Reliable means of progression that isn't reliant on O'saa, spice forge, or abusing magic?

[Hoshi]

I'm hard stuck trying to get into the city. I can get in there, I've *gotten* in there, through the woods, through the sewers, through the main gate...

The problem is that I am yet to be able to take any fights once I get there. I'm incapable of getting party members, save for Levi, who is worthless due to his heroin addiction, and Black Kalev, who cannot be controlled or equipped and who will repeatedly leave the party unless I have carrots, which eventually run out.

Even should I manage to assemble this incredibly ragtag crew, I am completely at the mercy of getting good drops from RNG chests, good skin bibles from bookcases, enough small keys to open key doors, bear traps to handle the Dark Priest and Woodsman in the early game, and ultimately it's far too much of a strain on resources to accomplish anything meaningful before I'm completely out of healing and food. I've only managed to get a few screens into the city, see some events, run from every single encounter, and then die. Every. Single. Time.

I've been at this for 12 hours and I pretty much know all of my options at this point, the problem is being capable of taking any of them on without being at the mercy of coin flips and bad luck with drops. I have to be missing something here. My friends all went the spice forge route, I've seen them play, and it's like we're playing different games.

Please tell me there are other means of progression. Spice forge feels like an exploit, and doing the exact same build as everyone else seems boring.

[Lionel]

Originally posted by RockTheShoulder:

Any tips on Woodsman/Priest? I always killed priest with a trap, but now I can't find any. Woodsman, shot three times then hit torso for the win, but that doesn't seem to work anymore. This is all with one character. Any other fighting tips welcome, in case enemies changed.

Also, how do you save Tanaka? Can you recruit Abella, fight Needles in the town, then come back to the bunker to clear it?

ye you could safe tanaka by doing that. recruit abela the go out from the bunker, kill needles on the city and come back, some people even said you could explore the bunker a little as long you don't see tanaka being beheaded

edit: don't bother saving anyone there is no reason to do it for now, specialy those tanaka he bring nothing to the group coz marco doing what he suppose to do on day 2
few people that usefull alive
abela (shor circuit, opening those bunker door)
karin (picklock opening the other door abela couldn't open)
doctor ( those analyse skill is usefull + he became bartender on prhl bop)
henryk ( free food for the party)

[rock]

Originally posted by Lionel:

abela (shor circuit, opening those bunker door)
karin (picklock opening the other door abela couldn't open)
doctor ( those analyse skill is usefull + he became bartender on prhl bop)
henryk ( free food for the party)

I usually play as Daan, the doctor. He's cool. Is it possible to get both Henryk and Abela or are they mutually exclusive?

[Lionel]

Originally posted by RockTheShoulder:

I usually play as Daan, the doctor. He's cool. Is it possible to get both Henryk and Abela or are they mutually exclusive?

for now it's impossible to get both unless you play as abela

[J]

My favorite thing is to follow Karin to the next screen over as soon as the game starts and kill her. She might shoot you twice, but you end up with a loaded pistol (means to kill the woodsman easily and start the game with the axe) and a decent body armor. Investing 2 skill points in her soul (easily obtained the first morning) gives you persuade (means to kill vile easily, I think) and lockpicking so you can get into places.

I havent gone far enough to see what consequences killing her that early might have.

Also, you can go kill Tanaka instead (near the ritual circle) and then go kill Karin by the river for even more stuff.

[neo2157]

If you want to make crazy progression try worshipping rher, his whole skill tree is pretty much meta gaming and with golden gate you can fast travel around and get all the church idols day 1.

[Lionel]

Originally posted by Jaw:

I havent gone far enough to see what consequences killing her that early might have.

if you don't think that some dialogue here and there is important then there is no downside at all, heck it's even better to kill them in their human form less hassle to hunt down their moonscorched version, there is no consequence of killing anyone here as long you not doing it near some people Abela/marco/daan . if you do kill near them you will get cought and tied up wasting time ( you could how ever invite those people to your party and freely kill anyone...).

edit: forgot to mention if you gunning for ending A keep 3 char alive you might even want short circuit skill from abella to help you out cuz on another ending you need to be the last man standing

[neo2157]

Originally posted by Lionel:

Originally posted by Jaw:

I havent gone far enough to see what consequences killing her that early might have.

if you don't think that some dialogue here and there is important then there is no downside at all, heck it's even better to kill them in their human form less hassle to hunt down their moonscorched version, there is no consequence of killing anyone here as long you not doing it near some people Abela/marco/daan . if you do kill near them you will get cought and tied up wasting time ( you could how ever invite those people to your party and freely kill anyone...).

