Helherron - a very addictive Nahlakh-like game

[mercyRPG]

Mercyrpg, I like your text color suggestion. Looks so much better than the red text. Lets make it customizable in the future!

SkeleTony, looks like your icon pack has lots of stuff that never made it to 2.04. Maybe we should add those to the next version?

Would you please read the color from your Saved\config.json somewhat like this, either RGB or just a hexcode:
{
"TextColor": {
"RGB": 255, 0, 0,
"hexcode": ff0000
},

"Audio": {
"Enabled": true,
"Volume": 1
etc..........
}

And then set the Text Color globally in code.

Above is probably easier than creating a windows style color selector in game options, draggable by mouse with a sample text above it changing color in real time as we pull the mouse.

 

[Gunnar]

I've started a run of this game, just mucking around in the first caves and liking it a lot so far.

My party setup:

Lizard Monk
Golem Barbarian
Troll Fighter
Orc Fighter
Elven Priest
Halfling Thief
Fairy Mage
Lizard Shaman

Immediately feeling the hurt from having no Merchant, items are pretty expensive. I was able to kill all the gladiators right off the bat except for the champion with my Troll for some quick cash. Combat seems pretty difficult, each mob has lots of monsters in it and if you don't use all the powers and tactics available to you, you will lose.

 

[Joined on the 4th of July]

I made a proper party after that quick face-rolled team that was murdered by bandits. 3 humans, 5 elves, one of each class except monk and merchant. Might be hard mode.

Moddable graphics would be nice. Or just ability to load custom character icons.

And what about open sourcing the whole thing?

 

[akuukka]

Mercyrpg, I like your text color suggestion. Looks so much better than the red text. Lets make it customizable in the future!

SkeleTony, looks like your icon pack has lots of stuff that never made it to 2.04. Maybe we should add those to the next version?

Would you please read the color from your Saved\config.json somewhat like this, either RGB or just a hexcode:
{
"TextColor": {
"RGB": 255, 0, 0,
"hexcode": ff0000
},

"Audio": {
"Enabled": true,
"Volume": 1
etc..........
}

And then set the Text Color globally in code.

Above is probably easier than creating a windows style color selector in game options, draggable by mouse with a sample text above it changing color in real time as we pull the mouse.

I will definitely do something like that. Unfortunately the UI the last bastion of legacy code where the red color is hardcoded everywhere. Making the text color globally tweakable will take a while. And of course if you change the main text color, you will also have to be able to modify the special item text colors (valuable items, unidentified items etc)...

 

[Joined on the 4th of July]

One feature that would be nice to have is replacing individual characters of your party after you've already started playing. Or am I just not finding it?

Nahlakh had it, I assume Natuk and PoWS did too, gold box games had it. (and I wonder whether Wizard's Crown/Eternal Dagger had it too...)

 

[overtenemy]

I played this some years ago and enjoyed it quite a bit at first, but shortly after getting to the big city the game became easy to the point of tedium. I'd keep finding caves and what not but none of them had a fight that challenged the party I had. Unfortunately, I ended up stopping on account of it. So my questions are thus: does the difficulty ramp up soon afterwards making it worth it to me to dig up my saves, or if not does 2.0 address this at all? Because that aside the game was fuckin awesome, might've even been better than Natuk.

My memory is a little fuzzy since it's been awhile, but to anyone just picking this up now here's a spoiler/warning: when you're told to go back to the first town to help fight demons or some shit and that it's urgent, don't screw around. I adventured a little more for loot and xp thinking maybe I'd need it, but the game isn't joking about the urgency; if you wait, the whole place gets razed by extraplanar hordes or something and you lose out on the quest.

 

[akuukka]

The general perception is that Helherron is a difficult game. Many even call it brutally hard. Maybe you should give it another try?

Perhaps you very super lucky and found some ridiculously powerful items early in the game?

2.10 and newer versions do not support save files from 2.04.

 

[mercyRPG]

I played this some years ago and enjoyed it quite a bit at first, but shortly after getting to the big city the game became easy to the point of tedium. I'd keep finding caves and what not but none of them had a fight that challenged the party I had. Unfortunately, I ended up stopping on account of it. So my questions are thus: does the difficulty ramp up soon afterwards making it worth it to me to dig up my saves, or if not does 2.0 address this at all? Because that aside the game was fuckin awesome, might've even been better than Natuk.

My memory is a little fuzzy since it's been awhile, but to anyone just picking this up now here's a spoiler/warning: when you're told to go back to the first town to help fight demons or some shit and that it's urgent, don't screw around. I adventured a little more for loot and xp thinking maybe I'd need it, but the game isn't joking about the urgency; if you wait, the whole place gets razed by extraplanar hordes or something and you lose out on the quest.

Try plundering the town treasury by attacking the guards or attempt to rob merchants and try dealing with their guards. Not so easy game, ha?

