No wiki, no reddit, classic only - Got my first completion today... Blown away by the beauty and sophistication of this game
Title says it all, really.
I got a few minutes into Sseth's video several years ago, and turned it off, because I decided I should experience this game for myself... And I meant myself, haha.
200+ hours later, and I've actually beaten it!
And I do not regret it at all. I guess I don't know what it would have been like if I'd used the wiki or checked out guides, but discovering the build and the strategy that worked for me, all on my own was extremely rewarding.
But frankly, the build and the strategy wasn't really what was rewarding - Just experiencing the beautiful storytelling and environments in Qud has kept me coming back to this game time and time again. I first downloaded the game 3 years ago now, and I've never been able to get it out of my head.
I spent my first hundred hours not following the story at all and just screwing around, before I decided I should maybe try the Joppa start for once and see what was cooking there... Maybe those bears in the grit gate had more to offer than schematics! (I'd decided the starter quests weren't worth doing, and just never reconsidered)
I could say a million things, so I'll probably just say not much. You've all played the game too and know how brilliant it is!
My ideal combo ended up being a mutant with Quickness, Double Muscled, Two hearted, Carapace, and Phasing - ALTHOUGH on my winning run, I actually went off piste. I ended up getting fungal on my head and body, and needed a "seedsprout worm" to cure it (I don't think I've ever seen one of them, no idea where to find them), and I would have junked the run there, except I had not one, but TWO dromad merchants in Yd Freehold, which felt too good to be true, so I persisted. Then I found a village in the mushroom forest with a warden who was also a high level ichor merchant, and so I cloned him, cloned the wardens, and got the best gear I could, chanced some neutron flux, ate as much sunslag as I could bear to farm, and just ploughed on with the quest. And it all worked out! When the Girsh thing showed up in the final fight my heatbeat went insane, the visual effects seem SO overpowering in the context of the game asking so much from your imagination, when it gives you so much stimulation off its own bat, it just... Wow. I felt like I was in another dimension, I was almost crying at how beautiful space was, even though it... Shouldn't be, because it's a basic 2d render. That's the magic of qud I guess!
I was only level 32, so surprised I won tbh, cause I've been lvl 40+ and died, but I actually used my attribute increase points rather than "saving" them (Wtf did I think I was saving them for??) and put my mutation buffs into double muscled rather than carapace, because I began to realise that stunning is just... Seriously op. Stun with hits, stun with my shield... Fighting things in groups was dangerous as fuck, but when it came to the girsh, I was able to just stunlock it and kill it before it could hit me at all.
What a ramble, anyway, I'm posting because I'm elated at finally beating the game, and am semi breaking my fast of not consuming any qud spoiling media (I have listened to every damn interview out there with the creators, which only made me love the game more). If anyone wants to know what a blind run was like, happy to answer questions. Idk if it'd even make much of a difference, maybe this way of playing is very normal haha... Let me know!