I Guess I Just Don't Get It

[Old Scratch]

I started playing Geneforge 3 yesterday.

 

I've cleared every single part of the first island except for the Lair of the Creator. In fact, I'm on my very last fight in that area -- the Boss Fight™.

 

I have a level 9 Shaper. Since I've killed everything else on the island (except for the insanely hard fights in the Testing Grounds) and completed all the quests I know of, not to mention opening every locked door and chest and investigating every nook and cranny, that's about as high as I'm going to get -- I can't leave the island yet, after all.

 

There have been some pretty darned tough battles throughout the whole game so far. As in Geneforge 1, I often feel like death is just around the corner, and I can barely carry any weight at all, which means I have to rathole stuff all over the map until I clear the enemies and can collect it safely.

 

So I'm on the final battle, and I can't beat it. I tried creating two 21-Essence Thahds, and they're pretty strong, but I still couldn't beat the boss; I died, because it's tough trying to fend off dozens of worms while you damage the boss, who, by the way, has about a million hit points.

 

I tried creating four very basic Fyoras; they were slaughtered almost immediately and couldn't hit anything with their attacks (which were also weak), and I subsequently died.

 

I tried creating one powerful Atila, and that worked OK at first, but it frickin' ran out of energy after the first few rounds. It died, and so did I.

 

A single, powerful creature is simply out of the question, because there's no way to fend off three or four worms before the worms get to my Shaper and slaughter him.

 

So what's the deal, guys? Am I missing something? Is it just me? I started fighting game bosses in all different kinds of games as a kid in the late eighties, and this is one of the most ludicrous fights I've ever been in. I feel as though I'm no stronger than I was when I started. I can't even leave the island to gain more experience until I beat a boss . . . which I seemingly can't defeat.

 

Any advice would be much appreciated. I haven't been this frustrated with a game (especially a roleplaying game) in a long time.

[Grain of Salt]

Ice crystals. Ice crystals are the answer. They're cheap and they hurt.

[Radix Malorum Est Cupiditas]

I think if you have enough leadership you can tell it to kill itself.

[Old Scratch]

Quote:

Originally written by radix malorum est cupiditas:
I think if you have enough leadership you can tell it to kill itself.

That's a wonderful idea. This boss and that dialogue option remind me of Fallout; I'd be willing to bet that's not entirely coincidental, what with the Xian Skull reference to the Master in Avernum 3 and the faint similarities between this boss and the Master, the "end boss" of Fallout. (You can convince the Master to self-destruct by convincing him that he erred by making all the Super Mutants sterile. Also, the Master was a stationary head and some arms on a pedestal, and he created lots of mutant creatures.)

Unfortunately, my Leadership is "only" 6. And since there's nowhere else on the entire island for me to get experience, that's exactly where it's going to stay unless I cheat. I won't play a game where I have to cheat to advance (it ruins it for me), so that's right out.

As for Ice Crystals, my Firebolt does more damage than any of the crystals I own. I do have a couple of Discipline Wands and a Wand of Inferno, but even if I used all of my powerful wands, I somehow don't foresee them getting rid of him before crawlers come to assassinate me.

Did I mention that my Firebolt only has about a 57% hit chance on him, and did you know that he regenrates? Yeah.

"Hey, I have the only boat! If you want to get off the island, I'm going to blackmail you into killing the dragon Zacknefain first. Here's half a meat cleaver. Good luck!"

[Radix Malorum Est Cupiditas]

The wand of the inferno is part of a quest.

 

The discipline wand deals a lot of damage to creations, and the spawner is a creation last I checked.

 

The trick to using crystals and wands isn't they do more damage than your spells, it's that you can use two per turn.

 

And if you want to use the wand instead of giving it up, it deals damage to all foes you can see, so it's quite a powerful wand. In fact, come to think of it, I believe you can use up all but one charge on it before completing the quest and get the same reward.

 

As per your creations, I think the rout to take is to surround yourself with thahds and cast war blessing.

[MagmaDragoon]

Hmmm. There something strange here. When I defeated the Boss, (as a Guardian), I had a Fyora (not so powerful, but at least she can kill a worm in a hit) and Alwan & Greta. My strategy was: Greta and the Fyora kill the worms, Alwan and I attack the Creator. So, have you tryed to use Alwan and Greta to attack the creator, and You and your creation (I suggest a Thand) the worms?

