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Author Topic: Veins of the Earth beta 13 "Anyone can be a winner" released!  (Read 31433 times)

Zireael

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Re: Veins of the Earth beta 5.6
« Reply #45 on: July 30, 2014, 10:55:09 am »

I have at least 4 threads on the game - on ToME forums, Roguetemple forums, Angband forums and here - and have been getting bits and pieces of it in all the places mentioned, so I know there's some interest.

However, this thread seems the quietest and I began to wonder whether it made sense to keep posting here.

And now getting to the crux of the matter - first off, thanks for the excellent feedback, Retropunch.

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You could also try giving a list of 'recommended combinations' in the race/class screen in a similar way to DCSS does, as playing as a paladin with cure light wounds makes things a lot easier.
The game already does it in a way, by highlighting the favored classes (bonus to attack and hp) and/or recommended classes (high attributes). However, making another highlight for cleric or paladin is trivial.

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-The player needs to be centered, or at least centered when you drop down to the next level. I've got quite a big monitor and starting right at the bottom right or wherever seemed strange.
Noted but don't know how to make it centered (off-center starts happen if the stairs get placed at the sides of the level).

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-Firstly, I'd try to do a bigger contrast between background and sprites. I'm unsure of the best way to do this, maybe you could somehow darken/lower the contrast of all the floor/wall tiles or something. It just sometimes feels a bit difficult to differentiate between terrain and creatures.

Noted, will tweak the darkness/contrast of the floor/wall tiles.

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-A lot of the levels seem very, very small. In my last play through I landed on a second level which was all of 8 walkable tiles (including two with stairs). I'm not sure if I was supposed to search/dig/what, but having such a small area seemed strange.

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-Your map gen seems to leave it without a wall on the outside edge. Although you can't walk off the map or anything, it looks very strange.

ToME level generator sometimes throws such duds. I've seen a player report a 2 walkable tiles level in stock Tales of Maj'Eyal. Been researching level generators for several months in order to improve this, however, not confident enough in my coding skillz :(.

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-Sometimes when autoexploring monsters will sort of flash a bit. This didn't seem to happen all the time, but definitely did with hobgoblins.
An engine problem. I've noticed it in stock Tales of Maj'Eyal too and have asked around on ToME forums.

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-Notes/Lore (when you pick up parchment) need to be able to be exited with either space, enter, by clicking and also escape. This goes for a few of the other menus and message boxes. Click to close also doesn't work on message boxes unless you click the top bar.
Good point, but I'm not sure if it can be done gracefully in T-Engine (I've already tried to give help double keybindings and ran into some trouble).

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-Conversely, when leveling up, you can quit out of the level up screen without choosing your upgrades. I'd make it force you go through each step individually - stats -> skills -> feats or whatever, just make sure the player does it!
Planned already.

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-It's also confusing having the list of feats you already have on the left hand side as it makes them look selectable somehow - I'd put a header over them and not let the player scroll over them.
Good point, will do it ASAP.

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I'm unsure if this is just that I needed to eat more though.
This. I probably ought to add more foodstuffs as well as implement ranger foraging.

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-Pressing the 'L' key (lower case) seems to cause an error.
Noted, will disable it until I work out what's going on.

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you've still got the problem of a much too steep difficulty curve in some cases. In my last play through I wandered down into a fire elemental and some other nasties on the first room of second floor (with the first floor seeming to be just two rooms) and died pretty much instantly.

Heh, I know :D
It used to be worse - when the modules contest kicked off in November 2013, DG complained that he ran into a CR 14 golem right at the start.  >:(
Since then, I've implemented filters which forbid enemies with CR higher than character level + 3. Should I lower the threshold even more?
I also plan a distance parameter so that you don't get a monster spawning on top of you.

P.S. If you know Lua/T-Engine, you could help out, especially with the level generator. The game's code is easily available and open.
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Retropunch

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Re: Veins of the Earth beta 5.6
« Reply #46 on: July 30, 2014, 12:27:55 pm »

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you've still got the problem of a much too steep difficulty curve in some cases. In my last play through I wandered down into a fire elemental and some other nasties on the first room of second floor (with the first floor seeming to be just two rooms) and died pretty much instantly.

Heh, I know :D
It used to be worse - when the modules contest kicked off in November 2013, DG complained that he ran into a CR 14 golem right at the start.  >:(
Since then, I've implemented filters which forbid enemies with CR higher than character level + 3. Should I lower the threshold even more?
I also plan a distance parameter so that you don't get a monster spawning on top of you.

P.S. If you know Lua/T-Engine, you could help out, especially with the level generator. The game's code is easily available and open.

Glad to hear my feedback was of use!

As far as enemy difficulty, I'm unsure really. Can the CR threshold be changed mid game? For instance, from dungeon levels 1-4 make it player level +2, then from dungeon levels 5-10 player level +4 and so on? Early on you want a really smooth difficulty curve, and then you can ramp it up considerably. It doesn't even matter if the first level or three is a little bit slow.

As I mentioned, I'd really suggest giving every player a teleportation scroll just for emergencies. This could be gotten rid of when the balance gets better, but it'd really help whilst there are still a few problems. The Infra Arcana dev did something a bit similar and it worked out great for those who were struggling to really get into it. Really like the idea of distance parameter.

Two more suggestions,
-might be a good idea to grey out luck (or remove it) until it's implemented, just to save confusion. I know you've put a message in, but removing it for now would give it a more solid feel.
-If you can work to put in some constraints with the level generator that'd be best. It seems to swing wildly between huge maps of endless corridors that lead to nothing and incredibly small ones. The small ones aren't really that much of a problem, but the big ones can just be endless corridors of dead ends with nothing in them. I'd suggest also putting a monster spawn floor limit, as I've come across some levels with literally one monster in.

Unfortunately I'm too short on time at the moment to contribute directly, but I'll let you know if that changes! Keep us updated on your progress!
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With enough work and polish, it could have been a forgettable flash game on Kongregate.

Zireael

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Re: Veins of the Earth beta 5.6
« Reply #47 on: July 31, 2014, 11:33:35 am »

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As far as enemy difficulty, I'm unsure really. Can the CR threshold be changed mid game? For instance, from dungeon levels 1-4 make it player level +2, then from dungeon levels 5-10 player level +4 and so on? Early on you want a really smooth difficulty curve, and then you can ramp it up considerably. It doesn't even matter if the first level or three is a little bit slow.

Yes it can. I'm gonna drop the threshold to what you suggest.

As for the levels - one of the reasons I keep working on the worldmap is the ability to have multiple dungeons, using different level generators. Some level generators work better than others.
I might tweak the level size too for the first dungeon.

A scroll of teleportation would be nice, but a lot depends on what it'd do:
1) teleport to worldmap
2) change dungeon level
3) teleport (change place in the level you're in)

What would you like? Maybe all three? Veins Teleport, Level Teleport and Teleport?

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Zireael

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Re: Veins of the Earth beta 5.6
« Reply #48 on: August 03, 2014, 07:02:38 am »

In related news:
I'd had a feeling that the year mark passed when I was away and I was right.

The first commit is dated 21 Jun 2013 and the first beta was dated 15 Jun 2013.
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Retropunch

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Re: Veins of the Earth beta 5.6
« Reply #49 on: August 03, 2014, 10:09:09 am »

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As far as enemy difficulty, I'm unsure really. Can the CR threshold be changed mid game? For instance, from dungeon levels 1-4 make it player level +2, then from dungeon levels 5-10 player level +4 and so on? Early on you want a really smooth difficulty curve, and then you can ramp it up considerably. It doesn't even matter if the first level or three is a little bit slow.

Yes it can. I'm gonna drop the threshold to what you suggest.

As for the levels - one of the reasons I keep working on the worldmap is the ability to have multiple dungeons, using different level generators. Some level generators work better than others.
I might tweak the level size too for the first dungeon.

A scroll of teleportation would be nice, but a lot depends on what it'd do:
1) teleport to worldmap
2) change dungeon level
3) teleport (change place in the level you're in)

What would you like? Maybe all three? Veins Teleport, Level Teleport and Teleport?

Sounds great! I think it only needs to be a normal teleport (number 3). Sure it's not as powerful as the others, and you might just end up in a similarly rubbish situation, but that's a very normal risk. I think with a smoother difficulty curve and one guaranteed escape it should be a lot more accessible.

Congratulations on hitting the year milestone!!
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With enough work and polish, it could have been a forgettable flash game on Kongregate.

Zireael

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Re: Veins of the Earth beta 5.6
« Reply #50 on: August 04, 2014, 10:24:56 am »





That's two of Retropunch's requests now realized, and another one which doesn't lend itself to pictures well (lowering the CR cap).
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Retropunch

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Re: Veins of the Earth beta 5.6
« Reply #51 on: August 04, 2014, 03:19:38 pm »

That's two of Retropunch's requests now realized, and another one which doesn't lend itself to pictures well (lowering the CR cap).

Awesome!! Fantastic work!

One general thing I'd suggest is to move over to a proper wiki format for the manual/strategy guide at some point. People are extremely comfortable navigating them, they do really well for search engine visibility and they allow people to contribute without too much difficulty. Free hosting is available as well (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_wiki_hosting_services)

I'd gladly contribute/edit that when I get a few spare minutes and I think it'd be a great way to boost visibility.
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With enough work and polish, it could have been a forgettable flash game on Kongregate.

Zireael

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Re: Veins of the Earth beta 5.6
« Reply #52 on: August 05, 2014, 01:41:23 am »

There is a wiki set up on github: https://github.com/Zireael07/The-Veins-of-the-Earth/wiki - you're welcome to contribute!
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Retropunch

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Re: Veins of the Earth beta 5.6
« Reply #53 on: August 05, 2014, 03:38:44 pm »

There is a wiki set up on github: https://github.com/Zireael07/The-Veins-of-the-Earth/wiki - you're welcome to contribute!

I've seen that one (although I didn't realise I could contribute) but I was meaning a more traditional style wiki (ala wikipedia or the  DCSS crawlwiki). I know there isn't much of a difference practically, but I think that the standard wiki style is what people are most comfortable with.

Just a thought.
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With enough work and polish, it could have been a forgettable flash game on Kongregate.

Zireael

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Re: Veins of the Earth beta 5.6 - feedback needed
« Reply #54 on: August 07, 2014, 02:47:31 am »

I could set up a wiki on wikidot, like the one that used to be for Incursion (but is now outdated).

Also:

Another beta with lots of juicy additions, which means:
a) I need feedback
b) there may be bugs

Grab it from GitHub or Bitbucket ... or wait for ModDB.

CHANGELOG:

* bug fix - all skills triggering the spell failure checks
* bug fix - specific items had a typo in their on_wear
* bug fix - look around key throwing a lua error
* bug fix - locked out of inventory sometimes
* bug fix - plate armor being worn causing an error in the moddable tiles resolver
* bug fix - poison code not checking for immunity

* random worldmap
* humanoids now use A* pathing
* add ranged AI code inspired by DataQueen
* new monsters: babau, dretch, quasit
* new items: throwing axe, throwing knives; mushrooms, rods; enabled tattoos; mithril coins, emeralds, sapphires;
* new egos: dwarven, elven; of the Winterland, of the Druid, of the Hin; of brightness
* reduced the CR cap for dungeon level 1 to player level +1 and to player level +2 for dlvl 2-5
* tiles/ASCII switch finally works!
* split off thrown weapons into a separate file
* add a hint when a cursed item is auto-destroyed
* prevent clicking on learned feats in feat selection screens
* character creation screen improvements - highlight Cleric/Ranger/Paladin as newbie friendly; darkened Luck as it's not implemented yet; color-code high & low stats; highlight bad choices (spellcasting classes who wouldn't be able to cast spells) in dark red
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Neonivek

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Re: Veins of the Earth beta 5.7 - feedback needed
« Reply #55 on: August 07, 2014, 03:04:46 am »

Well I guess since feedback is required I can apply my usual "Near irrational" level of feedback to this game.

----

Let me see

Character creation is rather unintuitive, at first I started making my character selecting his class and race... Then I noticed I had to roll stats but I had some points. So I tried buying stats only to get an error... So whatever I'd just roll stats until I got a good monk... But each roll changed my race and class... over and over again.

So instead of just rolling a lot, because my patience was low from writing a review earlier (Dang it game I won't name in here!), I picked wizard because with a 16 intelligence I am already halfway there.

So I started off, saw my extensive spell list... odd that I didn't select spells or anything (I can only guess it was like that in Incursion). So I walk through the mostly empty dungeon but then I see my first enemy! I get my magic missile ready... I know he is in melee range but I am a combat caster, I might be able to defensively cast it. I click my might spell and!!! I didn't... prepare it... So I just beat the enemy to death.

At that point I was fed up with the game and turned it off.

And that was my experience playing the game for less than 5 minutes.

I also find it odd that you have to select your familiar at game start rather than at character creation, but I suspect that is engine limitation. I was also able to break the character creation screen by using the mouse wheel.
« Last Edit: August 07, 2014, 03:17:03 am by Neonivek »
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Zireael

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Re: Veins of the Earth beta 5.7 - feedback needed
« Reply #56 on: August 07, 2014, 03:29:17 am »

Rerolling stats should have no effect on the race/class that you picked.

What do you mean you broke the char creation screen with a mousewheel?

Also, the fact that you need to rest to prepare spells is hinted at in multiple places. And the spells you can't cast because they're not prepared are sort of greyed/whited out, they are lighter than your shoot icon.
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Neonivek

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Re: Veins of the Earth beta 5.7 - feedback needed
« Reply #57 on: August 07, 2014, 03:33:56 am »

1) It changed my race and class every time...
2) When I wheeled down the choices disappeared, I could easily wheel up though
3) "Hinted at" nothing. You start off with no prepared spells and have to know you need to... well do something (I actually don't know how to prepare spells) at the start. It is just a odd design choice.

I am being as harsh as possible mind you.

With a game like this if I am hit with these many barriers, I know I have to read the manual. It isn't a game that "tells you anything".

Also the version I played was 1.2.2
« Last Edit: August 07, 2014, 03:36:05 am by Neonivek »
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Zireael

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Re: Veins of the Earth beta 5.7 - feedback needed
« Reply #58 on: August 07, 2014, 03:44:22 am »

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1) It changed my race and class every time...
The only thing it changes is the colorful highlights for bad choices (red), good choices (green) and favored class (blue). The newbie choices (sandy brown) and what you picked (gold) remain unchanged.

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2) When I wheeled down the choices disappeared, I could easily wheel up though
Thanks, making a note of this - I don't have a mouse wheel.

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3) "Hinted at" nothing. You start off with no prepared spells and have to know you need to... well do something (I actually don't know how to prepare spells) at the start. It is just a odd design choice.
There is a loading hint telling you about this. The spellbook icon also hints at preparing spells. Also IIRC there's a hint in F1 screen (help screen).
I'm planning to give a player some prepared spells at start, but have yet to figure out how to implement it (most time since last release was spent on fixing bugs and adding worldmap).

EDIT: That doesn't mean I don't appreciate your feedback - I would never know about mouse wheel problems without you!
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Zireael

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Re: Veins of the Earth beta 5.7 - feedback needed
« Reply #59 on: August 11, 2014, 07:04:43 am »

Neonivek, I'll try to make even more hints about preparing spells and put them in more places (spellbook icon tooltip, for instance, and possibly individual spell tooltips, too).

What dungeons would you like to see next? Classic, themed (fire/ice/jungle/orc barracks/whatever), town, persistent, non-persistent?
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