Thanks for the feedback! By the way ... chapter 3 is coming this week. Most of these are known factors, and I wanted to have a bit of everything in the game, one small element being exploration of a vast cave system. You only have to do it for that quest, no worries. The one offensive spell issue resolves itself in chapter 3 by the way. I think. On the adventurer's inn, that is a fairly complex thing to do so it is on my special to-do-list, but that list is shoved behind the 'finish chapter 3' and 'PC port for steam and GoG' lists so it is not a thing that will happen quickly. But I am listening, and will see if I can put that in in the future. For AreaEffect spells that have a range limitation, I am not in favour of adding an auto-feature as it would fire at first chance and then it wastes your mana without hitting efficiently many targets. I know grinding fans don't want to hear it, but the auto feature is not for fighting the big guys as well, my idea was for it to help get through really easy fights quickly.
The flame quest: I have no issue with the exploration concept, only the fact that it has to be done twice for the novice. An experienced player will do the quest before going down so she doesn't have to do the long trek twice. For AoA spells, fair enough if you say that auto isn't for the big guys, so we'll consider it part of the grind . Otherwise the spectral would be a go-make-coffee-and-return affair anyway. Finally regarding mixing up adventurers I would propose the following shortcut: upon creating a new game, if one wishes to use an existing adventurer, scan the save games and propose the whole list of characters. When a char is chosen, duplicate him/her with all attributes and worn items into the new save game adventurer slot (instead of the random char generstion). It's a game I've been playing more than any in my recent memory, and I'm very much looking forward to chapter 3! Thank you!
Any deets on new classes? I assume Avatar and Archmage, but where to learn and what classes can become them?
No avatar, but yes to warlock, and I think archmage. Both my wizard and geomancer can switch to warlock. I'm thinking of switching the geo to warlock and if there's archmage to switch wizard to archmage. My first impressions of act 3 are very different from acts 1 and 2. Huge spaces, difficult to navigate, many people around, more confusing quests. But I think it's just the getting familiar with the environment thing. I'm very happy with the new spells though, there's a massive amount across all spell schools.
Act 3 comments Sorry if I'm posting here and not on Facebook but I don't do Facebook. Anyway, here are a couple of comments on act 3. 1. Really nice mix of unique new enemies. The tactics are generally still the same (there can't be that many anyway), and the shadow shift becomes really valuable now. 2. Some nasty puzzles. A bit too nasty maybe... Haven't yet figured out fabcap #2 (got 1 and 3), and still need to solve the main riddle. But they're an enjoyable twist and a welcome change of pace. 3. The books trading business seems an interesting mechanic, but where one needs to trade books via points I think we lose the unused points when exiting. I am not absolutely certain about that, however I am pretty sure that the points aren't tradeable with other merchants. That makes it more difficult to acquire interesting tomes. I'm not very far into act 3 so I haven't found a good source of book farming yet, which would make things easier. 4. I'm still very leery of switching my geomancer to warlock because I'll lose the opportunity to upgrade all the cool new offensive spells. Finally something other than ball of lightning! I'll probably take my time. 5. Spoiler I think there's a bug with the snakes and the snake boss. The loot is insane, about the same level as the diamond dragon of act 2, and in much much higher quantities. Each snake yields easily 5-7 diamond level items, and so each battle yields up to 50 items. As for the boss battle, with all the summons I received 500+ items... Onwards and deeper into the dungeons...
Ok finished it with all achievements! Now I'll try more esoteric builds. Edit: I think there's something abnormal with the +200% XP achievement. I just killed a spectral with my level 128 party and I only got 2000xp. Does that seem right?
sorry I only now got to post a reply. Thanks for the feedback! There are a bunch of new skills and spells that can make for new interesting tactics (golem summoner, demon summoner), plus some new nasty monster behaviour as well (teleporting players to them etc.). Glad you enjoyed the puzzles. I have added the automaton to the last one which can give hints if someone is really stuck. The main source of book farming if one is into that, is the dark invokers re-spawning lairs deep in the dwarven mine. and yes, book points are store specific. but what one store offers is sometimes what another wants ... the snake boss loot was indeed wrong and fixed in 2.0.060.
sorry for the late reply. no, absolutely not. you load up your existing savegame (just pre-chasm fight usually) and defeat the winged creatures and then the story continues as if it was always there. Enjoy!
that is a mix of several things. First of all the 'Zomok's pets' were something that kept players busy while ch3 was in the waiting, the game pre chapter3 release had no challenges or balancing factors for parties > level ~60 or so. People enjoyed over-levelling and that was fine with me. But once I fine-tuned the metrics for higher level parties I noticed that there was a flaw in my xp routine: - I significant give extra xp if a fight is estimated to be difficult - my game was very bad at identifying easy fights and instead called a lot difficult that weren't So your past xp you saw for Zomok's pest was always way to much because it would have thought 'this fight is suicide' when it wasn't. By itself, as I made my routine smarter, it gave much less xp for high end parties killing the pets. The main element now in place is that the routine will not consider a fight suicidal if you killed the opponents more than 3 times before. And similar thresholds for all other nuances of difficulty prognosis. Players that still like to test out OP parties can get all the achievements and then the 200% benefit still means they can start quirky new party builds and level fast to test them out.
While this is at the top again, just going to say that this game is awesome and worth playing if like like the Wizardry, Might and Magic, and Ultima series. You'll get entertainment at a rate of a fraction of a penny per hour.
Indeed! For those interested here is a list of what I think happened since I last posted here, from new birth feats to CPU settings to new map and new mobs and new skills ... and the game is now on STEAM for PC, Mac and Linux! 2.0.342: - MARKSMANSHIP skill. not trainable, but rather increasing with archer/marksman level, and to lesser extent ranger and samurai. increases ranged physical damage based on excess accuracy, and skill proficiency. this skill is given to existing parties on next load. Since bonus damage depends on the accuracy of each shot (which in itself varies depending on whether you use maximum range of your weapon or less), it is not showing in the attack stats. The skill is designed to make the archer class more attractive mid and late-game. - fixed a bug that caused non-bleeding allies to bleed - allies now get properly removed when dying from poison or bleeding - added a button to move to end of inventory/stash - fixed an error in the military training formula - fixed identifying of cestus/knuckles in shops - fixed obsessed dwarf gold plus text 2.0.330: - made the hp loss from negative birth feats small - added feat categories, and an unlockable category chooser 2.0.328: - unarmed attack style selection fix 2.0.325: - fixed the short visual disappearing of secret passage notifications when triggered 2.0.321: - added a missing archmage achievement 2.0.320: - fixed an issue with dead players showing up in arena challenges - fixed an issue where non-allowed spells would still deduct mana and cost time - added over a dozen class specific single-player arena challenges in Tartessos - added 5 new unlockable birth feats as reward for those arena challenges 2.0.310: - added items that count as enhancing unarmed combat: cestus and knuckles. shop for those is in Tartessos, but they also randomly pop up everywhere like other items. 2.0.300: - added an unlock able inter-dimensional ( = across savegames) item selling option - fixed an issue with bloodlust life drain damage replacing instead of supplementing item life drain damage - made xp level requirements a notch lower, most helpful in the level 40-70 bracket - lessened some xp reductions that applied to monster kills in high difficulty settings 2.0.280: - SURRENDER button in fights, for those stalemate stun-lock scenarios, or death in a no-death attempt - fix for nature ally trainer class cap - minor fixes for text and visuals and skills not supposed to show in map view 2.0.270: - new nature ally trainer - fix that could wrongfully cause an arena death count as player death for achievement purposes 2.0.265: - longer map note texts, and commas usable - he/she wording on levelup - backup naming - map notes naming 2.0.245,248,250: - quick actions have number on them now - name input now works again 2.0.237 to 242: - key controls fixed after magical barrier hit 2.0.235: - ENTER key issue fixed 2.0.230: - fixed nature ally wyrm spawn - fixed summon demon names 2.0.220: - endgame achievement failsafe check 2.0.205: - added jake the zombie 2.0.170 - options page 7 has CPU setting now. If device gets hot or you want to preserve battery, reduce it. - many performance tweaks. However, if you have memory shutdowns, (A) BACKUP!, (B) close and restart app after 1 or 2 hours, (C) activate 'reduced map size' on page 7, (D) experiment if lower CPU helps - ignite/rupture formulas for overclock fixed - can solve elf assassination dilemma after saying NO or when not answering at all yet - poison enhancer in catacombs now works again in ch3
thank you for answering this. i had given up on the game bc nobody was helping me. now i want to download it and try again. hopefully it saved my progress ...
dear mister Volker, big thanks for this wonderful game. it's stunning. i came here for just one small request: please, change the name of the game icon on iOS to something "smaller", like "DoC" or etc.
