In Progress Streets of Rage X (Windows / Android) Beta 34

[Kratus]

Hi
Explain please what "arcade lock" option is?

The arcade lock option is used to lock all menu options when installing the game in arcade machines, working on a similar way to the "Dip Switch" options in arcade games.

I've just finished the SOR1 route and I had a bug with the police call counter - at the 5th level I picked up an additional police call and did not spend it. Then, on the 6th level, I picked up another police call. There should have been a "3" on the counter, but there was a "2". At first I thought that it was impossible to have more than two police calls, but a little later it turned out that this was a bug with the counter, because in the battle with boss "Hara-Kiri" I used the police call three times.

Thanks for the report, I will check it.

@Kratus I was thinking it might be a good idea to give a brief explanation as to what some of the options are like this.

Thanks for the suggestion, buddy I'm planning on adding something similar. When a button is pressed/held over a certain option, the screen will darken a bit and show the explanation text.

I haven't made it yet because there's too much text to write in both languages, I'm planning to add it at the final steps of the game a little before the official release. However, as a quick briefing I can create some videos explaining the entire game settings, what do you think about this idea?

 

[Emsi D]

I haven't made it yet because there's too much text to write in both languages, I'm planning to add it at the final steps of the game a little before the official release. However, as a quick briefing I can create some videos explaining the entire game settings, what do you think about this idea?

That would be great, man

 

[danno]

there's too much text to write in both languages,

I'll write all the english text for you buddy, Tell me how you want to make them (size, font, etc) and I'll create them in photoshop for you.

EDIT:
Sorry I assumed It would be best to create images with text for the explanations, If you plan on having every letter drawn via script on screen then yeah I can see why that would be a really big task.

 

[Kratus]

I'll write all the english text for you buddy, Tell me how you want to make them (size, font, etc) and I'll create them in photoshop for you.

EDIT:
Sorry I assumed It would be best to create images with text for the explanations, If you plan on having every letter drawn via script on screen then yeah I can see why that would be a really big task.

@danno No problem buddy, I'm really very grateful for the help. But you're right about the scripted method, first I need to prepare the codes to receive the text and then translate it on-the-fly depending on the selected language in the menu.

Here's a demo of how the text files are written in the SOR2 intro, the menu explanation will follow the same method.

 

[zales360]

Hey, it's been a while because I was travelling, so I jumped from Beta 16 straight to 22 and I love all the changes, both the major ones as well as the subtle ones.

Forgive me if that's a stupid question, but would it be possible to implement the SOR1 final choice into the game, perhaps for the full release?
Of course assuming it doesn't require rewriting half of the code lol.
I do not know the limitations of OpenBor engine, which is why I'm not sure if that's something that even can be done technically.

Ideally the bad ending would be accessible in single player too, and without being sent back to stage 6 (i don't think anyone likes that?), so it would be pretty much just a dialogue box that determines your ending.
I can imagine that 2 player playthrough is the tricky part, since I'm not sure if OpenBor allows PvP in arcade mode.
But if that's possible, it would make most sense to force AI partner to always choose "No" as an answer, so that you can either get a good ending together, or a bad ending as last man standing.
Or maybe you can even come up with something new for the single player bad ending to make it more interesting

Let me know what you think, I always thought that this feature was very cool and it honestly amazed me when I learned that a game that's even older than me had this kind of choice (now I know where Castle Crashers got their idea from lol)

 

[Kratus]

Hey, it's been a while because I was travelling, so I jumped from Beta 16 straight to 22 and I love all the changes, both the major ones as well as the subtle ones.

Thanks friend

Forgive me if that's a stupid question, but would it be possible to implement the SOR1 final choice into the game, perhaps for the full release?
Of course assuming it doesn't require rewriting half of the code lol.
I do not know the limitations of OpenBor engine, which is why I'm not sure if that's something that even can be done technically.

