The Power and the Glory: An Artila's Story - A Geneforge SSLP

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MagusofStars: Mar 31, 2012

Just saw this in the New LP thread and I'm glad someone's doing this. I actually strongly considered doing a run through a few years ago (getting as far as actually making a Sandcastle post) before getting slammed with stuff at work. GF1 is just so fantastic in the story line. As for the voting, I'll vote Awakened. That said, I would strongly recommend you don't actually formally join any of the sects until we at least meet them and get to chat since you can lock yourself out of hearing some of the story if you formally join with someone too soon.

PurpleXVI posted:

The main problem with no Endurance is that you end up save-scumming a good bit later on, because if just one badguy goes: "HANG ON, THERE'S A SHAPER BACK THERE" and decides to whap a fireball or arrow your way, it'll almost certainly one-shot you. Fire Shaping also felt pretty vital, no matter what else I invested in, Fire Shaping creatures always felt like the backbone of my shaped legions... while some creatures just felt terminally useless. I could also never tell if it was better to just roll with RAW NUMBERS or to actually inject quality into my Creations.

POOL IS CLOSED posted:

RAW NUMBERS really are the way to go with Shaping. When you feel like you've got enough essence, then you want to top off your creations' stat points, but especially early on, you'll get better returns on improving your Shaping skills and holding back on essence so you can use it to heal, cure, and buff. That's my experience, at least.

Yes, RAW NUMBERS is 100% the way to go. Basically everything about the game's mechanics encourages quantity over quality:
>The cost for stat points is pretty prohibitive - a creation with max stat points is something like 3 times more expensive than a basic one (2 INT and no other stats) - but one max stat creation is notably less powerful than the combined power of 3 basic ones.
>New tiers of creations usually (with a couple exceptions) tend to be enough of a jump in power that even a high stats Fyora is going to be inferior to a base-stats of the next tier - while being about the same (or less) essence cost.
>Many support spells/items work on the entire group, meaning that they're more useful with the more people you use. Notably, the buffs in this series are crazy awesome, so you want to take full advantage.
>The enemy AI in the early games is pretty dumb and will gladly spread their attacks out over targets (rather than having all 6 enemies focus-fire on one target), so having 3 dudes instead of 1 helps survivability.

Also, with regards to the various shaping types, if you were to only pick one, you'd probably want to go Fire, but really, the correct answer is "all of them". Stats are on a bit of a diminishing returns curve (and even more so starting in GF2 where skill point requirements increase) and the various types tend to each have their niche, so the different branches actually synergize pretty well. Though there are certainly some creations which are way underpowered (or overpowered) compared to equal-tier creations elsewhere.

# ¿ Nov 13, 2016 21:17

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 01:37

MagusofStars: Mar 31, 2012

PurpleXVI posted:

I think my one annoyance with Leadership is that the game doesn't really tell you how much it amounts to, and there is, as far as I remember, no cap at the highest level at which its useful(i.e. the highest leadership check you'll ever need to pass), and no useful passive side effects(like cheaper prices or more effective Creations). So unless you've read a FAQ which hints at where you should leave off, it's easy to waste points on it if you're going for a highly diplomatic playthrough.

There is also equipment that raises Leadership while equipped, which makes it even more of a pain in the rear end because the optimal playstyle requires keeping a bunch of poo poo for stat checks.

# ¿ Nov 15, 2016 12:53

MagusofStars: Mar 31, 2012

I'd like to toss my name into the ring for a future Vlish.

Also, the no-canister run is not really feasible in GF1, because there are no trainers to teach skills. You can do it with a Guardian, but it's not really worth it. Later games, however, make it much more reasonable.

# ¿ Nov 18, 2016 00:10

MagusofStars: Mar 31, 2012

RickVoid posted:

Not going to post any spoilers, but I feel like Vogel did a better job of introducing the mechanics right away at the beginning in this sequel. Like, I would probably recommend people start with 2 first, then go back to 1 after, and I've only played it for about an hour compared to the... many I've played of the first.

I actually do suggest people start with GF2. The mechanics are more polished, the interface is notably improved and the early game is a *lot* more forgiving since you have more options.

It doesn't come across in screenshots, but the first couple real areas of GF1 (Watchhill, Ruined School) can actually be quite difficult since you have no buff spells, no group damage, and no way to crowd control enemies. So if you accidentally run into too many enemies or get a few unlucky damage/hit rolls, you can't really do much to turn the situation around.

