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Lichdom: BattlemageComplicated mechanics badly explained(18 posts)(18 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted March 11, 2015
This game acts like it's going to have intro/tutorial content, but then changes its mind and is all like, "ha ha, just kidding! You're on your own!"

It clearly has some sort of complicated play pattern it wants to force on you, but it's communicated very badly and you're just supposed to have fun and experiment, making choices about paragraph-long lists of stats and features in various crafting menus and not much of an indication of what does what. Entire sigils can appear to be almost useless if you use the wrong modifier types, and Corruption appears to be especially tricky.

About all I can say for sure is that they clearly want you to stack "mastery", which is sort of like an assassination mark, and trigger it with Destruction. And you'll definitely die if you aren't spamming Control in between. However, the best way to stack Mastery isn't clear, and the game doesn't seem to have much when it comes to multi-purpose spells that split the difference between two or three of the types. Special effects like spawning little corruption helpers that take care of obnoxious harpies for you are especially mysterious, but attractive.

TL;DR: Be ready to experiment, be frustrated, and fumble through lots of hastily-written guides that probably won't answer your questions. It might be worth it, idk.

(I'd like to write a review, but I feel like I have a fairly premature perspective so far.)
Post edited March 11, 2015 by mothwentbad
Posted March 12, 2015
I read on some reviews that was a major complaint and was worried about it. I thought by now that there were better guides to find info. The only hint I read was to stack damage spells as the cc is about useless on the boss/mini bosses who are immune.
Posted March 13, 2015
If I don't give up, I might drop the difficulty down one level. The default, Battlemage, is the 2nd-highest of four difficulties. It feels more like "hard" than "normal" to me at times. Bosses just have way too much health, and I'm stuck on a boss who can teleport into your face and knock you down while summoning skeletons. I really don't know how you're supposed to dodge something that crazy.

The good news is that this game runs a lot faster than I would expect it to given how polished it looks. My 2010-or-so laptop handles it fine with minor slowdowns, and has even more trouble on a lot of games that don't look half as demanding.

Level designs give me a bit of vertigo, though. Instead of open-world, they give you levels that are shaped like an intestinal tract. Supposedly there are hidden side areas, but I just spam the button that lights the trail toward progress because I get lost very easily in first-person perspective games.
Posted March 13, 2015
Couple things guys.

First, this game is indeed a challenging one. The default difficulty - Battlemage - is not going to be an easy learning experience. It was sort of designed that way, and while the argument can be made that makes the game less accessible, it's certainly a good idea to lower the difficulty if you find yourself at the base of too steep a curve. But the challenge is intended.

That said, there's certainly more we could have done in teaching the combo'ing mechanics for optimal gameplay. Frankly, you're not going to beat the game if you're not using Mastery spells to amplify your critical destruction spells. And we try to explain this with the mini-boss - the Pitlurker - in the first level. His health regens too quickly to effectively kill without the use of Mastery.

So in short, the most effective strategy is:

Control - CC the enemy while applying stored damage which can be cashed in on later.
Mastery - Apply stacks of de-buffs that will multiply on critical.
Destruction - Cast your charged critical DE spell to cash in on the stored and mastery damage

This formula varies depending on how crazy you get with the crafting. We've seen some creative metas. But at its core, Lichdom is about that exploration and experimentation. This is a good baseline strat to return to if you're looking to experience the rest of the game and story. It's tried and true. But play around with it,, and have fun.

We've heard a great deal of useful feedback, and this is just some more of it. It's not falling on deaf ears, and the team takes it all very sincerely. They know where they went wrong in certain areas to cause some of these player pain points, and it's not going to be a mistake we make twice :).

Cheers,

-JD
Post edited March 13, 2015 by JD_2020
Posted March 13, 2015
avatar
JD_2020: Couple things guys.

First, this game is indeed a challenging one. The default difficulty - Battlemage - is not going to be an easy learning experience. It was sort of designed that way, and while the argument can be made that makes the game less accessible, it's certainly a good idea to lower the difficulty if you find yourself at the base of too steep a curve. But the challenge is intended.

