New Patch Feedback

Oh, and I missed to add : I like many adds... icons damages, selling prices, female, charges left for wands... !!!

Many thanks !!!

 

I actually find it too bad wands now have charges. I found the original idea that the wand could randomly burn out the more you used it to be interesting.

 

As someone pointed in my bug report topic, casters now have a "chicken" ai and try to fight at range right? Unless i misunderstood something this feels heavily awkward in some cases to me..Generally it seems a good change but I had quite a few zoos going horribly wrong since I tend to be a heavy-melee-in-yo-face player, and I had not too many ranged options, the whole pack of zoo ranged mobs all stacked in a corner and i couldn't get near getting blasted by most of them in a second.I understand the change should make the game better and require more effort going for range but it seems a bit extreme since even if I had stacked bolts I couldn't really kill 15++++ monsters in a corner without a dedicated ranged skill.

Now this is quite strange because it feels mandatory as burglary lockpicks felt before(for me atleast), it's intended and for the better and I just have to learn the game more, or anyone feels the same? I admit I'm quite bad at roguelikes, still not have beaten dredmor but I always felt I had a good plan and chances even rolling with random now a zoo it's just "oh I'm going to get range-blasted again because my build lacks range...yay.." which I'm not sure it's in the spirit of the game up to now.I like the challenge of DoD but this change feels really not improving the experience <.<

 

I feel the same way about casters, it makes things a lot harder for melee oriented characters. When I was on floor 3 with a melee character I found that if I ran into a room with a lot of Octos I was in trouble. I had not taken ranged skills, but I had no choice but to use ranged weapons to fight them because if I would take too much damage if I tried to get in range of the group. I have no trouble with the game making you think before blindly going into a room and slashing everything to bits, but at the same time I think that as it stands right now it has made playing a melee character a much less viable option. A spellcaster on the other hand can easily wipe out these ranged casters while taking very little risk.

I do like that the caster AI stays back and casts spells at you, I just don't feel that a melee oriented character has a proper counter to such situations.

Also I have noticed with some monsters that this doesn't work as well. I think Octos are a good example of how it is working well, while Pumpkinns seem like they don't do very well with this new AI behaviour. Pumpkinns seem to avoid getting close to you, but they rarely cast their spells.

 

So far, I've been relying on skills like knightly leap and ninja vanish to get into range. either that, or saving bolts (especially acid bottles) for monster zoos.

 

I dont really understand what s the big deal in using bolts for a melee character. Roguelikes are games where you re given few items but must use them to their full potential. If you dont and decide to "roleplay" a knight only character, then you are forcing a challenge upon yourself and therefore make the game harder to you.
Besides the 2 skills mentionned above and bolts you can also rely on potions and a few mushrooms to get resistances to their attack ( its true its not easy to get resistances to stuff like transmutative though... )

 

If you ask me, I don't think he had a problem with using bolts per se, but was upset over how melee is perceived to be underpowered compared to range/magic and how this just upset the already skewed balance further.

 

Problem isn't being against ranged, problem is the issues that come outside that make the game a looot less fun examples:

1)I had situations where I couldn't find a crossbow before a zoo, now what? I have loads of bolts but no weapon to use them, bolas and other thrown aren't enough, I'm stuck.
2)I have only 20 bolts and there are 15 monsters, also the monster is annoyingly resistant to my damage type.
3)The ai doesn't work well enough on managing it, the monsters just wander around a corner and don't try and kill you, they just run and react...not sure that's intended but I see that as worse as before(see pumpkins thingies, they just suck now if you are at range)

and loads more, I know it's probably me just doing it wrong but still, before it was fairly nice due to the supply of bolts to mix and match, now I just feel powerless against mass-casters unless the RNG blesses me... which normally is standard but it's not annoying as having to suicide since you can't progress <.<

Also I tried a lot of magic builds, I'm not very good but mostly it's been so easy to kill anything at range that it was a bit too "over"powered compared to what is ranged for melees usually.Atleast for me.Also don't get me wrong, I like bolts and ranged and i do like magic, but still, the change feels weird.

