Review Mask of the Betrayer Review

[Marsal]

It's not spirit, it's 'craving' meter. And it's indeed VERY easy, unless you want an all-out 'bring em on' spirit-gorger, running around with full craving bar all the time... and there is no 'middle ground'.

Anyway, who was boasting that he's playing with full craving bar and it's insanely easy? Care to give an advice or two? I mean, the game does not seem to be (fortunately) a nonstop hack&slash, therefore there bound to areas with no 'food'. Now, if you could consume your summons - that would be better... but, unless I'm mistaken, you cannot.

Just sacrifice some exp if you get too low. 1/4 of a lvl doesn't mean much. I used it 2 or 3 times and was still lvl 30 at the end(creating a new char with ECL +1 race). Don't rest unless you absolutely have to(this means no alpha-striking everything with lvl 9 spells if you don't have to and choosing the right spells before resting). I *think* you CAN consume your summons(didn't try it).

 

[Vault Dweller]

Anyway, who was boasting that he's playing with full craving bar and it's insanely easy? Care to give an advice or two? I mean, the game does not seem to be (fortunately) a nonstop hack&slash, therefore there bound to areas with no 'food'. Now, if you could consume your summons - that would be better... but, unless I'm mistaken, you cannot.

I did. My craving was always on high and even though twice I was very close to death (once I had only 8 points left), most of the game I played in 70-95 range.

Tips:

1. Devour Soul is a must. Greatly reduces the overall difficulty as there are plenty of humanoids in the game.
2. There are many spirits in the game. There are always two spirits outside the gate, so if you are down, go there and replenish your spirit energy.
3. Don't kill all undead in the shadow temple. You'll visit it often, so keep a few unopened vases for a rainy day.
4. When you devour, wait until it's almost dead to maximize the energy.
5. In the Ashenwood there is a spirit guardian who answers your questions and who will offer his energy to you freely if you pass one of the dialogue checks. I think he refills you completely. When you're low again, talk to a berserker fighting a cleric woman. If you side with the berserker, his wounded friend dies and shows up as a guardian spirit, who also can be devoured via a dialogue option.
6. Don't rest until you have to. When you do, make sure that there is something to east nearby. The outside of the gate is a perfect area for that.
7. When you arrive to the sunken city, you'll be low on energy. That's what spirit rats are for. Do that mass feeding thing there.
8. Your party members can often kill things before you have a chance to feed. I'd suggest telling your party members to hold their ground and then going hunting.

 

[Lumpy]

Wikipedia-notable R Us:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motb#Critical_Reception

 

[Texas Red]

Wikipedia-notable R Us:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motb#Critical_Reception

But why would Wikipedia make a reference to some blog?!

 

[galsiah]

7. When you arrive to the sunken city, you'll be low on energy.

Or dead - as in my case. It's a bug:

Just a quick update on this issue. I dug around and found the problem, which appears to be that the first time you arrive in Lakeshore, the time of day is set manually, I believe so you always arrive at daylight. Depending upon the time of day that you arrived before time was shifted forward, this can cause your spirit energy to shift dramatically.

So, it is uniquely a problem with traveling to the Sunken City, and it should only occur the first time that you do so, if ever. There will be a fix in place for the next patch.

There seems to be no patch yet. Going from 71 energy to zero on arrival is quite annoying (the same length of journey in another direction gets me 62). My craving's only at about 60%. Presumably it's just a matter of leaving at the right time of day - or, more probably, night.

 

[Zomg]

It's not spirit, it's 'craving' meter. And it's indeed VERY easy, unless you want an all-out 'bring em on' spirit-gorger, running around with full craving bar all the time... and there is no 'middle ground'.

Anyway, who was boasting that he's playing with full craving bar and it's insanely easy? Care to give an advice or two? I mean, the game does not seem to be (fortunately) a nonstop hack&slash, therefore there bound to areas with no 'food'. Now, if you could consume your summons - that would be better... but, unless I'm mistaken, you cannot.

I'd bet you can cast Gate without Protection from Evil running and then eat the summon, although you'd need to be on the path that gets Soul Devour.

 

[Hazelnut]

Lost like I'm going to buy this game after all once they start selling a pack with both the main game and the expansion.

You won't have to wait long. NWN 2 Gold Edition has a preliminary release date of 2007-11-09, according to Swedish sites at least.

Apologies for reopening an old-ish thread, but has anyone seen anything more about this Gold Edition of NWN2 & MOTB in the same package yet? I can't seem to find it anywhere.

 

[Gambler]

SM is manageable, but I wouldn't say it is very good from role-playing perspective.

I wanted to consume that bastard Mirkul, but it gave me 100% spirit craving (from roughly 5%). I could bring it down by constantly doing spirit heal thing, but that would quickly make me lawful good. So I just reloaded.

...

You can use 3d door in shadow workshop to summon hostile elementals.

 

[MasPingon]

Jesusfuckinchrist, I'm playing since saturday and I absolutely love this game. I can't belive it has NWN in titlle. Motb is a fantastic journey to BG2 and P:T times, it has everything I love in crpg. Reading VD review I was thinking - "What the fuck is all this fuss about? It's just a bad game add-on". Hell no, I was uber wrong. This game has nothing to do with NWN, if I did't know it's Obsidian's work I would tell Black Isle is still alive and kicking. It surely deserves it's praise on the Codex.

