Roguelikes: I never met@progression I didn't like

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Jeffrey of YOSPOS: Dec 22, 2005; GET LOSE, YOU CAN'T COMPARE WITH MY POWERS

I really like starting with armorsmith + enchant, but maybe that's why I'm getting killed. Boots of running are too fun!

# ? Sep 12, 2013 15:59

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# ? Apr 16, 2024 22:05

..btt: Mar 26, 2008

01011001 posted:

Thanks for this, will have a proper read later, I have read the combat section of the manual several times, but it doesn't summarise very well.

Re: smithing, I only picked Sil up recently, but my understanding is that smithing used to be very powerful (but still risky) because forge generation was totally random - you had a decent chance of finding like 3 forges on an early floor. This meant you could bolster your terrible skills with powerful gear. With 1.1.1 it became pseudo random, so now you're extremely unlikely to find lots of forges earlier on. Because of this change, you won't get nearly as much out of your exp investment, and it is much more optimally spent increasing survivability skills early instead.

A heavy investment in smithing is essentially wasted until you can make some kick-rear end gear, which will take a lot of forges and resources, leaving you desperately under-powered in the early game.

# ? Sep 12, 2013 16:26

Stelas: Sep 6, 2010

Occult Chronicles:

I love the game but the above-house sections are far more entertaining than below the house, a ton more quests and things to do and a lot of expertise to pick up. This character stayed above ground until the 8th story token, then popped a Crystal Ball to reveal the final room and beelined for it. Finished with everything off my character cards bought and 23(!) tokens left over, not to mention an ever-loving ton of equipment... which I guess you don't get to look up after the game? Only edges. Huh.

Edges:
- Adaptive Intellect 4/4
- Hero Of The Three Kingdoms 1/1
- Water Attuned 2/5
- Iron Stomach 2/5
- Grace Under Pressure 2/2
- Chameleon 1/1
- Talismanic 2/2
- Fire Attuned 3/5
- Planetouched 1/1
- Water Affinity 1/4
- Sneaky 1/1
- Master Scrubber 1/1
- Mental Toughness 1/1
- Torque Sense 1/4
- Never Gives Up 1/4
- Fire Affinity 1/4
- Mumbled Wisdom 1/1
- Martial Arts Expert 2/4
- Tower of Willpower 1/4

# ? Sep 12, 2013 16:27

Tempora Mutantur: Feb 22, 2005

Ibram Gaunt posted:

Ah, I see. Thanks. I've never had a character survive redrock yet so I don't know much about the mechanics admittedly.

Some things I find helpful for starting out, regardless of your build, in no particlar order, including some midgame stuff for tinkers since that's my favorite build:

