I have played up until chapter 4 captivity with Shea.



-On ocassion in Chapter 1, if you go to north from your house, the

characters will show vaelis, shea and althea telling you that they cant

go any further. On the 2nd to 4th try, the characters will go through

saying that only 5 million times fast. Its a bug



-The Experience in chapters 1-4 isnt enough to gain even 1/30th of a lvl

for any characters which will discourage exp farming which makes this

game awesome. This was my favorite part of the game.



-Heres the main part. Enemies are way to hard even on normal difficulty.

The Spiders need to lower the stun and poison ability that stacks. Its

entirely possible for enemies to stun the whole party within the span of

1 round stunning your allies for 5-7 rounds. I can understand brutal but

the spiders take away all your healing potions which you need for

captivity escape.



I would lower the length of stun/effects to 2 rounds maximum per

launching it Right now it is 5-7 on first try which is insane!



The enemies get a lot of aoes but that might be interesting. Otherwise I

bought the game and it is a great game.



Has anyone else has similar results?

The first one is because you pressed TAB or auto-skip (the only reason why the texts will go so fast).

As for difficulty: I'm NOT changing Hard/Nightmare levels. They're perfect as they are. I can change Easy and Normal based on feedback (from more people of course). BTW check the video I made in the other thread, I used only 3 potions to win the boss fight with the Giant Snow Spider, using a super-lame team with level 1 items (the starting items actually!! ) so I don't think is too hard in Normal.



Of course I won't change the enemy battle behavior except extreme cases (I get a lot of complaints about a specific battle). Since if I change it, would change also for the other difficulty levels.

Also, if a battle is OPTIONAL (so not required by the plot) I'm less inclined to change it. One thing was the assassin fight in act2 which is required, but all sidequests are optional so not necessarily you need to make them.

The only thing that I would ask of you is the poison and stun levels that are granted from spiders/creatures. It seemed like chars were getting 4-5 rounds per casting of poison bite. Keep in mind, this is an aoe. Ouch! I am only asking that you take note of the levels given from status effects.



-There should most definitely be a max you can get from status effects. Anything more than 10 rounds is ridiculous even if you are giving it to the enemy



-Maybe it was just me, but I think that 3 rounds per status effect would be max. I will try and do what you said however after watching the video. Thanks.



It would seem the glory of Lolth be praised! (Drizzt shudders). Well I never liked spiders much anyway but it definitely is good for a change to make the nasty beasties pack a punch!

The limit I think is 7 for paralysis, while poison and other statuses can go up to 10 indeed. If you want you can send me your save so I check

A note on spider web (paralysis). If you have an empty slot between your chars, then one spider can only inflict paralysis on one of your team members at a time. I never had the Act 1 spiders inflicting AOE poison on me, either. Act 3 poisonous critters are a whole different issue, as are Act 2-3 paralysis inflicters. Good gear can reduce paralysis effect to 2 rounds on Vaelis/druid/Jariel (who can then Rally/Purify others) after act 1.

What about which characters you have to take out in the right order in Escape Captivity battles? I usually just run out of potions. But then again I only had 2 health and 1 restore ally pot. The enemies are so much harder than in Loren and even Planet Stronghold which is weird considering I play Planet Stronghold on normal/hard difficulty.

I think simply you haven't learned yet how the game works in full. It's a more complex game than previous ones so takes a bit to get used to it. Beside potions, you need also good gears, and pick the right skills (some are more powerful than others). I still remember you being very angry with Loren the first time you played, then you took time to learn it and liked it

If you list out your classes and the skills you have, it might help us provide more targeted suggestions. There are some skills that are really good early level, some that are situational, and some that you probably shouldn't take until level 50. It is possible to do the entire first act on Nightmare without potions at all, but a lot of it is skills, target order, and positioning. Some of it is also stat choices - if you're dying a lot, putting some points in Con (until you have about 100 HP) and Will (so you can use more than two skills before resting) really help out as well. And since the heal skills are % based, the more health you have, the more effective they are.



Also, if you really dislike paralysis and you're lucky enough to find paralysis gear, resistance reduces the duration of status effects. (Not sure I would recommend this as a long-term strategy though, as not all that many mobs have paralyze skills.)

I pretty much assumed that SOTW would use similar skills and stat choices to Loren. I made my ranger put 1 point to constitution, 2 skill, 2 strength and remaining one in agility. This will be since the character is a fighter character. However the weird thing is that the auto choose selects will and arcane. Why on earth would a warrior use magic. This is very different from typical rpgs. I figured most fighter chars would focus on physical stats. Its very weird that the auto choose selects just strength and will/arcane. What is the point?



I really liked the skill which is an attack that requires ranger and twohanded weapon skill. I gave my ranger a twohanded hammer and he actually deals major damage when they stagger.



I dont have any idea what to put for points for my althea the hunter seeing as I can only guess agility and constitution. I am guessing that the game uses a diablo style where everyone needs mana to funnel their attacks even warriors. Im just not used to it.



Any info?

When you choose auto, uses a weighted random to pick the skills. Going to make less likely for warrior to pick arcane, but its doesn't ALWAYS pick that

I am thinking if to add autohealing in Easy/Normal after each battle. Not 100% of HP/SP, but 50%. I know, it will make everything easier but maybe for people playing in Normal would be better ?

edit: Okay no, that's a bad idea since the restless trait then would make no sense and even going in taverns to heal better if I keep the balancing only in enemies' stats. I've reduced the overall stats in Normal slightly (will be live in next update).

