Viewing post in Rise of the Soulmancer comments

0.84.7 seems to be full of errors.

I have just hit the Path of Chaos for the second time and the message saying, 'You've Entered the Path of Chaos' has appeared with no way to close it.

EDIT: The location before The Path was a Trivia square. I think this is interfering with the Path message. Maybe the Path message should come after the trivia question, not before. My only other option is the merchant, which has the same problem. So my second visit to the path will end before it starts as I need to quit entirely and plan my route next time to have a fight before arriving at the Path.

EDIT2: Outerworld is totally broken for me. I can't enter the path due to the message being unclosable due to the issue above and I can't restart Outerworld as it can only be done from a fight scenario. Game-ending glitch right here!

Trivia doesn't always give rewards now and the questions relating to the characters' mottos are too easy as the answer appears if you hover over the character with your mouse.

There is this mirror asking me riddles now. The character related questions are easy as above. As for the other riddles, it tells me I'm wrong when I choose the correct answer. I tried to select the wrong answer, but this was also wrong, so it's not completely broken!

And in fights now, Soulmancer at the back of the party resembles a very burnt potato rather than a little magical dude.

I'm guessing that somebody complained that getting Soul Fragments is too easy. Tell them an overly sarcastic "Thank you" from me!

1StepCloser2 years ago(+1)

Epic bug report, I appreciate it docnutnut!

At work at the moment, but I'll take a look after.

1StepCloser2 years ago(+1)

Bug-fixing attempts have begun, I'll try to send an update out soon.

docnutnut2 years ago(+1)

Great.

Being unable to do Outerworld did make me focus a lot more on the Tower, which has been very useful. I had sort of forgotten about it.

Was the easy character-related trivia intentional? It has made me learn what each character's motto is. Maybe the trivia will become hard again after the Path of Chaos? Or never?

1StepCloser2 years ago

Being unable to do Outerworld did make me focus a lot more on the Tower, which has been very useful. I had sort of forgotten about it.

This has been on my mind lately, as I also tend to forget to make use of the tower, thus I've been brainstorming how to bring it into the Outerworld. The main issue is that the tower has an independent progression, so if you are at world level 100, you may still be at tower floor 5, or vice versa. So I might make it available in the Outerworld but without any permanent losses to your party (which is how it works already).

The other option is to just have it flash at certain times in Sanctum; maybe if your current party is around the level of progression where there is a chance to beat that tower floor.

Was the easy character-related trivia intentional? It has made me learn what each character's motto is.

Unintentional, I originally had the riddle trivia without any names showing for each option, but I wasn't sure if the icons were obvious enough, thus I decided to add the names in for those, however this unintentionally resulted in showing info during character motto trivia also.

docnutnut2 years ago(+1)

I have taken a screenshot of every unlocked character and their motto.

As long as the mirror of ambiguity can ask me a few obvious riddles, I should be OK.

The end of The Path is in sight. Smoke break. Need some darkness in my lungs to battle the chaos.

docnutnut2 years ago(+1)

I was thinking of game names again.

Sanctum is taken. Soulmancer is taken. Soulmancer's Sanctum of Souls is too long, though it does have three S's which can help for an aesthetically pleasing cover. Sanctum of Souls isn't taken but it was something within Final Fantasy XIV, it also abbreviates to SoS, which is nice.

Return of the Soulmancer could work as most characters found in the game express their surprise and joy and seeing a soulmancer once again.

Soulmancer Incremental or Incremental Soulmancer could also work, but it puts a literal limitation on the game and could put off potential future players who make an assumption based on the name alone. Also it's a bit stale.

You could always keep the name TBD which allows for the game to take any direction you want in the future. You could come up with a million acronyms for it.

The Battle Dimension

These Buildings of Death

Thick Butts, Damn!

1StepCloser2 years ago

Bug fix attempt(s) in 0.84.8:

Maybe the Path message should come after the trivia question

I've added a check to prevent Path of Chaos from triggering if an interface is showing at the time of map generation/shifting. Hopefully that fixes the issue.

Trivia doesn't always give rewards now

I noticed that there were some visual cues and sounds that made it seem like the correct answer (particularly for riddles) was chosen yet it was not the correct answer. I've attempted to make this clearer.

questions relating to the characters' mottos are too easy as the answer appears if you hover over the character with your mouse.

Great catch! Should be fixed now.

There is this mirror asking me riddles now. The character related questions are easy as above. As for the other riddles, it tells me I'm wrong when I choose the correct answer. I tried to select the wrong answer, but this was also wrong, so it's not completely broken

Another great catch! I noticed I was not including all riddles for a given object into the riddle check, so even when you were technically correct, it was not finding that riddle within the object's list of riddles.

And in fights now, Soulmancer at the back of the party resembles a very burnt potato rather than a little magical dude.

This cracked me up several times, 😂. I did expect this might be an issue and thus added a customize your avatar again option when you first loaded the newest version, I'm not sure if this showed up for you, but, when you pass the mirror challenge this should provide a way for you to fix this visual issue.

I'm guessing that somebody complained that getting Soul Fragments is too easy. Tell them an overly sarcastic "Thank you" from me!

Indeed, they did ^^!

Although I can't guarantee all issues mentioned were fixed, this was very helpful in at the very least locating where/how these issues were/are arising. Thanks!

Lastly, If you are still experiencing the game-ending loop issue, let me know.

docnutnut2 years ago

The great thing about our different timezones is that updates are ready when I get up in the morning.

I just opened the game to check if I can play in the Outerworld again and thankfully I can. Great job. Though the fix is not as you described. The Path of Chaos message now comes with an X allowing me to close the message.

I also noticed that minutes are now visible under an hour in expeditions. I was in there checking if hammers had possibly been added as a reward. Maybe they have and I was just unlucky, but I imagine that they have not!

I also checked if hammers now generate on their own in Expansion, but they don't as you well know.

I shall stop talking about hammers now as the image of a rapper with glasses and stupidly baggy trousers has invaded my mind.

Great job with the fixes and improvements. I'll get back to The Path when I have time later.

docnutnut2 years ago(+1)

This new soul fragment thing is really annoying. It's the only time in the game that you can't just relax and play and totally goes against the pace of the rest of the game. Like having a meditation part immediately following the start of an F1 race game, or having to play a round of Tetris in the middle of a battle in PUBG.

docnutnut2 years ago(+1)

Sorry. I'm being overly sensitive about being shot down by those irritating ghosts. It's just a fragment. It's just a game ;)

1StepCloser2 years ago(+1)

No worries, and it's understandable, while you can try to avoid that activity, if you are more of a completionist I can understand the conflict.

One thing I can work on is difficulty balance, for example, slowing the rate at which they fire, or reducing the maximum number of ghosts that can arise, increasing the starting light size, etc.

Long-term it becomes difficult to only have turn-based/idle mechanics if the goal is to diversify, but alas this does diverge from the main gameplay.

docnutnut2 years ago

The one thing that would really help would be if just passing the cursor over the item would pick it up and not needing to click, but failing that, less bullets, less ghosts, slower bullets would all help. Too many times, the item has a ghost either on it or right next to it and any time I get close enough to think about picking it up, I am shot.

1StepCloser2 years ago

I could try to increase the rate at which they move, so if they do reside around the location of the fragment, there will be more frequent chances for an opening.

docnutnut2 years ago (3 edits)

Is it intentional that there's no Rest Sites after the Path of Chaos or am I just being very unlucky not to have found one over 30 levels later?

And are you a South Park fan? If you are, don't you think that the character in charge of Expeditions looks like The Coon - Cartman's Superhero alter ego?

And I can't help noticing that there are six characters on here on your team. Is this something that I can do too, maybe once Character creation chance is maxed?

1StepCloser2 years ago(+1)

Is it intentional that there's no Rest Sites after the Path of Chaos or am I just being very unlucky not to have found one over 30 levels later?

By this do you mean after beating the Path of Chaos? If so, I don't think there is, I could add one though.

And are you a South Park fan? If you are, don't you think that the character in charge of Expeditions looks like The Coon - Cartman's Superhero alter ego?

I haven't watched much of South Park, but I just looked it up, and I do see the similarity. 😂

And I can't help noticing that there are six characters on here on your team. Is this something that I can do too, maybe once Character creation chance is maxed?

Originally, you could have up to 6 members in your team, but I felt that overwhelmed players, and led to too much micro-management of skill trees, equipment, etc, thus I reduced it down to 4.

docnutnut2 years ago(+1)

Is it intentional that there's no Rest Sites after the Path of Chaos or am I just being very unlucky not to have found one over 30 levels later?

By this do you mean after beating the Path of Chaos? If so, I don't think there is, I could add one though.

I don't mean directly after, I mean at all. Do Rest Sites exist in the Overworld after the Path of Chaos?

******

Thinking about potential new buildings as you seem to have made space for MANY of them in The Sanctum.

Clockmaker.

Collect clocks or clock fragments.

Each clock can move forward the idle time of any one building by x time.

Kennels.

Much like the Soul Storage but for pets and boosted using food from expansion or bought from the kennels.

One boosted animal would boost all instances of that same animal.

Bar/Pub/Nightclub/Social Hall

Every soul would be here at one time or another, but buying drinks or food for any of them would increase the chance of that particular one being selected by the Soul Creator.

Clothing store.

Shoes - speed.

Raincoat - water resistance.

Scarf - freeze resistance.

etc.

Not a cosmectic change.

Per character.

x% chance of activation per item OR permanent passive increase.

x of each item can be bought.

Cred/XP/Magic as currency so the player can spend whatever they have excess of.

Cafe

Consumable food items which can be used in battle for varied effects.

Tree

A massive tree that grows random items and has to be checked now and then. It could be boosted to grow better items or be truly random. It could grow any item at all including the ones mentioned above and...

...HAMMERS!!!

Just a few things that come to mind that would work.

1StepCloser2 years ago (1 edit) (+1)

I don't mean directly after, I mean at all. Do Rest Sites exist in the Overworld after the Path of Chaos?

I'll double-check this.

***********************************

Awesome suggestions!

Out of all of them I think the most meaningful additions would be Social Hall and the Tree, Cafe I somewhat like but this will lead to more inventory/interface related management which I'd like to avoid, perhaps if I add like 1-3 slots for a character and have food items that automatically trigger at certain conditions (if HP reaches 30% or less consume strawberry to gain +X Hp).

I'll add these 2, and maybe Cafe to the list. (Priority right now though is working on the procedural story system so it might be a while before you see one pop-up)

docnutnut2 years ago(+1)

I don't mean directly after, I mean at all. Do Rest Sites exist in the Overworld after the Path of Chaos?

I'll double-check this.

No need. I have had a few now. I guess I was just being unlucky. It did teach me how to rearrange my items to earn some HP from other means.

I thought of social hall because I keep unlocking new characters all the time, but the majority of the older ones are level 7-12 but these few that I have been using on the same run since beating the Path are still with me. I am now on level 95 and I will be sorry to see them go when I inevitably 'die' eventually.

I like the tree too. Being what it is it can go anywhere at all without interfering with the placeholders you have set up for future buildings. You could also go full Avatar and make it stupidly large. It could even start off small and grow as tall as you want. It could eventually just be a tree trunk, with the leaves off screen and items falling to the base every now and then.

This is one of the things I love about your game. You have introduced so many aspects that virtually anything is fair game as long as you have the programming knowhow and it isn't going to add an unwanted extra level of complexity. I hope it never reaches PvP capability.

I am a 100% old school 1-player gamer. I grew up with the Spectrum 48K, first job selling Sega/Nintendo/Neo Geo console games, second job testing and reviewing Playstation 1, Dreamcast and N64 games. Street Fighter 2 is about my limit for MMO: Not M, slightly M and not O.

docnutnut2 years ago(+1)

I just had another thought concerning those irritating little Soul Fragment ghosts. Maybe they could also shoot each other. So the area begins with all those ghosts. You move around the screen looking for the fragment but also positioning yourself so that ghosts get destroyed. Eventually it will be much easier to find and collect the fragment as there can be just one ghost remaining as a ghost is not going to shoot itself.

So it can end just slightly harder than no ghosts, but is still a challenge compared to an empty screen.

Also, you said that Hammers drop much more frequently after the Path. I got one immediately after completing the path and none since. I am on level 110 now. Is it a case of being unlucky, like the rest sites, or is 'much' more frequently relative to not at all?

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...HAMMERS!!!