Slawbug

In both games, when it is in your pack, Dante's Guile reduces the mechanics requirement of certain interactable items by 1.  In G2I, this is limited to generic power spirals and spore boxes, and only if their base difficulty is 6 or higher.  I think the list was the same in Mutagen but don't have it in front of me.

It literally reduces the requirement, rather than increasing your effective skill, which is one of the reasons a number of the mechanics requirements listed in the atlases are off by 1.

full commentary:

That's not a customizable thing.

The Trakovite ending is closer to G4 "canon" than the Rebel one.

Shaper Monarch fits fine, especially if he is himself the G3 PC.

If you select Sorceress, of course, then, well...

It does change the ending, though not substantially.

2 hours ago, mikeprichard said:

Cheesy question: if I do all Awakened main quests, but then leave the faction (assuming that's even possible at that point? - maybe that's how Jeff prevents the cheese) by talking to Pinner before leaving the valley, and have also killed Barzahl, Rhakkus, Akkat, and Easss, will I still get Ending 2 ("good" unaligned ending)? I believe this was the case in OG G2, and it seems from the above it still is - i.e., as long as you're not aligned with the Servants or Awakened at the point you finally leave the valley, you're still "unaligned" regardless of how many quests you've done for the latter two factions. Still, I'd appreciate any possible confirmation.

I think attacking Pinner flags you as not in the Awakened, even if that dialogue option somehow goes away.  Also, I believe you can report the last quest (and receive your reward) before you actually trigger the final "Leave the Valley" step of the main faction quest.  Either way this should be possible.

It was more than just creations gaining experience, it was how they did it.

Creations gained experience.  But that experience was, in most of the series, a fixed proportion of what you gained, based on your level -- not scaled for the creation's level.  So if you created a level 16 vlish at PC level 4 and kept it around until PC level 20, you'd have probably a level 28 vlish.  If you created that same level 16 vlish at PC level 12 and kept it around, you'd only have a level 22 vlish.  And if you created it fresh at level 20, it'd be a level 16 vlish.  This means that the longer you waited to make creations, the weaker they would be -- permanently.  So you had to balance a creation's actual strength with how early it was available, and its cost, and how many you could make.  There was thus heavy incentive for a shaper to invest in nothing but shaping skill or Intelligence until you'd made all your creations

Level also mattered even more then.  Because of how the creation stat system worked, higher level creations were exponentially more powerful.  Level was fairly close to a direct multiplier for damage (via Strength) and an exponential multiplier for HP (multiplying it both directly, and also indirectly via Endurance), while also ensuring you won on the simple comparison systems for accuracy (also Strength) and evasion and turn order (Dex).

13 hours ago, Randomizer said:

It's a weird thing and mostly applies to melee weapons. Some missile weapons like javelins and shaped lances don't need extra training. 

 

I think the Roamertooth Band does count towards Missile Weapons for some reason.

It works the same way as Deadeye Cloak, it doesn't allow you to equip things.

The pattern doesn't break down.  These exceptions aren't actually exceptions.

In E/A1, the kill-Hawthorne quest also wraps up in the northwestern ninth of the map, and even the find-an-exit quest wraps up in the central part of the far western area.  So I'm not even sure what you were trying to suggest here.

In G3 you progress through the islands east to west.  Full stop.  Nothing changes that.  Yes, as a Rebel you loop back to finish the game doing 1 thing in a zone you've already visited, but the other 95% of the endgame is in the far west.  Similarly, in G2 your actual "last quest" could in theory be anywhere, but the point is that the far NW zones are the last ones you're likely to reach, and certainly the zones stocked with the most challenging foes (outside of the actual challenge zones).  And in the other Geneforges, factions have limited impact on even final destinations.

This is one thing that is pretty different from the original games, since in G2-5 you were much better off keeping creations around than letting them die.

check out the "powergaming the sects" topic.

(a lot of these questions do have answers linked in strategy central.)

Baleful Gold Idol apparently has a hidden -20% hit rate effect while it's in your pack, as a charm.  No idea if it has other effects as well.

If it's like past games it's a 30% chance each turn of dropping the cooldown an extra level.  Which would mean in practice a roughly 50/50 chance of 3 turn cooldowns becoming 2 turns.

