itch.io

Thank you for noticing and acknowledging my post so quickly.

I found the cause of the clicking to attack appearing to fail, and it turns out that it was more so a form of "mistake" on my part. I have a tendency to move my mouse over to whichever direction the character faces, and click there. This causes an issue when facing left, as directly to the left of the character is the space reserved for the ui overlay which shows picked up accessories, and naturally clicking on that area does nothing. This is not really something that has a fix, short of either reducing the size of the ui in question or showing some sort of decorative border for it so that it's not as confusing.

I also came across a few more issues that I'd like to point out:

• Spiddicks and knockback. When hit with knockback (even just knockback +1, tested with the spartan cloak), spiddicks tend to sort of fly off in the direction they were hit. This generally causes them to move along walls, however can cause them to move alongside a wall the axis of which they cannot themselves move in, resulting in for example one ending up in a corner, shooting into the wall. (This occurs if you hit one which is at a corner, and you hit it into the corner along it's axis of movement (for example, a spiddick on the top wall, can move left and right normally, if you knock it into the right corner, then hit it again while facing right, this can occur sometimes)). Rarely, they can detach themselves from a wall entirely and fly off diagonally towards another wall.

• Light magic level 3. Upon acquiring light magic level 3, the first tier of light magic (charging just one orb of it, so mend wounds) gains another die, while still costing 5 mp. This in and of itself isn't a problem, but it renders the second tier of light magic (2 orbs, so healing prayer) useless as it has the same effect but costs double.

• Shops. It's a long-standing issue that upon purchasing a piece of equipment in the shop, whatever one previously had equipped would rocket off somewhere inaccessible (either simply end up stuck in the air, or in an isolated case I found go up, over the wall, and out of bounds). I don't think there's an easy fix for this, but it would be really nice if one was found, as this presently means that a mistaken purchase, curiosity, or lack of knowledge can make a run significantly more difficult (or end it, if done late into a run).

• Late-run boss chests. I don't know if it's by design, but bosses starting in somber cloister tend to more often than not leave the lowest rank of chest upon being defeated. This feels quite unrewarding...

I'm sorry that I keep complaining about balance, but another balance issue that I noticed is in regards to the push dirk weapon. The push dirk's attack speed is too high for it's 1d6 damage, making it a bit too strong. I think lowering it to a 1d4 would be more appropriate for it, in order to reduce the amount of damage it can do. Comparison point: dagger, crafted shank (crafted shank is supposed to be a superior weapon to the push dirk, yet also deals 1d6 damage, with a lower attack speed).

I have also realised that my previous complaints regarding how long randomness-based damage feels are invalid. This is because late-run enemies are obviously balanced around stronger weapons, and this is simply where the randomness of equipment gain comes into play. If one happens to be unlucky and not obtain particularly strong weapons, their damage will naturally feel weak. Sorry for complaining previously, and my condolences regarding the difficulty of balancing a game like this. And thank you for explaining the stat responsible for accuracy.

Lastly, my apologies for any and all name mistakes I make in my reports, as I write these as the thoughts come and not exactly at the time that things occur, and my memory is not ideal.

There are at the time of writing a few issues with the game that I would like to state here:

• At present, every single weapon description is a lie. All weapon descriptions state the old damage values from v0.14 and under (I believe) instead of stating the die and number thereof that are rolled for damage. This renders it impossible to know whether or not a weapon you have obtained is better than one you own, until you try it.
• Severed hands for some reason have a 100% drop rate for their cards. This gets out of control very quickly, and is completely pointless since the effects of multiple of the same card do not stack. Suggestion: Do not allow pickup of cards that are already owned or prevent their dropping entirely. Or else combine them and simply have a *x where x is the number owned over it.
• Attacking by clicking with the mouse is buggy, and in certain situations fails to work at all. Additionally, unlike holding the key for attacking, holding mouse click attacks at a far slower rate. This is a serious issue because the attack key is uncomfortable to use, as it is for example not practical to move right and attack at the same time.

The following are merely personal gripes that may be actually as intended, however I feel like should be brought to attention anyway:

• Starting as a human requires near-perfect random strength (16+ to stand a chance). This is because of the fact that the cudgel is (since v0.15) significantly weaker now. It still has an attack speed of 1, but hits for merely 1d6 (+bonuses +(strength-10)/2). This results in (assuming strength of 10 and no bonuses) an average damage per hit of 3.5. This is approximately a third of what it was, and is unbearably low given the low attack speed, unless one gets lucky enough to replace it on floor 1 before the boss (which is far from guaranteed) proceeding is very difficult, almost unreasonably so.
• The randomness-based damage feels very low. This is mainly as a result of comparison with versions before the implementation thereof. Most if not all weapons now have an average damage per hit of half or below half of their original values.
• The miss chance feels way too high. Given that there appears to be either no or next to no way to increase one's hit chance, the fact that the miss chance is as high as it is (I generally find myself missing around half of my attacks) makes it very frustrating, especially in combination with the lower damage.

The following are issues which have been around for as long as I've played the game for, and still have yet to be properly resolved:

• Steel serpents. Need I say more? They are still perfectly capable of knocking other steel serpents, enemies, or the player onto the ramparts. Now, the newly added cheat inputs in v0.16 serve to mitigate the problem, however the core issue remains. I know I sound like an [omitted] when I say this, but how hard can it be to add a bounding box to the inside of a room to prevent this kind of thing. This issue has been around for way too long, and actively disrupts gameplay when it happens.
• Certain bosses can be stun-locked to death. This affects most notably the goblin general boss, the dark lord, and the mistress. A melee weapon that is at least as fast as the bastard sword is capable of stun-locking these bosses to death, making them do nothing in response. This isn't really a large issue or anything, but is somewhat unsatisfying, and would be nice to see addressed.