Let's talk combat

[Troyen]

It might be a bit late to wish for it now but it would really have been cool if the druid had some spells like this, and some more of general utility, instead of two times four spells that are almost the same. Speaking of druid spells though, I like what you did with Speed of Eagle (has no one nitpicked this name yet? Speed of the Eagle if anything, but I would go with Eagle's Grace), it feels like you've hit a good spot with it now.

+1 for Eagle's Grace. Also kind of feel the same way about the elemental spells. In Loren, it felt like "okay, now I can do the exact same move, but it's fire damage now!" rather than "cool, I'm learning an amazing new ability." There's a little bit of gameplay with the secondary debuff effects and the environmental effects, but most fights seem to have one go-to offensive option.

[jack1974]

Yes I'll change the name to Eagle's Grace.
As for the spells, since in Loren people complained about the very different usage of the AOE and the single-target damaging spells I thought to add two variants for each one, useful for fighting a lot of enemies with low HP (AOE) or single monsters with high HP (single target).
Not saying that other spells couldn't be useful of course, just wanted to explain the design decision!

Regarding your other points: yes the AOE have not much use now but because most encounters are max 2-3 enemies, the only exception is the Goblins. But later they should become much more useful!

In terms of stats, dumping everything into constitution for front row characters and will into my druid until 20 has made fights immensely easier. Higher hp allows you to absorb those special attacks (Pounce) without getting KOed in the first round, like I was when I originally went for a balance of skills. I honestly haven't noticed a significant effect on the other skills now that I'm backfilling everything to 20, except my magic missile hits for an extra 4-5 damage. I guess they let me unlock some traits? (Which do seem like a neat idea.)

Yes probably the HP/SP are the key factors in the end, though I think also agility for the speed might be useful. Initially had each CON/WIL point raise the HP/SP by 10 but I immediately realized that it was too much. Perhaps even 5 is "too high" but I don't want to change too much right now. Or maybe I should increase the raise on the other related stats...

Overall, Nightmare difficulty with my setup feels like Loren on Hard (or PS on Hard if you want to go back that far). I don't know what your intended difficulty target was and maybe this level is OK for the opening chapter. It certainly feels better to only have to retry a tough fight a couple times instead of being stuck unable to kill anything while fully rested like I was on my first game (which was on Hard, no less).

Yes is what I wanted. Initially was harder, but then I realized that this is just THE FIRST chapter (and shorter than others) so didn't want to shock the player too early later things will be really hard. You mention the ratmen fight, think a similar one with a cleric, but with front line fighters with more HP or stronger defense...

I might tweak a bit the giant spider again in 0.78 though, since I don't want that one to be TOO easy. Also I'm adding the ultimately awesome skill for the ranger: BRAMBLECOAT!

Description = "Surrounds your body in a coat of brambles for 5 turns. Increases your defense by 15%, as well as harming those that strike you with melee by 5% of their HP."

I am going to test it, because attackers losing 5% on each hit might be a bit too much (if they hit all the time, they'll lose 25% of their total HP!).

[yayswords]

I think the problem with the spider is it has two special attacks. One is the paralysis, which does like no damage (single digit) at all, but has a good chance of a 3 round stun or something. The other is the poison bite, which it can use on the back row to devastating effect. But the spider also dies from like three nukes from a druid. If in that time all it did was fail at paralyzing you it was probably roflcakesfreeloot. If it poisoned and paralyzed your druid and the twin is a hunter (=no heals) then you probably would be reloading instead. Or throwing potions WHICH I NEVER DO okay I get it.

I have more to say on the recent posts probably for example the Bramblecoat... I was thinking an empower that would buff each of the weapon requirement abilities of the ranger. But I guess this is interesting to any ranger build anyway.

Also Perfect Balance. You want to make this ability good, then remove Invigorating Prayer. Okay so now it grants 75 SP/HP for 75 of the other plus the 10/8 caster cost. With 150 SP you get an instant 75 SP from IP at a 15/12 caster cost. The static regen just can't compete with a % gain as mana pools grow. If I played on normal I could definitely crank up my SP to 150 by level 6. My previous nightmare party's druid had 135. Admittedly Vaelis sits on junk mana and PB would be a good cast on him but his pool will grow and IP will overtake PB and I will just sit there regretting the point. But if you increase the exchange rate even more I would be killing my low level characters with it.

However I also think in general too many spells have a % effect. I would like to see them depend on the caster's magic score. If I want to use my druid purely as support I can take the first row of skills and ignore my arcane stat altogether. Pump up agility and will.

And I'm calling it out: Anyone thinks hunters can compare with druids for damage? Anyone at all? In any build so far?

[yayswords]

I really don't like having stat derivation everywhere. I have rewritten this post three times now because I'm trying not to jump to conclusions and then rant based upon them. But really. How can I make my hunter hit harder? Maybe it'll work to remove all defensive gear that doesn't increase my attack anyway. Then opponents will have less defense too. Okay I ranted anyway...

Okay actually, that does work. I stripped my level 1 hunter of armor (ranger kept armor on) and a snow tiger went from 40 defense to 24. Gear should not be a double edged sword.

Stripped both. 10 defense tiger.

Here is the funniest, funniest part. I could not beat the tiger until I took off my armor. Hahaha. I am going to record a playthrough with this or something.

[jack1974]

Ah OK, then yes that shouldn't work, shouldn't consider the armor in the defense computation. Will tweak it now

[yayswords]

Are you kidding me, I'm on steroids here editing the video of how effective my unarmored party is. And it's not just armor being derived. Health is. I haven't checked for every stat but I think they all do...

And the point is that normal random mobs should not use stat derivation at all.

[yayswords]

Lo and behold:

edit: edited your post so the video is playable from the forums

[jack1974]

Haha if you have saves for both "configuration" I would be interested in getting them so I can tweak this
Stat derivation is OK if is mixed with some minimum sanity check, like not go too below a certain level (equal to the average defense a character would have with a standard armor). Otherwise the challenge goes away

edit: nevermind is rather easy to reproduce, don't need the saves

[yayswords]

But the thing is I don't think the situation for my naked party is as stupid as the situation for my armored party. If one twin was a druid I could be nuking for those numbers (60ish) without having to give imaginary fanservice. Yeah there is mana but still. I'm pretty sure the magic attack still beats aimed shots. Hunter damage suxxxxxxxxxxxxxx is my point and bear in mind I could just run a party that relies on spell damage and deliberately have very low physical damage. So in turn very little physical damage will be derived, and unless the enemy team has mages they can't win. They might derive my crazy defense so we can all have fun hitting for single digits except my spells.

idontlikestatderivation :P

[jack1974]

A enemy party with high Magic resistance would get almost no damage from Mages. Again you make right observations but based ONLY on this first short act, where there aren't any high-magic resistance enemies. I should make the goblin high magic resistance maybe, so you can see how much damage the druid does against them... MOUAHHAH (no I won't touch that now)
I also invite you to try the "naked strategy" (rofl) against the goblin battle when Morran is sick. I tried and was killed by the scouts rather quickly it works in your example against a single enemy. Of course, needs to be fixed in that case, but is not like if you go naked around you'll always win battles. You'll win easily the battles with a single enemy maybe, but as soon as there are two enemies things change quickly (for worse).

Thanks for all the feedback though, I've greatly improved the system