Caves of Qud (ROGUELIKE)

[buffalo bill]

yeah, yesterday's update added a "chat" feature for talking to various creature types, but I'm not sure it's for anything but flavor at this point

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

yeah, yesterday's update added a "chat" feature for talking to various creature types, but I'm not sure it's for anything but flavor at this point

Some of the creatures have tradable stuff.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

http://store.steampowered.com/news/externalpost/steam_community_announcements/1869401952301715693

This week, we're introducing two new feature arcs that have been in development for a few months. The first is the Journal. As you play Caves of Qud, you accumulate a bounty of knowledge. We added a journal that tracks important locations you discover, gossip and lore you come across, historical snippets you learn about ancient sultans, and your character’s chronology. You can also add your own notes to the journal and keep track of interesting places on the world map.

The second is the Water Ritual. The reputation system lets you befriend any of Qud’s sixty plus factions by treating with or slaying faction leaders. We expanded the rewards for earning high reputation and gave more cultural texture to the process by adding the water ritual, a custom based on sharing precious fresh water with a faction leader to secure a bond with their kinfolk. When you engage in the water ritual with a faction leader, you can spend reputation to learn secrets that get logged in your journal, earn rewards specific to that faction, or recruit the leader to your party.

The details are below.

• We added the journal. By default, it's bound to 'J'.
  • The journal has five tabs.
    • Locations.
      • The locations tab lists locations you learn about in game, categorized by type.
        
      • When you learn a new location, it'll appear in this tab. You can learn locations by finding them yourself or by learning about them via another method, like the water ritual.
        
      • When you go to the world map, there's a marker on the worldmap tile that's home to the location. The description of the worldmap tile includes all the location notes it contains.
        
      • The alt display on the worldmap shows an alternate icon for locations with notes.
        
      • You can toggle off the worldmap markers for a category by hitting Tab on the Locations tab.
        
      • When you enter into a category, you see all the locations of that category and their distance in parasangs to the nearest landmark. 1 parasang = 1 worldmap tile.
        
      • You can hit Tab or Space on a specific location to track it on the worldmap. When a location is tracked, it appears green and flashing.
        
      • You can enter your own notes on the Locations tab by typing +. Your notes appear under the Miscellaneous category.
        
      • You can delete notes with -.
    • Gossip and Lore. Currently, this tab contains any gossip you learn through the course of the game. Gossip is a type of secret that you can learn during the water ritual. See notes on the water ritual below.
      
    • Sultan Histories. When you reveal a secret about a sultan, it appears in this tab categorized by the sultan's name. As you reveal more secrets, they'll appear in chronological order.
      
    • Chronology. This tab tracks the narrative of your character's life. This is the same chronology that appears in your death summary. You can add or deleted player-added entries by typing + or -.
      
    • General Notes. Use this tab to add any additional notes you'd like. Example: "I hate the crab."
  • As part of the conversion of character knowledge to journal entries, we refactored world generation and the location discovery process. When you discover a special location, such as a ruined site, historic site, goatfolk village, lair, merchant, pig farm, super secret location, etc, it'll be added to your journal now.
    
  • If you descend from the worldmap to a tile with a location note, you have the option to descend directly to that location.
    
  • Added procedurally-generated names for goatfolk villages and ruined sites.
• We added the water ritual and removed the Offer Gift power.
  • You begin the water ritual through conversation with a faction leader. You'll know faction leaders by the backstory relationships they have with other factions when you look at them.
    
  • You start the ritual by sharing 1 dram of (usually) water with the faction leader. If you do, you gain 100 reputation with the leader's faction, and you gain or lose reputation with factions that like or dislike the leader, respectively.
    
  • Once you're engaged in the water ritual, you have several options. Here are some of the common ones.
    • Share a secret.
      • Depending on the types of secrets this faction is interested in, you may be able to share a secret with the leader. Check out the right column of the Reputation screen to see what types of secrets each faction is interested in trading. Potentially sharable secrets include anything in the Locations, Gossip and Lore, or Sultan Histories tabs of your journal. If a leader is interested in your secrets, you'll get a choice of a few to share. If you share one, you get reputation with the faction leader. Each leader only has a certain amount of bonus reputation they can give you toward their faction.
        
