Zorbus (D&D-inspired roguelike)

[xuerebx]

That's true. Plus TOME is pretty damn long as well.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Played died. Played died. Played... died. Played died. etc.

That's all fine. But when you start killing my tamed monkeys and dogs!

It's goblin genocide time. (well, more like stacking my PCs corpses up as firewood, but it's the thought that counts.)

 

[Serus]

Can someone summarise for me. Is it prestigious or is it shit? I could sail the high seas and check myself or even buy it outright but i want to hear the Codex Consensus(tm). In general I like roguelikes very much - both classical and games like Cataclysm DDA. Rogue-lites - that really depends.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Can someone summarise for me. Is it prestigious or is it shit? I could sail the high seas and check myself or even buy it outright but i want to hear the Codex Consensus(tm). In general I like roguelikes very much - both classical and games like Cataclysm DDA. Rogue-lites - that really depends.

I like it, but I'm a roguelike casual. I play them for short runs (say half hour to several hours) to kill stuff, get loot, die horribly, and leave satisfied.

The game isn't really a 3E D&D game, but you can see the influences in things like weapon damage values, etc.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

Yeah, I never got why roguelikes were so niche even here. Even "combatfags" (if pushed I'd cast myself as the opposite) seem to often dismiss them outright, some even showing open disdain for the whole genre.

roguelikes waste your time by forcing you to replay the same set of levels again and again (even if they do have a different level layout every time), and if you work time's a scarce commodity

that said I don't disdain them, I just don't have the time for them

I agree, but the absence of plot/quests help. Having just a string of combat encounters helps for short sessions, so long as you're not dying very often. I find I can pick them up where I left them far more easily than a Bioware game, for example.

 

[xuerebx]

I'm finding it hard to go deeper than level 6/7, I end up annihilated. Tried a melee focused playstyle with high Mind (for the talent point at every 2 levels) but with no real AOE attacks I didn't find it viable. Must have died a bazillion times.

Now I went back to a gnome mage and using a tip I read online I'm doing pretty well. Basically high Mind and Spirit, but getting Natural Leader and Team Spirit. The latter talent has increased my XP gain nearly twice as fast. Less than an hour play and my character is already level 7.

Also I used to get the animate dead spell, but I think summon animals is stronger. You can't check the stats of the summons but it does feel that way.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Game has nice crunchy sound and is pleasing to the eye. I only have the last free version so I don't know what the steam updated version is like.

 

[Turn_BASED]

I'm finding it hard to go deeper than level 6/7, I end up annihilated. Tried a melee focused playstyle with high Mind (for the talent point at every 2 levels) but with no real AOE attacks I didn't find it viable. Must have died a bazillion times.

Now I went back to a gnome mage and using a tip I read online I'm doing pretty well. Basically high Mind and Spirit, but getting Natural Leader and Team Spirit. The latter talent has increased my XP gain nearly twice as fast. Less than an hour play and my character is already level 7.

Also I used to get the animate dead spell, but I think summon animals is stronger. You can't check the stats of the summons but it does feel that way.

Have you tried Troll melee? The top 5 on the leaderboards are all trolls. The top spot is a lone wolf that rerolled its stats 54,322 times (not a joke), the rest are point buy.

 

[xuerebx]

Haven't tried that one yet! 54k times jesus christ, and I thought my 5 minute rerolling was tedious.

My gnome mage is now down to dungeon level 7. Confidently killing everything in my path :D Let's see when my luck will run out...

 

[mediocrepoet]

Haven't tried that one yet! 54k times jesus christ, and I thought my 5 minute rerolling was tedious.

That has to be some sort of reroll utility left running trying to maximize stats.

 

[Desiderius]

Haven't tried that one yet! 54k times jesus christ, and I thought my 5 minute rerolling was tedious.

That has to be some sort of reroll utility left running trying to maximize stats.

If you played Wixardry 7 at release you know this isn't necessarily the case.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Haven't tried that one yet! 54k times jesus christ, and I thought my 5 minute rerolling was tedious.

That has to be some sort of reroll utility left running trying to maximize stats.

