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MARDEK Steam Release - Change Suggestions (Also, new email)
5 years ago - Edited 5 years ago1,024 words
Help?MARDEKSteam
The idea of changing some numbers (such as item drop rates) in the Steam release of MARDEK has inspired a few comments on the previous post, but let's compile all the suggestions and come to specific decisions together.

ANOTHER UPDATE (3): When I opened this up as a possibility, I was expecting maybe a few numbers I could change in a few minutes... though the depth of the suggestions makes it feel more intimidating. I'm still willing to look into this, but I do want to stress that I really don't want to have to think about nitty-gritty details of this game at all, ideally. I don't want to devote days to figuring out my old code or thinking about gameplay balancing implications.

I appreciate that people care this much about MARDEK, though I can't help but wonder how many people exactly would benefit from these kinds of changes. How many people would you guess would buy the game on Steam? How much money do you think it'll make? And how much time do you think these changes would take me? Will it be worth it? Most people aren't hardcore completionists... but maybe it's the few who are who'll be most likely to get this version, I don't know.

I suppose I'd been feeling some relief at being able to bring people some degree of happiness by putting MARDEK on Steam, maybe even putting it behind me, but now it's just feeling like more work is ahead of me than I thought... The whole Steam release process has been like this. Not as quick and simple as I'd like! One hurdle after another. It's been getting me down. Feels like it's never over.

I spent most of yesterday focusing on Divine Dreams, partly maybe to avoid thinking about MARDEK. I really enjoyed that! I'll do the same again today. Then I'll worry about MARDEK stuff on the weekend. I'll probably need to manually compile a list of everyone's suggestions.



(Unrelated update (2): I was having issues with my tobias at alorafane email; I've likely sent out some replies which were never received despite them showing in my Sent folder, which is very annoying (I think I'm receiving email okay, but who knows). I've still got my old Gmail account, pseudolonewolf at gmail, but I've moved on from that name, so I've created another called alorafane at gmail. Just so you know! I'm adding it here because I don't know where else to mention it.)



(UPDATE (1): Here's the plan, then: I'll approve the comments here as quickly as I see them, then on Saturday I'll look through them all and make any suggested changes. So you've got until then to make suggestions. Don't worry about 'copying' other people; it's useful to know what you agree or disagree with from other people's comments so then I can gauge a consensus. I want to work on Divine Dreams for now, so I'll be focusing on that for the next couple of days.)



It didn't occur to me before that I could make some really simple changes to the game that might improve the experience for people (and make it worth getting). I wish it had! It's come up now, though, and I'm willing to make some of those changes.

But I want to be clear about exactly what I mean.

The game includes a database (sort of) of things like monster stats and drop rates, and skill properties (including costs to mastery). Number and text data. It's big, though; there's a lot in the game. It would be possible for me to go through this database and change some numbers in there without affecting the way the game runs in any major way.

Shops and things are more complicated since they're stored stupidly in the code, and changing or adding features beyond simply altering numbers would take too long and might break things, so I'm not doing that.

Many of you have a better idea of the nitty-gritty details of the game than I do. I did play through it recently, but I didn't stick with it to 100% (I didn't even beat Karnos), and it's been years since I thought about all the statistical ins-and-outs. Personally I don't care about balancing all that much since I'd rather make something that's fun for players (as long as it's not ridiculously imbalanced, obviously), but I think it's best for you, the players, to tell me which changed numbers would make the game more fun for you. I don't have an opinion myself.

If you have suggestions though, please make them extremely specific!! For example, "you should include more of Item X" isn't much use to me because, well, where do I add it? Should I think about the game as a whole, considering every possibility? How long would that take? "You should include more of Item X, maybe in Dungeon Y" is better, but again, where? Which chest, specifically? "You should replace the chest that contains Item Z with Item X in Dungeon Y" is even better, as it's a specific instruction that I can follow, quickly.

I don't particularly want to spend a lot of time thinking about the minutiae of this game at the moment, but if you want to think about that for me and make extremely specific suggestions, collectively - literally instructions that I can follow and not prompts to make my own decisions - then I'll gladly implement them. See what other people have suggested, let me know if you agree.

I wish this had come up sooner since it's going to delay the release even further (I've still not even moved to Coming Soon), but if it'd make the Steam version an improvement over the free one, it feels like it's worth it.

I suppose you could see this as a chance to make improvements to some little niggles you've had about the game over the years, a chance to make this the best version of MARDEK that it can be.

If you've already commented on the previous post, it'd be useful to restate your thoughts here so then they're easier for me to manage.

37 COMMENTS

Alban12320~5Y
I have some minor suggestions Tobias...

You can make the unobtainable items available for characters like make all of them obtainable on a shop or something.

Some of the items :

- Wolfblade
- Bandit Leather +5
- Boots of Speed
- Sage's Wand
- HeartStaff
- TopazEarring
- Golden Circlet
etc.
The items doesn't have to be obtained at the begining of the game you can make them obtainable only after we finish the game for example.

