Together Retro: First-Person Dungeon Crawlers

[Ack]

Dungeon Hack

I'm now on floor 9 of 18 on this particular dungeon seed.

I last left off at the start of floor 7. It turns out this particular floor was overrun with specters who can drain levels and sword wraiths who can drain strength. But because I had multiclassed into a ridiculous trip as a Fighter/Cleric/Mage, and because I managed to get lucky and find a rare suit of special armor at the start, I now had all the tools I needed: Cleric spells such as Aid, Magic Vestment, Bless, and Flame Blade, along with Mage spells Detect Magic and Improved Invisibility. My strategy was thus: rest, buff myself with a massive number of bonuses, render myself invisible to be even harder to hit, create a flaming sword to attack my foes since my Two-handed Sword +1 wasn't cutting it, and then go to town.

The sheer number of buffs meant I had little problem getting through, and along the way I found a special holy symbol which gave me a bonus spell on every level of Cleric magic. Thus, I now had Restoration, so even losing a level from the specters was not a problem. I made it to the end and took down a Greater Medusa for a boss before pushing down to floor 8.

Floor 8 had sent big bad ass monsters: shambling mounds and umber hulks. These forms are beefy, built like brick shithouses, and pack a punch like a mule kicking you in the teeth. Too bad for them they can't hit an invisible opponent. Floor 8 was quite possibly the easiest floor I have had in a while, and I made it through with little struggle, even successfully dropping a bone Naga at the end for a special boss.

This brings me to floor 9. I have finally reached one of the dreaded underwater levels, and now I know why they are feared. My +1 sword does nothing to the water elementals here. My fire spells like flame blade automatically fizzle. If it weren't for a magic helmet I found, I'd constantly be casting spells just to be able to breathe, and I'm forced to fall back on magic spells to fight, which is a pain. You can't wear armor to cast mage spells, and while clerics have no issue with it, the spellbook covers up the map/radar, so I can't see things swimming up behind me. Even with a ton of buffs, Dungeon Hack can throw me for a loop and make me rethink my strategy.

[crazythink4]

As promised, here's my map so far for the Cave of Strength in Shining in the Darkness. I'll likely get some more exploring going tomorrow!

[Exhuminator]

Made more progress in WTotFL tonight. My party now consists of sorcerer, two warriors, ninja, and two priests. We learned how to use allied attacks, which are very interesting from a strategic point of view, and will offer many tactical advantages.



The trust system has also come into play. Basically the better your party members trust one another, the better they fight together. Trust is gained through event dialogue choices and successful combat maneuvers. But, trust can be lost too. AND there's a moon feature in play, kind of like in SMT. During crimson moons, you can create rarer magic stones. There's just layers upon layers of complexity here, which is delicious for my tastes. Took on and completed a few quests from the local tavern. Beat the first boss successfully. Also ran into our first reaper tonight. Reapers randomly(?) generate and will doggedly pursue your party. If they catch your party, they can possess a party member. If that party member dies while possessed, they are gone forever. If you get possessed, you have to return to town, and have the local temple exorcise the possessed party member. Which costs money. Reapers suck.



But this game does not suck. Quite the opposite. I'm loving WTotFL so far. I can see myself spending plenty of time here.

[prfsnl_gmr]

Shadow Tower is a cool game, but, man, does the PS1 struggle to keep up with it. It’s like the floor and walls are going to shatter into dozens of polygons at any moment!

Still, though, it’s fun. I am taking my time to search out it’s secrets, and I see the origins of some gamplay ideas the developer would really flesh out in Demon’s Souls.

[noiseredux]

Okay, Morrowind arrived over the weekend but I was way too busy to start it. I'm getting home late tonight, but am still determined to finally get going on this. Hopefully two weeks is enough time for me to make some progress.

[marurun]

If you abuse the systems in the game 2 weeks is more than enough time.

[noiseredux]

If you abuse the systems in the game 2 weeks is more than enough time.

Any tips going in are appreciated. I've played Skyrim (a lot) as well as Oblivion and Online, but it's my first time with Morrowind.

[marurun]

Hop up every slope. In fact, hop everywhere.
I like going with light, fast blades, because the gameplay in Morrowind is a bit like an MMO. You attack a bunch and every once in a while you hit. By going with light, fast blades I could spam attacks and know that something was going to land. Also, when you enchant, you only expend charges when you hit, so I would enchant massive damage into my light blades. But I also abused the hell out of the game. And leveling works similar to Oblivion, not Skyrim. So whatever skills you use, you get a stronger bonus in the related stat.

[noiseredux]

In those other games I tend to do a lot of archery. Good idea or bad idea here?

[marurun]

In those other games I tend to do a lot of archery. Good idea or bad idea here?

Archery is slow to level up, and you waste a lot of arrows, but if you're doing archery and sneaking it works. And sneaking isn't too hard to level up, though you do kinda have to be aggressive about pursuing it. But you do need a melee weapon, because cliff racers.