Ancient Temple (Spoilers)

[Godwoken Dovahkiin]

So what is the deal with the fight with Aetera? Or any fight for that matter at this point. If you have your party gathered and you speak to someone and a fight breaks off your whole party will wipe most likely. So the only way to do fights is to know whats going to happen?

Anyways, playing with MC Custom Rogue lvl 13, warrior, cleric/hydro, fire ranged mage, if my team is paired up Aetera does chain lightning and it's gg. So I decided to split my team but as soon as the fight starts she summons 2 more enemies and will pretty much kill my rogue before he even gets a turn ( Since for some reason summoned units get instant priority and they hit for 220 twice or even trice). The only way to survive this is to prebuff my rogue in mid conversation, position my warrior just below her so she wont cast any AoE source spells and position my cleric in such way that she summons the 2 enemies near her and jumps towards to her to steal source (I believe it's because she has Glass Cannon). Then pretty much gangbang the F out of Aetera with rogue/warrior/heals.

Will future fights be like this? Finding a way to exploit the AI? Does 1 level below affects the fight that much? I beat her like this but this victory feels wrong and cheesy.

[Chaoslink]

1 level does make a huge difference. This difference is made even larger for every item you have equipped that is less than the level of your current enemy. If you're fighting level 14 enemies, you're expected to have level 14 gear. So if you're level 13, the lack of level 14 gear makes a small difference that comes with being that level down. I say this as it is entirely possible to have gear higher level than yourself, somewhat mitigating the lower level effects of being lower level than the enemy.

Strong builds and strategies can help negate that difference, I've cleared Bloodmoon Isle, a level 15 area at level 10, using a mix of solid strategy and early accessed level 15 gear. However, such things are rare to see as most players will struggle with enemies even one level above you. 5-6 levels would be impossible in most cases.

As for the fight feeling wrong or cheesy... If you can do it, its there to be done. Some examples I admit are.... not really okay, but some things people might call cheese, I just call good strategy. Like attacking from out of combat and getting the last turn in the cycle to also go first the next turn cycle due to high initiative so you can take two turns with the same character in a row. Not really cheese in my book.

Here's a couple of examples... the first one here, is definitely cheese and not really something I recommend abusing (though its not really reasonable in most cases anyway)

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1507969418

As for this one though, I don't consider it cheese as it is simply using the environment around you to create some form of advantage... even if you have to literally move that environment into a singularity...

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1527568621

[Godwoken Dovahkiin]

Attacking out of combat to me should be a thing with the Guerilla perk, I mean sure you can do it with everyone but it feels kinda off since these are tactics used by rogues/assassins mostly.

The second picture to me is kind of cheese, IMO anything that breaks the AI is cheese. Most of the time the AI doesn't know what to do in these situations, they don't even try to attack the things blocking their path. Now if it were items with high HP then that would be different, but I wish the AI did something at least.

If fights were like the big void woken outside of the fort then it's fine. But if fights are going to be like Aetera where I can't even act before dying then I believe it's a big problem. The pre buff thing seems like a bug, if it was intended then everyone should be able to keep their buffs until a fight breaks out. But since it's only the character interacting that keeps the buff, it feels like an oversight.

Personally, I'm against altering anything before a fight, skills should be reserved for battle, not altering things to your favor before a fight. Or was that the devs intentions for this game? Putting people in hard situations where they just have to rely on outside battle tactics? I mean I can think of a few broken tactics like using Escapist to flee every turn and never get hit, I don't think that was the intended use but it can be abused.

I'd like to think about it like Dragon Age Origins, there is no way to cheese anything outside of combat (iirc), everything stays in combat. Using your skills/spells tactically, running from the enemy while your mage heals you etc.

[Chaoslink]

None of it is required, but some of it will make a difference. The only one I’d say is needed though is splitting your team up. Playing tactician first time isn’t recommended unless you expect to wipe on occasion as it does kinda assume you know the fights. Otherwise, you need to expect and predict when a fight might occur and spread out in advance. That’s just how it is honestly.

Though you really shouldn’t be losing anyone before you get a turn. Only fight I can think of where that seems likely is the final fight.

[GordoBoy]

Originally posted by Godwoken Dovahkiin:

So what is the deal with the fight with Aetera? Or any fight for that matter at this point. If you have your party gathered and you speak to someone and a fight breaks off your whole party will wipe most likely. So the only way to do fights is to know whats going to happen?

Anyways, playing with MC Custom Rogue lvl 13, warrior, cleric/hydro, fire ranged mage, if my team is paired up Aetera does chain lightning and it's gg. So I decided to split my team but as soon as the fight starts she summons 2 more enemies and will pretty much kill my rogue before he even gets a turn ( Since for some reason summoned units get instant priority and they hit for 220 twice or even trice). The only way to survive this is to prebuff my rogue in mid conversation, position my warrior just below her so she wont cast any AoE source spells and position my cleric in such way that she summons the 2 enemies near her and jumps towards to her to steal source (I believe it's because she has Glass Cannon). Then pretty much gangbang the F out of Aetera with rogue/warrior/heals.

Will future fights be like this? Finding a way to exploit the AI? Does 1 level below affects the fight that much? I beat her like this but this victory feels wrong and cheesy.

Hello my dude, let me help you.
First of all, abuse teleport, you can teleport her to far away while she is still in dialogue, do so to take her down the stairs from where you came so you leave the wolves alone.
If she is far enough, you can kill the wolves without her aggroing, do so.
After they are dead, buff yourself and attack her, she will summon her pets, buff herself and whatnot
Kill the wolves before they get to you, then deal with her, she has some cheeky one shot spells, but if you can survive trough the first burst, just wail on her and keep her CCd

[fragonard]

Too hard a fight at level 13. If you're doing it to get Ryker's tablet, just don't talk to her, grab the tablet and come back at level 16 and she'll be easy to handle.

[volx757]

Originally posted by Godwoken Dovahkiin:

Personally, I'm against altering anything before a fight, skills should be reserved for battle, not altering things to your favor before a fight. Or was that the devs intentions for this game? Putting people in hard situations where they just have to rely on outside battle tactics? I mean I can think of a few broken tactics like using Escapist to flee every turn and never get hit, I don't think that was the intended use but it can be abused.

The dev's absolutely do intend for players to use skills in this way. Resting and encouraging before every fight is something I think is a standard play. Buffing characters engaged in dialog i agree doesn't feel like the way it should work, but I'll take it haha. If I remember correctly, buff timers on chars in dialog DID run down in D:OS1. So it would appear to be an intentional change.

The escapist thing is another totally fair tactic within the bounds of the system the devs created, but using that tactic comes at the extremely high cost of wasting your real world time and giving you a boring experience. You can do it, but would you ever actually?

As far as in-game morality about buffing before fights goes, to me it feels moral enough to make sure you're well rested and to get an inspiring speech (or whatever encourage is) before going to battle.