Road to Arnika - Warning possible spoiler

quote:

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Originally posted by Sazerac:

I just wonder how long it will be before some yayhoo decides to tackle the game as a solo?

Cheers,

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...and in "Iron Man" mode!

[Sazerac]

Moni: if RudeDawg ever comes back around, and we get him to play the game, I bet he'd try it! [img]graemlins/laugh2.gif[/img]

Cheers,

I bet he would!
[img]graemlins/biglaugh.gif[/img]

[Ravashack]

quote:

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Originally posted by Moni:


...and in "Iron Man" mode!

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I'm in Iron Man, expert mode right now.

All I can say is...be prepared to run and zone. [img]tongue.gif[/img]

[Sazerac]

quote:

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Originally posted by Ravashack:


I'm in Iron Man, expert mode right now.

All I can say is...be prepared to run and zone. [img]tongue.gif[/img]

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Not as a "solo" character, I hope! [img]graemlins/uhoh1.gif[/img]

Keep us posted as to how it goes, Ravashack! You're probably going to become our token expert on "Ironman".

Cheers,
-Sazerac

[Davros]

quote:

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Originally posted by Knarfling:
I think the only advantage to having high difficulty is the number of random monsters you encounter. I am on expert (because I am a masochist, I think) and on the road to Arnika I ran into two different sets of crabs (both sets had hardshell and venom crabs), two sets of bandits, and a set of wasps.

I may be wrong about the more monsters, but it seems like it. (I hope that it is, because otherwise there is no advantage to playing on expert.)

Because I fight more monsters, I could possibly get more exp, not because each is worth more, but because there are more of them. I did not spend much time building characters or levels, just tried to go straight through and my characters were level 7 when I left the monastary.

Good Luck!
Knarfling

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I am hearing that the difficlty has no impact on experience, and no impact on the number of monsters generated (one exception - see below). The biggest impact is on your hit / miss / avoid damage ratios in the fights. Expert mode occassionally generates a super bunch of nasties, but from what I hear this is so much of a death or glory thing that in the early stages of the game it is a fight you will have to avoid anyway. The recommnedations from some is that you will accrue more experience on the easy setting because you won't have to run away as much.

I will stick with NORMAL I think - when they get the game here in OZ (waaaaa!!!!!!).

Oh, to Ian Currie - great game mate - I am just WAITING to be a potential customer [img]graemlins/dance.gif[/img] .

[Elara]

Well, I *was* on the road to Arnika only somehow we took a wrong turn and went through the Forest (?) Wilderness which is crawling with the *Saffy* clan. We wedged our butts into a cleft in the hillside and managed to take out 3 at once! We were level 8 and 9 at the time. The party: Dracon fighter, Mook ranger, Felpurr bard, Faerie monk, Dwarven Priest and Elven Mage. Played the demo so intensely that I didn't want to mess with my learning curve, lol.

So anyway, curiosity got the better of me and we headed into the Mountain Wilderness.. oh man.. tough going! The worst was the Granite Golem. Luckily at every leveling, +3 went into speed for every char so I'm thinking that gave us an edge on him. Everyone lived through the battle but we're still limping. He gave each one 36000+ exp. pts and no one expired neither. *snaps her suspenders* Then when those Gibbering Heads and a mess of Rapax and Scorchers came at us, we gave up and hotfooted back to Arnika Road, all booted up to level 11, thank you very much. [img]smile.gif[/img]

So now am a bit worried that rescuing a certain guy in a cave and meeting a special char in the mountains might mess up the storyline.. hope not.

And fooey, I took a bunch of snaps of Saffy and Co, but must have been hitting the wrong key in the excitement (else I had no film in the camera *chortle*) so don't have any!! Is that teeth grinding you hear?

Elara

[Ravashack]

Right now, I'm finding that I LOVE Ironman mode. (No, I'm not doing it solo...I'm not suicidal in the game...yet. ) The fact that the game saves for me takes the annoyance of saving out of my hands and allows me to play undisturbed.

However, there IS a loophole in Ironman mode I found accidentally when my computer locked up in the middle of a fight--the game autosaves right before the fight starts. Why is that important? Because you can't save in the middle of a fight--when you quit, you just quit. I got suspicious when I saw that the save was the beginning and I loaded up, made a few attacks, then quit to test that. While I try to avoid that loophole, apparantly there's a memory leak in Wizardry 8 somewhere that makes it difficult to avoid if I've been playing for a while--and we all know how easy it is to loose track of time playing. :p Thank god for the autosave AFTER battles or I'd be completely screwed. Most of my freezes strangely enough occur in the Temple in Arnika, in the area where Braffit is (you don't want to know how many Ressurection Powders I've bought...). After noticing this loophole, further examination showed that in some cases, you can even back out of the fight before it starts if you back up fast enough--especially if you started the fight. This doesn't apply if you got attacked on the side however.

