Acmlm's Board - I2 Archive - Super Mario World hacking - Should 1ups be abandoned?
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Glyph Phoenix
Posts: 538/745 |
Well, if you broke up the world into smaller parts, maybe... I'm just trying to fix the save problem. When you don't lose anything when you die, you won't need 1ups... that's the problem. That, and when you can pick up 1ups easy in early levels, collecting 1ups in harder ones is kinda pointless.
Originally posted by DisruptiveIdiot
So?
If you want a difficult hack, you can ignore the ease of getting 1-ups for your own enjoyment. If you like to have a few extra lives, you're free to go back and get some from previous levels. Players can make the choice of ignoring the 1-up "problem" or embracing it as a boon. Don't make the decision for them.
Okay. "Make the decision for them". That's kinda impossible, since, y'know, they're doing the hacking and I'm just posting a topic. Please make sense next time kthx.
The consensus seems to be that 1ups don't follow their designated purpose as well as they used to and removal or editing to the system would be a good idea for hacks. That's why I made this topic: to have the board ask questions about the usefulness of 1ups. If you disagree and have good reason, that's fine.
And once again, this is not about difficulty.
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HyperLamer
Posts: 6816/8210 |
That could work, if you could figure out a way to do it. Allow normal saves between worlds, and temporary ones between levels. I think Final Fantasy Tactics Advance uses something like that for saving in battles. Though if you did that, you'd probably want to only have one (or possibly 2 if there's room) save file, and use one slot for temporary and one for permenant saves. That way if you load a temporary save and the power goes out, you don't lose everything, just the current world. |
BabyBowser
Posts: 63/69 |
How about Save-and-quit?
When you save game , the game resets.
When you load game , the save is deleted |
HyperLamer
Posts: 6808/8210 |
But if you've designed the game well, 8-1 will still be pretty hard. And I suppose you could force the player to go through an entire world without saving, but really, I hate that. You should be able to save whenever you want. It's WAY annoying when you have to keep progressing through the game to find a save point, especially when you're in a hurry. |
DisruptiveIdiot
Posts: 130/147 |
Originally posted by Glyph Phoenix
That's actually... wow. That's a great design. Especially if you limited it so you could only save in the Main Hub, so you had to beat each world without saving. That would make lives extra important, while letting you go back through old worlds.
Large worlds will still be problematic, though. When you go to 8-10 and you're about to go up against Bowser, you can always step back to 8-1 and grab a couple of 1ups.
So?
If you want a difficult hack, you can ignore the ease of getting 1-ups for your own enjoyment. If you like to have a few extra lives, you're free to go back and get some from previous levels. Players can make the choice of ignoring the 1-up "problem" or embracing it as a boon. Don't make the decision for them. |
Glyph Phoenix
Posts: 536/745 |
That's actually... wow. That's a great design. Especially if you limited it so you could only save in the Main Hub, so you had to beat each world without saving. That would make lives extra important, while letting you go back through old worlds.
Large worlds will still be problematic, though. When you go to 8-10 and you're about to go up against Bowser, you can always step back to 8-1 and grab a couple of 1ups. |
Skyon
Posts: 10/125 |
There's also going to be people that'll save the game during a level so they can load it if they mess up. Which is kind of having infinite lives anyway. The point is just to make the game fun! |
HyperLamer
Posts: 6797/8210 |
Originally posted by Surlent
Or maybe hack the 1UP's ASM routine and ... add a flag or something which remembers if those blocks got already "used" or not, thus reentering makes these 1UP blocks become brown "used" ones. To make it easier, later in the game there could be set a one-time flag (like with the Switch Palaces, you can play them only once and even the L&R code shouldn't work on them) which might reset all these blocks.
I really have no clue of ROM hacking, but since LM already expands a regular SMW ROM there should be space to add few pointers/flags to interfere with the 1UP block routine ...
