Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Post
  • Reply
victrix
Oct 30, 2007


it's good fun with a friend, I can't imagine trying to play it with randoms

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

deep dish peat moss
Jul 27, 2006

I've been matched with a few really bad players but most of them have been fine and I'm at like 10 wins and 3 losses :shobon:

Jack Trades
Nov 30, 2010

Played some Inkbound with a friend. It's a lot more reasonable than with randoms, but I feel like playing solo is much easier overall.

Broken Cog
Dec 29, 2009

We're all friends here
First time I tried mp in Inkbound I got dragged into a challenge 20 run with a level 60+ guy, so I felt a bit useless.

Smith Comma John
Nov 21, 2007

Human being for president.
Inkbound: how do enemy “auto attacks” (arrows) work with coop? Are they random? Are there taunt skills to draw them to one player?

I’ve played a few solo runs and my spikes-hammer-guy was hilariously strong so I’m curious

deep dish peat moss
Jul 27, 2006

Enemies with arrow targeting will target whoever the last person to hit them was. Managing aggro is a big part of co-op strategy, generally if someone is playing a tanky character they'll save their mana until the other person has spent theirs so they can grab all the aggro, and it's always best to focus those targets down first.

LazyMaybe
Aug 18, 2013

oouagh
Returned to Dredmor for a spell, decided to do it on Going Rogue since I hadn't before.




:toot:

Some general notes, some of which have been said many times over:
  • A stability pass would definitely be good. In the 3-4 runs I did to get this win, I think my game crashed 5 times total.
  • Inventory space is a hassle in general, much moreso when using crafting skills-which are, in general, pretty useful skills to have. Wizard key helps with this a bit but it mostly just raises more questions. My pocket dimension looked like this near the end of that run. It has to be said, whenever I use it, I'm just interacting with a secondary inventory that is 1). functionally limitless, and 2). much slower and more awkward to use. So why doesn't the player just have a bigger inventory? Why is there an inventory size limit at all? I can say with confidence limited inventory space only made crafting and selling junk more of a hassle, it did not present any interesting decision making. All the actually useful gear and consumables that I would ever need in any combat situation easily fits within my item hotbar+inventory, and then all the useless poo poo you need to haul around to sell/craft into actually useful stuff fills up far more than the rest of your inventory could hold.
  • Related to the above, but it's a pain to find things after moving on. I had paint.net open the whole time I was playing and would paste in screenshots of shop inventories+their locations in order to find them again later if it turned out I needed something from them. I don't know how hard it would be for something like DCSS's capacity to just hit ctrl-f and search for any item name, and then have the game tell you where any items named that are located... but it would be a huge QoL change.
  • I wasn't doing a caster build this time, but on those builds, hotbar space is also an issue.
  • Caltrops that wind up on a minifridge tile can never be picked up, a bit weird
  • You get more xp/money by deliberately setting off caltrops so they split into multiple traps for you to disarm, also a bit weird
  • Traps in general probably should not be something the player can pick up. I would far rather prefer that clicking traps just destroyed them, they're not very useful and lead to so much inventory clutter
  • gently caress hungry diggles
  • The monster zoo monster counter breaks super easily, it and the music go away permanently on any level change including pocket dimension
  • When there's only a few monsters remaining from a zoo, they probably should be marked on the map
  • It would be great to be able to set animation speed separately for different things(moving, attacking, ability cast etc)
  • I am the guy who usually runs with 2-3 crafting skills and even I don't bother with the loving lutefisk

