Auto-heal

It doesn't get much easier to implement than this, guys:

To heal over time, I must mash the space-bar continuously. Suggest adding auto-repeat so we can heal without risking carpel-tunnel syndrome.

 

Yeah, we do need a way to skip multiple turns

 

While I am aware this doesn't really solve your problem, I found that finding a long corridor and just going from one end to another is a decent way to decrease the strain on one's wrists whilst healing.

 

I agree - the whole point of DoD seems to be "keep moving". An auto-heal feature would most probably result in what i call the "neverwinter nights syndrome" - i.e. you pick a fight, blow all your high end nukes, rest, walk three steps, find another fight to blow all your nukes. Rinse, lather, repeat until you've cleared the area. I can VERY EASILY see that happening in DoD, especially because of the "monster can't open doors" mechanic. It wouldn't just make food worthless, it would incentivize blowing away high cd abilities/high mana cost spells every room. As far as i can tell, the most effective way to play the game would then be to max one tree of a nuke centric skill with your first 5 levels and just "nuke/rest" your way through the rest of the game. It sounds so effective, i'm fairly confident you'd see it become the only way 99% of players approach the game.

 

Even ignoring healing, we still need a way to skip multiple turns as a means of moving treasure to the pocket dimension after clearing a room.

 

Ahum, D&D does have ways to curb that kind of nonsense. That was really why i never got into NWN to begin with - bursters where the be all and all end all. That being said, i really DID like Storms of Zehir, because it actually did away with the "rest anywhere" nonsense.

I agree on that, but i don't think there's a way of achieving a "refresh pocket dimension" mechanic without achieving the greater evil of "rest anywhere".

 

In my experience, the Digest button is all the turn-skipping the game needs. If for some reason I need to kill a few _dozen_ turns (whether to heal, to wait out a recharge timer, or to let a debuff wear off), I can almost always afford to eat a pile of shredded cheese and click digest.

It's very easy to over-estimate the value of hoarded food until you've actually gotten to the bottom of the dungeon and seen how many unused resources are left cluttering up your pocket dimension. Any time I've beat Dredmor, I've always had a ton of unused food items left in my inventory, pocket dimension, or (pre-Wizardlands) pile of junk on the previous floor. After the first floor or two, I only ever seem to run out of food if I'm playing on NTTG GR with a random build that lacks synergy. Just sayin'.

 

Behind on you on this - doing a GRPD vanilla clear right now - went with CK/Tink/Smith/Spear/Shield/MoA/Crossbow. I got careless on my first run vs. a named monster, and doing it again now. First time, i only grabbed levels in CK/Tink/Smith until i died, and i found myself always on the razor's edge for food for the first few levels or so (stopped being an issue on level 4, which was where i got careless, but meh). Re did that, except this time, my first 3 levels went in grabbing spear 2 and MoA 2 and 3. Surprise, i only ate food twice on floor 1. And that was only because i was playing safe, not because i needed it.

 

I was wondering about whether or not I should post it because of how broken I think it is. What I have in mind is basically what Kazeto wrote:

but doing that while using the speed up function ( I think the button is +). I would also close the doors in the room, and make sure I pick one where monsters were likely to not spawn in.

And I found that while I was doing this, that yes, I was nuking and resting whenever resources got low. That resource typically being health. If I remember right, the character had 5 floors to go 'til Dredmor, and still hadn't invested into a healing skill because I felt like I didn't need one. I might throw in vampirism into my next build to keep things interesting.

 

Meh - The be all, end all solution (imo), is to save a couple of low level wizardlands for when you need to stock up on consumables. Clearing a couple of level 1 wizardlands once you've cleared level 2 is a great way to stock up for level 3 (and so on). Do this consistently, and you'll find yourself almost always stocked in essentials. You can still die to traps if you are careless though - keep that in mind.

 

Its not a matter of how long healing takes in-game. Its a matter of how long healing takes in real time.

