MrRoivas

The addition of accuracy to missile/melee weapons fixes one of my most grievous bones to pick with Geneforge 1, which was that some of the high-level bonus boss/enemies were almost impossible to hit with no solution because everything was based on level. Gottesch was especially aggravating, because he was level 23 in a game where someone who did literally everything and used the Geneforge might crack 21/22. The other amazing addition of battle shaping is obviously beyond realistic levels of modding, but what about weapon accuracy? Would it be possible, though tedious?

SDF 100 4 X?

Thank you. I now feel kinda dumb.

Is there a way to expose a combat log in Geneforge 2? As it is now, there is no info on miss chances, or how much damage is getting blocked on successful hits. Why deny this to the player?

Ran across that canister in the mined shed in Pentil woods. In the OG Geneforge, it simply involved sending in a sacrificial thahd to get the job done. Now we can't move creations separate from the main character, and I don't recall there being any sort of switch for the mines in this zone. So how is a player supposed to get the canister, given that face tanking the blasts leads to swift death?

Granted, people are now forever more forced to speak in binary, a bit at a time. All previous bits of writing are converted into raw binary code as well. I wish the average human lifespan was twice as long.

Granted, humans are now incapable of acting with any sort of intent, having all been turned into video games characters, with no more ability to be malicious than a windup toy. I wish sea monkeys looked and acted like their dishonest promotional material.

When I logged into steam this morning it told me I had a new item in my inventory. Turned out to be a 20% discount for Avernum 3. Anyone want it? I've tried Avernum 5 and 6, and I just don't get on with the series. Also, I hope this doesn't mean sales are turning out to be disappointing for Jeff. Discounts this early in a game's life generally aren't a good sign.

I'd encourage you to get to HR when you can. While the first was janky but so much greater than the sum of its parts, HR is pretty polished and pretty much the sum of its parts. Which is fine, as its parts tend to be pretty high quality.

As practically anyone with an internet connection probably knows, the latest Deus Ex game is coming out. I've pre-loaded it onto my hard drive, and I'm quite eager for it. It got me to thinking whether any sizable number of people in this community like the franchise as well. Its an RPG series, but always a shooter-RPG series, and shooters don't get discussed much here. Short version of my thoughts: Played the first one back when there was only it and Invisible War, loved it, loved it, loved it. One of those games I'll remember forever and what not. Barely got past the tutorial level in Invisible War before I quit of out apathy and dislike. Loved HR, with the caveat that it seemed to me merely very very good, as opposed to flawed but great like the original. If this thread gets any real response, I'll expand my comments for those who are interested.

I've discovered two game mechanics that apply to the entire series that don't seem to be mentioned anywhere in any of the strategy centrals: 1. Luck affects turn order. This mostly is important for Shapers who can't afford many points invested in quick action and don't want to ever invest in dexterity. 2. Melee weapons have a hidden accuracy bonus that is equal to 5*damage dice. Melee weapons essentially add on an undocumented and hidden bonus to the PCs melee skill. This can be easily shown by uneqiupping your PC's weapon and attacking a few rogues. You'll find that suddenly your character can't hit the broadside of a battle alpha. I don't know if this also applies to missile weapons, never having much use for them. But it wouldn't surprise me if they worked the same way. This is certainly an important consideration as to what weapon to chose for your PC. As a direct example, in G4 the Oozing Blade is 12-60 damage and the Shaped Blade 14-70. The Oozing Blade also has a listed +5 to hit. But given the above info, it will actually be 5% less accurate than the shaped blade, given that it has two less damage dice. This info also calls into question the value in general of weapons that have few damage dice in exchange for bonuses to stats. Is it worth having two more parry and quick action if your sword also has a 10, 20 or even 30 percent accuracy deficit compared to the blander but harder hitting sword?

I'd love to have an easy way of examining all the different ending permutations for the Geneforge games, given how many different ways for each game to end. A quick check through the data files for the original didn't yield anything useful. Has anyone figured it out?

This question was always easy for me. Astoria. Her option gives creations rights while maintaining necessary and proper controls on shaping. What's not to like?

Didn't work in G4 either. If it was fixed, it was only for G5.

Where is this recent poll of best games? I can't find it with the search function.

