phaze
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Posts: 368
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Post by phaze on Feb 5, 2015 18:51:08 GMT -5
Just to chime in. I also see this on an iPhone 4S version 8.1.2 game version 3.1.19. Generally running 99% stealth and using Farsight. Maybe it will be fixed with the next update as well?
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phaze
Exemplar
Posts: 368
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Post by phaze on Feb 2, 2015 20:28:33 GMT -5
That is fabulous! Any chance of extending the design decision to Necromancers? My experience of having two of the same enemy but different attacks have been equally frustrating.
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phaze
Exemplar
Posts: 368
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Post by phaze on Jan 30, 2015 12:15:24 GMT -5
Gave my vote as other. Spider Hosts and the Initiates along with Necromancers. The reason is the potential for so much ranged damage and the inability to visually determine whether you are dealing with a ranged enemy or melee until they act or you can click and identify them. Unfortunately that means being within range.
The majority of my parties experience their first death on nightmare do to the ranged damage and ability to slaughter all secondary characters. They are brutal to deal with for this reason.
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phaze
Exemplar
Posts: 368
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Post by phaze on Jan 20, 2015 8:16:00 GMT -5
Braeyson Torque? Having followed the Braey's storyline and not getting this, I am a bit puzzled and jealous. Did I miss talking to some crucial character for a gift? Can you elaborate at where in the story you got this?
Congrats on the success! Sounds like your team really came together.
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phaze
Exemplar
Posts: 368
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Post by phaze on Jan 15, 2015 18:54:12 GMT -5
Everyone may be intrigued to know that you can buy both books of sustainment and cleansing earlier in the game than Gholla Outlook. Clear out Prospector's Path in Brunehorn and head into the camp. You can purchase from the Apothecary Tent. That may affect your order choice if you are doing Gholla Outlook first solely for the books of sustainment.
I happen to prefer to send parties down to Brunehorn first, clear out the Sea Road, and then hit Granthorn early in episode 2. The armor makes the game much, much more survivable. In fact, the heavy armor for purchase (+180 hp) is still largely better than every armor I saw in episode III.
The other reason to head down the Sea Road early is for the chests. The loot available is high quality and can easily leap frog purchases in Brunehorn and Braeyshelm. Additionally, one can clear out a portion of the trail above Granthorn for equipment as well.
While this may lower one's score for steps and back travel, I think the better loot is well worth it.
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phaze
Exemplar
Posts: 368
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Post by phaze on Nov 18, 2014 19:45:08 GMT -5
And there goes a run at 400 million plus in the Underforge. The reason? Overconfidence and playing while multitasking. Went aggressive into a room as I was taking names on everything. A spider host initiate lurked in the corners out of sight and gave a barrage of ranged damage to Selen who didn't quite have enough HP/armor to take 3 full successful attacks.
The party is strong enough to take anything except careless playing. And now I feel I must bow out of the ladders as they are consuming far too much time to constantly send new groups through.
Time to finish Episode 2 content and head into Episode 3.
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phaze
Exemplar
Posts: 368
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Post by phaze on Oct 26, 2014 20:12:53 GMT -5
As a counter to Vdx and Plunk, your experience and views of the difficulty are based on much game experience and extensive usage of this forum.
That is not likely not representative of the total player community. Even on these forums, there are a range of players with very different views on the difficulty. Their view is just as valid a statement of the difficulty.
Your statement of too much gold and potions is based on your experience of having learned the game and knowing how to maximize the mechanics and exploit current battle mechanics. Good for you!
However, more people have not. All difficulties are available from the start of the game. It is therefore reasonable that all difficulties should be playable without diving into the forum for strategies or playing through multiple times to tweak characters just right.
A better policy wold be to have a difficulty that is better suited for experienced players that is explicit to that point.
The Trese brothers are not forcing you to open all chests and collect loot. Potions are not handed for quest completion. 'Scarcity' is relative to one's experience. An entry level player on nightmare may very well have no gold or potion stockpile. The loot drops need to strike a balance for a range of players.
Additionally, with the gold fix, my new party is at a scoring disadvantage compared to previous parties. I'll finish episode 1 with a lower score than the past I think. Further changes to the gold/loot systems make the ladder essentially pointless as new characters will not have a chance without a ladder reset against older scores.
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phaze
Exemplar
Posts: 368
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Post by phaze on Oct 18, 2014 0:50:16 GMT -5
Just noticed that Kincaid is listed as having a dodge factor of one, but his in game dodge stat is showing less at 0.75. Starting Kincaid has a dex of 7 but dodge stat of 5.
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phaze
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Posts: 368
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Post by phaze on Oct 15, 2014 18:23:20 GMT -5
We have different view points on this one. I've found Parry to be excellent coupled with a weapon skill. Through Episode 2, enemies largely cannot hit Vraes/Kincaid/Fyona/Selen with one talent boosting parry, weapon skill, and a shield/high parry weapon and Shield of Cortias.
I've found ranged enemies to largely never miss unless one utterly boosts all-out Dodge. This is not helpful as it constraints equipment/talent/attribute choices. Through all of my play throughs to date, parry equipment is always more plentiful then dodge.
+1 Dodge equaling +3 Parry is not backed at at all from my experience. Yes, dodge contributes to ranged and melee defense, but parry is a strong die for melee whereas dodge is not. If you are aiming to avoid melee attacks, you have to have a decent mix of parry in your stats. The die only matter if you have a sufficient pool to score more successes. Adding die to a pool means nothing unless you can skew the frequency of wins over the enemy.
For example, playing on Nightmare, my Kjartan with all points into Dex, robes with Evasion, and equipment geared towards dodge (including boots that give +6 dodge) and high level shield of cortias still is hit by ranged attackers over 80% of the time. Gamewise, this effectively means Dodge is useless on Kjartan if you cannot achieve sufficient dodge levels. Better to boost HP and armor if you are going to hit no matter what you do.
As ranged attacks can be controlled by distance and positioning, I find Dodge to be less and less useful with more game experience. I'm testing an all out Dodge Kincaid at the moment and the results are disappointing. With all out Dodge (meaning all Dex points, Evasion armor, Dodge-based skills, Shield of Cortias, and whatever Dodge equipment I find), he maybe Dodges 50% of the time in Episode 1 nearing the Ratkin Warrans. Given his smaller HP pool than Vraes and eventually lower Armor, I'm rather grim on his long term chances as a Dodge machine. That way lies death.
Phalanx Shield is one of my favorite skills and skews the discussion due to its auto-ranged block. However, the auto-block is less useful in episode 2 I've found as the ranged attackers attack through-out the entire party unless Vraes is the only character in range. The Underforge is quite tense if you get a barrage of damages headed towards your archer/mage. Again, my experience in UF is vastly better for having boosted armor and completely ditched Dodge.
Fascinating that we have had such different experiences in the game.
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phaze
Exemplar
Posts: 368
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Post by phaze on Oct 6, 2014 12:42:22 GMT -5
It is less about the instant effect and more about dramatic swings in battle flow.
Prior, I either played through the effects of curses, or made quick decision to decurse. Largely enemy curses were a fine dynamic in battle.
Up until this point though, where in this battle, I stated mental "WTF" at that curse and how it changed battle dynamics completely. It was a good challenge and the later episodes likely will have some crazy epic battles as the story progresses.
I love the challenge and tweaking parties to progress with more success. A game with no surprises is dull, but gameplay should allow characters to make informed decisions about risk.
Maybe in the transition of curses from annoyance to difficult to run away in terror, the player learning curve could be smoother? The glacial caverns and hunting lodge are logical back to back story elements but I can't even recall the shaman curses in the glacial caverns.
Likely, I got too comfortable with battles and this really jumped out at me.
We do not get to replay any battles outside of starting a new game, so the learning curve and ability of players to respond is important to different enemy abilities is important.
These are just thoughts/observations from me. Rarely do we ever get to interact with game developers, so it is fun to think about the design process with responses from you in real time.
Now to start a new ironman party and rise from the ashes of my old.
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phaze
Exemplar
Posts: 368
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Post by phaze on Oct 5, 2014 13:13:18 GMT -5
Progressing through episode 2, I find that the ability to dodge ranged attacks becomes more and more difficult. For example, I have found that Orc Javelineers consistently hit my Selen (greater than 50% approximately) with a Dex of 12, Stat Dodge of 9, Bonus Dodge of 12, and Evasion 6. While this character is not maximizing Dodge, it is a reasonable die pool of 21 standard and 18 strong die. How much accuracy do ranged enemy attackers have? On the flip side, a high enough armor value (like 120 or more) can actually mitigate a low damage roll from ranged attackers and make their attacks more like tickles than deadly wounds.
