I'm a long time lurker, first time poster ! I started playing Andor's Trail back before the Remgard update.
Here are my thoughts on the 0.7 update, and the game in general. It will most likely be tl:dr for most people, but I couldn't think of where else to go to share my experiences! It also contains many spoilers, so it's in spoiler tags:
The game is great for the subway or any other internet deprived area (although I've been playing it all the time recently!). I only have one character, here it is to give you an idea of my play style. Also note, I'm NOT a min-maxer, I just play for fun, and if I make a mistake, oh well:
Load out: Grinding. Blade of the Defiler, Remgard combat shield, polished ring of backstabbing x2, troublemaker's gloves, boots of the guardian, enhanced combat helmet, serpent's hauberk, jewel of Fallhaven.
Level: 61. HP:107 AP: 12/6 (attack 3). AC: 241%. AD: 42-44. Crit Chance: 28%. Crit Multi.: 3.5. BC: 28%. DR: 6.
Skills: More Crits x3, Better Crits x3, Combat Speed x2, Corpse Eater x1, Increased Fortitude x1, Regeneration x1, Dark Blessing of the Shadow, Internal Bleeding, Dagger prof. x1, 1-handed sword prof. x1, Axe prof. x1, Unarmed fighting x1, Shield prof. x2, Light armor prof. x1, Dual wield x2.
I was level 45-ish at the time of the update, having been grinding on BWM. I thought for sure I was to destroy the new content, considering how much grinding I'd done (1,539 White wyrms!). I know that is a small amount compared to what some people have done, but it's a lot for me personally! Well, as it turned out the updated destroyed me instead.
(As a side note, BWM was my favorite grind spot pre-0.7, as the easy access bed and health pots made the grind easy and was good prep for future expeditions.)
I think this update has been a MAJOR nerf to crit builds, which is what I built! But you know what? I like the nerf! Crit builds were a bit overpowered anyway by killing everything instantly, and forcing diversity is a very good thing imho.
Although the devs nerfed crit builds, I'd still like to see an enemy that would be a perfect crit target, say, an enemy with 1,000 hp, but ok damage capabilities. Dang, that would be soooo freaking fun to fight! Just one sort of enemy like that is all I'm asking, a super Maonite maybe, pwease devs?
I remember encountering the slime cave, and calculating that it was better for me to drop my Dagger of the Shadow Priests and just pound away bare fisted for the extra attacks, since the slimes are crit immune. This led to the humorous image of the hero punching big blobs of jello!
As it turns out, this became the norm for most of the update, as the toughest critters in Charwood and the Green Maze are crit immune. At this point it was a little ridiculous, as my protagonist was walking around, punching walking infernos and pillars of flame with his bare hands, completely unharmed! Yes kids, next time there's a forest fire, just punch it out! Punching ghosts out of existence is pretty over-the-top too. Who is Andor's brother anyway, Chuck Norris?
By the way, our hero's sprite has always bothered me a little bit. He's running around shirtless all the time, ok, but what is that red thing on his left? At first I thought it was an item bag attached to his waist, but on closer inspection it looks like a massive punching glove! It's much larger than his other hand... Is that what is it?!
It wasn't until today that I read about using the quickstrike dagger + jewel of Fallhaven to maximize your attacks/round, I didn't realize that the QSD was less AP than bare handed! Oh well, I wasted some crystals on the unarmed proficiency, but it was fun while it lasted. Again, I'm not a min/maxer.
Clearing Charwood used up all the health pots I got from grinding BWM, and was no cakewalk. After defeating the bone dragon, I thought that Blade of the Defiler was pretty weak. Pure damage wise for a crit build, it is inferior to Flagstone's Pride. However, I tested it out anyway for the heck of it, and now it's my favorite dagger, due to it effectively giving you a point in Corpse eater! It took me a long time to figure this out, but Andor's Trail is all about grinding, and grinding is all about sustain. The epic boss fights are appreciated highlights, but are not the norm. Sure, crit builds have the most damage, but when grinding you're not going to get the first strike anyway, or even land that crit at all. Even a little bit of heal really adds up after clearing waves and waves of beasties.
If I was to restart, I'd go for a brawler build rather than a glass cannon assassin. I love the regen on kill so much, that the most recent skill point I got is in Corpse eater, and I may just put a few more points in that next (followed by the build up to Concussion, although that is a long journey!). Also, I would have maxed out increased fortitude instead of only getting one point early on. While in the long run that is a pretty bad handicap, it might not be so bad, as it effectively increases the difficulty
besides, if grinding is all about sustain, if you have a good heal rate + DR, the upper cap on health might not matter so much.
