Space level party breakup (spoilers)

[Giga]

WARNING: This is a whining thread.

I'm just writing this to say I hate the moment in the space level when Kane, Maeve, & Aeric get taken out of my party and sent on their own personal tests.

Few things in gaming are as annoying to me as getting used to a certain setup (Boron, Kane, Aeric, Maeve in my case) and then 30+ hours into the game being forced to level up and craft gear for the 3 characters I barely played up to that point. I so cant be arsed to do that, I'll likely drag the difficulty down to very easy just for these few fights until my party is back together.

The only reason I'm crying about this here is because I love this game and fully intend on supporting Event Horizon in the future. Hopefully, your future games will ease up on annoying mechanics like this.

[Panterich]

its only one fight.. drop difficulty to story mode for this fight only and just move on..

Still it is supposed that you will level all of your champions. This one fight is not hard and you don`t need to craft anything.

[madPav3L]

@Panterich
sure it's only one fight, but it's bad design and imo it should be changed.

I got to the same point as OP and I was not able to win the fight with the group I had.
I was playing on EPIC difficulty, the whole game I used only Kane, Maeve, Aeric and as last member Rakhem -> switched to Whisper -> switched to Kaela when the respective heroes became available.

Rakhem - he is on his starting level, no gear
Boron - he is on his starting level, no gear
Whisper - level 10 with T2 gear
Kaela - level 10 with T3 gear

It's impossible to win the fight with this group, I tried it a few times, I can clear 1-2 easy portals but at the end I run out of mana and HP (no heal in the group) and get killed.

I do not have gold to level Boron and Rakhem, I do have crystals to make gear, but that's just pointless for one fight, I have been saving them for my main heroes and other people maybe do not have crystals at all.
I was about to quit the game, write a negative review and be done with the game for good... but first I searched this forum for help... in the end lowering the difficulty helped, it was easy after that.

Until this point I loved the game, 70 hours played based on Steam statistic, but this event completely ruined all the enjoyment I had... I will continue playing because I want to know the whole story, hopefully something like this will not repeat.

[Deluu]

Yep i get the same problem.
Didnt lvl all my chars, only the 4 cool ones for me :-/

[madPav3L]

Well hopefully they will read it and maybe do something to improve this area...

[Panterich]

Hey guys. Have said it already and will say it again. You either face the challenge or drop difficulty. Also please read description of epic difficulty again. There are 7 champions in this game and leaving them at starting level is not how it was meant to be. And negative review of a game because of your stubbordness is kind of unfair (i`m not trying to offend anyone).

I can`t see any reason behind inability to not level everyone at least a little. Are you completing challenges? Are you picking up gold on tower floors? Have you tried asking Death for a little donation..? That may require some persuasion, but its still on the table, still managable and rewarding.
Btw i myself struggle with next floor ranged enemies without Boron, i mean you will want to level most of them sometime, or face a wall anyway.

Still, as i was just passing that same moment, i`ve tried my own custom challenge:
- only unique equips, but not ++ ones -- that means i will not use half ot uniques and there will be 5 empty ring slots, 2 basic gloves and shiny-forehead no-helmet Boron who somehow ended with his basic weapon set (and as i later discover will do almost no damage with attacks and skills)
- while my champions are all leveled, their skills and attributes will be reduced to those of: Rakhem and Boron at lvl7, Whisper and Kaela at lvl10 (i`m not sure about the need for second level of mind control, but its the only reason Whisper here is lvl10 and not lvl7)
- epic ofc

Won in 1 try. Do know quite a few battles that were a lot harder. Willing to help, but can`t a problem.. As with all portal battles, you should focus on destroying portals first, As with all portal battles, you need AoE control. As with all battles in general, melee enemies can`t hurt ranged champions who can outrun them, so after clearing portals you should focus on ranged enemies,


EDIT: About mana problems.

Boron doesn`t have mana regen. Give him appropriate dual 1h weapons and micro carefuly if skill spamming is desired. Btw cursed ring looks good on him.

Rakhem should also try to swing his duals most of the time and his attribute points should go in mastery, thats his way. Spam those hammers and that will be your healing. I doubt 2H weapon can work for him in this battle.

Whisper should use her teleport to boost regeneration. And don`t take her barrage skill, unless you do know what you are doing.

