Roguelikes: I never met@progression I didn't like

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Roguelikes: I never met@progression I didn't like

moot the hopple: Apr 26, 2008; dyslexic Bowie clone

I picked up Path of Achra with its 1.0 release and finished my first run. Spent most of my time reading through all the skills and subclasses but then just went for it and sorta stumbled onto an oozemancer that rolled with a 50 deep crew of mostly slime buddies while my main character sat back at the entrance and projected fire and poison and heals for the whole squad. I can see why so many folks like this game!

# ? May 11, 2024 19:33

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# ? May 26, 2024 19:50

HenryEx: Mar 25, 2009; ...your cybernetic implants, the only beauty in that meat you call "a body"...; Grimey Drawer

Onean posted:

(They're jokes, obviously. This next image isn't, though, that's a real mechanic for one of the fights.)

Which one tho? Shiva slide shuffles? Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson bombs? Lion breath stacking? Basic, Advanced or Einstein relativity?

There's so many in E12S, I need to know if it will trigger my PTSD

# ? May 11, 2024 20:45

grate deceiver: Jul 10, 2009; Just a funny av. Not a redtext or an own ok.

Harminoff posted:

Finally trying one of these rogue light deck builders but don't get the hype? Is this a good one to start with?

https://gewl.itch.io/rogue-light-deck-builder

What better way to start than the game that launched the entire genre.

# ? May 11, 2024 20:47

habituallyred: Feb 6, 2015

grate deceiver posted:

What better way to start than the game that launched the entire genre.

Whoa buddy, lets not throw them in the deep end. Dream Quest isn't for ~~any~~everyone.

# ? May 11, 2024 21:26

ExiledTinkerer: Nov 4, 2009

Sigh, the more potent the update---the more the great inherent project peril embeds and furthers itself unless one day reckoned with.

https://ferretdev.itch.io/interdict/devlog/729426/the-necropolis-update-is-released

# ? May 11, 2024 21:52

Ibram Gaunt: Jul 22, 2009

HenryEx posted:

Which one tho? Shiva slide shuffles? Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson bombs? Lion breath stacking? Basic, Advanced or Einstein relativity?

There's so many in E12S, I need to know if it will trigger my PTSD

Intermediate relativity

# ? May 11, 2024 21:54

Falcon2001: Oct 10, 2004; Eat your hamburgers, Apollo.; Pillbug

habituallyred posted:

Whoa buddy, lets not throw them in the deep end. Dream Quest isn't for ~~any~~everyone.

Hilariously I actually think Dream Quest is a decent entry if you're okay with the graphics. It's very straightforward and doesn't have too much dumb tedium.

# ? May 11, 2024 22:55

Captain Foo: May 11, 2004; we vibin'
we slidin'
we breathin'
we dyin'

moot the hopple posted:

I picked up Path of Achra with its 1.0 release and finished my first run. Spent most of my time reading through all the skills and subclasses but then just went for it and sorta stumbled onto an oozemancer that rolled with a 50 deep crew of mostly slime buddies while my main character sat back at the entrance and projected fire and poison and heals for the whole squad. I can see why so many folks like this game!

welcome, pilgrim

# ? May 11, 2024 23:12

ExiledTinkerer: Nov 4, 2009

Rogue Fable IV with the first half of an update (v1.9) that is probably at least as consequential as, hmm, the advancement between the sequel outright before last? IV getting out there..

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2720010/view/4190113770890884512 Full log is loaded with ability reckonings/rantings/etc so..

quote:

Update 1.9 Major Talent Rework
Hello everyone! A pretty major and game changing update this time. You'll have to use your imagination for the click bate thumbnail saying 'BIGGEST UPDATE EVER!!!' with a bunch of random red arrows :P

As was hinted at last update I decided to take the plunge and do the big talent rework that I've been planning. This turned out to be a bit of a nightmare as I had to touch a ton of crusty old lower level code that was written years ago and very poorly. It took the 2 weeks of just hammering on the engine to get it to even support the new features and so I only had the last week to actually implement the new content. So this is going to be one of those 'part 1' updates with the remainder of the work coming with the next update. This is also definitely one of those things (like ranked-mode) that is going to be slowly iterated on across the whole course of development so, though I think the system that is in place now is actually very good, we should expect this to change and morph a lot over time before final release.

