[Custom dungeon] Conflux III: The Undercity [CSBWin] [Benjamin Prieu (a.k.a Zyx)]

[beowuuf]

The characters at the start of conflux 3 are supposed to be 'weak' for the challenge, just like reincarnating in CSB, but othertwise are decent champions. They each have hidden skills / bonuses to warrant taking them for an initial play through. Also, if you read the various docs you will see each of the characters has a backstory, and isn't supposed to be the storyless DM characters.

1. Behind the first doors are more characters of increasign levels - up to the final guildmasters - though you need to pick one of the first four characters. You use guild symols to open the further doors, and there are also bonus characters deeper in the dungeon. But the ones in the hall are the main ones.

2. You must choose at least one hero to start with. The 'hidden' champion at the door behind the black flame is not a single character, it is four. This is the malificent guild. You can consider them an insane/hard mode. There is acertain deepness where you will need four champions. However, there is a lot of dungeon between that point and the start so you cna decide which champions from where you choose.


The dungeon is indeed awesome when you start peeling the layers of it, providing the initial difficulty doens't put you off (hopefully you will enjoy it). A normal playthough without a lot of guiodance will be in line with whatever a CSB playthourhg would be. However, even once you solve the 'basic' dungeon to find one of the main endings, there are a lot of side quests and huge areas to explore that aren't to do with the quests, or there are quests tied in to the guilds instead. So there are eight (I believe) endings to find - check the conflux main page to see the exact number. So you could be playing conflux for much longer finding all the nooks and cranies. Or replaying with different characters and a better knoclwedge of the dungeon!

[gene]

The characters at the start of conflux 3 are supposed to be 'weak' for the challenge, just like reincarnating in CSB, but othertwise are decent champions. They each have hidden skills / bonuses to warrant taking them for an initial play through. Also, if you read the various docs you will see each of the characters has a backstory, and isn't supposed to be the storyless DM characters.

Props to the guy who wrote the stories. Were an interesting read.

Also, how exactly do you dismiss characters (probably a newbie question but the last time I played Dungeon Master was ages ago).

Thanks for the help!

[lord soth 75]

WTF!!!???

Just experienced a dream sequence in the game....Complete with the coda to the famous Beatles song "A day in the life"
Had no idea what the hell was happening.Managed to kill the nightmare with a vorpal blade...but 2 of my party died during the fight,so there was no point carrying on.

Im creeped out.

[beowuuf]

@LS: Ok, that's advanced WIP /later conflux stuff! I have never seen that before! That is unfortunatel that the nightmare killed a coupel of your party - though you have a VI altar not too far away, right? Any idea what triggered it? Where did you sleep?

(sounds very, very cool though. I've only ever had tiny text dreams. Never ones that could freddie kruger you!)


@gene: (belated) welcome to the forums! Also, I'm afraid you can't dismiss a character once you've got them. At least, you can't in DM/CSB (original versions) and not under the CSBwin engine, so not in conflux.

[gene]

@gene: (belated) welcome to the forums! Also, I'm afraid you can't dismiss a character once you've got them. At least, you can't in DM/CSB (original versions) and not under the CSBwin engine, so not in conflux.

Ah ok, so this means Character management. That's fine. Thanks!

[lord soth 75]

@ beowuuf

The dream happened whilst i was wandering around the Temple (on a 2nd game save). I had just found an emerald key,used it on one of 2 locks,and was in corridor with water and fire elementals.

The dream started with text.
Then you are in a cave area,and there was one of those magnifying things in the wall ahead (like in DM.Where you use the Mirror of dawn)
Walked up to it,and to the left was a mirror on the wall,with Mophus the healer inside it.

Message then appears saying "Behind you"
But you cant turn around
Eventually you turn around,and there is a monster in the room with you,and random poison bolt spells firing all over the place.
In the wall beyond the monster is an alcove that keeps appearing and dissapearing.And in the alcove is a Vorpal blade.

As all this was happening,,,,The musical finale to "A day in the life" By the Beatles begins to play.
The Vorpal does a fu*k ton of damage to the monster...and when it dies,there is a necklace on the floor.
Picked it up,and was transported back to the corridor with the water elementals.
Vorpal blade was gone.But the necklace was still in my inventory.

[beowuuf]

*bows to Zyx*

That sounds insane, in a very cool way.


The fire/water elemental area is the way to the secret wisdom of the temple - guild stuff and flasks when you get to the end!

[lord soth 75]

*bows to Zyx*

That sounds insane, in a very cool way.


The fire/water elemental area is the way to the secret wisdom of the temple - guild stuff and flasks when you get to the end!

The only problem is......i haven't got enough Mana to battle through this corridor.
The Fire elementals upon dying turn into a water elemental,and each corridor has 2 fire elementals (So..in essence i have to fight through 4 elementals per corridor). Cant even go back to previous corridor to sleep...because the elementals iv already destroyed have re-spawned.

