Quote from Player1 on April 22, 2011, 10:32 am

Yeah. Both of the examples = stuff I do not like :S

Quote from WinstonSmith on April 22, 2011, 12:30 pm

VALVe modifies the player's path a bit with the Aerial Faith Plates (developer commentary); it wouldn't surprise me if they have a bit of path modification with the more significant flings just so players don't miss something by a foot and have to repeat it.

Quote from hanging_rope on April 22, 2011, 4:43 pm

This brings up a point: are we, as community mappers, going to do what valve does?

Quote from WinstonSmith on April 22, 2011, 5:00 pm

hanging_rope wrote:

This brings up a point: are we, as community mappers, going to do what valve does?

As in modify the path of the player to help them--that sort of thing?

I don't know. I can honestly say that the flings were much easier, but I can also say that when jumps are harder to maneuver I get a greater sense of satisfaction. That being said, as msleeper pointed out, near misses can be frustrating. I would do it in a map but not to the extent where I'm holding the player's hand.

Quote from Player1 on April 22, 2011, 5:49 pm

hanging_rope wrote:

This brings up a point: are we, as community mappers, going to do what valve does?

I would hope not, tbh. One of the reasons that I do not like what Valve is doing is that it confounds the actual game mechanics. I, as a player, should be able to walk into a puzzle, inspect the different elements and, in my head and up front, be able to visualize how a specific fling would work. That's what makes it a puzzle game.

If I can't do that, it deteriorates into having to try every fling I can think of and see which one works. That's not a puzzle game. That's more like an old fashioned point-and-click adventure game where you had to resort to trying to use everything on everything until you got it right. Those kinda games do not really get made anymore for a reason.

The example I gave, in the cave where you first hear Cave (sic) actually took me much too long to figure out. Because the part of the platform that _looks_ like it should be the fling receptacle (the little bridge strutting out) was not aligned with the angled surface. So on my first playthrough I ran around a lot to look for alternatives until I thought "wth let's try it maybe I'll clear the railing on the left side".

Much to my surprise I both cleared the railing and landed on the right side. At the point I thought that maybe my "portal senses" were just off after not having played a lot in a while. But after revisiting it I came to the above conclusions.

I can see why they do it like that. I've been watching a couple of "let's play Portal 2" youtubes and oh boy there's a lot of people that do not even think for a second but just resort to trying everything on everything. Valve's level design is obviously "good" in the sense that even those players will get the success of completing the game.

But tbh in my mind it detracts a lot from the experience; if I can't actually fail, if I can't actually get stuck for more than 5 minutes, simply because I know that trying everything on everything will get me through just as fast as actually stopping to think, then I do not get any real satisfaction from beating a puzzle.

Bah. Sorry for the wall of text. I'm just a little upset at Portal 2. It's just not nearly as good as I had hoped for :S

Quote from xitooner on April 22, 2011, 7:28 pm

Player1 wrote:

Much to my surprise I both cleared the railing and landed on the right side. At the point I thought that maybe my "portal senses" were just off after not having played a lot in a while. But after revisiting it I came to the above conclusions.

Me too; when I first noticed it was when I had made 2-3 jumps where I could tell I was falling just short of target, but then was "magically" lifted and placed on the target. It was almost like there was some big breeze that lifted me up, or like some invisible hand just reached out and gave me a boost at the end. I have a feeling that when we deconstruct the map, there will be something present to make it more forgiving.

But at other times it wasnt forgiving AT ALL; like [spoiler]in the room near the end where he creates an exit by splitting a testarea in half. There was a cube that lands on some platforms, and I was trying (incorrectly) to fling myself up there to get it.[/spoiler] I finally decided that it wasnt being forgiving because I was not SUPPOSED to be doing that. Thats what is so bad about that kind of "help"; in its own way, it gives you clues. And I dont WANT clues when solving the puzzle.

Quote from Player1 on April 22, 2011, 7:35 pm

xitooner wrote:

But at other times it wasnt forgiving AT ALL; like [spoiler]in the room near the end where he creates an exit by splitting a testarea in half. There was a cube that lands on some platforms, and I was trying (incorrectly) to fling myself up there to get it.[/spoiler] I finally decided that it wasnt being forgiving because I was not SUPPOSED to be doing that.

Haha yeah. I did the exact same on my first playthrough. I saw "hmm cube up there, portalable surface opposite, looks flingable". It took a couple of attempts (one overshooting and one undershooting) until I got it right. When I got the cube I thought to myself "that was actually kinda hard, it was probably not meant to be solved like that".

And lo and behold on my second playthrough it felt so blindingly obvious to instead use the portalable surfaces to redirect the excursion funnel to accomplish the same.

So not all puzzles have only one solution. I've a feeling the fling (when done right) is faster, so will probably become mainstay for speed runs (unless somebody finds a way to do without the cube).

Quote from Mr. Happy on April 23, 2011, 7:03 pm

[spoiler]For anyone that has dug into the entities and assets thoroughly, does it look like there is anything missing that we would need to setup diversity vents? If you think about it it seems all the assets are tech are still there, after all they have plenty of scenes where objects and even you are flying through the tubes on predetermined tracks. Plus the ending obviously has some sort of suction going on. Heck, that could actually all be accomplished without any new entities, though maybe not as cleanly and easily.[/spoiler]

Quote from hanging_rope on April 24, 2011, 6:43 pm

I have a correction for my data: Portal tunnelling and portal standing are still possible, but are much harder, and are now "officially" glitches. (The reason why portal 1 tunnelling wasn't a glitch is because it was coded in, so while it wasn't intended, it wasn't a glitch either.)