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Post by fallen on Oct 25, 2013 23:09:37 GMT -5
Lol ... send him in with the spiders?
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Post by beuns on Oct 26, 2013 0:54:28 GMT -5
Yeah, but what if I have a beef with the Wizard. He's got shifty eyes!  LMAO |
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Post by rabidbite on Oct 26, 2013 13:11:53 GMT -5
Hi. I finally have some time, so I want to start hitting HoSteel.
How do I get the game? If I got sent a message I probably missed it in all the 'hoopa' with work.
rabid
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Post by fallen on Oct 26, 2013 15:04:12 GMT -5
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Post by rabidbite on Oct 29, 2013 5:19:31 GMT -5
I am playing on Hard. I find the monsters dangerous and entertaining. Those Ratkin shamans are OP. Takes a lot of focus fire and tactics to bring 1 down. (1 of them did 3 x 88-97 damage hits on my main tank like it was nothing). I like the challenge. The Wizard is next to useless except for debuffs. I had rounds of 3 fireballs on 1 target for a total of 4 damage. that's 12 Spirit Points for 4 damage on what should be, arguably, by hardest hitting ranged toon. I mean, why have a low hp glass cannon with high SP cost BASE attacks that can't do damage while consuming those SPs? When the wizard looses all his SP (and you got no potions) he becomes absolute dead weight. No use whatsoever. The monsters 1 shot kill him, and he can't do anything. Thus, debuffer/buffer is his role and nothing else. This one might need a little looking at. The 8 spirit cost for opening locks is excessive. Especially at the beginning where there's nowhere to grab a rest. (At least I couldn't find a place, but I AM new). This is an ability that has a minimum base use per lock. That is to say, for every lock you WILL use it 1 time plus however many times the player mistakenly hits the screen with the power still locked on active.(This feature might need some tweaking to help avoid mistaken casts). Another problem I encountered was "balanced loot". If the thief doesn't have 8SP available to open the locks ... there IS no loot. No reward. Nothing. No way to get potions to regain SP. Its like an infinite loop: Don't have SP to open chests to GET SP providing potions. This one is another that might need a little looking at. The cleric is the tricky one. She cannot take front row damage at this difficulty. I've had her 1 shot killed from full health. So, I have to stand her behind the main tank, move her forward, hit and move her back again. She's my close combat skirmisher! Lol, that's a funny role! Still she does more damage than the useless wizard. Sometimes she heals, but that's it. Her 3 round curse is not worth the SP cost. Too much precious SP for too little duration. Traps are not always placed exactly around rubble. Thus, if a player wants to find all the traps in an area, we're talking 3-5 casts. Usually I have to limit myself to marking a path and hope I remember it afterwards. Remembering it becomes very difficult because every time we hit MENU, the map recycles to black. I've had traps appear on me in tunnels ADJACENT to the rubble IN ANOTHER TUNNEL. That was a surprise  In consideration, there has to be a minimum distance-round combination for active combat. Example: My thief triggers combat with the (famous) bridge. Doesn't bother me, I go around. Problem is that, all the way back to my camp, or anywhere on the map, I am in combat. There are no enemies close by, but the AP action feature never deactivates. We have to go back to that particular place, find whatever monsters there are in that area, kill them, or get perma stuck in combat. Either way, I like the game. I like the music. I like most of the character graphical movements. I love the character fidgeting (it makes the characters seem so alive! Give it to CK!) I love the 'Gauntlet' (old game) type feel to HoS. That's about all I can think about. I'm writing at 5-6 AM in the morning before work, so I hope sleep deprivation hasn't made me too illogical! rabid |
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Post by johndramey on Oct 29, 2013 7:55:58 GMT -5
