Thanks for everyone’s help with the new heroes. We will do some more tuning later, but we’re now moving on to other things. We are going to work on some technical performance stuff, but we also want to address some of the gameplay issues relating to high level play.

So we have these questions for high level players. As always, try not to base your feedback on the anticipated effect on the difficulty of winning a game. We can and will tune difficulty after making changes. Instead, consider whether the changes would make for a more enjoyable gameplay experience.

1 - Trading Health for Strength

To speed up the dragon battles (and the game generally), and to add a new strategic element, what do you think of this idea for a high level unlock:

You can sacrifice a health potion by drinking it when you are healthy. As a result you get a temporary strength bonus (eg. +5 attack for 5 rounds).

2 - Wandering Dragons

Do you like the idea that at high levels, a few of the dragons might be found in the dungeon instead of the lair?

3 - Adrenaline running

For those of you who intentionally leave behind potions in order to maintain adrenaline, do you enjoy doing that?

If intentionally running on adrenaline is fun and a positive addition to the game, should we make it easier to do it by adding a setting to turn off the auto-loot?

4 - Fairer Tourneys

In tourneys, should all ruins boss weapons be +8?

5 - Quicker Tourneys

In order to speed up tourneys for advanced players, what do you think of this:

You start a tourney 5 levels below where you finished on the prior week. If on the prior week you did not attain more than 5 victories, you’d start at 2 Reds with everyone else. Example: If you defeated 40 Reds one week, you’d start at 15 Reds the next week.

You may respond in the forum or email me at alex@dungeoneers.com

Thanks!

They all sound interesting and I love that you want to keep tweaking and tuning this game. Keep tuning, I’ll keep playing.

1: Ok there are pretty difficult lair rooms. But I am not sure if 5 attack are worth a potion… What should the dwarf do? Attack?
What about being able to make two actions for a number of turns instead of one?
That makes me think, maybe we just need an “altar of scroll change”. One gets x scrolls for one potion and the price x is calculated every day on the game stats. Lets say we want on average 2 potions per game to be traded. You set the initial price “high” (like 3 scrolls per potion). If the goal is not achieved the price gets “one better” next day. The “altar” offers all 5 scrolls, so the goal for each kind is 0.4 trades per (won) game. If it is below that value it increases, if it is above, the price is decreased by one.
That would be perfectly fair and self-balancing and would even balance the characters a bit (because if fire scrolls are needed for the elf but too expensive, we go and play dwarf until the price is low enough).
2. yes
3. is fun if you don’t play the elf ;) No seriously, an option would be great to turn of auto-loot at least for potions, but I am not sure if that is the best strategy. What is it all good for? What I really like is the tactical decision/trade: With what health do you go deep into the room or accept what kind of attacks? Playing “full safe” is not beneficial. Especially by adrenaline we get an option to “increase risk” when weapons, scrolls and potions are bad, to optimize “winning chance”. But that needs a LOT of experience in dragon slaying to forecast like “oh still 25 dragons and only 5 haste scrolls, I have to move a bit away from full-safe-style”. That is an art and on good days I CAN beat 40 dragons with pure 7 drop (but not 100% chance, but maybe just 60%). So I can “trade sudden death chance against winning chance” with experience. But isn’t there an easier way to go? To open this option for casual players, one could do it this way: If you enter a room, you can click on your potions to put them all down into the entrance tile (where you click to leave the room) and another click picks one up again (second click a second one and the third click all.). It would be good to have an option to automate the drop (default) and just decide how many potions to take back by one or two clicks. Maybe this should be only possivle in sneak mode or takes a turn (but it has 100% to stay in sneak mode). Of course all potions are collected again, when the room is cleared. Wouldn’t that be the most direct implementation? It could be a “skill” that is available at higher fame (like altar) to not bother beginners with that. 4) What about 7,8,9 and you get the information about these max weapons before choosing the character?
5) I like playing “2 dragons”, too, because I play that much different. However, it can be shortened, yes… a “haunt dragons” button in the tourney main window that doubles the dragon number would do the job. If I don’t press the button, it just proceeds as usual with the next higher number above what was achieved. So I could do in fastest possible haunt-everything-speed: 4,12, 30, 70. It would be fun to see “speculations” at the highest end. E.g. I could do a haunt after 50 dragons and beat like 61. The result would be 50(61) but a fully cleared 55er would be more.

if you’re done tuning the heroes (particularly the elf), then I’m done playing the game. I haven’t come close to winning a game since she was nerfed.