      • You can only share each secret once. Once you do, it's out in the world.
        
      • You can't share a secret with the faction you learned it from. Who you learned each secret from and who you shared it with are listed in your journal.
    • Learn a secret. The leader shares a secret with you. The type of secret depends on the faction.
      
    • Share gossip. Factions tend to want to hear gossip about themselves. If you have some, they'll reward you with extra reputation.
      
    • Learn a skill. Faction leaders can teach certain skills in exchange for reputation.
      
    • Join the party. In exchange for a lot of rep, most leaders are willing to join your party.
      
    • Special (oooo). Some factions have special rewards.
  • Added a new skill: Customs & Folklore.
    • Tactful (150 sp, 19 int): Whenever you start the water ritual with a new creature, you get an extra 25 reputation.
      
    • Trash Divining (150 sp, 21 int): Whenever you rifle through trash, there's a 5% chance you piece together clues and discover a random secret.
  • Lowered starting reputation with the villagers of Joppa and Fellowship of Wardens.
• Some other notes:
  • Changed the logic for finding directions. Now, only humanoid creatures can give you directions if you're lost.
    
  • Fixed an issue with the new input manager not detecting gamepad stick x-axis movement properly.
    
  • Fixed an OSX launch issue.
    
  • Fixed a rare exception instantiating Sheba Hagadias.
• There are countless details; we're sure we're forgetting to mention a few. Play around and explore for yourself. Live and drink!

 

[Tom Baker's Arse]

awesome update to be sure, but I can never seem to get my useless fucking arse past Grit Gate / Golgotha, if I am lucky

 

[Reapa]

http://store.steampowered.com/news/externalpost/steam_community_announcements/1869401952301715693

This week, we're introducing two new feature arcs that have been in development for a few months. The first is the Journal. As you play Caves of Qud, you accumulate a bounty of knowledge. We added a journal that tracks important locations you discover, gossip and lore you come across, historical snippets you learn about ancient sultans, and your character’s chronology. You can also add your own notes to the journal and keep track of interesting places on the world map.

The second is the Water Ritual. The reputation system lets you befriend any of Qud’s sixty plus factions by treating with or slaying faction leaders. We expanded the rewards for earning high reputation and gave more cultural texture to the process by adding the water ritual, a custom based on sharing precious fresh water with a faction leader to secure a bond with their kinfolk. When you engage in the water ritual with a faction leader, you can spend reputation to learn secrets that get logged in your journal, earn rewards specific to that faction, or recruit the leader to your party.

The details are below.

• We added the journal. By default, it's bound to 'J'.
  • The journal has five tabs.
    • Locations.
      • The locations tab lists locations you learn about in game, categorized by type.
        
      • When you learn a new location, it'll appear in this tab. You can learn locations by finding them yourself or by learning about them via another method, like the water ritual.
        
      • When you go to the world map, there's a marker on the worldmap tile that's home to the location. The description of the worldmap tile includes all the location notes it contains.
        
      • The alt display on the worldmap shows an alternate icon for locations with notes.
        
      • You can toggle off the worldmap markers for a category by hitting Tab on the Locations tab.
        
      • When you enter into a category, you see all the locations of that category and their distance in parasangs to the nearest landmark. 1 parasang = 1 worldmap tile.
        
      • You can hit Tab or Space on a specific location to track it on the worldmap. When a location is tracked, it appears green and flashing.
        
      • You can enter your own notes on the Locations tab by typing +. Your notes appear under the Miscellaneous category.
        
      • You can delete notes with -.
    • Gossip and Lore. Currently, this tab contains any gossip you learn through the course of the game. Gossip is a type of secret that you can learn during the water ritual. See notes on the water ritual below.
      
    • Sultan Histories. When you reveal a secret about a sultan, it appears in this tab categorized by the sultan's name. As you reveal more secrets, they'll appear in chronological order.
      
    • Chronology. This tab tracks the narrative of your character's life. This is the same chronology that appears in your death summary. You can add or deleted player-added entries by typing + or -.
      
