The generals are wildly unbalanced. The wizard generals are overpowered and largely don't really care who's in their army. Many fights can be won before any turns are taken by chucking a fireball (I did this many times). The other generals suck terribly and have next to no effect on the battlefield at all, and basically just spam healing spells and divine damage spells.
The recruitable units trickle in extremely slowly, even with you focusing down on their recruitment. The mercenary units come in far too short a stack when you initially buy them, and become harder and harder to reinforce as the game goes on as the game expands the types of mercenaries that can be bought.
The sim-city portion of the crusade is obnoxious. They expect you to plan out your towns and Drezen without even knowing what all the buildings are going to be ahead of time. Plus when your towns expand, they have access to larger buildings, but the area that opens up isn't sufficient to do this without blowing up buildings that were required for you to expand.
The Act V change to your armies (I'll avoid spoiling what happens) is not welcome and the game does nothing to prepare you for this happening. There is not even a warning in Act III. I understand this for story reasons but at the gameplay level it's a massive betrayal to the player and disrespects their time massively. They took lots of other liberties with the adventure path in this game, and most of them are pretty good, it's disappointing they didn't consider a better way to handle this as well.
The decrees are okay but the relic enchanting has a 1-day changeover that makes no sense at all, they don't let you mark some of them to just never do or come back to, they basically just reduced the impact of decrees in this game vs Kingmaker.
The XP bars keep sticking even after multiple patches to fix them.
The units move incredibly slowly on the map.
They keep telling you that demons are on the march without showing you where they are so you gotta look around the map and try to find them.
You keep being told about a demon general you're supposed to give a shit about, and then you beat what is seemingly a random army and they're like, "Oh wow you confronted him and won way to go he's crying now!" WTF?!?
If you kick the shit out of all the demon armies it opens up new areas, like new roads and nodes that aren't even related to their location, something the game does absolutely nothing to instruct you or teach you.
They made demon armies that are just 3 stacks of 12 dragons and call it a level 11 army, but they can't live long enough to even take a turn. They have no idea what units do what or how powerful they are.
And I feel very confident that this is not an exhaustive list and people could add plenty more to it. It's not just boring, it's mechanically awful. It's not just undercooked, it's raw and lying in the street and there's bugs all over it.
The generals are wildly unbalanced. The wizard generals are overpowered and largely don't really care who's in their army. Many fights can be won before any turns are taken by chucking a fireball (I did this many times). The other generals suck terribly and have next to no effect on the battlefield at all, and basically just spam healing spells and divine damage spells.
This is just Pathfinder. Magic is always stronger. I had no problem with this because its how this kind of game has been for the last 20 years. I don't see it as a problem.
The recruitable units trickle in extremely slowly, even with you focusing down on their recruitment. The mercenary units come in far too short a stack when you initially buy them, and become harder and harder to reinforce as the game goes on as the game expands the types of mercenaries that can be bought.
This can be changed in the settings to have recruit units come in 2x or 3x faster. Its part of the Crusade difficulty options. If you thought it was too slow, you could have changed it.
The sim-city portion of the crusade is obnoxious. They expect you to plan out your towns and Drezen without even knowing what all the buildings are going to be ahead of time. Plus when your towns expand, they have access to larger buildings, but the area that opens up isn't sufficient to do this without blowing up buildings that were required for you to expand.
I can't comment on this. I didn't actually build up any fortresses until right before the final mission while trying to figure out why the Crusade mission wouldn't finish (turned out it was because I didn't trigger a quest in Act 3 which then got marked as a failure).
The Act V change to your armies (I'll avoid spoiling what happens) is not welcome and the game does nothing to prepare you for this happening. There is not even a warning in Act III. I understand this for story reasons but at the gameplay level it's a massive betrayal to the player and disrespects their time massively. They took lots of other liberties with the adventure path in this game, and most of them are pretty good, it's disappointing they didn't consider a better way to handle this as well.
I actually really, really, REALLY liked this. I have a post somewhere earlier in this thread about it and why I liked it. Sorry, just total disagreement here. Birds of a different feather and all that.
The decrees are okay but the relic enchanting has a 1-day changeover that makes no sense at all, they don't let you mark some of them to just never do or come back to, they basically just reduced the impact of decrees in this game vs Kingmaker.
I never really got into Kingmaker and the building a kingdom aspect of it, so I can't say.
The XP bars keep sticking even after multiple patches to fix them.
This I'll give you. I had to cheat my military up at the end of the game to get it maxed out (again while trying to get the last Crusader quest to finish, and thus it didn't matter)
The units move incredibly slowly on the map.
Total disagreement here. Heck, enemy units move WAY too fast. I'd actually like them to move slower.
They keep telling you that demons are on the march without showing you where they are so you gotta look around the map and try to find them.
They do show it, but they move super duper fast, hence my above "they need to slow down"
You keep being told about a demon general you're supposed to give a shit about, and then you beat what is seemingly a random army and they're like, "Oh wow you confronted him and won way to go he's crying now!" WTF?!?
Its not random. The enemy army is literally named as the thing in the quest. All you need to do is look.
If you kick the shit out of all the demon armies it opens up new areas, like new roads and nodes that aren't even related to their location, something the game does absolutely nothing to instruct you or teach you.
