iPad Dungeon Raid (by Fireflame Games)

You can always use teleport to clear the board of a special monster if need be, not sure if Disarm would also get rid of a boss. Yes the Overseer is the nastiest monster I've encountered thus far!
This update made a very good game fantastic IMHO and it should be part of any match three/rogue-like/RPG fan's app library. I just worry that this will get lost in the shuffle, especially with PQ2, Infinity Blade and Aralon coming out...

 

Yeah, this is the first game since Rogue Touch that I wanted to evangelize. Which is why I just posted on the main Touch Arcade page in the comments that the update for this means I can hold off buying PQ2 for a while.

The Slide to Play review pissed me off also, as he clearly did not play the game enough to understand the nuances of it. Or they only tested it on Easy which just does not show the deep level of strategy needed at the higher levels.

 

Suggestions:

I think leveling up skills should make them more powerful. I believe LG has requested this in the past, but I think with so many skills now it is needed even more.

Lowering the cool down for leveling them up is not enough. Certainly some would be easy to figure out how to modify them for more points in them.

Line and Fireball for instance could work as they do at level 1, at level 2 they could expand slightly (2 lines and 4x4?) and at level 3 they could be targetable.

Exorcism could be like it is at level 1, at level 2 you get exp/gold for it, at level 3 it blows up any skulls touching it.

Heal could be like it is at level 1, at level 2 it could give you double the value of those collected, at level 3 triple?

Just there are a lot of things that could be done when leveling up skills.

 

Fireball is currently an under-powered skill in my opinion, so your idea or something else should be done. I think you should get to chose the 3x3 grid (and that it shouldnt be random), but that it should not kill bosses. That wouldnt be OP.

 

After failing to get past level 7 several times on the new hard setting, I tried a normal, and am feeling very comfortable at lvl 15 right now. Double effect per shield has been very useful, and I was lucky to get two durability upgrades, but pretty much a normal game.

Are folks finding they can achieve infinite play on the new normal?

By the way, an easy way to deal with spikey (well, sometimes) if you dont have any skills to get rid of him is to just keep your shields up and let blunt take his damage down to 1, the minimum. Then you can let your spikes wear him down until its convenient/safe to kill him. An extra 1 damage a turn is not real problematic.

 

No, I didnt understand how blunting works previously. What it does is lower the attack value of the skull by the amount of the blunting every turn, until the attack value hits 1.

 

Yeah, Blunt is my absolute favorite upgrade, I grab it whenever I see the chance, followed by Spikes.
On my latest run I picked up Explosive Potion to see if the bombs would eliminate or damage skulls or boss monsters...alas no such luck! I think that Magic Sword will quickly become my favorite of the new spells.

 

Durability is better over the long haul...but blunt will clearly give you a better chance of breaking out of the level 5-7 death zone.

 

I'm a bit behind in the upgrade due to moving house! About to apply it, but just wondering...anyone know if upgrading the game will kill a game in progress?

 

I'm sure someone else will chime in, but I wouldn't risk it due to the huge number of changes in the game.

 

Thanks for all the balance suggestions, guys, I'll try to implement a lot of them for the next update!

It should still load a pre-update version game in progress (although it won't use special enemies), but it was pretty difficult to test this completely, so my apologies if it doesn't quite work

Not yet, the store issues were flagged after I'd submitted the update, so I'll be tweaking it for the next one.

Yep, still hoping to add in artifacts and expand the upgrade system a bit, and I do like the treasure chest idea. Probably won't get the time to do these for the next update, but I'll try to put them in for the one after. Would giving a higher armor piercing value per upgrade make it more useful?

LG suggested adding character classes to the game which would make some skills more likely to be available when you level up, which might be a good idea if the number of skills grows to the point where it's hard to get useful skills. Do you try to make do with the skills you're given or keep waiting for the right ones to come up?

Yeah, I'll have a think about this. maybe extra damage depending on a monster's armor or something like that would be more useful.

