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Broken Cog posted: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. Yeah, it's definitely pretty easy on both modes (a large majority of my runs have been wins) but the difference in enemy HP alone between solo and 2-player is huge. In co-op you do tiny chip damage to most enemies unless you stack debuffs and use all your skills to appropriately set up combos, or just have an excellent build. In Solo you can play Godslayer and throw spear -> whirlwind to instakill everything every turn right from the start 
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Nov 2, 2023 18:28
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| # ? May 27, 2024 04:18 |
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Broken Cog posted:
To be honest that's what I liked about monster train over slay the spire. I always found it fun that I could take a relatively weak monster and permanently upgrade it into a WMD, or put hold over on a healing spell to indefinitely rejuvenate an awoken unit. It always felt like I could intentionally break the game with some kind of synergy I cooked up. Meanwhile in slay the spire, I never got the feeling I was creating synergies or card engines and more so just scrounging together whatever crumbs the game gave me. Not to mention that in monster Train it's more feasible to save yourself when you're in a vulnerable low health state after a hard fight, because enemies aren't going to be able to immediately attack your pyre, giving you an opportunity to scrape by if you play it right. In slay the spire It would just piss me off if I lost a lot of health in one fight, and then I would go to the next without any opportunity to heal, and then because of my first hand draw its mathematically impossible for me to defend myself and the run ends. I'm sure that for others in the thread that's what is appealing to them about slay the spire- improvising and making do with what's offered to you, and the importance of damage aversion to set yourself up better for the next fight. For me though, it's just not a satisfying level of control over the circumstances and my strategy.
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Nov 2, 2023 18:31
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My Solo vs Multiplayer Inkbound experience is me picking Obelisk and doing my 3 in the first encounter and in Solo, that takes off like 50% health, and in MP it's like a gentle caress across their healthbars.
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Nov 2, 2023 18:33
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I beat the tower of miracles in Shiren 5, but I'm not sure what to do next. There's lots of other dungeons with different rules, are there some I should do before others? And it it's one I can't bring equipment into, what happens to my current equipment? I don't want to lose my upgraded weapon and shield and stuff.
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Nov 2, 2023 20:35
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Do any that you wish. Primordial Chasm is best though. Just a standard no items fresh lv1 roguelike setup. I think that’s Primordial Chasm, iirc.
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Nov 2, 2023 20:42
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A Strange Aeon posted:I beat the tower of miracles in Shiren 5, but I'm not sure what to do next. There's lots of other dungeons with different rules, are there some I should do before others? There should be 10 or so other dungeons that can be unlocked around the world - they might require talking to npcs around town, or taking specific companions to the top of the tower of miracles. (Guide here). Those will be the ones I’d recommend going for first, since they’ll have more interesting gimmicks and (a tiny bit of) story. The dungeon house has all the bonus dungeons that were added as free dlc back in the ds and vita release, so there’s tons of content but less bespoke rule changes. If you’re looking for specific recommendations, Onigiri hollow is a good postgame dungeon to get your feet wet with, since it’s short and the gimmick is novel but straightforward to play around. Pitfall of life is also much less punishing than you might assume. For harder dungeons, Primordial Chasm and Bizzare Tower are my favorites. Primordial for being just pure Shiren with no gimmicks, and Bizzare Tower because I like the gimmick with needing to cycle through all the different rules. Anything you’re carrying with you is lost when you enter a no-item dungeon (I believe you’ll get a popup warning you about it) so make sure to leave your good gear in the storehouse.
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Nov 2, 2023 20:55
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LordSloth posted: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. Thanks for this!
