Protecting The Watch's Informant

[Korplem]

Holy hell, I hate this quest. I can only imagine that the informant is dead if there are five-god-damn-billion rogues hidden in his house, taking turns sneak attacking his mangled corpse. Now if I could stop pulling my hair out and cursing up a storm, I'll get back to the game.

[Loburian]

What, you didn't see my Warlock there? I blasted him to tiny bits.

:P

[Maylander]

The quest is a mess yes. Both that quest and the warehouse quest are tedious and simply boring if you ask me. They should reduce the number of thugs in there to stop it from being too repetitive.

The outcome of the quest might seem cool, but then.. it's not.

[mute]

Thank thank you. Not only me that dread this "House of the hundred thugs".
I don't really see how one can think this "adds" anything to a game. It seems it's there for one reason. Make the game longer.

I have entered the place were the informant are and i can't kill the main villain in that room. How on earth do you do it? In between the incredible starting/exiting bug introduced with 1.02 i am seriously thinking of stop playing. Because, the engine for NWN2 isn't suited for hacknslash games. I am so frustrated right now. The game went from high praise to low, thanks to the warehouse and this "quest" (or meaningless, pointless, no good filler).

Shrug playing this game again, knowing this quest are there? No...

But, how on earth is this villain supposed to be beat? Should i have a wizard with me? Paladin, Warrior, Rouge and Druid don't work. I got my ass kicked.

is there a way to not do this quest at all and still be able to carry on the campagin? If it is i will take it.

Yes. I am frustrated... and perhaps my view somewhat darkened! :)

[txa1265]

I have entered the place were the informant are and i can't kill the main villain in that room. How on earth do you do it?

It was the last room I hit, so I had just rested, hasted everyone and buffed, had Qara toss a fireball and ice storm as soon as we got in, and then my Pally went at the villian while everyone else mopped up. Pretty simple.

The force there seemed like a full-on assault rather than an abduction. It would have been more realistic if half of the force was corrupted Watchmen that the command assumed was there protecting him ...

[mute]

I rested as well before hand. Changed my Druids spells to alot of heal and some summon creature. I then knocked the thugs down pretty easily and after that it was just smashing along at the main villain using my druid casting healing spells and my rouge shooting arrows. I did it, but it was close. No fighting afterwards has yet been so tough like this.

I think its alot of stuff right know makeing me frustrated and its not all about "bad" desgin. I agree with you about the force and they should have done it more "realistisc" ... the way you say, sounds good to me. :)

[Acleacius]

Yeah I hate people whom can dodge my Fireballs and take NO damage, jerks! ;)

I used Stoneskin on everyone, used a Nuke they can't dodge Ice Storm once before everyone got in the room and sent Khelgar on Moria, one casting heals and sheilds and the last 2 on the 2 guards.

[txa1265]

I agree with you about the force and they should have done it more "realistisc" ... the way you say, sounds good to me. :)

That was what they did in the alley, so it would have fit perfectly ...

[Prime Junta]

I just got to that one and goddamn it's *stupid*. What a grind. I haven't quite finished it yet, but here's my tactic that I'm pretty sure will get it done (playing as Economy Crumble, my gnome wizard):

(1) Set up shop in entry hall.
(2) Send familiar in.
(3) Shadow Thieves of Amn notice a cat, and immediately all proceed to fall upon it with howls of rage.
(4) Cat hot-paws it back into entrance, where adventurers ambush thieves with fireballs followed by much clobbering.
(5) Rest, rinse, repeat until no more Shadow Thieves of Amn show up. (WTF do they have against cats anyway?)

Mobs can work in quests, but not all the time, and there should be some logic to them. Mobs of high-level people are very rarely credible; mobs of high-level people doing really trivial things *AND NOT SUCCEEDING* are even less credible.

[Acleacius]

It makes me wonder if they Evil side has it better for this one, not that I will be trying it out but its possible.