When you start in Joppa, check the three huts with chests, no people, and a door. Close the door, loot the chest, and hopefully you get some artifacts. If not, it's some extra cash to sell to the vendor.
Drop gear that's heavy that you want later/can't sell yet on the ground (or if you haul your own chest there for ~immersion~ just don't steal their chests or they'll freak if they see you). Stash things here like excess fresh water (if you have any) because liquids seem to weigh 17 pounds for a full 64 drams (which is damned heavy). Unless you're amphibious, 64 drams of fresh water on your person should keep you fine as you come and go from town. Copper nuggets, scrap you might use later, heavy weapons you might find but don't yet have ammo for, etc should all be stashed in town rather than weigh you down. They're safe in the current builds and this will keep them safer than on your person, as well as leaving you more room for sweet sweet loot.
Walking west, south, or a little bit east of Joppa 2+ screens (not using the map, just walking) will keep you in the marshes, where you can kill Glowpads (they kinda hurt, but they don't move) and Glowfish (they aren't hostile by default, and they're very weak) for 10XP a pop
Walking north or farther east will bring you into Desert Canyons which have slightly tougher monsters, but more importantly lots of Snapjaws of various types which gives you some decent weapon loot to sell and lots of beaded bracelets/neckrings which you want to hold on to (they're very value/weight efficient, anywhere from 20-55+ drams per pound depending on your ego) along with the chance of running into a Snapjaw Shotgunner, which will net you a shotgun which is very handy early (ammo can be found on the vendor in Joppa).
Go for longer treks around these areas, especially north (without going underground on non-named areas, because that can be even more random) to get some levels and money, along with a shop restock or two.
Checking shops when they restock (every 1-3 in-game days it seems, I'm not totally sure) helps because there may be weapons or armor you need; on that note, check the damage and cost since (for example) early-game it may be better to get a steel longsword than a carbide dagger since they're the same damage but the steel blade (while heavier) costs almost half as much as the carbide dagger.
Try to complete Argyve's quests before Redrock, because he tells you to go to the Rustwell after you give him two artifacts (which can be anything, even if you buy cheapo grenades or injectors from Tam the Joppa Merchant, including Box of Crayons or Metal Folding Chair). Anyway, you get this done since not only does it mean an instant level 2 from the quest exp, but the Rustwell sucks. They have a really high chance to rust your gear. Rusted gear can be repaired for like $5 by Argyve, but rusted gear cannot be equipped and can also randomly break; the idea is you get through this earlier, before you have stuff that might rust and break and cripple you early. The other benefit is that Argyve's Rustwell quest can be completed by checking the areas above-ground in the three rustwells (they're all next to each other on the map) to pick up wire before you enter underground in the rustwells to look for more, sometimes getting lucky and never having to step inside; this means you can get the 200' of wire, get your Joppa recoiler, and THEN go to Redrock (where things generally don't rust) and fully explore it/loot it and know that you can recoil to Joppa to sell if you start going to explore deep to get extra loot.
Don't pick up armor for the purposes of selling it if you're trying to keep your pack light so you can loot more. It's really inefficient in terms of drams per pound, with very few exceptions that aren't worth mentioning.
Do pick up armor if you're gonna wear it, go nuts on being as tanky/dodgy as you can, whatever you like. People on the Freehold forums say AV is better than DV and I agree, but play around with it cause you're gonna die a lot anyway, ha.
Early game weapon quality is wood (hand axes + staves + bows) > bronze > iron > steel > carbide > folded carbide. Pick up anything steel or better. Pick up long swords of any kind, they sell for a lot. Otherwise I skip all the sub-steel axes, 2-handed swords, short swords, and maces. They all sell worse dram-per-pound and aren't worth it if you're killing hordes of Snapjaws anyway (which you will be from roving the overworld map/going through rustwells + redrock).
Know that Fire Ants, while painful with their ability to breath fire, are actually more deadly around water: while the water will extinguish you if you catch fire, if you're near water and they breath fire, they make giant clouds of deadly scalding steam, which if you aren't careful will kill you VERY drat quickly.
Once you beat Red Rock and the Rustwells, IMO make a bee-line for Grit Gate because you can get massive exp and loot walking down to the third level, which is labeled Grit Gate Entrance Level or something, and the town itself will be on the north side there. More importantly, you get easy exp because you'll have the Droid Scrambler from Argyve, which means that all the Grit Gate waydroids there (and there's a LOT) will be friendly, and actually kill things for you. You don't get exp on their kills, but they keep you safe, and if you're a frail build you can run around with them killing everything while you loot.
Additionally, if you can dig (such as having claws, or using a shitload of Skulk injectors since they give you claws) you can explore each underground level up to 8 more times. This is because the actual path to Grit Gate is directly below the map's entrance, but it's actually in the middle of a 3x3 grid of each level's type. This means that you can dig in the 8 directions from each floor on the way to Grit Gate Entrance and get up to 8 more screens' worth of loot and monsters (and waydroids to clear the way) per level (so when you're about to go down from Grit Gate Tunnels Level 1, you can either go down to level 2, or dig sideways/up/down/diagonally to get another screen's worth of Grit Gate Tunnels Level 1). This also applies to all underground areas, including Rustwells, Redrock, and most importantly the Rusted Archway, which means if you're a tinker, you can get a *lot* of free scrap for bits from exploring levels 3 and 4 for 9 screens' worth each instead of just one screen each (since each screen will have a room filled with scrap somewhere most of the time). These areas ALSO will generally let you exit onto the screens surrounding the area (e.g. if you go to the Rusted Arch, go down one level, loot it, then go east one screen, you can go upward and you'll be where you would expect: above ground, one screen to the east of the Archway's entrance.
The world generation is REALLY REALLY AWESOME in Qud, if you didn't catch it, because not only are the above two points pretty cool, but it's completely intentional and randomized with huge amounts of underground tunnels in virtually every area. I keep meaning to just keep going down to see what I find sometime.

Tempora Mutantur fucked around with this message at 21:01 on Sep 12, 2013

# ? Sep 12, 2013 20:49

Sargeant Biffalot: Nov 24, 2006

coyo7e posted:

Play the console version of Spelunky and learn to be properly terrified of even upsetting the shopkeepers because traps and poo poo are still active offscreen.

Yeah I just got the new version and am having to unlearn my old habit of always killing the first shopkeeper I see for his shotgun + guaranteed body in the form of the level guard whenever the Kali altar shows up. Aside from it being generally harder to kill them with the new bombing system, shotgun battles are way way harder now that you can't snype shopkeepers from offscreen. In the original the level guards were a joke,

# ? Sep 12, 2013 21:25

SuicideSnowman: Jul 26, 2003

You can hit shopkeepers that are offscreen. In fact that's pretty much the way to handle them in the jungle, especially if you have a compass and have a better idea of where the shopkeeper is standing.

# ? Sep 12, 2013 21:27

Tuxedo Catfish: Mar 17, 2007; You've got guts! Come to my village, I'll buy you lunch.

I really wish there were an adequate Caves of Qud wiki. I've never liked spoiler-based gameplay in roguelikes, I'd rather know exactly how the system works and focus on finding ways to break it than have to learn how it works by blind experimentation.

# ? Sep 12, 2013 21:36

Tempora Mutantur: Feb 22, 2005

Tuxedo Catfish posted:

I really wish there were an adequate Caves of Qud wiki. I've never liked spoiler-based gameplay in roguelikes, I'd rather know exactly how the system works and focus on finding ways to break it than have to learn how it works by blind experimentation.

The http://cavesofqud.wikia.com/ wiki someone made is abysmally out of date, yeah. I didn't think about it till you mentioned it but even though the game is about as clear using in-game cues and clues as Crawl or ToME, both of those games have robust wikis that help you out a lot.

For example, Water Merchant has a "bug" where if you talk to the Grit Gate intercom and use the Quest option first, instead of the Water Merchant option, the Water Merchant option disappears after you enter the city. I thought that meant the quest option limited my access to the city and that I'd have had more access to the city if I used the Water Merchant option first, so I remade and tested it out: nope, same exact thing, no bug. I had no knowledge around it and had to test it myself. If there was something like the Crawl/ToME wiki, that would have been absolutely clear to me on the Water Merchant page.

Unormal, do you have any 'official' wiki or anything? Did you make http://cavesofqud.wikia.com/ or is that someone else? I want Qud to succeed, so I might as well start editing some wiki with all the stubs that it has right now to make it easier for new players to get into it since there likely won't be any huge changes for a while.

E: goddamn I hate wikia, so many ads

Tempora Mutantur fucked around with this message at 22:49 on Sep 12, 2013

# ? Sep 12, 2013 22:45

Unormal: Nov 16, 2004; Mod sass? This evening?! But the cakes aren't ready! THE CAKES!; Fun Shoe

S.T.C.A. posted:

The http://cavesofqud.wikia.com/ wiki someone made is abysmally out of date, yeah. I didn't think about it till you mentioned it but even though the game is about as clear using in-game cues and clues as Crawl or ToME, both of those games have robust wikis that help you out a lot.

For example, Water Merchant has a "bug" where if you talk to the Grit Gate intercom and use the Quest option first, instead of the Water Merchant option, the Water Merchant option disappears after you enter the city. I thought that meant the quest option limited my access to the city and that I'd have had more access to the city if I used the Water Merchant option first, so I remade and tested it out: nope, same exact thing, no bug. I had no knowledge around it and had to test it myself. If there was something like the Crawl/ToME wiki, that would have been absolutely clear to me on the Water Merchant page.

Unormal, do you have any 'official' wiki or anything? Did you make http://cavesofqud.wikia.com/ or is that someone else? I want Qud to succeed, so I might as well start editing some wiki with all the stubs that it has right now to make it easier for new players to get into it since there likely won't be any huge changes for a while.

E: goddamn I hate wikia, so many ads

No official wiki. Someone, at some point, wrote an automatic data converter for blueprints.xml that output all the values in human readable form, which was cool for at least browsing all the items/creatures/etc. I dunno what happened to it though.

