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Author Topic: Demon(Demon-taming, Monster-crafting, Dungeon-crawling Graphical roguelike)  (Read 15161 times)

Darkmere

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Re: Demon(Demon-taming, Monster-crafting, Dungeon-crawling Graphical roguelike)
« Reply #75 on: September 09, 2017, 04:29:08 am »

I did some experimentation with a Death's Hand MaxHP drain character. I found it somewhat difficult to balance for, because you need SO MANY stats (magic, accuracy, vitality) that you can't really pull off a significant boost to any of them and need to rely on a demon with cunning and debuffs (Freybug, basically). Also the MaxHP buffer capped at about +15, which was nice but will get thin pretty quick.

It's amazing for getting back up to speed after a close call, though. Also good if you pick Body on an Orb of Power character to get the Siphon spell for added damage cushions.

Madevra is kind of a special case. I beat her by

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Regarding enemy healspam... this isn't universal but you can play a Crown character with.. Light? ... to get silencing cut, and then snag Bloodthirst from Artemis. It's another where you need a dedicated evade debuffer, but between those two skills you get 10 mana per turn, shutting something the hell up... forever. Bonus if you can fit an infection in there too, and they have to keep trying to cleanse that off.

I'm now a full convert of Instant Dismiss. It's like a free emergency action every turn if you need it. Getting it always feels like breathing room, and where the game "feels" right to play.

General thoughts about stuff:

I've had a really hard time fitting Vile and Blessed into parties. Vile because most of the stuff that has it feels extremely frail, and Blessed because it seems like they spend the whole fight casting buffs and nothing else, just constantly refreshing them. That's okay, but at that point it's buffbot and healer basically being non-participants bringing every fight to me and one other demon I constantly hotswap when they get into trouble.

I'm having a hard time finding use for Abbey Lubbers. You can't easily force them to get good Dark abilities without wisp-gambling Profane modifiers and that gets expensive... And by the time you're somewhere that you need that much of a heavy-hitting Dark damage dealer they get absolutely destroyed by the stuff you'd need them to kill.

Sometimes the demon casting priority is a little wonky. I had a ranged fire caster... the imps that start showing up right at the Anomaly, not the Fotias... who I gave Warmth and ember burst... and the direct-target ranged holy spell as a backup. During almost every fight, it would prefer to spam holy single-target until out of mana, instead of igniting stuff to keep his (and my) SP regen high. I'm thrilled that this is the only case where the AI control has done stuff off enough to make me notice, but I dunno. I do wish they'd look after themselves some, if that's even possible.

Otherwise, it's hard to put the game down. I really want to experiment with everything and playing mad scientist with innocent or not so innocent demon lives is addictive.
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And then, they will be weaponized. Like everything in this game, from kittens to babies, everything is a potential device of murder.
So if baseless speculation is all we have, we might as well treat it like fact.

ShinQuickMan

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Re: Demon(Demon-taming, Monster-crafting, Dungeon-crawling Graphical roguelike)
« Reply #76 on: September 09, 2017, 08:58:17 am »

Oh i know 1 is intentional. I literally meant on just [goblins and redcaps], as both are very weak. To recruit one of each is almost an entire levels worth of credits on the first few floors.
Goblins and redcaps can ask for life instead of credits. You can occasionally get away with not paying a single dime, though it's much more frequent with redcaps than with goblins.

So I see what you're saying about Frost being more efficient now. Sudden Chill is, compared to the other area skills, pretty stupidly efficient. You get the chill benefits, reasonable 40 Power damage and it has no cooldown. Compared to the other more exotic AoEs like Light and Dark that's.....pretty damn good right out of the box, no supporting skills really needed, flat out better than Mindscream.
I usually go for Mind Scream to get coverage on a less-resisted element, though Sudden Chill is a good choice if you need a better AOE more immediately.

I just lost a Crown guy to a pack of ... something. The japanese hand ghosts backed by two casters that spammed AoE Infection every turn. Melee will eventually simply end you, your party, and everything you hold dear.
That team with Akateko and Arkhai? Yeah, they can be a real problem without body and dark resistant/immune melee guys. Worse comes to worse, form a link with either one; an Akateko link could buy you time at the cost of potential distrust, while a successful Arkhai conversion usually requires a bit of hp and max hp up front. Either's better than a party-wide HP drain or wipe, though.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

MaxHP down can be a bitch due to the conversion rate of XP to life restored (I was seeing on average 1 to 2 HP restored per enemy killed.) Strangely though some guys like Turdak and Artemis just....seem to ignore it and take it as normal damage? I know it's not because of Dark Resist because I have it and lose MaxHP to attacks. Maybe it's Body?
Dark resistance does diminish HP drain significantly, while immunity negates such attacks outright. Of course, this rule doesn't apply for damaged relics.

