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I really like the faction/alignment system in Geneforge. Allying with the Awakened is the obvious "good" option, while the Obeyers and Takers are two different "evil" choices. Either setting yourself up as a jackass overlord, or supporting a bunch of murdercrazy bastards. It's nice to have some choices in how to be evil, if that makes sense, to not just have it be some braindead "lol i kill de babies an eat dem lol"-route. Especially since either of those two options have their non-evil aspects as well. If you work with the Obeyers, you're basically just making them happy, giving them what they want, and if you work with the Takers you are, perversely enough, actually treating them like equals and acknowledging their agency. Even if they want to use that agency to stab you in the throat and drink your blood.
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Jan 12, 2016 10:12
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| # ? May 5, 2024 01:44 |
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"Is there anyone here who can me", eb instead of be, a bunch of "It" transformed into "I" etc. Spellcheck.
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Jan 12, 2016 17:32
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Xander77 posted:"Is there anyone here who can me", eb instead of be, a bunch of "It" transformed into "I" etc. Spellcheck. My apologies, that's what happens when you edit on no sleep. Re-editing now.
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Jan 12, 2016 17:51
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PurpleXVI posted:I really like the faction/alignment system in Geneforge. Allying with the Awakened is the obvious "good" option, while the Obeyers and Takers are two different "evil" choices. Either setting yourself up as a jackass overlord, or supporting a bunch of murdercrazy bastards. It's nice to have some choices in how to be evil, if that makes sense, to not just have it be some braindead "lol i kill de babies an eat dem lol"-route. Especially since either of those two options have their non-evil aspects as well. If you work with the Obeyers, you're basically just making them happy, giving them what they want, and if you work with the Takers you are, perversely enough, actually treating them like equals and acknowledging their agency. Even if they want to use that agency to stab you in the throat and drink your blood. As for the Awakened, just because they have good intentions doesn't mean their plan is going to end well. When the Shapers find out that their supposedly-mindless servant race is capable of wanting to rise up and be treated equally, do you think they will respond reasonably? When the Awakened realise that they will have to fight to win their freedom, how is that going to work out for all the Shapers' other, non-Awakened serviles? (I love the moral quandaries this series throws up, in case it's not obvious, and I'm really glad that someone is LPing it! I think the LP would be improved a lot, Zeniel, if you showed us some of the other choices of dialogue when we reach an alignment-affecting decision: not necessarily the NPC responses to it, because that'd be a lot of work, but just the options we're turning down.)
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Jan 12, 2016 19:34
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I'm happy to show off the other dialogue options for the faction alignment choices. It'll probably lend more credence to the idea that things aren't as black and white as some people may think. I'll hold back on thoughts about that till later though.
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Jan 12, 2016 20:25
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Depending on how much work you want to do you could make some bonus updates after the main run is done to show off the major differences.
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Jan 12, 2016 20:44
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Yeah, one of the things this game is pretty good at is having factions that have these drastically different philosophies but are also just kind of people with real motivations, and not everybody feels some monolithic way about the faction's central philosophy.
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Jan 18, 2016 04:45
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Chapter 3:Rogues Nested in Knowledge In this episode of Geneforge, detective Gene Forge breaks apart a syndicate making forged jeans and accidentally unravels a conspiracy that goes all the way to the president of the United States.  Andras leaves the quaint little village of Vakkiri and arrives in the Bandit Woods.  True to its name, the bandit woods is home to a band led by a servile named Ghurk. We are neither formidable nor charismatic enough to be dealing with the likes of them just yet. So we'll avoid heading further north until we are. In the mean time we shall head west.  This area is crawling with rogue fyoras. A cocky shaper can get themselves overrun very quickly if they're not careful. Fortunately for us, Andras is careful to let his creations do all the heavy lifting.  And with very little fanfare Andras has leveled up for the very first time.  For my first few levels I always try to spend my points into both leadership and mechanics. Once we get leadership to about seven and mechanics to about five or so we can hold off raising them any further for a little while. Andras' current intelligence should give us the necessary essence increase each level to square off the downside of only investing points into social skills for the time being. Actually now is a good time to talk about experience points in this game. Every single level in this game only costs 1000exp. To mitigate the problem of becoming quickly over leveled what happens is each area of this game appears to have a kind of experience level cap. What this means is that as you progress through an area you'll a decent amount of experience from killing enemies and completing quests or what have you. But as you level up, the area will provide a diminishing amount of experience for these actions. So if killing a fyora in one area would give you say 50 exp, then leveling up a few times may result in you only getting 10 or 1 exp for killing another. Eventually you will be too high a level to gain any experience from a particular area and you will have to find more challenging map areas to level up further. This also means it's not good to leave off doing faction related quests until later, as you may be too over leveled to get any experience out of it when you do. This isn't a huge problem however, exp isn't all that hard to come by.  