Then here's the next major update coming "soon" (soon usually means today or tomorrow, but we'll see):
RELEASE NOTES [0.4.4]
Changes and Additions
Added the first foundation stone of the persistence:
Unlock heroes in the dungeon
Select your starting heroes or keep the random option (panel still WIP)
Added 3 community items:
Litsaber by T41 [G2G]
The Kings' Armour by bendingbones [G2G]
Nano-Bros by suspense0522 [G2G]
Added 2 new tracks
Added some SFX
Fixed some tooltip descriptions
Implemented Cyrillic characters in the game fonts
Balancing
Increased power of Hikensha and Sara
Reduced level up food cost of Hikensha
Increased life and/or defence of mobs: Hydra, Golem, Mini Golem
Updated the targeting system by prioritising Golem
Tweaked some items power and cost
Increased power of skills: Neurostun Lite, Placebo, first Aid
Increased power of Autodoc Shards module
Bug Fix
Fixed a bug where a hero and a monster can be blocked chasing each other if they have the same speed
Fixed a bug where the Cryo Capsule and the Dust Factory keep re-spawning after the save/load
Fixed a bug with the upgraded modules health bar height
Fixed a bug related to the lights on major modules
Second, and bigger news THEY'VE BEGUN WORKING ON MULTIPLAYER!!!
Hey everyone,
A bunch of us just got back from the Game Developers Conference that took place last week in San Francisco. We had the opportunity to meet awesome people from the industry and apologise if we have been quiet! I just thought I'd share the news we posted on our Dev Blog last week: this was written by GFX47, the lead programmer on the project:
Hi guys,
I’m Sébastien, aka GFX47. I’m the Lead programmer on Dungeon of the Endless (the only full time programmer on the project actually) and I would like to let you know where exactly we stand on the development of the game.
Besides many other additions, we have started working on the multiplayer of DotE. It’s a cool announcement to make and we’re excited to see the feature fully implemented at some point. Nonetheless, it also implies something important: this is a long task that will require a lot of testing, feedback and iterations; meaning that unfortunately, the frequency of public updates will be reduced for a while.
On a side note, that will also affect the production rhythm of DotE, I would like to inform you that I will be unable to fulfil my job at Amplitude for a few weeks, for personal reasons (nope, unfortunately not holidays).
Anyway, the show must go on: a DotE update should be available soon. We’ll post the complete release notes when the version is ready so make sure you finish your current save as it will not be compatible with the new version. Then, I remind you that we will do our best to make it up to you sometime and somehow. We’ll keep you posted...
Thanks for your support!
As a reminder, the game is still 25% off as part of the early access program. It's so good guys, and it just gets better with each patch. I can't recommend it enough.
Mojo_JojoWe are only now beginning to understand the full power and ramifications of sexual intercourseRegistered Userregular
This looks super interesting but Endless Space burnt me quite badly with their "it's an Alpha!" and then nothing really changing from that state to the release.
And yet... Maybe this is already fun enough. HMMMMmmm
Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
This looks super interesting but Endless Space burnt me quite badly with their "it's an Alpha!" and then nothing really changing from that state to the release.
And yet... Maybe this is already fun enough. HMMMMmmm
This game has already changed pretty substantially since the first iteration. Beyond just more heroes/loot/levels, there's way more options for building, and how you research and gain that stuff, on top of changing the way heroes work with skills and such and tons of balance changes.
Personally I enjoyed the first version well enough to feel like my money was well spent, though I readily admit it was extremely light on content.
So I can't speak for what happened with Endless Space, but it's pretty clear that the team for this game isn't slouching on constantly working and improving the game.
For myself personally, every new update is just icing on the cake. Hearing that they've actually started work on multiplayer makes it all the better.
Spent some time with Dungeon of Endless last night. It is the scratching that FTL itch for me.
It's part Tower D, Resource management, part RPG. You go around opening doors in this dungeon and exploring it, all while protecting your singular power crystal. Each time you open a door it is essentially a turn and generates resources that you collect automatically. There are nodes to put down which increase resource generation of Food, Industry and Science and Towers for defense (which take different spots in the room than the generators), which the enemy can destroy. These resources can help you build those buildings (Industry), heal and level up your Hero's (Food) and research upgrades for node machines and towers (Science). You can also find events, resources, items and other heroes as you proceed through the rooms, and trust me, you'll need them, especially more heros. As you traverse this dungeon, you can power rooms which allow you to place those towers/nodes in.
That being said, its all about heroes, they're the ones who fight/tank the monsters you find, as well as have special abilities and you can level up/heal using food, and make them stronger with found items. You don't WASD move them, you just click on rooms and they run in, and do their business/murder.
You're essentially looking for the door to the next floor so you can grab your power crystal and make a mad dash for it as the enemies close in, it can get pretty tense.
What I found scratches that FTL itch:
Exploring rooms, finding crew and items. And you'll loose crew just like FTL.
Getting through that sector/floor. Like the fleet closing in on you. When you pick up that power crystal to make a made dash for the exit, the walls start closing in (so to speak).
The randomness of every game. I've played 2 so far, started with 2 guys each time, got a max team of 4, made it to the 3rd floor, lost 2 guys, picked up more and kept on rolling. As well as different upgrades to the items you can build, reminds me of the finding stuff in FTL and the points you spend on power and having to shift that around to fit needs (SAVE ME DEFENSE DRONE!)
Too Easy difficulty setting is still not easy.
It's light on the Tower D part, meaning you don't have to build 30 towers to win.
You can leave heroes in rooms to operate nodes/recieve bonus's from what you have built there. Like crew on the weapons systems in FTL.
It is still early access but it is pretty solid. I am super glad I bought it and it can only get better (it's already good too!). I only ran into 1 bug where my big ol machine gun mans didn't want to shoot mans anymore, he turned into a sacrificial meat shield. There's still plenty of content to add and apparently they're working on multiplayer.
TL;DR It scratches that FTL itch in a new and different way.
Added 2 new floors; the dungeon now has a total of 8 levels
Added the Drakken environment at the level 7 and 8
Added 2 new heroes, both equipped with Machine Guns:
Rakya Pulmoni “Smokestack”and her module skills
Ken Massoqui “Sado-Maso Militarist” and his risky skills
Added 1 new minor offensive module: the Machine Gun (caution: may overheat!)
Added 2 new mobs: the Kamikazes
Special behaviours: targets the most populated (heroes and module) rooms; stop it before it reaches your most precious rooms
Chimera Kamikaze: slow and usually on its own, will cause a huge explosion.
Necrophage Kamikaze: weak but a hive of them. They're fast!
