The Magicka thread [Archive] - Page 2 - Quarter To Three Forums

Teiman

01-27-2011, 03:00 AM

Go into your magicka directory in your steam folder and make a copy of this file:
\magicka\content\models\bosses\assatur\assatur_SPG _0.xnb

game developers must avoid as possible the use of upper-case letters in files.

maybe windows *now* is case insensitive and would happily load HAT.res even if the file is named hat.res on the disk, but this is asking for trouble wen we all move to a case sensitive (decent) file systems

uppercase in filenames will be *very expensive* because create the type of bugs that are very hard to debug.

Therlun

01-27-2011, 03:10 AM

Tony M

01-27-2011, 04:13 AM

Its partially the goodwill towards indies, but its also the price. If I only pay $10 for a game I'm not so worried if it takes a few weeks to get bugs sorted out.

If they never patch the bugs then you will see a big backlash. The more people love something the bigger the backlash if thier expectations are not met.

Tony

Reldan

01-27-2011, 05:40 AM

Reldan

01-27-2011, 05:42 AM

game developers must avoid as possible the use of upper-case letters in files.

maybe windows *now* is case insensitive and would happily load HAT.res even if the file is named hat.res on the disk, but this is asking for trouble wen we all move to a case sensitive (decent) file systems

uppercase in filenames will be *very expensive* because create the type of bugs that are very hard to debug.

In this instance though, it's the lack of the "dmg" file which the game needs. The "SNG" file can be renamed and used in place of the "dmg". The case really wasn't at issue this time, but I agree that not having a standard on file naming conventions is a bad practice.

CSL

01-27-2011, 06:12 AM

According to the Magicka twitter feed the patch for today actually breaks multiplayer entirely if you don't have the bonus DLC - just great.

TurinTur

01-27-2011, 07:39 AM

According to the Magicka twitter feed the patch for today actually breaks multiplayer entirely if you don't have the bonus DLC - just great.

Everyone who has the game, have the DLC.
The DLC is free for everyone who buys the game before 31 January.

It's much less of an issue of what it sounds like. ;)

Stridergg

01-27-2011, 08:10 AM

The three of us managed to play through the first 2 chapters in coop yesterday, before one of us got disconnected in the middle of chapter 3. It wasn't bug free - one guy got stuck in a cinematic screen and couldn't move or do anything until the next cinematic (we had to kill and revive him constantly to be able to progress through, which was fun by itself :)). Sometimes we would get de-synchronized from the server (mobs are not visible, character is stuck in some animation, etc.) but killing/reviving helped with that too.

BTW the easiest way to start a coop game is for one person to start hosting the game and others to Join Game with him through the in-game Steam overlay (Shift-Tab).

Alt-Tab fucks up the game. The game sometimes doesn't quit completely, need to kill it through the task manager. Mobs fall off the screen but the game doesn't register them as dead, so you can't advance, since you can't end the encounter. In SP, sometimes after a cutscene, the "Defeated" message comes up, eventhough you are alive and afterwards, if you actually die, the game doesn't respawn you, you are just stuck being dead and have to restart the entire chapter (fuck chapter 3, I tried it 4 times already and had to restart due to one or the other bug, fuck this save system in general).

More importantly though, while we were trying to get our coop game going, the game deleted my 2 singleplayer saves. That's bad.

So the game is fun, it's triple fun in coop but it's so buggy and frustration builds up to the point where I don't want to bother with the game for now. I will stop playing it for a few days because if my chapter 3 gets fucked up again, I am going to QFSAAA my computer.

Blips

01-27-2011, 08:16 AM

I've never had a problem with alt-tab yet and I've done it quite often. Apparently the devs are working almost 24/h a day at the moment to roll out the updates which is commendable even though the game should not really have been released with the multiplayer aspect so broken.

TurinTur

01-27-2011, 08:19 AM

I am going to QFSAAA my computer.

Heh. BTW, the devs are focused right now in stability and bugs, but after a pair of weeks i hope they have a look again at the balance. Let's be honest, QFSAAA is overpowered, it needs some nerfing. The bonus damage that steam gives to lightning effect is too big. Also, beams in general are better than lots of other options. In this case, i won't say it needs a big nerfing, but perhaps a very slight nerf, and a little boost to rock, and every "spray" effect (water, fire, cold...) would help. The problems with those is they need to be chardged up to do decent damage, while with the beam you begin to deliver damage from the first second and if you maintain it in a target, it also makes tons of damage.

Stridergg

01-27-2011, 08:46 AM

I've never had a problem with alt-tab yet ...

Me neither until yesterday. That's the funny thing about bugs - you never have a problem with them until you encounter them. :)

The bonus damage that steam gives to lightning effect is too big. Also, beams in general are better than lots of other options.

Well, beams in MP are kind of balanced by the fact that a) they combine when they are crossed (so they are less predictable/harder to manage) and b) they might produce a huge explosion if opposing elements cross (usually killing the entire group). But I do agree with you, currently beams are so effective that it's better to use beams and overcome the difficulties (by being careful) than to use any other forms of damage.

TurinTur

01-27-2011, 09:57 AM

Oh yeah, and the M60 is too good. I have to force myself to drop that weapon...

Stridergg

01-27-2011, 10:33 AM

Oh yeah, and the M60 is too good. I have to force myself to drop that weapon...

Hehe and again, in MP it's kind of balanced by the fact that you will lose it pretty soon due to bugs anyway.

Oh and what also sucks is that a lot of the eqipment you find in MP is unique and can be used by one person only. For example, teleportation stave, everyone would love to have it but there is only one shaman that drops it, so only one player can ever have it. You can't, like in Diablo, go into another game with the same character and loot the item there. Or maybe you can, if that other game doesn't start from the begining (because those that do start from the begining, reset your character, I tried it).

Pogo

01-27-2011, 10:34 AM

Adam B

01-27-2011, 11:01 AM

Enh, beams are only good for single big targets. I nova the shit out of most everything small than a troll.

Except for clearing house via Rain + arcane/cold beam. Man does that wreck.

James Johnson

01-27-2011, 11:11 AM

I'm surprised by the amount of people that vigorously defend the game and its creators. (Steam and paradox forums)

Yes it's a cheap game. Yes it's an indie game and everyone HAS to love indie games and their creators.
The aggressiveness people defend it with baffles me none the less considering the severity of issues this game has.
A game advertising its coop mode as heavily as this one featuring MP which doesn't work for most people. With patches that break the game completely for some people.
Is the indie mark really a get out of jail card for everything?

I agree with you about the undue favoritism indies get. Bad games are bad games, whether they're made by the little guy or the corporate monster.

That said, Magicka is (rightfully) getting defended because:

-It's a genuinely good design.
-It brings enough innovation to the table to feel fresh.
-It's $10.

That final point excuses the bugs for a lot of people, myself included. That and the fact that they're patching daily and communicating regularly with the public. If there was radio silence from Paradox about the issues the game has and what they were doing to solve them, I'd start to get mad.

The goodwill will eventually run out, though. If it's still a mess in a week or two, yeah, my patience will be shot.

TurinTur

01-27-2011, 11:12 AM

Because good game with technical problems > bad game with polish

Stridergg

01-27-2011, 11:18 AM

Enh, beams are only good for single big targets. I nova the shit out of most everything small than a troll.

Except for clearing house via Rain + arcane/cold beam. Man does that wreck.

Not entirely true actually. Beams shoot across the screen (and a little beyond the screen too), enemies die really fast, you don't have to re-cast them between the enemies, enemies blow up damaging nearby enemies, you can move the beam (albeit slow), you can re-cast a beam real quick (no need to re-position for aoe, or charge or anything), you can add Cold into a beam and freeze enemies. As a result, beams are pretty awesome in dealing with crowds.

AaronSofaer

01-27-2011, 12:12 PM

SPOILERS

So in the mine, there's a wobbly tower of wood. Is there a way to make it fall down? Seems odd that it would hint at you being able to knock it down if you can't...

Also, in the previous scene there's a passageway blocked by rocks. Is this wobbly tower the way to get to that blocked-off area?

CSL

01-27-2011, 12:22 PM

Absolutely outstanding - an unskippable cutscene right before the King boss fight where I am going to die over and over again.

Adam B

01-27-2011, 12:27 PM

Absolutely outstanding - an unskippable cutscene right before the King boss fight where I am going to die over and over again.
That pissed me off super bad too.

SPOILERS:

That one is much easier if you use the Machine to break line of sight with the enemies. You can nova it to death in like 10 seconds to start the fight off, and continue using it to prevent all three of the assholes from targeting you at the same time and instagibbing you in the second phase of the fight.

Morberis

01-27-2011, 12:27 PM

Blips

01-27-2011, 12:34 PM

CSL

01-27-2011, 12:35 PM

That pissed me off super bad too.

God fucking dammit! Right when I was about to destroy the machine by way of using Gandalf's staff to fear the two fuckers the game locks up and I'm dumped to desktop. Whole fucking level's work gone because they couldn't bother to put in a proper save system.

TurinTur

01-27-2011, 12:37 PM

I was in level 6 near the end and baam, the game crashed for first time. Now to do it again from the beginning. :(

TurinTur

01-27-2011, 12:43 PM

Changelog for Patch #3 - January 27th

Fixed issues/bugs

* UPnP will no longer crash the game.
* Lack of playable avatar will no longer crash the game.
* Improved reports on disconnect and connection failed.
* Game crash on startup due to old gamer with long name fixed.
* Game terminates properly on crash.
* Save data wipe bug on multiplayer disconnect fixed.
* Boss crashes in Chapter 6 and 12 fixed.
* Servers limited to 4 simultaneous steam users.
* Players that have not selected a slot when the game starts is kicked.
* Server browser no longer displays games of a different version.
* Version miss match check.
* No longer possible to bounce between islands in Chapter 6
* Fixed interrupted dialog from Vlad in Chapter 6.
* Fixed trigger sequence in Chapter 9.
* Chapter 12 boss damage texture added.
* Fixed a bug where a client was locked in an animation.
* Delayed message from steam no longer forces player into game.
* Challenges are now playable using the French version

New features/balancing

* Added version number in menu.
* Added server password. (player requested feature)
* Default undie-time changed to 0.5s (Staff of the Dead)

Known Issues

* Beam spells merging sometimes crashes game with stack overflow (for real)
* Chat still awkwardly positioned.
* Self-shields sometimes get out of sync
* Players are still able to have multiple summons
* Server list sorting not implemented
* Network congestion on high ping (>400ms) connections still problematic.
* Game stutters slightly on some systems despite good performance (cause known, fix pending)
* Steam attempts to install XNA framework every time game is launched or rare occasion
* Game sometimes hogs uplink bandwidth - (Being researched)

12345

Stridergg

01-27-2011, 01:50 PM

I think this game is developing a worse community than Eve...

That's because the game is so lighthearted and full of humor! :)

* Save data wipe bug on multiplayer disconnect fixed.

Yay!

* Game crash on startup due to old gamer with long name fixed.

That old dude is so annoying... :)

James Johnson

01-27-2011, 01:58 PM

* Beam spells merging sometimes crashes game with stack overflow (for real)

See, Beams are so powerful they crash your system!

Also, lol stack overflow.

Morberis

01-27-2011, 02:10 PM

They have a display bug, games without the lock symbol are asking me for passwords.

98% of the games are also now password protected.

Anyone wanna try a game tonight?

TurinTur

01-27-2011, 02:37 PM

Still learning new tricks.
lightning + ice = fast energy bolts
lightning + ice + shield = ice that shoots lightning into enemies for a second

qfasa is both the thunderbolt and the Beam of Death, if you use spacebar or right click. Two of the best spells in the game, with the same keystroke pattern.

And remember, the game have a block feature, not documented by the tutorial. Control + click.

Tman

01-27-2011, 04:40 PM

Rock Paper Shotgun has a commentary on their thoughts so far on Magicka (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/01/27/alec-and-johns-thoughts-on-magicka-so-far/#more-48941)

I'd have to agree with them. Underneath all the bugs is a game screaming to get out.

BleedTheFreak

01-27-2011, 04:50 PM

damn.

ragequit /done

(until they give in on the rediculous save vs checkpoint crap)

PhoenixRising

01-27-2011, 08:34 PM

I'm glad it only cost $10, because the controls are so unplayably bad that I gave up trying to play after thirty seconds. Pathfinding is not optional in this sort of game. I wouldn't bother trying this one out unless your patience for shitty controls is infinite.

Sarkus

01-27-2011, 09:04 PM

Blips

01-27-2011, 09:07 PM

Joe M.

