This time I played it melee only, no spells at all or ranged weapons (bouncing back projectiles still counts as melee...right?). This is the only run I've played on this version so when I talk about a lot of balancing things it'll be compared to when I played bows and spells last version. Played surprisingly well with a trackpad. So besides the bugs I showed before:
- I encountered the increased attack speed bug a third time, this time I hadn't reloaded or died in probably over an hour. So maybe its not related to reloading, but I still think its multistrike related.
- Thought block was pretty bad at first and should maybe be changed to something more passive. But as I played more I think its fine actually, extremely useful vs bosses and single enemies but vs multiple its better to just keep swinging. Wish you could always interrupt any action (like mid swing) with a block though. Some enemies could have longer windup animations I think, like the big gray guys with clubs. Felt like their damage comes later than when the swing connects too?
- Not sure if I was just hallucinating it but sometimes it felt like you got damaged out of nowhere, like walking close to the cultists (witches? the early women enemies... I did play on a small laptop screen though, maybe I missed something. "Think" I got damaged by fireballs even though I reflected them.
- Maybe change the color of the water in the fountains to a lighter blue. I'm probably damaged from Diablo but right now it looks like a mana pool to me.
- When you have an item that gives you stats to allow you to wear another item and you take it off it gets thrown on the ground even though you have space for it in the inventory. Would be nice if it was put into the inventory instead, or turn "red" and inactive and you'd have to unequip it yourself.
- Enemies can hit you slightly around corners, even if you can't see them.
- Is there a sound for opening a trapped chest? If there is, it might be too similar to the regular one.
- Can't pick up potions from the ground to the cursor when the inventory is full.
- Magic items feel a bit weak overall and not that different from regular items. Mostly in the early, mid game. Maybe decreased stat range for items? An example, the masterwork armor with increased defense has less def than another without it.
- The resistance modifiers seem really low, like getting an item with %3 lightning res. (are there lightning enemies early game?) isn't very fun. Don't think the game would go on for so long that stacking resistances would be a problem?
- I want more modifiers! :) Mana leech is very strong but it might be too common? Maybe having it drop on melee weapons be a higher chance than others would be a nice balance thing.
- New enemies are great.
- Death animations on enemies are great, although the snake ladies could be gorier. I wish enemies had much more pronounced flinch animations though, I want arms flailing, heads snapping, blood flying on every hit!
- Charge attack sound for the snakes is weird, placeholder? Charge seemed very weak though.
- Items on the ground disappear when loading from the main menu. Corpses too, but maybe that doesn't matter much.
- I didn't get a single amulet the whole game, :(
- Strength as a stat seems a bit too weak, only gives you increased damage every 5 points compared to 2 for other stats is a huge difference. Doesn't seem like a lot of items require much strength either. Intelligence seems like by far a better stat, gives you some benefit every stat and also every 5, makes you able to read more books, many (for me it seemed like most, had the same bracers forever because I couldn't find any without int req, but maybe I was just unlucky) armor pieces and even melee weapons and shields require intelligence.
- Two handed weapons don't seem worth it at all, I wanted to use them but they all looked so much worse than going one handed and shield I didn't. Not really higher damage than one handed and much slower, you get less stats too, less weapon arts.
- Playing melee only was much, much harder than going ranged. Maybe you don't really intend people to play like that, but still. Last DD I played I don't think I died once with bow and spells, this time I did many times. Probably why I encountered all the save and load bugs heh. All in all the early game feels way too hard melee, most of the times I was at 0-1 health potions and had to play extremely carefully luring out single enemies and try to kite them (often you can get a free hit in and run away when they run up on you without attacking). Some times I pretty much had to try the same fights several times til I got a health drop from an enemy. I think the big problem is that you can't really avoid having your health drain when fighting melee, even with using block which won't really work when fighting multiple enemies and often you'd be better just punching them. In Diablo 1 you'd abuse doorways a lot to only fight a single enemy at a time but you can't really do that here (I'm not saying you should be able to just that it made melee easier there). I think around the burrows or so the difficulty playing melee starts to get a lot better, the golden goblins seem vital to that playstyle though so you can get good weapons. I used them both for new weapons and used them all the time. I don't think I died after getting to skeleton town, around the burial grounds I was swimming in potions and had my entire inventory filled with them. The drop rate for them felt too high around and after that. When I reached the very last area I was so strong I breezed through it. Fighting and bouncing back projectiles at the same time was really fun though, melee felt strong around mid to late game.
- Making melee better early game is hard without breaking the balance for other playstyles I think. One idea would be to have some more starting items to choose from, so if you want to go full melee from the start maybe you could pick between a shield as well. Maybe a piece of armor too? Increasing the drop rate of health potions early game could be a good idea overall, doubt it would hurt to have the early game be easier for all. Could make it harder as the game progresses.
- Some levelups felt really long, like 8->9. I carried around some items for ages until I could level up and use them.
- Not sure if you care about this part but not using the same seed for per character for rng makes it really susceptible to save scumming. I didn't do it this run (well except for when I died and had to reload) but if you really wanted to you could for example save before breaking every crate and reloading until you get a potion or when opening a a magic chest to get something you want, etc. But again I don't know if it actually matters.
I'm sure I had more to say but I forgot/didn't write it down. I had a great time playing though. I think the amount of playtime will be pretty good in the final version with the last areas. More monster variety would be great too of course but I get why its not that simple. Adding a hardcore option alongside the despair difficulty would be a fun "free" thing to add for us masochists too. Can't wait to see more great things from you. Ending stats:
