KickStarter Lords of Xulima

[Cyberarmy]

Yup, 2 handeds are way to go for apllying status effects with help from skills. The moment I realized this I gave up my paladins shield for a 2 handed mace with extra stunning effect.

 

[Jaesun]

Yeah, there is absolutely NO reason at all to use 1 handed weapons. Thankfully Popeamole let me know this when I started playing.

 

[Anthedon]

I used them a lot in the early stages of the game because hitting stuff seemed way harder. Now that I have numerous options to stack wounds on a target that's no longer an issue.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

Thief and bard are both great shield users since they have enough HP and access to defensive skills to survive in the front, but they contribute to fights through something other than weapon attacks.

 

[Cadmus]

I don't know what you guys are talking about. Stun+high speed is OP. OK, speed is OP by itself, the best stat in the game, but add stun to it and the enemy doesn't even get a chance to hit you. I mean I only had one dedicated stunner in my party, a soldier, and all I had to do was increase speed and strength. The mage helped also a bit with his lightning stunning, but it can't be compared to the stun from the mace. Sure, shuriken bleeding and poison ended the fights much faster and yeah, wounds helped a lot in that regard too, but not getting hit back is a big plus imo. By the point I tackled the last of the titans they barely had a chance to perform an action against me.

I come to wonder if people who complain about the weakness of any status effect (that I argue are relatively well-balanced against each other) use 1h weapons with shields.
Because 1h+shield combo in LoX is absolutely, 100%-proof much worse than using a 2h weapon.
2h weapons deal much more damage (and status effects) than their 1h variants, and the shield provides extra armor at the cost of extra weight at the same ratio as other armor pieces, so it can be safely discarded in favour of heavier (and better-protecting) armor to compensate.
The only shield-using characters I had in my party had been spellcasters with no weapon in hand. I gave them the lightest shields with stat boosts I could find (in the endgame those were something like 5 weight with "King's" enchantment. Good stuff.).

Yes, I was thinking of throwing away the shield on my paladin as well.

I have no idea how the game counts the time. What's 1 second?

The default movement speed (at 100% movement ratio, which will be lower on harsher surfaces and 200% on the roads) is basically "1 step = 1 minute". The game doesn't count seconds.

Should I play on the hardest difficulty rather than veteran? I'm at 11-12 with the first temple cleared (clearing the shrooms after having been blessed made my party). I can see things being a little mindless going forward.
But will the hardest level force me to make better decisions or just take a lot more time? That's the concern. Thanks.

I haven't palyed on the hardest difficulty, but as far as I understood, it requires quite a good knowledge of the game mechanics and a certain degree of min-maxing, because it's very unforgiving to player mistakes.
Also, the food management aspect is more pronounced, such as harsher environment locations will really tax your food supplies.

I checked and I'm on the highest difficulty - the game's been fucking hard but required no knowledge of me apart from learning I should put all points into speed. My lowest point was really getting locked out of the first village after killing the road guard and having no money and no food to get through the fucking asshole corrupt guard back to into the village. I killed them on like my 10th try but it felt so good, uh uh !!!!!!!!!!!aaah

 

[T. Reich]

Thief and bard are both great shield users since they have enough HP and access to defensive skills to survive in the front, but they contribute to fights through something other than weapon attacks.

Again - why equip a shield with a sub-par 1h weapon, when all the shield provides over simply using better armor in other slots is one extra slot for enchantment (which wouldn't matter by the late game anyway)? Whatever armor you lose by not equipping a shield, you can compensate by the fact that by dropping a shield you free up some carry weight. Said freed-up carry weight can be used to equip better armor in other slots, completely covering the loss of the armor from the shield. AND you can now use an always-better 2h weapon.

While 2h weapons attack slower and are harder to hit with, the endgame difference in to-hit ratio is negligent, and slowdown in attack speed is also fairly small and is more than compensated by the damage and status effects increase per hit.

Funny enough, early on you will likely not have a good choice of shields available anyway, and similarly it's unlikely that you will have enough carry weight to use them with all other armor slots filled anyway. And when you start getting decent shields (from the second town onwards), the 2h weapons become available.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

With mediocre investment into armor training and zero investment into strength I could have my thief wear the heaviest chest armor and shields I could find, and he only ended up at around 150% carry weight, which translates to -10% speed and initiative, a trivial penalty.

The advantages I'd get for dropping that shield would be a removal of the speed penalty and a stronger weapon attack (on a class whose combat role is shurikens to stack bleed then defending to bulk up the front line). I'd much rather have the extra defense and enchantment.

