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cock hero flux posted:most skills continue to be useful to take through to the highest cycle but a lot of them do not scale at all and are not worth putting more than one point into. All the skills where the only benefit to multiple ranks is that you get more flat damage aren't worth sinking extra points into. You often need to take them for their basic effects anyway, so a lot of high cycle builds end up with a bunch of rank 1 skills and then like, a rank 20 skill because it's the only part of the build that actually scales. Eris also scales comically hard after a couple tower kills or two
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Jan 28, 2024 17:41
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got all the way to the King of Colors last night with a warlock, god that heals you on ally death, minion build. i had like 35 lil dudes running around murdering for me might even had won but i spawned next to one of those shotgun plants and was evaporated :C
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Jan 28, 2024 17:55
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Hadlock posted:I was reading the summary for "aeruta", which has perhaps the most forgettable name ever. I had to double check the spelling even after reading about it anyways There's been a handful, I don't think there's a settled term for them yet, mostly because none of them have really broken out like Recettear or Dave the Diver. It's is a shame because I think it's a really compelling structure, though I think they struggle balancing both sides of the game against each other. The best shop sim I've played recently was Potionomics, but it doesn't have any adventuring at all.
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Jan 28, 2024 20:43
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oh god red imps are brutal and contribute a lot to speed being the most important stat by far. since the game runs automatically so much getting more 'turns' inbetween the enemy turns is extremely important to shore up issues, reposition or use prayers. im still trying to get a low speed going but you just die between turns which will eat all your divine interventions. As far as i can tell each stand still action for instance is not averaged out by game turn but per action, so slow stand still builds blow because you jist do way less actions per turn. if say stand still triggered once at every 1/10th of a turn regardless of speed it would be way more viable even if you didnt get a chance to respond directly after each. overall i am very pleased with the game especially considering i can look at my design doc for something very similar and I'm intrigued how far they've explored the design space considering the decision to keep things mostly automatic
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Jan 28, 2024 20:54
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well that was a surprise. didn't think i'd get a first win so soon  
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Jan 28, 2024 21:21
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Ciaphas posted:well that was a surprise. didn't think i'd get a first win so soon Hey nice job!!
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Jan 28, 2024 23:07
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Second win, my first was with a psiblades/lightning build that just tore through the game
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Jan 28, 2024 23:43
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I also just got my first win, 3rd run overall those red demons at the end were a bit of a hassle due to 90% blood resistance but I healed so fast nothing could really kill me
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Jan 29, 2024 00:28
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am i wrong thinking the game leans pretty heavily on lucking into the right gear for your choice of talents (skills? whatever the nomenclature is)? feels like i might be missing something otherwise i suppose you could try to not spend points until you're through an area or two but that seems difficult to survive especially at higher cycles
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Jan 29, 2024 01:57
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Ciaphas posted:am i wrong thinking the game leans pretty heavily on lucking into the right gear for your choice of talents (skills? whatever the nomenclature is)? feels like i might be missing something otherwise Things may fall apart at higher cycles, but it seems to me that gear can enable certain builds(which you otherwise can't easily get online that early or at all because of resource or trigger conditions); raw stats that support your build picks seem to be enough in the base setting. RubberBands Hurt fucked around with this message at 02:25 on Jan 29, 2024 |
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Jan 29, 2024 02:21
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Ciaphas posted:am i wrong thinking the game leans pretty heavily on lucking into the right gear for your choice of talents (skills? whatever the nomenclature is)? feels like i might be missing something otherwise some gear can really make a build, but other times its superfluous Build Idea: drakeform via Azhdaha, many hits build, was fun to figure out how to do this when random delivered it to me  Was doing about 5 extra attacks a step/initial attack here and just stacking sickness, each attack turned into 2 (Main/OffHand) + 1 (Drakeform) + 1 (Mubarizun) + 4 (Pugilist) + 1 (Dread Gaze Item) for 9 hits per attack so about 45 hits per step action. In this case my items were win more entirely they weren't necessary at all Dread gaze was only 5-6 hits per action and extra healing + armour from my items
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Jan 29, 2024 02:28
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look at all these pilgrims 
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Jan 29, 2024 02:28
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Made it to floor 9 from the Maqbara, I took the above mass attack/hitter and wanted to see what it could do, it was pretty slow going but seemed invincible until it hit amplification x81! Well this game probably makes a lot of builds feel inadequate, with some smarter play I may have done it but all their speeds are like 500+ so no more speed advantage 
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Jan 29, 2024 02:49
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i'm honestly really happy that path of achra eventually caught on after i remember randomly posting about it months ago when it was relatively new. it's a neat little thing made by a solo dev, which is always good to highlight
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Jan 29, 2024 03:36
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Yeah I saw a post from him on the Steam forums where he says he's never programmed or made a game before and his day job is being a poet lol. Pretty cool! Some neat posts about lore on there. Cool stuff especially about the nature of Water in the game -- while it's very important to the setting it's also very intentional that it's not an "element" you can build around; the rising oceans are meant to represent some kind of primal nothingness that's repulsive to all the cultures in the game
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Jan 29, 2024 03:54
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ah, i see when the game says forbidden they really, really mean it i haven't even taken a turn yet lmfao
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Jan 29, 2024 04:34
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Yeah I don't bother with forbidden sites until usually after the 2nd tower.
