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KickStarter Lords of Xulima

victim

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Bros, I'm still hesitating about buying the game.

The first thing I liked was nice isometric visual style. But I'm not a big fan of first-person combat. And as I've seen in the preview the gameplay is mostly random battles and the story/interesting characters are nonexistant, amirite?

You are basically right. There are some light resource management elements (especially on the harder modes -- and in this game party stats essentially count as a 'resouce' so choosing how to build your characters as they level up falls under the management category).

There is the a modest skeleton of a story that comes only in brief spurts -- the best of these spurts are quite well done. Within the early access portion of the game the thread(bare) storyline actually leaves much to the imagination..I personally think this is a good thing because the more explicit things gets the more cliched and heavy handed the narrative becomes.

It is not exactly a random battle fest. A large portion of the strategy required is figuring out how to approach mandatory battles that seem insurmountable at first glance. There are a bunch of "checkpoint" enemies of this nature. In the load screen hints the game suggests that you level up substantially to fight harder enemies but in many cases this is not totally viable since the battle in question is a roadblock preventing you from advancing in the game. For the most part you are given alternative routes/method to avoid the truly obscene fights, but it can be fun to try them (especially on easy mode where you actually stand an outside shot of winning).
 

Suicidal

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It is not exactly a random battle fest. A large portion of the strategy required is figuring out how to approach mandatory battles that seem insurmountable at first glance. There are a bunch of "checkpoint" enemies of this nature. In the load screen hints the game suggests that you level up substantially to fight harder enemies but in many cases this is not totally viable since the battle in question is a roadblock preventing you from advancing in the game.

Strange, from my experience the random enemies, which you can encounter in a zone, are actually harder than the stationary roadblock enemies in the same zone. I usually have no problem killing the stationary enemies, but often have to run away from ambushes.
 

StaticSpine

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You are basically right. There are some light resource management elements (especially on the harder modes -- and in this game party stats essentially count as a 'resouce' so choosing how to build your characters as they level up falls under the management category).

There is the a modest skeleton of a story that comes only in brief spurts -- the best of these spurts are quite well done. Within the early access portion of the game the thread(bare) storyline actually leaves much to the imagination..I personally think this is a good thing because the more explicit things gets the more cliched and heavy handed the narrative becomes.

It is not exactly a random battle fest. A large portion of the strategy required is figuring out how to approach mandatory battles that seem insurmountable at first glance. There are a bunch of "checkpoint" enemies of this nature. In the load screen hints the game suggests that you level up substantially to fight harder enemies but in many cases this is not totally viable since the battle in question is a roadblock preventing you from advancing in the game. For the most part you are given alternative routes/method to avoid the truly obscene fights, but it can be fun to try them (especially on easy mode where you actually stand an outside shot of winning).
:brodex:
 

Doctor Sbaitso

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It is not exactly a random battle fest. A large portion of the strategy required is figuring out how to approach mandatory battles that seem insurmountable at first glance. There are a bunch of "checkpoint" enemies of this nature. In the load screen hints the game suggests that you level up substantially to fight harder enemies but in many cases this is not totally viable since the battle in question is a roadblock preventing you from advancing in the game.

Strange, from my experience the random enemies, which you can encounter in a zone, are actually harder than the stationary roadblock enemies in the same zone. I usually have no problem killing the stationary enemies, but often have to run away from ambushes.

Yes I have found some of the random encounters to be truly impossible. If you try to run but fail to, you can count on losing half your party within 2 rounds. I don't much like the idea of losing all initiative when you fail to avoid an ambush. As it is now failure to flee results in every enemy having initiative before your party gets a single action. That is a punishing penalty and can quickly lead to either save scumming or what I consider to be unfair disadvantage. I had one random encounter on the beach as level 3 where I had 6 comparatively tough enemies in an encounter. I failed to flee and my party got wiped out in two rounds. I basically never had a chance.

This can happen infrequently I think and getting your ass handed to you is fine in my books but some of these encounters are binary in that you succeed in fleeing or your entire party dies. Sounds like early Wizardrys. Maybe I am being a puss.
 

