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Thoughts about A4 after coming back from remakes


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After completing A:EFTP for 2 times, and before release of A2:CS I played A4 for some time. I stopped at the half of the Great Cave... and now (after completing A2:CS) I went back, and well.

 

~Archers are just fillers. Seriously, they can't tank, they don't do a damage, and only useful thing in my archer character is his natural lore skill. I really feel bad, that I decided to go with archer. While my Slith with his spear is capable of doing 20-70 dmg, my Nephil Archer is doing mostly ~20 dmg, what is nothing in compare to ~100 dmg from every spell.

~Casting haste on every character every damn time is so boring... in most cases I'm even skiping it on tank/archer and casting it on mages, just to spam lighting spray.

~Casting other buffs is even worse, and it's needed pretty often. Aww....

~No loot bag. I'm crying every time, when I go to shop, or when I'm picking new stuff after some fights.

~Madness with skills and trainers. I can put points into everything, trainers are pretty much limited and can be only used when min-maxing, it's hard to make good build because, when you know when it's better to improve dex, and when bows and when some specialised skill? It's really confusing and system from remakes is a lot better.

~HP points, endurance and survivality. I really dont see that much difference beetwen playing on hard and easy. Even in latter most monsters kill my archer/mages on one hit... so it's look like "kill in first few turns or be killed".

~I mentioned that archers are useless? And they are first during the combat. So in most cases if i will do some dmg as archer, monsters will focus him. And hell, even with his pretty high DEX he have really low dodge ratio, so he's dying more often, that surviving. So I'm forced to skip his first turn. So he's even more useless.

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Archery isn't too bad in A4 as a backup form of attack for spellcasters, and can be used that way with relatively minimal investment (especially if you make them Nephilim). I agree that it probably doesn't make sense to have a dedicated archer, though. (Technically, the best weapon in the game is a bow, but you can only get it right before the final dungeon and only with heavy investment in Nature Lore.)

 

The trick to survivability in A4 is that Parry is massively overpowered, since it not only lets you block attacks but also heavily reduces the damage of all attacks that get through (the latter is, as far as I know, not true of any other Avernum game). Invest in Parry on everyone who can reasonably meet the prerequisites, along with some Endurance, and you'll have a significantly easier time.

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In A4, Parry reduces the damage of area attacks. As does armor. And as do buffs. So you don't really need Endurance for that.

 

Also in A4, there's basically no reason to have anyone who's not Divinely Touched, or not a Nephil (unless you want a pole user). That provides a huge number of free points in archery-related skills. (And other attack related skills, too.)

 

Also in A4, it was a lot easier to get bonus AP outside of Haste (from +1 AP items, especially, though there was also a skill)... for that reason, it was very easy to end up in a situation where you could cast 2 spells or take 2 bow shots, but only get 1 melee attack in.

 

Also in A4, there were A LOT of Chitrachs, and they had really high scores in Parry and Riposte, which made melee attacks unpleasant to rely on. And there were some monsters with very high magic resists all around (pylons... REMEMBER A4 PYLONS??? ugh, almost as obnoxious as the chitrachs...).

 

I don't think there's been any SW game, ever, where archery was as good as it was in A4. (At least as long as you don't count Crystal Wands as archery :p)

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I dumped all of my skill points into Mage Spells (16/17 for all characters), Priest Spells (8 for all), Pole Weapons (6-8), and intelligence+endurance (8-10). It's been over a year since I've played A4, but I remember it was pretty easy on torment. There wasn't anything that posed a real challenge for me, although there were parts where I had to practice diligence (like towards the end with the vahnatai fortress).

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Oh great.

 

I got some scripting errors, which I could only avoid by using "backtostart" cheat, but after doing so, ALL items from entire world just dissapeared. Great... and i was so close to ending this game. (just fought with Rentar and killed all Shades)

 

I'm so annoyed right now, not only I wasted ~100h (and trust me, that game isn't pleasant to play) on this, but now I will be unable to play A5/A6...

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Oh great.

 

I got some scripting errors, which I could only avoid by using "backtostart" cheat, but after doing so, ALL items from entire world just dissapeared. Great... and i was so close to ending this game. (just fought with Rentar and killed all Shades)

 

I'm so annoyed right now, not only I wasted ~100h (and trust me, that game isn't pleasant to play) on this, but now I will be unable to play A5/A6...

 

i mean, if you're that close, chances are you already have endgame-quality gear and can probably just power through to the end without needing to pick up any more items. on the other hand it sounds like you'd already stopped having much fun a while ago anyway so maybe it's time to move on to a game you might enjoy more

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I'm so annoyed right now, not only I wasted ~100h (and trust me, that game isn't pleasant to play) on this, but now I will be unable to play A5/A6...

I feel for you. A4 is one of the few SW games I've never finished, despite several attempts. I always get bored and lose interest. A5 and A6 are both far superior, in my opinion, though a lot of your complaints from the OP will still apply. Is that why you say you will be unable to play them, or is there some other reason? Because I would encourage you to give them a shot.
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Well, youre somewhat true. I just went on easy difficulty and started destroying everything, after learning that Augmentation combined with Enduring Armor is making my characters almost immortal.

