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vometia Offline OP
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Rivendell? I think I lost my way. Dingley Dell, maybe. Or was it Avalon? No, Rivellon, that was it: the ancient name meaning "Land of Many Cheeses".

So, er, anyway. Where was I? A bit of a stupid question as I clearly don't know where I am now. Where am I, then? I think I've just about figured that out.

After attempting to address some questions about The Divine's Best Divinity Game I realised I'd forgotten more than I could remember. And one of the things I'd forgotten is just how long it is since I've played it. No wonder I've forgotten so much stuff. So there it is, lolling at me in the most cheesy way, and as I have literally nothing else to play (this seems to be more true than is reasonable, even if it is largely due to my not-very-particularly gaming requirements) and the past couple of games I've played had no current capacity for modding nor general interference, how could I say no?

For the record, "the last couple of games" being The Outer Worlds and Greedfall: both thoroughly enjoyable; and at a glance both of which seem conspicuously amenable to modding and general interference, but nobody has figured it out yet. True, there was little progress with ED/DKS but it is possible and I've just written reams of crap about how to do it, but now my head hurts and I'm not in the mood to figure out anything else, including which way is up.

[Linked Image]
"argh, I seem to have landed amidst a pile of flailing limbs!"


So here I am. I remember bits of it but realise I have forgotten most of it, so it's just like RL, then. So far I've ambled around Farglow and wimbled around Broken Valley leaving a certain degree of chaos in my wake. In hindsight I've realised I've screwed up several times already, which is again like RL. The various screw-ups include but are not limited to telling the simultaneously over-zealous but apparently also quite bone idle town guard superiors that the bandits are in the well-known bandit hide-out. Who'd'a thunk? Well not me, apparently, as I'm now stuck with various useless crap in my rucksack that I can't get rid of and I'm now down a trader. Unless the trader is that scruffy woman who smells of armpits who unexpectedly turned up on the 2nd floor of The Boar's Arse (I think the floor numbering works for both English and US audiences in this case as it's a weird sort of grotto place).

[Linked Image]
"Argh, I'm feeling unexpectedly skinny! Why couldn't I have
landed in a place that specialises in cheeses, pies and beer?"


Let me count the ways in which I have screwed up. Actually I can't, and not just because my numbering scheme is mostly limited to "none, one, some". Mostly because my career is careering about from one unplanned disaster to the next. See also not using the scrying globe, for instance, though I did feel like it was looking at me funny.

[Linked Image]
"Are you looking at me funny? Also please note that I did not say 'argh' this time. Argh."
"No, I am looking at you in East European. Which means suspiciously, at least in your case."


Er anyway. Things happen, things don't happen, and many of the things that did or didn't happen shouldn't've had have done.

After very much dithering I am now on Sentinel Island.

[Linked Image]
"Nice pillar. Nobody seems to be making much use of it so can I take it
home and use it as a pedestal for my cheeseboard? You can keep the mood
lighting though, that sucks."


Er, ANYWAY. I am now on Senile Island having dithered a lot as I'm not especially looking forward to either The Decisions nor The Aftermath. But there's only so much traipsing I can do. I've already taken the decision with Lord Lovis (why is part of my brain now playing a miner's brass band trying to insist that Horde Hovis would be amusing?) and have cast his very being into the eternal soup of damnation thanks to being a complete rotter. I did want to think that maybe I could go for another approach but he seemed way too much "lol I got away with it lol. Also lol. An eternity of fun debauchery and torturing for me. lol!" so I reloaded and had him pwned.

But now I have the much more difficulter decisions about who I need to deal with on Sentinel Island. I know it ultimately doesn't make that much difference, not least as, now I'm playing the revised version, I'm dying very much less on normal difficulty than I was on easy with ED, so it really comes down to who gets a chance. Kenneth never got a chance and I recall his story is actually very sad. I've always chosen Hermosa but tbh she seems slightly desperate. Well, I meanshe is. Then there's Barbatos and Allan. But I recall from previous games that if anything after hiring, Barbatos was actually more personable. Wesson and Radcliff... well I always choose Wesson. Radcliff may be better at weapons but I need to maintain my armour, and how can I deal with Wesson's missus pleading with me in Brummie? And I'm feeling like I'm not fulfilling my duty of care with the two necromancers but I've chosen the one who didn't have a penchant for poisoning people.

Anyway. The main difficulties for me at the moment are Allan/Barbatos (more inclined to go with the latter as I have a vague and possibly inaccurate memory of Allan seeming a bit "lol I got away with it" whereas Barbatos really got into the role) and Hermosa/Kenneth. I think I really need to give Kenneth a chance as I've never picked him before.

