Post-win impressions and suggestions.

[MaxEd]

Last Friday, I was finally able to win this game, and I must say I had lots of fun. The save file says I played for more than 200 hours. That... Can't be true, right? Sure, I restarted my playthrough in early May, and finished it mid-July, but I didn't play that much every day, and I played another RPG for a few weeks! I mean, I played 100+ hours games before, and they always out-stayed their welcome a bit, even Witcher 3 had me skipping a lot of content on Skellige. But I never got any fatigue from KoTC2, so it can't be 200 hours game. I mean, maybe 60-80, but surely not that long? ...I would note if it was that long?

Anyway, I want to congratulate BlueSalamander on a great game, and on a successful crusade against bugs: during my second playthrough, I don't think the game crashed even a single time, though I had some issues with UI in puzzles, but they were corrected in the next patch. I certainly will be playing upcoming additional modules.

Now, I'd like to offer some suggestions and criticism.

Design:

1) While I love the design of the game, I wonder if some things are intentionally over-powered. It feels like they are - I mean, playing with a Psionicist or two make the game so much easier, I can only imagine playing without them as an additional challenge. They're the best AoE blasters the game has, and they keep up both the number of castings and damage output very respectable until the very end. More than that, Energy Ball - a mid-level power - continues to be the main damaging power long past Wizzard's spells of comparable level become useless. I'm not going to shout "nerf Psionics now!", but I wonder if anything could be done to make this class feel less OP compared to others.

2) The same goes for Vorpal/Skewer, or even just Skewer weapons. They're so incredibly powerful I cannot imagine NOT getting one for each melee fighter in my party. Sure, they fare badly against crit-immune foes, but those are concentrated in High Sewers, and nowhere else. And Skewer Warbow? I thought Ranger sucked in the late game, until I got him one of those, and then he went to be one of my top characters. With a way to bypass Mirror Image and Invisibility (True Seeing or whatever), he's a Weapon of Utter Boss Destruction - the mighty dragon that guarded the entrance to the last castle and withstood a lot of my attempts to get through fell to my Ranger's barrage quite easily (with a +2 Archer Ring, +5 Enchantment on the warbow and other bonuses he was able to trigger critical hits even when using Rapid Shot).

Now, I can't imagine how could I won the game without these two over-powered things, because enemy parties are very overpowered, too. My only concern is only that both this class and this weapon enchantment feel so superior to everything else that they make other classes and weapons almost unnecessary. If I couldn't use Psionicist's wide AoEs to clear the table from trash mobs, I'd have much harder time, and would need to use a more varied array of spells (well, Prismatic Void is also OP, but it's not as wide, and you can't cast it as often as 20-power Energy Ball...)

I guess these are obvious things, already mentioned many times, but I wonder if anything could be done here, or if I'm missing something. Maybe they're supposed to be game's Easy Mode, and I have to challenge myself not to use them.

UI:

Generally, I liked the game's UI. It takes up a lot of space, but it offers quick access to a lot of very complex combat options. It's far, far more usable than the abomination called Radial Menu in Temple of Elemental Evil (or Blackguards). But I have some ideas how to make it even better. Unfortunately, these ideas seem costly to my experienced eye, so I'm pretty sure we won't get them in KotC2, but maybe in another game? Anyway, here they are:

1) I feel the Crafting screen needs more work. Right now, it's very hard to plan an item, because you can't select several enchantments at the same time and see the total cost and number of necessary enchantment points. I think I remember crafting screen in the first KotC game being better. The current implementation could use some more attention.

2) Additionally, names of enchantments often don't give enough information about them. It would be nice to have a short description near name, or get a tooltip when mouse-overing an enchantment with the full description without the need to go to encyclopaedia.

3) This suggestion one is the hardest to implement, but one that I feel could enhance any D&D-based game: spell list search by tag/theme. I.e. when I want to remove Blindless from my party, I have to remember which spells can do that, and what level they are, and which of my characters have them. It would be great if I could get a search string where I could enter "blindness" or "remove blindness", and get a list of spells for my currently selected character that have something to do with Blindness, or even a per-character list for all of my party. The same search string could be useful for Module Creators, when they're looking for a spell for their NPC, or already existing NPC template with given powers.