Playing devil's advocate here: don't some RPG sites review games played on Normal? I think that Normal is easy enough already now, but then again, I'm one of those crazy NM players who takes Hard-mode for relaxing......... Aaaaaaanyway, what I was going to say is that I don't honestly think that Normal as compared to Normal in RPGs in general needs to be made any easier. If you're comparing Normal to Loren Normal then you'll be back at square one = "no challenge", I fear, if the game's going to be reviewed on Normal. I think the problems at this point would be if EASY was too hard or NM too easy. One can always switch from normal to easy for a few fights without losing anything. And one can always switch from NM to Hard without losing anything (even bragging rights are off the table since this is not MMORPG )



-Capt. Obvious out!

I'm currently playing through on normal with little planning on where I spend my attribute points (the extra point makes things a little forgiving) and no tactics in battle. I'm surviving. Just completed all quests in the first area by mindlessly rushing through the battles and with no healing skills on my characters. I think I've used 4 or 5 minor healing potions total.



I really don't think the auto-heal thing is needed for normal difficulty, but I've been playing RPGs for 20 years now so I'm probably used to how things operate.



Easy is supposed to be easy, normal is supposed to provide some challenge and hard is supposed to be difficult. I fear you're trying to remove all challenge from the normal difficulty level which would be a shame.



But once again I mostly play RPGs so maybe I'm not the sort of person the "normal" difficulty is aimed at

I dont have any idea what to put for points for my althea the hunter seeing as I can only guess agility and constitution. I am guessing that the game uses a diablo style where everyone needs mana to funnel their attacks even warriors. Im just not used to it.



Any info?

It works the same as in Loren. SP are used for all skills.

So what are the ideal stats for warriors (Rangers) rogues (Hunters) and the works. I think I can figure out druid and spellcasters but what about the ones mentioned.



I would likely focus on strength, constitution, skill for warriors so that they get defense from skill, damage from strength and health from con.



For hunters I would focus on constitution for health, strength for damage and agility for speed.



Am I doing anything wrong or should I get a few points into the magic ones?

I don't put much points on constitution for my hunter. YEs, a few points, but the areas I want her to have oomph are strength, strength and strength. Agility helps, too,especially if you don't have druid with them early on who could cast Eagle's Grace on them... plus I invest some points in Will so there's enough energy for the strong hunter attacks. You can get gear with magic points to help your hunter better withstand magical attacks or later in the game, you could invest one skill point to the wizard or elementalist trait if you feel that the hunter is still too vulnerable against those.



Hunter can also be used in the front row with only slight boosts to Skill and Health...if your enemy has mainly warriors hitting the front row, just place the hunter (thief class) to any other square than the one directly opposite of it...thieves suffer less damage from warriors when there's distance between the thief and the warrior, and with the Hide in Shadows on, I've actually had my Hunter tanking in the front row against two warriors while my warriors heal in the back with Riley's/Druid's help



Ranger can have many designs depending on whether you want them to be a shield wall/tank that withstands both magical attacks and melee dmg (constitution, skill, arcane) or a fast-hitting dmg dealer (agility, strength, some constitution and skill).





EDIT:Here's one of my level 15 Hunters. Built on NM/Hard, so I've only got 5 attribute points per level. Her brother is a druid, that's why I have less point on Agility than I would have if her brother was a ranger and couldn't boost her speed.

Show Spoiler

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Just came back from parents. Beside visiting them, I also took the opportunity to watch my brother play SOTW "live". He never played it before, though he plays RPGs usually. So is not a newbie, but not a veteran either. The perfect candidate for Normal difficulty. Well, he went to the end of act1, WITHOUT SAVING ONCE. I told him to equip properly, but apart that he jumped on every battle. He had an interesting approach with Druid/Ranger, putting all points in Magic for Druid and Attack for Ranger, he was able to nuke enemies quickly.

After that experience I agree with fabula, Normal doesn't need to be made easier, otherwise I'll read again on review sites: "pro: nice story bla bla. con: too easy"

One thing I dont understand is the apparent lack of stats choices that work to choose for each character





Lets see-





Skill-Useless



Agility-Minorly useful



Constitution-A few points every once in a while



The only stats that are useful on a major basis for warriors are strength for damage and will for magic points. This is based on the interpretations of people here.



If the game has those stats that arent as useful why would you put them in?

Im going to come back later and try for better loot for the whole party. I will try the strength and will combo for warrior and Strength/agility for hunter. I still wish the other stats did something but maybe I can get something from them from items from vendors.

Skill is an ok auxiliary stat in addition to primary strength and some HP for Vaelis early in the game... especially if you choose to make him dual wield with two axes early on, because then he'll be vulnerable with no shield but can hit harder...so it's noce to counter at least some of that vulnerability. The situation will change once he gains access to better armour .. and even more importantly, better axes along the route (that also have some defense). I also tend to give a couple skill points to Krimm when she comes out to play so she'll be able to withstand more melee damage while dealing a lot of it in the frontrow. High defense armour make her easily too slow in act 2 and 2H weapons aren't often that high on defense.

All in all, I'd say that all the stats have their uses the further in the game you'll progress so even if early in the game you'll ignore some of them, they are far from being useless...well, at least if you play on hard/nightmare... and depending on the (ranger) build.