A:EftP - Too hard

[waterplant]

Thanks Randomizer.

 

I restarted the game and am having more success using the tips from the forums. We'll see how it goes.

[Ceiling Durkheim]

Quote:

I've been kind of following this discussion, but the honest truth is this. I have not been getting e-mail complaints about difficulty. At all. The only inkling I have had that this game is hard is a few in this thread, and two of them has already mentioned that they played on Hard.

I don't think many of us on this thread (despite its name) have been saying that the game is too hard. I initially found it frustrating, but that was just because I was used to playing on hard as the 'normal' difficulty. The increase in challenge across difficulty levels was a bit confusing at first, but I can't think of a good way around that, and it's only an issue for long-time fans like me who have expectations based on previous games, and who are more inclined to be forgiving with this sort of thing anyway.

So: there are things I would nitpick, as always, but all in all I think AEftP is a very good and well-made game.

[Vent]

I backup my saves and tried a bit at Normal difficulty, starting from saves of Hard difficulty. Then get back to original saves and played again the same parts but at Hard difficulty. It's just some exploration, few dungeons and specific fights. So the difference was huge.

 

This is an answer to OP and one of my post about difficulty at Normal. When a fight is very hard (too hard) and you switch from Hard to Normal and try again the same fight, it can be too hard even at Normal. But it's just not the right mission at this time, with a more global perspective, Normal is quite less difficult than Hard.

 

Now at Hard, stuff like your summon killed that is creating a huge explosion killing the whole party at two extreme parts of a room (7 squares), that's awful. Also I felt there was an abuse of constant cast of Daze by some mage spiders, at Hard difficulty. But I'll open separate threads to ask advices about those two cases.

 

EDIT:

Well for the mage spiders casting a lof of Daze I suppose Ward of thoughts is the main answer, and possibly wait have it level 2 or even 3, plus some items with Mental protection. A spell to remove a Mental effect would help too, I haven't yet noticed it but I suppose there's one.

[Soul of Wit]

Originally Posted By: HOUSE of S

3) Everybody wants to dual-wield. Dual-wielding is VERY strong and usually worth it, but it does incur that hit chance penalty at the start of the game

I knew somebody would figure out my problem with low hit chance. I'm running two DW fighters. Apparently, I need to beeline for the top row DW booster. How many levels will it take to undo the DW penalty?

[Jerakeen]

About 8 or 9, apparently; it's 2% per point, and the penalty is from 15 to 19%. Increasing STR will also help, as will the trait Ambidextrous.

[Slawbug]

No, no, no, no, no.

 

DON'T beeline for Dual Wielding skill. The skill is not that good.

 

Put most or all of your stat points in Strength, and put some skill points into Melee Weapons. You should be doing that anyway for a melee fighter.

 

Then, take off crappy armor that gives you penalties to-hit. Chest armor is usually okay, anything else is usually not worth it.

 

You can also take traits to boost your Strength, which is useful.

[Decho]

I bought the game when I reach lv10 I can't play on normal mode anymore ... Yes it too hard for biginner like me and the other that who not pro

[Soul of Wit]

I think the issue here is not game balance, but rather that the skill tree is confusing. Someone mentioned that DEX is not helpful for hit chance, yet reading the description would lead one to believe otherwise. Are any of the upper-tier skills worth an investment? Maybe Resistance?

 

I've never had to worry about penalty-to-hit armor in other Spiderweb games, and here I do have to weigh the benefits. It appears that the shiny metal stuff may wind up on my Priest character. That will be a first.

 

I would definitely NOT argue for a boring, linear game. Getting your butt kicked and having to go elsewhere is what adventuring is all about. Can't wait for the third game in this series. Wide open spaces, yessiree.

[Slawbug]

The penalty to-hit affects ALL ATTACKS, including magic attacks, which CAN miss. That said, people seem to be better about giving their magic-users mostly INT.

[Ceiling Durkheim]

Well, and annoying as a high miss rate is, it's at least not as bad for a priest, since they spend the most time healing/buffing.

[Cala]

I am playing on normal, which is actually a big step for me, who prefers very causal gameplay and fun stories. I've died. A lot. Lots and lots. Still, the game play is so open-ended that I have not yet completely failed some boss fight without having somewhere else to go and get stronger at.

 

I feel that it should be mentioned, for the sake of everyone who thinks the game is too difficult, how fantastic the auto-save is. I've never lost more than 5 minutes of gameplay because I failed to manually save before opening the wrong door in some dungeon.

 

And honestly, maybe some of us just need better strategy. I keep forgetting things like melee specials, and potions, and am always trying to lure critters away to thin out the big groups together. Sometimes I get slaughtered in a fight, and then win the same easily about 10 minutes later, just with better strategy.

 

Anyway, having a fantastic time. The to-hit percentage IS definitely what's killing my success sometimes, especially on my tank (who dual-wields - I am probably an idiot), but I take that sort of fail as an indication that I'm in too deep with too low of a level.

 

Wow, didn't mean to get so long winded! Bottom line: for a lazy gamer who still wants a challenge, normal difficulty is perfect, with the option to swap to casual if I get horribly stuck. I think it's harder than Avadon was, but not too hard at all.

[Vent]

Originally Posted By: HOUSE of S

...
Put most or all of your stat points in Strength, and put some skill points into Melee Weapons. You should be doing that anyway for a melee fighter.

Then, take off crappy armor that gives you penalties to-hit. Chest armor is usually okay, anything else is usually not worth it.

Well Endurance isn't a pointless stat and put multiple points in it can be useful.

And if for sure the player should put care into To Hit penalties from armors I don't think just wearing a chest armor is the only possibility. The point is more that players should put care in To Hit penalties from armors, check often the log to quote To Hit chance, then adapt the armoring and leveling.

Also there are some items providing some strength, you can use them to increase To Hit or use something else with other benefit if your To Hit is fine.

I bet a lot of problems will come from the wrong tooltip about DEX and To Hit, and from players that are used to the series and won't really noticed the To Hit penalties. But it's a nice change to make it less basic than a pure rush to best armoring. That doesn't mean that now armoring is pointless or even a weakness.

Originally Posted By: HOUSE of S

The penalty to-hit affects ALL ATTACKS, including magic attacks, which CAN miss. That said, people seem to be better about giving their magic-users mostly INT.

Magic users are often keep out of range of the battle and when used like that they need less armoring (so lower To Hit penalties) and less Endurance so more points elsewhere. But that doesn't mean Endurance is pointless for warriors.

EDIT:
In previous systems there was a little gaming to mix armoring depending of STR requirement. So when you get a better armoring item you could use it if you give up some other to use a weaker one with a lower STR requirement. This system still exists but is less constraining because you increase separately attributes and skills. But there's a similar gaming with armoring vs To Hit penalties apart that it is less obvious to adapt, but again the point is cheking the log often to quote the To Hit.

And nope there's no need of having 95%, it's better but in most cases 65% plus 30% of To Hit penalties from better armoring will be better. Moreover if your To Hit is at 95% it is probably in fact at 100%, 110% or more and you are wasting armoring improvement.

[Vent]

Originally Posted By: Cala

I am playing on normal, which is actually a big step for me, who prefers very causal gameplay and fun stories. I've died. A lot. Lots and lots. Still, the game play is so open-ended that I have not yet completely failed some boss fight without having somewhere else to go and get stronger at.

It's how it is supposed to work and for me too it works like that, even if few time it's some troubles to find what's next best suited.

Such structure is very audacious without a difficulty scaling system and that's what make this remake even more priceless, I doubt we will see more like that anymore.

There's four points making it quite special:

• No difficulty scaling when most modern RPG use one.
• Very very open world with many travel possibilities even with sailing. There's few modern RPG quite open but it's more rare than less open RPG, plus those few modern RPG as much open use a difficulty scaling system.
• A difficulty level not linked to geography. A same location can includes parts of very different difficulty level. It's not rare you get a quest which is easy in a location when in general the difficulty is quite higher. And it's even more often that in a location you get a quest a lot harder than the general difficulty level of the location. It creates many webs and distant links that are very fun, it make you travel a lot but with the two scale system it's great, it creates less obvious populating and discourage basic approach like clean out an area and check next.
• The two scale system, the huge plus of this system is making travels a lot more fast without make them feel weird nor without some awful abuse or teleporting breaking a lot the mood. And with such open world with an organization like webs instead of multiple squares with only few links between each, this is generating a lot more travels.

