Hi! I’ve spent the last week (and much of this weekend) playing SotW and wanted to give some preliminary feedback. I’ve gotten to the endboss (and died to him), been playing roguelikes since 2003, and read this entire thread so I already have a feel for your design philosophy and goals here. In other words, I know you’re not going for DCSS here so I’ve taken that into account in my feedback.
After lots of trial and error splats, I have a decent feel for the game. My first character to get to the midgame (a fae warrior) cleared the gnome, wood elf, and mountain elf quests, and splatted in a random dungeon after I got stoned by a trap and didn’t notice. My second character went on to do the dwarf quests, cleared the 3 shrines, and then died to the boss since I was a pinch undergeared. I knew my gear wasn’t perfect but wanted to see if a less then ideal character could take the boss down. The answer to that is probably no.
Finally, I’m going to point out a lot of things that I think need work, but don’t get me wrong – I love this game and you hope keep developing it.
UI Suggestions
I don’t have a ton of UI suggestions or complaints, mostly because my ADOM muscle memory carried over here to a large extent. Here’s a few suggestions:
1) It’s been mentioned before, but a w> and w< command would be very nice. Getting back to the surface from the bottom of a level 12 dungeon can be tedious. Alternatively, scrolls of recall that send you to the entrance of the dungeon or the surface would be nice.
2) When you use the “w direction” command to zip down a hall, it’ll stop at objects but it won’t stop if there’s a fork in the path. That makes getting around with the w command a bit less useful.
3) I’d like to see a “are you sure you want to attack with that” prompt if you make a melee attack with a non-weapon item. One time I did the black manticore quest, and was shocked by the difficulty I had killing it. I then realized I had been beating it to death with a fishing rod, since I usually have that equipped when sailing around. Funnily enough I was able to kill him even with the rod, since I had 2 barbarian rings equipped, but that could’ve gone south.
4) I’d also like an option for a “are you sure you want to dig there” prompt. One promising character was wielding a dwarf matlock that I found in an early dungeon, since it did more damage than anything else I had. I went to a store, bumped into the wall, automatically dug through the wall, and promptly got murdered by an irate shop keeper. Hilarious, but a sad way to lose a good character.
5) I wouldn’t mind an auto eat option, set to automatically eat the smallest food item in your inventory when you get hungry. Traveling around the ocean/world map can generate a ton of hunger, and it’d be nice if you didn’t have to stop every couple of steps to hit e.
6) Finally, it’d be nice to have a prompt for “are you sure you want to move” if you’re starving. I wasn’t paying attention with one character and killed him by walking around the overmap. That was one of the experiences that made me switch to playing Fae.
Monsters
I know differentiating monsters is on your priority list. Right now fighting magic users like the guy near the goblin camp, the lichelings, or the liche king are some of the best fights in the game, and I think other late game areas like the shrines could benefit from enemy magic users and special monster abilities.
Quests:
In terms of difficulty, I feel like the barrows quest, the black manticore, Lola, Fragments of history, the black orb, and the 4 giants are well tuned (though you could argue that the manicore needs a slight buff). I think Siriath, the goblin raiders, the ogre island, and the shrines could use an increase in difficulty. Especially Siriath, he’s only killed me once out of dozens of encounters, and that’s including a few weaker race/class combos.
In terms of substance, it’s hard to design quests that aren’t destroy this guy/item, or retrieve this person/item. So it’s nice any time a game can break that paradigm. Almost all quests in the game are kill or fetch quests, which might be worthwhile keeping in mind when adding more content.
A note about two specific quests. One, it’d be cool if the goblin quest had an evil option, where the goblins start neutral and their captain asks you to kill elf guards or whatever in Atua-Elar, allowing them to sack the city. You’d have to make a choice then about which side to aid.
Second, I already said this above, but you definitely need to buff the shrine guardians. My fae warrior tackled the shrines at level 25 with some middling equipment (with the exception of Erebus, my crowning gift), and cleared all three. This shot me to level 40 or so and gave me Heart’s Fury, trivializing everything besides the big bad. Admittedly, one hag shrine almost killed me, but everything else (with the exception of a tarrasque) was a push over. I’d slightly buff the shrine hag, and significantly buff the other shrine guards.
