With regret

[mystrdat]

I can see this being true for hitting 80% railgun accuracy in Quake, but certainly not in a game which in fact so forgiving on your motorics. Like what, pressing D and 1 second later pressing W is hard?

You think that's a second? Have you timed any of this?

What exactly is hard about the game aside learning how the combat mechanics work? If you really insint on these controls being hard no matter how subjective that may be, you're sidetracked by sympathy for utter noobs that need to get better. People surely differ, but we're not asking them to play I Wanna Be The Guy on impossible mode here, are we? What's next, tetris being too blocky?

Okay, lemme just give you an example. From another game, but it's a pretty good example.

You may be aware that, in MMOs, you're not supposed to stand in fire. Fire is represented by gigantic ground effects. So. Basically, if your character, who is in the middle of your display, is surrounded by gigantic brightly-colored ground effects, move.

Easy, right?

I can't do it reliably unless I have been told, in advance of a given fight, what color ground effects to look for. Seriously. My screen can be FULL OF FIRE and I can't see it because I didn't know to look for it, and I have to know roughly what to look for to keep it from getting filtered.

This isn't a matter of "learning". I can't suddenly be able to detect fire effects without knowing what to look for. I can't train into that. I just have to ask people if there's an effect to watch out for, and roughly what it looks like.

For a DM-like game, let's say we have a simple timing puzzle. Move forward one square every tick (they're usually half a second or so). You have to be within, say, a tenth of a second of the tick. If there's audio cues, I can do this. If there aren't, I can't. I do not have timing that's reliable even within a tenth of a second over that long a delay, because my awareness is heavily timesliced and I simply can't tell that my brain just paged out what I was doing for a bit. When I was playing DM back in college, people would chat with me. I'd experience a totally ordinary conversation. They'd experience multi-second pauses between words.

This is not a matter of "need to get better". The person who asked for the movement arrows, because they had only one hand and couldn't play with both hands? Not a matter of "need to get better". I really enjoy grimrock, but simultaneously moving and casting spells is pretty hard for me -- that's two separate sets of spatial relations (one 2D on screen, one 2D on map) I have to juggle simultaneously, and in practice I move and then click a rune, move and then click a rune, and so on.

There's a lot of people out there who have much more significant differences than you are taking into account. If you haven't spent a lot of time around people with, say, very severe ADHD or some form of autism spectrum thing, or whatever else, you might not realize just how different people get.

You're mixing an awful lot of unrelated things together, so simply answer this scenario for yourself:
You're bad at maths, can't really count well and numbers just mash together in front of you, but you really love something about sudoku. What do you do?

[mike30542]

Where did I ask the developers to deviate from their intentions? I admitted that I had problems coping with the combat style required to succeed at the game & maybe my basic skills are not all the should be but some of us not "blessed" the way you obviously are. That should not stop me from wanting to play this game.

You don't have to directly ask for something that you want for it to be obvious - eg. some dramatic changes to the combat system, turn-based as you mentioned, slow-down, extra difficulty with a mashup of all the previous mentions, whatever. As I said, this is not a personal insult, I am being very generic here. If you suck, you should get better. The simple comparison would be to a sport - let's say you really want to play tennis, but you suck at it. Would you expect the tennis rules to accomodate your lack of skills or would the tennis crowd expect you to simply get better by practicing? I'm not entirely sure what do you expect to happen here, the best outcome of what you want is for you to get better. I won't deny I don't particularly suck at games having some eSport history, but it's not like that I have some "blessed" magical fingers either. Saying that the game is hard is still quite an overstatement, because it is not and understanding the crucial combat mechanics, dodging enemies on 2x2 tiles and solving time based puzzles is what makes the game as it is. You want to play the game that it is? Well how about you simply do it and you'll eventually improve by trial and error. You won't get a better answer than that around no matter how much sympathy someone else has for you. Sympathy doesn't do anything, it's like a prayer, like a fart in a bus.

