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Not for everyone, and that's the problem wink Evelyns cave also had a map marker, and you would die horrible if you went there first thing. (if not at Dietmar, then in the Evelyn fight ,p)

Imo the entire first half of the game teaches you to do random side stuff before main quest stuff. And in the forest, if you do this, you end up confusing yourself with perfection ;p

To me, White Witch was like Eveyln, "ought to do it at some point, but not right now*" ;p

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i dont have a clue what the op is talking about. On hard i personally found cyseal quite harder than the rest due to low lv and low amount of skills.

In the Wood, i just explored as much as i can, you can go to the village, explore the area, check the map.. you know STUFF! i ended up with a small trap-riddle on the worldmap where i accidently found the spell for the witch cabine. THere you have it, the spell is just few clicks besides, otherwise just kill the mushrooms to lower the barrier.

Whats so different about that????

I decided to save the witch first in the realm that follows, after i returned the whole luccala forest was a piece of cake.

But go on, uninstall the game just because it turned out that its ACTUALLY imbalance and unfair even on easy just because you play bad or lazy... Its totally their fault lol

Last edited by Actionhanz; 08/07/14 07:24 PM.
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Originally Posted by Actionhanz
i dont have a clue what the op is talking about. On hard i personally found cyseal quite harder than the rest due to low lv and low amount of skills.

In the Wood, i just explored as much as i can, you can go to the village, explore the area, check the map.. you know STUFF! i ended up with a small trap-riddle on the worldmap where i accidently found the spell for the witch cabine. THere you have it, the spell is just few clicks besides, otherwise just kill the mushrooms to lower the barrier.

Whats so different about that????

I decided to save the witch first in the realm that follows, after i returned the whole luccala forest was a piece of cake.

But go on, uninstall the game just because it turned out that its ACTUALLY imbalance and unfair even on easy just because you play bad or lazy... Its totally their fault lol

But... you're confirming that your experience mirrored the OP's. You had no idea what to do next; you just wandered around randomly and happened to find the solution by accident.

Far as I remember, it's not established that killing the mushrooms will lower the barrier, and doing that sure made no sense to me, since it seemed to me like they were some sorts of creatures that the white witch had taken under her protection, like she seemed to be all about doing. I don't see why I would kill them.

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Originally Posted by eRe4s3r
Not for everyone, and that's the problem wink Evelyns cave also had a map marker, and you would die horrible if you went there first thing. (if not at Dietmar, then in the Evelyn fight ,p)

Imo the entire first half of the game teaches you to do random side stuff before main quest stuff. And in the forest, if you do this, you end up confusing yourself with perfection ;p

To me, White Witch was like Eveyln, "ought to do it at some point, but not right now*" ;p

I agree BUT then again I disagree. It's true that you don't have to go to White Witch's cabin first. But enemy scale should just lead you there. Larian designed the game that way that you could always evaluate for yourself if you are at the "right" spot. If enemies are more than one or two levels above you you're probably "wrong" and should follow anther quest. In the end that leads automatically to the White Witch quest in Luculla forest. And even the search for the remove barrier spell works the same way. The only group of enemies in Luculla forest which is on level 10/11 is the one where you can find the spell. Every other enemy on the map is at least level 12 which is a clear indication that you should do something else first when you enter the forest on level 9 or 10 yourself... wink

Larian did a really good job in indirectly leading your way once you've understood the system. It's not classic hand-holding in the traditional way but it's "systemic" guiding. smile

Last edited by LordCrash; 08/07/14 08:11 PM.

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Originally Posted by Simulacrum
Originally Posted by Actionhanz
i dont have a clue what the op is talking about. On hard i personally found cyseal quite harder than the rest due to low lv and low amount of skills.

In the Wood, i just explored as much as i can, you can go to the village, explore the area, check the map.. you know STUFF! i ended up with a small trap-riddle on the worldmap where i accidently found the spell for the witch cabine. THere you have it, the spell is just few clicks besides, otherwise just kill the mushrooms to lower the barrier.

Whats so different about that????

I decided to save the witch first in the realm that follows, after i returned the whole luccala forest was a piece of cake.

But go on, uninstall the game just because it turned out that its ACTUALLY imbalance and unfair even on easy just because you play bad or lazy... Its totally their fault lol

But... you're confirming that your experience mirrored the OP's. You had no idea what to do next; you just wandered around randomly and happened to find the solution by accident.

Far as I remember, it's not established that killing the mushrooms will lower the barrier, and doing that sure made no sense to me, since it seemed to me like they were some sorts of creatures that the white witch had taken under her protection, like she seemed to be all about doing. I don't see why I would kill them.


