Necropolis

author=Crystalgate
I did not wear Nimble Boots or Spike Armor, so I guess I could have made the fight a lot easier than I did. In any case, there sure are a lot of strategies that work against that boss.

Chance is it's my fault my tactics became less diverse on hard enemies. I think I have to give this game at least a second go some time.

I try to account for the fact that not every player will have the same specialization by making it so you have different options for defeating some of the bosses. I worry a lot about over-tuning a boss for an optimal strategy and making somebody bang their head against a wall because they are missing one element to their strategy and losing. By the way, try the CryptKpr boss without the Hellgard Shield or using the AquaShot finisher. While more difficult, you can still edge him by using EyeGouge to completely mitigate his physical attacks, saving Fury to cast Blind when he summons RotGhouls (if they miss, you can't be poisoned), and hopefully having enough for Heal right before a Calm (not always because summoning RotGhouls has some variance in its pattern).

One downside of keeping the different strategies fairly open is it can turn battles that aren't meant to be tank-and-spank into brutal tank-and-spank attrition (like you had vs Digger and Mitsuhide had against SoulKeys). I am not sure how to always find that sweet spot. In the case of the Digger, I think the gimmick/strategy just doesn't click in a player's mind, so this is something I will think about down the road (any updates to part one will not address him).

On the subject of the Digger, the option I wanted players to discover was debuffing his Flask. Everybody will have Blind by then at a minimum, which has a higher Fury-cost then ones like Weak or Exposed that you may have if you achieved Lv05. If you are short on Fury you have some options depending on spec. If you have Cleave, the Purge finisher (B->P->F) can take care of the AttackUp buff the Digger receives when you break his Flask. If you have Rend, you should do just enough damage to not break the Flask and inflict it with Bleed (I know, a Flask can not normally bleed...). If you have Thrust... well, too bad, because I couldn't think of anything so you will have to just debuff the Flask with spells. Basically, you are turning his Flask into a poison, so instead of healing him he becomes afflicted by whatever debuffs the Flask suffers from. Between a gimmick that isn't panning out with players and the fact that most people end up facing him at Lv04 when he's tuned for Lv05 (Lv05 means only a 2/2/1 won't have Purge, but will have Rend), he is a boss battle I will have to revisit. I was worried enough about the gimmick not standing out that I added that small Ridley cutscene before entering his chamber.

The Nimble Boots definitely come in handy vs the Ghosts as well, since I used them to introduce the IceBlast spell... Mitigating the slow there should ease the difficulty of the monsters there. Rend or Thrust do wonders against shield monsters (BoneLord/RedBaron) instead of waiting for them to use their stun (ShieldSlam) spell, and also just TriDrill via Headbutt spamming. The vampires are what I consider to be the enemy that requires attention on my part, though. I think they hit too hard and being immune to most spells seems to be forcing most players into a defensive slow burn, which I don't consider to be a fun play style. I will either reduce their attack power or change LifeSteal so it doesn't ignore armor, along with opening them up to debuffs like Weak, Slow, and Exposed. I haven't settled on that yet. Keep in mind that while I want this game to be challenging enough so that it rewards using your abilities, spells and finishers effectively, I in no way want it to be brutally difficult.

Anyway, tonight or tomorrow I will upload an update to include some minor changes, primarily an encounter fix. It will be inconsequential for those who've completed the game and have no intention of replaying it, so you can pretty much ignore it as no new content or sweeping changes will be made. My next blog post will cover interface features that have not been implemented for part one because they are incomplete (slight change to the battle system menu and a progression tree, mostly).

Alright, I just uploaded what should be the first and final update to part one. Encounter mechanics -should- work this time. Gave it an 80% success rate. You may still get locked out of the menu semi-permanently, but I think I fixed that too. Though, it was rare to begin with and I never got any reports from players.

Massive problem was fixed, which makes turns play out as intended. Something got messed up when I made some big changes to it a few weeks ago, but I didn't notice it was broken until I was testing something in part two. As a result, Headbutt and MageSlyr are more effective and Marcus should act more frequently in general (unless facing opponents faster than him, then the opposite... but only a few are faster anyway).

Nerfed Slow a bit (both Marcus and the enemy), but I will probably give it a slight buff and meet halfway in part two.

WildVamp is now vulnerable to most negative status conditions. WildVamp's Attack was slightly buffed, but LifeSteal no longer penetrates armor.

Digger was slightly nerfed to have Lv04 stats as a band-aid... in the distant future of part two I will restructure this area to allow for a level up to naturally occur between him and CryptKpr (also changing his gimmick or finding a way to communicate it better, but for now he remains the same).

Fixed a fat-finger typo in Bleed damage resulting in a nerf (between NicoB's and Crystalgate's comments, I had to take another look--thanks).

Fixed a few skill descriptions so as not to reveal Marcus' name earlier than intended.

Slight reduction in EXP requirements per level. This might break your saved games... I am not sure how RM2K3 will handle somebody who magically levels up if they were near that threshold (i.e. you had 1100/1200 EXP when you saved and quit, but the new level curve only requires 1000/1000).

I nixed the game clock. It doesn't seem to be accurate enough to be worthwhile. I even tried having it count only minutes instead of seconds hoping it would work better, but not really. Too bad Enterbrain just never included one by default.

I think that is everything. If I somehow managed to break something catastrophically, I will fix that, but there will be no minor updates.