Laser doors are completely stupid.

[CakeBandit]

Laser doors make NO SENSE AT ALL within the confines of the game, and with what the game actively teaches the player about the game up until that point.

Sometimes they're on. Sometimes they're off. Sometimes you watch your entire party walk through a door just fine but NO, SCREW YOU, EAT SOME LASER.

There's no panels.

There's no button.

There's no indication AT ALL about how you're supposed to deal with the problem.

There's no indication that a door is going to turn into a wall of pain and green photons until its been open for a whole second or so either. So you're halfway through it by the time you're writhing on the ground.

There's just a laser door and you.

Someone told me that apparently you're supposed to shoot out cameras or turrets on the cieling to make them turn off, but how in the hell does a player figure that out on his own? There's no indication at all for a player to figure that out. Cameras just look like more terrain with a light on them. The only way to know you can damage them at all is to look at them directly and shoot them. I don't know about you, but I typically have more important things to be doing in game than staring at the cieling, dumping my precious ammunition in to the molding and hoping for the best. Further: Turrets don't take any damage unless they've deployed to fire at you. So if you find a turret on the cieling not shooting at you, and you pop a few rounds into it, the game teaches you that you can't damage installations anyway. Even further: Who in their right mind ties their laser grid system to their freakin' CAMERAS? What kind of person can build a space station but doesn't get the idea that a deathwall of lasers that only your faction can walk through should just stay on? How does that system even work? I can just imagine the guys in the security room now.

TED: "Oh hey Bill, somethin' got caught in the laser grid."

BILL: "Oh really Ted? Where at?"

TED: "Section QB-39, Hallway T"

BILL: "Isn't that where the intruder is?"

TED: "I dunno, I say we give them the benefit of the doubt."

BILL: "I'm telling you man, I checked the cameras just a minute ago and some purple-tighted nightmare of a lead-dispenser killed everyone there."

TED: "Well check 'em again."

BILL: "Malfunctioning. Nothing but static now."

TED: "Those two things probably aren't related in the least."

BILL: "You're right, let's just turn the impossibly frustrating deathwall of lasers off for a while."

TED: "My fingers were getting sleepy without a switch to flip for a whole hour there."

BILL: "We're the best security guards ever."

TED: "You bet, pass me another cold one."

If you're going to keep this ridiculous system of disabling laser walls, (if that's even what you do, I still haven't actually succeeded in getting past one without a teammate who apparently knows what's up doing it. Even then, it appears to be a temporary solution as I frequently find myself on the far side of them despite the fact that my party has already passed.), then there needs to be some sort of visual connection between laser walls and the cameras. There needs to be either a visual link from the laser grid to the thing that turns them off, or some common visual language between the laser-field emitters and the thing that turns them off.

NEXT UP. The laser grids are green, but y'know what else is green? Chests you can open, boxes you can smash open, panels you can use, Doors that will slide open when you walk near, pretty much everything that you want players to go towards and attempt to wrap their handy little polygons around. Y'know what this makes your players want to do to the lasers? Touch them. At least once. And that's a really $&*^ way to get the idea across that they deal damage and throw you across the room. What's more, they spring out of nowhere like the Huns in Mulan after the avalanche.

This issue is ridiculous considering the amount of polish the entire rest of the game already has.

[Zh40]

I'm pretty sure the cameras are more of an automated detection system, rather than a couple of dudes drinkin some cold ones.

Loved the read, by the way. Going to remember purple-tighted nightmare of a lead-dispenser for further use. (:

I've stated before that they need to either A) add lasers to the tutorial or B) throw up a tool tip whenever you set off an alarm/camera whatever BEFORE YOU RUN FACE FIRST INTO SOME LASERS.

Lasers need to be red. very.. VERY RED.

[Dr3dd]

I like green it sends a mixed message to players "walk on in" and it works well.

[CakeBandit]

I'm pretty sure the cameras are more of an automated detection system, rather than a couple of dudes drinkin some cold ones.

Loved the read, by the way. Going to remember purple-tighted nightmare of a lead-dispenser for further use. (:

I've stated before that they need to either A) add lasers to the tutorial or B) throw up a tool tip whenever you set off an alarm/camera whatever BEFORE YOU RUN FACE FIRST INTO SOME LASERS.

Lasers need to be red. very.. VERY RED.

The tutorial is totally wasted opportunity right now. It ultimately boils down to: In this 3rd person shooter you use WASD and the mouse to shoot dudes in their ugly faces.

Anyone who has touched a keyboard this decade KNOWS HOW TO DO THAT ALREADY.