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Nov 2, 2023 22:49
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Astral Ascent discussion Jan 2, 2023 https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?noseen=1&threadid=3563643&pagenumber=1278&perpage=40&highlight=Astral+Ascent#post528811560 Astral Ascent bare mention https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?noseen=1&threadid=3563643&pagenumber=1173&perpage=40&highlight=Astral+Ascent#post522767949 So, it sort of seems like I imagined/confused it with a similar title - barely any discussion here. I only get ten direct mentions, not counting responses to another post where it was named. I swear I recall hearing more about the game, but I'm not even finding hits on it during the demo fest, so I'm at a loss whether I'm using the search wrong, it just wasn't discussed, or I'm confusing it with another title. Edit: I think my brain conflated Astral Ascent with Spiritfall, which is, according to steam, also an action roguelite platformer, with an extremely conceptually similar name. As the meme goes, you can show me (a very slow and turn-based guy) a picture of both, and I'd go "you're holding up the same picture" LordSloth fucked around with this message at 05:09 on Nov 3, 2023 |
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Nov 3, 2023 05:00
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Rift Wizard: good The part where half my deaths past floor 5 are from me just not paying attention: bad The part where the other half are all from weird interactions that just make me laugh in hindsight: good, actually
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Nov 3, 2023 05:37
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metasynthetic posted:Rift Wizard: good Yeah most of my deaths are very much just not noticing I'm at 14 health on autopilot
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Nov 3, 2023 05:38
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Astral Ascent is good, as of recollections of at least 2 major updates on back---so it stands to reason they've found their footing and the launch in like 10 days or some such which is also supposed to be A Large Update should go well and make a splash once the bigger YT and Twitch folks start in on it proper to better get the word out. First mini-update for Triangle Wizard 2, which is good as there was always that small chance the dev would just vanish into smoke again given the vast sums of time and how much of a surprise all is and has been throughout: https://www.trianglewizard.com/post/new-triangle-wizard-2-version-v1-1 quote:he first update to the new game
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Nov 3, 2023 13:24
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Only a small list of changes, but I wanted to fix the talent bug as soon as possible. You should be able to update by just overwriting the old version with the new one; all persistent player data is stored in the .tw2 files found in the game's root folder.
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Now that Tales and Tactics has actual difficult modes wow the balance is bad. Does their data collection really show that skeleton and dwelling are adequate traits?
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Nov 3, 2023 15:17
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No Wave posted:Now that Tales and Tactics has actual difficult modes wow the balance is bad. Does their data collection really show that skeleton and dwelling are adequate traits? Dwelling does suck big time. I'm not a big fan of progressing into bug either. Have you gotten any good use from the bonus traits?
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Nov 3, 2023 16:14
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w00tmonger posted:Yeah most of my deaths are very much just not noticing I'm at 14 health on autopilot I wish Rift Wizard had a thing like Crawl does that flashes the screen and has me confirm to continue when I hit a certain health threshold.
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Nov 3, 2023 17:34
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Cyber Sandwich posted:Dwelling does suck big time. I'm not a big fan of progressing into bug either. Have you gotten any good use from the bonus traits? 
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Nov 3, 2023 18:29
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In the land of Updates, Smash Dungeon got a fairly potent one after a fair while now to v1.1.0 https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1144130/view/5708933803231137485 quote:Along with the obvious bug fixes and minor QoL improvements a number of BIG new features have come in v1.1.0 and these mainly revolve around improving meta progression. Here's a list of the most notable ones. But New Releases outright at last brings another Attempter of that beloved Shop & Dungeon gestalt: Delicious Dungeon https://store.steampowered.com/app/2072360/Delicious_Dungeon/ quote:Delicious Dungeon is a combination of action-adventure and simulation game. The player is the owner of a local restaurant in a fantasy world. But to run the restaurant they have to explore dungeons full of dangers and enemies to get the ingredients needed to cook delicious meals for their guests.
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Nov 4, 2023 01:37
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Jack Trades posted:and in MP it's like a gentle caress across their healthbars. There's only a word filter when you're logged out, "it's like a gently caress across their healthbars" is fine.
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Nov 4, 2023 04:14
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No Wave posted:I haven't tried hard enough to actually take advantage of them. I'm probably going to stop playing because you just get trolled for not going tank + a ranged carry which was fine when the game was giga easy but now it's just aggravating. Here's a board that can't beat the first boss. I played the demo of this game because I love Vivid Knight and wanted another game like it, but it just made me want to play Vivid Knight instead.
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Nov 4, 2023 06:56
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Kanos posted:I played the demo of this game because I love Vivid Knight and wanted another game like it, but it just made me want to play Vivid Knight instead. I would kill for a Vivid Knight sequel. Hands down the best single player autobattler. There are other autobattlers I like (Yi Xian, Mechabellum) but they are MP focused and not as cute.