These items have some skills that can be mastered so it would be both cool and useful.

Talking about skills there are many skills that you made in mardek but you didn't use them because you had saved them for Mardek 4 probably but seeing tham M4 is not coming then why not add some new skill to some items it would really make a great difference between the free and the payed version.

Some of the skills (reactions) :

Physical attack reactions:
- DMG+40%
- P+Confuse 20%
- P+Numb 20%
Magical defense reactions:
- The One Who Lived
- M DMG Soak 30
- M DMG-50%
Passive skills :
- Auto-P.Shield
- Auto-M.Shield
- Auto-Haste
etc.

Also you talked about changing numbers:
Donovan and Sharla have only one ultimate weapon Obelisk so we can not use it for both of them at the same time and they have many synergies together, so why not add an other obelisk.

Meraeador can not master his skills which is very annoing because he can be very useful if he could just Master the skills from the inventions.

Also if you ever started to make anything new for Mardek 4, like we see many doors that can not be oppened then you can add it for example after we finish the game just for fun so that we can see and experience what you had in plan.

And i have a question, you said that you will also include the plot for the rest of the story, are we going to be able to know more about some of the characters that we didn't see in the game like Enki or where he was all this time?

That's all, sorry for getting carried away :D it's just whenever i see Mardek millions of ideas come to my mind, and thank you Tobias for this wonderful game i wish you succes in your next games.
2
Tobias 1115~5Y
You'll need to be more specific about some of these suggestions. Where should I add these items? To "a shop" is too vague, and it might be more difficult to append to shops' inventories at this point than it is to add to chests or monster drop rates.

A few people have mentioned the issue with one Obelisk, but where could I add another which wouldn't trivialise the current one? I could just have that reward be two of them, but I don't know if the code will allow that.

Things like fundamentally changing how a character (Meraeador) works are beyond the scope of what's possible, unfortunately.

The notes I'll be including should explain a lot of stuff including that, yes. Whether it'll be satisfying is another story though!
2
Alban12320~5Y
Yes you are right i should be more specific about the suggestions sorry about that, so about the items i have an idea:

For Wolfblade : you can make it drop after the final battle against Moric(SocialFox body), i know we won't be able to use it for long on Deugan because after that he'll no longer be playable, but we can use it for a bit and than we can collect the item.

BanditLeather+5: it only makes sense to make it drop after the battle against Muriance, it can be very useful in the game.

Boots of Speed: i think this item should drop once at the trapped chest in Sun Temple where we fight against Griffin seeing that griffin is one of the fastest monster in the game.

Sage's Wand: should drop after Emeela's fight in 3rd chapter.

Heart staff should drop after the first battle against the world saviours.

Topaz earring : this is an Air element item so it would be the best to put it on a shop on Aeropolis.

Golden Circlet: i think this item should drop after beating Karnos it really rassembles his colors and the level of this item matches with the place (Miasmal Citadel)

Weapons like Mortus or Aquila can be obtained as some sort of trophies after beating Moric and Qualna (in their Annunaki form)

There are other weapons that you can make drop like : branchclub, dagger, curved dagger, walkingstick, revolver, taurus after beating these weapons owners.

Also About Obelisk : if you read the description of Obelisk it says : Obelisks were important cultural and religious icons in many ancient civilizations. So i think seeing that we have two ancient civilizations places (Miasmal Citadel, and Dreamshrine) you can make it drop in one of these maps either in some monsters or in any chest.

Also this is very important : there is a sword (Mythril Sword) that Mardek can automatically obtain if you start the game from Chapter 3 without playing M1 or M2, so this is really problematic because this means that anyone that will play M3 after finishing M1 and M2 will not be able to have this sword, so maybe i think you can make it drop from the bandits at Aeropolis considering that they are the only one that weild it in the game probably.

Also beside gold ore there is another item that is not enough to craft all the items at Xantusia, that is Griffin Feather, if we don't have enough of that we can't make the weapon Eagle Wings.
You can just double the drop from griffin battles.

That's all about the items i think please tell me if i missed something.





3
Maniafig222~5Y
Boots of Speed are massively OP, Auto-Haste is the most broken item effect in the game. If anyone were to drop it should either be Animus or Qualna, which aren't exactly fitting enemies to drop that item anyway,

There really is no reason to put it in, it's not exactly a very flavorful item and there's no indication it's in the code since no enemies are equipped with it.

Also, if there was a place to easily dump all these items it would be the Dreamshrine, there's a lot of chests in this area that contain easily farmable reagents and generic expendable items, those can all be replaced since by the time you unlock this dungeon (obtained all Dreamstones) you've basically finished every sidequest already. It would also easily handwave away why these items are all there, they must have significant meaning to the prior users of those weapons.