TALENT REWORK:
The tldr of the change is that instead of talents simply upgrading to a generic Rank-II the player now gets to choose between (currently 3) different and unique upgrades.

I'm really trying to make each of these upgrades distinct and play very differently. I have included plenty of upgrades that have a large boost but coupled with some kind of penalty which tend to make the upgrades more narrowly powerful. I'd like to eventually have a mix of simply upgrades, bigger upgrade w/ penalty, and then some upgrades that drastically change how the talent functions. Some of the things that I want these changes to do are:

Character development is more varied:
Every class generally takes a lot of their talents from their core set and previously this meant that 2 characters of the same class would heavily overlap. With the new system even characters with the same talents can still differ quite significantly based on which upgrades they choose.

Character development is more complex:
The player can now pick upgrades to make talents fill different gaps or perform different functions as part of their build. Cross-class talents may suddenly become much more attractive to certain builds due to a specific upgrade synergizing much better. For example short range versions of spells might be more tempting to melee characters.

Talents can be more interesting:
Because the player now has choices and we can include penalties to offset extreme bonuses, this opens up a much wider variety of possibilities with how talent upgrades can be designed. With the option to just choose something else its now possible to make upgrades that drastically change the function of a particular talent.

Way more content:
When all the upgrades are eventually added this is essentially the same as having 3 times as many talents/abilities. Again, as per the previous point, there can be a much wider variety of talent content since many of these upgrades can be really 'weird' since were not forcing anyone to take them.

MAX LEVEL CHANGE:
I've changed the max level of both the player and monsters from 16 to 12. This is something that I've also been thinking about for a long time and seemed even more relevant with the talent rework. In RFIV the only thing that levels give is talent points and attribute points as there is no static bonus for gaining levels so this change simply removes 3 talent points and 1 attribute point from the game. I've also changed attributes to be granted on levels 2,5,8,11 which smooths out progression a lot.

Even before the talent rework I was not happy with the number of talent points the player eventually gets as I've always found that the last few were never really strictly necessary. I found that I always had enough talent points to get whatever it was that I wanted with a few more to spare. There were almost never any hard choices and I always ended up putting the last few talent points 'wherever'.

By reducing the number of talent points we, somewhat counter intuitively, actually increase the number of choices available to the player as suddenly he actually needs to 'choose' between different talents rather than just getting them all.

Furthermore I found that with equipment, enchantments, attribute potions and fountains, merchants, librarians, crystal chests, tomes of knowledge etc. There are just way to many times the game stops and expects the player to make a character development choice. With the new talent rework, the complexity of these choices just increased significantly. Given the relatively short game length I think that its better to offer the player less choices over all but to make them more meaningful.

I would like to do for talents what we previously did during Alpha with attributes: less of them but make them more powerful and impactful. So since we are losing about 20% of the total talent points, the goal when balancing the talent upgrades is to get them to be roughly 20% more powerful. As with a lot of balancing, the goal here is neither to make the game harder or easier. The goal is that once the balance gets settled it should be roughly the same as before.

CONCLUSION:
Whew, that took a long time to type up :P So there's still a ton of work to do here both in the short and long term but I think this is a pretty drastic step forward that will really start to pay off over time as we get more interesting upgrades implemented and get everything balanced up.

I'd love to here suggestions for new upgrades or changes to the existing ones. I have no problem letting the interface get kind of crusty with more than 3 upgrades for awhile if we want to test out some ideas. The whole thing will get redone at some point anyways.

Hope you all enjoy the update!

# ? May 12, 2024 03:04

LazyMaybe: Aug 18, 2013; oouagh

can anyone tell me if Rabbit and Steel is a bullet hell or more like a standard shmup wrt bullet density

judging from the videos on the storepage it looks more like the latter, but I don't know how representative that is

# ? May 12, 2024 03:54

Kanos: Sep 6, 2006; was there a time when speedwagon didn't get trolled

The raw bullet density is pretty thin overall for most of the bosses compared to other shmups. The majority of the teeth comes from the bosses' MMO gimmicks, like spreading and stacking and positioning.

