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Grimoire gameplay and hints thread

Serus

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Thanks for answering.
Rolling a pirate from the start seems a huge pain in the ass. I tried to do it with Naga and all i was able to get was an Assassin, and it required a 40+ roll. Haven't checked what pirate needs but probably 45+ (?), not gonna reroll to get it, I'm not autistic enough. That's why i asked:
- Was changing classes patched since the release ? Anyone ?
 

Lady_Error

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Not sure if it works as intended now, but class changes were definitely patched since release. Now you can do it much sooner, though yeah, there were apparently some bugs with skills.
 

mondblut

Arcane
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Aug 10, 2005
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Ingrija
1. Starting location:
- Is there any i should pick, or one that i should avoid for some important reason.
- If there is one approved by the hivemind starting loaction - which one ?

The Shrine is default start. Eerie Wastes gives most content for your buck (Temple of Hathor Sogg later in the game). Prison is the "hard" start letting you loot the Armory very early if you survive it (also, a high-level chest you'll probably fail to open early on, and a key to a gate you can bypass anyway). Sanctuary is the "easy" start with some lategame gear and a few character boosts (also a keycard to a lategame level which you can find elsewhere anyway). Wilderness is worthless, the key it gives can be received elsewhere too - avoid.

- Can i go without a Thief ? In wizardry 7 it was a major pain in the ass at the very beginning but after that - the better choice because thief was a really crap class. How is it in Grimoire ?

Not needed.

- Same but Cleric. Similar, very helpful early on but not an optimal choice later. Can I start without one without major problems ?

Yeah, sage gets most healing spells. You'll have to endure through some tight spots without cure disease and cure paralysis early on, but clerics need time to get these either.

- Class switching. I read that directly after release it was mostly useless because a bug prevented your chars from using skills that the 2nd class would bring. Is it still the case or moving to say a pirate from a simpler class now makes sense ?

After release it was useless because you could only change classes after level 10, which is endgame, and needed millions of xp to reach level 2 in new class. Now it's level 3.

A few suggestions:

1) you can only visit a class once, and each class can only be changed to 3 specific ones. map your way across classes accordingly. For instance, if you change a sage to a wizard, you'll never get out of the "wizard circle" through cleric, bard and into warrior group.
2) the most efficient is to change class at about level 6. 7 is a tad too late unless endgame, where you routinely slaughter encounters worth a few thousands xp.
3) the xp scale only resets after you gain second level in the new class (might be fixed in later patches). don't change class immediately after levelup, change it after you are close to the next one, or you'll have to do the same busywork but at level 1.
4) unless you are a casual who only changes classes once, CONSERVE BONUS POINTS. unlike invested stat improvements, these are retained between class changes and should be reserved for bottlenecks like when you are already level 7 but still need 30 more INT to make a leap from berserker to assassin.

- Party consisting of:
Saurian Berserker - Dwarf Berserker - Wolfin Ranger - Dracon Metalsmith - Durendil Bard - Aerob Sage - Vampyr Necro - Feyfolk Wizar
Not needing any deep analysis, just, are all needs my party might have covered by this setup ?

Vampyrs suck (gotcha!), they operate at half-stats half the time while bringing nothing of worth to the table. And the way item use works, you'll need to manage the SPD of the entire party very carefully, which vampyres break.

Durendil got good stats but terrible limitations on usable equipment, the only reason to have one in the first half of the game is if you need a templar out of the box.

Metalsmith aren't very useful, they got shit wizard-level hitpoints for a melee dude, and crafting is not implemented anyway. Unless you want to endure without a sage - and you don't - no reason to take one.

Saurians are dumb as rock and you'll have terrible time multiclassing them unless you conserve bonus points like mad (this includes not spending the starting bonus unless necessary) while always rolling sixes.

Double the first 3 characters, keep aeorb sage and add feyfolk bard, it's an ultimate rapetrain.

- I read trhat NPCs were awfully overpowered after release - is it still the case, do they still feel like cheating or not ?

Not so much overpowered as everyone having pretty much the same stats and skills regardless of race and class, vastly superior to PCs created according to rules.

- 2nd difficulty (veteran ?) seems to mean "normal" so i'll go with that, or should is the game too easy/hard with it ? Can it be freely changed later ?

Can be changed at will. Go for hard/onslaught when you need xp, switch to easy/none when you need to backtrack across half the game.
 
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Lady_Error

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Eerie Wastes has much harder encounters, unless you know how to avoid them. But yeah, as far as mandatory encounters go, Prison is harder.
 

Serus

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Thanks for advice mondblut - i don't want to min-max too hard, instead I went with a mix of classes and races to be able to really know as many as possible in practice. No doubling (only exception are 2x berserkers becasue as i understand you need minimum 2 pure front liners and warriors seem to suck badly - just like in w7)

A propos and one last question for now - how rows work in Grimoire ? I mean for the party. What consists of 1nd ,2st row etc... ? In w7 it was simple, first 3 chars made first row and in consequence were targets for most melee attacks. How does it work in Grimoire ?

From your previous answer I understand that multiclassing now works correctly (more or less) now. That's good news.
Doubling classes/races at the start - I try to avoid for reasons mentioned but multiclassing in a W7 clone is obligatory :D.
 

mondblut

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A propos and one last question for now - how rows work in Grimoire ? I mean for the party. What consists of 1nd ,2st row etc... ? In w7 it was simple, first 3 chars made first row and in consequence were targets for most melee attacks. How does it work in Grimoire ?

Sort of broken. Unless you are fighting someone with magic, missile weapons and possibly some long-range weapons, enemies are always hitting the first two guys. That's why you need more than 2 tanks, you'll have to rotate them often early in the game.

OTOH, there is no restrictions on weapon lengths as in Wizardry for your party. You can attack from the last rank with a toothpick as easily as with crossbow. Weapon range only affects how deep you can penetrate into enemy ranks (rank 2, 3 etc) - first enemy rank can be hit by anyone with anything.
 

Serus

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A propos and one last question for now - how rows work in Grimoire ? I mean for the party. What consists of 1nd ,2st row etc... ? In w7 it was simple, first 3 chars made first row and in consequence were targets for most melee attacks. How does it work in Grimoire ?

Sort of broken. Unless you are fighting someone with magic, missile weapons and possibly some long-range weapons, enemies are always hitting the first two guys. That's why you need more than 2 tanks, you'll have to rotate them often early in the game.

OTOH, there is no restrictions on weapon lengths as in Wizardry for your party. You can attack from the last rank with a toothpick as easily as with crossbow. Weapon range only affects how deep you can penetrate into enemy ranks (rank 2, 3 etc) - first enemy rank can be hit by anyone with anything.
So it's similar but simplified from W7. Shame because i actually liked W7 system of rows and weapon ranges. I think it was well designed and quite elegant. Also not hard to understand. Cleve should have simply copied it 1:1 if he didn't have any better idea IMO but Cleve gonna Cleve i suppose.
Thanks again, you are invaluable when it comes to this stuff (like Grimoire advice as evidenced here. Or voice of reason when talking about what a good crpg should be :salute:)
 

Dorateen

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Any other good advice ?

Speed is an important stat to focus on for your characters. You will want to increase your initiative especially later in the game when facing enemies who can outright murder you if they go first. Also, when you get Speed high enough, party members will be able to trigger a greater number attacks on their turn.
 

Serus

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Any other good advice ?

Speed is an important stat to focus on for your characters. You will want to increase your initiative especially later in the game when facing enemies who can outright murder you if they go first. Also, when you get Speed high enough, character will be able to trigger a greater number attacks on their turn.
Sure thanks but honestly - that's nothing new and is rather obvious to me. Wizardry 7 has plenty of enemies that if left to act first can wreck havoc on your party in first round. And as i understand so do enemies in earlier wizardries as well. The only difference is that here you can't pre-emptively nuclear blast and/or debuff them with a high initiative caster because casters always cast last if i understand correctly. You have to rely on melee (and consumables ?) to prevent casualties.
 

GandGolf

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What exactly does the "journal hints" option in the configuration menu of game control do? When I tried asking on the steam forum I didn't get any useful answers (though Cleve did show up to call some posters filthy neckbeard SJW, but still didn't answer my original question). If you have them does turned off does that mean you won't get any journal entries if you put an item in the identify shrine or show something to Smithers?
 
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Cleveland Mark Blakemore

Golden Era Games
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Any other good advice ?

Speed is an important stat to focus on for your characters. You will want to increase your initiative especially later in the game when facing enemies who can outright murder you if they go first. Also, when you get Speed high enough, character will be able to trigger a greater number attacks on their turn.
Sure thanks but honestly - that's nothing new and is rather obvious to me. Wizardry 7 has plenty of enemies that if left to act first can wreck havoc on your party in first round. And as i understand so do enemies in earlier wizardries as well. The only difference is that here you can't pre-emptively nuclear blast and/or debuff them with a high initiative caster because casters always cast last if i understand correctly. You have to rely on melee (and consumables ?) to prevent casualties.

This is the spirit of true incline.

Felipe Pepe had such trouble learning to play he never discovered you could protect yourself from surprise attacks in advance or avoid the exact ones he whined about altogether. I made the difficult choice of spell casters only after physical attacks to bring the combat closer to D&D Chainmail because I thought there were too many such exploits in Wizardry 7. It never made sense to me that a magic spell could be cast before a person could even swing a sword. The nuclear blast was a great exploit and an example of something that a snowflake like Felipe Pepe could never understand - putting loopholes into the game for players to discover and exploit as a game mechanic in itself. He made such a big deal out of TimeStop killing the biggest boss in the game with ease. That's what Timestop is for. Beating big bosses with ease. The advantages should not always fall into the hands of the monsters.
 

Cleveland Mark Blakemore

Golden Era Games
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LAND OF THE FREE & HOME OF THE BRAVE
That's what Timestop is for. Beating big bosses with ease.

Funny you should mention that. Just last night I found a treasure, which included a card that casts Timestop.

.. and you will realise after you have played many such games, that those kinds of treasures are a real delight when you come across a monster that you just want to defeat swiftly through a cheat. The card is used, your freebie expires and your next boss may be much more difficult. With so many bosses and sub-bosses in Grimoire, it's fun to discover really good shortcuts at times. If you could cast Timestop constantly it would suck but a novelty is a great find to save for when you feel it is best deployed.

Felipe Pepe is not eligible to play a game like Grimoire because he is too crass to enjoy it in the way it is intended to be experienced. His soul is too shallow for him to travel the land of Hyperborea. He's too superficial to appreciate the whole. Felipe Pepe is a millennial. He is what happens when the content is sucked out and you have nothing but a menu launcher.
 

Zep Zepo

Titties and Beer
Dumbfuck Repressed Homosexual
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Mar 23, 2013
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While Cleveland "Soy Boy Mark" Blakemore denigrates Felipe Pepe and shovels into his gaping jaw some more heaping tablespoons of lard, he begins mumbling incoherently. After he anally abuses several Aboriginal boys, he has more fantasies about what he "thinks" someone has said about his gayme.

Actual Cleveland "Soy Boy Mark" Blakemore quote:
"I like the tight anuses of those Aboriginal boys" --Cleveland "Soy Boy Mark" Blakemore

Zep--
 

makchanka

Arbiter
Joined
Jun 21, 2017
Messages
244
Any word on reducing the constant enemy shrieking every half a second? Turning the sound complete off isn't a "fix," it's retarded. It's like saying unplugging my PC whenever I encounter a bug is a fix.
 

makchanka

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Jun 21, 2017
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244
I've never played a game like this

should I start with it, or go back...

If you want to start with older blobbers, start with Wizardry 7 (DOS, not gold) or Might and Magic: World of Xeen (both are available on GOG). Give them a chance for a few hours (if you haven't played a blobber before, the old school ones might be a little confusing). If you aren't feeling it, try out Wizardry 8 or Might and Magic 6 or 7. Those have fluid movement and (arguably) better interfaces. If you aren't feeling those for whatever reason, there are a few more modern blobbers you might be able to get into. Starcrawlers, for instance, is a very solid modern blobber whose mechanics are (relatively) simple and more agreeable to modern taste. If you have trouble with the first person perspective altogether, Lords of Xulima might be another way of easing into the genre.

Don't start with Grimoire. Grimoire is a complete mess whose novelty derives from its pedigree (it's a Wizardry clone) and from the amusing (and quite literal) insanity of the author. It's only really interesting if you've played through other blobbers and need a hit of something new. Even then, I'd recommend just modding other older blobbers.

Grimoire might be in a state that's more than merely playable at some point, but Cleve -the author- is known for missing deadlines for years. Wait for version 2 to come out, then wait another year after that for the inevitable fixes, balance changes, and (possible) manual.

tl;dr try every other top-tier blobber first, then wait until (optimistically) ~2020 to look into buying Grimoire.
 
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Lady_Error

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Dude, he has an avatar from Eye of the Beholder 2 - you think he doesn't know about blobbers?
 

makchanka

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Jun 21, 2017
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M&M6 is like way too hard to figure out tbh. It's very complicated. You should start with this hidden gem called Skyrim. It's a classic of old school gaming.
 

Diggfinger

Arcane
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Jan 6, 2014
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Belgium
75 pages of hints. Complicated game indeed :D

So far I'm struggling to do anything in this game - keep dying constantly and/or getting permanent non-curable conditions on my characters (like paralysis).

Despite steep learning curve, keep telling myself that it will become *fun* at some point...and I enjoy feeling old-school :dance:

But yeah I'm just planning to grind and level by killing plants in the first area:retarded:
 

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