Aoslare

Zora and the Abandoned Thahd are hardcoded to leave the party if you bring them into any zone past the Secret Tunnel.  This isn't something that happens in the scripts, so there's no way to disable it.

I think we agree on most points, but I emphatically disagree on a lot of details, and those are driving the evaluation of "advantage" on one side of the other.

 

6 minutes ago, Displayed Name said:

General skills are lower than what players usually have for more points. They are equal on both sides, so it doesn't matter.

It does matter, because if there were more or fewer leftover points, those would not be used equally efficiently by both classes, since they would not be going into skills that cost the same for each class.

 

7 minutes ago, Displayed Name said:

Group Heal is just 2 points of HC, which are free. Regen and Heal are just too inconsequential in a hard fight. So, it is either 2 or 5.

Yes, and Mass Restore is not an inconsequential ability if you're running a full team of creations.  And if you go for 5, things tilt heavily away from the Agent.

 

8 minutes ago, Displayed Name said:

The only way for PC to meaningfully scale past critical threshold is more action, hence the SC lvs.

For the PC's personal damage, yes.  The PC's personal damage is not the best use of skill points in a creation-team build.  Increasing the PC's average actions per turn by roughly +0.02 (after math with haste, gloves, other sources) is not better than working towards an extra level on all creations, with all the things that come with that.

 

8 minutes ago, Displayed Name said:

There are 5 points of free EM, remember? It doesn't require that much for Drayks. 28 EP per lv for a team of 7. 6 EM for 5 lvs with spare.

This is true, but those points are almost all endgame points.  This might be optimal for level 23 with all quests completed, but for the first 75% of the game when your level is lower and you haven't gotten to any of those quests, some extra points in EM are a good deal.  It's a trade-off, but so is everything.

A pretty image which needs to be debunked.  The only way you got this was by requiring a Spellcraft of 8, which isn't a threshold for anything and is not a sensible investment if you're focused on the creations.  There are also multiple sources of Spellcraft from quests (Sharon), charms (+3!), and equipment (gloves of spell mastery, obvious pick).  You've also left the Agent with zero points in Healing Craft, which is a pretty massive omission if you're trying to support creations.  You didn't just sacrifice Mass Restore, you even sacrificed Group Heal.  How the heck is that worth a point or two of Spellcraft?

 

You've also left Leadership at 5 for some reason, which is an odd choice.  6 would be the typical endgame level (giving you 10 with both Leadership items), or maybe 4 if you're sacrificing the Leadership 10 goodies.  5 doesn't make much sense.

 

EDIT: Also, why the heck does the Shaper have a point in Melee Weapons?  What requires melee skill of 2 (there's a canister) that a Shaper really cares about to the tune of 4 skill points?

 

In other words: this is very clearly not a natural or strategic setup, it's one you've manufactured to try and support this position.

 

7 hours ago, Displayed Name said:

It is more economical to stat leveling tier 3 creations than more shaping skills around this point.

This is true, BUT (1) that only covers ~2 levels, since you run out of favorable creation stat augments quickly, and (2) that would require pumping Essence Mastery a lot more than you have.  (And that does still cost the Agent more -- 1 extra skill point per 2 points in Essence Mastery, due to starting 1 lower, even after you've trained the Agent once to make up for it.)

But that's just not a thing.  Maybe you want the classes to be more distinct than they are -- which is understandable.  I wouldn't mind that either.  But that's not what Geneforge was ever about.  Avadon is the only Spiderweb series that's ever embraced having different abilities for different characters.  Exile/Avernum and Nethergate didn't even have classes at all, and they are still great games.

 

It might be helpful to think of shaper/guardian/agent less as "classes" and more as "perks" or "paths" or "emphases."  And they do function for those.

 

1 hour ago, Jawaj said:

If anything magic is more of a pass/fail binary than creations, because buffs don't give you that much extra beyond the minimum spell level (I am not sure about debuffs).

 

Debuffs are the same.  Both buffs and debuffs only give you duration increases for added skill.  Those are percentile increases, so they aren't typically that huge.

 

Here's a cheat to help you.

 

Type shift-D and in the box that appears enter "sdf 38 15 2" and hit return.

 

You can then go to Shandoka and tell the Emissary you captured the Bound One's essence.

Is viable not the standard most players use for investing in magic, in the same way as for shaping?  I don't understand what's supposed to make that different.

