Grimrock

Not a rant, really liking the game. Just some wishes for the future.

1. MEANINGFUL CHARACTER BUILDING
Fighting the same enemy (think of a crab here) can still be either "no chance" (cornered) or "no challenge" (2x2 dancefloor). Character building is rather redundant in either scenario. I'd like to see the extremes brought closer together. That way character building would feel more rewarding and the monsters would make more sense logically.

2. CLEARER STATS
Accuracy and Evasion both start at 0 and accuracy is far easier to raise than evasion. It's just hard to understand. What if accuracy (which is an odd term for melee weapons) had a base value of 50 and Evasion would start at 0? That way you would have some idea of your hit chance. Accuracy 0 sounds like you will never hit anything but Accuracy 60 easily translates into 60% hit chance minus enemy Evasion.

Player and enemy HP could also be comparable. Right now it seems like the enemies have 10x the HP. Your own HP/Armor is what you compare your damage rating to and it's pretty scary seeing you would basically one hit yourself. Player damage doesn't have to scale as much as it does now, rather keep the enemy HP at a comparable level.

Starting stats could also have a bigger impact on character development.

3. PERCEPTION SKILL
There could be an option to invest in a Perception skill that would help detect secret buttons or give hints about them. Perception could also give a critical chance bonus so it wouldn't gimp the character horribly. It's an RPG after all and special skills not only give flavour to characters but in this case would ease player tedium. It shouldn't be an auto detect but if you walk past something a few times it should have a good chance of helping.

4. SPELLS
A lot more spells are needed to make casters fun. Walls, runes, teleport to runes, stuns, confusion, holds, levitate into pits, summons, illusions, mind control, disintegrate, petrify, buff, breathe under water... and less forced skill combinations like Fire/Air or Ice/Air are now. Elemental combos should be reserved for something special and spectacular instead of basics like Fireball. (This should've been nr. 1 on the list.)

5. RANDOM LOOT
Adds replayability!

Agreed.

You bring some pretty good points to the table.

As someone brought up in a topic once, mine spells would be a good addition to Grimrock, taking into consideration the gameplay system. At, say, level 3 skill in Fire magic, you could drop a Fire Mine in front of you that would be triggered once anyone or anything (including yourself) stepped on it. Only mindless enemies, such as undead or golems, would carelessly walk onto them, perhaps. Every other creature would try to dodge the mines unless the player forced said monster's movement pattern onto them. For example, if the monster is on a 1 tile wide hallway, there'd be no way but forward. If you'd like another example, the treelings that strafe to keep up with the player; a cleverly placed mine could have them strafe onto their doom.

Anyways, I would also like to see more utility spells as the ones you've mentioned, but I can imagine it'd probably be quite difficult to manage the numerous rune combinations, especially during stressful moments.


I'm not a fan of your perception skill idea, however. There are only about 2 or 3 types of secret buttons and, once you learn them, they can be quite easy to find. I finished the game lacking only several secrets and I wasn't thaaaat thorough.

Thumbs up for the rest!

1varangian wrote: 4. SPELLS
A lot more spells are needed to make casters fun. Walls, runes, teleport to runes, stuns, confusion, holds, levitate into pits, summons, illusions, mind control, disintegrate, petrify, buff, breathe under water... and less forced skill combinations like Fire/Air or Ice/Air are now. Elemental combos should be reserved for something special and spectacular instead of basics like Fireball. (This should've been nr. 1 on the list.)

Actually I would rather the opposite. Specializing in an element should only give you basic magics. Anything more interesting than "fireburst" or "lightning bolt" should require a combination of things. Great mages and wizards would therefore require a lot of skillpoints (and thus levels) to have access to a large amount of spells, which seems fitting.

I like the idea of a Perception skill. I remember playing a game called 'Lands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos' and, if I remember correctly, one of my party members in the game would let me know when there was something hidden nearby. They would chime in, "Hey, did you see that?" Or "Did you hear something?". There were no real audible voices, just text, but if something like that could be done, it would be cool.