I never asked for anything - directly or indirectly. All I said in my original post was that I may have to give up playing the game because I was not coping with the combat & that any options short of turn -based combat were unlikely to help. I do not expect the developers to provide such an option.
I intend to restart in easy mode (as suggested by Petri & others) In the hope I can progress further because despite my problems I've enjoyed the game. Some posters have offered other suggestions which I will try.
Telling me the game is not hard is an insult. You may find it easy - others do not.

[seebs]

You're mixing an awful lot of unrelated things together

Not really.

so simply answer this scenario for yourself:
You're bad at maths, can't really count well and numbers just mash together in front of you, but you really love something about sudoku. What do you do?

Do Sudoku with colored symbols, of course, as the numbers have nothing to do with it. (You can just do ABCEDFGHI, for that matter.)

Point is, most of what you're talking about isn't a matter of "getting better", it's tied to things that are pretty much biologically innate in most people, like nerve transmission speed (which varies by a huge amount between humans).

[Jack Dandy]

IIRC, OP is one of the older dudes on the forum. 70 y/o, if I'm correct.

At that age, I wouldn't expect anyone to have the manual dexterity to handle this game as it is.

Mike is right about the modtools; once they're out- his purchase will definitely pay off.

[mystrdat]

You're mixing an awful lot of unrelated things together

Not really.

so simply answer this scenario for yourself:
You're bad at maths, can't really count well and numbers just mash together in front of you, but you really love something about sudoku. What do you do?

Do Sudoku with colored symbols, of course, as the numbers have nothing to do with it. (You can just do ABCEDFGHI, for that matter.)

Point is, most of what you're talking about isn't a matter of "getting better", it's tied to things that are pretty much biologically innate in most people, like nerve transmission speed (which varies by a huge amount between humans).

Nerve transmission speed differs by a huge amount between humans?

[Phlimm]

I have only read the OP's first post in this thread. Forgive me if I rehash, but my message is really only to him. Hopefully Mike30542 is still reading this thread.

SPOILERS BELOW:

I am playing on Hard mode and Level 3 has really tested my dungeon crawling skills. I found those cool looking green slimes and they ate me alive. Many times. OK fine, try the other stairs. Two mushroom guys with clouds of poison. Died. died. died. died. died. died. died. died. died. Hmmmm. Something is not working right. Now what?

I have finally figured out that in combat, I click on a character when they are available, but not always attack. I'll click a caster to open the rune screen, but if a tank's attack is open now, click that before the rune sequence. And unless there are a line of mobs or another good reason to, I use only single rune spells. And the final casting of the spell (on the blue fireball wand) also will wait if a tank action is open. That has really helped with combats. No need for the front line assault to have to wait for a spell to go off. It becomes a mouse dance.

In regard to the green slimes...I fight one IN THE HALL AT THE STAIRS until it is dead or I am almost dead (one member left or maybe two casters). Then I run back upstairs to the blue crystals. Rinse. Repeat. It took a lot less time that I thought it would. You have to lure one at a time out. DON'T go after them in the maze until there is only one left.

The mushroom guys turned out to be really easy in the end. You NEVER EVER EVER get pinned down by them or stand toe to toe. When they first come out, wait a little bit and then run straight down the middle of the room. They will turn around and try to get you. Doing so will line them up single file. Perfect for the Ice Shards spell. Use ONLY ranged weapons and the Ice Shards. Stick them with one spell and some arrows, shuriken, and throwing daggers, then strafe to the other side of the room. Now run all the way back to the other end of the room. The whole thing start over. Use this technique and you WILL take them down. If you have any grenades left, they do a lot of damage but they are not needed and can be saved for future use. You WILL need this same technique a little while after taking the mushrooms guys down, so keep it in mind. I have switched out my tank and rogue with just ranged for now...don't marry them to one weapon only. Same for the casters. Both of mine carry throwing weapons and spears, changing out when needed.