 

But if you evaluate the game balance based on a standard of "pass/fail" for X, but "full letter grades" for Y?  Of course that's going to favor the class that is better with Y.  That's not a game balance issue with the game, that's an experimental design issue with your evaluation procedure.

 

This magic vs shaping balance has existed for 3 years, btw -- it was identical in Mutagen.

Hold those horses.  That's not really true.  There are some ways in which the Agent is numerically superior, and other ways in which she is not; but there are some frankly silly comparisons being made here.

 

8 hours ago, Displayed Name said:

Yes, leveling Shaping skills is costly. But it isn't forbidden. It is possible to have end game viable shaping skills and much better spell scaling than Shaper as Agent.

 

Shaping skills are the main thing a creation-centric build wants to pump.  An Agent who goes seriously for a shaping build will spend more extra points in shaping skills than they save in spells.  But even in the text above, look at the false equivalency: "viable shaping skills" versus "much better spell scaling."  This is pretty silly, considering that extra levels on creations have a more than linear impact on their effectiveness, whereas support spells have zero meaningful scaling to begin with.  Yes, you could scale damage spells more effectively, but if you're fielding an entire team of creations, any extra points going towards your personal DPS are going to be a weaker contribution than boosting creation DPS.

 

If you want to run a creation-centric team, Shapers are the best class.  Full stop.  You could do it with an Agent and it wouldn't be crazy, but the Agent won't be better.

 

Also, the game has been out over a month, and it had many months of beta testing.  It's been analyzed upwards and downwards.  Everything isn't perfectly balanced, of course not.  But one forum post is not a reason to jump to extreme conclusions like this.

There are a decent number of quests (and a lot of conversations) that can be resolved in more than one way.  If you resolve them one way... you generally can't resolve them the other way.  You can always save and reload to see multiple resolutions, but generally you just have to pick one to move forward with, regardless of whether Leadership (or anything else) is a requirement.

The Purifying Blade is really strong, and it is available extremely early.  However, its strength lies entirely in its bonus quantity of damage dice being high (it reaches up to +27). You also get a base of 2 dice plus 1 die per XP level.  The attack uses d5s.

 

Reaper Batons get a base of +14 damage dice.  Same base dice.  And the attack uses d6s.

 

So if we compare possible damage (before other bonuses):

Very early - level 7, 1 canister: Blade = 18 x 3 + 2 = 56

Very early - level 7, 1 canister: Baton = 23 x 3.5 + 8= 88

Rushing canisters - level 11, 10 canisters: Blade = 40 x 3 + 2 = 122

Rushing canisters - level 11, 10 canisters: Baton = 27 x 3.5 + 8 = 102

Higher level - level 20, 10 canisters: Blade = 49 x 3 + 2 = 149

Higher level - level 20, 10 canisters: Baton = 36 x 3.5 + 8 = 134

 

The Purifying Blade does more damage for most of the game, but by endgame this probably isn't enough to justify a lost early attack due to having to close to melee.  If Reapers were plentiful, melee might look bad.

 

This does, however, point to Randomizer's observation about the missile issue being not having enough ammo.  Every other missile weapon uses d4s (or worse), at which point you're doing roughly 2/3 the damage of the Purifying Blade.

 

However -- there are certainly enough reaper batons and thorns to use as much as needed on all the bosses and minibosses.  You'll often be happier with the AoE from spray anyway.  So as long as the Vampiric Lance is enough for generic mobs, there's no real missile issue... possibly an annoyance, but against generic mobs with shorter fights, losing an attack due to needing to close to melee is also kinda worse.

Bug found (mod bug, not base game bug) - Purifying Blade was still gaining 2 levels at a time (like in the base game) instead of 1.  Fixed in Overrun v1.02 (out shortly after base game v1.02 is out).

Damage dice were also different in OG.  OG1 and OG2 had much larger melee damage dice.  From OG3 on they were brought down from mostly d8 to d4 and d5.

 

26 minutes ago, Displayed Name said:

"My melee guardian rolled over Torment."

Yes, focusing melee on PC is viable. Torment is lenient enough as is. It is just worse than other options.

 

This, this, this.  Except replace "melee guardian" with all the other things people say this about.

It doesn't get mentioned in five games and would create gaping plot holes if it were a thing.  You could just as well say "hey maybe shapers can fly."  The games never say they can't!

