Grimoire - Released

There's nothing wrong with some degree of scaling if it's done right, and it's silly to automatically believe that any implementation of it is bad.

That said, I don't like scaling when it comes to loot. Diablo-type games excluded. I have no problem with scaling of enemies though if done correctly and in moderation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDyXSCd2Lp0&t=551s

^His IndieGoGo Campaign Pitch video is pure gold. In fact, its better then the game itself. roflmao. What a mouth breather.

Originally Posted by Ripper
I'm the same when it comes to any whiff of scaling spoiling my enjoyment. I only mentioned Oblivion because I saw a guy asking about scaling in Grimoire - he was noticing that he was suddenly encountering much tougher monsters in familiar areas, which reminded me of that experience. I was just surprised, as I wouldn't have thought that's a feature that would be welcomed by the core audience.

Grimoire is a Wizardry clone. The Wizardries had also scaling. It's expected.

I believe only Wizardry 8 had scaling. That was definitely my least favorite part about the game.

The best way to do scaling is to leave individual monsters stats alone and just add in harder monsters to encounters, also with static stats.

A Giant Rat should remain exactly a Giant Rat and not become a new unit with the same graphic and enough power to destroy your whole level1 party.

From what I remember from playing the entire game years ago, he has 'gateways' where you need to get past a tough battle to proceed to an area with higher level monsters. This either kept you from being wiped out in a new area quickly, or helped you gain the level you needed to survive. If you're not high enough level to proceed, then you can be sure you've missed something!! (He has a ton of secret/hidden areas.)

I think the old Gold box AD&D games had a similar scaling, it wasn't based on level but on stats. Since back then IIRC point-buy system wasn't a thing yet, you 'rolled' your characters, so you could make characters with bad stats or good stats. Granted, if you knew your D&D you would reroll until you got something good, but to accommodate people who didn't reroll, the number of opponents you faced depended on the total stats of the party. Now, if you were to edit your character and make them all stats 18, the first battles would be almost impossible to win, ironically, because even with your big stats, facing 40 kobolds at level 1 was much harder than facing 8 kobolds with a party with normal stats.

Originally Posted by JDR13
There's nothing wrong with some degree of scaling if it's done right, and it's silly to automatically believe that any implementation of it is bad.

That said, I don't like scaling when it comes to loot. Diablo-type games excluded. I have no problem with scaling of enemies though if done correctly and in moderation.

What is wrong with getting better loot from stronger enemies?

Originally Posted by Ripper
Steamspy stats.

https://steamspy.com/app/650670

# of owners up from 1217 yesterday to 2579 today.

Originally Posted by Damian
What is wrong with getting better loot from stronger enemies?

If the loot is stronger solely because the enemy who dropped it is stronger, then that makes sense. I somehow doubt that's what JDR13 was referring to. Some of the more awful examples of scaling even scale loot you find in chests and whatnot.

Originally Posted by Damian
What is wrong with getting better loot from stronger enemies?

Nothing. Stronger enemies are usually going to have better loot anyways. I'm talking about loot being scaled to the player's level.

Originally Posted by JDR13
Nothing. Stronger enemies are usually going to have better loot anyways. I'm talking about loot being scaled to the player's level.

You mean like in treasure chests? Yeah, I agree, that design is absolute turd.

Originally Posted by Kelefane
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDyXSCd2Lp0&t=551s

^His IndieGoGo Campaign Pitch video is pure gold. In fact, its better then the game itself. roflmao. What a mouth breather.

Had a quick look. There was a bit shortly after your link where he goes through all of the dungeon maps saying "We haven't even reached halfway yet!" while scrolling through them, and I'm sitting there thinking, "Wait, that's the second time a map was called Necropolix. Maybe it's a coinci- oh, there's a map called 5th Coil again as well. He's gone through them all and it's repeating the maps again, isn't it?" (10:34 and 11:10 for the repeat of Necropolix)

Finally got my backer key. Looks very promising… One tip - If you don't want to to be looking at a postage stamp in the middle of your screen you can set your launch options in steam properties for the game to -w1024 -h768. And the game looks surprisingly good in that mode on my 2440p Asus. Also some people were saying you can't tab out of the game, switching desktop with start/tab works well for me.

