Lair Larrikin
Posts: 19
Joined: Tuesday, 16th August 2011, 13:57
Tuesday, 16th August 2011, 15:30
Lurker feedback & suggestions
After being a long-time newb + lurker (ever since 0.6.0), I finally managed to pull off a 15-rune win as DsNe of Kiku, with my only previous (3-rune) win being MDFi of Nemelex. Anyway, to commemorate this precious event, I decided to put together some of the observations I made through that painstakingly long time, which could hopefully contribute towards improving the quality and user-friendliness of this already fine game. 
Here goes:
a) I've noticed the "dangerous monster warning" deal already being listed under "minor" in future improvements, but to me, this has been a huge issue while I was playing, as it took me an eternity to learn how to distinguish strong and weak foes. This was especially nasty when facing highlevel demon summons from high priests and demonologists, but then again they already have a 5 tier level info already attached to them. However, after being pulverized by DL:2 Ogre and a DL:4 Skeletal Warrior, I kinda wish this sort of information would be available in the description of all creatures comparably stronger than me ("highlevel" status / red upwards arrow icon in tiles). Simply put, the verbose descriptions of monsters just don't cut it and I don't really want to check wiki every now and then, which seems to me as a pity, because even a subtle solution such as having direct access to the "XP gain upon killing" info of a monster would be enough for me.
b) The stash-making seems to me as a rather undesirable and counter-intuitive gameplay element, as it took me quite some time to learn how to put it into a good use, while still having to read player suggestions in order to figure out which are the good levels to set a stash in without having to worry about the items being stolen by random encounters. As a rather fussy player, I believe this concept should be more supported by the game itself, ideally by some kind of a random spawning of immobile magic chests (Diablo II / Fallout 3 Mojave Express style), which could hold up to 52 slots of loot while rending it inaccessible to monsters. Also, there could be a button/subscreen/HUD display, which would show the list of all stored items for easy referrence. No further explanation seems to be needed.
c) In order to learn how to play effectively, I used to gather a lot of info by reading the morgue files of other successful players. Sadly, the spellset section failed to provide me enough tips on which spells are worth mastering, because I had no way of knowing how often they were used. Now that there is no need of victory-dance spamming of spells, I really think I could benefit from the statistic of how many times each spell was used in a game, even those which were later forgotten and replaced by other ones. I really can't be the only one, who would be interested in that.
d) Speaking of the removed experience pool (which is a totally awesome 0.9.0 improvement by the way), there doesn't seem to be enough motivation to disarm traps anymore, except perhaps when trying to reach lvl1 in Traps&Doors. My suggestion therefore is to add xp-gain to the disarming of traps according to their difficulty/lethality, just like in many other RPGs, because so far I just can't see a reason why not.
e) When having to face the malicious effects of Hell directed by a booming voice or something ("we don't take kindly to trespassers" or whatever), I was kinda wondering whether it was the lord of that particular section of Hell speaking and if those rotting and stat-reduction assaults would stop after his death, so I can loot those previous levels and harvest XP, but they did not.
Anyway, say... can't these punishments somehow be dependent on how much stealthy the character is, so that flavour-wise he could manage to get undetected that way longer? Even in terms of the gameplay it seems to me, that the characters which aren't stealthy enough by that time, are the same who wouldn't even mind an occasional ambush. Or are those effects of Hell all that neccessary?
f) Upon seeing the vast amounts of money left by the end of the game and having only 7 pieces of permafood left, I considered all the closed food shops and though how cool it would be to restock them for a price of say... 500/1000 gold? Of course, the restocking of an antique shop would be the most expensive of all and it could be done even when it's not empty yet (discarding its previous stock) for that matter. I believe that even the sprint levels could benefit from this somehow.
g) Last, but not least, to me it seems rather odd for Okawaru to gift weapons/armour/ammo, while gifts from other gods are usually way more specific. My humble wish therefore is for Oka to be much more of a melee-oriented god, in which case Feddhas could be improved a bit to support ranged combat even further and gift ranged weapons+ammo, therefore making him a viable alternative to Oka when playing a more Hunter-oriented character build like Hobbits or Centaurs. I am rather short on the specific suggestions here, it just seems to me like a quite reasonable call considering that you can always see altars of Oka surrounded by melee weapons and even the tile depicting his altar is made of those.
