How to play these games...

[53yoGamer]

I am not sure if I am playing normal or its me... I can only EITHER EXPLORE a dungeon with running away all the time OR do some fights for XP and gold... but not both. As soon as I face some fights, party members are killed and as soon as I have 1-2 dead I need to leave the dungeon again. this is frustrating. is the game meant to be like that ?
I have now Level 14 characters and could not even face every fight in the BEGINNER dungeon of Tangramayne. this cannot be normal.

[FandebarDrakus]

I just finished that dungeon and I had to still be careful on level 3 and 4. Have a Bard play Spell Song in the first round, and cast Giant Strength on the party if you have it.

[Grondel the 10/10]

obviously u started from lvl 1. dont go for lvl 3 unless u have a conjurer with max spell lvl (lvl 13).
grind on lvl 3 until u have at least 1 sorcerer (with max conjurer and magician spells).
on lvl 4 u can use the area near the stairs to grind urself an archmage lvl1. some fights here will give u 50k+xp. now make sure to have 1 spare slot pick up the flying creature from lvl 2 and safe the princess. ur team is around mid 20s now with at least one archmage lvl 2-3.
thats what u want before starting on the main quest of BT2 to not run into malicious problems.

[Morgian]

Starting out in BT 2 is not as easy as it is in BT 1. Since you can transfer your party from the first game, the second compensates somewhat for that.
You can always make characters in BT1, level them to about 20, and then transfer them over to BT2, if the monsters murder you all the time. I transferred my level 27s and had no troubles in the Starter Dungeon (small wonder) and The Tombs. But at that time BT 2 starts to throw XP at you and I was 51 when Starting the Maze of Dread.

[Cynns]

Originally posted by DE Andreas:

I am not sure if I am playing normal or its me... I can only EITHER EXPLORE a dungeon with running away all the time OR do some fights for XP and gold... but not both. As soon as I face some fights, party members are killed and as soon as I have 1-2 dead I need to leave the dungeon again. this is frustrating. is the game meant to be like that ?
I have now Level 14 characters and could not even face every fight in the BEGINNER dungeon of Tangramayne. this cannot be normal.

Yes, this is how the game is meant to be played. This is a remaster of an old school RPG game from the 80's where they weren't easy.

[SpectralShade]

you grind xp/gear until you feel comfortable in the area to explore a bit without dying.

[J. Glennson Reeves]

Starting weak is fun! Finding a good grind area is part of the game. After your party strengthens, mercilessly slaughtering the once dominant enemy is quite satisfying.

[Gandalf]

Originally posted by Batty:

Starting weak is fun! Finding a good grind area is part of the game. After your party strengthens, mercilessly slaughtering the once dominant enemy is quite satisfying.:skullb:

I'd prefer that the "starting week "struggle would increase, rather than decrease.

[Dragon20070]

Yeah it's normal. The goal is leveling up your party enough to face new levels. Please know that in the Dark Domain the next floor becomes A LOT harder than the previous one, so you have to level up at least 3/4 levels before going further. When you run out of MP, leave the dungeon heal and refill your party cast the spells to explore better (mage flame/lesser/greater revelation, magic compass, levitation and Ybarra's Mystic shield/coat of armor) and go back in dungeon. When you feel confindent in that level, go down to the next and try a battle, at start you will struggle, but after a few levels you will beat them easily. I suggest to use a lot of area damaging spells (such as dragon breath) at first so you decimate groups of enemies.

In BT2 for a new party, go to the shoppe and equip them with basic equipment. In the city fight just groups of max 2 monsters (run away if they are more, if you cannot run defend and re-try the next round). Know that here you get a lot of money, so do some fights then go back to the shoppe and buy better equipment until you have all your party equipped at best that shoppe can offer. When you'll become level 3/4 you can face more monsters. I was level 8 before entenring the first dungeon.

[flux_c]

A lot of the gameplay from these three Bard's Tale games is simply grinding. Since memory at the time was at a premium, developers needed ways to increase play time. Memory wise, this is very efficient.

That being said, I managed to beat the final boss of the Dark Domain at level 7. Took a few tries, but its possible.

[FandebarDrakus]

I good idea for the spell point problem is to not have your mages cast offensive spells until the 2nd round, after you Bard plays Spell Song. (Unless your Bard has a much higher Dex and gets it out before your casters cast). So in the first round, if you don't want to just defend, cast Phase Blur, or other spells that are useful but only cost a couple of spell points. Then in the following round, cast your offensive spells and they will be more likely to kill everyone or just leave a few for melee. You will save spell points in the long run this way for sure! Unless everyone starts out in melee (10') - then you just got to blast straight away.

[Slargos]

There are essentially three phases to each dungeon:

1. Investigative phase

- Find out which monsters you need to pay special attention to. Your stoners, your breathers and your drainers.
- Determine your strength level relative to the monsters. How much grinding will you need in order to proceed to the next phase?

2. Exploratory phase

- Find the clues you'll use to solve the puzzles.
- Find the clues you'll use to progress towards the next dungeon.
- Determine what actions are necessary to perform in order to proceed to the solution.

3. Conquest phase

- Avoid random battles and conserve your strength towards the conclusion of the snare.



During the first phase your goal is simply to position yourself in such a way that you can perform phase two with confidence. This means finding a good spot to grind and heading back to heal and refresh frequently.

During the second phase, your goal is to map the entire dungeon in order to uncover its secrets and determine the path to the final puzzle. Here you're more interested in spending as much time as possible mapping so you'll presumably be running away from every battle you can't be sure you'll win with a minimum of HP/SP expenditure.

During the third phase, you've assembled all the information you need, and you'll be heading directly for the objective. At this point there's really no sense in fighting anything you don't have to, since the ascension to the next dungeon will improve your grinding efficiency anyway, but you should be able to brush aside any random encounter with little effort.


So no. It sounds like you're inadvertently doing what you're supposed to.

[Winterson]

Off-topic: When I first dabbled into RPG´s, i started with Might and Magic VI. I don´t have to say in the later games the XP needed for level up were quite high. I think I´ve played it one year...for some reason i just enjoyed the game and constant slaughter of enemies. I ended up around lvl 86 - and just beacuse we contested with friend who can make higher lvl, dmg, AC etc.

So I presume this game isn´t made for "quick, quick, quick!" in few hours session, but old fashioned and slow progress (even when it´s remake). I never played longer than 1 hour, beacuse it´s just grind...but when i play, I have fun and the feeling of progress is good.

[Wakawaka]

The starter dungeon "requires" phase door if you solve the dungeon for the first time without any online hints.

And really having one mage who has lvl 7 conjurer spells and one mage who has lvl 7 magician spells helps a ton.

The third floor is much harder than the first two. If possible only fight the fights that you can't run from.

In the first main dungeon, the third floor is also brutally hard compared to the first two floors.

So I think there are two early difficultly spikes.

After that, the second, third, fourth, five, dungeons are only a little harder with each floor, and if you explore everything you don't have to grind and it should be pretty easy.

[Thorba]

I was taking over my lvl 35 party from bt1 and now everything is so damm easy, hope that it will become harder after a few dungeons.

[VoidEngineer]

Originally posted by Thorba:

I was taking over my lvl 35 party from bt1 and now everything is so damm easy, hope that it will become harder after a few dungeons.

It will.