Part 4: La Li Lu Le Lo??Setting aimless sail after this.Here's the thing about revenge, lad, often ya become the one you're out to kill. Same happened with Pliskin and I. Lagan's crew became what we drank and breathed – boiling with hate for those scallywags. It kept our wounds fresh, kept the wind in our sails, and the blood on our knuckles. But in so doing, we sent plenty of men to the deep... Far too many. Just like Lagan.
The times weren't all bad, though. When you're fighting a lot, you learn to like it. You only regret it when you're an old salt like me. The crew and I rolled up and down Rumane waterways looking for opportunity to better our skills. Found ourselves another seadog looking for a ship to take them far away from their troubles.
In those days, Rumane was willing to block up rivers for tactical advantage. I mused about the possibility of a quick escape route, should we need it. Krea-wren, who had picked up the name Fatman after taking an interest in the Bombardier class, thought he'd have a way through them, if we entered from the far side. Believe it or not, it was The Ocelot that opened the old water-ways again.
We tried our luck in Redens a few times – did well, for first timers, but you know the competition is fierce there. Then we turned tail and headed back to more populated waters. The cold and I don't get along anyway.
Old Iroquois Pliskin was obsessed with Lagan and Storm Cove. He was young and bloodmad, I don't blame him, but as the days wore on, my better judgment got the best of us. Let's scout it out, get an idea of what we're up against, then work toward that, I told him. Build a fleet, train a crew, but have something more than murder in mind. He saw the reason and the “all hand hoy” went up. We rolled back to Storm Cove on choppy seas.
Lagan we could probably take one on one on a deck battle. But with Dominio backing, he'd outfitted two monsters of deadly ships. The Ocelot couldn't take a hit from even the furthest range of these. We thought on how to either out gun, out run, or insulate our ships.
With that in mind, we started roving wild – looking for new tech, new gear. It became about the crew. Making ourselves the best we could be. That revenge started to wear off, but the violence...well, the violence never stops on the sea.
Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me...
-=-=-=-
Commentary on game design:
I'm going to do less Reeve point of view for a while now – as this has basically revealed
the entire game, and writing as Reeve takes more time that I'd fancy.
Here's the premise of Horizon's Gate:
“This is the boss battle – you can do it at any time. It is very difficult, but it's basically the end of the game.”Personally, I'm a big fan of this - but there are a few steam reviews that complain about the game being very short - which it can be.
There are multiple ways to go up against this fight – the easiest is to ally with a nation, earn favor, then basically ask them to do it for you. What we'll be doing is making our own pirate fleet capable of taking them on. To do that, I'll need money, lots of it. And some weird ships... Exploration is the best way.
Commentary on gameplay:
To clear those two blockades, you need to approach them from the other side – which means hugging the shore around the continent and finding the river through. This is the main way the game asks you to explore the map. Ones on the east and ones on the west. Outside this main thoroughfare, there are not many ports, but the ports that are there are much more interesting (well, except the ones that aren't). The lack of ports means lack of resupply, so The Ocelot simply can't do it – we don't have enough cargo space to hold the food to get us there. I've got enough money to buy a merchant vessel or three, so this is what I'll be doing next – uncovering most of the map. I'll share images of the interesting ports and monster lairs, most of which I haven't personally seen yet. There are quite a few.
The Redens Arena:
The Redens arena has a cool gimmick – you enter two combatants from your team, who face two AI enemies. If you win, you pick one of those enemies to join your team, then face 3 opponents. You earn more money depending on how many rounds you can go and the grand prize is simply game-breaking (an upgrade that allows a character to have abilities from 3 or 4 classes rather than 2.)
It's good fun, and you can participate every week – it helps to think of good synergies between two classes.
Dojos:
Redens also has the Fist Dojo – a place where you can fight some incredibly hard opponents who wield fist weapons. There are several Dojos around, each dedicated to a different weapon, but they're beyond boss fights. They're like tutorial Reeve – 60+ health and knock out your dudes in two or three hits. I don't even know what reward you get from them, I guess it's something very very good. I'll see what I can do about challenging these guys. I'd love to beat one, but I never have (to be fair, I also gave up real early.)
Research and Cartography:
The way these work, you find an associated NPC and enter a contract with them – the contract means you won't sell info to anyone else but them. They'll let you leave the contract, at the cost of 300 gold, which isn't much for what they pay you, but still effects profits. I chose a researcher and cartographer in Port Otype and Port Alphe – since they're close to each other.
