Dungeon Rats - first impressions and general feedback

[Lios]

Dungeon Rats is a game that demands from the player to take pleasure in getting his ass kicked in order to unleash the endorphins en masse when victory is achieved at last.
It's brutal and fair in excessive proportions so it's only natural that the average normal difficulty=free blowjobs rpg consumer will feel dumb getting wrecked in the first two battles.
The catch is that if said rpg consumer could cherish the experience and endure (in enduring grow stong) realizing his weakness and trying different tactcs etc etc he could discover aspects of his playstyle-routine that never knew were there.
Heh Dungeon Rats and AoD are such a great way to put a yoke on your ego that should be taught in new-age meditational centers.

In retrospect what I hate about these two games is that they make my cigarretes disappear.
I still remember devouring half a pack in that last Dredgers (?) fight (with that bomb throwing guy, what a cunt), only to get wrecked by the three scorpions after that

 

[HoboForEternity]

Gotta agree about the endorphin rush playing this game.

In a world of insta-gratification entertainment (and generally too) something like this is rare, and i find very rewarding.

Each battles won, i worked hard, perfecting my tactics and a lil bit of lady luck's blessing and it felt orgasmic.

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

Dungeon Rats is a game that demands from the player to take pleasure in getting his ass kicked in order to unleash the endorphins en masse when victory is achieved at last.
It's brutal and fair in excessive proportions so it's only natural that the average normal difficulty=free blowjobs rpg consumer will feel dumb getting wrecked in the first two battles.
The catch is that if said rpg consumer could cherish the experience and endure (in enduring grow stong) realizing his weakness and trying different tactcs etc etc he could discover aspects of his playstyle-routine that never knew were there.
Heh Dungeon Rats and AoD are such a great way to put a yoke on your ego that should be taught in new-age meditational centers.

In retrospect what I hate about these two games is that they make my cigarretes disappear.
I still remember devouring half a pack in that last Dredgers (?) fight (with that bomb throwing guy, what a cunt), only to get wrecked by the three scorpions after that

So you are suggesting that ITS games can be used as tool to build players’ character by forcing them to practice moral virtues such as resilience and patience, and it helps them to abandon addictions, such as cigarets. Inversely, then, we should infer that triple-A games will corrupt players' character, while increasing their addiction to different substances that have adverse effects to their healthy. Is that it?

 

[Lios]

So you are suggesting that ITS games can be used as tool to build players’ character by forcing them to practice moral virtues such as resilience and patience, and it helps them to abandon addictions, such as cigarets.

What "abandon addictions"?
Dungeon Rats made my cigarettes disappear because I smoked them to alleviate anxiety while hoping to see "Dodged-Counterattack" above my character.

 

[Micormic]

So you are suggesting that ITS games can be used as tool to build players’ character by forcing them to practice moral virtues such as resilience and patience, and it helps them to abandon addictions, such as cigarets.

What "abandon addictions"?
Dungeon Rats made my cigarettes disappear because I smoked them to alleviate anxiety while hoping to see "Dodged-Counterattack" above my character.

Idiot.

 

[Lios]

Ah, lemme guess, you're into life, eh friend?
Do you also cough like a spastic when someone's having a smoke in your vicinity?

 

[Micormic]

I don't care about smoking but if you're having anxiety attacks from dungeon rats of all games you clearly have bigger problems.

 

[ColonelTeacup]

Dungeon Rats is a game that demands from the player to take pleasure in getting his ass kicked in order to unleash the endorphins en masse when victory is achieved at last.
It's brutal and fair in excessive proportions so it's only natural that the average normal difficulty=free blowjobs rpg consumer will feel dumb getting wrecked in the first two battles.
The catch is that if said rpg consumer could cherish the experience and endure (in enduring grow stong) realizing his weakness and trying different tactcs etc etc he could discover aspects of his playstyle-routine that never knew were there.
Heh Dungeon Rats and AoD are such a great way to put a yoke on your ego that should be taught in new-age meditational centers.

In retrospect what I hate about these two games is that they make my cigarretes disappear.
I still remember devouring half a pack in that last Dredgers (?) fight (with that bomb throwing guy, what a cunt), only to get wrecked by the three scorpions after that

So it's the dark souls of CRPGs?

 

[razvedchiki]

1handed hammer or axe for block party build?

 

[agentorange]

1handed hammer or axe for block party build?

Hammer. When you knock someone down their shields and armor are rendered basically pointless anyway.

 

[razvedchiki]

8 str
7 dex
7 con
6 per
4 int
8 cha

getting marcus,roxana,the alchemy bro (herion to max his crafting and then leave him near the forge).

max block and hammer,how does it look?

 

[Fenix]

Try later two-man party, sometimes looks like harder then solo.