 

I haven't put a huge amount of time into 1.08 yet (or 1.07 for that matter), so these are mostly first impressions:

I'm pretty sure the new crafting system is worse than the old one for most practical purposes, even if the UI bugs and crashes weren't a problem. 90% of the stuff you craft is really simple recipes, like getting bars out of one ore or turning one bar into some ranged weapons. Dropping the material into the grid and being done with it is a lot faster than having to scroll through 50 different recipes looking for the one you want. It's maybe very marginally better for more elaborate recipes, but you're still losing more time than you gain on the whole. Requiring recipes to craft is a more sensible design choice than the alternative, but reduces the power of the skills. I'm not sure where that balance is at yet. Also, bookcases showing you recipes for crafting skills you don't have serves even less purpose now than before.

Between scaling on Knit Flesh, buffs to Corpus Burst, and the change to damage clouds, Fleshsmithing feels a lot better now. Except Meat Shield is still worthless and Fleshbore is still worse than the alternatives, so the tree feels pretty lopsided (I don't know if the Zomby is less awful than it used to be or not; I haven't gotten that far). Also, the damage it deals seems to be the most commonly resisted elements, which might pose a problem. I'd be more inclined to explore deeper with it if it wasn't for the heal-over-time resist bug that's been around since 1.07; Knit Flesh has always been the big draw and having it not work reliably is a real drag.

I haven't actually played a Wand Lore character yet, but the changes seem sensible. The entropy system never worked very well, and moving away from strategic (as opposed to tactical) skills which are only limited by cooldown (when there's no penalty for wasting time) is a good thing. Fungal Arts could probably use a makeover to accomplish the same thing (though probably not in the same way). It's hard to say whether or not resources are plentiful enough or wands scale well enough to justify an investment in the tree, though. I'll probably experiment with it once the n-Dimensional Lathe is using the right skill.

Monsters with ranged attacks (or at least Octos) feel a lot more aggressive and threatening than they did a couple of patches ago, which is a very good thing. The change to damage clouds will also make a few monsters a lot more dangerous. I'm looking forward to seeing how this affects the difficulty curve once I get someone who survives past floor 2 rolling. Lack of variety in monster threats has been a longstanding issue with past versions.

No Time to Grind is a godsend. It singlehandedly makes the game about twice as much fun. It feels like you hit level 2 and 3 a little too fast, but on the whole the pacing is much more satisfying. The lack of a proper rest-until-healed command is still hurting the pacing, though. I know you want us to use food, but the effects are too weak, it takes up too many inventory slots, and there's no meaningful penalty to smashing the spacebar anyway, so the mechanics really don't support it at all right now.

I support the removal of the weapon penalty, as rendering most of the loot you find worthless isn't very fun, but the weapon skills are underpowered without it. The benefits are pretty small for the investment, and if you happen to find really excellent weapons of other categories, or you're a smith and never get the recipes for the one you want, it gets even worse. Picking something more general like Berserking or Assassination or Dual-Wielding or defensive skills seems like a better investment in most cases, unless you're totally committed to not using any magic ever and need every melee boost you can get.

The thrown weapons tree seems weak. Thrown weapons scale with stats better than crossbows do, so you can get by with cheapo ammo most of the time, making ammo retrieval less of a must-have. Throw Monster is resisted a ton of the time, and does nothing but waste both your and the monster's turn most of the rest of the time. Only in the rarest of occasions does it actually result in any kind of net knockback. One time the target even moved more than a single tile! I probably wouldn't bother with the tree even if I planned to take Smithing and use thrown weapons semi-frequently.

I never really took Burglary (the escapes always seemed too powerful, and I didn't like the idea of it eclipsing my magic skills), so I don't have much personal attachment to the lockpick skill, but it seems like a total waste of a point at the end of the tree. A couple of extra junk items out of chests isn't going to help you survive down in floor 6 or whatever. People just liked it because it was convenient, and it's frustrating to lose all your lockpicks on doors which weren't tactically important and then missing out on chest loot.

Just from looking at it, I think the Perception tree might have too much unneeded fluff before you get to the eye-lasers at the end. I can't imagine it being an efficient use of all those skill points. I haven't tried it first-hand, though, so I might be wrong.

The new Ley-Lines skills are great. The last one is probably even overpowered with such a low cooldown. But the legacy skills are still awful; they do nothing but give you stats which aren't very useful in general, and made even more redundant by the regen skill in slot 2. The tree feels too dilute, on the whole. But I can see people putting one point into it as an alternative to Blood Magic, and the last skill is so good that it might be worth wasting those other points to get it, so it's in a way better place than it used to be.

