I've been tinkering with my team in hard mode with the newest update, and really enjoying the challenges. I keep things fairly balanced (I think) with Elenor as a thief, plus Loren (duh), Amukiki, Sauzor/Ramas (depending on the battle), and usually alternating between the rest of the mages or the archers based on what opponents I'm facing.



I am having a real big problem with defeating Karen in Hard Mode for Loren's personal quest though. Loren's at level 19 at the moment, but Karen usually takes me down in just a couple hits! Any suggestions?

I think depends which skills you have with Loren, when I tried that battle (was lower level) I had Knockdown which causes Staggering, so reducing attack/defense/speed values of Karen and making possible to defeat her.

Hm, guess I'll try that then. I've mostly built up Loren's Rally, double weapon skills, and health.

My tips for beating Karen:



1) De-equip Karen. It will make things slightly easier since it will lower her stats when you face her.

2) Start in the back row. Enemy Karen will always start before Loren and will deliver a painful Knockdown on Loren. Starting in the back row means that Karen will instead defend on her first turn and you will avoid her first salvo.

3) Buy lots of Haste potions. On your first turn, drink one so that you can get in 2 or 3 attacks on Karen before she gets to act.

4) Pay attention to the turn bar on the right. When you see that Karen will act next, defend so that you don't take as much damage and don't get staggered.

5) Repeat step 3 and 4 until she dies.



My skill choices for Loren were double weapon, health and Taunt so it should be roughly the same for you I suspect.

Ah interesting. Amazing how having the right skills (KnockDown an No Mercy in my case) can make a 1 vs 1 combat much different/simpler!

Definitely having the damage skills for it would make that particular fight easier and less trick dependent. But even if you don't, there are still ways around it which I think is pretty damn good, given that in certain other games, not having the right trick spells restarting the whole game. So plus point for Loren the Amazon princess: all fights are beatable no matter what!

Thanks. All those hours I spent tweaking the skills/rules were well spent then

Wasn't sure were to put this. I've put the skill points for the gladiator into the shield wall skill. But I have also noticed that the skill isn't always available. I'm thinking it has to do with the type of shield he has. I did his quest and equipped him with his special shield. But this shield doesn't seem to work with the shield wall skill either. Am I doing something wrong? It doesn't seem right that his best shield would be excluded from his skill set. This means all those skill points are wasted. And since this one requires you select the skills on both sides of it, that's a lot of skill points!



Hopefully I'm just doing something wrong. Thanks for the help.

Will check that, normally should work.



By the way, I loaded the savegame you sent me, and it was done in the versions 1.1 to 1.1i which were the "Ren'Py bugged ones". Probably you missed it since there were lots of posts. Anyway the summary is: I tried to use a new Ren'Py version which had autoupdater and was faster, but turned out it wasn't really well tested and was full of bugs. People experienced crazy bugs like the one you described, so I had to revert to the previous version of Ren'Py.

You can continue a savegame from the original game but you can't load any saves done in those first beta versions since aren't compatible anymore.

Ok I tried here quickly but the skills works fine (tried several shield). I think if you're playing in that outdated beta version that might be the problem, it caused lots of random bugs that had no relationship with the game code

Will check that, normally should work.



By the way, I loaded the savegame you sent me, and it was done in the versions 1.1 to 1.1i which were the "Ren'Py bugged ones". Probably you missed it since there were lots of posts. Anyway the summary is: I tried to use a new Ren'Py version which had autoupdater and was faster, but turned out it wasn't really well tested and was full of bugs. People experienced crazy bugs like the one you described, so I had to revert to the previous version of Ren'Py.

You can continue a savegame from the original game but you can't load any saves done in those first beta versions since aren't compatible anymore.

The file I sent you was from the 1.1q version after I purchased and updated to the expansion version. Have sent this reply to your email as well. Not sure which one might be better to reach you with. Not sure what to do from here. Sadly disappointing to purchase the game and then hear about all the other people who are having fun playing it. Could my version just be buggy? So if I delete the game install and then redownload the whole game might that correct the problem? Would I be able to just use the code I got with the expansion to register the download? Discovered that my saves were buggy too. So days of play are lost as they won't load anymore. They are 1.1q saved games and I'll be starting all over yet again.