Some balance related notes:
  • axenado loving sucks
  • I think unless you really, really need the trap affinity(you don't and if you do tinkering/burgalry/perception are better), archeology is literally only worth leveling up once in order to get the "consume artifact for xp" ability. That way you can use it as a spare skill exclusively to funnel XP into the skills you actually use. The knockback ability is unreliable and the anvil reroll/refresh abilities just aren't very good, because Krong anvils don't give super good benefits and rerolling negative traits just rerolls onto other negative traits.
  • Emerald Encrusted gold rings are insanely great and are at least half the reason I even took Alchemy, so that I could get Transmutator in order to get guaranteed emeralds early. Given how easy they are to craft(only 2 forging?), I feel like the game is super underrating just how good +15 max HP actually is... I make an effort to get emeralds for at least one of these even when I don't have transmutator. I crafted 2 of these early enough that they were basically a +50% max HP boost and wore them both for essentially the whole game, by the end of which they were still a roughly +25% HP boost which is still really really good and I only took off one of them for a very high magic resist ring for Lord Dredmor exclusively.
  • ...however actually using Transmutator to get the gems you want loving sucks, it's really tedious and ought to just let you pick any gem. It effectively does anyways, just in a very grindy fashion.
  • I don't think it's worth leveling alchemy higher than 3 for transmutator or 2 if you don't want transmutator. So many super impactful potions are low level-healing, lively regeneration, clear sight(actually mega good for Dredmor), Teleportation(mega good period).
  • Lord Dredmor after the buffs he got is an absolute fucker as everyone knows already. He's oneshot me at range before, meleeing him is suicidal, if I didn't get fairly lucky with the bolt of doubt stuns I likely wouldn't have been able to kill him. Sincerely just ought to be a lot weaker, and then maybe give him the ability to summon enemies or something.

Arzaac
Jan 2, 2020


FWIW I'm pretty certain the Monster Zoo count breaking on level change is intentional; they want you to beat the zoo in one go without cheesing staircases to get the reward. Also, more than anything I feel like higher alchemy levels are good for just letting you craft more potions. If you get up to 4 alchemy, for example you now craft double the amount of lively regeneration!

But hell yeah, nice run! I've been slowly grinding away at trying to finish a Going Rogue run myself and I keep dying to stupid poo poo. Dredmor has that particular quality where so much of it is just so easy that I start sleepwalking into actually dangerous situations and get myself killed. Currently working on a Rogue Scientist run that's going pretty well, at least.

the holy poopacy
May 16, 2009

hey! check this out
Fun Shoe

LazyMaybe posted:

  • Traps in general probably should not be something the player can pick up. I would far rather prefer that clicking traps just destroyed them, they're not very useful and lead to so much inventory clutter

I'm sure the idea is that rogue types can fight enemies with traps, and there actually are a couple traps worth saving for zoos/minibosses/Dredmor, but yeah the lack of scaling makes the vast majority of traps worthless. You need whole stacks of random traps to take out mid-to-late game enemies.

LazyMaybe posted:

  • I think unless you really, really need the trap affinity(you don't and if you do tinkering/burgalry/perception are better), archeology is literally only worth leveling up once in order to get the "consume artifact for xp" ability. That way you can use it as a spare skill exclusively to funnel XP into the skills you actually use. The knockback ability is unreliable and the anvil reroll/refresh abilities just aren't very good, because Krong anvils don't give super good benefits and rerolling negative traits just rerolls onto other negative traits.

Remember Your Charlemagne is more of a utility power than a combat ability (which makes sense, since it's in a utility tree.) A ranged area knockback is great for bouncing items off of islands (which are often artifacts for extra XP) and IIRC it will open up secret walls, both of which are super handy if you don't have access to those abilities elsewhere in your build. I'd also disagree about the later artifact skills, being able to fish for specific artifact bonuses (e.g. important resists) can be a gamechanger.

Overall I agree that it's a very niche skill tree and is more of a cherry on top than something foundational to a build. It's primarily an economic boost, which is always tough to balance around. I've always appreciated Dredmor's willingness to try to thread that needle but the results are not always perfect.

LazyMaybe
Aug 18, 2013

oouagh

Arzaac posted:

FWIW I'm pretty certain the Monster Zoo count breaking on level change is intentional; they want you to beat the zoo in one go without cheesing staircases to get the reward. Also, more than anything I feel like higher alchemy levels are good for just letting you craft more potions. If you get up to 4 alchemy, for example you now craft double the amount of lively regeneration!
I feel like the game ought to communicate that monster zoo mechanic more clearly then, because I didn't even realize that leaving the level means you miss the reward! I just assumed one of the monsters from the zoo had wandered off elsewhere into the level.

