[Wolfenstein: Blade of Agony] Achievement Ideas? (p13)

[Tormentor667]

@pulkmees - For the last problem you encountered, can you share coordinates?

 

@invictius - First is Paris (C1M5), second is Astrostein (C2M0_A)

[Tormentor667]

Better gameplay? We want that as well!

Dear Doomers, we are currently investigating how the gameplay aspect of Blade of Agony could be improved. To actually find the right approach, we need your help - not only by playing the first two chapters but also by thinking about ideas what could be added or what could be changed to improve the gameplay aspects. It's not that you need a perfect solution to reply but maybe some idea about what you would have expected and instead what you've got provided from the maps.

• What gameplay aspects did you like?
• What gameply aspects where frustrating?
• What would you like to see in an improved version of chapter 1 and 2?
• What would you like to see in an all new chapter 3?
• What will most likely make you use cheats or the console commands because of that?

The more detailed the examples about things you like/didn't like are the better. Maybe even map numbers and coords with an explanation could be something we'd love if you'd share them, as it makes it easier to understand what situation failed, what situaton was good and which situation needs further work.

Thanks kindly for your support,
best regards,
Dan & team

 

[Traysandor]

On 7/9/2017 at 7:41 AM, Tormentor667 said:

(Insert wall of text here seeking opinions)

 

The biggest complaint I've been seeing is that many of the missions drag on for far too long. There comes a point in gaming where wandering around aimlessly until you stumble upon the next key/objective, then try to find the obscure door/area that the key or objective unlocked halfway across the maze becomes very tedious and subtracts from the experience majorly.

 

Then you get to a miniboss, get wrecked, and have to do it all over again because you forgot to quicksave. (Screw that, if I have to do that I'm IDDQDing it until I make it back to the point where I died)

 

On the difficulty curve, the higher difficulty settings are extreme grindfests, where most encounters feel like a chore you struggle to get past, and god help you if you get caught in the open with a hitscan sniper halfeway across the map. *Cough fucking church map cough*  Lower difficultites need way more armor and health laying around, because there's a lot of fun feeling OP while you blast Nazi scum to smithereens.

 

This youtube review sums it up pretty well:

 

 

Edited July 13, 2017 by Traysandor

[DooM_RO]

Most of the problems are because most of the enemies are hitscanners due to the inherent WW2 theme of the setting.

 

Because of this I don't think any Wolfenstein game can be truly "old school" or have Doom-style gameplay. The solution is not to make it like Doom 2 but try to work around the limitations (hitscanners). It's really hard not making fights a chore when all of your enemies are hitscanners. 

 

One surefire way to improve the gameplay is to put in more stealth opportunities. Maybe even weapon upgrades. Alternatively, add secrets that contain drive-able tanks (and other war machines) that can help you get past particularly difficult encounters. Optional mission objectives that give you a squad of marines when you complete them would be cool too. Anything that prevents encounters from becoming a grindfest.

[CDexWard]

On 14.7.2017 at 0:12 PM, DooM_RO said:

One surefire way to improve the gameplay is to put in more stealth opportunities.

 

I concur. Stealth really slows down the gameplay. While the effort to make the game more modern is commendable, these older games didn't have stealth because they were focused on fast paced run & gun action. Putting a lot of stealth in would slow gameplay down and would be an annoyance for anyone who even remotely tries to play for a good completion time.

[DooM_RO]

1 hour ago, CDexWard said:

 

I concur. Stealth really slows down the gameplay. While the effort to make the game more modern is commendable, these older games didn't have stealth because they were focused on fast paced run & gun action. Putting a lot of stealth in would slow gameplay down and would be an annoyance for anyone who even remotely tries to play for a good completion time.

 

I meant as an alternative way of playing the game. The New Order does stealth really well for example. It never forces it on you and when the enemy catches you it's not game over, the game just switches the gameplay style.

Edited July 25, 2017 by DooM_RO

[pulkmees]

I should visit this more often. Did not think the developers would post here any more.

 

• What gameplay aspects did you like?

The core mechanic of shooting enemies is good. You have to shoot them fast enough as to stun them. Might seem like grinding, but

The rifle plays and sounds very powerful. Very satisfying to get kills with that. And I like the encounters where you have kill the enemies, who wield the rifle.

The length of the levels did not bother me. I liked the ones that were straightforward and the ones that were meant to be explored with the notable exceptions being Op Eizenmann and Op. Ausbruch.

