Lulz! wrote:
In light of this, I would prefer to see picking up the crystal as a "one-and-done" deal; as soon as you pick up the crystal, monsters are going to swarm you with intent to kill, maim, and destroy anyone or anything that gets in the way, so you'd better get your ass off that floor. If a compromise must be made, then I suggest making a feature out of the exploit and labeling that as an "easy-mode" of sorts which can be used for learning (like Drizzle in Risk of Rain), but the main game is much more final in this regard, so the decision to move the crystal carries much more weight.

Ahem, thats the way i've always seen the crystal (even after i read about the exploit), but yeah, i would prefer personnally that the crystal can't be carried without the exit found out.

Hello all!



There is currently a bug that allows three characters to share the benefits of a single item that raises wit.



1. Equip Hero A with a wit raising item.

2. Have Hero A operate a module.

3. Unequip the item from Hero A and have Hero B equip it.

4. Have Hero B operate a module.

etc...



It's important that you equip an item and THEN operate a module. If you equip while operating, you will see no effect.



Using this exploit, you only need to buy/find one item that raises wit. In a playthrough, I found a "Grim Fairy Tale" (funny description, btw) that raises wit by 12. Using this exploit and passing it between three of my heroes, I was able to earn an additional 9 food each turn. All this from a single item.



Also, it's interesting to note that the game takes into account the total amount of wit contributing towards a certain type of module rather than each individual's wit rating. For instance, if you have a hero operating a food module with 9 wit, then you'll get +3 food each turn. But, if a second hero with 3 wit operates another food module, you will still only get +3 food even though you get +1 food if the dumb one is the only hero operating a food module. The function for additional resource/wit is ceil(x/4), so if you have a character with 3 or less wit, there might be no additional benefit from him operating another module.



Anyway, I'm sure this will get patched out soon. I could seriously listen to that music all day.

I can say with some certainty that this isn't in the dev's vision of the game. It's one of the things listed their response to some of the suggestions that the community has made.

I didn’t see this page. Thanks.



But though the developers said no or yes to some ideas, I think we have to keep talking about it. ‘Cause we could have new ideas about things.



And for the refund thing, I’m not agree with them. They said it would be easier, but I don’t think it would if the game is rebalanced to support the change. Higher costs or higher needs of modules (so, higher spending), partially refund, and that’s it.

And for the selling exploit before the exit, the game should just limit the refund thing.



I’m not agree with the targeting system too, and it bother me more than the refund thing. I mean, improve the auto-targetting is good, but not enough. Sometimes, I need my modules and characters focus on the crystal guy, and sometimes not. If the crystal guy has to cross three of my rooms before he gets to the crystal room, so I don’t want my first room (the nearest to the unpowered rooms) focus on him. I just want my modules ignore him to focus on the big golem who’s smashing right now my production module, while my other rooms deal with the crystal guy. I lost some modules because of that poor IA. And, well, I can’t really blame it. In other circumstances it would be good to focus on the crystal guy. So it’s all a matter of context. And the game surely can’t always choose the good target. I can’t understand why there is not a targeting system, except if there is some technical limitation.

The point though is that players already have a way to influence the chance of gaining this important resource without the crystal's current behaviour being necessary by any means

Yeah, but this is not a sure way to deal with the chance. Each unpowered room could be compare to a new dice to add to my dice pool. Sure, it’s a good way to improve my chance, but there is still a large part of it 'cause each dice will have the same random numbers. I don’t like that, cause it’s not a really limited-randomization. Bad luck could still be bad luck. If there is some Warhammer players here, they surely know of what I'm talking about right now.



But I don’t say I don’t like the choice we have to let unpowered rooms to gain more Dust. I do. But I just say it’s not a good answer to the unfair random thing, to me.

There is currently a bug that allows three characters to share the benefits of a single item that raises wit.



1. Equip Hero A with a wit raising item.

2. Have Hero A operate a module.

3. Unequip the item from Hero A and have Hero B equip it.

4. Have Hero B operate a module.

etc...

Well, you’re about to become the official “exploit/bug guy” here. : D



I have to test that myself! : )

Dear Amplitude,



Dungeons of the Endless is a potential great game. In short you can find below what I like, dislike and my suggestions. I'm sorry if some things are already discussed in the past but I didn't go over the entire forum. The game askes to leave some comment when you finish it and I hope it helps you guys developing this game to it's full potential.



PRO

- The atmosphere of the game. The sound and graphics contribute to this nicely though, personally I prefer a bit more detail in the characters and enemies but the graphics do what they have to.

- You get a rush every time you hold of a wave.

