Sorry, haven't found it yet - currently at the Isle of White Vertigo and I suspect these items are back over Timmertaut way - in fact I think I may even have got a Rosewood staff there many moons ago when I first did that area, but got rid of it without knowing its functionality. However I have currently paused my game again and it may be a while before I continue. If I find a dreamcoat or rosewood staff and remember, I'll get back to you. If you find it first lemme know, I'd be curious what you find.
Sabrecam
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Ok, so sadly I guess this game goes back into hibernation for a few more years. Over many hours I progressed through the mazes of the Castle of Mirrors and reached level 3 and there encountered a number of monsters named 'Shimmering Wall'. This monster applies the same effect as the trap - applies the effect that almost always summons demons. It does it on EVERY hit. It also looks like a normal wall, so it is very easy to stumble right into it. Yay.
So I tried to cast my ace-in-the-hole banish demons spell and it won't let me - 'Ah, but the colours are too beautiful for that'. I lasted 5 rounds by using a gleaming wand, but nope, being immediately surrounded by endgame monsters is too much even for my L19 Chaos Warrior Mage. I honestly see no way to survive this attack/trap once it fires. You can't outfight it, you can't run, you can't use any magic to help yourself, you can't resist it, you can't heal your way through it, you can't dispel it, and you cannot hide/survive till it wears off. So *Boom* guaranteed death.
If anyone ever figures out how to handle this trap/effect I'd love to know how!
Ok and I just reached the Castle of Mirrors. Phew. Coming back to this after a few years is confusing :). Also I think I may have a Level 4 Battle spell 'Banish Demons' that may also get rid of the traps effect that I have not yet tested...
Also, the packaged JRE seems to be no longer working. I downloaded the latest JRE and installed that and it worked though.
Thanks Nathan. I was afraid of that. I guess I'll try it again with a bigger focus on detection. My prior attempts to avoid solely by detection got tedious because these particular super traps are everywhere in that meadow and the place is already confusing and hard to navigate (appropriately enough in context)! You spend a lot of time stumbling around in there!
As for being stronger, I am unsure if I can be much stronger in that spot since I had explored extensively, including Divinity itself and that seemed to be the only way forward (from memory). My character was bad-ass and able to handle most things in the normal course of play easily enough. The issue was that these demons seem to be really really powerful, and suddenly occurred in huge numbers. If the trap spawns larva on top of my head, no problem I can survive even a horde that has surrounded me easily, but the demons... Yoiks. Even individually they are a handful and encountering a dozen was a death sentence, particularly since they popped in and surrounded you, so you could not necessarily bottleneck them, you just got swarmed.
Is that trap prevalent (as opposed to occasional) throughout the rest of the game, or is it mainly the magic meadow where it is is prevalent? I encountered it in prior areas but rarely until the magic meadow area. If it is just a matter of painstakingly picking my way through the meadow and then only occasionally seeing it again, it is worth the effort!
(But I think I'll go and give it another go now anyway, maybe epiphany will strike!)
I was playing this and loving it years ago (still got it installed actually, because I really would like to go back and finish it) but eventually hit a spot in the magic meadows where I kept getting basically instakilled by a certain trap. The trap was one that made you hallucinate and then while that was happening you would usually get mobbed by very powerful demons. I wonder - does anyone know of a way to avoid or disarm this trap or survive the hallucination effect without painstakingly checking every step you take for traps? This trap basically killed the game for me as it meant that on that map I was pretty much guaranteed of just dying with no way out when (not if), I had the bad luck to hit these traps :(.
1. Well, yes I did guess that trying to climb a mountain with no skill would probably be fatal. Kind of obvious, like in real life :). But I have no idea how I ended up confirming that deeply stupid move in this case. In fact, at the time there wasn't even a mountain on the screen (as I said, it was a map transition).
6.I got it in Isen Dun, didn't see a trainer in Carcassia but maybe that was because I already had it by then. If it can be bought then cool, that's pretty accessible.
7. Interesting - that is the tower with the wizard and the quest to get the key? I didn't see a town there too, unless it was a on a blank tile with flavour text and I didn't move there or see it maybe. Will have to keep an eye out next time. I must have been right next to it if it was there! I noted the quest giver said the town 'wasn't far away' but I still couldn't see it.
12. I guessed it might be something like that but my character did not get told this or find any proof. Just some mummies, the hag, a number of monsters, and the black orb. I'd think if a giant super-dragon smashed its way through the city and out into the world there might be some soot marks, shattered gates, bits of dwarf in places bits of dwarf don't usually end up, and a note written in blood 'Amaurosis is eating me! Aaaargh, aaargh, ouch!' somewhere :).
