It seems a very shallow game...

[Arthandas]

Am I missing something or is this game basically "do eleven times what you did on the first level"?

Progressing through the floors doesn't seem to introduce any new features or gimmicks, you basically repeat what you did on the first floor but with progressively stronger opponents.

I tried watching a complete let's play. At first, the game seemed awesome but ultimately I was bored to death by the time the player got to the 7th floor. It was literally repeating the same ♥♥♥♥ all over again each time a new floor was reached:
1. building an industry module
2. building either a food or science module depending on whichever resource was more needed
3. exploring and powering up each subsequent room until all dust was spent
4. focusing all defenses in a single bottleneck room
5. continue exploring until the exit was found
6. power up the shortest path from the crystal to the exit, grab the crystal with the fastest char, run to exit
7. repeat from 1. on the next floor

Unless I'm missing something, I don't understand the positive reviews.

[InMyLife]

You don't own the game as far as I can see, "how" exactly have you noticed this?

[Arthandas]

Youtube let's plays.

[Lady Crimson (RIP)]

Well there is plenty of strategy about which rooms to fortify (and when trade off from industry, food, and science.. like you only want to build science modules once you find a technology.. and after you research all the techs and max level all your characters.. all you want to focus on is industry and making it to the next level..)

Not to mention how random the dungeons can be?

[InMyLife]

Originally posted by Arthandas:

Youtube let's plays.

So far for me it's a lot of fun as a big noob.

[InMyLife]

Originally posted by Lady Crimson:

Well there is plenty of strategy about which rooms to fortify (and when trade off from industry, food, and science.. like you only want to build science modules once you find a technology.. and after you research all the techs and max level all your characters.. all you want to focus on is industry and making it to the next level..)

Not to mention how random the dungeons can be?

Anyways can you answer me this? Does no one play online? Or is there some bug with me?

[TheBasque]

i'm hosting a game right now, and waiting for players, it's worked plenty a times before. There's an option at the top right hand corner of the screen, make sure you have Worldwide selected before refreshing the server search.

[Morphic]

Y'know playing Dune 2000 and the Command and Conquer games is very boring. All you do is:
1. Build Resource Gatherer
2. Build buildings that build units
3. Build units
4. Use units to find enemy
5. Kill enemy by building units
6. Make a new map and repeat steps

I mean, what were you expecting? You're watching people play the game when the hard part is actually playing the game. You think every floor on Normal is going to be easy as pie? There's a ton of stuff that can happen with the how the enemies and the floor layout spawns. Hell sometimes you won't get a Artifact Crystal so you can't Research anything for that floor. Other times you might only get 2-4 Nodes for your Food/Industry/Science Modules so you're SOL for resource gains that floor.

There are soo many things that can happen to screw you over if you make the wrong play. You aren't going to see that on many Let's Plays because they probably already have 30+ hours of game time under their belt. Thus they aren't making poor choices or know what to do when the game starts screwing them over.

[MySpartan94]

What u are missing is the part in playing with others. Also you never repeat what u did in the last floor, The higher u go the more rooms there are and less dust. Iv reached floor 12 twice and didnt make it. It isnt boring unless u play it, but i see what ur saying, watching someone else do it is boring.

[Arthandas]

Originally posted by Setzway:

Y'know playing Dune 2000 and the Command and Conquer games is very boring. All you do is:

Not true because missions in RTS games are very often quite varied. You have objectives to completely obliterate the enemy base, defend something until reinforcements arrive, find something/someone and escort it, endurance missions where you don't have a base and have limited number of units etc. As you progress through the game you gain new units and buildings which can greatly change the way you play. Not to mention those games most often have some kind of progressing story that's often quite interesting (Warcraft 3, Starcraft 2, Dawn Of War and many others).

Now compare this to DotE where the whole game is basically progressively harder floor 1 x11. Each floor has the same objective, new modules don't change your tactics in any way, you don't uncover anything new through progressing. Imagine if Warcraft 3 campaign was basically 40 missions where your only objective is to destroy enemy base and you don't uncover new units and buildings...

Binding of Isaac has similar structure, you uncover new rooms until you find the exit and descent to a new harder floor. Unlike DotE, you can play BoI for hundreds of hours and still continue to uncover new things. In DotE you basically seen the majority of the game's content simply by finishing the first floor.

[Arthandas]

Imagine if across those 12 floors were 3 or 4 special or optional floors where you for example:
a) have to defend the crystal for X minutes until the elevator arrives/opens
b) arrive to an empty floor with a single random boss monster you have to kill to progress further, each boss would require some special tactics like retreating the party to adjacent room to avoid the aoe attack or kite him into a special spot where he's briefly stunned etc.
c) the floor is offline, the party can light only the room they occupy, you need to hack through monsters and find and repair the generator, the moment the power is back on, monsters prepare a final rush and you need to quickly get back to the crystal and then to the elevator (you can choose to use one of the characters to carry the crystal while searching for the generator so you don't have to get it when the power is back on but you lose some firepower since the character is busy carrying the crystal which can't be put on the ground)
d) for some reason the party is separated and trapped, you start with only one character who is not locked and can normally move around, you play through the level as normal except you also need to find other party members (or abandon them if you can't handle opening so many doors)
e to infinity) MANY other possibilities

Wouldn't such additions make the game twice as fun? They definitely would for me. They even don't require making any new major assets, just some additional programming.