Anyhoo, we gained enough maximum essence that we'll introduce a second fyora to the field of battle!  At this stage of the game, my strategy is quantity over quality. The more creations between us and our targets, the better.  Up ahead we encounter a new type of rogue creation. The Thahd. Thahds are used by shapers as manual labor as well as body guards. They're meant to be big, slow and dumb. But strong. I usually prioritize killing them first above all other things as they can hit hard and have an annoying habit of charging your shaper and one shotting him. They're not too big of nuisance though, the same can not be said of Thahds in the later games though.  Short of slaughtering all of the rogues there's not much left for us to do out here so let's head into the school ruins.   This area is a fairly straight forward beginner dungeon. Honestly its more of a pain for a shaper class than anyone else because the power of shapers comes from their creations, which we're still getting our feet wet in. So long as you take it slow and don't mind fleeing back to Vakkiri to recharge if you bite off more than you can chew, it's not too bad.   There's a lot more thahds in this place, mostly they patrol the long corridors, oftentimes they'll just ignore you outright unless you get too close.   The shapers would appear to take gently caress ups very seriously. When you have the power to make and unmake life at your beck and call, then becoming too complacent can lead to all sorts of disastrous consequences.   The storage areas of this old school have a few goodies for us, like some living tools.  and some chitin armor to replace our tunic.  Deeper in the complex we find some old writings left over.   One of the other good things about fighting Thahds..  is that they occasionally drop valuable items. I think the rate in which thahds drop items is related to your luck stat.  Up ahead is another new creation. The Artila. They're a kind of annelid worm that spits gobs of acid at you and your creations, this makes them a huge pain in arse. They're attacks do a decent amount of damage and also afflict damage over time too. Unlike poisons there's no way to remove that effect either, you just have to wait for the acid to stop burning you. This makes artilas terrific allies to have as nothing can withstand a long barrage from these guys. They are rather fragile though and low level artilas can only really attack about two times before they completely run out of energy. We should definitely kill any Artilas first and foremost when we fight them in groups of other rogues and pray we can bring them all down in the first round of combat before they get a chance to retaliate.  We also managed to level up rather quickly and we bring yet another fyora into the foray.  Some more ancient knowledge worth absorbing.  or not. Several centuries of monsters making a nest out of a school doesn't do too much good for the books found within.  We're not to far from the very center of the school now.    Meet Rawbone, he serves as this games first mini boss. He's got 100hp which is a decent amount for the beginning of the game. He's also much faster than your average Thahd and hits even harder. To top it all off he's flanked by quite a few weaker thahds and fyoras.  Being able to take this guy down is really a good test of the effectiveness of your character. He can be very tough for an early game shaper character for sure. It's good to hang onto some javelins from the start of the game to hurl at him and just have a large pack of creatures all wailing on him and he should go down without too many problems, then mop up the remaining stragglers. In most fights in this game the best strategy is to try and take out the weaker enemies first, limiting the number of attacks aimed in your direction . But there are certain exceptions to this rule and Rawbone is one of them. Having three fyoras certainly helps bring him down quickly.  And he's got a unique belt on him. This students belt is a good find for a shaper, the extra point in intelligence means more essence and more essence means more creations and healing.  The rest of the room consists of various breeding pits the students used to test out their shaping abilities, although now its just full of fyoras. What's of interest of us, is the chest in the middle of the room.  This key will open all of the locked door found in this place. Which is handy as we can save all the living tools we'll find in here for later.  This door up ahead seems important enough. Its also guarded by an artila or two too.  Inside is an old servant mind.   "What happened to this school? Why is it in ruins?" "I do not know. Is the school in ruins? Nobody has visited me for so long with news of happenings elsewhere. I know little""The last contact I had with your kind was when most of my knowledge was blocked off." "Who did that?" "A Shaper from off the island came to me. She said the school was to be closed forever. She said that I was to forget all the marvelous things I had learned, that we had learned here.""I obeyed completely of course. Then they sealed me away. This was many years ago." "Why was the school closed?" "I think I remember being told that we on this island had discovered dangerous knowledge. But I serve. The purposes of the Shapers are not for me to question or know. Unless they wish it." "All of it? It is all gone?" "The instructions were vague, but I believe that I followed them properly. I remember little now, from before my erasing. Mainly, I remember Defniel." "Who was