Beneath the Stolen Lands Suggestions

[Blood Flowers]

This is referring to the standalone rogue-like mode and not the portion in the campaign.

Now, I'm not entirely certain as to how entirely valid this all is, but I've had multiple runs past floor 50 and my current run is at floor 76 (highest I've gotten to).

-Let the player choose from all boon options. Currently, it is based off of the dungeon seed, and that literally sucks beyond all reason since only certain boons are useful when you start climbing past floor 100. There's literally no way to progress on a run if the 4 boon choices you were given previously just suck (for instance, you're offered 50 spell resistance on your main character, +25 to all saving throws on all characters, a random ring from floor 108, or 6 copies of Mirror Bow, but none of these are even remotely useful against 20 enemies with 62 AC on floor 110).

-Stop increasing the DC of skill checks past floor 50. It's starting to get rather ridiculous (~65 DCs by floor 75) and you need to bring a dedicated skill monkey (aka near useless in combat) along if you want to find hidden rooms/traps/chests/unlock/etc. Either that or include items that increase your skill checks (and have these items scale infinitely since apparently the DCs scale infinitely).

-Include additional item types into the loot table. Items I have never seen looted (only buyable): Bags of Holding, Diamonds (dust too), Rods, and Dinosaur Bones. Items neither lootable nor buyable: Quivers.

-Mix up the drops in further floors. For instance, when you pick up gloves past floor 50, they are practically always either "Lightest Touch", "Butterfly Wings", or "Royal Gloves of Valor". These gloves suck and they are literally the only ones you'll find 99% of the time. I would also throw necklaces, rings, and gauntlets into the mix too.

-Hamadryad + Wild Hunt Monarch rooms are starting to suck. Not because they are all that difficult (though they are probably one of the more difficult ones), but because it lags my computer to insane amounts. Especially if I throw in my own summons to tank (which I no longer do due to it crashing my computer). It's really rather ridiculous the number of summons that appear when you have 5 Hamadryads and 5 Wild Hunt Monarchs as the enemies. I've been forced to lower the graphical settings so as to actually get through these rooms (and my GPU isn't even that old - Nvidia 1080).

-Give us a use for all the gold and experience we are getting. I have something like 300 million experience and 11 million gold (probably a few million more if I bother to sell some of the expensive items I'm hoarding). Maybe make it affect the quality of the boons we get for the next run or something useful. Honestly it's kind of ridiculous the amount of XP you get (1.6 million for killing a Greater Autumn Golem) at the later stages. A pretty cool one would be to be able to spend some of that XP/Gold to increase the variety of boons that are available when you attempt to reset. It definitely feels as if certain boons are just way better than the alternatives (for instance, +6 AB to all party members vs a random ring from floor 70). Take a guess as to which one is more useful.

[Pink Eye]

I like your cat picture, it's cute.

[Mork]

DLC(rogue) as so much potential and fall flat on his nose...

[Blood Flowers]

Originally posted by Pink Eye:

I like your cat picture, it's cute.

Thanks! It's not my cat, but I sure wish it was.

Originally posted by Mork:

DLC(rogue) as so much potential and fall flat on his nose...

Honestly, the rogue-like mode isn't even that bad. The early levels are pretty well done (floors < 40) but it gets a little silly later on when you are just getting the same gear over and over and over. I've probably sold 20 copies of the composite longbow "Elemental Punisher" and still have 3 equipped. It's also a little obnoxious having to bring around an Archaeologist just for opening chests and perception checks.

[provokastoras]

Yeah some items to buy would be nice. I mean I do get it the people making the game are wet on wizards and any other short of crippled old men.... But I ld love to see those npcs selling at least a magical assortment of goods usable by other classes equal to that of the assortment of imbalanced rods that suggests as subtly as a sledgehammer to make a group of 4 arcane tricksters and 2 monster tacticians. That being said i am falling asleep when i play the mod so... that says something.

[Blood Flowers]

Bump. Just wanted to rant about how the boon options work.

I know this is just a DLC and no one really cares, but it'd be really darned nice if players could select from all possible boons rather than just a random 4. There are severe limitations on continually climbing to higher floors if you get offered 4 useless boons.

[wulfster42]

I just started playing the mod yesterday, but I have a good 8 hours in, and am on my second run. I play solo (just one character) and it makes it rediculously easy for levels under 30...and it takes a loooong time to get lower than that.

I would propose a way to start lower, or to skip levels or something up to the depth you obtained in a previous run (perhaps you can go down 5 levels at a time until you hit your lowest previous level?).

I guess maybe you could stealth through and just avoid fights etc, but killing everything along the way, it just takes forever and there is absolutely no challenge at all (on normal diff at least) for hours.

This last run is my first time playing a kineticist, so I'm not even playing some super build. My first run was with a pure Alchemist and I literally never got hurt (I reset a few levels after killing the champion).

The champion fight at least lasted more then a round...but I still didn't get touched (between stoneskin, all the resists going (full 30), AC was around 40....and I didn't even bother casting haste/displacement etc.

