Conflux III discussion thread - potential spoilers

[beowuuf]

Could be! That zyx is an evil man...

[Quartermass]

In a bit of good news I got lost and ended up as deep as emerald, but managed to get back home with a green staff... and on the way back I bumped into the area where I can remove curses, which I've done, so I'm back home at the guilds... sadly the compass still gives no joy with that spell. I can't puzzle out what I'm doing wrong, if anything. The most frustrating part is not knowing if I'm doing something wrong, or if that feature has just been removed/disabled/delayed.

I am progressing though, I've now got two of those staves, having gotten another from the sorcerors guild. Next step is to explore either the temple or the dwarven mine area.

The game is almost too difficult, which is the right difficulty. The more difficult it is the more rewarding... as long as it doesn't go too far

[beowuuf]

I think you'll find as you unlock the guilds, the game gets much easier since Conflux actually lets you earn the high DM levels while still properly playing.

Well, until you find the really deep stuff, of course, then it's hard again

[Quartermass]

Yes, there's clearly a difficulty hill that I've just scaled.

Spoiler

I now have access to the forge, I have two maces of order (I had 0) and I have two weapons that do melee (I had 0). I also have access to a path from the forge back 'home' and I've opened all of the guilds up to the penultimate point (at least it seems that way). I've also found a mountain of food, and it might even respawn. Food has been a real problem until now. I was subsisting on what I came across in the dungeon, but mainly my guys were in red. I could farm some snapper pods, but it's very time consuming and the yield is poor. This supply of food will allow me to grab a few levels before I go any further. As far as I can tell the next place for me to go is Vecna the Lich's area.

Everything did seem to come at once!

[beowuuf]

It's a steep learning curve in some places, but the way Conflux is laid out, now you know where you look, if you ever replayed I bet you could unlock those things pretty quickly

[Quartermass]

Hmm, I don't think I could to be honest, not yet at least. The problem, I think, is getting a mental picture of the areas in my head. Anything cellars and down is frankly a maze for me. The sewers are just a complete disaster and it's pretty much trial and error for me to find anything in them. DM has no mapping system built in (which I think would be one of the few additions that'd be worthwhile), if it had that it would make it considerably easier for me to visualise areas. Conflux cleverly sorts that problem with the map/password facility. I now have maps for cellar, temple, sewer and mines. What I now need to do is break those maps down into sub-areas so that I can work out how each area links, so that I can transit between them easily. Although it's not a linear game, there are specific and clear goals that need to be met in order to get 'get places' in the game, at least initially.

So far in my head I have this...

Step One.

Spoiler

Descend to the shut off sewers area, don't open it up. Gather food and gain some basic levels by killing.

Step Two.

Spoiler

Go to the wine cellar, and gather the necessary items to open up the cellars proper.

Step Three.

Spoiler

Explore the cellars gathering items etc. Kill the rats that start there.

Step Four.

Spoiler

Open up any extra guilds that you can. Then return to the cellars and farm rats to gather a decent stockpile of food.

Step Five.

Spoiler

Go up, kill the minotaur, and open up the throwing stones area.

Step Six.

Spoiler

Get in, get kath vinegar, get out. Get a flask.

Step Seven.

Spoiler

Go back up and clear out that area completely.

Step Eight.

Spoiler

Go to the sewers and drop straight into the forge.

Step Nine.

Spoiler

Open up the forge, and head to the officers food area.

That would take me back to where I am now, but it's a lot of work, and a great deal of it is punching above my weight (at the time) in order to open the way for further advancement. I think at least for now I'm satisfied and don't fancy having to repeat it all. Well, unless I've missed any tools/areas on the way that would make things easier.

[Quartermass]

Something strange has now happened. Powertowers are now saying "Robbed from the Nibbelungs". Is this a new attribute they have gained, or is it (for an unknown reason) something I'm seeing now but wasn't seeing before....?

[Zyx]

I´ll check about the treasure spell. Send me a savegame to bprieu gmail com.

[Quartermass]

You should have received the savegame by email, please let me know if you have not.

[beowuuf]

The descriptions get seen at higher priest levels, perhaps, and are tied in to the backstories that hint at where they are. I think.

[Quartermass]

Beowuuf, you were right and I was wrong. I started a new game, and decided to see if I could manage it with one character only. I chose Zed (he had the highest wisdom/vitality combined and I couldn''t really find any other way to decide).

This time I've gone ahead and used the latest beta, which has significant changes from the version I was using. The fixed savegame that Zyx sent me didn't work on the 3bf5.

So now that I've started my new game I'm already up at craftsman, adept, master, journeyman and I've not gone outside of the guilds/cellars and the "training" area in the sewers. I'm at step 7 and I'm quite surprised how many guild levels I've been able to unlock so wthout delving deep.

It would seem that I've greatly overestimated the worth of dropping down to the mines/sewers/etc early. They don't seem to have done my previous game any favours really, all considered. Sadly though I've already collected most of the "low hanging fruit" and it looks like I'll have to brave the temple or deeper to open up any more guilds if I want guildmasters this time rather than guides.

In any case, you said I'd be able to do it much quicker, I said that wasn't right... and it was right

[beowuuf]

While not recently, in the past I've played conflux alot. Ah, I recall when you could get a gold and iron key and hit the level 7 canteen before the goodies there got disguised Zyx closed that hole, but he has allowed you to find lots of short cuts or cool items once you know your way around.

Anyway, glad the new game wasn't painful, and you can get back to where you were previously (or better) without a grind!

And the best lart - you might not have scratched the surface of some of the later content yet. Moria. Apprentice rooms. Stuff even I have forgotten or don't know about. So much cool stuff!

[Quartermass]

"before the goodies there got disguised "

Spoiler

Do you mean before a huge big pile of worm rounds appeared on top of them making it a little chore to move them all away while worrying about vexirks?

It's still reasonably easy for me to get to that place - although I now know a far better place to grow food,

Spoiler

steaks can be grown pretty easily in the cellar from rats near the mildew entrance.

As far as I'm aware I just need to get to the

Spoiler

right part of the sewers, drop into the forge, open it up from there and go through the canteen back into the retirement room, open it up, and I have a route from the guilds to the forge.

Additionally it'll allow me to 'pick' at the sewers, which is a tactic I'm favouring, since I don't relish the task of searching all over them again while lots of stuff spawns. It'll allow me to pick at them because I'll have several different methods to arrive at the sewers, making things less of a trek.

One criticism of my DM playing style that Conflux has exposed (and I guess I have forgotten in the 20 years since I played CSB constantly) is I seem to have a need to clear every monster around out. It worked fine in DM because they didn't respawn very often, but in CSB and Conflux if you run from one end of an area to another to clear it, then it'll fill up by the time you get back.

[beowuuf]

Indeed, that's the goodies I speak of!


Yes, the completionist can get a little ansy in CSB/Conflux. Then again, Dm was evil for always putting a lone Trolin in level three when you left, and spawning some wildlife behind you on level four. You'd never go back again to realise usually, but it was already being that sneaky and evil. CSB and Conflux just highlight it right from the start

[Quartermass]

Yep, level 4 if I remember correctly was when DM took the gloves off. However even on that level you could close doors behind you and stop the worms getting out of the middle of the level, and restrict the back end (with the screamer room) to just yourself. I suppose it's also true that DM had a level similar to the sewers (although you could argue it's more similar to the crypt) in that it was a huge open area and the puzzles could be solved or not, I think it may have been the level below the firestaff, or above it. It's a few years since I last played DM.

I am starting to feel I'm clearing Conflux nicely though. I'm virtually certain I've seen everythign the cellars have to offer - obviously excluding any areas which are not linked to the main cellars, but are part of some other area.
The temple, mines and sewers even in my last game I don't believe I had fully cleared. The temple itself I was one guild item short for the door up on the guild level, assuming it does indeed open with 4 used. There's several doors I still had to open, the purple invocation room. The room near the high priest himself, etc. This playthrough I intend to solve the temple methodically, properly, rather than accidentally when trying to get back home. I've already opened up the temple, and it's closed off until I open up from the other side, but this time I've solved one problem I had last game. I

Spoiler

killed the tree of fear and courage, and last time it dropped nothing, this time it dropped nothing either until I reloaded and did it again. I now have what seems to be a pretty good weapon.

.

Just in case anyone is wondering the treasure finding spell was bugged, according to Zyx. However since the version of Conflux I was using is so out of date, and I didn't tell him in advance I was using that (I didn't realise how much forward the beta is) I've probably wasted his time with it, since it's likely not going to reoccur in the current version. That's why I restarted.

I do have a question about the wiki though. The wiki is referenced to as being on the DianneandPaul site. However it doesn't work there, there is another wiki on http://dmwiki.atomas.com however I'm not sure if that's the most complete one or not, or if it is still Paul I would speak to in order to get edit rights.

Thanks for all the replies Beowuuf, it makes Conflux a far less solitary experience if I can talk about it with at least someone else.

Edit : I PM'ed Paul about it earlier today and he had replied... I switched to gmail recently and I'm not entirely used to the way it threads things, I had missed the alert from the board telling me I had a PM reply.

The wiki has moved to the new location.

[beowuuf]

Oddly, that wiki thing was just discussed by the mods and admins. The wiki moved to the link you have. It's the same wiki, with perhaps more stuff than it had when it was on Paul's site.

Oh, wait, just realised you were the reason it got discussed Not so odd then!

[Quartermass]

I'm not sure I'm keen on disease mechanics at all.

The first disease I caught was fine, it dropped down my vitality over time, I had to rest more than usual until I cured it using either method.

However the second disease I've caught "Chills and temblors" is much more of a pain. It seems to be caught freely in the sewers (I just caught it from blue goons). As soon as I have the illness my melee skills will drop considerably as a certain percentage (25%?) of my melee attacks will instead just make the screen shake. There's no way to protect myself from it, there's no way to reduce the effect of it. There's also no cure for it whle I'm down there, as even if I spend a while fixing it, I'll have it as soon as I fight again. All it serves to do is make it a little bit tougher for the player.

I think it would be considerably better if diseases had some period of time during which symptoms did not display, even if it still showed up on the eye that something was wrong. That way players could choose to sleep more to get over the effects, or cure them. but wouldn't be permanantly cursed with the disease while fighting monsters that spread it.

So for the chills and trembles disease I would suggest that the percentage chance of it happening is very slight indeed, but that chance increases until a player rests and decreases when they do rest.

[beowuuf]

Hmm, there are healing methods, aren't there? Healing potions then sleep (perhaps not while in the sewers) and there are certain curatives (such as squeezing...screamer pods, I think.

Hmm, unless he toned them up, I do not recall being adversely by them ernough to kill me. Will leave zyx to say if he has tweaked this.

Oh, it depends the level of the guy you use I guess - fighters get faster at attacking over time, so I think you get more chances to hack at them even diseased.

[Quartermass]

Yes, there are. However as I said there's little to no point in attempting to get rid of the disease on that level, as you will immediately be reinfected.

They'll kill you if you're on the borderline of being able to do something or not, if you're relying on melee.

Edit : And if I thought the diseases, and the leeches were making the sewers hard enough...

Spoiler

You are paralysed

. Thankfully I made it down a level and I've got a stairway to run up and down.

[beowuuf]

Hmm, must be new mechanics, or they must be shruggable at higher levels. I played with a single character (Leif) with the recent release, and I think did the levels relatively in order .So by the time he hit the sewers, the leech flood was annoying but also something I could plough through.

Perhaps it can be toned down / back down for the next release, or your suggested mitigations implimented?

[Quartermass]

I wouldn't want to suggest the game is balanced on my experiences. I do have a single character (Zed) too, and the leeches are more difficult than it was with a full party, and indeed I think I got lucky to get down to the mines. I could not say if it's too hard or not though.

The leeches don't generate that nasty message, it's a monster I've never seen before that does it. There was only one of them, and he was very tough, he's now very dead.

[beowuuf]

Oh, I see - yes, there are creature that can attack you psychically and paralyse you for a moment. I think they need line of sight, or just proximity.

[Quartermass]

I wouldn't have liked to have run into it when I was clearing the leeches to get to the level below, that;s for sure.

You wouldn't happen to have any clues on what needs to be done to get the pits open?

Spoiler

The only information I can find is that I need to do it twice.

[Zyx]

So for the chills and trembles disease I would suggest that the percentage chance of it happening is very slight indeed, but that chance increases until a player rests and decreases when they do rest.

Interesting idea. I'll have a try.

[beowuuf]

Ah darn I forgot there was a recent releaseI haven't played I'm not quite sure I'm afraid, I hadn't got back to replaying! Jan seemed to have gotten it reasonable quickly. There are buttons somewhere, I think...

Hmm, so I guess I can't comment on some of the mechanics at all, you will definitely be playing the version I haven't yet!

[Quartermass]

There's even more in the new release that I hadn't seen before, I can't tell if it was in the last release or not, so I don't now if you've seen it.

Here's some hopefully very vague cryptic tasters that won't spoil it for you.

1) The merchant has expanded.

Spoiler

There's something to make your hands a little more dead(ly).

2) The fur merchant has further expanded and

Spoiler

he's looking for an a-mazing amount of coins.

<-- That part may be a work in progress. It could have also been in before and I'd just never spotted it, but as far as I can see nobody has talked about it before.

3) From the version history the sewers gained a rather impressive graphical effect since the last beta

However I have noticed a couple of errors for Zyx.

The compass graphics for east and west are transposed.

When using the long lost wand with little or no mana.

Assertion failure at time = 339113
Line 2942
Program (path)\data.cpp
maxmana
Should we quit?

Saying no seems to allow the game to continue.

I still haven't worked out those pits yet either :/


Edit : Is there another way to turn off traces other than the menu? CSBWin is a single core game, and it's sitting at 17% CPU, meaning it's using a whole core, when I sleep. None of the trace items in the drop down menu are enabled, however the initial instructions on the thread say that trace is enabled and to disable it for faster engine.

[beowuuf]

1) Not sure if I know, so might be new. 2) I've seen and pened, and I think is still WIP (I found nothing at the end). 3) Cool, need to get back to the game.

Will let you know if I get back to conflux and discover the irddle of the sewers!

[Quartermass]

I've also noticed that 3) is more than just a graphical effect, there's a flotsam and jetsam effect too - I suspect later in the game we may stumble across a massive pile of litter.

Edit : Problem solved, Very direct spoiler -

Spoiler

it was a switch along the wall to the south of where the pits should be.

I now have 3 guildmasters in my party, and a mace to open up the last fighter room, and unlock master fighter levels.

[Zyx]

The merchant maze is a wip - don't waste time with it. The flood effect is still experimental and will be slightly different for the next release. I'll check the 2 bugs.

Edit: as for the trace, have you tried the latest csbwin?

[Quartermass]

The master thief: he should give you access to an otherwise inaccessible area, and if you find him again, you can recover your goods.

I don't believe it's working as intended.

I have done the following...

Spoiler

Not tried to pick the lock. Killed the thief, he drops a few scrolls, storm ring and night cloak as normal. You kill him normally, and then you kill him again.

Not tried to pick the lock. Freed the thief and given him the two items. He traps me, goes in, and then down the pit as normal. If I follow him and kill him twice I get only the lockpick, coin, and his items. Not the items in the room.

Tried to pick the lock. Received the offer and then freed the thief and given him the two items. He traps me, goes in, and down the pit as normal. If I follow him and kill him twice I get only the lockpick, coin, and his items. Not the items in the room.

I have save games if you would like to see it.

As for CSBWin it's not a big enough issue for me to risk playing with the 'wrong' engine rather than the right one, so I'll stick with it being slightly slow when I sleep.