Grimoire Thread

[Lythandra]

Here he is.

 

[GandGolf]

Thank you for posting the video Cleve.....gonna get those copies now.

If you're giving free copies I'll also take one.

 

[Streaming Instability]

I think I found him:

 

[mondblut]

Just make the game throw a curveball once in a while so you have to switch your tactics and develop new ones.

Problem is, that curveball (?WASPS?, I am looking at you! ) tends to come out of nowhere and is nowhere in sight when you reload to switch your tactics. As for bosses, well, either they rape you in one turn unless you cheese bard stunlock/deep freeze/lucky crit, or they don't and simply die to lucky crit. Sure, some bosses are associated with certain invocable items that must weaken or damage them, but your fighters can't even invoke vomit on hangover morning, and your casters are already ded ded ded ded by the end of round 1, as invocation is delayed action like spellcasting. Anybody ever used amulet astrix vs samhain horror successfully, for instance?

 

[Streaming Instability]

Just make the game throw a curveball once in a while so you have to switch your tactics and develop new ones.

Problem is, that curveball (?WASPS?, I am looking at you! ) tends to come out of nowhere and is nowhere in sight when you reload to switch your tactics. As for bosses, well, either they rape you in one turn unless you cheese bard stunlock/deep freeze/lucky crit, or they don't and simply die to lucky crit. Sure, some bosses are associated with certain invocable items that must weaken or damage them, but your fighters can't even invoke vomit on hangover morning, and your casters are already ded ded ded ded by the end of round 1, as invocation is delayed action like spellcasting. Anybody ever used amulet astrix vs samhain horror successfully, for instance?

I'm not even sure what to do vs. dragonflies. Except avoid them at all costs.

 

[mondblut]

Not sure what that means or if that was a light-hearted, possibly sarcastic response, but how do you "git gud" when you're level 1, still using sticks and pencils as weapons, and combat options are rather limited?

You "git gud" when you're level 1 and using saurian claws as weapons, duh.

 

[cvv]

As for bosses, well, either they rape you in one turn unless you cheese bard stunlock/deep freeze/lucky crit, or they don't and simply die to lucky crit.

So all Grimoire bosses are basically Beasts of a Thousand Eyes?

Still waiting to play the game but this is not the good kind of difficulty, except in very rare cases. Boss battles in Wiz 7 were always about preparation and good planning in a prolonged battle of attrition. They were everything but a chaotic flash-melee based on luck or crits. Save maybe for Barlone and Beast all of them were doable simply with a little patience and sound judgement.

 

[Lady_Error]

Then: 3 ?BUGS?; 1st warrior died in one hit, 2nd warrior died in one hit and no one - absolutely no one - was able to penetrate in 3 rounds. Not one. Only success was the Bard sleeping one per round.

Not saying combat is broken (easy enough to just reload), but a random (?) encounter against unbeatable foes isn't what I'd call balanced.

Depends on where you wandered. In Wiz 7 you can go to some very tough places quite early in the game and you'd be squashed like a bug. This is my favourite design - open world with no/little level scaling. What should not happen though is for you to randomly meet super-tough monsters mixed in with the weak ones in the starter "green" zones. That's a recipe for save scumming and that's a practice any game design should avoid at all costs (something the likes of inXile still have to realize).

I was entirely within the confines of the starter prison area. Probably didn't cover even half the map before meeting the Mighty ??BUGS??. Had I wandered somewhere notably different from there, then that's fine. Reload, return to the "safer" area and grind.

The prison is one of the two hardest beginnings, for which you get a pay-off in the form of better gear right away. Shrine, Sanctuary and Midnight Gardens are all much easier.

 

[mondblut]

So all Grimoire bosses are basically Beasts of a Thousand Eyes?