Using this technique I killed the mushroom guys on my second attempt with no one taking even half damage. And yes, the gate to the Healing Crystal opens back up after the mushroom guys die.

[mystrdat]

Where did I ask the developers to deviate from their intentions? I admitted that I had problems coping with the combat style required to succeed at the game & maybe my basic skills are not all the should be but some of us not "blessed" the way you obviously are. That should not stop me from wanting to play this game.

You don't have to directly ask for something that you want for it to be obvious - eg. some dramatic changes to the combat system, turn-based as you mentioned, slow-down, extra difficulty with a mashup of all the previous mentions, whatever. As I said, this is not a personal insult, I am being very generic here. If you suck, you should get better. The simple comparison would be to a sport - let's say you really want to play tennis, but you suck at it. Would you expect the tennis rules to accomodate your lack of skills or would the tennis crowd expect you to simply get better by practicing? I'm not entirely sure what do you expect to happen here, the best outcome of what you want is for you to get better. I won't deny I don't particularly suck at games having some eSport history, but it's not like that I have some "blessed" magical fingers either. Saying that the game is hard is still quite an overstatement, because it is not and understanding the crucial combat mechanics, dodging enemies on 2x2 tiles and solving time based puzzles is what makes the game as it is. You want to play the game that it is? Well how about you simply do it and you'll eventually improve by trial and error. You won't get a better answer than that around no matter how much sympathy someone else has for you. Sympathy doesn't do anything, it's like a prayer, like a fart in a bus.

I never asked for anything - directly or indirectly. All I said in my original post was that I may have to give up playing the game because I was not coping with the combat & that any options short of turn -based combat were unlikely to help. I do not expect the developers to provide such an option.
I intend to restart in easy mode (as suggested by Petri & others) In the hope I can progress further because despite my problems I've enjoyed the game. Some posters have offered other suggestions which I will try.
Telling me the game is not hard is an insult. You may find it easy - others do not.

Let me explain myself - the only reason I'm being in opposition here is because I wouldn't want the devs of this gem to be sidetracked from possibly making DLC content and fixing current specific existing issues in favor of catering to a very slim crowd that has issues with how such a game is controlled. If there is an option to decrease the game speed by modding a config (which is the most simple way to make it easier for you aside coding turn-based combat and changing the puzzles), by all means I wish it helps you. I understand that a game being easy or hard is entirely subjective, but with my gaming history and in comparison with other titles and in fact other old dungeons, I just can't see the difficulty. For you, it may be the controls, I got that - but that doesn't make the game itself any harder than it is.

[Gudadantza]

I don't think much has to be said about the good old "l2p". It's not a hidden object adventure, it's not Dear Esther, it's an oldschool dungeon with a modern twist - you are expected to have at least basic control skills to play it. If you don't have those, you must be suffering in many other game genres and it's about time you "l2p" - by trial and error, practice making perfect. I don't believe the devs should spend any time deviating from their intention to cater to your under-Easy gaming level - how about you simply improve instead? Sorry for being direct, but this is what Bruce Lee would say.

Not necessarilly. I consider easier control the free movement of a FPS than the timing movement of an action moment in LoG. Different skill is needed. He can be a genious in other type of game.

You said it, at "other type of game". This is not the "other type of game".

Then

you are expected to have at least basic control skills to play it. If you don't have those, you must be suffering in many other game genres.

Is wrong.

[mystrdat]

Then

you are expected to have at least basic control skills to play it. If you don't have those, you must be suffering in many other game genres.

Is wrong.

It's not wrong, rather very practical.

[seebs]

Nerve transmission speed differs by a huge amount between humans?

Ayup.

Range in humans for basically comparable things can be anywhere from a bit under 1 meter per second to 90ish meters per second. People on the high end are very noticably more graceful and have much faster response times. People on the really low end trip and fall more often because they simply don't get the information that their feet have encountered a problem until it's too late to react.

Cool idea: Before you start telling people they just need to "get better", maybe you should do some background research in how human brains and nervous systems work? Just a thought.