[Cm]

I guess this and a few other "beat and kill 100 whatever" battles are to give you xp. I did enjoy trying out various tactics to see what would get me out with the least "you fail, you are dead" messages. lol

[Maylander]

Stoneskin on everyone is a great recipe to win most difficult fights in NWN2.

[Prime Junta]

Yup, and a good reason to have a bard tag along. Their ironskin chant makes a lot of difference.

By the way, I originally had my doubts about the "only die if everyone dies" mechanic, but it's actually kinda exciting. I had a pretty tense gameplay stretch when I stumbled into a bunch of orcs in a dungeon, got overwhelmed, and then got split up, with most of my party unconscious in different parts of the dungeon. It was quite exciting to sneak and fight my way through that, even more so because I hadn't saved for a quite a while. ;-)

Again, I find ambushes work great for these tough mob battles. Set up in a room with your tank at the door, the rogue hidden to the side, and your spellcaster(s) in the background. Then send in someone to lure them into the ambush. Usually you can get two fireballs in before they enter melee, which will have weakened them severely. Things just get tricky if the game spawns enemies behind you as it sometimes does. (IMO that's cheating; there are better ways to set up tactical challenges if you ask me.)

[Maylander]

I completed the 2nd phase of the final boss with one character(Khelgar as a monk) running around all alone, regenerating, attacking a bit, running around, and so on.. in the end I got the others back up by eliminating enough of the enemies, and pulling the rest away from my characters' corpses, healed them all up, and saved the day. Phew, what a fight!

I have to say, I like the the whole everyone-needs-to-die-before-I-reload thing, makes fights like the one described above really intense.

[Cm]

Yes, I have had a few battles like that, and it is exciting. You are the last of your team, you hide, you heal, you now slowly try to pick off your remaining opponents, collecting their potions to keep you going. Finally you can get back to your troops, beaten and dying, and get them all out, in a temporary defeat, but alive. And ready to fight again.

[Cormac]

Things just get tricky if the game spawns enemies behind you as it sometimes does. (IMO that's cheating; there are better ways to set up tactical challenges if you ask me.)

Yes, I hate that too, bands of orcs appearing out of thin air where your party was standing just a moment ago. Very poor design, imo.

[Acleacius]

"IMO that's cheating; there are better ways to set up tactical challenges if you ask me."

Count me in here, too!
One of the weakest design's possible.

[txa1265]

Things just get tricky if the game spawns enemies behind you as it sometimes does. (IMO that's cheating; there are better ways to set up tactical challenges if you ask me.)

It's funny, perhaps it is just my years of FPS experience, but while I agree with you I am so unphased by enemies spawning any random ol' place that it just isn't funny ...

[Corwin]

It happened all the time in NWN 1, and when I DM a session, it can happen quite a lot!! :biggrin:

[Maylander]

Enemies in NWN2 are spawned by trigger points, not actually spawned out of the thin air. It might seem like they respawn in an area you just cleared, but in fact you just stepped on some other trigger point or had a bit of lag when passing the trigger point so they appear a bit after they are supposed to.

[Acleacius]

Right and dialogues ending can trigger/spawn but its still nonsence, unless it fits a story or is done maybe once with some symblence of reality in a Retail game or just having fun spamming enemies on your friends as a DM are all acceptable. :)

Its when people purchase a AAA game which uses it as a crutch constantly thats just poor quality game design based on contempt for your customers, well to me anyway. ;)
Of course this excludes Diablo style games which I am guessing no one was refering too. :)

An example would be the Bandit camp.
Spoiler


After completly clearing the outside area and in the house/fort/base, returning seeing no new enemies and apporaching the prisoners, about 10 enemies spawn out of nowhere.
Possible?
Mass Invisbilty?
Nope you can use See Invisible and nothing.
Wouldn't have been better and more realitic just to have more ememies initally, which would have made the inital fight more challenging?