[Old Scratch]

Quote:

Originally written by MagmaDragoon:
Hmmm. There something strange here. When I defeated the Boss, (as a Guardian), I had a Fyora (not so powerful, but at least she can kill a worm in a hit) and Alwan & Greta. My strategy was: Greta and the Fyora kill the worms, Alwan and I attack the Creator. So, have you tryed to use Alwan and Greta to attack the creator, and You and your creation (I suggest a Thand) the worms?

I could try that, but I've been refusing to add NPCs to my party, because the game is extremely stingy with experience points as it is. In fact, for the last level or two, I've been seeing an awful lot of this: "You gain experience. (1)" Some of those (1) enemies had been giving me a run for my money, too.

Therefore, Greta and Alwan are currently at their default levels. That means that the creator would slaughter Alwan (since he's melee and the creator has ridiculously powerful melee attacks), though Greta might be able to swing it with her Firebolt.

You guys are probably thinking, "Man, this guy's so negative. What a defeatist!" But during my time playing the MMORPG Final Fantasy XI, I learned how to use every single dirty trick in the book, and to utilize one's abilities to their maximum potential, in order to defeat bosses.

I will try what you both have suggested, and I will do my best. I'm a veteran at boss-beating, though, and in more than a dozen tries already, I have consistently failed to succeed. The outcome looks very dim; from my perspective, the game wasn't designed to accomodate lone Shapers with only their creations to aid them. Which is ridiculous, since that's basically the flagship image of the game and the one that appeals to me the most.

[MagmaDragoon]

Quote:

Originally written by Old Scratch:
I will try what you both have suggested, and I will do my best. I'm a veteran at boss-beating, though, and in more than a dozen tries already, I have consistently failed to succeed.

That's the spirit! Good luck then.

[Zeviz]

It seems that your extensive experience with other games is hurting, rather than helping you. If you like to play a singleton magic user, you should be playing an agent, instead of a shaper. The intended way to play a shaper is to create several creatures and NPCs that you keep alive long enough to get them to a high level of experience. Shaper is a general, not a battle mage. And as any general, he needs to be surrounded by troops whom he cares about. (If you don't let your creations die, they'll become very strong.)

 

As for NPCs stealing your experience, that's not how the game works. Your creatures and NPCs get a lot of experience, while you loose a little. So a Shaper with half a dozen followers gets experience only 50% slower than a lone agent. Another factor is that experience you gain from same enemies/quests decreases as your level increases. So the penalty for having an army of NPCs/creations is even smaller.

 

I'd recommend restarting the game and playing either as an agent (if you want to play the same way you've played other RPGs), or as a shaper who makes a lot of creations (and picks up the NPCs) and keeps them alive. (A sufficiently high-level Fyora can take on a Dryak, while still costing you only 15 essence.)

 

PS Another advantage of NPCs is that they never die. When they get down to 0 health, they return to the place where you picked them up.

 

EDIT: As for Creator-fighting tips, if you can't see the worm-generating platforms, no worms will appear there. Use this to your advantage. (Have your ranged attackers hit Creator from edge of the room, while your mellee fighters deal with worms appearing on the two nearby platforms.)

[The Lurker]

It's been a long time since I played Geneforge 3, but I remember how I won this battle. I used Alwan and sometimes Greta to destroy the worms, and I used approximately four fyoras to destroy the Creator, I think. I never used the Daze spell against the crawlers, since they sometimes resisted the spell. Instead, I kept destroying them as they appeared. And by the way, an essence pod may help, since you're likely to have to use healing spells. EDIT : And blessing spells, too. A tip : try not to have Alwan attack the Creator, or he'll probably 'die' in no time.

 

EDIT : And I was playing as a Shaper.

[Nick Ringer]

I had no trouble, not even as a Shaper. Yet, despite having 9-10 Leadership, I was unable to coax the bastard into dissolving. However, Alwan, Greta, and two short-lived Artila took good care of the Creator.

 

My strategy: Alwan beats the snot out of the Creator. I stand near him and use icy crystals to fend off worms, and firebolt to hit the Creator. Greta just shoots at worms. The Artila fired at the Creator to poison it, and at the worms if they got too numerous. When the Artila run out of spell energy (after about 5 rounds), I send them on suicide missions to bite the worms. They inevitably get killed, which doesn't affect much. Between the poison effect, Alwan's sword, and the occasional firebolt from me or Greta, the Creator is toast in a dozen rounds. A worm or two tends to hang around after his death. You get a nice Empathy Blade -- great for you as Shaper -- and, I think, a Student's Belt.

