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Really anticipated ideas for A5??


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Quote:
Originally written by Ephesos:
I could swear that there were some mind crystal things in A4. They weren't items, though... they were just crystal terrains that taught you things.
You talk abuout those book-like vahnatai crystals.Yes they are like the Mind crystals,but the thing more close to them were those wisdom crystals.
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But the thing is, I never found them to be too useful. They mostly just gave special abilities I would never use, or special skills I could get from somewhere else, though there were some useful exceptions. I haven't played A4, so I don't know how useful they would have been in it, but I am under the impression that special abilities are gone and there are plenty of other ways to raise special skills, which makes them unneccessary.

 

Dikiyoba.

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I don'n know about that... I kind of missed them. I'm not one of those people who has to get the most use out of every skill point, so it's always nice to kill a spectre or something and then get three levels of Blademaster, even if it means you can't buy as many levels from a trainer later.

 

I do miss special skills, though... Beastmaster FTW! :p

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You're right the beastcall was useful in some situations,it help a lot when you have 0 SP and you can't summon anything.By the way,I still thinking than Dante was right but I can say why in the forum because it involves(five letters word than start whit C and ends in K).If someone wants to know,I suggest than mail me asking for it.

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The only special abilities that were ever useful were the A3 energy regaining one from Natural Mage, which didn't need any more gravy, and Divine Aid from Divinely Touched. Before A3 there really wasn't any reason to use special abilities.

 

—Alorael, who thinks it's about time to stop pretending not to talk about illegal activities on these boards.

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You know, when you first said "Vahnatai PCs", I was just going to ignore the post, because it's been discussed so many times before. But then...

 

Quote:
Originally written by Blake81:

Mage spells +2

Let me explain why this is a horrible idea. People will exploit this sort of thing. It would require the rest of the game to be drastically re-balanced, and that would probably require making Mage Spells less powerful. Thus, if people wanted to play a mage character, they'd almost be forced to use a vahnatai PC, whether or not they want to, because otherwise they'd be getting hosed.

 

In conclusion... Jeff: make humans more powerful!

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Or how about more penaties for having non-human characters? There were a few instances in the other games, especially Avernum 3, where you would be atttacked by an otherwise friendly group of soldiers because you had a nephil or slith in your party. There should be more of those. Really dramatic ones, like townspeople won't sell to you or you can't get certain quests. It would work extra well for vahnatai, since anti-vahnataism should be at an all time high right about now.

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The only way to balance out more powerful races would be with experience penalties and weakening the race. It is not going to work for the Vahnatai Even the two non-human races we have now have been weakened. Nephils don't get the dexterity bonus they should. Sliths don't get the strength and endurance bonus they should.

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To be fair, Nephils get a bonus which is identical in effect to a Dex bonus -- they get the offensive bonus from Bows and Throws and the defensive bonus from Gymnastics.

 

Even Exile's bonuses are pretty paltry, though, compared with the obvious physical differences among the races. What would make more sense to me -- and this would also be an easy way to balance a race like the Vahnatai -- would be to have different skill point costs and HP/SP formulas for each race, kind of like Geneforge does with its classes.

 

Another option would be to have equipment restrictions, kind of like Nethergate did. Vahnatai are never described, that I can think of, as wearing plate armor.

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Quote:
Originally written by 227 Chitrachballons:
Another option would be to have equipment restrictions, kind of like Nethergate did. Vahnatai are never described, that I can think of, as wearing plate armor.
I think a vahnatai wearing plate armor would collapse. Relatively similar to Ray Bradbury's "The Offseason", at least in my mind.