    • General Notes. Use this tab to add any additional notes you'd like. Example: "I hate the crab."
  • As part of the conversion of character knowledge to journal entries, we refactored world generation and the location discovery process. When you discover a special location, such as a ruined site, historic site, goatfolk village, lair, merchant, pig farm, super secret location, etc, it'll be added to your journal now.
    
  • If you descend from the worldmap to a tile with a location note, you have the option to descend directly to that location.
    
  • Added procedurally-generated names for goatfolk villages and ruined sites.
• We added the water ritual and removed the Offer Gift power.
  • You begin the water ritual through conversation with a faction leader. You'll know faction leaders by the backstory relationships they have with other factions when you look at them.
    
  • You start the ritual by sharing 1 dram of (usually) water with the faction leader. If you do, you gain 100 reputation with the leader's faction, and you gain or lose reputation with factions that like or dislike the leader, respectively.
    
  • Once you're engaged in the water ritual, you have several options. Here are some of the common ones.
    • Share a secret.
      • Depending on the types of secrets this faction is interested in, you may be able to share a secret with the leader. Check out the right column of the Reputation screen to see what types of secrets each faction is interested in trading. Potentially sharable secrets include anything in the Locations, Gossip and Lore, or Sultan Histories tabs of your journal. If a leader is interested in your secrets, you'll get a choice of a few to share. If you share one, you get reputation with the faction leader. Each leader only has a certain amount of bonus reputation they can give you toward their faction.
        
      • You can only share each secret once. Once you do, it's out in the world.
        
      • You can't share a secret with the faction you learned it from. Who you learned each secret from and who you shared it with are listed in your journal.
    • Learn a secret. The leader shares a secret with you. The type of secret depends on the faction.
      
    • Share gossip. Factions tend to want to hear gossip about themselves. If you have some, they'll reward you with extra reputation.
      
    • Learn a skill. Faction leaders can teach certain skills in exchange for reputation.
      
    • Join the party. In exchange for a lot of rep, most leaders are willing to join your party.
      
    • Special (oooo). Some factions have special rewards.
  • Added a new skill: Customs & Folklore.
    • Tactful (150 sp, 19 int): Whenever you start the water ritual with a new creature, you get an extra 25 reputation.
      
    • Trash Divining (150 sp, 21 int): Whenever you rifle through trash, there's a 5% chance you piece together clues and discover a random secret.
  • Lowered starting reputation with the villagers of Joppa and Fellowship of Wardens.
• Some other notes:
  • Changed the logic for finding directions. Now, only humanoid creatures can give you directions if you're lost.
    
  • Fixed an issue with the new input manager not detecting gamepad stick x-axis movement properly.
    
  • Fixed an OSX launch issue.
    
  • Fixed a rare exception instantiating Sheba Hagadias.
• There are countless details; we're sure we're forgetting to mention a few. Play around and explore for yourself. Live and drink!

love where this is going. party mechanics would be massive incline.

 

[Ent]

Is regeneration a trap?

 

[buffalo bill]

Is regeneration a trap?

I think it pretty much is. Maybe it could be usefully combined with the activated carapace skill somehow, but it always seems pointless when I've had it on a character. I guess you might want it if you expect to lose lots of limbs, but that's something that can be avoided usually.

Also, goddamn the new update is awesome. Can't wait for more quests and content.

 

[roll-a-die]

Is regeneration a trap?

Regeneration is exceptionally good when you expect to get hit. Regen+Quills is a fairly good choice. Because it allows you to regen through hits(Once regen hits about level 3,) and also deals significant damage to those who hit you in melee and have the option of dealing a nice chunk of damage by throwing quills at people. I usually take the skill that lets me flinch away from projectiles as well when I build like that.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Did it get a major buff at some point? I recall testing regeneration out at some point and it seemed super underwhelming compared to two-hearted, which heals more hp on average, and gives you a larger safety buffer.

 

[roll-a-die]

Did it get a major buff at some point? I recall testing regeneration out at some point and it seemed super underwhelming compared to two-hearted, which heals more hp on average, and gives you a larger safety buffer.

It might it might not. I'm uncertain and haven't followed the patch notes, I know it seems pretty strong, and if two hearted gives more that's an oversight, unless its that at base two hearted gives more and that regenerations growth out paces it. I know though that once I get regen too 3 or so, it's pretty stronk.

