A Couple of Comments from the peanut gallery

[JozenOne]

I couple of suggestions...

1. Variety in baddies, could we perhaps have a couple more different ones, perhaps with a smoother difficulty scale.

2. Weapon skill should improve ToHit!
and moreover ToHit seriously has a flaw in it somewhere, the percentages are all but meaningless from my observations.

3. Magic should not be necessary. I'd really like to be able to play as a straight fighter, but it just aint that easy, mstly due to ToHit calculations and damage.

4. Cartography should be scaled back, make it top out at 5 or 6.

5. Magic power should scale with power level, but not linearly as it does now. i.e. a level 2 spell should be *slightly* better than 2 level 1 spells (would prefer L2 combat spells to do *2+x instead of *2 as it is now, etc).

6. There needs to be a speed command, even if it sacrifices natural healing, or whatever. It takes forever to walk places.

7. Day and night seem too change to quickly. I've actually seen it take hours to fight a group of thugs.

8. Item drops and chests. These range from very good to very poor (or sometimes many with nothing at all) and I've discovered that getting to a certain point and just camping out waiting for thugs and brigands is the most effective way to get items and cash. Can the drops be more coded to area, or to specific creatures and chests? I've seen a lot of this type of post.

9. More on scaling, but the effectiveness of poisons and disease is a little high in the early game. The 3rd or 4th tier creature "Noximander" can fairly easily kill the hero with poison(and the counter seems to stack for multiple hits), and it ain't cheap to fix. I've gotten diseases in eastgate that have cost near all of the starting cash to heal. I like to play without excessive reloads, so this gets agitating.

10. There may be a bug in the healing charges at temples. It costs insane amounts of cash to heal a disease if you are wounded or low on mana. 50 can easily jump to 300 or more.

11. Shields and shield and armour skills should oppose enemy ToHit #s. Shields should perhaps increase arrow defence as well. Armour should reduce damage. Heavy armour should make you easier to hit, but suffer little damage.

12. It would add some replayability if *some* areas were not always the same. Even if there was a random seed of 2 or 3 pre-generated maps. Multi-level dungeons are nice, too.

[krisklef]

I would like to add my three cents in response to the post above.

I agree with many of the suggestions, and hope particularly that monster variety goes up in sequel games; a mere 50% increase in types would do a lot for variety.

Regarding #3 above, I think that the old feel of party-based pen and paper RPGs is accurately reflected in the single-player computer RPG by having a character be healer/hero/sorcerer/lockpick all in one: a party of one, so to speak. It seems Basilisk games got the balance pretty good in Eschalon: I, it is difficult to survive as a pure mage or thief as well as fighter, it seems.

Levelling the spells (#5) on a non-linear basis is great, I think, but in the -opposite- direction. It would be nice to see level 3 have MORE than a tripling of effect and mana cost, sometimes giving the player a decision about which gun to use given the available mana.

Multi-level dungeons would be great. We might need a way to get in and out quickly, though.

I also really enjoy the scarcity of gold and the high prices, and hope that continues to be a feature of sequels. It makes all found loot incredibly valuable, which makes you tend to keep what you get, which directs the skills you will likely invest in, which makes for more replay value, IMHO.

Love this game!

[zanderohm]

I agree with some of the suggestions, someone recommended a "running" key and lock, that would really improve the movement in the game.

A bit of randomness and multi-level dungeons would, of course, be an improvement... as well as more baddies... everyone wants more baddies...

I think cartography does max out at 7, right? But I'm not sure why my maps were re-drawn when I took off my scouting sandals, memory wash?

Personally I like the fact that a single player game needs a bit of an all-around character to survive...

Great balance and feel to the game...

I am eagerly awaiting book II!!!

[Krafen]

Cartography maxes out at 17. One of the threads around here has a breakdown of what happens at each step.

[zanderohm]

17!!! ouch... i thought that i didn't notice a difference when i had on scout sandals + the amulet that gives you 2 to cartography... so i dumped them for better stuff...

okay, now i know... thank you...

[JozenOne]

Exactly. Cartography skill is weak up to level 5 or 6, then the detail actually becomes somewhat useful. 17 to max it out sems WAY too high.

On other notes, I can UNDERSTAND the want of a balanced character in a solo adventure, I however argue that it should be possible to win without resorting to magic...monsters certainly can.

[DetlevH]

Hi there,

1. Mark and Recall spells for any point on the map. Easy teleoport is very important
2. Own Notes on the map. Larger Map, maybe extra popup window.
3. Chests and bags in my inventory in order to store more things. If i have 3 Lockpicks and find 3 it uses 2 spaces in my inventory, why?
4. Larger inventory.
5. Anti poison potions to find in the beginning, also anti deseases potions.
6. Easier start, playing may be frustrating in low levels.
7. Personal diary which holds all books and notes i find. Every note needs space in my inventory and i am to lazy to write everything extra on a paper on my desk.

Hope you can implement it.

[Kreador Freeaxe]

2. Own Notes on the map. Larger Map, maybe extra popup window.

This sounds good to me, also. Some form of Player's Journal that can be linked to places on the map would be helpful (though I wasn't too lazy to make notes on a physical pad).

3. Chests and bags in my inventory in order to store more things. If i have 3 Lockpicks and find 3 it uses 2 spaces in my inventory, why?

You might try picking up the three new lockpicks and putting them on top of the old three lockpicks.

I was intrigued that things like potion ingredients and lockpicks and such could be stacked in the inventory, but not food/drink items.