01-27-2011, 09:09 PM

It controls just like D2, Torchlight and their ilk. Maybe he wants click-to-move as it's implemented WoW?

AaronSofaer

01-27-2011, 09:14 PM

Or in Guild Wars?

I dunno. I like the controls. The only real objection I have to them is that quite often, when I go to nova, I charge my sword and then airpuff nova.

And that's a minor problem.

PhoenixRising

01-27-2011, 09:22 PM

Again, another person talking about pathfinding. I don't get it. wtf.

It doesn't control anything like D2, Torchlight, Titan's Quest, etc. In those games, if you click on something your character will run around obstacles to get to it. Here, he won't. And with a game with performance issues as bad as this one has, where even the pre-tutorial is choppy on the lowest graphics settings, sloppy controls are unforgivable.

Morberis

01-27-2011, 10:47 PM

To be honest I don't really see the problem. I don't want him to walk like that, scarily enough I think that I'd be more likely to blow up or die if I didn't control him. I just always have one hand on the mouse waving it around and I see no problem with that because I'm always moving, there's no other way to do it.

Jab

01-27-2011, 10:58 PM

Tman, Morberis and I had a failed attempt at multiplayer just now, game crashed in the middle of chapter 8 and then when we tried to restart the game wouldn't load . It seems like the best thing to do is to try multiplayer once per day to see if the day's patch will fix anything.

The highlight though was when the pub, Morberis and I attempted to combine beams and it seems one of us had an opposite element, the beam exploded wiping us all out in one bloody mess.

TurinTur

01-27-2011, 10:58 PM

It doesn't control anything like D2, Torchlight, Titan's Quest, etc. In those games, if you click on something your character will run around obstacles to get to it. Here, he won't. And with a game with performance issues as bad as this one has, where even the pre-tutorial is choppy on the lowest graphics settings, sloppy controls are unforgivable.

They are not sloppy controls, they are different.

It works like this: hold the mouse button to move in the cursor's direction.
Hold, not click. How hard is that to understand?

It's like in Alien Swarm. You have to hold the "W" key to move forward. Same idea, just with the mouse.

Morberis

01-27-2011, 11:10 PM

Yeah that was a great game. Electricity definitely seemed to play a large part of the game but we mixed it up fairly well. On those guys I'm leaning into using a cold beam and then mines when they get close.

But yeah great fun, on the bridge there I saw you had a few spells I haven't yet obtained and I think every one killed one of you. Aiming at the goblins, thundbolt, BAM one of you explodes. Okay.... THUNDERBOLT and I'm again sprayed with the bloody remains of a teammate. Surely a third time won't kill one of you, aaaaarg I'm frozen and I've been hacked into little pieces. Possibly by my remaining teammate before I killed him.

talsworthy

01-27-2011, 11:46 PM

I think this game is developing a worse community than Eve. I join 5 games, none of them labelled private and every time people start swearing at me for joining their game. I ask them that if they could label their games private from now on if they want them private that would be perfect, and get a variety of response varying from swears, to people insulting me for not noticing that they did have private in the name. Possibly the private is getting cut off.

And then I go to host my own and I notice that my chapter 5 save I have with my GF is gone... perfect!

It is strange for sure, I labelled mine private and people still tried to join and with no kick option I was left with hoping they would leave or abandoning the game. Passwording is in which is a good thng but I understand it isn't quite there :( i.e joining a passworded game from steam can be a problem.

Still not managed to get a MP game going properly yet :(

Hanacker

01-27-2011, 11:52 PM

They are not sloppy controls, they are different.

It works like this: hold the mouse button to move in the cursor's direction.
Hold, not click. How hard is that to understand?

It's like in Alien Swarm. You have to hold the "W" key to move forward. Same idea, just with the mouse.

It's a minor issue, but I agree with him that it would be nice if your character would try to run around tiny obstacles instead of getting stuck on them. In most modern games if you run straight at something, unless you hit it perfectly you'll veer to one side or the other and slowly move around it. In this game, most of the time you get stuck. Not a big deal, but it is a bit annoying.

Blips

01-27-2011, 11:55 PM

It's a minor issue, but I agree with him that it would be nice if your character would try to run around tiny obstacles instead of getting stuck on them. In most modern games if you run straight at something, unless you hit it perfectly you'll veer to one side or the other and slowly move around it. In this game, most of the time you get stuck. Not a big deal, but it is a bit annoying.

The last time I checked, if I run straight into a wall in Half-life 2, I will keep running into that wall until I change direction.

Morberis

01-27-2011, 11:56 PM

I did have some issues with joining tonights game. At first when Jab made the game the password wouldn't work, and then when he remade it it kept asking for a password even though it indicated that it didn't need one. Then when trying to join I couldn't click join Tman or Jab through steam, I had to be invited. At which point it didn't require a password.

Overall including tonights game and my other experiences I've had far more luck joining through the steam interface than the browser. By which I mean clicking Join so and so from my friends list and invites.

Hanacker

01-28-2011, 12:06 AM

The last time I checked, if I run straight into a wall in Half-life 2, I will keep running into that wall until I change direction.

I don't remember half life 2 specifically, but in most games unless you hit it head on, you'll slide to one side or the other. Especially in 3rd person games like this one.

TurinTur

01-28-2011, 12:07 AM

A smart idea from another forum:

My favorite new trick is a shield-water wall with a shield-frost-lightning wall right behind it. They're non-solid walls, so most enemies just walk through them if you're on the other side. First they step into the water, then they get frozen in place right on the lightning, while wet. Plus, they're fast, and you can put them while on the run.

edit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnqMnuO2crg Uh... infocomercial parody thing

Teiman

01-28-2011, 02:09 AM

This thread is a spoilers minefield.
(I am typing this with my eyes closed, I don't even want to look at the screen now).

TurinTur

01-28-2011, 03:55 AM

Well, someone did it. A wiki
http://www.magickapedia.net/index.php?title=Main_Page

Still very in construction, of course, but there is already a decent amount of information.
Even if they forgot to write how the Heal element damages undead...

edit: Yep, steam beam is overpowered. Lightning Beam- ~200 damage. Steam+lightning Beam- ~650. I don't know if the numbers are right but wtf if they are! Adding a new element should improve the damage, ok, but a 50-80%, not a 300%.

shang

01-28-2011, 04:21 AM

edit: Yep, steam beam is overpowered. Lightning Beam- ~200 damage. Steam+lightning Beam- ~650. I don't know if the numbers are right but wtf if they are! Adding a new element should improve the damage, ok, but a 50-80%, not a 300%.

The reason the steam+lightning gets such a big boost is that the steam element gets the monster wet, and that acts as a multiplier for lightning damage. If you target monsters that are already soaked, lightning beam and steam + lightning beam should do about the same damage. I think they tried to prevent these kind of combinations by making lightning runes cancel out water runes, but I don't know if the reason steam doesn't work the same way is intentional or an oversight.

I'm kinda thinking that it is an oversight, because the game also prevents you from putting water or steam in the same spell with cold, so that you need two separate casts for deep freeze.

TurinTur

01-28-2011, 04:27 AM

I know that. Steam wets the target, so the lightning part does extra damages. I am speaking about how much extra damage should take, balance wise, and more exactly when it's applied through the beam.

PhoenixRising

01-28-2011, 05:35 AM

They are not sloppy controls, they are different.

The fact that you have to press menu buttons four, five or more times just to select your choices says otherwise.

It works like this: hold the mouse button to move in the cursor's direction.
Hold, not click. How hard is that to understand?

It's not hard to understand. It's just indicative that the programmers are completely ignorant of interface conventions for top-down action RPGs. And ignoring interface conventions is only forgivable if you do things better.

I gave the game a minute to convince me that it was worth playing, and it utterly failed before I even left the first room. Broken menus, unskippable cutscenes, no basic pathfinding so that I don't have to babysit my character just to examine the items in the environment that you are clearly supposed to click on. I have a hundred different games I could play, why would I bother wasting time on one that's obviously incompetently put together?

TurinTur

01-28-2011, 05:40 AM

It's not a top-down action RPG. It's an action game, full stop.

And it's better, i prefer to have direct control of my character in top-down games, like in Alien Swarm, Shadowgrounds or Magicka.

That said, it would be interesting to have alternative control schemes. You would like to have the click-to-move method, i would like to try wasd for movement, like in Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light and Alien Swarm, putting the elements around.

James Johnson

01-28-2011, 05:48 AM

The fact that you have to press menu buttons four, five or more times just to select your choices says otherwise.

It's not hard to understand. It's just indicative that the programmers are completely ignorant of interface conventions for top-down action RPGs. And ignoring interface conventions is only forgivable if you do things better.

I gave the game a minute to convince me that it was worth playing, and it utterly failed before I even left the first room. Broken menus, unskippable cutscenes, no basic pathfinding so that I don't have to babysit my character just to examine the items in the environment that you are clearly supposed to click on. I have a hundred different games I could play, why would I bother wasting time on one that's obviously incompetently put together?

Why didn't you just download the demo?

PhoenixRising

01-28-2011, 06:04 AM

It's not a top-down action RPG. It's an action game, full stop.

So? That doesn't excuse shitty controls. Next you'll be telling me that it's okay for games to be crappy if they are cheap.

And it's better, i prefer to have direct control of my character in top-down games, like in Alien Swarm, Shadowgrounds or Magicka.

Adding pathfinding doesn't take away direct control of your character. It means that you don't have to babysit them in the trivial situations. This is a basic, basic, part of software design. If there is an interface standard, then you must follow it unless you are doing something that works better. Even if you are doing something that works better you still provide the other interfaces for those people who don't agree with you because you aren't writing software for yourself, you are writing it for your customers. Your control preferences really don't matter one bit compared to what the customers want.

That said, it would be interesting to have alternative control schemes. You would like to have the click-to-move method, i would like to try wasd for movement, like in Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light and Alien Swarm, putting the elements around.

Alternative control schemes are not just interesting. They are mandatory.

Why didn't you just download the demo?

Because I mistakenly trusted the opinions of the people raving about the game here. But, you really don't actually have a point, because if I had just tried the demo I'd be spending just as much time warning people away from this piece of trash until the glaring performance issues, virtually unworkable controls, total inability to skip the "voice acting", and lack of basic save game functionality are fixed.

Oh, and I was wrong, it actually requires a triple-click to get the menus to register that you want to do something.

Razgon

01-28-2011, 06:10 AM

Since so many people rave about it, I guess the controls seems fine to most. They do to me, anyways.

You do seem very mad about it, though - perhaps just ignore the game then, instead of getting heartburn?

01-28-2011, 06:11 AM

It's just indicative that the programmers are completely ignorant of interface conventions for top-down action RPGs

Not a top-down action RPG.

Broken menus

Can't say I've noticed this, but ok.

unskippable cutscenes

Press space.

no basic pathfinding so that I don't have to babysit my character just to examine the items in the environment that you are clearly supposed to click on.

There are very few things to click on. Holding a button down isn't exactly babysitting. If you played it for a minute I'm struggling to think of where exactly you go to...

I have a hundred different games I could play, why would I bother wasting time on one that's obviously incompetently put together?

I'd love to see what you make of the first minute of a lot of games, really.

PhoenixRising

01-28-2011, 06:25 AM

Not a top-down action RPG.

Once again, so? That doesn't excuse leaving out basic functionality, nor does it excuse the fact that the game menus don't even work.

There are very few things to click on. Holding a button down isn't exactly babysitting. If you played it for a minute I'm struggling to think of where exactly you go to...

Like I said, the pre-tutorial. There are two pictures on the first level that give you an examine prompt. If you click on the first one your character takes a single step towards it. So you hold the mouse button down and he walks into the desk and stops there. You get annoyed at how the developer clearly is incompetent if they can't be bothered to add pathfinding and wonder if they bothered to do so for the enemies you are expecting to face at some point. You walk out into the first hallway, the game pauses for an interminable amount of time to show you which staircase you're supposed to go down. You decide to explore and talk to the characters scattered around. Realizing that you are expected to hold the mouse button down to walk over to them you quit the game because you don't want to waste your time on something that plays like it was made before 1995.

I'd love to see what you make of the first minute of a lot of games, really.

Most aren't worth playing. Those that are at least leave the irritation out of that first minute or show you some reason to bother investing any time into them. Magicka doesn't bother to show me why I should spend my only daily half hour of free time fighting the interface instead of playing something like League of Legends.

Since so many people rave about it, I guess the controls seems fine to most. They do to me, anyways.

Popularity is not an indicator of quality.