Crooked Bee

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Unless your resources (HP, MP) are already low by this point, I've found all random encounters to be manageable. Every TPK I had was doe to tackling an out-of-my-league stationary encounter, and never a random one.

If you can't get past those no matter what, try blessings I guess.
 

Doctor Sbaitso

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Unless your resources (HP, MP) are already low by this point, I've found all random encounters to be manageable. Every TPK I had was doe to tackling an out-of-my-league stationary encounter, and never a random one.

If you can't get past those no matter what, try blessings I guess.

No you are correct. It is when I no longer have resources that these encounters become impossible. I guess perhaps the lesson is to keep pots or food in reserve for these occasions.

That said, money is so tight that your reserves are often depleted :)

The ones that pop to mind were unusually tough ones (RNG). I had to face two orc warriors, two elite fighters and two of those dudes on the lizards for instance. My party never had a chance.
 

Llord

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The ones that pop to mind were unusually tough ones (RNG). I had to face two orc warriors, two elite fighters and two of those dudes on the lizards for instance. My party never had a chance.
That's not even close to hardest RNG fight in this area. Sorry, but if you have trouble with those at veteran mode with level 3 party.... learn to play is the answer.
 
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victim

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buying food finally got fixed in the latest update. Before, if you had .75 days of food and filled up you got .25 days of food for the price of an entire day's worth. I spent a bunch of time scratching my head wondering if that was a 'feature' or a bug.

I totally disagree on the price raise on Flaming/Frost Strike. Early in the game those attacks are good I suppose, but at the new PP costs they are no longer viable IMO. And the thing is, those attacks weren't that great to begin with. If feedback from testers lead to that change I hope they find better testers soon.
 
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victim

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One thing that I think needs to be changed is disarming and opening doors. Right now, even if you put points into disarming and lockpicking every single level, your odds are still going to well below 50%. The minigame is a good idea but doesn't work because your best bet is to always save reload and use the Auto feature until you only lose one or two lockpicks. Lockpicks are too expensive to do otherwise. Yes, you can play the minigame and "guess" your way through most of the lock puzzles, but the risk of losing 3-4 lockpicks is still there and it just isn't efficicent on the very complicated locks. If you run out of lockpicks the complex dungeons get way too frustrating.

An attendant problem is that Thief and Explorer are indistinct. Explorer gets Envenom and Thief doesn't? Whaaa..? Meanwhile, Explorer has so many things going on (camoflauge, hunting, herbs, terrain, etc) that you really need. And since playing an Explorer AND a Thief totally dilutes your party you end up trying to force fit Lock Picking and Disarming on top of all the other skills on Explorer. It feels artificial that you need a Thief to get cheap skill costs to Disarm/Lockpick when you are just going to save/ reload anyway. I realize that it is a sensible division of labor between the two classes on paper, but in practice it is VERY delimiting -- yes, constraints are an important part of keeping things engaging, but in this case it detracts much and adds little. For this to work, Thief needs to be more of a damage dealing class. (backstab, poison, bleed, whatever)

PS LOWER THE CURSED HOUND ENCOUNTER RATE IN THE HARDEST MODE! WHO DECIDED CURSED HOUNDS EVERY 5 STEPS IS A GOOD IDEA?! AND, OH YEAH, LET'S TOSS IN INCREASED FREQUENCY OF THEIR LIGHTNING ATTACKS.
 
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victim

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Since I'm ranting here is a big time "balance issue"

My party on Medium difficulty is level 14. Here are the things I could go do or fight as I have cleared everything else.

  • Second Witch (her defense is insane)
  • Second King (got to him but died hastily)
  • 2 Yotum Youth or 1 Yotum Adult -- presently I can consistently beat one Youtm Youth. Annoyingly I seem to have run out of them and only got 3/4 of the Fangs needed for that quest.
  • Pass Guardian South of Nabros
  • Soldiers of Khornil blocking road to Vilak (I believe the beta runs out there anyway?)

