Here’s where we currently stand on the new skill system, and a few other changes that would go with it. Please let us know what you think.

[Changes since the last proposal are: Piercing Shot instead of Rapid Fire; no non-magical (elf) leaping in tunnels, but reduce slime density; Flaming Arrows as an unlock would work differently than Flame Shot in that you just have to be next to a flame, not shoot over it.]

SWORDSMAN

Abilities:

Bull Rush - Shove and attack
Lunge - If you hit with sword, 50% chance to also hit monster directly behind it
Punt - 50% chance to punt small monsters after they attack you (hit or miss)

Skills:

Full Swing I: If target is only adjacent monster, +1 sword
Full Swing II: 30% to cleave
Full Swing III: 60% to cleave

Parry I: 20% chance to parry and riposte the first melee attack each round
Parry II I: 40%
Parry III: 60%

Rage I: Each time you roll a 1, 2 or 3 and are hit, gain +2 to next sword attack
Rage II: Each time you roll a 1, 2 or 3 and miss with sword, gain +2 to next sword attack
Rage III: Above bonuses are +3 instead of +2

Press I: +1 to sword attack if target cannot move away
Press II: +2
Press III: +3

During Feats: Swordsman can bull rush any size monster (but not >1 hp into pits)

HUNTRESS:

Abilities:

Leap: Leap 2 spaces
Dodge: Dodge any attack with defense roll of 6+
Move Silently: 50% less likely to be spotted sneaking (not pilfering)

Skills:

Leap Attack I: Attack what you leap over, with 20% chance of disorientation
Leap Attack II: 40%
Leap Attack III: 60%

Evade I: If guarding, roll 5+ to dodge, counter with bow or sword
Evade II: Counterattacks are +1
Evade III: Counterattacks are +2

Long Shot I: Bow distance penalty is -2
Long Shot II: Bow distance penalty is -1
Long Shot III: No bow distance penalty

Piercing Shot I: If your target is 2 away, and there is no monster directly between you and target, and there’s a monster directly behind your target, 40% chance to also attack the monster behind your target.
Piercing Shot II: 70%
Piercing Shot III: 100%

During Feats: Huntress can leap 3.

BRAWLER:

Abilities:

Charge: Advance and +3 sword attack
Resilience: 25% resistance to fireballs, breath, or slime
Uppercut: 30% to hit with uppercut if sword misses

Skills:

Hunker I: When Guarding: +1 defense
Hunker II: Resilience doubled
Hunker III: Resilience tripled

Frenzy I: If 3+ adjacent monsters: uppercut doubled (60%)
Frenzy II: +1 defense
Frenzy III: +1 sword

Bellow I - Call the worm
Bellow II - Call grumpy worm (+2 attack)
Bellow III - Call enraged worm (+4 attack)

Fortify I: If not attacked when hunkering, next round gain +2 attack
Fortify II: +2 defense
Fortify II: +3 attack and +3 defense

During feats: Brawler has 50% of cleaving when charging

OTHER CHANGES:

• Killing Dragons triggers a feat (rolling 11 does not). Killing ruins bosses triggers a feat.

• Revert to prior stealth system, removing the facing rules.

• Give the swordsman a d10 on the bow instead of d8.

• Flame Shot elf skill replaced by Flaming Arrows unlock that anyone can use. (+1 to bow if next to an adjacent flame - you don’t have to shoot over it because you are lighting the arrow before shooting.)

• Non-magical (elf) leaping not allowed in tunnels. (and reduce slime density slightly)

I’ve liked most changes. I think it’s amazing how you guys continue improving a fun free game. Much appreciated.

Thanks for creating such a good game that is browser-based! All sounds good except removing non-magical elf leaping will definitely make the tunnels less beneficial, though I agree the current situation is too easy.

First, I would like to thank the staff and company for many hours of amusement. Frequent players like me should buy a few items from the gift shop to say thank you - I did!

The tunnels are only navigable by the elf. Please do not remove her ability to leap. If you remove her leap ability, there is no one who may survive the dangers without using nearly all their flame and leap scrolls, which are needed later in the dragon lairs.