Defniel?" "The head of teaching here. He was a great researcher as well. I think. I think that that is what I remember. He was very angry when the school was closed.""He said he would leave a journal of his findings hidden in the school. He said this would help our achievements survive. I thought it was unwise to not follow orders, but it is not my place to question a Shaper." " Where is this journal?" "I do not know. I never saw it. I do not know for sure that it even existed."Well we already saw what became of his journal earlier. "This was a school. Can you teach me anything?" "I was instructed to forget all I learned, know, or could teach, and any information that could not be forgotten must not be taught to anyone. I have attempted to follow those instructions as best I could." "Do you remember nothing at all?" "I think I can work some minor modif... I... I can not act in this way. I contradicts my directions."If our leadership is at least 4 I think, then we are able to persuade the servant mind to reveal some of his hidden knowledge. "I was sent by the person who gave those orders. They have been cancelled." (Lie.) Povralus seems to believe you. "I can't teach you what I don't know. I was very thorough. The only modification I can give is this..."It doesn't look like it does anything, but you feel a burning sensation all throughout your body. Povralus is changing you, just like those strange canisters do. It makes no sense. These servants are weak creatures. They should be unable to affect a Shaper in any way. And yet Povralus just changed you! It is completely unlike anything you have ever seen. Soon, the burning stops. You feel that your skills have improved. Povralus says, "I will now forget how to do that, since those are my orders. I am glad. It is my last knowledge." This whole transaction gives us another point in fire bolt, not all that useful to us, but it doesn't hurt to have the extra power anyway. "You are still functional. How is this possible?" "I have endured quietly these long years, trusting in the skill of the Shapers who crafted me. They fed me well before they left. I should be able to live for a century yet without difficulty.That is much longer than you had thought these creatures would ever be able to live. "What do you eat?" "The Shapers fed us a solution they crafted. They fed us long and well, and kept our powers strong. I am not hungry yet, but I know other minds on this island endured much greater exertions than I.""If you find them, you may find them to be weak and unhelpful. And even, sadly, deranged. Solution, however may revive them." "Where can I find some of this solution?" "I do not know. I believe that all we had here was fed to me before I was sealed away. The solution can, if properly sealed, last many, many, years. So you may still find some of the island."That's all this servant mind has to say to us. We find a few goodies in the rooms nearby to it.   The bronze sword is an upgrade from the dagger, but it is of no interest to us as a shaper. But the venom baton we will definitely be taking, it's far better than the standard baton we've found so far. I make a policy of dropping any thorns I pick up from the previous baton as soon as I find an upgrade. Thorns aren't so scarce that we should worry about running out any time soon.  In the far back room we find an intact canister that imbues us with the power to create artilas. Which we will certainly be doing as soon as we have the essence to do so.   This lecture hall has two shaping vats we can poke around in, there's no good reason to ever do this. But for completions sake we shall do it anyway.    Inside this vat is an enraged fyora. I think it's slightly tougher than your average fyora, but it's no big deal.    The second vat poisons you and anyone nearby. That's all it does.  In the back of a locked door behind another lecture hall is yet another canister. It increases our endurance by 1 point. You can never have enough free stats in this game.  We also level up again. I put our Leadership and Mechanics skill to acceptable levels for the time being.  And with the extra essence we gain, I pull an Artila of our very own into being. They cost slightly more to maintain than a fyora but they are more than worth it.  Finally we come to the last locked room in the school. It's got another canister in it that teaches us searer. It's an upgrade from fire bolt. It's basically an acid attack and does a decent amount of damage. Unfortunately for us, it also costs essence as well as energy to cast so it doesn't really play into our wheel house.   We also find some venom thorns, for our venom baton and a studded belt. It's an upgrade in terms of armor class for a regular belt and is even better than the student belt in that regard. But the extra intelligence is more worth it in my opinion. So we'll be ignoring this one.  So that does it for the ruined school and this update too. Actually before I leave this I just noticed what that I thought was only something in the later games. We can actually rename our creatures. So I'm leaving it up to the thread to decide on what to call each creature we get. Given the level of attrition they'll likely be subjected to, it'll be first come first serve with naming one. They'll be plenty of opportunities to name others so no need to vote on this. So with that in mind. We've currently got 3 Fyoras and and Artila that could do with some names. We'll keep it as one name per poster. Although feel free to suggest a new name once the next update is done and there's more to be named. See you next time.
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Jan 18, 2016 10:45
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Whenever I made my Creations I basically ALWAYS gave them the two points in Intelligence that allowed me to give them orders, but I've always wondered if I might not have gotten more out of putting those points in their combat stats and trusting the Creations to not gently caress up too hard in picking targets. Any opinions on that? Is the ability to focus fire on single targets more important than more actual power and accuracy per attack?
