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QCF Design Community • View topic - Playthrough notes


Playthrough notes

All things Desktop Dungeons

Re: Playthrough notes

Postby The Avatar on Tue Dec 11, 2012 2:57 am

It's because of the new (or relatively new) algorithm. It's been around for awhile though. Basically, it places monsters in choke points.
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Re: Playthrough notes

Postby Lujo on Tue Dec 11, 2012 1:22 pm

Well, it's doing a good job of making Cheeky a legit badge rather than an auto thing, and I'm deffinitely getting more of the Alpha vibe in the early dungeon, so I'm not really complaining about it. Venture cave IS more cramped than it used to be, now that you mention, but there is a distinct ease in WONNAFYT popcornbowling in it as opposed to the Den of Danger, which makes the den harder even if you kill slowed lvl1 monsters for your first like I'm doing lately.

I just couldn't thell what the tradeoff in venture cave was, because this piece of assimetry seems create a distinct disparity in favour of the cave. Maybe it's intended, since there are more quests for the Den? I don't know, but it's noticable...

- Puzzle difficulty: Ok, so the Jehora Puzzle pack joins the Halfling one as the only two I had to go look up the solution for so far. For the first one, even. And I can't seem to find it in the puzzle solutions thread. Hmmm... EDIT: I even managed the second one on my own, but can't figure the 1st one out for the life of me... EDIT2: I figured it out. It was easy and straightforward, and so was the second one. It was my inability to predict the exact post-conversion damage numbers and hesitation to experiment with randomly trying stuff out untill something works that made both this pack and the Halfling one hard for me.

- Minor Itch: Am I blind or is there no way to see your quests once you click on a flag on the map? Also, I can't seem to figure out if there's a way to cycle between the badges for a dungeon and the classes you completed them with, and it's getting progressively more annyoing. Maybe I'm just blind. And some of it at least is probably being worked on right now...

- Outdated Feature Reference: The Kingdom Advisor is currently giving me more or less the following advice: "Uprgade the Church building to acquire dungeon scrying abilities". The feature itself is probably being reworked right now, but it's still funny.

- Find Odd: i just desecrated Taurog and he didn't take away his gear. Wonder if it was always like that or not?

- Need to comment: Taurog monks are still a unreal. Seeing how I still haven't unlocked the berserker or the witch, and sort of skipped them on the last run it came as a bit of a shock. Nothing to be worried about I suppose, but as long as the dungeon isn't made with them in mind they really roll ^^

- Like: You can no longer exit Drac's subdungeon after walking into it. I used to abuse this to avoid unlocking him on the minimalist run, and even on the last one.

- Like: Creeplight ruins spawns kingdom element subdungeons in addition to the goat one. Hopefully it's spawning the goat as an extra. I can't remember for Creeplight, but I know that every place which denied you a subdungeon, even a potentially useless one was harder by default (Dragon Isles and Naga City being big offenders). I'm not sure, but I think this was the reason I rarely visited Creeplight outside of quests, which is a shame because it's an interesting one.

- Medium itch: I wen't looking for the witch with the Tinker which was big mistake from the beta testing perspective. Now I have no clue how the Drac subdungeon mandatory unlock affects what would otherwise be a regular Creeplight run, and I suspect it doesn't work out well. It has the run-ruining potential even greater than running into pactmaker because the Pactmaker only denies you a subdungeon (but is more annoying because it happens 3 times).

- Big Like: The Fake Beard subdungeon made me chuckle. The cracked amulet one is strictly better, but this is a lot funnier :) Also, the goat does indeed spawn in addition to a regular subdungeon which makes this a BIG like.

- Big Misgiving: Eh... Found the Witch, like the cat, don't know if I like the quest, but I do have a big gripe with the fact that its both in the east and behind the monk unlock. Reason being, the monk is bloody powerfull, the east is hard enough as it is, the flavour of the witch being east rather than anywhere else never made any sense at all, and the quest itself pops up really early pushing players east way before it's good for them. It also creates a clutter of subdungeons over that way. Since she has quests, and the first one is in the east, why not have her somewhere else, like west, or even south? Might be good reasons for things being this way, but i think reasons for making it otherwise are pretty sensible ones. Or is the witch so gamebreaking that she needs to be behind a really big ass skill wall?

- Broken Puzzle: Drac2: (Nope, it was me being a fool) Whatever happened here made Darvins solution not work. I went to check, and something is plain wrong. Ok, Dravin's solution missed a step where you take Blood Curse, Drac's puzzle pack works as intended. It felt a bit more difficult than the others, but then again, it showcases a lot of his features I rarely ever use / invoke.

- Big Like: Binlor's puzzle pack was fun, well written, open ended to a degree and all-round great.