You do seem very mad about it, though - perhaps just ignore the game then, instead of getting heartburn?

Why don't you stop being a childish idiot and treating criticism of things that you like as though it's criticism of your person? I'm not mad at the game. I'm mad at the idiots here and everywhere who feel the need to pretend that their decisions are perfect.

01-28-2011, 06:37 AM

So basically your problem is that you don't like holding a button down to walk. OK. Bearing in mind that the simple controls are part of the game design - manual walking and manual spell creation + casting - I think we can safely say you just don't want this game to be what it is.

A normal reaction to walking into a desk is to go "Oh right, I need to move manually", not blow your top at how incompetent the developers are. It's part of the game design. It makes sense in this game.

PhoenixRising

01-28-2011, 07:09 AM

So basically your problem is that you don't like holding a button down to walk.

That was the final straw for a game that is so poorly programmed that they can't even manage to make the main menu register single mouseclicks, have the opening cutscene run without a ridiculous amount of choppiness, yes. I haven't seen performance that bad in a cutscene since the late 90's and the initial release of DVDs.

A normal reaction to walking into a desk is to go "Oh right, I need to move manually", not blow your top at how incompetent the developers are. It's part of the game design. It makes sense in this game.

I wasn't angry until people here started using the is-ought fallacy to defend the lack of polish on this game.

McKnight

01-28-2011, 07:15 AM

That was the final straw for a game that is so poorly programmed that they can't even manage to make the main menu register single mouseclicks, have the opening cutscene run without a ridiculous amount of choppiness, yes. I haven't seen performance that bad in a cutscene since the late 90's and the initial release of DVDs.

I wasn't angry until people here started using the is-ought fallacy to defend the lack of polish on this game.

There's a complete difference talking about bugs and lack of polish which is what you are doing now, then criticizing what is obviously a fundamental design choice which is what you were doing earlier.

Please come back when you can actually follow a conversation competently.

Razgon

01-28-2011, 07:25 AM

I'll refrain from commenting anymore on your issues since you seem too upset to actually discuss it without resorting to name calling.

Anyways - the one thing that bugs me about the game, is the design decision to not have save games until the end of the chapter. Seems like a poor choice, when so many people may have to leave a game from time to time.

PhoenixRising

01-28-2011, 07:28 AM

There's a complete difference talking about bugs and lack of polish which is what you are doing now, then criticizing what is obviously a fundamental design choice which is what you were doing earlier.

Please come back when you can actually follow a conversation competently.

Okay dipshit. Since you're obviously incapable of even the most basic reading comprehension, why don't I rehash my posts in this thread so far. Hopefully you have a least one degree so that I'm not wasting my time trying to exain something to somebody who has already failed at life.

Since the lack of polish and general bugginess were already being discussed when I made my first post, there seemed to be little reason to complain more about them. I did, however, mention them by my third post in this thread so hopefully you are able to remember a few pages of text for the thirty seconds or so it takes to read the next page.

That the developers made a deliberate design choice to make their game play like it was developed for the Apple II in no way makes that a good decision. Go look up the is-ought fallacy, and try to stay out of discussions involing your intellectual superiors until you have some basic understanding of how to read and more mental capacity to follow arguments than my 89 year old alzheimers ridden grandparents.

Telefrog

01-28-2011, 07:28 AM

I tried the demo last night. That experience, coupled with people's impressions of the full game, definitely taught me that I need to pass on this one. I love the ideas here, but the game is just too buggy and unfriendly for me to buy.

Edit: Holy crap. PhoenixRising needs to take a break already.

McKnight

01-28-2011, 07:29 AM

01-28-2011, 07:32 AM

Shellfishguy

01-28-2011, 07:33 AM

Okay dipshit. Since you're obviously incapable of even the most basic reading comprehension, why don't I rehash my posts in this thread so far. Hopefully you have a least one degree so that I'm not wasting my time trying to exain something to somebody who has already failed at life.

Since the lack of polish and general bugginess were already being discussed when I made my first post, there seemed to be little reason to complain more about them. I did, however, mention them by my third post in this thread so hopefully you are able to remember a few pages of text for the thirty seconds or so it takes to read the next page.

That the developers made a deliberate design choice to make their game play like it was developed for the Apple II in no way makes that a good decision. Go look up the is-ought fallacy, and try to stay out of discussions involing your intellectual superiors until you have some basic understanding of how to read and more mental capacity to follow arguments than my 89 year old alzheimers ridden grandparents.

Ok it's probably because I've been playing a lot of WoW, but there is really only one response that seems to fit you're rather high level of rage.

lol umadbro?

McKnight

01-28-2011, 07:36 AM

Heh, I was literally about to type that but thought it was a bit too crass ;)

Hunty

01-28-2011, 07:46 AM

Deary me. When I played the demo last night I didn't entirely get on with the hold button to move scheme either, but as with most unusual systems, it seems like a learning curve thing.

Isn't Phoenix the alt of some disgruntled guy who copped a banning? Might be wrong though. Either way, seems like they could do with a nice lie down.

Velvet Elvis

01-28-2011, 08:08 AM

PhoenixRising hates having fun.

01-28-2011, 08:12 AM

Isn't Phoenix the alt of some disgruntled guy who copped a banning? Might be wrong though. Either way, seems like they could do with a nice lie down.

Presumably. Pretty much every post is an attack of some kind.

AlanQ

01-28-2011, 08:17 AM

I wasn't angry until people here started using the is-ought fallacy to defend the lack of polish on this game.

There's no such thing as an "is-ought fallacy" fwiw.

Janster

01-28-2011, 08:29 AM

Just had a 2 player adventure run that finally worked, a few small bugs, but nothing show stopping...was awesome, Thunderbolt has a 50/50 chance of killing enemy or your friend...I use it ALL the time.

TurinTur

01-28-2011, 08:32 AM

Wait, i am lost, the last 20 posts are new for me. Who defended the lack of polish?

Well, have this to refocus the thread
http://img809.imageshack.us/img809/3200/magickarambo.jpg

Stridergg

01-28-2011, 08:41 AM

Hehe, Phoenix should play one minute of some other game and start spamming that game's thread.

Or he could try one minute of sex, that should make him pretty angry too. :)

James Johnson

01-28-2011, 08:58 AM

Okay dipshit. Since you're obviously incapable of even the most basic reading comprehension, why don't I rehash my posts in this thread so far. Hopefully you have a least one degree so that I'm not wasting my time trying to exain something to somebody who has already failed at life.

You're trying to troll the people who enjoy and play apologist for Magicka when it is, objectively, broken from a technical standpoint. The people who talk about the game admit it's completely broken from a technical standpoint, and that's a ripe opportunity to smash the hell out of that illogical behavior by pretending to completely misunderstand the point of the game's design and mechanics like its controls. I get it.

You also say that you didn't play the demo because people were singing its praises, and yet every single article and post says "It's great but broken," so that's also a ripe wad of shit that suggests you haven't even played the game, let alone the demo. Trolling is fun. I get it.

You're trying to be edgy and cool and think that works to get you some QT3 cred and asserts your dominance over this forum's famous hazing process and post-count elitism (both of which I think are excellent). I get it.

Here's the thing. You're trying too hard. Way, way too hard. Inane rants? More subtle trolling, like claiming you didn't try the demo and crying about the controls? Bravo. A good troll is genuinely funny and can bring issues a game has to light in a clever way.

The problem? You're not a good troll. You're godawful, in fact. You let your feigned rage turn into real rage, which is where trolling stops being funny and starts being sad and pathetic. You're mad, bro.

tl;dr:

REPORTED

Velvet Elvis

01-28-2011, 09:01 AM

Or he could try one minute of sex, that should make him pretty angry too. :)

No basic pathfinding!

Adam B

01-28-2011, 09:04 AM

Naeblis, you're my hero for that pic.

No basic pathfinding!
I'll admit it, I chuckled. It's okay to be twelve years old sometimes, heh.

So anyway, is multi fixed yet?

PhoenixRising

01-28-2011, 09:28 AM

There's no such thing as an "is-ought fallacy" fwiw.

It's otherwise known as the naturalistic fallacy.

Pogo

01-28-2011, 09:35 AM

The asshole is sorta right, actually. Hold-click to move sucks. Fuck whatever genre this game is supposed to be in, because it's clearly ARPG conventions that it's going to be compared to.

Stridergg

01-28-2011, 09:49 AM

The asshole is sorta right, actually. Hold-click to move sucks. Fuck whatever genre this game is supposed to be in, because it's clearly ARPG conventions that it's going to be compared to.

Well, it's debatable actually. In a game with this much friendly (and not so friendly) fire, where a beam of horrible death can appear in front of you any second while you are walking, in this kind of game I prefer to be able to let go of the mouse to stop my character from walking. As opposed to frantically trying to click somewhere else to avoid death.

Another thing is that developing competent pathfinding is not an ordinary task, as evidenced by many (even AAA) games where it was done poorly. For an indie developer, this might be a task that would take way too much effort for very little gain, effort that could easily backfire, effort that could have been applied somewhere else to, you know, improve the game in a much more meaningful way. Like testing, lol. :)

BoyFrance

01-28-2011, 09:49 AM

The asshole is sorta right, actually. Hold-click to move sucks. Fuck whatever genre this game is supposed to be in, because it's clearly ARPG conventions that it's going to be compared to.
Why? The game has more in common with top down shooters like Chaos Engine and Alien breed than games like Diablo, and as far as I know those games never used click to move.

TurinTur

01-28-2011, 10:13 AM

Naeblis, you're my hero for that pic.

I'll admit it, I chuckled. It's okay to be twelve years old sometimes, heh.

So anyway, is multi fixed yet?

I will give credit where it's due: i found it in the Magicka's thread of Penny Arcade forums.

About multi: wait one more week. Play single player for now. Multiplayer is something complex, not a little feature that can be fixed in two days.

PhoenixRising

01-28-2011, 10:18 AM

Well, it's debatable actually. In a game with this much friendly (and not so friendly) fire, where a beam of horrible death can appear in front of you any second while you are walking, in this kind of game I prefer to be able to let go of the mouse to stop my character from walking. As opposed to frantically trying to click somewhere else to avoid death.

This is an actual valid point. And the obvious solution is to either have it be an option to choose, or have it so that you only move as long as you hold the button down.

Another thing is that developing competent pathfinding is not an ordinary task, as evidenced by many (even AAA) games where it was done poorly. For an indie developer, this might be a task that would take way too much effort for very little gain, effort that could easily backfire, effort that could have been applied somewhere else to, you know, improve the game in a much more meaningful way. Like testing, lol. :)

Well, since they already have beam spells, and already have monsters that move towards you, they already have the simple sort of pathfinding needed for these kinds of problems implemented.

Phydeaux

01-28-2011, 10:34 AM

I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to hear that the lack of player pathfinding is intentional. Not only does this give you the sort of control spoken of earlier, but it means there's one more thing for your brain to keep track of during all the chaos.

It's not enough to click where you want to go, then mouse towards what you want to kill, enter the elements, and then fire. Oooh no. You have to enter the elements while actively moving in one direction, and then you need to move the mouse pointer towards the badguys (and hurry up! This means you're not moving anymore!) and fire. How many times have you cast something straight ahead instead of behind you? :D

Anyway... that. Also, it means it's naturally quite difficult to cast while moving. This is a tempest in a teapot. I cannot imagine why you're throwing a hissy over this.

Blips

01-28-2011, 10:56 AM

I guess it comes down to personal experience and preference, but I personally have found the control scheme to be completely logical / natural. ie: from my first seconds with the demo, I clicked on a location and my wizard moved for only a second - I held down the left mouse button and he moved towards it as long as the button remained pressed. After that there were no issues.

I realize some people are having bad performance despite good system specs and that the game doesn't start for a small minority but I wouldn't call the game broken... Multiplayer is broken, sure, but the single player was quite stable and playable for me.

Anyway I'm looking forward to the updates that they're working on to work out the technical issues so that the game can be enjoyed by all. Side note, where the hell is my versus mode? I really want that damnit!

Pogo

01-28-2011, 11:20 AM

Why? The game has more in common with top down shooters like Chaos Engine and Alien breed than games like Diablo, and as far as I know those games never used click to move.

Ok, but those games also had bearable collision that didn't make you feel stuck. It seems like a lot of objects in this game give you a hard stop and results in unnecessary finicky-ness.

talsworthy

01-28-2011, 11:56 AM

Although we can't justify a broken game on release I am impressed with how these guys are getting the patches out

Latest one which is imminent is looking pretty good!