That said, there's certainly more we could have done in teaching the combo'ing mechanics for optimal gameplay. Frankly, you're not going to beat the game if you're not using Mastery spells to amplify your critical destruction spells. And we try to explain this with the mini-boss - the Pitlurker - in the first level. His health regens too quickly to effectively kill without the use of Mastery.

So in short, the most effective strategy is:

Control - CC the enemy while applying stored damage which can be cashed in on later.
Mastery - Apply stacks of de-buffs that will multiply on critical.
Destruction - Cast your charged critical DE spell to cash in on the stored and mastery damage

This formula varies depending on how crazy you get with the crafting. We've seen some creative metas. But at its core, Lichdom is about that exploration and experimentation. This is a good baseline strat to return to if you're looking to experience the rest of the game and story. It's tried and true. But play around with it,, and have fun.

We've heard a great deal of useful feedback, and this is just some more of it. It's not falling on deaf ears, and the team takes it all very sincerely. They know where they went wrong in certain areas to cause some of these player pain points, and it's not going to be a mistake we make twice :).

Cheers,

-JD
Cool, keep at it. And write a guide for how Corruption works sometime...

Did you see the Zero Punctuation video? I thought he had a point about the title colon and the "Mr Black Hat" plot structure. But overall, you have to interpret the review he gave as a B or B+: Lots of quibbles, and then he declares the game repetitive after a certain point. It's an A if he actually says "I actually like it, but", and A+ if he spends all his other reviews talking about how your game did it better for a year. C or D if he says "this is what's wrong with everything these days" and then creates an unflattering character to represent the company. If it's an F, he'll give it at least a mention in the "worst of the year" rundown.

A "dummy room" for sigil practice could be useful. I don't know how I got that floating death paramecium to spawn, but I wish I could do it all the time.

Considerations like "what adds and what multiplies and when where how" are really important but hard to figure out, especially when 12+ things are varying every time you craft something. I'm not even sure when or if the stored damage and debuffs expire. The vocabulary learning curve is too steep, too. Maybe it would be easier to figure out if I backtrack and fight casual-grade enemies with a new character instead of trying to do math while running for my life...

Anyway, Zero Punctuation reviews I generally agree with on most points, but he doesn't usually "waste time" giving much credit. A sequel or DLC would be great.
Posted March 13, 2015
Yeah! We actually quite like the ZP review ^_^ - It's a solid B+ from him, which is not bad at all considering how critical he generally is for all the games on his show. The biggest pain points to him were intentional (so, those elements just weren't meant for him - he's not a number-junkie so didn't like crafting and number-tweaking), and the other critiques about pacing and story were well noted and easy areas for improvement our next time around.

Through all the sarcasm and wit, I think it was a fair representation of an imperfect game that is well worth the price point it's selling at. We never claimed it is our best game. It's our *first* game ;).
Post edited March 13, 2015 by JD_2020
Posted March 14, 2015
avatar
JD_2020: Couple things guys.

First, this game is indeed a challenging one. The default difficulty - Battlemage - is not going to be an easy learning experience. It was sort of designed that way, and while the argument can be made that makes the game less accessible, it's certainly a good idea to lower the difficulty if you find yourself at the base of too steep a curve. But the challenge is intended.

That said, there's certainly more we could have done in teaching the combo'ing mechanics for optimal gameplay. Frankly, you're not going to beat the game if you're not using Mastery spells to amplify your critical destruction spells. And we try to explain this with the mini-boss - the Pitlurker - in the first level. His health regens too quickly to effectively kill without the use of Mastery.

So in short, the most effective strategy is:

Control - CC the enemy while applying stored damage which can be cashed in on later.
Mastery - Apply stacks of de-buffs that will multiply on critical.
Destruction - Cast your charged critical DE spell to cash in on the stored and mastery damage

This formula varies depending on how crazy you get with the crafting. We've seen some creative metas. But at its core, Lichdom is about that exploration and experimentation. This is a good baseline strat to return to if you're looking to experience the rest of the game and story. It's tried and true. But play around with it,, and have fun.