[LINK]
2
Kankus2~4Y
Wow, you actually implemented Wolfblade, that's so awesome! Just got it from Moric and it gotta say i was pleasantly surprised!
1
vladandrei199647~5Y
I'll just copy-paste my ideas about tweaking the AP needed for mastering passive skills so you can have them in this thread.

[LINK]

Looking here, I'd say that nerfing the values down shouldn't make the grinding that time-consuming but nor too quick.
My ideas are in general for the number of won fights needed for mastering, so I will just list the AP that should be numbered down a bit as in my vision :

20 AP skills -> 15 AP
30 AP skills -> 20 AP
40 AP skills -> 30 AP
50 AP skills -> 40 AP

I think the more special cases, like Double AP passive (that requires 200 AP but it is lowering itself to 100 after activating it) and Double Gold passive (100 AP needed) should stay the same.

This way, players can master skills without too much burnout from wearing a piece of gear that's worse than what they have in inventory right now just for the sake of mastering a skill.
3
MaxDes45~5Y
Here some of my opinions on things that could be changed:

Personally, I like how there's a limited amount of gold ores since it really forces you to consider what's necessary to make and what isn't.

One thing I do clearly remember is that the monster fang drop rate is excruciatingly low. If you could increase the drop rate in the Rexaurus from the Earth Temple from 10% to 40% (maybe even higher?), I think that would be a really good addition. I'm calling out this monster specifically because I think it appears at a point in the game, where fangs start becoming more important (where the player starts looking for the specifically for legion's best weapon and to make the power drink).

The crystal tears item is another one that's very useful (since you use them to make make Magic Drinks) but the item is just way too rare. I usually have 1 or 2 by the end of them game, but it'd be nice to be able to make more for the big fights. I think if you increased their drop rate from 20% to 40% in the I-Orb, that would really help.

Lead pipes are also very important items that are useful in crafting Maraeador's weapons, but you eventually have to grind to get every weapon, which can be a little irritating. I think it would be great if you increased the Rot Rat's 30% drop rate to 50%.

One big thing that kind of breaks the game is how the Astral Wanderer's garb turns Animus' fight into a joke. The item itself reduces aether by 50%, and then it gives a skill which reduces aether by 50%, so you can end up getting 100% immunity from Animus' attacks. I would want to see the item have its aether protection lowered to 15% so that the animus fight can't be really easily done.

You can also get Onyx Rings (that gives 50% dark resistance) in late chapter 2 and a Shield of Darkness (that gives 30% dark resistance) in early chapter 3. These items just remove almost all difficulty in the Dark Temple since they give such an incredible amount of protection against the dark element. At that point of the game, they're just too overpowered, and I think it'd be great if the shield's dark protection got lowered to 15% and the Onyx Ring's dark protection got lowered to 25%.

Donavan isn't really usable at all in M3 because he's just so weak. His magical damage, especially, is pretty terrible. If you could increase his base SPR by 2, I think that could help. His first weapon, the Ember Spear gives the skill "Empowers fire by 20%". If you could increase that skill to 50%, I think that could help a lot as well. Of course, the main problem with Donovan is that he just very rarely has the elemental advantage (since there's no air temple and no excess of air enemies), but I think just one of these changes could make him more viable.

That's all I have for now, hope it's helpful!
6
Tama_Yoshi82~5Y
I cannot make extremely specific recommendations (because most details are far in the past for me), but can gesture in the direction of extremely specific recommendations. I recall the most annoying part of MARDEK 3 was its lack of conveyance when it came to key events (the lost monastery, the house in the wood... I don't recall exactly, I think the issue was that a very specific member of the team had to be present in your party when entering the map).

I recall you added the walkthrough to the current build of MARDEK, and I think the walkthrough did get me through every side-quests back then, but it's definitely annoying to me that the answers were "out of the game" and it felt like the game incentivized me to cheat.

I think this is especially true today, where many "large open world RPGs" actively keep track of everything for you, such that it's practically impossible to miss anything.

For me, the fix would be as simple as

A) not requiring the character to BE in the team for the event to trigger (but of course forcing a team restructure if the event is taken on)

B) Making a log when the character enters the team AFTER the area is discovered, such that the player knows there is a "quest" which puts in relation the location and the character.

(B alone might be sufficient, though, if it conveys the necessary information)

Since the walkthrough already advertises the side-quests neatly, this might be easier to go through (a "one line prompt" for each quest/side-quests). The long part would have to be hunting down for segments in the game where these prompts are "added" and when they are "completed".

This might be quite a bit of work, though (I don't recall MARDEK having a "quest" screen), and realize this is quite larger than the specific modifications you were looking for... But from my recollection, this is THE thing I had an issue with. It's definitely a small plus I think would make the game far more accessible (and sometimes more fun; I recall finding Saul late-game, causing me to almost one-shot him and earn almost no exp when fighting him).
1
Tobias 1115~5Y
This is the kind of thing I'll be aiming to do differently in Divine Dreams, but it's not feasible to add it to MARDEK since it'd mean delving deeply into old code, potentially breaking - and therefore having to excessively test - things, and having to creatively come up with new ideas for a work I've long since moved on from. I'm really only willing to change around a few numbers.
2
Maniafig222~5Y
-Replace the Topaz/Moonstrone drops from Antares with a 100% Gold Ore drop.

