Slawbug

Every Awakened leader we've seen has been willing to compromise their ideals when necessary, and "no shaping" isn't even a core Awakened ideal.  But more relevantly than that, the Awakened in their ending aren't just "Medab," they have all of Drypeak; and similarly the Awakened even during the game aren't just the serviles.  Carnelian and Raeche and Charye are part of the Awakened, not just Tuldaric; and given how little fuss is made over those other three, it's hard to imagine they are the only such people.  Like any RPG, one imagines people exist in the world who don't show up in the game.  They aren't without Shaping.  It's just not super widespread for them.  It's not super widespread for the Takers, either.

The Awakened end up with the full benefit of Barzahl's work greening up the valley.  He obviously got it working better in the Rising area, and the whole map ends up Awakened territory in their ending.

2 hours ago, Val Ritz said:

But in G2 we start to see some systemic problems that are hampering their capabilities as a serious movement. For one thing, by committing themselves to never learning to Shape, they rely entirely on defectors for their research.

This isn't fully true -- in their ending, they raid Rising, going on the offensive to absorb the research and resources of the Barzites.  It's not clear to me that this is any less effective a setup than what the Takers have, particularly given Akkat as an example of problems with their approach (which they have to turn to a Shaper to resolve).  The Barzites presumably have a few more actual Shapers, but most of the "Shapers" we see are just canistered-up commons.

They are not too good for that.  Read their ending.  They do just as well as the Rebels eventually do, and create a less miserable existence for their own members.

The Awakened aren't perfect.  Is that disqualifying to "being the good guys"?  It's the good guys, not the perfect guys, surely... is "good" really supposed to be a binary quality?  There's no shades of good?

The Awakened do some things that aren't good, by any standards, but it's kind of ridiculous to hand-wave their intentions, their actions, or the outcome of their actions and say "yup no difference from the other factions."  Their ending is less destructive than the others, full stop.

Ending 1 is the "didn't finish" ending.  I believe every full ending (i.e., 2 through 6) counts as good for achievements.  Endings 3 through 6 have their own unique achievement as well, but ending 2 does not.

I believe these are all possible for a pacifist run.  Endings 5 and 6 are probably simplest for them, but they are all doable.

Syros was pretty rational in G1 too.  As was Gnorrel.  As will be Greta, and as, even, will be Ghaldring.  The Takers/Rebels do seem to include a lot of mob-violence types but rarely in leadership positions, which I guess speaks to relatively good management on the part of the Syros-types.  (Witness recruiting you to deal with Akkat in G2.)

2 hours ago, alhoon said:

And I cheat-saw Rotdhizons and they are absolute beasts in battle. I mean, they can get a passive 30% resistance + an active 40% resistance.... that is nuts. That works out as 52% resistance to all, effectively doubling their already high hp.

Rotdhizons are crazy expensive compared to Rotghroths, have lower damage potential, and while the resistances are neat and do make them tanky -- you have to pay extra essence for those as well.  (Also, the active 40% resistance is only to physical and acid, not everything.)

I like playing solo Guardians, but it's not what they were designed to do.  Their 2nd best skill set is shaping!  You can play them solo, and it's fun, they are balanced around having reasonable shaping skill, and not solo play.

The enchanted anvils, just like with the other artifacts.

Update: based on testing, 10 canisters are required to get the ending changes due to canister use.  Alteration still has no effect.

1 hour ago, xensaya said:

If your talking about npcs' then it shouldn't really change them. I did this on the older games when I was editing the script. As long as your only changing the base template stats, it only affects you character.

What you are saying here is specifically wrong.  The PC definition's stats are 100% imported as-is by some other character definitions.  I believe this was true in every previous Geneforge as well.

You can mod in to-hit bonus, but it's universal to-hit bonus.  It applies to everything, not just attacks that use that weapon.  So this is really only a good idea if you're the sort of player who thinks having hit chance even exist in the first place is dumb.

He's said he prefers emails.  If you want to be thoughtful and not "fill up his inbox" you might consider making a list of things like typos and sending them in large batches rather than one at a time.  Either way, posting in two forums simultaneously is probably not going to help him, as it just becomes more to sort through.

This is getting pretty off-topic for the atlas so if this needs to be discussed further, feel free to PM or start a new topic.

Also, just to reiterate for everyone's sake, emailing support@spiderwebsoftware.com is still the most effective way to bring bugs to Jeff's attention.  He's said this a lot.

1 hour ago, mikeprichard said:

Since it's potential late-game equipment, I thought it might be worthwhile to note: it looks like the Slayer's Chestguard (per comparing weapon/spell tooltips when it's equipped/unequipped) may actually boost melee/magic damage by 20%, not 10% - unless the weapon/spell tooltips are the ones that are bugged. I did report on the Steam forum, which Jeff is checking frequently due to the recent release/in preparation for v1.0.2.

EDIT: OK, it seems only melee weapon tooltips show a 20% increase; spells show only 10%. Either way, something's probably off here.

I don't think this is an error.  I think this is multiplication with stat-based bonuses.  What was the base melee % and what was it with the chestguard equipped?

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.)