Make Skeleton Bonus Levels Skippable?

[bendenny]

I'm a longtime Skeleton Archer player. Like with most/all suggestions in here, this would disproportionately benefit me, so take everything I say with doubt seasoned with a grain of salt and all that.

The recently released Writhing One class has a massive advantage over other classes with exclusive early-game content, in that it's both A. Skippable and B. Can be returned to at a higher level/with better equipment. This allows the class the advantage of quick rerolls(start, lost hope asphixiation, nope, no bosses, start over) that most class/race combinations enjoy. Quick rerolls are, if not entirely essential, a massive advantage at Madness Difficulty, where early-game acquisition of end-game equipment makes such a large difference. The skeleton level is one of the hardest or the hardest bonus level to get through at higher difficulties because of how much damage the skeleton mages can do; bad luck can easily kill you, as you can't survive more than four hits from skeleton mages in a row even with shield and often are inextricably surrounded, careful play or no.

Skeletons in particular are already heavily punished for their(excellent) unique skill tree, having no access to natural skills, having to do inconvenient/dangerous inventory slot juggling for half the game and losing access to the best early-game ranged weapon store(zigur). At madness level, only an fool(me) would continue to play them considering they take all these hits AND take a solid half hour to an hour longer to start.

I think making the Skeleton bonus content skippable would be good for balance. Again, I'm highly biased, so keep that in mind.

[pizdabol]

Am I the only one who misses the old undead starter dungeon? You know, back when making it out of there was actually brag worthy? The new, dumbed down version is boring as sh*t. And now we have one we are allowed to skip Tsk, tsk, tsk, Darkgod must be getting soft

PS. Seriously, though, won't someone mod the old Undead Starter back in the game? That would be tits.

[Nakarai]

Am I the only one who misses the old undead starter dungeon? You know, back when making it out of there was actually brag worthy? The new, dumbed down version is boring as sh*t. And now we have one we are allowed to skip Tsk, tsk, tsk, Darkgod must be getting soft

PS. Seriously, though, won't someone mod the old Undead Starter back in the game? That would be tits.

Was the original Undead starter dungeon that difficult? I just remember being one shot by the boss alot. Don't remember the rest of it being all that difficult. Although I always played Cornacs, Dwarves and Halflings back before DLC races.

[HousePet]

The original one was full of rats and the occasional skeleton warrior that would stunlock you. Then there was the unkillable boss.

[Nakarai]

Then there was the unkillable boss.

Now that part sounds familiar.

[pizdabol]

And archers... by God, the skeleton archers Dunno, I had to make like 20 runs to get most ghoul melees out of there on nightmare, with casters it was nothing special, yeah.

[Nakarai]

I can see how getting Ghouls out of there would have been a challenge, mostly because they can't run from the boss. I mostly made Skeleton Archers, Mages and Brawlers. The Ghouls I did play were mostly Sun Paladin (and the odd Anorithil) which weren't too bad. Although Ghoul Cursed were really hard to get going tbh. This thread is making me want to go make some Ghoul Brawlers though, so thanks for that!

[Chronosplit]

losing access to the best early-game ranged weapon store(zigur).

Waaaait a minute. I'm not disagreeing about Undeads having lots of penalties (this probably will be a tiny bit better when runes get improved on 1.6), but Zigur isn't completely walled off as no infusions doesn't mean you only use runes. If you take Tinkers or are a Tinker class without spell talents, your injectors/generators actually let you into Zigur and the mobs won't bother you because you have no spells.

No really, Skeleton racials are not spells.

[HousePet]

Undead are supposed to be barred from Zigur, due to being magically animated.

[Chronosplit]

Undead are supposed to be barred from Zigur, due to being magically animated.

Ah, I see.

I did a check on it with a Skele Gunslinger. Zigur mobs didn't attack me with no runes, but I can't enter Zigur. I guess the whole mob thing got me confused, sorry about that!

[pizdabol]

I can see how getting Ghouls out of there would have been a challenge, mostly because they can't run from the boss. I mostly made Skeleton Archers, Mages and Brawlers. The Ghouls I did play were mostly Sun Paladin (and the odd Anorithil) which weren't too bad. Although Ghoul Cursed were really hard to get going tbh. This thread is making me want to go make some Ghoul Brawlers though, so thanks for that!

Now that you've mentioned it, my sole winner was a ghoul brawler, he had zero problems clearing the whole dungeon and beating the crap out of the boss. Cursed war a real bitch though, and I've spend a shitload of time trying to get ghoul marauders out of there.

PS. Looking through the stats, my top 3 killers are Skeleton Warrior, Skeleton Archer and, wait for it... Skeleton Mage Number 4 is the Necromancer, but those are suicides, that guy's a real wuss, I really wish he was made a bit more challenging, though that's probably a hard task to pull off without making people give up on undead entirely.