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Nov 4, 2023 07:06
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Snooze Cruise posted:I would kill for a Vivid Knight sequel. Hands down the best single player autobattler. There are other autobattlers I like (Yi Xian, Mechabellum) but they are MP focused and not as cute. Good news! https://store.steampowered.com/app/2468550/Vivid_World/
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Nov 4, 2023 07:12
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oh poo poo! ok i won't murder anyone now. hmm i think i like it more when all the units were shiny like candy but the new look will probably grow on me. i like the new protag running around with a suitcase.
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Nov 4, 2023 07:24
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I beat cryptark rogue mode! Party Bug’s old LP was a great guide on how to play effectively. Very satisfying.
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Nov 4, 2023 14:07
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Finally tried Into the Breach. God this game pisses me off. Super fun combat system with tons of interactions but it's a mental torture simulator because players don't deserve to restart turns more than once per battle and don't deserve to restart battles period. Three hour run thrown away because you get tired of mentally mapping out every single move, and this is literally how you will lose all of your runs. I hope more devs rip off the copious good parts of this game.
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Nov 4, 2023 18:26
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Vivid Knight is a lot of fun and I'm glad it's getting a sequel.
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Nov 4, 2023 18:43
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No Wave posted:Finally tried Into the Breach. God this game pisses me off. Super fun combat system with tons of interactions but it's a mental torture simulator because players don't deserve to restart turns more than once per battle and don't deserve to restart battles period. Three hour run thrown away because you get tired of mentally mapping out every single move, and this is literally how you will lose all of your runs. I hope more devs rip off the copious good parts of this game. I loved ITB (65 hours) but yeah this is what happens when you pare a game down to its absolute bare essentials and have 0 fluff or wiggle room on it.
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Nov 4, 2023 18:47
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SKULL.GIF posted:I loved ITB (65 hours) but yeah this is what happens when you pare a game down to its absolute bare essentials and have 0 fluff or wiggle room on it.
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Nov 4, 2023 18:54
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ITB is the game that made me dislike fully deterministic combat. With no sense of ambiguity or uncertainty and such strict restrictions on reacting to things in specific ways it feels like my actions never matter, in the most reductive terms it's like playing a game of Simon. All I'm doing is pressing the corresponding buttons in the order the game showed me to press them in. I disliked it for the same reasons I dislike forced tutorials that make you do things in pre-planned orders - I'm not here to click buttons while a game plays itself, I want to be the one deciding what to do damnit. E: this is probably why I like random co-op in Inkbound more than playing solo too. Adding in the uncertainty of what my teammate is going to do is what makes it challenging and unique every run! deep dish peat moss fucked around with this message at 19:19 on Nov 4, 2023 |
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Nov 4, 2023 18:59
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We live in a deterministic universe. Do any of our actions really matter?
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Nov 4, 2023 19:00
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I'm not even sure of the point of save-scumming ITB. There's hardly any  like stuff happening, so it's just giving yourself God Mode. As in maintaining your concentration without making mistakes is the difficulty of the game, and save-scumming completely removes it.
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Nov 4, 2023 19:02
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Quixzlizx posted:I'm not even sure of the point of save-scumming ITB. There's hardly any
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Nov 4, 2023 19:05
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No Wave posted:How is that possibly fun? I thought it was a game where you solved puzzles turn by turn and did your best given the random situations the game put you in. I see savescumming as LESS abusive than in games like xcom because redoing RNG rolls is actual god mode. I'm not sure what you mean, we're just saying the same thing differently. Edit: I didn't even know you could save-scum StS, unless you meant restarting the seed from the beginning. Quixzlizx fucked around with this message at 19:17 on Nov 4, 2023 |
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Nov 4, 2023 19:06
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hell yes thank you for informing me of this
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Nov 4, 2023 19:15
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deep dish peat moss posted:ITB is the game that made me dislike fully deterministic combat. With no sense of ambiguity or uncertainty and such strict restrictions on reacting to things in specific ways it feels like my actions never matter, in the most reductive terms it's like playing a game of Simon. This is something I've been thinking about... I feel like my favorite roguelikes incorporate, as a key gameplay skill, making finely-balanced gambles. I need to figure out how to do that for my game, without turning it into oatmeal or making the player rage when things don't go their way. Like, it's easy to go from "this spell does 8 damage" to "this spell does 2d6+1 damage", but what does that mean for gameplay? My concern is that it will feel worse for the player to roll 3 than it feels good to roll 13, leaving the randomness detracting more than it adds, at least in terms of player emotional response. I'm considering making it so randomness only really applies to enemy actions. Like, their damage output can be varied and they might miss entirely, but all/most of the player's buttons are 100% consistent. Combine that with balancing encounters so that perfectly safe play is not possible. I think that might produce varied gameplay, while eliminating/reducing the opportunity for bad feels? It's an interesting design problem, anyway.
