Conflux III discussion thread - potential spoilers

[Paul Stevens]

17% CPU, meaning it's using a whole core

What version of CSBwin?

[Quartermass]

11.053, Paul.

Edit : I've gone and lifted the latest version from your site and the result is the same.

Here's the savegames I had kept for Zyx, in case it interests you to take a look at them.

[Zyx]

The compass graphics are correct: when you face west, north is on your right.

Paul: remember that the next version uses another algotrithm for the flood.

[Quartermass]

The compass graphics are wrong - at least the way they show up for me. Have another look at where the red arrows are pointing.



Also, I've just noticed on the temple level when I killed a nest of rusters mixed in with some leprechauns and gigglers and vexirks... the eggs and the powder were not marked correctly. It was just normal ven eggs and rust coloured dust, but not flagged as rust I don't believe this has a great impact on anything.

I'm aware I don't sound enthusiastic about Conflux. Let me just be clear, it's great it's reawoken my love for a 20 year old game. Civ 5 and Vic 2 are both just out and I have them but I'm not playing them because I'm playing this. It's a wonderful creation, please don't think that because I'm picking at holes that I'm anything other than positive about it.

[beowuuf]

The red arrow always points north. When you face west, north is clockwise from you. When you face east, north is anti-clockwise from you. The red arrow is not denoting the direction like a clock with N W S E fixed. If you could seee the text, the compass directions would be rotating too so N was always under the red arrow.


I wouldn't worry about coming across as nit-picky. With new releases, it is important to find bugs that stop the game being fun for people!

[Zyx]

Don't worry, I appreciate your feedback. I'll check the rust and eggs.

[Quartermass]

Yes... you're right... How on earth did I get that wrong? I was completely certain about it.

[Zyx]

You have to examine the powder and the eggs and be knowledgeable enough to identify them.

[Quartermass]

Ah, it'll likely be becasue I've just added Gothmog but I haven't trained him up yet. I'm doing a grand job of wasting your time here. The only thing that remains then is the master thief... if I'm doing that right.

[Paul Stevens]

I've gone and lifted the latest version

That is why I asked. You should not be using
those 'unreleased' versions. They are DEBUG
versions and are known to be slow. They are
for Zyx in his development effort and provide
additional feedback for scripting errors and such.

If Zyx wants you to have a recent version, he will
have to ask me to make an official release. Or you
can learn to tolerate the CPU usage.

[Quartermass]

I've gone and lifted the latest version

That is why I asked. You should not be using
those 'unreleased' versions. They are DEBUG
versions and are known to be slow. They are
for Zyx in his development effort and provide
additional feedback for scripting errors and such.

If Zyx wants you to have a recent version, he will
have to ask me to make an official release. Or you
can learn to tolerate the CPU usage.

The version that I had the issue with was the version that comes with Conflux 3.5 beta. I changed to the latest version (as suggested by Zyx) just in case that had an effect on it (it does not). My question was if there was some kind of way to turn off the trace (if there was a trace on), as it would be a more pleasant experience if it wasn't slightly choppy. I'm not complaining, and I do understand I'm not using the full release version. The very first post in this thread suggests

Edit: Lastest beta version (trace if by default on, turn it off for a faster engine):

That's all I wanted to do. It's in no way unplayable, in fact it's not even moderately annoying, during normal play the game runs fine.

[Paul Stevens]

I think the versions you mentioned are debug
versions. Perhaps Zyx shipped it that way.
That would also explain why the trace is turned
on.....by default in the debug version.