I found it very understandable. The map is divided into different sections, divided by either rivers, mountains, or canyons. The roads travel based on those geographical features. Its really quite easy to tell where a different road will take you simply by looking at the map.
They made demon armies that are just 3 stacks of 12 dragons and call it a level 11 army, but they can't live long enough to even take a turn. They have no idea what units do what or how powerful they are.
This is true.
And I feel very confident that this is not an exhaustive list and people could add plenty more to it. It's not just boring, it's mechanically awful. It's not just undercooked, it's raw and lying in the street and there's bugs all over it.
I found your list pretty depressing. It was a few bugs and a bunch of telling me that things I liked about the game are shit. That's not a very good feeling, you know?
PSN|AspectVoid
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PiptheFairFrequently not in boats.Registered Userregular
a stack of like 15 lilitus dominating a stack of 500 marksman and wiping out your army is always super fun and balanced
The generals are wildly unbalanced. The wizard generals are overpowered and largely don't really care who's in their army. Many fights can be won before any turns are taken by chucking a fireball (I did this many times). The other generals suck terribly and have next to no effect on the battlefield at all, and basically just spam healing spells and divine damage spells.
This is just Pathfinder. Magic is always stronger. I had no problem with this because its how this kind of game has been for the last 20 years. I don't see it as a problem.
The recruitable units trickle in extremely slowly, even with you focusing down on their recruitment. The mercenary units come in far too short a stack when you initially buy them, and become harder and harder to reinforce as the game goes on as the game expands the types of mercenaries that can be bought.
This can be changed in the settings to have recruit units come in 2x or 3x faster. Its part of the Crusade difficulty options. If you thought it was too slow, you could have changed it.
The sim-city portion of the crusade is obnoxious. They expect you to plan out your towns and Drezen without even knowing what all the buildings are going to be ahead of time. Plus when your towns expand, they have access to larger buildings, but the area that opens up isn't sufficient to do this without blowing up buildings that were required for you to expand.
I can't comment on this. I didn't actually build up any fortresses until right before the final mission while trying to figure out why the Crusade mission wouldn't finish (turned out it was because I didn't trigger a quest in Act 3 which then got marked as a failure).
The Act V change to your armies (I'll avoid spoiling what happens) is not welcome and the game does nothing to prepare you for this happening. There is not even a warning in Act III. I understand this for story reasons but at the gameplay level it's a massive betrayal to the player and disrespects their time massively. They took lots of other liberties with the adventure path in this game, and most of them are pretty good, it's disappointing they didn't consider a better way to handle this as well.
I actually really, really, REALLY liked this. I have a post somewhere earlier in this thread about it and why I liked it. Sorry, just total disagreement here. Birds of a different feather and all that.
The decrees are okay but the relic enchanting has a 1-day changeover that makes no sense at all, they don't let you mark some of them to just never do or come back to, they basically just reduced the impact of decrees in this game vs Kingmaker.
I never really got into Kingmaker and the building a kingdom aspect of it, so I can't say.
The XP bars keep sticking even after multiple patches to fix them.
This I'll give you. I had to cheat my military up at the end of the game to get it maxed out (again while trying to get the last Crusader quest to finish, and thus it didn't matter)
The units move incredibly slowly on the map.
Total disagreement here. Heck, enemy units move WAY too fast. I'd actually like them to move slower.
They keep telling you that demons are on the march without showing you where they are so you gotta look around the map and try to find them.
They do show it, but they move super duper fast, hence my above "they need to slow down"
You keep being told about a demon general you're supposed to give a shit about, and then you beat what is seemingly a random army and they're like, "Oh wow you confronted him and won way to go he's crying now!" WTF?!?
Its not random. The enemy army is literally named as the thing in the quest. All you need to do is look.
If you kick the shit out of all the demon armies it opens up new areas, like new roads and nodes that aren't even related to their location, something the game does absolutely nothing to instruct you or teach you.
I found it very understandable. The map is divided into different sections, divided by either rivers, mountains, or canyons. The roads travel based on those geographical features. Its really quite easy to tell where a different road will take you simply by looking at the map.
They made demon armies that are just 3 stacks of 12 dragons and call it a level 11 army, but they can't live long enough to even take a turn. They have no idea what units do what or how powerful they are.
This is true.
And I feel very confident that this is not an exhaustive list and people could add plenty more to it. It's not just boring, it's mechanically awful. It's not just undercooked, it's raw and lying in the street and there's bugs all over it.
I found your list pretty depressing. It was a few bugs and a bunch of telling me that things I liked about the game are shit. That's not a very good feeling, you know?
I'm not going to agree with people just so that they can feel better. You can have a different opinion and feel that the crusade mode is good but not every response is going to affirm that for you, nor is that an outcome you should always expect, especially in this case where it is overwhelmingly panned across reviews.
If you enjoy it, the good news is that it's still there for you to enjoy and my impotent flailing via review and bug reporting has been ignored by Owlcat.
Speaking of my review, interesting comment I got this morning:
"Our reviews are nearly identical in content. You and I gave it differing overall reviews (recommended vs. not recommended) but I think our reasons for sitting so close to the fence are nearly identical. Well written."