We've heard a great deal of useful feedback, and this is just some more of it. It's not falling on deaf ears, and the team takes it all very sincerely. They know where they went wrong in certain areas to cause some of these player pain points, and it's not going to be a mistake we make twice :).

Cheers,

-JD
avatar
mothwentbad: Cool, keep at it. And write a guide for how Corruption works sometime...

Did you see the Zero Punctuation video? I thought he had a point about the title colon and the "Mr Black Hat" plot structure. But overall, you have to interpret the review he gave as a B or B+: Lots of quibbles, and then he declares the game repetitive after a certain point. It's an A if he actually says "I actually like it, but", and A+ if he spends all his other reviews talking about how your game did it better for a year. C or D if he says "this is what's wrong with everything these days" and then creates an unflattering character to represent the company. If it's an F, he'll give it at least a mention in the "worst of the year" rundown.

A "dummy room" for sigil practice could be useful. I don't know how I got that floating death paramecium to spawn, but I wish I could do it all the time.

Considerations like "what adds and what multiplies and when where how" are really important but hard to figure out, especially when 12+ things are varying every time you craft something. I'm not even sure when or if the stored damage and debuffs expire. The vocabulary learning curve is too steep, too. Maybe it would be easier to figure out if I backtrack and fight casual-grade enemies with a new character instead of trying to do math while running for my life...

Anyway, Zero Punctuation reviews I generally agree with on most points, but he doesn't usually "waste time" giving much credit. A sequel or DLC would be great.
Well i'd like to contradict few things from zero punctuation. (most of stuff that person wanted to point out was 2 titles, as looking so called "special" etc..., so far his point was not proven as I didn't see any dlc or dishwasher, or lichdoom washmachine 2000)
You pretty much kill Liches whole game. So i think its ok to call it - to help customer know what this game is about it.
You don't have to play around the crafting, player has automatic crafting... without maths... (i think he might have been reviewing console title? if it was on console)
The game could be sorted with indie ~ this is the 1st game the studio made, and quality is there.
Posted March 14, 2015
avatar
JD_2020: Couple things guys.

First, this game is indeed a challenging one. The default difficulty - Battlemage - is not going to be an easy learning experience. It was sort of designed that way, and while the argument can be made that makes the game less accessible, it's certainly a good idea to lower the difficulty if you find yourself at the base of too steep a curve. But the challenge is intended.

That said, there's certainly more we could have done in teaching the combo'ing mechanics for optimal gameplay. Frankly, you're not going to beat the game if you're not using Mastery spells to amplify your critical destruction spells. And we try to explain this with the mini-boss - the Pitlurker - in the first level. His health regens too quickly to effectively kill without the use of Mastery.

So in short, the most effective strategy is:

Control - CC the enemy while applying stored damage which can be cashed in on later.
Mastery - Apply stacks of de-buffs that will multiply on critical.
Destruction - Cast your charged critical DE spell to cash in on the stored and mastery damage

This formula varies depending on how crazy you get with the crafting. We've seen some creative metas. But at its core, Lichdom is about that exploration and experimentation. This is a good baseline strat to return to if you're looking to experience the rest of the game and story. It's tried and true. But play around with it,, and have fun.

We've heard a great deal of useful feedback, and this is just some more of it. It's not falling on deaf ears, and the team takes it all very sincerely. They know where they went wrong in certain areas to cause some of these player pain points, and it's not going to be a mistake we make twice :).

Cheers,

-JD
So you're one of the developers? Thanks for showing up here and interacting with the fans/customers; always nice when devs do that.

And thanks for bringing the game to GOG, in first place. I know many still see GOG primarily as a place for "old" games, but I like seeing modern releases here, and just more games in general.