# ? May 12, 2024 04:04

deep dish peat moss: Jul 27, 2006

Yeah, there's not as many screen-covering bullets as there are in other bullet hell games. The problem I had with it is that it's very inconsistent about how or where different mechanics are telegraphed which made it impossible to learn new bosses on the fly, particularly with 4 players on the screen. Sometimes it gives you hints about how to avoid a gimmick floating above your head, other times they're text boxes above the boss, other times they're text across the top of the screen. Often it's difficult to tell from looking at a screen effect which part is the safe zone and which part is the danger zone. You generally get like 1-2 seconds from the time the hint or screen effect appears until you need to have already done what it suggested you do. The effects that differentiate what parts of the on-screen telegraphs apply to you and what parts apply to teammates are often very subtle, too. At least this is all from the perspective of someone who doesn't play other bullet hell games or shmups, maybe they're genre-standard indicators or something but I felt totally lost. I am very used to picking up MMO raid boss indicators and gimmicks on the fly though.

It felt like it would pretty much require watching youtube videos about boss gimmicks, or playing through singleplayer which is (a) kind of a slog because it doesn't seem like boss HP scales by number of players so the fights become tediously long or (b) doesn't actually teach you the mechanics anyway since a lot of gimmicks are disabled in singleplayer.

I can definitely see the appeal if you're into shmups and have a feel for understanding bullet patterns at a glance or just put in significant enough time to learn them, but it wasn't doing it for me as someone who was coming into it for the short-form MMO raid boss angle for those reasons.

deep dish peat moss fucked around with this message at 04:49 on May 12, 2024

# ? May 12, 2024 04:31

nrook: Jun 25, 2009; Just let yourself become a worthless person!

As somebody who is a shmup guy, Rabbit is not a shmup and has little in common with the genre. There are a number of bullet attacks but they�re mostly not expected to be dodged; they�re punishments for screwing up a mechanic, and if you do the mechanic right the bullets won�t go anywhere near you. There are a few �real� bullet attacks but they�re rare.

I think the game is just hard to read, especially before you start to learn its visual language.

# ? May 12, 2024 05:05

Wafflecopper: Nov 27, 2004; I am a mouth, and I must scream

According to the Berlin Interpretation of a shmup,

# ? May 12, 2024 05:08

nrook: Jun 25, 2009; Just let yourself become a worthless person!

For what it�s worth, my experience was that learning Normal was not too bad and could mostly be done on the fly, at least once players mostly recognize the game�s iconography. Hard seems much more difficult and I suspect it will require planning.

# ? May 12, 2024 05:11

Sundae: Dec 1, 2005

I've been playing Slice & Dice and enjoying it so far, but I do have one thing confusing me. Does anyone know what requirements exist for the game to roll you a new party? I loving hate the meddler because of those "Summon Bones" sides in the early game, and I'd love to just abandon those games rather than play with that guy. It'll reroll the same team every single time on a new game, though, until I try and play it. Not a fan of that.

Also, are the Level 4 heroes randomly generated or something? The names are just weird.

# ? May 12, 2024 05:18

the holy poopacy: May 16, 2009; hey! check this out; Fun Shoe

You need to beat the first 3 fights before you can roll something new, it's an anti-scumming measure.

Yeah, level 4 and up heroes are all randomly generated. They don't show up very often

# ? May 12, 2024 05:27

Quixzlizx: Jan 7, 2007

Sundae posted:

I've been playing Slice & Dice and enjoying it so far, but I do have one thing confusing me. Does anyone know what requirements exist for the game to roll you a new party? I loving hate the meddler because of those "Summon Bones" sides in the early game, and I'd love to just abandon those games rather than play with that guy. It'll reroll the same team every single time on a new game, though, until I try and play it. Not a fan of that.

Also, are the Level 4 heroes randomly generated or something? The names are just weird.

You should have one chance to reroll your party and choose a different formation/set of heroes. Once you use up that reroll, you need to choose "Flee" in the option screen and take an L on your record if you are that insistent on starting over without beating a few floors first.

Yes, the tier 4+ heroes are randomly generated. They get hilariously broken if you get up high enough in tiers, like 100+ damage/mana sides. You can do this by getting housecats in your party, since they don't ever level up, so you can concentrate your level-ups.

# ? May 12, 2024 05:30

joe football: Dec 22, 2012

I remember being really shocked the first time I realized what the meddler was doing but now I kind of like the mental image of a party member just blundering into crypts or something constantly who I'm trying to intentionally get killed

# ? May 12, 2024 05:33

Sundae: Dec 1, 2005

Quixzlizx posted:

You should have one chance to reroll your party and choose a different formation/set of heroes. Once you use up that reroll, you need to choose "Flee" in the option screen and take an L on your record if you are that insistent on starting over without beating a few floors first.

