[Expansion] Mega Man World - Public Beta 2 Released!

[Yoshiatom]

At least I'm glad to hear the difficulty will receive a nerf.

Same, the difficulty is absurd when playing it solo, primarily due the fact that the stock buster seems to do very little damage (Special mention goes to the Bass Buster), as well as enemies seemly everywhere, sometimes even by checkpoints! (Such as in Elec Man's stage where several Thunder Lords attack you as soon as you respawn) Also, I swear the level designers really like Sniper Joes, as they seem to be scattered throughout loads of levels, and Ice Man... good lord...

Another thing I forgot to mention, I am kind of against switches in MM8BDM mods since the main game doesn't use any and players may not have a bind for them. It's why I used those switches you jump on in the first place. Consider maybe using the "player bumps" action instead for switches. That's just me though, totally up to you guys.

Perhaps you could have, say, a "switch" enemy which you just shoot to activate. Perhaps it could use the sprites by the Buebeam things.

[Stardust]

I kind of think some stages are about alright. Fire Man and Oil Man are about balanced IMO.
The thing is we don't want the game to be too much difficult in the early game (a.k.a when you have no weapon and no part, you just started), but at the same time not rushable/speedrunnable and easy in late game (when you go in the maps with 8 weapons, 2 parts and a stock of 5 w/e-tanks), trying to find the just equilibrium between both cases

Bass's buster power increase as his hp lowers btw. When you have high health it does 3 dmg/pellet (Megaman does 10 dmg/pellet for the reference), but when your hp gets low his bullets increase to 7dmg/pellet.
Iceman's is a special case, long story short he USED to have a map, but it had to be removed, so to compensate, Iceman himself has more health and his fight is made intentionally harder.


In some cases we used a wall switch (you press the "use" button on them), there are a few in Cutman's stage, but I'm not completly sure yet. These blue switches really seemed to be a recurent idea to implant, but we could find something alternative and maybe more dynamic/fun to trigger, or looking closer to the original games.

[TheDoc]

I'm completely okay with the difficulty in this mod (except for Bomb Man's stage, but I get to that later). Currently, I've done Cutman, Bombman, Fireman, Heatman, Oilman, and Iceman (battle), and there's a lot of situations where you have to take your time or you simply have to remember where enemies are. That's what Megaman is, isn't it? Learning from your mistakes and having the patience to try the stage again is what made clearing the stage so satisfying. Yes, there are several cheapshots throughout the game (those fleas...), but when you start again, you're that much wiser about the stage than you were before. Besides, being very careful about moving forward (usually) prepares you for those surprise attacks. Yet, MMW doesn't chuck loads of instakill bullcrap at you to make for fake difficulty; the difficulty comes from your ability to react to an onslaught of enemies in new areas, and if you fail, then you start again knowing more about the encounter the next time you run into it.

That being said, a couple of things I would change (for the record, I'm playing as Protoman offline when reporting this):
1.) Bomb Man: The elevator gauntlet plus the placement of the checkpoint right before the grueling demolition segment that's before the elevator gauntlet is asinine. The demolition segment is simply too long; you have to spend time blowing up, like, 9 segments of wall going back and forth between switches only to (almost definitely) die 10 seconds into the elevator gauntlet. Personally, I would move the checkpoint to after the wall demolition or just remove the demolition thing completely, and/or nerf the elevator overall. Without my Triple Cutter being able to get under the elevator to hit the cannons ahead of time (TC being my only weapon at this point), I couldn't have beaten it. I cannot do it without killing the cannons long before I pass them. Getting past the Killer Bullets and Beaks was just luck.

2.) The Heatman rising lava segment became nigh impossible as soon as I hit the destroyable blocks. Destroying the first set was easy, but to get past the second set, I had to use Icicle Fall and just let that take care of it. Either that or running back and forth between the safe area and the 2nd set of blocks with a charge shot; it makes this segment way too tedious. I'd recommend removing the second set of blocks at least, maybe the third. There's a difference between requiring caution and requiring obedient, unnecessary patience. The above two points were the latter.