I have the exact same problem as you, and the only solutions I can tell are this: 1.) Play in XP compatibility mode. It might help. 2.) Be a singleton. It slows done more for every animated character on screen. 3.) The later the game, the better it is. G1 is worst, with it being a bit better in G2, and somewhat more so in G3. As observed, not an issue at all in G4. Really though, they are old and coded to run entirely off a 32 bit processor. Its going to take until the remakes for the issue to be fixed.

Yes, breastplate. And neither my dexterity nor my luck changed, only my armor and weapons.

Was doing yet another run through and had made a beeline to the tombs. Thus my Guardian was low enough level to have a hard time hitting the thade shades present, leading to my discovery. I started the section with a bronze sword (3 damage die) and a chainmail suit (-5% accuracy). In the tombs is a corpse with both an iron sword (5 die) and an iron chestguard (-10%). Before putting on the iron chestguard, I had a 46% hit rate against the shades. I naturally expected to go down to 41%, given the heavier armor. But instead my hit went to 51%. What gives? In a flash, I decide to do a test. I throw down my iron sword to see how accurate my fists are. My experiment is a success, with fists having a measly 16% hit rate, 35% less. Given that there is a difference of 2 damage die between the iron and bronze sword along with a 10% accuracy difference, it suggests that swords give a 10% flat accuracy bonus plus another 5% for each damage die added. I always wondered how character hit rates are able to keep up with increasingly dodgy enemies. Now we know. I wonder if armor has a similar hidden bonus to dodge rates.

Hyperbolic title aside, anyone got any clue why suddenly Avadon and the Avernum remake suddenly got so much bigger in their download sizes? I just checked, and Geneforge 5 was about 35 MB. Avernum 6 about the same size. Then suddenly Avadon triples that with about 105 MB download for the demo. And the recent remake balloons that up to 165 MB. What on earth is Jeff putting in those games that could make them so much bigger than any of his previous ones? Is it simply a matter of much less aggressive compression?

Originally Posted By: Goldenking Again, there's a plot reason we won't be seeing the new classes introduced into a new Geneforge 1. The PC is a Shaper apprentice, and those are the only three Shaper classes. Obviously the Servile isn't a Shaper class, as you've already identified. A lifecrafter, which cannot exist canonically, is also void; infiltrators, warriors, shock troopers, and to an extent the sorceress, are all military members, not Shapers. As the plot hinges on the PC being a Shaper, this isn't an issue Jeff will have to deal with. I guess I wasn't clear. What Jeff could do is come up with new shaper classes, with new lore for each of the old skill combinations in the shaper society. As I admitted, its unlikely, but possible. Originally Posted By: Goldenking Here's how I see an ability tree working. Let's say you have a Guardian - that class would have access to a branch of a tree on combat and one on Shaping, and something equivalent to the current general skills area (leadership, mechanics, luck) or maybe something different in the center. Shapers would have Shaping, magic, and the new one/general one. Agents would have combat, magic, and the new one/general one. That would allow for the current three tiered approach he's been using in Avadon, and I assume Avernum as well. Furthermore, that would help prevent newbies from dying after creating a melee Shaper - something Jeff seems to like to prevent. Shaping and spells would be independent of the ability tree, as they are currently. You learn them from canisters and teachers, and that's that. There would still be an issue, even with that system. To compare, in Avernum the "combat" tree has sword and board, it has dual wielding, pole weapons, blademaster, archery, sharpshooter, you get the drift. As of now, the melee "tree" would have four skills in Geneforge, and that's it. And all of them would be general number buffs, rather than the more specific upgrades of the Avernum skills such as Anatomy or Sharpshooter. Same goes for Shaping.