Frankly, the chances to beat any of those encounters at my current level is basically zero. Which means I am going to be spending a very long time grinding. My brother thinks its because I used camoflauge too much and that I am quite underleveled. He also thinks I lost a bunch of experience by taking the games suggestion and avoiding all of the Nabros soldiers by going the Smokey Mountain route. He grinded those guys heavily, which is not an option for me since they all disappear after you beat the first King.

I feel like I've been advancing well and all the sudden the game left me in a lurch.
 

moraes

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Damn, you ARE underleveled. I did the second king with my party at level ~17. You should try clearing some of the danger zones for that xp bonus (in other words: grinding). Also do some fighting at the arena.
 

victim

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Damn, you ARE underleveled. I did the second king with my party at level ~17. You should try clearing some of the danger zones for that xp bonus (in other words: grinding). Also do some fighting at the arena.

Those options are going to be SLOOOOW. I also have an easy campaign going at about the same level at about the same point in the game and I'm pretty sure I can beat everything on Easy. So I may just switch to that. My brother is level 14 on hard mode and he just beat the first king. I don't really like hard mode enough to play through it. Those Cursed Hounds are just ridiculous.
 

victim

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Attention whoever is concerned. The new upate completely broke torches and possibly other items. I sold 4 torches for 10,000 EACH and the next time I went to the shop they were 17,000 each. I've been forced to use Mage Light instead.
 

octavius

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Attention whoever is concerned. The new upate completely broke torches and possibly other items. I sold 4 torches for 10,000 EACH and the next time I went to the shop they were 17,000 each. I've been forced to use Mage Light instead.

Bring out the pitchforks!
 

Lord Azlan

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There are a number of RPG around these days - such a positive trend after a long empty stretch. We have Wasteland 2 and Divinity Original Sin keeping me awake at nights. Then Eliminage Gothic came around the corner showing me its stuff.

LOX just sounds like one of those old games - what the heck is an "Xulima" anyway? I read about the others but my eyes keep on getting attracted to this one. Can't justify spending lots of cash on games to my Mrs these days - although my Steam account has about 200 games in it (shush - keep that quiet). When I look at this one and read about it - it's like looking at a Mega-kebab soaked in chilli sauce with fresh Doner available on request. Saw this review online as well which makes me more hungry.

http://www.ripten.com/2014/08/08/ripten-preview-lords-of-xulima/

As a genre, the old-school, isometric RPG never really held my attention the way other RPGs managed to. With a few exceptions – notably Planescape: Torment and Fallout– I never really had much interest in this particular style of game, and those that employed a turn-based combat system even less so. That being the case, I wasn’t expecting much out of Lords of Xulima, a title currently in early access on Steam that models itself unashamedly in this classic style. Several hours in, I was rather surprised to find that, firstly, several hours had passed, but secondly, that I was quite enjoying myself.

Early access is kind of an unpleasant trend these days, but Xulima is a game that doesn’t exploit the system: there are no game-breaking bugs, no obviously omitted features and no wild, impossible promises to get people to pull out their wallets.Numantian Games billed the title as exactly what it is: a high fantasy RPG in retro style. Early access only unlocks about 50-60% of the full game (with an estimated play time of about 50 hours), but, so far, it’s been more than enough for me.

Like most of the genre, Xulima is a very methodical kind of game. If you’re not interested in the style, it’s what you might call ‘slow.’ Levelling doesn’t happen particularly quickly (I’ve clocked about eight hours so far, and my party is only at level 5), which makes progression through the story equally deliberate. You’ll have to do most, if not all, of the offered sidequests and exploration in an area before you’re strong enough to tackle the next. Of my eight hours, about seven were spent in Velegarn, the game’s first questing zone. Some of that is due to my general unfamiliarity with the difficulty of the game, learning to strategize in combat and figuring out which sections of that first zone I could tackle early, but I would be surprised if later progression was any quicker. This is not a game that you’re going to be able to shoot through in a day.

