itch.io

Pretty sure I've never seen an ability fail to hit either, but maybe he means physical attack abilities? Which I wouldn't know since my playstyle is very magic heavy.

Currently I can find no perceivable reason to use two-handed weapons over one-handed weapons, so I have made a list of the disadvantages and suggestions for rebalancing.

1. You can potentially have twice as many enchantments by dual wielded one-handed weapons, so enchantments on two-handed weapons should be twice as powerful.

2. You can do significantly more damage by hitting with two one-handed weapons simultaneously, so two-handed weapons should have significantly greater damage range.

3. Dual wielding effectively doubles your chance to hit and parry, while some two-handed weapons don't even get a bonus to hit/parry. All two handed weapons should have significant enough bonuses to hit/parry to even the odds.

4. Even with these tweaks, I'm not sure you would be able to match the damage output, parry and hit probabilities of dual wielding because of how these things are calculated, but something that could be done to give two-handed weapons a unique and sensible advantage is by increasing their reach by 1 tile.

EDIT: Because adding +Hit/Parry bonuses wouldn't actually balance out the probabilities of a two-handed vs dual wielding due to how hits/parries are calculated, could two-handed weapons be given a double roll for hit/parry probability?

Sounds awesome, can't wait :)

"corpses are a limited resource in the game."

Not in my experience lol

So, an unseen skill tree? I think that would be pretty counter-intuitive. One part of the suggestion that I do like is that if you don't pick a skill at a certain level, it can appear again later. Having a random selection of skills to pick from is great, but it bothers me that I can only pick up certain skills at a specific level, especially since the greater part of the game is left with no new abilities to reward advancing the character level. I would love to see a progression system that recycles unpicked abilities from lower levels, so that I have more long-term control over my character builds.

I realize the randomness of the ability selection contributes to strategic challenges and excitement when you get the ability you want, but once you're in the character levels where there are no abilities left to pick from you have already overcome those challenges, and it would be nice to be rewarded for that.

When I first started playing Soulash I noticed I could butcher fish people, but not other kinds of people. I guess because it would be too "dark" to beat some hapless farmer to death with a rock to butcher the body for meat/leather; but c'mon now, it's a dark game. Maybe only for certain races, like the troll for instance who needs to eat a lot more (and traditionally trolls do in fact eat people), would help add variety to races and balance their substantial hunger.

I'm not 100% but I'm pretty sure there are a lot of other enemies (dragons?) that can't be skinned/butchered and I think this is a missed opportunity for some more interesting crafting recipes. Also, if I'm not mistaken, you can only butcher or skin a body, not both. This doesn't really make sense, so unless I'm mistaken I think it would be good to be able to do both as one action to get the hides and meat from each kill.

Races

More races would be great, but the current races themselves don't feel that fleshed out yet. The troll is a good example of a balanced race, it has some minor stat boosts, with a bonus to HP regen and a penalty to hunger. That makes it unique and balanced, whereas a lot of races either have bonuses shared by other races (night vision is one three races) or even just some minor stat bonuses which are pretty inconsequential.  The better discussion IMO would be how to improve the existing races to make for more unique play styles. As you suggested, racial abilities would be a huge step in the right direction.

Hunger/Thirst

These mechanics in their current stage definitely feel more like a nuisance than anything immersive or challenging. I think the rate at which you become hungry/thirsty should be dramatically reduced, while also reducing opportunities to find food/water. In this way, it can remain something you should be preparing for without being a constant interruption to game play.

Being able to prepare special meals with potion-like effects from magical ingredients would certainly improve depth and interest in the mechanics, potentially also making use of some items with very limited applications such as the wild mushrooms. But I think the opposite should also be true, perhaps taking minor penalties from eating lower quality food like raw meat (unless you have some sort of racial immunity to that), to motivate players to pursue better foodstuffs without making it feel as much like a forced mechanic as it does now.

That would really strengthen the lore if not all gods were equal, or even entirely "gods" themselves.

Or a circumstantial "Summon" spell, that would summon a different creature based on what it is cast upon.

Imp Dust -> Imp

Wisp Dust -> Wisp

Unicorn Horn -> Nightmare

Tree -> Ent

Stone -> Golem

The "Reanimate" spell would also be much more interesting if it were circumstantial, generating a different type of undead based on the corpse used.

This as a composite proposal of my own ideas, as well as those entertained by Barlth, Artur, and other members of the community, about the implementation of the Gods.

Emissaries: If the player goes around offending gods they will send their emissaries (like angels) against them in the mortal realm. For instance, defiling the dead (practicing necromancy) would offend the God of The Dead, and they might periodically send wraith-like emissaries against the player.

Challenging the Gods: Each god could have a temple dedicated to them, located in its own distinct region of the world. The concept of a “temple” could be used loosely for more unique environments, such as temple to the God of The Dead being a labyrinthine catacomb, or an entire island acting as the temple to the God of The Sea.

Worshipers protecting the temples would have their own unique resistances, weaknesses, and abilities depending on which god they serve. Each temple would have an altar, and if you can cleave your way through the protectors you could use the altar to challenge the god to come to the mortal world and fight to the death.

Optional Weaknesses: Each god could have a unique weakness, but not one the player could readily exploit. For one god, the player might go on a quest to recover an artifact that would give them an advantage when they fight that specific god, for a different god the player might seek to gain the assistance of long-since banished mythical beast by releasing it into the world to help them defeat the god that banished it.

These weaknesses could be used to gain an edge in battle, but wouldn't be necessary to defeat each god and would by no means guarantee victory either. What it would do however, is pad the game with meaningful content and flesh out the lore/history of each god for those who decided to opt for it.

Consequences: Each god would preside over a certain aspect of the world, and their death would cause that aspect to fall into decay; such as the rivers progressively drying up over time after killing the God of The Sea. In this way, the player would need a strategy for killing the gods in a certain order based on their needs. Once they kill the first god, it would essentially be a race against time to kill the rest of them before the player can no longer sustain the life of their mortal embodiment, in an effort to bring down the entire world with themselves.

Examples

Sea God – Rivers slowly start to dry up over time.

Sun God – The sun grows dimmer with each passing day, until the day is as dark as night.

Forest God – Plants and wildlife start to die off, grass turns to dirt, trees and bushes start to disappear.

Death God – The dead slowly start reanimating, unable to crossover to the afterlife.

Mountain God – Ores start turning to stone, stone begins to crumble to gravel.

Sky God – Lightning storms become progressively more frequent and violent, potentially setting fire to tree/buildings if that is implemented.

Each God would also naturally preside over it's emissaries, for the Death God it could be wraiths, for the Sun/Fire God it might be fire dragons. In any case, killing a god would forcibly scatter their emissaries across the mortal world, like roaming mini-bosses that would make the world progressively more dangerous and inhospitable.

Not many people know about itch.io or its forums; an official discord could be a good way for the community to gain traction, communicate, answer each other's questions, and announce updates since the game does not update automatically.

Ah, if the Spinning Wheel is meant to be the Tailor workplace then I believe it is bugged. Standing next to one will green text the "Tailor tool" requirement in the crafting menu, not the tailor workplace requirement.

Thanks! I was able to find a workbench south east of spawn, and quite a few in the capital. Our Vampire/Inquisitor friend is now lv.18, and has torn through every "?" on the map; still no sight of a "Tailor workplace" though. Is there something I am missing?

(Please correct me if there is already a repair system available, I could not find any options for it on damaged items or any notes on it in the tutorials.) I'm not sure if there is no repair system in the game because it is in development, or if it is because there is supposed to be an emphasis on random loot; but with all of the frustrations and challenges that come with roguelikes it would be really nice if I could at least hang onto my favorite items for as long as my character is alive.

Basic

Click on damaged inventory item -> Have a button that says "repair" This action would consume resources based on what is used craft that specific item, and could potentially also require holding tools. That would be the most accessible way of having a repair system in my opinion.

Intermediate

If that is too basic, you could add a restriction where players can only repair items they know how to craft. That would add some challenge in having to unlock the ability to repair items. You could also make the amount of durability repaired per material stat dependent, so that certain builds would be able to perform repairs more efficiently than others.

Advanced

If you really want to make players work for their repairs you could add a rare "Repair Kit" drop that would be required for performing repairs, and lose its own durability in the process. The repair kit itself could be crafted from a set of tools (Knife, Scissors, Hammer, etc.) as going out to gather all the components would be a quest in and of itself.

I have been through a few towns and found anvils and furnaces, but can not seem to find workbenches and tailor workplaces for crafting leather and cloth items. I'm new, on an INT pure Vampire/Inquisitor, lv5 and going strong. Half the concept behind the build was to be cranking out lots of enchanted cloth and leather items but I can't find anywhere to craft them.