15. I am assuming that changing key configs is hard somehow? Or our philosophies on such things differ (I am a programmer too, albeit for business, not games, although I do contemplate writing a roguelike or crpg of my own one day). I feel that if a user can be stopped from doing something both unintentional and damaging by a simple UI or key press change, it is worth doing. But perhaps you feel 'It is a roguelike and meant to be a B*st*rd, so tough cookies baby!'. I guess that is fair, in context.
18. Hmm. I did try kicking a few times and I thought I'd tried digging. The kicking didn't do anything but maybe I needed to keep doing it for a while (I think I tried three times in a row, maybe fourth would have worked...). I think the digging just dug a hole.
20. It is good that the ini has these options, but is the player necessarily aware of them without talking to you first? Some ini tweaks could be enabled on the menu, or a help note put it in that they exist if player wants to do it?
Oh and also, I couldn't find the spellbook the urchin was supposed to have in Carcassia, but maybe it was lost in clutter after I murdered all the urchins.
Anyway, definitely sounds like a game to try again once my memory has faded and the changes have come through! You might consider putting this on Steam one day (and keeping a free copy at itch.io and on your website too, with a note this is the case, since you want it to be free). This might help to make it better known , which I think it deserves, and earn you a few extra pennies too.
Howdy!
Firstly, let me say this is a ridiculously awesome game and a top-notch roguelike. Don't let any of my comments/complains below give the impression I think anything else. With a bit more time in the oven this game can match ADOM, Caves of Qud etc!
So I beat the game! I killed the Wyrm, And then about 30 minutes later I crossed a world map transition and somehow tried to scale a mountain, fell off and died instantly. RIP 'Torg' my L50 Ogre Thief! Even though I had officially won, and hit the level-cap I had hoped to get the three relics and see what the 'knife that can cut the world' could do (I had two relics and was on my to get the third when I insta-died). I also had planned to go to the bottom of the ocean and see what was down there :(. I also didn't see what the dang Praetor was all about since I had finally collected his secretary's silly quills/inkpots! Boo!
Anyway, some comments:
1) (Given the above anecdote you know I am going to whinge about this!) Instadeath because of Y/N prompts. Just no! I got killed because I crossed a transition on a world map and somehow either got forced 'Y' on an instadeath thing or absent-mindedly clicked 'Y' or something without knowing what I was doing. I am still not sure how it happened! I mean you really aren't always reading everything that flashes up on the screen as 99% of it is just not important most of the time, or you have seen it a thousand times before, particularly in a safe place. So suddenly have an edge case pop up that can kill you is not great. It should just not be possible to get into a situation where you insta-die because of this. And as mentioned, aside from the ignominious death of my demi-god Ogre, I had an earlier good run end similarly because of an accidental 'Y' that led me to attack a shopkeep. These kinds of gotcha deaths should be 100% intentionally caused by the player meaning to do something risky or stupid. I beat many roguelikes including ADOM and TOME and an early build of Caves of Qud (in that I did all the major stuff on the unfinished main quest anyway) and your otherwise brilliant game has a much higher 'You pushed the wrong button in an otherwise safe spot and instantly died' ratio than any other I can think of.
2) Quests - many times I completed a quest without having it on my list. That's fine and I am happy I can do it, but I do wish I got the flavour text so I know what I did.
3) Quests - maybe allow a Y/N to accept or not (don't close the quest forever if I say 'N'! As a demi-god hero who just killed the Wyrm maybe I don't want to go and get a loaf of bread and have it in my quest journal you know? But if I accidentally click no I don't want to close off the possibility forever unless it matches the roleplaying situation
4) Quests - where you give items to complete. Definitely have a Y/N here. E.g. I might want to give the sunstone to the Smith but instead I spoke to the Witch and lost it. Particularly if I didn't even know she had a quest for the same item because I never had the quest. Or maybe I just want to keep 'Ironsword' for the moment
5) Balance. I kind of feel balance could be polished. Currently you are either invulnerable or die instantly in fights. Once I hit a certain point almost nothing could touch me. Even the great Wyrm itself only manage to do ~100 points of damage (out of 260 or so HP). Conversely early to mid-game you can VERY easily get into a death spiral if you get slowed/stunned/blinded. You get stunlocked and boom, that's it. Also any damaging magical spells from enemies are insanely dangerous at early to mid-game, even from lowly apprentices and the like. I lost track of the number of times I got one or two shotted by spellcasters, often before I even saw them. Obviously I eventually got a build/luck that got me through, particularly since I started to be incredibly careful when I saw a known or probable spellcaster and prioritised any resistance and recovery gear I found over all else, but... Maybe that could be improved. Or maybe you like it this way, dunno. Still, my thief build grew out of this exact balance issue - he was designed to be able to kill anything ultra fast, tank at least some damage and critically, let me control when and what I engaged (by stealth/hiding). Any other build just didn't survive past the early twenties, too vulnerable to surprises. But you know what? I really wanted to play a Sage past level 20. I lost DOZENS of Sages! :)
6) Make it a bit easier to get basic literacy. You have so much great lore, you want players to read it! I'd suggest a trainer you can pay so it is guaranteed if you want it. Maybe have payable trainers for other skills too.
