u/Spiritual-Purple-638

What would you say are the fan-favorite levels in your experience?

In my experience the overwhelming fan favorite since it released is 7-4. If you're enough of an ultrakill fan to peruse the subreddit I assume I don't need to elaborate, it's antennas to heaven, we love that level.

That said, apart from the prime sanctums and secret levels which are kinda in their own category, I can't really point to a specific level that has that level universal love like 7-4 does. The closest I can think of is:

1-1 Heart of the Sunrise for having the amazing presentation (also the nailgun intro where you melt a maurice is really cool but that's just me)

1-4 Claire de Lune for the V2 fight

2-4 Court of the Corpse king specifically because of the "Parry a Punch" challenge

5-3 Ship of fools feels like "7-4 before 7-4" where it's this big "cinematic gauntlet" and there's both a bunch of cool events and a bunch of cool fights going on throughout it and the music is incredible.

7-1 Garden of Forking Paths for the Mannequin jumpscare, plus just being an amazing level.

Also shout-out to 4-3 and 5-1 for having challenges that make first-time players visibly appalled at the suggestion. Not really big amongst hardcore fans but I just love how every streamer who plays the game seems to visibly recoil at "Don't pick up the torch" or "Don't touch any water", it feels like a unifying moment.

Also 3-2, 4-4, and 6-2 have gabriel 1st v2 2nd and gabriel 2nd but I personally feel like people only remember the fights in those levels and not the build-up compared to 1-4 where new players would spend a few minutes solving puzzles and taking in the atmosphere.

And of course, 8-3 Disintegration loop. I mean, maybe the vibe has changed in the months since it dropped but I feel like we less "love" the level and more "have succumbed to the madness" like a zombie virus taking over our cerebral cortexes.

Like, 7-4 is the level we love because the visuals and the lore and gameplay and music are all perfect and 8-3 is the level we commiserate about because it's so cool and deranged but also completely broken and impossible to P-rank.

That's my thoughts, what do you guys think?

Do you have any strongly held Abilities opinions for Enemy Unknown/Within? Whether controversial or semi-controversial or not controversial at all I'd love to hear them.

Mine are:

1. Dense Smoke > Combat Drugs. Combat Drugs can be obviously be useful against Psionic enemies but I consider Dense Smoke basically mandatory because no other ability lets you bail out a bad situation or stand your ground against enemies like it can.

2. Following that last point, Support MECs aren't the best MECs given that snipers have cracked aim and Heavies can be augmented early with no consequences, but Support MECs have by far the best class ability. The only reason why EU/EW's meta isn't team defense stacking is because defense bonuses are scarce and most abilities that offer defense are pretty bad, like Tactical Sense and Automated Threat Assessment having bad conditions and only benefiting one unit.

The ones that are good, though, can be stacked together to get your team one or multiple extra turns to kill the enemies without any damage taken and minimal resources spent. For reference, imagine if Dense Smoke+Distortion Field+Cover brought all the enemies on the field down from 80% chance to hit to 10% chance to hit. It would require 7 enemies to be alive and shooting at you before it becomes more likely than not a single one of them would hit your team. If they had a 20% chance to hit without that distortion field, they'd only need 4 enemies before you'd expect to take a hit.

3. Shredder Rocket > Suppression. Okay here's the thing: Suppression is definitely good but Shredder Rockets has it beat across the board. In the early game Shredders are useful in of themselves as rockets and against late game enemies with 20+ HP and damage reduction they're a must-have. Mayhem also doesn't do much to improve suppression since there's no shredding on it like in Long War.

What seals the deal for me is that supports also have suppression. If suppression matters so much just get a support to do it, they only lose Revive in order to get it and that ability's not very useful except maybe on the last level. Also if you need to break exactly one overwatch that's what Lightning Reflexes is for.

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These last few abilities I sincerely want to know if any of you have gotten them to be effective. Please tell me because I would love to make a build around them the next time I play EW, I'm open minded and ready to be proven wrong.

4. Jetboot Module > One For All.

5. Sprinter > Covering Fire.

6. Lightning Reflexes > Close and Personal (C&P is obviously powerful but how do you survive early game without LR to break overwatches?)

7. Killer Instinct > Resilience

8. Rapid Fire > Flush

9. HEAT Ammo > Rapid Reaction

10. Advanced Fire Control > Automated Threat Assessment

I'm not going to present this as an objective thing, it's 100% my opinion and taste, but I think Hytale has the perfect opportunity to go really hard on making its animals something interesting compared to games like Minecraft.

In terms of aesthetics: I'm a really, really big fan of all the rabbits being jackalopes and I think it would be amazing if the art team majorly leaned in on that dynamic. I don't like worlds like Hytale's or Minecraft's which are full of magic and whimsey yet all the animals are completely mundane farm animals. It's underwhelming for me personally.

I think hytale has the perfect opportunity to split the difference here. They've already done a lot of things to 'whimsey up regular animals' like the jackalopes and also the deer having flowers and vines in their antlers.

I also feel like they could do more with less like having 'cows' just be the mosshorns or bison and 'pigs' just be boars or those wild pigs with the purple fur. I'd personally find this really compelling given that it would change the dynamic from having normal, human-bred farm animals roaming around the countryside and instead have the player domesticate wild animals.

Basically, I feel like they're taking tentative steps in a certain artistic direction, and I want them to really walk down that path with more confidence since it's much more interesting than where the game's art is currently.

In terms of gameplay: The main game that would be the perfect point of comparison is Don't Starve. Each animal has its own set of unique mechanics and rules-of-engagement, yet is also easy to understand on first glance because if you know the real animals you probably get the gist.

If you see a koalaphant (koala+elephant) you probably get the gist that it's going to try to avoid a fight with you for as long as it can but if you attack one then it and the entire herd is going to beat you to death. They also leave tracks to make it easier for players to find one if they want to. I really want to see a 3d block game do something like this and perhaps Hytale could be the one.

If nothing else, I really want there to be meaningful behavioral differences between Pigs and Cows. In Minecraft cows are basically just "better pigs" since they drop better meat, drop leather, and can be milked. That's not a lot of fun, and unfortunately Hytale seems to be basically on the same page.

What do you guys think? I'm not actually convinced these specific ideas would be good to prioritize dev time around, but in terms of an idealized end-product for Hytale, I think this is a very strong point it could emphasize.

I'm literally as small as the individual rocks in the tiny pile of rocks on the ground. If only I got this on a Nightmare run, this was just Very Hard.