Aoslare

Shanti is also, next to Erika, arguably the most broadly beloved character Jeff has created. I sincerely hope the remake does her justice.

The problem before was that most of the alternate creations just weren't very good. Cryoas were the only real standout, and even then regular Vlish were mostly better.

This is incorrect. The original version did have a generic "magic" element (which was also used for electric attacks). But ice and fire elemental attacks were 100% processed as magical attacks. This was hardcoded.

I mean, +5 is a big enough difference that you can probably make a guess about its presence after 10 trials. Just use a lower variance attack.

Looks like this is the result of some overzealous security features Apple added and, I guess, did not communicate well about. There are a few manual fixes offered here: https://iboysoft.com/news/app-is-damaged-and-cannot-be-opened.html

If there are any mistakes in the corrections, I'm sure somebody else will notice and post about them. But I have to assume they're better than no corrections at all, hahaha.

Agents were by far the most challenging class to play in OG1. Seriously, go back and remind yourself of all the limitations we've forgotten about: a sharply limited spell list (12 spells) that included no crowd control whatsoever, and no daze spell whatsoever; and an inventory sharply limited by Strength, an otherwise useless stat for a firebolt-slinging agent. Exploiting enemy AI limitations was something they were forced into -- not a bonus.

The mechanics behind creations and creation levels were so incredibly strong in G1-3 that Shapers blew every other class out of the water completely. This is definitely not something new in the remakes. In OG1, Agents didn't have most of their good spells yet, and while Guardians had good damage output, they completely lacked Parry, leaving them quite vulnerable -- especially since enemy melee damage was also very high (d8 vs later d4-5). Guardians were especially challenging to play on higher difficulty settings. In OG2, Guardians were very strong because Parry was borderline broken, but Shapers were still incredibly strong, and still put out more DPS than Guardians.

So much for that idea... The extra weird thing is that at least one boat has been left alone. I'd say "maybe data corruption" except you already did a full uninstall and reinstall. I'm stumped!

Hello and welcome! This happens if your total party level is higher than the Recommended Party Level set for the scenario. It can actually affect a few stats beyond HP, too. I don't remember exactly how much higher you have to be for it to trigger, but it does keep scaling up if you go dramatically higher.

This is an extremely isolated error (just 2 reports), but both reports _are_ from people using Steam on a Mac. Actually, I just found a 3rd instance, on Steam -- it was reported entirely in French, so a search for "boat" didn't bring it up. The other report on SW was also from a French user. That's quite a coincidence... Is there any chance you are also playing on a French-language OS? (or a non-English one, at least?)

Huh. If you start a new game and just go straight to Formello, are the boats all present? This at least will tell us if it's an issue with your entire copy of the game, or just your save file.

It's a head-scratcher. The one other thread where this came up, somebody else was able to resolve it by using "resetboats" with the original player's save file. More thoughts: 1. When you type "resetboats" into the shift-D box, does a message about boats then appear in the console? 2. Where were you when you used resetboats? The suggestion seems to be to go to the regular part of Formello (not the lower map where the Vahnatai boat appears) and use it there. (And not the world map either.)

Yeah, those are good points. I guess it really is less obvious in that regard!

I only see one thread with any mention of a Formello boat issue in A2CS here, and none on Steam. So I think "infamous" may not apply 🙂 (I assume you mean A2:CS, not A2.) Notes/questions: 1. "resetboats" is one word, no space. 2. are you on a mac? 3. did you ever download an A2CS demo? 4. have you tried opening the A2CS application manually, rather than letting Steam launch it?