-Centaur (Female) gains a 3% drop rate for Jade

-Mythril Golem drops:
EveningStar (30%)
Mythril Ore (5%)
Gold Ore (5%) <- New
Silver Ore (5%) <- New

-Oneironaut drops:
M Runestone (5%)
Candriathope (5%) <- New

-Cut HP/MP +X% skill AP in half, so 10/20/30 instead of 20/40/60

-Cut status immunity skills AP in half, from 40 to 20, these are as follows:
Antibody
Loquacity
Suppleness
Insomnia
Clarity
Locomotion
Bright Eyes
Purity
Vim
(There's other skills but they're not accessible, so they don't matter)

-STR/SPR/VIT/AGL boosting skills require 10/20/30 AP instead of 15/30/45 AP

-Resist ELEMENT skills become 25 AP down from 50 AP

-Double Gold becomes 40 AP and 4 RP down from 100 AP and 10 RP

-Double AP becomes 80 AP and 4 RP down from 200 AP and 10 RP

To expand on my previous post, I echo the sentiment expressed by JohhnyBoi to increase the drop rate of certain equipment that is only available from rare enemies:

Keyblade from Zombie Locksmith: 50% -> 100%
It's a funny reference item and it doesn't really make sense for it not to drop considering it's right there.

Sun Axe from Revenant: 5% -> 50%
This one is absurdly rare, dropped by an enemy with only one battle formation in an area with many battle formations where enemies also stop spawning after you finish the Warding Stone sidequest. This axe is useful for the Dark Temple segment but is also later outclassed by other Greataxes, and the Paladins in the Lost Monastery also have a 50% drop rate for a stronger Greataxe, so it'd be more consistent too. (Seriously, why are there three Light-element Greataxes?!)

The Silver Axe doesn't really need an increase in drop rate since it can just be smithed instead.

Mahogany Staff from Posh Zombie: 10% -> 50%
Like the Sun Axe, this is a rare drop from a rare formation. It's only useful for teaching Gloria the M Drain HP 10% skill, which is unique to her. It's worth grinding for, but it's also tedious to grind for.

And here's one to cut down on the tedious hour-long grind for Monster Fangs:

Monster Fang from Punk Monster and Rexaurus: 10% -> 50%
Monster Fangs are only dropped from the Monster enemies and you need a lot of them to craft equipment for Legion and Meraeador. The best way to farm this is in chapter 2's Tomb of Social Fox of all places, which is stupid! Making it possible to farm more easily from Punk Monsters in the Dark Temple or the Rexaurus in the Earth Temple is much more sensible.

Buzzaw Arm crafting recipe:
Gold Ore ×1
Silver Ore ×1
Monster Fang ×8 -> x4
EveningStar ×1
It doesn't need to require grinding for THAT many Fangs, it's already gatekeeped by the need to purchase the Ores and obtaining an EveningStar.
6
Tobias 1115~5Y
These are the kind of specific requests I can easily work with!

Also, did you get my email with the beta key?
1
Maniafig222~5Y
I didn't see it in my mailbox, and I checked the spam folder. Did you perhaps misspell the address?
1
Tobias 1115~5Y
That'd explain the lack of a reply! I replied to your email, so it shouldn't have been that... Strange. I wonder how many other emails haven't sent...

I'll try sending it from my other email address.
2
Maniafig222~5Y
I did reveive the mail this time! I'll try using the key tonight after work.

Are there things you want us to test for specifically?
2
Tobias 1115~5Y
Good! I think I should set up a new email account which isn't dependent on my unreliable webhost...

All I really need to know at the moment is whether you can open and run the game as expected, nothing about the gameplay experience. So you only need around five minutes for that.
1
HolyPenguin96~5Y
You mentioned in a previous post that there are a limited number of Gold Ores and so you might tweak them to appear as a drop or something so it would be possible to craft everything. Well, the same is true for Candriathope - you can't craft everything AND hold on to one for Legion's Gemsplosion.

I always thought these were design choices - you have to pick and choose what you want to craft.

But if you're looking to tweak Gold Ore so that it's no longer a limited quantity item, you may want to do the same for Candriathope.

