Steel Angel

I do like most of the changes. And I can understand the reasoning for all of them. No exp for killing things is going to be a big adjustment though. It's very different from the vast majority of RPGs out there (and the others that do it tend to allow purely stealth or diplomatic approaches to finish quests) which could be an issue for new customers. I worry a bit because some past Spiderweb games have sometimes spiked in difficulty if one chose poorly during character setup and sometimes killing things for exp was a way to compensate but that should hopefully not be a big deal if the words on balance are true. Dungeons in one go I understand but I have some fond memories of taking newbie parties into the Slime Pit in Exile 3 and often needing multiple trips so I measured success by seeing if I could blow up one of the slime pools before needing to retreat. I also generally like the picture of a small group of adventures winning against a static defense by doing raids that hit critical targets even if they can't always plow through everything at once. But this goes back to the idea of having objectives be the focal point. Killing two wolves and retreating may not make a dent in a bandit fort but killing the animal tamer and their assistants and retreating could. And you get a little dopamine hit even if you can't manage the big one. Not finding the best loot in dungeons will also be a change. I liked seeing the various bonuses items had and thinking about whether they were worth swapping out my existing bonuses. But on the other hand not feeling like actually buying things in stores is a trap is a huge thing (admittedly it was less of a trap in the games with random encounters that could drop money). I love the other changes though. Easy respecs is a big thing for a lot of players who don't naturally figure out worthwhile builds despite years of gaming experience and for just generally being able to try a different approach when one hits a wall. Fewer but recharging consumables cuts down on the "But I might need it later!" mentality that turns so many RPG players into a future subject of reality shows about hoarders. No more junk items gets rid of the fiddly start of new games where I became an obsessive kleptomaniac to fund my adventures by stealing every bit of incense, paper, metal bars, etc from people I'm supposedly helping out. And I'm less likely to miss doing that now that I don't have to save up money to buy skill boosts from trainers so that I don't waste an opportunity to strengthen my characters by sinking points or coming across a book or whatever that boosts a skill in a dungeon before I bought training for two ranks in a skill first. That one's driven me nuts for a long time now. I've played Spiderweb's games from back when Exile 1 was new but a lot of those fiddly things had become a turnoff for me over the years to the point where I often had to have caveats when I recommended games to others and there's a lot more competition amongst games at these price points now and in the indie RPG sphere. I look forward to seeing how some of these changes shake out.

I've started to read the dialogue of the two characters in the appropriate voices. It's not exactly a 1:1 fit but it does add something to the experience.

I start the game not wanting to get out of bed which I imagine could be caused by a hangover. My mother is in charge, doesn't trust me, but still makes me go into the field on a dangerous mission. I have a butler named WoodStonehouse. I can't always remember npcs I should be familiar with from my character's past. I'm actually a capable field agent but will almost assuredly screw something up diplomatically. I'm going to be very disappointed if I can't go into rambling dialogue about information that is true but not relevant to the danger at hand or I don't come back to base once and find that Stonehouse has gone off on a skribbane fueled sabbatical for a few weeks.

Originally Posted By: Llothis Basically I played demos of exile 1/2 when I was a kid, and highly enjoyed them. So I see what seems to be a remake of it on steam but from the trailer it looks much different.(only 4 characters to start.) I see that the plot is the same but how similar is the gameplay and leveling system? The gameplay and leveling have changed a lot. While the core of it remains the same, lots of things change the formula. I'd recommend giving the demo a whirl before deciding on a purchase. Many of the differences will be welcome but some may be headache inducing if you're not familiar with Jeff's more recent work.

There are two things I've been wondering about. First, do buffs that boost damage (essence blade, war blessing) affect spell damage or do they just help you stab things repeatedly? Second, I've noticed, sometimes posthumously, that the AP bonus from the Assassin's Boots only kick in part of the time. Is there something that causes them to kick in or slack off?

First off, yay! Second, I'm hoping that the buff overhaul will include not making most of the things expire so quickly. I hated having to spend my time in a zone constantly in combat mode to prevent bless, shield, and haste from fading. It was less of a pain than to constantly recast the things, but still a pain. Something like having each buff take up a chunk of spell energy the same way creations lock down essence or limiting how many buffs you could cast on a target based on intelligence or some other stat while making them last for the whole zone would have been much nicer. The game play should be about which buffs you choose to use, not whether you refreshed your buff for the 5th time before combat starts again.

