So I wanted to see what all had changed since last time I played, and popped back in on my old save. The difficulty scale was all over the place, as before, but that probably had a fair amount to do with my build not being "optimal". That said, there's still the jarring split between "places you can take on yourself" and "places you absolutely cannot handle without a full posse of elite meatshields". Crawler infestations are probably the worst culprits here; as they ignore (or at least mostly bypass) shields, do insane amounts of damage (often with extra poison on top), come in large groups, have reduced stun times, and are too fast to kite or outmaneuver successfully. Now, it's entirely possible to tackle these places given enough warm bodies to take the brunt of their aggression, but then we get into the problem of having to backtrack to the camp, hire the exorbitantly expensive mercenaries, go back to the cave, then potentially spend some more time reloading so you can "scout out" which other unexplored locations could make good use of the remaining moves you've got on their contracts so you can get your money's worth.
A lot of this will get fixed when the changes come to make hirelings semi-permanent (very nice to see you're working on that by the way, it'll be a very positive change for the overall experience), but until then we've got the tried-and-true method of suddenly dying from an unexpected ambush of very fast and very toothy reminders that the game has a follower system.
Later I ended up finding another ancient dwarven artifact, which while being remarkably straightforward and easy to unlock, is objectively the best melee weapon in the game. After that point the difficulty curve went from "punishing and unyielding, with random spots of easy" to "you look at the thing: The thing is now dead", and I've proceeded to walk over absolutely every endgame encounter the game had to throw at me. I also somehow have 100+% resistance to all elements and half of my build is now pointless. Swings and roundabouts.
One thing has been bothering me, however... Bandages are now extinct in this world.
You see, when I'd cleared out the implemented parts of the world back in October, I only had about 40-60 units of cotton in my stocks. I quickly made these into large bandages in the new version, because I quickly ended up needing them (this was before I found God's Own Hitting Stick). Now there is no more cotton in the world. So far as I've seen, not a single one of the newly-implemented locations was designated as a cotton resource.
But, not to fear! The developers have heard our prayers of renewable resources and have introduced; The Market! A new building that lets you throw money at a resource deficit in the hopes of finding a solution.
Unfortunately, the level 1 market does not allow you to trade for cotton... No matter, I'll just upgrade it. What do we need to upgrade the market? Aha. 100 cotton. I see.
So now the world has no more cotton, and as such there are no more bandages to be had; because I can't get any more cotton, since there is no cotton to upgrade the market. It's a good thing I'm now functionally immortal, otherwise having my only form of on-demand healing taken away would've been problematic.
I'll be less flowery for my next point, because it is important: Remove the price adjustment on market goods. There is no reason for that to be a thing, at all. Don't overcomplicate things and think you're going to simulate an economy with supply and demand, just give the players a fixed rate.
Personally, I still feel the resource system in general could be handled better by having fewer resource nodes, with caps on how many laborers can be working at any one point, and just let it be an endless source... I feel more like a pillaging barbarian than someone trying to reform a civilization, and the constant shuffling back and forth of peasants between the last few fruitful nodes just isn't very fun (on that note though, many thanks for the new management overlay! It's much better than doing things by hand).
By the by, if "Add more DF references" is still on the to-do list, please cross it off. The game was already stifled with them in October, and it really wouldn't hurt to trim out several of the less significant ones. Let your game be its own thing with its own setting and its own lore, and let it stand on its own merits. During the early portions of the playthrough, I was running into so many different callbacks and blatant references that it honestly felt like some kind of advertisement for Dwarf Fortress, rather than an independent game.
Also, I see you've added a clicker game into the tavern. Why? Yes, I see there are several meta upgrades available for reaching all the achievement milestones in the clicker game, but... Why? The whole experience is just so jarring and weird, it really breaks the overall flow of the game in my opinion. What's even happening here? Is this some sort of dwarven iPad, the last remnant of our forgotten civilization? Does the barkeep have a colony of miniscule gnomes hidden in the basement? Is he just simulating and calculating all the mining and whatnot in his head before deciding to give you improvements to your settlement? What's going on, and why is there an improvement that increases the chance for finding new book pages when there is a strictly finite number of places where those can generate? Am I doomed to never complete certain books because I explored too many locations before putting in my time playing Diggy Clicker? What gameplay elements are improved by this existing?
There are some miscellaneous gripes regarding a couple quests not progressing or giving sufficient information, plus an ever-growing conviction that there are simply too many locations in the game... But I realize that a lot of work has been put into making those locations, and although I firmly believe the game would be better off if it drastically reduced the number of unique travel points (preferably combining the quest points and overall resources/functions into fewer, more expansive and detailed areas), I can accept it for what it is and acknowledge that those kinds of changes are a bit much to ask at this stage in development.
I wish you all the best of luck on the project and I sincerely hope that you'll be able to avoid the pitfalls of your earlier titles, in order to ensure that Regions of Ruin becomes the best game that it has the potential to be.
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Topic: Regions of Ruin 65% off for 7 days and 10 languages (Read 7752 times)