So I've been playing this for 10 of the 13 hours it's been out and it's super good. Running a 2h palidin and hitting stuff to death with fire works real well. Killed that bear on my first try. So many side quests
I really don't want to go into work tomorrow
My friend is working on a roguelike game you can play if you want to. (It has free demo)
The difficulty in this 'first dungeon' temple ruins is alarmingly overtuned. Mmm yes every enemy has your party in a permanent state of dazed during combat. Oh and here, at the start of the game, we'll make a complete mockery of the engagement system you've just learnt about by having the enemies just teleport onto your wizard and insta-kill him every single fight and there is nothing you can do to stop it.
You open a door and there are 4 shadows and a phantom hahahaha nope, fuck you.
Oh and when you tell your wizard to cast an aoe on a specific enemy he will instead just stand wherever he is and cast it, even if the range is woefully short. And we'll provide absolutely no range marker or cone shaped aoe template whatsoever so you have no idea at all of the actual range or shape of the spell. Because this hasn't been a basic function of RPGs for the last 20 years.
My love of pretty much everything else about this game is quickly being sunk as the gameplay is revealing itself to be balls.
Steam / Xbox Live: WSDX NNID: W-S-D-X 3DS FC: 2637-9461-8549
I'm running a chanter and taking it slow. So far, the class doesn't seem super useful. Combat is decided before the chanter spells get into it. I'm guessing that will change.
I actually don't mind making a mess of my build the first time through. I have a feeling this one is going to have some staying power for me in regards to replays. So, I'll probably stick this one out.
Steam and CFN: Enexemander
+1
Options
Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
edited March 2015
I've been struggling quite a bit with the fairly crazy amounts of status attacks (seriously, there are way too many status attacks) as well, but I think I'll be perfectly fine with the combat system when I've actually got a full party. Having 2-3 characters just doesn't cut it when you can end up against 6-7 high-HP enemies that run fast, flank everybody, and repeatedly use knockdown attacks.
For now, I'm just going to start avoiding the tougher fights, then come back to them when I've got more characters in the party. Hell, right now I only have what amounts to three casters, which makes things really dicey whenever anything more than one or two enemies can reach melee range.
Ninja Snarl P on
0
Options
FairchildRabbit used short words that were easy to understand, like "Hello Pooh, how about Lunch ?"Registered Userregular
The difficulty in this 'first dungeon' temple ruins is alarmingly overtuned. Mmm yes every enemy has your party in a permanent state of dazed during combat. Oh and here, at the start of the game, we'll make a complete mockery of the engagement system you've just learnt about by having the enemies just teleport onto your wizard and insta-kill him every single fight and there is nothing you can do to stop it.
You open a door and there are 4 shadows and a phantom hahahaha nope, fuck you.
Oh and when you tell your wizard to cast an aoe on a specific enemy he will instead just stand wherever he is and cast it, even if the range is woefully short. And we'll provide absolutely no range marker or cone shaped aoe template whatsoever so you have no idea at all of the actual range or shape of the spell. Because this hasn't been a basic function of RPGs for the last 20 years.
My love of pretty much everything else about this game is quickly being sunk as the gameplay is revealing itself to be balls.
My toons do have a habit of ignoring the target I have chosen for them in favor of nearest target. Realism-wise, this is reasonable-- would you ignore the Orc about to gut you to target the Dark Elf in a dress at the back of the room waving his hands and mumbling to himself ?-- but it's not how the game is advertised to work.
Tl
Oh and when you tell your wizard to cast an aoe on a specific enemy he will instead just stand wherever he is and cast it, even if the range is woefully short. And we'll provide absolutely no range marker or cone shaped aoe template whatsoever so you have no idea at all of the actual range or shape of the spell. Because this hasn't been a basic function of RPGs for the last 20 years.
You might be doing something wrong, @Rami , or have hit a bug, because every AOE spell I've cast has a marker (and indicates who will be affected with their selection circles).
I use a lot of them, too, so I'm not sure why you aren't seeing them. Are you in expert mode or paths of the damned or something?
Edit: different spells work differently, too. Some are "true aoes," where you pick a point on the ground or a cone from your caster's current position. Others are targeted (like lots of cipher abilities) where you target a person and affect an AOE around them. You can tell which spell is which by the rules text and whether or not you can cast it on an open space.