[Panterich]

What i do not understand myself, and suggest for a change, is that you don`t have access to missing champions` equips in that battle. Maeve is already done with her possible battle while Kane and Aeric won`t need their equips. This is a game after all, not a simulation.

[Ulthar]

In real life though, people do have to split up.

Why can't it by like POE II where the entire party levels, main party levels faster though.

[Hagen]

After enjoying the game for 47 hours, I just hit the same problem than the original poster.

I consider this as very bad design, especially in a game where you can only use 4 heroes out of 7. If we could play all of them in every battle, that would make sense. At the very least, we could be CLEARLY warned that all heroes will have to fight at some point, so we can train and equip them adequately.

Winning this Daeva battle is just impossible. As a result, I am going to set the difficulty level to easy or story but I find this very disappointing as it is like using a cheat code.

[Erik]

Agreed, Its the same as the Magic school crap in Dragon Age, the first thing you do there is to install the mod to skip the entire thing and get your own party back. Make the fight optional or remove it altogether.

[Event Horizon]

Hello Hagen and Erik.

Yes, I know. It was a bad design choice - we see this now. We thought it would be fun -- as a break from monotony - if you had to fight battles with just one champion or a certain party -- but we were incorrect apparently.

Changing this now, due to the way our quests are managed in-game - would be a truly titanic work which could potentially break a lot of small things. So here we can offer an advice to switch the game to "story" difficulty and accelerate time (and sorry for the disappointment). It would not be cheating - it is an approach recommended by the developer :)

That is a good feedback for our next project though - we will be careful in trying something completely new and if we do - we will make it optional for the player.

Cheers,
Kris

[Hagen]

Hi Kris,

I appreciate that you did answer and I am not asking to change the game now, as I understand it could be very expensive. I am glad that you take our feedback into account.

After I finished the game, I will give it a positive review, but will mention the fight I could not win in the cons, as well as your nice answer.

Thanks,
Ludovic

[Giga]

Originally posted by Event Horizon:

Hello Hagen and Erik.

Yes, I know. It was a bad design choice - we see this now. We thought it would be fun -- as a break from monotony - if you had to fight battles with just one champion or a certain party -- but we were incorrect apparently.

Changing this now, due to the way our quests are managed in-game - would be a truly titanic work which could potentially break a lot of small things. So here we can offer an advice to switch the game to "story" difficulty and accelerate time (and sorry for the disappointment). It would not be cheating - it is an approach recommended by the developer :)

That is a good feedback for our next project though - we will be careful in trying something completely new and if we do - we will make it optional for the player.

Cheers,
Kris

I think it's not a bad idea, and that it could work well in an action game.

But in an RPG where you have to level up and gear up characters who all use vastly different abilities from one another, and you can't grind (so you can't go back with your low level ungeared companions and grind up some levels & gear for them), it basically puts the game to a standstill.

[Winter]

I don't think it's a really bad idea. I enjoy surprises in games and I didn't see this coming. At the moment I'm stuck at this point (also playing on epic), but I think I might be able to get past it if I try a few things ... which is how I like my games balanced in terms of difficulty. Don't know what's around the next corner if I do make it!

[Hagen]

I think nobody said it was a bad idea. I also welcome surprises.

Problem is the way it was designed; you could end up being stuck, having no other choice than lowering the difficulty level for this specific battle (or starting a new game).

[Gnk*]

Originally posted by alan.ferebee:

I enjoy surprises in games and I didn't see this coming. At the moment I'm stuck at this point (also playing on epic), but I think I might be able to get past it if I try a few things ... which is how I like my games balanced in terms of difficulty. Don't know what's around the next corner if I do make it!

Agree with Alan. Nice mix-up after 6 "linear" floors. Playing on normal i had to level-up a couple of party members but enjoyed very much the challenge as i had to learn new abilities for character i usually dont use much. Got a blast with Engineer abilities as i never used it

Just finished the 7th floor and now ready to continue the journey in the tower, knowing better my party and its capabilities now

Originally posted by Hagen:

I think nobody said it was a bad idea. I also welcome surprises.

Problem is the way it was designed; you could end up being stuck, having no other choice than lowering the difficulty level for this specific battle (or starting a new game).

Why stuck Hagen? Cant you just level up party members? Well i am playing on normal so maybe on epic is something too much difficult. Just asking