# ¿ Nov 18, 2016 12:20

MagusofStars: Mar 31, 2012

As a weird side note, some mines are triggered by creations and some aren't. Even cheap creations tend to have equal or higher health pools than Shapers, so for the ones that are triggered by creations, you can use your creations (or a sacrificial Thahd) as walking minesweepers. I don't know if you ever strictly *need* to do so, but sometimes it's just faster/easier to just set the drat things off rather than screwing with spore boxes.

# ¿ Nov 19, 2016 02:56

MagusofStars: Mar 31, 2012

I've always liked the way the Obeyers are written in the game, because it does a great job showing the benefits and the drawbacks of their firm loyalty - so the player really has a tough call to make.

quote:

You smell the servile long before you see it. The thick forest provides an excellent screen for these creatures. Their reddish-brown bodies and green tentacles blend in well with the trees.

I think the word I've bolded is supposed to be spawner, not servile.

# ¿ Nov 20, 2016 05:15

MagusofStars: Mar 31, 2012

Glazius posted:

It's neat that you can also learn by... y'know, learning.

Remember all the way back in the first update when Solution was surprised by the canisters? The common way of learning actually is typical learning/training. The reason it's rare in the game is because we're on a Barred island where nobody is supposed to ever visit.

Xander77 posted:

Just how many of the various "come attack those rogues with me, servile" "no. " conversations could have had a positive outcome if our Leadership / relationship with the faction was better?

I don't think any actually. Solution's leadership is very high for this part of the game. In fact, it's nearly as high as it needs to be for anything in the entire game. However, all of the times that people have come to help thus far were actually successful leadership checks.

# ¿ Nov 23, 2016 12:19

MagusofStars: Mar 31, 2012

wiegieman posted:

Without going too far into it, Shapers tend to play things obsessively safe and their security measures bring a new meaning to "redundancy." Just being on a Barred island like this has a good chance of getting you put to death, because it was probably Barred for a really good reason.

That's because even a well-meaning-but-incompetent Shaper could wreak havoc - by losing control of a Shaped virus, by Shaping new species that don't belong and wrecking an ecosystem, even by not knowing his limits and creating too many creations so they all go rogue. Hell, look at Pentil/Vakkiri, where the only trade route between the cities was completely shut down by like, twenty Roamers.

MagusofStars fucked around with this message at 15:42 on Nov 24, 2016

# ¿ Nov 24, 2016 15:40

MagusofStars: Mar 31, 2012

vdate posted:

On the other hand, so is, say, synthetic insulin, which really does sound like a Shaper invention - get this bacterial slime to make the bits, extract the bits, assemble the bits, insulin achieved.

Keep in mind that Shapers are only opposed to uncontrolled experimentation, not research/experiments in general. In fact, we've already seen signs of that at the Ruined School - the school has its' own reservoir specifically because it's both a school and a laboratory. So the Shapers planned to seal off the entire school in an instant if something goes wrong. Whereas an uncontrolled experiment by some rando Shaping in his basement isn't going to have nearly the same level of protection or concern about safety.

# ¿ Nov 27, 2016 18:56

MagusofStars: Mar 31, 2012

Regarding music, I just think that you need to remember that Spiderweb's entire philosophy is to save money at every turn - so he can be a bottom feeder. He posted a blog several years ago about his budgets - GF4 cost somewhere around $120k total and (back then) had sold something like 4000 copies. The entire model is based around low costs letting him get away with very low sales figures.

In order for his business model to work, he has to be ruthless about cutting costs. Would getting better music make enough money to justify the additional cost, hassle, and so on? If the answer is no, then it's not good business to do so.

You might care enough about music that it matters to you, which is absolutely fine - different strokes and all that. But I suspect you're in the minority here. Especially because Spiderweb's target market is explicitly "people who don't care about our ugly graphics and generic sounds".

# ¿ Nov 29, 2016 12:46

MagusofStars: Mar 31, 2012

Absorb.
Seriously, newer creations are both better mechanically and more interesting.
Also, if Solution dies because she hung onto her lovely Fyoras rather than making Vlish or whatever...well, who's she helping then?

# ¿ Nov 30, 2016 04:41

MagusofStars: Mar 31, 2012

vdate posted:

Fair enough. Since you do seem to have played these games, though (mauman or POOL IS CLOSED), is playing the games out of order going to provide huge stonkin' spoilers for prior games in the series, or are things geographically separate enough that I'm probably OK?

