Avadon 2 First Impressions Thread! (no spoilers)

[Rent-an-Ihrno]

Share your first impressions of the game! No serious discussion and no spoilers, just give us the first thoughts and feelings the game is bestowing upon you.

 

Me, I am already impressed with the game. I'm noticing small, well-placed improvements all over the place - the UI, graphics, music, basically everything that isn't mechanics or plot is extremely well-polished. The identity of the series is fully retained, while all the art has evolved to something coherent and beautiful. The setting is written subtly enough that I'm sure I wouldn't be picking up on any of the hints towards the storyline if I weren't so experienced with Jeff's style.

I started up a tinker of course, being the only new class, and the turrets seem really nice. Also, the new choice of gender for each class is definitely appreciated! The female warrior totally looks like Emma Watson, btw

I can't say anything about deeper mechanics, progression or lore, obviously, but I'm feeling good about it. I can see where things are going, and I'm nothing but enthusiastic to experience this new chapter (as I'm sure you can tell from my hyped up writing).

It just feels good.

 

What do you think?

[eaintree]

Love the opening theme. Very Skyrim.

[...]

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Edited June 27, 2023 by ...

[mouton]

the dreaded "clown car" levels where interiors of buildings are 5x bigger than the exteriors (presumably just to make you walk further from A to B and cram in more filler NPCs or enemies)

Dreaded? Really?

The tutorial with the scout lady first randomly philosophizing out of nowhere and then coming onto me was especially embarrassing and cringe-inducing.

LOL I was playing a female tinkermage and the scout was a fellow. I would have to check if the dialogue is different, but I didn't have the impression of him coming on. People bond in the trenches, yo.

Love the opening theme. Very Skyrim.

Hahahaha, hated it for the very same reason.

[Lilith]

I really hope things pick up past the intro because right now it's just more of the same blandness and dull, repetitive that made Avadon a complete chore for me. I know some stuff won't change (like the exceptionally boring game universe and "I can't believe they're not orcs!" races populating it) but considering Avadon is Jeff's least-liked game recently, I would expect him to do more to redefine it rather than just continue the same old issues.

 

Avadon is actually Spiderweb's best-selling game of all time: as long as people are buying his games, you can expect Jeff to keep doing what's worked for him in the past. No game is going to please everybody, and comments on forums aren't necessarily representative of his entire customer base.

[Edgwyn]

I too picked the Tinker since it was the new class even though summoning is not how I like to play. So far I have only completed the first section (Ravaged Woods), but the graphics are noticeably better from Avadon 1.

[RainbowDashRadical]

Avadon is actually Spiderweb's best-selling game of all time: as long as people are buying his games, you can expect Jeff to keep doing what's worked for him in the past. No game is going to please everybody, and comments on forums aren't necessarily representative of his entire customer base.

 

I thought Geneforge 4 was his best-selling game?

Edited October 30, 2013 by RainbowDashRadical

[Mosquito---Slayer]

I thought Gemeforge 4 was his best-selling game?

No, I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that G4 was an average selling game, neither too good nor too bad.

[Randomizer]

Avadon became the new best seller, but that may be due to it being the first one available on tablets and early release to third party vendors like Steam and Humble Bundle.

[Dikiyoba]

So far my first impressions of Avadon 2 are much better than my first impressions for Avadon 1 were.

 

Pros:

-Tinkermages!

-Male and female character classes.

-Children! (Only wretch children so far, but hopefully human ones will appear later.)

-Not starting out in the middle of an unimportant desert location (now, all we have to do is avoid haunted mines...)

-More graphics (I could do without them, but it does help the immersion to have things like outhouses and farming implements).

-The ability to close doors again (okay, that's a flaw from Avernum: EftP, not Avadon 1).

 

Cons:

-Romance in SW games? I'm worried. If only heterosexual options are available, I will be angry and ticked off (I trust that the romance can be turned down and ignored, but if that turns out not to be the case, there will be no end to my anger and ticked offed-ness).

-Items on the ground are hard to see.

-The interface isn't as smooth as it could be. Having to manually walk up to mines to disarm them is annoying. Lots of minor issues from previous games remain: occasional messed-up pathfinding, game deciding I can't see to attack enemies that are near but not around a corner, longer delays between character turns in combat than there really should be.