 

[Gunnar]

I played this some years ago and enjoyed it quite a bit at first, but shortly after getting to the big city the game became easy to the point of tedium. I'd keep finding caves and what not but none of them had a fight that challenged the party I had. Unfortunately, I ended up stopping on account of it. So my questions are thus: does the difficulty ramp up soon afterwards making it worth it to me to dig up my saves, or if not does 2.0 address this at all? Because that aside the game was fuckin awesome, might've even been better than Natuk.

My memory is a little fuzzy since it's been awhile, but to anyone just picking this up now here's a spoiler/warning: when you're told to go back to the first town to help fight demons or some shit and that it's urgent, don't screw around. I adventured a little more for loot and xp thinking maybe I'd need it, but the game isn't joking about the urgency; if you wait, the whole place gets razed by extraplanar hordes or something and you lose out on the quest.

I'm playing through this part right now. I think the reason for the perceived difficulty at the beginning is for a few reasons. First of all, there are very tough bands of wandering bandits and kobolds right outside the starting town that can easily overwhelm a new party. Second, gold is scarce at first and the random shops can make it hard to properly outfit your guys, especially wizards. (If I could go back, I'd switch the orc fighter for a merchant) In the first cave there is a miss-able secret door, I missed the whole goblin section which would have been a natural difficulty progression and jumped over to the kobold cave too early, and those fights were brutal. Now that I've been around to the capitol twice for equipment and especially new spellbooks, I'm way better off and things are getting easier. I hope things don't get too easy because I can see the combat getting very monotonous if that were the case.

one major bug is that the game crashes every time I try to buy something from a wandering merchant. this really sucks because they have great stuff sometimes.

 

[akuukka]

one major bug is that the game crashes every time I try to buy something from a wandering merchant. this really sucks because they have great stuff sometimes.

Anyone else has this problem? I couldn't reproduce the crash.

 

[overtenemy]

Spoiler

I just attacked some guards that were by a door around the entrance to the castle part. Where's the treasury? Is it the bank? Coz that does seem sweet. Admittedly I never did this because I sort of figured you weren't supposed to but the guards were indeed tough. Does it have any permanent repercussion, like you'll be attacked everytime you enter the city?

Edit: Yeaaah a second wave of guards got me. I wonder if you could hit the bank and run out of town before being caught a second time.

 

[mercyRPG]

Spoiler

I just attacked some guards that were by a door around the entrance to the castle part. Where's the treasury? Is it the bank? Coz that does seem sweet. Admittedly I never did this because I sort of figured you weren't supposed to but the guards were indeed tough. Does it have any permanent repercussion, like you'll be attacked everytime you enter the city?

Edit: Yeaaah a second wave of guards got me. I wonder if you could hit the bank and run out of town before being caught a second time.

Very first town. Where you begin, ODREWORLD, I meant: their treasure room is in the middle top part of the city. A sign should tell you so, also "No entry" or smthg.

Why are I you playing the old linux version? The new windows version ought to have more features and optimizations.

Most powerful items are in the castle shops for sale (stock always changing in the linux version you are playing) and if you "farm" lots of merchants (kill) they have awesome spellbooks and occasional powerful magic item. Their guards are super tough guys.

 

[overtenemy]

My save is on the old Linux version and I haven't played it in years, so I booted it up to screw around a little. I suppose if I give it another proper go I'll make a new save on the Windows version. It's sort of why I asked above to see whether or not the game becomes more challenging after the castle. Don't get me wrong, murdering merchants and their guards is hilarious but I was asking more about the dungeons. Anyway before I do anything else I'll have to go see if I can fuck up the first town or not.

 

[mercyRPG]

one major bug is that the game crashes every time I try to buy something from a wandering merchant. this really sucks because they have great stuff sometimes.

Anyone else has this problem? I couldn't reproduce the crash.

CrashToDesktop reproduce:
1. Load this save,
2. run along this road back and forth until you meet a merchant.
3. Trade.
((If I want to sell something to the merchant, can I switch to character inventory and press "s" to sell something to a merchant?))
4. Switch to a character, select rags in inventory and repeatedly press "s" ==> CTD.

BUY however worked for me: I could buy bandages from a merchant met on the road with a beginning party.
VERSION 2.102, Win7.

Maybe trying to buy with a merchant class character from a traveling merchant causes a CTD? Trying this out with a new party soon.

 

[The Red Knight]

I'm having this weird issue where enter keys don't work in Options, Race, Class, "accept this character and go forward" and plot introduction ("isle is in chaos", etc.) screens unless I turn off numlock. On naming screens and in the main menu enter works with and without numlock. Numpad/arrow navigation is otherwise fine no matter whether numlock is on or off too, same with all the other keys. With numlcock on I can progress through most of these screens using spacebar, except for the character confirmation screen. Don't know yet about the rest of the game. Had the same happen with Bludgeons & Krakens (IIRC the enter key didn't work in all places there; took me ages to figure out why I couldn't progress past the main menu back then), but otherwise never encountered nor heard of something like this.

win7, 32bit, laptop with a full keyboard (not excluding the possibility of the main enter and the numpad one being lazily linked and it being the cause, but for thousands of programs I've launched on this machine only this game and B&K act like this).

