No deaths, no reloads

[volle]

Bah play with
Viconia
Nalia
Imoen
Jan
Edwin
And own mage.

[Doltan]

Originally posted by RA:
<STRONG>

But when you solo a character you get to learn the class of your character better.
Because you learn to explore every option avaliable to survive (especially in BG1).

</STRONG>

This is really the best point made about soloing. I've soloed with an Illusionist/Thief and used about 25+ strategies to beat monsters (I, unlike two, have to reload often because I'm reckless). When I have used full parties of six, I've been able to beat most things with the same 5-10 strategies (I only vary strategies to keep it interesting).

[two]

BIG NEWS!

Hold your breath...oh no!

I DIED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yup, but I don't feel too bad about it at all. It was from a STUPID MAZE spell in the Watcher's Keep Illithid area. And the trap didn't even protect something valuable! How sucky. I hit the trap, checked the valuables, then saw the MAZE spell coming at me. I was like -- uh oh. I could not get a spell trap off fast enough. Sucks.

Oh well, onward. One death at level 40 ain't that bad.

I finished Watcher's Keep.

These are my impressions:

The dungeon was haphazardly put together. Level 2 was the best (elemental rooms). The worst was the last one I think. There seemed to be no consistency between battle difficulty. The demon level was HARD, especially those no-magic rooms! I had to use greater evasion, wearing Armor of the Hart like you would not believe. But then my AC was about -15 making me last long enough to CromF 'em.

The Githyanki by comparison are trivially easy, same with lame sword spiders and the like. I think each level was designed by a different person and then cobbled together.

I wasn't in any low-hp trouble until the last battle to open the portal. But first let me point something out: Bioware has done it again. Time Trap is very powerful. But then so is time stop. Dragons are trivially easy with time trap, as noted. So are the "big" party battles (excepting the last). The guy who had the deck of many things, since he was not "red" after we talked some, allowed me to put a few traps around him both time and spike. When I whacked him time stop/spikes went off, the party was dooomed.

Ditto for dragons. Bioware has NOT fixed the simulacrum helmet, so you have use it to cast protection from magic on yourself as often as you like. Good for the demi-lich, for example. The demi-lich is the worst monster in TOB, so far. Either you use berserk/scroll of magic protection and kill it taking no damage, or you don't and you get imprisoned after dishing out no damage. Very boring. Binary. win/lose. A no-brainer.

The "opening the portal" battle was fun. Time traps let me whack the eyeball thing and almost kill the snake. Then I had to run around a lot, casting spells, invisibility, spell immunity, imp. haste, etc. That female warrior lady, she was TOUGH. And that stupid charm creature took forever to kill. Eventually I seperated them all and whacked them one-by-one. Also you can sneak back to the imp room and sleep there to recover some, and then go back into the fight. That was fun.

NOT so fun was the "imprisoned one." I got him to show up, ran away from his summoned monsters, slept upstairs, went back, the summon's had gone. I did some experimentation, seeing what would damage him. CromF -- No. Flail of Ages: yes, non-fire enviromental damane. Time trap: No, he is immune. Melf's -- odd. One got through and did 8 damange. Most did not. AFter he would hit me a few times I ran away, healed, then went back for more testing.

Then...the sad day. I tried a spike trap. Full damage. I ran away, slept, crept back down, put down 4 spike traps, cast imp. haste, tensor's, grapped the flail and that was that. The demigorgon went down like the mutated monkey he is. This is clearly somewhere between cheese, a programming oversight, a brilliant strategy, luck, excellent special ability choice, etc. Anyway, he died.

Overall, the dungeon SUCKED. NO good weapons at ALL, none better than scarlet ninja-to + either cromF or Flail of Ages. No good armor. no good protection. NOTHING. Only improvement was the bracers of super-specialization -- nice for rogues! Of course I did get a lot of stuff that will be upgraded later, I think.

Bioware also recycled some rooms and stuff, kinda lame, not many new monsters, I didnt have to use many new strategies, etc.
So it was like -- ho hum. A good 5 hours or so, but nothing as cool as running through Umar Hills the first time! Or the elven city!

OH -- the machine of Lum is kinda lame. I can't risk dying so I just did the things written on the notes. It's so lame, at level 40, making a big deal out of incresing dex/charisma/etc. one point. I mean, so what bioware! I'm level 40! Even if you put all my stats at 25 it won't increase my power much, given the equipment I have. Well -- ALL at 25 would be nice for the AC bonus. But you know what I mean.

Now I have to whack JonI, and move on to the "real" expansion. Here's hoping.

[koz-ivan]

dire news indeed, well you made a good run of it, and got much farther than i would have.

p.s. the machine of lum the mad is a much bigger deal w/ a party of 6, at levels ~ 20 rather than one solo at 40.

[Gruntboy]

Wow, this is neat. Two, you're doing a fantastic job here. Soloer or not, I don't think there are many would sniff at what you've done.

[two]

Thanks guys.

Glad to know somebody's reading!

I am going to take a few days off, Watcher's Keep wore me out I think. I'm crabby or something. And it is going to be a chore running through the elven city to get to JonI again, I'm tired of that scenario. It's all for the expansion...I keep telling myself. And, of course, some hell-bonuses.

Quick question.....you say you are playing with no reloads but then you mention that you have a quicksave and the autosaves.....does this mean you are using the quick/auto saves? Because that sounds like reloading to me.
If you are truly doing this without ever reloading a saved game, then you have achieved something there......not sure what, but if you're having fun then I guess that's what matters!

[Doltan]

The way I understand it, two has only died once, and never re-loaded just before dying or any similar cheesy tactic. I imagine that he has to use the auto and quick saves so that he can go to bed once in awhile (presumably when his character is safe and sound, sleeping invisible in some corner).

[Xyx]

Originally posted by two:
<STRONG>Glad to know somebody's reading!</STRONG>

Sure I love solo journals. Elmonster got me hooked, I guess.

Strange that Bio didn't fix dragon AI to respond to trap setting... One of their developers said he had been working on it. Maybe they didn't QA it or something... Lots of good stuff seems not to have made it to QA. Think of the Balthazar powers in ToB and the Wild Mage in SoA...

[two]

Originally posted by Underdog:
<STRONG>Quick question.....you say you are playing with no reloads but then you mention that you have a quicksave and the autosaves.....does this mean you are using the quick/auto saves? Because that sounds like reloading to me.
If you are truly doing this without ever reloading a saved game, then you have achieved something there......not sure what, but if you're having fun then I guess that's what matters!</STRONG>

I just mean I use quicksave to restart after yes, sleeping and eating.

I mean that my Bard has, no, never died. I never restarted any battle, or restarted for any other reason. Until -- see below.

Just recently (Watcher's Keep) I had my first "death" due to a maze spell...then I was forced to restart from a previous quicksave after "dying". So my Bard is no longer pure...boo-hoo.

I do it becuase it's more fun. I can't really feel like I am "winning" or beating the game if I have to keep reloading to win a battle, or reloading to do something trivial like scribe a scroll/steal something. It makes it more interesting -- I'm surprised other people are not trying it. Really puts the fear-o-death back into the game! And it's actually not that hard to do, surprisingly. You just gotta be careful.

But my TOB is bugged out right now so it's unplayable...sigh. Oh well, maybe somebody here will have an answer/idea for me.

[two]

I have not been reading the boards, wary of spoilers, but this is my impression so far of TOB:

ITS REALLY REALLY REALLY SUCKY!!!

Don't you love going to a embattled city as a world-weary, heroic, level 20-40 character and being forced to:
Rescue some schmuck from a prison,
Return a spell book to a mage??!!,
Battle through very very familiar sewers vs. low level wimps?

I mean -- I have saved the world, right? A few times already...and you want me to RETURN A SPELL BOOK TO YOU???

You are asking a guy immune to normal weapons, heroic status, etc. to do the equivalent of scratching your posterior? I don't think so.

The writing, in other words, makes it very difficult to role play. I mean, nobody else seems to realize i'm heroic!

