Things I love and Hate

[Zet395]

I like to start things off positively, because I really love this game, so I want to emphasize it more. So, I'm going to list things I love about the game first. If anyone wants to comment on things, or discuss the things I bring up, feel free.

Things I love:
-I love how strong you can feel by the end when you've done well.
-A lot of the classes are fun to play.
-Looting is rewarding, and I've always enjoyed games that reward me for exploring.
-Playing with friends is fun, and stategizing classes and teamplay is always fun.
-Trying to complete a game with each class/race can be satisfying for achievement hunting.
-Overall, it's satisfying to win.

Things I hate:
-Classes based on ranged attacks aren't that fun to play. Bows feel weak, and are weak through the whole game. Where melee weapons can one-shot certain enemies, you'll never get that type of power with bows. Are they meant to be that way? More supportive with a team? Maybe. But in solo, bows will never do you justice. It feels like every enemy resists ranged attacks, too. Especially late-game.
-Weapons don't feel different from each other. Every melee weapon feels the same to use, and even though certain enemies are weaker to certain weapon types, I generally never feel at a disadvantage with any melee weapon type. Aside from that, every weapon is just click spam, or hold attack if you sneak attack. Rinse and repeat.
-Bosses are genuinely not fun to fight with any melee class. The first one magic spams, and the final bosses have one that does the same thing. Especially early game, against the first boss, you will not be tanky enough to take all that magic. So, it basically comes down to any ranged classes, or magic classes to do the work for you, lest you get AI fodder to distract for you, or you take more damage than it's worth.
-Leveling up skills can take way too long, because it all relies on chance numbers, rather than XP values. As an example, you can sit in water for 2 minutes before you level up the stat once. Some stats can't level up by simple means past a certain level, like Tinkering. This makes a lot of things a pain to level up, and certain classes a pain to play.
-No endless mode. I know this may seem like a weird thing, but the max level you can be isn't a likely thing to even reach, I don't think. I also really like to feel powerful, and go on a powertrip. Having an endless mode and starting from the beginning with even stronger enemies would be fun, I think. Could just be me, though.

Overall, I love the game. I may have things I don't like, but I'd qualify most of them as nitpicks at worst, because the overall game is more fun than frustrating. The only thing that really bothers me now is how strict they made leveling up certain stats, like blocking. Like, only 1 level per enemy? Seriously? It would be the only stat in the game like that. At least make it 2 or 3 per enemy. When leveling up is completely random and left to chance, leveling up a stat only once per enemy is completely ridiculous and could break a lot of shields—especially early game. The Levitation continuous spells deserved the nerf, but blocking was kinda harmless, imo. Blocking isn't going to save you against magic, special ammo from arrows, or—obviously—bosses that spam magic. So, if I could revert one change, it would be the blocking nerf. That's just me.

Anyway, I hope everyone else has as much fun as I do. If you want to discuss these things, go ahead. I'm always struggling to be social, so I want to keep things positive and see what others think about my thoughts on the game.

[daggaz]

Typically in these kind of games, ranged is far superior to melee simply due to the fact that you can always interact with and potentially eliminate any non-ranged enemy before they can get into melee with you. So it sounds like the devs have picked a balance point for ranged weapons to keep them in a better, less OP place.

"Weapons dont feel different from each other" is a very difficult problem to address in a game that doesnt have fancy graphics. I think one thing this game is missing (to my knowledge) is a differentiation in reach -so a polearm could do a melee attack before a sword before a dagger- but that often leads to a balance issue in itself, usually resolved by putting in weapon speed delays. Both are doable in a game like this, maybe the devs just havent gotten around to it, or maybe they spent a long time looking at games like this (none of them solve it perfectly, ever) and just decided it was easier to make everything the same and leave it at that.

[Zet395]

Originally posted by daggaz:

Typically in these kind of games, ranged is far superior to melee simply due to the fact that you can always interact with and potentially eliminate any non-ranged enemy before they can get into melee with you. So it sounds like the devs have picked a balance point for ranged weapons to keep them in a better, less OP place.

