"true hardcore" impossible? (cursed hounds broken)

[ygramul]

By "true hardcore" I mean "no reloads" :: i.e. dead is dead!

What that means that if you cannot reliably beat an encounter you will likely fail the game.

The only encounters that the game forces upon you are the cursed hounds. (You cannot truly escape them; only delay the encounter a bit; then they come back.)


By lvl 4 I see that I get 2 hounds already:
- melee is nearly useless
- money is tight so I cannot walk around blessed up all the time (remember no-reloads? that means you cannot go back to prepare when hound attack imminent.)



I wonder if 2 mages or perhaps a divine summoner can make difference here?



Bottom line: Hound attacks ridiculous early game & break the hardcore entirely.

Nor enjoyable.

[ygramul]

P.S. I hear that the "Talisman" warns you of hound attacks.
Unacceptable as a solution!

I refuse a "pay to win" option. The base game should be beatable as is.

[Kordanor]

You can always run from combat. That said, the game isn't designed to be played that way.

It probably is completely doable. But that starts with harvesting food in the city for some dozen or hundreds of hours.

PS: For me the cursed hounds are some of the best encounters in the game (after level 10 or so) as I enjoy a challenge and the other enemies become weaker and weaker in comparison. When I play on max difficulty I want to see fights I don't manage to win in the first try.

[delmoroth]

I think the hounds were only put in as a gold sink. Trivial fights with permenant debuffs which are costly to remove. Learn to play debuffed 100% of the time or live in a sad state in the poor house.

[The Beast]

Gotta agree completely with Kordanor; cursed hound fights keep the game interesting and not like so many other games where clearing an area permenately becomes safe. If you want a nonchallenging game, I recommend solitaire.

[MeniDanger]

At first I was a bit off-put by the seemingly random hound attacks, though later in the story you get a reason why they exist and learn of a way to get rid of them for good.

[Eraija]

Youll end up spending most of your bonuses from the talisman teleport to a safe place and rebuffing for the wolves.

[ygramul]

"solitaire"?!

What part of hardcore/ironman/no-reload/early-game do you not understand?

Game balance is an issue!
Early game hardcore hounds are unbalanced.

[Tegga21]

I'm guessing it is, I'm on hardcore / iron and havn't had a group wipe yet. Have run a (few) times but no complete death yet

Originally posted by ygramul:

By "true hardcore" I mean "no reloads" :: i.e. dead is dead!

What that means that if you cannot reliably beat an encounter you will likely fail the game.

The only encounters that the game forces upon you are the cursed hounds. (You cannot truly escape them; only delay the encounter a bit; then they come back.)


By lvl 4 I see that I get 2 hounds already:
- melee is nearly useless
- money is tight so I cannot walk around blessed up all the time (remember no-reloads? that means you cannot go back to prepare when hound attack imminent.)



I wonder if 2 mages or perhaps a divine summoner can make difference here?



Bottom line: Hound attacks ridiculous early game & break the hardcore entirely.

Nor enjoyable.

[Kordanor]

Originally posted by ygramul:

Early game hardcore hounds are unbalanced.

Nope, they are not if you play the game as it is intended to be played.
Dieing on the first try is perfectly fine if the game as no "real" ironman mode.

I would agree on a game like Witcher 2 for example, which has a real ironman mode and where you have combats which you can only win if you look them up beforehand or do something right by accident. (like: go left or right. Right -> You are dead).

[Estonian Psycho]

I dont think they are broken. First of all you can always run from them if you are full health when the encounter starts. And I dont think any party with a thief would have problems fighting against hounds.

[UnluckyNoob]

Just run from them at low lvls and start farming them as soon as your back row fighters will be able to survive lightning bolt (use HP gear or invest couple bodybuilding levels). Hounds mana pools are limited and they deal almost no melee damage, so just stand and heal until they'll run out of gas. Another options is picking rogue in your party and slaughtering them with shurikens.

What about true hardcore, I think its pretty easy. I never died after lvl 10 or so with the only exception of non-battle encounter when I came close to soldiers and was dead after short dialog. I play at 300% and currently my party is lvl 23-24.

[MrMuse]

I don't understand why so many people are whining about early encounters. If you find them difficult then just give up because you will not make it through Vilak at the end. Just getting onto the lake of fire is a big bottleneck.

[Andra]

On the note of the "pay to win" - The Amulet takes up an equipment slot and thus limits Gaulen's combat ability. So there is a trade off there. You're going for stronger economy over attributes. And considering some neck pieces can offer 20+ attribute points that is a serious loss!!!

Even then the "Warning" about the cursed hounds could mean they come within the next hour, or 24 hours. It is certainly not fullproof.

[Theduke22]

Cursed hounds will come at regular intervals. Learn the signs/timing, save in town before the fight, grab blessings, etc., and go kick their butts.

I agree, they are probably the hardest thing about the early game on hard/IM. Blessings are key to killing them at low levels. You may have to save/reload to avoid winding up with curses. It would be nice if their own teeth could remove their curse, but no dice. It's super expensive, and probably the biggest reload event in the early game for me.

Hardcore/IM is about using everything available to you. Blessings like Kersket, the free ferbet shrine that will help reduce their lightning damage, saving at the right time so you know the next fight will be with the hounds, and so on.

Eventually though, they will do practically zero damage later and be a good source of experience and cash.