R'sten crypt

[beluga25]

anybody remember this? a ways east of Hothun. i went into it as far as i could go,
tripping all the levers and what not and when i wanted to leave, one of the previously
opened gates was now closed again and the only way out i could find was to suicide,
lol. it looks like there may be two entrances to this place, but i couldn't find the connector.

[Rahl]

uhhh i went through it no problem... did you kill the Boss?

[Boink]

Holy Cheapshot!

This is insane -

Level 23, skills are ~20-24ish, melee char. Using weapons that do~ 150ish damage (ok, admittedly I've got 55 skill points spare, but not sure if I want to grind out being a mage yet).

Fight my way through first two levels - tough, but doable.

Then (after the moving platform that requires the grappling hook to get to the switch), there's a one-way stair... that dumps you into the middle of 20+ mobs.

Died twice almost instantly, even using full healing potions.


Yeah. Not at all fair - I noticed the difficulty level suddenly spiked after the SW fishing village (e.g. the two nearby gate keepers 1-2 shot me) but this is just plain nasty / badly designed.

[beluga25]

Originally posted by Rahl:

uhhh i went through it no problem... did you kill the Boss?

Never got to a boss........just ran into dead ends.......killed all mobs, threw all levers, and
used all platforms I could find and then on way out first gate I originally opened was locked again
from other side and I couldn't get out even after re-throwing all the levers in all combos I could think of so had to suicide out, lol.

[Boink]

Originally posted by beluga25:

Originally posted by Rahl:

uhhh i went through it no problem... did you kill the Boss?

Never got to a boss........just ran into dead ends.......killed all mobs, threw all levers, and
used all platforms I could find and then on way out first gate I originally opened was locked again
from other side and I couldn't get out even after re-throwing all the levers in all combos I could think of so had to suicide out, lol.

Did you get past the one-way ladder down into the pit of death trap?

[valorware]

Originally posted by Boink:

Holy Cheapshot!

This is insane -

Level 23, skills are ~20-24ish, melee char. Using weapons that do~ 150ish damage (ok, admittedly I've got 55 skill points spare, but not sure if I want to grind out being a mage yet).

Fight my way through first two levels - tough, but doable.

Then (after the moving platform that requires the grappling hook to get to the switch), there's a one-way stair... that dumps you into the middle of 20+ mobs.

Died twice almost instantly, even using full healing potions.


Yeah. Not at all fair - I noticed the difficulty level suddenly spiked after the SW fishing village (e.g. the two nearby gate keepers 1-2 shot me) but this is just plain nasty / badly designed.

The game isn't always linear in difficulty, especially when dungeon order is flexible. Just because you died to a trap doesn't make it badly designed, especially when you have 55 unused attribute points :P I think monster traps are good to keep the game from being boring. Get stronger and come back to that part later!

[beluga25]

Did you get past the ?

No, I don't think I saw that either. I'm missing/doing something wrong. I'll just go back later and try it again fresh, lol. Thanks for the tips.

[beluga25]

Um, I just found a grappling hook in the poisoned guy's basement--maybe that'll
help me get across some of the 'dead end' areas I couldn't traverse b4?........

[Rahl]

Originally posted by beluga25:

Um, I just found a grappling hook in the poisoned guy's basement--maybe that'll
help me get across some of the 'dead end' areas I couldn't traverse b4?........

grappling hooks only work when there's one of those special grapple posts to grapple onto... otherwise they would break the dungeons, unfourtunatly.

[Boink]

Originally posted by valorware:

The game isn't always linear in difficulty, especially when dungeon order is flexible. Just because you died to a trap doesn't make it badly designed, especially when you have 55 unused attribute points :P I think monster traps are good to keep the game from being boring. Get stronger and come back to that part later!

Ahh, but it is.

SW fisher village - done all side quests / ground out loads of XP - had 2/8 items "crusader" or whatever (chest/helm) which is the highest available at that point and level 12+ weapons (well, the 150 ones).

The point is: up to this point, I saved 55/60 points and never had a challenge.

Then, suddenly, stuff is is trouncing me. Through a cheap trick of "dump them in a death trap".


#1 Order is not flexible: The Gate keepers / Mines [those ranged ghosts... way to punish melee chars!] are waaaaaaaaaay OP for when you first leave the fisher village

#2 It's not flexible - Rustan's dungeon is the only place that's scaled to your level / equipment once you leave (and I tried the ghost mines)

#3 The spare SP is kinda meaningless - it represents two classes that I won't use, mixed with one I might [i.e. - Do I want to bother grinding out magic?] - up to that point nothing challenged me. That's bad balance right there (heck, I entered "Rustuns" with 60+ little hp potions... and by the time I'd hit the one-way cheap-shot stairs.. I had 11. an issue, surely).


Anyhow - this is all going into a large feedback post.



But no: balance is currently way out.


Small tip: when you have 2k+ HP, food that gives +23 a tick while your +CON stat gives +203... yeah... your math is broken. It's insanely broken.


p.s.

I still love what you're doing, but this needs a large spank with the balancing paddle.

[beluga25]

Thanks, Rahl. I did use the grappling hook to get to one of the areas that had
stumped me before (having no idea grappling hooks existed in this game) but then
proceeded to fall into what maybe the other poster meant when he said
"cheap-shot one-way stairs". Fell into a gated room of like 20 enemies who immediately
destroyed me. Guess I need to level and come back, lol. Oh well, time to
go to bed.

