Difficulty rant

[max.savenkov]

I really want to like this game, but it's just so infuriating.

So far, I hated:

1) "Walking dead" scenarios when you just have no hope of winning the next combat, because you wasted too much resources and have no way to replenish them.

2) Incredible randomness in combat. 30+ points of damage from enemy's critical strike? No, please. Especially since you can't save in combat. X-Com was enjoyable precisely because it allowed saving at any time, and it mitigated all those awful "miss a 99% shot" cases. Mind you, it also saved the random seed, so you would still miss that shot after the reload, but at least you could chose some other way to play this turn, to "solve" it, so that your characters lived and enemies died. I actually loved it, because it turned each turn into a puzzle to solve, but without the need to restart the whole combat each time a character dies.

3) Oh, and ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ alchemists... They add even more randomess: sometimes AI decided to lob a bomb at you, and wipes one or two characters in one attack. The other time, he is content to stay back and be stupid about it. It's even worse than if he was consistently attacking with bombs. But no, he must give me the sliver of hope during one fight, and then kill the party on the second turn during the next.

4) That characters stay dead. Dammit, picking another character is not in option, because you can't level him up to be of any use in combat. Which means that every character's death equals combat restart. Resurrecting the characters after combat would make the game so much more enjoyable, even if you had to spend the resources to heal them...

5) No way to respec characters mid-run. So yeah, I maybe made some bad decisions during character creation. I would like to change a thing or two on my main character. The gams is very hard as it is, so letting me correct my mistakes won't make it TOO easy. But no, I'm stuck with my decisions. Yeah, the game is not too long, but.. I really hate to restart games. I usually even don't restart after I win. One playthrough is enough for me. And I already restarted this one once, because of 1). So no, either I'm winning it with the current game, or I'm abandoning it forever. But... Dammit, why no respec?! Please, something to take the pain away...

(BTW I realise the game is not going to be changed - but I hope so, so very much that further tactical games by Iron Tower would take these bad decisions - and I do thing they are bad, especially when taken together, - and fix at least some of them)

All in all, this game is just too hardcore for me. It makes my blood boil. I never thought I'd even say anything like this, but if Iron Tower Studios is ever going to make more tactical games (I think there is one planned after New World?), for the love of everything - make them more "casual"! Take a cue from the new X-Com, from Shadowrun, for anything but that Playbook from Hell you seem to be using.

On a principe, I'm not agains hard combats. But restarting the same combat for 10th time, and not having ANY clues how to win it is just too painful.

For example, I'm completely stuck on a fight with the Enforcer. It seems to be completely beyond my abilities. My main character is a sword/shield fighter who does very little damage against armored enemies, even though he has the best available steel sword, the second melee character is Marcus, who is OK on the damage side, but can't turn the tide of the battle, and then I have two crossbow people (Roxanna and Ardomir). This combo worked well enough for previous fights, but this one just seem unwinnable, because the f...ng Enforcer just loves to hand out 30+ critical strikes.

I'm all out of bombs from the previous fights (and components to make them). My main problem seem to be damage output. While the enemies easily hurt my characters for 12-20 points, my team can barely manage to kill one enemy before the Liquid Flame barriers I put up at the beginning of the fight are expended and the enemies rush in and kill everyone. Not to mention that bomb-throwing f...er who randomly finishes the fight on the second or third turn. I mean, OK, if there was a way to keep him from bombing, I would do it. Like maybe keep him pinned using crossbows. But no, throwing a bomb is cheap, so reducing his AP won't work, and bomb is not a weapon, so it can't be disarmed by Arms targeting even on a critical strike. So it all comes down to his stupid AI deciding to throw or not to throw (it's not like the damage from the bomb can be fully mitigated, and he doesn't care if he hurts people from his side, so surrounding myself with enemies won't be of any help, too.

