Small newbie/QoL enhancements

[SparklesTheLlama]

Since this is the first time I am posting here I want to first say that I love this game and have been playing it on and off for 8 years now. That said, one of the things that has always plagued me is how brutal it is if you don't make the right assumptions about things or when you lack proper info and fail as a result.

The example that made me decide to post this was my first attempt to play a Yeek in a long time if ever. I died to subject Z simply because I didn't understand what was happening when I entered the tunnel from the island to the mainland. I KNEW where I was going to end up based on previous play and I read the pop-up carefully but the pop-up doesn't tell you what you actually NEED to know about the encounter. It doesn't tell you that your rod of recall is going to take 4-5 turns and that you should stay put on the stairs. It just asks if you want to activate the rod or fight. I had to look it up after I was killed

I realize how stupid this might sound and sure, I wont ever make the mistake again (especially now that I am making a complain-y post about it) but is it really necessary to the play experience to give people the option to screw up in scenarios like this? It seems like a completely reasonable thing to expect people to read and to have the foreshadowing part of the story so I don't think the event needs to go away or something drastic, just tell people what is happening or spell out what will keep them safe if its supposed to act like a cut scene.

I know this isn't the only thing out there that could use just a little bit of reminder/info text so I was hoping that others could share their experiences. I know DarkGod probably has a million other fish to fry but if we list out a bunch of simple text changes, maybe we can make a list of small easy wins for him to take care of on a rainy day. <3

[Batnar]

1. It would be nice to have a notice or even an achievement either the first time you step on a no teleport tile in a vault or when you enter the shar tul fortress to tell you that you cannot teleport here and to watchout for these kind of tiles during your adventures. I had been playing for my first 15-20 hours and finaly had a great berzerker going at about lvl 25 when i fought the weirdling beast and i tried to activate my emergency teleport only to die at the same spot without the spell fizzling or any message about that.

I made a post on reddit asking people to explain my death and everyone told me you just cant teleport on this level and i found that very frustrating that i didnt knew something like that was even in the game
Also, maybe have the spell just be unusable or that it doesnt waste your turn, like when you try to use an archer skill on an empty tile it just dosnt work and it doesnt cost you any action.

Same thing with water. the first time i got to Elvala i drowned in the river exploring because i didnt know choking was a thing.

2. The last hope graveyard seems to be another noob trap. If you open a tomb and nothing happens, then you just figure all the tombs are useless, you go fight the boss at the end of the corridor and then you die for sure because you aggro all the rares in the coffins. Could we have at least a hint in the lore scroll or something. Even better, have the last door beign locked and requiring you to open all the tombs beforehand

3. Another instance of exactly this is in the Ruined dungeon. First time in there, i explore a bit, see the clues, get into the orb room and i thought it was the event that summon Ethora the bringer of doom when you activate the three weird pedestal because they have a similar sprite, and the exct same sprite when they are activated, quite misleading. So i start clicking on the orbs, summoning waves of mobs a couple of time before realising its not doing anything. I then look up the wiki to understand whats happening, which also gives me the exact solution right away. so i clear the rest of the dungeon and then proceed to input the right order and somehow mess it up. It then spawns two level 70 rares, one on both side of my character, when im barely level 30, in that small clugged up room. I then proceed to die slowly because i cant move due to the mobs body blocking me and beign totaly unable to hit them because they are more than twice my level. Im think that the more you click on the wrong orbs, the tougher the mobs gets, and after clicking it a bunch it just spawned an impossible encounter, which is kinda lame, not gonna lie.

4. Activating an item by accident when inventory is open shouldnt be a thing. i had a good reaver run. I go to Angolwen to level up staff mastery and equip my two short staff. While trying to change my main and off hand staff, i somehow double clicked on it and it activated the light spell that was in the staff inside angolwen, aggroing Tarelion and a couple mage which then proceeded to gib me. Very uncool. Im not even sure how this happened but i think if you double click on an equipped item in your inventory it will use its ability.

This game can be very time consuming and dying because of noob traps is super frustrating AND it encourages you to get spoilers on the wiki on every dungeon ahead of time just to be sure to not get -. This obviously messes up the experience and immersion. What i love about this game is that you mostly die because of your own mistakes but these all felt like : 'How could i have known?' moment.

I think we noobs honestly need a bit more text explaining whats up. Either on scrolls, achievements or why not in plain text, like when you fight the mouth in the deep below, theres a red text that appears in the combat log telling you that your attacks are inneffective and that there must be another way. this is really the only place ive seen this used so far and its a great way to steer newer players.


Also beign able to change your name anytime would be great. Sometimes i either restart so quickly or i take such a long time selecting classes and races that i totaly forget to change the default name.
And the random walls with doors in the small lumberjack village is kinda weird. It seems like the zone is randomly generated at first glance but it obviously isn't. Theres never anything in it so why not make it like the huts you cant get into in the yeek village. As a newbie it kinda breaks the immersion and gives an eerie feeling. Im sure alot of people try to dig around to find stuff in there because the layout is so strange

[Phantomfrettchen]

Actually there are several items which are also traps. I kinda like these in RPGs, though It's a deadly roguelike. And yeah, the necklace will eat your head, the light of revelation is likely to kill you by flooding you with horrors etc.