Trying to win at IM

[Matthew Daly]

I finished the game a few weeks ago and started playing a new IM game. Well, that's obviously turned into about 20 IM games. Lately I've been surviving long enough to get killed falling through walls in Trynton or at the Umpani obstacle course (grrr)

Anyway, I'd like some mentoring on how strong one should be before moving on to new zones. What sort of skill scores does one want to see before levelling? How powerful do I need to be before I can rescue RFS-81, and should I put off the Umpani and T'Rang missions until I have the RPCs I'm going to Ascend with?

Also, can someone define "training" for me? I suppose there's a line between being careful and exploiting the environment, but I'm not sure where the line is drawn.

Thanks!

[Gimli]

Training is a bit of a touchy subject. I think most people on the board will agree that there is "good" training, where the general good habits you develop from game play help boost skills as well. For example, always having your casters keep up spells like missile shield, enchanted blade, etc. Just making sure those protection spells stay up will mean you'll be "training" your magic realms by casting them so often. Or in combat, making your characters do diverse things (ie, have casters cast from different realms, make warriors use ranged and melee weapons) and make sure they never idle in a round so that again they raise their skills up. Also there's the level-up training where you get the skill points for leveling. These I would say are "good" forms of training in the game.

"Bad" forms of training basically involve taking advantage of the game's mechanics and finding ways to rapidly raise skills. It's usually repetitive and dull too. Are any of these ways "wrong"? Not really, but if you can live without them and beat the game I think it's more satisfying.

Here are "bad" some examples. Stand in front of a merchant, have casters cast charm person, bard (if any) charm with music; have them all keep doing this until they are exhausted/out of mana; revive (rest/mana stone, etc) them and repeat. This would "train" mental magic or music for the bard. Another example, "stealth training" - fight a weak foe, gimp them some more (itching skin, etc) so that their chances of hitting you are almost 0%; have everyone in the party guard, have 1 or 2 within reach of the foe, and go into continuous combat mode - come back later after a nice meal and their stealth skills will have skyrocketed.

To me you don't need to use any bad methods to finish the game, and if you do something like "stealth train the whole party" early on, the game will just be a yawner because it will be too easy.

[el_kalkylus]

That is also how I look at "training", good and bad.

What sort of skill scores does one want to see before levelling? How powerful do I need to be before I can rescue RFS-81, and should I put off the Umpani and T'Rang missions until I have the RPCs I'm going to Ascend with?

You can pick him up very early, just don't get surrounded in the process. Since you want to ascend with him, it's better to pick him up early so that he get more experience points.

[otter]

About letting characters practise; sometimes i'm in the mood to just splatter a buncha Rapax, so i like to have a party or two saved with full stealth and easily-obtained murder equipment. Sometimes i like to run through a zone avoiding all encounters, other times i like to go hunting for as many fights as possible just for the XP. This game is in a world where you kill everything you can't talk to (and even some of those), so it's hard to see the point of this morality. In the realm of Fantasy there can be no 'good' or 'bad' anything, including training. I disagree with your attempt to cite 'most people on this board', especially considering those who wish to restrict behavior are expected to be most vociferous.

[Gimli]

Well the morality is all pretty much done tongue-in-cheek (every time I would say training was "good" or "bad" notice I used quotes). And I do believe most people have the attitude that certain "training" goes to the point where it gets to be too much. I've seen it talked about before, here and at vault networks, so I do think I can do a quasi-educated "citation" for the general training feelings of people who have played the game and voiced their opinion about it. Although if they really did remove the archived messages for this board on ironworks, well then I guess I would be "representing" a very small number of people indeed, seems to me this BB isn't doing very well.

When I say "bad" training, I think people here know what I mean - no one would pass a law against it, but everyone knows it's cheesy. Also I don't know if it's accurate to say that anti-cheaters (like me who don't like "bad" training) would be more vocal in their opinions than the cheaters. The cheaters to me have always been more chatty as many of them are eager to share a new exploit or brag about how powerful their parties are.

And yes, anything goes in fantasy worlds, and I'm not trying to curb anyone from doing what they would like. My opinion simply is that training in this game really takes away from ejnoying it.

[Matthew Daly]

Wow, I guess the variant of stealth training I came up with is more fiendish than average. When I fight the small spiders guarding the Lower Monestary portcullis, I keep three of them alive. Three is enough that the battles are long before they knock themselves out but guaranteed to end in their mutual exhaustion sooner or later. And since they're not wandering monsters, they're still there when I come back two game-weeks later. And I can't think of another monster whose worst attack does only one point of damage.

Here are my thoughts on morality of training, for what they're worth:

There are two issues. First, is my behavior justifiable in inside-the-game terms? In some cases, yes. For instance, my bishop has taken a part-time job buying raw materials from the Higardi brotherhood and turning them into potions of Heavy Heal. It's surprisingly lucrative, and she's learned a lot about alchemy and artifacts, but it seems like something that a young underequipped adventurer might do. On the other hand, stealing the viola out of He'li's bedroom and then selling it to her doesn't seem like something that should work. In a fight, my party might find value in choosing to have everyone defend while my gadgeteer practices using his Lightning Rod and one of my spellcasters keeps him from unconsciousness. But my 36-hour continuous battles with small spiders are beyond credibility.

Even more important, though, is the question of when the game designers figured that my characters will have a 100 Stealth skill. Heck, in theory you can max out your skills before you meet Gregor, but then the last 99% of the game might be as boring as the first 99% was. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Rhea]

I agree with Matthew. I'm not a big fan of "bad" [img]tongue.gif[/img] training, but that's because I get too damn bored sitting and doing repetitive stuff to indulge in it. I prefer to go along with the flow of the game and do the obvious stuff (like having my buffing spells up all the time, etc.) rather than linger in one place repeating the same spell/action over and over again.

If I did that form of training, I would have given up 1/3 of the way through the game from sheer boredom. Plus, it *is* a role-playing game, and I can't do very much RPing while I'm casting charm spells and resting for three hours.

However, for those that enjoy exploiting the game in this way, I don't see a thing wrong with it.