Dredmor Patch 1.0.10 RC9 Feedback Thread - I Believe in The Lever Fix

• Is it better to have patches once every three months (say), but knowing that they have gone through the level of inspection that this patch has? Or has this been too slow?

Much too slow. I stopped playing the game as soon as I heard about another patch because constant crashes between floors and lack of proper auto-saves were becoming too aggravating. As a result I haven't been able to play the game in months now. Though I would assume the 3 month time period here was beyond just bugfixing when we had audio system rewrites and the Steam integrations and such as well.

• How concerned are you about: a) balance issues b) software bugs c) user-interface issues? How do you feel that these things have been addressed, or not addressed?

a) Not hugely, as long as it's not something a mod can't fix.
b) I won't bother putting up with games that crash too much, so VERY CONCERNED
c) Even if it's a bit obtuse to setup, as long as you can make things work comfortably eventually, that's fine. For me personally anyways, for the community at large that can be more an issue I imagine.\

• How do you feel about how the things that have bothered you have been addressed?

Well, considering I haven't touched the game in months...

• Are you going to be using any of the new features (Steam Cloud, Steam Workshop)? Was this worth our time?

Steam Cloud is nice, though if you play on permadeath, probably not a huge issue. The workshop thing sounds great assuming it has good tools for organization (categories, ratings, etc). I've never had much trouble installing mods for games, but having something for searching through them other than forums is usually handy.

• Are you as worried about Thursday as I am?

I won't have time to play the game again til the weekend, so if it does blow up, hopefully we get a hotfix by then!

 

Definitely better to do proper beta testing and QA. Steam might be willing to help with this by allowing people who own DoD to subscribe to its beta, might be worth asking Valve about it.

Balance isn't really that important; the community could fix much of it with community patches. The most important thing about patches at this point is fixing software bugs, and improving the UI. The community is largely able to handle new content and fixing balance issues on its own, although it is nice when you do patch that.
As far as I've seen you guys have done an excellent job, although I joined these forums largely to find out why the patch was taking so long.

Very satisfied!

Already have a mod uploaded to Steam Workshop!

 

I haven't been here in a long time because I have been waiting for a patch that addresses a bunch of bugs. I only want to reply to point 1.

I am okay with patches taking a long time. It would help if we started at a stable point... and that has to start somewhere. Hence, I've been waiting a long time, but from the first stable build forwards, it should be a lot better waiting 3 months.

Of course, we all realize that customers want everything, and they want it now now now. Of course I would have preferred a quicker patch. But then I would just complaining about more brokenness.

Looking forward to Thursday a lot.

 

I think you've done a great job with this patch, and implementing the "test EVERY patch for 48 hours rule". The occasional bug in a roguelike is to be expected, given how complex they are. I think you've done a good job of fixing both balance issues and bugs, because balance issues can detract from fun just as much as minor bugs.

That said... I think there have been too few Linux users on the forum for you to realize just how horribly crashy the Linux build has been the last few months. I've more or less given up on playing, and have been waiting anxiously for the patch, since every time I do play I start hitting random crashes every 5 minutes or so. I realise you've probably done your best to balance the time spent working on your patch against your impression of the urgency of the current bugs, and that impression is going to be weighted by the number of people experiencing the bugs, so Linux won't be at the forefront of your mind. I'm not sure if I have a point to make here, and I definitely don't intend this to be an accusation that you're doing something horribly wrong with your patching process... just wanted to add a bit of the Linux perspective.