Thats correct, if i wouldnt have found that spellcroll i would be lost for some time. But if youexplore everything on the map that is in your level range you find anything you need. Which i did, why not cause to be honest, the game isnt THAT BIG that you really can get lost. Its kinda smallscale. There are also some hints that lead you to that scroll in the town, just cant remeber since i didnt put much attention to it.

edit: One thing that might screw you up is if you have no single character with high perception. I dont know the the perception test for progress related secrets, but if someone runs without a secret/trap searcher its his own fault. It was like the first thing i realized with lv 3 or so that i need at least one guy who can detect anything in the world. Maybe they could have made a more direct tutorial to this mechanic...even its quite obvious, and im not a big divine player. I finished no other game than divinity from the series.

Last edited by Actionhanz; 08/07/14 08:27 PM.
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Originally Posted by LordCrash
Have you looked at your map? The cabin has quest marker once you've talked to the NPC at beginning of Luculla forest... wink


Playing co-op with a friend neither of us ever had a map marker for it. We just kind of eventually stumbled upon it. The mushrooms gave a vague answer as to where to find the scroll and I figured we'd find it doing some other quest just as you had to go through other places to continue the main story in act 1.

Originally Posted by LordCrash
OF course you COULD do other stuff first. But in the end, you'll see that enemies are too strong for your party or not balanced to your party elsewhere. So following the White Witch quest just seems to be the next reasonable step...


The level 12 enemies were considerably easier than I expected them to be and made me think "Well maybe they just jump 2 levels for no reason?"

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Originally Posted by Tyhan
Originally Posted by LordCrash
Have you looked at your map? The cabin has quest marker once you've talked to the NPC at beginning of Luculla forest... wink


Playing co-op with a friend neither of us ever had a map marker for it. We just kind of eventually stumbled upon it. The mushrooms gave a vague answer as to where to find the scroll and I figured we'd find it doing some other quest just as you had to go through other places to continue the main story in act 1.

That's maybe a bug I guess. But anyway, the cabin is not really hard to find and the NPCs guide you the way...

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Originally Posted by LordCrash
OF course you COULD do other stuff first. But in the end, you'll see that enemies are too strong for your party or not balanced to your party elsewhere. So following the White Witch quest just seems to be the next reasonable step...


The level 12 enemies were considerably easier than I expected them to be and made me think "Well maybe they just jump 2 levels for no reason?"

Well, at least when you meet the level 14 spiders in the north you should think about doing something else or going somewhere else. wink

Last edited by LordCrash; 08/07/14 08:33 PM.

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Originally Posted by LordCrash


Larian did a really good job in indirectly leading your way once you've understood the system. It's not classic hand-holding in the traditional way but it's "systemic" guiding. smile


Problem with systemic guiding is that 2 levels difference made no difference to me, I honestly thought Larian wanted to give us a real challenge for once where we couldn't steam roll and control every battle but had to think... I am not bad at these kind games ,p I just completely missed the scroll and didn't want to kill the shrooms. but hey, I had a very pleasing experience in Hiberheim when I did that .. I was level 16 at the boss fight there... and I outleveled most enemies from then on out.

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Originally Posted by eRe4s3r
Originally Posted by LordCrash


Larian did a really good job in indirectly leading your way once you've understood the system. It's not classic hand-holding in the traditional way but it's "systemic" guiding. smile


Problem with systemic guiding is that 2 levels difference made no difference to me, I honestly thought Larian wanted to give us a real challenge for once where we couldn't steam roll and control every battle but had to think... I am not bad at these kind games ,p I just completely missed the scroll and didn't want to kill the shrooms. but hey, I had a very pleasing experience in Hiberheim when I did that .. I was level 16 at the boss fight there... and I outleveled most enemies from then on out.


As I've said: if enemies two levels above you are too easy you should think about playing the game on hard. wink

I agree that what I said wasn't that obvious from the beginning but after playing the game for more than 100 hours in total now it's obvious.

And of course you can have fun with unleveld enemies, no question. But then there is nothing to complain about. hahaha

Last edited by LordCrash; 08/07/14 10:22 PM.

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Well, I am not complaining and I did play on hard.. but Lonewolf rogue, madora and me as 26int mage was a great combo it seems wink IT was actually a real good experience to play the game the wrong way.. felt good. But I can see that others may not have had much fun with that.

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This is one of many results from the fact that this is a much more old school RPG.

Everything has a set level, and the game doesn't try to go out of its way to force you in the right direction: You have to explore, read and talk to people.