 

That's all Dikiyoba has right now.

[Edgwyn]

Page 28 in the manual lists the cheat code to change the romance. So far I have not found finding objects on the ground any harder than Avadon 1 (notice I am not saying that it is easy to see them). I am concerned about secret doors, but I have not gotten to one yet.

[Randomizer]

The first two secret doors are in Rockridge Keep zone, but I went past the first one because I was distracted by combat. The switches are easier to see than those in Avadon 1.

 

Jeff still loves to hide objects so they are obscured by walls. It's best to regularly use the get command outside of combat.

[...]

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Edited June 27, 2023 by ...

[Rent-an-Ihrno]

Guys, let's not get too deep into an argument about other games and sales and stuff. Whether or not Avadon 1 is well-liked or not is simply not something you can prove, you can only use the game to compare your impressions of its sequel. It's your subjective perceptions that count, and are encouraged in this thread.

 

Now, I liked Avadon 1 alot. It was different from my beloved Avernum and Geneforge, sure, but I'm not one to close my heart from such nouvelles. The more streamlined, novelesque approach to gameplay and dramaturgy has its own place, and if I didn't like it the first time, I probably won't like it the second. The storytelling in Spidweb games is always slow at start. It doesn't give you a satisfying introduction to your future heroism. And I like that. I want it to pick up slowly over time. Since I just came back from work and haven't played more than 3 minutes of the game, I can't say if it does and does it well, but I can tell you that what I've seen of the introduction so far is absolutely typical of Spidweb games, and that reassures me an awful lot. If everything is special, nothing is. You know? The real charme in Jeff's writing is how - almost ridiculously - human the characters seem in all the different, more or less epic, settings. There's a certain amount of anti-fantasy woven into these fantasy-games.

 

Anyway, I'm gonna go see how the rest of the introduction turns out now, and see if the alleged romance is really that bad. I would be surprised if the player were implicated in such a thing in a Spidweb game, but intrigued to see it!

[Unplayable Playable Character]

Absolutely loving it so far. Personally I really enjoy the focus on in-depth story and characters, compared to even the more recent Spiderweb games the characterization here is a big improvement. One thing thats always bugged me in Avernum was the whole party just basically being one PC, its really cool to finally have actually characters as my party memebers for once, and interesting ones at that (I wasn't too against Sevelin in the first game but Khalida is already much more engaging than Sevelin ever was). The pacing and scale of the game seems almost twice as big as Avadon 1, I played for about 5 hours and just got past the demo area vs about the hour and a half it took in Avadon 1, and I found the pacing to match this scale pretty well.

[The Reverend]

Some people like the Exile/Avernum games, some don't (and some people only like certain versions of them). Same with Geneforge. Same with Avadon. Same with Nethergate (although, if someone don't like Nethergate, I suspect they must have left a bit too much of your sanity at the door).

 

Personally, I liked them all, because I thought they all had engaging stories. But to each their own. (However, I do wonder why someone who supposedly really disliked Avadon 1 would download Avadon 2 less than 24 hours after it's release ... )

[Cardinal Ape]

The graphics seem more crisp, clear, and less repetative.

Animations for spells and abilities is deffinently a step up.

Tinkermage is fun, though I'm worried about how effective turrets will be in boss fights on torment.

I'm not sure if one can move with the keyboard anymore? I used that quite a bit in previous games.

'G' key still does not close the screen it opens... Trival but very annoying.

I am hugely dissipointed that the female mage is blond because I am weird like that.

I like the art in the intro. Well done. Except for the main pic, the one with woman and baby next to the warrior. What are you doing there girl? Don't charge into combat with a baby...unless she is planning on wielding it... New weapon type maybe?

[Copernicus]

I like the art in the intro. Well done. Except for the main pic, the one with woman and baby next to the warrior. What are you doing there girl? Don't charge into combat with a baby...unless she is planning on wielding it... New weapon type maybe?

 

Oh, I *loved* that picture! A very Soviet or Red China style propaganda poster -- "Comrades! Support your Army, as they keep your children safe and your enemies under their heels!"

