Displeased with some of the changes...
 

Ok, I'll start with this - I know you can't please everyone.

But I have to say that I am really disappointed in the direction the game has taken with some of these lastest changes...

- Many of the character classes are severly gimped. Their skill sets need to be re-vamped - and those classes that were useful keep getting their powers nerfed (thunderbolt's stun-lock was actually useful against monsters like TARIS and now that's been taken away from us as well).
- This new food classification system is absolutely absurd and unbalanced. The regular stuff isn't always available, but the better stuff is at a higher price.
- It feels that I am much to high of a level (23 - on this NEW character) for the armour/weapons/food that is being found or sold.
- Bags seem to be rarer than set-items now. They used to be bountiful, now they're impossible to get/find.
- The monters seem to be hitting much harder now compared to before and succeeding in laying down crits much more often.
- The cost of food and potions is often severly high compared to the amount of gold one can find or get for items which means I'm spending my time being BROKE.

There are some good points still, but one doesn't bitch about those things to get changes made. :P

These last changes have actually made the game unpleasant for me and my brother to play - which is sad because we really enjoyed playing Din's online together (we've logged many, many DAYS worth of time playing this online). It's to the point where I'm posting this and he's looking for an alternative.

We applaud the work you do on Din's and it's Addon, but man, some things just shouldn't be messed with.

I have to agree on some things here.

I have decent AC but I can't take hits anymore, and get crits often, and we aren't really playing with the higher difficulty settings that are available.

Changing thunderbolt, which has been a core skill for us since the beginning, was a little jarring as well.

Well what is the chance of stun? If it is lower than 25% then a change should make it to 25% or 40%. Those are much more reasonable than what it is now. I heard it was 10% but i dont think that is correct.

stunning blow? 5% iirc

The chance of stunning blow on thunderbolt is 5%?

Balancing DC is a monster of a task what with all the classes and the fact that the game needs to remain balanced for 100 levels. Your feedback is very important, so don't get discouraged.

Of the things you said, I can say that bags don't seem that rare to me. By bags do you mean real bags that hold 8 items? Because those are rare, but 6 item holders are quite plentiful in my experience, especially if you check up on vendors.

I see people complaining about the cost of food a lot. I think maybe the inflation rate should be lowered. The current inflation assumes that people should pay more money for stronger portions/food as they build up gold. However, in higher levels, the chances of dying are higher, so there's already a need for consuming more potions and food. Going broke because you're trying to survive is probably not a fun experience for most people. And since the main way to make money is from selling junk, it means that once you've hit a difficult dungeon floor you're really stuck, which is not good.

I'm also a little iffy about the quality food items, if only because you now have similar looking food that doesn't stack and takes up even more space in your inventory.

For what it's worth, I agree with this 100%

I really don't see the advantage of having the quality food items. There was already enough variety for me without them.

I agree also. If more foods really are needed, add maybe 3-4 new ones and readjust the steps between all the foods.

I haven't found problems with food/potion economy issues, that might be character/playing differences. But ... sheesh ... the bag availability. Gee I see a wandering bag vendor and they have 2 bags and when they restock they have only 1 bag. I found "bag vendor" in the dungeon - and they had NO bags. Sigh.

Am I missing something? How many bags are needed?

Part of the experience is that you slowly (but not that slowly) build up carrying capacity. I've never had trouble getting bags even by random drops. I play for a while with limited capacity and inevitably the bags pop up along the way.
Satchels, as I mentioned, are rare. Plus you could always store bags in the common stash with other characters and then borrow some of them for the current character, so I have a hard time seeing how bags are a problem.

EDIT: didn't notice the no bags part. I'd consider that a bug. But I think the bag count is kept down to add some measure of interest in collecting bigger bags. At the same time, bag vendors are rare enough that they might as well give you a bunch of big bags.

Bags were not always this rare, I imagine somewhere along the way, the drop rate got reduced significantly.

And this is our main issue with the game, is that since the beginning, there have been a lot of changes along the way that had the unfortunate side-effect of making the game more difficult.

Balance is an extremely difficult thing, we know that, and the work Shadow has put in this game is mind boggling. The sad part of it though, is that having this game as tough as it is now, translates into less fun for me and my bro.

