Act 2: Easy / Hard battles

[jack1974]

I've made a different thread otherwise is crazy
What would like to know now, is a list of the most easy and hard battles. For Nightmare but also for Normal difficulty. I think overall balance should be acceptable, and of course depends on which skill/builds you have, if you buy a lot of items, etc. So again, really hard to say to judge it well however, if say 10 people tell me that lizardman battles are too hard, then maybe I should check it! or if the first round of exploration in Dingirra is really bad even in Normal. So I can change those "extreme situations" at least thanks!

Maybe a scheme like this:

EASY
Battle XYZ bla bla. Maybe explain why. Of course, a fun thing of RPGs is finding exploits to win, but if is really something lame I should fix it

HARD
Battle XZY bla bla. Like above. If you have saves as always feel free to send them

[yayswords]

Like I remember all this now??

Hard
Mercenaries after just arriving in Dingirra, especially Kiduu, though with the Lugal I always tried to get 2 hammerguards 'cause the halberdiers are tough.
Elven gladiators. I replayed the previous battle more carefully so I had almost full HP/mana for this fight so it wasn't the lack of rest.

Moderate
Fighting all those gladiators to find the assassin after an already exhausting day (yes I HAD to kill all mercs, don't ask stupid questions). And probably the assassin too if I didn't have Purification.
Ants.
Dwarven gladiators. The D-bro never leaves the back row though.
The entire Galanna quest chain (or whichever required me to get that giant orb).
The guy who had Jariel's stuff.

Easy
Fire Demon. Didn't really feel like a boss fight even.
Yeldin. Whatever he did, I didn't feel it.
Riley's mom.

[Lonestar51]

As I already wrote: I play normal, and battles are too hard. They are harder than "Loren" on "hard" difficulty", quite a lot more difficult.

It is easy to win any given battle. However, refreshing HP and SP is either limited (sleeping ... x days til next plot event) or quite expensive (inn). The SP-using atacks are usually much more effective than anything else. Not using special attacks means healing all the time. And there are sequences like the underground tunnel where you cannot abort between battles at all. This means, you need to replay the whole day if you won your first battle with too much loss - taken too many hits, used too many SP, used too many potions.

This difficulty is too frustrating for me, I have stopped playing for now. The weather is nice outside. Maybe I will try the "easy" difficulty when it rains the next time, but until then...

[jack1974]

Yes I think that to get same difficulty as Loren Normal you need to play in Easy mode. Probably there's a gap too big between Easy/Normal, I will lower the Normal difficulty further on next update, lowering enemies stats overall, but still the mechanics will be the same. Sorry to be frustrating you, but I really got too many complaints about Loren's difficulty basically from anyone. I still want to have an Easy mode that anyone can win though, in case they are more interested in the story than the RPG part itself

[yayswords]

Maybe you could just ease up on the downtime system for the lower difficulties. Like on easy you heal 50% after any fight, on normal 25%, or so. I could share page upon page about methods for making your resources last long (without using tavern/pots) but that should be for people struggling with nightmare.

[Taleweaver]

It is easy to win any given battle. However, refreshing HP and SP is either limited (sleeping ... x days til next plot event) or quite expensive (inn). The SP-using atacks are usually much more effective than anything else. Not using special attacks means healing all the time. And there are sequences like the underground tunnel where you cannot abort between battles at all. This means, you need to replay the whole day if you won your first battle with too much loss - taken too many hits, used too many SP, used too many potions.

Personally, I think the "resource management" part is one of the things that makes SotW really stand out. If you really push yourself, you can overcome most opponents without much trouble, but there's always a chance you're going to run into someone while you*re still recovering from that last fight. I finished Acts 1 and 2 in Normal Mode now, and I didn't run into too many tricky situations by using special abilities rarely and only when I really needed them. (Though I failed Chalassa's quest - probably shouldn't have assassinated ALL the guards.) Also, I spent a lot of my money on pots, which really helped.

[jack1974]

I am uploading new build, with a much easier Normal mode. I don't think I'll go lower than this though.
I can understand people coming from Loren's game - that game is MUCH EASIER. The "Easy mode" of Loren seemed like a cheat mode. And the Normal, as well, you could go on without never buying any potion. Here if you don't buy healing/energy potions you're dead (in most cases)
I did it because I want even people who aren't familiar with RPG or simply don't have the time to use all tricks, and I've kept it even for SOTW. But perhaps Normal in SOTW was a bit too difficult. After this update, I really think isn't the case, enemies are considerably weaker.

[Lonestar51]

Ah well, not having enough potions "might" have been the source of my troubles...

Going back to balancing: It seems as if equiping the party with better gear gives only marginally improved combat performance. However, spamming out spells increases the damage from say 10-12 to 60-70 in most cases. Which needs potions to keep up the SP.

[yayswords]

If you want to get hardcore about this I can assure you I beat nightmare mode without using more than one consumable in total (flashbacks excluded), and that was a scroll that I bought just to spite the Master of the Pits. I probably didn't need it, but since I had it...

Key abilities include Vaelis' Recovery, Krimm's Rage, Riley's Energize and Chalassa's Meditate. These keep mana up, though Energize very marginally so. You can leave a monster alive until you have regenerated enough. If you have a ranger, the heal is awesome and you shouldn't spend its mana on anything else if you're trying to conserve. The higher health your party has, the more efficient heals are. If you are trying to simply regenerate with a character, use fast actions. Normal attack only has 6 delay. Position swap has 4, though another 4 for the guy you swap with.

However this playstyle can get pretty annoying (delaying victories for a long time just to regen) so I don't really think it should be necessary to use in order to beat normal without using potions. And yeah I use a lot of basic attacks.

And if you don't mind playing the slot machines you can refresh the rare shop until you find some nice SP regen items. Even more annoying to do than delaying victories though.

[jack1974]

Yes in practice, either you use lots of potions or you get early the SP regen abilities of the various characters. But also defense and speed are quite important IMHO. Depends on playing styles though.
In Loren you really didn't need to worry much about stats/buffs, only pump up attack at maximum and you'd win