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[Mkok]

Yeah, in the previous versions, and I guess n this one as well, the difficulty is kind of at the beginning, and then at the very end. The mid point is quite easy in comparison. The ancient dragons are a huge power spike, and the gods... well, the ancient dragons are just pests compared to them. In my first run where I reached Zorbus I had a lone wolf half-troll who smashed everything with his trusty hammer, but then I challenged an archer goddes who had infinite blink, and her dps was just slightly higher then my health regen (or was it that she could not kill me until I literarilly gave up so she could kill me ). It took forever, but eventually she killed me as while I did have a very good sling I was not able to outdamage her healing with it, especially when she kept blinking forcing me to keep getting in range And catching her in melee was just a dream. Anchoring should prove useful if I reach Zorbus ever again.

Btw, is it normal not to get hobgoblin key on the floor with several chests locked with hobgoblin key? I do have the hobgoblin throneroom, but I cannot find the king nor the key anywhere, I already have lvl fully explored, and I tried running in vicinity of the throneroom a bit to possibly find the king, but no avail. Also no key in loot... Or did something kill him, and I just have bad luck finding his corpse?

[Nopenope]

Getting the hang of it. Next run was a gnome with 18 Mind so that he gains a talent at every level including the first one, which means I got to start with Blink and a blast spell. I sacrificed Spirit to keep Body and Motion at a decent level and despite my later attempts to raise Spirit (for Stamina increases and controlling summons) I could never recruit more than one companion at a time, and they tended to die a lot. Still, having a permanent meatshield that you can equip and that acts a bit more intelligently than an animal changes a lot of the combat dynamics.

This time I was prepared to the Zorbus portal nastiness - used every figurine and horn for summons beforehand, chugged potions of resistance, switched the lever and proceeded to spam Holy Burst, burning through potions of endurance. I lost an adamantium golem but despite that it was over surprisingly quickly. I then decided to call it at that and ascended to demigodhood.

[zorbus_overdose]

Btw, is it normal not to get hobgoblin key on the floor with several chests locked with hobgoblin key? I do have the hobgoblin throneroom, but I cannot find the king nor the key anywhere, I already have lvl fully explored, and I tried running in vicinity of the throneroom a bit to possibly find the king, but no avail. Also no key in loot... Or did something kill him, and I just have bad luck finding his corpse?

Normal, keys that are not necessary for completing the game are not always generated. There's a chance that a key is randomly put somewhere on the dungeon level, and if the level is a "throneroom level", then there's an extra chance for it to be created there. Most keys are generated on the floor, and the nearest creature usually then picks it up, not always a boss monster.

[Mkok]

Btw, is it normal not to get hobgoblin key on the floor with several chests locked with hobgoblin key? I do have the hobgoblin throneroom, but I cannot find the king nor the key anywhere, I already have lvl fully explored, and I tried running in vicinity of the throneroom a bit to possibly find the king, but no avail. Also no key in loot... Or did something kill him, and I just have bad luck finding his corpse?

Normal, keys that are not necessary for completing the game are not always generated. There's a chance that a key is randomly put somewhere on the dungeon level, and if the level is a "throneroom level", then there's an extra chance for it to be created there. Most keys are generated on the floor, and the nearest creature usually then picks it up, not always a boss monster.

Ok, was just wondering, cause 3 of those locked chests I could not force open even with 19 body...

I once had quite success with a mage focused on summoning and large party. I think I had 6 followers + got some golems, dragons and some other enemy from orbs. I would always summon an army of celestials, and watch the carnage. Celestials are quite strong. I had him ascend to demigodhood, and on the next run I had an army ready in Zorbus. I just had to be careful around the last level to not have my followers killed as I wanted them to make it to zorbus.


P.S. I found two bugs, but not sure how to replicate them at this point. The first one was after I got poisoned from poison cloud the poison did not go away until I got poisoned again. Not sure if I was taking dmg, as I had good poison res (I had to hold down 5 to regen instead of S, so it was few hundred turns). The second bug I encountered two or three times so far. After fully exploring the level, opening floor map with P I would have unlooted container written on the left, but C did not do anything (it worked on at least one another floor). I am not sure if there actually were some unopen/unlooted containers, but it said so.