I bet a slith wearing any cloth material would probably get torn up pretty quickly, too...
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Quote:
Originaly written by Emperor Tullegolar:
Or how about more penaties for having non-human characters? There were a few instances in the other games, especially Avernum 3, where you would be atttacked by an otherwise friendly group of soldiers because you had a nephil or slith in your party.
The problem with that is than in A3 you haved joinable NPCs,so you can replace a slith for a human, a nephil for a human,etc.But in A4 you can't change your PCs,so what happent if you have a party like the mine:Human soldier,Human archer,Nephil priest,Slith Mage.Would be a lot of quests that you won't be able to take.If you want to use that freature would be necesary place joinable NPC,or at least a place were you can store a PCs(like A3).
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The point of the idea is to make a real penalty for choosing non-human characters. Getting around the penalty defeats the pupose completely.

 

Vahnatai don't seem to wear armor, but they're also clearly not frail. They are, in fact, some of the toughest fighters in Avernum. Why couldn't they wear armor? Mass might be a problem, but the vahnatai can probably come up with some magical light-weight crystal armor that's better than anything humans use and fifty times as expensive.

 

—Alorael, who isn't even sure that sliths should be considered generally unclothed and unarmored. The sprites are all naked, but one of the PC pictures has a slith in clothes and it just doesn't seem reasonable for sliths to be dangerous fighters if they have no armor and no other way of not getting stabbed frequently.

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Quote:
Originaly written by Nalyd The Dead:
There's a party management button along the side that lets you delete characters and make new ones if you have an empty space.
Yes, you're right,but when you ERASE the PCs you also ERASE HIS/HER ITEMS,SPELLS,AND SKILLS.In fact you erase it all.At the other side a joinable NPC is better because you can STORE your PCs and recover them later.
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What I want most is a reactive plot, like in Geneforge. If I decide to wipe out a few towns, the ending should probably reflect this. Hell, even the old reputation system would work well, and you could only get certain quests/plotlines if you are good or evil enough.

 

In addition, I'd also like the alchemy system returned and the potions available to expand so that more can be done with alchemy than just vanilla heal/cure/buff stuff.

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I have a good idea to add!

 

A special cursor for selling stuff.

 

Right now, selling a whole sack of loot can be mighty annoying. You have to really aim the cursor at the small corner of the inventory square, and if you miss, you pick the item up, then you have to drop it again, and try again...

 

A better way to do it is if you could hold a modifier key, ctrl/alt/cmnd/shift, or a combination of such keys.

While the Key(s) are hold down, the cursor changes into a "selling cursor," and you are able to sell the items by clicking on them anywhere on the inventory square, not just the little corner.

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I don't know if this has already been said, but I'm gonna say it anyway. Don't make movement in A5 like Geneforge and A4! Let us use the Numeric Keypad to move. It's easier , and keeps me from constantly hearing that 'click' sound that my mouse makes.

 

It's probably even too late to say something like that, huh? confusedcool

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"I don't know if this has already been said, but I'm gonna say it anyway. Don't make movement in A5 like Geneforge and A4! Let us use the Numeric Keypad to move."

 

Is this joke? You can use the keypad to move for both Windows and Mac Avernum 4. And, of course, I have no plan to change this.

 

- Jeff Vogel

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Quote:
Originally written by Spidweb:
"I don't know if this has already been said, but I'm gonna say it anyway. Don't make movement in A5 like Geneforge and A4! Let us use the Numeric Keypad to move."

Is this joke? You can use the keypad to move for both Windows and Mac Avernum 4. And, of course, I have no plan to change this.

- Jeff Vogel
I love you, man.
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I've read these forums many times as well as play all the games. But I've never posted here until now. To be quite honest I find A4 a major disappointment, the geneforge version of spiderwebs engine should have stayed with geneforge. It should not have been crossed over to Avernum, almost all of the artwork was also crossed over, I don't mind some artwork being crossed over, but when almost all of the art as well as char models, monsters etc is crossed over and a plot slapped on it kind of losses its uniqueness. I understand that a small company often needs to use their art in most of their games and not make new art because it consumes a lot of time. But please, at least make more unique art and not just copy it all.

 

Also the games seem to have been losing detail ever since exile and the first nethergate version. The move to avernum and geneforge seemed to show a lot less detail in the artwork as well as less non text content in my opinion.

