I'm finished with this game, my feedback for Mario - ID: 1238
FORUM: Gossip - The rusty dagger tavern
This topic was started by thoughton on 07/10/2013, 17:01:12
Hi Mario,
Thanks for the game! I've had great fun the past few weeks playing and scouring this forum for clues.
Some feedback for you, in no particular order:
After you buy the Armageddon spell you can use it immediately, even if you aren't level 13 Archmage. My level 5 archmages could cast it (and very useful it was too!). This seems like a bug?
Some spells need to be adjusted. e.g. Lvl 7 Wizard spells Lightning Strike and Demonwar. Why would anyone use Lightning Strike? It has the same range, but less damage. The Lightning one should be level 6, or it should be level 7 but have a higher range than Demonwar.
Related to the previous point there needs to be more diversity in the attack spells. There should be a single-monster attack spell more powerful than Mortifers Soul Whip. There should be a 30-40 SP spell above Demon War that does around 600-800 damage to a single group. And there should be a 40-60 SP all-groups spell in between Mind Blade and Sodar's Wrath. And Sodar's Wrath should be level 6, leave Armageddon as level 7.
There should be more choice of anti-undead spells. Weaker ones, and more powerful ones. Ones that only affect a single undead, and ones that affect a group. Once that just do damage, and ones that have a chance to destroy. Also anti-undead spells should always do more damage than a similar all-mobs damage spell.
Spell Mastery should decrease the SP cost by a percentage, not a fixed single SP. Perhaps include a maximum cap, e.g. 25% or 50% of the original SP cost.
I also think there should be more 'buff' spells. Spells which increase the number of attacks. Spells which dramatically increase damage (e.g. double damage for 3 rounds). Spells which dramatically lower your AC. Spells which dramatically increase your SV. Perhaps a mirror image spell (wasn't there one in Bards Tale?).
There should also be more spells that do damage per level. At the moment there is only level 1 spells Ray of Fire and Brain Stab. A group-effect version, and a all-groups version, would be good. The equivalent of D&D fireball and lightning bolt :P This would make gaining levels a little more interesting. Once my archmages were level 20+, gaining a new level was a bit meaningless. If gaining a level made one of my group-attack spells do a little more damage, that would be an extra incentive.
I've read previous posters suggest a maximum of 6 PCs to encourage use of summoned mobs. I think this would be a great idea (either that or allow an 8th slot for summoned mobs only). At the moment it doesn't seem worthwhile giving up a PC for a summoned mob. An alternative idea is that if the party is full, then a summoned mob just performs one round of attacks before wandering off.
It would be very convenient if 'repeat actions' also repeated spells. Or perhaps a new button 'repeat actions and spells'. Or even better a way to specify a spell which is cast automatically every round (e.g. each mage can choose a 'favourite' spell which is always cast when 'charge' is selected).
Some kind of elements system would make spellcasting more interesting and challenging, e.g. Summon Hailstorm should do double damage against fire elementals, and Star Fire should do zero damage against fire elementals. Fire spells should do more damage against cold creatures like Ice Trolls, and Mountain Dwellers, etc etc.
Alchemy is quite simply broken IMHO. It takes far too long to collect ingredients, and then just to use them for a 0.05% skill increase seems ridiculous. I've played dozens of hours in the expansion so far and my alchemy skill is still at level 1. I simply don't have any more ingredients to increase it.
Thief mastery is similar. It sounds very nice, but after playing dozens of hours on the expansion (and hiding in shadows every battle), and picking every lock I find, my thief's mastery level is still only at 6%. I guess the people who make level 75 characters and play this game for years will love it, normal people like me who finish the game in a month or two will never get to use it.
Hesitation is waaaaay too powerful. It needs some small chance of failure. Perhaps if it only paralysed 90% of the mobs it hits? Or create a new 75% hesitation which is AM level 1, but move the existing 100% Hesitation to AM level 7, and increase the SP. It seems crazy that I can beat fights like the Prowlers by casting Hesitation every second round for 300 rounds while my fighters inflict a death of a thousand cuts. Not only is it crazy, it is extremely boring.
Bards and Hunters should get some multiple attacks. Not like a Paladin or a Warrior, but perhaps an extra attack every 8 levels for a Hunter, and every 12 levels for a Bard. And perhaps a hunter gets more multiple attacks (say every 5 or 6 levels) when using a bow.
Strength should affect how many items each character can carry. Currently it is ridiculously limited. For example when my Bard is wearing a full set of equipment and a sword, he can only carry 5 extra items (bow and arrows, plus 3 horns). That seems crazy to me. Strength should add 1 extra INV slot for each STR point above 14. That would make STR much more desirable. Under the current system STR seems almost useless at high levels.