Ideally the bad ending would be accessible in single player too, and without being sent back to stage 6 (i don't think anyone likes that?), so it would be pretty much just a dialogue box that determines your ending.
I can imagine that 2 player playthrough is the tricky part, since I'm not sure if OpenBor allows PvP in arcade mode.
But if that's possible, it would make most sense to force AI partner to always choose "No" as an answer, so that you can either get a good ending together, or a bad ending as last man standing.
Or maybe you can even come up with something new for the single player bad ending to make it more interesting

Let me know what you think, I always thought that this feature was very cool and it honestly amazed me when I learned that a game that's even older than me had this kind of choice (now I know where Castle Crashers got their idea from lol)

@zales360 Indeed the SOR1 bad ending is in my "todo" list but honestly I don't know exactly how to implement it yet.

I had some crazy ideas to make it simpler like the first player that touches the Mr. X throne after his death will be the new Syndicate boss lol. It solves many problems at once because there's no "choice menu" required, players will have a free choice of changing the ending with a simple action, plus it works fine for both single/multiplayer modes.
In case the versus damage is disabled, players can compete by simply running to the Mr. X throne as soon as he dies, but in case the versus damage is enabled players can fight against each other even while Mr. X is alive, showing some kind of "betrayal".

In the end, the "traitor" must kill players and Mr. X at once and sit at his throne, becoming a new Syndicate boss and triggering the bad ending. If no player touches the throne, then the good ending works normally.

 

[lanyer]

Thanks friend


@zales360 Indeed the SOR1 bad ending is in my "todo" list but honestly I don't know exactly how to implement it yet.

I had some crazy ideas to make it simpler like the first player that touches the Mr. X throne after his death will be the new Syndicate boss lol. It solves many problems at once because there's no "choice menu" required, players will have a free choice of changing the ending with a simple action, plus it works fine for both single/multiplayer modes.
In case the versus damage is disabled, players can compete by simply running to the Mr. X throne as soon as he dies, but in case the versus damage is enabled players can fight against each other even while Mr. X is alive, showing some kind of "betrayal".

In the end, the "traitor" must kill players and Mr. X at once and sit at his throne, becoming a new Syndicate boss and triggering the bad ending. If no player touches the throne, then the good ending works normally.

This idea is very creative, and the player experience will be smoother. Similarly, when choosing a branch route, enter directly instead of asking the player to confirm yes or no one more time. The experience will also be smoother.

 

[zales360]

Thanks friend


@zales360 Indeed the SOR1 bad ending is in my "todo" list but honestly I don't know exactly how to implement it yet.

I had some crazy ideas to make it simpler like the first player that touches the Mr. X throne after his death will be the new Syndicate boss lol. It solves many problems at once because there's no "choice menu" required, players will have a free choice of changing the ending with a simple action, plus it works fine for both single/multiplayer modes.
In case the versus damage is disabled, players can compete by simply running to the Mr. X throne as soon as he dies, but in case the versus damage is enabled players can fight against each other even while Mr. X is alive, showing some kind of "betrayal".

In the end, the "traitor" must kill players and Mr. X at once and sit at his throne, becoming a new Syndicate boss and triggering the bad ending. If no player touches the throne, then the good ending works normally.

That's a very clever workaround to be honest, I didn't even think of that!
Of course in that case the player would need to be allowed a couple of seconds after the boss is down before the credits roll

This idea is very creative, and the player experience will be smoother. Similarly, when choosing a branch route, enter directly instead of asking the player to confirm yes or no one more time. The experience will also be smoother.

Well, that's one way of looking at it, but I personally think it's a good idea to make sure the player doesn't choose a path by accident. You can also check what path is available, so you don't need to memorize all of them, and this will become very useful when new paths are added in the future

 

[zales360]

SORX just crashed as I was about to face Shiva in SOR2 route lol I beat all the minions and then it crashed, either when he was in the air or about to jump.
Normal difficulty, no cheats and no unlocks active except infinite juggle for testing.
I also enabled rage attack, which i usually don't play with, because i was curious how the new input method works (and it's so much better)

By the way, I've been thinking about that SOR1 ending and maybe it would be a good idea to somehow tell the player that they have a choice?
Either some sort of text or two arrows like with route select: one pointing to the throne and the other to the door perhaps?

Edit: I loaded the same save, but the crash did not occur this time, weird.

 

[O Ilusionista]

I had some crazy ideas to make it simpler like the first player that touches the Mr. X throne after his death will be the new Syndicate boss lol.

That is a neat idea!

 

[Blit-X- TV [LIVE]]

This idea is very creative, and the player experience will be smoother. Similarly, when choosing a branch route, enter directly instead of asking the player to confirm yes or no one more time. The experience will also be smoother.

I prefer the confirmation because sometimes you maybe already be at the part of the screen for the route change unintentionally or a secondary/co-op person may just decide the route without your input.

 

[zales360]

Sorry for multiple posts, but I wanted to follow up on my question from the past - you mentioned that there are no plans to make more playable characters, which means that characters like Shiva will remain only as playable bad guys, right?
If so, then I'm wondering if there's a chance we could perform grab escape and aerial recovery with Rebellion characters, or is this limitation related to sprites/animations that simply do not exist?

Also, it would be great to have some sort of confirmation in menu before all settings change to one of the presets with a single button press - I lost count of how many times i messed up all my settings by accidental button press

 

[Kratus]

This idea is very creative, and the player experience will be smoother

That's a very clever workaround to be honest, I didn't even think of that!
Of course in that case the player would need to be allowed a couple of seconds after the boss is down before the credits roll

That is a neat idea!

Glad you all liked the idea
I will work on it, as soon as I have some results I will show a demo here.

Similarly, when choosing a branch route, enter directly instead of asking the player to confirm yes or no one more time. The experience will also be smoother.

Yeah, I made this way in the first SOR2X versions but a lot of people requested confirmation through a menu due to many accidental route selections.

SORX just crashed as I was about to face Shiva in SOR2 route lol I beat all the minions and then it crashed, either when he was in the air or about to jump.
Normal difficulty, no cheats and no unlocks active except infinite juggle for testing.

Strange, there's no error message on the log, usually we call it a "silent crash" and may be related to the engine too. I will check it, thanks for the report.

By the way, I've been thinking about that SOR1 ending and maybe it would be a good idea to somehow tell the player that they have a choice?
Either some sort of text or two arrows like with route select: one pointing to the throne and the other to the door perhaps?

This is a good idea, I can show a message like the route selection in SOR1 stage 5 or SOR2 stage 3. Then, players can touch the throne or simply quit the Mr. X room.

I prefer the confirmation because sometimes you maybe already be at the part of the screen for the route change unintentionally or a secondary/co-op person may just decide the route with your input.

Yeah, it caused some confusion the first time I added the route selection without a menu.

you mentioned that there are no plans to make more playable characters, which means that characters like Shiva will remain only as playable bad guys, right?

I don't know where you got this info, but indeed there are many plans to add more characters, mainly the SOR1/SOR2 versions of all heroes, as you can see in this post.
In addition, there's some custom characters planned even after the official release.

Also, it would be great to have some sort of confirmation in menu before all settings change to one of the presets with a single button press - I lost count of how many times i messed up all my settings by accidental button press

Thanks for the idea, I will think of a way to add some kind of confirmation.

 

[zales360]

Was there a change in boss AI recently? I could swear they didn't interrupt combos before (excep Abadede with his flex and Shiva with his special).
Now Antonio, Souther, Mr. X and some other boss I can't remember (I think it was Harakiri) interrupt my combos - is that intentional?

I know there was *some* change to SOR1 Souther as per the patch notes, but now he's pretty much wrecking me. At first I thought that it's because I was playing on Hard, but it's the same on Normal. Dude's insane right now with his instant combo-breaking counters, invincibility frames and high damage, and I just can't find a weakness.
Any advice on strategy until (if) it's balanced?

He seems to only interrupt fast hitting combos, like Axel's (also applies to side-special) or Blaze's. I tested multiple characters and Adam or Max are not interrupted

 

[Miru]

I have a suggestion concerning Harakiri and such; perhaps have options for "original" and "expanded" enemy rosters for stages? The expanded rosters would take some cues from SORR, though obviously without the SORR-exclusive enemies, mixing stuff from all three games together.

