Kelandon's spoilerific review of Avadon 2

[Kelandon]

I just finished Avadon 2, and here's what I think.

 

WHAT I DID

I played on Hard. My primary character was a Blademaster specializing in bows and the middle column. I mostly raised Dexterity but did a little with Strength and Endurance here and there. I usually brought the Shadowwalker and Sorcerer with me; the SW was sort of half-razordisker and half-melee, but all three were mostly middle column and a little of the left column.

 

I played loyal to my companions absolutely and loyal to the Pact below that. I became a Heart on Hard, and then I reloaded and killed Redbeard on Normal.

 

ENGINE UPGRADES

I definitely appreciated a few of the changes. Marking quest locations on the map was a little jolting at points — isn't the point that I'm supposed to look for this hidden person or thing, half the time? — but it was so convenient that I ended up deciding that I liked it. (Kind of like the Junk Bag and auto-healing after combat in Avadon 1.)

 

The simple "Quest Advanced" approach was really good. There still ought to be some sort of division between unending general collection quests ("Bring me all the arcane scrolls in the land!") and specific tasks ("Kill the baddie and bring me the MacGuffin!"), but this was good.

 

Making Dexterity less game-breakingly unbalanced was, on the whole, good. It was less obvious to me how to develop the characters, but I felt as though I had a little more flexibility.

 

Some of the new graphics (e.g., the "City on the Edge of Forever" portals) were fun, too.

 

Oh, I almost forgot. The level cap still sucks. It shouldn't be there.

 

SILKE

Of all the things in the game that were new, this seemed like the boldest departure for Spiderweb. A romance? In a Spiderweb game? Silke's "early mentor" role in the beginning of the game was kind of like Shanti in Geneforge 2 (or, to a lesser extent, Greta in Geneforge 4), but this made it so much more interesting.

 

My first impression, which lasted pretty deep into the game, was that the romance subplot was really cool and I hoped Jeff would never do it again. If this became a regular feature (like killing Redbeard or using the Geneforge), it would get profoundly annoying very quickly. But as a one-time thing, it was great. As soon as I picked up on what was going on, I flirted with Silke at every opportunity, just to see where it would go.

 

But there were two problems. The first, I think, is less significant. I was trying to stay loyal to the Pact, but when it came time to get Konstina, there was nothing to do but choose between the Pact and Silke. This was totally unsatisfying. I actually replayed the sequence three different times to see if I could get Silke without turning completely traitor. I understand the point, and I get that this is intentional, but I didn't like it.

 

The second problem was bigger, though. I finally broke down and betrayed the Pact for this girl, just to see what would happen. After all this awkward flirting, and after such an extreme step, we run through all the right dialogue options, the climactic kiss happens, and...!

 

"You lean forward for a kiss. Silke responds positively. You spend some time together."

 

That writing is bad. It's embarrassingly bad. I betray the Pact for this girl, and the end result is writing that is terrified to show any emotion at all? There doesn't need to be elaborate description — indeed, there probably shouldn't be elaborate description — but given how sweet some of the awkward flirting was, I was expecting more than this limp prose. I was expecting some level of emotion.

 

To make matters worse, that's apparently it. Nothing else happens. Compared to a more interactive relationship — maybe you rescue her from Ghorus, or maybe Odil's attack goes wrong and Konstina captures you and Silke rescues you, or whatever — this didn't go anywhere. The game even hints at a more elaborate ending for the relationship when you buy the house in the Riverlands — "You take a moment to daydream about a possible future life, a farm, a hometown, perhaps a family" — a family with whom? With your scout girlfriend? But even in the ending, all that happens is that you visit her from time to time.

 

Not worth it. I reloaded and played loyal again.

 

THE REST OF THE PLOT

For a game entitled Avadon 2: The Corruption, I was kind of expecting the Corruption to feature more prominently (and not just be one of three places you go). I liked this line of quests; it was sufficiently creepy and mysterious to be cool, in a Nethergate-y kind of way. I loved the multiple origin stories for the Corruption in the Core.

 

Likewise, the Tawon Empire/Dheless plot was solid. The temples were definitely weird and eerie enough, and the whole "gods" thing worked well. Dheless's Kenny-like power to die again and again was... an interesting twist? I don't think my character responded with enough, "Huh?" I liked it, though.

 

The Contested Lands plot was pretty forgettable. (I actually don't remember it very well right now, and I literally just finished the game.) It seemed like just a random rebellion/monster plague, as if straight out of Exile 3. It didn't have the same significance as Miranda or Dheless or the same foreign-ness as the Corruption or the Tawon.

