The Fade when opening the door in the main menu could be more gradual I think, when quickly hovering over it again and again it flashes annoyingly. Same with the soundeffect for it.
New Heroes, interesting. Since they're "premade" Does that mean you're aiming for more then just 2 generic Heroes later on? With different starting Stats, abilities, equipment options or whatever?
If you're letting me name the Hero, why does it get a default Name shown under the Portrait. A default one, or a randomized one upon selection is fine, but under the Portrait it gives me a different Impression on whats intended I assume, see previous Sentence.
Going for Despair/Ironman first, just to see. Wand and Sword obviously, as its the best Choice.
Spooky skeleton Pits with red Eyes, nice. New Cultist on level 1 also looks a lot better then the old one. the Crawlers slide across the floor a bit occassionally.
Cage Fatty is also better then the previous Mauler, and I think it was the first Time I noticed Wands missing.
Mimics are great, putting a lifestealing elite Enemy into floor one isn't. Great Way to ruin a Run, now I have no health Potions left.
First Boss was a joke this Time, with the Obelisk I found for +5 Agility, and putting all the Levels into Wand Damage I had enough Mana to just icespike him down in mere seconds.
No Bugs or anything so far, seems to work great for once, but only made it up to the Halls of Pain.
Did not find any new Spells or anything to try out, but a ton of Wands and Fetishes, did you change the Way loot drops?
Did you fix Vedomots Drop resetting its Damage when hitting Barrels? It seems so, so I'm going to try and force a run with that tomorrow.
Game seems easier then before, and I really like that you notice Wands missing now.
So far, apart from quite a bit more polish, I didn't notice too much new from the previous Version. It did draw me in more then before tho, I don't specifically know what you changed, but the Atmosphere felt better.
Sorry, I can't write too much, there isn't really anything to talk about I think. It's far along on a good Way, I didn't encounter any Bugs to complain about, balancing feels a lot better then before, it had me switch between my Weapon Options a lot more, and think more about wether I made a mistake by just putting everything into mind again like usual, even tho I did find a bunch of Wands to make a great one at the Goblin if I would've gotten that far.
I still completely ignored Weapon Arts tho, obviously with a Wand, but even without I couldn't really see myself using them, I kind of always forget they are even there.
I'm assuming new Content is towards the End, where I haven't gotten yet, so I might've more to talk about then.
a lot of the new stuff is just content after the first few levels. i think it really begins right where you stopped, with the shop keepers, NPCs, and new levels. even with that in mind there isn’t really that much new stuff, a lot of time went into fixing and polishing things and just making the game work. there’s about 4 or 5 new levels since you last played but i think it’s fine to stop where you did. thanks for playing and im very pleased to hear you enjoyed the atmosphere!
Played for another roughly 1.15h, trying a vedomot weapon run on non-despair. This Time it crashed once on Floor 1. I like the new Mimic and Trap Sounds, unless they aren't new, in which case I just haven't heard them before.
Most of this Time was spent on floor 1, bossfloor was a breeze, and floor 2 I died very early.
The first Floor is still a real slog, the first Bossfloor less so, as its relatively easy, but you still have to carefully kite everything. You need to preserve your Potions for higher up, so you're kind of forced to kite with very little Damage through the entirety up to the first Boss.
Elite Enemies, especially on low Levels have too much Health I think. Since they deal enormous Damage, you have to kite them in some Way unless you're terribly overequipped, and then you're usually kiting them on an offhand Weapon you're not skilled in using, like a Wand when going full melee, meaning you'll run a full lap around a Room to get enough space between you, and attack them for 1-2 damage. Repeat until dead, if you miss, thats 2 or 3 Laps, not 1.
I spent easily 10 minutes per elite Enemy on floor 1 just running in circles. Does not feel good.
The additional Item information you see on hover, and that you get the Enemy HP when you kill enough of them is really nice. However, Enemies tend to not appear as much on higher Floors, so by the Time you know there health, you barely kill any more of them. You also already know it as a Player going into new Runs anyhow, since you've seen it the run before, so maybe put that into some meta-progression?
Doesn't make the Game harder or easier after beating/failing a Run, but you don't have to keep a List in your Head/on Paper for it anymore.
Mimic on the Bossfloor is just the same as with Elite Enemies there. I don't like it, the Floor is static anyway, why don't you just put static Enemies there?
It just doesn't feel good to miss, at all. And if you miss multiple Times in a row and just watch your health deplete massively due to rng, it feels even worse.
Melee also still doesn't feel as worth it as ranged, you have to spread your Stats out a lot, while with Wands you can just dump them into hit chance and damage, since you can kite more easily and avoid the heavy hitting spell projectiles, which becomes much harder in melee.
Sure, there are Enemies like the Faceless who apparently are harder to hit with ranged, but you miss them in melee all the Time anyway, so that's not really a comforting Factor. And your melee Damage may be higher on the Weapon itself, but due to statspread doesn't really become noticeable different to range damage. Overall I still think ranged benefits outweight melee a lot.
if you did one run after the crash, can you check if you have any mention of it in your Player-Prev.log file (Player.log is last run, Player-prev is second to last run)? it's most likely related to your PC, but it might help to know if something the game did made the crash more likely. it's in your C drive, C:\Users\YourName\AppData\LocalLow\osur\Tower of Kalemonvo
>Elite Enemies, especially on low Levels have too much Health I think. Since they deal enormous Damage, you have to kite them in some Way unless you're terribly overequipped
will change this now
>Mimic on the Bossfloor is just the same as with Elite Enemies there.
hmm, i'll try this out. i'm surprised mimics give you trouble, although i understand elite enemies (back to back 'boss fights' drain your resources)
>It just doesn't feel good to miss, at all. And if you miss multiple Times in a row and just watch your health deplete massively due to rng, it feels even worse.
i sort of agree, but i still think i've got the best interpretation. there was a lot of discussions about this with other playtesters some DDs ago. Mokudev suggested having a "miss is just an attack that didn't fully connect", which in my mind just made the game boring. at this point i'm not sure there is any better implementation that i'd personally enjoy.
i did internally mess with two-handers last night, so i might take a look at the starting 1h weapons as well before i push out the post-dd-hotfix patch.
as always, thanks for playing! the fact that you played again is very nice to hear.
I'm not scanning through the entire Player-Prev, but it does Mention a latest crash report being intercepted by teh crash handler, I'll post some Details of that one.
Under .../Crash/Player:
Shader 'Unversal Render Pipeline/Particles/Lit': fallback shader 'Universal Render Pipeline/Particles/SimpleLit' not found
The referenced script on this Behaviour (Game Object 'InventorySlotImage') is missing!
(Filename: Line: 334)
/* Repeats a few Times */
UnloadTime: 0850200ms
Not allowed to access vertices on mesh 'Icosphere' (isReadable is false; Read/Write must be enabled in import settings)
(Filename: Line: 448)
/* Repeats a few Times */
Not allowed to access vertices on mesh 'Cube' (isReadable is false; Read/Write must be enabled in import settings)
(Filename: Line: 448)
Keys set
(Filename: buildslave/unity/build/Runtime/Export/Debug/Debug.bindinds.h Line: 39)
Can not play a disabled audio source
(Filename: Line: 454)
Starting game with save profile: 3
(Filename: buildslave/... Line:39)
Couldn't create a Convex Mesh from source mesh "Sphere" within the maximum polyogns limit (256). The partial hull will be used. COnsider simplifying your mesh.
(Filename: Line: 91)
Failed to create agent because there is no valid NavMesh
(Filename: Line634)
player is guy: False
Filename( buildslave/... Line:39)
Couldn't create a Conves Mesh from source Mesh "Skull_LOD0" within the maximum polygons limit (256). The partial hull will be used. COnsider simplifying your mesh.