And wrt higher alchemy levels, it has to be weighed against your other options because you only level up so many times. At the end of the game I'd leveled forging and tinkering high because you can get great gear from those(like my armor and the clockwork boltthrower I shot Dredmor to death with), and I'd leveled my damage skills. Wouldn't have been able to do that if I was dumping levels into alchemy, and I think getting that many potions is just sort of overkill. Especially when the final boss has such spiky damage that you don't really have time to regen while fighting him if he rolls good-having 1 or 2 clear vision potions to see and shoot him from further away is genuinely a bigger deal. And if I really wanted good renewable healing, I'd get Fleshsmithing and level it once for something stronger and more spammable than regen potions.

If there was a "potion of endure death" or whatever that took 5-6 alchemy and rare ingredients, that'd be a different story.

Arzaac posted:

But hell yeah, nice run! I've been slowly grinding away at trying to finish a Going Rogue run myself and I keep dying to stupid poo poo. Dredmor has that particular quality where so much of it is just so easy that I start sleepwalking into actually dangerous situations and get myself killed. Currently working on a Rogue Scientist run that's going pretty well, at least.
Thanks :) It definitely is like that a lot, I died on one of the runs leading up to that due to not paying attention and taking a couple steps forward into some arch diggles who dismembered my lifebar. I do think that(unless it got patched) the pro strat for killing Dredmor is actually invis'ing up to him and then stunlocking him with Viking Magic's fear spell, so maybe try that.

Arzaac
Jan 2, 2020


Conveniently I'm running Viking Magic! My current build is Archery/Artful Dodger/Rogue Scientist/Tinkering/Alchemy/Viking Magic/Magical Law. Viking Law was primarily in here to uh, survive floor 1, but if taking more levels will help with Dredmor I'll gladly do it.

Dallan Invictus
Oct 11, 2007

The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes, look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.

Farquar posted:

I hear Jupiter Hell has good controller support, if you want a sci-fi dungeon crawl.

if you somehow don't already own Jupiter Hell, it's 60% off on Steam for one more day and after getting my first two characters stupidly killed I'm already in love

I never had the reflexes for Doom and at 39 I very much don't now but this somehow still nails the feel

SKULL.GIF
Jan 20, 2017


From digging around and asking a couple questions I'm almost certain that line from the Rift Wizard 2 announcement about levels scaling to resolution just means the tiles will be resized to fill, not that you'll get larger or smaller levels. The levels in RW2 *are* bigger than RW1's by 5 tiles on each axe. Just an instance of awkward phrasing.

moot the hopple
Apr 26, 2008

dyslexic Bowie clone

LazyMaybe posted:

I feel like the game ought to communicate that monster zoo mechanic more clearly then, because I didn't even realize that leaving the level means you miss the reward! I just assumed one of the monsters from the zoo had wandered off elsewhere into the level.

One result of the way monster zoos work is that I always had to dedicate a few slots on my hotbar for AoE wands, bombs, and bolts in case I opened a door and came face to face with a monster zoo. I found myself constantly teleporting back to the pocket dimension to unload my loot, but my recent playthrough was also a full on Clockwork Knight build with Smithing, Tinkering, and Perception which procs mat drops from kills so inventory management was a huge hassle.

But yeah, monster zoos were often buggy and I would have times when the monster counter was just stuck on 1 enemy who was nowhere in sight. Sometimes it's because the enemy wandered off like you said, or they're invisible, or a 'burrowing' type that won't reveal itself until you are close. But other times the spawn is just hosed and you can either retread the area hoping it pops up or just move on to the next level without your reward :negative:

w00tmonger
Mar 9, 2011

F-F-FRIDAY NIGHT MOTHERFUCKERS

Anyone here touch world of horror at all? Looks pretty cool and has a solid (body horror) trailer

https://store.steampowered.com/app/913740/WORLD_OF_HORROR/

SKULL.GIF
Jan 20, 2017


w00tmonger posted:

Anyone here touch world of horror at all? Looks pretty cool and has a solid (body horror) trailer

https://store.steampowered.com/app/913740/WORLD_OF_HORROR/

A+ horror vibes, gameplay can be repetitive especially at the start before you've unlocked a lot of the extra content (much of which is gated behind bizarre requirements you're unlikely to easily stumble across). Worth buying, good for several weekends, don't expect 500+ hours out of it like Qud or Cogmind.

