Legend of Grimrock

[Crash.]

I'd say that's a massive difference and isn't something they are likely to change. It's a core part of the dungeon structure and engine, and also a design choice to stop the game from being too easy. Putting doors in the center of tiles might be possible with modding capability but I wouldn't bank on it ever being an option...

I originally wrote "big difference" but I didn't want to sound too dramatic Shutting doors on monsters was something I did in DM at the beginning when they were weak enough to be quickly dispatched this way, but later on it seemed not to be a useful strategy other than to encourage a monster to back up and let me close the door to run away. Wow was I surprised when monsters appeared that could open the doors! I did appreciate the ability to run for a door, hit the switch as I ran through it, and have it close behind me even I had to take a bonk on the head in the process.

One thing in LoG that can be easily abused, is to attack, close the gate - wait for cooldown, open and repeat. Here's what I would do if I were designing the game... Give each door pull a finite number of pulls before it breaks and falls off, leaving the door open from that point on, maybe 10-20 or something. This would be shocking and/or extremely funny the first time it happened, and thereafter, players would know that this strategy might not be a great idea, and that doors should be closed only for critical things like resting.

In any case, in duplicating a DM dungeon layout, one could add an extra tile and put the door on one side of it - I'm not sure if having it shifted from the center to an edge would break anything. I do think it would be fun to play LoG in the dungeon layouts we are all familiar with, even if the gameplay and creatures are different. If some of the puzzles were redesigned it could make for a fun experience.

[Gambit37]

Here's what I would do if I were designing the game... Give each door pull a finite number of pulls before it breaks and falls off, leaving the door open from that point on, maybe 10-20 or something. This would be shocking and/or extremely funny the first time it happened

Fantastic! I love this idea and I'm going to blatantly steal it for my DSB adventure. If you don't mind

[beowuuf]

Crash - I don't want to spoil the game, but it's not a completely fullproof tactic, your door tactis Actually, it's not normally, because you need to allow the door to open fully to attack, or else it hits the door. And critters - especially on hard - can capitalise on that too. I've hit myself with a spell more than once due to bad timing here...

And like I said, it's not foolproof...



And if you have falling apart doors, make sure you don't have monster floods and you've balanced your battles. Nothing worse than havign a saved game then it getting put in to an unwinnable state by one of thee sorts of tricks!

[raixel]

One thing in LoG that can be easily abused, is to attack, close the gate - wait for cooldown, open and repeat.

I wouldn't call it "abuse", I'd call it "strategy". It isn't abuse any more than slamming a door on a guy's head in DM and then when they walk away, open it and wait for them to come back before doing it all over again is abuse. Or the "stair dance". Frankly, the monsters in LoG are faster and smarter than in DM. If it wasn't for that door trick, there would have been places that I couldn't get by. Remember, not everyone is as good of a player as you or some of the pros on here and might need these tricks to keep the game from being frustratingly hard. Also, I use this trick a *lot*. Most of the monsters are fast enough that unless you time it just right, youre gonna get nailed. Hard.

Spoiler

The crabs

come to mind as a place where I used this trick extensively, and still got hit and or killed more times than not. So no, please don't remove it.

[beowuuf]

Yeah, I'm a DM players and even on normal you better believe I stood at a door once or twice to level the playing field!

[Crash.]

I wouldn't call it "abuse", I'd call it "strategy". It isn't abuse any more than slamming a door on a guy's head in DM and then when they walk away, open it and wait for them to come back before doing it all over again is abuse. Or the "stair dance". Frankly, the monsters in LoG are faster and smarter than in DM. If it wasn't for that door trick, there would have been places that I couldn't get by. Remember, not everyone is as good of a player as you or some of the pros on here and might need these tricks to keep the game from being frustratingly hard. Also, I use this trick a *lot*. Most of the monsters are fast enough that unless you time it just right, youre gonna get nailed. Hard. So no, please don't remove it.

I should have said, "one thing in LoG that I have abused, is to attack, close the gate - wait for cooldown, open and repeat." This is a strategy that allows me to survive tough creatures that can kill my characters in a single cooldown cycle, but I feel like I'm exploiting the game design rather than fighting fair; and I feel like this isn't what was intended. The same goes with stair dancing - I've done it, but I feel that it takes the excitement out of the fights because I feel safe if stairs or a gate are around. Another thing I would probably do if I was writing LoG, is have monsters chase you up the stairs if you try this more than a couple times

Here's the thing... in DM, when I reached a point when I was consistently getting my butt kicked and it stopped being fun, I would find and area with regenerating monsters and train for a little while. Some would call this grinding or whatever, but for me, it was a matter of getting the characters to where I needed them to be in order to continue the game. This allowed the player to essentially adjust the game difficulty to their skill level. Sure, you could spend weeks doing nothing but raising character levels, then mow down the rest of the dungeon, but that wouldn't be fun either. It was a matter of raising levels just enough to reduce constant sudden death, in particular because reloading from floppy disk took _forever_. I think that there may be similar areas in LoG, so perhaps this will allow me to get my characters to a point where I don't have to use the gates.

In LoG, if the playtesters were able to get through the game without using the gate or stair tricks, then I'm not sure what to say; maybe I'm getting too old to keep up with games. It does seem that some areas would be quite tough without this strategy but then there are those that seem to say that they have no problem avoiding monster attacks and attacking from behind. I'm not that quick with most of these adversaries, or perhaps it is a bad idea to play this game with my controls going through a wireless USB hub that is probably adding just enough latency to screw me up.

What I have read is that LoG was not designed so that you can survive fighting toe to toe, which I'm not sure should be necessary for all of the monster types. In DM, I had to use a much more active strategy for some of the monsters, increasingly later in the game, or when mana was depleted, but not all the time. There is something satisfying about being able to hold your ground and fight it out as quickly as you can.

Finally, any such features as door breakage or monsters that can use stairs (if these were ever included in LoG), should be optional and user configurable, and not mandatory IMO. If I were a game designer, I would be a firm proponent of letting the player choose their preferred style.

[Crash.]

Fantastic! I love this idea and I'm going to blatantly steal it for my DSB adventure. If you don't mind

By all means! I think that surprises are good, particularly when we become so accustomed to things working a certain way, and some change to these mechanisms adds excitement. Maybe only some of the doors in the dungeon can break, but you never know which ones. Maybe one will break in the closed position, forcing you to find a secret passage to get past it. The dungeon designers here are much more creative than I am, but when I'm playing I start to get ideas.

[Crash.]

Crash - I don't want to spoil the game, but it's not a completely fullproof tactic, your door tactis Actually, it's not normally, because you need to allow the door to open fully to attack, or else it hits the door. And critters - especially on hard - can capitalise on that too. I've hit myself with a spell more than once due to bad timing here... And if you have falling apart doors, make sure you don't have monster floods and you've balanced your battles. Nothing worse than havign a saved game then it getting put in to an unwinnable state by one of thee sorts of tricks!

I've blasted myself more than once on an almost open gate, just as I've walked into my share of my own fireballs in DM. How would it be if you cast a fireball and the monster on the other side of the door shut it and caused your own fireball to hit you?

Sure, breakable doors would create a situation that could make things much harder, so the game would have to be playtested with that feature in place, or such that the testers knew there were not to use such strategies. It would be interesting to know if AH's playtesters also used the gate and stair tricks.

[beowuuf]

Ah, stairwell fighting is not the safe option it used to be... it's a nice method to retreat by, but creatures certainly get the chance to strike you while you are leaving or coming back down!

I'm not sure why grinding is seen as a good way to adjust the difficulty? Stairs and gates are a risky but viable way for less skilled players to adjust the game difficulty until their tactics become better or characters become stronger. Needing to find a spwning area in DM and level grind seems to ruin the flow of the game. To each their own method, but certainly there is nothing inhenerntly wrong with the gates and stairs in LoG that wasn't similar in DM. In Dm doors were risky but did damage, in LoG doors are less risky but do no damage. And in DM, leaving a door meant you could peel a creature safely away, in LoG you can't peel away a single creature as easily if another is right behind it.


I was able to backstab many critters from the side or back, so I decifitely could two square dance aroudn them, though it was touch with some - in a good way. And I certainly used the gate (not the stairs, too risky) wihtout ever feeling it a cheat. There are some really touch monsters around!

[Babe Bridou]

My point about what I called "compatibility tiles" was definitely not about closing doors on monsters or anything related to gameplay, but had more to do with fidelity. I mean, I was surprised the first time I ran RTC to see squads of 4 mummies split in two groups, it's not a bad feature at all, even though it's not exactly the same game, it's still the same dungeon. Now imagine your doors are between tiles instead of at the center, you could probably make it work with most puzzles in, say, Conflux, but one would have to handpick a side for each door and to prooftest it all over again because that white space after it might cause another puzzle to break... and it would still not keep the geometry of rooms intact.

