Ancient Domains Of Mystery, forum overview / ADOM / Intermediate feedback on ADOM
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Doalag Registered user Last page view: 5857 days, 18 hours, 16 minutes and 22 seconds ago. |
At his point I haven't finish any game, with scumming or not, not even explored more than the beginning or close to end of beginning. Anyway some feeling about ADOM : If I sum the time spend on this game at this point, then there's no problem, I really like it. Usually I don't like random in games but there it works better. The random is high, up to make much more easy or much more tougher a similar phase of the game, but the good complexity of the system and the tools at your disposal for fighting, progressing, discovering the world, managing you character and equipments result with a high random in a strong depth of the game and a lot of interesting diversity. This complexity and high random is a little nightmare for a newbie. I think that the main problems here are : A poor job on hints and a game beginning which is probably the tougher part of the game, a strange design if you ask me. Secrets/tricks/tips/puzzling : About puzzling of any kind including secrets and tricks you need to find, for any game I have a strict rule : A good secret/puzzle/trick to find, is good through the quality of its hints. Clearly the game fails here, for me. The game beginning face the player to multiple problems and the hints for them are most often void, or at least a lot too tough to decipher. Additionally most hints have a too artificial setup, typically the random cookies, songs of the mad minstrel. Many just lack of any hint, like the result of eating many corpses, one example among many. I quickly end up in playing with the guidebook close by. I usually never do that and it ends for me as a game with zero puzzling, secrets or tricks to find, too bad because it's what I prefer. I don't think the author of this game has ever play games like Ultima Underworld or Dungeon Master, here is a high quality puzzle design, through a high quality hints design. A game like ADOM would take a lot of profit from having a better hints design. It's something very tough for newbies, for this point, the guidebook and this forum saved the game for me (thanks all). Problems to solve : If the game mainly fail in the design of puzzles, tricks to find and secrets it offers a complex system with many possibilities and many tough situations generated randomly that offer many opportunities of little problems to solve. That not only save the game but in this area it is probably one of the best I ever played. That's what makes its random system one of the best if not the best. Interface design : Despite this games involves ton of key hits, the overall design is quite good with few exceptions. Pets use has a general weak design, the log and text management is probably the worse I ever seen. Despite those 2 problems, the interface design is quite good. Story stuff : That's another major point for me, I need this to put sense in the game but it's a challenge to merge this with random. Overall the job is good about this. I would expect better and more but there's a balance to keep, too heavy story stuff could break a little the fun of the random design. Pets design : It's a minor point of the game but a lot of design has been put in it. It's too bad to have spoil this, by some design errors. Anyway, even if almost nobody use them, even if there are some major flaws in their design, there' s a nice depth and many good points. So overall a really good point of the game, for me at least,. And that's not an easy stuff to design, most game just fail, but few did better to make them more playable. No scumming spirit : I'm shared about this. This game isn't designed for no scumming. There's many things to find with disastrous result and almost zero hint to warn you. The extreme random could easily kill you until you get ton of experience. Once you get ton of experience plus some nice stuff like the guidebook at your disposal then only I can imagine the benefit of a no scumming spirit. Another point of view is that the no scumming choice is justified by the high quality of the random system. Objectively it's strange to see people put so much importance in it. After all you could apply this no scumming rule in any game you play. Also you could not apply it relatively easily in ADOM. So overall that's the point, the no scumming spirit is setup but it's just a spirit, you can do it differently. For a more standard design, this game should have 2 modes, one normal with multiple saves and one with no scumming. Better for targeting more people but less focus on the no scumming choice. |
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Silfir Registered user Writer of Overly Long Guides Last page view: 4075 days, 16 hours, 31 minutes and 45 seconds ago. |
The fact that you can't save is a major feature of all roguelikes, a convention, a law if you so will. ADOM has a high learning curve, but rest assured that it's purely intentional. The game is *supposed* to be this hard. You drop the golden ball. You kick the golden ball. It slides to the west. Suddenly Harry Potter, the apprentice wizard, appears! "That's not how you play Quidditch! are you even listening?" Which direction? (123456789) 4 Harry Potter, the apprentice wizard, is hit by a bolt of acid! Harry Potter, the apprentice wizard, is annihilated. You hear the ecstatic cries of a large crowd! |
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Doalag Registered user Last page view: 5857 days, 18 hours, 16 minutes and 22 seconds ago. |
I understood that, but a game is a game plus traditions are made to be broken! :-p I didn't comment the intention and how well the initial goal was achieved, just the result for my eyes. Purely subjective. Eventually see it also a bit like a feedback about rogue like games, it's quite close for me to some other CRPG. I didn't comment the difficulty of the whole game, more the possible difficulty of the beginning of the game when you start a new character. Also the lack of good hints isn't, for me, a point linked to the difficulty, anyway I quickly played with the guidebook in hand and I bet everybody do that now. For the high learning curve, I agree, and it's a good point coming from the complex system. |
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Silfir Registered user Writer of Overly Long Guides Last page view: 4075 days, 16 hours, 31 minutes and 45 seconds ago. |
The only reason I hardly look at the guidebook anymore is, unfortunately, that I already know most of the stuff in there by heart. :( I'll wholeheartedly agree with you that some stuff is pretty hard to figure out on your own. You drop the golden ball. You kick the golden ball. It slides to the west. Suddenly Harry Potter, the apprentice wizard, appears! "That's not how you play Quidditch! are you even listening?" Which direction? (123456789) 4 Harry Potter, the apprentice wizard, is hit by a bolt of acid! Harry Potter, the apprentice wizard, is annihilated. You hear the ecstatic cries of a large crowd! |
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gut Registered user Painted this one too. Last page view: 4904 days, 18 hours, 6 minutes and 31 seconds ago. |
I would like the idea of an NPC, maybe the old barbarian, giving hints about which corpses are good to eat. Also, maybe a few hints about some of the tricky monsters you might run into. When I was learning the game, I 'save-scummed' my little heart out! I still have to use the guidebook for weapon/armor pre and suffixes. Can't remember those for anything. Put me in the 'fool filter', where I belong! |
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ADOMNewb101 Unregistered user |
A few points here: From my experience, most new players to the game never bother to read the manual before they start. I mean, from cover to cover, so to speak. There are a number of useful hints in the manual on getting started, particularly with respect to the most common problems new players have (from what I've seen): satiation, cursed equipment, general combat survival. Although there's a good chance your first couple of characters will still die/starve in dramatic fashion without really accomplishing much, dying is really part of the learning experience in this game. I agree that without the guidebook, a lot of experimentation is required to be able to get through the game, and it can be very frustrating. Save scumming is one way around this. Nobody will fault you for scumming while you're still learning, and even if they do, who cares? Alternately, don't worry about winning. You probably won't early on, so just make characters who will specifically try to do some task, and find a class/race that is appropriate. So make a ranger or druid and go explore the entire wilderness, and check out every location. Make a necromancer or bard and learn how to play with pets. Make a troll healer who will eat everything he finds, and keep track of the results as best you can. I think to summarize, this game is not designed to be won by casual players, certainly not without scumming (with scumming, in principle, it should always be possible, of course). You have to be willing to invest time, and lots of character deaths to learn the ropes. PS. I'm not sure what classes you've been working with, but I highly recommend playing grey/high elven archers to start with. They have great starting equipment including a ton of arrows, and can do massive damage with bows, which can get you through some tougher battles early on. And unlike certain classes that are generally recommended for beginners (eg. troll healers) that tend to suck in the endgame, archers are probably one of the best endgame classes. |
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Silfir Registered user Writer of Overly Long Guides Last page view: 4075 days, 16 hours, 31 minutes and 45 seconds ago. |
Orcish barbarians are close to high elven archers in awesomeness, I should add. You drop the golden ball. You kick the golden ball. It slides to the west. Suddenly Harry Potter, the apprentice wizard, appears! "That's not how you play Quidditch! are you even listening?" Which direction? (123456789) 4 Harry Potter, the apprentice wizard, is hit by a bolt of acid! Harry Potter, the apprentice wizard, is annihilated. You hear the ecstatic cries of a large crowd! |
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gut Registered user Painted this one too. Last page view: 4904 days, 18 hours, 6 minutes and 31 seconds ago. |
> From my experience, most new players to the game > never bother to read the manual before they start. I only read the parts that I was interested in. I really enjoyed the background story, and reading about all the differences in the race/classes. The parts that I skipped, were the parts that would have actually helped keep me alive : ) > most common problems new players have (from what > I've seen): satiation, cursed equipment, general > combat survival. Oh boy, that brings back memories! I remember when I was first starting out, I mistook the weight of large rations for the price, so I didn't even attempt to buy one. As a result, my PC's starved to death more often than not. You can imagine how I felt, when I discovered the real price. > I highly recommend playing grey/high elven > archers to start with. I can agree with that, although I think that troll healers are a better choice for a brand new player. I think that with a troll healer, you can see more of the game, with less build-up time. If you lose the PC (you probably will), you haven't lost too much time. After you learn some of the quests, and see most of the early game places (I guess up to Dwarftown), then make the switch. Archers and Barbarians are probably much easier to get a handle on than wizards. It takes some effort to get the healing skill though, so it can be frustrating to go through that quest many times, only to lose your PC just after. Put me in the 'fool filter', where I belong! |
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Silfir Registered user Writer of Overly Long Guides Last page view: 4075 days, 16 hours, 31 minutes and 45 seconds ago. |
A gray elven wizard is probably one of the best bets for a first win, though. With intermediate skill and a bit of luck you can get one off the ground, and after that they are powerful enough to sweep through everything else. At least for me, even though my first win was a high elven archer, my first character in winning shape was a gray elven wizard. She died to an über-battle bunny because I let them go out of control. You drop the golden ball. You kick the golden ball. It slides to the west. Suddenly Harry Potter, the apprentice wizard, appears! "That's not how you play Quidditch! are you even listening?" Which direction? (123456789) 4 Harry Potter, the apprentice wizard, is hit by a bolt of acid! Harry Potter, the apprentice wizard, is annihilated. You hear the ecstatic cries of a large crowd! |