Stoneshard (Roguelike RPG)

It looks interesting, but what parts of it are "roguelike"? All I see in the description is that there's an optional ironman mode.

This is a game to revisit in a year of further development from what I've seen. They tried to implement a Tarkov like health system and so your very limited inventory gets cluttered with splints, salves, food and drink. They also don't have a proper save system atm; only one slot exists and you have to run back to town each time to save without fast travel. Though I guess you could speed hack it to make it more tolerable.

Dom said:

The same things that make any game a roguelike? It's a turn-based procedurally generated RPG with (optional) permadeath.

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Ah, there was no mention of procedural generation until I did a ctrl+f and found it buried in the "why early access?" blurb ('2 types of procedurally generated dungeons, repopulated over time').

That's a painful admission.

After receiving the feedback it became clear to us that the biggest flaw of the game is the lack of the save system. We’d like to assure you, it was not a conceptual decision, designed to make players suffer by losing time and progress. Saving on exit is a fairly obvious QoL feature, which we would implement if we had the opportunity. Unfortunately, due to a combination of multiple factors – procedural world generation, huge number of objects in every location, as well as parameters which require saving, this task is impossible to perform from the technical standpoint.

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They've come up with this idea but it can be just as much of a hassle clearing a bandit camp as it is to run to town, the whole point is that people want to be able to quit on demand.

Now the brigand camps, initially marked with a question mark on the map, can be cleared out and then used as a save spot by clicking on bed. We’ve changed the algorithm for their generation to spread them more evenly across the map, placing them closer to roads and dungeons. We hope that this measure will make your game experience more pleasant. In the future, as it was already mentioned, there’ll be even more save spots. Other than the caravan, some random locations, roadside inns, etc. will also be used as save spots.

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The real issue atm is that you're constantly forced to return to town after looting a mere handful of items if you want to make money. That and the fact that the loot itself is some of the most boring I've ever seen in this type of game; during an 8 hour let's play the best item the player acquired was a cursed ring that gave some modest modifiers, everything else was low durability vendor fodder. Every other piece of gear he had came from merchants despite clearing several dungeons and named mobs.

At least they're making changes right off the bat but it's going to take some time before this is worth playing for more than an hour or two.

I think it's telling that when I clicked through that lets play video almost every single point I clicked on he was messing around with his inventory.

This game seems like it would be right up my alley, but I can't seem to actually even get started?

Did the tutorial and it seems cool, but all the 4 premade characters seem to lose 1v1 fights vs the first bandit you run in to? I must have missed something someplace, cause even the wolves are like, infinitely stronger than the starter loadouts. Only viable way to play I can find so far is pick archer or mage and just hope things die to ranged attacks, because once you're in melee everything just kills you.

This is one of those games that has potential to be quite amazing in another year or two, depending on developer involvement.

Put some more time in, cannot recommend right now. There isn't a ton of content, balance is all over the place, save system is a complete time vampire.

Actually the more I think of it, the entire game basically disrespects your time constantly. There's no quick travel ability, or even auto-move ability to traverse ground you've already explored, so you just have to spam click to walk for 10 minutes back where you just came from. Get bit by a wolf going to a dungeon, burn your splint, gotta go back to get a new one, and then more food, and then it's raining and your pyromancy is useless. This is all kinda specific sounding, but it's at every turn the game just takes a needless amount of time to get anything done. You can't even fast-exit a dungeon you've cleared, you have to walk back the entire way, AND walk all the way back to town - takes longer than the dungeon did in the first place.

Health system I suppose is there to add some complexity to combat, but it mostly just means getting in to melee range with any enemy is incorrect. The bleeds/limb damage you take just cost you money in the long run, which means the optimal way to play is never be in attack range, which means ignore melee combat entirely and just fire bows/spells > move > fire until everything is dead. Maybe later on in the second town gear scales up enough that melee can work, but even then it just seems not worth it at all when pyromancy can blast 9+ squares at once from range with impunity and no risk.

Inventory is way too small relative to the size of items and their value. Nearly nothing you find is actually worth taking, including "magic" items, which are all just bad Diablo-style rares with random modifiers, all of which are either numerically too small, or so hyper-specific they won't do anything for you. The item quantity isn't there to use an entire randomly generated system like that, which means you just use vendor gear exclusively because it's at full durability and has better base-types, which you then just spend a meaningless amount of gold to enchant to "magic". No unique or interesting items that I've seen aside from some "cursed" items, which aren't even really cursed and are mostly just better items that also happen to make you hungry faster for some reason.

There's the beginnings of some kind of crafting and alchemy/potion system here, as there are ingredients for such a thing all over, but you can't do any of it, so it's just filler for now.

TL;DR check back in a year.

Yep Tangledeep is just far superior to this in its current state.

didn't try this yet. just watched some streams. Interesting, you guys say that. I kindof hated tangledeep. I was really let down. Haven't found a good one since Dredmor, imho. This looked like it was the best contender yet though. seems to have shared many of the same mechanics.


actually, and fuck it. Thanks for mentioning the -15% off for owning Darkest dungeons. combines with the -10% off intro. couple more bucks off. 12bucks after taxes. less then a meal out. I'll grab now, and hope it gets better. not like I don't have a giant waiting list of games to play already anyway.

Almost daily balances and sweeping changes, time to shelve this one and see what it ends up being.

Having spent a few hours on it now, my biggest issue is that it's not very friendly. Not knowing which tile on the map you're in, the considerable distance between save spots, the inventory game where you have to carry pain, hunger, thirst, and healing items which compete with drops...

It needs more tweaking and features, for sure. I also object to the notion this is in Beta, simply because 'Beta' should mean that it's largely feature complete and this doesn't really feel like that at all. The "tradeskills" (Alchemy, etc.) aren't even implemented as far as I can tell, to name one very specific example, and you have only one recipe (for Venison) that you can cook.

Also a bit dubious about progression at the moment, but that's largely due to the fact I started with Jonna and it took a while for me to get off the ground. Still haven't really replaced any of her armor and the only weapon I want (Pyromancer Staff) is an arm and a leg and about 20 moose pelts.

started this. basically echo most of what everyone else has said.
I love the base game. one of the best feeling roguelike since dredmor.

healing/food takes up like 90% of your inventory at any given time... the scarcity element of it alone is hard enough. making it take all of your inventory is just kindof dumb.
saving is rough with no fast travel. or save on exit/delete save on load. this is some basic 2000+ shit...
alot of missing content. only like 1/3rd? of the skills are in the game.

started the sorc too. got my butt kicked a bit from bandits outside. practiced a bit, came back prepared. can kite them, and take min damage. went to the castle, made my way through that fairly well.... instantly killed by the leader. not sure how much rng is there, but he was in a room, after a small hallway.. standing right next to the door. so, could not see him until stepping into the room. right on top of me, kicked my ass.

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.