3.) Cutman: There's a couple of segments where a wall drops down in front of you and 1-2 Crazy Razies come out followed by a freaking Big Eye. I know I said caution can avoid cheapshots, but it doesn't solve all of them. Things like and the first checkpoint at Guts Man's stage is over the top. Speaking of which, please put checkpoints in SAFE PLACES. It's not uncommon for me to reach a checkpoint and see some god-forsaken flea jump out and gnaw my face off as I'm touching it, which means that happens every time I respawn. Megaman Deus Ex Machina did the same thing and I hated it.

4.) Boss and stage difficulty is inconsistent, which is one thing I personally look for in particularly in Megaman. Oilman's super is easier to dodge than his normal pattern, but Heat Man and Fire Mans' supers are......terrifying. I genuinely got scared when Heat Man did his super for the first time, and after barely escaping his 1-minute long invincible super, he just did it again right away. If you wish to keep such "survival supers" where the boss is invincible and does something outrageously, please make it much more uncommon to reoccur, if at all.
The stages also vary significantly in difficulty. Fireman's stage was a cakewalk compared to Cutman and Bombman. Bosses and stages should be consistant enough in difficulty so that the player actually feels like they have a choice on who to go after first. I would never, in a million years, try Bombman's stage first.

You guys did and are doing something amazing here, and even though you might just stop after MM1 is complete, recognizing the full scope of this mod's ambition is something that many, many people here would appreciate and enjoy. Just the sheer amount of effort poured into this kind of thing is crazy. If you guys have the time and energy, I want you to know that this kind of work does not go unappreciated. Maybe I can help out sometime? yea we'll see about that... I wish you the best!

[Superjustinbros]

Toad Man's stage has a particularly cheap segment after the wind-platforming area where you can suddenly get ambushed and slaughtered by two fish and a slime you can barely see before jumping in due to their absurd HP.

I would also suggest trying not to go overboard with the destroyable blocks in stages- MMPU used them in scarce numbers and only really incorporated them in secret rooms/paths, usually as a way of rewarding players for sequence-breaking and fighting bosses out of their weakness order (such as bringing Oil Slider into Fire Man's or Super Arm into Time Man's). In this mod I feel as it they were just placed on the main paths just to exist for no reason and get in the way (the Heat Man example TheDoc brought up being a perfect example).

[TheDoc]

As a person who likes playing any mod offline first before going online, I've had a lot of offline experience particularly with SP mods (including this one at some point), and I've noticed that using CVARs as progress recorders never seems to work out, at least for me. I don't know if it's like this with everyone who plays offline (I seem to be the only one ever reporting it), or if anyone even plays offline at all, but every time I close out MM8BDM, launch it again, and go back into my save file, the CVARs recording the progress of unlocked parts and tools, bosses defeated, etc. are always 0. I've had to archivecvar every time I unlock a part or beat a boss, and it's kind of a nuisance. Again, though, I don't know if this is worth the trouble addressing if no one plays offline that much anyways, but if you do, the only solution I can think of ("me" being an amateur coder here) is recording progress through inventory and/or flags rather than CVARs. This way even multiple save files for the same class can function properly and independently. Just a suggestion, though; it's probably not going on the top of your priority list

[Knux]

I was willing to go ahead with this outside the forums in a peaceful, civilized manner, but since people can't admit to their faults...

Yeah, the spoiler contains "drama". And by that I mean the facts that people hate to listen to and conveniently write off as such, as seems to be the trend. Don't wanna read all of that? That's mighty fine, too. Here's a tl;dr:

- MMWICE
- Enjoy, I guess. That's the last thing I'm doing for this game.

(click to show/hide)

<Warned for offensiveness>

[TailsMK4]

I guess I got some explaining to do. During the time when I was looking for mappers for MMWorld, Knux was someone that I was in good terms with, so the two of us agreed he can help out with mapping, though JC did the majority of the mapping. Knux's biggest contribution was the Ice Man map. Things were fine until it came time for item placement and other details...I'm not really sure how to put the problem into words, but SOME of his anger towards me is deserved, since I failed to let him know what was going on mapping-wise in MMWorld. Things spiraled down from there, and I had to make a choice since there was no way to please everyone involved in the team. It basically came down to either someone that contributed and acted like a leader to the project (Stardust) versus someone that contributed map work (Knux). That's really as condensed as I can put it, since I have forgotten some details (really wanted to forget about it and would have kept quiet if Knux hadn't said anything).