Getting pretty close to a very deffinite end of the early game, and when there I'll do a summary of the expirience and move on to the midgame. (It may look like I'm knee deep in it right now, but I think I maybe have a few things to sort out still).

- Big Like: - The new Crusader subdungeons, I honestly didn't realize that it was what it was.

- Gameflow Gripe: - The fact that Bank lvl 3 takes place in penultimate HARD dungeon. It's really easy to fill up your 4000 gold from bank lvl2 and be faced with quite a bit of gold overflow if youre taking your time and enjoying the scenery. It pressured me to unlock stuff and use stuff I wasn't really ready for if I just wanted to do a bit of completion on the early puzzles. The "clear out shifting sands" thing feels a bit random from the perspective of a player who's unlocked the quest and has a need for it's reward, and the difficulty spike between it and anything I've encountered so far is quite large.

- Big Like: At some point the dev's must've fixed the fullscreen. It's not fuzzy anymore! And it means less missclicks and eyestrain! Whooo!

- Rogue Gold: Wow, my second Gold Win, and without GETINDARE to boot. Also, the boss drops gloves of Midas, after Silver allready does, so not sure what to make of that. Cool thing is I used a Pactmaker pact, the one which gives health, but if I was smart and picked a Dwarven rogue instead of a Human "just to check the dungeon out and maybe sneak a broken rogue win", that would be THE place to pick up the conversion pact (provided you have other means of picking PISSORFF up). Nice, challenging, pleasant and cool, I liked it.
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Re: Playthrough notes

Postby Lujo on Wed Dec 12, 2012 2:46 pm

Wednesday - The Midgame

????? - the Northern Dessert just got confusing. i've had Aequitas as boss in there 3 times in a row, but it said the Goo was the boss. Now I've had the adventure map say it was Aequitas, and it's the Goo. And I wen't in there to do the complicated tasks quest with a dwarven Rogue and Converted BYCEPSS. I whish this got cleared up somehow. I won by running into Binlor, and it's an easy dungeon, but it's pointlessly missleading.

Gameflow ????? - I've only just noticed this, but the 2nd tier directional dungeons (Havendale Bridge, Rock Garden, Creeplight Ruins and Hex Ruins have quests which have no rewards (or if they have them, they aren't listed on the kingdom screen). Maybe they DO have quests tied to tier 3 unlocks but when you approach them it looks weird.

Gameflow Gripe - The South still has the Ick Swamp unlock weirdness, with the subdungeon you have to scum for (or maybe it apears wehrever you go next). Still the assymetry of it and the fact that you end up looking at the slime pits and thinking it's either where you have to go or wondering about what the hell is going in is noticable. Now, if that same mechanic was a part of unlocking every VICIOUS dungeon as opposed to a random tier 3 directional one, it would make sense, this way it doesn't fit.

Like - Transmuter Subdungeon Keyword: "Quest" :D The subdungeon art is a mite excessive, however. If you find it in a darker subdungeon, like the Havendale Bridge and your screen suddenly flashes orange the reaction is "Bleh!" not "Wow".

Like You can't WHEYTWUT the troll in the brigde anymore. Haven't tried PISSORFFING him, but as far as this is concerned I think it's for the best. That troll wasn't getting any respect for a while.

Noticed Havendale Bridge seems to be a good deal harder now, as well. There's fat stuff on the wrong side of the river (well, lvl 5 and 6), and the abilities on the mosters are nasty. I always remember it as being a tricky map, but it feels tough now.

Playthrough ????? I've had a cluster**** of toasts happen after defeating the Havendale Bridge (By coincidence it seems). Magma Mines Minecraft, Transmuter, Bezar lvl 3, and the Taxidermist notes, at least. There seemed to be two identical notes for Bezar lvl 3 but with different tags.

Issue: - The bazzar lvl 3 quest doesn't seem to be counting Translocation scroll use. Or something.

Missclick death no. 2 - Mouse surged forward and had me hit a fat sand troll. After I've killed a lvl 10 at lvl 5. It was a learning expirience, though, I learned that I should go buy a better mouse.

Tinker Bug - While in Hex Ruins for the buyout quest (Bezzar lvl 3), I didn't get a secret walled off dungeon. I thought those were mandatory for the Tinker? Reported in the bug thread.

Noticed: Translocation Scroll - The game doesn't count Translocation Scroll, errr, theft, as buying an item for the Miser badge. Neat little trick for anyone both reading this and wanting an edge over the vets in the very fun Dungeon of the Day events :)

Like: - Avatar apparently does read everthing.
Last edited by Lujo on Thu Dec 13, 2012 2:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Playthrough notes

Postby Lujo on Thu Dec 13, 2012 9:59 am

Thursday: Yet more midgame

Fun strat - Pactmakers % res (body?) pact kicks ass in Creeplight ruins.

