After Thoughts Alpha 3

[steady egret]

For what I can say every new Alpha improves and gets better for both sides. I had a lot of fun playing the Magician as well as a bunny. The scary atmosphere for bunny´s thanks to the beautiful map. The newest improvements made a lot of fun and the aprils fool one was hilouraus. I could talk for hours what I loved in the newest Alphas but there are still somethings that could be tweaked to make the experience better. I would recommend to keep After Thoughts Alpha 1 in mind because a lot in there still would be great to see implemented in the future.

Let´s beginn with the Bunny´s, the horror experience is great and fun to play with other bunny´s. Even so I´m bad at chases against the magician is still a thrilling event. But there a couple of things that could see improvement.:

1.Panic stand up: The panic system is great and fair for both sides. It makes sure that bunny´s experience a true hunt instead becoming a punching bag. Luckily I didn´t run into Magician that thrown me, grab me and again but sometimes it takes really a lot of to stand up. This could open a window for monsters to throw them grab them than throw them again. It would help if you could immediately stand up. (Also a tiny question what does the panic gear, I tried to see what happens but could witness a change while using it?)

2. Perhaps this could be skill issue or a bug, but after throwing a useful item it disperses. I think it could help that after throwing a useful item for around two seconds the item gets highlighted. It is not a great problem, it would be nice to have.

3. The radar still warns you that there is a gear even if its in the door implemented. It is a little annoying to try find a gear for the door and you think your near one and it turns out to be the one in the door. Also not a high priority just nice to have.

Now let´s hop to the magician, playing him feels like being a Hunter ready to trap the bunny´s. But sometimes is really stress full and frustrating, with every new Alpha you guys improve the experience, nevertheless I would like to toss my hat into the ring with some suggestion to improve.

A lot that can be improved can be found in After thoughts Alpha.

[fluid ermine]

Id also like to ask this question. Please explain the panic gear for bunnies and the scare gear for the magician. Don’t know how they work if you press X.

[steady egret]

1. Thanks to the new gear to bring imposter return gear imposter bunny´s are more useful, but there are still a couple of things that needs improvement. I hope they get the behavior system that I talked about in After Thoughts Alpha so they can be at their full potential. But as long the AI is not ready it would help that there terror radius is a little bigger and higher (like a spehere). The reason is that they are not always reliable. You would put hem behind the canon so they can´t immediately use it, but sometimes with the right angle they still can do it without activating the trap. Also height is important because of ropes.

[steady egret]

Good that you mention I also don´t understand both gears. What I understood of the scare gear for magician that when pressing X bunny´s nearby get scared. I tried it out but didn´t helped me. Often times you chase bunny´s so there it won´t help and it´s rare that bunny´s stay for a long time dead. The funny thing is that I forgot to mention by the bunny section. It was once when I was searching for bunny´s, a bunny voice line (that I don´t think was a ping line) came out and so found one. There I didn´t use the gear so I would like to know what usage it has🤔 . I also hope that when you play dead no voice lines can´t get triggered unless you ping something.

The cards still could get the improvements mention in After Thoughts Alpha.

2. The Hat trick is hard to pull of unless you use it for trapped (thanks to the imposter) bunny´s. I would believe giving it two gears gives the help it needs. One named "the old hand trick" this gear allows the magician to catch a bunny without delay (like in the trailer), the other "astral catch" would double the radius of the catch radius but still would have the delay. This two would make the Hat trick more interesting and reliable to use.

3. The invisibility thanks to the teleportation is great, but I would love to have a gear that allows for more of a ambush approach. It would silent you entirely (no footsteps), give you 55% speed boost on top of your normal walk speed, but you loose the ability to teleport into a booth.

4. This could be argued as skill issue but for a magician tables are a great annoyance because of the chairs blocking your hand. It would be cool if you could toss tables or chairs (so they lying on the ground).

[steady egret]

I want to write some final thoughts to wrap all up. I hope we get the sisters soon because the map, mechanics should be balanced around the monster instead of only the magician. It just would be easier and fairer for the carny´s that would come to the future. There are things like ropes and the first floor canon, which magician can perhaps handle but we don´t know if it is as well as for monsters without traps and teleportation. Also I would want to know if future monster get there own way reaching higher floors or not. I hope we see her soon and hopefully an Update to the route map, with what will be next, etc. I hope that everything works smoothly and have a great day .

[ornate dawn]

https://tenor.com/view/writing-fire-gif-523038869044733220

[tall charm]

I think both the panic gear and the impostor gear should be base kit.

The panic one doesn't make any difference when the magician doesn't tunnel you, but is really important for bunny not having a really bad experience if he does tunnel. (Also i think that if the bunny is on the 4th floor this mechanic should be different because if the magician grabs you next to the door and he cant throw you to the 3rd floor you just have a free scape)

And the impostor one is useful sometimes but i didn't used it too much because i got used to put the impostor where i can recover faster so i don't see why it should be a gear. Also the scare gear isnt good because for magician it doesnt make any difference now. Ok the bunny gets scared.. what does it change for the magician? Does if affect the gameplay for bunnies besides screen or sound effects? I think if it is a gear and it consumes energy you should have a better bonus (also o dont know what that gear is supposed to do, i only know that bunnies start rearing voices)

[tall charm]

Another thing i was thinking about is that the gameplay can be really hard for magician if bunnies start not keeping keys with them. It doesnt matter if you get them and take a gear off them if you dont get a key. The keys are everything in the game and everything you do requires them. If the magician doesnt have a key the game will be really hard for him.