I've moved on from this incident and this is primarily why I will be taking a much reduced role on the project in the future, since I feel in some ways I failed as a leader. Another project that is on-going will give me another chance to act my role...

Knux, if you do happen to read my post, I am sorry for not letting you know what was going on prior to the drama, but I still stand by the decision I made.

[Jc494]

@Knux on the off chance that you actually read this

tl;dr;
- I'm the leader of this project now
- I was willing to talk you about this and resolve this drama
- I won't use your map in it's current state, I'll most likely redesign it and re-use some sections
- If you want to get in contact with me about this, you can contact me via Skype or via the MMWorld Discord chat

(click to show/hide)

I'm not really that well informed on the drama but I'd just like to throw this out there.

When we decided to release this on a whim (mainly me doing this to see if there was any public interest), I decided to take charge of this project's future development due to Tails not being that good of a leader (IMHO). I do not know what was Celebi's role in the original dev team (mainly breaking stuff and balance testing I guess?) however he has not joined the MMWorld Discord yet so I assume he no longer wishes to continue his contributions to MMWorld. So that makes me and SD the only two developers who will be updating MMWorld for future releases, with the help of people in the MMWorld Discord chat.

I was willing to talk to you about this and to (hopefully) put any drama behind us and include your map (with multiple changes which you would have had to do yourself since I'm well aware of your policy on your maps) in MMWorld. The only reason I have not contacted you yet was because I needed to update my own maps first before adding anymore new maps.

Your map definitely isn't perfect and it has many flaws so even if the drama didn't happen I still wouldn't have included your map due to the flaws. I'd need to make a ton of changes to it, to the point where I'd rather just make a new Iceman map from scratch (though this doesn't exclude the possibility of taking sections from your map and reusing them in the new version).

If you'd like to modify your map yourself and/or contact me about this, you can reach me via Skype or by joining the MMWorld Discord.

In MMWorld Related news, the next public beta is coming along slowly, the next release will be around 1 week after v5 hits (possibly later, but definitely not before). It will have a ton of bug fixes as well as improvements to certain maps (mainly Bombman and Gutsman's maps). It may even have a playable version of Timeman's map, no promises though.

[LemonPig]

hey guys im just here to ask if i can make MMWKNI?(NOT the items, the map only.)Tell me every detail of mmw mapping, so i can improve my skills.
thx

[Jc494]

hey guys im just here to ask if i can make MMWKNI?(NOT the items, the map only.)Tell me every detail of mmw mapping, so i can improve my skills.
thx

While I appreciate your enthusiasm we are not working on MM6 maps at the moment.

HOWEVER, if anyone in the community wishes to create their own custom co-op map which isn't specifically for a robot master, I could include it as an extra "challenge" map (similiar to custom PU stages). For these maps, the creator would be allowed to use any tilesets and/or gimmicks they choose to include. These maps are intended to be strictly optional maps which do not unlock any items/weapons. These maps may also have custom enemies and/or a custom boss. If someone wishes to make a stage based on a RM from a game we do not plan to include in the base mod (RMs from fan games/rom hacks) then we may make an exception. At earliest the first set of challenge maps will be added in PublicBeta4 (assuming people actually submit such maps).

In regards to PublicBeta3, it should be (hopefully) released by the end of this week.

[Trillster]

As the guy who implemented it at first, I would like to mention that the Boss Base actor was specifically made for it to be easily understandable. It has comments off to the side that explain what each actor property does and how the Super Attack mechanics work. So if you make a boss, make sure to follow its example.

[DMGUYDZ64]

Support this ticket if you want the lifts Multiplayer bug to be fixed  : http://zandronum.com/tracker/view.php?id=2850

[CutmanMike]

I doubt that will be fixed. Updating actor positions require bandwidth and if every A_SetVelocity call did it, it would be extremely laggy. However you can play around this limitation by having the guts lift call a function that Zandronum knows to update to all players (A_Chase might do the job). I would recommend experimentation with the DECORATE code.

[Jimmy Turner]

I'm not trying to sound impatient but will this expansion ever get updated?  It's been like 3/4 of a year and still nothing.  I just hope this isn't cancelled because I'm really wanting to play more of this.

[fortegigasgospel]

Yea, unless they have been doing work in complete secret, this project is dead.