I actually am playing through Nightmare at the moment, and got a lot to talk about... First, and I think this is catching a lot of people out, it seems that the higher difficulties (Hard and above) are designed with the idea of "scouting" in mind. By that I mean, never use group move when moving into a new area. Set up your main body in a good choke-point or area with a lot of avenues for escape and use one character, logical choice being the thief, to scout around your main troop body. Uncover everything with no enemies? Well, reposition your main troops and repeat with your scout. If you run into enemies you need to book your scout back to the main body and work on focus firing enemies down one at a time. When it comes to landing hits... I've actually not experienced much of a problem with it and I think that is because of the fact that I'm constantly cursing enemies. Choking sands and/or ethereal anguish seem to have pretty large effects, so use them a lot. The wizard seems to be a little more miss prone than the others, but I'd say that I hit a good 70-80% of the time, enough to were I don't really mind a miss. The enemy does hit me more along 90% of the time, but they are supernatural predators hunting my puny humans so...? I'd also hazard a guess that we will be able to have a large effect on hit rates once we are able to equip our troops to our liking. If you check everyone's armor at the moment you'll see that the Outlander is running around in light armor and everyone has... well.... improved clothes on. On the classes, I'd say that they are all pretty good in my opinion. The only class that needs a little bit of a look, in my opinion, is the wizard. Like I've said in other threads, the wizard should be able to deal more single-attack damage than the rogue in my opinion. As it is now, the wizard is dealing less damage with less accuracy, I'd like to see one of those stats boosted up a bit. Since the thief seems to be our accurate ranger (with aimed shot and crit boosts) boosting up the wizard's damage, even if it's just the max, would give him a clear niche. Of course, we are just seeing a level 1 talent with fireball. Maybe later on it becomes a beastly talent? I've actually found the cleric to be a totally viable front-liner. She deals decent damage without any boosts, and having her next to the outlander for healing is a good idea. She requires a bit of care, as has been pointed out one bad turn can take her down, but with the proper build I think she could easily become my front line utility tank, cursing, healing, and dealing finishing blows. The Thief is, for lack of a better word, amazing. Perfectly built as a glass cannon, dealing good ranged damage or good melee damage depending on your build. Simply buffing Aimed Shot or Torrent of Steel will give you great one-on-one killing potential. Her utility skills could be toned down in SP cost, and fallen has said they will be, but I'd like to see a little more info about stealth. As it is it... doesn't seem to be useful. I've been scouting extensively with my thief and she seems to trigger encounters at the exact same distance as every other character. The Outlander is, well, in my opinion a little too good. I still maintain that the empowered attacks need a little bit of a nerf, but I could be in the minority there so.... yeah! Of course, all of this is just my opinion. Everyone is free to disagree (or agree ) with me all you want. The main thing to take away is this; HoS is probably the best app on the market. Every time I boot it up I get lost in the Alpha Dungeon. I've played through it completely four times at four different difficulty levels and using four different tactics. I think that Normal is best for "pick up and play" players, not wanting to worry too much about overthinking anything and just wanting to have a great experience. Brutal or Nightmare is probably best for people who want to have a hair-raising masochistic experience. Me, in other words! TB, this is the best $500 I've spent in years. *edit* Ah, and about potion/SP/HP shortages. This should never really be an issue. I use my potions and the like fairly liberally, and I've not had too many problems. Worse come to worst, just backtrack to a campsite and catch some zzzs. Free top off! |
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Post by fallen on Oct 29, 2013 10:27:11 GMT -5
rabidbite - a few quick answers: 1) we are going to work on the wizard's accuracy and damage. 2) The Thief's SP costs for utility spells are coming down. 3) The fact that the map forgets your fog for previous exploration is fixed in P2. 4) I think a lot of the damage issues being faced her are being stuck with a Cleric who has 2 armor. At the level you leave Cellet Void, you can go purchase armor with 10-13 Protection. Also, are you raising the Cleric's Constitution? 5) We are working more unique twitches for all the characters 6) We are looking at the challenge of minimum distance to combat! Additional questions: 1) "Balanced loot" indicates that you stumbled on some empty chests, or you'd like to see more SP potions?
