Improvements

[CaioMGA]

Hi, this message is for the dev team.

You did a great job making this game.
But some details that can be changed, giving the game a better atmosphere.
I will enumerate and explain why you should, at least, consider changing them.

Character is not always visible
    When you walk behind a wall your hero gets almost fully hidden by the tiles. It is not comfortable disappearing during battles.
    It brings the feeling of being lost, of losing control. Which is bad.

    Solution: just make walls having 2 vertical tiles for each horizontal tile. The drawing can be the same, just the collision is altered. No new art required.

Gold on the screen
    How much gold do I have during a game? I don't know.
    Knowing how much I have makes me think about my possibilities: "should I go back and upgrade something or wait til I have more gold and upgrade later?"
   
    Solution: Print my gold over my name.

Stats
    When playing multiplayer the priority is division of work.
    But how to know which one is going to do what?
    Also, how to upgrade my weapons, skills if I don't know precisely what is going on?
    Having access to the stats of the heroes can provide useful information to the players and making their decision more meaningful.
    stats like: atk, mana regen, hp regen, magic atk. Those already used in the game

    Solution: At the esc in-game menu, create a button 'stats', which the players can see their team statuses.
    Also, a messagebox when hovering the mouse over the thumbnail of the other players.

Map
    The dungeons are puzzles and the player has to go up and down on the floors to pass trough.
    It is tiring trying to remember the design of a previous floor and figure out what to do next, 'how to reach that door from here?'
    A map, which can be bought at the shops, and maybe upgraded, containing all the floors and entrances, not necessarily the enemies, but just the entrances and, why not, where the secret are after they are found, can help at the puzzle solving proposition at the dungeons.

    Solution: create an item which can be bought, or the player can have it since the begining, which can give access to the blueprint of the dungeon.
    It can receive upgrades every time the player reaches a new floor - such as shop locations - and discovers a new secret area.

Pre-game Items
    Would be interesting having some items before the game starts, such as potions and amulets (atk +2, hp regen +.2 per second).
    Having them, breaking the ice for new games is easier, so the game can aim at not-so-hardcore audience and yet, the game in the long run will not suffer any significant changes, just this jump start to help kill the frustration of starting all over again.
    And again...

    Solution: making a slot for items that can enhance the hero's behavior.
    making items to help a new start in a new game.
    how to get these items? I don't know, may drops from monsters, but this is up to you.

By this suggestions I have no intention in diminishing your job on the game. It is a good game: funny and challenging.
But to me, to consider these changes would make it even better and bring more players to the game.

E-mail me for more details

Regards
Caio

[Hipshot]

Thanks for the suggestions and ideas, a lot of them are good, but they are more descriptive for a sequel to this game, not something that we feel we want to add to the current one. For more specific answers about some points, see below.

# We can't change the walls now, because it would be a too large things to change with all the levels and what needs to be checked up and all bugs it can cause. Also, I wanted the player to be a bit behind those walls a bit, a solution would be to outline the player and monsters instead.

# You see the gold on the minimap, press tab. We had it shown in the beta, at all times, but we had to change it when we redesigned how money works, before you shared expenses with everyone, but that sucked so we changed it.

# I'm all for a player stat screen and more info, I even see how it could be useful and fun to have. But I don't see that happening in this game.

# The map you describe and the upgrade system, wouldn't fit very well into our current design.

Thanks for taking your time to write this anyway, it was a solid read.

[NekoBaron]

Character is not always visible
An outline would be decent but personally I never had a problem, also outlining monsters would ruin a few surprises on custom maps when they're intentionally hidden.

Gold on the screen
Honestly the game is ment to be fairly fast paced and you wont worry about gold until you get to a shop, and you can see it when on the map screen.

Stats
I think your overcomplicating it for yourself, however I will say that since they've added the stat boosting items for the survival map would be nice to see how boosted you are for each one. Personally I only want to know my own stats so that would save having to upload extra data to other players.