Gameflow Issue - Are there any questchains in Cursed Oasis or Slime Pits? The way it is now ti's not asymetrical per se, because the east and the west have one "complete with 4 people" quest chains, but... The final (?) two complicated tasks quests are in the same place wher those two are. So we have 2 quests in the east and west "side" HARD dungeons, and none (?) in the north and south. Moving the complicated tasks quests would be a headache, but the Fire Heart and the Battlemage Ring could be moved South and North respectively.

Gameflow Issue - It just occured to me that there is a thing about locker slots which might warrant consideration. The way they are distributed now is that you get 3 for unlocking the berserker, and 3 for Warlord, and those two aren't exactly the unlocks you want to rush as far as monsters are concerned, yet unlock the Trisword Challenge, the Unlikely Heroe's questline and the Sensation Stone dungeon. On the flipside, if you don't unlock the berserker right away you have no locker slots. I suppose redistributing the slot unlocks to be 2 + 2 + 2 would allow some item lockering right away (like it used to be), but would let you locker the sensation stone in the midgame. Fewer locker slots - fewer strats people feel really comfortable with, and while asking for more locker slots would be silly, asking for a redistribution probably isn't (to allow more diversity and experimentation in the late early game, and early midgame, especially for the item dependent classes).

Noticed - Berserker Camp has become a lot easier since the last time I did it. Or the time before that, back when you had to be a wizard, and you couldn't prep gods, and the dungeon was harder. It's probably a good thing, allthough a Warmonger Sorcerer maybe shouldn't be this easy. Not sure what to think. If Slime Pits and Cursed oasis have been reduced in difficulty, then moving the "complete with 4" quests over there might be a good idea.

Noticed: Prepping Taurog - I've been doing it a hell of a lot. I think I might've prepped GG once, and nobody else yet, but Taurog is almost auto-prep. Especially since I'm doing so much Tinker, because just prepping him means I can actually beat a dungeon I just went in to grab the subdungeon. With a compression seal, ofc.

Like: Orc - Since I also haven't unlocked the Tri-Sword just yet, I've been using Warmonger Orcs and Humans as a cheap and gold efficent substitute for Halflings. More Glyphs is a nobrainer with Orcs and I like them quite a bit. I've done a few goblins here and there, halflings for the few priest runs I've done, no gnomes whatsoever (no reason to, yet), and a lot of elves early game. Oh, and just about every rogue I've played has been a Dwarf, with possibly one or 2 Orcs (In the challenge dungeons).

Gameflow Issue - The late unlock of the witch, in case someone didn't find the Tinker and isn't comfortable running around Creeplight before its sensible really made the early mid game (as it happened to me) a veritable clusterf*** of quests all over the place. A lot less elegant than the early game, I have to say, and I'm now firm in belief it needs smoothing out.

Subdungeon Weirdness - I just ran into a very weird subdungeon in the magma mines. 3 Piles of gold and a signpost with the message along the lines of "A child who raises a hand against the parent is damned. Leave this place, we keep our eyes out for the children of heathens". Was very confusing, and I guess it's a message from a natre worshipping cult, but it took me a while to figure it out because of the "great western tileset/flavour mashup", or in other words, it felt as weird finding it in magma mines, as did the transmuter subdungeon in havendale bridge.

Re: Complicated Tasks - done it, and now the last thing to unlock from the supporting buildings is the blacksmith, which tells me I'm probably not playing the game as god intended. The quests and dungeons involved were fun and rather easy (compared) and everything about moving the "complete with 4 guys" quests to CO and Slime Pits is currently reinforced in my mind. On the other hand, I now have the "Silly Potion Prep Kit TM" available, which I don't think I'll abuse this time around.
Last edited by Lujo on Thu Dec 13, 2012 2:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Playthrough notes

Postby gjaustin on Thu Dec 13, 2012 2:20 pm

I'm glad you've finally discovered Body Pact!

I haven't been using it as much lately, but it's pretty sick with Taurog.
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Re: Playthrough notes

Postby Lujo on Thu Dec 13, 2012 2:28 pm

Last edited by Lujo on Thu Dec 13, 2012 4:01 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Playthrough notes

Postby The Avatar on Thu Dec 13, 2012 3:14 pm

I don't know why, but I never really use pactmaker except for consensus. I guess I like my piety for the god I earned it in.
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Re: Playthrough notes

Postby Lujo on Thu Dec 13, 2012 3:25 pm

I almost got pwned by Shifty Brickwork!
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Re: Playthrough notes

Postby The Avatar on Thu Dec 13, 2012 8:42 pm

You don't really need the dagger for gold. I usually get kills two levels above me, after I nab ENDISWALL.
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Re: Playthrough notes

Postby Lujo on Thu Dec 13, 2012 9:21 pm

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