 

Anyways, my two cents, I'm most likely going to be flamed but eh.

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The best thing that was transferred from Geneforge was the character inventory system. Otherwise the older players hated large amounts of the Geneforge influence.

 

Jeff has said that most of our complaints will be addressed starting with a decent plot. Also the return of elevations and boats that made Avernum so special,

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No, that's not it, because the inventory system in G4 doesn't bother me hardly at all. If anything, you have more control because you can put things wherever you want in the inventory now.

 

I guess it was a combination of factors that added up in a way they hadn't in other games, because almost everything that bothered me appeared in a different game without me having problems.

 

First, I'm an obsessive-compulsive gamer who has to pick up everything I see right now and not later after I've killed off every monster in the area. But there's nowhere to put the stuff--I can't throw all the useless stuff outside and have it be gone forever, or jump zones to drop stuff off--so I spent a lot of time encumbered. Dealing with one encumbered person is manageable, but two or three or four is a real pain. And then, finally, putting everything down was slightly annoying because you have to move your mouse to all of the individual squares instead of just one repeatedly and drop it off in a small box in the corner of the screen as opposed to wherever in the main playing screen.

 

Dikiyoba.

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Quote:
Originally written by Arch-Mage Solberg:
I don't know if this has already been said, but I'm gonna say it anyway. Don't make movement in A5 like Geneforge and A4! Let us use the Numeric Keypad to move. It's easier , and keeps me from constantly hearing that 'click' sound that my mouse makes.

It's probably even too late to say something like that, huh? confusedcool
I don't remember writing this! What's going on here? confused
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Quote:
Originally written by Meta-Undead Spokesmage:
Eh? It's probably Salmon stealth-hacking your posts after that argument you had. Or you're contracting short-term memory loss. Taking any pills or medications? Oh, wait, you wouldn't remember. . .
1. I don't believe Salmon hacked into my account.
2. I don't take any pills or medications.

But something is still not right! frown
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Umm, whose phone number is that, Alo? If it is a phone number.

 

...

 

So, after beta-testing both A4 and G4, my feedback to Jeff has been to request more keystroke shortcuts for everything. Anything that is done with great repetition needs a non mouse-reliant, streamlined way to execute. Selling items was ironically faster in the older Averna games because you could leave the mouse cursor in one place and rapid sell item after item as they sprung up in the list display. That was okay, I suppose. I get irritated fast when I have to mouse from item to item to item to item to item to item to item and click in just the right little corner to sell things off, something done with GREAT repetition in all these games.

 

So, I pray twice daily to the gods of all that is holy and pure that A5 will include keystrokes to toggle through inventory and be able to sell item after item by hitting one key repeatedly or something of the like. Or do a group select in a capture window/box and be able to sell everything inside it at once. Or even sell all items from, say, slot 7 to slot 23, where you could type in 7 and 23 and convert everything in those slots to coin with one stroke of the Return key.

 

Oh please. Anything besides point and click. Mouse usage = carpal tunnel and cursage.

 

-S-

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Quote:
Originally written by Dikiyoba:
I'm an obsessive-compulsive gamer who has to pick up everything I see right now and not later after I've killed off every monster in the area. But there's nowhere to put the stuff--I can't throw all the useless stuff outside and have it be gone forever, or jump zones to drop stuff off--so I spent a lot of time encumbered.
And to compound matters, sticks don't stack (and the same goes for many other items) so you soon run out of inventory slots...
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Quote:
Originally written by 458-218-9951:
You wouldn't happen to have a sibling who might post here, would you?

—Alorael, who advises you to invent one if you don't. They make great transparent internet excuses.
I do have a sister who uses my computer, but she knows NOTHING about these games. It had to have been by someone who knows the games (somewhat). But to say something like what was said (in what is supposed to be) my post is just totally retarded. I even asked her if she posted anything here and she told me that she doesn't visit the sites I go to. cool
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