Caves of Qud (ROGUELIKE)

[Lacrymas]

Buy it and play it for a couple of hours. If it's not your thing, return it.

It's not so much the few first hours, but the exploration and "impetus" let's say of the middle and end-game. It might be fun exploring featureless swamps and forests for the first 2 hours until you get used to your character, but it needs more than that after. Like for example a crashed alien ship you can find, or a laboratory where people are trying to reverse the mutations gone sexual wrong, or pre-apocalypse technology vaults with secrets or something. That's what I mean.

 

[buffalo bill]

Buy it and play it for a couple of hours. If it's not your thing, return it.

It's not so much the few first hours, but the exploration and "impetus" let's say of the middle and end-game. It might be fun exploring featureless swamps and forests for the first 2 hours until you get used to your character, but it needs more than that after. Like for example a crashed alien ship you can find, or a laboratory where people are trying to reverse the mutations gone sexual wrong, or pre-apocalypse technology vaults with secrets or something. That's what I mean.

There are things like that. The game is certainly not just flower fields and forests and swamps. I think the mid-game content is far better than the early-game content, especially the Golgotha and Bethesda Susa dungeons. Enemy variety also opens up.

 

[Lacrymas]

Ok, you convinced me, I bought it.

 

[Catacombs]

Ok, you convinced me, I bought it.

Smart move. See you in 100 hours!

 

[BinaryForest]

So I kinda like the premise and setting of this game, it's a good contrast to ToME, but with the constant updates I have doubts whether it isn't full of feature creep that unfocuses the game or makes it spread too thin. Any thoughts on that? No ending also kinda sounds weird.

Years long development with frequent updates and features coming/going is pretty par for the course for classic roguelikes. They're like the proto-games as a service, except without the part where they squeeze money from you at every opportunity

 

[Lacrymas]

There's a difference between feature creep and adding content or refining already existing features. Feature creep takes away from the focus of the game by adding superfluous activities or replacing core gameplay loops. For example adding crafting which replaces the need for loot hunt, it obviously cheapens the loot hunt (*cough* D:OS1-2, Tower of Time *cough*) and the rewards from it.

 

[Tse Tse Fly]

Interesting, when will this thing finally get out of early access? According to the information on the home page full release was supposed to happen in 2017, 2018, 2019, but it gets delayed again and again.

 

[Lacrymas]

Roguelikes never seem to be finished, but I guess it's gonna be "officially" released once they complete the main quest.

 

[PrettyDeadman]

I'm kinda still not convinced about the merits of this game and I want someone to sell me on it. Does it offer anything besides an extensive character creation system? Are there any fixed bosses or any unique creatures? Are there exploration possibilities that don't end up in a never ending procedural generation? Is there a chance to influence the story? Anything else noteworthy?

There are fixed bosses and unique creature, also there are unique locations (including dungeons).

 

[buffalo bill]

Tomb of the Eaters #2

Welcome to the second Tomb of the Eaters beta! This patch takes you through the back half of the Tomb of the Eaters dungeon and through the rest of the quest. The full feature arc should be ready in January.

If you're interested, come help us test! Our focus right now is on broad scale testing: big bugs, big balance issues, and big UX challenges. See this thread for details.

To access the beta: right-click on Caves of Qud in Steam, select Properties, click the Betas tab, and switch to the 'beta' branch.

We'll post the comprehensive patch notes with the full feature arc. For now, here's a summary.

• Added the upper half of the Tomb of the Eaters dungeon.
  
• The Tomb of the Eaters quest is now completable.
  
• Added a slew of new content in support of the quest: new creatures, new items, new NPCs, new locations, etc.
  
• Added [extremely redacted].
  
• Made some balance changes to several of the Beta #1 creatures, particularly conservators, crypt sitters, and crypt ferrets.
  
• Made some balance changes to accommodate the new movespeed calculation.
  • The Multiple Legs mutation now costs 4 points.
    
  • Motorized treads now gives more movespeed.

 

[buffalo bill]

Tomb of the Eaters Feature Friday - January 31, 2020 (beta branch)

200.17

We've posted an update to the Tomb of the Eaters beta on the beta branch.