• What gameplay aspects where frustrating?

Boss encounters are a bit... weird. Their pathfinding is not very smart (or maybe you just restricted what sectors they can cross as this is doom)

 I realize that's like a core disadvantage of the enemy AI in these games.

 

The zombie nazis, who shoot are annoying. Can't avoid being shot. Same with their boss variants

Enemy "pathfinding" or I guess placement is pretty terrible on Op. Exodus(the part where you take a lift to a floor above you. The enemies just gather in a herd next to the closest wall, but they won't get to you.

 

Sometimes tree leaves or etc block your shots. Sometimes you can't tell if the enemies can shoot through the foliage or not.

 

The whole bombing of the beach sequence is too random for my taste even with all the health there. And you can't shoot through some of the tank barriers, which forces you to shoot the enemies at close encounters, which takes a huge chunk of hp away.

 

20 minutes in the Eizenmann mission is not a lot of time. Also that level should be more straight forward.

 

The secret with the minigun or machine gun is kind of meh(imagination wise). Would've also expected to see that in other levels.

 

Most of the stuff in the shop is useless. I've used backpack, which also should show you how much more capacity it gives or if you can buy it or what effect it specifically adds.(Maybe I'm stupid, do I have to buy it once or every time a new mission starts?). Most of my money goes to vitality, if left over, that goes to portable hp, 1 time mine detector. The adrenaline thing felt pointless to me( but also it slows my computer down even further. I've never bought hp or armor, but then again I've played fps games before. I'm decent at aiming and reacting.

 

Why does the mg42 nest explode ? Looks and sound weird.

• What would you like to see in an improved version of chapter 1 and 2?

The first mission in Ep1 still feels kind of hard for me. There shouldn't be riflemen on the roofs or something, maybe ammo shortage. Something is off, idk.

Skippable mission briefings...

Highly unlikely but optimization of the church level ? Framerate is shit when the tanks show up and also every time I watch the river. GFX are already lowest possible and I DO have an old computer, but.. idk. if possible I'd want the option to turn something off that screws my cpu over.

Secret paths to kill the mg nests in the foliage in Op. Overlord.

 

Option to go through the harbor stealth mission(where you have to use a disguise) with guns blazing. I realize you can, but they won't drop bullets.

• What would you like to see in an all new chapter 3?

Shotgunners ? :D

• What will most likely make you use cheats or the console commands because of that?

Not finding secrets - only reason I've used cheats.

[Tormentor667]

First of all, happy new year to all of you out there. Since our last news item it's been almost a year, and even longer since the release of Chapter 2, so I thought it was about time to let you know: We are still working, harder than ever to be clear. The past 12 months have been a hard time for us developers as some of us had to struggle with job and family stuff. But even though progress has slowed down, we kept working. Not only regarding the 3rd chapter of Blade of Agony but also with improving what we have already released. Why? Because we are listening, and we take your feedback serious.

 

Shadows of the Reich has received mixed reviews. Where some people loved it from the beginning to the end, there have also been others with some gripes that made a good point and therefore we wanted to make sure that these issues get sorted and with the release of the final game including all three chapters, we want you have the best possible game experience that we are capabale of creating.

 

With the upcoming development blog entries we want you to get a certain behind-the-scenes inside information about the things we have been working on, we have improved and added. It hopefully will make waiting for the final chapter a bit easier. This is the first one of many more to be posted so stay tuned and make sure to get back from time to time, it's worth it!

 

AI Improvements

 

One of the problems that we've faced in the past is the AI (artificial intelligence) of the soldiers. People forgot that the main code of every enemy soldier is based on Doom's demons and zombies - no need to be pretty smart, it's simply "walk, aim, shoot/bite, loop", nothing less. We are aware that human beings (even though they are Nazis) should act a bit less predictable and that's where we started to interfer. First of all, we implemented a mechanic, that made the soldiers try to dodge your attacks from time to time (this is what you can see in the screenshot above). Next to that, tossing grenades or having little health makes enemy soldiers finally take cover or run away, makes sense, doesn't it? Last but not least, some enemies don't leave their covered zone until you are getting closer, instead they stay where they are.  It's not much but gives a new dynamic to the battles and feels as an appropriate change. Let's see what our coders AFADoomer and Ozymandias come up with in the next months to make the gunfights even more challenging - stay tuned![/quote]

[Tormentor667]

Shaders are something that is already part in modern games for some time now: Motion Blur, Vignette, Lens Flares, Film Grain and many more features. These additions have lately been showcased by Total Chaos, an amazing mod by wad'a'holic which makes you ask yourself: "Am I still playing Doom?". These shaders have been implemented and developed by Nash - and yes, Nash is part of our development team. We only had to see if it enhances the gameplay experience and if it fits our philosophy, or if we only want to add these features for the sake of having them.

