79 replies to this topic

[A. J. Raffles]

Humph. My characters never live long enought to do any serious spellcasting. I'll keep trying, though.
Is your character still alive, Svlad?

[Svlad]

Mine was wandering around level 90something with about 25k points when the new version came out.  There's another new version, by the way.

I considered starting over - I wanted the high score in the *current* version - and then sanity finally got control and told me to delete the game before I spent another couple dozen hours just farming points.  If I want that sort of utter masochism, I can go play a MMORPG.

Playing Transcendence now, but it doesn't look like that'll last more than a couple more hours.  

[A. J. Raffles]

Dang, not another new version.

Edit: Right, seems like this is the best I can do:

Quote

Toast
reached level 22, scored 1059 points, collected 681 gold, killed 189 monsters, found 2 of 9 staff pieces and traversed the labyrinth for 01:47:52 before getting killed by staying too long in a burning place.
Skills: Strength, Dexterity, Thievery, Poison Resistance, Swimming, First Aid, Veteran, Sorcery, Magic Weakness, Cursed, Short Sighted, Hunter, Chosen (God of War)

What a shame I didn't have another potion of healing with me, or at least a potion of fire resistance... Oh well.

Edited by A. J. Raffles, 12 August 2005 - 09:55 PM.

[A. J. Raffles]

The game has been updated yet again; the current version is 4.012a. Just in case anyone's interested...

[PrejudiceSucks]

I'm sure that people will be, I quite like this game now that I've started playing it.

[A. J. Raffles]

Unfortunately the current version has a bug: spellcasting monsters are unable to cast spells. It makes the game a lot easier, obviously, so this might be a good version to start with, actually.[/blatant advertisement]

[A. J. Raffles]

Whee! I beat my highscore and managed to collect all staff pieces for the first time.

OK, back to revising mode...

[DakaSha]

like ive said im not playing this untill version 5.000..


btw...

did any of you notice that the new version has multiplayer support for up to 7 players on  one pc?

thats pretty neato actually

[A. J. Raffles]

Just in case you're interested (you should be): there's been yet another update of Lost Labyrinth. I think I'd rather not try this one now, though. It's bad enough that I've got readdicted to ADOM...

[Svlad]

I've picked it up again, since newer versions allow monsters to spawn on a nexus or sanctum.. which makes my point-farming impossible, which in turn oddly enough makes the game palatable.

There's a version out fixing the monsters-can't-cast bug and adding some shiny things.

Some of which are awfully unbalanced, like the Armageddon spell.. huge fire damage to, and this is the good part, everything on the entire level.

This has sped up my descent considerably.

[A. J. Raffles]

It's a bit of a shame, though. The bugged version was actually the only one which did NOT blatantly favour spellcasters.

[Svlad]

So what would you do to fix it?  

Would you weaken the power of magic?  

I'd favor at least some of this; magic is beyond madness.  Magic can confer complete invincibility, kill everything on the level, summon a demon to grab all the loot for you, and let you cross the dungeon quickly and safely.. and it's possible to have all these powers at once, courtesy of Scroll Lore.

Would you improve the power of melee?  How?  New attributes to buy at creation?  Modify existing ones?  New shiny equipment?

This I know less about.

[A. J. Raffles]

Well, for example you could make non-spellcasters less susceptible to magic. But actually I think the easiest way would be to improve on the missile weapons, so fighters could actually use those as an alternative to magic. I don't know if anything has changed about missiles, but on the whole they seem to be pretty weak compared to magic.

[Svlad]

The problem with missile weapons is, they'd still require line-of-sight on their target.  With magic, I find my least valuable attacks are the ones that require LOS.. since any monster with spellcasting abilities, a missile attack, or a stoning gaze then gets a chance to kill me.

And in the case of spellcasters and stoning, that's not a chance to hurt, that's a literal chance to outright kill.

The only way *I* can deal with those horrors is to either use magic to avoid them altogether or use magic to destroy them without giving them the opportunity to retaliate.

So either magic needs to lose that ability, or the threat of instant-kill attacks needs to be reduced.  Having more warrior talents include a component that negates a monster threat would be one way to go - the Monster Sight (probably the wrong name..) ability, the one that also includes See Invisible in perpetuity, is a good example of how this could be done.

Another route would be to create equipment that *negates* those threats instead of reducing them.  Lead Shields, Mirrored Helms..  It's hard to call anything overpowered in the face of Starfire (hits everything onscreen..), let alone Armageddon.  The problem, to some degree, is that finding items is so very random.. maybe a talent could allow people to start with extremely good items?  That might make warriors high-powered on early levels of the dungeon..

One trend that *has* been good for warriors.. kinda.. is that staves are becoming much more powerful.  Armageddon is available in staff form, even if the failure rates are over 50%..

Or you could substitude damage attacks for instant-kill effects.  Give spellcasters Frost Bolt instead of letting them cast Eternal Winter (turn to ice, instant kill).  etc.  This might be a good change, overall.  At least, *my* spellcaster builds tend to totally avoid being attacked anyway, and wind up taking Weak and relying on that avoidance (later, magical immunity) to survive.  So it wouldn't make the game significantly easier for magic-wielders.. but it would at least help people who actually have to fight the monsters in their way.

One final, passing thought.  Non-mage characters could probably benefit from better access to transportation and reconaissance capabilities.  Some way to tunnel through walls, for example.  I don't know how good maps are, of course - perhaps they're a major help in this regard, if found.

I love redesigning games for no reason

[DakaSha]

i played the current version 4.012e a bit and this combo seemed pretty cool:

Arcane Power
Magic Training
Spell Power
Mana
Healing Magic
Druid Magic
Elemental Magic

Chosen (God of Wisdom)

Weak
Poverty
Outcast
No Basic Magic

not that i got far at all but i got farther then i usually do

cant die of hunger or thirst due to druidism and water magic (elemental)

can heal with healing... including poison

can kick some tail with elemental.

the chosen trait gives you loads of MP... not only do the nexus' give you an extra MP
but so do librarys

you can destroy boulders with earth... also can create holes in walls... got a good light spell with fire, if you notice a trap you can fly over it, got a speed spell with wind, armor spell with healing, dont need a shovel to dig...