The most noticeable difference ?

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Talana
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The most noticeable difference ?

Post by Talana »

What`s the most noticeable difference between EBIII and the the first two games ?
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Re: The most noticeable difference ?

Post by Randomizer »

You get an explanation about who the Orakur are and what they want to do with the Crux Stones.

Now whether you get told the truth .....
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Talana
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Re: The most noticeable difference ?

Post by Talana »

Randomizer wrote:You get an explanation about who the Orakur are and what they want to do with the Crux Stones.

Now whether you get told the truth .....
... right :lol:
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Re: The most noticeable difference ?

Post by Evnissyen »

I only just started yesterday, so here's just one thing I've noticed:

Torches. This isn't a bad thing, just a different strategy/feature/experiment, so bear with me. In Book II, if you stole all the torches in town, they were replaced when you returned. In Book III, if you stole all the torches in town, they remained missing.

I’m not sure which I like less — or more — that you’re able to appropriate torches freely and end up with way too many, or that you can carelessly deplete the towns of their lighting and, subsequently, those people just don’t feel willing to bother replacing their own torches.

I don't want to criticize, and I wasn't going to originally, but... Going through the game last night and now a little more today, maybe an hour... I've noticed so many inconsistencies and questionable and even illogical things... 10, 15 or more things — right away! — that I really wish I'd brought up month ago. I think a bunch of these were things I hadn't brought up before (though admittedly I'd listed my suggests 2 or so years ago so I imagine they've been forgotten... if not discarded/discounted). I now wish I'd gone back into the Book II and explored it enough to refresh my memory, and pick up on all the things i'm picking up on now and wishing I could bring them up and discuss them a month or two ago. ...Sigh...

(The bees, for one, are a mess. 1. you can't out-walk a swarm of bees. They'll overwhelm you immediately and sting you 'til you're dead... or near-dead. 2. You can't fight a swarm of bees with a melee weapon. 3. Bees can't damage a weapon or armor (though in the game they can do so).) For a melee-only character, all she/he can do is RUN RUN RUN! ...All of this drives me crazy.)
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Re: The most noticeable difference ?

Post by Weird Heather »

Evnissyen wrote:(The bees, for one, are a mess. 1. you can't out-walk a swarm of bees. They'll overwhelm you immediately and sting you 'til you're dead... or near-dead. 2. You can't fight a swarm of bees with a melee weapon. 3. Bees can't damage a weapon or armor (though in the game they can do so).) For a melee-only character, all she/he can do is RUN RUN RUN! ...All of this drives me crazy.)
I have found that the swarms are susceptible to attack by bludgeoning weapons or fists. A character who doesn't use magic can resort to these methods instead, but if the skills aren't trained, the weapon penalty will make it more difficult to kill the insects. This makes perfect sense. I remember that Ultima IV had insect swarms, but you could hack at them with a sword or fire arrows at them, and those modes of attack worked. I always thought that was a little weird. At least here, even though a dagger attack won't work at all, there are multiple back-up options - either smash the insects or cast a spell on them. I do agree, however, that it is a little strange that they can damage items. These must be some tough insects.

Monster immunity is one big noticeable difference between Book III and the others in the series. The only total immunity that I remember encountering in earlier games is that ghost-type undead creatures couldn't be harmed by non-magical weapons. Here, there are more such immunities, requiring the player to have back-up options available in case a monster is immune to a favored form of attack.
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Re: The most noticeable difference ?

Post by Talana »

Evnissyen wrote:I only just started yesterday, so here's just one thing I've noticed:

Torches. This isn't a bad thing, just a different strategy/feature/experiment, so bear with me. In Book II, if you stole all the torches in town, they were replaced when you returned. In Book III, if you stole all the torches in town, they remained missing.

I’m not sure which I like less — or more — that you’re able to appropriate torches freely and end up with way too many, or that you can carelessly deplete the towns of their lighting and, subsequently, those people just don’t feel willing to bother replacing their own torches.

(The bees, for one, are a mess. 1. you can't out-walk a swarm of bees. They'll overwhelm you immediately and sting you 'til you're dead... or near-dead. 2. You can't fight a swarm of bees with a melee weapon. 3. Bees can't damage a weapon or armor (though in the game they can do so).) For a melee-only character, all she/he can do is RUN RUN RUN! ...All of this drives me crazy.)
Just got this game , and I haven`t started playing yet. But I know I don`t like the torches to disappear for good - There should be a permanent lighting in the cities, and maybe we should have to buy our torches, or only be able to take with us some of them - found as extras near the lit ones.
And I already hate the bees, from what you`re telling me !

Can hardly wait to install and try the game, though - Finally :) :) :) :) :) :)
I wear a necklace, cause I wanna know when I`m upside down ...
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Re: The most noticeable difference ?

Post by AK_Marty »

I have no trouble killing a swarm of insects with my iron sword. But at level 6, two or more swarms at once and you get a nice view of the star field as the game explains that you are deceased. :shock:
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Re: The most noticeable difference ?

Post by Farwalker »

Containers that require blasting to open.
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Re: The most noticeable difference ?

Post by willwill »

As far as I recall Cat Eyes were working differently. Now I have to use some other light source too and CE just boosts the light.

And I feel that there's more unknown objects than before. And identifying them is expensive.
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Re: The most noticeable difference ?

Post by severian »

Insects Swarms - kill it with fire !

In my gameplay, one Demon Oil III killed a Swarm instantly around 75% times.

Different enemies resistances are great improvement to the gameplay
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Re: The most noticeable difference ?

Post by The Harpo Marxist »

The way that feats wear down weapons totally changes things up. One strategy I used a lot in Book II with my Ranger was to B-line to the feat, and then use it to take an enemy out at distance, and retreat until it cooled down. This had the nice advantage of letting me have a healthy supply of arrows throughout the game...

In Book III, a few feat uses though and my bows break. Which means I need to be more sparing about when I use the feat. Which further means that I'm doing x1 damage if I hit instead of x3 on an auto hit.
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Re: The most noticeable difference ?

Post by VDK »

Eschalon book 3 is one of the best rpgs out there. I almost wish Book 1 had the same system as this one. Very oldschool.Thats how awesome it is. The story is great, it ties up stuff. What am saying. Ive only played half the game and I already list in top 3 favorite rpgs of all time.
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peko
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Re: The most noticeable difference ?

Post by peko »

The insect swarms can be a bit annoying but so far I haven't had any trouble outrunning them. Didn't know that bludgeoning worked, after neither my bow or my dagger worked I just assumed that you'd have to use magic or demon oil to kill them, or perhaps I'd find some fire arrows later that could take care of them.

@Talana
There is some lighting in the cities that can't be stolen. Personally I leave most torches in the cities, it annoys me when it's all dark in the cities. You can buy torches from some vendors, they're like 1 or 2 gold each. You don't need that many torches and if you're not a melee character with a lot of strength you don't want to carry to many with you, they weigh 0,2 pounds each so carrying a bunch of them around can really eat in to your encumbrance.

@willwill
I'm pretty sure that cat's eyes worked exactly the same way in book 1 and 2.
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Re: The most noticeable difference ?

Post by blatherbeard »

Diseases and Curses.

Much easier to contract.
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Re: The most noticeable difference ?

Post by Glossome »

Most notable difference for me was how Foraging worked. In Book II, I could camp out and wake up to a cornucopia of reagents all nicely collected and packaged for me by, what I assumed to be, the Reagent Fairy. In Book III, I actually have to walk around and wait for my Fighter/Forager/Bludgeonista/Cuisinart to trip over something. It's like it's saying I somehow don't intrinsically deserve my nighttime reagent tributes from the fey folk or something. It's pure barbarism!
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