Can we unlock the Sorceress items fo ...
The unique items for each character in this game is something that's bothered me since before its release. My favorite part about the original OMD! was that you could get really creative with your items and there was a good variety to them. Having unique items in this game arbitrarily limits that for the sake of making the two characters slightly more distinct. I'm not saying I want them to be exactly the same, but I think the costumes, dialogue, and unlockable movement abilities are enough to make each character unique without having a negative effect on the enjoyment of the game. Why should I not be able to mix tar pits and ice vents just so that the characters are slightly more different from each other? That doesn't make the game more enjoyable, more creative, or more varied. If you really want to keep the playthrough for each character unique, make the other's items unlockable only after finishing the Warmage difficulty campaign. Or heck, even make us finish the Nightmare campaign. Just please, let us get rid of this annoying limitation. If anything it makes me less interested in playing a new character because it feels forced. Don't get me wrong, I love the OMD! series, but this was a really poor design choice and fixing it would make the game even better than it already is. Thanks for reading!
I personally like the idea of each character having their own unique traps and weapons. It makes sense since it's designed for their character. Can you really see the bromage using the Wand of Domination? lol, What I would like is the ability to switch between both characters on the same profile. Even if our characters wouldn't get both traps and weapons we still wouldn't have to build up another skull count from scratch. OR, how about we have the ability to give skulls from one of our profiles to the next? My 200 Useless skulls for the Bromage would gladly go over to the Sorceress to build up some of her traps. That's my 2 cents anyway...
The idea here was to have two distinct characters. If we make everything available to every character, it would largely undermine the reason to even HAVE two characters.
I understand the rationale, but are transferrable skulls out of the question? (I'm guessing it's too little reward for too much effort at such a late stage, but still).
They can't even let us sell our traps to get skulls back without reworking the whole system so probably not sadly.
The idea here was to have two distinct characters. If we make everything available to every character, it would largely undermine the reason to even HAVE two characters.
While I understand that, I still don't understand what the point of having two characters was in the first place in a game like this. There's maybe 5 or 6 unique items per character, and since aside from that they're basically the same I don't think they're all that distinct. Unless your strategies largely depend on all of those unique items, each character should end up playing close to the same, if not exactly the same. And the way things are set up, you end up having to do everything all over again just to use a few different items. That's not fun, that's a chore. And if you made it so that the character-specific items could be unlocked via Warmage or Nightmare campaign completion, you could keep your distinct characters for the most part while still letting players such as myself who just want to have fun with all of the items do so.
Honestly I feel like something went horribly wrong in OMD!2's development process. There's an odd focus on multi-player, to the point of having the two characters, and yet the co-op is extremely limited. You can only play with other people online, yet there's no match-making service so you can only play with other people who you add to your friends list on Steam. The only explanation I can think of is that the game was rushed at some point, but the rest of the game's quality would indicate that everything was right on schedule.
One last thing I'd like to say: What the developer wants or intends is not always best for the game, nor is it always best for the players. In Torchlight 2 there's no way to re-spec your characters aside from resetting the last three skill points you've spent, the idea behind that being that it enforced player choices and supported having multiple characters of the same class. Runic thought they were making a great decision in doing this, and last I checked they've stood by it. However, that decision prevented me from enjoying the game. It drastically changed the way I played it, causing me to go with a more boring build for the sake of not getting creative and regretting it later. As a result, I quit not too far into the game. Thankfully, a re-spec potion mod came out later that added the ability to buy potions that would let you reset your skills and attributes. I downloaded it, and ever since then I've enjoyed the game a lot. It's not what the developer wanted, and it goes against what their idea was, but for me it made the game far more enjoyable. Just something to think about.
I feel that the 2 characters are very different in my view.
For Sorceress, I felt I needed more open kill "zones" and was easier to combo. While Warmage was a stale kill "box" with tar and didn't combo as well.
There is also the fact that the Sorceress has about 1/2 the health of the Warmage. But I am no expert :P
One last thing I'd like to say: What the developer wants or intends is not always best for the game, nor is it always best for the players. In Torchlight 2 there's no way to re-spec your characters aside from resetting the last three skill points you've spent, the idea behind that being that it enforced player choices and supported having multiple characters of the same class. Runic thought they were making a great decision in doing this, and last I checked they've stood by it. However, that decision prevented me from enjoying the game. It drastically changed the way I played it, causing me to go with a more boring build for the sake of not getting creative and regretting it later. As a result, I quit not too far into the game. Thankfully, a re-spec potion mod came out later that added the ability to buy potions that would let you reset your skills and attributes. I downloaded it, and ever since then I've enjoyed the game a lot. It's not what the developer wanted, and it goes against what their idea was, but for me it made the game far more enjoyable. Just something to think about.
I would like to point something out:
In Torchlight 2 the problem with respecing is that people do not try out more exotic builds and stick with them. The moment they think a build is failing them they would just respec and go with the obvious safe build, instead of facing their mistakes and trying to find a way to make even a bad build work or exploring the weaknesses of a build during its growth period. As some builds get strong late but are weak early, while others get strong early but lose effectiveness over time. And in truth the limited respec choice was what the community wanted, it was to allow permanence as well as the ability to fix accidental clicks that people were concerned about. Rather then kill the reason to even run multiple characters of the same class.
Blizzard's choice to have unlimited respecing caused a lot of outrage and killed the reason to make new characters besides 1 achievement for each class. What was the point of making a new character when the build you would of used for them is just a respec away?
Limited respec forced players to think on the build and plan around it. It is the most thought provoking process in a game type that will inevitably get boring because it can easily become mindless after prolonged play of just running through levels blowing things up.
