Drakensang Drankensang Peek. Is this a Joke?

I'm not sure I can take anymore "fun" in this game!


I think I'd rather go back and fight all the dwarves who are too lame to help.

They respawn until you destroy the portals.

I don't recall seeing any portals on the snowy slopes? I'll look again.

You don't *have* to attack them. I think I just ran past most of them, which is fine. It is a battle so there should be plenty of them to refill what you kill (don't think of it as respawning, just as plenty of reinforcements). Makes sense to me.

I couldnt see the portals through the fog. All set now, completed the game.

Good game overall, but I like the NWN series better. More stats and stuff to play with, more dynamic party options.

My main character elf mage was a big mistake, he critically weakened the DSang party making the game far more difficult than necessary IMO. I had so many potions that the Mage simply wasnt necessary in the end, certainly not as a main character. Dual classing a mage/thief would have made a great party.

Anyway, good game, not the best.

Spellweaver character is an excellent choice, from far the more powerfull character I had in last part of the game.

Early in the game the spell buffs for Strength and Constitution were valuable. By the end, all my characters had 20's for these values so the buffs werent needed. All the Spellweaver did for me in the end was conjure a bear and Thunderbolt. The damage from Thunderbolt was less than my Dwarf's special attacks. The bear was pretty good at distracting attackers which was useful, but that was it.

ToddMcF2002 said:

Early in the game the spell buffs for Strength and Constitution were valuable. By the end, all my characters had 20's for these values so the buffs werent needed. All the Spellweaver did for me in the end was conjure a bear and Thunderbolt. The damage from Thunderbolt was less than my Dwarf's special attacks. The bear was pretty good at distracting attackers which was useful, but that was it.

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It seems you played the game too fast:

• All magic users can use an armor spell that becomes better and better. With this spell they get better armor than the more heavy armored non magic user. If the spellweaver is your character, this spell plus the complete fire set give you from very far the best armor.
• Add to that the extremely powerful summon, at level 16/17 it challenges the final boss and does heavy damages no character does, it just need a healing support but your spellweaver with fast mana regeneration and a care to get a high mana is good to do that.
• Along with that the spellweaver is made to specialize in bow and there's some strong bows to use, and you get a good archer with the right training, plus some healing support for completion.
• Clearly for tough fights the mana should be saved for something else like some healing support or some negative buffer spells.
• For buffer spell, agility is the one that could worth it beside the armor spell.
• And it's also a very good character for lore stuffs.

The result is a quite powerful and useful character.

By the way, shouldn't it read "peak" instead of "peek" ?

For me, the main thing that goes against the spellweaver is that you get a perfectly fine one early in the game.

As far as "NWN2" vs Drakensang goes, for me it's a hard call. I hate how NWN2 force you to take NPCs, I dislike how much emphasis it put on the ai. Controlling a 8 characters group (not to mention equipping/upgrading them all) is a nightmare. And since DnD got to 3rd edition, the game became too much about multi-classing/prestige class up to a point it stops being interesting. Drakensang gameplay and battles are generally more fun. Areas are more interesting to explore, wilderness doesnt seem as much limited (even if it's still a far cry than what we could find in a game like BG. I blame 3d). Plenty of small side-quests that make you return to some areas in Ferdok... Unlike the city of neverwinter, you at least get to know Ferdock somewhat.

However, I find NWN2 equipment, spells and NPC more interesting.

I was playing NWN2 the OC when I got Drakensang. I stopped NWN2 and played Drakensang (and enjoyed it a lot). I almost had to force myself back to playing NWN2. For some reason I never felt a 'connection' with it as I had with Drakensang. I don't know how to explain it. When I had free time I was looking forward to continuing Drakensang, while now it's more like "hmm... guess I can play NWN2"

Alrik Fassbauer said:

By the way, shouldn't it read "peak" instead of "peek" ?

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Valuable feedback as usual

Well, I had understanding problems at first. I didn't know which kind of peek you meant.

Especially since the rest of the thread isn't about peeks at all ...

vanedor said:

For me, the main thing that goes against the spellweaver is that you get a perfectly fine one early in the game.

As far as "NWN2" vs Drakensang goes, for me it's a hard call. I hate how NWN2 force you to take NPCs, I dislike how much emphasis it put on the ai. Controlling a 8 characters group (not to mention equipping/upgrading them all) is a nightmare. And since DnD got to 3rd edition, the game became too much about multi-classing/prestige class up to a point it stops being interesting. Drakensang gameplay and battles are generally more fun. Areas are more interesting to explore, wilderness doesnt seem as much limited (even if it's still a far cry than what we could find in a game like BG. I blame 3d). Plenty of small side-quests that make you return to some areas in Ferdok... Unlike the city of neverwinter, you at least get to know Ferdock somewhat.

However, I find NWN2 equipment, spells and NPC more interesting.

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For the Spellweaver, it's not that soon in the game, depending if you find it soon or not in the area she is. Another point is that if she is your lore character, your character which is always in the party is a better fit. Finally unlike your own character she won't be able to use the fire set and that makes a difference in the last quarter.

