Dungeon Rats - first impressions and general feedback

[Fenix]

There wes an update that did that, actually a good change, while it made game a bit harder.
Less ants was what people asked for. )

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

I still love fighting human opponents, creature fights still bore me.

Agree 100%. I think creatures help immersion, but beyond that they are a bore in every cRPG I played. I don't know why. Maybe it's because we know they acted by instinct and can't adapt properly to your tactics. I dunno.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

Am replaying the game after almost two years thanks to reading the last few pages of this thread. I still love fighting human opponents, creature fights still bore me. Thing is, I don't remember there being a scolopendra in the ant caves. Is my memory playing tricks on me, or has there been a change?

It has been mentioned, the group of ants in the deep cave on the left as you go in were replaced by an injured Scolopendra, the ants are still there, they're just dead now, all killed by the Scolopendra.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

I still love fighting human opponents, creature fights still bore me.

Agree 100%. I think creatures help immersion, but beyond they are a bore in every cRPG I played. I don't know why. Maybe it's because we know they acted by instinct and can't adapt properly to your tactics. I dunno.

The reason they're boring in DR is because they all do very similar attacks, high damage, lots of fast attacks with poison & pretty much all are immune to poison, even the plants. Also, they're not split up very well and although some are off the beaten path, the run from Roxanne's Forge to the Molerat's Forge is just an Antidote after Antidote slog:

2 Scorpions
3 Scorpions
4 Scorpions
1 x Scolopendra & 1 x Plant
3 x Scolopendras
3 x Plants & 1 x Scolopendra
4 x plants
Young Worm
Black Scolopendra

That's nine in a row, all on the main linear path, none of which offer anything but rather lame loot. When you get back to humans, after each fight you have a haul of loot to fiddle about with & add scematics & Decompose & etc. The wildlife is just Antidote, heal, Antidote, heal with little wider excitement. You could even do another bug fight before you get to the Molerat Forge, but it's, thankfully, optional. If there was as much interest & variety in bug-loot then maybe it wouldn't be so bad, but all they offer is some pretty uninspiring Armour & extremely basic weaponry, most of which is outdated by the time you get to make something nice out of it.

You can't even make helmets out of them for some reason, for example, and the two early game weapons the bugs can help make are both the lesser used items of Spear and Dagger, both with no opportunity for upgrades beyond lvl1 items. A bit like trash combat, the only sense of reason or enjoyment lay in the XP gains.

I don't know what RPGs you've been playing, but monster variety is a fascinating spectrum of opportunities & I'm quite the opposite, I tend to prefer monster bashing to quasi-larping human v human re-enactments, something which has very little to do with how the genre developed beyond those basics. Games like DR are more in tune with games like Commando or Myth than D&D, but instead of making each segment mission-based, it's just connected all the missions with corridors & wrapped it around a survival game's consumables sweat. Levelling up & gaining XP is a classic hook though & most people like putting that stuff in their game.

From a Character creation PoV, the game has a lot of issues & while the insects are pretty boring, they're actually not the meat and potatoes of what makes the game boring during those phases, it's a much bigger picture thing.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

Parabalus

I've levelled the crafter dude up to 8, but I don't want to go to 10, I'd rather start levelling the Alchemy due. What's the recommendation with him? Just leave him at six, or try to get him to 8-10 Alchemy? I've got him to 7 so far, but I can't help feeling I'm gimping him by doing so and might regret it later?

Also, like you, I've got to Yngvar with 20 of those healing roots intact & plenty of looted healing to tide me for a while, so my question is, are there any more of those roots to come? Or is that it by this stage? How do health drops pan out from here after the Molerat Forge? I'd like to have some kind of mental plan to aim for, but there's so little factual stuff on-line about this game & the game itself doesn't give you any sense of what to expect, so maybe you can give me some hints here?

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

I don't know what RPGs you've been playing, but monster variety is a fascinating spectrum of opportunities & I'm quite the opposite.

I hated monsters since I can't remember in every cRPG, with variety of attacks or not.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

I don't know what RPGs you've been playing, but monster variety is a fascinating spectrum of opportunities & I'm quite the opposite.

I hated monsters since I can't remember in every cRPG, with variety of attacks or not.

Why do you like RPGs?

Are you another X-Com'er trolling for the lolz?

