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Avadon Developer Diary #3


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We have put up Avadon Developer Diary #3. It has lots of nice, solid information about the game system.

 

http://jeff-vogel.blogspot.com/2010/09/avadon-developer-diary-3-character.html

 

Development continues apace, and we still hope to release the game in early 2011.

 

- Jeff Vogel

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I like what I'm seeing. Being able to stay out longer, having more complicated battle tactics, all of the things mentioned seem attractive. I just hope that, because the battles are more about wearing down you and your opponent, they don't turn into long, drawn out clicking sessions.

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Quote:
4. How Difficult Will the Game Be?

The opinions of my fans has been nearly unanimous on this point. Spiderweb games have gotten too hard. I am completely revamping game balance with this in mind.

The normal, default difficulty will not be tough. Unless you go picking fights with dragons, Avadon will be far less tough that previous games. At the same time, I will make sure that the higher difficulty levels push back at you.


What? Spiderweb games have not gotten to hard. They've gotten much, much easier. The early Avernum games, G1, G2, they were unforgiving. You died, often. You had to reload. I think I died three times in A5, and all on the optional superboss areas like Khorya-Vyss. My only deaths in G5 were trying to get the $@$& @*^$ @(&$ $@(& Infiltrator's Charm of running into Unbound when I first hit the Mera-Tev. The games are getting easier, not harder.
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Originally Posted By: Dantius
What? Spiderweb games have not gotten to hard. They've gotten much, much easier. The early Avernum games, G1, G2, they were unforgiving. You died, often. You had to reload. I think I died three times in A5, and all on the optional superboss areas like Khorya-Vyss. My only deaths in G5 were trying to get the $@$& @*^$ @(&$ $@(& Infiltrator's Charm of running into Unbound when I first hit the Mera-Tev. The games are getting easier, not harder.
I disagree, the only spiderweb games that I have yet to beat are A4 and G5. Only reason I managed to beat A6 and A5 is due to the editor...
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Gripe number 1 - Geneforge system where you have the omly one sex choice for each class. I know it cuts down on the number of graphics needed for each class, but still....

 

Gripe number 2 - Making the game too easy. I'll have to see how Jeff implements his plan for making torment harder without alienating the those that play on normal.

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Originally Posted By: Master1
I like what I'm seeing. Being able to stay out longer, having more complicated battle tactics, all of the things mentioned seem attractive. I just hope that, because the battles are more about wearing down you and your opponent, they don't turn into long, drawn out clicking sessions.


it's actually quite likely that the opposite will be the case. if healing is readily available, a fight can continue until you run out of energy potions, pretty much. if healing is more limited, then the length a battle of attrition can last is also more limited

Originally Posted By: Randomizer
Gripe number 2 - Making the game too easy. I'll have to see how Jeff implements his plan for making torment harder without alienating the those that play on normal.


just remember to emphasise how easy the game is so that he makes it harder in a fit of pique like always
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Originally Posted By: Lilith
Originally Posted By: Randomizer
Gripe number 2 - Making the game too easy. I'll have to see how Jeff implements his plan for making torment harder without alienating the those that play on normal.


just remember to emphasise how easy the game is so that he makes it harder in a fit of pique like always


What happened on Avernum 6 was the first round testers got to the end and complaining that things were too easy. Then the second round testers ruined it by saying that they couldn't finish the game because it was too hard. The only thing that got made harder was the final fight after someone said all they had to do was stand there and do nothing for their action.
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* Not much healing: This is an excellent thing. This has long been one of my major gripes with the entire RPG industry, that the overabundance of healing from both spells and items destroys game balance.

 

I am a little worried that there will be so much healing available from items, though, given how much SW games play into the I-could-use-this-consumable-item-or-I-could-just-reload problem.

 

* Ability cooldowns rather than constant trips to town: This is also an excellent thing, particularly in light of A4-A6.

 

* Difficulty: I'm sure Jeff is aware that Torment is not too hard for those of us who enjoy it. But I think his statement about SW games getting harder -- and most fans disliking that -- is right on the money as recent years are concerned. G4 and G5 were both harder than G3, and A6 was harder than A5, which was harder than A4. I do think the game balance has been improving as well, but making Normal easier is probably a good thing.