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1735553

shang

01-28-2011, 12:09 PM

Just played several chapters in three player coop, and didn't have any disconnects, crashes or troubles to join. Either it's getting better or we got lucky.

TurinTur

01-28-2011, 12:10 PM

And this? /raises eyebrow

# Balanced Dwarf Priests (Swedish Chef Brigade); are now more difficult.
# Balanced Chapter 9 boss; is now more difficult.
# Balanced Chapter 12 boss; is now more difficult.

Great, more difficulty in the last levels...

PhoenixRising

01-28-2011, 12:10 PM

Ok, but those games also had bearable collision that didn't make you feel stuck. It seems like a lot of objects in this game give you a hard stop and results in unnecessary finicky-ness.

I tried it again today at lunch on a more powerful computer (The general silliness of the writing at the beginning drew me back in), and I think that the apparent stickiness of the collision has a lot to do with whether your computer can handle the graphics. The wizard slides along obstacles quite nicely at this point.

01-28-2011, 12:23 PM

I was going to suggest that the stuttering and your problems with the menu were one and the same thing.

MrCoffee

01-28-2011, 12:31 PM

Wait, i am lost, the last 20 posts are new for me. Who defended the lack of polish?

Well, have this to refocus the thread
http://img809.imageshack.us/img809/3200/magickarambo.jpg

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h232/Fedkn/RAPTOR1.jpg

I tried.

Lazy Shiftless Bastard

01-28-2011, 12:35 PM

Why don't you stop being a childish idiot and treating criticism of things that you like as though it's criticism of your person? I'm not mad at the game. I'm mad at the idiots here

try to stay out of discussions involing your intellectual superiors

I tried it again today at lunch on a more powerful computer (The general silliness of the writing at the beginning drew me back in), and I think that the apparent stickiness of the collision has a lot to do with whether your computer can handle the graphics. The wizard slides along obstacles quite nicely at this point.

So awesome.

I personally have no problems with the controls, they feel completely natural to me after about 10 seconds. The game may be buggy and wouldn't launch at all on Wednesday for me, but I love it.

Spoilerish reply to something before the raging started:

I've played the battle with the king strapped to The Machine a few times, and even though I tend to get blown up or blow myself up (or crashed the last time) fighting the wizard, there is a very easy way to destroy it:
Walk up next to The Machine, cast Grease so it's all under The Machine, cast a 5 fire flamethrower over it, and run away. Congratulations, you will have destroyed The Machine when it finishes burning.

Seriously, there are lots of destructive spells and the steamlightning beam is overpowered, but whenever I'm stuck on a huge boss it's a grease fire to save the day.

Also, a spoilery question:
Those crazy black beastmen who run around initially taking 0 damage from everything; I eventually always kill them so they're not a problem per se but has anyone noticed what it is that actually makes them start taking damage?

idrisz

01-28-2011, 01:16 PM

Those crazy black beastmen who run around initially taking 0 damage from everything; I eventually always kill them so they're not a problem per se but has anyone noticed what it is that actually makes them start taking damage?

beam attack to destroy their shield and armor, then they take normal damage from everything. I think pretty much any spell attacks will destroy their shield.

AaronSofaer

01-28-2011, 02:55 PM

Well, since they already have beam spells, and already have monsters that move towards you, they already have the simple sort of pathfinding needed for these kinds of problems implemented.

The mob pathfinding is utterly terrible.

They need to talk to the guys who wrote their own pathfinding algorithms for that Starcraft AI.

shang

01-28-2011, 08:47 PM

Spoilerish reply to something before the raging started:

I've played the battle with the king strapped to The Machine a few times, and even though I tend to get blown up or blow myself up (or crashed the last time) fighting the wizard, there is a very easy way to destroy it:
Walk up next to The Machine, cast Grease so it's all under The Machine, cast a 5 fire flamethrower over it, and run away. Congratulations, you will have destroyed The Machine when it finishes burning.

You can also cast a spherical shield that encloses both you and the troll powering The Machine. This will let you completely ignore the warlocks until The Machine is destroyed. I used water spray, cold and a fully charged rock x 5 to wreck it.

shang

01-29-2011, 02:39 AM

BTW I recommend trying an experiment where you play completely without beams to up the challenge a bit. It's a lot more interesting and varied experience.

idrisz

01-29-2011, 03:01 AM

BTW I recommend trying an experiment where you play completely without beams to up the challenge a bit. It's a lot more interesting and varied experience.

Steam+lightning+3x arcane aoe explosion!!! faster than beam ahahahah, or rain + thunderstorm, you do 15k damage a lightning bolt.

TurinTur

01-29-2011, 06:27 AM

Yetis are pure bullshit.

Before the game was hard in a fun way, with some parts more challenging but doable. But it seems near the end the developers decided to put OP enemies to somehow balance the fact the played have OP spells (steam, beams, thunder) so the game could be difficult in the last levels. I would have prefered not to have OP spells and not to swallow this kind of fast, tough, uber lethal enemies.

Tman

01-30-2011, 02:41 AM

What is about games you want to like make you so much more pissed when they are broken?? It's like Escape from New York. Awesome concept, fucking horrible implementation.

Magicka is the game I love to hate. I played coop on my house LAN with my son and we played for several hours until we both crashed (losing all save games in the process). Those few hours were so much fun. But then the crash & then reminding myself no matter how much I like this in coop, it sucks ballz in single player.

But coop, while fun, has so many, many issues.

I just need to step away from this game, but it is so hard because it has so much potential.

Fenris99

01-30-2011, 06:59 AM

How do I cast spells that I select off the mousewheel?

How do I macro spells?

MrCoffee

01-30-2011, 07:03 AM

From the little i played on the demo, you have to select the spells that are displayed from under the character and then press spacebar.

talsworthy

01-30-2011, 07:14 AM

How do I cast spells that I select off the mousewheel?

How do I macro spells?

The mousewheel indicates what you need to do to cast the spell. As you do it, the relevant element will then highlight.

Armando Penblade

01-30-2011, 07:24 AM

And in this instance, select means enter all the elements, stocking them up. If you get them all in the right order, the game will prompt you to press space to cast.

Number me amongst those that think click-hold to move is awful, but I'm still having a lot of fun. Hoping to play some coop tonight, if the game will let me!

TurinTur

01-30-2011, 07:24 AM

The spells from the mosuewhell are magicks, and the are cast with the spacebar at the end.

What do you mean, macro spells?

Shellfishguy

01-30-2011, 07:38 AM

I think he means setting up say a QFSAAA and being able to cast it with one press rather than hitting the whole thing each time. And the answer I believe is that you can't.

Fenris99

01-30-2011, 08:09 AM

Oy I keep getting knocked off the cliff in chapter 3.

Kalle

01-30-2011, 08:15 AM

Teleport staff helps.

Fenris99

01-30-2011, 09:33 AM

Yeah gotta work that into my tactics.

Blips

01-30-2011, 09:36 AM

From their forums:

Here's an preliminary list of stuff we're fixing (or have fixed - we're testing now)

* disappearing savegames
* multiple crash fixes (randoms and one offs' - straight from your reports)
* Don't cross the beams crash fixed
* High end machine stuttering (so you can finally justify that 8-core, triple graphics card computer you wanted to buy)
* improved connection messages (mostly error messages)
* Characters shouldn't get stuck during cutscenes as much.
* numerous chapter improvements (collission, cutscenes, navigation, lockups, etc)

We've also balanced a bunch of things in the game for an overall smoother experience. We'll keep at it on Monday and will deliver the patch to steam as usual around 7-8 PM Central European Time.

Have you reported a issue that's not on the list? Don't worry, we've fixed much more than is on the list otherwise it's on the todo.

Teiman

01-30-2011, 11:13 AM

I don't think controls can be any different, having asdw already taken by the elements, you can't have asdw for movement,so the next thing is to click to move you character. I find the controls naturals, maybe a bit complex.. having the self-spell, the area of effect, and the beam,.. 3 different effects for the same spell.

Fenris99

01-30-2011, 11:42 AM

What is the first element for thunderbolt?

Fenris99

01-30-2011, 11:45 AM

This game really wants a difficulty setting.

Fenris99

01-30-2011, 12:12 PM

Way too difficult. Save points way too far apart. Exiting forces you to start the chapter from the beginning.

Not liking this.

AaronSofaer

01-30-2011, 12:28 PM

What is the first element for thunderbolt?

Steam, which is made by Water and Fire.

Thunderbolt is QFASA + Space.

Get your fingers used to hitting that fast, because QFASAA is the highest-damage weapon enchant, the highest damage nova, and the highest damage beam-attack. :)

Fenris99

01-30-2011, 12:28 PM

Steam, which is made by Water and Fire.

Thunderbolt is QFASA + Space.

Get your fingers used to hitting that fast, because QFASAA is the highest-damage weapon enchant, the highest damage nova, and the highest damage beam-attack. :)
Yeah I got that by trail and error. Still waaay too difficult

Fenris99

01-30-2011, 12:32 PM

So I finally get past the druid battle, and now there's an even harder battle. No end to the chapter in sight. Quite frustrating.

AaronSofaer

01-30-2011, 12:40 PM

So I finally get past the druid battle, and now there's an even harder battle. No end to the chapter in sight. Quite frustrating.

Which battles are these? I don't remember any Druid battles other than the Mind Battle in whatever chapter it is you fight the big bad for the first time.

TurinTur

01-30-2011, 12:41 PM

Heh, those levels were the good ones. Challenging but doable and fun. The last two levels are... :S

AaronSofaer

01-30-2011, 12:46 PM

You want challenging, go kill the entire dwarven army by yourself.

Without a save-checkpoint until quite a ways afterwards... bleigh!

Fenris99

01-30-2011, 12:48 PM

Which battles are these? I don't remember any Druid battles other than the Mind Battle in whatever chapter it is you fight the big bad for the first time.
3 Druids, summoning trees.... crazy. After that, I get the horde of leaping goat-men smacking me around. And in the middle of that, another druid makes an appearance, summoning yet more trees.

Too difficult to be fun.

AaronSofaer

01-30-2011, 12:57 PM

Hm. I think I remember that fight... The trick seems to be, as is so often the case, to blow up the Druids very quickly with steamarcanelightning beams of explodey death.

The beastmen you can hold off with shields or just explode with steamarcanelightning novas of explodey death.

I seem to be detecting a trend... *sigh* They really should nerf that combo.

Blips

01-30-2011, 12:59 PM

You want challenging, go kill the entire dwarven army by yourself.

Without a save-checkpoint until quite a ways afterwards... bleigh!

Simple, water mines and frost mines + steam / lightning / arcane beam :D

Noterist

01-30-2011, 02:47 PM

Been playing the singleplayer quite a bit and having a great time. Well worth the money, doubly so if the multiplayer gets fixed.

Can't help but feel like Steam/Lightning/Arcane ruins the game though. I choose not to use it in favour of screwing about.

Therlun

01-30-2011, 03:03 PM

There are no spell macros as that would make obsolete the main point of the game. One click casts of powerful spells would make it a (not very good) standard action rpg.

While the Steam lightning combo is indeed overpowered, there are many other combinations that are useful.

Some of my favourites:
Grease and fire is very high damage. Freeze and earth is too (both require at least two spells and more work, but also provide a nice change from always using steam lighting).

Spamming ice +RMB as fast as you can is a nice shotgun-gatling gun. A weaker, less AOE version is spamming earth+rmb.

Fire shield fire x3 AOE is a wall of fire that ignites and panics melee monsters(unless they are already directly next to you). Optionally followed by shield fire+yourself allows you to walk out of it unhamred.
Fire shield earth fire x2 AOE is the same but with a solid wall, useful to give you a bit of breathing time.

Shield earth times x on yourself is a strong shield (immobilizing you though) that allows you to queue up other spells while monsters are wailing at you. Also works with ice instead of earth. Breaks when you cast anything.

Shield+RMB is a useful, very quick cast directional shield to give you some preparation time (especially useful against casters as beams bounce off and projectiles are deflected) while not being as restrictive as shield+aoe.

Freeze or ice +earth rmb gives a freezing ball, good for slowing large groups.

I'm in chapter 8 and so far there was no show-stopper fight. If you have trouble with a fight the general "you are a nub" advice holds true. :P Try to change your tactics and spells.
For instance, I had fun trying to kill the first boss (the giant snake) with nothing but solid walls (if it hits them with its head it takes damage).

Enidigm

01-30-2011, 03:07 PM

I use the Shield + RMB and then make some of the various land mines, like Shield + Arcane, firewall, ect. Then just sit back and kill kill kill in (mostly) complete safety.

