Grimrock

owl905 wrote:2. There's nothing that says you can't start over from scratch. The upgrade allows playing stronger familiar characters for speed runs. All the way to the mano a mano with Ogres.

Not sure if that's really interesting. It sounds rather boring to me. But admittedly, it wouldn't hurt to have that option available. I wouldn't use it, though. It feels kind of yawn.

Also, I don't think it'll allow you to go mano a mano with Ogres. You don't get more XP, but the XP you need goes up by a lot, so you're level 15 after the second run, level 16 after the third, and possibly still after the fourth. You need a lot of levels to be facing Ogres.

owl905 wrote:3. It's right in the suggestion - traps continue to drop where they do in the basic linear levels. The only shuffle are the exit stairwells.

So if I'm on level 3, and I take a stairwell, it could take me to level 7, while the pit would take me to level 4? That's a tad confusing, though I guess it could work in LoG, as the pits would never really lead to the real level.

Would you sort the Automap on the original order or the new randomized order?

owl905 wrote:4. It takes nothing away - the value of making one of the two choices Skilled is already pretty basic. That actually reduces the selection variety.

Skilled is not nearly as awesome as you think. Sure, it can occasionally be good, but there are traits out there that are far better than Skilled. By removing Skilled as a possible Trait to choose, you're limiting variety.

owl905 wrote:7. As you note, treasures are basically useless. Give treasures a use better than a ding-sound and player weight-penalty. (As for 'experience players would drop them immediately' ... tell that to players who threw the Bone Necklace away.) In the game, uncertainty causes too much 'stuff' to be carried too long.

I agree that the game shouldn't have "no use" items scattered all over, hence my suggestion to place them in a special treasure bag.

Gaining skillpoints for finding them feels odd. "using" them as consumables to let the entire party gain a bit of experience could work. "We managed to find a secret room, now we're a little better at this dungeon delving stuff!"

owl905 wrote:8/9. You can discover all the spells you want once the runes are displayed. In fact, it gets easier to explore and discover with incremental display and the tooltip showing success. The rune shelf is better than a list for game-fun.

I think I misread your initial comment. I thought you wanted to bypass the rune-clicking entirely. I'm still not entirely sure how the "sticky a spell" works in your mind.

owl905 wrote:The idea of scroll in hand for quick-cast is good. I like it better than the 'sticky' runes. How do you clone scrolls?

Well, it would of course require the addition of the remaining scrolls that aren't put into the game, so those spells could be quick-cast too, otherwise there would only be more favorism towards the Fire school.

But I don't think cloning is necessary. When people bring more than one mage, don't they usually make them of different trees? Just like it's not smart to bring 2 Axe Fighters or 2 Mace Fighters due to limited weapon availability, you shouldn't bring two mages of the same tree if you want to use scrolls for both of them. Of course there's the Spellcraft tree, but since it's only Light and Darkness in there, you don't need all your mages to be able to quickly cast them.

owl905 wrote:10. The 'zillion' torches were used and/or dropped on the way down. Revived players may want or need some light. The essence is a back-door valve to allow players the option of risk&revive play.

If you dropped them on the way down, you'd run into them back on your way up towards that alcove.

The experienced player doesn't need this, and wouldn't this cause the same problem as the treasures, causing players to carry lots of crap around they really don't need?

owl905 wrote:11. No, back2square1 doesn't get annoying. There's always the option to load a savegame, that's a mute point. The deal with going back to the start has been a good idea in lots of RPGs over the years. It's actually a bit surprising that the backdoor outlet isn't part of LoG. Starting over and save-load is losing progress. Reviving at square 1 is a good option - especially if you forgot to save after beating a timed puzzle.

Wait, would you want the party to start over at level 1 again, or at a higher level?

owl905 wrote:12. (re: useless objects without Aura skill) So what? The skulls are useless if you don't have a Mino. From an earlier thread, the ingredients would still have value as food. The loss is in the potions - and the game isn't dependent on them. The foundation skills is a marker encouraging either a combat character or a magic orientation. But there's nothing wrong with armored magicians; Battle Mages are excellent solo characters in more than a few RPGs - but in a six-skill set, using up combatcraft/oneweapon and spellcraft/onemagic really pinches the other two.

There are only 5 skulls in the game, unlike the loads of herbs and quite a few flasks.

