A:EftP - Potions

[Ociporus]

What potions did you like in the Avernum series? Invulnerability? That was probably my favorite -- could have used some against RedBeard in Avadon, but that's a different topic...

[Tyranicus]

I just hope that healing potions don't use the energy potion graphic like they have in recent games.

[Necris Omega]

I always thought it would have been cool if Jeff took all the various and unique "Potion" graphics from the Alchemy system in the classical Avernum and used those directly.

 

As those are now outdated and defunct graphics, however... probably not gonna happen.

[Arch-Mage Solberg]

I too believe that everything should have a slightly different graphic. It gets rid of confusion for some players. I remember in the first Exile especially, that most things like weapons usually had the same graphic depending on type.

 

Post #595

[Slawbug]

Avadon seemed better in this regard, with color-coding for most potions and some crystals based on type of effect.

[Necris Omega]

Once color-shifting entered the scene, things did get better, but Avadon really knocked it out with its expansive (item) graphics library.

[loosifer]

Wow...That good. Thanks for sharing.

[AethirWeb]

I have a certain suggestion, how about adding to potion making (if Jeff is still sticking with the ridiculously large stat set. We can combine certain potions. So we can get a potion to heals. Regens mana and gives all buffs at the same time. But yes there are Balancing limits. Like there's a certain success rate to create the potion. And rare items needed too.

[Randomizer]

That's the reason you can only have one ward and one cloak in Avernum 6. Buffs were getting too powerful and the difference between those than buff before a possible fight and those that didn't became those that lived and those that died. Jeff wanted some balance.

[Kennedy]

Probably everybody's favorite would be the knowledge brew. That's why were were always saving up our mandrake so we could have our alchemist craft us some.

[Earth]

at A5 max buffs were needed cause there were bossfights basically every corner.

 

I just hope haste stays same as it was before A6 (at Avadon its pain in down there to get whole party have 2 attacks per round due speed burst scrolls are bit rare and potions which do same as scrolls aren't much more common (and enemies can do attack, battle frenzy, attack again, battle frenzy, etc and on fights when party is outnumbered/powered it means alot healing needed every turn or resurrection scrolls)).

[Necris Omega]

Honestly, I don't really mind limited buffs so long as my enemies are generally subject to the same restrictions.

 

Running into sequential enemies that just constantly and endlessly dump mass hastes on everything and their dog when I still have to haste buff one party member at a time really, really grinds on my nerves.

[Earth]

at Avadon seems that every1 can do haste/battle frenzy and nearly all can do stun, worst was all 3 chars got stunned by basilisks and would have needed healing on next round but not available thx to being stunned so reload and retry, luckily charming/dazing ain't common ability of enemies.

 

I don't mind limiting buffs as long as party members can do 2 attacks per round if enemy can do 2 or more.

[*i]

Quote:

Honestly, I don't really mind limited buffs so long as my enemies are generally subject to the same restrictions.

Running into sequential enemies that just constantly and endlessly dump mass hastes on everything and their dog when I still have to haste buff one party member at a time really, really grinds on my nerves.

I used to agree, then I came to the realizations on how difficult it is to program an AI that can beat a human without "cheating". No one, even any company with huge budgets, has been able to figure that one out. Not the ideal solution, but a fact of gaming if you want to be challenged.

[Earth]

it doesn't need to beat (unlsss player went to area where party will get slaughtered due too low level), just offer enuf resistance via outnumbering party 3 or 4 to 1 or lower amount but higher health and high damage (not that high that 1st attack takes half health away on target).

 

at some battles at Avadon, party is outnumbered, outpowered, outbuffed and enemies do 2-3 special attack per round and partys area spells are useless cause enemies are spreaded too widely while party is somewhat near eachothers and each member of party needs to spend 1 turn being able to do 2 attacks per round and next round every1 needs health, so either every1 spends half a turn to drink health potion or 1 uses half a turn on group heal-scroll and 2 others do 2 attacks so 5 attacks (or depending if health dropped so low that 2 healing needed then its only 4 attacks and if 1 calls aid it becomes 3 attacks) vs enemies 3 attacks per attacker. party is chopped liver soon unless 1 concentrates on healing party with scrolls every round or every 2nd round (party's point of view) and keeping every1 frenzied.to get 4 attacks per round unless either attacker gets stunned then battle is nearly lost.

[ĐªгŦĦ Єяŋϊε]

can u use these? ,,,,,, ...... """"""

[*i]

EE - I guess I've never had that experience with Avadon (playing on Hard). Certainly, there are some fights that require a bit of finesse and thought, and I do end up reloading a decent amount; however, I don't think there is anything unreasonable there, even with the AI cheating -- it would be trivially easy without. I'm also hardly the most skilled player here by far.

 

Perhaps you should post your builds here on the forums, and we can help you out there to make your party stronger. Otherwise, I'm sure you can get some help on battle tactics on specific fights.

 

EDIT: Also, thanks for adding punctuations and paragraphing. It makes your post a lot easier to read, which is very good for everyone!

[Earth]

1st battle after leaving Vebeaux, lots of basilisks, archers etc and basilisks have quite good success on knockback+stunning char (worst was all 3 got stunned) and Mindscrambler was annoying and Moritz's apprentice celebrated 4th of july with her scrolls.

[Jerakeen]

After leaving Vebeaux (I assume we're talking end-game here), you're really meant to flee. Yes, it's possible to beat those basilisk etc., but it's meant to be very hard because it's optional. Same with MK's apprentice. The optional fights are always the hardest, in Avadon.

[Earth]

last time I popped to deeper woods that army came immediately and half went bit ahead waiting and rest surrounded party and few secs later fight started. Beloch+Mor's ghost was piece of cake compared to that.

 

escaping CB (cheap copy of A5's Howling Depths) was annoying not hard (move 5-10 meters and fight starts due respawned enemies).

 

also enemies haste looks working better than party's haste giving them more 2 attacks per round than party gets.

[Necris Omega]

Originally Posted By: *i

I used to agree, then I came to the realizations on how difficult it is to program an AI that can beat a human without "cheating". No one, even any company with huge budgets, has been able to figure that one out. Not the ideal solution, but a fact of gaming if you want to be challenged.

Eeeeh... I'm still inclined to disagree. There are better, less insulting ways of challenging a player than by throwing them at enemies with better everything than the player. It's downright discouraging when every 2-bit thug gang has what may as well be an archmage backing them compared to your pitiful hedge wizard.

Simply over buffing an enemy and leaving them with the AI of a 2X4 rolling down a hill is just the most direct way of providing challenge, it's not the best. While you can devote an entire career around AI and not get to a Deep Blue RPG equivalent that could challenge any player, I can't buy the idea that there aren't better ways of creating difficulty than making monsters that are consistently the player +2 in terms of the tools at their disposal.

But, really this particular subject is fairly on my teeth grinding memories of early Avernum as I trudged through the early game constantly wearing a slow debuff in the face of mass haste happy mooks who didn't know their place in the game and insisted on being difficult about laying down and dying properly. They weren't going to be a challenge anyways, so why make them so fricking annoying?

[*i]

Quote:

Simply over buffing an enemy and leaving them with the AI of a 2X4 rolling down a hill is just the most direct way of providing challenge, it's not the best. While you can devote an entire career around AI and not get to a Deep Blue RPG equivalent that could challenge any player, I can't buy the idea that there aren't better ways of creating difficulty than making monsters that are consistently the player +2 in terms of the tools at their disposal.

I agree it's not the best, and I hate doing this, but: Name these better ways.

You either make the AI smarter or you make it stronger, in the sense you give it better options (more HP, better stats, stronger attacks, buffing abilities, etc.). The latter is easy.