Snooze Cruise
Feb 16, 2013

hey look,
a post

w00tmonger posted:

Anyone here touch world of horror at all? Looks pretty cool and has a solid (body horror) trailer

https://store.steampowered.com/app/913740/WORLD_OF_HORROR/

1. do you like j horror? play world of horror
2. are you fine with something that is just primary atmosphere where the gameplay is unimpressive simplistic board game mechanics? play world of horror

Pladdicus
Aug 13, 2010

it's a beautiful game that could have used a much better design. there's something so cool there lost under it's extremely unsatisfying loop that discourages exploration and experimentation, which is mostly fine because most of the content is kind of shallow.

SKULL.GIF
Jan 20, 2017


Speaking of unsatisfying, the Lighthouse suuucks. It's a rather anticlimactic finale for most runs.

Snooze Cruise
Feb 16, 2013

hey look,
a post
the bit with the mask guy is pretty flavorful but yeah the rest of the lighthouse just... feels like events you would see in the rest of the game

LifeLynx
Feb 27, 2001

Dang so this is like looking over his shoulder in real-time
Grimey Drawer
I downloaded Dawncaster and after a few runs I started to notice that if I identify a synergy early and lean into it, there's nothing stopping me from one-turn-killing every enemy including the final boss. Bizarrely the first level is the only major roadblock, because the spider enemies inflict a debuff that limits the number of cards you can play in a turn. Past that first area, enemies only have better combinations of health, armor, damage prevention, and so on that are all meaningless against the combos that are easy to pull off. If it had a minimum deck size along the lines of Vault of the Void, fewer ways to make spells free, more punishment for deck looping (or just loop prevention like cards "staying in play" until a cleanup phase), and more player defense choices it'd be much more balanced. The last run I did today I was feeling frustrated not getting the talents I wanted, so I took a break and came back. Then I noticed that I wasn't getting frustrated because I was losing, it was because I wasn't overkilling enemies by as much as my previous run. I'm going to try on harder difficulties to see if that changes anything.

Libra
Jan 5, 2011

I felt really let down by World of Horror because on the surface it looks like it was tailor made for me, but upon actually digging into it the game is disappointingly shallow.
It's like all the ingredients are there, you really wouldn't have to change much at all to make it a perfect little game imo, and that just makes it all the more disappointing.

Still absolutely worth playing if it looks like your kind of thing, and of course I'm gonna support an indie dev who just wants to make a stylish game where a hosed-up Junji Ito monster does bad stuff to your face/teeth. That's an admirable vision and it should be rewarded.

Jack Trades
Nov 30, 2010

World of Horror is definitely amazing style, but little substance.

Turin Turambar
Jun 5, 2011



Pladdicus posted:

it's a beautiful game that could have used a much better design. there's something so cool there lost under it's extremely unsatisfying loop that discourages exploration and experimentation, which is mostly fine because most of the content is kind of shallow.

I have read similar, i have the feeling there was more hype about it when it was a project with a cool trailer than a real full game that is to be played.



I heard good things about Slay the Princess?

Pladdicus
Aug 13, 2010

Turin Turambar posted:

I have read similar, i have the feeling there was more hype about it when it was a project with a cool trailer than a real full game that is to be played.



I heard good things about Slay the Princess?

i am comfortable saying this:

slay the princess is not a roguelike, but do play it.