[Nopenope]

Now trying my luck with a Gnome with maxed out Spirit and Mind. I feel it should possible but my god he does die to literally everything. Like, he steamrolls the early levels with packs of bears and NPC backup until he's on the wrong side of a hidden archer or takes too long to summon stuff and it's instadeath in one hit. The plan is to max out Body II and Motion II to be a bit less squishy - that's only 4 talents out of the 16ish or so you spend over the course of a game, still better than having Mind less than 18 and only half as many talents.

Edit: he's now through level 7 and beyond so it's pretty much only a matter of not doing anything stupid and he'll be set for ascension. Don't know what kind of victory I'll aim at if I do make it to the Zorbus, maybe regular god.

This is hands down the best roguelike I've ever played and it's not even close. The only criticism I have is that it lacks a bit of content (e.g. no extra branches or planes beyond the Zorbus and Carillo, unique bosses are always the same, etc.) but that's only to be expected given how young the game is. I think drawing inspiration from all the stuff DCSS cut over the years could be helpful there, and maybe open-sourcing part of the dungeon generating engine so people can submit their layouts or something (maybe expose an API or spec?)

I also did a bit a savescumming to check what happens if you just beat the crap out of the Carillo bouncer and his golems, which is relatively trivial with a high-level party, and the answer is...not much? Traders all turn hostile, and travelers as well, but ex-adventurers stay neutral and non-recruited NPCs side with you. There's a secret, searchable vault in the tomb raider guild with a huge spoiler at the end of the vault but nothing much beyond that. Even the visible forbidden doors and chests don't contain much beyond regular loot. Amusingly you can loot some gold off of those but since you've taken over Carillo there isn't anything to spend it on anymore.

[Mkok]

There are even some secrets in Zorbus... But they are somewhat more powerful then overgod himself, so I never managed to beat it 

P.S. regarding the unlooted containers autopilot bug, when I quit the game and continued the save it was working, so there were indeed unlooted containers.

P.P.S. Is it just me or does die hard heal for less than health surge?

[zorbus_overdose]

Thanks for these!

P.S. I found two bugs, but not sure how to replicate them at this point. The first one was after I got poisoned from poison cloud the poison did not go away until I got poisoned again. Not sure if I was taking dmg, as I had good poison res (I had to hold down 5 to regen instead of S, so it was few hundred turns).

Couldn't reproduce this yet. Seems like the poisoned-state wasn't removed after the duration until a new poisoned-state replaced it.

The second bug I encountered two or three times so far. After fully exploring the level, opening floor map with P I would have unlooted container written on the left, but C did not do anything (it worked on at least one another floor). I am not sure if there actually were some unopen/unlooted containers, but it said so.

P.S. regarding the unlooted containers autopilot bug, when I quit the game and continued the save it was working, so there were indeed unlooted containers.

I might have introduced this bug somewhere around release 47 -49.

P.P.S. Is it just me or does die hard heal for less than health surge?

Changed Healt Surge calculation method a bit in release 47, but forgot to update Die Hard. Have to check this as well.

[zorbus_overdose]

The only criticism I have is that it lacks a bit of content (e.g. no extra branches or planes beyond the Zorbus and Carillo, unique bosses are always the same, etc.) but that's only to be expected given how young the game is. I think drawing inspiration from all the stuff DCSS cut over the years could be helpful there, and maybe open-sourcing part of the dungeon generating engine so people can submit their layouts or something (maybe expose an API or spec?)

Yeah, it needs more content, more uniques, etc. Some players have requested dungeon branches or at least 1-level demiplanes. Some ideas for these were: a githyanki homeplane, the nine hells, the abyss, or 1-level visits to known D&D worlds.

It's just that I've been in a creative rut for a long time. Writing even a single line of dialogue or lore seems difficult. It's also very easy to lose motivation since there really aren't that many players for new, traditional roguelikes. The genre is so niche, and from the already small player base many have already found their favourite game mostly from the big classics.