The former is incredibly difficult and requires massive CPU resources (think, large clusters) to run the necessary calculations. The number of possible actions in a game like Avadon (or any RPG) are so innumerable that you would need to perform some kind of heuristics to filter out bad actions, and even then, it's a gargantuan calculation. The worst part about heuristics is they may yield worse performance in many situations because so much about tactics is purely situational.

Again, if this were easy, the major gaming companies would surely be doing it. They're not, to my knowledge. The Civilization franchise is a prime example from a different genre that has similar issues. The AI cheats like mad, especially at higher difficulties. Nobody likes it, but also no one really has been able to completely mod a good enough AI to remove the need for some cheating.

Quote:

But, really this particular subject is fairly on my teeth grinding memories of early Avernum as I trudged through the early game constantly wearing a slow debuff in the face of mass haste happy mooks who didn't know their place in the game and insisted on being difficult about laying down and dying properly. They weren't going to be a challenge anyways, so why make them so fricking annoying?

That's a different complaint. I agree, henches are not supposed to be challenging. Jeff even agrees these days, and generally leaves all the powerful buffs for "boss" fights.

[Necris Omega]

Originally Posted By: *i

I agree it's not the best, and I hate doing this, but: Name these better ways.

You either make the AI smarter or you make it stronger, in the sense you give it better options (more HP, better stats, stronger attacks, buffing abilities, etc.). The latter is easy.

The former is incredibly difficult and requires massive CPU resources (think, large clusters) to run the necessary calculations. The number of possible actions in a game like Avadon (or any RPG) are so innumerable that you would need to perform some kind of heuristics to filter out bad actions, and even then, it's a gargantuan calculation. The worst part about heuristics is they may yield worse performance in many situations because so much about tactics is purely situational.

Again, if this were easy, the major gaming companies would surely be doing it. They're not, to my knowledge. The Civilization franchise is a prime example from a different genre that has similar issues. The AI cheats like mad, especially at higher difficulties. Nobody likes it, but also no one really has been able to completely mod a good enough AI to remove the need for some cheating.

While I will agree with the fact that a totally basing a game's challenge off AI isn't feasible, I don't believe it's so unthinkable to give monsters at least half a brain before you start handing them more and far better equipment then what I get.

Targeting, AoE, healing, and defending weaker/injured/important characters more readily are all issues I can't see being a terrific burden on a game's AI, especially if we're going to be going with the smaller challenges like Avernum compared to Exile. Sure, you can argue computing capacity, but … I'm not talking a hundred node neural network here, or sitting down and calculating all possible outcomes half a dozen rounds into the future like high powered chess AI here, no.

I look at minimum AI, and I think the capacities of Dragon Age and what you can tell your companions they should be doing. Continue breathing, blink every once and a while, and for Maker's sake, when you're hemorrhaging out from a severed torso wound, DO something about it! I don't think it was a particularly advanced system, but it goes to show that you can do a whole lot more with NPCs than just throw dice and read from a table what they may or may not do.

Higher difficulty… honestly, with that, I see things "cheating" more as par for the course, really. Sure, you could take the time to write subsequent AI routines for each difficulty, each one getting "smarter", but in this case… if you select the "masochists only" difficulty, then, well what do you expect? But in the general, "average" difficulty, I appreciate the developer moving to "smart" his enemies rather than arming the three stooges with nuclear woopie cushions.

Originally Posted By: *i

That's a different complaint. I agree, henches are not supposed to be challenging. Jeff even agrees these days, and generally leaves all the powerful buffs for "boss" fights.

Yeah, that's true. Unfortunately, though, his boss fights have been going way over the top lately, bogged down in gimmicks and mechanics more appropriate for a WoW Raid than an Avernum game, but his minions have felt like they're far more appropriately balanced.