[OVER JUSTICE]

max.savenkov, it seems that your problem with the game is that it is not built for casual gamers, which is not a flaw of a game, it's just a preference. Many of the features that you don't enjoy (hard choices with permanent results, management of limited critical resources, a good understanding of probability, prioritization and optimization, enemies that are just as strong/stronger than the player, and problem solving with little guidance) is exactly what makes this game fun for other players. Not every game is for every gamer, similar to how every sport is not for every sports player, and saying this game's highlights should be changed to suit casual gamers makes as much sense as telling a soccer player that their game needs to appeal to boxing more, or vice versa. The game play elements of dungeon rats is thematically appropriate, creates the intended experience, and is enjoyable to its target demographic, and so should not change.

If you want to try and continue to enjoy dungeon rats for what it is however, here are some tips for the problems you initially listed.

1) To avoid the walking dead situation, you need to not only win battles, but also not suffer overly heavy damage in each fight. Most optional fights are very difficult for the time in the game in which you first run into them, and you can save a lot of healing items by avoiding them till you're better equipped. The main line fights are also how you progress towards more healing items, so this also helps you stay on a path of constant healing. Also make sure that you're healing effectively, so not wasting potions on minor amounts of health damage, or using up all your rations on big damage. If this is still a problem, try playing on an easier difficulty, as the massive drop in enemy hit chance will save you tons on healing items.

2) Missing when you have 99% chance to hit isn't awful, that's just how probability works. While many gamers treat a 1% chance to miss like it's 1 in a trillion, it's just 1 in 100. Given how in a game like dungeon rats 100 attacks are likely to take place in less than 10 global turns (your whole team + the enemy), even if all attacks were set to 99% chance to hit, missing would still happen fairly frequently with average luck. Inversely this means that even if the enemy had only 1% chance to crit, it will still happens at times. If you're getting a ton of crits however, this is likely because you're lacking high critical defense in your equipment loadout. If you're unfamiliar with weighing your available options based on the probability presented to you, then it's understandable that you would feel like there is no strategy to be had. I would suggest playing an easier tactical game like the xcom remakes, but this time try playing on ironman so that you learn how to build a strategy around the ups and downs of a full campaign, instead of just reloading immediately if things aren't perfect in the moment. Once you've got a feel for this, try coming back to dungeon rats and apply what you've learned.

3) Alchemists are part of prioritizing enemies in combat, as well as learning how to disable dangerous enemies rapidly. They are a major threat offensively, but are almost always the most vulnerable target, which means you need to focus all your attention on taking them out immediately. This might mean building your characters differently, playing the fight differently, or reserving combat resources with the knowledge that you will encounter them at times. I personally deal with them by reserving just enough bombs of my own to always take out an alchemist before they get a chance to use theirs, which in turn leaves their bombs to be looted which replenishes my store of bombs again. You can also use the fact that they don't care if their allies are caught in the blast to your advantage, as you could use a particularly hearty character to take the blow while surrounded by enemies, or use a character you don't plan on using for the campaign (likely one of the miners) for this same purpose. Also if you're losing your whole team to an alchemist in one turn, make sure to keep everyone spread out to avoid being all hit at once.

4) Permadeath adds weight to combat/stories for some players, and so this is just preference, and ultimately if you aren't playing on ironman this can be solved with a simple save load. Nothing can be done here as it's just a feature of the gameplay. As for replacing characters being a non option, this is just not the case, as the characters you progressively meet are always leveled appropriately to jump right into your party seamlessly, so if you lose a member of your team, the next person who joins will be capable of filling their spot in combat.

5) No respec always sucks, but it could easily upset the balance in this game if it was available. This is because the balance between choosing crafting skills vs combat skills would be a non-choice, since you could go all crafting skills and just make everything you need using what you have, then switch back to all combat skills.


I'm sorry to hear that this game makes your blood boil, but perhaps that is because you have unrealistic expectations for what this game should be compared to what it actually is. If you want it to be the same tactical rpg experience you can get from just about anything else, that just isn't what you'll get. If you want a tactical game that takes the risk of being above average difficulty, then this will likely be one of your favourite games. Neither preference is the right or wrong way for a game to be, it’s just different strokes for different folks

[Bushwhacker2k]

Great thread. I agree with a huge amount of what max.savenkov has to say.

