SOTW 0.8.9 - First Act Beta preview!

[jack1974]

Actually managed to beat it. Got lucky with the speed variance and got both archers slower then my druid. That was enough for Althea to kill the rest. So reducing the speed sounds like a good idea. It probably also demonstrates that the variance is too high for the speed stat.

Ah yes, I will eliminate the small randomize for the speed then, or probably just reduce the overall difficulty of that battle, since is an early plot battle

Thieves seem to get the distance-based damage reduction from anything at all in the front row. Observed in case: druid vs. ratmen.

What you mean? with melee Thieves shouldn't get any penalty: with ranged, they get a big penalty attacking from the front row.

[yayswords]

I mean you do less damage to thieves the farther away you are from them, so you need to place your warriors in front of them. However it applies to anything in the front row, not just warriors. Ratmen pushed my druid to the front row and her nuke did very different damage to the thieves. She was in the top position, and to the bottom one she did almost no damage, but full to the top one.

[jack1974]

Ah OK, that is not normal indeed, going to check

[Troyen]

Actually managed to beat it. Got lucky with the speed variance and got both archers slower then my druid. That was enough for Althea to kill the rest. So reducing the speed sounds like a good idea. It probably also demonstrates that the variance is too high for the speed stat.

Ah yes, I will eliminate the small randomize for the speed then, or probably just reduce the overall difficulty of that battle, since is an early plot battle

The goblin scouts are hitting my druid for between 41-59 damage. I don't have the health to survive two hits like that at level 1. 38-44 if I put everything into defense at the start of the game and take the trait that gives me +5 constitution. I even bought a staff for the maximum amount of defense I could afford at the level and she just dies before any of my characters go. As a further insult, these are green mobs (Weaker --).

In comparison, they hit for 27-29ish damage on a hunter/ranger with 35 defense, and he can survive that damage (albeit he needs to heal ASAP afterwards).

I see their starting attack is 21, perhaps knock it down by 5 or so? Or drop their base damage a little. The Goblin Hunter seemed OK.

My hunter/ranger combo now does a lot better than druid/ranger, but still not quite good enough. I could maybe tweak my opening stats slightly more to let my ranger survive another round (or possibly buy a healing potion instead of defense gear), but I don't have time tonight. Instead, I just slept until morning and they vanished permanently, but with some weird side-effects on the story: they get to the healer's house and it's night again, and then they sleep.

I feel like the druid and hunter just swapped places on the power hierarchy. My hunter can hit for over 50 damage twice per battle (with Double Attack - though can you only Double Attack the front row?) and my druid does a lot less damage than before, but +5 arcane seems to double her early spell damage, so she might scale very well at higher levels.

Finally, a couple bugs left over from previous versions:

• Traveling east of Ninum before dad gets sick leads to a black screen and reloading the map instead of a "we shouldn't do that" dialog.
• I can't scroll back through the text when selling furs to the tanner.
• The first day of the game should probably be 27 Hibernia instead of 21.
• The Enchanter's wagon trait where he touches you on the head for +5% HP/PP only grants max HP/PP. Resting does not restore to the bonus maximum (e.g. I can start the game at 60/66 HP).

[jack1974]

Instead, I just slept until morning and they vanished permanently, but with some weird side-effects on the story: they get to the healer's house and it's night again, and then they sleep.

Haha yes that is a bug, will prevent players from going back to sleep

I feel like the druid and hunter just swapped places on the power hierarchy. My hunter can hit for over 50 damage twice per battle (with Double Attack - though can you only Double Attack the front row?) and my druid does a lot less damage than before, but +5 arcane seems to double her early spell damage, so she might scale very well at higher levels.

No is not in general, is that I raised some enemies Magic resistances: Goblins and Ratmen now have higher Magic, just to show that Druids aren't invincible nukers but that battle was badly balanced, in next update will have 1 Goblin warrior and 1 Goblin Scout (is the SECOND forced plot battle of the story, if you skip all the optional ones, so can't be too hard!).

Finally, a couple bugs left over from previous versions:

• Traveling east of Ninum before dad gets sick leads to a black screen and reloading the map instead of a "we shouldn't do that" dialog.
• I can't scroll back through the text when selling furs to the tanner.
• The first day of the game should probably be 27 Hibernia instead of 21.
• The Enchanter's wagon trait where he touches you on the head for +5% HP/PP only grants max HP/PP. Resting does not restore to the bonus maximum (e.g. I can start the game at 60/66 HP).

Thanks will check those out now

[renke_]

And could you take a look at the SP/HP regen trait? In my game yesterday I again lost this sometime down the story, though I forgot to check it in every battle.

[Nightsnow]

Wait you are not suppossed to be able to skip the goblin ambush battle? Because if you go home and 'rest untill tomorrow' you can avoid the battle all together.

Also is the druid's resurection spell supossed to be able to function as a heal spell even if the target isn't knocked out? Don't get me wrong it is very usefull and I liked it, but I don't know it was intended to be used as a single heal as well as a resurrection.

[jack1974]

And could you take a look at the SP/HP regen trait? In my game yesterday I again lost this sometime down the story, though I forgot to check it in every battle.

Ah yes, I think that one gets "cleared" when I reset the player after creation.
BTW I found a major problem the enemies autoleveling was way off, I noticed it changing the Kodiak boss fight, I added 3 Kodiaks: same level, +3 levels, +5 levels. The HP difference between the first and the last was of only 30-35HP and the attack/defense difference was of 4-5!!! So that's why some battles were too easy and other too hard. The first goblin barricade with the Green level goblins should have had MUCH LOWER stats, and the bosses much higher.
I'll fix this now since for sure there's need to be more difference between two identical enemies but one 5 levels higher

Wait you are not suppossed to be able to skip the goblin ambush battle? Because if you go home and 'rest untill tomorrow' you can avoid the battle all together.

No is a bug, will fix it on next update!

Also is the druid's resurection spell supossed to be able to function as a heal spell even if the target isn't knocked out? Don't get me wrong it is very usefull and I liked it, but I don't know it was intended to be used as a single heal as well as a resurrection.

Yes, indeed the description now says: "Heals single target 50% of total HP. If the target is KO, resurrects him/her."

[yayswords]

Well the druid needs a decent heal for the first season. Nature's Touch has a niche but that niche isn't being a bread and butter heal and you shouldn't ever be lining all three characters up since Vaelis is a frontliner and the druid isn't. Of course it's a lot for one spell but since Jack wants to have two times four nukes that are largely similar to each other, the remaining four spell slots need to be able to do a lot of things

[Troyen]

BTW I found a major problem the enemies autoleveling was way off, I noticed it changing the Kodiak boss fight, I added 3 Kodiaks: same level, +3 levels, +5 levels. The HP difference between the first and the last was of only 30-35HP and the attack/defense difference was of 4-5!!! So that's why some battles were too easy and other too hard. The first goblin barricade with the Green level goblins should have had MUCH LOWER stats, and the bosses much higher.
I'll fix this now since for sure there's need to be more difference between two identical enemies but one 5 levels higher

Going back to two goblin scouts then? From a story perspective, it's more intimidating to see three mobs than two, otherwise it'd just be a rehash of the first fight.


Also, is anyone else wishing the "Learn Skill" and "Auto-Assign" buttons were swapped? I feel like I have to go to a remote corner of the screen to select a skill and then back if I'm selecting two skills and I subconsciously assume the closer button is the "select this one" option.