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Jan 29, 2024 04:55
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Ciaphas posted:ah, i see when the game says forbidden they really, really mean it see u in the maqbara, struggler
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Jan 29, 2024 05:07
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 not sure this build could actually die, tho it was very slow going for most of the run. it wasnt until I got toothed sword and mask of frenzy in the star path that the build skyrocketed into insanity. final boss died to like 30 consecutive attacks in one turn also my items really sucked I bet itd be even more insane with actually good equipment babypolis fucked around with this message at 06:24 on Jan 29, 2024 |
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Jan 29, 2024 06:20
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It's been entertaining to read through pages of many people earnestly writing posts with complete nonsense words
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Jan 29, 2024 07:02
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resistentialism posted:It's been entertaining to read through pages of many people earnestly writing posts with complete nonsense words You just gotta join in. Ergo:  People were asking about a straightforward build in PoA and this is probably about as straightforward as you get. Once I got just a couple skills online I was essentially unkillable and by the end it was just not even a thing. Edit: Path of Achra is really interesting, although I do kind of wish for an alternative to this that keeps some of the basic concepts (very tactical decisions, etc) but has more powers than just 'passive'. I realize I'm pretty closely starting to describe Rift Wizard, but hear me out: what if it wasn't balls-crushingly difficult? Maybe I'll try RW again and see how it clicks, but PoA has been so much more fun to me, because it felt like the builds were a lot easier to grasp - honestly just pick a prestige class and work backwards and you've got a generally good idea. Falcon2001 fucked around with this message at 07:17 on Jan 29, 2024 |
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Jan 29, 2024 07:14
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I feel like Path of Achra is good but rapidly runs into the simplicity vortex once you really grok what's going on after you adjust to the keywords and the unique setting. A lot of the weapons are "repeat damage at 50% of different type" and a lot of the armor is "amplify status effect". It doesn't help that Eris is probably the strongest goddess while also being the simplest, and she does it in such a way that you rarely want/need to change weapons after your first tower.
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Jan 29, 2024 07:32
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I think it's fairly self-correcting, honestly. If you just want to win every run, it's pretty simple to just load up on Eris, a good weapon and a couple very basic, very powerful synergies. If you want to win with more esoteric stuff I think there's a fair bit still there to work out and the enemy design is vicious enough in places to continue to prove a challenge to really 'good' ideas.
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Jan 29, 2024 07:41
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Yeah, there's so many different builds in PoA and the cycles mean that you can bump the difficulty if you feel like it's too easy, but I'm confident some of the prestige classes are gonna be wild to try and win with even on cycle 0.
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Jan 29, 2024 07:51
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if you want the game to be hard then don't pick eris, honestly. Eris is Very Strong. like i've been struggling to get a Flame Knight off the ground and finally said gently caress it, I'll just use Eris and welp here's the combat log from when i one-shot the final boss 10x over on max cycles accidentally by tabbing at a monster he was standing next to 
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Jan 29, 2024 08:00
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Yeah, it seems like just winning with no conditions isn't that hard with any number of overpowered combos, but trying to make a weird build work is where some fun puzzles show up (I'm still trying to figure out Ur-Beast). Separately, I just managed a win with a Volkite Warrior:  Lots of fun stuff with high Encumbrance and/or Armor, though range was an issue. Once I prestiged into Gallus, though, it immediately turned ridiculous:  It boosted my Encumbrance by nearly 100 points, and even with some bad stat synergy its "deal [encumbrance] points blunt damage to every enemy within 4 tiles every turn (and also when armor blocks)" ability meant as soon as I unlocked it the entire room died, my summons included. Game is Good!