# ? Sep 13, 2013 02:15

Ibram Gaunt: Jul 22, 2009

S.T.C.A. posted:

Woulda responded to this earlier but I was at work, thanks a ton for the info. It's very much appreciated. I looked around and some people suggested going straight to red rock after getting the quest which probably explains why I kept getting splatted, haha.

# ? Sep 13, 2013 02:20

Farquar: Apr 30, 2003; Bjorn you glad I didn't say banana?

I like to play really random characters in my roguelikes. Would a mutant with 4 levels of Unstable Genome be the best way to do this in CoQ?

# ? Sep 13, 2013 19:10

RPATDO_LAMD: Mar 22, 2013; 🐘🪠🍆

You can press F1 at the stat and mutation-selection screens to get random stats or mutations, I believe.

Unstable Genome isn't totally random, anyways: it gives you a list of three mutations and you can pick one of them, the same as if you had spent 4 mutation points in-game to buy a new one.

# ? Sep 13, 2013 19:21

Jeffrey of YOSPOS: Dec 22, 2005; GET LOSE, YOU CAN'T COMPARE WITH MY POWERS

A new Brogue version was released. No more allies gaining experience by exploring, no more recharging scrolls working on wands, and more.

quote:

New with v1.7.3:
⁃ Redesigned the stealth system to promote transparency and tactical interest. Monsters now have a flat 25% chance per turn to notice you if they are within your �stealth range,� which is a product of light level, invisibility, whether you spent the previous turn resting, rings of stealth and the natural weight of your armor. Your stealth range is listed on the side bar and may optionally be displayed on the map. Hunting monsters will lose track of you if they are farther away than triple your stealth range (or more than two spaces away if you�re invisible).
⁃ Redesigned ally progression to make allies feel less compulsory and capricious. A charge from the new Wand of Empowerment will permanently increase the combat abilities of a monster and allow it to absorb one ability from a fallen enemy. Allies that are empowered and subsequently negated will be able to re-learn their lost abilities. Allies no longer progress in strength or abilities from �exploration experience.�
⁃ Score upon victory is determined exclusively by gold, the amulet and lumenstones; other items are not counted. To compensate, the amulet is worth 35,000 gold instead of 10,000.
⁃ Implemented conduct challenges, which are listed on the death and victory screens as appropriate (but otherwise do not affect the game or score).
⁃ Scrolls of recharging no longer affect wands.
⁃ Food generation is slightly more generous, and somewhat less predictable.
⁃ Sneak-attacking with a runic will either double the proc chance or increase it halfway to 100%, whichever is less.
⁃ Added a new trap: the net trap.
⁃ Added a new charm type: the guardian charm.
⁃ Added a new quest room: the goblin warren.
⁃ When equipping armor, the armor value will rise from zero over several turns to discourage frequent armor swapping.
⁃ Wands of domination and plenty are less common.
⁃ Added axe and spear attack patterns to certain monsters. Spectral weapons from multiplicity inherit the attack pattern of their parent weapon; nagas and dragons attack all adjacent opponents like axes; and goblin attacks penetrate like spears.
⁃ Negation charms have limited range, which increases with the enchantment level of the charm.
⁃ Pressure plates are no longer activated by items floating onto them or by aquatic monsters in water.
⁃ Grappling monsters have more health.
⁃ Nerfed the jellymancer build by preventing split jellies from inheriting their progenitor�s learned abilities or attributes.
⁃ Reflected bolts won�t turn allies against you.
⁃ Submerging monsters cannot have the �explosive� mutation.
⁃ Damage from poison, caustic gas, steam, burning, mutuality and reprisal now ignore magical protection status.
⁃ Poison damage pops up temporary alerts similar to health alerts.
⁃ Added a �view dungeon seed� item to the menu button at the bottom of the screen.
⁃ Summoners can continue to summon while they are fleeing.
⁃ Polymorph erases mutations.
⁃ Drinking a potion of descent will cause you to fall unless you are levitating, irrespective of the terrain you are standing on.
⁃ Pit bloats are a lighter shade of blue.
⁃ Bloodwort pods no longer appear in the side bar; only the stalk is listed.
⁃ Accumulated gold is described on the game over screen.
⁃ Poisonous attacks won�t affect inanimate creatures.
⁃ Guarding and worshiping monsters will mill about more randomly.
⁃ Spectral blades aren�t listed in the side bar unless highlighted by the cursor.
⁃ Centaurs and spiders will launch their projectile attacks whether or not the enemy is reflective.
⁃ Centaurs and arrow turrets can hit turrets, won�t attack creatures embedded in obstruction crystals and won�t lose their ranged attack when negated.
⁃ Shattering will free dormant creatures trapped within.
⁃ Guardians hit harder, and monsters avoid them better.
⁃ Potions of purple gas and pink jellies are referred to as caustic rather than poisonous.
⁃ Monsters that learn to fly will lose the ability to submerge and will no longer be constrained to liquids.
⁃ Weapons known to have runes of acid mound slaying won�t warn against attacking an acid mound.
⁃ Creatures launched by weapons of force will damage (in addition to being damaged by) the enemy that they slam into.
⁃ Fleeing monsters won�t become aware of your location if you�re invisible unless you�re next to them.
⁃ Thrown items won�t hit submerged creatures.
⁃ Runic armor with an unknown enchantment level won�t give away its enchantment levels from its description.
⁃ Gouts of flame appear when monsters are consumed by lava, similar to items.
⁃ Fixed message color issues when one ally kills another discordant ally.
⁃ Tweaked negation order of operations so negating an infected golem won't release spores.
⁃ �(Off balance)� status indicators appear only when a monster is hunting.
⁃ Fixed a bug that caused certain creatures to flee at the start of a level.
⁃ Fixed a bug that caused the vampiric trait to increase a monster�s max health over time.
⁃ Fixed some edge case bugs that resulted in malformed machine rooms and bridges.
⁃ Fixed bugs related to naming items.
⁃ Fixed bug that caused discordant monkey or imp allies to flee forever if they steal an item while discordant.
⁃ Fixed grammatical flaws related to choosing between �a� and �an�

Jeffrey of YOSPOS fucked around with this message at 21:39 on Sep 13, 2013

# ? Sep 13, 2013 21:37

Unormal: Nov 16, 2004; Mod sass? This evening?! But the cakes aren't ready! THE CAKES!; Fun Shoe

Farquar posted:

I like to play really random characters in my roguelikes. Would a mutant with 4 levels of Unstable Genome be the best way to do this in CoQ?

Yeah, you can also hit F1 in any other screen to make random selections. F1+Unstable Genomes is personally my favorite way to play the game.

# ? Sep 13, 2013 22:34

Anachronist: Feb 13, 2009

Jeffrey posted:

A new Brogue version was released. No more allies gaining experience by exploring, no more recharging scrolls working on wands, and more.

Just as I was getting halfway used to this version, too. Oh well, on to a new high score sheet!

# ? Sep 14, 2013 05:50

Farquar: Apr 30, 2003; Bjorn you glad I didn't say banana?

Does Brogue let you name your characters yet? It seems like such a minor thing, but it adds so much more personality when it's Doug the Donkeyheart that gets chased into a pit trap by a flaming zombie instead of just my next nameless character.

Makes the high score list much more interesting to reminisce about, too.

# ? Sep 14, 2013 20:02

Safety Biscuits: Oct 21, 2010

Jeffrey posted:

A new Brogue version was released. No more allies gaining experience by exploring, no more recharging scrolls working on wands, and more.

Glad he's nerfed allies significantly, and those other changes look mostly good too. I'm not sure how the stealth will work out, but the axe of multiplicity build should be fun...

# ? Sep 14, 2013 20:37

EvilMike: Dec 6, 2004

The stealth changes are somewhat interesting, from the few games I've played so far. I mainly like the way armour is a factor now (there's actually a reason to wear light armour, in other words). And using rings to get a stealth radius of 1 is pretty funny, but it's hampered a bit by it being hard to tell which squares are lit (the biggest flaw of the system, I think). For the most part, stuff just can't detect you at all when it's outside your stealth range, so it's very powerful. Just don't expect to fight stuff.

Also, even though plate armour makes you extremely visible to enemies, I think a ring of stealth could still be very useful, since taking off your armour only takes 1 turn, and monsters lose "hunting" status if they are far enough out of your stealth range. Re-equipping takes time now, but this still seems like it should be a good escape tactic. It's like having a weak version of invisibility that you can use whenever you want.

