Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Teneb]

Speaking of: there's a gameplay trailer for the second game out.

[BurnedToast]

Just finished this. I really wanted to like it more than I did but it ended up being more frustrating than fun.

Not because it was hard -  it was not exactly easy, but I actually found it to be easier than dark souls was (at least DS1, the only one I've played). Not because of the grinding - I didn't grind at all, it seemed pointless... I finished the game at level ~55 with rank 2 lynx armor. Not because of the respawning enemies - I just ran past most of them. It was not even the clunky controls, though they did feel excessively clunky sometimes.

No, the frustrating part was the absolutely atrocious level design.

It's a bunch of bland, boring industrial corridors, sewers, and industrial ruins from start to finish. The last few levels in particular, it felt like half the map was just running around in those small tunnels... and then finally near the end when you think it can't get any worse... you had those tiny small tunnels filled with poison gas. The hardest part of the game was just figuring out where I was supposed to go next... I had to look up a walkthrough 3 - 4 times just to figure out what I was supposed to be doing because there's absolutely no guidance of any sort and wandering through a confusing maze where everything looks exactly the same hoping you stumble on the correct area is not fun....

So I guess what I'm saying is, I really hope surge 2 has better level design because surge 1 probably has the worst level design of any game I've ever played. There were a lot of other things the game didn't do perfectly, but I could have forgiven it all if the level design was not such a nightmare.

Also a bit let down by the ending, I was kind of hoping

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

there was a plot twist where warren and the enemies were being respawned by the nanites every time he died, or... something to explain why the game worked that way. it sure seemed to be leading up to that, but... nope. Instead it's just "well that's how dark souls is and we're cloning dark souls so that's how it works"

[Retropunch]

Just finished this. I really wanted to like it more than I did but it ended up being more frustrating than fun.

Not because it was hard -  it was not exactly easy, but I actually found it to be easier than dark souls was (at least DS1, the only one I've played). Not because of the grinding - I didn't grind at all, it seemed pointless... I finished the game at level ~55 with rank 2 lynx armor. Not because of the respawning enemies - I just ran past most of them. It was not even the clunky controls, though they did feel excessively clunky sometimes.

No, the frustrating part was the absolutely atrocious level design.

It's a bunch of bland, boring industrial corridors, sewers, and industrial ruins from start to finish. The last few levels in particular, it felt like half the map was just running around in those small tunnels... and then finally near the end when you think it can't get any worse... you had those tiny small tunnels filled with poison gas. The hardest part of the game was just figuring out where I was supposed to go next... I had to look up a walkthrough 3 - 4 times just to figure out what I was supposed to be doing because there's absolutely no guidance of any sort and wandering through a confusing maze where everything looks exactly the same hoping you stumble on the correct area is not fun....

So I guess what I'm saying is, I really hope surge 2 has better level design because surge 1 probably has the worst level design of any game I've ever played. There were a lot of other things the game didn't do perfectly, but I could have forgiven it all if the level design was not such a nightmare.

I'd agree that the level design was the worst part of it, and it's made all the worse by DS1 having one of the best level designs in a game of that type. Mostly the problem is just that it's endless industrial corridors which all look completely the same - I was constantly lost and mostly just stumbled into where I was supposed to be rather than actually planning it. They obviously tried to vary it, but it all just looked so similar. I think it was a very common complaint, so I think The Surge 2 will address that.

[NullForceOmega]

I can understand some of the complaints about level design, but it is really hard to do 'sci-fi factory' and not have large areas look really hard to differentiate, hell, it's pretty hard to do that in a modern factory setting.  They did try to change things up, the two outdoor segments (not including walk in the park) are pretty different from each other, but still have the generic brown, black, grey, and white scheme as everything else.  The factory floor and R&D look pretty different, and the executive forum is completely different, when you aren't in an accessway (which all look identical because they are, and it makes perfect sense for them to look identical).  I actually found the biggest problem with everything looking samey to be more on the lighting than the environmental design, lots of really deep dark shadows and bright actinic lights make it hard to tell that the tileset is distinctive (again, within the completely reasonable sameness of an industrial setting, where using bulk components for construction is a very smart decision).

All that out of the way, I think The Surge 2 being moved to a cityscape will help a bit, it's still going to kinda repetitive, in the same way walking down any city street in the US is going to be repetitive.

Also, can you explain what you mean by clunky controls?  I own Dark Souls 2 and 3 and The Surge, and of them I would say that The Surge is vastly smoother in the control department, Warren is way more responsive and much easier to control.

[Teneb]

Also, can you explain what you mean by clunky controls?  I own Dark Souls 2 and 3 and The Surge, and of them I would say that The Surge is vastly smoother in the control department, Warren is way more responsive and much easier to control.

I must agree with this. The Surge's controls are really smooth, and unlike DS it plays just fine on mouse & keyboard (controllers hurt my hands, so it makes a huge difference).

