KickStarter Lords of Xulima

[Suicidal]

Yeah, Paladin auras are fucking useless, and the game DEMANDS a dedicated healer, since most fights eventually devolve into attrition wars.

Xulima is a decent game, but I wish they had made a great 15-20 hour RPG, instead of a 100+ hours monstrosity that makes you beg for the sweet release of death and boredom-quit just by reading you still need to cleanse ANOTHER temple, dethrone ANOTHER prince, grab ANOTHER artifact, kill ANOTHER witch....

That's exactly how I feel, although I think 15-20 hours would be too short. 40-50 for a game of this scope would be just fine. While undeniably a good game, LoX really suffers from not having enough content variety to fill its 100 hours of gameplay. By the time you reach mid game everything just starts feeling the same. Most high level monsters are just reskins of old ones with maybe 1 changed ability, many bosses are just beefed up regular monsters. You fight the Dark Heralds 8 times and each fight is almost the same (IIRC the first 3 are literally identical apart from having more hp and damage than the last, then they start mixing it up a bit with a new ability here and there and the final battle is basically a super herald which has all of the same abilities plus a few new ones - would be cool if each Herald actually used the elements of the temple he was occupying, like the Herald in the wind god's temple would be much faster than others and use more lightning-based attacks, etc.). You fight four princes, which are also very similar to each other and don't do the things they are known for in-setting (why doesn't the beastmaster prince summon beasts to help him? why doesn't the faggot charmer prince charm my party into fighting eachother?).

It seems "repetition is the mother of learning" was the main theme the developers were going for. I was very excited when I had to fight the first titan because he seemed really different from everything I encountered before but my excitement turned to disappointment as soon as I killed him and thought "now I will have to do pretty much the same thing again 3 times, won't I?". Not to mention the game becomes really easy in the second half due to the overabundance of healing skills (mass regeneration healed every member of my party each turn for more health than the monsters could damage) and "bleed-stacking and waiting" being a tactic very few enemies are protected against. And if bleed stacking didn't work then injury stacking quickly turned even the most powerful enemies into non-threats (funny how all of the enemies who had a skill to remove injuries weren't immune to bleeding, it's like they could either have one or the other).

If it were shorter, but had more thought put into every major encounter, it could have been a great game, but as it stands, it's merely good. This is one of the reasons I loved Labyrinth of Touhou so much - it has such huge variety of everything. Almost every boss encounter was totally different from the last and the regular enemies constantly kept changing all the way to the last map.

I hope that if there is a LoX 2 the developers will look at the Steam stats, see that only 4% beat the game on normal difficulty (and only 0.7 beat it on hard lol) and draw the correct conclusions.

 

[roshan]

Yeah, Paladin auras are fucking useless, and the game DEMANDS a dedicated healer, since most fights eventually devolve into attrition wars.

Xulima is a decent game, but I wish they had made a great 15-20 hour RPG, instead of a 100+ hours monstrosity that makes you beg for the sweet release of death and boredom-quit just by reading you still need to cleanse ANOTHER temple, dethrone ANOTHER prince, grab ANOTHER artifact, kill ANOTHER witch....

Most fights in the game develop into attrition wars if you build your characters as constitution tanks and pump the useless skill learning to bloat your level. My experience with late game battle was that it was usually a quick and bloody affair.

There is nothing boring about the game and it's surprising just how much variety there is in the puzzle and quest design. Take Sorrentia. Not only do you have the Goldenwoods puzzle, but you also have the Arena, and the puzzle regarding the animals to figure out.

 

[Celerity]

Not even then. Even the very endgame stuff has like 500-2,500 life on normal enemies and as high as 13,000 for bosses, and that's on the highest difficulty (these numbers are considerably reduced on lower difficulties). Even low damage teams do nearly 1,000 damage a round + DoTs. About the only fight that really gets long is an optional one because he keeps healing for 450-750 until he runs out of mana and he has like 180 Speed or something. And once he starts healing you win because he won't do anything else and your DoTs will keep stacking.

As for fights, particularly heralds not being distinct enough... I agree completely. This is something I addressed.

 

[Ludo Lense]

Well that was utter garbage. Damn, I would have been so salty if I didn't get in a humble bundle. I don't even see the point of bitching since this game pretty much triggered me from start to finish (the Mushroom maze was the only part I found even remotely okay). But people liked it so whatever.

Actually I will bitch about the fact that EXP isn't shared with downed characters since it is such abysmally stupid game design. It forces you take the most linear path possible since you want to preserve characters at the end of a fight and so you are always looking for the weakest enemies possible. Any sense of achievement was gone when I managed to defeat the poison skeleton in the city crypt with my level 3 party and I loaded since 1 guy jumped ahead of everyone else.