I wonder if the elf evasion is working. I went through to 30 plus dragon battles and not on evade came up on a breath weapon… Probably 20 to 30 breath attacks and hit everytime except for a couple of 1 rolls. 40% chance should have triggered at least a few times…

@ Burner D - You’re right! There was a bug messing up dodge vs. dragon breath. It is now fixed. Give it a try now @idunnolol.

@Valamaldoran - Thanks!

@Rellik - The strength attack bonus was just an example. Maybe it gives +1 until you drink another health potion. You’re right that this type of thing might benefit the dwarf the least. My question, though, is whether you like the basic idea of being able to sacrifice a health potion for a short term advantage. Is it worth trying to come up with something balanced? (I’m not a fan of being able to trade for scrolls because then you lose the variety of games where you need to work with what you have.)

One alternate option for 4) (that would allow advanced players like Rellik to still play levels with few dragons) would be to add a ‘skip 1’ button if the player beat the next level in the previous tournament (perhaps up to limit.)

For example, for players that beat 50 dragons in one week, then in the next week, they could opt to start with either 2 dragons or 4 dragons. If they beat 4 dragons, then they could attempt either 6 or 8, etc. until the next level is e.g. 40 or 45 dragons. If 45 (prev-1), to beat 50 again, the fastest they could go would be 4,8,15,25,35,45,50, while the original proposition would give 25,30,35,40,45,50.

For beating 30 dragons in a week, for the next week, the difference would be 4,8,15,25,30 vs the original 6,8,15,20,25,30.

With this system, advanced players still get to play low-dragon levels in the tourney without just wasting time, and less-advanced players also get to enjoy some speed-up. Note also (as Rellik mentioned) that there is an element of risk to skipping: For example, if one beats 10, then skips 15 and fails 20, killing 16 dragons before death, then their score is 10(16)) instead of the 15 they would have earned without skipping.

Edit of previous post: I was trying to discuss 5), not 4).

@ Burner D - the bug was specifically that the dodge was not happening for dragon breaths unless evading (guarding). So if you were guarding, it should still have worked.

I like studentofbrand’s idea, where you can choose to skip the next level.

Do you think it should only an option up to the level before your prior week’s victory? Or maybe base it on your best tourney ever? Or should the ability to skip a level just be how tourneys works for everyone, all the time?

If you want to make the tournament fairer, then, yes standardizing the weapon drop is a good start. Making sure that weapons BETTER than the standard set are not randomly generated would also help with fairness.

(Is there any thought to having everyone play the same kind of character, at the same level?)

To speed up the tournament game (for everyone), what about letting players start at whatever dragon number they feel comfortable with? Scores would only COUNT towards the final tournament ranking if at least five successive wins were achieved (unless the player chose to start with 2 dragons, in which case any number of wins would count). (Paradoxically, that would make it possible for a player to get the highest single score in the week, but still score zero for the weekly series.)

Giving a choice involves some UI work and thus takes some time away from other things. An alternate of the original proposal would be that, rather than starting 5 levels below the prior week, you start half way down.

However, this does not address Rellik’s point that he enjoyes the low dragon games.

Are there others who agree that they enjoy the low level games and would not like to lose them? (I’m one of them.)

If skip is all time, then most would just skip everything, I think. So we end up with 4,8,15,25,35 tourney. Or who would not skip when? I think one should pay a price for skipping that is higher than the risk to not beat the last 5. E.g. the dragon chest is closed/gone. It should be so hard, that one really has to think about to skip or not to skip in the upper end (but not so hard, that it is a no brainer).

1) Not sure about extra strength but yes to extra something. Speed perhaps, like Rellik suggests, so if I have weak defense I can minimise hits taken in a Cathedral of Giants or Dung Monster Dump. That doesn’t need strong attack, but it does need many strikes. Maybe strength if it means more on both attack and defense. Rather like the idea of an Enlarge scroll that was discussed some time back.

2) I think that very much depends where they wander to, and whether they are in addition to or instead of the room’s regular monsters. Would you really want a starting Caverns where the only accessible rooms are a Crocodile Shallows, a Spider’s Web, and a Dragon?

3) I’ve actually wanted the reverse; I’ve wanted to turn on the auto-loot to make sure I don’t miss anything amongst the pile of dead monsters I’ve left behind. Usually after I’ve left the reaper in the room and then moved him somewhere else.

4) In the extreme case, you could give everyone exactly the same rooms to play. You’d probably still get that sinking feeling when you get 7,7,7 weapons or no fire against umpteen dragons, but at least you’d know that everyone else in the tournament will have to face the same. You could standardise the hero like beetletoe suggested or run separate leaderboards. No skip if you do that, so everyone has to play exactly the same rooms. Some people might like the chance to “get lucky” in the tournament though. Bad luck is the other side of the coin.