Wont impact you much. You might know a bit about the "canon" ending of each game, but:
(a) you only get the most broad outline
(b) there are multiple endings in each game
(c) the timeline is spaced out enough that you don't get much direct info

If you're set on skipping 1, I would recommend starting with either 2 or 4, as each of these has significant improvements in the game mechanics / engine. These also seem to be the best starting points story wise IMO, though none of them are truly "bad" places to start.

# ¿ Nov 30, 2016 19:31

MagusofStars: Mar 31, 2012

Xander77 posted:

?
What kind of skills that don't get purchased via skill points?

It's isn't skills like stats, it's a point in four different spells.

However, with the way the mechanics work in this game, additional levels in an existing spell aren't particularly useful. Spell strength is essentially the sum of (Spell Level + Relevant Magic Skill + Spellcraft). So the choice basically boils down to:
1.) Spend ~5 skill points on raising Spellcraft by 1, making every single spell in the game better by one level.
2.) Spell 5 skill points on learning four individual spells, making only those four spells better by 1 level.

Pretty obvious why this is generally a really dumb idea. The only reason that the Agent can benefit is because this is the earliest possible place to get two good spells. So you're basically trading 5 skill points for early access to better magic. This reason, however, doesn't apply to Shapers (who let their creations do the heavy lifting) or Guardians (who won't have the essence/mana to use either spell effectively for a while anyways).

MagusofStars fucked around with this message at 16:08 on Dec 4, 2016

# ¿ Dec 4, 2016 16:06

MagusofStars: Mar 31, 2012

2. Sincerely join the Obeyers?
They have definitely skirted the line and pushed the boundaries, but they recognize the insanity of the Takers and the naivete of the Awakened and are trying to do the best they can to hold things together. The overall morality of serviles and their place in the order of things might be reasonably questioned, but an abandoned island filled with Shaper secrets and murderous outsiders is not really the place for a complete rejiggering of the social order. This is neither the time nor the place to completely go off the reservation and try to upend the entire planet.

Also, if you want to save the serviles, the Obeyers are really the only option. Supporting the Takers or Awakened is really just delaying the inevitable as the first thing the Shaper Council will do is to kill them with fire. :ssj:

MagusofStars fucked around with this message at 01:01 on Dec 6, 2016

# ¿ Dec 6, 2016 00:54

MagusofStars: Mar 31, 2012

POOL IS CLOSED posted:

Welcome aboard!

Sadly, we don't have a way of delivering Syros to his just reward besides murder. I think the canon ending for him is that he survives, but I'd have to do some pretty extensive digging to confirm whether or not he's mentioned in the sequels.

Of course, there's no reason for us to conform to Geneforge canon in the course of this LP's narrative.

Syros survives in canon.

But as mauman pointed out, it's actually impossible to get a perfectly canon ending. So trying to conform to the "real" ending shouldn't factor into your (or others') thinking. Without getting into spoilers, I'll just say that almost all of the endings to the game are actually quite satisfying - none of that "here's a lovely ending if you don't do The One True Path" crap that other RPG's do.

# ¿ Dec 6, 2016 03:03

MagusofStars: Mar 31, 2012

Night10194 posted:

At the same time, Fyora still doin' work.

Good little lizards. Good guys.

Meh, that's mostly just the luck that they haven't gotten attacked much - Fyoras definitely aren't made to take hits beyond the early game. Their lovely health pool is going to put them in danger of one-turn deaths very soon. You *can* keep a Fyora alive until the end of the game, but it eventually becomes a lot of hassle to do (to the point of leaving him hiding in a corner against certain enemies) so it's not really worth it unless you're specifically doing a challenge run.

# ¿ Dec 7, 2016 23:53

MagusofStars: Mar 31, 2012

I'm fairly sure Battle Alphas and their chain of creations are a reference to the caste system in Brave New World. Alphas and thahds are usually characterized as being physically imposing but also very stupid.
Actually, the Alphas in Brave New World are the highest and smartest caste, followed by Betas at #2 and so on.

I think it's just a reference to the typical Strong Dumb Guy you see in all sorts of games.