 

[Kratus]

Was there a change in boss AI recently? I could swear they didn't interrupt combos before (excep Abadede with his flex and Shiva with his special).
Now Antonio, Souther, Mr. X and some other boss I can't remember (I think it was Harakiri) interrupt my combos - is that intentional?

I know there was *some* change to SOR1 Souther as per the patch notes, but now he's pretty much wrecking me. At first I thought that it's because I was playing on Hard, but it's the same on Normal. Dude's insane right now with his instant combo-breaking counters, invincibility frames and high damage, and I just can't find a weakness.
Any advice on strategy until (if) it's balanced?

He seems to only interrupt fast hitting combos, like Axel's (also applies to side-special) or Blaze's. I tested multiple characters and Adam or Max are not interrupted

@zales360

Yeah, indeed many bosses already had the reaction included since the previous versions, I just increased the rate which was too low to the point it allowed players holding them in the "combo reset" to death (or in long combos mixing normal+special attacks).

Usually bosses are not so vulnerable like regular enemies, and then I looked at the originals again to remember how it works. The SOR1 bosses like Antonio/Souther will react if you try to hold them in a "combo reset" and I only replicated the mechanic. You can see some examples below for Souther and Harakiri.

You can see some tricks in my latest playthrough, in which I played using SOR1 presets trying a no-death.

I can make a very minor adjustment on the rate and for Souther I can replace the current escape attack to a more simple version, like the original, instead of escaping using an special move. But remember that there's two ways for bosses to escape, by taking hits or by being grabbed.

Bosses that can escape by taking hits.
Abadede
Antonio
Bongo
Harakiri
Souther
Mr. X
Neo X
Ringmaster
Shiva

Bosses that can escape by being grabbed.
Abadede
R. Bear
Harakiri
Jet
Mr. X
Neo X
Particle
Ringmaster
Robot X
Shiva
Tracker

I have a suggestion concerning Harakiri and such; perhaps have options for "original" and "expanded" enemy rosters for stages? The expanded rosters would take some cues from SORR, though obviously without the SORR-exclusive enemies, mixing stuff from all three games together.

@Miru Thanks for the suggestion, I will think about it

 

[zales360]

@zales360

Yeah, indeed many bosses already had the reaction included since the previous versions, I just increased the rate which was too low to the point it allowed players holding them in the "combo reset" to death (or in long combos mixing normal+special attacks).

Usually bosses are not so vulnerable like regular enemies, and then I looked at the originals again to remember how it works. The SOR1 bosses like Antonio/Souther will react if you try to hold them in a "combo reset" and I only replicated the mechanic. You can see some examples below for Souther and Harakiri.

You can see some tricks in my latest playthrough, in which I played using SOR1 presets trying a no-death.

I can make a very minor adjustment on the rate and for Souther I can replace the current escape attack to a more simple version, like the original, instead of escaping using an special move. But remember that there's two ways for bosses to escape, by taking hits or by being grabbed.

Bosses that can escape by taking hits.
Abadede
Antonio
Bongo
Harakiri
Souther
Mr. X
Neo X
Ringmaster
Shiva

Bosses that can escape by being grabbed.
Abadede
R. Bear
Harakiri
Jet
Mr. X
Neo X
Particle
Ringmaster
Robot X
Shiva
Tracker


@Miru Thanks for the suggestion, I will think about it

Ouch, watching that SOR1 footage with Axel was painful lol. You handled it like a pro in SORX with SOR1 preset though

It's totally fair for a boss to have some anti-stunlock mechanic, but for fast hitting characters it gets to a point where you can't even perform one full combo; I'm not trying to cheese the infinite/incomplete combo
It works fine for most bosses, but if you combine this mechanic with Souther's new wild AI, the fight gets bonkers lol

