Post edited 8:51 am – May 27, 2011 by Justine

(I have a post with similar/partly identical content on the 2.7/2.8 changelog thread, but thought a threat dedicated to Endless Mode improvements would be welcome. So, if you've got any feedback that you think the developers would appreciate, feel free to post it here. )

This thread is in the full interest of helping develop Endless mode into a fun and challenging way to play 100 Rogues.

Endless mode as I've experienced it so far:

-Very little food. Starvation becomes a real issue even before the end of the first loop.

-Due to the lack of food, starvation avoidance becomes a necessary survival ability, leaving Rogue-Bot and Scoundrel at a disadvantage.

-Difficulty ramping is too low: Bandit Hole and Dungeon monsters are relatively too weak after the first loop.

-Experience doesn't seem to scale. I.e. monsters award the same amount of experience regardless of loop number. This is not an actual issue, just an observation.

-Class balance is uneven: Wizard is practically quaranteed to die of old age, while other classes struggle with completing the first loop. While I don't have any patent solutions to offer right now, a large part of the issue is the gameplay heavily favoring ranged combat.

What I'd like to have changed:

-More food, obviously. I'd prefer for combat to be harder rather than starvation being a default game-ender. The food issue might stem heavily from not having the boss levels with guaranteed meals and shops.

-A buff to Bandit Hole and Dungeon monsters after first loop. First time around they're trying to kill a newbie hero. Second time said hero has gone through Hell already and is a whole lot tougher. I'd love it if difficulty would steadily increase, so that transfer from Hell back to the Bandit Hole would not be a chance for a breather for 3 to 6 levels.

-Even out score/experience income. Now your "progress" (=score) is largely dependent on how much time you spend in Hell(s), since they're the levels with the highest score generation.

-Class balance consideration. This issue is larger than just the Endless mode, but at the moment wizard is infinitely superior to any other class. A well-played wizard doesn't have to take a single point of damage in the entire game. Except from starvation since it is practically guaranteed.

To illustrate the overperformance issue, here's a pic of my first-ever Endless mode wizard's stats (still not dead, on 8th or 9th iteration):

I understand that these issues are likely Wizard-specific, since no other class has as effective avoidance, healing, damage output (Scoundrel is a contender, but since 3xVengeance requires melee range, successul hit and 3 killing backstabs and is single-target only, it loses to magic crystals 9 times out of 10), disaster recovery (Fairy Blessing), equipment (starting weapon damage scales with energy = awesome).

Understandably balancing the Endless mode is tricky business, as there are things to consider that never arise in a normal game, part of it being player power inflation. Most of the time and with most of the classe this is not really an issue, since weapons and armor echant only to +5, skills have maximums and leveling becomes infinitely slower after the first time around.

The wizard circumvents this limitation, though, as energy can be boosted effectively without leveling and spell and wand damage scale with energy increase, making wizard power curve a lot steeper. This leads to the wand dealing 60+ damage per blow, making combat mostly trivial.

Your comment on monster damage inspired me (in the name of scientific curiosity) to get myself hit in the face by mini-satans (Disclaimer: Getting hit by satans of any stature will hurt. Please do not attempt this at home without protective goggles.) I compared my incoming damage with satans of several iterations and I've been getting 30-42 damage per hit. This is with 45 armor and 35 resistance. Am I seeing the kind of numbers I should?

As a point of comparison, the heads were beaming me for 21 damage in my most recent Hell visit. Since they seem to ignore both armor and resistance and deal fixed damage, I've been using them as a measuring point. Their damage has increased quite linearly from 17 to 21 with successive iterations, while I've seen less clear increase with satan damage. Hell knights only hit for about 20+ damage, so I haven't bothered with them too much.

I even tried to remove my armor so they could get a clear shot, but turns out I can't. I did swap my robes on, but didn't see a notable increase in damage. If the numbers are on the mark, I'm guessing satan damage is susceptible to both armor and resistance.

At this point, I really don't get hit anymore unless I let them. With my energy now nearing 200, wand (+5 wand of slowing, of course) deals about 100 damage per hit and crystals about 280. That means that each turn I'm killing 1-5 monsters depending on their positioning. With 175 HP and four points in Fairy Blessing, nothing really threatens me anymore.

As a funny visual anecdote, here's what happens when a magic-vulnerable monster gets hit by a red crystal at these energy levels:

Out-of-combat regeneration is certainly a possibility, although it should be checked how much other classes would be hurt by it. I think one issue is that most of the time wizard can fall back on wanding, so that combat doesn't consume energy and she has full mana to teleport and purify as the situation requires. This makes her mostly untouchable and the choices you make in combat rather trivial.

As she gains levels and energy, wanding becomes more powerful and resorting to teleporting and healing becomes less frequent until the logical conclusion, which is crystalling the undead bejezus out of a poor ghost in the pic above.

I'd explore the possibility of making combat cost resources (HP or MP) to the wizard more often because as it is, there are really no choices for her to make most of the time. Melee classes all risk their essential resources (HPs) when entering combat and usually have to expend energy as well. The wizard is first protected by the engaging distance, second by her ability to teleport, third by her powerful healing and fourth by her ability to ignore death at a cost.

Achery for other classes doesn't come close in terms of effectiveness. Teleporting makes monster positioning irrelevant, withdrawing from combat zero-risk (which is not the case for other classes who risk retributive strikes and shots when moving under threat) and endless "ammo" for wand means you never have to worry about running out. Adjusting teleport cost might be a good way of addressing this issue, but if dealing with monsters would mean expending resources to begin with teleporting might become less of a default answer to everything.

I'm hesitant to suggest making wand-strikes cost energy, but she needs to be working with limited resources (like all other classes) so her choices matter. Now she has the option of staying safe, dealing damage and conserving resources at the same time. You should at best be able to choose two from those, never all three at once.

Sorry if I'm over-analysing this a bit.