Enderal first time, impressions

[draneiwow2]

cant wait to see how the rest of this pans out............ i'd love to see your reactions to a few events that occur later on

[dyslexicfaser]

Been a while, yeah? Let’s do this thing.

- So when we last left our stalwart heroes, Calia was traumatized again and spending some time alone in her room. I had to fight my way across the Great White North again and complete a physics puzzle, but I got a nice cloak out of it and also a plot macguffin so that’s fine.
After dropping by Ark again to sell off some stuff and picking up Summon Bow V and Summon Mud Elemental II, I headed out on the next leg of the quest, entitled <All The Dead Souls>.
Now historically, ghosts in this game have been of the terrifying and/or exploding varieties. But on the upside, all three ‘clues’ are really close to Ark so that’s handy.

- The mud elemental is so tiny and adorable! And when he’s bored he sits on his tiny haunches like a dog or an internet meme about Slavs.



But buggy. Or … possibly working as intended? Half the time the spell just… fizzles unless I’m on solid land. Bridges and crypt floors seem to be right out. But I mean, he is a mud elemental. So maybe that’s how it works?
In which case I would applaud SureAI for attention to detail but then never use the little guy again since Ice Elementals can be summoned anywhere and the only downside with him is trying to train him not to block doorways.

- It’s been a while since I’ve just wandered around the Ark countryside, and it’s something of a palate cleanser after trying to chop snow bears and undead monsters to death/re-death up North. The area around Ark is always summer, with plentiful greenery and lakes and misty mountains in the distance. Ark itself looks like a hive of industry with its little waterwheels and mills and the stables and farms everywhere.



And actually pretty defensible, now that I’m looking at it from the angle of Calia’s doom-and-gloom about the Nehrimese sieging the place.
The three entrances are over bridges with multiple watchtowers. Every entrance into the city is set into a heavily fortified gate.
Fingers crossed for a siege section, it would be a shame to have this well-designed city and not put it to the test don't you think?
Mind you, the bridges and watchtowers could mostly be bypassed by just sailing into the harbor where all the sailors and fishermen hang out, and the Nehrimese came to Enderal by boat.
But even then every district inside has sturdy doors and mortared walls, and the Sun Temple is on top of a goddamn mountain up about a hundred feet of defensible climb to the very top of the city (carved to look like… well, it kind of looks like some poor slave is having to hold up the temple, but maybe I’m just having Kirkwall flashbacks to Dragon Age 2).

- Anyway. Ark: still beautiful. Moving on.
The first ‘clue’ (read: minimap marker) takes me to a little cove just south of Ark. Something like an underground river with its own moored boat.
Thank god for the minimap, is all I’ll say. Because if finding the macguffin relied on my ability to decode a treasure map...
Well, ‘treasure’ is being overly generous, turns out.



That eerie glow is some poor bastard kicking back and taking an acid bath.



Not real sure if he was tied down or if he jumped into the bath of his own free will, as yet.
There’s something like a suicide note, giving his name and explaining his crimes. Trafficking nearly a thousand souls into and out of Enderal, probably right here in this cove.
He remembers exact numbers, but he does not remember their names.
There’s this line about the ‘Bonejudge’ judging him for his crimes, and I wonder… is this some just god measuring crime and punishment on the scale of a life, like Ma’at?
Presumably this will become clear later, along with the cipher given at the end of the note.

- The next ‘clue’ is in Ark itself, leading me to a sewer cover I’ve walked past a couple times.
Inside, well. The first real set piece for the area is:



Really sets the tone, you know?
I’m starting to think the Bonejudge is less ‘keeper of the afterlife’ and more some mortal authority helping things along. Where the guy in the acid bath was all by his lonesome in a hidden alcove that yeah, maybe nobody ever found before me, this fellow is definitely not lonely.
Ghostly guardians patrol the rooms, and corpses are shackled to walls or left hanging out.
I’m thinking… old prison, probably.
A cart full of skulls, meticulously stacked.
Whole skeletons carpet the floor of a nook at the base of a staircase.
There’s this bit, which… I don’t even know what I’m looking at, here:



Somebody’s favorite torture chair?

- At the end is a lonely cage, with food set all around. Good lighting.