Yes, the tier 4+ heroes are randomly generated. They get hilariously broken if you get up high enough in tiers, like 100+ damage/mana sides. You can do this by getting housecats in your party, since they don't ever level up, so you can concentrate your level-ups.

Yeah, flee doesn't do it. You still get the same team every time.

# ? May 12, 2024 06:24

Quixzlizx: Jan 7, 2007

Sundae posted:

Yeah, flee doesn't do it. You still get the same team every time.

Ah, got it. I'm not sure what the point of it is, then.

# ? May 12, 2024 06:41

Serephina: Nov 8, 2005; 恐竜戦隊
ジュウレンジャー

You can't scumm your starting team without using the reroll, which refreshes after getting a few fights in. 'Flee' is just knowing that you've lost and want to return to the main menu.

# ? May 12, 2024 07:08

Lakbay: Dec 14, 2006; My eye...MY EYE!!!

I got a win with that lightning glove class + Sparkform just shooting lightning everywhere in Achra but Steam didn't want to screenshot the victory screen. The presentation/setting has me hooked, reminds me of Qud's mild alieness

# ? May 12, 2024 07:43

Azran: Sep 3, 2012; And what should one do to be remembered?

Question about Chrono Ark's story progression: I defeated the King and unlocked A BUNCH of backstory. Am I expected to win at higher difficulties now to keep unlocking stuff?

# ? May 12, 2024 09:43

Awesome!: Oct 17, 2008; Ready for adventure!

the first day of rabbit and steel my friends and i were definitely like "wtf is even going on" during the fights but it has gotten easier pretty fast. now we can clear normal and have been working on hard and it isnt "wtf is happening" but "how the gently caress are we supposed to do THAT pattern?"

hard is pretty drat brutal and there is another difficulty on top of that :psyduck:

also i havent tried easy mode but my friends said it was nice and easy and chill solo.

# ? May 12, 2024 10:36

babypolis: Nov 4, 2009

Azran posted:

Question about Chrono Ark's story progression: I defeated the King and unlocked A BUNCH of backstory. Am I expected to win at higher difficulties now to keep unlocking stuff?

Nope, you can stay at the same difficulty. Just keep playing normally and Stuff should happen

# ? May 12, 2024 11:06

goferchan: Feb 8, 2004; It's 2006. I am taking 276 yeti furs from the goodies hoard.

Wafflecopper posted:

According to the Berlin Interpretation of a shmup,

Oh you joke but those guys absolutely exist, and you should try telling one your favorite shmup is Tyrian 2000

# ? May 12, 2024 12:13

Turin Turambar: Jun 5, 2011

Ok, I finally reached Destiny level 6 in Astral Ascent, I reached the final boss (needed a pair of triest as the improved Zodiacs are harder), reached his new second stage, but he killed me as he had left around 15% hp. Pity, I even had a good synergy going on in this run.

I think I need three, maybe four more tries to beat him. The issue is, I'm already over this game, ready to jump to the next one.

# ? May 12, 2024 12:28

Exodee: Mar 30, 2011; Damp and depressing.
It must be a goon in its
natural habitat!

Awesome! posted:

the first day of rabbit and steel my friends and i were definitely like "wtf is even going on" during the fights but it has gotten easier pretty fast. now we can clear normal and have been working on hard and it isnt "wtf is happening" but "how the gently caress are we supposed to do THAT pattern?"

hard is pretty drat brutal and there is another difficulty on top of that

also i havent tried easy mode but my friends said it was nice and easy and chill solo.

Yeah even as someone who can get easily overwhelmed because of ADHD I've found the patterns/visual language quite learnable, though they could be better of course.

Though on the other hand I've also been playing this on hard solo to learn and unlock stuff and let me tell ya, do not start with the dragon area right now because that one is like five times more difficult than the others lmao :supaburn:

I do like that solo mode is an entirely different beast compared to multiplayer though, all the patterns are completely different because of the lack of coop elements.

