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Post by tycho on Dec 19, 2017 10:57:08 GMT
I'm conflicted on the new hardcore mechanic, having to restart a series. It is a good tough (and frustrating) challenge, but I wouldn't want it on all my hardcore runs. Would be nice if it would be optionable, like a hardcore+ mode. Or I have to change a rule to make it custom mode, that would disable the series restart, right? Kai shouldn't be that bad, but GM might hurt quite a bit. Not sure about Magnakai. I guess we'll have to play and find out once all the mechanics are fleshed out. There might be some new boons added as well  What I very much like about this new mechanic is that you can't abuse restarts to make things go your way, you always have to work with what you get and the stakes are high. Very nice for a one-time challenge and award. What I don't like, if this is forced on every hardcore run, is that it makes you very unflexible in your choice of disciplines, decisions and extra challenges on top. You plan the best approach to maximize your chances and always go with that, because every other approach will hurt too much. They are possible, I've gotten fresh start on books 13,14 and 16. 13 and 14 were managable, but 16 was hell, possibly worse than 11 and 12. I would be embarrassed to admit how many hours I wasted on that, definitely could use some prodigy bonus. 15 and 17 thankfully don't have fresh starts. 18 and 19 shouldn't be too hard, I think. Don't know about 20, haven't played that one in a long time. |
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Post by hemulen on Dec 19, 2017 11:37:10 GMT
You are right. 15 and 17 doesn't have a fresh start award. I just assumed that they all have it..
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Post by UrQuan on Dec 19, 2017 16:37:34 GMT
Played through book 18 and 19 on BTB without SS. Worked great and it's nice to finally be able to play these with Seventh Sense. I really like the narrative in book 18, revisting all the old places. But it's crazy how the difficulty drops. Books 13 through 16 were a really good challenge, book 17 is like final climax crazy (and I love it), and then it becomes super easy (not counting fresh start). I'm conflicted on the new hardcore mechanic, having to restart a series. It is a good tough (and frustrating) challenge, but I wouldn't want it on all my hardcore runs. Would be nice if it would be optionable, like a hardcore+ mode. Or I have to change a rule to make it custom mode, that would disable the series restart, right? For example, I'm currently working on a hardcore run without healing discipline (and without SS). That is very damn hard and absolutely doesn't work with series restart. But it is a very cool challenge with a lot of planning (and of course even more rng). Finally all those potions get to be used! And they're barely enough. Future GM award ideas (just my thoughts, what I would like): - 1-20 without healing discipline. - 1-20 without mindblast discipline. - 1-20 without mindshield and nexus. - 1-20 without alchemy and magi-magic. The series restart has to be looked at in context of the new mechanics as a whole. For reasons untold I did not want to let the player too leisurely explore each book. I also wanted each series or book by itself to be a genuine challenge, while easing some of the worst bottlenecks later on. I did not want the whole series to be just a prelude for Prisoners of Time or The Deathlord of Ixia, like it is currently. To me, being able to restart each book is nearly guaranteed progress, barring some insane spike in difficulty (such as Book 17 without Healing!). Given those things, it is very hard to really balance anything properly. Indeed you can always play in Custom mode to recreate the old Hardcore rule-set. With some confidence I can say: GM without Healing is impossible! Otherwise that would have been an award, for sure. To be sure, *if* you beat it I will make an award just for you!  Same if someone really beats Book 15, Book 17 fresh start. After some deliberation, I chose not to make any of those Hardcore awards for the GM series. I felt some of the Magnakai one's were already superfluous, and worse so with the longer 1 - 20 series. No Mindblast is too similar Low stats / No Sommerswerd for example. Always happy to hear yours or anyone's ideas, though! |
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Post by UrQuan on Dec 19, 2017 16:41:24 GMT
Kai shouldn't be that bad, but GM might hurt quite a bit. Not sure about Magnakai. I guess we'll have to play and find out once all the mechanics are fleshed out. There might be some new boons added as well What I very much like about this new mechanic is that you can't abuse restarts to make things go your way, you always have to work with what you get and the stakes are high. Very nice for a one-time challenge and award. What I don't like, if this is forced on every hardcore run, is that it makes you very unflexible in your choice of disciplines, decisions and extra challenges on top. You plan the best approach to maximize your chances and always go with that, because every other approach will hurt too much. They are possible, I've gotten fresh start on books 13,14 and 16. 13 and 14 were managable, but 16 was hell, possibly worse than 11 and 12. I would be embarrassed to admit how many hours I wasted on that, definitely could use some prodigy bonus. 15 and 17 thankfully don't have fresh starts. 18 and 19 shouldn't be too hard, I think. Don't know about 20, haven't played that one in a long time. One thing is for certain: You will *not* know which skills to pick, or what decisions to make. |
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Post by tycho on Dec 19, 2017 17:58:02 GMT
With the Sommerswerd I'm pretty sure I can do a 1-20 no-healing hardcore run with the old rules and I only need the SS for the book 17 Plane of Darkness +4 CS bonus and double damage against Ixia. Without the SS I already made it to the Ixia boss fight. With a good but not insane amount of luck he can be killed with three Kai-Blasts. Let's say three Blasts at 10 damage each, not too unlikely. Plus the normal damage, let's say you only roll three sevens, at -11 that's 3 damage. 30 + 9 in three rounds kills him and you don't even need an insane amount of zeroes in a row. With three 10 damage blasts and three sevens Lone Wolf needs 23 EP to survive. Of course every 1+2 instantly kills you and there is a 50% chance of death after Ixia, but you could also get more lucky than in my example. With the SS I can with some reliability make it to Ixia to try my luck. And books 18-20 are so much easier, 18 and 20 both have full-heals at critical points mid-adventure and 19 has almost no combats with the right skills and nothing really scary.
