First impressions, feedback and suggestions.

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First impressions, feedback and suggestions.

Postby Nakarai » Fri Dec 18, 2015 10:47 am

I've played slightly more than a dozen times, but I've only gotten to floor 8 or so, so these are mostly impressions of the earlier levels. I know its early on in development so you're probably aware of most of this, but having a second point of view is helpful never the less!

-The matrix item mechanic is my favorite (the one that gives stats and a prefix along with a few random abilities of a certain sphere), but usually I only find one or two by the time I start getting into dangerous encounters (around floor 5). I would love it if you got a matrix everytime your summoner leveled up. The level ups are rare enough to balance this out, but it could be every other level up as well. It would also be nice if you could choose an ability to pass down when using the matrix. Currently I feel like I should wait to pass their abilities on before sacrificing, although that may be intentional.

-I like the starting options. I think each 'class' should have one default ability along with the other three chosen abilities to distinguish them more. It would also be cool if your starting demon got a semi random (or chosen) prefix buff, so to make him more unique.

-It would be cool if some demons could grow or evolve somehow. Not like Pokemon, but logical evolution. You could find equipment for a skeleton and turn him into an armored skeleton for example. Or let your slime eat something magical to get a different kind of slime. Or maybe theres a baby dragon thats weak early on but has higher growth rate than other demons (imo it shouldn't tell you its a baby as your character wouldn't know, but could imply that it grows in the flavor text).

-I would like to see the negotiation system touched up a little. It seems weird that the slime is smart enough to demand things for example! Surely you could just offer him three health stones, or alot of hp without waiting for him to ask for them? I've failed just because he would only demand sacrifices. Also when other demons ask for items in general you should be able to say "how about this other item". It just seems like the basic demons should be easier to negotiate with, as they aren't as smart or experienced.

-Some combinations seem too strong. Like getting the lightning passive +50% to shock with good AoE lightning skills. I ran into three prefixed lightning birds that had lightning breath and it was guaranteed death as they move very fast. Stacking dodge also seems to quickly get out of hand very fast. Things like giving the Willo Wisp the Goblin's dodge passives.

-I would like to be able to back up with my demons into choke points, and be able to run without having to unsummon everything. Currently I need to waste 6 turns if I need to reposition. It makes me think that going around with everything unsummoned is the smarter way to play!

-Currently it seems like you're reliant on finding demons that fit your playstyle. I found almost nothing but the demon that cleanses and gives sp to others for one floor and nothing but two types the next. This is even worse because you can only have one of each demon type. Maybe you should be able to fuse two demons to get a random demon of the same rarity or floor? Just so theres something you can do if RNG is not going your way.

-You can't run from most fights unless you get the movement speed passive. This practically makes it mandatory as there doesn't seem to be any escape items. You can just let some demons die, but doing that is very costly and will make you too weak if you do it more than once or twice.

-I was expecting to be able to summon things as you're a summoner. There could be a risky summoning ability that summons random demons that may go berserk and is particularly dangerous to use on later floors!

-The 'low profile' passive either doesn't work right, or the text implies that it does something other than what it actually does. I assumed that it let you fire through allies so that you could stand behind your demons and fire non directed ranged attacks, but in practice the only use is if they are on the other side of the enemy your firing at and hes in your line of fire.
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Re: First impressions, feedback and suggestions.

Postby Ferret » Sat Dec 19, 2015 12:06 am

Hey, and welcome. :) Thanks for playing, and thank you for signing up to the forum to give feedback. :) I really appreciate it. :D

- Matrices will eventually be supplemented (or maybe even replaced) by the currency system: you'll be able to spend "money" (not sure what it'll be called) at any time to do the Matrix effect. Of course, it will be expensive, but the balance will be such that you won't have to rely on lucky drops anymore like you do now. :) Unfortunately, the currency system is still a bit out in the schedule, but it is on the list.

- The starting options will eventually be expanded to include some specific bonuses known as Relic Upgrades. You'll also be able to get more Relic Upgrades when you defeat enemy summoners (or possibly through other systems, like rare items, or even the currency system mentioned before). But, like the currency system, this isn't in quite yet. :) A buff for the starting pet of some kind might be possible... but I'd have to be careful here. If I make it random, people will feel like they have to new character scum. On the other hand, character creation already involves 3 major choices... adding a 4th might be overkill. I'll think about it though, I might be able to do something of this nature, and the early game is not easy enough where I'm opposed outright to a little bit more power for starting characters.

