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KickStarter Serpent in the Staglands Thread

CryptRat

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Sep 10, 2014
Messages
3,548
What's fun about its combat, in my opinion, is eventually spamming some spell you put all your points into, there's some satisfaction feeling when getting strong because the game is rightfully not easy at the start. I remember using at least one characte with a whip and one with elixirs, I think different weapons really work differently, I don't remember that well.

Take some notes, use skills, the game excels in quest resolution, puzzles and secrets.
 
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Gunnar

Arbiter
Joined
Jul 10, 2016
Messages
819
Has anyone out there actually completed it or thereabouts? And if so any tips to make it as enjoyable as possible?

The game has a Good and a Bad ending. You're supposed to either play a benevolent god that doesn't kill humans or take sides in their affairs, or a selfish god that uses every power to his advantage. If you want to get the good ending, use the NPCs the game gives you and don't steal their will. Avoid killing humans or completing questlines that take sides in their affairs. It's harder to play for the good ending because you have to give up experience and loot and you have to sneak around in some areas, plus you don't get a customized party of slave soldiers, but perfectly doable and fun to play. Otherwise, just do what you want and you will get the Bad ending.

There are ways to levelup quickly, abuse steal and some overpowered spells, if you're interested in any of that.
 

agris

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Apr 16, 2004
Messages
6,758
The spell system is fun, especially drawing the glyphs. I recall steal was useful, and some quests had unique resolutions around it as well as important NPCs having unique items. I believe I did a mix of whip, magic and glyphs - although the terms used in game are a bit different. There was another glyph that let you assert your will, that one was good as well. Some are obviously geared to alternate quest solutions and seeing more content - pick those.

also, read the moon lords book. That’s you, the protagonist, and it’s like a great throwback to the 1990s manuals where there is a lot of indirect (and some direct) hints about how to solve things in-game, cleverly disguised as lore and flavor. SitS made me forget PoE and breath a sigh of relief, flawed as it was.

you’ll need to take some notes too, but it isn’t rigorous.
 

Falksi

Arcane
Joined
Feb 14, 2017
Messages
10,538
Location
Nottingham
Absolutely loving going back to it so far. Thing are flowing better this time, and familiarity with the combat & suchlike are making things way more enjoyable.
 
Joined
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The Present
I'm attempting to play this game. I just have some questions about builds, mostly the statistics. I want to build a wizard, but it's not obvious whether Intelligence or Occult is more important, or exactly how they are different. Can anyone clarify and make suggestions? Thank you!

PS: While combat isn't terribly difficult since healing is infinite, I'm having alot of uncertainty about whether my offensive spells are landing, and how I should be targeting enemies. Is there a quirk here that I am not appreciating?
 
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Grampy_Bone

Arcane
Joined
Jan 25, 2016
Messages
3,640
Location
Wandering the world randomly in search of maps
Just pick a spell and max it every level. No point in mixing spells at all because there's not much utility to magic. There's one that just does direct damage that's fine, but magic overall is kinda weak. Been awhile since I played it but if you max a spell you can spam it on every enemy and deal decent damage. Spreading your points around just nerfs your damage for no real benefit.

For warriors pick 2 skills and max them. Again it's been awhile but I recall a few points in Accuracy + 2 damage boosters were all you needed.
 

Grampy_Bone

Arcane
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Messages
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Wandering the world randomly in search of maps
Some spells scale off int, some scale off occult. Generally Int is for damage dealing spells.

I recall Heat metal being decent with Int. Searing light doesn't use any stat though so anyone can use it.

More or less Int is the wizard stat and occult is the cleric stat.
 

Baron Dupek

Arcane
Joined
Jul 23, 2013
Messages
1,870,765
So you're telling me that this game have some sort of Harm-like spell that works on anything?
Weird inspiration from old games but ok...
 

agris

Arcane
Patron
Joined
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Messages
6,758
The game is literally a love letter to old school mechanics and world building. Not sure what’s weird or unexpected about them borrowing from “old games”.
 

Grampy_Bone

Arcane
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Jan 25, 2016
Messages
3,640
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Wandering the world randomly in search of maps
Not really. The combat system of auto-attacking skills and spell channeling doesn't really resemble any of it's apparent inspirations (BG or Darklands), and the general theme is part of the distinctly modern aesthetic of 'you are a bad person for playing this game' ala Undertale, Spec Ops, and even TLoU2.
 

agris

Arcane
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Messages
6,758
Not really. The combat system of auto-attacking skills and spell channeling doesn't really resemble any of it's apparent inspirations (BG or Darklands), and the general theme is part of the distinctly modern aesthetic of 'you are a bad person for playing this game' ala Undertale, Spec Ops, and even TLoU2.
Why does any of that make SitS anything other than what I described?
 

Grampy_Bone

Arcane
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Messages
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Wandering the world randomly in search of maps
Why does any of that make SitS anything other than what I described?

SitS is more of a hate-letter to RPGs than a love letter. The nice term would be to call it a 'deconstruction.'

Basically the theme of the game is that there is no way for you to interact with the world positively. If you play it like an old-school hack-in-slash game you will get an ending specifically designed to insult YOU, the player, and all old-school RPGs in general, simply for the act of playing it. The only way to avoid this is to avoid all content in the game--don't do any quests or fight any battles at all. This is of course a miserable experience, as there are almost no tools in the game to actually avoid fights, which makes the 'gotcha' ending even more infuriating.

SitS developers are woke hipster doofuses who think 'muh cycle of violence' is deep thinking and want to teach RPG players a lesson. That's the opposite of old-school in every possible way.
 

Jvegi

Arcane
Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Nov 16, 2012
Messages
5,061
Oh yeah, this game. I'll have to try it when I'm done with IWD2 in a couple of weeks.
 

Gunnar

Arbiter
Joined
Jul 10, 2016
Messages
819
I'm attempting to play this game. I just have some questions about builds, mostly the statistics. I want to build a wizard, but it's not obvious whether Intelligence or Occult is more important, or exactly how they are different. Can anyone clarify and make suggestions? Thank you!

PS: While combat isn't terribly difficult since healing is infinite, I'm having alot of uncertainty about whether my offensive spells are landing, and how I should be targeting enemies. Is there a quirk here that I am not appreciating?

If you make an intelligence mage you can put all skill points into the 3rd tier spell 'Planar Jump' which is so powerful it's all you'll need to easily win any combat without taking a scratch. Pump intelligence and casting speed as high as possible and get a linking wand to boost the damage further. I used a bow (fastest ranged attack) + arcane attack (which stacks intelligence bonus damage) for the points I had left over, but Planar Jump is so powerful it doesn't matter where you put the rest of the points.

Why does any of that make SitS anything other than what I described?

SitS is more of a hate-letter to RPGs than a love letter. The nice term would be to call it a 'deconstruction.'

Basically the theme of the game is that there is no way for you to interact with the world positively. If you play it like an old-school hack-in-slash game you will get an ending specifically designed to insult YOU, the player, and all old-school RPGs in general, simply for the act of playing it. The only way to avoid this is to avoid all content in the game--don't do any quests or fight any battles at all. This is of course a miserable experience, as there are almost no tools in the game to actually avoid fights, which makes the 'gotcha' ending even more infuriating.

SitS developers are woke hipster doofuses who think 'muh cycle of violence' is deep thinking and want to teach RPG players a lesson. That's the opposite of old-school in every possible way.

Disagree with your shit opinions but no tool to avoid fights? Not true at all. For example you can use the spell batform to avoid fights very easily.
 
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Can someone que me in on how to use Linguistics? It seems very powerful, but whenever I select it from the quick menu, I have no kind of prompt or field to enter in an incantation. My action history window says I selected the book, but nothing happens. If I try to just type the incantation from that point, I just trigger hotkeys. How do you use Linguistics?
 