[Shogo]

Still messing around in the demo before committing.

 

I immediately liked Silke for the incredibly shallow reason of thinking she looks pretty.

 

Right now, I'm debating whether or not I should kill Senicha or spare his life. On the one hand, he did try really hard to kill me . . . On the other, I have a sister named Senica and that's just super awkward.

[Cardinal Ape]

Oh, I *loved* that picture! A very Soviet or Red China style propaganda poster -- "Comrades! Support your Army, as they keep your children safe and your enemies under their heels!"

 

Yeah. Viewing it as a propaganda poster makes a lot more sense.

[Lilith]

 

Best-selling doesn't mean most-liked. The consensus I have seen is that Avadon is by far the worst Spiderweb game in the last decade or so. The game sold well likely due to its improved visuals, release on the iPad, Steam and GOG, and the price drop that came along with that, not necessarily because of its quality. Furthermore, "generic and bland is popular" is not really an excuse for it still being generic and bland. Fallacy of appeal to popularity etc.

 

That's not to say that Avadon was all bad. I thought despite the problems, the story had some interesting political stuff going on which was explored fairly well (but it was way too slow a burn for my tastes). And I do genuinely hope that Avadon 2 ends up a better game than the first one. I'm just saying that based on playing about 2 hours, things are not too promising so far. Any time you start out killing giant rats and you have horribly sappy BioWare-style dialogue right in the intro, you know that something's wrong.

 

It's a perfectly good excuse when Jeff's primary motivation for making games is to put his kids through college. I can't really blame him for prioritising that over meeting the exacting standards of internet people. Besides, there was plenty of positive buzz about Avadon online too, just maybe not in the same places you've been frequenting -- it's got a 75 on Metacritic, which compares well enough to Avernum: Escape from the Pit's 76. (Also, Avernum: Escape from the Pit had all the visual improvements and multi-platform releases of Avadon, and yet didn't see the same sales figures.)

 

As for "horribly sappy Bioware-style dialogue"... well, y'know, there's a definite audience for that stuff, even if you're not in it. People have been asking for romance options in SW games for a while now, and I guess Jeff decided to give it a shot. I was a bit surprised by the decision myself, but I'll withhold judgement until I've seen how it plays out. (Plus, he's pretty much described Avadon as a love letter to Dragon Age, so I guess that comes with the territory.)

 

I'm not telling you that you have to like Avadon, or Avadon 2. I'm just laying out Jeff's motivations as I understand them, so that you can set your expectations about what's likely to change in future games and what isn't, to help inform your purchasing decisions.

[Randomizer]

Right now, I'm debating whether or not I should kill Senicha or spare his life. On the one hand, he did try really hard to kill me . . . On the other, I have a sister named Senica and that's just super awkward.

Jeff has a daughter named Miranda and he still killed off in Geneforge 5 Miranda.

[Cardinal Ape]

As for "horribly sappy Bioware-style dialogue"... well, y'know, there's a definite audience for that stuff, even if you're not in it. People have been asking for romance options in SW games for a while now, and I guess Jeff decided to give it a shot. I was a bit surprised by the decision myself, but I'll withhold judgement until I've seen how it plays out.

 

I used to have a negative opinion on hollow romances in RPGs. Then I made the mistake of playing The Witcher. In that game you actually collect cards for each woman you take to the bone zone. Since that horrible experience my tolerance for sappy dialogue has dropped signifigantly, as long as it doesn't get anywhere near The Witcher I'm good.

[Alorael at Large]

Around here, Avadon isn't close to the most loathed Spiderweb game, either. That honor almost certainly goes to Avernum 4. And even A4 has its staunch defenders. Avadon hasn't received universal love, but really very little has since, oh, Exile. It's been generally well-liked here as well as elsewhere.

 

—Alorael, who will have to dig into this new game. Sadly today doesn't seem likely. Nor any time this week. Or the next.

[Copernicus]

-Romance in SW games? I'm worried. If only heterosexual options are available, I will be angry and ticked off (I trust that the romance can be turned down and ignored, but if that turns out not to be the case, there will be no end to my anger and ticked offed-ness).