If you bind the various firewalls to your sword, you can project them in a line instead of perpendicular to your facing.

Jab

01-30-2011, 03:24 PM

Chapter 12 I think is where not having spell balance makes the game start to fall apart. The ice yetis attack from multiple sides and the only spell that does decent damage to them is the steam beam.

Even when I put up shields it doesn't help as the second they fall I get swarmed by two or more yetis who can kill you fairly quickly. I basically just kept spamming teleport to get by them. They're just too dangerous I think for single player but won't be so bad when you have multiple players fighting them.

Sarkus

01-30-2011, 03:36 PM

Tman

01-30-2011, 03:52 PM

3 Druids, summoning trees.... crazy. After that, I get the horde of leaping goat-men smacking me around. And in the middle of that, another druid makes an appearance, summoning yet more trees.

Too difficult to be fun.

I remember that. I hated that level. I almost lost my mouse to that fight. What did it for me, was going through the same level with coop then coming back to it later. It is exceedingly frustrating, but it's nothing compared to what is to come.

I will say that it just gets harder. Level 6 was the hardest so far. Level 6 sucks so much it will make you rage. I just started the yeti level, and after dying 10x, I'm currently taking a break (and that is playing coop ffs). 7, 8,9 & 10 were manageable compared to 6.

James Johnson

01-30-2011, 04:30 PM

For instance, I had fun trying to kill the first boss (the giant snake) with nothing but solid walls (if it hits them with its head it takes damage).

I wasn't aware there was any other way to kill him.

Pogo

01-30-2011, 04:33 PM

I ran under the head a second after he popped out of the ground with a level five meteor queued up for self-cast. I kept doing this with some success until I figured out the wall method.

Therlun

01-30-2011, 04:37 PM

I wasn't aware there was any other way to kill him.

Every time he lunges at you he can be hit by almost any spell. Which is how I defeated him the first time... just waiting for the right moment to fire a projectile. Two or three lv 5 earth projectiles are enough to kill him.

Blips

01-30-2011, 04:41 PM

So can someone finally explain why

spoilers

spoilers

spoilers

You have to fight Vlad twice?

BleedTheFreak

01-30-2011, 04:55 PM

Argh.

I'm not sure a simple bold "spoilers" is really going to work there, but thanks.

Harkonis

01-30-2011, 05:07 PM

Argh.

I'm not sure a simple bold "spoilers" is really going to work there, but thanks.

yep, spoiled it for me as well. :(

Blips

01-30-2011, 05:08 PM

Argh.

I'm not sure a simple bold "spoilers" is really going to work there, but thanks.

Not sure how else I could have formatted the message, but I've since gone up and beyond the point of redundancy. Sorry for spoiling it.

Fenris99

01-30-2011, 05:19 PM

I remember that. I hated that level. I almost lost my mouse to that fight. What did it for me, was going through the same level with coop then coming back to it later. It is exceedingly frustrating, but it's nothing compared to what is to come.

I will say that it just gets harder. Level 6 was the hardest so far. Level 6 sucks so much it will make you rage. I just started the yeti level, and after dying 10x, I'm currently taking a break (and that is playing coop ffs). 7, 8,9 & 10 were manageable compared to 6.
Great.

BleedTheFreak

01-30-2011, 05:44 PM

I'm stuck on the level 6 boss - which the latest patch helpfully added difficulty too - I just keep getting knocked off the islands. WTF developers, don't you WANT me to have any fun?

AaronSofaer

01-30-2011, 05:46 PM

Reldan

01-30-2011, 06:22 PM

Yeah, that was a pretty challenging one. The first and second islands are really easy, but the third one's a bitch, it's true! I found that using shields was key, and using air was actually really useful, due to the ability to knock people off the island.

The third island is the one with the two black warlocks right? Arcane mines can one shot them by simply blowing them off the platform.

All of the bosses in level 6 except maybe the druids die pretty easily to Thunderbolt.

AaronSofaer

01-30-2011, 06:35 PM

The third island is the one with the two black warlocks right? Arcane mines can one shot them by simply blowing them off the platform.

Huh? Two black warlocks? It was three enemies, iirc, when I did it.

Then again, I think they changed it...

Tman

01-30-2011, 06:37 PM

I think this game is trying too hard to be Super Meat Boy. Only 3% of players have completed the game.

http://steamcommunity.com/stats/Magicka/achievements

I'm hanging my wizard robe & hat up after about half-dozen crashes today in coop. To make matters worse, it completely disabled my steam friends and had to reboot my machine to get it to working.

This development team really fubar'd this release. Anyone and I mean anyone sitting on the fence should wait this one out.

Armando Penblade

01-30-2011, 06:52 PM

Armando Penblade on Steam if anyone's up for trying a game tonight.

I got through the entire SPOILERY SPOILERY TIMES ship portion of the 3rd(?) chapter. I was charging a fireball when it cut to the next scene. I was unable to do anything upon reaching the next area except stack runes; couldn't actually cast or move at all. Had to quit the game and lose my progress :(

Blips

01-30-2011, 07:16 PM

Hanacker

01-30-2011, 07:40 PM

BleedTheFreak

01-30-2011, 07:59 PM

shang

01-30-2011, 09:13 PM

EDIT: Not that it matters, since I seemingly CAN NOT beat the chapter 6 boss...

If you are completely stuck, there's an easy (but boring) way that works in most boss fights: Cast an AoE shield and boost it to maximum power then just keep throwing wall and mine spells outside the shield,and re-boosting the shield as necessary. Casting mines from your sword gives you decent reach too.

TurinTur

01-30-2011, 11:58 PM

I thought it was pretty obvious that this game was balanced for the multi-player so I don't get the complaints about it being hard on single-player mode. Yeah, it is hard on single-player. For $10 I didn't expect a game that would be balanced both ways.

First, I think it's not so hard to balance for both ways. You can always use a programmatic method to do it instead of doing "by hand", raising or lowering the % of enemies or hit points factoring the number of players. It's a quick and dirty method, but it's better than nothing.

Also, not only is not balanced for singleplayer, it's also not very well balanced for multiplayer. The game is the same with 2 or 4 players, in the same way the game doesn't scale between 1 and 2 players, it doesn't scale between 2 and 4.

shang

01-31-2011, 12:38 AM

I haven't tried with four players yet, but personally I've found the difficulty pretty similar with one, two and three players. Friendly fire seems like decent auto-balancer, since you can't go quite as crazy with AoE spells in coop (well, you CAN, but..).

I've played coop upto chapter 6 and I've just entered the swamps in my single player campaign (is that 9 or 10)? So far, I think the difficulty level has been quite enjoyable in both modes.

Sebmojo

01-31-2011, 02:17 AM

Useful noob tip - hold down shift and right click as fast as you can while rolling your fingers along SDF. You absolutely carpet your vicinity with murder, and it pretty much just destroys everything.

Also, does everyone know about the healing staff near the rat-cellar lady in chapter 1? It heals enemies too, but that's a small price to pay - particularly as it heals your shield for you without casting any spells.

Teiman

01-31-2011, 05:28 AM

I have played this weekend with a lot of random pubs.
- Is a very fun game!.
- Getting a game that is not bugged from begin to finish is very hard.

I like to play in pubs, because you get different experience. I like when people act organized, but Is fun the occasional group that play like a bunch of drunk people asking for trouble.

Theres something very wrong on the savegame system, ... my campaign got wiped by a multiplayer game.

Also... this is a game where you can get better, I could see a loong learning curve here, to almost demigod status.

Rob_Merritt

01-31-2011, 05:32 AM

I think this game is trying too hard to be Super Meat Boy. Only 3% of players have completed the game.

http://steamcommunity.com/stats/Magicka/achievements

You can't go by that. Steamworks achievements for non valve games have been broken for the past few months.

TurinTur

01-31-2011, 05:58 AM

You can't go by that. Steamworks achievements for non valve games have been broken for the past few months.

Are you sure? The % presented are logical. The most easy and early in the campaign have a high % (90%) and the most hard to do have the least %. Even the consecutive order have sense, 3.9% beat the second to last level and 3.3% the last level.

McKnight

01-31-2011, 06:33 AM

Yes but then a large number of people have stopped playing until MP becomes not broken.

Fenris99

01-31-2011, 07:21 AM

Did they advertise that it was primarly a co-op game and you can't beat it in single player? If I had seen/known that I'd probably have passed

Me too.

Harkonis

01-31-2011, 07:43 AM

Me too.

the trailers and ads I saw all made a point of showing that it was a co-op game and the main fun to be had was trying to not (or to) kill your friends.

Stridergg

01-31-2011, 07:44 AM

You can't go by that. Steamworks achievements for non valve games have been broken for the past few months.

Sure you can, it's a percentage based statistics calculated for a quite large number of people, most likely majority of the playerbase. 3% is 3%, doesn't matter if it's out of 10K people or 12K people.

Unless you are trying to say that people who buy games on Direct2Drive are *significantly* more likely to finish a game than people who buy it on Steam. :)

AndrewM

01-31-2011, 07:46 AM

The game has only been out a week, so it isn't surprising only a few people have finished it.

Telefrog

01-31-2011, 08:00 AM

the trailers and ads I saw all made a point of showing that it was a co-op game and the main fun to be had was trying to not (or to) kill your friends.

All the trailers pressed the multiplayer aspect. I think the problem is that if you offer SP, then you should really balance for SP.

Left 4 Dead is totally playable as a SP game. It's obviously not as fun, but it's not a broken experience.

Fenris99

01-31-2011, 08:03 AM

the trailers and ads I saw all made a point of showing that it was a co-op game and the main fun to be had was trying to not (or to) kill your friends.
Steam shows it as a single player and multi player game.

If it isn't mean to be played single-player, that tag should be removed.

Fenris99

01-31-2011, 08:04 AM

Left 4 Dead is totally playable as a SP game. It's obviously not as fun, but it's not a broken experience.
Yep. And I've played it single player and enjoyed it too.

TurinTur

01-31-2011, 08:05 AM

the trailers and ads I saw all made a point of showing that it was a co-op game and the main fun to be had was trying to not (or to) kill your friends.

Even then, the game have a mode to play alone, in single player. Like most games. If they put that mode, it shouldn't be that much to want a somewhat balanced and fun experience in that mode.

Not saying the game is too hard or too whatever in singleplayer. I had fun with it in single player, and while the game is in general a bit hard, it's not that much, at least until you reach the end where is more frustrating.

The thing with the game, it's imo not a problem of pure overall difficulty. Even in single player. It's a problem of

a) balance. In retrospective, the game have a few problems in the balance. You are fine using normal, tactical spells in 80% of the game. But there are some hard zones (some boss fights, the last 2 levels, a few big fights) where you have to use the ubergood spells (steam murder beam, thunderbolt + rain, etc). The problem with these spells is that they are too good, they reduce an interesting and challenging encounter into a few seconds of spamming the same 2 spells (perhaps before a shield, haste and time warp). At first it's only in a few hard fights. Later, when they throw at you tough enemy after tough enemy, it's just doing these two spells one and another time, putting shield on you, or doing another cheap magic like running with haste or invisibility and skipping fights. And of course, there is always the temptation to just use these spells even in the easy fights. Some players are like water, they run and flow using the path with least resistance. I can't blame them: lots of game have trained into search and use the path, that was the game.

b) bullshit moments. i.e they hit you and you fall to the sky. Repeatedly. That fight in level 6... grr...

c) annoying checkpoint save system. The game have both sparse checkpoints and "only really saving if you finish the level". This point is what aggravates the moments and zones that are annoying and turn them into very frustrating. In some moments if you are stuck in a boss fight but have to go and have to close the computer you want to kick the developer's face.

So imo the game is a diamond in the rough. Just fix these three points, fix the netoce, and i will be very happy.

Adam B

01-31-2011, 08:52 AM

I'm hosting a game called qt3 with password qt3 if anyone wants to come see if online co-op is working yet.

Blips

01-31-2011, 09:55 AM

I'm hosting a game called qt3 with password qt3 if anyone wants to come see if online co-op is working yet.

I think I'm going to wait till Monday's big patch before I attempt multiplayer again...

