Cursed Lands version 0.8.9

[jack1974]

Yes sorry I was also balancing some stuff. For example I never played the game at level 30 characters, and the enemies stats are completely wrong. 50 Defense, etc And lower HP than party members.
So I am tweaking the stats a bit, so that enemies have more HP but less defense/speed/attack (speed in particular was completely wrong, too high, the player would never be able to reach speed 25 for example!).
I've also nerfed Vaeril Lifetap since was insane (stealing 30HP from an enemy... lol too much!).

[jack1974]

I uploaded the new version, I alos decided to raise the level cap just in case. If you have saves to send though, I would like to see them to see the various party builds. I mean I tested now but I'm curious to see what stats people get when they reach level 30.
Though probably Franka's is not valid since doing several times the Kraken is a cheat mode (the loot you get is powerful, so getting it twice... ).

[myoksy]

(the main purpose should be to reduce the target's SP).

with half the speed and no changes otherwise you also halved the main purpose

I increased the XP needed to level up

did you try this with a new game? I remember QoT with too fast levelling for the end of the game. your change made the whole game a grind-fest.

[jack1974]

Yes indeed debilitate changes were wrong since enemies have more HP now, you shouldn't be able to shred defenses fast.
Regarding the XP to level I haven't tried a new game (I don't have time sadly) but before it was:

self.xpNeeded = [0,100,200,300,400, 500,500,500,500,500, 500,500,500,500,500, 750,750,750,750,750, 1000,1000,1000,1000,1000, 1000,1000,1000,1000,1000, 1250,1250,1250,1250,1250, 1250,1250,1250,1250,1250, 1500,1500,1500,1500,1500, 2000,2000,2000,2000,2000,]

and now:

self.xpNeeded = [0,100,200,300,400, 500,500,500,500,500, 750,750,750,750,750, 1000,1000,1000,1000,1000, 1250,1250,1250,1250,1250, 1500,1500,1500,1500,1500, 1750,1750,1750,1750,1750, 2000,2000,2000,2000,2000, 2250,2250,2250,2250,2250, 2500,2500,2500,2500,2500,]

So until level 10 it's identical to how it was before, I suppose you already passed that level in new playthrough? I can revert the change back and maybe only increase the XP needed at higher level (since I don't want people to be level 50 at end of act2 already!).

[jack1974]

So I spent some time testing it now: there was a mistake, enemy SP wasn't as high as was supposed to be, even in Normal mode (higher difficulty=more enemy stats). Because of this I have decided to revert debilitate's speed to old values and also use a percentage instead of fixed value. Instead of 1 SP, 10% of enemy SP. So at higher levels the skill is still useful (when an enemy has 20SP, draining 1 is meaningless).
I might even increase the % by a little, like: 10%-12%-15%, this way with Expert skill an enemy with 30SP will lose 5SP, which is better than losing only 1SP. Boss enemies will have SPRegen so it shouldn't be too powerful in any case even with this change.

[jack1974]

I also noticed that the SP values (for both player and enemies) were going too high at higher levels, resulting in battles too long, so I'm reducing the SP amount on each level up to half. This way the early stages are more or less the same (since the character's Will stat has more weight) but starting from level 15-16 you'll see less SP amount = shorter fights = more use of potions (probably only at higher levels though).
I played again both at lower levels (5-10) and also at higher (>30) and the fights both worked better now. I think will keep this change even if of course I'll need to do more testing

[Franka]

I've been doing a bit of min/maxing in the arenas, and it seems that Warbears in the Amazon Citadel are by (very, very) far the best source of XP in the Hard fights. Funny, because they're so much easier than the snakes and the spiders. Anyway, power leveling is done by fighting at least 2 Warbears in the Amazon Citadel arena 3 times a day.

Also, as a side note, all arena battles with enemies than can paralyze are a waste of time, except to quickly max reputation in 3 vs 4 fights. They just take so long.

[Franka]

Oh, and I forgot that you need a minimum of 2 characters in each fight, so you can't solo power level, but 2 vs 3 in hard amazon citadel fight with 2+ Warbears is maximum efficiency.

Since under leveled characters gain extra XP, it's actually most efficient to power level 2 characters and then have your reserves play catch up later on. Funny.

[jack1974]

Haha cool. I'll keep those "tricks", since that's what make RPGs fun I think (discovering ways to power level, best encounters for XP, etc).
I think will do a new update with the SP/debilitate tweaks now. I played a bit more and the battles at higher levels feel better now, SP in this game should be a scarce resourse, when you/enemies begin the fight with 40+ SP...

[Franka]

So, you've raised SP drain by a percentage, but lowered max SP. In effect I'm now draining 2 SP because you evened out the loss.