Re: MY thoughts on stuff!
Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2012 8:36 pm
Conceptual and UI stuff:
A lot of what I have to say is about damage done and damage received. Having the game have us do math to accomplish puzzles is great. Number of hits taken vs given. Number of spells + damage etc. Addition, substraction and a bit of multiplication. But Lets stop the math at third grade! Ok I am joking but really percents are a nightmare at time to figure out how much I am going to do, and how much I am going to take. Don't get me wrong, the bars on the mobs? Awesome. So much better than before. But I have commented on a few classes that just do an extra percent damage sometimes. We have a nice damage calculator but it doesn't tell us things in these cases. One of those cases is a tier 1 class. It is frustrating. Same goes for taking damage. I have 10% resist. Ok I can get 10% of a number. However, now I am asking myself is it rounded up or down? Is there carry over? I don't know. The bar says I can only survive one hit, but it is relevant one whether or not I am 1 hp away from taking two hits or 5 or whatever. When percents become things like 12% this is just busted and I am whipping out a calculator. Blah on calculators. The game should TELL me how much damage I am doing to the target(minus some features which are not directly related to my attack, like reflex hits, or mana shield, both of these can be done by hand and that isn't a bad thing). The game should tell me how much damage I am taking. I think some more strategies around finesse and fancy item/glyph usage might form with this information. Or maybe I am thick and lazy!
I believe I mentioned it before, but knowing what type of monsters are or could be in a dungeon before entering would be neat.
I already stated an opinion in another thread about "are you sure?" however I would like to say again that this should be an early crutch built into the game. Partially because while you are learning after you die, you may not have enough feedback to realize what went wrong. Tutorials can cover a lot of bad status effects. Death is a weird thing to learn despite being so frequent sometimes.
Game flow is nice currently. However I think hard dungeons actually might pop up a little too fast. I know vets are going to cry because that is what they want faster, but I think the game should encourage players to spend a bit more time in the directional dungeons(like it does with den of danger quests) before opening up the hard dungeons. Maybe higher money requirements for a quest so some early farming is encouraged. Or quests to get certain badges in the directional dungeons. (Intro to badges/money making with them.) I think currently it is like 4 normal dungeons runs after the tutorial and you see a hard mode. A total of 7 and you see a lot of hard modes. Not sure the unwashed masses picking this game off of steam deals will be prepared.
Questing: I like quests. I like goals. I am terrible at making goals for myself in a game. Just how I am. Fully realizing that this game has to get released someday, but more quests that showcase individual classes in rough and tumble situations would be fun. Because feeling like you are following a story for your class AND the game is a lot of fun and provides interesting goals. On that same thought I was looking at the status screen and based on the statistics there are a lot of neat goals that could be created. I kept waiting for a badge or a goal for having a positive average kill level. Or even a positive 1 average kill level. Or a goal to do a certain amount of damage and win.
There will be more on diverse topics later as well. Several things I haven't fully fleshed out in my head.
A lot of what I have to say is about damage done and damage received. Having the game have us do math to accomplish puzzles is great. Number of hits taken vs given. Number of spells + damage etc. Addition, substraction and a bit of multiplication. But Lets stop the math at third grade! Ok I am joking but really percents are a nightmare at time to figure out how much I am going to do, and how much I am going to take. Don't get me wrong, the bars on the mobs? Awesome. So much better than before. But I have commented on a few classes that just do an extra percent damage sometimes. We have a nice damage calculator but it doesn't tell us things in these cases. One of those cases is a tier 1 class. It is frustrating. Same goes for taking damage. I have 10% resist. Ok I can get 10% of a number. However, now I am asking myself is it rounded up or down? Is there carry over? I don't know. The bar says I can only survive one hit, but it is relevant one whether or not I am 1 hp away from taking two hits or 5 or whatever. When percents become things like 12% this is just busted and I am whipping out a calculator. Blah on calculators. The game should TELL me how much damage I am doing to the target(minus some features which are not directly related to my attack, like reflex hits, or mana shield, both of these can be done by hand and that isn't a bad thing). The game should tell me how much damage I am taking. I think some more strategies around finesse and fancy item/glyph usage might form with this information. Or maybe I am thick and lazy!
I believe I mentioned it before, but knowing what type of monsters are or could be in a dungeon before entering would be neat.
I already stated an opinion in another thread about "are you sure?" however I would like to say again that this should be an early crutch built into the game. Partially because while you are learning after you die, you may not have enough feedback to realize what went wrong. Tutorials can cover a lot of bad status effects. Death is a weird thing to learn despite being so frequent sometimes.
Game flow is nice currently. However I think hard dungeons actually might pop up a little too fast. I know vets are going to cry because that is what they want faster, but I think the game should encourage players to spend a bit more time in the directional dungeons(like it does with den of danger quests) before opening up the hard dungeons. Maybe higher money requirements for a quest so some early farming is encouraged. Or quests to get certain badges in the directional dungeons. (Intro to badges/money making with them.) I think currently it is like 4 normal dungeons runs after the tutorial and you see a hard mode. A total of 7 and you see a lot of hard modes. Not sure the unwashed masses picking this game off of steam deals will be prepared.
Questing: I like quests. I like goals. I am terrible at making goals for myself in a game. Just how I am. Fully realizing that this game has to get released someday, but more quests that showcase individual classes in rough and tumble situations would be fun. Because feeling like you are following a story for your class AND the game is a lot of fun and provides interesting goals. On that same thought I was looking at the status screen and based on the statistics there are a lot of neat goals that could be created. I kept waiting for a badge or a goal for having a positive average kill level. Or even a positive 1 average kill level. Or a goal to do a certain amount of damage and win.
There will be more on diverse topics later as well. Several things I haven't fully fleshed out in my head.