And before you ask I played on Veteran and no I didn't quit because I found it hard, just insanely tedious.

 

[felipepepe]

My experience has been that battles are deadly when you enter a new area, but as you level up they tend to rely more on numbers and wearing you down. Those battles against 8 foes at once surely depend a lot on healing to keep the party together. Especially when the RNG declares that all ranged guys will focus on your mage in the same turn.

Some puzzles are indeed cool (though the riddles using gods suck - NEVER set a pattern for riddle answer), and I enjoyed exploring the areas and dungeons. But presentation plays a key role, and fighting color swapped soldier #900 at castle #6 to defeat herald #3 and retrieve artifact #6 and return to town #5 was a pain in the ass.

Reused assets are one thing and I can totally understand that on a budget indie game. But always doing the same thing story-wise is just lame. "Hey, welcome to this cool, new desert area! - where you'll once again explore a tower, fight a titan, depose a prince or whatever!".

The devs passion for repetition can be seen on the achievements... the first one is "kill 1.000 creatures", then "defeat 300 enemy groups" and "collect 1.000 herbs". Is like a warning - "yo, ya like repetition we got you covered!"

 

[Bubbles]

Actually I will bitch about the fact that EXP isn't shared with downed characters since it is such abysmally stupid game design..

I partially agree with that. I played on Hardcore, and most of the challenge derived from the fact that I never allowed one of my characters to die during a fight - it was just xp thrown out the window. If I hadn't cared about that, I could have just waltzed through it all. I think the game would work better if didn't cause the xp loss for death (you can argue that "dying is a novel experience too!" if you need a justification), but if it were generally more difficult. Veteran should be a little more dangerous than Hardcore is now, but without bloating up monster hp.

The devs passion for repetition can be seen on the achievements... the first one is "kill 1.000 creatures", then "defeat 300 enemy groups" and "collect 1.000 herbs". Is like a warning - "yo, ya like repetition we got you covered!"

Underrail has the same type of achievements

 

[Celerity]

Ragequit in 4.5 hours max.

It's like reading the negative reviews from people expecting a Skyrim...

 

[roshan]

Actually I will bitch about the fact that EXP isn't shared with downed characters since it is such abysmally stupid game design. It forces you take the most linear path possible since you want to preserve characters at the end of a fight and so you are always looking for the weakest enemies possible. Any sense of achievement was gone when I managed to defeat the poison skeleton in the city crypt with my level 3 party and I loaded since 1 guy jumped ahead of everyone else.

I'm sorry but blaming the game for your OCD is just fucking stupid. Sometimes some characters will die in a battle and lose XP to the survivors, sometimes, other characters will die and they will benefit from extra XP. Over time the XP will average out across everyone. "Every character must survive every battle so that all characters will have the same amount of XP at all times!!!" is just OCD taken to the level of extreme retardation.

 

[Bubbles]

Well, the xp loss is the main punishment for dying characters; nothing else really matters. And in my experience certain characters tend to die more often than others, so it wouldn't even out at all.

 

[felipepepe]

It's not OCD, it's bad game design. Usually the squishy characters are the ones to die, and if you let them keep dying & lose XP, they get relativly more squishy as you advance.

 

[Norfleet]

Systems like this never even out: In fact, they exacerbate: Characters who die a lot fall behind, causing them to die more, which...

 

[Ludo Lense]

Actually I will bitch about the fact that EXP isn't shared with downed characters since it is such abysmally stupid game design. It forces you take the most linear path possible since you want to preserve characters at the end of a fight and so you are always looking for the weakest enemies possible. Any sense of achievement was gone when I managed to defeat the poison skeleton in the city crypt with my level 3 party and I loaded since 1 guy jumped ahead of everyone else.

I'm sorry but blaming the game for your OCD is just fucking stupid. Sometimes some characters will die in a battle and lose XP to the survivors, sometimes, other characters will die and they will benefit from extra XP. Over time the XP will average out across everyone. "Every character must survive every battle so that all characters will have the same amount of XP at all times!!!" is just OCD taken to the level of extreme retardation.

I am sorry if you are bad at reading comprehension but my point was that this system punishes you for trying to tackle harder content. The correct way to play is to go straight down main path and always fight enemies with the challenging/troublesome rating and try your best to not get your guys killed. Could I have killed the ravens around the tower at level 1? Probably. But what was the point if I can come a few levels later and make sure all the xp is gained plus shared evenly.

 

[roshan]

That's not my experience at all. Against some enemies, your front line is more vulnerable, against others, the squishies in your backline. It all evens out and characters are usually one or two levels apart max. If you're OCD enough to actually pay attention to this sort of thing, you can always rearrange your party.

 

[roshan]

Actually I will bitch about the fact that EXP isn't shared with downed characters since it is such abysmally stupid game design. It forces you take the most linear path possible since you want to preserve characters at the end of a fight and so you are always looking for the weakest enemies possible. Any sense of achievement was gone when I managed to defeat the poison skeleton in the city crypt with my level 3 party and I loaded since 1 guy jumped ahead of everyone else.

I'm sorry but blaming the game for your OCD is just fucking stupid. Sometimes some characters will die in a battle and lose XP to the survivors, sometimes, other characters will die and they will benefit from extra XP. Over time the XP will average out across everyone. "Every character must survive every battle so that all characters will have the same amount of XP at all times!!!" is just OCD taken to the level of extreme retardation.

I am sorry if you are bad at reading comprehension but my point was that this system punishes you for trying to tackle harder content. The correct way to play is to go straight down main path and always fight enemies with the challenging/troublesome rating and try your best to not get your guys killed. Could I have killed the ravens around the tower at level 1? Probably. But what was the point if I can come a few levels later and make sure all the xp is gained plus shared evenly.

Again, why the OCD? Why do you need to have all the XP shared evenly? You do realize that having one of your characters advance a level is a tangible reward that will actually improve your performance in later battles, whereas having +XP for everyone is of no help at all?

 

[Celerity]

You don't even "lose" experience when you die. Every single time you kill an enemy the experience is split between all living non retreated characters. So if someone dies the experience is split 5 ways instead of 6. If 5 people died one would get the full experience from the encounter. Yes, I'm sure that dozens or hundreds xp difference on one character will meaningfully impact the millions of experience in the game...

 

[Ludo Lense]

Again, why the OCD? Why do you need to have all the XP shared evenly? You do realize that having one of your characters advance a level is a tangible reward that will actually improve your performance in later battles, whereas having +XP for everyone is of no help at all?

Because has more than one person pointed out classes are not equally survivable. Even by putting the best armor on him Galen kept dying so he was level 7 when I finished while my high con barbarian Boudica was already 8 and 80% to 9. Since this game is padded to high hell and is an attrition war fiesta it pushes you towards keeping everyone alive.

 

[Celerity]

Should we tell him that even Mages become super tanks in this game, especially on lower difficulties with their life bonuses, so it doesn't even matter that Barbarians get like double the life of everyone else?

 

[ERYFKRAD]

So guise, any way to move faster in this game?

I'm getting into the hang of things but gawds that slow movement.

Also: Party's made of a Barber, a Cleric, a thief, mage and summoner, how bad/good is that?

 

[roshan]

Again, why the OCD? Why do you need to have all the XP shared evenly? You do realize that having one of your characters advance a level is a tangible reward that will actually improve your performance in later battles, whereas having +XP for everyone is of no help at all?

Because has more than one person pointed out classes are not equally survivable. Even by putting the best armor on him Galen kept dying so he was level 7 when I finished while my high con barbarian Boudica was already 8 and 80% to 9. Since this game is padded to high hell and is an attrition war fiesta it pushes you towards keeping everyone alive.

Most classes are more or less equally survivable. Check the following:

Everyone is at the same level except Gaulen, and even he is leveling up soon. The only reason Gaulen is lagging behind is because I haven't used him in any of the arena battles. Of the rest only the rogue has a decent advantage because of XP from thief skills. My squishies (mage and cleric) actually have a slight XP advantage over the frontline characters because they die less as the backline is much safe, in fact they are safe enough that they can keep pace with the frontliners who get arena XP. This is with ABSOLUTELY ZERO gaming of the survival/XP distribution system. In fact I regularly retreat characters from battles if they are getting their ass kicked. All you need to do is just play the damn game without going nuts and letting your OCD taking over.

 

[Ludo Lense]

...

I stand corrected, your experience is obviously the only one.

I promise I won't post in this thread anymore until after I finish the game seven times to have the right to properly speak about the game.

 

[Celerity]

So guise, any way to move faster in this game?

I'm getting into the hang of things but gawds that slow movement.

Also: Party's made of a Barber, a Cleric, a thief, mage and summoner, how bad/good is that?

Hold Ctrl = run.

Divine Summoner is the worst class in the game and Mage is second worst but it honestly doesn't matter that much, you can still beat the game with them.

Spoiler

Arcane Soldier: B-. This class has exactly one good skill, with the rest of him being a hybrid between a weaker Soldier and a Mage whose spell progression and spell ability costs are so delayed that they are non factors in his ability set and power level. Fortunately, that one skill is really good (if you understand its unique mechanics, and the enemy takes damage from fire).

Barbarian: C+. Unparelled at auto attack direct damage. Unfortunately that's not really that relevant in the game. Neither is direct damage itself. He also does fairly well with weapon statuses, but not the greatest.