Originally Posted By: Cala

I feel that it should be mentioned, for the sake of everyone who thinks the game is too difficult, how fantastic the auto-save is. I've never lost more than 5 minutes of gameplay because I failed to manually save before opening the wrong door in some dungeon.

Right, myself few time I lost more time... because I had forgot the auto save lol, it's so quick that you don't notice the constant auto save.

Originally Posted By: Cala

And honestly, maybe some of us just need better strategy. I keep forgetting things like melee specials, and potions, and am always trying to lure critters away to thin out the big groups together. Sometimes I get slaughtered in a fight, and then win the same easily about 10 minutes later, just with better strategy.

Same for me, and it's not "lure critters" but it's maneuvering and apply special tactics to defeat the enemy. Attract in an ambush, or in a more strategical position, or even just to break in parts a large enemy group, this is tactics not just luring.

Yes take care of melee specials like you do for spells used is helping a lot, but also take care of movements and positioning possibilities and not only hit like a brute, potions when it's hot and detect when it's the moment to try some potions/scrolls/wands, take care of your To Hit not only watching your characters hit or not but also the information in the log.

Originally Posted By: Cala

I think it's harder than Avadon was, but not too hard at all.

Avadon wasn't that easy and had some nice difficulty spikes. But Avadon has a gameplay much more organized so you hadn't much opportunities to attempt fights you wasn't supposed to do at this time of the game, a few time but not much, when in AEFTP it happens a lot.

[Slawbug]

Originally Posted By: Vent

And nope there's no need of having 95%, it's better but in most cases 65% plus 30% of To Hit penalties from better armoring will be better.

I'm not sure I follow. Are you saying that you'd rather have a 65% final hit rate (with -30% from good armor) than a 95% hit rate with mostly unencumbering armor?

ASIDE from chest armor, which I've always stated is the exception, most encumbering armor is only a tiny bit better than its unencumbering counterparts. Thick gloves for 3% armor or bronze gauntlets for 5% armor and -5% to-hit? Boots for 4% armor or heavy boots for 6% armor and -5% to-hit? Pants for 3% armor or iron greaves for 6% armor and -10% to-hit? The extra armor is PIDDLY. You have to remember the armor defense is multiplied together, not added together. The difference between the gloves and gauntlets probably amounts to a difference of 1% on your armor score. So, let's say you're at 65% hit rate and 50% armor, using the gauntlets. If you switch to the gloves you will increase the damage you take by 2% (1% rating change), and increase your hit rate by about 8% (5% rating change). I think the winner there is pretty clear.

[Vent]

Let take an example to explain that your rule is wrong because it is strict. Mine I'm saying to adjust.

 

There's blessed boots with 8% and -5% To Hit, the Bronze Bracers are 6% with -5% To Hit, and I found Pustulent Graeves with 5% To Hit Penalty and 4% Armor 15% Acid resistance and 1% Evasion.

 

That's 8% more plus 1% Evasion plus 15% Acid resistance exchanged against 15% To Hit.

 

But the point is it's a balance and not pure stats:

• I don't care kill 15% faster I will gain a full round only after 7.5 rounds, without to mention it will be less because of hit points lost at final blow.At opposite the protection difference can be huge because at each turn I have the option to heal, retreat of something, none if I'm dead.
• There's numerous situations where a fighter will be outnumbered and won't be hit once but 6 time per round and each time there's the protection bonus. And when he won't be outnumbered this will rarely be a tough case and kill faster won't matter.
• Against a strong mid boss its your resistance that will make you survive or not because anyway you won't kill it in 2 or 3 rounds or it's not a mid boss.

For all those reasons and more it's not pure math. And most often in class builds the damages get a very exaggerated importance, it's a common error (with the idea that the final state matter more than all previous states all along the game)

[Slawbug]

I agree it's not pure math. However, you used pure math in several places above -- for example, saying with 15% more hits you will get an extra round after 7.5 rounds. We both know that is not true. Most non-boss enemies go down in one or a few hits, so you may gain an extra round (by not missing) after one round, or after 2 rounds, or 2 rounds in a row, or in many cases not at all.

 

You can go further with that analysis, though. Against groups of enemies it is the earlier rounds where hitting is most important since the faster you kill things, the quicker you reduce your incoming damage to a manageable level. So missing in round 15 when there is only 1 mob left may not matter, but not missing in round 1 may be critical, to keep the damage low enough for your priest to manage. In that case the offense actually gives you a better defense.