Easiest way's to delete the game and re-install it, unfortunately there's no other way to clear scores at the moment.

Good idea, I'll add this in.

Hmm, how about if they appeared with 1 attack value as well?

Thanks, yeah I wasn't too excited about the Slide to Play review, but different people like different games so it's fair enough if he didn't enjoy it.

This might be the right thing to do. I'll have a look into levelling the skills after the next update, it'll be a pretty difficult change but may be worth it

 

I am a glutton for punishment so I try to make it as far as I can with whatever my options are. And I will compromise some if I have to. If by level 2 I have not been offered Dazzle, if I see that collect all coins skill (forget its name), I will take that even though I would prefer Dazzle.

Unfortunately on Harder, Coins Kill.

Once you pass turn 100 or so, maybe 125, coins are just in your way, and if you don't have a way to clear them without taking a turn, death is just waiting to happen on every turn. It is night and day difference with Dazzle because it does two very important things, gives you swords AND clears coins out of your way.

I might also think about tuning some of the cool downs. Skills that only clear something like collect all coins, armor or potions, should be shorter cool downs as they only do one thing and they also create a big hole in the board that you cannot control what falls into it. So you could get screwed.

So like I think the collect all armor is like 17 default CD, but probably those should start at 15 or so. Whereas the converter skills like Dazzle and the Swords to Coins (and is there armor to something?), should start at 20.

 

True, I guess on the one hand you're collecting a lot of armor from places you wouldn't be able to reach but on the other hand a lot of monsters will probably pop up and smack you as a result.

And hopefully the shop rebalance will make coins much more useful, at least on par with upgrades.

 

I think as long as you keep tweaking the skills so that they are all good, things will be fine. I like your idea of making the 1 hp skulls have 1 damage, that is probably all it will take to make this a viable skill.

Summon boss is a fun sounding skill, might be entertaining on easy, but no serious player would take it on hard or harder. How about the boss drops an item, of the same quality as the (soon to be fixed) shop? Then its a good skill, like enchant, but you have to fight for the item. Probably, the player wouldnt be able to use it every time it came up for quite a bit, there would always be some risk, and I doubt it would be as useful as enchant even with a cooldown of say 25.

As I mentioned above (lot of posts, maybe you missed it) I also think fireball is too weak if the location of the fireball is random. Why not let the person pick? Cooldown can be a little slower than slash if you think its more powerful (which it probably would be.)

On another note, I am very interested in why people are loving magic sword, seems too random to me. I prefer the double damage skill -- not as much of a damage bump, but you can use it with bosses or key battles guaranteed, without randomness.

 

The problem with coins though is not the shop. I know a lot of people don't like it, but I stack upgrades and enchantments and usually have 2 items that is probably just a +1 def from the store, which is just fine.

The problem with coins are they are the only item that cannot save your life. If you are going to die on the next turn unless you make a good move, swords kill skulls. Armor can get you an upgrade and possibly mitigate enough damage to buy you a turn. Potions can give you life and buy you a turn. Gaining a level can give you a skill that can buy you a turn. Potions can never extend you a turn. When you are forced to clear coins, the result can never save your life. This is why I say Coins Kill and what makes Dazzle so damn powerful.

Edit: I just thought of the answer after typing this. The shop currently gives you 3 item upgrades. What if it only gave you 2 upgrades or one choice of a 1 shot use of one of the skills in the game? Then coins would have a random chance of being able to save your life depending on what 1 shot skill the RNG gives you if you clear enough coins on that turn.

 

I think it would depend on your game play. On harder, once I am past about turn 75 or so, I am no longer clearing all swords, I am leaving them as much as possible and clearing around them and only using the swords I need to kill. The idea is to keep the board as full of sword options as possible. Since the average skull can be killed with just 2 swords if I have set up properly, then I can start saving up magic swords. When a boss/special shows up, because my board is sword heavy, I can often swipe into 1 or 2 magic swords I have been saving easily.