and see how does this single change affects the feel of the game (quick plays show it DOES help a lot).

Yes, I've noticed the “cooldown time” after the tazing/persuading. I also have a suspicion that the harder levels go, the more “sloppy” it is allowed to be – am I right? I definitely had some “rather sloppy” shots on the latest levels, up to the point of killing someone when they moved from red to green, “got persuaded” and dropped the weapons, already became green, and I've shot them right after this. I am almost sure I would get an infraction for this case on the earlier levels. But such infractions still happen sometime (though I don't typically record videos, sorry). And still, this doesn't help much with other situations, like “tazing a hostile among the compliants”.
Also, another noticeable part of my, uhm, “surprise”, was the infractions for tazing someone armed, no matter if he is hostile. IMO it just should not actually be an infraction in any case; but it was. And it was even an infraction, I think, if I got close to the suspect; shouted at him; he didn't drop the weapon but haven't yet registered as “stubborn” I think; at this point I already tazed him (armed suspect; ordered to put down the weapon; suspect non-compliant), but still got an infraction.

I probably haven't noticed the visual indication of “them hearing me”. Will pay attention more as you say there is the visual indication. The audial doesn't help much (as there may be multiple enemies on the screen). I intuitively thought that “the range of the yell” is the circle that gets displayed on the screen showing your sound – but well, again, with those “line of sight rules”,...

I get your point about the “no confrontation – no risk”. The moments like “we are standing on the other walls of the corner/doorway, a meter aside” still seem somewhat... strange. In a real-life scenario, the suspect would hear me whispering; in this case, after the long standoff and shouts it hasn't even yet registered as “stubborn”.

[DZR|Mikhail]

I confirm the tazer problem and this millisecond between "a suspect is armed and dangerous and sentenced to kill" and "he dropped the gun, he is unarmed and harmless". I restarted motel for 4 times already. Each time I "taze unarmed", that was 100% non-comliant aftrer shouting, shooting around, who shot at me...

I shouted many times at an armed suspect. He refused. Started shooting. I ran to him, tazed, shouted. Still refuses. I taze him one more time, no use again. I tze him again, he drops the gun, turns green, I release the taze button... TOO LATE... Restart mission.

Ok, let's investigate the game design and developer risks here.

Waht If you set a cooldown that is enough to asses the situation. At least a coold down two times the time the suspect "Surrender" animation plays and the gun drops. So a suspect raises hands, turns green, the gun drops, we hear sound. Give us 2 seconds after that.
The two seconds cooldown while the suspect is unramed but can be tazed without officer punishment.

2 seconds cooldown consequences to gameplay

I don't see any serious risks. May be you think that it will make all players out there go on a tazing spree? They disarm suspects and taze? For fun? Intentionally? Like, "Ha! Haa! Haaa!! He surrendered and I tazed him. What a sadistic pleasure! A serial-tazer-torturing-crime-officer-police-humiliating simulator!"?

Seriously, how in real life anyone can detect that millisecond between "suspect holding gun ready to kill everyone" and "he spreads his fingers and the gun is in the free fall, so he is an innocent unarmed teddy bear"? And how can anyone punish an officer that held tazer for that millisecond longer?

How this works in real life

It doesn't work this way in real life. Police must disarm the suspect, confirm his unarmed state, then proceeed.

Chicago\Philadelphia police directive: "use only one five-second energy cycle (the default length of an energy cycle when the Taser trigger is pressed and released) and reassess the situation"
They are allowed 5 seconds tazing, THEN reasses the situation. What we have now? Our ingame 5-seconds ALLOWED TAZING timer stops when the suspect drops a gun, but this doesn't stop our tazer.

Possible solution #2

Why don't we just AUTOMATICALLY turn off the tazer when the suspect complies? Just at the moment he gets complient, break the tazing cycle. The player holds the taze button, suspect non-comliant, players holds further, suspect complies, player HOLDS button, but the tazer stops current discharge.

This will solve all the problems :) Everyone wins, lifes saved! "Protect life!"