- Evolution is definitely something I'm considering, and I guess technically, already working on. Main limitation here is I don't have enough demons yet probably. :) Once the demon list is bigger, I can begin "connecting" them by evolution. Evolution would probably work by meeting specific requirements listed somewhere in the character sheet. (i.e.: Reach Level 10, Have 2 or more Dark abilities, Have no Light abilities, See a Hero die, etc. All sorts of things.) But (and you're probably already tired of hearing this :P ): not in yet. :D

- Slimes in Demon aren't slimes from other dungeon crawlers necessarily. :) They aren't exactly bright, but they like to consume things: your HP, items, demons. Demon types definitely determine what sort of things they ask for. :D As for making offers to the demon yourself...that might make things a little too easy. It's true that when you're negotiating with 1 Slime out of 4, it may seem a little silly for it to be randomized. But, if you're negotiating with a Violent Slime who there is just one of... suddenly those sacrifices might actually have to be considered, no? :D Also: Don't be afraid to try lying to demons, particularly when asked for items you don't want to part with. Some demons, particularly early ones, are pretty gullible about this, and you aren't penalized for a successful lie like you are for just refusing to part with an item. :) Though, a failed lie is actually a bit worse than just saying no too. You might get some clues from the demon's tone, or experience with that demon, whether or not a lie is a good idea.

- Just to make sure we're on the same page: The +50% Shock modifier is +50% of the chance you have, not a flat 50%. (i.e: 10% becomes 15%, not 60%) Given Shock chances are pretttty low, it usually doesn't let you get much above 30% even with good Cunning, unless you have a weak vs. Electricity target. Dodge bonuses are definitely powerful... but demons and summoners loaded with them die all the time. (That said, I have actually been thinking about adjusting them anyway, you can definitely get *very* high Dodge odds with most of them on one character.)

- Have you tried holding Ctrl when moving yet? This orders your demons to follow you when you move, even during combat, and can be effective for repositioning. If it isn't working for you, please let me know what about it isn't doing what you need. :D That said, more / better options for demon control is... also on the list. :)

- RNG hate of the type you describe in the spawning note should be rare... but maybe you're right and I should not be content with rare. I'll make a note to investigate means to more evenly distribute spawns in a level.

- Ctrl + movement can also help for fleeing encounters, but more important than that may be using intersections and open spaces The AI isn't allowed to cheat when chasing you: but it does make educated guesses. In a long hallway, even with corners, even if you get out of sight, it has no questions about where you went. On the other hand, if you turn a corner at an intersection or duck into another hall from an open space while out of sight, it has a much lower chance of picking the right way to follow you. If you need to open up some distance, summon a tanky demon and run away from it, unsummoning it when you have opened up a bit more distance. It may be useful to make a demon who specializes in this behavior: solid defense abilities, self healing, high Vit, high Agl, maybe even some movement abilities so it can go to the enemies and get started blocking them faster.

- Oh, you mean summon temporary pets as well as your permanent pets? :D I've been thinking about that, but I'm going to have to be careful with adding it, since your demons would also have access to these abilities... that could quickly get to be a lot of temporary pets. :) I guess I could also do something summoner-specific where you can temporarily exceed your limit of 3 active pets too, though. I'll noodle on this one. :D

- Not 100% clear on what you mean here, but Low Profile lets you fire projectile attacks (Projectile is specifically listed on the ability tooltip) through allies who have the ability. i.e. The allies you don't want to hit need to have Low Profile, not the allies doing the firing.

Thanks again for playing, and for the feedback. :D I apologize that many of my answers are "it's coming later", but... well, there is only one of me on coding/design. :) I'll keep chugging away though, and things will keep improving. :)
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Re: First impressions, feedback and suggestions.

Postby Nakarai » Sat Dec 19, 2015 2:30 am

I was kind of expecting that most of the my feedback would have been thought of already! But having a second point of view is pretty nice nevertheless.

Oh I wasn't aware of the Ctrl movement! That would make things alot easier.

As for the shock I might just be REALLY unlucky. In the fight I got my group was mostly chain stunned, they could have had really high cunning or something I don't know. I used a few pure gems (the AoE one) just to have them re-stunned even. It is worth noting that the lightning bird is really fast and there were three of them, so thats potentially 6 attacks along with lightning breath and another ability I don't remember. They probably had extra cunning from their prefix as well.

As for the RNG of getting only one type of demon, its only happened on the whole level once, although the second level was just two demon types.

The summoning ability was supposed to be risky to balance it out. Early on it might just be a 'free' demon for a fight, but later on I'd imagine more powerful demons would be more likely to side with your enemies. Maybe you have to 'bribe' them to guarantee they fight for you. I was assuming that this would be a summoner only ability, but a demon that summons weaker demons might be interesting. Its something to consider nevertheless.

As for low profile, when I tested it my shots were 'eaten' by the demon (a Huo Shu) with low profile I was firing through, he would always "dodge" it but the projectile wouldn't continue going through. I tried about three times before I assumed it was impossible. I tested as the Orb of Power 'class'. Maybe I'm not remembering right, or it was bugged that one game but I just tested it again and it worked fine this time. It is possible that I was firing at an enemy that was immune to my attacks. I wasn't aware of immunity at the time of testing so.

The currency system sounds cool. I was going to say in the first post that I would like to see shops of some kind, but I wasn't sure how to word it.
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Re: First impressions, feedback and suggestions.