Use this oppotunity to teach me about the stuff that makes your game unique in some way, or the things that the game is not going to be able to teach me as I play. stuff, like "DO NO TOUCH THE LASER WALL, SHOOT THE DOODADS ON THE ROOF-PLACE TO NOT TASER YOUR NUTS OFF"

Take a look back at Half Life's Hazard Course. That thing taught you about ducking, jumping, the finer parts of platforming, crouch jumping, alternate fire commands, the long jump, and how to recognize and deal with hazards such as drowning, fire, acid, and radiation. Especially in a time where that sort of thing was totally unprecedented.

That's stuff that you'll need to remember for the ENTIRE GAME. and that's what makes that tutorial brilliant. The tutorial for this game is like filling out a kindergarten handwriting practice sheet to prep for your S.A.T.s. Sure, it's something to do, but it's completely masturbatory and not-helpful at all in the long run.

Edited January 21, 2013 by CakeBandit

[LalaLuck]

Laser doors ehh... yeah, it's idiotic but you just have to be careful 'round them crazy doors.

P.s. I didn't read the whole post but I deduced that you were just complaining about doors and spouting nonsense to further justify your complaint. I, however, don't care about the doors but meh.... Have fun space ninja-ing around!

[CakeBandit]

Laser doors ehh... yeah, it's idiotic but you just have to be careful 'round them crazy doors.

P.s. I didn't read the whole post but I deduced that you were just complaining about doors and spouting nonsense to further justify your complaint. I, however, don't care about the doors but meh.... Have fun space ninja-ing around!

I also told them what they need to do to fix it regarding visual language.

Thanks for being a tremendous waste of oxygen anyway.

[Zh40]

The tutorial is totally wasted opportunity right now. It ultimately boils down to: In this 3rd person shooter you use WASD and the mouse to shoot dudes in their ugly faces.

Anyone who has touched a keyboard this decade KNOWS HOW TO DO THAT ALREADY.

Use this oppotunity to teach me about the stuff that makes your game unique in some way, or the things that the game is not going to be able to teach me as I play. stuff, like "DO NO TOUCH THE LASER WALL, SHOOT THE DOODADS ON THE ROOF-PLACE TO NOT TASER YOUR NUTS OFF"

Take a look back at Half Life's Hazard Course. That thing taught you about ducking, jumping, the finer parts of platforming, crouch jumping, alternate fire commands, the long jump, and how to recognize and deal with hazards such as drowning, fire, acid, and radiation. Especially in a time where that sort of thing was totally unprecedented.

That's stuff that you'll need to remember for the ENTIRE GAME. and that's what makes that tutorial brilliant. The tutorial for this game is like filling out a kindergarten handwriting practice sheet to prep for your S.A.T.s. Sure, it's something to do, but it's completely masturbatory and not-helpful at all in the long run.

I think the only thing that preceeded half-life's tutorial in greatness was Megaman X's (on the SNES) first level. It taught you everything you needed about the game WITHOUT SAYING A SINGLE WORD. To this day I have yet to find another game with a tutorial that good.

[Galestorm]

I agree, it makes no sense in the context of the game, if the enemies can walk through it why dont the just keep them up? it just makes no logical sense.

That being said i dont disagree with having them, but just make it so that its not every room that has turrets and when they do the doors to progress are sealed off to start and the lasers only go down once the turret is destroyed or have an object in the room that makes more sense to disable the lasers.

i mean if we can hack the doors why cant we hack the lasers?

[CakeBandit]

Sequelitis is a great breakdown on why that works.

You can apply a lot of the same principles to the first several rooms of Portal and Portal2.

[edit] Y'know what the difference is between unlocking a locked door by hacking it and diffusing a laser door by shooting a camera? 20 bullets and one trip to the ground in a small, powdery coating of what used to be your skin.

Edited January 21, 2013 by CakeBandit

[Zh40]

I agree, it makes no sense in the context of the game, if the enemies can walk through it why dont the just keep them up? it just makes no logical sense.

That being said i dont disagree with having them, but just make it so that its not every room that has turrets and when they do the doors to progress are sealed off to start and the lasers only go down once the turret is destroyed or have an object in the room that makes more sense to disable the lasers.

i mean if we can hack the doors why cant we hack the lasers?

THIS!! The FIRST thing I did when I encountered a laser door was, "Oh man, I bet I need to hack this to take it down!" I search the entire room for a station to hack it. Then I was like what the hell, What now? It went against everything I had learned.

EDIT: Yeah, Every game dev needs to watch sequelitis. I played megaman X as a kid, and egoraptor really explained why it was so good.

Edited January 21, 2013 by Zh40

[Mockeryangel]

I like Bill and Ted and yeah I only knew what to do to stop laser walls because I read the forums or it might have been in a video, I too think laser walls should be red that's nice and obvious that it's bad, cameras might need something to make them stand out a bit more too.

[CakeBandit]

THIS!! The FIRST thing I did when I encountered a laser door was, "Oh man, I bet I need to hack this to take it down!" I search the entire room for a station to hack it. Then I was like what the hell, What now? It went against everything I had learned.

EDIT: Yeah, Every game dev needs to watch sequelitis. I played megaman X as a kid, and egoraptor really explained why it was so good.

Have you watched the series "Extra Credits"? They have a great entry on microtransactions that I also think every developer should be forced to sit down and watch.

[Galestorm]

I like Bill and Ted and yeah I only knew what to do to stop laser walls because I read the forums or it might have been in a video, I too think laser walls should be red that's nice and obvious that it's bad, cameras might need something to make them stand out a bit more too.

I do think so too, i seached a room for 10 minutes trying to find 1 turret

[LalaLuck]

I also told them what they need to do to fix it regarding visual language.

Thanks for being a tremendous waste of oxygen anyway.

You're welcome.

[Wiawyr]

Loved the story, wondered about that myself. The turrets are just as bad as the doors; a camera 5 rooms over activates, so the turrets in your room turn on and immediately home in on you. If the turrets had that much tracking/identify friend-foe capability to begin with, why do they need cameras? Half the rooms with turrets and cameras don't even have overlapping fields of view for those two entities.

[Psyclosarin]

Good read, at first I was like :/ then I was like :D.

But seriously, I figured them out within 30 seconds... it's hardly difficult. However I would prefer they fix the damn networking issues with them, I wind up getting killed because it knocks me to the ground INSIDE the laser beam, Or if I'm lucky I bypass it entirely.

[Roarjam]

I have to agree that there should be some tutorial or indication as to what do to. The first time i encountered the laser door, my teammate walks through it no problem. Then i try to walk through it and get damaged. I spend the next 15 minutes trying to get past the door, which i managed to do by walking through it when it magically turned off. I would like to add that at first I thought i had to hack a console but when i didn't find one and saw it turning off randomly, I tried waiting for it to turn off to walk through it. Now when i encounter them i find that using an ability works just as well to get past the laser door.

[Kfoolu]

A lot of the frustration involved with lasers could be negated if they just removed their damage output.

I mean, come the F*** on. You accidentaly walk into one of those things, and as if it isn't torturous enough to get knocked to the ground and watch your character get back up as slowly as possible, they also take off a pretty good chunk of your shield/health.

And if you want to have both, for god's sake reduce the ammount of damage those things do, cause as it stands their damage output is just ludicrous.

Let's not even get into all those times the lasers turn on while you're half-way through the door and you get stunlocked into them, forced to helplessly watch as your character gets mercilessly murdered by a freaking door.

I also agree that they should most definitely be red as opposed to green. That goes against everything I've learned in life, be it from games or everyday situations.

Green is always associated with something good (think health bars, or even traffic lights) and red is always bad.

It's not that I get confused by the green lasers after this much time, since I know what's gonna happen, but I think it's safe to say that every person is programmed to notice and react to red, since it's far more striking and can, as I've said before, is generally connected to concepts like "@(*()$ STOP!" or "HOLY S#&$, YOU'RE ABOUT TO DIE!"

Another thing that could reduce the frustration brought upon by laser grids would be to move them outside of doors, as opposed to inside them.

That way you'll know to stop before you're already going through the door, at which point you'll most likely be too late to react to the fact that there's a laser there.

tl;dr - Please consider at least one of the following: change laser colors from green to red, reduce or remove their insane damage output, move them from the inside of doors to the outside, and lastly, as some users have already suggested, have them permanently turned on, so they can't get activated while you're half-way through the door.

[JazzGB]

I got trapped in a room for 5 mins due to the lasers going up, one of the small rooms off a hallway...in solo play.

Can't shoot camera, can't attack bad guys cause they're already dead.

I just sat there and sang to myself.

Corpus in general are annoying, but laser doors just make them boring to fight against.

[Zakalwe]

I like the mehcniac, but it should be explained.

Just as weapon equip should.

Just as the leveling system should (rank up).

And so on...

Beta. Feedback and it'll be fixed. I appreciate you were having fun with your post, but try not to let it get to you so much. We're here to help with our feedback, first and foremost.

[Steeldragonz]

Best Secruity guards ever.

[Keagian]

Shoot the cameras, they are usually close to the door or across it. Look up for a green or red light.

[CakeBandit]

Shoot the cameras, they are usually close to the door or across it. Look up for a green or red light.

Read the thread. They are usually full of posts actually talking about the issue. look for the words "Visual Language".

[Foxbyte]

Sometimes the cameras can tag you through walls. It's amazingly annoying.

[paragon43]

Hi, i actually agree that the laser doors are a horrible idea, its annoying and dosn't add anything to the game. especially because the camera can be on the other side of the door so you think its ok to pass but than i pops on you, also, you get cought in a room full if enemeys and suddenly you need to find that ****ing camera to get out, siriouslly, i enjoy the game alot but the this thing is bloody horrible.