Ludus Mortis — Dark Fantasy Roman DRPG — releases today

Post by **rusty_shackleford** » March 6th, 2024, 10:36

It has been in early access for a while, 1.0 comes out today

Any of you planning on picking it up?

Acrux · Post by **Acrux** » March 6th, 2024, 14:25

Do it! It's one of the best DRPGs to release in a while.

aweigh · Post by **aweigh** » March 6th, 2024, 16:08

rusty_shackleford wrote: ↑ March 6th, 2024, 10:36
It has been in early access for a while, 1.0 comes out today

Any of you planning on picking it up?

Is this from the same guy who did the 7 circles of hell 'crawler? This looks good/interesting. Also I like that it has full gamepad support. Will probably be picking this up eventually.

Post by **rusty_shackleford** » March 6th, 2024, 16:11

aweigh wrote: ↑ March 6th, 2024, 16:08
Is this from the same guy who did the 7 circles of hell 'crawler?

yes, he also did a few others
https://store.steampowered.com/search/? ... 8k Studios

1998 · Post by **1998** » March 6th, 2024, 17:16

Post by **rusty_shackleford** » March 6th, 2024, 17:23

It released.

Post by **rusty_shackleford** » March 12th, 2024, 12:05

Apparently the rolls can go rather high.

Post by **rusty_shackleford** » March 12th, 2024, 12:09

Anyone happen to have an AI generated roman portrait pack laying around by chance?

Humbaba · Post by **Humbaba** » March 12th, 2024, 14:25

Kalarion · Post by **Kalarion** » March 12th, 2024, 15:23

Is it possible to replace the music? It's really bad, except maybe the main menu.

I'm having a blast so far.

Post by **rusty_shackleford** » March 12th, 2024, 15:49

Kalarion wrote: ↑ March 12th, 2024, 15:23
Is it possible to replace the music?

~> file package.nw
package.nw: Zip archive data, at least v4.5 to extract, compression method=deflate

~> 7z l package.nw

7-Zip [64] 17.05 : Copyright (c) 1999-2021 Igor Pavlov : 2017-08-28
p7zip Version 17.05 (locale=en_US.UTF-8,Utf16=on,HugeFiles=on,64 bits,32 CPUs x64)

Scanning the drive for archives:
1 file, 374935272 bytes (358 MiB)

Listing archive: package.nw

--
Path = package.nw
Type = zip
WARNINGS:
Headers Error
Physical Size = 374935272

Date Time Attr Size Compressed Name
------------------- ----- ------------ ------------ ------------------------
[omitted a bunch of files for brevity]
2024-02-28 11:37:52 ..... 2607150 2607150 media/vae_victis_combat1.webm
2024-02-28 11:37:52 ..... 3578081 3578081 media/vae_victis_combat2.webm
2024-02-28 11:37:52 ..... 3106952 3106952 media/vae_victis_combat_3.webm
2024-02-28 11:37:52 ..... 2033310 2033310 media/vae_victis_main_menu.webm
2024-02-28 11:37:52 ..... 3055882 3055882 media/vae_victis_ludus_menu.webm
2024-02-28 11:37:52 ..... 1825560 1825560 media/vae_victis_taberna_crowd.webm
2024-02-28 11:37:52 ..... 3617154 3617154 media/vae_victis_combat4.webm
2024-02-28 11:37:52 ..... 4380126 4380126 media/ludus_mortis_intro.webm
2024-02-28 11:37:53 ..... 3402692 3402692 media/ludus_mortis_intro_short.webm
2024-02-28 11:37:53 ..... 1404140 1404140 media/ludus_mortis_cutscene.webm
2024-02-28 11:37:53 ..... 3865887 3865887 media/ludus_mortis_combat6.webm
2024-02-28 11:37:53 ..... 3293291 3293291 media/ludus_mortis_combat5.webm
2024-02-28 11:37:53 ..... 407176 407176 media/ancient_game_wood_wheel_wagon_mechanism_2.webm
2024-02-28 11:37:53 ..... 607624 607624 media/stage_clear_defeat_edit.webm
2024-02-28 11:37:53 ..... 344073 344073 media/stage_clear_success_edit.webm
2024-02-28 11:37:53 ..... 2686315 2686315 media/ludus_mortis_spiritus.webm
2024-02-28 11:37:53 ..... 5873274 5873274 media/ludus_mortis_ending_faded.webm

Just replace the music you want using the same filename in the archive. Didn't check if it accepts non-webm audio named as webm, it might.

Post by **WhiteShark** » March 12th, 2024, 15:56

Huh. Why would the music be stored as webms?

fkirenicus · Post by **fkirenicus** » March 12th, 2024, 20:25

Uhmmm... is this by the MM9 guy? Sorry, his name eludes for the moment. NOT Van Caneghem... the other guy.