Ultimately, I feel like there's just one significant limitation in the game that makes all the problems actual problems. The linear, limited nature of the game. When I play games with good systems (and this does indeed seem to have a solid system), my favorite thing is to go out and test-test-test, learning what works and just having fun while improving my party & equipment.

I can tell this game is made with a very different mindset in mind: it's all about being 'hardcore' and 'having to live with failures', but like max.savenkov said, when you do particularly badly at a point, it makes everything past that point harder, which results in more failures. This incentivizes reloading even if you win sometimes.

I particularly like his point on limited resources per-battle(or per-several battles, like checkpoints) or the opposite, where you aren't very limited in a single fight, but you can get worn down over time. It makes me think of 'grand timer' games, where the game can literally become unwinnable because of something you did a while ago, but you won't realize it until long after it's too late.

It all contributes towards the idea that you cannot waste any resources at all, that you just must do perfectly (which is absurd in a game with significant RNG).

(Also, please don't write off his good points by implying he's a casual gamer)

[red255]

So I just started and sort of feel the TC.

I start walking thru the game which is fine. tried swords because swords are fine. apparently spears are one handers that allow shields and can strike diagonally.

and other weapons deal better with armor.

and daggers do similiar damage to swords.

so ♥♥♥♥ swords.

Did the first area went back to the guy and got a full heal. kinda curious its not giving me any stat points but some SP. am I ever going to get SP.

the default difficulty is the hardest difficulty. but it says 'enemies chance to hit is the same as yours' which is blatantly not true you lying ♥♥♥♥♥♥.

not only does the tiniest of ants have more actions than you at higher accuracy but they can hit diagonally with their little ant weapons. meaning you have to waste 2 AP to move (what the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ hell man) to even be able to strike them back and no chance of countering their diagonal nonsense.

so....what the hell. movement of 1 tile costs 1 AP. it does not cost the same as a frigging light attack.

Don't lie to me in the difficulty descriptions. thats something you should fix, I mean it does say 'you will die alot' but its the default difficulty and can't be changed with out restarting.

starting with higher CHA seems like a good idea, except I did the rather difficult first area, and I haven't seen any followers. kinda need those for a CHA build. thought solo mode in a team game was for uber challenge fiends, give me ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ followers if I chose to go CHA damnit. what the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ hell? either leave the training wheels on until I get a follower or....GIVE me followers. or give me stat points to make the investment pan out later.

basically my first impression is causing me to swear alot. going to set the difficulty down and restart. debating on down one tick or 2. probably going to go down two because I have no faith you have any idea what you are doing for balance.

[Vince]

Originally posted by red255:

I start walking thru the game which is fine. tried swords because swords are fine. apparently spears are one handers that allow shields and can strike diagonally.

and other weapons deal better with armor.

and daggers do similiar damage to swords.

so ♥♥♥♥ swords.

On melee weapons:

- daggers do the least damage, a lot less than swords, but they are faster (1AP less to attack) and get an aimed attack bonus, so it's not a good weapon to poke someone with but if you like finesse and aimed attacks, daggers are for you.
- swords, hammers, and axes have somewhat similar damage, but different passive effects that get stronger as your skill grows: swords cause bleeding which helps a lot, hammers can damage armor which is nice, and axes can do more damage every now and then.
- Short spear is the only one-handed weapon that can attack diagonally but most spears are two-handed. All two-handed melee weapons can hit diagonally not just spears (see Marcus' hammer).

Did the first area went back to the guy and got a full heal. kinda curious its not giving me any stat points but some SP. am I ever going to get SP.

You only get skill points (SP) to increase your skills.

the default difficulty is the hardest difficulty. but it says 'enemies chance to hit is the same as yours' which is blatantly not true you lying ♥♥♥♥♥♥.

It meant without any penalties, but overall the chance to hit depends on many factors: your enemy's attack rating which is determined by his/her/its stats and skills minus your defense rating (dodge or block, shield's bonus if any, armor penalty, flanking, other effects such as nets, crippled, etc). It's not something assigned to the enemy.

starting with higher CHA seems like a good idea, except I did the rather difficult first area, and I haven't seen any followers. kinda need those for a CHA build. thought solo mode in a team game was for uber challenge fiends, give me ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ followers if I chose to go CHA damnit. what the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ hell? either leave the training wheels on until I get a follower or....GIVE me followers. or give me stat points to make the investment pan out later.