 

For protection, what matters is how much damage you face. Whether you are hit once or six times doesn't matter, since the reduction is PERCENTILE. Yes, if you are taking huge damage that is a good argument for heavy armor, but being hit six times does not in itself make armor more valuable.

[Thoukydides]

Slarty is absolutely right on how unimportant small percentages are once you have decent body armor and a shield. Compared to the negligible armor bonuses they add, the combined negative hit percentages from bulky armors will have a much larger impact on your damage output.

 

The problem with this,

Quote:

Against a strong mid boss its your resistance that will make you survive or not because anyway you won't kill it in 2 or 3 rounds or it's not a mid boss.

is that you assume a character who maximizes armor at the cost of hit percentage will block enough damage to offset the lower chance to hit. This is only true if you have an abysmal chance to hit (or are fighting enemies who deal 500+ damage every turn). The loss of chance to hit from small armor is not worth hitting less often and roughly 8% more armor is not equal to missing 15% more (unless you use meatshields with no weapons).

 

Lets look at an example using equipment with no additional bonuses, since many of those would be worth using despite the negative to-hit, and ignoring evasion.

 

Example 1 - A character with no stats that equips iron breastplate (22% armor, -10 CTH), iron shield (18% armor, -5 CTH), ratskin helmet (5% armor), thick leather gloves (3% armor), leather pants (3%), and boots (4%) will block ~45% of damage and have -15% to-hit. Adding the armor %'s would give a total of 55%, but since armor is multiplied, not added, this setup only blocks 45% of damage.

 

Example 2 - The same character using iron breastplate (22% armor, -10 CTH), steel shield (21% armor, -10 CTH), steel helmet (7% armor, -5 CTH), iron bracers (8% armor, -10 CTH), steel greaves (8% armor, -10 CTH), and blessed boots (8% armor, -5 CTH) will block ~55% of damage and have -50% to-hit. Adding the armor values gives 74%, but you really only block 55% of physical damage. As explained by others below, as your armor increases, each new piece blocks less damage.

 

If a naked character who averaged 100 damage per turn with 95% chance to hit equipped the items under example 1, that character would average 80 damage. The same character equipping example two would average 45 damage, more than 50% less damage - this is certainly not worth 10% more damage blocked.

 

I realize these are extreme examples, but the point is that, other than body armor, you should try avoid to-hit penalties on non-magical items. Sure, you can block a few more points of damage, but it's rarely worth a 30-40% drop in your hit rate.

[SpellsTuesday]

I can't speak for the overall difficulty because I've been playing on Hard. I should probably be playing on Normal (since each dungeon takes me a half-dozen retreats to town to finish) but am making slow, steady progress and enjoying myself.

 

The one thing that I definitely HAVE noticed is a major gap in difficulty between crunchies and bosses. I mean, yes, bosses are supposed to be hard. But I've found that the character level where I can largely cruise through a dungeon with no more major risks than a freak PC death or running out of spell energy is usually nowhere near sufficient to take out the dungeon's boss. My usual pattern has evolved into something like this:

1) Clean out the dungeon

2) Charge straight into the boss, get slaughtered and TPK'd.

3) Reload. Use better buffs and better tactics. Get slaughtered.

4) Repeat #3 a few times with similar results.

5) Give up, leave. Do a few quests, clear out another dungeon. Gain several levels.

6) Return, try the boss again. Kill him after a tough but rewarding fight that demanded optimum tactics and item usage.

 

I've observed this all over the place. The Nephilim fortress, the Nephar fortress, the Slith island fortress near Cotra, the Slith temple, the crypt near Formello, the Mertis Spiral, the Slith fort north of Fort Emerald...

 

I don't frame this as anything more than a subjective observation. Some of it might be sub-optimum party build for my difficulty level. I will note, though, that a lot of times it's not just my PCs getting swarmed to death in these boss fights (aka, Slith island fortress) but in a lot of cases one-hit kills (sometimes even to my tanks), where no amount of buffing or healing can save the day.