 

The character sidequests were completely forgettable. Alcander's was a little tricky, but Khalida's execution of Xenophon? I didn't really get it. I guess it was just supposed to be about the choice, rather than the challenge, but it's hard to agonize over a choice when you know you need them in the endgame.

 

THE COMBATS

Avadon 1 was really bumpy in difficulty, which was why the Dexterity exploit was so necessary. It didn't matter if the enemies were completely trivial one moment and out-of-control hard the next if your character was unhittable. Avadon 2 was much smoother. Boss fights were generally harder than lead-up fights, but the difficulty ramped up and was not totally wacky. I did some hacking and retreating on some of the hardest fights, but I didn't do it as much as in my Avernum 6 no-skill-points playthrough.

 

A few combats were really hard for me, and I burned through a ton of consumables or reloaded a lot (and had to look up the mechanics of the combat here, because I frankly wasn't sure how it worked in a number of cases).

* Miranda's merry-go-round of teleportation. For some reason, I couldn't kill enough monsters quickly enough, and I ended up swarmed and dying.

* The triplets right before Miranda in the Core. I hit them hard, got down to 1 party member left, ran, ended combat to revive the others, and repeated at least twice more before I finally got them. They just did too much damage to me.

* Miranda in the Core. I could not for the life of me figure out the mechanics of the combat (the orbs disrupt Miranda's defenses), and I kept taking huge amounts of damage even after I figured out the mechanics.

* The 6 guardians in Redbeard's Tower. I ended up using scarabs and level changes heavily: Battle Fury and summon before combat, slam the statutes with area of effect spells, teleport away, drop down to the lower level, Battle Fury again, come back up and hit the statutes again with an area of effect spell and drop down to the lower level before they could attack again, etc. I burned a lot of consumables, too. If they landed a single stun on me, I was dead.

* The Temple of Aetius, final combat. The southeast spawning rock monsters were particularly problematic; I killed a few and retreated several times, because I couldn't kill them fast enough and they kept swarming me.

* Redbeard. Not a stupid fight like in Avadon 1, but just hard. I couldn't figure out how to get enough damage on the 4 summons that they wouldn't come after me and at the same time do any damage to Redbeard, who was also doing huge amounts of damage to me. On Normal, though, no problem.

 

Also, other than Redbeard, I apparently didn't do any of the main optional combats. I guess I just didn't notice them or something. All the more reason to go back and replay, I suppose.

 

OVERALL

The game mechanics and combat balance were better than in Avadon 1. Some of the components lacked the plot strength of Avadon 1 — the companion sidequests in particular. The romance was intriguing, even if it ultimately fell flat. We got to see a bit of the Corruption and of the Tawon Empire, both of which were fun.

 

Avadon 1 brought me back to Spiderweb, and Avadon 2 is keeping me here. It's a great game, and I'm looking forward to Avadon 3.

[springacres]

I will admit, the romance has kind of left me feeling flat too. Then again, when writing scenes like that, it's probably hard to know exactly how to phrase things so as not to offend players with delicate sensibilities.

 

I disagree with the companion quests being forgettable, but then I seem to be approaching this game from a different angle than a lot of the other players I see commenting on this board. I've approached the series so far by bringing in OCs I've been playing for years, so their motivations and backstories are fairly familiar. I feel playing that way gives me more freedom to explore the world and a greater sense of interactivity with the game itself, which in turn makes the companion quests more memorable. (I'm sure I'm not the only one doing this - for all I know, that's how you approached it too - but it just seems that way.)

[Lilith]

The character sidequests were completely forgettable. Alcander's was a little tricky, but Khalida's execution of Xenophon? I didn't really get it. I guess it was just supposed to be about the choice, rather than the challenge, but it's hard to agonize over a choice when you know you need them in the endgame.

 

You actually get a slightly better ending if you bring no more than 2 NPC allies to meet Redbeard at the end, so if you're going for the best possible outcome it's not necessary to gain everyone's loyalty.

 

* Redbeard. Not a stupid fight like in Avadon 1, but just hard. I couldn't figure out how to get enough damage on the 4 summons that they wouldn't come after me and at the same time do any damage to Redbeard, who was also doing huge amounts of damage to me. On Normal, though, no problem.

 

The best way is probably just to save up Circle of Fire scrolls throughout the game, use them all in the couple of turns leading up to when the constructs activate, and then finish the fight before the constructs have time to activate after respawning.

