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What's up with Avernum 3 combat?


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Something has always bothered me. Avernum 1 and 2 are actually pretty challenging on Torment difficulty. Avernum 3 is bafflingly easy. The first time I played Avernum 3, I noticed that I was consistently one-shotting everything I fought, which I'd never done before in an Avernum game. Even at the very beginning of the game, I would have to set the difficulty to Torment just so that enemies could start doing noticeable damage. Even then, nothing posed any real threat in the entire game except Dark Wyrms, which is very different from the experience I had in Avernum 1 and 2.

 

I'm curious, I only recently started coming to these boards again. Did Jeff ever comment on why this was? Did he deliberately scale back the difficulty of Avernum 3? Or was it the result of tweaking a bunch of internal damage equations (Avernum 1 and 2 used similar damage ranges, but Avernum 3 was totally different) that never ended up being balanced properly?

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I just started on Hard, and I can say the earliest enemies (goblins and bandits) are ridiculously easy. The shambler and the later chitrach waves in upper avernum are the first things that have posed even a slight challenge for me so far. I think the difficulty curve might make the game get harder as it goes, rather than easier (like the recent remakes if you min-max).

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Jeff makes the demo part easy to sucker players into the game. On normal difficulty you should be able to get through with an average party without dying too often. Even on torment difficulty you can get through it with a few more deaths.

 

Now the current remake of Avernum 2 is the first time I've played a tutorial where you can get a total party kill before you even get downstairs at Fort Garnick. :)

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  • 1 month later...

I am now playing A3 on Torment, and it seems no harder to me than on Hard (technically called Tough in A3). I'm fighting the slimes now, and they are every bit as much a joke, and seem to have no more HP and do no more damage. I've read in places that Hard doubles monster HP and damage vs Normal, and Torment doubles these things again. I've read in other places that Torment only increases monster level across the board, which may have a smaller effect (much less than double) on HP and damage, as well as higher chance for the monster to hit and lower chance to hit the monster. In yet other places, I've read that Torment gives a hidden hit to player resistances, but was that from the remakes and not the original Avernums?

 

I honestly don't notice a difference in any of these things. Could my version be bugged, or does Torment just not make as much of a difference in A3 as in other games? Can anyone confirm what the exact differences are in A3? Thanks.

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  • 1 month later...

I have now beat A3 (version 1.0.0.9 for Mac from GoG.com) on "Torment," and the tower disaster never happened, even at day 141. This, combined with the breezy difficulty throughout the entire game compared to any of Jeff's other games, is very strong evidence that some essential flag was set to "Tough" rather than "Torment" in my save file. Judging from feedback from others, it seems very likely that this is a bug with at least the latest GoG version of A3.

 

Unless anyone has info to the contrary, or knows how to set A3 to proper Torment difficulty on the latest GoG version, I guess we will be waiting until the remake to have a proper challenge playing a full party in this game. Oh well, at least I experienced the content and the story! :D

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Difficulty differences are not consistent between SW games, especially not back as far as A3 is.

 

Also, the ToM disaster is normally triggered in the neighborhood of 150-160, isn't it? I'm skeptical that difficulty would affect that, since there are a lot of other timed events in A3 (towns decaying) that don't seem to be affected by difficulty.

 

Anyway, I'm not sure this is very strong evidence.

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Sorry if the information I am spreading is wrong, but I read it here: http://spiderwebforu...torment +tower.

 

It states that the tower disaster happens around day 100 on Torment, and around day 160 on all other difficulties. I thought it was funny too, and I don't know where the posters of that thread got the info. None of them objected to it, including Randomizer. But, if it's wrong, it should be put to rest.

 

A bug would seem to offer the most plausible explanation for why I see absolutely NO difference in difficulty between Tough and Torment in A3, but I suppose it's possible that Jeff designed the difference to be small, or that he just didn't properly tune it to be noticeable. Is there a general consensus that Torment has always been barely, if at all, harder than Tough in A3?

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A bug would seem to offer the most plausible explanation for why I see absolutely NO difference in difficulty between Tough and Torment in A3, but I suppose it's possible that Jeff designed the difference to be small, or that he just didn't properly tune it to be noticeable. Is there a general consensus that Torment has always been barely, if at all, harder than Tough in A3?

 

Honestly, once your party gets going A3 just isn't a very hard game; it's possible to end up practically invincible on any difficulty setting.

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