For example, when you finally leave Cyseal after defeating the evil boss, your main mission is 'find the white witch'. So you explore to find her. You find a barrier, but no way to clear it...or is there? I think inside Silverglen you can find out someone has a spell to remove it (which I found 'by accident' as I was exploring the forest). But you can also talk to your Imp at End of Time: he can tell you how to remove the barrier without the spell.

I just went through the mines. The death knights are ALWAYS invulnerable when you go there on your first go. They are supposed to be invulnerable. I used invisibility skills to sneak one of my party through the whole thing, leaving the other two at the portal near the entrance. When I eventually found a second portal with my sneaking rogue, I used the portal to have my party reform. The bit with the death knights isn't overly long, and invisibility skills/spells/potions really make you understand how little use sneaking really is in the long run.

I share your idea about rangers. They have good skills, but their normal attacks seem to be very weak, and I don't know whether that's because I'm not sneaking or their auto attack damage is just terribly low.

All in all, this isn't so much about character choices as it is about analyzing the information you have and (if necessary) doing some exploration to find your next goal. The game has some bugs and whatnot, but it's perfectly doable. Answers are sometimes just hard to find, and that was intended.

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For bows to do bigger damage... players need to invest skill points into them.

Also, specific enemies have specific resistances against arrows or daggers, for example.
The higher level of enemies the higher their stats. Of course.

Which is why you need those points spent on bows.



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If you ask zickzak about the White which, he will tell you "kill the mushroms near their hut to destroy the barrier".
So you can reach the hut and the Ice land without find maradino.

I also stumble around! fount Level 18 enemies as I have Level 14, no Chance! Need to come back later.

In homestaed you sometimes can buy books for skill Points! Many Thanks to Larian! It's great!
Very interestin game! Need to Play again, do seach for a better way. But for this first time, it is nice to look around to find a solution. "Easy Modus" is also great! But Level 14 against Level 18 isn't easy also in "easy mode"

My Ranger is sometimes the best figther at all. (bow=5!) She can make 4 shoots! I never used any special arrow, or any other spell then "tactical jump" for her.

Last edited by Alix; 09/07/14 05:49 AM.

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Originally Posted by recluce
I made it through Cyseal without too much difficulty and found the game balance to be quite good.

Not so in Luculla Forrest. First, you run around without much of a clue what to do. Still haven't found the spell to release the barrier for the white witch.

The tasks that you get, you cannot finish.

"Invulnerable Death Knights", WTF? So no go in the mines.

"Desert Slowdown" - hard time with the spiders. No fun.

Fight against the Immaculate Priests - impossible to win for me. Even though I have pretty good resistance, the whole party gets frozen, stunned, whatever. Once you manage to kill one of the freaks, he comes right back with a resurrection spell. And that was on "easy".

Everything but mages appears to be bloody useless. No matter what the dexterity, damage level of the bow, a ranger does no damage in a fight like that with the Immaculate priests. Summoned creatures, useless (get dealt 9000 damage in one attack. Jahan is useless as well here.

I played through Divine Divinity, Beyond Divinity and Dragon Knight Saga and had a lot of fun with each of them.

D:OS is fun while in Cyseal (even though it is kind of slow to start), after that it is just frustrating.

I guess I will uninstall and forget about Larian Games for the future. Yes, maybe my character balancing was not ideal - but with 50+ hours of game time up to this point, where I am stuck, I just cannot justify the time to restart. I still have a life. In the past, even an average gamer could have fun with Larian games, even if character choices might not have been the best. D:OS is pure frustration past Cyseal.



Sounds like the OP just didn't try to solve any of the problems he was presented with, he just tried to steamroll through the zone.

For starters he should have followed the games prompts and set about freeing the white witch taking him to hiberheim and getting him some more levels making the rest of Lucella balanced.

Gets a bit annoying when someone misses something and then blames the game for being unbalanced instead of just admitting their own mistake.

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I really do think the White Witch quest needs some adjustments. Just an extra hint or two should suffice. A LOT of people have been having issues with this part of the game, and it almost killed it for me to be honest. I was very frustrated that (I thought) my characters were under leveled for the area. I finally was able to piece together what I needed to do, and went on to Hiberheim.

It's a serious issue, and while I understand not everyone has had problem, I have seen this crop up on this forum, and others enough to realize that it should really be addressed.

I personally think an extra hint or two about the Barrier removal scroll, and something when your characters reach the portal, would suffice.

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Originally Posted by LordCrash

OF course you COULD do other stuff first. But in the end, you'll see that enemies are too strong for your party or not balanced to your party elsewhere. So following the White Witch quest just seems to be the next reasonable step...


It brings back memories of stumbling into the Basilisks or Ankhegs @ 2nd or 3rd level in Baldur's Gate. Surprise!

