Dark Side - first impressions

[Zhuangzi]

I thought I would start a Dark Side thread where people can post about their early experiences (first few hours) with the game to give those who haven't bought it an idea of what they can expect if they pay their $25. I know the game isn't officially out for another three days but it's the weekend and the game seems pretty stable and complete to me. Bear in mind I've only been playing for about two hours.

The first thing that anyone who has played KB games will want to know is: is it better than Warriors of the North (WoTN)? I'm not far enough in to say for sure, but my initial answer is YES, it's better.

Things I've liked so far:

- being able to choose from a vampire, demoness or orc hero at the start

- unique starting locations for each of the three classes

- I've always liked the Demon race in KB games, but it was rarely possible to have a whole Demon army until mid game, and then only in Demon lands for restocking of troops. Now I can play as a Demon straight from the beginning!

- a minimum of grinding in the early game. I'm about to go to Portland for the first time and I think I've only had about 15 fights, and yet the story is advancing at a rapid rate.

- New rage spirit (Blackie) seems solid so far and his rage abilities seem useful, especially the statue one.

- No having to click which rune to use before every attack! Man, I hated that. In fact, I just hated WoTN altogether.

That's all I can think of right now. The only negative I can see so far is that Whitehill seems ridiculously empty and underpopulated. Perhaps it's deliberate, but it seems unfinished. I am playing Impossible Demoness (Paladin class) and I've had to give up on no-losses already as some of the required early fights are quite challenging. And that's how it should be.

[zjazd18]

I'll add few things:

- Game is much better than WoTN, so don't be discouraged if you didn't like previous one

- Game seems easy, so it may be not so good for those seeking challenge. There is 1 bottleneck, 3 battles early on that are very though to do (no-loss), but you can easily brute force them (nothing like spider in WoTN) and past that point you won't have any problems

- Some skills seems ridiculously overpowered, there is certain need of balance tweaks

- Excellent pacing, you won't be spending much time on the same island grinding

- Can't seem to find spells early on. Might be a problem for vampire (mage class) play-through.

- Fun to do quests, although there are still some boring ones (like bringing stuff all over other islands), those are definitely in minority

- Class only skill tree talents are very powerful, and encourage trying other classes after you are done with the game ( I'm already thinking of next play through and what I'll do)

- I'm around level 30 and haven't seen single big boss fight (like spider etc.), maybe there are none?

- Few new units, and few changes to the old ones. Especially in undead/demon department

[Zhuangzi]

Originally Posted by zjazd18

I'll add few things:

- Game is much better than WoTN, so don't be discouraged if you didn't like previous one

- Game seems easy, so it may be not so good for those seeking challenge. There is 1 bottleneck, 3 battles early on that are very though to do (no-loss), but you can easily brute force them (nothing like spider in WoTN) and past that point you won't have any problems

- Some skills seems ridiculously overpowered, there is certain need of balance tweaks

- Excellent pacing, you won't be spending much time on the same island grinding

- Can't seem to find spells early on. Might be a problem for vampire (mage class) play-through.

- Fun to do quests, although there are still some boring ones (like bringing stuff all over other islands), those are definitely in minority

- Class only skill tree talents are very powerful, and encourage trying other classes after you are done with the game ( I'm already thinking of next play through and what I'll do)

- I'm around level 30 and haven't seen single big boss fight (like spider etc.), maybe there are none?

- Few new units, and few changes to the old ones. Especially in undead/demon department

I read on the Steam forum that the only boss (no rage) fight was the last battle of the game.

[Zhuangzi]

A couple more hours in...

- Your companion, Blackie, can teleport you to and from two of the initial areas, Whitehill and the Shelter, for free, or to any other island for 1000 gold. That's great and will help a lot to reduce travel time for high scores.

- Portland is great fun and reminds me why I like playing KB games. Beautiful landscape, well crafted, maybe 20 enemy stacks max on the island, lots of quests, a few castles. Good fun and completely different to the empty Whitehill.

- Not sure how I would go about no losses. I am losing small amounts of troops on every battle playing as a Demoness. It's great being able to go back to Shelter to replenish units that I've rarely ever used in KB games before, such as Imps and Scoffer Imps.

- Because there is a ridiculous amount of spider eggs to pick up early in the game I'm using Cave Spiders as a meat shield unit for the first time ever. Obviously you wouldn't use them if you were going for no-losses.

- The frenzy mechanic for Demons seems pretty OP/broken to me. The Cerberus has a 'Leap' attack now which allows it to attack the length of the screen without being able to be counterattacked. Because of frenzy I'm ending up being able to use this practically every turn. That's pretty ridiculous and will make the Cerebus an excellent unit.

[zjazd18]

Originally Posted by Zhuangzi

A couple more hours in...

- Not sure how I would go about no losses. I am losing small amounts of troops on every battle playing as a Demoness. It's great being able to go back to Shelter to replenish units that I've rarely ever used in KB games before, such as Imps and Scoffer Imps.

- The frenzy mechanic for Demons seems pretty OP/broken to me. The Cerberus has a 'Leap' attack now which allows it to attack the length of the screen without being able to be counterattacked. Because of frenzy I'm ending up being able to use this practically every turn. That's pretty ridiculous and will make the Cerebus an excellent unit.

You can go into catacombs in Portland and go back to demoness starting location (now changed) and buy some better no-loss units. I bought there demons and demonologist, maybe even you will be able to find executioners. Imps are poor man's royal snakes , i used them both successfully on Portland.

There is spell that reduces cooldown of abilities, so demons can spam their abilities like crazy. Also there is spell that add charges to abilities, so we kinda have Gift spell back. So there will be some ridiculous combos. I'm not even searching for them, as I'm disgusted enough by halving talent.

EDIT: Minor spoilers - In terms of ridiculous stuff, check those dragons out. One of the abilites is summoning other dragons. , i guess I won't be needing red dragons:

[DGDobrev]

You two are making me rub my palms in expectation. The game unlocks tomorrow and I am jumping in it right away. Just finished another XCOM EW Classic/Ironman, so I am all good for it now

[zjazd18]

Ridiculous stuff update. What is possible with ogres :

[Zhuangzi]

Originally Posted by zjazd18

Ridiculous stuff update. What is possible with ogres :

Holy Christ, that attack is absurd.

[DGDobrev]

This is amazing. I wonder if they are keeping the old damage formulas. The KBAP & CW formula was as follows:

Damage = TroopCount * random (MinUnitDmg; MaxUnitDmg) * (1-Resistance%/100%)

Damage modifier = (1 + (Attack - Defense)*0.3), and if it was more than 3, it automatically goes down to 3. In this case, that 1300 attack doesn't mean all that much.

TotalDmg=Damage*Damage modifier

Edit: If not, these ogres can kill a stack of Black Dragons in a swing, sheesh.

[zjazd18]

Yeah, most definitely it's still capped like that. Anyways stone skin made their dmg manageable, also it's possible to dispel it.

Which brings me to another point, attack seems completely useless in this game. Mostly because of halving talent (i hope they change it somehow), what's the point of having high attack when you can destroy half of the troop size having 1 attack, that also make resistances of enemies redundant.

I'm pretty far in the game now, and haven't met one enemy that would require me to reload to get done no-loss. I basically destroy stacks so fast it's not even funny, there are 2 rage spenders that deal % dmg, one 20% other 30%, then add units doing 50%. It's get ridiculous(sure it's only 15% but believe me it happens very often). So if you want challenge definitely skip that talent.

Post damage effects (burning etc) are still extremely strong and annoying so i recommend getting Shield of Rage in warrior skill tree, as it's impossible to dispel them.

Creation spell gives 4 charges to your unit special abilities for 16mana, i don't have to explain how ridiculous it is. I fought one champ that cast geyser every turn i just stood there in circle resurrecting everyone with my paladins. At least with phantom you could eventually run out of mana, impossible with creation efficiency.

Seems they run out of ideas and quests decrease in quality the further you go in the game. Also i would love quest log manageable by location, sometimes there are so many quests active at the same time it's hard to keep up with all the stuff.

I'm definitely enjoying the game, but I'm player that seeks challenge and at this point there is none. I'm meeting equal in strength stacks on impossible, so the sheer power isn't there and amount of ridiculous new combos make it even easier.

Had one crash with error so far, other than that was pretty smooth ride. Haven't tested turn back time, as someone mentioned it causes problems.