((Current map))
Classes continued:
Classes range from “normal” (like Sharpshooter or Warrior) to wacky (this guy.)
Bat Handler is actually one of my favorite classes because it offers a bunch of weird buff and debuffs (static damage to all enemies, increase dodge or decrease dodge to allies/enemies, summon Zoarbat, etc.)Each class generally fill a niche, and their abilities can combine into some pretty cool combinations. All new recruits simply have the “Sailor” class. The sailor class is awful for dungeons and places like the Arena – but is excellent in ship combat. When you fight on a ship, you can push people overboard. The Sailor class has a passive ability you can unlock which just pushes anyone who hits them 3 squares (often enough to throw them off the edge, or put them right next to it for the other ability Heave (jump forward and push some squares).
For those interested, I took another video of combat and will explain how some class combinations benefit each other. I'll also explain initiative as far as I understand it...
So, in ground combat, the enemies always win initiative (you always win it in naval combat) but you get the arrange your guys within some limitations before the fight starts. Initiative is related to your class and marching order (as far as I can tell...a bit mysterious for me too.) Actions cost time units, so if you don't move or act, you regain some initiative. This doesn't matter much because there is an 8-15 point gap between you and the enemies almost always, so the enemies will still go before you even if you did nothing on your turn – you're just likely to go before the rest of your team in that situation.
Some spells and abilities take time to trigger. Frost, for example, a 5-square cold attack, takes 8 time units to trigger after your turn. That means it is likely to go off after all your guys move but before the enemies move, but not always (if they didn't move, or initiative has been scrambled for another reason.) The game gives you some visualization on this before you confirm the spell, though, so it's simpler than it is to explain (the red arrow on the initiative bar).
Let's look at the video. These guys already took a turn trying to hurt me and buffing themselves. They made a poor choice fighting me.
Reeve goes first, positioning herself at the far end of these two dudes. She is currently a “Brawler” who use their fists to do damage. She has steel knuckles in both hands. One of the steel knuckles has an ice-trigger augment (doing additional damage on a hit).
She uses the Warrior ability “Bash” which pushes the enemy three squares as well as doing 90% damage. Reeve has the “Thousand Fists” passive ability equipped, meaning if she makes an attack with her main hand, and has a fist weapon in the other hand, she'll make a second attack automatically.
The attack hits, dealing 90% normal damage, extra from the augment, a second hit from the off-hand, then pushes this beetle boy into his companion, dealing 3/square of push (so, 9) points of damage to each. This turns the beetle into a fine mist and harms his ally.
Luke goes up next, using only abilities from the Sharpshooter class. Luke has the passive ability “Shrapnel” equipped, which does additional damage to adjacent targets. Luke attacks with Multi-shot, aiming at one enemy and the square next to them. The first shot hits, dealing some damage, then the second shot hits the ground, causing minor damage to both enemies and also extinguishing the bonfire. Multi-shot eventually gets up to 4 arrows, and boy... that's just a bunch of fun.
Krea-wren goes next (this is before he takes Bombardier and gets renamed.) He's currently enjoying the Rogue class and uses the ability “Poison Tip” to deal half damage, but apply the poison condition. This can be used with any melee weapon, as he is using a spear here. He does minor damage, gives the poison and ends his turn. Poison deals around 5 points of damage at the start of the enemy's turn.
Mushroom takes his first action in combat ever by invalidating Krea-wren's choice by dealing a whopping 15 points of damage with a big hammer. Mushroom is just really strong (partially from being a Wilderi). He has two cheap abilities (push 1 and pull 3), as he is a freshly recruited sailor at the time of recording.
Pliskin moves forward, drops a Frost spell, which will go off in 8 time units, before the enemies go, so it triggers immediately, dealing damage to the last standing enemies.
Humorously, the enemy uses the ability “Brave” after this.
Here is a link to a list of all the classes and their abilities, though I guess some of it won't make sense if you're not playing the game.
Luke, I'll probably go spell-mixed archer for you. Mushroom is going to be our healer/buffer, since we need one, and you can hold your own in combat. KingZultan will get two guns and eventually take that Batman class.
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Topic: Bay12 Privateering - Let's Play Horizon's Gate (Read 14541 times)