Posted December 17, 2016
Hey. I have the GOLD Edition plus all 4 DLCs. There are some problems with this game. Some things are obvious bugs and a lot of ideas are simply wrong/poorly executed.
1) Why the success rate is capped at 99%? I had a situation once where I failed three tests with 99% success rate. In a row. This is crazy. The 1% "obligatory failure chance" is silly; this is not a D&D bastard system with the "natural 1 means failure, no matter what" rule.
2A) Why I have a feeling there is a hidden modifier in there, somewhere? I mean, at different difficulty levels, there is something affecting the rolls. Show me what and how much, because manual doesn't. The manual is an outdated crap, anyway.
2B) This is why we need to have results of every test visible in the log. The "failure/success" system won't cut it, if you fail a 82% cooking test for the fourth time, and you're needing that sandwich, because you're starving. You need to see for yourself that you failed because of the case of bad luck and not some hidden modifier/"dynamically matching loot table" affecting your chances.
3) "Wormhole" traps. Really? I understand traps being here, I really do, but Wormhole is a truly nasty implementation. I was threw into some room of 40th level, full of warbots, straight from the 37th one when I stepped into this trap. And I died because of it. Of course, many people will say: "That's fun!" or "You know it's a roguelike?", but I never had problems like this even in NetHack or StoneSoup. I get the difficulty growing with each sub-floor deeper in the Pit, but abruptly thrusting someone into dangerous conditions, without any warning, isn't fun.
4) Robots can be afflicted with the "Pain" status. This is wrong. Robots cannot feel pain.
5) It would be nice if you could see the amount of HP, PSI, Skill and Attribute points gained per level in the Hero selection menu.
6) While we are at Hero selection menu - humans should be put together (at the moment Medic and Sergeant Gunny are at the very end of it, disrupting the flow; Zuuls should be coupled together too).
7) The Tesseract Well is unintelligent. You need to manually stack every single item, because it cannot do it itself; 4 shotgun shells in a slot, with 16 in another is a regular situation, because the Tesseract Well needs to be controlled all the time and this is a roguelike, so it needs to be hard. Really?
8) Stacking problem. I understand that you can carry six (any) Repair Kits, with each having different number of "charges". But stacking of those should be possible, as micro-managing (or so-called "strategic thinking") of every single item is tedious; 1 charge + 3 charges + 2 charges, three different kits, should result in one kit with 6 charges. This isn't 90s, with crude approach.
9) If you're putting rabbits on the very first floor (surface), at least make them drop Raw Meat all the time. Killing two and getting nothing from them isn't fun, if you want to make things easier for the player.
10) Why I cannot drop a particular sub-floor key, so I actually could pick the locks and improve my Lockpick skill? It's a must, as I can drop everything else. This is especially important on the ten first levels, when you need good equipment and with higher (trained more, because you could drop the damn key) Lockpick skill there is a greater chance of actually opening that Secure Locker.
11) Why the mouse wheel isn't working? Implementing the most basic functionality in the game where you have "scrollable" windows - why you didn't do that?
12) Why the three necro monsters from the Necromancer have botched animations? Are you satisfied with supplying the product with the evident bug?
13) I mentioned about skills, so there is another point regarding them: you can naturally train your skills by practice, without spending Skill Points, up to 45. Why not to 50? It would be half of 100 - the maximum cap for any skill.
14) Also, skills should be coupled into categories; right now we have close combat skills all over the place, differentiated with Traps, Medical, while Foraging and Biotech are before PSI-related abilities, with Necro Tech, not being exactly a PSI skill, being at the very end. No alphabetical order, no nothing, just randomness.
15) Knife skill is worthless, as only knives worth mentioning are Maab, Paingiver and Ishak Blade. You don't put a skill into your game, which will be used, like, in never.
16) Why would you need the Traps skill, if its application is so significantly limited? Only viable with the traps on the ground and two (or three) machines found in rooms. It would be more preferable to delete the skill and move handling traps and Traps-related machines to Mechanical/Electronics.
17) You can cheat with the Liquidator weapon, by constantly unloading and reloading it. This way you will never run out of ammo; I read the reply on the forums, from one of the creators, quote: "Knock yourself out". That's lazy. Change that.
18) The new PDA armor (Asclepius Plate) isn't counting as a PDA for Achievements; I cooked food while in it and didn't get the matching Award in the Sotsdex.
19) I noticed that speed animations are unsystematic. Melee attacks with fists are slower (for Engineer) in PDA armor than in a light armor. The same for all different characters, as I tested them all. Perhaps you should figure out how do you want to do that, as irregularity isn't a feasible formula.
20) The "XP Health Boost" serum isn't working retroactively. And it should, as simple as that.