[Troggy]

I have to agree with you, Quartermass, that there is a difficulty hump. I personally had trouble with the outrageous numbers of leeches in the sewers for a while, and then eventually I got powerful enough to annihilate them with lightning bolts and just plow through them. However, I don't know if you ran into the second hump yet. I personally find that the second hump is where you are doing the guild leader quests, especially Gothmog's quest. I had no trouble at all with the Cancerberus, but I had the most trouble with the floating eyes, because of the incredibly damaging lightning bolts, and their near immunity to magic damage. I would also include Xanathar, Vecna and the Archmage in this second hump. After you get over those fights, then you don't have much trouble with anything else, until you get to the third hump. I only survived the Archmage and Xanathar fights because Lor has absurdly high stats and HP. This is not really a difficulty hump in that you die a lot (except if you try to fail the trial and survive), but that you are just trying to do the really hard puzzles, and trying to find all of the unique items. A prime example of this is trying to get into the zoo at the bottom of the dungeon.

Just wondering, was I the first person to hit the actual bottom of the dungeon?

Spoiler

It is the hallway at the bottom of the zoo, where you cannot go any farther because of a teleporter.

Also, what is the real use of the zoo, or is it there just to be cool?

EDIT: I have never noticed any slowness in Conflux, but I am running a 2.6GHz quad core, so I don't think I would.

[Paul Stevens]

Unfortunately, the extra three cores will be of
no value to CSBwin. I know of no way to take
advantage of them.

[Quartermass]

Please excuse the spelling and or grammar on this post. Im drugged up to the eyes in a hospital bed using my smartphone.

As far as balance is concerned i keep finding the game is well balanced, even where i thought it was not. The sewers for example i felt were extremely difficult because odd the leeches, however once they are gone they don't come back. The boss creature on the other hand is possibly too tough without using a set of stairs or clearing everything else first.

Where i do notice what i think is unbalanced is with regard to fighter vs ninja vs wizard. Fireball is great. Others spells are not so but still powerful. Ninja outputs significantly more damage than fighter in a straight up slugging match although its only fair to say that you can't use the berserk/thrust/impale etc tactic with ninja so easily as the ciooldown is much faster. There are two common specific diseases that affect melee.combat but not magic and using fireballs ensures diseases aren't caught. When the shoe is on the other foot by far the most dangerous monsters are those that can fireball.

Fighter and ninja skills do not improve anywhere near as rapidly as magig skills which probably leads to a bigger difference. I should point t out that i am not using special weapons yet. Just waraxes rapiers swords etc. Perhaps they have a big impact.

[Troggy]

@ paul: I was just saying that the one core would be powerful enough.

@ quartermass: Sorry about whatever happened. I hope that you get better soon. Also, I am using one version back, since I don't want to start again yet. In that version, lightning bolt could easily hit my party for ~300 per person, since it seemed to ignore resistances, and it would at least hit me twice because it would explode on each row of people. At least, that's what it appeared to do. Fighters can become powerful late game, but the main reason why I ranked up in fighter was for the stat buffs. Once you get unique weapons, the fighters become more powerful, especially when you get the Excalibur and the Leviathan. Just beware of its curse!

Spoiler

Equip it once, and then just fix the strength drop

Also, a solo fighter can be insanely tough if you get the whole Darc armor

Spoiler

because of the damage reflection and the immunity to magic

, and wear the Coral Poleyn to

Spoiler

counteract the Darc armor hp drop, if you are not using Halk

. However, your offensive capability would be reduced, because you could not

Spoiler

cast spells at all while wearing the helm.

Another area where the fighters shine is killing golems, especially if you make the Excalibur golem-slaying in

Spoiler

Xanathar's room

. Iado can regularly do about 250 points, and one-shot golems with it. Ninjaing them is just not as effective, since you would damage yourself if fighting bare-handed, or you would have to use one of the sets of gauntlets.

[Quartermass]

Very interesting. Thanks for your kind wishes i should get out tomorrow.

Im pleased to hear fighters get better later in the game. However i have a couple of comments on that. There are some monsters that can only be killed by melee. But the big thing is that as fighters progress they use higher and higher attack forms. Chop to melee to thrust to berserk to impale etc. This means decent weapons could be included that wouldn't be great forever as they didn't have the higher attack forms.

[Quartermass]

Okay now this is weird. During my normal playtime, when I was fetching

Spoiler

the holy armour from the council level

, suddenly I got "SPELL UNLOCKED" effect and message. I didn't pick up any scroll or done nothing significant other than resting... odd.

Indeed. The same thing happened to me too a few minutes ago. The only thing I can think of is that it's somehow related to the guildmasters as I now have 3 and nothing strange has happened as yet.

[Zyx]

I'll investigate...

[Quartermass]

Would it help if I had savegames for you Zyx? I have one reasonably shortly before and one right after. I was down in the sewers raising ninja levels.

[Quartermass]

Zyx, I've noticed that the treasure hunting spell is not working again, that's a brand new game using the 3.5 bugfix 5 since it last happened. I had an idea that perhaps the unlocked spell that I'd seen appearing was maybe related, but I've checked the before and after savegame and it's not working in either savegame.

[Zyx]

It will be fixed for the beta 6. Send me a savegame in the meanwhile.

[Christopher]

Has anyone gotten the cursed guild ending yet? Inspite of the many hints and clues the Bone Doll gives, I can't figure out where it is. I thought it might have been in the Emerald forest or the area with a bunch of trees and an unworkable skull key carving and water fountain at the end but I am unable to find anything special. There is one area in the Emerald forest marked with a flower but it doesn't seem to be significant.

@Zyx: I don't know if it is this version or just my game but the dark area has a few parts that don't stay dark and at least one area where water prevents you from casting certain spells even though there is no water graphic on screen. Also, is there any reason

Spoiler

the stone club that the bone golem drops gains the same identifiable properties that the bone doll has

? Great avatar by the way.

[beowuuf]

The bone doll sings the song, so you can follow the lyrics to work it out. Unless it's changed in recent iterations, you need to keep hammering the emerald forest. There is no turning back...

[Joramun]

Waah, I've been playing C3 bugfix 5 (not Conflux 3.5) with solo Iaido...

So far: Destroyed the council, opened the way to dark councillor, mampang, emerald forest and sudden death.

However, even with an archmaster Iaido, the power gem and crown of king fights are too difficult.
I need some weapon candy other than Swiftdeath and Furx, which are painfully weak compared to previous versions.
(ok, maybe because of my complaints on Swiftdeath being overpowered... but now...)
Also: the weapon reload time seems very slow. Is this linked to my fights with Beholders/Xanathar ?

I don't have the courage to restart a full game in C3.5, soloing Conflux to Arch/master levels is too long.

However, from what I've seen, C3.5 seems like a very good improvement on C3 ! Nice work as always, Zyx.

[Zyx]

Send me a savegame, I'll check about the slow reload time. As for the difficulty, I'd like to hear what other testers of C3b5 think or advise.

[Zyx]

@Zyx: I don't know if it is this version or just my game but the dark area has a few parts that don't stay dark and at least one area where water prevents you from casting certain spells even though there is no water graphic on screen. Also, is there any reason

Spoiler

the stone club that the bone golem drops gains the same identifiable properties that the bone doll has

? Great avatar by the way.

Could you send me a savegame where I can test this darkness and water bugs? And with the stone club with the wrong description?
The avatar, I think, was done by a young Gambit.

[limner]

hi
i'm playing the latest version of conflux III (beta 5?) i would like to use the oracle but it seems to be bugged: every time i try to load in the hint oracle a savegame it pops me a baloon with an error message "system error 0 cannot read hcsb.hct"
anyone can help me?

[Zyx]

I'll check.

[Zyx]

Beta 6 is out. I release it with the whole development folder (36Mb) which include the dungeon sources, in the hope it will be useful or helpful for someone. If someone wants to modify it or keep debugging it, he or she is welcome. I will keep lurking on this forum and answer questions, but I officially discontinue Conflux. Happy new year to all and long live our top-quality community.