We play dins for a co-op dungeon crawling experience, we're not hardcore gamers. For us, Din's was about going through dungeons and feeling like a bad-ass, watching our characters grow and hoarding loot. Now, it feels like it's about survival and XP debt. Without changing any options, our characters are less powerful, die more often, get less good loot and have to pick up gray items to sell so we can afford food.

I've been playing Din's since shortly after release, and it's quite a different experience now, and it breaks my heart to say that I am no longer enjoying it as I once did. If the majority feel opposed to this, then I suppose it's simply time to move on, not a big deal.

I've noticed tons of options that can be toggled upon town or character creation to make the game more difficult, I can't fathom using any of them. It seems even without checking these, some of the more difficult balance changes have leaked into the game.

Sincerely,

Ive gotten more characters to that turning point of 30-40 and i can thankfully say that its been much easier now than before (some 5-6 months ago). Before i could barely enter combat range without getting swatted for a ton of damage, now i find it to be much more manageable. I do agree though that some of the new changes might be annoying. I used to use thunderbolt quite a bit, now its almost pointless. But hey, that doesnt mean that it cant be remedied.

Right. From what I read on these forums, most of the changes have made it easier rather than harder to play DC. I think Jorlen experienced some very specific issues that pissed him and his brother off.

I personally don't consider the paucity of bags a major issue, but if there are specific other things he can point to (other than inflation which I think is a valid point), I think those can be handled on a case by case basis, thunderbolt being a good example.

Another point is that nerfing of a power is *usually* done for a reason. It means that that power was too dominant. I'm not sure that applies to thunderbolt (in fact it probably doesn't), but DC allows you to respec to find a balance of powers that works better. And if that's not good enough, Jorlen, you can always play at a lower level town or slower pace -- there's no shame in that. That's what those settings are for.

I think problems with food and/or going broke is a playing style, because I've never had either of those problems. (Except for towns where all the vendors are dead for a long time, so no one to buy food from.)

I stock up on food, so I don't have to buy when prices are higher (darkness machine, poisoning, etc.). Pick up almost everything in the dungeon and sell it in town. Also use Din's altar as much as possible, rather than rely on food/potions.

The drawback is that it is a little more tedious, and sometimes the quests escalate while my character is running to and from town. But again, that is a choice of playing style. Should be able to find a balance between penny-pinching on food, and beserker fighting that uses up all the food.

You guys are forgetting that there are TWO of us going into any of these dungeons. We're not doing a berzerker styled game. We try to save every city we enter and we deal with all the modifiers that are thrown in.

We both have been playing Din's pretty much since it came out. The points we bring up are from our experiences with the game since day one.

We've played MANY variations of just about every character class and have settled on which work better in our co-op games and which we can use to go exploring alone.

We both have two different main characters to which we've spent plenty of time choosing skill sets that compliment each other (and we found the good combinations to be wanting). Our characters used to work very well together and we used to be able to handle a dungeon that was 2 levels higher than we are at the time. We didn't mess around with any of the game modifiers as we found the gameplay satisfactory to our needs & likes.

Now it just seems we spend our time getting are proverbial butts handed to us and spend all our money on food and potions.

We do pick up everything that falls. We have to to pay for our food & potions somehow, right? Problem with this is that there isn't enough items that fall to be shared between the two of us so we can properly keep stocked up. Then you go an add the higer priced modifiers (famine, low stock) and we're broke.

Now, we're all ok with some changes and mods as long as the basic playing style of the game remains unchanged. We started this thread because we felt that this style has been changed with detrimental effects on our playing enjoyment.

One should not be expected to be a level whatever character and have to create lesser levelled town just because the monsters will be weaker (and give out much less XP) for the sake of not having to die all the dang time.

One should also not have to not update to the new patches (in case there are some major changes) to be able to enjoy the game.

It's a fine line the DEV needs to thread and we feel for him. That said, things don't change if the fans keep their traps shut. I think it's a sad day when a great games starts to looses it's appeal.

Have you looked at Magitek's mod? That might fix some of your problems.