 

This experience HASN'T ruined the game for me, or made it un-fun — I can still beat everything with the strategy of leaving and gaining a few levels before taking on the bosses again. And when I do face a boss appropriate for my power level, I love the fights — they're very challenging and force me to think outside the box, beyond just buff-and-snuff charges. But my metagaming sensibilities are bothered by being able to clear out a fortress but having to wait a few levels to finish off the boss.

 

Are other people having this experience, or is it just me?

[Vent]

@House:

Yeah yeah symbolic numbers more than true numbers. But comparing directly damages reduction and damages given isn't right.

 

Also get the rule that no item with To Hit penalty worth it other than the breast armor is wrong and depend of the items you have. But I do agree that many items with To Hit penalty don't worth it, and overall the items design seems a little failed on that point of view. Also the more you find special items the less there are items with To Hit penalties that are interesting. But the general rule is wrong.

 

@Thoukydides:

I didn't wrote that players should use blindly all items with To Hit penalty so your example is pointless. Sure for this case I can't see how the set with To Hit penalties can worth it.

 

@SpellsTuesday:

You aren't alone, myself I had often troubles to find step 1 matching. Also it's not always with the final boss that I get troubles. But I share your feeling to make too often dungeons by bits and to have too important difficulty spikes in dungeons. So it's not the exact same feeling but similar.

 

And yeah the cause is probably like you suppose it, my party is also not optimized, but I also feel the money is a bit rare (I don't steal anything marked as owned by someone and don't know all the tricks) so I should probably switch to Normal. But there's something fun anyway and I'm hesitant to switch to Normal.

[blackwight]

(Assuming this is about Avernum being too hard:)

 

The new Avernum is too hard.

 

I'm not interested in hearing what an idiot I am...

I don't care that I've got it on 'normal' difficulty...

I couldn't care less that you all find it WAY WAY WAY too easy...

I don't give a crap.

 

It's really too hard. The difficulty of the hardest encounters needs to be turned down.

 

I will not be entertaining arguments to the contrary this time. Thank you and good night.

[blackwight]

PS Is there a place to report bugs? I've seen a few.

[Slawbug]

SpellsTuesday: Yeah. This has been a trend in the last few Spiderweb games. On the one hand it does make the bosses fun and exciting, but I agree that the power level difference is sometimes a bit extreme.

 

Vent: I think this issue is pretty clear and I'm not going to argue it further.

[Jerakeen]

Originally Posted By: blackwight

PS Is there a place to report bugs? I've seen a few.

Your best bet is to email Jeff directly. There's a contact link on the home page.

[jetcitywoman]

Originally Posted By: blackwight

(Assuming this is about Avernum being too hard:)

The new Avernum is too hard.

I'm not interested in hearing what an idiot I am...
I don't care that I've got it on 'normal' difficulty...
I couldn't care less that you all find it WAY WAY WAY too easy...
I don't give a crap.

It's really too hard. The difficulty of the hardest encounters needs to be turned down.

I will not be entertaining arguments to the contrary this time. Thank you and good night.

1. Press escape.
2. Click on Options.
3. Click on Difficulty Level until it's one level easier than what you're currently playing.
4. Click the little green arrow button.
5. Thank you and good night.

[Fael]

It does seem that the game gets a lot easier as it progresses. This is contrary to 1) Jeff's usual design practice, and 2) a good marketing strategy, but it seems to be the case.

 

Once you get to somewhere in the level 8-10 range, the "constantly miss every round" problem starts to go away, as long as you've been following the advice of the forums -- not the tooltips! -- as to which stats to raise. Being able to cast ward spells and one of the useful cloaks (i.e., not Cloak of Curses) help a lot, too. As does the fact that there seem to be way more areas of a given difficulty than "needed" for XP, so you'll inevitably hit a bunch of dungeons when you're way too high level for them and blow through them without much effort. This is also arguably not much fun (and a big reason I'm really not a fan of the "big, open world" style of game), but at least it's unfun in a way that doesn't relate to the title of this thread. I suspect it may get hard again at the tend, as leveling slows down and the dungeon difficulty catches up with you again, but I'm not there yet.

 

The problem for it being too hard is mostly at the beginning, before you get enough levels to optimize your stats and when the standard "go somewhere easier" advice is really unhelpful -- you're already in the easiest dungeons in the game and you still can't hit anything.