Is it normal for a demon army to rush across the map the first time I even look at the map at the start of Act 5? It murders the handful of Azatas which are the only units I start with and lays siege to Drezen. I can buy resources to hire a general and an army but there's really not many units to buy on day 1. I haven't rested or anything just ran around town talking and selling. Seems lame :bigfrown:
That's a known bug that's been in the game for a while, don't know/remember if there is a workaround for it.
What the hell... auto resolve combat for Crusade must use entirely different rules or units or something. My army of 60 Yamah Azatas which are capable of killing about 2 Cultist Cuthroats, out of 236, in manual combat just won if I let it do auto combat. Not to mention the 34 Oolioddroo they couldn't even hurt. Also on the management screen Yamah Azatas are big and take 4 squares but in manual combat they're just 1 slot normies. And just them, no general. Whatever, I'll take it.
I said it about the first game, but it applies here too.
It'd be a monstrous undertaking, but an "interesting encounters" mod where most of the trash fights disappear would probably help this game for most players. So you're only spending your time fighting "new" fights.
I'm not against a bit of save scumming for tactics, I like building optimal builds, but the cycle of rest, buff, fight the same 6 enemies in a 12 different encounters in slightly different mixes just feels so padded.
I said it about the first game, but it applies here too.
It'd be a monstrous undertaking, but an "interesting encounters" mod where most of the trash fights disappear would probably help this game for most players. So you're only spending your time fighting "new" fights.
I'm not against a bit of save scumming for tactics, I like building optimal builds, but the cycle of rest, buff, fight the same 6 enemies in a 12 different encounters in slightly different mixes just feels so padded.
That was definitely my opinion in Kingmaker. I think Wrath does a better job, though it could still be tuned down a bit. They would need to turn up the corruption rate a bit since you'd be spending fewer resources, but that seems doable. I know there were multiple areas, even late game, where I was still using the "crossbow of shame" on my casters because I felt compelled to save spells like Burning Ray for the random "lol this guy has $TEXAS AC and 2 Touch AC, hope you have ray spells or you're boned!" fights. Fewer fights mean I'd be a little less reticent to spend those spells.
I said it about the first game, but it applies here too.
It'd be a monstrous undertaking, but an "interesting encounters" mod where most of the trash fights disappear would probably help this game for most players. So you're only spending your time fighting "new" fights.
I'm not against a bit of save scumming for tactics, I like building optimal builds, but the cycle of rest, buff, fight the same 6 enemies in a 12 different encounters in slightly different mixes just feels so padded.
That was definitely my opinion in Kingmaker. I think Wrath does a better job, though it could still be tuned down a bit. They would need to turn up the corruption rate a bit since you'd be spending fewer resources, but that seems doable. I know there were multiple areas, even late game, where I was still using the "crossbow of shame" on my casters because I felt compelled to save spells like Burning Ray for the random "lol this guy has $TEXAS AC and 2 Touch AC, hope you have ray spells or you're boned!" fights. Fewer fights mean I'd be a little less reticent to spend those spells.
I would say what they actually need to do is set up their enemies to provide a more varied challenge, with more of a variety between their current 'unhittable for melee or spellcasters' units and instead including other types.
Big health bars, adds, ramping damage, summons etc. Just not "another AC 50 SR 40 demon".
They need to remember that 'miss' is by far the least interesting reason why you aren't winning. Followed by, "you have been crowd controlled". And those are the two they use the most.
So, I managed to beat Playful Darkness on Normal on my first try (I missed it my first time through). Wish I could say I used some brilliant plan but all I really did was swarm it with summons (thanks, Monster Tactician Aeon!) and wait it out. Unfortunately, I sent in Seelah to try and hit it, and got her KO'd, and I didn't have any spells left on Daeran to bring her back and he was out of Channels, so I had to blow my Resurrection scroll to get her back up to finish the job. And then Regill had the misfortune of eating the damage that the Midnight Fane's final boss puts out on death, which resulted in him dying.
Which leads me to my question: where in Act 4 can you buy Diamonds? I'll happily accept a location to purchase scrolls of Resurrection as well.
So, I managed to beat Playful Darkness on Normal on my first try (I missed it my first time through). Wish I could say I used some brilliant plan but all I really did was swarm it with summons (thanks, Monster Tactician Aeon!) and wait it out. Unfortunately, I sent in Seelah to try and hit it, and got her KO'd, and I didn't have any spells left on Daeran to bring her back and he was out of Channels, so I had to blow my Resurrection scroll to get her back up to finish the job. And then Regill had the misfortune of eating the damage that the Midnight Fane's final boss puts out on death, which resulted in him dying.
Which leads me to my question: where in Act 4 can you buy Diamonds? I'll happily accept a location to purchase scrolls of Resurrection as well.
Not exactly sure, but...
...I suspect that the slave trader with the magical slaves in the Fleshmarkets has some. He has a wide variety of magic stuff. At least one of the other slave traders is a vendor, too.
The only other vendor I know of in Act 4 is the...
...madam who replaces Chivarro in the Ten Thousand Delights.
There might be more, though.
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Dr. ChaosPost nuclear nuisanceRegistered Userregular
So, I managed to beat Playful Darkness on Normal on my first try (I missed it my first time through). Wish I could say I used some brilliant plan but all I really did was swarm it with summons (thanks, Monster Tactician Aeon!) and wait it out. Unfortunately, I sent in Seelah to try and hit it, and got her KO'd, and I didn't have any spells left on Daeran to bring her back and he was out of Channels, so I had to blow my Resurrection scroll to get her back up to finish the job. And then Regill had the misfortune of eating the damage that the Midnight Fane's final boss puts out on death, which resulted in him dying.