21) Tool-tips for every Attribute and Skill? A good idea. +To damage, +To hit and +To penetration of a given weapon skill would be useful information. Resistances to various status effects from Attributes too. Or make a different place for the resistances altogether, so we could actually know how high they exactly are.
22) While we are at tool-tips - more elaborate tool-tips for status effects would be extremely practical. Need to be implemented.
23) Why characters are distinguished from each other mainly only with looks, starting equipment, starting skills+attributes and learning potential? You already gave Necromancer the unique ability of gaining PSI points with each kill, no matter the dispatching weapon/method. Why, for example, Engineer don't have +10% (multiplicative/addictive - doesn't matter) for various Kits' efficiency?
24) Typos. Squash them, dudes. It's ten minutes with Notepad++, using searching syntax, to find them.
25) Missing/mismatched VO entries in SOTSDex for items/weapons/everything practically. It would be wiser to simply eliminate the VO entries, if they're going to be so mangled. Also, some entries are recorded with half-dimmed sound. This is wrong.
26) Tool-tips when the cursor is hovering over a monster, please. A brief summary, without commentary (Like HPs, Armor and so on).
27) There is a beneficial door trap that restores 50 HPs. It's laughable, even when you're playing as a Liir. It would be wiser to change it to restore 10% of total HP or similar value. The same goes to the +150 PSI restoring trap.
28) Items destroying door trap is another nuisance. Instead of it destructing one of your belongings - why don't it do something less progress-crippling? Like depleting all charges of your chargeable/electronic items or eating your current weapon's magazine, so I won't lose 120 Pistol Rounds and only 10 in my Auto-Pistol?
29) It would be wise to know if the door trap which you just passed through restores PSI Points, even if you're full of them.
Summing this up: you sold your game, you have the money, and you're not inclined in refining the experience for the end user. It can be easily sensed. This is a very stupid approach. Actually, only those who are constantly polishing their software are still in the game; thousands of "indie" studios ceased to exist, when they stopped working on their already published games/software, while working on new stuff. This is hard and demanding market strategy, but it's doable. And those who maintains their games, plus feed people with hype and new releases - they are still out there, with fans and communities, and money flowing into their accounts in a steady current. In the quest for "complications", you applied mechanics from the past that are simple annoyances. It's not a clever move; especially since you didn't release your game in ASCII mode. Only that could give you excuse for doing that.
If you're not interested with finalizing the SotS: The Pit with some updated Final Edition or releasing an improved the SotS: The Pit 2 - at least release a mod kit or something, so people could fix your game themselves. Bethesda employed that strategy long time ago and it works for them.
1) Why the success rate is capped at 99%? I had a situation once where I failed three tests with 99% success rate. In a row. This is crazy. The 1% "obligatory failure chance" is silly; this is not a D&D bastard system with the "natural 1 means failure, no matter what" rule.
2A) Why I have a feeling there is a hidden modifier in there, somewhere? I mean, at different difficulty levels, there is something affecting the rolls. Show me what and how much, because manual doesn't. The manual is an outdated crap, anyway.
2B) This is why we need to have results of every test visible in the log. The "failure/success" system won't cut it, if you fail a 82% cooking test for the fourth time, and you're needing that sandwich, because you're starving. You need to see for yourself that you failed because of the case of bad luck and not some hidden modifier/"dynamically matching loot table" affecting your chances.
3) "Wormhole" traps. Really? I understand traps being here, I really do, but Wormhole is a truly nasty implementation. I was threw into some room of 40th level, full of warbots, straight from the 37th one when I stepped into this trap. And I died because of it. Of course, many people will say: "That's fun!" or "You know it's a roguelike?", but I never had problems like this even in NetHack or StoneSoup. I get the difficulty growing with each sub-floor deeper in the Pit, but abruptly thrusting someone into dangerous conditions, without any warning, isn't fun.
4) Robots can be afflicted with the "Pain" status. This is wrong. Robots cannot feel pain.
5) It would be nice if you could see the amount of HP, PSI, Skill and Attribute points gained per level in the Hero selection menu.
6) While we are at Hero selection menu - humans should be put together (at the moment Medic and Sergeant Gunny are at the very end of it, disrupting the flow; Zuuls should be coupled together too).
7) The Tesseract Well is unintelligent. You need to manually stack every single item, because it cannot do it itself; 4 shotgun shells in a slot, with 16 in another is a regular situation, because the Tesseract Well needs to be controlled all the time and this is a roguelike, so it needs to be hard. Really?
8) Stacking problem. I understand that you can carry six (any) Repair Kits, with each having different number of "charges". But stacking of those should be possible, as micro-managing (or so-called "strategic thinking") of every single item is tedious; 1 charge + 3 charges + 2 charges, three different kits, should result in one kit with 6 charges. This isn't 90s, with crude approach.
9) If you're putting rabbits on the very first floor (surface), at least make them drop Raw Meat all the time. Killing two and getting nothing from them isn't fun, if you want to make things easier for the player.
