CARDINAL QUEST 2 PATCH 1.19: KEEPING ORDER

34 Comments on “CARDINAL QUEST 2 PATCH 1.19: KEEPING ORDER”

1. “It is no longer possible to use a Whetstone without an equipped weapon.”
   I thought i was just sharpening my nails

2. i literally thought that btw

3. NOOO!! why can i no longer have the worlds sharpest fists with a pugilist D:

4. so glad to see a bit of an upgrade to wizard!!!

5. There is a legendary weapon (I cant remember the name) that makes you jump over enemies that are far away from you, doing a critical hit. I hate it because doesnt identify scavengers, allies and enemies, You simply end jumping into a easy dead.

6. restless blade?

7. You mean the best weapon in the game, Reckless Blade?

   I once got to Consecrate that. Easiest Suicide Act 3 run ever.

   Don’t think it autocrits, though.

8. haha. The dumb thing is, the whetstone wasn’t doing anything! It just got used up. This at least reserves it for Combine on Gunslinger builds.

   pez: One of my rules for Legendary items is, whenever possible, they have to add an unexpected way of getting you killed. They’re usually very powerful in the right build, so it keeps things interesting 😀

9. And I see you kept that philosophy up with your newest weapon. For some reason I was reminded of that Itchy and Scratchy episode Tears of a Clone, except you run out of clones.

10. I actually saw whetstone upping hand damage before. It at least displayed a damage increase message , getting damage slightly up.
    Enslave buff is tho the best thing that happened to wiz. Now only if paladin would be better in acts…or at least noncombatant would have a way to deal with enemies without murdering them and losing xp early on.

11. By the way, if i may give you a suggestion, i think that early game of act 2 is way harder than both first and last act,s one for such classes as theif or paladin.

12. You know, I’ve been playing a wizard through a tower run on mobile recently, having played it in some old patches too, and I feel like some of the things that might make the Wizard better in the acts while not being too great late in the Tower would

    1: make Willpower go back to being a tower scaling talent. Long haul, it can’t keep up, which is arguably fine, but I suggest this more for synergy with…

    2: Make Leech conflict with nothing, and Willpower and Inspiration conflict with each other. I feel Leech is untenable in the acts (because I’d rather have inspiration+ a randomly found skill 99% of the time), and, even though it scales in the tower, still looks kinda bad compared to having inspiration (I’ve felt the loss of inspiration even though leech has been reasonably effective), while meanwhile if you had to choose BETWEEN Willpower and Inspiration you wouldn’t have the old ‘spam resist ignoring charms/fireballs/iceblasts/etc for days’ thing, you’d have to pick between increasingly high inspiration shenanigans (still potentially perfectly valid for buffs etc) and the ability to effectively ignore resist for sleep/charm/attack spells/etc.

13. i agree, i dont understand why willpower was changed in the first place, other than there was a bug that caused high willpower to cause enemy magic resist to go incredibly high or something but that was patched
    and i think both leach and judgement dont compare well to their alternatives, because unlimited crits as long as you have decent attack and are comboing is much better than 1-3 healing every 20ish turns when you kill an enemy, leach is also mediocre but heals twice as much without requiring kills

14. I love the thought that has gone into this game, and am amazed by the replay value.

    My only quibble is that playing with the Alchemist in the tower punishes players on levels that require a key to exit. You basically have to drop an item to exit. This applies to every class, but is particularly punishing for The Alchemist.

    An easy fix would be to have the locked staircase require two clicks. The first quick would unlock it and use up the key enabling the player to go back and get the dropped item. Then she could just proceed up the stairs with whatever items she chose to pick up

15. I love your game.

    It would be really awesome if the Ranger could optionally start with the Vital Strike skill (Close Quarters Ranger Perk), and optionally start out with a Hunting Barb and a protective Cloak (Gear).

    Those two would be really awesome! 🙂

    Thank you for the greatest iPhone game!

16. I was thinking the Hunter’s Barb/Cloak combo could be under Gear and called “Scout” perhaps and cost 8000 Morale?

    Either way, that combo as Gear would be great, and the Cloak could have slightly enhanced Defense and Speed.

    The Cloak could even be called “Ranger’s Cloak”. 🙂

17. Thanks for the game and for continuing to work on it. Love it.

    I agree with the note about Act II starting out very tough (wolf stampede + random death lurking murkas followed by super-speed monkfest lol). Primarily for Ranger, Paladin and Alchemist (well actually any class that isn’t beefy so I could add wiz and thief to that but they are a bit more managable).

    I haven’t nailed down a solid enough playstyle for paladin and alchemist, still fiddling with ranger builds too.
    Surprised to not see the tier 2 and 3 classes (minus pugilist) not get balanced up a bit but it could just be my playstyles.. Pugilist is by FAR the strongest character for me, surprised it got buffed before the others (besides consecrate) but am excited to try it out. Definitely avoided chi till now.

    I found it way easier to do all the suicide runs and achievements like “Long Run” and the one where you can’t take damage versus completing just one suicide run with Alchemist or Pal on the last two acts. I think it is just so hard for pal to get started but once started, seems to fair better. Love noncombatant though, only way I have figured out how to wreck levels with pal. Surprisingly fun and unique.

    Also, it would be fun to see other classes have a better chance somehow at getting through to very high levels in the tower. Thief is the only one I can think of that could possibly get up REAL high. Got to 200 and blinked in front of the boss and got charged so I could of kept going even through level 200. Especially with how fast enemies get including that it just isn’t at all feasible to try and have enough attack or defense. I could have 30 each and my chances still stay zero lol.

    Wouldn’t have these opinions or played for so long if the game wasn’t awesome. Definitely not bashing.

    Thanks for your work.

    P.S. – One other thing and this definitely isn’t your fault but it would be nice if the leaderboards were score hacker free. I play on android and would love to see what people have actually accomplished.

18. any chance CQ2 will end up on gog.com? I’d like to give the pc version a go, but not particularly fond of steam. Also, is there controller support?

19. Personally, I think that if you want to balance the pugilist, you should change “fighting words” to perhaps ” fighting stance” that would give him the “heavy” bonus for additional crit damage. It would fit his character more and he can’t get it any other way.

20. So Uh is 1.19 for Android supposed to be debug mobile build? It’s got a lot of… Debugging features that I’m pretty sure aren’t supposed to be there.

21. @Legend it’s on Kongregate, for one, if you don’t want to be on steam. Free and everything.

    @Billy I don’t think you are considering balance with that suggestion very well. Currently, the best gear you can start with is mostly sidegrades pus the Accurate shortsword the Fencer wizard gets. Hunters Barb alone is a tier 2 sort of item that doesn’t show up until later and would largely out compete both the Brisk Leather Shoes (same stealth bonus) and the Axe (faster, same backstab damage) BEFORE adding anything else.

    By contrast, the most powerful item I can think of as a gear choice that isn’t replacing a piece of starter gear (eg the Boxers Mitts replace your in built gloves so the net gain is 1 attack 1 max damage, not two attck 1 max damage) is the thief Sneaking Cape… Which costs you your starting dagger and can cause serious early difficulties.

22. Is it the nova scroll? Also I got to lvl 56 twice with warrior. Stealth is super op. Healing pots need higher drop rate if possible. More opportunities for skill points would be perfect.

23. I think it might be interesting to see the paladin separated into two characters, the crusader and a stealth/faith based priest or rabbi. He would get all of the less combat based skills: noncombatant, taking donations, etc. and maybe haste or glide. He could maybe start with heal, a holy staff, and a cross for 1 faith and stealth, or 1 magic resist and stealth, I don’t know.

24. Hello I’m back again. I would like a full explanation on the two effects you can get with the transfusion spell. If you use the spell on a spirit from a scroll, it gives you summoned health, and if you use it on anything with more health than your max, it gives you surplus health. How exactly do these work? Also the alchemists healing ability, invigorate, should probably be percentage based, 5% or so per level, especially in the tower.

25. Nova scroll has been around for a bi, it’s not that. Invigorate being percentage based could be interesting, but at 5% it’d be a massive nerf to an already iffy skill outside the tower. And in the tower, it’d probably be too strong. Currently, it’s 2 hp per item per level, or thereabouts. You’d need 60 hp, give or take, to get back more from it as 5% per than as is, which would require something like relentlessly boosting Toughness to get to, or use the vampiric accessory whatsit, which you can’t count on. Meanwhile, having a skill that makes any item you use potentially be healing ALL your hp once deep enough (and even at like 25% that’s nuts)… on the alchemist, who generates extra items.

26. @billy gave me an idea, what if the alchemist could get a random unique piece of gear from another class, for example the warrior’s token or the pugilist’s boots? It could be an item called treasure chest or something that would work similarly to the spellbook, because that way if you were to get say the thief’s fancy hat, you could choose between that and the goggles. It might be a better combo with the labcoat than a powder bomb.

