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Wishlist for Avadon 3 - interface/gameplay suggestions


mikeprichard

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EDIT: I hope people don’t mind, but I’ve now summarized/paraphrased other posters’ suggestions and added them to the list below; there are lots of great ideas (some I had thought of and forgot, and some I hadn’t seen before). Thanks!

 

I've been playing Spiderweb games since Exile 2, and so far I’m enjoying Avadon 2 about as much as I've enjoyed most other Spiderweb titles. But in the hopes that Jeff might actually read these boards, I'd like to collect some minor interface/gameplay annoyances into one thread. Here's hoping they might be addressed for Avadon 3 - or even better, find their way into an Avadon 2 update (dare to dream, right?).

 

INTERFACE SUGGESTIONS

 

Make all information screen keyboard shortcuts toggle – i.e. the same key should both open and close the related screen. Being able to open the inventory screen with “i” but needing to close it by hitting “ESC” is a constant minor annoyance. (This should be automatic for the character screen and journal, but for the inventory screen – where the selected screen-closing key would interfere with the corresponding key tagged to an item to pick up from the ground – it should probably be optional.)

 

Add separate equipment stat modifiers to the “Attributes” section of the character statistics screen to clarify base vs. modified attributes. For example, if your character has a “base” strength of 10, and is wearing a Charm of Power for +1 STR, his/her attribute list should show strength as “10 +1” rather than “11”. I’m not sure why this wasn’t implemented for attributes, as such modifiers are provided for abilities – and these exact stat modifiers were included in A:EFTP.

 

Clear/thorough in-game tooltips and instruction manual information regarding the controlling attribute for every skill/ability. I understand the occasional vagueness in this area might be a conscious decision on Jeff’s part. But considering the volume of requests on the forums for clarification of which attribute controls a particular ability (including in this topic, e.g. re: Tinkermage skills and INT, which stats – if any – affect summons, etc.), as well as the fact that skill points are limited due to the level cap and ability planning (despite the optional respec feature) is therefore very important, this would seem a pretty big oversight. The addition of a combat mechanics section to the Avadon 2 manual also indicates Jeff is realizing this himself.

 

The option to include more detailed combat stat info (hit chance, critical hit chance, evasion chance, etc.) to the text console.

 

Enhanced UI scaling. “Jeff already introduced a ‘bigger font’ option and it helps a LOT. But many things are still too small in 1080p and strain my eyes.”

 

The option to use the mouse scroll wheel to scroll through shop and other inventory lists.

 

The ability to directly equip items from the inventory (without needing to drag and drop on the character).

 

Larger character pack. Now that weight only matters for equipped items, despite the extremely handy “junk bag,” some packrats (me included) would like more room to sort/store items.

 

Expandable (view) junk bag.

 

Sortable quest list and inventory.

 

The option to click a location within the “popup map” (accessed by holding the “Tab” key) to move the party to that location - or some other simpler method of quick party movement to a distant point on the area map.

 

The option to view the world map at any point during the game.

 

Make looting less of a pixel-hunt/“g”-key bonanza. “Maybe there could also be an icon that appears on-screen (based on a character's skill or attribute?) that indicates there are items available to be picked up in the vicinity.” “This probably won't happen, but I'd like to see a de-emphasis on the scavenging and looting aspect, and the fact that this is the largest part of the in-game economy... Instead of carrying 20 sets of leather armor plus everything else that wasn't nailed to the floor back to town after every adventure, I'd rather see missions (or even a stipend) be your primary source of gold, and random drops/lootable items be fewer but less trivial.” The current system might be at least partly intentional on Jeff’s part, but constantly needing to hit the “g” key to find useful items lying around among all the junk is (for some) more of an annoyance than a fun challenge.

 

Clicking on a mine/snare with a melee weapon equipped should automatically cause the character to move up to the mine/snare and attack, just as would occur with any other enemy. (This could be made optional for those who appreciate the default in-game warning message “Disarm Mine: Too far away. Move next to it before trying to disarm it.”)

 

The ability to view summoned creatures’ stats.

 

GAMEPLAY SUGGESTIONS

 

Shaman tweaks:

1) “Increase the Creature Summon limit to 2 per shaman, 4 per party. This is in line with Tinkermages being able to have two turrets out at a time.”

2) “Change the physical damage shaman casting skills so that they are controlled by intelligence rather than by dexterity… The split dex/int requirements to get decent damage out of the combat line of skills makes the whole line unattractive.”