Leap attack does not accumulate focus bonuses. It should.

Where is the Rapid Fire ability?

Piercing Shot sounds like a good additional ability. So does leaping 3 spaces during feats.

Swordsman abilities are fine, but if you restore Punt, please do not make fun of smaller creatures with verbal abuse. Example: “Why you little….”

A better bow (d10) for the swordsman would be appreciated, the same for the dwarf. Why have a d8 at all, when all monsters have d10, even kobolds and goblins…. I have been hit by kobolds while I had a +8 shield. That’s frustrating.

How about d10 for the elf’s shield? She has fewer hit points and the worst ability to defend, and often she is backed into a corner or surrounded with no safe place to leap.

Hunker III would help a lot more vs dragon breath. Better: allow the Swordsman and dwarf to retaliate with arrows like the elf!! (but with a d10 bow.)

Why does Frenzy have 3 totally different, unrelated effects, instead of a cumulative effect?

Giving the dwarf a cleaving ability would definitely help! That would keep the Dwarf on par with the Human’s cleave and the proposed Elf’s piercing shot.

Yes, killing a boss or dragon should have an additional benefit.

Flaming arrows sounds like a good skill to play test.

Luck is still a huge deciding factor for success:

Obtaining a +6 item in the Caverns helps immensely, but finding only +1 or +2 items hurts far more than a +6 helps, especially after killing 6-7 monsters to be rewarded with a +1 item = NO reward. There should be an additional factor bonus based upon the number of monsters in the room.

The number of health potions determines how far you can adventure. Frequently, I settle for the experience earned in the dragon lair, knowing I cannot possibly finish, due to insufficient magic scrolls and especially health potions. (The Human has great difficulty surviving the dragon lair without many scrolls which need to be used in combination to succeed.)

Again, thank you all for MANY hours of amusement. Adventures have made me late for dinner. Stay safe!

Back in the good old days, the elf didn’t have a shield at all, and the dwarf didn’t get a bow!

Thanks, Cola, Mithir, and Agamemnon.

If we don’t allow elf-leaping in the tunnels, we’d change the tunnels to be easier generally. We’d aim for a difficulty that is harder than now for the elf, but easier than now for the human and dwarf.

Yes, leap attack misses should generate focus. We’ll fix that along with the other changes. Thanks.

Piercing Shot would replace the Rapid Fire idea. As a reminder, the idea with Rapid Fire was that you have a chance to also bow attack monsters that are adjacent to your target and the same range. What I don’t like about Rapid Fire is that it amplifies the advantage the elf gets when she has multiple dragons flamed off at 3 away. That’s already a great strategy, but it’s a bit dull, and I don’t want to further optimize it. We could limit Rapid Fire to targets that are range 2, but in that case Rapid Fire would be more of a defensive mechanism, as you probably wouldn’t want to try to get into a position with multiple monsters at range 2. Piercing Shot, on the other hand, feels more deliberate. Positioning yourself so that a target is behind another monster is in itself tactically advantageous, so Piercing Shot would make it worthwhile to go out of your way to line things up - like with the bolt scroll. Anyway, we’re curious which skill you prefer. Maybe we could do both, but then we’d need to get rid of one of the other elf skills.

We’ll be keeping a d8 for the dwarf’s bow and a d8 for the elf’s shield because both those items are not consistent with the characteristics of a brawler or huntress. Likewise, only the huntress has the agility and skill needed to counterattack with a bow.

The Frenzy benefits are cumulative. You do not lose the benefits from the lower level skills.

Without doubt giving the swordsman d10 on the bow will help him. But I like the symmetry of all the heroes having one good (d12) weapon, one average (d10) and one not so good weapon. Giving him d12, d10, d10 seems somehow unfair when the others have d8 d10,d12, so then you’re left with what you have now (d12, d8, d10) or d10, d10, d10 which feels boring.

Keep an eye on your mods to the swordsman. He did need a boost and I know that you are upping the skills for all the heroes but d8->d10 + Lunge 50% replacing Cleave 20% +Bull Rush looks like quite a lot of extra advantage to me. But I guess we won’t know until you try! (OK Riposte has gone and it was more useful than Punt but it is not useful if you are defending and if you’re attacking you’ve probably got the attack points to hit first time anyway.)

