Fior
Level: Goblin
Rank Points: 17
Registered: 04-08-2024
IP: Logged

I really want to love DROD. I really like how it tells its story, I love how it looks, I find the fighting mechanic to be very clever and engaging. But still, playing DROD somehow lost it's charm to me.
I have beaten most of post-mastery GateB (which I mostly enjoyed) and after loosing my save file on KDD level 21 I moved to JtRH and am close to beating it (Level 24 right now). It's gone from 'I wonder what comes next' to 'oh no- another one of those mimic/tar mother/ snake / brain/ goblin rooms' (rock golems are an exception - I love every single room, where they main puzzle is centered around them).

I don't feel clever anymore after 'figuring out' a room. Actually, I don't feel like figuring something out and more like barely surviving the next assault. As mentioned above, I'm in JtrH level 24. In most of these rooms (e.g. 1N1W, 1S1E, 1S1W) you have to take care of a (rained) horde of monsters while trying to achieve something under time pressure. These rooms aren't just unfun for me - they are seriously stressful. The game is somewhat in a way immersive to me, that I myself feel surrounded by these monsters and on the edge of survival all the while the next tar growth destroys all the work I just have done. At the moment most of the rooms are just frustrating for me.

It seems to me this game is more about optimization above all else, which isn't a thing I enjoy doing. I love puzzle games for figuring out a main idea, understanding the mechanics a little bit better and having my knowledge tested in it's puzzles. Most of the rooms I have played don't achieve this for me (an exception for example being L23, 2N3W - I loved the puzzle at the end of the room).

Another thing is: Rooms feel way too large and most of the time spent isn't actually solving the puzzle but executing the main idea.

All of this is making me sad, because it seems to me there is a lot of potential in this game. This game seems so close to be an incredible experience, but at the moment it misses for me and drifts way apart.

Is this somewhat relatable to some of you? Might this be just a thing with the earlier games?

Dragon Fogel
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 2453
Registered: 06-21-2014
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It's mostly a thing with the earlier games. If you play user holds made after The City Beneath, they will be largely puzzle-focused. The Second Sky is also primarily puzzles, though there are still some pure horde rooms and rooms where much of the challenge is in the execution.

There are a lot of types of room and it may just be a matter of some types being less comfortable for you. There was a definite shift in focus towards puzzles after The City Beneath was released - you can find some puzzle holds before then, but after it, the proportion shifts heavily towards them, even though The City Beneath itself is more in the style of KDD and JtRH.

Consider trying out Dan's Dungeon - there's some rooms that are execution-focused, but it's generally lower difficulty and helps with grasping the mechanics. I felt I had a much better understanding of the game after playing through it.
The Descent of King Hesper (often referred to by its working title of Entry Point) will also be coming out later this year, and while it's not free of difficult horde rooms, the balance is overwhelmingly towards puzzles. It also starts off assuming no knowledge of the game and focuses on teaching how things work, which is not to say it's a pure tutorial - there are plenty of puzzles to hammer out.

Red-XIII
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 645
Registered: 08-05-2012
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It seems that you are the type of player that prefers linchpin-style of puzzles. Indeed, the "earlier games" that you are mentioning had the majority of rooms based on execution/horde/efficiency.
Yet, keep in mind that the official release "The second sky" also has a lot of linchpin-style puzzles.
However, there are A LOT of great user made holds, completely free, based on the type of puzzles you seem to enjoy. For instance:

Uncle Arable's rooms
Darkness of the unknown (yes, I am shamefully promoting my hold)
Magic show
many rooms from gigantic jewel lost
Blockerture Science Laboratories (based on a custom element).

Indeed, the potential of Drod is enormous, you just have to find the holds that suite your style and preferences as a player.

____________________________
There's not some other world out there where everything's gonna be okay.
There's just this one, just this rock.
-33th Skywatcher

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[Last edited by Red-XIII at 04-09-2024 03:07 PM]

larrymurk
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1916
Registered: 12-09-2004
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maybe unlimited undo would make things more enjoyable?

if you play holds using the second sky engine you should be able to set your undo option to unlimited which I think makes the gameplay much more fun and less frustrating.