(Filename: Line 91)
Unloading 6 Unused Serialized files (Serialized files now loaded: 0)
WARNING: Shader Unsupported: 'Hidden/Nature/Terrain/Utilities' - All passes removed
WARNING: Shader Did you use #pramga only_renderers and omit this platform?
start lom
(Filename: buildslave/... Line:39)
//>>>
Uploading Crash Report
NUllReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
at Mana_and_Health_UI_Values.Update_Current_Mana (System.Int32 mana, System.Int32 max_mana)
at Mana_and_Health_UI_Values.Update_Max_Mana (System.Int32 mana, System.Int32 max_mana)
at Life_and_Mana_Manager.calculate_mana()
at Player_Attributes.Start()
/* bunch of repeating from above, of failing to create Navmeshes, Convex Hulls and so on */
//>>>
CRASH!!!
SymInit: Symbol-SearchPath: '.;<VariousFilepaths>
deferred SymType Issues in a bunch of SYSTEM32 follow, including in "Tower of Kalemonvo_Data\Plugins\x86\lib_burst_generated.dll:lib_burst_generated.dll"
Stacktrace:
0x6472DE72 (UnityPlayer) GfxDeviceD3D11Base::DrawQuad
0x6473D620 (UnityPlayer) D3D11SwapChain::BlitColorBackBufferToSwapChainBuffer
0x6472FD55 (UnityPlayer) GfxDeviceD3D11Base::PresentFrame
0x647ADBCD (UnityPlayer) GfxDeviceWorker::RunCommand
0x647B2FED (UnityPlayer) GfxDeviceWorker::RunExt
0x647B30A9 (UnityPlayer) GfxDeviceWorker::RunGfxDeviceWorker
0x64A4AB16 (UnityPlayer) Thread::RunThreadWrapper
0x7651FCC9 (KERNEL32) BaseThreadInitThunk
0x77BD7C5E (ntdll) RtlGetAppContainerNamedObjectPath
0x77BD7C2E (ntdll) RtlGetAppContainerNamedObjectPath
I'm assuming that the Issue happened when my GPU disconnected itself. If that's the case, it's not on your Game to fix it.
interesting. i'll keep a track of this anyway. i know there is an actual game-related crash that occurs very rarely, since i've had two people tell me about it in the last few months. thanks for posting the log!
The new title screen is very soulful. It reminds me of the Afterlife Gladiator hub. There's lots of inconsistencies with outlines and fonts and such, but honestly, it helps sell the euro aesthetic.
I don't know what you changed, but the lighting looks a lot more like old-school prerendered 3D than stock Unity now. The shaders for the outlines and wall see-throughs and orbs and such are all excellent.
Having to type a text box whenever you want to save is annoying.
The voices and noises are very well-implemented.
I expected to cheese the game with magic in classic ARPG fashion, but there's plenty of ranged hate in there once you get past the first floor. I don't know how melee characters handle this, but that certainly makes the game more interesting for magic users.
I don't understand how to use heavy weapons. Their slower attack speed seems to make them 100% useless when I'm trying to hit and run.
I got to level 5 on the floor with the cultists and now I have no healing, so I guess I'm bricked. It took me forever to get any spell worth using at all (the electric shockwave). Snakes die faster than it takes you to summon them. Fireballs aren't any better than autoattack when you're in a cycle of kiting enemies anyway. Bloodlust is not even a spell. I expected to get some sort of magic that would convert mp to hp, but never did. As a result, I had a huge pile of useless MP potions.
I like the core gameplay here, but it's not fast-paced enough for the roguelike replayability structure to be enticing for me.
>I don't understand how to use heavy weapons. Their slower attack speed seems to make them 100% useless when I'm trying to hit and run.
you're mostly meant to stand and fight with them, since there's no way to properly kite with them unless you roll +Attack Speed. they'll get some more tweaks.
>Snakes
need to buff them a bit. they really do get twoshot in that level!
>I expected to get some sort of magic that would convert mp to hp
there is a world object that does exactly that with potions - you might have gotten unlucky and it didn't spawn anywhere for you. there is one that has a guaranteed spawn in the south-east wing of that floor, but that might've been too far.
>I like the core gameplay here, but it's not fast-paced enough for the roguelike replayability structure to be enticing for me.
i get that! i much prefer slow-paced, and i know that i'm going against what most people find enjoyable. hopefully with some more polish and tweaks i can get it to a place where fast-paced enjoyers wont feel too out of their element.
thanks again for playing and for the feedback and congrats on making it as far as you did!
Last time I played this game was on DD54, that time I played a two handed warrior so this time I decided to go full mage with shield. I had a hard time at the beginning because of the low damage and lack of mana. BUT, a monster dropped a ring that give me +2 of mana for every enemy killed and fire ball cost 2 mana, it was at that moment I start cleaning the floor with confidence. Later, a monster dropped a book with spell to summon snakes... and I started to wipe the floor with the corpses of the monsters on my path. Playing as a mage/summoner is fun and remind of my times playing Diablo 1 - 2. (I think the snakes have a time duration bug, the description says they disappear after 60 seconds, but I don't see that happen).
As I progress, in the level with the Sun Cultist, I find a shield with green letters, it needed 17 int and give more int when equipped, it also take 15% of the damage to my mana pool, which combined with some gloves I picked up, it give me 19% total. The build is doing good so far, I reached the skeleton pit and I decided to stop because I realized I have like 3 hours playing, which is good, because it means your game in this current state is fun.
I liked the chest and barrel mimics, I don't remember if they existed in the last build I played on DD54.
I realized that change the music for the first level, in fact I checked the build of DD54 I still have on my pc and I prefer that one because it feels more ominous and Diablo like... at least on my personal opinion, but either way, the current one it's not bad.
Also, Kira looks kinda of smug with that smile in the portrait.... it's cute don't removed it.
thank you for the very SMUG Kira! she looks great! she's intentionally smug, her character's like that to contrast the straight-laced default character.
>the description says they disappear after 60 seconds
crap i forgot to update that. they now last forever since i didn't like the duration mechanic, but i didn't rewrite the spell description.
>music
i'm curious about your thoughts on the music. the new music is brand new (it was finished like 4 days ago), and i talked a lot about the old track with the music guy and we both agreed the old one was a bit boring. is there anything more you can tell me about your thoughts on the new one? is it too "epic" or bombastic / intense for the environment?
thanks again for the playthrough, feedback and drawing! as far as i know, you and The-Gun-Is-Good dev made it the farthest (the skeleton pit area), which is i think an area that's too repetitive/difficult/stale. it and the 2 levels after it are getting changed at some point. either way, congrats on making it that far! it's not an easy feat
The new music is fine on the new levels I played, but the first one it felt off, specially at the beginning of the music, there's this arpeggio at the beginning that makes my mind think I will play an old school shooter instead of Diablo, and I think it's because of the instrument which sounds like a modern bass to my ears. Diablo 1 -2 Ost is good because the dev use it as tool to set an atmosphere to the game, and for that, there's some instrument one should avoid and other use more often, in fact, we have our mind already conditioned to expect some sounds and instruments. If someone play a desert level in any game, I bet that most people is expecting a music with a sitar and drums. If someone play a level with a cybernetic theme, I bet most people are expecting some kind of techno music. So, if I am in a game where I struggle to survive I expect a music that match that feeling, that expectation , and so, it have to be an oppressive music, check for example this song of Diablo:
Hear the ominous drums, the scream of a lady on the background being slaughter, the skeletons, the unsettling chants, this music is not meant to be enjoyed, it's purpose is make the player feel oppressed. Remember, in this kind of games the music is a tool.
