Possible Changes, Opinions, Comments

[LordBlackangel]

Firstly, to Shadow, as many have already stated - Thanks for making a great product and keeping the post-sale support top-notch.

Some of the topics have been touched on previously in other threads, I know, but my intent here is to get feedback from players (and Shadow) and to encourage these things to be addressed and possibly changed. I ask that people keep their comments on-topic and constructive. These topics are in no particular order:



Strange Leveling/Tier Progression - At first level I can walk through all the levels of a dungeon with no issue. As my level progresses things get inordinately more difficult. At level 20 the first level of a dungeon is exponentially more difficult and the mobs become life threatening. As the monsters get harder, my character should be becoming more powerful. This doesn't currently seem to be the case. Now don't get me wrong, I enjoy the challenge and don't want to walk over the enemies, but the progression of difficulty should be uniform throughout the levels. Has anyone else noticed this? Comments?

Cave-In's - I get the feeling that the rumble-to-fall time is meant to give the opportunity for people to possibly run away, but there is never enough time for that to happen. If you can see the imminent cave-in and you're not standing right on the edge, you're going to get slammed. Perhaps we can raise the time between when the rumble begins and the cave-in occurs? The damage is also an issue here. Getting smacked for a truckload of damage you cannot dodge or see coming is not conducive to an enjoyable gaming experience.

Suicidal NPC/Escorts - I don't mind escorting people. In fact, I think it one of the more interesting aspects of Din's Curse. That being said, people I'm escorting should not be running head-long into hopeless battles. I don't even take those missions anymore at 20+ level because the NPC is sure to die on the way.

Unbalanced Items/Drops - I know this has been touched on in other threads, but I feel it's worth repeating and adding my 2 cents. My current character is level 30. 15 levels ago I found a dagger which has 50 DPS. You read correctly: 50 DPS at level 15. Needless to say I have not found a better weapon since - and I'm still using it. In fact, nearly all the high DPS weapons seem to be daggers. This is consistent with all items in the game. My leather/cloth drops are usually better than most plate drops (on average). In my mind there should be a definite difference between Cloth-Leather-Mail-Plate in terms of armor value and it should be consistent (I.E. The better cloth should provide armor equal to lower level leather, and so on and so forth). This logic should apply to all items in the game, both weapons and armor. Perhaps adjust for this by giving lesser armor/weapons other abilities? Adjust the attack time to even it out (swords swing slower but higher damage giving equal DPS)? Opinions?

Money Drops - This is personal pet peeve. Why must anything in the game drop multiple coin windows? Does this bother anyone else? Perhaps this can either be coded out or at least given a toggle? Also, on the same note, on some occasions only walking over the money picks it up and in other you need to click it (I think it's based on being in single or multiplayer). Is there a way to toggle this? Can we implement a toggle for walk-over money pickup and single box drops for coins, Shadow? Comments?

Mana-Steal Monsters - They seem overpowered; especially Dark-Elves by way of shear numbers. I don't mind fighting a lot of monsters, but fighting a lot of Dark-Elves involves a large expenditure of mana potions for the reward, making fighting them overly tedious. Perhaps make mana-steal a special attack (1 out of 5 attacks)? Opinions?

Intelligence Stat/Spirit Stat - I don't know what was intended with this, but I feel as though these stats are too similar. Since they increase a few of the same things they don't feel separate. Opinions?

Wizards DPS Skill (or lack thereof) - Fighters have a passive basic skill that increases their damage as a stat (strength) increases. Wizards do not have this and it feels lopsided. I know they get a mana increase as they increase their stats, but it's not the same as a DPS increase.



I cannot stress enough how much fun I've had playing this game and how much I really want to see it grow and evolve through dev/player interaction. Thanks again to Soldak for keeping the ARPG alive.

-Lord Blackangel

[DeathKnight1728]

Lordblackangel said-Strange Leveling/Tier Progression - At first level I can walk through all the levels of a dungeon with no issue. As my level progresses things get inordinately more difficult. At level 20 the first level of a dungeon is exponentially more difficult and the mobs become life threatening. As the monsters get harder, my character should be becoming more powerful. This doesn't currently seem to be the case. Now don't get me wrong, I enjoy the challenge and don't want to walk over the enemies, but the progression of difficulty should be uniform throughout the levels. Has anyone else noticed this? Comments?

