How is the new E4 stuff? (spoilers!)

[fallen]

This thread is guaranteed to include spoilers. I would not recommend it if you haven't played all of the new E4 content!

I'm hard at work on the next section, the one before the end-game ... so I am curious.

1. Did you play it? Did you like it?
2. Did the chunk size feel good? It was 11 dungeons, I am planning the next one to be 11 atm. Feedback welcome.
3. Any new story theories? To me, it felt good to be wrapping up storylines started as far back as Episode 1, and starting to bring all the threads back together into one.
4. How was the difficulty -- to easy, too hard, just right? Please mention the difficulty are you playing on.

[tran]

1.I LOVE IT! Things just gone from bad to worse for my chosen ones!
2.It feels right, the waiting before the release is long but bearable
3. "From this point it can only get worse! (or a little better)". But my theory is the same as my group as they set foot on Freeport
4. It is PERFECT, lots of challeging boss fights, new types of monster that make you have to change your strategy (rush, defend or fall back). I know that some people had problem with some bosses but I feel they were perfectly balanced (I'm on nightmare, just have to love playing on nightmare)
In conclusion: great job guys, I am eager for more!

[Deleted]

1. Love it.
2. Perfect, actually felt bigger than 11 dungeons for me.
3. Out with the old, in with the new. I'm especially looking forward to getting back into CoD to talk with Vince's sorcerer buddies. It blows my mind that this is the first chapter in the story for Steel that you guys have mapped out.
4. I play on Hard and very non-completionist, and the balance seemed good to me. Great job with scaling up the equipment in each episode, the feedback loop on finding awesome loot is always great for me. It always feels like I'm getting something new and shiny whether or not I can use it with my group.

Posted this elsewhere recently, but it doesn't seem like I've been playing this game off and on for three years or that this is a three year old game.

[fallen]

Feb 26, 2016 20:17:45 GMT -5 tran said:

1.I LOVE IT! Things just gone from bad to worse for my chosen ones!
2.It feels right, the waiting before the release is long but bearable
3. "From this point it can only get worse! (or a little better)". But my theory is the same as my group as they set foot on Freeport
4. It is PERFECT, lots of challeging boss fights, new types of monster that make you have to change your strategy (rush, defend or fall back). I know that some people had problem with some bosses but I feel they were perfectly balanced (I'm on nightmare, just have to love playing on nightmare)
In conclusion: great job guys, I am eager for more!

Great to hear, thank you for the feedback. One thing I am focusing on in E4 is cramming in new and exciting boss fights. Taking a lot of things learned from BF back into Heroes now.

[fallen]

Feb 26, 2016 21:27:37 GMT -5 @rearick said:

3. ... It blows my mind that this is the first chapter in the story for Steel that you guys have mapped out.
4. I play on Hard and very non-completionist, and the balance seemed good to me. Great job with scaling up the equipment in each episode, the feedback loop on finding awesome loot is always great for me. It always feels like I'm getting something new and shiny whether or not I can use it with my group.

Posted this elsewhere recently, but it doesn't seem like I've been playing this game off and on for three years or that this is a three year old game.

3. It might explain while in many games you see the field of characters dwindling or narrowing as you approach the end, in Heroes ... well, you meet some new faces
4. Thank you for the loot comments. I found the same with all my testing groups, the balance seems such that you've got a constant choice on your hands as to what to be swapping in and out.

I can't imagine it has been 3 years either! Wow ...

Now, time to finish!

