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[Tnx]

Maybe a new quest where the village has you go adventure in the south marshes of Joppa?  That's where I always level up my characters before taking on any of the quests.  I typically play on the extreme safe side though, my current mutant for example, just finished the grishling's quest at level 16.  I dunno how I feel about pushing newbies towards the underground straight away, as the ivory traps down there quickly become the most bullshit death in any PC's life.

[unormal]

Any more details on DRM Free angle? Is the Humble version gonna be released when the game is finished or during EA? Sincerely hope for the latter.

The steam files are DRM free. Copy and run them anywhere.

[beorn080]

I just had an idea for balancing Tinkerers, ironically based off that exploit mentioned earlier.

Remove the Tinker line of skills. In its place.

Disk Technician: You are skilled at crafting items from their blueprints. However, you can only follow the plans, not innovate on them. (No chance for special attributes, however would have a slightly lower intelligence point to acquire then tinker 1. Can only craft with disks, not actually learn them.)

Tinkerer's Memory: You can commit all but the most advanced data disks to memory. In addition, the act of crafting from memory allows you a better understanding of the gear you make, allowing for customization and increased yields. (Can learn what are now tier 1 and 2 recipes. Good chance of getting at least one bonus attribute to gear crafted, with a somewhat poor but still possible chance of getting multiple bonuses. Any recipe that does not have a chance for modifiers has a chance to increase the yield, a 50% chance for each item the recipe normally makes. So, for example, the lead slug recipe normally makes 5 slugs. Each slug made gives a 50% chance to make an extra one, for a possible yield of 5-10 slugs. Grenades and tonics have a 50% chance of getting an extra out of the deal, which helps when you're dealing with rare materials to make said tonics from. Should have a requirement around the tinker 2 level, if not slightly higher.)

Expert Tinker: You  rank among the best tinker's in the Qud. You can commit all recipes to memory, and have will make exceptional gear. (Always get a modifier on crafted gear. Non modifier items always produce extra amounts. High chance of multiple mods on a single piece of gear. Intelligence point should be higher then tinker 3.)

Skill points for the first should be lowish, letting non intelligence based characters get access to it reasonably early, at the cost of otherwise useful combat skills. Skill points for the other two skills should be higher then the current tinker skills, to further emphasize the mad scientist kills everything with uber weapons motif. Oh, and you only get bonuses when crafting from memory, to avoid the ability to simply use a disk a few times for a super weapon, then sell it back to someone.

[Aquillion]

According to this guide the Red Rock quest shouldn't be seen as the newbie/first quest anyway.

Maybe?  But the way it's placed means that it's the first one most people are likely to encounter.  And I usually switched to doing it first myself once I discovered the back door entrance -- if you enter Red Rock by the backdoor, it has a much "smoother" difficulty curve, so you're unlikely to die unexpectedly unless your build is no good or you make a clear error.  You go from fighting snapjaws and spiders to crabs and the like, plus the occasional seed-spitter.  That makes it a good introduction for newer players, I think -- whereas there's significant risk of getting lost on the way to the Rust Wells, or encountering something particularly nasty in there while surrounded by slime, or running out of food and water far from town...

[Tnx]

I ran across an antelope herd with one of them being a unique, he had a pair of gloves for trade named "Icy Vapor" which seems to freeze enemies on hit.  The gloves were valued at zero though, I'm guessing that's a bug?

[Beggars` Sect]

The steam files are DRM free. Copy and run them anywhere.

Well, I`m not on Steam. Plus would like to buy it again (donated before).

This RPS write up is both pathetic and toxic by the way (also the comments below it). And this is supposed to be a site that "understands" niche games, yet here they show to be completely clueless. Funny thing is, Qud was one of my first roguelikes, and yet I found it very accessible - proper menu system, great feedback on cause/effect, amazing gfx and so on.

With coverage like this, who needs bad press...sad, really.

[rumpel]

Yeah, I found that RPS "review" quite disappointing, too. IIRC they commented more positively on less "accessible" games before - I'm not sure what happened there. But hey, all the 77 reviews it has gotten on Steam are positive!

Edit: Just got another stupid death. There was a sleeping slumberling and I was like "Oh yeah, he's sleeping, just walk by." - worked. When I came back I didn't walk turn for turn, but rather hit the walk right key for half a second to speed things up a bit - huge mistake! Suddenly I was reading "You died. Killed by slumberling." Well, fuck. It was skipping all the combat turns. I just arrived at the grit gate. :/

[Greenbane]

RPS misses the mark sometimes, tasking genre-unaware people to review games. It's not the first time Marsh Davies in particular takes on a game he doesn't seem inclined to understand (Alec Meer sometimes does it with strategy games, I think). In Caves of Qud's case, he doesn't appear to have the patience nor interest to learn the mechanics nor see past the interface. He'd likely hate Dwarf Fortress with a passion.

Reviewing a game like this might be passingly useful to average gamers without any particular interest in roguelikes, but I believe it's a methodology which does more harm than good. If I like a given genre and wanted to read a review of a game I might be interested in, I'd rather the reviewer could appreciate and tell me about its nuances.

At any rate, I don't know if it's accurate or not, but the review mentions a grind, which if existent should indeed never be combined with permadeath. Progress in roguelikes isn't supposed to be slow and grindy, considering you can die at any moment. But I won't say anything further, without confirmation about whether that grind exists.

[rumpel]

I don't really know what he refers to as I didn't expierence any grind (yet?). Also, I didn't see anybody else complaining about "grind" either.

There's a (huge) discussion on reddit about the review: https://www.reddit.com/r/roguelikes/comments/3e1hgu/rock_paper_shotgun_reviews_caves_of_qud/

[cerapa]

I have done a bit of grinding when trying out builds that are really weak at the start. But just a few crocs in the swamp to get a few early levels.

Honestly, a lot of his problems seem to stem from the fact that he didn't know how to go to the overland map. The animals around are a lot more dangerous than snapjaws, so he assumed that he wasn't leveled up enough to do anything.
EDIT: Plus the fact that he couldn't figure out that * signified his main hand.
EDIT2: And instead of upgrading his mutations, he instead saved them up and bought phasing.

[Retropunch]

I would second making the first quest/what to do initially more obvious and understandable. CoQ is pretty unique as far as RLs go in terms of being an open world - most are very linear and as such, I think it's really worthwhile ramping up the initial directions.

Many players say the rust cave quests are the first ones to attempt - so perhaps the quest to fetch the knicknack should be pointed out to the player first. This could be given even right at the very start?

I don't think this would hurt the game at all, but it'd certainly help newer players to the genre find their feet.

[forsaken1111]

Hm, I've always gone to red rock first.

[cerapa]

Same here.

Rustwells always seemed harder.

[Mephansteras]

Same here.

Rustwells always seemed harder.

Me too. I usually find nastier enemies down in the rustwells then I do RedRock, although you can get a nasty surprise at either if the game is feeling cruel. Or kind, in a way. I once beguiled a Salt Hopper I found in one of those two places. Made for a pretty easy run until I died to something moronic. A Jilted Lover, or somesuch.

[Fniff]

I think a new, easier quest that lets new players pick up the ropes would be better. Red Rock and Rustwells both have nasty surprises.
Perhaps a quest set in a location with just snapjaws (Or similar, easy enemy) with an easy objective like 'get the big glowing thing'? Preferably not far out of Joppa, too? Just to ease newbies in.