44 replies to this topic

[Echon]

T.G.Maestro, on Jun 22 2004, 04:06 PM, said:

Hmm. And you never felt that the "greater" foes in the game should be somewhat... more difficult?

No, not really. I had great fun with some of the battles later in the game but none of them seemed too easy for me.

-Echon

[The Amazing Maurice]

Undersigil can be a bitch

[T.G.Maestro]

Actually, the two battles I happen to like in PS:T are:
- the battle against the Curst guards in the prison for Trias' sword (luring out dozens of opponents at the same time, and having an epic struggle against them, by trying to stop those masses as they advance towards you is clearly one of my favourites - ideal opportunity for mass-spells and effects, and epic slaughter )
- The battle for Curst in Carceri (I loved the "Three-party" feeling of this one - I always like when you have allies in a combat against a great opposing force, and the way the Curst guards help you fight the monsters was nice)

Battles that could be made OH-SO-MUCH-BETTER:
- Trias (really, the way you fight yourself through the waves of opponents just to reach him is great, in addition to the fact that you can weaken him by your actions - yet the final battle with him is very poorly coded )
- Ignus (the same thing goes here as above at Trias - the way he arrives to face you is astounding - and after the 7-8 sec battle(?) against him, lets say, I was disappointed.)

[Echon]

The fight against the Curst guards in the prison caused me a lot of problems if I remember correctly. I was simply struggling to stay alive.

The fight in outside Curst, though, was very good. I like fights with all sorts of varied opponents all over the place and this one was not too tough for my party.

-Echon

[T.G.Maestro]

Quote

The fight against the Curst guards in the prison caused me a lot of problems if I remember correctly. I was simply struggling to stay alive.

I bet you tried to defeat them in small packs or one-by-one!
The greatest advantage of my tactic was that it allowed me to strike at their masses with area effect spells while running before them (use Seeking Flames, Curse, Halo of Revelation to soften their defenses and saves, than blast them with everything you've got: Fire and Ice, Call Lightning, Confusion, Force Missiles and Black Sphere do wonders... ). After this you can kill the survivors in 1-2 blows. This way I managed to dispatch at least 15 of them in one battle.

Edited by T.G.Maestro, 24 June 2004 - 12:39 AM.

[The Amazing Maurice]

^

Or aquire the Ring Of Fallen Stars befoehand.

I took personal satisfaction from killing Mantouk myself

[Andyr]

I think the level of combat in Ps:T was fine. Not everything has to be a slog against massively powerful foes.

[Galactygon]

Heh, while some battles were quite easy, there were several of them that were actually quite tough. The battle where you face the hordes of zombies with a zombie cleric in the catacombs was the toughest battle.

I have to confess that I used every single rat charm, clot charm, etc. and also all my spell slots. I was level 6 at that time (The Nameless one was dualed to a mage).

The most powerful spell I had that time was call lightning and ball lightning. However some of the lower level spells seemed to turn the tide of the battle. Summon Insects is surprisingly good, and so are some of Dakkon's spells.

But later on, as you reached higher levels, things were getting a bit easy. Guardian Mantle is quite useful, and so is Howl of Pandemonium. I wish there was Flamestrike in PST for fall-from-grace, but alas.

-Galactygon

[raptor]

Personaly i think this would be a nice place to say that PST shuld have a Difficulty setting, made everyohen happy (exept for the bad coding part) but if hard added more monsters and thougher mosnters, and eay made tehm weaker and less enemies. i think that would have pleased pretty much everyone.

[Amazor'dra]

Guess I was the only one who found killing Abashi (or however you spell it. ) extremely difficult... I ended up trying to avoid them as much as possible when going to the Pillar of Skulls.

I basically made Morti lure them all to a corner of the zone, then taking the rest of the group out of the zone (and since the group doesn't have to be together to leave an area...) then re-enter the zone that seemed empty with Morti "suddenly appearing" with the rest of the group.

[oralpain]

In games like Torment I'm really not all that interested in combat. I made sure that I did every lame trick I could to make sure I didnt have to fear combat so it would not slow me down as I was trying to see the story.

I fought abishai in sigil starting at level 5 with morte and dakon just for the 7k exp. I stayed a fighter till level 7 so I could get the extra attacks. I switch back to fighter just to dump slots on my dagger skill, then went immediatly back to mage, ect.

As a level 7 fighter/ level 26 mage I meleed TTO do death with Trias' sword (in the shape of a dagger) and never hever took a point of damage from him (used a few defensive spells as well).

If I did care about the combat I would have had simialr complaints to T.G.Maestro.

Creatures with many spell-like abilities, or even versitile mundane powers, have never really been done well in any D&D computer game.

In pen and paper a cornugon can effectivly be the final adversary for a group of mid to high level characters. In Torment and BG2 they are just melee fodder.

The AI in the infinity engine games is not any better, than in games that came many years before it. Combat is better in the old SSI Dark Sun games from 1993.

[Dalis'ilhea]

considerering that I usually end up playing as a level 100 mage level 50 fighter/thief, I find any fight easy

[Amazor'dra]

I finished the game with a lvl 15 fighter, beat THAT.

[Rastor]

There's a number of places where enemies continually respawn (Modron Maze, Under Sigil, Avernus) so you can essentially camp enemies to maximize experience.

[Xander77]

oralpain, on Jan 29 2005, 12:40 AM, said:

The AI in the infinity engine games is not any better, than in games that came many years before it. Combat is better in the old SSI Dark Sun games from 1993.

I played those games,as well an IE games. You, obviously, haven't.

[oralpain]

Fact is, I have. You don't have to belive it. Not sure why you would doubt it though.

Stock AI in IE games is virtually non-existant. The end effect of what ever scripts are used to represend AI is very similar between Shattered Lands and Torment. Stuff comes at you and attacks, some times they cast spells on you or themselves. Thats basically all there is to it. Morale/fear effects are slightly better in IE games, but thats it.

If I cast wall of fire in shattered lands, enemies run right through it (getting burned in the process) to get to me, even when it would not be hard to go around. Same thing happens with entangle and web in the IE games. There is no intelegence, just a simple "if this happens, do that", flow chart.

Give me one real example where non moddified AI is better/makes a real difference (compaired to the older SSI isometric/top down view games) in any IE game.

[aigleborgne]

I was decieved too by combats.

Sure, the storyline is excellent and probably my favorite one but the game itself was too easy.
I know some people don't like battle, but I like excellent storyline AND difficult battles (not or).

Actually, I have gone through PT with not even a single hard battle...
Okay, I admit I have nearly died to a demon, the one we free with a scroll.
I have fought him in the sewers later in the game, and he was really strong.

[Rastor]

Is everyone really saying that the Box demon is too easy?