Tl
Oh and when you tell your wizard to cast an aoe on a specific enemy he will instead just stand wherever he is and cast it, even if the range is woefully short. And we'll provide absolutely no range marker or cone shaped aoe template whatsoever so you have no idea at all of the actual range or shape of the spell. Because this hasn't been a basic function of RPGs for the last 20 years.
You might be doing something wrong, @Rami , or have hit a bug, because every AOE spell I've cast has a marker (and indicates who will be affected with their selection circles).
I use a lot of them, too, so I'm not sure why you aren't seeing them. Are you in expert mode or paths of the damned or something?
I think he means how spells have a max range for casting, so casters will frequently have to run waaaay up to the enemy before actually casting. And the game won't tell you that before you choose to cast, which can be really really obnoxious when you want a caster to stay out of the fray to cast a spell.
And while the game does say what the ranges on spells are, you have right-click into the description of them to find it, as opposed to the ranges just being listed with the spell.
I don't think I like the way stealth works in this game. If one person is detected, everyone just pops out of stealth. Makes opening a fight with a rogue backstab basically suicide. I can't engage the warrior first and then attack from stealth with the rogue, and if I send the rogue in first he's stuck fighting all of the enemies in melee by himself until the others can run over.
It feels like I'm missing something because I can't believe the design is this short-sighted.
Yeah, I mean, I never really got into BG or IWD - I just played PS:T and Arcanum on easy and let my dudes auto-slaughter everything - but I can't tell if I just don't know how stealth works or if there's something I'm missing or what. My rogue PC is obviously not who I want taking all the hits. That's what the fighter is for. But if my PC starts the fight, my PC gets ganged up on by everyone. At later levers I get some disengage skills but even that's just a band-aid. Does anyone know how stealth is supposed to work? Right now I only use it for stealing and for finding traps.
0
Options
Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
I don't think I like the way stealth works in this game. If one person is detected, everyone just pops out of stealth. Makes opening a fight with a rogue backstab basically suicide. I can't engage the warrior first and then attack from stealth with the rogue, and if I send the rogue in first he's stuck fighting all of the enemies in melee by himself until the others can run over.
It feels like I'm missing something because I can't believe the design is this short-sighted.
Yeah, I mean, I never really got into BG or IWD - I just played PS:T and Arcanum on easy and let my dudes auto-slaughter everything - but I can't tell if I just don't know how stealth works or if there's something I'm missing or what. My rogue PC is obviously not who I want taking all the hits. That's what the fighter is for. But if my PC starts the fight, my PC gets ganged up on by everyone. At later levers I get some disengage skills but even that's just a band-aid. Does anyone know how stealth is supposed to work? Right now I only use it for stealing and for finding traps.
I just use it to recon the enemy before attacking; I've never been much of one for throwing a stealthy guy at the enemy and hoping he doesn't get murdered after a sneak attack.
But sneaking is very useful for bumping up against the edges of enemy perception, scoping things out, and planning the fight, instead of getting completely bumrushed by a ton of enemies at once as you run around.
Boy am I already incredibly tired of Shadows teleporting all the way back to my mage and beating the shit out of him while nothing any of my melee characters do can get their attention off of him. That sure is fun.
I am loving this in general, but MAN it's hard. Like, a few times harder than BGII and PS:T hard. That might sound like me misremembering the classics, but I just played them a few months ago.
Some of the AoE markers are wonky. The cipher's AoE cone knockdown - can't recall the name ATM - looks like it's coming out of the player but the spell itself comes out of the enemy targeted.
If you're having trouble managing aggro: mousing over enemies shows you who they're targeting. Mouse over them and whichever party member has the four arrows pointing at them instead of the circle for their icon (hard to describe I know) is who the enemy is targeting. Getting them to un-target your squishies is often as simple as just pausing and moving them away from the fight. The enemies will retarget a closer opponent, hopefully your tank.
Hrmm, urge to reroll is getting strong, but maybe I'm just not supposed to be fighting things this early. It's hard to tell.
Waiting 3 rounds or whatever to use a spell is getting old fast though.