 

Of course, all of us here, by definition, are in a much better position than the average player -- we read the forums, so we know the Dex tooltip is wrong. Pity the average player, who sees that he can't hit anything with his melee fighters, and keeps boosting Dex to try to fix it. Wonder how far that guy gets before he gives up in disgust?

[Vent]

Manage the damages received is a lot more my own issue than that "miss every round" (but I read forums since the start and quoted the dex tooltip problem). Money is also lot of my issue and I haven't yet found that many spell book. So even by checking the cheaper teachers I hadn't been able to offer my party much training, at max 2 to try for the fun. And not that many spells.

 

That said for both issue and indirectly solving them the "solution" quoted by jetcitywoman would apply because the difficulty decrease make the damages received issue not any more an issue and the shortage of money not a very big problem as soon as there's enough to manage well the progression.

 

But AEFTP is a sort of replay as I played Avernum about 4 years ago, so it's why I'm playing at Hard instead of Normal, as I would have done in general (start Normal and switch to Hard or harder if I feel it too easy, that's what I did with Avadon plus perhaps few difficulty level drop down for few fights).

 

But taking the conclusion that I'd prefer less open world would be a very wrong deduction. I like those like Avadon but also those very open like Skyrim and AEFTP.

[Erebus the Black]

Originally Posted By: Fael

Of course, all of us here, by definition, are in a much better position than the average player -- we read the forums, so we know the Dex tooltip is wrong. Pity the average player, who sees that he can't hit anything with his melee fighters, and keeps boosting Dex to try to fix it. Wonder how far that guy gets before he gives up in disgust?

So did anyone actually register this with Jeff yet?

[Death Knight]

I really dont see how avernum remake can be any harder than all of jeff's games. All of his games are hard, especially the geneforge titles. The only game where i dont feel that with is avadon for obvious reasons.

[Slawbug]

Erasmus: Yes, I emailed Jeff about it before I even posted it here. He did respond and said he would look into it.

 

Actually, a lot of the tooltips appear to use legacy text from previous games. There are a few others than are misleading or omit effects, although I don't think anything else is this bad.

[Vent]

Originally Posted By: HOUSE of S

...Actually, a lot of the tooltips appear to use legacy text from previous games. There are a few others than are misleading or omit effects, although I don't think anything else is this bad.

Well ok that for texts but for numbers and from players point of view it's like if ton are wrong.

A simple experience with armor level, the sum shown in character sheet and the numbers show on items. You wear one showing 4% and you get an increase of 2% or you try with another item at 3% and you get the 3% added or removed accordingly.

Either it's weird math hard to guess for the player, either it's many wrong items descriptions.

But all resistances numbers seem weird as well, as you can only guess the formula, it's a bit less weird but it seems vary strangely.

And when you try Dual and Shield+Sword, once you quote a drop down of 20% of To Hit with dual and another time a drop down of 10% if not lower and base To Hit with one sword wasn't at max of 95%.

Add to that many descriptions that are very vague and in practice seems do nothing concrete, plus the high number of incoherent objects, for their price or utility. The whole feels like lacking of polishing on this point. It's a bit details but it's unpleasant.

[Spidweb]

The Dexterity tooltip is fixed in v1.0.1.

 

I would like to tweak the boss fights to manage the difficulty. If you have a boss fight you think you should be able to beat but can't (especially if you are being one-shot killed), save the game just before the fight in the upper left save slot. Go to the saved game folder and compress the folder Save0. Send it to support@spiderwebsoftware.com.

 

I will play it and see what is going on and, very likely, make changes. However, without the specific information I can get from a saved game, I am not going to act. Making fixes blind only leads to creating more problems.

 

- Jeff Vogel

[Slawbug]

Originally Posted By: Vent

A simple experience with armor level, the sum shown in character sheet and the numbers show on items. You wear one showing 4% and you get an increase of 2% or you try with another item at 3% and you get the 3% added or removed accordingly.

Damage reduction (armor and resistance alike) is always MULTIPLIED together. I would assume this is in the instruction manual as it has been clearly spelled in those since at least A4.

Thus, if you wear two 33% pieces of armor, your total damage taken is 67% * 67% or about 44%, not 100% - 33% - 33% which would give you 34%. With multiple pieces of armor this effect is compounded so the reduction is not as large as you might expect.

