A comprehensive list of basic design and interface issues:

First of all, let me preface this by saying that there are a lot of things I like about this game. The way character creation and skill progression is set up is really smart, and obviously a lot of love as been put into the presentation. But after a day or two of playing Dungeons of Dredmor, I’ve noticed a whole bunch of basic issues with the design and interface that’s preventing it from being as fun as it should be (some of it is very minor, but a lot of minor issues happening at the same time can definitely start to grate on you). It's a long list, but the good news is that most of it would be very easy to fix (though a couple do run fairly deep in the basic way the game is set up, which might be problematic).

All of this is based on playing the Dwarven Moderation difficulty on Hardcore. I haven’t done much on Going Rogue yet, which might change a couple of things for better or worse. I won’t be talking about more complex stuff like skill balance and the like because I don’t have enough experience with everything yet.

One overarching issue is that the pacing of the game is too slow. This is partially due to a bunch of little things that I’m about to bring up, but it’s also partially that the maps are just too damn big, especially early on. It generally takes around an hour just to clear one floor, and typically by the time you’re halfway through you’ve gained enough levels and equipment that the monsters at that depth have become trivial to deal with. From that point on its just a slog clearing through the rest, but you don’t want to skip it lest you deprive yourself of precious loot and experience that you’ll need to keep from falling behind in later floors. I think decreasing the sizes of the floors (at least the earlier ones), and also adjusting the experience needed per level a bit to compensate, would go a long way towards making the early game more fun.

Now onto the interface and quality-of-life issues. First and foremost is regeneration. There’s no nutrition clock or anything in this game, so there’s no reason not to restore your health and mana by resting whenever you can; it’s almost perfectly safe to do so as long as the room is empty. Except the only way to do it is to wait one turn at a time for HUNDREDS of turns, potentially after EVERY battle. Pure mages are almost completely unplayable, not because magic is weak, but because you spend twice as long hammering away at the spacebar like an idiot as you do playing the actual game. Please, for the love of lutefisk, add a “rest until healed or interrupted” command! It would be extremely easy to code, it would have zero impact on balance, and it would instantly make the game about twice as fun to play.

The way traps work doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. You have a 100% chance to spot any trap within your trap sight radius, and even with no relevant skills or bonuses every character has a trap sight radius of at least one. So it’s possible to never, ever set off a trap at any point in the entire game just by being cautious. The problem is that being cautious entails taking every single step one at a time, very slowly, always checking that the next tile is clear, forever. It’s extremely tedious, and the fact that it’s possible makes skills that increase your trap sight radius kind of worthless compared to stuff that actually helps you survive (though it’s certainly convenient). Wouldn’t it make more sense if you only had a CHANCE to detect traps (with both the chance and the radius depending on your trap sight stat) and there was a prompt that prevented you from stepping on one by accident?

Using lockpicks on chests is generally more useful than using them on doors, but attempting to open a locked door automatically wastes a lockpick on it. If you have a limited supply of lockpicks, optimal play requires that you carefully check every door before you open it and, if it’s locked, drop you lockpicks, kick it down, and then pick the lockpicks back up again. It’s a pain. I’m sure that not bothering with this probably wouldn’t be the thing that kills your character, but the knowledge that every lost item from every smashed chest was 100% preventable drives me to do it anyway.

Combat animations sometimes take too long. Most of the time it’s not that big of a deal, but if you’re surrounded by multiple enemies, have a pet, or are casting certain spells (Dragon Breath, for example), it can get really annoying. An option to speed up or disable animations would be great.

Crafting items take up too much space in your inventory. There are a ton of them, none of them stack with each other, most of them are extremely situational, and you don’t even know which ones are important and which ones aren’t because recipe gain is random. Unless you just don’t bother with crafting reagents at all (even just to sell them), the hassle of inventory management starts bogging down the gameplay very, very quickly. Either crafting reagents should have a separate inventory or the basic inventory size should just be doubled.

The crafting interface is pretty clumsy, too. You have to click the right tool to open it, then click to open the recipe menu, then scroll through it looking for the one you want, then click it to go back to the toolbox, then click “auto-fill”, then click “craft”, then shift-click the result to pick it up, and then repeat the process a whole bunch of times if you want to make the thing more than once (as you often do). Why aren’t items from your inventory automatically added to the toolbox when you pick a recipe? Why isn’t the result automatically picked up without needing to click it? For that matter, why can’t you just complete the entire process in a single click right from the recipe screen?

The minimap isn’t very good. It shows you how much of the level you’ve explored well enough, but it’s missing all sorts of important information, such as the locations of teleporters, items, monuments (for Inconsequentia sidequests), unopened uberchests, etc. There’s also no way to simply pan around the main screen to look for stuff. Given how huge the levels are, it’s hard to keep track of all this information by yourself.

