Well, if he has shown us anything, FireFlame has shown that he has a commitment to doing things right.
Part of that is limiting the things that you do, because you can't do everything and do it all well. Documentation is low on my list of personal priorities, there are many things I would call more important.
That's certainly true. If FireFlame has indicated to you his bandwidth for updates, you probably should have mentioned that before and saved some time. Its probably fairly low on the list of priorities of everyone who has already purchased and played the game. That doesn't mean it wouldn't be a good addition for people who might purchase the game in the future. Be fair. This is already a high quality super polished game. All of the suggestions so far fall in the category of "nice to have, but not necessary". I have read every post in this thread, and there isn't one thing that anyone (including myself) has suggested that this game really needs to make it good. Its already much better then good. So, having said that, documentation seems to me to be a good idea for the game to add because it might improve the experience for future purchasers more then something like tinting the background when your health is low. Although, as that was my idea, I really wish FireFlame would implement that as well.
Well, for me, it actually does need some better way to unlock the content. I think a lot of people want a lot of different things. Obviously, the people who post most in the thread are those who tend to be pretty satisfied with the game, but there are exceptions. I don't think a glossary or detailed reference guide is a good way to make the game accessible to new players. A tutorial would be better. My observation is that it's not really true that new players want everything explained to them. The class and skill pages are way too cryptic for anyone who hasn't played the game, but that's a design issue, not a problem to be solved by documentation. Of course YMMV.
Perhaps you are using "need" where I would use "want". To me, "need" means "the game doesn't really work yet, but if feature X was added, it could be good". While you would like a different way to unlock the content, it looks to me like you are already enjoying the game as it is. Pretty much every recommendation in the thread has been of the form "love the game, here's a little tweak I thought of". To me, that sounds like want, not need. The one exception to that has been people who were starting off and were confused. It seems to me, that some of them need a reference of some sort. Perhaps even more then you want an easier way to unlock content. Having said that, I would encourage FireFlame to not offer an "unlock everything" IAP. That sort of IAP leaves a bad taste in my mouth, and based on the comments in this and other threads on TA, many other people feel the same way. IAP, in my opinion, should be reserved for adding new content to a game, not to give people access to things they have already paid for. That's a slippery slope I would rather not see developer go down.
No. I basically haven't played the game since the update, mostly because unlocking everything would be no fun.
Really? But you did enjoy the game before? Do you realize that unlocking the content is just a matter of playing the game the same way as before and little by little you unlock new assets and liabilities? Do you understand that the game with everything unlocked is a minor variation on the current game? Perhaps if there was some sort of manual you would have know those things. Seriously, if you don't like the game enough to just play it to unlock the new stuff, you probably aren't going to like it much once it is all unlocked.
Yes, really. This may surprise you, but I understand what I like and don't like better than you do, and your statements and predictions about what I like are all wrong.
You sound a bit testy over what I though was just a friendly discussion. I think I am going to end my participation with you and just agree to disagree. Just to clear things up, my "Really?" was a statement of surprise, not of disbelief. And the only prediction I have made was that and while I might turn out to be wrong, you certainly can't say I am already wrong. Have a nice day.
I can certainly say I'm much better at predicting what I will enjoy than you are. I have almost 50 years of practice.
I entered in this discussion previously when it was brought up (I'm in the camp of 'why not play the same great game that now has the added incentive of occasionally locking some minor pieces of gameplay'). I have spent some time thinking about it trying to understand the position put forward by DaviddesJ and I think I can now sort of understand. Not being DaviddesJ, I can only guess but for the sake of a discussion (not meant to be a debate) is it like: 1- when you play rock band, you want all the venues and songs unlocked from the beginning and not have to go through some sort of story mode or 2 - when you play tower defense games that require you to clear a level before you get access to other levels and also get access to play the same level in endless survival mode or 3 - when you play a platformer (like any super mario game), you want to have access to any stage and start and play whatever you want? To me, Dungeon Raid is seriously missing a story mode (hopefully it will come as a new mode in one of the updates), so the classes are the closest thing and I feel this is why you shouldn't be able to just IAP unlock them. To me (again for discussions sake) it would be more like: 1 - In rock band, if you could buy an IAP that would allow you to ignore the pedal when you are a drummer, yet still play expert mode. or 2 - In tower defense game, if you could use any tower you wanted right from stage 1, even though the designer would want you to use only certain towers for certain stages. or 3 - Allow you in super mario to buy powerups so that you could start a stage with as many mushrooms that you wanted. ie. bypassing the actual intended gameplay MY BIAS: I bought the game for full price before the update and loved it. I couldn't believe the massive update that came out for free that took the game from great to a must own. I tell everyone I know about the game and the next day I always get a text that is similar to "I hate you, I looked at the clock and it was 3AM".