[Kelandon]

when writing scenes like that, it's probably hard to know exactly how to phrase things so as not to offend players with delicate sensibilities.

And I could see Jeff struggling with this during the scene. But the problem is that when you're writing scared, you don't write well. And this writing was clearly scared.

 

I don't mean that there ought to be elaborate description of the physical acts. That would probably be weird. I just mean a description that suggests some sort of emotional experience. We're talking about a player who has actively selected into pursuing something with Silke, so the player clearly doesn't mind a romantic feel to the writing. Jeff has worked hard on developing moral quandaries and urgency, and he conveys those feelings well; he could, I don't doubt, do the same for romantic emotions as well.

 

But he was clearly uncomfortable writing this, and that made it not work out well.

I disagree with the companion quests being forgettable

Well, Yannick's was not forgettable. And the SO's sort of wasn't, just because of the angst that he seemed to have in killing Pact warriors. And I remember Khalida's, just because I was so thrown off by it. But compare those to, say, Nathalie's sidequest in Avadon 1. It's just not the same.

You actually get a slightly better ending if you bring no more than 2 NPC allies to meet Redbeard at the end, so if you're going for the best possible outcome it's not necessary to gain everyone's loyalty.

Meh. You get a "better for Fort Foresight" ending if you don't bring extra NPCs, but you basically can't kill Redbeard (unless you're crazy) without all the NPCs. So it forecloses at least one important ending.

The best way is probably just to save up Circle of Fire scrolls throughout the game, use them all in the couple of turns leading up to when the constructs activate, and then finish the fight before the constructs have time to activate after respawning.

Yeah, that makes sense. I'll probably try that if I play the game again.

[Lilith]

you basically can't kill Redbeard (unless you're crazy) without all the NPCs

 

kelandon how long have you even known me

 

(Also, it's not just better for Fort Foresight; it also contributes to the secret tally that determines how well Avadon fares against the rebellion overall. Although I think if you do all the sidequests you can get the best ending anyway.)

[springacres]

It's true the companion side quests are less elaborate here than they were in Avadon 1. There are more steps to them, but they're not as elaborate in terms of actual gameplay. (It's funny you should mention Nathalie's specifically, I always found hers to be the least interesting/compelling of the four.)

 

I do feel, however, that in this game they tied into the storyline better and helped flesh out the characters of your companions. I think that in the first game, their purpose was to show the player an alternate side of Avadon, one that contrasted with Avadon's presentation of itself as an arbiter of justice, more than to flesh out the characters involved.

 

Khalida's quest is a perfect example. The steps she has to take to learn about her past, the conflict she feels once she's uncovered the reasons behind her "stutters", the panic and indecision when you finally confront Xenophon together... it just made her that much more real of a character to me. And then there's the fact that the only truly "good" decision that COULD have been made in her case would involve time-traveling back five years and kicking the [censored] out of Xenophon the instant his accusations were shown to be false. My blademaster agonized over whether to let the guy live or die, and now that it's over and done with, he still can't quite get past the fact that he killed an old man in his own living quarters.

 

But everyone seems to have a slightly different view of what they liked versus what they didn't like, and why. One of the many things that makes this community so enjoyable.

Edited December 3, 2013 by springacres

[Kelandon]

kelandon how long have you even known me

This is why I added the parenthetical. You're crazy. You don't count.

It's true the companion side quests are less elaborate here than they were in Avadon 1. There are more steps to them, but they're not as elaborate in terms of actual gameplay. (It's funny you should mention Nathalie's specifically, I always found hers to be the least interesting/compelling of the four.)

 

I do feel, however, that in this game they tied into the storyline better and helped flesh out the characters of your companions. I think that in the first game, their purpose was to show the player an alternate side of Avadon, one that contrasted with Avadon's presentation of itself as an arbiter of justice, more than to flesh out the characters involved.

 

Khalida's quest is a perfect example. The steps she has to take to learn about her past, the conflict she feels once she's uncovered the reasons behind her "stutters", the panic and indecision when you finally confront Xenophon together... it just made her that much more real of a character to me.

I think these two points go well together. I would've liked Khalida's quest much more if it had more steps. We found out a little of what went on in the dungeons. Then we went and summarily executed someone. That was pretty much it. I'd rather have gotten more of a plot reveal: what goes on in those dungeons? Can we dwell a little more on why Khalida's mind is so broken? It's said, summarily, that there is no way to fix it. How do we know that? There were possibilities here for more action within Avadon that could've given this a little more flavor, and could've added some more steps so that we could've lingered longer on the details. Maybe we go deeper into the dungeons. Maybe we question more people in Avadon.

