Hey Dungeoneers,

Here’s a little demonstration of the other two new enchantments coming in the next Shattered Pixel Dungeon update. Just like with the previous two (Venemous and Vorpal), there’s an emphasis on bringing back some old enchants with new mechanics, and trying to make more enchantments that deal extra damage with some tradeoffs.

Firstly, Eldritch is a returning uncommon enchantment that has a chance to apply fear to visible enemies that aren’t your primary target. Excellent for managing multiple enemies at once, and potentially juggling two enemies with ranged attacks.

Secondly, Crystal is a new rare enchantment that ALWAYS deals an extra 25% magic damage, but with a big durability tradeoff. Crystal weapons can crack and eventually shatter, but steadily repair themselves over time. You won’t be able to depend on it constantly, but crystal offers the most consistent bonus damage of any enchantment.

  • polotype@lemmy.mlEnglish
    4·
    5 days ago

    These look really fun. Do the crystal weapon have t9 break before starting to repair or do they always repair themselves ? And if so, how do you plan on keeping it balanced for an assasin who deals so much damge that he ends up using his weapon way less frequently. While i’m at it, how does the spirit bow work with the crystal enchantement ?

    • 00-Evan@lemmy.worldOPMEnglish
      5·
      5 days ago

      They will recover durability as long as you’re in possession of them, you don’t have to get them almost broken. Assassin probably will like crystal, but the durability loss is normalized based on attack speed, so slow weapons will last for fewer attacks. The crystal bow does still have durability, and CAN break and be lost atm (same for crystal mage’s staff).

  • m_‮f@discuss.onlineEnglish
    4·
    5 days ago

    That’s a great take on weapon durability. I really hated that from the original Pixel Dungeon, and having it as a sort of opt-in enchantment is way better.

    • 00-Evan@lemmy.worldOPMEnglish
      3·
      5 days ago

      It’s honestly not designed with vanilla PD in mind, but yeah I think a durability system will hopefully work well as an enchantment tradeoff.

  • chonglibloodsport@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    4 days ago

    If a crystal weapon shatters is it totally destroyed? Or can the shattered weapon eventually come back?

    Either way it sounds really cool!

    • 00-Evan@lemmy.worldOPMEnglish
      2·
      4 days ago

      Currently crystal weapons are totally destroyed when they break, but there are warnings leading up to it.

      • chonglibloodsport@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        4 days ago

        Okay that’s pretty cool, I like that! If there’s a probability or hidden information element to it then it would be a kind of “push your luck” mechanic, which I think would be really interesting!

  • SnakeFangz@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    5 days ago

    not sure im looking forward to the crystal enchant, how is it gonna end up for bow and staff? also do you have an estimation for the update?

  • JohnnyEnzyme@piefed.socialEnglish
    21·
    5 days ago

    Thank you for the updates. I just checked out SPD for the first time in years, and have a Hunter run that’s currently reached lvl24. I once finished PD years ago, but this would mark my furthest run in SPD.

    However, there’s a problem-- not only am I drowning in a sea of tough, tricky demonic enemies who regularly blast right through my leveled-up and enhanced plate armor, quickly draining all my health recover methods, but almost worse… I’m starving. Food runs out so fast, and because of that, I rarely have a chance to do proper mapping and discover whatnot.

    IIRC, SPD was originally an attempt at making a friendlier version of PD, but this current run is getting downright miserable at this point. The fact is as an older person, I’d love a more casual, food-rich version of the game to just enjoy without there being any records or accomplishments attached to that mode. Or maybe just an option to remove hunger altogether, meaning that I could somewhat grind my health back as needed.

    I feel like the competitor “Caves” RL handled this stuff very nicely by giving players the chance to design a difficulty mode that matched their abilities. Would love to see the same in SPD / PD.

    • QuibblekrustEnglish
      1·
      5 days ago

      The food mechanic is to stop you from farming experience points before going deeper. Once you learn the game some more, you should rarely run out of food, and full exploration of each floor is perfectly doable.

      Food is not meant to be a source of good healing. Like, if you spend time passing turns just to heal from food, you will definitely starve. I used to do that when I first started playing the game, and learned it was usually a mistake.

      As for the demons, yeah, they can be a bitch. You’re supposed to dodge the laser eyes, not tank them. You can hear them warming up, and you get a fixed number of turns to find cover. That’s just part of the difficulty. Congrats on even getting that far! It took me quite a few tries to get to the Dwarf King, and to get past him routinely.

      Nowadays, I can beat the game every try, and have even beaten it with up to 3 challenges enabled. Sure, there’s RNG to contend with, but the real skill of the game is the knowledge of what to do to get out of sticky situations. Like what spells do what, and what items you should save for crafting versus using them.

      I hope you don’t completely give up on the game like you said in your other comment because it’s honestly really, really good

      • JohnnyEnzyme@piefed.socialEnglish
        1·
        5 days ago

        I hope you don’t completely give up on the game like you said in your other comment because it’s honestly really, really good

        I had my fun, and have moved on. I played quite a few runs of both PD & SPD, am just a casual player at this point in my life, and there’s a zillion other games to check out. Cheers.

    • 00-Evan@lemmy.worldOPMEnglish
      1·
      5 days ago

      I absolutely understand the frustration, but I’m not interested in giving Shattered built-in cheats or difficulty settings. Shattered is meant to be a more approachable roguelike (compared to, say, Nethack), but I also don’t want it to be very watered down, and IMO letting people play an easy mode is watering the game down. Nothing wrong with games that choose to do that of course, but it does change what sort of game they are.