[Decho]

Anyone know how to update new version till v1.0.1 come

[Vent]

Originally Posted By: HOUSE of S

Originally Posted By: Vent

A simple experience with armor level, the sum shown in character sheet and the numbers show on items. You wear one showing 4% and you get an increase of 2% or you try with another item at 3% and you get the 3% added or removed accordingly.

Damage reduction (armor and resistance alike) is always MULTIPLIED together. I would assume this is in the instruction manual as it has been clearly spelled in those since at least A4.

Thus, if you wear two 33% pieces of armor, your total damage taken is 67% * 67% or about 44%, not 100% - 33% - 33% which would give you 34%. With multiple pieces of armor this effect is compounded so the reduction is not as large as you might expect.

Now you mention it this remind me something, but I don't see how a piece with 3% when removed can remove 3% to the Armor shown in the character sheet.

And how are working the skills with that sort of formula??

I'll check closer but this formula doesn't explain what I quoted but I'll check again with that formula in mind.

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: Vent

Now you mention it this remind me something, but I don't see how a piece with 3% when removed can remove 3% to the Armor shown in the character sheet.

Let me see if I can explain this a little better.

Let's say that your armour is already 50%. You're blocking half of all the damage that you receive. Now, you put on a pair of gauntlets that has 4% armour.

If your armour was 0% to begin with, it'd go from 0% to 4%. But your armour isn't 0%, it's 50%. That means the gauntlets aren't blocking 4% of all the damage you receive, they're only blocking 4% of the 50% that isn't already blocked by your other armour, which means only 2% of the total damage before armour is applied. So your armour rating will go from 50% to 52%.

[Vent]

Originally Posted By: Lilith

...
Let me see if I can explain this a little better.

Let's say that your armour is already 50%. You're blocking half of all the damage that you receive. Now, you put on a pair of gauntlets that has 4% armour.

If your armour was 0% to begin with, it'd go from 0% to 4%. But your armour isn't 0%, it's 50%. That means the gauntlets aren't blocking 4% of all the damage you receive, they're only blocking 4% of the 50% that isn't already blocked by your other armour, which means only 2% of the total damage before armour is applied. So your armour rating will go from 50% to 52%.

Well I didn't wrote item with 3% removed remove 2% to the total but 3%. I just check, two different items 2% each, 56% is sheet. Remove one, 54% in sheet, remove the second 52% in sheet.

The formula isn't applied but well ok I think I know why, it's because it's not armoring but stuff like amulet or ring with armor bonus, those are fully added no multiplication.

Well why make simple when complicated is possible? The good old adage.

[Spidweb]

I am going to rebalance some of the boss fights for v1.0.1 to make them easier. If there was a boss or encounter that you found particularly frustrating or that you had to leave return to many times, please let me know.

 

Be sure to be specific about the name of the boss and what dungeon they were in. Remember, it's a huge game. "The leader of the bandits" won't tell me enough.

 

Any extra details about what specific thing you can remember making the fight hard (a particular spell or ability) would help.

 

Thank you!

 

- Jeff Vogel

[Vent]

Isn't a boss supposed to be hard? Myself I admit I feel the game too Hard at Hard but how complain on that? And for the bosses they are just an element. And I feel the game too easy on Normal, which is bad luck but it can happen to have no satisfying difficulty level matching you in a game.

 

If I had never played Avernum I would have play this remake anyway even at Normal and feeling fights too easy so not much fun.

[Slawbug]

Originally Posted By: Vent

The formula isn't applied but well ok I think I know why, it's because it's not armoring but stuff like amulet or ring with armor bonus, those are fully added no multiplication.

I really don't think there are exceptions. This is well-established behavior that has been constant for years. Anything that looks off is probably due to the fact that the displayed number is rounded to be an integer.

If you really think armor does not work as we stated, then maybe you'd care to give an example? List everything a character is wearing and the displayed armor %, then take off whatever you need to, list what you took off and the new armor %.

[Vent]

Originally Posted By: HOUSE of S

...If you really think armor does not work as we stated, then maybe you'd care to give an example? List everything a character is wearing and the displayed armor %, then take off whatever you need to, list what you took off and the new armor %.

Lol what a hassle, that's certainly the rounding, I even quote one of 2% giving or removing 3% but also a magical item with 2% giving 1% both thing I hadn't noticed for previous post. So yeah certainly some rounding.