Hardcore mode

[CrazedTarka]

Hello, love the game. Thank you very much for making it.
Please make hardcore game mode - when you're hp drops to zero - you die ; when demon hp drops to zero its gone and you can't copy any ability

[Ferret]

Hey Tarka, and welcome the forum. I'm glad you're enjoying Demon.

Demon actually use to use that rule set, long long ago. It was removed because it was forcing the balance of the game to be a little too tight: the changes I was having to make to ensure a death from full HP without a chance to respond could *never* happen were slowing the pace of combat too much. Once I added the MaxHP=>prevent Death mechanic, I was able to increase overall damage a fair bit, knowing that the mechanic would provide a cushion for what would otherwise have been deaths from full HP without a chance to respond.

If I turned (or gave an option to turn) hardcore mode on, without undoing the balance loosening I was able to do after removing it, there would definitely be cases where, in hardcore mode, you would be able to die from full HP without having a chance to respond, if you were playing low defense builds or happened to run into an extra nasty Modified demon or demon pack.

I admit I'm divided on whether or not that'd be okay. I feel like if I offer a game mode, that game mode needs to be balanced and fair, and without making a lot of other changes, putting the HP = 0 = death rule back wouldn't be.

While we're talking, is there a particular reason you'd prefer this mode of play? If it's just personal preference that's fine too, but if there's more to it than that I'd love to hear about it.

Thank you for the suggestion!

[CrazedTarka]

I understand, wasn't thinking it would mess with the balance that way. It is just personal preferance, when I find a game that I really like (like this one) I play it on hardest difficulty and die all the time to keep me engaged longer. Anyhow when I first started playing Demon it was very hard, it took me some time to learn. First time I won I ended up suiciding my char on the first floor of cycle 6. I was using almost the same setup every cycle becouse I was afraid to try anything else. Abusing sprint ability to get me out of dangerous situations. It was very effective specialy with second wind ability. Sprint, unsummon, run, heal. My hp droped to zero many times and I "lost" couple of important demons on every cycle but I do feel it was avoidable.

Playing melee char is a different beast I feel and is much harder. I could try that and call it hardcore mode:) What do you think about making demons not dropping aggro as soon as player and his demons are out of sight? That way you couldn't use sprint to run away from danger every time, or it wouldn't work as planned every time. For example, demons hunt you for Xturns regardless of line of sight. You might bump into another set of demons while running away.

Anyhow, Demon is a very hard game and making it harder might not be such a good idea. Thats why I was thinking about a game mod for people that just die over and over and don't mind that. And than after months and months of trying actualy win (similar to seriously! mode in Sword of the Stars : The pit) The game is great, blanaced and very hard as it is ,thank you for all the effort and love you put into it

[Ferret]

Demons do try to track you when they lose sight of you, but they do not cheat to do it: they will attempt to reach your last known position, but if they arrive and still haven't sighted you again, they will generally give up at that point and resume random wandering. It might be that Sprint is the problem here, rather than the tracking AI: you're not the first player to report using it heavily as an escape tool. It is intended to be usable as such of course, but it may need some limits/adjustments of some kind.

Harder game modes aren't completely out of the question, but if I do them, I would want them to be winnable a good variety of builds and approaches. (It is not necessarily required that all the exact same builds work of course: a harder mode would naturally not be beatable by some relatively less refined builds that could win the normal game.) I'll give it some thought, but it may be a bit before anything happens (if it ever does: Demon is pretty tightly balanced as it is, if there were easy ways to make it harder and still fair, I'd have already done them for the main game!)

Thank again you for the feedback and compliments. I'm glad you're enjoying Demon; if nothing else, maybe the new content in Tower:27-29 will bring new challenges for you.