The Feedback Thread

[Tuidjy]

Originally Posted by MindDefect

It's not that easy having to gather and maintain equipment for a whole clan as you make it sound, or is it? Haven't you been playing loner games lately?

Yeah... but whenever I kill off one of them, which happens with an alarming regularity, I go back to some of my regular characters, which face 60+ enemy clans, and swim in loot.

This is a nice idea. But maybe it's just me, I just wish these raw materials could have a bit more use in game. Do they for you on the higher levels?

The last two have no use that I can see. There first five I never have enough until most of my guys reach level 100, and there is no need for constant improvement. Actually, I do not even bother maintaining the equipment of everyone - mostly it is just the gear of my two wingmen, and the weapons of the other three guys I take on raids. There are levels where I do not get enough crafting materials for the player character, let alone anyone else.

Though, I would actually like have some of these items for fellow clan members, considering that the most common raw materials are for just maintaining my own equipment. Maybe I haven't paid enough attention, but does a clan NPC actually have to use the raw materials listed at the crafting station to maintain their equipment? I always assumed they just magically kept them maintained..

The keep them repaired, but they do not upgrade them. Considering what a big difference upgrades make over time...

[MindDefect]

My history playing roguelike or the like kind of games, I generally know it's better keeping yourself alive and not wasting so much time/weight/hunger ect., deciding if I either want the otherwise, exact same armor piece.. the one with lighting resistance or the one with fire resistance. Or feel the need to keep both on hand, even if I already am pretty stuffed on inventory space. Or have to check everything that I come across, even if I'm in a dire situation.

But not every player (or potential customer for this great game) manage their items the same way. Some players I will try to get to play this game on MP, are more OCD than others. Probably players used to playing less punishing/more relaxed ARPG type games.

Well, regardless of having the need to identify unique items, being able to view items stats without picking them up (especially at lower levels with little personal inventory space, where all new players will have to start anyway) I think could only help. Especially since items take longer to fade away when they are in towns, one can use the town floor as a little tempory stash, and be able to view what they are. Haven't played these games as much as others, but apparently Diablo III and Path of Exile both have this feature, and I'd would undoubtedly think it would be way more useful to have that feature in Zombasite than in those games (again I'm just guessing, but that's just from what little I have played and seen of those games).

For it to make sense to have that, while still having identifying, would probably be practical to add the ability to right click items that are on the ground. That could be slightly useful as well, for someone with a full inventory, for just quickly using one of the various potions (like vitality,strengh, or especially that magic item chance finding one), or a treasure map that's laying on the ground that someone would likely just want to use right away anyway. That would be even more work though for Shadow.

[Tuidjy]

I seldom agonize over which piece is better. The thing is, for nearly the whole game, crafted weapons are hands down the best choice, and to get the best ones, it matters what you start with. (The same is true for armors, but while I am OCD enough to build the perfect weapon, I am not OCD enough to try for 10+ perfect pieces of armor)

In order to craft a better weapon, you need to start with a very special common or uncommon item, slot it, gem it, and then keep sharpening it on every level. So you need a ton of grindstones, so you need to transmute a lot of items. Well, if I am going to be lugging them home, I may as well spend some cash identifying them.

=============

Somewhat related suggestion: You know how you can use [<-] and [->] to choose whose equipment gets compared to the one under your cursor? I would really love it if one of the choice was "No one", so that I do not have to wonder which of the two items displayed is the one that I am looking at.

[ScrObot]

MindDefect, for convenience reasons I ported my Drox mod that makes opening/identifying everything take a quarter of a second, and makes "Identify All" at the crafting table free. Not having to worry about that stuff makes my life much easier, and it doesn't feel too cheesy to me.

http://www.soldak.com/forums/showpos...80&postcount=5

[MindDefect]

Originally Posted by ScrObot

MindDefect, for convenience reasons I ported my Drox mod that makes opening/identifying everything take a quarter of a second, and makes "Identify All" at the crafting table free. Not having to worry about that stuff makes my life much easier, and it doesn't feel too cheesy to me.

http://www.soldak.com/forums/showpos...80&postcount=5

Thanks for that. Appreciate it. That's also what I like a lot about this game, is the ease to mod many aspects of it.

