Fights in Exult seems too easy, not challenging

[Marcus]

Im currently not so far in the story and i have the feeling, my party is unbeatable. I have fighted against 4 Guards at same time or against 5 Cyclops or against 3 crocodile + 1 gazer + 2 Tentacles or against 1 Mage + 2 Pirates and never no one in the party was wounded much. Thats no challenge and a little bit unamusing.

I dont used any cheats.

In my party are the following fellows:
The Avatar, Iolo, Spark, Shamino, Dupre, Jaana, Sentri.
All are Level 4-6 and equipped with the following.
Armour:
Plate- and Chainmail (50/50)
Weapons:
2 with Sword, 1 with Longsword, 2 with Lightning Whip, 1 with Hawk, 1 with Magic boomerang.

I dont know if this was the same in the original (i cant remember) and cant test it, because cant make it run anymore under WindowsXP.

@All: What experiences have you made?
@Exult-Team: Can you check this?

Greetings
MAC

[Marcus]

There is a error in my post. These are the correct weapons:
2 with Sword, 2 with Longsword, 1 with Lightning Whip, 1 with Hawk, 1 with Magic boomerang.

[SB-X]

Combat in Exult is still not complete.

[Dominus]

Read the FAQ! it is your most valuable "possesion".
http://exult.info/faq.php#by_design

[Marcus]

Thanks

[Marcus]

Do you think that it is possible to make a work around for this problem like rising the HP from monsters or something similary?

[wjp]

From what I remember, the problem is that the monsters don't do enough damage, not that they take too long to kill.

[Marcus]

Ok, but if you rise the HP of monsters, it takes longer to kill them and the party takes more damage. And that can make the fights more difficult.

[Talthanar]

This is another 'from what I remember' post.

From what I remember the Exult team hasn't been able to find any accurate damage for either party weapons or enemies. (There was a post about this before). I can remember in the DOS version it taking a couple hits from The Black Sword to down most enemies nevermind cyclops, dragons, drakes, or any other bigger nasty.

[drcode]

Do you have a savegame from just before a fight that you think is way too easy? If so, could you submit it as a bug, or email it to me?

I'm not promising a fix. But maybe I'll see something that we're clearly doing wrong. (At one time, there was a pathfinding bug which resulted in monsters bigger than 1x1 having trouble getting close enough to attack you.)

[Marcus]

The URL to the savegame, that i have posted in another thread from me, can be used for this. Its the thread about to fast respwan.

You can test it easy too, with the cove near Paws where a lot of Cylops spawning. I have fighted there with only 4 Members in the party, and all where max. Level 3-4 and have killed 5 cyclops instantly without any big trouble. That i have done again and again and its all time the same. Very, very easy.

[drcode]

Okay... I made a small tweak to the computation so that strength (which cyclops have) counts much more than before.

[Marcus]

Did understand you right, that your tweak only concerns cyclops?

[wjp]

From what I understand, DrCode means that having lots of strength now affects combat more than before. An example of a creature affected by this is the cyclops.

[Marcus]

I understand.

I have made some more tests with the combat-system and the snapshot from yesterday. If there are the tweaks that DrCode would made are included, then nothing noticeable has changed.
I have tested it again with a relatively new party with only Avatar, Iolo and Spark, all about Level 4.

I have uploaded 2 stdout.txt files where might be help. One was fighting against a cylcop and the other against 2 Pirates + Mage on a small island, even a lot to easy.

You can find them here:
http:\\www.uogilden.de\stdout_cyclops_fight.txt
http:\\www.uogilden.de\stdout_pirates_fight.txt

[Dominus]

are you sure that you had the right snapshot with the change already in it?

[Marcus]

Yes i'm sure

[Dominus]

okay, then

[drcode]

I only made the change about 10 hours ago, so it's probably not in today's snapshot. As wjp said, the change gives more hit points for strength, which aid strong, but weakly armored, monsters like cyclops. Previously, their hits only resulted in 1 point damage; now, it varies between 1 and 5 or so.

I also started up the original U7, and, from the very start, teleported with Iolo to the Cyclops cave just north of Cove. Even then, Iolo can kill them with only a couple crossbow bolts.

I'm becoming more and more convinced that combat difficulty is just a matter of taste, and that we should make this a user-setting.

[Marcus]

Combat difficulty per User-Setting seems to be a very good idea.

With this, from newbies to hardcore-fighter users can set their appropriated difficulty. Nice will be, if the setting can changed whatever, at the beginning or in the mid of the game. Then someone can set the difficulty at the beginning a little bit higher and if he comes through a fight that cant be mastered, he can set the difficulty down.

I think, thats it! Great idea DrCode.

[Thomas Decker]

Yeah! Great idea! I can't wait to playtest!