[Corwin]

I agree, that annoyed me too!!

[Maylander]

Certain fights, like the bandit camp fight, are definetly poorly designed. There are not a whole lot such fights though, as in most cases the spawn has a reason (a Shadow Priest raising dead and such).

[Acleacius]

True and NWN2 certianly isn't based on it though I think in an attempt to get the game out asap as with G3 certian cuts were made, which cause me frustration. ;)

The more I play the more I like the game and for the most part I should be glad the game made it out in at least this good of shape considering the state of Atari. ;)

[Cm]

So the only "bugs" I have seen have self corrected with a reload or by leaving the area and reselecting my pary members. There are a few mod areas that need work but hopefully the upcoming patches will fine tune them. Nothing so far that has taken away the fun of the game for me.

[Prime Junta]

Certain fights, like the bandit camp fight, are definetly poorly designed. There are not a whole lot such fights though, as in most cases the spawn has a reason (a Shadow Priest raising dead and such).

How about the orc dungeons near Owl Well? They kept appearing from thin air in areas I had just passed through.

[txa1265]

How about the orc dungeons near Owl Well? They kept appearing from thin air in areas I had just passed through.

I have always forgiven *some* amount of that when an area is described as 'over-run with [enemy X]' ... but there are areas in NWN2 that push that - reminds me of some of the 'ghost spawning' in WWII games.

[Maylander]

That's because of trigger points being triggered at the wrong time due to lag, so you actually passed the point where they were supposed to spawn 10 seconds ago, but spawn behind you because of lag. Either that, or they spawn when you come back later because, for some reason, the spawn didn't trigger at all the first time you went past the trigger point.

At least, this is how I understand the mechanism, might be slightly different.

I have to admit though, there were certain times where I was certain I had cleared an area only to find some more enemies around a corner. I don't know why such enemies should spawn at trigger points at all, instead of being loaded with the module.

[Cm]

I think the attacks coming from behind are intentional. I saw NPC's in a few fights go past the main encounter area and run up behind my group. I wonder if I had used the "far" option for the group, sent one in to trigger the orc attack, would we have met them head on? I will have to do a reload on that or try in upcoming battles....

[pox67]

I actually had quite a bit of fun through this quest and enjoyed some difficult enemies.

The end fight at the informant was fun, I must have reloaded it 5 times just to see what tactics worked the best.

The best tactic I found was this: the boss (Moire I think) will always go for you main char. This was a big problem for me as my main is a sneaky archer who goes down with a couple of hits. So I ran him up the stairs at the back along with the tiefling thief who I gave a bow to as well. Then I put Khelgar at the base of the stairs so none of the bad guys could get up to my sneaky archers. Elanee never really does much so I set her to clean up the thugs or die as she sees fit.

With Khelgar blocking the way and the 2 rogues doing lots of sneak damage with the bows from the upper level it went very smooth. That did take quite a few reloads to get right and there was much pausing and thinking but I really enjoy the tactical fights :)

[Maylander]

SPOILER WARNING:
The final fight of the quest is definetly fun, and challenging, it's what happens afterwards I don't really like. I expected to be greated like a hero after taking out Moire, but instead it was "the informant is safe, good, now here's the next quest".

[Cm]

Yea they did sort of wave at your brilliance once and rush you off to the next job. I didn't think the reward was all that great for that matter. ;)

[Prime Junta]

That's because of trigger points being triggered at the wrong time due to lag, so you actually passed the point where they were supposed to spawn 10 seconds ago, but spawn behind you because of lag. Either that, or they spawn when you come back later because, for some reason, the spawn didn't trigger at all the first time you went past the trigger point.

I kinda doubt this is it. I just played through it again, to make sure, and there are several spots where they just appear on both sides of you all of a sudden. It walks and quacks like a lame "tactical challenge through spawning out of thin air" moment, so I think it's fair to assume that that's what it is.

I'm quite enjoying the game anyway, mind.