 

So you don't have the NPC's. That makes things tough. Your (recommended) strategy: pump up one or two tough Fyora (lots of dex/str, 2 int, 0 end). Have them attack the creator from a safe distance. You sit with them and just crystal the crap out of approaching worms. If they make it to the Fyora, you're next. Save a little essence for permanent spells (Augmentation, Essence Shield) if you can, to protect you and your pets. Bless them, shield them, and hope their dex and strength is enough to hack away at the Creator. For this you'd need a bunch of icy crystals and essence pods.

 

My real recommendation would be to start over and ally with Alwan and Greta. The game isn't that "stingy" with experience -- in fact, you seem to be! Don't worry about every point. You'll end up replaying hundreds of battles to be a few levels ahead by the end of the game. If you must nit-pick, however, consider it thusly: party members may leech your experience, but the cumulative experience gained by the whole party is faaaar greater than that if you went solo. I mean, didn't the "You should come with me. I could use an extra blade" conversation option imply something?

 

(Really trying to sound helpful and not critical)

[Old Scratch]

Quote:

I mean, didn't the "You should come with me. I could use an extra blade" conversation option imply something?

(Really trying to sound helpful and not critical)

Ha! Don't worry, I appreciate your input.

To answer the question, yes, it did imply something, and in almost all roleplaying games, I fill up my party with the best party members I can get my hands on. Just this once, I wanted to go solo, and look what happened! Hmmph.

[Grain of Salt]

Did you beat him yet?

 

If not, then get Alwan and Greta. Use them against the worms. Have perhaps a fyora and you attack the Creator. Buy all the ice crystals the shop has. They take 3 AP and do 40-46 damage a pop. Use Daze against the worms. Then, when the worms overwhelm your defenses, Daze them one last time and unload all the ice crystals you have on you. This fight is extra-tough because you can also talk your way through with 10 leadership, I think.

 

That's how I did it, anyway. And Zeviz is right: if you want to be a solo magic user, play an Agent.

[ThirdParty]

I was a beta-tester, so may not have faced this battle in its final form, but I do remember beating it with a Shaper unaccompanied by Alwan or Greta. For me, it was the hardest battle in the game--it took several tries to find a strategy that worked. If I recall, I ended up using two thahds and two fyoras. The thahds kept the worms off my back, the fyoras provided backup in case the thahds missed (or needed time to reposition) and otherwise very slowly damaged the Creator, and the shaper did whatever seemed most important at the time (healing things, blessing things, throwing extra firebolts at the Creator, etc). I may have consumed an Essence Pod, but I didn't consume any other items.

 

The key to the battle is making sure you don't fight all the worms at once; you want to face a slow trickle of worms, not occasional swarms. Keep your creations near each other (and surrounding the Shaper), as far from the worm-spawning pads as possible. Get in a rhythm such that, at any given time, at least half of the worms are out of striking range due to being stunned or newly spawned; kill any worm that comes within range, but don't kill it until it does so. Do this right and each worm will die the turn before it would take its first attack, you'll be outside of the Creator's range (as I recall it could kill any member of my party in one melee hit, which was nasty), and so you'll be taking no damage at all and can whittle down the Creator's health in a very long fight.

 

Of course, the best strategy depends on your character. My shaper was focused on battle shaping and blessing magic; if he had been equipped with magic shaping and mental magic instead, a completely different approach would have been appropriate.

[Old Scratch]

With two 21-Essence Thahds, 14 Ice Crystals, and one Discipline Wand, I easily defeated the creator boss. In fact, it seemed ludicrously easy this time around. (I hadn't realized before that using crystals only requires 3 AP).

 

I almost wonder if I should have used up all the crystals. I think I could have survived a lot longer than I did!

 

In any case, thanks for your advice, everyone.

[Zeviz]

Congratulations.

 

I'd suggest swinging back to pick up the NPCs anyway, because, in addition to never dying, spedning their skill points doesn't cost you any essence.

 

And one more thing, I didn't notice any mention of blessing magic in your battle reports. War Blessing and Shielding spells can make any fight much easier, especially if you Haste your strongest creatures. And Augmentation can help your Shaper survive getting hit.

 

Good luck with the rest of the game.

[Old Scratch]

Quote:

Originally written by Zeviz:
And one more thing, I didn't notice any mention of blessing magic in your battle reports. War Blessing and Shielding spells can make any fight much easier, especially if you Haste your strongest creatures. And Augmentation can help your Shaper survive getting hit.

Good luck with the rest of the game.

Unfortunately, I don't yet meet the astronomical energy requirement for casting Speed (100 Energy), and I didn't have enough Essence left over after making my Thahds to use Augmentation (30 Essence). Also, War Blessing wouldn't have helped much with that battle anyway, since the Thahds could kill the bugs in a single hit; I suppose the Shaper might do more damage to the Creator more often with Firebolt (or the equivalent), but I was using Ice Crystals and a Discipline Wand, so that's a moot point.

