So after 6+ separate attempts and even using copies of saved games for accidents/crashes etc. I still can’t seem to make it anywhere into a dungeon [update at bottom]. I always get pwned, no matter how many epic items i find and equip. And I can never find the Dwarves that the game tells you to find. Except one game I found 1 dead dwarf 3 or so floors underground. There’s just nothing to do… I thought maybe after the targeting system was fixed for throwing that it would be easier, but it’s not so far… So in hopes to help the developers / Michal in better seeing what’s happening, I’m giving a report here of my expeditions.
Notes I took: (I)=Issue / Observations, (R)=Recommendations / Suggestions for fix.
-(I) The question mark button for the help menu only works when you step forward after clicking it.
-(I) Tomes of beast mastery & things like that are useless. They were made for keepers to bring home/learn, but in every game I’ve played in, they just leave it in the camps. (R) Make them hidden for Adventurers.
-(I) Dead bodies are everywhere and get annoying to dig through every game. (R) Be nice to make them impossible to pick up in the menus for the adventurer so you can more quickly browse the piles of items.
-(I) The Uncontrol command shows up still. But serves no purpose. (R) Needs to be hidden for adventure mode.
-(I) Fountains are useless b/c there’s never any bad guys around for the adventurer to use as an advantage in the castles. (R) Maybe spawn a few enemies to level up on in the rooms nearby.-
-(I) Sometimes portals will still be present around the map. (R) They could be despawned for adventure mode to reduce confusion.
-(I) Dwarves are never found or are probably very rare. The Keeper mode games I’ve played where there was dwarves. You had to kill them all to complete the game anyways… (R) if the dwarves are to serve a purpose, like a shop to trade goods at or maybe help in the assault against the keep. Maybe force spawn a special cave or stair case to a small band/group of dwarves for this purpose. This way it gives the adventurers something more to look forward to etc. (plus I think help in assaulting the dungeons would help a ton.)
-(I) When entering Keeper dungeons, I found that as soon as you enter the 1st rooms, you get hit by everything single thing possible. Most times you don’t survive 10 or so turns. And often, I found myself killed by something I couldn’t see or didn’t recognize. It’s bad enough to deal with traps, which can be dealt with in ways, but once you get inside… it just becomes… impossible to get a foothold. I even used teleports to jump in and out quickly and stood at the entrance and fired hundreds of arrows to thin the populations. But the creatures never thinned. (times like that, I wish I could dig around or just use a grenade.)
-(I) Health… I have no clue what my health is exactly ever… From what I can tell… these are the health states. Wounded, Critically Wounded, Limb removed, Death. Sometimes hits will skip health states and move to the next or the next… (R) I feel like a Health point system would better help… And when limbed, a way to heal that would be nice too. i.e. pick up limb, use heal potion or heal spell if you have it.
-(R) Handicap needs to be more encompassing or something. (I) I have to pick the higher handicap every game. Or I’ll be drastically under leveled to deal with every single thing. i.e. handicap can also adjust dungeon levels.
-If leveling up the hero is a goal. (R) Then there needs to be more things to fight… (I) if a Keeper has a Dormitory / Graveyard / Ritual Room… the creatures only stay indoors and never venture out. The Beast are the only things that venture out, and most of them are low levels and don’t help in leveling to get inside the dungeon. (R) Maybe in Adventure mode, have the game spawn 3-5 minions in a set group. The spawned units will spawn as low as 10 levels below to the hero to a max of 2 level above the Hero. These minions would spawn in any Keeper Dungeon room and they go and raid the peasant homes every day. Peasant homes repopulate every 2 day cycles and the groups of raiders don’t return to the Keeper Dungeon and walk off the map if unfaced. This way it doesn’t effect the ending minions the keeper had when they retired and gives the hero creatures to grind on.
-Overcumbered, needs to show up in the status area and not just at the top of the screen when you drop/pick up something. Also if it causes some sort of side effect, I’ve yet to see the difference. Even picking up gold caused this error message to pop up. Maybe a spot in the status area for a overcumbered value for weight or something of that nature.
~~~Update!~~~ I went played another Adventure game while writing this to confirm things and found a map with enemies at the Castle when you spawn. (I’m guessing the Keeper recently defeated that tribe and finished/retired the game with minions in the castle.) The unfortunate part is this equaled instant death on every handicap and sometimes before the beginning letter intro dialog box was completed. And on the handicap 20 I played it 5-7 times where I kept dying until i ran into a room and hide until the minions left. Then I was finally able to slowly but surely level up on a group of 20 or so lvl 36~ Tree Spirits in the southern forest with range attacks. Then I explored everything but the Keeper Dungeon to finish leveling and I was able to effectively enter the Keeper Dungeon and fight toe to toe with the minions on a even level base. It was hard, but hard enough that I could barely win. Which I did!!!! OMG FINALLY!
I think this was a good example of a few things that Michal may have been dreaming for, but the game isn’t ready for to naturally create this and the conditions allowed this to happen. The map was called “Jud of Sylvarat”, give it a shot guys and see if you like this. (Just be aware you’ll die within a few turns at the start.)
New additional notes from that game:
-(I) Found the Dwarves in the caves… None of them wanted to talk to me and only wanted to fight. Would only yell “die!” when the chat command was used. This is a big problem! as the beginning letter said to find them and talk to them. It was really disappointing…. I even refused to kill them and let them walk around me as I explored in hopes of a trick by the developer and they never became friendly or talked. I never found a lord of the group either. 🙁
-(I)Gold had no purpose. I had over 3000k in gold with no purpose.
-(I)Magic portal scroll was cool… But useless unless you had a reason to travel back and forth in areas. (R) i.e. sub quests which don’t exist yet.
-Mushrooms finally had a purpose this time… Some were hilarious… (I) But throwing them to confuse the enemy didn’t really do anything. (R) I would love the enemy to target their hallucinations. (R) Also a potion making area for the adventure to create things would be cool.
-HP, yup subject… But this time, a 2nd look at it. (I) Once I killed off the highest level minions, I noticed the lower level minions only ran from me and were effectively useless. HP here would help them. (R) If it was a damage dealing game, the lower level minions could continue to deal their small damage, to swarm their enemies and not just run circles and be useless.
Prime reason why that map worked for everything:
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