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Items, Items, and more Items!

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Re: Items, Items, and more Items!

Postby sitnaltax on Sun Jan 20, 2013 6:05 pm

How about we stop nerfing everything until the only way to kill any monster is to regen fight it with a spreadsheet.
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Re: Items, Items, and more Items!

Postby The Avatar on Sun Jan 20, 2013 6:16 pm

In case you haven't noticed, nothing has been nerfed. Besides, weakening B2P or the CB is totally justified, and those are the only things worth nerfing. Spellcasting will still be good, as will spiking, and all other strategies. Frankly that comment is rather ridiculous.
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Re: Items, Items, and more Items!

Postby Lujo on Sun Jan 20, 2013 7:01 pm

Yeah, we are throwing the words a bit hard around the place, but the only things which really deserve to be toned down are B2P and Crystall Ball - there is no meaningful choice involved when choosing whether or not to use them in too many cases, or rather no reason but deliberate self challenge. They create more power on the player side than the monsters are designed to handle (still pose a challenge against). They would still be viable and powerful if toned down, but using them and not using them wouldn't necessarily feel like playing a whole different game.

As for the Trisword, it might just be a whole lot of pent up patience and keeping quiet about it that was going on in order to cut the devs slack while they work on other issues. The trisword also presents no meaningfull choice - it can be used in a variety of ways, it has no competition in it's niche and the failsafes that are supposed to keep the power it provides in check aren't really working. But I guess we're more interested in figuring out exactly WHY this is so - we can't nerf anything, we aren't the devs.

With proper handling the Trisword can turn just about any dungeon trivial, whether through physical attack or use of PISSORF. Trivial games have lower replay value, and "coming off" a Trisword habit (or a CB, or B2P or Monk) can be more frustrating than never having access to such power. Challenge is a big draw of this game (even subconciously), and we're really interested in a way to have the Trisword still give reassurance to non-veterans, but in a way which would more easily entice them to try other stuff out. Just wait untill you run into a "broken" feature, get really profficent with it, steamroll an entire map direction using it - and then try to change things up...
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Re: Items, Items, and more Items!

Postby paplaukes on Sun Jan 20, 2013 8:00 pm

The above posts, summed up, kind of sound like "if used wrong, trisword/b2p can be gamebreakingly op". You have to actively seek how to best break/abuse the systems to find these tactics. I guess I don't play that way.

I'm just trying to tell that for a somewhat casual player:
I rarely used b2p/tri-sword 6-12months ago (then took a break).
I'm starting to somewhat use b2p and, still rarely, tri-sword now.

Tri-sword "optimal use" requires doing counter-intuitive stuff (sacrificing majority of potions).
B2P "optimal use" requires doing counter-intuitive stuff (exploring huge portions of map early on).
If they get balanced around the "optimal use" now they'll look even more counter-intuitive. To non-forum goers if you will. "Fine sword for 30 gold and 2 potions? really?". "B2P is even worse now? back to convert on sight then".

If these items (and no others) are really somehow a difference between winning and losing a vicious dungeon, sure, might need adjusting.
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Re: Items, Items, and more Items!

Postby Lujo on Sun Jan 20, 2013 8:07 pm

Well, you're completely right - so we're interested in ways to make them work within what is supposed to be the "natural" way of playing. If you have an item/glyph which rewarded a totaly counterintuitive and unnatural approach with enough power to take out a lvl10 boss at lvl 3, while no natural and intuitive aproach even suggests such a thing is possible - would you think that item shouldn't be reconsidered and brought in line?

What about items that are so powerfull that you can't take the other options seriously, even if they are more numerous and would by sheer number create a standard? CB isn't unintuitive - you cast glyphs, you get mana back. But try to find a better use for your gold if you're spellcasting...

"Nerfing" the trisword could (and should!) consist of capping it out to give as much damage as a moderate user would get anyway - that's not the issue with it. When a vet, like say me, "abuses" the Crystal Ball - I don't actually use it to beat somethign I couldn't, because then I'd be whining about the dungeon (like Namtar's Lair). I whine about CB and B2P, because they force a "wrong" conclusion on me, one that sayes "content other than this feature isn't worth the effort", or "this is your only option" combined with it. And so on and so forth...
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Re: Items, Items, and more Items!

Postby Blovski on Mon Jan 21, 2013 12:31 am

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Re: Items, Items, and more Items!

Postby Lujo on Mon Jan 21, 2013 7:42 am

I hear you paplaukes!

The origin of calling overly powerful items/features "stupid" and "ridiculous" or "cheat code" comes from understanding intimately where you're coming from. Also calling vets "lunatics" or "crazy"!

There is a learning curve, and a power curve, and a kingdom progression curve in the game - and if you're trying to play the game in a "semi-casual" way, more accurately described as "sane", you come to intuitively understand some things - monsters regenerate health if you explore while you fight them, you can't fight monsters much higher than your level without a crippling investment, and so on and so forth... You try to work within the boundaries which are reinforced by many things and trying to break the sensible rules isn't something a sane/honest person is supposed to contemplate too much. The rules and boundaries are there for a reason, they are pretty strict for the most part, and the game is challenging.

But if a feature lets you break these rules too much, or too effortlessly, and then gives you overwhelming power - after the initial rush of going mad from power, you can start feeling really stupid about obeying the laws in the first place. What is keeping a sane and respectable person from discovering how crazy powerfull B2P is? The answer is "the very idea of something giving that much power for rule breaking sh**s all over every reinfrcement of the seeming law of blackspace conservation". You're not supposed to burn that much blackspace on leveling and still be able to kill the bosses, right?

But you CAN.

Mechanicaly it's easy to discover - you step up to a really high level low-hp monster, and start clicking away. If you're going spellcaster, you wouldn't need the HP potions so much, so you drink them there and then to fuel more B2P, and sure enough, that gorgon or wraith drops dead, and what you get is 2-3 DINGS! And then you scratch your head and put the 2 and 2 togather and figure out that you would have wasted MORE blackspace if you tried to play it any other way. And what you did required less effort and thinking, too!

But psychologicaly it's difficult to figure out - because it requires you to go STUPID for a moment, and forget all you learned up till then. Same thing with the Tri-Sword - sensible use doesn't reward you nearly as much as playing like a complete dope, or a Balkaneeze horse thief trying to "cheat" at every opportunity. And I personally HATE that. The question of "what if I dumped all my potions into it right off the bat" should play out much like "what if I pis***d on that electrical wire?" - get you electrocuted, not give you superpowers!

CB? What if don't I really need the shops, or all the stuff I've spent time and effort unlocking to have available in those shops? What if I just dumped all my gold into the damned ball, instead of thinking up combinations and uses for all the junk? The answer to that should be "Yeah, right, I'll pick those elven boots next time, someone spent time coding all that stuff", not "Hell yeah, screw the shops, this thing can be prepped! Eat my dust normal people!"

And as for our suggestions - no matter what tone we make them in, we AREN'T devs, the devs are the devs, they made all the features, and for all we know they had all this stuff on the radar all this time and we're (a bit overenthusiasticaly) confirming that "Yes, if we play like a bunch of complete trolls, these things reward us." The solutions might allready be on some list, and god knows what they are - the devs have proved time and again they aren't fools, and won't gimp the regular people while troll-proofing the game.
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Re: Items, Items, and more Items!

Postby paplaukes on Mon Jan 21, 2013 1:32 pm

Overenthusiastic is the right word yes :)
I agree on items, the action is up to devs.
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