[Lilith]

I'm going to disagree with *i here based on what I've heard from game designers in general and game AI designers in specific. For most games, making an AI that seems to play at least as well as a human is not actually hard at all -- the problem is that in most genres of game, doing so instantly makes the game incredibly unfun. If you give the AI resources comparable to a human player, the danger is actually not making the AI too dumb but making the AI too good. Beating a dumb AI that outnumbers and outguns the player makes players feel more badass than beating an under-resourced AI that's much smarter than them, so that's what designers do. Believe me, this is an area into which there's been a lot of research: game designers could trivially make AI much smarter than it is for most games, but they choose not to because players don't actually want the consequences it'd lead to.

[*i]

My information may be a bit outdated. Point taken about how it can be very not fun if the AI is too good. Much of my knowledge comes from the field of optimization, and I suppose that you don't need optima to have a decent AI.

 

I do see a lot of issues in this particular genre because it does turn into a combinatorics problem when large numbers of entities are involved along with the constraints of limited movement and pathfinding.

 

Examples of common questions in a game like Avadon:

 

* Should a monster attack a less damaging PC closer, or take an extra turn trying to finish off a weaker, more damaging PC that is further away?

* If a mage-type monster is dying, should it buff its friends so that they can inflict more damage after it dies, or should it attempt to save itself with a healing spell in the hopes it can cast the buff later and maybe inflict more damage?

* What about positioning of monster party members for abilities such as backstab versus spreading them out to minimize damage from cone-effect spells?

 

I think the answer to all of these questions is it depends on the situation, and it seems easy to me to write a well-intentioned AI that often makes worse choices than had it behaved randomly.

 

Now there are probably a few tricks Jeff could pull at the higher difficulties, such as focusing damage on one PC. Specifically targeting spell casters and those low on HP, are other switches that could be turned at higher difficulty levels.

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: *i

Examples of common questions in a game like Avadon:

* Should a monster attack a less damaging PC closer, or take an extra turn trying to finish off a weaker, more damaging PC that is further away?
* If a mage-type monster is dying, should it buff its friends so that they can inflict more damage after it dies, or should it attempt to save itself with a healing spell in the hopes it can cast the buff later and maybe inflict more damage?
* What about positioning of monster party members for abilities such as backstab versus spreading them out to minimize damage from cone-effect spells?

I think the answer to all of these questions is it depends on the situation, and it seems easy to me to write a well-intentioned AI that often makes worse choices than had it behaved randomly.

Humans are also imperfect at solving these problems, though, as evidenced by the number of people who have difficulty with the game even on Casual. The AI doesn't have to be perfect to be frustrating, just smarter than the player -- and an AI with intimate knowledge of the game mechanics and some kind of strategic rules baked into it probably will be smarter than the player, if you don't take special efforts to dumb it down. This is an empirical result, not a theoretical one: it's what actually happens all the time in the process of testing games.

[*i]

There is a distribution of skill levels. I think we agree that we want a dumbed down AI for casual and even normal players. Right now, I'm talking about hard and torment difficulties, and how to make those challenging without giving the AI extra power.

 

EDIT: One assumption I'm working off of is that we make the opponents have about the same capabilities as the PCs. Certainly, there are exceptions such as going toe-to-claw with a dragon.

[Earth]

if AI can do attack buff attack buff attack on its turn and there's multiple enemies (1.5 to 2 times player's party) player spends alot time healing him/herself/party instead trying to lower/lowering number of enemies and next enemy they encounter doesn't offer any difficulties to beat. added with need of getting buffed to be able to do 2 attacks (or heal and attack) player spends many turns doing something else than attacking (and if gets stunned or knocked far from rest of party mass healings/buffings won't help that char whois far).

 

example of that is after escaping Veneaux and entering Berazza Deeper Woods, party gets surrounded by basilisks, archers, wolves and soldiers who all have some nasty special attack which they spam every 2nd/3rd round and next battle after that is against much smaller groups at that camp who don't offer much resistance. 1st group of enemies need 3-4 rounds per enemy to get killed and next groups need 2 maybe 3 rounds and on last round there's only 1 enemy standing and its basically already dead.

