Minigolf - Kingdom: Quality of Life Feedback

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Hello everyone!

After some internal discussions, it has been decided that Kingdom, one of the minigolf maps, will get a quality of life update. We made this decision after reviewing the status of the map currently. That is, the map is not very popular because it is considered to be punishing and frustratingly difficult.

I would like to get the community’s feedback on what they would like to see in an update to this map. Things like:

  • Are there any holes in particular that you find frustrating? Too hard? Annoying?
  • Any longstanding bugs with the map
  • Any hole designs that you think need to be overhauled, and why.
  • Any visual issues with the map.
  • Anything else you can think of.

I look forward to getting your feedback! :slightly_smiling_face:

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i fucking love kingdom
people are just bad at it, unlike me, i love the way it is, it has made me able to understand how hard too hit the ball and such

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The only thing I don’t like is that this part of hole 11 is really bumpy, everything else is great:

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Thank you rmmm. Yes, that can be fixed! I’ll add it to the list. It’s an issue with the geometry.

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The moving walls on some holes desync for players that aren’t the host, not sure if this is fixable though. It makes me never join kingdom games unless I host them because the Hole in Ones give a huge advantage on this map

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I feel the same as Umbra, the desync can get very bad when i’m not on my own or hosting, so maybe less moving parts to the holes? It’d reduce the amount of stuff to desync on, though that’s only removing the symptoms.

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Kingdom’s probably my favourite map, and I especially love the design buuuuuuuuuttttt

  • Any platforms that move seem to be more frustratingly fiddly when you aren’t the host. Hole 4 for example seems to be awkward to play when you aren’t the host because you often just phase through it or miss it when it feels like you shouldn’t.

  • I despise hole 5, it’s a very sudden difficulty increase and I can barely ever finish it. I might just suck but compared to the holes around it, it seems way harder.

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I always have troubles with this:

and this:

Maybe I’m just bad.

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You’re just bad.

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Hmm, the first video shows that hole 8 could use some higher walls there…

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Feels bad…

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I’ve railed on it more than I should have, and upon replaying it a bit and paying attention I don’t have a problem with many of the holes, there are just a few nitpicks.

From a visual standpoint:

  • Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t like the pink/purple colouring for the moving parts, just reminds me of Sweet Tooth, and feels like it clashes visually (Obviously they’re supposed to be distinctive, and maybe match the crusaders, but it’s a bit of a bright colour to throw on top of calmer greens and browns)

And for a core issue running through most of the map:

  • The map relies quite heavily on precise timing (Which is inevitably going to be a struggle with ping)

There are a number of holes that have more fundamental design issues (In my opinion).

To preface, I think ideally there should be a balance of a hole being challenging, but also intuitive, and my complaints with the following holes are mainly when that balance feels a little out of whack. You shouldn’t be able to go max power as you please and always win, but to some extent you should be able to understand how you’re supposed to be putting.

  • Hole 2: The curve you’re supposed to ramp the ball off of doesn’t always send the ball into the “nook” even if you hit the moving piece. Partially due to the lower ceiling, and the angle you may be forced to hit the ball at.

  • Hole 5: This hole is a little unclear because your goal is to hit the purple wall, when that’s usually to be avoided (Unless you’re riding across it). It’s impossible to make it across both platforms in one go, but that’s what it looks like at first glance. The timing is also a tad oddly specific and unforgiving.

  • Hole 7: If your ball doesn’t land close to the center of the curve you launch yourself with to get onto the boost and into the hole, it’s very difficult to hit just the right power and angle to do so. Instead you should do a light putt to correct yourself to the centre, but that doesn’t feel like an appealing option when the curve is right there.

  • Hole 8: The immediate temptation is to shoot either left or right and bank off the “spikes”, but that is rarely successful, it is again best to do a light putt left or right and bypass those obstacles entirely (Not exactly obvious). If you happen to end up in either of the ruts, the power to get out feels a little odd (More-so than Hole 4 in my opinion), and once you’re out, it feels very awkward trying to putt yourself back to the “gutter”, with no walls it seems as if you end up back in the rut 90% of the time.

  • Hole 16: Again it’s just not super clear what you’re supposed to do visually, you have to sort of rebound off the wall, and then hit the moving thing, the multi-step procedure makes it feel a bit off (And frustrating), and the long delay between when you shoot and when you collide with the moving bit makes timing also particularly painful.

A lot of this may be subjective, but after playing through it a bunch that’s my take away.

(I haven’t experienced the “desync” issue myself, but that’s not how Minigolf usually handles ping, usually it just delays your shot, obstacles going out of sync seems like a weird bug independent of the map itself)

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Played through the entirety of kingdom trying to get the “bad” routes. Here’s some things I noticed:

Hole 10:

The ramp on this area is a bit hard to see, and when you try to hit the ball at a stronger power (to ride along the curve and get close to the second platform), you end up flying off unexpectedly. I would say to make it more of a square L shape rather than a curve to hint that a lower power level should be used.

Hole 11

Hitting Par (without getting HiO) is quite difficult. Did the “bad route” perfectly as intended (shot 1 to before stairs, shot 2 to top of stairs), and hit shot 3 full power, ending up in this location. You’re guaranteed to end up on the right side because you ride the curve.
Going the safe way requires two shots (one to drop down onto the lower platform, and another to go down the ramp), resulting in a bogey.
Ricocheting off the left wall can get you a par, but requires some precise angling and power to properly end up on the ramp (hitting too hard makes you miss the drop-down.

I’d say add a booster after the moving platform that guarantees a drop-down, but add another obstacle that would prevent players from dropping down, and make the entire ramp slope downwards (no flat part). This would give a birdie for players with good timing, and a par for players who did things correctly but just got unlucky.

Hole 12

Not really an issue with the map design itself, just that the wheel breaks pretty often. I’ve had several times where I score in the green area but end up clipping into the red, or just phasing through the wheel entirely (not a lag issue, as these games were self-hosted).

Hole 13

Having your ball end up on the other side of the platform from the waterspout makes it impossible to see the position of the moving wall (and therefore score a par).

Hole 15

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First shot is excessively difficult, since higher powers cause you to ricochet off the wall and fly through the gap next to the moving platform, while lower powers make it difficult to properly land onto the moving platform. I’d say to add some walls on the sides to make higher powers less of an issue.

Hole 17

The indicator could use some adjustments. You would assume that you’d want to hit the ball in while the arrow’s in the green area, but if the ball gets into the hole during this time, you actually end up in the yellow area (or sometimes into the red) since it doesn’t account for travel time down the pipe. To actually score a HiO, you need to hit the ball while the arrow’s in the top right red region.

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Agree with all of that, noticed stuff like that myself but couldn’t quite put it into words. Thanks for putting in the effort!

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Kingdom definitely needs a rework. I mentioned this in one of my posts when Kingdom was first released.