Q & A

[eRe4s3r]

So as its not been posted on Mantis yet i will do it..

here is the link
http://arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=4062

Feel free to attach your saves as well

[zebramatt]

On two points discussed here:

1. I think rotating-through-spells-assigned-to-mouse functionality would be immensely useful for those of us without a fifty button mouse but only if it's manageable. Certainly cycling all the spells through all the mouse buttons is completely mad. I'd be in favour of simply cycling through spells assigned through some selection - modifier-key clicking on the spells in the inventory, in the order desired, with a special border colour and a wee number in the corner to indicate their position in the cycle, would be enough - and only cycling one of the mouse buttons.

You might even be able to relatively simply allow the user to configure a whole bunch of spells to cycle through a whole bunch of buttons, if there's an elegant way to display that on the inventory GUI - although that might be a bridge too far without a bespoke GUI for the purpose.

In its simplest form, just being able to assign these five spells to my middle mouse button, and to cycle up and down through them using the wheel, would make the whole experience much less fiddly for me.


2. Monster spawners. I'm all for respawning monsters but there is definitely some tedium here at the moment. I suspect much of it is because there's zero incentive to kill the vast majority of them. It feels like you've accomplished absolutely nothing. Less than nothing, actually, because you've wasted magic to do so. This is less prevalent if I up the difficulty or go somewhere more challenging - but then the fact they respawn so frequently without respite isn't tedious, it's annoying.

I'd be in favour of being able to destroy monster spawners for a particular chunk (with a new sort of spawner, or new flag on a spawner for those situations when destroying them would break the gameplay) and then the spawners could respawn when the chunk reloads. Since there's no reason ever to backtrack through buildings and such, this could remain true for dungeons also - or perhaps just until you get x distance away (two rooms, for example).

[zebramatt]

Oh and, embarrassing question time!

Q: How the Dickens do I get into the strategic mode??

[superking]

I like the diabolo approach- when you kill enemies, no more respawn and you can clear out areas, but when you exit the game everything has respawned. That way, I dont have to fight the same pack of dwarf skelebots everytime I go through the Atrium, but next time I fire the game up and go to the house, they are there to fight me again.

[tigersfan]

Oh and, embarrassing question time!

Q: How the Dickens do I get into the strategic mode??

Press confirm on either the green health guardian, or on the bridge if you have it.

[x4000]

I like the diabolo approach- when you kill enemies, no more respawn and you can clear out areas, but when you exit the game everything has respawned. That way, I dont have to fight the same pack of dwarf skelebots everytime I go through the Atrium, but next time I fire the game up and go to the house, they are there to fight me again.

I think that's a good way to do it, yeah -- I never actually played Diablo.

[Huw]

Look for the microbosses, they are usually as far away from the entrance of the region as they can be.

How do I know I've killed enough to "claim" the region though, i.e. remove the guardian?  I've been fighting the minibosses at the end of a region and the cave I'm in seems to go on forever, with another pair of bats every other room I enter.

[x4000]

Look for the microbosses, they are usually as far away from the entrance of the region as they can be.

How do I know I've killed enough to "claim" the region though, i.e. remove the guardian?  I've been fighting the minibosses at the end of a region and the cave I'm in seems to go on forever, with another pair of bats every other room I enter.

Those are on the surface only, sorry for the confusion -- the underground bosses are unrelated to those that are guarding the region and preventing you from claiming it.

[zebramatt]

Q: Is there a way to hide the chunk map entirely?

[x4000]

Q: Is there a way to hide the chunk map entirely?

Not at present, no.  But you can scale it down further than the default.

[GabrielKronos]

I like the way the monster spawner works, especially because at low levels most creatures can just been runned past without suffering major health loss (which is easy to recover at the hearth guardian stone).

But I think the time of respawning is quite fast, though. My suggestion would be that the monster respawners could be destroyed, but they would be able to respawn too, after a time that was bigger than Douse Monster Nest spell, but at the same time, small enough comparing destroying them and using DMN.

[zebramatt]

Q: Is there a way to hide the chunk map entirely?

Not at present, no.  But you can scale it down further than the default.

Oh yes? How?

[x4000]

There's a slider on the settings screen, I think the Gameplay tab.

[BobTheJanitor]

I'm definitely of the opinion that wandering trash monsters need some point. I found myself falling into a pattern of just double jumping over all of them unless they were directly in the way of something that I needed to stop and punch for a while, like ores. If they can't give xp, then at least some rare chance to drop random crafting bits, or even some sort of parts of crafting bits even. A small bag of dust, that you combine 10 of to make one normal craftable dust, for example. Or 1/100th of a spell gem. Or some sort of currency to be used with wandering traders. Or something. Anything to make me feel like the best way to play the game isn't as a lightning jumping pacifist.

[OobleckTheGreen]

I'm definitely of the opinion that wandering trash monsters need some point. I found myself falling into a pattern of just double jumping over all of them unless they were directly in the way of something that I needed to stop and punch for a while, like ores. If they can't give xp, then at least some rare chance to drop random crafting bits, or even some sort of parts of crafting bits even. A small bag of dust, that you combine 10 of to make one normal craftable dust, for example. Or 1/100th of a spell gem. Or some sort of currency to be used with wandering traders. Or something. Anything to make me feel like the best way to play the game isn't as a lightning jumping pacifist.

I definitely agree with this sentiment. Something needs to be done to give the trash mobs some sort of meaning and purpose. Since they currently have no purpose (and there are very few, if any, things to find on the surface), it is far easier to simply transform into a bat and fly above all their heads whilst traversing a surface map. Though it makes traveling safer, it also becomes even duller than jumping endlessly over the heads of the trash mobs (or simply running thru them, since they do very little damage).

I personally like the currency/wandering-traders idea. Think about it: a world without currency is actually rather unrealistic. Like bottle caps in the Fallout series, people will find or create something to trade with. In a land with this many trees, however, let's not make the mistake of the Golgafrinchans and use leaves^*. Traders in settlements or in random places on the map could even move around on the strategic map, making them something akin to the traders in AI Wars: a resource I definitely want in MY territory and NOT in enemy-held territory. Doing something like this would open the game up to having an economy, and I can see fluctuating prices for resources based on supply and demand. Not only will doing all this make the trash mobs useful, it will open up an entire new element of strategy to players.

* Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy