Things I don't understand.

[Baggrin]

By the last holiday I remembered this game, I decided to get a witch outfit with my new character. I remembered why in general I practically hate this game in many ways. Okay, the old content is easy and simple, but here is the Winter Palace and everything behind it ...

Tell me, did it just seem to me, or did ALL opponents have an outrageous dodge, ALL resists are 50+ and (removing debuffs) falling into a rage ?! I won't even ask why this hardcore (for the sake of hardcore, of course, what a stupid question ?!) but where is the balance at all ?!
1. Why are opponents (Dryder Queen for example) not validated by the 1 + 2 + 1 + 1 ability limits?
2. Why did the summoned creatures completely lose their usefulness long before Lady Evergreen's home?
3. Why should I heal every turn and be saved before every battle due to the fact that opponents' critical damage exceeds my health and at the same time they attack twice per turn ?! Or is it no alternative for me to wear heavy armor and neglect (anyway, thanks to the random, allies often manage to get ahead of me, even despite the maximum dexterity!) By the drop in initiative?
4.By the way, was it really so difficult to make the button "ALWAYS manual control of the whole party" for the convenience of the players, why should I force this mode every battle?
5. Oh, and I also don't understand why activating the stone to summon Ryn became a point of no return, I personally planned to return to the village after that, rest for the full bonuses, get a blessing and drink ale. But no, immediately after activating the plate, I was sent to fight, with a state of fatigue ...
6. Why almost always "Defeat the leader = victory of the enemy" is relevant only for me, but not for enemies? There are few exceptions, for at least some new content, I can't recall a single battle won by eliminating the leader ...
In fact, there seem to be many more things that cause me questions, but I will not bother to remember them and list them.

 

[WolframL]

The Palace of Ice is meant to be the end of Act One of the story and is geared for a max-level party, of course it's going to be hard. If you're having trouble hitting enemies, take a drink of Apple Cider from Garth before starting the dungeon to boost agility and then don't drink the wine at the start of the dungeon, or it'll overwrite the buff.

1. Because enemy encounters don't have to follow the same logic as the playable characters and can have more abilities or a different spread of them, depending on what the devs want to do. RPG Basics 101: Your rules are not (always) the enemy's rules.
2. Because you're doing it wrong? Summons (and companions) get stronger based on your Leadership bonus so if you're expecting to use them, put points in Presence and/or use the Helm of Heroes. Also, Summon!Kiyoko (if you haven't freed her) and Phyria are more effective than the standard Flame Spirit.
3. If you're getting one-shotted, you don't necessarily need to change your armor (but if you're still using the same stuff from the start of the game you might at least want to change it up a bit) but you probably should be looking at your party composition and power setups and use some defensive buffs. Also, accept that sometimes the RNG is going to favor the enemy and other times it will favor you and keep trying. But if trash mobs (and the Drider Queen doesn't count, she's more like a wandering miniboss) are one-shotting you in the Frostwood at Lv5, you probably need to check your setups.
4. The game was originally designed to only allow control of the Champion, full manual control was added later. This is also why companions have a few more stat points than you do at the same level, to account for the fact that they were intended to be computer-controlled.
5. If by this you mean picking the option to climb the wall and enter the palace and expecting that you'd be given a chance to go back and do other things, the problem is that you ignored the bolded text that told you that picking the option would take you to the Very Definitely Major Dungeon. In other words, your problem is that you failed to read in a text-based game.
6. The fight with Jael'yn in the Palace of Ice says hi. The reason that the Champion falling means you lose is again because the game was designed around them being the only character you control directly (ie, they're 'you') and to emphasize their importance as the leader. It's a very common gameplay mechanic and hardly unique to CoC2.

 

[Alypia]

It's good to see that you're enjoying yourself! I will try to help as best I can, although I'm not exactly an authoritative source.

By the last holiday I remembered this game, I decided to get a witch outfit with my new character. I remembered why in general I practically hate this game in many ways. Okay, the old content is easy and simple, but here is the Winter Palace and everything behind it ...

Tell me, did it just seem to me, or did ALL opponents have an outrageous dodge, ALL resists are 50+ and (removing debuffs) falling into a rage ?! I won't even ask why this hardcore (for the sake of hardcore, of course, what a stupid question ?!) but where is the balance at all ?!

Much of the post-Winter City content is balanced for levels 5 and 6. It is still possible to defeat all these enemies at level 5, but you need to take character build and party composition a bit more seriously than you would if you just outleveled or outstatted the content.

Alternatively, lower the difficulty level.

1. Why are opponents (Dryder Queen for example) not validated by the 1 + 2 + 1 + 1 ability limits?

Those are minibosses. Minibosses like the Drider Queen and Byvernia are special, because they're designed to give the Champion and their party a harder (but still eminently winnable) fight. They get different bonuses as a result.

Byvernia is a guaranteed once-only-per-day fight (and is easy to flee from) and the Drider Queen has already taken a significant nerf. Determine their weaknesses, bring parties that are equipped to deal with them, and you should be fine.

2. Why did the summoned creatures completely lose their usefulness long before Lady Evergreen's home?

Summons have lost out a bit in combat power by this point, yes, although Berwyn's Golem, Amulet!Kiyoko, and Princess Phyria still do okay. Eventually, a summoning circle will be added that may buff them a bit. In lieu of that, stack Presence or swap out for a different Encounter Power.

3. Why should I heal every turn and be saved before every battle due to the fact that opponents' critical damage exceeds my health and at the same time they attack twice per turn ?! Or is it no alternative for me to wear heavy armor and neglect (anyway, thanks to the random, allies often manage to get ahead of me, even despite the maximum dexterity!) By the drop in initiative?

There are several moves that force enemies to lose their turns, through things like stuns, Silencing, Disarming, and the like. They can be much better for mitigating damage than gear. You may wish to consider adding these to your repertoire.

4.By the way, was it really so difficult to make the button "ALWAYS manual control of the whole party" for the convenience of the players, why should I force this mode every battle?

You can make Manual Control the default. It's in the options menu. Click on the gear icon at the bottom right of the app and scroll down to Combat Flow Default. It's on "Player" because that is what most players are most likely to want to use.

5. Oh, and I also don't understand why activating the stone to summon Ryn became a point of no return, I personally planned to return to the village after that, rest for the full bonuses, get a blessing and drink ale. But no, immediately after activating the plate, I was sent to fight, with a state of fatigue ...

Is this about the bolded dungeon text or about the Foothills Waystone? If the latter, well, if you're concerned about losing an open world fight in a hostile zone, you can always flee.

6. Why almost always "Defeat the leader = victory of the enemy" is relevant only for me, but not for enemies? There are few exceptions, for at least some new content, I can't recall a single battle won by eliminating the leader ...

Because most of the enemy groups that you face don't have a single leader like yours does, because the game is balanced for it, and so on. But defeating the Marefolk Shaman, Guard-Captain Jael'yn, Queen Atheldred, and the like will auto-win you their fights.

 

[Baggrin]

If you're having trouble hitting enemies, take a drink of Apple Cider

I seem to point out that my agility is maximum, so advice is superfluous. Although the mention of ale (I was wrong, I meant cider) could indeed be misleading.
And the problem is not even with me (I am a black magician and do not hit enemies with weapon), but with my allies. Ryn misses Dryder Queen with a probability higher than 50%. Although I sometimes have the impossibility of using a spell against the enemy. It pisses me off when this happens to Vitality Reap, but for a purebred black magician, both alternatives to this spell are MUCH worse ...

1. Because enemy encounters don't have to follow the same logic as the playable characters and can have more abilities or a different spread of them, depending on what the devs want to do. RPG Basics 101: Your rules are not (always) the enemy's rules.

But they MUST! Since they (NPC classers) use the same abilities as the player, then they should also have similar restrictions and according to the same principles (there is no demand from monsters, but here are more humanoid like...), and not 3 rechargeable abilities + 2 times per battle, I will not say who. It's just cheating ...

2. Because you're doing it wrong? Summons (and companions) get stronger based on your Leadership bonus so if you're expecting to use them, put points in Presence and/or use the Helm of Heroes.

OH REALLY?
If my memory serves me correctly, then the presence of 17 gives only 210 health. TWO HUNDRED. If new bosses periodically kill me with one blow, then the summoned creatures simply have no chance. This is the first time I've heard about the helmet, but it doesn't matter. What kind of spell is this if in a fight with ANY boss it is absolutely useless without additional items ?!

Also, Summon!Kiyoko (if you haven't freed her) and Phyria are more effective than the standard Flame Spirit.

There is no need to talk about this misunderstanding. I still refuse to understand why it is not immune even to resolve damage...

3. If you're getting one-shotted, you don't necessarily need to change your armor (but if you're still using the same stuff from the start of the game you might at least want to change it up a bit) but you probably should be looking at your party composition and power setups and use some defensive buffs.

Even IF I don't die from one critical hit:
1. The boss moves twice.
2. The allies are not too superior to me in health and seem to be inferior in defense ...
As for allies and defensive buffs ...
The fight with the queen began. I use (moving first of the whole party and in front of the queen) oil in order to make her skip a move and (if I'm lucky) hit the oil with a fire attack. She hits me with a critical blow for 300 health (I have 220), there is a proposal to apply revival, I agree. She hits me AGAIN and (due to the fact that Caite's revival restores only a quarter of the character's health) she immediately kills again. Defensive buffs? Yes, they are useful, very very useful ...

But if trash mobs (and the Drider Queen doesn't count, she's more like a wandering miniboss) are one-shotting you in the Frostwood at Lv5, you probably need to check your setups.

I'm not talking about Frostwood, I'm talking about the Palace of Ice and the area behind it.

I kill Dryder Queen and even a 150+ basic attack of a black magician in case of a crit. But her 100+ crit, frequent dodging AOE attacks and hitting party members even with her mass attack (i have evasion 37!) infuriate me. I don't like spiders at all and I think that an abomination like a drider is formed with 200+ corruption. What a pity that after the first victory over her the button "Kill her" does not appear ...

4. The game was originally designed to only allow control of the Champion, full manual control was added later. This is also why companions have a few more stat points than you do at the same level, to account for the fact that they were intended to be computer-controlled.

Yes, but the days when the main character could win a serious battle despite all the efforts of the allies are long gone. Passed and maybe never existed at all, although the opposite seems to be stated. Therefore, when the allies manage to get ahead of me in spite of my 17 agility and 21 initiatives and spend a move on something useless ...

5. If by this you mean picking the option to climb the wall and enter the palace and expecting that you'd be given a chance to go back and do other things, the problem is that you ignored the bolded text that told you that picking the option would take you to the Very Definitely Major Dungeon. In other words, your problem is that you failed to read in a text-based game.

Oh, here I am guilty, but honorable judge, I have a serious excuse.
I downloaded the game, teleported to the Fox Lair, started wandering around the neighborhood, found the entrance to the palace. The guard attacked me immediately, I focus my efforts on her, ignoring her beast. She lost consciousness ... FUCKING INEQUALITY! Her beast defeated us. I load the game, run again from the village (there was no autosave and I also did not save the game before). Focusing on the beast ... "Get up, boy, the fight is not over yet!" this bitch commands ... A chrating bitch whose second wind seems to be used an infinite number of times ... For the third time I either got one shot right away, or I just got two hits in a row, didn’t want to pay attention to such "little things". The fourth time I used my ultimates right at the start of the battle and won. I went inside, activated the waystone. examined the location without approaching another door. Discovered a proposal (reading diagonally) to make Ryn a guest character, returned to the waystone and took Arona instead. I went to invite Ryn and suddenly found myself in the palace ...
But you know what? This is disgusting game design anyway, why should I go back to the village at all, take the blessing, change Ryn to another character and take the blessing again ?!

6. The fight with Jael'yn in the Palace of Ice says hi.

I don't remember if she had a group, if so, this is the only exception in the new content.

and to emphasize their importance as the leader. It's a very common gameplay mechanic and hardly unique to CoC2.

I wouldn't mind, so much against that ... if the enemies played HONEST and FAIR. But alas, even if the group implies a leader, this ̶a̶l̶m̶o̶s̶t̶ always means nothing in terms of battle ...

It's good to see that you're enjoying yourself!

I enjoyed playing TITS, where there was no such delusion as a boss moving twice in a row with a kill with one critical hit and instant reset of debuffs. After getting acquainted with new content, I begin to think that I completely in vain gave the game another chance, it clearly does not deserve this at the current stage of development ...

Much of the post-Winter City content is balanced for levels 5 and 6. It is still possible to defeat all these enemies at level 5, but you need to take character build and party composition a bit more seriously than you would if you just outleveled or outstatted the content.

Before the Winter City, I had no problems, I passed Kitsune Den on the first attempt, I had to fight only with the twins for a long time, not least due to the fault of the falcon summoned by Ryn, who had not heard of any tactics. But it took me three attempts to get to the Winter City, and the guard at the entrance lost only on the fourth. But here's a location outside the city ... Completely impenetrable enemies with wild resolve damage and the need to use ultimates in almost every battle ...

Alternatively, lower the difficulty level.

For some reason, I firmly believe that the problem is not in my knowledge, party and equipment, but that the balance in the game is shit, an accident like a stupidly moved ally or one or two crits from the boss should not lead to defeat, therefore I am looking for advice how much I try to draw the attention of development team members to the nonsense that they create in the new content.

Those are minibosses. Minibosses like the Drider Queen and Byvernia are special, because they're designed to give the Champion and their party a harder (but still eminently winnable) fight. They get different bonuses as a result.

I would appreciate their lack of such bonuses. This fraud is very infuriating in addition to the already dishonest characteristics of enemies. Yes, clearly dishonest. Mass attacks have reduced accuracy, right? So why the hell do they hit so often, even under a state of blindness ?! But their dodge was clearly made without taking into account the fact that allies cannot be dressed and their accuracy is lower than me ...

Byvernia is a guaranteed once-only-per-day fight

Nice to hear. Because today I met the same Dryder Queen twice in a row, just one step later. It’s so good that my favorite composition of the party, provided it is in full health, can lose to it only in case of hellish bad luck ...

(and is easy to flee from)

Inertia of thinking, I'm used to the fact that escape from the boss is impossible.

and the Drider Queen has already taken a significant nerf.

But not enough. It would be better to reduce the frequency of meetings with her and the area in which this is possible ...

Determine their weaknesses, bring parties that are equipped to deal with them, and you should be fine.

It was a GOOD joke. These are WANDERING bosses, I will have to change the composition of the party and my equipment on an ongoing basis ...

Summons have lost out a bit in combat power by this point, yes

Sorry, but to me the calls seem like useless trash. Dryder Queen kills the elemental just instantly, and she's not the strongest boss in the game ... By the way, does the spirit of fire have a resistance at least to FIRE? Otherwise I don’t remember those enemies on whom it could be reliably verified ...

although Berwyn's Golem, Amulet!Kiyoko, and Princess Phyria still do okay.