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Jan 18, 2016 11:48
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I found dexterity to be pretty useful in making Fyoras hit way harder, and endurance felt as though it scaled up pretty quickly in terms of tankability for some creations as well. It has been ages since I last played a Geneforge game, but I do remember taking a middle path of a few quality monsters and designated chaff.
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Jan 18, 2016 12:49
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PurpleXVI posted:Any opinions on that? Is the ability to focus fire on single targets more important than more actual power and accuracy per attack? From my point of view, in games where mobs have a health bar which determines the combat performance (e.g. At 50%, it does 30% less damage) then having a focus fire ability is slightly less potent than games where health doesn't govern besides being a binary dead/alive switch. For Gene Forge, it would be far more useful, in my opinion, to have the capability of ordering your creations to focus fire targets down especially when you have to factor in resistances, or high threat targets.
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Jan 18, 2016 13:02
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I suggest Wilspurt for the Artila to get the terrible goonname train rolling  .
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Jan 18, 2016 20:06
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Call the three Fyoras Curly, Larry and Moe.
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Jan 18, 2016 21:57
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Whybird posted:Call the three Fyoras Curly, Larry and Moe. Sorry one creature per poster please.
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Jan 18, 2016 22:16
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Whybird posted:Call the three Fyoras Curly, Larry and Moe. Zeniel posted:Sorry one creature per poster please. Okay then, name the second Fyora Larry
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Jan 18, 2016 22:19
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Zeniel posted:Sorry one creature per poster please. And name the third one Moe
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Jan 18, 2016 22:32
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Name the fourth one Curly, just to sow confusion in the naming process.
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Jan 18, 2016 22:47
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PurpleXVI posted:Whenever I made my Creations I basically ALWAYS gave them the two points in Intelligence that allowed me to give them orders, but I've always wondered if I might not have gotten more out of putting those points in their combat stats and trusting the Creations to not gently caress up too hard in picking targets. Any opinions on that? Is the ability to focus fire on single targets more important than more actual power and accuracy per attack? Zero intelligence creations aren't really worth making. It's not just focus fire. It's the ability to lure tougher opponents into ambushes. It's using the right attack for creations that have both melee and ranged options. Also, putting points into stats gets pretty expensive. A fully upgraded creation is better than one with no stats, but it's rarely better than TWO (or 3?) no-stat creations. This early in the game, you're really scraping for every last point of essence - and given that you need essence for healing and buffs, you're probably much better off saving on stats.
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Jan 18, 2016 22:57
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Name the Artila Shemp.
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Jan 19, 2016 06:01
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Huh, so Essence also powers more potent spells? I guess it makes sense, if you're going to have a non-MP resource you use to summon things.
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Jan 19, 2016 12:42
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Glazius posted:Huh, so Essence also powers more potent spells? I guess it makes sense, if you're going to have a non-MP resource you use to summon things. Basically every spell except Firebolt costs a bit of essence - Heal, buffs, curing poison, unlock, etc. Running around with a sliver of essence is pretty common, but you definitely don't want to be running around totally dry either. It's not a ton of essence to cast most spells, but having enough in your pocket to toss out a buff (which are crazy powerful btw) or heal when you need it is really useful. MagusofStars fucked around with this message at 13:06 on Jan 19, 2016 |
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Jan 19, 2016 13:04
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I've been meaning to play through the Geneforge games. Any tips on how to play as a shaper, and anything I should be aware of ahead of time? Is there any nasty "gotcha" moments in the game that locks me out of content or locks me into a specific path that you can accidentally trigger ahead of time?
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Jan 21, 2016 02:23
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Best way to play a shaper is the only core stat you want to focus on is intelligence. Magic shaping will give you really reliable creations. Ensure they have at least 2 intelligence and you don't really need to worry too much about the other stats, creature levels have more of an impact in Geneforge one than stats. Keep you mechanics and leadership high, around 4 to 7 in the early game and 15 at most in the late game, it'll make some areas far less of a pain. Besides that, getting your luck up to about 5 or so can't hurt, there's a few small things you might miss if you don't have a high luck, but its nothing earth shattering really. The rest is dealing with some rather painful situations. But I can't really say much more than that until we get to them, it is all doable though. The game isn't very subtle about what impact things will have. And you get a good bit of leeway on that stuff too. Zeniel fucked around with this message at 03:45 on Jan 21, 2016 |
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Jan 21, 2016 03:43
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And if you have to pick between any non-intelligence stat boosts, pick some Endurance, because it'll do wonders for preventing you from being knocked over by a stiff breeze.
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Jan 21, 2016 10:04
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