Delicious Vlish

I'd like to see the Geneforge finale play out like Nethergate. Shapers on one side, Rebels on the other, and you could play as either side and get a different ending.

 

Playing as a servile I don't think will work very well in my own opinion. I mean, enemy shapers will just use their leadership skills on you to talk you out of whatever. That convincing aura of authority. I mean, we can play as shapers now and use it on the various serviles we meet... What would stop the shapers from using it on a servile player character? And what about shapers with Dicipline Wands? I mean, ever seen how much damage one of those wands does to a servile? Playing as a servile character, all of those elements would have to be convienantly forgotten because there just wouldn't be a good way to work it in the to the game. Servile player character picks up a dagger and some chiton armor in the starting area, and the first shaper you meet verbally dominates you with leadership, and go grab your rake and go back to the garden.

More regeants to make stuff like crystals, wands, etc. There is just not enough. You burn through stuff to fast.

You know, I find it odd that if I have the exact same level of Augmentation on both an Agent and a Guardian (Say, two points) the Agent seems to get more out of it. Other buffs as well. Is spellcraft effecting things like Steelskin and Essence Armor? I mean, I cast those and not only is there more noticeable effect, but they last longer too.

And so I don't double post...

All I want in G4 is the ability to use the Geneforge again.

With Augmentation, Steel Skin, various magical armors, etc, you get near physical immunity and become highly magic resistant, and can clear with 300 to 400 hit points with the right gear.

 

Why are you dying or why are you needing endurance? Are you running around with out buffing your self out with magical steroids?

 

Heck, at that point in the game my Agents tend to walk through minefields with out bothering to turn them off. They tickle!

 

Getting to that point though can be a bit tricky. People panic and think they must add to endurance to survive starting out.

Stepping back and counting to three allows your energy to fill back up, allowing you to unload some heavy firepower.

 

When I duck around a corner and wait for a turn, I go back in to combat with pretty much full energy on the next turn.

 

I'd like to think of it has "catching one's breath."

True that.

There are people who place points in endurance and shaping and suboptimal skills and then complain that the Agent is to weak or otherwise "sucks" somehow. Or a person has a complete and total lack of a concept called tactics. And no offense to anybody here, but hitting F to reset your turn is not tactics. That's exploitation.

I do agree that a Shaper should never get hit. It happens. You get ambushed,stuff happens, you wind up in fights in confined spaces, or you might have to run forward through a battle to turn off machinery like pylons. Daze is good insurance for those moments. There are also moments where battle takes places after conversation and the enemy is right up close to you. Daze allows you to gracefully exit said situation.

Thinking about it, the only way to "nerf" the Agent would be to make the other classes considerably more powerful. Allow the Guardian (type) class to hit multiple enemies in a single attack. Perhaps cranking melee skill would increase the chance of getting a hit on those standing in the immediate area around you. At higher levels of training, a good swipe with a sword would hit 5 or 6 foes around you, and then allow for quick action to allow for second hits or double damage or something, Also, allow the missile skill to allow for a chance to pierce with batons or thrown weapons. Also, batons are a lock and load type weapon. Heck, allow them to have 2 or 3 shots a round and give the Guardian even footing with the Agent in terms of damage output. A well made missile Guardian with piercing missiles could hold his own in terms of damage. And allow quick action to allow you to squeeze off an extra shot once and while.

If these types of changes were made to the Guardian, it would be worth it to ignore magic completely and just crank your melee skills out of the wazoo the same way an Agent does with magic skills.

Also, give the Guardian his own version of the Agent's spell craft. Some kind of skill that makes all of his attacks better and more damaging. He doesn't have that now, and the Agent does. A skill like... Anatomy. Or deadly blow. Critical hit. Something. The Guardian has no generic skill booster. The Shaper and the Agent both do with spellcraft.

Personally, I have never used the fight end trick. It's worthless for my play style.

 

The Agent is powerful enough to deal with anything with out having to resort to hitting F. The worst I do is leave a zone in combat mode if I have to.

 

Nerfing Daze would hurt other classes far more than it would hurt the Agent. With out Daze, fragile Shapers run the risk of something beelining past their wall of creations and taking them out.

The ANTI-AGENT ROOM.

 

Like SoT mentioned... A long hallway or a room. Walls fall away to reveal some serious nasties. Stunners. As the walls drop away, all of the doors close AND lock. I am not even sure I could figure out how to survive that.

