Eldiran
Rad Codex
- Joined
- Nov 10, 2015
- Messages
- 130
You could have them level HP like everyone else, that is, they start with the extra HP as though they had leveled it up, instead of just getting the flat bonus, so increasing the HP further costs more.
Not a bad idea.
Eldiran - Yar, achievements seem to be working now. My life is complete! The next step is, obviously, Steam trading cards -- proven to be the 1000% most important thing for any game. :p
I'm so glad to hear achievements are finally working. I just took a shot in the dark and that seems to have fixed it for people.
If my game involved any artwork you bet I'd put it on Steam trading cards. : P
I think bombs are fine. I only found like 3-4 in the entire game, and they need quite a bit of setup to use... plus they can act as an almost-literal nuclear option if a particular encounter is really pissing you off. I'm not sure what makes Freeze work too well, though my caster was a Fareem this time, so she may have just gotten turns directly after the boss... also, you don't need to move while chain-casting Freeze so your turns will be coming up faster anyway (she had 0 ice skill fwiw, though I don't think it matters). edit: now that I think about it, Aeshra was also immune to being perma-frozen, just about... but it was still worthwhile to cast to push its turn back a bit.
True. I forgot Bombs aren't renewable, in which case them being highly damaging is great.
I agree, even if Freeze doesn't perma-stun the opponent, it's usually worth it for the delay on bosses. I wonder if it's better or worse than Shock for that.
Pre-buffing is... tricky. It's true that in the early game it's not THAT big a deal (in fact, I just used a buff ability to draw the enemy team's attention and initiate the combat there since otherwise the buff'd run out by the time I managed to actually start the fight), but getting even a single buff on everyone before the combat starts is a significant leg up. The main advantage is not even necessarily the extra action, but rather the tactical advantage from being able to spread out / reposition immediately instead of having to gather around and wait for a Ward/Growth cast to finish -- or in case of having a Fareem, the party having to stay at the starting position on turn 1 so the tank can hit everyone with Wide Guard. For solutions, I don't have too many ideas myself... one thing I've seen in the Sword Coast Stratagems mod of BG1-2 was simulating the enemies also being smart enough to pre-buff by having buffs active on the enemies at combat start. In the context of VT this'd mean that certain enemies (depending on the encounter setup, ie. each warrior-class enemy could buff themselves OR someone else with Guard, not more) could have ward / regen / shield preapplied to them on turn 0, perhaps with the same slightly reduced duration to mimic player prebuffing. This could be a difficulty toggle option, though it'd probably make the difficulty options a bit too cluttered...
Very interesting ideas. If the enemy gets any prebuff-equivalent setups I'd need it to be player-accessible too (like a passive that grants Ward at combat start) which might be fun. I especially like a difficulty toggle for prebuffing (someone who is sick of that tedium could disable it while feeling accomplished for doing so). Maybe I could increase the variety of Dispel abilities/passives so prebuffing is easier to counter too.
I think Gunnar's idea about the Diecast is good - get some survivability up front over a longer-term advantage like the Rasmen or Scurio, and it'll still make them very attractive for a Ruin playthrough. Also, I think the other problem is that there just aren't many enemies who use frost damage, so the disadvantage doesn't really come into play (not that I think there should be frost spammers in each fight, either).
Yeah, frost is uncommon. I don't think there are even any animals that use it, just humanoid mages.