The stealth radius display only informs you when you step into the light... it can be useful still, but I prefer to play with it off. Seems kind of fiddly because of this, but it could probably still be improved.

# ? Sep 14, 2013 21:17

FairyNuff: Jan 22, 2012

The basement in Occult Chronicles really has some nice gently caress you traps.

Also for others playing OC one thing I'd missed is that if you have any item/feat/spell cards you can right click them to discard them in exchange for experience tokens.

# ? Sep 15, 2013 01:40

precision: May 7, 2006; by VideoGames

From a couple pages ago, I bought into the Desktop Dungeons beta 2 years ago and while I'm getting impatient for the offline release, it is very good and incredibly feature rich at this point (and allegedly for-real almost done).

It's an odd sort of board/strategy roguelike that has the "easy to learn, very hard to master" down to a goddamn science with a difficulty curve that ensures you always have several goals at your skill level so you don't really brick wall. It takes a long, long time to get to the "endgame content" (at a rough guess I'd say at least 100 hours!) and the endgame stuff adds another 50-100 hours worth of challenge. And on the way there you are pretty much constantly gaining access to new toys/dungeons/etc.

I would have a hard time imagining many people would find it not worth the price. The devs are really cool people too. Buy it!

And yeah it probably could do with a thread if someone wants to tackle that.

# ? Sep 15, 2013 02:11

Klaus Kinski: Nov 26, 2007; Der Klaus

It's an excellent game, but it's more of a puzzler with some rpg-lite added. At least it was when I bought in a couple of years ago.

# ? Sep 15, 2013 02:16

precision: May 7, 2006; by VideoGames

Klaus Kinski posted:

It's an excellent game, but it's more of a puzzler with some rpg-lite added. At least it was when I bought in a couple of years ago.

Yes, it's somewhat hard to classify, though the strategy level has increased significantly with the revamped spells/gods/monsters. Certainly not a traditional roguelike, but close enough to the genre to satisfy most fans I think.

# ? Sep 15, 2013 02:35

DalaranJ: Apr 15, 2008; Yosuke will now die for you.

Jeffrey posted:

⁃ Grappling monsters have more health.

Everything looks great except that. Screw that change.

# ? Sep 15, 2013 02:54

Stelas: Sep 6, 2010

Geokinesis posted:

Also for others playing OC one thing I'd missed is that if you have any item/feat/spell cards you can right click them to discard them in exchange for experience tokens.

Man, I wish I'd known on my win, I was rolling with items.

And yeah, the basement traps are something else. Entire rooms of acid traps with a very real possibility of an 'Instant Death' card attached. Spending most of your time farming quests in the floors above seems like the best way to play, then hunting down the 'reveal final room' item.

# ? Sep 15, 2013 03:34

Bob NewSCART: Feb 1, 2012; Outstanding afternoon. "I've often said there's nothing better for the inside of a man than the outside of a horse."

Desktop Dungeons looks pretty cool. I watched a couple videos but I'm having a hard time understanding how the combat works exactly and why this game is like a puzzler? I'm on my phone so I can't just download the alpha and try it out.

# ? Sep 15, 2013 14:31

Stelas: Sep 6, 2010

Bob NewSCART posted:

Desktop Dungeons looks pretty cool. I watched a couple videos but I'm having a hard time understanding how the combat works exactly and why this game is like a puzzler? I'm on my phone so I can't just download the alpha and try it out.

It's a puzzler because every damage value and health value is known and your resources are finite. You and the enemies only regenerate health when you uncover new tiles on the board, so the goal becomes finding the optimal way to gather enough health, xp and power to kill the boss before you've got simply no way out. Usually this means finding ways to safely take on higher level enemies, or else augment your regeneration while nulling or slowing the boss'.

# ? Sep 15, 2013 14:37

precision: May 7, 2006; by VideoGames

Also, the alpha version has drastically fewer features and strategy, though it does give you the rough idea. Once you progress and start unlocking Gods and different options for changing the dungeon composition and items there are many ways to tackle each "board" - unlike traditional roguelikes, each run is made up of just one screen (and a small random subdungeon or two).

