A6 - Hunt the Lich - The Lich Kavarus [spoilers]

[Rionep Ecnirp Etlevs]

I've been searching for "lich" or "kavarus" throughout the board, and I'm sure I missed the discussion somewhere.

 

Would someone mind explaining the strategy Jeff intended for me to defeat the lich Kavarus beneath the Skeletal Ruins? If the optimal strategy differs from the one Jeff probably intended, would you please explain both?

 

I'm playing on Hard difficulty and have a hard time eliminating his summons to make room for fleeing north or south from the crystals.

[Randomizer]

This was discussed here .

The search function doesn't work well even if you have a complete topic title.

[Spidweb]

For the next update, the pylon AEs will do less damage and the lich's two pets will be far more fragile.

 

- Jeff Vogel

 

PS Hey, all beta testers who told me again and again how the game was too easy ... You might want to remember this process next time around. I certainly will.

[*i]

Quote:

I'm playing on Hard difficulty and have a hard time...

I think it is apt that combat should be hard when you are playing on a difficulty level called 'hard'.

[Spidweb]

Originally Posted By: *i

Quote:

I'm playing on Hard difficulty and have a hard time...

I think it is apt that combat should be hard when you are playing on a difficulty level called 'hard'.

You are not, in fact, correct.

- Jeff Vogel

[Randomizer]

Originally Posted By: Spidweb

For the next update, the pylon AEs will do less damage and the lich's two pets will be far more fragile.

- Jeff Vogel

PS Hey, all beta testers who told me again and again how the game was too easy ... You might want to remember this process next time around. I certainly will.

You have to remember that most of the beta testers are insane powergamers. Of course we think your games are too easy. Now if we think something is too hard then it probably is too hard.

PS That lich wasn't too hard once you get past the pylon damage.

[Spidweb]

Originally Posted By: Randomizer

Originally Posted By: Spidweb

For the next update, the pylon AEs will do less damage and the lich's two pets will be far more fragile.

- Jeff Vogel

PS Hey, all beta testers who told me again and again how the game was too easy ... You might want to remember this process next time around. I certainly will.

You have to remember that most of the beta testers are insane powergamers. Of course we think your games are too easy. Now if we think something is too hard then it probably is too hard.

PS That lich wasn't too hard once you get past the pylon damage.

Don't get me wrong. It's my game. My name's on it. The balance problems are my fault.

It's just, when I get three e-mails a day from a tester saying this is too easy or that is too easy, well, I'm only human. I eventually forget to ignore that tester. And then I release a less fun game that drives customers away.

So I just want to gently point out, for next time around, that if your min-maxed mega party isn't being completely reamed out every step of the way, you might want to take the "too hard" threads into account when making suggestions. That's all.

- Jeff Vogel

[VCH]

It might help to accept some new beta testers, and not rely on the same guys again and again. New people may be unreliable, but at least you would limit the number of power-gamers. Maybe you do accept new guys. However I get the impression you go with experienced people.

 

Isn't the Lich quest supposed to be difficult?

[*i]

Quote:

You are not, in fact, correct.

I was just pointing out the ironic word choice of having a "hard time" on "Hard difficulty". I agree some parts should be toned down.

But more seriously, maybe a different word than "Hard" would better describe what you want the difficulty to be. Perhaps "Expert" to complement "Casual"?

[Alorael at Large]

No, I think Jeff is probably right. The hardest difficulty setting should be murderously hard to satisfy the min-maxers. The next step down, however, is probably for people who want to beat the game on a more challenging mode without actually being regularly obliterated. The jump between the two probably should be much larger than the jump between normal and hard to make everyone as happy as possible.

 

—Alorael, who now has to wonder why the difficulty stops at Torment. Difficulty is just alterations to monster levels, correct? Why not let players set it at an arbitrary value and give helpful presets at what would normally be normal, easy, hard, really hard, and so on? If someone wants to tackle a game in which goblins can take out fiftieth level tanks in one hit, let them.