 

Hey, found this note at the end of the Avadon 2 manual:

 

A Few Words on Companions and Romance

 

For the first time in a Spiderweb Software game, it is possible to have a romance with

one of the characters you meet. Because of limited developer time, there is only one

romance with one character, and most players will never find the option.

 

One result of our limited resources is that the only romance option is female if you are

playing a male character and male if you are playing a female character. We’re an

inclusive bunch here at Spiderweb, so, if you would like to switch this around, load your

saved game, press Shift-D (on tablets, select Enter Cheat Code from the file menu), enter

the code

 

scoutswap

 

and select ‘OK’.

[Lilith]

I used to have a negative opinion on hollow romances in RPGs. Then I made the mistake of playing The Witcher. In that game you actually collect cards for each woman you take to the bone zone. Since that horrible experience my tolerance for sappy dialogue has dropped signifigantly, as long as it doesn't get anywhere near The Witcher I'm good.

 

I always thought of that mechanic in The Witcher as a kind of joke at the player's expense: you want to collect romances like they were cards? Fine, have some cards. Then those revelations about the sexist comments buried in the game's code came out, and the joke didn't seem so funny any more.

[Juan Carlo]

Best-selling doesn't mean most-liked. The consensus I have seen is that Avadon is by far the worst Spiderweb game in the last decade or so. The game sold well likely due to its improved visuals, release on the iPad, Steam and GOG, and the price drop that came along with that, not necessarily because of its quality. Furthermore, "generic and bland is popular" is not really an excuse for it still being generic and bland. Fallacy of appeal to popularity etc.

 

Depends on where you ask. In certain areas of the internet where more reactionary minded RPG aficionados congregate, bashing Avadon has kind of become just a way of looking cool and hardcore. Avadon's not well liked at places like RPGCodex, but go other places (like the steam forums, or RPS, or PC Gamer forums, etc, etc) and people either tend to be more favorable or offer a much more clear eyed perspective on its positive and negative aspects free from hipster posturing.

 

Personally, I don't think it's anywhere near Spiderweb's best game, but it's also definitely not a bad game. It was the first game of theirs I ever played, so when I first played it I actually liked it a great deal for what it was. It wasn't until I went back and played all their other games that I realized the ways it was lacking in comparison (its linearity, limited scope, relatively limited character build options, etc, etc), but I still think it's a good game with some interesting and challenging boss fights (I do think that Avadon has maybe the best combat design of any SW game...at least when it comes to the "challenge" fights. The trash mobs can get a bit much, but that's true of all their games). Plus, while I don't think its setting is as interesting as Geneforge, I do think it has potential and like its more mundane focus on politics. So I'm really excited to see where things go for Avadon 2.

 

In terms of my impressions of Avadon 2, though, I bought it but haven't started it yet so we'll see.

[RaustBlackDragon]

Here's what I think about A2:tC so far.

 

Loving the intro music, definitely one of my favorites in the whole franchise, up there with the geneforge 5 one.

 

I love the addition of the gender choice. The female blademaster looks awesome with that blue cape and more slender frame, I can just picture her doing berserk leap and looking awesome doing it, and the male sorcerer looks SO. AWESOME! (I know there's a language policy here so I figured I wouldn't take chances, but I was planning on using the word bad***)

 

...Sadly, I take serious issue with the new shadowwalker graphics. I loved their designs in the first avadon game, but these new ones don't look like anything remotely associated with shadows. They look like people cosplaying at a spiderweb software con (especially the female one). The almost totally unobscured faces I imagine has something to do with it. They just look like soldiers in blue, they don't have the ninja-esque feel to them.

 

I picked tinkermage for my class, because since the main character is the only character who will ever have to fight anything alone (don't know for sure but knowing the series there's a seriously good chance), I figure it best if said character is the one who can summon reinforcements. Plus, new class, I figure I gotta check it out. And so far it seems pretty cool. I love the idea of a magipunk engineer, and those constructs he'll be able to make look really useful. And it also doesn't seem like there's a hard "1 summon per character" limit, since I was able to summon a turret while another one was still there, so I'm excited about the potential.

 

I appreciate how the prerequisites have been eased up on, though that one on the left column I still find problematic.

 

Also, great job going the avernum route with evasion, definitely a good idea, now dexterity is no longer quite so overpowered. I'm going to assume that the "All AOE non-magic attacks use dexterity" phenomenon is still in place, but I'm hoping I'm wrong, because that doesn't really seem necessary, and it renders the left column useless to pure melee fighters.

 

The writing is top-notch as usual (the "But still" on the game over screen made me burst out laughing), no complaints there. I'm curious if the beginning segment is different between classes, because the trap tutorial seemed specific to tinkermages.

 

I'm curious to find out what the fates of the protagonist, Sevelin, Nathalie, Jenell and Shima were from the previous game. It would be so cool if I got to see them again (obviously the protagonist will be mentioned absurdly vaguely and only in passing if at all, but I can hope for better from the others, so I shall). Also, Redbeard looks LIVID in that artwork I saw, I wonder how much he's changed after the attack. This is all so exciting, I can't wait to see more!

 

So far, great game!

[mouton]

I always thought of that mechanic in The Witcher as a kind of joke at the player's expense: you want to collect romances like they were cards? Fine, have some cards. Then those revelations about the sexist comments buried in the game's code came out, and the joke didn't seem so funny any more.

I saw once an interview with one of the devs, in Polish. I don't want to use words like "nerd", but his approach to the matter was definitely not very mature. He was all awkward, chuckling and winking. Ugh.

[mouton]

I disagree with calling Avadon "bland and generic". It is no more generic than Avernum and as to the blandess... the cultures are quite interesting but they are not fleshed out as well as they could have been - which is understandable, seeing as Jeff is only one Jeff.

[Dikiyoba]

(I know there's a language policy here so I figured I wouldn't take chances, but I was planning on using the word bad***)

 

You used it anyway. (You can probably get away with it, if you use it sparingly, but it also might end up getting edited out.)

 

I saw once an interview with one of the devs, in Polish. I don't want to use words like "nerd", but his approach to the matter was definitely not very mature. He was all awkward, chuckling and winking. Ugh.

 

Nerd basically means "smart and obsessive" and is a somewhat positive word in English at this point, so definitely not nerd. Creep is probably closer to the word you are looking for.

 

Dikiyoba.

[Student of Trinity]

I too am trying the Tinkermage and so far it's fun. I've only just gotten to Avadon, but I've done everything I could find to do before that. I even bought a house.

 

Building turrets in combat is kind of bizarre, but it's sort of like Geneforge with immobile Artilas, or something. You don't have to micro-manage the creations, but they won't run anywhere stupid on you because they don't move. I was thinking I might end up just making a dozen turrets but it turns out two is the max, so I will have to develop some other skills and I guess that's good. I'm playing on Normal because it's been a while since I've played Avadon, but it might be a bit too easy.

 

I'm not sure where this relationship with my fellow scout is going but so far it seems pretty ambiguous; until reading that quote from the manual, in this thread, I was not guessing that it was really supposed to be able to turn into a romantic one. I assumed it was just supposed to sound as though it could have.

[RaustBlackDragon]

The "love interest" thing, if it turns out to be true, doesn't remotely bother me. Mostly because Silke's clearly not a flat character intended for nothing but that. I like her character and her dialogue, she's really likeable. I wish we had a little bit longer before she got kidnapped so we could feel a little more attached to her, but I liked what little of her I've seen so far, she's not shallow.

[Cardinal Ape]

I normally don't care much for skulls in art, but the death screen looks wicked slick.

[mouton]

I feel the game is a bit too easy on Torment _so far_ (got to trapped rebel lair). I steamrolled practically every boss monster I found without much effort.

 

Oftentimes my thought narrration goes like this: "Oh boy oh boy oh boy, zombies! This will HURT! This will really really hu...wait, they fell apart"

[Randomizer]

Jeff deliberately makes the Demo easy. It gets worse after level 12.

[mouton]

Jeff deliberately makes the Demo easy. It gets worse after level 12.

Oh I don't doubt it, but it could get harder a bit faster.

 

I remember in AEftP, I left Fort Avernum, went a little bit north and saw a lone lost slith wandering around. Okay, I thought, let's kill it and take its equi...OH MY GOD IT IS UNSTOPPABLE RUN RUUUN

 

Of course, it was an open world. But there could be more murderwolflizardspiders waiting in off-path caves for you to come back later.

[nikki.]

I played the first two maps earlier and I have to say, bearing in mind that I am yet to properly get involved in the game, Avadon 2 is pretty much what I expected. Which is disappointing.

 

The world just seems too open, and empty. There is way too much trash mob combat, even at this stage. The little cutscene took way too long, ruining any tension it might have created (I mean, c'mon. I won't judge too harshly for that, but still, it bothered me - we know from BoA that good cutscenes ARE possible). Everything looks kind of blah.

 

Don't get me wrong - I'll play around with it some more over the next few days/weeks, but I really hope the plot is especially gripping, or something, because all I felt was a kind of "eh" about everything.

[Edgwyn]

The first two maps are definitely an intro, but I suspect that some of the open and empty is playing style. I walked all through Rockridge looking at everything, opening everything, taking anything that I did not have to steal and delaying my visit to Commander Odil as long as possible so I would not miss anything. Had I gone straight to him, the map would have gone a lot faster.

 

I am very pleased with the A:EftP style secret doors. I missed the first one while distracted, exactly as Randomizer said, but saw the second one. The secret doors were one of my biggest gripes with Avadon 1.

[eaintree]

PRO:

 

Khalida's "pauses" are intriguing, and almost give a real-world feel to the character, as if she suffers from mild autism or something. I'm sure they'll tie into her solo quest, or into the continuing mystery of the rebel leader (WTF was his name... Kheless, Dheless, Khan...) or some such.

 

Silke's cute. Wouldn't kick her out of bed.

 

The byplay conversations between your party members feel much more in-depth than did their occasional interjections in Avadon 1, which had a certain de rigeur quality to them. ("Nathalie watches in fascination as the older Shaman's character unfolds through discourse with your protagonist.") Here, I can actually picture Khalida and Yannick bickering at each other as they roam from one side of Lynaeus to the other.

 

CONS:

 

At least inside Avadon, the text on the mini-map that shows room functions are all horribly overlapping with each other, and nigh-impossible to read, defeating the purpose of having said text -- to help you learn your way around. 3 or 4 times already I've wandered across the castle looking for Heart Proteus' room and found the other side of his wall, then having to backtrack.

 

Maybe I'll get used to it, but outfitting and equipment-swapping between five characters for upcoming missions felt intuitive: two melee classes, two magic users and whatever your protagonist is. Outfitting six all the time seems overly complex: two melee classes, two magic users, your protag, and... a modification of the Geneforge concept... it's more difficult to place the Tinkermage into the story I play in my head as I play Av2, because he feels as if he's ripped from another world entirely.

Edited October 31, 2013 by eaintree

[Randomizer]

CONS:

 

At least inside Avadon, the text on the mini-map that shows room functions are all horribly overlapping with each other, and nigh-impossible to read, defeating the purpose of having said text -- to help you learn your way around. 3 or 4 times already I've wandered across the castle looking for Heart Proteus' room and found the other side of his wall, then having to backtrack.

Use the TAB key to bring up the full automap and this should help with labels.

 

I enjoyed playing with Alcander the Tinkermage just because he has the funniest dialogue and reactions to what he is doing. Save before getting the chance to turn report to Heart Callan about Alcander's Wealth quest. It's the best reaction to Alcander's little problems with Avadon.

[RaustBlackDragon]

Update: I. Friggin. Love. Alcander. Seriously, so far he's one of my favorite characters spiderweb has ever come out with

[eaintree]

Alcander may be amusing but I have to say that I'm very underwhelmed with Tinkermage as a class. To take full advantage of the Turret Construction skill set makes the character underpowered-to-useless with melee and ranged attacks, and turrets are only worth constructing against powerful enemies -- in roving trash mob type fights, the Tm with a full turret construction skill tree looks exactly like a mage who's out of spells. He can throw razordisks ineffectually and that's it.