Steam and CFN: Enexemander
0
Options
FairchildRabbit used short words that were easy to understand, like "Hello Pooh, how about Lunch ?"Registered Userregular
And as someone mentioned up top, I'm beginning to realize that, since everyone can be a Rogue, my Rogue is in danger of becoming little more than a weak Fighter...
But it wouldn't be IE if I didn't start and stop five different Main Toons before finding one that I like.
Boy am I already incredibly tired of Shadows teleporting all the way back to my mage and beating the shit out of him while nothing any of my melee characters do can get their attention off of him. That sure is fun.
Right? It's fucking ridiculous. They give you a Mage who dies in three hits and warrior whose only strengths are having high health and the ability to tie up 3 enemies at once in engagements to protect the rest of your party. And then every enemy teleports out of engagement directly onto your Mage and kills him and there are absolutely no skills or talents to prevent that.
As for the aoe thing, cast fan of flames to see what I mean. There's no cone outline of the spell length/radius, and if you cast it at the other end of the screen he will just stand there and cast it where he is rather than move until the enemy you targeted it on is within range. Seeing spell ranges in the stats isn't all that useful in practice because there are no range markers within the combat screen. It doesn't matter for a single target spell like mini missiles because he will move to its max range before casting.
Steam / Xbox Live: WSDX NNID: W-S-D-X 3DS FC: 2637-9461-8549
And as someone mentioned up top, I'm beginning to realize that, since everyone can be a Rogue, my Rogue is in danger of becoming little more than a weak Fighter...
But it wouldn't be IE if I didn't start and stop five different Main Toons before finding one that I like.
I normally do that in RPGs but I think I will end up happy with my giant blue rogue.
Boy am I already incredibly tired of Shadows teleporting all the way back to my mage and beating the shit out of him while nothing any of my melee characters do can get their attention off of him. That sure is fun.
Even if you can keep shadows off your mage
there's a buffed variant which summon normal shadows on top of your mage. It's possible to interrupt the summon but if it fails dead mage.
How is it on easy? I'm really interested in playing the game for the story, but don't have any real desire to go back to the days of constantly pausing and micro-managing everyone in the party.
I went through every option, didn't find anything.
Yeah it pivots around the mage like you'd be expect. You either got a bug or got one of those hard modes turned on. You didn't toggle on the mode that turns off information did you?
Oh and when you tell your wizard to cast an aoe on a specific enemy he will instead just stand wherever he is and cast it, even if the range is woefully short. And we'll provide absolutely no range marker or cone shaped aoe template whatsoever so you have no idea at all of the actual range or shape of the spell. Because this hasn't been a basic function of RPGs for the last 20 years.
Playing on expert mode turns off AoE templates. Just like the good old fashioned Infinity Engine.
Turn it off and you will see the AoE indicators are quite robust.
I can't decide if I should ditch my monk or not. I've always liked the idea of being so badass you don't even need a weapon, but the wounds system can be a little frustrating. You need to be getting hit to actually use your abilities and there's nothing you can do to make the enemy attack you instead of a party member. I really like kicking someone into a wall across the room, but I get to do it so rarely.
I can't decide if I should ditch my monk or not. I've always liked the idea of being so badass you don't even need a weapon, but the wounds system can be a little frustrating. You need to be getting hit to actually use your abilities and there's nothing you can do to make the enemy attack you instead of a party member. I really like kicking someone into a wall across the room, but I get to do it so rarely.
I think there are later abilities that let you inflict wounds on yourself.
Xbox Live, PSN & Origin: Vacorsis 3DS: 2638-0037-166
I don't think I like the way stealth works in this game. If one person is detected, everyone just pops out of stealth. Makes opening a fight with a rogue backstab basically suicide. I can't engage the warrior first and then attack from stealth with the rogue, and if I send the rogue in first he's stuck fighting all of the enemies in melee by himself until the others can run over.
It feels like I'm missing something because I can't believe the design is this short-sighted.
Yeah, I mean, I never really got into BG or IWD - I just played PS:T and Arcanum on easy and let my dudes auto-slaughter everything - but I can't tell if I just don't know how stealth works or if there's something I'm missing or what. My rogue PC is obviously not who I want taking all the hits. That's what the fighter is for. But if my PC starts the fight, my PC gets ganged up on by everyone. At later levers I get some disengage skills but even that's just a band-aid. Does anyone know how stealth is supposed to work? Right now I only use it for stealing and for finding traps.
