DRL > Requests For Features

AoB improvement discussion

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myuzinn:
In my recent AoB mortem, Kornel asked for suggestions on improving AoB, making it more interesting or evening out the difficulty curve. I figured opening a discussion here would attract attention better.

The main perceived problem with AoB is the difficulty curve. Much more frustrating/difficult early game than late game. Many players seem to complain about not being able to reach even the chained court with any regularity. On the other hand, once one gets past the initial Bru/Ber traits and starts accumulating defensive traits, and especially when one nabs the Longinus spear, the game gets substantially easier. Still possible to die if being foolish, but perhaps a bit too easy.

So the question is, how to make things easier early game, without making the late-game even easier than it already is? Most of the ideas I have seem to make the game easier at all points of play unfortunately.

Here are some ideas. Not all addressing the difficulty issue, some are just to make things more interesting/fun. Note that I don't mean them all to be implemented simultaneously - that may make things too easy.

Trait Changes

1) Merging brute and berserk. Berserk functionality is included with the first level of brute. By allowing a player the occasional early-game berserk, you're giving them some more temporary armor/speed, as well as making the game more exciting/fast by being able to rush more things instead of endless gift dropping. You would still berserk less initially, due to berserking chance supposedly being affected by damage output.

or

2) Adding melee-only to-hit bonus to Brute. Each level of brute also confers +1 to hit for melee strikes only. Allows the player to not miss so much in the very first levels, which is quite nice if you've ever gotten a huge chunk of life taken away by a consecutive string of unlucky rolls against a lowly imp.

New functionality
These would probably be implemented in traits I guess?

1) Some of the striking maneouvers from Kornel's Berserk! game. 3-square strikes, impalement, etc. Someone in another thread suggested the chainsaw be inherently capable of performing the 3-square strike using special reload. Since melee weapons don't need either reload or special reload, they could both be mapped to different kinds of strikes, depending on the weapon.

Another option would be like the great-cleave feature in d&d and that incursion roguelike, whereby any adjacent enemy you kill in one strike allows you to follow through into any other enemy adjacent to the player. This repeats until either the player misses a hit, or fails to kill an enemy in one strike, or runs out of adjacent enemies.

Edit: I had something here called Blast/Explosion jumping, but realised that it did nothing that hellrunner didn't already effectively do, and hellrunner does it all better as well. Poorly thought out idea.

I had more ideas, but I've forgotten them now. I might post some more later.

Captain Trek:
I'll reiterate what I said in my thread, "Can someone explain to me how angel of berserk is meant to be possible?"...


--- Quote ---Giftdropping would be so much easier if you could drop stuff in any of the nine squares around you, instead of only being able to drop it on the spot where you're standing... Maybe that could be made an option in the coming version... "d" for a regular drop as we have now and "D" for a directional drop (you'd get a "choose direction" message as you do when you press "c" whilst standing next to more than one open door or you press "f" when weilding a melee weapon)...

That way, in for example this situation...

.@# . . .
. . . . . h
. .# . . .

... I wouldn't have to come out of cover to drop something into the tile below me to attract the sargeant...
--- End quote ---

Note that the above is not an exact quote from my thread... I've edited slightly so it makes sense out of context with the rest of the thread...

007bistromath:
I think that's actually an excellent idea. Generally, I don't want AoB to be easier than it is, I think it's supposed to be an awful bitch, but the directional drop just makes sense.

myuzinn:
Captain Trek, there is a way to drop an item there without moving currently. If you keep dropping items without moving, they'll start dropping into adjacent squares, eventually into the one you want it to be in. Takes longer and requires carrying more drop items, but should work I think.


--- Quote from: 007bistromath on December 27, 2008, 03:56 --- I don't want AoB to be easier than it is, I think it's supposed to be an awful bitch
--- End quote ---
Yeah I think you're right. I've been thinking about this all wrong. There's nothing wrong with having challenges of different difficulty levels. I think people were mainly irritated at berserk's difficulty due to it being a requirement to opening many of the other challenge modes they wanted to play instead. A matter of taste.

I like berserk myself, but I can see how it may not be to others' tastes.

Honestly I've yet to think of many ideas that eases the early game but doesn't ease the late game even more. About the closest I've thought of is stuff like "increase healing power of small medkits, due to their proliferation early on" (but like I said in my post-mort, most of my deaths had lots of medkits in their inventories, so that's not right), or giving players who take the AoB challenge an inherent +2 armor, while toning down longinus' protective aura a little (I don't like this one much).

So yeh my interest in the topic has waned a bit.

Vestin:

--- Quote from: myuzinn on December 27, 2008, 00:01 ---Trait Changes
1) Merging brute and berserk
or
2) Adding melee-only to-hit bonus to Brute.
--- End quote ---
Maybe we should make EVERY character have a chance to go berserk after a successful melee hit, removing the trait altogether ? Normal characters wouldn't risk it often anyway and you would have a bonus from the get-go...
Then you may make Brute like this:
1st level - adds to melee damage only
2nd level - adds to melee accuracy only
3rd level - adds to both


--- Quote from: myuzinn on December 27, 2008, 00:01 ---New functionality
1)3-square strikes
2)the great-cleave

--- End quote ---
I'd say that those are great. Basically - we'd have 3 attacks per melee weapon. My ideas:
weapon - basic attack - reload attack - special attack
fists - single hit - powerful strike (takes twice the time but deals 2-3 times the damage) - 3-square hit (with a knockback chance)
knife - stabs a single enemy - the great cleave - throws the knife (in 4-5 squares radius)
chainsaw - thrust at a single enemy - the great cleave - swing (3-square attack)
Butcher's Cleaver - single strike - the great cleave - whirlwind (hits every adjacent square)
LS - single strike - the great cleave - thrust (attacks an enemy 2 squares away from the character)

Notes:
1. I want to throw my knife. I picked it up, I've earned it, I want to throw it away ;).
No, seriously, I don't think it would be unbalanced or not true to the challenge. The throw radius is limited, you are left WITHOUT A WEAPON after you throw the knife, every knife takes a single spot in the inventory... It would be a nice way to get rid of barrels, for one. It would also allow some diversity in what we carry around. The knife is destroyed after being thrown (the hellspawn break it or it just melts in the explosion of the barrel). If we'd really want to throw some, we'd have to spare a LOT of inventory space...
2. The LS SHOULD be able to attack a little further than a knife. It's a SPEAR. Like most of what I suggest - it's not overpowered, can be easily balanced, adds diversity and choice, makes a difference some of the time, yet not changing the focus of the entire game.
3. 3-spot or even 8-spot attacks are only effective if you're in a crappy situation anyway. I don't think people would put themselves in such spots on purpose.
4. Using a non-basic attack would, I guess, take a little more game-time. That can easily mean death if you can't just stop and heal while performing such stunts. IMHO - risky things are fun.


Anyway - let's brainstorm some more and then make a poll.

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