Which leads me to my question: where in Act 4 can you buy Diamonds? I'll happily accept a location to purchase scrolls of Resurrection as well.
So, something worth noting about Playful Darkness (and a lot of other minibosses I've tried this on) is that there is a *wonderful* bug where a suprising number of the hidden effects used to make them so damn tough can actually be removed with Dispel Magic, and they often have DCs that are waaay below what the beasties cast on themselves normally. In Playful Darkness' case, I know that includes its blur effect and the hidden Shield spell that makes it immune to magic missile. Only needed the mobs from the tankard (which is how I noticed it, because Ghael Azatas love to spam dispel on anything that has something that can be dispelled) and with my character and Nenio reading off all the magic missile scrolls she had been making up to that point I was able to kill it before it started raging through the party (IIRC Seelah's horse got offed, but it auto-revives on rest so that was no biggie.)
So, I managed to beat Playful Darkness on Normal on my first try (I missed it my first time through). Wish I could say I used some brilliant plan but all I really did was swarm it with summons (thanks, Monster Tactician Aeon!) and wait it out. Unfortunately, I sent in Seelah to try and hit it, and got her KO'd, and I didn't have any spells left on Daeran to bring her back and he was out of Channels, so I had to blow my Resurrection scroll to get her back up to finish the job. And then Regill had the misfortune of eating the damage that the Midnight Fane's final boss puts out on death, which resulted in him dying.
Which leads me to my question: where in Act 4 can you buy Diamonds? I'll happily accept a location to purchase scrolls of Resurrection as well.
So, something worth noting about Playful Darkness (and a lot of other minibosses I've tried this on) is that there is a *wonderful* bug where a suprising number of the hidden effects used to make them so damn tough can actually be removed with Dispel Magic, and they often have DCs that are waaay below what the beasties cast on themselves normally. In Playful Darkness' case, I know that includes its blur effect and the hidden Shield spell that makes it immune to magic missile. Only needed the mobs from the tankard (which is how I noticed it, because Ghael Azatas love to spam dispel on anything that has something that can be dispelled) and with my character and Nenio reading off all the magic missile scrolls she had been making up to that point I was able to kill it before it started raging through the party (IIRC Seelah's horse got offed, but it auto-revives on rest so that was no biggie.)
It's also undead, or at least vulnerable to Pillar of Life. I used the Azata mug and a summoned mastodon to clog the tunnel to its lair and then stacked a couple of Pillars of Life on it.
But yeah, a lot of demons have dispel-able stuff on them, especially True Seeing. If you're willing to spend some Dispels at the start of a fight, you can make Mirror Image great again.
I loaded my old Lich run and wasn't able to find them, but after reading some recent Pathfinder forum threads, apparently you currently only see them if you do not merge spellbooks.
So that's.........good......
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Dr. ChaosPost nuclear nuisanceRegistered Userregular
I loaded my old Lich run and wasn't able to find them, but after reading some recent Pathfinder forum threads, apparently you currently only see them if you do not merge spellbooks.
So, I managed to beat Playful Darkness on Normal on my first try (I missed it my first time through). Wish I could say I used some brilliant plan but all I really did was swarm it with summons (thanks, Monster Tactician Aeon!) and wait it out. Unfortunately, I sent in Seelah to try and hit it, and got her KO'd, and I didn't have any spells left on Daeran to bring her back and he was out of Channels, so I had to blow my Resurrection scroll to get her back up to finish the job. And then Regill had the misfortune of eating the damage that the Midnight Fane's final boss puts out on death, which resulted in him dying.
Which leads me to my question: where in Act 4 can you buy Diamonds? I'll happily accept a location to purchase scrolls of Resurrection as well.
So, something worth noting about Playful Darkness (and a lot of other minibosses I've tried this on) is that there is a *wonderful* bug where a suprising number of the hidden effects used to make them so damn tough can actually be removed with Dispel Magic, and they often have DCs that are waaay below what the beasties cast on themselves normally. In Playful Darkness' case, I know that includes its blur effect and the hidden Shield spell that makes it immune to magic missile. Only needed the mobs from the tankard (which is how I noticed it, because Ghael Azatas love to spam dispel on anything that has something that can be dispelled) and with my character and Nenio reading off all the magic missile scrolls she had been making up to that point I was able to kill it before it started raging through the party (IIRC Seelah's horse got offed, but it auto-revives on rest so that was no biggie.)
I actually discovered that too, for the exact same reason (I used the tankard to supplement my swarm once it started getting cut down). I probably should have reloaded and tried again, but it was such an annoying fight I didn't want to sit through it again (same reason I didn't reload on the final boss fight either).
Just made it to the part in Act 4 when you finally meet…
…Nocticula. Quite the infodump!
Loved her voice acting, and I really like that the scheme to close the Worldwound (and thus the PC becoming mythically empowered) is about her extremely relatable desire to maintain control of Alushynirra and not Areelu’s weird science. Wanting Baphomet and Deskari to get the fuck off her lawn is exactly the sort of comprehensible motivation a story about crusades, angels, gods and demon lords needs to make sense. Also, I about died at her calling Deskari, “Cricket Boy”.
