That looks great. Will try to check it out this week.
I have a boat, and I promptly left the other group behind (the other player), to take to the sea and see and engage new stuff. Pretty much everything I am showing will be spoiler blurred to avoid ruining anything for someone who wants to be surprised.
It was, I admit, exciting to find something other than seaweed and fish like:
And this was a bigger dungeon too, one that allowed you to go south, east, west and all that jazz.
I had no idea what kind of difficulty we we’re headed for so… I just picked one. I won’t spoil which I did but I ran into some water demons and… won. Was a little dicey but I have a physical weak group that is tricks and special ability heavy, druid, zerca, witch… so we got em.
Best item in the game… by far.
I mean if we weren’t on Pangea, this would be the part where I am just heading to the goblins right now… Island No. 2 so something like this is way ahead of schedule. Water Demon faction is not happy with me, so we’ll find out if that bites me later.
My experience thus far is when it comes to demon factions, I am almost always going to be negative with them unless I have a demon in the group OR sometimes the nature demon types are okay with my group due to the elf.
Some additional remarks about the Pangea map which, ironically enough we picked to avoid being forced into boats, but due to the DLC I made boats early to try and see what this DLC is about.
- It’s definitely bigger.
I can’t tell if Pangea is just bigger or if the map size is just larger overall even with Islands since we haven’t done the Island recently.
- Islands and boats give you an escape route Pangea does not.
My general rule of thumb used to be hit that second island as early as I could, run to the boat if some mob looks too tough to tackle, cross fingers and toes a bad event didn’t hit too early. Pangea is fatter, so that escape to the boat part takes longer to get to if you are middlwish on the landmass. This means, I am being more cautious because escape not… well maybe not possible. heh.
- Events are not so… obviously planned.
Okay, slightly spoilish here but if you are this far maybe you’ve already noticed this. Certain events tend to show up on what used to be Islands/Biomes. Some of these kicked off earlier than before, but I am not sure if that is Pangea related or not because we might actually be advancing faster due to both of us having enough God Points to start with an advantage. Until this game though, I’d never seen the Volh sequence of quests this early before and not the later boy quest until Island two.
- I look forward to playing the new god. I have the points for it but man oh man it’s hard to play a game without an elf once you have one in your party for the first time but… there is an elf slave you can start with that I am curious about too. Maybe that character is a chance to get elves into God/domains that don’t get them otherwise.
Man, no one makes me want to play Thea so much as @Nesrie! One of these days, I’m really going to dive into this thing.
-Tom
I am sure you will get a chance one day, when the right mood suits you.
I think Muha said they were coming close to the end of the development cycle for Thea 2. I am not sure how much support they have planned, but there is a lot of content there now.
Just within the last hour I kept doing my sea adventures:
I ran into a cursed shipwreck, and we had enough magic to free the spirits trapped there.
I’ve run into undground chambers with spirits trapped there but cannot seem to do much with them once I am done (betting there are options missing that would open up with a different god or group even)
I’ve parleyed with some blue orc pirates, but I couldn’t afford the elf slave they had. It said they had one of my kin but the price was so high… when my companion goes out, she has orcs and a dwarf in her group, super curious what options she gets with them if she would just finish building her ship and stop running from those things that would totally kill her… oh yeah I headed back to land to help her. My group is super squishy but rocks at magic and willpower, her’s is loaded with awesome weapons and strength due to orcs and dwarves, and together we can do pretty darn well.
I might do a solo game to play with the new gods and to remember how to play without an elf rocking everything out the gate.
Hot Fix!
Wrath of the Sea is the latest content update which fills the rather empty seas with new and exciting content! New locations to visit, new events to encounter, new god Mokosh with her own divine quest to pursue and lots more!
HOTFIX 0649:
Added the option to pay with a cosmic seed for special class when chosen human child grows up
Modified pirate attack quests so that you may escape the encounter
Fixed a few cemetery events where the rewards were too high for the challenge level
Removed several unused events from Wrath of Sea DLC module (ones that were copies of events moved elsewhere)
Added the baby troll growing up events on sea
Added a ‘leave’ option to sea loot
Added voiceover which was missing in the Mokosh god quest
Fixed task slots when creating new tasks on water
Group info on HUD will show details instead of portraits by default
Okay. I am now knee deep in sea goodness. Okay, it’s actually, really, really scary out there but I’ve found some really cool stuff.