Tomb-related notes

• We made some structural changes to the layout of the Tomb.
  • We shifted the whole dungeon up several Z levels. The crematory is now one level above the surface.
    
  • Removed the Lake of the Damned.

• We included some more signposts toward finding the Mark of Death and entering the Tomb through the Death Gate.
  • Implemented a partial redesign of the Arcades to the Twin Gates that includes a path and sign pointing to Ezra.
    
  • Immediately upon finding the Mark of Death, you now learn the Mark of Death secret, and the 'Recover the Mark of Death' quest step now completes.
    
  • Immediately upon inscribing the Mark of Death, the 'Inscribe the Mark" quest step now completes.

• It should now be clearer that a certain post-Brightsheol body alteration is intentional.

• Once you return from Brightsheol, you cannot go back via the same method. (<- worded intentionally vaguely to avoid spoilers)

• Added two new cybernetic implants: fire suppression system and anchor spikes.

• Added a new item: advanced toolkit.

• Crypt ferrets are now better at hiding.

• Made Vivira, the sentient turret, magenta in order to stand out more.

• Added descriptions for the following objects: fulcrete, ebon fulcrete, wide bottle, crypt door, compacted bone, and grave moss.

• Added some more tomb propaganda.

• Renamed recarcassing nook to recoming nook.
  
  
  General notes

• We made some changes to auto-equip.
  • Auto-equip now gives you feedback on items that were unequipped as a result of your action.
    
  • Eliminated most repetitive auto-equip messaging.
    
  • Auto-equip now tries to unequip multiple items in order to equip an item that uses multiple equipment slots.
    
  • Confirmation is now requested before automatically unequipping an item that will be destroyed by being unequipped.

• We tweaked the temperature-related behavior of liquids.
  • You may find differences in how pouring liquids on you affects temperature.
    
  • Standing in a pool of lava is no longer safe once you've dealt with the initial temperature shock.
    
  • Your equipment and inventory now experience more temperature effects than before, particularly if you expose yourself to large amounts of lava.

• Fungal infections are now immune to heat, cold, electricity, and acid.

• Projectiles coming from a distance and passing near the player now produce a message in the message log.

• More combat sound effects are now properly controlled by the General > Combat Sounds option.

• Any NPC with whom you can perform the water ritual can now give you directions.

• The following actions performed while autoexploring now also operate on adjacent tiles: autoget, harvesting, butchering, trash rifling, opening a chest, and interacting with a bookshelf.

• Puffer fungi can now be hit by normal ranged weapons.

• Lava and acid now spawn less often in containers that are unsafe to house them.

• Companions now attempt to generally follow you even if they can't pathfind all the way to you (for example, because you have Force Bubble active).

• Mirrorshades now give a very small chance to reflect light-based attacks.

• Objects embedded in walls can no longer be taken or interacted with via the interact nearby command (unless you are also in the same tile as the wall).

• Items embedded in walls are now partially visible with penetrating radar.

• The overlay inventory screen now better handles having two heads or two faces.

• Multiple applications of Hobble now renew the duration of the effect rather than stacking the movespeed penalty.

• Carbide hand bones no longer modify hands added by Helping Hands, and they only affect the set of hands where the implant was implanted (in the event a True Kin has somehow acquired multiple sets of hands).

• Trader repair and recharge actions now more effectively handle plurality and stacking.

• Tattooing a companion no longer tattoos you instead of them.

• Smart use no longer pets Sheba Hagadias by default if Sheba is pettable.

• You can no longer open and close doors while frozen solid.

• Magazine-loaded ranged weapons now account for the weight and value of the ammo loaded in them.

• Solar and radio-powered cells now receive their charge more reliably on the world map and should cause less lag.

• Take-all no longer counts untakeable items when checking whether you're going over your weight limit.

• Added a new tile for the basic toolkit.

• Fixed some item duping exploits with evil twins and prism clones.

• Temporal fugue clones no longer lose their items before they expire.

• Fixed an issue with legendary breathers' and miners' names not showing up properly.

• Fixed a bug that made Berate 10x as likely to take effect if you had an Ego modifier of exactly zero.