# ¿ Dec 9, 2016 03:53

MagusofStars: Mar 31, 2012

PurpleXVI posted:

There really isn't any sort of graceful way to take down pylons, I seem to remember that occasionally there are levers or power spirals that allow you to disable some of them, but goddamn, it's rarely possible to reach them without fighting your way through half of the goddamn pylons it can disable.

I would actually say it's probably more often-than-not there's some kind of mechanism to disable pylons over the course of the series. However, it's usually in one specific path only so if you enter from the wrong entrance OR don't walk the right way OR get turned around, you get blasted.

Few things about Pylons:
>Searing Orbs hits a maximum of three targets - usually the two closest targets to the primary attacker. So you can often exploit this by keeping a couple expendable thahds sitting in the midst of your ranged pack. It also has a limited range of 'spread', so you theoretically can spread out enough to keep it from actually hitting multiple targets. But in practice, Pylons are generally in tight spaces so it's pretty rare to be able to pull that off.
>Their melee attack is also pretty nasty, but at least they're only targeting one creation, so it's often still worth it to sprint into melee range.
>If your Shaper is slow as poo poo (probably!), the poison explosion on death is actually the least of your concerns, since it only hits your buff melee creatures and your Shaper will likely get the chance to cure creations before the poison actually does damage anyways.

# ¿ Dec 10, 2016 00:25

MagusofStars: Mar 31, 2012

vdate posted:

On the plus side, pylons are usually filled with gemeralds.

I have no idea why. Maybe the shapers thought they looked pretty? Now I'm imagining pylons as evil lava lamps or something.

I've always assumed the implication is either (a) the pylons are actually made out of the semi-precious gems or (b) the gems are inside and serve as a power source.

# ¿ Dec 10, 2016 14:44

MagusofStars: Mar 31, 2012

What's the little island of red in the middle of your cleared zones (next to the southern bridge)?

# ¿ Dec 13, 2016 02:50

MagusofStars: Mar 31, 2012

vdate posted:

There's something that confuses me about all this. If what we've heard and/or inferred is true, the Geneforge is a thing of unimaginable power, and probably the reason why Sucia was Barred. It's just... why? If it's too dangerous to use, the Shapers would have destroyed it, and if it was OK to use, it'd still be in use, and if the side effects were a problem, they'd be doing research on how to mitigate it (which I kind of assume would involve the thing itself). But they've done none of the above - why?

There were probably three reasons:
1.) Shapers rule most of the world and their leaders tend to be very confident/arrogant. Once they said "this island is Barred, leave immediately", they probably just figured that was good enough since nobody under Shaper rule would openly defy them by coming back. The concept of Sholai outsiders is either unknown, arrogantly dismissed or forgot about.
2.) The Shapers on the island thought it was temporary and really didn't want to abandon their research. You can see this in all the journals, notes, and other stuff that they left around. They planned on coming back and restarting their research right where they left off.
3.) Everybody left in a hurry. Some stuff was just straight up left there because they were basically ordered to GTFO immediately.

# ¿ Dec 18, 2016 00:08

MagusofStars: Mar 31, 2012

Galaga Galaxian posted:

Didn't some documents we found indicate that, while rushed, the barring (at least from the Sucia Island Shapers' PoV) was an interim-barring and would be either rescinded or finalized after a council decision?

Yes. At least once, though I think this has come up more:

Taker journals from Kazg posted:

Two of them are for Entry Batons. You don't know what those are, but the sheet says that one of them was sealed in the mines, and the other was 'inadvertently forgotten' in the West Workshop.

The other entry is for a Control Key. You know what that is: a mechanism used to turn on and off experimental devices. They are custom made to affect the devices in specific facilities and give important Shapers control over everything in a lab. The list says that a Control Key was left in the South Workshop, so that the experiments can be reactivated 'when the interim Barring is lifted, as surely it will be.'

TooMuchAbstraction posted:

Especially the hard vs. soft sci-fi thing. I literally have never heard your definition of it before; it's always been a measurement of how plausible the science is.

This is how I've always heard about the difference between soft vs hard science fiction as well.

In a 'hard' science fiction story, technology is generally plausible and usually is described to some extent. There might be some invented technology for the plot, but it won't be completely off the wall and will at least be internally self-consistent within the established rules. Whereas in a soft science fiction story, the technology might be completely awry from our 'ordinary' laws of physics, completely unexplained, and/or basically invented from nowhere as needed for the plot.

I like mauman's prof's second definition though: A soft sci-fi is generally more concerned about the actual plot than about the technology. Technology exists primarily to make the storyline possible; it's not really an intent in and of itself.

# ¿ Dec 20, 2016 01:30

MagusofStars: Mar 31, 2012

Glazius posted:

Man, those serviles were pretty well set to die to those rogues, right? Or are there, like, different levels of serviles with more durability?

There are. Some serviles are specifically bred for war. It's also mentioned that different jobs affect it - a "warrior servile" will have more health and deal more damage than a farmer.

# ¿ Dec 23, 2016 18:43

MagusofStars: Mar 31, 2012

wiegieman posted:

Serviles aren't bred for war, that's what Battle Alphas and the like are for. There are Serviles bred for heavy labor who have learned to fight.

There are actually serviles called "war bred serviles". Might just be poetic license or a pure naming thing though.

MagusofStars fucked around with this message at 05:09 on Dec 24, 2016

# ¿ Dec 24, 2016 05:07

MagusofStars: Mar 31, 2012

ManxomeBromide posted:

Is that just that they heal a fixed number of HP, so as our HP levels up it takes more to top us off?

Yes. They also don't scale well from the standpoint that enemies do a lot more damage per attack so dropping one Heal Pod is no longer going to instantly fix things.

# ¿ Jan 5, 2017 12:13

MagusofStars: Mar 31, 2012

TooMuchAbstraction posted:

Too bad about our Roamer. I get the impression the party is now basically a balls-out, all-offense-no-defense glass cannon?

Vlish are actually oddly sturdy. They aren't necessarily tanks per se, but they can handle a decent amount of punishment. They're actually completely feasible to use in the end game if you get them a few levels.

The artilas do meet the glass cannon description, though plated artilas do have a decent amount of health.

Really it's the Fyoras that are the real issue - if this wasn't a story LP, they would have been replaced long ago. They're probably one-shottable at this point, or at least close to it.

# ¿ Jan 6, 2017 22:59

MagusofStars: Mar 31, 2012

PoptartsNinja posted:

He can only have three active species and y'all voted not to swap them out, so we're pretty much relying on both of those fyoras dying in the same fight if we want to see something better.

The other option is that Solution just stops making Fyoras period, replacing whoever dies first with another Artila/Vlish OR just running with fewer creations period for a while. But then you still have to wait for the other one to die.

# ¿ Jan 14, 2017 11:54

MagusofStars: Mar 31, 2012

POOL IS CLOSED posted:

You can cross these panels the stupid way or the smart way. The stupid way is just to run willy-nilly across and take damage just about every tick. If your fire resistance is low, you're going to really suffer and perhaps explode into inventory goods. Game Over!
The smart way is to switch to the turn-based combat mode. Line up your character so that they will only touch one panel (and even better, try to shove your character up against the wall boundary!) so the character is only receiving damage for one (and ideally none) panel at a time.
In combat mode, the game only checks for environmental damage when you touch the hazard area and again if you're still touching the hazard area at the start of the character's next turn.
It's a good idea to use haste and, if you can, protective items and gear. You don't want to wear equipment that gives you a malus to fire resistance here. Have your creations cross the same way you have your PC cross, then top off the HP bars if needed. PCs are likely to have enough fire resistance that they occasionally take no damage when crossing these panels, which is quite nice.

You can actually do something similar for disabling Crystal Spirals too. Stick all your creations a safe distance away, then walk your PC (and only your PC) right up to the spiral. Enter combat mode, then when your PC's turn comes up, you click on the spiral to 'deactivate it', which only takes 1-2 AP (sometimes you get a "this is a crystal spiral" message first, so you actually need to click twice), leaving you plenty to run the hell away.

You can also abuse Haste and a convenient corner to abuse the poo poo out of the combat system by manually starting combat, stepping around the corner to unleash a spell, then immediately stepping back behind the corner and manually ending combat. Since there are no enemies 'in sight', combat ends immediately. Then you manually restart combat again and can repeat your corner dance over and over till poo poo's dead. The enemy gets slowly worn down by your spell every turn, but never actually gets a turn of their own. It's boring as hell and probably not worth it except against specific super powerful enemies on high difficulty levels, but it's possible.

Also, was that key you found near the end of the second update intended to do something in the mines themselves and you just went out of order?