 

More could've been done on the back end, too. Was Xenophon just craven, or was there more going on? Could we get a little more backstory on that? Maybe Xenophon could flee into the woods, and something could happen out there. I don't know.

 

I bring up Nathalie's sidequest only because Zhossa Mindtaker was a compelling villain for me, at least on the creepiness scale. Nathalie's motivations and the "choice" involved weren't particularly striking, but the scene-setting and the combats were solid.

[springacres]

I honestly wasn't even thinking about the combat issue, but you're right, there was a LOT more combat strategy (and more fights, period) involved in Nathalie's quest than Khalida's. I would almost have preferred it if killing Xenophon had at least turned the city guards hostile. And you're right, more steps would have been nice, too. Even something as simple as a visit to Deep Records to find out what it was Khalida was accused of, or a more detailed outline of what they found during her interrogation, might have helped.

[Kelandon]

Now going through a second time, again on Hard. I'm at the beginning of the first trek into the Tawon.

 

As with Avadon 1, the second playthrough is a lot more fun. I'm not exactly sure why this is; maybe it's because I'm more familiar with the people, so I can appreciate the details a lot better. Maybe the same is true of the game mechanics.

 

I decided to go with a different lineup: Tinkermage main character, mostly backed in the early game by Khalida and Dedrick. Everyone is going a lot up the middle column, and the non-magic characters are focusing on range (except Alcander, who I figured I'd try to make a melee-er).

 

I played the way that I did on the first try because I wanted — as is tremendously successful in Avadon 1 — for my base attacks to be the strongest thing I had, with little or no ability use. Fatigue appears to be a real thing in Avadon 2 — I actually run out of vitality from time to time — and I didn't want to have to deal with that.

 

But to my surprise, I ended up with a much stronger party, at least when I bring all of my power to bear. Fairly early on, I had two turrets and a Shaman summon all going at once, and it was pretty effective at distracting the opponents enough and taking damage enough (and getting healed enough) that I could stand back at range and just fire away. It's really coming into its own now that I have a summoning scarab and can have a whole mob of turrets and pets in front of me before anybody can get to my main characters. I feel extremely strong. The first Miranda fight was no problem (one reload when I got a little sloppy). Nimah, who gave me a lot of grief before, was no problem at all.

 

I'm trying to make more use of the other characters, but there are certain abilities that really complement each other well, and it's hard not to use them together. I'm forcing myself to bring Yoshiria and Yannick into Tawon with me just so that I can make some use of them, but I'm seriously lacking in healing power when I do that. I may go back and fetch Dedrick if things get too out of hand, because Dedrick can at least be a summoner/healer, where neither Yoshiria nor Yannick are all that great for that.

 

I'm also finding it hard to have a lot of characters who use the same weapons in the party. Had I not made Alcander a melee fighter, I would've had three razordiskers. I don't know if that works. I can buy titansteel razordisks in Tawon, but meh.

 

So far, quite interesting. I'll report back when I make a little more progress.

[Jerakeen]

I'm finding my second full play-through (on Torment instead of Normal) to be a lot more fun, too. I'm trying Alcander as a melee tank with about 1:1 strength and endurance. The point of strength is mainly just so he can wear good armor - melee damage is a bonus. I like being able to send him up front without worrying he'll be killed in the first round.

 

Main character is another TM, but I'm taking advantage of the fact that raising turret skills doesn't actually raise turret level to build her a little differently. With the Fancy Toolbelt, she only needs to invest a few points in the right branch; as long as she raises Turret Craft, her constructs will be just as powerful as Alcander's. True, she won't have access to the level 6 turrets, but so far two freezing turrets combined with a healing and a blessing pylon have been an unbeatable combination. When Al gets access to inferno turrets, so much the better.

 

Just finished Miranda, piece of cake.

[Kelandon]

Well, that game went interestingly. I felt a LOT stronger. That might have just been that I had some sense how the battles were going to go and didn't have to go through the "fight a battle once to figure out the scripting and die halfway through, then reload and fight the same thing again knowing what to do the second time and breeze through." I skipped straight to the breezing through. But surely that can't be all, because there were battles that I didn't do the first time (Khyrmhylas, Vardegras) that were doable and not all that hard this time.