- The different genres combined works really well. I would describe it as a combination of RPG, Tower Defence, Board game, Dungeon crawler/rogue like. DotE reminds me of a board game in the sense that opening a door is a time measurement and you can only send your team to a room where as the rooms serve as a square on a board game.

- Different monster AI. Some monsters neglect your team or not or go to a undefended room first to destroy your constructions.



CONS

- Being able to finish the game in the third play through, which makes it way to easy but I guess you guys already know that by now as I’m far from the only one.

- The system behind the games is too simplistic at the moment, once you understand how the game works it is hard to make a (fatal) mistake. At this time the game is easy to understand but also easy to master, it would benefit if it would be less easy to understand and difficult to master. Think of it a bit as chess where the basics are really easy to pick up but you need to study to get good and it is extremely hard to be a master.

- You find yourself at a certain point where you know that you are going to finish the game if you keep your mind to it. Once you have your team at level 5 and some good choke points to fall back to you know that you are unstoppable. A rogue like (and almost any game for that matter) should become more difficult the farther you get, DotE does not do this and this is a structural problem for the moment linked to the fact that the game system isn’t complex enough.

- Another downside linked to this, is that the game gets repetitive after some time, for me especially in the third dungeon. You position your heroes next to your constructions and take your fastest one to open the next door, some creatures spawn or some waves, you rush everyone to your choke point and defeat them. Afterwards you reposition your heroes and everything starts all over again.



SUGGESTIONS

- At first I found a miss that you couldn’t select which enemy to attack or position your heroes freely (I would have placed a tank like hero first to absorb the damage) but I got used to it very soon and think it works well. What will help in this is to have some basic commands like you can find in Dragon Age or some tower defence games so that you could have your party or one hero to automatically attack the strongest enemy in the room or the one that is closest to your crystal,…

- You are going to implement Skills and it might be interesting to take a look at the Dungeons & Dragons system as it was used by Baldur’s Gate or The Temple of Elemental Evil (or others). In the D&D games you could use a spell or skill a limited amount of times before you had to rest. As the doors in DotE are the time system you could use this system so that for example a skill can only be used once every three or four doors you open, so you use a skill and then you have to wait a couple of doors before you can use it again.

- A bit more interaction between the monsters would be nice for example monster that shield other monsters or monster that can heal other monsters,… Something that could work as well is an enemy that remains in the dark and summons new waves, so that you have to venture out with a part of your party to kill it and have some heroes remaining at a choke point so that you have to divide your attention.

- What also would be nice is to have the enemies AI to be programmed like that so that they attack a certain hero first. Now it is often so that the fastest close range hero is the one to receiving all the blows has she/he is the one standing as a first line fighter, as a result of this you only have to watch one hero’s health bar as the other ones don’t get hit.

- Move a character from the list (drag and drop like ?) to reverse positions.

I know this has already been mentioned as happening, but just want to add another voice to this issue. It was the one thing that stood out to me most while playing.

1) Why not make some doors require multiple people/stat reqs to open?

Because, if you did this, then you might have games where it is impossible to continue with your journey. That being said, if these were only attached to end rooms, and designed to give large bonuses to players who could open them, that might be nice, but how would a player know before hand how to prepare for them? If a door requires low Wit later in the dungeon, yet all your currently owned heroes gain Wit on leveling, then you start forcing the player to choose between leveling and opening low Wit doors. I'm not sure I like this sort of design. Perhaps a keycard system (similar to Binding of Issac's keys) could be put in place instead? Even better would be if keycards could only be bought from merchants, adding some value to merchants.

"Boss"

This would be quite cool. I'm not sure we want them on our early floors (opening your first door to have a boss kill you would be rather off-putting). Perhaps, on later floors, have them guarding the exit? I love the idea, and I'll be interested in seeing if, and how, this gets implemented.

Game is really addictive but I hope you will add more video options and vsync support.



Also codex page would be great. We can see infos about enemies, weapons, items, and etc...

If there is geo-positioning strategy involved, then you definitely need to be able to focus specific enemies (to fight for the spot on the hill/against the wall/behind the table). I think it'd make full sense, without adding making the game any less fluid to play.

Hi Amplitude,



Thank you for this really promising game!



here is my humble feedback:

- great gameplay possibilities: i really enjoy the Rpg rogue-like tower-defense mix!

- the art direction is really great and the pixel graphics are much appreciated (the pixel art, the animations and the lighting are great). Another world meets flashback meets ftl

- Concerning the pixel graphics, for me there is too strong a difference between the resolution of the interface and the rest. the interface elements (food, industry, character info, stats,...) are too small, very difficult to read, and don't blend well with the characters and the levels. This gives the impression that the interface is too "clean" in comparison with the rest. If in the pixel-perfect resolution it is better suited, it is still too small: probably more fitting for a tablet than a computer.