... as for specifics? What about as a very rare drop from ANY gem monster? They still drop their usual gem, but also have a 1% (or more) chance to drop the Candriathope. That's the best I can think of.
1
MF11~5Y
Ok, this is going to be long. HERE WE GO:

(Some of those were kinda stolen from the other post, I hope it doesn't upset anyone. Anyway, those are all changes that I endorse)

Regarding loot:

-Monster Fang drops should be doubled (40% for Monster and 20% for Zombie Monster, Punk Monster and Rexaurus), grinding for those was a pain
-A second Obelisk should be available (maybe the museum guy could just give you 2?)
-The keyblade should be a 100% drop from the Locksmith
-Make the Sun Axe a 50% drop from the Revenant
-Increase the Bone Axe drop rate to 20% (from Axolotl)
-Add 2 Gold Ores, 1 Silver Ore and 2 Jades to the merchants in Aeropolis (or to chests that contain them)
-Increase EveningStar drop rate to 50% (from Mythril Golem)
-Make Golden M Helm cost 1 Candriathope instead of 2

Regarding skills:

-Increase Razor Leaf base power to 40 (since lowering enemies' VIT is useless)
-Reduce Boost AP to 5 (for both Deugan and Sslen'ck)
-Reduce Shield, M. Shield and Regen AP to 10 (from Mardek) and Remove Evil to 20
-Reduce Green Lightning and Lay on Hands AP to 20
-I believe Pyro and Aero Shell are bugged? Maybe it's worth checking it out
-Make Astral Form reduce Light and Dark resistance by only 50%
-Reduce Berserk AP to 10 (from Zack)
-Add Strength Boost to the Firestone Ring or some other item (it would make Donovan useful earlier)

Regarding reactions:

-Reduce Critical+20% to 3 or 4 RP (maybe it's bad luck on my part, but it didn't feel useful)
-Reduce 'Resist ELEMENT' AP to 25 and RP to 5 (they always felt too situational for me)
-Reduce 'ELEMENT-50%' and 'M ELEMENT-50%' RP to 5 (those felt much more useful, but maybe it's just because of the pendants?)
-Reduce Rainbow Aura Lv. 1 to 7 RP (it matches so nicely with the rainbow, YAY!), but AP should remain unchanged
-Reduce DMG Soak 10, 20 and 30 RP to 1, 2 and 3, respectively; and AP to 10, 15 and 20; same for M DMG Soak . (Btw, I why wondered why they cost more than the DMG -% reactions, since they're only better if the damage is below 100, which is rare)
-Reduce passive reactions that grants immunities to 20 AP and 3 or 4 RP (again, too situational)
-Reduce Nature's Favour and Dragon's Blood RP to 2 (those are more useful, but just 20% resistances should be cheaper)
-Reduce P+Poison 20%, P+Bleed 20%, M+Poison 20% and M+Stun 20% to 3 RP (they don't work so often)
-Shield Break 10% and Degeneration 10% would be more interesting with 20% (that would involve also changing strings, right?) and costing 20 AP and 3 RP (maybe 4 for Shield)

Also, I did some improvement suggestions on a post months ago about the re-release, none of them are number-change-like and probably more complex than what is viable to implement now, but I will list the three most 'seems easy to do' ones just in case they can actually be changed without a hassle:

-Make one button initiate an immediate random battle if in a appropriate map (to ease off grinding)
-Make the map music continue from where it stopped instead of restarting after a random battle
-Make characters not used in a battle receive XP (I think 50% is a good number)

Anyway, I really appreciate those "community changes" that are going to make the Steam release even better. Even if minor, they were a really great idea.



3
crocodileman944~5Y
I got quite a few suggestions, but I don't know how many of them are feasible.

- There's a flaw with the enemy Dreamfish that I assume is an oversight. Their physical attacks are supposed to put a character to sleep, but they inflict the Sleep status effect before they deal damage, resulting with them immediately disabling the Sleep they just inflicted. The two commands that are triggered by their attack should therefore change order.

- Karnos and Animus should have the move Delay Buster replaced with Dispel. Since they are programmed to try to disable Haste when a playable character has the status enabled, you can easily manipulate the AI to spam that move by having the Yellow fairy or Scarab of Fury equipped. If you also give the character an air resistance of at least 100%, they will keep using Delay Buster to no avail, as the Auto-Haste can't be dispelled and the air damage caused by the move will do no harm. Granted, Dispel would probably also be used to no avail, but it would at least deactivate almost every single temporary buff.

- Delay Buster should, however, replace Shock as Karnos's air-form exclusive attack. As of now, the air-form is the only one to not have an exclusive AoE attack and Shock is also a relatively weak attack compared to the AoE moves in its other elemental forms. It would also make sense for Delay Buster to be air-form exclusive, since it's the most powerful AoE air-attack in the game.

- The 8th battle in Zach's Survival tournament at the arena should be changed. Since Flame Soul is immune to both air and physical (the element) damage, the only way for Zach to damage the enemy, aside from consumables like Really Cold Water, is through Sinstrike. The biggest problem arises from Flame Soul's capability of berserking Zach, which prevents him from using any of the previously mentioned options and results in a situation where the player can do nothing but wait for the Flame Soul to kill Zach.
My proposed solution is to either reduce Flame Soul's air resistance to 50% or replace it with Wretched Soul, which already has an air resistance of 50%. That way, even a berserked Zach could make progress, granted that he has either Soulstrike enabled or Eagle Wings equipped.

