Incline Elminage Gothic (former Japan only dungeon crawler)

[CryptRat]

One advantage of a thief is the high luck you can give him at creation.

 

[Mastermind]

One advantage of a thief is the high luck you can give him at creation.

p sure creation stats are based on race maximums

 

[CryptRat]

Yes, sorry for not detailing, what I meant is that, compared to the thief you give high luck at creation, when you change class to ninja his luck gets back to some average score, I never had enough points to roll a ninja at creation (and you would not have many points to spend on luck if you meet the requirements anyway but that's not what I was thinking about when posting).

 

[jungl]

Problem with labyrinth of refrain is that the combat is too slow. There is a second delay every time someone acts.

Gothic thieves are strong purely cause their disarm ability leaves most monsters useless. Ninja in this game is crap compared to original as the point of the game where you obtained enough xp to make him useful. you dont care about your party composition too much.

 

[Dorarnae]

ninja/bard or hunter can do a decent job, or you can have a summoner with a pet that has thief+1 skill. Or get an alchemist with the last spell.

 

[Dorarnae]

Problem with labyrinth of refrain is that the combat is too slow. There is a second delay every time someone acts.

Gothic thieves are strong purely cause their disarm ability leaves most monsters useless. Ninja in this game is crap compared to original as the point of the game where you obtained enough xp to make him useful. you dont care about your party composition too much.

but there's nothing really interesting to steal, unless you're playing the 3ds version...I haven't tried much the ninja but pretty sure they're good, high behead chance and lower AC in particular is very good. Only problem is they lvl slowly, but other than that I am sure they're very good.

Ninja in original is, ehh? sure they can get 95% behead if you're patient enough to lvl them to 300-400 ish, then the blessing that can help. but honestly, do you need it when brawler is just so damn OP in original? and lower AC ability in elminage 1-2-3 isn't as good(only helps in the beginning...)

 

[Cyanide]

Ninjas can even behead Cyclanos and Nordetanit with a highly enough behead rate
So they can be one of the overpowered classes in the game

Thieves can steal a Dark Crystal from Cyclanos, which I believe is the few or only chance to get one

 

[Haplo]

Yeah but... That's the end boss of base game. And you need quite some level to stand a chance to steal.
Is the Dark Crystal really worth it?
If you're an absolute completionist, maybe.

 

[Dorarnae]

on 3ds it was worth it for a while because it has very high accuracy but in the tower you get better stuff. If you're high enough, I think I rather have death arms than the dark crystal.

 

[aweigh]

i can't remember, but i think it was only thieves who could achieve 100% success rate with disarming a trap, right? I think spell for disarming only went up to 85% or so. Considering how dangerous traps can be inside Ibag's Tower and how you can't teleport to safety, I liked having that assurance. I dare say that a trap going off on my party was a pervasive danger inside IBag's Tower, enough so to make the safety net of having a thief something worth considering. Also the thief ability for hiding saved my skin a couple of times by allowing my thief to be the only survivor after some enemy ability that hit everyone.

Same mentality with the Clerics; resurrection was so important inside Ibag's Tower, since even one party member turning to ash meant having to backtrack all the floors back to the elevator and then back to town. Or when you absolutely need to have a party member be revived in the following turn of the current battle, something very common in encounters inside Ibag's Tower. I liked having the maximum possible success rate for resurrection with me, and that was enough to have a cleric. And of course, it goes without saying their Immolarati was priceless as well. Very useful in the Tower.

 

[Haplo]

The alchemy spell to disarm was 100%, I believe. What wasn't 100% was the spell to identify traps.
I've always found summoned thief mobs had disturbingly high success chances with traps.
And once a ninja gained some levels and maxed his Luck, he was solid also.

 

[Dorarnae]

yeah alchemy spell to disarm is 100%, the one to identify is probably 95%, thief have pretty high chance but it's not 100%

 

[Max Damage]

I hope this gets inventory mod or spiritual sequel one day because holy fuck the interface is the most atrocious piece of steaming garbage. I came back to see if I'll play some more, and I can't force myself to deal with these endless clicks just to transfer all this loot from dungeon between characters. Did anyone playtest this shit? It being portable release first is no excuse, I played other handheld blobbers and they're nowhere near as bad. Seriously, why the ever living fuck do I need 5-6 button presses just to move an item between inventories? It's no wonder my last save is in town, because who would want to deal with inteface designed for masochists?