10) Why I cannot drop a particular sub-floor key, so I actually could pick the locks and improve my Lockpick skill? It's a must, as I can drop everything else. This is especially important on the ten first levels, when you need good equipment and with higher (trained more, because you could drop the damn key) Lockpick skill there is a greater chance of actually opening that Secure Locker.
11) Why the mouse wheel isn't working? Implementing the most basic functionality in the game where you have "scrollable" windows - why you didn't do that?
12) Why the three necro monsters from the Necromancer have botched animations? Are you satisfied with supplying the product with the evident bug?
13) I mentioned about skills, so there is another point regarding them: you can naturally train your skills by practice, without spending Skill Points, up to 45. Why not to 50? It would be half of 100 - the maximum cap for any skill.
14) Also, skills should be coupled into categories; right now we have close combat skills all over the place, differentiated with Traps, Medical, while Foraging and Biotech are before PSI-related abilities, with Necro Tech, not being exactly a PSI skill, being at the very end. No alphabetical order, no nothing, just randomness.
15) Knife skill is worthless, as only knives worth mentioning are Maab, Paingiver and Ishak Blade. You don't put a skill into your game, which will be used, like, in never.
16) Why would you need the Traps skill, if its application is so significantly limited? Only viable with the traps on the ground and two (or three) machines found in rooms. It would be more preferable to delete the skill and move handling traps and Traps-related machines to Mechanical/Electronics.
17) You can cheat with the Liquidator weapon, by constantly unloading and reloading it. This way you will never run out of ammo; I read the reply on the forums, from one of the creators, quote: "Knock yourself out". That's lazy. Change that.
18) The new PDA armor (Asclepius Plate) isn't counting as a PDA for Achievements; I cooked food while in it and didn't get the matching Award in the Sotsdex.
19) I noticed that speed animations are unsystematic. Melee attacks with fists are slower (for Engineer) in PDA armor than in a light armor. The same for all different characters, as I tested them all. Perhaps you should figure out how do you want to do that, as irregularity isn't a feasible formula.
20) The "XP Health Boost" serum isn't working retroactively. And it should, as simple as that.
21) Tool-tips for every Attribute and Skill? A good idea. +To damage, +To hit and +To penetration of a given weapon skill would be useful information. Resistances to various status effects from Attributes too. Or make a different place for the resistances altogether, so we could actually know how high they exactly are.
22) While we are at tool-tips - more elaborate tool-tips for status effects would be extremely practical. Need to be implemented.
23) Why characters are distinguished from each other mainly only with looks, starting equipment, starting skills+attributes and learning potential? You already gave Necromancer the unique ability of gaining PSI points with each kill, no matter the dispatching weapon/method. Why, for example, Engineer don't have +10% (multiplicative/addictive - doesn't matter) for various Kits' efficiency?
24) Typos. Squash them, dudes. It's ten minutes with Notepad++, using searching syntax, to find them.
25) Missing/mismatched VO entries in SOTSDex for items/weapons/everything practically. It would be wiser to simply eliminate the VO entries, if they're going to be so mangled. Also, some entries are recorded with half-dimmed sound. This is wrong.
26) Tool-tips when the cursor is hovering over a monster, please. A brief summary, without commentary (Like HPs, Armor and so on).
27) There is a beneficial door trap that restores 50 HPs. It's laughable, even when you're playing as a Liir. It would be wiser to change it to restore 10% of total HP or similar value. The same goes to the +150 PSI restoring trap.
28) Items destroying door trap is another nuisance. Instead of it destructing one of your belongings - why don't it do something less progress-crippling? Like depleting all charges of your chargeable/electronic items or eating your current weapon's magazine, so I won't lose 120 Pistol Rounds and only 10 in my Auto-Pistol?
29) It would be wise to know if the door trap which you just passed through restores PSI Points, even if you're full of them.
Summing this up: you sold your game, you have the money, and you're not inclined in refining the experience for the end user. It can be easily sensed. This is a very stupid approach. Actually, only those who are constantly polishing their software are still in the game; thousands of "indie" studios ceased to exist, when they stopped working on their already published games/software, while working on new stuff. This is hard and demanding market strategy, but it's doable. And those who maintains their games, plus feed people with hype and new releases - they are still out there, with fans and communities, and money flowing into their accounts in a steady current. In the quest for "complications", you applied mechanics from the past that are simple annoyances. It's not a clever move; especially since you didn't release your game in ASCII mode. Only that could give you excuse for doing that.
If you're not interested with finalizing the SotS: The Pit with some updated Final Edition or releasing an improved the SotS: The Pit 2 - at least release a mod kit or something, so people could fix your game themselves. Bethesda employed that strategy long time ago and it works for them.
Post edited January 01, 2017 by Czudowny
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