• Fixed some bugs with explosions, other types of forced movement, and the generation of maps with ruined buildings.

• Fixed a bug that made DV and MA penalties from confusion become permanent if the game was saved and loaded.

• Fixed an issue with portable walls.

• Fixed an issue with nano-neuro animators.

• Fixed a typo in village monument descriptions.

[*][modding] In character generation, whether a genotype is considered a mutant is now controlled explicitly by the new attribute IsMutant="true" in the genotype entry rather than by whether its name contains the substring "True". Mods affecting genotypes may need to add this attribute.

 

[buffalo bill]

Game-wise, not a very exciting post (though the soundtrack is good imo):

DLC RELEASE
POSTED
Sat, February 15
by Caves of Qud

Caves of Qud Soundtrack released!

We've released the OST for Caves of Qud!

Included are 14 original tracks by Craig Hamilton, totaling an hour of music, with more to come.

Live and drink.

 

[Catacombs]

Game-wise, not a very exciting post (though the soundtrack is good imo):

DLC RELEASE
POSTED
Sat, February 15
by Caves of Qud

Caves of Qud Soundtrack released!

We've released the OST for Caves of Qud!

Included are 14 original tracks by Craig Hamilton, totaling an hour of music, with more to come.

Live and drink.

I enjoyed the music. Good to know it'll be downloadable soon.

 

[Molina]

I'm not sure whether to buy Cave of Qud or ADOM. I'd like a rogue like, where I could build my own story. I'm looking forward to the release of DF steam for that... but in the meantime... Do you have any suggestions?

 

[Fowyr]

I'm not sure whether to buy Cave of Qud or ADOM. I'd like a rogue like, where I could build my own story. I'm looking forward to the release of DF steam for that... but in the meantime... Do you have any suggestions?

Just play ADOM 1.1.1 or that old free ASCII verison of Qud. make your own opinion.

 

[Tao]

I'm not sure whether to buy Cave of Qud or ADOM. I'd like a rogue like, where I could build my own story. I'm looking forward to the release of DF steam for that... but in the meantime... Do you have any suggestions?

https://cataclysmdda.org/

Be carefull, is a drug.

 

[Trash]

One thing I often miss in roguelikes are interesting (procedural) quests that tie into the game. I like the procedural ones in stoneshard and wonder if anything like that is in Caves of Qud? Played it a long time ago and loved the descriptions and general feel of the world. Hope they did something with that setting that lets you have an impact on the world.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I'm not sure whether to buy Cave of Qud or ADOM. I'd like a rogue like, where I could build my own story. I'm looking forward to the release of DF steam for that... but in the meantime... Do you have any suggestions?

ADOM is free
https://www.adom.de/home/downloads.html

 

[buffalo bill]

I'm not sure whether to buy Cave of Qud or ADOM. I'd like a rogue like, where I could build my own story. I'm looking forward to the release of DF steam for that... but in the meantime... Do you have any suggestions?

First play the free ASCII ADOM (I personally really hate the tileset in the non-free one anyway). The free Caves of Qud is far, far different from the EA version, so I think it's worth paying for the non-free Qud. Overall, Qud is a more interesting and better game than ADOM imo (I've played both a ton, and love ADOM as well), but it's best to cut your teeth on ADOM first maybe.

One thing I often miss in roguelikes are interesting (procedural) quests that tie into the game. I like the procedural ones in stoneshard and wonder if anything like that is in Caves of Qud? Played it a long time ago and loved the descriptions and general feel of the world. Hope they did something with that setting that lets you have an impact on the world.

Qud has at least one interesting procedural quest, in the optional Bey Lah hidden village. It's sort of detective quest. There are also others in the randomly generated villages, and random quest-like tasks related to the sultans, but all of these generally amount to fancy fetch quests. I'm hoping they implement some more interesting optional non-fetch quests off the main storyline in the future. I should mention that I haven't played recently, and there is some new content at the end of the main path that might include procedural quest elements (in the beta branch).

 

[rusty_shackleford]

First play the free ASCII ADOM (I personally really hate the tileset in the non-free one anyway).

