Harvey - Poll
Welcome everyone. It's me again.
So I have gotten a lot of comments that they do not think harvey is a detriment to creative basebuilding and I want to know from the limited active forumuserbase:
Do you like the concept of harvey? I will try to include every opinion I have heard, if you vote "other" please leave a comment. Ppl can upvote oyu there.
Harvey - Poll 16 votes
12 votes
2 votes
1 vote
1 vote
Comments
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Oh, a poll...
First of, there is no "other"-option. Then, the only option that aligns with your proposition - that you got a lot of comments that wouldnt think harvey would be a detriment to "creativity" - even states that there is a limitation, but that it doesnt matter in the context of the necessity of harvey (which is basically what nearly everyone was telling you already and no1 ever denied, as you state in your proposition).
What is your intention behind this "poll", what is your goal? It seems to me that you are dancing around a strawman...
- You can be as creative as you want in this game, but have to live with the restriction that it can be only published on social
- For the regular gamemode, there needs to be something that guarantees that the map is beatable. I wont repeat all the arguments here why "creator has to finish it" is an idea that wont work out to guarantee that and/or would be bad for the game and its loop, they have been present thoughout the discussion we had here in the last days*.
So instead of making that poll that leads nowhere and has like no informational value, why dont you present us with a solution for the problem mentioned in my 2nd bulletpoint?
Give us a system, without harvey, in which you can guarantee that the map is beatable, that cant be circumvented by the creator, and that wouldnt turn the gameplayloop into a chore.
(*re: gameplayloop would be a chore: it doesnt matter if its for the builder who has to run his own creation over and over or for the raider that has to search a gigantic outpost for that one baserock block that is the holocube that masks the secret entrance, both would be extremely unfun for the person involved and would jeopardize the games success ("even more" i am tempted to say))
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Harvey is just the worst. He does not add anything of worth (except looking cute ^-^) and the restrictions he brings limit basedesign to one of a handfull of basetypes.
I... I actually thought so hard about what I have heard people say, that I actually forgot the "other" option... ouch the shame.
So your vote would be the first option.
"Yes. Harvey is great. The limits he imposes are not important and the benefits he brings outweigh those."
PS: the "solution" is forcing the player to beat the map beforehand. Harvey doesn't stop exploits. Nothing stops exploits and cheese in these kinds of mapcreation games. Make harvey optional. So ppl that don't want to beat their own map (or cant) have this way and people that want freedom have to re-beat their own maps... like any other map-builder.
PPS: About the rest... we talked enough under other topics about that. We harshly disagree on that.
social maps don't give me any ressources though... why would I want to build a map that will never give me anything? If you could gain ressources from social... sure why not... I just wont publish normal maps then...
And also I wouldnt play anything but social... because the current bases are all the same concept. Some are more creative than others, but all use the same format. Walk from point a to b. So I would basicially have to miss out on any progression because I want creative freedom... doesnt seem very fun.
PPPS(lol): my "intention" is to get a grasp of this community. I harshly disagree with your opinion and the other vocal ones I encountered... so I wanted to get a quick median opinion from the silent people... although this forum might be too dead for that :D (as an example I once made a forum poll on the 7D2D forum and it showed the devs that over 80% of their players disagreed with their designdecision. I mean they still didn't listen... but at least they knew that I wasn't pulling it out of my behind and might adjust the system a little.)
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So if you do that and make harvey optional, you would have to mark maps that have no harvey in the regular gamemode so people know what they are getting into (you probably need to make own categories for that).
I dont even want to argue against that being difficult to realize ingame, or that that would "split" the community or whatever - I simply cant see that a lot of people would pick non-harvey maps in regular mode and really play them then, cause the chances that you would get into something that is unsolvable or needs an immense amount of time are high.
Why would people forgo/hinder their own progress regarding materials and competitive points? If you say "fun" - yea, thats exactly what social is for, and will be used for... you would end with maps that wont be able to sustain themselves anyways, so you could have made them directly in social. I honestly cant see the point.
Also re "exploits": besides people finding ways to really break the path while still being able to publish the outpost (which can be reported if it happens), i dont see any space for "real" exploits with harvey. Cheese and cheap tactics, yea, but there are enough raiders that still say nothing is unbeatable, and they are probably right. In my opinion, yea, the "explosive body rain"- and "false floor"-outposts are kinda "exploity", but others would disagree with good reasons again as well. Removing harvey would open up a whole new can of worms and be the reason people would actually avoid these maps.
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I would have to choose other.
I am in support of Harvey because I think he is a way to support a bit more creativity and less time having to approve every little change you make to your base. However, I do think they could use a bit of improvement.
My suggestion would be to:
- Allow the maker to choose the path Harvey travels instead of automatically picking the shortest route.
- Allow Harvey to travel through and over more things that would normally break his path (Example: half blocks placed on top of the path)
- Add a free building mode without Harvey that would be social exclusive.
Bonus suggestion could be to give Harvey a small jump, but I'm not sure if this would just get abused.
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Yes. Harvey is great. The limits he imposes are not important and the benefits he brings outweigh those.
The thing is what i realy want is having a game where i as a builder take on the challenge of preventing people from getting to my gen mat to me its realy fun designing traps to make it as hard as posible for people to get to my genmat its exciting to me to design the most difficult challenge possible I have a few limitations i set to myselfe mainly i dont want to waste a raiders time aka design a huge labyrint or just make the way unnecesarily long however i like to go all out and use everything i can to my advantage and thats why i personaly thing a restriction aka the harvester is good cause it prevents me from making completely impossible things i would love to have other restrictions like the harvester to fight againth aswell
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Yes. Harvey is great. The limits he imposes are not important and the benefits he brings outweigh those.
