stonesoup

QUESTIONS
1. What's your take on Beogh? (Please speak about the recent changes only if you had played Beogh during the last week or two)
2. What's the most fun thing about Stonesoup?
3. What changes do you want to see in Stonesoup?
4. What's your gameplay goal in Stonesoup? (Winnin, speedruns, messing around etc)
5. Any other comments about Stonesoup?

ANSWERS

1. I just found Beogh the most fun to play as in Stonesoup so I kept playing them, but the most recent patch brought lack of freedom in equipment for Orcs. The real fun of Beogh play starts at the power of getting orc companions at 3 piety but the orcs you get then have crappy gear and it is inconveinient that the player cannot control the equipment they get. Personally I prefer orcs with spears and shields but when I try to play like I did before the patch all I can do is change weapons to polearm-type spears at 5 piety. Getting shields is almost entirely based on luck and I end up usually running depths with crossbow orcs with early game leather~scale mail.
To circumvent this you must give up your preferred weapon and equip armor or use up turns to select orcs with the equipment you want or use many turns to get exp at dungeons to upgrade your equipment and personally I think this is a penalty that makes speedruns nearly impossible for Beogh.
The power at 5 piety can only be used once so it cannot be used to find good gear for orcs and equip it to them but serves the purpose of exchanging weak initial orc equipment once. It doesn’t feel like a great power worthy of 5 piety but a basic/necessary power that should be gained at 3~4 piety.
This is still the trunk version and it is an issue that needs to be thought over more until the official version is out but TBH the pre-patch Beogh seems more fun because the player can do all kinds of things to the Orcs.

4. Speedruns, because my usual goal is Beogh speedruns.

5. Personally, I think that accessories being identified as soon as equipped or weight limits disappearing and items not receiving cold or fire damage – all these patches make the game too easy. Plus enemy monsters don’t pick up items so they don’t shoot from wands as they pass by and these difficulty changes by changing the system don’t seem good. In the current state of the game, you should at least limit the number of large rocks you can carry and the drop rate of identification scrolls.

1. Beogh is a great god and the balance is appropriate. However there is a critical bug right now where if you end the game at Pandemonium and restart your orc(s?) disappear (they reappear when you use the recall power) with HP fully recovered. There are cases where this is abused for insane speedruns.

2. Like Stonesoup’s initial concept, I enjoy only the combat. I constantly change my race, job and god to keep it fresh.

3. Playing as Demigod is boring. It should be fixed, somehow.
Lategame dungeons (Pandemonium/Hell) rely too much on Torment when it comes to monster balance. The number of demons that use Torment should be reduced and other abilities should be added.
4. I usually try to clear the game by gathering all 15 runes.
I fight as many boss-level monsters as possible, and explore all dungeons.
(Most Korean users) enjoy destroying all dungeons with powerful characters.
I am not very interested in speedruns.

5. Recently Stonesoup has been removing many game elements. While a few fun parts were sacrificed it became more combat focused. I am satisfied with that.

1. I don’t care much for Beogh so long as you stop them from abusing bugs.

3. As far as I know ants are supposed to have 4 arms but I don’t get why you can’t equip two sets of gloves or four rings.
You can re-add the weakness to poison you removedbut I really want that to be applied to the game.
I’m also disappointed that they don’t get poison fangs but they would be OP so I accept it.

I want the number of monsters with unique and fresh and tricky traits to be increased.
For example, the Flayed Ghost’s ability.
You could replace some of Hellfire and Torment with them to add some variety lategame.

Is there a plan to add background music to the game?
I’m using a sound patch created by a player and it seems to add immersion to the game.

The suggestion that poison magic is UP and the recent changes to the acid system reminds me, wouldn’t it be OK to mix acid into poison?
Then poison magic would become viable even in the end game where almost every monster resists poison.
The point of poison magic may be to be powerful early on and fall off late in the game but I want poison magic that is useable lategame.

5. Stonesoup communities other than this one are seeing many players leaving the game following the increasing number of removal/change patches.
I don’t know if they failed to adapt or the game itself is becoming worse but I just thought I’d say.

2. The difference between races seems to be its selling point compared to other rougelikes.

3. The direction of recent updates seems to be making the game too fixed once you choose your race, job, and god. (tbh I felt that since the 0.13 version and barely play the game after that. I only play a little after each update and then quit)
There needs to be changes so that players are allowed more freedom and choice.
I think the adventure elements are being reduced and the game is becoming focused too much on combat efficiency.
The time when I liked Stonesoup the most is when roleplaying was actually possible.
ATM the differences between race, job, and god has increased, but on the other hand its disheartening that once those are all selected you can no longer customize your character for the most part.

