[NobleNick]

sythe,

I agree with salient parts of Witch King's and B1ade's posts:

First, not everyone likes the same thing; and IWD may not be for you. I like that brainless game called Diablo II a bit more than I do IWD. Some folks here think that makes me crazy. I have seen a lot of defensiveness from some posters on this forum (and others) in the past, when someone intimates that they are less than totally-hard-over-bonzo on game that the forum is about. However, maybe you REALLY don't like the type of gameplay that IWD intended to give ..... and that's O.K.!

Second, though I haven't even reached mid-game, I am well ahead of you, and .... I don't think the gameplay is significantly different. What keeps me going is the unfolding storyline (IWD really shines, here!), and planning and testing out the increased capabilities of my group.

With that said, your problem might be that the challenge that IWD presents has gone beyond challenging and become frustrating. I think that most IWD players over the age of 10 (funny how my 7 year old can blast through stuff I'm clueless on), at some time or another run upon a challenge that they can't get past without a.) getting help, or b.) spending an inordinate amount of time on the game with little or no results. The latter choice can quickly lead to FRUSTRATION.

It seems that you, my friend, have, knowingly or unknowingly, spent a lot of time going down this latter path. I don't believe that is the intent of IWD. There is an easier (challenging, but not too challenging) path that this forum can help you figure out. That is what the forum is for; and I think it does a pretty good job. I consider getting advice from the forum part of the gameplay: like having a war counsel.

Finally, let me share a bit about what I did. Frankly, the game is a bit TOO challenging to hold my interest. (Guess I'm just a wimp, or not patient enough, or too old, or whatever...) When I found that the game was moving too slowly for me, I cheated. It was structured cheating: I made rules for myself and held myself to them, so that I didn't cheat enough to make the game boring. In this manner, I tailored the game's difficulty to my interest level. (After all, don't we play these games for ENJOYMENT?)

Here is what I allow myself: 1.) If I find something really useful (e.g., Kresselacks' sword or acid arrows+1) I may use "export character" to duplicate the item as many times as I want when I get back to town; and 2.) If I come to a point in the game where I expect to get lots of expo (e.g., returning a quest item), I may save the game and use "export character" techniques to run each character in the original party once through the reward sequence, three characters at a time, two at a time, or (if I am feeling extraordinarily greedy) even solo.

This latter technique is one you could use to pump your bard up enough to keep her from dying as often: Just before an expo-laden event, drop the quest item, save ("game 1"), and THEN kick the bard out of your party. Then pick up quest item and run your bard-less party through the quest reward sequence, save to a new game ("game 2"). Go back to your old saved game ("game 1"), kick out everyone except your bard, have her pick up quest item, and run her solo through the quest reward sequence. Save game ("game 3"). Open "game 2". Import Bard to reform your full party. Now your party has gotten twice the experience from the quest that they normally would have gotten, distributed as follows: Everyone except the bard has Y/(Y-1) of the expo they normally would have gotten; and the bard has Y times the expo she normally would have gotten. (Where "Y" is the number of characters in your original full party). For an original full party of 6, this works out to 6/5 = 120% for every one except the bard, and 6 = 600% for the bard. I'm sure it won't take long for you to start noticing that your "weakling" character appears to have been pumping steroids.

Another technique, for those a little reluctant to venture as far as I have into "the dark side" is to start out the character you are having problems with as a fighter. Level a bit and then switch to your desired class (I forget whether you can do this with bards). Maybe even solo to as high as level 9, then start new game and have fighter dual over to the desired class (that you are having surviviability problems with) when he joins the party of newbies.

Yet another idea is to import most of your party (or maybe just a select few) into a brand new game and run them through again, to beef up their experience. (This should be VERY easy for you, and is not considered "cheating" by most.) It is amazing what a few levels will do!

I also use Dale Keeper; but only to correct character build mistakes, and to make it easier to do those things that I could do without DK.

I hope some of these ideas have helped.


[ 09-19-2002, 10:40 PM: Message edited by: NobleNick ]