Added 3 elite mobs, from the level 6, you can encounter stronger forms of:
Necrophage Trash
Necrophage Hunter
Silics Bulldozer
Added Steam Cloud support
MISC
Improved the fog of war (visual effect and logic)
Improved bump map: better lighting on mobs, heroes, merchant and modules
Fonts:
Added Portuguese/Brazilian characters
Added Ukrainian and anti-aliased Cyrillic characters
Added new sound effects
Reduced the loading time during level generation
BALANCE
Improved mobs repartition: there are now less different mobs in each floor and new mobs to discover in each floor. Some mobs now spawn only after a certain amount of doors opened. This repartition will evolve at each update according to the new mobs and floors
Improved items repartition: some items are available sooner but rare items are more scarce, particularly in the first levels
Slightly increased the amount of module slots
Tweaked events probabilities
Increased Food reward quantity of Cryo Capsule
Slightly increased Dust loot in rooms
Slightly increased global mobs difficulties
Increased Silics mobs power
Added area of damage on Silics Bulldozer (“Golem”) and Necrophage Red Flying mobs
Slightly increased Food cost to level up a hero
Increased skill effect duration (+1sec)
Increased effect power of skills on:
Warface
Red Plume
Kneecaped
Duelist
Reduced effect power of “Engage Turtle Mode” skill
Added damage over time on hero, with “Sacrifice” skill effect (instead of direct damage)
BUG FIX
Fixed a bug where the destroyed module slots aren’t saved
Fixed a bug where Gork remains black in the hero selection screen when discovered
Fixed a bug where the hero gets stuck when the user tries to interact with the "Endless Artefact" while opening a door
Picked this up a few days back and it really is fun. I am really shit at this game, havent made it past lvl 1 yet.
Shoudl I built a industry mod or a food od. Healing or moar defence? Its scratching some game itches I didnt know I had.
Money well spent
Some tips that hopefully help @Dirtmuncher but anyone really:
I always go for industry first early in the game, as even a room full of the weak towers is a better defense than your low level hero(es). The food to level up your heroes is relatively low, particularly in early levels, and you can usually upgrade them on a whim just from spare food you get via normal turns or from finding them in rooms, if you're feeling weak. As you get to deeper levels the strength of your heroes comes into play more, so you still need to make sure they're being leveled and gotten proper equipment.
After I have 2-3 Industry nodes, I will build a food then a science; but I usually prioritize manning Industry > food > science, with a typical 2:1:1-ish ratio for construction (this is changed circumstantially; if i find an Artefact early on I'll prioritize Science for that floor to get in as much research as possible, unless I have a ton stockpiled). I usually try to keep the heroes levels near on par with what floor I'm on. For research I always prioritize researching production nodes > turrets > nodules, but if you're more hero focused in your spending, the buff/debuff nodules are pretty good too, so go with what you enjoy most. Just keep in mind that in the much deeper floors (5+ mostly) you can't rely entirely on your heroes or turrets so you need to not totally skimp on one or another.
If I don't have 4 heroes (or I don't like one or more of my heroes) I always keep 40-50 food on hand at all times to be able to hire new recruits if I find them. It sucks to find a hero you like but don't have enough food, and have them die to the next wave before you can hire them. Also while you're still unlocking Heroes you want to make sure you can get ones you're missing when they come up. EDIT: also, IMO anyway, unless they're critically wounded, running away is a better use of food than healing your hero, since you get a full heal after the end of each turn (i.e. all enemies are dead). I mean, it's not worth letting a rock monster completely wreck a whole room of turrets/nodes in order to save 5 food, but depending on the situation I'll always move a hero out of a room before I'll heal them, particularly if I have a hero (and you should, it's critical later levels with stronger enemies) that can repair.
It's important to keep in mind that you carry over spare resources from one map to another, and in a brand new map having stockpiled Industry is far more advantageous than food or science. It lets you build up a few quick 'buffer' rooms that you can use to protect your crystal and lead the enemies through to get to your hero defense.
In one patch they had it so you couldn't earn resources in the last level and it was all carry-over so you had to plan ahead, but they've removed that. However I wouldn't be surprised if it was brought back in some form in a future patch.
Dust spending; personally I always prioritize powering rooms over spending any dust on equipment at the vendor (just preference, stronger heroes is a reasonable tradeoff that can make the same ultimate difference if you're diversified). Having powered rooms, even those you haven't equipped, means that those rooms can't be a spawn point, so done right you can control where enemy spawns come from and this will ultimately save you Industry by not having to equip rooms that aren't on the enemies course to you or your crystal. I often have totally useless rooms powered just so I can control spawns.
As far as exploring, I usually have my fastest hero, preferably with a speed buff skill, do the door opening and book it back to defended rooms if I get spawns. Whenever possible make sure you are manning as many nodes as possible during the door openings because depending on your wit (I think?) you get a pretty large buff to that resource you're manning, and there's no reason to have more than one hero opening doors at a time.
Also, for exploring, particularly when you're starting a new map don't ever open more than one door to the crystal at a time. It's far far far harder to defend two or more doors into the crystal early on than one, so pick a door and follow those rooms/doors until you can't go any further that way. Keep extra doors to the crystal room closed until you have nowhere else to go, and when you do open another crystal door, move all of your heroes to the crystal room in case you get enemy spawns in that first room off the crystal. Then power that room immediately and build defenses and continue from there. Never ever ever leave a room next to the crystal (or even 2-3 rooms next really) unpowered and/or undefended for any reason. Even a few whacks at the crystal by stronger enemies can lose you dust to power many rooms and devastate you and completely ruin a game going well particularly on deeper levels.
For research for the Artefacts, never let a turn go by without researching something if you have the science. They're precious when you find them and should be protected at all costs because they can't be built, and unless it's changed with the new patch, can't be repaired. Every research takes 3 'turns' (door openings) to complete and as an added bonus if you are researching something when you open the last door of a floor, it will be completely researched, even if you had just set it to research, so again, always be researching.
Lastly; protect your heroes but honestly don't become too attached to them. It's easy to be on floor 5 and lose a good hero and feel like you've lost the game. It's rare that a floor doesn't have one or two heroes for the finding and with a couple turns of manning food production nodes you can re-level/equip a new hero to get them up to speed.
Hope at least some of those tips help. I'm by no means amazing at the game, and I often start games I can't finish or lose on. Even with the best planning there's luck involved with spawn locations and what you encounter. With good planning and stockpiling you can usually recover from a bad turn or two, but never open another door until you're fully ready, there's no rush and make sure you're prepared for what could happen, whether it's a 5 spawn or free resources.
EDIT: also play on too easy till you are comfortable. "Easy" is anything but.
EDIT2: I dunno if this is a bug or not, but sometimes on the Artefacts they'll offer you an upgrade that isn't just a single level; they seem to be cheaper and it's always nice to save a few turns, I'd probably prioritize those.
Totally unrelated to tips, there's an item now called "Hipster Scarf" and whoever equips it gets a passive called "Hit me first", making everything, appropriately, hit them first.
Awesome.
EDIT: also an aftershave that makes enemies ignore you.
Bah, abandoned a perfectly good hero to hire one I hadn't unlocked and the new guy died in a heartbeat. >< Down to 2 heroes on floor 5, this'll be rough.
Thanks for the tips! I did much better because of them, I reached lvl 3. On the second floor I left some rooms unpowered to get more spawns and more dust. On the 3rd lvl this strategy bit Mr in the ass because I started getting mobs that attacked the first thing they saw instead of moving toward a hero.
Yeah as you go deeper you start seeing a lot of different enemy types with varying strategies that you have to account for. There's virtually nothing that is 'safe', so just be prepared.