This is coming from my SP game. Since I don’t have a comfortable chair yet to finish RDR2, this is taking a couple of hours a night when the East Coasters are in bed. I am still finding some cool stuff:
And the rest I will put in spoilers because, well don’t want to accidentally ruin it for someone:
My God:
So I am playing Stribog, basically the water god. This helps you in ways that are obvious and not as obvious. I picked him on purpose because well I want to play in the water, and he allows me to keep my elves. I love elves! Anyway because I am using him it can certainly mean certain events are not standard. The beauty of Thea 2 these days is you see so few of the events of any run through that aside from a little bit on the main quest (still varies based on god and domain and some other factors), it rarely feels repetitive to me and this quest line is definitely new:
Yep. I am hiding the text from those of you who even want spoilers, and that’s a freaking treasure map. And the story so far has given me additional hints/dialogue and hopefully help. It wasn’t just my god though but also 2 special character in my groups which allowed me some pretty nifty new selection options.
Now I usually work hard, take risks very early on to get two characters that can be challenging to get but usually do-able and what I kind of considered vital, a healer and then a Zerca, think smart person and well healer is obvious. I am almost 250 rounds, and I have neither of those. My group is weak as hell physically, but my lady elf took a liking to my craftsman, he’s beautiful AND attractive, clearly not someone an elf can resist, so I have two elves! I had a dwarf but she turned out to be a pretty rocking demon (not sure that demons can have kids… haven’t seen that yet). I have a witch and a Volh. If you don’t know what the Volh are, they are fairly rare and have a neat little story thing with them… My craftsman turned into an inventor… which I have never had before. I need to pick him up at some point, but he’s making stuff in my village… Oh yeah I made one this time. the number of times I’ve had to run back to save it is really annoying, but I stuck it on the coast, so we’re traveling kind of quick to it these days. That group in there is just like my adventuring group, weak physically but pretty darn good at everything else, even the kid. I still, still can’t decide if villages are worth it but I really do think I oh my witch and Volh to bonuses they got in that village as kids.
Speaking of kids… yeah I got on of the new ones, blue orcs… that story line left me wanting, as in I gotta sneaky feeling I was missing an option so I look forward to trying again. It was a well done peak at the culture of these new menaces though, so not wanting in that way.
Lastly, for today anyway, I got some pretty nifty treasure in another dive:
We’ve been building stuff heck fast these days.
I should mention again that I am not and probably never will be a permadeath fan. This game has that option, and while you can get some really unfortunate events by chance, there is so much you can do smartly, by trial and error. It’s designed for you to die and learn.
Save scumming still works. It’s still fun. You advance more slowly, and loading can cost you… as in the options you had before might not be there, events you ran into gone… so it’s not a sure thing just because you saved. And of course if you don’t push to move forward, no saving in the world is going to help you when the world is higher than you are!
I’m enjoying the new version of the game. I’m too much of a newb to appreciate all the nuance, but the game feels more mature and polished.
One question: I still get puzzled by all the numbers associated with skills, especially weapon skills. For example, when I’m trying to decide whether to upgrade a weapons skill or, say, crafting, I have trouble understanding the numbers and symbols that indicate how much the skill will improve. It will include an attack modifier, then some stats in parentheses, then time and another time in parentheses. I can’t tell which is the “before” and “after” version of the skill. I’ve found some guides that tell me how to read weapons skills, but I don’t understand how to read the “upgrade this skill or that skill” screen.
I am not sure if I fully understand the question, but I think you’re asking to tell when you are looking at a skill which is what your character has now and which is what hey have… after you upgrade?
I am going to spoiler this because some of these are… rarer characters a few might want to be surprised in finding later.
I usually save scum when someone levels because, heh, sometimes I stupidly pick two lick skills without realizing it.
This is my character prior to upgrade.
This is what the upgrade skill looks like:
Hover over the big circle to see what you have now.
Then you Hover over the plus sign to see what you will have after leveling.
That orange bar is your easiest indication.
And of course when you are done you can see it in your camp/party screens.
Nesrie, thanks for that detailed reply. Yep, those are the screens I was asking about. The skills I’m referring to were more complicated, with changes to damage and time and lots of parentheses. I didn’t understand what the parentheses meant. In fact, I see one parenthesis in your screenshot; it says 2.2(0.7). What’s that mean?
Alas, I don’t have time to screenshot them now, but I’ll do so tomorrow and post them here.
The debuffs are more complicated, and I haven’t done the math on those successfully although I get the general idea well enough to use them well. The attack skills are a lot simpler. Like this one.
So the cards tell you this is only useful for magic type challenges and battles, purple. It uses Destiny as the the attribute for this skill, and that x1.4 is the damage. So this is kind of the base skill screen, the one that tells you what the skill does.
When you move onto the character itself, you get the full calculation:
This is my lowest level witch in the game.
You can see her Destiny is 12.
So when she uses that skill it’s 12 x 1.4 which = 16.8
16.8 is purple which is another indicate it’s talking about a magic attack.
Now the information on the right is tells you it’s a melee attack closest enemy (red sword). The 4 squares tell you should be able to hit in both rows. That 3.5 is the speed of the attack which you add to the speed of the character to get 6.3
You can see her speed is 2.8. (wits influences your speed and it is an easily overlooked attribute. Up it when you can for many non-supporting characters)
There are more complicated skills and also skills that apply to more than one kind of challenge/attack like my swanky relic here. This is an item, so Ivan has these abilities because he has this thing, not because he’s just cool on his own (which he is)
They still work the same way when it comes to the numbers though.
Ivan here is barely more than a pebble in physical battle but he’s okay at yellow and does pretty good in purple… he’s only pretty good because of the other characters I have. He could very well be the best purple some groups will ever get anyway.
We ere looking at the base item above, let’s look at it when Ivan actually equips it.
Weapon attack is 1.4 x his Destiny +4.2
Destiny is 6 x 1.4 = 8.4 , +4.2 = 12.6, 12
Now the other one, Wisdom
9.0 x 1.4 = 12.6, +4.2 = 16.8, 17
The rounding is sometimes… weird which why they have patch notes like this:
This is minor, but due to decimals and rounding, sometimes enemies showing 0 poison damage will actually do 1 damage.
It’s pretty rare to be in any kind of challenge where… less than one would make difference like that.
Anyway, sacrificial blood is using his life… and his life sucks. So for half his life he can increase someone’s shield in red, yellow and purple challenges by 6 which is barely better than a wooden shield.
In fact this weapon sucks for him, but he’s using it right no because of the regeneration at the end.
My general advice though is don’t get hung up on the numbers, as in the precise calculations. Focus on how good anyone is at a particular attack, like Destiny, and not just that it has a multplier of roughly 1.4. Also that little skull next to it is… special. You hover your mouse over it, and you realize why you might take something weaker for special things like this:
Just raw multiple damage is something you get excited about early on, ans when you go from like a 1.2 to a 2.1 or a 2.0… doesn’t hugely matter… it’s just higher. Yay!
But when you start to encounter special enemies, things that have mass shields or super fast attacks or even attacks that act like shields don’t even exist, the excitement for items and abilities alike are learning how to use something like the above well.
Or you wind up with someone like this:
And at this point, you’re not giving this character debuff skills or fancy little summoning spells or even great pets. This one is on the field with a weapon that hopefully hits in all three challenges or with an ability that works that way too.
That blue symbol there means my character hits both armor and shields at the same time… just eats through anything that thinks a shield will protect them. At this stage in the game though, 6.8 is kind of slow for my group.
That character is a lot faster, also strikes armor and sanity, faith at the same time, but she hits more than two characters… anywhere on the field, can target anyone. And those are abilities, not weapons you’re seeing. Notice though the lack of red on both of these… thus my weakness in physical challenges, or straight up battles. I have to equip them with good items to even stand a chance at battle at this level.
So yes, the numbers matter, but is a multiplier of 2.2 really better than a 1.4, if the 2.2 has to go through the shields and then hit the life whereas 1.4 hits them both and that’s just understanding the damage. Being able to target anyone in the battlefield is important too.
So that was a lot, and it’s late so hopefully I made some sense
My general advice is… play to your strengths, be aware of your weaknesses so you can try and consciously make up for them or avoid those challenges all together, and soon you’ll know when to get excited because you found some awesome treasure or just picked up a great character. Also if it looks crappy to you but the value of the item is high, like way higher than other items you have, you might be overlooking something it’s doing or misunderstanding it.
One of the characters is a character I selected based on spending a bunch of god points and having ended several games so I could spend them. The other, I took a chance on, and he could’ve just as easily come out as one of my worst characters instead of my best. And the third is a story mission I successfully complete AND got lucky enough to advance him to what he is, and I only knew that I got lucky because I was not lucky in the past, but not really unlucky, to get the best results several times before.
Also,
Don’t forget to compare. When I get new equipment I look at comparisons like this for seeral characters when I get something good.
I mean you can see the multiplier with this simple weapon is pretty obvious but who really cares about that, 4 is bigger than three, and the shielding is better. Sadly, some character might be stuck with the weapon the left because the other one is pretty darn heavy. Bones and stone make for some heavy equipment! It’s not my favorite combo at all, and it’s also slower which won’t matter to much if you have buffers!
Speaking of which, protection skills, debuffs, buffers… fast attacks and hard hitting attacks, get a mix. There are few reasons someone would ever need two… debuffs, only select characters even get buffs, and a magic user rarely needs 3 different attacks… because you’re not going to use them all in the same battle so really decide how versatile it is for your group.
Hi @Nesrie,
Thank you for that wonderful explanation! That cleared up most of my questions. I spent a lot of time staring at all my weapons and skills, and I think I understand them better now. The next time I see a confusing “upgrade skill” tooltip, I’ll screenshot it and post it. But for now, I seem good.
Any general advice on how to progress? I’m only on turn 50 of my newest game. I’ve crafted gathering and crafting tools. Now I’m trying to diversify my food supply and craft better armor. After that, I’ll focus on weapons, then jewelry. I don’t plan a village any time soon. I’m playing on islands, a new game under the new version.
On rounding, does the game just lop off everything after the decimal point in all cases? Er, “truncating” them, if I remember my college math?
Thanks again for that terrific post! It was really helpful. I read and re-read it several times.
Sure. The thing I love about the game is also what makes it kind of hard for a bit to feel like you got it down: how you should progress and what your goals are is so heavily influence on the make-up of your party, the resources you have available and how lucky or unlucky you’ve been playing in dungeons and other encounters. You get a kid to grow up into a nice specialty class early on and bam, you’re making friends wherever you go, trading with the locals even. Or… maybe you rolled a rat, your party is barely surviving and you’re trying to scrap together a ship and some silver armor so you can get to the next island for the next tier of gods and hopefully better luck.
That’s a common goal, trying to get the next best stuff, higher tier raw resources, doing better in dungeons to get gear there, and advancing the main story line.
I think a common tactic for newbie land is to gear your people up on things like silver (or gold, maybe steel) or wood armor (dryad/elven) and get that boat to move on. Even though you can often avoid physical battles… no always, so good armor is usually key to surviving the next one. Since they’ve added sea stuff, it’s also a lot more sporty running around in the open ocean, good and bad.
Also, cross your fingers for children, they’re like the most exciting occurrence in the game for me… still. Another chance, another means to survival oh and my hunter thinks that half-orc is cute… aaaw!
Nesrie, plz stop making me want to play Thea kthnx
-Tom
I forgot to answer this.
I am not sure, but that could make sense as to why sometimes I am like .1 off, especially if’t is rounding and then adding and then rounding again… maybe. I see decimals with some attacks and not others. I promise you this though. I’ve been playing this game since beta and I can think of maybe one battle that entire time where I missed killing something off by 1 HP, and it led to the wiping of my entire group. Yes, yes there are challenges/enemies that can wipe you’re entire group if they get it off just right. Those are some sporty battles, and using your character to their best abilities is often the only way to survive that or at least survive without losing someone.
Gotta keep my gaming creds brushed off, also, it will be interesting to see you play this. I gotta feeling you’ll go perma with it when you do, which really changes those how much chance should I take dynamics.
Wow, Nesrie, I echo the thanks. Wonderful explanation. I’ve only dabbled in this game (I find Thea 1 way more to my taste) but this is going to spur me on to continue or start another playthrough.
I liked Thea 1 more than 2 initially too. It grew on me probably with the help of them tightening the game up, a lot, and expanding stories and events. I am still not… sold on making the village though. I constantly having to save them although the food storage there is now… huge.
I have no idea when or whether to make a village. I’m still wandering around with just 9 characters, turn 70 or so, so I don’t think I’m ready. Maybe when I have twice as many characters as I do now?
Also, I’m not sure what level encounter is too high for me. My characters are around level 5, but I’ve mostly been fighting level 2 or 3 monsters. If my characters are level 5, I suppose I should be seeking out level 5 quests/monsters? Like, say, the Lightbringer quest I passed up when I was just starting out?
I honestly don’t know. I made a village, left four in there and then had to run back because it was in desperate need of help for several rounds. The benefit of a village is if you get it next to hopefully the next tier level of goods like say dragon bone or diamonds, that gives you a steady source of that, and food and some type of wood, in theory it’s self sustaining and you don’t have to worry about making buildings to make it self-sustaining. My best crafter is in there now too so he’s just making stuff all the time now. After that you get some pretty neat buildings to buff your children AND it’s a village event, village only I believe, that gave me one of my specialty characters but… in Thea 1 there were a lot of ways to basically fortify your village to make even weak characters able to defend it. I’ve not figure that part out yet, if it’s even there so I have to leave some valuable folks in there. The nice thing is, my adventuring party almost never stops to harvest food anymore. We just hope into our ship, head back home, drop our heavy crap off, loud on some good like food, listen to tales about demons terrorizing the fields and then say that’s nice fairytale now we’re off to go find that Kraken everyone keeps talking about. Take care of the kids will yah, and don’t let the Strigas wander off with any of them. This one’s a fighter, you see, and we’re going to be back for her when you train her properly.
Now as far as levels go, I know there a lot of guide at there that focus on levels but to be honest, I don’t, at least not in the same way… I don’t think. At least not how I think about it. The way I… measure my strength or lack of is how I am doing with challenges and which ones.
At some point you start realizing who is your best character for these challenges… which one is your strongest and also why that is… level, abilities or an item, a pet? At some point you’re going to look at someone and say that’s my strongest warrior, she gets my best sword, my best armor and I stick her in front every time I do physical challenges. If something takes her out or almost takes her out I have to decide is it because she needs better stuff, is her level or did I just make a really poor choice in battle. If her weapon sucks, and that’s the best you can get in the area you’re in, and you kind of know based on the resources the weapon is made out of, what resources you can get, and that your crafter(s) are leveled up and just can’t do much better… then you gotta move on. It’s a risk right but the fighting isn’t going to get easier. It’s harder, and sometimes that means you go to the next area and run like hell when you can.
It’s not as easy now because there is so much in the sea areas since the update, but I kid you not I would just circle around the shores and say whoa, that’s dragon bone just on the edge there. Maybe I can… you guys think we can just hop on there, grab some of that, make an axe or some jewelry before the nasties show-up… okay, gonna try. Sometimes that works for me, other times we hit some sort of event and I am pacing outside the healers tent praying someone doesn’t die.
You want to know when you’ve finally got your footing in Thea… i figure it’s this way. A lot of decisions in Thea 2 are kind of calculated, strategic and yes, even with some chances in there, the game mostly rewards you for that… but it is also a game of risk vs reward. So that event you recognize, where you do this thing and gives you this nice bundle and you kind of keep picking that but you ask yourself what if… i mean I have an orc now, zerca, my people are stronger I wonder if I do something different this time if my outcome is worse or better and you… risk it. That’s usually a sign you’re doing okay and you’re ready for a risk, and that’s good… for one, it means you KNOW you are doing okay, and the other is you might be right and be rewarded awesomely for it, or you just ended your game, time for the next one and you know something you didn’t before. Also… even if you failed spectacularly at that sudden level 9 challenge you weren’t expecting… just wait until one day you have a group and you’re thinking… I remember this, it was really hard to do this other option but what if, what if I can do it now… click.
As for the Lightbringers. Yes do that. Those Star Quests are your main quests, one of two which is the main world quest line and the separate but kind of linked god quest line. They both have ending points. There are usually unexpectedly hard challenges in those that I think kind of come without much warning, but you don’t really finish the game without doing them, and you’ll have to go back to do them if you don’t. They also have some rewards and advance you a bit. There is also a point in one or both quests where it actually tells you to leave the area too like hey go to this other island kind of stuff.
Pay attention to what they say. In our 3 player game, one of our members didn’t get to do his god quest until the very, very end like way too far off because he never told us which island he needed, and he didn’t understand why we didn’t know until we reminded him… each of the gods have a slightly different question and even in that their mythos/domain(forget what they call it) is also a choice. So if we haven’t done that god before, I have no idea what they’re story line is telling them. Hundreds of hours in, I’ve only played like 3 of them because I chose to spend my god points on getting advantages over opening the gods up. Now that I have spent a bunch of points. I am kind of shifting to overlapping gods, aka one of the mythos shares the same as my last gods’ so I don’t start too low again.
I am not opposed at starting as zero. I remember when a boar kicked my ass right out of the gate.
Thanks for that terrific reply. I have been trying to match my high-strength characters with my best weapons, my high-perception characters with bows, wisdom characters with appropriate artifacts, etc. The thing is, with only 9 characters (one of whom is a child), that gives me maybe 2-3 good damage dealers per combat type. So far I’m handling challenges just fine, but I worry that my team isn’t progressing fast enough. I guess I should work harder at crafting improved gear.
Good tip on the god quests, too. I’ll pay more attention! I’m playing, uh, Mahrovit? The intelligence/magic guy.