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Addendum: I understand the whole saving-money-on-graphics thing, but it is TOTALLY RIDICULOUS to have the two physically-oriented classes always be male, while the two magically-oriented classes are always female. Masculine guardians and feminine agents were one thing, but this is a little bit insulting.

 

I also think it's a really bad business decision. There are people who will take one look at those enforced gender roles and be HUGELY turned off. Whether or not you agree with them or even with my reaction, this will happen.

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Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES
* Not much healing: This is an excellent thing. This has long been one of my major gripes with the entire RPG industry, that the overabundance of healing from both spells and items destroys game balance.


i know blaming JRPGs for negative game design trends is kind of a tired thing to do but i think this issue might legitimately have been the fault of JRPGs. look at FF4's end boss: you're basically trading your healing spells for its attacks on a one-to-one basis, and if you can keep that up, you've won. compare, say, world of xeen, which came out around the same time: there's only one full-party healing spell in the entire game, it's not available until a high level, and it ages the caster by 10 years so it's impractical to use it in every fight.

Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES
Addendum: I understand the whole saving-money-on-graphics thing, but it is TOTALLY RIDICULOUS to have the two physically-oriented classes always be male, while the two magically-oriented classes are always female. Masculine guardians and feminine agents were one thing, but this is a little bit insulting.

I also think it's a really bad business decision. There are people who will take one look at those enforced gender roles and be HUGELY turned off. Whether or not you agree with them or even with my reaction, this will happen.


yeah this seems like kind of an indefensible decision. it's not going to affect my class choice personally b/c i like playing spellcasters anyway but it's still A Dumb Thing To Do. if you don't want to make more character models just let the player use any model for any class.
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Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES
I also think it's a really bad business decision. There are people who will take one look at those enforced gender roles and be HUGELY turned off. Whether or not you agree with them or even with my reaction, this will happen.


Graphics are expensive. Most people do not obsessively analyze gender roles in every aspect of their lives (Quick! Who served you your coffee at Starbucks today? Was it a woman? Why is she enforcing the gender roles of being a submissive cook! Protest against Starbucks for reinforcing gender roles!), and the people that do will still probably buy the games. And the vanishingly small Dworkin-esque minority that boycotts or pirates instead will probably generate so little money that it would be more trouble and expense for Jeff than it would be worth. Twice the animations, twice the character image sheets, twice the time coding, etc.

Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES
Addendum: I understand the whole saving-money-on-graphics thing, but it is TOTALLY RIDICULOUS to have the two physically-oriented classes always be male, while the two magically-oriented classes are always female. Masculine guardians and feminine agents were one thing, but this is a little bit insulting.


Last time I checked, women still aren't allowed to be front line combat troops int he US Army. Enforced gender roles courtesy Uncle Sam? A faint possibility. But (this is the bit where I get crucified), there are a hell of a lot more men than women in physical jobs, more men doing manual labor, and more men in active combat roles rather than in support roles. So I don't think it's "enforced gender roles" so much as it is that, well, Avadon won't be that much different than the real world.

Aside form the magic, of course.
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Originally Posted By: Dantius
Last time I checked, women still aren't allowed to be front line combat troops int he US Army. Enforced gender roles courtesy Uncle Sam? A faint possibility. But (this is the bit where I get crucified), there are a hell of a lot more men than women in physical jobs, more men doing manual labor, and more men in active combat roles rather than in support roles. SO I don't think it's "enforced gender roles" so much as it is that, well, Avadon won't be that much different than the real world.


hey guess what kind of crap i play escapist video games to get away from

hint: it's this kind of crap
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Originally Posted By: Lilith
and perhaps more importantly for jeff's bottom line, i bet there are also male players who would like to play as a spellcaster and don't want to have to play as a female character to do so!


*raises hand*

But the Sorceress in G5 was pretty much clad in long, concealing robes (A dress is somewhat like a robe!), so you could just pretend you were some sort of regular cliche mage in robes with a staff.
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Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES
Aaaaaaand the Shock Trooper? tongue


The Shock Trooper was a horrible class. On my G4 runthrough, I never had enough Blessing or Mental magic, so I just pumped combat stats and muddled through the game having no fun at all. I thus developed a lifelong hatred of the Shock Trooper.