Give us an idea of what you mean with your character isnt becoming stronger. What class/hybrid are you using and what skills type of items?

[timeh]

Strange Leveling/Tier Progression: the world gets more dangerous as you level up. how is this a bad thing? things would be pretty boring if the overall difficulty stayed the same

Cave-Ins: cave ins have been nerfed way way way too much already. there's a sound effect and a visual cue long before the rocks actually fall

Suicidal NPC/Escorts: clear the path before you take them

Unbalanced Items/Drops: agreed. itemisation has been a joke from the beginning

Money Drops: i love seeing a floor covered in coins. auto coin pick up is singleplayer only (and possibly while solo in a multiplayer game, not checked)

Mana-Steal Monsters: learn to dodge attacks

Intelligence Stat/Spirit Stat: INT gives crit, SPI gives resists


i'll add one of my own.. auto targeting
when using a bow, and using 123 to attack while moving, it's annoying to have it target healthstones/crates/webs that are nearby when an enemy is in range

even when there's no healthstones/crates/webs around, sometimes you need to get really close to an enemy before it gets targeted (mouseover works fine, but sometimes you want to avoid running towards them, and the behaviour of R is just as unpredictable as not selecting anything)

[LordBlackangel]

Originally Posted by DeathKnight1728

Give us an idea of what you mean with your character isnt becoming stronger. What class/hybrid are you using and what skills type of items?

At character level 1 you could walk a dungeon from it's first level all the way to the bottom and experience little or no resistance. In contrast, as you're approaching level 20, you begin to feel weaker than you did at level 1. Level 1 monsters begin damaging you rather easily and you quickly get the feeling of being overwhelmed. This strange scaling phenomenon occurs irregardless of class, skills, or items (I've tried numerous class/skill/item combination's). This gives the feeling of level progression not scaling with dungeon level/difficulty. Players want to feel cooler as time goes on. They want better weapons, stats, and skills that make it feel as though they've gotten more powerful. As it stands, my level 30 character feels weaker than my level 1 character ever did, even though he has powerful items, skills, and stats. I also understand that this may very well be an intended effect - and that's fine. I'm just putting in my 2 cents.

In closing, let me be clear: I want the world to get more difficult - but it's all pointless if I don't feel like I'm scaling with it. I want to feel like I'm going up in level and getting more powerful, not simply gaining shiny objects and raising statistical numbers that don't really seem to do much. I understand that this is a somewhat esoteric issue which can be hard to tackle, and I think there is probably many contributing factors which occur at higher levels that may cause this: frequency of more elite monsters, D.O.T. effects such as poison and fire, and sheer number of mobs.

[LordBlackangel]

Originally Posted by timeh

Strange Leveling/Tier Progression: the world gets more dangerous as you level up. how is this a bad thing? things would be pretty boring if the overall difficulty stayed the same

See previous reply to DeathKnight1728.

Originally Posted by timeh

Cave-Ins: cave ins have been nerfed way way way too much already. there's a sound effect and a visual cue long before the rocks actually fall

I appreciate your point, but I, and many others, disagree. If by 'long before' you mean 1 second, that is not enough time in my opinion. There is a mod which disables cave ins completely, and I plan on using it from now on. With that said, I play co-op with others that I am usually talking with via X-Fire while gaming. With all the talking, we never hear the cave in, and by the time we see it, it's too late. We always seem to get caught in the cave in, sometimes getting hit even though we've moved out of the 'crumble' area.

Originally Posted by timeh

Suicidal NPC/Escorts: clear the path before you take them

If they're alive when I get there - sounds like a plan. Usually the moment I see them, they're mid-death. It's usually more trouble than it's worth. Other posts have mentioned escort/npc missions where people on lower levels die before you can make your way down to them.

Originally Posted by timeh

Unbalanced Items/Drops: agreed. itemisation has been a joke from the beginning

Which is why it should continue to be brought up in every thread possible until the devs decide to make a change.

Originally Posted by timeh

Money Drops: i love seeing a floor covered in coins. auto coin pick up is singleplayer only (and possibly while solo in a multiplayer game, not checked)

I'm really pleased that the devs hit the desired effect with you. But lets see this made into a toggle at least. I'd rather have $1 than 100 pennies, and I'd rather not click 1 more time than I absolutely have to in a game that is entirely click-centric. Thanks, but no thanks.

Originally Posted by timeh

Mana-Steal Monsters: learn to dodge attacks

Dodging an entire room with 10 Mana-Stealing Dark-Elves is not possible - but more to the point, it's not a fun addition to the game in such volume. And let me be clear: This issue is one of the most complained about things within my co-op group. Perhaps limiting the special attacks as I mentioned previously might help. I'm open to other ideas anyone might have.

Originally Posted by timeh

Intelligence Stat/Spirit Stat: INT gives crit, SPI gives resists

I understand what they do. I was looking for opinions on their similarities, not their differences (which are apparent).

Originally Posted by timeh

i'll add one of my own.. auto targeting
when using a bow, and using 123 to attack while moving, it's annoying to have it target healthstones/crates/webs that are nearby when an enemy is in range

even when there's no healthstones/crates/webs around, sometimes you need to get really close to an enemy before it gets targeted (mouseover works fine, but sometimes you want to avoid running towards them, and the behaviour of R is just as unpredictable as not selecting anything)

Absolutely.

Also, I've never found a reason why I'd want to destroy a healthstone, lifestone, or such. I understand that having an area-attack harm those things lends a certain degree of caution (which is good), but regular attacks?

Seconded. Third. Fouth.

[joku]

Originally Posted by LordBlackangel

Dodging an entire room with 10 Mana-Stealing Dark-Elves is not possible

So don't run into a room and let 10 dark-elves swarm you. Draw them off one or two at a time, or draw them all through a bottleneck so that only one or two can attack you at a time.

And you're complaining about this during co-op? This is what tanks are for. One of you runs into the mob and draws their attacks while someone else deals out damage from a safe distance.

It really isn't that hard.

[LordBlackangel]

Originally Posted by joku

So don't run into a room and let 10 dark-elves swarm you. Draw them off one or two at a time, or draw them all through a bottleneck so that only one or two can attack you at a time.

And you're complaining about this during co-op? This is what tanks are for. One of you runs into the mob and draws their attacks while someone else deals out damage from a safe distance.

It really isn't that hard.

No. This wasn't what I was talking about at all. What I was getting at was an issue with dark-elves in particular having this ability and how having to deal with it gets more tedious than fun. It just seems this ability is overpowered compared with other equal-level creatures.

Yes someone could tank.
Yes you could kite them back and pick them off one at a time.
No that isn't hard.

What it is, for me and many of my co-op players, is annoying, tedious, and pace breaking compared to every other creature we fight. In in end it this seems to be more of a personal preference. I can see how this might not matter to some players.

Its not a 'major' issue by any means and seems only to come up in co-op. YMMV.

[Max_Powers]

Originally Posted by LordBlackangel

At character level 1 you could walk a dungeon from it's first level all the way to the bottom and experience little or no resistance. In contrast, as you're approaching level 20, you begin to feel weaker than you did at level 1. Level 1 monsters begin damaging you rather easily and you quickly get the feeling of being overwhelmed. This strange scaling phenomenon occurs irregardless of class, skills, or items (I've tried numerous class/skill/item combination's). This gives the feeling of level progression not scaling with dungeon level/difficulty. Players want to feel cooler as time goes on. They want better weapons, stats, and skills that make it feel as though they've gotten more powerful. As it stands, my level 30 character feels weaker than my level 1 character ever did, even though he has powerful items, skills, and stats. I also understand that this may very well be an intended effect - and that's fine. I'm just putting in my 2 cents.

In closing, let me be clear: I want the world to get more difficult - but it's all pointless if I don't feel like I'm scaling with it. I want to feel like I'm going up in level and getting more powerful, not simply gaining shiny objects and raising statistical numbers that don't really seem to do much. I understand that this is a somewhat esoteric issue which can be hard to tackle, and I think there is probably many contributing factors which occur at higher levels that may cause this: frequency of more elite monsters, D.O.T. effects such as poison and fire, and sheer number of mobs.

Just to throw my two cents in here - I have noticed the same thing as you. I think that it may have something to do with creatures gaining and improving at their ability to dodge, block, evade or whatever. I haven't noticed them doing that all that much early on, but when they start doing it later it really makes a simple fight last a lot longer. If you are using a slow attack weapon it just makes it even worse.

Along a similar line: I think the creatures ability to deflect/evade/etc is why it seems to me that when I should have a 90%+ chance to hit that I am hitting more like 75% of the time.

