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Good places to practice various skills...

Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2008 11:25 pm
by Heavenslaughing
My idea here is to edit this first post as people chime in. Many ideal means to practice skills carry over from the original, but some don't. For example, in the original, I could wander around on stealth mode for a day or two and expect a 200 fairly shortly. In the remake, I wear my stamina out rapidly this way with very little skill increase. Some of these are obvious, and some are not. Only a few are cheesy. With no further ado...

Weapon Use: Guild Hall with Uhura. Put skill on easy and abuse the basic swing-plunge combo.
Dodge: Guild Hall with Uhura. Use the combat assist. Set it all the way to defend, and all the way to dodge. Put skill on easy. Challenge Uhura. Sit back and watch, occasionally moving forward if your hero jumps himself into a corner.
Parry: Guild Hall with Uhura. Put skill on easy. Holding down the parry button works, though you'll get smacked a few times for want of bothering with timing.

Stealth: Normally rises gradually by keeping speed on high and staying on stealth mode. Wander around stealthily in the first house Dinarzad asks you to rob, and your skill will rise rapidly. I believe breaking into this house nixes your Paladin chances, however. Are there quick-rise locations that don't?
Pick Locks: Steadily picking standard doors will increase this skill slowly; once your skill is high enough, you can click your toolkit on yourself to pick your nose. You can hold the kit over yourself and hold down enter; just watch your stamina.
Throwing: Buy a set of daggers, throw them around any unpopulated area, pick them up again, repeat. Great physical exercise for all stats. Picking up large numbers of rocks can work even better.
Climbing: Hooray, in the remake it's possible to climb the tree near the dervish! In the original, you could barely practice climbing anywhere.

Magic: If you play Keapon Laffin's game, he'll fully recharge your magic each time you win after you've already won the two prizes. That means you can cast spells all day long without the significant expense of mana pills. Of course, you'll need to get pretty adept at the game. Force bolt will be the only spell you amp up here whose skill rating particularly matters. Otherwise, pelt enemies with spells in combat.

Communication: Keep chatting up Merv the Griffin just to the west of Shapeir. This spam method is slightly cheesy, but it makes sense, considering you're continually attempting to interpret a foreign language. Alternatively, practice your manners on long conversations with Aziza.

Honor: Someone has already identified a cheese method on the boards, but I honestly don't consider it within the spirit or intent of the game, so I will just let Honor remain the truly role-played stat.

Strength: Throwing works best. Combat or other forms of exertion also work.
Intelligence: Nose-picking and chatting up the Griffin worked for me.
Vitality: Exerting yourself or tiring yourself out in any way. Running works wonders.
Agility: Nose-picking, tightrope-walking, tree-climbing, and throwing all work well.

Luck: Dodging practices luck, so you can also practice this with Uhura using the same automated dodge method. The two will rise almost equally quickly.

What has everyone else found?

Re: Good places to practice various skills...

Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2008 12:21 am
by Colchek
One thing I've noticed is that the remake allows you to rest outside of the Inn, which allows you to practice lock picking a lot. I got mine up to 200 in three days easy by just picking doors (and my nose!) a lot. All of which is in preparation for that third job. I like that it gives you a reason to get your lock-picking skill up, because that one box is hard to pick. Before, you could break into the metalworker and weapon smith's places with your starting skill, and really had no reason to work it beyond that. I haven't tried it in the old version yet, but the resting option now lets you skip a lot of waiting in Raseir, even with the time scale at max. If I recall, trying to rest anywhere but in an inn room got a 'You really can't rest here' message. I rested in the Blue Parrot Inn and it jumped straight to evening. Yay!

Re: Good places to practice various skills...

Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2008 2:28 am
by Morningstar
you know what makes pick lock skill obsolete?

The Open spell, even at low levels it can defeat most locks.

Re: Good places to practice various skills...

Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2008 5:16 am
by AtypicalChuck
That Griffin trick was the best. I was wondering why there wasn't any way of getting maxed communication skills in this game just from normal conversation and bartering (at least it wasn't the case for me!) and this will make it easier to afford potions to get my spell levels up :D

Re: Good places to practice various skills...

Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2008 6:02 am
by HoustonDragon
There is a normal way for Communication, but it takes a long time. Remember, always be on your best manners when talking to Aziza.

Re: Good places to practice various skills...

Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2008 6:33 am
by Jack Sawyer
HoustonDragon wrote:There is a normal way for Communication, but it takes a long time. Remember, always be on your best manners when talking to Aziza.
One thing I've done in the old agme (and I tested in the new game, so it works there) is bargain to buy flowers from the flower merchant, ,and then give those to Shema constantly. They'll raise both honor AND communications. And, honestly, its tsill kinda a cheap way to raise stats, but its not as cheap as some other ways, and its efficient too.

Re: Good places to practice various skills...

Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2008 6:52 am
by Quest For Glory Fan
Heavenslaughing wrote: Stealth: Normally rises slowly. Wander around stealthily in the first house Dinarzad asks you to rob, and your skill will rise rapidly. I believe breaking into this house nixes your Paladin chances, however, so where would work that doesn't?
Just sneak EVERYWHERE, I put the speed to the max and just used stealth instead of walk til it maxed out. then I ran after that to increase vitality.
Pick Locks: ??? Nose-picking used to increase your skill reliably, and it didn't cost stamina. Now the skill increase for picking doors or your nose is squat, and you'll tire out quickly. Maybe I'm not picking the best doors.
Nose picking is still the best way. Just keep doing it til you get exhausted then rest an hour or take some green awesome and repeat. You can max it in 2 days. oh and also, dont do it when there are people around :p
Throwing: Buy a set of daggers, throw them around any unpopulated area, pick them up again, repeat. Great physical exercise for all stats.
A better method I found was to pick up rocks. In this version when you pick up items it becomes the new active cursor so pick up rocks. Hold enter. Pick up rocks repeat. This way you can keep a closer eye on your stamina and not die. Or take the risky approach like I did and pick up about 300 rocks ata time. Set up the enter key and leave the computer, come back and hope your character isn't dead.
Climbing: Hooray, in the remake it's possible to climb the tree near the dervish! In the original, you could barely practice climbing anywhere.

Magic: If you play Keapon Laffin's game, he'll fully recharge your magic each time you win after you've already won the two prizes. That means you can cast spells all day long without the significant expense of mana pills. Of course, you'll need to get pretty adept at the game. Force bolt will be the only spell you amp up here whose skill rating particularly matters.
[size=150]Also see how many baddies you can kill in a row with pure magic, even more fun if you're not a magic user.[/size]
Communication: Keep chatting up Merv the Griffin just to the west of Shapeir. This spam method is slightly cheesy, but it makes sense, considering you're continually attempting to interpret a foreign language.
I used this method and it took a lot longer than expected. Be sure to have some enter key set up that will hold the button, go make a snack, eat it, go for a jog, come back home, go to the washroom, read the newspaper and come back and it might be getting close. Also save your game after.... I made the mistake of dyig in the next screen.

Strength, Intelligence, Vitality, and Agility will all rise with appropriate forms of exercise. They do so easily and frequently enough that I haven't singled out best methods as yet.
Agility can be raised by walking the tightrope and by picking your nose (weird I know) Intellingence is raised by doing magic (or picking your nose) and Vitality can be increased by running everywhere (and exerting yourself to the point of pain... say by picking your nose.) Strength increases best when you throw things so refer to above.

Luck: ??? Dodging practices luck, so you can also practice this with Uhura. Still, luck on the whole rises slowly.?

Re: Good places to practice various skills...

Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2008 3:09 pm
by Goilveig
Any special tricks to weapon use as a thief?

I can beat Uhura but I get like 1 point of weapon use per match, sometimes 2... and I need 60 more points. I've tried slashing, stabbing, or just doing the slash/stab combo over and over, none seem very fast.

Re: Good places to practice various skills...

Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2008 3:31 pm
by Erpy
The swing/plunge combo is probably the quickest way to improve weapon use.

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Re: Good places to practice various skills...

Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2008 4:41 pm
by Colchek
Even with thieves and magic users, I still venture out into the desert to raise strength and combat skills, because even the magic user and thief have a need sometimes for a large carrying capacity. I head out in the evening, armed with a stockpile of healing pills and vigor pills, and just kick butt until midnight, then head back to sleep. With around 15 nights to play with, you have lots of time to raise your skills. Yeah, it's rough going at first, but after a couple nights it gets easier as your skills improve. My thief nearly had 190 strength and weapon use when I finished the game with him (and that's because I wanted to finish and didn't work him as hard.) Besides, the fights are fun. :D

Re: Good places to practice various skills...

Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2008 9:06 pm
by Jack Sawyer
I never bothered with frequent sleeping till dawn as a fighter until day 16. I fought the entire night out in the desert (Best time to do so) and did most of what I needed to at night as well. Daytime was always spent in the town (mainly training at the guild hall, but elsewhere too.)

As a rule I was always running a mutliclass character, so I always had some magic and thievery. Alot of these skills I left til Raseir to practice (Throwing and alot of the noncombat magc spells in particular.)

As a rule I generlaly prioritize: Combat stuff first (fighting uhura) and other skills second if I can help it. Might nto work for thieves always, but it works well for fighters and magic users.

Buying a larrge stockpile of vigor pills (which are cheap) also helps. Its alwys one of the reasons I try to import huge amounts of money in at the getgo. (at least 300 gold if I can help it, 500 is more helpful, more if you run other skils, especially magic) Vigor pills save you the need for going back to the inn for rest (I was cheap for a long time and acutally managed to max out before day 16, but using vigor pills speeds it up quite a bit. You can combine the two if you want to save money, its really a tradeoff between time and money here :P)

Magic users also need to invest in magic pills, so they're the most "expensive" to max out quickly, but if you have alot of dough (and prepare in Spielburg before importing) you can do it.