4) Searchable inventory would also be nice Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous has a player-made mod for that, and it's very popular.

Code:

The most-irritating thing about the game right now is that it freezes for seconds sometimes when calculating AI action. I believe it's mostly related to pathfinding code, because it happens more often when a mob doesn't have a way to reach some members of the party, e.g. is walled off. I hope it might be possible to move the actual pathfinding code into a separate thread, and then make the main thread continue working, while checking for calculations to complete. It won't make the game think faster by itself, but at least it would avoid freezing the whole thing.

Also, now that I think about it more, there is something strange going on. A walled-off monster should actually think faster, because it doesn't have a lot of grid available to it, even if doing an exhaustive search (unless it has a long, round-about way to get to the party, but this is rare, and I'm certain I've seen cases when a mob in a tight space behind Wall of Stone froze the game for a noticeable time). Or unless you're doing backward search from target to caster for whatever reason. One thing I wonder about is how huge creatures navigate, because I think that the problem might be related to that - if, say, a dragon is walled off from the party, but the wall do not completely block his area (he can't get through, but smaller creatures could), will his AI waste time on searching a path through this impassable (to him) squares? I used Erosion approach to limit passability for differently-sized creatures on square grid in such situations, though it requires some tricky code to update Erosion correctly in a limited area when someone moves or a new obstacle (e.g. Wall of Stone) appears without updating the whole map (costly).

[Sangarunya]

Definitely, there are several overpowered spells and abilities in the game and playing in the late levels in the highest difficulty feels like you need to choose those "awesome buttons" to kill all the enemies you can in the first turn and avoid retribution or click the "Load Game" button.

About the damage done by psionicist: in the D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder 1e rulesets the area damage powers are more limited. At level three the Psion obtains Energy Bolt (line area based) and Energy Burst (centered on the character). Those two spells require the caster to move around the battlefield and take more risks with a possible later retaliation. Also, the friendly damage requires careful considerations. The more convenient cone-shaped spell is named Energy Wave and is a level-7 power and here is level-3. Energy Ball level and description is almost identical to the 3.5 and Pathfinder 1e rules, but is a level-4 Kineticist power not a Psion one. The difference in the description:
https://www.d20pfsrd.com/alternative-rule-systems/psionics-unleashed/psionic-powers/e/energy-ball/
is that each energy type modifies slightly the damage dice according to the rarity of the energy resistance type. For example, fire resistance is more common, therefore add +1 to each dice damage and sonic resistance is very rare and for this reason the damage dice gets minus one.
One of the options besides changing the description to fit the Pathfinder one, is to increase the level of the more convenient shape powers and let the Psionicist deal with enemies at low levels with the line-area and burst powers only. This way the Psionicist needs to move to better positions in the battle to deal damage to more number of enemies possible instead on casting a long range spell comfortably positioned in the back row, protected by the melee line. Change "Energy Cone" to a level-7 power and something similar with the Energy Ball: perhaps is too powerful and versatile for a level-4 power and is better suited for a level-6 or level-7.

About the Weapon enchantments, the root of the problem is that melee/ranged classes can't compete with spell-casters at high levels and they need help in the form of very overpowered abilities or enchantments. Vorpal, originally, is an "if you roll a natural 20, the enemy dies." Here, Pierre toned it down to "lots of damage" but probably is still too much and needs to be reduced. With the sheer number of attacks available to some classes/races, the damage piles up to insane amounts. And what to say about skewer: is the one pill remedy to the physical damage underdogs. And a sure caster killer. You have it? You win. You don't? Sorry sir, you need to be a better player. The difference between utilizing weapons with this enchantment and not is too much of a gap to not to always select it.
A solution? Perhaps to divide the enchantment into one version for melee weapons and other for ranged and increase the number you need to exceed to be activated and tame the damage inflicted with it. Only half the usual critical damage? Does it only activates once per round? Only once per enemy? Something like this.