They seem to have the same health as the standard summon. And, I would venture to suggest, the same protection. I do not like Berwyn with his set of abilities, the constantly pregnant Kiyoko's hand does not rise to summon, and it seems that she does not show anything special in any case, I have not tried the princess, I have not yet completed this quest, I can not stand mutually exclusive awards, and even with such a far-reaching utility. Not to mention the fact that I don't like quests with difficult moral choices even more.

Eventually, a summoning circle will be added that may buff them a bit.

Wonderful, just wonderful, half (in fact, a third) of the black magician's abilities are useless, and those that are still useful are simply nowhere to put. As it was once said about a similar situation: "Take this mythical ability from me, give me a second legendary one!". I would also give up the (useless) encounter or ultimate of the black magician in exchange for one more rechargeble ... Okay, the ability for a meeting can be left, although I would appreciate its versatility more, it feels like demons and many corrupted creatures have a very high blight resistance ...

In lieu of that, stack Presence or swap out for a different Encounter Power.

I have a presence of 14 and it doesn't help at all. As soon as I got Vitality Reap, I immediately forgot about these shameful summons.

There are several moves that force enemies to lose their turns, through things like stuns, Silencing, Disarming, and the like. They can be much better for mitigating damage than gear. You may wish to consider adding these to your repertoire.

Before the Winter City, this worked, albeit conditionally. I was literally enraged when Ryn was disarmed by some wandering boss (Byvernia?) under blindness state. In my strong belief, the chance of success for such an action in such circumstances should have been so scanty that the game should not even have considered it, instead giving an automatic failure ...

You can make Manual Control the default. It's in the options menu. Click on the gear icon at the bottom right of the app and scroll down to Combat Flow Default.

THANKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's on "Player" because that is what most players are most likely to want to use.

What kind of perverts, how do they generally fight with serious bosses, letting their allies do whatever comes their way ...

Is this about the bolded dungeon text or about the Foothills Waystone?

**Blushing** First. I already realized my mistake, but this does not cancel the disgusting organization of the ally's annexation ... stop ... I understood ... if after the accession of Rin the entrance to the palace would not have occurred, the quest would have been suddenly postponed for some time?

If the latter, well, if you're concerned about losing an open world fight in a hostile zone, you can always flee.

Only now I realized that in this game I have never used this button. And in other parts: only from Kiha (No robe of the inquisitor yet) in CoC1 and only from a robot piloted by goblins in TITS, it seems like no one else.

Because most of the enemy groups that you face don't have a single leader like yours does

But what about those cases when the leader is implied and even there is a character so titled? Harpy WingLEADER, Imp LORD, it seems like there was someone like that ?!

because the game is balanced for it, and so on.

Why is it so balanced with a clear advantage in favor of enemies ?!

But defeating the Marefolk Shaman, Guard-Captain Jael'yn, Queen Atheldred, and the like will auto-win you their fights.

You forgot about Lieutenant Jen. And it seems that Tollus had a completely meaningless team.
A team game, a leader means a lot ... for a player's party, so why is it easier to name hostile groups with a leader than without a leader ?

P.S. I will not comment on my screenshots in any way. And judging by the number of likes under your comments, it's useless anyway, but still ...

 

[Alypia]

I recommend grouping your comments for greater readability. I have attempted to do this to some degree. A post that dissolves into a sea of undifferentiated one-line comments on fragments of individual sentences is not something that is easy to discuss.

I enjoyed playing TITS, where there was no such delusion as a boss moving twice in a row with a kill with one critical hit and instant reset of debuffs. After getting acquainted with new content, I begin to think that I completely in vain gave the game another chance, it clearly does not deserve this at the current stage of development ...



Before the Winter City, I had no problems, I passed Kitsune Den on the first attempt, I had to fight only with the twins for a long time, not least due to the fault of the falcon summoned by Ryn, who had not heard of any tactics. But it took me three attempts to get to the Winter City, and the guard at the entrance lost only on the fourth. But here's a location outside the city ... Completely impenetrable enemies with wild resolve damage and the need to use ultimates in almost every battle ...



For some reason, I firmly believe that the problem is not in my knowledge, party and equipment, but that the balance in the game is shit, an accident like a stupidly moved ally or one or two crits from the boss should not lead to defeat, therefore I am looking for advice how much I try to draw the attention of development team members to the nonsense that they create in the new content.

[...]

Wonderful, just wonderful, half (in fact, a third) of the black magician's abilities are useless, and those that are still useful are simply nowhere to put. As it was once said about a similar situation: "Take this mythical ability from me, give me a second legendary one!". I would also give up the (useless) encounter or ultimate of the black magician in exchange for one more rechargeble ... Okay, the ability for a meeting can be left, although I would appreciate its versatility more, it feels like demons and many corrupted creatures have a very high blight resistance ...

*shrug*

You're bringing Cait, Ryn (not sure if this is Ranger Ryn or Queen Ryn), and a Black Mage Summoner Champ into the Frostwood. That means you're already gimping yourself. That party is okay-ish at taking on the imps and the kitsune, but lousy for dealing with the drider queen. And it's not great at handling Gytha either. You can still do all of those things, but they'll be much, much harder. You don't really have a heavy damage dealer except maybe the Champ; Ryn is either a partial healer or wholly a healer, and Cait is the same. You're not getting type-matching advantages against most of your enemies (except the kitsune).

This party is crying for Brint or Brienne to come with, at the very least. Just have the big cow slam everything into the ground. Or take Arona and watch her just fucking tank until the heat death of the universe.

It's good to see that you're aware of some resistances (corrupted creatures resisting blight damage, for example). You should continue to think about those. Think about what the drider queen is weak against.

I think that the problem is in your knowledge, party, and equipment, but that you've taken encouraging steps along the way to finding the solutions. You should continue to do these things. Remember: lots of people play the game. Lots of people handle the Frostwood stuff - and the Glacial Rift stuff - just fine. It is eminently possible.

But not enough. It would be better to reduce the frequency of meetings with her and the area in which this is possible ...

Which is kind of funny, because with a slightly different party composition, you can have the drider queen basically on farm.

It was a GOOD joke. These are WANDERING bosses, I will have to change the composition of the party and my equipment on an ongoing basis ...

Or, at least, more frequently than you have been. Alternatively, if you just want to roll with Cait and Ryn everywhere, lower the difficulty. I love Cait and Ryn, as pretty much everyone will tell you. (Or if you couldn't tell from my profile picture.) But I'd hesitate to take them everywhere with a Black Mage Summoner...or even just a regular Black Mage, unless you were throwing around Mirror Stance and Greaseball. Not on Normal or Dark.

Sorry, but to me the calls seem like useless trash. Dryder Queen kills the elemental just instantly, and she's not the strongest boss in the game ... By the way, does the spirit of fire have a resistance at least to FIRE? Otherwise I don’t remember those enemies on whom it could be reliably verified ...

[...]

I have a presence of 14 and it doesn't help at all. As soon as I got Vitality Reap, I immediately forgot about these shameful summons.

[...]

They seem to have the same health as the standard summon. And, I would venture to suggest, the same protection. I do not like Berwyn with his set of abilities, the constantly pregnant Kiyoko's hand does not rise to summon, and it seems that she does not show anything special in any case, I have not tried the princess, I have not yet completed this quest, I can not stand mutually exclusive awards, and even with such a far-reaching utility. Not to mention the fact that I don't like quests with difficult moral choices even more.

Yeah, like I said: many summons are pretty weak. The team's aware of it. The weaker ones will get buffed when the circle comes out. Unless you're interested in using Ria or Kiyoko, swap over to Vitality Reap (and, since you said you did, that's great) or one of the weapon-based Encounter powers.