Same logic applies to bard but replace shuriken damage with song utility.

 

[ben_reck]

I do think the game asks more from you (besides time) on the third tier. For example, causing an enemy mob to waste his time scuttling behind a frontline mob is to be maximized. I also think more about defense/evasion for my rogue to make the enemy waste more turns missing her. I also have to flee from the first two shock hounds at level 5/6 but that's a necessity, not a decision.

And you really do want to poleaxe the town guards as soon as possible. On veteran level, I spent far more paying tolls and it just didn't matter much.

 

[T. Reich]

The first town guards can be a non-issue depending on how you prefer to deal with replenishing spent HP/PP.

My preferred method was to be under blessings 100% of the time. That meant that I had at most 2 possibilities of resting efore the blessings ran out. As suc, I preferred to occasionally support myself with potions and an occasional teleport back to town re-apply the blessings and to heal the party with priestess.

As a result, I only had to pay the guards maybe 3 times max before I got strong enough to kill them.

On the other hand, someone who prefers to use rest as the main way to replenish HP/PP, willl have to deal with them more often.

 

[ben_reck]

Even with level 3 hunting, I still only get one hour's worth of meat from wasps. Perhaps the appetite is lacking?

 

[Cadmus]

I finished the game today! It took me 66 hours - I wasn't expecting it to be this long. While the endgame dragged a lot, it was still more fun than the fucking PoE. Here's my bestest barbarian and the end score:

Spoiler

Great game. I'll write something more later about it I think.

 

[MicoSelva]

Deluxe Edition (and Deluxe Edition upgrade) is now 70% off on GOG. Time to get it, if you have not already!

EDIT: And now it is a part of Humble Weekly Bundle Kickstarter Edition, ($13 tier).

 

[Unbeliever]

Damn. This is too good to let it pass. Hope that game is great like Codex preview said.

 

[Markman]

Got an extra key from HumbleBundle if someone is intrested.
Will check in a few hours and do a draw if needed. Thought better I post it here than in beg thread to avoid +1 steam beggars.

 

[Infinitron]

http://www.lordsofxulima.com/2015/07/16/autographed-collectors-edition-contest-and-gog-70-off-promo/

Greetings!
For those looking to get their hands on a physical edition, GOG is running a contest right now, where two lucky winners can get an autographed copy of the Collector’s Edition. This contest runs alongside of a 70% off the digital deluxe edition promotion.



Contest Goal from GOG:
“Design (write, draw, paint, photoshop, photograph) your very own RPG character sheet. Pen and paper style. Show us the coolest, funniest or just most creative character you can think of! Is it you? Is it your cat? Is it your grandmother, vanquisher of the empty stomach? We *need* to know.”

Contest Entries are Accepted until Tuesday, July 21st, at 23:59 GMT.

Follow the links to get started on the contest and get Lords of Xulima at the biggest discount we’ve ever offered on GOG!



GOG Physical Edition Contest
Get 70% Off DRM-free Version at GOG


The Collector’s Edition:
We did not print many of these physical editions, and also no longer have these available for sale. This is an exclusive edition from our crowdfunding days. Winner of the GOG Contest will receive their very own copy like the photos below.

As always, thank you for your support!

Have fun with the contest, and good luck!

 

[Inquisition]

Instead of giving away free copies they could send me the manual that was missing from my Collector's Edition. They stopped answering my mails too. Has anyone else here not been sent the manual?

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

I picked this up from GOG due to the sale. I've only played about 4 hours, but it seems pretty great so far. Art design is high fantasy done right, and the limited number of encounters suggests the game has the potential to keep up the brutal difficulty. My only complaint so far is the lack of character customization, but I'm also only around party level 6, and it seems like char builds might branch out shortly.

All in all if this game continues to deliver it's a for 10 bucks. All God-fearing Codexians should do their duty and buy a copy.

 

[Cadmus]

I picked this up from GOG due to the sale. I've only played about 4 hours, but it seems pretty great so far. Art design is high fantasy done right, and the limited number of encounters suggests the game has the potential to keep up the brutal difficulty. My only complaint so far is the lack of character customization, but I'm also only around party level 6, and it seems like char builds might branch out shortly.

All in all if this game continues to deliver it's a for 10 bucks. All God-fearing Codexians should do their duty and buy a copy.

The encounters will become numerous pretty soon and you will be able to tackle many of them thus making them a bit tedious but there's always a bigger challenge ahead of you so that makes it at least a little satisfying. I don't think the characters have many (or any) options to diverge from what they are at the start, it's the classes that matter.