TurinTur

01-31-2011, 11:30 AM

Changelog for Patch #5 (1.3.3.4)- January 31st

Fixed issues/bugs

* Fixed save games disappearing when disconnecting from online game. (For real this time)
* Fixed crash for alternative character models appearing in cutscenes. (Chapter 7, Chapter 12).
* Fixed crash caused by conjuring large quantities of elements.
* Fixed crash due to beams merging.
* Fixed crash where Chapter 11 boss collided with shield.
* Fixed crash where Clients and servers would send old messages when reconnecting.
* Fixed high-end machine jitter.
* Improved network batching. (should result in serious network performance increase).
* Improved startup routine to prevent threading problems.
* Improved authentification on connect. (should result in fewer auth-failed)
* Fixed a missing file that resulted in french text not appearing correctly.
* Fixed immovable objects jittering.
* Fixed issue where characters would get stuck during cutscenes.
* Fixed issue where scripted player movement would remain after a cutscene.
* Fixed missing boss titles.
* Steam join through overlay fixed.
* Fixed Chapter 1 collision. (behind door)
* Fixed Chapter 3 collision. (you can now fall down the well)
* Fixed Chapter 7 cutscene lockups and other issues.
* Fixed Chapter 8 cutscene lockup.
* Fixed Chapter 8 navigation fixed.
* Fixed Chapter 9 cutscene lockups.
* Fixed Chapter 11 teleport issue.
* Fixed Chapter 12 cutscene lockup.
* Conflagration is now properly synced over network.

New features/balancing

* Chapter 3 now has proper pirates by the picnic.
* Chapter 8 now has manual exit at the end of level.
* Fire Damage increased from 40 to 60.
* Spawned summons now capped at 16 per player.
* Goblin Pirate damage reduced from 155 to 72.
* Added server list filter option for “Password”.
* Removed obsolete port option of game hosting (always hosted on 27016 anyways).
* Sever list sorting added (klick on the header).

Known Issues

* Self-shields sometimes get out of sync
* Network uplink bandwidth, while improved, can be demanding
* Steam attempts to install XNA framework every time game is launched or rare occasion
* "Too fancy for fireballs" achievement is sometimes not awarded
* Quitting the game while the credits are rolling will not award a game complete.
* Mouse outside screen in full screen with multiple monitors will minimize the game.

Wade42

01-31-2011, 11:36 AM

Changelog for Patch #5 (1.3.3.4)- January 31st
...
* Fixed Chapter 3 collision. (you can now fall down the well)
...

I remember trying to fall down just for giggles... anything down there, or is it just another way to die?

Tman

01-31-2011, 11:52 AM

Even then, the game have a mode to play alone, in single player. Like most games. If they put that mode, it shouldn't be that much to want a somewhat balanced and fun experience in that mode.

Not saying the game is too hard or too whatever in singleplayer. I had fun with it in single player, and while the game is in general a bit hard, it's not that much, at least until you reach the end where is more frustrating.

The thing with the game, it's imo not a problem of pure overall difficulty. Even in single player. It's a problem of

a) balance. In retrospective, the game have a few problems in the balance. You are fine using normal, tactical spells in 80% of the game. But there are some hard zones (some boss fights, the last 2 levels, a few big fights) where you have to use the ubergood spells (steam murder beam, thunderbolt + rain, etc). The problem with these spells is that they are too good, they reduce an interesting and challenging encounter into a few seconds of spamming the same 2 spells (perhaps before a shield, haste and time warp). At first it's only in a few hard fights. Later, when they throw at you tough enemy after tough enemy, it's just doing these two spells one and another time, putting shield on you, or doing another cheap magic like running with haste or invisibility and skipping fights. And of course, there is always the temptation to just use these spells even in the easy fights. Some players are like water, they run and flow using the path with least resistance. I can't blame them: lots of game have trained into search and use the path, that was the game.

b) bullshit moments. i.e they hit you and you fall to the sky. Repeatedly. That fight in level 6... grr...

c) annoying checkpoint save system. The game have both sparse checkpoints and "only really saving if you finish the level". This point is what aggravates the moments and zones that are annoying and turn them into very frustrating. In some moments if you are stuck in a boss fight but have to go and have to close the computer you want to kick the developer's face.

So imo the game is a diamond in the rough. Just fix these three points, fix the netoce, and i will be very happy.

Really excellent points.

I like that you bring up A) as this game could be really improved if you were forced to learn more than a small number of spells. Well put.

C) is where it magnifies the frustration. You can't take a break, otherwise you get to do it all over again. And chapter 6 would have been better if it had checkpoints at least on every other island in the sky instead of forcing you to rehash every single one every single time. AAAAAAARRRRGGGG!!!!!

Blips

01-31-2011, 11:52 AM

Did the main menu's table disappear for anyone else since the patch?

Telefrog

01-31-2011, 11:53 AM

* Quitting the game while the credits are rolling will not award a game complete.

That would certainly go a long way to explaining the 3% completion stat.

Morberis

01-31-2011, 12:36 PM

Crashes still seem to be prevalent. Several multiplayer games all ended in crashes.

Jab

01-31-2011, 12:38 PM

The good news, connectivity seems better, the bad news the game is still crashing. We were at the chapter 11 boss fight and it crashed. Not sure if it was from our beams or just the game acting up.

Chapter 11 is a low point for single player, too many enemies who can kill you quickly. Even in multi player we died constantly.

Morberis

01-31-2011, 12:41 PM

Seriously, and the amount of times where you're incapacitated is uh rather large. Almost every enemy seems to be able to do it (except skele's), and in the case of yeti's they instant kill you.

Reldan

01-31-2011, 04:23 PM

I finished the game in single player last night. I actually ended up using fully charged Rockx5 with Invisibility quite a bit to get through Chapter 11. The only reasonable way I found to deal with the yetis was Steam Lightning though - they just regenerate too fast to wear them down with anything that does less damage than that.

To be completely honest, the most fun I've had with the game was Challenge mode with friends. Feel free to attempt to use as much bullshit as possible, as you absolutely need it (but also doing nothing but steam lightning beams and thunderbolts won't just win the fights for you).

Noterist

01-31-2011, 05:15 PM

I can anecdotally confirm that the jitter bug has been fixed.

I just hit the yeti level myself and I'm determined not to use the steam beam to defeat it.

My tactic so far has been to throw a quick Water + Rock to soak them, then trap them in a forward arc of Lightening + Ice + Shield. This will freeze them long enough to easily charge up a full Rock x5 to kill them off. Still, I had to take a break from the level just now due to frustration :(

I noticed that the odd yeti will drop me after I discharge a spell, but I'm struggling to find the combination that reliably works. Anyone know why they're putting me down?

Reldan

01-31-2011, 06:07 PM

I found teleport is the most reliable way to get out of their hold.

Tman

01-31-2011, 06:13 PM

I noticed that the odd yeti will drop me after I discharge a spell, but I'm struggling to find the combination that reliably works. Anyone know why they're putting me down?

I hear that Yeti's don't like fire. Maybe you put yourself on fire?

Noterist

01-31-2011, 06:24 PM

I found teleport is the most reliable way to get out of their hold.
I tried this, but alas I am not always quick enough.

I hear that Yeti's don't like fire. Maybe you put yourself on fire?
Yep, this works a treat thanks! Fire + Middle Mouse either before they've picked you up or after is exactly what I was looking for.

It seems I've picked up a charm spell though, so all I have to do now is cast a shield, then Life + Shield + Earth renders yetis useless.

Hanacker

01-31-2011, 07:10 PM

As of the last patch my middle mouse button doesn't work for self cast anymore. Odd.

maxle

01-31-2011, 07:13 PM

This game is hilarious

Sarkus

01-31-2011, 07:26 PM

Did they advertise that it was primarly a co-op game and you can't beat it in single player? If I had seen/known that I'd probably have passed (or at least held off until some of my friends picked it up).

EDIT: Not that it matters, since I seemingly CAN NOT beat the chapter 6 boss...

I did very little research on it before buying the game, basically reading some early comments in this thread and looking at the Steam info. But I came away with the impression it was more geared towards multi-player. And listening today to the Flash of Steel podcast, which was recorded last week the day the game came out, one of the guests said the exact same thing.

I wish it was more single-player friendly, I'm just not sure where people got the idea that it would be.

Jab

01-31-2011, 07:56 PM

I think I'm done playing this on single player until they start working on balance patches. If you guys want to play co-op definitely send me a pm but otherwise I'm putting this aside.

Marcin

01-31-2011, 08:00 PM

I did very little research on it before buying the game, basically reading some early comments in this thread and looking at the Steam info. But I came away with the impression it was more geared towards multi-player. And listening today to the Flash of Steel podcast, which was recorded last week the day the game came out, one of the guests said the exact same thing.

I wish it was more single-player friendly, I'm just not sure where people got the idea that it would be.

Yeah, same. I figured single is good for an extended tutorial until you're ready to dive into the real deal. Anything else is at your own masochism threshold, kinda like L4D.

rhinohelix

01-31-2011, 08:03 PM

Holy downhill directionals, <generic superhero>:

Stage 1: I read the first page of this thread, go to Steam and buy it. It's great! I love the physics based consequences. It makes the games seem like one of those flowing sand dioramas and Myth (I see the comparison, i.e. Fetch + wight=explody good time). 8 bucks well spent. Look, Fire Lighting! Arcane Lightning! Wait, Water + Fire + lighting? I LOVE THIS GAME.

Stage 2: I died and had to go back to the last check point? Awww, Ok. Wait, how far back is that? Well, that wasn't so far and I can redo these fights pretty quick.

Stage 3: The game just crashed while fighting that serpent. No big, I think I finally figured out how to reliably damage him...what do you mean check points aren't saves? You mean I have to replay the whole chapter? Sonofa.... Oh well, let's do this.

Stage 4: Ok, these airship battles suck since they keep killing me with what looks like the last two goblins and a bomb. DAMN, another crash, I swear if I have to replay the whole...

Stage 5: WHERE IS MY SAVE GAME? WHAT! (reads the rest of the thread about the issues and 9 more chapters to the game) <Charlie Brown scream> I HATE THIS GAME.

Lazy Shiftless Bastard

01-31-2011, 09:48 PM

Tman

01-31-2011, 10:37 PM

A tip for anyone struggling with a horde in singleplayer: Time Warp is amazing and you should use it constantly. Follow it with a Blizzard and everything will be moving in slow motion while you molest it however you want.

Finally got to play a bunch of multiplayer tonight. It really is the most hilarious thing I've played in forever. Trying to organize first-timers in a bossfight is like herding cats.

Exploding cats.

Oh sure, I love how people say to use spells you can't even get till level 5 or level 6.

Now how does that help someone on level 2 or 3??

just given you grief lazy, I keep meaning to use phoenix during coop because it's supposed to kill a grunt AND revive a fallen wizard. Two spells for one!

Meowr....BAM...staff and sword falls to the ground in frothy red mass.

Blips

01-31-2011, 10:39 PM

Ok so I was finally able to enjoy some multiplayer tonight and WOW is it chaotic. 4 person multiplayer is honestly more difficult than singleplayer.

The game was moderately laggy but playable. But playing it made me realize that if versus mode is ever implemented, they're going to need to use some sort of lives or point system because making one mistake will make you dead in a matter of seconds.

Also, nothing is more frightening than shooting a steam + lightning beam at a troll, only to have 2 other players join in halfway through, each firing a beam of a different color!

Morberis

01-31-2011, 10:45 PM

Just played some 3 people co-op tonight. Using pheonix to see what it looks like when you're all bunched up together will kill all of you. Using lightening shield and then thunderbolt is an extremely effective way of killing tough enemies. 4-7k every 2 or 3 seconds, I'm not sure steam+lightening matches that but I haven't looked too closely at the numbers. It sure is a heck of a lot more satisfying though hearing that crack and seeing something explode, possibly a team who just had his lightening shield fall.

Lazy Shiftless Bastard

01-31-2011, 11:42 PM

Oh sure, I love how people say to use spells you can't even get till level 5 or level 6.

Now how does that help someone on level 2 or 3??

just given you grief lazy, I keep meaning to use phoenix during coop because it's supposed to kill a grunt AND revive a fallen wizard. Two spells for one!

Meowr....BAM...staff and sword falls to the ground in frothy red mass.

Do we even need to mention spoilers at this point?

Time Warp is in either level 3 or 4, and Blizzard at the very start of level 5. In levels 3 and 4 I made a lot of use of spamming ice+ice+lightning+lightning/arcane+shield walls while running from hordes. One tip is that those beastmen that charge you and suck your blood? The ones that shake off water whenever you get them wet? In the Rain they basically stand still trying to shake off water until it ends. You can still fry them for double lightning damage while this is going on. Casting Rain and firing ice+ice+cold+whatever else you want into crowds as a shotgun blast will then freeze masses of them solid. This works when those stupid druids constantly summon Rain too, since you don't need lightning for it.

Level 2 was... uh... really easy.