There is some downside's, if both tanaka and marcoh are dead then there is no-one to bring olivia a wheelchair making her recruitable, you can't meet marins doppelganger if she's dead, and the engineer girl also drops a soulstone after she transforms which you don't get from her human body though I admit im not really sure if it makes fighting her worth it.

[Lionel]

Originally posted by neo2157:

There is somewhat of a downside's, if both tanaka and marcoh are dead then there is no-one to bring olivia a wheelchair making her recruitable, you can't meet marins doppelganger if you never recruit here either and im sure karin or daan being dead before they meet up has some negative effects.

depends on what you mean by downside for me there is only 3 ending here A which you might need some people to help you, and B&C which still need you to kill all of them. so for me there is no reason to keep any of them alive if you gunning for ending b&c

[Lionel]

Originally posted by CuddilyWuddily:

I just beat the secret boss and... yeah...

You're gonna have to overcome your hatred of powergaming or playing meta.

Even powergaming to the max, I got my ass kicked by the secret boss to the point I had to use the nearby circle to create a save point and do several tries all with different strategies.

That boss is... holy ****.

So yeah... stop holding yourself back and kill the yellow mage! unless you got no interest in killing the secret boss.

She forces you to 1v1 her, and she's got a status effect that makes you miss most of your melee attacks. I'm not gonna spoil anymore unless you want me to.

hahaha gratz, most normal people trying to fight those boss will die on turn 1/2 max

[barboul_bibblegrunch]

Really I'd say if you're having trouble with Day 1 City, best thing you can do is start hitting the place on Day 2 to start learning it 'cause you get access to more safely accessible party members. Namely Marcoh and Olivia are pretty convenient to get, and if you're not playing as Abella or any of these other guys mentioned above (and don't mind letting tanaka beef it). You can basically have a full controllable team by either morning or afternoon of d2. You can use Day 1 to explore the Sewers to get some goodies that could absolutely help you overcome stuff like the death masks or just build up more souls.

Plus with Needles there's a relatively consistent way to get him just by using glass on his head to blind him if you're going solo and even if not, it does a ton to mitigate damage with how much he misses. Same somewhat goes for most humanoid enemies or even the mob (but they're always KINDA a luckfest even at the best of times, but keeps you from getting AS ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up).

Marina and Daan as player picks could be some pretty great ones for ya, if you're lacking on heals these two have some ways to get more mileage out of everything. Daan's got easy whispers access, and Marina can learn how to make mixed herbs to basically turn blue herbs into much better heals.
And if you don't mind one less accessible party member, Olivia using the hemlock ball she can make seems pretty consistent at dealing with the Dark Priest & Woodsman without needing to get lucky on beartrap loot.

[Hoshi]

Originally posted by CuddilyWuddily:

I just beat the secret boss and... yeah...

You're gonna have to overcome your hatred of powergaming or playing meta.

Even powergaming to the max, I got my ass kicked by the secret boss so hard to the point I had to use the nearby circle to create a save point and do several tries all with different strategies.

That's not really my beef, to be clear. My beef is that seeing the huge number of skills on the hexen in the demo, I thought there'd be a whole pile of viable builds and approaches, not that absolutely everything would come down to Spice Forge and (very specific) magic.

I was looking forward to trying a largely non-combative approach, considering there are more weapons like the bow in the first game (assorted guns, the landmine traps), plus skills like Persuade, Mind Read, Lockpicking, Escape Plan, Short Circuit, etc., but they're all just complimentary to the broken magic-oriented builds or otherwise worthless (I'm looking at you, booby traps), and the enemy density is so incredibly high that regular combat is completely unavoidable no matter what your approach.

Plus, characters like Marcoh that seem very phys-oriented are just uh... not really capable of keeping up with first blood golem/pheromones black orb/black fog spam, you know.