Around this point I finally realized the power of DR as well. While I had the Remgard shield for some time, after I got 2 points in shield proficiency and the Serpent's hauberk, the DR5 made a world of difference! It was amazing how much longer I could go without healing when grinding an area. I even eventually switched out my bar brawler's boots for boots of the guardian, for DR6. With my current build, I can infini-grind the Green Maze (minus the hithrali ghosts... more on those in a sec).
Actually, maxing out Bark skin is probably more important than points in Corpse eater at this point anyway, and my toon does have pitifully low BC. My original intent on my BWM grinding was to get Fracture, but I found Internal bleeding to be not so useful, as after you crit most things die at that level anyway, and bosses seem to be immune to crits from now on anyway. I probably won't get Fracture anytime soon.
Flush with my victory from Charwood, I wandered off to the Green Maze. I checked over all the areas again btw, didn't read anything on the forums that might spoil the new content. I thought that because this was a main quest line, it was going to be relatively easy. WRONG!
The cruel thing about the Green Maze is that it starts out easy enough. And then it gets harder, and harder, and harder, and doesn't seem to stop, almost like the trip to Remgard. I actually didn't find the bed until after clearing the Lodar quest, that bugger was really hidden!
The hithrali ghosts totally knocked me on my rear, as their high DR and crit immunity was a perfect counter to my build at the time. I died so many times in those caves. The most frustrating thing was the new mechanic where enemies can swarm you from across a room during a fight. Seriously, I swore louder, and got more genuinely angry than I can remember in years!
I eventually figured out the bats actively hunt you down. It just drove me crazy how once I was tagged by a bat (often spawned right next to me from nothing), the ghosts swarmed me like the dung files. DEAD.
Often when I was exploring a new region on the cusp of my abilities, I could just dance around the enemies and only fight the ones absolutely necessary. Looks like I can't do that anymore! You have to clear each room almost totally before advancing (assuming you can't kill the enemies fast enough).
However, I felt less angry once I encountered the Hira'zinn. It was totally unexpected, and 4 squares large. I quickly figured out this was a final-boss type experience, so the difficulty getting there didn't bother me so much anymore, as it is to be expected for such a thing. I just didn't know that it was going to be this sort of experience when I first set out
Speaking of the Hira'zinn, it's the first critter in recent memory that I couldn't kill, no matter how many potions I used, no matter my equipment loadout, no matter how many restarts, nothing. I couldn't just overcome his DR 21 and heal-on-hit, that's CRAY-CRAY man! Imho, the best build against this guy is high DR (even with his fear 4), since he has so many small attacks.
Defeated, but invigorated with a new goal, I went to grinding trolls on the path to Remgard. This is actually the only time that Internal Bleeding was useful to me, but not enough to merit the skill point imho.... Passing through the plague striders was still painful for my build though.
Thus I achieved my latest scheme: Dual woodcutter's hatchet! I simply didn't have enough damage to make unarmed worth it. The 12-24 damage boost maximized my damage output, enough pierce to get past that crazy DR.
Oh, the rematch with the Hira'zinn was grand. I imagined my protagonist chopping away with double axes at the many arms in slow motion, a berserker in full throttle, powered by all sorts of stimulants, and the beast of madness howling with the deepest of insanities all the while, both in a desperate struggle of annihilation and survival.
The victory was very satisfying. Devs if you read this, feel free to insert more insanely difficult challenges. Andor's Trail is kind of a masochistic game anyway
Lodar's potion shop is quite awesome, and possibly overpowering. It's unfortunate that there's no worthy opponent to try them out on by that point! I've always been tight on gold, and even had to sell some one-of-a-kind items at various points (although it pains me). Well, Lodar's shop certainly cleaned me out again! I need to grind up enough gold to have many duplicates of each
After some more wanderings I found out the rotworm quest. That was very fun, the helmet was awesome and I really wanted it, but I felt bad, and the Blessing of the Shadow is a pretty awesome permanent boost. The blessings offered by the priest in Loneford confused me a bit though, as by the time you can unlock it, there's no real challenge you can reach by the time the blessing runs out.
As for general notes:
I really like the flavor texts added to the tombstones!
