Final act beta! SOTW 1.0

[jack1974]

Argh is because I forgot to put double %% (a character encoding format). Will fix this and upload 0.9.9.1 (I want to do the 1.0 when I have the last missing skill icons, which should be later today).

[rooke30]

(I want to do the 1.0 when I have the last missing skill icons, which should be later today).

YAY! I'll finally be able to play :3. I've already bought it but I want to wait until it's officially "out of beta" before I start it up.

[jack1974]

Well if you don't mind some "wrong" icons, you could play the game already now Just uploaded 0.9.9.1 to fix the tweak menu crash.

[jack1974]

I got the latest icons, but I'll wait a bit to update in case need also to change something else

[fabulaparva]

Did you change the wind sound at some point or am I now spooked by it just because I'm using headphones in the dark and Halloween is coming?

Added 1SPRegen to Cobra, Giant Snake, and such so they can always use their base skill "Bite" (otherwise they were just defending!)

The snow spiders seem to have the same problem in Act1. I took the Giant down before the little ones and towards the end of the fight they had run out of mana and were just defending.

[jack1974]

Yes I changed the wind sound
Will add 1sp regen to the normal spiders too. I'm uploading the version 1.0 shortly, then tomorrow will announce in newsletter, since the game has been complete since 15 days already. Of course I'll keep doing minor bugfixes or tweaks if needed, but this way everyone who is waiting for the "end of beta" can play it.

[Troyen]

Slaves: Aggressive, Aggressive, Neutral, Unfriendly, Neutral, Unfriendly, Unfriendly

These fights drag on because the healers do nothing but spam life, restore, and perfect balance. (And if you're D/R, you don't quite have enough ranged power to completely nuke a healer in one around, unless maybe you picked the earth nukes.) Average fight time was 3-4 minutes on fast animations with two enemy healers, but only 1 minute with a single healer. Six minutes on the fight against a group of six.

I ran on the second option: +20% Attack, 10% speed, -10% HP, -20% defense. With the five fights it took about 20 minutes for the whole sequence (skipping dialogue). Still much faster than the last time I did this. Plus, they actually killed Althea twice and everyone else was <100 HP, so it was definitely more threatening than the simple long slog it was before. Going into the assassin with everyone injured and low on SP was a bit interesting, but I managed (with one death and almost a second).

I do think there's a risk of being too challenging depending on what skills people took (purification helps vs the assassin) and what consumables they had (I used half of Rowinda's candy), but I prefer this version. As a bonus, it turns the assassin fight into an earlier-game tricky single-target boss, so maybe you'll know to get some anti-boss skills before you hit the Deceit wall in Act 3. (The boss himself isn't too tough aside from his 233 speed, but starting the fight at 50 HP with a poison dot that ticks for 30 can be!)

I didn't realize you were changing the Twin Axes skill icon, but that icon made me smile. Krimm holding up a thundercloud for Adrenaline Rush is still the best though! (Okay, it's not really a thundercloud, but still.) The new song icons look great too. It's too bad Spinning Strike and Wreak Havoc look so much alike.

[jack1974]

I have planned to do a new icon for wreak havoc and bramblecoat, but I am not holding up today "soft release" for that
As for the slaves, good will take a note of all the battles suggestions. I mean I won't keep those tweaks global since is risky but I can change some specific fights like that one, using the values, after people confirm that is still possible to win.

[Troyen]

Here's my D/R Act 2 save, just before the slave sequence if you (or someone else) wants to experiment a bit more with parameters:

[fabulaparva]

I've only tinkered with tweak option @ the very first merc fights in Act2 at Hard and NM difficulty. Using the +30% option causes silly actions with Gamesh mercs...they are once again healing themselves in the very beginning of the fight with potions when their health is still full (because their initial HP is lower, already under the threshold?) . Having the speed on highest option on HARD also leads to a situation where you get in heavy hits and and then the merc quickly heals. You get in more heavy hits, the merc heals, so the fights aren't exactly shorter, they just give you the first hit that's heavier than before and then throw around potions ... fast. . +20% option isn't as wonky, but similar behaviour can be seen. I'll get back to what the situation looks like with +10% option and later in the story with more crew members a bit later. :D