[Walk with Kings]

Hey folks, thanks for the additional feedback! Not trying to rebut your opinions below, just letting you know how some of the systems in the game work, and why they are like they are.

amyodov の投稿を引用：

I also have a suspicion that the harder levels go, the more “sloppy” it is allowed to be – am I right?

Negative, the buffers actually remain the same throughout the game!

amyodov の投稿を引用：

...the infractions for tazing someone armed, no matter if he is hostile.

You definitely shouldn't receive an infraction for tasing someone hostile. Both stubborn and hostile tasing should be "clean". If you've experienced that it's definitely a bug.

We've had a couple of people suggest that tasing any NPC with a visible weapon should be clean. Presently we're focused on fixing prominent/blocking bugs and issues. Once they're dealt with we'll have some room to consider this! I can certainly see both points of view.

amyodov の投稿を引用：

And it was even an infraction, I think, if I got close to the suspect; shouted at him; he didn't drop the weapon but haven't yet registered as “stubborn” I think

Sometimes you can get away with this because under the hood they've become stubborn, even if you haven't seen the explicit visual/heard the sound. However as it currently stands (see previous section about tasing anyone with a weapon being valid), the idea is that we're trying to represent (in a simplified manner) the confrontations that officers deal with in real life.

So the "stubborn" state represents an NPC actively/aggressively ignoring or even taunting you. Whereas simply "receiving" a shout (the gold and silver shields) isn't supposed to represent them ignoring or defying you. It's meant to represent a suspect's panic, confusion, hesitation, contemplation etc. Basically acknowledgement, but inaction.

In-person, you obviously have a whole range of cues in a situation. For example, an armed suspect looking at the ground and crying is different to one aggressively staring at an officer while trembling. Both are potentially dangerous of course! But the goal of the stubborn system is to distill what your character is looking at. The stubborn symbol is supposed to represent your player believing there is no longer a potential peaceful avenue. But before then they believe there's a chance the suspect will surrender willingly.

DZR|Mikhail の投稿を引用：

At least a coold down two times the time the suspect "Surrender" animation plays and the gun drops. So a suspect raises hands, turns green, the gun drops, we hear sound.

The clean tase/kill buffer is actually quite close to this value. However one tip for you is that you can perform a clean tase for a very long time. Not infinite, but very long. So you generally don't need to worry about over tasing. You should notice any of the cues that they've become compliant long before you can hurt them with a clean tase.

DZR|Mikhail の投稿を引用：

Why don't we just AUTOMATICALLY turn off the tazer when the suspect complies?

This is actually quite a good suggestion. I need to mull it over a bit, as we've "automated" some processes before and play testers have been annoyed that they didn't have more control (previous iterations of the taser are one example). I mean, I could potentially disable the ability to errantly tase altogether, which would solve a few peoples' qualms. Let me think on it (but also feel free to discuss it further!).

I've had a quick look at the taser buffer code and did notice that it is cumulative. Which could explain why you're both seeing fractional taser punishment. Because you've tased them in the past, a tiny tap later is causing an infraction when it shouldn't. This is theoretical at the moment (because the hostile buffer should also be in play), but I'll investigate!

Thanks again folks!

[DZR|Mikhail]

Walk with Kings の投稿を引用：

Hey folks, thanks for the additional feedback! Not trying to rebut your opinions below, just letting you know how some of the systems in the game work, and why they are like they are.

So cool we can contact the developer! Thanks for your explanations. Yeah, things are very subtle sometimes and we can describe something inaccurately.

I just retried missions and was VERY VERY attentive when using a tazer. Yes, actually I remember that all the problems appeared when tazing repeatedly, not when tazing for some time. So when you hold the trigger and taze a hostile, then the suspect turns green, taking it a bit further really has no consequences. If your finger trembles or slides and you "retaze" = there is the problem.

Walk with Kings の投稿を引用：

• You can select your own token colours from the Main Menu via Settings -> General -> Customise Colors.

Thanks for the tip. Just reassigned the colors, a really useful feature. Probably should be included in the training ;)

[oh no]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2412412884
This. Is. Huge.