If you played Wixardry 7 at release you know this isn't necessarily the case.

I've seen enough rolling utilities and other scripts that people do with their computers to suspect it is. Are you trying to take what's left of my faith in humanity, by suspecting that some autismo lord spent a week poopsocking it just to roll the ultimate character? Was it you?

 

[Desiderius]

No poopsocking, no. But Cosmic Forge has now revealed just how cruel and unusual the programmers were to set things up that way and I definitely took my share of that punishment.

If there were rolling utilities or scripts available I was unaware of them.

Of course now we also know that I was mostly wasting my time due to the way multi-classing works.

the ultimate character

Six characters

 

[Desiderius]

As for Zorbus my first five playthroughs I was inadvertently playing with stock characters with low stats because I didn't understand how character creation worked. This was bad.

I eventually got a deepish run with the recruiter class but never really felt like I understood the controls well enough to reach a level of mastery I was comfortable with.

 

[xuerebx]

Made it to level 9! Cautiously still generally killing everything in my path unless there's too many enemies in one room, in which case a choke point is required. Hope I can win it with this one.

 

[xuerebx]

Dungeon level 10, 5 recruits + clone + golem at level 21.

COME AT ME!

 

[xuerebx]

Well, I made it to Zorbus, killed one of the (demi?)gods, but then tried to kill a second one and got my ass handed to me :'( Should have spoken to the robed figure to "win" the game.

After 45 hours, I think I need a break now. *cries silently*

 

[xuerebx]

Apologies for quadruple posting but yesterday I was actually pissed off at my own greed. Should have taken the win!

Anyway, I want to try my hand at the same character again, not sure if anyone here could offer some advice.

My level 21 gnome mage had most of the spells and 5 followers equipped very well. In fact we steam rolled past our enemies. But the second Demi god quickly dispatched my followers, and one v one with him (Orty?) proved no match for him. Any celestial/animal/elemental I summon is killed in a couple of hits, then I run out of stamina. My lightning spell proved most effective but I'd need to have enough stamina to hit him 20+ times.

So my question is what would a tactic of a mage summoner look like to win? I had around 24 Mind and 21 Spirit.

Thanks!

 

[Joonas]

The creatures you fight on the endgame level are actually avatars of the ruling gods.

The game's Discord channel have some experienced players that could help with specific gods.

Some heavy spoilers...

• If you choose the "ascend as demigod" option, your character and any alive companions are saved to the endgame level and are there when you get there next time.
• If you kill a god, your character will take its place, and similarly to ascended demigods, will stay on the endgame level.
• Any previously ascended characters will help you in endgame level fights.
• Search around the endgame level, there are hidden areas on the level. You'll need a high Search-skill so True Seeing is valuable here. There are imprisoned creatures in the hidden areas that can help against the gods but are also dangerous to you.
• The shop hub level Carillo also has hidden areas.
• For warrior characters, the Godsbane sword is valuable, as it does 2x damage against the gods. It's location is random: the fire giant king may have it, the hidden areas in Carillo may have, or it may be created in the hidden areas on the endgame level.

 

[xuerebx]

Holy shit I had no idea about all of that! Time to play it again :D

 

[Joonas]