I'm sure they all have names, but...
Rock giants will focus on Production nodes > heroes.
Zombies and Crystals will focus on turrets/defenses
The slugs and I want to say beetle looking things will prioritize the 'nearest' major thing, be it a production node or a hero, but aren't nearly as dangerous as the rock giants and you can actually just kite them back and forth through a turret room because they're dumb.
Then there are runners of 2 types, insect and uh...one that looks like the heroes, I don't recall their names, but they will make mad dashes to the crystal, including a hero that is carrying the crystal.
There's also the big fat dudes in the gif I posted above; they will focus on the most 'populated' room (iirc anyway) and if they make it there they'll explode for a bunch of damage, so make sure they're killed along the way. They don't have a lot of health so if you have turret/slow rooms between your production nodes, it usually takes care of them; they'll almost never explode in a non-node room.
I know there's a few more I'm not thinking of. They add new ones almost every patch and tend to modify the behavior too.
For your crystal run, feel free to depower any rooms that aren't on the direct path to the crystal. The more rooms on the path you power, the easier the run will be as things will only be coming from behind. On the last couple levels it can help to build a few turrets along the path if you have spare industry, but if you have well leveled/equipped heroes to escort that's good too.
One more thing, Max O'Kane has a passive (might be level 2 or 3) that gives +2 dust in rooms that have a +dust reward. This is a pretty damn big deal, and if you take/find him you should set him up to be your door opener full time. he's only average speed, but that +2 dust adds up and can make a major major difference.
So an amendment to my previous tips post, since I've been playing a shitload lately.
I advised to totally block off sections of the map if you could power them, even powering useless rooms...
This is still totally workable; however depending on your setup and such, you should consider setting up some 'Wave' rooms that are unpowered next to very well defended areas.
There are a few reasons for this that you can make work for you very well.
First, you can't get any more waves than unpowered rooms you have. Great, right? Well, yes and no. No waves means no monsters, which means no extra Dust outside of opening doors/selling stuff and the occasional dust factory to gamble at. Letting more waves come means you have a chance at stockpiling more dust earlier, which means more rooms and everything goes more smoothly. The hardest maps are the ones where you are dust starved, moreso if you get a string of non-node rooms and can't build any resources.
Second, and this could possibly change in future patches; you can't get more than one wave per room. You can use this to your advantage by controlling exactly where those waves come from. Initially it works fine (i.e. lower levels) to funnel everything through one set of defenses you can manage and not worry about other sections of the map you have powered. However on higher floors, having 6 waves funneled through one area means that there is a potentially absurd amount of damage coming your way, you that you might not be prepared for. Having 'wave' rooms at a few different points in the dungeon means you are unlikely to ever get totally overwhelmed from one direction (though it can still happen, randomness is a bitch). I've lost heroes faster than I can blink due to this, which leads me to my next point...
Third, do whatever is in your power to not have a node room be the 'end point' of your dungeon; i.e. not the first room that enemies enter, and not the first room you have a hero in defending. There are several reasons for this but mainly it's to provide a buffer because production (and tactical/LAN) nodes are by far the most expensive thing you'll be buying and too many enemies go straight for them and they have super low health/defense. Ideally any 'buffer' room will have at least 3 buildable defense points (the more the better, last night I had one with 6, I set up a slow node, a tear gas, 2 claymoars and 2 teslas and nothing made it through that room), so that by the time any enemies get to you they're probably in bad shape and your hero/defenses can finish them off. Just be sure to have a repairer nearby to run in between turns to fix em all up.
So yeah, consider leaving some rooms open throughout your dungeon so you can manage where things come from and have a higher level of control and take advantage of the higher income of Dust to make yourself overall even stronger.
also, ` selects all your characters if you want to rush them to a specific room. I usually have a passage that has unpowered rooms off of it as my main focus point for combat. ` all mans to murder room.
also, ` selects all your characters if you want to rush them to a specific room. I usually have a passage that has unpowered rooms off of it as my main focus point for combat. ` all mans to murder room.
That's handy, thanks! I love a good murder room where the health of my heroes barely dips and the enemy just gets shredded
Unsurprisingly, like clockwork, we get another awesome patch:
[0.6.7] RELEASE NOTES
Content
Added 2 new heroes linked to the Dust:
Lady Joleri Tulak, an Auriga Native who consumes Dust to get more attack power
Warden Mormish, a Profit Seeker who can bring you Dust
Added 4 new modules:
[Major] Shop: attracts a merchant to defend and earn Dust by operating it [G2G]
[Minor] Bio-organic Transference: restores a little amount of health for each kill [G2G]
[Minor] Operator: improves the major module bonus
[Minor] Lure: casts the illusion of a hero
Added 2 new mobs:
Silics “Supporter”: gives a bonus to the other mobs
“Keeper”: stays in the room and becomes stronger with time until it is killed (DANGER!)
Misc
Added the "Multiplayer" button in the main menu (greyed out for now)
Added a log instead of the notification / error panels (may be reduced)
Added a rotation on the Machine Gun module
Changed the Necrophage “Flying” sprites
Balance
Added bonus on “Autodoc Shards” (healing) module if there are no mobs in the room (and reduced its default effect)
Updated the mobs spawn table
Reduced Bulldozer Elite and Kamikazes spawn probabilities
Increased Kamikazes power
Reduced Bulldozer Elite power
Reduced the cooldown and power of “Claymoar” (same DPS)
Bug Fix
Fixed the fullscreen resolution behaviour
Fixed some skills and modules tooltips
Fixed a bug disabling heroes’ AI attack target when passing through door steps
Fixed a bug preventing the level to end when the hero carrying the crystal is moved to a room past the exit
Fixed several animations
Buildable shops?
A hero that floats on a chair and brings you dust?
A 'taunt' module?
Oh wow, I can't wait to get my hands on this update!
[Minor] Operator: improves the major module bonus
This'll be good to make the early parts of the game/floor that bit easier.
Question - What are everyone's preferences when it comes to to Tesla Module, Machine Guns or Claymoars? I generally have Claymoars exclusively in the "kill-room" that my heroes pile into to hold mobs up to ensure that maximum damage is caused, while Tesla Modules in the lead-up to the kill room to whittle them down a bit (with the help of Neurostun). I haven't found a situation where it's worth investing in Machine Guns or even Prisoner Prod Mk.2
Just noticed this one too, which is a potential strategy-changer
Added bonus on “Autodoc Shards” (healing) module if there are no mobs in the room (and reduced its default effect)
So it's going to be less effective in the kill-room and more effective in a fall-back? Interesting... Might replace this with a Neurostun in the kill-room to give the heroes a better chance to fall-back without taking as much extra damage on the way out. It's always the tough balance - do you commit all your heroes to the fight in the hopes of finishing it quickly, or do you hold some back and tag them in if needed at the cost of time and potential damage to your modules. This change suggests the balance is swinging to the latter, which isn't something I ordinarily do.
Certainly need to play this game more, that's for sure
You know, something feels wrong about this game when I spend tough fights focusing on green bars on the very top-right hand corner of the screen and not the action going down. That aspect could use some fixing.