 

Other skill tweaks/fixes:

1) Sorcerer's Icy Lance skill should not be keyed to ranged damage.

 

Additional options to restore Vitality other than potions or returning to Avadon – e.g. the ability to restore Vitality similar to Health in certain designated “safe locations” like friendly forts, or the ability to restore Vitality through consuming food.

 

The option to save the game between lengthy dialogues and larger/boss battles.

 

 

I’m interested to see what others might add to this list. Again, I’m enjoying the game as much as I expected, but feel there’s still room for several simple and much-needed improvements in the interface/gameplay area. Cheers!

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4) If a character has a melee weapon equipped, clicking on a snare should automatically cause the character to move up to the snare and attack, just as would occur with any other enemy.

 

It does if you have your melee weapon selected as your attack method. If you're switched to the missile weapon, it won't. I'm happy enough with this behaviour: it reduces the risk that you'll accidentally run headfirst into danger because of a misclick.

 

The others are fair points, although toggling keyboard shortcuts is less likely to happen than the other two: Jeff seems to have decided that being able to use the keyboard to select inventory items is worth more than being able to open and close the inventory with the same key.

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It does if you have your melee weapon selected as your attack method. If you're switched to the missile weapon, it won't. I'm happy enough with this behaviour: it reduces the risk that you'll accidentally run headfirst into danger because of a misclick.

 

The others are fair points, although toggling keyboard shortcuts is less likely to happen than the other two: Jeff seems to have decided that being able to use the keyboard to select inventory items is worth more than being able to open and close the inventory with the same key.

 

Huh... in my Windows 7 game, even with melee selected as default, clicking on a snare/mine in combat simply gives the message "Disarm Mine: Too far away. Move next to it before trying to disarm it." Is there something you changed in the game settings to fix this?

 

And good point about the inventory screen keyboard shortcut issue - but it would still make sense to me to have the toggle as an option (and it would especially make sense for other screens, like the journal and character sheet).

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I have thought the same, though more often I have thought that it would be great if some of the food would restore vitality. So far I am about to complete the hunting the rebels quest and the pylon location has been pretty easy to access in all of the side quests, so I have been able to recharge there which is fortunate since I seem to be burning through vitality. The only area in Avadon 1 that was awful to recharge at the pylon at was Castle Vebeaux where it was so far from the entrance. Having the multiple directions to enter the different maps from helps with recharging as well, I see that as a very positive change in the interface.

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It would be good if you could restore Vitality just by resting in some safe location like a friendly fort, instead of having to drain potions or go back to Avadon.

THANKFULLY the first portal pylon in the Contested Lands is close to the edge of the map and can be easily used for refreshing oneself. Avadon 1 had me trudging half the map each time I wanted to get to a pylon and I positively hated it.

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Jeff has done a great job of removing the pointless frustrations and timewasters from his CRPG's, but there is one thing I would greatly like to see: If there is a long dialogue that segues right into a tough boss fight, please please please give the player a chance to save the game between the dialogue and the fight. No need to stop things and let the player move around; just give him a pop-up window that says "do you want to save before this fight?" That way, when you lose and reload, you don't have to skip through the same dialogue over and over.

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Two balance suggestions:

 

1. Increase the Creature Summon limit to 2 per shaman, 4 per party, so that shamans can summon both a wolf line creature and a drake line creature at the same time. This is in line with Tinkermages being able to have two turrets out at a time.

 

2. Change the physical damage shaman casting skills so that they are controlled by intelligence rather than by dexterity. No one is (rationally) going to pump dexterity as a shaman if they are speccing into the combat side of the skill tree, but that renders the top combat skill of only limited use, since without pushing dexterity it's not going to do decent damage. Since the top combat skill is weak unless a shaman goes with a bizarre attribute allocation, by extension, all of the shaman combat skills other than spirit claw don't look so hot. The split dex/int requirements to get decent damage out of the combat line of skills makes the whole line unattractive.

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Yep, Dex/Endurance Shaman makes sense in Avadon 1. But that's because it made a great evade tank, it was a defensive build. In 2, Dex is much less useful defensively, defeating the purpose of the build. And even in Avadon 1, Dex/Endurance Shamans were better served by ignoring the combat tree past the level one skill and going for drakes instead, since most of the combat tree is functionally useless to them, as it relies on Intelligence.