The thing is... Jeff didn't live in the Pacific Northwest when the first of these NW corners was created.

Avadon has probably the most similarities to what you describe -- lots of moral ambiguity, multiple ways to complete objectives, a mechanics equivalent, and while it doesn't have canisters, scarabs fulfill a somewhat similar role.  And it has an interface that will feel familiar to you.  It is pretty different in other ways, but you could give the demo a shot and see.

It does actually sound like one of the least destructive endings FWIW.  It's a stalemate siege, but the only deaths come from the Shapers trickling a stream of soldiers to go die fighting the drakons.  Because the Awakened don't try to expand into Shaper territory, the Shapers basically try to block off and ignore the whole region (as we've seen them do elsewhere -- with quarantines and barred islands) rather than putting forth the huge war effort that would be required to defeat them.  And while it's a quiet "siege" the Awakened are more than capable of taking care of their own needs, food, etc., thanks to all the work and resources they took over from Barzahl (in particular) and others.  One can imagine the Sholai finding ways to keep up a trade with the area as well, given all of their goals (both declared and undeclared).

I think Learned Darian was always a woman in the originals.  I'd call that a Mutagen error that Infestation corrected.

The Essence Eater does have a slightly higher base damage per level of damage, since it's 1d3 + 1d2 rather than just 1d5.  But I agree that the Soulblade is the better choice.

That message will actually display if you've done anything to make the Takers hostile, which includes:

- steal NY items from Infested Farmland or Outer Zhass-Uss

- attack Benarii-Uss Entry from the front (coming in from the other Benarii zones doesn't seem to trigger this)

- killed Rhakkus or Easss

Could any of those have happened?

Did you read the comments at the beginning of the topic?  It's almost like I wrote it with you in mind 😉

"in the Awakened ending, they now explicitly conquer and absorb the resources of the other sects using the Barrier of Winds drakons offensively (!) (firmly putting to rest the argument that they wouldn't have the resources to stand up to the Shapers like the G3 Rebels did)."

Read the ending topic if you think the Awakened don't know how to go on the offensive.

7 hours ago, alhoon said:

Really? Oh, you mean from the achievements? 

 

But it shows me different numbers. 

Pacifist is 0.3% 

Gifts not needed 0.4% (I assume that's solo? No creation - but nothing about having others join you) 

Emerge a legend is 0.3%

Emerge a hero is 0.7% (So, 0.4% for just veteran)

Emerge victorious is 1.5% (so 0.8 for just normal) 

I don't understand how it would be showing you different numbers.... I still see the same ones.  Caching issue for one of us?

Anyone can view the numbers on Steam, I was just kicking some discussion off.

I screwed up on my math.  See corrected numbers for Normal/Veteran/Torment.

Solo being about as common as Torment makes sense to me.  Solo's not actually obscenely hard, and it's a pretty common approach for people who prefer less time spent on logistics.

"G2 PC who used the hallucination canister"?

That said -- nobody in G5 says that your past was primarily in the Drypeak area, just that that's where you were found wandering.  And that would be a long, long time for a supercharged shaper to hang out in Drypeak with the war going on.

The class options in G5 pretty solidly rule out any sort of definitive answer, since there's no one character -- including even the G4 PC -- who could have been all 9 options.  Even the G4 PC could only have been 5 out of 9.  But there's lots of people who fit the (extremely vague) things that are said well enough to be one possible answer.  You can pick your class; you can pick your identity -- why not?

The Steam achievement %s are interesting to look at.  While these won't cover all players -- only those dedicated enough to finish the game, and only those playing on Steam -- we currently get

2.4% Awakened

2.3% Servants (note, this does not include the non-aligned good ending - I did that first and no medal)

1.5% Takers

1.3% Barzites

3.2% Normal, not higher

0.7% Veteran, not higher

1.1% Torment

1.0% Solo (never made any creation)

0.6% Pacifist

I'm actually surprised that the Pacifist % is even that high, and makes me wonder if there's half a percent of the usual Steam achievement-cheaters in these numbers.

But it is interesting that Veteran is higher than Normal.  I think that speaks to the general difficulty level of the game.  Despite this, I've seen remarkably few complaints about difficulty level on Steam, so I guess the names/descriptions for difficulty levels were well chosen!  Whoops, natural 1 on math check.