7) The town of 'Sithrin' I think it was - I could not locate it! I had explored the northern part of the world where I though it was extensively but never saw it. Dunno if I was blind or it bugged or something.
8) Places on the world map - quite a few are unmarked unless you spot flavour text as you go through. Some (like the dude hiding in the tunnel) , I think this is fine for as it is secrety - but many others like the Caldera could be clearer?
9) Is there a way into the underworld at the Caldera?
10) Couldn't find the lover of that woman in Carcassia. Dunno if me or bug. Checked West Gate extensively
11) Be nice to be able to reset reputation with Guards if (when!) you accidentally annoy them. Maybe allow a huge bribe to a judge or something?
12) Couldn't find out what killed Wyrmswraec despite emptying the place and getting the Orb. Maybe because I killed the Wyrm first? Was the some text from the hag that didn't trigger perhaps?
13) Maybe make the Wyrm's cave more obviously the endgame so player knows that's what they have found. I kind of just wandered in thinking it was Wyrmswraec, only to find it was actually the end dungeon! Lucky I could take the big bad down with minimal prep at that point. Still, felt a little anti-climactic
14) I know you said you were going to do more work on followers but currently they really are pretty useless. Suggestion - make 'em act like Caves of Qud?
15) Suggest moving questlog OR quit and abandon character off 'Q'. I didn't mess that up, but I could see it happening...
16) Be nice to get rid of or increase level-cap. I still had plenty of skills I could have improved. I often feel a game becomes less interesting the moment you cannot advance any more.
17) Burying bodies and digging. Suggest allowing this to happen via dedicated command if you have item in inventory. Equipping shovel etc, dig,, drop body, uneqip is pretty tedious. Another reason I ended up with Thief was so I could take Trickster as my God and allow the sneak attack to worship conveniently for me! Many of the other Gods, particularly the good aligned ones, are pretty tedious to worship.
18) Oh, how do you desecrate an altar? Never did figure that out
19) Should be able to see status ailments in full description in case i don't know what 'MT' or 'St' means. If this is possible already, it should be more obvious.
20) Wild suggestion - a nearly brilliant but flawed roguelike called 'Legerdemain' had an interesting savegame system where you could sleep at certain inns and create a checkpoint. Then if you died, you woke up after a 'nightmare' instead. These checkpoints were rare and there were big gaps between them... But it did help to offset gotchas and let you continue through the story without just seeing the same bits over and over again. That was the reason that system was important for Legerdemain - it was also a world with rich lore and story, as opposed to being just a highly proc-gen'd and lore-lite dungeon crawl like most roguelikes. So presumably to help players see the story/lore this was implemented. I wonder if something like this as an optional(?) mode might be good for your game? Particularly if you continue to expand the world. I could see it making it too easy too I guess (then again I actually didn't beat Legerdemain in the end, even after scores of hours of play, so maybe not!). Still, if you end up doubling or tripling the size of your world over time, perhaps keep this idea in your back pocket.
Anyway, really great game. I may pop back in a year or two to see what's changed.
Hi,
Great game and I am really enjoying it I have a few questions and comments:
1) Do magic skills actually do anything? I pump points in but see no obvious result. Casting definitely improves the individual spell, but what does one get for just improving 'Primordial' or 'Cantrips'?
2) I think attacking friendly NPCs should be an explicit action. I lost a good run because I accidentally attacked a shopkeeper while thinking I was answering a 'Swap? Y/N'. To attack a friendly NPC it should only happen if I initiate via multi-key press (like shift+k or something). Also, why not just auto-swap with friendlies? The auto-swap would work well I think, if combined with an explicit 'attack friendly' key.
3) Currently hitting 'c' brings up Codex. Shift+C is 'Chat'. This should be the other way around since we talk a lot and type searches into Codex rarely (very rare so far! I have done it once! Usually, if I access Codex it usually via Bestiary or Item description).
4) Casting spells on things that are located in the wall does not work (e.g. Spook or that 'orrible crone that popped out of a wall and killed me!)? I can kill things in walls by hitting them, but spells don't seem to do anything?
5) Be nice to be able to see what your God likes or hates with a keypress rather than digging up the manual.
6) NPCs allies are useless so far. They almost always get 'lost' and rarely help me in a fight, even if explicitly ordered to do so. Or this has been my experience via allied adventurer or random person you are escorting anyway. I haven't tried a hireling yet, maybe they are better.
7) Perhaps allow a person to retry Identify via Lore every ten points of investment or something? Currently it is a bit hard/expensive to identify.
8) Named adventurers in Dungeons. Is there a reason for this? Lovely flavour text, but they never drop anything cool, and can't really be talked to.
Anyway, great game!