June 2023 update

25% off on Steam

• Some new options during character creation:
  • Spirited Learner is a talent that can be chosen only on the 1st experience level and only during ability adjustment. It costs 1 talent point.
    • You might not be the smartest but you sure are spirited. You learn new things by hard work and sheer determination. With this talent, Spirit-ability is used for skill and talent point progression instead of Mind. Note that even with this talent, Magic- and Search -skills still retain Mind as their key ability, and all spell talents have a Mind requirement. Mind of at least 6 is needed to be able to read.
  • When using the point buy -system for ability scores, you can trade 5 points for 1 talent.
• New talent: Bloodlust.
  • When you kill a creature with a melee or a ranged attack, your Stamina gets restored by 10% of your max Stamina, and you gain a temporary 1d4 point boost to your Body-ability for 11-20 rounds. The ability effect does not stack with other temporary ability effects. Half-orcs get this for free.
• New talent: Holy Warrior.
  • Spiritual upbringing enables you to channel holiness to attacks against evil-aligned creatures. 1 point of holy-damage is added to melee and ranged attacks. The damage is increased to 1d2 once you reach experience level 12 and your adjusted Spirit-ability is at least 16. Only evil-aligned creatures are affected. Holy damage is doubled against most undead creatures. Stacks with holy damage from weapons and from temporary effects.
• New talent: One with Darkness.
  • You have an extraordinary knack to be fully functional in complete darkness. You gain darkvision of 8 tiles, +3 to Stealth-checks when trying to remain unseen in darkness, +5 to perception checks to detect creatures in darkness, +5 to attack rolls against creatures that don't see you (stacks with the normal +10 bonus, also a bonus to score critical hits). When you score a critical hit, you do 25% extra damage (stacks with the base 50% extra from critical hits and extras from other sources). Can only be taken on the 1st experience level.
• New talent: Veil of Darkness.
  • When activated, you emit a burst of darkness which extinguishes seen lightsources within 15 tile radius. Environment lightsources (torches, braziers, etc.) and lightsources carried by creatures are affected. Creatures whose lightsources are extinguished won't be able to relight them for a small duration (10-15 rounds).
• Melee Elemental Damage / Ranged Elemental Damage talents: These now scale with experience level.
• Stonesense talent: You'll get +1 to Search-checks when trying to detect secret doors, +2 to Search-checks when trying to detect living statues. Recruitable rogue saints (living statues) are stronger when you have this talent.
• Changes to the companion list on the upper right corner:
  • Shows max 20 companions.
  • Added keys for commanding companions 10-20 individually.
  • Some of the commanding keys have changed!
  • INS or F11 toggles the list.
  • CTRL + INS or CTRL + F11 toggles the viewing of expendable companions (constructs, animated, summoned, charmed).
  • CTRL + number to command companions 1-10, CTRL + F1-F10 to command companions 11-20.
  • DEL or NUMPAD_0 to command all companions.
  • CTRL + DEL or CTRL + NUMPAD_0 to command all expendable companions (constructs, animated, summoned, charmed).
  • You can use mouse wheel up / down to hide / show the list.
• Rogue saints are no longer counted as real recruits, they're grouped with golems as "constructs".
• Companion options:
  • On the second page of a companion's character sheet are some options to control more of the companion's behavior. Currently just one: you can set an option that a companion won't animate or summon creatures.
• New item: Orb of Nullifying.
  • This orb creates a nullifying field that removes a group of resistances from all creatures on the dungeon level for the duration of the effect. The nullifying affects randomly either physical (blunt, pierce, slash) or elemental (fire / cold / lightning / acid) resistances. Only one nullifying field can be active at a time.
• Some changes and clarifications to critical hits:
  • A critical hit does 50% more damage. Affects all damage element types (physical, cold, fire, etc.).
  • Improved Melee Criticals and Improved Ranged Criticals talents add an extra 25%.
  • One with Darkness talent adds an extra 25% if the defender can not see the attacker.
  • If the defender is sleeping, critical hits do 100% extra damage, but this does not stack with above modifiers.
• Some changes and clarifications to stealth:
  • If the defender can not see the attacker, the attacker gets a +10 attack bonus. One with Darkness talent adds an extra +5.
  • If the defender is sleeping, the attack roll for melee attacks is an automatic 20, ranged attacks get a +10 attack bonus.
  • After an attack made from a neighboring tile, an unseen attacker is always marked visible to the defender. For attacks made from distant tiles, a Search vs Stealth skill check is made to determine if an unseen attacker is seen. A spotted creature can move to a new position to try to gain stealth again.
• Added some new mouse commands to the inventory screen: changing between companions, switch between equipment / inventory etc. These can be activated by left / right clicking the inventory list title bars. See tooltips for more info.
• Creatures flash in blue when they heal themselves.
• Good and neutral aligned creatures get 99 holy-resistance, making damage output in the log more consistent to other element types. Previously the holy-element was simply zeroed if the defending creature was not evil.
• Fixed an inconsistency in logged damage calculations that occured when a creature died, so that the damage element calculations make sense. Previously you could see something like "...and kill it! (Blunt: 1 = 4 - res 1)". Now you'll see "(Blunt: 1 = 2 - res 1)"
• Fixed a bug where the autosave wasn't deleted when the game was won. (thanks to Lights for mentioning)
• Keybindings have changed. This release should automatically reset them to the defaults, but if it doesn't, do so from the keybindings menu.
• The command "Toggle low health warning" in the WASD-keys -preset now defaults to CTRL+H. Previous CTRL+W was in conflict with "continuous walk to north".
• Added 44 new Steam achievements for a total of 64. (thanks to ZeroAffex and Lights for ideas!)
• Tutorial and PDF manual updated. PDF manual now has descriptions of all talents.
• Small changes to sound effects.
• The leaderboard has been reset. The old leaderboard is here.