[Necris Omega]

I'd rather have monsters with just enough AI to provide a challenge rather than brainless monsters than launch rockets out their mouths.

 

That or I'd take being outnumbers 2 to 1 by monsters without said AI, but are roughly comparable in tools to what I have available.

 

What I DON'T want, is to fight a limited group of savants who have the tactical forethought of a bag of potatoes, but can consistently throw down spells and firepower I won't likely see for a few hours at least.

 

 

Also, Earth Empires, you just invoked the one point in Avadon I remember as being too mook-happy. I think I did let it slide given where in the game it was, and that it was a "chase" scene, but it was the one time I think I really did get annoyed by an "uberminions" effect.

[Colonel Haste]

One problem here is the assumption that the opponents have relatively the same capabilities as the PCs. At any time after the very early game the PCs tend to be loaded for bear with their Super-Ultra-Sword+10 and Ring-of-Kill-Everything and Helm-of-Telepathy, etc. (How come nobody we kill is ever nearly as decked out as we are?) How much does this gear affect our intrinsic abilities? I haven't done the math but would guess in the average sweb game it adds at least 50% to the PC's capabilities. In other words, all else being equal I think I'd rather have a 10th level PC Guardian equipped with the average loot obtainable by that point than a 15th level NPC Guardian equipped with a bronze sword and iron helm.

 

Add to that the fact that if you are willing to fight to the death (and don't care about conservation) you have an effectively unlimited supply of potions, pods, and wands for any one fight whereas your opponent has, at best, a single potion.

 

Finally the PC usually has the ability to dictate the terms of the fight (ie to attack first or retreat).

 

Short of "cheating" or having an unusually advanced AI you need to face superior opponents or there is no challenge at all.

[ĐªгŦĦ Єяŋϊε]

and don't forget your wand of forty watt lightbulb and wand of lose 5 AP

[Kennedy]

For fights where you have to run or escape something I suggest switching to combat mode. Then the players will get to move the same amount as the enemies and usually stay out of harms way. When you get to the point where you move to a different area like a trapdoor or the edge of the map then you can turn combat mode off.

 

Plus if the enemies have nice gear then you can sell it for a nice bit of coin!

[Necris Omega]

Originally Posted By: Colonel Haste

One problem here is the assumption that the opponents have relatively the same capabilities as the PCs. At any time after the very early game the PCs tend to be loaded for bear with their Super-Ultra-Sword+10 and Ring-of-Kill-Everything and Helm-of-Telepathy, etc. (How come nobody we kill is ever nearly as decked out as we are?) How much does this gear affect our intrinsic abilities? I haven't done the math but would guess in the average sweb game it adds at least 50% to the PC's capabilities. In other words, all else being equal I think I'd rather have a 10th level PC Guardian equipped with the average loot obtainable by that point than a 15th level NPC Guardian equipped with a bronze sword and iron helm.

Add to that the fact that if you are willing to fight to the death (and don't care about conservation) you have an effectively unlimited supply of potions, pods, and wands for any one fight whereas your opponent has, at best, a single potion.

Finally the PC usually has the ability to dictate the terms of the fight (ie to attack first or retreat).

Short of "cheating" or having an unusually advanced AI you need to face superior opponents or there is no challenge at all.

Eh, challenge can come simply from having superior numbers, but really, what SHOULD be challenging? Every fight? Or just the ones that should be meaningful?

When I run into a random raiding party of nameless, faceless soldiers, I personally have no problem crushing them like a blue whale jumping on a tub of pudding. Boss fights can be meaningful, sub-boss fights sure, even specialty situations are fine, but really, when I'm the HERO, I expect to have some level of edge over the standard grunts of my enemy, and no I'm not talking the capacity to make elementary tactical decisions.

Besides, an enemy that shows it has more than two braincells to rub together, and is not just really, really, really well equipped is more interesting than the one who mindlessly relies on having higher spells and sharper swords.