Post Processing Shaders

Remember old videos from World War II, most of them have scratches, noise, a vignette and are black and white. Whereas greyscale and scratch effects will not work well in a first-person shooter game (I mean c'mon, where does all the beautiful gore go?), we felt that film grain and a vignette perfectly fits the game design philosophy and makes for a fitting feature. The decision was easy to make.

For the lens flares, it took a while though, same goes to the motion blur. Both effects are aesthetic and visual. In some places, it greatly improves the experience (just take a look at the effect in the screenshot; the fire feels extremely bright and blinding). We were not sure, but considering that all effects can be adjusted or totally turned off to your desire, we have decided to add what we have for those who want it. If you are a purist though you can still deactivate all of it, including the noise and vignette, set your resolution to 320x200, and enjoy the mod in its 1994'ish glory.

[elend]

First of all; Good news, that development is continuing. 

 

Second; Blade of Agony is what got me into actually making maps for Doom, so a big thanks to you for that. Keep it up, I really loved Blade of Agony, it‘s just an amazing piece of work and what a Wolfenstein 2 would have / should have looked like on around 1994. Thanks, guys, much appreciated. Can‘t wait to play E3!

[DooM_RO]

Amazing stuff!

Are you going to use stuff from The Old Blood and even New Order/Colossus at one point?

[Tormentor667]

@elend - Glad that you like what we are doing :)

 

@DooM_RO - Well, currently we are focusing on Chapter 3, but we are already gathering ideas for a potential sequel, and yes, "Old Blood" and "New Order/Colossus" are things we take in consideration as sources of inspiration.

[Tormentor667]

[Road to Wolfenstein] Devblog 03 | Compass 2.0

 

 

In the past releases of Blade of Agony, the compass seemed to be a bit rudimentary - a feature we added for the sake of being added, but not really worth using. We always thought that we should either remove it, or re-work it as to make it worthwhile, and that's what AFADoomer took care of.

 

The new compass item

 

The completely reworked compass is now available as an item that can be bought during Chapter 1, and is part of your inventory from the beginning of Chapter 2. It now works very intuitively, and not only shows the locations of the mission objectives (both primary and secondary), but also shows you the location of important objects, such as mission elements that must be collected, as well as the locations of treasure chests and the keys to open them, and even optional stuff that can be gathered.

Objects that are far away will be barely visible on the compass, but as you get closer to such objects, they will fade in and move closer to the center. Now it really makes sense to get a compass and use it, as it will be helpful for finding your way through larger maps. You won't ever get lost again... as long as you have hoarded enough gold to buy the item.

[Tormentor667]

[Road to Wolfenstein] Devblog 04 | NPCs with a brain

 

How terribly insulting it was for us to hear that most of the people playing the second chapter of Blade of Agony hated our friendly NPCs: Douglas and Ryan (well, the latter still for a reason) were a pain for the players. Instead of helping you, giving you cover, and being a new and interesting gameplay feature, they just - well - sucked. It was about time to change something here.

 

Improvements for friendly NPC followers

 

AFADoomer took the community's feedback very seriously, and started re-writing most of the code in order to improve sidekicks like Douglas, Ryan and Ascher, so that they were actually useful companions, rather than annoying obstacles that get in your way instead of covering you. They will now try to avoid being in your line of sight, they will try to move away from you if they are in your way, and most importantly, you can interact with them. Just like in Half-Life 2, you can "use" them once to make them hold their position, and then "use" them again to make them follow you. So if you want a sidekick following you, just leave everything as it is, and if you are more of a "James Bond" special agent who doesn't need or want support, simply leave them behind; it's up to you.

[elend]

Great stuff, good to see the work continuing on this one. I didn't have much qualms with the NPCs but improvements are of course appreciated.