If you're on Hard, the difficulty will slowly decline but it never got too easy for me.

 

[Lord Azlan]

I picked this up from GOG due to the sale. I've only played about 4 hours, but it seems pretty great so far. Art design is high fantasy done right, and the limited number of encounters suggests the game has the potential to keep up the brutal difficulty. My only complaint so far is the lack of character customization, but I'm also only around party level 6, and it seems like char builds might branch out shortly.

All in all if this game continues to deliver it's a for 10 bucks. All God-fearing Codexians should do their duty and buy a copy.

I really loved playing LoX this year.

If you consider 'fun' as a factor in this RPG love affair we all share - I had more fun with this game than WL2, Blackguards or M&M X. I even tuned the sound up playing this game compared to other games when it normally is turned down or off. I think the puzzles in LoX were better than in those games which is a weired thing to say considering how we normally classify what makes a good RPG.

Character customisation is an interesting point.

Regards my magic user I was really looking for an uber fire spell or something that does 500 points of damage to a whole group as in the Bards Tale series but the developers were not having any of that. I hope this meant they gave careful consideration to balance in combat. Saying all that I think combat wise my mage was still the best damage dealer.

I trained my thief in dagger - a lot - but ended up being very disappointed in the availability of daggers sold in the various shops - on retrospect I should have trained him in the sword.

That fool Gaulen ended up being a decent tank - but his expertise is in the adventure skills so don't forget about them. One of the best things about LoX is the introduction of skills like Hunting, Knowledge of Terrain, Knowledge of Herbs and Camoflage which don't exist in many other games but are sort of essential here.

My best tip, spend as much cash as possible on additional skill points. Even when swimming in dosh in the later stages I would give myself a 20k buffer and spend the rest. Enjoy!

 

[T. Reich]

By the end of the game I ended up buying on average around 2 skill points per level-up. Otherwise it really felt like I have too few sp's to spend.

 

[roshan]

. One of the best things about LoX is the introduction of skills like Hunting, Knowledge of Terrain, Knowledge of Herbs and Camoflage which don't exist in many other games but are sort of essential here.

My take:

Knowledge of Herbs is essential and should be maxed out right away.
Knowledge of Terrain is also essential to explore certain areas, but no need to max out entirely, leave a few points empty in case you find books later down the road.
Hunting and Exploration - Cool to have. Just put one point in. If you get lucky with books, you might even be able to max or nearly max with books alone.
Camouflage - Useless, because until you clear an area, you will keep getting pestered by the random encounters. Avoid this skill, it's a waste of SP. But if you find books for it you might as well put in one point so you can consume the books.

But yeah, the exploration skills are a really awesome touch to the game!

 

[Cadmus]

I agree and I would also add that mercantile is pretty fun to have as you can always use having more money. I had hunting maxed out and it was great randomly finding tons of food and getting tons of food from animal encounters. It's not necessary but it helps a lot and decreases the tedium and it's cool to get an additional reward for some fights.

I wouldn't rely on books at all, I got tons of shitty books and used like 5-6 of them tops I think and they weren't even for the good skills.

Basically, if your Gaulen isn't the main thief, use him to get all the fun non-combat skills. Unlike other classes, he doesn't get any awesome abilities later on so no need to hoard the skill points.
I can't imagine what use would be object identification and evaluation to anyone though.

Knowledge of Terrain I would max out asap because it's not like you have many more important skills and you always need more food.
Camouflage is almost useless but I leveled it anyway, it helps a little when you actually don't want to fight anything because you're on your way to an encounter with buffs already purchased, everyone ready, etc and some fucking patrol gets in the way.

For how hard the game is, many of the skills seem optional and just fun little things to take to round off the edges of the sometimes tedious experience. I really like this. The leveling system also doesn't make you feel like you're wasting your skillpoints on bad skills because it's not like you can put EVERYTHING into your weapon skill every level-up.

 

[ArchAngel]

The game is also part of the HUmble Bundle, you can get it there for 13$ plus couple of other games.

 

[Unbeliever]

I got it. Already playing two RPGs, so I don't plan to seriously play Xulima right now, but I will install game just to check character creation and to try it for couple of hours.

Maybe will make a bard, i don't have opportunity to play that class for long time.

 

[GlutenBurger]

Knowledge of Terrain is also essential to explore certain areas, but no need to max out entirely, leave a few points empty in case you find books later down the road.

I don't understand what's essential about it. It just saves you walking a few steps to lift the fog. Entirely pointless, as far as I could tell.