Feature Request and Issues

[Shadow]

Originally Posted by Bluddy

* Is there a reason skills are missing on the skill tree when choosing a specialty? For example, when I create a Necromancer, the Raise Dead skill is missing.

Which specific skills you get are randomized a little. You always get the 1 point skills though. I decoupled the specialty skill list from what you actually get so I could freely add as many skills that made sense to a specialty without breaking other things (balance, mutation levels, etc).

[Bluddy]

Originally Posted by Shadow

Which specific skills you get are randomized a little. You always get the 1 point skills though. I decoupled the specialty skill list from what you actually get so I could freely add as many skills that made sense to a specialty without breaking other things (balance, mutation levels, etc).

OK that's cool.

The mutation mechanic needs to be explained in-game btw, including what happens when you mutate with another character/tree. I don't entirely understand it myself :P

[Shadow]

Originally Posted by Bluddy

The mutation mechanic needs to be explained in-game btw, including what happens when you mutate with another character/tree. I don't entirely understand it myself :P

Yeah, I plan on that at some point in time.

[Bluddy]

One feature I forgot about in Drox is that it's very hardcore: you only have a few lives before you hit the monetary loss condition (note for Drox 2: the number of remaining lives given the cost should be stated more clearly).

This feature makes it so you're really afraid of losing your ship, and especially going into unsettled solar systems is a huge risk. It's awesome. But it's only doable in Drox because
a) you have a lot of defense (armor, shield, hull) and
b) unless you have a specific guild quest, you don't *have* to venture to really dangerous areas. You can stay in safer areas and accomplish small tasks. (Of course, if you *do* have a guild quest, things get really intense).

Both of these conditions don't hold in DL, which is why I don't think the concept is transferable by default. However, it would be nice to have the 'Only Hope' option from DC, which is essentially equivalent to Drox's monetary loss but with only one life, but apply it more generously. It's not realistic not to die in DL -- a huge monster can appear out of nowhere and take you out before you can react (you don't have the layers of defense from Drox). But if you had a generous number of lives (say, 10), it would make the game quite exciting. So DL's version of 'Only Hope' would give you 10 lives, and after you die 10 times, the current world is lost.

[Bluddy]

If we look at clan NPCs as the sort-of equivalent to planets in Drox (and ships -- it's really both), NPCs are the main resource in Zombasite/DL. One of the key things in Drox was quest chains that made individual planets less efficient. It would be nice to have such quest chains for NPCs, causing them both unhappiness and debuffs.

I know some things exist, like diseases and curses. What I'm looking for is to be able to wear down a clan's strength, much like the way you can slowly chip away at enemy planets and ships in Drox.

For example, it would be very useful to be able to cause discord between clan members of another clan. The relationship would become gradually worse until they start fighting, and maybe a clan member will rebel or defect. So a quest chain of a fight between 2 or more clan members, which can be sorted out by bringing back something to pacify them, would help with this, and you could try and plant such a quest chain on your enemies, perhaps by stealing the object that caused the fight. This is also something that can be initiated by a boss, of course.

Perhaps a quest chain that disables a clan's health stone would be cool as well. Also some quest chain that degrades NPC item effectiveness.

Just like in your own clan, I imagine an unhappy NPC of another clan will start to cause negative quest chains for that clan already, right?

[Bluddy]

Looks like there are quite a few other towns to find in DL. There's no reason people in other towns should agree to join your town. Maybe there could be a quest line to get one of them to join your town, but by default there shouldn't be an option for anybody to join your town.

The same thing applies to joining your party -- only people from your own town should be ok with joining your party. Otherwise you have an endless supply.

[Bluddy]

* I have a gate for an area that spawned in a bad location. When teleporting back to that area, I was placed in a random location on the map.

(From discord)

* Zombasite infections can still happen, at least to NPCs in your party.

* Small rocks, even from falling debris, are labeled 'small chest'.

* I've had a cave-in happen in an open area. Not sure if it's supposed to be able to happen.

* Happiness negative modifier mentions Apocalypse (from Zombasite).

* Even non-abandoned towns have the gate issue. It looks like every other town you encounter, with a gate that allows you to jump to many levels (ie. not just back to your town) have the gate label issue.

[Bluddy]

* It seems that most, or at least some scenarios start with nothing but the main quests e.g. destroy the gate, destroy the altars. I think this is a shame -- showing why these things need to be destroyed is important ie. they've already let to bad quests that hurt your town etc.

* I observed in DL as well as in Zombasite that now that outdoor areas are segmented (ie. not just squares), they lead to many dead ends. This is a little bit annoying and feels somewhat unrealistic -- it's rare in an open area that you'd get to a wall that prevents you from crossing over to where your target is. It'd be nice if the map generation could be tweaked to make fewer dead ends except perhaps in the borders of areas. So you'd be more likely to have 2 paths that separate, but then perhaps eventually lead to the same place. I think it's much better to have a split in the road that leads to a shortcut and a long way to get to your target rather than explore one path and find that it leads to a dead end.

* Now that there are other friendly towns without factions, it would be nice to think about how they're connected. Perhaps a road could lead between them. Perhaps that road could have people moving along it and generating quests as they get attacked by monsters. Perhaps suppliers could pass between towns, and if they get ambushed (and not rescued) the town doesn't get its supplies and everyone starves.

[Bluddy]

The 'town protector' scenario starts with a bulletin board that contains the starting quests, but also has the warmaster etc, who do *not* have the starting quests. Further quests appear both on the bulletin board and the warmaster et al.

[Shadow]

Originally Posted by Bluddy

* Zombasite infections can still happen, at least to NPCs in your party.

That one at least is on purpose. The Zombasite still exists. Mutated are immune to it, but humans are not.