Aren't you putting too much into that game?

[Madras]

@flap: new content sounds good, I just don*t want to lose the old concept I already love and which seems to be very different to the new design that COULD be made great! I'd love to see those 2 concepts parallel to each other in the final version, but I somehow doubt they can co-exist.

Thanks for all the input though! I am not the most active poster here, I just registered to actually show a slight concern for this game, which again means I actually love it

[michal.lewtak]

OP does not see that it's still a 10-minute session game, except now its metagame is more complex. And harder dungeons pretty much require spending 30 seconds on preparations. It's just a few more decisions after class and race, come on!

[MeVII]

Greetings:

I like complexity, so long as it is efficient, example being the entire Civilization series. So I am on the polar opposite to the comments made in the first post.

However, that being said, I understand and have the ability to empathize with my oppsites. So...
... I would put forth the idea of an extra game play option. "Quick play".
One click and your in a random dungeon with a random character.
After "x" number of times you successfully complete a dungeon things progressively start getting unlocked, and harder.
New Characters.
New Items.
New Monsters.
Ability to pick what character CLASS you start with.
Ability to pick specifically what character you start with.
Aplity to pick dungeon type (anti magic, anti physical, etc...)
and etc...
This would provide a streamlined simple self contained play style very similar to the Alpha version, thus sating the desire for simplicity for anyone who wants it.
Stats and trophies could also be awarded because everyone likes to show off.

MeVII

[pertusaria]

Hi,

As this is basically a thread on why the alpha is more attractive than the beta in some ways, a few of the things that have struck me seem to belong here.

I preferred the way you unlocked extra classes in the alpha, i.e. playing successfully as the base class. In the beta, you can unlock monk (for example) without ever succeeding as a priest, so long as you have enough money. I feel this takes away part of the reward for your actions.

I also preferred the pixellated graphics, at least in the dungeons, but I can see how better resolution helps define challenges in levels like the swamp, so it's OK because it adds to gameplay.

Cheers,
P.

[Constantine]

I chose to reply to this post instead of opening an own one since I agree with many of Madras' comments, however the intention is to comment on the Beta and offer a view suggestions from my point ob view. Comments below are in no specific order, I'll write them from the top of my head as I go along.

First of all, just as background info, I've played DD (Alpha v0.21) roughly since May this year and pre-ordered the full version in October. I managed to unlock all classes in the Alpha version and beat most of the dungeons with any classes, with few exceptions. It's been quite hard at times and I took many a good look in both the Wikipedia as well as watched numerous Youtube videos but I've had tons of fun.

Which I still have btw, because there's several features I quite like about the Beta:
- graphics
- Taxidermist, Explorer's guild make are nice enhancements
- comments are great as before, keep it up
- In-game explanations and visibility of special abilities including "what it means" is definitely an improvement

However, there's also several issues I have with the new version so I'll post them - this is quite subjective obviously, so feel free to (dis-)like or comment on them:

- Game play has lost compared to the Alpha, for example:
* having to pick up potions instead of just getting them when on the field
* double-clicking on a field to pick something up is not intuitive and can be frustrating if you don't know it for example when taking a boon from Taurog and not being able to pick up the item that's directly on the altar
* selection of dungeon/race/class/preparations takes too many clicks and is not structured well from a UI point of view
* upgrading and exchanging items -especially for the fighter- is also not intuitive and thus frustrating at the start
* as of shortly revisiting "finished" dungeons has been made even more tricky -I would even hazard to describe this as "crappy" in the current version- that takes away a major part from the original game idea, i.e. absolute ease of use
* Several icons (like the "retire" post, some altars are hard to find at first glance. There are also three icons in the "preparations" menu that look as if they're "greyed out"
* The messages from the bosses are annoying and simply in the way
* Several of the preparation items seem of little value - they're don't seem very balanced (this may however be the result of my playing style)
* I can't see many reasons to worship gods currently (but again this may be due to my playing style)

[Constantine]

To continue the last post, here are some more problems I have with the current Beta:

- Dungeons seem to be way too hard after a while. That may be the result of me being unable to fully exploit the resources available, but I'm used to overcoming hard set-ups from the Alpha and currently I see no way through several of the hard dungeons, no matter what I do.
- Several dungeons/sub-dungeons are quite annoying. I'll simply mention the various plants (Ick Swamp) that do nothing for the game experience but fill the screen and reduce the joy of playing in my opinion. This also goes against the "quick game play" idea as at least I need to play quite slow in such set-ups.
- Movement is much too limited in some dungeons (plants again, for example)

ideas/suggestions/things I'd like to see:

- a kind of "arcade" game, i.e. a random generator assigning class/race/dungeon (possibly leaving out preparations for you to choose), also "rating" how hard the current setup is (in % for example). It might be nice that you have a setup screen where you can choose what dungeons/races/classes you want to include from the start. One might even consider an optional "help" option (similar to tips in the old Wikipedia) depending on dungeon/class.
- I'm missing an updated Wikipedia or structured help posts quite a lot. Does anyone else?
- More unlocking/special items/challenges (what to do with all the money?) - these don't necessarily have to be inhumanly hard challenges, but would be meant to keep you hooked to the game.

I could go on, but I'd like to stress that I very much enjoy the game and criticism here stems from my opinion that the simplicity of the UI in the Alpha version was one of its strongest features - similar to that in "Dungeon master" many years ago if anybody still remembers that. Sometimes less is much more in the long run.

Anyway I'm done - good luck with the game and keep it going, I hope some of the comments will be helpful.

BR,
Constantine