Ok I tried here quickly but the skills works fine (tried several shield). I think if you're playing in that outdated beta version that might be the problem, it caused lots of random bugs that had no relationship with the game code

Good to hear that the skill should work with every version. But as I mentioned above, I had updated to the latest version. You can see the version is 1.1q and that the expansion has been registered as well on the main menu of my saved game. Hopefully you'll have a wonderful solution for me. Eager to start playing again. Have placed all my faith in you to find a workable solution. But no pressure or anything.

The problem is that if you have a save from the original game (1.0b) it will work. But if you started a new game using the first beta versions of the expansion (1.1 and up), there's no hope to load ANY game since they were all bugged

Did you play the original game and have some "untouched" savegames from it? if so, those will load correctly.



Sorry again, I've learned the hard way that I'll never use a new version of Ren'Py in future until has been tested for at least several months, but to be fair is the first time that happened. Previous updates were all working flawlessly, this time it was a big update with a much faster speed, autopatcher, and many other new features so was eager to use it...

Found a little bug which can be used as a cheat, so posting it here since seems most relevant. A (very) brief search shows this hasnt been mentioned yet but my bad if it has and this is old news.



Basically when you level, spend your attribute points as normal, then save and load the save. You'll find you can add 3 more points on top of the 3 you already added. Doesnt always work and haven't bothered to fully test it (am doing a hard run and trying to be as hardcore as possible) but maybe some peeps might wanna use it to boost their favorite character (or one they view as underpowered).

So yeh Loren now has a "cheat" of sort

Haha interesting! I don't think it was mentioned before. Well I had a cheatmode that added XP but I removed it, so I guess this can replace it

Ugh, I can't believe I didn't realize this before.



You know how increasing the "damage" stat on your weapons gives a much bigger boost than a similar increase in the "attack" stat? It's the same way for magic. The thing to realize is that the most powerful staves have about 10 damage, while light bladed weapons go up to about 18 damage.



In other words, mages do much more damage with a short sword equipped than with a staff, not to mention they'll receive less speed penalty. All my spells are now 50% stronger!

Haha this definitely needs to be changed then! Actually I should just forbid mages from using anything but a staff

Knives might be alright, I don't think I've seen any knife go above 11 damage, not to mention Chambara starts off with one when she joins your party. Though I'll leave it to you guys to decide how it *should* go.

Hmm true, the problem is that Daggers are included in Light Blade category, together with some powerful Short Swords... I should have made a separate item category, but is a bit too late now. I guess I'll leave Chambara with that "bonus" since she can't heal so at least is more balanced.

Actually, looking at the big picture I guess the weapon change was only the tip of the iceberg... there's actually a good deal of equipment that increases the "damage" stat, and it seems to multiply damage in roughly the same way as the same stat on weapons. For example:



Draco uses Fireball I on a lone Cyclops



Dagger of Sparkles (damage stat of 11) equipped: 65-74 damage

Short Sword Thanos (damage stat of 1 equipped: 82-95 damage

+Raven's Bandana, Lucky Charm and Sandals of the Mercenary (additional 17 damage, for a total of 35): 139-160 damage



It just looks like a big deal on mages because we expect them to have weapons with about 10 damage, whereas our Warriors are using weapons with a damage stat of 20-something or even 30-something. Whether that's part of the design or not, it might be hard to patch since there's different equipment standards on mages compared to other classes, and the multiplicative effect of the "damage" stat probably isn't common knowledge in the first place. It's good food for thought for the sequel though!



P.S.

I'm not trying to break the game just to spite you guys. I'm actually doing a self-imposed challenge in this run where I try to beat Hard Mode without using any items, so I'm getting all I can out of my equipment. (Though I did sell my pouch items to get more cash)