phaze
Exemplar
Posts: 368
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Post by phaze on Oct 3, 2014 8:49:54 GMT -5
More specific information would be great. With limited equipment and talent points, one can only prepare for so many situations.
As is, we have no way of assessing the value of magical damage stats compared to choices with equipment, talents, and attributes.
At least with physical damage, I can understand how choices of HP, armor, etc. interact with enemy attacks.
Increasing resistance through equipment, talents, or attributed is a leap of faith that your party is better off.
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phaze
Exemplar
Posts: 368
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Post by phaze on Oct 3, 2014 8:23:24 GMT -5
Fallen - are you saying the gold text is clickable for info?
To my knowledge it has never been clickable nor is currently.
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phaze
Exemplar
Posts: 368
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Post by phaze on Oct 2, 2014 18:05:15 GMT -5
After my recent demise in the hunting lodge layer, I've given some thought to the play out of that battle and the interaction of enemy curses and the flow of battle.
One, I'm pretty sure I could have survived had I chosen better placement at the beginning of the battle. The battle is usually won in the first/second turn decisions I've found based purely on placement dynamics.
Having said that, I think multi-curse attacks from the enemy and having Fyona in the party is a major potential issue if the game continues enemy curses.
This also excludes what the Trese brothers are doing with Willpower and curse bouncing. But I can't comment on an unreleased feature.
While Kyera has a curse dispel for 1 talent point and 3 AP, Fyona has a single target curse dispel for 4 AP, meaning you will never uncurse more than one person per round. This immediately makes you reliant on scrolls and tomes of cleansing. Battlefield devotion is the only active talent that costs 4 AP (Berserk is different I think being a buff).
In that battle, the Orc Shaman hit my entire party for -10% critical, -6 Parry, -14 armor, and -(some amount of fire resistance). With a party based on critical damage and using parry as a means of defense, the curse basically obliterated my offense and defense simultaneously. This made uncurling near essential to survive that battle, either to deal enough damage quick enough, or to have sufficient defenses to handle some stray hits from trolls and boars that invaded my party since my damage output was down.
While tomes of cleansing would be helpful, I would have been using about 1000 gold per turn to uncurse my party. That seems ridiculous.
At this juncture, Fyona's capacity to deal with more than one curse is effectively useless and the alternative is exorbitantly expensive. While each character is different and should play differently, given that enemy curses can rather obliterate character stats on nightmare, something should give on this either with curses, or a different mechanism to reduce them.
Could Battlefield Devotion be changed? Maybe instead of the dynamic curse/uncurse, perhaps skills like Piety Ward or Righteous Fervor have an effect to reduce the potency of curses, like extra levels of those skills make curses take effect like from a lower level enemy?
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phaze
Exemplar
Posts: 368
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Post by phaze on Oct 2, 2014 17:45:47 GMT -5
Every time I see an enemy activate an ability, especially when in the fog, I often don't have a clear idea what it does to the enemy. This makes calibrating the level of danger a guess rather than making strategic decisions, and this seems counter to a turn-based strategy game. And also potentially deadly on the ironman leaders boards.
Vermin Shaman love to endow the ability of fire damage, but it is never stated how much fire damage as the enemy display damage remains the same. Wolf lords seem to increase armor class, but does it do more?
Krete archers and cultists love flinging attacks with elemental damage, but how much and in what proportion?
Perhaps I would actually value that ring of 16 fire resist from the Warm Caverns if I actually knew how much fire damage enemies were dealing.
Could there be a way to detail in game what enemy abilities are actually doing?
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phaze
Exemplar
Posts: 368
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Post by phaze on Sept 30, 2014 16:02:33 GMT -5
And down goes my party at 280 million on the way to the hunting lodge. Pincer attack brutality.
It wasn't the war trolls, but the multi target curse from the shaman. Curses on off tanks are lethal. Might the trese brothers consider adding tomes to remove curses for purchase prior to the hunting lodge? Fyona simply cannot handle that level of curse removal.
As it stands now, I think the curse/uncurse mechanic between enemies and players is simply not fun when the shaman can recurse so easily. The 4 AP cost of battle devotion makes it useless against multi curse.
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phaze
Exemplar
Posts: 368
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Post by phaze on Sept 22, 2014 15:03:03 GMT -5
I noticed a fairly heavy penalty for in game cut scenes and dialogue. For example, I entered Brunehorn with 210,000,000, did the dialogue with Balgair, the Reeve's knight, and the adventurer scenes and discovered a drop to 198,000,000. I went to the inn once.
Of course, as this leads to quest development, it works in the long run, but it does present a case for point optimizing and avoiding cut scenes that don't offer quests or are essential for the story.
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phaze
Exemplar
Posts: 368
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Post by phaze on Sept 9, 2014 11:42:13 GMT -5
tenbsmithI was quoting Fallen's comment regarding willpower affecting curses sticking. This is an undocumented game effect, and what I wanted elaboration on. The statement made it seem like willpower has additional effects beyond improving resistance, therefore making it much more valuable to put points into. If certain Ep 2 battles are any indicator, curses in the later part of the game are likely to be terrifying even to the stoutest of Vrae's character builds.
