jack1974
Oct 11, 2012
Haha yes a bit too late to patch it right now, I think the main mistake was to just mix Thief and Mages items. I mean when I designed all the weapons/armors I only had in mind the division between "Cloth/Light Armor" that can be used by both Mages and Thief, and Heavy Armor/stuff that could be used bby Warriors. But that was a mistake since the damage bonus on Mages has much more impact from what I see. On the other hand, before Mages were really poor, and they still have low HP, so I guess getting a bit of more "firepower" is not too bad
Anima_
Oct 11, 2012
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)
Well Fireball 1 has a power multiplier of 3.0, so that explains why the total damage increase is that much bigger than the base damage increase. It's one of the pitfalls with multipliers, I can really see why some developers choose purely discrete systems. The downfall of only stacking damage enchantments is of course that the spell reduction calculation only takes the magic scores into account.
Thanks for testing that Graph, I'll keep it in mind for the sequel.
jack1974
Oct 11, 2012
True, so for enemies with high Magic value perhaps it will balance it out a bit. Gosh is really complex building a RPG ruleset, so many things to take into account!
Graph_
Oct 11, 2012
I don't know what the damage formula looks like, but I suspected that Magic would be the one used for penetrating defenses. In practice though, I can't think of any enemies that resist magic attacks that much...
Draco using Fireball I on a Lothark Fire Mage (55 Magic and Fire Resistance). Other than the armor, I unequipped everything that gives Magic or Damage bonus. He has 25 Skill and 30 Will on Level 12; nothing unusual.
With Magic Staff 'Abyss' (10 damage, 8 Magic) 40-47 damage
With Dagger of Sparkles (11 Damage, 0 Magic) 42-49 damage
I'd guess it would take a lot of bonus Magic to overtake 1 extra point of Damage.
On a side note, it occurred to me that I didn't try having Draco wield dual swords, but I guess it doesn't increase his spellcasting damage. Ah well, it was worth a shot.
reader
Nov 06, 2012
Not sure where to put the question. And as just one question, didn't seem to need its' own thread. Chambara has a dagger but can also use a magic staff. My take is the dagger would be just for the non-magical attacks. So if I'm using her for magic, I'm best off with her having the magic staff instead of the dagger? Just wanted to confirm to see if I understood the proper usage of the weapon choices.
jack1974
Nov 07, 2012
No matter what the item is, you need to check the statistics. A special enchanted dagger might give you bonus to Attack and Magic and still be better. For example:
Dagger: Magic +5
Staff: Magic +1
so in this case the Dagger is better. But depends also on the other stats and your playing style, for example some items give speed or defense bonuses.
Anonymoose
Nov 07, 2012
And some items can combine to make you immune to mundane attacks, when fighting enemies who only use mundane attacks.
jack1974
Nov 08, 2012
Hmm that's not really good
I hope that at least was hard to get such combo ?
Graph_
Nov 10, 2012
Hmm that's not really good I hope that at least was hard to get such combo ?
My experience with it was that yes, it's difficult to protect against attack elements at first, but after the Hammerhands shop opens up on Chapter 3 a bunch of great equipment becomes available for the Warrior class.
If you're looking to block Normal-type damage, which I assume is what's meant by "mundane damage", Bracers of the Invincible and Bracers of Divine Shield can be found in many shops, and then when you reach Hammerhands you can buy other pieces that do; there's Lich Lord Shoulderpads, Shield of Mondragon, and Helm of the Sun (which also has 4 HP regen!). This kind of armor spawns somewhat uncommonly and it can take 4-7 visits to a shop to get one of them to show up, but considering how fast you can click in and out of a shop to shuffle the inventory, I thought it was well worth the time to do so.