 

Nowhere to run to baby... No where to hide.

The most advanced piece of equipment in the Agent's arsenal is perhaps her running shoes.

 

If you blast something and for whatever reason it just doesn't work, and it could potentially eat you as a snack, you run. Run like mad. Let it chase you. And you snipe it from a distance, ducking around a corner, blasting away, and then running away. Run and close a door.

 

The key to playing an Agent is to never present your self as a target. So even if one high powered enemy survived the initial assault, it would never survive the battle of attritition.

 

You don't just stand there like a dummy and let a powerful enemy take pot shots at you. You keep moving and pop off a shot when the chance presents it self.

 

Yet another reason why Agents, and to a lesser degree, missile guardians in G3 are so powerful. Exceptional applied damage at a range. You don't go toe to toe with something that is going to beat you up and steal your lunch money.

 

As for the invisibility spell, I have one better. Since we know that Agents can cloud the minds of their enemies, spells like daze short out the brain, how about blindness? Overload the optic nerves. The enemy would know you were there once they were blinded, but they could not see you, allowing you to scamper past. Although getting to close to an enemy would still probably allow them to take a swipe at you with a sword.

 

Or since there are weather effects, how about atmosphere effects? Smoke bombs. Poof!

Good points for the most part. The glass cannon approach and the infinite quick action deal would not be effective though. An Agent goes around in nothing but combat mode if you are smart, creeping forward a bit at a time. When you engage something in combat mode, so long as you have 5 AP left, it's your turn. So even something with 100 quick action wouldn't get the drop on a well played Agent.

 

I'd like to see an Infiltrator class. Stealth and mental magic out the wazoo. Daze, dominate, terror, stun, etc, as well as the standard unlock and such. But no battle magic available. Such a character would be a load of fun. The inability to wear armor. Physically fragile.

 

The counter to that would be a Servile Cultist type, with battle magic but little else.

Fewer hitpoints wont matter to an Agent. Adding even a single point to endurance is a waste in the first place. You can't hurt what you can't hit.

 

Making magic weaker might slow the Agent down a bit, but the problem is, if you nerf magic as a whole, the other classes suffer far worse from it than the Agent ever will. Guardian and Shaper types depend on what bit of magic they have to get by.

 

I was thinking that Shaper types on both sides of the war might even shape creatures designed to deal with Agents. Magic immunes. But then I realised that Agents are just as deadly with a sword as they are with spells. Magic immune swarms might slow them down a bit. Shades and undead types can pose some trouble, but not much, nothing more than an irritation.

Swarms of strong enemies are going to be the downfall of any melee types. Especially if G4s combat system borrows from AVIV. I just thought about that and shuddered.

 

You would have to cut through them one at a time, all the while they are wearing you down.

 

I predict much pain.

It's not the thread I was thinking of.

 

Somebody did a blow by blow accounting of skill points and costs to raise melee skills and total skill points spent. At something like level 10 or 11 melee skill or something like that, both the Agent and the Guardian start spending the same ammount of points to continue to increase the skill in question. In short, the Guardian's advantage for cheaper melee skills dries up to quickly to be truly effective. The Agent could "max out" to the effective cap on skills just as easily as a Guardian.

 

I can't remember the thread.

I forget the exact details, but it was hashed out in a thread a long time ago.

 

The Guardian starts off with better melee skills, but the Agent quickly catches up. I forget the exact details, but it comes down that they both start spending the same amount of skill points to upgrade their skills past a certain point, and the Guardian's advantage doesn't hold out for very long.

 

The difference is, the Agent spends far fewer points maxing out both her magic and her melee skills, and still has plenty of points for other things. The Guardian on the other hand, spends an obcene amount of points to accomplish the same thing.

 

Does anybody remember the thread I am talking about? Somebody good at math actually laid out the costs involved and explaied it far better than I could.

Edit.

Agents far outclass Guardians in melee. Their cranked blessing magic, various buffs like augmentation and steel skin, mass energise, strong daze, and all those factors allow them to rip enemies to shreds while being practically immune to physical or magical damage, moving at incredible speed, and stabbing things at a whim because everything around them is frozen solid from daze. While the melee skills cost a bit more, they level out quickly. The Agent's ability to buff themselves in to god-like stature far outshines anything a Guardian could muster.