As for the level design... yeah, it's hard to differentiate a part of a factory floor from another. The cityscape setting of the next one should help spice things up as has been said.

[Egan_BW]

Huh. I haven't played the game very far through, and I don't plan to play much more of it, but I have no problem with the environments. I never felt like I couldn't tell where I was just by looking around, I never really got lost except when entering totally new areas, and I felt that the factory floor layout was pretty creative.

The problem that I did have with it was an utter lack of direction.

[Retropunch]

The problem that I did have with it was an utter lack of direction.

I think that's part of the problem with the level design - everything looks relatively similar, and there isn't much of a direction in where to go/what to do. With DS, it always sort of drives you towards the objective - there's a path even if it's pretty open, and you can usually see where you need to aim for. In The Surge, it's just a lot of industrial areas which look similar and you're not given any direction of what you should really be looking for.

It's like the lift for the Big Sisters fight - I had no idea I should even be looking for that. It didn't feel like I was 'puzzle solving' I just happened to eventually think 'well I guess I'll try jumping onto this as I've been running around so long'. It wasn't something that annoyed me to the point of not wanting to continue playing completely, it just felt like it wasn't good level design.

[Egan_BW]

I'd class the problems there as less to do with world design and more to do with NPC design. Basically, you need a guy in chainmail who can tell the player "hey maybe you should go ring these bells. One is up in that church, the other is down in that swamp."
In The Surge, I feel like the levels are well-designed, interconnected, and distinctive enough that if you TOLD me I had to go to the church, I could accomplish that. But instead you get a lady who tells you "get to the factory", which is workable, and then once you get there... "figure out what's going on". Which doesn't actually tell me what I'm doing.
I had a lot of fun mapping out the factory area. It does that satisfying thing where you enter a new place, find it strange and scary, then gradually figure out the layout and open shortcuts until you're the master of that space. But then I kinda got to the end of the factory area, and realized that I didn't really know why I did all that. I figured I would get some guidance after killing the big floaty thing that had been teased a few times before, but instead I got a few more shortcuts the areas I'd already been in, and a train to some new area which is honestly not as interesting as the factory. So I stopped playing.

[NullForceOmega]

Also, before I forget again, the new DLC has been teased, get ready for cowboy Warren.

[BurnedToast]

I can understand some of the complaints about level design, but it is really hard to do 'sci-fi factory' and not have large areas look really hard to differentiate, hell, it's pretty hard to do that in a modern factory setting.  They did try to change things up, the two outdoor segments (not including walk in the park) are pretty different from each other, but still have the generic brown, black, grey, and white scheme as everything else.  The factory floor and R&D look pretty different, and the executive forum is completely different, when you aren't in an accessway (which all look identical because they are, and it makes perfect sense for them to look identical).  I actually found the biggest problem with everything looking samey to be more on the lighting than the environmental design, lots of really deep dark shadows and bright actinic lights make it hard to tell that the tileset is distinctive (again, within the completely reasonable sameness of an industrial setting, where using bulk components for construction is a very smart decision).

They could have done more with color and such to make the different sections of the factory look different. It wouldn't have been so bad if the non-factory levels had been less like a factory too. For example if the biolab level was more like a lush biolab and not... a generic factory floor with some plants scattered here and there. Or as you say the accessways should all look the same which is fine but why did they decide to put so much of the end of the game inside them? Why couldn't R&D have been running around a science area, instead of running around accessways and every now and then popping out to a small science area so you can kill some baddies then go into another accessway?

Also this is more of a personal preference rather than saying it's objectively bad, but I wish the levels had been more linear and less "centralized with shortcuts". I just found it made things more confusing, especially the inter-level shortcuts (the ones that didn't lead back to ops).

I guess saying "worst level design ever" was maybe a little excessively hyperbolic but it did really weaken my impression of the game.

Also, can you explain what you mean by clunky controls?  I own Dark Souls 2 and 3 and The Surge, and of them I would say that The Surge is vastly smoother in the control department, Warren is way more responsive and much easier to control.

A lot of little things. Keep in mind I'm playing on KB/M so a controller might not have the same issues.

Slide attack is sprint + attack, however pressing attack without holding sprint locks you into a slow basic attack animation that you can't dodge-cancel out of. Meanwhile, pressing dodge while holding sprint does not make you dodge, it makes you do some stupid pointless jump that drains a HUGE chunk of stamina. So the result is in action heavy sequences where you are both dodging and slide attacking a lot (the last boss in particular) it's easy to accidentally either waste all your stamina, or lock yourself in place with a "kill me" sign.

The duck/jump system just felt so awkward I only tried to use it a few times after it was introduced and got killed horribly every time so I gave up on it completely. Nice idea, but the controls needed to be more intuitive or something.

Another thing is sometimes when I was trying to do dodge attacks, I'd do some kind of heavier attack instead. I never figured out what I was doing to trigger it, it was never more than a minor annoyance but it was still annoying.