Once you get used to it the math becomes second nature, though at first it can be a little daunting.

# ? Sep 15, 2013 14:50

Dr. Dos: Aug 5, 2005; YAAAAAAAY!

I just found this old ADOM screenshot and man do I regret not savescumming to see what would've happened if I made it Jharod. (Low level mindcrafters are not good at dealing with a Writhing Mass of Primal Carpentry.)

# ? Sep 15, 2013 17:26

precision: May 7, 2006; by VideoGames

How did Yggrius become a WMoPC? :catstare:

# ? Sep 15, 2013 17:50

Cardiovorax: Jun 5, 2011; I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.

Lots of chaos traps, probably. That is pretty hilarious and I wish you'd taken him back to Jharod, too. You could probably get the same thing just by wizarding in a lot of chaos potions and chucking them at him in the wilderness.

# ? Sep 15, 2013 18:03

Tuxedo Catfish: Mar 17, 2007; You've got guts! Come to my village, I'll buy you lunch.

Man, I'm really sick of getting one-shot by the very first random encounter every time I go more than four world map tiles away from Joppa in Caves of Qud. I had a pretty good Marauder going, ran into a chain turret, and died before I could even decide whether to retreat or try to rush the thing.

# ? Sep 15, 2013 21:50

andrew smash: Jun 26, 2006; smooth soul

Tuxedo Catfish posted:

Man, I'm really sick of getting one-shot by the very first random encounter every time I go more than four world map tiles away from Joppa in Caves of Qud. I had a pretty good Marauder going, ran into a chain turret, and died before I could even decide whether to retreat or try to rush the thing.

Go into the swamps surrounding joppa (don't go to the world map) and get a few easy levels off crocs before you start the game in earnest. You won't get any loot so mutants benefit from this more than true men but extra levels of HP and skills make the early game easier.

# ? Sep 15, 2013 23:30

Tuxedo Catfish: Mar 17, 2007; You've got guts! Come to my village, I'll buy you lunch.

andrew smash posted:

Go into the swamps surrounding joppa (don't go to the world map) and get a few easy levels off crocs before you start the game in earnest. You won't get any loot so mutants benefit from this more than true men but extra levels of HP and skills make the early game easier.

I wasn't brand new -- the character was level ~10 or so, he'd explored the tunnels connecting Red Rock and Joppa and got a decent amount of experience off the critters there. I guess the lesson here is more "don't explore ruins" which isn't much fun but whatever.

# ? Sep 16, 2013 00:40

Unormal: Nov 16, 2004; Mod sass? This evening?! But the cakes aren't ready! THE CAKES!; Fun Shoe

Tuxedo Catfish posted:

I wasn't brand new -- the character was level ~10 or so, he'd explored the tunnels connecting Red Rock and Joppa and got a decent amount of experience off the critters there. I guess the lesson here is more "don't explore ruins" which isn't much fun but whatever.

... or bring an EMP grenade when exploring ruins.

# ? Sep 16, 2013 00:57

Tuxedo Catfish: Mar 17, 2007; You've got guts! Come to my village, I'll buy you lunch.

Unormal posted:

... or bring an EMP grenade when exploring ruins.

I hadn't been anywhere that sold EMP grenades yet. I was, in fact, traveling through the wilderness so I could get to somewhere that did sell half-decent equipment. :v:

Anyways, I'm back to experimenting with new character builds; I tried combining Phasing with Burrowing Claws thinking I'd be able to phase into a wall, dig out a cubby, and then use it as a bolt-hole. Unfortunately it looks like phasing disables your ability to attack tiles.

I might try Disintegration as a substitute, but it just doesn't have the same moleman allure.

Does equipping a shield to your third or fourth arm give you the full shield bonus? Can I combine this with the ambidexterity tree to have a dual-wielding character who can also shield block? Do the ambidexterity skills affect the third and fourth arms at all?

# ? Sep 16, 2013 01:32

Unormal: Nov 16, 2004; Mod sass? This evening?! But the cakes aren't ready! THE CAKES!; Fun Shoe

Tuxedo Catfish posted:

I hadn't been anywhere that sold EMP grenades yet. I was, in fact, traveling through the wilderness so I could get to somewhere that did sell half-decent equipment.