Give your rogue a ranged weapon to open combat. That way the fighter can engage everything before they can reach the rogue. Then you can switch to melee and have your rogue sneak attack from a flanked position.
And as someone mentioned up top, I'm beginning to realize that, since everyone can be a Rogue, my Rogue is in danger of becoming little more than a weak Fighter...
But it wouldn't be IE if I didn't start and stop five different Main Toons before finding one that I like.
Rogues may not be the only trap disarmers but they're still very, very good at murdering people. And animals. And undead. And things.
I haven't cleared out the temple fully but did finish up the quest there and sneaking in to pop off a crossbow shot to start the fight severely shortens how long shadows have to pull their tricks before you start shredding anything that gets knocked down or blinded.
This is not a game where Rogues open fights by sneaking in and backstabbing. It's not necessary to do, and it will get your Rogue slaughtered because of how the engagement system works.
Sneak Attacks trigger when the enemy is Blinded, Flanked, Hobbled, Paralyzed, Petrified, Prone, Stuck, Stunned or Weakened, or in the first two seconds of combat. You don't even need to stealth or position yourself at all if your Rogue gets a hit in sometime during the start of the fight. From there you can maneuver yourself to generate more sneak attacks by flanking, or you can inflict status effects like have Eder knock them on their ass, or use the Rogue blind ability.
This is not a game where Rogues open fights by sneaking in and backstabbing. It's not necessary to do, and it will get your Rogue slaughtered because of how the engagement system works.
Sneak Attacks trigger when the enemy is Blinded, Flanked, Hobbled, Paralyzed, Petrified, Prone, Stuck, Stunned or Weakened, or in the first two seconds of combat. You don't even need to stealth or position yourself at all if your Rogue gets a hit in sometime during the start of the fight. From there you can maneuver yourself to generate more sneak attacks by flanking, or you can inflict status effects like have Eder knock them on their ass, or use the Rogue blind ability.
Well, I mean, there IS a talent designed around exactly sneaking in and backstabbing. Might not be be viable early on though.
@Rami
Turning on expert mode auto unselects everything, so you have to turn it off then recheck the stuff you want to show up, the aoe markers is the 2nd one down on the left side (Area of effect Highlighting) and all that is in your game options menu (hit ESC then click the game tab on the left) then close that and let the options save and it should be working.
Fan of Flames should look like this when you select it.
Posts
I really don't want to go into work tomorrow
You open a door and there are 4 shadows and a phantom hahahaha nope, fuck you.
Oh and when you tell your wizard to cast an aoe on a specific enemy he will instead just stand wherever he is and cast it, even if the range is woefully short. And we'll provide absolutely no range marker or cone shaped aoe template whatsoever so you have no idea at all of the actual range or shape of the spell. Because this hasn't been a basic function of RPGs for the last 20 years.
My love of pretty much everything else about this game is quickly being sunk as the gameplay is revealing itself to be balls.
I actually don't mind making a mess of my build the first time through. I have a feeling this one is going to have some staying power for me in regards to replays. So, I'll probably stick this one out.
For now, I'm just going to start avoiding the tougher fights, then come back to them when I've got more characters in the party. Hell, right now I only have what amounts to three casters, which makes things really dicey whenever anything more than one or two enemies can reach melee range.
My toons do have a habit of ignoring the target I have chosen for them in favor of nearest target. Realism-wise, this is reasonable-- would you ignore the Orc about to gut you to target the Dark Elf in a dress at the back of the room waving his hands and mumbling to himself ?-- but it's not how the game is advertised to work.
You might be doing something wrong, @Rami , or have hit a bug, because every AOE spell I've cast has a marker (and indicates who will be affected with their selection circles).
I use a lot of them, too, so I'm not sure why you aren't seeing them. Are you in expert mode or paths of the damned or something?
Edit: different spells work differently, too. Some are "true aoes," where you pick a point on the ground or a cone from your caster's current position. Others are targeted (like lots of cipher abilities) where you target a person and affect an AOE around them. You can tell which spell is which by the rules text and whether or not you can cast it on an open space.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
I think he means how spells have a max range for casting, so casters will frequently have to run waaaay up to the enemy before actually casting. And the game won't tell you that before you choose to cast, which can be really really obnoxious when you want a caster to stay out of the fray to cast a spell.