 

3 months is a perfectly acceptable timeframe, given that:

A) Patches are COMPLETELY FREE and for a FIVE-TO-EIGHT DOLLAR GAME.
B) Patches cost you money, and may or may not incite new sales
C) You guys had a lot of shit going on during this patch (hiring for Project Odin, moving to new Office Space)
D) Any whining on our part is due to our being huge fans that greedily want to lap up the new goodies of a new patch. Take it with a huge grain of salt.

a) balance issues - Not too concerned. Are they there? Yes. Are they pretty minor at this point? Yes. Are there still certain stats/archetypes/skills that need some love, and some that need nerfing/tweaking? Eh, probably. Are there any game-breaking balance issues? No, not that I've seen, and that's what's most important (in my opinion). There aren't any "mandatory" skills in the default game (although I'd argue Burglary comes close), and that's the mark of something being broken when you feel compelled to take it, regardless of the other skills you're choosing when making a new character. Similarly, with all the Skill trees being expanded to at least 5 "ranks" and all the tweaks, there are no longer any Skills that feel useless (like Fleshsmithing and Ley Lines did in prior builds). I'd say the game, as a whole, is in a good place in terms of balance.

b) software bugs - Somewhat concerned. Crashes that delete an entire floors' worth of work (20-55 minutes on average) suck. Hard. And they continue to crop up. Not a deal breaker for me, personally, but some people are quite turned off by unstable builds that can potentially waste their time completely at random.

c) user-interface issues - Somewhat concerned. But this is mainly because I've sunk too much time into Dredmor and little UI niggles become more and more irritating the longer you have to deal with them or work around them. This one is tricky because the UI can ruin the game for one person, while another player will never have a single issue with it, while a third player has some issues with it but will simply shrug and live with them.

The fact that you can post in this forum and get direct answers from the game's developers is just simply astonishing. Even for other Indie Titles (Terraria comes to mind), the Devs had a presence on the forum - but they didn't interact with anyone, they simply doled out Teasers and Patch Notes as they came about. You guys are everywhere, addressing concerns, giving us "well we tried that but it didn't work for reasons X and Y" explanations, and hell, even contributing to the "make a DoD meme image" thread. It's a ton of fun and makes us feel like we're important and can even have a hand in the direction the game is taking - two things I've never found on other game-makers' forums, not even tiny devs like Re-logic or Spiderweb Software. A++, would post again.

To actually answer the question, you addressed my biggest issue (RotDG Floors not spawning RotDG-specific loot, only pre-expansion loot) right off the bat and then just kept rolling, telling me that my niggle with the mouse wheel not working with the crafting menu wasn't possible to do. Awesome. Kudos.

Personally, no. Not a huge fan on mods... it's so hard to tell the ones that are well-balanced and make to address a niche or "gap" in the existing skill set from the ones that are made with no balance in mind and exist mostly to power your way through the game. I'm a bit of a purist and prefer to stick with what the dev team has envisioned for the game.

All that said, I'm sure these additions are going to be very, very useful for those of us who regularly make and install the mods that are out there. Sounds like a worthwhile time investment to me, because as TotalBiscuit has pointed out repeatedly, allowing your game to be modded is a low-cost way for a dev team to extend the lifespan - and window in which a game will sell - by years. That's huge, especially for an indie dev.

I'm sure you guys are chewing your nails; we're all chomping at the bit.

 

1. I think that what people want isn't super fast turnaround but rather a stable release build. It's all fine and dandy to get new content, but not when it makes the game unplayable due to crashes or other bugs that either completely devalue the work you've put into a character (superman!) or make the character super weak.

2. I'll just give you my order of concern: Software bugs > balance issues > user-interface issues (way, way below the other two). I think that this patch has done a pretty good job of getting the game back on stable footing.

3. I'm not entirely sure if you got around to fixing the inverse stat integration bug or if there is just some wonky third requirement I failed to replicate in order to get it to happen. Basically based on my inability to reproduce it in RC9 I'm going on the assumption that you did fix it. But unless it is put in as a patch note of some sort, I'll never know for sure until it happens again. In other words: even if it takes a bit of effort and time away from bug fixing, I prefer to have a good catalogue of what has been fixed (or that you tried to fix at least).

4. I won't be using steam cloud. I will use steam workshop if mod devs put things on it.

5. Yes. But for reasons unrelated to DoD.

 

• I think a three month turn around on patches, for a game with as much value in its pricetag as DoD has, is entirely reasonable. If people are truly anxious for more content, well, that's what this forum is for, no?
• a) Balance issues? I got 'em. I'll probably be griping about them off and on in the Suggestions forum for some time to come, as I have time. But on the whole, the game is solid. Mods give players the ability to customize game balance a fair bit, too, which is nice. b) I survived Windows 95. I think I can deal with the bugs in DoD. It's frustrating sometimes, but not the worst by far. And hey, the game is pretty stable right now. I haven't had a crash in a couple of weeks, bar RC save incompatibility issues. 3) UI seems to be in a pretty good place right now to me.
• So far every gripe I've seen in this thread, my own handful included, has been quickly and meaningfully addressed. Well done, gentlemen.
• No, probably not. But that's mostly because I use these forums. I'm sure other people will benefit from them significantly.
• Thursday is the deadline for finishing the edit of my 68k manuscript. What am I doing here, anyways?

 

Busy day on here! Here's my rundown on Nicholas' quiz:

1) 3 months is an excellent patch cycle. I am used to major games that patch less often than that, except to hotfix something game-breaking. Now that you've done it once, you should have a MUCH more stable point from which to allow the 3-month cycle to work even better. So long as you have a process to apply a hotfix in the case of a bug of DOOM, absolutely continue this!

2) a) Since this is a solo game and a roguelike, I am quite unconcerned about balance issues (mods will usually address anything the community thinks is off, and if not the harsh difficulty is a "feature" or forums will come up with challenges to hold us over).
b) Software bugs depend greatly on what they affect. Breakable walls become unbreakable? Meh. Save files being eaten or items disappearing? FIX IT NOW!
c) UI issues are frequently frustrating and easily turn off new players. For veterans they are typically much more minor - unless they prevent gameplay in some form, like an unclickable craft button. I can't stand the craft interface, but I know it's a huge thing for you to tackle, so I grimace slightly when I open it and go about my business. No big deal.
d) As I personally have not really posted any bugs or suggestions (except for the hungry diggle thing you're already fixing), I can only speak to how I've seen you address others' issues. And to that, it's seems downright impressive!

3) I'll have to wait for a complete rundown on what 1.0.10 is changing to give good feedback on this, but I'm excited regardless!

4) Steam Cloud is primarily for save games, yes? I likely won't use it much, but it's really nice when travelling between my parents and home. I'm not really familiar with Steam Workshop, but if it serves as a way to search for existing mods and assist creation of mods, then I'm all for it! I am a mod-a-holic (I think my record is over 175 simultaneous mods installed in WoW), though I shamefully admit to never making one myself.

5) I don't think anyone can be as worried about a release as the people responsible for making it a good one, unless those people don't really care how it goes. And if that's the case, you guys are fantastic actors!

Just wanted to say once again that it's an honor to interact with people that care so much about their product and how the community feels about it. Steam is an amazing thing because it let's more folks like you get out there and do your thing, something the gaming world desperately needed!

 

For a patch like this I would say 3 months is a fine amount of time except for the crash fixes I would preferably have those pushed a bit quicker just enough testing to make sure they stay fixed or don't break something else and start that crashing.

Balance issues are present everywhere so I've learned to either live with them and ignore them or to exploit them if I'm feeling like taking the easy route (though seeing as I pretty play only random builds having an overpowered ability pop up from time to time is a nice surprise lol). Bugs appear than you squash them when you have a chance the only ones that are really a concern are ones that make the program in question unusable in some form. The UI has never been that big a deal for me it works and that is all I ask for, could it be better? sure but is it a high priority? no not really.

The way you guys have been in constant communication with the player base is astounding very very few developers take the time out of their day to do so even the community managers that some companies have to monitor forums don't do as good a job at keeping in touch as you guys do.

Worried about Thursday now why would I be worried about that I've been playing around with the beta for months now and it is working fine.

 

My non-magical skills like Lucky Pick and It Belongs in a Museum are setting off Thaumaturgic Conflux

Since, these are "non-magical" skills, I have to ask: is this supposed to happen?

 

Damn you thursday!!! *shakes fist*

 

This is happening to me, too, except I've only noticed it in the context of a mod, so I haven't mentioned it. But yes, I have a Kung Fu level with a triggeroncast that's been going off when you swap from one Kung Fu stance to another -- but none of them have a <requirements> line, which I thought was what defined a 'spell'.