Again, this is a significant problem rooted in the weakness of the martial classes at high levels and I don't think it can be resolved with a few changes. And toning down this enchantments could cause that melee/ranged classes are too weak to play with all those grown-ups spell-casters. But it must be reworked in the future.

Nevertheless, right now Pierre's priority is improving some of the under-powered classes to give them more prominence and balancing the various classes is a long-term task with lots of problems and nuances so this will fall behind in the priority queue. And the Spirit Animals given to the Barbarian don't give me good feelings about a healthy balance in the game. Some of them, like the Rhino, the Porpoise or the Spider are WTF-inducing powers at low levels. I discussed it a little with the user Atoch in this thread: https://www.heroicfantasygames.com/Forums/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=1179

Thanks for reading!

[MaxEd]

I agree that Vorpal/Skewer should stay, because we need to compensate melee characters somehow. Maybe the right way would be to raise the cost of each of them to something like 6 or even 7, so you couldn't have both of them together, and neither could you have other expensive enchantments at the same time. I mean, "+5 Skewer Dragonbane Warbow" is a bit too much, even if I love it. I would probably still love it as a "+3 Skewer Warbow". Another possibility is to add even more OP enchantments, so at least they could compete with Vorpal/Skewer. I'm not sure if anything can come close now. Force, maybe? It adds quite a lot of damage, and does not require a crit.

Oh, and in "more love for ranged character", I think this game needs more special arrows. Slaying Arrows suck - first, DC 23 just plain doesn't work in late game, and second, when they do work, they not very fun, as are most of "save or die" spells. It would be great if we could imbue arrows with compatible spells - it would make crafting a more attractive mechanic (right now, I see people advising against crafting due to XP cost, and mostly for a good reason - I barely reached 20th level by the end of the game, and I only crafted one weapon).

[BlueSalamander]

Hello MaxEd, thank you so much for the detailed feedback and the kind words!

The save file says I played for more than 200 hours

There may be a bug in the time recording but so far I haven't been able to reproduce it.

I do have saved games indicating more than 200 hours by the end of the game. I'm not surprised by this because of the time spent on certain battles.

I'm not going to shout "nerf Psionics now!", but I wonder if anything could be done to make this class feel less OP compared to others.

I'm not sure. Isn't a Red Wizard, after the Elemental Form transformation, more powerful than a Psionicist or Warlock, though?

I wonder if anything could be done here, or if I'm missing something. Maybe they're supposed to be game's Easy Mode, and I have to challenge myself not to use them.

Not too sure. I guess Skewer could be made less powerful by requiring a higher attack roll to trigger the effect.

Still, before deliberately avoiding certain enchantments or classes to create a greater challenge, I would simply play on the hardest difficulty mode (gold cost for levelling up, no reduced-difficulty enemy levels, etc).

names of enchantments often don't give enough information about them. It would be nice to have a short description near name, or get a tooltip when mouse-overing an enchantment with the full description without the need to go to encyclopaedia.

I'll see what I can do about this. I'm taking a note.

when I want to remove Blindless from my party, I have to remember which spells can do that, and what level they are, and which of my characters have them. It would be great if I could get a search string where I could enter "blindness" or "remove blindness", and get a list of spells for my currently selected character that have something to do with Blindness, or even a per-character list for all of my party.

However, you can already type in 'Blindness' or 'Blinded' in the Search box of the help system, and you'll quickly find the list of spells that can remove blindness. You can then easily find out the level of each spell by following the links.

Searchable inventory would also be nice

Please explain what the Pathfinder mod does?

I hope it might be possible to move the actual pathfinding code into a separate thread, and then make the main thread continue working, while checking for calculations to complete. It won't make the game think faster by itself, but at least it would avoid freezing the whole thing.

Not possible, unfortunately. I do advise using the option 'Very Accelerated AI' to alleviate the issue as much as possible, if you're not already using it.