The game concept seems fun to me, so I'll probably grab a copy during the release discount period. And if I can't come up with the spare cash right now, I'll certainly buy it some time in the future.
Posted March 14, 2015
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mothwentbad: Cool, keep at it. And write a guide for how Corruption works sometime...
IIRC the only thing concerning Corruption which you need to learn is that it's always got an 'incubation' period - there's always a stat which tells you how long it'll take to mature, and until then, it won't do shit. However, if it matures, and you fulfill the conditions it needs to trigger (kill an enemy, crit an enemy?), you are going to be the God of Locust. I think it even changes its graphical representation after it matures. So basically, use a corruption spell on everybody, wait the incubation period, kill a baddie, watch as your locust devours every single baddie on the map.

It's really a kind of thing which forces you to play differently, which is what I love about the game - there's so many fun combinations to experiment with that if you're just a little bit disciplined and keep yourself from just always using whatever works and try out new things, it can even offset the poor enemy variability which this game suffers from.

At any rate, Corruption is awesome.
Post edited March 14, 2015 by Fenixp
Posted March 15, 2015
I usually play with kinetic, necromancy and fireball. In that order.

stun, mark, and kill (army in few sec, pretty much always 1 shot kill <crits for around 12k+>)
Posted March 17, 2015
This game has the weirdest powers control/crafting thingie. It's so illogical and badly explained I have zero clue wtf I'm even doing. Every time I tried doing something I made my spells worse and worse up to a point where I just restarted the game altogether. Now I'm just playing in smart inventory mode and leaving the game to craft shit up for me. Actually increasing damage now LMAO. WTF...
Posted March 21, 2015
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rejzor: ...
I figured the ideal way to play the game was to craft the spells I wanted (getting the correct patterns and effects) and when I got whatever I liked the best, I just allowed smart inventory to upgrade my stuff.
Posted April 07, 2015
Ice seems a good spell school for beginners.

Upgrade the Freeze-beam to maximum Freezing time possible.
Give yourself a Pool Area of Effect Spell with highest possible damage per second.
1) Freeze the enemy in place
2) Create frozen killer pool underneath it.
3) ...
4) Profit

For flying enemies you may want to switch to fireballs or your third magic school.
Posted June 05, 2015
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JD_2020: Frankly, you're not going to beat the game if you're not using Mastery spells to amplify your critical destruction spells.

So in short, the most effective strategy is...

But at its core, Lichdom is about that exploration and experimentation.
So yeah, the first two quotes certainly don't seem to be consistent with the third one. And based on the game description itself, "Every Mage is the product of crafted magic that reflects the individual's play style...become the Mage you want to be."

So you advertise the game as "play however you want," but then say that we won't get far if we don't do X, Y, and Z? I was about to start this game tonight, but I think I'll wait.
Posted June 12, 2015
avatar
JD_2020: That said, there's certainly more we could have done in teaching the combo'ing mechanics for optimal gameplay. Frankly, you're not going to beat the game if you're not using Mastery spells to amplify your critical destruction spells. And we try to explain this with the mini-boss - the Pitlurker - in the first level. His health regens too quickly to effectively kill without the use of Mastery.

So in short, the most effective strategy is:

Control - CC the enemy while applying stored damage which can be cashed in on later.
Mastery - Apply stacks of de-buffs that will multiply on critical.
Destruction - Cast your charged critical DE spell to cash in on the stored and mastery damage
Could some one translate this into English for me, I have tried playing the game for about 2 or 3 hours but the above still means nothing to me. :-)

What this game desperate needs is someone to create a manual so we can read up on the basic concepts, because as it stands the game assumes the player will have basic knowledge that does not seem to be supplied in the game game world.

As such its just no fun at the moment, so I have given up for now on this game. I am sure there is a good game in there some were if the developers just finish.

At the moment if feels like the game still needs to be finished ready for release as either adding a few scrolls to the the tutorial section so it explains the basic concepts or wring a short manual really should have been done before starting to sell the game as a finished product.

Anyway I really like the atmosphere in the game and I hope I can come back and enjoy it when its finished as it looks like it should be fun if using spells and combat was explained properly.
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Lichdom: BattlemageComplicated mechanics badly explained(18 posts)(18 posts)
(18 posts)