Delay Mass Paralysis? Soon he'll be too slow no matter what he does...
One only needs to beat him on Hard for the achievement. I still think, as I posted before, that he could have been made to be "impossible" on NM, considering what he's supposed to be. With "impossible" I mean that there could be certain skill choices that you need to be able to beat him with each class. I don't mean that there would be one or two skills specifically for beating the likes of him and if you don't have them, you couldn't beat him. What I'm saying that he can be one of those annoying bastard enemies that will force one to backtrack a few levels and reorganize the build. I had that experience with Yeldin the first time he got buffed up for real. Jack, you're just too kind with us, allowing us to beat him without some awesome, one of a kind item that one could only pick up in the very first Act by choosing the right reward from some silly sidequest that wasn't even compulsory..... (yes, I've had that experience in other games...)
jack1974Oct 26, 2014
Yes true, people should try to beat him in Hard. Then if it's really impossible even in Hard, could consider some changes. But already two member made it. Nightmare is not supposed to be "easily winnable". Is supposed to make you sweat, reload 1000 times, etc. Who finds it fun? well SOME people do. If for you is not fun but still want the achievement try with Hard. Otherwise, I'll get complaints from people that is too easy in NM mode
TroyenOct 26, 2014
If fabula beats him with ranger/druid on a game where he doesn't cast slumber, then I'll relent. I think you beat him, but got really lucky. I haven't seen a single Slumber in over 300+ boss turns. (In fact, you could make the difficulty more consistent by removing his ability to cast Slumber, since that apparently makes the fight too easy.)
Yes true, people should try to beat him in Hard. Then if it's really impossible even in Hard, could consider some changes. But already two member made it. Nightmare is not supposed to be "easily winnable". Is supposed to make you sweat, reload 1000 times, etc. Who finds it fun? well SOME people do. If for you is not fun but still want the achievement try with Hard. Otherwise, I'll get complaints from people that is too easy in NM mode
Sure, but if that's your goal, I don't think you're achieved it. Nightmare ranges from being wildly easy on some fights to "requires strategy and time" on some fights to three bosses that are insanely difficult. It's really hard to gauge your party's power level when you can clear most of the act without too many reloads but then you hit Deceit, who is the hardest boss since Yeldin. It doesn't help that the environment bonus is totally arbitrary in this game, so unless you've played before, you most likely will not have the right spells to take advantage of it. A lot of the difficulty comes down to luck or guessing what skills you'll need two levels from now against mobs you can't imagine with penalties you don't know about until the fight is upon you.
To be clear, I'm totally fine with sinking 4000 gold on consumables to get over one boss, if that's the strategy that nightmare requires. I'm less thrilled about needing to know two levels (or eight in some of my cases) ago, I should've made different skill choices just to survive this one specific scenario.
fabulaparvaOct 26, 2014
Done without him delaying himself Slumber.
Last moves in spoilers, some phases are missing, but he never hit me with slumber. Took around 15-20minutes and lots of resources until he rolled over.
HP just under 600. He chooses to remove my buffs with Curse Of Khalaman.
JAriel is out of Bombs, so he just whacks him with a potion of Fear to do 25 dmg and further lower his defenses, after which Althea is ready with Sweep
It's Deceit's turn with 7HP left after the Sweeping Strike, but obviously Shattered DoT kills him at this point.
TroyenOct 27, 2014
All right, I did it. I just saved every time Deceit's turn was about to come up just in case he did something that would be extremely difficult to recover from. Also saved if Jariel was about to go. Ended up reloading the most for Jariel since 75% of his moves were dodged or blocked. (Actually, I think Jariel's bad accuracy was far more annoying than mass paralysis or anything else.)
Not exactly a clean kill, but apparently reloading is encouraged.
I did get to try out the dispel scrolls though. They were kind of nice, though probably more helpful on fights where I need to cleanse someone other than the other mage.
I am kind of curious - do bosses level with the party, or are they fixed? I ground most characters to 20 before retrying the fight, but not sure if that made a difference - for better or worse.
Now, to figure out what to do with the other 10,000 gold of consumables left over...
TroyenOct 27, 2014
How are you faring against Jul, by the way? I've gotten her to 800, but I need to play around some more. Succubus Kiss essentially just resets the fight and she has that nasty SP draining move. Weakened and Confused don't seem to affect SK either.
jack1974Oct 27, 2014
About NM: of course is not possible to tailor every single fight, at least not with this system but I meant that there should be several fights that needs strategy, and some that are really nuts, especially if are optional, so not required to win the game. I think that with my small possibilities (one man doing all the balancing lol) I made a decent job. Perfect balancing (which also includes battles difficulty) is a myth *
All enemies are mostly fixed, they use some base values, then those values gets multiplied, and then take a small % autoleveling + small % of party stats, but in any case they won't level up as powerful as the party. Then lastly, there can be some randomization but in order of 2-5% max of stats. Lol is quite complex to explain but with this mix was able to make those "challenging/very hard" NM battles
* I also think that the only way is to have much smaller scale stats, and CAREFULLY plan each skill, and reduce the amount of skills considerably. Maybe will make a post about it next Friday
TroyenOct 27, 2014
Not sure super boss health should be so variable, I've seen Deceit's max HP range between 1150 and 1275 now, which is a pretty big difference for non-hunter parties. For multi-mob battles and non-bosses the variance fine. Can you make specific values (per level) for specific mobs, or is that not supported? (And is the % of stats why most bosses I see have 260+ speed?)