And while the game does say what the ranges on spells are, you have right-click into the description of them to find it, as opposed to the ranges just being listed with the spell.
I just use it to recon the enemy before attacking; I've never been much of one for throwing a stealthy guy at the enemy and hoping he doesn't get murdered after a sneak attack.
But sneaking is very useful for bumping up against the edges of enemy perception, scoping things out, and planning the fight, instead of getting completely bumrushed by a ton of enemies at once as you run around.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
If you're having trouble managing aggro: mousing over enemies shows you who they're targeting. Mouse over them and whichever party member has the four arrows pointing at them instead of the circle for their icon (hard to describe I know) is who the enemy is targeting. Getting them to un-target your squishies is often as simple as just pausing and moving them away from the fight. The enemies will retarget a closer opponent, hopefully your tank.
Waiting 3 rounds or whatever to use a spell is getting old fast though.
But it wouldn't be IE if I didn't start and stop five different Main Toons before finding one that I like.
Right? It's fucking ridiculous. They give you a Mage who dies in three hits and warrior whose only strengths are having high health and the ability to tie up 3 enemies at once in engagements to protect the rest of your party. And then every enemy teleports out of engagement directly onto your Mage and kills him and there are absolutely no skills or talents to prevent that.
As for the aoe thing, cast fan of flames to see what I mean. There's no cone outline of the spell length/radius, and if you cast it at the other end of the screen he will just stand there and cast it where he is rather than move until the enemy you targeted it on is within range. Seeing spell ranges in the stats isn't all that useful in practice because there are no range markers within the combat screen. It doesn't matter for a single target spell like mini missiles because he will move to its max range before casting.
I normally do that in RPGs but I think I will end up happy with my giant blue rogue.
It's BG1 all over again.
*sniff*
Sorry, I... I got a little something in my eye.
Now playing: Teardown and Baldur's Gate 3 (co-op)
Sunday Spotlight: Horror Tales: The Wine
Even if you can keep shadows off your mage
Those mobs are kicking my ass.
How is it on easy? I'm really interested in playing the game for the story, but don't have any real desire to go back to the days of constantly pausing and micro-managing everyone in the party.
Yeah it pivots around the mage like you'd be expect. You either got a bug or got one of those hard modes turned on. You didn't toggle on the mode that turns off information did you?
Playing on expert mode turns off AoE templates. Just like the good old fashioned Infinity Engine.
Turn it off and you will see the AoE indicators are quite robust.
Steam: MightyPotatoKing
I think there are later abilities that let you inflict wounds on yourself.
Nope.
I don't think even NWN had AoE templates.
Give your rogue a ranged weapon to open combat. That way the fighter can engage everything before they can reach the rogue. Then you can switch to melee and have your rogue sneak attack from a flanked position.
3DS: 1607-3034-6970
Rogues may not be the only trap disarmers but they're still very, very good at murdering people. And animals. And undead. And things.
I haven't cleared out the temple fully but did finish up the quest there and sneaking in to pop off a crossbow shot to start the fight severely shortens how long shadows have to pull their tricks before you start shredding anything that gets knocked down or blinded.
Steam Profile
3DS: 3454-0268-5595 Battle.net: SteelAngel#1772
Sneak Attacks trigger when the enemy is Blinded, Flanked, Hobbled, Paralyzed, Petrified, Prone, Stuck, Stunned or Weakened, or in the first two seconds of combat. You don't even need to stealth or position yourself at all if your Rogue gets a hit in sometime during the start of the fight. From there you can maneuver yourself to generate more sneak attacks by flanking, or you can inflict status effects like have Eder knock them on their ass, or use the Rogue blind ability.
Well, I mean, there IS a talent designed around exactly sneaking in and backstabbing. Might not be be viable early on though.
Turning on expert mode auto unselects everything, so you have to turn it off then recheck the stuff you want to show up, the aoe markers is the 2nd one down on the left side (Area of effect Highlighting) and all that is in your game options menu (hit ESC then click the game tab on the left) then close that and let the options save and it should be working.
Fan of Flames should look like this when you select it.