Changes from the earlier games[G5]

[Randomizer]

Jeff has made some changes to the game from earlier ones that you should take into account.

 

Spells have been significantly revised.

 

There are now true area of effect battle spells that deal damage over an area surrounding you (acid shower) or the point of impact on a hostile (shocking rain, purifying rain).

 

You can have only one essence class spell (shield, armor, or blade) in effect at a time and the strength of essence shield is 1% per combined level of spell, blessing magic, and spellcraft. Chaotic spores randomly gives one essence spell to you and each creation in your party.

 

You can only have one aura class spell in effect at a time (regeneration, mind shielding, battle, elemental).

 

The speed spell has a 35% chance of reducing the action points needed to 5 for your first action in a round. So don't plan on two actions per turn when using it. If you really need to do two actions consider using items. Slow also only has a chance of cancelling out you actions in a turn and shouldn't happen more than 2 consecutive turns.

 

Crystals no longer gain damage with missile weapon skill and dexterity.

 

Parry is 2% per skill level versus melee attacks and 1% per level versus missles. It doesn't block all spell attacks.

 

I haven't seen armor or resistances exceeding 90%, so there may be a cap.

[Slawbug]

Interesting! Lots of nerfing, and it's stuff that probably needed to be nerfed. Haste in particular.

 

Lack of super-Haste seems like it makes playing without creations very, very dicey on higher difficulty. You can't heal and attack in the same turn -- usually -- without using up items. You also can't hit-and-run effectively. Combined, this makes having super-strong defenses a necessity. Meanwhile, weaker Parry is bad news for Serviles. I think the days of the Insidious Infiltrator may be gloomier as well. Unless regeneration aura is enough on the HP recovery front, but I am skeptical.

 

Sorceress FTW... right? Beta testers, what am I missing?

[VCH]

I haven't used creations in any of the games. I'll try to avoid it here too.

[Delicious Vlish]

Serviles still freakishly over powered, as stated in the opinion thread.

 

With the aura nerfing and change to haste effects, having a Servile with about a thousand hit points, a full complement of magical assaults, and the Oozing Sword for nose to nose diplomacy, you can steamroll everything.

 

Also, War Tralls are now excellent tanks and serviceable attackers. A great companion to the Servile.

[Randomizer]

High armor is a must to reduce damage so you can heal using regeneration aura at the start and minimize using healing items. You can run without creations for all but the expert dungeon on torment.

[Slawbug]

So what about creations? What is the shaper/sorceress route like? Presumably it is different given all the talk about battle creations.

[Randomizer]

Synergy seems to be right in that it doesn't pay to maintain creations. I tried and found that they are hard to keep alive in certain places. Being able to replace them after clearing a zone allows for more flexibility.

 

Having different classes of creations helps to have one that will resist a damage type to act as meat shields. There are lots of creations that will do massive amounts of damage of only one type so a magic resistant creation will be great against kyshakks, wingbolts, and most eyebeasts. Battle creations and their physical damage do better in most battles, but you have to match them up to make them most effective.

[Slawbug]

*nod*

 

G4 already brought us back to the disposable creations paradigm.

[darint]

I ran a Sorceress during much of the testing and found creations to be useful and not too difficult to keep alive. I kept a Cryoa alive until the end of two games at Normal difficulty. At the end they were level 44-46, deal tons of damage, and cost nearly no essence. Battle creations were quite useful as meat shields. At the end I had a Cryoa, Rotdhizon, and Gazer which was enough to take out everything except the most expert optional dungeon.

[darint]

Re: auras, you forgot the thorny aura, but that's ok, since it is probably the most useless of them all.

[Delicious Vlish]

You can't get Rotdhizons.

 

All you can get are the worthless exploding Rots.

[Randomizer]

I'd rather have regeneration than use thorny aura since most of the area of effects aren't affected by it for retaliation. I did put a spine on one item for an individual character.

[Khoth]

What worked for me was a disposable creation policy up until I could get Wingbolts. At that point, I wasn't increasing my shaping skills any more (I already had the minimum required to shape the things, and why have more?), and Wingbolts work against almost everything, so there was no need to swap about, so I started keeping them, just increasing the number as my essence increased.

[Lyric]

are there any more charged creations?