# ? May 12, 2024 13:31

Osmosisch: Sep 9, 2007; I shall make everyone look like me! Then when they trick each other, they will say "oh that Coyote, he is the smartest one, he can even trick the great Coyote."; Grimey Drawer

Pretty pleased with this one. Keeping one or two armor slots open for most of the game gave me free self-damage and extra prayer charges on prayer 2 from the morlock passive, letting me boost max life to the stratosphere and instantly plague the whole map on entering. The only real challenge was surviving the early-mid game since it was a bit of a hassle juggling damage, healing and survivability.

# ? May 12, 2024 14:42

Awesome!: Oct 17, 2008; Ready for adventure!

Exodee posted:

Though on the other hand I've also been playing this on hard solo to learn and unlock stuff and let me tell ya, do not start with the dragon area right now because that one is like five times more difficult than the others lmao

yeah we started with the dragon on hard since it unlocks a bunny and we were just getting absolutely destroyed. couldnt figure out how to deal with the stationary lasers plus rotating laser overlap cleanly at all.

# ? May 12, 2024 17:24

Ibram Gaunt: Jul 22, 2009

The mouse zone is also super rough on Hard I think. The bunny from that is worth it though.

# ? May 12, 2024 17:31

Captain Foo: May 11, 2004; we vibin'
we slidin'
we breathin'
we dyin'

Osmosisch posted:

Pretty pleased with this one. Keeping one or two armor slots open for most of the game gave me free self-damage and extra prayer charges on prayer 2 from the morlock passive, letting me boost max life to the stratosphere and instantly plague the whole map on entering. The only real challenge was surviving the early-mid game since it was a bit of a hassle juggling damage, healing and survivability.

Neat, i haven�t figured out a win with a morlock yet

# ? May 12, 2024 18:05

Exodee: Mar 30, 2011; Damp and depressing.
It must be a goon in its
natural habitat!

Awesome! posted:

yeah we started with the dragon on hard since it unlocks a bunny and we were just getting absolutely destroyed. couldnt figure out how to deal with the stationary lasers plus rotating laser overlap cleanly at all.

I've finally managed to beat it by abusing the single-player pause screen because there's just no way I could figure out what to do within the couple seconds they give you when there's about five different mechanics going on at once. I'd definitely say that one should be toned down at least on hard, it's quite overtuned compared to the others.

The bruiser bunny unlock you get from beating it is super fun though!

# ? May 12, 2024 18:29

pumpinglemma: Apr 28, 2009; DD: Fondly regard abomination.

Hell, I'm getting brutalised by the dragon solo even on normal.

# ? May 12, 2024 18:50

nrook: Jun 25, 2009; Just let yourself become a worthless person!

It turns out I lied a little bit. Singleplayer Rabbit feels a little more like a shmup, though still of course with heavy influence from MMO raids.

# ? May 12, 2024 20:14

PostNouveau: Sep 3, 2011; VY till I die; Grimey Drawer

Got a god run on The Void Rains Upon Her Heart endless mode. Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair.

# ? May 12, 2024 20:32

FutureCop: Jun 7, 2011; Have you heard of Fermat's principle?

Goddamn I'm having a lot of fun with Rabbit and Steel: all the intricacies of MMO raiding (particularly FFXIV) where you're learning complex mechanics, trying to optimize your DPS, picking interesting gear that can change your build and rotations significantly, and being able to pick and choose from so many interesting classes, without any of the grindy cruft and commitment that typically comes with playing an MMO (including players, as I'm finding the game great even solo!)

So far I'm still pretty early into it with two Normal clears from the Dancer and Dark Knight (which I feel are the most straightforward classes, letting you focus on the fight instead of your rotation). Looking forward to checking out Hard, and I should poke my head into multiplayer to see how that plays out.

Currently got this stuck in my head from the latest run: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=He8aGUz3BI8

# ? May 12, 2024 21:06

Awesome!: Oct 17, 2008; Ready for adventure!

oh yeah the soundtrack is something i havent seen mentioned a lot but it is really solid

# ? May 12, 2024 21:32

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# ? May 26, 2024 19:50

Subjunctive: Sep 12, 2006; ✨sparkle and shine✨

man, I keep getting into situations in Cogmind where I can�t run away effectively, so it turns into a shootout and then a race between me finding the stairs and reinforcements arriving. couldn�t make recalls land on the level 2 terminals, either

I don�t really want to go to wheels because I�m still just in the first few levels and really need to carry a lot of poo poo

# ? May 12, 2024 21:36

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