I am still fairly new to the game and haven't had too many chars past lvl 20, so this is just my opinion.

[LordBlackangel]

Originally Posted by Max_Powers

Just to throw my two cents in here - I have noticed the same thing as you. I think that it may have something to do with creatures gaining and improving at their ability to dodge, block, evade or whatever. I haven't noticed them doing that all that much early on, but when they start doing it later it really makes a simple fight last a lot longer. If you are using a slow attack weapon it just makes it even worse.

Along a similar line: I think the creatures ability to deflect/evade/etc is why it seems to me that when I should have a 90%+ chance to hit that I am hitting more like 75% of the time.

I am still fairly new to the game and haven't had too many chars past lvl 20, so this is just my opinion.

This is precisely what I'm talking about and I'm happy to hear I'm not the only player who has experienced this. I think you're right about the dodge/deflect/evade/block from monsters in general possibly causing it. It makes your 95% attack on level feel as if it were much much less. And yes, using a slow weapon makes this even worse. Playing a straight up fighter seems strange when you're drawn to high-speed weapons (daggers) for sake of countering this effect.

Any ideas for the devs on how we can remedy this?

[FloodSpectre]

Originally Posted by LordBlackangel

Strange Leveling/Tier Progression - At first level I can walk through all the levels of a dungeon with no issue. As my level progresses things get inordinately more difficult. At level 20 the first level of a dungeon is exponentially more difficult and the mobs become life threatening. As the monsters get harder, my character should be becoming more powerful. This doesn't currently seem to be the case. Now don't get me wrong, I enjoy the challenge and don't want to walk over the enemies, but the progression of difficulty should be uniform throughout the levels. Has anyone else noticed this? Comments?

When I was playing past level 20, what seemed to be an issue to me was the overall damage output of the monsters. It seems like it scales up too quickly, where just a few hits against a fairly well armored character can kill quite quickly. However, I also feel like many monsters ought to have more health per level. I found I was able to use my special attacks almost all the time and typically killed or very nearly killed most enemies in a single blow. I do like their ability to dodge/block etc though. Most games have mobs that die so easily... I'm looking at you, Titan Quest.

Originally Posted by LordBlackangel

Unbalanced Items/Drops - I know this has been touched on in other threads, but I feel it's worth repeating and adding my 2 cents. My current character is level 30. 15 levels ago I found a dagger which has 50 DPS. You read correctly: 50 DPS at level 15. Needless to say I have not found a better weapon since - and I'm still using it. In fact, nearly all the high DPS weapons seem to be daggers. This is consistent with all items in the game. My leather/cloth drops are usually better than most plate drops (on average). In my mind there should be a definite difference between Cloth-Leather-Mail-Plate in terms of armor value and it should be consistent (I.E. The better cloth should provide armor equal to lower level leather, and so on and so forth). This logic should apply to all items in the game, both weapons and armor. Perhaps adjust for this by giving lesser armor/weapons other abilities? Adjust the attack time to even it out (swords swing slower but higher damage giving equal DPS)? Opinions?

This is the thing that's bothered me the most about Din's so far. I love the game, don't get me wrong, but I've played a lot of ARPGs in the past and the items in Din's often feel underwhelming, unbalanced, or too out-of-level. Your anecdote about the dagger you found happens to all my characters with different sorts of items.

On top of that, I still feel that the unique class items (Elite+ and Set) are underpowered. The random bonus modifiers are nice, but I think maybe there should be a special list of modifiers they can get, cutting out the weaker or less impressive ones. It really sucks to get a Legendary shield and have a +10 health bonus on it as a random modifier. Some of these items need to have their base bonuses cranked up too. An example of this that I found shortly before I stopped playing (due to technical issues, nothing to do with the game) was Mudbeard's Chestpiece (not sure if that was its exact name). It was a fairly good Set piece, a plate chest armor, and it had a stock +1 Strength modifier.

Furthermore, I've suggested a few times that certain modifiers be restricted to certain types of items and certain rarities. +all stats really ought to only appear on rare or very rare items, and maybe it should even use up two of the item's "mod slots" instead of one. +health should only appear on armor and really needs to be beefed up anyways. I'm pretty sure some modifiers do only show up on certain items though, like -cast time, which I've only ever seen on staves and gloves.