Grimrock

The UI for a DM clone is likely to intentionally make you do things that would be handled automatically in many other games. I think the intent of the casting system is that casting under pressure while moving is hard. So they made it hard, with one prepped spell of arbitrary complexity pretty much a freebie.

I suspect that even the 'right-click'-mouse attack for swinging swords is a intended design decision and not an over-sight.
You have to 'learn' to melee too, or risk to 'lose your sword' during a fight. Don't remember if DM had it also this way.

seebs wrote:The UI for a DM clone is likely to intentionally make you do things that would be handled automatically in many other games. I think the intent of the casting system is that casting under pressure while moving is hard. So they made it hard, with one prepped spell of arbitrary complexity pretty much a freebie.

In that case they got it badly wrong.

There's many of us have said we can't operate mages in combat to the point where they are useless. Your mileage may vary, but I'm rather sick of people telling me what I should be thinking.

I don't want things automated, I don't want to be able to hit a button which will have me retreat from monsters automatically, or have fast travel. I do, however, want a UI that will allow me to control my characters and the game doesn't have one.

There's a rather large argument gone on these forums since release in many threads between people who are struggling to operate the game, and people who are telling us to STFU, we're idiots and no changes need made.

Mychaelh wrote:I suspect that even the 'right-click'-mouse attack for swinging swords is a intended design decision and not an over-sight.
You have to 'learn' to melee too, or risk to 'lose your sword' during a fight. Don't remember if DM had it also this way.

It did not. In DM, you used the inventory screen to equip and unequip weapons, and left-clicking on the icons in the HUD just activated them.

... Pretty sure. It's been a long time.

seebs wrote:

Mychaelh wrote:I suspect that even the 'right-click'-mouse attack for swinging swords is a intended design decision and not an over-sight.
You have to 'learn' to melee too, or risk to 'lose your sword' during a fight. Don't remember if DM had it also this way.

It did not. In DM, you used the inventory screen to equip and unequip weapons, and left-clicking on the icons in the HUD just activated them.

... Pretty sure. It's been a long time.

In DM you only activated the weapons on the cyan panels on the right hand side. You could put things into characters hands without going onto the inventory screen.

... Pretty sure. It was 4 hours ago.

And you know what? It is! It is elitism and I don't want any f'kin casual gamer, who's too lazy or too stupid to cope with this game's mechanic, to play this game. I don't want them to play this game as much as I don't want them to play Darksiders. You know why? Because I like hard games where you can't just rush through in about 4 to 5 hours and which cater to actual gamers. I like my games to be hard and challenging and if someone's dad or girlfriend can't cope with the mechanics then maybe this game just isn't for them. So anyone asking (or even worse demanding) changes for those poor little sobs, stop it. This would actually be what I call entitlement. Not everyone is supposed to be able to play everything.

...

Yes, casual gamers (as gamers) bug me. They're a pain in the arse.

You could try out Wizardry IV then.
For a start, imagine LoG (with turn based locked combat) where you can ONLY level up at the heal crystals, can't fight for your own, but have to summon monsters there. And you fight against 'Heroes', who are actually real player characters from the predecessor games.
If you die, you are back at place one -> the start location / last 'crystal' tile of the game.

-> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wizardry_4

I would say this is the hardest computer game ever (made through intended design, not design errors).

> Then you might've noticed that in those games spells can actually miss, or fizzle, on a random note

I have had spells fizzle in Grimrock. For some reason it has never been during combat, though (?)

Mychaelh wrote:You could try out Wizardry IV then.
For a start, imagine LoG (with turn based locked combat) where you can ONLY level up at the heal crystals, can't fight for your own, but have to summon monsters there. And you fight against 'Heroes', who are actually real player characters from the predecessor games.
If you die, you are back at place one -> the start location / last 'crystal' tile of the game.

-> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wizardry_4

I would say this is the hardest computer game ever (made through intended design, not design errors).

While Wizardry 4 sounds awesome (and it really, really does!) the graphics are not for me. I won't even touch Dungeon Master for the same reason. But I'll have a look around if there are games akin to it, with better graphics, thanks

kavika wrote:> Then you might've noticed that in those games spells can actually miss, or fizzle, on a random note

I have had spells fizzle in Grimrock. For some reason it has never been during combat, though (?)

If you see an "x fizzles" then that means, you've used an invalid rune combination. Valid rune combinations never fizzle. Never, ever.

I see as a good idea the ability to cast spells from scrolls but only like enchanted arrows. You use the scroll it casts the spell and it turns blank(they don't stack of course), then you need to re enchant the blank scroll that costs you mana the price of the spell you enchant in the scroll plus the price of the scroll enchanting spell. When you use the scroll you would also lose the mana needed to cast that spell and also you need spell proficiency on the char who uses the spell.