Zombasite patch 0.902

[Tuidjy]

I appreciate the extra info about food consumption, but it is definitely wrong, either in how it is computed, or in how it is displayed. The three snapshots below are of my inviting a third, fourth and a fifth clan member.

As I hired the fourth member, who had no applicable skills, my food consumption per hour went down, which makes no sense.

As I hired the fifth member, who had farming, baking and brewing, the food consumption show way up, despite the usage per meal going drastically down, as it should.

Something is wrong.

[Shadow]

I'll look at it, but it might be correct. There are several things that can increase food usage temporarily like adventuring, infection, and a few quests.

[Tuidjy]

One of my companions constantly attacks exploding barrels, even underground. She is a mage, and uses her staff. She has been lucky so far, but if she keeps doing this as trap damage increases, she will soon die.

Companions should NOT attack scenery or neutral objects until the main character does. And yes, I am sure I have not attacked the barrels in question first.

[Oblivion]

Forgot to mention a few other things. The quick potion to ally NPCs uses your highest level one, which can render them unable to drink it and you have to drop the higher level potions in order to heal them.

The "Ambush" event seems to happen more than once on chests or other objects, and I've found myself surrounded by 30 enemies many a time.

I came to an area that I hadn't explored all game and there was a Necromancer who raised around 40 Zombie Mountain Saurians. With the NPC summoned bonus ,it was practically unstoppable. I hit save and exit and resumed and they all vanished as well.

It also seems like the "Soul Eater" perk is fairly useless, I ended up just unlearning it because I didn't see any effectiveness.

NPC companions also don't use healthstones in dungeons, only at home.

[DeathKnight1728]

I have question-What about if you get the infection in a previous game and it carries over and everytime you die it stays as well. Is that supposed to happen or not and if it is what do you do to combat that?

[Throwback]

I have some more feedback:

1. The increased run speed is now faster than the fire nova trap, rendering it somewhat useless unless you are in a corner. I had gotten used to the slower run speed already so I wonder what else changes with faster speeds. Off the top of my head: melee can close with ranged faster, semi-surrounds will be easier to escape, monsters approach faster.

2. I'm level 9 and haven't even come close to dying which is not what I expected after playing Din's Curse. Does this game get hard? At the moment it feels very easy. This might have something to do with point 3.

3. I'm at least a couple of hours in and I haven't come across a single other clan. Furthermore, I'm still running into level 1-2 areas. Maybe this is my own fault because I tend to play like a completionist (it's hard to remember I don't *have* to do all the quests!). Whilst I am slowly adjusting my playstyle, no other clans is pretty boring. I have found 3 dead towns so far, although admittedly 2 AI have been wiped out already (is that normal?) so 2 of them might be those towns. [edit: this is just the rambling of an overtired person]

4. Unpopulated towns are *packed* with monsters now that monsters can spawn there (unusually so, probably due to the large amounts of ground space). Is it possible to tone down the spawn rates for empty towns? There are no quests for the dead towns, so lots of monsters is currently just fodder/time. I like the idea of empty towns feeling 'dead' or 'creepy', but still have a couple of monsters hanging around. I'd probably vote for a return to 0 monsters over the current spawn rate.

5. The system for accepting quests is bugging me a bit. Again, possibly because I need to be more familiar, but I would like to be able to look at all the quests in the area I'm in and accept them. At the moment they are occasionally sorted by area which is nice, except that I still have to click on and read each quest before I can tell which area it is for - and I do actually have to read, because many of the names are so similar or so complex (eg the names of areas that are dungeons of another area; or areas that have the same name as another area but a different level). Off the top of my head I would probably go for a text colour system to indicate quest urgency, and put the location in the title of each quest.

6. Argh lost this point, thanks vBulletin for logging me out while I was drafting....
- I miss the feeling of knowing my town, the warmaster always giving boss quests, the steward looking after the town, that one guy who always %^**&^%ng starves...can we have some (or all) quests given out by clan members?
- I would happily give up handing in quests from the wild - I'd prefer to be forced to return to the quest-giver. I have no connection to my town at the moment. TP back, go to craft table, pedestals, maybe stash, leave. In hindsight I loved that mental respite my town gave me in Din's.
- quests from clan members would encourage increasing clan size to get more quests
- don't get rid of the item distribution via craft table - it's awesome!

[Shadow]

Originally Posted by DeathKnight1728

I have question-What about if you get the infection in a previous game and it carries over and everytime you die it stays as well. Is that supposed to happen or not and if it is what do you do to combat that?

Infections should not carry over when you die.

[Tuidjy]

I dislike the way everyone moves faster now. It was possible to get fast movement even before, through items and skills. Now that everyone moves fast, spellcasters are much weaker, everything happens at melee range, and very often characters will be chasing each other around pillars and doorways, like in a Benny Hill show.

Bring the old move speed back, in combat at the very less - if you are consuming stamina, you are moving more like a combatant concerned about his safety, and less like a Olympic class sprinter with a hot chilly pepper up his ass.

[jazzable]

Yeah, havung the same problem here. Some (not all) followers seem to bug out under certain conditions and start attacking objects.

[Tuidjy]

I am completely baffled by food.

I've had 5 members consuming food at 65% and needing 92 units per hour. I have also had 15 members consuming food at 50% and needing 94 units per hour. I have had food requirements fluctuate from 64 to 128 with only two quests in the area, neither of them for my clan. For a very important resource, that can sap your fighting strength, and is one of the win conditions, food is COMPETELY NON-INTUITIVE.

It should be absolutely clear how food consumption works, not only to a veteran player, but to a beginner. The current breakdown is inadequate, even if it is accurate, which I hope it is not, because that makes me an idiot for not being able to figure out the rules.

The player should be able to tell why his clan's consumption jumped from 100% to 200%, what quests need to be resolved to normalize things, which clan members are affecting food consumption and how, and there should be no way in hell that 6 people eat as much 16, when their food utilization skills are more or less the same.