Look, if you want to take whichever party members you desire with you, that's fine - just don't expect the game's standard difficulty level to cater to unfocused or suboptimal party compositions. If you want to take characters that aren't going to help you out very much, lower the difficulty level and save yourself some heartache.

The rewards for the Convocation of Mirrors event are not mutually exclusive. It is still possible to learn mirror magic and do the confrontation; you just have to be clever about it.

I would appreciate their lack of such bonuses. This fraud is very infuriating in addition to the already dishonest characteristics of enemies. Yes, clearly dishonest. Mass attacks have reduced accuracy, right? So why the hell do they hit so often, even under a state of blindness ?! But their dodge was clearly made without taking into account the fact that allies cannot be dressed and their accuracy is lower than me ...

"Fraud" and "dishonest" are not useful terms here. You have neither been lied to nor defrauded. They're not terms calculated to garner sympathy from the people you claim to wish to persuade, either. As for alleged enemy advantages, well, see below.

Before the Winter City, this worked, albeit conditionally. I was literally enraged when Ryn was disarmed by some wandering boss (Byvernia?) under blindness state. In my strong belief, the chance of success for such an action in such circumstances should have been so scanty that the game should not even have considered it, instead giving an automatic failure ...

[...]

Why is it so balanced with a clear advantage in favor of enemies ?!

All right, lemme break this down.

By and large, enemies and players draw from the same pool of available powers. There are minor differences, but for the most part, any move that the enemy can use on a player can be used back on an enemy. So we can hold that more or less equal: advantage no one in particular.

However, enemies cannot change their movesets. They are necessarily much, much less flexible than the player. A player can have a vast array of possible moves, gear, weapons, and stats; the enemies lack this flexibility, although they can compensate for it somewhat in having multiple types of enemies in a given area. Still, one would have to give the advantage to the player. To better compensate for this advantage, higher-level enemies, like open world minibosses, usually have a slight stat bonus compared to the player.

Still, enemy movesets are not that flexible while the player can call on some pretty sick advantages. Blessing into most high-damage moves does absurdly well. There's also the legendary Grease-Fireball combo, by which most Black Mage players swear by. No character in the game other than the player can make use of the greaseball combo...except Byvernia, but Byvernia is a once-a-day miniboss with no mob helping her, so that's eminently appropriate. And you can survive her greaseball.

Speaking of help...you have a party. Your two companions, one potential guest, and one potential summon are all individually better than the enemies that are in a given mob. Only the boss - if the mob has a boss - is likely to outstat them in some meaningful way. But that, again, attempts to compensate for the disadvantage the rest of the enemy mob brings.

Then, yes, higher-tier enemy encounters do get more than one move per turn. This is pretty much solely to prevent them from getting instantly stunlocked and murdered by a large player party. It's not cheating, because the number of bonus moves is balanced to the size of the player's party and the other advantages and disadvantages an enemy has.

Finally, though, you have access to the human brain, which the enemy NPCs do not. Now, if you don't want to use that brain very much to think about combat, that's fine. That's why the easier difficulties are there. There's no reason to play on Normal/Dark if you don't want to take the combat seriously. But if you do, well, you have to bring your A game.

The Normal and Dark difficulties are balanced at a higher level than many other games; they're certainly balanced harder than TiTS or CoC1, both of which were effectively trivial. This game requires a little more thought and investment.

But what about those cases when the leader is implied and even there is a character so titled? Harpy WingLEADER, Imp LORD, it seems like there was someone like that ?!

Are you...are you having trouble with the fights against the harpies and the imps? Most people don't.

They're trash mobs for their level. At level 3-4, imps should be no problem for you. At level 2-3, harpies should not really be a problem either. You don't need an instant zap button for them. But Jen is a bit tougher for her initial encounter level, as are Jael'yn and Queen Athel. Plus, they can summon additional enemies, while the imps and harpies and hornet drones and alraune effigies can't. That's the real reason they get an instant zap button.

(The Marefolk Shaman's treant disappears for the same reason Berwyn's golems do: lore. They're summoners.)

 

[WolframL]

I seem to point out that my agility is maximum, so advice is superfluous. Although the mention of ale (I was wrong, I meant cider) could indeed be misleading.

You did NOT mention your agility being maxed out. I apologize for not reading your mind and realizing you said something you did not in one place and meant something different from what you actually said in another.

But they MUST!

In what universe must computer-controlled enemies follow all the same rules and restrictions that bind the player? Because it sure as hell isn't this one, where it happens all the time in order to provide a challenge to the player/offset the advantages that you have. Alypia gave a very good explanation for why computer-controlled enemies get to do this. I can bury you in examples from other games if you really want.

If my memory serves me correctly, then the presence of 17 gives only 210 health. TWO HUNDRED.

And? So? Therefore? Use buffs to improve your defense and/or give yourself shield HP so you can take more damage. Or, y'know, change your party setup for some of these fights and bring a tank. Somehow I've managed to do all the content the game can throw at me with a Black Mage of my own (including the Glacial Rift) and she's extremely squishy. When enemies are focusing most of their attention on Brint, Atugia or Arona, it means they're not hitting me. It works surprisingly well...

She hits me with a critical blow for 300 health (I have 220), there is a proposal to apply revival, I agree. She hits me AGAIN and (due to the fact that Caite's revival restores only a quarter of the character's health) she immediately kills again. Defensive buffs? Yes, they are useful, very very useful

So the RNG didn't favor you in that fight, it happens sometimes. That fight is entirely winnable with a dedicated Black Mage (and with that party composition even, as sub-optimal as it is for that fight) but 'winnable' is not the same as 'winnable every time'.

I'm not talking about Frostwood, I'm talking about the Palace of Ice and the area behind it.

You mean the areas that are supposed to be the hardest parts of the game? And you're surprised that they present a challenge?

Therefore, when the allies manage to get ahead of me in spite of my 17 agility and 21 initiatives and spend a move on something useless

You do realize that the turn order is partially RNG-based, right? Having high Initiative increases your chances of going first and over a long enough period of time you'll probably get to act more than companions with lower Initiative but it's not a straight case of 'higher number means going first'.

examined the location without approaching another door. Discovered a proposal (reading diagonally) to make Ryn a guest character, returned to the waystone and took Arona instead. I went to invite Ryn and suddenly found myself in the palace ...

Meaning that you 'invited' Ryn by triggering the event that starts the dungeon? You can't even see the text about making her a guest unless you're on that tile.

 

[Burnerbro]

Out of all of the OPs points, the one that I think stands the best on its own is number 3, in particular the issue of crits. As I was told in the Gripes thread, the devs are aware of a potential problem those might represent for the balance, especially on enemies with higher stats, and have already reduced the efficiency of crits when performed by an enemy. However based on what I have seen in OP's screenshot and in my game, the bigger problem might be the way the crits are calculated for Powers. When high level powers, especially the weapon ones, provide up to 200% multipliers for the damage having those crit on you and get multiplied further can feel really unfair, even when the bump they get from crits is a flat 50% or something like that.

Same is true for the player's crits, having them proc on something like Marked for Death is an enemy deletion button in most cases. Avoiding that happening with 100% consistency might be why the evasion is high on big deal enemies - as well as representing their skill and speed, similarly to how high AC does it in D&D.

All that being said, I'm inclined to believe the veteran local nerds and the devs when they say that the Normal difficulty is pretty well tuned and is rather generous while still requiring thought and preparation for the most difficult content. More importantly, losing fights in this game is almost always consequence free and can indeed be the way to your desired sexy content; case in point - Arona's sub!PC route.

Oh, and whatever calculation the game uses to determine successfully fleeing combat (does anyone here know the exact formula?) is really generous, too. I have found out about it first thing after beating the tutorial when I chose the wrong first zone to go to, encountered the crazed dude horse with level 1 two party of Charmer PC and Cait. Even on characters with level floor agility I don't remember more than a handful of times where fleeing failed, and it never failed more than once in the same fight.

 

[The Observer]

Shields completely negate crits.

 

[Burnerbro]

Shields completely negate crits.

All of the best weapons in the game are two handed, and there is even less choice if you want to have a good weapon and a catalyst. And then there is the cool factor. But yeah, any character who is supposed to tank for the group needs to have crit protection, which is why poor Atugia is only a good pick for fights with mainly Resolve or mixed threats.

As an aside, I find incredibly funny (in a positive way) the idea that lust attacks can crit, and that having a shield saves you from those as well. Must be that Perseus tech.

 

[The Observer]

All of the best weapons in the game are two handed, and there is even less choice if you want to have a good weapon and a catalyst. And then there is the cool factor.

Fancy us, making players choose loadouts with strengths and weaknesses instead of letting them have it all.

We're such terrible people. Very naughty indeed.

Next thing you know, we're not letting everyone grind to max stats. What's up with that?

 

[Burnerbro]

Fancy us, making players choose loadouts with strengths and weaknesses instead of letting them have it all.

We're such terrible people. Very naughty indeed.

Next thing you know, we're not letting everyone grind to max stats. What's up with that?

Naughty is good. We come here for the naughty as much as the RPG, and you guys deliver both. Having practically no unique and fancy one handed spears or swords is less good, but hey, game in development, only half way towards the planned level cap, yadda yadda.


Also, since I have the momentary attention of the head honcho of this setting's weeb goodness, will we ever be able to get our hands on an armor that features what is essentially shoulder-mounted shields? Or do you plan to stick to earlier periods' designs?
Beyond that, having some armor sets that provide crit protection at the cost of appropriately considerable drawbacks looks to me like an idea worth at least exploring a bit.

 

[Baggrin]

You're bringing Cait, Ryn (not sure if this is Ranger Ryn or Queen Ryn), and a Black Mage Summoner Champ into the Frostwood. That means you're already gimping yourself. That party is okay-ish at taking on the imps and the kitsune, but lousy for dealing with the drider queen.

Ranger Ryn. She has a thief perk for additional damage to opponents under the effect of a debuff, up to 150 damage per shot (crit). Yes, unlike Brint, she is much weaker, but I like the bonus to initiative and the debuff of enemies with entropic winds in her. And Aurora's Arrows ... But it is possible that Queen Ryn will still be better with her healing, blessing and magic shield instead of debuff attacks and summon ...
And I do not have a black magician summoner (the idea was to test the effectiveness of a summon that does not have living flesh against at least poison ... a stupid idea, later studying the wiki made it possible to know what I could pay attention to right away - there is no poison resist), I have black magician damage dealer ** sigh ** how much damage dealer can she possibly be compared to Brint with his Ultimate ...
Withering Bolt + Grease + Fireball + Vitality Reap + Banishment
The idea was to keep opponents under the debuffs (Sun of Jasirra + Winds of entropy + Grease) while I kill them, Rin with a bow and Cait with fire hit the boss / someone resistant to my attacks. Before the Winter City, this was enough. In it, perhaps, it would also be enough, but now, looking back, I’m starting to think that I should have started the battles with Banishment and started buffing / destroying the boss that was left without pair. Although I NOW have knowledge about opponents that I did not have before. Know how many opponents what is their approximate arsenal and to what point to keep the team Ultimates ...

I should probably throw Grease into the dustbin of history (since it is SO useless) and take the Arc Cannon instead, at least in the boss fight.
New Party Member? The problem is that both girls are dear to me, one has a resurrection, the other defends the whole party (what did I say about the absurd damage of bosses / imbalance between warriors and magicians?) Aurora's arrows ...

Oh yeah, Drider Queen ... Now she's more annoying (SPIDEEEER!!!) than really dangerous. My Withering Bolt and Rin's bow shot do up to 150 critical damage as mentioned. And Vitality Reap can generally take a shot on a critical hit. And it seems that fights with Byvernia are harder for me than with this damn spider ...

This party is crying for Brint or Brienne to come with, at the very least. Just have the big cow slam everything into the ground. Or take Arona and watch her just fucking tank until the heat death of the universe.

My attempts to run with a tank seemed somehow less effective. I guess I'm just creating a "threat" too quickly with my damage and Arona doesn't have time to divert the attention ...

It's good to see that you're aware of some resistances (corrupted creatures resisting blight damage, for example). You should continue to think about those. Think about what the drider queen is weak against.

I think that the problem is in your knowledge, party, and equipment

If the black magician had a normal choice of what to use ... Fortunately, just in time for the blight, she has a vulnerability, judging by the fact that my Withering Bolts do about the same amount of damage as Fireballs.

Knowledge in the sense that "So Long, and Thanks for All the Gear"? Oh yeah, that's what I was definitely missing. As for the equipment, I'm not sure, in my firm belief the game should be relatively easy to pass without unique equipment, it should facilitate the victory over equal enemies, not provide the possibility of victory in a battle with enemies of equal level.
As for the composition of the party against new enemies ... I ran a little, Arona does not show herself very well in terms of damage, I seem to have much more interesting numbers ...

Which is kind of funny, because with a slightly different party composition, you can have the drider queen basically on farm.

I seemed to say that I do not like spiders and do not want to once again face them in battle. I probably would not even farm it, even among those items that I can't get in any other way.

Alternatively, if you just want to roll with Cait and Ryn everywhere, lower the difficulty.
...or even just a regular Black Mage, unless you were throwing around Mirror Stance and Greaseball. Not on Normal or Dark.

My problem is not damage, or rather damage, but not mine. I find it problematic the very situation where a boss of the corresponding level, at the behest of Random, can kill in one hit before I use protection.
...
Hmm, looking through the list of items on the wiki, I saw an interesting collar that I found, but forgot about it as it was unnecessary in battle. Converts PHYSICAL CRIT damage to RESOLVE damage ....

The rewards for the Convocation of Mirrors event are not mutually exclusive. It is still possible to learn mirror magic and do the confrontation; you just have to be clever about it.

Very interesting information, thank you.

All right, lemme break this down...

Since I have no desire (and time) to answer points by point (especially since you asked not to do this), let me just disagree with this.
In my opinion, opponents can be divided into "monsters" and "classers". Monsters are monsters that are not even close to humans and can have any abilities. Classers using abilities similar to the player should not play "My rules are not your rules", but have similar restrictions (that is, if the player does not have access to mana regeneration, they should not have this either). Okay, I can understand the increased health of bosses, increased stats and 2AP, I do not mind at all that they also use items (it would be interesting for them to use expensive rare items ... and get these items as a trophy ONLY if they are not managed to use it) and generally had more intelligence in battle, but this number of abilities is not equal to five worries me. Especially when among such abilities there can be two attacks at once that can one-shot a player with full health ...
Yes, I understand that the only game with the absence of "My rules are not your rules" is Morrowind (the game itself without add-ons), it seems like it never happened again, but how worried I am about such balancing of battles by a banal increase in the number of boss abilities.

Are you...are you having trouble with the fights against the harpies and the imps? Most people don't.

No, I just take things like being in the minority and not being able to defeat a group of opponents by defeating the enemy leader, even if I don't need it at all - such an opportunity warms my heart too much to my heart. And, okay, in this game, it seems that no one has practically immunity to weapons with magic and a set of movements from only the abilities "At-Will" (analogue of infinite energy / its non-expenditure by Bothrioc Quadomme from TITS), and that's good ...

You did NOT mention your agility being maxed out. I apologize for not reading your mind

I forgive, considering that I was thinking one thing and wrote another (Dexterity->Agility):

anyway, thanks to the random, allies often manage to get ahead of me, even despite the maximum dexterity

So the RNG didn't favor you in that fight, it happens sometimes.

But not to the same extent that the fight is instantly lost thanks to just one crit! Especially considering that this is a dungeon where it is impossible to save the game after each battle.

You mean the areas that are supposed to be the hardest parts of the game? And you're surprised that they present a challenge?

Earlier I said that new enemies do not respond well to magic. Taking Arona and Brint, I was surprised to find that the enemies are not protected exclusively from magic, the weapon does not work very well on them either. It seems that in fact, my sorceress + Queen Ryn in terms of damage seems to be superior to Arona + Brint (if you forget about the Ultimate of the second), due to the possibility of a terrible blow with a convenient spell under the influence of a blessing ... It seems that in this case the magicians do not really feel some serious problems compared to the warriors.

You do realize that the turn order is partially RNG-based, right? Having high Initiative increases your chances of going first and over a long enough period of time you'll probably get to act more than companions with lower Initiative but it's not a straight case of 'higher number means going first'.

The influence of randomness is too big. My 21 + 1..20 sorceresses in light armor can be worse than 10 + 1..20 of some two times slower guy in heavy armor. Still looking good enough? In fact, I have 11 initiatives, another +10 is "Ranger Quality", so the effect of randomness is twice the effect of the character's stats.

Shields completely negate crits.

Oh, thank you, very good to know. On the wiki, I did not seem to come across any mention of this. It seems that in heavy fights in my left hand I will hold a completely not old scroll ...

... which is why poor Atugia...

Oh, exactly! She's a companion, isn't she? But the wiki does not provide details on recruiting her. I understand correctly that it is only possible to fight her if MC gets mad at the Baroness's refusal in response to Ryn's request?

As an aside, I find incredibly funny (in a positive way) the idea that lust attacks can crit, and that having a shield saves you from those as well. Must be that Perseus tech.

LOL!

 

[Shadowwell]

Atugia's wiki page does give details on how to recruit her under the description, albiet its a little vague, but if you can search the wiki for answers searching the forums or discord shouldnt be much harder.

The shields blocking crits is mentioned in the Wiki, albeit as part of a patch notes.

 

[WolframL]

But not to the same extent that the fight is instantly lost thanks to just one crit! Especially considering that this is a dungeon where it is impossible to save the game after each battle.

And you can retry immediately after losing, restoring you to your pre-fight state with absolutely no penalty. It's not as though the game forces you to redo the entire sequence if the RNG rules against you.

Earlier I said that new enemies do not respond well to magic. Taking Arona and Brint, I was surprised to find that the enemies are not protected exclusively from magic, the weapon does not work very well on them either.

Shockingly, a lot of enemies are strong against physical damage. You did notice that the easiest way to take out fights in the Palace of Ice was Resolve damage, right? Meanwhile the point of taking these characters isn't always damage but to have someone else there to absorb hits for you. If your Champion is still getting targeted first, consider not attacking immediately and let your meat shield build up Threat for a turn.

And if you're talking about the Glacial Rift enemies, they're meant to be hard because the zone is balanced for Level 5-6, and you can't reach the latter yet. That means you're working at a slight disadvantage with everybody. Despite this, it is eminently doable.

The influence of randomness is too big. My 21 + 1..20 sorceresses in light armor can be worse than 10 + 1..20 of some two times slower guy in heavy armor. Still looking good enough? In fact, I have 11 initiatives, another +10 is "Ranger Quality", so the effect of randomness is twice the effect of the character's stats.

Ranger's Quarry applies to your entire party, not just the Champion, that means it has no effect on when your party members get turns relative to each other. What it does is make it much more likely that your characters will go before the enemy does. And newsflash: The Initiative 'random factor' is 1-20 points, meaning that you need a difference that big between you and a party member to guarantee that you'll go before them every time. Given the obvious squishiness of your mage, you actually want a tank to go before they do in order to build up Threat and take attention away from the Champion.

More generally, given that you're playing a glass cannon mage you'd do much better drinking Spiced Wine for the Toughness boost if you want to improve survivability since you have rock-bottom Toughness. Also, if you're using Grease+Fireball on an enemy that gets multiple actions per round, make sure to pay attention to the turn order; If you can tell by looking at it that nobody able to do fire damage can act quickly enough to benefit from the resistance debuff, you probably shouldn't use it then. The combo still works perfectly well but you can't spam it brainlessly.

 

[Burnerbro]

If the black magician had a normal choice of what to use ... Fortunately, just in time for the blight, she has a vulnerability, judging by the fact that my Withering Bolts do about the same amount of damage as Fireballs.

In my experience it is always worth it to use Sense on the enemies, especially mini bosses. Accept losing the first battle as the price for knowledge and for having all the info available in the neat pop up menu in every subsequent encounter ( and enjoy loss scenes if they are your cup of tea) - or savescum and write down the important enemy stats. Most enemies also have their full stat sheets listed on their wiki pages, but it doesn't quite keep pace with the most recent content.

Hmm, looking through the list of items on the wiki, I saw an interesting collar that I found, but forgot about it as it was unnecessary in battle. Converts PHYSICAL CRIT damage to RESOLVE damage ....

The Choker of the Painslut is indeed a very useful item, sexy and stylish as well. You can definitely use it instead of relying on shields if you don't mind its flavour text, but beware the Libido gains it will cause for every crit it blocks. When you reach ~50 Libido you start losing quite a bit of your defences against Resolve damage, though you do get bonus sexiness and so can actually reliably Tease even high level enemies in a pinch.

Actually, Spellpower based Resolve damage and Resolve attacks focused party might be one thing you haven't yet tried as a build for your mage. Even with just the two spells you can learn from Ivris ( Shadow Magic and Soul Arrow) you can have a pretty reliable backup plan for dealing with enemies that have high physical and elemental resistances.

 

[Baggrin]

Atugia's wiki page does give details on how to recruit her under the description

Her wiki page does not say anything about the circumstances under which the fight takes place. I asked about this, since I remembered this when I met the person who recruited her. But all I get in response to my seemingly direct question "Find the answer yourself, it's not difficult at all" ...

The shields blocking crits is mentioned in the Wiki, albeit as part of a patch notes.

It turns out this is also on the page with the weapon, "shield" tag effect ...

And you can retry immediately after losing, restoring you to your pre-fight state with absolutely no penalty. It's not as though the game forces you to redo the entire sequence if the RNG rules against you.

I didn't know this, it seemed to me that after the defeat comes rape or a bad ending preceded by rape.

Shockingly, a lot of enemies are strong against physical damage.

Did not pay attention. However, this is not surprising at all, given how difficult it is to find out information about the enemy. Once I lost in the prologue only because I tried to learn Master Tollus' abilities for more than ten moves. A critical blow from him showed me that I was doing stupid things and that by this time I could have defeated him five times in a row. After that, perhaps, I decided that feeling the enemy is a waste of time, it is much easier to look at the wiki or just look at the damage from my attacks on them.[/QUOTE]

You did notice that the easiest way to take out fights in the Palace of Ice was Resolve damage, right?