My favorite moment in multiplayer so far was in the arena, where I summoned a black hole that sucked in half the monsters in the wave attacking us. Followed by sucking in all of us too as we tried to run around it.

Tomorrow I look forward to fighting Yetis!

maxle

01-31-2011, 11:54 PM

My favorite moment in multiplayer so far was in the arena, where I summoned a black hole that sucked in half the monsters in the wave attacking us. Followed by sucking in all of us too as we tried to run around it.
First you murdered me with your singularity, then you resurrected me within the grip of its homicidal gravity. Jerk.

Tman

02-01-2011, 12:11 AM

Level 2 was... uh... really easy.

Just because you thought of the right spell and I (and dozens of others as I read it), raged trying to down that bastard, no need to mock and degrade us with your exploits of how you solved it in 30 seconds.

The problem with the game is it doesn't reward you for stepping back and taking a break to rethink the problem. Aha! Take that you bastard! If you quit now, I'm gonna fuck you over and make you redo the entire level!!!! ahahahahaha (say it in your best Scottish accent aka Craig Ferguson)

Mink Staccato

02-01-2011, 12:13 AM

I'm a soloist, all the way. I am intrigued, but is this worth buying if I'm not going the MP route?

~mink~

Blips

02-01-2011, 12:13 AM

no need to mock and degrade us with your exploits of how you solved it in 30 seconds.

Being a bit dramatic aren't we?

I'm a soloist, all the way. I am intrigued, but is this worth buying if I'm not going the MP route?

50/50. I'd strongly recommend playing the demo at least first.

Tman

02-01-2011, 12:47 AM

Being a bit dramatic aren't we?

I keeeeed I keeeed, I though the Craig Ferguson reference would have clued you in.

Fenris99

02-01-2011, 05:13 AM

I'm a soloist, all the way. I am intrigued, but is this worth buying if I'm not going the MP route?

~mink~
At thus point, unless you love really difficult games, absolutely not.

Saxman_72

02-01-2011, 07:45 AM

I see so much potential in this...it just really really really really really really really really really really really really needs a save anywhere function. Hell, I'd be happy if it would do a full save at the checkpoints - having to restart from the beginning of every chapter is just too old school annoying for me.

TurinTur

02-01-2011, 07:49 AM

I'm a soloist, all the way. I am intrigued, but is this worth buying if I'm not going the MP route?

~mink~

Try the demo?

Mink Staccato

02-01-2011, 09:19 AM

Try the demo?

I will, but you know how it is... Early levels might be fine, then down the road it might become nigh impossible for a single player. I was just curious if anyone here had tried it already and enjoyed the process.

~mink~

Morberis

02-01-2011, 09:21 AM

I will, but you know how it is... Early levels might be fine, then down the road it might become nigh impossible for a single player. I was just curious if anyone here had tried it already and enjoyed the process.

~mink~

The end fight with all the goblins on screen is pretty similar to what you can expect later, at least in terms of difficulty. It does get harder than that though.

Adam B

02-01-2011, 10:13 AM

The end fight with all the goblins on screen is pretty similar to what you can expect later, at least in terms of difficulty. It does get harder than that though.

Hah, just a little bit. Hah. Hah.

TurinTur

02-01-2011, 10:20 AM

I will, but you know how it is... Early levels might be fine, then down the road it might become nigh impossible for a single player. I was just curious if anyone here had tried it already and enjoyed the process.

~mink~

I played in single player. The game have 12 levels, i played the first ten levels without much problem (well, it does have some hard parts, but the same can be said of the multiplayer), the 11th was pretty hard, and i still haven't seen the 12th level because i won't play it anymore in single player until they make the checkpoints to save to hard disk, instead of only until you exit to Windows.

TurinTur

02-01-2011, 10:24 AM

Hah, just a little bit. Hah. Hah.

Being honest, i don't think the difficulty curve climb that much. Think you have the same spells (except the Magicks to collect) from the beginning to the end of the game, with the same resources. If you can play the more dififcult later levels is because you have learnt with time what are the good combos and you will be more skilled in the game controls.

Hanacker

02-01-2011, 10:25 AM

So middle mouse button still works for everyone else?

I've been trying to avoid steam lightning arcane AOE/beam spam, but I had to go and I was in a rush to finish level 3, and it was pretty ridiculous. The AOE one shots most of the minions and the beam two shots the boss (maybe could have got him in one but I might not have been focused on him the whole time). Would be nice if they'd tone that down a tad and buff some other stuff.

Lazy Shiftless Bastard

02-01-2011, 10:41 AM

I'm a soloist, all the way. I am intrigued, but is this worth buying if I'm not going the MP route?

~mink~

Definately a demo trying situation. It is just long enough to let you know whether you're going to find the gameplay hilarious and fun, or too hard and frustrating. The demo is basically level 2, and while it does get a bit more difficult later it is a very good representation of the game.

I just like blowing things up, so I'll probably even play through the singleplayer again trying to make sure I find all the moose and secrets. I don't even use the steamlightning beam that much, since I spend a lot of time running and screaming while beams make you stand still.

Multiplayer has some extra hilarity if someone is firing a steamlightning beam and a goblin jumps on their head so they start firing into the other players.

First you murdered me with your singularity, then you resurrected me within the grip of its homicidal gravity. Jerk.

That was amazing.

TurinTur

02-01-2011, 12:09 PM

Well, one week later and Magicka is still number 1 in the Top Sellers of Steam.

Phydeaux

02-01-2011, 05:00 PM

Changelog for Patch #6 (1.3.3.5)- February 1st
Tonights patch is a bit smaller than usual, but we've spent a lot of time researching and debugging the issues.

Fixed issues/bugs
Fixed jittering caused by avatar move orders persisting on clients.
Fixed issue where self shields would get desynced.
Fixed so that elementals that weren’t initialized collided with beam spells.
Fixed crash initializing a dialogue chain with a dead actor.
Fixed crash due to navigation desync in chapter 2 secret area.
Fixed “Too fancy for fireballs” achievement sometimes not being awarded.
Fixed crash on Chapter 11 boss confuse ability.
Fixed so that Chapter 12 boss does not start attacking before cutscene is done.

New features/balancing

Added Chapter 1 Text in intro.

Known Issues

Network uplink bandwidth, while improved, can be demanding
Steam attempts to install XNA framework every time game is launched or rare occasion
Quitting the game while the credits are rolling will not award a game complete.
Mouse outside screen in full screen with multiple monitors will minimize the game.
Crash resulting in leaving too many enemies alive in previous scenes (NonPlayerCharacterCache is empty)
12345

Sebmojo

02-01-2011, 06:20 PM

Romalar

02-02-2011, 01:31 PM

There's a new patch this morning. Seems a bit smoother since this patch. I played a while single-player and didn't run into graphics lag or any glitches.

I'm up to the yetis, and I'm having trouble there, too. I can use thunderbolt on them from behind a wall outside. Inside, I have to catch them with a thunder beam a bit ahead of time to manage it, and then the pairs swarm me.

JoshV

02-02-2011, 03:47 PM

Anyone have any ideas how they'd translate the control scheme to a controller for XBLA?

The best I can think of is a twin stick / dpad setup, with one stick being move, and one stick being the 8 different elements. But having to select diagonals on modern dpads or an analog stick doesn't sound like much fun. Maybe the standard four directions, and a shift modifier to swap to the other four elements for. So up/down/left/right corresponds to fire/earth/water/lightning, holding LB makes it so that up/down/left/right corresponds to arcane,heal,ice,shield. Which doesn't sound that great either.

I suppose one could have the dpad be four magicks, and the four face buttons (X,A,Y,B) be another four.

Or is this just a game that will be better played on the PC with lots of keys available?

Blips

02-02-2011, 03:53 PM

Anyone have any ideas how they'd translate the control scheme to a controller for XBLA?

I've been playing on the PC with keyboard + mouse and cannot fathom attempting to string together any significant spells / magicks with an analog stick in any amount of meaningful time.

idrisz

02-02-2011, 04:04 PM

Morberis

02-02-2011, 05:37 PM

I've been playing on the PC with keyboard + mouse and cannot fathom attempting to string together any significant spells / magicks with an analog stick in any amount of meaningful time.

I've done it, and I'm twice as slow using the Xbox controller scheme. Though if they change the difficulty down it would definitely be doable.

They do it by up on the right joystick brings up life and arcane, then you select left or right for the appropriate element. Right is another two, and you move it up or down to select, repeat.

Romalar

02-02-2011, 06:12 PM

I've done it, and I'm twice as slow using the Xbox controller scheme. Though if they change the difficulty down it would definitely be doable.

They do it by up on the right joystick brings up life and arcane, then you select left or right for the appropriate element. Right is another two, and you move it up or down to select, repeat.

I watched my brother try that scheme, and I don't know how you'd survive in later levels. I would think JoshV's idea of using a shift button (like L1) to toggle the d-pad would be preferable.

Morberis

02-02-2011, 06:55 PM

I think so too.

PeterGinsberg

02-03-2011, 07:56 AM

Late to the party on this one as I was waiting for some patches before buying.

I've only played single player, but I have to say I really love the concept and implementation here. This might be the first game I've ever played where playing a wizard feels like being a wizard. There's an aura of danger/mystery to it which just doesn't exist in other magic systems.

I really hope that magicka does well and the developers take this system and make something bigger and more polished with it.

Adam B

02-03-2011, 08:56 AM

deice

02-03-2011, 04:03 PM

I found the game to be awesome, although the single player was quite too easy and short. Truly makes you feel like a wizard, and often times thinking outside the box is rewarded.

Thought I'd write a small miniguide of things I found:

Some nifty tricks I liked to use:

QFASAA - steam death beam, duh
RSAAA - freeze beam, good for large single mobs than come at you
DDDDE - selfcast rock barrier, lets you cast 1 spell for free. In large emergency start with DE-self first, then DDDDE-self
DDFFE - selfcast, meteor storm protection
ESAF - mines. propels enemies quite far, just be prepared to counter if you catch on fire :P
ESD - earth wall, protects you. you can put this baby down and then death beam through one of the blocks for easy kills. Or cast as aoe, then teleport out of the ring to trap melee enemies. 5xEarth projectile max charged also goes through this quite nicely.
EW - first put down aoe shield, then throw these healing mines down to quickly recover hp
Teleport - with quick reflexes you can save yourself from getting knocked off cliffs. There's quite a long time to cast it, you can even clear old elements out first. This is the best spell, use it with ESD to keep melee opponents off.
Time Slow - gives you that moment to think when things get hectic.
Haste - In addition to increasing runspeed, this also accelerates how fast the game accept spell inputs. So when theres lots of stuff flying around, haste -> time slow lets you deal with lots of stuff really fast.
Grease -> Fire - Very high damage against fire vulnerables or stationary foes
WWWWE - selfcast, heal shield. prevents you from healing yourself, but also prevents enemies from healing themselves near you.
QE - selfcast to get rid of water
FE - selfcast to get rid of fire
RE - selfcast to get rid of frost

Mob tactics:

vs snake boss - DE-self, DDDDE-self, DDDDD-rightclick max charge and hit him when he lowers his head.
vs wierd ghosts in niflheim - shoot 1 second of RS to wake them, the SFFFF
vs undead in niflheim - heal beam is good. against end boss, healing mines (EW) AoE is very powerful.
vs Yeti - teleport out of their mouth, ESD right-click walls them of so you can steambeam them to death through one of the rocks.
vs Fafnir - teleport under his belly, steambeam
vs Grimnir - grease fire, then throw down self-shield, aoe-shield, and an arc shield and try to stay alive

Another thing, don't use shield-self against average foes, only if you see something that can instakill, or the enemy is a wizard. You get knocked down, which does more harm than good. Staff of War is best weapon definitely, doubles your hp without the problems that come with a shield.

That's everything I can think of off the top of my head. Anyone else have nice tricks to share?

idrisz

02-03-2011, 04:26 PM

#
# vs Grimnir - grease fire, then throw down self-shield, aoe-shield, and an arc shield and try to stay alive

I put up a circular aoe shield with grimnir in the shield with me, then I just proceed to steam beam him to death while his image bounce their beam off the shield.

works on the last boss too, I just aoe shield whenever he cast the arc bullet thingie, then arcane beam him to dead.

Romalar

02-03-2011, 06:44 PM

Some nifty tricks I liked to use:

QFASAA - steam death beam, duh

Also good as a PBAoE for multiple smaller enemies. I also like to charge this up on my weapon (shift-left-click) in between fights so I have another heavy attack that doesn't require casting for emergencies.

