mikeprichard

Good to know! Would be helpful to see this in the Strategy Central linked advice topic at http://spiderwebforums.ipbhost.com/topic/24978-queens-wish-the-conqueror-game-advice/, but no big deal if not.

Nice, that's what I was hoping to hear. This also doesn't "punish" you (especially in a game where total XP rewards are strictly finite) if you want to switch characters mid-game, which given the unique racial traits only available with later recruits, I'm sure was exactly Jeff's plan. Cheers.

Sorry if this is answered elsewhere, but do all recruits always immediately scale to the current XP of your Prince(ss)?

Yes, notarockstar - Avernum is my personal favorite series so far, but I appreciate Jeff's model where he's going to continue to alternate remakes of the "classics" (at least I suppose G1-G3(?) for the next few years) with installments of his new adventures like QW. Given the very different style of QW, that's a good balance to strike, and of course it keeps food on his table so he can keep making new stuff. One of the common criticisms I've seen elsewhere of Jeff's work is that all he does is remake his old games, but while he does do a lot of that (and his remakes are actual quality overhauls in any case), his "original" catalog is pretty huge - Exile/Avernum x6, Geneforge x5, Avadon x3, and something called Nethergate, so this complaint seems pretty ridiculous. Anyway, I'm getting off topic again - really looking forward to getting into this one more after the upcoming patch.

Yes, I do very much like the flip side here in QW, in contrast to previous Spidweb titles - when you finally do clear a dungeon, it stays cleared! Not only does it arguably make more sense, it's definitely less annoying when revisiting locations.

Sure, that all makes sense, Randomizer. I'm just sensitive to things that tend to break the dynamism of the game world, like these apparently infinite henchman respawns. This kind of anti-immersive (to reuse the cliche) element is directly against the grain of the other major QW mechanics - taking over and building bases, forming alliances that have real consequences, etc. - which show how choices and actions actually impact the world, all of which I'm very much for. But as with other issues with the game, there's always going to need to be a compromise of systems at some level, so while the infinite instant dungeon respawning in itself is something I'll find hard to accept as logical in the context of the game world, at least I understand it's an attempt to serve a greater strategic goal.

There definitely have been strong reactions as expected with any major design changes, but I wouldn't consider myself on either extreme just yet. I've pointed out some concerns/flaws here and elsewhere, which of course any game will have, and I completely understand the motivations between each of the seven major changes laid out by Jeff in his blog post (https://jeff-vogel.blogspot.com/2019/09/queens-wish-is-out-heres-why-its-so.html). My biggest disappointment I've read about so far is the fact that a completionist playthrough will have you maxing out stats as early as 75% of the way through the game, which is not great design for several reasons - it was a problem with Avadon 1 that was later largely remedied in Avadon 2 and 3, but it's reappeared here. Otherwise, I'm not a big fan of the implementation of the dungeons being "infinite henchmen respawn machines" - i.e. after you go in and kill those two wolves, then return a day or even a minute later, those same two wolves have apparently been cloned back into the same spot, and will continue to be ad infinitum, until you defeat the head honcho and all the henchmen immediately disappear for good. There's probably not a seamless/immersive alternative way to achieve Jeff's goal of forcing players to "strategically" beat each dungeon in one run, but I feel there has to be a better approach than this.

OK, maybe Randomizer or someone else with knowledge of the mechanics can please clarify whether a +3 effective level in any skill that shows only a +2 max in the skill tree is actually a thing.

Sorry, I'm still not clear as to the answer to the original question - if you already have the max +2 in a particular skill for a character, and equip that same character with something that gives +1 to the skill, will the character's effective skill become "+3" (not shown in the skill tree, but with the attendant benefits)? Or is +2 still always the hard cap for the skill's benefits?

Awesome, Randomizer - appreciate the confirmation. As a completionist, I'll probably eventually whip 'em all just to clear the map, though I assume some will be too difficult the first time I encounter them.

Yeah, TriRodent... just waiting to check this all out myself after 1.0.1 comes out. Fingers crossed the same mobs don't keep magically cropping up just to get in the way. If past Spidweb titles are any indication, they probably won't, but QW is its own thing.

