my thoughts on the game

[lakra]

First of all, greetings to the community from a newly registered user.

Today I reached Level 72 and felt the need to offer some thoughts on the game.

I followed Links Guide for Dual Wielders in the very beginning, especially to find quests an grinding places to get through the first levels of the little adventurer.
After finishing the Prim Quest (I sided with Prim, but that was more an accident ) I farmed for the RolS which was quite painful. I entered the gargoyle cave at Level 27 and left it at level 54 with one RolS, but man, I was satisfied when I got my first one. After that I tried to get another one but I started to get bored -so I left for all the shiny open quests (Charwood, Remgard, Green Maze and Quests between the locations).

What ruined my challenge was the huge amount of grinding I invested in finding the RolS cause I became too strong, but I enjoyed the writing of Quests, like the one for the Marrowtaint or the Dark Protector. Finally my character wears the stuff I wanted him to and looks like:

For Criticals:
Dark Protector
Serpents Hauberk
Marrowtaint
DoSP / Blade of the defiler
Polished Ring of Backstabbing / RoLS
Troublemakers Gloves
Enhanced Combat Boots

For Lodar's cave:
Dark Protector
Serpents Hauberk
Marrowtaint
2x Blackwater Dagger
Villains Ring / RoLS
Troublemakers Gloves
Enhanced Combat Boots


I think there are some balancing issues in the game, especially with the equipment:

-Flagstone's Pride... easy to get, one of the best 1-handed swords in the game (at least in my oppinion). It should be harder to get this sword. Especially in the very beginning of the game, most monsters are not immune to critical hits. So this sword offers a significant boost for your damage. Such a huge boost, that it made almost every other weapon straight uninteresting until I could get the DoSP or the Balanced Steel Sword.

-Balanced Steel Sword... you are able to buy this one, so I think the stats shouldn't outrun most of the other weapons, especially extra ordinaries and legendaries

-DoSP... this weapon granted me the highest damage output so far. My hits reach out for up to 170 if I crit and I have a chance of 30% to do so. That seems way to high to me, think about that this one is just a dagger. I could cut my bread in half to place some butter on it, but I'm way too scared to pulverize the bread back to meal, because I landed a critical hit on it.

-RoLS... nice ring to have. Not really necessary, but very nice to have. But why is the shadow regeneration not stackable. If you think about the average time you have to invest to get two of the rings and the fact, that this ring is a legendary item (and there are only two others so far) it would deserve a stackable effect.

-The weapon damage... at the very beginning of the game, the need for damage provided by the weapon was an important fact to me. The problem i can see right now ist, that it doesn't matter at all as soon as you are on higher levels. You get more damage just for wearing to rings then a 2-handed claymore can deal (without the specs of course, but I guess you get the point).

-Shields... very nice thoughts on the stats of the shields. Providing block chance and damage reduce while lowering the attack chance, which makes sense, cause you can't aim very well while blocking and hinding behind a shield. But please show the shields some love and create at least an extraordinary or a rare shield with a defensive constant effect (like slight resistance to something).

What I'm questioning myself is, if all the planned new regions are harder then the existing ones to keep the game challenging and what influence that will have on the possible release version. If the goal would be to provide a relatively fluid gameplay with some, but not too intense grinding between the areas, then I'm pretty curious how the new areas will fit in.

Anyways, thank you very much for this great game and for all the work you are putting in. I'm playing this game for weeks now and I'm still very motivated to develope my character. So many skills I want the little guy to have (cleave, the special ones for criticals). This is absolutly outstanding for an android game, especially a free one, especially a free one without ads, especially a free one, without ads, without the need of a permanent internet connection and without in-app buys.

Cheers from Germany

[rijackson741]

First of all, greetings to the community from a newly registered user.

