If the game drags at any point, where would those points be?

[kuliksco]

There ARE "full" enchants that you can find on the ground, but they usually seem to be things like Acid Gills and whatnot.

Since 100% enchants seem to mostly be special boss drops, why not have, say, rare-ish "large" containers, that immediately give you 50-60%?  They'd be rare, but not THAT rare;  Maybe, as rare as the Bat scrolls?  I think with the current system, it'd be satisfying to find one of these.   But the special drops from the big bosses would still be special.


I agree with the bit about the guardian powers too.   They ARE useful..... but 5 minutes is very short.   Also having them just be more VARIED would be nice;  I like the whole profession system and the buildings and all, but would like to just see MORE types of guardian powers that could be found, both low level and high level ones.   That would be quite nice.

Yea, I think I've only ever found acid gills on the ground before and that was maybe 1 or 2 times compared to 400 glyph transfers and 50 bat scrolls.  Because of this I don't usually bother with stash rooms.

[nanostrike]

Puzzle Rooms/Lore Hunting

Rare to find rooms, that only seem to show up in the mazy buiildings, which end in a rather boring and finicy switch room. Thats bad enough to put most people off hunting for the lore.
Lore helps people care about the world, and would help aliviate the 'why am I beating up these big dudes who are stuck in these little rooms at the top of these towers' feeling you get between obsessing over the next upgrade material.

Oh god.  How could I forget this.


Devs, if you read anything in this topic, read that.  The Lore Hunting, something that I thought I'd absolutely love, is currently so grindy that I actively avoid it.

You have to grind maze buildings until you find a rare room.  Then you have to complete the a tedious puzzle.  Then you have to do it over and over again until you get ever piece of lore.

The room-hunting wouldn't even be THAT terrible if it wasn't for that Puzzle.  It absolutely breaks the flow of the game.

[kuliksco]

Puzzle Rooms/Lore Hunting

Rare to find rooms, that only seem to show up in the mazy buiildings, which end in a rather boring and finicy switch room. Thats bad enough to put most people off hunting for the lore.
Lore helps people care about the world, and would help aliviate the 'why am I beating up these big dudes who are stuck in these little rooms at the top of these towers' feeling you get between obsessing over the next upgrade material.

Oh god.  How could I forget this.


Devs, if you read anything in this topic, read that.  The Lore Hunting, something that I thought I'd absolutely love, is currently so grindy that I actively avoid it.

You have to grind maze buildings until you find a rare room.  Then you have to complete the a tedious puzzle.  Then you have to do it over and over again until you get ever piece of lore.

The room-hunting wouldn't even be THAT terrible if it wasn't for that Puzzle.  It absolutely breaks the flow of the game.

Agreed.  The puzzle puts me off from learning any of the lore.  Wouldn't be so bad if it was maybe 1/4 the size.  The way it is now it's just 20-30 minutes of frustration.

[khadgar]

I agree with what Terraziel wrote. The worst part, the part that is the least fun to me is the overlord. The fight is fun, but the knowledge that it  "resets" my material gathering is just a damn shame. So, to put it in a way that answers your tl;dr question is:

The part of the game where I want to do something fun (kill the scary overlord) but the game forces me to do something un-fun (start on a new continent afterwards) is at the end of a continent. I would really like to see more to do on a continent after the overlord is defeated. Maybe not RIGHT after you beat him, but I would like to have the knowledge that all the spell tiers I slogged through, and all the resources I gathered are not essentially gone, due to lack of incentives to return to previous continents, or dwell on ANY continent that isn't the latest and greatest.

Since I know you guys already have this in mind as something to work on, I'm not worried.

[William Dogood]

Currently the biggest gripe I have about the game is the enchants, obtaining the buggers just isn't very fun. The only way save for a (very) small handful of bosses is to explore buildings for the charges. The whole "efficient" exploration thing will net you maybe 3 or 4 containers a building if you're lucky, and more often than not, I need to gather the full 100% to actually get an enchant. Even running through building stashes isn't the best way to gather the things, it all comes down to finding a maze room.

It didn't take long to catch on to the fact that nearly every dead end in a maze room would contain an enchant charge. At that point I just started avoiding regular buildings when I wanted enchants. I go to the desert, find a pyramid, and farm the Hell out of those extremely tedious maze rooms. It's unfortunately the quickest way to gather enchants.

