lets play Playing Exile for the first time...

[Cait Slith]

The whole trope that "everything you do must be formulated as a quest, which is explicitly stated by a single person, who you can also report your success to, usually for a reward" wasn't even remotely universal in 1994.  Very little of what you can do in the game follows that formula.

 

Luck: one point can be worth adding early.  The first point gives you a 40% chance to lower damage sustained by 1, and a 30% chance to not die when you otherwise should.  After that the increase is not as steep.

[ladyonthemoon]

7 minutes ago, "Nothing Left" said:

The whole trope that "everything you do must be formulated as a quest, which is explicitly stated by a single person, who you can also report your success to, usually for a reward" wasn't even remotely universal in 1994.  Very little of what you can do in the game follows that formula.

The very first video game I ever played was Avernum, I'm not used to older games.

 

8 minutes ago, "Nothing Left" said:

Luck: one point can be worth adding early.  The first point gives you a 40% chance to lower damage sustained by 1, and a 30% chance to not die when you otherwise should.  After that the increase is not as steep.

Ah thank you for the info.

 

I begin to see monster fleeing instead of attacking; is that related to the total amount of Luck my party has?

[Thaluikhain]

As I understand it, that's because your level is too high.

 

Not sure if that's intended to represent them being scared of you (which makes sense) or it's more a gameplay thing, because low level monsters would annoy players.

Edited August 30, 2020 by Thaluikhain

[ladyonthemoon]

8 minutes ago, Thaluikhain said:

As I understand it, that's because your level is too high.

My current party members levels trank from 8 to 5. It seems a bit low to scare mindless creatures.

[The Almighty Doer of Stuff]

There ARE many of those not requested quests. A lot of text and details were added in the remakes, like I said.

 

EDIT: Sorry, didn't see page 2. But also, in Blades of Exile, when your party reaches an average level of 8, all monsters in scenarios rated Low difficulty will see their HP doubled. So monsters fleeing at level 5 to 8 isn't unusual.

Edited August 30, 2020 by The Almighty Doer of Stuff

[ladyonthemoon]

On a side note, I have a real pleasure playing this game but I cannot play too long sessions due to the outrageous number of monsters to fight; this easily annoys me. I would like it much more if more of them fled. Two hours is the largest limit.

[Thaluikhain]

11 hours ago, ladyonthemoon said:

On a side note, I have a real pleasure playing this game but I cannot play too long sessions due to the outrageous number of monsters to fight; this easily annoys me. I would like it much more if more of them fled. Two hours is the largest limit.

 

Second that, lots of monsters that have little or not treasure and exist solely to get in the way gets tiresome.  IIRC, E3 had a lot less of that.

[Hondero]

I remember making a topic on the monster numbers for Exile II maybe 10 years ago — I had to check that thread and I still think the same! 

 

In dungeons in Exile 1, I recall the enemies respawning at a ridiculous rate. It was most noticeable in some of the linear dungeons (“I know I cleared this area out”) and did feel like a tedious slog. Sort of a false difficulty — you’ve already potentially cleared a dungeon, beaten the boss and horde, and yet you still have to deal with leagues of respawning critters. 

 

If you give Exile 2 a shot, the dungeon respawning is not nearly as bad, and it only seems to be a characteristic for some dungeons. Many of them don’t seem to have respawning. I remember playing some E1 dungeons and seeing enemies respawn right before my eyes as I walked around! 

 

For the wandering monsters just leveling up your party will help a lot. Like you noticed, even level 5-8 may make wandering goblins and such run away. It is annoying to be exploring and get 2-3 groups of monsters attack you sequentially, especially after you just cleared a dungeon. Like Thaluikhain said, Exile 3 had a preference setting for less wander monsters, and it was nice to turn on when you get tired of them. Fortunately, leveling up helps a LOT, and by the time most of your characters are 15-25+, you can walk around most areas of Exile without most wandering monsters attacking. Feels good

 

When I started playing Exile 2 again a couple weeks ago, I was annoyed at the wandering and respawning monsters sometimes getting in the way of the game. Since there is no game setting to change it and because I think it is sometimes a cheap move on the game’s part (like the false difficulty I mentioned), so I started just buying a lot of energy potions and giving myself the gold back via the game editor. You still have to slog through the duplicate enemies at times, but at least you don’t have to get stingy with the spell points and hold off of buffing your characters. 

Edited August 31, 2020 by Hondero

[ladyonthemoon]

1 hour ago, Hondero said:

It is annoying to be exploring and get 2-3 groups of monsters attack you sequentially,

I experienced this yesterday. My party had discovered the Crystal Cave and were resting inside it. Their health and energy points were very low so I had them rest several time in a row; after a while I was getting "monsters nearby" each time I pressed the rest button. I ventured outside and there was 4 bands of enemies queueing outside the cave entrance!

[ladyonthemoon]

I've played a bit today; unfortunately I wasted a lot of time killing hordes of monsters...

 

My party discovered Cotra where they took the Nephilim Fort quest; they eventually found it after hours wandering and fighting monsters, as already mentioned. They have begun their exploration of the cave.