Serviles were awesome though. And unisex! What a wonderful compromise!
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shock troopers are actually a really interesting class if you just bite the bullet, neglect magic (except for healing) entirely and use items for all your buffing needs

 

they're definitely weaker than shapers/lifecrafters but i'd argue they're at least on a par with serviles

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Originally Posted By: Lilith
shock troopers are actually a really interesting class if you just bite the bullet, neglect magic (except for healing) entirely and use items for all your buffing needs

they're definitely weaker than shapers/lifecrafters but i'd argue they're at least on a par with serviles
First time I played G4, I played as a shock trooper. About halfway through I gave up and made a servile. That servile then proceded to steamroll through the entire game...

Lifecrafters>Serviles>Shocktroopers
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In G4, Lifecrafters had raw power but lacked flexibility; Serviles had immense flexibility but less power; Infiltrators were a compromise. It's hard to say one flat out beats the others. The Warrior and Shock Trooper sucked by comparison.

 

In G5, Lifecrafters and Sorceresses are an easier sell for top spots as creations were better, again.

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Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES
In G4, Lifecrafters had raw power but lacked flexibility; Serviles had immense flexibility but less power; Infiltrators were a compromise. It's hard to say one flat out beats the others. The Warrior and Shock Trooper sucked by comparison.

In G5, Lifecrafters and Sorceresses are an easier sell for top spots as creations were better, again.


so did you just like completely forget about how broken g4's wingbolts were or what

the shock trooper is a weaker version of the lifecrafter, but g4's lifecrafter is so far above the other classes that even a gimped version is competitive with everything else. it's hard to say lifecrafters lack flexibility when the few real weaknesses they have are almost never actually exploited by enemies
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Originally Posted By: Lilith
it's hard to say lifecrafters lack flexibility when the few real weaknesses they have are almost never actually exploited by enemies


To paraphrase:

Originally Posted By: Jeff Vogel
I code my AI's in fifteen minutes, late at night, and usually while drunk. In other words, I put twice as much work in as anybody else


You can't expect the enemy AI to be able to exploit precise strategic weaknesses when not even a panel of intelligent humans can agree on those weaknesses.
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If i may make a very humble gameplay suggestion: give one of the classes a taunt ability that makes the enemies focus on them. One of the most annoying things about the AI is the fact that after i position my tanks in the front and squishies in the rear the monsters usually go straight for the spellcasters. Kinda hard to have a tank perform their duty when the monsters ignore them.

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They already have that ability: it's called "hitting things". Most of the time enemies will target whoever attacked them most recently. They'll generally switch to someone else if they can't reach that target in one turn, though.

 

So basically what you want to do is keep your spellcasters at the longest possible range where they can still attack, and don't have spellcasters attack in the first round when your melee fighters are still getting into position.

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Originally Posted By: Tirien, Master of Bacon
Make sure your party is made up of 4 mages with high endurance? thats what I did at least...


That's one way to do it. Being swarmed by chitrachs in a network of tunnels is definitely a pain, and it's one of the reasons why your spellcasters need enough endurance to take a hit or two. Best way to deal with it is to have your mages and your priests go nuclear with area-effect spells, and heal only when you have a little breathing room. Consider using healing items instead of healing spells so your priests can still attack that round: I keep all the Group Heal scrolls I find specifically for situations like that.
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Originally Posted By: Arronax
What's your strat for dealing with the massive chitrach waves of A4-6?


Another is control foe on the nearest swarming monster so that the wave attacks it instead of you. I save up scrolls for this situation to keep the swarm away and vulnerable to range attacks.
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About classes: balance isn't really an issue, since they don't play against each other. G1 warned that Guardians would be easy on easy and hard on hard, while Agents would be not as easy on easy but not as hard on hard. Or something like that. It was true, and it was a nice feature, really. You could bumble through the game for the first time as a Guardian, and work your way up to mastering Agency.