[Tormentor667]

[Road to Wolfenstein] Devblog 05 | Revamping Maps

While mapping is a very organic progress, you sometimes lose the objectivity when it comes to size and length. Instead of knowing when it's the right moment to stop adding new portsions you simply think "Wow, this is something I could add here as well". This is what happened to a lot of maps in Chapter 2, especially Operation Schlangenkopf (C2M3). While watching various gameplay videos online on Youtube (specifically ZikShadow and MrIcarus) we simply went overboard with putting more and more stuff into one single map. People needed almost an hour to complete one map. This is simply too much and absolutely not satisfying.

 

Shortening Maps

So what we did was checking all the maps (from the beginning of Tunis up to the Astrostein missions) and find out what areas are needed to keep the tension and gameflow, and what portions of the map can be removed because the are simply not climatic enough. C2M3 was a very good example. As soon as you collect the yellow key, you enter a huge area of containment and underground labs that simply doesn't add anything to the story or the gameflow. It's just there. Removing it was the logical consequence, and that's what we did with a lot of places. Instead we tried to add something in the spirit of the map, or tossed areas around to make the progress more fluid and organic.

 

Improving Maps

Sometimes if you play your own maps after a longer while, you start to thing of different approaches, different solutions, different possibilities to make the vision you had in the first place more convincing. Operation Astrostein is a very good example of how a map can still improve even though it was already finished. In this special case I don't mean the way to the portal but the second part of it being on the Nazi Moon (yes, this is a spoiler, I hope you played Chapter 2 already). When I first created the map, I had a very clean futuristic design in mind, just as the original Astrostein episodes. After visiting New Berlin again though I thought that this approach isn't realistic. I imagined this place to be more dirty, more dangerous, something between Coruscant and Los Angeles like in the blockbuster movie Blade Runner. And that's what I turned it into - and it's worth a second visit, I promise.

 

Finetuning Maps

Believe it or not: I actually watched almost every Let's Play video on Youtube - at least those with a language that I am aware of (sorry for skipping the polish, czech and russian ones) and for me this is the most useful feedback you can get on your own maps. You can see and hear how people react in certain situations, what they think and how they approach your creation. We listen closely to the feedback we get and there are hundreds of changes and improvements that we made according to the experiences, players made out there. So thanks a lot to all of you for sharing that - it got noticed!

[DooM_RO]

I have always wanted to see Wewelsburg castle in Wolfenstein. It would be a perfect fit. Any plans to visit the place?

Edited March 1, 2019 by DooM_RO

[Tormentor667]

 

[Road to Wolfenstein] Devblog 06 | SFX Shaders

Shaders being added to the GZDoom engine opened a completely new dimension of special effects to mods. We have already introduced the power of Post Processing Shaders with noise, flares or motion blur, but this is only one part that can be controlled by the player. Shaders can also be used to enhance the atmosphere and realism of a project, and this is what we took advantage of.

 

SFX Shaders

Imagine a long endless street in the desert, it's daylight and the sun is boiling the ground without mercy. If you look closely, you can not only feel the heat, you can see it on the asphalt, and in the distance on the horizon. You can see the heat in the air. This is one example of an effect we've added to various hot places in the game (e.g. lava rivers, hot engines). Another addition is the distorted player view when you are hit by the shockwave of an explosion. Instead of seeing clearly, you need some time to recover from the shock and see clearly again. These changes also affect the gameplay, but it's a very realistic and interesting addition that makes the environment and the battles more intense.

 

And with some slight tweaks, these shaders can even be applied to textures, which will give you a totally new experience in the briefing room at the HQ. Finally, we have those scratches and flickering light that every diascope has had in the 1940's.

[Tango]

looks really awesome Torm, very much appreciate you taking the time to make these devblogs. the level of polish of the whole thing seems stellar!

[elend]

Yes, I will so play this!

[Scuba Steve]

I'm excited to play a revamped complete episode trilogy in one package.

[Tormentor667]

[Road to Wolfenstein] Devblog 07 | Sneak-Mode improved

Creating a project in the scale of Blade of Agony, you tend to try out things that haven't been done before. Having some kind of Metal Gear Solid introduction to Chapter 2 where Laz breaks out of a prison was a brave undertaking, but also very dangerous. Will players accept a completely new mechanic in a Doom mod or will they decline it? The community's response was mixed, some liked what we achieved and some people simply said that we horribly failed. For us to be honest it wasn't satisfying as well but we knew that with some fine tuning and improvements we can make the mechanic as perfect as possible when it comes to playing it. And so we started all over again...
 
