TriRodent

3 hours ago, alhoon said:

For those that say that playing as a Shaper is too easy... there's always the veteran and torment difficulty.

Who says I'm not (veteran) : - P (old school, none of this enforced smilie faces for me...)

/of course I do have the benefit of this being my fourth full run through the game & know where not to take my gang at first...

Yeah, it's been around a while & in all my decades of playing/replaying SW games I've never seen it.  So if you haven't run into it, don't stress out about it as you, probably, won't see it.

That said, you've got 20 (?ish) save slots, use them.  Every time I enter a new zone I safe immediately with the name of that zone, and then use quick save throughout the zone (or if there's a major decision point, save again).  Worst case I have to restart the zone.  By the time you have used up all the slots, you're far enough into the game that it's no big deal to overwrite the earlier ones as you probably wouldn't want to replay all those hours anyway (or if you're 'really' worried, you can always go to the SW folder in 'Documents' (Windows anyway) & copy all those save files somewhere & label them as 'early game' or 1st 20 or some such coding system.  And then 5 years from now you'll be cleaning up files/folders & wonder just why you did that way back when ... but I digress...)

Honestly, in most mine fields I tend to just walk up next to them (even the big ones...one at a time) & then heal if needed.  Most seem to only do at most a couple dozen points in damage & I can deal with that (provided there's no wandering critters about to put me into a fight).  If you have creations, combat works best to keep them shielded/away from the blast area.  Or if they get killed, go back to town and make some more (as apparently it's morally 'correct' to think of your companions in this game as disposable...).

Once you get it, Essence Shield works great at absorbing a lot of damage (not just mines but there too).  Cast it on yourself, walk into the mines, heal if needed, recast ES, & keep on plowing through.  Go back to town after to recharge yourself (as there is no day counter/time limitations...why not game the game).

And Nicolai, welcome.  Over near the front door is a box to place your sanity in.  Don't worry, once you hang out with us reprobates for a while you'll see that sanity is a handicap rather than a benefit around here...

I have a confession to make.  Throughout all the six versions/chapters this is the first time I have 'ever' played as a Shaper.  Just never wanted to because of similar mental reservations.  Generally I'd play as an Agent who would 'very' rarely shape a meat shield for some really tough fight.  Even when beta testing, the first two run throughs were as an Agent (love the 'didn't bother to create anything' medal - earned it both times (different difficulty levels), third as a Guardian, and finally this last one as a Shaper.

First thought as a Shaper... "Holy crap this is easy... maybe I should have done this before"

Anyway, we now return you to your regularly scheduled thread...

(it's kind of funny too that I'd have reservations here about building a squad to help me survive & yet, in say Grim Dawn, I have zero problems mowing down 'everything' outside of the safe zones/cities.  Thousands & thousands of beings being blown up/incinerated/poisoned/etc ... nah, we're good...)

There are a couple places in the game where there's a popup/part of a conversation where you realize that the changes are happening/driving you into a rage, but other than that there seems to be no impact to gameplay/choices (like in later chapters in the series).  There is one ... er ... 'canister' very, very late in the game, that if you use it will change how others react to you. 

Other than that particular one though, go wild if you want.

Other than the custom ones, it's all based on post count.  I noticed I went from Shaman to Shadowwalker at around 450(?) so there's one for your database...

No, you can have up to 6 (?) creations at any one time.  What you need to do is put a few skill points into 'essence mastery' which will give you more essence to work with (or if you have your creation all tricked out with all sorts of special abilities, take away some of them & that will return essence available (most of mine only have one or two special abilites - such as giving artilas ranged attack & the speed bonus, nothing else)).

The above mentioned 'retrain' will reset your skill points if you want to readjust things

There's lots of reading.  So if you can read the news crawler on the bottom of the news or scores during assorted sporting events you'll probably be ok.  If you can read all the fine print during pharmaceutical ads...you'll really be fine.

One way to easily check...

12. If you want to enter a zone from another direction than where the arrow is pointing, click on the green zone dot until the arrow is pointed where you want to go (say for less walking, you want to go to the merchants, etc)

13.  Once you get to it, airshock will be a game changer.  Deals decent damage, stuns people in the zone, 'and' most importantly to my characters anyway, it can be cast from beyond the range of turrets/columns, letting you thump them in perfect safety (as long as your energy/essence holds out anyway)

14.  At the start of the game see which of your skills have zero points in them & do NOT train/put skill points into them until after you clear out The Tombs & the western side of Southbridge (mechanics & leadership probably excepted as life is easier with those skills early on).  You will get one point in 'x' skill (a few exceptions) as long as you don't train in it before you get there

You should have an email from Humble Bundle about it (or at least I did a while ago)

I'm saying this from a point of absolute ignorance ... so take it with a boulder of salt.

However with it being released on Steam (& I think GOG), the final game version is probably with them & they're the one who set the release time.  I really can't see Steam waiting around for Jeff to stumble out of bed, grab his coffee, & say "Ok, let's do this...".  Back when the games were only available through SW website, yeah then I can see it dependent on when Jeff was done with his coffee, walking the dog, sorting his sock drawer, etc.  But not now with a much wider release through different retailers.