Welcome to the forums lakra

What ruined my challenge was the huge amount of grinding I invested in finding the RolS cause I became too strong,

I got my RoLS by chance. The same with the GoW. After I finished all the quests I did grind until I got myself a RoL, and I gained a lot of levels doing that. I fear that I will pay the same price for that in the future though, because it will make the next parts of the game too easy. We will see

I think there are some balancing issues in the game, especially with the equipment:

-Flagstone's Pride... easy to get, one of the best 1-handed swords in the game (at least in my oppinion). It should be harder to get this sword. Especially in the very beginning of the game, most monsters are not immune to critical hits. So this sword offers a significant boost for your damage. Such a huge boost, that it made almost every other weapon straight uninteresting until I could get the DoSP or the Balanced Steel Sword.

-Balanced Steel Sword... you are able to buy this one, so I think the stats shouldn't outrun most of the other weapons, especially extra ordinaries and legendaries

-DoSP... this weapon granted me the highest damage output so far. My hits reach out for up to 170 if I crit and I have a chance of 30% to do so. That seems way to high to me, think about that this one is just a dagger. I could cut my bread in half to place some butter on it, but I'm way too scared to pulverize the bread back to meal, because I landed a critical hit on it.

-The weapon damage... at the very beginning of the game, the need for damage provided by the weapon was an important fact to me. The problem i can see right now ist, that it doesn't matter at all as soon as you are on higher levels. You get more damage just for wearing to rings then a 2-handed claymore can deal (without the specs of course, but I guess you get the point).

This is a problem that is being worked on, and hopefully will be fixed (or at least, much better) in the next release. You can get some idea of what is being worked on by reading the meeting notes here: http://andorstrail.com/viewforum.php?f=5

-RoLS... nice ring to have. Not really necessary, but very nice to have. But why is the shadow regeneration not stackable. If you think about the average time you have to invest to get two of the rings and the fact, that this ring is a legendary item (and there are only two others so far) it would deserve a stackable effect.

I believe the rule is that no legendary or extraordinary item will ever be necessary to complete the game. I guess it was decided that even as a legendary item it would be overpowered if SR stacked.

I buy as much cooked perch as possible every time I'm anywhere near Charwood cabin. Sustenance x4, on top of Regneration and SR sure gets a lot of HP back fast

-Shields... very nice thoughts on the stats of the shields. Providing block chance and damage reduce while lowering the attack chance, which makes sense, cause you can't aim very well while blocking and hinding behind a shield. But please show the shields some love and create at least an extraordinary or a rare shield with a defensive constant effect (like slight resistance to something).

I agree that an extraordinary or legendary shield would be nice. Boots too There is hope though; see the notes for meeting #50

[Duke]

Great feedback and welcome to the forums!

"What ruined my challenge was the huge amount of grinding I invested in finding the RolS cause I became too strong, but I enjoyed the writing of Quests, like the one for the Marrowtaint or the Dark Protector."
I think that grinding will do that for you in any game you play....the thing is that you don't "need" the RoLS. So, if you do want to go for it, save before you enter the cave, then clear it out, and if you didn't get the RoLS, go back to your previous save. That way you won't keep the exp, or all the potions that you acquire.

[lakra]

Great feedback and welcome to the forums!

"What ruined my challenge was the huge amount of grinding I invested in finding the RolS cause I became too strong, but I enjoyed the writing of Quests, like the one for the Marrowtaint or the Dark Protector."
I think that grinding will do that for you in any game you play....the thing is that you don't "need" the RoLS. So, if you do want to go for it, save before you enter the cave, then clear it out, and if you didn't get the RoLS, go back to your previous save. That way you won't keep the exp, or all the potions that you acquire.

That was more a warning for new players, I didn't want to complain over the fact, I got too strong. In fact the grinding and developing my character is the most important task for me in rpgs. But maybe other people want to follow the story and like a more fluid gameplay with completing quests and being challenged continiusly.

I believe the rule is that no legendary or extraordinary item will ever be necessary to complete the game. I guess it was decided that even as a legendary item it would be overpowered if SR stacked.

The RolS is far from being an item which is needed to finish the game. And so are the other legendaries. Polished Ring of Backstabbing and Villain's Ring are nearly as good as the RolS and with Corpse Eater or an item giving back hp after kills you gain enough hitpoints during combat, at least if you are able to kill the monsters quick enough. Even the Ring of the Protector is a nice alternative with the higher block chance. Especially on higher levels, when the damage from the RolS isn't really needed.