1varangian wrote: Player and enemy HP could also be comparable. Right now it seems like the enemies have 10x the HP. Your own HP/Armor is what you compare your damage rating to and it's pretty scary seeing you would basically one hit yourself. Player damage doesn't have to scale as much as it does now, rather keep the enemy HP at a comparable level.

What about the higher difficulty levels? I think they are scaling enemy HP right now?

1varangian wrote: 5. RANDOM LOOT
Adds replayability!

No, no, nooo!!! Please never, ever, add random loot to Grimrock. One of the best parts for me was that I always knew that I'd find something meaningful in most chests/secrets, because they were hand-designed by a thinking human instead of a dumb RNG. And now I'm trying to continue playing Wasteland 2, and I'm totally losing any interest in exploration because all the boxes/safes/crates are so random that their contents change even if you save and reload right before opening them. That's not replayability, that's a crime in my eyes. A few randomness already present in the cemetery graves is just about all the random loot I can tolerate in Grimrock.

Random loot is not a bad thing per se if done right, unlike Wasteland 2 as someone stated above. You crack open a very difficult lock/safe just to get the same crappy loot over and over.

I want to see better loot in progression. Right now in LoG 2, you have to do the beach and forest area. But as soon as you enter the Forgotten River, it's all open world and there is no more progression. You can instantly go off to get the best gear and weapons before doing anything else, and with how the skill system is so simplified now, you can use it all very quickly. I remember in LoG 1, getting higher abilities, such as access to heavy armor, could take a long time, especially if not focusing on it and spreading out your skills first. Here in LoG 2, you can max and 'master' an ability right at lvl 4, less if you get the Tomes of Wisdoms for extra skillpoints.

I don't like that. You get have the best gear and abilities right at the start without even clearing a single area in the game, and just easily walk through the game with no challange, even on hard mode. This is the downfall I find in some open end games. Skyrim had it better, the skills take forever to level up without a lot of money so even if you can go get the best gear easily, it wouldn't be as useful till later on in the game. Also the gear dropped were tied to your level. Here tho, it isn't so you can get the item right at lvl 1, and be able to use it as early as lvl 3-4.

So yeah, I would like more Lineararity. Or at least not as easy to just go get the best gear and then walk through everything. I would also love the game to be massively bigger. Like falling into Grimrock, from grimrock 1, and making it out at the end? I would love that to be 1 dungeon, with there being 10+ dungeons in the game.

Kirinyale wrote:

1varangian wrote: 5. RANDOM LOOT
Adds replayability!

No, no, nooo!!! Please never, ever, add random loot to Grimrock. One of the best parts for me was that I always knew that I'd find something meaningful in most chests/secrets, because they were hand-designed by a thinking human instead of a dumb RNG. And now I'm trying to continue playing Wasteland 2, and I'm totally losing any interest in exploration because all the boxes/safes/crates are so random that their contents change even if you save and reload right before opening them. That's not replayability, that's a crime in my eyes. A few randomness already present in the cemetery graves is just about all the random loot I can tolerate in Grimrock.

Random distributed loot... hand-designed but partly randomly placed... I think on CSB where this worked pretty well.

I absolutely dislike the idea of the perception skill.

The whole point is figuring this out yourself. Your RL perception skill grows as you play the game. After a while, your perception sense tingles and you just "know" that this chest is going to be a bit more annoying or that this wall particular wall lined with traps will have a secret button.

After playing grimrock 2 for some 30-odd hours I'd say I have about 3 points in perception already. Making this a mechanic would reduce my fun figuring out secrets.

Secondly, I like the idea of random loot, but it should be a start option, not something that's forced upon every game. I like how the game gradually peppers you with upgrades for different roles. For the first playthrough, fixed loot is a great idea. Random loot should be an option like ironman.