Wade42

02-04-2011, 02:44 PM

Good info there, deice, although I wouldn't call the single player 'easy' by any stretch. I was having trouble in Chapter 6 with...

<Minor Gameplay Spoilers>
...the whole Grimnir sequence where you had to do the series of fights on floating islands. I died repeatedly until I used SE (mines) to blast every last one of those guys off the level.

Yeah, Grease Fire works a charm on Grimnir himself. Thanks!
</Minor Gameplay Spoilers>

In other news, new patch on Steam today:

Fixed issues/bugs

Network traffic optimizations.
Books of magicks no longer fall through level.
Cutscene skip bug in chapter 1 fixed.
Player item desync on network clients fixed. (This will solve many different issues.)
Fixed crash on clients when exploding objects.
Fixed Thunderstorm distribution.
Fixed chapter 3 bossfight initialization on clients.
Fixed Random Teleport distribution.

New features/balancing

Orc Berserkers’ hit tolerance have been increased.
Swampthings’ strangle speed and damage have been increased.
Mouse is now locked inside the window when playing with keyboard and mouse.

Known Issues

Network uplink bandwidth, while improved, can be demanding
Steam attempts to install XNA framework every time game is launched or rare occasion
Quitting the game while the credits are rolling will not award a game complete

Lazy Shiftless Bastard

02-04-2011, 04:22 PM

It's like no one believes me when I say Grease fires are the way to kill bosses!

A minor spoiler:

In the Grimnir mind duel floating island thing, you can pick up the goblin shamans' staves in the first fight there to get the emergency teleport. I earned the 101st Airborne achievement 20 times over there. I thought I'd mention it since that whole sequence is a pain solely because of being flung off the levels, and I remember someone thinking that the early goblin shaman fight was the only place to get that staff.

Tman

02-04-2011, 04:28 PM

My son and I did some coop today, we didn't crash once, but we couldn't skip the cutscenes in chpt 9 or 10, which while minor still pisses me off.

We got past the yeti's, but then the never ending dwarf army/lizards/ lava / more lizards and wizards / I finally gave up when we get so far to only start back at the dwarven army.

Fuck you Paradox and Arrowhead for your lack of saves and checkpoints. Fuck you hard without lube. I don't like replaying the same stupid levels over and over again.

And now that I raged, I get to go back and do the yeti's if I ever decide to do this game again. Seriously, I don't have 2 fucking hours to devote to your stupid game.

TurinTur

02-05-2011, 01:03 AM

http://news.bigdownload.com/2011/02/04/magicka-sells-over-150-000-in-first-10-days-patches-keep-coming/ - 150000 units sold

Rorschach

02-05-2011, 08:47 PM

So I played around with charging up my sword with spells (shift + l-click) and there's some interesting things you can do with shields, walls and mines...

lordkosc

02-06-2011, 07:37 AM

I played multiplayer for the first time last night, I died around 20 times in 5 minutes, it was great :D

Lunch of Kong

02-06-2011, 02:57 PM

That's everything I can think of off the top of my head. Anyone else have nice tricks to share?

Best first post ever.

Jag

02-07-2011, 07:30 PM

Anyone know if there is talk of adding a savegame feature? I think this is a fun little game, but I may have to shelve it if i can't save.

Lazy Shiftless Bastard

02-07-2011, 07:37 PM

I finally got around to finishing the game in singleplayer tonight. At first the Yeti instakilling you seemed like it kind of sucked, but then I remembered the Raise Dead magick! Just wander around with a horde of undead minions and Yeti will run up and start fighting them, getting poisoned and standing still.

Start a grease fire and run away for victory!

In the dwarven mines summoning a bunch of undead and elementals to fight armored dwarves while you ready mines that heal your summons and send the dwarves flying so they lose their shields worked pretty well.

Then start a grease fire and run away.

The hardest part of the game was probably trying to cast Corporealize when Vlad gives you the signal without fumbling it.

"THIS IS THE SIGNAL!"

Now I can restart the game with Vortex! WHEEEEEEE!

Wade42

02-07-2011, 09:19 PM

I just now finished singleplayer myself. Raise Dead was my near constant companion after I got it, until I got Elementals.

Man, someone should mention the usefulness of grease fires. :p

Fun little game, despite the frustrations.

CSL

02-09-2011, 12:40 PM

Is anyone else still having issues getting into multiplayer? It's been about five or six patches and still everytime I want to join a game either I'll get an authentication failure, I won't be able to connect to the host, or the list of games will disappear and won't reappear unless I restart the game.

Then when I have gotten into a game - once - it booted me back to the multiplayer menu after just two minutes.

rossm

02-09-2011, 04:51 PM

I've played a few multiplayer games with no problems.

Getting through the single player, I didn't really use raise dead, summon elemental or grease much. I used them a few times to play around, but I generally found other tactics more worthwhile. Most of the time I either spammed A and S as an aoe or I did a QFQFASS beam. Often I would teleport next to enemies and do a WWWWW explosion to knock them off the screen. If I got in trouble, I usually resorted to DEQ shift-click or DE middle click.

Honestly you can get through almost the whole game with just SSSSA aoe spam.

Eduardo X

02-09-2011, 10:09 PM

A and S as an aoe

QFQFASS beam
a WWWWW explosion
DEQ shift-click or DE middle click.

SSSSA aoe spam.
What?

rossm

02-10-2011, 07:28 AM

Lightning and Arcane aoe.

Steam Steam Lightning Arcane Arcane beam
Water Water Water Water Water explosion
Earth Shield Water aoe or Earth shield self-cast.

Arcane Arcane Arcane Arcane Lightning aoe spam.
fixed.

it's not what you meant but I did screw up one of the letters.

TurinTur

02-10-2011, 07:45 AM

You could homogenize the terms a bit more. Substitute explosion by aoe, or aoe by explosion. ;)

Also, QFAASS is better than QFQFASS.

Rorschach

02-10-2011, 09:45 AM

This game is 10x better with multiplayer. My brothers and I got through the first three chapters last night and there was so much swearing and laughing. I doubt I'll play any single player unless I want to mess with spell combinations.

JoshV

02-10-2011, 10:36 AM

the AoE Earth Fire Shield or the AoE Earth Ice Shield are also really handy for singleplayer. it creates little fire volcanoes or little ice volcanoes (yeah...its a volcano that spits out ice) all around you.

Tman

02-14-2011, 04:42 PM

Well, after all my bitching and whining, I finally completed the game this past weekend with my son playing along side of me.

For me, there was no other way I would finish this game. Playing with someone else who can revive you, and "keep the quarter going" is really only the viable way to do this unless you are talented or have a high tolerance for re-doing levels.

The thing is, playing with someone else makes the gameplay so much different. Gone are AOE spells and you're rolling the dice with Thunderbolt and Death. Well, not so much gone, because when one of you fall, the other has free reign to let loose some AOE before you revive them.

My brain just wasn't able to type in spells looking at the symbols - I resorted to writing everything down and having a cheat sheet. I can type very fast - 80wpm or thereabouts, so my cheat sheet really helped me. It would be even better if I had it taped to the side of my monitor and wouldn't have to look down. But that is for perhaps another playthrough.

I'll say straight up that level 6 and level 11 are the hardest - only because the length of time between checkpoints is so huge. The ending actually was anti-climatic.

I can say the last few times I've played, the game has been a lot more solid - but it's been on our local lan (BTW - you can join games with 192.168 as the prefix), and only two of us, so I'm not sure how it would play with more. From the forums, there are quite a few having issues so YMMV.

Jag

02-15-2011, 10:07 AM

Well, after all my bitching and whining, I finally completed the game this past weekend with my son playing along side of me.

Just curious, do you have to have a separate steam account and version of the game to play via lan?

Tman

02-15-2011, 11:07 AM

While my son & I both have seperate steam accounts, I would imagine that if you wanted, you could set up a lan using only one, as I've done it with other steam games. But we never tried it.

(you disconnect from internet, log into steam & start game, wait for it to time out & run locally, then repeat on another machine on the lan)

TurinTur

02-25-2011, 02:45 PM

Update

Fixed issues/bugs

* Fixed initial collisionskin transformation of animated level parts.
* Improved capsule-static mesh collision. (Reduces risk of characters falling through collision)
* Fixed a crash when spawning too many greasefields or tornados in a network game.
* Fixed a network bug where multiple damage types in a single damage message was read incorrectly.
* Fixed a network bug where if a character had more than one status effect other clients would read it incorrectly.
* Fixed kills with beam-spells for characters without gibs.
* Fixed vortex synchronization over network.
* Made some optimizations to the network messages.
* Made some optimizations to the physics library.
* Corrected some magicks cast animations.
* Fixed Kahn’s bloodtype (black now instead of regular).
* Fixed a bug where some effects would turn invisible when spawned in certain angles.
* Fixed a thread issue on game startup which resulted in a crash for some users.
* Fixed an issue where the audio engine would cause a crash when quitting the game.
* Fixed an issue where if a gamepad tried to navigate the menu while changing chapters it would cause a crash.
* Fixed a bug in Chapter 2 Boss where he would be stuck in single state (ranged attack).

New features/balancing

* Added camera shaking effects.
* Added Xinput gamepad rumble.
* Fixed the duration and range of spray type spells.
* Improved Gun's tracer bullets.
* Reworked keyboard and mouse controller configuration.

Known Issues

* Network uplink bandwidth, while improved, can be demanding.
* Steam attempts to install XNA framework every time game is launched or rare occasion.
* Characters can in rare cases fall through the level collision mesh, this is due to lag or poor framerate. Many general network improvements and general optimization will reduce this risk.
* The game may appear to be stuttering even though framerate is good.

New loot:

1 Staff - "Bugged Staff" - summons a swarm of bugs.
1 Sword - "A broken sword"
1 Robe - "Patched Robe"
1 Magick - "Crash to Desktop - Magick - zaps any foe (or friend)

New special song:
http://www.magickagame.com/sites/default/files/Reachground%20-%20The%20gamer%20and%20Magicka.mp3

Blips

02-25-2011, 03:08 PM

Update
New special song:
http://www.magickagame.com/sites/default/files/Reachground%20-%20The%20gamer%20and%20Magicka.mp3

Super awesome :D

lordkosc

02-25-2011, 03:46 PM

Haha good song :D

Game needs more robes and hats, oh yes I said it D:

Jim Hoffman

02-28-2011, 08:58 PM

Just because you thought of the right spell and I (and dozens of others as I read it), raged trying to down that bastard, no need to mock and degrade us with your exploits of how you solved it in 30 seconds.

The problem with the game is it doesn't reward you for stepping back and taking a break to rethink the problem. Aha! Take that you bastard! If you quit now, I'm gonna fuck you over and make you redo the entire level!!!! ahahahahaha (say it in your best Scottish accent aka Craig Ferguson)

Yeah, I've tried level 2 4+ times. I just don't get this game. It barely runs on my new (ish) laptop, a dell xps studio, and now I'm running it at 800x600 with some marginal improvement. And the gameplay itself is incredibly frustrating to me. I'm not at all a twitch gamer, so maybe this game just isn't for me. At least it was only $10.

Tman

02-28-2011, 09:53 PM

The game will not play very well (if at all) without a dedicated video card. Lots of rage against the company on that one. Does your laptop have a dedicated video card? There is a certain model recommendation on their website.

They have stated in the latest interview, they will add some sort of save game system, they are working on the mechanics.

I finally did make it through - but only because I played with my son who saved my ass so many times I will likely not hear the end of it until he has kids, so I feel your pain.

TurinTur

03-01-2011, 09:02 AM

First DLC/Expansion announced: Magicka: Vietnam

GDC – SAN FRANCISCO – March 1, 2011—The wizards of Arrowhead Studios have whipped up something special for all the Magicka fans out there, today revealing the first expansion for the definitive “blow-up-your-friend” simulator that has taken the fantasy world by meteor storm. Magicka: Vietnam (yes, you read that right) will soon be available on all major digital distribution channels.

Have you ever wondered what it would have been like if wizards were allowed to roam the jungles of war-torn Vietnam, attempting to bring peace and stability to the region by casting spells on all opponents? Wait, you haven’t ever wondered that? Ever? Okay, so we’re probably the only ones who have but in our defense: here’s your chance to stop being so closed-minded. Magicka: Vietnam delivers over-the-top action as players take on the role of four meek and physically inept wizards as they try to do what so many 80’s action stars have done in the past: blow stuff up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cs2DsoiA54Y

http://www.paradoxplaza.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/inline/magicka_vietnam_poster_jpg_small.jpg