Anyways, I'm back to experimenting with new character builds; I tried combining Phasing with Burrowing Claws thinking I'd be able to phase into a wall, dig out a cubby, and then use it as a bolt-hole. Unfortunately it looks like phasing disables your ability to attack tiles.

I might try Disintegration as a substitute, but it just doesn't have the same moleman allure.

Does equipping a shield to your third or fourth arm give you the full shield bonus? Can I combine this with the ambidexterity tree to have a dual-wielding character who can also shield block? Do the ambidexterity skills affect the third and fourth arms at all?

Acid gas is surprisingly good for mole-men. Space-time vortex is another digging ability worth a look.

Sheild defense procs only use your best shield AV, so with generic shields wearing more than a one is typically a waste, except for unusual corner-cases. Having ambidexterity affect shield use as well is an interesting idea, though.

The third and fourth arms are controlled purely by the mutation bonus, the dual-wield tree/agility bonuses apply to your "normal" off-hand only.

# ? Sep 16, 2013 01:44

Tuxedo Catfish: Mar 17, 2007; You've got guts! Come to my village, I'll buy you lunch.

Unormal posted:

Sheild defense procs only use your best shield AV, so with generic shields wearing more than a one is typically a waste, except for unusual corner-cases. Having ambidexterity affect shield use as well is an interesting idea, though.

I wasn't even thinking of equipping multiple shields, I just read something on an old forum post to the effect of "multiple arms isn't worth the points, it doesn't count shields equipped to the extra limbs."

Trying to make a room in the wall using disintegration gave me a Pauli Exclusion Principle mortem, but I'll try your suggestions and see which works best!

EDIT: Corrosive gas doesn't work fast enough either, although maybe it or disintegration would with more levels; I'll try debug mode in a bit. Space-time vortex seems more promising but the random trajectory and the long cooldown kind of sink it for practical purposes.

Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 01:59 on Sep 16, 2013

# ? Sep 16, 2013 01:50

Unormal: Nov 16, 2004; Mod sass? This evening?! But the cakes aren't ready! THE CAKES!; Fun Shoe

Tuxedo Catfish posted:

I wasn't even thinking of equipping multiple shields, I just read something on an old forum post to the effect of "multiple arms isn't worth the points, it doesn't count shields equipped to the extra limbs."

Trying to make a room in the wall using disintegration gave me a Pauli Exclusion Principle mortem, but I'll try your suggestions and see which works best!

EDIT: Corrosive gas doesn't work fast enough either, although maybe it or disintegration would with more levels; I'll try debug mode in a bit. Space-time vortex seems more promising but the random trajectory and the long cooldown kind of sink it for practical purposes.

Oh, bad reading comprehension; a shield on any additional arm/hand will work fine, it'll count as long as it's equipped on any body part except thrown.

Spice-time vortex can be dangerous, but it eats anything at all, so it has it's upsides.

# ? Sep 16, 2013 02:05

Cardiovorax: Jun 5, 2011; I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.

The trick about mental mutations is to have a bunch of them and use them alternatingly. You get a bunch of free ranks just for having high... Ego, I think. Get that ability boost mutation, which lets you raise any ability to your Ego modifier and you don't need hard points in any of the others. When you can shoot off cryokinesis, then pyrokinesis, then the vortex, then the laser beam, then disintegration, the cooldown times stop mattering so much.

I really hate cooldowns on principle, though, and I wish mutations were balanced around anything else whatsoever. Being told at which pace I can play my game annoys the hell out of me. I kind of miss the old kind system where mana was limited, but at least you could use everything as often as you wanted to while it lasted.

# ? Sep 16, 2013 02:19

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# ? Apr 16, 2024 22:05

Tuxedo Catfish: Mar 17, 2007; You've got guts! Come to my village, I'll buy you lunch.

I actually prefer cooldown management to mana management. It gives you an reason to use sub-optimal skills from time to time, constantly mixes up the value of attacking vs. retreating -- it promotes thoughtful play in so many different ways.

Although I'd like it even better if, once you're in total safety, your abilities automatically reset their cooldowns instead of making you mash "wait 100" over and over. Even a "wait until healed and all abilities reset" button would be a huge upgrade.

Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 02:41 on Sep 16, 2013

# ? Sep 16, 2013 02:38

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Roguelikes: I never met@progression I didn't like

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