You're offered a strong follower (Marcus) when you start the game. Unless you refused, he'll be with you until he dies or you dismiss him. In the second fight you can recruit another good fighter (Ardomir); you need CHA 7 to convince him to walk away (so the fight is easier) or CHA 8 to switch sides and join you permanently. After you deal with the "rebels" you can recruit the three guys near the fire pit (Cyrus, Quintus, and Silas). You'll get more followers (there are 11 party members in total) on the upper levels.

[red255]

there were no followers by the pit after I dealt with the rebels, they buggered off somewhere

[Vince]

Are we talking about the same campfire? All the way down from Barca's encampment. Since nobody reported the followers missing, it's unlikely they're missing, but if you email me your save game, I'll take a look.

[e-mail]

[red255]

Naw I already restarted dropping the difficulty a tick, I think I get more stat points on a lower difficulty, and they were there.

they were there before I went to slaughter the rebels, I came back and nope. but I'm pretty sure the save is gone now.

[red255]

So yeah glancing thru the game on the easier mode with a party of 4. I took two higher INT characters and maxed alchemy and Smithing and dumped them in camp.

noticing the annoying feature of a carry limit. it does not add challenge just adds backtracking.

there should be a button to dump all crafting materials in my stash and while crafting in camp it should use the crafting materials stored in my stash. basic game design.

no matter how much time passes in the game we maintain our level 1 stats for HP and other statistics. I don't really care for this, perhaps add a SP cost to increase base statistics? dunno. I just really hate being the same stat wise locked in for AP and HP and whatnot at level 1 and after slaughtering my way up several floors.

Bombs can crit. which is somewhat devestating with level 1 HP stats. bombs just 100% hit you, and can apparently crit I don't pretend to understand what you were thinking with this. just know that bombs should not be able to crit. this is again, bad game design.

Everything has lots of armor. not really sure the point of barbed arrows when the amount of things with not lots of armor is quite a small amount of things.

[Damian_NT]

In terms of crafting, I agree. One of my biggest complains when it comes to AoD and Dungeon Rats is the tedious inventory and stash management (partly due to my gaming "OCD" that many players share). When you replay the game for the X time and you have to constantly juggle resources between windows, it wastes time and gets pretty annoying.

Permanent stats though, are something that harcore players are quite fond of. It shapes your hero, and makes every single attribute point count. The healing machine boosts in AoD and DR are the ultimate reward. Many cult classic RPG had similar systems.

Bombs in this game are too powerful, agree. They not only should be less damaging, but they also should have blast 3x3 wide, (stonger in the middle) so they cannot be safely thrown point blank. Usually, I use them max 6 times in the entire game:
- molerat alchemist fight,
- Yngwar fight,
- Democritus,
- Enforcer (took me 4 bombs solo, needed to take out their alchemist quickly),
- sky metal constructs (2 bombs to soften them up),
- Emperor (can do without, bolas on his neck can do the job).

Barbed arrows are very strong early game and vs some naked enemies. They also work wonders vs. poisonous plants.

EDIT: Just finished my two-man run (sword & board + Marcus) and it was a breeze. Once you know all the fights and apply the optimal strategies from your previous runs, the game becomes pretty easy indeed.
Of course, you can still die in one turn if you have very bad RNG. The old worm guarding the 2nd jar, for example, did hit/crit me 3 times in a row (IIRC), despite my maxed out block. Luckily, I still managed to survive (10 CON FTW).

[red255]

went thru the game on easy restarting on the tough guy setting. lessons learned and whatnot. Did 4 man party again. Took Marcus, and the guy you get for having high CHA for a 4 man party who I trained in alchemy and then ditched in camp as my camp alchemist.