4. A adventuring roleplaying game without risk of failure.
So I try out things that are unviable/ridiculous wondering how they’ll work out and enjoy them.
Even if I fail, I don’t lose anything when that character dies.
(I’ve never seen the game’s ending and I’m actually not very interested in seeing it)

5. I’m not sure if trying to make the game too convenient is a good thing.
To exaggerate a little, I think it’s veering towards becoming a casual game with some slightly complicated elements.

1. I think it might be correct to unable to choose equipment, but a lot of users seem to desire Beogh being able to select their gear.

3. Compare to the Mummies’ required EXP, weakness to fire, and stats, they don’t have a lot of upsides and they are forced to infinitely channel with Sif Muna.
Ranged attacks seems to feel like a sub-weapon, and it is difficult to differentiate with magic but I want them to become purely ranged.
Increase the HP for level 1 Felids.
There needs to be food shops for Ghouls and vampires.
The Demigods feel too dull. There needs to be a fundamental change, not abilities that replace piety or stats that reward the lack of piety.
If you start as a poison mage, you often find yourself unable to progress further into the game.
Please add level 7+ poison magic.

4. I enjoy hunting monsters.

5. I want multiplayer content. All there is to talk about in Stonesoup communities is game balance, flaunting items, or asking questions.

1. I partially agree that Beogh shouldn’t be able to pick up gear. Early/mid game Orc babies would pick up what each other dropped and throw them away again and pick them up and this was annoying but raising only the good ones doesn’t seem too bad.

2. Monster hunting and finding random artifacts I guess? I like the variety of races and jobs but in the end with the exception of the recently added Vine Stalker or Lava Orc, Dracula(Vampire I guess?) Ghoul and Demonspawn, lategame, it doesn’t even matter. Same with jobs. A tad disappointing.

3. First of all, all Fighters find The Tomb a nightmare. The Tomb is almost impossible to beat if you aren’t a Shining One Fighter or necform(I have no idea) so please reduce the number of Great Mummies or Mummy Priests a bit.
And as I just mentioned please add traits to some of the older races. Esp Demigod, only in name.
As the guy before me said, lategame too many enemies spam Torment and summons and make things difficult, but on the other hand, reducing that would make everyone and their grandmother capable of all rune clears so its iffy.
Please create a few more Depths.
Jiyva’s efficiency and random lategame stat changes should be changed to a different direction. I want to play as Jiyva but suddenly my max level Fighter’s Strength becomes his Intelligence and I suddenly gain poison resist so I excitedly go to raid the snake caves and it disappears as soon as I enter, etc.
Please make the terrain of Cocytus and Gehenna passable on foot. I want to keep playing as a Berserker but without a random artifact or rare item with a levitate ability I can’t bring myself to do so.
Early game if you level the wrong ability it becomes incredibly difficult and time-consuming to level other abilities late in the game so you need to AFK farm in the Abyss, please consider fine tuning this.

4. Losing is fun!
Sometimes I try for all rune clears and after that I try speedruns! Sometimes when I die too many times and feel demoralized I try a bit of roleplaying. I select Demonspawn and become one with my character, talking to myself each time I kill a monster. It sounds crazy but it’s fun, you should try it.

5. Easy early, difficult midgame, unplayable without swearing at the end!
That’s Stonesoup. Thanks to all the devs who work for the balance of this great game.

2. Desperate struggles against named monsters are fun.

3. Early in the game you can believe in all sorts of gods but nearing the end you lose a lot of that choice, unfortunately. For example if you could turn Pandemonium into a plant hell with Fedhas it would be funny.

4. I like planning out builds rather than actually playing the game.

5. How about some simple sound effects? They wouldn’t slow the game down too much.

2. Against the crises you often face, using all methods available to beat them and becoming stronger. Losing is fun! Is fine too, but Winning is even better.

3. Fix Demigods. They’re not just bad, they’re boring, which is the nail in the coffin. Felids may be weak, but they’re still cute, and still barely capable of all rune clears.
For users aiming for all rune clears, the Demon/Undead filled lategame dungeons force pretty much one playstyle. Thanks to that the Shining One is OP and Poison or Dark Energy(?) attacks/magic becomes unusable and thus are elements that need to be replaced later on. In that context, the Enchanted Forest from prior version was a good experiment. Although considering its difficulty, it maybe should have been a replacement dungeon for the 4 hells.