I know perfect balancing is difficult. It's just weird to go from a ten minute fight where I beat it in one try but use all my SP, to a number of fights that the Restoration talent is sufficient to heal the damage, to suddenly a boss that requires a whole bunch of consumables and reloads. If there were more "checkpoints" throughout the act and previous acts, then it wouldn't feel so out-there - though that is admittedly hard to do with not-so-linear questing. This game is way too big to fine-tune nightmare with only three NM testers though - I don't think you even have decent Hard coverage.
Act 2 was similar: once I beat the battlemage guards from one of the four families and got past Riley's quest, the rest of the act was a breeze (well, difficulty-wise) until OMG Yeldin. Yeah, some fights required a lot more effort than others (Dark Elves?), but it wasn't on the mass-reload scale. And I still don't know about Yeldin's tuning with D/R because I got lucky and had Manticore Poison to get past the fight.
Indeed, reducing the number of skills a bit and especially the consumables would make balancing easier, but if you reduce it too far, then you ruin some of the fun of the game.
TroyenOct 27, 2014
If someone wants to give D/R Jul/Deceit some more tries, I've https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4071729/20-4-LT1.save with a whole bunch more consumables (including dispel scrolls!) and a level 20 party. I might come back to Jul, but for now I want to finish Act 4.
I'll take my saves down sometime before the end of the beta.
jack1974Oct 27, 2014
I can surely remove the "small % randomization" in bosses (for the HP or even all stats). That's not a problem. You meant Deceit/Jul or all bosses in general? I think is fair, since those fights are hard and if someone makes a sort of walkthrough/guide, should work in all cases so the randomization breaks things (is fine for the other non-boss battles to add more variety).
Indeed, reducing the number of skills a bit and especially the consumables would make balancing easier, but if you reduce it too far, then you ruin some of the fun of the game.
Yes well it would be a different game indeed I've playing a lot of Heartstone recently and I really like the small stats approach. Same approach of the new XCOM too. For sure is also a matter of tastes, but with those system is easier to make the battles last less and be more like a puzzle, where you have to find the right combo to win. Not saying all my next RPG will be like that but I'd like to try with one (I'm doing a prototype for that, but still behind with it).
jack1974Oct 27, 2014
Yes, I plan to do that with a smaller game Or if I can (one day) implement an isometric battlefield, even less skills are somehow compensated by the environment (again think about XCOM or Banner Saga). I'd like to do a game with 3 skill each char, 5 levels total and 1 inventory slots like Banner Saga
fabulaparvaOct 27, 2014
How are you faring against Jul, by the way? I've gotten her to 800, but I need to play around some more. Succubus Kiss essentially just resets the fight and she has that nasty SP draining move. Weakened and Confused don't seem to affect SK either.
She went down easier than Deceit and easier than she did in previous fights with Hunter. I had Rowinda in this fight instead of Krimm. I don't know if I should post any screenshots of that, it's essentially just keeping swinging at her with Ranger + Vaelis. Rowinda in charge of healing HP/SP with scrolls and sometimes the group heal skill. Shea and Riley inflicting number of status effects on her (never once hit Energized and only once used Purification), plus Jariel flinging Weakened, Fear, Confusion + Bombs at her. Yes, she does that SK, but each time she did it, she was a bit lower HP-wise, so after the first one which almost reset her HP, her HP was still slowly getting lower. My issue with this v.0.9.7 fight was that she didn't Cleanse herself (she's always been more lazy with that than Deceit) which really helped in keeping her slow after the first couple rounds... So she was down in under 10 minutes, first trial. I feel as if she used to be faster in general when I was doing Hunter/Ranger-fights against her before v0.9.7. Is this solely because the increased delay that Cleanse has now...so she doesn't even want to do it anymore and instead prioritizes SK, hellfire, vampiric bite, etc?
I've done HARD-playthrough of the whole game and I have to say that I quite liked the overall difficulty progression and the occasional deviation from the scheme. (Hunter + Invincible Ranger). Act 1 might be too easy for Hard, but this comes with a word of caution...a helluva lot depends on what skills and classes*) one chooses.Also, I was doing that after clearing the game in NM...so maybe... That's why I'm not suggesting about touching the Acts 1 & 2 difficulty at this point. I mean it could be tweaked, but does it reallyhave to be?