[Hamsmagoo]

The genre is so niche, and from the already small player base many have already found their favourite game mostly from the big classics.

Doesn't mean we aren't looking for something new now and then. I first discovered this game on roguebasin. I'm frequently checking roguebasin for new roguelikes. The strength for Zorbus is its unique characteristics are apparent from level 1, so anyone who takes the time to downloadit will see it's not just another angband or nethack. People who aren't used to the genre, though, may be turned off before they give it a chance. There may be some potential in the browser-gaming userbase that frequents places like kongregate if you could figure out a way to package Zorbus for them.

[Nopenope]

DCSS has been slowly bleeding out players since 2015, I think you could make a killing by targeting those disgruntled players. But DCSS's strength was its open source nature so that user-generated content (level layouts, uniques, flavorful stuff like quotes and punchlines) was easily written and contributed. I understand you want to control the direction of the game to some extent but that's only going to increase your own workload. So I reiterate my suggestion to expose part of the game in the form of an open spec or API so people can easily make level layouts and send them to you. Make the game more moddable, so to speak.

EDIT: also Hamsmagoo is right, making the game accessible in a browser like WebTiles would boost its popularity by a huge amount

[Damiac]

DCSS has been slowly bleeding out players since 2015, I think you could make a killing by targeting those disgruntled players. But DCSS's strength was its open source nature so that user-generated content (level layouts, uniques, flavorful stuff like quotes and punchlines) was easily written and contributed. I understand you want to control the direction of the game to some extent but that's only going to increase your own workload. So I reiterate my suggestion to expose part of the game in the form of an open spec or API so people can easily make level layouts and send them to you. Make the game more moddable, so to speak.

EDIT: also Hamsmagoo is right, making the game accessible in a browser like WebTiles would boost its popularity by a huge amount

Yeah, I'll second this. A segment of DCSS players are, and have been, hungry for a "more fun" version for a long time. When something awful made their own branch of DCSS it was pretty popular. But the main DCSS devs clearly didn't like it and seemed opposed to anything from that branch on principle.  I am tempted to angrily rant about it but there's been enough of that already...

[Nopenope]

So I made it to the Zorbus, challenged a god. Took longer than expected but easily beat him thanks to my army of summons and NPCs, I wasn't really  ever in danger. So I consume the god's essence and talk to the overgod, and I'm thinking to myself, beating the overgod can't be that much harder, right? Sure he probably has much better stats and spells and resistances but that's doable?

Wrong. When you turn on the overgod all the other gods turn on you. This definitely wasn't in the manual and cost me a nominal godhood ascension (though in principle I did beat a god, so I'm not that frustrated). So I guess you have to beat all the gods one by one if you want to have a chance to eventually beat the overgod. I don't know if this was a thing in previous versions.

[Mkok]

I also finally made it to Zorbus with my lone wolf half-troll, had huge luck with elixirs (2 talents, 1 exp, 1 body, 1 motion, 2 mind, 1 will, 3 clone), spider web/slime immunity was extremely important. Challenged the beauty god, thanks to withering and anchoring managed to beat her easily.

If you ascend (god or demigod), then your character as well as all followers will be in Zorbus the next time you arrive, and they will fight on your side, so you can get a small army there before challenging the gods (or overgod, or the terrible hidden monstrosities) 

[Nopenope]

So the correct play is to keep doing ascensions as demigods and occasionally gods, taking them out one by one until the entire pantheon is secretely on your side, then gang up on the overgod? Sorry, I think I'll pass. It takes approx. 5 hours of playtime to make it to the Zorbus and there just isn't enough replayable content to not turn the whole task into an incredibly tedious chore. I'd rather leave the game at that on a favorable impression.

[lemon10]

From what I can tell the answer to that is basically yes, but you don't actually have to kill all of them, just enough of them that you and your group of allies can win against the overgod and his group of allies.

How many do you need? I honestly have no clue since I didn't realize it on my first try how absurd the overgod and his allies were despite the lore telling me that killing the gods would get you allies in future fights there and tried to kill the overgod and died horribly with 0 chance of victory.