 

[Parabalus]

Parabalus

I've levelled the crafter dude up to 8, but I don't want to go to 10, I'd rather start levelling the Alchemy due. What's the recommendation with him? Just leave him at six, or try to get him to 8-10 Alchemy? I've got him to 7 so far, but I can't help feeling I'm gimping him by doing so and might regret it later?

Also, like you, I've got to Yngvar with 20 of those healing roots intact & plenty of looted healing to tide me for a while, so my question is, are there any more of those roots to come? Or is that it by this stage? How do health drops pan out from here after the Molerat Forge? I'd like to have some kind of mental plan to aim for, but there's so little factual stuff on-line about this game & the game itself doesn't give you any sense of what to expect, so maybe you can give me some hints here?

I had 10 Alchemy on main (8 xbow, 10 Alchemy, nothing else), so I didn't use Ismail. I'd just pump both Hiernon and Ismail until you hit 10/10, Hiernon hits 10 crafting right at the Molerat Forge.

No more alchemy ingredients (regen elixir for one guy though) outside of boxes until you hit the surface, few rations only.

 

[Black Angel]

Dude, my notebook is 5-6 years old too, but it can handle almost everything with gtx850m.

Getting an electric fan that will always be pointed at my laptop when I'm playing DR, it is

Or maybe I should just roll with AoD, play it 7! more times, and by the time I'm done, I (hopefully) have the funds I need to build my own PC to play silky smooth DR experience without having to worry about overheating

I still love fighting human opponents, creature fights still bore me.

Agree 100%. I think creatures help immersion, but beyond they are a bore in every cRPG I played. I don't know why. Maybe it's because we know they acted by instinct and can't adapt properly to your tactics. I dunno.

The only RPG I've played where creatures at least has some traits of their own that spice up the encounters with them would be Underrail.

And thankfully, the ITS guys acknowledged the problem with the creature enemies in AoD and DR, that they've planned to design some interesting creatures in Colony Ship. Fingers crossed that they succeed, or at least close enough.

 

[Parabalus]

In simple terms, outside of DC (and the prologue I guess) you can always leave and come back later, you can't run out of money or consumables.

Yeah, I get what you mean. However, I feel like it's not fair to compare Underrail to DR both as a whole. If you're talking merely about combat difficulty, then I still stand by my previous argument that UR is still harder simply because it takes time to grow your character, while in DR you can definitely start crippling limbs left and right even if you only have decent to mediocre THC.

Meanwhile, as you just said, in UR you have a lot of options, but the most important thing that UR have that DR doesn't is noncombat gameplay options that'll allow you to avoid combat altogether, or tilt the tides of battle to your favor from the start, and because of that *of course* Underrail's gonna come off as easier.

What fight would you consider hard in UR?

Let's see:

• The whole Depot A encounters where there are mutated dogs. They can be such a bitch when I initiate combat while there are multiple mutated dogs or if more than one are close to the ones I'm targeting. Can be made easier by abusing doors in certain section, but like I said, I don't really like doing it like that because it waste my time despite of having maxed combat speed slider.
• Burrower-infested bunker near Junkyard, where the entrance is guarded by bleeding Cliff. Tbh, all of Burrower encounters are relatively harder for me, but this one takes the cake especially if you're trying to tackle it at earlier level. Even if I leave it and come back at midgame, I remembered my stealthy PSI still have troubles because Burrowers off-sight hatched eggs and I didn't get to destroy the eggs on time and then got swarmed. Hell, I even rushed to Jenny, and luckily arriving at Jenny got me teleported outside of the bunker while I leave a swarm of hatchlings down there.

Tbh, it's been a while since I played UR, so I can't exactly remember much of the fights. Also, like I mentioned that UR have noncombat gameplay options unlike DR, I'll admit that I'm not the right person to ask what fights are hard in UR because my only playthroughs so far has always been stealthy character, especially the last one is a psyker. And usual sneaking and even psychic power are not something that's present in DR.

I think we agree here, the 2 hard encounters you mentioned are part of the railroaded Prologue.
Similarly, afterwards people don't really complain about the difficulty until DC, since you can always approach a fight differently, in DR you don't have that luxury.

Stealth makes DC a joke tho, and Psykers are near the top power-wise as well.

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

The only RPG I've played where creatures at least has some traits of their own that spice up the encounters with them would be Underrail.

