JUDE'S PROFILE

author=Avee
The lack of skillset is only an "issue" for the first 15-30 minutes anyway, and time passes quickly when playing Necropolis. I prefer the quick sense of progression provided by early level ups, and being able to select my built right from the start. So I'd vote for keeping Marcus' Level at 1.

I considered it a non-issue at first also, but it was a minor change that was easy to test. It doesn't get in the way of character customization, because 1/1/1 at Lv3 was an inevitability no matter what choices the player makes. Your initial level ups will still come rapidly because of the way experience points are calculated, everything has just shifted +2 levels (so player level is expected to be Lv5 when facing the first boss instead of Lv3).

Avee
I also agree with Craze that healing items useable in combat will lower strategy quality, and I think that the game is easy enough already provided that you make clever use of equipment and states (honestly, I don't understand why some people find this game hard). And the lack of item use and regen cloaks contribute to Necropolis' uniqueness.

It does nerf the difficulty overall and it will make the game too easy for some, but it also opens it up to those who found some of it too difficult. I have considered difficulty settings now that monster stats have become more... flexible. I recently made stats all derivative of monster level. I mean, they always were but they were constants that I input based on a spreadsheet rather than being mathematically derived in a common event. It was a change I made to incorporate new features in the Necropolis arena, so that Marcus could fight old monsters that were scaled to his level rather than adding new monster ID numbers. But what it does is allow me to tweak monster level and derive new statistics on the fly, so difficulty settings can be devised around that. Something I've just been considering in light of the overall nerfs I've made, but not a priority.

Crystalgate
What I would do differently? I would probably make finishers a bit stronger and allow the player to manually select the target. I found that later on they become rather underwhelming. The problem may mainly be monsters vulnerable to bleed as against those monsters, Rend and Lacerate completely overshadows anything else. Most monsters so far have been vulnerable to bleed, so it's not a phenomena that only sometimes happen.

I'd also want to discourage Slash and heal spam as well. It reminds me way to much of the attack and heal spam I'm so familiar with.

Generally, I'd want to encourage more use of finishers and less use of the same skill over and over.

I'll admit to not evaluating the lacerate effect very much. I basically just arbitrarily picked a modifier and haven't looked back. I want Bleed/Lacerate to be an effective combo, but it's possible that I have made it too effective.

The number of enemies that are vulnerable to bleed is something I should re-evaluate. For example, the BoneLord archetype was initially a skeleton, which might still be reflected in some of the older images laying around on this game page. When Marcus first encounters that archetype, he was usually Lv4 so there were only two things that could really harm them at all: the TriDrill finisher and (if spec'd for it) Thrust. That was the reason I made them fleshy (BoneLord kept his name, but RedBones became RedBaron) and vulnerable to bleed effects, to open up another weakness. Right before pushing the demo out I also ended up giving their Shield Bash spell a short-duration self-inflicted Expose (defense down). With that, along with the addition of spell damage (which ignores defense), it wouldn't hurt to revert them to their boney glory.

Finishers may need a boost, but I remain unconvinced of it right now. Abilities are intended to do more damage than Finishers over the three turns it takes to unleash one, largely because I didn't want the player to be 100% choosing abilities based on the finishers they'd evoke.

I have struggled with the effectiveness of Slash/Heal spam since the beginning. I've tried a few things to mitigate it, with the current incarnation (Heal cost scales dramatically with character level) being the most successful but still not satisfying. I'm trying to avoid discouraging it too much, preferring to encourage other courses of action instead. I think the key is in enemy design, and hopefully you'll find some of the ones in the latter half of Necropolis up to the task, but unfortunately it is never really ideal.

To be fair, Max wasn't initially insulting the entire community--just anybody who liked my game. Which is interesting because I've never taken potshots at his games, just his character.

I knew it was German but I have never had any idea how to pronounce it. And I stilk have no idea, based on the way you spelled it.

Incidentally, there is a bug in the version available for download that makes this strategy less effective, but nobody ever complained about it so I didn't bother re-uploading for something minor (only affects two enemies, BoneDog and the nature Melody). The silence check for the right-most monster was looking at the middle monster's casting state. Oh well!

We've been spending most our lives living in an Amish paradise
I churn butter once or twice, living in an Amish paradise
It's hard work and sacrifice, living in an Amish paradise
We sell quilts at discount price, living in an Amish paradise

Also: looks nice.