My suggestions

Aurophobia

Halloweed
No aurophobia I'm giving it a 5.5-6 as what reviewers will rank it when its got everything currently envisioned for the game put in.

Obviously not in its current state.
You should charge people for your abilities in clairvoyance. Reviews and Metacritic are for chumps anyway.
 

Aurophobia

Halloweed
I think this thread should be just killed off, because it certainly isn't trying to help development.
Only vibe it's giving off is, "Change or This Game Sucks."
 

Jason

Green Slime
Ark626

Called an educated guess based on the content in the game, the obvious reference sources they drew inspiration from and my vast experience.

Reviews and Metacritic are for chumps anyway.

Lets see,

Some people will buy a game with a pre-order
Most won't if it doesn't include some bonus for doing so
Most of those who do pre-order do so off of word of mouth or a sales team selling the game to them

Everyone else will be biased off of a review or score for purchasing the game

So the vast majority of the consumer base will be purchasing the game based off of what others say.

Reviews sell games... Good games, innovative games, sell well.

Show me one game that wasn't marketed that sold well.

But then given the consistent quality of your responses I'm not going to bother with you anymore.

Wish this forum had ignore options
 

Hobo

Rabby
No it wasn't, it was talked about not advertised, people wrote reviews with their own personal interests of jumping on "whats hot", word of mouth isn't marketing either, not a single penny was spent by notch to advertise his game.

It wasn't marketed, I think you need a dictionary my friend.
 

Renegade

Green Slime
I don't like the idea of guaranteed drops. It makes the system pointless - you might as well just write a quest that says "kill 20 boss monsters for this cool thing". Yeah, the smart RNG system still gives a chance that you'll get the item earlier, but unless it drops first try, you kind of end up knowing that you just need to do Z for X times, and you've got your item.

A system where rare items are actually rare, where there's a chance you'll never even see some of the items in the game, makes drops feel like they're worth more, IMO. If any chances were made to the drop system, I'd prefer a simple increase to drop rates across the board so that it was statistically more likely you'd get the drops.

Also, I would like to see a source for the claim that an iRNG is more addictive than a typical RNG, because I don't think it's true.

For the other suggestions:
  • I hate the idea of a stamina bar, I really hope this isn't added.
  • Movement speed feels fine to me so far.
  • I don't agree that chain lightning needs a buff, though I've not used it enough to know how it scales at higher levels. If you hit three or four enemies with it at the lowest tier and deal 35ish damage to each one, that seems like it's proportional to the damage you can do to a single enemy with one, single target skill at the same rank.
  • I like the arcade mode minimap, if it doesn't exist in story mode yet then I hope it's added.
  • Player indicators would definitely be useful.
  • Numbers for spells and skills would be great too. It would also help with balancing.
  • I like arcade mode how it is, where each run is a new start. But, that will depend how many floors there end up being, I could see a headstart option becoming more meaningful if there were 5,000 floors. I would enjoy some incentive to save money from a run, such as town items that cost $$$$$ to upgrade, which would mean there was more of a decision to make about what to spend coins on during the run.
  • Haste and Protect didn't feel worthwhile to me, but I've only used them at very low levels. I don't think they're currently strong enough for a support class to be a useful role right now.
  • I like mindless stupidity, it makes me laugh. There wasn't much of it in this thread though.
 

Jason

Green Slime
More things

Arcade mode

You need to do something to make it easier to distinguish multiple players from each other on the screen.

* Attacks damage can start adding up some noise on the enemy the numbers can make it unclear as to what is happening near them

* Life bars for other players, add a display that shows other players life bars and damage popups over them when they take hits

* Allow player ghosts some minimal attack, something like slowing down enemies, holding them, stealing life to respawn, or something


Would be nice to have at least two other arcade modes

* Endless mode - one big room where the enemies just spawn in waves... As you get up on waves they spawn from more sources, etc etc... just enough time between waves to quickly level

* Boss crush mode - +1 level per boss room cleared

Then first room the bandits, next room a pair of boss bandits, then swarm rooms of elite monsters, slime boss, double slime boss, triple slime boss, phaseman, quad phase man, etc

* Cards need some reworks for the arena

For instance the flower card (IIRC) gives +% increase from health orbs, very mildly useful when you get one per floor, would be better working as you recover 1-2% of your health per room cleared
 
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Vilya

Developer
Staff member
Please be nice to each other guys, or I'll have to go 'scary evil boss' on you :(

I want to encourage discussion, but try to keep the tone friendly. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, and it goes both ways. Jason might feel a lot of changes are needed, and other people may think such changes would make the game worse. It's good for us to see both sides. Just try to stay nice and constructive, alright?
 

