Forum posts to 'General Discussion'

Re: Is Speed too important?

Padok — Sat, 04 Jan 2014 12:17:19 +0000

Speed is important, but not too important. More battles with high speed score in HoF bored me. I smash everything. In some fight I give extra Speed point to my oponents - this isn't a cheat . May be have to write rule that monsters will have more Speed in Hard level in the game.

In LoS I play with Padok who have 13 sp. In some moments with 14 sp. But speed ability give me more cheerful battles. I take items with low speed point and abilities that give me more fun.

P.S. The battles in LoS is more hard than HoF and more number. In the next book I hope more than 100 or 110 battles.

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Re: Is Speed too important?

Da Boss — Tue, 20 Aug 2013 14:52:11 +0100

Welcome to the forum Sharpeye!

I agree with you that the 'stash' idea is not a perfect solution - but at the same time, I didn't feel that the Heart of Fire (where stashes are introduced) requires you to stockpile lots of equipment. The stash is used again in Book Three, but again - it is there as an extra rather than being integral to the game.

However, with Book Four (if there is a Book Four!) I want to introduce a much deeper, strategic style of gameplay and to complement that I will probably allow you to carry extra equipment in your backpack, to swap before a combat begins. In that way, you can tailor your abilities to each opponent. This may link to certain resistances for example.

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Re: Is Speed too important?

Sharpeye Swift — Mon, 19 Aug 2013 12:45:28 +0100

Matthew, could you intoduce some kind of item that lets you put clothing/weapons in your backpack? It makes sense, and means that players could switch tacics in the game for a special monster or hang on to 'set' weapons (like Clymonystra's Adornments) until they get the pair.

I don't think a 'stash' would work - things get too fiddly and the Act thing mucks it up - but I think putting weapons in the backpack could make the game more tactical and fun.

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Re: Is Speed too important?

DQ_Joe — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 22:06:54 +0100

My stats after beating Sharroth were: SPD - 16, MGC - 23, BWN - 0, ARM - 1. (As you can see, I opted for Mage). I'm starting to see a pattern with this speed over powering business. I pretty much wiped the floor with anything I came across.

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Re: Is Speed too important?

Slloyd14 — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 11:59:33 +0100

Any ability that determines whether you hit an opponent in combat or not is likely to be the most important in any gamebook (unless the book itself has lots of situations where non combat stats are important. The closest I can think of is The Screaming Spectre by Dave Morris where the correct use of spells means that you avoid most combats. Also the Citadel of Chaos (FF2) is OK with a low skill if you have a high enough magic score and the correct choice of spells and so is the Sorcery! series as long as you have, once again, the correct choice of spells)

In Fighting Fantasy books, where skill is the combat attribute, you could complete most of them with a maximum skill score even if all of your other scores are at their miniumum, but some books might become impossible, even if you max out every stat apart from skill and have your skill at a medium value.

As mentioned above, the importance of speed is balanced out by the need to be able to overcome an opponent's armour and inflict damage on them too meaning that speed does not have a monopoly on being successful in combat (whereas in Fighting Fantasy books, skill is the only stat you need in combat and if you have a low skill, then you are stuffed.)

In terms of difference is speeds and how likely you are to win, if your speed is below an opponent's speed by 3 or more, then you are unlikely to win the combat.

The table here - http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_kHBgD4ZFvTs/TLdCSq-EcnI/AAAAAAAAAAU/zUlZelBZcXU/s1600/Probabilities+table.bmp

shows the probability of winning, drawing and losing a round depending on the differences in your speed (it says skill because I did it for Fighting Fantasy but the same principles apply.)

If your speed is 3 below an opponent's then you only have a 15% chance of winning a round.

You might be able to win a straight fight if your speed is 2 below an opponents and since this is Destiny Quest where you could have tons of stat boosting items and abilities, if you enter the combat with the right stuff, you could win.

I think Michael has done a great job with adding abilities and items that make winning combats possible even if your speed is lower than an opponents. Issues with legendary monsters may be resolved with the right strategy in the book or it may require some minor tweaking.

However, the idea of having a store place is great as that means that you could focus your abilities in order to fight different opponents. That is something that I would like to see.

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Re: Is Speed too important?

Tisamon — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 23:54:44 +0100

The arena chain and the legendary monsters can't be completed until your hero is at the end of that act. Vesuvius and Barkrot you might be able to do earlier but the others will just cream you. Do ALL the quests then worry about trying to kill them

**spoiler**
The other sword is in the cave in Unicorns Horn. Random dice roll so you might not get that route.

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Re: Is Speed too important?

