by q 3 on Sat Feb 18, 2012 4:37 am
Interface nitpicks:
You... you swapped the positions of the HP and MP bars? You monsters. I just know that's going to kill me sooner or later.
Love the character names and monster portraits.
In general I do think the new menu is prettier, but it could stand to use a lot more contrast. The counters for piety, gold, etc. should probably be a different color combination than light gray on slightly darker gray. The bright tannish background, for empty item slots, monsters, altars, etc. feels quite a bit too bright. The red on green for gold cost in shops is surprisingly hard to read.
The white flame animation on the MP bar upon using a glyph is a little distracting.
~
Balance:
The Paladin's new weakness is going to make him even more dependent on GG, I think. Taurog, Tikki Tooki, and Dracul in particular are now going to be fairly terrible deities for them because they hand out a steady stream of penalties; GG you generally don't get in trouble from until the endgame when you start quaffing potions, and he relies more on occasional big piety losses anyway.
Blood Hunger feels much too expensive now, especially with how big a hit you take to resistances (yes, it's relatively less of a hit at higher levels, but it's a huge loss at lower levels and that first level of lifesteal is now a significant investment, whereas previously most classes could take the boon once without losing much if anything). I'm having a hard time seeing non-vmapires getting much use out of the boon anymore.
Binlor's new Stone Form is probably more useful overall, although it is a noticeable nerf in one situation - previously you'd retain the buff as long as you had stoneskin, which meant that if you had first strike (or a level advantage) picked off a monster in one hit you would keep the damage boost for the next hit. Might, on the other hand, wears off after one attack regardless of whether you get hit or not. The new buff is still a whole lot better than the old buff, but isn't universally better. The magic resist boosts are interesting, at least.