Sneak Mode Improved

AFADoomer took a very long time to improve the scripts in Operation: Ausbruch (C2M1) and I can remember that it took me almost the same time to play the map over and over again, changing things, editing actor placement and structures, to make them benefit from the script changes. We can firmly say that the escape is a lot more intuitive now and many things that felt like being totally "random" can be controlled now from the player's point of view. Though we didn't want to make it too easy so you can expect a few interesting mechanics like alarm switches that can be activated by guards and draw other guards attention towards you. And as this would be too much effort for only one single map, you can expect some more of that gametype in Chapter 3 - this time the way it is meant to be!

[Tormentor667]

On 3/17/2019 at 3:00 AM, Scuba Steve said:

I'm excited to play a revamped complete episode trilogy in one package.

We are doing our best to not disappoint you :)

 

On 3/16/2019 at 8:52 AM, Tango said:

looks really awesome Torm, very much appreciate you taking the time to make these devblogs. the level of polish of the whole thing seems stellar!

Thanks for your words, we are really working hard on improving the previous chapters to make the thing feel like a whole product at the end. Fortunately we have the right people on the team and we are glad that we received so much feedback from the community - not only the good things but also the bad ones that makes us look at our project from a different point of view. :)

[Mordeth]

4 hours ago, Tormentor667 said:

Will players accept a completely new mechanic in a Doom mod or will they decline it? The community's response was mixed, some liked what we achieved and some people simply said that we horribly failed.

 

Without trying to detract from either mod or its authors, I'd like a word on that. In my opinion, its greatest flaw is in not restricting itself to what it wants in order to achieve that. You're trying to cram all these ideas you have into the same level, instead of choosing a focus or central idea to build it on.

 

Stupid silly example: take the easter eggs in the first moonbase level, when you escape from a cell block. Locked in the other cells there's a Commander Keen, a Spock, a Solo and Chewie, an Alien, a Predator and some other characters I can't recall or recognized. Instead of putting just one little easter egg in there, you had to go and put all possible references you could possibly think of in there. And not in some tucked away corner, no, in cells lining a corridor the player had to pass.  Except: easter eggs don't work that way. You pick ONE option, and put it where an observant player might find it off the beaten path. That approach works for the intended purpose. Cramming them all in in places the player is bound to find them just reeks of indecision, like you don't know what your player wants so let's stuff everything in there in fear of disappointing them?

 

So pick a theme and a focus for one particular level. If you don't, you'll end up with (let's see if I can recall this correctly) a secret headquarters inside a bank vault inside a secret room inside a castle inside underground catacombs inside a church inside a hub-like overworld shared with two other objectives (a house and small village with fields). It's too much; CHOOSE a focus for one level and save the extraneous ideas for other levels.

 

Same for the Indiana Jones references, for example. Yes, we noticed the posters in the first episode. But you really do not need to rebuild all the contraptions we know from the movies inside that one level, because that's not what your mod is supposed to be about. Focus on providing your own unique take.

 

The stealth option feels tacked on, because again: there's no focus on it. That first level has the player escape the prison, navigate the woods by staying out of the searchlights and then, armed to the teeth and throwing stealth to the wind, murder everyone inside a base including the shark infested pools.  All this in the same level. Better would be if you started the story with the player being wounded, not able to heal up all the way. So the player's only choice is to stick to stealth as much as possible. Cut out the base clearing, and pool your stealth stuff instead. So: stealth out of prison, escape through the woods while avoiding searchlights and search parties, and in the end take out watchtowers manned with snipers (taken from the much later UFO level intro, where it doesn't belong) in order to reach a rescue party or whatever, who take you to HQ / intermission to heal up.

 

[jazzmaster9]

On 3/30/2019 at 7:50 AM, Mordeth said:

Same for the Indiana Jones references, for example. Yes, we noticed the posters in the first episode. But you really do not need to rebuild all the contraptions we know from the movies inside that one level, because that's not what your mod is supposed to be about. Focus on providing your own unique take.

I actually love the Indiana Jones Section of that level, it still work in the context of the location and theme.

let's put it this way: If a player didn't know about the Indiana Jones Reference guess what... he just played a Temple level with cool traps.

in this case the mod knows whats its all about, a love letter to all the cool WW2 shooters and movies of the past.