Some of the Hero and Summoner combos beyond her though just get more and more vicious. Remember Reshape from way back in the first levels? There's a passive later on that essentially makes it cooldown in 1 to 2 turns if you're getting hit. A freaking Endure cooldown. You wanna talk about unkillable? How about something that drops all its status effects and puts 150 power heal on itself every 1 to 2 turns as a free action.

...

If I have one suggestion that might make the game a little bit less....lopsided when you start running into higher level passives with ever more broken effects is.....SP cost multipliers. For example, if a passive targets a specific ability and makes it amazing, like almost removing the cooldown from Reshape or Second Wind, maybe it should multiply the SP cost (Or give it a cost to begin with). The jump from Tier 1 Skills to Tier 2 in SP cost isn't insignificant, but if cheap Tier 1 skills can be lifted to godly levels with one passive.....mmmmmmaaaayyyybbbbbeeee they should cost just a little bit more.
Indomitable (I think that's the one) + Reshape is a great combo, but it's not without its flaws; since the target would need to actually take a turn, any effect that changes turn order (such as slow, haste, charges, stuns, and paralysis) could severely limit this tactic's utility.

I did some experimentation with a Death's Hand MaxHP drain character. I found it somewhat difficult to balance for, because you need SO MANY stats (magic, accuracy, vitality) that you can't really pull off a significant boost to any of them and need to rely on a demon with cunning and debuffs (Freybug, basically). Also the MaxHP buffer capped at about +15, which was nice but will get thin pretty quick.
There's a ranged, no miss series of HP drain spells in the game, along with a like breath weapon. They're far more costly, but they're great for builds that dump agility.

I've had a really hard time fitting Vile and Blessed into parties. Vile because most of the stuff that has it feels extremely frail, and Blessed because it seems like they spend the whole fight casting buffs and nothing else, just constantly refreshing them. That's okay, but at that point it's buffbot and healer basically being non-participants bringing every fight to me and one other demon I constantly hotswap when they get into trouble.
Vile is fine as is, thanks to its Body resistance.

Cursed, on the other hand, competes with both that and Psychic's Mind resistance, yet gives nothing else in return. I think Cursed and Blessed should get an HP boost similar to Lifebringers to be worthwhile.
« Last Edit: September 09, 2017, 09:40:39 am by ShinQuickMan »
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FerretDev

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Re: Demon(Demon-taming, Monster-crafting, Dungeon-crawling Graphical roguelike)
« Reply #77 on: September 09, 2017, 01:06:19 pm »

Re: Negotiation/RNG

The money requests aren't as evil as they look, at least sometimes. As you get to know the various demons, you may notice differences in the wording they sometimes use for money requests: these differences can indicate how amicable they will be to attempts to haggle them down, which can make a huge difference if you are haggling regularly and at the right times. (Of course, I'm not a great writer, so it's entirely possible I only imagine it is possible to figure this out from their dialogue. :D )

Wording can also be useful to examine for item requests: Demons use different wording with the requests for items that can indicate how happy they'll be to receive it / how forgiving they'll be if you refuse.

The amounts may still be a bit off though: Credits is (relatively speaking) still a relatively new concept to Demon compared to most of the game, and is probably going to get another pass at the same time I do another pass on Relic Upgrades, since the two are fairly related.

Sacrifice requests are rough. I agree they're probably usually not worth it on mundane demons... but when they come up on a particularly impressive unique or modified demon, that's when they shine, at least from my point of view. :D

HP requests are basically a level check. Shoggoth grunted at the 24 HP because he was much higher level than you. Granted, it's still better than him getting angry because you refused probably.

Still, I don't disagree there are some RNG elements (or at least, not easily discernable elements) involved. I can experiment with some flavor questions and see how I like them next time I take a swing at negotiation. There are other non-flavor ideas I have for negotiations too, just need to get to it on the list, so to speak. :) The in-progress build is a big one, so I can't promise that'll be anytime soon.


Re: Downloads

I initially went with Google Drive because it was one of the low barrier few ways (at the time) to get the game downloadable without Chrome issuing dire warnings about it being an EXE you downloaded from an untrustworthy source. I have itch setup now as getter pointed out (thanks getter!), but still keep the Google Drive links front and center on my blog because I don't want regulars (who are usually the ones who end up there) to get poked about the donation box each time. (I do *want* a donation box, I just don't want to jam it in regular players' faces every time I have an update. That probably makes no sense to anyone but me, but I'm rolling with it. :P )

That all aside, I do agree Google Drive's interface is capital T Terrible though. I wish to heck it was better. Sorry about that.


Re: MaxHP things

You may not have been seeing immunity so much as the AI deciding not to bother trying. Akateko are a bit infamous for being willing to punch if their HP/MaxHP drains aren't going to work out for them. If the target is weak to Impact (as Artemis and Turdak both are), this will only make it even more likely that they'll just bump attack instead of using spells. (Not having weak to Impact might be why they were still willing to try draining you even through resistance... they are much better at Magic than Strength, after all.)

MaxHP draining is definitely powerful stuff. :) I won't claim I've got the balance perfect on it by any means, but it's there as an extension of one of Demon's main philosophies: "If the enemy can do it, the player should get to too if they want." Allowing MaxHP draining by players is a relatively rare and unexplored territory balance-wise. I don't agree it's necessary to have a chance, but I will agree it's probably one of the more straightforward ways to improve your chances.

Overcoming enemy healing is definitely important. MaxHP drain is one way of doing it, but I think there are plenty of others: Silence, Mind magic, Infection, high DPS, beating them on the SP front, etc. :D


Re: Lioth

Lioth has been the most hated unique in the game literally from the moment I added him. :D Madevra's a close second probably, but Lioth still holds the crown I think. :)


Re: Codex summoning

Codex summoning would be messy since it operates in three different modes depending on your option settings, but I could see expanding the coffin size as a thing perhaps, or being able to "save" certain demons for assured later revival access. I'll take a look at it on the next upgrade pass. :D


Re: Resolution woes

It seems like there's definitely something going on here. Unfortunately, a combination of "FerretDev isn't a great graphics programmer" and "tiles are tricky to get working without seams" forced me to disable the usual Unity resolution pop-up: going through that for any reason caused tiles to have seems. I'm 100% certain there is a problem here, but I'm going to need to carve out some time to dig into it and it's probably going to make me weep blood. :P Please accept my apologies on this one: I will look into it, but it's probably going to be a bit.


Re: Explicit

I try to be explicit about such things. :D When I'm not, someone yells at me and I fix it. :) If something seems super unclear, lemme know. :D (Bloodthirst, by the way, does indeed work with reactions. One of my favorite Titan's Fist builds is to start with Bloodthirst + Riposte.. I sort of think of it as a vampire? :D Probably a weird concept for a relic called Titan's Fist, but it's pretty fun, especially once you stack some goblin passives and get Riposte firing much more often... and if you swipe Parry from Madevra... or start using Spin Slash + Evade Step... )


Re: AI and resists/immunities

The AI is very good about this.. in fact, it is almost evil about it. Not only will it account for resistances/immunities in your enemies, it will in your *allies* as well. i.e.: If you have one ally with Flame Orb, he won't hesitate to bomb your own Fire immune allies with it if he needs to to maximize his damage to enemies, since he knows your Fire immune won't care. :D

One odd note worth pointing out re: Ice though. Since Ice resistance doesn't protect against Chill status at all (only immunity does), you will sometimes see your buddies use Ice attacks on Ice resistant targets more readily than you might expect, particularly if they feel the Acc/Evd/Move debuff would be useful for some reason.


Re: Ukobach and smite spamming

Ukobach is probably preferring the Light spell since it can't miss... but, that is a little odd since they don't have much trouble hitting with Ember Burst, and as you say, they have plenty of reasons to want to use Ignite. It may be that it's not probably accounting for Warmth in some way, I'll take a look. :D


Re: Buffbotting

Buffs don't last super long: a buffer with more than one buff is probably going to have to spam it in order to keep both going on the party 100% of the time. Buffs tend to be a high priority when available on a demon, since they can't miss and have a pretty big impact on combat performance. It can be dicey if you have both a buffbot and a healer out though: as you say, that puts a lot of pressure on the other two combatants. One solution might be to experiment with the self-buff cantrips instead. It does eat up skill slots on more party members, but they never get spammed, and are also cheaper SP wise too.


Thanks for the commentary and feedback everyone. :D This is great to read and I'm glad you're all enjoying the game. :)
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Re: Demon(Demon-taming, Monster-crafting, Dungeon-crawling Graphical roguelike)
« Reply #78 on: September 09, 2017, 02:21:51 pm »

Thanks for taking some time answering all this.

What about the name of the game ? "Demon" is very generic, and makes it hard to find by simple chance.
I feel the game is quite often refered as "Demon Roguelike", so it's something, but still not good enough i think.

- Tower of Ancient Demon, so it's "ToaD" ?
- Party Tower Special Demon, so it's "PTSD" ?
- Demon23, so it's D23 ?
- Pokedemon ?
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nenjin

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Re: Demon(Demon-taming, Monster-crafting, Dungeon-crawling Graphical roguelike)
« Reply #79 on: September 09, 2017, 05:45:17 pm »

Summoner's Delight :P

Seriously I agree. Demon as a name doesn't punch hard enough or do this game's awesomeness justice. Demon in the title somewhere, absolutely. Just need to spice it up a little bit. Even Demon Summoner would make this game easier to find.