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Jan 29, 2024 08:11
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Depressing Box posted:Yeah, it seems like just winning with no conditions isn't that hard with any number of overpowered combos, but trying to make a weird build work is where some fun puzzles show up (I'm still trying to figure out Ur-Beast). I agree. Once the system is figured out, most of the fun is in trying to win with each prestige class.
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Jan 29, 2024 10:23
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The always oddly enduring Lost Labyrinth DX managed a v2.1.0 "Dracolich" update: https://www.labydx.com/index quote:NEW FEATURE: New trait Free Magic (5 CP: learn new spells from any spell school)
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Jan 29, 2024 12:42
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Depressing Box posted:Yeah, it seems like just winning with no conditions isn't that hard with any number of overpowered combos, but trying to make a weird build work is where some fun puzzles show up (I'm still trying to figure out Ur-Beast). I haven’t managed a Gallus win yet!
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Jan 29, 2024 13:42
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Yeah, I took another shot at Rift Wizard, trying to think about what I dislike vs PoA, because on paper RW should be one of my favorite games and in reality I'm pretty meh on it. I think that fundamentally, the problem is the following things, combined:
I think what this all adds up to is a game that highly rewards memorization of hundreds of different elements (knowing the right builds, knowing which talents interact with which spells and which passives, recognizing enemy resistances offhand), or extremely slow play patterns where you have to do a lot of research. I don't think that's an invalid goal or anything, but as a dude with ADHD it basically means that I'm basically built wrong for this game. If RW had a sort of ascension/cycles/etc setup where you had a series of increasing difficulty levels I think the above wouldn't be as bad of a problem. Difficulty isn't necessarily something I dislike (Souls fan etc) but RW is veering pretty close to nethack for me. ToME to me is a similar enough game from a design perspective (pick a build), and it could be that I've just played ToME enough to know the high levels details, but the nature of the skill system means you have less options overall for most characters (but still a large number), and are generally pushed in a direction for your build. This kind of clicks with other games I don't like, such as Path of Exile, where you're given a massive skill tree and told to go figure it out. Anyway, I don't think RW is a bad game or anything, but it's interesting how similar it is to Path of Achra while remaining totally different. Edit: If I were to build a Rift Wizard-style game (which I might try as a game jam thing), here's the things I'd do differently. Again, not as a 'RW is wrong' perspective, but mostly mulling over it out loud.
megane posted:I found it pretty frustrating that you can think up a cool synergy in RW, build it, and then it turns out it’s just not good enough. Yeah, I hadn't considered this but I agree: resistances are fine IMO but I prefer how PoA on Cycle 1 has 90% resistance instead of immunity. It's a problem, you want to avoid it, especially for tough enemies, but you're still able to make it through with planning, especially on basic enemies. Falcon2001 fucked around with this message at 18:57 on Jan 29, 2024 |
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Jan 29, 2024 18:49
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I found it pretty frustrating that you can think up a cool synergy in RW, build it, and have it work… but then it turns out it’s just not good enough. Immunities are the most annoying kind of difficulty and RW loving loves them. Oh, good, this floor is full of glass-iron ghost werewolves immune to literally every element except lightning, how fun. megane fucked around with this message at 18:59 on Jan 29, 2024 |
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Jan 29, 2024 18:54
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I beat Rift Wizard via the Wolfer challenge mode before I actually beat it the regular way. Having a constrained build really helped me get accustomed to the game.
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Jan 29, 2024 19:08
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rift wizard's biggest flaw is that 100% immunities are ridiculously common and the nature of the system is that, because killing everything is mandatory, even a single enemy that you are unable to damage instantly ends the run. This used to be less of a problem because you were able to map out future areas 2 levels deep instead of 1, and having access to more information drastically reduced the impact of both this problem and the mana potion drought problem. Then the developer removed it and gave no reasoning for doing so beyond "some players don't feel like doing it", which I found so annoying that I dropped the game on the spot.
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Jan 29, 2024 19:18
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cock hero flux posted:rift wizard's biggest flaw is that 100% immunities are ridiculously common and the nature of the system is that, because killing everything is mandatory, even a single enemy that you are unable to damage instantly ends the run. This used to be less of a problem because you were able to map out future areas 2 levels deep instead of 1, and having access to more information drastically reduced the impact of both this problem and the mana potion drought problem. Then the developer removed it and gave no reasoning for doing so beyond "some players don't feel like doing it", which I found so annoying that I dropped the game on the spot. IMO I think that was a good move. You shouldn't let optimal play patterns that are a huge pain in the rear end to do persist, because otherwise you'll end up with people doing those play patterns and then you'll be pressured to balance around them. The idea that you'll check every portal manually twice is just a huge busywork that isn't actual gameplay. I think if he was going to do that it should just be a thing you could check; honestly I'd like it even more if there was a summary of resistances in the upcoming rift as its own screen/etc, and from there you could even have +1 rift/etc.