No, I didn’t pay attention (I didn’t know what was waiting for me inside and therefore did not prepare to use tactics that were different from my usual ones). I generally don’t trust resolve damage too much due to the invulnerability of certain opponents to it (PROLOGUE!). In addition, there are fewer resolve mass attacks in the party's arsenal than helth attacks. If I'm not mistaken, we only have one companion that is REALLY capable of supporting the player in resolve attacks. As a result, if I don't confuse anything, Of all opponents in the Winter City I had to tease only one opponent sexually.

Meanwhile the point of taking these characters isn't always damage but to have someone else there to absorb hits for you. If your Champion is still getting targeted first, consider not attacking immediately and let your meat shield build up Threat for a turn.

And if you're talking about the Glacial Rift enemies, they're meant to be hard because the zone is balanced for Level 5-6, and you can't reach the latter yet. That means you're working at a slight disadvantage with everybody. Despite this, it is eminently doable.

Ranger's Quarry applies to your entire party, not just the Champion, that means it has no effect on when your party members get turns relative to each other.

I know about that. I'm talking about how insignificant the difference in initiative versus randomness is. I even began to think that wearing items with a bonus to initiative is absolutely meaningless because even an overwhelming advantage in characteristics over opponents does not matter, because if random says otherwise, opponents with initiative 1 will surpass me ten battles in a row.
As for the allies and their habits of making stupid movements, given the "Combat Flow Default = Manual" it no longer matters.

Given the obvious squishiness of your mage, you actually want a tank to go before they do in order to build up Threat and take attention away from the Champion.

I'll think about it. But judging by the habit of bosses to carry two-handed weapons and inflict an incompatible with life damage to an arbitrary party member, it may still be much better for me to wear a shield or Choker of the Painslut and take the bosses' hits on myself.

More generally, given that you're playing a glass cannon mage you'd do much better drinking Spiced Wine for the Toughness boost if you want to improve survivability...

Due to the huge damage done by the bosses, I preferred to have maximum agility and try not to get hit by them. But it is possible to have an extra 55 health and 11 physical resists would be better than +11 accuracy and evasion...

The combo still works perfectly well but you can't spam it brainlessly.

Alas, it's too rare in a boss fight to hit with a fire attack (not to mention my Fireballs) until the debuff is gone. Therefore, it seems to be much better to take Arc Cannon instead of Grease, at the same time I will get another attack that works well for those who resist fire. In addition, Arc Cannon + Fireball in total seems to do more damage in most battles than Grease + Fireball ...

The Choker of the Painslut is indeed a very useful item, sexy and stylish as well. You can definitely use it instead of relying on shields if you don't mind its flavour text, but beware the Libido gains it will cause for every crit it blocks.

I don't plan on wearing it all the time. In addition, there are ways to reduce the increased libido, at least Ice wine.

When you reach ~50 Libido you start losing quite a bit of your defences against Resolve damage, though you do get bonus sexiness and so can actually reliably Tease even high level enemies in a pinch.

Then I'll just have to pay more attention to things with a bonus to Focus ... or just not let my libido rise in time by lowering it with Ice wine.

Actually, Spellpower based Resolve damage and Resolve attacks focused party might be one thing you haven't yet tried as a build for your mage. Even with just the two spells you can learn from Ivris ( Shadow Magic and Soul Arrow) you can have a pretty reliable backup plan for dealing with enemies that have high physical and elemental resistances.

I tried this a bit (playing as a charmer). Alas, already the prologue with its invulnerable opponents showed me what the developers think about the idea of sexually teasing most opponents. Also, it was Shadow Magic that was the first spell of my sorceress at level 2. It proved to be useful against some opponents, but it seems to be much easier to have normal attacks instead of resolve attacks and use the support of all allies, not just Quin. By the way, I had the idea to take him to the party to restore the resolve, but it turned out to be much easier to just keep the party well-fed and use Oil of Oliban in cases where this is not enough.

 

[Burnerbro]

Her wiki page does not say anything about the circumstances under which the fight takes place.

Atugia jumps you when you first enter the square of Hawkethorne Castle after the prologue. You need to win this fight, which is doable even with a two-men first level party and pretty easy to do after you pick up Brint. Even in its current unrevised state the wiki correctly points to the next step in recruiting her.

Did not pay attention. However, this is not surprising at all, given how difficult it is to find out information about the enemy. Once I lost in the prologue only because I tried to learn Master Tollus' abilities for more than ten moves... it is much easier to look at the wiki or just look at the damage from my attacks on them.

Here is wiki describing the exact mechanics of using Sense

Spoiler

The chance of successfully sensing an enemy is as follows:

const libidoScore = attacker.LQ() + target.LQ(); const cunningScore = attacker.CQ() - target.CQ();

return (libidoScore + cunningScore)*(75/2) + rand(100) + 26 > 100;

Basically, the higher your cunning and libido, the higher your chances of successfully sensing an enemy. This chance is positively affected by the enemy's libido, but negatively by their opposing cunning.

But if you are fighting against opponents that have updated wiki page that list their stats - and if you don't feel like cheating when using this information - yeah, it is easier to just target the weaknesses from the get-go.

Worth noting that for the vast majority of enemies, their stat distribution, strengths and weaknesses follow logically from who and what they are, and from the way the game presents them. So, for example, almost every opponent that is weak to Tease attacks will let you know that their mind is mostly or solely preoccupied with sex.

Speaking of:

I generally don’t trust resolve damage too much due to the invulnerability of certain opponents to it (PROLOGUE!). In addition, there are fewer resolve mass attacks in the party's arsenal than helth attacks. If I'm not mistaken, we only have one companion that is REALLY capable of supporting the player in resolve attacks.

Before the first fight in the Prologue a tutorial message tells you that Resolve attacks are unavailable for the duration of the prologue but will be a viable option later. And in my experience, they are. Only non-sapient enemies are immune to lust damage, and few enemies have stronger Lust resistances than physical ones.

You are right that there are less lust damage mass attacks, but if you focus on them, there are enough to deal with mob fights and weaker enemies that support bosses. I imagine that since the resolve is capped at 100 and most regular enemies won't justifiably have high lust resistances, having too many mass lust attacks might have been deemed too powerful.

Quin is the only companion that fully focuses on lust attacks, true, but your other companions have decent sexiness and temptation stats, as well as assets that most enemies find sexy and thus take bonus tease damage from. On top of that, Atugia's weapon deals resolve damage on every hit; depending on their set Kyoko has a couple of Powers that do Resolve damage and Arona has one.

Your issues with Initiative seem to be basically same as the "XCOM hit chance problem" - the game gives you bad RNG results with the stated regularity, but you feel like it does it way more frequently because of how disastrous the results of a bad roll can be.

 

[WolframL]

I didn't know this, it seemed to me that after the defeat comes rape or a bad ending preceded by rape.

If an encounter results in a Bad End, the game will let you retry immediately, with the very prominently labeled Retry button. This lets you get through dungeons (where the bulk of encounters end that way) without having to repeat the whole thing over again. It doesn't apply to fights (random or scripted) that don't result in a Bad End.

No, I didn’t pay attention (I didn’t know what was waiting for me inside and therefore did not prepare to use tactics that were different from my usual ones).

And this is why it's already been suggested to you that you can sometimes dedicate one run to finding this stuff out and then tailor your party to it if you find out that it's not set up to handle whatever you're facing.

I generally don’t trust resolve damage too much due to the invulnerability of certain opponents to it (PROLOGUE!).