And thankfully, the ITS guys acknowledged the problem with the creature enemies in AoD and DR, that they've planned to design some interesting creatures in Colony Ship. Fingers crossed that they succeed, or at least close enough.

I found them a chore, but they are tolerable because they are varied in types, their remains provide items for crafting and they are part of setting. They add immersion. In Dungeon Rats there are not so many different types of creatures, they are repetitive, and there are too many of them concentrated in certain areas. In Underrail you have a big world, so you are not forced to fight the same things everytime. Still, rathounds respawning all the time are a chore.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

Thread's gone dead ever since a whole pack of people claimed that all this talk about it has inspired them to go through the misery again.

Here's another bug to help re-inspire you:

It's actually not a bug, just another case of horribly confused communication. The weight shown first (24) is the weight of your inventory + what you yourself are wearing. Not your party, just you. The weight on the right is the carry weight of the entire party. What weight the party is wearing is a secret. I guess the idea is that if someone else is carrying stuff then you're not, so it's not counted towards what you are carrying, however, each party member adds carry weight value, your individual carry weight is not 475. I have no idea how to explain it clearly so I have no idea how someone even came up with this info display in the first place, what were they thinking! Basically, the left figure relates to just you & the right figure relates to everyone, two completely different things.

As an addition, the only place where you can even see the individual weight of items is in the stash screen, for some unknown reason & nowhere in the game does it say anything about carry weight as a character mechanic.

And now for a nitpick: why do we even need to see and have in our inventory the quest items? Because clutter is fun? It's not as if they form a part of either weight or tetris irritation, they're just clutter.

It's such a bleeding good time, bleeding marvellous, oh yes indeedy. Not.

Parabalus , Am I supposed to use all my liquid fire on the boss-construct fight or will I need any of it later?

& while I'm on the topic of liquid fire, Why can I not shoot arrows through liquid fire, but enemies can shoot arrows at me through liquid fire?

Also, how high does your critical hit stat need to be before you start to see crits as a regular occurrence? & does increasing your crit stat actually increase your chance of getting them or just increase the chance of the passive that crits create?

 

[Fenix]

Why can I not shoot arrows through liquid fire, but enemies can shoot arrows at me through liquid fire?

What? Are you sure?

how high does your critical hit stat need to be before you start to see crits as a regular occurrence

It's all or nothing skill. And it mostly for crossbows and dagger. I mean, aimed shots for crossbow using Perception, so char with max Per and crit could see crits very often.
Same for dagger. Ypu need it at max because endgame enemies all have armor with high CS defence.

 

[Parabalus]

Parabalus , Am I supposed to use all my liquid fire on the boss-construct fight or will I need any of it later?

& while I'm on the topic of liquid fire, Why can I not shoot arrows through liquid fire, but enemies can shoot arrows at me through liquid fire?

Also, how high does your critical hit stat need to be before you start to see crits as a regular occurrence? & does increasing your crit stat actually increase your chance of getting them or just increase the chance of the passive that crits create?

I didn't use a single liquid fire, up to the surface, doubt I'll use any there either, it's mostly a solo thing. For regular constructs no need to use anything, for star metal ones use acid flasks + bombs on the ranged one, nets on the melee ones.

Why can I not shoot arrows through liquid fire, but enemies can shoot arrows at me through liquid fire?

What? Are you sure?

It's all or nothing skill. And it mostly for crossbows and dagger. I mean, aimed shots for crossbow using Perception, so char with max Per and crit could see crits very often.
Same for dagger. Ypu need it at max because endgame enemies all have armor with high CS defence.

For daggers Roxanna with 4 CS and 9 Dag has >90% crit against pmuch all enemies, so for daggers it makes sense because of their passive. For others I wouldn't bother unless you have some high int build, you can't really support 3 skills with 4 INT.

 

[Black Angel]

Thread's gone dead ever since a whole pack of people claimed that all this talk about it has inspired them to go through the misery again.

Why would anyone be reliving this thread, when they can just relive their misery enjoyment of playing the game?

It's all or nothing skill. And it mostly for crossbows and dagger. I mean, aimed shots for crossbow using Perception, so char with max Per and crit could see crits very often.
Same for dagger. Ypu need it at max because endgame enemies all have armor with high CS defence.

For daggers Roxanna with 4 CS and 9 Dag has >90% crit against pmuch all enemies, so for daggers it makes sense because of their passive. For others I wouldn't bother unless you have some high int build, you can't really support 3 skills with 4 INT.