That's pretty much all for now, so let me know if I have been any helpful and in the meantime I can try to figure out which combo to pick for a full Ziggurat clearance.
EDIT: Wooden rafts in Shoals, please! Who played Dark Disciples knows, what I am talking about.
Here goes:
a) I've noticed the "dangerous monster warning" deal already being listed under "minor" in future improvements, but to me, this has been a huge issue while I was playing, as it took me an eternity to learn how to distinguish strong and weak foes. This was especially nasty when facing highlevel demon summons from high priests and demonologists, but then again they already have a 5 tier level info already attached to them. However, after being pulverized by DL:2 Ogre and a DL:4 Skeletal Warrior, I kinda wish this sort of information would be available in the description of all creatures comparably stronger than me ("highlevel" status / red upwards arrow icon in tiles). Simply put, the verbose descriptions of monsters just don't cut it and I don't really want to check wiki every now and then, which seems to me as a pity, because even a subtle solution such as having direct access to the "XP gain upon killing" info of a monster would be enough for me.
b) The stash-making seems to me as a rather undesirable and counter-intuitive gameplay element, as it took me quite some time to learn how to put it into a good use, while still having to read player suggestions in order to figure out which are the good levels to set a stash in without having to worry about the items being stolen by random encounters. As a rather fussy player, I believe this concept should be more supported by the game itself, ideally by some kind of a random spawning of immobile magic chests (Diablo II / Fallout 3 Mojave Express style), which could hold up to 52 slots of loot while rending it inaccessible to monsters. Also, there could be a button/subscreen/HUD display, which would show the list of all stored items for easy referrence. No further explanation seems to be needed.
c) In order to learn how to play effectively, I used to gather a lot of info by reading the morgue files of other successful players. Sadly, the spellset section failed to provide me enough tips on which spells are worth mastering, because I had no way of knowing how often they were used. Now that there is no need of victory-dance spamming of spells, I really think I could benefit from the statistic of how many times each spell was used in a game, even those which were later forgotten and replaced by other ones. I really can't be the only one, who would be interested in that.
d) Speaking of the removed experience pool (which is a totally awesome 0.9.0 improvement by the way), there doesn't seem to be enough motivation to disarm traps anymore, except perhaps when trying to reach lvl1 in Traps&Doors. My suggestion therefore is to add xp-gain to the disarming of traps according to their difficulty/lethality, just like in many other RPGs, because so far I just can't see a reason why not.
e) When having to face the malicious effects of Hell directed by a booming voice or something ("we don't take kindly to trespassers" or whatever), I was kinda wondering whether it was the lord of that particular section of Hell speaking and if those rotting and stat-reduction assaults would stop after his death, so I can loot those previous levels and harvest XP, but they did not.
Anyway, say... can't these punishments somehow be dependent on how much stealthy the character is, so that flavour-wise he could manage to get undetected that way longer? Even in terms of the gameplay it seems to me, that the characters which aren't stealthy enough by that time, are the same who wouldn't even mind an occasional ambush. Or are those effects of Hell all that neccessary?f) Upon seeing the vast amounts of money left by the end of the game and having only 7 pieces of permafood left, I considered all the closed food shops and though how cool it would be to restock them for a price of say... 500/1000 gold? Of course, the restocking of an antique shop would be the most expensive of all and it could be done even when it's not empty yet (discarding its previous stock) for that matter. I believe that even the sprint levels could benefit from this somehow.
g) Last, but not least, to me it seems rather odd for Okawaru to gift weapons/armour/ammo, while gifts from other gods are usually way more specific. My humble wish therefore is for Oka to be much more of a melee-oriented god, in which case Feddhas could be improved a bit to support ranged combat even further and gift ranged weapons+ammo, therefore making him a viable alternative to Oka when playing a more Hunter-oriented character build like Hobbits or Centaurs. I am rather short on the specific suggestions here, it just seems to me like a quite reasonable call considering that you can always see altars of Oka surrounded by melee weapons and even the tile depicting his altar is made of those.
That's pretty much all for now, so let me know if I have been any helpful and in the meantime I can try to figure out which combo to pick for a full Ziggurat clearance.
EDIT: Wooden rafts in Shoals, please! Who played Dark Disciples knows, what I am talking about.
- For this message the author Marten has received thanks: 2
- MyOtheHedgeFox, XuaXua