 

Besides which -- the more conventional battle skills the Tm CAN have make them look like a Shadowwalker knock-off: grenade is like Lightning Pot and the other special attacks also seem way too ninja-esque. At the very least, the class should have its own ranged weapon: a razordisk is a shuriken for all intents and purposes, and having to equip it really robs the Tinkermage of whatever identity they might have had.

 

Rather disappointing; I'll doubt I'll use Alcander much or ever play a Tinkermage as my protagonist. A considerable lack of imagination on Jeff's part, here.

[Dear Potato]

Well, I'm very excited about Avadon 2, and I purchased it the minute I saw it at GoG. Avadon was my first Spiderweb game and I somewhat feel that Lyneaeus is some kind of second home for me

 

The new features, along with the polished interface seems great; all in all, I'm sure I'm going to enjoy the game.

 

The only grip for me is that, as always, I was expecting a change in background music or a subtle OST. By far, is the most annoying and worst element in Jeff's games for me. To the point that I can't stand long games sessions. The background sounds and silences get on my nerves.

 

By the way, I don't really understand why some people criticizes so hardly Jeff's writing; maybe it's because I'm not english fluent, but that aspect is precisely why I love spiderweb games so much. I mean... I think spiderweb games have very good writing; much better than the vast majority of high budget games out there. And certainly Avadon was not an exception to that.

[mouton]

Maybe I'll get used to it, but outfitting and equipment-swapping between five characters for upcoming missions felt intuitive: two melee classes, two magic users and whatever your protagonist is. Outfitting six all the time seems overly complex

Yeah, it annoys me a bit too. Though, if Avadon 1 was any indication, it will get better once I get more gear.

The only grip for me is that, as always, I was expecting a change in background music or a subtle OST. By far, is the most annoying and worst element in Jeff's games for me. To the point that I can't stand long games sessions. The background sounds and silences get on my nerves.

This is feature, not a bug Jeff said somewhere he doesn't like music in his games, so I had no such expectations. If silence is really painful to you, you can always play some music in the background - I believe there were even threads in those very forums dedicated to music people choose while playing Spiderweb games.

[eaintree]

The Tinkermage using throwing stars is all the more annoying because the solution would be very simple: give the Tinkermage, who is a ranged-combat specialist anyway, universal access to ALL types of ranged weapons, and maybe throw in a type exclusive to them as well. Their coolness factor would go up approximately 200%. The idea popped into my head 10 minutes after posting: why didn't it pop into Jeff's?

 

Potato - the flip side of Jeff's writing is that usually the text is optional; you can complete the game with minimal attention to the storyline. This sometimes gives the player an illusion of choice without any real choice, as in Avadon one, where whatever choices you make throughout the game, the ending is largely the same regardless.

[Randomizer]

The Tinkermage class is the closest to god-like in this game. Done right you can get through almost the entire game on torment difficulty with one. This is after Jeff nerfed the class.

[Copernicus]

The Tinkermage using throwing stars is all the more annoying because the solution would be very simple: give the Tinkermage, who is a ranged-combat specialist anyway, universal access to ALL types of ranged weapons, and maybe throw in a type exclusive to them as well. Their coolness factor would go up approximately 200%.

 

Meh. For me, the whole point of having distinct class types is to encourage different styles of play. The more you allow the classes to intermix abilities, the less reason to have "classes" at all.

[eaintree]

Meh. For me, the whole point of having distinct class types is to encourage different styles of play. The more you allow the classes to intermix abilities, the less reason to have "classes" at all.

 

So why force a new class to use the weapons of another class? Same point: it looks like a Shadowalker, so there's less reason to care.

[Shogo]

Given how the turrets likely function . . . If you were to give the Tinkermage their own ranged weapon, I imagine it would be a type of crossbow. They'd certainly have the technical aptitude to build themselves one. (Maybe make it more powerful than a bow, but with shorter range?)

 

I've just about wrapped up the demo and will probably pay for the entire game . . . But you're not supposed to be able to finish the first trial in the Tower of Trials, are you?

 

I'm only asking because, despite how strong those damn wax wretches are, Kaede told me to test out that tower . . . And I can't even mention the fact that I attempted it to her.