These polls have some loaded questions but I don't think harvey stilfes creativity as much as folks think he does.
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I like the concept, but I sometimes wish I had the option to disable him to build a map free of his restrictions.
I voted "I like the concept", but I just think he should be able to climb up walls/over things. I understand the need to have an accessible genmat, but it doesn't need to be wheelchair accessible, y'know?
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Yes. Harvey is great. The limits he imposes are not important and the benefits he brings outweigh those.
wall climbing Harvester would be nice but i think making a perk out of it would be more interesting so you have something aditionally to unlock but then you would need more perks for the harvester so you can choose and think about your decision
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Yes. Harvey is great. The limits he imposes are not important and the benefits he brings outweigh those.
What limitation? The fact there must be a walking path?
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Yes. Harvey is great. The limits he imposes are not important and the benefits he brings outweigh those.
Personally I think HRV and the limitations he imposes are excellent and necessary for the game.
As a builder, I can kill HRV trivially at the start of a map with a dead man's switch guard and corrosive cube if my intent is to make a maze (though builder beware: from closed beta experience, most raiders absolutely hate mazes; you might get some kills and a lot of people giving up, but accolades aren't going to be your strong suit if you build an extremely difficult labyrinth, and labyrinths typically don't get a lot of kills either).
As a raider, I can kill HRV trivially at the start of a map if I don't want it getting in the way or I know roughly where to go, or if I just want a challenge.
In my experience, so long as HRV can make it to the genmat there is no such thing as an unbeatable base, no matter how many traps and guards or whatever their orientation. There might be bases that are more or less challenging for specific gear sets, and I might not have the gear I need unlocked to beat a given base, but so long as HRV can path to the genmat, I can too. That being the case, HRV's pathing serves a useful, necessary purpose - to make the builder play by some sort of rulebook that the raider understands and can use.
Additionally, consider how boring raiding would get for very skilled raiders if builders have to beat a base themselves to post it online. Not only would building take far, far more time than the already lengthy amount of time it currently takes for relatively low reward compared to raiding, but if you're in the top 1% of raiders you're going to trivially beat anything the remaining 99% of people could put online, regardless of how good at building they might be. That's a great way to bore the most skilled raiders so they stop playing the game, leading to fewer people challenging builders to improve.
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Harvey is just the worst. He does not add anything of worth (except looking cute ^-^) and the restrictions he brings limit basedesign to one of a handfull of basetypes.
Have none of you guys ever played a map-building game?
All your arguments make it sound like none of you did... because everything @Kharel just said does not apply to any of the game I have played. Sure this game is different is a way, but there is no reason why it shouldnt also apply to this one.
Just imagine any of these games with a predesigned path that you could take:
Trackmania (no jumps, no shortcuts, no bounces, no speedchecks and so on)
Super Mario Maker (how would that even work?)
Bloons (I mean they follow a path, but not the player... you still have to beat it before uploading)
It honestly seems like I have landed in a parallel universe where no one knows any of these games... oh well...
I might look at the reddit... maybe people there aren't so obsessed with this ######### dog :'D
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Yes. Harvey is great. The limits he imposes are not important and the benefits he brings outweigh those.
Having seen what some people can do in terms of creating bases that are literal trap mazes I'm afraid of what's capable without having harvey.
I think he serves an important purpose of highlighting intended path or direction for player to take, otherwise the game will become a literal maze solving puzzle in 3 dimensions.
We cannot just remove harvey without mitigating what his absence could cause just because some base designs are impossible with his presence but instead come up with different ways we could avoid player making mazes that would take forever to clear.
Maybe give Harvey more tools to move around, maybe even walk on walls or jump down edges at reasonable heights.
What I don't want to see is builders intentionally killing Harvey in a way a raider cannot avoid.
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Yes. Harvey is great. The limits he imposes are not important and the benefits he brings outweigh those.
Actually making harvey able to walk on walls is a terrible idea, imagine a room filled with lava blocks and other traps, but instead now you have to do wall parkour (because floor is lava obviously) to get to the next room, which god know how could be made.
You can't throw grenades as they fall down the lava, nor you can use shield bombs, they also fall through lava. Yeah, I don't want to see that.
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Yes. Harvey is great. The limits he imposes are not important and the benefits he brings outweigh those.
The problem is, those games are completely different than MYM (which I've put around 350 hours into, both as a builder and raider though I'd consider myself a better builder than raider).
I've both played and built maps for Trackmania. Trackmania has an entirely separate set of goals, and the mapmaker's goal is not antagonistic to the "raider" (or driver's) goal. As a mapmaker you're trying to make something fun to drive, not necessarily easy to fail constantly and have to reset.
SMM is the best comparison, but it's also a 2D game - the number of dangerous things that can be aimed at you and the possible level complexity are significantly lower; I'm betting maps tend to be significantly shorter than they can get with MYM and the "cheats" the builder could use with holocubes to shortcut the entire process of running the map themselves are apparently quite prevalent.
I've admittedly never seen or played Bloons, but isn't that a tower defense game? That's a very different genre with few similarities to what we're doing here - building a community-made map in that would involve taking the raider's side, not the defender's.
The MYM subreddit seems to mostly have come to the same conclusion, so far as I can tell - apparently the "beat your own base" requirement was tried for some time with Mighty Quest for Epic Loot (a game very similar to MYM), and it resulted in a complete mess, with a huge portion of maps being impossible to complete without a specific movement skill or knowledge of a secret in the map.
In MYM currently, all but the absolute worst killboxes can be "solved" with a little patience with the default gear (which a competent raider will quickly progress beyond), and even the worst killboxes in the hardest maps can be solved with a couple of gear unlocks. That's a good place for the balance to be, I think.
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