That said, I do think there's a legit problem in the base game of many skills being worthless/underpowered in comparison to others, as well as many skills having vastly excessive cooldown timers. I think this is something that needs to be handled before release. I'd like to see someone go through the classes and point out the underused/underpowered skills.

As for thunderbolt, if it's gimped that much, maybe lightning mastery should work on it again?

The trouble is that Thunderbolt is so fast even before the inevitable Cast Time gear that you get 4 chances at re-stun every time you stun a mob. With Cast Time gear, the 4 chances become up to 7. 7 chances at a 25% occurrence will hit that occurrence at least once 87% of the time. Even the 4 chances succeed 68% of the time. At 10% stun, 4/7 chances become 35%/52% success. Unless the mob is within melee range with a fast weapon, you can add at least one more chance to these figures to represent the time it needs to close the range and swing its weapon.

I agree with the OP that food, drink, and potions escalate in price too rapidly, but I think that's intended as a money sink to balance the increasingly valuable gear that the player is selling by the cartload. This idea seems to break down once players start dying constantly in the late game. I personally stockpile the more cost-effective food and potions (some on mules) or use lower-leveled characters to buy for their betters, who reciprocate by passing down phat loots. Food and potions 3 tiers down from the "proper" stuff are still very effective for me.

I also linger in conveniently arranged towns after saving them to do some item-farming as I milk the respawns. Once you're a bit overleveled for the town, it's easy to put on the item/magic-finding suit without much risk of death. Aside from keeping one's purse full, this approach increases the quality of one's main gear over time, making higher town levels less hazardous.

I'll second this. The number of not awful skills is surprisingly small.
Regarding the money side of the game, I'm having the exact opposite experience. I have too much money because apart from food there isn't exactly much to spend it on.
Bag availability seems to be absolutely random. My current HC char is lvl 28 and has already 2 Knapsacks ( 12 slots) while with other chars I only had 6 or 8 slot bags available at around the same lvl.

I agree with bag availability, and I think it's not a problem because of the shared stash. I like the randomness.

Regarding skills, I think it'd be much more useful if you pinpointed specific skills and their deficiencies. Again, this game is REALLY difficult to balance well because of all the possibilities. You could help by indicating what you think is too weak (or too strong).

The money issue is really interesting. I think characters that have an easy time don't have any trouble money-wise, because the most expensive stuff is the food and potions which have inflation. Weaker characters that die a lot need many potions, and they can go broke. Not sure if anything can be done about this since one can adjust the town difficulty and make a weak character 'strong', or keep playing after a town is saved to gather money, so the economy is unpredictable.

If donation bliss gets steadily expensive (as I suggested elsewhere) that would be something strong characters could invest their excess money into.

Maybe we could also purchase town defenses? Donate a certain amount to the steward, and the game will spawn a town defense totem quest. Also, since donations would be getting universal special functions, we could say that if you donate a certain amount to the weaponsmith, he'll spawn a specially crafted item quest. Basically donations would be an expensive path to order optional quests that you want.

No shared stash in HC I'm afraid.
I don't. Running back and forth more often to sell crap just because I have a small inventory is not my definition of fun. But then I don't like the whole inventory system anyway.

Last time I died at lvl 58 I had ~ 170 GP. I've played with poor + unlucky before and even though it does make a difference it still doesn't matter that much. But I don't think this is an important thing to fix anyway, too much money certainly doesn't break the game.

Sure could but whats the point ? There are so many design desicions I fundamentally disagree with and so many obvious flawed skills that haven't been tackled that I think this is intentional.

OK good point. Maybe hardcore mode should be given 2 bags to begin with. It's hard enough as it is.

Well, if you're determined to sell every last thing you find, you'll overload any (reasonable) carrying capacity, and you'll squander one of the main resources in the game, which is time. I think the smaller inventory in the beginning encourages you to be picky about what you take with you and limits how much money you generate by selling junk, unless you're willing to run back and forth.

There has to be some inventory limit -- weight limits would have been just as 'bad' if not worse than the current system, and I think a random limit that's based on exploration/luck is more enjoyable or just as good as having restrictions by strength or some other criteria.