All in all Grimoire looks to be everything that Cleve promised, although won't know for sure until I get past the superdemo content… But it looks well worth the price of entry.

@Avantre …whatever. Cleve claims there are 244+ maps in the game and likely that is what we will find. There are lots of fanciful theories flying around, but the only thing, to my knowledge, that Cleve has really misrepresented about the game is release dates and that is probably because he was fooling himself too - a very common thing with programmers. And if he had known it would take 25 years at the start, he would probably not have started in the first place. I for one am glad that he did!

I don't think repeated broken promises over a period of 15 years is due to him fooling himself, and common for programmers.

BTW, based on it's history I doubted it would be released this time as either, which I think was reasonable - I couldn't see what was so different now (a promised Steam, release is no guarantee). But I'm happy that it was released, since there was people waiting for it, and they seem to enjoy playing it.- So I'm happy for them.

I don't think I will buy it - my backlog is full of games I want to play. And I have to admit, to some degree, some of his activities on the net do play a role. I don't say it's wrong to buy his game for that reason, but it does affect my feelings, my enthusiasm for the game. I also think that some of his claims about the qualities/importance of the game and his own qualifications is a bit … exaggerated, which makes me a bit wary. Then again, I'm not sure if he's serious or just joking.

As for the price - if I wanted the game, I wouldn't mind the cost. To me, the content would be the important thing, not the production values and dated graphics/interface. I do however think he would make more money if he lowered the price, but that's perhaps not what's important to him.

pibbur who now goes back to his backlog

Originally Posted by pibbur who
I don't think repeated broken promises over a period of 15 years is due to him fooling himself, and common for programmers.

Likely you are not a programmer then… or a kickstarter backer. What distinguishes Cleve is not how long it took him to get the game out, but the fact that he stuck with it all that time. and what did anyone really lose by these "broken promises"? nothing really unless they died waiting for the game to come out. And actually it's pretty good to see a game like this coming out now. Something one might have thought would never happen again… Now go and buy it - you know that you want to .

Oh yes, I'm a programmer. Delays happen. But there is a difference between a few months and 15 years. if I repeatedly delayed my project year after year after year, I'd lose my job.

What have we lost? For most of us not much, except faith in the project. And the developer. I suppose a lot of people waiting for the game also got pretty annoyed when the game was postponed for years again and again, despite guarantees of release. Just look at some of the reactions here when games are delayed by a few months. I guess some of those felt that what distinguished mr Blackmore most of all was lying.

For what it's worth, I'm not angry with him. I just found it harder and harder to take him seriously, and it looked more and more like a farce. But as I said, I'm glad it got released.

pibbur who can see no reason to eat his words

PS. My backlog is huge (yes, it's stupid). And I usually spend a long time with a game, so at 62 I have to consider if I'll live long enough to complete them all. . No, I don't want to buy it. But by all means,. I won't promise I'll never do that. Not now, however. DS.

It's actually 20 years since the first release date, not 15. But what made Grimoire nothing like anything with any other programmer, wasn't the length of time in development. Plenty of games have had that. What made it different was how much times he promised it was really done this time, 100% guaranteed and there was no way it wasn't going to be out in the next month. Other games that were incredibly delayed did not do that, they were honest about the game being a long ways away. This combined with Cleve's tendency to blatantly lie about other things, and his delusional postings where he claimed to be part of a secret race of super human beings, made it very hard to take him seriously. Even the press had long since stopped covering the game for this very reason, when they had never stopped covering other extremely delayed but more reputable seeming games.

But, as we now know, he was serious and the game came out. I'm not yet sure if it's good, but I can no longer question that it's real. At this point I have no reason to doubt that everything he says is in the game is there. I even suspect that the sales will pick up a bit once gaming websites come to the same conclusion that the game is real after all and start reporting on it.

I just think the final supreme act of trolling was just to release the bloody thing!

now we just need somebody to finish the game and troll Cleve that it's only 500 hours long…