Quote: Originally written by Dikiyoba: If we're talking Windows, then the saved games and registration settings are located in My Documents instead of with the rest of the files, I think to make it run better on Vista. Well, that would explain why the "saved game" folders don't hold any data. Guess I'll just try another class when I decide to start over again.

Did something big change between G3 and G4 in how the programs store data? I ask because not too long ago, my primary hard drive containing my OS failed and required replacement while the drive containing all my games was fine. Earlier when I loaded up G4, I found that my copy was no longer registered AND my saved games appear to be missing as well. All of the directories in the relevant subfolders just have a file called "temp" in them. G3 (earlier Geneforges are on another machine) is still intact in terms of registration and saved games.

I can sympathize with the Trakovites, but that's about it. There might be revelations later in the game that prove me wrong, but I doubt you can put the genie back in the bottle. All it took was one apprentice coming across Sucia Island to undo the attempt to bury the Geneforge and the canisters after all. Having a philosophy that can easily be undone by a young lad or lass wandering the ruins of the world searching for that next point of experience seems like a poor way to try to remake society. I've traditionally sided with the Shapers in G1-3 (including the unaligned rather than Loyalist approach in G2) albeit with Khyrkk like viewpoints (ie, don't screw up the world but don't be a jerk either) but in G4 it's been harder to really choose a side. Perhaps it's because many of the early chances to help the Shapers don't really give you a motivation as to why you would betray the Rebellion outside of bettering your standing with the Shapers. Usually when I have so far, it's because the Shapers ask me to help someone who the Rebels want to just kill or it's a servile that likes the Shapers and wants to return to them. I'll see how things stand further on in the game, but given the lack of real sympathy for either side up to the Fens, the "I intend to find out who has the most treasure, kill them, take it, and repeat the process," approach seems to be the most appealing. If everyone's crazy, I might as well just stab them until loot comes out.

Quote: Originally written by Nioca: Is there anyway to actually kill it, though? I seem to recall it poofing upon Shaftoe's death and the guardian was squishier than the golem. However, in my case Shaftoe was almost dead by the time he summoned the golem so he might have had other tricks I didn't see. A servile plus two cannon fodder drakes can be quite nasty.

Guess it's time to pump . . . the artila up then. Thanks for the info.

So, does strength still govern damage and hit rate of both melee and ranged attacks for creations like in previous games or has that been finally altered?

Quote: Originally written by Retlaw May: Killing children is a taboo in RPG's as everyone says. Though I don't get why it is so horrible compared to me running rampant through Mertis in the end of Avernum 1 and killing everything including the pregnant lady since all attack you for some reason instead of running away when you are killing people by the dozens in each turn with no effort. There are also games like Neverwinter Nights which has children, but attacking them deals no damage. One reason it's so horrible because there are laws against it in some countries. The Fallout 2 example came about because some countries (Germany comes to mine) have laws that specifically prohibit violence against children in their media. So if you're a commercial RPG maker that wants to translate the game into German to sell copies there, it's easier to just not have any children in the first place than to make localization teams strip out or replace children with other characters and have everything still work (Fallout 2's removal of children led to some bugs and wackiness) if the player has the ability to go on murderous rampages.

Quote: Originally written by Elijah: Through Learned Darian. I still don't get why Darian can hang around in a cave infested by powerful rogue creations, and not get killed. My Agent killed her in one hit. Learned Darian is old and decrepit by now and as we know, old people smell like unpleasant hospital corridors. My theory is that the rogues either just don't want to eat that or are afraid since Darian's scent reminds them of the vet's office.

Okay, I know from reading various posts the the attack strength of creations is solely boosted by strength, whether it's a ranged or melee attack. What I'm not clear about is whether accuracy plays by the same rules or if dexterity comes into play here.

Quote: The only situation in which the gaurdian rules the roost is the boss battle in which you can't escape, as this makes the agent's low health hazardous and its hit and run tactics useless, and the shaper's pets start dropping like flies. This situation doesn't occur much.[/QB] That no longer poses a danger to Agents. Augmentation, Essence Armor, Steelskin, and Protection take the sting out of an Agent's typically low health. At the end of GF3, my no canister (melee) Agent had around 400 hp fully buffed and could have had more but I ditched some items like the Symbiotic Cloak and Gloves of the Rock for more offensively oriented items since I just didn't need the Endurance. The real danger to them is enemies with slowing effects IMO. As others have mentioned, there seems to be no way to resist slowing effects and having your haste spell reduced to nothing stings when you have no creation back up. Even then, I think it's more of an annoyance than a danger as long as you don't just sit there on turns you can't fight.

