feedback
I started out playing the version 1.0 here on newgrounds, and then went to gamerdisclaimer and played version 1.2.
Having played both, I can say that the fights in 1.2 are MUCH more fun.
Reducing the players HP while increasing the effectiveness of his spells and skills was exactly the right
thing to do. Congratulations :-)
My feedback is here on newgrounds since the forum at gamerdisclaimer seems to be pretty screwed up right now. Will try again later.
Ways to improve it:
Game mechanics:
-Polymorph is too strong. It makes a single strategy available that will kill any monster, no matter what it's strength and weaknesses. More importantly, we don't even get to see what attacks the monster has, making the endgame fights really boring. I'd take it out, and replace it with something else.
-You get to the point where there is nothing sensible to spend your talent points on, which makes gaining levels a disadvantage once you can equip all armor (->armor mitigation).
I'd allow to spend your talent points on skills that give a constant advantage (+5% critical, +10% retaliation, +15% health, +20 energy), each improvement possible 10 times.
Or even better: Diminish the amount abilities improve by gaining levels (but don't remove it!).
In exchange, allow the player to put talent points into any skill.
Harder to balance, but it would allow for much more customization of the Murdoc, and if done right, even for several equally valid playing strategies (unlike now).
-The combination cold blood+pyroblast has the problem that the first retaliation uses up the critical hit. Right now this is not a problem, since everyone uses polymorph, but without it, it would be. I'd just keep retaliation strikes from using cold blood.
-Bloodrage is a completely useless skill. That is because the gain is fixed (20 Energy), while the loss is
a percantage (20% health). I'd turn the gain into a percentage as well (+20% Energy).
-I'd like to see a base modifier for the experience given by different creatures.
It's kind of boring that everything gives 100xlevel. Besides, it takes away the incentive to search out
creatures which are harder to kill so that you can level faster (unless your current enemies are level capped).
-Everything seems to give the same loot, apart from unique items.
How about introducing a 'loot value' for each creature, modified by its level?
If each piece of equipment gets a corresponding value, you could easily select a range of equipment from which to randomly select the loot.
Game world:
-I think the fact that killing the Grand Marshall gives endless gold is a demotivator.
I killed him at level 15 without knowing how strong he was supposed to be (PW shield, then cold blood+pyroblast worked without a hitch). And suddenly I had NaN for gold, and no incentive to sell off unused relics, since I don't need gold anymore...
I'd think that the amount of gold becomes a stat like level and hp at some point, which players can use to compare each other. Replacing it with NaN takes that away.
-If you have the necklace when you talk to the rogue after killing the goblin, you won't loose the 18 Energy (Bug!). But if this bug was fixed, then there really should be a way of avoiding giving it back - besides not going into the area ever again.
Game speed:
-Keyboard shortcuts would help _alot_.
i for inventory, t for talents, c for character screen, space closes all open screens (especially including shopping screens, and combat results).
a for attack, s for skills, p for spells, f for flee, numbers to select a skill or spell.
In dialogs, one answer is preselected, up and down + space to choose. Space always advances dialog (right now, it only works sometimes).
-Showing the tooltips slows the game down alot. I'd only show them after a delay of one second.
-Shopping or equipping becomes hard when there are alot of animations on screen, since the mouse lags too much. I'd freeze all animations once a dialog is open (except for the Murloc in the character screen).
If this looks too unnatural, you could gray everything else out to indicate pause.