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Huh... in my Windows 7 game, even with melee selected as default, clicking on a snare/mine in combat simply gives the message "Disarm Mine: Too far away. Move next to it before trying to disarm it." Is there something you changed in the game settings to fix this?

Yeah, Dikiyoba is also on Windows and has the same problem.

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Yeah, apparently I was just totally misremembering that and you can't charge into battle with a mine. (It's often a bad idea to do that anyway: mines tend to come in pairs, so you want to move toward them carefully so that you're only within attack range of one of them. But I suppose the option should exist for those who are willing to risk it.)

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Clickable popup map.

 

Right now there's the main window, the map in the upper right corner, and the one that pops up when you hold "tab." To move somewhere far away, you have to (1) hold tab to see the whole map, (2) click at the upper right map several times to move it to where you want to be, then (3) click on the main window to start walking there. Clicking on the popup map to move the main window would makes this much better.

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Also - I wish he'd put more details in the manual, the way he did in some of his previous games I am an inveterate manual reader though I know many players are not. I don't mind much because I've played a bunch of Spiderweb games and have a feel for this...but there are still questions I'd like to see answered. For example, whether intelligence benefits Tinkermage (I found a Tinkermage-specific item that increases intelligence, hinting that it does, but there's nothing in the manual or the game to tell me whether it does) and whether anything other than the relevant skills (i.e., the character's level or ability scores) affects summoned creatures. On the interface itself, the ability to see your summoned creatures' stats (the way you could in Geneforge) would also be nice.

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LINDYLOU - as far as I can tell, all stairs/ladders/trapdoors that can actually be used are in fact permanently marked on the area map after they first come within view of your party; I remember there were one or two "dummy" (i.e. unusable) trapdoors that didn't, so maybe you're thinking of those? But I could be wrong and be forgetting something - it's a fairly big game.

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Yep, Dex/Endurance Shaman makes sense in Avadon 1. But that's because it made a great evade tank, it was a defensive build. In 2, Dex is much less useful defensively, defeating the purpose of the build. And even in Avadon 1, Dex/Endurance Shamans were better served by ignoring the combat tree past the level one skill and going for drakes instead, since most of the combat tree is functionally useless to them, as it relies on Intelligence.

 

Hello, first timer here. I've just registered to ask: how did you come to know that?

 

I'm currently playing Avadon I, and I mostly skiped onto agility (except for the Shadowstalker dude), until I read it was pretty OP, making you dodge all the time and what not. Except... it's not written anywhere in the tolltip. Nor is it written that this spell is modified by intelligence and this one by dexterity, or that endurance helps against this or that, while dexterity helps against this or that.

Had I known that, I'd have min maxed a whole lot better.

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There are people on these forums who play the game over and over testing how different things work. Some also look into the game's scripts some and pick up insights. Unfortunately, the games themselves tend to offer very little of this sort of information to players. In some cases, the tooltips in Jeff's games have been flat-out wrong. At lot of this sort of information gets collected and the links saved in the Strategy Central threads at the top of each game forum.

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Hello, first timer here. I've just registered to ask: how did you come to know that?

 

I'm currently playing Avadon I, and I mostly skiped onto agility (except for the Shadowstalker dude), until I read it was pretty OP, making you dodge all the time and what not. Except... it's not written anywhere in the tolltip. Nor is it written that this spells is modified by intelligence and this one by dexterity, or that endurance helps against this or that, while dexterity helps against this or that.

Had I known that, I'd have min maxed a whole lot better.

 

As Triumph says, the in-game documentation is pretty scanty, but the forum community does an outstanding job of figuring out the mechanics and sharing with those of us who lack the technical skill to do so :). I never play a spiderweb game without thoroughly studying each thread linked in that game's Strategy Central thread.

 

Don't fret if you've not built your party the way you'd like to have in Avadon 1

There is a trainer about halfway through the game who can reset all your skills and attributes so you can re-allocate them

.

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Don't fret if you've not built your party the way you'd like to have in Avadon 1

There is a trainer about halfway through the game who can reset all your skills and attributes so you can re-allocate them

.

 

 

Or you can hold down Shift and the D key and type "retrain" into the bar that comes up that asks what you want, at any time

 

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I'd like it if you could sort your quests somehow. Like by the area they're in (Contested Lands etc) so that you don't need to flick through the whole list looking for any to do while in the area.

 

 

And a very small, trivial thing: I'm female, playing a female character. I'd like it if she didn't grunt like a man when she dies (the female character gets the same dying noise as male characters instead of the noise female NPCs make) .

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I'd like to see some inventory sorting options - strangely while I'm pretty slobbish in the real world, I can get some severe digital OCD going, and when your inventory is basically just a sack you stuff things in like a hamper, well...

 

Also, I'd love it if instead of a teeny weeny corner of the screen, the junk bag expanded into it's own panel. It's an infinitely massive space, it shouldn't be squished into a tiny little pocket.

 

Finally, I'd like it if there were a way to directly equip items from the inventory onto the character. Given that there's only a single slot for everything (as opposed to say, two ring slots) there's really no need to have to drag and drop.

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I posted about this elsewhere, but who else would like the level cap to be raised/removed? Although I did complete all the available side quests up to that point, I hit the cap during the Hunting M****** main quest - about 2/3 of the way through the game. Apparently there was talk of raising the cap after Avadon 1, but for some reason it didn't happen. Discuss.

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2. Change the physical damage shaman casting skills so that they are controlled by intelligence rather than by dexterity. No one is (rationally) going to pump dexterity as a shaman if they are speccing into the combat side of the skill tree, but that renders the top combat skill of only limited use, since without pushing dexterity it's not going to do decent damage. Since the top combat skill is weak unless a shaman goes with a bizarre attribute allocation, by extension, all of the shaman combat skills other than spirit claw don't look so hot. The split dex/int requirements to get decent damage out of the combat line of skills makes the whole line unattractive.

 

It is not as bad as it seems - while Shaman has to split his stats, he has higher dice in his better spells. Even at a stat disadvantage, he gets similar damage to Sorcerer.

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I posted about this elsewhere, but who else would like the level cap to be raised/removed? Although I did complete all the available side quests up to that point, I hit the cap during the Hunting M****** main quest - about 2/3 of the way through the game. Apparently there was talk of raising the cap after Avadon 1, but for some reason it didn't happen. Discuss.

 

I have maxed out my PC at the very beginning of the Temples of Tawon quest, on normal difficulty. I have done almost all of the side quests. I am sure that there are some players who do not do all of the side quests and so are probably not maxing out until later in this quest, or even into the Corruption's Core quest. In terms of balance, it is probably desirable for a player who only did around half of the side quests or so to max out their levels prior to the end of the Corruption's Core quest so that they can do any final adjusting/re-training of their characters prior to starting the Final Hunt. I understand your frustration hitting the level cap so early, but I wonder when the average player is hitting it.

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I have maxed out my PC at the very beginning of the Temples of Tawon quest, on normal difficulty. I have done almost all of the side quests. I am sure that there are some players who do not do all of the side quests and so are probably not maxing out until later in this quest, or even into the Corruption's Core quest. In terms of balance, it is probably desirable for a player who only did around half of the side quests or so to max out their levels prior to the end of the Corruption's Core quest so that they can do any final adjusting/re-training of their characters prior to starting the Final Hunt. I understand your frustration hitting the level cap so early, but I wonder when the average player is hitting it.

 

True - I'm sure many players will reach the level cap a little later than I did. I guess I'm just disappointed in its apparent use as another way to "force" a static level of challenge on the entire game (with the exception of a couple token "challenge" fights). Upping the difficulty level doesn't fix this problem - it just makes every combat harder by a static degree.

 

Although I still like Avadon overall, what I really enjoyed about the older Exiles/Avernums was the well-implemented non-linearity, which allowed some players to explore and develop more, and as a result, see their characters grow in power relative to earlier challenges. As it is, Avadon aims for mass appeal with the static challenge level. The result is "balanced" difficulty throughout any one playthrough, but in my mind, this eliminates the fun of character growth that's central to so many truly great classic RPGs.

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It is not as bad as it seems - while Shaman has to split his stats, he has higher dice in his better spells. Even at a stat disadvantage, he gets similar damage to Sorcerer.

 

Better dice, but much longer re-charge times on the abilities. And even were that not the case, I think we're stretching "similar" quite a lot if we're claiming Shaman combat skill damage is comparable to Sorc combat skill damage. The highest level Shaman attack skills use dex rather than int, and having a 33% better die doesn't matter much when the other guy has twice the die rolls. You could push dex over int, but then your base attack will be horrible damage and rarely land. You could use javelins, but without a skill to increase their damage or accuracy, the damage will be minimal there as well. I understand looking for a silver lining, particularly given that Shaman is my favorite class, but sadly the combat skills are just awful compared to every other class. Fortunately the passives, utility skills and summons are decent enough, so long as you don't compare them to Blademaster or especially Tinkermage.