Not all, many are just beefy mobs who go down by hp attrition. but Samhain Horror definitely is. Here, can give you a quick run through what my berserker gang did thus far:

Spoiler

Shiva Han Goromu - thrown innards and cut him down with a flurry of claw and knife blows in 2 turns.
Hobknob - did significant damage in 1st round. in 2nd round, bard managed to invoke the Bane successfully, terrifying him, by about turn 3 was down to under 25% hp and critted
Black lich - didn't want to bother with him, retreat crashes and all. Paralyzed by the bard on first combat action, never did anything until being cut down.
The legion - just pounded on them till they all died. no tricks, some crits happened.
Samhain horror - kept killing my casters in round 1. no success trying to invoke amulet astrix. after some tries, gave up, hasted my bard before battle and played Freezing Tune to him as first combat action. BOOM, gone.
Argosyre - just pounded on him and he died to crit after a few blows.
Mordecai (previous party) - same. this time gave him a tablet then stole it later.
Grendel (previous party) - got critted at round 1 at abt 80% hp. had to reload for some reason; did some damage and got critted at round 2 at abt 40% hp.
Wicker man (previous party) - got critted about round 2, didn't cause much damage.

 

[Lady_Error]

I anxiously await the combat balance fixes (and the manual).

Made a "mondblut" special; 6 Melee, Bard, Sage.

First few fights in prison (assumed to be "set" fights since I had random set on Never) ...

Several encounters against 3-6 Worms, no sweat at all. A few against one or two Rats. Once again, no sweat. Easy as pie. Too easy, really, as very few of these critters ever got a chance to do anything before death embraced them.

Then: 3 ?BUGS?; 1st warrior died in one hit, 2nd warrior died in one hit and no one - absolutely no one - was able to penetrate in 3 rounds. Not one. Only success was the Bard sleeping one per round.

Not saying combat is broken (easy enough to just reload), but a random (?) encounter against unbeatable foes isn't what I'd call balanced.

They are only coprophages, and you can take them with a level 1 party.

Can you explain the tactics needed?

I'm rather short on useful spells and still have crappy equipment. Even with majorly enhanced STR and AGI, I have been unable to do any real damage in several encounters.

Or are you saying it's possible to whup them if I get a wonderful streak of favorable dice rolls?

You're forgetting about the spellcasters and the Bard Slumber Lyre. Once an enemy is sleeping, paralyzed or maybe charmed, you can hit them easier with more damage. Also, you're forgetting that some races have much better unarmed attacks in the beginning than the stick weapons. I think the Drakes have 3D4 unarmed attacks. You're also forgetting about the special abilities of some races, several of them are for crowd control:

http://grimoire.wiki/index.php/Races#Races_with_special_attack_abilities
http://grimoire.wiki/index.php/Professions#Classes_that_start_with_crowd_control_spells

 

[DashiDMV]

Blow it out your ass, you obese pederast. I didn't pirate your game, and I certainly don't give a damn about not being able to post in your forum. Get bent.

If you can lift a car, that's not obesity, little man. That's also not fat you're looking at. Trying to get it back this week at the gym, amazing how weeks of sedentary parked solid in front of a computer and am still doing 140 pound bent-arm pullovers. Surreal. Muscles swelled so much from a single workout I looked like the Michelin tire man, could barely move, was hyper inflating inside my own body like one of those Sumo suits. Just fell over and laid there as quads and biceps bloated to 10x size at rest. Basically did ten minutes of weightlifting and metamorphosed into Hulk on the spot. Casuals at the gym were crying and curled up into fetal position in horror beneath tables completely traumatised at seeing me 4x height and weight when I entered. Where does the mass come from, man? Where does the mass come from? How I can enter the gym weighing 280 and leave apparently weighing 560?

If you didn't care then why did you come skipping over to RPGCodex with your mascara tears pouring down crying dindonuffin?

Listen, is that 700 pound man sitting on a bucket playing computer games in your avatar? Who is that? Please don't tell me that lard hillock is you. Just looking at your avatar the smell hit me and that's physically impossible.

I will personally purchase 50 copies of Grimoire and donate them to 50 random people who want a key if you will post a video of you lifting in the gym. A legit video, no cheating. Would love to see your technique.

Will you be willing to put the amount of 50 copies (2000 USD) into an escrow with DU or a codex mod?

There was a guy here jcd. He made bet after bet 100 to 1 with people that Grimoire would never see the light of day. He cleaned up after 12/31/2016 because Grimore was not out yet. Emboldened he made a whole new round of 100 to 1 bets Grimoire would not appear anywhere in any form.

Shockingly when Grimore went up on Steam Greenlight he disappeared from the site instead of paying up and started with the tired old "stolen code" tirade again. He is a bet welching piece of shit and now resides in a Warsaw ghetto with a needle in his arm and a dick up his ass.

You have already earned more Goodwill than you probably deserve by doing an about face on Grimore. Don't throw it away with a bet if you don't have the intention to honor it because as we saw with the release of Grimore, never say never.

If you are serious though, work out a date Cleve needs to post the video by and get with a mod to hold the amount until then.

 

[mondblut]

The prison is one of the two hardest beginnings, for which you get a pay-off in the form of better gear right away. Shrine, Sanctuary and Midnight Gardens are all much easier.

If you disable random encounters, Wastes are easier than Wilderness, having 0 set encounters of their own. And the reward, while much down the line, is sweet indeed. Big pile of Arcana spellbooks (6?), free increases of 3 skills to 20 for everyone (better than Sanctuary!) and 2 one-time stat increases (savescummed up to +6) - WIL and DEV I think?

 

[Lady_Error]

So I guess the prison is actually the hardest beginning, at least with random encounters off.

 

[Zorba the Hutt]

Guess who just showed up on Steam

a week ago...

Next week: Asking Cleve for free review key

 

[Tigranes]

Some of us play games, others spin nonstop on a puddle of their own puss fapping to the dregs of old memes about said games

 

[lorn]

So, I'm now roughly 60 hours in (with 2 restarts thanks to the save game shenanigans) and while I love the game, it has several things, which really annoy me.

- The exp system
This really sucks so much joy out of the experience. I get that levelling slows down, but this? For the next level you need more than twice the exp than for the last. I.e., if you have a lvl 6 sage and then add a fresh lvl 1 sage to the party, this new guy will reach lvl 6 before the old one reaches lvl 7. This slows down levelling up so much and causes it to take ages even at fairly low levels of 7-8. Which is very confusing. On the one hand, Cleve seems to aim for a fairly low level maximum due to the title being fairly high at that point already (e.g. lvl 7 templar title is prince), which in itself doesn't make a lot of sense in a game, which a) is very long and b) allows you to recruit NPCs in the first area of the game with better stats than a lvl 10 character you generated yourself. On the other hand, you need to reach lvl 10 to even get access to the advanced classes and I don't think it's realistic to unlock jester before lvl 15-20.

- randomness on levelup
Just encourages save scumming. A lvl 7 mage can end up anywhere between 12 and 42 HP, which is ridiculous

- armor class
for some reason this is a signed 8 bit value. WTF, who uses such values nowadays? My saurian goes from 125 TAC to -120 by equipping a better armor item, great.

- no clue what attributes, buffs and skills do exactly
manual may provide that, but spells and skills do have ingame descriptions, wihch allow you to vaguely say what they do, but the exact value is unclear. What do barter, diplomacy and similar actually do for me? How do lockpicking, sorcery etc. influence my chances of success?
How much bonus do armorplate, enchanted blade and bless provide? How many rounds do they last? For that matter, would armor plate cause my saurians TAC to overflow into the negative as well?

- strangely tuned enemies
This is just off in so many ways. Enemies like dragonflies and trog warriors who oneshot anything they hit, as they have an hp drain proc and any drain ability always drains 100%. Oreworms are incredibly annoying thanks to their acid, but only worth 12 exp each. On the other handm utineers are very easy and worth nearly 100 xp.

 

[Haba]

This is just off in so many ways. Enemies like dragonflies and trog warriors who oneshot anything they hit

I nearly shit myself laughing when I encountered dragonflies in one super late game dungeon.

6x dark fairies in the front line
3x dragonflies in the back row

The dragonflies killed my entire team. The same guys who had slain nearly all of the bosses in the game.