A walled-off monster should actually think faster, because it doesn't have a lot of grid available to it, even if doing an exhaustive search

The thing is, even if the way is blocked by a Wall of Stone, the AI still needs to know the path to the party (the path it would take if the wall wasn't there), because the monster needs to move closer to the wall / closer to the player characters as much as possible.

if, say, a dragon is walled off from the party, but the wall do not completely block his area (he can't get through, but smaller creatures could)

In KotC 2, large creatures can always squeeze through single-square paths.

It would be great if we could imbue arrows with compatible spells

The Ranger does have a couple of spells for that: Lesser Magic Arrow and Greater Magic Arrow. Please see https://www.heroicfantasygames.com/FWE/Pages/FWE_Ranger.htm.

Another possibility is to add even more OP enchantments, so at least they could compete with Vorpal/Skewer. I'm not sure if anything can come close now. Force, maybe?

I've always liked some of the other weapon enchantments, including Drinker (+5), Destruction (+4), Blinding (+4), Swift (+3), Life Stealing (+3), Holy (+2), and Giant Sized (+2). So, I wouldn't say that Skewer is absolutely necessary.

Thank you!! Best regards

[MaxEd]

Hello, BlueSalamander

Thanks for your reply! I was away from my main PC a bit, so sorry for long delay in my answer.

I'm not sure. Isn't a Red Wizard, after the Elemental Form transformation, more powerful than a Psionicist or Warlock, though?

I guess that's my fault, but I still don't know how it works. I had a red wizard in my party last time, I think, but I never found the way to trigger the transformation. Is it triggered by a side-quest, or did I just miss an interface button?

Please explain what the Pathfinder mod does?

Here's a quote from the mod's page (https://www.nexusmods.com/pathfinderwrathoftherighteous/mods/137):

Adds a fully featured search bar to the inventory screen. This bar can be used to search for the name, type (example: weapon), and subtype (example: longsword) of items. Item descriptions can be searched by toggling the option in the mod options menu. Filters can be applied using the button to the right of the search bar.

It also does the same for Spellbook, and adds a number of other improvements specific to our game.

The thing is, even if the way is blocked by a Wall of Stone, the AI still needs to know the path to the party (the path it would take if the wall wasn't there), because the monster needs to move closer to the wall / closer to the player characters as much as possible.

Hmm, I still don't quite understand why a walled-off monster takes MORE time to think about movement than one that has a clear path to the party. I mean, if you need a path that takes the monster closer to the party, it just disregards "temporary" obstacles during the search, which should give us a nice quick result. How does the algorithm go? I'd guess it first should search for a "true" path (e.g. one that takes all obstacles into account), and if it fails (which shouldn't take much time in a small walled-off area), try another search without temporary obstacles, then walk that path until the next cell is blocked.

I kind of see the problem for monsters with many possible actions/spells, if they do a new full search for every action before selecting the best one (which they probably should, because the cost of path obviously influences the score of the action, and the action itself influences the path, because it has range requirements). Maybe it is possible to do some caching to improve the speed here? Or do you already do that?

The Ranger does have a couple of spells for that: Lesser Magic Arrow and Greater Magic Arrow.

First, the selection of effects in those spells is somewhat limited. Though their existence does make arrow-crafting less attractive by itself. Maybe if crafting allowed spells that are not covered by these spells this still might work. Or if crafted arrows could have higher DC/longer duration (but require a vaulable gemstone)? A single well-placed stun/hold arrow can well change the tide of the battle, but 17+Wis is not a very high bar to clear for late-game monsters. If I could spend some resources to craft an arrow that can paralyze a monster with 95% chance, I think I would. But of course, I'm not aware of all the balancing issues this might cause.

[BlueSalamander]

I never found the way to trigger the transformation. Is it triggered by a side-quest, or did I just miss an interface button?

Yes, there's an interface button. Please open the Character Sheet and click on the Spec tab. At the bottom of the page is the Wizard/Sorcerer Transformation button.

I will mention this in the help entry for the Wizard and Sorcerer.

Oh, I understand about the inventory search now. Thank you! Yes, maybe it's doable. A search button near the 'Party Items' box, and if you type some text in there and press enter, the matching item will be selected automatically in the Party Items box and/or in the backpack items of the current character. May also be doable for spells. I'm taking a note.

why a walled-off monster takes MORE time to think about movement than one that has a clear path to the party. I mean, if you need a path that takes the monster closer to the party, it just disregards "temporary" obstacles during the search, which should give us a nice quick result. How does the algorithm go? I'd guess it first should search for a "true" path (e.g. one that takes all obstacles into account), and if it fails (which shouldn't take much time in a small walled-off area), try another search without temporary obstacles, then walk that path until the next cell is blocked.

Yes, as you said, first we search for a normal path (one that takes into account Walls of Stone). It fails and then we have to search for a path that doesn't include Walls of Stone. So, two searches are made instead of one. Yes, afterwards we look at how far we can go along the path before reaching a blocked square.

I did change a number of things related to Walls of Stone in the last update (1.45), and I added code for having things run faster, so the problem may be gone already. Please let me know if there is any improvement?

the selection of effects in those spells is somewhat limited. Though their existence does make arrow-crafting less attractive by itself. Maybe if crafting allowed spells that are not covered by these spells this still might work. Or if crafted arrows could have higher DC/longer duration (but require a valuable gemstone)? A single well-placed stun/hold arrow can well change the tide of the battle, but 17+Wis is not a very high bar to clear for late-game monsters. If I could spend some resources to craft an arrow that can paralyze a monster with 95% chance, I think I would. But of course, I'm not aware of all the balancing issues this might cause.

You make good points and I like the idea of being able to craft a special arrow that could paralyse a particular monster with a high probability.

Still, something that would be easier for me to implement would be to create a few new Ranger feats that will increase the Difficulty Class from Lesser Magic Arrow and Greater Magic Arrow. For example:

Enhanced Magic Arrow I: The Difficulty Class of your Sleep arrows, Slaying arrows, and arrows benefiting from your spells Lesser Magic Arrow and Greater Magic Arrow increases by one point.
Enhanced Magic Arrow II: The Difficulty Class of your Sleep arrows, Slaying arrows, and arrows benefiting from your spells Lesser Magic Arrow and Greater Magic Arrow increases by one more point.

I'm taking a note about this. PS. The Ranger also has the spell Exploding Arrow, but the effect does not allow a saving throw.

About late-game monsters resisting the DC, I guess you mean Outsiders and Dragons? Because all of the others have at least one poor saving throw type out of the three (Reflex, Willpower and Fortitude), so it's a matter of targeting the creature's poor saving throw type.

Thank you!! Cheers

[Marcellus]

I agree that Vorpal/Skewer should stay, because we need to compensate melee characters somehow. Maybe the right way would be to raise the cost of each of them to something like 6 or even 7, so you couldn't have both of them together, and neither could you have other expensive enchantments at the same time. I mean, "+5 Skewer Dragonbane Warbow" is a bit too much, even if I love it. I would probably still love it as a "+3 Skewer Warbow". Another possibility is to add even more OP enchantments, so at least they could compete with Vorpal/Skewer. I'm not sure if anything can come close now. Force, maybe? It adds quite a lot of damage, and does not require a crit.

Oh, and in "more love for ranged character", I think this game needs more special arrows. Slaying Arrows suck - first, DC 23 just plain doesn't work in late game, and second, when they do work, they not very fun, as are most of "save or die" spells. It would be great if we could imbue arrows with compatible spells - it would make crafting a more attractive mechanic (right now, I see people advising against crafting due to XP cost, and mostly for a good reason - I barely reached 20th level by the end of the game, and I only crafted one weapon).

Your observations about balancing melee characters in the game are bang on. Adjusting the cost of Vorpal/Skewer enchantments appears to be an acceptable strategy for maintaining game balance. Introducing more potent enchantments or unique arrows could improve ranged character gameplay and make crafting more enticing. It is critical for game producers to consider these guidelines in order to provide a diverse and compelling gaming experience for all users. Your thorough analysis adds greatly to the current conversation of game mechanics and balance. Keep the feedback coming!