Good Bug, Bad Design, Ugly Advice

"Pearls of wisdom from brother [Werwolfe] ! "

 

Partway through Act 5 of Wrath of the Righteous at the moment, I must say that while bugs crop up frequently, Owlcat's obviously investing a great deal more effort into addressing them promptly. Compared to Kingmaker which was borderline unplayable even six months after release, Wrath is clearly treated more professionally. Sticking with tried-and-true technology probably helps. And, as happens every so often with computers, you occasionally run into a good bug. Act 4 makes a big gimmick of the terrain shifting and recombining as you rotate the camera to create a chaotic, unsafe, disorienting feel apt to its setting. Except corpses apparently don't track the terrain's shifts, leading to:

- floating corpses! Which I sincerely hope is the one bug never to get fixed given how harmlessly it adds to the zone's surreal whiplash.

 

Sadly, the relatively low number of bugs shifts focus onto Wrath's worse design decisions, and while a topic for another time I do want to draw attention to the overuse and abuse of contriving perceived difficulty, especially via timesinks. (Apologies for the minor companion quest spoiler.)

Whoever designed this managed to combine almost every stupid cRPG combat encounter gimmick:

1) difficult fight you're thrown into with no warning just by walking forward

2) forced placement in the middle of enemy ambush

3) no autosave before the fight itself

4) trudging through five fucking cutscenes in a row every time you reload

And yes, you can probably talk your way out of it by accepting a worse outcome, but it's still ridiculous level design.

Though a more condensed example than most, that's not much of an outlier in a campaign built around munchkin game-breaking awesomesauceness with only a cursory nod toward balance, proportion or narrative coherence. So I'm taking the opportunity of (for once) playing a game near release to cobble together a short list of useful spoilers and tips for anyone who's bought this but hasn't gotten around to playing it yet. Many of these little "twists" are just too nonsensical, abrupt or inexplicable and make your life much harder than necessary. They're basically "rocks fall; everybody dies" material. Also, this is by no way meant to help you finish the game or beat the hardest encounters; just a few pointers to help in the first acts.

 

_______________________________*SPOILERS*__________________\/

 

Unlike Kingmaker, you're not on a strict clock here. Just crusade-murder an enemy army or fort once in a while in Act 3 to keep your morale up, and farm them for gear or open up your party's adventure routes at your leisure.

 

This is a theme campaign, and unfortunately for any semblance of balance, you'll be fighting 80+% demons in every act. Their resistances usually negate acid flasks, alchemist's fire and most level 1-2 damaging spells. Poison is useless. If you must use magic damage, sonic seems the way to go early on (later you can use the Ascendant Element mythic feat) but you're better off using magic to debuff enemy defense so that holy-buffed weapons can hit them. Also, their armor is so high that often the only way to land a hit is to level-drain them. I've been abusing Eyes of the Bodak.

 

Bonus bosses tend to be built with a couple of specific weaknesses. Some have feeble touch saves, others can be polymorphed, others are nothing without their buff spells, etc. Inspect them carefully and pay attention to what's not showing. It may take two dozen tries and prayers unto RNGesus, but even with my characteristically unoptimized party I haven't found anything unbeatable on core difficulty.

Due to an abundance of high-damage enemies, summons are (as always in these games) overpowered damage sponges. Watching a marilith waste her fifty attacks per round or whatever on a level 1 puppy-dog or an incorporeal summon never gets old. Summoning trinkets included.

About half your companions already come with weapon feats: longbow, rapier, scimitar, glaive, longbow, falchion, dwarven waraxe, longbow, etc. Be prepared to plan around them. Did I mention the re-redundant longbows?

 

Perception checks are performed on movement, so if you just crossed a doorway, turned a corner, teleported in, etc., you may want to take a step sideways before moving forward.

 

The campaign's core conceit is that you gain "mythic" levels after certain main quest steps. These aren't a class, just a bunch of stupidly overpowered freebies without which you'd never be able to beat the stupidly unbalanced mobs thrown at you. Your first two mythic levels aren't tied to a particular path.

 

Enemies tend to be so much higher level than you (or perhaps have their stats fudged) as to often deny you any chance of rolling a save. "Mythic" feats exist to let you cheat your way past the entire system. Invest early on in Last Stand (lets you soak infinite amounts of damage for two rounds) for any character which might fight in melee, as well as Rupture Restraints and any other relevant cheats allowing you to ignore dice rolls.

 

Overused gimmicks:

- level/attribute drain. Keep death ward and massive amounts of restoration handy. Massive. You have been warned.

- unlike most campaigns where you just mow down grunts, here you run into a lot of spellcasters with a lot of magical buffs. You will need dispel after Act 1.

- swarms can't be tanked. They're programmed to randomly cycle between your characters, making AoE largely useless against them unless you also ward your entire group against that damage type. But, that AI also makes them highly susceptible to attacks of opportunity. Position a big bruiser with a two-hander as the monkey in the middle of your party to swat them. You will need to fight a large number of swarms early in Act 2.

- Dimension Door is not an absolute must, but highly recommended, especially for Act 4.

 

Scour the marketplace zone in Act 1 for the Covenant of the Inheritor usable medallion and do NOT give it back to the queen at the beginning of Act 2. Unless you build your entire party around holy damage, you'll desperately need its Cold Iron buff for the first 2-3 acts.

 

Bezoars are pure gold for scroll scribing. Buy them.

 

Materials for restoring the Storyteller's items are found via exploration, not in shops.

 

While several of your companions can be nasty, high-damage bruisers, Seelah's about the only real tank you'll find in the initial roster, so if you don't plan on listening to her Shatnerian vociferations your very first purchase should be a front-line mercenary. Even if you ditch him later, you'll be glad of an extra meat shield throughout acts 1 and 2. I do want to run through the whole moronic companion roster, but that'll have to wait.

Woljif disappears from late Act 2 until early-mid Act 3. Have a backup trickster ready.

Clear the Wintersun map before stealing the ghost's trinket. It respawns seven times in seven locations, and can make various fights impossible by doubling up.

 

Refusing the Lexicon of Paradox' power (like I did) in Act 3 might lock you out of picking up the second half at the end of Act 4, and therefore out of one of the more favorable endings (even though everything about that situation screams "ITSATRAP!!!") but then again, there are quite a few paths to the end so meh... no regrets.

 

Midnight bolts have plot value. Probably a bad idea to use them as ammo. Not that you're given any hint about the first couple you find.

 

The Blackwater location (aside from being a stupid genre crossover) can potentially lock you in if you don't have a high Use Magic Device skill. Come prepared for a long haul, and bring some way to flatfoot the cyborgs. It's one of the few places where Hold Person is worth a damn.

Tile puzzles after the first are meant to be finished in Act 5.

 

In acts 2-3 you can farm small amounts of XP and cash by wandering your adventuring party back and forth past enemy armies for "random" encounters. In act 4 you can farm the arena for XP after you become champion.

 

Wenduag vanishing upon sleeping at the Nexus in Act 4 is not a bug, just lackluster quest writing. Try to imagine where she might've gone.

 

Crusade mode is basically a simplified Heroes of Might and Magic, making avoiding attrition a top priority. Ensure at least one of your generals has Cure Wounds, even if you're a lich.

Instead of rushing to spend your valuable crusade income on teleporters right away, invest in some fish-on-a-stick and cheese crostata so you can walk to your destinations at the start of act 3. It takes time to build up your army anyway.

 

Don't be afraid to buy 1000-2000 materials points to jumpstart your city building early in act 3, after you stock up on fresh gear from the new merchants. Keep in mind unit production buildings have adjacency bonuses.

At the end of act 3 you lose control over your crusade (after the dungeon beneath Drezen.) You regain control of your towns but not your armies at the beginning of act 5. So don't bother investing in more troops than you need to defend yourself (one or two armies) in act 3.

Yes, that last one is a particularly stupid gimmick for any game. Limiting player choices can be excused by a project's limitations, but never invalidate the player's choices after the fact.