Jump to content

Public Beta: The Magic


Kelandon

Recommended Posts

As the title suggests, my new scenario The Magic is ready for a beta test. Download it, play it, and report any bugs you find in this topic.

 

This scenario is intended for level 1 parties. It stands alone, but experience with some of my other scenarios may make some of it easier to follow (particularly the ending).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

If you do try to murder everyone, you may find youself in some rather dire circumstances fairly immediately. But I suppose it's up to you.

 

It might be further incentive to play if you know:

 

This scenario is intended to give a little more resolution to the Bahs/Exodus trilogy. It's effectively the fourth scenario in the series (after Homeland), for reasons you'll see if you play it. But that's not apparent until at least about halfway in.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

At first glance, I'm not sure how I'm supposed to win in the second fight against:

 

 

Machrone. He summons his duplicates and they instantly wipe my party with two lighting sprays. Even a single lightning spray reduces every member of my party's health to zero. Fight feels like a race against the AI deciding to use it. Your special ability doesn't really do enough damage to offset the threat.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just finished it. Really great work. I really enjoyed the atmosphere and the pacing kept things exciting. Only problem I noticed was the river on the southwest portion of the island; a section of it isn't connected right.

 

Other minor issue:

 

If you leave the heart of the island without restoring the magic, you can go all the way back to Mason and have the same conversation about how you need to stop Machrone. I went back and tried this option out because I was wondering if it might have been left to choice. You could idiot-proof this option by preventing the player from leaving, but it probably isn't important.

 

 

Gameplay opinions:

 

I still think that the fight on the island is too difficult. The player won't have enough skill points at this level to invest heavily enough in luck to make much of a difference. Slowing the wizards helps, but it still comes down to not getting lightning sprayed 2-3 times in a short span, which is a matter of a different sort of luck.

 

I also thought that the battle against the slith barbarians went on for a little too long. A minor slip and you have to start the entire thing over, and it's a long fight.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Blew through it with a god-party last night, so no input on balance yet. From the look, I'll probably have a whole dissertation for you on that subject after doing it with a level 1. Anyway, the only bug I found was

 

Machrone's dialog intro in the third floor of the Town doesn't work properly. His personality is set to 0 in the editor, so that would be the cause.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Only problem I noticed was the river on the southwest portion of the island; a section of it isn't connected right.

Not entirely sure what you're talking about, but I expanded the river slightly, so I hope that fixes whatever your concern is.

 

I've dealt with the other bugs reported here — and the bugs that came up in the LP, several of which were very unanticipated (notably that the call I was using was assuming that PC 1 was still alive, which is why you weren't able to progress any further) — but I want to play through the changes myself one more time before I upload the new version.

 

I'm inclined to leave the combats as they are. I think the wizard is doable, though it may take a reload or two. The naga is just as hard, if not harder, but (to my surprise) no one has complained about it. The penultimate fight is long, but you can do the whole thing with all four characters invulnerable, so I'm not too concerned.

 

(Also, Dinti, use the magic more — like, over and over again in every single fight — and rely less on Enduring Barrier for every single combat. Those rats should NOT be killing you, and you should rarely need to exit to recharge your spell points!)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

(Also, Dinti, use the magic more — like, over and over again in every single fight — and rely less on Enduring Barrier for every single combat. Those rats should NOT be killing you, and you should rarely need to exit to recharge your spell points!)
Yeah, that was me being a dolt. I knew using the Magic regains HP, but not SP, and later on, I kept forgetting it also buffed my characters. So every fight there were two rounds lost as I blessed/hastened my fighters, and I didn't use my casters much beyond that.

 

Also remember that we killed people over a stolen boardgame. Success was never the primary goal of the stream. :p

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

Kelandon , are you still working on this scenario? If so, I just started it. I really like it a lot. I am new to this game all together, so I wanna give an outsider's perspective. I like the story line so far. The first town, I think maybe add a few worthless items to the crates and barrels in the inn, and maybe some worthless books in the library. I was very sad when I searched around and found nothing of interest. It felt kinda neglected. On the positive note; the environment, personalities and the conversations were really nice.

