Pure Magic User Question

[TheSuperSteve]

Hello,

I bought this game a few weeks ago and I’ve been so addicted to it. I just finished the main quest and I’ve started the fire and ice expansion. I played the game as a pure magic user. All magic, and I only used melee only when absolutely necessary. This is how I always play these open world games such as the Elder Scrolls series.

I was reading around in these forums and I stumbled upon a comment one user made that went along the lines of, “Magic damage becomes completely useless later on in the game”. Is this true or completely exaggerated? I’m concerned because I’ve spent a lot of time on this game and I actually want to finish the expansions. I don’t want to have to start over just because of my play style.

Thank you very much. This is so far the best iOS game I’ve played.

[Catacomber]

It's true that in the later expansions monsters do become more invulnerable to magic--it's a function of the game engine but we've tried to overcome it. Silvergirl, whom you may meet in some of our Zarista expansions always played as a magic user--don't forget that a magic user can do a lot more than kill enemies.

You may want to develop your light weapon skill a bit more and learn to love bows in addition to your magic staves. : ) I don't think you'll be that disappointed in our expansions even if you have to use more than magic a bit. : )

[Sylon / Redshift]

Well, let's say that attack magic is very useful through the main storyline (main game, official expansion pack), while if you want to try out different worlds/stories with this game's engine, you have to change yourself a bit too. : ) I'm sure magic will be useful in the later expansions too, but for fighting probably you'll need more skills to develop.
For example, if you like ranged attack (and magicians usually does : ), develop your bow-related skills and attributes and get a cool bow to help you when your magic needs some help. This game doesn't based on super-mega-heroes so don't worry if you can't develop just one skill up to the sky - you can play it through with average stats too because it's more about the story and thinking (solving many sidequests, talking wity many characters, learning useful tricks like enchanting) than just pure fighting.

[TheSuperSteve]

I’ll admit, its disappointing that to progress past the official expansion, I’ll need to start bashing enemies around like a barbarian. I understand the expansions need to add more difficulty, but I don’t agree making attack magic obsolete was the right way to go about it.

At least I know where to focus on putting my points into, that being light weapons. I think I’ll put this game on the back burner as soon as I finish the fire and ice expansion. If I would have known I’d be punished for playing a magic user, I would have played as a thief type character instead.

Thank you very much. The game is still very excellent in my eyes. Although I feel this is a major flaw.

[Sylon / Redshift]

Don't take this too seriously. : ) I don't know how much you will be 'punished' as a magic user because I don't know those expansions - I was only responsible for the main game and for the official expansion. Probably the situation is not that serious like that guy wrote in that forum post.
I'm also not sure you should look at those expansions as part of The Quest because they take place in a different world. As I said, the best way is to look the game as The Quest and the Official Expansion, while the other expansions are parts of a different game. If you're finished the main storyline, give them a try and you'll see what you can do there with a magic user. Probably you'll have so much fun that you'll forget about this whole discussion. : ) (By the way, some of them are low level expansions which means low magic resistances for the monsters too...)

[TheSuperSteve]

Sorry if I sounded a bit hostile or serious. It came out of pure frustration and nothing more. I remember playing a game called Persona on the Playstation Portable. I was having fun until I got a “bad ending” and was forced to start the game from scratch. I hate that. So I thought that I would eventually need to reroll in order to get farther in the game, which frustrated me. Its good to hear it may not be that bad.

I’ll keep playing and see how far I can get. So The Quest and the ice and fire are the official expansions? Are the rest considered to be fan made or did a different development team take over? When I bought these games, I assumed it was all official until I found out that wasn’t the case. I did think the one with the lightsaber was kind of bizarre, which is why I skipped on that one, hahaha.

At any rate, I’ll just focus on the official games and consider the rest to be optional extras. I haven’t had this much fun on an iOS device since… well ever.

Also one more thing; the inn card game is dangerously addictive. It reminds me of my Magic and Yu-Gi-Oh playing days. When I saw “card” on the inn menu, I assumed it would be blackjack or poker or some text based mini-game, boy was I wrong.

[Sylon / Redshift]

Thanks for the nice words! Yes, the main game and Islands of Ice and Fire are Redshift-made games, while the other expansions were mostly made by a different group (Zarista Games), using our game's engine. But of course you should try them out too, they have a massive fanbase.

And if you like the built in card game, you'll love Redshift's next game too. : ) Check here for more details:
viewtopic.php?f=29&t=730

[Catacomber]

Let's not forget the different group is ME who also worked on the Quest and wrote the side quests and worked on and programmed and wrote many of the quests in the Official Expansion and helped develop the story line of the Official Expansion.

Our Zarista expansions are not "fan made". I'm a professional game developer and Apple developer beyond having worked on the original Quest game and the Official Expansion.

: )

Try our expansions and I think you won't be disappointed----if you are come back and tell me. : )

I can take it.

There is a lot more going on in our expansions than you might imagine and you do have to cast spells to do certain things. And in our lower level expansions magic is still supreme.

We have happy players all over the world who email me that they are enjoying our games, keep it up, etc.

They can't all be head bashers. : ) There is quite a lot more to our expansions than that, imho.

And there are about 12 and soon to be 13. : ) We haven't stopped making expansions---we have several more in development.

And this is not our problem about the degradation of magic use---it's built into the Quest editor. There is nothing Zarista Games can do to help it except try to make really good stories and puzzles.

The problem lies with the Quest editor/engine and it could be changed but as Sylon knows, we have no control over that. We have done our best to overcome it and if you have curiosity, give one of our expansions a shot. : )

Sylon and I have had a long-standing professional relationship that goes back to when the Quest was just born and he knows when I'm speaking the truth.

[Sylon / Redshift]

Let's not confuse SuperSteve with this Redshift-Zarista mixture - Redshift and Zarista Games are two different groups where the only common member was you, Cat. : )

I don't know exactly what is the problem with magic in the later expansions - too high magic resistance for monsters? Or something else?
If the monsters have too high resistance, as far as I remember the editor is good to modify their attributes for a lower resistance. But if there are other problems, just write them there.

[Turtleman]

One possible work around/compensation for being a magic user is that you can enchant higher end items sooner than others. Thus, you can use magic against enemies that show to still be vulnerable while also being able to enchant a projectile that could be tailored to a specific enemy. That's how my current character is playing and I've now gone through the main game and 3 expansions. Yes, currently I'm finding it ever tougher to damage an enemy with pure magic, but I've enchanted some items to be very powerful. So I'm still surviving. I can't say if my decision to go this route will work out through the remaining expansions, but it makes for a great experiment. To be honest, I myself wasn't sure I had made the best choice in the beginning. So you're not alone in your question. Good luck.

[Catacomber]

Let's not confuse SuperSteve with this Redshift-Zarista mixture - Redshift and Zarista Games are two different groups where the only common member was you, Cat. : )

I don't know exactly what is the problem with magic in the later expansions - too high magic resistance for monsters? Or something else?
If the monsters have too high resistance, as far as I remember the editor is good to modify their attributes for a lower resistance. But if there are other problems, just write them there.

The problem seems to be in the editor and it was documented a long time ago---even when pdarcade was a forum for the Quest and our first expansions--HOLI and HOLII.

The higher level the monsters, the more resistant they are to magic attacks. There's not much I can do to counteract this by modifying their attributes in the editor.

Right now am modifying monsters by adding magic resistance -50% to their attributes and by adding 50% normal weapon resistance. But they still don't take as much damage via spells as via weapon attack.

I've also coded many monsters to be killed only by certain magic spells.

We try to get around this by interesting quests and the story and dungeon challenges.

Turtleman's advice is good. : ) There are still things you need high magic for---f.e. environment magic. : ) And we try to work those things into the story.

[Sylon / Redshift]

Lowering intelligence doesn't help either?
I don't know, I'm just wondering. What should be the exact attribute which gives them so high resistance? Probably the experience level?
If nothing helps, then sorry, the game was not designed to bear so much high level expansions - low level expansions are the solution. : )

[Sylon / Redshift]

So I asked Elendil about this because I knew Intelligence is very important when balancing the magic resistance - even in the official expansion I remember I also had to lower the monsters' IQ drastically to have the right MR, and it was just after the main game, for level 14-18 characters. : )

The exact magic resistance looks like this: the monster's IQ + the monster type's base MR + the monster's MR. If you lower the monster's MR in the effects/abilities window and you lower the monster's IQ, it should be effective enough.
Of course low IQ gives low magic skills too for the monster, so if you need high magic skills for him/her, you have to raise them with "Fortify Magic" in the effects/abilities window.

IQ also determines the monster's paralysis resitance (IQ x 2).

[Recruit17]

Just buy a really good heavy weapon and have some mush rum handy XD

[Catacomber]

I've tried lowering the int and it doesn't really help that much. I think the heavy weapon and mush rum is the best solution and to make low level games, which is why we do the series es now. : )

[Catacomber]

Sylon, I'll try again in Celtic Doom and let's see what happens. I think it's wonderful that you took the time to explain that. : ) Some of the problem may be that things wrap at the higher levels because it's a 16 bit engine and the higher levels are really high---far beyond what you and Stewe ever envisioned happening. But let's see. : )

[Sylon / Redshift]

That's great! Try to lower the IQ even to 1 (one), probably that helps at least a little at so high levels. : ) And try to add -100 magic resistance to the abilities window, then add again -100, or again -100, as far as I know they will always count together. : )