A6 - Timed Quests (spoilers)

[madrigan]

Are there any timed quests in this game? Have I already asked this? If I have, sorry.

 

Specifically, I just blew up Cotra (which was great, by the way -- all that was missing was a dialogue option for "you fool, this place is gonna blow!" followed by the enemy sliths running from the city alongside my party).

 

I've done some of the Silvar quests, and cleared out Fort Avernum, but haven't been to Duvno or Dranlon. But, now I have the quest to go upriver to Formello. Can I clean up the Eastern Gallery without losing out on the Formello quests?

 

I am pretty sure I can, but, y'know, lots of time invested already.

[rampancy]

As far as I know, I haven't encountered any similar sequences to the destruction of Cotra, except for the sewers in the Fang Clan city. I had no problem leaving the quests in the Occupied Lands for later, especially when I realized that I had to level up my characters for a particularly gruelling set of fights.

[Randomizer]

Cotra is a definite must be done in time quest or you will take damage as the place explodes. I've gotten hit at the start and end so I've seen the damage.

 

Under the Fang Clan Fortress and an Imperious Demon in Melanchion's Realm are examples of a terrain change that will automatically kill anything on the squares when the area changes to water or lava.

 

Sorengard's Construct tests and Gladwell's first quest are ones where you just have to be alive when the timer is done.

 

There are a few later quests where the longer you take, the tougher the fight becomes.

 

Level up before hitting Formello and there are plenty of more things to do as you work your way there. It's a tough fight so get ready. This game doesn't require that you go there directly, but you will find that you can't get into some places yet like Fort Draco and Tenevra until after doing Formello.

[madrigan]

Thank you. Am I supposed to be able to enter Fort Duvno at this point? I don't seem to have orders to do so. I think this game is too big for my brain.

 

Edit: Let me phrase this another way. Is there any point in this game where I can make a non-obvious mistake that will permanently deny me access to any entire fort, town, or city? And by non-obvious, I mean as long as I don't kill everyone in the Castle or stop accepting any quests or something equally ridiculous.

[jlsgaladriel]

Quote:

I think this game is too big for my brain.

Yeah, the open world aspect of it can be overwhelming sometimes.

I find it more satisfying to clean up a region as much as possible before moving on: before embarking on whatever the next main quest (or triad of main quest items) is, I open my quest logbook and do all of the secondary quests for the area.

I find thinking regionally can help keep me sane.

[Fael]

Originally Posted By: madrigan

Edit: Let me phrase this another way. Is there any point in this game where I can make a non-obvious mistake that will permanently deny me access to any entire fort, town, or city? And by non-obvious, I mean as long as I don't kill everyone in the Castle or stop accepting any quests or something equally ridiculous.

Not really. I think there might be one or two mutually exclusive side quests, but that's the extent of it.

Screwing up Gladwell's third quest will make a town hostile before you're ready for it, but you get a pretty strong warning about that and it's possible to avoid.

A couple of Malachion's quests will also make towns hostile, but again, it's obvious that that's going to happen and you should be done with those towns by that point, anyway.

There are several quests that will affect the ending. Some are obvious, but in other cases, it's not clear until much later that what you did changed the ending.

As for timing, while a number of individual encounters are timed in some way or another, there's no clock running on world events outside of combat mode (I suppose eventually you could eat all of the available food in Avernum and starve, but you'd have to actively try and, even then, you'd probably get bored before you could).

[Lilith]

There is one situation to be careful about: if you don't get access to the Western Excavation before completing that set of quests, you're permanently locked out of it. You don't actually need to finish the Western Excavation quest straight away, just talk to the guard and make sure he lets you in. This is a confirmed bug that will be fixed when the next version comes out, which will be soon.

 

Regarding food, I'm pretty sure that fruit and mushrooms lying on the ground actually have a chance to respawn if you leave an area, so you can't run out forever even if you sell all your food.