It’s also not a game where you can really grind. Enemy numbers in a given area are finite: there are a certain number that appear on the map, and a certain number that will ambush you. Once you eliminate all of the enemies in a ‘danger zone,’ they won’t respawn. You get an XP boost for clearing out a zone entirely, so it is beneficial to hang around an area until you’ve cleared it out completely, but it’s not going to net you a ton of extra levels. I was only level 2 (possibly 2-and-a-half) when I cleared out the first dungeon.

You also have to balance clearing out an area with progressing early on, because you’re hampered by a food system. Basically, you can purchase food from a vendor that will last you for a certain number of days. Travelling drains your food, as does resting to heal your party. Once your food is depleted, your party can’t recover health in the field: you’ll have to rest at an inn, heal at a shrine, or find a vendor and buy more food. Part of the reason you’ll find your game time stretching out is because you’ll be stopping after every few battles to rest, and possibly doubling back to a food vendor to replenish your stock. Gold is at a bit of a premium early on, so you have to ensure you’re doing enough quests – which are the easiest source of gold – to keep your coffers filled.

Xulima is mired so heavily in its chosen style that it likely won’t appeal to you if you’re not already a fan of the genre. I wouldn’t have bet that I would like it as much as I did. Part of it might be the art style: the game mixes hand-drawn 2D backgrounds with 3D character models, and makes excellent use of a varied colour pallet. Things go from bright and vivid to dank and dull, hitting every note in between, usually accompanied by similar shifts in the music. I think, for me, this game embodies the idea that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. I’m not crazy about every individual aspect, but when it all comes together, I find it extremely compelling.

That said, there are a few aspects that I hope get tweaked a bit for the final release. You can use either the mouse or the keyboard to move your character, but you have to hold the left mouse button and guide your character to move them. You can’t just click on an area and get them to move there. This is particularly annoying when you come across something you can interact with (be that a chest to open, a character to talk to, or what-have-you), and left-clicking on it doesn’t send your character to it. It’s a little thing, but I was surprised at how much it started to bug me as I continued to play.

There’s also an issue I had with buying food. As I said, you buy food in day-long increments – paying 100 gold for one day, 240 for two days, 440 for three, etc. Firstly, obviously, there’s no real logical progression to the price of multiple days. It seems to have a bit to do with the HP of your characters, but that’s about all I can figure. Secondly, you can’t buy food for a number of days less than what you have in your inventory. For example, if I bought a day’s worth of food, went out exploring, and found enough to last me for two days, I couldn’t then go back to the vendor and buy another day’s worth at 100 gold to bring my total to 3 days. I’d have to pay the full 440 gold. I suppose the best way to describe it is as consecutive, rather than cumulative. It does add to the strategy (I’ve never bought more than 2 days’ worth of food at a time), but it also seems kind of silly.

I think the biggest issue I had, though, came before I even started playing. Upon beginning a new game, you can create a party of five characters to follow the main character, Gaulen, on his adventures. You can choose to use premade characters, or build your own. Naturally, I chose to build my own party from scratch. You choose a name and a gender, which is easy enough to figure out, but then you choose a class and a god to worship, as well. The problem is that there was no real information about the classes or the gods. Now, I can see classes as being kind of straightforward: a soldier is going to use melee weapons, a mage is going to use magic, a cleric is going to heal, and so on. But some of them weren’t so obvious: what’s the function of an arcane soldier? What does a bard do in this particular game? How does a barbarian differ from a soldier in this instance? As for the gods, how am I supposed to know whether being a disciple of Yul is more beneficial than being a disciple of Raznet? So, I just picked the classes I knew (or thought I knew: I was pretty sure an arcane soldier used magic and weapons), and chose the gods at random.

It was only after I started playing that the game informed me that holding down the right mouse button on an object would give extra information. After I read that, I went back, and, sure enough, holding down the right mouse button on a class gave its specialties and base stats, and holding it down on a god told you what kind of passive bonus you got. It would have been nice had there been a little prompt at the top of the screen that said ‘right-click an object to get more information’ or something of the like, just so that I would have known from the start.