Pity Johnny Angel ran off. I was kind of getting used to insta-resting. Wish I had known that he was going to, so I could have taken Camelia to the 10K Delights without him watching. >.>
Also in Act 4, is the way to get all the rooftop loot by Dimension Door, or should I be straining my eyes for Spider-Man Athletics checks to climb up to all of them?
Also in Act 4, is the way to get all the rooftop loot by Dimension Door, or should I be straining my eyes for Spider-Man Athletics checks to climb up to all of them?
For the vast majority of them, you gotta teleport. There's a handful you can climb up to, and one that you have to port up to but can climb down from for some reason.
Just made it to the part in Act 4 when you finally meet…
…Nocticula. Quite the infodump!
Loved her voice acting, and I really like that the scheme to close the Worldwound (and thus the PC becoming mythically empowered) is about her extremely relatable desire to maintain control of Alushynirra and not Areelu’s weird science. Wanting Baphomet and Deskari to get the fuck off her lawn is exactly the sort of comprehensible motivation a story about crusades, angels, gods and demon lords needs to make sense. Also, I about died at her calling Deskari, “Cricket Boy”.
Pity Johnny Angel ran off. I was kind of getting used to insta-resting. Wish I had known that he was going to, so I could have taken Camelia to the 10K Delights without him watching. >.>
Unfortunately he will permanently leave on every path except Angel, so his final opinion of you generally doesn't matter outside of an Angel run.
If anyone's curious about the level 10 Lich/Angel spells
Angel Army of Heaven
All allies in a 30 foot radius gain the combined effects of Avenger's Blessing, Mind Blank, and Holy Sword spells for one hour. Eye of the Sun
Every enemy in a 30 foot radius is dealt 12 damage per caster level. Half of this damage is fire damage, half is holy damage. A successful Reflex saving throw reduces the amount to 1d12 damage per caster level. Phoenix Gift
For the next 1 minute per caster level, if the target would be brought below zero hit points, it is instead healed to maximum and deals 1d6 fire damage per caster level to all enemies in 20 foot radius. Rekindle
This spell works as True Resurrection , but affects every ally in 30 feet radius around the caster.
Lich Absolute Death
Feeling of the imminent death fills the targets heart. It makes a Will saving throw. If it is fails, the target immediately dies. If the save is successful, the target receives 10 damage per caster level. Doom to Servitude
There is no escape for any mortal soul.
This spell works as repurpose spell, except the duration is permanent. The target is immediately dealt 1d6 unholy damage per two caster level (Fortitude save negates), and then 1d6 unholy damage per caster level every round until its death. If the target dies during the effect, it is revived after death as an undead creature under your command. Pit of Despair
You create a pit around Nightshade Nightcrawler. It works as Create Pit spell, but additionally channels negative energy for 1d6 damage per caster level and creates a Nightshade Nightcrawler in the middle for 1 round per caster level.
The Angel spells are waaaaaay more busted than the Lich ones, it's not even close.
If anyone's curious about the level 10 Lich/Angel spells
Angel Army of Heaven
All allies in a 30 foot radius gain the combined effects of Avenger's Blessing, Mind Blank, and Holy Sword spells for one hour. Eye of the Sun
Every enemy in a 30 foot radius is dealt 12 damage per caster level. Half of this damage is fire damage, half is holy damage. A successful Reflex saving throw reduces the amount to 1d12 damage per caster level. Phoenix Gift
For the next 1 minute per caster level, if the target would be brought below zero hit points, it is instead healed to maximum and deals 1d6 fire damage per caster level to all enemies in 20 foot radius. Rekindle
This spell works as True Resurrection , but affects every ally in 30 feet radius around the caster.
Lich Absolute Death
Feeling of the imminent death fills the targets heart. It makes a Will saving throw. If it is fails, the target immediately dies. If the save is successful, the target receives 10 damage per caster level. Doom to Servitude
There is no escape for any mortal soul.
This spell works as repurpose spell, except the duration is permanent. The target is immediately dealt 1d6 unholy damage per two caster level (Fortitude save negates), and then 1d6 unholy damage per caster level every round until its death. If the target dies during the effect, it is revived after death as an undead creature under your command. Pit of Despair
You create a pit around Nightshade Nightcrawler. It works as Create Pit spell, but additionally channels negative energy for 1d6 damage per caster level and creates a Nightshade Nightcrawler in the middle for 1 round per caster level.
The Angel spells are waaaaaay more busted than the Lich ones, it's not even close.
Definitely.
I looked up
What Avenger's blessing does. Apparently Army of Heaven is the "Fuck you. We're all Paladins now." spell
What is this games infatuation with Pit spells?
There's like 15 versions of it and I'll be damned if I turn on real time combat and half my team immediately jump in.
I wouldn't mind pit spells but they don't let you target folks in the pit so it turns into just another way for combat to take way longer than it needs to.
What is this games infatuation with Pit spells?
There's like 15 versions of it and I'll be damned if I turn on real time combat and half my team immediately jump in.
They're crowd control spells. When you have large groups of enemies, you can cast it into their back row or the distant corner a set of archers/mages are set up at to take them out of the fight while you whittle down the more immediate and closer threats.
They can be amazing, especially if you have feather step spell, but party members are dumb as hell and will walk right into em unless you're micromanaging their movements.