The woman in the cage also has a note penned in her own hand. She was a murderess for hire called the ‘black widow’. For her crimes, she will place herself in this cage with no food or drink and starve to death. Which she obviously did.
Is this place hers, then? Because there’s at least sixty dead men scattered about in here, if you count up the skulls and skeletons, and … if she were a hitwoman, and this hideaway contains evidence of her work, then she was the Stephen King of the fantasy murderer’s scene.

- I’m starting to feel like I’m learning less about this quest as I complete it, not more.
Is this suicide, or murder? Is it divine revelation, mortal mind control, did the Bonejudge force this woman into a little cage and spread food all around just to twist the knife a little?
Is this the Bonejudge’s hideout, or the Black Widow’s? The human trafficker was left in a place that I think was intended to evoke his crimes, that little underground grotto with the boat...
What does this have to do with Jespar? Because I’m going to be honest, if it turns out Jespar is pulling night shifts as a murderous vigilante of Justice, I think I’m going to have to withdraw all the come ons I’ve been sending his way. Killing people is kind of my raison d’etre, but sticking them in a cage and starving them to death is a bit much, you know?

- Actually, I’ve been feeling like the ‘Bonejudge’ is kind of familiar somehow, but I’m not sure where…



Oh yyyeah. My skill tree.
Now, I’d like to say with certainty that I am definitely probably not the Bonejudge. 65% certain at least.
But you know… you never can be sure in this game.
If it turns out I’m blacking out and sadistically torturing murderers in my free time, I will definitely take back all the stuff I said about Jespar. And request immediate cuddles.

- Well enough existential dread, I still have one more clue to track down!
This isn’t the first time I’ve plugged the music in this game, but that was the original bard songs. This is just the background music as I’m riding through the local farmlands, a little thing of piano and woodwind… wow, though. It just makes you want to forget the looming apocalypse and just ride on, you know?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vN7xwt9iT9Y

- And then from all that auditory beauty right to the murder site in some nondescript farm. It’s like Enderal is saying, ‘Isn’t this place a beauty? But scratch a layer off the surface and it’s pain and misery all the way down.’
It fits. I love Enderal but this game is dark as a chasm straight into the center of the earth compared to Skyrim’s ‘save the world from dragons lol’ main quest.

- I remember the endless Vatyr of old Haystacks, so I am kind of terrified when my minimap leads me to the Ark farms and a place called Old Granary.
It’s actually pretty low-key, though. Just a bunch of giant rats.



The corpse’s note is penned in a shaky hand, and it’s clear the writer is under duress.
This cellar is where he kidnapped children from the Undercity, and so it is the site where he will be eaten by rats while still alive.

- It’s pretty clear by now that the Bonejudge is tracking down these people and sadistically murdering them in the places most connected to their own crimes. I was wondering if these were one of those ‘ironic punishment’ deals, but no. Merely a brutal one.
The slave trafficker, dipped in acid.
The hitwoman, starved to death.
The kidnapper and child abuser, eaten by rats.
And if you put the cipher at the end of each letter together, it’s reads: “For my brothers in arms: ‘Knock knock, who’s there? Come in alone, if you dare.’”

- Now, atmospheric, I grant you!
But I’m not actually too sure how the Prophetess put together a location from the cipher. Were the letters printed on the backs of maps, or…?
Also, it seems a little unlikely for anyone to actually find all three of these murder sites and put together the code without someone (naming no names, just in case the Enderalean post office is onto me) intercepting Jespar’s mail. So this is starting to seem like something of a taunt directed at possibly me but probably Jespar specifically.
A ‘come find me, if you dare.’

Well, all right then.

The Takeaway:
I appreciate the story-driven nature of this quest, it’s just a little weird how mechanically easy it is after Calia’s. Like, an hour ago I was battling killing Nehrimese war parties so I could kill bandit wizards so I could kill a village full of elemental wolves and giant spiders for the privilege of battling my way through an abandoned keep full of reanimated corpses.
Now I’m fighting large-ish rats. Which, yeah, they gave me a disease, but a trip to the doctor will clear that right up.
Actually I’m noticing a lot of minimap markers that I haven’t investigated yet, so I think I’ll take a brief sidetrip before continuing on my quest to track down Enderalean Batman.

