If you want to really have more control in choosing upgrade skills. Just check your stats to see when you are just about to level up. Use the town portal door to go back to town and then enter back to where you left off. When you level up.....if you don't like the choices, just die and you will restart at the portal door again. Repeat until you like the upgrade skills offered to you on leveling up.
That's a waste of time. If you're supposed to have "control" over your skills then they should have just simply made it a skill tree like Zenonia. Having random skills to upgrade takes much less "planning" like they suggested than having a skill tree where you can see where you're going.
Love it I had to create an account here just to comment on this game. (normally I just lurk) Aside from the crashes (door to close to boss - update comming) I love this game. This radomization of skill choices is what gives this game replay value. I have played though several times and yes it can be frustrating not getting the skill choices your hoping for at first, but soon you see the beauty of it. The game forces you to make the most of what you find. With most games this means the items you find. In this game its the skills and the items you find and must make the most of them. Sometimes your lucky and can become unstoppable. Other times you struggle. Its great! If you like games with replay value, this one has it. Think of each level up as though you found a new item and shape your character accordingly and hopefully you will enjoy it as much as I am.
You're not supposed to have control over your skills, really. What the above poster described is just a way to "cheat" the random upgrade system if you want to. This game isn't supposed to be like Zenonia, where you can spend days or weeks building a character in the direction you choose. This is more of an arcade type experience. It's roguelike in that you're supposed to make the best of what's given to you, including what random upgrades are given to you. If you want Zenonia go play Zenonia. Solomon's Keep is actually fun and unique the way it's designed, and I don't want people to expect it be changed into something it's not meant to be.
I agree - I like the randomness of the skills at leveling - adds a sense of suspense and makes the character development a bit more of a challenge. Generally though, at least one of the three skills is something that will benefit my character. Only once or twice have I had no choices that fit my character.
There's an even easier way... when you levelup, if you don't like what you see, just push the iPod button to shut the game down. When you come back, the levelup will immediately reappear, with new random choices. But then girls will laugh at you.
You can either have randomness or you can have elements of planning. You can't have both as they're opposites. The developer said a few pages back that you're supposed to "plan which skills to invest in". If you're only given 3 random skills, with 2 of them being completely useless skills like skills in different trees, what kind of "planning" was s/he talking about? You might as well just invest in any skill in your own skill tree that either does splash damage or increases HP/MP or something.
It's a game design. Lots of RPGs exist that test your ability to pre-plan your character. I wanted to make one that tests your ability to react and work with what you got. And the items/skills are there so that when you do get a levelup, you can measure your choices against your known strengths (i.e. what's available in the store and the upgrade mage) and react accordingly. Besides, it's designed to be a short, quickie game that you can play and beat in a half-hour!
For me the planning comes at the beginning of the game. I look at what items are for sale and what skills can be upgraded for $$. Then I head out and hope for the best. Its not that complicated really. I still don't see why radom skill choices are worse than random item drops. Build around them.
This isn't COMPLETE randomness. You generally know what the range of choices are (once you've been playing for a bit), so you can choose a certain skill path (magic missile vs. lightning vs. fireball). Then choose main skills or sub skills that fit that path. Yes, skills related to those paths may not always appear, but usually you'll find at least one that does (or if not, you'll still get at least one that's beneficial to you even if it doesn't match your main skill - like expanded HP/MP or something). Often though you'll get a choice of two that could benefit you. Most of the planning though comes early on - you need to choose one of the three skill paths early to try to maximize the choices you're given later. If you wait too long to decide and split your choices between two or three paths, they may not be strong enough later. Really, I have yet to find this to be a problem - I'm on my 2nd time through the game now, and I've yet to have a big issue making choices or getting a poor character build (first time was lightning, this time fireball).
I like the concept but i think it could be implemented better, so as to not force players to potentially have to choose between 3 skills they wont use. I havent had too much problem with the skill system but i do recall one level up where i was given the choice of potent missiles, magic shield, and i think more missiles was the third, but i was using a lightning build with ring of fire as my secondary skill. The two missile skills were obviously useless to me, so I chose magic shield and never used it, except once on accident when i tried to use ring of fire. I have an idea that i think could work better to give players useful choices but still be randomized to a degree. I think its similar to how it works now, but more uh.. structured? First off, players could choose their main skill at the start of the game - Talk to the green wizard, he tells you to visit the other two as usual, but then says to come back to him after. So you could talk to the other two and have an opportunity to see what items and skill improvements are available, and then go back to the green wizard who will have you choose between magic missile, lightning, or fire ball as your base skill. Players would have to be kept from entering the tower until after their main skill was chosen, of course.. After that, have each level up contain 3 separately randomized choices: 1) upgrade for the main skill (randomized between a basic upgrade of the skill or an enhancement for the chosen skill, i.e. chaining for lightning, embers for fire, etc.) 2) a secondary skill choice (ring of fire, magic shield.. i think there are more?) 3) a stat/passive skill choice (hp+,mana+, walking speed, casting speed, all those things..) I think this would satisfy all the folks complaining about level up choices, while still retaining the aspect of randomization and decision making. And about this, again, I like this aspect but this game could be so much greater if there were more of it. Have a quickie mode set up like the current game, and then perhaps once the player finishes the game on that mode, unlock an endless dungeon where we can continue with the character we beat the game with and continue building and leveling.. Perhaps more bosses could be found here, or even 'miniboss' versions of regular enemies, and chances to find new items, etc.. Finishing up, I will say again how much i love this game, its completely worth the price and more, and its full of potential. I just hope that the potential isnt wasted, because as great as the game is, it will get boring after a few playthroughs unless more replay value is added. Later!
Thank you... 2.0 should have a lot you can use in it... you can continue to play on two different difficulty levels (like Diablo) after winning. Also, as for skill structuring-- it works similarly to that now. What it does is check which skill you seem to be specializing in (based on your first choice, when it gives you the choice of MM/Lightning/Fireball) and it tries to give you one of your prime skills (or a child of that skill) each time, except sometimes randomly it won't (for randomness). The other skill choices are just filled in randomly. There is a reason why it still offers you the other skills... it didn't make it into version 1.0, but I'm trying to get it into 2.0
Oh, well, that's a pretty bad random roll to get two missile skills. But Magic Shield you should have taken-- it's a pure defense skill that effectively increases your hit points.
Technically yes, if it turns out to be viable to put it in (it might upset balance pretty horribly). If I can make it work, it's something you've never seen in a Diablo-esque game before!