- The stat reducion caused by Gloria's attacks should either be reduced to 1-2 or, preferably, just 1. As it is now, you can easily make many bosses, especially Animus, trivial by using Wildfire and Whirlpool to reduce their offensive stats to zero. I agree with MF that Razor Leaf should have a higher base power and the VIT reduction removed, as it has no effect on the enemies.

- I also agree with MF that characters not used in battle should receive XP as well. It would encourage trying out different combinations and it would also make Mardek not as overpowered, since grinding exp for underleveled characters results in Mardek being overleveled. I would suggest being able to remove Mardek from the party, but almost all cutscenes expect you to have Mardek in the party.

- I agree with MaxDes that Astral Wanderer's Garb should be nerfed, as it basically makes you immune against most of Animus's moves. His suggestion to nerf the dark resistance of the Onyx Ring and Shield of Darkness is also good.

- If it is possible to not make the area music restart when finishing a battle, that would also be greatly appreciated.

- The level growth of the Trilobite Warriors NPC's should be increased from 2 levels per defeated warrior to 4, or at least 3. As it is now, their level scaling is significally lower than that of the playable characters, making each consecutive encounter easier than the previous one and the first encounter the only actual challenge. By increasing it to 4, their level growth would be on par with that of the playable characters, keeping them a challenge the whole way through.

- Finally, if you still plan to include the walkthrough, keep in mind that the sections Medals, Characters, Skills List and Commentary are empty and should probably be removed.
The walkthrough also make the claim that you can't obtain the Miasmal Chalices if you've defeated the Guardian of the temple. Since this was chaned in an update, it sould probably also be changed in the walkthrough. It's brought up in the sections Water Temple, Fire Temple, Earth Temple and Secrets.


This may sound like I'm complaining, but the only real complaint here is the one regarding Zach.
2
Maniafig222~5Y
So, the topic of Donovan's uselessness has come up a few times. I'm not too keen on the suggestions to buff him so far (his counterpart skills to Sharla shouldn't be more powerful than hers), so here's my thoughts on how to set Donovan apart:

Buff his Burn skill:
35 spell power -> 40 spell power
1~6 DEF reduction -> 1~9 DEF reduction
10% Numb chance -> 30% Numb chance

Burn's current niche is already covered better by Meraeador's starting Thermal Spanner skill, whose power actually scales with level, has the same Numb chance and has a 1~9 DEF reduction, so Burn's hopelessly outclassed as-is. Numb is supposed to be Fire's niche, so this would set Donovan apart and give him the choice between going for pure high-damage or status control.

Flame Charm:
Now teaches the M+Numb 20% Magic Attack Reaction.

I've no clue why this isn't already in the game, since Sharla's Feather Charm gives her M+Stun 20% and they're supposed to be counterparts. This further solidifies Donovan's niche as being able to apply Numb, a rare and potent status ailment.

For anyone worrying this is OP, keep in mind skills like the Sleep-O-Matic and Blood Claw exist, which run circles around a chance to inflict Numb. I think Donovan would still be the bottom of the barrel even with these changes, but someone's gotta be, if it's not him then it'd be Zach or Slenck.

I also don't think the player should be able to get two Obelisks, if they really want to use both Sharla and Donovan then the Magic Poker is still a good substitute for Sharla.

This one's more of a fix than anything, but the according to the wiki Meraeador's Drill-O-Matic doesn't actually pierce defense! That should be fixed, since the description says it should.

Aside from that I wouldn't really buff or nerf any other characters or mess around with the AP/RP costs of attack/defense reactions, there's something to be said for all of them as they currently are, even if situational.
6
astralwolf92~5Y
Ssclenck is no way bottom barrel.. he does insane damage towards the end of the game. Surprisingly the hardest hitters in this game are Sharla and Scclenck (instead of Gloria, legion).

He gets that stupid powerful axe, can increase his strength manually, I believe he can equip something to auto berserk to, he was hitting 5k - 9999 damage late game for me per swing. His berserk is viable because you can use soulstrike to change the element of the attack from fire to earth in cases where it's needed.
0
Maniafig222~5Y
I don't think this is really the place for a MARDEK character tier list discussion, but this does feel nostalgic for the days of perpetual MARDEK tier list discussions.

Slenck provides zero utility or support to the party with his shallow skillset and Solaar, Vehrn and Legion can do his high single target gimmick just as well, if not better, while also being able to do more than just damage.

It's not to say he's useless, he's still better than Donovan and Zach since they have the exact same problems, but he's simply outclassed. Anything he can do, someone else can do too.
0
purplerabbits148~5Y
For me, I hope that the drop rate for monter teeth to be increased, or the cost for crafting be decreased for Legion's strongest weapon.