Nuntar
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 4705
Registered: 02-20-2007
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As the others said, DROD's level design has become more focused on linchpins and less on execution over time -- both in the official holds, and as a trend in usermade holds. This is even true in GatEB, which is more linchpin-focused than TCB despite being pitched at an easier level.

Some might see this as a case of the series finding its way and moving on from early mistakes; I don't agree with that at all (although certainly there were early mistakes; no official hold after KDD has done the "whole level about hidden things under tar" thing!). Instead, I think that DROD was about the interplay of monster management and linchpins from the beginning (see, for example, KDD Level 19), and the shift has occurred because later game engines have introduced more and more elements that make it easier to turn linchpin ideas into actual rooms. Pressure plates are probably the main example. Also in the TCB era, the community put a lot of effort into understanding DROD's hidden mechanics, such as the details of brained movement (the hold Advanced Concepts contains a deep look into this), and once these were brought to the surface, that gave architects a lot more tools to play with.

I would strongly recommend that you persist with JtRH though. You are very near the end, and the end of JtRH's story ties right into the beginning of TCB, which is when the story starts getting really good -- and after TCB you can play TSS, which is both the best part of the story and the best-designed main hold in terms of puzzles.

Incidentally, are you playing JtRH in one of the older engines or in 5.1? If you play in 5.1 then you can enable unlimited undo, which may help you persist through some of the nastier horde rooms.

____________________________
50th Skywatcher

Pinnacle
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1133
Registered: 06-10-2004
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As others have mentioned, this is largely a result of KDD and JtRH being from the beginning of a 20+ year history of evolving design trends, changing preferences, and increasing understanding of the mechanics. TCB is a somewhat transitional game, noticeably leaning more into linchpin puzzles and understanding/manipulating monster movement, but still has its share of hordes here and there. By the post-TCB series of Smitemaster's Selections onward, the series had fully found its modern identity. What you're looking for is what DROD eventually became, you're just taking the long way around to get there.

____________________________
Once (adv.): Enough.
Twice (adv.): Once too often.
~Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

Jacob
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 3749
Registered: 10-01-2004
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Definitely sounds like you, similar to me, like to play lynchpin puzzles where the focus is more on finding the way to solve the puzzle rather than its implementation.

Boyblue and Larrymurk make a lot of holds like that and I have a few too.

____________________________
New to DROD? You may want to read this.
My Holds and Levels:

Fior
Level: Goblin
Rank Points: 17
Registered: 04-08-2024
IP: Logged

First of all: Thanks for all these fast responses and the heads-up. Seems like these holds you recommended might be a nice breather inbetween the more execution-based puzzles. Maybe I'll even grow to like them someday. Let's see...

Nuntar wrote:
I would strongly recommend that you persist with JtRH though. You are very near the end, and the end of JtRH's story ties right into the beginning of TCB, which is when the story starts getting really good

Will do for sure. As said above: I really like the way DROD tells its story (and of course the story itself) and although there hasn't been very much of it (yet) it did a good job teasing what might come (it also did a great job of giving me a specific goal other than to clear just another hold).

I have already played with multiple undos and have finally changed to unlimited. Maybe I should just give up the pride and start having fun.

navithmastero
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 614
Registered: 01-03-2012
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As time has gone on, the DROD community has gone from primarily releasing rooms which are just about execution, and without that 'wow' feeling you get when you feel something out to now, where the most rated holds are almost exclusively lynchpin puzzles that really make you think. I've played DROD for countless 1000s of hours and even when I go back and play JtRH I find the aspects that you've spoken about frustrating (don't even get me started on those bomb maze levels!). Fortunately, there are more and more interesting puzzles to come in the DROD cannon and as you get more familiar with all the elements you'll get to some really really cool moments in official games, as well as be exposed to some exceptional custom holds. The good thing about DROD is that there are so many puzzles out there that you can sort of choose what you want to play! Fortunately, once you start TCB you'll be over the hill when it comes to the 'sloggy' feeling (although there are still some not so nice rooms in TCB, it's not all sunshine and rainbows!), and by the time you're on TSS the standard of puzzle is really really high. As Nuntar says also, the story is much more of a focus in TCB than it is in JtRH. Stick it out, and you'll get back to the feeling you enjoy!

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kolbesag
Level: Delver

Rank Points: 40
Registered: 02-02-2021
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There's a kind of old school charm (makes sense it was made in an old school era) to early drod. Going from GatEB too KDD and JtRH is like going back from this Peak experience too watching this series figure its self out over time. You can see the ideas that stick and the ones that are discarded, though stuff like infinite undo and see-through slime sands down alot of the rough edges. Some of those concepts you can only really get away with one (I liked the maze floor but I would never do that again).

Thats why ranking the DROD games is hard because each one captures a different flavour of good.

Drod was such a absorbing rabbit hole for me is that it that it's not these efficient/minimalist back to back lynchpin puzzles of modern puzzles, which I tend to find exhausting. That it can shift from the kind of monster horde optimization that eventually becomes second nature, too master class lynchpins is why it still sticks in my mind to this day.

Someone Else
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1333
Registered: 06-14-2005
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The next time I sit down to build a hold, it's likely to have a focus on hordes. I think I actually prefer those puzzles (not that I dislike lynchpins). The issue is that I want the difficulty to not be reflected in extreme move counts.

I think that's driven at least some of the shift. We want harder holds, to challenge ourselves, and that's something that may not be possible in a reasonable fashion with hordes - because demanding perfection in manipulation is not enjoyable.

mrimer
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 5106
Registered: 02-04-2003
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It's really interesting for me to see everyone's perspective on hold evolution, and I appreciate the feedback.

I am responsible for the JtRH bomb mazes and some rooms in L24. (Sorry about that ) I know one of these rooms even seems to be regarded as Worst Room Ever, so I have to apologize for that. I thought it was an interesting concept, but I would definitely change the execution of these rooms if I were to design them today. But, yeah, so many good puzzles in there, and I think it only keeps getting better from this point in so many ways.

Fior: Thanks for playing our games!

____________________________
Gandalf? Yes... That's what they used to call me.
Gandalf the Grey. That was my name.
I am Gandalf the White.
And I come back to you now at the turn of the tide.

Camwoodstock
Level: Master Delver

Rank Points: 117
Registered: 07-02-2014
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To be honest, backreading this thread does make me kind of wonder what a hold that's basically ALL horde management/routing would look like...

At any rate, take solace in that while JtRH is definitely not the most gracefully aged level design (I think it's alright personally, but also you can kinda tell it came right after KDD, and my tolerance for strange level design is--like my tolerance for a lot of offbeat gaming-related things--through the roof. ), it's definitely uphill from here. TCB is good, GatEB is also fun (if you didn't start with that one, of course), and TSS needs no introduction if you've so much as heard of DROD before.

____________________________
Camwoodstock - The Epic Blunder, Dugan's Best Janitor, Rooted Hold Runner, Lowest Point Watcher, and 132nd Skywatcher (and 13th Gel Authority)
Mastered all of GatEB, KDD 2.0, JtRH, and TCB! | Saw The Second Sky! (lots of secrets left!)

Her/him | & | Steam | Backloggery

Illusionist
Level: Master Delver

Rank Points: 172
Registered: 05-27-2020
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Optimization is kinda useful IRL, though

do you have unlimited undo option? it's fortunately/unfortunately a deal-breaker. I must admit that it helped me enjoy the game much more. There are people who are strict about it, but if you can retract your movements, you can frankly learn much much more through it, alas it's a topic that deserves an essay.

Another thing, you might hate it NOW, but after you get better, you will REALLY enjoy going back to the first two games. I myself love replaying level 23 in DROD 1 and just smite the cockroaches. Alas I have a very specific taste. Later DRODs are really about making you think, rather than punishing you, so you shouldn't give up.

Oh and trust me, I actually used to really HATE Drod, and nowadays I love it ha ha. So at some point, something went right.
And as you can see, there are plenty of people who are willing to help you survive the experience.

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[Last edited by Illusionist at 05-26-2024 03:28 PM]