[matrim]

1. Thoroughly enjoyed. I would have to say my favourite aspect of this game are the unique characters. I love that they are mixes of good and evil, each with their own flaws and strengths. It makes for a more relatable experience. I must say that this game is for me a great novel, engaging battles, great drama, dense plot, interesting characters. Please believe me when I say this is a rare experience for me. I can only think of one other game that tickled my fancy so, Final Fantasy Tactics, that's it.
2. Chunk size felt good. I played through it fast only because I was riveted the whole time. I would always ask for more game but must realize that there has to be an ending too (I'm one of those sickos that never wanted Wheel of Time to end because it meant an end to the awesome characters, same with this game)
3. Story theories abound! I personally think that Rabiel has been pulling the strings of the main party all along. He wanted death's chosen to threaten the Seer Lords so he had a better bargaining position. He wants us to go after Ravenna so he can save her and trick her into doing his will. I think we are merely pawns in his grand scheme. I would say that he started this plan the moment he saw his sister, Ryethin (or more interestingly, him and Ryethin are consorting this all along. Ryethin seems to me to be the only God so far with no vein of selfishness, this trend can't continue IMO).
4. Certain fights felt extremely challenging (C8) while other fights felt trivial (The Weaver). Most of the content was in the middle. Most notable about the difficulty is now I can safely get hit a few times. In episode 2, the orcs hit for 300-400 and I had maybe 500 health on my tank (320 on Vincent, he was not allowed to play near orcs ever)...more than 1 hit and I was done. Now they have 1300 HP and the ogres are hitting me for 300 still. I would say where the design has gone is better for balance. I always felt certain monsters earlier hit just too hard and it sucked to lose games to some godlike monster hitting you twice for 300 (I'm looking at you spider host initiates!). I think the 3-4 hits and you die range is a great place to be, bad luck can't kill you instantly but consistent bad strategy will kill you (Nightmare Ironman).

[krakun]

Oh fallen, how do I love episode 4, let me count the ways!
First is the story content, with three or four new mysteries, paths to independently check out. Even near the end, there are still storylines opening up!

Closely related is the storytelling itself, even if I'm often hounding you about typos, the vocabulary is varied and the sentence structure is above fourth grade (which we all know you never completed ;-p, making all this even more amazing!)

Then there's the new monsters which aren't just old ones with a new palette, but bastards with new behaviors. Most touching (in the -300 hp sense of the word) is Cortias-with-chain-hammer, and the wind-of-sweeping-destruction. Hats off to Cory for shoehorning in a multi tile weaver when it was probably never originally foreseen.

Then there's the loot. I have to say 4.1 left me underwhelmed, but 4.2 made the me forget all that. The armors with bonus are back (thanks matrim !), the character unique decisions are very difficult for all their candy store goodness, and then there's the cool exotic things like the weaver spines (+40 crit, holy crap).

I haven't even mentioned how cool and beautiful the walls are in Ellista's palace, love the touch.

The boss fights require adapting our strategy once more, no size fits all. Good job keeping it fresh!

Terrain is kept interesting too: the 'unreachable' chest on the way to the monastery, the weaver goodies across the torrent, and even if the weaver labyrinth channels me along one only possible path it doesn't feel that way.

It's also satisfying too see how well (or bad) some of our high level groups are performing, as 4.2 seems to be very much about crowd control. Wet Paper Bags are shining, and my copy of the Holy Rollers is struggling.

I could go on, but I'm too hooked by the new content and have to go play some more. I haven't even reached Freeport yet!

[fallen]

matrim and krakun - thank you for the feedback! It seems like everyone has enjoyed the content, and its wide variety, which really makes me happy. We worked hard to double down and it seems like it paid off!

[Kanly]

1. I finished the latest content pretty fast - not because it was short, but because it was engrossing.
2. It was a good sized release. I'm not a fan of smaller chunks.
3. I agree with matrim Rabiel is likely manipulating the direction the characters are headed, and we will likely face Ryethin in battle at some point.
4. Playing on NM I thought the difficulty was good. The cortias fight in particular was a blast. I also like the new ogres. Their shaman have really high accuracy, and I actually had to use my accuracy debuffs. The weaver fight was too easy though. The greatest weakness of the ai is in handling pathing for large groups of enemies. AI is incredibly hard to employ well in a multitude of situations. Except for the first group of mobs that attacked, almost all of the spiders stayed where they spawned. I have an exceptionally strong ranged group and was able to kill the weaver without needing to get into melee range. Maybe give the weaver a weak long range spell?

