Equipment suggestions

[ricky.brooks]

I'm a long time fan of Dream Quest, and appreciate the design of this game as well (It must, and should, be its own game). I'm also very impressed with the progress of change and improvement. Kudos to you Nerdook!

That said, the equipment system in particular seems like an area that has a lot of room for improvement. There are 4 "issues" that I think should be designed around (not necessarily by the suggestions here). They are:

• Equipment more than anything else causes severe balance, and more importantly, pacing and progression issues. The game begins being fairly difficult, then when you start getting level 5 equipment becomes significantly easier for every character in every situation. Then when you get to level 10 you're almost guaranteed to win every run. On top of that, since most bonuses apply right away, there's a ridiculously large dropoff in difficulty in the first 2 stages. I recommend adding some sort of a tier system, where the second ability "unlocks" at level 5, third at level 10, etc.
  
• Equipment is not thematic. I'm just going to take whatever the best weapon is in the game, regardless of what type it is. Ironically, it's actually far more likely to be specifically unthematic. My mage character is LEAST likely to have a staff, because I probably beat the game with a different character, and will be using whatever dropped for them. This is because equipment types seem to not be tied to affects at all, or (or only very loosely. It seems like staves may be more likely to be affected by mana cards, for instance.) There should be room in the game for creative or out-of-the-box builds, but my axe wielding mage should be using an axe because it's not a typical mage, not because she just uses whatever the best weapon is. I'd recommend limiting the affects of equipment to specific areas, based on their type (daggers give bonuses for support usage, bows to critical or dodge, etc.)
  
• Equipment ability overload. There are so many affects on equipment, and so many pieces of equipment, that it takes a huge amount of cognitive effort to try to make some strategic synergies going. That's especially true since everything is so random that they might not work well with themselves, much less other cards. For instance, one weapon might grant cold damage on attack, add a bonus to any fire damage, and add a card to your deck that deals pure damage. Further, because of the un-thematic nature, it's impossible to create a mental heuristic to become better and quicker at identifying things that might work together after playing for some time. As with above, I'd recommend limiting the affects of equipment based on their type. Consider always making the basic bonus the same for all weapons of a given type to make things easier when starting out. Also consider having a hard coded set of equipment that can be used instead of relying on random or even procedurally generation. There's a huge reduction in cognitive load if you can see a picture of a piece of equipment and know exactly what it does based on previous experiences. Sicne you have such a great randomizer, you might be able to just run that repeatedly and pick the cream of the crop.
  
• There's little motivation to buy equipment from shops. Unless I'm completely misunderstanding the UI, I can't equipment it until the current level is over (meaning I can't be at all tactical about it), and the third dungeon I can't use it on this character at all! Further, since I probably already have higher level equipment, all the equipment in dungeons 1 and 2 are also probably useless. I think there needs to be an option to equip right away when something is purchased or found.

[Eriktion]

yeah it was weird (and funny) how my last barbarian was wielding a staff and shooting magic projectiles to kill stuff

another issue i had was that the equipment-prices in the shop went up as i gained levels
so the shop had a pair of boots i really wanted to buy (because they had nice effects)
they started at 28 gold (when i was level 1) and i couldnt afford them
so i came back when i was level 5 and the same boots now had a price of 78 gold

what a rip off :D

[nerdook]

I know many cards are based on their Dream Quest counterpart, but I consciously wanted to make an easier version that appeals to a wider audience instead of just making an exact copy of Dream Quest (which already exists on Steam anyway). The equipment system is how I wanted to drop the difficulty curve, by giving future runs a distinctive advantage from the items you found.

That said, making the stats more thematic based on their type is a brilliant idea (and easily implemented, too!), so I will revisit this in and most likely fold it into the coming major update together with the new classes.

[ricky.brooks]

Awesome, I'm looking forward to it! :)

Regarding the accessibility, it's possible that the equipment system might actually be a negative for many would-be players. It doesn't help new players until they already have a few games under their belt, and until then the game is nearly as punishing as Dream Quest is. I'm assuming that part of goal of this is to make it so that there's always a sense of "progress," even when a character dies. That's good and I wouldn't want to lose that! However, this system makes it so the game is ONLY challenging when a new slot is began, and after you beat it for the first time it's hardly even a game. Everything in the first 2 dungeons either die in a single turn, or can no longer deal damage. It's like playing with god-mode on, and it's just not very fun without some challenge. It doesn't need to be fixed in the way I recommended, but I'd say it's the primary challenge you'll need to overcome if you want the long-term playability that I'm sure you're shooting for.

As a side note I'd like to be able to manually "opt out" of the system by not bringing these god-weapons and god-armors into a level 1 dungeon, but then equipment would be almost entirely unavailable to me since new equipment can only be switched between dungeons.

[nerdook]

One thing I do everyday is watch whatever Let's Play on Youtube that features Monster Slayers, because I've played a lot of deckbuilders, and many concepts come easily to people like us. However, for many many players out there, they are not even familiar with Dominion, and the equipment boosts to stats helps smooth out the curve for them. Remember those players that dismiss Chapel as a useless card when first playing Dominion? There are still a lot of them out there! Even with good equipment, it's not quite so easy for them.

My goal is to tweak Legendary Mode for advanced players, with the removal of boosts being the first step, while gradually adjusting the equipment system to control the amount of advantage it gives. I admit the balance it not quite there yet, and posts like this are really helpful in helping me see how to achieve that!

[nerdook]

Just to illustrate the point: just a few threads away, another user is saying how unfair and difficult the game is, with RNG preventing them from even getting to the Harbinger, so you can see how tough it is to bridge the gap between the two camps!

[Bwixie]

speaking of equipment, could you give some kind of warning that the effects of your current equipment won't stack? i tried +6 AP equipment and only got +2 from rogue's tier 3, basically all my equipment did jack diddly squat.

[nerdook]

Right now you should see +2 AP from equipment, but just once regardless of how many you have. I'm actually in the midst of reducing all equipment bonuses to a flat +1 regardless of level, so in Legendary Mode even level 15 weapons will not be as much of a help as before. Still a boost, just a lot less... +Fire Damage is now a flat +1 instead of +(1-3) before, which can stack to ridiculous amounts quickly.