 

[Lady_Error]

- no clue what attributes, buffs and skills do exactly
manual may provide that, but spells and skills do have ingame descriptions, wihch allow you to vaguely say what they do, but the exact value is unclear. What do barter, diplomacy and similar actually do for me? How do lockpicking, sorcery etc. influence my chances of success?
How much bonus do armorplate, enchanted blade and bless provide? How many rounds do they last? For that matter, would armor plate cause my saurians TAC to overflow into the negative as well?

Not knowing the exact numbers is normal. As to the rest, a lot of the balancing issues Cleve agrees with and will change it for V2 of the game.

 

[cvv]

Randomness on level-up is nothing new among RPGs. But yeah, I loathe that feature. Hate anything that entices players to save scum. For everything else a fix/adjustment was promised.

Ninjad.

 

[iqzulk]

I'm not even sure what to do vs. dragonflies. Except avoid them at all costs.

You get ArmorShield books for everyone, you scribe them, you always go around with 7-8 lvl7 armorplates minimum, dragonfly hits stop connecting. Also works on Samhain Horror. Doesn't work on those fucking fairies that cast Deep Freeze.

Actually, to mondblut, Berserkers can't scribe at all, can they?

Note: Do NOT, ever, take vamphyr as a Wizard. I did. I shoudn't have. Vamphyrs can't wield Kraken controlling helmet which gives to its owner insane magic regeneration (which allows one to renew screening spells much faster than they expire) - and Wizards have Magic Screen and Deflection Screen. I didn't manage to find books for either of those - and even if one can do without Deflection Screen, given enough Armorplates, the ability to stack at least 4-5 lvl7 Magic Screens is indispensable, at least for those deepfreezing assholes.

I think, I'll eventually pass that helmet to my bard, once she has access to Magic Screen (Edit: actually, she already does have that spell in her spellbook), and will use her for all the precasts. Oh, except I can't because Cap'o'Rushes. Well, goddamn.

Edit. Except, come to think of it, I very much can. Initiative is inconsequential if I intend to just tank it. Also, precasts should be made by those who don't normally do any casting in combat (so that not to diminish the mana pool, which is intended for the actual nukes), and, well, my bard, of everybody else, certainly has other stuff to do, while in combat.

 

[Lady_Error]

the ability to stack at least 4-5 lvl7 Magic Screens is indispensable

You can actually stack them on top of each other?

 

[iqzulk]

You can actually stack them on top of each other?

You can (at least, in 1.2.0.1). That's the whole point (for Armorplates as well).

 

[Tigranes]

But... doesn't that mean you're sitting there casting 8 Armourplates every few minutes?

 

[Razor44]

As for bosses, well, either they rape you in one turn unless you cheese bard stunlock/deep freeze/lucky crit, or they don't and simply die to lucky crit.

So all Grimoire bosses are basically Beasts of a Thousand Eyes?

Still waiting to play the game but this is not the good kind of difficulty, except in very rare cases. Boss battles in Wiz 7 were always about preparation and good planning in a prolonged battle of attrition. They were everything but a chaotic flash-melee based on luck or crits. Save maybe for Barlone and Beast all of them were doable simply with a little patience and sound judgement.

Welll....i can tell you that every boss has at least 10 melee attacks outside of getting extra attacks, and often with special effects..plus many of them ALSO can cast spell effects in between there melee swings..or maybe the effects are procs.

Either way, i learned very quickly to NOT let bosses have a turn doing shit.

 

[mondblut]

Actually, to mondblut, Berserkers can't scribe at all, can they?

You can scribe once you can cast. Berserkers get spellcasting at level 9 or more, so you can't scribe before. Past that, you probably can.

Vamphyrs can't wield Kraken controlling helmet which gives to its owner insane magic regeneration (which allows one to renew screening spells much faster than they expire) - and Wizards have Magic Screen and Deflection Screen. I didn't manage to find books for either of those - and even if one can do without Deflection Screen, given enough Armorplates, the ability to stack at least 4-5 lvl7 Magic Screens is indispensable, at least for those deepfreezing assholes.

Speaking of magic regeneration, just noticed my aeorb now takes less than a second to regenerate 100+ mp while sleeping. Is it the patch, or did I equip something nice while shuffling loot?