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Post by Ex on Apr 18, 2019 23:54:25 GMT -5
I went ahead and cleared floor 3 tonight, saved on the start of floor 4 of 10. My fighter-cleric has managed to reach level 5, giving him access to some new powerful spells. One of which is the ability to conjure food from thin air. So now, I never run out of food, and I could already heal myself. Since spells rejuvenate upon camping, I never run out of spells. So basically, insofar as I don't die in direct combat, I will never run out of sustenance. I'm thinking a thief-cleric would have been an even better build. Because then I could pick the door locks, instead of wandering around looking for keys. Then again, I always clear the entire dungeon before leaving anyway - don't want to leave any loot behind. Although I should mention, generated floors remain persistent! Meaning you can return to earlier floors and continue exploring, or retrieve dropped items, if you so desired.
Also this game keeps track of all the monsters you've slain. Here's my count so far: Turns out what I thought was that lone kobold turned out to be a wererat. The gargoyle was actually hard to kill. Sheet ghouls at least don't paralyze you like normal ghouls do.
Thus far on this presently successful run, I've got about two and a half hours invested. At this point I find Dungeon Hack addictive, and easily one of the best "roguelike" games I've ever played. That said, there's still a lot more floors to go. We'll see how it holds up. I did start hitting spinners on floor 2, and warps on floor 3. So the spice is already starting to flow.
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Post by Sarge on Apr 19, 2019 12:15:27 GMT -5
I've hit a few spinners myself in LoL. Made good progress last night, finally almost done with the mines.
Also, I killed that slug thingy. I couldn't get my right-click to work properly in ScummVM (turned out to be an issue with loading in one of my save games, needed to come in from scratch), so I adopted a different strategy: hurl my weapons at it! Basically, I'd get disarmed, and I'd sit there and grab my weapon off the ground as fast as I could and toss it at him. I did this right next to the exit to the mine so I could recover health, and come back in. For this critter, health is actually persistent, so you can continually whittle it down until you win.
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Post by Ex on Apr 19, 2019 22:29:05 GMT -5
The fourth floor is full of enemies that upon touching you, permanently rob you of experience levels. Considering how long it takes to level up, that's wayyyyy too punitive. I'm not keen on this at all. I think that'll do it for me, thank you. My Dungeon Hack explorations end here.
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Post by Xeogred on Apr 19, 2019 22:34:19 GMT -5
Yeah... that's too much.
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Post by Sarge on Apr 19, 2019 23:03:49 GMT -5
Geeeeeeez. That's ridiculous.
I'm pretty sure that's something left over from Wizardry. I wouldn't play a game like that without some serious save-scumming.
Looking at a guide, apparently there is a level drain protection scroll. Are those consumables or permanent? I'm also seeing something about "Greater Restoration" and "Negative Plane Protection" in places. No idea, though.
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Post by Ex on Apr 20, 2019 0:44:37 GMT -5
I wouldn't play a game like that without some serious save-scumming. This game will let you save whenever you want, and reload whenever you want. That causes the problem @tsumuri discussed before, where PC developers expect you to exploit the save system, so they just do ridiculous stuff and say the hell with balancing things. I hadn't seen one before. But item drops are completely random, so you could possibly never see one. I wouldn't know without reading the manual, half of which is nothing but spell explanations (just like Baldur's Gate 2's manual is). Overall I ran through a good six or seven floors in Dungeon Hack (including the times I died). I get the gist of it. It's a pretty good roguelike-FPDC, although it lacks the complexity or finesse of a hand-crafted FPDC. There's probably a way around these level draining enemies, but I'll just pass. I got my fill of this game, I get what it's about. Back to New Vegas for now.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 20, 2019 3:43:08 GMT -5
This game will let you save whenever you want, and reload whenever you want. That causes the problem Tsumuri discussed before, where PC developers expect you to exploit the save system, so they just do ridiculous stuff and say the hell with balancing things. Yeah and that's the real issue with allowing save-scumming. It gives developers an excuse to be lazy and it disrupts my enjoyment of the game like no tomorrow. Just wanted to point out that the first 6 Wizardry games are also available for the PS1 and mostly playable in English, but do not allow save-scumming. They only let you save in towns. This review confirms it: I’m 100% willing to bet both nuts that there isn’t a single human that has ever cleared Wizardry 1 for the PC without “save-scumming” and avoiding their character deaths.The PS1 version, however, uses a standard memorycard save-system, meaning you get to save in town whenever you want. I wonder if the Ultima Underworld port also works like that.
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Post by Xeogred on Apr 20, 2019 7:53:07 GMT -5
I wonder if the Ultima Underworld port also works like that. Whoa! Never knew this existed. The UI is a downgrade but it looks solid!
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Post by Ex on Apr 20, 2019 10:18:12 GMT -5
[Whoa! Never knew this existed. The UI is a downgrade but it looks solid! The PS1 version is supposedly a strong graphical update, but the controls suffer. HG101 says:
Unfortunately the PS1 version remains entirely in Japanese with no English fan translation. If I didn't mind getting involved in a deeper longer experience right now, I would absolutely give the first UU a real go. I have played UU1 and UU2 before, was impressed with both, but never finished either. I will play through both someday. But right now I don't want to get involved with a game that's gonna take ~30 hours to finish, when I'm already 45 hours in the middle of another first person RPG presently.
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Post by Sarge on Apr 21, 2019 12:45:22 GMT -5
The White Tower in Lands of Lore is ridiculously stressful. The first two floors are fine. It's the third that's nutso. That's when you start encountering wraiths and ghostly knights. They will do a number on you, and almost nothing you have is actually effective against them. In one of the few guide-examining moments, I found out then (through copious warnings to not use it elsewhere) to use Vaelan's Cube, which annihilates them in one or two uses. The problem? They keep coming. Seriously, they do not stop, they keep spawning in. Every single run (of which there were many, since I missed some keys in places) revolved around me trying to optimize my route to move as fast as possible through the area.
Oh, and since they're ghosts, they can pass through walls. Surprise!
Anyway, after burning up copious amounts of time there, I've moved through to what should be the last run. There's apparently a dungeon I have to go through first (from my reading about the choice I'm about to have to make). It's a really, really weird quest that apparently has me choosing between two alien races as to which one lives and which one dies, systematically slaughtering all of the race I sided against, and getting a reward of either an extra level of Might or Magic (but not Might & Magic, ha!). It... kinda feels out of the blue.
Hoping I can finish this up either today or tomorrow. I have to travel for work, though, so I might have my progress curtailed quite a bit. I probably need a little break, anyway, after the time I put in yesterday.
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