Edit: Also happens in the old 2.04 version linked somewhere in this thread.

 

[Joined on the 4th of July]

one major bug is that the game crashes every time I try to buy something from a wandering merchant. this really sucks because they have great stuff sometimes.

Anyone else has this problem? I couldn't reproduce the crash.

Not crash, but a bit similar thing with a wandering merchant: after trading and exiting the trade screen, I am back in the talk screen, but there are no options (like "Bye!"), so I'm stuck there and need to alt-tab and kill the game.

 

[Gunnar]

So I just managed the orc chief fight, but for the first time lost a man in the battle. I used a rod of resurrection to bring her back, picked up everything in the area and then left. Now I've noticed that she's been completely stripped of all items, equipped and backpack, and the items are nowhere to be found. Is this supposed to happen when a character dies or is it a bug? Unfortunately I've already saved and can't reload the battle..

 

[Joined on the 4th of July]

So I just managed the orc chief fight, but for the first time lost a man in the battle. I used a rod of resurrection to bring her back, picked up everything in the area and then left. Now I've noticed that she's been completely stripped of all items, equipped and backpack, and the items are nowhere to be found. Is this supposed to happen when a character dies or is it a bug? Unfortunately I've already saved and can't reload the battle..

one of the items you looted should be called '<charactername>'s items' and all her items should be bundled in that.

 

[Gunnar]

So I just managed the orc chief fight, but for the first time lost a man in the battle. I used a rod of resurrection to bring her back, picked up everything in the area and then left. Now I've noticed that she's been completely stripped of all items, equipped and backpack, and the items are nowhere to be found. Is this supposed to happen when a character dies or is it a bug? Unfortunately I've already saved and can't reload the battle..

one of the items you looted should be called '<charactername>'s items' and all her items should be bundled in that.

I was hopeful when I read your post but carefully checking my inventory again it seems I do not have any such item. I went back to the orc chiefs room but there is nothing there.

 

[The Red Knight]

I went back to the orc chiefs room but there is nothing there.

According to this, the inventory might have been teleported into some distant corner. Or it's gone forever or a bug because he couldn't find anything in the end.


---
Empty quiver (Q) creates a "0 bolts" item, destroying 1-20 bolts one had equipped.

Sometimes I get a runtime error on party death instead of the game over screen. Don't know how to reproduce it (one time I can die 20 times in a row normally, the other time I'll get the error on 10+ consecutive deaths). Most often seeing it with my attempts to see if it's possible to luck through the arena with a lvl1 halfling fighter and getting critted to death in 2-3 hits.

Help -> Main View Keyboard Commands -> C+p -> "Swap charaction position"

 

[overtenemy]

Is there some trick to finding the dwarven temple that I've forgotten? Started a new game on the new version and I'm searching right where it was (and everywhere else, for that matter) and not getting anything. Have the quest from the guard captain.

 

[mercyRPG]

Is there some trick to finding the dwarven temple that I've forgotten? Started a new game on the new version and I'm searching right where it was (and everywhere else, for that matter) and not getting anything. Have the quest from the guard captain.

Did you walk around one step south of between Odreworld and Goblin cave back and forth a couple times?

 

[Joined on the 4th of July]

Widescreen Helherron seems to be working.

Finally managed to kill the goblin king. Had to wander around the world and look for some easier fights first. Humans are still at level one, but all the elves leveled up.

This setup turned out to be:
2 tanks
3 archers
3 casters

and the killing machine is bard with his crossbow

 

[overtenemy]

Is there some trick to finding the dwarven temple that I've forgotten? Started a new game on the new version and I'm searching right where it was (and everywhere else, for that matter) and not getting anything. Have the quest from the guard captain.

Did you walk around one step south of between Odreworld and Goblin cave back and forth a couple times?

Yeah, searched in the specific spot like I said. I loaded up my Linux save, saw where it was, then even started a new game on the Linux client, went outside and found it immediately by searching. On the 64 bit windows 2.102 I just tried the same thing and nothing. Seems like a bug, or maybe it was changed somehow. akuukka?

 

[mercyRPG]

Widescreen Helherron seems to be working.

Finally managed to kill the goblin king. Had to wander around the world and look for some easier fights first. Humans are still at level one, but all the elves leveled up.

This setup turned out to be:
2 tanks
3 archers
3 casters
and the killing machine is bard with his crossbow

I love mages for their area effect mass kill ability. Especially the ICE spells were fantastic in Linux Helherron. That's why I was killing wandering merchants: For the various ICE spell books.