 

They levelled up but couldn't get much training since they didn't have much money... They hope that the reward for freeing the prisoners will be handsome, really handsome!

 

Monsters waiting for the team outside the Crystal Cave:

 

 

 

[ladyonthemoon]

Hurray! They freed the prisoners and got at nice reward! 700 coins!  They become stronger and stronger and more and more monsters flee when they are close now. Phew!

 

They found a soldier who was hiding in the fort; I haven't been able to find the words that triggers him escaping.

 

 

There is an ominous altar in the fort; they decided not to take chances this time.

 

 

 

 

 

[ladyonthemoon]

My party's current stats; their levels spred from 7 to 9, all the fighters are level 9.

 

[The Almighty Doer of Stuff]

You will be beaten to a pulp if you mess with that altar right now, if that's the altar I'm thinking of. I suggest coming back when you're stronger though. You could also try saving, testing your abilities, and then reloading if you can't handle it.

 

In conversation, when in doubt, try asking about every word you see in conversation one by one. Exile 3 and BoE make this easier, by allowing you to click on words instead of typing them all in, but for this situation, my hunch would be to start by asking about "portcullis", "open", or "escape".

[ladyonthemoon]

15 minutes ago, The Almighty Doer of Stuff said:

my hunch would be to start by asking about "portcullis", "open", or "escape".

I've tried these words, and a lot of others I can't remember, several times with no luck. I even tried words that were not in the conversation, like "flee", "free", "leave".

[The Almighty Doer of Stuff]

What does he say in the message before that?

 

EDIT: Yeah, I just blasted in with an edited party to find out. I opened the portcullis, freed the other captives, and then tried a bunch of keywords with Gordon and still couldn't figure it out...

Edited September 6, 2020 by The Almighty Doer of Stuff

[ladyonthemoon]

17 minutes ago, The Almighty Doer of Stuff said:

EDIT: Yeah, I just blasted in with an edited party to find out. I opened the portcullis, freed the other captives, and then tried a bunch of keywords with Gordon and still couldn't figure it out...

Sigh Looks like the poor guy was left behind.

 

Thanks for trying!

[Thaluikhain]

Yeah, did that dungeon a few days ago, don't play with the altar (really don't, a Haakai is way too tough, in E3 they are about the toughest monster that isn't a special character.) and I think that guy is just to give exposition and doesn't escape, or at least doesn't have an explicit gameplay escape thing.

[ladyonthemoon]

4 hours ago, Thaluikhain said:

I think that guy is just to give exposition and doesn't escape, or at least doesn't have an explicit gameplay escape thing.

He does escape in Avernum...

[Fireball Fodder]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that guy can't escape in Exile I.

[The Almighty Doer of Stuff]

I'm finding that Exile 3 feels less bogged down than A1:EftP or A2:CS. There's a lot less description and flavor like I said, and Jeff's writing is engaging in the remake remakes, but Exile 3 feels easier to play without thirty screenfuls of text in every town. I'm surprised. I thought I would like it less, but I don't.

 

I forgot to add a point of Luck when I created my party, and got worried when I saw Slarty's post earlier in this thread and remembered. But then I remembered Luck costs 0 gold to train in, just skill points, so it's better to train it after party creation, where everything else that is otherwise not free, is still free.

[ladyonthemoon]

Nothing much to say about this week's round. The party went up North after freeing the prisoners from the Nephilim fort, exploring. They stumbled on a "remote temple" and managed to get out of it alive, but it was close.

 

 

They carried on exploring and eventually found Formello. They visited the city and found its hidden treasure; they disarmed the traps but left the loot on the spot.

 

 

Then they paid a visit to the mayor who tasked them with retrieving her magic necklace.

 

On to the Nephilim Fort then! Before that, they need to go back to Fort Duvno; they have many unknown objects  and nobody is able to identify them in Formello.

 

Edited September 13, 2020 by ladyonthemoon

[Thaluikhain]

Running back and forth to ID stuff is a pain, yeah.  Secret treasure in Formello, didn't know about that.  Took one look at the Remote Temple and decided not, might give it another go.

[ladyonthemoon]

1 hour ago, Thaluikhain said:

Took one look at the Remote Temple and decided not, might give it another go.

These guys are tough indeed. My party will go back there later too.

 

By the way, I know how to avoid monsters spawning too often: do not sleep outside...

[ladyonthemoon]

I'm still playing Exile, it's just that I haven't managed to get enough spare time lately to play significantly.

 

Right now my party is in the Nephilim Fort near Formello, trying to recover the necklace. With them levelling up, fights have become less frustrating.

[Warrior Mage]

What happened to your Avernum characters then?

[ladyonthemoon]

11 hours ago, Warrior Mage said:

What happened to your Avernum characters then?

Nothing I guess; they are still resting until the Exile party has caught up with them.

[Warrior Mage]

I am eager to know how gameplay is going...

[ladyonthemoon]

On 1/2/2021 at 2:47 PM, Warrior Mage said:

I am eager to know how gameplay is going...

Well, I'm afraid the gameplay is suspended right now, for various reasons. I'll get back to it one day or another.