LP: Preview of Co8 5.6 + LP Co8 5.8

[Melcar]

It seems to constantly crash on the very first location where you buy gear if you will select to rest for 8 hours and then rest until morning (so it will be light outside). Easily avoidable I think but still a bit annoying.

Doesn't crash for me. Having a hard time getting past the first town (too boring and end up quiting the game), but so far the only problem I'm having is weird graphical corruptions on the icons for items and portraits (swords sometimes appear as character portraits or garbled junk). Don't know if it's an actual game issue or just an idioticity in WINE (I'm thinking the latter).

 

[MetalCraze]

The Hommlet is boring. Dungeon crawl after it however is not (though I would've wished dungeons to be more like in oldschool dungeon crawlers - cunning traps, puzzles that require thinking). In fact I can say it has the best combat in an iso PC DnD game I've ever seen.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Doesn't crash for me. Having a hard time getting past the first town (too boring and end up quiting the game), but so far the only problem I'm having is weird graphical corruptions on the icons for items and portraits (swords sometimes appear as character portraits or garbled junk). Don't know if it's an actual game issue or just an idioticity in WINE (I'm thinking the latter).

I never had that, something is fucked up. Let's hope it's nothing serious and you can finish the game. You have to go thru the tedium of Hommlet at least 1 time to fullest extend, you'll be able to value a tutorial like in NWN2 after that.
Also it crahes only when you pass time beyond the day/night switch and are near the mage tower I think.

IMO the skill checks in the quests in Hommlet really are fucking too high for a lvl1/2 party, even if you have the respective skill maxed, you normally don't have a chance to pass the check unless the according attribute INT, CHA, WIS is also high, and even then you'll sometimes need spells/potion like Heroism, Guidance. SKILLCHECKS are too high for that low lvl. The same in Nulb, although not quite as bad.

In fact I can say it has the best combat in an iso PC DnD game I've ever seen.

You just need to look as far as KotC to see how DnD combat should be in a CRPG.

 

[Melcar]

I have a question regarding skills. Do certain skills (like the speech ones or Listen and Spot) apply to the entire party or just the particular character? I've been reading some strategy guides, like the one on Sorcerer's Place, that seem to imply that they apply to the whole party.

 

[GarfunkeL]

My experience is that they only apply to the character who initiated dialog but I only tested it with appraisal.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Thats true, you have to take the char with the skill(s) and let him do the talking. Often you need several skills like e.g. Bluff+Sense Motive to progress in the dialogue. A High-CHA class Sorc/Bard is highly recommended, also a ChA-cloak +6, guidance/heroism can help too. Gamebanshees walkthru often mentions the needed skills. The point is Sense Motive is WIS while bluff is CHA, same with other skill combos, so it's rly difficult sometimes to have sufficent skill combined in 1 char. Best is probably Bard or a Sorc with 18 CHA and 18 INT for more skill points.

 

[Melcar]

I got a sorcerer with 18 CHA, 16 WIS, and 17 INT doing the talking. Plan to spread out all my skill points between diplomacy, sense motive, and bluff (those are supposedly the most important). What about the listen and spot skills? I'm reading several guides where they only have a single char. (usually the priest) take those. Wouldn't it make more sense for my front liners to take them?

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Your Sorc should be up to the task especially with CHA+6 cloak, these are the skills used for conversation: diplomacy, bluff, intimidate, sense motive, gather info, for the last 2 you should have at least 8 I think (with attribute bonus so you don't need 8 skill ranks), the others should be 10+. A rogue you'll need but rogue 2/Wizard X is OK as long as you have good DEX and put some more points in disable device and open lock. Spot, Search etc are used (traps, secret doors) as is Survival (avoid map-encounters), but it doesn't matter who has the skill. Don't forget about the other necessary skill for the classes too (concentration etc). Tumble is extremly useful, the elven armor has no or little armor penalty and you can become almost immune to AoO. You can buy tatoos which increase Intimidate btw.

 

[Gaear]

- was wearing earth robes and had already talked to Romag and got the kill the snake quest, I don't think all cells are normally open at least not Wonnilons and the cell with the chest, Zombies were always hostile in past playthrus and the Bugbears became hostile when you opened a cell-door iirc

- got the other stuff, rings, platin etc but no Scather

Okay, will check into that stuff.

So you are saying all the Verbobonc stuff etc is not in this release? Meh. Where do I get a masterwork shortbow then?

That's correct. I'm not sure where there might be a masterwork shortbow.