Yes. In the tutorial. Where you're told that it won't work. You seem to have a habit of missing bolded text that tells you important things like 'Tease attacks won't work here but they're really useful elsewhere in the game'. For crying out loud, you can sleepwalk your way through the Hornet Hive with Tease and you can generally take out the Palace of Ice encounters far faster with Resolve damage than chewing through their Health, among others. Your biggest problem seems to be that you're extremely inflexible and feel that if something doesn't work once, it's never going to work again. That's not the game's fault, it's yours.

Of all opponents in the Winter City I had to tease only one opponent sexually.

And yet it works on all of them, Consider occasionally experimenting with new strategies instead of trying to do the same thing in every single fight.

Alas, it's too rare in a boss fight to hit with a fire attack (not to mention my Fireballs) until the debuff is gone.

This is why I specifically said that you need to time it properly, not spam it mindlessly.

 

[Baggrin]

Atugia jumps you when you first enter the square of Hawkethorne Castle after the prologue.

Oh thank you. Probably the fact is that the entrance to the castle is a remote place where there is nothing interesting. Even if I once fought with her, it was so long ago that it is no longer true ...

Here is wiki describing the exact mechanics of using Sense

I've already seen it, but thanks anyway.

But if you are fighting against opponents that have updated wiki page that list their stats - and if you don't feel like cheating when using this information

I try to avoid looking at their characteristics on the wiki. Actually, precisely because I avoid referring to the wiki in general and I forget to check the version history in particular, I probably miss so many details ...

Before the first fight in the Prologue a tutorial message tells you that Resolve attacks are unavailable for the duration of the prologue but will be a viable option later.

I started the game, read the text before the first fight. Then I launched version 0.1.17 (this is the oldest version I have) and looked in it. This message was not always there. And I am not in the habit of carefully re-reading old content that is not related to my favorite ... By the way, this is another limitation of the logic of which I do not understand. Why bother limiting the charmer to problems using primary class weapons at all?

And in my experience, they are. Only non-sapient enemies are immune to lust damage, and few enemies have stronger Lust resistances than physical ones.

But when going through the content for the first time, the player does not know where (s)he will face immune or just lust-resistant opponents, therefore health damage is more reliable when exploring new waters. I would be happy to have something in my arsenal for dealing resolve damage to vulnerable to it opponents, but the number of slots for abilities definitely does not agree with me.

You are right that there are less lust damage mass attacks, but if you focus on them, there are enough to deal with mob fights and weaker enemies that support bosses. I imagine that since the resolve is capped at 100 and most regular enemies won't justifiably have high lust resistances, having too many mass lust attacks might have been deemed too powerful.

I already thought about the fact that Quin with his ultimate can be simply devastating in some situations, but if you also remember about Arona with her Prime Target and add a charmer player with a blessing to this ... Perhaps you are right and a party with resolve damage in most cases can be more dangerous than normal.

Your issues with Initiative seem to be basically same as the "XCOM hit chance problem" - the game gives you bad RNG results with the stated regularity, but you feel like it does it way more frequently because of how disastrous the results of a bad roll can be.

Maybe. At least in this game there is no nonsense with critical failures, as a result of which a critically missed assassin can stab himself in the back causing himself as much damage as he would inflict on the enemy ...

And this is why it's already been suggested to you that you can sometimes dedicate one run to finding this stuff out and then tailor your party to it if you find out that it's not set up to handle whatever you're facing.

I prefer to defeat enemies at least for the first time without meta-knowledge. Do not spy on wikis or do trial runs..

Yes. In the tutorial. Where you're told that it won't work. You seem to have a habit of missing bolded text that tells you important things like 'Tease attacks won't work here but they're really useful elsewhere in the game'.

Let me not comment on your words in any way?

For crying out loud, you can sleepwalk your way through the Hornet Hive with Tease

Naturally vulnerable opponents + a real leader? Real in the sense that the defeat of this leader, unlike many battles, DOES lead to victory ...

and you can generally take out the Palace of Ice encounters far faster with Resolve damage than chewing through their Health, among others.

If you forget the guard at the entrance, then I went through the dungeon on the second try. If I had Applied Banishment to Queen Alissa, then it would have been possible to go through on the first attempt without letting her defeat me by crit and immediately finish me off immediately after Cait revived me.

Your biggest problem seems to be that you're extremely inflexible and feel that if something doesn't work once, it's never going to work again. That's not the game's fault, it's yours.

I KNOW it works and is super effective in some cases. But I KNOW that not all opponents can be defeated this way. What a "wonderful" fight with Gytha would be if she had the same connection with her beast as between Miko and Mai...

Consider occasionally experimenting with new strategies instead of trying to do the same thing in every single fight.

I wonder why I took Ryn with me to the party instead of Brint? Probably just because I love her so much ...

This is why I specifically said that you need to time it properly, not spam it mindlessly.

** Sigh ** Given: the spell does not help in a boss fight with the probability .. high. Is it worth keeping a spell in the slot at all that will only help with the favor of the random? I personally believe that you can always find a more useful spell, at least in one of the three main slots, and do not rely on randomness. And you accuse me of being inflexible ...

UPDATE. Fixed a small spelling error. Constantly trying to write Etheryn's name like Rin ...

 

[Shadowwell]

Although burnerbro kinda addressed this point already.

After defeating her, you can attempt to recruit her. Recruitment can only happen after walking in on her body showering, and fucking the headless warrior woman.

To my understanding you only fight Tui(Atugia), the once. Although Ryn's quest directs you to the castle other Npcs will talk about it or you can just explore the yourself.

But her recruitment conditions are stated above, from the wiki, and I believe that they are hinted at in dialog with Tui as well.



Although the wiki does not necessarily give step by step detailed instructions I believe that it does provide enough to get by if you pay attention.

 

[Alypia]

I will say that Tui's recruitment has been a topic of legitimate complaint. It's totally possible to get her right now, of course, but it could be more intuitive and less frustrating.

We're likely to get an easier way to recruit her at some point soon™. It's on Garde's radar.

 

[Shizenhakai]

Isn't the current way of recruiting just "meet her, then randomly walk in in her bath"?

You definetly don't need to beat her at all.

 

[Alypia]

The first time the Champ goes up to Carmen's castle, Tui picks a fight with the party. You have to beat her in order to talk to Carmen and eventually do your dullachats.

And yeah, the randomness of the bath thing is what's most frustrating. Again: still totally possible, but could be easier.

 

[Burnerbro]

Ok, I have initially just took wiki as the Gospel and didn't check it, but after running a test on the public build it turned out that winning the initial fight isn't currently set as a requirement - or it isn't set up correctly.

If you lose you get all the same scenes: the introduction to Atugia in her quarters, same chats in her room and while she is patrolling, same scene when you happen upon her headless body bathing and the same outcome of Carmen booting her out.

I am not sure if this is a bug or where the idea of such a requirement came from. Her design docs, maybe?

 

[Shizenhakai]

The first time the Champ goes up to Carmen's castle, Tui picks a fight with the party. You have to beat her in order to talk to Carmen and eventually do your dullachats.

And yeah, the randomness of the bath thing is what's most frustrating. Again: still totally possible, but could be easier.

Actually, you don't need to win the fight, you can just lose it with no downside.

The dialogue is different, of course. ^^

 

[Alypia]

Ah. Yes, I'm sorry. I didn't realize that the "beat her" rather than "fight her" was the sticking point for you guys upthread. Serves me right for skimming.

 

[Burnerbro]

No problem, the wiki is the main culprit anyway. Gonna see about getting an approved account there and editing stuff like that.