[Linked Image]
"Oh, just make your bloody mind up. I have a glorious adventure in cheese
awaiting if only you'd get on with it."


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vometia Offline OP
Duchess of Gorgombert
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Still exploring randomly while I'm putting off making The Decision (well, and more pointless modding and... pretty much anything to prevaricate: this has to be the worst bit of the game in terms of not really liking the enforced moral dubiousness).

Anyway, one thing that's been bugging me is that plateau area south-east of the Tribal Shrine: there's nothing there and though technically it should be explorable someone's put an invisible wall in the way. But the map makes it look as if it should be a playable area so I'm assuming that it was intended that there'd be something there that was either cut or never started?


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vometia Offline OP
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Well I have made The Decision. I wouldn't say so much out of sheer ruthlessness but that it is pretty much foisted on you unless you decide to take pot luck and deal with the experience etc hit that results. In this instance I'm still feeling I was a bit ruthless as I decided to go for the options that would give me the best outcome, in spite of the fact that DKS is nowhere near as difficult as the original incarnation of ED: I found myself being pwned constantly when I first played, even on the easiest difficulty setting (and I happily admit that I'm crap at combat, but that's not really the point: the point is that the consistent factor is me, and I doubt my tactics have especially improved, especially after years of forgetfulness) whereas on the normal difficulty setting it's not really happening: the few times I have died have been mostly due to sheer clumsiness. Well, and misadventure, but y'know.

So the choices were: Barbatos: poor Allen, but his attempt to rubbish Barbatos albeit enormously inflated ego weren't great, and I need that +5 INT because hurrr. But I still feel bad because Barbatos is various words that sound like his name and are less complementary whereas Allen is a kid out of his depth and may have great potential (for the record, I've previously hired both of them). Edit: and I also recall that Barbatos was very much less rude later on.

Hermosa, again. Poor Kenneth, I feel more sucky about this than anything. But Hermosa's training is more useful to me as are the various benefits and forfeits of their respective quests. But I have made a permanent save.

Tweedledum and Tweedledee: I chose the one who wasn't quite so enthusiastic about poisoning his superiors, neighbours and anyone else in his way.

Strait-laced Welshman vs. unruly Irishman: Wesson got chosen yet again. I found him and his Brummie missus much more amenable and he does better armour, which is quite important for the likes of me who goes wading in without thinking and then needs to quickly bugger off with some protection from being pwned.

I've also had the warning to finish any unfinished business. I don't think there is anything, given the amount of traipsing, though a final visit to the Derelict Tunnels revealed all sorts of stuff like deposits I'd missed and that I hadn't obtained the albeit not very useful Amulet of the North. I dare say there's other stuff that's passed me by.

But what did strike me is the "hour by hour, the skies darken" comment, or however it went, which I suspect was as literal as it was melodramatic, and it reinforces my belief that the citizens of Broken Valley would've had fair warning of what their future held and many would've buggered off while the buggering off was good. I recall from the cut-scene that there was a lot of anguish and I dare say many would've resolutely stood firm, but I reckon a good number would've got away, especially with the Zep parked right outside. I also realise I'd forgotten about the handy shrines and wonder why the various travellers didn't use them more. Maybe they did, but needed (or just wanted) to visit other places on the way.

Last edited by vometia; 30/11/19 04:56 PM.

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vometia Offline OP
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At this stage what I would really like is the enormous informational popup in my inventory to kindly not pop up unless I ask. Is there any way to turn it off? It's quite hard to do a comparison with equipped, erm, equipment when all the stats are covered with Ye Olde Wall O'text.


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vometia Offline OP
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Originally Posted by vometia
At this stage what I would really like is the enormous informational popup in my inventory to kindly not pop up unless I ask. Is there any way to turn it off? It's quite hard to do a comparison with equipped, erm, equipment when all the stats are covered with Ye Olde Wall O'text.

And to answer my own question, I found out by accident: click on the slot in the paper-doll bit and it gives a selection of the relevant bits of equipment whose popups no longer obscure the stats.


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vometia Offline OP
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Another really "obvious" thing I never realised until now: I can ditch all my ingredients and stuff in my storage chest and still access them from the crafting stations/people/etc so I don't need to lug them all around cluttering up my inventory.

Meanwhile, outside of the tower I've just done Orobas' tomb and dealt with the group of pillocks. For a bunch of idiots, I needed a lot of health potions to get through that encounter... I'm sure that's another one that must've been ramped up in DKS.


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Charms need to be in the character inventory to use; alchemy and enchantment ingredients do not (I kept malachite gems on my character, though, to more easily keep track of them).

