Universal Arcane Quest 3 - Rise of the Fallen - Tabletop RPG

Zone of Control

I am enjoying the game, however, I am finding it too difficult. I am having a problem getting by the 3rd dungeon. One of the things that I do not care for is the lack of zone of control. If I put 2 heavies up front, mobs can just run past them to my ranged attackers.

This doesn't make sense to me from a realism standpoint, would defenders just watch someone run by, and from a gaming standpoint most TBS games have zone of control.

This and being able to walk through my own combatants is lessening the immersiveness of the game.

 

@Munkie: Which one exactly is the 3rd dungeon you refer to? Can you give its name?
I am at the 5th town (Springwood), and have no problems at all with my main group (Berserker, Thief, Amazon - swapped her in for the Ranger, Wizard) .
My Caster group (Paladin, Wizard, Evoker, Shaman) is a tad too squishy, just had one die in the 2nd dungeon (Stonegarde - Orc's Den). But that's my own fault, I didn't think that I need to increase their Con/HP on first levelup -> mistake.

If I really need to block, I keep my tanks in a 2-wide chokepoint, so nothing can get past them. But that's not always possible, e.g. because some rooms are 3 wide or have more than one pathway.

Which Heroes do you use exactly? And how do you have their stats, skills, and equipment set up? The more we know, the better advise we can give.
And what is your problem in the 3rd dungeon? Can't you hit the monsters? Or do your squishies keep getting killed?

@Nedox:
While I personally like that you don't have Zone of Control, Munkie has a good point.
Would that be something you can consider for a later update?
Alternative suggestion: If you don't want ZoC (i.e. "monster stops when entering it"), how about giving each - or at least the first - hero it passes a free attack on it?

Also, question:
When I abandon a dungeon in level 2 of 3, do I still lose all XP/Gold/Items I gained so far? Do I keep everything, and the level only resets? Or do I e.g. keep anything I got in level 1 of 3, and lose only what I earned in level 2?

 

Feedback so far

And a bunch of feedback that piled up over the last week:
1) Most stages are way too dark, best example: Moonlight in the Graveyard. It's unplayable outside, even when not sitting in direct sunlight and brightness cranked up to the max. This is my biggest quibble, is there anything you can do to improve that?

2) Search highlight doesn't seem to work: Searchable items only highlight when I'm right next to them. It should highlight everything in the room, no matter if a hero is standing next to it or not.

3) Guild upgrades: Lower level ones do not stack with higher levels, so it makes no sense to buy the lower levels at all. My suggestion: make them stack.

4) Add the ability to manually change the hero order in the guild, e.g. via hold&slide on a portrait. Look at e.g. Heroes Paradox: Winterbleu changed it so that the heroes you picked to be in your party always are on top of the list. As HP works a bit different (you select a party roster that stays active for all stages you play, stages are a lot shorter than in AQ3), this approach wouldn't work that well here. I think changing the order manually is the better one.

5) The Wizard's spell "Pass&disarm invisible traps" is pretty useless. The first thing I do when entering a room is search. It should allow to walk over and disarm visible trap as well.

6) Please remove the restriction that the Store only sells one of each item. With 10 heroes now, and typically 3 sharing the same equipment line, I find it annoying and way too restrictive. Example: I started a second playthrough with Shaman, Evoker, Wizard, Paladin (wanted to go all spellcaster, but we have only 3). The first three all need the same equipment, so I really want to be able to buy it for everyone.

7) I assume that the playerbase is not big enough (yet) to always give me someone to play with. So I think that making quests like "Groundshaker" multiplayer only is a tad ambitious. How about enabling them for singleplayer as well? I'll just have to deal with the - I suppose - increased difficulty when I run it alone.

8) Amazon: why does transform empty her Mana? It costs 3 of her 7 Mana, so she should have 4 left. Is that correct behaviour?
9) Also Amazon: Can I suggest to rename Powerjump to e.g. Pounce, and allow to use it when transformed?
10) Also Amazon: Why can't she use potions when transformed? Not being able to use a book makes some sense at least. But even a Lizard should be able to gulp down a potion.

