Tagamogi
11-07-2019, 04:27 PM
Let's start off with my main suggestion: Maybe allow an alternate way of completing the quest to help Chaf the Gambler? For example, reach a certain score in the Cashfall game, or get a spot on the leaderboard of any of the casino games? This would allow players to focus on the game of their choice, or alternate games if they are tired of a string of losses in one game.
I spent quite a few hours on the M & M game in the last couple weeks to complete the Halloween quest, and I found myself primarily bored, with maybe a side of frustration at myself that I wanted to complete the quest badly enough I was willing to put up with a game mechanic I didn't find fun.
The M & M game was actually a great favorite of mine when it first released - I hugely enjoyed figuring out how it worked and I still really like the idea of playing as a mantis and I still really love the game's text. What has changed now is that I have reasonably figured out how the game works, so the game has become a mechanical exercise of pushing the right buttons at the right time and hoping that this time the RNG is in my favor. There is nothing I can really do to improve the outcome. The cashfall tickets are a great addition to the game to keep it rewarding [ I collected about 120 of them during my Halloween efforts], but when it comes down to actually winning the game all the way, it's just one looong string of luck. (Which yeah fits in with a gambler's quest really well, but ugghh. ;) )
So, as a non-gambler, my frustrations with the game are:
- The skills are not equal. Prey is bad. Skewer is ok but Lurk is better. Skewer or Lurk are better than Mindgnaw or Crush in most cases, and since you don't have time to level all skills, I find it easiest to ignore Crush and Mindgnaw completely which is a shame because they could add some variety to strategy.
I checked out the high stakes leaderboard in the last couple days and it seems to align with my assessment: Of the 7 wins, 6 had lurk, 1 skewer. Of the 8 other high scores, 6 had lurk, 2 skewer. Every single top run listed had Execute in their build. (There was one person yesterday briefly in spot #15 (https://forum.projectgorgon.com/usertag.php?do=list&action=hash&hash=15) with Prey, but I promptly replaced him with a Lurk/Execute run of my own.)
This could of course be because we are all following Sasho's strategy in the other thread but really, Sasho's list matches pretty closely what I came up with independently. Our chief difference is that he recommends just cashing out on a game if you start off with bad skills, while I keep on going because I hate losing my money. His strategy is smarter. It's certainly possible to get your money back with Prey but it takes playing time and the odds of actually winning the game are really small.
I actually had fun with prey/skewer builds, alternating what I used depending on whether the enemy's health was odd or even, but as a strategy, it's just not effective. The low level prey is pretty horrid since it has a chance to do no damage at all. So, if your choice is to use skewer or lurk and get the mob down in 1-2 hits vs using prey and getting the mob down in 2-4 hits and *maybe* healing, killing the mob faster is always better. At higher levels, Prey feels more fun (anything is better to read than "your attack did 0 damage" ;) ) but unfortunately the mobs are doing more damage too so even if prey heals me, it usually heals for less than I was damaged, and it just seems I'm better off ignoring the heal chance and focusing on getting the mob down asap instead.
As a side problem, Execute also makes it much easier than Prey to collect cashfall tickets since it's completely safe to remain at low health when you know you are going to kill the mob in the next round with execute. With Prey, you'd better drink a potion to get your health back up before the next round.
I feel that in order for prey to be effective, it either needs to do more damage, more healing, or have a higher chance of healing
- Hats. If I don't get a good hat early in the game, I won't win. If I don't get a good hat upgrade later in the game, I won't win. Hats are not created equal - hats that restore health are far better than anything else, imo. Which is a shame because I'd love variety and I'd love for the diplomacy hat to be useful.
- The first two or possibly three levels of the game feel kind of pointless. The rewards there are so low, it really doesn't matter if a rogue takes all my money or not - the math is just that if I make it to level 4 before cashing out, I'll make cash on the game, if not, I won't.
This combined with skills is really my chief frustration with the game. As soon as the game starts and I see my skills, I can tell whether it's going to be a good game or not. My choice then is whether I want to waste my time slogging through the first levels of the game to see if I can recover my 750 councils, or if I should value my time and write off my money as a lost cause when I'm stuck with Prey for the fifth time in a row. I always decide to continue to the bitter end but then find myself hoping for double 1s on a saving throw to put me out of my misery.
Playing the game overall takes a really long time and I wish it was a bit shorter.
So, I don't know. As a gambling game that's intended to be very very hard to win, I don't think it's bad, although it does feel like Prey could use some love. What I would like are ways to reduce the randomness. Maybe have the game start off with a mini-character creator, allowing you to pick one of your skills, or a hat, or to start off with a bonus for your character from the table buff list. Or maybe have a way of inheriting your hat from your previous character if that character survived the run - it's now a happily retired mantis and doesn't need the hat anymore, so it passed it on to its favorite cousin.
It would be nice if eating a corpse restored a bit more health - there's nothing quite like deciding to forego a badly needed skill upgrade to heal up and then having the game roll 4 ones for you as a health buff. It might also be interesting if there were more ways inside the game to influence how the corpse eating works - maybe if you are unlucky enough to be stuck with Prey that could help you when eating a corpse, so if you roll a 1 for the corpse eating, it would trigger a Prey heal.
