Is the thief silver challenge a bit too hard?

[Lujo]

I've been trying out various ways to do it, but am coming up short...

The problem seems to be that you need too much stuff to fight the first guy you find, even if you lemisi+wheytwut him right away. Also, many of the chests aren't really worth it, or am I not seeing things right?

Was the dngeon adjusted for getindare dodge stacking or not?

[gjaustin]

Yes, it is too hard. And you're also right that most of the chests aren't much help (beyond conversion points).

[Darvin]

You basically have to hope you find enough boosters soon enough and you have to knock the trick about where the level 2 guards are likely to spawn so you can use LEMMISI/WEYTUT to teleport in their general direction while expending as little exploration as possible. Oh, and because you're teleporting blind you have a very high probability of getting stuck and having to restart. This level is just too unforgiving, and to top things off the balanced dagger is a largely worthless item in its current form anyways. Too expensive to purchase in-dungeon, counter-productive for Tikki Tooki worshippers (the only ones who can afford to use it), and Amulet of Yendor is an unambiguously better prep.

[Lujo]

I've had some limited sucess by porting low lvl guys back to the starting point. As long as you have LEMISI you can't really get stuck, and killing stuff up to lvl 6 with hit-lemisi-hit-getindare + odd dodge works ok, but I can't possibly kill the first lvl2 without expending a potion.

A good clue about where the low level guys will spawn is ussualy right next to one another, on the oposite side of the map. If I can lemisi one, I can ussualy find the rest (or a bunch of) soon enough, I'm just not sure about the most economical way of going at killing them.

Really low margin of error, and f**k-all to do with your resources.

[Darvin]

but I can't possibly kill the first lvl2 without expending a potion.

Yup, you need to sink a potion on the first guy. Once you're level 2 you should be able to conserve the remaining potions for the boss.

Really low margin of error, and f**k-all to do with your resources.

Yup, and that's the primary issue; you can waste a lot of resources unless you get very lucky.

[Lujo]

Ok, I've done it after about 5 tries, but I know I had a "pure luck" moment when a GETINDARE dodge counter came up at the right moment somewhere along the way. I was also lucky with GETINDARE dodges 2 more times, but I had exploration left over so I'm not sure how much it would've impacted anything. The first one was critical though - it's incredibly difficult to kill the early guys while not wasting too many resources.

So the way I did it, for anyone having a hard time is this:

LEMISI carefully for a lvl 3 or 2, then ported him out to safety and explored where he was until I found the other low lvl guys. I used LEMISI to refill WHEYTWUT mana whenever I ran out. You need one lvl2 guy to get to lvl2 yourself if you use a potion, some regen fighting (I'm not sure on the numbers but you need dmg at least 6 and HP... I'm not sure but 12 or above certanly). Then you need 2 lvl 3's to get to lvl 3, and after that it's smooth sailing as long as you've been using spare mana to port lvl9 safely out of the way.

I've only got the chests before the boss fight (barring the lvl 1 ones, you need those ASAP), and I used Burndayraz for the boss, with help from LEMISI for regen. Without GETINDARE spam and dodge prediction it would've been imosible for me. This level is... well, not casual friendly. It took a great deal of both skill and luck, and luck was needed just to have a chance not to mess up. It's not undoable, but it's too luck dependent and thus frustrating.

Loving the storyline so far.

[Nandrew]

Heh, glad you like the storyline, I kinda feel that most of the writing on the class challenges has been ... forgettable. Eighteen tailored dungeons is actually a crazy stupid number to test and tweak.

Thief silver is problematic right now. I'd like to say that the problem would be solved just by scattering a few extra lvl1's around, but the scenario IS currently balanced around the heavy resource investment in tackling a lvl2. Considering just removing some powerups from the ground and making the enemies some percentage easier as compensation. So as soon as you find your lvl2, you can fight it without considering the other "luck factors". May also add an extra lvl2 here and there to increase likelihood of spotting

[Darvin]

You may need to put a hint in the "journal" to help players out. Many may not realize that the level 2's spawn in on the opposite side of the dungeon, and may just search more or less at random (which, on average, will explore the vast majority of the level before you find any of the level 2's)

[The Avatar]

You could make the boosters spawn near you at the begginning. And you could weaken the boss.

Yeah, I agree the storylines weren't too great. The best was definitely thief because you really felt the connection between them AND you were playing the same guy with his journal. The journal was the most important part.

[Nandrew]

You could make the boosters spawn near you at the begginning. And you could weaken the boss.

Yeah, I agree the storylines weren't too great. The best was definitely thief because you really felt the connection between them AND you were playing the same guy with his journal. The journal was the most important part.

The thief challenge tree was picked as a "story specialist" (appropriate, I think, because narrative was always quite important in the Thief series), and the dungeons are reflective of this focus on theme dictating gameplay -- Thief Bronze has worked it positively, at least.

And the storylines ... eesh, I'll try improve on some of them sometime. Truth is that I absolutely love writing, but creating decent narrative is a task that needs enough time and attention of its own, especially when you need to "construct" a story through dungeon scripts. It may sound weird to put it this way, but building the wrong story can also really ruin a dungeon's balance.