Bought the game, loving it, and a pile of thoughts

[xalles]

Impressive gaming. I just beat Tyranixxus myself but I haven't visited Norglade or the Tower yet, and I'm somewhere around the advertised 25 hour minimum mark.

I'd say 25 hours is quite a bit more impressive. Good luck with the "ultra" fight if you haven't tried it yet. If you can't find it go see how your old commander is doing after beating the game and turning in the chalice (not sure what makes the ultra fight happen when you talk to him, probably just beating the game).

[xalles]

I beat the "last boss" again with my old save in 1.09 and the fight ended fine, although the boss was the last enemy to die this time. Again he was a little silly toward the end dispelling my guys rather than using the insane weapons at his disposal. Certain enemies in the game almost seem to get scared when they're isolated. Anyway, during that fight I noticed another ATTACK bug which I isolated afterward. I found some other stuff like this shot of the combat menu getting in the way (can't scroll to the right; finally got a picture of 18, hehe) which I'll relate.

81) Bug: I found another "ATTACK 0#/0#" display bug that happens with Cleave and is easy to reproduce. Maybe it's related to the other rarer ATTACK bug. I'll let pictures do most of the talking. (I made a special weapon just to help display this bug.)

#1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6 #7 #8 #9

Note that the first skeleton takes two hits to kill, but the second attack doesn't update the ATTACK display. That doesn't happen until during the last cleave attack. In other words, it should update to ATTACK 02/04 at picture #4, not picture #8.

I will say with near-certainty that the other ATTACK bug happened only with my two characters with the Cleave feat, and it happened with both of them. Hrothgar and Elinor have Cleave but only Hrothgar has Great Cleave. Of course, I attacked a lot more with the two characters with Cleave than the ones without. And that one time the other bug happened with the troll was with a ranged attack, and I don't know how Cleave would factor into that. Even so, I hope the two bugs are related.

Edited for clarity

82) AI: I've noticed this before, but also during this testing session I noticed a small error in the AI. When a path is blocked off by enemies and there is another path around, a melee-only enemy will take the other path, no matter how much longer it is. Taking the other path might make sense if it isn't much longer than the one that's currently blocked, but this is extreme. The skeleton walked up there when the black rectangle was full of other skeletons. Here's the *spoiler if you haven't been to Mountain Pass* map for reference: the cursor on the map is pointing at the opening the skeleton is taking.

IMO if the alternative path is too long, the enemy should just wait for an opening rather than take the long path. In the above case, the skeleton turned around next turn, but if a path to my guys had not opened there, he would have continued down the long road (like I've seen before).

83) AI: I noticed when in a narrow tunnel, the enemies don't always move to surround me, but rather they will block the path of the others. Here's an example. One skeleton got through to the other side of Hrothgar because he was chasing after one of my other guys before I ran them all out (I was trying to set up for 81 above). But with the only Hrothgar there, the two skeletons on top that could attack would (the picture should circle both of them because they could both move, sorry), rather than moving to let the other ones in. It seems like moving (at least a five-foot move) in a case like this would always be a better strategy. This is related to 82 but the enemies are bunching up here because there's no other path.

[xalles]

84) Interface: It might be cool to see the expected effect of an attack while it's being targeted. I'm thinking you could show the expected damage (or other effect) somewhere on the target (right in the middle of their sprite might be best, with small font) and pulsate it in and out of transparency while they're being targeted (and maybe stop the current blinking to aid visibility). You could color code this text based on the damage type also (or white for a non-damage effect). May just want to stick with white for visibility. Since you wouldn't have a lot of space to work with, you could print multiple lines on the target, probably three at the max. By keeping the listed effect on the target, you could apply this idea on all attacks, even area-of-effect ones. Here are a couple examples of what I mean.

Imagine you were targeting a ranged attack with a slaying arrow equipped. Text could appear on the monster telling you the chance of the monster dying to it, given that the arrow hits (of course the game already tells you the chance of the arrow hitting). If the monster was the wrong type, the text could say "wrong type", probably on two lines. The numbers above the 45% in the picture is how damage the arrow could deal.

Imagine you were targeting a fireball, and not only did the targeting area show which characters would be effected, but also dynamically told you, in red 6-36's (or whatever) on their sprites, how much damage each target could take. For one, the player would know before he cast the spell if there was some fire resistance getting in the way. The male knight in this picture would have 30 fire resistance, for example. Not shown in the picture, but with spells like fireball, you could show "20% HALF" under the picture to show the chance of the target making the reflex save.

Edit: Ugh, the ranges should be 10-60 and 0-30 for the fireball. Well, the intent of the image is still clear I hope.

Even just for regular attacks, the expected damage could be shown this way. If there were multiple possible effects from one attack (e.g. shooting a slaying arrow out of a blinding bow), could only show the most powerful possible effect and its chance, sort of like how the game only shows the most powerful condition (or "OKAY") on a character in the lower-right when you mouse over them in combat. If you wanted to display damage with multiple types, could use white, or some unused color (pink?). If you wanted to display healing, could choose another unused color, and/or put a + in front of the number.