Also, some sort of alert, warning or auto-pause if my heroes are nearly dead would be nice. I keep getting caught out by my heroes dying a mystery death because my focus was on another fight or health bar.
I've being playing a bunch of this lately. It's probably about the most addictive rogue like I've ever played. Even with the random factors it still feels like you're always given the chance to make the right decision and press on.
Also I don't know what you Industry first heathens do with all that spare industry but food first has always being my build start lately. At least till floor 3/4ish. I've also stopped really leveling my characters past level 5ish unless I'm floating an ass load of food.
Really curious how multiplayer works out. If it's just a really big version of single player (so everyone gets a crew of four max) I'll be hyped as hell.
They haven't said anything about their plans for multiplayer, aside from just doing it, so speculate away! Personally, if I had to guess, it's going to be a thing where one player controls each hero. Doing each player with their own squads, while fun, would be a balancing nightmare for the devs.
Maybe they could do a type where someone controls waves, someone controls heroes?
I dunno, it'll be interesting to see what they come up with.
Unrelated, a note from the dev on yesterdays patch snafu:
Hi everyone,
We would like to express our apologies for the 0.6.7 update we have released on Steam last night. Indeed, a game breaking bug that occurred for all of you made us take the decision to roll back the update: at the moment, you should all be playing with the 0.5.2 version. This is actually the first time this is happening to us and we will do our best to make sure this does not happen again
Unfortunately, this means that those of you who have downloaded the 0.6.7 update and then went back to the 0.5.2 update have had the player profiles and heroes unlocked reset. We have warned you in the past that this was expected at some point, because we are constantly adding/improving some features, but we know it can still be somewhat frustrating. But please note that the reset was going to happen eventually, as we have reworked on the requirements that you need to fulfil to unlock the heroes.
We have fixed the problem that was reported by our players and submitted a new version to our QA team, and it looks like it’s been resolved (yay!), so we should go back to what we had planned for you: “Bite The Dust” update [0.6.9]. We took the liberty of unlocking temporarily some heroes for you (7 instead of 3): this way, you will be able to play the new version (almost) like you would have, and we are hoping you will forgive us for the inconvenience we may have caused. And in the future, don’t get attached to your heroes too much, this situation may occur at least once, before the release, in order to start things fresh!
We are looking forward to your feedback and are hoping you will enjoy the update.
They haven't said anything about their plans for multiplayer, aside from just doing it, so speculate away! Personally, if I had to guess, it's going to be a thing where one player controls each hero. Doing each player with their own squads, while fun, would be a balancing nightmare for the devs.
Maybe they could do a type where someone controls waves, someone controls heroes?
I dunno, it'll be interesting to see what they come up with.
Unrelated, a note from the dev on yesterdays patch snafu:
Hi everyone,
We would like to express our apologies for the 0.6.7 update we have released on Steam last night. Indeed, a game breaking bug that occurred for all of you made us take the decision to roll back the update: at the moment, you should all be playing with the 0.5.2 version. This is actually the first time this is happening to us and we will do our best to make sure this does not happen again
Unfortunately, this means that those of you who have downloaded the 0.6.7 update and then went back to the 0.5.2 update have had the player profiles and heroes unlocked reset. We have warned you in the past that this was expected at some point, because we are constantly adding/improving some features, but we know it can still be somewhat frustrating. But please note that the reset was going to happen eventually, as we have reworked on the requirements that you need to fulfil to unlock the heroes.
We have fixed the problem that was reported by our players and submitted a new version to our QA team, and it looks like it’s been resolved (yay!), so we should go back to what we had planned for you: “Bite The Dust” update [0.6.9]. We took the liberty of unlocking temporarily some heroes for you (7 instead of 3): this way, you will be able to play the new version (almost) like you would have, and we are hoping you will forgive us for the inconvenience we may have caused. And in the future, don’t get attached to your heroes too much, this situation may occur at least once, before the release, in order to start things fresh!
We are looking forward to your feedback and are hoping you will enjoy the update.
Sincerely,
Amplitude Studios
Sucks, but that's the nature of testing.
Heh, I unlocked everyone. But I really don't mind, this game is too much fun.
You know, something feels wrong about this game when I spend tough fights focusing on green bars on the very top-right hand corner of the screen and not the action going down. That aspect could use some fixing.
Also, some sort of alert, warning or auto-pause if my heroes are nearly dead would be nice. I keep getting caught out by my heroes dying a mystery death because my focus was on another fight or health bar.
With the new patch there's now visual queues when nodes are getting attacked; I'll have to watch to see if it shows if heroes are being attacked. It's a unique sprite on the red arrows that show up on the side of the screen when you get waves; if a node is being damaged it will have an animated sprite of a node being knocked over. There's also one when shopkeepers and artefacts are being attacked so I assume there's one for heroes; but I rarely have heroes off nodes, so I dunno.
Also, there's healthbars over heroes head, they take precidence in 'stacks' of healthbars so if you're watching a room you can easily see heroes health without having to watch the bars in the corner.
But yeah, I won't deny there are times I'm watching the healthbars closer than I'm watching anything else; given that you have little to no control over the heroes though, aside from just watching the animations you're not missing that much. I guess it doesn't bother me that much though; for me the game is more about the preperation and progression. Attacks are just a side effect. :P
Also, ugh, that moment when you open your first two doors on a floor and neither have a node slot; you know that floor is going to be hell from the get go.
EDIT: wooo found The Warden; now to keep him alive for 3 floors. :rotate:
EDIT2: haha he has a base ability called Need for (more) Speed that gives him +9 speed if someone else is in the room with him. The icon is someone pushing him around. Also base 14 wit, thats nutso.
So yeah, the icon that indicates a shopkeeper is being attacked is the same icon if a hero is being attacked outside if your immediate field of view (i.e. what rooms you're looking at).
Hopefully that helps the previous complaints that that's not being communicated well. Between those alerts and the alert history way more information is readily avaliable at all times. Good stuff.
FYI there's currently a really shite bug with cryo capsules; sometimes if you open them you'll get a 'good' sound effect, but get no reward, after this combat is perpetually on (i.e. no auto-heal, things take forever to build/repair) until you clear the floor or abandon the game. You can't save/quit either because you're in combat.
For now, I'd recommend not opening cryo capsules at all.
I can pretty consistently clear Very Easy now. It's getting rarer that I get such bad luck that I can't at least force myself through a bad floor and regroup on the next. I still lose the occasional hero though.
Easy though is still brutal. I'll get there eventually, I just need to start working out tactics that are specific to the difficulty. I think it's going to rely on better equipping heroes via shops; something I tend to neglect in Very Easy and rely only on drops. The unarmed lady, Golgy I think, makes this easier with scaling damage on level since she has no weapon, which tends to make her super powerful earlier than other heroes (unless you get a lucky weapon). And I need to expand my horizons on modules and branch out into some of the buff/hero assist ones and rely less entirely on weapon turrets and tear gas.
I can pretty consistently clear Very Easy now. It's getting rarer that I get such bad luck that I can't at least force myself through a bad floor and regroup on the next. I still lose the occasional hero though.
Easy though is still brutal. I'll get there eventually, I just need to start working out tactics that are specific to the difficulty. I think it's going to rely on better equipping heroes via shops; something I tend to neglect in Very Easy and rely only on drops. The unarmed lady, Golgy I think, makes this easier with scaling damage on level since she has no weapon, which tends to make her super powerful earlier than other heroes (unless you get a lucky weapon). And I need to expand my horizons on modules and branch out into some of the buff/hero assist ones and rely less entirely on weapon turrets and tear gas.
A module I've been finding more useful lately is the Dust Field generator. At level 4 it gives a +80% defence boost for heroes, which can be incredible for tanks like Gork. I've had that in a non-major module room (with about 2 or 3 minor module spots) designed to soften up the mobs before the kill-room. With Gork standing there being able to withstand a hellova lot of punishment, I can usually get in a few more sneaky doors open before opting to fall back to assist with base defence.
Pre-patch I'm still finding Autodoc Shards pretty useless though. With the amount of damage being dished out late-game, the regen buff just doesn't scale enough. It's not to the point that you fall-back with an injured hero, heal up, then return to the fight. Maybe if you had 3 or 4 of them in the same room? Haven't tried that. How are they in this situation in [0.6.7]?
Well, and I've only toyed with this on Easy; I don't think it's required on Very Easy, but you can use heroes to kite enemies if you do it right, having auto-doc's here and there saves you a bit of food doing so. The heavier amount of damage coming from enemies makes face tanking with heroes or even standing still in rooms less appealing.
Since the new patch though, and the nerf to in-combat healing on them, I dunno, probably not worth it.
And as you said, even at level 4 the passive heal on them isn't enough to make up for the massive amount of damage that can come in on later floors. For sure a Dust Module would be a better use for a node than an auto-doc. Plus, if you want real in-combat healing, bring the nurse lady, her heal is pretty nice. I find the Lure one to be good too; but not until higher module levels, 150 health for the base one isn't good very long; its nice in rooms with heroes to buy time, but I wouldn't use it in a module kill room.
I'm not sure how that reclamation module is; the one that turns kills into food, it might also be something that is more useful on Easy; but since you're giving up a node that could be used on a more active module like another claymoar...I'm not sure the tradeoff is worthwhile unless you know the room is pretty self sufficient without it.
Unrelated, I think The Wardens ability to give +100% chance for dust drops from kills needs to turn into a passive, even if it was somewhat nerfed. As an active ability it's too easy to forget it, and he's not tanky enough to really camp in active kill rooms for it to come into play often enough for it to be useful. Pilfer (Max's passive at level 5 iirc, and you can get it from a tool) that gives +2 dust for any room that gives dust on opening is way better overall.
Also, I'm not sure if it was in the patch notes, but you can have someone operate the Shops you can build, as long as they have a shopkeeper, and they'll give you +2 dust per turn, which is cool if you're good on FIDS.
I was trawling the DotE forums earlier today (and they're not completely toxic! A first?) and I found this neat Community Feedback tracker that covers a bunch of things that I've been concerned about
Yeah they've been mentioning some sort of map since launch, but haven't showed anything.
While I won't turn down a map, what I'd prefer is some sort of zoom out option. There's so many times I find myself wishing I could just zoom out a bit to see even a few more rooms at a time.
Added 2 new levels (9-10) with a new environment: the ice biome
Added 1 new hero: Elise, the “Freelance Demolitionist” and her heavy arsenal
Changed hero max level from 8 to 15
Added 2 new minor modules:
Pepper Spray - It confuses monsters and forces them to attack each other
Seblaster (offence) - It targets monsters with an area of effect, hitting without distinction heroes and monsters
Added 2 new mobs:
Hurna Hunter
Door opener: he can open a door if you don’t kill him on time!
Added 5 new elite mobs:
Kamikaze Necrophage
The Keeper
Silics Supporter
Chimera Debuffer
Chimera Kamikaze
Added the Stele Event. If you find a stele, it will add one or several effects to the entire floor for a limited amount of time. These effects can be positive, negative, or both.
Improvements
Added a reset skill system: you can use Science and reset the skills cooldown
Changed the healing system which is now based on the hero’s percentage of HP, and the cost is proportional to number of healed HP
Changed the operating system: the hero needs to stay in the room at least one turn to obtain a (bigger) bonus
Added an animation for the Merchant when he teleports to the Merchant module
Added a comparison system for hero equipment
Added a preview for the next skill available when you level up
Added a scrollview for passive skills when you have more than six
You can now select several heroes with the “shift” key
Added a default cursor
Updated hero selection menu
Balancing
See the latest dev blog post for more details and rationales about the multiple changes which impact the balancing of the game
Refactored configuration system which allows us to control the flow and the events more precisely:
Some events (exit, merchants, heroes and artefacts) are placed at the generation to control the:
Quantity of Dust loot in rooms at each floor is now controlled
Spawn of mobs is now random at each floor
The targeting of some mobs have changed:
Necrophage Flying attacks major modules and target in priority long range heroes
Silics Bulldozer no longer attacks heroes
Silics Trash attacks only the Crystal (but is weaker)
Most part of elites mobs attacks NPC
The offence modules have now a priority target:
Prisoner pods are anti-heroes mobs
Tesla are anti-modules mobs
Claymoars are basic mobs
Smoking guns are special mobs
The move speed of entities are reduced when in the same room than enemies, except:
Flying Necrophage
"Crysophile" Necrophage
Hydra Chimera
Some heroes with "dodge" passive skills
The previous version level 8 is approximately the new level 11-12 in terms of food cost and stats
The heroes stats and skills have changed with new levels and to create a distinctions between the different teams of heroes
~Amplitude Studios
Some pretty massive balancing changes to the entire game.
I'll load it up tomorrow and give it a go. 2 new levels, if nothing else, is awesome.
Soo....the game is pretty much virtually impossible now, even on Very Easy.
I'm expecting a patch tomorrow or soon to fix wave spawn issues. Apparently there's an unmentioned patch change (I guess?) that dramatically increases the amount of enemies that spawn, and the difficulty of said spawns, after you find the exit.
Which wouldn't be completely bad except that the number that can spawn seems to effectively be infinite (seriously, I had only 3 rooms unpowered on floor 2 and had easily 40+ enemies coming at me) and it seems to randomly decide how powerful said enemies are. I had those enemies walk through 4 rooms loaded up with level 3 teslas, tear gasses, nanophages and prisoner prods (pretty decent for floor two) and by the time the had killed both of my heroes and walked through all 4 rooms not one was dead.
What compounds this problem is that since the exit is now determined at level creation, instead of as you open doors, there's no real way of avoiding accidentally finding the exit really early and having the rest of the floor be unplayable. And you can't really skip a floor, unless you have a shitton of resources saved up for some reason, so you kinda need the time to open doors to prepare for the next floor.
I can't imagine they're not going to fix it; they've been super responsive so far on patch issue, but they haven't said anything yet.
In other news, they updated the graphic effects and it's...kinda weird. All the main graphics, like your heroes, rooms, etc, are still the same SNES-ish pixel-art; but now all of the shadows, lasers, particles, and other effect visuals (like ambient fog, flowing water, etc) are all really (relatively) high resolution, so there's this weird contrast. They don't look bad, mind you, they just look jarring right on top of the big pixel graphics. It also seems like they smoothed out hero animations, for sure on the hero select menu, but in-game they seem to move more smoothly too; enemies definitely got another few frames of animation.
They are aware and are working on a hotfix, so yay. A dev said that the ramp up in difficulty after finding the exit should only be ~25% harder; the mass spawns and their difficulty was unintentional.
The patch definitely fixed that major problem, but (and I say 'but' in the least possible negative sense) the difficulty of the balance change still requires some significant adjustments. EDIT: adjustments of playstyle, not with balancing, though I'm sure they'll continue to tweak that as they add more to the game.
If nothing else, the changes in mob density and types on various floors (apparently anything can appear on any floor, it's decided at the start of any given level, though I imagine elite enemies are still saved for latter maps), make the early game a lot more thoughtful than as faceroll as the first 2-3 floors were prior.
And the rebalancing of the heroes to have 15 levels instead of 8 and to redistribute what levels they get what abilities (and introducing some new ones) makes your choice in hero felt way earlier than it did before.
All in all it's good stuff. The core game is still the 'same' as launch, but the cumulative effect of all these patches has made for a drastically more challenging and intricate game.
So. Good.
EDIT: also I noticed they removed the research button on the UI; I guess they're good with sticking with the Artefacts as the method of advancement in that regard. I'm fine with that. Having to find, and defend, the artefacts and then choose upgrades that are offered randomly spices things up. If we just had a tech tree there'd quickly be a 'best' way to do things and that would take the fun out of it.
Not totally sold on the special SLART (or whatever) node that has a turn-based duration. Some of the effects are nice but since it takes up a module node, you're at the games mercy if it decides to throw 3 of the SLARTS at you out of the gate on a floor so you're twiddling your thumbs waiting for one to expire so you can start building. It'd be nice if there were some way to destroy it yourself, spend some dust or something to do so, if you desperately need the node.
Posts
Then here's the next major update coming "soon" (soon usually means today or tomorrow, but we'll see):
Second, and bigger news THEY'VE BEGUN WORKING ON MULTIPLAYER!!!
As a reminder, the game is still 25% off as part of the early access program. It's so good guys, and it just gets better with each patch. I can't recommend it enough.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
Currently playing: GW2 and TSW
And yet... Maybe this is already fun enough. HMMMMmmm
This game has already changed pretty substantially since the first iteration. Beyond just more heroes/loot/levels, there's way more options for building, and how you research and gain that stuff, on top of changing the way heroes work with skills and such and tons of balance changes.
Personally I enjoyed the first version well enough to feel like my money was well spent, though I readily admit it was extremely light on content.
So I can't speak for what happened with Endless Space, but it's pretty clear that the team for this game isn't slouching on constantly working and improving the game.
For myself personally, every new update is just icing on the cake. Hearing that they've actually started work on multiplayer makes it all the better.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
Origin: Broncbuster
[/quote]
Origin: Broncbuster
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
Shoudl I built a industry mod or a food od. Healing or moar defence? Its scratching some game itches I didnt know I had.
Money well spent
I always go for industry first early in the game, as even a room full of the weak towers is a better defense than your low level hero(es). The food to level up your heroes is relatively low, particularly in early levels, and you can usually upgrade them on a whim just from spare food you get via normal turns or from finding them in rooms, if you're feeling weak. As you get to deeper levels the strength of your heroes comes into play more, so you still need to make sure they're being leveled and gotten proper equipment.
After I have 2-3 Industry nodes, I will build a food then a science; but I usually prioritize manning Industry > food > science, with a typical 2:1:1-ish ratio for construction (this is changed circumstantially; if i find an Artefact early on I'll prioritize Science for that floor to get in as much research as possible, unless I have a ton stockpiled). I usually try to keep the heroes levels near on par with what floor I'm on. For research I always prioritize researching production nodes > turrets > nodules, but if you're more hero focused in your spending, the buff/debuff nodules are pretty good too, so go with what you enjoy most. Just keep in mind that in the much deeper floors (5+ mostly) you can't rely entirely on your heroes or turrets so you need to not totally skimp on one or another.
If I don't have 4 heroes (or I don't like one or more of my heroes) I always keep 40-50 food on hand at all times to be able to hire new recruits if I find them. It sucks to find a hero you like but don't have enough food, and have them die to the next wave before you can hire them. Also while you're still unlocking Heroes you want to make sure you can get ones you're missing when they come up. EDIT: also, IMO anyway, unless they're critically wounded, running away is a better use of food than healing your hero, since you get a full heal after the end of each turn (i.e. all enemies are dead). I mean, it's not worth letting a rock monster completely wreck a whole room of turrets/nodes in order to save 5 food, but depending on the situation I'll always move a hero out of a room before I'll heal them, particularly if I have a hero (and you should, it's critical later levels with stronger enemies) that can repair.
It's important to keep in mind that you carry over spare resources from one map to another, and in a brand new map having stockpiled Industry is far more advantageous than food or science. It lets you build up a few quick 'buffer' rooms that you can use to protect your crystal and lead the enemies through to get to your hero defense.
In one patch they had it so you couldn't earn resources in the last level and it was all carry-over so you had to plan ahead, but they've removed that. However I wouldn't be surprised if it was brought back in some form in a future patch.
Dust spending; personally I always prioritize powering rooms over spending any dust on equipment at the vendor (just preference, stronger heroes is a reasonable tradeoff that can make the same ultimate difference if you're diversified). Having powered rooms, even those you haven't equipped, means that those rooms can't be a spawn point, so done right you can control where enemy spawns come from and this will ultimately save you Industry by not having to equip rooms that aren't on the enemies course to you or your crystal. I often have totally useless rooms powered just so I can control spawns.
As far as exploring, I usually have my fastest hero, preferably with a speed buff skill, do the door opening and book it back to defended rooms if I get spawns. Whenever possible make sure you are manning as many nodes as possible during the door openings because depending on your wit (I think?) you get a pretty large buff to that resource you're manning, and there's no reason to have more than one hero opening doors at a time.
Also, for exploring, particularly when you're starting a new map don't ever open more than one door to the crystal at a time. It's far far far harder to defend two or more doors into the crystal early on than one, so pick a door and follow those rooms/doors until you can't go any further that way. Keep extra doors to the crystal room closed until you have nowhere else to go, and when you do open another crystal door, move all of your heroes to the crystal room in case you get enemy spawns in that first room off the crystal. Then power that room immediately and build defenses and continue from there. Never ever ever leave a room next to the crystal (or even 2-3 rooms next really) unpowered and/or undefended for any reason. Even a few whacks at the crystal by stronger enemies can lose you dust to power many rooms and devastate you and completely ruin a game going well particularly on deeper levels.
For research for the Artefacts, never let a turn go by without researching something if you have the science. They're precious when you find them and should be protected at all costs because they can't be built, and unless it's changed with the new patch, can't be repaired. Every research takes 3 'turns' (door openings) to complete and as an added bonus if you are researching something when you open the last door of a floor, it will be completely researched, even if you had just set it to research, so again, always be researching.
