KickStarter Lords of Xulima

[Multi-headed Cow]

Could be he enjoyed it up until the point he became skilled enough to realize how broken stuff is. Usually happens to some degree with all games, but some can really get ruined when you reach that point. Partly why I almost never touch FTL any more.

 

[Zdzisiu]

Pope, I am curious... if you really don't like the game how is it that you spend so much time on it and write guides and make videos that basically say the game is unbalanced, boring shit?

It is the very spirit of the Codex that is driving him to the ultimate sacrifice!

And who said he does not like it? He may have a lot of valid criticism but I never saw him saying that he thinks the game is crap and not worth puting any time into.

 

[Jack Dandy]

Man, oh man.

I am feeling this game's gonna be death for me. Too fucking addicting.
That "hey, let's explore that place, ooh, time to level up, cool, new stats, oh shit a puzzle" thing. Like an ADHD kid in a toy store.

Thank god for the natural "limiters" like having to worry about food. (Both IRL and in-game )

 

[Pope Amole II]

Pope, I am curious... if you really don't like the game how is it that you spend so much time on it and write guides and make videos that basically say the game is unbalanced, boring shit?

That's really putting the words in my mouth. I'm not saying the game is shit, more like slightly above average with many issues. I'm somewhat baffled and don't understand why so many people in the thread value it so highly. Maybe they've never played similar rpgs? Maybe they haven't progressed that far? Because the first 15 hours or so (not sure about exact number) are much better than the rest. The game is tighter and more challenging there. And it's not like there's much in it apart from combat - say, exploration gets praised here, but what is there to find apart from more combats?

Another thing with the remaining part of the game is that monsters don't really show anything interesting. There are way too much of HP bloat monsters. There are not enough smart party compositions - there are some, but they're not exactly synergistic with each other. And, as I've said, to get to the challenging encounters you have to grind through the entire area. Which is really not fun - most areas have much more encounters than you could naturally explore (some ridiculously so - easiest example is the Sorrentia road, it's a small strip that has about 15-20 encounters with low chance of them happening). So it's a grindy overstretched game with forgettable story. Which has its good parts but, as it's usual with the grindy games, they drown in the tedium.

But I can't say I understand the Codex anymore so what do I know.

And, in terms of guides - it's just that I'm more interested in writing guides and making videos atm than playing games, lol. As I have enough spare time on my hands - why not?

 

[cw8]

I'm level 35, on old school veteran, probably around 71 hours played. All I can say is the game's at least 80% combat.

 

[Grunker]

I'm level 35, on old school veteran, probably around 71 hours played. All I can say is the game's at least 80% combat.

you say that like it's a bad thing

 

[V_K]

And it's not like there's much in it apart from combat - say, exploration gets praised here, but what is there to find apart from more combats?

A ton of stuff actually - puzzles and clues to puzzles, treasures (many of them trapped rather than guarded), altars, riddle chests. Hell, there are even whole dungeons that are almost combat-free (towers, tombs).

 

[Angthoron]

And it's not like there's much in it apart from combat - say, exploration gets praised here, but what is there to find apart from more combats?

A ton of stuff actually - puzzles and clues to puzzles, treasures (many of them trapped rather than guarded), altars, riddle chests. Hell, there are even whole dungeons that are almost combat-free (towers, tombs).

While this is true, and I'm overall enjoying the game, I gotta say that the exploration rewards suffer from lack of handplaced stuff. It's usually either: XP, Gold or levelscaled loot. In fact I could just go ahead and say that the game is suffering from a lack of unique items, period.

 

[cw8]

I'm level 35, on old school veteran, probably around 71 hours played. All I can say is the game's at least 80% combat.

you say that like it's a bad thing

I like the combat, it's challenging for some foes and it's satisfying especially when you face the enemies you're not supposed to engage yet. However, it does get tiresome somewhat when you go into combat all the time. I have RPG OCD so I clear all the regions out of their random encounters as well. It doesn't really help that only your mages and clerics get new abilities and spells up to endgame while your melee classes are stuck with the same abilities you see early into the game.

 

[V_K]

And it's not like there's much in it apart from combat - say, exploration gets praised here, but what is there to find apart from more combats?

A ton of stuff actually - puzzles and clues to puzzles, treasures (many of them trapped rather than guarded), altars, riddle chests. Hell, there are even whole dungeons that are almost combat-free (towers, tombs).

While this is true, and I'm overall enjoying the game, I gotta say that the exploration rewards suffer from lack of handplaced stuff. It's usually either: XP, Gold or levelscaled loot. In fact I could just go ahead and say that the game is suffering from a lack of unique items, period.

It's not level-scaled, it's area-scaled, I think. At least that riddle chest in Velegarn, that I forgot about and only opened at level 15 or so, rewarded me with complete shit, while the treasures from the desert were totally worth wasting a ton of food, crystals and lockpicks on finding them. I do agree about lack of uniques though.

 

[Angthoron]

And it's not like there's much in it apart from combat - say, exploration gets praised here, but what is there to find apart from more combats?

A ton of stuff actually - puzzles and clues to puzzles, treasures (many of them trapped rather than guarded), altars, riddle chests. Hell, there are even whole dungeons that are almost combat-free (towers, tombs).

While this is true, and I'm overall enjoying the game, I gotta say that the exploration rewards suffer from lack of handplaced stuff. It's usually either: XP, Gold or levelscaled loot. In fact I could just go ahead and say that the game is suffering from a lack of unique items, period.

It's not level-scaled, it's area-scaled, I think. At least that riddle chest in Velegarn, that I forgot about and only opened at level 15 or so, rewarded me with complete shit, while the treasures from the desert were totally worth wasting a ton of food, crystals and lockpicks on finding them. I do agree about lack of uniques though.