- Also, i thought your choice of color for the interface was strange. there are a lot of bright colors on a black background. in comparison, the beige on grey seems to me kinda bland.

- I'm unsure of the turn the game will take in the coming months but I would really enjoy some "replayability." In many rogue-likes today, there are elements (could be enemies, weapons, blue prints, playable characters, stores etc..) and collectables that can be unlocked, game after game. This makes the game progressively more complex and diverse in its game-play. it gets harder but you have more tools and possibilities at your disposal. I really hope this is something you are considering. But it seems you might have quite a few things in store in that department, most notably the tech tree and skill tree that are not yet in the alpha. these could undoubtedly contribute to different game experiences (which is the core of rogue-like gameplay).

- another thing i was wondering: I really like the scifi heroic ambiance in a hopeless and claustrophobic setting. Are you planning on having any story content throughout the game, such as people you meet (npc), creatures you encounter, objects you find, etc. that may contribute to some form of story-telling? I really think this could give the game a lot of depth, especially since the game is based on an already existing and rich universe/franchise. In the presentation video of the game, their is a touch of (dark?) humor at the end that could really be enjoyable.

- concerning level design, for the moment each level is identical (except in size). Will this be true for the final version of the game as well? Also, if the maps look the same, so do the mobs. There are different species that randomly pop up together. could there be levels or groups of levels that concentrate certain races or types of mobs? there are quite a few races and backgrounds in the endless space game that could well inspire good diversity in the level design.



That's about it.



Really looking forward to seeing the next updates!!!

My first impressions, everything was great! My only gripe really was the tiny text for the character profiles.

Hi Amplitude.



DoTE Alpha is proving itself quite promising.





- I love the art style, what else can i say?

- The Alpha doesn't seem to have many problems bug wise.

- Interface needs a bit of roughing up and dirtying to feel truly connected to the art style of the game, perhaps a more natural colour to it will help it in that department.

- I like the initial cut-scene a lot; will there be more cut-scenes and different cut-scenes for different escape pods? I expect different escape pods to be like different ship types in FTL; crew size and mix along with starting item pools.

- In the upcoming months the replay value, I expect, will increase as more is added to the game, item, blueprint, room type, character wise; and greater challenges for our heroes are introduced.

- The game is missing elements that make it truly hard and force painful decisions; however those elements, such as the introduction of a tech tree and science, are already planned and I cannot wait to play about with them.

- While not a personal problem, HUD sizes need fiddling with to accommodate larger fonts and resolutions, this appears to be a common want among the people.



I don't own the game yet but in a week or two I will, that is not to say I cannot play it or record myself playing it because of a little help from a friend.



That me for now.

Hey guys. Just bought the alpha, racked up a few wins and a whole lot of losses. Really excited for this, takes me back to my Space Hulk and Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup days. Got a few bugs and issues that I thought I'd get out there on the off chance you're reading the forums. I'll try to steer clear of obvious things you're probably aware of (wildly unbalanced heroes).



Bugs and Issues

* Not having individual control is painful, to the point where I sometimes can't even tell if a unit is acknowledging my commands. At the very least target prioritization would be nice. Repair priority would also be nice for those wishing to rely more on automated defenses.

* The ability to pare your light path down the minimum necessary to escape (once all doors are opened) and then go on a shopping spree with available merchants seems a little unbalanced. Whether you feel the additional attack vectors and challenges of keeping merchants alive this long balances this tactic is debatable, but it presented little additional challenge to me.

* Using dust as currency for items in general might be troublesome. It certainly provided interesting choices, but the ability to "bank" dust in the form of items also provoked a strong urge to engage in scumming behavior for a marginal advantage.

* There is a persistent bug where heroes and enemies will sometimes get "stuck" in corners and not interact.

* While whimsical item names are fun, there were some cases where I couldn't figure out who an item was for. The same went for the + and - modifiers. For things like attack speed it's not entirely clear whether this is a bonus or a penalty. Color coding them might help.



Wishlist

* More robust aggro system. A skill to pull aggro (probably on Gork or one of the sword classes) would be welcome.

* A minimap and ability to zoom out. I assume this is being worked on since rudimentary zoom features are already in.

* Hero behavior prioritization.

Hi there.



I bought the game few days ago and it is a pretty promising one I think.



But I want to start with the bad points to finish with the good ones.



First, the game is far too easy. I launched the game, make a terrible mistake (I started with a food generator that was a complete disaster ^^) and I died in the bigining of level 3. I restarted a new game and finished it without any problems. All of that take me 3 hours.