If possible would it be possible to increase the spwn rate for the posh creatures. I remember that it was a bit fustrating to fill out Legion's "attack dex" because the posh creatures seem to never target him with the money attack. I get it eventually, but it took some time usually.
2
zhutz5~5Y
I guess I'll post these so important changes in this comment section too for your convenience:
[LINK]
(typos and some small fixes with approximate places where they should be changed)
2
kidupiscean37~5Y
Just a friendly reminder - you may have thought of it already - that you may have to update your walkthrough after you tweak the game here and there ;)
0
StrangeHawk6~5Y
Wanted to start by saying that I strongly agree with Maniafig's suggestions, particularly the item drop rates and skill learning adjustments. These are just a few of my own suggestions, in a similar thinking. They are much less important though, since they impact everything a lot less to all but the hardcore who probably would plan in advance anyways.

-Blood Zombies in Saul's Dungeon gaining a 3% drop rate for Blood Opals. Perhaps 1% might be a better fit with Maniafig's Jade suggestion?

-Rending Eye from Fallen Paladin: 50% -> 75%.

-Clerical Mace from Fallen Cultling: 10%->25%

-Trilobite Staff from Trilobite Warriors: 20% -> 30%

-Centaur (Female) gains a 1% chance to drop a Rune Shield.

Edit: Cut down on a ton of the extra detail and stuff now that I better understand the scope and realize how much fluff there was. Saved the old post just in case.
2
MaxDes45~5Y
I got some more opinions after reading what other people are saying the comments.

Mostly, I'm hearing about AP/RP reductions, increasing drop rates, and adding items. These recommendations are fine, but I feel skeptical about their practicality because we're mostly only hearing recommendations for changes that make the game easier for the player. I don't agree with all of them since MARDEK already has a standard level of difficulty, and adding these changes to help the player would make the game incredibly easier.

I agree with some of the AP reduction recommendations, namely:
- Status effect immunity skills (from 40 to 20)
- Max Health/ Max Mana increase skills
(from 20/40/60 to 10/20/30)
- Attribute (STR, SPR, etc) increase skills
(from 15/30/45 to 10/20/30)
- Resist element skills (from 50 to 25)
- SOS-Berserk skill (from 20 to 10, I talk about it down below)

I think lowering AP is a step in the right direction, since there are a lot of fun skills in the game that most players aren't able to get. It's hard to get a fair amount of skills on each character when you have to balance spending time with all of them.

Lowering the RP of skills is a complete game changer in my mind, though. So far, the game is fairly balanced around its established mechanics, and generally lowering RP would let the player equip way more skills than normal, making the game incredibly unbalanced in the player's favor.

I think reducing the RP requirement of skills could lead to a more fun and interesting game, but the mechanics of the game would have to be made more difficult to compensate for this imbalance. You aren't changing the mechanics of the game, so I think lowering the RP of too many skills is a bad idea.

In terms of RP changes, the only RP reduction I can think of that wouldn't break the game's balance is reducing the "Status Effect Immunity" skills from 6 to 4 (and that's just because those skills are very unpractical). I also talk about lowering the SOS-Berserk skill RP, from 3 to 1(/2?), down below, too.

I'm also seeing a lot of people requesting for ways to get unlimited ores and candriathopes. I always thought that the scarcity of these items was intentional. Personally, I really, really like how they are limited. The fact that you're forced to make cuts to what you can get adds a whole new factor to the game, which I really enjoy!! Different players want different items; you have to craft the limited items you can based around your specific play style. I understand if you choose to go either way, but I really, seriously prefer having these items stay scarce.

(In terms of the Jade, I don't have a preference whether or not it's limited since it really isn't an important item. If you wanted the VIT +1 skill, you could just make every player equip a green stole to get it [except Legion]. I'm sure die-hard players that want Legion to be able to get this skill would prefer the Jade not to be limited, though. The Jade shouldn't be sold in Aeropolis shops, however. It's a key ingredient in the Glyph Shield, and making the Jade accessible that early will make the Glyph Shield too easy to obtain. It would probably be best to make it a drop from an Earth Temple enemy [like the Golem, as a 30% drop].)

(I think you shouldn't add a second obelisk either. There are seriously a lot of diverse spears to the point where you don't need to add another one. This viewpoint might just be because I don't like change, though?! I see real reasons for making ores and candriathopes stay limited, but for the obelisk... I'm just not sure if I feel good about there being two of them. If you choose to add a second obelisk, though, the ONLY sufficient place I see it being added to is a chest [either the one with phoenix downs or remedies?] in the Dream Shrine [where you fight Animus].)

My last recommendation is for what's kind of a niche item- the horned (viking) helmet. The SOS-Berserk skill doesn't explicitly help the player since it's such a situational skill, but I think it's definitely a very fun skill that could be used more to make the game more interesting. I think lowering its AP from 20 to 10 and lowering its RP from 3 to 1 (or 2?) would make it be used more. I think this change would just make the game a little more fun.