It's like heavy armor and Fighters in Pathfinder versus the abundance of spellcasting classes. I wanna hit stuff with weapons and guns, not be forced to play a mage or mage-hybrid of some sort to be able to function on a basic level. It has little to do with not wanting to powergame or play the meta and more to do with disappointment that so many potential builds are worthless for seemingly no reason when the demo had made it seem like you'd be able to have pretty diverse builds.

[Hoshi]

By the way, if you follow CuddilyWuddily's advice with starting as Marina, I have an addendum. Start with necromancy, not engrave; you can learn engrave the first time you rest, and having the additional party members is more useful than engrave at the very start, since the villagers pose little threat to you; even less once you have zombies.

Clear the entire village of enemies (arm->arm->rev on torso, bear traps for ez kills on the dark priest and woodsman if you're lucky), inscribe your two fear and hunger sigils for rep, grab either Abella or Henryk, and *don't touch any chests or bookcases*. By resting and saving at the mayor's house after clearing all the threats from the village, you can easily save scum your way to success by reloading until you get your desired skin bibles, crafting books, or broken accessories. The mayor's house is ideal for this because there's a very large concentration of chests nearby and just about every bookcase in the village, so you don't have to travel very far to see if you need to reload.

I also found that starting with max Gro-goroth affinity was the most useful, since his sigil provides little benefit when inscribed and he has the strongest offensive spells.

This is what I came to after failing to get a Vinushka skin bible six runs in a row. All I wanted was that stupid ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ sword in the church rafters, and it wasn't even that great when I finally got it...

[Lionel]

Originally posted by Hoshi:

By the way, if you follow CuddilyWuddily's advice with starting as Marina, I have an addendum. Start with necromancy, not engrave; you can learn engrave the first time you rest, and having the additional party members is more useful than engrave at the very start, since the villagers pose little threat to you; even less once you have zombies.

Clear the entire village of enemies (arm->arm->rev on torso, bear traps for ez kills on the dark priest and woodsman if you're lucky), inscribe your two fear and hunger sigils for rep, grab either Abella or Henryk, and *don't touch any chests or bookcases*. By resting and saving at the mayor's house after clearing all the threats from the village, you can easily save scum your way to success by reloading until you get your desired skin bibles, crafting books, or broken accessories. The mayor's house is ideal for this because there's a very large concentration of chests nearby and just about every bookcase in the village, so you don't have to travel very far to see if you need to reload.

I also found that starting with max Gro-goroth affinity was the most useful, since his sigil provides little benefit when inscribed and he has the strongest offensive spells.

This is what I came to after failing to get a Vinushka skin bible six runs in a row. All I wanted was that stupid ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ sword in the church rafters, and it wasn't even that great when I finally got it...

ye i agree it's better to get necromancy at the beginning. and about wanting the game become balance it's quite hard here unless they buff with adding more aoe skill for physic atk or nerfing those spell atk.

[neo2157]

Originally posted by Hoshi:

By the way, if you follow CuddilyWuddily's advice with starting as Marina, I have an addendum. Start with necromancy, not engrave; you can learn engrave the first time you rest, and having the additional party members is more useful than engrave at the very start, since the villagers pose little threat to you; even less once you have zombies.

Clear the entire village of enemies (arm->arm->rev on torso, bear traps for ez kills on the dark priest and woodsman if you're lucky), inscribe your two fear and hunger sigils for rep, grab either Abella or Henryk, and *don't touch any chests or bookcases*. By resting and saving at the mayor's house after clearing all the threats from the village, you can easily save scum your way to success by reloading until you get your desired skin bibles, crafting books, or broken accessories. The mayor's house is ideal for this because there's a very large concentration of chests nearby and just about every bookcase in the village, so you don't have to travel very far to see if you need to reload.

I also found that starting with max Gro-goroth affinity was the most useful, since his sigil provides little benefit when inscribed and he has the strongest offensive spells.

This is what I came to after failing to get a Vinushka skin bible six runs in a row. All I wanted was that stupid ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ sword in the church rafters, and it wasn't even that great when I finally got it...

The swords actually decent because it does otherworldy damage, a damage source you can't do outside of spending mind.