Though the new shop has alleviated the problem quite a bit, I simply ignore charges now unless my friends want to go searching for them. At the shop, the enchants are cheap, and I can buy a particular slot that I want. It's far more convenient simply because I can get the shards anywhere I go. But that's completely cut out hunting for enchants as a game play aspect so it's really just putting a bandage over the problem and pretending it doesn't exist.

One thing that still perplexes me whenever I think about it......Why are enchants not available as secret mission rewards? It would be a great alternative to grinding charges. I already complete nearly every secret mission I come across, and the reward for secret missions is already very minor, why not offer a enchant to sweeten the pot? It would guarantee that every mission includes at least SOMETHING that everyone would be interested in, and it would provide an alternative to running maze rooms.

The final thing that bothers me about the enchants is that many of them are simply not useful. I'm not trying to imply that the stats just aren't up to par with what I'm using currently, I mean that many of the buffs provided are rendered obsolete by other game elements. For example, Jump Height increase won't ever be useful compared to double jump because not only does double jump well, double your jump height, something which jump height enchants don't and probably can't ever do, it gives you direct control over your ascent and descent (making fall velocity mostly pointless), and let's you avoid fall damage provided you planned for it (making fall immunity useful only in the situation you hadn't). Even the ability to make platforms directly hurts the value of most of the leg enchants, and storm dash almost completely diminishes the value of running speed.

So where does this leave me? As far as leg enchants go, if it has windstorm immunity, I'll take a look. Otherwise it either has double jump or I toss it immediately.

[kuliksco]

Currently the biggest gripe I have about the game is the enchants, obtaining the buggers just isn't very fun. The only way save for a (very) small handful of bosses is to explore buildings for the charges. The whole "efficient" exploration thing will net you maybe 3 or 4 containers a building if you're lucky, and more often than not, I need to gather the full 100% to actually get an enchant. Even running through building stashes isn't the best way to gather the things, it all comes down to finding a maze room.

It didn't take long to catch on to the fact that nearly every dead end in a maze room would contain an enchant charge. At that point I just started avoiding regular buildings when I wanted enchants. I go to the desert, find a pyramid, and farm the Hell out of those extremely tedious maze rooms. It's unfortunately the quickest way to gather enchants.

Though the new shop has alleviated the problem quite a bit, I simply ignore charges now unless my friends want to go searching for them. At the shop, the enchants are cheap, and I can buy a particular slot that I want. It's far more convenient simply because I can get the shards anywhere I go. But that's completely cut out hunting for enchants as a game play aspect so it's really just putting a bandage over the problem and pretending it doesn't exist.

One thing that still perplexes me whenever I think about it......Why are enchants not available as secret mission rewards? It would be a great alternative to grinding charges. I already complete nearly every secret mission I come across, and the reward for secret missions is already very minor, why not offer a enchant to sweeten the pot? It would guarantee that every mission includes at least SOMETHING that everyone would be interested in, and it would provide an alternative to running maze rooms.

The final thing that bothers me about the enchants is that many of them are simply not useful. I'm not trying to imply that the stats just aren't up to par with what I'm using currently, I mean that many of the buffs provided are rendered obsolete by other game elements. For example, Jump Height increase won't ever be useful compared to double jump because not only does double jump well, double your jump height, something which jump height enchants don't and probably can't ever do, it gives you direct control over your ascent and descent (making fall velocity mostly pointless), and let's you avoid fall damage provided you planned for it (making fall immunity useful only in the situation you hadn't). Even the ability to make platforms directly hurts the value of most of the leg enchants, and storm dash almost completely diminishes the value of running speed.

Good point about secret mission rewards.  Enchants would be nice.

So where does this leave me? As far as leg enchants go, if it has windstorm immunity, I'll take a look. Otherwise it either has double jump or I toss it immediately.

Few points about the enchants.  The jump % boost is useful because you can use it in a lava suit which double/triple jump don't work.  You are probably going to need this for the lava escape missions which it sounds like you might have not done yet.

Also, I noticed that you don't have triple jump yet.  Once you get this you will probably think your double jumps are a waste.  This points out that the some of the enchants are just used for progressing to the next better one...in your case jump % until you find a double jump.

Also, windstorm immunity is situational.  Obivously, you wouldn't want to use outside of a windstorm, and in some cases I actually prefer using a triple jump enchant instead of windstorm immunity in a storm.

Falling immunity was useful for me when I was just starting journey to perfection missions.  I used them a lot before I finally got a double and later triple jump.