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Nov 4, 2023 19:33
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Rift Wizard has nearly no randomness and instead makes it nearly impossible to account for all of the (deterministic) inputs so you just kinda yolo every turn anyway.
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Nov 4, 2023 19:35
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Yeah, Rift Wizard is a great example of deterministic combat that I do like. It's fine that the numbers are consistent and deterministic, because it's not showing me diagrams of exactly what the enemy will do next turn and highlighting the tiles I should stand on like ITB does, and there's generally not one specific thing to do with a given piece of foreknowledge (e.g. how in ITB you generally always want to stand on squares that the enemy is emerging from). And I think for a match-3 puzzler roguelike a high degree of determinism is fine, because it's a puzzle game by nature and people play puzzle games to puzzle deterministic things out. Demon Crawl is a roguelite minesweeper that a lot of people (including myself) bounced off of because of how non-deterministic it was for a hard logic puzzle game. Having ITB-style full determinism in a match-3 game would be something like showing players exactly what tiles will fall onto the board after they make a swap. Or in Tetris it would be showing every sequential piece that will drop down on the pause menu, not just previewing the next one live. Those things would take away any sense of uncertainty about the future and instead of reacting to the current situation, they would become games about thinking through every step all the way to the end and knowing exactly how it will play out, then just going through the motions. e: It's also worth noting that I have notoriously bad/narrow taste in video games 
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Nov 4, 2023 19:46
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I would think that random symbol generation would be enough turn to turn randomness tbh.
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Nov 4, 2023 19:47
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ITB is a puzzle game dressed up as a roguelike, and it's a loving great puzzle game
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Nov 4, 2023 19:50
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ITB good but FTL best
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Nov 4, 2023 19:56
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If FTL had something else in place of its final boss it would be near perfect.
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Nov 4, 2023 19:57
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:This is something I've been thinking about... I think randomness in player action is good if it is something that can be worked around, accounted for, and made part of the main gameplay consideration. Randomness works in a lot of traditional roguelikes, for example, because you get the tools to deal with poor luck and bad choices, so you can afford to take risks. You got that Wand of Death for when you low roll damage twice and miss once on that troll who went from being very doable to about to kill you. You get scrolls of teleport, potions of healing, ways of gaining double-actions or a dig spell to burrow into a wall to face oncoming threats one on one if you need it. You sometimes get rude surprises when you try to use your abilities or items, but the mitigation potential is incredibly powerful. The more options your player has to potentially deal with different kinds of chaos, the more chaos you can potentally throw at them. On the flip side, in something very straightforward like Shiren the Wanderer, you need to know what everything does because the amount of tools you get are finite and limited. You need to be able to look at that beastie wandering around, the weapon in your hand, and your shield, and know if that's a fight that is going to cost you resources and if that's something to avoid while trying to find the stairs ASAP. You do get some powerful resources, but they are generally restricted just due to how limited Shiren's inventory system is, and most of the time consumables don't solve your problem in the long term unless you've got some kind of murder follow-up. There's variance, but it's low- in Shiren 5 the attack damage and accuracy variance is only something like 10% unless specifically mentioned by an effect on your character, and anything that does an effect besides dealing damage is usually both 100% accurate and 100% effective unless an immunity is in play. Due to the limitations on your available actions, your character and how their actions will pan out can be treated as entirely reliable unless you've put YOURSELF in a situation where they're not and the 'random' part is largely the hazards in the environment and the resources you have access to to solve problems with.
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Nov 4, 2023 20:13
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