I greatly enjoyed playing this game, especially the part before the expansion. Oh don't get me wrong - the expansion was fun too! It's just that for me a big part of the enjoyment is building up my characters, so once my DC reached level 13 I lost some enthusiasm for the expansion.
Oh, one final thought. Registering for this forum was a nightmare. After 10 minutes of trying to find out the name of the island the Silversword takes place on I was ready to just give up and delete this essay. Searching the wikipedia entry was no help at all. I finally managed to guess the name of the island by comparing the contours on <URL url="
">[url=]this map]]</URL> with the contours on <URL url="
">[url=]this map]]</URL>
(If anyone else had this problem - even though the manual and wikipedia entry are full of references to Tarnak, the actual answer is Gijatreg. Gijatreg isn't even mentioned on the 'The World' page: <URL url="http://silversword-rpg.com/lore/tarnak/">http://silversword-rpg.com/lore/tarnak/</URL>)
Heyho,
thank you very much for your feedback - it is greatly appreciated :-)
I will go through your comments and see if I can implement some or all of it!
Kind regards
Mario
For grinders, an Alchemy shop is unnecessary. However not everyone enjoys grinding so I am beginning to think an Alchemy ingredients shop would enhance the game. Especially if you could also sell unneeded ingredients there. If it were located before the gate to Watertop, it could also buy/sell rubies and solve that issue for non grinders.
I agree that getting started with thief mastery is tediously time consuming. How about letting the player buy the skill training one point at a time up to ten without needing skill points? At 10 auto hide kicks in and gaining skill training points is easier.
Hi wiz,
though I am not finished yet, the skills of my thief grow fairly quick. (Around 40% right now)
The mechanism behind it, seems to me quiet perfect. :)
To view alchemy, I did't even gained one percent. It's most likely, that I just leave that skill aside, what is not supposed to be. :?
I really support the remark on demon war and lightning strike. And support,the idea of having a greater variety of spells. :)
But one other thing is on my mind (maybe IMentioned it before)
At the end of part I the characters with the highest hitpoints were my AMs. That feels wrong to me.
The thief had half of the HP. That leads to Mages that are no longer too vulnerable to physical damage.
Wizardry had a mechanism, when you change classes, you will only gain 1HP for every Level until you reach the changing Level. That worked for me much better.
Best regards,DQ
Adding multiple attacks to other classes would not be as essential as a class feature if there were a spell or song for it, or both, say skirmishers dance song for bard, and flurry of attacks for dragon caller, paladin and or archmage... An alternative would be to have the rogue gain high damage multiplier while hiding/backstabbing like the old D&D, and the Hunter could gain weapon mastery - plus one to hit and damage for each certain number of times a single weapon type is used-though that would be cause for larger save games, more than the other options might.
A skill/spell that allows one to attack AND perform one additional action, eg change equipment then attack, could be a decent alternative. Maybe a haste spell, or mixed combat skill.
Spell mastery as a percentage makes some sense, but personally I'd like to be able to choose extra range and damage as options instead of sp reductions too, or even instead. Also the the resistance to spell by mobs should be overcome a bit better by level, though not too much better, or that would unbalance casters vs fighters in favors of caster too much again.
Mario so far has solved the multiple attack problems with high damage weapons like fire staff, staff of storms, assasine, axe of souls and singing swords, so that works, but seems less complete, but still awsome so far...
Alchemy is definitly a bit off in my opion too, not for lack of ingrediants quite so much as where they show up and when you can begin learning etc. It's really best suited for the first level or two of alchemy for the base game imo.
I don't think with absorb magic, preclusion and rings of protection that spells, songs, alchemy or skills for better resitance are really necessary, but MOAR is always useful :). I do think that 'Vigilance' the ability to funtion depite being stunned and incapacitation - starting before bandits caves could be very useful, either for monks (inparticular with their low hp and range both), warrior and paladins as a skill (ranged characters dont need it nearly so much), or through one of the other methods mentioned above, eg a song.
Currently near as I can tell, about a quarter way through the expansion, a group formed with a paladin with axe of souls, two warriors lvl 25+ /DCs with fire and storm staffs, two master thieves turned DC, a bard with dragon bone bow plus silver sword and an archmage seems the best combo over all so far. Dragon beacons at magic fountains and sewer review hall (because it seems to work at night), plus one Dc beacon set to return to where you are in your adventuring... Of course you want everone with silver plus runed weapons as an option for those nasty prowlers and stalkers.
If Mario has got templates for creating any of this, or anything else he may want himself, perhaps he could have us in the community fill those templates for him..? I'm game for that now or when/ if he's ready.
I know your your busy, Mario, so don't feel pressured, I know we all want you to enjoy every part of your game as much as we like playing... :)