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This probably won't happen, but I'd like to see a de-emphasis on the scavenging and looting aspect, and the fact that this is the largest part of the in-game economy. To me, this is the least interesting part of the game - far less than the story, making ethical/philosophical choices, and the combat tactics. Instead of carrying 20 sets of leather armor plus everything else that wasn't nailed to the floor back to town after every adventure, I'd rather see missions (or even a stipend) be your primary source of gold, and random drops/lootable items be fewer but less trivial.

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Clear/thorough in-game tooltips and instruction manual information regarding the controlling attribute for every skill/ability. I understand the occasional vagueness in this area might be a conscious decision on Jeff’s part. But considering the volume of requests on the forums for clarification of which attribute controls a particular ability (including in this topic, e.g. re: Tinkermage skills and INT, which stats – if any – affect summons, etc.), as well as the fact that skill points are limited due to the level cap and ability planning (despite the optional respec feature) is therefore very important, this would seem a pretty big oversight. The addition of a combat mechanics section to the Avadon 2 manual also indicates Jeff is realizing this himself.

 

Hmm. You know, thinking about it, I don't really like the association of a single stat to each skill/ability. It is certainly a powerful way to simplify tailoring a character towards a particular set of skills, and it's probably too deep into the battle mechanics now to change for later versions of Avadon, but I'd prefer to make stats much more general in nature. (The way that many other RPGs do it.) That is, Strength simply provides a bonus to damage dealt (both for melee and for most ranged attacks, since shuriken/javelins are thrown and bowstrings require a decent pull), Dexterity applies a to-hit bonus for pretty much everything (both weapon and spell), and Intelligence maybe provides a limit on the quantity and/or complexity of spell or spell-like abilities you can train (even the spell-like abilities of Blademasters and Shadowwalkers).

 

At least Endurance currently has an effect on practically everything, so most training questions right now come down to "Do I emphasize Endurance, or do I emphasize X", where X is the specific stat most used by the given class.

 

I think it'd be nice, for example, to be able to create a brute-force-oriented Blademaster, a finesse-oriented Blademaster, or battlefield-support-oriented Blademaster, depending on whether you emphasize Strength, Dexterity, or Intelligence...

 

Edit: Alternatively, just go ahead and limit each class to having an Endurance attribute and a class attribute, so that you don't have the situation of someone trying to create an abnormally strong Shadowwalker and eventually finding out they really can't do much of anything with the character...

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Although I still like Avadon overall, what I really enjoyed about the older Exiles/Avernums was the well-implemented non-linearity, which allowed some players to explore and develop more, and as a result, see their characters grow in power relative to earlier challenges. As it is, Avadon aims for mass appeal with the static challenge level. The result is "balanced" difficulty throughout any one playthrough, but in my mind, this eliminates the fun of character growth that's central to so many truly great classic RPGs.

 

This is a conscious change in Jeff Vogel's design philosophy: he's said that making and testing a non-linear game is a lot more work and he just doesn't have the energy for it any more, so you're probably mostly going to see relatively linear games from him in future (with the exception of the Avernum re-remakes, for which he already has complete games to work from as a base for his design, leaving him more time and energy free for the extra testing and balancing work). Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

 

Edit: Alternatively, just go ahead and limit each class to having an Endurance attribute and a class attribute, so that you don't have the situation of someone trying to create an abnormally strong Shadowwalker and eventually finding out they really can't do much of anything with the character...

 

A melee shadowwalker is actually pretty good thanks to the backstab bonus, it's just kind of a boring class build to play since it'll mostly just be using normal attacks and the occasional Shadowstep. Your general point is well taken, though.

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This is a conscious change in Jeff Vogel's design philosophy: he's said that making and testing a non-linear game is a lot more work and he just doesn't have the energy for it any more, so you're probably mostly going to see relatively linear games from him in future (with the exception of the Avernum re-remakes, for which he already has complete games to work from as a base for his design, leaving him more time and energy free for the extra testing and balancing work). Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

 

Thanks for the info - that's what I figured. I'll still definitely buy Avadon 3, but I guess it's back to Avernum for the non-linear goodness.