8 hours ago, TriRodent said:

I 'think' outdoor encounters are unique (so you can clear the path to 'x', go back to a fort to rest, and then not have to reslog through them to get back to 'x' after you're at full health.

TriRodent - thanks for this and your other helpful responses! I'm really hoping that's the case here. Would get pretty tedious (not to mention unimmersive) to end up wasting time on the same group of punk enemies whenever I wanted to get around the map, despite my having defeated them earlier - fast-traveling aside.

Slarty - to close the topic, I agree, as you also admit, that it's not a great system. More exceptions/customization (player accuracy skills, enemy evade rates, terrain effects, etc. - which need not be "infinite" variables as you seem to think) are always better than a flat arbitrary cap.

Not sure where you're coming up with this bizarre notion of "100% hits repeatedly flying around in the middle of a melee", unless you're just trolling again to put words in my mouth to fuel some other debate. As I've already explained, I'm pointing out the silliness of an arbitrary hit chance cap that applies in every situation regardless of the conditions. In any event, I'm referring to the case of not being able to hit some chump enemy when all 4 of my guys were surrounding it and it was the only enemy left, just because the code says "nope, you hit your 90% cap". Happened all the time.

Moving on to a separate topic within the topic - do random outdoor enemy encounters always respawn, or is each one unique and non-repeatable? I get the gist of Jeff's focus on not "grinding" XP (although that was already largely addressed in prior games by having enemy kills reward diminishing XP returns at higher character levels, so I don't see how it was a big problem to begin with). However, it will be fairly annoying to have to always avoid the same respawning encounters which will give no loot or XP rewards on the map - would completely kill the sense of reward/progression by having to invest time in repeating the same tedious encounters for essentially no point. As long as I can permanently "clear" each such encounter - even with no immediate rewards - so I don't have to run around it every time I'm on the map again later, I could handle this. But can anyone please explain how this works?

Right, they haven't as far as I'm aware either.

It's actually something that happened A LOT in previous Spidweb titles. Again, the point is not that 100% hits should be the norm - it's that the system should be more nuanced and realistic to allow for the obvious fact that e.g. 90% max hit shouldn't also be the norm.

That said, maybe this problem doesn't apply as much in QW if hit chance focuses more on individualized enemy evade stats rather than constantly hitting some arbitrary across-the-board cap - I'll see how it goes.

With the caveats that a) graphics obviously aren't the main reason I've played every Spidweb game for decades since Exile 2, all of which have neither advertised nor featured AAA visuals, and b) I've already read Jeff's entire blog post at https://jeff-vogel.blogspot.com/2019/08/why-all-of-our-games-look-like-crap.html, I don't understand why Jeff apparently hasn't (?) considered polling his significant loyal fanbase for artists who could work in his desired style for free (in return for being credited in the game of course) and/or very low rates. I would be very surprised if he couldn't find at least a handful of talented people this way who would be happy to contribute, if for no other reason than to work on a Spidweb game and buff their CVs. It's kind of disheartening to see Jeff threw a bunch of extra cash at QW's graphics to come up with (in my opinion) something that looks no better and maybe a bit worse overall than his earlier titles, when volunteer fan help possibly could've been a thing. Again, the writing, themes, and gameplay will always remain the biggest draws for me and probably any other fan of Jeff's games, but it would be a very nice bonus if they could be a bit less... painful on the eyes.

1 hour ago, Queen's Vlish said:

If there's no other combat going on, I'm with you.

Right. Although it's a bit of a tangent to the earlier posts, I'm simply pointing out that "always" (as is the case in Spidweb games and the DnD tropes) assigning an arbitrary max hit chance cap never makes sense, as your post also shows above. Such a system results in the entirely possible and real case where our dude is just standing around next to the zombie, with all other enemies gone, and still has a significant flatly assigned chance of not hitting it. It's just nonsense.

I do understand the reasoning - it makes coding hit chances a lot simpler to make them one-size-fits-all - but while it's a practical solution, it's not a realistic one.

33 minutes ago, ZorroDragonslayer said:

Grabbing and searching for $1 and $3 items and junk on the floor was a big time waster.