 

[boot]

The power gamer in me wants to beat Barca to pick up Hieron earlier...

but the larper/retard in me likes the 'feel' of clearing out the lower levels before ascending... (I mean after beating Barca and getting off the lowest tier, why would you go back? You wouldn't, it doesn't make sense.) And the pacing of the fights and item progression is better, too...

but that wasted SP...

 

[Fenix]

You see, it's not a long game, so I did both variants. )

 

[Goral]

Cleveland Mark Blakemore
Both Dungeon Rats and Grimoire have been recommended in an article "Missed RPGs AD 2018" on a biggest Polish gaming site:

https://www.gry-online.pl/S018.asp?ID=1488 (notice that Dungeon Rats graphic has been shown for the opening). Dungeon Rats is on page 3.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

The article is shallow and comments cancerous.

 

[Lacrymas]

and comments cancerous.

It cannot be!

 

[Goral]

The article is shallow and comments cancerous.

It is shallow but I'm pretty sure some Poles will buy it thanks to the article. And it's not like a game that sold "less than 16 thousand" copies (according to GOL, in reality it's over 38 thousand) can get a proper article on a mainstream site. It's great that even after 2 years it's still being mentioned.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

True, but on rare occasions DR gets mentioned it would be nice if it got more quality articles. Although I would say it got better article than other games. Got a pretty strong feelings that author did play only a few of games he mentions.

 

[SausageInYourFace]

Oldskulowo az do bolu!

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

Compared to AOD you get a metric shitton of alchemical reagants and bombs and the like, so compared to AOD use them more liberally.

That said, if you need to exclusively use bombs to fight constructs you'll eventually run out, so maybe use them to get by when your level/build at the moment can't handle it

I've seen this sentiment repeated by a lot of people from the early stages of the game's release, however, I'm playing it atm and have to abandon my first run quite a way into the game as I've completely run out of both Liquid Fire and Bombs & all the reagents needed to make them.

& it was from comments like this that made me comfortable in using them when I did (usually for boss-like encounters or to first-turn an enemy bomber) & I still don't feel like I've been liberal with them, quite the opposite. I've also completely run out of Healing Salves without ever using more than 2 after any fight.

So I'm having to abandon my first game at the first encounter at old town, against the Enforcer. There are two other encounters available at this point, the four Dark Centipedes, also impossible & the three Worms, which are easily beatable but then I can't open the crafting chest anyway & other than that there is no useful loot there anyway.

As I suspected, just like with most bad RPGs, it all basically comes down to fireballs at the end of the day, regardless of "muh military tactics" horseshit.

Or maybe I just picked a particularly difficult first-time build... 8 Charisma Bow Archer, 4 man party, so... low SPs combined with too many people to heal after battle & Bow Archers being a bit crap late game?

 

[Parabalus]

Compared to AOD you get a metric shitton of alchemical reagants and bombs and the like, so compared to AOD use them more liberally.

That said, if you need to exclusively use bombs to fight constructs you'll eventually run out, so maybe use them to get by when your level/build at the moment can't handle it

I've seen this sentiment repeated by a lot of people from the early stages of the game's release, however, I'm playing it atm and have to abandon my first run quite a way into the game as I've completely run out of both Liquid Fire and Bombs & all the reagents needed to make them.

& it was from comments like this that made me comfortable in using them when I did (usually for boss-like encounters or to first-turn an enemy bomber) & I still don't feel like I've been liberal with them, quite the opposite. I've also completely run out of Healing Salves without ever using more than 2 after any fight.

So I'm having to abandon my first game at the first encounter at old town, against the Enforcer. There are two other encounters available at this point, the four Dark Centipedes, also impossible & the three Worms, which are easily beatable but then I can't open the crafting chest anyway & other than that there is no useful loot there anyway.

As I suspected, just like with most bad RPGs, it all basically comes down to fireballs at the end of the day, regardless of "muh military tactics" horseshit.

Or maybe I just picked a particularly difficult first-time build... 8 Charisma Bow Archer, 4 man party, so... low SPs combined with too many people to heal after battle & Bow Archers being a bit crap late game?

I did a 10 CHA xbow (you can dump STR unlike bow) for first run, and ended with a bunch of reagents and stuff, food was tight periodically though. 4 person party has a lot more to heal than solo guy so it can be used up.

On what fights did you use up liquid fire and bombs? Did you gib the enemy alchemists before they used their stuff? You did, sorry.

 

[Darth Canoli]

I've seen this sentiment repeated by a lot of people from the early stages of the game's release, however, I'm playing it atm and have to abandon my first run quite a way into the game as I've completely run out of both Liquid Fire and Bombs & all the reagents needed to make them.

& it was from comments like this that made me comfortable in using them when I did (usually for boss-like encounters or to first-turn an enemy bomber) & I still don't feel like I've been liberal with them, quite the opposite. I've also completely run out of Healing Salves without ever using more than 2 after any fight.

So I'm having to abandon my first game at the first encounter at old town, against the Enforcer. There are two other encounters available at this point, the four Dark Centipedes, also impossible & the three Worms, which are easily beatable but then I can't open the crafting chest anyway & other than that there is no useful loot there anyway.