Those are my thoughts on the music, changing the topic, I beat the skeleton pit but I didn't find any new area, is the skeleton pit just an extra are just for the sake of challenge? it took 45 minutes to beat and all thanks to a lightning orb spell that deals 15 dmg... but also damage the player, didn't expect the friendly fire and to be sincere I'm not sure if people will like it, because, why that spell hurt the player when others don't do it? anyways here is the pic when I clear the pit:
I think I will finish my run here, I think my build is strong enough to make it to the end but if the skeleton pit took me 45min I'm not sure how long will take for me to complete the remaining content. Fun demo.
thank you very much for the detailed feedback. i'll pass this on to my music guy
for the demo, the "end" is in the Hall of Pain, the blue square level. skeleton pit is a side objective, and you can continue further if you go back a floor and head the opposite direction. there's many more levels, but you've already played more than enough! thanks again for the art and feedback, it's much appreciated
So I did a run in every type (melee, arc and magic)
-Magic, safe low risk, high reward, easy hit and run, some spell are just perfect murder machine
-Arc, less safe than magic, but the random effect on elemental arrow mean that I don't use it, please a way to always have the slow arrow (the most useful), and a quick move skill.
-Melee, high risk low reward, less safe than magic, less dmg too, melee should have an increasing chance of landing an attack because it is just inferior to other, the hit and run being harder while everything is either equal or worse.
have you tried using the shield combat arts? for me, i feel like one handed weapon + shield simply outclasses everything.
>magic arrow
probably would be good to include a separate "slow" only arrow skill or something. it is true that it's much, much more useful than for example lightning or fire.
thanks again for giving it another go, and i again must say that i really liked your fanart! thank you!
-Not having an option to move without attacking. It's a small thing but it would be nice to be able to move past enemies without being stopped to attack when at range~
-The witches could use a sound when they cast fireballs, so you can prepare to move when cast from off screen (detrimental in iron man/despair mode)
-The 2 hander weapon animations seem very slow compared to one handers so much so that the trade-off for higher damage is not worth it, you nearly guaranteed to get hit during a swing of a 2 handed weapon while the one hand weapons are so fast you can nearly always win a trade without taking damage at all making it pointless ever use a 2 handed weapon instead of sword and board.
Other than that a button to highlight intractable objects would be a nice QoL addition.
Encountered no problems or bugs, keep up the good work!
it's on the list, but i'm not quite yet sure how to tackle it, mostly due to how i implemented pathfinding. long story short is unity's default pathfinding took off 5 years from my lifespan.
> sound when they cast fireballs
good idea. i'll try to mess with this more.
>2 hander weapon animations seem very slow
i need to figure out a scaling benefit to them, since most other weapontypes have something to incentivize using it and spending points into it. hmm.
I would just make the mouse pointer ignore the enemies instead of selecting them for attacking if the setting is enabled (holding down the mouse button to walk should automatically do this if you want to make a quick escape) and allow pathfinding to do it's course finding the closest non obstructed navigable point in the radius, though unity isn't my strong suit.
problem with that is that enemies make holes in the navmesh when standing still, since unity's navmesh system is the worst thing to ever be conceived through mortal means. something can for sure be done, but it'll create a lot of issues when walking into/near enemies. i might be imagining a future problem that doesn't even exist, though. we'll see.
I wish I had more time for longer games. I don’t play orblikes much but this and Plunderground have been quite fun. I got up to the first boss dude while watching your stream of my game and had to stop.
One nitpick, scrolling with the scroll wheel is often very slow and on some pages it doesn’t seem to work at all. More importantly it seems collision in doorways is a bit borked. Trying to melee enemies funneling them into a doorway I seem to miss every time.
I think I done goofed with my stats, spreading them way too thin by mixing sword and wand. That’s on me, I don’t play a lot of orblikes. That said, the mechanics are pretty simple and easy to pick up. I remember it being solid last time I played so good you didn’t mess with the formula too early in the game.
Nice dismemberment with the gorilla dudes, that was cool. It’s been a long time since I last played but I also don’t remember clothes changing your appearance which is a welcome addition.
Do the obelisks curse you or something? I didn’t see any effects. Maybe that’s just something I’d need to play more to figure out.
I like the combat arts, good way to make mana useful for non-magic characters.
> scroll wheel is often very slow and on some pages it doesn’t seem to work at all.
this is strange, first time i hear of this. do you mean with NPCs, or the player's UI?
>collision in doorways is a bit borked.
yeah - if two enemies stand near one another, you always end up trying to attack the one farther away which is beyond your reach, so you just stand there helplessly as they beat you. i need to figure out how to fix this.
>Do the obelisks curse you or something? I didn’t see any effects. Maybe that’s just something I’d need to play more to figure out.
they apply a random effect on you with a cryptic message. it's something i'm still trying to get "just right" - i don't want the player being told "you have lost 2 Strength" but at the same time i want to push them to investigate what changed without making it too cryptic. in general the whole game has a feel of "i'm not sure what this is, and i want to find out" and i want to push the player to be inquisitive.
anyway. thanks for playing and the feedback, and i hope our stream was of use to you!
Still a big fan! this game is really awesome. The last time I played was several demo days ago, and I enjoyed it even then. Seeing all the new levels of content, polish and improvement is great. I really don't have too many notes other than keep going! I think you've got a really solid project here
I think the only thing is that the enemies AI feels too rudimentary. I would like to see more strafing and and maybe varying levels of aggression. It feels like they all just walk up and attack, but many enemies just try to path to the nearest point where they can attack you from, so if they can't reach you cause theres a bunch of others in the way, they just clog up in a big pool. If they had a way to communicate with each other to send in waves to attack directly while other strafed, or send off single units away to get help from bigger hoards elsewhere in the dungeon, little things like that I think go a huge way in making the enemies and the space feel much more alive.
thank you for playing and for the feedback! im glad to hear the game is still able to bring you enjoyment even after all this time.
>enemies
it's a tricky issue. while i always appreciate smart enemies, ARPGs sort of rely on having dumb enemies to make it work, since it would be incredibly punishing otherwise. walking into a big room, a player would get flanked and immediately surrounded, which is an instant game-over. some enemies eventually grow a brain (flaming skulls try and avoid you, goats predict your movement, etc.) but nothing 'too good'. it might be too late to uproot their controllers at this point.
Breaking it up in parts because I actually died at a point and need to replay some things and I already have a lot of footage. But I still want to see the new content. No commentary though just gameplay. I didn't play all in one sitting so there's plenty of cuts.
Generally feels harder than before, although it might be because I was trying to play with just two-handers.
Shift clicking on enemies out of range should still swing your weapon.
Felt like the first level didn't have many drops at all, even some empty chests. Still think it could benefit to have a higher drop rate here.
At some points I could see and hit enemies through walls (always next to doors I think?) and sometimes enemies hit me when I couldn't see them.
Aren't the cauldron spells icons wrong and should be the other way around? Really confusing when the health one is blue and the hand is on the opposite side of the orb.
Kinda lame that the only AoE option for two-handers is a ranged one. Where's the big hulk smash?
The charge could use a larger hitbox for enemies, feels pretty bad when you charge and stop right in front of them without them taking any damage. Some effect on hit for it would be really nice too.
I think both charge and throw could have -1 mana cost.
Spear weapon arts seem pretty lackluster, don't see myself using the -HP one until maybe very late game.
The door icons on the minimap are a bit strange actually, I think it always looks like there's two openings.
Enemies got stuck on scenery a couple of times.
I always forget which order you're supposed to put the item into the goblin. I think generally I do it in the opposite way that you're supposed to because there are two braziers next to the goblin so I think in my mind that means you're sacrificing two items and then putting the last one in to change it. I saved right before using it and did it the wrong way of course, when loading the save again the goblin disappeared, whoops. Going down a floor and back up fixed it.
If STR gives a flat damage bonus, isn't it always better for faster weapons than big slow ones? Not sure if it should change somehow.
Being able to see hit chance on enemies is really useful, not sure if I've used it before.