Quote
I did some experimentation with a Death's Hand MaxHP drain character. I found it somewhat difficult to balance for, because you need SO MANY stats (magic, accuracy, vitality) that you can't really pull off a significant boost to any of them and need to rely on a demon with cunning and debuffs (Freybug, basically). Also the MaxHP buffer capped at about +15, which was nice but will get thin pretty quick.

Vitality increases the amount drained or the amount received? I'm much less concerned by the amount received.

Quote
Indomitable (I think that's the one) + Reshape is a great combo, but it's not without its flaws; since the target would need to actually take a turn, any effect that changes turn order (such as slow, haste, charges, stuns, and paralysis) could severely limit this tactic's utility.

I'll agree with "limit" so far. Yes in isolation any skill has its weaknesses but the Lioth fight is a pretty good example of the enemy having all their bases covered. Cleanses make it hard to focus fire anything because your choices are either a) make the enemy AI focus on their summoner to keep them alive or b) eat the summoner's BS while you try to whittle down their healers and cleansers and debuffers. And if the Summoner is a healer like this Heart Summoner I've been running into a lot lately.....you can win but like I said, I've had some fights go upwards of 60, 70 turns playing "healer/cleanse whackamole." For melee letting the AI decide who it is going to hit is a recipe for losing by attrition. That said my party is only now starting to get some AoE potential. Which helps overwhelm some healer groups.

Quote
Of course, I'm not a great writer, so it's entirely possible I only imagine it is possible to figure this out from their dialogue.

Hey, don't sell yourself short. I've enjoyed what I've read so far and there's a fair amount of text between all the different demon descriptions so I feel like I've got a decent take on your style. As far as the demon dialog writing so far, I've enjoyed the variety. I will read the demon dialogs a little more carefully for context clues though, and I have noticed many of them. Like when I killed all of an angel's companions and tried to link, and deliberately argued that he had allies too even though I know what that response generally gets. And I got a good laugh when he said something like "Thou hast slain my host and now you mock me?!?!" I knew he wouldn't take it well. Anyone that says thou does not have a sense of humor. :P

Quote
(I do *want* a donation box, I just don't want to jam it in regular players' faces every time I have an update. That probably makes no sense to anyone but me, but I'm rolling with it. :P )

As a player I appreciate this kind of thinking. I'd be absolutely ok with, assuming you had a legit game start screen right now which you don't, embedding a donate link button there.

Quote
Bigger Coffin

I like this as a halfway solution but not as part of the current Relic Upgrade schema; there are too many things in there I already want and leveling is slow (although I feel like it actually gets faster as you get higher up the tower....) Consider maybe making some kinds of Relic upgrades as discoverable items or fight rewards or something. I don't think increasing the size of your Demon Party is an upgrade people should really have to choose between and things like, Instant Summon/Unsummon. If there's X upgrades for party size in the game right now, then maybe it should be Y + Z upgrades split between the normal Relic upgrade system and ones found in alternative ways. Maybe just make a generic discoverable item that lets you immediately upgrade your Relic. (Maybe the big NPC Summoners drop Relic fragments that you can use to power up your own Relic.) I know Demon really isn't about loot like other games, but right now the loot we do have (while useful) isn't very exciting. Bronze/Silver offerings (is there a difference? I don't have one of each in front of me to compare the wording) are about the only thing I'm super stoked to see right now in the midgame. I suppose I'm also pretty happy to see Essences too. I think more items that mimic skill abilities would make for good additions as well. (Blink/Short Jaunt items for example.) You could also make some of the Runes "discoverable" in the way most roguelikes handle potions. Like, as a Summoner you'd know the basic Bolt/Flame/Freeze runes, but the more complicated AoE runes would be unknown until you use them. And then you can throw some ultra-mega cool runes in there like, I dunno, temporary demon allies or insta kill runes or instant level up runes or something.

Quote
Wording can also be useful to examine for item requests: Demons use different wording with the requests for items that can indicate how happy they'll be to receive it / how forgiving they'll be if you refuse.

I've noticed the wording matters. I also like how you made sure at least simple context (like killing everything before linking) matters.  Like with the angel and various others. On the RNG side of things, the Shoggoth HP check still seems random, because I did it several times. Weighted sure, but I got that response once out of maybe.....10 requests for it. And I'm happy with that incidental RNG. I just didn't like how in the early game cycling through responses just kept coming back to money. Perhaps that's more specific to other demons as well.

Quote
Re: AI and resists/immunities

This is all good and helpful information, thanks. So it is useful to retain the same ability essentially if it hits different damage types.

I agree with a couple above posters that I'm starting to see some weird AI behavior when I start trying to add abilities to creatures. Like I gave Python Weigh Sin and I swear his behavior changed completely. He'd run up to one square shy of melee combat and spend the rest of the combat spamming Weigh Sin instead of attacking. Other times I swear Headless or a couple other large creatures are sandbagging, standing back with the ranged for no real reason until I choose to move. As one more oddity/point of confusion, I've been having problems getting my AI to attack sleeping targets on command. I know this was the case because I was running a really tight link attempt at the end of a Relic wraith fight and I simply could not get my AI to start attacking another sleeping target. It's not the first time I've experienced this either. I'd command all day, they'd agree. But they'd wait on me to actually deal damage to the target before they'd start attacking. And when you're completely drained on both HP and SP at the end of a hard fight with a still hostile link target beating on you....yeah I need you guys to do as your ordered here, please. Sometimes it works fine. Sometimes I have to start the attacks myself.

Lastly, I'd prefer if the melee AI priorities maximizing surrounding coverage on an enemy. More than once I've seen melee AI not try to swap with someone so they can attack, instead waiting for the other friendly AI to decide to move. I'm sure there are programmatic/logical reasons for some of this but it's a little annoying occasionally to watch your melee just stand there for various reasons. While I can see they don't do it, I think Monster AI should be willing to swap places with the Summoner. I'd rather not have to spend a movement action to let them in. For melee summoners that might be a little frustrating but they're players, they have the wherewithal to adapt and make decisions. The AI really can't.

Quote
Re: Resolution woes

Not a biggie in my book.

Just sort of jumping to a couple things I was thinking about....

I guess you're not responsible for the tile art, but the tower really needs to evolve and look different as you go up it.

A few Demon Types like Blessed seem pretty anemic compared to others. I think Blessed has maybe 6 abilities in it. I know it's all a work in progress and it's not something I'm actually bothered about, I'm just wondering where you feel you're at on that stuff.

I also find myself wishing more that demons could pick up skills from their Type as a level up perk. I understand that recruiting demons, luck, and swapping skills around is the name of the game here. But I feel like if you've invested long enough in a demon (possibly to your own detriment) that should be rewarded. For example, let's say that the first time a demon has gained 10 levels in your service, they're award a random skill from their type. I've got a real samey problem with my lineup right now (which, going melee, will tend to happen) and it'd be nice for something to shake that up outside of the whole recruiting loop.

Did you do the pixel art for this yourself FerretDev?

I'll close by saying, I've praised you a lot but I think I should praise you some more. Setting aside that I love the setting and the genre of Demon and that's a big sell....there's just a lot of thoughtfulness put in the game mechanics here. There's subtlety all over the place. From the fact that wording actually matters in many places and implies gameplay, like in dialogs. That the text is reflective of the mechanics (demons that are below your level and eat your HP are thrilled, and vicea versa.) That the RNG isn't there for its own sake, it has rules attached to it that are flavorful and sensible. The way you handled cooldown timers, something that generally is pretty goddamn banal when it comes to RPGs, in a cool way that actually adds to gameplay instead of just limits it. The various attack types and how really important they are to balance (I'm starting to see way more ranged direct attacks now in the higher tiers and mmmmaaaannn it can make life difficult for you as the summoner.) That combat is as tactically rich as it is. And just the "one more floor" quality of gameplay that every roguelike dungeon crawler aspires to but doesn't always achieve. I've played my fair share of Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup, which has years and years of multi-contributor content behind it, and I'd say Demon ranks close to it in overall goodness. It's got the freedom and flexibility of play like Tales of Maj'Eyal while feeling a hell of a lot tighter in design and the schema of the mechanics. Of course it can't match DC:SS or ToME in terms of scope but what it already has is quite impressive. And it just feels fully realized as an idea, much like DoomRL or CastevaniaRL both knew and loved what they were inspired by and really captured it in their game.

I guess I hope you can make some real money out of Demon and invest more in it graphically, sound and UI wise, because it's already got a rock solid foundation of gameplay. And is something I would heartily recommend my friends buy. I hope you stay with Demon for a good long while.
« Last Edit: September 09, 2017, 06:22:10 pm by nenjin »
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Cautivo del Milagro seamos, Penitente.
Quote from: Viktor Frankl
When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.
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Its kinda silly to complain that a friendly NPC isn't a well designed boss fight.
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How will I cheese now assholes?
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Always spaghetti, never forghetti

Darkmere

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Re: Demon(Demon-taming, Monster-crafting, Dungeon-crawling Graphical roguelike)
« Reply #80 on: September 10, 2017, 12:19:15 am »

Quote
I did some experimentation with a Death's Hand MaxHP drain character. I found it somewhat difficult to balance for, because you need SO MANY stats (magic, accuracy, vitality) that you can't really pull off a significant boost to any of them and need to rely on a demon with cunning and debuffs (Freybug, basically). Also the MaxHP buffer capped at about +15, which was nice but will get thin pretty quick.

Vitality increases the amount drained or the amount received? I'm much less concerned by the amount received.

In this case, neither. But I felt I needed enough caster-boosting options with the Dead Hand that I couldn't afford tanky passives and had to compensate with Vitality points. The situation may be different if you run an Orb relic and rip the can't miss Body spells yourself, but that's expensive and will take some time.
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And then, they will be weaponized. Like everything in this game, from kittens to babies, everything is a potential device of murder.
So if baseless speculation is all we have, we might as well treat it like fact.

Whisperling

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Re: Demon(Demon-taming, Monster-crafting, Dungeon-crawling Graphical roguelike)
« Reply #81 on: September 10, 2017, 10:53:17 pm »

Nenjin, don't suppose you'd mind telling me how to interact with save files? My computer ran out of memory as I was playing, which (after rebooting everything) seems to make the game throw up a blank black screen after the title sequence. Would love to be able to salvage the run, but if not I assume that deleting the potentially-messed-up save might at least get the game to work again.

The problem persists after uninstalling and reinstalling the app itself, so I figure this is my best bet.
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nenjin

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Re: Demon(Demon-taming, Monster-crafting, Dungeon-crawling Graphical roguelike)
« Reply #82 on: September 11, 2017, 01:13:30 am »

Yeah that's your best bet. Just delete the Demon folder in the FerretDev_Org folder, in theory the game should create the necessary files when it starts up again.
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Cautivo del Milagro seamos, Penitente.
Quote from: Viktor Frankl
When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.
Quote from: Sindain
Its kinda silly to complain that a friendly NPC isn't a well designed boss fight.
Quote from: Eric Blank
How will I cheese now assholes?
Quote from: MrRoboto75
Always spaghetti, never forghetti

Whisperling

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Re: Demon(Demon-taming, Monster-crafting, Dungeon-crawling Graphical roguelike)
« Reply #83 on: September 11, 2017, 01:31:50 am »

Yeah that's your best bet. Just delete the Demon folder in the FerretDev_Org folder, in theory the game should create the necessary files when it starts up again.

Yep, that seems to have worked. Thanks a bunch.
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beorn080

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Re: Demon(Demon-taming, Monster-crafting, Dungeon-crawling Graphical roguelike)
« Reply #84 on: September 11, 2017, 06:39:51 pm »

Question.

I just got Poison Needle for Artemis via Revelation. Does that stack directly with Venomous, or are both separate checks that can proc together?
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Ustxu Iceraped the Frigid Crystal of Slaughter was a glacier titan. It was the only one of its kind. A gigantic feathered carp composed of crystal glass. It has five mouths full of treacherous teeth, enormous clear wings, and ferocious blue eyes. Beware its icy breath! Ustxu was associated with oceans, glaciers, boats, and murder.

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Re: Demon(Demon-taming, Monster-crafting, Dungeon-crawling Graphical roguelike)
« Reply #85 on: September 13, 2017, 12:19:59 am »

Sorry for the slight reply delay. :) Monday and Tuesday are my busiest days in general. :D

Demon's name: I know Demon's not a great name... and if I were a commercial venture, I'd definitely need to change it. But, I'm not... and changing it at this late date will probably be more trouble than it's worth. Demon's fairly well known within roguelike circles at this point, and I don't feel like it has a large audience outside of that, sooo... at least for now, even though I acknowledge it's not great as a name, I'm not strongly inclined to go changing it at the moment. (Random aside though: at least for me, Googling "Demon Roguelike" brings up 4-5 Demon-related responses as the first hits. Heck, I've even clawed my way to page 5 on just "Demon", and considering the competition that's not half bad. :D )

Max HP and Vitality: Vitality increases the amount of bonus Max HP you can have, since the cap on this is a % of your base Max HP. More Max HP = you can have more bonus Max HP.

Writing: There are some cute bits in there. :D For example, have you ever tried giving HP to a monster when you're Poisoned? :D (Note: Check their Body resistance level first for best results!)

Upgrades: The Upgrade revamp will be switching to a point system (largely so that I don't have to try and balance all upgrades equally, which isn't working out): under such a system, coffin upgrades would probably be cheaper. I might even just allow infinite rezzing, but I'll have to clean up an annoying bit of bad code in order to make my save system and UI systems tolerant of what could be a large, large number of entries depending on how players play. (If you've ever noticed a huge delay when loading the Codex, it is related to this bit of bad code. I tolerate it there because the Codex is cool and not gameplay critical, but I can't let it go in something like the Coffin.)

Negotiation: Yeah, money eventually ends up the last one because certain choices get turned "off" as you refuse them, especially if you refuse them a certain way. (For example: simply refusing to give a demon an Item doesn't forbid it from asking you again... but convincing it you don't have any does. Of course, sometimes they think you're lying and get angrier about that than they would a plain refusal. :D A more obvious case is that you never get asked to give HP if you're already down to exactly 1.) Money can be turned off too, but it's much harder to manage than many.

AI: The AI is generally pretty good, except when you start to give a demon two different directions to run at once, so to speak. The one thing the AI can't really do is read player intent. Python has Weigh Sin and an attack... so which should he prioritize? It sounds like you'd prefer he'd attack more, but I can equally see someone wanting him to focus on debuffing. There are ways I could fix this by adding more control over how demons behave, but I'm reluctant to do that because I have nightmare visions of people tweaking their demons' AI per fight, or worse, per round of every fight... and at that point all I've done is create a really clunky TRPG. :D

Commanding to attacking sleepers: Hmm.. that *should* work. I'll look into it for the next build!

Surrounding enemies AI: I agree this needs to be better, but for the reasons you state, I'm a bit reluctant to have AIs be able to swap with the player. The rest I agree with though, just haven't gotten around to writing the algorithm (or swiping it from DCSS :P ) yet.

Tile art: The default character sprites are done by Geminimax, one of Demon's earliest fans. All other art, including the other set of character sprites you can swap to in the option menu, is my own. Unfortunately, I have no real artistic skills, so reaching even the level you see in Demon is rather slow for me, which is part of why there aren't many tilesets for terrain yet: they involve a lot of art, and it is hard for me to justify spending days and days on them when I still have gameplay stuff to do. :D I do occasionally force myself to do a new one though: the Sanctum tilesets are fairly new. :D I think my next tileset project will be doing different looks for Tower:11-20 and Tower:21-30... and maybe color-shifts for 6-10, 16-20, and 26-30? We'll see! Not sure when that will be though.

Skills on level up would be cool... but there's already a heck of a lot to juggle here too. That said, I have considered adding a "loyalty" system to demons. In fact, there used to be a very rough sort of one way back in the early days: rather than credits, Demons accumulated Training Points you could use to pass their skills around to other demons, but to learn them yourself, you had to wait until they gained enough levels: basically, each level, they'd teach you the next skill on their list, and they could only teach you ones they started with or learned as a modifier, so if you wanted specific skills you had to keep specific demons around for awhile. It had some upsides to it, but the Training Point system in particular was clunky and had some odd quirks I didn't like, which is why it went the way of the dodo. But, another swing at a loyalty system might be in order at some point. :)

Praise: Thank you very much for the kind words. :D Warm fuzzies are always nice, and I'm really glad you're having so much fun with Demon. :) Demon may not ever make a ton of money or have access to awesome music/UI, but I intend to continue working on it for quite some time still and keep the content and other goodies coming. :D Thank you again for all the kind words, I really appreciate them. :D

Save Files: grumble. I can understand a very sudden shutdown causing save file corruption, but Demon should probably handle it more gracefully than that. I'll look into it, though I can't promise next build on this: I'm not super knowledgeable on proper file/data management save/load type things and may have to dig a bit to get anywhere. Sorry for the trouble Whisperling (and thanks for helping them nenjin!)

Poison Needle + Venomous: This comes out as two separate Poison chances, which means if both land, something could go up 2 poison levels in one attack (though remember, poison level increases have a chance to fail without the Vile Alchemy passive, so you could see both work but only get 1 poison level.)

Thanks again for all the feedback, and good luck in the Tower!
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nenjin

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Re: Demon(Demon-taming, Monster-crafting, Dungeon-crawling Graphical roguelike)
« Reply #86 on: September 13, 2017, 12:46:22 am »

Don't sweat the name thing, I think we're all just being fanboys.

Quote
Negotiation: Yeah, money eventually ends up the last one because certain choices get turned "off" as you refuse them, especially if you refuse them a certain way. (For example: simply refusing to give a demon an Item doesn't forbid it from asking you again... but convincing it you don't have any does. Of course, sometimes they think you're lying and get angrier about that than they would a plain refusal. :D A more obvious case is that you never get asked to give HP if you're already down to exactly 1.) Money can be turned off too, but it's much harder to manage than many.

See this is the logic that I love. It's stupidly obvious when you think about it, but I guess I'm kind of jaded by dialogs in games to assume they just full of bad loops. (Unless it's something pretty top tier like Witcher.) The poison example is great too. More "obvious but hidden" stuff like that please!

Quote
Python has Weigh Sin and an attack... so which should he prioritize?

I guess my player expectation was: cast Weigh Sin, move into melee, refresh or add new Weigh Sins every other couple of attacks. But your buffing code looks like it's pretty strict; I noticed it with the Holy cat demon (I forget their name atm.) As soon as I had one they threw down Weigh Sin on every foe, often before I'd even realized it. It works great when you do want a dedicated buffer, but I feel like it pigeon holes characters because the AI weights it so heavily. It's a tricky problem, but I guess for me personally I'd prefer the AI to generalize and take its hints at specialization from me, when I for example take away all its active abilities except two buffs.

Quote
Tile art: The default character sprites are done by Geminimax, one of Demon's earliest fans. All other art, including the other set of character sprites you can swap to in the option menu, is my own. Unfortunately, I have no real artistic skills, so reaching even the level you see in Demon is rather slow for me, which is part of why there aren't many tilesets for terrain yet: they involve a lot of art, and it is hard for me to justify spending days and days on them when I still have gameplay stuff to do. :D I do occasionally force myself to do a new one though: the Sanctum tilesets are fairly new. :D I think my next tileset project will be doing different looks for Tower:11-20 and Tower:21-30... and maybe color-shifts for 6-10, 16-20, and 26-30? We'll see! Not sure when that will be though.

No I get it. It's a roguelike and content is way easier and faster to create than art. Again I'm just liking the game enough I wanna see it go to the next level of visuals. I think your sprites are great though, very charming. I and a friend who has been watching me play did have one moment where we looked at a sprite (The Goddess of Beer irrc) and both of us had like a Magic Picture moment where we couldn't tell what we were looking at, but when we finally did see it we couldn't unsee it.

Quote
Skills on level up would be cool... but there's already a heck of a lot to juggle here too. That said, I have considered adding a "loyalty" system to demons. In fact, there used to be a very rough sort of one way back in the early days: rather than credits, Demons accumulated Training Points you could use to pass their skills around to other demons, but to learn them yourself, you had to wait until they gained enough levels: basically, each level, they'd teach you the next skill on their list, and they could only teach you ones they started with or learned as a modifier, so if you wanted specific skills you had to keep specific demons around for awhile. It had some upsides to it, but the Training Point system in particular was clunky and had some odd quirks I didn't like, which is why it went the way of the dodo. But, another swing at a loyalty system might be in order at some point. :)

I can see where that got complicated. Sounds like you'd end up passing on a lot of demons just for the skills you'd want to acquire from level up.
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Cautivo del Milagro seamos, Penitente.
Quote from: Viktor Frankl
When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.
Quote from: Sindain
Its kinda silly to complain that a friendly NPC isn't a well designed boss fight.
Quote from: Eric Blank
How will I cheese now assholes?
Quote from: MrRoboto75
Always spaghetti, never forghetti

Darkmere

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Re: Demon(Demon-taming, Monster-crafting, Dungeon-crawling Graphical roguelike)
« Reply #87 on: September 13, 2017, 01:07:39 am »

How about "if character has debuffs AND direct attacks, debuff enemy targets that have been attacked my allies last turn who do not already have the debuff. Else, attack."

Same for buffs, prioritize allies who have taken damage in the past 3 turns, then try something else.

Listening to a focus target command should put that enemy at the top of the list.
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And then, they will be weaponized. Like everything in this game, from kittens to babies, everything is a potential device of murder.
So if baseless speculation is all we have, we might as well treat it like fact.

nenjin

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Re: Demon(Demon-taming, Monster-crafting, Dungeon-crawling Graphical roguelike)
« Reply #88 on: September 13, 2017, 01:12:11 am »

I've noticed some odd behaviors with Focus Target too, particularly with Artemis. There are a couple times she's straight up ignored my commands in favor of firing at the first enemy in her range. I assume she believe it's the highest priority target or the only target she can reach or something but....it's happened often enough to make me question what's going on there.
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Cautivo del Milagro seamos, Penitente.
Quote from: Viktor Frankl
When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.
Quote from: Sindain
Its kinda silly to complain that a friendly NPC isn't a well designed boss fight.
Quote from: Eric Blank
How will I cheese now assholes?
Quote from: MrRoboto75
Always spaghetti, never forghetti

beorn080

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Re: Demon(Demon-taming, Monster-crafting, Dungeon-crawling Graphical roguelike)
« Reply #89 on: September 13, 2017, 07:53:45 am »

For demon skill usage, maybe just a tag that prioritizes one skill over others? For examplr, I had an ukobach pick up that 100%ignite plus 40 power attack skill from the heart relic, yet he would still spam his basic bolt, presumably due to higher power. It would have been nice to get him to set everything on fire with me since my best three demons and myself had all been given warmth.

Speaking of warmth, it is hilarious during the actaeon fight.
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Ustxu Iceraped the Frigid Crystal of Slaughter was a glacier titan. It was the only one of its kind. A gigantic feathered carp composed of crystal glass. It has five mouths full of treacherous teeth, enormous clear wings, and ferocious blue eyes. Beware its icy breath! Ustxu was associated with oceans, glaciers, boats, and murder.
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