1-The game even tells you that you should take a look at the Magical Schools of Anumati. I try not to insult the intelligence of the players and let them explore, like an RPG should be explored, and be rewarded for it. I can't be more direct than that.
At the school of ice, you can talk to the teacher who literally has a quest mark above her head, and will point out to her quest. A old ruin, where you can summon the Orc.
I went into all the schools and read through all the stuff.
I got the info about the orc place. I already explicitly told you that orcs do not drop orc essence. How would I know that if I didn't kill orcs?
I went there and fought some orcs. Killed them... had to go back to heal after every single orc fought because as mentioned the balancing is terrible.
And I got exactly 0 orc essence. I also got exactly zero orc summoning ritual spellbooks.
Also, I noticed the orcs are harder to fight compared to the bandits and mercs. I came to the conclusion that this sidequest is a higher level one I should be doing LATER and that right now I need to go do the main quest that my teacher told me. which is to go to the oasis and poison it.
There is zero indication that instead of fighting the easier bandits and mercenaries you need to fight the tougher orcs, and that after you go deep enough into the orc's dungeon you will get an orc summoning spell.
2-I told you that enemies from chapter ONE drop very little compared to enemies of chapter FIVE.
Plus, it perfectly fits the lore. In Succubus Covenant, runes and relics are the base for power, specially for mages.
Runes and relics are rare, and insanely expensive for anyone but the elite.
As you grow as an Warlock, you will become part of the elite and make much more money.
I also don't deal with huge numbers. Like +1000 of damage. +2 +3 etc is much better for me and it makes a difference once equipped.
It makes a very very small difference. I cheated by giving myself 10 million gold. then bought all +5 gear (cost nearly 2 million for just MC and the imp)... MC damage went up from 30 to 40. whoop dee dah.
Also, you say you are not into huge numbers, yet you went from 150 gold to 100,000 gold. Those are huge numbers
When I play tested the game, spells were very useful, but not overpowered, and most of them had side effects that could work to your advantage. Like paralyzing an enemy.
While paralysis is useful, you literally can only cast the "2 turn paralysis" spell once because it costs 75 MP to cast. which is utterly insane.
MP is valuable. If you blow all your MP like that you need to run back to town to sleep for a day to restore it.
4-Are you even selling the items you got from the enemies? Or are you just trying to collect the little coins they had?
Your main income isn't the money that the enemies drop, but the DROPS themselves. Spears, broken spears, Silver Jars, etc
Yes, I am selling the items. been selling the drops from orcs and bandits and the results were very very low.
as for merc spears. didn't get around to selling them. but mercs do not respawn.
-Sell the stuff they drop
completely unreasonable busywork. Why can't the MC say "this is junk... i will just have the slaves sell it later" after his first fight to justify enemies dropping "treasure" instead of vendor trash you need to manually hawk?
and each time you talk to a vendor you are forced to listen to their entire conversation before you are given the option to shop. instead of doing like every other game does where you click on the vendor and it offers you to pick between:
[shop]
[talk]
[leave]
5-Read what I said above and you will understand how easily it is to become powerful.
-Summon the orc
Oh yea, just explore massive maps until you find the quest. then go to the place, then ignore what you promised IC (that you will back out if you see it is dangerous), then fight your way through much tougher enemies then expected, then find a completely unexpected boon. Yea perfectly reasonable first step
-Buy spells and equipment
Not worth the money or time of harvesting. because they are terribly balanced.
The game is not impossible hard... its not rocket science. I did not FAIL... I just got bored and my wrists started hurting. I found that even with cheats I am wasting hours on punishing unrewarding grinding.
For example, I gave up after acquiring the leaf succubus. With her the party would grow from 2 to 3 giving a powerful action economy boost and allowing me to overcome the orc dungeon. I probably would have gotten to it not too long afterwards and thus gotten a 4th party member, the orc. thus improving things further.
But possible is not the same as well balanced, fun, or good. The grind is painful and it is chock full of anti features.