You don't really need to immune damage though; I found that resist (half damage?) already makes the battles much easier. Though I'll admit that I used the Immune trick to cheese Loren's sidequest the first time through the expansion because of that duel at the end. >_>
It's a ton of trouble (maybe impossible?) to protect yourself against all the element types of course. I just try to finish off mages quickly, or toss up the Ward spell if I can't.
jack1974
Nov 10, 2012
Thanks, maybe will change those items or make them unique so at least you can't equip all Warriors with them
Graph_
Nov 10, 2012
Well, when you think about it most of the damage you take is Normal-type damage, and I think that's why "immune normal" is so powerful compared to the other types of resistances.
Here's another idea on that: Thinking about elemental resistances compared to elemental weaknesses, "weak normal" means * 1.5 damage, and "critical normal" means * 2 damage, or something like that. So why not make resistances DIVIDE damage by 1.5 and 2, respectively? I think the most balanced way would be to make it that way for normal-type damage specifically, though I don't know if it's worth making the explanation for damage mechanics longer.
...or just make it so that you can't make "immune normal" by stacking two pieces. There's a lot of viable solutions to this one I guess.
jack1974
Nov 11, 2012
Well probably there shouldn't be any way to get Immune to any kind of damage. That would be the easiest solution. What now is Immune would become Resistant, and what now is Resistant would be a mid-way between Normal and Resistant. This is the easiest and probably less troublesome way to fix the issue. Will need to make some tests first
4LeafClover
Dec 15, 2012
I have had some difficulty playing on Normal. For example the Demon Beast (the purple one) is pretty tough to beat, immune to many types of damage. And there is the Drake boss at start of Chapter 4. At present I am stuck there, not able to kill it.
Loren seem to use a battle system that hinges heavily on the player knowing the enemy, what their resistances are, and be willing to switch spells and weapon types to defeat them. Will changing game difficulty to Easy make it easier to kill Bosses? Say without being concerned so much about resistances.
jack1974
Dec 15, 2012
Yes for sure! Playing in Easy makes the battles VERY easy. Of course is hard to tell since depends on your playing skills. But in general I am able to win in Easy mode without buying any extra weapon/potions/anything, just using the stuff I find as I go on in the story.
gaiaswill
Jan 03, 2013
Lv 20 Saren, Lv 16 Karen. Totally get my ass kicked by Grob in hard mode. Breza comes in at Lv 12 and is completely useless. There's a fair chance I get wiped in the 1st turn when the wizard in the back nukes, but I would probably die from pressure in 3 turns otherwise anyway. I must be missing something fundamental in setup and tactics. Help?
jack1974
Jan 03, 2013
Hard mode has some very tough battles, and this for sure is one of them. Do you use potions/explosives? I think if you stock up of explosive potions you can eliminate the wizards in the back and win the battle. Also depends on the equipment you have of course, it has a big impact on the battles, beside the tactics.
gaiaswill
Jan 03, 2013
Ha! I'm just cheap since consumables are generally something I forget about. I tried haste potions but I suppose there's no substitute for a few bombs to convince an enemy mage to stand down.
I'll have to reload my Chapter 3 save now...
jack1974
Jan 03, 2013
Well that's my suggestion, but I've seen many different approaches
Bombs and potions works well in any case!
P_Tigras
Jan 05, 2013
I regularly play RPG's in the hardest mode possible, so of course I did the same with this one. I didn't have any problems completing it. The only two battles I found particularly challenging were Loren vs Karen in the Queen's Trial, and Saren/Karen vs Grob at the Citadel. I attempted the Queen's trial at 18th level and Karen totally kicked Loren's tush, half a dozen times in a row. It wasn't even close. I came back later better equipped at 22nd level and won it. I did the same with the Grob Citadel battle. I found myself wishing that Karen the party member could fight like Karen the NPC at the Queen's trial. I'd have put her in my main six then.
jack1974
Jan 06, 2013
See, for some players the game was even too easy at Hard level!
In upcoming RPGs will add a "Iron Mode" or "Impossible" difficulty so those guys maybe will finally find a difficulty up to their skills (and if they can't win I can always say "well the difficulty says Impossible, did you really expected to win ??").
Jokes apart hope you'll be able to do the beta testing of future RPGs since I need more "hardcore rpg players" like you to balance the difficulty