It seems to constantly crash on the very first location where you buy gear if you will select to rest for 8 hours and then rest until morning (so it will be light outside). Easily avoidable I think but still a bit annoying.

That's a known bug that results from buying items out of the clothing chest that has boots and gloves (leather variety). It was also not seen in internal testing, sorry.

Gaear: on a side note, I noticed Rannos and Gremag have an identical shop inventory, has it always been that way? Also they have hardly anything of use, and with hardly anything I mean they have nothing of use. Noone has Masterwork Longbows, Shortbows for instance. Noone anywhere. Thanks God all kind of silly weaponry like Katanas, Nunchaku etc made it in though. /sarcasm

I believe their inventories have always been identical. I don't know that their contents have ever been modified, so that one's on Troika.

Doesn't crash for me. Having a hard time getting past the first town (too boring and end up quiting the game), but so far the only problem I'm having is weird graphical corruptions on the icons for items and portraits (swords sometimes appear as character portraits or garbled junk). Don't know if it's an actual game issue or just an idioticity in WINE (I'm thinking the latter).

None of this has been reported before, so it's probably something unique to your installation.

I have a question regarding skills. Do certain skills (like the speech ones or Listen and Spot) apply to the entire party or just the particular character? I've been reading some strategy guides, like the one on Sorcerer's Place, that seem to imply that they apply to the whole party.

All the speech skills are individual, as are Listen and Spot. Appraise is a group skill - doesn't matter who's talking, the highest score in the party gets used.

 

[Melcar]

I'm having my hot half elf barbarian do all the searching and spotting (will even give her a couple rogue levels for evasion).

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

rofl I must have done something wrong, the couriers from Countess Tilani gave me just 100 platinum for each party member, that's it. Last time I got a bit more iirc.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Alrems dialogue is broken, he always repeats his initial dialogue. I had recruited the Troll for Water already, and couldn't tell him of it. But there is a line (what's in for me) to let him know that the Troll joined Water, so I got the Ogre quest, however now there is no possibility to report success on the Ogres, cause he always just repeats the dialogue from when you first meet him. Also the *I will kill you* line doesn't initiate combat.

 

[1eyedking]

What the hell? An entire thread dedicated to Co8 faggotry?

Even then, we all know ToEE was an excellent D&D 3E conversion and all, but it was still D&D 3E. People don't seem to get it: you can't mod the suck out of that system, and you definitely can't cancel suck with more suck.

 

[thesheeep]

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

What the hell? An entire thread dedicated to Co8 faggotry?

Even then, we all know ToEE was an excellent D&D 3E conversion and all, but it was still D&D 3E. People don't seem to get it: you can't mod the suck out of that system, and you definitely can't cancel suck with more suck.

*yawn* thx 4 contribution

 

[MetalCraze]

Got those crashes with Jayfie quest too, should fix them. They are really really annoying.
It also appears that NPCs are getting stuck in one place doing nothing at his camp before game crashes.

Also isn't Sitra Achara hinted at some Co8 mod that only fixed bugs? The new/changed content only subtracts from the game. Not mentioning that the Wizard class was basically turned into a Sorc with casts-per-day which is silly.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Not mentioning that the Wizard class was basically turned into a Sorc with casts-per-day which is silly.

What are you talking about? My Wizard casts as always.

 

[MetalCraze]

My mistake. For some reason the selection of spells for Wizard was bugged for me like I couldn't select more than one of the same spells in Wiz slots - the way it happens with Sorc when you already have such spells in list (even though casting seemed normal) - tried restarting the game - also didn't help - I then reinstalled 5.6.0 (without 5.6.1) just to test and used the same character - seems that now it works normally.

Still I don't like what Co8 did to the original content and how it is also introduced new bugs so no ToEE for me I guess unless someone will make a pure fixpack. The starting shop is a nice idea though.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

There is an unusual concentration of bugs, but this is a beta-release hence I'll keep on playing through to unearth whatever I can find. I suppose removing all previously added content didn't work out without problems or something.

 

[Gaear]

There will always be bugs, sadly. I'm sure that 5.6 = fewest and vanilla = most, however, despite the fact that you're running into 'new' ones. Fixing bugs often times makes more bugs and it takes a few cycles to iron it all out. Hence 'beta,' as you say.

Got those crashes with Jayfie quest too, should fix them. They are really really annoying.

Unfortunately we don't know what's causing them.

The Alrrem thing is known: I suspect that it arose from enabling some banter between him and Ashrem that had previously been broken. It will be fixed.