As far as Shielding goes, I decided to save my last few Essence points for Healing Craft. (There's no way I'm going to use up an Essence Pod just to regain 6 Essence.) I suppose it could be useful, but I've never noticed Shielding to be particularly effective -- meaning that three Minor Heals would probably be a better Essence investment. It does do some good, don't get me wrong, just not enough to justify the drain on my tiny remaining pool of Essence.

I've given up on Geneforge 3 for the time being and started Avernum 1 instead. I'm getting frustrated with always having too much weight to carry, even when I sell absolutely everything that's nonessential, and I'm constantly dying unless the enemies are garden variety. The Roamers on Harmony Isle slaughtered the living bejeezus out of me when I approached the herb sheds.

Dying constantly and never having enough AP starts to take its toll on a player. Not to mention the annoyance of the Energy and Essence requirements for many of my spells, which severely limits what spells I can cast and how often. It seems to me that I can never cast anything without having to return to town to regain Essence.

[MagmaDragoon]

Quote:

Originally written by Old Scratch:

I've given up on Geneforge 3 for the time being and started Avernum 1 instead. I'm getting frustrated with always having too much weight to carry, even when I sell absolutely everything that's nonessential, and I'm constantly dying unless the enemies are garden variety.

Don't give up ! Do like me: play as a Guardian! It's not so difficult and you can combat with yourself, not with creations: is more funny! Anyway, I think the most difficult bosses are the Creator in the first Island and the Boss in the second one. After that, my Guardian became very, very STRONG.

[Student of Trinity]

Yeah, Geneforge III isn't really that hard a game. You're probably just burdened with expertise from other games that is counter-productive for this one. There are a few basic principles to get down, but then it's pretty straightforward.

 

The fact that crystals take only 3 AP is vital in the early stages of all the Geneforge games, since that lets you get two attacks.

Basic buffing spells (Bless and Shield) are much more effective than in many games.

You can explore in combat mode. It is slow and tedious with a large party, but frequently lets you get the jump on rogues.

Two speed pods in a row give you 12 AP instead of just 10; that lets you step up, attack, then hide -- or fire four crystals in one turn.

Acid is good because it will keep wearing down a boss while you deal with things like worms.

Encumbrance is always a challenge, but one that can generally be met by discarding stuff that you're never really going to use anyway.

If you're a Shaper, some people love keeping creations for a long time, but the power-gamers keep constantly retuning their creation armies, because you're always close to parity with your enemies, and a little edge can make a huge difference (killing a worm with one attack, for example, versus needing a second to finish it).

If you're an Agent, forget completely about Shaping; keep cranking Spellcraft, Battle Magic and Quick Action so that you always act first and kill with each shot (at least usually); and use all the cunning you can to keep your enemies at long range.

If you're a Guardian, GF3 is a bit harder, especially on the second island. Use more stuff, since you can carry more. Bringing both Alwan and Greta will help a lot, and once you get some good armor on the third island things will get easier.

It's fine to use a low difficulty setting while you're learning the ropes. I learned how to survive on Torment by learning how to breeze through Normal. Starting on Torment would have been much too frustrating.

You might want to play GF1 and 2 first, if you haven't already. They have the same basic engine, but with fewer bells and whistles. G1 especially is a cool story, too.

[MagmaDragoon]

Quote:

Originally written by Student of Trinity:

If you're a Guardian, GF3 is a bit harder, especially on the second island. Use more stuff, since you can carry more. Bringing both Alwan and Greta will help a lot, and once you get some good armor on the third island things will get easier.

Easier? After Harmony Isle, I became a GOD!

[Student of Trinity]

I found it was pretty good after I looted Rahul's bedroom, but I'm not sure I can say I was a god until much later. I was playing on Torment, but perhaps more importantly, I shot myself in the foot with my initial skill distribution. Remembering how great Parry was for Guardians in G2, I poured everything into it, only to discover that in G3 it had been nerfed pretty well. Actually I think it's better now -- it's a good skill in G3, and it almost broke the game in G2. But I was a long time building up my Strength and Endurance to decent levels after that initial mistake. Plus I was role-playing an extreme loyalist, so I only brought Alwan with me -- and Alwan has a high negative pressure. With Greta, things would have been much easier.

[Shaper Anton]

Too bad he give up

[Kelandon]

Felix, you are spamming like mad. Please only post if you have something useful and constructive to say.