The issue that will kill the game.

This was argued in this thread and probably other too.

Even if the dev required players to beat their own designs to publish (and the they should), harvey will still be needed to ensure the map is "playable"... playable in the sense you won't have a player wandering aimlessly for hours trying to figure your outpost. The raiding part of MYM is a looter shooter and LSs thrive face-pace gameplay.

Harvey enforces better level design by forcing the builder to take the path in account. Mario maker doesn't need a harvey because the goal post is almost always to the right, to the right, to the right, not the left, not the left, not the left, not the left, now kick, now kick...err... of the level.

Now I hope the devs do allow more options for harvey, like an upgrade that enable him to upwards using the slope cube.

Ok i am a builder, only raided first two days to get it going, so i dont really know what the majority of outposts out there look like. Can you guys tell me what the "only certain way" to design an outpost is and why there is no room for parcour/complex movement?

In the replays i watch daily (some of) my players are like crazy bunnies that hop arround everywhere and find shortcuts even i havent thought of or holes i didnt realize while building. I build (most of) my maps quite open though and with opportunities to take cover (i use a lot of guards usually), i want the player to speed up, build up pressure, and drive them into making mistakes (or trigger more guards than is good for him - even my guards have quite complex movement options on some maps). After all i want to see some fancy replays and not people slogging for half an hour through a tunnel afraid of traps behind every corner lol.

Also i want my players to be able to beat my maps, its nice to get some kills out of them, but after all we are all here to have fun, right? Some of my maps are like no challenge for skilled people or speedrunners (but usually fun, or they appreciate the traps i set up/architecture/whatever, i can see that in the ratings), and i am fine with that - i really enjoy seeing someone who knows what he does blasting through my map and escape.

Imo the problem is a certain gamer mentality, and not the harvey mechanic. Removing harvey would only allow for more bad/unfun stuff to be published. Beating your own map could be easily cheesed here as well, i pointed that out in the other thread. Also: I sometimes load into a map to change a single block for aesthetic reasons. You want me to run my whole thing again after that? And yea, im better in building than raiding, i would have to find some cheese ways for me to complete my own designs on some of them, or it would just bee too timeconsuming and unfun for myself otherwise.

If "beat your own map before publishing" becomes a rule, im out...

@clownkrieger

"Can you guys tell me what the "only certain way" to design an outpost is and why there is no room for parcour/complex movement?"

Narrow corridor. Trap misdirection (sometimes creative, other times not) by trapping traps or building traps so that it is hard to spot them if you dont crawl along.

That is probably the only fun (but really repetative) maptype that exists currently.

Then there is a "deathroom" where there is just everything loaded with traps (preferrably endless ones like the flamethrower, plasmashooter and pistons) and loads of ranged enemies.

Then there is the simple exploitative narrow corridor which has two variations:

10-20 giants with armorplating and rage (so they all trigger at once)

or a narrow corridor with endless shooters (traps and guards) at the end, where even with invincibility you wouldnt be able to clear them all before dying (maybe with granades, invincibility and that shield tool? but it certainly isn't fun.)

I have only seen one outdoor map, which was by the devteam where it was relatively open but there are shooters all around and you have to hide behind corners. Not really my type of map (dodging projectiles one by one is just a grind for me, but maybe some ppl like it)

I have built a "pick a path" map. It gets GREAT accolades but nearly no kills, because I have to split up my traps and guards as well as build a small replica to give them a hint.

I have even seen a guy see that it was pick a path, died and shot my "dogkilling piston" to simply slowly walk behind it to let harvey decide... Like... how much of an NPC do you have to be to not even want to explore different paths???

And before I killed harvey, nearly everyone just followed harvey without a second thought.

Funny thing is: I would say that like 30% of the raiders i see kill harvey themselves at the start lol. On the replays i watch, if they dont kill harvey themselves, raiders either go that fast that they leave him behind, or are so careful and slow that they lose harvey out of sight. Either way, i still get my kills out of them, none from some, more from others, evens out :D

The stuff you describe is for sure unfun, uncreative and cheesy, but its definetly not the only way you can build your map. These are ways people build, that want to make sure that no1 or only fewest can beat their stuff, whatever they get from that or why they do it. Thats a people problem and not a game problem, and you cant change that by removing harvey, it would make it worse lol. "Beat your own map" would not change that either, cause you could still build such stuff with a secret entrance (holoblock) so that raiders would have to check every bedrock block they can see from the outside to find it... imagine that on some plots.

Btw: I could imagine a "pick your path" map on a plot with super complex baserock-structure, where you build a path for harvey to the genemat that is as long as possible, and then build up several shortcuts that cut through it (that would only be reachable by jumping/grappling). Might try something like that when i get a plot like that again. (and that, again, would annoy some people to death lol)

Of course he does. He limits bullshit people can do. Imagine just creating a giant cube where you have to drop in from the top. Litter everything with lavaboxes and traps and make you have only small path to grapple through a giant maze littered with traps and mobs. Afterwards you would also have to get out again. Would be a massive pain in the ass.