So....on this 'experimental' game save.....I am effectively trapped in between 8 elementals..with no way of resting to raise my mana levels.

Back to my original save game me-thinks.
Back to the safety of the cellar.
I'll try another kamikaze run into the Temple next time i play.

[beowuuf]

Is the dream always triggered? Also, you only need to go one way

[gene]

Hey there, just played some Conflux today and experienced two errors which always appear in the game, I'm using Conflux_3.5_B8 btw (Win7 x64bit).

Whenever I load a game, this message appears:
Excessive DSA operations. This is the last warning

also, after pressing the Restart Game button and choosing your save (after you died) the game always crashes.

[lord soth 75]

Is the dream always triggered?

I don't think its triggered by that particular corridor.
After i lost the 2 characters,i killed my front 2..Reloaded my save and then tried again,and the dream didn't happen.

Perhaps Zyx could clarify this conundrum.

[beowuuf]

@gene: the excessive DSA is just CSBwin being cautious. You can ignore that one, it just means lots is happening in the background to make it a cool game.


The saved game crash sounds weirder though. I've messed about briefly with conflux off and on under my win 7 x64, so it's not anything to do with the engine, etc. Perhaps is zyx or paulS are free, they can have a look at the saved game and tell why it is crashing.


@LS: The dream thing can just be random chance, or random chance at particular locations. CSBwin lets you do wonderful, powerful things. I guess just carry on, and maybe you'll get the nightmare again one of these days (scared)

[lord soth 75]

Is there any use for the 4 or 5 Plasma's in the temple?
The vexirk dropped a few. I used the sticky plasma on the wall....and then went through a corridor (picked up 2 storm rings in there).

There are other plasma on the floor in this area. Do i need them?

This temple section is quite tough.

[beowuuf]

Other than RA locks, and one alcove somewhere, not really.... it's mostly flavour. Well, it was last time I checked, I can neither confirm nor deny zyx has done anythign with them since!


The temple is tough, but if you are surviving it better than the sewer, then it's all good! I think I usually do those two in reverse of each other to tell you the truth! Sounds like the sewer has gotten tougher!

[lord soth 75]

'High Apartments'

"You are not pure"

How do i get past that RA door?

Im gradually pecking my way around this Temple now.Killed a bunch of the Vexirk monks,and their pet Couatyl's.
Iv got Lightning bolt spell now too!! Im gonna pay those critters in the sewer another visit and lay some smack down.

[Zed5Duke]

It is possible to complete it with warrior solo? I have problem with lack of light, every torches am find are almost burned.

So far my problems are technical, sometime strange things happend with colors they change like rainbow, water levels look bad (maybe its should but its not transparent and if something lay on ground I will never find it)

[beowuuf]

@LS: There should be a place neraby that mentions purging and praying...


@Zed: The rainbow effect makes me think that you found a stone mushroom and ate it? Your characters were tripping out. Otherwise, you might find some wallsets suffer from the minimal colour palette. It's the one technical limitation you have to put up with, but good wall sets are hard in plain DM, so I think many work well. And yers, no transparency possible in CSBwin.

It is possible to have a leif solo game, opening uip the warriors guild and getting those characters. There is at least one illuminets available if you solve the cellar puzzles. The burned torches are an evil level of difficulty for the early game, there are some full torches later on. also, there are a couple of upstairs areas to solve that have full light - the food store, the moisters area, the mini-maze with the minotaur - that would let you get a head start with leif on casting magical light for the other areas. Also, the sewer level nets you more experience, so cast wizard/preist spells down there (even without a flask, you still get the XP) in order to boost leif's magic first.

[gene]

It is possible to complete it with warrior solo? I have problem with lack of light, every torches am find are almost burned.

So far my problems are technical, sometime strange things happend with colors they change like rainbow, water levels look bad (maybe its should but its not transparent and if something lay on ground I will never find it)

I'm actually trying to do the same and found a really neat little item at the beginning of the game which increased my fighters mana by some points which allowed me to cast the lightning spell (after that you should have to train a little and there you go)

Which item?

Spoiler

The item is the Moonstone which can be found in the Storage cellar

edit: is it normal that I always loose vitality and dex points after a fight, respectively I get fever? This is really strange...
edit2: so, apparently, I'm constantly loosing vit points. Could it be that the Blast Spore somehow infected me?

[beowuuf]

The are diseases and nasty monster effects flying around. There is a scroll soewhere that mentions the value of squeezing chewer pods out in to a potion.


Ah, I can't recall where the moonstone is - is it behind a keyhole door? I didn't think you could get it until much later!

[lord soth 75]

@LS: There should be a place neraby that mentions purging and praying.

Yeah.I tried that. It just locks you in place,and the only escape is to jump down a pit into a place i really don't like.

Any tips on how to kill the High priest?
His fireballs practically wipe out my entire party with 1 hit.
I managed to destroy all of the other Monks on this level (i think),but this High priest is proving to be a total pain in the ass.

Any info on the empty mirror,with 'Vestuary' written underneath it?

[Paul Stevens]

I tried that

Did you really Pray? How long? Quickie prayers are
probably not going to satisfy anyone. I think you
had better mean it.

[beowuuf]

Yeah, it's like a trick in CSB that I'm not sure if you found. Just...dwell on thigns fr a while. Maybe sleep.... I don't think zyx has made it so you need to use the sticks to purge. Maybe a quick swing just in case!


The priets is a bit evil, he can summon cerain snakes and his spells are powerful. Does he reflect your own spells? If not - poison clouds! If he does, get close, attack with melee sidesteps, and you can hide down the stairwell to his left. Maybe that advice is old...


The mirror at the vestuary was used to look at others by the monk in there. Either use a mirror on it, or cast a certain 'see things' spell for a fun easter egg.

[lord soth 75]

@ beowuuf

The High priest wont move from the stain glass window.
It does seem that he is protected by some type of magic barrier because any items i throw at him,just bounce of him,,and my spells dont work on him.

Im trying to chop him up with melee attacks,but every once in awhile he manages to hit with a fireball....which results in me having to re-load my game.


Oh....i did the 'pray and purge' section too. Thanks for the hints.

Im not sure how to open the door by the retirement room message.Behind the door is a Vexirk going ape sh*t casting fireballs at the door ect.
That chewer tree in the same area was a tough mother as well....Took me ages to finally chop that thing up.

[beowuuf]

Yeah, the end bosses are deliberately placed to try and stop you from just brute forcing them with a 2 square step and spells and melee. I can't recall any better tactics than reload if you have to off ther top of my head! Freeze life items are good (the purses) if you have any.


The retirement room is actually arrived at from the opposing side. There's two ways I can recall getting to it, one is an illusionary wall, and the other is dropping down a pit from the area I warned you against before - the fourth stairwell where the spellvines were. If you can kill immeterial beings, it might be worth doing that little area and jumping to the retirement room. I have this feeling the retirement room also links to a high level food store (or maybe it does but the connection is made from the food store back to the retirement room)


And lol, you killed the tree of courage and enlightenment! That's not very courageous or enlightened! Still, examine its sticks carefully...you may have an unexpected reward....

[gene]

@gene: the excessive DSA is just CSBwin being cautious. You can ignore that one, it just means lots is happening in the background to make it a cool game.


The saved game crash sounds weirder though. I've messed about briefly with conflux off and on under my win 7 x64, so it's not anything to do with the engine, etc. Perhaps is zyx or paulS are free, they can have a look at the saved game and tell why it is crashing.


@LS: The dream thing can just be random chance, or random chance at particular locations. CSBwin lets you do wonderful, powerful things. I guess just carry on, and maybe you'll get the nightmare again one of these days (scared)

Just downloaded the WIP2.0 version of Conflux (Dungeon Master wiki page) and now everything is working fine. It seems like that Conflux 3.5B 8 is broken.

[beowuuf]

The B stood for 'beta', not sure what the issue was. Glad it's fixed!

[lord soth 75]

And lol, you killed the tree of courage and enlightenment! That's not very courageous or enlightened! Still, examine its sticks carefully...you may have an unexpected reward....

That particular hint was priceless. Thanks man

Who would ever have thought that a simple tree branch would have been my most effective weapon against that damn High priest.

With the little sh*t dead,i now have new problems.

Namely...this little riddle

"You must earn the wisdom of our paths,before the final test"
What does it mean? And more importantly.....any hints as to where i should be heading next?

Also..... What is this message in wall about 'Future machine' ?

[beowuuf]

Did you get to the end of the fire/water elementsal and get a flask and spell? That's the wisdom of the temple...place it in here tp prove you have it.

If you've beaten the twp paths to wisdom of the temple, you could double back to the retirement room, or maybe now - with this new beachhead, you could tackle the sewer finally!

The future machine is a cute little bit, actually important id you had different characters... might also hide a small reward. To get the key for it you need to solve the yin/yang riddle. Also, did you spot the coin slot in the high priest's murel?

[lord soth 75]

Did you get to the end of the fire/water elementsal and get a flask and spell?

No.
I found that area during a kamikaze run on a different save.
I cant even remember how i actually found that area.

As i explained in my post about it.The section was pretty much impossible because i couldn't regain Mana fast enough to destroy the elementals.

I'll try to find it again tonight on my main game save.


Oh.....the coin slot in the stain glass window.
What does it do exactly? I put a coin in,and there was a noise...but im not sure what happened

[beowuuf]

There are twp paths the temple directs you to, either one leads to that area. Check the high priest layer first - there's a door with torches you might discover is something else... something helpful to blasting elementals! And the elementals are't infinite...