I share the fear (is it a fear?) that good old non-charisma-Wilhelm could become the strongest dragon slayer a little bit, but mostly think the balance could work, because ALL get a lot stronger. Increasing focus for elfs leap is at least a boost that should not be underestimated. I always thought, that it was intended, due to “leap around isn’t same as focus”. Leap currently only works good with a +9 sword. That would change.

I had the same idea of the piercing shot instead of rapid fire, but thought that is not logical enough ;) If you implement it like this, you should think about also giving piercing if there is a target in front (and pierce this). The description would be:
“Piercing Shot I: If your target is 2 away, 100% chance to attack the first monsters in the line of fire and 40% for the second.”
Somehow it is unsatisfactory to make a piercing skill dependent on that there is nobody in the way.
You can also turn the chances around:
“Piercing Shot I: If your target is 2 away, 40% chance to additionally attack the first other monster in the line of fire.”
If this is too strong I remind you of the good old days (millennium), hopefully correct: There was a -3 penalty on shooting the closest field.

Another thing are the tunnels: Couldn’t we make tactical fighting more attractive? I fear that “1/3-gamble-moving” to save scrolls isn’t fun. The dwarf could try to uppercut (reinvent this) the slimes and the human to shove them into pits. Shoving turns the slime away from the human (that makes it very tactical!). The dwarf could hunker-resist and uppercut if other moves are not possible. The elf could be allowed to jump over empty fields (the height in the tunnels is limited, so she cannot jump over real obstacles). Wouldn’t that be also uniform in difficulty but we could keep the slime-density?

All we need is a good reason why uppercuts are deadly for slimes (maybe they are so disgusted, that they die by a shock). Or it is the shockwave. Other reasons are welcome to be listed here. (Are they ticklish?)

I started playing this game less than a month ago, and I love it. I haven’t yet paid the $15 to get AD, but I probably will. The info above is useful. I want to keep the d12, d8, d10 system.

I also vote for symmetry in d12, d10, d8. If you want to strengthen human in far-fights you might make lunge a skill and rage II an ability (can you really level your rage anyway?)
Lunge could allow to attack on range 2 with the sword if you don’t attack over obstacles (including monsters). The wording for full swing I should then be: “If no monster but the target is adjacent, +1 sword”

I like the idea of making Rage an ability and Lunge a skill. I don’t like the idea of being able to lunge a lone target that’s two a way because of the ambiguity of whether you want to lunge or use your bow. But the word “lunge” does imply the ability to do that - so what do you think of renaming Lunge to Skewer?

Rage Ability: Each time you roll a 1, 2 or 3 and miss with sword, gain +2 to next sword attack

Skewer I: If you hit with sword, 30% chance to also hit monster directly behind it. Skewer II: 50% Skewer III: 70%

We have some ideas to make the tunnels easier, such as making Ropers being unable to attack you when you are adjacent and adding firebugs to the tunnels (yellow slimes would be unaware of firebugs, and if a yellow slime moved into a firebug’s space, they would both burn up). We could also add more loot to the tunnels. But having said that … would you prefer for the slimes to be more predictable? Like they always move straight (unless a green slime senses you) - so the randomness is only when there is something in front of them. If we did that, might also say that they can turn and move in the same round - so you wouldn’t want to step behind a green slime.

I’ve only started playing this game a month ago, but it seems to me that the Human is supposed to be balanced. I mean, it even says it in their description. A d10 for archery would fit that, but then the actual game balance would be ruined. Both the Dwarf and the Elf have designated strategies, the Elf dancing around enemies, the Dwarf flourishing in close-quarters combat, and skills to allow them to do so. The human’s skills are mainly risk-chances, however, with luck percentages, it seems. The Elf and Dwarf both seem to be able to deal with Dragons pretty well, with the Dwarf’s Resilience and the Elf’s archery, but the Human… doesn’t seem to have much. Their abilities seem to be best for either small creatures, with Punt and Bull Rush, and mainly fighting a single enemy at a time, with Full Swing and Parry. If you could separate Dragons with scrolls, I have no doubt the Human could work well, but eventually you’d be overrun, especially against higher amounts of Dragons, I think. You could take my opinion with a grain, or a barrowful, of salt, but I think the Human could benefit from a buff. Of course, to keep with the other Heroes, maybe the Human’s total Dice values could be kept the same, but better rearranged, or reallocated. As I first said, the Human seems to supposed to be balanced, with the Elf horrible at guarding, and the Dwarf horrible at Archery, so maybe his dice could be all the same, or something like that. I have no idea.