For NWN2 vs Drakensang, I agree on many points you quoted but disagree for:
- Force take some NPC during some part of the game is an excellent game design for me. This give them more personality because it's weird when they are just puppets you pick or not. If you get attached to one, when he leaves it's a bit of nice emotion, if later he cames back it's a bit more emotion, it's a good way to diversify a party without to let the player have decide to reject some NPC ha already get attached to.
- For companions, it's for me a strong points of Drakensang, even if not all are as well done. NWN OC and MotB, goes too far and make them heavy almost a burden to manage. Also I feel the companion mechanism in both OC and MotB not a fun gameplay and you don't need so much dialog to make attaching a companion, MotB is great but on this point a failure. In the end for me it's a large plus in favor to Drakensang even if not all are enough polished.
- For the equipment I like Drakensang choice without ton of magic stuff at every corner. There's also many quite cool hats that NWN2 don't have! Also the NWN2 crafting system is so unclear and boring when it's cool in Drakensang.

I have other points for a Drakensang vs NWN2 but I won't go further. For me it's also quite hard to choose, I bet this will depend when I do it, now it could be MoTB, Drakensang, NWN2 OC.

Dasale said:

- For the equipment I like Drakensang choice without ton of magic stuff at every corner.

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Several people more familiar with the background even say that the amount of magical items is too much in Drakensang !

I can't say, because I'm not familiar with it, but indeed Aventuria is kind of a rather "low-magic" environment.

For a great number of magical items one should play Myranor instead.
But unfortunately there's no C-RPG out for that, now ...

I like the lowered quantity of magical items. It's a nice nod to Tolkien whose books hardly had any magical items in them. Not a single +5 sword of dasterdly death to be found

I have nothing against low magic worlds; I even tend to prefer these. It’s just a lack of choice. At the beginning you start with a short sword which becomes useless as soon as you find a broad sword, which you eventually replace with a long sword… not many options there. No masterwork or “sharp” weapon, little difficult choice to make. It seems there is a wide margin between the lack of variety in term of equipment that we currently have and a high-magic world where even peasants seem to carry mighty swords of power like in some games.

I don't remember much CRPG really offering such choices. G1&G2+NOTR had interesting choice like range vs damages vs speed but most CRPG choices are to take the more powerful weapon fitting your skills, no real choice just need to change more often you weapon.

In Drakensang you could not have quote it or consider it doesn't worth the consideration but there are range vs damages vs hit bonus/malus vs defense bonus/malus that made me change weapon use, sometimes.

But I agree that the game should have play more on those elements and offer a bit more diversity.

EDIT: About diversity, I regret there wasn't more from a look point of view, for example the very nice choice of hats but later they become weak and then choices is reduced.

"Force take some NPC during some part of the game is an excellent game design for me. This give them more personality because it's weird when they are just puppets you pick or not. If you get attached to one, when he leaves it's a bit of nice emotion, if later he cames back it's a bit more emotion, it's a good way to diversify a party without to let the player have decide to reject some NPC ha already get attached to."

I can agree with that up to a point. The problem is that in NWN2, you are always forced to include npcs permanently in your party to deal with a chapter or another of the game. For this, I prefer Drakensang approach where you always have a fifth spot in your party for temporary characters.

“For companions, it's for me a strong point of Drakensang, even if not all are as well done.”

It’s only that I find NPCs in NWN2 somewhat more complete and interesting than the ones of Drakensang. Most of them seem pretty shallow… NWN2(OC) is only slightly better. That’s in my opinion a fairly minor point.

“For the equipment I like Drakensang choice without ton of magic stuff at every corner. There's also many quite cool hats that NWN2 don't have! Also the NWN2 crafting system is so unclear and boring when it's cool in Drakensang.”

I also prefer Drakensang crafting system. My problem with Drakensang equipment is the lack of choice. I like having to decide if I use a chain mail instead of a scale armor, deciding if it’s worth it or I should rather wait and spend my money on plate mail eventually… so far, fairly late in the game, one of my fighters use pretty much the same armor as one of Ferdock regular town guard. So much for a hero! For weapons, as I mentioned in my previous post, it’s even worse.

I don't remember well NWN OC but didn't you had a base set of NPC and when one was forced to be in the party it was an additional member? That approach give you all, you have all freedom for your party and the game design can play around NPC temporary companions.

Well I'm eventually unfair about NWN OC companions, I'm still on the feeling about those of MoTB. Otherwise I agree it's a lot a matter of choice but also I wanted point that companions dialog number doesn't match companions quality and that a part of the gameplay strickly centered around companions like in OC and MoTB isn't always the best design choice. Mmm and one big quality of Drakensang companions, no boring romance to manage, thanks god!

I already answered in another thread about weapon diversity but I admit this could be improved but not that bad. Like for weapon there are range vs damages vs to hit vs defence that generate some real choices, for armors there's encumbrance vs armor value vs area covered vs emplacements used. This also involved some real choices but again like weapon and even more for armors, more choices would be better including related to the look.