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phaze
Exemplar
Posts: 368
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Post by phaze on Sept 8, 2014 20:48:55 GMT -5
Willpower does not appear in the combat dice at all. It reduces the chance of curses sticking to your characters, but does not cause any Strong or Standard dice. Any chance we can get a clarification on the mechanism of this? Through Ep. 2 in all of my games, I have yet to add a point to willpower. This could make me give a second look at the attribute, especially after a few particular battles in Ep. 2.
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phaze
Exemplar
Posts: 368
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Post by phaze on Aug 26, 2014 18:21:41 GMT -5
Yep. Playing on an iPhone. I see the Stats column and Summary and Bonuses Column. I also have the main character screen listing attributes and skills, hp, sp, and experience. Nothing else shows.
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phaze
Exemplar
Posts: 368
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Post by phaze on Aug 26, 2014 18:12:34 GMT -5
I'm saying Evasion is not displayed anywhere on my stat screens as indicated in the linked thread. It is nowhere to be found.
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phaze
Exemplar
Posts: 368
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Post by phaze on Aug 26, 2014 18:05:52 GMT -5
Hmm...now I wonder what else I've missed in the game. It isn't always intuitive when something is clickable for an action. Thanks for the info!
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phaze
Exemplar
Posts: 368
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Post by phaze on Aug 26, 2014 17:24:29 GMT -5
Can someone describe the altered Evasion change to the character screen? On my iPhone 4S V 7.1.2 I do not see any indication that the display is modified.
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phaze
Exemplar
Posts: 368
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Post by phaze on Aug 26, 2014 17:21:07 GMT -5
?? I've triggered the dialogue multiple times, having played through the Orcin caverns with different parties. However, I do not recall ever being given a chance to take the money? It only ever triggered the brief dialogue with no choice following. Does one need to actively click the wagon like the changed Ratkin hut?
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phaze
Exemplar
Posts: 368
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Post by phaze on Aug 26, 2014 13:07:55 GMT -5
Wait, I played the scene several weeks ago and do not recall the money? There is a reward for rescuing valant. Morgan and kea asked me to deliver a message to vlotgar. I then followed them out to the lodge and making the choice at the lodge. Am I missing something?
I wish I had enough character groups to map out the choices for future story development. I suspect many threads becoming important and tied together.
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phaze
Exemplar
Posts: 368
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Post by phaze on Aug 24, 2014 9:43:19 GMT -5
I am really mixed on using Stealth for Ironman mode. Having a reasonable Stealth at 17 at the start of clearing the storeroom, I just lost Selen due to losing a Stealth roll to a room full of ratkin archers and a deathkin that spawned with the group. I play defensively to account for worst case scenarios, but it wasn't enough in this case. To my credit, she survived until the very last swing of the deathkin and would have made it through the turn except for the last swing landing. I think most characters would have succumbed to the assault unless one was playing a full on defensive mode to the exclusion of offensive talents.
I play using Fyona with Shield of Cortias and Righteous Fervor, and using QsD and high Parry weapons with a priority on constitution.
Of note, I had horrible drops up to this point having poor options for items with stealth (armor giving the primary bonus and having boots with +2 Stealth equipped solely), and even worse in the way of defensive items giving dodge/parry. Not a single item with plus parry and only rings with +1 dodge were found. The loot randomization can make for a very, very challenging Nightmare game.
Selen's Parry and Dodge were around 10 plus with a dodge stat of 8 or 9 and with hit points being over 400 and close to 500, and armor in the 30s. Weapon parry was 6. I could have pumped SoC more at the expense of RF, but then she has less armor and hit points. I also use Selen primarily with Pinning Shot in this group and prioritized bows and low melee. I could have had a few more skill points in swords and less bows. I could not take away points from the Stealth skill or Dance of Shadows to achieve the level of Stealth I did.
I like the group of Vraes, Fyona, Selen, Kjartan and will start a second group similar group but tweak Talent placement. I am thinking about avoiding stealth altogether. Vraes is sturdy enough to take it, but I worry about Kjartan being in second and acting as a pincushion for ranged attackers. He seems to be prioritized be ranged enemies to the exclusion of the other 3 characters regardless of his placement in the group. If he is in attack range of a ranged enemies, I just assume they'll sling it his way the majority of the time and have to do a scoot and curse dance.
One particular issue I have not done is ungroup and lead with individual characters in specific points of the game (pending I have played that portion and know what to expect) to avoid murder holes like the battle described above. I.E. lead with Vraes and let the other characters be distant. However, since the inception of the game, I have found unglomming to be more tedious than anything as the game has enough forced battles such that unglomming is counter intuitive to the script of the game. Surviving on Nightmare Ironman tremendously prioritizes prior knowledge of each area in this case. Maybe I'll run two exact groups, one to scout all battles and not worry about deaths, and then a follow-up group to respond to each dungeon appropriately.
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