5) I think it’s quite good to have to learn how to play fewer dragons quickly, as well as lots of dragons slowly, and it’s a skill to switch between those two. If you do allow skip, 2(54) should definitely not beat 4(0). You gambled and lost! I get that it’s time-consuming to play to even 20 or 30 dragons in the tournament though.

I don’t have much of an opinion on wandering dragons but I do like the sound of the other points, especially the adrenaline running option. I can still pretend like I need to plan a strategy around deployment of the purple worm in order to not pick up health potions to add a bit of spice to the game.

I enjoy stuff like that because I’m a bit of a masochist; for the same reason, I am happy with the current system of boss weapon stats being RNG-based.

My reasoning for this is that getting a poor set of boss weapons adds factors such as the trade off between attempting to make it through the lair to the golden chest or making do with what you have and maybe wasting a potion or two to improve them, which makes the whole experience tense and is probably my favourite aspect of the game.

Over time, I think the unfairness posed by bad RNG gets balanced out over tournament players on a not-too-long timescale anyway, and having to adapt your strategy to the situation is a valid tool in the player’s arsenal. Oftentimes I don’t bother with fairly large swathes of the dungeon, but you can be sure I’ll be scraping through every last bit of it if I’m stuck with a full +7 set of equipment.

In general, however, I am against the homogenisation of experience for players in a game for the sake of fairness (I think it’s boring), so there is a bit of bias coming into play for me. I’m very happy with the idea of skipping the parts of a tourney, as long as there is choice involved. Sometimes it is nice to just play around with a low number of dragons just to see how quickly I can beat them. Other players’ suggestions of adding a tradeoff to skipping levels is sound, as even on easy runs there is still the chance of running into very poor luck and blowing a run, so there is an intrinsic benefit to skipping levels that should be counterbalanced somehow, perhaps even with increasing penalties as the difficulties of dungeons skipped increases. That scaling detriment might be hard to implement, however, so I’m not making it as a very serious suggestion, just something to consider.

Manually using a potion sounds interesting, I suppose that could also play into running on adrenaline in some way too, if used carefully enough. And if it’s an option, it doesn’t have to be indulged in so there’s no problem if it’s not perfectly implemented straight away.

All sounds good to me in general, though, I’m glad this game is always evolving.

Personally, I have not tried to play the game on a technical level in at least 18 months. I am playing intuitively which probably makes me more of a casual player. I only play the elf. I don’t put enough time into the game to justify the effort to level more than one character.

My experience and impressions are that the elf cannot win without the bonuses. She needs the mithril cloak, and at least 8+ weapons and a healthy set of potions. Further winning the games with the elf requires that strategy and tactics begin at the earliest levels of the game play. A couple of extra hits getting to the dungeons is all it takes to doom a particular iteration. Something as simple as hitting the final set of bosses with weak weapons all but guarantees that the elf will be underpowered against the dragons.

There are exceptions to these observations. I have won with surprisingly underpowered and characters and lost with a full set of +9 weapons. These exceptions lead me to believe that the elf is too subject to the roll of the dice. If I get a good set of rolls, and I play a tight game, I can win on a regular basis. I do win on a regular basis. What I would like to see is the ability to adjust my options for those times when a bad set of rolls leads to an underpowered character.

I would like to be able make choices that functionally impact my character when I enter the dungeons. I am aware that this would require a substantial re-write, but, again, my impression is that the continuing effort to tweak the character sheets is a continuing effort to correct strategic issues through tactical solutions. Slight modifications to the character’s abilities is unlikely to produce significant changes in game play. A character might become too easy or too hard to play effectively, but the character remains highly structured and fairly immutable.

A system that allows the player to choose the types of potions and quality of weapons that he uses will incentivize creative game play, strategy and tactics. The greater the range of choice, the greater the range in innovation. If a player can choose which weapons they will carry and their bonuses, or if the players can arrange their potions to suit a particular character set, then the player is in a much better position to adjust play based on the influence randomness during the game.

Arguably, the ability to switch between characters to meet changing game play addresses the points that I have raised. Significantly, the players who invest the most time in play and level each character are best able to benefit from this feature. So, the question becomes whether or not the long term profitability of the game is best served by tweaking the highest levels of play for the interest of a small group of elite players or by providing a broader road to elite levels of play by maximizing choices for players who invest fewer of hours of play time.