I'm trying to think abroad, for how in this age of gaming where minimalism in games is a bit more of the "thing" now. No, I'm NOT saying Zombasite should completely turn to minimalism!.. just limit how far it goes on the opposite end of the spectrum. Depending on the ARPG or rougelike-ish type game, having or not having the feature of "identifying items", works better for some of those games than others (some have it/some don't).

Again, I was never "for" removing the need to identify before, but I had a change of heart. How interesting/unique is the need to identify items, compared to all the other stuff this game has going for it? If cursed items were potentially way more harsh on the player, especially for blindly equipping them, I'd be more for it. It's just, in my opinion, I think the cool unique "other stuff" this game has going for it is what it could be showcasing to other people or potential customers trying it out. For a company selling a game, and the potential consumer, every second of trying a game out is valuable, in these ADHD times..

[Throwback]

Originally Posted by MindDefect

Thanks for that. Appreciate it. That's also what I like a lot about this game, is the ease to mod many aspects of it.

I'm trying to think abroad, for how in this age of gaming where minimalism in games is a bit more of the "thing" now. No, I'm NOT saying Zombasite should completely turn to minimalism!.. just limit how far it goes on the opposite end of the spectrum. Depending on the ARPG or rougelike-ish type game, having or not having the feature of "identifying items", works better for some of those games than others (some have it/some don't).

Again, I was never "for" removing the need to identify before, but I had a change of heart. How interesting/unique is the need to identify items, compared to all the other stuff this game has going for it? If cursed items were potentially way more harsh on the player, especially for blindly equipping them, I'd be more for it. It's just, in my opinion, I think the cool unique "other stuff" this game has going for it is what it could be showcasing to other people or potential customers trying it out. For a company selling a game, and the potential consumer, every second of trying a game out is valuable, in these ADHD times..

Fascinating post. Personally I think identifying *is* a useful and interesting game mechanic.

First, you use money for a variety of tasks (rumors & buying from clans come to mind). No cost for identifying means you have more money for these other things, so money drops would have to be rebalanced. Money would also seem more pointless if there were less things it was used for.

Second, clan members. Not sure which trait it is, but some members decrease identify costs - so it offers another way in which to customise your clan.

Third, time and location. You can identify on the run but that's time you aren't progressing towards completion of quests. So identify requirement either slows you down, or it sends you back to base and costs you money. This is really important! It makes your base more important, and it makes money more important. It creates attachment which is very valuable to gameplay.

[Tuidjy]

For all it's worth, I also like having to pay for quick identification. I see the difference between a loner character and one supported by a slew of specialists. There are a few traits that reduce the cost: sage and quartermaster, and probably others. And usually trading with friendly clans is an easy return of investment.

With a loner, clans look down on you, and you have no specialists. Identifying becomes a challenge, or at least a risk, as I do most of it in the dungeon.

[Throwback]

I'm starting to think zombie plaguebringers need changes.

1. Unlike amorphs (which are probably the most similar enemy), they have huge health, so they take a long time to kill.

2. On death they drop *4* parasites and acid. Parasites have a ranged attack and a high percentage chance to infect. They are sometimes hard to target as well. This is fine in small numbers, as they are easy to hit and have fairly low health.

3. They have a high 'spawn rate', in that any map they are in, they will be the major spawn, unlike amorphs which are always (in my experience) a minor spawn.

4. Stamina drain for running near enemies forces you to kill them.

Put all this together, and you have clusters of very high-health enemies which you must kill, which takes a long time (probably 3x or 4x any other enemy combination in a map...maybe even more). They then drop 4 ranged attackers (the animation takes a long time btw) and muddle the map enormously with acid. So you end up with and absolute mess of acid which your party will happily run through, with a huge number of ranged poison attackers and a high chance of being infected.

