all the anti-magic and darkness is absurd.

[Bold]

I just got about halfway through bt2 and all these anti-magic and darkness is so bad I'm getting to a point i don't even want to play anymore. this is just so stupid.

[Marcycle]

Originally posted by Bold:

I just got about halfway through bt2 and all these anti-magic and darkness is so bad I'm getting to a point i don't even want to play anymore. this is just so stupid.

Anti-magic can be strategically countered by using items/bard songs. Watchwood Melody is a song that specifically combats anti-magic zones, and spells that are cast using items will persist in anti-magic zones. Unlike spells cast by your party members, which will fizzle in anti-magic zones. This is why it's important to collect items that cast spells like SOSI and YMCA until you can get the 5th Destiny Wand. Even torches are super useful when you need to enter an anti-magic zone.

Darkness is the major frustration. It can be combatted somewhat by overlaying the minimap on your screen (hit [M] to get the overlay). Having Pan's Pipes is also nice to spam when you're in large dark zones since it has unlimited GRREs. Before I could get Pan's Pipes, I collected lightwands and spammed those since they had lots of charges and were rather plentiful in certain areas of the game. But for the most part exploring dungeons will slow to a crawl when you enter a darkness zone.

BT2 was designed to be hella frustrating, and played at a crawl, slowly mapping out each and every square. I think there's an interview somewhere where the creator of BT2 said that he designed the game with the idea that the DM should "win" and players should "lose," and that is what makes winning the game at the end so much more satisfying--because it's so frustratingly difficult to make progress.

[Bold]

in darkness i don't have a overlay, just a question mark, even when i hit [M]. My problem is a area with anti-magic, anti-song, darkness, spinners, traps and -H all in one area.

[Marcycle]

Originally posted by Bold:

in darkness i don't have a overlay, just a question mark, even when i hit [M]. My problem is a area with anti-magic, anti-song, darkness, spinners, traps and -H all in one area.

Oh, you're right about the question-mark. I totally forgot about that. Sorry, I guess hitting [J] after using the Pan's Pipes over and over again is the only good solution in the darkness areas. Def annoying, but not as bad as it was back in the day when there was no automap and you had to cast SCSI or use Kiel's Compass over and over again. In those days when you had to draw your own maps, it was a big sense of accomplishment to draw an accurate map with all of these roadblocks.

You can still use items in an anti-magic, anti-song, darkness, spinner, and trapped square. A Lightwand will give you a brief flash where you can map out a little bit of the area that you're facing, and an Arc's Eye will allow you to see traps and drain squares. Hitting [J] a bunch will allow you to know if a spinner shifted you in the wrong direction. Unfortunately, only BASP items will allow you to cast MACO so you know what direction you're facing, and those items usually only have a few charges on them.

Thankfully, I just checked to see how many darkness, anti-magic, anti-song squares there are in the game, and there are really only 3 of those areas. 2 of which you don't really have to pass in order to beat the game. So, the times when you'll need to use an item to cast BASP to determine what direction a spinner might have thrown you are rather few and far between. Most of the time you can just use an Arc's Eye to cast SOSI to let you know about traps or other things in front of you in the darkness.

[bluemonkey]

In addition to the above, I also keep a Staff of Lor for emergency healing. I can't remember if it works in antimagic zones, but its very useful at the end of a spell drain region.

Use the terrain to your advantage: Antimagic zones can provide useful cover against annoying enemy magic users (Fanskar's castle always comes to mind).

[EckyThump]

Something I only just learned - BT2's Master Key is equippable as an item, and has a passive No Spin effect. It is obtainable long before Nospen Rings show up, and yeah, it is pricey, but it's also essential so you'll be buying it anyway. That means one less thing to worry about while mapping out the dark zones.

[SlickRCBD]

Originally posted by Marcycle:

Originally posted by Bold:

BT2 was designed to be hella frustrating, and played at a crawl, slowly mapping out each and every square. I think there's an interview somewhere where the creator of BT2 said that he designed the game with the idea that the DM should "win" and players should "lose," and that is what makes winning the game at the end so much more satisfying--because it's so frustratingly difficult to make progress.

Are you sure you aren't thinking of Wizardry? BT2 was much easier than Wizardry I-III. Heck, I found it easier than the beginning of Might and Magic II, which until you can get to some of the stat up places is really frustrating.

[Marcycle]

Originally posted by SlickRCBD:

Originally posted by Marcycle:

Are you sure you aren't thinking of Wizardry? BT2 was much easier than Wizardry I-III. Heck, I found it easier than the beginning of Might and Magic II, which until you can get to some of the stat up places is really frustrating.

Here's the quote:
"Unfortunately, when Cranford plays D&D as the dungeon master, he plays it so that if everyone in the party dies, the DM wins. This is totally against how D&D works -- the DM is not supposed to be a participant, he's supposed to make it fun for everybody. That showed up in the way Destiny Knight played. Destiny Knight was a very difficult game. In a way it was because Cranford actually said if people get killed, he wins. I was like...Okay."

This is from the interview "The Burger Speaks: An Interview With An Archmage"

[SlickRCBD]

Thanks, I didn't have a lot of sources back in the day, mostly limited to InCider/A+ magazine, and later "II Alive!". I only learned about InCider in late 1991. Apple II oriented computer gaming magazines were not exactly mainstream, and I stumbled upon it at the magazine store tucked away in a corner when I was bored waiting for my dad to fill out and buy his lotto ticket.

[phimseto]

Michael spells out what his intentions were in the trailer for The Destiny Knight release (which should be linked in one of the pinned posts, if not it's on Youtube) - the game is meant to be difficult, but all the more gratifying for when players finally beat it.

[SlickRCBD]

Oh, I beat it, before internet guides were available. When I got my hands on Wizardry I for the Apple II years later (it was off the store shelves by the time I got an Apple IIGS in 1988 and at 10 I had limited funds to buy new games, only a couple a year) on the other hand I found the difficulty to be MUCH harder. Get surprised on some of the lower floors and you can have a TPK before getting to act as you get stun-locked.
I never really beat Wizardry. I considered the first two Wizardry games harder than BT2.

[SlickRCBD]

One thing I just noticed having actually started playing again instead of relying on knowledge from the Apple IIGS version I played extensively 30 years ago.
In this remake, either a bug has been fixed or the way these anti-magic areas work has been changed compared to the Apple IIGS version. I don't recall Bard's Tale III on the Apple IIe being different, but I think I only beat it once as I found the inferior graphics and sound to be a bit disappointing after playing the IIGS versions of BT1 & BT2. Also I was older as there was a 5 year gap between getting BT2 and BT3 since I kept waiting for the IIGS version to come out, then it was too late and it wasn't for sale anymore. I eventually got it 2nd hand.
Walking into an anti-magic zone didn't extinguish your light spell, although you did lose the special properties of the LERE or GRRE spells. So they ware a lot less annoying. Walking into an anti-song area DID turn out the light from Seeker's Ballad or Watchwood Melody. However I found myself often casting MAFL for a quick, low mana way to turn on the light in areas with lots of darkness.
Also torches have a much shorter duration than I recall. I swear they lasted as long as lamps do in the remake in the IIGS version. It could be timing adjustments because spell points regenerate an order of magnitude faster (which was badly needed. I used to play the game until I came out of a dungeon, then I'd do my homework next to the computer while waiting for spell points to regenerate, stopping to fight any monsters that attacked, then going back to the homework. )
So those anti-magic zones are a lot more annoying in the remake than in the original since they extinguish your lights as well.

[680x0]

git gud