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Jan 29, 2024 19:25
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Falcon2001 posted:
like you mentioned i think the idea of roguelikes having difficulties via cycles/win count is the future for the genre key points in off the top of my head: - Build game knowledge on a more lenient curve - Prevents late game paralysis to new areas by steady exposure - Fundamentally allows more players to access parts of the game they may never see otherwise - Still lets broke brains (like me) play on the hardest unlocked difficulty for the 'real roguelike experience' - smart scaling can be done so it isnt just number inflation - provides a sense of meta progression lacking from traditional roguelikes that players clearly seem to crave these days Mostly I really like roguelikes for not needing meta progression but acknowledge we lost that front to roguelites already. I am truly interested in an action roguelike that eschews the meta progression entirely for per run progression as action games make my brain glow differently than turn based you've also summarized fairly succinctly what my issues getting into RW were over PoA. PoA is very smart to lock most options at the start and then either quickly unlock them once you start progressing deeper into a run, each just costs 20 glory to unlock so a run that fails before jade tower makes maybe 9? a run that hits the star path is easily 40+ for at least guaranteed unlocks on death Finally huge shoutout to Path of Achras logs also having a search/highlight feature, its incredible for searching up a particular skill/effect as they all have unique names too
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Jan 29, 2024 19:26
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Falcon2001 posted:Anyway, I don't think RW is a bad game or anything, but it's interesting how similar it is to Path of Achra while remaining totally different. This is the crux of it to me. Path of Achra is the game that people think Rift Wizard is. RW was designed as a pretty tactically intensive game that also includes enough combo potential that you can create builds that will win the game for you, but that wasn't the original focus and it's not designed to facilitate that. As a tactical blow stuff up game Rift Wizard is not especially hard and builds are very open-ended. As a build simulator it's quite difficult and there are only a limited few builds that work consistently without needing an obsessive level of systems mastery. RW2 seems to be trying to clarify its design vision and reinforce the tactical side further, which I think will help with a lot of the expectations mismatch that people bounce off RW from.
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Jan 29, 2024 19:35
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Falcon2001 posted:IMO I think that was a good move. You shouldn't let optimal play patterns that are a huge pain in the rear end to do persist, because otherwise you'll end up with people doing those play patterns and then you'll be pressured to balance around them. The idea that you'll check every portal manually twice is just a huge busywork that isn't actual gameplay.
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Jan 29, 2024 19:36
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cock hero flux posted:The issue is that this change was not accompanied by a corresponding change to immunities that would render it unnecessary. While it may have been somewhat tedious it was substantially more fun than being deep into a run and realizing that I had lost purely because every available level had an enemy type with total immunity to all of my damage. I maintain at this point that every time a player restarts a game without dying or dies on purpose represents a failure of game design on some level and RW's design makes it happen all the time. Barring restricted spellbook mode (which is implemented as a challenge) you have access to every damage type in the game!
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Jan 29, 2024 19:38
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the holy poopacy posted:Barring restricted spellbook mode (which is implemented as a challenge) you have access to every damage type in the game! if you're willing to just hold skill points you can get low levels spells on demand to cover whatever damage type but enemies spawn infinitely and casts are limited so you do need to make some kind of actual build that kills things quickly, and if a late game level has enemies that are totally immune to it then banking 3 points to get some basic spell with a different damage type is not going to clear infinity guys for you. The actual answer to this is that you either need a build that covers every possibility or you need to hoard dragon horns or portal keys to fix bad levels for you
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Jan 29, 2024 19:46
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cock hero flux posted:if you're willing to just hold skill points you can get low levels spells on demand to cover whatever damage type but enemies spawn infinitely and casts are limited so you do need to make some kind of actual build that kills things quickly, and if a late game level has enemies that are totally immune to it then banking 3 points to get some basic spell with a different damage type is not going to clear infinity guys for you. Taking Arch Sorcerer and casting spells until things are dead is actually much easier than most actual builds, all it takes is a plan to take out spawners quickly. Between spells that can hit spawners without LOS across the map, teleports, or just having huge crowd wipe spells to clear a path there are a lot of options and you have plenty of room to mix and match.
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Jan 29, 2024 20:00
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