While that's not going to save your party if they get swarmed by, say, oodles of Brigands pricking your life away with 50+ knives, it means it isn't instant death for you in most cases if you accidentally get into a fight that's beyond you (the run command is a great thing...). Most monsters I've run from seem to have a certain distance they're willing to go follow you--after that distance they just go away.

Oh, let me detail my party. It consists of an Elf Valkyrie, Mook Bard, Faerie Ninja, Felpurr Bishop, Felpurr Samurai, and Elf Ranger. NPCs I've picked up are Sparkle, Myles, and Vi of course. I dumped Myles for Vi Domina after she was available.

The hardest part in Ironman mode was dying on Arnika Road. Once you get past that, you have a stable place (i.e. Arnika) to go run towards should you need to buy and rest, which makes things a LOT more bearable. It probably helped that I started in Mt. Gigas, which allowed me access to an NPC immediately as well as access to the Umpani.

I'm finding my Mook Bard INCREDIBLY useful. His imported Siren's Wail has been nothing but helpful. Pity I didn't start with a Bard in Wizardry 7, or I'd test out Poet's Lute as well. Insanity is now one of my favorite afflictions to inflict on the enemy, before even bothering blowing them up. 4 Insane Vampire Bats is very very nice.

For spellcasting (and the Bishop), I'm not having problems with it. It's probably because I imported, so everyone starts at level 5 any way I want them to. Once I figured out how to increase spell levels at a more acceptable rate, EVERYONE's spellcasting ability soared up. While not all the magics are up (quite a few are single digit), the Bishop's spell disciplines now give him level 2 - 3 in all spell types due to his large usage of Mind Stab, Energy Blast, Acid Splash, and Heal Wounds, and everyone except Sparkle can afford level 7 spells in at least 1 category. I need to find a priest-only spell for the Bishop to use to increase his Divinity though--Heal Wounds seems to be only increasing his Alchemy. While it sucks that you can only pick one spell at a time, Braffit sells books. You get a LOT of money in the game early, so buy a book or two to speed up research.

I'm finding a large amount of Gadgeteer stuff though, so as soon as the Mook hits 20, he's "go-go Gadget Omnigun" IMO. Course, that's a long way off, but I want to be able to use that nice Cornu that came over as well.

The Ranger came with a Stun Rod, so I was pleasantly surprised when the Ranger started just slaughtering stuff that he hit--the problem was hitting though. :p He got lots of practice with Stamina however to supplement the Bard's Insanity and Screaming binges. The fact that the Stun Rod is One-handed now made me even happier.

The Ninja isn't doing too bad. He wasn't doing too hot in the beginning, but the last level gave him both an extra punch/kick and the ability to attack twice/hit. Nice. He's also connecting quite a bit now compared to before, probably because of skill increases.

The Valkyrie is actually the suckiest import. :p She's just being a tank soaking up damage (and how...Cheat Death is GREAT... ). When she does hit, it hurts, but she doesn't seem to hit much--even the Bishop hits more with his Sling. Oh well, should have found her a good stick to poke with instead of giving the Stun Rod to the Ranger. Good thing I gave her a decent amount of Divine spells. When her Divinity went up enough, the Book of Relics that transferred went to her immediately so that I didn't have as many item id problems.

Leveling up suggestions:
In the beginning, if you're using a spellcaster, put a few points into each of the spell levels so that you have at least 1 orange orb instead of all red. It makes it a little less painful later when you start practicing. My Samurai died once because I was too lazy to do that, so a Frost hit HIM instead, and because of the multiple hits in that same round before that attempt, he was already down to 2 hit points. Whoops. Orange spells actually seem to work something like 60-70% of the time (or maybe I'm just lucky) compared to Red spells working perhaps 20% of the time, so it really matters when practicing.

Edit: In short, you don't need to worry about what class you start with, provided you have at least 1 tank and 1 spellcaster. Just don't get mobbed and you'll do fine, no matter the difficulty.

[ 11-19-2001: Message edited by: Ravashack ]

[ 11-19-2001: Message edited by: Ravashack ]

[Ravashack]

Awwww

I unequipped my shield on my Stun Rod wielding Ranger to equip a new one...and it stayed off. [img]tongue.gif[/img]

That means the fact that I had the Stun Rod one-handed was a bug. Ah well...

You sound like you are having some fun!
Do keep us updated when you can!
Sorry about your shield!