11) I don't care much about characters being balanced as long as I have fun. But it seems that Melee Heroes are quite overpowered, even more so than in the other games: they can just wade right in, smack some enemies around, and weather any return fire coming their way. With my main party, I think I had one casualty where I got completely careless. With my squishies, I had 2 deaths in 2 dungeons already.

12) The Evoker's Troll summon has a spear, shouldn't it be able to attack diagonally?
13) I'd like to have an option to unsummon a creature. Purely convenience, but would be nice nonetheless.

14) Stat reset should reset skills, too. I made a mistake with my Wizard, and wanted to change it. No dice, reset only resets stats, skills stay.

15) I still get confused by the passive skills showing in the skillbar. If you don't want to remove them completely, could you at least move them to the right side, with a distinct separator between actives and passives? E.g. give actives a reddish background, passives a greenish one, and put a thick orange line between the two.

 

The way to deal with your melee specialists being bypassed is to use terrain: either two person chokepoints or position the weakest character behind the three strongest against impossible terrain (wall, building, etc.). Once I started doing that, progress was much easier. You can't simply charge into combat because of this. The Ranger's high dex, once he's upgraded a bit, makes him practically untouchable, and thus deceptively durable. I found myself putting him up front instead of my melee characters at some points.

I like to think of the ZOC as the space the character occupies, which is why other friendly characters can pass through. It makes sense to me that in hand to hand combat with a small group size like this that, absent due care, your ranged attackers are vulnerable to sniping.

 

re earlier feedback, and some more

- Highlighter: yes, it's switched on in the menu. Still doesn't seem to do anything, though.
- Guild upgrades stacking: Correct, that's only for things like +10%/+20% Search Luck. Thinking about it a bit more, you're right: It's ok that they don't stack. But then you should give the warning that the bigger one replaces it for the smaller one as well.

- Amazon: Checked. And yes, she gets her mana back when reverting to human. It just looks odd when she suddenly has an empty Mana bar.
And I found out that she actually can carry stuff, just not use it. So, even you lose one hero as item user, it's no biggie. Have to save final verdict if she is ok without being able to use items for when I completed a playthrough.
If you don't want her to use skills when transformed, that should be fine too. But then the Jump is useless, as she is made to always be in transform. And no renaming needed then, either. I just thought "Pounce" fits better for her transforms.
The Lizard looks awesome, by the way you should change the skill icon, maybe. Going by that, I surely didn't expect such a monster, more something like Rango Oh, and while the Axes look really good, they feel a bit out of place. If you can change the model, can I suggest armoured spiked gauntlets or somesuch?

- Dismissing a summon: I wanted to play my Mages as Casters, not Summoners. So I wanted to get rid of the summons after using them in a pinch or so. But turns out that approach doesn't work that well, using summons is just so much easier And I didn't think of just leaving them behind. So no need for a dismiss any longer.

- Skill reset: Please make it free, just like the stat reset. In my opinion, allowing free respecs (almost) anytime anywhere is the superior and way more userfriendly design. Look at e.g. the Spiderweb games (Avadon, Avernum) where you can respec to your heart's content. Very nice feature, that.

- Hero balance: Don't think it needs a change. Having heroes of different powerlevels gives another way to tune the difficulty to the player.
If I want things to be easy, I go all melee. For more of a challenge, I can pick only squishies.
And even the melee heroes allow different builds, which is excellent. E.g. I geared my Assassin more for direct damage (most points into Strength), and only rarely use Backstab. But I could just as well drop most points into Intelligence to get more Mana, and have him go to town with constant backstabs.
Plus, I dare say it will be extremely difficult, if not outright impossible, to get things "balanced". The heroes are just too different.

 

Short feedback on my squishies party

They - Paladin, Wizard, Evoker, Summoner - are doing much better now that I gave in and started using Summons. Also, I respecced them, and gave everyone more Con/HP with the first levelup to increase survivability.
Having two additional characters that mostly function as meatshields - any damage they do is just a nice bonus - makes a huge difference.
Played a few more dungeons, and things went pretty smooth, no more deaths so far.