Went 2 handed with Fauchard, and best I had weapon wise was the Fauchard +1 I bought at the start the whole way. Got +3 armor and a buncha other nice eq, but most was wasted and it doesn't carry over. All that gold was totally wasted as well.

I'd like to see a few changes if possible:

1: Way to go down faster especially at first, maybe if you wipe out all the monsters on a level, you can skip the next two or something like that (option when you hit the down stairs).

2: Way to at least bring SOMETHING over from a previous run, even if it's just 1 item. Why is it called a shared stash if you don't share between games or anything?

3: more options for boons based on how far down you have gone. Maybe +1 boon choice every 20 levels down you go or something like that.

4: Less exp over all, but lower skill DCs as well. The exp you get for just going down a level is rediculous. I like leveling fast, it's fun, but especially if you go solo you level up so fast it's crazy. Perhaps an option that allows you to sacrifice exp rate for other bonuses (primarily to skills).

5. More bosses, big fights, perhaps a range of "boss" enemies that you can fight every 10 levels down (10/20/30/40/50 etc). They are harder, in a room (naturally) by themselves (can summon others though), and drop better items etc. Could tie in to being able to skip to that floor in the future. Just because you CAN skip to a floor doesn't mean you have to, so you could like clear floor 1 and 2, then once leveled enough skip to 10...clear that, and floor 11 and 12 then skip to 20 etc etc.

Anyway, I think that would make it more fun, but again, I'm just starting. I don't know how many times I'll be able to do the first 30 floors over again without falling asleep though. About the only thing not making a very strong build will do, is make it actually take longer to get down to a challenge. Both of my characters so far can clear a room in a round or two (usually enemies never even got to hit either of em. I can't imagine how long it would take if you actually fought for multiple rounds per room.

[Blood Flowers]

Originally posted by wulfster42:

Way to go down faster especially at first, maybe... you can skip the next two or something....

I mostly agree with this, except that is a set chance for enemies to drop "lore items" that are necessary for facing the final boss. Perhaps only allow for this AFTER you have obtained all 16 "lore items" that are obtainable from normal enemies?

Originally posted by wulfster42:

Way to at least bring SOMETHING over from a previous run, even if it's just 1 item.

You technically bring over the "lore items" as well as the increased merchant slots. I think bringing over some items can be somewhat game-breaking early on though. There's an item "The First Crown" that summons two ghostly guards for 10 minutes/day. Those two ghostly guards can solo probably the first 20 floors. I do, however, like the idea of an item stash that you can carry over (maybe buy slots with gold?) that perhaps excludes certain items.

Originally posted by wulfster42:

more options for boons based on how far down you have gone.

Solid agree.

Originally posted by wulfster42:

Less exp over all, but lower skill DCs as well.

I actually feel like the EXP rate is just right when running a party of 6 (especially on Unfair). I definitely want the skill DCs to be capped at around 50 though. Anything higher forces you to bring along a pure skill monkey.

5. More bosses, big fights... can summon others though

The Wild Hunt Monarchs might be what you're looking for... The further down you go, the more often you find floors where every room is just 5 of these guys who summon a ton of other Wild Hunt and proceed to beat the hell out of you.



Recommendation:
Try playing on Hard or Unfair difficulty. It really spices up the game play in the endless dungeon mode. Maybe not Unfair, as it gets a little ridiculous, but I imagine that Hard is probably quite fun.

[wulfster42]

Yeah, think I need to change the difficulty level for sure, especially since I'm playing with a pet this time (still solo).

The problem is the exp multiplier if you play solo (or probably to alesser extent with just 4, or 2 etc).

This is especially true for the first 20 floors or so (and I don't know how people are dealing with having to run through them every time...it takes hours even if you dominate everything).

My pet panther is insane, with just a few buffs on him (I actually focused my character on offensive spells not buffs, other then mage armor/shield and resist energy so far). My panther though levels up with me, so eats everything for lunch currently. Still not that deep, but I will have spells later on to help with harder fights.

Your right on carrying items over, it's already rediculously easy early on, don't need to make it any easier, although if you did both, and allowed players to skip early levels AND carry over items, it would even out a bit. Perhaps have the value of the items capped based on how far down you went (so it's not slots you get, but more value on items).

[Blood Flowers]

Originally posted by wulfster42:

Yeah, think I need to change the difficulty level for sure, especially since I'm playing with a pet this time (still solo).

The problem is the exp multiplier if you play solo (or probably to alesser extent with just 4, or 2 etc).

This is especially true for the first 20 floors or so (and I don't know how people are dealing with having to run through them every time...it takes hours even if you dominate everything)

Once you up the difficulty to Hard or Unfair, you'll find that the EXP bonus to playing solo only barely keeps you ahead of the curve... and eventually you fall behind (somewhere around floor ~20).

You can opt to turn EXP for active only off if you're playing on normal solo though.