The only part of the update that I think was TREMENDOUSLY negative was changing food healing to be over time. I don't see how this benefits anyone, even at X2 amount. When I first started out, and was way too poor for continuous potion use, meats were the only reasonable method to heal up. Combat desperation: Bonemeals. Healing between fights: meats. While I stopped relying on meats for post-combat recovery after BWM, I have these stats:
Most commonly used item: Meat(1467) Most commonly killed monster: Small rabid dog(1841).
(By the way, I always felt a bit guilty going into the forest to kill puppies and eat their flesh
, flesh infected with rabies no less! Seriously?)
Now people will just have to find some safe corner and wait out the heal. This is tremendously not fun, and also because it takes so long all the monsters will respawn, increasing the chances of someone becoming stuck. The chance of food poisoning hurts new players even more
Ok, rant over.
Also, I predict Cleave will be a very valuable skill if current trends continue. When getting swarmed by super tough monsters, every extra attack could be a life saver.
Now for something about Andor's Trail that I've always loved: the story! What makes it really great is the grey morality. I was really hesitant to take sides, as both sides seem to have done some pretty nasty things. I've actually taken thing on a case-by-case basis. For instance, in Loneford I was pro-empire (they brought in water so people wouldn't use the poisoned well! Those people didn't deserve to be poisoned. Very interesting that this is very near the Rotworm quest...) and also in Fallhaven (man, I hate thieves, I have been burglarized irl), and I've been anti-Empire in the Green Maze (only telling your side of the story not acceptable!), bonemeal quest (of course, not getting bonemeals activates hard mode
eating people's bones is cannibalism though, kind of creepy... ), Vilegard, etc. On average, I'd say I'm pro-empire though, although the full story is still very ambiguous... We'll see.
The Vacor quest feels quite important despite being low-level!! The ability to affect the Shadow...? I took down Vacor because he seemed to be too egotistical to be trusted with such power, I just hope I don't end up regretting this later if the Shadow turns out to be more malevolent than is currently portrayed...
I REALLY like how characters now recognize your various achievements, really gives some persistence to the story.
Although one NPC SERIOUSLY needs an overhaul: your Dad. He's still talking about how Andor stepped out yesterday. Ummm, I've traveled to every corner of the earth and climbed every mountain on foot, saved the world from a demi-god of insanity, honed my skills from that of a farmer boy to that of the world's greatest warrior, slept in beds THOUSANDS of times, and it hasn't even been a day yet? Come on. (Although this does support the Andor's brother is Chuck Norris theory)
To all devs who are responsible for the story: you have all my love! Thanks so much a great job, you are part of the reason you have me coming back to play this game <3 <3 <3.
I'm sure there are some things I'm missing, but that's what I can think of off the top of my head.
Load out: Grinding. Blade of the Defiler, Remgard combat shield, polished ring of backstabbing x2, troublemaker's gloves, boots of the guardian, enhanced combat helmet, serpent's hauberk, jewel of Fallhaven.
Level: 61. HP:107 AP: 12/6 (attack 3). AC: 241%. AD: 42-44. Crit Chance: 28%. Crit Multi.: 3.5. BC: 28%. DR: 6.
Skills: More Crits x3, Better Crits x3, Combat Speed x2, Corpse Eater x1, Increased Fortitude x1, Regeneration x1, Dark Blessing of the Shadow, Internal Bleeding, Dagger prof. x1, 1-handed sword prof. x1, Axe prof. x1, Unarmed fighting x1, Shield prof. x2, Light armor prof. x1, Dual wield x2.
I was level 45-ish at the time of the update, having been grinding on BWM. I thought for sure I was to destroy the new content, considering how much grinding I'd done (1,539 White wyrms!). I know that is a small amount compared to what some people have done, but it's a lot for me personally! Well, as it turned out the updated destroyed me instead.
(As a side note, BWM was my favorite grind spot pre-0.7, as the easy access bed and health pots made the grind easy and was good prep for future expeditions.)
I think this update has been a MAJOR nerf to crit builds, which is what I built! But you know what? I like the nerf! Crit builds were a bit overpowered anyway by killing everything instantly, and forcing diversity is a very good thing imho.
Although the devs nerfed crit builds, I'd still like to see an enemy that would be a perfect crit target, say, an enemy with 1,000 hp, but ok damage capabilities. Dang, that would be soooo freaking fun to fight! Just one sort of enemy like that is all I'm asking, a super Maonite maybe, pwease devs?
I remember encountering the slime cave, and calculating that it was better for me to drop my Dagger of the Shadow Priests and just pound away bare fisted for the extra attacks, since the slimes are crit immune. This led to the humorous image of the hero punching big blobs of jello!
As it turns out, this became the norm for most of the update, as the toughest critters in Charwood and the Green Maze are crit immune. At this point it was a little ridiculous, as my protagonist was walking around, punching walking infernos and pillars of flame with his bare hands, completely unharmed! Yes kids, next time there's a forest fire, just punch it out! Punching ghosts out of existence is pretty over-the-top too. Who is Andor's brother anyway, Chuck Norris?
By the way, our hero's sprite has always bothered me a little bit. He's running around shirtless all the time, ok, but what is that red thing on his left? At first I thought it was an item bag attached to his waist, but on closer inspection it looks like a massive punching glove! It's much larger than his other hand... Is that what is it?!
It wasn't until today that I read about using the quickstrike dagger + jewel of Fallhaven to maximize your attacks/round, I didn't realize that the QSD was less AP than bare handed! Oh well, I wasted some crystals on the unarmed proficiency, but it was fun while it lasted. Again, I'm not a min/maxer.
Clearing Charwood used up all the health pots I got from grinding BWM, and was no cakewalk. After defeating the bone dragon, I thought that Blade of the Defiler was pretty weak. Pure damage wise for a crit build, it is inferior to Flagstone's Pride. However, I tested it out anyway for the heck of it, and now it's my favorite dagger, due to it effectively giving you a point in Corpse eater! It took me a long time to figure this out, but Andor's Trail is all about grinding, and grinding is all about sustain. The epic boss fights are appreciated highlights, but are not the norm. Sure, crit builds have the most damage, but when grinding you're not going to get the first strike anyway, or even land that crit at all. Even a little bit of heal really adds up after clearing waves and waves of beasties.
If I was to restart, I'd go for a brawler build rather than a glass cannon assassin. I love the regen on kill so much, that the most recent skill point I got is in Corpse eater, and I may just put a few more points in that next (followed by the build up to Concussion, although that is a long journey!). Also, I would have maxed out increased fortitude instead of only getting one point early on. While in the long run that is a pretty bad handicap, it might not be so bad, as it effectively increases the difficulty
besides, if grinding is all about sustain, if you have a good heal rate + DR, the upper cap on health might not matter so much.Around this point I finally realized the power of DR as well. While I had the Remgard shield for some time, after I got 2 points in shield proficiency and the Serpent's hauberk, the DR5 made a world of difference! It was amazing how much longer I could go without healing when grinding an area. I even eventually switched out my bar brawler's boots for boots of the guardian, for DR6. With my current build, I can infini-grind the Green Maze (minus the hithrali ghosts... more on those in a sec).
Actually, maxing out Bark skin is probably more important than points in Corpse eater at this point anyway, and my toon does have pitifully low BC. My original intent on my BWM grinding was to get Fracture, but I found Internal bleeding to be not so useful, as after you crit most things die at that level anyway, and bosses seem to be immune to crits from now on anyway. I probably won't get Fracture anytime soon.
Flush with my victory from Charwood, I wandered off to the Green Maze. I checked over all the areas again btw, didn't read anything on the forums that might spoil the new content. I thought that because this was a main quest line, it was going to be relatively easy. WRONG!
The cruel thing about the Green Maze is that it starts out easy enough. And then it gets harder, and harder, and harder, and doesn't seem to stop, almost like the trip to Remgard. I actually didn't find the bed until after clearing the Lodar quest, that bugger was really hidden!
The hithrali ghosts totally knocked me on my rear, as their high DR and crit immunity was a perfect counter to my build at the time. I died so many times in those caves. The most frustrating thing was the new mechanic where enemies can swarm you from across a room during a fight. Seriously, I swore louder, and got more genuinely angry than I can remember in years!
I eventually figured out the bats actively hunt you down. It just drove me crazy how once I was tagged by a bat (often spawned right next to me from nothing), the ghosts swarmed me like the dung files. DEAD.Often when I was exploring a new region on the cusp of my abilities, I could just dance around the enemies and only fight the ones absolutely necessary. Looks like I can't do that anymore! You have to clear each room almost totally before advancing (assuming you can't kill the enemies fast enough).
However, I felt less angry once I encountered the Hira'zinn. It was totally unexpected, and 4 squares large. I quickly figured out this was a final-boss type experience, so the difficulty getting there didn't bother me so much anymore, as it is to be expected for such a thing. I just didn't know that it was going to be this sort of experience when I first set out
Speaking of the Hira'zinn, it's the first critter in recent memory that I couldn't kill, no matter how many potions I used, no matter my equipment loadout, no matter how many restarts, nothing. I couldn't just overcome his DR 21 and heal-on-hit, that's CRAY-CRAY man! Imho, the best build against this guy is high DR (even with his fear 4), since he has so many small attacks.
Defeated, but invigorated with a new goal, I went to grinding trolls on the path to Remgard. This is actually the only time that Internal Bleeding was useful to me, but not enough to merit the skill point imho.... Passing through the plague striders was still painful for my build though.
Thus I achieved my latest scheme: Dual woodcutter's hatchet! I simply didn't have enough damage to make unarmed worth it. The 12-24 damage boost maximized my damage output, enough pierce to get past that crazy DR.
Oh, the rematch with the Hira'zinn was grand. I imagined my protagonist chopping away with double axes at the many arms in slow motion, a berserker in full throttle, powered by all sorts of stimulants, and the beast of madness howling with the deepest of insanities all the while, both in a desperate struggle of annihilation and survival.
The victory was very satisfying. Devs if you read this, feel free to insert more insanely difficult challenges.
Andor's Trail is kind of a masochistic game anyway Lodar's potion shop is quite awesome, and possibly overpowering. It's unfortunate that there's no worthy opponent to try them out on by that point! I've always been tight on gold, and even had to sell some one-of-a-kind items at various points (although it pains me). Well, Lodar's shop certainly cleaned me out again! I need to grind up enough gold to have many duplicates of each
After some more wanderings I found out the rotworm quest. That was very fun, the helmet was awesome and I really wanted it, but I felt bad, and the Blessing of the Shadow is a pretty awesome permanent boost. The blessings offered by the priest in Loneford confused me a bit though, as by the time you can unlock it, there's no real challenge you can reach by the time the blessing runs out.
As for general notes:
I really like the flavor texts added to the tombstones!
The only part of the update that I think was TREMENDOUSLY negative was changing food healing to be over time. I don't see how this benefits anyone, even at X2 amount. When I first started out, and was way too poor for continuous potion use, meats were the only reasonable method to heal up. Combat desperation: Bonemeals. Healing between fights: meats. While I stopped relying on meats for post-combat recovery after BWM, I have these stats:
Most commonly used item: Meat(1467) Most commonly killed monster: Small rabid dog(1841).
(By the way, I always felt a bit guilty going into the forest to kill puppies and eat their flesh
, flesh infected with rabies no less! Seriously?) Now people will just have to find some safe corner and wait out the heal. This is tremendously not fun, and also because it takes so long all the monsters will respawn, increasing the chances of someone becoming stuck. The chance of food poisoning hurts new players even more
Ok, rant over.
Also, I predict Cleave will be a very valuable skill if current trends continue. When getting swarmed by super tough monsters, every extra attack could be a life saver.
Now for something about Andor's Trail that I've always loved: the story! What makes it really great is the grey morality. I was really hesitant to take sides, as both sides seem to have done some pretty nasty things. I've actually taken thing on a case-by-case basis. For instance, in Loneford I was pro-empire (they brought in water so people wouldn't use the poisoned well! Those people didn't deserve to be poisoned. Very interesting that this is very near the Rotworm quest...) and also in Fallhaven (man, I hate thieves, I have been burglarized irl), and I've been anti-Empire in the Green Maze (only telling your side of the story not acceptable!), bonemeal quest (of course, not getting bonemeals activates hard mode
eating people's bones is cannibalism though, kind of creepy... ), Vilegard, etc. On average, I'd say I'm pro-empire though, although the full story is still very ambiguous... We'll see. The Vacor quest feels quite important despite being low-level!! The ability to affect the Shadow...? I took down Vacor because he seemed to be too egotistical to be trusted with such power, I just hope I don't end up regretting this later if the Shadow turns out to be more malevolent than is currently portrayed...
I REALLY like how characters now recognize your various achievements, really gives some persistence to the story.
Although one NPC SERIOUSLY needs an overhaul: your Dad. He's still talking about how Andor stepped out yesterday. Ummm, I've traveled to every corner of the earth and climbed every mountain on foot, saved the world from a demi-god of insanity, honed my skills from that of a farmer boy to that of the world's greatest warrior, slept in beds THOUSANDS of times, and it hasn't even been a day yet? Come on. (Although this does support the Andor's brother is Chuck Norris theory)
To all devs who are responsible for the story: you have all my love! Thanks so much a great job, you are part of the reason you have me coming back to play this game <3 <3 <3.
I'm sure there are some things I'm missing, but that's what I can think of off the top of my head.
