Some Suggestions & a question

[adbspurs]

(I know there was a suggestions bit over on the Kong version but I have a few thoughts - mostly QOL based - and I'm sure there are others out there).

1. Warning if the spell you are about to cast will hit yourself? (I think the only thing stopping me from having a fire mage win is that I keep fireballing him by mistake). Maybe not a pop-up but something visual to say that what you about to do will impact you too.

2. Can we go back to having the Skills have a max of 20 points and not 10?

3. Can we go back to having fire/ice/etc. mages have the fire/ice/etc magic talent? Or was it removed for a reason?

4. There needs to be more gold!!!! Like seriously at least x3 if not x5 gold! Most things at a +3 level in the store will not be purchasable ever.

5. Can we get monster drops? (Sort of ties in to #4)

6. Can we get more detailed char and death stats? e.g. a screen detailing damage ranges, critical chance, overall damage protection, primary weapon vs secondary weapon damage. I get that the summary skills/talent page has limited space but more detail on its own screen would be nice.

7. It may be just me, but I find the new placement of HP/SP/Exp/Food kinda hard to keep in my visual frame ... I liked the old placement below the mini-map. NSR how to fix if others didnt like it there!

And a question:

Going back to #3 ... can you explain how the [element] magic powers work and/or stack. Im still not sure that I get how e.g. spell power vs. fire magic skills impact the staff of fire say for the Fire Mage. Is it the highest one that works? I had it down in the Kong version but this one seems.... different?


But you know most of those are ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ and I have to say that, as a die-hard (z)angband type player who wanted so much more out of TOME and others, this is a fantastic return to what rogue-like gaming should have been!!!! Really looking forward to how you plan to evolve it!

One final thought - could you share yout to-do list/ideas with us as you go along perhaps?

[TheWither]

Reply to #1, I most assuredly agree with the fact of a warning for doing actions that can hurt you, I can't even count the number of times I've killed myself by not realizing I was in danger.

Reply to #2, it was reduced from 20 because he didn't like overly tanky mages and stuff like that (I had recommended making the caps 15 for the two that most closely relate to the class you chose).

Reply to #3 it was changed to the general one as it makes it easier to transfer between spell types, and the specific element bonus is general + elemental damage boost to get the damage increase.

Reply to #4 I find plenty of gold (Ended a run I'd just done with 850 gold, after spending 300 or so).

Reply to #5, Unique NPCs and the coming bosses will have unique drops, and maybe normal ones with normal drops.

Reply to #6 and #7, again, I just agree with both of them.

[Justin]

Hi there, thanks for all the feedback! Of course, all my thoughts below are subject to change at some point. Your guys feedback definitely helps me collect my own thinking on these subjects.

1) Definitely on the todo list is much more visual feedback on stuff like this. There is definitely a limit to how much the game should protect the player from themselves, but I'd still like to give as much warning as possible.

2) First off, generic statement of how everything is subject to change so this may get reverted / changed / other things balanced around it in future.

Generally my thinking is that talents and items should be the largest contributor to your characters build as these are the things that differ between classes, races, and individual runs (through random drops).

Skills are always available to everyone and so, in my opinion, should not make up the majority of your stat gain. With 20 points you could get +40hp or +20mp for example which is much larger than even maxed fortitude and focus talents or any item in the game.

I actually have no problem with tanky casters as TheWither mentioned above, its more the idea that EVERY caster you make can ALWAYS be a tanky caster that I have issue with. I'd like the player to have to be a bit more reactive to the dungeon drops in their build rather than being able to completely preplan a build. I think this is sort of a balancing act, I'd like to get somewhere in between complete preplanning and pure reactive character building.

As a side note, I'm planning for a lot more features in the dungeon that offer the player a choice between rewards, so that would help put more control back in the hand of players and out of the RNG.

3) As mentioned above this was removed from the starter books to help them cross specialize into other casting schools more readily. The specialized talents are still available if you find a tome of the associated school.

4) Have to agree with Wither on this one. Imo if anything there is to much gold in the game atm. A big issue here is simply that item prices need a huge adjustment which will be coming in future updates. Its mostly just sort of random atm and not based on the actual agreed upon value of some items. As the simplest example many consumables are way to cheap compared to their actual value.