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vometia Offline OP
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I assumed (those two words are already guilty of so much, so I shouldn't) that anything in the consumables tab needs to be in your inventory so fortunately I didn't have to traipse through the throne room to go and collect them again! But I have just been reminded that there's a divine category of charm, having just blessed all of my equipment with the sub-standard sort. Well that's not really true, I did so a long time back and it's been a lot of help so I can't really grumble about it too much! I'm assuming there's no way to remove a charm, as permanence is part of their, erm, charm.

I'm also assuming there's no way to remove Tagos' axe and the assortment of other detritus I've collected. I'm tired of seeing the ugly green specimen in my inventory!


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vometia Offline OP
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I've spent much of the morning mooching around Stone's fortress. Well, by "mooching" I mean "killing things". And sometimes being lightly killed myself.

But all that time spent in the ruddy darkness with the Serious Businessâ„¢ music blaring away at me... I have a headache now and my eyes have gone all funny. Still, I've collected several levels and more loot than you can shake a stick at: much of it very good so now I have the additional headache of deciding what I want to keep and what I may as well flog, which always makes me feel uncomfortable as I keep on getting the "are you sure?!" thing and I'm not sure why. Talking of which, does unenchanting stuff before selling do anything useful other than learning recipes you don't yet know? I suppose I should also check to see it's not adversely affecting the sale price for no benefit.

Going back to the subject of stuff I can never remember, the arena battle with Stone. Or rather with Stone's mates: first round with the troll and demon was easy enough, second with the floating-goblin-head-orb-thing and the memory-eater was much less so, with me being repeatedly one-shotted until I remembered to summon my creature who got one-shotted instead. Poor thing. It does have some disgusting habits though. Er anyway, Stone himself was trivial in comparison.

I feel somewhat driven to do the other forts but it's too much and I need more greenery. I need to at least come up for air a bit more often. But now I have inventory hell. Still not as bad as Mass Effect.


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vometia Offline OP
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Hmm, getting the same problem with Ba'al that I had with Stone's arena fight in that I'm getting one-shotted right at the beginning. Except this time the summon doesn't work because he just does it again once it's been wiped out.

I'm curious what sort of attack this is: I have almost 1,000 HP and (IMHO) very good armour yet I'm being hit with a series of blasts in very quick succession which reduce my health from 100% to zero. Is it really meant to be this difficult? I don't remember it being a problem previously, not even with DKS.


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vometia Offline OP
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Hmm. I know that the Divinity series has a deserved reputation for being difficult for the unwary, and I admit I'm kind of the definition of "the unwary" as well as being unprepared, not tactically-minded and a bit rubbish at combat, but I'm finding myself being repeatedly one-shotted (or at most two-shot) across several different encounters, e.g. Zagan or rather his minions, Stone's second set of arena guests and now Ba'al. I'm honestly flummoxed: I don't think I'm at too low a level and my HP and armour seem decent so I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong. Here's my stats box in case anyone can spot what I'm just failing to see, but I can't last more than a couple of seconds in any of these encounters even taking maximum-strength health potions and preparing myself with the "extreme" armour potion.

[Linked Image]

Edit: these are the dual-wielding stats, the ranged ones have more dexterity and HP and less strength, but make absolutely no difference to the outcome which is certain death should I come out of hiding long enough to take a single shot.

Also worth mentioning that, though I've used my actually hard-as-nails creature as a sort of "bullet sponge", even he gets insta-killed and the next one will take me out too.

Last edited by vometia; 05/12/19 03:59 PM.

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Seems like it's a known bug and the answer is to use god mode. Hmm. Oh well, at least it confirms that I'm (probably) not doing something (very) wrong but I am uncomfortable about the idea as I won't necessarily know what's a bug and what just needs more preparation...


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I took the recommended approach of using god-mode but as mentioned I'm not totally happy about doing so even if it is a bug. My observation is that the bug seems to be not so much in the attack being overpowered but that there's so many of it, something like 6-10 in quick succession. Whatever attack it is it seems to be bugged in that it keeps on being executed instead of stopping after it's been cast. The same is true of both the Ba'al and Stone's battles but I think Zagan's minions are just OP as they don't have the same "machine-gun" effect.


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Thinking about it afterwards, it seems that the nature of the bug is that the spell keeps being recast on "full auto" with no cooldown until the caster's mana pool is empty. Conjecture, but it seems to describe what's happening. One blast is kinda serious but in line with combat; many blasts are really OP and few players are going to survive it. Hard to say if it's an actual bug (I'm guessing it is if reports are inconsistent, though that "until the mana pool is drained" could also explain that) or if someone had a "maybe this would be cool" idea and "actually, no it wouldn't" was lost in the post.