So yeah, if that's a bug that's happening even in the main game, it probably deserves a look. Seeing as how triggeroncast effects are pretty rare outside of Mana Mastery and Wild Magic, though, I doubt it's a big enough deal to fuss about fixing before this release gets released.

I think the level of inspection on this patch was about right. Given Odin, the move, and some other external factors, that this particular patch was delayed beyond what it could have been without those distractions -- a goal of 2 months per patch at the current level of inspection is a good one.

Given what dbaumgart recently told me, I think balance issues are being addressed quite well. <wink, wink, nudge, nudge> UI issues are minor enough that I consider the game perfectly playable with it's current UI state. Bugs are the big hurdle that deserves most of the attention at the moment.

Just about perfect!

OH HELL YES! Once I get my big 9-skill mod finalized, that sh!t's going up on Steam Workship harder than yo momma goes up a stripper pole. Bigger audiences are always better!

Yes. For the same reasons you are. But I have faith. This is gonna kick butt.

 

Are the Linux builds posted somewhere secret? are they just not up at all?

 

Confirmed, I also just transmuted Mud Wens - one into Plumber's Agaric, the other into a Greedy Blungecap, using Moldsmith on two separate occasions. Steam exe, Win7/64.

 

Well I just signed up. Hello Everyone
I just downloaded RC9 and I encountered a monster zoo on level one. If it helps I do have interior dredmorating active.

 

I just maxed FA, and I'm still getting mushrooms. It may be an issue with the OSX build, however, since I'm on Win7.

 

• Is it better to have patches once every three months (say), but knowing that they have gone through the level of inspection that this patch has? Or has this been too slow?

I say let things take as long as they take. Use Valve time if you must. The game is excellent, and the quality of the patch has always been excellent too. So long as this does not change, we can wait.

• How concerned are you about: a) balance issues b) software bugs c) user-interface issues? How do you feel that these things have been addressed, or not addressed?

The only issue I know of that I thought should have been a higher priority is the other platform versions. Mac users have been missing out on mods (Plural) for a long time. Too long in my never humble opinion.

If I were to assign an order to the lettered things you list for priority, I would certainly put software bugs at the highest possible priority. After that, the UI is the next most important. Last and certainly least is the balance issues since as others have already said, there are mods available to fix or at least slap a bandage on the worst balance issues.

• How do you feel about how the things that have bothered you have been addressed?

As everyone else has said, the quality of the patches has been exemplary. If other game developers cared half as much as you guys do we would need an explanation of what a "Bug" is in the context of game development.

• Are you going to be using any of the new features (Steam Cloud, Steam Workshop)? Was this worth our time?

I will have to leave that to those who willingly use Steam to answer. I cannot provide a useful opinion on this. But I can say that if you guys did it, it was no waste. (I must be a fanboy.)

• Are you as worried about Thursday as I am?

I still have no idea what is significant about this day besides coming after Wednesday and before Friday. Is this when the patch is expected to go live? (If so, I need to get my Steam install going so I can redownload it. And if so, will there now be another method to get it besides Steam? Desura? Anything else?)

You guys are the best developers of any game I have played. Period. Pat yourselves on the back.

 

This has happened to me once with RC9. It's not a patch breaker and can be fixed later though. I believe it was a spore cloud from the Fungal Arts that set it off for me though.

As far as the questions Nicholas raised.

• I would say I'm with the majority of people here. 3 months seems fine for regular patches. Quick fixes for major problems would be best.

• Fix order in my opinion should be software bugs, user interface and then balance.

• You have fixed just about all of the issues that need addressing for me.

• I purchased DoD on steam and would likely use the Workshop to install mods if it does that. I don't know if I will be making any mods but if I do, I would be likely to share them there as well. As far as Steam Cloud goes, I don't know what it does or how to use it so I may not be using that.

• As far as Thursday goes, I'm not really worried about it but if that is the day for the patch release, I am looking forward to it.