I can't say the same for Magic Training. Licence to Cast is a decent (if very situational) addition, but Wizarding Associate and Extra-Planar Concentration are mostly just weaker versions of Ley-Lines skills, and even if Master of Magic's net benefits are worth the point, it sure isn't very exciting. The whole tree should probably be redone. Moving away from mana and towards magic power would be a good start.

I need more time with Blood Magic to figure out what its deal is. The new second skill felt great, but Ley Line's second skill is pretty damn great for mana restoration too, and it doesn't have a resistance penalty. I'm assuming that there's a whole bunch of magic power in the later Blood Magic skills, but I haven't seen the numbers yet. Blood Magic having competition for mana sustainability is a good thing on the whole, of course. Magic Training is going to be left as the odd man out no matter how you slice it, though.

 

Hmm Yeah I see your points on those parts. A quick last answer cause I think im gonna get beat up for being slightly off topic:

* Each character could start with the most basic crossbow. Its not a balance biggie and avoids the situations you got into.
* Thrown weapons seem to kinda suck now. I mean softballs are really just good for lutefisk.
* Chicken AI should follow you a bit better while staying at safe distance of a few blocks. Ideally their long range attacks shouldnt be % based because its dangerously random ( but maybe shoot once every 5 turns instead). Otherwise it can get stupidly easy or stupidly hard. (And yes, obviously, Pumpkins shouldnt have chicken AI because they re about the strongest close combat foes on the floor. )

 

So I like some of the changes to skills... looks interesting.

But why every game (for the last 8) am I being overrun by 1 or more Giant Pink Scorpian Diggles when I open/kick down the first door? Is there some joke I am missing or am I just having overwhelming bad luck?

 

Yikes... Well guess I'll have to wait lol.

 

Minor glitch: when you pick throwing and smithing: you don't get concussion bombs to start with. Unsure if that holds true to other crafting skills.

 

I've only had the chance to play just a bit around with 1.08, but the new Perception skills are somewhat of a mixed bag. I'm guessing that Third Sight is supposed to reveal invisible enemies, though that never was a really big issue in the first place (unless invisible enemies now have ranged options and/or are a lot more deadly). By the time you get up so far in the Perception tree, your Visual Sight Radius is pretty high enough to catch anything from a distance. Now, if we could buff up Third Sight to also allow you to finally see through walls; such as just highlighting enemies for a few turns, that would be a nice skill to have! (Hmmm... outlines everywhere? Looks like a monster zoo up ahead!)

Eye lasers are awesome. They are so awesome that I created my new TF2 Green Medic (Nobody expects the Green team!) w/ Dredmor Eyebrows avatar to celebrate this joyous occasion! MY EYEBALLS ARE FULLY CHARGED!

Burglary's Vending Machine Looter is a very nice way to immediately provide the player with a definitely useful skill from the get-go. Also, the inclusion of activatable abilities in more skills is a very nice change. Finally, making Wand Lore a part of the crafting system is a very good idea and it's finally a skill that I look very forward to picking up in one of my future GR/Random playthroughs.

 

To start, I'd like to echo some of the sentiments regarding the revised Burglary. Lockpicks as they were previously may have not been in their right place as the starting skill for Burglary, but they definitely don't belong at the end. I'm not sure what the nerf was meant to address. Was it the fact that with Burglary, a character gets all the items out of early chests? Why not give an active skill which lets Burglars open doors, but still require lockpicks for opening chests instead? (on a related note, I think only fragile items like wands, flasks, potions, food, mushrooms, and booze should get damaged when breaking open chests) Was it because lockpicks get spammed too much and turned into Lutefisk? Why not do away with them altogether and give players a general lockpicking skill instead (or two skills: tier one allows opening of doors, and tier two allows opening of chests)? That would also alleviate the constant tedium of activating the Lucky Pick after its cooldown expires.

I was also hoping that Five Finger Discount would disappear in this update (or at least get modified). Being the last skill in the tree, you'd think it would be something powerful and used frequently. I've only been playing rogues in Dredmor and have never used it. It carries too much risk with it, and the player is not even privy to the way this risk is calculated. Why not display the chances of getting caught by Brax? Is the chance tied to sneakiness and the value of the item? Can upping sneakiness let you steal low value items with impunity? Can you do it easier when invisible? Or is it more or less a version of Russian Roulette with Brax and his Dread Collectors replacing the bullet(s) in the gun? If so, it reminds of a perk in Crimsonland where you got infinite health but as a trade-off there was a chance of insta-death with each hit you took. The skill just doesn't let you make it a part of a rational character build.