I usually try a couple of tactics and they all fail here:
a) hitting (fails because he interrupts even basic combos and Axel's combo-special)
b) hit n run with specials and running supers (fails because he has I-frames pretty often and for a long period)
c) grabs (let's be honest, you're not getting anywhere near him - not even approaching from top or bottom works due to his Z axis reach)
d) my least favorite tactic, because it feels cheap: bait the boss to attack, block and then either counter or kick his ass (fails because he can easily break my guard, and counter doesn't even land because of i-frames)

I'm not saying Souther is broken like the Jet trio used to be in SOR3; it's managable and could even remain unchanged since he was a total pain in the ass in the original SOR1 too, but it's silly to lose 1 or 2 out of 3 lives to a boss of the 2nd stage.
Shiva is probably even harder, but I don't mind since it's the final boss.
Perhaps adjusting his damage would be enough so that you don't have to change the AI again?

There's also one thing I've been thinking about for a long time, but I was worried you would hate me for it lol. But here it goes:
Don't you think that Easy mode shouldn't reduce enemy health that much? I mean, more forgiving AI is a very cool handicap alone, but cutting all enemy health in half is too much IMO.
I can already tell what you're thinking - "Didn't you just complain about enemies having too much health for the past X months?" - True, I did, but that was back when things were not balanced and/or fair, besides, Easy AI is enough to make the game relaxing - when they are less dangerous, it would be more fun to beat em up (no pun intended) for longer.
Whenever I wanted a relaxing playthrough in the past, I used to pick Easy BUT with enemy health set to normal - it felt like a perfect combo for easy mode.

Speaking of difficulty, what's the difference between Hard and Mania? It seems that enemies already have speed and agression boost on Hard, so I wonder what's the difference - perhaps boss health?

Let's use SOR4 as a reference again, since I think it does many things very well: I know that SOR4 reduces enemy HP a little bit on Easy, but it's like -20% tops. I can't tell the exact number, but maybe someone has the data?

And I'd like to ask all of you guys to let me know if you don't agree with any of my comments please, because I often feel bad about my posts - like I'm the only person suggesting changes all the time, and I don't want it to come across like I want the game to be tailored for me

BTW what software do you use for recording gameplay? I tried using bandicam, but it only allows like 10 minutes or so in the free version. I thought that it would be good to record the gameplay to capture bugs, crashes and maybe even stuff I'm doing wrong so I could get better

Edit: I just noticed how I keep comparing everything to SOR4 - maybe that's why I don't understand all your design choices, since I believe you rather prefer the old school experience, and not all bosses were fair back then. SOR4 kinda spoiled me with bosses that always have *some* weakness you can take advantage of.

 

[Kratus]

It works fine for most bosses, but if you combine this mechanic with Souther's new wild AI, the fight gets bonkers lol

In the original, Souther has a very aggressive A.I. too. Keep in mind that he has a very limited moveset compared with Abadede or R. Bear for example, once SOR2/SOR3 bosses are more complete than the SOR1. I just improved his A.I. to not look like some kind of "sparring" lol, the same goes to other SOR1 bosses.

I don't know if you are using juggles but in case yes, Souther is easy to beat in the normal difficulty. In fact he was broken in previous versions and now he is on the same level as the others.

There's also one thing I've been thinking about for a long time, but I was worried you would hate me for it lol. But here it goes:
Don't you think that Easy mode shouldn't reduce enemy health that much? I mean, more forgiving AI is a very cool handicap alone, but cutting all enemy health in half is too much IMO.
I can already tell what you're thinking - "Didn't you just complain about enemies having too much health for the past X months?" - True, I did, but that was back when things were not balanced and/or fair, besides, Easy AI is enough to make the game relaxing - when they are less dangerous, it would be more fun to beat em up (no pun intended) for longer.
Whenever I wanted a relaxing playthrough in the past, I used to pick Easy BUT with enemy health set to normal - it felt like a perfect combo for easy mode.

The game reached a point where it's bad if I constantly make changes at every request. Many people liked the easy mode as it is after countless tests, but in case something is not good this is why I created a menu with tons of options. I suggest you make some tests until you find a proper adjustment for your play style, you can try to combine the easy A.I. with a "normal" or "hard" in the health level option at the unlockables.

