[SPOILERS] Co8 v7 Beta Testing Thread [SPOILERS]

The road so far.
(This is what I did and the important events that happened, in chronological order)
-start at Level 10 (w/o water temple, 3rd level, 4th level & Zugg).
-completed both "Attack from Underground" & "Frozen Assets"quests.
-got "The Rabbit Hole" quest. (should I do it?, forgot to mention this before.)
-killed all the Wanted (GG, QC & KC) guys, quest completed.
-gained Level 11 after killing Robin of Locksley & Co.
-botched "Framework of the Murder" quest.
-completed "Narcing the Scarlet Brotherhood" quest.
-gained the "Scarlet Brotherhood Narc" reputation.
-gained Level 12 after killing Cannon Thaddeus.
-completed "Contract on Cannon Thaddeus" quest.
-gained Level 13 after killing the Hextorites in the ToEE .
-completed "Monster Mash" quest.
-got "The Gremlich" mentioned quest from the guard.
-killed the Gremlich, quest completed.
-killed the Scarlet Brotherhood R.E.

Then some comments & replies.

Yeah I installed the update fix, okay this are some timelines based on my saves.
(I usually save my game before I talk to some important people, do quest/events, switching places and also after an encounter/battle)

Wilfrick
1/5/580 11:07
Purchased CotL
1/12/580 02:46
Wanted: GG, QC & KC (WWI)
1/16/580 05:54
Robin of Locksley
1/24/580 19:49

So after talking to wilfrick it took me 19 days before the Robin encounter, I think this proves that your update fix is working properly - no worries.

The ghost did'nt seem to interrupt me when I try to rest at the CotL, that's why I simply attack them. After that they'll just vanish. (tried all floors)

I take back what I said earlier, I reloaded my saves on Level 10. (no idea why it happened to me, I know about the map change though).
Wilfrick (I can now see him back at his estate at night and in his office at day).
Robin of Locksley & Co.(I can now see their logbook-ego info).

Robin of Locksley
His encounter didn't let me reload, so I guess he's between easy & middling, appropriate tactics and spells would instantly kill him and his party (phantasmal & cloudkill would do and fireballs wouldn't). It's pretty fun fighting with his archers and rogues, also they had a nice loot.

The Scarlet Brotherhood Revenge Encounter
Oooh, I think this one is middling. No reloads necessary but it's a tough battle, w/o weapons and armors fighters are useless except for a two weapon wielder the SB wont take the secondhand weapon - I just switch it to primary. Anyway spellcasters are important, AoE spells and some high powered spells would do. (Question: Their SB Narc reputation would stay in our logbook for the rest of our lives right?- guess it's not like the Target of Revenge).

About the scene, it's fantastic - reminds me of some CRPG games.

The Gremlich
Well frankly he's HARD to beat even for my lvl 13 party, at first he killed two tough members of my party then took me few reloads before I defeated him (4 reloads). Kinda annoyed with his shape-shifting ability. I advise my fellow beta testers to be totally ready w/ the appropriate spells before confronting him. Players will definitely enjoy killing him just as I.

Btw, for me searching for the Mystic was easy, she's my first guess then boom jackpot. Her rewards are funny, the [G] for me is a joke, the [W] is sensibly nice (but I never choose it) and lastly the is what I think the appropriate reward - pretty fun watching them fight and a loot of course.

Edit:
Gaear can I confront Senshock then let him escape to Verb, I think I need his magical gears.

 

Like I said in my earlier post ...

I'm not getting a good response from Darlia in the Maroon Moon. If I agree to come back the next day and pay 100 gold they send me up to the third floor where Darlia is with his buddy the adivsor to the Viscount.
When I talk to him he just says his business is his own.
My party is NG as is my mouth piece that talks to him.
Does the Good part of NG make Darlia not want to deal with my party?

Any help on this would be great, I'm kind of at a stand still until I can get the quests from him.

 

sirchet, I don't know anything about being NG when it comes talking to Darlia, but I do know that I'm using my Rogue when talking to him. There must be a bluff line like this "I'm from Verb...", "I fix problems"... Hmm, I guess you must reload your save on the time you haven't spoke to Darlia yet - then use your rogue or any char who has a high bluff skill (char who doesn't have a high bluff skill will kill all his dialog lines?, well that happens to me several times.) ^_^

 

I had that problem in 6.1,, i could not get the dialouge from Darlia , maybe due to lack of reputation.
I then bought the castle and after that i could get the dialogue.

But reading Gaears instructions it seems like you already done that.

 

Thanks guys, my rogue is my mouth-piece.

I have not bought the castle yet, but I will now, (if I have the gold that is )

EDIT: After buying the castle and excepting the quests from the Marshall, Darlia gave me the quests.

Gaear, if I understand correctly my NG party is to go ahead and kill the guy and bring back the diamond to Darlia in order to move forward to other quests he can give and eventually get himself turned in to the authorities by me, thus starting the scarlet brotherhood thing rolling?

EDIT#2: Elmo would have no part of it and I had to kill him, poor Elmo I knew him well. I'm going to see if I can't drop him and pick him back up after.

 

Welcome back Gaear, I thought you got sick or something :wave:

Well simply because I tried all the spells I got, then I came into a theory that some of them don't and do work. Also it has something to do with what the Mystic told me (daylight?) - so, first I tried simple fire spells and alike but my clerics 3rd spell do more damage. Some spells (w/ a feat - GSP) works too but do less damage than the appropriate ones.

Second I knew it because of my another Party (remember my 13th level party who finished the ToEE?), well they are my fun playing party. So after finishing some quests, bought the CotL and suddenly accepted Prince Zook second quest, I've accidentally found the "Rabbit Hole" (that's why I ask you if I can get Senshock into trading - what I totally need him is for the item "Robe of Eyes" and also the reason I ask you if I should do the quest for my Level 10 party). Then I had an interesting chit chat with the old man up/down there, some secrets are needed to be bought. Anyway sorry in advance, I didn't mention this because I think I'm not supposed to. :shy:

 

Yet again I apologize - for my discreet posts related to the new stuff (guys please don't take this the wrong way), I just don't want to spoil the NC here because some of the members/players here might be viewing this thread and I think they may lose interest in playing the new stuff if they knew it already. But then I realized that it's not my decision to make if they want to get spoiled or what (it's like I'm taking away their chance/decision to see the new stuff), anyway thank you Gaear for telling me this - it's certain that if I'm not warned/advised about this, well probably this would continue w/o knowing that it's becoming hard for you and for the others. From now on I'll keep this in mind and I'll try to be more elaborate on the things I'll post.

Okay.

Note: All tests were night time.
My 1st Test: Nulb Landing point (Original Form), 2nd Test Verbobonc, outside the CotL (Ghost Form). My 3rd Test would be in Hommlet & others which I haven't tried yet.

*Sometimes he doesn't immediately attack me, he just ran back and forth screaming. Then after a while he will.

*When I fought the Gremlich in Nulb & then I cast an area spell like fireball-then the signpost was part of that area spell. The signpost will join the fight, and when it has the initiative it will tell me like this"There's little to be gained by attacking the sign post." then after that it will end the fight, started another fight by the Gremlich, signpost was still part of that fight and then loop continues. (It's kinda annoying actually because the Gremlich always get the first initiative and then attacks me, maybe if I got those high initiatives I wouldn't mind this loop. Hehehe)

*Uncle Orrengaard mentioned that in killing the Gremlich I can even use spells like Faerie Fire and Flare, but do these two inflict damage to him? I do know that Searing Light, Fireball and Flame Strike works perfectly.

Yes I can't kill him by normal means. Do you remember my post where I mentioned the "Lareth's Club" w/ Greater Magic Weapon bug that has 200+ damage points (till now I don't know if this a bug or not - what is it btw?), well I used that to him then he poofs/shapeshifted into the dementor looking ghost w/ full health & then I bashed him again then he shapeshifted back to his original form w/ another full health then the same process if I continue bashing him.(That's what I call extremely tough.)

*Sometimes when his HP are a bit low, he instantly change.

Yeah no sign of him, I can only hear his spooky lady-ish screams.

The one in the forest where Hextor's Hill Giants and Erytnull's Ettins were fighting. (Going to test this more and see what else I can dig up.)

BTW: I picked the "Women" reward from Mona, was she supposed/scripted to give me the scratch paper (Brothel Free Pass) for real? Well she doesn't give me anything, when I go to the brothel to see if it's already free - well Ophala still acts like she didn't know. (Well what a shame, From now on I wouldn't trust those two.)

My 1st test: Forest, 2nd test: Swamp, 3rd test: River

*I am not sure about this, but do this RE depends on which location we're going to? Because when I try, Hommlet I always get the Forest, Nulb I always get the Swamp and Moathouse I always get the River.

I always encounter FOUR tyrants on all maps. Well they only have different names though, depends on which maps they're at.

Yep.
Some info on what spells they did cast on me:
Forest: Ice Storm, Deep Slumber/Sleep, Slow and Some Rays?
(I don't exactly remember if they did cast cast some rays here?)
River: Disintergrate, Some Rays, Deep Slumber/Sleep, Hold Person and Slow
Swamp: Scorching Rays, Disintergrate, Deep Slumber/Sleep, Slow.

No. The SB did get my NPC gears.

*But I found out that when I removed all my party's primary weapons before traveling through the world map, the SB wouldn't take the armors nor the primary weapons in my inventory. After the battle, I can only see one empty chest at the corner.
(see screen0011 & screen0020 below)

[I guess they're the ones who throw poisons at us then runs away after the round.]
Yep and I tried it a lot of times - includes all maps (forest.. etc).

Yes.

Nope. (I've got lots of patience. )

Yes. (see screenshots below)

*Hmm, I suppose it would be nice if we can see this effects on towns & other maps. I haven't got any lags nor hang when walking/running around the effects, or do they?

Yes all of them, one gear at a time. (One gear = One chest).

Yes (only in the River), if what you're asking is their apperances/looks then I would say it's fantastic - they look balding in some kind of way, they looks old and they're holding a tree which makes them to be classified as Stone Giants. But if what you're asking is about their fighting style, well it's pretty similar to the Hill Giants. They just run towards my party and bash all the way - well maybe if they throw some stones I would definitely say that they're amazing.

*Some ideas for them, do you know the effects in the Earth Temple when the Earth Elementals gets/wakes up (stone scattered around the place). Add some sound burst to the Stone Giants attack script with this kind of effect then *Voila* Stunning Stone Avalanche.

STRATEGY & TACTICS:

(Forest)
First I just let the Tyrants cast their Ice Storms on my party, this gives me time to prepare my buff spells (bless, displacement, haste, mirrors image etc.) and also to isolate my party from the mobs, after that I let the tough guys (Fighters & Cleric) to handle/tank the mobs who approaches - but since the Ice Storms are still on their way I wouldn't mind them and use "Ready Vs. Approach" and wait for them to enter my area thoroughly, my Fighter isn't that useless he can still inflicts small amount of damages & non-lethal ones, I used him to trip the Owlbears.

Since the SB won't take second hand weapons, I let my Rogue switch it to primary & then I used the "Robes of Midnight" to gain the Sneak Attack-Ability Loss tactic. So after that, when the Ice Storms are almost done - I used Meleny's "Spike Growth" & "Spike Stones" at the back of the mobs to slow them a little bit, I also use my Wizards "Robe of Arachidia" to webbed them - if they can't get off the web or the spikes I cast "Stinking Cloud" & "Cloud Kill" & when they do get off I'll use "Grease".

After that I used Meleny to summon Huge Fire Elementals near the approaching mobs which definitely helps me to deal with the Hill Giants and Owlbears - also, after that round I poly-morphed Meleny into a Polar Bear to boost her HP's and Attack. After that my main priority would be the Tyrants.

Since I know that they have some instant-death-kinda-spells (Disintegrate, Power Word Kill, Slay Living) which I think that they're the biggest threat in this encounter. I immediately use my rogue to sneak besides them, then hit them hard. After that my wizard will use "Ready Vs. Spell" to disrupt the Tyrants spells, then Meleny is for the "Flame Strike" thingy and Summoning.

When things gets worse like someone in my party is getting bashed down and kinda 1/4 dead, my Cleric and Meleny will do their job and heal them (Cleric: Mass Cure Serious/Critical Wounds & Heal). Sometimes in my previous saves I use Zuggtmoy Figurine and Childs Toy for distraction.

(River & Swamp)
Since the Tyrants here doesn't cast Ice Storms I would immediately let my Cleric cast "Enlarge Person" to my Fighter then I cast "Righteous Might", then I used "Ready Vs. Approach" for the Hill/Stone Giants & Co. Then same process as the above.

*This only happened once while I'm trying to do all the SB RE's maps.
Well someone in my totally gets whacked, then my desperate move was to use my "Cloud Kill-Magma Mephit" tactic, then I cast 3 Magma Mephits that will clear all the mobs and most of my party. After that I reload, Hehehe. :evilgrin:

(Characters Purpose/Use)

Fighter: Defender/Tanker, Distraction, Triper.
Rogue: Sneak Attacks, Occasionally Summoner (Zugg Figurine & Childs Toy).
Cleric: Buffs, Defender/Tanker, Healer, Summoner (Magma Mephits).
Wizard: Buffs, AoE Spells, Counter Spells.
Druid (Meleny): Buffs, Summoner, AoE Spells, Healer.
Animal Companion (Polar Bear): Distraction.

*Bonus: After the SB took my fighters armor, he suddenly feels that he's much like the main guy who shouts "This is SPARTA!!!" in the movie 300. Forget the spear. (see screenshot below).

 

Additional Screenshots

Edit: I've just downloaded the fix, anything I should look out for?

 

Maybe I'll use this "

Spoiler

" and the highlight thingy then.

Nope I didn't, in my opinion I think it would be a waste of time trying - probably, if I did try to get my stuffs. The first one who gets there will still face the chests guardian (which is tough for 1v1) and maybe he's already dead before his halfway there. :tombstone

Okay Gaear, I've downloaded the fix - give me a day or two to report back. I'm in school right now, kinda little exhausted with the start of our 2nd semester. :yawn: