Dogs broken

[I'm a wizard mind you!]

I keep dying to dogs attacking me and somehow getting directly under my character, making it really hard to hit them, and they just destroy my health in a couple seconds. Please fix this. I'm really tired of losing great runs to finding myself standing on top of a dog suddenly while it kills me in 3 bites.

[₵Ø₴₥ł₵ ⱠØ₮Ʉ₴]

Scroll of Explosions + Mossman or Verde is a great combo for dealing with most enemies in the game. Roddsopp paste also is extremely helpful. Once you begin to get better weapons and gear the game gets easier.

[Cog]

Maybe the dogs wouldn't be so annoying if the game didn't require players to grind so much? Let's say at bare minimum you need at least one weapon with three filled slots to even begin thinking about entering the the town.

Immediately the speed and small hit-boxes of dogs preclude that weapon being anything with a small magazine or low fire rate, so no revolvers, no sniper rifles, maybe you can get by with a Mossman or Arbiter, but really you want a Corpsemaker or Ploika.

So the first 1-3 runs through the caves is spent just getting a weapon you want to invest the time/resources into upgrading, and then you need another 2-3 runs to level up that weapon so it has slots you can use, maybe another 1-3 runs to get oils/scrolls that work well together. So we're looking at about 4-9 runs total through the same goblin caves and in that time it's entirely possible that you will die, again, and have to start this process over.

But let's assume everything goes well and you make it to the town, now you need to grind the town 3-4 times to get better gear so that you're ready for the next level of the game, because if you don't and you die then you're right back to the start again.

So let's say you're doing really well, 4 runs through the caves, 4 runs through the town, you reach the sewers for the first time and... you're dead. Back to the start again.

Typically rouge-like games that reset the player like this don't require much in the way of grinding, because if they do it means that the first 10% of the game's content is what the player will be interacting with 90% of the time. Furthermore such games avoid any kind of randomness, especially where being unlucky can kill the player, and because the dogs are so fast they feel random. If you're lucky you'll see them coming from a good distance away and you'll be able to mow them down as they come at you single file, no trouble at all. Other times you'll get ambushed or they'll leap at you and bounce around and then you're surrounded and they can kill you in seconds.

For a game that requires soo much grinding, and that forces the player to re-grind the same section of the game over and over, having an enemy that can randomly kill the player before they can do much about it, that's not a good combination.

It's great for extending the length of the game if the game doesn't have much content, but if players are only interacting with the first 20% of the game's content and complaining that it's repetitive, that's a game design problem.

[Bubble]

Originally posted by Cog:

Maybe the dogs wouldn't be so annoying if the game didn't require players to grind so much?

It depends on your game knowledge and experience.

I do roguelike runs - I start in Caves, after that I can use church hub once, and then I go through the whole game with what I can find / buy on the way. If I want to make a checkpoint, I need to tp out via amulet at the start of the location, and I'm not allowed to use church hub after I load back into the game.
I never died in town, so far I did 27 runs, died 6 times: once to a bullshii splitting elite's damage (75% in one hit) in the sewers, once to a horde in the dungeon, 2 times to bishops in the castle and a couple of times in caves due to not paying attention and rushing like an idiot with music louder than game sounds

When exiting Caves, I always have at least 4k on me, and if I didn't find an ok-ish weapon (Drifter / Beck / Ploika), there's always one of those (or even better) at Stiffleg's. I was never forced to go in Town with just a Dirk during all those runs, even tho I can guarantee you that I'll destroy Town with a Dirk and a couple of grenades. More to it, any of those weapons I listed I usually end up using till the end of the game unless I find something better like Corpsemaker or Fisk, or even Vrede

Originally posted by Cog:

Furthermore such games avoid any kind of randomness, especially where being unlucky can kill the player

After this statement I feel convinced that you never played any roguelikes at all. The majoirity of them are balanced enough, at least at the start, but you still can die of rng for sure, but if you're a god at the game, you'd probably still win

This game is also not a roguelike, but an extraction shooter, and ESs are 100% just about the grind, and nothing else. You go on hunting items to stockpile them at your base, but every time you risk losing your stuff.
If you find the game being too hard, you can either try getting better at it, or wait till some kind of patch fixes dogs if you believe that it'll help.

[Evan/Nelrond]

Something about the dogs feels really broken to me. Getting multiple runs crushed because they do the same amount of damage no matter what your armour is is not much fun.

The lack of stealth and ability to avoid conflicts is also a huge detriment. Feels weird to have a crouch mechanic that doesn't serve any purpose.

[Burning like KELT-9b]

Originally posted by Evan/Nelrond:

Something about the dogs feels really broken to me. Getting multiple runs crushed because they do the same amount of damage no matter what your armour is is not much fun.

The lack of stealth and ability to avoid conflicts is also a huge detriment. Feels weird to have a crouch mechanic that doesn't serve any purpose.

armour do works, but theres just this one problem; the armour value of your equipment pieces works independently which means that if you get hit on the legs then you could only rely on your shoes to mitigate the damage. unfortunately, shoes only are averaging on 1-2 armour so thats almost getting full damage for sure.

[₵Ø₴₥ł₵ ⱠØ₮Ʉ₴]

I don't believe they are broken. When I started playing this game with little equipment, I think I thought they were challenging. Once I learned how best to deal with them, they just become another enemy.

I guess the question here really boils down to this- Do you want to continue trying or do you want the dogs nerfed?

If you want to continue trying I can totally support that. Asking for tips might help.

If you want the dogs nerfed, I feel that is the easiest way out because there is no skill development or effort.

I think this game is about the effort put in. I will freely admit this game can be tough, but I think anyone can adapt to it, if they have the tenacity.