[Buccaneer]

I had to fight my way across the Great White North again and complete a physics puzzle, but I got a nice cloak out of it and also a plot macguffin so that’s fine.

Ok, you lost me on that one. Are you talking about the Angel quest or was this another side trip into Frostfall?

Half the time the spell just… fizzles unless I’m on solid land. Bridges and crypt floors seem to be right out. But I mean, he is a mud elemental. So maybe that’s how it works?

Yep. I think you can get and use one fairly early but with a limiter of where you can summon one (from dirt!). I remember going into the hard West Cliff castle early with only a Mud Elemental to summon and the only way I could have gotten through the beginning part was to summon one outside in the dirt and then have it follow me inside.

[dyslexicfaser]

Ok, you lost me on that one. Are you talking about the Angel quest or was this another side trip into Frostfall?

Angel quest, yeah. It wasn't on the order of 'Hey guys roadtrip to Agnod!' but that quest was not easy.

And now in this quest, I'm fighting Fullgrown Rats (which by the way has scarier implication than if they were called Giant Rats).

Yep. I think you can get and use one fairly early but with a limiter of where you can summon one (from dirt!). I remember going into the hard West Cliff castle early with only a Mud Elemental to summon and the only way I could have gotten through the beginning part was to summon one outside in the dirt and then have it follow me inside.

Honestly it might be interesting if the game gives you a rolodex of summons that only work conditionally. 'Well if it's on the beach I can summon this guy, and this guy can be summoned around those magic mushrooms, and this guy only on alternate Thursdays-'

But also there's something to be said for convenience when you have to resummon these guys every 2 minutes. If they stuck around for 5 or 10, I'd actually be using Revive Corpse sometimes, when I find dead mages.

EDIT: By the by, finally fixed (I think) the broken links in the early part of the Let's Play.

[draneiwow2]

welll im not sure if you are into modding but in the event you are there is a mod on the nexus i found recently for enderal that extends the durations of summons as well as a few buff spells

note the mod does NOT improve the potency of them in any way shape or form, just extends the duration of them more for quality of life purposes and as such is at least imo by no means gamebreaking

[Woolie Wool]

35 hours into this now, I've been playing it all weekend instead of celebrating Christmas like path-abiding people.

This game reminds me a hell of a lot of Fallout New Vegas, a game I always thought was a much better use of the Fallout 3 engine than Fallout 3, with its much tighter plotting, better quests, deeper RPG mechanics, more focused world design, and minimal level scaling. I do think New Vegas does it better with the nonlinear plot that is fed into by dozens of side quests, but you didn't have Obsidian's budget so that's to be expected. I like finally being able to play a Skyrim-based game that lets you get into serious trouble wandering into high-level areas, and if you survive that trouble, twink yourself out with awesome loot, just like you could in Baldur's Gate II. The verticality of the map compared to Skyrim was annoying at first, but I got used to it.

Combat feels a lot better than Skyrim, especially with the Wildcat mod. It's still not that great but it at least has some degree of balance now. I like the level system but I don't know how I feel about the "learning books". Not only is it a contrived and "gamey" way of handling character progression, the cost of the books is extremely prohibitive in the early game and I spent around six hours with my skill levels in the 15-20 range and dozens of unspent learning points, and going was extremely rough at first and I godmoded through several early fights that seemed completely unfair (wander into a cave, find two spiders, immediately get poisoned to death). I think the cost of Apprentice level learning books should be reduced. Once I got above level 16 or so things got considerably easier and now I'm level 34 (and considerably overleveled for the part of the main quest I'm in--my last save was right outside the Living Temple).

The characters are a lot better than Skyrim's but I find the companion system annoying--I like Jespar and I want to go adventuring with him, not just schlepping from point A to point B on story quests. Did you prevent the player from hiring the companions permanently to prevent the player from having a meatshield in fights?

E: The real biggest problem I have with Enderal is that it's not an SSE mod, and I'm stuck with the awful old executable with its memory limits and its unstable framerates, and occasional CTDs, and the unstable framerate was greatly exacerbated by installing aMidianBorn's texture packs to banish the ugly vanilla Skyrim textures. I use 4K texture mods with wild abandon in Special Edition and it runs perfectly. Nothing to be done about it though, since you'd probably have to redesign half the mod to work in SSE...