 

[Aemar]

Haven't followed the latest development updates in quite some time. Do you plan on expanding the dungeon by adding additional areas, or this is pretty much the final layout of the game?

 

[Joonas]

Haven't followed the latest development updates in quite some time. Do you plan on expanding the dungeon by adding additional areas, or this is pretty much the final layout of the game?

Still thinking of those 1 level special levels, but in reality, this is probably pretty much the final layout.

 

[Darth Canoli]

Can someone summarise for me. Is it prestigious or is it shit? I could sail the high seas and check myself or even buy it outright but i want to hear the Codex Consensus(tm). In general I like roguelikes very much - both classical and games like Cataclysm DDA. Rogue-lites - that really depends.

This one has a great ambient, I'm not a huge rogue-like fan, in général, I like the ones closer to a real RPG more.
I love the sounds, the dangers, the hidden areas.
The fact you can make a party, recruit adveenturers wxhich are going to follow you through the game if you can keep them alive.

I agree, but the absence of plot/quests help. Having just a string of combat encounters helps for short sessions, so long as you're not dying very often. I find I can pick them up where I left them far more easily than a Bioware game, for example.

There is a hidden plot here, you can find some of it through the market level if you explore carefully.
And then from the end-game, while exploring with a high search score again.

Apologies for quadruple posting but yesterday I was actually pissed off at my own greed. Should have taken the win!

Anyway, I want to try my hand at the same character again, not sure if anyone here could offer some advice.

My level 21 gnome mage had most of the spells and 5 followers equipped very well. In fact we steam rolled past our enemies. But the second Demi god quickly dispatched my followers, and one v one with him (Orty?) proved no match for him. Any celestial/animal/elemental I summon is killed in a couple of hits, then I run out of stamina. My lightning spell proved most effective but I'd need to have enough stamina to hit him 20+ times.

So my question is what would a tactic of a mage summoner look like to win? I had around 24 Mind and 21 Spirit.

Thanks!

Big spoilers here, summons are good for the regular game but companions are better.



Best spells : Holy Aoe Spell
Chain lightning spell
You have to adapt your strategy to the enemy, end game gods have immunities and resistance to some elements.

Explore around first, prepare, get TP potions, healing potions, resurrection means, it's goign to be hard, you'll have to run and come back later if it fails, as long as you're alive, there's a chance, first time i became a god, i had to flee half a dozen times.
Half against the archer god which teleported itself out of range.

Positionning before the final battles matter.


If you want to be the overgod or kill a lot of gods

Spoiler

You can free an evil entity in one of the rooms, fight some hardcore archangels to clear the place, try to fight them one after the other.
Free him and then run or he will attack and destroy you.

He's going to go the the central room and attack the other gods, wait until one is close to dying and kill him, and then the other ones.

Find the spell doing the most damage against each enemy.

The overgod is tough but once yo've cleared the gods if you have enough potions for everyone, you'll kill him.


Build

Spoiler

For mages, the character creation is important, you'll require a lot of skills, try to get as many as possible by optimizing your starting build

Amazing game.

 

[Haba]

If it is a game by a Finn, of course it is named after an alcoholic drink

Spoiler