The Veins of the Earth development feedback BETA 13

[Zireael]

I've finally made the elemental planes. Not perfect, admittedly - they don't choke you (Earth), drown you (Water) or burn you to crisp (Fire) and I think none of them should have any loot around, especially not Fire or Air, but...





More screenshots in the gallery, of course. I'm proud of how pretty it all is - while I took the floor tiles from UT 32 tileset, the walls are my edits.

[Zireael]

Polishing my MA (complete text due for review June 9), but found some time to poke around the chat code.



Yes, that's the beginning of NPC portraits I've been planning to implement for the longest time.

Next step: make the overlays (eyes, brows, nose, mouth) work, then randomize them, then make them depend on race.

[AgingMinotaur]

I should really try The Veins of the Earth.

As always,
Minotauros

[Zireael]

Thank you, Minotaur!

The randomization bit is done and I've printed and bound my MA today, so I should have some more time to work on Veins and get beta 9 out there

[Avagart]

Did you consider back to ascii-display option?

[Zireael]

Did you consider back to ascii-display option?

ASCII display is as simple as pressing Esc, clicking Graphics Mode and 'ASCII with backgrounds'.

[Avagart]

This option never was removed?... I sought this option from a few versions... What's shame

Thank you, Zireael

[Zireael]

Beta 9 is out! Ideas, wishes...?

[Rev_Sudasana]

I just tried to download beta 9 from gamefront via moddb and the file's not available there. I'm not a member on moddb so I don't know if their direct link is working or not.

Edit: Never mind, it just popped up!

[Zireael]

No, this is not dead. 

I've implemented Pick Pockets and Decipher Script. I've also bitten the bullet and implemented the background skills variant from Pathfinder as a default rule. This should make Craft (and other non-immediately useful skills) much more viable.



I've drafted a new class over the last week.

Magus draft

As you can guess, it draws on the Pathfinder magus, but also on the vanguard class.

Once again, the goal is to have every level be significant (i.e. no "dead levels").

**
On the game end of things, shuffled around some effects and hard at work adding more spells.

[getter77]

Link formatting seems broken somehow on those---but still, cool stuff and congrats on the deepening progress!   

Link that seems to work on the first one:

http://veins-of-the-earth.wikidot.com/new-classes-drafts   Initial thoughts:  Nifty and a good mix that should definitely add to the variety of viable approaches

I would also suggest you check out the latest 2 design docs that have went public/came out period for Knights of the Chalice II in the last little while:

http://www.heroicfantasygames.com/Forums/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=213&start=180#p4649

[Avagart]

I'm checking new version finally. For now I encountered one mistake (because word 'bug' isn't best choice this time). When player is checking Chaotic Good description he read that he's Neutral Good.

Next what bother me is problems with leveling character. When 'level up' window appears, i see that I have 0 skill point, 1 class points, 0 feat points and 0 stat points.
I spent class point and back to the game. Next I noticed that 'level up' message is still displayed. I check character sheet - ouch, I have 2 skill points! It's a bit weird. I replicate bug in next character, and this occurs in every 'level up' event.

Next weird thing is descriptions of items. For example:

Code: [Select]

battleaxe {mundane}


A normal battleaxe

 Damage 1d6.This is martial weapon.
Damage: 1d6
Threatens a critical on roll of: 20

Unindentified

I wanna to blow the whistle on dobuled 'damage' info. Other issues are less annoying.


Another problem with leveling. 'Missing' or 'escaping' feats' desriptions. So, when I highlight specific feat, desription field is empty. If I want to read description, I must:
1) have 'expanded menu of feat' (I don't know how to say it in English - for example, I must click 'active combat' to get 'Power Attack' feat
2) highlight LEARNED FEAT (so, I see description)
3) highlight specific feat ('Power Attack')

when I hightlight outspread feat menu ('Active combat') and then highlight feat, everything is ok. But when I am highlighting not-outspreaded feat menu and later highlight feat, description disappears.

Hm, interesting. Sometimes feat menu works perfectly.


Inventory menu is auto-closing after every action, this is tedious.


I think that dungeon generation algorithm could be better. Actually very long corridors - without crossroads, with dead end - are generated (too) often.

Zireael, I don't want to leave only criticism in this post. I like VoTE and I wish you luck with this project. I hope that my feedback (...criticism, ok) could help you to improve Veins of The Earth.

[Zireael]

I have fixed the 'Neutral Good' thing and the doubled Damage entry.

The level up screen will be overhauled soon - possibly even this week, and hopefully this should fix the refresh issues it has.

As for the feat screen, it will become a tab of the new level up screen and I will look at descriptions display.

I am aware that the inventory auto-closing is annoying - I am in fact annoyed by it too - but haven't yet found a way to fix it. For now, you can equip items without closing by dragging them - and picking any option from the use menu seems to auto-close the inventory.

Dungeon generation has long been on my to improve list - alas, I'm not sure I could code a better generation although I have looked at some dungeon generation tutorials, mostly on RogueBasin.
***
I'm afk for the next two days, keep those reports coming as I'm updating all sorts of descriptions and screens at the moment. Also, any wishes for classes/feats/spells?

[Avagart]

Good to know! And thanks for inventory screen tip, I didn't try it...

For the feat screen, I noticed one weird think. If only 1 feat 'tab' is open, the problem occurs. When I open another tab (with big list of feats), everything is ok, descriptions are shown as it should.

Two issues with display.
First - if wall is thin, I can see fragments of tiles behind the wall. http://i.imgur.com/ICv5ogI.png
Second - floor tiles replaces part of left section of UI. http://i.imgur.com/tMhHsFN.png

and next - description of monster. Seems to flags of monsters are displayed in description 'as is', for example:

Code: [Select]

giant eagle
magical_beast

Current place info refreshes only from time to time. When I leave dungeon and enter world map, for some time 'Tunnels, level 1' was displayed. Only later info changed to 'world map'.


Wishes for classes... Only D&D, I think?

[getter77]

If general crazy wishes are fine:  Since I'm not aware of any classes proper that focus on it---I've always reckoned it would be interesting in a different sort of way to have a class strongly focused on Sonic damage and related effects/perks as you'd think there'd be some kind of Bard variant explicitly along these lines all things considered, but instead it always seems to get left out versus the usual Elemental assortment save for maybe Acid usually not getting much more love.