The free ADOM has full graphics. It's identical to the Steam version sans some options regarding difficulty stuff.

 

[buffalo bill]

First play the free ASCII ADOM (I personally really hate the tileset in the non-free one anyway).

The free ADOM has full graphics. It's identical to the Steam version sans some options regarding difficulty stuff.

Oh yeah, I see. I have only downloaded the ASCII one I guess. Again, I really dislike those tiles.

 

[jungl]

so I tried this out and initially got a good impression and thought the game was awesome. Then I noticed how some builds are extremely op like con mutant with regen and horn mutation and lost interest. Also playing a rogue like without a end game and gradual growing challenge on the player is boring as can be.

 

[Catacombs]

Also playing a rogue like without a end game and gradual growing challenge on the player is boring as can be.

You're only limited by your imagination.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Also playing a rogue like without a end game and gradual growing challenge on the player is boring as can be.

You're only limited by your imagination.

That and the lategame enemies that instakill you from offscreen before you ever see them.

 

[buffalo bill]

REGULAR UPDATEby Caves of Qud
POSTED
Fri, March 6
Tomb of the Eaters Feature Friday - March 6th, 2020 (beta branch)

200.20: We've posted an update on the beta branch.

A note on updates: our cadence has slowed a bit while our small team deals with some impactful life events. We'll be ramping back up soon. Live and drink, friends.

• Added a new cybernetic implant: medassist module.
  
• Added a new item: syphon baton.
  
• The co-processor mod now provides compute power that select equipment can consume.
  
• Added new descriptions for the following creatures, items, and objects: graverobber, exit teleporter, ornately carved marble, rotating machine arm, locking machine arm, strip fly, urn porter, urn, sarcophagus, machine press, reliquary, sultan reliquary, ornate chair, ornate bench, ornate table, plant in ornate pot, grave goods, Eater hologram, crypt sitter, and ghost perch.
  
• Added a new tile for the sign to village Ezra.
  
• Added flipped tiles for Eater holograms.
  
• Added some new tomb propaganda.
  
• Fungal infections and motorized treads are now immune to damage.
  
• More NPC tinkers can now repair, recharge, and identify artifacts.
  
• Piston presses now respect phase.
  
• Lunge now respects phase and flight.
  
• Juke now interacts better with effects that restrict your mobility.
  
• Removed the old tattoo gun.
  
• Cybernetics credit wedges are now stackable.
  
• Wraith-knights can no longer be duplicated or cloned.
  
• Robotic and otherwise inorganic creatures are no longer made thirsty by thirst thistle attacks.
  
• Disassemble now requests confirmation before disassembling quest items and items you have equipped.
  
• Disassemble now provides a "disassemble all" inventory action that disassembles a stack of items at once.
  
• Disassemble now has an action cost.
  
• Temporal fugue clones and various other forms of cloning no longer count toward the death and destruction toll of A Call to Arms.
  
• Sturdy spectacles and mirrorshades no longer incorrectly report that they have broken in melee.
  
• Having thirst inflicted on you by an attack no longer triggers tongue bleeding from glotrot.
  
• The Amphibious trait no longer reduces thirst that's inflicted by attacks, and amphibious characters get the same log messages as do non-amphibious characters when an attack inflicts thirst.
  
• A message now periodically appears in the message log when your companions are dehydrated. If they are visible when they become dehydrated, you get a popup.
  
• Fixed some issues with companions re-joining the player after traveling on the worldmap.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused an item type's repair cost to permanently depend on whether the first item of that type you repaired was rusted.
  
• Fixed some bugs that caused modifiers to secondary statistics like AV, DV, and movespeed to be double-applied when they came from mutations and cybernetic implants selected during character creation.
  
• [modding] The ability of NPCs to repair, recharge, and identify artifacts in the trade screen is no longer controlled by the CanRepair, CanRecharge, and CanIdentify properties. Instead, it's determined by the relevant tinkering skills. (Repair enables the repair action, Tinker I enables recharge, and Gadget Inspector enables identify, with Tinker II, Tinker III, Intelligence modifier, and any relevant equipment contributing to identification performance.)