Also -- my god! IS IT POSSIBLE TO DIE in TOB??? How easy can this game get??? Somebody needs to tell Bioware that there is no difference between fighting ONE monster that can't hit you, vs. fighting 100 that can't hit you. You don't get hurt either way. I could NOT believe how LAME the sewer battle was. I mean, as a Bard, with not the best AC in the game, it's trivially easy to get -18 or so (0 from improved armor, -4 dex, -1 helm of balduron, -1 bard gloves, -1 Cernd's cloak, -1 earth control, -2 gaax. That's -10 BASE.

Add a few Blur's, which last forever, or a greater evasion and you are an unhitteable -18 or better. Given that you already have stoneskin with a lot of skins...this is absurd. How the hell are these wimpy monsters going to hit me?

Even a lame rogue's saving throws are safely negative before even a blur is cast, after you don't have a worry in the world.

And I'm playing at about 35% of my full stength! Sheesh. I don't know the math but as a fighter I expect could easily have -15 or so base, maybe better if he uses a shield. What is a monk/swashbuckler at? God.

LAME. I really don't know HOW to die in this "expansion." The entire palace was ridiculous. One spell trap lasted the whole way through, I just improved haste and melee'ed the whole thing to bits. The scarlet ninja-to seemed to always do poison damage to the spell casters, and nobody else could hit me so that was the only "danger".

This has got to be the most linear boring plot ever. Go to place, then pocket plane. Go to other place, then pocket plane. Hard to fit in all the yawns!

I went to some place with undead, a temple or such, what a bore. Again, nothing can hit or damage me much. I talked with something about a heart, then went to another place where wimpy fire giants things missed me regularly. (about 15 minuts max). I then went into this cave thing, was surrounded by fire giant types, and took about 8 rounds to kill them all with Crom F. Boring, some damage at least so I redid stoneskin. That was good for another group of baddies, then I rested some and continued on. Good lord, I had more fun in Irenicus' prison! I'm getting +5 weapons for almost no danger!

Sigh. And don't anyone DARE say "if its too easy dude, why dont' you simply stop doing X" where X is something entirely reasonable. I'm already rushing through it, using only a small percentage of my abilities. I don't feel like handicapping myself just to make up for idiotic game designers! I just don't get it, Watcher's Keep was MUCH harder and that even was reasonable. I'm not even using all my abilities, no time trap, I hardly ever cast an offensive spell anymore ever. I'm still using CromF and Scarlet Ninja-to.

What, do I have to walk around with no armor to make it a challenge??? Or stop using all second level spells (blur, mirror image on occasion)? Yeah, watch out of those imbalancing second level spells.

Disgusted. Really not worth $25. If the next lame dungeon/area is not tough I'm not sure I will finish. Please somebody tell me it WILL get more difficult, ok? Please?

What did I waste my time getting my Bard ready for?

I can't imagine how simple TOB must be for a standard party of 3-4. Talk about overkill!

[koz-ivan]

imo you've beaten the easiest two bosses, expect things to get a little more interesting.

and if thats not enough go get some improved ai patches, from baulderdash.

also bear in mind that by going solo you change the dynamic of the game, adding 5 other char's does not mean it's all of a sudden 6 times easier.

the game is a bit on the easy side vs bg1 where every encounter can lead to sudden death, but thats a function of your level, you are an incredibly powerful char (or party for us weenies who don't solo) there shouldn't be much to really challenge us.

[two]

Originally posted by koz-ivan:
<STRONG>imo you've beaten the easiest two bosses, expect things to get a little more interesting.

and if thats not enough go get some improved ai patches, from baulderdash.

also bear in mind that by going solo you change the dynamic of the game, adding 5 other char's does not mean it's all of a sudden 6 times easier.

the game is a bit on the easy side vs bg1 where every encounter can lead to sudden death, but thats a function of your level, you are an incredibly powerful char (or party for us weenies who don't solo) there shouldn't be much to really challenge us.</STRONG>

This is really not acceptable in my opinion.

If there is nothing to "really challenge us" the game designers have fallen asleep on the job. Not to mention the fact that too easy=way boring.

Nope, not worth $25 for this! oh well.

[Lews Therin]

Originally posted by two:
<STRONG>ITS REALLY REALLY REALLY SUCKY!!!


Also -- my god! IS IT POSSIBLE TO DIE in TOB??? How easy can this game get??? Somebody needs to tell Bioware that there is no difference between fighting ONE monster that can't hit you, vs. fighting 100 that can't hit you. You don't get hurt either way. I could NOT believe how LAME the sewer battle was. I mean, as a Bard, with not the best AC in the game, it's trivially easy to get -18 or so (0 from improved armor, -4 dex, -1 helm of balduron, -1 bard gloves, -1 Cernd's cloak, -1 earth control, -2 gaax. That's -10 BASE.

Add a few Blur's, which last forever, or a greater evasion and you are an unhitteable -18 or better. Given that you already have stoneskin with a lot of skins...this is absurd. How the hell are these wimpy monsters going to hit me?

Even a lame rogue's saving throws are safely negative before even a blur is cast, after you don't have a worry in the world.

And I'm playing at about 35% of my full stength! Sheesh. I don't know the math but as a fighter I expect could easily have -15 or so base, maybe better if he uses a shield. What is a monk/swashbuckler at? God.

LAME. I really don't know HOW to die in this "expansion." The entire palace was ridiculous. One spell trap lasted the whole way through, I just improved haste and melee'ed the whole thing to bits. The scarlet ninja-to seemed to always do poison damage to the spell casters, and nobody else could hit me so that was the only "danger".

This has got to be the most linear boring plot ever. Go to place, then pocket plane. Go to other place, then pocket plane. Hard to fit in all the yawns!

I went to some place with undead, a temple or such, what a bore. Again, nothing can hit or damage me much. I talked with something about a heart, then went to another place where wimpy fire giants things missed me regularly. (about 15 minuts max). I then went into this cave thing, was surrounded by fire giant types, and took about 8 rounds to kill them all with Crom F. Boring, some damage at least so I redid stoneskin. That was good for another group of baddies, then I rested some and continued on. Good lord, I had more fun in Irenicus' prison! I'm getting +5 weapons for almost no danger!

Sigh. And don't anyone DARE say "if its too easy dude, why dont' you simply stop doing X" where X is something entirely reasonable. I'm already rushing through it, using only a small percentage of my abilities. I don't feel like handicapping myself just to make up for idiotic game designers! I just don't get it, Watcher's Keep was MUCH harder and that even was reasonable. I'm not even using all my abilities, no time trap, I hardly ever cast an offensive spell anymore ever. I'm still using CromF and Scarlet Ninja-to.

What, do I have to walk around with no armor to make it a challenge??? Or stop using all second level spells (blur, mirror image on occasion)? Yeah, watch out of those imbalancing second level spells.

Disgusted. Really not worth $25. If the next lame dungeon/area is not tough I'm not sure I will finish. Please somebody tell me it WILL get more difficult, ok? Please?

What did I waste my time getting my Bard ready for?

I can't imagine how simple TOB must be for a standard party of 3-4. Talk about overkill!</STRONG>

You're probably just too familiar with SoA and know where all the best stuff is. I'm having a lot of fun play ToB, but my two fighters have -5 and -6 AC and neither uses shields (one uses two-handed swords and the other dual-wields). My cleric has the best AC at -10, but no Ironskins, Blurr, or Stoneskins.

What I would recommend you do to make ToB interesting, is start a new game in ToB. That way you wouldn't start out with all the stuff you gathered in SoA, and you would only have 2500000 experience.

Myself I'm really enjoying the whole epic feel to the game. A level 25 fighter should be able to take out dozens of lesser opponents, and there are enough high level battles to challenge (at least me).

[koz-ivan]

two, before you pass judgement on the game, finish it.

believe it or not but there are fights that i think are pretty neat & challenging, you beat a few of the weenie bosses.