Map
If you've played though the entire campaign once you will learn most of the maps, plus the map design is actually quite intelligent and generated as you go along which means the map can be updated with secret passages easily. It also means custom maps will have a map made for them without any extra work.

I will say on my first play through I kind of wanted to know when I saw out of reach areas, but once I accepted I couldn't reach em yet and kept playing I found I could open them up later.

Pre-game Items
You can use the game modifiers if your having trouble or want the game to be harder already.

[CaioMGA]

Character is not always visible
An outline would be decent but personally I never had a problem, also outlining monsters would ruin a few surprises on custom maps when they're intentionally hidden.

So don't outline monsters, just make sure the player know exactly where his char is all the time. The problem is don't seeing your hero, monsters and surprises will continuing to ... surprise you... if just the heroes get outlines.

Gold on the screen
Honestly the game is ment to be fairly fast paced and you wont worry about gold until you get to a shop, and you can see it when on the map screen.

It is meant to be fast, but it has upgrades. A poor upgrade is bad for your game session. I did not see the gold at the minimap previously, because I was not looking for it on the minimap . Why is it there? Why not under my name all the time?
Also, sometimes you don't have enough money to an important upgrade, specially when playing multiplayer. So you go ahead, collect some and go back to get that cool extra mana.
But! since we have access to the gold amount, this point is irrelevant, but changing where the gold is displayed can fasten things up and give the GUI a better structure.

Stats
I think your overcomplicating it for yourself, however I will say that since they've added the stat boosting items for the survival map would be nice to see how boosted you are for each one. Personally I only want to know my own stats so that would save having to upload extra data to other players.

You wanna know only your status, but what about the others? Giving to the player his team members status will enhance the game session for more strategic players. Simple. You would still play as you do now, I would play differently.

Pre-game Items
You can use the game modifiers if your having trouble or want the game to be harder already.

Yeah, but the PvP is coming. Items will have major importance in PvP. This will probably be implemented for PvP, why not for coop?
Also, the modifiers are few. My proposition is simple, a little more mana, a little more health, more damage, more speed...
In the form of items, which is different from the modifiers. You would have a unique slot and could not combine all the items possible. You should think about what to do. Choose carefully.

Basically, my suggestions will serve to improve the multiplayer game for more strategic players. Also, give a hand to new comers and not scare them all.

[CaioMGA]

Thanks for the suggestions and ideas, a lot of them are good, but they are more descriptive for a sequel to this game, not something that we feel we want to add to the current one. For more specific answers about some points, see below.

# We can't change the walls now, because it would be a too large things to change with all the levels and what needs to be checked up and all bugs it can cause. Also, I wanted the player to be a bit behind those walls a bit, a solution would be to outline the player and monsters instead.

# You see the gold on the minimap, press tab. We had it shown in the beta, at all times, but we had to change it when we redesigned how money works, before you shared expenses with everyone, but that sucked so we changed it.

# I'm all for a player stat screen and more info, I even see how it could be useful and fun to have. But I don't see that happening in this game.

# The map you describe and the upgrade system, wouldn't fit very well into our current design.

Thanks for taking your time to write this anyway, it was a solid read.

Sequel you say...

But consider changing the gold display, I played about five hours without noticing it, because I was not looking for gold at the minimap shortcut.
I just noticed by accident when I was on multiplayer, I died and we were out of lives, so I was watching my team play and let the minimap active.
It don't make sense putting it in there, it is hidden.

regards

Caio

[Hipshot]

I really don't want to display the gold there all the time, because I don't like the "extra" widescreen that it gives the game. I think it's annoying enough =)

[Grokitach]

Yeah, all those ideas are not so great...

But some improvements on the PvP part in the editor and on the private pickup upgrades would be cool ! (I know that I'm annoying with that, but it would really open to something refreshing).

[Jahari]

I desperately would like to have a level select. It is difficult to play through a campaign without saves (not to mention finding the time to play 2-3 hours a session).

[Hipshot]

You know the game saves right?