Bard: A-. An unparelled support character. Out of combat the Bard offers various item related abilities saving you a lot of money and giving you more items indirectly. In combat the Bard offers group buffs, enemy debuffs, and support abilities.

Cleric: A+. The only class I'd consider "necessary". Yes, you "can" go without them. You'll also spend so much on life and condition cures it's not worth it. The class itself is balanced (except Mass Regen, which makes the game a rofflestomp fest), just this ability set is always useful in all situations except those you are easily winning anyways.

Divine Summoner: D-. Also only has one good skill. The difference is the other skills quit scaling well before the end of the game, and the one good skill just gives you more money and items, meaning Mercantilism does it better and comes on classes that also do something else. Also, you're reliant on AI (albeit fairly good AI).

Explorer: B. Mandatory, but I'm ranking Gaulen anyways. His support abilities are extremely strong and necessary in some areas, but focused on well... exploration instead of combat. His combat abilities are somewhat lacking, particularly against poison immune enemies (and there's a lot of those). He does act as a force multiplier like the Bard, but in a much less direct way via gathering large numbers of stat buffing herbs.

Mage: C-. Very useful early in the game and quickly drops off later, unlike most games with both melee and magic. The mage's mid and especially high level abilities have very high costs for what they do, meanwhile a physical attack will deal at least almost as much damage without running the user out of mana in a few shots. Energy isn't really a useful solution when it gives 2 mana each and spells past level 20 cost 60-320 mana. The only unique functionality they offer is AoE and a few support abilities, but the AoEs are very weak.

Paladin: C-. This class is mainly held back by the fact it's a hybrid in a game that requires focus on the character level. Like Arcane Soldier it gets delayed progression on spells, unlike it healing still does something. Aura of Protection is a fairly good skill, though you can get it at lower levels through items.

Soldier: A. Also very useful early in the game, but unlike the Mage doesn't drop off as sharply later. An unparalled melee combatant with a range of special attacks. He only doesn't get the highest rating because he is still largely based on direct damage.

Thief: C. The Thief gets this ranking purely for Shurikens, the best source of bleed as well as traps and locks. It's quite lacking otherwise. That should give an idea how good Shurikens are, particularly during the first half of the game. All three of these abilities become less useful later on though.

Now you can make all these classes work, even Divine Summoner. Just there is a very significant gap between the best and the worst.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

snip

thanks men.

 

[roshan]

snip

thanks men.

Thief is an A in my experience. You will want to build your thief for the front line, SPD and STR at every level up, and max out swords and quick strike to land lots of bleeding attacks on the enemies. The armor and learning skills are absolutely useless, no points on those. Shurikens are a given. You will also need Gaulen for front line. I'd say with your setup give him swords as well, so that he too can stack bleeding and later on poison with envenomed strike. SPD and STR every level as well. Again, armor and learning are useless skills.

Your Barbarian could do blunt weapons and take powerful strike for when you need high damage attacks, and stunning blow is useful if you need longer stun durations.

 

[Celerity]

Thief is nowhere near A. Thieves have one good damage skill and while good early it quits scaling beyond that. Aside from that they're really only there for traps and locks so Gaulen isn't stuck as full support bitch since Swords are the weakest of the three main melee weapons and they're not gonna be that good in combat. And if you're not on Hardcore you can just let them hit you, they don't deal that much damage.

Armor doesn't matter that much but it can let you entirely ignore bringing a healer. Learning is the best skill in the game, are you high or stupid?

This also shows a complete failure at grasping basic game mechanics. Obviously, every character will level Speed at every level, absolutely and without question. Str for damage is only an ok return rate. Going for bleed focus and then not taking the stat that buffs bleed (Agi)?



Base Con you might get away with with a Cleric, if you're fine with uneven experience from deaths before you get your Mass Regen invincibility button.

With your current party Gaulen gets AXES and the Barbarian also gets AXES. Both of them hit an enemy and then it never does anything, ever because you just landed 30 wounds so it has a 0% chance of hitting you and a good chance of failing the Cure Wounds spell if it has it. And then everyone else does damage and axes also do ok damage.

 

[roshan]

...

I stand corrected, your experience is obviously the only one.

I promise I won't post in this thread anymore until after I finish the game seven times to have the right to properly speak about the game.

I am just illustrating with a practical example (as opposed to the bullshitters in this thread) that the game does not "FORCE" you into keeping everyone alive, or any such nonsense. It doesn't even encourage it, and there is nothing wrong with this aspect of the games design. Neither is there some sort of "slippery slope" where your squishies become more and more squishy relative to other characters. Like I said, you going crazy about XP being 100% equally divided all the time is basically your own disorder and you shouldn't be blaming a great game for your own weird mental quirks.