Still I don't like what Co8 did to the original content

What are you referring to specifically?

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

In the earth temple to the south where you enter, there is a corridor with corpses, that rise and attack you - normally. They didn't. Like many things in the temple were not hostile although they should, e.g. I kill a high priest now should all the faction become hostile, no? They don't, his guards in the next room remain friendly.

Alrem:could be the *universally broken respawn script* too

 

[Gaear]

Like many things in the temple were not hostile although they should, e.g. I kill a high priest now should all the faction become hostile, no? They don't, his guards in the next room remain friendly.

No, it's always been that way, unfortunately. Allies of slain priests etc. definitely should become hostile if you kill their leader, but that kind of scripting was sadly lacking in ToEE. The temple is really pretty dumb - they basically don't react to anything other than whether you're wearing their robes or not or whether the universal panic alarm has been set.

In the earth temple to the south where you enter, there is a corridor with corpses, that rise and attack you - normally. They didn't.

The earth temple corridor with the corpses near the entry point from the main floor is lined with scenery object corpses. They've never risen to attack the party, unless I'm thinking of the wrong place. I think they're supposed to be victims of the nearby ogre.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

No, it's always been that way, unfortunately. Allies of slain priests etc. definitely should become hostile if you kill their leader, but that kind of scripting was sadly lacking in ToEE. The temple is really pretty dumb - they basically don't react to anything other than whether you're wearing their robes or not or whether the universal panic alarm has been set.

I'm not 100% sure on this , although I seem to remember otherwise... so ok I'll believe you for now.

The earth temple corridor with the corpses near the entry point from the main floor is lined with scenery object corpses. They've never risen to attack the party, unless I'm thinking of the wrong place. I think they're supposed to be victims of the nearby ogre.

On that thing I am sure, in the south near your first entrance is corridor where you'll normally be ambushed by a lot of undead. Exactly where the corpses lying on the floor.


Suggestion: I made lvl 10 by now, and this whole temple of Elemental Evil is really full of Wussie victims, consider to spice things up a bit, make the high priests higher lvl and give them some capable fighters as guards, it's embarassing as it is, seriously.

 

[Gaear]

That's because you got all that XP from killing the party in Nulb. Seriously. If you hadn't done that your party would probably be level 6-7 or so in the earth temple and facing a much greater challenge.

On that thing I am sure, in the south near your first entrance is corridor where you'll normally be ambushed by a lot of undead. Exactly where the corpses lying on the floor.

You're probably thinking of the corridor in the middle of that level. A bunch of skeletons ambush you there, but not where the corpses lie in the area near the bottom of the map by the entry from the main floor.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

That's because you got all that XP from killing the party in Nulb. Seriously. If you hadn't done that your party would probably be level 6-7 or so in the earth temple and facing a much greater challenge.

No. It has always been that way, the most difficult fight in the whole game is the Behemot frog/Seah Hag at lvl 4 and from then on it goes downhill. Having 15000 XP more than usual has no meaning in it, if I hadn't this XP I would be lvl 9 instead of 10, big deal. You can tell there is something seriously wrong with the encounter design
if all you'll have to do is click on the enemies and watch them die.
Ok there was the fight in the firetemple with all the Salamanders, I guess that is a less bad example, because at least I was forced to cast Pro Fire. If I actually had dedicated melee guys it would be even worse, because for instance that Frostbrand is a good weapon in the hands of my Fighter 1 / Cleric X with his shitty STR but it would be tremendous in the hands of an actual fighter.
So no, low lvl creatures are no challenge only because they're numerous.
What does it help if there are 20+ creatures and they can't hit you (which has nothing to do with your party lvl, but with equipment and my equipment is still far from optimal). Do you rly think if you arrive at lvl 6/7 the temple is challenging?
If you start killing things you'll be lvl 9/10 in no time.
temple=too easy. too easy=no fun.
And it has always been that way, it has nothing to to with the presence of the guys at the waterside inn, but those put up a decent fight at least.

You're probably thinking of the corridor in the middle of that level. A bunch of skeletons ambush you there, but not where the corpses lie in the area near the bottom of the map by the entry from the main floor.

No, I don't confuse it with the other undead. The skeletons in the middle spawned btw.
What I mean is the south corridor near the entrance where there are openly lying corpses. This is the very point where I was ambushed by Zombies - not skeletons - in previous playthrus. Stop denying it, my mind is sharp as a razorblade and my memory clear as crystal. Seriously.