Again, I could be completely wrong on that so...

(with GOG being Polish ... it might even be available in 25 minutes or so ... doubt it but you never know)

2 hours ago, alhoon said:

What time does the game release? Is it at midnight? Is it "when it is ready"? 

Just convince yourself that it's coming out on Thursday.  That way, when you bump into it tomorrow at some point ... "Hey, a bonus day..."

That's my take on it, and honestly, it's not an unreasonable complaint.  I wouldn't say that there's a lot of backtracking needed in cleared zones, but there are times you need to go back to 'x' to talk to a mind or read 'y' or report in on a quest ... etc.  Generally when that's needed I'll start my character walking (cleared zone) to where he/she needs to go and then grab my phone & check email or something else that's mildly short term & somewhat productive (maybe read a page or four of my latest book).  And if you happen to bump into a hostile being, the game will immediately go into combat & freeze the action so you (probably) aren't getting wiped out in one turn if you don't have the initiative (and worst case you go back to the auto save that happened when you left the last zone).  Eventually your character will arrive & you can go back to what you wanted to do in game.

So, somewhat annoying but probably not worth the brain sweat to change & then track down all the unintended consequences/rebalancing needed to keep the game working as intended.  Especially when you realize that what's being asked for is instead of say, 90 seconds to walk across the zone, it will take 60(?) or roughly a 30 second savings in real time.  Multiplied out over the whole game (60-100 hours of real time) ... it's still probably less time than you spend wandering down the hall to the reading room once or twice a day.

16 minutes ago, Felix_Felicis said:

I'm used to clicking past the zone then clicking it after having clicked "past" it in a given direction to access the zone from the side I want. It's nice to know I can still modify the direction I enter from just by clicking it repeatedly. I hadn't tried that and thought the feature of being able to enter from whichever angle I pleased had been removed.

I was complaining to Jeff about just that.  I got a very short email back "Did you click on the button again...?"

"Uh, no .... hey, look at that.... sigh"

7 minutes ago, Mechalibur said:

Weirdly enough, there are also tombs in the Inner Crypt, which appear to be Mental Magic and Battle Magic. Not sure what the point of those are since if you have 0 of those skills by the time you're in that zone, you probably already have your build figured out.

I'd have to check but I think that you got those two in addition to the ones from The Tombs.  Of course I was running a solo Agent at the time & one point improvement in those skills didn't impact things all 'that' much by that point.  Or perhaps because I was running an Agent & didn't get any points at The Tombs, it gave me them there.  Shrug, by that point it really doesn't matter as it's time for the end game.  Sort of an extra reward for clearing out a bonus level dungeon I guess.

49 minutes ago, Felix_Felicis said:

any reason to hold onto rubies, gold rings, or other 'valuable' items that it seems at first glance are best sold for gold?

Not really, they can all be sold.  However, while there are stores/merchants all over the place, I never really found much to buy (other than the living tools or, very early game, shaper records which could be converted to xp (& a little gold to offset the cost)).

I would collect everything with value but then would tend to hoard it.  I had little piles of pods/spores/wands, & wearable items, & various types of thorns, & 'everything else' with value scattered all over Vakkiri.  At one point I had over 700 of the little blue crystals in a heaping mound (there may have been some pylon farming going on there...)

Towards the end game, even with the piles of goodies, I usually had around 10k in gp in my pocket (my pants would fall down in combat a lot, literally embarrassing)

*** Random tip that just came to mind.  If you want to enter a zone from a particular direction (say to enter a town next to the merchants) & the little arrow showing you how your are going to enter isn't at the right spot, click on the green zone symbol & it will move around to those other zone entrances. ***

Sell them in even number lots, but yes the difference is about 1gp per

Possibly/probably, however that's way beyond anything I can or want to do.

Someone will probably be along fairly soon with a much more geeky answer

I don't believe so.  You can change how fast you can scroll around the screen view, but I don't think that impacts the speed at which your character travels.

3 minutes ago, Felix_Felicis said:

One more thing... Since I'm going to replay a (bit to backtrack before I got Leadership and Spellccraft from the servant mind) there's something else I might change. One thing I liked about the original Geneforge was that it didn't seem to matter if you used a lot of canisters or none. In GF1-M there's already a servile in Vakkiri who can give you a mirror that shows how "affected" you are. If my first play through will be relatively pro-shaper do I need to be pretty cautious about how many canisters I use to achieve a decent ending for that faction?

I don't believe that there's a penalty for using canisters in GF1M, mainly because that's the only way to get a lot of different skills/creations (no trainers for the most part as we know them through Avernum).  There 'are' places where a popup announces that the changes done to you make you angry/short tempered/uncomfortable/etc) but I don't think it impacts gameplay (such as taking away discussion options).