It is going to change the experience a lot imo.

[amyodov]

Walk with Kings の投稿を引用：

However one tip for you is that you can perform a clean tase for a very long time

The assumption to use this was “start tasing the suspect and hold it until he is green”? Well, maybe, but for all these levels, the intuitive “tasing procedure” was completely different. “Short tase-check status-repeat”, until he seems compliant. Short, as in “3 rounds MP5 burst”. The “fist guys” (like, on the casino level) typically take 3 tases then comply. But sometimes you just over-do it and do an extra tasing round after he is already compliant. Though sometimes the buffers work and let you get away with that.

But got your idea, “tase in longer cycles”. Will try on replays.

Maybe it worths mentioning in the training. But maybe, it can be changed in the taser behavior, so the people will intuitively incline to one or another way of tasing (“short bursts” vs “single long burst”). Maybe it even makes sense to add a “recharge” phase of the taser (with the characteristic “capacitor charging sound”), not too long but enough to make you feel risks (0.5 seconds to 1 second maybe?), after each round. So you could either hold “tase” for as long as you want; but when you release “tase” button, you have a 0.5 second pause when you cannot tase, and you'll instinctively prefer to tase for longer.

Rational Human Being の投稿を引用：

This. Is. Huge.

Yes, even the shortest play after seeing this hint, has shown a major difference, but I still have to finish the next level and see the change on the scale. Kudos to author for the hint.

[NickNoobles]

Rational Human Being の投稿を引用：

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2412412884
This. Is. Huge.

It is going to change the experience a lot imo.

I did not know about this feature, definitely gonna try this out!!!!

[Necroscourge]

I had a completely different bad experience in this game. I unlocked the shotgun and played solo, and at some point my character became so intimidating (Medium Armor, Revolver, and Shotgun) that from then on not a single character D A R E D to turn hostile on me. So the entire game was a frankly boring experience of running from character to character arresting them, and then still not getting the impossible speedrun times despite moving faster than humanly possible; I say they are impossible because it feels like the game intended you to have all four officers for that challenge, except in the tutorial level where I don't think it's physically possible to do all of the tutorial tasks and the speedrun time at the same time.

So the AI always surrendered never moved, and seemed to completely ignore me; removing gunplay from the game. That is kind of okay, you should be able to get arrests without tools. But it was so consistent it had to be a bug of some kind, I think. I love the artwork and style, but the problem with this game is those side challenges. I think it's a really big no-no to put speedrun challenges in cop games, and it's also a big no-no to put in challenges like "Blow up somebodies wall to get in" or "Flashbang three people at once" because you're immediatly preventing people from approaching the game the way they want to.

Arrest everybody and don't kill, that's easy enough to approach. But all of those side challenges distract way too much from what the game is supposed to be about: Creatively tackling criminal situations. Instead the game is about running at breakneck speeds with shotguns trying to complete the missions in under three minutes. If you were to just fix one thing, I think it would be tacking a few minutes onto those timers to make it possible for solo players.

[Walk with Kings]

amyodov の投稿を引用：

Well, maybe, but for all these levels, the intuitive “tasing procedure” was completely different. “Short tase-check status-repeat”, until he seems compliant. Short, as in “3 rounds MP5 burst”.

Yeah, I believe this is why I haven't been able to replicate the issue. Because like you said, there are two different tase styles. I'm actually aiming to have a fix for this in a patch later today (Australian time). So the game should hopefully accommodate both the long-hold, and the short bursts. That way if a player does accidentally burst not realising they've gone compliant, they won't get an infraction anymore. Hopefully that fixes the issue for you!

[Walk with Kings]

Necroscourge の投稿を引用：

So the AI always surrendered never moved, and seemed to completely ignore me; removing gunplay from the game. That is kind of okay, you should be able to get arrests without tools. But it was so consistent it had to be a bug of some kind, I think.