Also, take note that some aimed attacks has their crit modifier based on specific stats. I kinda forgot, but if I'm not remembering it wrong, Arterial Strikes and Aimed: Torso use Perception as its modifier, while Aimed: Head, Aimed: Arms, and Aimed: Legs are using Strength as its modifier. So, unless you have the corresponding stats being relatively high (it's noticeably increases your crits when it's >7, iirc), it will be a while until you got high CS skill, especially because armored enemies tend to have good vsCS rating on their armors.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

I didn't use a single liquid fire, up to the surface, doubt I'll use any there either, it's mostly a solo thing. For regular constructs no need to use anything, for star metal ones use acid flasks + bombs on the ranged one, nets on the melee ones.

Too late, I already destroyed the Sky Metal boss Constructs with Liquid Fire. It works great.

Also, I had no idea this was pretty much the end of the game with only four fights left, one of which is optional (I didn't even find it until researching where the Portal door key was, never saw the door icon at the back of the building), so it seems I've been over-compensation as a result of my first run & I had plenty of Liquid Fire to go around.

Well, that's all done then:

Going into the final battle that I wont even need healing from:

So yeah, from an experienced PoV, the game does indeed supply too many consumables... as long as you know what you're allowed to use each fight...

Only used 2 bombs all game, both the smallest/weakest version right back at Roxanna stage type area. So I've got a full inventory of bombs & I only used 5 in the final fight (as even here I had no idea it was the final fight, all those five were against the fifth wave, just because, why not, lol, etc), what a waste, & as I said, I hadn't found the Portal guy before the combat ending, so I didn't even have the Saltpeter… Which I'm sure I'll use on a replay one day, should I ever be assed for that. Solo might be tempting at some point I guess & the recruit everyone thing, just to see what all the characters play like.

Final character stats if anyone is interested:

Here's a HP loss guide for anyone that's interested:

First Roxanne fight: 38 HP
Second Roxanne fight: 15 HP
River fight: 42 HP
Reinhard: 16 HP
Deep Cave Scorpions: 0 HP
Eight Ants before the Queen: 2 HP
Queen Ant: 15 HP
Claim Jumpers: 8 HP
Two Scorpions: 0 HP
Three Scorpions: 13 HP
Four Scorpions: 7 HP
Giant Centipede & Plant: 10 HP
Three Scolopendras: 52 HP
One Scolopendra & three Plants: 29 HP
Four Plants: 19 HP
Young Worm: 6 HP
Black Scolopendra: 7 HP
Three Molerats: 19 HP
Four Molerats: 28 HP
Yngvar & two Molerats: 50 HP
Five Molerats: 52 HP
Democritus & four guards: 33 HP
Four Forge Guards: 45 HP
One Adult Worm & two Young Worms: 50 HP
Scarus & four Guards: 50 HP
Enforcer & six Guards: 76 HP
Three Constructs: 16 HP
Four Constructs: 62 HP
Three Constructs: 26 HP
Four Constructs: 79 HP
Four Black Scolopendras: 15 HP
Emperor & six Guards: 75 HP
Triple wave of three Guards per wave: 75 HP
Sky Metal Constructs: 79 HP
Five waves of guards with the final wave being the end-boss: 23 HP

So if you totalled up this lot & added 60 for all the fights before the first Roxanne fight & then added the total rations left in the above screenshot then you'll know how much HP the game allows you to lose. There are also 23 Healing roots in the game but the value of these will depend on your Alchemy skill. You'll see I used nine of them, so lets say that's roughly 9x30 HP you'd take off the above calculation to find the number of rations/dropped pots available. Assuming ration drops aren't random & are not subject to daily tweaking by the devs.

Also, LOL@wave mechanics. I have another opportunity to compare it to Dragon Age 2, lmao.

Seriously though, I could see myself replaying this one day, though I'll never go near Dragon Age 2 ever again, even if payed, so even though they are comparable, DR is not quite THAT bad.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

Why can I not shoot arrows through liquid fire, but enemies can shoot arrows at me through liquid fire?

What? Are you sure?