Question: do the "increase base attack" skills also increase magic attack power? Or do they only apply to non-magic attacks (swords, bows, etc.)?

 

If it hasn't already been mentioned, can you have an option to disable the dynamic camera please.
Every time it happens my head goes in a spin and I don't know which way is which!#

Oh and how about a slider for the music volume too #

 

Small thing, but similar to stubbie and the camera, the pulsating Nex logo on game start makes me dizzy everytime.
As there are people out there who are affected much more by this, could you make the logo static maybe?

 

I've found several locked chests, but I have not found any keys. I looked in the store and in the IAPs and didn't see any. How do you find/get keys to open the locked chests?

 

Yes, free to move like the players turn.
I play zoomed out most of the time so I can see the whole room and when the enemies have their turn the dynamic camera quickly zooms in and spins around. It is unnecessary to have the camera do this and I find it very disorientating.
I ask only for an option to turn this "feature" off, so people that do enjoy it can still have it.

Also, any chance of that music volume slider? #

 

You occasionally get some from loot, chests, etc. Sometimes even though you come across a locked chest you will not find a key in that level for it.
The only option I can see that might help is the iap that lets you keep some items from a completed level.
Don't be too worried though. The loot in those locked chests can be as dismal as a 2hp potion. Perhaps that should be looked at by the dev?

Oh and a note about those iap upgrades that use gold and arcanes.
The purchase of those items are game specific meaning that if you start another game in one of the three save slots the upgrades you paid for with real money are not available.
Just thought I would clarify that in case it caught some people out (like me # ).

 

Are yes, my bad, but please let me justify my stupidity;

It was not clear in my mind that the Guild Upgrades were just that....SINGLE Guild Upgrades.
I thought it meant that EVERY guild I started would have those benefits.

So I happily spent money on gold and arcanes to get those upgrades that I thought sounded like they were almost necessary to make the game more enjoyable such as access to the blacksmith during missions, being able to repair found items and chests that would allow found consumables to be carried over to the next mission.

I now know that starting another guild gets none of those upgrades.

While I am able to enjoy those upgrades with my current guild it means I am not able to start a new guild without those upgrades (and restarting and trying different characters and skills is something I do a heck of a lot with these sort of games).

I wanted to make that point very clear to anyone else who might not be aware.

It's a great game otherwise! #

 

I'd prefer too if the saveslots weren't independent, but if Guild upgrades could carry over somehow.
Hhmm... how about adding an extra stage early on, where you can claim the ruins of an old guildhouse? That would make for a good ingame explanation why gold and upgrades are shared between saves.

Also, too many swords:
I haven't unlocked the third equipment tier yet, but I don't expect it to be different than the first two.
Half a dozen swords, and only one or two Axes/Hammers/Spears - and of lower quality only. The best melee weapons are swords, hands-down. If you want Spears, Axes & Hammers to be a viable choice, they have to offer options in the same power range as swords, not just one or two inferior options.
What's also a bit odd is that the Barbarian and Berserker don't have a skill to increase Spear base attack, making them even more of an inferior choice. Would be good to add one.
If you don't want those to have it, give it to the Amazon as Plan B?

Party composition:
Think I'll phase out the Assassin for the Barbarian. I get less and less opportunities for backstab, and at level 6 he already falls behind the Berserker in standard attack damage. Dreading the grind, though. Wish I could convince you to have one shared partylevel as I suggested earlier

 

Yes!
That is an excellent suggestion Nullzone. #

That would have made it perfectively clear that any Guild Upgrades I was making in my current game (including ones where I wanted to spend real money on gold and arcanes to get them) would only be for that Guild.

Either that or a disclaimer somewhere in the Guild Upgrade menu that any purchases made here will only be available for your current guild.

I mean to say I am sure the dev does not want people to mistakenly spend money on something that is at best, a bit ambiguous.