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Tahnan
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icon Things I currently don't love about DROD: RPG (0)  
Inspired by this earlier thread: some things I don't like about RPG.

As I noted here, the effects of right-clicking the minimap confuse me. Some of the colors are too similar, and mostly it seems to mean having more information I have to remember.

The mouseover on the minimap tells you one of four pieces of information about the room: treasure, enemies, open doors, or nothing; but it picks only one of them, rather than telling you that, e.g., a room still has both enemies and treasure.

The demo seemed to me to be very basic. I felt like I was more or less walking through it, picking things up, killing things, but not making the kinds of decisions that the Spitemaster advocates in this post. Generally, in fact, I didn't feel like the demo really highlighted the game's qualities; I gather the post-demo area does that better, which I think is a shame.

Essentially, I wish I were feeling more excited about the game. As it is, before I buy it, I'm waiting to see if user-made level sets can give a better sense of the game's potential.
09-18-2008 at 07:01 AM
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Someone Else
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Tahnan wrote:
As I noted here, the effects of right-clicking the minimap confuse me. Some of the colors are too similar, and mostly it seems to mean having more information I have to remember.
You think you have it bad. I didn't realize that there were more than two colors, and I thought that it had broken after I hit it once (I'm mildly color-blind)
09-18-2008 at 07:04 AM
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Briareos
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Perhaps putting a small icon on the room (maybe clubs, spades, hearts, diamonds? :D) to mark it would work better?

Yeah, it'll cover a small part of the room, but there was a reason you marked it after all and in the worst case you can just click on the room to see it in it's full-size glory...

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09-18-2008 at 08:29 AM
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kyevan
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I don't love that it has no Danforth! There's also a couple bugs (Like, lock up and eat all keystrokes so I can't tell OS X to force quit...) still... Oh, and it needs a higher-res icon. (I keep the icons on my iBook's desktop HUGE, for easy clicking.)
09-18-2008 at 10:33 AM
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I don't love the lack of a warp system in the official hold - that would have been a massive timesaver.

I don't love aumtliches and hot tiles - they're a pain to optimise, especially when you have to go back a few levels to get a x2 medium potion rather than a x3 or something.

I don't love not knowing whether I've locked myself out of hidden rooms.

And I don't love Danforth's absence, either... :~(

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09-18-2008 at 03:33 PM
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I don't love the fact that finishing a hold will tell you how many hidden rooms you missed, but won't give you any indication of where they are. I'm currently missing one hidden room in the official hold, and I haven't found any more secret walls despite repeatedly looking through everywhere I've been. And I have no way to narrow down my search.

I don't love the fact that the official hold was not split into two -- it plays like two separate holds in every respect, so why not split it?

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09-18-2008 at 04:35 PM
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Dischorran
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I don't love how the vast majority of what made me actually interested in further holds was packed into a *secret frakkin' level*! I bought the game more on the principle of supporting Caravel than on the merits of the demo, and I'm glad I did, but really...

I don't love the reduced room size. It's claustrophobic. That said, I'm surprised to not dislike the resized graphics; they work fine in practice.

I don't love being expected to make intelligent choices about which corridor to clear without actually knowing what I'm buying with my HP. This may change.

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09-18-2008 at 05:00 PM
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icon Re: Things I currently don't love about DROD: RPG (+1)  
Watcher wrote:
I don't love the fact that finishing a hold will tell you how many hidden rooms you missed, but won't give you any indication of where they are. I'm currently missing one hidden room in the official hold, and I haven't found any more secret walls despite repeatedly looking through everywhere I've been. And I have no way to narrow down my search.

I don't love the fact that the official hold was not split into two -- it plays like two separate holds in every respect, so why not split it?

Have you found the secret room in:
Click here to view the secret text


Could be your missing room.

And in fact it IS splitted in two parts. You can choose at the beginning of the game.



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09-19-2008 at 12:21 AM
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enzi666 wrote:
Have you found the secret room in:
Click here to view the secret text


Could be your missing room.

Nope, I already found that one.

And in fact it IS splitted in two parts. You can choose at the beginning of the game.

Yes, but it shows up in the holds list as one hold. It just seems to me that it would bemore natural to separate it into two holds.

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09-19-2008 at 04:10 AM
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Click here to view the secret text


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09-19-2008 at 01:02 PM
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Fafnir wrote:
Click here to view the secret text

Click here to view the secret text


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09-19-2008 at 01:29 PM
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Syntax
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Briareos wrote:
Perhaps putting a small icon on the room (maybe clubs, spades, hearts, diamonds? :D) to mark it would work better?
I'm not colour blind but the minimap colours confuse me more than anything. I think Briareos' idea is a good solution...
09-19-2008 at 09:34 PM
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NiroZ
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Briareos wrote:
Perhaps putting a small icon on the room (maybe clubs, spades, hearts, diamonds? :D) to mark it would work better?

Yeah, it'll cover a small part of the room, but there was a reason you marked it after all and in the worst case you can just click on the room to see it in it's full-size glory...
I personally don't understand why they just don't have a coloured ring around the rooms...
09-19-2008 at 09:40 PM
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Fafnir
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For consistency with the DROD minimap, I'd imagine.

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09-19-2008 at 10:34 PM
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techant
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Watcher wrote:
I don't love the fact that finishing a hold will tell you how many hidden rooms you missed, but won't give you any indication of where they are. I'm currently missing one hidden room in the official hold, and I haven't found any more secret walls despite repeatedly looking through everywhere I've been. And I have no way to narrow down my search.

I am missing one in the demo and that is just too frustrating..

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09-20-2008 at 01:00 AM
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KevG
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1. I don't love the lack of a demo function. I realise that the nature of the game prevents room demos from being even remotely useful, but I still miss having an easy way of sharing tricks and techniques for solving.

2. I don't like that there doesn't seem to be any way of deleting saves. As a compulsive saver and hardcore optimizer I've got a ton of junk saves cluttering up the restore screen.

3. I don't like that there doesn't seem to be a way of skipping cut-scenes. Or that you have to actually wait and listen to NPCs instead of going on about your business like previosly. Given that the nature of the game encourages multiple playthoughs skipping would be handy.

4. Not sure how it would be implemented, but it would be nice to be able to check the map for previous levels without having to physically go back to them.
09-20-2008 at 01:19 AM
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NiroZ
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It's not well documented, but hitting spacebar once will speed up a cutscene, twice with skip it.
09-20-2008 at 01:24 AM
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eytanz
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KevG wrote:
2. I don't like that there doesn't seem to be any way of deleting saves. As a compulsive saver and hardcore optimizer I've got a ton of junk saves cluttering up the restore screen.

Go to the restore screen, select the save you want to delete, and hit the DEL key.

3. I don't like that there doesn't seem to be a way of skipping cut-scenes. Or that you have to actually wait and listen to NPCs instead of going on about your business like previosly. Given that the nature of the game encourages multiple playthoughs skipping would be handy.

Hit SPACE, just like in DROD. (And if you accidentally skip something and want to replay it, double click the portrait of Tendry. Doesn't work for cutscenes, but it will let you replay room dialogue).

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09-20-2008 at 01:26 AM
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silver
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icon Re: Things I currently don't love about DROD: RPG (+1)  
hit space a couple or three times, actually, for most cutscenes

(first one speeds it up, second one seems to advance it to end but leave dialogs running, last one dismisses the dialog)


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[Last edited by silver at 09-20-2008 02:43 AM]
09-20-2008 at 01:28 AM
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eytanz
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One thing I don't love about DROD RPG is that the documentation is spotty. I especially don't love it since that was one of the things I could have helped resolve before the game came out, but I didn't think of it.

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09-20-2008 at 01:32 AM
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nabla
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One detail that annoyed me a bit was the room in Homeland where you get the sword and Halph is standing behind water, then disappears to the left (minor spoilers):

Click here to view the secret text

09-21-2008 at 09:36 AM
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NiroZ
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Yeah, I was suprised by that too.
Click here to view the secret text

09-21-2008 at 09:39 AM
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I don't love the fact that the "don't" thread is longer than the "do" thread.
Not that I'm helping, but... -_-

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09-21-2008 at 04:54 PM
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Monkey wrote:
I don't love the fact that the "don't" thread is longer than the "do" thread.
Not that I'm helping, but... -_-
Yeah, but no big deal -- it was the same for TCB too. One thing I've personally noticed is that it's easier and simpler to give feedback or discussion for things needing to be fixed (they jump out at you) than to take the time to think out what was done well.

For instance, I admit the Homeland room mentioned above was an oversight, but at the same time, I'm certain there were dozens of other spots where the rooms were generated properly/cleverly to admit or block access, as designed. Each and every one of those don't need to be praised though, right? It's just the way the game should be when designed well.

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09-21-2008 at 08:09 PM
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Tahnan
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eytanz wrote:
One thing I don't love about DROD RPG is that the documentation is spotty.
Oh, that's high on my list, believe me.
09-21-2008 at 10:42 PM
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eytanz
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Tahnan wrote:
eytanz wrote:
One thing I don't love about DROD RPG is that the documentation is spotty.
Oh, that's high on my list, believe me.

My mother is currently visiting me for a few days, but once she's left I'm going to start going over the documentation to see how it will be approved. Once I've started properly, I'll make a post on the forums so people can contribute suggestions and/or revisions.

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09-21-2008 at 10:48 PM
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RoboBob3000
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One thing I don't like: The very first hidden room you encounter requires one yellow key for entry and earns you only 200 health. This lowers your score five points. Given the amount of health available in the first half of the quest, I highly doubt that a yellow key to 200 health trade-off is an optimal decision at any point.

This means that any optimal score runs in the first half will require not visiting that hidden room, which really cooks my goose.

Edit: What I would prefer is if the hold allowed the player to see the room, then make the choice. Say, replace the yellow door with a crumbly wall and then put the door on the inside of the hidden room.

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09-22-2008 at 01:29 AM
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icon Re: Things I currently don't love about DROD: RPG (+1)  
nabla wrote:
One detail that annoyed me a bit was the room in Homeland where you get the sword and Halph is standing behind water, then disappears to the left (minor spoilers):

Click here to view the secret text

On a related note, I was a little disappointed to find there was nothing hidden here in the first level, especially considering the effort I went through to reach it:

Click here to view the secret text



[Last edited by Gorvin at 09-24-2008 05:24 AM]
09-24-2008 at 05:23 AM
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nabla
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Gorvin wrote:
On a related note, I was a little disappointed to find there was nothing hidden here in the first level, especially considering the effort I went through to reach it:

Click here to view the secret text


I agree that the design here is a bit misleading, but actually I'm glad there is no hidden room there, as getting to it would use up lots of health and three rat race items, which kind of screws up the rest of the game.

On second thought, if there were a whole hidden level that reimburses you for your lost stuff (and lost playtime wandering between 1 and 6), thus making the rat race possible again, I could see it working. Of course there would have to be an exit directly to rule 6 for transporting back the new rat race items.
09-24-2008 at 11:10 AM
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bwross
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What I don't love is one of the things that irked me about TotS as well... that expected damage is listed as the total, and not also as damage times number of hits. For example, "627 damage (57 x 11 hits)". This is because I find it easier to do multiplication in my head than two subtractions and a division and I'm often very interested in those two factors when it comes to deciding on how to power-up (and although sometimes I can make a quick save suicide run to instantly get that information by simply fighting the monster in question without thinking, there are times when that's not possible but still very relevant). There should be enough room for both because expected damage gets its own line.

Another thing: It's a nice idea to adjust the expected damage for special cases like attacking an eye from behind. However, the system for doing it is somewhat flawed. There are rooms where there are two eyes facing opposite directions on almost the same line (The Goblin Tribe: 2S4E, for example). It's not immediately obvious when bringing up the window which eye is scored without experimenting or doing the calculations yourself anyways. I find it particularly odd that it should give me the expected damage of the one I cannot even reach simply because it has the priority. Particularly bad is when you peak into a room to see how your combat is doing against the natives, and don't notice that the eye is facing away from you (or assume the wrong eye). This can result in a bad impression of how much things are going to cost leading to bad decisions until you eventually run into one. So over all, I'm finding that feature confusing... not doing that at all and showing me the damage by number of hits would be far more useful. At the very least, some sort of warning label that a number is being altered by the current situation would be nice.

My thoughts on right clicking on the map: I'm not fond of the particular colours. I'm really not fond of trying to remember the colours. I'm pretty much committed right now to making my own notes and maps to keep track of things.
09-24-2008 at 04:31 PM
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