Healing pills are useufl, but mainyl for combat, and more early on (and for non-fighters)

And I always fought no more than one (or two at the VERY most) screens from the Oasis, so I had a quick refuge in case things went bad. Usually I liked to keep close to the edge of the screen that the Oasis was in, coming in from the "sides" rather than top/bottom (more time to react, usually.

Note that I'm sure some fo my stratetegies fro the EGA version will require modification when I play the VGA version, but maybe this will help some :P

Re: Good places to practice various skills...

Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2008 10:54 pm
by CoredesatChikai
Talking to the griffin also seems to increase intelligence quite a bit. I put something heavy on the enter key so I would talk to the griffin repeatedly and left the room for a bit. When I came back, my communication was 200 (from 118) and my intelligence was 172 (from 106).

Re: Good places to practice various skills...

Posted: Fri Aug 29, 2008 1:25 am
by Schloss Ritter
Jack Sawyer wrote:I never bothered with frequent sleeping till dawn as a fighter until day 16. I fought the entire night out in the desert (Best time to do so) and did most of what I needed to at night as well. Daytime was always spent in the town (mainly training at the guild hall, but elsewhere too.)
That just reminded me that when I played the original QfG2, I rarely let the hero sleep and just took the hit in stamina (didn't even notice it going down faster) so that I could practice all day and night. I was usually able to max everything in not too long, which gave me plenty of time to catch up on sleep later.

Re: Good places to practice various skills...

Posted: Fri Aug 29, 2008 2:45 am
by Crowley9
Schloss Ritter wrote:That just reminded me that when I played the original QfG2, I rarely let the hero sleep and just took the hit in stamina (didn't even notice it going down faster) so that I could practice all day and night. I was usually able to max everything in not too long, which gave me plenty of time to catch up on sleep later.
Maybe winners do not cheat, but they do abuse drugs like there's no tomorrow. Then again, with an apocalyptic über-demon being summoned...

Re: Good places to practice various skills...

Posted: Fri Aug 29, 2008 8:13 am
by Heavenslaughing
Putting our heads together, we've found a good way to practice pretty much everything in the remake. Stealth still feels slow to me generally, and it rises much quicker in a thieving situation where it's required. Are there any quick-rise stealth situations that don't nix a hero's chance to become a paladin?

Re: Good places to practice various skills...

Posted: Fri Aug 29, 2008 1:34 pm
by Anonymous Game Creator 2
The best way to boost stealth is to sneak up on monsters in the desert.

Re: Good places to practice various skills...

Posted: Sun Aug 31, 2008 6:08 am
by Goilveig
For leveling up throwing via rocks, a very good approximation is 2 rocks = 1 stamina.

So just pick up double the rocks as your current SP and throw away. No real guesswork needed.

Each 1 hour rest generates 75 stam or 150 rocks.

Re: Good places to practice various skills...

Posted: Sun Aug 31, 2008 8:19 am
by Asrai
Has anybody figured out a good way to max out a pure fighter's intelligence? I know he really just needs to be smart enough to figure out that the pointy end goes into the monster, but I can't stand that it's the only stat I'm not positive I can max out before the end of the game.

Re: Good places to practice various skills...

Posted: Sun Aug 31, 2008 10:27 am
by Erpy
The fighter gets some additional intelligence points for solving some major puzzles that the other classes don't get. (what it says about the game's idea of his mental capacities, I'll leave up for debate. :p ) In addition, you get very tiny intelligence boosts for the various defensive/counter moves. Backflip and skullsplitter give "most" (still not much), followed by ducking/jumping melee attacks, followed by blocking or sidestepping them.

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Re: Good places to practice various skills...

Posted: Sun Aug 31, 2008 6:32 pm
by Goilveig
Asrai wrote:Has anybody figured out a good way to max out a pure fighter's intelligence?
Easy but cheesy? Go to the griffin, put the mouth cursor over him, and put a roll of quarters on the enter key, and come back 30 min later. Should take care of comm and int for you.

Re: Good places to practice various skills...

Posted: Sun Aug 31, 2008 7:04 pm
by Asrai
Goilveig wrote:Easy but cheesy? Go to the griffin, put the mouth cursor over him, and put a roll of quarters on the enter key, and come back 30 min later. Should take care of comm and int for you.
Heh, did that already to max out the communication ;) , intelligence didn't seem to be going up by much anymore.
Erpy wrote:The fighter gets some additional intelligence points for solving some major puzzles that the other classes don't get. (what it says about the game's idea of his mental capacities, I'll leave up for debate. :p ) In addition, you get very tiny intelligence boosts for the various defensive/counter moves. Backflip and skullsplitter give "most" (still not much), followed by ducking/jumping melee attacks, followed by blocking or sidestepping them.
No debate here. Every time I hear that little puzzle point bell ringing, I'm thinking, "Good fighter, now do you need a healing pill for that headache? Ugh... no, no, how many times do I have to tell you, you hold the other end of the sword. This pointy end is the one that you stick into the monsters!"

Re: Good places to practice various skills...

Posted: Sun Aug 31, 2008 7:31 pm
by Sinergy
A true warrior can kill faster with the hilt!