Well I'm still early in the game but some thoughts: Turn-based combat that can be very tough and I've always been a fan of knowing I'll be back later to beat that enemy and open that chest, very deep crafting system, skills learned by spending learning points a la Gothic and it pays to specialise meaning some re-playability, dungeons with interesting puzzles (not seen enough to really judge the puzzles but like what I've seen so far). The building & crafting is the big selling point but I like that it's not required in that for example you could skip farming and simply rely on buying/finding the foods/vegetables you need. I'm not all that bothered with building other than to have a bed and crafting stations in the one place where I can return and store/craft/sleep before continuing on. I haven't gotten into the taming animals yet but it's a great option to have some help in combat. Combat can be quite difficult. With some enemies simply being a level or two above them is no guarantee if they have certain buffs/de-buffs that you don't properly plan to deal with. There are many ways to approach combat with buffs from food or potions or magic. The loot is great. Huge variety and makes exploration really worthwhile. I'm genuinely impressed such a small team has produced this. Really glad I backed it.
Balrum BETA
- Thread starter Caddy
- Start date
Well I'm still early in the game but some thoughts: Turn-based combat that can be very tough and I've always been a fan of knowing I'll be back later to beat that enemy and open that chest, very deep crafting system, skills learned by spending learning points a la Gothic and it pays to specialise meaning some re-playability, dungeons with interesting puzzles (not seen enough to really judge the puzzles but like what I've seen so far). The building & crafting is the big selling point but I like that it's not required in that for example you could skip farming and simply rely on buying/finding the foods/vegetables you need. I'm not all that bothered with building other than to have a bed and crafting stations in the one place where I can return and store/craft/sleep before continuing on. I haven't gotten into the taming animals yet but it's a great option to have some help in combat. Combat can be quite difficult. With some enemies simply being a level or two above them is no guarantee if they have certain buffs/de-buffs that you don't properly plan to deal with. There are many ways to approach combat with buffs from food or potions or magic. The loot is great. Huge variety and makes exploration really worthwhile. I'm genuinely impressed such a small team has produced this. Really glad I backed it.
Ok, thanks for the reply BOC! I'm going to pick this up when I get home tonight. I'm in the middle of an Oblivion run, but once I get bored with that, I'll give this a shot.
- Joined
- Oct 18, 2006
- Messages
- 8,836
Even if you don't like it for the price you don't have much to lose. Just don't blame me
It's okay. There are a lot of things to do, but I'm not really sure they are fun yet. The map is beyond bad. Extremely tiny with no detail at all.
Some of the quests are extremely vague and you can spend an hour or two trying to find one of the little blobs that you need to talk to. No directions AND no quest pointers is a horrible idea, but they did it. For instance, Grandpa will say go get a doorknob from a Blob. No directions, just that blob is some type of smith. I must have missed the building for 30 minutes and when I finally found it, the dude was asleep.
You get a pet. This pet has almost no path-finding and if you enter the woods, which are all around you, he gets lost in about 10 steps. If you don't notice it, you'll end up in combat and your helper is 15 screens away. He's peeing on a tree, while you get to take a dirt nap.
Some of the quests are extremely vague and you can spend an hour or two trying to find one of the little blobs that you need to talk to. No directions AND no quest pointers is a horrible idea, but they did it. For instance, Grandpa will say go get a doorknob from a Blob. No directions, just that blob is some type of smith. I must have missed the building for 30 minutes and when I finally found it, the dude was asleep.
You get a pet. This pet has almost no path-finding and if you enter the woods, which are all around you, he gets lost in about 10 steps. If you don't notice it, you'll end up in combat and your helper is 15 screens away. He's peeing on a tree, while you get to take a dirt nap.
Last edited:
- Joined
- Oct 18, 2006
- Messages
- 8,836
Press Alt to toggle character names on screen. Jax can be dismissed/recalled from the pet controls (bottom right). I've only lost him once presumably because he got stuck and dismissing him then recalling him brought him back.
How DARE you RTFM!!! Turn in your grognard card
Ok, in reality-ville, thanks for the tips.
It seems like you should spend the first several hours of the game just mining and buying skills. Eat and drink and rest enough to stay topped up and be sure to talk to everyone in town for a ton of free experience. Don't be in a hurry to go explore; take your time and make sure you have good gear and level up some combat skills.
Ok, in reality-ville, thanks for the tips.
It seems like you should spend the first several hours of the game just mining and buying skills. Eat and drink and rest enough to stay topped up and be sure to talk to everyone in town for a ton of free experience. Don't be in a hurry to go explore; take your time and make sure you have good gear and level up some combat skills.
- Joined
- Oct 18, 2006
- Messages
- 8,836
arthureloi
Visionary Vampire
How DARE you RTFM!!! Turn in your grognard card
Ok, in reality-ville, thanks for the tips.
It seems like you should spend the first several hours of the game just mining and buying skills. Eat and drink and rest enough to stay topped up and be sure to talk to everyone in town for a ton of free experience. Don't be in a hurry to go explore; take your time and make sure you have good gear and level up some combat skills.
Another tip that you might have missed: you can put your own markers on the map by left clicking it. That way it gets easier to not get lost. Also,
later on you will be able to build your own quick travel obelisks so it gets easier to walk around
Yeah there are one or two tips worth knowing:-
Go to your safe place early and build at least a small room with a bed so you can easily zap there and sleep if you need to. Next up for your safe place should be a well so you can easily re-hydrate/refill every time you pop back to sleep. Next up would be some storage like barrels or a chest or two to store all that loot you are not willing to sell then a cooking pot so you can roast any meat from kills. You can easily stockpile roast deer meat that way so that your routine becomes go to safe place, sleep, drink, eat, roast, store items and then back to where you were.