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Post by rabidbite on Oct 29, 2013 17:48:15 GMT -5
rabidbite - a few quick answers: 1) we are going to work on the wizard's accuracy and damage. 2) The Thief's SP costs for utility spells are coming down. 3) The fact that the map forgets your fog for previous exploration is fixed in P2. 4) I think a lot of the damage issues being faced her are being stuck with a Cleric who has 2 armor. At the level you leave Cellet Void, you can go purchase armor with 10-13 Protection. Also, are you raising the Cleric's Constitution? 5) We are working more unique twitches for all the characters 6) We are looking at the challenge of minimum distance to combat! Additional questions: 1) "Balanced loot" indicates that you stumbled on some empty chests, or you'd like to see more SP potions? Hmm, well in the post I vaguely mentioned I was suffering from "Where's the Camp?" disease. That rather neatly solves SP problems and kills the 'SP infinite loop' of Don't have SP to OPEN chests, so that you can have the possibility OF getting a desperately needed SP potion. PS: Playing on brutal now. Ugh, that white faced weasel/ratkin Deathkin is unbeatable. Can't run, can't defend. Buffed chars to max with wizard and warrior buffs, cursed the white weasel with both wizard and cleric curses. Hit it with everything. I think I did 22 damage (best score) out of 14 attempts to kill it. That's 22 damage out of 4 fireballs, 4 empowered melee attacks, 6 Aim Shot arrow attacks, 4 Smiting blows attacks combined. Multiply that by x 14 attempts. I averaged 13-14 damage and 12 out of 18 attacks missed even after curses and buffs. I CANNOT hit him without the curses and buffs, OR I do 3-6 total damage. Maaaah goodness Brutal is brutal. One thing I would like is an option to disable "turn off screen" effect that Android devices have. Much like what LogCat has that keeps the screen on if you so choose. |
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Post by johndramey on Oct 29, 2013 18:03:12 GMT -5
One thing I would like is an option to disable "turn off screen" effect that Android devices have. Much like what LogCat has that keeps the screen on if you so choose. This would be very nice if possible. I can't tell you how many times my phone shuts down the screen while I'm considering something or taking notes. I guess I could set it to have more than a 10 second sleep though, but.... effort. |
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Post by rabidbite on Oct 29, 2013 19:22:43 GMT -5
rabidbite - a few quick answers: 4) I think a lot of the damage issues being faced her are being stuck with a Cleric who has 2 armor. At the level you leave Cellet Void, you can go purchase armor with 10-13 Protection. Also, are you raising the Cleric's Constitution? Um, all this happened in the initial dungeon. I haven't been allowed to raise any stats even when camping. I don't get level options that I can see. Just a "brief rest" message. Am I missing something that's so obvious everyone else assumes I'm doing it? rabid |
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Post by johndramey on Oct 29, 2013 19:28:26 GMT -5
Well you'll get the level up options when you hit a campsite with enough experience to level. If you haven't seen that then your characters are still level 1.
The campsites are circles of brownish stone with a fire pit in the middle, just walk onto the brownish circular area and click the fire pit, you'll automatically rest.
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Post by fallen on Oct 29, 2013 23:37:20 GMT -5
rabidbite - it actually has to do with -which- campsite you are at. That's terribly confusing I know, but is an issue we are only going to have in alpha ... normally you'd be leveling at a cozy inn somewhere safe. Since this is the Dungeon Warfare phase, there are a few camp sites where you can level in the dungeon. Unfortunately (authoring mistake) there are also a few where you can't! Sorry. You will get a very different screen if you find the right campsite.
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Post by absimiliard on Oct 30, 2013 10:29:24 GMT -5
PS: Playing on brutal now. Ugh, that white faced weasel/ratkin is unbeatable. Can't run, can't defend. Buffed chars to max with wizard and warrior buffs, cursed the white weasel with both wizard and cleric curses. Hit it with everything. I think I did 22 damage (best score) out of 14 attempts to kill it. That's 22 damage out of 4 fireballs, 4 empowered melee attacks, 6 empowered arrow attacks, 4 empowered mace attacks combined. Maaaah goodness Brutal is brutal. One thing I would like is an option to disable "turn off screen" effect that Android devices have. Much like what LogCat has that keeps the screen on if you so choose. I found that in addition to buffing my characters, I definitely needed debuff the enemy. Lots of buffs on me got me into a position to survive a round of the Outlander getting wailed on and healing him back up. Without debuffing the enemy I just never did the damage needed to take him out. After debuffing I then used empowered attacks from everyone to take him down; well, not with the wizard admittedly, being focused on buff/debuffs his fireball is totally crappy and would never hit or, if it did, do no damage, so he just kept on buffing/de-buffing. Even with all that, in truth, I got lucky. I suspect that without that bit of luck my experience would have exactly mirrored yours. The only possible difference I can see between our tactics might lie in the expenditure of talents/skills/attributes, which you didn't mention. I'd call it lucky. -abs |
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Post by rabidbite on Oct 30, 2013 22:08:17 GMT -5
I'm going to try circle kiting the Deathkin next. I can't think of anything else I can do to beat him. Still eats my team alive.
Big question, do the same curses stack? For example: Can I cast 4 Ash curses on the Deathkin?
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Post by fallen on Oct 30, 2013 22:56:57 GMT -5
rabidbite - curses of the same type do not stack. You can Anguish him and Choking Ash him. We are doing some balancing on him.
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