[Alorael at Large]

You can also keep nabbing food from the Castle. I think it's even slightly faster than you consume food, so you can stockpile.

 

—Alorael, who doesn't even think the side effects of starvation are bad enough to be a real game-ender.

[Fael]

One thing we missed: As someone just pointed out in another thread, don't kill the red sentinel in Sorengard's first construct test or you won't be able to do the second test.

[Drayk Armitage]

There are some other food-generators, notably the nephil in Fort Remote who gives you pricey meat strips, so you could even, were you so inclined, use this to generate infinite cash, and use that to generate infinite skribbane and hence infinite XP. Incredibly, incredibly slow, but it does mean that at least in absurd and obnoxious theory, a party of four can buy all trainer skills and still reach level 61 regardless of XP penalty.

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Unmazer

There are some other food-generators, notably the nephil in Fort Remote who gives you pricey meat strips, so you could even, were you so inclined, use this to generate infinite cash, and use that to generate infinite skribbane and hence infinite XP. Incredibly, incredibly slow, but it does mean that at least in absurd and obnoxious theory, a party of four can buy all trainer skills and still reach level 61 regardless of XP penalty.

So we now finally have justification to cheat at will? Great!

[madrigan]

Thanks everybody. So you go to Duvno after you go to Formello?

[Zummi]

Quote:

still reach level 61 regardless of XP penalty.

Is that a cap?

[Lilith]

It sure is. But if you can't kill something at level 61, you're never gonna be able to kill it.

[Randomizer]

Originally Posted By: madrigan

Thanks everybody. So you go to Duvno after you go to Formello?

You finally get permission to go inside.

[Student of Trinity]

We'll know that Jeff has really made it big when we see internet sites offering to level your A6 party to 61 in this fashion, for USD 49.99.

[Scifi_Taoist]

I have another question along these lines that I have half worried about while playing. Is there an overall game clock that could be effected by taking too much time to complete all the side quests and exploring everywhere? I ask because I do remember that there was a game clock in A3 where if you didn't get to certain areas in certain times then things could be drastically different.

 

Basically, if I took my time between the major quests to complete side quests and muck around, I'm not going to mess up something else bigger down the line am I?

[jlsgaladriel]

Time doesn't matter in game, except *within* a few quests, all of which are pretty obvious. I can't think of an occasion in which time *between* quests really matters.

 

So when you're trying to chase down fleeing bandits under Blosk, time matters, but it doesn't matter how long it takes you to begin the Blosk quest after it's been assigned. Likewise, time has an effect in the battle under Cotra, but it doesn't matter how long in game it takes you to begin the quest.

 

The only possible exception is that your heroes do consume food slowly over time. There's so much food available in the game, though, that for food to become a temporal issue, you'd need to sell most of it, ignore the unsellable mushroom biscuits, and basically willfully starve yourself into a state of weakness.

[Alorael at Large]

You'd also have to deliberately ignore the fact that pylons make the Castle relatively convenient at all times and that the Castle will happily hand you food.

 

—Alorael, who initially tried stockpiling Castle food. It was unhelpful.

[Drayk Armitage]

There are several locations that give out food infinitely, all reachable by pylon, and at least one of them gives you those nice, expensive strips of meat.

[Tcheedchee]

You really must be wasting food to even have to consider this. At the moment I got dozens of mushrooms, meat-strips, pears, fish and rolls. The stuff really lies around everywhere. My slith isn't too picky also. – He also collects the meat that is fed to the war-lizzards.

 

Coming back to the timed quests, I found Cotra especially charming. It's fun to have to finish off all Sliths under time-pressure. The damage-values, if you don't manage to stay within the time-limit, are in the thousands. Impressing to see, but afterwards your party's squished and gone.

 

Like Randomizer mentioned, some fights get definitely harder, if you don't get them done til a certain round, like the Lich with his unnerving pylons. Or the Worm Spawning Shambler in the tunnel behind the slavers near Formello. Also remember the little worm-ichor quest at Silvar(?).