Imo there are people who super creatively USE this limitation. Much better than people who create just one path. There are already nearly limitless possibilities its just harder to use and abuse harvey correctly so a lot of people fail at that part.

The one thing they should add tho is a bit more variety. Not sure how they could achieve that, but let harvey go up the "third" type of block where you build a small slope kind of thing. So make him a bit more flexible. They could also try to give the player special cubes that modify how harvey takes a path. Idk a warp cube or something like that, but can only be used once or twice per map. Something like that would be fine if tuned correctly.

While I understand where a lot of this feedback is coming from, I was well on my way with my own bases to showing you don't have to build with a lot of "cheese" in order to give raiders a challenge. I also have some topics of conversation concerning cheese builds and player behavior overall.

• Bases that are super easy to speed run or exploit by raiders isn't a fault of the overall game design and/or base construction options. It's a creativity problem. It took me a few bases to learn it, but then I fell back on my learned experiences from shooters like Quake, Doom, and the first Halo. In those games, some of the most memorable levels and moments came from places that had choke points with multiple actions needed to pass through. You don't need "cheese" to create those points, you just need to use clever combinations that make use of the space you've created. In fact, if you can make a tough spot without needing cheese, then the raider has to use game mechanics to overcome it and that's, simply put, fun for everyone. If you resort to using cheese to kill raiders then they have to try and use cheese to overcome the obstacles. This is a lose-lose for everyone.
• Second, I was already noticing that raiders were beginning to just leave my cheese base. I created a cheesy, next to impossible base and a challenging, classic shooter inspired base on the final day of the beta. The former had very few players attempt to finish it compared to the other, where people stubbornly continued to battle through. I think that will part of the game balance upon release. Your cheese maps just won't produce for you like one that is fun and exciting. Remember, if you build for the express purpose of making it impossible instead of merely challenging then you'll just end up blocked by everyone who doesn't want that.

Basically, the community needs more time with the tools before we start truly judging whether the ones we have are good or not. For example, I see a lot of builders that seem to be upset with the speed running dynamic and are asking for changes in order to stop that. I argue that with 100% certainty, it is entirely possible to build something that is very difficult to speed through using the current offered building options and gameplay techniques. It's also possible to achieve that without spamming the same build you saw that youtuber make that was a slice of cheese pizza.

Wouldn't a simple solution be to just make the player run a patrol with Harvey like with the guards on stage 2?

This way it still has a requirement of making sure there is a legit path to the GenMat and stage 2 ensures you can't run it over second stage acid blocks, etc. This also bypasses the problem of having to beat it yourself in terms of traps and enemies.

Lastly this would only have to be redone if you break the pathing like it currently has with guards and Harvey.

@Entchenklein

if your base is fun, that shouldnt be a problem. If you however have unfun set-ups, maybe that is a good punishment :D

If your base is creative, it shouldnt be so bad to play it again. I've played my maps quite a few times... simply because I was bored of killboxes and the same setup.

And I fixed one of my maps about 20 times (because I have a very unusual setup that needed A NOT of tweaking)

And last but not least: that is why harvey should be optional. Either make a boring follow-path map, or get creative freedom, but you need to beat it yourself.

that is why there shouldnt be a path.

EVERY map building PvP game (in the sense that one creates it and another one beats it) is based around this simple concept:

"Build it - beat it - upload it"

Be that trackmania, super mario maker or bloons td.

They all follow this concept. Why? Because it works great. Bad maps get downvoted, great maps get upvoted and creativity can run free.

I am usually not someone that is against improving existing designs. But in this case, harvey is just worse in nearly every way. The only positive is that people have to get creative to surprise players. But this is achieved by taking away from the most fundamental part of a map-building game: creativity.

How are you so obsessed with abuse and "cheese"? It has NOTHING to do with harvey. Abusers/cheesers will cheese. With or without harvey. That is a seperate issue to be solved.

But if you only answer me one thing, let it be this:

Can you understand why having the requirement of a fully functioning path, with no surprise or variation, that makes EVERY MAP be completable just by following a predetermined path, is FAR more limiting than saying "go nuts, but make sure you can beat it yourself"???

And if you don't, then please tell me how a predetermined beatable path that is required is somehow not limiting basetypes.

And now something subjective:

If the game stays like this, I won't play it. After the 20th base that is simply "follow path" I simply got bored. I spent 90% of my time after day 2 just watching players raid my bases, because raiding the same base over and OVER and OVER again is just mundane. Yeah sure that one placed a flamethrower under a plasmablock, while that guy had it hidden behind some slopes... but essentially all these traps are just varaitions of "walk from point a to b".

And again again: I'm not saying you cant be creative this way. I have thought of three different maps that were actually different from this basedesign. But all three used the "kill dog at spawn" method. Sure you can give raiders other options, like two ways... but then you need to defend two paths... sure you can use the A.I. creatively...

but in the end, why bother? I can simply follow harvey and will get to the base 100% of the time (if it wasn't for killcorridors and other exploits).