Stoneshard (Roguelike RPG)

dvoraen

Lord Nagafen Raider
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Yea dungeon layouts are randomized per run, so if you're trying to rely on ranged combat to stay alive you can randomly get dicked on by enemy placement here and there.

Pick up some Geomancy to get the stone pillar thing, that fixes most of that. If you open a room that looks like a problem just wall off in front of you and back off for a bit.

I tried melee builds like 5-6 times and just couldn't get anything off the ground. The early game is such a massive money sink with how much damage you take I couldn't even begin to try and save up enough cash to buy some rear gear, much less make it to the next town with better merchants.
Yeah, the early game is a point of rebalancing for sure. After chewing through the prologue, it was very jarring just how high the difficulty spiked as a new character. Early game mobs hit too hard in melee. A part of me thinks Bears shouldn't even spawn in the early forest, but at the same time they're super lucrative for pelt drops, almost as good as a contract.
 

Slaanesh69

Millie's Staff Member
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As a part of my 10 hour challenge, I had picked this up on a sale and started playing this.

I am disappoint.

I know some people like these "punch yourself in the nuts" games, but this thing is just unfriendly at every turn. I will echo everything in this thread: it is all still present in mid-May.

The inventory system is shit. Melee is useless. Itemization is shit. Save system is shit.

First of 8 games I have not gone to 10 hours. Made it 3 and I am done.
 

dvoraen

Lord Nagafen Raider
515
181
This just had a major update today. I haven't had much time to dig into it, but they changed a lot of stuff and made the game world substantially bigger.

 
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Hateyou

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Thinking about giving this a try after that update.
It looks fun but all the “it’s so hard it’s like kicking yourself in the Dick” talk scared me away from trying it.

I’m fine with a challenge but unwinnable bullshit just to be bullshit I’m not.
 

BrotherWu

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It looks fun but all the “it’s so hard it’s like kicking yourself in the Dick” talk scared me away from trying it.

I’m fine with a challenge but unwinnable bullshit just to be bullshit I’m not.

Yeah I was just trying to find some reviews after the update and people still saying it is painful.
 

Pyros

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Well it's a rogue-like, but usually with proper preparation and safe play you can get around most of the difficulty, just tends to be a genre that punishes mistakes super heavily. And I mean actual rogue-likes, like the turn based tiled based like Rogue, not every single game that has random things and/or perma death. I know the ones I played, you often had people saying stuff like "after 3years of playing I finally cleared the game on normal difficulty" and stuff, but I cleared the ones I played usually within a week, with only a few failed runs to get used to some of the basics and mechanics. That does involve playing super slowly and carefully though. It's often like playing strategy games like Xcom or FF tactics, where you want to take your time and think your turns through before moving your shit randomly.

Haven't played this one yet but mostly because from all I've heard it severely lacked content, being early access and all, and also lacked depth. It is one of the best looking one since the genre is usually so niche and often is games that are 10+ years old, but it is super lacking in comparison to those same old games. I'll be waiting for a "full" release, although this patch does look like it makes a bunch of stuff better.
 

Hateyou

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Well it's a rogue-like, but usually with proper preparation and safe play you can get around most of the difficulty, just tends to be a genre that punishes mistakes super heavily. And I mean actual rogue-likes, like the turn based tiled based like Rogue, not every single game that has random things and/or perma death. I know the ones I played, you often had people saying stuff like "after 3years of playing I finally cleared the game on normal difficulty" and stuff, but I cleared the ones I played usually within a week, with only a few failed runs to get used to some of the basics and mechanics. That does involve playing super slowly and carefully though. It's often like playing strategy games like Xcom or FF tactics, where you want to take your time and think your turns through before moving your shit randomly.

Haven't played this one yet but mostly because from all I've heard it severely lacked content, being early access and all, and also lacked depth. It is one of the best looking one since the genre is usually so niche and often is games that are 10+ years old, but it is super lacking in comparison to those same old games. I'll be waiting for a "full" release, although this patch does look like it makes a bunch of stuff better.
Yeah I don’t want to spend years. I’m more of a fan of rogue”lites” I think. Dead cells, Hades, slay the spire. Constant progress and difficult, but can still be completed in 20-60 hours.
 

Pyros

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Yeah I don’t want to spend years. I’m more of a fan of rogue”lites” I think. Dead cells, Hades, slay the spire. Constant progress and difficult, but can still be completed in 20-60 hours.
Yeah I like them too, the "true" rogue-likes are a fairly specific genre, I find them pretty fun since they usually have a ton of mechanics and a lot of replayability but they're definitely not casual friendly usually speaking, and most don't have meta progress since it's not really a feature of the genre, so your only progression is your knowledge of the game. They're similar to Souls games in many regards. A few have options for easier progress though(respawn after death or limited death count instead of perma death for example).
 

Caliane

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slow progress. And development seems to be in the wrong direction.

its getting more and more like a Don't starve survival game, then a dungeon roguelite. which the demo is now wildly off from the actual gameplay.
They need to add more character skills for it to be more fun. but haven't. It might be fun, if you could actually create multiple builds as it is. but you can't really.