The worst thing is that, I thought, kay, my party isn't the best, but still isn't that bad. I can get all cachces, all locked doors, im doing pretty good damage... I will did this.

As I said, I dropped this game, but in last week played it for ~20h. When doing remote tunnels I was feeling weird, it was again kinda annoying with those pylons and weird movement but satisfying. However, when I was killing Shades, when i was ending almost all quests, when I was getting more and more skills from trainers, I was like "ok, this party isn't perfect min-max, but it's my beloved one and I will follow with them till end".

Then scripting errors happened and I asked myself. Load save and waste 2h of playtime, or just try to fix it. Tried with backtostart, and i was like woah, no more scripting error... after killing few shades and doing other stuff (what included saving on main slot) I went back to Fort Avernum, where all crafting items were stored. And... it was kinda empty. Then I just realized how entire word was empty. (i wanted to grab some of my graymold to complete quest for curing potions).

 

Is that why you say you will be unable to play them, or is there some other reason? Because I would encourage you to give them a shot.

I just wanted to get full story. While Rentar Arc is kinda obvious and I dont even need to complete the game to know what will happen. (evil will be destroyed, good Avernum will be saved - long story short) but I'm just interested in the world itself. Darkside Loyalist (after all, new trilogy is mostly connected about them) and how the world changed.

 

I remember that after completing A:EFTP 2 times I got pretty addicted to entire Avernum... but I had only that A4. And well, i decided to give it a shoot, although it isn't player-friendly at all.

 

However Lilith, you're probably right. I need to try to end this, with such "empty" world. However, at this point im just rancorus and damn sad (i always want to cry when my saves are getting destroyed, for which I devoted a lot of energy and time).

 

@Slartibus

 

Thanks. I will try something like this if I will go with another, probably torment run on A4. All nephil, 2 battlemages, one priest with some focus for mage spells, with tank. Or maybe, if it's possible, 3 battlemages and priest-tank. I already did divinely touched and other stuff and yes, it's helping a lot.

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Yeah, in future if you run into a script error message it's worth quitting the game, reopening it and loading your last save rather than trying to continue, since there's no telling what else might have gone wrong (in this case the backtostart cheat itself is implicated in the bug you've run into, but if you've already run into other errors it's not like that makes it less likely to do bad things). Was Avernum 4 before SW games started including an autosave feature? I forget.

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Ok, next complaint. You can simply ignore it (that post), but seems like the game itself really dont want me, to play it longer.

After clearing Darkside base from Fort Saffron when I enter The Castle... my game is simply crashing.

Seems like save got completely corrupted for no special reason.

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I found the demos of A4 and A5 quite...umm...uninspiring...and those impressions plus what I could I learn on here from others' views of the games convinced not to buy either of them. However, I *did* buy and greatly enjoy Avernum 6. Even if you give up on A4 and skip A5, I would encourage you to give A6 a chance. I think it was a little less on-rails than A4 / A5 (though not as free and open AEFTP / A2:CS), and, among other spiffy things, it has some really cool scripted events / battles unlike anything in any other SW game I've seen so far.

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Yes, I will play surely A6. Because I have the most important question, what about retcons there?

A4 was so repetitive, worst in this terms.

So abandoned lairs of all Dragons, abandoned tower of Erica, again undeads in Mertis, Basalt Fort in Remote Tunnels like in A1/A2, Rentar's Keep as last dungeon in most obvious place, repeating A1/A2 situation.

There was few interesting things, but I'm wondering, what Jeff did to Avernum in 6 and I just hope, that he didn't used the easiest way, like in A4.

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A6 involves a series of calamities, some involving nature, some involving magic, and some involving humanoids. Although the feel is very different from the first trilogy, there is a real atmosphere to the setting, something that A4 and A5 spent fewer words on. It's also one of the best-balanced SW games. Overall, it's easily the strongest game of the second trilogy, even if it doesn't inspire the kind of devotion that some of the earlier games did.

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I don't think there's been any SW game, ever, where archery was as good as it was in A4. (At least as long as you don't count Crystal Wands as archery :p)

 

Quite true, however, this only is true for one bow, and it comes too late in the game. I gave action points items to my archer, and she was really good. There are two problems with the archer:

First, too dependent on the heartstrike. Other bows are a lot weaker

Second, there are too few places to spend skill points for archers. They should not even take mechanics, because in A4 it is best for mages.

In conclusion, archers are properly balanced at beginning to midgame, then they are less useful as they have no further skills to invest, until they catch up with heartstrike.

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Nah, that's true for other bows too. The free points from traits plus the problems that magic runs into with pylons and that melee runs into with chitrachs -- which, again, there are literally many hundreds of -- makes bows reasonable throughout the game. Skill point for skill point they are still weaker, but it's not just about damage output in A4.

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  • 1 year later...
  • 2 weeks later...

Completed it under ~50h on torment without any problems. Four sorcersers just makes overkill in every battle, everything just went into intelligence + mage spells + spellcraft + magery, entire tanking was done by the augmentation.

With such party it was easier than playing on easy with classic party. (warrior, archer, mage, priest)

And I change my mind when it comes to bows, great secondary option for magic resisted enemies.

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