[jlsgaladriel]

I wonder if it's too silly to include a reminder of the difficulty level on the startup screen, with a pointer to the difficulty adjustment options.

 

Just today I found myself thinking ooh, this is harder than I remember -- it's my second runthrough -- and it's taken my reading this thread to remember that I'd switched the difficulty level from "normal" to "hard."

 

I enjoy the challenge, so the realization isn't going to send me back to an easier option, but I'm betting I'm not the only user who's forgotten that, after all, she had *chosen* the more difficult path!

[Lilith]

Well, difficulty level is tied to your savefile, so you can't put it on the startup screen when you haven't loaded a saved game yet. But you could point out the difficulty level on the party death screen. That seems a sensible time to remind people what difficulty level they've chosen.

[IJBall]

Originally Posted By: Randomizer

PS That lich wasn't too hard once you get past the pylon damage.

Honestly, I'm not sure I would have bothered finishing the Lich quest if I hadn't read the thread up here on how to get through that one. I mean, figuring out the pylon issue was straight-forward. But getting past the spawns was an issue, and I might not have bothered finishing that one if I hadn't read exactly the best way to take down the Lich. (Lich Kavarus is much harder than the earlier Lich you meet (below near Cotra?...).)

Anyway, I got through the Lich, but I'm close enough to the end that I'm skipping finishing the Refuge Gazer and Demon quests. (I think the latter may be the hardest side-quest in the game!) So I'd rate these two quests as pretty hard as well.

In case anyone wants a 'non-power player's' view of the game...

[Kreador]

Hmmm. I found the Demon in Refuge pretty easy, though I died the first time because I tried what had at that point become my standard tactic of standing back and using ranged damage to kill things. It's a bit slower, but in most cases very effective and avoids issues with monsters that explode or spray poison or acid in a big radius. It doesn't work at all when you're in an ever-shrinking space, so the second time I just charged my four characters and their summons up to surround the demon and pummeled him dead in four or five rounds, then cleaned up his minions.

 

The lich was pretty crazy, but his constructs at the crypt at the end were the real pain.

[Rionep Ecnirp Etlevs]

I expected Hard difficulty to be more difficult than normal. What I did not expect was a practical requirement to use invulnerability potions. It's been my mistaken belief that there is always a reliable strategy with which one may avoid using items as long as the party has the right spells/disciplines.

 

Realizing that there's no reliable way to survive the pylon blasts, I don't mind having to burn a few items.

[Tcheedchee]

Originally Posted By: *i

maybe a different word than "Hard" would better describe what you want the difficulty to be. Perhaps "Expert" to complement "Casual"?

I'd like to contribute another Non-Power-gamer-opinion, too.

I think, that i's suggestion to rename the difficulty levels would have some psychological effect.
If you'd name "easy" "casual" nobody, who isn't inclined to set his ambitions so high as to actually figure out all the details of party/gear-design and to painstakingly making notes about every cache and effect, wouldn't have a problem to switch to "casual" if "normal" prooves too hard.
I'd leave "normal", cause that would still describe an average level of expectancy as to what someone can handle, if (s)he gets into the details of party-design and the like on casual terms.
For aspirants and experts of power-gaming you could have levels like "experienced" or "expert", and as special goodies "Hardcore" and/or "Torment" (which you might already have…). These descriptions certainly wouldn't drive away casual gamers, because they certainly wouldn't misunderstand the meaning of these descriptions. And they wouldn't be hurt in their pride, having to play on a level called "easy". I think "casual" just states more clearly, what is presented to you. You can go through the game in a casual manner. And you still get to see everything, encounter every monster, many of the features, and you get to know most of the story…
I think for a casual gamer this might be the main interest: Go through an exciting story, almost like reading a novel.

Concerning the Beta-testing…
Certainly it would be best to have something like a 50-50-mixture of casual and power-gamers to find out about the intensity of challenges which would have to be implemented within which setting.