I precise that I'm not really a good rogue like player (damn FTL and Binding ^^).

A great difficulty require from the player a great strategy and give to the random all its potential. A rogue like needs to be hardcore to get a good replayability.



Second very bad point is the impossibility to keep items from a level to another. By example, if in level one, I find/buy a great gun and I only have melee characters and then, in level 2 I find a ranged one with the impossibility to stuff him with my shiny almighty gun because I STUPIDLY FORGET IT IN LEVEL ONE !!!.... I think I'll be kinda desapointed (to stay polite ).



So that were the principals failures at this state of the game for me.



But there are few more things. We can't select two, three or all characters in the same time (by a square of selection for example). When the game is in pause, it's not visible enougth. I think a choice of character's placement will be very usefull. That allows us to put ranged guys in rear and melee ones in front and that avoid a character to hide another or a building point.



Humm, that's all for now.



Ok, at least, place to the good points \o/



The game design is really, obsolutly, definitivly, OMFGly great. (And I am weighing my words).

This cross over so much differents kind of games is a genious idea. I can't wait the tech tree to see all the DotE potential.



Furthermore, the game is beautifull, Charac design is inspired, I love animations.



Musics are just same as usual with your games : AWESOME !!! (And I am weighing my words... again ^^).



To close this first feedback, I have to say that if DotE keeps its promises (tech tree I want you so bad !!!) and gives us more challenge than now, it will be the best rogue like I never played and the first tower defense I enjoyed .



PS : And of course, I'm really sorry for my my stupid french guy English

I really like it so far and look forward to the new content. My only gripe right now is the characters. I don't feel all that sad when a hero dies. I hope you'll add some more character developement and more stuff that will make me more attached to them

Hey

Further comments to what has already been said:



* Practicalities: When in the inventory/stats, I'd want to use the "escape" key to get out of it (using it again would, of course, bring up the menu)

* Wit: Maybe i'm a bit thick (read: my IRL personality has a very low score in this in-game characteristic), but I currently don't really see the point

* Range heroes: as already said by someone above, I'd want my range heroes not to stand in the middle of the fight. Perhaps if there is a wall in the room, range heroes could move against it?

* Merchants: why don't they run away when there are enemies in the room? (until they get to a dead-end, at which point they'd probably get killed )

* Zoom: Also as said above, it'd be an awesome function (specially as you get to more advance levels and the map expands)

* Food: Am i the only person to find odd the use of food for leveling up? Perhaps "nanotechnology points" would be more appropriate (boosts up your body, and heals up) Maybe i'm being pedantic. Probably the case

* Fights: Why can't I focus on the enemy i want? Surely I should be able to hit the smelliest one first

* Ninja: The game needs a ninja. Someone who can turn invi+run super fast. I guess that'll come with the skills, but i really think you need a ninja warrior.



Other than that, I really enjoyed the three games it took me to finish this early release. Good job guys/gals, I really think you have something worth working on here.

Not a dev but I can speculate on a few of these.

Mormegil wrote:
Second very bad point is the impossibility to keep items from a level to another.

Again this is to stop people from converting a temporary resource into a permanent one. If inventory persisted players would start buying every item they can possibly get their hands on and tediously mule them between levels, or spend hours optimizing the value of their junk inventory so they can cash it in to make later levels a cakewalk. This kind of behavior is what we call scumming in roguelikes, and it's generally frowned upon. It screws with game balance (angering devs) and requires large amounts of tedious, repetitive actions (angering players). No wonder a lot of games try to curtail it.

theFlyingCamel wrote:
Wit: Maybe i'm a bit thick (read: my IRL personality has a very low score in this in-game characteristic), but I currently don't really see the point

I think it effects repair speed but it's hard to tell. Probably it'll become apparent as more skills open up.

theFlyingCamel wrote:
Ninja: The game needs a ninja. Someone who can turn invi+run super fast. I guess that'll come with the skills, but i really think you need a ninja warrior.

Character design and dialogue clips suggest Sarah Numas (blue swordy girl) is going to fill this role. Pretty sure repair is just a placeholder, as loads of people have it even when it's thematically inappropriate for them (the nurse for example).

Hello Amplitude!



Love the game. I only have one suggestion at the moment. There is currently an exploit where you can earn infinite dust on any level fairly easily.

1. Take over as many rooms as you have dust for.

2. Set up a "kill room" where you can concentrate all of the heroes (minus one for step 4) along with some strong weapon/healing/buff modules.

