Thursday is finally here.

[Roguey]

Roguey It's mock worthy because you can raise dodge through skill points. You don't need to raise DEX so you can dodge fast.
It's obvious he started bitching about the game without fulling understanding it's very basic mechanics and giving it a real try. It's also obvious he just bitches about every game out there with little to no reason behind it. And it's so easy to find legitimate reasons for not liking a lot of games released these days.

But if you want to maximize the amount of dodge you get in the beginning you want to get as much dex as possible.

Incidentally I tried out a few 50 dodge characters and damn what a horrible skill. It's as if no one even tested this.

 

[Pope Amole II]

Incidentally I tried out a few 50 dodge characters and damn what a horrible skill. It's as if no one even tested this.

What armor were you wearing?
Now, I'm not gonna say that it is as good as block (it certainly is not), but you can win all (well, all that I've encountered - I hadn't been through all options of all classes) the tough fights in the game with high enough dex ( i wasn't even maxing it - 60 was more or less enough. And that's at 4 con, yeah. Takes plenty of metagaming to do that, though.

 

[circ]

Incidentally I tried out a few 50 dodge characters and damn what a horrible skill. It's as if no one even tested this.

What armor were you wearing?
Now, I'm not gonna say that it is as good as block (it certainly is not), but you can win all (well, all that I've encountered - I hadn't been through all options of all classes) the tough fights in the game with high enough dex ( i wasn't even maxing it - 60 was more or less enough. And that's at 4 con, yeah. Takes plenty of metagaming to do that, though.

Not using nets or bolas, winning mining camp with a dodge user (which means light armor (dr)) without a badass weapon like a 2h hammer for knockdown is pretty much impossible. I'm not sure it's even possible with nets.
I tried it with a straight up assassin, kept getting as far as everyone dead except crossbow guy and captain. Using high dodge, 60+ and leather armor.
Then tried it with a steel manica wearing thief who used nets. Made it as far as captain, who killed me. Though I almost got him. Maybe with another dozen reloads it would have been doable.

On another note. It's ridiculous how much helmets and bigger shields suck ass in this game. Helmets lowering skills? What? What the fuck kind of weirdo helmets were you using for reference?

 

[Grimlorn]

Well a helmet does limit your vision, so perhaps that's where the penalty comes from. It does seem a bit much on the penalty side of things, since with a good shield and helmet you can lose up to 15-20 points in your weapon skill.

 

[Pope Amole II]

I tried it with a straight up assassin, kept getting as far as everyone dead except crossbow guy and captain. Using high dodge, 60+ and leather armor.
Then tried it with a steel manica wearing thief who used nets. Made it as far as captain, who killed me. Though I almost got him. Maybe with another dozen reloads it would have been doable.

Well, leather armor is crap, man, iron manica for teh win and a steel dagger with DR 3 and +1-4 damage (60 crafting). 60 dodge, critical strike 62 or so (50 at the start, rest is from the quests), dagger 50 (more is useless since weapon skills are almost freaking useless). s 10, dex 10, per 8. Used the net on teh captain, though - hard to kill this fucker without landing a net. And not that many reloads also, no more than 3.

What? What the fuck kind of weirdo helmets were you using for reference?

Nah, man, that's extremely realistic - the whole story of the helmet development balanced around having enough protection and being able to see at least something. Heavy armoured helmets are really shitty in terms of being able to see your surroundings and the light ones just invite opponent to punch you straight in your face (with something heavy and spiky, probably). Still, considering that the game's combat is totally unrealistic in all other departments, I agree that it's not a good idea, though I would say that helmets are extremely unbalanced - NPCs with their unreasonably high attack skills don't suffer from wearing one so in most serious battles head shots are just not worth it, while you, with the permanent shortage of skill points, can't really hope to use one efficiently.

 

[circ]

Yeah. There are also some mobs like Flavius who don't seem to be using a helmet but when you get headshots landing the message sometimes said something about helmet. Not sure what that was about.

 

[Shadenuat]

All helmets in game are based on either greek or roman design, aside from fur and leather shapkas, and they, actually, leave one's face open and wearing one of those you would never have any problems with seeing things. It's later european helmets, from owl-masks to bacinets and other medieval helmets which hinder vision. So from both "realistic" and gaming perspective they give too big attack penalty. Shields penalty pretty ridiculous too, anything but tower shield does't hinder your swordplay ability, and why does smallest are called bucklers? Bucklers are very small, solid metal shields, which are almost unbreakeable. In game, bucklers are your basic light round wooden shields, but being round does't make shield a buckler.

 

[Pope Amole II]

By the way, I have found the way of gathering enough wood to craft something (probably just a light bow) out of it - you just need to play as a praetor (crossbows seem to be good choice for this path considering praetor has an extremely scarce stat point pool and has to use everything available to him) then kill one squatter at the broken tower to get first stick and then, during the final quest preparation, you'll need to offer your help to Cado and in his quest gather another stick - 3 lbs of raw wood resulting, with skill of 50+ that should be enough for at least one light bow or crossbow. Not that you'll need them at that point, but still, nevertheless.

 

[Roguey]

Incidentally I tried out a few 50 dodge characters and damn what a horrible skill. It's as if no one even tested this.

What armor were you wearing?
Now, I'm not gonna say that it is as good as block (it certainly is not), but you can win all (well, all that I've encountered - I hadn't been through all options of all classes) the tough fights in the game with high enough dex ( i wasn't even maxing it - 60 was more or less enough. And that's at 4 con, yeah. Takes plenty of metagaming to do that, though.

Both the starter armor for assassins/mercenaries and none. There was no difference between the amount of times I was getting hit with 50 dodge (with or without armor) and not putting points into dodge at all. I think that's a problem considering the significant pre-game investment I was making; it's possible I'd eventually hit a magic number where it becomes worthwhile but it seems like everybody else just stuck with heavy armor and block so that what I'll do until it's patched.

 

[Johannes]

The problem here is that you were fucked from the moment you have created your char - mercenary without 8 int is a dead meat

Bad design then. Premade merc does't have even 7 int. Should have been a check for [Body Count] and Combats, because that is what worth when it comes to soldiers and mercs, no?

BTW, in your grinding you all miss the broken tower behind the healer

You can only kill dudes if you get artifact I think. You need 6 or 7 PER and 50 Craft.

Still, it's a fucking great design that a typical meathead that a mercenary is can't go on without having much Int

I don't see the point in combat if it's not enjoyable. At least for merc it's like:
a) You make a combat char, and win some battles, but can't proceed because combat is too hard without non-combat skills.
b) or you make more of speaking char, and you can't win most of the battles now, so you might as well forget about combat and just solve everything through dialogue metagaming.
I guess there is a thine line between those two, where you could do a lot of combat and still do some dialogue, but it's so thin, that meta is the only way to reach it.

If you can't beat combat unless you have tailored combat-only grunt, why not actually make it beatable and enjoyable? It's not like any other char would find it possible or fun to play the game through combat.

No, it's good design to require most characters have some mix of combat- and non-combat skills. You shouldn't have to pick between a) or b) there, but instead make such runs which purely focus on either style make the hardest. It's boring min-maxing when focusing on only 1 side of things is the easiest way, people should see a good breadth of the gameplay the game has to offer in a single playthrough already.

So by all means, throw near-impossible fights at dumb minmaxed brutes that can't text-adventure to save their lives, so they have a reason to pick noncombat skills instead of just raising combat skills. And throw some minor fights at those pure talkers too, unless they play really smart or metagame, so that investment in combat skills is not a waste for them.

If I want to make a pure talker or pure drooling warrior, that should be a challenge instead of the other way around.

 

[Shadenuat]

but instead make such runs which purely focus on either style make the hardest

In my opinion, all three roles should be balanced, because all three are completely viable roles for chosen setting. For now, they are like this:
1) Pure talker: save SPs, reload, press one option = win.
2) Mix: you are in shit.
3) Pure fighter: you are in shit, until you pick specific build, reload 50 times and meta everything for specific items. After that, enemies can't kill you at all.

P.S. While I said that helmets and shields penalties are weird, I'll also point out that heavy armor and Block are already imba, so making helmets and shields even better would not be that good idea, even for realistic purposes. And while good armor and shield is probably the best and most versatile combo in real life, for a game other builds should exist too, so it's Dodge, Bows, Spear and all the other builds which need some work. I think Daggers are overpowered aswell, I would make their weapon mastery ability work only 50% when you fight enemy in front, and at 100% when you stab him in the back.

 

[Tigranes]

1) and 3) are the same. There's about the same amount of reloading, dying, saving SPs, learning specific builds.

The only differences are that with a talker it goes faster, reload reload, with a fighter you can at least try so it seems more painful and protracted.

 

[sea]

Just a thought about balancing CON - how about making it a multiplier on damage resistance/threshold? Say, 6 is neutral, 8 is 1.1 and 10 is 1.3 or something along those lines? Would give incentive for combat-focused characters to put points into CON, making the choice "do I want lots of damage or lots of protection?" a bit more compelling. If balanced right it could also mean that certain characters could muscle through combat encounters even without high block/evasion levels.

 

[zool]

Other: Teleportation. I mentioned that during the combat, but I don't like it at other parts of the game either. I remember when VD said that running there and back during quests is boring and doesn't add anything to the game. Maybe, but watching fade-in fade-outs one after the other is not better.

Agreed, it's one of my biggest gripes with the game, along with the lack of oopportunities for the PC to ask questions about the town and its inhabitants (you can ask very few non-quest-related questions to NPCs) and the artificially grimdark writing.

 

[Pope Amole II]

2 questions:

1. Has anyone found a quest called "A Grain of Truth"? Saw VD trolling some random guy with it on the other forums and, since I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere, it got me kinda curious.

2. Has anyone managed to use 2-handed spears successfully?

 

[circ]

1. Don't think so.

2. Not really. I made a trident and played around a bit, but got tired of having to kite around every turn and stuck with spear and shield. Plus the damage wasn't that amazing.

 

[CappenVarra]

1. Hm, not sure if that's the quest (and too lazy to find the savegame), but when you're trying to lure Carrinas to the inn for assassination, the phrase "Best lies have a grain of truth in them." is used (if you have high enough streetwise) to reply to the suggestion of telling him one of his bodyguards is resentful and wants to sell him out ("Some say he would have been a centurion by now, if Carrinas didn't take him as a bodyguard. It's a position of respect, but I have a feeling it's not the kind of respect that the kid wants.").

2. Not really, but I only tried it for a short while. The trident seems to be the best choice (because it does extra damage on fast attacks, and fast attacks rule), but 2H Axes seem to give better results in pretty much every combat I tried so far. The pushback special is cool, and I've seen it kick in often... It just didn't seem to be enough in the end.

 

[Kaol]

2H spear works quite well, the trick is to make use of the AoO range.

 

[anus_pounder]

Has VD stated whether stat choices are final or whether we can improve them on rare occasions in the full game ?

 

[Reject_666_6]

1. Has anyone found a quest called "A Grain of Truth"? Saw VD trolling some random guy with it on the other forums and, since I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere, it got me kinda curious.

I'm not 100% sure on the details, but you get that quest by listening to the storyteller in the Inn, then taking Cassius to the palace and talking to him and having him tell you his story of the Qantari. You can then mention that the guy in the Inn said he saw an old drawing of Qantari in civilised clothes or something, so Cassius tells you to investigate. The actual dialogue gives more details, so try it out, cause you don't need any skill checks to get it.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that I don't know how to complete it.

 

[CappenVarra]

1. Has anyone found a quest called "A Grain of Truth"? Saw VD trolling some random guy with it on the other forums and, since I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere, it got me kinda curious.

I'm not 100% sure on the details, but you get that quest by listening to the storyteller in the Inn, then taking Cassius to the palace and talking to him and having him tell you his story of the Qantari. You can then mention that the guy in the Inn said he saw an old drawing of Qantari in civilised clothes or something, so Cassius tells you to investigate. The actual dialogue gives more details, so try it out, cause you don't need any skill checks to get it.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that I don't know how to complete it.

Huh? That sounds a bit strange, since that particular side-quest can only be resolved in Maadoran iirc (it requires looking up a painting in Lord Gaelius' library) i.e. is not in the demo. But I checked an old save game, and you're right - that's the quest.

 

[Pope Amole II]

2H spear works quite well, the trick is to make use of the AoO range.

Yeah, just finished a run with spear assassin - had 10 dex, 10 per (to have the maximal opportunity chance - with 50 spear skill it is 32% at 8 and 45% at 10) and 8 int, rest were fours. With such build (as opposed to some high-STR, low-per one) spear is quite adequate, I have finished raiders with one reload and first, the hardest part of the mining encampment with zero reloads. Actually, the second part (barricaded slaves) was actually harder since they just kept knocking me down and then bashing me on the head, so it took a few reloads to kill them all (had to equip 2-handed sabre for that, though). In other stats I had 62 CS (50 natural + skill bonuses), 60 crafting (better armor and moar damage on your spear is tech) and 75 dodge.

In the end, I'll say that, while spears may not be the best weapon in the game, they certainly are one of the most interesting to play with since they actually require to use at least some tactics to be successful, much unlike the "go close and stab-stab-stab with the dagger" or "block with your shield until your enemy dies from boredom". Build is pretty rigid, though - without 10 PER chances of AoO are too low (and pumping spear skill almost doesn't help - I tried to go from 50 to 65 spear skill and it raised my chance to guess what? yeah, to 47%, a whopping 2% increase), you really need mobility to be successful (especially if its assassin that we're talking about, but even for other classes - if you have space, it's important to walk 3 squares per turn since them you can you're only getting hit by fast attacks and even manica can mostly negate those) and without high int... Well, I guess you can do with 4, redistributing those points in either STR or CON, but abundance (relative) of skill points makes the game so much better to play, so...

 

[Churrasco]

Finally finished the demo for the first time after trying different builds, but finished with a bow drifter.

Got to say I enjoyed this demo quite a bit, when is the release date?

 

[Malakal]

I think I am going to buy this after all. Why the game pisses me off in so many ways and most if its design is outright stupid I find myself drawn to trying different builds and playing the demo from different backgrounds.

So it may not be a very good game but it has some appeal, at least to me. If it is easily available in Poland you can count on my sale, if not, well, there are other means.