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: Khoth

What worked for me was a disposable creation policy up until I could get Wingbolts. At that point, I wasn't increasing my shaping skills any more (I already had the minimum required to shape the things, and why have more?), and Wingbolts work against almost everything, so there was no need to swap about, so I started keeping them, just increasing the number as my essence increased.

So making a huge swarm of nothing but Wingbolts is still just as viable a strategy as it was in Geneforge 4? Good to know!

[Delicious Vlish]

Er, no. It really isn't that great of a strategy.

 

Mix it up a bit. A few wingbolts and a few war tralls. Maybe a cryodryak.

[Randomizer]

There are some places where a minor boss has a scripted area effect that will be really nasty versus one creation type so it helps to have different ones.

[Delicious Vlish]

Cryodryaks are probably the best creation for the endgame. Lots of monsters resist physical, way to many monsters resist magic or are near immune to it, and drakons aren't overly impressed by fire.

 

Cryodryaks and their ice breath damage almost everything. Always a good thing to have one or two in your pack if you can shape them.

 

War tralls started off as absolutely lousy, but were changed. Now, they resist just about everything, including cold damage, and do a fair bit of physical damage at range. I'm not overly impressed by the damage. It is good, even impressive at times, but the real purpose to a war trall is that they can get in the neighborhood of 1k hit points with little effort, and they are exceptionally sturdy and difficult to kill distractions. They don't need a baby sitter and can be depended on to hold the line. (In a bottle neck sort of situation)

[Slawbug]

When are there ever bottlenecks in Geneforge?

 

The problem with Cryodrayks is that their damage scales up more slowly than any other high essence creation. Drayks and Drakons will both do less damage to Drakons, it's true, but they will also take significantly less damage. Against a wingbolt, with no relevant resistances either way, the wingbolt will simply do more damage.

 

Also, shades and pylons are problems.

 

The real question for the all-magic shaping or all-fire shaping path is: are there any enemies that resist magic, but don't attack with it? And likewise for fire.

 

War Tralls resist fire and magic, and don't attack with either. But Drayks, Drakons, and Wingbolts all have physical resistance, so the only real loser in the matchup is the Gazer (which is excellent otherwise).

 

Eyebeasts resist magic heavily and attack with fire. This is a potential problem for wingbolts, and an easy win for fire shaping. On the other hand gazers resist magic, fire, and ice and attack with magic -- a problem for fire shaping.

 

Pylons resist fire, ice, and physical attacks heavily, and attack with magic. This is a shining moment for wingbolts and gazers, a problem for war tralls, and a sure loss for drayks and cryodrayks alike.

[Delicious Vlish]

War tralls resist everything now. Magic, fire, cold, and physical damage.

 

This is why I stated that a mix was good.

[Khoth]

I thought Eyebeasts used magic damage. Battles between them and my Wingbolt army usually took a long time. The only magic-resistant non-magic-attacker I remember coming across was a special Drakon.

[Slawbug]

You're thinking of Gazers. Eyebeasts basically attack with Aura of Flames.

[Lilith]

Unstable Firebolts are just as magic-resistant as Wingbolts and attack with fire, which makes them a nightmare for ordinary Wingbolts to deal with, but unless something has changed drastically since G4, they're also very rare.

 

One way to deal with Eyebeasts is to surround them and force them into melee. Their melee attack is annoying, but it's less murderous than their aura of flames.

[Delicious Vlish]

That's no longer true.

 

Eyebeasts and gazers can easily take a 200 or more hit point chomp right out of you, and stun you to boot. Or cause instant terror.

[Slawbug]

Yeah, the melee attack of Gazers and Eyebeasts has an insane multiplier and is magic-based. For Wingbolts, of course, this is probably still a better option.

 

Interesting thing about Unstable Firebolts in G5: according to the defs, they don't use Firebolt any more. They use Lightning Aura. They still have the bonus AP, so this makes them considerably more dangerous. (And still not good news for Wingbolts.)

[Dikiyoba]

I thought lightning aura was magic-based, though. Wouldn't that make firebolts less dangerous to wingbolts now?

 

Dikiyoba.

[Delicious Vlish]

Firebolt that does lingering lightning damage.

[Slawbug]

They may be less dangerous to wingbolts on the whole -- I'm not sure. However, note that Firebolt does 1-3 per level whereas Lightning Aura does 1-8 per level plus the ancillary effect. Taking wingbolt resistance into account that's an average of 4 per level per turn for firebolt and 1.8 per level per turn for the aura, plus aura damage. Whereas the wingbolt's attack against the unstable firebolt will do only 1.0 per level per turn.