Ah, here we see where the point of confusion is. Joining factions in Geneforge is completely separate from the reputation system. This is to say, although very extreme reputations might lock you out of extreme factions -- with a few exceptions, joining factions, and completing quests for factions you had already joined, had no impact on reputation whatsoever. This is to say, QW really does have the same reputation system as Geneforge -- what it doesn't have (or has a very different version of) is "Geneforge factions." Anyway: the reality is that reputation-changing questions, in dialogue, are almost always extremely obvious. It's true that you don't know the exact values in play -- is this a +3/+0, a +2/-2, a +0/+1, or does it actually not shift anything? But I'm also not sure what difference that makes, as a player; there's so many of them and they're all additive. (Unless you have a very specific powergaming goal that involves minmaxing through rewards that require both low and high reputations, but is there really anything that's worth the bother in this game?)

Yeah, if the issue affects other games too, then it's pretty clearly not a Geneforge issue. I'd go through your steam settings, especially the controller settings, very thoroughly. Probably something in their is interacting weirdly with your mouse.

This is flatly not true. Ironically, it may be that it was less obvious what impact your words were having than it is in this game

That's exceptionally weird! The fullscreen vs window thing suggests there could be a strange interaction happening with some background process. Things to try: 1. Try launching the game directly from Windows (i.e., not from Steam) with no Steam Overlay or anything else. If that fixes it, you know it's a Steam issue (potentially with their newish controller mapping options). 2. If you have multiple input devices connected (e.g., a controller on top of keyboard and mouse) see if disconnecting the extra ones helps. 3. If you have any kind of input modifier running (JoyToKey, AutoHotKey, built-in keymapping software on laptops, fancy mouse software, etc) try disabling that.

This reputation system has existed in every almost every Spiderweb game since 2001. I wouldn't expect a change.

Yes, although "created" could easily mean "by modifying another type of fungus" rather than "from scratch" -- so I don't think this conflicts with your interpretation. The clearest statement comes from Patrick in X2: "It is their magic that created the glowing fungus that gives us light, and thus life." While it's always possible he's wrong, nobody ever contradicts him, and I can't think of any character in the series better positioned to assess their origin, anyway.

Shaila definitely was not as powerful as the PC/Trajkov/Goettsch become in the G1 endings where they use the Geneforge.

Surprisingly enough, there are a few references in the early games -- even a sign in Formello (in E/A1) that reads "Sermons daily at sunrise" and lots of references to "morning" and "night," especially at inns. This doesn't seem to be ironic. Maybe the glowing fungus has a cycle? The vahnatai were the original creators the glowing fungus per se, but it seems likely that Erika modified it -- and there doesn't seem to be any dispute that Erika was responsible for creating cavewood trees (based on surface trees they teleported down), cave plants, and the new strains of mushrooms that kept Exile/Avernum fed up until A6. So she certainly was capable of modifying species. We only ever see one Vahnatai capable of that, so there's no real reason to think fungus shenanigans would require Vahnatai skills more than a once-in-a-generation talent for magery. I looked and it turns out this actually has come up on the forums previously (for example, here) -- "glowing fungus cycle" seems to be the most common place people end up.

Deep runestones are a different case from regular items, since they are an augment rather than a regular stat effect. IIRC the evasion value for the augment effect is always the same and it shows a static description for each augment, rather than generating text based on the evasion stat strength for the item. Assuming equipment itself (i.e., armor, not augments) shows the same evasion chances as in the FAQ linked above, it's probably a safe bet that the game still applies those chances as stated.

Using different creations, spells, or items is definitely one big chunk of your strategic options. Another big chunk, though, is controlling when and how you're going to be in battle in the first place. Ambushing vlish before they can call for help: that is a strategy! Picking off enemies one at a time: strategy. Positioning your characters so the vulnerable ones don't die immediately: strategy. It sounds like you don't enjoy those, which is fine, but that's a limitation you're placing on the game, not the other way around. (Kind of like how not playing G1 was a limitation you used to place on your ability to discuss Geneforge ) As for the G4 geneforge, this is covered extensively in-game: it's not the same version of a geneforge, and the associated augmenting is different. Also, the fact that a bunch of Augmented Sholai were hard for your low-levelled Shaper trainee (isolated and alone) doesn't really say much about how tough they'd be for experienced Shapers, with newer technology (hi wingbolts) and full support, to take down.