Difficulty

[antti]

Thanks.
Just one more question: can I select both "Iron"-Settings seperately? So, one-time-crystals (for healing and resurrection), but still being able to save anywhere?

Yup, they're separate.

[zeltak]

Only saving at crystals sounds interesting, I might choose it for my first playtrough.

[diceman]

This is actually awesome. There are lots of different playstyles, now everyone will be able to tailor the challenge to their respective needs (not like DIABLO III, where there's only Faceroll-Mode, or Haha-Lag-You're Dead).
You know, when I started playing LEGEND OF GRIMROCK, my first fear was that of starving. That fear grew even larger, when I hit level 5 with all those spiders. How am I supposed to get through that? Then, gradually I began to notice, that food (and sleeping) actually wasn't THAT important, you could always go back and hug a Crystal, and Voilà, I'm well again. First I was relieved, later I was a little bit disappointed. I actually wanted to struggle more, wanted food to have more of an impact on gameplay, but the game wouldn't let me. Naturally, from there on, I abused the hell out of those Crystals.
With GRIMROCK 2 it's all gonna be different: I'm gonna start on normal (not easy, like before), also in Oldschool-Mode, since this way, exploration will feel more rewarding. Then I'm gonna turn One-Time-Crystals on, but I still wanna save anywhere, because for true "Ironmode" I fear, I'm not Hardcore enough. Still, this way,food will actuallly matter (if I'm running out of tasty Snail-Morsels I won't replenish health and energy anymore while sleeping), but in case I'm REALLY starving, I still have those Crystals as a One-Shot-1st-Aid available. This way I'm hoping for a much tighter and suspenseful game.

[bropalm]

Wow, that's cool. Ironman mode was something I really wished LoG1 had.

[Chimera005ao]

Its kind of funny. When I first played Grimrock, I played it at the same time as my brother.
He was wondering why I was dying so much.
Later we found out:
1. I didn't know you could sleep.
2. I thought crystals were one time use.

I figured out the second one a couple floors in, but I didn't find out you could sleep until the puzzle that tells you to rest in the dragon's gaze.

[ScroLL]

Iron Man mode is just what I wanted.

[eLPuSHeR]

I think I will be playing Normal... The pain... the pain...

[Spathi]

If the combat system is as lame and repetitive as log1 then normal and restart on easy if it gets too grinding. I noticed people who say the combat system is lame get their threads locked because of the verbal abuse they receive from a few who can't face that it is lame. Playing as Toorum is much more fun for the mods (played about 10 or so) because there is no point in having four characters leveling up for little reason and the speed of thunderstruck gives freedom, hope we can customize one character mode this time.

p.s. Watching minmay play orrr2 was a joy, and it confirmed for me the only time you can't rapidly defeat a monster is the slime. In log1 though I had to keep going back to the crystal on hard for the slime room, normal was more fun. Hopefully some creatures in log2 will lock you into place for a fair fight.

I got 73 secrets in orrr2, spewing still, could not work out what i missed, lol. p.s. Many of the good rooms of the mods almost ignore combat and concentrate on puzzles.

[Chimera005ao]

Hopefully some creatures in log2 will lock you into place for a fair fight.

Depending on the creature, locking you in place won't be a fair fight.

I made a creature that spawned ice blocks to inhibit your movement. You'd often have to decide between getting a few more hits on the monster, or clearing a path so you won't get cornered. The thing is, there's choice involved, you aren't simply rooted.
I'm hoping for monsters like that.

[minmay]

p.s. Watching minmay play orrr2 was a joy, and it confirmed for me the only time you can't rapidly defeat a monster is the slime.

You can fight slimes risk-free if you have an empty 2x2 square (or if you just have really good dodging reflexes), but because of their AI, side attacks, and HP, they take longer than any other monster in the game to kill this way, so I didn't do it in the videos most of the time. If you are fighting monsters one-on-one (monster groups count as one monster of course), there are pretty much two categories of monsters in LoG1: monsters that you can easily take no damage from if you have one unoccupied tile, and monsters that you can easily take no damage from with said 2x2 square.
The former include:
- the monsters with no attack cooldown; one they are next to and facing you, they act 100% predictably so you can dodge their attacks with your eyes closed and ears plugged if you want. That consists of spiders and skeleton warriors.
- Tentacles, because they can't move.
- Anything with a slow enough attack that you can dodge it reactively. For me this includes crabs, small herders, uggardians, skeleton archers, and wyverns. (obviously for all of those except crabs, the unoccupied tile needs to be to the side rather than behind you) I'm pretty sure adjacent goromorgs (ice shards), scavengers, and shrakk torr have attacks that are too fast for a normal party to dodge reactively though, even if they move away on the exact millisecond, but I know Toorum can dodge adjacent ice shards and scavengers if you're precise enough.

The latter is every other monster in the game. The only monster that really has a hope of being an exception here is Shrakk Torr, since they are actually faster than the party (no other monster comes close). They still have to be facing you to attack, so the 2x2 square still works if you're fast.

I intend to overhaul real-time combat in my LoG2 mod; I already have a full design but I don't know how much of it the script interface will actually allow me to do. It will remain FPS-style action-oriented though, so you'll still be able to take no damage with a level 0 character if you're skilled enough (hopefully much more skilled than you need to be to do it in LoG1). However, it will also have the option to disable monsters entirely for people who are only interested in the puzzles.