As I suspected, just like with most bad RPGs, it all basically comes down to fireballs at the end of the day, regardless of "muh military tactics" horseshit.

Or maybe I just picked a particularly difficult first-time build... 8 Charisma Bow Archer, 4 man party, so... low SPs combined with too many people to heal after battle & Bow Archers being a bit crap late game?

You got farther than me to get to the same conclusion, wasn't the backtracking too tedious or does it get better ?

I wonder if i should give it another go sometimes, maybe i should just wait their next game as they said this one was just to ease the waiting for their next "marvel".

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

I did a 10 CHA xbow (you can dump STR unlike bow) for first run, and ended with a bunch of reagents and stuff, food was tight periodically though. 4 person party has a lot more to heal than solo guy so it can be used up.

On what fights did you use up liquid fire and bombs? Did you gib the enemy alchemists before they used their stuff? You did, sorry.

Well, the trade off seemed to be: Use bombs and not need to use healing salves or not use bombs and use healing salves. I didn't really use any bombs until the healing salves started to run out. & then, I used the few handful of Liquid Fire to hold back the Dual Wielding Hammer mini-boss, protecting one of the late game Forges & two Bombs to get rid of one Alchemist, the one hiding in a wall cavity & the other two in the above battle with the Dual Wielding Hammer mini-boss to dispose of two of his minions.

I'm particularly annoyed about a great many little things, from screen freezing CTDs (but without the CTD, obviously) to the game providing me with a dodge-based Swordsman instead of a block-based swordsman, having spent most of the game up until Ismail's arrival using a campfire retard as a Swordsman tank ( & therefore honed my entire tactics around such a build), to which Ishmail was fine & I adapted him to a less punishing armour kit until this late stage when only the strongest armour made him survivable, to which even tower armour & DR out the ass couldn't stop him dying in turn 1 against the Enforcer with no fire nor bombs available to disrupt their opening salvo.

Also annoyed at why it chose to give the only crafting NPC fuck all Con & also made him specialise in the same attack as Marcos, your first proper companion. I see on here that you should use Heilos just to level up his Crafting skill, but I had no idea about all this going in spoiler free & just saw him as a weak duplicate & ignored him & so I spent 4 SPs in both Crafting & Alchemy myself, as the game seemed to need me to do that in order to even pick plants or harvest ore. The game later gives me a dude with 6 Alchemy, rendering by 4 completely wasted, as if they weren't anyway.

& love how companions have completely bonkers skills, making you feel completely retarded for keeping the camp fire dudes alive instead of letting them die & saving yourself a salve or two. I was reminded of the major flaw with Geneforge, where levelling up summoned monsters is actually less productive than just letting them die & spawning new ones.

& I'm pretty sure the devs here have implemented deliberate 'butthurt generation' code into their supposedly 'you will all play as equals' difficulty, as more than one, noticeably so for a very small sample size, I would be left with one enemy left on the field with, like, 5 hp left & my archers would all miss/get dodged & the hammer dude would hit for 3 and another miss/dodge & the enemy would get that one last turn & … wait for it... fire off a critical for 17 & up until that point I'd managed to get through the fight with virtually zero damage... as I say, noticeably so, on many occasions.

Just a little venting here, as you can imagine... I mean, that's the whole point of the game isn't it? Just a venting generating device? I mean, it's not actually about 'finding the solution' is it, it's just about 'coping' really isn't it...

 

[Tigranes]

I've seen this sentiment repeated by a lot of people from the early stages of the game's release, however, I'm playing it atm and have to abandon my first run quite a way into the game as I've completely run out of both Liquid Fire and Bombs & all the reagents needed to make them.

& it was from comments like this that made me comfortable in using them when I did (usually for boss-like encounters or to first-turn an enemy bomber) & I still don't feel like I've been liberal with them, quite the opposite. I've also completely run out of Healing Salves without ever using more than 2 after any fight.

Eh. That just means you've used them way more than I or numerous other Codexers did, since it's unlikely that you missed a ton of loot to pick up in this game.

It's a long time ago but I remember being able to pop out one or two every time I was in a really tough spot, which obviously isn't every battle or every other battle. For me the primary use is actually in creating chokepoints. Depending on your build, you're eventually going to come up against an enemy type that you can't afford to go toe-to-toe with; maybe their DEX is too high and you can't hit or dodge them, maybe they are really good at breaking your shields or poisoning you. In one build I remember using a couple in the final fight in the first area by the elevator to manage the horde.

Alpha striking enemies in random battles or using two salves after every fight is quite a lot, you know. A 'regular fight' where things go according to plan shouldn't really require consumables - if they are a necessary part of how you fight then you're struggling. If you have to do that to survive, that suggests you're always taking loans to keep going and you need to adjust build/tactics/difficulty.\