Quote: Originally written by Spidweb: I think that the dialogue option choices worked reasonably well, but I have removed them entirely from Geneforge 4. Now everything faction-wise is determined by what quests you decide to complete or how you complete them. It worked for KOTOR, it can work here with good implementation. With the dialogue options, there was also the option of not saying anything at all and ending the conversation, which I did quite a bit. It was a little annoying, but it did serve my purposes when I wasn't in the mood to polarize people.

Quote: Originally written by Randomizer: [QB]Either way the Awakened do well Spoilers . . . . / / / / / / / / Unless you personally pay a "visit" to their leaders . . . then the ones you kill are considered lucky during the war.

As Miya has alluded to, there's more than one way to use magic with a class. My agents use far more mental magic for crowd control than battle magic for just hurting things. If I'm going to go through that much trouble for an oozing blade, I'm going to use it dammit.

The unaligned ending doesn't have someone telling you that it's time to report back, so chances are that Bookworm jumped off a bit too early. The agent in the loyalist encampment gives some hints about what to do, but doesn't spell it out for you. Going above and beyond that makes for a happier ending (and more satisfying if you reached the conclusion that the island is populated by nutjobs).

It also depends what ending you're going for. The Barazhites are perfectly fine with you being a walking/oozing monstrosity blasphemous to every law of nature. The Awakened have plenty of their own abominations of knowledge, hunger for power, and lack of self-control as well. The Loyalists are bit more touchy about that kind of thing

I'm pretty sure one of the games mentioned that shapers have some of the liquid essence injected into them, or otherwise introduced into their system. I also figure that when you level up and/or boost your intelligence that you learn how to get more out of that essence as opposed to finding more to inject yourself with. Doesn't explain how non-shapers are casting some of those spells that you have to burn essence for of course but outsider magic is one of those things that hasn't really been elaborated on (/end thinly veiled suggestion for a facet of the game world to explore in future games).

Quote: While I am a huge fan of Planescape: Torment, I feel that Baldur's Gate II is one of the all-time great RPGs. I felt just as caught up in the story, but there was more game there. Torment was beautifully written, but I spent a lot of time going, "Oh, will you shut up? I want to hit something!" IMO, Torment had a much more interesting setting and more interesting characters (I almost cried when you had flashbacks of how much pain you put Morte through while he was telling you how he was going to stick with you no matter what), but BG2 had one of the best villains ever. Irenicus didn't just sit in his strongholds and wait for you to come, he taunted you, manipulated you, worked to increase his power while you chased him, had wonderfully condescending dialogue, and just made me think to myself "Okay, this guy just NEEDS to die by my hand." He was a wonderful focal point for the player. Even the huge side quests still indirectly dealt with him since they were a means for the player to amass the funds needed to get to his hideout. Being both too distant to directly strike but still able to taunt and talk to you in the same way a person might do to an annoying dog or child made for an entertainingly infuriating antagonist.

Interesting information and discussion to say the least. As someone that originally tried to play Guardians but wound up playing Agents, I feel I should chime in on that bit of discussion. As others said, Guardians seem to have big problems when they get swarmed since melee combat is so damn deadly. I did go through a fair amount of the game as Guardian in GF3 (before getting distracted from that game for a long time and not remembering what I had done) and found it far more survivable than my memories of GF1, but all it would take is one bad step into a group of baddies before I started having critter hack off 1/3 of my health at a time while being too stunned to attack and heal. In contrast, an Agent has powerful crowd control spells at her disposal that can be used to prevent multiple attacks on the character, not to mention making sure an enemy with a strong ranged attack doesn't get to use it before closing to melee range. Both Guardians and Agents lack the ability to walk around with a huge army like a Shaper so crowd control makes a huge difference when enemies in melee combat hurt so much. And because monster melee attacks are so lethal, as others have said, simply removing that CC ability from agents would make other classes frustratingly annoying to play. I suspect the way I've played my agents is different from what others have done, but still proves extremely powerful just because of the crowd control. I didn't switch over to Agents for their better magic skills so much as them not being total wusses in combat. I basically just buff myself, find monsters, use mental spells to CC them, then pick one and start stabbing it. It doesn't use all of an Agent's abilities by a long shot, but the crowd control is just that powerful and often needed for non-Shapers.