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Yes, charms are permanent.

Since you didn't return Tagos' axe, I think you can stash it in the battle tower chest... if you didn't try that already.

If you don't need the recipe, unenchanting equipment doesn't do anything for you, and I'm pretty sure it reduces the sell price.

For the bugged attack (most common with Ba'al, Laiken and the flying fortress generals: Ba'al. The Impossible foe?), some people reported it working fine if they left, did other things for a while and went back, or even just reloading the same save the next day and trying again.

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vometia Offline OP
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No wonder I've spent so long being skint if I'm devaluing all my equipment before selling it! I'd sort of optimistically hoped that I might get some of the ingredients back when doing so but I guess not. I haven't been doing so well on that front, especially with malachite gems in that I gave two to the blind dude (I always do, seems mean not to) and didn't mindread the woman at High Hall (Beatrice?) when accepting the quest because I, er, thought it would be confrontational. But if you do it afterwards you don't get the extra gems.

I suppose at least I got that one from Nightwinkle and her mates, a couple from traders and have found a couple more in seams and the odd chest; I think they only appear in chests with fixed contents rather than random loot though.

Tagos' axe is a pain. If you don't do the quest where it's returned to him, it's stuck in the inventory forever, it seems: can't be sold, destroyed nor stashed. Same deal with the rum, various keys and an increasingly large number of other quest items whose quests are long since finished but I'm stuck with the random tat in question...

I hadn't thought about saving, exiting and reloading. Which fixes so much stuff in so many games, and other programs for that matter.


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In the original release of Ego Draconis it wasn't too hard to get 3 gems with moderate reloading, and 4 with a lot of reloading or getting very lucky (I think I only got 4 once).
In the Dragon Knight Saga / Developer's Cut, though, those numbers drop by 1. After trying a fair bit to get 3 gems on the first malachite vein, I put a time limit on reloading, and would generally take 2 as good enough.

In the Flames of Vengeance section of the game, any quest that gives gems has a chance to give malachite gems (3 or 5, depending on the quest). I usually reloaded a few times to see if I could get malachite, but had a time limit.

I acquired about 30 malachite gems in the D2:ED section of the game (used a couple for healing auras on jewellery and 2 for Simeon), and at the end of the game had 65. If I play again, I'm going to have to be less stingy using level 10 enchantments and healing auras, or not bother reloading for malachite veins or FoV quests.

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vometia Offline OP
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I haven't even used any for healing auras yet: I guess I view them as "wasted" if I don't have a level 10 enchantment recipe, which at level 35 I still don't. I have used two in +100 damage and another in level 10 melee armour but decided that was profligate enough for now! I haven't been keeping count of how many I've acquired but I'd guess probably 10 in total (would've been 12 had I mindread Beatrice). Unless there're some I don't know of, I guess the main reason is that I'm too impatient to reload at the seams so I've been considering one gem from a malachite seam to be "lucky": nothing quite like aiming low! biggrin

Anyway, I think I'm done with the Fjords now, unless I've missed something. Which is certainly possible: I mean the moment I left Broken Valley I realised I hadn't finished Sosostra's fortune telling (mainly as I mistook the flying for becoming a dragon rather than Bellegar's mischief) and neglected to go back to wind Lovis up. Talking of Lovis tower, I wonder why Carlin is no longer available, what with being somewhat undead and above the level of deathfog you'd think he'd enjoy the company. Probably other stuff too, when I reloaded I immediately discovered various books lying around Broken Valley Village that I'd completely failed to see in all the time I was hanging around.

But I dealt with Raze (more of that elsewhere) and babysitting Zandalor was either much easier at a high level or I was unusually lucky. I left Svadilfari to last as I didn't want to lose his merchant Timpuk; as it is, I snuck off via the battle tower so I didn't have to enter combat with him but I suspect his annoyance is permanent.

I think I may cheat the flying bit of the HoE as I didn't really enjoy that bit and just end up losing my sense of direction!


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vometia Offline OP
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So now I'm in Aleroth proper. Getting here seemed to be a lot more trivial than I remembered: either my memory exaggerated how difficult and tedious the flying section was (it may have been eaten by a memory eater, after all) or it was made a lot more straightforward at some point.

The arena battles were never really a sticking point but again they were easier: mostly due to having my handy creature around, though. I need to give him a name, and I can't just keep calling everything "Dave". Er... Nigel? Nigel seems a good name for a peeing, scratching undead thing who seems more faithful dog than whatever else it is he's made of.


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Oh well, sad to see the Lanilor Lane gossips aren't the same pair as the Broken Valley Village ones, unless Sue and Peggy changed their names to Rhona and Hedda. Poo.


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