Speaking of difficulty, what's the difference between Hard and Mania? It seems that enemies already have speed and agression boost on Hard, so I wonder what's the difference - perhaps boss health?

Many things are changed between difficulties: health, aggression, speed, attack rate, escape rate, block rate, dodge rate, counter rate, chance to get weapons in the air, grab distance and other minor things applied on some specific levels.

I think it does many things very well

I agree that there's many things well done in SOR4, but IMO the super armor available for every enemy in harder difficulties totally broke the game for me, plus the infinite juggles too.

And I'd like to ask all of you guys to let me know if you don't agree with any of my comments please, because I often feel bad about my posts - like I'm the only person suggesting changes all the time, and I don't want it to come across like I want the game to be tailored for me

Don't worry buddy it's always better to have more feedbacks than less even if we don't agree every time. So, feel free to post even minor things you want to talk about.

BTW what software do you use for recording gameplay? I tried using bandicam, but it only allows like 10 minutes or so in the free version. I thought that it would be good to record the gameplay to capture bugs, crashes and maybe even stuff I'm doing wrong so I could get better

Yeah, videos can help a lot to fix bugs. Currently I'm using the Nvidia app but I saw many people using Fraps too.

Edit: I just noticed how I keep comparing everything to SOR4 - maybe that's why I don't understand all your design choices, since I believe you rather prefer the old school experience, and not all bosses were fair back then. SOR4 kinda spoiled me with bosses that always have *some* weakness you can take advantage of.

100% correct! The major problem I'm currently facing is the comparison with other games like SOR4/SORR as a default gameplay reference instead of the classics, which are the ones I'm truly following even with some differences.

As an example, frequently people say that certain things are not like the original but they are recapping the SORR version and not SOR1 or SOR2. But even SORR does not follow the classics totally.

The same goes for the SOR4, the people sometimes say that I must follow its mechanics but in fact SOR4 comes after the classics and not before, this is why I don't use this game as a full reference. In fact the opposite happened, SOR4 applied many ideas that appeared in SOR2X first, I sent a long list of ideas myself to the devs as soon as they announced the game, some were applied and others discarded.

Look at the image below, they were following the same "Rage" name for the current "Star" move, plus the diagonal bars at the hud from my first alpha build.

 

[Kratus]

@zales360 Ok, I made a very small adjustment on the escape rate chance for all bosses at least to randomly allow a default 5-hit combo, plus now Souther uses his normal attack instead of the special to escape, which does not have "dash" effect and cuts the damage by half.
Will be launched on the next beta.

 

[zales360]

Thank you for understanding, I guess you're right, especially about comparison to SORR. I don't really like the way it changes the games either. Custom/new content is always appreciated, but not when it replaces something that's already in the game. Probably the best (worst?) example is how they just ignored the fight with Break in SOR3.
And you're especially right about SOR4 super armor - it's pretty cheap, especially on normal enemies, like that highest level Donovan. If they wanted a boss fight to last longer, they could've just given a boss more health, not make him immune to flinching most of the time. Not to mention that the entire game is pretty much built around combos, so it kinda contradicts the design. But it is what it is

Regarding Souther boss fight - I do always try to juggle bosses, but the problem is that it's hard to get this one in air due to reasons I listed above

I mostly play on normal, recently trying hard as well since most stuff has been balanced. The flow of the game is so much better since those harder enemies no longer have bloated hp pools - it used to feel too grindy.
I just thought that Easy might be a little too easy for beginners, but thankfully you can always adjust enemy health via unlockables
That's one of the things I love so much about this project - the customizability (is that even a word? lol). I hated how SOR4 has almost none of that; and even lives are tied to difficulty level, which means I'm not able to beat Mania, much less Mania+ and it gets really frustrating.

BTW I'm surprised to see that they had Abadede's sprite in place during development, it's always interesting to see all the "behind the scenes" and work in progress type of stuff about games I love. I kinda wish they kept the rage/star move system recharging rather than it being one time use and found as a pickup. Oh well