 

I am too low level to beat the first golems. I think I will try to use a higher level party next. lol didn't get too far before dying. Also one thing confused me. I played the first blades of avernum. I felt like I could heal my npcs that joined me. You had a little blurb of stuff about me having to heal this guy with some special power cause he was outside the realm of my party. Kinda confusing, but I am sure that was normal for others here. Anyways, I clicked too fast and I think I missed how to heal him. I am going to attempt another redo at the scenario. Why do I need a special power to heal the npc who joined? I felt like in avernum 1 I did not need a special power, and I could just pick the target or enter 5 or 6. I can't remember. Anyways :-) love the atmosphere.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am too low level to beat the first golems. I think I will try to use a higher level party next. lol didn't get too far before dying.

The scenario is called The Magic. You probably should make more use of the magic.

 

I'm tempted to put in a reminder somewhere deep in the first dungeon if you haven't used the magic much, and again in the second dungeon, because you're not the first person to have this problem.

 

Also one thing confused me. I played the first blades of avernum. I felt like I could heal my npcs that joined me. You had a little blurb of stuff about me having to heal this guy with some special power cause he was outside the realm of my party. Kinda confusing, but I am sure that was normal for others here. Anyways, I clicked too fast and I think I missed how to heal him. I am going to attempt another redo at the scenario. Why do I need a special power to heal the npc who joined? I felt like in avernum 1 I did not need a special power, and I could just pick the target or enter 5 or 6. I can't remember. Anyways :-) love the atmosphere.

I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know what "the first blades of avernum" is, unless maybe you mean Valley of the Dying Things? But even so, I don't know what message you're referring to. You'll need to specify when and where it appears.

 

Regardless, Healing does work on joined NPCs by pressing 5 or 6.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

lol read my last post. I thought I was playing yours, but I wasn't. So ignore the golem stuff and everything else.

 

Today I was playing around on your scenario(the correct one). I like how you start out in the beginning with your parents and the "sensitive" cut scenes. The descriptions of the widow to the east was really nice. It painted a picture of this woman trying to be happy, but holding back a long sadness. The siblings in the very start was fun too :-)

 

Ok, so since you are starting out in your home land. Would you be willing to add a bit more to the island? Like maybe a cave where you used to hide out, no real monsters of course. When I was playing, I wanted to learn more about the history of his/her childhood.

 

I actually....would have preferred some more anticipation for the "sensitive" one. It seems so mysterious in the beginning. Is it possible for it to be on like a week timer? You could go into your house and you might think to yourself, "I have three more days before I am taken.....I should cherish the moments with my family."

 

You don't have to add stuff like this, I just really liked the beginning area and felt kinda rushed out.

 

After work today I am going to go a bit further into the scenario.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wow, this is a hard scenario and it is far from what I was expecting. I went in imagining a standard avernum game, but once I changed my mentality on that. It is like a side story. Now I am in the heart of the mountain....frickin hard. I love hard fights so I keep getting drawn back into it. I want to finish the story, but I need to go to work. I will attempt this again later.

 

I want to find out where I am and what this island is.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Is it normal though that during cut scenes if you try to click anywhere the game crashes? It happened twice during your scenario when I thought the cut scene was done, so I clicked somewhere and the game freezes and I have to restart. I don't think it is your scripting, but rather Blades issue.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...

Okay, wow. I just played this now, because my old Mac is in mothballs and I didn't have BoA on my laptop, but now I do.

 

And wow.

 

Just beautiful.

 

I didn't find the combat too hard at any point, what with spamming the Magic, though I did not at first realize that I was supposed to actually do the penultimate fight - I thought it was just another buggy cut scene. I don't know if it's the scenario or the game itself, since this is literally the first time I've played it on the laptop, but yeah, the game would frequently crash during cut scenes, often resulting in missed flags and blocked progress. I got around this by constantly having multiple saves, and keeping my fingers crossed. It was worth it.

 

I did think it was weird that I had the option to tout my future leadership with Sophia before I learned about it myself. The only other thing that struck me as odd was the way AP were deducted for using the Magic. They were apparently only ever taken from the lead character. So if my speedy archer went first and used it, she kept her AP, but the warrior lost his for that round. This was pretty easy to scam by having the warrior wait.

 

And was it intentional for the casters to be able to spam attacks on the same turn for as long as their SP held out in Danatha? Don't get me wrong, it was a lifesaver, but it kind of felt like cheating. Of course, you were tossing a level 9 party up against some serious aggro, so all's fair I guess. Though I guess it also would have been possible to just stay invulnerable and run out the clock? Well, it was good fun anyway, despite how it turned out. Very cool effects.

 

Now I feel like going back and replaying Bahs and Exodus.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't know if it's the scenario or the game itself, since this is literally the first time I've played it on the laptop, but yeah, the game would frequently crash during cut scenes, often resulting in missed flags and blocked progress. I got around this by constantly having multiple saves, and keeping my fingers crossed. It was worth it.

This is odd. It sounds like your version of BoA really does not agree with your computer. This sort of thing happens in Exodus, but it really shouldn't happen in The Magic; I didn't do anything too fancy or too extreme here. I don't know why this is happening.

 

I did think it was weird that I had the option to tout my future leadership with Sophia before I learned about it myself.

Ah, fair point. Maybe chalk it up to absurd boasting? If I ever release a 1.0.1, I'll change this.

 

The only other thing that struck me as odd was the way AP were deducted for using the Magic. They were apparently only ever taken from the lead character. So if my speedy archer went first and used it, she kept her AP, but the warrior lost his for that round. This was pretty easy to scam by having the warrior wait.

This shouldn't happen. I just loaded up the scenario again to make sure that I hadn't accidentally screwed this up in the most recent release, and no, this isn't how it works on my computer. AP gets deducted from the person who uses the magic. I have no idea why this is happening on your computer.

 

I suspect that this is some sort of BoA bug on your computer, not a scripting problem, sort of like the above.

And was it intentional for the casters to be able to spam attacks on the same turn for as long as their SP held out in Danatha? Don't get me wrong, it was a lifesaver, but it kind of felt like cheating. Of course, you were tossing a level 9 party up against some serious aggro, so all's fair I guess. Though I guess it also would have been possible to just stay invulnerable and run out the clock?

I think this is the same BoA bug as above. But you can actually stay invulnerable throughout the whole battle, and that is intentional.

 

Glad you liked the scenario! It's really encouraging.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There's one person in the town who buys, and one who sells. I did run out of arrows, though.

 

And I beat the scenario on my second run with a duo - doable, though I died a few times. And yes, the re-installed game seems to be more stable as far as crashing goes, but I get the same AP bug. Oh well.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 years later...

Hello, I've encountered a possible bug:

Spoiler

After killing Machrone, all friendly towns switched to hostile. Going to an outdoor area, saving, loading in Character Editor, using Reset Towns option, saving and loading the game does not fix it.

One thing that was weird however is when I killed Machrone a few times, he then appeared as "friendly" (greed health bar; warning message before attacking). I did attack him despite the message. I suppose this switched all the good towns to hostile, but Character Editor is supposed to fix such accidents?

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It was in his laboratory, close to the telleporter he's been building. Wgen you kill him, his body is renewed and he fights again, because you need to pull out the plug on the Magic first.

At first he was hostile, but after resurrecting a few times, he resurrected as friendly.

Edited by Mr.TiC
Link to comment
Share on other sites

So I guess technically that may be a bug, but I'm not all that worried about it because you're told not to do that. When he reconstitutes, a message says:

Spoiler

Machrone's energy, now collecting back together, reconstitutes his body! He is back, and strong as ever!

 

It does not appear that you will be able to defeat him here. Something is stopping you. The magic pulls you towards him, but you can do nothing against him if he can simply dissipate and reconstitute this way.

 

He remains stuck in the runes. If the answer is not here, perhaps it is elsewhere?

That means go somewhere else (to the southern half of the Heart of the Island, which will now open for you).

 

And killing friendly creatures is supposed to make the whole island angry with you. Committing crimes sets a flag, so this is permanent. (A message prints saying that you have made the island angry with you.) You technically can fix this with the Character Editor if you know what you're doing, but you have to know what you're doing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 years later...

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...