There's tons of them, they take a long time to kill, and they spawn 4 irritating ranged attacking enemies that require you to dodge or take acid damage because they won't ever come to you. I don't have an issue with their power - my issue is that they are not fun to encounter in any way, shape or form. They still massively suck on my level 40 riposte warrior.

Personally I would remove the zombie form from the game completely (make the base type unable to become a zombie). Less drastic measures would be: decrease the number of parasites spawning; dramatically lower their health; change the death spawn to acid OR parasites but not both; or remove parasites ranged attack (probably bad due to the need to balance melee & ranged characters).

At the absolute minimum, can you please heavily reduce their spawn rate in maps so that like amorphs, they are an uncommon enemy not 90% of the enemy.

As a side note, the non-zombie form is *extremely* rare to come across - so rare I don't even know the name for it. I have never seen it be the major monster in a map, which is something I am grateful for.

[MindDefect]

Originally Posted by Throwback

Fascinating post. Personally I think identifying *is* a useful and interesting game mechanic.

First, you use money for a variety of tasks (rumors & buying from clans come to mind). No cost for identifying means you have more money for these other things, so money drops would have to be rebalanced. Money would also seem more pointless if there were less things it was used for.

Second, clan members. Not sure which trait it is, but some members decrease identify costs - so it offers another way in which to customise your clan.

Third, time and location. You can identify on the run but that's time you aren't progressing towards completion of quests. So identify requirement either slows you down, or it sends you back to base and costs you money. This is really important! It makes your base more important, and it makes money more important. It creates attachment which is very valuable to gameplay.

Good point about attachment to town, but I still think the general item-related attachment to town would still be intact, as a player still needs to get back to town to make use of the items for salvaging, equiping new doors/relics/guards, or seeing if a clan member want them. Along with other non-item reasons for going back to town, for fear of another attack or turning in side quests. And also, it's usually better anyway, to be in town or at least close enough to warp back quickly, while fudging with items and inventory (if not paused or playing multiplayer where you can't). I think "choosing" what your attachments at the current moment, based on all the random stuff that happens, is what this game can thrive on.

Think I'll stop nagging after this post about identifying (promise!), but I probably suddenly gone on about it, because I kind of suddenly felt a need of a tad bit less micro management or to make it more manageable, as development progresses. And maybe I'm doing this partly out of boredom

I think sourdust kind of hit the nail with his detailed feedback thread.. since I think this game is not going for being the best of the pure ARPG games, but something more, and something different. The main selling point of this game, all said and done, when this game gets polished, balanced and finished up for release, is about dealing with clans (your own and the others) and how a stuff can happen and be going on, and at times needing dire or quick player attention for an actual reason. It's not for being a stroll at your pace (unless pausing like..a lot!), events typically only trigger when you get there, typical ARPG. I wouldn't suggest this game to someone saying, "hey this is just like Diablo/POE etc, but better", as after they try it hearing that, they would probably end up dissapointed and frustrated.

Maybe not the greatest specific game examples, for these strategy management based games, but when I think of strategy management games, say the Civ games compared to say, Tropico (or the Capitalism or Caesar games? going father back in time.).. In Tropico it's basically your own colony you worry about, not like you share the map with other civs that need to be dealt with in someway. So game development wise, the Civ games then don't have all the same detailed micro management of the bread and butter aspect of those games like Tropico/Capitalism, which is ecomony/resource management (can't say Civ is a detailed war tactics or diplomacy game, I think you mostly need to manage things to get good military power and success, which is get and manage resources/wealth, hence economy/resource management)

The bread and butter of spending time on ARPGs, I think is mostly item managament. And since this game is spreading it's vision beyond the ARPG scope, in a lot of ways I think less could be more for smooth gameplay that can probably be a bit more mainstream catering, user compatiblity-wise. Don't get me wrong, I think good strides have been made so far... I love all the in-game help and the frequent patches are making some things in this regard better, but nothing will change the fact that this game uses a higher amount of clicking/hotkey using, than your usual Diablo clone (that might only have a few important/unique features compared to this).