In either case, I think that the game is enjoyable and well written. I suspect that the game is membership is plateauing which accounts for the effort to tweak the characters. Sadly, there is no safe road forward from a development perspective. Too many tweaks or a series of bad tweaks and the game is ruined. A bad re-write and the game looses it core player group. Too little action and the game slowly atrophies and is overtaken by some other up and coming idea.

My opinion is that it is time for a major re-write to address strategic play. If the development team is not confident of their ability to complete the re-write and maintain the essence of the Dungeoneers, then it is time to put this game in a maintenance cycle and begin the next project.

So, the problem with having everyone play the same dungeon layout (or the same weapons drops), when the weapon bonuses are unknown a priori, is that it gives too much of an advantage to players who play last.

For example, imagine that you find out that another player has gotten a +9 bow, versus 15 red dragons, and you are about to play against 15 red dragons. Knowing in advance that there is a +9 bow to be found is a big advantage over the player who had to guess whether to delay fighting dragons while continuing to search for weapons (a practice that usually costs potions). Or the early player who guessed wrong.

This is solved by making the max weapons drops either predictable, or announced in advance.

How to make sure that the dungeon stays challenging, and does not get boring?

Have everyone play the 1st game of the tournament (vs 2 Red Dragons) using a level 10 Dwarf (for example, rather than their own character).

Give everyone a level 18 Elf when they get to the round of the Tournament where they fight 45 Red Dragons.

Definitely fairer than the current system, and (if the levels and characters are chosen well) never boringly easy.

Obviously, these all sound like great as OPTIONS. I say that specifically as there are times I wish these were available, and others where these sound like a hassle, apart from Wandering Dragons. I think that’d be a great feature to implement.

I like the idea of number 1 with the twist the +5 goes to the primary attribute of the active character. I would propose that some caverns show up as “dark” . Can’t preview the cavern. Can’t see more than one space away from the character when the character enters the cavern. Come up with some theme that makes the caverns high risk/high reward and can be avoided and still get to the lair. I like that this game changes. The theme is solid. Fun to play over and over.

If you have “dark” caverns, you could light them up with fire. They could go dark again when the fire goes out.

Great ideas. Personally I like any change that has a strategic impact, because then you need to adapt. Currently it makes sense to play the swarf against the dragons at high levels, when that swings to another class it will be interesting.

I like the sped up tourneys idea though

I have an idea: the dwarf is shield and defense oriented, so why not give a buff to the charge called: shield bash, you get a +x bonus equal to half your shield value rounded up the human is sword oriented, so he should get: chain attack, for each hit you get in a row after 3 hits, you get a +1 so long as the combo is kept going for the elf who is bow oriented: head shot, has slight chance to one-shot-kill on high rolls w/bow as well as making the “flaming” ability gain the bonus of behaving like a flame scroll: insta-killing fire weak enemies like ghosts and slimes

A lot of ideas: 1 - Trading Health for Strength - don’t like that idea….sometimes you get 16 health and other times only 9 or 10 health in a game…..health is too important to get a small increase for a few rounds. Maybe if there was “invincibility” for a 5 rounds, that might be worth it.

2 - Wandering Dragons - interesting and would be fun, wandering dragons should be limited to the ruins (lowest level) so that you have powerful enough weapons to fight them! The hardest part of the lair is when you get 6 dragons in 1 room, think the max should be 4 or 5 in a room!

3 - Adrenaline running - YES & YES (turn off auto-loot), also, why can’t adrenaline and heroic strikes be “taken into the next room”? You loose the extra play when it is the last monster in a room!

4 - Fairer Tourneys - ?? Not sure I understand this one…..

5 - Quicker Tourneys - like the 1, 2, 5 then 10 dragon change! Think going by 10 from there is too much, think increasing by 5 dragons is plenty….

One more comment…..think in the tourney you should (HAVE THE OPTION) to start at 1/2 of the level you completed the last-weeks tourney…..

hello !

As i’m in the second circle, i think i’m a high lvl player.

But i don’t play in advanced mode, and this implies some things :

1 ) I can’t afford this option. Potions are rare, sometimes i only found 4 in all the dungeon, the other ones are kept by ruins’ bosses. So… i it’s an option, i’ll probably never use it. +5 is not a sure strike, 3 HP worth a lot. But i’ve read the idea of giving a speed bonus, and THIS is a good one. I don’t fear swordfighting dragons, i fear their distance atk, and that i can’t reach em.