Postby Ferret » Sat Dec 19, 2015 4:46 am

:D The forum isn't very high traffic yet feedback wise. The posters I do have are awesome, but there's only a few of them running about, so lots of feedback is usually going to be new to me. :)

Yeah, with good Cunning from a modifier and their natural Speed, Raicho can be decided deadly if they get in range, especially multiple ones at once. They're easily one of the most deadly of early game enemies, no disputing that, and modifiers just make it worse.

Hmm... if you can get reproduction steps on the "Dodge but projectile stops" bug, that would be awesome. :) I *thought* I had fixed that, and I have not seen it personally in quite some time, but if I missed a piece of it, I'd love to finish the job. :D

Currency will probably be the next system that gets added... but, I confess I plan to be in content mode for a little while. My biggest frowny right now as a developer is that the biggest fans tend to leave once they've beaten the game several times, and right now the game is short enough that doesn't take very long in some cases. :P
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Re: First impressions, feedback and suggestions.

Postby Nakarai » Mon Feb 15, 2016 4:24 pm

So I starting playing alot recently and light/ dark skill balance feels a bit weird. I don't expect the numbers to be perfect by this stage of development by any means, but starting as a light/ dark Faithful Heart caster feels weird. The skills already have restrictions on a skill by skill basis and a 3 turn global CD (basically 2 turns with how turns work though) but then they cost a ton of SP and are less useful stat wise than other skills. They have elemental advantage against alot of things and have good passives later, so are they intended as more of a lategame option? (I haven't gotten to lategame as I'm experimenting.) Pretty much everything that Orb of Power gets just seems better, so I'm wondering if theres something I've overlooked regarding light/ dark skills. The main strat I've used with Faithful Heart is to either go for light, or dark + lightning so that I can easily clear floor 1 1/2. My end goal is to heavily focus my party on dealing light and dark damage as little resists both. I'm not sure its viable yet but its a fun playstyle, the CD and high costs definitely make it a hard style to learn and/ or play at the very least!

The other thing thats been bothering me is your starting stat variation. Its fairly hard to figure out what your stats will end up being at the end of character creation, so I find myself spending alot of time checking what effect the first attribute has on stats. (The secondary attribute's effect is usually just a few points difference.) For some relics it would be nice to be able to decide what your attribute focus would be, for example, I like to choose the Slash attribute on Titan's Fist just because it gives very high strength. Having the tooltip explain what stats are boosted, and what resistances/ weaknesses would make character creation feel alot smoother, and would fit the theme of everything having tooltips!

The highlights from recent games: I recently discovered that you can rightclick the prefix when using a matrix and get a list of every skill it can give, which is amazing! I'm a bit tempted to sacrifice uniques just for a roll for some of those skills. I have to say that you've done a great job with the encounter system, fairly frequently I'll die for my greed for new summons! The tornado unique is my bane since he always comes with some good prefixed summons. The name I've been using in-game is Soul incase you like to look at the leader boards for any reason. Anyways, I've been enjoying the game alot, which is surprising when its so early on in development. Looking forward to more patches :D
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Re: First impressions, feedback and suggestions.

Postby Ferret » Mon Feb 15, 2016 5:15 pm

The main advantages of Light and Dark abilities generally are:

1) Most of them do not use Agility.
2) Most of them can be aimed at any target in range, without regard for any other characters between you and the target.
3) Exceptions to these rules are usually well rewarded.

You can occasionally find spells of other elements that share some or all of these traits, but these are usually exceptions, and often have other restrictions or issues.

Orb of Power is a bit of tricky comparison as well: The Orb generally speaking gets a stronger ability set than the other relics (many of them aren't encountered in the wild until nearly the end of the current content), in part to compensate for the horror of being Weak to all physical attacks. :D In terms of raw starting abilities, I would probably agree the Orb does better, but those weaknesses are a tough burden other relics don't have to deal with.

I will say that Light/Dark generally do better early on when paired with something else: they definitely are intended to have difficulties working directly together. However, there *are* passives that can help you overcome that difficulty, if you can make it far enough to obtain them. Pairing one of them with a different element, such as your Light/Electricity and Dark/Electricity ideas, is a much easier start probably. :)

I've been reallllyy hesitant to introduce stat allocation into character creation. Demon's character creation is already a bit more involved than I would like even at the current bare minimum. I can see about adding more tooltips to the process though, I agree it would be better to have more information. :)

I'm glad you're enjoying the encounters. :D It took me a few swings to get the hang of them, but I'm happy with the majority of encounters in the game these days. Still some rough spots probably, but it can be hard to tell for sure because some encounters that seem trivial on one build can be a nightmare for a different build. :)

I've seen Soul a fair bit in the scores. :D (I will confess I check the data I get back from games at a frequency best described as obsessive. :P ) I'm happy you're having fun, and hope you continue to enjoy the new stuff I roll out in the future. :D
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Re: First impressions, feedback and suggestions.

Postby Sandman25 » Mon Feb 15, 2016 6:45 pm

+1 for stats and resistances as tooltips while selecting attributes.
Also maybe it could make some sense to display ease and/or recommended stats-on-level-ups distribution.
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