Black Angel
Arcane
People keep saying that the game is railroading your character based on chargen, but if that's the case how come there's no 'obvious' path? I'll admit it's been awhile since I played the thief questline, but where's the actual proof of one painting oneself into a corner despite developing a clear character build?My point is that there is no obvious path. Yes, you know what skills a thief should be invested in. And yes, you know what skills have come in useful during past missions. I'm not talking about players just deciding all the sudden that their thief is going to switch gears and handle the next mission by Bartering their way out of it or something like that. I'm talking about having points invested in the skills that have come in useful before and just not in the right combo for the next mission. I know for a fact that the developers reluctantly acknowledged the issue by changing some skill checks to a combination of two skills. That made it better, but it was still possible to logically invest skill points and paint oneself into a corner. People who don't like replaying hours of content that they just recently completed are going to get stuck once and then adjust by saving before any investment of skill points and rightfully so because it is very possible that reloading is in their future. This is a common adjustment that many players reported making.
Also, I don't know that the devs making combined skill checks is a 'new thing', so I'm not sure the context of that, whether it was an early access thing or a new patch since 1.0 release. I only played the game for the first time in 2017, so maybe that's why I don't have this kind of problem after all the patches.
I object, there's a clear difference.Yes, knowing where all the opportunities to pick up skill points is very useful in this game. There is really little difference between hoarding skill points or failing a faction quest, reloading and then going picking up a few SP you knew were out there but hand't bothered with yet.
Hoarding SPs means one anticipated a high skill check down the line for the sake of passing it. And also that one obviously aren't actually trying to play the game of role-playing, and instead submit to one's own desire to just pass every skill checks out there.
Meanwhile, reloading after failing stuff and then going back to pick up few SPs or, in other words, accumulating XPs to prepare oneself for more difficult encounter.... how come you can't tell this crystal clear difference?
I'm not faulting people to hoard SPs. It's, in fact, a valid way to approach a game just as much as spamming Harm in Arcanum. But when you do that while others were able to play the game, 'approach' it normally like any other RPGs, will you fault the system instead of your own desire to pass every checks?
It's not oversimplifying when it's the truth, though?As far as what you're talking about with skill point levels by city, that is oversimplifying. Because you're not going to have the same skill level in all your relevant skills at any point in the game. Once you get to Maadoran, raising one of the skills you've been investing in consistently requires a major investment of skill points. And if you make the wrong major investment of your skill points at the wrong time, it is easy to get stuck.
Also, you're approaching this from the wrong angle. Yes, raising skills you've been prioritizing since the beginning during later parts of the game requires ever increasing investment of points, but at the same time the devs also puts in many opportunities to accumulate SPs to accommodate that. But it's not that you make 'wrong major investment of SPs at the wrong time', because like I said even if you happened to encounter a wall you can't pass you can just go back and do something else you can to prepare yourself for that wall.
And once again, when this kind of situation happens, it's more often than not the players being so hellbent on doing the 'right thing', instead of accepting that 'what's done is done'.
I also did this, too. But not in fear of missing out or not being able to pass a skill check. Only as a save point I can roll back to if I ever want to pursue different paths from that point.But I always saved before making major investments because replaying hours of content that I just recently finished is something I didn't want to do.
Yeah, this is actually one that I thought really strange to put in a 'Thief' questline. I get it that Levir wants to settle the debt, but it's even stranger that this kind of questline didn't even exist in the 'Assassin' questline.The "kill Gaelius" mission is the one where I remember getting stuck, having to start over and still having to do some trial and error during my next try in order to get through it. And it definitely involved putting points in at least one skill that I hadn't used previously as a thief and didn't use again.
Hopefully VD and co don't do this weird stuff again with Colony Ship.