Oh yeah, of course, zone scaled is the right term here.

 

[Pope Amole II]

A ton of stuff actually - puzzles and clues to puzzles, treasures (many of them trapped rather than guarded), altars, riddle chests. Hell, there are even whole dungeons that are almost combat-free (towers, tombs).

Puzzles are valid but, length-wise, all are pretty short. Not the bulk of the game. Everything else in the list is sorta meh. Altars' effect is only truly felt in the early game. Treasures, apart from Pernitia and Geldra, are almost always useless crap - not even once I've looted something useful out of the mausoleum, for example. Riddle chests suffer from the same and the riddles themselves repeat - I've been asked about Valvet four or five times. Was kinda ridiculous.

And even in Pernitia I've had to savescum to get something useful out of that chest - it was a long row of crap weapon types for me. In Geldra I haven't found anything useful at all, actually (apart from some healing pots). I guess, because it has lots of corpses, it's easy to savescum for the skillbooks there (corpse's content is generated when you come within certain distance to the corpse so, if you're patient, you can get a skillbook for each corpse there).

 

[cw8]

Answers to all the riddle chests are all on the game feature page on their official website, of course avoid if you wanna figure things out yourself:

Spoiler

http://www.lordsofxulima.com/2013/01/25/a-story-about-gods-and-humans/

 

[Jack Dandy]

And even in Pernitia I've had to savescum to get something useful out of that chest

Here's the problem- what made you feel you HAD to savescum?
Isn't "Making do with what you have" an important aspect of any good adventure?

 

[Pope Amole II]

Here's the problem- what made you feel you HAD to savescum?
Isn't "Making do with what you have" an important aspect of any good adventure?

Dude, at the moment I was already steamrolling everything I could see. I've savescummed simply to have better weapon (I jumped up from, like, rank 7 to rank 18 out of 20 possible) to make the grind faster - after all, even if the encounters became easy, it doesn't mean the hp bloat disappeared.

 

[V_K]

Puzzles are valid but, length-wise, all are pretty short.

I've just finished Devonia castle and so far I've encountered: Sporia Meadow, Golden Forest, Whispering rocks, Hall of Heroes, ship navigation, three towers and five tombs. Not to mention that all the temples and castles (save for Devonia castle itself) so far were also 50/50 combat/puzzles mix. Seems like a hefty portion of the game to me.

Altars' effect is only truly felt in the early game.

You mean temporary blessings or the permanent ones? Because the latter seem quite potent to me so far (not to mention that you can't really get them in the early game anyway).

 

[Pope Amole II]

You mean temporary blessings or the permanent ones? Because the latter seem quite potent to me so far (not to mention that you can't really get them in the early game anyway).

Erm, they are exactly the same - permanent blessing is just an ordinary one with eternal duration. So it is +5 AG, +5 STR, +5 CON, +5 SPD, +10 PP, +5 defense & evasion, +15 resist all and +4% experience. Out of these all, only the resist one is strongly felt in the second half of the game - the rest are nice to have, of course, but that's it. The +5 STR blessing is especially disappointing, considering what you have to do to obtain it.

 

[V_K]

Ah, sorry, I didn't pay attention to the temporary effects cause 8 hours duration made them seem mostly useless.

 

[cw8]

Erm, they are exactly the same - permanent blessing is just an ordinary one with eternal duration. So it is +5 AG, +5 STR, +5 CON, +5 SPD, +10 PP, +5 defense & evasion, +15 resist all and +4% experience. Out of these all, only the resist one is strongly felt in the second half of the game - the rest are nice to have, of course, but that's it. The +5 STR blessing is especially disappointing, considering what you have to do to obtain it.

+5 Con gave quite a hefty extra carrying weight, 30kg more? Very nice to have for me. I want the +5 Speed perm blessing badly, no idea where's that from though.

 

[Grunker]

did a priestess just yell allauh akbar

 

[Pope Amole II]

+5 Con gave quite a hefty extra carrying weight, 30kg more? Very nice to have for me. I want the +5 Speed perm blessing badly, no idea where's that from though.

Hey, I'm not saying they're useless, just not really impressive. Extra carrying weight is nice (I don't think it's 30 kg, though), but not really a game changer.

And for the speed blessing - won't spoil you where it is (unless you wish to be spoiled), but it's a pretty late game fight, need to be lvl 40+, at least. Possibly more.

 

[Grunker]

Oh, and by the way: I'm sorry Papa Mole, but my Arcane Soldier is my most damage dealing character now

She even deals more damage with an non-striked sword stab than my Barbarian with significantly more strength does with her two-handed mace.

 

[cw8]

Oh, and by the way: I'm sorry Papa Mole, but my Arcane Soldier is my most damage dealing character now

Won't be for long. Especially when you see him miss his hits at 80%+. Your mage will hit all the time without fail, and hit 3 enemies or more up to the whole battlefield, dealing dots or stunning them along the way.

 

[Pope Amole II]

Oh, and by the way: I'm sorry Papa Mole, but my Arcane Soldier is my most damage dealing character now

She even deals more damage with an non-striked sword stab than my Barbarian with significantly more strength does with her two-handed mace.

Papa Mole is a different codexian guy, btw. Nothing common between us.

And that's just early game and you've probably equipped a two-handed weapon too soon - in the very early game, yeah, the difference between +10 and -20 attack modifiers feels a lot. Wait for the midgame, at least.

 

[TigerKnee]

Speaking of riddle imps, do they ACTUALLY give actual riddles later on or something?

"Who keeps track of the forest" "It's God X" isn't a riddle, it's more like a Quiz/lore check.