This challenge of course involves a ton of restarts, but it is not insanely impossible. Books 1-20 BTB with 10/20 stats is by no means any less insane!
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Post by UrQuan on Dec 19, 2017 18:30:08 GMT
With the Sommerswerd I'm pretty sure I can do a 1-20 no-healing hardcore run with the old rules and I only need the SS for the book 17 Plane of Darkness +4 CS bonus and double damage against Ixia. Without the SS I already made it to the Ixia boss fight. With a good but not insane amount of luck he can be killed with three Kai-Blasts. Let's say three Blasts at 10 damage each, not too unlikely. Plus the normal damage, let's say you only roll three sevens, at -11 that's 3 damage. 30 + 9 in three rounds kills him and you don't even need an insane amount of zeroes in a row. With three 10 damage blasts and three sevens Lone Wolf needs 23 EP to survive. Of course every 1+2 instantly kills you and there is a 50% chance of death after Ixia, but you could also get more lucky than in my example. With the SS I can with some reliability make it to Ixia to try my luck. And books 18-20 are so much easier, 18 and 20 both have full-heals at critical points mid-adventure and 19 has almost no combats with the right skills and nothing really scary. This challenge of course involves a ton of restarts, but it is not insanely impossible. Books 1-20 BTB with 10/20 stats is by no means any less insane! I must have been thinking of fresh start from book 13, where you are without Healing even on By-The-Book, which I tried back in the day and which was impossible. Hardcore Legacy is a little bit easier of course, not sure how much higher stats you have effectively but with a stock of healing items and the "Dark Champion" bonus and so on.... Helps in the critical Book 17. Still, I would have guessed it to be a lot harder than Low Stats 1-20 which I actually did not struggle *that* badly with. I am a man of my word and you will get your reward, in any case. |
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Post by tycho on Dec 20, 2017 0:57:43 GMT
Yeah, fresh start from book 13 certainly seems impossible without Healing. Most of the Laumspur and Alether potions are collected in the first 12 books and they are very much needed. As well as the SS with the Dark Champion and Dark Plane bonus and averting some damage and even entire fights. I actually forgot how much the SS actually helps as I mostly play without it. So yeah, in the span of one evening I completed books 1-19 without the Healing discipline with the SS. I finished with 20 Laumspur (even totally wasted two in book 18 when I didn't remember a full-heal was coming up and didn't bother restarting) and 3 Alether. Maybe I got a bit lucky a few times (absolutely no cheating though), but the SS really is a huge help. Book 13 was a gamble, because I didn't have Assimilance to evade Degradon and the final death check. Book 14 was very tough, because I wanted to get the Laumspur x3 for book 17, which meant another tough fight among several other tough fights. Book 15 was much easier with the SS because of Dark Cahmpion bonus against the boss. Cleared on first try. Book 16 was also very easy because of Dark Plane bonus. Cleared on second try. Book 17 I think I got lucky, but I cleared it also first try. Used Alether+4, Adgana, 2x Alether, all the high healing items, Dark Champion bonus against Ixia (-2 ratio), finished with over 20 EP and two Laumspur left. Books 18 and 19 were no challenge at all, no resources needed. It's a very reasonable challenge. But it's your (and Dave's) programm, you decide what awards you would like. I think it's a fun challenge. And you didn't struggle that badly on the minimum stats challenge? I did the previous 14/24 challenge without problems, but 10/20 is another story entirely. Book 11 is totally killing me! For starters, -4 with psi surge penalty against Chaos Master (with Alether +4 already), I haven't even won once in about 20 tries. Shadow Reavers with only 10 base CS are also kind of dangerous if you don't use up a lot of healing items. Villains at -4 can go either way, but you better pray for good luck after finally once winning agains CM. And then another -5 EP and Vonotar at +1, who with bad luck can also [fudge] you up. Now that is a sick challenge  I always thought either the improved Psi Surge (+6/-1) or the improved Curing (+20) should have been availabe in book 11, would make it so much more balanced. Instead you get all of it in book 12, along with three stat boosting items. After book 11 I'm ceratin I could clear the minimum stats challenge, but I don't know if I can endure that book. |