It didn't repeat when I went to double check, but then there's a lot of that kind of thing as well. While I was taking my screenshots above I noticed the Alchemist NPC only had about 37 Attack, which is wrong as he's had 110 for most of the game. I went to look at why, maybe I'd unequipped his sword or something, but no, he was still carrying his sword. Then I realised he was carrying a net & for some reason the game was reading the net as his attack value. I unequipped the sword & re-equipped the sword & nothing changed, the game still said he had abt 37 attack. I reloaded & nothing changed, I changed zones & nothing changed. The only thing that worked was un-equipping the net. Then when I re-equipped the net the problem went away & I couldn't screen capture it. So I suspect it's just another one of those 'little things' that evoke a *shrug*.

 

[Binky]

The whole subterranean prison mine concept is great. Wish they had more time to fiddle with it. You shouldn't get anything when you start. "New guy, huh? Bitch, get me my ore or I'll shank you." You find a rock and then bash some poor fucker's skull in to get his shiv. Shank another sad sack to get a barrel lid. Scarcity and low quality throughout the entire prison. Sharp rocks, stone hammers, barrel lids, pickaxes, shovels, buckets, clubs are the main weapons.

The guys at the bottom are weak, disorganized, malnourished lone wolves. The top guys are well fed gang members, one or two even have a proper weapon (maybe even armor) nabbed from the guards in a failed escape attempt. The creatures are extremely dangerous, but their body parts are highly prized - for weapons weapons, armor. Only the most basic level alchemy & crafting. Final fights are against the guards armed with proper weapons and armor... against your ragtag bunch of scorpion-claw-on-a-stick wielding bums.

Anyone remember the ruined city in Prince of Persia 2? You had to fight with a broken sword. What joy when you actually found a decent one. I miss that in games. Every other weapon now is a +5 Sword of Awesomeness.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

The whole subterranean prison mine concept is great. Wish they had more time to fiddle with it. You shouldn't get anything when you start. "New guy, huh? Bitch, get me my ore or I'll shank you." You find a rock and then bash some poor fucker's skull in to get his shiv. Shank another sad sack to get a barrel lid. Scarcity and low quality throughout the entire prison. Sharp rocks, stone hammers, barrel lids, pickaxes, shovels, buckets, clubs are the main weapons.

The guys at the bottom are weak, disorganized, malnourished lone wolves. The top guys are well fed gang members, one or two even have a proper weapon (maybe even armor) nabbed from the guards in a failed escape attempt. The creatures are extremely dangerous, but their body parts are highly prized - for weapons weapons, armor. Only the most basic level alchemy & crafting. Final fights are against the guards armed with proper weapons and armor... against your ragtag bunch of scorpion-claw-on-a-stick wielding bums.

Anyone remember the ruined city in Prince of Persia 2? You had to fight with a broken sword. What joy when you actually found a decent one. I miss that in games. Every other weapon now is a +5 Sword of Awesomeness.

Citation needed, somewhat retardred, what?, cool story bro, friendly, creative, wtf am I reading, NPC, shit, quality shit, prosper, no & participation award, to name but a few possible choices.

You do get stuff when you start, good bronze weaponry. You don't need to get a shiv off anyone, you can start with a shiv & if you don't you don't really especially need one, likewise, you start with a shield. The main weapons are regular normal weapons. The guys at the bottom are not weak & aside from the first fight all carry regular weaponry apart from the stone two-handed hammer thing. None of them are lone wolves & you only ever encounter well organised gangs, even at rock bottom. Even the worn out losers you can select as companions are in a group of three. Talking about failed escape attempts is just larping your imagination, they could have been beamed in from exploratory space aliens for all you know.

The body parts of the creatures are mostly useless unless you specifically need a poisoned spear or dagger or if you want an extra +1 DR for a couple of fights. They are highly dangerous though, which is strange, because somehow ant mandibles have the same reach as two handed swords. If you're doing the final fight with scorpion claw on a stick weaponry then I'm not sure what you've been doing for the whole journey, teleporting maybe? Bronze=0/+1, Iron=+1+2, Steel=+2/+3, etc, depending on your weapon. You can have +5 weapons by the end of the game, yes. Not sure what games you're referring to about every other weapon being +5, not sure if you're talking about cRPGs or some fantasy you dreamt about last night?

 

[Binky]

I was talking what a game like Dungeon Rats could have been/what I'd do differently. Instead of mass producing steel weapons and armor & having bales of ingredients at your disposal, you'd have to fight with crappy weapons throughout the entire game etc.