 

[thesheeep]

Is regeneration a trap?

I think it pretty much is. Maybe it could be usefully combined with the activated carapace skill somehow, but it always seems pointless when I've had it on a character.

Eh, don't go for the carapace. I went all in with it, and it does help a lot at the start.
But I got it to max level and I can tell that it is practically worthless later on. Even when taking "shelter" in the carapace, my char was getting torn apart in those mine levels later on where there is a boss every other level, summoning endless amounts of minions. Even the shell will just get cracked eventually, and even if not the amounts of damage are so high that you're dead either way.

Really, going for armor seems to be a trap, all the points spent on it will become worthless - so better spend it on something else to begin with.
The only way I see to survive the later game is dodging or blocking. Or being a ranged char.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

 

[Sigourn]

It's gotten quite a bit of praise on my Roguelikes poll. It's one of the most played Roguelikes, but surprisingly only two people out of 26 didn't like it.

 

[buffalo bill]

I think that's because this game has all the mechanical virtues of the best roguelikes in addition to a setting and writing that competes with (and is better than, in my opinion) the best non-roguelike crpgs. The only reason every Codexer won't play/love this game when it's finished is because they are closet graphics whores, I suspect.

 

[buffalo bill]

Friday dev update:

• You can interact with the world in a few new ways.
  • You can sit on chairs.
    
  • You can smoke from hookahs.
    
  • You cat light fires at campfire remains.
    
  • You can put out campfires.
    
  • You can now sleep in bedrolls.
• Sultans now occasionally get married, cementing alliances with various factions and guilds.
  
• At sultan weddings, guests occasionally give gifts to the sultan.
  
• Depending on the course of a sultan's life, you now occasionally find their wedding gifts at historic sites.
  
• Stopsvalinn no longer shows up in dynamic encounters.
  
• Creatures (including you) now walk over non-damaging liquids, like slime, while auto-pathing.
  
• Creatures (including you) now try to avoid walking through acid while auto-pathing.
  
• You should now always be able to remove two-faced helmets.
  
• Helmets with terrifying or serene visage and gesticulating gauntlets no longer occupy multiple heads or hands slots, respectively.
  
• Improved baseline memory usage by an additional 20%.
  
• Fixed some rare exceptions with history text generation.
  
• Fixed an issue that sometimes caused too many zones to remain in memory.
  
• Fixed a rare exception when find an encounter from the world map.

 

[buffalo bill]

Friday dev update

• We tightened up the logic governing which bonuses you get from equipment that's equipped on secondary appendages, such as a second head or second pair of arms.
  • You don't get AV or DV from equipment that's equipped on a secondary appendage, but you do get other bonuses, such as +resistances or +stats. This is the same logic as before, but it works more consistently now.
    
  • Secondary appendages are now marked with a grey 'x' on the equipment screen in the original UI (but not yet the new UI).
    
  • Almost always, a secondary appendage corresponds to a second (or third, or fourth) copy of an existing appendage, denoted with '(2)' in the appendage name. The exception is if a creature with no arms, say, gets its first set of arms; those arms will be secondary.
    
  • Hands (2) no longer appears before Hands in the new equipment screen UI.
• Updated the display names of animated walls, doors, and tables.
  
• Added the possibility of encountering legendary animated walls, doors, or tables.
  
• Gave legendary animated furniture appropriate proper names based on whether they're walls, doors, or tables.
  
• Newly sentient beings, such as animated walls, doors, and tables, can now remind you what it's like to be a child when you share water with them.
  
• Found and fixed a major contributor to late-game memory issues.
  
• If you somehow end up as a merchant, your inventory no longer restocks with merchant wares, obliterating the items in your existing inventory as a side effect.
  
• Removed the mod tier from the display names of flaming, freezing, and electrified mods.
  
• Clarified that flaming, freezing, and electrifying effects happen on hit, not penetration.
  
• We fixed some issues with melee combat.
  • Charge now properly applies its penetration bonus.
    
  • Horns now uses its mutation level to determine its to-hit bonus instead of your Agility modifier.
    
  • When you have Helping Hands equipped and you attack with empty robo-fists, they use Helping Hands' flat Strength score of 23 instead of your own strength score.
    
