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QCF Design Community • View topic - Newbie playthrough with feedback
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Newbie playthrough with feedback

PostPosted: Sun Nov 25, 2012 9:22 am
by Hombre
After playing DD alpha (I think) two years ago and now again, I quickly decided to pre-order and play the beta. I'm doing my first playthrough right now so I figured I'd give feedback as I progress in-game. I've had some experience with alpha but I wouldn't call myself an expert.

I'm sure a lot if not all of the points I mention have been covered in different posts already - if anyone thinks there is a specific post I should be reading to compare my feedback against, please tell me!

To start off, I ordered and paid. Nothing happened, no email or anything. Then three hours later I got some ten-odd mails confirming my purchase etc. Seems like the mails didn't get delivered for some reason and the system decided to send more as a result.

Anyway, next day I jump in. No problems with Unity thankfully. The graphics are very nice, I think, with easy access to a lot of important information in the dungeons. I love the partitioning of the health bar, showing not only how much health will be taken off by a hit, but also how many hits are needed to kill a monster and how many hits the monster needs to kill me. Very useful and quite intuitive.

I'm having a bit of trouble understanding the spells. That may be me, of course. It took me a while to figure out that PISORF's damage is based on my base damage - maybe display the damage on mouse-over? In fact, I'm not sure the calculations are always correct - one time my base damage was 32, I PISORF'ed a Meat Man against a Warlock and the resulting damage was 15 instead of 16. Anyway, similar thing with BYSSEPS: could the mouse-over display my resulting attack value? With GETINDARE, at first I didn't understand that I'd get an accumulating dodge chance, 5% for every cast, that is consumed once I dodge.

Dungeon gameplay: in the alpha, I could pretty quickly see whether a dungeon was winnable or not. Can I find the right spells and some useful (i.e. higher level but killable) monsters before exploring half of the map? If not, restart. In the beta, more spells strategies are viable which is great. But for me that also means it can take longer before I know the dungeon's not doable. So time to failure is longer, which leads to quicker frustration. This could definitely improve once I get to know the game better. What's the experience of veteran players?

Re: Newbie playthrough with feedback

PostPosted: Mon Nov 26, 2012 5:51 pm
by Darvin

Re: Newbie playthrough with feedback

PostPosted: Mon Nov 26, 2012 7:20 pm
by Nurator
Elf Monk on Cursed Oasis? Challenge accepted!

Re: Newbie playthrough with feedback

PostPosted: Mon Nov 26, 2012 7:39 pm
by Darvin

Re: Newbie playthrough with feedback

PostPosted: Tue Nov 27, 2012 9:48 pm
by Hombre

Re: Newbie playthrough with feedback

PostPosted: Tue Nov 27, 2012 10:12 pm
by Sidestepper
Once you're proficient, Normal ranked dungeons can be finished with any class-race combination, no preps required. Veterans regularly imposed all sorts of restrictions on themselves when playing Normal dungeons just to keep it interesting. This isn't like the alpha, where you could get sandwiched between 2 level 9s right at the beginning.

Hard dungeons can reliably be won with any reasonable race-combo (eg no gnome berserkers) without preps. Partial exceptions are the Labyrinth (sometimes is mathematically unwinnable without a Bear Mace or Binlor prep), the Slime Pits (a hard dungeon) and the Cursed Oasis (a really hard dungeon).

Vicious is an over the top challenge designed to push the very limits of the game. They can only be reliably won with good race-class choices and strong preparations.

If you are finding the top-level gameplay to be overwhelming, might I suggest this thread?

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2134

It's a little bit dated, but it was written with this exact problem in mind.

EDIT: A few key changes to keep in mind. Tikki Tooki is now gated by Earthmother, so some of the strategies discussed in that thread don't work any more. Bronze challenges didn't give gold back then, so money was much tighter. You can now actually turn a profit on building unlocks if you can reliably win the bronze medals. Also, Bet on Boss now only costs 5 gold, whereas back then it cost a whopping 50. BoB is actually a super prep to use at the beginning of the game, when trophy prices are at an all time high and gold income is important. If I make a new management thread (and I might) it would definitely feature some hardcore BoB abuse.

Also, I didn't go after any important item unlocks in that thread. At the time, I felt that it was best to avoid the Puzzle Packs and Silver challenges due to their challenging nature. In retrospect, this was a mistake. That thread was already about advanced game play, so it didn't make any sense to deliberately avoid content like that. I recommend going after the Gnome Puzzle Pack (Soul Orb), the Halfling Puzzle Pack (Venom Ward), and the Rogue Silver (Midas Gloves), and in roughly that order. There are other items that are also good, and several that are stronger, but none are as solidly and reliably useful as those three.

Re: Newbie playthrough with feedback

PostPosted: Tue Nov 27, 2012 10:40 pm
by Darvin

Re: Newbie playthrough with feedback

PostPosted: Wed Nov 28, 2012 7:38 am
by Nurator
Image

That was really fun :) And pretty hard^^

Re: Newbie playthrough with feedback

PostPosted: Wed Nov 28, 2012 12:38 pm
by The Avatar
Wow. Nice. That's basically a vicious-level challenge.

Re: Newbie playthrough with feedback

PostPosted: Wed Nov 28, 2012 5:53 pm
by Darvin
After some thought on the matter, I believe it is quite possibly the hardest non-vicious race/class/dungeon combo. Anyone can think of anything harder?