This, as well as the ability to freely respec (reassign skills) for your characters whenever in your fort, are the most welcome improvements to previous Spidweb titles for me as well. Back in the old Geneforge/Avernum days, I couldn't help but spam the "g" key to scour every square inch of ground for any piece of junk I could hock at a merchant, made even worse in games that didn't yet have a junk bag, and even worse(r) in games where each merchant had limited gold for barter. Ay yi yi, that was tedious. Great to see this kind of "streamlining"!

Yikes - hopefully this will be addressed as appropriate in the upcoming patch.

Some info here - http://spiderwebforums.ipbhost.com/topic/24983-scooping-items/

3 minutes ago, TriRodent said:

(you can also put both a 4% & 6% speed bonus on the same item (at least in the beta, haven't tried on the release version). You can't put two of the same augment on any one item, but I guess they are technically different)

Interesting - I wonder if this is an intentional choice on Jeff's part, or if he's planning to nerf this to ensure no two augments of the same type (regardless of magnitude) can be applied to the same item with the next patch. I have no problem with it staying as is, assuming the situation here is unchanged from the beta; allowing two augments of the same type on one item is an example of broader customization options, which are always a plus (now that he's stolen our pants).

1 hour ago, qqry said:

Give us some modifier, any hit chance. When I am standing, with 2hand weapon, next to some 1tier enemy, I expect to hit.

I agree the to-hit RNG (and most RNGs) implemented with an artificial cap (be it 90%, 95%, or whatever%) is a somewhat nonsense holdover trope/game mechanics crutch from the decades-old DnD 20-sided dice roll routine. A highly skilled warrior standing next to a slow-moving zombie (to take an admittedly more extreme example that nevertheless tests the case) shouldn't "always" have a 5%, 10%, or whatever% chance to miss the zombie. Such a situation quite obviously doesn't make sense, even in the context of a fantasy setting. I've always found this a tough gameplay choice to accept. Ideally, there should be even up to a 100% chance to hit in some situations, while on the other extreme depending on the e.g. battlefield conditions/player skill and equipment/enemy skill and equipment, a significantly lower hit chance "cap" may even make sense. It's just simpler on the developer to code in a flat hit chance cap to apply across the board, but defending that cap as somehow realistic in every situation is - to put it mildly - always going to be a stretch.

Oh, so in the manual's example, you'd actually take 11 damage total - i.e. 8 damage (which the 60% chest armor reduction - i.e. 12 points out of 20 total - doesn't apply to at all), plus 3 damage (3 out of those 12)? As I often do, I feel I'm making this way more complicated than it needs to be.

OK, thanks for the input, folks. Seems like some questions remain. At least that paragraph on page 24 of the manual could probably stand to be rewritten, I think? In that example, the chest piece alone is somehow reducing 20 incoming total damage down to only 3 ("you will take 3 points of damage"), with no reference to separate calculations for a helm or shield being factored in. I doubt that's a priority for Jeff, however.

If someone who understands the new Queen's Wish armor mechanics could please clearly explain the below three points, or send me to a forum post that already does so, I'd be obliged. Cheers!

1) The manual notes on page 24: "For example, iron chainmail blocks 60% of damage. It can block up to 9 points of physical damage and 4 points of magical damage. If you take 20 points of physical damage, 60% of that is 12 points, so the armor will block 9 of that, you will take 3 points of damage." This is a bit confusing to me, as it seems in this example - where the piece is said to "block" 60% of the 20 points - it should actually reduce the 20 by 12 to 8, of which all 8 (given the 9 max remaining damage absorption capacity) should be nullified. Instead, the manual's example above suggests that in fact only 40% of the 20 incoming total is being blocked, leaving 12 points of the 20 to be further reduced by 9 to 3. I know I'm missing something blindingly obvious here, but I just don't get it.

2) Does the percentage value (60% above) always refer to reducing both physical and magical damage, regardless of whether the equipment is an armor/robe, helm/cowl, or shield/orb? I understand the other values (9 and 4 for iron chainmail) separately refer to physical and magical damage respectively, but the percentage seems to be universal.

3) Finally, how exactly do the corresponding percentage/flat damage reductions related to chest (armor/robe), head (helmet/cowl) and shield (shield/orb) defensive pieces interact with each other to produce the character's overall damage reduction?