Snooze Cruise
Feb 16, 2013

hey look,
a post
slay the princess is really good but its a funny thing to bring up in this context because it has even less going on mechanically lmao.
but as a vn enjoyer i liked it~

Coolness Averted
Feb 20, 2007

oh don't worry, I can't smell asparagus piss, it's in my DNA

GO HOGG WILD!
🐗🐗🐗🐗🐗

Snooze Cruise posted:

slay the princess is really good but its a funny thing to bring up in this context because it has even less going on mechanically lmao.
but as a vn enjoyer i liked it~

Yeah I was sold on some of the story pitch, but I'm not a big VN fan so skipped Slay the Princess. I need the game to at least trick me into thinking it has more mechanics like Long Live the Queen did, even though in practice it was just a VN with an old adventure game level of game-overs.

victrix
Oct 30, 2007


Coolness Averted posted:

Yeah I was sold on some of the story pitch, but I'm not a big VN fan so skipped Slay the Princess. I need the game to at least trick me into thinking it has more mechanics like Long Live the Queen did, even though in practice it was just a VN with an old adventure game level of game-overs.

May I direct you towards 13 Sentinels

Sloppy
Apr 25, 2003

Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere.

Wow, Astronarch rules. I won on my first try which seems weird for anything in this thread but assume it was luck or game design before it ramps up. Just want to thank all of you that recommend cool poo poo I'd never find otherwise.

Captain Foo
May 11, 2004

we vibin'
we slidin'
we breathin'
we dyin'

Sloppy posted:

Wow, Astronarch rules. I won on my first try which seems weird for anything in this thread but assume it was luck or game design before it ramps up. Just want to thank all of you that recommend cool poo poo I'd never find otherwise.

It kicks rear end, friend

Coolness Averted
Feb 20, 2007

oh don't worry, I can't smell asparagus piss, it's in my DNA

GO HOGG WILD!
🐗🐗🐗🐗🐗
Inkbound is really fun solo at least. I always love games that let you doubledown on silly gimmicks like spikes and thorn damage and there's so many cool augments and vestiges that have synergy with that build.

w00tmonger
Mar 9, 2011

F-F-FRIDAY NIGHT MOTHERFUCKERS

Astronarch looks awesome, and I'd absolutely play it if I could grab it on my phone

Chaotic Flame
Jun 1, 2009

So...


Did Astral Ascent ever come up in here? It's releasing on Switch soon and looks really pretty but not sure if I should just stick to Dead Cells lol

LordSloth
Mar 7, 2008

Disgruntled (IT) Employee

Chaotic Flame posted:

Did Astral Ascent ever come up in here? It's releasing on Switch soon and looks really pretty but not sure if I should just stick to Dead Cells lol

I believe it did. At a glance wasn’t to my interest (subgenre, reflexes), so I’ll let someone else chime in or do a thread search tomorrow and link to a post.

I will quote something from reddit in response to someone asking about bad reviews that seems particularly relevant , about two and a half months ago

reddit posted:

Like someone else said, this is not the best place to ask, most of us are here because we like the game, but I will say that most of the reviews you saw were probably about something that is no longer in the game. The ascension/heat system was overhauled in a semi recent update, which both fleshed it out significantly, and made it not poo poo. The old ascension system sucked, and personally drove me away from the game, because the first level of it added mechanics that forced you to constantly disengage from enemies, meaning you couldn't do any of the cool stuff that made the game feel good to play. The new system is much better, and the difficulty add to the depth of the game instead of taking away from it.

Turin Turambar
Jun 5, 2011



Chaotic Flame posted:

Did Astral Ascent ever come up in here? It's releasing on Switch soon and looks really pretty but not sure if I should just stick to Dead Cells lol

I'm interested in it, but most of the times I prefer to wait until the EA period is over, like in this case.

Foul Fowl
Sep 12, 2008

Uuuuh! Seek ye me?

