Has anyone killed the spectral dragon?

[matteo.boldizzoni]

I don't have many bosses left to kill, just the spectral dragon, dracolich and nossos (I think).
The tactic the spectral dragon uses to win seems to be just boring the player till he quits in frustration. I could not kill it, it could not kill any of my characters. After an hour I quit.
I really think some encounters have not been balanced well. One sould not have to quit in frustration because a battle is going nowhere for over an hour.

Since I am at it I'll give some other opinions I have about this game after playing for some time:

1) I know this has been discussed before but I think it's just wrong and unfair not to let the player see what the resist spell do and how long they last. It always feels as they aren't making any difference in the battles and one never kows when it's time to cast an other one. To me it soesn't add anything to the fun.

2)This game is WAY TOO STINGY with books. Let the stores have some more and also make some monsters drop a few as well!

3) What am I suppesed to understand when the battle log says something like "A spectral vortex focuses a narrow ray of spectral light at the head of Dakkone for xx point of damage"? What kind of damage should this be?How am I supposed to plan my tactics if I don't know what kind of damage I am facing?

4) The humor in the game: Someone has already said this but I'll repeat it: not funny, spoils atmosphere.

It's a good game, not and RPG in my opinion, I'm having fun with it but I think some difects could be fixed to make it even better.
Bye

[prometheusheir]

Thanks for the feedback. I appreciate some design choices are not to everyone's taste, rest assured I did not decide them easily, but I had to make some decisions along the way and as a whole am pretty happy with how things are working together.

On the spectral dragon: he is one of the 'pets'. They were not really intended to exist, but before chapter 3 was released mid last year, some long time players got bored and begged for some tougher respawning mobs. So they got the pets. If you need high end tactical advice, here is your mecca for DoC players: https://www.facebook.com/groups/198849273863516/

1) it was initially a mix of 'don't want to give precise numbers' and 'don't want to clog the UI'. But after playing with it as it were, I found it works fine. If you can't see it make a difference then your spell level is small or you are not actually facing imminent death from a particular element. Most common examples where it does come through as helpful: early on fighting orcs etc, having an 'armor boost' cast on a player shows a good reduction in damage taken per blow. Duration is indeed not shown, but for all the basic resist spells you can get a feel pretty quickly that they last about 5 turns + 1 per level, with 'turn' meaning a low level player long sword attack. It is actually measured in 'ticks' and a low level player long sword attack usually takes about 100 ticks. A rogue using a dagger takes half that of course.

2) Of all the respawning monsters, floaters drop a lot of books, low to mid level. And dark invokers drop even high level ones. All you need to kick off a spell is to find or buy ONE book of it, so it is not too difficult to complete your array of spells at the later stage. Giving a wide array of books too easily or too early would make some spell access advantages of advanced class too thin. Meteor should really be a certainty for geomancers for example, without one in your party you would need to hunt down a spellbook and that 'obsession' becomes a doable but sizeable feat to achieve. I feel that is the right approach, that little is impossible but not everything is easy.

3) Sorry that is indeed a bit vague. 'spectral' is one of the item boni that items can have, granting magic damage. But that is not clear enough. It is magic damage.

4) sorry to hear that. I let myself out... ;-)