Gunnar

Arbiter
Joined
Jul 10, 2016
Messages
819
Can someone que me in on how to use Linguistics? It seems very powerful, but whenever I select it from the quick menu, I have no kind of prompt or field to enter in an incantation. My action history window says I selected the book, but nothing happens. If I try to just type the incantation from that point, I just trigger hotkeys. How do you use Linguistics?

You need to open up the incantation scroll found in the starting shrine and type in vrosk rife <target name>.

Put 3 points into the Linguist skill. Then open up the incantation scroll (found in the starting shrine) and type in vrosk rife arbiter. You will be able to steal all the arbiters powerful gear: helmet, armor, magic arrows, shield, sword. You can use this to obtain a Whip of the Bloodless, a powerful weapon from the hunter in the starting shrine as well.

When you get to level 5 linguist skill, travel to Ista Cale Camp area. The bloodless hunters there are wielding Whips of the Bloodless. You can use vrosk morn <target name> to disarm them and get multiple whips. When you leave the area and come back, they will all be wielding whips again.
 

Fenix

Arcane
Vatnik
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Jul 18, 2015
Messages
6,458
Location
Russia atchoum!
Yeah, nd I had bug back then with incantations - I stole stuff from arbiter, and then killed him, and he had his stuff anyway lol.
Bugs are what is bad with this game, at least it was like that.

Wait, or it isn't a bug? As you quited that those hunters - I met them too, will get more whips?
 
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Gunnar Thank you very much. I rechecked my inventory again and found the tome. I originally only saw the scroll with the incantations, but not the tome itself. I've now equipped it in the quickslot and messing around with it. Disappointing that you need the "true name". Not being able to use it on random enemies is irksome. I tried using Philosophy to see if I could reveal their names, but either that Aptitude doesn't have that ability, or I need a higher skill level.

*Edit. I'm getting a better feel for the game. Definitely very old school. I can't say I appreciate the lack of information about its systems, but I'm just going to have to take a leap of faith and accept the consequences for many of them. I also can't say I've had to kite in an RPG for a very long time. It feels lame, but I'll get over it once my characters are more powerful and can engage directly. Otherwise, difficulty is overstated. For anyone that started playing RPGs prior to 2002, this is standard fare.

I am enjoying many of the other old-school qualities though, and this game feels like it has a great deal of potential. This game makes you earn things, either through diligence, patience, or both. I look forward to seeing how this plays out.
 
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I've been digging to improve my understanding of the game's casting mechanics. Occult looks like overall the more sensible choice for a variety of reasons. Magic subdued, so spells which bolster the party are going to be more effective than direct approaches. Healing is crucial. The spells with no specified stat associations also fill the gaps in an Occult oriented spell book better than they do an Intelligence oriented spell book. I've created a table showing which statistic is associated with what spells, and their general classifications. It's not pasting well here, so I'll summarize.

Intelligence
A total of 13 spells, making it the most supported casting stat. Emphasis on control and general offense. Offense comes equally supported in direct damage spells and buffs. Does not heal HP, but can remove poison & ethereal damage.

Occult
A total of 10 spells. Emphasis on buffs, protections, and healing (HP only though). No damage spells. It has one Grade 3 spell (Turn to Stone) which functions as a debuff and control, but that's it.

Unspecified
There are a total of 6 spells which do not specify a primary attribute. They are scattered pretty equally across buffs, control, debuff, and damage. Control and debuff come in the lower grades, damage and buffs come in the higher grades. Even though they do not specify, the game manual implies that these spells are likely influenced by Intelligence.

Despite the analysis, I'm going with a generalist. I'll probably emphasize intelligence slightly more because I love control spells, but I plan on balancing out my stat points by using the "Imp Jar" to steal stats from temporary companions. I hope this game doesn't suck. I've put a lot of thought into it, and I've barely just begun.
 

Grotesque

±¼ ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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Divinity: Original Sin Divinity: Original Sin 2
upload_2021-2-18_16-56-23.png


what are those skills that increase the potency of others? because the game doesn't give any info on this. I am currently lvl 7
 

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