That's not to say however that you should use every canister that you run across ... Apropos of nothing in particular, if there are spells you know that you'll never use or creations that you'll never make, you may not want to use them...just remember/write down where they are...

55 minutes ago, Randomizer said:

Sealed Labs is Leadership, Mechanics, Stealth, and Missile Weapons

Is that in place of the knowledge at the Tombs?  Because I got missile weapons at the tombs but did not get melee (or stealth, leadership & mechanics were already trained in).  However there's the free melee point in Pentil from browsing the library so... (and mechanics too for that matter)

2 minutes ago, Randomizer said:

Mechanics isn't until the Sealed Lab

You can get a point of Mechanics in Pentil & in the Hill of Jars (I think) from a book & canister.  Those aren't worth avoiding as, you should be above zero by then anyway & using them shouldn't change the skill points needed for the next level.

17 minutes ago, Felix_Felicis said:

Thank you - this is exactly what I was curious about. Do you know if these possible buffs raise you from any level (as low as zero) to a predetermined level (say 1, 2, or 3)? Or do they raise your level in that attribute by a certain number of points as long as your level is below a certain threshold? I think it would be possible to get to to the tombs without improving mechanics, to capitalize off any mech buff given in the Tombs. Can you be more specific (is it safe to raise mech to 1 or 2, or will I lose out on bonuses if I do even a small increase)?

When you're at The Tombs, any/every skill that's at zero will get raised to one (I think, I just started up a new shaper to test a couple of things & did 'not' get any melee or stealth skill points even after going through all the assorted coffins).  You only get a skill boost if those skills are at zero (Jeff said that it was to give everyone a base level in everything without having to spend expensive skill points in things that you're weak in).  If your starting build (shaper, agent, guardian) has a point in 'x' from the very beginning, go ahead and build that skill if you want to as you will not get anything further while at The Tombs (even if you don't do any training before getting there), only those that start & get there with zero.

In the latest beta (which is the release version...probably) I did not get the spellcraft at the school until I went to the Tombs and got the point there.  Then I went back & got the school's point.  You 'might' be ok getting it ... but you might not so it's easier just to backtrack a bit.

24 minutes ago, Felix_Felicis said:

I did just mean killing the inutile in Bandit Woods directly north of Vakkiri.

Ah, ok.  The confusion is because there is an actual Inutile village just east of E's Keep,  those are just generic bandits.  Yes, you only get the quest xp once depending on how you resolve the situation.  I think you get more with the leadership route.  Leaving them alive or not shouldn't matter as they're just run of the mill bandits/cannon fodder who don't have a long life expectancy to begin with (as what's his name in Vakkiri seems to plan on wiping them out after feeding them for a little bit, once he gathers up a bit stronger force).  However you can get to the majority of their loot without fighting them if you look around a bit.

Their level is determined by 'your' level & number of points in that particular type of shaping ability.  So they do level up, but don't do it through xp (other than the earned xp going to your character who levels up eventually).

1. Do NOT put any skill points into anything that you start with a zero skill level in it until after you clear out The Tombs (& western Southbridge - leadership & mechanics excepted as you do kind of need them early on to make things easier)

2.  As Randomizer said, there really aren't trainers to spend money on (however the ones there are...tend to drain your bank acct...)

3. Clearing out the camp - Do you mean wiping out the friendly village east of Ellrath's Keep (I didn't play the demo)?  Wiping out the bandits that are bothering them is a good thing (although you get more xp from talking the out of bothering the village at the cost of a couple of 'early in the game decent' consumables.  I never wiped out the village (considering them rogues) so I don't know how it would impact things later on.

Leadership is a good place to put early skill points into as it will make things easier/give you options.  There are many places where you can take the leadership route, go back & get your xp/reward and then go wipe out those you were sent to wipe out in the first place (such as the afore mentioned bandits, or the bandits in Bandit Woods

Mechanics is good for a few early for the easier chests/switches for easy xp.  Buy living tools from everyone you can as, by opening chests/doors whenever you find them, easy xp early in the game (generally not worth using more than 1-2 per door/chest so if you run into those that need more, come back later with better mechanics (iirc, 14 is the most you need towards the end game so don't go too crazy pumping the skill points).

If you really want to game the game ... don't read any books as you're going through but make a note of where they are (or save before reading to be able to reload).  The books that explain various functions of the game will give you 25xp each for reading them.  If you don't read them originally but save them for near the end game when xp is harder to come by... (some books however don't give xp & do have good information (or even skills) so you 'do' want to read them as you come across them)

I usually kept (after the first level or three) between 5-10 skill points unspent & available if I suddenly needed to pump 'x' up a bit (such as getting the leadership option somewhere, or needing to bump up say battle magic to cast a better spell).

Air burst is a game changer once you can get to it... (especially running a solo battle magic Agent)

46 minutes ago, alhoon said:

And where is the dippable item? I have not found any such things in my demo playthrough... 

I haven't played the demo so I don't know if that area is included, but there's no way you'd be strong enough to get them with demo level characters...so you're gonna have to wait a couple of weeks 😛