27. I’ve been playing for quite some time now, and now that I’ve completed every achievement, I have been trying to get to floor 61 in the tower with every class (without continues). So far, I’m 5/7, missing Pugilist and Ranger. Here’s my two cents on each class’s viability:

    Fighter: Decent, but very reliant on finding enough good equipment with enough ATK and SPD to stay ahead of the enemies. Frenzy scales nicely to help survive hard-hitting nasties, and the +2 DEF skill give much-needed stat points. However, the +damage talent (impact) isn’t worth putting skill points into at all; perhaps it could also gave +1% crit chance per point without unbalancing the Acts? Overall, I like where the Fighter sits – getting to the 61st requires luck, but isn’t terribly painful to play.

    Thief: Probably the easiest class to reach floor 61 with. Stealth Weapon Mastery gives the thief enough damage scaling to keep one-shoting enemies past floor 100, and Shadow Mastery keeps you alive. The only stats you really need are speed and stealth, and so a drought of good items won’t kill you. In my opinion, does not need any buffs.

    Wizard: My favourite class, but falls off hard past floor 60. I usually go for enslave, charm monster, and magic mirror, which keeps a wall of friendlies between me and the enemies. The ever-climbing magic resist starts to really hurt when it takes several casts of charm monster to turn an ogre away, and fireball’s DPS becomes negligible. I’d like to see the enemies’ increased magic resist cap at +2, both for the wizard’s sake and everyone else’s, which in my mind is more elegant than letting Willpower scale again.

    Ranger: I can’t say much here, but oh is the bow underpowered. The poison arrow scales, the dog’s damage scales, the bow really doesn’t. I feel it should really use the whetstone damage formula.

    Pugilist: I’m not experienced enough with this class to judge it. No comment.

    Paladin: Consecrate is great additional weapon damage, and that’s enough. Judgement scales nicely without feeling overpowered, but there aren’t any other scaling skills that are more important than combat stats. I can never justify putting any skill points into the +faith skill, as while lower cooldowns are nice, attack and health are necessary, leaving my paladin to feel like a less effective fighter/alchemist. Perhaps a passive (non-scaling) skill that converted faith over 10 into additional speed, at a 2:1 faith:speed ratio that also conflicts with consecrate? Overall, pretty much the same needs as the fighter: find good gear with +ATK and +SPD or death will find you, but with with more raw damage and fewer stat points.

    Alchemist: Also known to me as the “What RNG?” class. The Tinkerer skill keeps every piece of gear in top-quality condition so I never have to pray the RNG gifts me with a new pair of artisan gauntlets or hermes sandals. Craft and Combine work together to give me enough whetstones to make a paladin’s consecrated weapon looks dull, and I get a seemingly limitless supply of time elixirs and invulnerability potions. Overconfidence is my only weakness!

    Tl; dr:
    Thief > Alchemist > Wizard > Fighter > Paladin > Pugilist > Ranger.

    Also, why is the +HP per enchantment on items so low? One skill point on say, a paladin, is worth either 1 enchantment of attack or faith, or 2.5 enchantments of health. This makes items with +HP stats very undesirable past floor 20.

28. jjj

29. Hi randomnine, would it be a good idea to make your recruited allies lvl up when you lvl up? Like the dog does.

30. “Also, why is the +HP per enchantment on items so low? One skill point on say, a paladin, is worth either 1 enchantment of attack or faith, or 2.5 enchantments of health. This makes items with +HP stats very undesirable past floor 20.”

    This has ALWAYS bugged me. The worst hp per point of skills is four-Wizard, Thief. The best HP gear, however….

    Full Helmet: 6 hp. But it equivalentizes to an Impenetrable Helm, in teiring, for +2 defense. These are… equally valuable/valueless for the Fighter, since Defense is, in general, valued low on the two classes (fighter, wizard) that get it directly. There’s also the Crested Helm (speed and 4 hp, better item since, for example, for the thief that’s two points worth vs 1/5 points worth) and the King’s Golden Helm (debatably worse, since it’s the same value on, say, the wizard, 1.5, since it’s a toughness plus half a forcefield vs 1.5 toughness, but in practice it’s better than the Full Helmet on act 3 and the tower since you need SOME magic resist to really survive them)