Traps
Lots of “classic” roguelikes (ie not the roguelites you find on steam) have vestigial mechanics simply because those mechanics existed in rogue, nethack, and angband, and I think traps are the worst offender. They rarely add much by way of emergent gameplay. If damage traps are capable of killing the player they’re not terribly fun (ie stoneblock traps in the early levels of ADOM), and if they just do minor chip damage you stop and rest until fully healed. Same goes for status traps like blinds or slows. They usually go off when no monster is around, so the player just stops and rests until the effect wears off.
I think traps that do damage or inflict a status ailment are best used in hand crafted set pieces. E.g., a corridor full of traps where as you progress ghosts attack you in the side since they can phase through walls. That way the trap actually effects the situation in a tangible way. Random dungeon traps will typically add nothing but tedium. The one exception this is teleport traps, since they can sometimes send you into a bad situation or be used as an escape mechanism by a crafty player.
One trap that I really need to single out is the stoning trap. A trap that can kill a mid-level character is just not that fun. It amounts to nothing more than a skill/item check (do you have detection, anti stoning potions, or scrolls of detect trap), and dying because you were out of potions just sucks. An autokill mechanic like stoning is fine if a high level monster inflicts it, but not so fun if a random trap can apply it. I strongly recommend removing these traps as random spawns. Using them in set pieces is of course a different story.
Religion:
I get that you’re going to differentiate the gods more in the future; as of now, playing Aurelion felt pretty similar to playing the trickster, which feels weird. I’m hoping in the future the gods in your game resemble those in Incursion, with very specific likes and dislikes, and impacts on gameplay besides giving you heals and a crowning gift.
Not sure how I feel about god options being tied to race. Why not let the player roleplay as an evil wood elf or as the rare noble goblin?
Speaking of which, one thing I have to flag is crowning. When my fae warrior crowned (Trickster), I did it by going to an ocean tile next to a keep with a neutral altar, catching mountains of fish, and hauling it back to get sacked. He would reject 75% of the fish, but some were accepted (I’m guessing they were generated blessed?) and I eventually had enough piety to crown. There’s something funny about becoming a god’s champion by throwing a lot of fish at him. This seems worth addressing, since crowning by fishing is definitely more tedious even than crowning by life saccing in ADOM.
Also, if/when you get rid of crowning by fishing, I’m not sure how you’re “supposed” to crown in SotW. Unlike ADOM, there’s not tons of gold and live saccing doesn’t seem like an option. Corpses spawn a lot, but they’re heavy so dragging them to altars is a pain.
Magic
I’ve only played warriors so far (they’re the roguelike noob class after all), so my experience with magic is limited. One reason I played a Fae was to try to get a hybrid off the ground. However, even with 100 magic and very high literacy, my level 42 fae warrior could only learn cantrips. He just couldn’t memorize higher spells. I’m guessing like ADOM there’s not only a racial/skill component to spell memorization, but a class component as well? If that’s the case, which class would you say lends itself best towards hybridization?
Artifacts
I feel like the game gives you too many artifact weapons too fast. After finishing the starting island you’re ready to do the manticore, the ogres, the goblins, which right there will net you 4 artifact weapons. If your toon has literacy and doesn’t need it as a quest reward, you can even get an artifact basically out of the gate. I’d consider making one of these rewards (possibly the exile’s ogre reward) something besides a weapon. I’d also consider making the artifacts in the ruined keep be something besides weapons. By the time you can take on the beasties guarding them, you’re probably equipped with something better.
I’d also like to seek more benefits from artifacts besides just numbers, resists, and slaying. Potential things include stat increases, effects immunity (I’d wear in a heartbeat something that made you immune to stoning), faster hp/mp regeneration, etc.
I think that more or less covers my first impressions. Again, I love this game and hope you keep fleshing it out!
