Basics Tutorials

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Basics Tutorials

Postby JayPlaysIndieGames on Sat Aug 10, 2013 2:51 am

So Anonybrit brought up the point that there may be no good "basics for newbs" material. Now I haven't read the newbie guide or really even looked at the wiki, but on that note I am thinking of making a series of vids (maybe for the wiki if it needs such a thing?) to teach new players the ropes on how to beat the "Normal" dungeons. So that they can get a basis of strategy and especially if someone is stuck and can'only beat hobblers hold or something

Now there is a lot of challenge with doing this and a lot of obstacles to overcome as I want to do it right

1: The biggest obstacle is I don't want to be to spoilery. I don't want to post strategy calling it basics that will take them through to Gaan-Telet (where I am in the game) without going through some of the learning and discovery on their own.

2: The game is extremely varied. Sure I can give generic strats that apply to my current run, but it needs to translate across the board.

3: I am far from the most experienced player and I don't want to give bad info. This might actually work as an advantage as I am closer to being a new player than a vet I still remember the problems I had when I first started playing while vets might take some knowledge for granted or give away too advanced of a strategy. However the possibility of me giving bad info or making mistakes is high

The solution for number 2 is pretty simple: if I do a video for every normal dungeon using different starting classes for each one it will have enough variety that players will hopefully be able to work out what to do in their own circumstances.

The solution for number 3 is to challenge myself a little: I think the best thing here is to do the runs Purist, Faithless, and Miser so I avoid using anything they haven't unlocked. Plus it has the added bonus of maybe putting me in a tough spot or two so they can see how to work through difficult situations (or totally cave don't worry I'll post any fail videos in my regular let's play series)

The real problem is number 1. That, and me wanting general input before it is published leads me to this solution. I am putting the vids up as "unlisted" on youtube so they can only be found by someone who has the link, and I am putting the link here.

I want you guys input, am I being to spoilery? Am I leaving out vital info? Is there something I should do different'y or add? I will put links to videos here as I make them and if there are any suggestions I would love the input. Especially of course from Avatar as he is always an extremely huge help on me improving my personal game (and definitely the reason I got as far as I have as quickly as I have), but all of you guys input is welcome.

If you guys think the vids are good enough maybe we can put up a video tutorial section on the wiki assuming there isn't one already.

Here is a link to the "prototype" vid :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OY9V5Xv-KJg
http://www.youtube.com/JayPlaysIndieGames
Check out the Desktop Dungeons Review, let's play, and tutorials :)
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Re: Basics Tutorials

Postby The Avatar on Sat Aug 10, 2013 7:25 am

If you are going to do tutorial vids, I highly recommend you focus above all on glyph use. From what your saying that is all you will really have (as you cut out most resources through purist, faithless, and miser), and glyph use is both essential and usually escapes the grasp of newer players. Even just the simple stuff like BURNDAYRAZ for a little regen fighting. Or Stonskin. And definitely GETINDARE. Another thing is the mid fight level up. If there ever was a tactic that helps someone a long, this is it. And it is counter intuitive enough that you wouldn't realize it.

I don't think you need to worry about being to spoilery. The fact that they've chosen to watch a tutorial vid means that they want to learn stuff without figuring it out through spoiling. So play well without getting too fancy and focus on glyphs.
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Re: Basics Tutorials

Postby JayPlaysIndieGames on Sat Aug 10, 2013 2:44 pm

Yeah I think glyph use will be the main focus naturally (it will have to be unless I want to try to throw warmonger in, and then I will have real trouble winning)
What I found during that first vid is that I keep coming across the later game glyphs (which I don't want to show off anyway) so I just convert those. However I think that first vid showed off PISORF, GETINDARE, and BURNDAYRAZ pretty well. BYCEPS made an appearance to, but honestly I'm not sure it changed much. . .
I am hoping that ENDISWAL and IMAWAL show up in subsequent vids so I can show them off to. . .
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Re: Basics Tutorials

Postby Lujo on Sat Aug 10, 2013 6:41 pm

Been thinking about it after my textwall in the original thread. What you say when listing obstacles was worrying me all the time (and I chose to ignore it originally and just post vids the way I'm comfortable).

But how DO you not post a strat and call it basics? What, in fact, are the basics? I tried listing them, but when I looked at them again they all looked sort of like "advanceds" to me. I hope someone can make a tutorial which isn't a lecture and explains the following:

First basic tennents:

1) Every character has 5 damage per level and 10 health per level, without counting in modifications.
2) Monsters are pretty much adjusted so that you can kill same level monsters with minimum modifications (powerups, items, conversions, boons)
3) Killing same level monsters is generally a bad deal, because the XP gain / resource investment involved is bad. You should focus on modifying your character and killing monsters above your level if possible.
4) To do so, you need to know how to use glyphs, items and gods - because making use of them gets your stats higher than expected for your level.
5) Leveling up boosts your health, and what you are looking for most of the time is being high enough to tank a hit from the boss. Generally, this is what determins when you can fight the boss and generally you only want to be tanky enough to survive a hit.

Second set of basic tenets:

1) Leveling up heals you to full.
2) You have first strike against most lower level monsters and more base damage from levels, so lower level monsters become easy to grab packets of XP.
3) If you level up eficcently, most monsters on the map will cost you no effort to kill once you have enough HP/MP/modifictions to start fighting the boss.
4) During the boss fight, harvest the efortless XP from low level monsters to heal up and gain more stats in the process
5) You don't want to overlevel befor fighting the boss because then your full heals from leveling will be wasted

Third set of tenents:

1) Every time you revel one square you heal 1 mana point, and 1 health point per level.
2) The monsters don't heal mana points, because they don't have mana points. They do heal health at the same rate as you do.
3) You can fight various higher level monsters if you have proper glyphs and items, because you can usually beat them at the regeneration game - sometimes it's enough to regenerate just enough to be able to tank just one more hit or use just one more spell. This is the cornerstone of efficient leveling.
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Re: Basics Tutorials

Postby JayPlaysIndieGames on Mon Aug 12, 2013 9:30 pm

Okay I've made a new tutorial vid and decided that this will be a four part series, and not cover every normal dungeon. I'm not going to make them public until I have all four done but I will put the links here for feedback for now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRQpFjMMXpE

I intend to have this one be the one people watch first as it has a lot of the basic concepts and numbers that Lujo listed above. The others will be listed with their class and the glyphs that get prominent use when I put them up

So for instance the venture cave one with be
[Link] -Thief in venture cave primarily demonstrating GETINDARE and PISSORF - also featuring some use of BYCEPS

This one however will probably be listed as
[Link] - Priest in Den of Danger explaining game basics and demonstrating WONAFYT and Popcorn Bowling

I would love feedback on these as I am not above redoing them if I left out something significant. The other two will be to the north and the west featuring the wizard and the fighter respectively. I do make mistakes and miscalculations in both videos, but I think if anything that is good for the tutorial aspect as it just shows that everything is recoverable (at least at normal difficulty).
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Re: Basics Tutorials

Postby JayPlaysIndieGames on Sun Aug 25, 2013 2:32 am

I finally finished up the 4 basics tutorials. I added them all to the wiki under a "video tutorials" link on the main page (generic enough if someone else wants to add tutorials of their own). I am still open to suggestions if anyone thinks additions or changes should be made.
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