Mana Games

[Jerm]

Just wanted to stop by the forums and post what a great game you've created. It's been a while since I've played a dungeon crawl, since Demise: Rise of the Ku'tan.

I've only now made it to level 5 and started on Warrior level. I've been trying to clear a level each evening or there about. Some of the bosses are unforgiving and challenging which can be frustrating but rewarding once you figure out how to beat them.

I appreciate the trinity structure you've implemented for the classes and love the Tank, Heal, DPS and plus one. It's quite enjoyable learning when to execute certain skills as to not pull threat off the tank.

The skill trees are very vanilla WoW reminiscent, a nice touch. It's fun to get to look through the different skill trees again and try and pick one skill over another.

The performance of the game seems to be flawless, yes, it's a dungeon crawl but it runs super smooth and is very easy to navigate through the dungeon. The graphics are solid and lighting looks great. The ambience of the dungeon is nice also.

Having played several hours now and really getting a feel for combat and executing skills, my only two requests would be the ability to stack my avatars on top of one another rather than stagger them.

The most important would be to add an enemy avatar bars that show where they're attacking. I constantly find myself sweeping my cursor back and forth across the enemies to ensure one of my party is not pulling agro and if it is so I can quickly interrupt them to pull threat back on my tank. It would be a nice addition to have a visual like a raid bar that shows who the baddies are attacking. Yeah I know they face the party member they are attacking but it can be difficult to tell which.

Other than that I love the game and can't wait to get further into the dungeon. Beat the bone dragon boss this evening, was a fun mechanic.

[manutoo]

Hello,

thanks for the praise..!

1-
>> my only two requests would be the ability to stack my avatars on top of one another rather than stagger them

You're talking about the GUI ? You'd like to have 4 lines, with 1 ability bar + portrait per line ?

2- a toon who is near to get aggro will have his portrait outlined in orange ; if he gets aggro, then it turns in red. Of course, for colorblind people, it's not very helpful...

[Jerm]

Hi Manutoo,

1-
>> my only two requests would be the ability to stack my avatars on top of one another rather than stagger them

You're talking about the GUI ? You'd like to have 4 lines, with 1 ability bar + portrait per line ?
No, I just meant how the portraits are like
    1234 _____ 1234
1234 _________ 1234

I would like to have an option like:
1234 1234
1234 1234

2- a toon who is near to get aggro will have his portrait outlined in orange ; if he gets aggro, then it turns in red. Of course, for colorblind people, it's not very helpful...[/quote]
Thanks for the tip. I remember seeing the instruction early on in the first level but didn't pick up on it. For this I meant to have the enemies each have a health bar with the value displayed over on the right side of the screen with a small icon of party member they are attacking. You sort of get this when you hover your mouse over the baddies but it doesn't stay on screen and it's only for the encounter you hover your cursor over.

I see your over in France, I'm sorry to see what is going on over there and I hope you, your friends and family are all safe.

[manutoo]

1- if do like that, then the combat numbers for the down characters won't have any space, or they'll have to spawn from the HP & Mana bars
(your toons seem pretty unhappy to be in the dungeon )


PS: Fortunately, my relatives are alright...

[loonypath]

This game is truly great... please make several official DLC expansions before making a sequel. The engine, graphics and mechanics are really good so it would be a shame to just throw it out and make a sequel right away.

I think $9.99 would he appropriate for each DLC, I would gladly buy all them if you make some.

One small comment about improvment... the regular mob vs elite and boss seems out of balance... I have to play warrior or higher for normal mobs and then bump it down to adventurer for elites and bossss... think the elites and bosses are fine but the normal mobs should be buffed up a little so that each encounter is a little harder but obviously still not as hard as an elite.

[manutoo]

loonypath,
thanks !

I'll try to add 2 separate sliders for the strength of the Elite & Boss mobs. This current balance is inspired from World of Warcraft, where the normal mobs are called "trash mobs"....
They're mostly meant for training and usually shouldn't be really dangerous, except if more than 1 group comes in fight. But several players would like them stronger compared to the Boss, so I'll see what I can do.

I'm not sure how would be the sequel right now. But at least the engine would be close, just with more stuff (eg: new abilities & classes).

But if the sales raise a bit, I'll likely try to do a kind of roguelite mode for DG, where the levels are randomly generated & other stuff in that spirit, to give more replay value.

[JonP]

The game was fantastic. Best crawl since Wizardry 8.

Here's my wish list for DLC:
1) Guild where I can maintain inactive players, and swap them in and out of my party.
Probably requires the ability to reset boss fights/levels.
2) Some ability to go non-linear; enter areas beyond my level. Take a higher risk for more reward.
3) I like the idea of random generated areas that I think you wrote about. Maybe as side quests and/or extension of end game content.
4) Monk class like Wizardry. Bare hands, no armor.

Thanks!

[manutoo]

JonP,
thanks for the praise !

For the possible sequel, I'm thinking about making the world more open with more freedom for the order of exploration, although I'm still not sure how to make it work correctly with the combat system.

I discarded the rogue mode idea after I have played many rogue-likes last year. The base concepts of DG actually don't match well with the bases of rogue-likes. However, a few random areas could still make sense, but it's not a priority now...