Obviously, though, those are small gripes. It’s easy enough to get from point A to point B with your character using the movement system as it is, I got by with the food system, and the extra information wouldn’t really have swayed my decisions in character creation all that much. Ultimately, Lords of Xulima is what it is: an RPG of the eldest school you could find. It takes the isometric viewpoint and the strategy heavy turn-based combat of the genre’s kings (the developer specifically lists Ultima and Might and Magic as influences), andlooks to bring those retro sensibilities back to the modern era without relying solely on the nostalgia you might have for those old series. The result, so far, at least, is pleasing, if not a little bit familiar, and is definitely worth a look if you have any ties to the classics. Personally, I’m quite looking forward to the full release in the fall.
 

victim

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What's the status of this game? It looked so close to full release...

end of next week they're releasing an update that will include almost all the content in the game. It'll still be early access but you will be able to play ~95% or more of the game. Right now there is a beta wall in every direction that stones you halfway through your mission.

they're been pretty reliable about sticking to their release schedule so I am optimistic

Also, some of the more annoying bugs either have been or are being dealt with
 

Suicidal

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Still playing it. It's a great game to play for 30-60 mins each day, kill some stuff, and come back the next day. Somehow I'm still progressing with my shitty party on hardcore, even though I thought it was a doomed effort and ran into several stumbling blocks which I could barely overcome.

Will probably stop and start with a new party once they release more of the game to benefit from all the skill and balance changes.
 
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Lord Azlan

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I bought this one on Steam over the weekend. My first impressions is that it's quite charming. I like the music and the hidden depths.

The developers seem to have brought together different aspects of old RPG and made them work together quite well. I went with the default party and explored the immediate area and first dungeon. Exploration is like King's Bounty. I prefer the Bards Tale approach to group combat which is part of the reason I went with this over Wasteland 2.

Combat is straightforward and has some depths to it. I was surprised my thief on the right hand side of my group could not attack the enemy all the way to the left hand side. Traditional back row crew have low HP but can do ranged combat or healing. I found a little book thing that increased one of my spell levels. I liked the picklock mini game, which is simple as they come, but better than the yes/no found in other similar games. We also have traps which can be disarmed so thieves are pretty useful. Leveling seems quite interesting and not overly complex. You can increase you standard attributes and then some skills.

I like the fog of war and the need to light a torch in dark areas. The round food counter on your right adds another layer to the game which is also another hidden depth not usually found. As you explore areas you can harvest various plants that can do something interesting no doubt - perhaps concoct potions that increase stats and resistances?

Encounters are normally in your control as most are not random. A bit like King's Bounty where you can see enemies beforehand and then right click to see what they are and strength. If you stay outside their influence you can avoid combat.

Oh - I bought the heaviest armour for my lead character by mistake and found the party could still move around but this character would be penalised in combat. The right-clicking to find out more about almost anything is most welcome and excellent addition to the game. Shopping for equipment is a bit naff as you can't see at a glance what your different characters have equipped - although you can do a 'compare' before you buy.

In summary - I am finding the game quite charming actually. Reminding me of playing The Faery Tale Adventure on an Amiga a long time ago.

Only problem so far is the font size on the lowest resolution setting - for a game that the developers say has a great story - I seem to be missing a lot of that as I can't read the very tiny text. Oh - the game tips that appear on the loading screens disappears to quick to read!

Otherwise - the game makes me feel so gushy and girly - kind of hoping to be happy but not wanting to raise my hopes.
 

TigerKnee

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Damnit, wish I wasn't so poorfag enough to scrap up the money to buy this game. The RPGCodex review of it made me drool... having to actually partake in resource management especially money matters sounds great.
 

ghostdog

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Damnit, wish I wasn't so poorfag enough to scrap up the money to buy this game. The RPGCodex review of it made me drool... having to actually partake in resource management especially money matters sounds great.
Maybe you should partake in better resource management in real life then :troll:
 

TigerKnee

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Jeez, you got my hopes up but it's basically the same price as it is on Steam.
 

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