Now about the door opening/closing routine, I'm not all that embarrassed to say I've used it when I wanted a fight of attrition rather than a fight of skill. Mostly when I'm having a coffee while playing and don't want/need to give my all for every single fight to have fun and make progress. It's a cool tool to have, but it's far less fun than just being able to drop a portcullis on the face of a rat while chain-casting/drinking health potions, for pretty much the same result: a safe and slow kill that doesn't require you to be on your toes.

[beowuuf]

You can add a door to each side of a tile if it's a huge worry, creating the door tile with a double door. The fidelity issue is more of an issue taking the LoG dungeon and trying to recreate it in a DM setting, rather than vice versa in that regard.

[Gambit37]

A pretty nice review on Eurogamer:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012- ... ock-review

Some great comments too. This seems to have gone down a storm in the gaming community. I am sooooooooooo pleased for Almost Human, they have a hit!!!

I must admit I was a little worried that the old style mechanics might put people off, but most people seem to have embraced it. Great, great stuff, perhaps we'll see a resurgance of Dungeon crawlers! I *really* need to pull my finger out and get the Codex built, there could be quite a good audience for it now

[raixel]

Ah, stairwell fighting is not the safe option it used to be... it's a nice method to retreat by, but creatures certainly get the chance to strike you while you are leaving or coming back down!

I noticed that, although it still saved my heiney in the

Spoiler

lizard swarm at the end of lev 4

!

I'm not sure why grinding is seen as a good way to adjust the difficulty? Stairs and gates are a risky but viable way for less skilled players to adjust the game difficulty until their tactics become better or characters become stronger. Needing to find a spwning area in DM and level grind seems to ruin the flow of the game.

I wholeheartedly agree. I'm not a patient person, and I just can't stand grinding. Maybe it was all those 80s RPGs where you HAD to grind for gold or XP to get anywhere that put me off of it, I dunno . One of the (small amount) of things I like about most modern "RPGs" is that they are designed so you can play without having to stop and grind. Its like the developers realized "most people think this is boring!" or something. Granted some people enjoy it, but I think more people would rather play puzzles and explore than sit in the same area fighting the same monsters over and over. A game should be designed so you can play it through, and as long as you arent running away from every combat or something, you should be able to beat it without having to stop and spend any amount of time, whether an hour or a week, grinding just to make your party strong enough go on.

If someone wants to give themselves an uber party by spending a week in one area beating up on the monsters, be my guest. But difficulty should be a choice people make with a slider or something, not forcing an impossible game on people who choose not to do a repetitive action.

I was able to backstab many critters from the side or back, so I decifitely could two square dance aroudn them, though it was touch with some - in a good way. And I certainly used the gate (not the stairs, too risky) wihtout ever feeling it a cheat. There are some really touch monsters around!

While I can't say I've been able to get around the back of the monsters, I agree with this as well. If it wasn't for grate-trick and two step trick, I wouldnt be playing this game. Crash, you said the monsters weren't meant to be fought toe-to-toe. So, then, do you consider the step-dance an "abuse" of the game mechanics? Because its basically the same concept of "get a hit in and keep monster from hitting me", different execution. Neither one works perfectly and since you cant fight the monsters toe-to-toe, there needs to be other options, and the gate is one of them.

[Crash.]

I'm not sure why grinding is seen as a good way to adjust the difficulty?

I'm not saying it was a good way, but that it was what I resorted to the first time that I played DM and chose my party quite poorly. Perhaps one way to deal with this could be to have areas that respawn a certain number of monsters, but not infinitely, so if a player wanted to get a little extra experience it wouldn't go too far.

[Crash.]

I wholeheartedly agree. I'm not a patient person, and I just can't stand grinding. Maybe it was all those 80s RPGs where you HAD to grind for gold or XP to get anywhere that put me off of it, I dunno .

This is probably it. When I started out with games like Ultima III, I had to stay close to a town and fight monsters to start with because I simply couldn't survive dashing out into the middle of the game world. It's not that I get any enjoyment out of doing repetitive things, in fact I always find it frustrating when forward momentum comes to a halt.

One of the (small amount) of things I like about most modern "RPGs" is that they are designed so you can play without having to stop and grind. Its like the developers realized "most people think this is boring!" or something.

It seems to me that many current rpgs and mmorpgs are based around inane and repetitive quests. While this isn't the same as going out into the woods and killing toads purely for experience for a week, fetching books or towels for experience is no more enjoyable to me than the idea of grinding - dull repetitive tasks for experience. Part of the reason I am hoping that LoG does not incorporate NPCs, dialog, or any of the features of the modern games, is that I don't want to have to deal with the "take this note to my ladyfriend" or "kill the three rats in my cellar" quests.

A game should be designed so you can play it through, and as long as you arent running away from every combat or something, you should be able to beat it without having to stop and spend any amount of time, whether an hour or a week, grinding just to make your party strong enough go on.

I fully agree.

Crash, you said the monsters weren't meant to be fought toe-to-toe. So, then, do you consider the step-dance an "abuse" of the game mechanics?

No I don't consider this an abuse, however from what I understand, the developers specifically added consequences for doing the step dance: "monsters do nasty counter attacks if you keep doing the forward, hit, backward routine too much". My attempts to use the step dance with crabs for example, result in rapid death. I'm just saying that when I use the gate to negate cooldowns in between every single attack, and for every monster, I feel like I'm cheating. I would rather use other methods such as luring out a single monster, closing the door to keep the others locked up, and fighting one at a time in an open area.

I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with "gating" or that people shouldn't use this technique, I would just be interested to know if the game was designed with this in mind, and if the playtesters used this method and reported it to the developers. Believe me, I am wearing out those door pull chains.

[beowuuf]

Yeah, crabs are buggers to backstab, as are some faster monsters, though the designers allowed the sidestab to count as a backstab if you do it quickly enough in to a creature's movement. Crabs are nasty for scuttling sideways - like crabs do! - and there was a certain place where you had to try and take on a crab pretty much face to face (twice) where I couldn't survive more than one including potions and bombs and a fallback corridor.

You can pull creatrues through gates, done it myself, just it definitely requires you to time it correctly or push away critters first so you know you cna slam a gate down on the any other cretures before the first attacks you. Spiders *shudder* so together, so fast

[Ricolen]

Hey all, I've been on and off this message board for years. Usually I come in for a week or so, then don't come back for another year. Probably same thing here, but I had to re-register to say that I'm in love with Legend of Grimrock. Finally I've gotten a game suitable to be called Dungeon Master 3. I can't wait for the level editor, I just hope it's as easy to use as RTC is. I'll probably be check back here frequently simply to see if/when people post new dungeons in LoG.

As of right now I think the only complaint I have is that you can't start the game with only one character created. That was my favorite aspect of Dungeon Master and Chaos Strikes Back. I'd pick one character (I still have yet to beat DM & CSB with only Tiggy Timal) and then raise them up in DM and then import (too frequenly by hand) into CSB and beat the game with that one character. For me, that was the most fun challenge, and for the last 12 years (ever since I found the DM encyclopedia site) I've done it at least once a year.

I really can not wait to see what Dungeon Master and Chaos Strikes Back look like ported to this engine. I just wonder if it'll be possible to do the Hall of Champions the way this game's character creation is handled.

[Gambit37]

As of right now I think the only complaint I have is that you can't start the game with only one character created.

Spoiler:

Spoiler

There is a way of playing with a single character, but you must play and finish the game at least once, and also complete one of the secret quests to unlock it.

[Ameena]

Spoiler

I think you unlock a "Solo Mode" when you complete Grimrock for the first time, though I've not done this yet myself.

On the subject of combat, omg yes crabs are annoying - they could probably kill my Fighter in two goods hits but fortunately they haven't managed to do that yet. I have had to do a few reloads where I was getting ganked, though, and have no chance at takign them on face-to-face. I have to attempt the step-dance (awkward as they always seem to go in the direction I don't want them to go ) but the door-in-face method seems to work better against them.
I haven't managed to backstab anything yet, because everything seems to move and/or turn too quickly .

[beowuuf]

Don't be afraid to sidestab, you'll see the 'backstab' word come up if it counts as a backstab because you've caught them quickly enough while they moved

[Gambit37]

Ameena, please remember to use spoilers for key revelations.