I saw traces of an enemy seemingly out of bounds at one point, but maybe there was a hidden room that I hadn't found. I can dig up the timestamp if you want.
Items that change up weapon arts - love it.
Played normal difficulty, 2h. Had to play very carefully and died in skeleton land as soon as I got a bit careless. Think I mixed up dex and agi in the beginning. I'll return to it a bit later. Will take a bit of time I guess for youtube to process the HD vids, in 2 parts because DaVinci was being a bitch:
as always thank you for playing, and you are very much insane if you're going for the finish-line again. it's long!
>harder than before
it might just be a mapgen thing, or an item drop chance. some runs are easier than others if you find a lifesteal ring early on.
>Shift clicking on enemies out of range should still swing your weapon.
i worry about this. im afraid that if an enemy is 4.1 units away and the max range is 4 units, the player will see the swing and assume he is hitting. when nothing happens it's a clear indication of "oh i need to move closer". some enemies outrange the player, so i worry about a player standing their ground and wondering why their attacks dont hit.
>At some points I could see and hit enemies through walls (always next to doors I think?) and sometimes enemies hit me when I couldn't see them.
i noticed this a few times too, i'll check it out.
>Aren't the cauldron spells icons wrong and should be the other way around?
everyone makes note of this. ill just switch it since it's more trouble than it's worth.
>Spear weapon arts seem pretty lackluster, don't see myself using the -HP one until maybe very late game.
the idea was to make it use the one-handed arts (just no shield). kinda didn't end up being fun, so i'm still wondering how to improve it.
>door icon
oh man now i see it too! the idea was to have a hole in the middle. i'll make the top part wider.
>goblin order
no specific order. the idea is that it always go for the majority, so : two spears + sword = spear. same with the modifiers. it applies mods that you give it, and it doubles down if you have two of the same mods. ie: sword of attack speed + spear of accuracy + normal spear -> fast accurate spear + 2-3 random mods. swap the normal spear for a fast spear -> REALLY fast accurate spear
>goblin disappeared
hah, first time i see that! i'll investigate.
>If STR gives a flat damage bonus, isn't it always better for faster weapons than big slow ones? Not sure if it should change somehow.
maybe it would make sense for 2H weapons to benefit more from STR. in general, though, i have a fine time playing with 2H weapons, so it's hard to gauge
>difficulty
skeletonland is currently marked as my "too hard" moment. 80% of my runs pause there since it feels like running into a wall (that is, if i dont have a shield. if i have one, easypeasy). i think i need to balance out the level by either adding doors (bleh) or another melee unit (dont have one planned, though). perhaps i can add anotehr big room, since i think the issue is that once you clear a room, you agro units from the next room, and so on. you never have breaks.
vids are currently loading but i'll be sure to watch them all. don't feel the need to play the whole thing! the new content is presently
>armory level SouthEast of the PalaCamp (unfinished)
>blood coven level continuing the path forward (sort of ok)
nothing really exciting, the most work was just making things a bit more polished at the start.
again, thanks for the feedback as always! glad to hear youre feeling better and i will see you in the fest soon
it might just be a mapgen thing, or an item drop chance. some runs are easier than others if you find a lifesteal ring early on.
Yeah good point, this run the only ring I got was for faster spell casting haha. Still, difficulty could probably be toned down a little bit in the start and harder later.
i worry about this. im afraid that if an enemy is 4.1 units away and the max range is 4 units, the player will see the swing and assume he is hitting. when nothing happens it's a clear indication of "oh i need to move closer". some enemies outrange the player, so i worry about a player standing their ground and wondering why their attacks dont hit.
For me I guess I'm just expecting it to work just like in Diablo.
the idea was to make it use the one-handed arts (just no shield). kinda didn't end up being fun, so i'm still wondering how to improve it.
Spears are hard to make interesting I think. Maybe you should be able to wield it either 2h or 1h with reduced damage? I don't know.
maybe it would make sense for 2H weapons to benefit more from STR. in general, though, i have a fine time playing with 2H weapons, so it's hard to gauge
The damage seems fine for 2H, was just a general thought.
no specific order.
Oh whoops hah, I always thought the ordered mattered for the weapon type. I often rely on the goblin to get a usable weapon.
skeletonland is currently marked as my "too hard" moment
I think I find it more tedious than hard, have to kite a looooot... Unless you have a shield yeah. Not sure what solution I'd propose, well I guess it would be new enemies. One way could be more melee variations of skeletons, recolors and with different weapons for example, some elemental effects.
again, thanks for the feedback as always! glad to hear youre feeling better and i will see you in the fest soon
Thanks, I still find it fun to replay it. There are a million things I'd like to have done before the fest but I won't manage any really hehe. I'll just have to get over myself and put up the demo I think, don't think there are that many people checking these things out anyway. See ya there.
Got the itch to play some more, continued from the start of skeleton town from last time. There's more footage although I don't know if you find it useful. Had to go to the burrows to get more potions and then backtrack to finish the last part of skellytown. Stopped a bit into the armory. Some ramblings:
You can't look at the entire map when scrolling it with the arrow keys.
Buying an item, going up and down stairs - item is back in the shop.
Still feel like there are so many items that have int reqs, scythe 20 int :(
Doesn't seem like many new items drop from about burrows 2 onward, guess its not finished though. Must've seen 20 drops of enchanters helm.
Maps after palacamp feel a bit empty and repetitive, and the passage is so large with the same enemy clusters everywhere.
New enemies in the armory are cool.
Can you hit faster with weapons if you swing with a slow one and swap quickly between a fast one and back? My tests were inconclusive.
Feels like the game gets way easier when you get into the burrows, often come out with a backpack full of pots. Probably best to go there and then skellytown most of the time.
Charge gets really strong when you have the mana for it, I wish the SFX and FX on hit for it were more impressive. Throwing your weapon is good too but it flies so slow and its so easy for it to get stuck that it doesn't feel worth using it often.
I got a pretty nasty bug with an immortal elite skeleton that couldn't be targeted right next to a golden goblin. I first encountered him in the video @27:03 and you can see me dance around him trying to use the goblin in @1:27:50. He did some crazy damage too.
Finished the remaining part too, nice with a new area. Felt like the difficulty was picking up a bit again with the warmothers doing a lot of damage. Although I hadn't bothered upgrading my equipment for a while and I was overflowing with potions. It feels kind of silly spamming the charge attack honestly, maybe it should be tied to attack speed of the weapon or something? I dunno.
No idea what spells it thinks I casted? Should be 0 I think.
congrats! you're the first person to beat the full thing this DD! truly you are outdoing yourself playing through the whole thing every time. i'll look into the spell thing and the timer - kinda weird that the timer shows that weird format. could you send me your save file so i can poke around? healing light tracks itself as a spell, though, so you'd have at least 3.
>spamming charge
i think this was mostly due to the Afterlife Gladiator helmet buff - i sort of don't want to hamper silly builds like that too much. instead i'll look into adding an AOE-slam ability or something to give you more fun options so you don't have to rely on just one thing.
thanks again for the playing/videos. your feedback is greatly appreciated and i already spent half the morning implementing some of your suggestions.
i think this was mostly due to the Afterlife Gladiator helmet buff - i sort of don't want to hamper silly builds like that too much. instead i'll look into adding an AOE-slam ability or something to give you more fun options so you don't have to rely on just one thing.
Oh yeah that might've been it, even found two of those helmets. Sounds good.
Hadn't really planned on playing it all again, kind of just happened.
Here are the saves, one next to the immortal skelly and one at the end of the game.
Another thing is you might want to increase the brightness of the cursor in some way. I was playing with the monitor at a bit of a distance and I lost it some times because its so dark against the similarly dark background.
i love the fanart! it's the most lewd one i've ever gotten!
in case you're interested, the password is /vg/! there's like several more hours, but it's more of the same so if you feel like you've seen enough, you can stop here.
for the spell balance, i'll look into it. fireball is meant to be a sniping weapon, good at range but crap when compared to more efficient skills like shock.
>Give an indicator when target dodge, I keep remember to myself than wand projectile disappearing in intended and not a bug.
noted
>We need a way to remove all the useless item we loot, like a sacrifice against potion or something
it's the very next room actually! right after the password check.
>for the spell balance, i'll look into it. fireball is meant to be a sniping weapon, good at range but crap when compared to more efficient skills like shock.
For the same cost in mana, one wand + shock is more cost effective without the risk of missing
>fireball is meant to be a sniping weapon
It lack dmg then, if i can't one shoot even the weakest of enemy that I two shoot with the wand of wanking then it is not cost effective.
-Wand still the safest option, fireball is not cost effective in lvl1, so either replace the starting wand by another spell (like ice pics, great spell) or give it a little more dmg (like at least one shoot lvl1 target).
-The aggro distance need to be larger, I can clean entire room and nobody care
-Fallen paladins refuse to drop items, deserved their death
ahoy, thanks for playing. sorry about no monsterboys yet, one day..!
>Wand still the safest option
i messed around with balance a bit more. i think all weapons are about the same power level. wands are good to start with, but you need to invest a lot of points to keep them effective since enemies start getting much faster than your normal rate of fire.
>The aggro distance need to be larger, I can clean entire room and nobody care
interesting. enemies are supposed to alert themselves and everyone around them if they take damage without the player being in their radius, i'll look into it
>-Fallen paladins refuse to drop items, deserved their death
they have a lower drop rate than chests, the greedy bastards
thanks for playing! i assume youre running it on linux? i didn't test it so if that's the case then i'm glad it's running smoothly
There's an itch these classic arpgs scratch that modern ones often just don't. Feels pretty good to play, although enemy targeting could be slightly bigger so I don't walk at them with my bow. I know I can hold shift to shoot too but still. I died a few floors after that first boss, the enemy density just got too much and I was downing potions until I ran out. Pretty hard to handle and I even had some aoe (the icicles)
>itch these classic arpgs scratch that modern ones often just don't.
you took the words right out of my mouth. it's pure seething that is fueling my dev sessions since i'm so upset nobody makes games like these anymore.
>targetting
yeah, enemy hitboxes are usually just one stretched cube. i need to improve them a bit since some enemies like the mauler are sometimes hard to click properly.
i assume you died in the halls of pain? that's usually the difficulty spike. i might give it the "new level" treatment of reducing enemy mob amounts near the starting room, then increasing over time. we'll see
Comments
Played for about 1.15h so far.
The Fade when opening the door in the main menu could be more gradual I think, when quickly hovering over it again and again it flashes annoyingly. Same with the soundeffect for it.
New Heroes, interesting. Since they're "premade" Does that mean you're aiming for more then just 2 generic Heroes later on? With different starting Stats, abilities, equipment options or whatever?
If you're letting me name the Hero, why does it get a default Name shown under the Portrait. A default one, or a randomized one upon selection is fine, but under the Portrait it gives me a different Impression on whats intended I assume, see previous Sentence.
Going for Despair/Ironman first, just to see. Wand and Sword obviously, as its the best Choice.
Spooky skeleton Pits with red Eyes, nice. New Cultist on level 1 also looks a lot better then the old one. the Crawlers slide across the floor a bit occassionally.
Cage Fatty is also better then the previous Mauler, and I think it was the first Time I noticed Wands missing.
Mimics are great, putting a lifestealing elite Enemy into floor one isn't. Great Way to ruin a Run, now I have no health Potions left.
First Boss was a joke this Time, with the Obelisk I found for +5 Agility, and putting all the Levels into Wand Damage I had enough Mana to just icespike him down in mere seconds.
No Bugs or anything so far, seems to work great for once, but only made it up to the Halls of Pain.
Did not find any new Spells or anything to try out, but a ton of Wands and Fetishes, did you change the Way loot drops?
Did you fix Vedomots Drop resetting its Damage when hitting Barrels? It seems so, so I'm going to try and force a run with that tomorrow.
Game seems easier then before, and I really like that you notice Wands missing now.
So far, apart from quite a bit more polish, I didn't notice too much new from the previous Version. It did draw me in more then before tho, I don't specifically know what you changed, but the Atmosphere felt better.
Sorry, I can't write too much, there isn't really anything to talk about I think. It's far along on a good Way, I didn't encounter any Bugs to complain about, balancing feels a lot better then before, it had me switch between my Weapon Options a lot more, and think more about wether I made a mistake by just putting everything into mind again like usual, even tho I did find a bunch of Wands to make a great one at the Goblin if I would've gotten that far.
I still completely ignored Weapon Arts tho, obviously with a Wand, but even without I couldn't really see myself using them, I kind of always forget they are even there.
I'm assuming new Content is towards the End, where I haven't gotten yet, so I might've more to talk about then.
Maybe tomorrow.
Good Evening, thanks for playing!
a lot of the new stuff is just content after the first few levels. i think it really begins right where you stopped, with the shop keepers, NPCs, and new levels. even with that in mind there isn’t really that much new stuff, a lot of time went into fixing and polishing things and just making the game work. there’s about 4 or 5 new levels since you last played but i think it’s fine to stop where you did.
thanks for playing and im very pleased to hear you enjoyed the atmosphere!
Played for another roughly 1.15h, trying a vedomot weapon run on non-despair. This Time it crashed once on Floor 1. I like the new Mimic and Trap Sounds, unless they aren't new, in which case I just haven't heard them before.
Most of this Time was spent on floor 1, bossfloor was a breeze, and floor 2 I died very early.
The first Floor is still a real slog, the first Bossfloor less so, as its relatively easy, but you still have to carefully kite everything. You need to preserve your Potions for higher up, so you're kind of forced to kite with very little Damage through the entirety up to the first Boss.
Elite Enemies, especially on low Levels have too much Health I think. Since they deal enormous Damage, you have to kite them in some Way unless you're terribly overequipped, and then you're usually kiting them on an offhand Weapon you're not skilled in using, like a Wand when going full melee, meaning you'll run a full lap around a Room to get enough space between you, and attack them for 1-2 damage. Repeat until dead, if you miss, thats 2 or 3 Laps, not 1.
I spent easily 10 minutes per elite Enemy on floor 1 just running in circles. Does not feel good.
The additional Item information you see on hover, and that you get the Enemy HP when you kill enough of them is really nice. However, Enemies tend to not appear as much on higher Floors, so by the Time you know there health, you barely kill any more of them. You also already know it as a Player going into new Runs anyhow, since you've seen it the run before, so maybe put that into some meta-progression?
Doesn't make the Game harder or easier after beating/failing a Run, but you don't have to keep a List in your Head/on Paper for it anymore.
Mimic on the Bossfloor is just the same as with Elite Enemies there. I don't like it, the Floor is static anyway, why don't you just put static Enemies there?
It just doesn't feel good to miss, at all. And if you miss multiple Times in a row and just watch your health deplete massively due to rng, it feels even worse.
Melee also still doesn't feel as worth it as ranged, you have to spread your Stats out a lot, while with Wands you can just dump them into hit chance and damage, since you can kite more easily and avoid the heavy hitting spell projectiles, which becomes much harder in melee.
Sure, there are Enemies like the Faceless who apparently are harder to hit with ranged, but you miss them in melee all the Time anyway, so that's not really a comforting Factor. And your melee Damage may be higher on the Weapon itself, but due to statspread doesn't really become noticeable different to range damage. Overall I still think ranged benefits outweight melee a lot.
>crash
if you did one run after the crash, can you check if you have any mention of it in your Player-Prev.log file (Player.log is last run, Player-prev is second to last run)? it's most likely related to your PC, but it might help to know if something the game did made the crash more likely. it's in your C drive, C:\Users\YourName\AppData\LocalLow\osur\Tower of Kalemonvo
>Elite Enemies, especially on low Levels have too much Health I think. Since they deal enormous Damage, you have to kite them in some Way unless you're terribly overequipped
will change this now
>Mimic on the Bossfloor is just the same as with Elite Enemies there.
hmm, i'll try this out. i'm surprised mimics give you trouble, although i understand elite enemies (back to back 'boss fights' drain your resources)
>It just doesn't feel good to miss, at all. And if you miss multiple Times in a row and just watch your health deplete massively due to rng, it feels even worse.
i sort of agree, but i still think i've got the best interpretation. there was a lot of discussions about this with other playtesters some DDs ago. Mokudev suggested having a "miss is just an attack that didn't fully connect", which in my mind just made the game boring. at this point i'm not sure there is any better implementation that i'd personally enjoy.
i did internally mess with two-handers last night, so i might take a look at the starting 1h weapons as well before i push out the post-dd-hotfix patch.
as always, thanks for playing! the fact that you played again is very nice to hear.
>Crash
I'm not scanning through the entire Player-Prev, but it does Mention a latest crash report being intercepted by teh crash handler, I'll post some Details of that one.
Under .../Crash/Player:
I'm assuming that the Issue happened when my GPU disconnected itself. If that's the case, it's not on your Game to fix it.
interesting. i'll keep a track of this anyway. i know there is an actual game-related crash that occurs very rarely, since i've had two people tell me about it in the last few months. thanks for posting the log!
It's been a long time since I last played this.
The new title screen is very soulful. It reminds me of the Afterlife Gladiator hub. There's lots of inconsistencies with outlines and fonts and such, but honestly, it helps sell the euro aesthetic.
I don't know what you changed, but the lighting looks a lot more like old-school prerendered 3D than stock Unity now. The shaders for the outlines and wall see-throughs and orbs and such are all excellent.
Having to type a text box whenever you want to save is annoying.
The voices and noises are very well-implemented.
I expected to cheese the game with magic in classic ARPG fashion, but there's plenty of ranged hate in there once you get past the first floor. I don't know how melee characters handle this, but that certainly makes the game more interesting for magic users.
I don't understand how to use heavy weapons. Their slower attack speed seems to make them 100% useless when I'm trying to hit and run.
I got to level 5 on the floor with the cultists and now I have no healing, so I guess I'm bricked. It took me forever to get any spell worth using at all (the electric shockwave). Snakes die faster than it takes you to summon them. Fireballs aren't any better than autoattack when you're in a cycle of kiting enemies anyway. Bloodlust is not even a spell. I expected to get some sort of magic that would convert mp to hp, but never did. As a result, I had a huge pile of useless MP potions.
I like the core gameplay here, but it's not fast-paced enough for the roguelike replayability structure to be enticing for me.
thank you for playing and for the feedback!
>I don't understand how to use heavy weapons. Their slower attack speed seems to make them 100% useless when I'm trying to hit and run.
you're mostly meant to stand and fight with them, since there's no way to properly kite with them unless you roll +Attack Speed. they'll get some more tweaks.
>Snakes
need to buff them a bit. they really do get twoshot in that level!
>I expected to get some sort of magic that would convert mp to hp
there is a world object that does exactly that with potions - you might have gotten unlucky and it didn't spawn anywhere for you. there is one that has a guaranteed spawn in the south-east wing of that floor, but that might've been too far.
>I like the core gameplay here, but it's not fast-paced enough for the roguelike replayability structure to be enticing for me.
i get that! i much prefer slow-paced, and i know that i'm going against what most people find enjoyable. hopefully with some more polish and tweaks i can get it to a place where fast-paced enjoyers wont feel too out of their element.
thanks again for playing and for the feedback and congrats on making it as far as you did!
Last time I played this game was on DD54, that time I played a two handed warrior so this time I decided to go full mage with shield. I had a hard time at the beginning because of the low damage and lack of mana. BUT, a monster dropped a ring that give me +2 of mana for every enemy killed and fire ball cost 2 mana, it was at that moment I start cleaning the floor with confidence. Later, a monster dropped a book with spell to summon snakes... and I started to wipe the floor with the corpses of the monsters on my path. Playing as a mage/summoner is fun and remind of my times playing Diablo 1 - 2. (I think the snakes have a time duration bug, the description says they disappear after 60 seconds, but I don't see that happen).
As I progress, in the level with the Sun Cultist, I find a shield with green letters, it needed 17 int and give more int when equipped, it also take 15% of the damage to my mana pool, which combined with some gloves I picked up, it give me 19% total. The build is doing good so far, I reached the skeleton pit and I decided to stop because I realized I have like 3 hours playing, which is good, because it means your game in this current state is fun.
I liked the chest and barrel mimics, I don't remember if they existed in the last build I played on DD54.
I realized that change the music for the first level, in fact I checked the build of DD54 I still have on my pc and I prefer that one because it feels more ominous and Diablo like... at least on my personal opinion, but either way, the current one it's not bad.
Also, Kira looks kinda of smug with that smile in the portrait.... it's cute don't removed it.
thank you for the very SMUG Kira! she looks great! she's intentionally smug, her character's like that to contrast the straight-laced default character.
>the description says they disappear after 60 seconds
crap i forgot to update that. they now last forever since i didn't like the duration mechanic, but i didn't rewrite the spell description.
>music
i'm curious about your thoughts on the music. the new music is brand new (it was finished like 4 days ago), and i talked a lot about the old track with the music guy and we both agreed the old one was a bit boring. is there anything more you can tell me about your thoughts on the new one? is it too "epic" or bombastic / intense for the environment?
thanks again for the playthrough, feedback and drawing! as far as i know, you and The-Gun-Is-Good dev made it the farthest (the skeleton pit area), which is i think an area that's too repetitive/difficult/stale. it and the 2 levels after it are getting changed at some point. either way, congrats on making it that far! it's not an easy feat
The new music is fine on the new levels I played, but the first one it felt off, specially at the beginning of the music, there's this arpeggio at the beginning that makes my mind think I will play an old school shooter instead of Diablo, and I think it's because of the instrument which sounds like a modern bass to my ears. Diablo 1 -2 Ost is good because the dev use it as tool to set an atmosphere to the game, and for that, there's some instrument one should avoid and other use more often, in fact, we have our mind already conditioned to expect some sounds and instruments. If someone play a desert level in any game, I bet that most people is expecting a music with a sitar and drums. If someone play a level with a cybernetic theme, I bet most people are expecting some kind of techno music. So, if I am in a game where I struggle to survive I expect a music that match that feeling, that expectation , and so, it have to be an oppressive music, check for example this song of Diablo:
Hear the ominous drums, the scream of a lady on the background being slaughter, the skeletons, the unsettling chants, this music is not meant to be enjoyed, it's purpose is make the player feel oppressed. Remember, in this kind of games the music is a tool.
Those are my thoughts on the music, changing the topic, I beat the skeleton pit but I didn't find any new area, is the skeleton pit just an extra are just for the sake of challenge? it took 45 minutes to beat and all thanks to a lightning orb spell that deals 15 dmg... but also damage the player, didn't expect the friendly fire and to be sincere I'm not sure if people will like it, because, why that spell hurt the player when others don't do it? anyways here is the pic when I clear the pit:
I think I will finish my run here, I think my build is strong enough to make it to the end but if the skeleton pit took me 45min I'm not sure how long will take for me to complete the remaining content. Fun demo.
thank you very much for the detailed feedback. i'll pass this on to my music guy
for the demo, the "end" is in the Hall of Pain, the blue square level. skeleton pit is a side objective, and you can continue further if you go back a floor and head the opposite direction. there's many more levels, but you've already played more than enough! thanks again for the art and feedback, it's much appreciated
So I did a run in every type (melee, arc and magic)
-Magic, safe low risk, high reward, easy hit and run, some spell are just perfect murder machine
-Arc, less safe than magic, but the random effect on elemental arrow mean that I don't use it, please a way to always have the slow arrow (the most useful), and a quick move skill.
-Melee, high risk low reward, less safe than magic, less dmg too, melee should have an increasing chance of landing an attack because it is just inferior to other, the hit and run being harder while everything is either equal or worse.
thanks for playing again bluesanddev!
have you tried using the shield combat arts? for me, i feel like one handed weapon + shield simply outclasses everything.
>magic arrow
probably would be good to include a separate "slow" only arrow skill or something. it is true that it's much, much more useful than for example lightning or fire.
thanks again for giving it another go, and i again must say that i really liked your fanart! thank you!
Great stuff all around!
Some pointers-
-Not having an option to move without attacking. It's a small thing but it would be nice to be able to move past enemies without being stopped to attack when at range~
-The witches could use a sound when they cast fireballs, so you can prepare to move when cast from off screen (detrimental in iron man/despair mode)
-The 2 hander weapon animations seem very slow compared to one handers so much so that the trade-off for higher damage is not worth it, you nearly guaranteed to get hit during a swing of a 2 handed weapon while the one hand weapons are so fast you can nearly always win a trade without taking damage at all making it pointless ever use a 2 handed weapon instead of sword and board.
Other than that a button to highlight intractable objects would be a nice QoL addition.
Encountered no problems or bugs, keep up the good work!
thanks for the playthrough and feedback!
>move without attacking.
it's on the list, but i'm not quite yet sure how to tackle it, mostly due to how i implemented pathfinding. long story short is unity's default pathfinding took off 5 years from my lifespan.
> sound when they cast fireballs
good idea. i'll try to mess with this more.
>2 hander weapon animations seem very slow
i need to figure out a scaling benefit to them, since most other weapontypes have something to incentivize using it and spending points into it. hmm.
thanks again for playing!
"i'm not quite yet sure how to tackle it"
I would just make the mouse pointer ignore the enemies instead of selecting them for attacking if the setting is enabled (holding down the mouse button to walk should automatically do this if you want to make a quick escape) and allow pathfinding to do it's course finding the closest non obstructed navigable point in the radius, though unity isn't my strong suit.
problem with that is that enemies make holes in the navmesh when standing still, since unity's navmesh system is the worst thing to ever be conceived through mortal means. something can for sure be done, but it'll create a lot of issues when walking into/near enemies. i might be imagining a future problem that doesn't even exist, though. we'll see.
thanks again for the feedback and suggestions!
I'm certain you will figure it out!
I want
I wish I had more time for longer games. I don’t play orblikes much but this and Plunderground have been quite fun. I got up to the first boss dude while watching your stream of my game and had to stop.
One nitpick, scrolling with the scroll wheel is often very slow and on some pages it doesn’t seem to work at all. More importantly it seems collision in doorways is a bit borked. Trying to melee enemies funneling them into a doorway I seem to miss every time.
I think I done goofed with my stats, spreading them way too thin by mixing sword and wand. That’s on me, I don’t play a lot of orblikes. That said, the mechanics are pretty simple and easy to pick up. I remember it being solid last time I played so good you didn’t mess with the formula too early in the game.
Nice dismemberment with the gorilla dudes, that was cool. It’s been a long time since I last played but I also don’t remember clothes changing your appearance which is a welcome addition.
Do the obelisks curse you or something? I didn’t see any effects. Maybe that’s just something I’d need to play more to figure out.
I like the combat arts, good way to make mana useful for non-magic characters.
cultist is not for lewd!
> scroll wheel is often very slow and on some pages it doesn’t seem to work at all.
this is strange, first time i hear of this. do you mean with NPCs, or the player's UI?
>collision in doorways is a bit borked.
yeah - if two enemies stand near one another, you always end up trying to attack the one farther away which is beyond your reach, so you just stand there helplessly as they beat you. i need to figure out how to fix this.
>Do the obelisks curse you or something? I didn’t see any effects. Maybe that’s just something I’d need to play more to figure out.
they apply a random effect on you with a cryptic message. it's something i'm still trying to get "just right" - i don't want the player being told "you have lost 2 Strength" but at the same time i want to push them to investigate what changed without making it too cryptic. in general the whole game has a feel of "i'm not sure what this is, and i want to find out" and i want to push the player to be inquisitive.
anyway. thanks for playing and the feedback, and i hope our stream was of use to you!
Still a big fan! this game is really awesome. The last time I played was several demo days ago, and I enjoyed it even then. Seeing all the new levels of content, polish and improvement is great. I really don't have too many notes other than keep going! I think you've got a really solid project here
I think the only thing is that the enemies AI feels too rudimentary. I would like to see more strafing and and maybe varying levels of aggression. It feels like they all just walk up and attack, but many enemies just try to path to the nearest point where they can attack you from, so if they can't reach you cause theres a bunch of others in the way, they just clog up in a big pool. If they had a way to communicate with each other to send in waves to attack directly while other strafed, or send off single units away to get help from bigger hoards elsewhere in the dungeon, little things like that I think go a huge way in making the enemies and the space feel much more alive.
good luck!
thank you for playing and for the feedback! im glad to hear the game is still able to bring you enjoyment even after all this time.
>enemies
it's a tricky issue. while i always appreciate smart enemies, ARPGs sort of rely on having dumb enemies to make it work, since it would be incredibly punishing otherwise. walking into a big room, a player would get flanked and immediately surrounded, which is an instant game-over. some enemies eventually grow a brain (flaming skulls try and avoid you, goats predict your movement, etc.) but nothing 'too good'. it might be too late to uproot their controllers at this point.
thanks again for playing!
Feedback part 1 of ?
Breaking it up in parts because I actually died at a point and need to replay some things and I already have a lot of footage. But I still want to see the new content. No commentary though just gameplay. I didn't play all in one sitting so there's plenty of cuts.
Played normal difficulty, 2h. Had to play very carefully and died in skeleton land as soon as I got a bit careless. Think I mixed up dex and agi in the beginning. I'll return to it a bit later. Will take a bit of time I guess for youtube to process the HD vids, in 2 parts because DaVinci was being a bitch:
as always thank you for playing, and you are very much insane if you're going for the finish-line again. it's long!
>harder than before
it might just be a mapgen thing, or an item drop chance. some runs are easier than others if you find a lifesteal ring early on.
>Shift clicking on enemies out of range should still swing your weapon.
i worry about this. im afraid that if an enemy is 4.1 units away and the max range is 4 units, the player will see the swing and assume he is hitting. when nothing happens it's a clear indication of "oh i need to move closer". some enemies outrange the player, so i worry about a player standing their ground and wondering why their attacks dont hit.
>At some points I could see and hit enemies through walls (always next to doors I think?) and sometimes enemies hit me when I couldn't see them.
i noticed this a few times too, i'll check it out.
>Aren't the cauldron spells icons wrong and should be the other way around?
everyone makes note of this. ill just switch it since it's more trouble than it's worth.
>Spear weapon arts seem pretty lackluster, don't see myself using the -HP one until maybe very late game.
the idea was to make it use the one-handed arts (just no shield). kinda didn't end up being fun, so i'm still wondering how to improve it.
>door icon
oh man now i see it too! the idea was to have a hole in the middle. i'll make the top part wider.