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Post by UrQuan on Dec 20, 2017 1:20:03 GMT
Yeah, fresh start from book 13 certainly seems impossible without Healing. Most of the Laumspur and Alether potions are collected in the first 12 books and they are very much needed. As well as the SS with the Dark Champion and Dark Plane bonus and averting some damage and even entire fights. I actually forgot how much the SS actually helps as I mostly play without it. So yeah, in the span of one evening I completed books 1-19 without the Healing discipline with the SS. I finished with 20 Laumspur (even totally wasted two in book 18 when I didn't remember a full-heal was coming up and didn't bother restarting) and 3 Alether. Maybe I got a bit lucky a few times (absolutely no cheating though), but the SS really is a huge help. Book 13 was a gamble, because I didn't have Assimilance to evade Degradon and the final death check. Book 14 was very tough, because I wanted to get the Laumspur x3 for book 17, which meant another tough fight among several other tough fights. Book 15 was much easier with the SS because of Dark Cahmpion bonus against the boss. Cleared on first try. Book 16 was also very easy because of Dark Plane bonus. Cleared on second try. Book 17 I think I got lucky, but I cleared it also first try. Used Alether+4, Adgana, 2x Alether, all the high healing items, Dark Champion bonus against Ixia (-2 ratio), finished with over 20 EP and two Laumspur left. Books 18 and 19 were no challenge at all, no resources needed. It's a very reasonable challenge. But it's your (and Dave's) programm, you decide what awards you would like. I think it's a fun challenge. And you didn't struggle that badly on the minimum stats challenge? I did the previous 14/24 challenge without problems, but 10/20 is another story entirely. Book 11 is totally killing me! For starters, -4 with psi surge penalty against Chaos Master (with Alether +4 already), I haven't even won once in about 20 tries. Shadow Reavers with only 10 base CS are also kind of dangerous if you don't use up a lot of healing items. Villains at -4 can go either way, but you better pray for good luck after finally once winning agains CM. And then another -5 EP and Vonotar at +1, who with bad luck can also [fudge] you up. Now that is a sick challenge I always thought either the improved Psi Surge (+6/-1) or the improved Curing (+20) should have been availabe in book 11, would make it so much more balanced. Instead you get all of it in book 12, along with three stat boosting items. After book 11 I'm ceratin I could clear the minimum stats challenge, but I don't know if I can endure that book. Indeed the Chaos-Master and Prisoners of Time is not a push-over now. I think at the time I was so used to doing only deathless runs, including 9 CS / 20 EP 1 - 12 without deaths, which was for sure the most insane run I ever did (even more insane than that stupid 0 CS / 0 EP one), that I thought it such a luxury to be able to restart at Book 11, which maybe skewed my perspective of difficulty there. There is a 1 - 20 deathless award now by the way, which *for sure* is harder than 1 - 20 Low Stats. Don't give up! |
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Post by tycho on Dec 20, 2017 1:41:22 GMT
See, I don't think 1-20 deathless (with max stats) is harder than minimum stats at all. I can prepare for the worst death checks, battles are no problem at all with max stats, just some random luck-based death ckecks, may have to restart (all from the start) a couple of times. But with the minimum stats chellenge I can restart book 11 50 times and may not gain any progress. That get's frustrating after a while, always doing the same sections over. And you did a 0/0 challenge, what? I thought 5 CS was the lowest possible. That sounds crazy  |
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Post by UrQuan on Dec 20, 2017 3:34:17 GMT
See, I don't think 1-20 deathless (with max stats) is harder than minimum stats at all. I can prepare for the worst death checks, battles are no problem at all with max stats, just some random luck-based death ckecks, may have to restart (all from the start) a couple of times. But with the minimum stats chellenge I can restart book 11 50 times and may not gain any progress. That get's frustrating after a while, always doing the same sections over. And you did a 0/0 challenge, what? I thought 5 CS was the lowest possible. That sounds crazy Again with some confidence, I can say it is harder.... (where have you heard that before?) but this time I actually have a lot of experience. Battles are no problem but the insta-deaths add up *fast*, and reach a climax in Book 17 which takes the better part of two hours to get to, versus dying in in the Low Stat run which sets you back minutes. You will have to restart a lot more than a couple of times. This time I guarantee it! Only with a hacked version of Seventh Sense. You die immediately in section 1, if you don't find the Helmet in the ruins that is! projectaon.proboards.com/post/42306/thread |
