Orc Ambush

[madmonk]

Hi

I was looking at the Orc Ambush and I felt that the basic idea is good but the fact that they leave you alive is wrong. Having just won with a Skeleton Archer, I just let the Orcs take the staff, rested and carried on. This particular "scene" is all wrong on a number of levels - in fact you could almost make it a cut-scene with no interaction from the player.

I would prefer to see fewer Orcs but make it a real fight with the very real possibility of death occurring. You would still lose the Staff (fair, and keeps the plot-line moving) but your survival is at stake...

What do people think?

[SerPounce]

Hi

I was looking at the Orc Ambush and I felt that the basic idea is good but the fact that they leave you alive is wrong. Having just won with a Skeleton Archer, I just let the Orcs take the staff, rested and carried on. This particular "scene" is all wrong on a number of levels - in fact you could almost make it a cut-scene with no interaction from the player.

I would prefer to see fewer Orcs but make it a real fight with the very real possibility of death occurring. You would still lose the Staff (fair, and keeps the plot-line moving) but your survival is at stake...

What do people think?

LOL, you can give them the staff? The thought never even occurred to me!!

Good strategy aside, I think you're a coward Madmonk

[CheapyPipe]

Actually, what happens is that the Orc Leader goes into, for all intents and purposes, invincibility mode, you can act once, and then the staff is stolen from you.

As someone less experienced than madmonk, I'm gonna go ahead and say this is a bad idea. The boss before the orc ambush is tough, so resources are probably pretty low as it is. Then throw in this? Seems unnecessarily cruel, and I'm fine with the whole cut-scene type thing we have now.

Sure, it doesn't make much sense, and it's railroading at its most blatant, but oh well.

[Elkan]

I've beaten the orc ambush on a couple of occasions. you CAN win. and the plot continuation for that is present.

[SerPounce]

I've beaten the orc ambush on a couple of occasions. you CAN win. and the plot continuation for that is present.

Yeah, me too. I've only gotten to it twice (I'm a pretty careless player ), once I won and once i got killed, I didn't realize you could demure.

[edit]I'm a bit confused now, was I not suppose to be killed outright when I fought them? I certainly was killed in the full "game over man, GAME OVER!" style...

[CheapyPipe]

Whoops, it must've changed since I looked at that code last.

[Elkan]

I've beaten the orc ambush on a couple of occasions. you CAN win. and the plot continuation for that is present.

Yeah, me too. I've only gotten to it twice (I'm a pretty careless player ), once I won and once i got killed, I didn't realize you could demure.

[edit]I'm a bit confused now, was I not suppose to be killed outright when I fought them? I certainly was killed in the full "game over man, GAME OVER!" style...

As far as I'm aware they shouldn't be able to *kill* you, they just beat the shit out of you, nick the staff and you wake up later. maybe check with darkgod, but if you actually lost the game after that ambush it should probably go down as a bug, if it was from a recent version

[CheapyPipe]

Ok, so the leader isn't invincible, he's just very very tough. Max life of 1500, immune to stuns & blindness, resist 70 physical, spell, mental. atk of 1000, high sword skills (10!), displaces others.

The good news is that in staff-absorption.lua of data/quests/, there's a function that catches when the player dies, makes you not-dead, and removes everything else from the zone.

I figured that you were meant to die due to the comment above that function: "-- Next time the player dies (and he WILL die) he wont really die", so the fact that there were paths in the story to deal with you killing the leader always confused me!

[SerPounce]

I've beaten the orc ambush on a couple of occasions. you CAN win. and the plot continuation for that is present.

Yeah, me too. I've only gotten to it twice (I'm a pretty careless player ), once I won and once i got killed, I didn't realize you could demure.

[edit]I'm a bit confused now, was I not suppose to be killed outright when I fought them? I certainly was killed in the full "game over man, GAME OVER!" style...

As far as I'm aware they shouldn't be able to *kill* you, they just beat the shit out of you, nick the staff and you wake up later. maybe check with darkgod, but if you actually lost the game after that ambush it should probably go down as a bug, if it was from a recent version

huh, weird. I guess it was a bug. If I see it again I'll report it, not that it will since I'm just going to give that darn moldy twig to them from now on anyway. that was a great Arcane blade character also!

[madmonk]

OK, just to clarify...

I have never beaten the Orc Ambush, and I have tried - many times.

The problem here is that because I know I am going to be alive at the end of the fight (OK, 1 HP and no staff) I don't think it is worth going through the battle in an attempt to beat it. So I don't!

Hats off to those of you who have beaten it!

[Gwai]

I always try because there's no loss, but inevitably the archers get me. What do those who have beat the ambush do about that?

[Elkan]

buff up heavily before taking the level 1 stairs, As a mage phase door to a clear area out of sight and summoning a wall to hide behind after droppping a noxious cloud helps tunnelling into trees is also advantageous Lots of scrolls of shielding health and mana pots and playing hide and snipe is the way forward

[SerPounce]

I always try because there's no loss, but inevitably the archers get me. What do those who have beat the ambush do about that?

The time I beat it was largely due to abusing my ring of invisibility/HiPS with a shadowblade. The archers were generally not able to target me.

[edit] When I tried it with my Arcane Blade I started with drinking a potion of invisiblity hoping for a similar effect, only to spam my message box with red "orc foo has spotted you!".... oooohhhhh poop.... even a 50% earthen barrier can't save you from all that firepower.

[Massimiliano Marangio]

When I tried it with my Arcane Blade I started with drinking a potion of invisiblity hoping for a similar effect, only to spam my message box with red "orc foo has spotted you!"

You need to remove all light sources including some artifacts.

I've beat the ambush twice, once with a mage (maxed Fireflash with two rings of burning) and once with an archer (maxed Volley of Arrows and Scatter Shot), but only using invisibility potions to gain a few free rounds (and many potions of speed, scrolls of shielding, and scrolls of teleportation).

[grobblewobble]

I always try because there's no loss, but inevitably the archers get me. What do those who have beat the ambush do about that?

I've beaten the Orc Ambush the very first time I encountered them, the first game I made it past the master. I didn't even know what was coming, wasn't especially prepared. I was playing a brawler.

What I did was:

1. use a movement infusion to run past them
2. IIRC the fast movement was interrupted by a counterstrike, but this worked to my advantage, because in the ensuing chaos the archers didn't get a chance to shoot me while I was running (regular orc grunts were blocking the way)
3. position myself in a spot where only 3 orcs could attack me at a time
4. unload all my high-damage brawler powers on Ukruk

It was tight but he dropped after a couple of rounds. Mopping up the rest was relatively easy. It helped that I was anti-magic, I think. Anti-magic improves your ability to absorb damage, which you badly need here. It comes at the cost of escape options like teleportation, but those aren't of any use in this fight.