Again though, I agree hardcore characters need to be given more inventory space to begin with.

Well, fundamental design decisions are probably not going to change, but flawed skills could use input (even if it's not ultimately used). There are many class/skill possibilities and relatively few users, so the more input there is about specific skills, the more imbalances can be fixed.

See and that is not true at all once you have 3 Knappsacks or better. I pick up everything atm and I'm playing at Very Fast + Fast NPCs and I don't have to run back and forth to town that often anymore. The inventory is a problem for the first 20-30 lvls, maybe 40 if you're unlucky with bag drops/vendors. So why have a limited inventory at all ? What does it really add to the game ?

Why HAS there to be some limit ?

I haven't changed bag drop rates in ages.

Knowing which skills people feel are useless would be extremely helpful.

The quality food was a way to add more steps but was also a way to add more food without screwing up every food item's level in the game. For example if I added more at the high level and rearranged the levels, everyone would end up with food that is worth less than what they paid for it.

BTW, all item prices have inflation. It's not something special for food or potions.

Inferno for demonologist. Its 1 damage per second per level becomes useless after lvl 10. Most enemies have fire resistance to stop that really early on. Would it be possible to make that damage 1 or 2% damage per level that is based off the damage of your weapon but is fire damage still.

riposte? at the very least it seems worthless, but perhaps it's too transparent/quick for me to see it at work?

Actually riposte is almost too good as it is. You get 50% damage bonus and 40% crit bonus at level 1, and it goes up by that amount every level. If you calculate that out that is-800% critical chance and 1000% bonus damage at lvl 20. Thats the highest damage attack in the game. The only downside is you have to be defensive and get a lot of parries and blocks. Its one of those attacks that when it hits, the opponent is usually in pieces.

thanks. i'm going to have to take a look later and see what my parry skills are up to (generally use two handed weapons on a vanilla warrior build) because i don't seem to parry that often.

Ok, I'll list by class what I see as useless in the base game, starting with priests

Paladin Shield Bash- just an underpowered skill across the board
Zeal- not worth 6 pts.

Paladins need more in general I believe, Din's Additionals has some great stuff- though some of it is OP in my eyes.

Healer

Cure Poison- needs to be linked to a Cure Fire like in Din's additions, maybe even a Cure Acid.

Holy Shield - useful, but needs to be stronger or have longer effective time or less recharge time with level. This is a general problem with your skills.

Shaman-

Champion- recharge time too long

I'd say Shamans need more skills also.

Warrior-

Weaponmaster

Power Strike- skill isn't bad, but Perfect Strike is better for a higher mana cost, which is negligible, so it's underpowered in that sense. Maybe if you used devastating blow more, which I don't use, but can see a reason to use.

Gladiator

Cleave- the damage malus needs to go.

Savage Strike- unsure it's worth 6 points

Defender

Shield Bash- see Paladin

Revenge- seems too situational with too short a time to use. Maybe the skill should be automatic?

Retaliation- not worth 8 points.

Rogue-

Thief

Caltrops- too much cooldown time, maybe cut it by level some?

Concentration Skills- too much cooldown time here also

Trickster

Sleight of Hand- does anyone use this?

Feint- not worth 6 points, effect doesn't last long enough?

Assassin

Spot Vulnerability- too expensive

Critical Strike- should be automatic perhaps?

Will post part 2 now.

Part 2
 

Fire Mage

Flame Blade- time should increase with level up to recharge time. 5secs/level perhaps

Ice Mage

Ice Armor- less recharge time/longer effect time by level

Concentration- why is this a 1pt skill for gladiators and 6pt for Ice Mages?

Permafrost- this is worth 8 pts how? It's nowhere near as good as the good 8 pt skills.

Magician

Blinding Flash- needs a slight power up or reduction in cooldown timer

Arcane Blast- should be quicker

Magic Shield- needs to be stronger, or less recharge time

Arcane Drain- should perhaps give the caster life and have duration increased to 10 secs?

Arcane Swarm- horrible at 8pts. Needs to do vastly more damage.

Archer

Marked for Death- vastly overpriced at 6pts. Might be worth 1 or 2.