[valorware]

Originally posted by Boink:

Originally posted by valorware:

The game isn't always linear in difficulty, especially when dungeon order is flexible. Just because you died to a trap doesn't make it badly designed, especially when you have 55 unused attribute points :P I think monster traps are good to keep the game from being boring. Get stronger and come back to that part later!

Ahh, but it is.

SW fisher village - done all side quests / ground out loads of XP - had 2/8 items "crusader" or whatever (chest/helm) which is the highest available at that point and level 12+ weapons (well, the 150 ones).

The point is: up to this point, I saved 55/60 points and never had a challenge.

Then, suddenly, stuff is is trouncing me. Through a cheap trick of "dump them in a death trap".


#1 Order is not flexible: The Gate keepers / Mines [those ranged ghosts... way to punish melee chars!] are waaaaaaaaaay OP for when you first leave the fisher village

#2 It's not flexible - Rustan's dungeon is the only place that's scaled to your level / equipment once you leave (and I tried the ghost mines)

#3 The spare SP is kinda meaningless - it represents two classes that I won't use, mixed with one I might [i.e. - Do I want to bother grinding out magic?] - up to that point nothing challenged me. That's bad balance right there (heck, I entered "Rustuns" with 60+ little hp potions... and by the time I'd hit the one-way cheap-shot stairs.. I had 11. an issue, surely).


Anyhow - this is all going into a large feedback post.



But no: balance is currently way out.


Small tip: when you have 2k+ HP, food that gives +23 a tick while your +CON stat gives +203... yeah... your math is broken. It's insanely broken.


p.s.

I still love what you're doing, but this needs a large spank with the balancing paddle.

Have you spent the 55 attribute points yet? And is everything you posted still valid after spending them? If you haven't spent them- please just spend them and maybe you won't be having such a difficult time and finding the order inflexible.

I know the balance isn't perfect but I spent countless hours trying and listening to feedback, it is extremely difficult to balance a game like this and to be honest I think "balance" is a bit of a boring thing to aim for. The game definitely has its quirks, frustrating or not, it compels you to get stronger and come back for revenge.

I will do my best to implement small tweaks, but I will not be readdressing any major balance issues because it will most likely upset a lot of existing customers who love the challange/quirkyness of it, and most likely cause further imbalance.

The death traps are an homeage to 9th Dawn 1. Yes they are cheap, yes they will kill you unexpectedly (especially first time), but it will make you cautious entering any stairs in future and make players ensure they're well equipped and ready before going down stairs. I don't see how a bit of danger is a bad thing at all, it would seem very boring if everything was perfectly scaled and no surprises to be had- I wouldn't want you to walk through the game without dying ;P

[valorware]

Originally posted by valorware:

Originally posted by Boink:

Ahh, but it is.

SW fisher village - done all side quests / ground out loads of XP - had 2/8 items "crusader" or whatever (chest/helm) which is the highest available at that point and level 12+ weapons (well, the 150 ones).

The point is: up to this point, I saved 55/60 points and never had a challenge.

Then, suddenly, stuff is is trouncing me. Through a cheap trick of "dump them in a death trap".


#1 Order is not flexible: The Gate keepers / Mines [those ranged ghosts... way to punish melee chars!] are waaaaaaaaaay OP for when you first leave the fisher village

#2 It's not flexible - Rustan's dungeon is the only place that's scaled to your level / equipment once you leave (and I tried the ghost mines)

#3 The spare SP is kinda meaningless - it represents two classes that I won't use, mixed with one I might [i.e. - Do I want to bother grinding out magic?] - up to that point nothing challenged me. That's bad balance right there (heck, I entered "Rustuns" with 60+ little hp potions... and by the time I'd hit the one-way cheap-shot stairs.. I had 11. an issue, surely).


Anyhow - this is all going into a large feedback post.



But no: balance is currently way out.


Small tip: when you have 2k+ HP, food that gives +23 a tick while your +CON stat gives +203... yeah... your math is broken. It's insanely broken.


p.s.

I still love what you're doing, but this needs a large spank with the balancing paddle.

Have you spent the 55 attribute points yet? And is everything you posted still valid after spending them? If you haven't spent them- please just spend them and maybe you won't be having such a difficult time and finding the order inflexible.

I know the balance isn't perfect but I spent countless hours trying and listening to feedback, it is extremely difficult to balance a game like this and to be honest I think "balance" is a bit of a boring thing to aim for. The game definitely has its quirks, frustrating or not, it compels you to get stronger and come back for revenge.

I will do my best to implement small tweaks, but I will not be readdressing any major balance issues because it will most likely upset a lot of existing customers who love the challange/quirkyness of it, and most likely cause further imbalance.

Regarding food, as a lvl 30+ superbeing within the world of 9th Dawn II, food just won't cut it anymore, you need to drink potions to replenish all that superstrength ;P To me food should because useless if you're that much of a badass, it shouldn't scale too much with your HP

The death traps are an homeage to 9th Dawn 1. Yes they are cheap, yes they will kill you unexpectedly (especially first time), but it will make you cautious entering any stairs in future and make players ensure they're well equipped and ready before going down stairs. I don't see how a bit of danger is a bad thing at all, it would seem very boring if everything was perfectly scaled and no surprises to be had- I wouldn't want you to walk through the game without dying ;P

[Qiox]

When I hit my first difficulty spike I was at around 12k hp. I backed out of the area and grinded some levels putting all my points in con. I went back with 25k hp and the difficulty was no longer a problem.

First time through we really have no idea what is needed to survive any particular area. Getting squashed does not mean the game is flawed. It means you shouldn't be there at your current power level.

The fact that the game only lets you know this by smacking you back to your bind point is... refreshing :)