2) Why not. But what does this mean ? if there is just one or two in the lowest lvls, and if they are not in the lair, then yeah, give me a free dragon. But if it means that i HAVE to fight in every room to win, then a LOT of dungeons will be impossible to beat : i can’t fight in bosses room ! If you do so, there is no more pay-2-win logic (and i can handle this), it will be a pay-2-play logic.

3) it’s just optional. Yeah, why not.

4)looks like pay-to-win logic. but hey, you don’t pay to lose.

5)good idea.

I like what H2FSbF6 said a lot. But the spice with the dwarf for adrenaline is the fly in the soup for human and elf. With the elf it is “nasty” but possible to leave one monster alive and just “jump through”. With the human it is just embarrassing. Typically there is either no chance to “walk around” the remaining monster or the last one is just eaten up by the worm when running around pits. So if you want to leave it like it is, this should be more balanced. I wonder if it would be an option to bring up the worm if any monster is pushed into a pit. Maybe with delay, such the the human should move away from his field in the next turn. I don’t know if that brings extra strength or weakness, but it sounds like a possibility to at leave the potions over, if you can leave the room during this delay turn, even if no other monster is around or when the worm is up. But this is agan some complexity and balancing. It would add some fair spice, but you can also just make it easier for all to go on adrenaline trips.

azerty - you’re right potions are rare playing Basic. But you might consider option (1) even in Basic if you played well and got lucky so you had maybe 6 or 7 potions, but you got bad rolls on the weapons and ended up with a +4 sword. That additional +5 on attacks would mean you hit considerably more often which in turn translates into less hits. You could have the dragons ideally boxed in and lined up to skewer but for that you have to hit, and there’s a massive difference between a +7 (press, full swing, hasted) attack and a +12 attack against a dragon. You might save more than 3 hits.

The dragons would have to not wander into boss rooms for Basic players if you still had to kill all the dragons to win.

on the skipping levels in tourney thought. I would propose if you got to level 10+, you start at 5 next week. If you get to level 20+, you have the option of starting at 10 or 5 the next week.

Regarding the tourneys, we decided that the low levels are still fun for advanced players. There’s still the risk of you dying in the caverns, and it’s fun (and different) using your scrolls early to prevent that.

Instead, we cut out the higher levels which take up a lot more time. Adding a system for skipping levels didn’t seem worth it.

“There’s still the risk of you dying in the caverns, and it’s fun (and different) using your scrolls early to prevent that.”

Just exactly what happened to me on one dragon! :-(

1 and 2 are fantastic ideas! Maybe dragons in the Daily Hunt too, if you haven’t already done that. I like the idea of saving villagers from the layers. Maybe you should add another potion to give you Adrenaline. Anyways… Keep it up, Love the game!

I have a fun idea for the high-level players: a new area called the underworld (fame 80). accessible in the ruins though a portal(behaves like tunnels one-way only) with some high risk high reward stakes, 1.) the reaper can respawn multiple times 2.) enemy types consist of either size increased ruins enemies and/or the high rank enemies (skeleton lord, ghoul beast etc.) as well as more ghosts with heightened respawn rates 3.) new enemy types; hellhound 1hp atk:2 def:3 ability flame walk: has the ability to ignore flame scrolls, banshee 1hp atk:3 def:4 ability float/scream: its scream will stun anyone not guarding, and crazed enemies: lose normal movement for a charge turn one, leap two hexes ability atk:x def:0 4.) new bosses; the reaper lord ability path of death: 3hp atk:infinite def:8 acts like a normal reaper but more hp and def. the necromancer 2hp magic: 8 def:8 ability bony/revive: has the ability to cast a 4th spell that revives the last enemy killed. the dread worms hp3 atk:8 def:8 ability tunnel: 2 worms that are hostile (even to dwarf) they have the ability to tunnel below ground for one turn, pick a tile, (chosen tile will be marked) and if the tile is occupied, get a +2 attack on said player/monster if it misses it can be counter-attacked if guarding/ and it will dislodge said player/monster to an open adjacent tile regardless of hit, after which will behave like normal worm but will target the player more often and on death leaves a pit on the tile it was standing on. 5.) treasure keys and vault: for killing each boss (or stealing the key) there will be a key in each boss chamber that will be used to open the vault room containing 2-3 health potions 3-5 random scrolls, and 3 legendary items (sword shield and bow) which will be +8 (70% chance) +9 (20% chance) +10 (10% chance) 6.) +10 items seeing as how red dragons have +13 bonus a plus 10 item shouldent be too op especially considering the risk envolved (can only be gained in the vault) 7.) the dragon king (appears at fame 80 as well) 4hp (other stats based on dragon type +1 to all stats in comparison) behavior: only appears after all dragons are killed, has a +1 range to dragon breath, and can leap 2 spaces with a charge up time, gives 3x the exp of normal dragon type

Keep randomness in what we find. Anticipation and fun is more important than leveling all games to be the same.