Using health items seemed unreliable. You can't use them in the middle of a combo.. but sometimes you can. You can't use them while getting hit... except sometimes you can? I ended up just hammering the health key constantly hoping for the best, sometimes it worked and sometimes I died.

Finally just all the animation locking in general combined with a lot of the slow attack animations (maybe weapon specific, I was using single rigged) just made it feel unresponsive, even though the controls were generally good and responsive when you were not animation locked.

Those are the major annoyances I can remember offhand anyway.

[NullForceOmega]

"Single Rigged."  I'm sorry to say that you just shot most of your 'clunky controls' argument in the foot.  The single-rig is abysmally slow and for me (and some others) unreasonably clunky to use, you would have saved yourself a massive amount of complaints if you switched to one-handed or dual-rigged.

Now, that aside, you brought up an argument that I agree with, injections can rarely be rather twitchy, sometimes you'll be sure that you can drop one and it just doesn't go off.  I have no idea what causes this but I think it may have to do with action-queuing, there is a delay at the end of most combos that seems to block input for a fraction of a second.

The jump/duck system does feel kind of tacked-on, I've actually only used it like, twice, by accident.

btw I also KB&M exclusively in The Surge, the keyboard controls are (to me) actually easier to use than the controller.

I do feel you on the color decisions, there could have been more done, and hopefully The Surge 2 will make headway there.

[Retropunch]

"Single Rigged."  I'm sorry to say that you just shot most of your 'clunky controls' argument in the foot.  The single-rig is abysmally slow and for me (and some others) unreasonably clunky to use, you would have saved yourself a massive amount of complaints if you switched to one-handed or dual-rigged.

Now, that aside, you brought up an argument that I agree with, injections can rarely be rather twitchy, sometimes you'll be sure that you can drop one and it just doesn't go off.  I have no idea what causes this but I think it may have to do with action-queuing, there is a delay at the end of most combos that seems to block input for a fraction of a second.

The jump/duck system does feel kind of tacked-on, I've actually only used it like, twice, by accident.

You can't say that the controls aren't clunky if one of the three weapon types are clunky. The 'big weapons' are one of the main draws to this kinda game (the title of this thread is even 'MASSIVE ENERGY AXE') and you've said yourself that they're clunky. If it was 'one or two weapons are a bit stiff' that'd be fine, but a WHOLE WEAPON TYPE means that the controls are just clunky.

I think you also shot your argument in the foot by then going on to say that both injections and jump/duck system aren't great!

[NullForceOmega]

The basic controls of the game are very smooth and are in no way difficult to get used to.  The single rigged weapons are the sole exception to this rule, and any number of people have commented upon it on Focus/Deck13's forums and the steam forums, there was even a major patch that altered the moveset of that particular weapon class so that it would be possible to animation cancel.  If you want to talk about the Single-rigged weapons being clunky, then you have all the ammunition that you could ever desire.  However, the moveset and controls of one weapon class out of FIVE (heavy, single-rigged, dual-rigged, one hand, and staff.  Did you actually play the game?  Your posts say you did but that's some awfully basic data to get wrong.), not including basic movement and evasion controls, is hardly an accurate picture of the game as a whole.

And agreeing with a criticism of a mechanic is in no way defanging the argument I made, the basic controls of The Surge are excellent, and the VAST majority of weapons share that trait.  Further, in spite of the criticism that single-rigged weapons have received they are still considered to be excellent by much of the community (I personally disagree, but that is entirely due to playstyle.)

I also never said that the injection system 'wasn't great', nor did I praise it.  I also did not say that the jump/duck mechanic 'wasn't great', I just didn't have cause to use it so it seemed extraneous, go watch some youtube videos of actually skilled players (unlike me, I am barely acceptable to middling), they can do some really goddamn impressive shit with those mechanics.  I am not fanboying.  There is room for improvement in the game, which is why I am interested in seeing where they go with The Surge 2.

I very seriously believe that if the first weapon other than the reclaimed piston you can lay hands on wasn't the goddamn plasma cutter the claims of clunky controls wouldn't even exist.  For Hel's sake even the Endras TITAN hammer is smoother and easier to control than those huge sweeping attack animations.

[Frumple]

I also did not say that the jump/duck mechanic 'wasn't great', I just didn't have cause to use it so it seemed extraneous, go watch some youtube videos of actually skilled players (unlike me, I am barely acceptable to middling), they can do some really goddamn impressive shit with those mechanics.

Soooo... would you happen to be able to link to some? Finding folks that are actually skilled like that can be pretty irritating to do, so if you happen to have some on tap that'd be nice.

[NullForceOmega]

Sorry, I get most of the videos from links on the steam forums, so I don't have any on hand.

Edit: And you are absolutely right about it being a PITA to find.  Unlike Souls, The Surge doesn't have a big community making content for it, checking no damage runs is likely the best way to find examples.

Edit again:  And one of the guys who had high-skill gameplay footage has deleted his channel.  Damnit.