As a Game

As a Game

makrohn's picture

So, just to introduce myself really quick, I downloaded this from the Ubuntu software center this morning while looking for something fun to play.  I know little about programming (I've dabbled in Python), but I do know what makes a game fun for me.  That is, of course, the operative part - FOR ME.  I don't intend the following critique of game mechanics to represent some sort of mandate.

 

Playtest of Flare:

 

#1, XP Critique

I like the basic XP levelling formula:  NEW=OLD+LVL^2*100, but it seems like the XP gain formula should be XP=MONLEVEL^2

Problem is that levelling gets REALLY sluggish VERY fast.  I expected that monsters would give you XP=MONLVL^2, but it's XP=MONLEVEL.  This means that to get from Level 1 to Level 2, you need to kill 100 monster of your own level.  To get from 2 to 3, you need to kill 200 monsters of your own level.  From 3-4, it's 400 monsters of your own level.  This creates a really scary, frustrating grind.  I don't know how to change the XP formula, so I went ahead and squared all the levels by hand (in gedit), and modified all the random enemy groups in the map files to match.  This made the levelling way more satisfactory (I always need to kill 100 enemies of my own level to gain one level), while providing decent rewards for killing above my level, and diminishing returns on low-level monsters.  So far I think the only thing that this unbalances is the minotaur, who should probably be brought from Level 8 down to Level 6.

Obviously, it'd be way easier to just change the equation at the root of things.

 

#2, Bow Critique

 

I think I'd like to see bows moved to the main hand instead of off-hand.  I tried doing this manually in the items.txt file, but found out that bows are completely broken when put into the main hand.  I imagine this is much harder to change.  It'd mean that one could use a bow and a shield at the same time, but one would no longer be able to dual-wield bows/wands or bows/swords.  Not sure what people would rather see.

 

#3, Sword critique.

The damage on swords is almost identical to that of bows.  If the damage is the same, but bows can be long range, it seems pointless to ever use a sword.  Maybe multiplying all sword damage x1.5 or x2 would be appropriate?  I'm about to edit the items file to do x2 and see if that's overkill.

Just some thoughts from a python n00b and veteran gamer.