What is this games infatuation with Pit spells?
There's like 15 versions of it and I'll be damned if I turn on real time combat and half my team immediately jump in.
They're crowd control spells, when you have large groups of enemies, you can cast it into their back row or the distant corner a set of archers/mages are set up at to take them out of the fight while you whittle down the more immediate and closer threats.
They can be amazing, especially if you have feather step spell, but party members are dumb as hell and will walk right into em unless you're micromanaging their movements.
There is also a bug with one of them (either Hungry Pit or Pit of Ruin, can't remember which) where it ignores whether you are using turn-based mode or not, meaning it's still doing damage and forcing saves every six second to anything it can affect even though no one has actually done anything.
I discovered this to my "joy" when my MC triggered a trap of said spell during that act V sidequest where you are *forced* into turn based mode, which resulted in her death, and being an Azata with Life-Bonded Friendship, half the party who were only standing because of that ability.
It honestly wouldn't be so bad if only it didn't take so damn long to wear off. As it is its just not worth it to cast for the pleasure of waiting for the one or two goons that fell in to die.
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Dr. ChaosPost nuclear nuisanceRegistered Userregular
It honestly wouldn't be so bad if only it didn't take so damn long to wear off. As it is its just not worth it to cast for the pleasure of waiting for the one or two goons that fell in to die.
Everybody has a lv0 spell (or is it considered an ability) that can immediately end it anytime you want assuming you or your party casted it.
It honestly wouldn't be so bad if only it didn't take so damn long to wear off. As it is its just not worth it to cast for the pleasure of waiting for the one or two goons that fell in to die.
Everybody has a lv0 spell (or is it considered an ability) that can immediately end it anytime you want assuming you or your party casted it.
It was an ability on release, but a recent patch changed it to a level 0 spell, for reasons.
So, having entered The Enigma, I can confirm that it is Rift of Ruin that ignores turn based mode.
...and because of that, I'm probably going to shelf this playthrough until they fix it, cause two of bastards who spam it show up halfway through the final boss fight and that fight is hard enough as it is.
...also Azata's Unbreakable Bond Spell, which is supposed to make your party immune to a bunch of things, but didn't stop the asshole at the end from offing half the party (including the Azata) with a single cast of Weird, despite the fact the spell labels 3 of the 4 subdomain keywords for Weird as things it should render the party immune to.
The AI is supposed to prioritize the largest cluster of friendlies when targeting with aoe, so you can try throwing up a couple of packs of summons away from your group and they should throw the pits at the summons. I've had good luck doing that cheesing breath attacks away from the party.
So, having entered The Enigma, I can confirm that it is Rift of Ruin that ignores turn based mode.
...and because of that, I'm probably going to shelf this playthrough until they fix it, cause two of bastards who spam it show up halfway through the final boss fight and that fight is hard enough as it is.
...also Azata's Unbreakable Bond Spell, which is supposed to make your party immune to a bunch of things, but didn't stop the asshole at the end from offing half the party (including the Azata) with a single cast of Weird, despite the fact the spell labels 3 of the 4 subdomain keywords for Weird as things it should render the party immune to.
See, the problem is you expected the game to respect your immunities. And every now and then it decides not to, with no warning.
So, having entered The Enigma, I can confirm that it is Rift of Ruin that ignores turn based mode.
...and because of that, I'm probably going to shelf this playthrough until they fix it, cause two of bastards who spam it show up halfway through the final boss fight and that fight is hard enough as it is.
...also Azata's Unbreakable Bond Spell, which is supposed to make your party immune to a bunch of things, but didn't stop the asshole at the end from offing half the party (including the Azata) with a single cast of Weird, despite the fact the spell labels 3 of the 4 subdomain keywords for Weird as things it should render the party immune to.
See, the problem is you expected the game to respect your immunities. And every now and then it decides not to, with no warning.
From my experience, its not that the game doesn't respect them, but rather certain spells that say they grant immunities don't. I posted about one back when I was in my campaign that was suppose to give a bunch of bonuses and immunities, but despite saying it gave fear immunity, it did not, causing me a bunch of problems in a fight. I reloaded, used remove fear to get the immunity, and it worked just fine.
Eh, there's definitely some instances where the game ignores immunities you otherwise have. One of the optional late-game enemies (possibly the hardest one in the game?) has a fear ability that specifically ignores fear immunity.
Posts
The generals are wildly unbalanced. The wizard generals are overpowered and largely don't really care who's in their army. Many fights can be won before any turns are taken by chucking a fireball (I did this many times). The other generals suck terribly and have next to no effect on the battlefield at all, and basically just spam healing spells and divine damage spells.
The recruitable units trickle in extremely slowly, even with you focusing down on their recruitment. The mercenary units come in far too short a stack when you initially buy them, and become harder and harder to reinforce as the game goes on as the game expands the types of mercenaries that can be bought.
The sim-city portion of the crusade is obnoxious. They expect you to plan out your towns and Drezen without even knowing what all the buildings are going to be ahead of time. Plus when your towns expand, they have access to larger buildings, but the area that opens up isn't sufficient to do this without blowing up buildings that were required for you to expand.