 

^That's kind of the whole point - it still takes a while for you to heal while exploring a level 1 wizardland, but at least you're getting easy experience, and picking up the odd healing item on the way. Think of it as less boring way of walking back and forth. Also, i've played a lot since CotW came out, and I can tell this for a fact - as long as you clear the floor the wizardland is from before attempting said wizardland, you'll come out of the wizardland with more consumables than you went in. 2-3 wizardlands from an earlier floor for every floor you clear and you will have a hard time running out of consumables. Which is to say, you will never be in a situation where you need to walk back and forth waiting for passive regen.
That being said, if you find yourself doing this back and forth nonsense a lot, that probably means, wizard, gish or warrior, you're spending a lot time getting hit. If that's the case, you definitely SHOULD consider getting a tree that gives good sustain/damage cut for a small stat investment.
Good example would be Master of Arms - Pick up the tree, grab 2 levels, and you're pretty much immune to most sources of physical damage for the first 2 floors (suit up + walk it off). Other good example? Polearm mastery. One point and you bag the Sensible Swiss Stance, which will dramatically cut how much damage you take from melee opponents.
Given you'll finish a GR run of Floor 3 at around level 8-10 (depends on how many wizardlands you clear, w/o or not you have exp boosters, etc, etc), it will still let you pump a lot of points into your ability of choice, while allowing you to build a big stockpile of consumables for the later floors.
My point is that, yes, healing takes a lot of real-time if you wait on the base regen rate but
1) There are more fun ways of waiting on healing that just walking back and forth (wizardlands are just the easy example)
2) this is very much a game that gives you so many simple tools for boosting regen/cutting damage you take/hoarding consumables that someone who ends up having to wait on it... well, i can safely say your choices probably put you in that position. Not sayin' just sayin'.

 

Thanks for the responses guys.

It just seems like a strange design decision to me. The game provides auto-health regen., but assumes people are not going to need it? And if you do need it, you deserve to grind by mashing the space-bar or wandering up and down a corridor?

When the key-repeat didn't work with the space-bar, I assumed I missed a setting somewhere. It's non-intuitive, seems more like oversight to me.

 

Not exactly - If you want your auto-health regen to be a dependable source of hp regen, then you need to invest points/items towards that. 2 emerald rings (which is hard to get, but strongly recommended) and Suit up (which you can get as early as level 2) give +8. With that, you'll see you hp go up THAT MUCH FASTER. Keeping a pair of naturey orbs around for the express purpose of healing up between rooms will also take you a long way.
The bottom line is - if you have 10+, then it's a reliable healing mechanic. What you need to think about is that Dredmor is a Rogue-like, and Rogue-likes tend to be unforgiving when it comes to trade-offs. We're talking about a game where a single extra level in one tree can give you the potential to one shot a whole room of enemies. When I pick master of arms on game start, then pick up suit up and walk it off as my first 2 levels, I'm essentially trading damage for passive hp regen and overall durability. Bear in mind that it's makes for a very LONG clear of the first few stages of the game because i'm essentially running around hitting diggles with 5 damage where i could have been one-shotting everything with a radiant wizard centric build.
Conversely, if I went for a fast capstone on a Nuke-heavy tree, i am trading off passive hp regen (among other things) for damage, and faster clear of the early levels. I would consider it bad mechanics if you could do that, AND still get what the guy who went down the MoA route got for his pains as well. Bear in mind, there is this thing called flesh smithing that gives you a heal, and a regen boosting shield for only 4 points or so - so it is technically possible for a mage to have his cake AND eat it (not exactly, but you get the idea). But, if you decided to skip leveling up flesh smithing for MOAR power... well, enjoy running back and forth waiting for your hp to come back, because you asked for it.

 

Moomanibe, I totally agree with you. My qualm isn't with the game's difficulty, it's with the confusion. I had to ask myself "is grinding re-gen a legitimate play strategy? Do I need to stand in one spot mashing the space-bar to get anywhere?" After having read this thread, the answer is "no". The point is.. I had to ask.

I now play like I have no persistent re-gen; And enjoying it very much. Thanks for a great game, Gaslamp!

Ben

 

Who the hell is Ben? Ben Farley?