Instead of damage ranges, average damage may be more useful information, since when die rolls are added together the result is more often closer to the average than to one end of the range.

Sorry the pictures don't show the pulsating I mentioned. Imagine the text in the pictures looked like , except that instead of fading to black it faded to transparent. The text would be easier to read IMO if the text faded in and out like that.

[Ubbax]

(I have more post-1.07 comments on bottom of the previous page.)
--snip--

60) Interface: May want to ask "are you sure?" when the player clicks start new game on the main menu if there is already a game in progress. I clicked new game accidentally once and was surprised i couldn't return to my previous game after backing out of the new game setup.

--end snip--

I was unaware of this as I've been playing Ironman mode, ok.. attempting Ironman, since purchasing the game.
I'm preparing to head to the cottage with my young nephews to get in some fishing. There's only 1 PC at the cottage and I thought we could share the install and each run our own game. If I understand you're saying this isn't going to be possible? Is there any means of getting around this?
What about if we were to zip up the game folder whenever each one of us finishes playing and then restore it before starting our next session, would this work?

Ubbax
"If you have tears, prepare to shed them now." -- William Shakespeare

[Pod]

You can start as many games as you want. He just meant that he was in the middle of a game -- as in he was playing the game -- he then pressed escape and accidently pressed "start new game". This caused his game in progress to be lost, just as if he'd quit the app. [I've actually clicked "exit" in error before, as I meant to press "return to game", causnig me to drop out in the middle of a fight ;().

[xalles]

He just meant that he was in the middle of a game -- as in he was playing the game -- he then pressed escape and accidently pressed "start new game". This caused his game in progress to be lost, just as if he'd quit the app. [I've actually clicked "exit" in error before, as I meant to press "return to game", causnig me to drop out in the middle of a fight ;().

Thanks Pod, that's exactly what I meant. Maybe an "are you sure?" should be added to the Exit button also, if there is a game in progress.

On a different note, one thing that kinda sucks about this game is that trying to go back to playing Neverwinter Nights modules, for example, is rough because the combat and interface in this game are so much better.

So anyways, I updated to 1.10 and started a new game with a cleric and 3 wizards. A bit of a copout from 4 wizards but having no ability/level restoration or death ward/resurrection seems like it'd be really rough later on.

Here are some small things I've noticed while playing again.

85) Interface: It'd be cool if the "touch attack" help entry listed links to all the divine/arcane melee/ranged touch attack spells, or linked to a list of them. The spells are listed under the Weapon Focus (touch) and (ranged touch) feats, helpfully. Could also link to such a list under the Improved Critical feats. If the spells were listed in the "touch attack" entry the list could be reached easily via clicking "TOUCH ATTACK" on one of the spells' descriptions.

86) Windowed mode window should also center (or keep old position if saved) when leaving full-screen mode.

87) The game shouldn't show hit chance for friendly touch spells (e.g. cure spells cast on friendlies). Or it could just show 100%. Come to think of it, Cure spells/Heal might be the only touch spells that can be used on friendlies and enemies, so might be the only spells I'm talking about here.

88) Typo: *early spoilers* I saw this when talking to Garn in Corinth after killing all the lizardmen.

89) Bug?: I've been noticing this weird 3-4 second lag when attacking in melee with my guys sometimes, right before the game tells me melee damage or "Miss" on the enemy. I got the lag about 2-3 times in the southwest cave level 2, and once or twice in Corinth battles, but so far it seems pretty random. I've attached a save before a fight where I definitely got the lag while melee attacking with my cleric. If I had to guess I was attacking the enemy cleric in the battle when the lag happened.

Note that nothing else bad happens with this lag; the game continues along just fine afterward. Also, I hadn't seen this lag prior to 1.10. I'll let you know if I find any pattern to it.

[VentilatorOfDoom]

I noticed the lag too, only after v1.10. I also noticed that since v1.10 if your Knight has a bow equiped and you let him attack in melee he will use his melee weapon for the first and maybe second attack and then switch to bow and attack with the bow instead.

[Jonas]

I noticed the lag too, only after v1.10. I also noticed that since v1.10 if your Knight has a bow equiped and you let him attack in melee he will use his melee weapon for the first and maybe second attack and then switch to bow and attack with the bow instead.

Yeah, I noticed this too. I think I'm at the finalish dungeon, so it's kind of annoying. Some, possibly related, weirdness also happens with my two-weapon fighter: sometimes all attacks are made with the left-hand weapon, sometimes all with the right-hand. Strange.
I'll try to roll back to 1.09 and see if it helps!

[BlueSalamander]

Either use 1.09 or download 1.11, which I've just uploaded. Sorry about that!

[Jonas]

Either use 1.09 or download 1.11, which I've just uploaded. Sorry about that!

Hey, no problem! Thanks for the quick fixes!