I found a bit of a bug to do with the missile weapons. Basically, sometimes ranged attacks get blocked by terrain similar to what happens in DooMRL when you aim through a wall.
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#@..
i.....
So when I try to fire my crossbow at the imp all my bolts hit the stone :( which isn’t cool. Especially as in Berserk! you can’t get more ammo nearly as easily as you could in DooMRL. I guess that this isn’t easy to fix so I got some suggestions for alternative solutions:
*sigh* One of these days I'll write a new targeting code for my roguelikes, and stop reusing the same old one -_-. But I guess now I might just tweak the "forgivingness" of the los calculation during shooting.
Also I’ve experimented with the frozen levels a bit and I like what the icy water does. I think it adds nice bit of variation in terrain. I’m not entirely sure what the Frozen points mean or how they differ from Pain, if at all, but it seems, balance-wise, reasonable enough. A question though, does it affect enemies as well? It could make for some interesting tactics if it does, though I could see why you wouldn’t want that. I’m not a fan of Ice though. It just seems to be a bit annoying and not much else... Maybe instead of throwing you from one space to another it could increase the effect of knock-back? So it could be used tactically in combination with the cannon or just to keep slow monsters like Yeti at bay for longer. Just an idea.
As for frozen, see post above. I'll make it stronger though :P. It doesn't affect enemies, because I assumed they are deamons, and used to this kind of environment (especialy the ice ones).
On a more minor point: when told to move in to a helpless townsfolk you get a message saying “Let them live… a little longer”. Now, I only know Berserk through a gore-maniac of a friend and you mentioned a rich story when describing Berserk soo I guess I’m not the wisest on this subject but isn’t that a bit unlike Guts? I mean, I remember him going through some *huge* beatings just to make sure some random passer-by’s doesn’t die. Thought I’d bring that up.
* Kornel Kisielewicz laughs maniacaly.
Well, let me pull out some quotes by Guts :
"If you're always worried about crushing the ants beneath you...you won't be able to walk."
"Do whatever you want now. But if you disturb me, I'll kill you."
And maybe the piece of dialogue directly from the manga that almost directly answers your question:
Puck : "You mean you're planning to drag all the townspeople into this?!"
Guts : "I don't
care. All I wanna do is find that bastard and
kill him. I don't care about
anything else. Anyone who dies because they get caught up in someone else's fight is a small fry who doesn't have the strength to survive in the first place."
Yeah, and he acts on this. To me it's one of the beauties of Berserk -- the main character is no goody-goody evil, but almost as mad and evil as the evil he fights with. "For who fights with monsters must watch, not to become a monster himself" as Nietzsche wrote. Guts is driven to survive only by his hate and need of revenge, he looses sight of everything else. That's why it's Berserk after all...
... sure, somewhere deep down in his soul there are still compassion and other values, but they are just a faint light compared to the darkness within him. And the moments that he shows those feelings are really rare. Watching him fight most people would see no difference between him and the demons ;].
Overall it seems pretty stable to me so far. Much liking Berserk! :)
Thanks!
I much recommend you give the anime, and then the manga a chance :)[/list]