4. All rune clears with a fresh and creative setup. The large number of races, jobs, and gods isn’t just for show. Playing gargoyle fighter Shining One all day erry day is no good. 

5. Recently the game focuses too much on speedruns and combat and to me it’s disappointing. It seems the Western playstyle loves speedruns. And removing everything annoying and making players focus on combat seems like good intentions, but too much and the game becomes chess without knights/bishops.

1. Beogh’s concept is gaining strength from followers, but the current patch excessively limits raising your followers and feels like you broke their wings and left them to sink or swim. The devs commented that the changes were intended to make Beogh ‘less boring’ but this doesn’t make it any more exciting, so I don’t get it.

2. Starting from the original I learned on my own the basics the game, and enjoyed developing myself and the sense of progression. But the heart of late game, Pandemonium and Hell seems to force a single playstyle. As a Mage it’s ideal to believe in Vehumet and use Lich Form, and as a Warrior it’s best to believe the Shining One, and so approaching the end of the game everything becomes dull.

3. You try a making a lot of new things, but you neglect the older ones too much. For instance, the races Demigod and Ghoul are garbotrash unless you’re roleplaying, and Mummy is forced into Sif Muna(to the extent that believing in Sif Muna as a non-Mummy seems like a loss). Also strange is Nagas and Draconians having less AC+ than Gargoyles even when they can’t properly equip armor. Pre-existing content needs buffs.

4. Dungeon Crawl was my first roguelike, and I fell in love with the YOLO philosophy. It’s similar to real life in that way.
5. Is easier gameplay always the best? I hope abandoning the intentionally user-unfriendly elements of the roguelike and thus its identity is not your idea of ‘development.’ I’m sure Stonesoup’s goal is not to be a coffee-break roguelike.

2. The best part is from when you have the so-called 3 runes(Lair[rare?] depths x2, last floor of the Vault) to 6~7 runes and from then on the Demon spam makes it dull.

3. Demigods somehow feel like worse versions of humans. Every since ants became incapable of throwing large rocks I don’t play as them. (There’s also that I already did a 15 rune clear as Fighter and only had Hunter left)

4. I usually aim for 15 rune clears with all races and settings. I usually don’t play again with combinations I’ve already cleared the game with.

5. Certain elements in the trunk version – identifying accessories, item stacking etc – don’t sit well with me. So I don’t play often anymore.

2. The process of completing my character with various items until 3 runes.

3. Balance the demonspawn mutations. Remove or buff the worthless mutations like Sharp Spine or Talon.
Demigods need some kind of special buff. For example, receiving the God’s ability at level 27.
Revert the changes to Xobeh to the 0.14 version.
Please change the demon spam lategame. For example, have a swarm of 27-headed hydras appear at Hell.

4. I like playing with a certain concept in mind. Picking up artifacts is also fun.

2. Exploring dungeons and killing powerful enemies to reap the rewards. Freedom in play, especially using all sorts of tricks.

3. The majority of Korean Stonesoup players have reached agreement on the issue of Venom Mages and Demigods. The opinion that Venom Mages should have acid and poison combined is the majority, and while there is room for more debate on Demigods, it is commonly said that there is little merit in playing them. I hope to see them becoming worth playing by adding some more interesting elements to them.
Okawaru should stop giving me useless crap. It may be better to reduce the rate of item gifting.
Makhleb’s summon demon power should be changed from active to passive, to Demonic guardian.
The Elderscroll series didn’t have much of a story at the start and only through the sequels the lore became developed. Like that, I think the game ‘now’ needs an explanation on the Gods or the Orb of Zot.

4. All rune clears.
5. Multiplayer support : Korean gamers can exchange their various opinions all day, but there is not enough content to enjoy together.
Language support : I understand the devs are considering this already, but it’s in Valvetime. I’m wondering how far you’ve gotten and when it will be finished.

1. As Crawler mentioned, most of Korean players want to raise a powerful character and kill all the enemies, pillage all the dungeons and acquire all the runes. Some might object to this, but in Korea, the majority of tips are not about speedruns but mostly about beating all the dungeons.
A small number of Beogh players have succeeded at speedruns so they have seen reevaluation, but Beogh is still unconventional in Korea. It’s because they are far from raising a powerful character.

2. The YOLO of roguelikes and the thrill of battle against formidable opponents.

3. Increase the uniqueness of each race (like Demigods)

4. Clearing. I only beat the game once. ;(

2. When playing Stonesoup, it’s the best feeling to complete the build you had in mind and massacring with it.

3. You did say that poison would be getting poison arrow, but that alone doesn’t make Venom Mage playable. At the end of the day it only works against poison resistance and does nothing to poison immunity so it doesn’t help the player and instead it’s one more thing you need to worry about getting hit with.
Additionally, poison magic is only great early game and you have no choice but to level conjuration and go to fire storm. Plus, the current theme of lategame is Demon spam which leads to spamming Holy brand for anti-demon purposes and Dark resistance to defend against their abilities. In the case of angels, you only see them briefly when you go to get the rune or in the Abyss. You could create a theme using the angels, and add light resistance to counter the Pearl Dragon’s breath.
Also due to the lategame demon spam is the fighter being forced to use a holy brand weapon, and that’s terrible.
The Necromancer might be capable of breezing through earlygame with zombies and pain, but not very far in they must rely on Kikubaaqudgha’s Receive Corpses, and when the demon spam begins all the necromancer can do is use necromutation to stop torment and rely on zombies from Receive Corpses. What I want to say is that it is nigh impossible to play purely as a necromancer.
Demigods are almost pointless. Their jobs are mediocre, and while their base stats are better than other races, choosing human and picking Cheibriados may halve your movespeed but you get even higher stats and the capability to use god powers, and a much better selection of jobs for easier gameplay.
Their counterpart, the Demonspawn, may have built-in race mutations for RNG gamin but they are still capable of a variety of playstyles. Demigods, however, with the exception of their slightly improved stats, suffer from their bad jobs and it is difficult to play as them. Just play humans.
Demigods, like Draconians, could get a change in jobs at a certain level saying that they are the son of god, and giving them a unique mutation or just mutation etc would also work. For example, Vehumet could get the wild magic mutation and an increased affinity towards conjuration.

4. Planning various builds and completing them in actual gameplay. Even better if I clear the game with it.

5. Speedruns are cool and all, but I wish I could run all the dungeons at my leisure. Also, the patch that made necromancers incapable of picking up corpses isn’t very good for them. If you used the stairs to beat a powerful foe, that corpse must float on the upper floor with no future.

2. Completing the tree[technology tree? Build I guess?] I wanted with the race I wanted, no matter how hard the tree is!

3. Dynamic increase in difficulty.
A return to the past with more variety in death, like dying because of not enough stats or bad mutations happening more often to troll the player.

4. Messing around and winnan.

5. Vampires have an issue staying healthy. They are forced into 1~2 gods, unfortunately. Their jobs are also a bit lacking.

2. The combinations of all these jobs, races ,and gods, plus fun combat.

3. I wish the game mechanisms were easier to identify. For min-maxing I end up spoiling myself or even going through the source code. Especially bad was Zin’s Reciting, which I had no idea how to use.

4. Winnan, freedom.

5. Personally I like the direction the devs are taking this game. It seems you’re removing the minor annoyances and adding more polish to the game.

2. A variety of gameplay possibilities through race, god, jobs etc, and the sense of accomplishment from beating dungeons with various setups.

3. Fighters have little choice in the brand of their weapon lategame. Esp in Hell, if it ain’t holy or antimagic you’re screwed. Because of that, most warriors switch to the Shining One midgame, and it’s disheartening. One other thing – I wish Okawaru would stop giving me useless crap and instead grant temporary stat buffs (like Might Potions).

4. Going for the 3+ rune clear with various combinations, and ATM I mainly play as Mages over Fighters.

5. Bring back 0.14’s Xobeh plos. I want to see the EXP cards again.

1. Non-orcs cannot choose this god so interest being relatively low is inevitable. The lack of freedom makes this god forgettable. If other races could choose him and orcs got something like an extra exp buff for it, it would be better. The recent changes in follower growth is to my liking.

2. Freedom and hunting named monsters.

3. After 0.15, the difficulty plummeted and the fun only Stonesoup could offer vanished, much sadness. (Removing the preserve option, excess of potions and scrolls)

4. Variety of races combined with gods, messing around.

5. Glaciate is too strong compared to other ultimate magic and needs nerfs. Shatter is too difficult to use compared to other ultimate magics, and while Poison skills take up an entire branch of magic their effects are weaker than the item Staff of Olgreb.