Sloppy posted:

Wow, Astronarch rules. I won on my first try which seems weird for anything in this thread but assume it was luck or game design before it ramps up. Just want to thank all of you that recommend cool poo poo I'd never find otherwise.

the game rocks. it gets pretty hosed up at higher corruption levels but you also figure out ways to break the game over your knee so it kind of balances out.

malnourish
Jun 16, 2023

LifeLynx posted:

I downloaded Dawncaster and after a few runs I started to notice that if I identify a synergy early and lean into it, there's nothing stopping me from one-turn-killing every enemy including the final boss. Bizarrely the first level is the only major roadblock, because the spider enemies inflict a debuff that limits the number of cards you can play in a turn. Past that first area, enemies only have better combinations of health, armor, damage prevention, and so on that are all meaningless against the combos that are easy to pull off. If it had a minimum deck size along the lines of Vault of the Void, fewer ways to make spells free, more punishment for deck looping (or just loop prevention like cards "staying in play" until a cleanup phase), and more player defense choices it'd be much more balanced. The last run I did today I was feeling frustrated not getting the talents I wanted, so I took a break and came back. Then I noticed that I wasn't getting frustrated because I was losing, it was because I wasn't overkilling enemies by as much as my previous run. I'm going to try on harder difficulties to see if that changes anything.

Agreed. Even on higher difficulties. There are a couple unfun enemies but in general the game gives a lot of tools that ultimately don't hold up to one of the few basic strategies of "loop deck" or "spam broken basic attacks".

I've played a LOT of that game, before any expansions were even out. And I go back to it now and then, but it's too one note, despite the consistent development.

Really, I just want a Slice & Dice update.

LifeLynx
Feb 27, 2001

Dang so this is like looking over his shoulder in real-time
Grimey Drawer

malnourish posted:

Agreed. Even on higher difficulties. There are a couple unfun enemies but in general the game gives a lot of tools that ultimately don't hold up to one of the few basic strategies of "loop deck" or "spam broken basic attacks".

I've played a LOT of that game, before any expansions were even out. And I go back to it now and then, but it's too one note, despite the consistent development.

Really, I just want a Slice & Dice update.

I'm not going to buy any of the expansions unless they go on sale for $1 each. More content would get me some more timewasting on it. Sometimes I like a game that's almost a guaranteed win once I get past a certain speedbumb, you know? Like the good zen states I got into when having a really broken Binding of Isaac run. But it's over $20 for all the expansions when it doesn't sound like I'd get a lot out of it other than different monster sprites. I think the player cards are always free?

Seconded on the Slice & Dice update. I think it's been a year since any updates and the dev is constantly posting teasers, but they sometimes seem more like things they're playing around with than things that will actually be in the game. I know it's goon-made. I don't want to insult the dev, it's actually in my top three mobile games of all time, I just want more!

deep dish peat moss
Jul 27, 2006

After cutting my teeth on Inkbound in co-op and clearing a few rank 20 deep dives, I started doing some solo runs and holy poo poo, this game is so much easier solo that it feels like a different game.

You can kill things in one turn without any damage upgrades. You can effectively prevent yourself from taking most damage by killing enemies before they act. After adjusting for the more demanding co-op and learning how to put together broken builds the solo runs are almost too easy to be fun. There aren't any tense moments or difficult decisions to make, it's just do a rotation to wipe everything out then repeat.

The co-op community seems pretty chill, lots of high level players giving friendly advice, no one raging, and most players I've got matched with have been good enough to win. Overall it has been a great experience.

deep dish peat moss fucked around with this message at 17:08 on Nov 2, 2023

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Broken Cog
Dec 29, 2009

We're all friends here
Yeah, I'm almost at challenge rank 20 (solo) in Inkbound now (and have also done a couple of rank 20 runs in multiplayer, but it only increments the challenge rank one at a time?), and the game is definitely on the easy side.
The only reason I'm running into problems occasionally is because I'm trying some weird build that's required for some quest or achievement.

Like Monster Train, it's not really all that tightly balanced. There's a ton of broken synergies, and you can often win on numbers alone.

Edit: I'd honestly say multiplayer is easier than singleplayer though, at least if you communicate.

Broken Cog fucked around with this message at 17:19 on Nov 2, 2023

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply