Reviews for [v0.5] Darkmorrow Arena

[rulezz]

It's kind of weird how game promotes changing strategy/figuring out opponent but in reality does everything to prevent it as well..
Not only gold is super limited for majority of the game but the gear is too hard to perfect.. by time you reach 250 glory for the arena champion ending - you will only at most upgrade 2 pieces of legendary equip and that's only IF you go for sexy 4 set.

Overall for those who want to have an easy time - most important step is to buy a buckler, preferably with evasion upgrades... ideally legendary buckler which you can upgrade with a lot of evasion.
Most important mastery with that strategy would be shield mastery. I recommend sword as weapon focus, but it probably can be axe as well, I found sword more reliable due to accuracy being hard to get. As for type of attack - I recommend parry early(get it to level 2 so you can endure early fights) and as you upgrade your buckler with more evasion - swap into the power swing and focus that one.
Out of armor - I prefer the unarmored thing and sexy 4 dancer costume(meaning you want to up relation 3 times in total, likely 2 times on trainer and 1 time on merchant)... this will boost your gold gain massively and allow you to upgrade your weapon and buckler.
Out of relations - focus on trainer first, then once you need to start upgrading you can swap to merchant.. Arena master is kinda pointless, you won't have trouble with accuracy/evasion in this build and it's better to gain permanent one through training anyway.

As you reach end game - it will be easier and easier since even legendary opponents would need all the luck in the world to win.

[Tartarass]

The game is pretty fun but the way that resistances work kind of kills it for me, especially considering there's not really a way to change your weapons mid-battle. If you're running like a fire axe power-attack build you can just get completely fucked over by being matched up against someone who's resistant to all three of those.

[DarkDrea]

Was pretty fun. It does get boring and monotonous after a little while.

[Blank616]

Welp, having spent 6 hours playing this game to completion, I’m confident I’ve seen it all. Needless to say, I approve.

The game has a positive feedback loop, which isn’t always good. It means that if you do well, you do much better over time, reaching the point where the game has no challenge at all, while new players will struggle, with needing to rest multiple nights leaving you weaker long term. Perhaps if it could be more reactive? The more people you successfully kill, the more your reputation grows and the sooner you face stronger foes? and the oposite if you stuggle? Just a thought.

I think it would be good if the shopkeeper could give the choice of fate stones or money, or if there was the ability to sell the stones back to him, or perhaps the gold cost of stone upgrades could be nothing and better equipment just needs more stones per level. There feels like a few ways to improve it. It would also help balance the Combat Trainer, who is otherwise OP, giving permanent stat boosts vs replaceable armour/weapons, which means she is always the straight path to higher unlocks as well. The Arena Master is also a little lack lustre. Perhaps he could give you a temporary (or permanent but very small) bonus to Appeal, either through tricks of the trade or rigging the announcer or something? Or he could boost the pay out? Exchanging permanent upgrades for boosts that only last a single opponent is just a bad trade.
If you can make reasons for the player to visit each of the possible people in various orders, rather than maxing out one, then the other, then the other, I think it would be better.

I think this has a lot of scope for improvement, in the best possible way, and really look forward to future versions of it, however you choose to develop it. Well done and best of luck!

acacGames responds:

Thanks for the great feedback! You make really good points.

That’s true about the positive feedback loop. You have a brilliant idea on how to fix it. After reading your comment, I thought about what you said; What if I gated enemy levels behind your glory value. So, if you do really well early on, you face hard enemies sooner. But if you struggle, you face easier enemies longer. Good idea.

Good point about the fate stones being sellable, too. I had another feature in mind, which I haven’t been able to implement because of time, and also some design considerations. During nighttime, I wanted there to be an option to visit a pub. There, you would have a random positive event, where you might get some coin, fate stones, or info on the upcoming opponent. Basically, the same benefits as the NPCs, but in exchange for not entertaining the NPCs, you would have less control over what benefit you got. A companion to this might be an option to do a daytime job, where you always make some coin. The trade-off would be that you could rest or train during that day's daytime phase. I think I ultimately decided against this, because the NPC visits became so closely tied to outfit access and planned endings, now.

Good point about the NPC payouts. Right now, I’m still happy with them. I do like that some NPCs give you long term benefits but need investment, while others give you short term but immediate benefits. One feedback I’m getting a lot is that tier 3 enemies are really tough. Personally, the way I deal with them initially is by spamming the Arena Master. I don’t know if you noticed, but he gives a cumulative 6% evasion and accuracy bonus against the upcoming opponent, starting from your second visit. This is really powerful, because it's multiplicative against all the other bonuses you have. The first few tier 3 enemies, I don’t even try to beat them. I just try to survive (evasion bonus, parry or quick attack), take the money (higher tier enemies give you more coins), and then try to beat bandits (tier 2). Eventually, I become strong enough to take on tier 3 enemies more fairly or even beat them. Similarly, you mentioned the snowballing effect of early victories. One of the first things I do is enhance my starting spear with a fate stone or two. If I can get an elemental damage roll on it, it’s a great way to beat slaves or even bandits early on, and make more coin. It’s ways like this where early short-term benefits do end up meaning a lot. On the flip side, the combat trainer is great early on, but she starts getting diminishing returns. For example, if you really want to focus on swords, getting sword training to level 1 and 2 is relatively quick, but it takes that much longer to get to level 3. You might be better off getting spear training to level 2 instead, in case you face an enemy that counters swords. In that way, you reach a point where fate stones start upgrading your current setup faster than training.

Thank you for the positive and constructive feedback! It gave me a lot to think about! :)

[Redzeth]

What can I say it's very interesting, yet it quickly becomes bullshit the moment you fight tier 3 enemies. Several bad rolls can end you. since this is as you say an ironwoman game, it shouldn't be too heavily reliant on it's rng aspects. I think you should make the ironwoman mode an option at the very least or make progression even slower then it is now so people don't get screwed against the tier 3 fight.