Lunge:
I thought I have to draw back my idea for lunge, because it has several problems. So it is good to see, that you don’t follow that. I still struggle a bit with skewer. In principle I like how that influences fighting a lot, but I have also concerns with that additional hits similar to the elfs pierce ability. I thought about that now for a while and see no other fitting solution in that skill direction. You can keep it, but it does not feel very “special”. What about a totally different mechanism? I propose a “confront” skill/ability. It gives Wilhelm an instant attack against each enemy that wants to flee from an adjacent field. That would give him a unique flavour and strengthen him against far fighters and somehow fits to parry and riposte. Best visual thing would be of course to do “half of the escape move”, then the attack dice comes.
Ropers:
making Ropers being unable to attack you when you are adjacent good idea. Maybe it would be interesting if they could attack in close range, but instead of damage on a hit, they push you away one field. That way they are still nasty, but not alone so damaging any more. Or they start casting “growth” on their own. Doing nothing sounds a bit too easy.
Slimes:
In princpiple I like the idea to make them more predictable, but I don’t like when there are pits and slimes in such a way from the start, that there is no chance to escape them. This might get even worse if we can even better predict that we are doomed and slimes can move and turn around at once. Maybe the slime could not always sense the direction correctly? To avoid “simple luck” one could make them less effective when clustering: If e.g. another monster is adjacent to the green slime, it cannot sense us. The yellow one might walk two fields if it does not turn at all.

or ropers cast a transformation into some rocky-close-combat monster…

Okay, thanks for the feedback so far. Here’s where we now stand.

Changes since first post are:

• Made Rage an ability instead of a skill (using Rage II).
• Lunge name changed to Skewer and made a skill with 3 levels.
• Removed restriction on Piercing Shot that the first tile needs to be empty.
• Leaving the swordsman’s bow at d8.

SWORDSMAN

Abilities:

Bull Rush - Shove and attack
Rage - Each time you roll a 1, 2 or 3 and are hit or miss with your sword, gain +2 to next sword attack
Punt - 50% chance to punt small monsters after they attack you (hit or miss)

Skills:

Full Swing I: If target is only adjacent monster, +1 sword
Full Swing II: 30% to cleave
Full Swing III: 60% to cleave

Parry I: 20% chance to parry and riposte the first melee attack each round
Parry II I: 40%
Parry III: 60%

Skewer I: If you hit with sword, 25% chance to also hit monster directly behind it
Skewer II: 50%
Skewer III: 75%

Press I: +1 to sword attack if target cannot move away
Press II: +2
Press III: +3

During Feats: Swordsman can bull rush any size monster (but not >1 hp into pits)

HUNTRESS:

Abilities:

Leap: Leap 2 spaces
Dodge: Dodge any attack with defense roll of 6+
Move Silently: 50% less likely to be spotted sneaking (not pilfering)

Skills:

Leap Attack I: Attack what you leap over, with 20% chance of disorientation
Leap Attack II: 40%
Leap Attack III: 60%

Evade I: If guarding, roll 5+ to dodge, counter with bow or sword
Evade II: Counterattacks are +1
Evade III: Counterattacks are +2

Long Shot I: Bow distance penalty is -2
Long Shot II: Bow distance penalty is -1
Long Shot III: No bow distance penalty

Piercing Shot I: If your target is 2 away, and there’s a monster directly behind your target, 40% chance to also attack the monster behind your target.
Piercing Shot II: 70%
Piercing Shot III: 100%

During Feats: Huntress can leap 3.

BRAWLER:

Abilities:

Charge: Advance and +3 sword attack
Resilience: 25% resistance to fireballs, breath, or slime
Uppercut: 30% to hit with uppercut if sword misses

Skills:

Hunker I: When Guarding: +1 defense
Hunker II: Resilience doubled
Hunker III: Resilience tripled

Frenzy I: If 3+ adjacent monsters: uppercut doubled (60%)
Frenzy II: +1 defense
Frenzy III: +1 sword

Bellow I - Call the worm
Bellow II - Call grumpy worm (+2 attack)
Bellow III - Call enraged worm (+4 attack)

Fortify I: If not attacked when hunkering, next round gain +2 attack
Fortify II: +2 defense
Fortify II: +3 attack and +3 defense

During feats: Brawler has 50% of cleaving when charging

OTHER:

• Killing Dragons triggers a feat (rolling 11 does not). Killing ruins bosses triggers a feat.

• Revert to prior stealth system, removing the facing rules.

• Flame Shot elf skill replaced by Flaming Arrows unlock that anyone can use. (+1 to bow if next to an adjacent flame - you don’t have to shoot over it because you are lighting the arrow before shooting.)

• Non-magical (elf) leaping not allowed in tunnels. Changes to make tunnels easier TBD.

Think many good changes; would like to see additional level and experience points needed to get there, i.e. over level 16 and 16mil xp.

Huntress; would like ability to shoot 3 hexes in lieu of max of 2 (maybe a distance penalty on 3 hexes) Like the flame shot and also leap 3 on feat.

Sneak; like the current sneak, choose a path behind a monster should give an advantage. Think the huntress should be able to sneak MUCH better than the other two.

Thanks for improving/ideas; levels over 16 is a great move.

Last item, it would make the daily challenge a little more fun if a daily top-10 list was tracked, kinda like the weekly challenge. Maybe a bonus for the winner/top 10 finishers such as a 7+ treasure box you can open before starting a level….winner gets 3 boxes, 2nd gets 2 boxes, all others get 1 box??

Thanks, algren. I was wondering if anyone would mention the sneak change. What do other people think? Would you miss facing rule?

I think the current sneak is better, but you have to think for yourself if you WANT orientation stuff within the game at just one point.

First of all, I think most of these changes are quite awesome.

While the facing rule makes things tougher, it’s also intuitive: it’s harder to sneak directly in front of a monster. I’d bet there is a good alternative option here, based on the original motivation behind the change.

One comment is that the changes allow an extra 4-8 levels. This is nice, but the exp cost of the last level would be 16-256x the current level 16 cost - which is already quite high.

One option to partially fix this would be to allow exp gains from different sources to stack multiplicatively. This has the added bonus of more encouraging players to level the different game modes more evenly. It would also make tournament participation much more powerful, which would in turn increase the number of participants - an added bonus.

One idea for daily hunts: occasionally the power bonus is 10, wasting 1 and making the challenge much harder. In these cases, maybe adding 1 of each scroll type or something like that could help compensate.

Also, I’m for doing something to make daily hunts more fun. Perhaps adding a leaderboard as algren mentioned could be a fun way to go. If you do this, I would allow free players to re-play the hunt, but with hunt exp bonuses turned off, so that they can still compete for the leaderboard.

I like the roper change; currently, they’re impossible to approach (without scrolls or firebug) without getting attacked, in a non defensive stance. This severely limits options in dealing with them, especially with other monsters around. Roper hunt is a total nightmare, as currently the only viable strategy is to sneak to a non-edge square, then block and counter-attack with elf. Further, flame scrolls don’t do much vs multiple ropers).

Re-balancing tunnels sounds good, as elf is currently mandatory. However, if you turn off leap, perhaps e.g. adding 1-2 extra guaranteed flame scroll drops in tunnels could help make them more useful, since, as others have mentioned, bad spawns can lead to a huge resource drain, and flame scrolls are super important vs. dragons.

Ropers

I never understood why Ropers recoil only from flames next to them.
Shouldn’t they recoil from a flame that is between them and the hero, too? After all they could burn their sensitive whips when lashing out …

Continuing this line of reasoning (lashing out): How about they can only attack the hero if there is no flame AT LEAST as close to them as the hero.
E.g. if the hero is next to them, they can’t attack only if a flame is next to them, too.
If the hero has distance 2, they can’t attack only if a flame is next to them OR 2 tiles away.
If the hero has distance 3, they can’t attack only if a flame is next to them OR 2 tiles away OR 3 tiles away.
If the hero has distance 4+, they can’t attack anyways.

This could be combined with the “Ropers can’t attack hero if next to it” approach OR used as an alternative.

Hunt statistics (no leader board)

Instead of yet another ranking list I would like to see the statistics of the previous 2 (or more) Hunts – separated by Hunt and with the info regarding enemy, area and equipment.
* They could be shown as bar charts with the categories 0–19, 20–39, 40–59, 60–79, 80–99, 100+.
* One chart for player base would be nice where only the highest score for each player is considered (to not make the statistics too skewed by repeated tries of A.D.s).
* One chart that compares all the scores (by category) reached with the 3 different heros. (There is no swapping, so this is possible.) Not sure if repeated tries by A.D.s should be treated in a special way here; perhaps consider only the best run for each hero?
* Of course, your individually reached score category (or categories) should be highlighted if you took part.

So, a couple of thoughts.

(1) I rather enjoyed the recent system of having the success of a sneak depend on which way the monsters are facing. Not only does it make the choice of path something to think about, but it ALSO (more importantly) lets the player be strategic about MAKING the monsters face a particular way (during the first visit to a room) so that the odds of going undetected improve (during the second visit to the same room).

Is the idea of eliminating this strategic activity intended to fix a problem with the current system? And if so, what is the current problem that you are interested in fixing? So far, I don’t see it.

(2) Am I reading correctly that Skewer attacks the monster directly behind only when the monster in front is hit? (seems sensible) … but Piercing Shot MAY attack the monster behind, even if the attack on the monster in front misses? (we’re assuming multiple arrows, yes? And is this actually the intent that the long attack could succeed even if the short attack failed?)

(3) I am concerned about leaping in tunnels going away (or at least without using magic to temporarily raise the height of the tunnel ceiling (that’s how the magic works, right?)

My experience with the Elf is that shots at Dragons miss a LOT a LOT unless the bow is +9 AND the odds are improved by shooting over a flame. I gather that the prospective changes include replacing shots over a flame with shots next to a flame (correct, yes?) So, the problem that I foresee is that the Elf will be unable to save enough scrolls to use against dragons if those same scrolls need to get burned up to survive the tunnels. At the same time, avoiding the tunnels is not currently a good option because so many of the Potions seem to live there.

Is there a way around this dilemma? Perhaps the game (with the new skill sets) needs more fire scrolls, or the Lair needs more Fire Bugs.

How about an option to return to town and buy (or trade for) scrolls and potions, especially since we keep finding many inferior weapons? It would be nice if we could make use of all those weapons we are forced to discard.

beetletoe is right in 1)2)3) combining 2 and 3 shows a problem: piercing shot that HAS to hit the first one is almost useless (against dragons). I always thought the other way round: It should be “normal” to get a (small) chance to hit a monster behind another, if you miss the first one… Another interesting question would be if you can get a feat from the second attack or not. One could encourage it like this: You need to hit the first to get a try on the second, but if you hit BOTH you get a feat. Additionally EVERY shot of all characters gets a 10% chance to fly further if the first targed is missed. This will give some funny moments.

Another topic: I am still a big fan of the han-shoots-first idea for defense (instead of evade) and have an idea for implementation that might be possible and would feel SO COOL:
1) Range attacker throws an attack dice
2) Huntress throws an ATTACK dice, too!
3) If Huntress attack dice is higher (low-skill-level-penalty possible), Huntress attacks first
4) If Huntress hits, the enemy attack is aborted. If huntress fails, she throws a defense dice (6+)

Thanks, Beetletoe.

The concern with the current sneak system is that it requires too much effort to see which way the monsters are facing, especially on small screens. Also, it’s easy to forget to check. I’m glad to hear that you like it, though, and would like to hear what others think. One option would be to make the facing rule an unlock instead of something you start with. Another option would be to limit it to certain situations, like ventriloquism ability that lets you cause monsters to stare a certain direction and then you can sneak behind them. Another option would be to make the facing rule only apply to the elf. - it could be part of the Move Silently ability.

Your interpretation of Skewer and Piercing Shot is correct. The idea of Piercing Shot is one arrow that is not stopped by the first target, regardless of whether it hits. However with that name, perhaps the rule should be the same as skewer. Or we could call it Rapid Fire and make it a separate attack on each of the two targets. Which name/approach does everyone prefer?

I think most people like it that are not playing on mobile phones. Maybe one could mark the front line of each monster in red (as option to show).
Although it is nice to have reliable skills, I would slightly prefer (as you might see in my last post) to give the second hit a “bonus”-feeling. But the more I think about that… what if a feat is already running? Can I use both? And when I hit both again and get another feat… that sounds very very deadly… so maybe not that way?

On the shoot-first-skill I forgot to mention what happens when the huntress dice is lower:
3) Defense dice is thrown, attack is calculated and if it hits, the huntress attack is aborted.

A distraction unlock sounds very interesting. If you sneak it has 20% chance to fail (spotted) and otherwise the monsters change their direction of view to that position. If it only works on walkable fields that are 4 fields away (hero throws a small stone over a far distance), you don’t have a problem how to “activate” it.

I have another idea how to make the tunnels easier and more different: The hero always sneaks and can only be detected adjacent to fire or non-slime-monsters or by own attack. A move makes you sneak again. This way you can bring in some more firebugs and gas spores and make it easier that way (boom). A good number of gas spores is 2-5 per room then.

Another option would be to make the slime attack a cast (instead of turn around taking a move). This is casted if it would enter your field and the move onto that field happens next round and damages the hero. That is far weaker than currently and you have a fair chance to escape with a hero that moves one field. You can then put even more slimes into the tunnel (flood it with slime!). I don’t know if that makes any sense, but could be very interesting to move through slime-infested tunnels.

Thanks for the explanation, Rowdius.

So, another thought. A few weeks back, I mentioned that it would be really useful to have an instant-replay video button, so that you can see what happened during the last turn, if the movie played too fast for you to follow, the first time.

This should include a replay of all of the results of the player’s most recent actions, plus all of the moves that the monsters made in response to that.

So, now we are discussing the possibility that you aim at a monster, and either hit it or not–but in addition a hit might have been scored on a second monster behind the first one (or not hit), and the game needs some visible indication of both hit/miss events. Soon thereafter, several of the monsters in the room are going to make their own moves, starting by rearranging their locations (just to make it harder to figure out which monster USED TO BE located behind the monster that you were shooting at), and presumably the rearrangement video is going to to overwrite the “I’ve been hit” video on the screen.

Particularly for multiple dragons in the same room, the issue is going to be, then, how many hit points did ALL of the monsters have before my most recent move, and how many points do they NOW have. Do I have to check (laboriously) hit points on all of the monsters in the room, after every turn? Or can I have a video replay button to push, if I suspect that something happened that I missed noticing (or I’m not positive whether or not I saw)?

P.S. Concerning which way the monsters are facing, has it been discussed whether the front-facing edge of the monster’s hexagon can be colored differently, and would that make it easy to see on the video screen of a phone?

For windows there is the xbox game bar app that allows to record the last 30 seconds that already happened if it is running. Maybe there are other tools, too that you can use beetletoe. However, I also think a replay of the last move would be nice. What I don’t understand is what you need it for. You always have to check if dragon fire is on on or not manually. Of course it would be nice, if this would be a bit more easy to see (e.g. dragon color gets a bit shifted to red).

Hi, Bare Hand.

So, initially, the three main excuses for wanting a replay button were: (1) the internet lags or glitches, so the dungeoneers screen suddenly jumps to its next resting state, without actually showing the animation at all. (2) Hand muscles twitch (due, no doubt, to spending too much time clicking a mouse) while the mouse is quickly in transit from one spot to another. Because the click was inadvertent, there may be no certainty about what, exactly, was actually clicked on. (3) The mouse button was pushed (or at least that was the intention) and nothing happens on the screen. If I didn’t actually click the mouse successfully, I could be waiting forever. If I did click it, but the internet or the server is just being slow, then clicking it a second time, blindly, could be fatal. Absent a “what move did I make last?” button, reloading the page is the only safe course.

…. so those are the situations that I have actually found myself in, uncomfortably often. Now add to that the new problem (which, admittedly I am only imagining) that the new skill system will make the animation more complicated, harder to follow, and more problematic when the internet glitches.

Hi Beetletoe,
as I understand it in a nutshell, it is “curiosity about what happened”. I understand this. It helps to be self-confident with the situation and this is important for strong gameplay. As we already have an undo, it should not be so hard to implement a “redo”?

For the third point I think I that you can relax a bit. I NEVER saw a click on a “not correctly shown state” did something later. There seems to be a well programmed control about that (it is not a flashgame!). However, what happens to me also is that a situation changes while the click signal is traveling down my arm. That is really bad luck then. This happens when I “go too fast” (e.g. a crawler shows up and I attack it instead of moving to the free field).

I like the concept of sneaking behind the monsters having more chance than sneaking in front of the monsters. (Thanks beetletoe for pointing out that you can change the way the monsters are looking!) It is difficult, though, to see which way the monsters are looking in crowded rooms. Or even if there is a small monster behind a ginormous one, especially if it’s a big monster like a giant or an ettin to start with.
I’d like an option to either (a) rotate the view 60 degrees so I can see from a different angle or (b) make a monster semi-transparent (you do this with the heroes when they first enter the room) so I can see what’s behind them. I think the suggestion of colouring the forward-looking edge of the monster’s hex is also a good one. Replay the last action would be nice. As Bare Hand said, the game doesn’t stack up clicks due to internet lag (sometimes I’ve clicked repeatedly on things when I’ve got frustrated with the Internet lag and it usually just says “It’s not your turn yet”) but if the page does reload due to an error it would be nice to replay to see what happened, rather than having to work out which monsters you killed (or didn’t) and how many hits you took.

Another option would be (c) a minimap that shows hero, monsters, pits, exits and flames as small symbols. And when the hero is still in stealth mode, the empty tiles have different colors depending on the detection probability when moving onto them. (There aren’t that many different probabilities even when considering Vanish plus pilfering in front of monsters.)

And concerning the “It’s not your turn yet” message: A more fitting kind of lag indicator would be nice. Maybe a warning symbol in a corner of the screen with the option to manually force a reconnect?
Running a shell with continuous ping command isn’t really a reliable workaround …

A minimap sounds interesting, but it should be an option with a hotkey and not always there. One could easily show the orientation by drawing monsters as triangles, but I am not sure if this is a good idea on small screens. Is there a statistic how many play from a mobile phone?
But are we still talking about skill system? I think we all like in principle the orientation-concept of the stealth skill.

@spirit: love the minimap idea. It can sometimes be tough to see everything accurately, especially with tons of big monsters and bowmen facing away. Different symbols for melee/archer/etc. could be a huge help in this case.

Another option instead of a minimap would be a hot key or button that lets all monsters “sink in the ground”, such that the head is roughly at ground level (mousover shoud work on that state). Maybe that is even easier to implement?

In most cases this should work, too.

However, for very flat monsters (Beetles, Firebugs, some Frogs, Rats, Scorpions, some Snakes, some Spiders) or those consisting mostly of a head (Gas Spores, Dung Monsters) the “sink into the ground” might be somewhat useless when they are of a certain above-normal size:
Either the sink effect is too minimal and they still block the view – or the sink effect will hide most of their distinguishing features.
So you still don’t know for every monster which way they are facing – at least not for all monsters at once.

I wonder whether having monsters “sink into the ground” would require doing extensive new artwork on all of the monsters in the game, viewed from every orientation (in addition to the programming issues)

We’re thinking that we’ll add a button that lets you shrink all the figures, so they are not likely to block the tile behind them.