 

[newtmonkey]

It's fine. Try using a controller, it's a lot more manageable.

 

[Max Damage]

How is controller more manageable? Nothing in this game requires analog input. You're doing the same amount of redundant clicks on either device.

 

[Max Damage]

No one is forcing you to type useless posts either. This isn't hugbox zone, I just shared what I didn't like about the game. I didn't lose any sleep over the game, stop overreacting.

 

[newtmonkey]

Just trying to help you enjoy the game guy, don't worry about it

 

[Max Damage]

I don't see how pad/stick/hitbox would help, but alright.

 

[newtmonkey]

Max Damage
I'll post my thoughts so you don't think I was just trolling you.

The game was obviously designed to be played on a pad, so forget about using the mouse (obviously).

This leaves you with playing with the keyboard.

So when it comes down to keyboard versus gamepad, gamepad (in this case and this case only) offers:
- Much quicker/more comfortable movement through menus, as you can you just rock your thumb up/down left/right to navigate, rather than pressing up/down & left/right keys with three different fingers.
- The gamepad layout makes much more sense, and you are basically controlling the game with one thumb totally controlling movement (in dungeons and in menus), and the other switching between the "confirm" and "cancel" button. You can control 99% of the game with just your thumbs, though the game maps some other commands to other buttons for convenience.

If the game had been properly ported to PC with real keyboard controls (i.e. menus like Wizardry 1-5) that would be a different story of course. Unfortunately, the game is basically emulating a gamepad (poorly) with a keyboard, and it's not a comfortable way to play.

 

[Haplo]

Keyboard works fine.

 

[Max Damage]

Thank you for the detailed reply. As someone who owns XBox-like gamepad (Logitech) and pretty much haven't used it for years, I still disagree. Big reason why I stopped playing with and buying gamepads (besides frailty) is that keyboard allows more precision and speed BECAUSE you can press each button individually. I've found it to be huge boon both for fighting games and pretty much most games that are designed with gamepad in mind (and I say that as someone who's really into emulation). Elminage Gothic, compared to similar games, just arbitrarily makes you do more button presses, which is why switching between keyboard and gamepad doesn't make any difference even if you have keyboard with ghosting problem or stiff gamepad because the inputs aren't complicated, the game just uses pointlessly needy interface that requires you to specify transactions in ways that aren't need or helpful, and straight up infuriating with how many items you have to operate throughout the course of the game. And I don't use the mouse, it indeed doesn't make things faster in this game.

 

[newtmonkey]

Max Damage
Fair enough, I can't argue with that. Having said that, once you get a bit into the game you won't be using the menus that much, as you can rely on the quick combat keys for a lot of combats (at least until something goes wrong and you need to micromanage each action), and you won't need to be juggling inventory so much.

The UI isn't great by any means (it's one reason why I decided to just play this series on PSP/3DS vs PC), and it will never be as fast as a real PC KB interface (ala Wiz 1-5 or the early M&M games), but you can get used to it, and I think the game is worth putting up with it.

 

[ebPD8PePfC]

After realizing I can't romance characters in Wizardry Empires II I decided to play Gothic instead. So I'm at party creation when I see this:

What is a HOTlet and how do I summon a female one IRL?

Also, is this party acceptable. It's fine if it's not the power gamer's dream, I just want to be sure I won't have to create a new party four hours in.

Valkyrie
Samurai
Hunter
Mage --> Summoner
Alchemist
Bishop

 

[Haplo]

Sounds decent.
You sure you don't want to start the Hunter as an Alchemist? They inherit all Alchemy slots for some reason.

 

[aweigh]

Max Damage

Best way to play the game is with a keyboard. Keyboard-only and you breeze through menus. A gamepad is simply a small keyboard with less buttons.

I recommend mapping directional inputs to WASD, cancel to 'C', confirmation of a command to Numpad's 'Enter' key so you can rest left arm on WASD and right arm on right edge of the keyboard.

Rest of the buttons to taste.

EDIT: The game really is worth putting up with, my man. If you're hankering for traditional party-building and dungeoneering, E: Gothic is a revelation. It's one of the rare games that actually gets better the more you play, with later dungeons increasingly more rewarding, and the party building and itemization increasingly more satisfying to manage.

Wait til you get addicted to enchanting your gear! It's thoroughly addictive. One of the best gear enchantment (and item crafting) systems around, I would spend up to 1 hour sometimes just agonizing over what to enchant and what to enchant shit with, trying to maximize my Ore usage.