[DenisNinja]

The most wonderful mod for GZDoom, Very well done, God Speed, i am waiting for the final chapters, i will do a donation for the developers.

[DooM_RO]

There needs to be a toggle for option for stealth. Holding the ctrl button for so long is tiresome.

[Tormentor667]

[Road to Wolfenstein] Devblog 08 | Replay Value

The process of bugfixing and improving our previous chapters of Blade of Agony is something that we have already written about. We want a polished final product with the release of Chapter 3. This also means that we are considering ways to enhance the replay value of our project. Youtube and Twitch have revived the competitive spirit of gaming, and encouraged players to out-perform each other, no matter whether it is by speedrunning, or just maxing out their kills, loot, and secrets. So how can we implement features that support these kind of people?

Mission Summary

At the beginning of the development, I decided to get rid of the intermission sequence because it ruined the atmosphere which is so important to this project. Regarding the aspects from the introduction paragraph though, I was considering renewing the concept of showing your stats at the end of the mission, but in a way that is more integrated with the game just as most of the other aspects are - that's our philosophy. The idea of a mission summary in the Allied Headquarters was born, and AFADoomer brought these ideas into a working implementation.

After completing each mission, you will be able to check this blackboard in order to find out: Did I kill everyone? How much loot did I collect? How many secrets did I find, and how long have I been playing this game? It's competition time! Share your results with a screenshot, or just try to do better on your second or third run. Maybe you will even find a hidden bonus if you are good enough...

[Tormentor667]

On 3/30/2019 at 12:50 AM, Mordeth said:

 

Without trying to detract from either mod or its authors, I'd like a word on that. In my opinion, its greatest flaw is in not restricting itself to what it wants in order to achieve that. You're trying to cram all these ideas you have into the same level, instead of choosing a focus or central idea to build it on.

 

Same for the Indiana Jones references, for example. Yes, we noticed the posters in the first episode. But you really do not need to rebuild all the contraptions we know from the movies inside that one level, because that's not what your mod is supposed to be about. Focus on providing your own unique take.

 

The stealth option feels tacked on, because again: there's no focus on it. That first level has the player escape the prison, navigate the woods by staying out of the searchlights and then, armed to the teeth and throwing stealth to the wind, murder everyone inside a base including the shark infested pools.  All this in the same level. Better would be if you started the story with the player being wounded, not able to heal up all the way. So the player's only choice is to stick to stealth as much as possible. Cut out the base clearing, and pool your stealth stuff instead. So: stealth out of prison, escape through the woods while avoiding searchlights and search parties, and in the end take out watchtowers manned with snipers (taken from the much later UFO level intro, where it doesn't belong) in order to reach a rescue party or whatever, who take you to HQ / intermission to heal up.

 

 

Thanks for your feedback Mordeth, it's definitely appreciated and we do listen to information like that.

 

Regarding the Easter Eggs
I was aware that the amount of stuff we took from other inspirational sources is huge, but it's something that has been done by the original WolfenDoom and so it has been done by Duke Nukem 3D, Blood or Shadow Warrior as well. There has always been a huge amount of references to other games or movies that made me personally giggle and think "Hehe, that's a nice reference there and well incorporated". I was always someone who loved secrets and easter eggs in other games and for me Blade of Agony is the right game to implement all of that as it's a game that doesn't take itself very serious (I mean, common, Nazis on the moon :P). Maybe there are some people who think we went overboard but for us it's exactly the ratio we aimed for.

 

Regarding the Stealth Option
you are definitely right with your thoughts on the first map of C2M1. When developing the map, I simply had E1M1 of Wolfenstein 3D in mind, just in a larger scale. You start in your cell, travel your way through the prison, get yourself some weapons and flee from the place. But I do agree with with the possibility to move the sniper action from C2M6 to C2M1 - it feels indeed more consistent.

 

So thanks for your feedback so far!

[Mordeth]

Just to make clear: it wasn't about easter eggs. I was just pointing out that the way the mod treats easter eggs is symptomatic to how it handles actual gameplay relevant bits and pieces. You have all these ideas, and then you try to cram them all in the same map(set). And that isn't the way to make those individual ideas really shine. Eg. the stealth parts are drowned out by all the other stuff going on, to the point where I wonder what the point was for including it in the first place.

 

Still looking forward to playing the next installment, though!