The game tells you to check the tutorial every single time you start a new character. Extremely minor, I know, but still annoying.

Unfortunately the biggest one is also the one that would take the most work to fix: there seems to be almost no variation in enemy types (mechanically, I mean, not in terms of style). I’ve made it down to dungeon level 4, and I don’t think I’ve seen even one single enemy which does anything other than walk up to you at normal speed and deal melee damage. No ranged attackers, no spellcasters, no noticeable debuffs, no special forms of movement besides flying, no attempts to surround you, nothing. The only thing distinguishing one enemy from another is how high its stats are and what element its damage is. This is made even more serious by the fact that the game has no diagonal movement. Since every enemy is a standard-speed meleer, there isn’t a single threat in the entire game that can’t be neutralized by simply running away. You can even run in circles in a tiny room and you’re perfectly safe. Even monster houses aren’t very dangerous if you have some room to work with; it’s just a matter of patience. There’s so much variety in terms of the player’s capabilities that it’s a crime that you’re never given more than one kind of tactical problem to solve…”don’t stand directly next to the enemy for too long”. It gets boring pretty quickly.

This game is SO CLOSE to being great; it's just being held back from reaching its potential by this handful of simple problems. If they can be addressed in upcoming patches, I'm sure I'll be playing Dungeons of Dredmore for a long time.

 

I'd also like to add that 70% of the screen isn't displayed when the Windows font is set to higher than 100%.

 

Pace and map size is just fine with me.

This isn't Diablo 2. I like it for being different. There are some issues, sure, but the basic game mechanics, size, and pace are great IMO.

 

I enjoy the game a lot, but all of your points are valid and well said.

I would also add that there's an issue with item stacks and the lutefisk cube. Placing a large number of items into the cube in one go seems to return a percentage as lutefisk (which may or may not vary by item value; I'm not sure). But there's always a minimum return of one. So the optimal way to create lutefisk is to place objects 1 by 1 into the cube, and that is in turn made worse by the only mechanism for splitting stacks being to use the crafting interface.

I do, however, agree with their decision to not have a "wait" key. It doesn't fit the feel of the game as it's currently balanced. But they have to have SOMETHING to make spamming spacebar undesirable from a gameplay standpoint. I'd much rather see natural regeneration removed entirely, with food being the only way to heal over time (though food would need a buff were this the case). Mana, in turn, would have to do the same.

Perhaps an easier fix would be to find a way to cap time on a level. Some games of this ilk, past a certain point, release a powerful enemy to hunt the player should they spend too much time in one area (indeed, I thought this had happened the first time I met a "Death" enemy). You'd need an early warning, though; possibly even a countdown timer to when it's no longer safe on a level.

Or just give the player a hunger system. I guess there's a reason why most roguelikes have one: it's an elegant solution to a major design issue.

 

I also like the pacing and map size the game has. Please don't change that.

I also dont mind that the foes aren't more tricky/varied, simply because the game is plenty challenging enough as it is. But I can understand if others don't agree.

 

In the last few floors, there are monsters with debuffs. There's stuff that permanently wrecks your weapons, some that do various AoEs (setting the floor on fire, poison mist, etc.), and ones that give debuffs, including one that makes you go blind.

If you're not keen on spamming spacebar to heal, then don't. Same with traps. If you want to play in a boring way, it's available, otherwise man up and charge ahead recklessly. There's no reason you have to use everything that makes the game easier, otherwise you'd be playing elvishly easy without permadeath and saving every step.

I think I agree on the rest of the points. I've noticed the game seeming kind of tedious when trying to full clear the levels, although this clears up somewhat in later levels. I think that if Inconsequencia tells you to get or fight something, and it's somewhere you've already been, it should be marked on the map. If I come across one of those statues when 90% of the level's been done, no way am I re-searching the whole place for some artifact.

 

This always happens; someone points out a gameplay flaw, and people say "if you don't want to play that way; don't." That is not a valid counterargument. It's the responsibility of good designers to create systems that reward fun play. And again, I DO enjoy this game tremendously; it's just that there are a few systems that are, indeed, poorly balanced or broken.

To put it another way: imagine if the game would give you 10,000 gold if you pushed the dollar sign 50 times at the beginning of each game. Would that be good design? Or would it be a case of "just don't do that if you don't like it?"

 

@mwoody *"Perhaps an easier fix would be to find a way to cap time on a level. Some games of this ilk, past a certain point, release a powerful enemy to hunt the player should they spend too much time in one area"*

I honestly hope they don't do this. It'd feel like being punished for wanting to explore everything. Especially since quests usually require running all over the floor again if you find the statues late...For games like Spelunky, that's reasonable, but it would do more harm then good in DoD I think.