[Vraesrial]

1) Played it. Absolutely loved it:D
2) The chunk size did feel good. To be honest, I know you guys are always adding new stuff in, so the size of these updates never truly matter to me.
3) I theorize we will eventually kill Ryethin. We've killed...how many gods now? Or at least had the choice to do so. I also predict that we will be doing something with Rabiel, but what this will be is a good question of mine. Will we have to kill him, or will we be given the choice to use/get help from him. He would be a good ally...Plus, I feel as if he, like many other gods, is threatened by the Seer Lords, as well.
4) The difficulty seemed to be alright. It isn't impossible...I just happened to make a lot (....Understatement) of unfortunate mistakes.

[fallen]

Vraesrial and Kanly - glad to hear the play through was fun, new and challenging. We worked hard to keep packing in new variety as the game progresses, and I'm glad you saw this content chunk continuing that trend successfully.

Love hearing the story theories! As you can see with the C8 storyline, things are wrapping up now.

I am surprised no one started guessing at the Crone.

[matrim]

While it certainly could be someone else I thought the story was heavily hinting at it being Myshana. She is among the very few Gods we have not seen (only 2 women being among them and I assumed Cassandra was killed by Ravenna), Bloodlace refers to her as a healer more than a battle mage, and the story heavily hints that she is one of the children.

[Vraesrial]

Honestly....I'm just happy to be away from the spooky scary skeletons and shivers down my spine............................No. I'm fine with spiders, for now.

[markc]

Feb 26, 2016 19:46:00 GMT -5 fallen said:

This thread is guaranteed to include spoilers. I would not recommend it if you haven't played all of the new E4 content!

I'm hard at work on the next section, the one before the end-game ... so I am curious.

1. Did you play it? Did you like it?
2. Did the chunk size feel good? It was 11 dungeons, I am planning the next one to be 11 atm. Feedback welcome.
3. Any new story theories? To me, it felt good to be wrapping up storylines started as far back as Episode 1, and starting to bring all the threads back together into one.
4. How was the difficulty -- to easy, too hard, just right? Please mention the difficulty are you playing on.

1)  Played through the new content with my top three teams so far.  It is great seeing some of the story lines progress/conclude.
2)  I like the chunk size, smaller would have been too quick to play through.
3)  Two thoughts.  First is that I have been suspicious of Belgair for some time now, been wondering if he is Rabiel.  Second is that I am starting to feel like my heros are slowly beginning to morph into that which they so often judge to be deserving of death.  I can see them becoming reviled gods in the future.  A very interesting possibility.
4)  The difficulty has been good with the exception of the Weaver, which has been a really easy fight for all of my groups.

Overall a very enjoyable chunk!  Looking forward to the next one.

MarkC

[matrim]

I always thought Balgair was Lothar (Logar?) the 11th Child. It fits his profile quite well and Rabiel was not able to hide his godhood from Ryethin but maybe the Wanderer can? Some suggestions to up the Weaver fight. Give her a long range cursing attack (this could be a nasty curse like one that lasts for 1 turn but removes 7 AP, this would be interesting to counter if it hit the tank as everyone would have to move behind the tank to compensate. MP would make it so you could at least move a bit). Give her the ability to summon Channelers (they were by far the most threatening of this class of monster). Put a semi-timer on the fight so that the size of the arena is reduced as the fight progresses, this gives less safe spots to run. The size decrease would have to have a limit of course, don't want people to get stuck in the battle and have to die just to restart. Give her a ranged attack (but decrease damage to compensate). Lastly maybe make some of the spiders shooters so they are not so easy to clump up and mow down (also ranged are just harder in general because they are always attacking and highly accurate).