>goblin order
no specific order. the idea is that it always go for the majority, so : two spears + sword = spear. same with the modifiers. it applies mods that you give it, and it doubles down if you have two of the same mods. ie: sword of attack speed + spear of accuracy + normal spear -> fast accurate spear + 2-3 random mods. swap the normal spear for a fast spear -> REALLY fast accurate spear
>goblin disappeared
hah, first time i see that! i'll investigate.
>If STR gives a flat damage bonus, isn't it always better for faster weapons than big slow ones? Not sure if it should change somehow.
maybe it would make sense for 2H weapons to benefit more from STR. in general, though, i have a fine time playing with 2H weapons, so it's hard to gauge
>difficulty
skeletonland is currently marked as my "too hard" moment. 80% of my runs pause there since it feels like running into a wall (that is, if i dont have a shield. if i have one, easypeasy). i think i need to balance out the level by either adding doors (bleh) or another melee unit (dont have one planned, though). perhaps i can add anotehr big room, since i think the issue is that once you clear a room, you agro units from the next room, and so on. you never have breaks.
vids are currently loading but i'll be sure to watch them all. don't feel the need to play the whole thing! the new content is presently
>armory level SouthEast of the PalaCamp (unfinished)
>blood coven level continuing the path forward (sort of ok)
nothing really exciting, the most work was just making things a bit more polished at the start.
again, thanks for the feedback as always! glad to hear youre feeling better and i will see you in the fest soon
Yeah good point, this run the only ring I got was for faster spell casting haha. Still, difficulty could probably be toned down a little bit in the start and harder later.
For me I guess I'm just expecting it to work just like in Diablo.
Spears are hard to make interesting I think. Maybe you should be able to wield it either 2h or 1h with reduced damage? I don't know.
The damage seems fine for 2H, was just a general thought.
Oh whoops hah, I always thought the ordered mattered for the weapon type. I often rely on the goblin to get a usable weapon.
I think I find it more tedious than hard, have to kite a looooot... Unless you have a shield yeah. Not sure what solution I'd propose, well I guess it would be new enemies. One way could be more melee variations of skeletons, recolors and with different weapons for example, some elemental effects.
Thanks, I still find it fun to replay it. There are a million things I'd like to have done before the fest but I won't manage any really hehe. I'll just have to get over myself and put up the demo I think, don't think there are that many people checking these things out anyway. See ya there.
Got the itch to play some more, continued from the start of skeleton town from last time. There's more footage although I don't know if you find it useful. Had to go to the burrows to get more potions and then backtrack to finish the last part of skellytown. Stopped a bit into the armory. Some ramblings:
>Buying an item, going up and down stairs - item is back in the shop.
good catch. i'll fix this now
>Maps after palacamp feel a bit empty and repetitive,
yeah, theyre all in varying stages of being ready. none of them really have any props so it's just walls and enemies.
>the skeleton archer
what a silly and strange error, i wonder what broke with him. i'll take a look now
>charge VFX
all the combat arts have pretty lame visuals. i really need to get on that...
thanks for the video and feedback. i'll get on this now!
Finished the remaining part too, nice with a new area. Felt like the difficulty was picking up a bit again with the warmothers doing a lot of damage. Although I hadn't bothered upgrading my equipment for a while and I was overflowing with potions. It feels kind of silly spamming the charge attack honestly, maybe it should be tied to attack speed of the weapon or something? I dunno.
No idea what spells it thinks I casted? Should be 0 I think.
congrats! you're the first person to beat the full thing this DD! truly you are outdoing yourself playing through the whole thing every time.
i'll look into the spell thing and the timer - kinda weird that the timer shows that weird format. could you send me your save file so i can poke around? healing light tracks itself as a spell, though, so you'd have at least 3.
>spamming charge
i think this was mostly due to the Afterlife Gladiator helmet buff - i sort of don't want to hamper silly builds like that too much. instead i'll look into adding an AOE-slam ability or something to give you more fun options so you don't have to rely on just one thing.
thanks again for the playing/videos. your feedback is greatly appreciated and i already spent half the morning implementing some of your suggestions.
Oh yeah that might've been it, even found two of those helmets. Sounds good.
Hadn't really planned on playing it all again, kind of just happened.
Here are the saves, one next to the immortal skelly and one at the end of the game.
https://files.catbox.moe/j0pwg8.rar
Another thing is you might want to increase the brightness of the cursor in some way. I was playing with the monitor at a bit of a distance and I lost it some times because its so dark against the similarly dark background.
I finish the public lvl, and have no idea which /agdg/ abreviation I should use.
-Fireball is just not cost effective compared to electrical shock (wipe out the sun sacrifice and warrior with it)
-The ice floor is not good enough, I still need to hit and run with
-No idea how fire trap work
-Give an indicator when target dodge, I keep remember to myself than wand projectile disappearing in intended and not a bug.
-I still can hit and run sun warrior and sun sacrifice, but if I can't I will die
-We need a way to remove all the useless item we loot, like a sacrifice against potion or something
-You better bring the monsterboy
i love the fanart! it's the most lewd one i've ever gotten!
in case you're interested, the password is /vg/! there's like several more hours, but it's more of the same so if you feel like you've seen enough, you can stop here.
for the spell balance, i'll look into it. fireball is meant to be a sniping weapon, good at range but crap when compared to more efficient skills like shock.
>Give an indicator when target dodge, I keep remember to myself than wand projectile disappearing in intended and not a bug.
noted
>We need a way to remove all the useless item we loot, like a sacrifice against potion or something
it's the very next room actually! right after the password check.
>You better bring the monsterboy
:^)
>for the spell balance, i'll look into it. fireball is meant to be a sniping weapon, good at range but crap when compared to more efficient skills like shock.
For the same cost in mana, one wand + shock is more cost effective without the risk of missing
>fireball is meant to be a sniping weaponIt lack dmg then, if i can't one shoot even the weakest of enemy that I two shoot with the wand of wanking then it is not cost effective.
-Wand still the safest option, fireball is not cost effective in lvl1, so either replace the starting wand by another spell (like ice pics, great spell) or give it a little more dmg (like at least one shoot lvl1 target).
-The aggro distance need to be larger, I can clean entire room and nobody care
-Fallen paladins refuse to drop items, deserved their death
Will continue after work.
ahoy, thanks for playing. sorry about no monsterboys yet, one day..!
>Wand still the safest option
i messed around with balance a bit more. i think all weapons are about the same power level. wands are good to start with, but you need to invest a lot of points to keep them effective since enemies start getting much faster than your normal rate of fire.
>The aggro distance need to be larger, I can clean entire room and nobody care
interesting. enemies are supposed to alert themselves and everyone around them if they take damage without the player being in their radius, i'll look into it
>-Fallen paladins refuse to drop items, deserved their death
they have a lower drop rate than chests, the greedy bastards
thanks for playing! i assume youre running it on linux? i didn't test it so if that's the case then i'm glad it's running smoothly
There's an itch these classic arpgs scratch that modern ones often just don't. Feels pretty good to play, although enemy targeting could be slightly bigger so I don't walk at them with my bow. I know I can hold shift to shoot too but still. I died a few floors after that first boss, the enemy density just got too much and I was downing potions until I ran out. Pretty hard to handle and I even had some aoe (the icicles)
ahoy, thanks for playing!
>itch these classic arpgs scratch that modern ones often just don't.
you took the words right out of my mouth. it's pure seething that is fueling my dev sessions since i'm so upset nobody makes games like these anymore.
>targetting
yeah, enemy hitboxes are usually just one stretched cube. i need to improve them a bit since some enemies like the mauler are sometimes hard to click properly.
i assume you died in the halls of pain? that's usually the difficulty spike. i might give it the "new level" treatment of reducing enemy mob amounts near the starting room, then increasing over time. we'll see
thanks for playing and for the feedback!
Don't remember where that was but it was a room with like a ton of archer skellies and a bunch of others thrown into the mix.
there's a bug with the summoned snakes so don't summon them TOO much