I like the vision driving the new crafting menu but it's a vision that hasn't been fully realized. Tooltips for what items you'll be crafting would be really nice and mouse-wheel scrolling shouldn't have been taken out. Also, the crafting station filters on the left hand-side of the screen seem to be mixed up (smithing kit is showing ingots, while the elven grinder is showing rings). I'm happy with not being able to craft recipes you haven't found because it does sort of ruin the suspension of disbelief when you switch between the game and the wiki to craft things blind. However, could recipe drops be linked to your current crafting skills? Because I do agree with others who say that this diminishes the usefulness of crafting since it now involves an even bigger lottery of finding the right recipe in addition to finding the right ingredients (all for items whose value is relevant mostly in the beginning).

Not that related to the new update, but a pet-peeve of mine, is the way Fungal Arts spores work. Could we do away with them all together and instead make each enemy killed drop a mushroom with a chance dependent on how many skill points you invested in the tree? 20%, 25%, 33%, 50% and 100% for 1 to 5 skill points respectively. As it stands Fungal Arts users are in danger of developing RSI in their fingers.

The new "No Time to Grind" mode is great, but as someone pointed out already, it's disproportionately difficult for crafting characters or characters in need of ammo for their damage dealing. I tried playing my typical crossbow wielding rogue but died hungry and alone on level 3. I didn't find any ingredients to make better crossbows or bolts, and didn't find any vending machines for bolts, thrown weapons, or even food.

Finally, as much as I really appreciate the constant updates (it's incredibly refreshing to see a developer putting so much energy and enthusiasm into their game), I would also love to see some more polish put into explaining the game's concepts and mechanics IN-GAME. I don't like having to switch between the game and the wiki in my browser, not to mention wondering if the info in the wiki is up to date and accurate.

EDIT

I just entered a store and, "YOINK!", I came into the position of an Iron Cuirass. I guess Five Finger Discount did get changed after all, similar to the Vending Machine Hacking, it now gives a random free item upon entering a store. Upon running into the other two stores on the current level, I got a pair of Magic Sandals and a Metal Orby Staff. I must say this will get way more use than before which is a nice bonus considering anyone going for Moves in Mysterious Ways has to get Five Finger Discount anyways (and Moves in Mysterious Ways is well positioned at the end of the Burglary tree IMHO). I like it. Thanks!

Anyone know exactly what that Charlemagne skill in Archeology does? I activate it and I get something like feathers falling from the sky? Is it meant for anything else besides low-flying German fighter planes?

 

They modified FFD to be more useful I believe. Also hotfix patch moved lockpicks to lvl 2.

Agreed on fungal arts shroom farming to be irritating.

 

Dieing/losing is fun? Don't take my fun away
It's a pretty big balance biggie imo. Finding that first crossbow if you don't start with one is a considerable 'ah phew I got through that hurdle' moment. Especially if you have bolts.

Yeah softballs are not good for combat. But I don't have a problem with that. If you have throwing then they're better, and if you don't, they're not meant to do much. And sometimes they still help enough.

No let's not remove randomness please! The less predictability the greater the epicness, both in epic fails and epic successes. If you take that away, what's left? There's randomness is rooms, bosses, quests. It isn't supposed to be easy and predictable. Many people want unidentified items so one can die from drinking poison without knowing it. So maybe it's pretty middle ground now?

 

Oh, on the throwing/crafting bug I mentioned. It's all crafting skills, not just smithing.

 

I came here to ask about Haematic Phylactery, alias "give yourself a giant debuff and the means to remove it". Not sure what the point of the skill is .

I like the new crafting UI, but I had few complaints with the old one. If you do decide to go back to Minecraft, is there a way to clear recipes from the interface? My only beef is that if I accidentally clicked a recipe then I couldn't make anything else. I agree that you shouldn't just be able to make anything regardless of whether you've found the recipe or not, but you're dicerolling pretty hard on the utility of some skills that way - maybe they could use some better buffs as you put points in?

Of course, I say all this having only made it to dredmor once, and getting my ass royally kicked when I did, so take it with a grain of salt.

edit: Oh, and taking the "unskilled" penalty away is a GREAT change. Feeling forced to take a weapon skill was silly.