Just think about the Locked Doors and Keys in Blocktool:
You have four different doors which, when once the "obtained/touched key block" flag is set, remain open - even if you go to another level on the world map. There need to be used a "reset block" which is also included - it sets the proper Locked Door back to "locked" - like placing an invisible row of tiles acting like 25 which the player has to pass.
Otherwise it might be not fair - just think, you are in the last three levels, you found all (few) 1UPs but cannot pass the hard levels due to missing lives 
And that "reset level" might be entered only once then.
Yeah, it sounds dumb, but something other than making levels-with-save-options only playable once each (d'oh  ) just is not coming into my mind, what could be done without hacking the game 
This would be really hard to implement, for 2 reasons. 1: Might not be enough SRAM space. 2: How will your code know which 1up you just got? They aren't numbered or anything.
The real purpose of 1ups is to give you a bit of a break, so that if you die on some hard level you don't have to re-do every level since your last save. The only real way to prevent people from building up lives in easy levels is to prevent them from going back. Now, that doesn't mean being like SMB3 where you can't re-enter a level, but maybe making 'one-way' paths on the overworld so that once you enter a world, the only exit leads to the next world. You could use the Star World or an unused submap as a 'hub', which would instantly take you to any world, but set all its paths to be revealed once you beat the last level (or second-last, if the last level triggers the ending sequence), so that once you beat the game you can re-play any level as often as you please. (Yes, you could do away with the hub altogether, but that'd mean that if a player was in world 3 and wanted to go to world 2, they would have to go all the way around in a big circle to the last world, then to 1, then to 2. )
[edit] Example of how this would work. The trick is that main path connecting all the others in the main hub - that wouldn't appear until you beat the last level. If your setup doesn't allow for the whole path to be revealed after one level, you could use a series of levels in the last world, each of which reveals part of the path, which themselves are in a one-way path that can't be left until you beat them all, which then returns to its entrance. |
Dylan Yoshi
Posts: 15/79 |
You could solve this problem by making it so that every level no longer has level access after completing it.
But then that would take out the fun of going back and playing the levels over... |
Glyph Phoenix
Posts: 534/745 |
Originally posted by Glyph Phoenix
This isn't about difficulty. Because of saves game over means much less and because of replayable old levels easy lives can be collected again. Regardless of difficulty, these problems exist.
Let's say your game is hard. Let's say there's only one easy level (Hey, there should be at least one.) Let's say it's not even easy, you just manage to beat it most of the time without dying. Now, take bonus stars into account. If you're good at that game, if there are a bunch of coins, then you can make tons of 1ups. =
While in the more difficult world... if you make it to the halfway point, you're lucky. Now, wouldn't you rather go through the minor level a few times and stockpile, rather than go through a more difficult level on the off chance you'll score an 'up?
See, backtracking and saves defeat the purpose. 1ups in large numbers do too, but that's another thing entirely. |
Skyon
Posts: 5/125 |
I wouldn't totally give up 1-ups, but I would make them a rarity, but it all really depends on the difficulty of the hack. |
SoNotNormal
Posts: 334/793 |
1ups aren't bad, its just most people put WAAAAY too many of them in one level. That secret in Vanilla Secret 2 where you carry the P-switch back to the beginning and get like 50 1ups was just lame. Typically, now that I have an emulator, I use save states on games like Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger, etc. right before a boss. But in SMW, playing new hacks, I tend to avoid it and play through it properly. If the game is very challenging, and I see a 1up, I would immediately go for it. If the game is easy, and there are waaaay too many 1ups, it's . . . . . pathetic.
I agree with you GP - not 100%, but with most of it. 1ups should be at the end of a hard level as your reward, that most players wouldn't want to play again, and the ghosts houses and stuff should be challenging so that you should just wait until the next ghost house in your path. |
Tweaker
Posts: 52/57 |
Heh, maybe you should make it so you can only recieve a 1-up if your coin counter is an even level. If it's odd, you get a "1-down". 
