Portal 2's The Perpetual Testing Initiative

Quote from Chimeray

I'm with Sentura on this one. I don't like all this mumbo jumbo either, or rather... I dislike people going overboard with it. Not every puzzle needs every mechanic in the game. Sometimes it's fun when one of these new mechanics are the focus of a puzzle though, but I don't think it needs to be mixed with everything. Most vanilla maps do it right because of the progression and all that.The player made maps tend to just be overly complex (not necessarily more challenging) because well... you can.

Now this I agree with! The most difficult puzzles in Portal 2 had very few mechanics and somehow managed to be fun and challenging.

And concerning the minor use of momentum/flinging/catapulting in Portal 2, I personally suspect that it's partly because the game was more widely released on consoles and that shit is harder to pull off with a controller. Valve didn't feel like putting a "barrier" in the game I reckon...

Quote from Puddy

Portals are still the vessels for all other puzzle mechanics and portal surfaces still define the puzzles heavily. I can tell you without a doubt that a Portal 2-length game would definitely fall short if no new mechanics were added to the mix. There's only so much you can do with flinging etc...But let's argue taste!

i doubt that the game would fall short; there's a ton you could do with different environments, and especially making exploration a big part of it. it's not so much what you can do, it's what you can do within an environment. the test chambers were very limited in portal one, it would seem a natural progression that the outside and regular buildings and stuff would provide a new challenge to the same mechanics.

in the vein of what Chimeray said; now when you use every mechanic available in a puzzle, the puzzle becomes cluttered and obfuscated in complexity, and that is detrimental to the player experience because of the frustration it will end up causing. in the first game, you could use every mechanic and still be within a player-friendly frame that would not frustrate them.

as for the taste thing: i'm not raging over a presumed troll here, i'm not saying you can't have your opinion, i'm just stating my opinion.

Quote from Sentura

i doubt that the game would fall short; there's a ton you could do with different environments, and especially making exploration a big part of it. it's not so much what you can do, it's what you can do within an environment. the test chambers were very limited in portal one, it would seem a natural progression that the outside and regular buildings and stuff would provide a new challenge to the same mechanics.

Moving away from chambers would drastically increase the cost of creating puzzles. The chambers are a great fit for Portal as the player accepts them as plausible constructions even though they are very simple and only feature basic detailing (Portal 2 increases this level of detail of course). Simple detailing and simple geometry means fast and cheap construction times, which is great when a puzzle is bound to go through many iterations before being final.

Furthermore, it would probably be hard to divide up "regular" buildings into portable and non-portable surfaces. Props and details could get in the way of the player's escapades. Also, being forced to construct plausible real world locations that work great as puzzles would be a time-consuming challenge and if the environments are designed after the puzzles, players might possibly feel the environments are contrived.

Quote from Sentura

in the vein of what Chimeray said; now when you use every mechanic available in a puzzle, the puzzle becomes cluttered and obfuscated in complexity, and that is detrimental to the player experience because of the frustration it will end up causing. in the first game, you could use every mechanic and still be within a player-friendly frame that would not frustrate them.

User-made chambers are not a good showcase for the new mechanics. I loved Portal 2 and never found the various mechanics combinations to be frustrating. Just refreshing. Virtually every game can be subject to this kind of abuse. Throwing too many mechanics at the player at once is usually never a good idea.

Quote from Sentura

i'm not saying you can't have your opinion, i'm just stating my opinion.

Whenever there's a clash of subjective opinions, this goes without saying (unless you are talking to a fanatic of some sort). It is also applicable to the Bioshock thread...

Quote from Puddy

Moving away from chambers would drastically increase the cost of creating puzzles. The chambers are a great fit for Portal as the player accepts them as plausible constructions even though they are very simple and only feature basic detailing (Portal 2 increases this level of detail of course). Simple detailing and simple geometry means fast and cheap construction times, which is great when a puzzle is bound to go through many iterations before being final.Furthermore, it would probably be hard to divide up "regular" buildings into portable and non-portable surfaces. Props and details could get in the way of the player's escapades. Also, being forced to construct plausible real world locations that work great as puzzles would be a time-consuming challenge and if the environments are designed after the puzzles, players might possibly feel the environments are contrived.

you can't have great products without great challenge. all i see here is excuses that should never have been made, essentially forcing what could have been something amazing into the framing of something mediocre.

Quote

User-made chambers are not a good showcase for the new mechanics. I loved Portal 2 and never found the various mechanics combinations to be frustrating. Just refreshing. Virtually every game can be subject to this kind of abuse. Throwing too many mechanics at the player at once is usually never a good idea.

something that happened while i was playing through portal 2, was that i got fed up with how complex the puzzles had become. by the end of the game i was really annoyed with the chambers because of all the new mechanics that did nothing to help the (my) player experience. and i think this is a huge problem in the industry actually, that games focus on mechanics and quantitative results to attempt at making something better. a game doesn't need new mechanics to be more enjoyable, because mechanics aren't inherently affecting the player experience. people are only starting to become aware of this now, but i'm hoping that this will become a stronger point in game design; especially in triple A development.

case in point: the best part for me was definitely the beginning of the old aperture science, where exploration was key and all you had was portals. which, when i think about it, ties in nicely to what i stated before with the environment.

Quote

Whenever there's a clash of subjective opinions, this goes without saying (unless you are talking to a fanatic of some sort). It is also applicable to the Bioshock thread...

this statement is ironic seeing as you wanted to put down Pogop for his opinion.

Quote from Sentura

you can't have great products without great challenge. all i see here is excuses that should never have been made, essentially forcing what could have been something amazing into the framing of something mediocre.

I just have a hard time hearing the word "mediocre" when in a discussion about Portal 2's design. It's a truly great game and, as you said, it just comes down to taste if you agree with me on that or not. Actually, it was an amazing game.

Quote from Sentura

something that happened while i was playing through portal 2, was that i got fed up with how complex the puzzles had become. by the end of the game i was really annoyed with the chambers because of all the new mechanics that did nothing to help the (my) player experience. and i think this is a huge problem in the industry actually, that games focus on mechanics and quantitative results to attempt at making something better. a game doesn't need new mechanics to be more enjoyable, because mechanics aren't inherently affecting the player experience. people are only starting to become aware of this now, but i'm hoping that this will become a stronger point in game design; especially in triple A development.

For me, every new mechanic was a puzzle initself that I had to wrap my head around. I liked figuring out the capabilities of each mechanic and what kind of combinations you could make. I can't say I've observed the problem with the increasing quantity of mechanics in games in general; not in a negative light anyway.

Quote from Sentura

case in point: the best part for me was definitely the beginning of the old aperture science, where exploration was key and all you had was portals. which, when i think about it, ties in nicely to what i stated before with the environment.

I loved that part. It was a nice detour and I'm a huge fan of such epic exploration setpieces. However, it couldn't, and shouldn't, last for a full game IMHO. I like my gels, my lasers and my light bridges.

Quote from Sentura

this statement is ironic seeing as you wanted to put down Pogop for his opinion.

It's just the PogoP "meme" that he's trying to shake by nervously proclaiming he's not a troll every now and then.

I hope he wasn't offended.

Quote from Puddy

I loved that part. It was a nice detour and I'm a huge fan of such epic exploration setpieces. However, it couldn't, and shouldn't, last for a full game IMHO.

i never said it should last the entire game; but it should be integral to the game. but like i said, i'd rather see them build around the core mechanics than create something gimmicky (which is exactly how the gel etc. felt).

This whole idea is just fucking stupid and I think it should be banned.

Happy now, Puddy?

(The whole troll thing, I dunno where it came from... I was very grumpy on a couple of occasions and was negative towards a few games, and it kinda stuck. Honestly, IRL I'm a happy, easy-going sorta person, haha).

also, grumpiness != trolling

Quote from Al Anselmo

What's this stat counter thing? I couldn't access your collection.

Weird, no idea how that got into my copy buffer. correct link: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... d=68663625

With regards to portals being used less, I think it's sad but there are two main reasons for it:

1) We've settled into the idea of what portals are and what they do, so instead of using them as the main puzzle mechanic, they're there as our normal mode of transport

2) Because other elements are so central to the game, many solutions to puzzles become trivial when you can place portals in more locations.

Also worth noting, the name of the game is potentially quite inappropriate now. The game isn't about portals, it's about Aperture Science. Which I think is way more exciting

I thought the gels weren't even added until old-style aperture? I haven't played it in over 6 months though so my memory may be faulty.

Has anyone else had their maps disappear from their workshop? I went to go send the links to my maps to some friends earlier, and my workshop literally had nothing in it, even though I published a couple of basic maps the past couple of days.

That actually happened to me a couple of times, but they came back after a few hours. Not sure what's up, maybe they're having a little trouble scaling the workshop with the huge amount of new content being uploaded?

Thanks SamCom, I checked again a couple hours since I originally found my files missing and they had shown up again. Was really stressed in that time though, definitely would've been saddened to see a couple days worth of mapping go down the drain.

Aren't the maps stored locally somehow in any case?

If I worked with this tool I would definitely look into a bulletproof backup option. You just never know...

Nobody has missed that peti supports coop now right?

These chambers weren't created in PETI, but they are workshop-integrated and I highly recommend them!!! Co-op fun for the whole family!

http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/file ... d=89736336

Edit: His singleplayer maps are pretty cool too!