# ¿ Jan 15, 2017 00:37

MagusofStars: Mar 31, 2012

Captain Oblivious posted:

...I don't know if our sky high Magic Shaping actually meaningfully affects the strength of our Glaahks or if it's just the Create Glaahk ability but it seems like a good idea

It does. Shaping skill affects the starting level of your newly made creations which directly affects health and damage. Also energy, which is only used by ranged creations and usually only relevant for Artilas, since most other creations rarely have issues with running out of juice mid-battle.

That said, AFAIK, Shaping skill ONLY affects the starting level, so if you want to min/max, you can keep +Shaping gear stashed away somewhere, equip it while actually making the creation, then go back to wearing something more useful.

# ¿ Jan 15, 2017 12:21

MagusofStars: Mar 31, 2012

Glaahks
B. Slay Drayks
F. South Workshop

# ¿ Jan 19, 2017 01:02

MagusofStars: Mar 31, 2012

POOL IS CLOSED posted:

We've only just reached the halfway point, too. This (wholly optional!) dungeon is designed to punish completionists. (e. see above post for evidence! )

There are ways to make it easier. Come in with your best creations, keep haste up for every encounter, and make liberal use of corners to break line of sight after attacking enemies. Mental magic effects can really do some heavy lifting here, because what you need most during these fights is crowd control. Terror and domination are the only real options you have for that. That's why the terror vlish own here.

A few other things to make it easier:
1.) You can push through to the end. This is basically all about endurance - the groups of Alpha/Glaahk/Drayk that spawn right near the exit are basically the same as the group that can spawn right at the entrance. So if you know where you're headed, you can beeline to the back exit and clear the zone. This gives you two options to escape if you're in trouble (handy) and also can make it easier to clean out certain sections by 'entering' through the back.
2.) Another option is to just focus on looting a few of the closest rooms. Getting to the 2-3 closest rooms isn't a great challenge given that you can spam your whole arsenal, so you can rush in, grab some poo poo and bail.
3.) This optional dungeon is intended as a pure challenge dungeon. It's really end-game content, so if you're trying it early, don't hold back on limited use things like spores, pods, etc, because if you can handle this, you can probably handle almost anything else the game has to throw at you.

Also, as a side note, IIRC the Pylons here are actually the least of your worries. If you can survive endless 400 HP Drayks, Glaahks and Alphas, the Pylons (which don't respawn) are basically a speed bump. Or you could just run around corners to dodge them. I seem to remember there are more minds who need food than nutrients available, so this is probably a good one to skip out on feeding if you're running low.

Glazius posted:

Wow. That's actually kind of amazing, that, like, dozens and dozens of Shapers went back to be buried.

It seems kinda weird given the tight control the Shaper Council seems to have. You really didn't notice that every major player from Sucia Island mysteriously disappeared near the end of their life? You'd expect the Council would keep tabs on Defniel, Danette, etc for a while, if for no other reason than to verify they weren't trying to manually recreate their research in secret at home.

# ¿ Jan 31, 2017 01:21

MagusofStars: Mar 31, 2012

POOL IS CLOSED posted:

Oh yeah, the pylons aren't nearly as bad as the first time you encountered them, which means what I did (using nutrients) is actually kind of a waste. I wanted to show off that extra dialogue, though!

Mind if I include your advice for the archived version in the future?

Not at all; I personally love it when archived LP's include some of the more useful / interesting thread discussions because when I read a version on the archive, I rarely read the original thread because I'm lazy :effort:

mauman posted:

If I recall correctly, there's enough to activate all of the minds.

Hm. We'all have to see - I remember being short but I might have missed a nutrient somewhere. Might depend on what you do with Control 4 since only Obeyers really want to feed that one.

# ¿ Jan 31, 2017 12:53

MagusofStars: Mar 31, 2012

mauman posted:

B - Play a Guardian in GF 2, it's the only time that melee is actually good (as in really, unbelievably stupid good). Only time that poor class gets to shine at all

They're...odd in GF1. With anatomy and quick action, they basically one turn kill anything they can reach...but there are so many good ranged enemies (turrets, drayks, etc), that they have a really tough time surviving the "run into melee" part of the battle.

At least that's what I found on Hard (and presumably normal). No idea about Torment because I don't hate myself.

# ¿ Feb 4, 2017 02:45

MagusofStars: Mar 31, 2012

POOL IS CLOSED posted:

The official forums had an ornk only challenge LP, but I'm not sure if it was ever completed.

