So for the select few that remember me from FFR, hello.
Mainly I just wanted to post my opinion on the first couple rounds of play I had and leave some comments and suggestions.
First of all I really like what was done, and it was done relatively well. Kudos to preparation and the designers of the site. That being said, I feel like its worth noting:
When I compare this site to other online simulators *cough* FFR *cough*, I don't feel as invited. I'm not exactly sure why. I suppose what I'm trying to say is that thirdstyle feels very underground. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, however, it is something to be said that the fact that thirdstyle is a rhythm simulator isn't readily apparent at all. Not at least until you click to play the game. Maybe it's the dark feel, maybe its me over reacting, but it is simply the vibe I get when I come on to the site.
Lets jump right into gameplay though, since I feel like my above semi-rant could be simply because the site is very new and I myself am just not used to it.
The game runs fairly well. I'm playing on a slightly older apple machine which hates flash in it's entirety, but when the songs show more arrows on the screen during difficult runs the computer struggles to handle it, this despite the FPS counter on the bottom saying that it is running at 60 fps the entire time. It clearly does not, and I'll attempt to take a video and post it sometime later to demonstrate that. Even with that though, the sync the notes all seem consistent with the goal of the design. Well done. Here are my suggestions:
Get rid of the pinstripe
Or at least give seasoned players an option to turn it off
I don't need to feel like I'm a moron and can't tell that the down arrow is still coming up the same path toward the down arrow hit box. If anything, maybe leave it on for the "easy/light" songs, but it makes the game feel unnecessarily clunky. At least to me.
Utilize Wasted Space
Being that FFR was so small it didn't really have the luxury of using the portions outside the arrows. The resolution here is much better, but as a result (especially with the dark nature of the site) it makes the game feel extremely plain. The black areas on the sides of the arrows do nothing and it just makes the whole thing feel like "nothing". My suggestion is to allow the player to customize where the combo should accrue. I generally sometimes get distracted by combo in the middle, some people prefer it, but with all of that space on either side i'd love to have the choice to move the combo to that empty space, maybe in the bottom corner, or maybe the right hand side in the middle between top and bottom. Perhaps the same can be done for judgement.
Bring back C-Mods!
I'm not saying this because I want to be a party pooper. I have zero issue with BPM changes and gimmicks and the like but the thing that streamlined FFR so well is that you could literally jump from one song to the next and never have to worry. Perhaps we could compromise though. Maybe the scroll speed you set on one song can be saved specific to that song. E.G If I set Song A to 2.5x modified and mosey on over to Song B and set it to 3x, when I come back to those songs later, both songs will start at those respective speeds when I play them. If I want to change them in the future I will open the settings particular to that song.
Bring in other indicators of difficulty
Nothing aggravates me more than playing a hard song and leave it thinking "That was medium at best". Maybe put in the file attributes (how many steps, how many holds etc). I want to know what I'm getting into before I play it.
I have other suggestions too that if anyone wants to hear, I'll post them, the reason I am not now is because A. I need to shower. B. I feel like chances are they will be resolved when it gets out of beta/we get more songs (Hint hint, I'm talking about categorization or the files.
I'm sure I'll post more later.
Mainly I just wanted to post my opinion on the first couple rounds of play I had and leave some comments and suggestions.
First of all I really like what was done, and it was done relatively well. Kudos to preparation and the designers of the site. That being said, I feel like its worth noting:
When I compare this site to other online simulators *cough* FFR *cough*, I don't feel as invited. I'm not exactly sure why. I suppose what I'm trying to say is that thirdstyle feels very underground. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, however, it is something to be said that the fact that thirdstyle is a rhythm simulator isn't readily apparent at all. Not at least until you click to play the game. Maybe it's the dark feel, maybe its me over reacting, but it is simply the vibe I get when I come on to the site.
Lets jump right into gameplay though, since I feel like my above semi-rant could be simply because the site is very new and I myself am just not used to it.
The game runs fairly well. I'm playing on a slightly older apple machine which hates flash in it's entirety, but when the songs show more arrows on the screen during difficult runs the computer struggles to handle it, this despite the FPS counter on the bottom saying that it is running at 60 fps the entire time. It clearly does not, and I'll attempt to take a video and post it sometime later to demonstrate that. Even with that though, the sync the notes all seem consistent with the goal of the design. Well done. Here are my suggestions:
Get rid of the pinstripe
Or at least give seasoned players an option to turn it off
I don't need to feel like I'm a moron and can't tell that the down arrow is still coming up the same path toward the down arrow hit box. If anything, maybe leave it on for the "easy/light" songs, but it makes the game feel unnecessarily clunky. At least to me.
Utilize Wasted Space
Being that FFR was so small it didn't really have the luxury of using the portions outside the arrows. The resolution here is much better, but as a result (especially with the dark nature of the site) it makes the game feel extremely plain. The black areas on the sides of the arrows do nothing and it just makes the whole thing feel like "nothing". My suggestion is to allow the player to customize where the combo should accrue. I generally sometimes get distracted by combo in the middle, some people prefer it, but with all of that space on either side i'd love to have the choice to move the combo to that empty space, maybe in the bottom corner, or maybe the right hand side in the middle between top and bottom. Perhaps the same can be done for judgement.
Bring back C-Mods!
I'm not saying this because I want to be a party pooper. I have zero issue with BPM changes and gimmicks and the like but the thing that streamlined FFR so well is that you could literally jump from one song to the next and never have to worry. Perhaps we could compromise though. Maybe the scroll speed you set on one song can be saved specific to that song. E.G If I set Song A to 2.5x modified and mosey on over to Song B and set it to 3x, when I come back to those songs later, both songs will start at those respective speeds when I play them. If I want to change them in the future I will open the settings particular to that song.
Bring in other indicators of difficulty
Nothing aggravates me more than playing a hard song and leave it thinking "That was medium at best". Maybe put in the file attributes (how many steps, how many holds etc). I want to know what I'm getting into before I play it.
I have other suggestions too that if anyone wants to hear, I'll post them, the reason I am not now is because A. I need to shower. B. I feel like chances are they will be resolved when it gets out of beta/we get more songs (Hint hint, I'm talking about categorization or the files.
I'm sure I'll post more later.
