Things the devs didn't think through

[evony666]

Levelling up has always been flawed in every game of this ilk. I am a veteran of DM, CSB (sequal), EOB 1 & 2 and the much maligned Knighmare.

In DM and CSB I loved the concept of resurrection (to keep skills) or reincarnation (no skills but fast learner). I always chose to reincarnate 4 wizards (as manna was the life blood) and practice all the spells, punching air, jabbing swords, making potions until I was master (and beyond) at each. How my fingers took it, I don't know. The main thing I would have kept from DM would be the power of the spell 1 through to 6, that way wizards in LOG would be better in Grimrock (IMHO). I loved the water fountains and was sometimes very glad to see one as the team were near death from being parched.

D&D games like EOB always suffered from party experience and sharing of experience. Everybody was on a exp chart and gained equal experience if they are alive, generally thieves were rubbish (garbage in the USA) and I hated dual classes. I used to walk around killing the regenerating bird men until I gained the levels to cast the next big spell. Also I hated the AC system in that the harder the armour the harder you are to hit...WRONG. The good bits I would have kept is that spells are aquired somehow on a spell book and cannot be cast until discovered and the priest idea that gains spells by leveling up. A mix of the two would be ideal in Grimrock ie. Your mage gets to level 3 Poison and get a poison bolt but behind some secret wall is the improved version or a new spell....

Knightmare was the first game I know of to have the Insectole Race. Other than that it was fairly run of the mill but played well and contributed to the genre. The other game I want to mention is Diablo 2. I loved the skills tree in that game where you sculpted the character and lots was unattainable as you chose your skills path.

SO Grimrock. I agree with the OP that the skills on the chart are unattainable. I thouht near the end of the game there must be more levels to come as I was nowhere near the top in any character. But bear in mind evey old game was flawed, here's the bits I thought they got right.

Protection / Evasion: Love it. Much better than the DM and D&D systems.
Experience System. I liked this also how all players gained experience but the ones that did more, got more.
Traits: I really loved this idea. It would be nice to see a new trait added every 5 or 10 levels or something??
Minotaur: Great class and fun to collect skulls.
Skills Tree: I really loved how you could allocate a point here and a point there to gain different things from different skills in one go.
The team: I was really lucky. I had a minotaur mace man who ended up with that cold hammer and a bunch of skulls, a human rogue who specialized in dagger and backstab ended up with the 'vorpal' dagger. The back row was a rogue archer with every point from the start put to archery. She was rubbish to begin with but when she was firing dual Xbow bolts juiced up with poison she became the first to level up by the end... and then there was my wizard... I started evenly levelling up all the disciplines and he was rubbish all the way.

The creators of Grirock should not feel 'insulted' by a person (the OP) who has paid for the game, played through it and then come up with a very valid point. The skills DO need tweaked - perhaps it is as simple as giving wizards 6 pints per level and or slightly less -25% perhaps to level up for all classes.

XXX K

[krayzkrok]

I think the mages are bordering on overpowered as it is. Right now my mage has 22 spare skill points that I have not spent (17 plus 5 from an item) because I'm waiting to see which magic path I want to specialise in. Yet he's doing just great, thanks very much, always the first to level and now nearly 2 levels higher than the rest of my party. But then when you read the experiences of others, it's very clear that party build can have quite a big difference in how you experience the game. This is a good thing in my eyes, it creates replayability, but you do have to work to get a good party balance going.

[billyh]

No doubt this has been said in the 11 pages somewhere, but since I'm late to the party... and obviously the DD at this point...

I think the Devs didn't create the whole system of leveling up for just this one game... but I have no proof of this.

[Merethif]

I somewhat agree with OP.

Real life examples:
In one of my parties there was a Rogue, who ended up with 50 Unarmed and 2 Dodge and he was perfectly viable and fun to play.
In the other party there was a Rogue, who ended up with 32 Unarmed and 24 Dodge and she was perfectly viable and fun to play.
Logically, third possibility would be a Rogue, who ended up with 50 Dodge and 2 Unarmed... but it would be impossible to hit anything with such character.

Likewise, I guess Fighter with 50 Swords and 8 Armour would be perfectly viable and fun to play. The same is true for a Fighter with 19 Armour and 33 Swords.
But a Fighter with 50 Armours and 8 Swords? Not so much I guess.

On the other hand I managed to get a level 13 Mage, who ended up with 42 Staff Defence and he was perfectly fine (he could have 45, but that gives no additional bonus so I put those points somewhere else). He got 13 Ice Magic, so he was reliable Crowd Controller and with Spellcraft 8 he could use Orb of Radiance. Of course I've invested all three Tomes of Wisdom into this character. I really wish he had 50 Staff Defence, and if I had taken Skilled instead of Evasive I would have achieve it.

Maybe some Tomes that improve auxiliary skills could make those skills more viable to master (they would require some points in given skill to use), like Scroll of Guileful Shadows (Skill Requirement: Dodge 11; Effects: Gain +6 Dodge) or Ancient Grimoire (Skill Requirement: Spellcraft 10; Effects: Gain +5 Spellcraft).

[billyh]

Real life examples:

I lol'd.

[Marak]

Really, what this thread boils down to is:

1) You barely get 50 Skill Points in your average play-through, thus making the capstone skills only obtainable to the exclusion of literally everything else.

2) Offense trumps defense so hard it's ridiculous. Even if you're trapped in a dead-end, you'll take far less damage as a "glass cannon" party that can kill whatever has you trapped in a few swings versus the "tank it" party that has to absorb hits for a year while they slowly whittle the monster's health pool down.

Combine 1 and 2, and you have a situation where most players will give up on their defense/hybrid party 2/3 of the way through the game and re-roll with a "glass cannon" party and laugh at how much easier of a time the second party has going through the dungeon.

As the OP said, once you've seen the game's combat mechanics first-hand, you see how putting points 1 and 2 together means that there is literally 0 incentive to put points in any defensive skills (save, perhaps, for "unlocking" Heavy and Light armor for 2 of your 4 characters), much less going for the defensive capstones.

Of course, you can still do it for flavor, or to challenge yourself, or if you really dig that sort of play tyle - but you really can't argue that it's extremely sub-optimal and that pumping up Weapon Skills is currently the "best" way to build your party.

[Merethif]

Real life examples:

I lol'd.

By "real life" I mean "first hand experience from playing the game with said characters".
Contrary to the second example (Fighters), which is not "first hand experience from playing the game with said characters", because I've never played with even a single Fighter in a party, and these were just my speculations based on reading skills description.

I'm sorry if expression "real life" sounds awkward. After all, English is not my native language

[billyh]

Real life examples:

I lol'd.

I'm sorry if expression "real life" sounds awkward. After all, English is not my native language

No no. It was fine. The term is used often and everyone here knew what you meant, including myself.
I was just being an ass... no insult intended... and letting you know I got a good laugh imagining you trying this out in real life!

[rakenan]

I think the mages are bordering on overpowered as it is. Right now my mage has 22 spare skill points that I have not spent (17 plus 5 from an item) because I'm waiting to see which magic path I want to specialise in. Yet he's doing just great, thanks very much, always the first to level and now nearly 2 levels higher than the rest of my party. But then when you read the experiences of others, it's very clear that party build can have quite a big difference in how you experience the game. This is a good thing in my eyes, it creates replayability, but you do have to work to get a good party balance going.

Leveling quickly has absolutely nothing to do with being powerful, and everything to do with damaging every monster you face. Mages have a natural advantage here as their attacks hit all enemies in a square. If you combine that with your perception that mages are extremely powerful, you will also tend to attack first and most often with your mage, which will sometimes cause other characters to skip attack chances and thus get only half experience.

I have found that having throwing and missile weapon rogues in the back, and fighters or melee rogues in the front, produces a much more powerful party than bringing a mage in any slot. However, I can see if some players have extreme manual dexterity and can click spell combos extremely quickly, mages may be significantly better. With my personal skills, however, the micro-management mages require just renders them ineffective in combat compared to others.

[Xanathar]

Experience System. I liked this also how all players gained experience but the ones that did more, got more.

This works more or less only because magic in LOG is extremely limited to practically only direct damage spells.

No healing, almost no buffs (*), no debuffs.

If magic was more varied the current XP system wouldn't make sense at all, as it would get progressively more difficult to advance healers/buffers/debuffers even if their role is more fundamental than fighters. I guess they are balanced one to the other (XP system and spell system).

SpoilerShow

* = except a single minor protection spell, invisibility if you took air and enchant arrows. But invisibility does not give XPs at all; protections are extremely limited as you can't choose the element (you get the one of your school) and enchant arrows give minimal bonus to damage.
Compare this to EOB1, where the best spells in all the game are Haste and Stoneskin -- so much that they removed stoneskin from the second game because it was game-breaking.