The idea of a potion altar sounds fun. I like the weapon altar, and appreciate that if I am stuck with a +7 sword then I can it with the sacrifice of a health potion. I would like it if I could sacrifice some of my excess potions in order to turn one of them into a potion that I want.

Keep up the good work!

+1 for underworld due to very high consistency (it is already mentioned!). I would like to have undead bone dragons there. But maybe no (more) weapons, but an item would be cool. This item might be very different each time. That way the player may have to change the strategy towards this item.

E.g.
Ring of fire (some breath immunity)
Cloak of the ghost (Invisibility chance)
Amulet of the vampire (heals a wound with a low chance when close-combat-killing a big enemy)
Book of Necromancy (chance to resurrect a monster on the own side)
Head of Medusa (chance to turn enemy to stone when being attacked).
I think the community here would have some more ideas about underworld objects. We can start with just very little (tunnel like area, re-appearing reaper, ruin boss monsters…) to keep the workload low.

Cool names for Rellik’s items! :-) Whole underworld idea sounds interesting.

Here’s a totally different suggestion. Weapon Stash: If I don’t open the stone box in the lair, then when I win I have option of stashing a weapon in the box.
That weapon will be in the box next game. If I don’t open the box and I win, I have option of keeping that one or stashing a new weapon in the box (ie I can upgrade the stashed weapon). But if open the box and use the weapon during the game, then it’s back to being random for the next game.

So say I’m doing a campaign and I get a +9 sword from the ruins on the white dragons. I can put it in the box when I win. When I do the black dragons , I have choice of taking the +9 sword, or keeping it for later. Say I don’t take it. So when I get to the blue dragons and get 7,7,7 weapons, there’s a +9 sword I could use instead. But then it won’t be there for the red dragons, so I have to choose now or later.

Maybe the stash resets if you lose, for added risk. Career and Campaign weapons stash doesn’t “leak” into Tournament. But you could stash a weapon from one round to the next in Tournament.

An Underworld is something we’ve had on the back burner for a long time. As suggested, it would be linked by a portal from the ruins.

The idea is that it would be somewhere you’d go if you don’t think you have what it takes to win the game and are thus willing to risk it all to turn it around.

For example:

There is a lot of loot, but getting hit in the underworld drains “life force” or “resolve” or something that cannot be restored. If you are hit 3 times, the game ends. Maybe it’s linear like the hunt regions, but with an exit portal every other room. If you felt like the game was in the bag, you would not enter the underworld. If you were unsure, you might stay in until you take a hit, then beeline for the nearest portal. But if you felt like you needed to get more loot to win, you’d stay keep going even after being hit.

You could have the ghosts of the monsters you killed come back to haunt you in the Underworld. So the more monsters you kill getting there, the harder it is. Boss monsters etc as well. Dwarf only gets a ghostly purple worm if one died outside.

Perhaps that is too much encouragement for sneaking, though.

1 - Trading Health for Strength: yes in some way. maybe can choose which one to boost?

2 - Wandering Dragons: I’m not sure, I’m at 21 dragons now. what do you mean by high level? are you talking about character level or number of dragons or prestige?

3 - Adrenaline running YES!! almost since I started playing I would sometimes try to not kill all mobs so that I would not pick up a health pot

4 - In tourneys, should all ruins boss weapons be +8?

Maybe +7 first few, +8 next few, +9 after a certain point?

It might be fair as is since we all have the same RNG and luck is part of the game. If you want to make it more skill based then giving everyone the same 3 weapons is a good idea

5 - Quicker Tourneys

yes, and the other options presented make sense also.

With regard to Cri’s point (2) I assumed Rowdius meant Fame = Number of Dragons, rather than XP = character level. That’s how the other unlocks work, so that’s probably what’s straightforward to do.

But maybe it’s worth thinking about XP because a weaker character is going to struggle more against a dragon than a stronger one with more skills. Admittedly they usually go up together, but they don’t have to.

I agree with Cri’s point (4) it might be fair as is. Increasing strength boss weapons is a good idea too if you do want to standardise.

I just enjoy the simplicity of it. Very challenging…fun…don’t change too much please

1: I am indifferent.
2: I like the wandering dragons, only in the ruins or the rooms of the mines that you don’t have to go through. And, of course, those wandering dragons should bring their treasure, including possibly the mithril vest or the super nice treasure chest. 3: You can turn off auto loot if anyone wants that. I tried the adrenaline thing once and got killed, so its not a thing for me at this point. 4 & 5: Haven’t done tourneys.

Unsolicited Ideas for major rewrite: Make the dungeon levels variable, not the exact same layout every time the passages between rooms could have monster in them too include a challenging room, which is optional, that you know has a +9 weapon in it

1) Health for Strength: Interesting idea. I like the idea, depending on how it works. More damage, I assume. Move faster, like an elf? Higher chance to hit and to cleave? Devil’s in the details. Also, while you’re at it, allow the dwarf to heal Wormy by feeding her a potion.

2) Wandering Dragons: No, I do not like the idea. The exception might be if there’s significant reward involved, like a chest full of scrolls or potions or something.

3) Adrenaline Running: I blushingly admit, I didn’t know this was a thing. The option seems worthy if you can come back later to get it. Or, instead of a wandering dragon, have a wandering thief. If you leave behind goodies w/ no guarding monsters, theirs a rising chance - with each passing turn - that someone might steal them. Then you have to track them down before they escape the dungeon with your loot! (meaning that they start heading for the exit unless you track, catch, and slay them before they do)

4) Fairer Tourneys: Not sure of your meaning here. Meaning everyone ends up with +8 equipment by the time they reach the dragons - not +7 or +9 - but always +8? If you want to make it more about player tactics (less about luck), I don’t know how that makes a fairer tourney unless all the other variables are also the same, i.e. same number and kind of enemies, same number of potions and scrolls, pits and layouts and on and on. I say NO if it’s just that ONE variable.

5) Quicker Tourneys: Sounds good in concept. Let’s try in-game and see how it play out.

Thanks again for an awesome game!!

I like the idea of being able to give a health potion to the worm. Also like the idea of wandering dragons possibly bringing loot with them. I’m not sure about the thief. There should be only one thief so that if you stop him, your loot is safe from then on.

Hi, first thanks for the addictive game…

1: ok, but the number of life bottles is too variable from game to game. When I’m about to enter the lair with less than (about) 12 bottles, I usually just resign. Using the altar is (for me) prohibitive. 99.9% of the time I don’t interchange life bottles.

2, etc.. I’m ok (don’t care at all.)

BTW, some ideas I’ve sent some time ago via email (sorry for the offtopic):

The fire (caused by a fire scroll or a spider) should burn other scrolls (which are paper after all) in place. Nasty for the player, of course.

I think it will not be too difficult to code and will add another strategic twist.

Of course to maintain the balance, more scrolls should be added.

*

Please add more scrolls. They could be made available to players which win over 5, 10, 15… dragons, so the beginners don’t have to confront their complexity:

• A summoner scroll for calling the purple worm at a desired (selected) “hole” place
• A secured-12-points for the next hit
• A “central bolt” to hit the nearest neighbors around the hero
• A “god breath” scroll which hits all the living beings (including the hero) in the scene
• A fireball scroll with a fire power related to the number of present magicians which will act as a sort of magic amplifiers
• White Witch scroll, which summons a helper witch that sends fireballs to the present enemies. Ignored by the monsters, is only killed by the monster ball explosions or (accidentally) the the hero’s weapons. Lives until the end of the scene.
• Cerberus scroll (summons the three headed dog, with three lives) which (the legend tells) was trained by the White Witch. When deployed wanders randomly hitting or at least distracting the monsters (more or less similar to the cavern crawlers its interactions.) —

Give up on 11 potions? That’s like 40 or 50 dragons’ worth! You must be on huge number of dragons if you don’t have a fighting chance with that. I’d swap 2 potions for a +9 at the drop of a hat with that. Don’t like the idea of burning scrolls. There are too few of those as well. I do like the idea of different types of scrolls. Gives more options / forces more different strategies if you’re short of the ones you really wanted.

I had the very same experience as JoseAdolph the first time I played, thinking, “Oh, deploying this flame is going to ruin the scrolls/potions it’s over!” It makes perfect sense, when considered logically, especially w/ scrolls. Such a consequence forces the players to be more… um, reflective in their choices. Of course compensation would be required if that was the case, for instance: flames last longer AND/OR creatures passing (or caught) on a safe space, but BETWEEN flames, might take damage (with higher chances for already-susceptible creatures like ghosts, specters, slimes, etc.) AND/OR creatures are repelled by flames AND/OR enemy arrows cannot pass through flames (but maybe crossbow bolts CAN) AND/OR lesser chance-to-hit for monsters shooting through the flames AND/OR creatures are stunned for a round if beside flames when they first ignite… Just thinking about real-life fire suggests many permutations. Additionally (not that I’m complaining), it really does not make sense for characters to maintain “stealth” after setting off a flame scroll. Can you imagine lounging around in your lair, then a sudden bonfire ignites and you don’t notice?? At the very least, the ODDS of successful stealth should go down because your enemies are now on alert that the circumstances are less that ordinary.