[William Dogood]

I wasn't aware that there was a triple jump enchant. I know about the spell, but I was trying to speak specifically about the enchants. Windstorm I consider, same with Acid breathing because they provide a direct counter to situations that would otherwise be dangerous.

As for falling immunity, I agree. Same with the jump height, velocity, and running speeds. They're useful but really only so until you obtain the extra jumps.

You're right about the lava escape missions, I haven't encountered one. I play with the platforming difficulty at max however and I've read that they're extremely difficult with it set high, so I'm not too interested in trying them either, in contrast to the rest of the game which to me raising the platforming difficulty didn't make the game any noticeably harder.

[Zozma]

I don't think gathering non-mission components is tedious at all. The game tells you where you can get them, and you can go there and get them. No needless mucking about, no dice roll. If you want jade, you know where to get it, and you don't have problems finding it.

Mission spell components can be trickier. Right now I'm on continent two and out of the twelve something missions available only two offer any mission spell components. The rest offer guardian scroll powers that are really no good to me unless I get some tiered spells. If there was any way to ensure that X amount of missions offered component rewards, I think that'd really help out with the game progress.

Another thing I have an issue with is finding settlement denizens. When you can use a find survivor scroll everything's gravy, but if you don't have the right denizens to use that scroll you have to wade through secret missions hoping you'll find the appropriate mission, THEN keep your fingers crossed hoping that survivor is of the right profession. Since every settlement starts with three denizens, what if at least one of those denizens was of the right profession to use the find survivor scroll? Just my suggestion.

[nanostrike]

So where does this leave me? As far as leg enchants go, if it has windstorm immunity, I'll take a look. Otherwise it either has double jump or I toss it immediately.

This is true as well.  Once you get good at the game, you probably won't be taking anything besides a double/triple jump enchant under normal circumstances.  Which is a shame, really.

It used to be the same case for Conserving Mind (Which really should be renamed now because it doesn't "Conserve" anymore), because reducing the base mana cost was a better deal than almost anything else.  Now the regen boost isn't quite as essential.

[Ongus]

For me, it's been gathering the required inhabitants in order to be able to construct a wind shelter. It's not too bad if the settlement starts with both a lumbermancer and stonebinder, but I've had more than one continent where I've had none of the required residents needed to get wind shelters up and running. In one particularly bad case, this problem led to hours of searching when rescue missions refused to show up at all for quite some time, searching both caves and large buildings.

[Yiab]

At the moment I'm in late-game (continent 4, could kill the overlord any time) so my boring bits are kind of specific.
1) I've been gathering tons of enchant containers and I have yet to see a single "legendary" enchant, whatever they actually are. Since I'm something of a completionist, I'm going to want to get all the achievements, so I can see this getting tedious to the point of insanity.
2) Swamp dungeon level 10. The bug in the current version (1.013) is the only reason I managed to get this. I've delved down at least two dozen cave systems in swamp areas over continents 3 and 4, and I never found one with more than 9 levels (2 of them had exactly 9 levels and they were both on continent 4). If, as I suspect, it's impossible to get a 10-level dungeon until continent 5, you might want to say this somewhere in-game. If not, raising the odds of the dungeon going deep enough might be nice.
3) Buildings. I don't know what the odds are of seeing a shape matter guardian scroll, but as I previously mentioned I am on continent 4, I've grabbed every single building scroll I've seen on this continent, and I have a total of 13 buildings in my settlement. Maybe adding an expensive purchase to the white guardian stone which gives you a random shape matter scroll? The possibility of getting useless extra copies seems like an effective deterrent to abuse, meanwhile I can collect upgrade stones during the hour I wait for new missions to spawn (as it's virtually inevitable that none of them will have shape matter rewards). Of course if I've overlooked an important means of getting these scrolls, having a note which points it out would also be nice.
4) Plums. You read that right, plums. My current continent has exactly 3 squares of abandoned town, and 0 grassland with groves. I've gathered all the plums I can from the towns, so in order to get more I have to use "gather resources" to generate a mission on a town square and hope it's an outdoor mission and further hope that it has plum trees. But now I'm just nit-picking.