Crap. Second edit. This should have been an edit of my first post, and not a quote. Argh. And I have no mod powers here to fix my dreadful mistake. Somebody please clean this up if they could.

Decreasing the power of the Agent is easier said than done. The Agent increases in power as the game gets harder and the enemies get tougher. She is only as strong as her enemies. Cranking the difficulty up to Torment actually makes the Agent easier to play. I don't know how to fix that. I mean, how do you tone that down?

 

Scale back her magical abilities and you only hurt the Shaper type class in the long run and their ability to support their creations with the occasional bit of fireworks. You really can't tone down her melee abilities. They are not a big deal to begin with. And shaping is a non issue. Her strength, magical ability, is held hostage by the Shaper class. You can't really tone back magical damage with out seriously compromising the Shaper.

 

I'd like to see a Servile Cultist type class and see how that goes.

I am not convinced nerfing Dominate is the answer. A smart Shaper uses it too, though it is not as effective. Nerf Dominate, and for other classes, it would be to weak to be useful.

 

It's the Agent as a class that needs, well, a spanking. With a nerf stick.

 

As for the point with swarms of many weaker enemies, they will all die horribly with but a gesture or two. Strong Daze followed by multiple chain castings of Aura of Flames. Or let go of an acid shower or two, charm one, and run away to hide round a corner. Come back a bit later and pick up loot.

 

The problem is very simple. The Agent is all power with no known liabilities. And I am afraid that the mage or agent type class in G4 will turn out the same. I certainly hope that this is not the case. I want something new and different. There is nothing that the Shaper or Guardian types can do that the Agent can't do better. An Agent doesn't even need to deplete her essence to summon creations. It is a waste of time. If summons are really needed, they can be Dominated. Agents are better at melee than the Guardian as well.

 

I'd like to see a big change in the pecking order of power for G4.

Aura of Flames is not enough. On Torment, you have to do something to hold the enemy back from you.

 

On Torment, enemies become so tough that they typically can not beat themselves. That 800 hit point augmented Sholai, instead of being your worst enemy, becomes your best friend after hijacking his mind. On lower difficulties, this effect is really not noticeable. Nor is it needed really. An Agent could sneeze and destroy entire legions on lower difficulties. But her power grows as the game difficulty climbs. The higher the difficulty, the more power an Agent type will have.

 

Stomp in to a room, Daze, Dominate, Terror, whatever works, scatter your enemies and thin them out, get them focused on each other, and they will completely ignore you, which allows you to cut loose with clouds of acid and flames in total safety. (One of the many reasons why Agent types need no endurance) On Torment level, high level enemies go through their own ranks and slaughter their former allies like pigs.

 

In short, the more dangerous the game becomes, the safer a properly built Agent will be.

Enemy swarms are part of what makes Agents so powerful.

 

Starting from G1, with the gate battle and all those augmented Sholai, the more enemies there are the easier it becomes. Charm one or two of those Sholai and the battle was pretty much over.

 

Same deal in G2 and G3. The more enemies present, the better the odds of total mayhem. Especially with spawner types.

 

If G4 has massive swarms, the Agent will continue to reign supreme on the battlefield. The more enemies there are, the more damage an Agent type will potentially be able to do. After all, the enemy is the best weapon an Agent has. They are expendable and cheap...

All of my Agents thus far can deal with swarms just fine and come away with nary a scratch.

I hate to say this, and I know I will be pelted with rotten fruit, but the Agent type characters in the Geneforge series needs to be toned down considerably. They have been up to this point walking talking nuclear bombs.

It would also be nice if Jeff could somehow script Loyalist Agents to behave like my Agents. If I was playing a rebel shaper type, I know for certain that I would dread running in to an enemy agent that follows my blue print. Charm, Terror, Daze, clouds of acid and fire. That would be terrible to run in to.

Heh. Mac users get G4 for Christmas. I guess the Windows folks will have to settle for a lump of coal in their stockings.

 

We shall eat candy canes and wage war. It shall be glorious.

I beg your pardon.

Is it possible for a Vlish to wet himself?

 

I think I just did.

 

Unleashing the true power of the shapers... Ur Vlish! It'll be the most powerful creation ever.

This whole thread makes my Vlishy squishy head hurt.

I always thought Move Mountains was kinda silly.

 

I mean, if you really wanted to get in to something, have your fighter crack the wall with a hammer and have your priest smash the cracked wall...

 

Some elements in these games make no sense.