3. De-power a room next to your kill room.

4. Have a hero pick up the crystal, thus spawning easily defeated infinite waves from one room only.

5. Infinite dust.



It is a little tricky to do on level one. I had to keep setting the crystal back down to help clear out the kill room. However, once you have multiple heroes, you can easily take care of the waves of enemies coming from that one room. If you're strong enough to take on two waves at a time, you can hit the 400 dust cap in no time. Using this method, I cleared out dungeons without any threat of waves spawning when I opened a new door because I always had dust to power each new room. Plus, I was able to put a major module in every room that had a slot available. That gave me a ridiculous amount of resources.



Anyway, I wouldn't have figured this out if I hadn't played the game so much this weekend! Love the music!

Petro wrote:
Not a dev but I can speculate on a few of these.





Again this is to stop people from converting a temporary resource into a permanent one. If inventory persisted players would start buying every item they can possibly get their hands on and tediously mule them between levels, or spend hours optimizing the value of their junk inventory so they can cash it in to make later levels a cakewalk. This kind of behavior is what we call scumming in roguelikes, and it's generally frowned upon. It screws with game balance (angering devs) and requires large amounts of tedious, repetitive actions (angering players). No wonder a lot of games try to curtail it.





I think it effects repair speed but it's hard to tell. Probably it'll become apparent as more skills open up.





Character design and dialogue clips suggest Sarah Numas (blue swordy girl) is going to fill this role. Pretty sure repair is just a placeholder, as loads of people have it even when it's thematically inappropriate for them (the nurse for example).

WIT will add how many point a hero add to a major module : always put high witted hero on your modules and you'll see the difference

theFlyingCamel brought up a good point for ranged heroes. Some sort of cover would be awesome, either as a module or something already in the room. The ranged monsters could use them if that would keep it balanced .

Hello Amplitude, and also greetings the all the players.



I didn't find any thread for starter/presentation, so I guess this one is as good as any other. Anyway, I just registered, and I thought about leaving some feedback here. I'll try to keep it to my game experience, and save the suggestions for the designated threads.



- First things first, the game looks awesome. Pixels everywhere, sure. But you really managed to get the most out of it, and I love it. Can't wait to check out the other types of environments.



- The HUD is classy and good looking, but I found it really small at first. Sure, I got used to it, and since I have a better grasp at what icon means what, it's easier to understand. But still, I often have to squint my eyes to read the tiny text, and I could really use some "scale interface" option.



- Interacting with elements is easy enough (except for merchants, I never know if I have to left-click or right-click on them, because one time out of two, it won't work), and there are only a few keybindings to remember, plain and simple. Only thing that feels weird is controlling/selecting heroes. I'm not sure, but I feel like it lacks something. Maybe a line from the hero when you send him/her somewhere, as a way to acknowledge your order ? Anyway, sometime it's a bit buggy and the heroes don't go where pointed at, and aside from bug fixing, a little something would be great.



- I won't say anything about difficulty/balance, because all game mechanics are not implemented yet. But I can only say that I'm looking forward to the challenge the game could offer. The logic behind exploration/resources management/power allocation is a really good one. The fundamentals of your game are strong, and that makes me optimistic.



- Time wise, my first play through the first 3 levels took me 2 hours at first, then after a few games I dropped it to 1 hour and 30 minutes. Now, after playing 9 hours in total, I clear the first 3 levels, taking my time, in about one or so. I read somewhere that you planned for each game to be 2 hours longs, and there's something like 12 levels. Let me say it right now : No casual is gonna make it in 2 hours. And that's not a bad thing, because while you want for players to have short, multiple experiences, I would really be disappointed that each game only lasts 2 hours. Right now, every time I finish, it feels like it's too soon. So the whole levels for 2 hours ? I will lose interest quickly, that's for sure.



That's it right now, keep up the good work, I'm really looking forward to the next build!

Cheers.

Hello Amplitude,

First of all I would like to thank you for the great work you've shown in this alpha !



It's quite enjoyable already and i know the future patchs will fill me with joy lol



So here is my feedbacks/what i miss:

- Scoreboard, to record my score and compete agains't my friends and the world (well, if there is already a score at the end of the alpha, i guess you'll implement that feature a little bit later )

- Move character, what i mean here is that, ok, battle are doing automatically and it's great but i don't want my ranger being in front line

- Level 3 difficulty it's, at the moment, pretty weak, i can handle 6/8 waves together without heal, i hope you'll raise the difficulty for the next level (i know it'll be balance later i'm not really worried about that)

- Move a character from the list (drag and drop like ?) to reverse positions.

- An alert when one of my character is under 50% hp could be amazing



- The BGM is amazing

- I like the "old school" style of characters

- It's already a very good alpha, I look forward to the new content lol