Re. combat: If there's enough space, I found the two step dance pretty easy to do with a lot of the mobs. The AI doesn't actually seem to be that sophisticated. Those blue dinos in particular can be lead round and round and as long as you keep the pace consistent, they never change direction and are entirely predictable. Same for most other creatures too, only the

Spoiler

Goromorgs

seem a bit cleverer. Other AI problems include creatures being unable to decide which direction to go when they are on the tile diagonally opposite you. They just rotate indefinitely, which looks really really silly and totally breaks the immersion. This is one aspect of the game I found a pretty disappointing to be honest, I thought there was gonna be all sorts of sneaky flanking and outmanoeuvring going on.

On another note, I'm playing on Steam, but I never get any of the achievements show up during gameplay? How do I get those to show?

[Crash.]

Other AI problems include creatures being unable to decide which direction to go when they are on the tile diagonally opposite you

I thought they were doing that to try and fake me! Sometimes the wobble a bit, then go in the direction opposite of where they are facing, or if I jump to their side, they immediately turn and attack. I suppose it would be better for the AI to make some choice after a short timer.

[raixel]

Other AI problems include creatures being unable to decide which direction to go when they are on the tile diagonally opposite you

I thought they were doing that to try and fake me! Sometimes the wobble a bit, then go in the direction opposite of where they are facing, or if I jump to their side, they immediately turn and attack. I suppose it would be better for the AI to make some choice after a short timer.

I thought it was a fake out too!

And in relation to your other comment about fetch quests, Crash, I agree, but at least it isnt grinding! IMHO, voice acting being a necessary part of mainstream big budget RPGs is one of the things that ruined 'em. Its obvious that people are getting fed up with the "cookie cutter all graphics and voice" state of mainstream big-budget RPGs, or games like LoG wouldnt be so popular. It has good, but not top shelf graphics, no voice acting, and yet is one of the best recent games Ive played! I hope Almost Human releases many dungeons for it, an editor, and maybe even a sequel!

[Gambit37]

Maybe it is a fake out behaviour; I just thought it looked broken to be honest. I haven't tested it fully, I'll have to look and see if they stay on that tile indefinitely or if they do eventually move... obviously, when playing the game, I wasn't going to sit around stationary...

[Ameena]

I wasn't aware that that was a "key revelation" - I'd read somewhere on this forum that there was a solo mode and it wasn't spoilered. Plus my dad came and told me - he must've read on the Grimrock forum or something.
Anyway, I had the same problem with some mobs, crabs mainly so far, not seeming able to decide which way to go when diagonally-opposite me. I figured they were waiting to see what I'd do, since they always seem to try and move so I'm facing sideways when they do it, rather than step into the square I'm actually facing. I actually found it easier to run them around a pillar - that way they always step out in front of you and you can thwack them in the side before stepping backwards twice.

[beowuuf]

It was probably on a spoiler box in the Grimlock forum :p

I must admit to not liking fighting around pillars, as I can't see which way they will be coming at me! Maybe thta's because I had the rogue with the backstab to look after

I'm not sure whether the dithering is a bug or feature, but the creature moves attacks out of it eventually, and it is definitely aping the way I'm moving in the diagnonal tile looking for advantage! Also some creatures do scuttle/drift sideways in aevil ways. And as for other Ai behaviours, the archers and good at firing and retreating, as are certain other spellcasters

[Gambit37]

I'm gonna have to look at this diagonal thing again...! One of the other things that looks weird is monsters rotating on a tile, when there is clearly only one way they can go. For example, consider this diagram, where P is party and X is a mob. The party is behind a closed door and the mob knows they are there.



The mob will simply continue to keep turning on that space, either trying to find a way to attack me, or looking for a way out but not moving into the corridor. It looks really silly. Surely the mob should either just stay still facing me waiting for the door to open, or wander off down the only available exit to the right when it gets bored? Some mobs do seem to face you and wait, but more often than not they just keep turning around. It would be great if they were given a bit more intelligence in these situations so that they don't appear to be so dumb...

Oh, and I have finally accepted that Beo thinks this game is about a giant robot that turns into a T-rex.

[Kenshiro]

Oh, and I have finally accepted that Beo thinks this game is about a giant robot that turns into a T-rex.

Fund it, as long as it can Rocket Punch.

[beowuuf]

I CAN'T HEEEELP IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT!


Sorry Petri I'll try to be better

[Gambit37]

Sorry Beo, but your speedy typing typos do make me laugh