 

Shock Troopers are actually quite fun to play. Lifecrafters are powerful, but it can be sort of dull, somehow, to just sit in the back doing nothing while your mighty but disposable creations win the war. With the right build of Shock Trooper you can get in the fight with them. It's not as effective, but it's workable, and it's kind of fun. As long as you pretend that, in the world in which you are a Shock Trooper, Lifecrafters are NOT so powerful, you can be happy.

 

It's more important to have classes that play differently than to have equally powerful classes.

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I wonder how Jeff is going to work in the backstory and personality for the two characters that can join your group? Maybe it will be something like NeverWinter Nights where the characters start up a conversation at certain points in the game.

 

 

And, correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the original Exile series allow sleeping outdoors to restore health and spell points? Why not just bring that back?

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Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES
There are three characters that can join your group in any given game, presumably out of a total of four since all four classes will be represented.


Two can join you, since the third would presumably be yourself. So that's four possibly joinable for four classes, minimum. He might also divide the joinables into levels, so there'd be a powerful joinable Shadowalker, a not-so-powerful shadowalker, a medium powerful Shadowalker, etc. There could be up to eight, twelve, sixteen joinable NPC's!
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Originally Posted By: Randomizer
I'm not so sure about the characters having personalities. It means less control over their actions.
So basically you want the party system from Avernum/Exile, since the entire party obviously is in agreement about everything, given that no one complains when you cast quickfire in a town or go on a murderous rampage.

(That was always fun though)
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Originally Posted By: Dantius
Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES
There are three characters that can join your group in any given game, presumably out of a total of four since all four classes will be represented.

Two can join you, since the third would presumably be yourself.

Two can join you at one time, but Jeff has stated you will "need to" (his words) play with all four classes in each game, which implies a minimum of four characters: yourself plus three others.
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Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES
Two can join you at one time, but Jeff has stated you will "need to" (his words) play with all four classes in each game[...]


Heh, all I can see that leading to is people daring one another to play though the entire game with only one class and the joinable NPC of that same class...
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Originally Posted By: VCH
I wonder how Jeff is going to work in the backstory and personality for the two characters that can join your group? Maybe it will be something like NeverWinter Nights where the characters start up a conversation at certain points in the game.


That's what he did with Alwan and Greta during Geneforge 3, so that seems altogether likely. Also, he'd sometimes insert their comments into conversations or events. That was definitely one of my favorite things about G3, so I wouldn't mind seeing that come back.

Originally Posted By: VCH
And, correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the original Exile series allow sleeping outdoors to restore health and spell points? Why not just bring that back?


If I had to guess, it's because there's not going to be an outside. That's why Jeff got rid of it for the second Avernum trilogy, I assume.
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Originally Posted By: Dantius
Heh, all I can see that leading to is people daring one another to play though the entire game with only one class and the joinable NPC of that same class...


Apparently the way it works is that for certain portions of the game a specific character will get rotated in with or without your consent, so no such luck. The idea is to familiarise you with how each class plays.
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Originally Posted By: Goldenking
That's what he did with Alwan and Greta during Geneforge 3, so that seems altogether likely. Also, he'd sometimes insert their comments into conversations or events. That was definitely one of my favorite things about G3, so I wouldn't mind seeing that come back.


Especially if they also interact with each other as well.
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Originally Posted By: Lilith
Originally Posted By: Dantius
Heh, all I can see that leading to is people daring one another to play though the entire game with only one class and the joinable NPC of that same class...


Apparently the way it works is that for certain portions of the game a specific character will get rotated in with or without your consent, so no such luck. The idea is to force you to play the way Jeff wants the scripted scenario to go .

FYT
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The objections to Spiderweb games have almost always been on recycled plot grounds, not game mechanics grounds or even for reasons of new but boring plot. Okay, and sometimes there are groans about boats. But with new engines Jeff has done well, and with new series Jeff is so far three for three.

 

—Alorael, who counts Nethergate as a series. Anyway, his new world and new engine combination games have worked out.

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I agree with the 3 for 3 on new series. However, those new series were released in 1994, 1997, and 2001... in the first seven years of SW's existence. It is now 2010, and SW has been around for sixteen years. Those of us who hold Exile, Nethergate, and Geneforge to be shining examples are also likely to prefer most of the games from that first half of SW history, to the games from the latter half. So the historical record really points in both directions.

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