Lastly; protect your heroes but honestly don't become too attached to them. It's easy to be on floor 5 and lose a good hero and feel like you've lost the game. It's rare that a floor doesn't have one or two heroes for the finding and with a couple turns of manning food production nodes you can re-level/equip a new hero to get them up to speed.
Hope at least some of those tips help. I'm by no means amazing at the game, and I often start games I can't finish or lose on. Even with the best planning there's luck involved with spawn locations and what you encounter. With good planning and stockpiling you can usually recover from a bad turn or two, but never open another door until you're fully ready, there's no rush and make sure you're prepared for what could happen, whether it's a 5 spawn or free resources.
EDIT: also play on too easy till you are comfortable. "Easy" is anything but.
EDIT2: I dunno if this is a bug or not, but sometimes on the Artefacts they'll offer you an upgrade that isn't just a single level; they seem to be cheaper and it's always nice to save a few turns, I'd probably prioritize those.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
Awesome.
EDIT: also an aftershave that makes enemies ignore you.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
The last two patches though, good good stuff.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
Origin: Broncbuster
I'm sure they all have names, but...
Rock giants will focus on Production nodes > heroes.
Zombies and Crystals will focus on turrets/defenses
The slugs and I want to say beetle looking things will prioritize the 'nearest' major thing, be it a production node or a hero, but aren't nearly as dangerous as the rock giants and you can actually just kite them back and forth through a turret room because they're dumb.
Then there are runners of 2 types, insect and uh...one that looks like the heroes, I don't recall their names, but they will make mad dashes to the crystal, including a hero that is carrying the crystal.
There's also the big fat dudes in the gif I posted above; they will focus on the most 'populated' room (iirc anyway) and if they make it there they'll explode for a bunch of damage, so make sure they're killed along the way. They don't have a lot of health so if you have turret/slow rooms between your production nodes, it usually takes care of them; they'll almost never explode in a non-node room.
I know there's a few more I'm not thinking of. They add new ones almost every patch and tend to modify the behavior too.
For your crystal run, feel free to depower any rooms that aren't on the direct path to the crystal. The more rooms on the path you power, the easier the run will be as things will only be coming from behind. On the last couple levels it can help to build a few turrets along the path if you have spare industry, but if you have well leveled/equipped heroes to escort that's good too.
One more thing, Max O'Kane has a passive (might be level 2 or 3) that gives +2 dust in rooms that have a +dust reward. This is a pretty damn big deal, and if you take/find him you should set him up to be your door opener full time. he's only average speed, but that +2 dust adds up and can make a major major difference.
EDIT: Max's passive must be 4 or above, hrm.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
I advised to totally block off sections of the map if you could power them, even powering useless rooms...
This is still totally workable; however depending on your setup and such, you should consider setting up some 'Wave' rooms that are unpowered next to very well defended areas.
There are a few reasons for this that you can make work for you very well.
First, you can't get any more waves than unpowered rooms you have. Great, right? Well, yes and no. No waves means no monsters, which means no extra Dust outside of opening doors/selling stuff and the occasional dust factory to gamble at. Letting more waves come means you have a chance at stockpiling more dust earlier, which means more rooms and everything goes more smoothly. The hardest maps are the ones where you are dust starved, moreso if you get a string of non-node rooms and can't build any resources.
Second, and this could possibly change in future patches; you can't get more than one wave per room. You can use this to your advantage by controlling exactly where those waves come from. Initially it works fine (i.e. lower levels) to funnel everything through one set of defenses you can manage and not worry about other sections of the map you have powered. However on higher floors, having 6 waves funneled through one area means that there is a potentially absurd amount of damage coming your way, you that you might not be prepared for. Having 'wave' rooms at a few different points in the dungeon means you are unlikely to ever get totally overwhelmed from one direction (though it can still happen, randomness is a bitch). I've lost heroes faster than I can blink due to this, which leads me to my next point...
Third, do whatever is in your power to not have a node room be the 'end point' of your dungeon; i.e. not the first room that enemies enter, and not the first room you have a hero in defending. There are several reasons for this but mainly it's to provide a buffer because production (and tactical/LAN) nodes are by far the most expensive thing you'll be buying and too many enemies go straight for them and they have super low health/defense. Ideally any 'buffer' room will have at least 3 buildable defense points (the more the better, last night I had one with 6, I set up a slow node, a tear gas, 2 claymoars and 2 teslas and nothing made it through that room), so that by the time any enemies get to you they're probably in bad shape and your hero/defenses can finish them off. Just be sure to have a repairer nearby to run in between turns to fix em all up.
So yeah, consider leaving some rooms open throughout your dungeon so you can manage where things come from and have a higher level of control and take advantage of the higher income of Dust to make yourself overall even stronger.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
Origin: Broncbuster
That's handy, thanks! I love a good murder room where the health of my heroes barely dips and the enemy just gets shredded
Buildable shops?
A hero that floats on a chair and brings you dust?
A 'taunt' module?
yes pls!. I'll check this stuff out later.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
This'll be good to make the early parts of the game/floor that bit easier.
Question - What are everyone's preferences when it comes to to Tesla Module, Machine Guns or Claymoars? I generally have Claymoars exclusively in the "kill-room" that my heroes pile into to hold mobs up to ensure that maximum damage is caused, while Tesla Modules in the lead-up to the kill room to whittle them down a bit (with the help of Neurostun). I haven't found a situation where it's worth investing in Machine Guns or even Prisoner Prod Mk.2
Just noticed this one too, which is a potential strategy-changer So it's going to be less effective in the kill-room and more effective in a fall-back? Interesting... Might replace this with a Neurostun in the kill-room to give the heroes a better chance to fall-back without taking as much extra damage on the way out. It's always the tough balance - do you commit all your heroes to the fight in the hopes of finishing it quickly, or do you hold some back and tag them in if needed at the cost of time and potential damage to your modules. This change suggests the balance is swinging to the latter, which isn't something I ordinarily do.
Certainly need to play this game more, that's for sure
Also, some sort of alert, warning or auto-pause if my heroes are nearly dead would be nice. I keep getting caught out by my heroes dying a mystery death because my focus was on another fight or health bar.
Also I don't know what you Industry first heathens do with all that spare industry but food first has always being my build start lately. At least till floor 3/4ish. I've also stopped really leveling my characters past level 5ish unless I'm floating an ass load of food.
Really curious how multiplayer works out. If it's just a really big version of single player (so everyone gets a crew of four max) I'll be hyped as hell.
Maybe they could do a type where someone controls waves, someone controls heroes?
I dunno, it'll be interesting to see what they come up with.
Unrelated, a note from the dev on yesterdays patch snafu:
Sucks, but that's the nature of testing.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
Heh, I unlocked everyone. But I really don't mind, this game is too much fun.
I still have everything unlocked; and the patch seems to be actually live now.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
With the new patch there's now visual queues when nodes are getting attacked; I'll have to watch to see if it shows if heroes are being attacked. It's a unique sprite on the red arrows that show up on the side of the screen when you get waves; if a node is being damaged it will have an animated sprite of a node being knocked over. There's also one when shopkeepers and artefacts are being attacked so I assume there's one for heroes; but I rarely have heroes off nodes, so I dunno.
Also, there's healthbars over heroes head, they take precidence in 'stacks' of healthbars so if you're watching a room you can easily see heroes health without having to watch the bars in the corner.
But yeah, I won't deny there are times I'm watching the healthbars closer than I'm watching anything else; given that you have little to no control over the heroes though, aside from just watching the animations you're not missing that much. I guess it doesn't bother me that much though; for me the game is more about the preperation and progression. Attacks are just a side effect. :P
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
EDIT: wooo found The Warden; now to keep him alive for 3 floors. :rotate:
EDIT2: haha he has a base ability called Need for (more) Speed that gives him +9 speed if someone else is in the room with him. The icon is someone pushing him around. Also base 14 wit, thats nutso.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
Hopefully that helps the previous complaints that that's not being communicated well. Between those alerts and the alert history way more information is readily avaliable at all times. Good stuff.
This was a very very nice patch.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
For now, I'd recommend not opening cryo capsules at all.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
Easy though is still brutal. I'll get there eventually, I just need to start working out tactics that are specific to the difficulty. I think it's going to rely on better equipping heroes via shops; something I tend to neglect in Very Easy and rely only on drops. The unarmed lady, Golgy I think, makes this easier with scaling damage on level since she has no weapon, which tends to make her super powerful earlier than other heroes (unless you get a lucky weapon). And I need to expand my horizons on modules and branch out into some of the buff/hero assist ones and rely less entirely on weapon turrets and tear gas.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
A module I've been finding more useful lately is the Dust Field generator. At level 4 it gives a +80% defence boost for heroes, which can be incredible for tanks like Gork. I've had that in a non-major module room (with about 2 or 3 minor module spots) designed to soften up the mobs before the kill-room. With Gork standing there being able to withstand a hellova lot of punishment, I can usually get in a few more sneaky doors open before opting to fall back to assist with base defence.
Pre-patch I'm still finding Autodoc Shards pretty useless though. With the amount of damage being dished out late-game, the regen buff just doesn't scale enough. It's not to the point that you fall-back with an injured hero, heal up, then return to the fight. Maybe if you had 3 or 4 of them in the same room? Haven't tried that. How are they in this situation in [0.6.7]?
Since the new patch though, and the nerf to in-combat healing on them, I dunno, probably not worth it.
And as you said, even at level 4 the passive heal on them isn't enough to make up for the massive amount of damage that can come in on later floors. For sure a Dust Module would be a better use for a node than an auto-doc. Plus, if you want real in-combat healing, bring the nurse lady, her heal is pretty nice. I find the Lure one to be good too; but not until higher module levels, 150 health for the base one isn't good very long; its nice in rooms with heroes to buy time, but I wouldn't use it in a module kill room.
I'm not sure how that reclamation module is; the one that turns kills into food, it might also be something that is more useful on Easy; but since you're giving up a node that could be used on a more active module like another claymoar...I'm not sure the tradeoff is worthwhile unless you know the room is pretty self sufficient without it.
Unrelated, I think The Wardens ability to give +100% chance for dust drops from kills needs to turn into a passive, even if it was somewhat nerfed. As an active ability it's too easy to forget it, and he's not tanky enough to really camp in active kill rooms for it to come into play often enough for it to be useful. Pilfer (Max's passive at level 5 iirc, and you can get it from a tool) that gives +2 dust for any room that gives dust on opening is way better overall.
Also, I'm not sure if it was in the patch notes, but you can have someone operate the Shops you can build, as long as they have a shopkeeper, and they'll give you +2 dust per turn, which is cool if you're good on FIDS.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
http://forums.amplitude-studios.com/showthread.php?20930-G2G-Amplitude-s-List-of-Community-Feedback
Yippie! There's also mention of an abstract, tactical map
While I won't turn down a map, what I'd prefer is some sort of zoom out option. There's so many times I find myself wishing I could just zoom out a bit to see even a few more rooms at a time.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
Some pretty massive balancing changes to the entire game.
I'll load it up tomorrow and give it a go. 2 new levels, if nothing else, is awesome.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
I'm expecting a patch tomorrow or soon to fix wave spawn issues. Apparently there's an unmentioned patch change (I guess?) that dramatically increases the amount of enemies that spawn, and the difficulty of said spawns, after you find the exit.
Which wouldn't be completely bad except that the number that can spawn seems to effectively be infinite (seriously, I had only 3 rooms unpowered on floor 2 and had easily 40+ enemies coming at me) and it seems to randomly decide how powerful said enemies are. I had those enemies walk through 4 rooms loaded up with level 3 teslas, tear gasses, nanophages and prisoner prods (pretty decent for floor two) and by the time the had killed both of my heroes and walked through all 4 rooms not one was dead.
What compounds this problem is that since the exit is now determined at level creation, instead of as you open doors, there's no real way of avoiding accidentally finding the exit really early and having the rest of the floor be unplayable. And you can't really skip a floor, unless you have a shitton of resources saved up for some reason, so you kinda need the time to open doors to prepare for the next floor.
I can't imagine they're not going to fix it; they've been super responsive so far on patch issue, but they haven't said anything yet.
In other news, they updated the graphic effects and it's...kinda weird. All the main graphics, like your heroes, rooms, etc, are still the same SNES-ish pixel-art; but now all of the shadows, lasers, particles, and other effect visuals (like ambient fog, flowing water, etc) are all really (relatively) high resolution, so there's this weird contrast. They don't look bad, mind you, they just look jarring right on top of the big pixel graphics. It also seems like they smoothed out hero animations, for sure on the hero select menu, but in-game they seem to move more smoothly too; enemies definitely got another few frames of animation.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
EDIT: Patch is up already.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
If nothing else, the changes in mob density and types on various floors (apparently anything can appear on any floor, it's decided at the start of any given level, though I imagine elite enemies are still saved for latter maps), make the early game a lot more thoughtful than as faceroll as the first 2-3 floors were prior.
And the rebalancing of the heroes to have 15 levels instead of 8 and to redistribute what levels they get what abilities (and introducing some new ones) makes your choice in hero felt way earlier than it did before.
All in all it's good stuff. The core game is still the 'same' as launch, but the cumulative effect of all these patches has made for a drastically more challenging and intricate game.
So. Good.
EDIT: also I noticed they removed the research button on the UI; I guess they're good with sticking with the Artefacts as the method of advancement in that regard. I'm fine with that. Having to find, and defend, the artefacts and then choose upgrades that are offered randomly spices things up. If we just had a tech tree there'd quickly be a 'best' way to do things and that would take the fun out of it.
Not totally sold on the special SLART (or whatever) node that has a turn-based duration. Some of the effects are nice but since it takes up a module node, you're at the games mercy if it decides to throw 3 of the SLARTS at you out of the gate on a floor so you're twiddling your thumbs waiting for one to expire so you can start building. It'd be nice if there were some way to destroy it yourself, spend some dust or something to do so, if you desperately need the node.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand