Are you guys happy now? - game getting ultra-hard-core now

[szopin]

This was somewhat to be expected, most RFEs and bug reports being submitted by HC adomers, now we have first fruit:

- Feature 813 - Make gremlins/summoned creatures unpickpocketable
- Feature 858 - Make trees immune to Banshee wail
- Feature 1116 - Weighted Monster Generation
- Feature 1117 - Stat Potentials
- Feature 1118 - Increase Difficulty of Air and Earth Temples
- Feature 1161 - Casino Robbing made harder
- Feature 1198 - [Balance] Nerf Seven League Boots
- Feature 1200 - [Balance]Starsigns
- Feature 1201 - [Balance] HP-casting should be more costly
- Feature 1202 - [Balance] Greater/killer bugs should shrug bolts
- Feature 1203 - [Balance] Shopkeepers should see in the dark
- Feature 1204 - [Balance] Pick Pockets
- Feature 1206 - [Balance] Make teleport control harder to acquire
- Feature 1223 - Don't give experience or loot from "clones"
- Feature 1231 - No items on the ground in the ID?
- Feature 1237 - [Balance] Bosses upgrade
- Feature 1244 - Orb guardian corpse effects
- Feature 1269 - [Balance] Herbs respect potential maximums
- Feature 1361 - Making killer bugs harder to tame?
- Feature 1376 - [Balance]Banshee
...

I'll not even start to list bugs that make the game better(harder). While CK/ME feel a bit overpowered atm, it is going to get nerfed pretty soon I am sure. And then Steam, where there will be a ton of complaints about game being too hard... Thoughts?

[Stingray1]

I'm almost happy, but I hear the casino still gives infinite gold.

[szopin]

I don't know, for me it seems the game just got more harder for casuals, that would stairhop a bit when they felt a certain character was promising (now it's running from I1-I3 and back again as it is safe and you will get those books as drops eventually, just not in 5 minutes, but 1h). Fix for tediousness = more tediousness, yay!

[anon123]

Of the ones listed, the one change I despise the most is making stat potentials fixed, closely followed by reducing the effectiveness of the Pick Pockets skill. The others I don't care too much about (in comparison), although I do fear that if anything that gives the player some advantage is considered broken and must be balanced, as some people seem to think, the game will become too bland. Found a pair of 7LBs? Too bad the movement energy reduction has been halved. Got teleport control and managed to snatch the wand of teleportation? No, raiding Darkforge is a luck-based mission now. Managed to create a stable patch of herbs? You can only train Toughness up to your magnificent potential of 13 now. *sigh*

[Stingray1]

ID stairhopping I've never done, so I don't know how tedious it was, but the rest of the early and midgame I find to be exciting.
Played a wizard the other day and he was able to find about 6 books saving the puppy. Not too bad in my books.

[JellySlayer]

"Stairhopping" and "casuals" are not words that I would normally associate with each other. Tedious scumming techniques are typically the realm of hardcore gamers; casuals just want to play and have fun. If the game is too hard to be won without tedious scumming techniques, the solution is to make it easier, not force players to use exploits to win.

Incidentally, I don't think either Mist Elves or Chaos knights are particularly overpowered. Barbarian or beastie is still easier than a chaos knight, certainly. Mist elves have a lot of problems due to monstrously low HP and slow leveling. If you're playing a non-caster/archer, they're pretty brutal, actually.

[Spellweaver]

I second Anon hardly. Making game "more balanced" only made it harder, and changes didn't make it more exciting. Stat potentials mean that now physically weak characters suffer a lot, while physically strong remain untouched. Nerfing 7LB means that monks and barbarians rock even more now. Didn't they already?

[szopin]

"Stairhopping" and "casuals" are not words that I would normally associate with each other. Tedious scumming techniques are typically the realm of hardcore gamers; casuals just want to play and have fun. If the game is too hard to be won without tedious scumming techniques, the solution is to make it easier, not force players to use exploits to win.

Incidentally, I don't think either Mist Elves or Chaos knights are particularly overpowered.

Funny, how biggest complainers about those were HC gamers who 'never stooped to use those tactics'. For me stairhopping was sometimes useful on assassins as getting one with literacy (and now with concentration ME who are not at all OP) means invisi-backstab play. Guess most hardcore-tediousness can reroll until a book of invis is in the holeinthewall shoppe. Maybe RFE to fix stealth will be better solution. Still, the trend is towards - nerf everything I'm afraid

[Stingray1]

I would suggest not to make rash judgement, until the current version has been tested sufficiently. The stat potentials not raised by herbs is good, atleast I'm not pressing w5 next to a bunch of stupid herbs now.

[szopin]

Barbarian or beastie is still easier than a chaos knight, certainly. Mist elves have a lot of problems due to monstrously low HP and slow leveling. If you're playing a non-caster/archer, they're pretty brutal, actually.

Incidentally rerolling CK with babbling mouth to gain all spells is now easiest way for invisi assassins. Book casting a babbling-learned spell, nerf literacy or concentration all you wish (ME/CK for the rescue I guess)