Sceptic
Arcane
- Joined
- Mar 2, 2010
- Messages
- 10,871
I'm taking a break from mapping Mad God's temple level 3 to write this. Shortly after my last post the game completely broke, and I don't think the series recovers until Dragon Wars. The fundamental problem with the encounter design is that, when you run into a group of 66 skeletons, there's really only one option: have your mages cast AOE spells, and then mash Enter 132 times, and then you win. You then get showered with XP and gold, which makes tackling any of the random encounters worthless. Why spend round after round in that fight against 8 blue dragons, 5 storm giants and god knows what else when you can just repeat the 66 skeletons fight in a single round for the same reward? I'm still holding to my no-grinding rule, and only doing these fixed encounters once as I map, but I'm also skipping random encounters now whenever I know I can't do them in less than 1-2 rounds - they're simply not worth the time and the SP cost. My mages got to level 9 and everyone else is level 10, and as I get higher level spells the "single group of tons of enemies" fights get progressively easier, while all the multi-group fights gets more tedious.
Despite the ridiculous combat I'm actually enjoying this more than I thought I would. Level design has improved dramatically, with less randomness and more visible patterns as you map, and better use of traps, spinners, anti-magic zones and one-way doors. There's a certain mondblutian pleasure in watching the pretty numbers go up after ever advancement. There were also some nasty surprises, such as the stasis field (though you do get warned) and the Soul Sucker, who TPKed me very quickly, and who is particularly nasty because he's behind a series of one-way doors.
I'm glad I didn't follow Gregz's advice because the bard is great. Traveller's Tune is a flat 2 AC bonus, and since you can sing it outside combat that means he also gets to do other things in combat, without losing the bonus, and it lasts a LONG time. The Fire Horn is also great, and I'm still using, it seems to have quite a few charges. Annoyingly I found not one but two Lak's Lyres, which are supposed to cast GRRE, but they do nothing at all (using them gives "you can't do that"). The rogue saves me a ton of SP - I noticed that you don't HAVE to detect the trap properly to disarm it, so even when he finds nothing I disarm at whim anyway, and most of the time if you input the wrong trap you just get to try again. His damage is underwhelming, but then it's not as if the paladin and hunter are doing much anyway, they're just there to soak melee attacks while the mages unleash death and destruction, and the rogue's hide in shadows is actually great for this.
I'm trying to plan what to turn the mages into. I'll probably end up going Sorcerer for both once they reach level 13, as I don't see a benefit to turning one into the other's class. Next will be Wizard for both, and if I haven't finished the game by then each will end at the other's starting class, though I have the feeling that, unless I end up HAVING to grind, I won't get this far before the end. Which is nice, I'd like to start BT2 with relatively lower level characters.
Despite the ridiculous combat I'm actually enjoying this more than I thought I would. Level design has improved dramatically, with less randomness and more visible patterns as you map, and better use of traps, spinners, anti-magic zones and one-way doors. There's a certain mondblutian pleasure in watching the pretty numbers go up after ever advancement. There were also some nasty surprises, such as the stasis field (though you do get warned) and the Soul Sucker, who TPKed me very quickly, and who is particularly nasty because he's behind a series of one-way doors.
I'm glad I didn't follow Gregz's advice because the bard is great. Traveller's Tune is a flat 2 AC bonus, and since you can sing it outside combat that means he also gets to do other things in combat, without losing the bonus, and it lasts a LONG time. The Fire Horn is also great, and I'm still using, it seems to have quite a few charges. Annoyingly I found not one but two Lak's Lyres, which are supposed to cast GRRE, but they do nothing at all (using them gives "you can't do that"). The rogue saves me a ton of SP - I noticed that you don't HAVE to detect the trap properly to disarm it, so even when he finds nothing I disarm at whim anyway, and most of the time if you input the wrong trap you just get to try again. His damage is underwhelming, but then it's not as if the paladin and hunter are doing much anyway, they're just there to soak melee attacks while the mages unleash death and destruction, and the rogue's hide in shadows is actually great for this.
I'm trying to plan what to turn the mages into. I'll probably end up going Sorcerer for both once they reach level 13, as I don't see a benefit to turning one into the other's class. Next will be Wizard for both, and if I haven't finished the game by then each will end at the other's starting class, though I have the feeling that, unless I end up HAVING to grind, I won't get this far before the end. Which is nice, I'd like to start BT2 with relatively lower level characters.