[Khoth]

Except Wingbolts are better off meleeing magic-resistant enemies, so there's also the poison and the essence aura debuffs.

[Slawbug]

Actually, the Unstable Firebolts are also better off meleeing the wingbolts (I think -- depends on how much aura damage there is). Melee damage will be about 2.5 per level per turn for the wingbolts and 5.0 per level per turn for the firebolts, plus poison for each. Note also that wingbolts get a lower bonus on their melee attack. So they are not *that* much better off with melee.

[Khoth]

Really, in a situation like that it doesn't matter which way it goes. Neither side is taking damage fast, so the winner is the side that has a shaper casting healing spells at it.

[Locmaar]

Originally Posted By: Delicious Vlish

You can't get Rotdhizons.

All you can get are the worthless exploding Rots.

This is not so.

[Delicious Vlish]

What do you mean, this is not so?

[Locmaar]

The upgrade to your standard Rot is the Rotdhizon. I just made one.

[Delicious Vlish]

Strange, when I got to level 3 for rots, I was offered a charged rot.

 

Did something change?

[Lilith]

Presumably Jeff decided it was a good idea to get rid of charged creations because everybody hated them.

[Locmaar]

I never made a level 3 Rot until way into beta. Perhaps it was different before.

[The Lurker]

Originally Posted By: Thuryl

Presumably Jeff decided it was a good idea to get rid of charged creations because everybody hated them.

When playing a Shock Trooper in GF4, I found some of the charged/unstable creations to be somewhat useful. At times. Rarely . The problem with charged creations is that they just aren't much help in battles that you can't win in a few rounds.

[Lilith]

The other problem with charged creations is that they're too expensive for what they do. Even if they didn't have a limited lifetime, most would only be decent creations at best. Is a Charged Vlish really worth as much as three regular Vlish?

[Delicious Vlish]

So are charged vlish still in the game or is the beloved terror vlish returned?

 

I grew so disgusted with charged creations that I never even bothered with buying a second level of skills to reach the third tier, after a few initial tests.

[The Lurker]

Thuryl : The Unstable Firebolts were pretty much the only charged creations I found to be somewhat interesting. Heavy fire damage, AP boost. Fun to make, but only occasionally. Charged Vlish aren't that good. Charged Thahds... I believe I used them on one playthrough. Shock Tralls... What's the point of Charged War Tralls? War Tralls are mostly meat shields, and even then you're usually better off with Rots. So, yeah. Charged creations were an interesting idea, but they should have been more useful.

[Acky]

I really tried to find a good use for them, but I just couldn't. I always thought that if we could make them in combat like regular creations, just have them not die of loss of health but some sort of timer, and make them dirt cheap, then they'd be really usefull. But no point in wishing for that now I guess.....

[Slawbug]

Wait, he got rid of ALL the charged creations? Is this true?

 

Christ, will somebody with a completed game PLEASE post the list of creations and base essence costs already? Too many of them have changed. Randomizer, DV, I'm looking at you.

[Delicious Vlish]

I don't have a completed save file on hand... I want to know too!

[Acky]

I don't mean to nip pick, but useing "Christ" can anger some people, so it would be best not to use it.

[Delicious Vlish]

I don't mean to nit pick, but spelling errors can anger some people.

[Acky]

I don't mean to nit pick, but Vlish aren't Delicious.

[Delicious Vlish]

Darn right Skippy!

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: The Lurker

Thuryl : The Unstable Firebolts were pretty much the only charged creations I found to be somewhat interesting. Heavy fire damage, AP boost. Fun to make, but only occasionally. Charged Vlish aren't that good. Charged Thahds... I believe I used them on one playthrough. Shock Tralls... What's the point of Charged War Tralls? War Tralls are mostly meat shields, and even then you're usually better off with Rots. So, yeah. Charged creations were an interesting idea, but they should have been more useful.

Shock Tralls might actually be fairly good if they weren't charged, and also if War Tralls didn't suck in G4 in the first place. Their attacks seem to inflict a huge amount of stun, maybe even more than a submission turret.

[Slawbug]

Shock Tralls do exist in the G5 defs at least, and they look quite good there: with the War Trall's ranged attack (one of the better attacks in the game, and the best physical attack) and the bonus AP, they can potentially outdamage any other fresh creation.