And for your information, if you just checked the forums you would of found out how to activate the console, which would enable you to do a complete respec of your character without the need for a mod, but would flag you as a console user if you used it to respec stats, or generate items such as the respec potion.
To SixOkay, personally I feel that the traps should be character neutral, but the characters should have thematic weapon choices or thematic differences in how the weapons are used that could be unlocked with skulls. Think of it as a special upgrade for every weapon that is determined by the character purchasing the special upgrade. While there exists special weapons that only are available for the specific character.
I like having 2 distinct characters...
What should happen is the ability to have both characters per profile.
That is, my spellbook should list all traps and items for both warmage and sorceress. In the spellbook sorc only items should have a little icon of her, warmage a little icon of him. Shared items have an icon depicting both of them standing back to back. You spend your skulls (earned as either) on traps. And then you can switch classes for levels if you want to.
They still have their unique loadouts.
If distinct characters are going to be a part of OMD! from now on, I guess that's something I should just accept. I mean, everyone here seems to like it, so who am I to ask that the game be changed for a minority's preference? So, if I may, I would like to suggest how to make the distinct characters better for OMD!3, assuming RE makes it.
1. Make the characters more unique. One of the biggest complaints I have about the character-specific items in this game are that since there aren't many of them it feels unnecessary. By having most items be exclusive to each character, it helps to create a better feeling of distinction, and makes it clear that each character is going to be a unique experience to play.
2. This would require some reworking of the OMD! wave system, but I think Dungeon Defenders did a great job in letting players have a build phase between each wave in which they could freely switch between their characters. This would let people playing solo use all of the traps without damaging character distinction.
3. Tie all characters to one profile. Earning a ton of skulls and trudging through the campaign on Warmage all over again is really unnecessary, and makes it more of a hassle to use multiple characters than it should be. By having the characters tied to a single profile you can help encourage the use of all of them, especially if there are levels that some characters are better equipped for than others.
I'm sorry if I came across as whiny or immature in this thread. I just really loved the original OMD!, and so it bothered me a lot when (for me) the sequel wasn't as good. I feel like a lot of neat ideas were introduced, but I think the execution could have been a lot better. But by coming here and practically demanding that the changes be undone completely instead of trying to help to improve them was wrong of me. I sincerely apologize if I've offended or upset anyone, and I hope that we can all work together to make the next orc slaughter the best one ever.
You didn't come across whiny or immature at all. You have some well thought-out points, and the feedback is good to have. While I'd agree with you that the distinction isn't HUGE between the two characters, I would say that it's still enough to push MOST player to play the two characters differently. When we were setting up the game for co-op, we very explicitly wanted to avoid having basically just two clones of the War Mage running around like so many major games do when they add co-op. It doesn't change the experience at all, it just puts more people into the exact same experience. While we do allow that if players WANT to play two WM's or two Sorceresses, we didn't think that would be the most fun solution.
Well having character exclusive traps doesn't really make sense story-wise IMO. I mean both the bromage and the sorceress were taught by the same teacher. I mean the rifts creates the magic. Do the rifts also determine what traps the individual warmages can summon (I feel a ret-con coming on)? And why limit the polymorph ring? How is that "girly" (for lack of a better term; since that seems to be the main objection to the bromage using the sceptre of domination)? I guess you could state that the traps available are just the personal preferences of each warmage and would add to their "personality". However that limits the creation of really inventive kill areas. I would agree that being able to give excess skulls between characters in a player profile would have been a better move. I mean if a trap really doesn't fit in with how you want to play, you are not forced to use or select it. You could make everything available to both characters and just have them cost different amounts and start with different traps (or re-skins, like the sorceress having a slime pit trap instead of tar).
Well having character exclusive traps doesn't really make sense story-wise IMO. I mean both the bromage and the sorceress were taught by the same teacher. I mean the rifts creates the magic. Do the rifts also determine what traps the individual warmages can summon (I feel a ret-con coming on)? And why limit the polymorph ring? How is that "girly" (for lack of a better term; since that seems to be the main objection to the bromage using the sceptre of domination)? I guess you could state that the traps available are just the personal preferences of each warmage and would add to their "personality". However that limits the creation of really inventive kill areas. I would agree that being able to give excess skulls between characters in a player profile would have been a better move. I mean if a trap really doesn't fit in with how you want to play, you are not forced to use or select it. You could make everything available to both characters and just have them cost different amounts and start with different traps (or re-skins, like the sorceress having a slime pit trap instead of tar).
Honestly, we simply haven't dove that deep into the fiction. When we feel like we need to, then maybe we will. But just because they had the same teacher and the magic comes from the same places doesn't necessarily mean they each know how to do the same things the same ways. You and other students in any of your school classes didn't necessarily have the same profeciencies, despite having the same basic tool sets and instructors. There are plenty of plausible reasons for why different War Mages could have somewhat differing abilities. The Weavers are another great example - they have access to the magic and can do interesting things with it, but very different things from what the War Mages can do.
And who said the opposition to the War Mage having the sceptre was because it was girly? Certainly we didn't. The Sorceress has it because it is a version of the weapon she used in the original game and it plays to her character ability of "charming" enemies. Her whole thing is about "control" where the War Mage is about being a blunt damage instrument, and the Blunderbuss fits that role well.
Again, this decision was always about creating differences between the player characters. We feel like we've accomplished that with the War Mage and Sorceress.
Personally I think it's a shame that only the Sorceress gets t he polymorph ring. I'd love the bromage to have access to that and the acid sprayers. The only thing that is delaying my progress with the Sorceress (I've finished story mode and classic mode WM with her) is that I don't want to have to re-earn all those skulls again. I have 680+ skulls with the bromage and I wish I could just give her those skulls and just deal with 5-skulling levels. I guess that would necessitate using Profiles and not Characters.
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