I have seen a few questions over the last months in reviews and forum topics and emails that I would like to publish responses to so that everyone knows about them. In no particular order:
1. You can duplicate your savegame into another slot by using the BACKUP button to create a slot-independent copy and then RESTORE onto a free slot. And making an in-game backup also helps you to reconsider an important class change choice or be sheltered from very rare file corruption catastrophes.
2. Once you complete the game, there is a 'fixed party challenges' mode unlocked (besides the DEFAULT and CUSTOM party choices on start).
3. There are PLENTY of options you can tinker with. Go to options from the main menu, or from the save/load/quit/options screen when in world exploration mode.
4. Health/Mana+ from birth feats not only impact HP/SP on birth but also a bit on each levelup.
5. Auto steam cloud sync has been activated a week ago, but generally you can manually make copies or transfer your files ('savegame' and 'Playerprefs') by locating the files in the directory that shows when you press DEBUG on page 7 of the options. You can transfer savegames between all platforms, and you can transfer Playerprefs (achievements) from mobile to PC/Mac, but not Playerprefs from PC/Mac to mobile.
6. there is no quest to retrieve the tools from the gnome burrows in the north. That is just a bit of narrative from the guy that lost them.
7. If you think you completed a quest and the NPC is not triggering the reward, try leaving the dialogue and talking to him again, using the quest related topics either from the quick left choices or in the QUEST sub-folder of topics on the right side. Sometimes if you do things in an odd order, the normal chain of conversation events is not clear and you need to bring the topic up.
8. there is no downside to losing an arena fight. no XP loss for 'dying' etc. Try them purely for fun and rewards. Some are intentionally tough though. The river city chapter 2 arena challenge disappears and is not there anymore in chapter 3 (replaced), so if you want to complete them all with one party don't do the chasm chapter-ending fight before you got that arena off your list.
9. You can leave notes in the MAP mode to mark your current location in a specific colour and leave a 50 char message. You can mark things like locked chests, cool monster spawners, trainers, quest givers etc. For busy maps like Tartessos this is HUGELY helpful. Once notes are in a map, you can click on the note for the map view to jump there (just the view window will jump, not the party). Each note also shows the relative coordinates compared to your current position.
10. if you want to see your unidentified items quickly, sort them by value ('$'), they then land at the very end.
11. IDENTIFY skill works automatically when you find something. If an item shows as unidentified then you tried all your luck. Take it to a shop for ID'ing for a small fee (or Parnosz for free!).
12. shops have a SPECIAL button to sell/ID a lot of stuff in one go. Be careful with it though (refer: BACKUPS ...).
13. if you like an item but it is too expensive, pay 10% to HOLD it. You still need to pay 100% to buy later though. And only one per shop.
14. if you are already a very advanced player and are trying to tick of the tough TIGHT-ARSE or ZERO-DEATH achievements, then take note of the crazy walled-in prisoner in the outlaw camp, he can tell you how many times (if at all) you violated any of the two related counters.
15. 'vs. undead' bonus only impacts melee and ranged weapon/unarmed attacks, not spells. Weapon bonuses (magic damage on a staff) also only impacts hitting something with the staff, not spells you cast. Just the way I chose to design it, could have been done differently but then I would have needed to nerf/balance it down.
16. Spellcasters cast spells faster by having a higher spell level. Not by having a higher physical speed. The speed stat does not impact spellcasting time or recovery. Speed impact on physical actions in combat is relative straight forward, but if you want to know more read the ‘combat’ section of the steam guide referred to at the bottom of this article.
17. Increasing Dex will boost evasion and speed and accuracy, increasing Str will boost physical damage. Both to some extent boost resistances. They have many smaller effects. Also, Str/Dex in excess of the required Str/Dex of an item lowers the malus (negative impact) to speed/evasion it quotes (for example heavy armor), up to fully negating it if you have double the required Str/Dex respectively. Equipping something with LESS than the required Str/Dex (through some tricks) yields progressively drastic speed / evasion penalties.
18. Higher weapon type proficiency unlocks new attack styles. Don't forget to select one or upgrade once you trained your skill (also over time). Proficiency also increases accuracy 1 point per point. And to make things more interesting, each item has its own combination and proficiency threshold for attack styles. So once you are highly proficient you may want to check out some cheap versions of different items to see what you can do with a staff at proficiency 90 ... (hint).
19. auto-save on map change is activated by default. Because on mobile devices in particular accidental app closing can occur if the operating system goes to sleep. But you can deactivate it in the options menu.
20. If you ever receive a ‘defeat monster X’ type of quest and you defeated it already, just talk to the person again (sometimes twice) and it will trigger the completion and reward for that quest. No harm done.
21. Almost anything gets harder or easier if you change the difficulty setting in the options menu. This is mainly meant to be used half-way during your first playthrough to calibrate the game to your liking. It should be challenging in my opinion, so I recommend ‘hard’ for RPG fans, ‘normal’ as default, ‘easy’ if you are having trouble, and ‘suicidal’ only for hardcore nuts that want to test if they know enough exploits and tricks to survive. Unlike many other games nowadays, very high difficulty does NOT give you a whole offsetting array of rewards. EVERYTHING is more difficult. Only exception is you have a better chance to get maximum allowed number of loot items from mobs and chests, and a notch higher max loot value. But that is not nearly offsetting the uphill battle that is created for you overall.
22. There are many long time players that have their own way of playing. This can involve grinding, farming, exploits, minmax strategies etc. This game is meant to work without any of these. Finding exploits is fun. Being told about them very early on is NOT. So don’t look for a complete set of game-winning moves. You don't need them. Explore for yourself. If stuck, ask for help in the forums or the facebook group (search for 'Dungeons of Chaos - Gameplay Discussion (Closed) Group' in facebook). But please don’t stop finding your own cool ways to beat the game. This is not a multiplayer game so it purposefully contains many ways to beat it, overpowered things you can get your hands on, exploits you can find, and paths to beat the bosses.
23. Once you complete the game and look through the tougher achievements, you may come across the ‘tight arse’ one. The way it works in details is, you can use gold to train skills or identify items or enhance items, and you can of course sell them. But you cannot BUY an item or spellbook.
24. Read signs and signposts, and tombstones and graffiti!
25. Don’t think morals have no impact at some point in your life. Be warned! In general, chapter 3 is less lenient in some RPG-kind of ways…
26. Have fun and don’t overthink it. If in doubt, drop a question in the forums or FB group.
For many (more) in-game tips and mechanics, from character creation to stats to combat mechanics to damage and armor, this guide is pretty useful: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1159282013