So what can be suggested to have item management be more streamlined? Well I suggested already in another post about how even POE and Diablo 3 have the feature of viewing items properties of items that haven't been picked up yet, by having the cursor on it ("ctrl" key in those games?), while it's still on the ground. This game relies a bit on context pop up's already, so I would think that could be a possibility? I can see holding the middle mouse button or another key for that, or having it as on option in the menu for item stats to only show when not in battle, OR a step further and have it as the third toggle for the ALT key (have an "x" icon show when showing items is off, like its now on the lower right, but also have an "item" looking icon for when item names to show up is toggled, and then also an "item" looking icon with maybe with a little white bubble beside it meaning items would show along with stats, when the cursor hovers over them.

I think it would be useful even for the common items like doors/guards/relics (especially in a game where you are getting attacked a lot and they need replacements or backup versions to store.. also hoping guards could maybe get more valuable/important in the coming patches, now that expeditions made just to aquire them, is now a feature), just to see if they are good enough to even be worth having, as they usually don't give out the better stuff for salvaging.

To keep identifying around, can also having the option of right clicking to interact with things on the ground, would then go along with being able to see the item properties as well, without the need of open inventory space for that moment, or a click-click-click moment of just putting an item on the ground you don't want afterall. If a player has an important quest, to fix the poisioned water supply, while they are low on food..or their most powerful clan member has some disease that needs a cure within minutes (these maybe unfortunate things, but they are the special moments which is what EXACTLY make this game what it is! Like a story generator of the ups and downs you go through, to maybe even prevail in the end..), a player might not want to feel the game nudges them to head back to town right whenever they get a full inventory. I don't think they'd want to feel that they have a difficult time not being able to peek or glance here and there, as quickly and conveniently as possible, at any potentially great item drops, while on there way doing their heroric deed or clutch quests to save their clan and their game... Especially for players that are more OCD inclined (for lack of a better phrase..), skipping past all these item drops maybe torture for some, but I feel all players should be able to go through experiences of desperate instances or perils like this, to see the best this game showcases.

Ok, I've said and rambled way more than enough on this matter.. Also probably need some medication

[Tuidjy]

Originally Posted by Throwback

I'm starting to think zombie plaguebringers need changes.*snip* They still massively suck on my level 40 riposte warrior.

Your character is a warrior. Warriors have whirlwind. Whirlwind costs eight skill points. Eight skill points isn't much to pay for the ability to stand on the body, wait for it to pop, and wipe all four critters with one swing.

Every class has one or more ways to deal with tiny, annoying critters. Warriors have the second best one. I do not think that the game should be re-balanced so that one could breeze through it with any build, including one that omits a tool that is custom made to deal with what supposedly needs re-balancing.

By the way, the only class that has a legitimate complaint about dealing with multiple opponents is the priest, and that's only at low levels, because at high levels, with the right equipment, his Holy Symbol is devastating.

In order of ease of dealing with chaffe:
Death knight: Slaughter and half a dozen others, eclipsed by it
Warrior: Whirlwind or multi-strike, or even quake strike at higher levels)
Demon hunter: Flame strike is devastating against bunched up enemies, and Ravage will do for anything else
Wizard: Frost Nova or Fire Maelstrom, or even Arcane Swarm
Conjurer: Tornado is simple and brutally effective. The combination of Bone Shatter, Corpse explosion and Blood Sacrifice has to be seen to be believed
Ranger: Multishot is best, but exploding arrows or some of the traps will work if you emphasize that approach
Rogue: Slice hits only two targets, but it is so incredibly fast, cheap and easy to improve that it is more than enough.
Priest: Holy Symbol, and not much else, but with the right equipment, its scary good.