Teddy

Developer
Staff member
No aurophobia I'm giving it a 5.5-6 as what reviewers will rank it when its got everything currently envisioned for the game put in.

Obviously not in its current state.

If you feel this game is a 5.5-6 in its final state, then this game is obviously not for you, nor will it ever be. Your estimates are interesting as well. I'm itching to know what your "vast experience" consists of.

A lot of people are enjoying the game, including people who are in the position to do these reviews you're talking about, so to change design direction based off one persons opinion doesn't make sense at this point!
 
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Jason

Green Slime
Hobo

The most effective marketing is one done by others for you, it isn't by definition or necessity done by the person selling the product.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/marketing

In fact until the 90's the most common commercial was a format where the viewer was "eavesdropping" on another party who was praising said product.

Minecraft simply had a product that was good enough that people started talking about it and marketing it for them.

Myself? I never got that into it (much to the chagrin of my friends). Same thing with Portal (to my brothers everlasting disappointment in me I might add).


Teddy


I'm not saying I don't enjoy the game, I've said that several times now that I don't dislike it. I'm saying that with how the game is going it will be reviewed as fair. I have said, and continue to say, that the game could be polished into something great.

I'll clarify my pros and cons at the bottom of this topic.

I realize that this is "your baby" and you understandably love it as such; however, I will state again I am not attacking it. I don't dislike it, I've sunk some time into it. It has promise, I realize its an unfinished product, half the skills are not implemented, and tons of the game isn't in yet.

If I did dislike the game I wouldn't bother to spend any time posting on the forums about it I'd simply move onto something else. I only care because I fondly remember secret of mana, secret of evermore (ok not as much as SOM) and the others of that vein.

Try not to read into what I say with a negative spin, it is simply some constructive feedback for the game, and trust me, 99.9% of the triple A games could have used some. Looking at my steam time I've clocked more hours in this than most of the ones in my library.

This is a suggestions forum, not a I'm holding a gun to your heads make the changes forum. These are suggestions, things I feel could help the game.

I would also suggest that you read all previous posts before quoting one. As far as "toxic dude" goes, their is one troll on your forums, he clearly posted a trolling message which was reported and nothing was done to his posts after almost a week of waiting, so I respond to his kind in kind.

Very rarely does any indy game hit an eight or nine. And when they do it is for some genre changing innovation. Most indy games hit the 6 mark.

My vast experience? I'm an old school gamer, you name it I've more than likely given it a go.

As far as any influence I might have on the gamer world, I'll leave that up to your imagination :p

Now forgive me if I'm wrong, and I do hope that I am,

but from the size of the world map the current game is roughly 1/3rd of the complete game. It looks like we will have 3 more dungeons with one unlock being a nature grow plants into ladders, one unlock being a swim or jump small gaps, and one I don't have a clue about yet.

Then one can assume a final dungeon, and maybe (hopefully) a secret dungeon (or two, three? FOUR!?).

Which would give a single run casual gamer roughly 7-10 hours of game play. Pretty standard.

Monsters are being colour pallet swapped already, but thankfully they get new abilities as they put on their war paint.

Skills are basically in the game with passives left to come,

So that aforementioned and promised pros / cons list?

Pros
Secret of mana esq
Battle system
Art design / Monster design (really fits the retro style of the game well)
General look and feel of the game

Cons
Games in beta
Content isn't all in yet
Will appeal to a niche old school market (and hey Disgaea did it, and I love that series)
Multiplayer - In that it is limited by IP who you can play with making it more difficult to others (granted I do tend to find that non-friends in games are usually not those whom I enjoy playing with so maybe this is more of a pro)

Neutral

Story
Menu's (its my fault but I tend to hit the X instead of Z at times or vice versa or whatever)

Well ok I'm not going to get too into them because of the stage of development it is at. But basically the only cons for the game are ones that are being worked out.

The suggestions I have are polish.
 

Rajunah

Green Slime
The idea of RNG could be very good or very bad, that will depend on how it could be applied.... Personally i find it a very good idea, but it shounl'd boost the dropping rate TOO much, because if does it would become ridiculous. Definitely support the RNG idea, just on how to implement is that could be a problem.

Skills: Sure it needs to be balance, every skill needs to be useful somehow....i think its just too early to expect a fully balanced skills at this point. But nice point btw.

PS: sry about my eng, not my main.
 

Ill-Logic

Green Slime
Hi,

first of all I want to thank you for this great game!

I really like the style and gameplay so far.

But some things I would like to see in this game.

- Maybe a faster movement speed (or sprint butto) like in Secret of Mana.
- Chargeable normal strike like in SoM too (eventually craftable better version of some weapons wich allow to charge).
- Some really heavy hidden boss enemys like the Weapons in Final Fantasy 7.
- Maybe pet lvl up throug EXP.
- A tier skill system wich allow only to upgrade better skills if u have the required lowe skills.
- More charakter indivisualisation with attributes like strength, intelligence, dexterity on lvl up's...
- A map editor would be great, so the comunity could make own maps and quests, wich are download and rateable in ingame menu.
- On rare items like cards a better or intelligent droprate. i understand that this items are rare and shouldn't drop too easy, but grinding over 1 hour without sucess is really bad :(

If that is not in your mind is fine too, because i really love this game!

Sorry for my bad english :D

BTW: If you need somebody who help translate the game to german language, feel free to contact me...
 
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KoBeWi

Jumpkin
As for the grinding, I came up with 3 ideas:

IDEA 1: Luck
Additional stat that affects the drop rate. It increases with levels and is given by some items. Drop rates scales with progress, so in further areas, items are rarer to get, but with luck, it keeps the level. But you can later return to previous areas and the loot you missed is easier to get (and probably useless, except cards). People who love grinding, will play with better gear and the frustrated ones will get the items later.

IDEA 2: Optional iRNG
The idea is that in Normal Mode you have iRNG mentioned by Jason, but in Hard Mode, you have standard RNG. Well, that's it.

IDEA 3: Modifications to iRNG
There are two possibilities:

#1
The worst thing about such intelligent RNG is that it kills grinding by giving 100% chance to get item. Easiest way to fix it is to cap the max %, so it can go up only to 25% or 10%.

#2
One of best solutions is to use iRNG for elite monster spawn. Let's say elite has normally 1/400 chance to spawn as elite. Then if you kill him enough times, iRNG will make 100% chance to spawn an elite monster which means your chance to get rare loot is higher. No grinding destroyed and more elite monsters - everyone is happy.
 

Pok

Rabby
The more I play this game, the more I lust for not killing the same monster 300 times in order to obtain a card.
 

Schattenphoenix

Green Slime
Starting from the top... This will be a TL DR for most of you...
- Drop rates - For the love of god, be the first game to ever use an intelligent RNG + system.

First time its 1/100 odds to drop something, if that doesn't happen, next time is 1/50 odds, if it still doesn't happen 3/100 odds... So that each subsequent monster kill makes it more likely that they will drop the item (card or whatever). When that item drops it resets to the default

So if a monster had 3 drops
1/5 Carrot
1/100 Rabbit foot
1/250 Card

You would never go more than 5 kills without having a carrot drop, never more than 100 without a rabbits foot, and never more than 250 without the card dropping... Realistically you would hit a point where the odds would tip into your favour. Still lots of grinding? Yup... Even with terrible base odds at least you feel that you are achieving something with every kill, instead of rolling a die every time.

Amazes me that no such system has been put into any game (TTBOMK) yet...

A similar system is used in a few games tbh.
Especially some games in the e-sports sector like for example league of legends. Its used in the crit mechanism where the crit rate accumulates in some way to prevent it from being TO random.
 

ragnarokio

Green Slime
RNG
WoW leverages drop chances in raids based on previous failures, I believe, and you might also be less likely to receive loot from bosses that has already been dropped from you before. As phoenix said, LoL also uses a weighted algorithm for determining crits. Lots of games use similar systems, I assume. I enjoy being frustrated by something never dropping. Its the thrill of the grind. Not for everyone, obviously not for you. I enjoy the thought that after an hour of grinding and not having a card drop, that I'm no closer to getting it than I started, but I haven't enough perspective to say that a system that contradicted that idea wouldn't be more popular to the wider playerbase.

Arcade
I'm a huge fan of the arcade right now. I don't like the idea of carrying over progress from one run to another in the way you described. The fact that each run is pretty much a fresh experience is one of the big appeals. There's also the issue that experience carryover would invalidate a lot of gameplay mistakes and choices on earlier floors. It would just become sunk time while waiting for the enemies to catch up to your level.

As for multiplayer, I do feel like it is hard to keep track of things a lot of time. Any visual changes that could remedy that would be much appreciated. Ghosts being able to do something while dead would probably improve gameplay.

If you want my opinions on any of your other suggestions I'm always game for debating such things.
 

Ill-Logic

Green Slime
Another solutions would be to make the droprate depend on kill count <100 kills of one enemy regular dropchance
>100 kill -> chance*1,5
>250 kills -> chance*3
>500 kills ->chance* 5
>1000 chance*10
so if the regular droprate would be 0,5% and after 1000 kills 5%...

Still hard to get, but at least a bit easier.

Or for the cards, kill 100 enemys get 1 bronze card +2%HP
250 silver +4% HP
500 gold +7% HP
1000 platin +10% HP
 
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