RRS — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 22:27:36 +0100

Well , i just realize that most legendary fights (in act 2) is not needed at all by warrior . Whats the points to fight an assasin - nothing, same to snapjaw - the alchemyst gain rewards here. As for Nasalem - it is a funny , i actually tried him before go to vampire quest. So i go to vampire quest, wiped the floor with vampires(no one ever hit me once) i change two items with same stats but different skills - gain last laught (reroll enemy dices) and changed charm to life spark (4 hp with every double). With this skill finaly tip the balance in my favour with Nasalem. I take some sword from him and lose pierce but gain one more speed and brawn (b.t.w. Do you know where to find the second sword Ivory?)and now have 11 speed 11 brawn and 5 armour. Yet to try blue and red quest and hoping for some boost. However Dragon and the final Gladiator fight still looks impossible. Mushrooms are option but rule that after only 2 round the lower your speed for the whole fight stop me from using them.

How do you play warrior with only 10 speed?

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Re: Is Speed too important?

StarScream — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 17:39:06 +0100

i don't think you're supposed to be able to defeat everything with a single build. I found that some encounters were harder with some classes than others. The legendary and epic bosses are optional and the arena combats. Something to come back to next time. thats what i did.

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Re: Is Speed too important?

Mother Lode — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 16:05:57 +0100

I'm not sure but I think 10 is about the max for warriors in act 2. That is what both my warrior heroes were when I completed act 2.

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Re: Is Speed too important?

typhon — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 15:46:27 +0100

I played warrior and weren't easy going. I think I did have better speed than that at the end of second map. Sunken City had some speed boost items if I remember like the cloak and some of the weapons. Then I used the potions & mushrroms to get through any tougher fights.

Nas is hard for warrs because he ignores armour. id say the dragon and the other fire boss are the harder fights in the game but they are optional and epic so i suppose they meant to be!

career might have an impact. Ranger much easier to play than gladiator!

To Lonewolf - I would take the damage item if you are playing a mage.

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Re: Is Speed too important?

RRS — Tue, 31 May 2011 23:23:12 +0100

Is it even possible to be a warrior and have 12 speed in act 2? I finish all quests on map , beat Vesuvius and yet - only 10 speed. (and Nasalem the gladiator and Dragon wiped the floor with me). minus 2 or 3 speed doens't seem big deal in first glance but when you realize than two dices have 36 possible combination for 11 sums even 1 or 2 point up change the chances drasticly.
I take a look to items of all legendary monster - to my surprise no item is imroving anything (for warrior) more than i already have.

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Re: Is Speed too important?

LoneWolf — Tue, 31 May 2011 21:36:51 +0100

Yes I think you are right.

Currently debating whether I take an item to give me +1 speed extra, but at the cost of 4 dmg. Not an easy decision. It makes me wish there was a "stash" so I could have a sideboard of items to try out!!

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Re: Is Speed too important?

Da Boss — Mon, 30 May 2011 20:05:39 +0100

There is no getting away from the fact that speed is an incredibly important attribute. But, like all things, you want to balance it with your damage attribute (magic or brawn). Winning lots of combat rounds can feel 'overpowered', but against high armour opponents you will just be chipping away at their health if your other attributes are low. If that opponent also has passives in play, then sometimes you need to defeat opponents and take off their health as soon as possible.

Silicon Spirit is correct - you should keep your speed the same as the mobs you are fighting or 1 or 2 above, unless you are a warrior - then the dynamics are different.

Each to their own. DQ is designed for a lot of customisation.

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Re: Is Speed too important?

silicon spirit — Mon, 30 May 2011 09:17:36 +0100

I agree with you lonewolf that once I started focusing on speed as my main sttribute I was able to make much easier progress in the game. Speed decides if you win combat so it is really a no brainer I think. I never found it overpowered, I always just stay 1 point ahead of the current level of monsters. I think the game could get boring if you had high speed to win everything but very low damage dealing abilities.

I'm playing a warrior through now and I am finding that I need to be less reliant on speed because of the "payback" skills where it benefits me to lose rounds to do damage. It gets more interesting to play the game that way and play around with the full range of abilities.

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Is Speed too important?

LoneWolf — Mon, 30 May 2011 03:29:05 +0100

Having replayed the book with a Mage I decided to focus on SPEED at the expense of all other items (my Rogue met somewhat of a dead-end having wasted a lot of SPEED items when he was trying to switch from a high MAGIC score to BRUTE.

In Act 2 my speed is now 13 which allows me a competitive advantage against most foes (usually in the +1 to +3 range). I wondering whether Speed is a little too powerful, as it seems the first choice with any item selection is whether it gives me the same or higher speed advantage. An item has to be incredible for me to take it if it would reduce my skill. Once you get to a speed difference of 3 or more it seems the battle is all but decided.

I was wondering whether that issue might be solved with changing the combat dice rolled – maybe to 3d6 or something. That way there would be a slightly higher element of luck involved and the Speed bonus would be proportionately less useful. Any thoughts?

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