Hunter

fine

Druid

Mana Regen- needs to be a passive effect- not a spell, or have its effect increase by 1min/level until it reaches 5.

Conjurer

Curses- need either a range increase with level, or a separate skill for 2-3 pts which increases radius by 2 ft/level, capped at 7.

fine, but needs an additional skill

Necromancer

Lich- could stand to be cheaper, or a stronger effect

Sorcerer

Chain Lightning- needs to work on more targets

Thunderbolt - if stun is nerfed, lightning mastery should work on it

Ball Lightning/Lightning Swarm- need more effectiveness

Reaver

Charge, Rampage- need cooldowns reduced by level
Breach- needs to be cheaper 4 pt skill perhaps


Warden
Shield Blast- why is a 3pt skill= 1pt Shield Bash for other classes, and Shield Bash underpowered as is?

Shield Sweep- for 8 pts should have a minimal recharge time

Wards- should also have recharge reduce by level

Demonologist

Inferno- underpowered, should be a toggle (maybe have it drain mana until you turn it off)

Blood Sacrifice- damage you take should go up by less per level. Maybe +1 per level, otherwise fine

Blood Rage- underpowered at 6 pts. Maybe should be automatic

Circles- should have reduced recharge time by level.

Class skills and re-balancing should probably be it's own thread.

We could keep all suggestions there and have a big discussion about this; I'd be happy to contribute.

Agreed. Starting one now.

If you have any feedback for Additionals it'd be good to hear; I have a 49 priest utilizing shield-bash, crushing blow, mace mastery, champion and true aim and it's pretty powerful as well as fun but doesn't strike me as overly OP.
I admit it's pretty damn OP compared to stock priest however.

I think the paladin aura skill is kinda OP , even at 8pts. Having it reduce mana regen, health regen, or some other sort of drawback might balance it out though.

I like most of your changes- though with the emphasis on base class rebalancing I've been trying to play stock the past couple of days, and demonologists in particular.

Apocalyse totem- why doesn't that give xp when you kill something though, and why did you cap lifeburn level and take holy fire away?

Paladin auras:
I can't count how many times I've tested the paladin's aura, but recently I actually increased the damage because I didn't believe it was performing sufficiently at high level; it was a wasted investment for me.
It is a huge amount of points for very little output, though it is helpful, particularly in the early game, but further in the game smaller elemental figures disappear quickly to resistances.
If you believe it is currently overpowered, I will look into it again however.

Lifeburn:
There was no way for me to scale the lifeburn tick speed properly, so I opted to cap it to prevent it from getting out of control; lifeburn dot damage ticks become faster and faster as it levels.. not only that, but it continues to burn for longer on top of that.
It is a tremendously powerful single target dot, likely the most powerful in the game now, even with its limit at 15. I guess I should update the description to reflect the changes.

Apocalypse totem: there was actually no means for me to grant EXP to the player from a totems kill in the earlier versions of Din's Curse; this is why it dealt amazing damage instead.
I should really get around to updating it now that it can be done correctly.

As for holy fire: I don't remember the exact reasoning, but I suspect it is because I was on the warpath for duplicate skills, if apocalypse had worked out correctly it would have properly replaced holy fire.

In the next patch you might be able to do this a better way. I'm adding a HealthChangeInflation parm that is percent based and makes it so each skill level the amount HealthChange goes up (or down) can increase.

Maybe lower the initial damage but raise the damage per level, or make it one aura and magic damage?

It's really powerful on some hybrids that lack crowd control, or are really strong defensively.

The point I really agree with is the price of food, i notice this most with my warrior who of my few characters need most food/potions and tends to be a bit short on money. I sometimes had to sell items to be able to buy stuff from merchants.

The problem is that some classes/playing style will probably need more potions than others.

Just a quick note, along with a lot of other balance changes, food prices have been decreased.

Not everything can be perfectly balanced. I just want the weaker classes/skills to be more effective.

The four classes that seem weakest to me on their own are shamans, warlocks, paladins, and magicians

Does this mean that there is another patch comin' down the tubes?

I haven't played it since this thread was started... kinda going through withdrawals. :D