bevinator: Unfortunately the replay value is not very high. The game is very atmospheric and all, but the gameplay simply isn't very deep, and there's a lot of grinding involved. Grinding isn't necessarily terrible, however, but in the case of this game the dungeons are quite repetitive. Once you've seen a dungeon at level 1, and again at level 3, you're pretty much seen all it has to offer. There's five total dungeons, and their individual layouts are very similar and their mission conditions are generally quite similar too. Combat tends to get pretty samey after a while, and it can get downright boring if you stall the fights to make sure everyone's at max health and stress before moving on. There is some stall detection and a stalling penalty, but even so it's an extremely effective (albeit tedious) strategy. Even though it has stall penalties, the game encourages stalling, because characters can't use their abilities outside of combat and healing is universally weak. The game economy practically requires excessive grinding because of how expensive everything is. The "ideal strategy" is to send a group of level 0 heroes into a level 1 dungeon with no supplies whatsoever, then call them back to town when they've got some loot and dismiss them. Repeat ad nauseam.

There are also a number of design decisions that are questionable. The stress bar is ultimately just a second health bar, and while it's interesting at first it eventually replaces the actual health bar as the "true" health bar, because it doesn't reset to full when the mission is over. Higher-level heroes will flatly refuse to enter a lower-level dungeon, even if they aren't nearly powerful enough to handle an on-level dungeon. This often means that a group that has spent time clearing a path toward a dungeon's boss will not be able to actually fight that boss because it's "beneath them." With a limited roster size, you can also get into a situation where you have three level 1-2 characters and they simply can't advance because nobody is willing to do a dungeon with them... and if they tag along to a higher-level dungeon they aren't prepared for, they'll probably end up afflicted or dead. So you have to wait until a higher-level hero dies in order to advance them. Additionally, each individual hero can only complete the final dungeon once. Afterwards, they'll once again refuse to enter the dungeon at all. This severely limits the player's ability to experience and enjoy the endgame.

All that said, it's a fun game, and a lot of the game's issues are addressable through modding (which is pretty easy), but ultimately there's not a whole lot of meat on the bones. Don't expect this to be one of those infinitely-replayable roguelikes. But it's good for a few hours at least.

bevinator: Unfortunately the replay value is not very high. The game is very atmospheric and all, but the gameplay simply isn't very deep, and there's a lot of grinding involved. Grinding isn't necessarily terrible, however, but in the case of this game the dungeons are quite repetitive. Once you've seen a dungeon at level 1, and again at level 3, you're pretty much seen all it has to offer. There's five total dungeons, and their individual layouts are very similar and their mission conditions are generally quite similar too. Combat tends to get pretty samey after a while, and it can get downright boring if you stall the fights to make sure everyone's at max health and stress before moving on. There is some stall detection and a stalling penalty, but even so it's an extremely effective (albeit tedious) strategy. Even though it has stall penalties, the game encourages stalling, because characters can't use their abilities outside of combat and healing is universally weak. The game economy practically requires excessive grinding because of how expensive everything is. The "ideal strategy" is to send a group of level 0 heroes into a level 1 dungeon with no supplies whatsoever, then call them back to town when they've got some loot and dismiss them. Repeat ad nauseam.

There are also a number of design decisions that are questionable. The stress bar is ultimately just a second health bar, and while it's interesting at first it eventually replaces the actual health bar as the "true" health bar, because it doesn't reset to full when the mission is over. Higher-level heroes will flatly refuse to enter a lower-level dungeon, even if they aren't nearly powerful enough to handle an on-level dungeon. This often means that a group that has spent time clearing a path toward a dungeon's boss will not be able to actually fight that boss because it's "beneath them." With a limited roster size, you can also get into a situation where you have three level 1-2 characters and they simply can't advance because nobody is willing to do a dungeon with them... and if they tag along to a higher-level dungeon they aren't prepared for, they'll probably end up afflicted or dead. So you have to wait until a higher-level hero dies in order to advance them. Additionally, each individual hero can only complete the final dungeon once. Afterwards, they'll once again refuse to enter the dungeon at all. This severely limits the player's ability to experience and enjoy the endgame.

All that said, it's a fun game, and a lot of the game's issues are addressable through modding (which is pretty easy), but ultimately there's not a whole lot of meat on the bones. Don't expect this to be one of those infinitely-replayable roguelikes. But it's good for a few hours at least.

gamesfreak64: basically all games are presented as DRM free ? right?
so that means no active internet connection would be required in order to be able to play the games.

So, unless that game wont run if it cant send data (which is unneeded in my honest opinion to send any data. if my game crashes i will go and report it in the fourm that handles the complaints, theres no data needed to be send 'annonimously')

The internet can be disabled from windows , or remove the plug to the internet,(from your computer) or just block the exe file in the windowsfirewall to prevent it from going out.

If we want gazillions of data send home, then we should all just buy original (drm loaded) origin en drm loaded EA games and some other addware and maybe also spyware.

So just block the .exe file from the game from phoning home.
I havent got the game ( motions/flashes prevent me from buying games with those effects) so i cant see if anything wants to phone home.

But if you are win 10 user :D then just leave all the ET phoning home cause win10 is even worse then any spyware and Mickeysoft is not going to change anything about it, they go for 1 OS and thats win 10 so win 10 will always be a piece op spyware, i think that in the future we will have less freedom and privacy, while it should be the otherway around we should be having more freedom and more privacy.

Anyways its not up to any company to use any software to scan a users pc using a tool, a browser, or windows os, cause this way the honest buyer is once again being treated as a wannabe criminal :D
ubi EA and origin are the ones being named gazillions of times in the search results when you Google, these guys are so superstitious, they see a ghost in every closet :D

Zoidberg: The sending of data is not directly useful to you, but it is to the devs.it's often used to improve the experience, not necessarily to report bugs.

I guess it's activated by default because if it was toggled off by default, NOONE would activate it. :P

I understand that personally. And it has nothing to do with Digital Rights Management, let's keep it honest. :P

gamesfreak64: i agree on that.
But who assures us that nothing else is being send?
We cant always assume that everyone is a real saint when it comes to being honest.
Take mickeysoft for example, we always knew that some data might be collected by these dudes, but now with win 10 the sh its has hit the fan.

Zoidberg: What does the terms of service specify?

IAmSinistar: Well, my spreadsheet of owned digital games from all sources gives me a total of 1615. But I really don't buy bundles anymore, and purchases from non-GOG sources has drastically decreased. So the GOG number is the important one for me. :)

Conrado.Hue: You do realise that GOG, or Steam have very little to say about prices? Game dev sets price, and both sellers have some % from the value. Some games might have a special treatment, but most of the time price is dictated by developer/publisher.

It would be foolish of GOG to stop the release of a game, just because there is optional 'data collection'.

Kardwill: No shame to that. I'm also a "Normal or even easy, because I want to finish that game eventually" player. ^^

Strangely, though, after I passed the first "rough" contact, I eventually enjoyed this game. Didn't play long because it lacked content and was getting repetitive, though (the joys of early access incomplete games), and because of a vicious difficulty spike, but maybe it changed. Now it's fully released, I'll try again and see if the mid/end game has been smoothed and beefed up :)

Crosmando: To any Kickstarter backers here, you can get a GOG key for this if you email them at:
backersupport@redhookgames.com

It worked for me.