Shaping a creation into existence from scratch is not the same thing as shaping an existing creation to augment or alter or heal it.

 

Also... humans aren't creations.

 

There is zero in the games to suggest they could do this, and it would be a gaping plot hole if they could.  Every other shaper rule gets broken over the course of the series.  This is just not a thing.

 

4 hours ago, earanhart said:

Push has a really good stun rate on it.

No, it doesn't.  Push has exactly the same stun rate as Airshock or any other attack.

 

Abilities do not have different rates of landing status effects.  If the attack hits, and the status isn't resisted (which is just a resistance % check), it lands.  (This is why Delirium applies Daze twice -- this effectively gives you 2 chances to land it, because this is the only way the engine actually has to make an ability more likely to land a status.)  (Well, I guess there are also abilities which have a chance of not even attempting to land the status, as happens with e.g. the Cockatrice AoE statuses, but I don't think this applies to any of the PC's stunning abilities.)

 

And late game bosses... heck, even most early game bosses basically all have very high Stun resist.  They also take multiple turns per round so applying 1 turn of Stun is only a fraction as effective as it sounds like.

Yup, those have switched to Fire Shaping ( = All Shaping ), you got it.

It's not 1:1.  As the in-game text says, and as stated above in this thread, it's -1 Health (not Endurance) for the first canister, -2 for the second, etc., capping at -6 for canisters 6 and beyond.

 

Endurance:

Increases Health by (5 + Level/2) per pt

Before class multiplier: 1.5 (Guardian) or 1.3 (Agent) or 1.0 (Shaper)

 

This means that at endgame, let's say level 20, one point of Endurance is worth 2.5 canisters for a Shaper, 3 for an Agent, or nearly 4 for a Guardian.  (And that's after the first 5 canisters, which are even cheaper.)

Update on Randomizer's bug report: apparently, the Mac version of Infestation uses smaller string variables than the PC version, for some reason.  This is unfortunate.  What this means:

 

- PC users - there is no issue for you.

- Mac users - for now, just don't pick up the book in the Magus Complex library that is called "Wild Adventure" in the base game.  It's not a quest item, all it does it get sold for 17 coins, so you can just ignore it.  I've checked and this issue should not affect anything else in the game.  I will adjust the text in v1.02 when that comes out.

3 hours ago, Hyperion703 said:

Both Daze and Wrack lasted one or two turns before it wore off regardless of my MM skill level.

 

Mental Magic only raises their durations by 8% (on average), which you're not going to notice when the base duration is a small number like 2 or 3.  Raising your skill level in that specific spell raises their durations by 25% (on average).

 

However, you complained right after this that fights only lasted a couple turns, so one or two turns of the effect should be plenty?

 

3 hours ago, Hyperion703 said:

It felt unnecessary; spending one turn’s actions so I could roll the debuff dice each turn did not seem particularly worthwhile if the fight only lasted a couple turns.

 

Some fights definitely last longer on higher difficulty, so this may be where not every spell is going to be relevant to every play experience.

 

3 hours ago, Hyperion703 said:

No cure for burning love? Really? Essence Shield was crucial here, as I never found another way to avoid the life loss. Maybe the Healing skills suite could include a solution when someone tries to turn you into a walking campfire.

 

Why does there have to be a solution that involves curing it?  If every debuff is just something you remove by using ability X, that reduces the variety in the game.  It reduces the variety of strategies you might use in response to different enemies and what they throw at you.  Having debuffs that can't be cured and where you instead have to mitigate the effects is a great thing, IMO.

  

3 hours ago, Hyperion703 said:

The missed opportunity to include a robust system for item crafting is truly perplexing. All these unusable Fine Mined Crystals and gemstones. All these unused Enchanted Anvils. It’s so clear and obvious that I’m half wondering if this element of the game was originally intended, but left out for time or budgetary reasons.

 

No.  The gemstones are a major cash source, and the fine mined crystals do in fact have multiple crafting applications.  (They aren't exciting ones, but they exist.)

 

This is one of those RPG elements that some people really love and a lot of other people don't care about.  There's a long list of elements like that.  Not every game is going to have all of them, and the fewer people involved in a game's creation, the fewer are going to be there, because they take some time to create.