This is a bug we're still trying to pin down the cause of. If you happen to experience it again, it would be incredibly helpful if you could send us your logs:

To retrieve these follow the below steps. (WARNING: The log file maybe contain some information about your computer and OS username, which you can either remove first or use the email option to ensure they're not publicly accessible):

• Open the console in game with tilde (the ~ key, next 1)
  
• Type "save" (no quotes) and press enter
  
• Navigate to that directory on your computer (C:\Users\<USERNAME>\AppData\LocalLow\Walk with Kings\Hot Brass)
  
• Copy the latest log file that was generated (hot-brass_2021-MM-TT_HH-MM-SS.log) and either email it to us at [e-mail], or use a site like Pastebin[pastebin.com] and include the link here. (See warning above about personal information.)

Necroscourge の投稿を引用：

Instead the game is about running at breakneck speeds with shotguns trying to complete the missions in under three minutes. If you were to just fix one thing, I think it would be tacking a few minutes onto those timers to make it possible for solo players.

I completely understand this. Time goals a bit of a balancing act. (Made harder by randomness, of course.) But our aim is that the times should be completable solo. They're currently based on play testers' average times plus a buffer, but it's also possible that the play testers drove the average down, because of the amount they played the game, hehe.

Do you have some specific mission times that you feel are way out of touch? Or just a blanket issue? The tutorial for example averages about 1:45 when someone is aiming to get the lowest time.

And while I know not everybody enjoys variety challenges, the goal is to encourage a few different playstyles. Basically, the idea isn't that you finish all challenges in a single attempt. Whether that's successful or not is another matter, and there will of course people who just do not care about time trials. So I've tried to not limit many exciting unlocks behind the time trials.

[amyodov]

In short:

Changing the “Neutral” color to white changes the game immensely.
So much that I just finished the game, then edited my Steam review and upped its mark from “Do not recommend” to “Recommend”.

A simple tweak that matters so much. Just make the neutrals white – and hey, most of the confusing disappears. You now clearly know who is the danger and who still can be negotiated with. No, it doesn't turn the game to a top-down shooter, “see-red-shoot-it”, most of them still can be tased and cuffed.

And I also changed my tasing tactics from “short tase-check compliance-short tase-check compliance” to “long tase until compliant”. Never had A SINGLE issue with tasing.

Now it's good. And the only being waited for now, is the new Steam Workshop levels.

(Btw, to the developers: there are some tiny layouting glitches – sometimes the display seems cut on the sides, sometimes there are black zones where they definitely shouldn't be; sometimes the cursor pointer seems wrongly mapped to the display; can discuss it in private, as these bugs are more obscure and may be either a macOS-specific bug or some resolution bug, so they are probably lower-priority at the moment).

[Walk with Kings]

amyodov の投稿を引用：

(Btw, to the developers: there are some tiny layouting glitches – sometimes the display seems cut on the sides, sometimes there are black zones where they definitely shouldn't be; sometimes the cursor pointer seems wrongly mapped to the display; can discuss it in private, as these bugs are more obscure and may be either a macOS-specific bug or some resolution bug, so they are probably lower-priority at the moment).

Are you on a 16:10 monitor by any chance? We've had issues with 16:10 reported, and are aiming to have a patch up this evening (Victoria, Australia) time to rectify them.

[amyodov]

Walk with Kings の投稿を引用：

Are you on a 16:10 monitor by any chance?

I have even more weird setup. Two displays, primary is 2560× 1600 (16:10) builtin MacBook Pro monitor, secondary is 2560×1440 (16:9) external display.
It starts on the primary display, but it is too small (physically) and I move it to the second display, and play it fullscreen in 1280×800 resolution (yes, 16:10 aspect ratio on 16:9 monitor, because cannot change it to more reasonable).

The engine seems either hardcoding 16:9 aspect ratio or detecting it for for primary monitor (rather than for current one), so I cannot change to a more reasonable 1280×720. And (as this is 16:10 originally, you are right), the layout has all the problems inherited from 16:10, too.

[Walk with Kings]

Hmm, it's been awhile since I've used OSX regularly. Have you tried setting the desired monitor to the primary display before launching the game? This is how I choose between a TV and my current monitors before starting a game on Windows.