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Author Topic: Stoneshard - Turn based Mercenary Roguelike RPG - 0.9.1 - Rags to Riches Update  (Read 9095 times)

Sharp

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0.9.1 Update - Rags to Riches

Smorgasbord of new features.

Can finally set up campfires and sleep wherever you want.
You now can have a caravan set up and move around map.
Camp followers in your camp to help you out.
Dungeon Conditions
Settlement Situations
Crafting System
Cooking System
New Map
New Locations
New Enemies

It's not a new game, the bones are still there, but a lot more to do now.
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delphonso

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The biggest complaint I've heard of Stone Shard is the travelling and the empty time therein - but now there's reason to be foraging, etc, and the caravan itself - seems like a step in the right direction.

I finally actually gave the game an honest go and am enjoying it so far - it's tough, but there's a lot of options to deal with things. Sort of just inching my way to being strong enough to actually take on missions.

Sharp

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Travelling can be a bit of a chore, they have added fast travel methods now with caravan and a taxi-cart, but you will often be traipsing through many a forest.

The game can put you in some pretty difficult sections, but seeing as it's a roguelike that you can save and load, not that unfair overall if you get sent to your death as you can try again (or not finish the contract of your demise)

I have a bit of a love/hate with the random map generation as sometimes key sites are really handily located and other times they are on the ass end of nowhere.
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Il Palazzo

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What annoys me about travelling, is the tedium of having to kill a couple dozen people each time you go out of town. I'd much prefer long uneventful treks, spent on scouting, foraging, maybe hunting. With only rare - but actually dangerous - an ambush.
It'd make it easier on immersion too. As it stands, this sparsely populated region apparently has 99% of the population camping in the wilderness every few hundred metres or so, ready to throw their lives away in banzai charges on an armed-to-the-teeth mercenary.
It beggars belief how anything or anyone can function in this world.

Still, I'm enjoying the game a lot.
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lemon10

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The two main things that bugged me about the game are:
1) Actions are just slightly too slow. (I fairly frequently found myself pressing the button for the next action, but it wasn't recorded since the the previous turn was still running).
2) Trekking back and forth over and over is really tedious, especially once you are strong enough that the tens of thousands of bandits spread randomly around the world are just chaff.

1 & 2 combine annoyingly to make trekking take even longer.
---
Luckily these are both easy to fix, by using cheat engine speedhack to speed up the game and via a mod that lets you put a flag on a area to just auto-navigate there.
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And with a mighty leap, the evil Conservative flies through the window, escaping our heroes once again!
Because the solution to not being able to control your dakka is MOAR DAKKA.

That's it. We've finally crossed over and become the nation of Da Orky Boyz.

Il Palazzo

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See, I enjoy the trekking. Just fuck off with those bandits.
Is there a mod for scaling down the encounters?
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delphonso

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Haven't made much progress, but agree - the squads of 3 bandits in the middle of nowhere are pretty annoying - not dangerous enough to be interesting, but just because of mechanics, can't be simply walked around. I like the setting and the pixel art is impressive, but the game feels like it's miles wide and inches deep.

The parallels between Caves of Qud are pretty strong, but Qud feels deep, and that's not really a fair trade-off for good pixel art. I'm not done with the game yet, but I'd say that I find myself working to play it, rather than wanting to play it. Could just be timing, as I'm coming off a long stint of Quasimorph - which is a very shallow game indeed, but with no down-time between action.

Il Palazzo

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I've tried a few builds now, and have found some to be incredibly hard to get off the ground (sword-board), some easy-ish but tedious (electromancer). And then there's the dual-wielding axe dwarf - that one's just easy mode for the first few hours, at least until you get to 3-skull dungeons. It's also fun as hell to leeroy jenkins most encounters and see the limbs fly as you hack away in reckless abandon.
I've seen people on the Steam forums suggest an archer for beginners, but it seems to me it'd be even more tedious to play than a mage.

BTW, I've never felt the game to be much similar to CoQ. What's the angle here?
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delphonso

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I've been playing sword and board as it had the most survivability for me - but it is meticulous...I tried the barbarian, but he literally died in my first encounter, so I went more tanky. Hard to say what's best for learning - whatever is going to give the best practices, so I reckon ranged is the right choice.

Deadly roguelike with (optional, not default in CoQ) checkpointing. The many many active skills make the game feel similar, and the gameplay cycle is the same - find quest, wander about looking for it, and return for reputation and XP. Obvious CoQ is unhinged in comparison, but I feel they're very similar games. I have the same feeling with Rimworld :: DF as to Stoneshard :: Caves of Qud.

Il Palazzo

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What initial skills did you pick for sword and board?
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delphonso

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The 'take a step and swing at whoever steps into you' and the paassive to weapon durability. Have since picked up cleave and the shield bash.

EuchreJack

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I've tried a few builds now, and have found some to be incredibly hard to get off the ground (sword-board), some easy-ish but tedious (electromancer). And then there's the dual-wielding axe dwarf - that one's just easy mode for the first few hours, at least until you get to 3-skull dungeons. It's also fun as hell to leeroy jenkins most encounters and see the limbs fly as you hack away in reckless abandon.
I've seen people on the Steam forums suggest an archer for beginners, but it seems to me it'd be even more tedious to play than a mage.

BTW, I've never felt the game to be much similar to CoQ. What's the angle here?
I've almost exclusively gone Crossbow/Two-hander.
I typically prefer the spear because it's the smallest Two-hander.
Crossbow plus bolts also uses less inventory space than bow+arrows.
Yes, switching weapons is tedious, and it increases the inventory management issues. But with the latest update not allowing the sale of broken weapons, there is less loot readily available to sell.

I usually sustain less damage vs. 2-3 enemies than straight melee.  Magic is ultimately more efficient, but only one starting character starts with magic unlocked.

Sharp

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Crossbow plus bolts also uses less inventory space than bow+arrows.

A two stack quiver is enough for me with bow, I've not needed to store extra arrows in inventory. I've gone for 2-handed axe + archer, with a few points in ranged I find two stacks is more than enough to clear a dungeon before needing to restock, and Dirwin's bow is probably one of the longer lasting starting weapons if you stick with bows, it stacks up fairly well to until you get longbows.

The lack of being able to sell broken weapons is only slightly annoying (You can sell junk (inc broken weapons) to Ol Tott the cart driver, but he normally doesn't have a lot of crowns and sells for 2x markup) , before they would have only sold for a few crowns anyway so you are better off grabbing herbs instead. There is not much point in picking up damaged enchanted items unless they work for a build you want, but even with all that I generally find myself almost full to the brim after most dungeons, but I do also have almost 1/3 of inventory space dedicated for healing items and food.

Also the random enemies can get quite strong after levelups and going around tough areas, but fighting the weak squads you get is also nice bits of experience.
« Last Edit: December 24, 2024, 01:24:46 pm by Sharp »
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Il Palazzo

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Killed the ancient troll on first attempt. Granted, this involved guzzliing some potions before and during combat, but still - it wasn't even a close call. Then healed up and walked away only to get absolutely murderhoboed by one of those generic lion things that like to roam the countryside. :/ Some balancing issues persist, methinks.
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nenjin

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Ah. So potions are how you fell a troll.
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