 

3 hours ago, Hyperion703 said:

Haste does not stack with Quick Action. Sadness. Even though some enemies get three actions per turn, your flexes will rarely be as hard. I *think* I recall haste stacking with Spell Mastery, like once or twice. Not sure.

 

This is incorrect.  But, there is a nuance that the tooltips don't explain, which is relevant here.

 

Haste and Quick Action (and other skills with that effect) do stack.  They increase the chance that you get the reduced AP consumption effect.

 

However, the "Hasted!" or "Quick Action!" effect that reduces your AP consumption can only trigger once per turn, no matter how many possible sources of it you have, or how many actions you take.

 

Also, the "Quick Action" skill itself doesn't trigger off spells.  Spellcraft does that.  (This bit is in the tooltips.)

 

The Gloves of Spell Mastery effect is unique (it's actually hardcoded) and seems to have no effect on Haste/QA whatsoever.  It can also apparently trigger multiple times per turn.

 

3 hours ago, Hyperion703 said:

Otherwise, Quicklash is six essence worth of pointless if you have high enough Haste or QA. I’m sure this can be explained.

 

Quicklash is overpriced in essence IMO, but it is not "pointless" just because you have some Haste/QA.  Quicklash guarantees you get a second cast.  Haste/Spellcraft cannot be raised high enough to actually guarantee that.  So if it's crucial, the spell can really make a difference.

 

 

3 hours ago, Hyperion703 said:

Lastly, it’s kind of rough that there are so many duplicated “unique” magic items

 

Actually, I feel like there are fewer duplications than we often see in games (especially compared to games with random magic item drops).  Per nlambert's index, I count 88 magic items that are completely unique, and 46 that are duplicated.  (This excludes listed items which are obviously generic, like Shaped Boots, but it does include items whose status as magical is ambiguous, like Swamp Boots.)

@Randomizer

 

I downloaded your save, plugged it in, and loaded it up.  I don't get crashes hitting get item, hovering over the book, or picking up the book.  Or doing anything else.

 

Whatever is going on is specific to your installation, somehow.  My only other thought is to reinstall G2 entirely -- if you had file corruption on the mod previously, maybe you have file corruption in some other component of G2 unrelated to the mod?

That's not really parallel to the wandering-journeyman thing.  That would be like the apprentice going and finding a different master to apprentice under for the second part of their apprenticeship.

3 hours ago, Randomizer said:

I'm using Overrun v101 on the v101 game version. I had some problems installing it since the first time I downloaded it, the files got corrupted.

 

Then I'm guessing your files got corrupted again.  It should take 30 seconds to redownload and reinstall, can you try that?

Weird.  That doesn't happen for me at all.  And the only difference from the base game item is text changes.

 

Are you by any chance using an updated version of the beta testing app?  I'm wondering if that has any difference from the release version.

@Randomizer

I can't duplicate this, and double-checking the relevant files, I can't find anything wrong.  Is there any message in the console before it crashes?  If not, can you send me the save where this happens?

 

Also, is this a fresh game begun with the mod installed, or is this an old save loaded with the mod?

 

EDIT: Also, if you're actually seeing "Wild Adventures" with that text then let me know -- if so, something has gone wrong with your files, because that's not possible with the mod installed.

Sorkin isn't in Pentil, he's in Pentil East.

For Jaffee, I think you might need to learn the Sholai language exists first.

See below for Masha's location.

 

From the Mutagen index linked in Strategy Central:

 

Sholai language lessons:
From Learned Jaffee in Pentil. Obeyers only.
From Sorkin in Pentil East. Awakened only.
A tome above the Stairs in Kazg. Included if you learn it from Toivo. 2,54.
From Toivo in Kazg. Counts double, but contains the information in the tower. Takers only.
From Masha in the Refugee Cave, or a case to the west. Complete "Recover Sea Chest Key" first. Counts double.
A tome in the northwest building of the Patrolled Dell. Get one from another source first. 15,5.
From Znaf in the Winding Road for 500/1000 coins. Leadership 1, and cheaper with 3.
From Gavrila in Crossroads. Not available if you have the Trajkov Amulet.
In a tome south of the center of the Research Quarters. 21,22 and 32,35.

On Veteran and Torment only.

 

The reduction is also fairly tiny.  The goal there was just to create somekind of trade-off so that there's actually a reason to think "is this canister worth using?" rather than blindly using all of them.