Obviously, a lot of old fans have been real excited and pleased by the first Avernum re-remake. Just as obviously, there have been a lot of changes to the gameplay, in spells, abilities, monsters, even how leveling up works. So what changes is everyone expecting, hoping for and dreading? Lets start with the pretty clear cut: 1.) Graphics update. Duh. 2.) Junk bag. Oh la la. Paired in with the new encumbrance system for G1-G3. 3.) New un-uber buffing spell system. 4.) Bunches of new items With that as a base, let us procede into the hinterlands of guesstimation and prognostication. As an appetizer, lets start with Geneforge: The Original specifically. One thing that makes this game different from any of the other Geneforges, from most Spiderweb games entirely, is the lack of trainers. While there are one or two for each of the utility abilities (luck, mechanics and leadership), all other abilities and spells are obtained from canisters or one off reward givers. The way this becomes an issue is if Jeff changes the spell library to be more in line with the later games. As many on this board can recall, G1 had only three spells for each magic school, twelve in total. I for one highly doubt that will remain true in the remake. G1 at the time was a gamble for Jeff. It was an entirely new unproven IP, and that had given Jeff much heartache in the past. Add in an almost completely new engine as well, and he can be somewhat justified in the simple spell library. No such justification would exist for the remake. Put I prevaricate. The reason this would be no simple matter to drop in is that each new spell would require canisters for the PC to obtain the spells. Jeff has a few options: 1.) Leave the amount of canisters in the game completely unchanged. Jeff just alters preexisting redundant canisters that provided extra levels for previous spells. 2.) Radically renumber the amount of canisters available to make way for the likely 4-5 new spells in each spell school. Some of these could be put in the expected new areas that he would add to the remake. 3.) A mixture of 1 and 2. Somewhat increase the number of canisters while also altering existing canisters. I propose that 3 is the most likely course of action. As stated previously, some of these new canisters could go in the new areas for the remake. There were also spells like healing and firebolt that could also be increased to rather high 5-6 levels through canisters and quest rewards that could have one or two of their levels safely shifted to new spells. The canister issue is something that probably won't come up for shaping. I conclude this based on evidence from both remakes of Exile/Avernum 1. Both of the remakes only allow for human party members, despite sequels previous to the remake allowing for other race party members. Similarly, I expect that the kind of creations able to be made will be unaltered, despite the presence of greater numbers of creations in the later games. The only potential wrinkle is if Jeff decides to add more creations to the middle of the tree. Then all bets are off. While a quite distant possibility, its something worth noting. Similarly worth noting is the possibility of new classes. The first three games had Shaper-Guardian-Agent. G4 added the Shock Trooper and the Servile, with G5 completing the sextet with the Sorceress. While the servile class would not be possible due to lore reasons, there is nothing preventing Jeff from retconning in the other classes, or a human equivalent of the servile class. I for one would be quite interested to see how the new classes would perform in the older games. What will likely prevent this is simple inertia. Balancing and testing three classes will be work enough for the remake, doing 2-3 more is unnecessary. And Jeff hasn't stayed in business by doing the unnecessary. On a more minor note, it will be interesting to see how the game balance shakes out for the different classes. In G1 the Shaper was the undisputed king due to how shaping worked. Unlike any other Geneforge game, G1's shaping added 1 full stat point per level of ability, rather than the .5 of all the other games. This allowed Shapers who single mindedly leveled shaping to create Fyoras with 3/4s the damage of a Guardian's Drayk for 1/6 the cost, and even more ludicrously powerful monsters with the later creations. This will obviously not be the case in the remake, so it will be nice to see the shaper compete on a more even playing field. More generally for all the remakes, one thing that has become clear is that Jeff is quite intent on doing away with his old spreadsheet version of leveling up in favor of discrete numbered ability trees. While this proved workable in Avernum due to the high number of abilities both visible and hidden, Geneforge would seem less amenable to this system. It has a relative lack of abilities, with both Shaping and especially spells having a lot more options than combat due their discrete abilities rather than simple number buffing. All these discrete abilities would come from trainers and world exploration, not an ability tree. So unless Jeff adds a boatload of more abilities, especially discrete abilities for the combat tree, I fail to see how he could square that circle. That's all I got for now. How about chatterings from the crowd?

Oh. Storm. One of my favorite videos ever.

Sounds interesting. If I may though, given the nature of the Geneforge games, people would probably more inclined to follow your lets play if you did it with text and screenshots, rather than video. Geneforge isn't exactly a game filled with spectacle. Good examples of text LPs can be found in the Something Awful archive. As for my votes: G1: Tricky, Agent, Taker G2: Tricky, Shaper, Unaligned G3: Tricky, Guardian, Rebel G4: Tricky, Shock Trooper, Rebel G5: Tricky, Sorceress, Trakovite

In short, despite over half a decade of Republicans trying to prove voter fraud is a real issue in the U.S, they have never actually proved that it actually happens much. And it is Republicans that have an interest in making sure less people vote. The people who are easy to disenfranchise are the sorts of people who vote Democratic.

Rawal looks distinctly shabby when you realize his plan amounts to "hide under a rock with my toys and wait for the explosions to end."