 

[Vault Dweller]

I was talking what a game like Dungeon Rats could have been/what I'd do differently. Instead of mass producing steel weapons and armor & having bales of ingredients at your disposal, you'd have to fight with crappy weapons throughout the entire game etc.

I agree. Originally we planned to do a 'multiple parts' armor system to focus on scavenging and crude weapons and armor (only the guards would have had proper gear), but we quickly realize that we don't have the manpower to do that in 10 months. So we did what we could (the starting weapons) then switched to AoD items.

 

[†††]

I've started a solo playthrough in the hardest difficulty motivated by this thread and man, the later patches really destroyed the game for me. Previously you had a shitton of XP for solo runs, true, but now everything is harder at the cost of butchering most builds. You can't pick dodge because you'll get raped hard by ranged enemies, and you can't pick anything other than spear because all fights from the tunnels onwards will annihilate you. It was a funny idea to give every enemy multiple nets that always work for 2 turns against you (but if you use nets against them it will always be 1 turn) but turns out I'm not having any fun because it takes away player input. I'm currently in the fight against Democritus with a sword/block/alchemy build (9 sword, 10 block, 6 alchemy, 2 dagger for synergy) and I don't seem to be able to figure this out. The motherfucker with the spear has 2 nets, the knife guy has another one I think, Democritus will always hit and hard, I have 3 bombs and they always do pitiful damage to them (description says 20-25 damage but they always do something like 14, yet if an enemy alchemist throws a bomb to me it will always be a +30 dmg critical hit), I tried different armors to no avail, liquid fire only delays the inevitable, berserk potion makes the THC against Democritus so low that it doesn't even give me an advantage and I can't make eagle eye neurostims. I have poison, everything, but the motherfucker will always kill me in 2 turns (I have 8 con). Even if I form a bottleneck to fight 1 vs 1, when it's Democritus turn he'll exterminate me in no time, and he always gets his turn just before me, I just can't kill him fast enough. Even if I get past him, I'm dreading the next fights already.

I love AoD but DR reminds me of those unofficial, incredibly hard mods done by the fanbase with no regards to balance. I know solo is meant to be a challange but when only 1 build (this is a RPG remember!) can work consistently in this mode, then there's no way to enjoy it IMO.

 

[Parabalus]

Don't worry, according to the developer the patches haven't made the game harder.



Can't you kill Democritus in your first turn?
Aimed:Head works since he doesn't have a helmet.

 

[Vault Dweller]

I've started a solo playthrough in the hardest difficulty motivated by this thread and man, the later patches really destroyed the game for me. Previously you had a shitton of XP for solo runs, true, but now everything is harder at the cost of butchering most builds. You can't pick dodge because you'll get raped hard by ranged enemies, and you can't pick anything other than spear ...

I love AoD but DR reminds me of those unofficial, incredibly hard mods done by the fanbase with no regards to balance. I know solo is meant to be a challange but when only 1 build (this is a RPG remember!) can work consistently in this mode, then there's no way to enjoy it IMO.

While personal preferences are subjective by default, saying that dodge isn't a viable choice (when that's the skill most people prefer according to feedback) or that spear is the only viable choice is objectively false.

 

[†††]

Don't worry, according to the developer the patches haven't made the game harder.

Can't you kill Democritus in your first turn?
Aimed:Head works since he doesn't have a helmet.

the problem is that I get 30% something (edit: it's actually 22%) THC with aimed attacks to the head, and I haven't put any points in CS. I've tried attacking his arms to see if he fails a single time (so far he always hit me) but with 48% THC I've had no luck so far.

I've started a solo playthrough in the hardest difficulty motivated by this thread and man, the later patches really destroyed the game for me. Previously you had a shitton of XP for solo runs, true, but now everything is harder at the cost of butchering most builds. You can't pick dodge because you'll get raped hard by ranged enemies, and you can't pick anything other than spear ...

I love AoD but DR reminds me of those unofficial, incredibly hard mods done by the fanbase with no regards to balance. I know solo is meant to be a challange but when only 1 build (this is a RPG remember!) can work consistently in this mode, then there's no way to enjoy it IMO.

While personal preferences are subjective by default, saying that dodge isn't a viable choice (when that's the skill most people prefer according to feedback) or that spear is the only viable choice is objectively false.

Well I'm talking only about murderous psycho solo. With a party multiple builds are viable of course.