[urst]

35 hours into this now, I've been playing it all weekend instead of celebrating Christmas like path-abiding people....

just a general clarification - you are more than welcome to share your impressions,
but this thread is very much dyslexicfaser's Let' Play
(I won't edit your post though, it doesn't contain spoilers )

[dyslexicfaser]

The characters are a lot better than Skyrim's but I find the companion system annoying--I like Jespar and I want to go adventuring with him, not just schlepping from point A to point B on story quests. Did you prevent the player from hiring the companions permanently to prevent the player from having a meatshield in fights?

This way, it does feel like the Order is focused on the High Ones to the exclusion of everything else. That's kind of a benefit; as a narrative device it plays into the conversations between Tealor Arantheal and his 2IC; she thinks they should be focused on the invasion happening literally everywhere, but Arantheal is laser focused on the High Ones.

But they could do that and still give you mercenaries and thanes and such like in Skyrim, and they don't, so the meatshield thing is probably also true.

Anyway, update incoming.

[dyslexicfaser]

- I'd like to inform the farmer outside that her tenant seems to have come down with a bad case of eaten by rats, but she doesn't even have a name so that doesn't go anywhere.
Think I'm going to take a day off from this saving the world business. Prophets get vacation days right?

- Heading north takes me to a picturesque little town called Bridgehead Farm built hand in hand with one of the ancient ruins.



The poster reads, “Once magic runneth through your veins, / Be wary not to go astray! / The Order’s help you shall then seek / And Malphas words you need to heed / Else your magic will go wild / And death will soon make you its child.”
Now sure this almost sounds like some Dragon Age ‘keep the mages contained and docile’ plot, and I’d like to learn more, but more importantly...
Hopefully Death is actually an anthropomorph in this universe, or whoever’s in charge of posters for the Order is going waaaaay too far to try and rhyme that last couplet. ‘Make you its child?’ That’s awful.
I wish I knew my standing in the Order so I could know if I can fire that guy.

- Crimes against literature aside, if Skyrim's Markarth is 'people living in the ancient ruins (including the Dwemer's ridiculous stone beds)’, then this is 'people building their town on top of the ancient ruins.’ Equally interesting but very different narrative. Markarth feels kind of stuck in the past, while this little town feels… kind of like a massacre waiting to happen.
Because Enderal.
The local owner of the rustic, hay-filled inn The Red Ox is pretty boring for a guy named – conveniently enough – The Red Ox. A name like that deserves a story more than the innkeeper of the Fat Loran ever did.
But The Red Ox is completely taciturn, and not in an interesting way. Some innkeepers offer rumors and news, or buys and sells goods, but Ox only offers a bed for the night.
It's a shame I can't seem to enter the door to the ruins but presumably they will come into play later?

- Following the next map marker, I find myself in a hella fancy old tomb with the very unfancy name of Grel's Grave.
It's a level of difficulty below where I've been lately, but it looks nice.



All the tombs and ruins I've been spelunking lately that made me think, you know, maybe I need to get in on that. I’m undead too; my people just seem to congregate in picturesque ruins with endless waterfalls and stuff. All the Darkhand liches have sweet digs like that. Dzamael Darkhand had that prime real estate in the catacombs under Ark, even.
Grel’s Grave is centrally located right in the breadbasket of Enderal, picturesque, lots of open space, all-natural wisp lighting… very feng shui.
Those old Enderaleans knew how to build for the afterlife. I feel like I could learn a thing or two.

- Working my way southeast into the mountains, the way is blocked by a much tougher band of Lost Ones camped out in some kind of unfinished defensive works. Watchtowers, walls, like a half-completed skeleton in the snow where the workers just gave up and died halfway through.



Near as I can tell, there are two passes through the mountains to the eastern half of the continent and they are held by Bandits and Undead respectively.
No wonder you never see Fallout- or Skyrim-esque wandering merchants in Enderal, anyone that’s tried is dead as doornails. Some have tried, I think; every once in a while you’ll see a busted up wagon along the road with bags of flour or apples or spare parts or whatever.
Considering how careful SureAI was to answer questions like ‘but what do they eat?’ with Ark’s extensive farming community, I have to assume they carefully considered the economy and then recognized that all the wandering merchants have long since been killed and eaten.