I'd compare it more to playing chess where you have to first play without most of the pieces and over time unlock the bishops and rooks. But, you're right if you think that I don't like any of your other examples of unlocking, either. Those are all things that would make me less likely to play a game. And the changes you describe sound like they would make me more likely to play those games. (I'm just guessing about Rock Band since I've never actually played that and I don't really know what you're talking about or even what the pedal does.) Different people like different things. This is hardly news.
Wait I got another one: Is it like playing Tiger Woods Golf and you want the ability at the beginning to dress him with any set of clothes or clubs (they each give a minor bonus to his swing) instead of having to unlock them by playing the game, gaining money and buying them.
Okay, so the only thing is, in your chess example, I would argue that you would not have the game of chess without the bishops and rooks. However in DR, I would say that you would have a full game of DR without any of the classes.
Well, I don't feel that I do. What I'm interested in is comparing my results to other players, I can't do that if I don't have the same options unlocked. I did play the basic game a bunch, so partly it's that I feel played out and not interested in doing the same thing a bunch more just to get at the new features. I would probably feel somewhat differently if I were coming to it from scratch.
Some others have brought up the point about comparing scores. So maybe in the future there will be a better way to compare a L3 Mage vs another L3 Mage instead of as now, which is random class, random level, random set of upgrades and purchases.
I'll just weigh on this conversation gently, I'm not heavily for or against IAP but just some observations. I just recently finished unlocking everything, primarily by playing on normal with Big Game Hunter to speed things up. I was tempted to play as a Changeling to make things even faster but I was enjoying taking a tour of the classes in a relatively easy environment to get a feel for them. Halfling for example didn't sound fantastic to me on paper but, while it's probably not the most effective choice, was actually good fun when combined with Masochism. I've never focused much on defence so it certainly led to the highest defence value I've ever had, hehe. In regards to it being like playing chess without the pieces, I don't think the levelling up system makes *that* much of a difference on gameplay. I still love it and thought it was a fantastic update but it's not so much new pieces as it is tweaks on existing pieces. The perks and flaws for example, by design I think, are not game changing (except arguably the 5% arrows perk, those arrows have saved my bacon a few times or allowed some nifty matching to happen. 5% mana is almost as good except I would say that's 'game changing' in that it removes health potions in favour of something else. Arrows are just awesome swords that do something above and beyond, love em). I don't think they have a huge effect on scores. One part that I love from the update is the ability to customise what skills are offered to you. This isn't score-changing in terms of any particular game but it does reduce the number of dud games you get where you are offered Trap/Earthquake, then...any number of bad combinations until you die on Harder. I think that's a very rewarding thing to unlock. Anyway to comment on the whole discussion, I think it's really interesting, two seperate views of gaming in a way. The comparison of Chess vs Mario is telling, I think. Chess, like Solitaire, Monopoly etc., I like to think of as an "as is" game. It's presented, that's the game the way it is and you just go. Mario and games of its kind are more like a journey. If you could play the levels in any order you wanted there'd be no structure or journey to it, why bother going through the easier levels when you can skip straight to the tough ones? World of Warcraft might be a better example, earlier bosses drop items that make the later bosses possible to defeat. If you were given a perfect set of gear right at the start you could kill bosses in any order you wanted, but then you'd have no reason to kill them at all. I think in the later case, the journey *is* the game, if that makes sense. Once you've unlocked everything you have no reason to continue. I'm not saying either view or type of gaming is better, just that people might be coming at it from different perspectives. An iPhone specific example might be Space Ore Blast (which I loved, by the way). If you're not familiar, you start off with a crappy, easily destroyed ship with one laser on it and, as you go through the levels earning cash, buy more lasers, faster ships, bigger weapons. Some people might look at your first ship and go "I hate this thing, why do I have to waste my time playing a watered down version of the game when bigger brighter things are in there?". On the other hand if you're given the best of everything right at the start, the journey itself is gone and some might say there's no point in playing now, beyond the story itself. Eh, I could come up with examples all day and this post is already massive as usual, heh, but you see what I'm saying I think, two different trains of thought on how you experience a game. "Is it the journey you enjoy or the destination?", that sort of thing.