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I registered to say this:

I'm level 13-14 now and have basically cleared out most if not all of Luculla Forest and the mines
(including fighting the spider queen while I was level 11, though I had to go down to Normal from Hard)

and yet I still haven't found the way to get the barrier down. I did find and get through the trapped cliff and looted the chest, but to get away I used Tactical Retreat because I didn't realize it was a pressure plate/thought the [b]entire area[/b] would trigger the lava. So now my only choice is to kill the mushrooms? or come back when I get over 100 fire resist to... dig?

I've had no problems with the non-linearity of the game so far and wandered around in Cyseal killing things 2 levels ahead of me no problem and did almost all the quests out of order, but Find the White Witch! really does give no clues. The entry in the quest log is basically useless, the mushrooms tell you something useless or worse than useless, talking to Zixzax now doesn't tell me anything (I play with a co-op partner so maybe he triggered the "kill the mushrooms line" and didn't bother to mention it to me as a good portion of the dialogue in the game is pointless flavour text).

So despite being able to brush off everything else and still enjoy the game (and I still do), this white witch/beginning of Luculla is pretty unpolished and somewhat of a disappointment, especially in retrospect. All we can hope is that Larian considers different perspectives for QC on future releases. Actual sloppiness is not the same as "not hand-holding." Like a person trying to pass off every typo they make as "it's good for their language learning skills to be able to parse imperfect information! that includes poor spelling!"

...so am I going to be punished by experiencing Hiberheim enemies as below my level now?

Protip for Larian, dev to dev: make weaker enemies scale with your as you level; that way you can still grind to face higher leveled enemies "before you should" for the challenge and awesomeness but doesn't trivialize the now-lower-leveled-area and make it boring.

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The change-up between Cyseal and Luculla is an issue; the 'intended' plot path seems to be to go to Hiberheim and explore there (which works) rather than exploring Luculla first (which produces mixed results), but the current setup for entering the cabin means that people are either forced to do the latter or consult a walkthrough. The clues *aren't* really enough to point you to at least the general area of the scroll and the mushroom solution isn't obvious either. Nor is it obvious that you can ask Zixzax about it. He only provides help in the rare case that a quest script specifically calls for it and it's clearly telegraphed every other time, so players aren't likely to think "I should ask Zixzax" when they're stuck on this one.

If nothing else, the statement about the stashed scroll should indicate the general area where the players should look. "The trickster Maradino... on a hill somewhere near here!" would be a LOT more helpful (the former hinting at the whole trap arrangement, the latter telling the player pretty clearly that it's not going to be found somewhere clear across the map).

Aside from that, Luculla also feels unfocused in part because it is. In the Cyseal map you had a big central hub and everything else (both physically and plot-wise) radiated out from it in an internally consistent fashion. Luculla has Silverglen, but it doesn't really serve as a hub for the map, and the various points of interest/relevance are scattered haphazardly all over the place. This isn't necessarily bad in itself, but it's easy to see how that would lead to players feeling lost if they've just come from the Cyseal region.

There isn't really a clean solution to this, but if NPCs in the region - ESPECIALLY in Silverglen - were willing to give directions and/or a description of the major features of the region, it would help a bit. As it stands you can easily leave Silverglen the mining town without any idea of how to reach its mines!

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yep, having the same problem. getting killed in the forest.

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I noted this in my big long issues list as well. I agree that it's confusing where you're supposed to go. I did a lot of the same things too. I

At the start the main quest seems to be directing you to Silverglen, so I did that and joined the Immaculates, but realized something was wrong when I was sent to an area with level 14's. I went the other way and encountered a lone level 12 orc scout. I beat the fight, but the difficulty of it convinced me that was also the wrong way to go.

I kept exploring, and then found the actual direction you're supposed to go is the white witch's cabin. The problem isn't that you're not exploring properly, it's that the game gives you signposts which go the wrong way.

Larian tried to make an open world, but in practical terms, the difference levels make had it turn out a lot more linear than they were expecting.

***

About the barrier-removal spell

Oddly enough, if you SUCCEED in solving the mushroom's riddles, you get a WORSE hint than if you FAIL. If you pass, all the mushroom says is "some wizard wanted to make the barrier go away". That is IT. Nothing else. From that, though, you get a quest log entry that says "Maradino might have stashed a barrier-removal spell somewhere around the forest".

First, that doesn't follow from what was actually said. Second, it's not helpful.

If you fail the riddles and have to take extra steps, and threaten the fungi, then they cough up something along the lines of "I think maybe it was hidden between the two troll-guarded bridges". That IS helpful information, but it doesn't make it into your quest log!

***

I can also agree that the Death Knights stealth section is problematic, and those who can't sneak and sneak fast get caught easily.

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