That'd be evil. Hehehe. |
TapTap
Posts: 37/405 |
Originally posted by AsukaFan2K6
I think 1-ups are pointless in SMW, Yoshi's Island, or any other game that has a save feature.
They work fine in games like SMB and SMB3, though.
Yeah, I agree. I have nearly no coins at all In my hacks, the only way you can get 1ups are by Yoshi Coins.
I think Yoshi Coins are still okay to keep, because you can put them in hard places, and you can only get their 1Up once until you turn the game off, Game Over, etc. |
AsukaFan2K6
Posts: 151/183 |
I think 1-ups are pointless in SMW, Yoshi's Island, or any other game that has a save feature.
They work fine in games like SMB and SMB3, though. |
Surlent
Posts: 1032/1077 |
Or maybe hack the 1UP's ASM routine and ... add a flag or something which remembers if those blocks got already "used" or not, thus reentering makes these 1UP blocks become brown "used" ones. To make it easier, later in the game there could be set a one-time flag (like with the Switch Palaces, you can play them only once and even the L&R code shouldn't work on them) which might reset all these blocks.
I really have no clue of ROM hacking, but since LM already expands a regular SMW ROM there should be space to add few pointers/flags to interfere with the 1UP block routine ...
Just think about the Locked Doors and Keys in Blocktool:
You have four different doors which, when once the "obtained/touched key block" flag is set, remain open - even if you go to another level on the world map. There need to be used a "reset block" which is also included - it sets the proper Locked Door back to "locked" - like placing an invisible row of tiles acting like 25 which the player has to pass.
Otherwise it might be not fair - just think, you are in the last three levels, you found all (few) 1UPs but cannot pass the hard levels due to missing lives
And that "reset level" might be entered only once then.
Yeah, it sounds dumb, but something other than making levels-with-save-options only playable once each (d'oh ) just is not coming into my mind, what could be done without hacking the game |
HyperLamer
Posts: 6787/8210 |
Just don't make it really easy to get 1ups. As for going back and saving in a really easy Ghost House... there's a reason that you can save anywhere in the GBA version. Because not being able to save easily sucks hard. |
Glyph Phoenix
Posts: 533/745 |
Ah, but take a short easy level. Start at the beginning, grab 25 coins, find a 1up in a box somewhere, end the level. Repeat 4 times and you'll have a bonus round, in which you'll get probably about 2 more 1ups, and to top it off you'll have a coin 1up. That's 7 1ups in 4 playthroughs... and if you know the level well enough, you'll find more than that. And this is all assuming you don't have start + select.
That may not seem like much for 4 annoying playthroughs, but compare with one extremely hard level that you'll need all the lives you can get to complete.
Even then, what about save points? You can beat that ghost house over and over and you'll never have to worry about losing your progress again. |
Surlent
Posts: 1030/1077 |
You might "deaccess" old one-exit-only levels, Glyph, but on the other hand - as long the hack is exciting - you also lock out people from playing them; and of course levels with two had to be "ready" to reenter anyway
You can at least make it even so, that even in easy levels it really requires _time_ to pick up a 1UP mushroom; so if you have a very easy but long level and the shroom is found near the end, most players won't to do that too long - alternatively disable START + SELECT from Lunar Magic; so they HAVE to finish the level. If you anyway put not much lives into the hack, it won't may sense to play even easy levels fifty times and the player will get bored |
Glyph Phoenix
Posts: 532/745 |
This isn't about difficulty. Because of saves game over means much less and because of replayable old levels easy lives can be collected again. Regardless of difficulty, these problems exist.
I guess the two types simply can't work together... backtracking, complex stat, save games don't work with lives while linear, simple life n' score, restart from the beginning games work fantastically with them. When your're down to the wire, a death sending you back to the beginning, a 1up is heaven. But when you pick them up 3 at a time from the local yellow splotch on the map they stop being useful. |
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labmaster