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Post by tycho on Dec 20, 2017 16:27:57 GMT
You're probably right, book 17 alone is a huge obstacle in a deathless run and yeah failure really takes a lot of time as opposed to low stats book restarts. I have never actually tried 1-20 deathless, so I'm probably underestimating it. In other news, I just completed book 15 fresh start! It's tough but manageable, I remember having more trouble with 16 fresh start. The first half of the book is pretty much irrelevant and not dangerous, one 10% death, all damage taken is irrelevant. Then your EP get reduced to 15. At this point I chose to take a risk and took Huntmastery (+2) and a Rope (+1) and descended deeper into the cave with a 40% chance of death. As a reward, only on this route, you get the healing funghi for +6 EP. With this, the 20 EP from Deliverance and the 2x3 EP from story sections you can get back to max EP. Alternatively you can take Kai-Alchemy to evade the chance of death completely, but you will really miss those 6 EP in the end. The whole part after the tomb is unproblematic, there are a lot of sections for healing, so you can even take quite a lot of bad rolls in combats. 50% chance to find an Alether. The end (starting at Lencian Crusader) is the tough part. There is a good chance to make it here with full EP, 39, and inbetween the four coming battles you can heal 10 and lose 5. Crusader at +9 (or +11 with Surge), Tukodaks at +3, Tarhdemon at +5 and Magnaarn at -3 or -1 with Alether. Pretty reasonable combat ratios, but it is tough. And of course there is the evil 40% chance of death right before Magnaarn, so even a great combat run can fail there, which is very frustrating. Huntmastery doesn't even help there because of low Kai-Rank. In summary, two 40% death checks and 4 fights in a row where you have to roll well. Or only one 40% death check but the 4 fights will be harder. You could also try to save the Deliverance mega heal for Magnaarn, but that will make things harder and more unreliable with barely any advantage in the end. In good runs you can make it the boss with around 20 EP. And finally, I noticed a potential exploit which shouldn't work like this, I think. If you take a lot of healable combat damage (ideally down to 1) before the tomb, then you can heal that up after being reduced to 15. You actually have to go out of your way and actively seek fights to achieve this and it's only really useful if you try to save the mega heal for the boss. |
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Post by tycho on Dec 20, 2017 18:59:45 GMT
UrQuan, could you give me a hint for the fifth award in book 15?
"Time slowly lost it's meaning as you dug yourself out of your subteranian tomb. But how long did it really take?"
I tried going the specific route to fight all three enemies in the caves, because only on that route you actually dig yourself out through the rocks. But that didn't work and would also be a bit easy for an Expert award. Or is this another timed award?
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Post by UrQuan on Dec 22, 2017 21:05:20 GMT
Now in this lull with the New Order releases, I'm making good progress with the new Hardcore. Some great features already in place! Will focus on that now for the next big release. The Curse of Naar released! (download) |
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Post by tycho on Dec 23, 2017 0:10:25 GMT
Awesome, now I can finally finish some GM series awards and kill Kekataag. Thanks! I will wait with my hardcore runs for the big update. I'm excited |
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Post by John Bryntze on Dec 23, 2017 22:36:34 GMT
Best Christmas present ever! thanks a lot UrQuan!!!
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Same if someone really beats Book 15, Book 17 fresh start.
I always thought either the improved Psi Surge (+6/-1) or the improved Curing (+20) should have been availabe in book 11, would make it so much more balanced. Instead you get all of it in book 12, along with three stat boosting items. After book 11 I'm ceratin I could clear the minimum stats challenge, but I don't know if I can endure that book.
