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[delphonso]

But basically after completing the first contract, the world does open up a little. You get a fast travel option to another town, there's more of everything you need (vendors to buy stuff, a steady supply of identification scrolls....) and the game does start giving you a little direction on what's worth your time to do.

An interesting choice.

Spoiler: horribly off topic digression (click to show/hide)

This reminds me somewhat of The Last Remnant. It is a JRPG with a bit of a unique combat system which is made up of squads. Until after a certain boss, you're limited to only two squads. Enemies automatically scale to your level, including some abilities which scale to attack more squads/disable squads entirely. All this means, if you grind at all before the first boss, you'll level the boss outside of your ability to deal with them and completely fuck your save. Just a baffling design decision, but after you run into that once (and then start over or load an earlier save), you'll find a pretty enjoyable RPG.

Thanks for the reactions nenjin - I'm still on the fence about it. I might pick it up on sale sometime in the future, but it's good to know that even if it's not super enjoyable at first glance, it's got a lot going for it underneath it all.

[nenjin]

one dungeon I had the necromancer in the first room next to the entrance, I also had a spike trap right by the entrance so it's pretty easy to kite enemies to just keep getting spiked to death, any resurrections are just bonus xp while necromancer becomes a pin-cushion.

I dunno how you do this, because being out in the open and within 6 tiles of a Necromancer, he curses, then does a couple damage spells, then buffs, then throws some runes on the floor for area denial. I'm down like 60 HP in just his opening moves.

But I did just get Pyromancy so maybe that will make life a bit easier.

...

It's not quite that drastic in SS. More it's just, the idea that you should grind outside of "missions" is kind of a trap. You won't make enough money doing that and you'll end up in a downward spiral.

Now, note, I totally fucked up the first contract quest. I beat it at like level 4 or 5, but mistakenly sold the loot I needed to turn in and essentially broke it. If I'd completed it, I'd have been on my way
MUCH earlier on. But I had to do the Necromancer as well after that, and also couldn't beat it, and added in sight seeing and exploring on top of all that.....it really set me off the main path of the game. Which makes sense I guess, the game's unfinished so all that profitable side stuff isn't there to support not playing the main contract missions. Again that's the problem with big canvas games, walking into a part on it with only a couple brush strokes on it.

There's just this intersection of character level and contract completion where you're like "ok, making money is no longer a life and death struggle." Up until that point, the game seems incredibly harsh. And is if you push it too far. But if you play within the boundaries, get strong and solve your repair cost issues, then all that secondary exploration, while still not being super profitable, having big pay offs and taking a lot of time to do, don't seem quite so intimidating and better in context. If you hadn't beat the first contract and advanced the story a little, you could easily come away with the assumption that Stoneshard is the kind of game that expects you to walk 4k tiles to get between two towns.

TLDR though, it's really the atmosphere and and the dungeon crawling that are keeping me with it. The dungeon art and sprites are just *chef's kiss*. The dungeons aren't necessarily super complex for being randomly generated, so I hope there's more yet coming down the line there.

[Sharp]

Not sure if it's due to hotfixes or just actual bugs but sometimes I get point of interests which have no interest, which can be very annoying when you are looking for a campsite nearby so you don't have to live on a diet of raw meat but all you have is the empty steppes just scattered with bandit corpses and no bed or fire. Just hoping they give the ability to set up a fire to cook stuff soon.

Playing some other games I do like that Stoneshard you normally choose your own death, you sometimes get ambushed but normally you can see a fight coming and you can also see how well armed and what skills enemies have to make that decision, you might have a quest to kill a necromancer, and you might see he has a skeleton horde but you generally have the choice to run away even if it means failing the contract. Compared to say Pathfinder Kingmaker where even in an early game starting spot if you do some exploring you meet some ancient of the forest who smites you just because you wandered in an area where you weren't supposed to (at that level).

Stoneshard is a game were playing Ironman can work and can make you very cautious in fights to run away but playing Pathfinder Kingmaker or other D&D inspired games you can't really do an Ironman run without playing the game already because you don't know where some ultra deadly enemy comes and there is no way to retreat.

[nenjin]

Not sure if it's due to hotfixes or just actual bugs but sometimes I get point of interests which have no interest

It's likely those POIs are connected to contracts. When there's a contract at that POI, it creates a dungeon entrance. When there's no contract, it's just the exterior space with nothing there. For example if you visit the POI where the Necromancer contract happens, but you have no contract, you'll have a graveyard but no crypt entrance.

[Sharp]

Nah this is stuff like a rumour of a campsite, go on the tile and explore the whole thing and then leave it and it's still a ? on the map. I think it might be a bug in that the campsite for the Steppe tile isn't loading, I've only ever found camps in forests, never on field or steppe.

I'm also pretty sure the dungeons are all open at the start, you can go in them before accepting contracts and actually complete the quest before you start it, have to be careful though as sometimes there are item retrieval quests but if you loot a dungeon and say sell an item then I haven't ever tried it but you might end up accepting a contract you can't do (unless you buy back the item) so you get a reputation loss. Although if it somehow lets you complete the quest without having to return the item then it would be pretty good as there are a couple of useful items for some of the quests.

When you complete a dungeon contract (as in get the reward from elder) then the dungeon is locked for 3 days, then a new contract is generated but the dungeon unlocks without needing to accept the contract. It's a way you can scout out a dungeon before accepting the contract as well, you can thin out enemies and if you get stuck with someone too hard to handle just come back later with higher level or better gear and don't accept that contract until you are ready.

[nenjin]

I dunno. I assumed "Ghoul Dens" were contract based and every time i've visited them, there's clearly a space for a dungeon entrance but no entrance.

And that's really disappointing because there is exactly zero loot to be had from clearing those sites. Just a very high chance of death.

[Sharp]

Ah that's a monster den, haven't actually tried clearing a den, or even if they can be cleared.

I know for deathstingers there is a hive you can destroy, not sure if ghoul den has something similar, but they might refresh as well anyway.

Might just be a place to farm xp

[Aoi]

And that's really disappointing because there is exactly zero loot to be had from clearing those sites. Just a very high chance of death.

To be fair, that's about what I'd expect from other dens too, like "Wolf" or "Bear", so maybe it's just yet another frustrating nod towards some flavor of pseudo-realism.

[nenjin]

My expectation from dens is that they'd have dragged some unfortunate soul there and all that would be left is bones and their loot.

Maybe less likely for Wolf or Bear dens, but Ghoul dens? Cmon this is fantasy.

[EuchreJack]

My expectation from dens is that they'd have dragged some unfortunate soul there and all that would be left is bones and their loot.

Maybe less likely for Wolf or Bear dens, but Ghoul dens? Cmon this is fantasy.

Since when don't Wolves and Bears drag their victims to their dens, eat them, and leave their bones and loot?

[Sharp]

So there is a new survival update which brings in new mechanics like being able to start campfires anywhere and setting up campsites as well as other survival skills in the survival tree.

This will make it a lot easier for exploring now!

Next big update though will be save wipe though so if you play you will eventually lose the progress, but probably have enough time to go troll hunting which is pretty much end-game as it is now.

[nenjin]

I was considering picking up my game again but knowing a save wipe is coming, I'll probably just wait.

[nenjin]

Big update on August 5th coming. New magic type (Electromancy) lots of changes and additions to the magic system (magic specific crits and fumbles, essentially) a new Skill Tree for magic mastery, a new enemy type with 8 enemies, new buildings and NPCs, new POIs, new items.....might be time for another lookie loo.

Catching up on the dev logs, I guess a fair chunk of their team is Ukrainian/Russian, and the Russian embargo on Steam really hurt them. It's a damn shame but it looks like they're recovering from it.

[Sharp]

Yup, didn't expect it to be this long before the next update either.

Looks like cultists are going to potentially be much harder fights with more enemy types, definitely needed though.

[Sharp]

0.8 Update is now available.

New Electromancy Tree
New Magic Mastery Tree
New Enemies
New Gameplay Mechanics
New Biome

New Game required