Third Act Beta! - SOTW 0.8.38

[jack1974]

Was reported before, now it should be gone int the latest version.

[Troyen]

Also, I've noticed pretty much the entire game that quest rewards seem to require one level higher than I actually am, which means I can never use them right away, and half the time I find something better in a shop by the time I've leveled.

Depends which quest rewards? usually I generate the item at -1 level or 0 (same level) as the main character.

Oh, so that's a bug? It's been pretty much every equipment quest reward in the game. (And my main character is the same level as Vaelis/twin.)

I can try to get a specific quest list, but I'll probably need to restart for that.

[jack1974]

Don't think is a bug, also depends which characters, your main character could be level 9 and you want to equip the item to another party member which is level 7. Anyway at the speed you level up not sure how much it matters. The legendary quest reward have no level so can be used by anyone and they're the most powerful items

[Taleweaver]

On Normal difficulty, when fighting the sea battle, you cannot accidentally have the pirates sink your ship by foolishly not boarding them until it's too late. You're missing an opportunity for a game over...

[jack1974]

Thought it did, going to check

[Taleweaver]

At the start of the Deceit boss fight, there's a scene where Chalassa kills a random city guard, apparently in Dingirra...?

...and then, without using any skills, I won the fight?!

[jack1974]

Uhm if you have the save I'd be interested in seeing it in action
Those can happen if there has been a previous interrupted fight somehow, but should be rare. I "clear" the renpy call stack everytime the map is loaded, so is strange that you got it!

[Troyen]

Are there a preset number of cells that have to be searched to find the assassin?

I actually thought my game was bugged when I was constantly stuck between "search and fight the same group of slaves I just fought" or "rest". After five or six or so, I tried giving up and resting through it, but that didn't work either (I guess Shea has a sugar rush and can't sleep), so it was back to fighting slaves again. Took about a dozen battles (I gained a whole level!) in total to trigger the boss fight.

The slave fights here weren't really fun because 1) they all had very similar compositions (like in Act 1 when you go to loot a trap and find another spider and two wolves facing you), 2) they weren't particularly challenging, a heal or two outdid an entire fight's worth of damage, and especially 3) they were long thanks to the high defense, high hp, and all the attack penalties you get on Nightmare. Sure, it challenged my party's endurance, but I still think it could've been done in half the fights.

There came a point late in Loren when I started skipping all unnecessary fights just so I could get back to the story, and I'm already hitting that point in Act 2 here. I spend a lot of time in combat now and not much reading the story (and I really want to keep reading the story!). That said, most of the boss fights have been fun and interesting (exceptions: Wave of Guards and Guardian Golem), so I'm reluctant to lower the difficulty. But, I think this is a consequence of making fights longer without reducing the frequency of mundane battles.

Just some thoughts as you begin to think on pacing in Loren 2.

[jack1974]

It's more complex than it looks The clues to gather are 4 in total, but each cell can have aggressive, neutral, unfriendly slaves. Aggressive always result in a combat but even if you win, you get no clues. Neutral will let you talk and gain clues, unfriendly if you insist will attack you. Both in the last two cases if you win you get a clue. The slaves are randomized so if you REALLY have bad luck you could find aggressive slaves which fight and give you no clue for 2-3 times in a row, but that would be an exception. In the best case you could even not need to fight once (if you always encounter neutral ones, but even in this case is an extreme). Usually after 5-6 fights max you'll get all clues

[Troyen]

I must be really unlucky with this act then.