"Weapons dont feel different from each other" is a very difficult problem to address in a game that doesnt have fancy graphics. I think one thing this game is missing (to my knowledge) is a differentiation in reach -so a polearm could do a melee attack before a sword before a dagger- but that often leads to a balance issue in itself, usually resolved by putting in weapon speed delays. Both are doable in a game like this, maybe the devs just havent gotten around to it, or maybe they spent a long time looking at games like this (none of them solve it perfectly, ever) and just decided it was easier to make everything the same and leave it at that.

The ranged part is fair. It's a fair stance to take. Perhaps it is just me being bugged by how much weaker it feels compared to everything else. The only reason I didn't riff on it more was mostly because they are extremely useful come boss fights, as—as I mentioned—using melee except any boss seems like a pointless effort in my experience.

[vegetarianwolf]

Throwing weapons are pretty good from what I've seen plus they can be used even if they are cursed. Plus ranged weapons can shoot through the bars in a gate.

[Zet395]

Originally posted by vegetarianwolf:

Throwing weapons are pretty good from what I've seen plus they can be used even if they are cursed. Plus ranged weapons can shoot through the bars in a gate.

Both have been noted. I noticed that bows are good for bar cheesing, and throwables seem to pack more punch behind them. Though, it is very strange to me.

[vegetarianwolf]

Originally posted by Zet395:

Originally posted by vegetarianwolf:

Throwing weapons are pretty good from what I've seen plus they can be used even if they are cursed. Plus ranged weapons can shoot through the bars in a gate.

Both have been noted. I noticed that bows are good for bar cheesing, and throwables seem to pack more punch behind them. Though, it is very strange to me.

Didn't realize these were already mentioned :/

[Zet395]

Originally posted by vegetarianwolf:

Originally posted by Zet395:

Both have been noted. I noticed that bows are good for bar cheesing, and throwables seem to pack more punch behind them. Though, it is very strange to me.

Didn't realize these were already mentioned :/

Oh, no. Not mentioned, I just already knew. I worded that poorly. My bad.

[sokolov]

Originally posted by Zet395:

-Classes based on ranged attacks aren't that fun to play. Bows feel weak, and are weak through the whole game.

Bows mostly depend on ammo types to be strong, early game throwables are usually stronger like rocks or daggers until you get out of the Mines. You can also inscribe blank scrolls to enchant your weapon later on.

Originally posted by Zet395:

-Weapons don't feel different from each other.

They kind of are given that some races are weak or resilient towards certain weapon types, but in the end I suppose the only real difference is the types of Legendary effects.

Originally posted by Zet395:

-Bosses are genuinely not fun to fight with any melee class.

Orpheus & Erudyce sure, but not Herx. Not sure if you know this but you can get rather strong buffs against him if you find the correct secret exit in Jungle, Labyrinth and Ruins then take the orbs from the secret levels to use when you're in Herx's lair.
It's also possible for you to find rings of magic resistance, they're usually overlooked because of it being a "+1" but it can make you rather tough against magic especially with racial bonuses. Sometimes you may even get a rare Incubus spawn with a Mirror Shield or find yourself a Magic Steel Shield which gives an another +1 magic resistance.

Originally posted by Zet395:

-Leveling up skills can take way too long, because it all relies on chance numbers, rather than XP values. As an example, you can sit in water for 2 minutes before you level up the stat once. Some stats can't level up by simple means past a certain level, like Tinkering.

From my experience most skills don't have to be maxxed out because they can take bonuses from stat points, so in some if not most cases you just have to be high enough level or pick a class based on starting stats for a head start.
Also if a class doesn't have any points in a skill when you start the game then it's usually not worth leveling it up as it'd take very long and you'd be at a disadvantage imo.

[Sly-Scale]

Pardon the wall of counter-points. I love Barony, which is why I've taken the time to bend it over my knee and mastery its (admittedly convoluted and sometimes unintuitive) systems.

Originally posted by Zet395:

-Classes based on ranged attacks aren't that fun to play. Bows feel weak, and are weak through the whole game.

Thrown weapons are a good in-between for range and damage. With a high enough range skill, they get some ludicrous damage multipliers. Especially if you can get enough blank scrolls and feathers to make a +20 pair of dexterity gloves. Bows can do fine; hunting arrows do +50% more damage to almost any enemy, and they also slow and deal poison. Very useful for Cockatrices, but useful on nearly anything else too.

I've beaten the game without ever using melee on the Hunter class; there's a Steam achievement for that.

Speaking of the Hunter: that DLC class gets a couple things that really make range shine: a boomerang that never breaks, and a blindfold to see enemies through walls. (I'm not sure it counts though; DLC shouldn't be fixing issues that the developers created... but it's still fun, so.)

Originally posted by Zet395:

Every melee weapon feels the same to use

You're not wrong. The most I notice is, being a class that gets a mace for the skeletons in the Mines. Otherwise I'm not too concerned. The Legend effects are nice, but they come way later than they should be. Especially if you diversify your combat options or aren't a melee class.

Originally posted by Zet395:

Bosses are genuinely not fun to fight with any melee class. The first one magic spams, and the final bosses have one that does the same thing. Especially early game, against the first boss, you will not be tanky enough to take all that magic.

A mass-purchasable kind of shield, a guaranteed-spawn pair of gauntlets and a reliably-found ring can stack up to give you ~87% magic resistance. If you know where to look, nearly all your runs will set you up with these items. And that's if you don't pick a magic-resistant race.

Sadly, the devs did nerf movement speed a little, so dodging those magic attacks aren't nearly as viable. They also messed with mouse sensitivity in a weird way from... a few major patches ago: FPS hitches tend to flick the camera and disorient you.

Originally posted by Zet395:

Leveling up skills can take way too long

True... most skills don't level up organically. And the ones that can, often require you to be the right class to get that headstart. Thankfully, all the Legend skills still encourage you to continue using them; their perks are just too good to diversify, once you unlock them.

Originally posted by Zet395:

No endless mode.

Hear, hear! I really would love an endless mode. I simply would.

Originally posted by Zet395:

Blocking. Like, only 1 level per enemy?

I remember the old way of training block. You had to scrounge up every cursed shield you could rip from the Mines' skeletons, then zone out behind your hotbar of shields. You'd let a rat scratch your shields, which often went from Worn to Broken in 2 hits. Organic use of the skill (trading blows with enemies, tanking, "parrying") didn't give you an XP chance boost.

Now the rules are flipped; any class (if they can take the blows) should now be able to hit Legend, by triple-block-attacking against an average of 125 enemies. They also won't break 50 shields on the way there... maybe break 10 of them instead.

Originally posted by Zet395:

Anyway, I hope everyone else has as much fun as I do. If you want to discuss these things, go ahead. I'm always struggling to be social, so I want to keep things positive and see what others think about my thoughts on the game.

Totally fair. I love Barony too, but there's a reason the achievement % is so low: the game is just absurdly hard, and you have to figure out all this crap to beat it. And even then, I've never beaten the final bosses without having turrets or cockatrices to do it for me.

[Zet395]

Originally posted by Sly-Scale:

Pardon the wall of counter-points. I love Barony, which is why I've taken the time to bend it over my knee and mastery its (admittedly convoluted and sometimes unintuitive) systems.

Originally posted by Zet395:

-Classes based on ranged attacks aren't that fun to play. Bows feel weak, and are weak through the whole game.

Thrown weapons are a good in-between for range and damage. With a high enough range skill, they get some ludicrous damage multipliers. Especially if you can get enough blank scrolls and feathers to make a +20 pair of dexterity gloves. Bows can do fine; hunting arrows do +50% more damage to almost any enemy, and they also slow and deal poison. Very useful for Cockatrices, but useful on nearly anything else too.

I've beaten the game without ever using melee on the Hunter class; there's a Steam achievement for that.

Speaking of the Hunter: that DLC class gets a couple things that really make range shine: a boomerang that never breaks, and a blindfold to see enemies through walls. (I'm not sure it counts though; DLC shouldn't be fixing issues that the developers created... but it's still fun, so.)

Originally posted by Zet395:

Every melee weapon feels the same to use

You're not wrong. The most I notice is, being a class that gets a mace for the skeletons in the Mines. Otherwise I'm not too concerned. The Legend effects are nice, but they come way later than they should be. Especially if you diversify your combat options or aren't a melee class.

Originally posted by Zet395:

Bosses are genuinely not fun to fight with any melee class. The first one magic spams, and the final bosses have one that does the same thing. Especially early game, against the first boss, you will not be tanky enough to take all that magic.

A mass-purchasable kind of shield, a guaranteed-spawn pair of gauntlets and a reliably-found ring can stack up to give you ~87% magic resistance. If you know where to look, nearly all your runs will set you up with these items. And that's if you don't pick a magic-resistant race.

Sadly, the devs did nerf movement speed a little, so dodging those magic attacks aren't nearly as viable. They also messed with mouse sensitivity in a weird way from... a few major patches ago: FPS hitches tend to flick the camera and disorient you.

Originally posted by Zet395:

Leveling up skills can take way too long

True... most skills don't level up organically. And the ones that can, often require you to be the right class to get that headstart. Thankfully, all the Legend skills still encourage you to continue using them; their perks are just too good to diversify, once you unlock them.

Originally posted by Zet395:

No endless mode.

Hear, hear! I really would love an endless mode. I simply would.

Originally posted by Zet395:

Blocking. Like, only 1 level per enemy?

I remember the old way of training block. You had to scrounge up every cursed shield you could rip from the Mines' skeletons, then zone out behind your hotbar of shields. You'd let a rat scratch your shields, which often went from Worn to Broken in 2 hits. Organic use of the skill (trading blows with enemies, tanking, "parrying") didn't give you an XP chance boost.

Now the rules are flipped; any class (if they can take the blows) should now be able to hit Legend, by triple-block-attacking against an average of 125 enemies. They also won't break 50 shields on the way there... maybe break 10 of them instead.

Originally posted by Zet395:

Anyway, I hope everyone else has as much fun as I do. If you want to discuss these things, go ahead. I'm always struggling to be social, so I want to keep things positive and see what others think about my thoughts on the game.

Totally fair. I love Barony too, but there's a reason the achievement % is so low: the game is just absurdly hard, and you have to figure out all this crap to beat it. And even then, I've never beaten the final bosses without having turrets or cockatrices to do it for me.

Fair points. I know there's a lot of utility to ranged, so I just kind of look past that sometimes. Block just kinda bugged me, because leveling up only once per enemy really bugs me, when leveling up is left to chance, and the whole "block-and-parry" usually has me end up killing the enemy before I ever get a level up out of it. It happens way too consistently.

[vegetarianwolf]

I remembered a weird thing about the punisher class and ranged weapons. The whip is considered a ranged weapon but doesn't level the ranged skill. I don't know if this is still the case (I don't use that class often).
It shows they can make weapons with different attack ranges though since the whip can hit from pretty far away

[Terrabite]

The thing about some of these changes like blocking is because it is so terribly easy to bloat the amount of time you can spend on a level, whether playing skeleton/automaton/insectoid or just having a ton of food. Like what one person said you could just have a inventory full of shields and have a rat beat on them, or if you're playing mechanist or just happen to get a tinkerbox, you can hoard scrap and then constantly repair the shield while it's being damaged, so honestly that change was good, but it's still very easy to hit legend just by being thorough.

The difficulty of the game for me in the beginning was hard for sure, but once you know how to extend the time of your runs and grab the good items, it becomes laughably easy. It's so easy to get really high magic resist as a melee, and then just face-tank the boss and kill it in 10 seconds, and if you're dedicated on clearing floors you'll probably be close to level 100 by the time you hit the last boss, have tons of potions or spells, and plenty of artifacts that might even be enchanted multiple times, making it even easier. Sometimes I will literally kill everyone in hamlet, including the merchants, because I'm that strong, and if I happen to get a mirror shield? Yeah I'm definitely killing the merchants at that point if I don't need anything from them.

So I'm sure even your bow is going to end up doing some pretty solid damage, or if you're playing punisher/hunter, your whip/boomerang, and on top of that you're going to be very fast and tanky, but personally I always love playing melee/hybrid magic+melee classes so only in rare cases do I actually bother using ranged weapons.

As for melee weapons being not too diverse, I think it comes down to the legend effect and the artifact weapon of it's class. Artifact mace boosts mana regen, great for casters. Sword smites undead/demons and causes a fire dot. Polearm pierces armor. Bow is random special arrows. Axe causes a slow. More often than not though I tend to go for the consistent artifacts, which are the polearm, mace, and bow I believe which are always guaranteed to show up. It would be nice if there were some 2-handed weapons though, to offer some more variety at the cost of no shield/spellbook, but it might cripple the games balance even more.

I'd love a endless mode too, but they'd probably have to have some type of mechanics set so it's not as easy to bloat time on levels or just get incredibly strong in general, so tougher enemies/minotaurs, cause minotaurs also just become incredibly easy once you're bloated in power.

That being said I'm sure hardcore fixes the power bloat a bit, but it probably ends up forcing you to do it anyways just as a safety net.

[Zet395]

Originally posted by Terrabite:

The thing about some of these changes like blocking is because it is so terribly easy to bloat the amount of time you can spend on a level, whether playing skeleton/automaton/insectoid or just having a ton of food. Like what one person said you could just have a inventory full of shields and have a rat beat on them, or if you're playing mechanist or just happen to get a tinkerbox, you can hoard scrap and then constantly repair the shield while it's being damaged, so honestly that change was good, but it's still very easy to hit legend just by being thorough.

The difficulty of the game for me in the beginning was hard for sure, but once you know how to extend the time of your runs and grab the good items, it becomes laughably easy. It's so easy to get really high magic resist as a melee, and then just face-tank the boss and kill it in 10 seconds, and if you're dedicated on clearing floors you'll probably be close to level 100 by the time you hit the last boss, have tons of potions or spells, and plenty of artifacts that might even be enchanted multiple times, making it even easier. Sometimes I will literally kill everyone in hamlet, including the merchants, because I'm that strong, and if I happen to get a mirror shield? Yeah I'm definitely killing the merchants at that point if I don't need anything from them.

So I'm sure even your bow is going to end up doing some pretty solid damage, or if you're playing punisher/hunter, your whip/boomerang, and on top of that you're going to be very fast and tanky, but personally I always love playing melee/hybrid magic+melee classes so only in rare cases do I actually bother using ranged weapons.

As for melee weapons being not too diverse, I think it comes down to the legend effect and the artifact weapon of it's class. Artifact mace boosts mana regen, great for casters. Sword smites undead/demons and causes a fire dot. Polearm pierces armor. Bow is random special arrows. Axe causes a slow. More often than not though I tend to go for the consistent artifacts, which are the polearm, mace, and bow I believe which are always guaranteed to show up. It would be nice if there were some 2-handed weapons though, to offer some more variety at the cost of no shield/spellbook, but it might cripple the games balance even more.

I'd love a endless mode too, but they'd probably have to have some type of mechanics set so it's not as easy to bloat time on levels or just get incredibly strong in general, so tougher enemies/minotaurs, cause minotaurs also just become incredibly easy once you're bloated in power.

That being said I'm sure hardcore fixes the power bloat a bit, but it probably ends up forcing you to do it anyways just as a safety net.

They're fair points, but the reason blocking bothers me so much is because leveling up is already inconsistent. The highest chance you'll get is the block-counter combo, but you can still end up killing the enemy before you level up blocking.

Second, why is blocking the only stat getting such a nerf? Swimming is easy to grind in a similar way. Why is it that I can spam everything else?

I actually like grinding and feeling strong, which is why I often play with the Minotaur off. So I can take my time on each floor to grind and search for nice items. I don't mind things feeling easy if it's because I worked for it.

Above all, it could very well be solved by an Endless mode that got harder and harder over time, to keep up with your rising power. Is it possible? Not sure, but I can hope.

[talant]

Bows start weak but get extremely good at late game with +30% attack speed hat (+2 bayonet) and swift arrows (with legendary bow to preserve ammo) on top of it. In early game take ninja with daggers and they (daggers) will 2-3 shot skeletons (5 charged shots on hardcore).

[Zet395]

Originally posted by talant:

Bows start weak but get extremely good at late game with +30% attack speed hat (+2 bayonet) and swift arrows (with legendary bow to preserve ammo) on top of it. In early game take ninja with daggers and they (daggers) will 2-3 shot skeletons (5 charged shots on hardcore).

I had a bit of success with Hunter last night, since they basically get a free, unbreakable throwable. And they start with a lot of ammo for those enemies.

I also tried doing this as Incubus to use Arcane Mark to negate resistances, effectively slaughtering the early game. I definitely recommend giving it a try for ranged play.

[binxmuldoon123]

By mid game i found my ninja using the bow far more often than melee. With a well repaired bow a few upgrades and a special arrow type they are very powerful.
Would love an endless mode.