  • Fixed an issue where sprinting didn't properly apply melee to-hit penalties.
    
  • Removed the vestigial HitDice property from melee weapons.
• Fixed some issues causing flickering between fullscreen and windowed mode when the in-game options and the launcher options didn't match.
  
• We made some additional changes to melee combat balance in a beta branch on Steam. If you'd like to help us test these changes, right-click on Caves of Qud in Steam, select Properties, click the Betas tab, and switch to the 'beta' branch. (Thanks!) The changes are listed below.
  • Some penetration bonuses on weapons were bugged, such as the +1 and +2 bonuses axes and cudgels got, respectively. We fixed these bugs, but we removed the axe and cudgel bonuses since they're part of an older design. Instead, we replaced them with different critical hit behavior for each weapon class.
    
  • Cudgels now get +1 penetration and daze on critical hits.
    
  • Axes now get +1 penetration and cleave on critical hits.
    
  • Long blades now get +3 penetration on critical hits.
    
  • Daggers now get +1 penetration and cause bleeding on critical hits.
    
  • We tweaked all melee weapon stats to account for these changes.
    
  • The sharp melee mod works again.
    
  • Gaslight kris and gaslight flyssa work properly again.

 

[decaf]

Has one of the best interfaces in a roguelike imo.
Plus cool backstory everywhere.

 

[gestalt11]

I think that's because this game has all the mechanical virtues of the best roguelikes in addition to a setting and writing that competes with (and is better than, in my opinion) the best non-roguelike crpgs. The only reason every Codexer won't play/love this game when it's finished is because they are closet graphics whores, I suspect.

Also a lot of codexers just suck at roguelikes and die a lot.

 

[almondblight]

Also a lot of codexers just suck at roguelikes games and die a lot.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I still feel like Qud is just terribly, terribly balanced. Like, a character with a ranged weapon is stronger than a melee character with 5 more levels, and 80% of the mutations are just a total waste of points.

 

[Iznaliu]

I still feel like Qud is just terribly, terribly balanced. Like, a character with a ranged weapon is stronger than a melee character with 5 more levels, and 80% of the mutations are just a total waste of points.

Even if a choice isn't optimal, it can be fun, especially with roguelikes.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I don't get the same kind of feeling I get from something like using weird items in Nethack here though. Your character is pretty much set in stone once you make him at the start, so there's very little adapting to items you find, especially since the potential loot is nigh infinite. It feels more like a slot machine grind to find the loot that fits your character, and a weaker character just kind of slows everything down and replaces a lot of potentially interesting fights with a lot of very boring running away or waiting for cooldowns to reset or hp to regen.

 

[buffalo bill]

I don't get the same kind of feeling I get from something like using weird items in Nethack here though. Your character is pretty much set in stone once you make him at the start, so there's very little adapting to items you find, especially since the potential loot is nigh infinite. It feels more like a slot machine grind to find the loot that fits your character, and a weaker character just kind of slows everything down and replaces a lot of potentially interesting fights with a lot of very boring running away or waiting for cooldowns to reset or hp to regen.

That's an interesting criticism. Do you think there's less room for character change during a playthrough than e.g. Fallout? I'm sort of thinking your criticism applies to most RPGs (at least non-party-based ones), but mostly just wondering about it.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Fallout definitely handicaps you pretty hard with the tagging system; but I'd say it still leaves enough room for you to vary a bit based on what you encounter- you might decide to spend all your points for a level up on your computer skill because you found an area where it seems necessary, for example. Or you might get lucky and stumble across a great weapon early on and abandon your intended specialty. It's definitely a criticism you could apply to most games, but I feel like it's an important part of the roguelike formula. It adds variety to your replays without forcing you to intentionally gimp your character by making him only fight with thrown rocks or something.

 

[buffalo bill]

Do you think CoQ could improve this by buffing skills or something like that? Or in general rebalancing skills and mutations somewhat? BTW as someone stated, I think it's fine for there to be non-optimal builds, as long as they're still viable to play with to some degree (totally nonviable builds are OK too, but these should be less common I think). Being railroaded to play a certain way based on initial decisions isn't ideal, though.