Soulash

Soulash is a fantasy roguelike where you play as a forgotten god set on destroying the world. · By Artur Smiarowski

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Just got the game, and...

A topic by Chimael created Jul 08, 2019 Views: 579 Replies: 9

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Chimael5 years ago

So I'm loving it so far, the only thing that slightly irks me is the magic casters...

Don't get me wrong, for as much as you've done and how I've played the game has been a blast and i can't wait to see what you do with more and more updates. Really looking forward to picking it up again around Oct-ish when the destruction update should be rolling around.

Though, the magic users, mainly the warlock and the necro, sadly seem pretty under powered compared to the rest. I have a few reasons:

1. It seems early game more npcs have random gear like shirts/capes/hats over stuff like boots and leather plates, that might just be me but i've played a good 15-20 runs. And the issue is that most early game gear seems to have at least 1 point in fire and ice res (I know some are poison and some are holy based but i see fire and ice the most) and next to no physical defenses from the first few enemies. This mainly goes against the warlock, whom even if you put all you can into int, will be having 4 more damage on their spells while enemies will have an average of 2 less due to their armor. Where a fallen knight can put all their stats into str, and walk around with 4 more physical damage which most of the time isn't protected against i the first few fights.

While this doesn't hurt the necromancer by itself, it does hurt trying to start out warlock. I feel like i need to be a STR based warlock that later goes "oh yeah int" and uses their fire as a 'light peppering' of the enemies and not a "BOW BEFORE YOUR GOD OF FLAME!" and while i know you can get skills later, i actually have had a hard time getting to level 2 with the minimum damage i tend to do.

2. Stamina. While fallen knights and inquisitors have active abilities like warlocks, not only is their skills better early game due to being damages not protected, they don't seem to have to rely on their abilities as much, where a warlock or necromancer would. So while i might use bash, i'm using it every 2 or 3 turns and not eating up as much stamina as a warlock spending 6(?) per fire. If warlocks and such had an early way of running or draining stamina from enemies to give them time to rest or just regain distance to sling more spells, it would seem better. This comes paired with i seem to do more damage bashing someone with my staff and throwing points into str than i would throwing points into int.

3. Necro's, the zombies. I do like that they need to rest and they seem slower, but unless certain stronger creatrues make stronger zombies, it doesn't seem like anything else makes a stronger version. I had an easier time raising a small army of zombies throwing rocks at rabbits then i did fighting the groups of people who seem to just KNOW i exist when i'm hiding i a house or getting early game wood for a weapon/armor. And while farming rabbits can be easy early game, it seems to only be a couple of steps before "random human traveler" happens to come by a completely innocent human just trowing stones around; all before the traveler is just filled with a raging bloodlust and tries to chop your head off. Even merchants, the one npc i thought would talk to me, attempts to kill me with that flaming sword they were about to sell to the poor farmers nearby. Not to make it worse if i don't loot it fast enough an npc might grab the flaming sword if their weapon is broken.

But that might be a small tangent. The main grip is how those humans are much stronger than those rabbits, and tend to kill 1 to 3 of my rabbit zombies, and when i bring that 80 to 120 hp human down? I get another zombie with 40 hp. Replacing 1 of the few i lost in the fight. And it might just be me but it seems while you start with 5 to 10 rabbits around, and a load of dangerous people, they then become rarer and mixed in with boars, wolves, etc. While that might just be location based, i still need to travel some degree to find water/food. Or blood as a vampire which is seemingly easier in my opinion, but that's fine with me. It just seems like zombies, while really good in hoards, are hard to get up to that standing because before you get any more than 4 some wandering hero tries to put an end to the zombie menace. At least now i know how those villains feel.

In short, love the game, and will lovingly pick it up every single update. I just will most likley stray away from magic users for a little while until they get some TLC. It's not that ihate them, they CAN be playable, it just feels like i'm playing a spellsword or a "fighter who knows fireball" or an archer who happens to raise the dead instead of a spell slinging warlock or a necro bringing up an army of undead.

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Chimael5 years ago

Did forget to add with the stamina post. I was going mention how since movement requires stamina, it makes it harder for classes who use all of it before someone even gets close to them. By the time the enemy is here i spent a good 40 on weak magic. Now i have a limited amount before i have to rest. During which they can just beat me down, as you can't even move when you have none. Which i love the mechanic in general, just feels like it limits spell casters slightly more.

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Rebelbeta5 years ago (6 edits)

I just finished my first really successful warlock run so I think I have some useful tips for you if you do want to try it again. Next patch should make starting zone and travelers less relentless but yes, I think the early game is probably the hardest for them currently because you were correct, they're the only one whose early game is counter-intuitively a little easier picking a generalist, tough guy stat distribution rather specializing/min-maxing right off the bat like the other classes do. I had a vampire and I think at start I did 12str, 12 end, 10 dex, 14int, 12 will. On the first level up I dropped two more in int, two in willpower, two more into end. Way later after around level 10 is when I started mostly putting 4 or 6 into int, willpower and strength as needed.

If you see Intimidate as your level 2 skill, definitely pick it. It will trivialize any individual melee fighter that comes your way. Travelers you say? Yep, you can start fighting them now. Unlucky Owlking wander? Just keep him away from you with intimidate and you're fine. Now your primary danger is going to be Magnus, other spellcaster wanders and archers, but you are already on much stronger footing than level one.

From here you want to pick abilities that will round out your repertoire, Vampire Touch for me was very useful at 3 for a self heal, then prioritize for an AoE ability, stronger single target damage, and a movement speed buff (phaseshift is amazing). It still will be hard sometimes and I still had to cheese hiding up the stairs and taking a rest in the small town east of the start area where enemies won't follow.

If you want to avoid the scummy strategy, your best bet at start is taking a really careful and slow route around the river northwest of start, never straying too far from the starting crater and only engaging owlmen, fishboys and other weaklings till you get some strength, prioritizing +sight gear and endurance so the travelers have less of a chance to get a jump on you. Instead of sleeping with loads of fatigue, sleep regularly anytime you've got a little bit of fatigue and especially when you can heal hitpoints. I also found playing a race with infravision to be invaluable in the rough early game without a torch and sight buffs depending on luck.

edit:

A little more, this might have been obvious but I didn't see a mention of bandages at any point. Deconstruct those linen pants and make a bunch of 'em. Keep the bandaged buff up when in dangerous territory and getting anywhere near half health. They are especially effective to slap on when sleeping and can make the difference between dying to a farmer when you were in a tight spot.

If you're not using it already this way, turning your character is early on the fastest action you can perform until you get phaseshift (or other abilities I haven't played with yet that have very low cast time under .20), use it to time actions to your advantage, juke and sidestep enemies, and allowing enemies to walk a tile towards you without hitting you first.

From what I can tell if you're not intending to use your melee attacks as your form of damage, aside from stats you want to prioritize weapon configurations that parry. A scythe is a decent replacement staff early on, swords and sabres to replace those. By the level 5 range the staffs some enemies carry can be great and equally as viable as a sword and shield.

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Chimael5 years ago(+1)

Was at work, but i wanted to say thanks.

I was planning on doing a warlock that was less int based, it just felt weird that you would have to for a spell slinger, but it is what it is! I just wasn't sure if that was what the dev wanted it to be like early game.

I try not to scum, but i did it once or twice, but one of my issues was getting up to level 2, as either a traveler or any random man would eat my fireballs and kill me. Though i was letting my fatigue get worse than i should have, should have been doing what you said and basically be sleeping every rest or 3 instead of letting it build like i would when crafting/as a meele fighter. also every time i played warlock i was a vampire, a friend was picking stuff that "sounded cool" as i showed him the game.

I used bandages when I got them, more so in other runs, as said i just didn't expect warlock to be... I dunno, they felt weaker than the rest if you go int based, which i was as i didn't know much about the game yet. So i had trouble getting the supplies to make them. ya know? I would turn but not as much at the time as i was still learnig some, it's making it easier but some things are still a toughie, glad you mentioned it though cause i took more time to learn exactly how much help turning can be. also thank for weapon help, wasn't sure what to grab after the staff when warlocking it up.

Thank ya for all the time you spent to help out, i'll give warlock a few more tries, more so with what the dev has said. I just hope i get luckier and stop being ambushed by everything. One time i tried chopping one of the starting trees and 1 traveler, 2 farmers, and a fish man came by, it was a sad sight.

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Rebelbeta5 years ago (2 edits) (+1)

Happy to help :D

My hope is to spread as much skill around with the game as possible so that Artur can get the best possible audience to test his game against :D

I will say, probably the most important thing in my writeup after having read what you already caught in your reply, is Intimidate at level 2. It maybe is too powerful, but I think there's a lack of other panic buttons at the moment to take it's place, especially in fitting the thematic direction of a warlock. With it, you only really only have to be afraid of anything that can hurt you outside of it's range. It also has a very short cast time (.30) which means you can use it on a group of three faster than some characters can move, or cast it on an enemy one tile away that would normally be able to close the gap and hit you before your spell finished.

The movement speed+ ability would be useful if you missed intimidate, the backflip(?) ability on poacher might also be enough to save your life but I haven't sprung for that one yet. The level 2 AoE fireball isn't worth taking imo IF one of these utility abilities is available instead. There are way better AoE attacks later on, early on your priority is going to be surviving and escaping danger, not taking on groups of enemies.

This all said though, it might still be a bit punishingly difficult. I suspect the next minor patch will effectively iron these things out, but we'll have to wait and see :)

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Artur Smiarowski5 years ago

Whew, a lot of good feedback. I'll try to explain some stuff and give my reasoning to some of my decisions with the caster characters, but I'm open for further discussion. :)

Let's start with the warlock. Warlock is a bit more complicated in terms of balance. Some time ago he had +2 damage on firebolt, and he just blasted through everything early before things could get near him. The thing is, that yes he requires more stamina than the rest of the characters, because he doesn't do well in regular attacks, but he gains range and no ammo requirements in return. In open-world range is a huge advantage over what melee fighters have, and archers require ammunition. Abilities also have a 100% chance to hit, and regular attacks don't, that also adds up to the cost. So stamina is the only resource a Warlock has to worry about for his power and since the cost of abilities doesn't go down with endurance like regular attacks.
One interesting thing you might not have come across yet are magic weapons. They are not available as often as standard weapons, but many magic effects add additional damage type or change it completely (for example, a weapon does only Holy damage instead of Physical). These weapons scale with Intelligence instead of Strength, so if you need to save up on stamina, this might be a choice when things get too close. Magic items can be crafted too, but it's luck-based. Some basic weapons like ceremonial daggers have extra holy damage without any additional affixes rolled.

Protections are not as strong as you think. Most defense comes from willpower because it covers the whole body. Shirt will only add it's protection when you hit the enemy in the torso. You can see which slots protect which parts in your inventory screen under "resistances", hover your cursor over some values there and see the magic. ;)

Necro is even worse to balance. I'm a big fan of WFRP, and for a long time, I've been fascinated by the story of Nagash. I want to have a necro that can create his horde of the dead, but, because this is a game, it would be too easy if these zombies could be powerful enough to do all the work for you. So the idea here is that you can summon as many as you can get corpses, but they are disposable. They will die quickly, they won't do much damage, they will soak some damage, but they also are almost free to make, because not all corpses can be butchered or turned into other resources. There are also some options you could try, but maybe not reliable. There is an AoE healing ability in the game that heals you and zombies, so with right combinations, this army might spiral out of control. :)

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Rebelbeta5 years ago (4 edits) (+1)

Have you thought about further down the line working more on the enchantment system? I've been thinking along the lines of being able to collect different enchantments from the magic items you salvage and being able to pick them somehow when crafting. Something to give a little more control in the kind of gear being consistently worn would be a welcome benefit, though would probably have minimal results with some of the early game issues people are having.

In regards to necromancer stuff, maybe would be neat to eventually get a single champion type zombie that sticks around a little longer. Perhaps an abomination golem type creature that requires multiple corpses, thread and extra time to conjure up and as a benefit comes with an ability or two it can use. I love me a zombie horde as much as the next person but might need something also to properly deal with some of the tougher individual named enemies

Big fan personally of all things Warhammer so I'm a happy camper seeing even vague inspirations in regards to style setting or mechanics :D

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Artur Smiarowski5 years ago(+1)

I had a thought to learn prefixes and suffixes from salvaging, but there are so many ideas already. :) Might be a good improvement at some point, first addition for items will probably be another rarity level with abilities attached to items.
Necro has a couple of abilities that need to be implemented for higher levels, some of them could be stronger summons. :)

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Chimael5 years ago(+1)

Sorry for the wait, been at work and just got settled in and wanted to read this before playing again.
So.
It's nice to know you're reasoning behind a lot of the stuff now, and that some of it was on purpose. While some things might not be to "my taste" I at least respect that it's the way you wanted it, and creator vision is something that i always like to put at the forefront of a game, Though, saying that i do want to hop into what you said.

I wasn't aware that abilities had a 100% hit chance, i thought that i was merely hitting more often due to generally throwing a lot more points into int than i did other abilities while picking a warlock. I actually played again for a bit after looking over this to try to try out stuff based on what you said. And in general i feel like i'm doing better but....

It seemed like the closer the enemy was, the less damage i did to the enemy. Now this might have just been a string of bad luck on an enemy will higher willpower, as my damage was suppose to be 10 to 14 and i was hitting this fishman with 11's, until they got within 2 squares and i started to hit them for 9. Then a traveler, the bane of my life right now, came and he was taking 2 to 4. He had a cloak of winter and linen pants of the giant, (what the game said) and i forget if he was taking more at range but i was dealing 4 until he got closer and i was then dealing about 2 a hit. Now i like the idea that closer = less time for magic = less powerful magic. Yet, i';m not sure if that was just bad luck or a bug or how the game was suppose to be.

Also travelers... I know what they are suppose to be like, but i killed 2 fishmen and was close to the crater... do they just spawn in "visiting" ;the crater to see what's up? Cause sheesh their speed + apparently tanking magic... I thought i could take him and then i wanted to press charges against the man.

AS for the rest: I didn't know magic wepons scaled off int, that's something i haven't seen before that i remember and i really like. I did get some but not as my warlocks, i got them as a berserker who i was super lucky with and apparently every miner in the yelling mountain caves had magic pickaxes (they hurt so bad)

I also didn't know armor would only defend certain body parts, it didn't seem like that but i reread the tooltip as well. Should have paid a little more attention on my part. though a good deal of armor still seems to at least give 1 or 2 fire early game, so i feel like my point "slightly" stands, but i can see your point and i'm not pressing this one.

I feel like the best way to balance necro might be either warning that zombies are weak, or giving an option for an ability early on. like instead of raise dead they get an option to get say, a small damage "curse" or the like that can be close to the warlocks fireball but less damage, possibly less range, but is more of a "utility" ability (I don't know what they have come level 2 cause it's been hard playing them, so you might have an ability like this), and then level 2 they MUST have raise dead. Only cause while i know you don't want the zombies to spiral out of control, i feel like a single farmer being able to take out 2 or 3 and then that farmer only becoming 1, which means you have to then hunt rabbits before another farmer comes along. Just ideas, trying to help here, not saying you have to do it this way. If the necro stays like this cause it's how you want it to be, i might not play it much but i would try to do it as a challenge or to eventually learn it.

as for that... I think i covered everything? still love the game, will love to post more as i play more often, find out new things, have ideas you might be interested in. More so cause i like how, despite your full work weeks, you not only take the time to read but people say but reply in such a kind manner as yourself. It's also nice hearing things like what i said was "good feeback" and not just a "complaint"~

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Artur Smiarowski5 years ago (2 edits)

The range thing on abilities was just bad luck. There are no mechanics like that in the game.
As for the traveler, there will be some relevant changes in the v0.2.5 update.
I think I'll leave the necro for now (it might get changed later on), mostly because summoning zombies is unique in the game and only available to the necromancer, I don't want to push it into level 2, because then everyone can be a necro. :) I'm okay with some professions having a more difficult playthrough and some more comfortable, some players might pick a race + profession combination just for the challenge. I'll play around with him a bit more to see if some tweaking is required, maybe beef up zombies, or perhaps they are fine as they need a different playstyle than other characters. Also on level 2, I think necro gets acid spit, which is a stronger version of firebolt.

I'm happy you enjoy the game, and I'm looking forward to more of your feedback and ideas. :)

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Soulash

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