 

[One-guy]

It is. That's why i vote it in "best RPG" poll, even if there was another great game.

 

[Gambler]

I finally finished the game, and was largely dissapointed by the "neutral" ending(s).

I decided not to sleep under a mossy rock, and, as it turns out, that resulted in me blewing the chance to end the game in a meaningful manner. Wonderful example of choices and consequences.

 

[Lumpy]

I finally finished the game, and was largely dissapointed by the "neutral" ending(s).

I decided not to sleep under a mossy rock, and, as it turns out, that resulted in me blewing the chance to end the game in a meaningful manner. Wonderful example of choices and consequences.

It's a real pity you didn't like that ending, hun. But do you have any reason why your ending is not meaningful?
Any character who wants to get rid of the Eater will choose the "mask" option over the "purge" option. There's no role-playing reason not to. So should the mask ending been the standard one? It was a great touch that the Founder's plan was flawed, and obviously there needed to be something special you had to do to be able to restore Akachi.

 

[MasPingon]

This is maybe a noobish question but can I join together the pieces of the mask of the betrayer? I'm not using crafting items skill at all, so I'm curious.

 

[Lumpy]

This is maybe a noobish question but can I join together the pieces of the mask of the betrayer? I'm not using crafting items skill at all, so I'm curious.

You don't need to worry about the mask.

 

[Gambler]

To Lumpy:

I do not consider neutral endings meaningful, since they are not a result of player's actions throughout the game. They are analogous to deus ex machina plot device, except that it's not the salvation that comes "ex machina", but a moderately big screw-up.

...

I agree that there is no reason for optimal ending be the default one. In fact, achieving good results should take some effort, that's realistic.

However, the game did not provide any information about things I needed to do in order to get the good ending. Moreover, it depended on fulfilling couple of conditions, none of which were even hinted at as a salvation. Ther was no logical connection between them and the main quest. All I could do is guess, or meta-game, sticking my head out whenever I could and actively seeking out adventures. Obviously, that's what the designers expected me to do.

This is what I call a "lottery" design. There are winning tickets, but they are a few and you get them by chance.

I did not have all the piece of the mask, because I did not sleep udner a mossy rock (according to the contest here). Even the description of the situation sounds like nonsense. Heck, why someone with a curse that consumes him from withing would camp under a goddamn rock? To see a cool dream? (Yes, you could plug in a meta-gaming motivation here, but there are meta-gaming motivations for anything.)

Even later in the game, when I had the other two fragments and was able to deduce that sleeping under that rock would give me _something_, I had no way to know how relevant that "something" is. So I did not travel 17 days just o see a cool dream. That's a _logical_ thing to do, and I insist that it is what role-playing is about - making decision as if the situation in the game is real, rathe than doing cool shit for the lulz.

...

What's worse, this design is presistent in MotB.Most of the "choices and consequences" people mentioned here are bonus content. It's not "choose A or B, and get X or Y" respectively, it's "do A and get X". Moreover, there is usually no information about A, and you can't deal with (the lack of?) X, it just happens.

I would have liked to see more of a continuous process. You gather information, you set your goals, work on achieving them, get the results, deal with the results. Not just do something and see what happens.

 

[Mareus]

Hmm... well i mostly agree, however i have to disagree that original NWN2 is far worse game in comparrison with MOTB. In my oppinion both games have it's charms and downfalls, but MOTB prevails in the end. Story is better in MOTB no doubt, but the characters just didnt grow on me. Somehow i liked original NWN2 characters more. I dont know, maybe i just expected to meet them in the game later... continue my adventure with them like Baldur's Gate did. I actualy found quite charming and refreshing the childish bickerings between characters in original NWN2 game. MOTB did offer more choices and options... darker atmosphere also... yes. Still NWN2 had its moments aslo. The castle management was really a nice touch for example. NWN2 was rushed, no doubt about it. You can see that when the game falls more and more apart the closer you are to the end of the game. Still both games have same issues with 3D camera, and i am sure both NWN2 games would be a lot better if the developers chose 2D isometric camera. Still i liked both games, which are a step in the right direction after a looooong time. NWN2&MOTB is in my top 10 rankings. Better anyway than NWN1. Too bad 3D graphic is the only standard nowadays

PS. Insulting people for not liking the spirit meter is something that should be avoided in reviews, even though i agree with you hehe

 

[Vault Dweller]

PS. Insulting people for not liking the spirit meter is something that should be avoided in reviews, even though i agree with you hehe

Insulting people for disliking a feature is wrong, I agree. Pointing out that a lot of morons failed to understand a feature and were greatly upset that the feature made them, like, think and stuff is a sacred duty of a game reviewer.

 

[Mareus]

PS. Insulting people for not liking the spirit meter is something that should be avoided in reviews, even though i agree with you hehe

Insulting people for disliking a feature is wrong, I agree. Pointing out that a lot of morons failed to understand a feature and were greatly upset that the feature made them, like, think and stuff is a sacred duty of a game reviewer.

Well, you sure know how to put things into perspective hehe