*)Two opposing experiences of Acts 1&2 while playing at NM:
1) Hunter/Offensive Ranger....pure pain through Acts 1 and the majority of Act 2. But then towards the end of Act 2, and Yeldin included, it got a whole lot easier.
2) Hunter/Very FAST Heals&Traits-nonoffensive(apart from icespike) Druid. Acts 1 & start of Act 2: easy breezy beautiful... and then hiccups towards the end of Act 2.
jack1974Oct 27, 2014
No I'm NOT going to touch act1-2!
I think the game as it's conceived it cannot perfectly balanced for a simple fact: first act, you have 3 characters only. On second, you have 5-6 for a good amount of the story and the full 8 party only at the end. Then, add to this that you can choose two characters Classes, and you can also choose the skills in ANY order... you get my point
So all things considered, it's better if is towards the easier side than the harder, at least the first two acts.
fabulaparvaOct 28, 2014
I even got to use Vaelis' Final Blow once, but he didn't get another shot in before Deceit healed. Guess that's what you get when you pin all your hopes on an old man.
OK, lol, totally offtopic but I have to do this......<.< >.> "old man" .... When did Vaelis leave Ninim for his mercenary career? He was away for almost 50 years. He returned when the twins were 4, so that was 15 years ago. That will put him leaving the village little less than 65 years ago. Did he leave when he was a young adult or a bit later? If he left the village when he was 20, that would make him under 85. That's younger than Aragorn in Lord Of the Rings, by the way. Plus from an elven point of view, Aragorn was young. If he was 40, he'd be over 100 now... and what was that about Jariel and Century Journey? He's hardly old for an elf. He just looks old-er. Or more experienced. Not that I'd know anything about elvish hormonal systems, but I know that some men in real life lose their hair quite early...something to do with testosterone.....
Oh right. This thread was about combat. Sorry.
Right. Critical hit got "nerfed" with the Staggered requirement, but I'm happy to report that I managed to hit Jul for way over 300 with the right prep & double attack. :D
jack1974Oct 28, 2014
Well why Vaelis looks old to you? To me seems like the equivalent of a late 30's human
And yes even with the nerf Critical Hit is still powerful enough!
TroyenOct 28, 2014
Because he's going bald, has white hair, sips cocktails in the sauna, and is always reminescing about his younger days. Seemed old man-like to me!
(Plus his base speed is lower than almost everyone else in the party, I think)
Wait, the twins are 17? For some reason I thought they were a few years younger.
fabulaparvaOct 28, 2014
19.
Riley's 26.
No idea on Krimm and Chalassa.
(Ranger's basespeed is lower (107) than Vaelis' (111) unless they get a birthday gift... and look like Druid's is as well (109))
TaleweaverOct 29, 2014
Age revelation:
In Aravorn, elves that are in perfect touch with nature hardly age at all. They can live several thousand years as long as they don't leave their forests and never interact with anybody outside their own culture. That's why so many residents of Grandtree are reluctant to travel at all, and why things like Century Journeys are so important to their culture at all.
Elves that live a "non-elven" life - traveling a lot, interacting with other cultures, feeling less rooted than others - usually live somewhere between 400 and 600 years. If nothing bad ever happens to them during their lives, they don't age much either - at around twenty years, they've grown into full adults and stay like this until only a few years before their death. Some say they "wither away" during these last few years, drastically aging physically until they die.
Aside from that, all experiences elves have show in their physical appearance. The older an elf looks, the more likely it is that he suffered tragedies in his life. Look at Shagala: As a healer, she has seen countless people die without being able to help them, and each of these deaths has left another wrinkle on her face. Look at Morran: The loss of his wife AND his subsequent banishment have deeply affected him. Look at Vaelis: He's already balding - something rarely seen in elves.
Morran and Vaelis are both around 150 years old as SotW begins. Jariel's about 60.
Krimm is in her early twenties. Chalassa...
...no, I'm not going to give that away
jack1974Oct 29, 2014
Haha a nice explanation, I should add this to the lore wiki on aravorn.com
I have to say that I like the idea, though in some special cases elves won't show the tragedies in their aspect... I don't want to see Myrth from Loren suddenly full of wrinkles ! (well Myrth is an Elder druid so could have some powerful magic at works).
TaleweaverOct 29, 2014
It's a question of how well the elves are able to actually COPE with what happened to them.
Morran lost the woman he loved and the town once lived in. It almost broke him, to the point that he became obsessively protective of his children. And it shows.
Vaelis, as a mercenary, had to do things he didn't really want to for FIFTY YEARS. Still, he didn't allow it to get to him. He was able to rationalize many of the terrors he saw, which is why he still looks relatively youthful.