(Also, I agree with Maniafig's recommendation to decrease the number of monster fangs needed for Legion's final weapon [8], but I'd prefer it to be 5)

I don't have any energy to write anymore, but Zach and Donovan are very unpractical characters. They're kind of terrible. If someone recommends buffing them in some way, I am totally down. (Vehrn gets insanely good if you boost his SPR stat, though, so I wouldn't recommend buffing him!)

Hope that's helpful!
2
JohnnyBoi45~5Y
I was going to put my previous suggestions in, but those were already covered by Maniafig so I'll respond to your latest update.

Unfortunately, in opening to the floor to suggestions, you definitely opened the floodgates. Mardek is a game everyone in this thread loves, but it isn't perfect, and over the past 10 years everyone has had a lot of time to come up with the suggestions you see here.

So it's up to your discretion which suggestions are the most important to implement. I think the drop rates and AP requirements are probably the easiest to edit that would have a real impact that people would appreciate, but wouldn't completely unbalance the game.

Honestly, the easiest way to deal with the gold/silver/candriathope/jade problem is probably just to increase the amount of them you can find in the places they are already sold/found. Add an extra gold ore to the chest in desert path, add an extra candriathope to the goznor secret shop, Add an extra silver ore to the aeropolis peddler. Jade is probably the trickiest, but I like the suggestion of making it a drop from an earth temple creature - not sure if that is too much work.

I do think reducing RP costs would unbalance the game in a way that would require more work to fix, exceptions being double AP/gold.

If I could make one character balance change, it would be Donovan - I don't think he'll ever be a strong character, but I think his main weakness is that he doesn't get his improved damage spell until after the fire temple. I will second Maniafig's suggestions about Donovan, as it makes Burn (the spell he does get around the same time as Sharla) much more useful.
9
vladandrei199647~5Y
I remembered about a little suggestion, it's MARDEK related but not about the gameplay numbers in anyway, but it's something that shouldn't take more than a couple of minutes from your time and I hope it might catch your attention.

You could do some minimal advertising about the steam release without spending a penny. You could just link the Steam page to subreddits such as r/pcgaming , r/indiegames or r/games , indie developers often do this and they get more recognition because potential buyers can speak with the developer and find about you and your games. I've discovered a lot of interesting indie games that I wouldn't have otherwise if the developers didn't post about them in such places.

Just a thought, as I hope you'll get good sales and MARDEK (and by extension, you) will get a larger fan-base.
6
Ampersand68~5Y
I think in that case, it'd be best to talk about Divine Dreams, and how it's a reimagining of MARDEK, which is going to be released [insert day of release]. Helps to get word out for new projects while also reminding people of an old favorite that is now going to be available for purchase on Steam- two birds with one stone!
2
vladandrei199647~5Y
That's a good idea too, but I think of a better way :
Because DD is still somehow miles away, at least not as close as MARDEK is, just announce the re-release and in the comments you could say about the re-imagining of the game. That could create hype and motivate people to wishlist both games.
0
Tobias 1115~5Y
I've been planning to do this, though I'm not sure what specific subreddits to post in. Are these the ones? I'll make a post about it closer to the time so then I can ask other people what they think as well.
1
vladandrei199647~5Y
You can sure post about the Steam release of your game on r/pcgaming and /indiegames at least, I've seen plenty of developers posting about their games on these two so I'm pretty sure it isn't against the rules of those subreddits, and they have a lot of followers (1.9m on pcgaming and 60k on indiegames).

It seems that r/games has a rule of thumb of contributing with more content than just promotion so that might be trickier.

As soon as MARDEK is released you should post it on Reddit, posting it while it is "coming soon" shouldn't have the same effect.

That also means that you should interract with the people that will be commenting on these posts, people love when a developer answers their questions and that might get you some sales.
1
Danik9~5Y
I think that it would be awesome if there would be a version without any changes in the drop rates or in the other game mechanics and where there was more grinding like in the browser version of the game
0
vladandrei199647~5Y
I can see why you'd like that, but I want to give my thought to why nerfing those numbers a bit would be good in the long run.

Most of us that are on this blog already played MARDEK at least once, we already know which team we want to do the grind on.

New players that might buy the game won't know, they will go in blind and try each team member. That's a hassle with the high numbers required for grinding masteries. I remember my 1st time playing MARDEK C3, I wanted to try out Elwyen after some time and I was aware that I have to level her up some more, but I gave up once I realised that I'd have to give up on a team member in which I've been investing time for mastering a lot of passives,reactions and skills because I'd have to do that again.

But like I said, the numbers shouldn't change too much, just a bit so it's more "team switching friendly".
2
Danik9~5Y
That is indeed fair enough, just thought about 2 versions 1st would be new and 2nd would be old just to feel the nostalgy for the old players and just to grind more.
0
Ptyrell37~5Y
I sense some decision fatigue :P
0
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