mikeprichard

A couple corrections for the Buck Creek zone valid for the final game (v1.0.1):

"NW (28,11) door - lock (highly locked) - opened after Crystal for the Sholai quest completed"
This shed in the CN area of the map is only unlocked by Zosima in conversation after you complete his first one or two "trust-building" quests and/or use Leadership to skip them (with the unlocking triggered by "Have I done enough to win your trust?", though you'll need to be careful to choose that option while you have the chance - otherwise, he won't unlock the shed, and you'll need to burn some living tools).

"(46,12) door - lock (reward for Sholai Investigation)"
Referring to the shed just west of Zosima, this one is opened by Drayk Grimwing for completing his quest.

Solo (98% of the time) guardians are how I've been rolling through both G1 Mutagen and G2 Infestation on Normal difficulty, and I've been having a blast. They're definitely more challenging to play than the vanilla "Shaper with OP minions" (pretty much anything else is, IMO), though I prefer their role-playing and lack of creation micromanagement. Through points and skill-boosting items, I've invested into Melee, some in Endurance and Essence Mastery (for survivability and plenty of healing/blessing spells, especially on boss fights), a couple points each in Strength and Quick Action, and a few points in Blessing Magic/Healing Craft/Leadership/Mechanics; my equipment focuses on boosting Strength/Endurance/Melee/Quick Action, as well as any other temporary gaps in the above few skills on an as-needed basis. Tip I've found extremely useful: once you get Chain Lightning in the Weapon Shaping tree, spam the heck out of it. It's basically my default attack for anything that would survive one melee hit.

But yep, looking forward to G4 and G5 - I always played no-creation serviles in those two (as they feature my preferred combat > magic >>> shaping stat spread not available in G1-G3 with those earlier games' three classes), and adding Weapon Shaping to that mix is going to be fun.

Lol! Yep, that's about right.

I'll probably test the glove thing myself, but one more (!) question - who/what in Taker Lands will confirm the origin of the Shandoka spawner? Not Syros, it seems.

EDIT: Umm, yeah, it's Syros. smh

Takers (especially the drayk/drakon "leadership") were already behaving like Shapers in G2, let alone G4/G5... too many examples to list.

Re: Tuldaric losing interest in the barrier, that's from Learned Varkan's dialogue. He was the initial driving force behind it, but we see he's now following his own path (as discussed above). I find it difficult to see Pinner as a bigger problem for the long-term goals of the Awakened, though, regardless of how (apparently) naive she may appear.

Agree with Mech's overall take here - Jeff's central theme is the potential for power to corrupt even the best intentions. Even Stanis (see his final dialogue when you best him in the duel) and Zakary (recognizing it's not a canister issue in his case - see his new Emily-related dialogue, Nora's vague mention of her reasons for loyalty to him, etc.) show human/sympathetic dimensions; not that anyone here is claiming this, but they aren't black-and-white evil, full stop. Now that the Taker/Barzite (and even Awakened - see Barrier of the Wind, which incidentally Tuldaric has apparently lost all interest in despite its planned importance to the survival of the Awakened) Shaping/canister doom loops have begun, the player's navigation of the factions (or not) and charting a final path essentially represent a range of bad-to-worse options IMO.

Noted. I know he generally doesn't check this forum, but you do read both here and Steam, so it certainly makes more work for you - I shouldn't have jumped the gun on posting my "conclusions" here, lol.

Back to the regularly scheduled Atlas discussion... the Atlas notes up to four augmentations of the Feisty Slap Glove are possible, but only lists the effects of three. Could someone confirm whether there is a fourth augment, and if so, what it adds? (Considering my prioritization of using those rare residues/mandrakes.)

Yes, Jeff does prefer emails, but for some minor things I've been reporting on a Steam topic (seeing for now he seems to be checking the Steam forum daily), I just didn't want to fill up his inbox! And I did see and briefly reply to your response there - it may in fact be a multiplicative issue between stats and items, as you/Jeff noted. I am level 17 with a few skills therefore boosted above the default (Strength and Melee Weapons would be relevant, I suppose, at 6 and 11 without items equipped respectively).

Melee damage bonus on Essence Eater w/no other items equipped = (+118%)
Melee damage bonus on Essence Eater w/only Chestguard also equipped = (+136%)
Melee damage bonus on Essence Eater w/Chestguard and Pure Fanged Bracelet (Strength +1) equipped = (+142%) etc.

Most relevant seems to be the first two samples above - i.e. "only" an 18% increase instead of 20%. Maybe if I were able to cheat my Strength and Melee Weapon skill values back down to their level 1 values or something else it would become closer/equal to the stated 10% difference. Kinda complicated, but yeah, I could see this may not be strictly a bug.

Yeah, my guess is it's just the weapon tooltips that are still off, and the damage increase is actually 10% (shown both on the armor and spell tooltips).

Since it's potential late-game equipment, I thought it might be worthwhile to note: it looks like the Slayer's Chestguard (per comparing weapon/spell tooltips when it's equipped/unequipped) may actually boost melee/magic damage by 20%, not 10% - unless the weapon/spell tooltips are the ones that are bugged. I did report on the Steam forum, which Jeff is checking frequently due to the recent release/in preparation for v1.0.2.

EDIT: OK, it seems only melee weapon tooltips show a 20% increase; spells show only 10%. Either way, something's probably off here.

Ah - thanks a lot for the info.

I was going to post a new topic about this for GF2 Infestation, but then found this... I don't think I ever got an answer from Jeff, and this item reappears in GF2 Infestation. Has anyone been able to confirm what this does?

Thanks, Mech!

I'm almost certain this is the case, but would someone please confirm that the book "Wild Adventure" has no quest/other use in the game? Cheers.

Thanks - the last bit I was planning to confirm in game was whether Pit-Bred Cryoas inherit the scaling from the generic Cryoa. Now that you've confirmed, here are my personal preference notes as additional reference:

To reduce all fyora and cryoa sprites in the game to 60% of their original size to make them proper little buddies, make the following three edits in GF2itemschars.txt:

1) Add the line "cr_scaling = 60;" in the "Fyora" section (I added it just below the line "cr_name = Fyora;", but I don't think that placement is important)
2) Edit "cr_scaling = 80;" to "cr_scaling = 60;" in the "Rogue Fyora" section
3) Edit "cr_scaling = 90;" to "cr_scaling = 60;" in the "Enraged Fyora" section

No edits are necessary in the "Basic friendly fyora"/"Warped Fyora"/"Charged Fyora"/"Cryoa"/"Rogue Cryoa"/"Pit-Bred Cryoa" sections, as these critters inherit their scaling percentages from the edits listed above.

Just confirming a couple points I'd asked about in that topic (the current final posting) re: which other lines may need to be added to edit all cryoas etc.

It's possible to mod the fyoras to be smaller (which I've done based on tips from alhoon in both G1 Mutagen and G2 Infestation). I'm confirming a few things, and was planning to post more about it within the next couple weeks in the topic at https://spiderwebforums.ipbhost.com/topic/30152-miscellaneous-mod-related-discussion. In principle, it should therefore also be fairly simple to mod the drayks etc. to be larger, if that's your preference.

Thanks, Slarty and alhoon! I may not end up doing this, but good to have options.

Cheesy question: if I do all Awakened main quests, but then leave the faction (assuming that's even possible at that point? - maybe that's how Jeff prevents the cheese) by talking to Pinner before leaving the valley, and have also killed Barzahl, Rhakkus, Akkat, and Easss, will I still get Ending 2 ("good" unaligned ending)? I believe this was the case in OG G2, and it seems from the above it still is - i.e., as long as you're not aligned with the Servants or Awakened at the point you finally leave the valley, you're still "unaligned" regardless of how many quests you've done for the latter two factions. Still, I'd appreciate any possible confirmation.

Thanks, as always!

Another question for those in the know - nlambert's index indicates 1 Major Healing Pod is needed for a quest, but I don't see that in the Atlas (Carnelian's quest uses Major Healing Spores, and Versa apparently only uses regular Healing Pods and Spores). Is the index incorrect, or is there in fact a quest use for Major Healing Pod(s)? Thanks.

Wow, I forgot it was that broken. I usually tend to avoid making creations in Geneforge games, so I never explored this much in the originals, but very good to know (and glad all this has been "fixed" in the remakes).

Oh, makes sense - thanks!

Sorry if this info's somewhere already, but I couldn't find it. Melee Weapons (for melee, and Missile Weapons for batons) gives a 3%/point chance of your attacks consuming fewer action points, and Quick Action gives a 4%/point chance; I assume both of these relate to the "Quick Action!" message that pops up when you get an extra attack. Would someone please explain how these two separate chances are combined to arrive at the overall "Quick Action!"/extra move % chance? Cheers.