I'd also like to agree that the initial search for secret rescue mission rooms when you get to a new continent (until you get an apothekineticist, a lumbermancer and a stonebinder, along with the buildings to be able to cast "seek survivor") is tedious. On my continent 3, I found at least a dozen secret mission rooms before I found a rescue mission, and eventually I got an apothekineticist after I had 3 lumbermancers. A note on where best to find secret rescue missions might help, and it also might be nice if you tweaked the missions to always give you someone with a skill you're missing, if possible, the way that "seek survivor" scrolls seem to work.

[Misery]

As for the thing about not being able to find the necessary NPC to use the rescue scrolls:

http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=7641

That particular complaint has popped up quite often now, so I set that up.

[EtherealOne]

Probably one or two things jump out most.

Firstly, the guardian scrolls. At the moment, I find these are kind of useless, I avoid doing missions with them because they are nowhere near as useful as resources for more spells and such. I think this is because 5 minutes is far too short, I never activate the scrolls because I only need them when i'm in trouble, which is not something that I can prepare for a maximum of 5 minutes in advance whilst standing on the world map.

Perhaps rather than provide a one-off 5 minute boost instead activating a guardian scroll would provide everyone on the continent with a special ability that has say 1 min duration for 5/10 minute cooldown that grants the same ability. Using another guardian scroll would replace the effects of the first one (The obvious drawback to this would be that people would be inclined to find a single scroll they like and then never change it again, perhaps making the scrolls slightly more common or make it so multiple scrolls are picked up at once would encourage people to swap scrolls out).

The second problem is the whole resources issue, there are just far too many of them and it's rather difficult to just "go with the flow" since once you have started down your upgrade path for spells you are pretty much locked in. Maybe create a continent wide loot goals in the settlement and let people pick a couple of resources which have an increased chance of spawning (lock this down per tier so it can be changed at the start of a new tier, otherwise your only option is to enable/disable it to stop people just cycling through every resource).

[Misery]

Ok, ok, I found one thing that REALLY drags (and that I'm surprised HASNT been fixed yet):

The bloody robots on the new-character screen!

The game is OBSESSED with them.   Utterly obsessed.   To the point where my first advice to new players might be:  NEVER RESCUE ANY ROBOTS.

Yes, these guys can be useful.   But not when 5/6 of the starting characters is robots, and furthermore, not when that happens 80% of the time!

The only way around this is the annoying "kill characters till you get useful one that is not a robot" method.

[Tobias]

So where I'm at at the game now, I'm continent one, tier 2, and I have ONE tier 2 spell, Energy Orb.

I am also like only one mission away from tier 3. I do not have the materials to make any other tier 2 spells other then energy slice which is a crap spell. I certainly don't have the materials for any tier 3 spells.

90% of the secret missions I find have guardian power scrolls as the reward, and I really, REALLY don't care even slightly about that stuff at this point in the game.

I'm basically at the point where I am going to have to lower the difficulty level so that the game doesn't brutally overpower me.

Also, the point I was at until now, the unlocks. With the recent "things you should unlock" or whatever it was called part of the Planning menu it made it a lot easier to see what I needed to do to be able to get the materials I needed to make better spells, but none of the tasks it proposed were even remotely enjoyable. Pretty much all of them were "Reach cave system x in area y" and I really had no desire to do that, so I ended up turning down the difficulty to minimal so I could lazily rush through it, instead of the process being boring and annoying it simply became boring. tl;dr I think the unlocks system could really use some reworking.

Some attention could be given to what landed me in the underpowered situation above, I went and did a whole bunch of missions with NOTHING unlocked, so I didn't get any of the rewards needed to actually make the higher tier spells. The game needs to let the player know more clearly that unlocks are important for progression and should be done before running at a whole bunch of world missions. Maybe make missions increase the CR by 10 instead of by 20? I definitely find them to be the most enjoyable part of the game, hence the part I want to spend the most time on. The only other option is aimlessly wandering through buildings hoping to find something worthwhile, which almost never happens. 95% of stashes are full of crap I already have more then enough of, so I have no desire to seek them out.

Some other things I would like to note, maybe an idea that the difficulty setting affects the number of shards dropped by monsters? The game feels like the difficulty level is totally arbitrary and there is no link between increased risk and increased reward, and there really should be. I would also like to see the difficulty level NOT increase monster defense/hp but just affect their AI and projectile speed and also increase the number of monsters that spawn. Buffing enemy health and the damage you take is the cheapest/laziest form of implementing difficulty and should really be avoided if you have other options for making the game challenging. That's just my opinion though, and I know we have some differing ideas on game design but I just wanted to throw that out there.