I can see your reasoning for customizing the skill trees. I'm just not sure why it should take Alchemy out of the game if you don't pick the right skill trees.

owl905 wrote:@Thels re:
7. As you note, treasures are basically useless. Give treasures a use better than a ding-sound and player weight-penalty. (As for 'experience players would drop them immediately' ... tell that to players who threw the Bone Necklace away.) In the game, uncertainty causes too much 'stuff' to be carried too long.

Lots of good RPG has such "useless" miscellaneous items just for flavour. I remember my character in Fallout 2 carrying useless Cosmetics Case only because she were a female and I found that suitable. In LoG I've always carried all treasures to the end for role-playing purpose, but it never has been game-breaking burden. In my second party there were an outdoor-type bowman so he carried compass all the way to the end, even though I had automap enabled. I agree that "too much" purposeless stuff would be "to much", but seven items, each weighting just 0,3 kg, as it is now, are nothing to whine about really.

As for Bone Necklace, it's a different story - you can't put food or other items in necklace slot and there are only three useful necklace available, so if some players threw the Bone Necklace away only to have that slot empty I can't pity them - recklessness have to be punished.

There's 2 bone necklaces away, though, so I threw one away. Back in the EoB days I didn't know what "adornment" meant (English ain't my native language), so I just put them on, hoping for the best.

Yeah, I don't find the treasure a problem, either, and I don't think it needs "solving", but if it were to be solved, granting skill points for them would feel quite odd.

there is one thing i'll like to see, coming from migth&magic 6-8
the perception value that make special object and switch brighter (or for casual player, bright red).
I know, most of you will consider this the opposite of this kind of game, in witch you have to search for everything.

but think about the option, and the possibilities it opens.

first, you can make some button only appears if yoiu have the sufficient perception level, if it not the case, the wall will be no different.
you can still click on the exact location, but you have to know.
it also will make players coming back earlier levels to try to get secrets that were very well hidden
including the most hidden secret in the first room containing a very powerful weapon.

the perception level of the party will depend of average wisdom level of the characters, maximum wisdom level, maybe a perception perk for one race, a perception skill, and maybe a spell.
on the other side, you can choose the perception level of each item, that can be lowered when reading a clue and depending of the amount of light (you might not be able to see a switch without a torch).

at the same time it will make the game easier, but it allow to make it a lot more difficult.

I think that can be added a new magic system for a particular class, using some sort of tarots insteed of runes. Maybe a sort of Witch/Warlock who can curse/bless/guide/empower during the gameplay. Maybe a sort of halfway between the Mage and the Rogue.
What do you think about this?
PS: always keeping the Magic system with runes for mages and .

There are plenty of rune combinations still available. If another caster class would be added, he could simply use a different combination of runes.

It would be great if you could find party members within the dungeon like in the Eye of the Beholder series.

There is no need to change much in the sequel. Better left game lacking a bit than overpumped with the loads of new features

What I would like to see in a sequel besides new wallsets, new monsters, new spells, new portraits and new items?

Some in-game NPCs, some simple dialogs with the simple options (KILL / HELP / LEAVE) and maybe simple quests they would give (escort, find&retrieve, cleanse the floor of the monsters etc).

Minor randomization factor like Lands Of Lore had - some special items would either appear in the game or not, depending on or regardless of your character stats

I would appreciate sacrificing element. Situations where you should sacrifice something precious to proceed. A cool magic weapon you get attached to, some so-hard-earned stat points or even the character.

Bringing in the cleric class would be a complete disaster I think. It is far more diverse to mixing potions to do cleric's job than to drag along a special character with alternative set of spells. We just need more types of potions. To turn undead or to revive for example.


Any shopping systems wouldn't do any good too. Only scavenging, looting and discarding unneeded things will do!

Those of you who think an outdoor environment would either be too much work or change the game too much are wrong. Someone else gave a great example with Lands of Lore. Another game very similar to Grimrock is The Bard's Tale. They had a city with an armorer, temple, bars etc all done in the same tile fashion. Being up in the city to catch your breath really added to the feeling of being down deep in a dungeon. If extra time were put into a sequel to create a minor story and a minor economy we are looking at a really beefy endeavour. One which, I believe, people like us would shell out $30 for. Anyone else agree here?

Lands of Lore: Throne of Chaos style outdoor environments should be very easy. All they need is a skybox and a tileset, and it's no different from mapping any other dungeon level. That being said, I'd love for AH to experiment with Ishar style expansive outdoor areas to see if it can work. They still are some of the most beautiful outdoor environments I've seen in a game.