Alright, I got around to replying to this monster. Let's keep it succinct.
...
[Proceeds to write another monster post.]
Maybe I haven't been able to craft the really good stuff...
...around 5-6 days of crafting per 160 days of game time.
What sort of treasures are you crafting? Do multiple workshops help any?
...basically every day I use to craft is one I don't do those things.
You should focus on one thing if you want faster results. Doing everything at one time is going to be slow.
I'm trying to get a bunch of demonspawns.
Well, that's not supposed to be easy, even for a humongous dragon.
I don't usually savescum. I think that if a game relies on savescumming it's bad design. I mean, if you're expected to re-roll the dice then what's the point of having thing be luck based and not just choosing the option you want?
That's a valid point. I'm probably too enamoured to the idea that a game is basically a
puzzle and not neccessarily high
entertainment. Unlike people who make a living creating games, who can't really
afford to have that view.
But savescumming is both slightly different from just a choice, and also has other benefits, which may or may not apply to you:
- Everyone's patience runs out at some point, so it's not quite 'pick that option'.
- Usually, you can stop savescumming after a while, and then you've 'cheated' yourself into power. Which is an urge every player has.
- Once you stop, the distribution of events will still follow some sort of pattern.
- It can be used as a replacement for the idiot balls and asspulls prevalent in more literary forms of entertainment. Basically, you're the hero because... either the Bid Bad constantly forgets to cast Melt Hero, or you savescummed for minimal damage 1000 times in a row. I think this view is kinda more prevalent among Asian (the continent) players, and I myself - although not being one - sort have a love/hate relationship with it.
In any case, I've been dragged (kicking and screaming
) into making more accessible difficulty options. We'll see how it goes.
Finally, there's at least one way to skip a lot of savescumming in DDM: growing wings and hunting from the air. Gives you a lot more precision. One of the reasons I haven't been doing much with the mod lately is that I left a minor sky hunting overhaul in a half-complete state in July, and right now that mess is looming over me like fucking
homework.
(No, I'm not that young. I
give homework.
)
Personally, There should always be a way to hedge against bad rolls and if the ONLY answer is to roll the dice again, it seems to defeat the purpose of the whole endeavor.
I think it's mostly the case in DDM, too. Unless you play on impossible.
Your dragon might be heavily suboptimal and suffer from all sorts of rage-inducing mishaps, but he won't outright
lose just because of RNG.
...eventually getting to impregnate any female is a pain in the ass. They break so easily.
Anything with 30+ HP should be pregnable without breaking. That's why you go for onis, beastkin, mermaids and other more durable maidens. And if you really like a seedbed, then you let her level up occasionally by draining others.
Hakim is still not really valuable to me, the slaves are too costly to be really worth the effort knowing that you need everything you have for the army and the 200 000 G quest.
I've never played so far that I'd actually care about the army quest. But disregarding that, I've always found money to be quite plentiful. Maybe
too plentiful.
Btw, is that 200 000 in the lair or does sending the money to the army counts?
On hand. It gets sent to the Army once you go and turn the quest in to Mom.
I don't know if the "pay only once to go in as long as you don't go anywhere else" thing is a bug or not, but please don't change it.
It's a feature, obviously. The text even changes to "[Dragon] still remembers the way to the Enchanted Forest and the mists have not changed too much, yet."
As for changing... too late.
The feature stays, but the mana requirement will be
much more severe (20
max mana, not just 10 mana). Will scale down once you've started repeatedly sacking the grove.
however, at some point, when you sleep for more then 90 days in a row, putting the frailer women in the pits just kills them.
Unless they do something concrete for me, the hassle of moving girls around and making sure they don't die...
Why do you care if they die? But even a 10HP noble should survive until birth (45*2(endurance)*1/2(attack drain instead)*1/10HP ~= 5 HP lost)? She'll croak later, but you still got the egg. And that's the absolute worst case here.
...let them go free if I don' care enough.
Hakim is weeping right now...
The more expensive types are such good sacs though.
Well, it depends on whether you have leftover virgins or not. Last time I played, I was drowning in virgins I'd captured for sacrificing but didn't actually
need to sacrifice.
Tribe is pretty good. though I usually try to not send minions there since I have to send one-fucking-thousand minions back home.
Yeah, I'm cutting that quest down to 500 minions. And at least the first 50 going to the tribe aren't too bad in comparison.
maybe the "sloppy jailer" shame shouldn't count girls that die in child birth and in the pits and farms? I mean, it's not being sloppy if I do it on purpose?
How would the game know whether you were sloppy or were intending that all along? You can certainly
be careless about leaving maidens in forgotten nooks and crannies and tentacle pits...
The current reasoning is that a prideful dragon would eat or kill them all himself.
I think making the shield spell last the whole combat but costing more would make it actually worth casting. The thing, right now is that by the time you get it, you're large already, which means you're a pretty formidable foe on the battlefield...
Large isn't very strong yet, and the situation is somewhat more dire on the two higher difficulty levels. I don't really want the spells to be 'fire and forget', there'd be no real difference between them and evolutions then.
That being said, I'm not averse to some kind of change. The real difficulty is that anything fancy will take a lot of work, and I already have a giant backlog.
you may as well blast fire at the threat and save a turn or two.
Fire will get nerfed (only converts damage to fire and doesn't double, unless you get lots of red heads). So that balance will change.
mom could tell you about it.
Mom isn't really on good terms with Darkwood. I could perhaps put something in the semi-useless tavern rumours, but what? "Go into Darkwood, there's girls and levelups there."
50 knowledge take a massive amount of time right now. and you gotta do it many times.
Yeah, that's already been changed. Or, well, expanded.
In the grand scheme of things, those amount of money aren't that much. when you need a 200 000 for the quest and untold amounts to equip the army, getting 50 or 100 a pop isn't much.
These sums add up. I think 100 gold is the most you can get from any single encounter, disregarding high-end treasure hauls.
...get a homunculus going and "unlocking" the rest of the game.
Homunculi will get a
serious nerf and some more unique mechanics. I'm going to discourage the current heavy reliance on minionettes.
After that, you really just need a bunch a meat shields between you and the monsters so leafzards or whatever doesn't matter much.
Well, you don't always need meatshields. Some artillery to make things go faster is also an option. Leafzards are artillery, sort of. Well, light mortars, maybe.
When you can get by the time you can get leafzards, you can already get something close in power.
You can steal the dark elf girl as soon as you get altars running. Hakim maybe even earlier. Or luck into the horse-lover very early. And one elf gal will give you
a lot of leafzards, while basilisks need more care, more leveling, and aren't quite as disposable.
I don't know, maybe Basilisks need to go back up to power 6?
...gobs, went to cocks, basils, then wyverns and drakes. after that, it's all elite. didn't use anything else.
No bandit guards or gargants?
Anyway, I think that's due to how easy it is to get the elven hatchery. If you had to go find the others first, you wouldn't be able to jump to drakes, and wyvern-spawning females are kinda rare. And you
will have to.
I ain't going to the forest when small. The ranger is a pain in the ass and fucks my minions up.
I also ain't running. Got too much pride for that.
Well, that's your pride biting you in the ass.
Is it the 'hunt animals' ranger, the 'patrol' ranger or just a random ranger? I will disable the first two for 0 mobilization, which is what you want for a large chunk of the early game, anyway.
Even when I did go to the forest, I found nothing of interest, I just gave up going there. It's just not reliable enough.
Reliable for what? The boars are nice, the deer and bunnies will get a significant upgrade due to 'eat herds'. The rest is mostly the same kind of atmospheric crap that infests all other locations.
Yeah, went to the elves immediately...
That option will be removed. Maybe I'll do another hatchery for the ogres, too, and bump the elven version up a notch, I'm not sure yet.
Ya gotta find those first. And when you do, you don't need them. It's like in games that gate the best weapon behind the hardest boss. By the time you get it, you don't need it anymore.
Well, the personalities are random. The 'deerbeast girls' are pretty lusty.
Actually, they're a lot less random now, all girl types got a lot of stat customization back in July.
Raiding the royal palace? Who do you think I am? Merlin over there will blast through ever minion I have...
'Merlin' will only bother you on repeat raids. The first raid is Merlinfrei.
...until I find, I think, demonspawns.
Succubi? They're immune to lightning and do sound damage. Might be a little too frail, though. Or maybe dragonspawn, at least they resist magic.
Maybe demon girl minions? They resist lightning, are (near-)immune to magic and do sound damage.
Something has to be done for crafting. It takes 9 clicks to make a thing right now; and those aren't quick and easy either. They're all over the screen.
Yeah, auto-crafting also exists now.
Although the clicks aren't
that bad, the mouse movement is more or less one zigzag. Not sure what could be done about it without an extensive rewrite.
Might be a long wait. I initially thought I'd be done with the next update
last Christmas.
This game, wants your desperation
It might be
worse... At least what happens to Lona isn't really
personal.