The Act V change to your armies (I'll avoid spoiling what happens) is not welcome and the game does nothing to prepare you for this happening. There is not even a warning in Act III. I understand this for story reasons but at the gameplay level it's a massive betrayal to the player and disrespects their time massively. They took lots of other liberties with the adventure path in this game, and most of them are pretty good, it's disappointing they didn't consider a better way to handle this as well.
The decrees are okay but the relic enchanting has a 1-day changeover that makes no sense at all, they don't let you mark some of them to just never do or come back to, they basically just reduced the impact of decrees in this game vs Kingmaker.
The XP bars keep sticking even after multiple patches to fix them.
The units move incredibly slowly on the map.
They keep telling you that demons are on the march without showing you where they are so you gotta look around the map and try to find them.
You keep being told about a demon general you're supposed to give a shit about, and then you beat what is seemingly a random army and they're like, "Oh wow you confronted him and won way to go he's crying now!" WTF?!?
If you kick the shit out of all the demon armies it opens up new areas, like new roads and nodes that aren't even related to their location, something the game does absolutely nothing to instruct you or teach you.
They made demon armies that are just 3 stacks of 12 dragons and call it a level 11 army, but they can't live long enough to even take a turn. They have no idea what units do what or how powerful they are.
And I feel very confident that this is not an exhaustive list and people could add plenty more to it. It's not just boring, it's mechanically awful. It's not just undercooked, it's raw and lying in the street and there's bugs all over it.
This is just Pathfinder. Magic is always stronger. I had no problem with this because its how this kind of game has been for the last 20 years. I don't see it as a problem.
This can be changed in the settings to have recruit units come in 2x or 3x faster. Its part of the Crusade difficulty options. If you thought it was too slow, you could have changed it.
I can't comment on this. I didn't actually build up any fortresses until right before the final mission while trying to figure out why the Crusade mission wouldn't finish (turned out it was because I didn't trigger a quest in Act 3 which then got marked as a failure).
I actually really, really, REALLY liked this. I have a post somewhere earlier in this thread about it and why I liked it. Sorry, just total disagreement here. Birds of a different feather and all that.
I never really got into Kingmaker and the building a kingdom aspect of it, so I can't say.
This I'll give you. I had to cheat my military up at the end of the game to get it maxed out (again while trying to get the last Crusader quest to finish, and thus it didn't matter)
Total disagreement here. Heck, enemy units move WAY too fast. I'd actually like them to move slower.
They do show it, but they move super duper fast, hence my above "they need to slow down"
Its not random. The enemy army is literally named as the thing in the quest. All you need to do is look.
I found it very understandable. The map is divided into different sections, divided by either rivers, mountains, or canyons. The roads travel based on those geographical features. Its really quite easy to tell where a different road will take you simply by looking at the map.
This is true.
I found your list pretty depressing. It was a few bugs and a bunch of telling me that things I liked about the game are shit. That's not a very good feeling, you know?
I'm not going to agree with people just so that they can feel better. You can have a different opinion and feel that the crusade mode is good but not every response is going to affirm that for you, nor is that an outcome you should always expect, especially in this case where it is overwhelmingly panned across reviews.
If you enjoy it, the good news is that it's still there for you to enjoy and my impotent flailing via review and bug reporting has been ignored by Owlcat.
"Our reviews are nearly identical in content. You and I gave it differing overall reviews (recommended vs. not recommended) but I think our reasons for sitting so close to the fence are nearly identical. Well written."
And like, I have zero problems with that.
What the hell... auto resolve combat for Crusade must use entirely different rules or units or something. My army of 60 Yamah Azatas which are capable of killing about 2 Cultist Cuthroats, out of 236, in manual combat just won if I let it do auto combat. Not to mention the 34 Oolioddroo they couldn't even hurt. Also on the management screen Yamah Azatas are big and take 4 squares but in manual combat they're just 1 slot normies. And just them, no general. Whatever, I'll take it.
That and that one general who blasts a group in to oblivion each round.
It'd be a monstrous undertaking, but an "interesting encounters" mod where most of the trash fights disappear would probably help this game for most players. So you're only spending your time fighting "new" fights.
I'm not against a bit of save scumming for tactics, I like building optimal builds, but the cycle of rest, buff, fight the same 6 enemies in a 12 different encounters in slightly different mixes just feels so padded.
That was definitely my opinion in Kingmaker. I think Wrath does a better job, though it could still be tuned down a bit. They would need to turn up the corruption rate a bit since you'd be spending fewer resources, but that seems doable. I know there were multiple areas, even late game, where I was still using the "crossbow of shame" on my casters because I felt compelled to save spells like Burning Ray for the random "lol this guy has $TEXAS AC and 2 Touch AC, hope you have ray spells or you're boned!" fights. Fewer fights mean I'd be a little less reticent to spend those spells.
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1184370/eventcomments/3092275748069574152
I would say what they actually need to do is set up their enemies to provide a more varied challenge, with more of a variety between their current 'unhittable for melee or spellcasters' units and instead including other types.
Big health bars, adds, ramping damage, summons etc. Just not "another AC 50 SR 40 demon".
They need to remember that 'miss' is by far the least interesting reason why you aren't winning. Followed by, "you have been crowd controlled". And those are the two they use the most.
Which leads me to my question: where in Act 4 can you buy Diamonds? I'll happily accept a location to purchase scrolls of Resurrection as well.
Not exactly sure, but...
The only other vendor I know of in Act 4 is the...
There might be more, though.
So, something worth noting about Playful Darkness (and a lot of other minibosses I've tried this on) is that there is a *wonderful* bug where a suprising number of the hidden effects used to make them so damn tough can actually be removed with Dispel Magic, and they often have DCs that are waaay below what the beasties cast on themselves normally. In Playful Darkness' case, I know that includes its blur effect and the hidden Shield spell that makes it immune to magic missile. Only needed the mobs from the tankard (which is how I noticed it, because Ghael Azatas love to spam dispel on anything that has something that can be dispelled) and with my character and Nenio reading off all the magic missile scrolls she had been making up to that point I was able to kill it before it started raging through the party (IIRC Seelah's horse got offed, but it auto-revives on rest so that was no biggie.)
It's also undead, or at least vulnerable to Pillar of Life. I used the Azata mug and a summoned mastodon to clog the tunnel to its lair and then stacked a couple of Pillars of Life on it.
But yeah, a lot of demons have dispel-able stuff on them, especially True Seeing. If you're willing to spend some Dispels at the start of a fight, you can make Mirror Image great again.
I loaded my old Lich run and wasn't able to find them, but after reading some recent Pathfinder forum threads, apparently you currently only see them if you do not merge spellbooks.
So that's.........good......
They better fix this.
I actually discovered that too, for the exact same reason (I used the tankard to supplement my swarm once it started getting cut down). I probably should have reloaded and tried again, but it was such an annoying fight I didn't want to sit through it again (same reason I didn't reload on the final boss fight either).
Loved her voice acting, and I really like that the scheme to close the Worldwound (and thus the PC becoming mythically empowered) is about her extremely relatable desire to maintain control of Alushynirra and not Areelu’s weird science. Wanting Baphomet and Deskari to get the fuck off her lawn is exactly the sort of comprehensible motivation a story about crusades, angels, gods and demon lords needs to make sense. Also, I about died at her calling Deskari, “Cricket Boy”.
Pity Johnny Angel ran off. I was kind of getting used to insta-resting. Wish I had known that he was going to, so I could have taken Camelia to the 10K Delights without him watching. >.>
For the vast majority of them, you gotta teleport. There's a handful you can climb up to, and one that you have to port up to but can climb down from for some reason.
Army of Heaven
All allies in a 30 foot radius gain the combined effects of Avenger's Blessing, Mind Blank, and Holy Sword spells for one hour.
Eye of the Sun
Every enemy in a 30 foot radius is dealt 12 damage per caster level. Half of this damage is fire damage, half is holy damage. A successful Reflex saving throw reduces the amount to 1d12 damage per caster level.
Phoenix Gift
For the next 1 minute per caster level, if the target would be brought below zero hit points, it is instead healed to maximum and deals 1d6 fire damage per caster level to all enemies in 20 foot radius.
Rekindle
This spell works as True Resurrection , but affects every ally in 30 feet radius around the caster.
Lich
Absolute Death
Feeling of the imminent death fills the targets heart. It makes a Will saving throw. If it is fails, the target immediately dies. If the save is successful, the target receives 10 damage per caster level.
Doom to Servitude
There is no escape for any mortal soul.
This spell works as repurpose spell, except the duration is permanent. The target is immediately dealt 1d6 unholy damage per two caster level (Fortitude save negates), and then 1d6 unholy damage per caster level every round until its death. If the target dies during the effect, it is revived after death as an undead creature under your command.
Pit of Despair
You create a pit around Nightshade Nightcrawler. It works as Create Pit spell, but additionally channels negative energy for 1d6 damage per caster level and creates a Nightshade Nightcrawler in the middle for 1 round per caster level.
The Angel spells are waaaaaay more busted than the Lich ones, it's not even close.
Definitely.
I looked up
There's like 15 versions of it and I'll be damned if I turn on real time combat and half my team immediately jump in.
They can be amazing, especially if you have feather step spell, but party members are dumb as hell and will walk right into em unless you're micromanaging their movements.
There is also a bug with one of them (either Hungry Pit or Pit of Ruin, can't remember which) where it ignores whether you are using turn-based mode or not, meaning it's still doing damage and forcing saves every six second to anything it can affect even though no one has actually done anything.
I discovered this to my "joy" when my MC triggered a trap of said spell during that act V sidequest where you are *forced* into turn based mode, which resulted in her death, and being an Azata with Life-Bonded Friendship, half the party who were only standing because of that ability.
...and because of that, I'm probably going to shelf this playthrough until they fix it, cause two of bastards who spam it show up halfway through the final boss fight and that fight is hard enough as it is.
...also Azata's Unbreakable Bond Spell, which is supposed to make your party immune to a bunch of things, but didn't stop the asshole at the end from offing half the party (including the Azata) with a single cast of Weird, despite the fact the spell labels 3 of the 4 subdomain keywords for Weird as things it should render the party immune to.
See, the problem is you expected the game to respect your immunities. And every now and then it decides not to, with no warning.
From my experience, its not that the game doesn't respect them, but rather certain spells that say they grant immunities don't. I posted about one back when I was in my campaign that was suppose to give a bunch of bonuses and immunities, but despite saying it gave fear immunity, it did not, causing me a bunch of problems in a fight. I reloaded, used remove fear to get the immunity, and it worked just fine.