Have other players had success with Dodge and successfully using it to avoid ranged attacks? If so, what were you Dodge choices and die pool sizes?
For strategy, I am thinking of migrating over to equipment that involves increasing the ability to handle damage, i.e. HP and armor. Fighting in the Underforge, distance attackers cannot damage high armor Vraes/Fyona while pounding the snout out of Selen/Kjartan. Switching Selen from Stealth Armor to Light Armor and increasing her Armor by 20 points made a noticeable difference.
After all, if the enemy is going to hit you regardless of your damage avoidance scheme, than sometimes it is better numerically to just reduce the damage being taken to create consistency over the yo-yo effect on your character's HP pools. Increasing armor by 20 is like effectively increasing your HP 10-20 pool per attack. It is never the high damage dealers that kill me, but rather the combination of successful, multiple hits.
I've had really good experience stacking high levels of Parry/Weapon skill to avoid hits, but successful Dodge builds that function well into Episode 2 elude me. I would love to hear other people's experiences with Dodge and ranged attacks for later game content.
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phaze
Exemplar
Posts: 368
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Post by phaze on Oct 5, 2014 12:47:53 GMT -5
Well, skipping fights is not my operating style, so I make it a point to ignore that in game advice Leaderboard scoring and all that. However, I think it is misleading in that taking the sides forces you into narrow tunnels that are tremendously dangerous if enemies come in from behind to hit your mage/archer. With boars/wolves and other enemies increasingly doing so in episode 2 over episode 1, this becomes more and more threatening. Single character tunnels are absolutely the worst battles as you cannot easily rearrange party formation to meet the battle situation. Maybe change the text so that Selen's advice says that you'll avoid more monsters near the canyon walls but face cramped fighting spaces? Give players a choice to pick their danger type. Regarding curses, I am rather nervous at the fact of hearing about 2 AP curses. That bit of news makes me value decursing strategies even more. Do enemy curses take effect instantly like player character curses? That is one frustrating aspect at the moment, since your party can go from solidly expecting to handle the battle to being woefully underprepared with one curse that you can't do anything about until the next turn. I realize this is equivalent with player curses and balanced in a sense, but ultimately players are not programs and it has to be enjoyable at the end. Are you considering mechanisms with curses other than the curse/decurse loop? Could you implement something that provides resistance to curses i.e. reduces the penalties that makes curses manageable if a player chooses to use specific equipment? It is easy to forget that this game is still developing with only 50% of the content released, and we, the players, do not know the whole arc being planned out. As the game progresses, I find myself using more and more variety of equipment to meet various challenges. Once dice pools grow large enough, it is of less value to add one parry if you already have a pool of 30-40 strong die, so I have found the capacity to substitute about 1 piece of equipment per character based on if I want more accuracy/damage, defense, or other attributes.
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phaze
Exemplar
Posts: 368
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Post by phaze on Oct 5, 2014 12:25:55 GMT -5
Thanks! Really appreciate the responsiveness. While the game has consumed enough of my hours to warrant a 5 star rating, it is really the interaction with the developers and their interactions that make the game and community shine.
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phaze
Exemplar
Posts: 368
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Post by phaze on Oct 3, 2014 14:33:07 GMT -5
Good advice and generally what I try for with creating a front, secondary, and back line.
In this case, however, it was during a scripted pincer attack. The canyon walls left no room to maneuver. Once the war trolls, boars, and wolves hit my ranks, things were bad.
I replayed the turn and came out with lucky critical hits and better positioning.
It was a very nasty shaman. I think its curse pattern was a 4 hex at least as my party nearly always got hit. With something like 500 or 600 hp as well, killing it from afar was not possible with this party arrangement.
Also, Selen's advice about taking the canyon sides is misleading. Give me open room any day of the week.
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phaze
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Posts: 368
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Post by phaze on Oct 3, 2014 9:41:28 GMT -5
Interesting.
Playing on a smaller phone, I can appreciate the limited space difficulties.
Any chance on off loading that information, say like in a monster repository? As you have added the quest log and world map, maybe making information available to numbers people would be enough without overcrowding the screen?
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