So you can tell me "oh, just go look for keys on dead bunnies" Ok so i will go looking for keys and the bunnies can do everything for free and scape.
I saw some gameplay styles where the bunnies didnt have a key for basically the entire game. I got them several times but they never had a key, so basically if you dont spend time and ENERGY searching dead bunnies you cant use your abilities properly. I had basically only 2 keys for the entire game lol.

Another thing is that they can take the keys from dead bunnies and hide them somewhere else. It could be in the corner of the map or in some place that the magician cant reach. I think that should be considered not only for magician but for future monsters too because a simple solution for magician is making him able to catch a key with the hat ability, but it doesnt help for another monsters right. And yes, the bunnies will lose time doing that but at the moment feels like time is much more precious to magician that it is for bunnies. Bunnies have a long time to do everything they want and the game has a really big duration, also at the final 10 minutes the monster start losing a lot of energy. Why the game puts so much pressure on the monster in the final minutes if the game just lasted that long because the monster were able to hold the bunnies?

I really want to know what people think about this strategy of hiding keys.

[tall charm]

I honestly think the hat trick is really good. You have to predict where the bunny will be to use it and if you grab them is really nice. I dont think it needs a buff in that way of increasing radius or speed. Also when you use it the hand keep searching for a second so it is better to use it trying to predict movement.

[tall charm]

i agree with that. The invisibility feels really punishing to use actually.
Anyone will not use it to stay invisible because it consumes a lot of energy, it has a huge cooldown and anyone can hear you approaching lol.
For teleportation is amazing but it takes so much energy to use. A lot of times it happened to me that i used invisibility for teleport but i didnt have enough energy so i get stunned, lose the energy AND have to wait for the cooldown, so this ability is really punishing when you dont pay attention to your energy.
I think it should have the downsides to use it like energy consumption or cooldown. But both is really heavy for a ability that is not directly offensive.

[tall charm]

Bro that would be awesome. It could use energy to do.
This game is more for a stealth playstyle for bunnies, like in texas chainsaw game. If the magician finds you he cant take so much time in a chase because of the map, mostly because of his worst enemy, tables. If the bunny have items, ok, they are spending something important to hold the monster, that is fun for both sides.
The magician needs to grab you, get the key if you have it and continue looking for other people. Losing time in a chase feels really bad and it is much worse when the bunny doesnt have a key, so you lost your time, energy and will not recover at least the energy you lost and the bunny will not lose anything besides a gear that can be recovered with oil. It is a really big effort for no big reward for magician.

Besides tables, the maps have lots of really safe spaces for bunnies to go to and not get caught, but if the impostor works properly it will not be a problem anymore.. at least for magician.

[steady egret]

I think they would be base kit, but I'm still confused about the panic gear. I thought it will grande you a far longer panic mode or speed boost while being panic. But when I used it panic didn't change a bit ( I agree that the panic system is great against tunnel with the rabbit holes in mind. My only complain is that it takes a little while until you get up and if he hits you against the wall he will have enough time to pick you up and repeat it again. I didn't know about the holl gate thing).

[steady egret]

Great that you manage to find the perfect spots to place impostor bunny's. But for me and I think for a lot new magician it is hard to find this spots. I actually enjoyed this gear. I think it will be good if it would be base kite but I wouldn't mind having it as a gear if people can it unlock it very easy. I would like if the gears had more text so people can fully understand what the gear does in detail. I know it's only alpha so the gears could still change greatly, but still it would be helpful if there is more than a short sentence or a word.

[tall charm]

What i understand about the panic gear is that it makes you get panic.
You mean when the magician grabs you for the second time and gets stunned over panic you have to wait a little before start running?

[steady egret]

Yes I thought it would be about that.

[tall charm]

Yea gears should be more clear on what they do or affect, then we would be able to see if they are working correctly or not

[steady egret]

Is it a different kind of panic in the game . Is everyone having panic

[tall charm]

i dont think so.. i think we have only one panic mode and that panic is from the gear.. i can be wrong because i dont know how it works for rabbit holes

[steady egret]

What I understand the rabbit holes are active to use, when you are in the panic mode. I thought the gear would do something to your panic, but who knows.

[fluid ermine]

Hope that devs will put some explanations about scare and panic gears in carnival hunt wiki soon

[steady egret]

Luckly I had only a few matches that had this situation. There I was dried up of keys and couldn´t find any keys. By some of this matches a living bunny got one or one dead bunny has one. I thought that I was just unlucky with the dead bunny´s or that the bunny´s had trouble finding keys. I didn´t know that this was a strategy. Yes I also think that keys are very important as well as time for the magician. Bunny´s don´t have to fear time because if one is hiding the keys three others can distract the monster. Time is important for monster because he has to hunt alone. I think a easy fix to this problem could be information gears that highlight keys. (I would write some down later.) Also the range to grab keys should be bigger so there won´t be places they can´t reach keys. I understand kind of why also the monster gets punished in the last 10 Minutes, because this all is for the puppet master entertainment and I don´t think that he is a patient person. (Literally the message "Puppet master got bored" appears on screen). So he wants some actions.

[steady egret]

Yeah the hat trick is good, but I just wanted to put some ideas for gears. After all they should change playstyles. If anybody has some ideas for magician gears, I would love to hear your suggestions.