    Ambush Boots: 4 ho and a stealth. Or I could take Hermes Sandals for 2 speed and a stealth. For the thief, that’s 3 stat worth instead of two, AND toughness has no cap so I can for example invest 6 in it where in the acts i max at 4 in speed and the tower the same+1 per twenty floors, of course. There’s also ‘king’s boots’ but those are even WORSE items, since they trade a stealth (full point worth for classes that get it) for a single more hp (1/4th worth for classes that have really bad hp)

    Achilles Bracer: 3 hp. It equivalentizes to the other low tier gloves, gloves of dexterity for one attack (value of a skill point on most classes), the leather vambraces for one faith (value of a skillpoint on Paladin, only class with a skill for it), and… the magic resist gloves who’s name escapes me. Point is, 1 magic resist (unfortunately, that’s the value of HALF a skill point, since the only class with a +resist skill per se is mage and force field also gives defense). Meanwhile, it’s… 3/4ths to 3/7ths of a skill point in value depending on class (though bizarrely enough the Pugilist is one of the most likely to take it since he gets an attack and speed out of footwork, so it’s closer to equal compared to gloves of dexterity for him)

    King’s Grasp: the high end hp glove, and it’s bad. Where the Achilles Bracer compares to the low end gloves, this compares to the higher end. I’d rather have the Artisan Gauntlets on any attack based class since they’re a full three points worth instead of 1.8 or worse (Paladin has an extra hitpoint over King’s Grasp if he takes a rank in toughness, which means for example a Paladin can drop a rank in precision for a rank in toughness to run artisan Gauntlets and come out 1 hp 1 attack ahead). Even comparing to, for example, Chainmail gloves runs into the fact that a Paladin with toughness and Chainmail Gloves comes out a hit point ahead and otherwise identical to one with the +faith skill and a king’s grasp. And you can take an arbitrary number of ranks in toughness if needed, while +faith has a cap past which you simply can’t.

    Any ‘hearty’ or +1’d hp boost in tower: it’s +2 hp. Other item enchantment properties are worth plus 1. Except defense and magic resist, that’s the typical skill valueing. For defense and magic resist, 2 hp is half the BAD HP class hp per point. For the other four classes (discounting pugilist because he’s complex to talk about here), it’s less. The fighter would rather have + effects on defense than hp, even though he has a proprietary defense skill, because he can take infinite toughness and trading ‘hp from gear and defense from skilling’ for the reverse leads to a stronger character.

    Incidentally, it finally occurred to me what’s long bugged me about Stone Skin and to a lesser extent Holy Armor: Skill Point Value. (Holy Armor is complicated to talk about, not only because Thorns is an unusual effect in the first place, but because it scales to faith. An unmodified fighter doesn’t get any thorns, a Devout Paladin starts out getting +3 thorns). Stone Skin is +6 Defense and -1 Speed. A neat mod of 5 points… before you take into account that classes with +defense pay 1 for 2. At that point, it’s a mod of +2, net, considering the speed loss. While Bless Weapon is +5, Glide is +6 AND flight, and Haste is +6, berserk is +6. Holy Armor being a measly +1.5 from that perspective but hey it’s got scaling Thorns as already noted so it’s weird. It’s a terrible skill at 8 or less faith but rather hilarious at really high values like 19+

    So Stone Skin (and holy armor for low faith classes) are just really LOW amounts of stats gained, in that valueing context, so I’d rather have say Bless Weapon and points in Hardening or whatever the fighter +defense skill was called than Stone Skin and points in precision, for a clear example.

31. I play on the android app, and I noticed a few bugs you might want to fix:
    1. It says it runs ‘Mobile Debug Mode v1.19’
    2. When I look at the credits, I get 50000 morale
    3. Spells and attacks can target invisible goblins, but not invisible scavengers and other invisible units.
    4. I was unable to charm scavengers (to be able to buy from them again)
    5. when time is frozen, all skills do not recharge. I think xp-based skills and Head-butt and Pistol should recharge (because recharging them depends on you doing things, rather than merely waiting).
    6. when using the restless blade, sometimes enemies deal damage to me before I deal damage to them.

32. 7. when I target a boss with a spell, sometimes the cut-screen of the boss noticing me stops the spell from having any effect.

33. Would it be possible to change Combine so that you can use higher-tier items to make lower-tier items? For instance, change it such that when you only use one ingredient Combine turns it into scrap materials/strange fluid?

34. I know it’s called cardinal quest, but seriously you need to stop having almost every single exit on the north side of the map. It makes some act and tower runs way too easy because you already know the general area where the exit is. Maybe having the stairs face directions other than upwards is a good idea.

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