I've personally beaten the game on Hard with a Guardian solo* and at least one person on the official forums beat the game canister-less, so an Ornk-only run is certainly feasible. Probably need to skip the Shaper Crypt and run like a wimp past a lot of the tougher creations, but unlike other games there aren't really any 'boss fights' per se, so you could just sprint through areas where you're outclassed.

*Which was not an intentional 'challenge' - I just honestly never thought to make creations as fodder.

# ¿ Feb 4, 2017 21:53

MagusofStars: Mar 31, 2012

PurpleXVI posted:

Does allying with the Takers at this point really lead to any further rewards than those two canisters? Also, are there further rewards for, for instance, killing Ellrah, than just becoming friends with the Takers?

The amulet that Tuzenbach hands you that gives you safe passage is a big, big deal. Having safe passage changes so much that the walkthrough for the game includes separate discussions of how to handle Trajkov's Fortress that basically boils down to this:
If you are NOT a Taker: (Long detailed description of enemies, dangers, turrets, Sholai, ways to sneak around corners, areas to avoid, etc, etc)
Takers: Walk through, grab some canisters, don't piss people off, loot stuff. 'nuff said.

I don't think there's any actual benefit to completing the quests rather than just bullshitting your way through with Leadership, outside of a trivial bit of XP/money as a quest reward. Not 100% on that though.

# ¿ Feb 10, 2017 00:58

MagusofStars: Mar 31, 2012

thetruegentleman posted:

They don't have the knowledge to make them; hell, even the Shapers might not have the knowledge to make them anymore, hence why the Geneforge is so important.

The timeline is what's important here: I don't remember if it's ever specified, but it's clearly implied that the Sholai have only been at Sucia Island for a few years tops, probably less. That's not even remotely enough time for the Sholai to figure out how to create Canisters. Remember that the available information is (a) in a foreign language, (b) highly technical, (c) scattered around various places around the island, and (d) might not be complete. It's also worth noting that the available information probably skips over most of the basics because presumably you'd have to be fairly well trained before you got to be part of a critical, expensive research project - whereas the Sholai are starting with basically zero understanding of the theory behind Shaping.

It's also not clear what raw materials are actually required to make Canisters so it's possible that stuff doesn't even exist on an island that's been abandoned for like 200+ years.

# ¿ Feb 16, 2017 00:36

MagusofStars: Mar 31, 2012

TooMuchAbstraction posted:

POOL IS CLOSED has made prior references to no-canister runs, which are evidently an established challenge mode. I assume you'd rely on training stats and skills, carefully-hoarded consumables, running back to base to heal whenever possible, and abusing the hell out of the combat system.

Yes, no-canister mode exists and it's basically a challenge mode. In this game, as you've noticed, there are maybe like half a dozen total places you can learn magic/spells/creations without canisters, so you're basically required to play as a Guardian and just beat things to death.

# ¿ Feb 17, 2017 00:12

MagusofStars: Mar 31, 2012

RoboChrist 9000 posted:

Plotwise? Yes, obviously. Gameplaywise? No. In Geneforge 1 there is no mechanical reason to ever not use a canister. In the later games, canister use affects endings and poo poo so there is a mechanical reason to not use them.

Actually even in most of the later games, it tends to be more binary. The system works in a way that your options are either "basically no canisters ever" or "all of them".

# ¿ Feb 20, 2017 16:12

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 01:37

MagusofStars: Mar 31, 2012

StrixNebulosa posted:

Ah yes, I'm here to file a complaint about how you're not giving us hourly updates, and you need to apply the whip to entertain us for free, thank you.

Now now, we already voted for Solution to be a caring leader who doesn't coldly treat creations like tools. Whipping to enforce rigid discipline is not keeping with the spirit of the LP.

Glazius posted:

Yeah, as long as you can finish this out it'll be great. Take your time, especially since combat's probably going to get a little more involving and the plot is going to come to a head.

Where else on the island can we spend gold for unlimited training, or is it only with luck?

It's basically just Luck. Maybe buying a few pods or living tools if you're short, but you'd need to be really crazy liberal in their use to run short.

This is actually something that shows how Jeff was still kinda tinkering with the system. Future games (both Geneforge and others) have way more options to burn cash.

# ¿ Feb 22, 2017 04:45

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Let's Play! > The Power and the Glory: An Artila's Story - A Geneforge SSLP

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