5) Special item drops from uniques are a planned feature that should be coming soon. Generic monster drops may get put in at some point. They were mostly just removed early on when enemies still respawned to stop farming, but with static enemies theres no real reason why they couldn't drop items and just rebalance the number of floor spawns accordingly.

6) I love that sort of stat soup so that will absolutely be coming. It was just kept short for the web release due to save file limits but I'd love to track pretty much everything and have it all searchable by run, by class, overall etc. Would also help tie into fun achievements like: "deal 150 damage in a single turn".

7) A lot of stuff will eventually be configurable so different screen layouts, keyboard bindings, toggling different safety/warning features will be coming down the line.

My todo list is, at the moment, unfortunately an unorganized mess spread across multiple paper notebooks, a sprawling personal wiki and a lot of it just sort of floating in my head. I will be trying to organize it and get it visible at some point. At the very least I'll try to keep everyone up to date in the update notes as to what the next week or twos focus will be on.

Thanks again for all the feedback, hope you enjoying the game!

[MechWarden]

Replying in general to...

1. Yeah, it would be nice to have a bit more visual warning on stuff that can damage you directly, like when using the Greater Staff of Storms, which has that + attack pattern, or better hit markers with axes. There are times where I either zap myself from being used to doing point blank damage with other staves, and there has been more than a couple occasions where a cleave attack with an axe sets off explosive or gas jars while focused on attacking other enemies. But ultimately, that should be it. If you aren't aware of your environment and say you are using a fire weapon while in tall grass, vines, or oil, prepared to be cooked.
   
   
2. I'd like to check out the new 10 point limit on skills. The 20 point cap did feel more like a no-brainer system, where you dumped all of your points into one key skill. It actually took several runs that got far enough into the game to realize there was even a cap at all! It was very common to spend all level points into Stealth for Rogue, Melee for Fighter/Barbarian, etc. (R.I.P. 20 Stealth and 500-1000+ crit damage runs) I'm hoping the reduced cap on skills allows for more stragetic choices on point spending. (Maybe even adding a level-based cap for skills?)
   
   
3. I like the idea of making the magic talent more generalized from the start. Given how random loot is, you can't always depend on finding that one staff (or two) that is ideal for your build. It isn't uncommon to pick up an otherwise good staff, only to have it still feel sub-par because of the specialization to one element doesn't match yours.
   
   
4. I can understand why it feels like there isn't enough gold, and early on, it can be pretty tight. Last few (succesful or near succesful) runs on the web version I was short on gold until I hit up one or both of the side paths, and even then, there was a few of those runs where I easily had 300-500 gold left over because the Merchent just didn't have what I was really wanting (nor was there a Skill Trainer to pump for skill points). On average (taking the dungeon as a whole), there seems to be enough gold, but there will be places where it seems pretty slim, especially early on (which does make sense, the best loot is on deeper floors).
   
   
5. I see why there are no dropped items. It is kind of a toss up, now that I'm used to them not dropping items, since I don't have to backtrack and pick up stuff. It kind of sped things up to a degree and made it predicable. (Too predicable?)
   
   
6. Glad to see that is going to be added. I am wondering how it will be added to the game. Kind of related to another thread I made, it would be interesting to have some of that info show up as grave markers (possibly just for show) to kind of remind players of past runs. Or if sharing info across games is doable, see several other people's grave markers, and get an idea of how they died.
   
   
7. I don't know how the interface looks right now. I'm putting off buying it until after the New Years stuff is over with so I don't get too distracted. But I am wondering how the game looks on a 16:9 ratio screen. I do know a few friends that streams games, and the 4:3 ratio would give more room for on-screen chat.

After re-reading some of the stuff, I'm kind of wondering how best to liven up the Skill system. Even with the new caps, it seems like it will just shift from 'All in for one skill' to 'Dump into the top two skills. When I was able to cash dump on a Skill trainer, I tended to either up the Focus or Fortitude after the 20 point cap was hit (depending on being a caster or non-caster respectively). But I just remembered that some of the skills (and talents) did get tweaked, like how Staves can take advantage of more ranged based stuff. It's hard to say... I'd have to get a feel for the newer version to know for sure.