Make sure the rest/thirst/hunger indicator is enabled on screen so you can see at a glance if you are running low.
Quests give much more XP than combat so let the quests lead into exploring naturally. Obviously explore if you want but don't think you have to explore everything before progressing the main quest.
Check every tab with merchants to see what they will buy and sell the stuff thats easily collected like stuff you can easily mine/pick up etc.
Handy items to keep on hand - Speed potions (just make you walk faster so you can escape enemies or move around quickly), scrolls for guaranteeing critical strikes (very handy for tough fights) and eventually keep replacement armour/weapons as they do sometimes get removed if damaged to zero.
Go to your safe place early and build at least a small room with a bed so you can easily zap there and sleep if you need to. Next up for your safe place should be a well so you can easily re-hydrate/refill every time you pop back to sleep. Next up would be some storage like barrels or a chest or two to store all that loot you are not willing to sell then a cooking pot so you can roast any meat from kills. You can easily stockpile roast deer meat that way so that your routine becomes go to safe place, sleep, drink, eat, roast, store items and then back to where you were.
Make sure the rest/thirst/hunger indicator is enabled on screen so you can see at a glance if you are running low.
Quests give much more XP than combat so let the quests lead into exploring naturally. Obviously explore if you want but don't think you have to explore everything before progressing the main quest.
Check every tab with merchants to see what they will buy and sell the stuff thats easily collected like stuff you can easily mine/pick up etc.
Handy items to keep on hand - Speed potions (just make you walk faster so you can escape enemies or move around quickly), scrolls for guaranteeing critical strikes (very handy for tough fights) and eventually keep replacement armour/weapons as they do sometimes get removed if damaged to zero.
@arthureloi
The spoiler is good to know, thanks. The walking speed is pretty slow. I'm sure they did this to make the world seem larger than it is.
@BOC Safe Place? My grandfather mentioned something about my own place, but I haven't found such a spot. I guess I'm spoiled. I expect the tutorial to tell me these things. Does it? Will I get prompted about this later? If not, spoil away. I'm playing a mage, so my teachers are the alchemist and the mage. My plan is to get to level 3 or so in melee and magic before grabbing Dudley and doing the thing with him.
The spoiler is good to know, thanks. The walking speed is pretty slow. I'm sure they did this to make the world seem larger than it is.
@BOC Safe Place? My grandfather mentioned something about my own place, but I haven't found such a spot. I guess I'm spoiled. I expect the tutorial to tell me these things. Does it? Will I get prompted about this later? If not, spoil away. I'm playing a mage, so my teachers are the alchemist and the mage. My plan is to get to level 3 or so in melee and magic before grabbing Dudley and doing the thing with him.
- Joined
- Oct 18, 2006
- Messages
- 8,836
crpgnut has spent most of his recent gaming years playing Bethesda titles, so he needs his hand held sometimes.
Not a spoiler but yeah he gave you a way to transport to the safe place. It's a button on the bottom left that takes you there. Levelling is slow and getting first level of a combat skill you don't have is 10 learning points so I suspect it may be better to concentrate on your primary combat skill for starters. I'm a mage too (level 4 I think) and have Arcane at 2 with neither sword or bow skills acquired yet as they are simply too expensive early game particularly as you can use a sword reasonably well without anyway. I'm still not that far along so it's guesswork on my part but it wouldn't surprise that the idea is to specialise and that getting the other combat skills might not be the best policy.
Thrasher
Wheeee!
crpgnut has spent most of his recent gaming years playing Bethesda titles, so he needs his hand held sometimes.
That was a low blow.
However I know the feeling....
arthureloi
Visionary Vampire
This is a tip on base building:
As of now, you should be extremely cautious when placing doors on your safe place. If for some reason you want to remove them, you won't be able to. The devs are already aware of this and will fix it in the next update.
As of now, you should be extremely cautious when placing doors on your safe place. If for some reason you want to remove them, you won't be able to. The devs are already aware of this and will fix it in the next update.
So, I shouldn't make my place adorable. Got it.
I don't mind pokes at my Bethesda-ism.
I've got enough hardcore rpg credit to last a lifetime. How many rpg veterans from all the way back in the comp.sys.ibm.pc,games.rpg days? We're talking pre-WWW here. I'm old. Please note, Corwin was around back then too! I'm not sure if it's the same Thrasher, but if so, he's an old timer too. I was perusing the old usenet archives and found a Thrasher as far back as 1999
However, I'm pretty critical of making a game today, that looks like it used assets from those bygone years.
I don't mind pokes at my Bethesda-ism.
I've got enough hardcore rpg credit to last a lifetime. How many rpg veterans from all the way back in the comp.sys.ibm.pc,games.rpg days?
We're talking pre-WWW here. I'm old. Please note, Corwin was around back then too! I'm not sure if it's the same Thrasher, but if so, he's an old timer too. I was perusing the old usenet archives and found a Thrasher as far back as 1999However, I'm pretty critical of making a game today, that looks like it used assets from those bygone years.
Last edited:
- Joined
- Oct 18, 2006
- Messages
- 8,836