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Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

Sad-face. I guess that means that G1, G2, and A3 will always be my favorite Spiderweb games. Gradually chipping away at the unknown in G1 and G2 (perhaps sneaking past many way-too-hard enemies), or riding around on a horse and occasionally getting utterly stomped in A3, were what drew me to Spiderweb games. G5, G6, and especially G4 were also good stuff. I still mostly enjoy the newer games, but they just don't compare.

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A melee shadowwalker is actually pretty good thanks to the backstab bonus, it's just kind of a boring class build to play since it'll mostly just be using normal attacks and the occasional Shadowstep. Your general point is well taken, though.

 

I actually find the shadowwalker to be one of the most fun classes to play. Shadowstep is both cool and very useful, and it's usefulness scales with your understanding of the game's tactics. I also get plenty of use out of Shadowwalker Focus and their melee AOE, which pair nicely to get mobs to focus on the shadowwalker instead of some of the more delicate characters and then take spike damage every round while the shadowwalker regenerates. Plus, if you maximize Earth Discipline they get an amazing set of resistances.

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I actually find the shadowwalker to be one of the most fun classes to play. Shadowstep is both cool and very useful, and it's usefulness scales with your understanding of the game's tactics. I also get plenty of use out of Shadowwalker Focus and their melee AOE, which pair nicely to get mobs to focus on the shadowwalker instead of some of the more delicate characters and then take spike damage every round while the shadowwalker regenerates. Plus, if you maximize Earth Discipline they get an amazing set of resistances.

 

The Shadowwalker's melee AOE actually keys off Dexterity for some reason, which means it's not that great for a melee-focused Shadowwalker.

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At least Endurance currently has an effect on practically everything, so most training questions right now come down to "Do I emphasize Endurance, or do I emphasize X", where X is the specific stat most used by the given class[...]

 

Edit: Alternatively, just go ahead and limit each class to having an Endurance attribute and a class attribute, so that you don't have the situation of someone trying to create an abnormally strong Shadowwalker and eventually finding out they really can't do much of anything with the character...

 

About emphasizing END vs. the "class" stat for each character (STR for melee characters, DEX for ranged, or INT for (most) magic): on Normal difficulty, I found diverting points from the class stat to END made a much weaker build overall. The character could take a little more damage, but since he/she would do a lot less damage and hit less often, he/she ended up getting into longer fights and taking more punishment in the long run anyway. So though I haven't played on harder difficulties myself, I'd think this problem would be even worse on Hard or Torment - i.e. increasing END by a few points only gives another (say) 30-40 hit points, while the cold/acid/poison resistance doesn't seem significant (or in the case of cold resist, doesn't seem to actually work as intended according to the tooltip); on the other hand, being able to hit and do damage (with more STR/DEX/INT) would be essential.

 

So is there really any reason from a power-gaming perspective to nerf a character's class stat in favor of a few more END? I just don't see it.

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If you don't invest in Endurance on Torment difficulty, some of the more powerful enemies will straight-up kill characters in one hit with their strongest attacks. Having at least enough Endurance to take one hit and heal up afterwards can be pretty important. Some classes, like the Shadowwalker, have good enough defensive passives that you can get away with little or no Endurance investment, though.

 

On lower difficulties it's also viable to run a DEX/END evasion tank build on one character, loading them up with all the evasion-boosting items you can find plus Deep Runestone boosts. You'll barely ever get hit and can just kill things at your leisure. On Torment this sorta works against some enemies, but not all.

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On lower difficulties it's also viable to run a DEX/END evasion tank build on one character, loading them up with all the evasion-boosting items you can find plus Deep Runestone boosts. You'll barely ever get hit and can just kill things at your leisure. On Torment this sorta works against some enemies, but not all.

So true against some that need two or three shots to kill you, but they do them before you can get healed.
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That makes more sense then - so I guess ignoring END is really only viable on Casual or Normal. BTW, for a playthrough on Hard/Torment as a melee-focused character (I'm thinking Tinkermage), what would be a recommended STR-vs.-END stat point distribution by Level 30?

 

I generally hovered somewhere between a 1:1 ratio and a 2:1 ratio in favour of STR. For most of the game, Tinkermages do most of their damage with their turrets in serious fights, so you can afford to neglect attacking stats a bit.

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Cool, thanks Lilith.

 

Going back to the shaman DEX-vs.-INT thing - was Jeff ever planning to "fix" Call the Storm's and Earthquake's use of DEX (i.e. make them use INT instead) after Avadon 1, and just forgot to change this for Avadon 2? Or was this intentional, and if so, why? Just wondering whether any previous beta testers have some inside info.

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