I like the swords bleed. sword and board, doesn't work too well against throwing that bypasses defenses. but works great against ranged weapons. heiron is a pain and a half to level smithing with. he's not exactly BAD in a fight, just has only 35 HP so if things are getting thru his stats Which admittedly are somewhat behind because I've been dumping his points into smithing, he'll fold like a wet noodle.

Had alot of trouble with the fight before you get Roxanne. Eventually just grenaded the damn alchemist

but with a khopesh which I add Passive and THC to, if I poison it, it will poison and bleed most things to death.

--

Would like to comment again on just how broken bombs and nets are. made it to some fight during the molerats, 3 guys, 1 spear/shield with a ton of nets, 1 boss guy 60 HP? and one archer.

was having a tough time because the guy kept chucking nets. cuz you gave him tons apparently.

so I threw a bomb. dunno what kind of black powder bomb whatever i had lying around, into the 3 of them at the start of the fight. and the 60 HP guy goes flying and moves 2 tiles face first into my guys and is super easily dispatched 95-98% hit rates on his prone ass. on top of the critical bomb damage. super armored super nasty boss. just dead. cuz he exploded.

[Noikat]

The fights themselves aren't impossibly difficult or out of this world but what really bothers me is the 'walking dead' scenario the OP described.

I can't beat fights because I have no salves or rations left. On a 4-man party your resources pretty much instantly disappear.

Some fights have the enemy taking two turns at the beginning, which is complete bs.

Bombs are random You Lose buttons much like nets were in AoD for an early game dodge build and you can never throw them were you want to throw them because of some enemies obstructing your way. Even though you can attack the very same spot with a crossbow.

[red255]

you can take two turns if you use wait as well. not really sure what determines turn order, except My main normally goes first then the enemies, then my guys.

Heals are a resource you need to ration to make thru the 40 something fights in the game, running out of heals is just as valid a you lose condition as running out of bombs or other resources to make it thru fights.

You need strats to take less damage. But I haven't really noticed much in the way of that because if it takes too much damage it tends to die.

you do know higher levels of alchemy makes the salves heal up to 40 HP right?

[Noikat]

I cannot wait in those scenarios. Waiting means I'll get bombarded by the alchemist. DEX is supposed to determine turn order.

I don't like the rationing aspect of the game. As I said, the fights aren't hard. The lack of resources just make them hard.

Strats to take less damage? You mean leveling up block/dodge, focusing down priority targets (bomb alchemists) before they can act, doing aimed attacks and so and so on? I can't do that AND level up alchemy/smithing. Unlike AoD, I can't get much attack/defense rating from training. There's not enough SP to go around. Either I can craft cool ♥♥♥♥ and get ♥♥♥♥ defense rating or I can just craft the minimal ♥♥♥♥ and get a decent defense. I critted aimed:arms 3 times in a row and the guy just two-shotted me with perfect accuracy anyways.

This game is not for me.

[red255]

OK. so if you have 8 charisma to have 3 followers you can get a dude in the second fight. so you have marcus and this guy. who has high enough int for +2 SP

when you get to the second camp you get a guy who also gets +2 SP and starts with level 5 smithing.

if you skip the optional fights in the first area, I think there are 2. and bring him down you'll get them to level 10 smithing/alchemy around the molerats, at which point you can swap them out for something else. I like Roxanne and Ismail Leaving my high INT followers in camp so I can use their alchemy/smithing while in camp

not entirely sure how it works solo. and keeping 35 HP hieron alive is something of a challenge. since I am dumping all of his points into smithing. but its doable. outside of ironman its no real issue.

just getting him to 6 is steel smithing which is most of what you need. 8 and 10 are blue steel and skymetal with additional modification slots. and upgraded bonuses which is advantageous but I could see just getting him to 6 and going with that.

similiarly you could probably get away with Ismail's alchemy at 6. but the quicksilver potions are a real game changer. especially the ones that improve THC.

Smiting at 10 and alchemy at 10 allows you to use sharpening stones for +5 damage (for 50 strikes with skymetal) and poison at 11.

Aiming for the arms is not what I generally do. I go for the torso. because it bypasses 40% of DR.