Now i know what vicious means

[The Avatar]

Really? The Binlor change was what broke VHoS for me. Both bosses do magic damage, and Binlor was handing out magic resist like a madman. Anyone could reach 45%, or 60 if you lucked out on the elven boots.

[Darvin]

it's weird because i remember the old HARD indomitable but don't remember him being a problem

I know he got moved down to 20 DP pretty quickly. I know you were around back in August 2011 when HHoS existed in its original form, but I'm not sure what your activity level was.

[The Avatar]

That was when I first started. I saw that dungeon and immediately gave up.

[Lujo]

Well my activity consisted of roflstomping the game with the old 4 magic slots monk, not believing my eyes when you guys were not complaining about him and hoping it would sort it self out eventually because it seemed so obvious. I didn't want to interfear because I sort of thought that you guys needed some time to catch up with the basics. Then he got buffed instead of nerfed and I, err, got active despite my long firm stance on non-interfearance...

(And err, same for the thief and TT more or less)

And I also only really got into the forums when all gods were out there thinkging that the only reason no-one got around to nerfing all the stuff I was abusing for ages was because all the dev time was being used on adding stuff. Frustration was penting up, and well, it ended spectacularly...

[Sidestepper]

The "story" of it is my personal favourite, it's epic as hell, but my biggest aesthetical gripe with it particularly is that it showcases the whole "the game is only doable for regular people if they're given crutches (like Taurog, or The Hack, or Drac) problem. You can really feel good about yourself and your achievements and then walk into the Lair and get your ass handed to you by... Nothing in particular. And if you can beat it, why did you think anything up to then was challenging?

I've always seen Vicious as being a different game altogether. Mastering Hard does not prepare you for Vicious.

[The Avatar]

I'll second that.

Vicious requires a whole new level of skills and strategies.

[Lujo]

Except in case of Dragon Isles and Namtar's Lair, because they're just regular dungeons with monster stats cranked up to 11, and the only "skill" you're supposed to apply is a realization that with enough unlocks you can powerlevel much, much faster than is needed anywhere else.

And that the top end boons and classes can apparently get you through stuff which makes stuff that you thought was hard look easy.

EDIT: And since they leave you with comparably less assets to even out yor bloated collection of perks, you get to choose fewer, and overcome more numericaly difficult challenges with them. This can then easily open your eyes to just how inherently powerfull all that stuff is. I'm talking about the Hack, Bloodswells, Rogue, Monk, Assasin, Potions, the usual suspects...

The biggest missasumption about them is that you need different skills. It's the exact same routine you've been doing except you find class/prep/item/god combinations which lets you "cheat back" at the game. You can even apply them to regular dungeons and stand amazed at how easy they seem all of a sudden, or you can apply them to regular dungeons and be left scratching your head and thinking - why didn't the game suggest I can do this earlier?

But again, we've been through all this before...

I'd personaly prefer if they took out VHoS to make everything symetric and adjusted Namtars Lair overall difficulty to include Blah Blah and The Undomitable as bosses number 2 and 3. Adjusted ofc. With the vampire unlock quest moved there ofc.

[gjaustin]

Well, the game never suggests you can do any of that. The beauty is figuring it out yourself!

It's like when I went beat Super Mario RPG without equipping armor or using timed hits. I'm not upset that the game is much easier than it has to be, because the first time I ran through I still died a fair amount.

That's a proper difficulty curve. You can't expect to beat a game, go back to the beginning, and then still be equally challenged!

[Lujo]

That's a proper difficulty curve. You can't expect to beat a game, go back to the beginning, and then still be equally challenged!

Except here you can Just don't unlock any gods, or the tinker

[gjaustin]

That sounds like my Super Mario RPG example!

Or when I beat Super Mario World without using the Cape