I don't know, if Avernum is already programmed like that, because I havn't played it long enough yet, but difficulty should also be programmed differently concerning the hints one gets. In A6 this time (playing on normal) I found, that the hints really make a difference.
In the fight with Gavrahoss I was quite desperate, because I had difficulty in finding out

Click to reveal..

which splinter-shade took which damage.

After a while I thought I had the wrong idea. If the Forum hadn't discussed the fight in detail, I would have had to 'surrender' (and switch to embarrassing "easy"). Later, in the fight with Nociduas, there was this hint about

Click to reveal..

the shades who come out of the abyss in the lab to avenge the torment they have been suffering from Nociduas.

I wonder how long it would have taken me, to recognize these shades as what they where,

Click to reveal..

and that they were following ambitions that were in favour of my party.

I think Nociduas' fight would have been much harder then, and I'd expect to find the fight to be programmed without this hint in "hard"…

My 5 cents…

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: Tcheedchee

Concerning the Beta-testing…
Certainly it would be best to have something like a 50-50-mixture of casual and power-gamers to find out about the intensity of challenges which would have to be implemented within which setting.

The problem with casual gamers is that they tend to make bad beta-testers because, well, they're casual. They don't explore every part of the game looking for bugs and inconsistencies, and they tend to flake out halfway through the process instead of giving regular and detailed reports.

[Tcheedchee]

I was refering to what Jeff's and VCH's remarks…

Originally Posted By: Spidweb

Don't get me wrong. It's my game. My name's on it. The balance problems are my fault.

 

It's just, when I get three e-mails a day from a tester saying this is too easy or that is too easy, well, I'm only human. I eventually forget to ignore that tester. And then I release a less fun game that drives customers away.

- Jeff Vogel

Originally Posted By: VCH

It might help to accept some new beta testers, and not rely on the same guys again and again. New people may be unreliable, but at least you would limit the number of power-gamers. Maybe you do accept new guys. However I get the impression you go with experienced people

 

It definitely seems as if power-gamers are not the ideal testers as well, if they are the only ones…

 

That's all…

[Synergy]

The ideal game-tester would have to be as magical in ability as some of her/his PC's, I suspect, and so would Jeff, to get it all perfect. One of the difficulties is, that as a game tester, you are expected to be thorough. That means you have done pretty much everything and you have accessed more loot, had more experience, and put on better gear by the same time you reach some of these fights that the typical player may have, and so it's hard to gauge what that gamer's experience might be compared to yours. All I can comment on is how hard it seems on Normal when playing as a completist. I assume it should be pretty easy to me where I am at. If it is not easy, I comment. I guess that it's worth noting that, on average, the trigger point needs to be set lower still for making comment on perceived difficulty during testing.

 

I have a slightly unrelated comment on difficulty settings. I don't really enjoy the higher level difficulty settings so much, because they simply create some universal shifts in stats in the foes one faces. One of them in particular I don't enjoy, and that's the big jump in hit points. I get so bored whittling away forever at a foe with thousands of hit points. My idea of more difficult is: foes that become faster, more clever, harder to hit (which they already do become), and—most impossible of all in this game engine (I assume)—more numerous. I'd rather face more foes than foes with more hit points. I understand why it's difficult to make difficulty more complex with these game engines and limited time and staff, but the veneer is thin and predictable, so that it doesn't feel like a very satisfying challenge to me, just to have to hit something more times to make it die, while otherwise using the same strategy.

 

-S-

[Lilith]

It wouldn't be too hard to have something similar, though. If there were a difficulty setting that caused all monsters to do much more damage while still keeping them at the same amount of HP, I would be all over that.

[Synergy]

I'd like that better too. This is something to consider lobbying for during the next game development.

 

-S-

[VCH]

I didn't see any difference between torment and Normal other than the increased amount of time it took me to kill monsters. It certainly wasn't any harder, it just took longer.

 

 

click 10 times for Normal 15 for Torment