- A stone’s throw the undead-infested pass, there’s a sweet-looking stonehenge overlooking the entire valley.
I boldly assail the historic landmark, defeating its denizens in honorable combat - this is the story that I will be telling around the Order’s huge war operations table, later.



- Not seeing any more new things to explore nearby on the minimap but not quite having my fill of adventure yet, I dig out the ‘Portal To A Strange Place’ that’s been sitting in my pack since I found it under the city, as part of a little tale of sibling inheritance and what kind of sounds like a pact to enter undeath together.
The ‘Strange Place’ is just a clifftop peak overlooking what I think is Riverville, of all places. There’s a few chests and a handful of wisp enemies, no big deal.
Kind of disappointed at the lack of further story, but I do like gushing about the views in this game.



- Turns out I’m close by that dragon lair I first noticed all the way back from the quest with the Aged Man, so I start the laborious process of trying to scale halfway round the mountain.
I pop out halfway up a cliff overlooking the dragon’s lair, which involves the dragon perched atop a triangular sort of ruin like a rooster waiting to crow. He periodically patrols out lazily in a circle before settling back on his perch, which is a pretty sweet idle animation.
I decide to get tricky. I’m at the extreme outer edge of my range, so I stop time (I can do that for 4 seconds at a time, now) and loft a bunch of arrows at him.
Of course, that only does about a tenth of his health in damage, and then trying to hit a dragon in midair is really hard, so…



Things didn’t work out.

- Then I realize there’s a ‘Dead Dragon’ skeleton nearby, and I think… a dragon-on-dragon kaiju fight might be just what the doctor ordered.
But unfortunately, Revive III isn’t quite up to the task. And he notices. I’m still fumbling for my summons when I eat a fire breath and die.

- Third time, I just make an elemental to draw the flame breath, run up and bury both swords in the dragon’s flank. That took care of things.
There is such a thing as trying to be too cute, I guess. It’s lucky that the game makes the dragons land to fight you, or they would be really nasty.

- After that I headed for the castle on the horizon that you can see from the peak shot. That looks like a happening place, and I want to be there!





Unfortunately, nice sunsets are really all I get out of this little adventure. Couldn’t find a way to scale the cliffs, so I just kind of lurk around like some sort of water monster for a while, slowly circling the castle.

- Getting back on track, I meet up with Jespar back in Ark.
Since I don’t really want to just come right out and ask ‘Hey Jespar are you sadistically murdering criminals maybe?’ I engage in some light smalltalk first.
There’s some philosophy traded back and forth about who’s at fault in a domestic violence situation. My answer, ‘society’, is apparently the safe answer, on the grounds that it absolves people of responsibility for their actions.
Jespar seems ready for life as a lawyer if his primary job of mercenary-for-hire and his backup job of doom-train-engineer fall through.
Not sure what that’s about, exactly, except maybe to lay the groundwork for what’s probably going to be some weighty questions about the nature of Justice, later.

- The dropped bomb, of course, is that ‘Knock knock’ line we put together from the letters is a passcode he and his sister shared when they were looking to go out on adventures as kids.
The Prophetess points out with all the delicacy of a battering ram that the High Ones could have reached through the stone and given his sister Adalia the power – and crazy – to become something like the Bonejudge.
Which, if that’s a thing they can do, Why am I still holding onto that one from Calia’s quest? Why are we putting it in our anti-High One macguffin?!
This is all going to end in tears.


The Takeaway:
I’ve reached the point where just wandering around is starting to seem a little same-y. There’s only so many undead and bandits you can clear out of ruined towers. I still have a couple of quests saved up in the old quest-log for when the main quest goes on break, but otherwise I think I’ll be focusing exclusively on the main quest for a while.
And what an emotionally gutting questline it’s shaping up to be! But then… this is Enderal. When is it not?

[Buccaneer]

The Takeaway:
I’ve reached the point where just wandering around is starting to seem a little same-y. There’s only so many undead and bandits you can clear out of ruined towers.

I tend to agree apart that haven't gone into the Frostcliff Mountains, nor Thalgard, nor the Powder Desert much (you will in your current quest though).