EDIT: TIM LANG, goddammit...

Post by **rusty_shackleford** » March 13th, 2024, 01:12

Difficulty feels low, doesn't have the resource management it should have. Having a way to control encounter rate is just bizarre. Not sure if the dev quite understands the genre.

Boontaker · Post by **Boontaker** » March 13th, 2024, 01:18

rusty_shackleford wrote: ↑ March 13th, 2024, 01:12
Difficulty feels low, doesn't have the resource management it should have. Having a way to control encounter rate is just bizarre. Not sure if the dev quite understands the genre.

And there it is, just had to wait a few days

Irenaeus · Post by **Irenaeus** » March 13th, 2024, 01:33

rusty_shackleford wrote: ↑ March 12th, 2024, 12:09
Anyone happen to have an AI generated roman portrait pack laying around by chance?

Acrux · Post by **Acrux** » March 13th, 2024, 02:46

rusty_shackleford wrote: ↑ March 13th, 2024, 01:12
Difficulty feels low, doesn't have the resource management it should have. Having a way to control encounter rate is just bizarre. Not sure if the dev quite understands the genre.

How far along are you? I felt like it really ramped up in later dungeons in earlier builds. (Also you have at least 1 character with something close to 100 character points.

)

maidenhaver · Post by **maidenhaver** » March 13th, 2024, 02:49

Irenaeus wrote: ↑ March 13th, 2024, 01:33

rusty_shackleford wrote: ↑ March 12th, 2024, 12:09
Anyone happen to have an AI generated roman portrait pack laying around by chance?

B R O T H E R

Tweed · Post by **Tweed** » March 13th, 2024, 08:07

Whole reason for controlling encounter rate is for grinding, the game is built around it. Prepare to hit the same dungeon over and over as you scoop up xp to train your guys and money to upgrade the Ludus. It's getting p.repetitive. Same kind of problem Heroes of a Broken Land had and you can't speed the game up enough.

EDIT: My current formula is to turn the difficulty down to easy and encounter to low, race to the objective and then turn everything back up when repeating a dungeon. Don't know if I'll want to stick with this to the end though.

1998 · Post by **1998** » March 13th, 2024, 16:12

Tweed wrote: ↑ March 13th, 2024, 08:07
EDIT: My current formula is to turn the difficulty down to easy and encounter to low, race to the objective and then turn everything back up when repeating a dungeon. Don't know if I'll want to stick with this to the end though.

That is the way. Either that or grinding 4 times longer.

Post by **WhiteShark** » March 13th, 2024, 16:24

Tweed wrote: ↑ March 13th, 2024, 08:07
My current formula is to turn the difficulty down to easy and encounter to low, race to the objective and then turn everything back up when repeating a dungeon.

This sounds awful.

Acrux · Post by **Acrux** » March 13th, 2024, 16:32

This sounds so strange. He must have changed the xp gains at release because EA did not require this much grinding.

Tweed · Post by **Tweed** » March 13th, 2024, 21:16

Boosting all my guys agility helped out, those action points speed shit up a lot. Still a grind though.

Anon · Post by **Anon** » March 13th, 2024, 21:37

Kalarion wrote: ↑ March 12th, 2024, 15:23
Is it possible to replace the music? It's really bad, except maybe the main menu.

Agreed. No music seem to fit the overall ancient roman atmosphere I suppose they were wishing to convey.

Btw:

Okay, the game has a neat loop that I see can be appealing to enthusiasts of this genre. I sadly seem to not be and rapidly grew tired of it. Despite having played only a few hours, I have a feeling the game won't be much different later. Uninstalled but hey, at least it gave me 3 full hours of distraction.

Tweed · Post by **Tweed** » March 14th, 2024, 14:55

Okay, game is officially boring now. I dunno how far I am from the end and I don't care anymore. I have no idea why you'd ever want more gladiators unless you were playing hardcore, my main team from the beginning has worked just fine. After a certain point it didn't seem to matter if it set it to extreme, everything dies easily with magic and the first thing I did with divine potions was boost spell points and then the number of uses.

Searching doesn't provide enough loot for the waste of stamina and the questor didn't help much. Architect is useless if you pay attention to where you're going. Cantor is slightly useful and cheap. Psychic is mostly useless, you'll either see the manes while using the eye or miss them entirely and the rewards aren't that great. Didn't even bother trying doctor. I've never broken a single lockpick so I don't need the locksmith guy. The only one I've ever gotten use out of was the collector and even now I just recycle everything so I have no need of any mercenary except the Cantor.