While I’m here, I’d like to voice one very-sincere complaint. The way slimes respond to the proximity of the elf is EPICALLY unfair! With her limited hit points AND having the weakest defensive odds, having the yellow molds not only detect her - but also move in the same turn? She’s practically worthless in those tunnels; she’s gone from the best choice to the worst. And the logic??? So, yellow slimes are blind and dumb and move randomly… unless you’re an elf? Scandalous. If you feel you must - for some reason - nerf her capabilities in the tunnels, why not just say that her elven nature makes her particularly vulnerable to acidic attacks; if a slime touches her, there is zero chance that she’ll escape damage . IDK, with the changes, she’s gone from being my favorite character to my least-favorite, and I’m still working through the grieving process.

If the monsters notice the fire, perhaps they don’t notice you? So with that logic, the monsters should turn towards the flame and you stay in sneak mode?

From a storyline perspective it makes perfect sense that the scrolls would get destroyed by the fire (they are in cases, though). I wondered that the first time I hit a firebug on a hex with a scroll. I think it would make the game very hard though. Its often rooms with extra monsters that have the extra scrolls. Your choices are limited in those rooms. At the very least, there should be more scrolls so you could afford to destroy some.

Yeah the tunnels are hard now for the elf when you are also trying to preserve all hit points and flame scrolls. You can use leap scrolls to jump over slimes, I think. I usually play the dwarf and he isn’t so dependent on fire in the lair so I just use half a dozen flame scrolls to burn my way through.

@ChadIcon - The slimes only detect her and get a free move when she leaps over them. It’s not because she’s an elf, it’s because they sense the movement above them. (The logic is that they sense the movement above them and immediately turn in the direction of the movement.) It doesn’t happen for magical leaps because we are treating magical leaps as special, where you are never spotted. But if the human or dwarf were able to non-magically leap over a slime, it would react the same as it does with the elf. The elf’s leap ability still gives a big advantage in the tunnels, she just needs to be careful about leaping over slimes. (Landing next to them has no penalty - it’s just the leaping over that matters.)

Ok, Rowdius. Your explanation makes sense. I don’t know if I realized it was the standard (for the elf) leap that caused it. I will take that into account better, now, next time she braves the tunnels. Thanks!

1 - Trading Health for Strength Not sure. This has to be something that is used tactically. If it’s something you always use, it doesn’t add anything to the game.

2 - Wandering Dragons Not sure

3 - Adrenaline running Doubt it would be an improvement

4 - Fairer Tourneys Not sure this makes it more fair or less fair. This gives a guaranteed +8 to advanced players making it less fair for non advanced. There’s also an tactical decision to be made before entering a boss room. Will it be worth it for the weapon I get? Knowing it’s going to be +8 makes the decision easier by taking some risk away. However, a random weapon makes for a random tourney. So I see this could go either way.

5 - Quicker Tourneys Sounds good.

At 10 blues I’m not really qualified to answer most of the questions. I would like to thank you for a great game. Who knows how long I can keep playing this game. The game has to keep getting harder but if it becomes unachievable, players quit. The challenge for the game designers is to keep it interesting for for the long time player base. It’s awesome that you are always looking into that.

Ok, I just had a moment of inspiration - related to potions-but-not-for-healing - as I was playing the human and wishing in the moment that I had a better shield. The potion POUR.

Pour it on yourself, get a movement/leap buff. Pour it on your shield, get a defense buff Pour it on your sword, get a damage/to-hit buff. Pour it on your bow, get a range/accuracy buff. Pour it on your wormy (if you’re the dwarf) to bestow a damage/armor buff and/or wormy’s restored to full health.

Here’s how I imagine it. Click the potion and 4 icons slide out (5 if you’re stumpy and grumpy and wormy is already flailing about). Click your choice, hear the sploosh-noise, and rock on, dudes! You are now chuffed and buffed!

(…and yes, I KNOW; it’s supposed to be, erm, less-than serious, in keeping with the tone of this faboid game…)

Yes to all 5 ideas.