Originally posted by Setzway:

I mean, what were you expecting? You're watching people play the game when the hard part is actually playing the game. You think every floor on Normal is going to be easy as pie?

I never said the game is easy, I don't have any problems with the game's difficulty.

[Mechaphantom]

Long ago there was talk of adding bosses and they going to be adding some new game modes in the form of pods and some new monster types. I got many hours loged on and still find it fun. Every game is diffent and half the time you lose which makes the wins all the more exicting.

[Mechaphantom]

Originally posted by Arthandas:

Imagine if across those 12 floors were 3 or 4 special or optional floors where you for example:
a) have to defend the crystal for X minutes until the elevator arrives/opens
b) arrive to an empty floor with a single random boss monster you have to kill to progress further, each boss would require some special tactics like retreating the party to adjacent room to avoid the aoe attack or kite him into a special spot where he's briefly stunned etc.
c) the floor is offline, the party can light only the room they occupy, you need to hack through monsters and find and repair the generator, the moment the power is back on, monsters prepare a final rush and you need to quickly get back to the crystal and then to the elevator (you can choose to use one of the characters to carry the crystal while searching for the generator so you don't have to get it when the power is back on but you lose some firepower since the character is busy carrying the crystal which can't be put on the ground)
d) for some reason the party is separated and trapped, you start with only one character who is not locked and can normally move around, you play through the level as normal except you also need to find other party members (or abandon them if you can't handle opening so many doors)
e to infinity) MANY other possibilities

Wouldn't such additions make the game twice as fun? They definitely would for me. They even don't require making any new major assets, just some additional programming.

"I mean, what were you expecting? You're watching people play the game when the hard part is actually playing the game. You think every floor on Normal is going to be easy as pie?"

I never said the game is easy, I don't have any problems with the game's difficulty.

You can qoute stuff it makes reading your posts esier.

[Leg Day]

I got 70 hours out of it and I enjoy games with heavy stats and management. The balance and decision making is tight. Love the charm and atmosphere. The challenge is big enough to make every choice feel huge. Everything falls apart opening the wrong doors or a bit of bad luck. I felt like it was something special for a good 50 hours at least.

[Morphic]

Stupid Steam errors.

[Morphic]

Originally posted by Arthandas:

Not true because missions in RTS games are very often quite varied.

... That's the campaign mode, not skirmish mode. Besides, you still do the same S--- in campaign anyway, gather resources, build buildings, build units -> attack enemy. Every single time unless it's one of those "you don't get a base" missions.

Originally posted by Arthandas:

Binding of Isaac has similar structure, you uncover new rooms until you find the exit and descent to a new harder floor. Unlike DotE, you can play BoI for hundreds of hours and still continue to uncover new things. In DotE you basically seen the majority of the game's content simply by finishing the first floor.

Binding of Isaac is fun ... until you realize it's nothing more than a Rogue-lite wrapped in an Arcade game. Your game is purely dictated by the RNG, you may get barely anything or you may bet everything. You might fight "hard" bosses with nothing but basic tears and a Fly companion or you might fight "easy" bosses with super tears + split shot and kill everything in 2 seconds. Real fun. I'd rather play a proper Rogue-lite like Dungeons of Dredmor or a proper Arcade game like Helldivers.

Originally posted by Arthandas:

-SNIP-

A) You already do that. You need to protect the crystal until you find the elevator and exit the floor. Your suggestion would simply reverse the game flow.

B) They were going to add bosses, then decided to add Pods instead. Smart move as based on your description that'd be just plain annoying.

C) That's basically already in the game, once you hit Floor 4+ on Normal you barely start getting Dust. Ergo you can barely power anything. You would need to build a Shop and man it or build an Emergency Generator to effectively get Dust.

D) ... They are already separated, you start with 2 Heroes and need to find others. Hell some Pods prevent you from having Heroes. Not to mention, what if you are looking for a specific Hero? You'll go Floors without just the ones you have, skipping the others. On top of that you can Hero combinations that can result in Deaths of others because they hate each other.

Originally posted by Arthandas:

I never said the game is easy, I don't have any problems with the game's difficulty.

You don't even have the game or played it. All you've done, by your own words, is watch other people play. That's like me saying I have no problems with Tales of Maj'Eyal's Insane Difficulty because I've watched other people play it ... until I actually play it and level 10+ monsters at level 1 are much harder than they appear.

You clearly have no idea what you are talking about and appear to have come here to simply bash a game you haven't played nor understand. Like I said before, it's much different actually playing the game than it is watching the game. That's why I was sarcastic with my Dune 2000 post. When you boil an RTS down ... it's really quite tedious and boring, but when you actually play it ... it's totally different.