I spent quite a few hours on the M & M game in the last couple weeks to complete the Halloween quest, and I found myself primarily bored, with maybe a side of frustration at myself that I wanted to complete the quest badly enough I was willing to put up with a game mechanic I didn't find fun.
The M & M game was actually a great favorite of mine when it first released - I hugely enjoyed figuring out how it worked and I still really like the idea of playing as a mantis and I still really love the game's text. What has changed now is that I have reasonably figured out how the game works, so the game has become a mechanical exercise of pushing the right buttons at the right time and hoping that this time the RNG is in my favor. There is nothing I can really do to improve the outcome. The cashfall tickets are a great addition to the game to keep it rewarding [ I collected about 120 of them during my Halloween efforts], but when it comes down to actually winning the game all the way, it's just one looong string of luck. (Which yeah fits in with a gambler's quest really well, but ugghh. ;) )
So, as a non-gambler, my frustrations with the game are:
- The skills are not equal. Prey is bad. Skewer is ok but Lurk is better. Skewer or Lurk are better than Mindgnaw or Crush in most cases, and since you don't have time to level all skills, I find it easiest to ignore Crush and Mindgnaw completely which is a shame because they could add some variety to strategy.
I checked out the high stakes leaderboard in the last couple days and it seems to align with my assessment: Of the 7 wins, 6 had lurk, 1 skewer. Of the 8 other high scores, 6 had lurk, 2 skewer. Every single top run listed had Execute in their build. (There was one person yesterday briefly in spot #15 (https://forum.projectgorgon.com/usertag.php?do=list&action=hash&hash=15) with Prey, but I promptly replaced him with a Lurk/Execute run of my own.)
This could of course be because we are all following Sasho's strategy in the other thread but really, Sasho's list matches pretty closely what I came up with independently. Our chief difference is that he recommends just cashing out on a game if you start off with bad skills, while I keep on going because I hate losing my money. His strategy is smarter. It's certainly possible to get your money back with Prey but it takes playing time and the odds of actually winning the game are really small.
I actually had fun with prey/skewer builds, alternating what I used depending on whether the enemy's health was odd or even, but as a strategy, it's just not effective. The low level prey is pretty horrid since it has a chance to do no damage at all. So, if your choice is to use skewer or lurk and get the mob down in 1-2 hits vs using prey and getting the mob down in 2-4 hits and *maybe* healing, killing the mob faster is always better. At higher levels, Prey feels more fun (anything is better to read than "your attack did 0 damage" ;) ) but unfortunately the mobs are doing more damage too so even if prey heals me, it usually heals for less than I was damaged, and it just seems I'm better off ignoring the heal chance and focusing on getting the mob down asap instead.
As a side problem, Execute also makes it much easier than Prey to collect cashfall tickets since it's completely safe to remain at low health when you know you are going to kill the mob in the next round with execute. With Prey, you'd better drink a potion to get your health back up before the next round.
I feel that in order for prey to be effective, it either needs to do more damage, more healing, or have a higher chance of healing
- Hats. If I don't get a good hat early in the game, I won't win. If I don't get a good hat upgrade later in the game, I won't win. Hats are not created equal - hats that restore health are far better than anything else, imo. Which is a shame because I'd love variety and I'd love for the diplomacy hat to be useful.
- The first two or possibly three levels of the game feel kind of pointless. The rewards there are so low, it really doesn't matter if a rogue takes all my money or not - the math is just that if I make it to level 4 before cashing out, I'll make cash on the game, if not, I won't.
This combined with skills is really my chief frustration with the game. As soon as the game starts and I see my skills, I can tell whether it's going to be a good game or not. My choice then is whether I want to waste my time slogging through the first levels of the game to see if I can recover my 750 councils, or if I should value my time and write off my money as a lost cause when I'm stuck with Prey for the fifth time in a row. I always decide to continue to the bitter end but then find myself hoping for double 1s on a saving throw to put me out of my misery.
Playing the game overall takes a really long time and I wish it was a bit shorter.
So, I don't know. As a gambling game that's intended to be very very hard to win, I don't think it's bad, although it does feel like Prey could use some love. What I would like are ways to reduce the randomness. Maybe have the game start off with a mini-character creator, allowing you to pick one of your skills, or a hat, or to start off with a bonus for your character from the table buff list. Or maybe have a way of inheriting your hat from your previous character if that character survived the run - it's now a happily retired mantis and doesn't need the hat anymore, so it passed it on to its favorite cousin.
It would be nice if eating a corpse restored a bit more health - there's nothing quite like deciding to forego a badly needed skill upgrade to heal up and then having the game roll 4 ones for you as a health buff. It might also be interesting if there were more ways inside the game to influence how the corpse eating works - maybe if you are unlucky enough to be stuck with Prey that could help you when eating a corpse, so if you roll a 1 for the corpse eating, it would trigger a Prey heal.