@DragonRider
Minimap: I believe they are actually already planning to add that stuff to the minimap according to one of the blog updates.

Tutorial: It'd be nice if it just had a little checkbox saying "Don't show this again".

Monsters: There are actually mage and ranged class monsters apparently, but it seems like they don't actually use their spells/ranged attack. In fact, a lot of the later monsters should be using spells from what I saw in the XML file, but they don't...Possibly a bug with the AI?

 

I HATE the idea of a timer that when it expires on a level, the game just throws junk at you. If a player wants to back off and retreat and heal up, let them. If a player wants to explore every nook and corner, let them. I personally value collecting and selling everything that isn't nailed down and uncovering every centimeter of map. I hate arbitrary bullcrap like timers. Its like getting a bad GM for a D&D game. The party isn't doing what I want them to do, lets just throw Trolls at them. Great.

I want to take my time and explore fully.

 

mwoody - I just think of it like selecting difficulties. If you want a harder mode, don't take the handicaps. Same with the 10k example, it's just a "press this for handholding" sort of thing.

As far as a gameplay flaw, I'd rather read people's complaints about boring themselves than be forced to manage a hunger stat. If you're being left at 1hp after every fight, might be time to reroll your character.

 

EDIT: This was a half-finished post that got submitted by accident.

 

From what I've seen I don't think you're meant to make a pure class in this game (or atleast only use attacks from your class). For example, Crossbows, wands, thrown weapons, and traps can be used by anyone and deal pretty good damage (especially since the damage usually goes through armor).

When you start getting to monster zoos, using aoe moves are costly or have long recharges. Whereas you'll have come across plenty of wands, traps, and bolts that cost no mana and can only be used to their full potential when there are a large amount of enemies (Bolt of Mass Destruction is one example).

Furthermore, Wand Lore, Archery, and Thrown Weapon (haven't tried Thrown Weapon but I'd assume the the recovery rate is the same as Archery) don't provide enough bonuses to allow you to focus exclusively on them.

Wand Lore allows you to remove the entropy from wands, but there is still a chance at low entropy to have your wand burn out, leaving you wandless if your unlucky.

The increased recovery rate of Archery and Thrown Weapon doesn't give back nearly enough ammo for the amounts of enemies you fight in this game. Furthermore, a majority of these weapons go through armor, deal alot of damage, and have big areas of effect. The ones that don't, require ingots which aren't that plentiful considering the amount of ammo needed to clear a level ( also there aren't that many starter recipes for thrown weapons and traps, so unless you're really lucky, you'll run out on level 1).

As for trap detection, I'd rather it stay as is. Some of these traps are very deadly, I've managed to die from one acid trap while at half hp ( or atleast I think it was half) with no enemies around.

Ranged enemies would need to have low hp or damage as I can imagine opening a monster zoo door and dieing after a couple of turns due to having no health potions (I'm on level 4 and only have 6 potions that restore hp)

You must be lucky. Whenever I fight more than one enemy without funneling them, they always try to surround me. Infact, I've either almost died or died to them doing that.

I agree with everything else except for map size. If you're killing everything on your current level so easily, go to the next level until you find enemies that require you to go back and get stronger.

 

I agree with a lot of this stuff, though most of it isn't impacting my enjoyment of the game at all.

One thing I don't really agree with is lockpicks being more useful on chests than doors. If you kick a door down you can't close it and you lose the ability to control monster pathing in that area. I think the balance between chests and doors is pretty good for that reason.

Also, while I agree that there should be a "rest until healed or enemy enters player vision" button somewhere, I can't say I agree that it impacts mage play more. If anything it seems like my heavy spell-type characters are much less impacted by it compared to melee-types because the ability to regenerate mana comes in more forms (and more potent forms) to make it unnecessary. Life regen on the other hand seems far harder to build up.

As for your suggestion about traps, I'm not sure if they should mess with it. In later floors you are unable to pass some areas because it is not possible to walk around certain traps. Ultimately I don't mind that a player playing slowly can avoid the majority of traps, because... they're traps. I think it's fine that a player is mostly going to set them off by being careless. Much more frustrating sounding is setting off a trap that you did not roll a positive check on detecting, because on Going Rogue difficulty many traps can end you for it altogether.

 

EDIT: Whoops, accidental double-post.

 

I guess there are mixed opinions on the amount of time it takes to clear each floor. For the most part I only find it really bad on floor 1, since it's designed to be survivable for level 1 characters, and the gap in power between level 1 and level 3 is so huge that the difficulty becomes trivialized a lot faster than deeper parts of the game. The deeper you are, the less of a problem it becomes. If the lack of monster variety and interface issues were resolved, the pacing would become a lot less troublesome anyway.

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"I do, however, agree with their decision to not have a "wait" key. It doesn't fit the feel of the game as it's currently balanced. But they have to have SOMETHING to make spamming spacebar undesirable from a gameplay standpoint. I'd much rather see natural regeneration removed entirely, with food being the only way to heal over time (though food would need a buff were this the case). Mana, in turn, would have to do the same."

With the game as it currently stands, adding a "rest until healed" command would reveal food and drink as being largely pointless, I agree. But that's not an argument against adding the command, it's just evidence that the relationship between healing items, regeneration, and time isn't very tightly designed at the moment. If, hypothetically speaking, there were no natural regeneration and the game was balanced around using consumables only, then that would be fine. If "wait until healed" was implemented and there was also a mechanic which eventually punished the player for excessive time-wasting such that using consumables to speed things up would help the player survive, that would be fine too. Anything which pits the advantages provided by the player's items and skills against the hostility of the dungeon is fair game in a roguelike. But right now the only interaction is between the player's items/skills and the player's own thinning patience. That situation isn't sustainable, one way or another.

As long as there is nothing like a nutrition system or gradually increasing monster spawns or something similar to encourage the player to move quickly, there will always be SOME inconsistencies in the game. If you were to program a bot to play the game with the intention of maximizing win rate, the optimal strategy would be to grind on dungeon level 1 for hundreds of hours until it reached the maximum experience level, then steamroll the rest of the game. That's why hunger systems exist in most other roguelikes. But for the purposes of this thread, I consider that to be a somewhat more distant issue than "players are encouraged/required to heal by spamming the spacebar forever if they want to survive and it's tedious as all hell".

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"If you're not keen on spamming spacebar to heal, then don't. Same with traps. If you want to play in a boring way, it's available, otherwise man up and charge ahead recklessly. There's no reason you have to use everything that makes the game easier, otherwise you'd be playing elvishly easy without permadeath and saving every step."

It really doesn't work that way. The entire point of roguelikes, and their high level of difficulty, is that you're being challenged to make use of all your resources and abilities in the most efficient and intelligent way possible in order to survive in a situation where the odds are stacked heavily against you. Encouraging the player to deliberately play lazily defeats the basic premise of the game. You're just guaranteeing that you're going to lose in some arbitrary situation that you deliberately left out of your own control.

--

"Monsters: There are actually mage and ranged class monsters apparently, but it seems like they don't actually use their spells/ranged attack. In fact, a lot of the later monsters should be using spells from what I saw in the XML file, but they don't...Possibly a bug with the AI?"

I've killed probably at least a hundred djinni, and on precisely two occasions I'm pretty sure I saw one shoot some sort of weak ranged damage spell at me. I also got blinded by (I think) a unique Witchy (or whatever those tiki-mask guys are) once, but then nothing like that ever happened again. A bug in the AI code might be a possibility.

 

"I've killed probably at least a hundred djinni, and on precisely two occasions I'm pretty sure I saw one shoot some sort of weak ranged damage spell at me. I also got blinded by (I think) a unique Witchy (or whatever those tiki-mask guys are) once, but then nothing like that ever happened again. A bug in the AI code might be a possibility."

I know what you mean, I've never seen any monster fire which is sort of disappointing. My Confused Turtle would love to kick some mage monsters...Anyways, Djinn's have two different types, one spell-caster, and one melee. So either a lot of the latter spawn in that case, or they just don't like using magic. Most the monsters that use magic come in around Level 3 and deeper as well. I'm curious if it can be changed from the XML though...

Edit: @MOOMANiBE: I remember seeing the Octo's go crazy in the videos from the beta! Looked so cruel and fun. They still have that attack (Aethereal Missile), it just never gets used I guess.

Double Edit: It looks like it's just a really low chance for them to use it now. (Octo = spellPercentage="13" / Djinn = spellPercentage="4")

 

My main problem with the interface at the moment is that it's completely impossible to play one-handed. You must move the character around with the keyboard*, and you must attack and interact with the mouse. It makes me a sad panda, because I recently cut my ring finger pretty badly and shouldn't be using my right hand as much as this game makes me

Having some standard roguelike keyboard commands (run into enemies to attack, run in to chests and doors to open, keyboard target select for ranged, something like F to pick up the item you are currently standing over, T to disarm the nearest trap) would make it a lot easier. You'd still need the mouse for inventory management, but that doesn't happen nearly as often as basic walk, loot fight interaction.

Also, I was thinking it would be nice to make shift-clicking on doors force the player character to kick them. It works well for picking up items.

*Yes, there is mouse movement - but right now, it is <b>not</b> interrupted on monster or trap sight, which means that if you tell the PC to go somewhere he will happily trundle off building up a train of enemies until something hits him or you go "oh shit" and make him stop. This makes it worthless, imo.