Agility is vital for speeding this up, you want all the action points you can muster, from there focus on wisdom and int for casters for spell damage and str for fighters. Get the feeling I could run four caster types and blow everything away without breaking a sweat. Bosses are set up in such a way that they all die without ever landing a single blow on my party, hailstones wipe everything out even if the enemy is cold resistant. Certain skills seem absolutely useless like armor break, too little for the cost, a lot of spells are underwhelming, just use hail and blizzard. There's probably better combos to be found in the classes, but it'd take too much time to find the perfect one when stuff dies left and right anyway.

1998 · Post by **1998** » March 14th, 2024, 15:15

Also close to dropping it. Either that or I just rush through it in easy mode.

Grinding is way too boring, long, and punishing on higher difficulties, and the dungeons are not interesting enough to make up for it.

Kalarion · Post by **Kalarion** » March 14th, 2024, 15:22

Tweed wrote: ↑ March 14th, 2024, 14:55
Okay, game is officially boring now. I dunno how far I am from the end and I don't care anymore. I have no idea why you'd ever want more gladiators unless you were playing hardcore, my main team from the beginning has worked just fine. After a certain point it didn't seem to matter if it set it to extreme, everything dies easily with magic and the first thing I did with divine potions was boost spell points and then the number of uses.

I think the theory with having multiple gladiator squads was to allow you to build back up from a catastrophic wipe, or to create specialized teams. At least, that was the idea I had (a specialized loot-gathering squad that could just spam A through the dungeon) with my second team. In practice though, it wasn't really more efficient than your much better idea of turning everything down to journo mode and blasting through a new dungeon for the new building and pot upgrade, and then running it a couple times on max encounter rate to farm up for the next run. I got my new team up to level 6, and at this point just the thought of doubling the grinding I'd have to do from this point onward makes me nauseous.

Tweed wrote:
Searching doesn't provide enough loot for the waste of stamina and the questor didn't help much. Architect is useless if you pay attention to where you're going. Cantor is slightly useful and cheap. Psychic is mostly useless, you'll either see the manes while using the eye or miss them entirely and the rewards aren't that great. Didn't even bother trying doctor. I've never broken a single lockpick so I don't need the locksmith guy. The only one I've ever gotten use out of was the collector and even now I just recycle everything so I have no need of any mercenary except the Cantor.

Mostly agreed. I do find the Psychic useful if for some reason you don't have a lot of eyes to use, or if the dungeon size means you'll run out all 10 before finishing. The sound will let you know when to use one. And Mane rewards are very nice if you can find them with a Psychic. One of them gave me 600 (!!) ligules of ambrosia. I like collector for when I don't care about farming money, since it increases chances of Rare drops and I can't yet craft them at will. I imagine it will be the same for Legendaries once I get to that point.

Tweed wrote:
Agility is vital for speeding this up, you want all the action points you can muster, from there focus on wisdom and int for casters for spell damage and str for fighters. Get the feeling I could run four caster types and blow everything away without breaking a sweat. Bosses are set up in such a way that they all die without ever landing a single blow on my party, hailstones wipe everything out even if the enemy is cold resistant. Certain skills seem absolutely useless like armor break, too little for the cost, a lot of spells are underwhelming, just use hail and blizzard. There's probably better combos to be found in the classes, but it'd take too much time to find the perfect one when stuff dies left and right anyway.

Interesting about casting. Did you find the same results when enemies cast Scutum Elementalis (Strix, for example)?

Overall I'm still having fun, so far, because I'm still finding ways to speed things up. But it's just a huge grind. I'll probably finish the game just because I'm so starved for even a decent time-wasting crawler though.

Tweed · Post by **Tweed** » March 14th, 2024, 16:00

Kalarion wrote: ↑ March 14th, 2024, 15:22
Interesting about casting. Did you find the same results when enemies cast Scutum Elementalis (Strix, for example)?

Overall I'm still having fun, so far, because I'm still finding ways to speed things up. But it's just a huge grind. I'll probably finish the game just because I'm so starved for even a decent time-wasting crawler though.

Yes, they don't stand a chance.

Gregz · Post by **Gregz** » March 14th, 2024, 16:22

If anyone in this thread likes this kind of game, be sure you've played the following:

BobT · Post by **BobT** » March 14th, 2024, 16:34

Gregz wrote: ↑ March 14th, 2024, 16:22
If anyone in this thread likes this kind of game, be sure you've played the following:

lol fuck you guys. My wishlist is growing by the day.

<3

HIGHLY recommend Shining The Holy Ark, too. (Sega Saturn.)

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One of my fave games from my youth. Some good puzzles, too.