 

PARTY STRUCTURE

 

In the early game, I had been using my Tinkermage with Khalida and Dedrick, with innumerable summons (using the TM's turrets, Khalida with a scarab, and Dedrick's Hellhound) to draw enemy attention so that I could just fire away at them. They didn't deal a lot of damage, but the summons distracted people long enough, and were able to take damage long enough, and did just enough damage on their own (when there were four of them) that I was able to beat just about anything fairly easily. And I had a lot of healing power, both for the party and for the summons, when things got tricky — which was an advantage that this group of three had over any other group that I could put together.

 

Deep into the game, though, things switched around. The summons were getting killed pretty quickly and weren't doing very much damage. I think the reason is that I got high Beast Focus early on and never got much Turret Craft, and the scarab didn't seem to change its summons much, so the summons held constant while the enemies got harder. Meanwhile, Yoshiria and Yannick got strong enough resistances that they weren't getting killed on just about every turn, so they were viable to bring along (even before I got the second healing scarab). They also did more direct damage, and Yoshiria's automatic Battle Frenzy on nearly every blow didn't hurt.

 

OPTIONAL COMBATS

 

I tried to do as much as I could before the final Odil/Konstina sequence, because I wanted to have a good save to go back to in case I wanted to play things differently for the endgame. So I took out Khrymhylas right before that. I tried Vardegras, but it seemed hopeless, so I came back to him after — I think — Miranda in the Core, and it was fine. This was a little surprising, because I was at level 29 when I took out Khrymhylas, so it's not as though I gained much in the way of stats between my first and second Vardegras fights. But I guess the items I picked up were helpful, and I used a few additional item enhancements.

 

Thus, I fought both Khrymhylas and Vardegras with Yoshiria and Yannick. Both were good at range and had high resistances, and I burned through a few consumables (and, unlike nearly every other battle, I had to prepare fully before getting into the battle — create a couple turrets, call forth the scarab summon, use a couple of items to buff everyone). Not too bad. Never figured out how to deal with Gryfyn, though. That remained impossible through the very end. My thoughts on that combat are elsewhere.

 

REDBEARD

 

The ending I went for was a strong Avadon, with me as Keeper, with the romance with Silke. So I challenged Redbeard, and I ended up killing him in an interesting way. It turned out that if I prepared everyone with buffs before the combat and got attack turrets (razor flinger, freezing) and summons, and if everyone attacked Redbeard as directly and as hard as they possibly could, mostly with base attacks but also with some single-target direct-damage spells, I could take out a huge percent of his health each turn. I ended up not bothering with the four things he summoned and just hitting him as hard as I possibly could, sometimes using wands to fire off two attacks before I used my final AP to blast him with a normal attack. His four summons got all the way developed and killed every member of my party but one (Dedrick, oddly), who, after being charmed and therefore not subject to attack for a few turns, as the last party member standing, used a Scarab of the Void attack to finish off Redbeard and win.

 

This was probably not an advisable way to take the combat, and I got a little lucky, but it was fun not to use any real tactics at all and just throw damage at Redbeard until he died.

 

PLOT/ATMOSPHERE/ETC

 

So much for the combats and character builds. I also was able to follow the plot a lot better this time. I still think that most of the character sidequests would have been better had they been more developed, especially Khalida's and Yoshiria's. Yannick's was kind of interesting, if only for the rather dramatic character change that takes place in him (it's like he uses the Geneforge or something), and Alcander's was in keeping with him, and Dedrick's was fine, but I can't say I was all that enthralled.

 

I also think that the quest sequencing was problematic. Too often, sidequests sent you right back to a place that you'd just left because you finished the main plot quest in that location. I think there were multiple quests going right back to the Corruption as soon as I'd finished with Monitor Base D, and there were definitely two quests going right back to Tawon right after I'd dealt with the temples the first time.

 

The Corruption and the Tawon were just as fun as before, and I still think that the Contested Lands is missing something. Having Silke there isn't really enough to make it interesting, because Silke isn't around for most of it. Avadon itself is pretty good, too. I did the trials this time, and I expected them to be harder; I waited until a very high level and it was a piece of cake. I was surprised when the second one was the last, really. I thought there would be a (much harder) third. Chabon was fun, and the rest of it was good. Overall, then, the environments worked out, except maybe the Contested Lands.

 

What's funny about this, I suppose, is that the Contested Lands is more like Avadon 1 than anything else in the game. The only twist to it is Silke; otherwise, it's the same ethical dilemma with basically no consequences, just as in Avadon 1. Maybe it's just that Avadon 2 seemed like a different game: you venture more outside the Pact — and places that are really outside the Pact, not like Khemeria, which you only know is outside the Pact because you're told it is, but otherwise looks the same, unlike, say, the Corruption.

 

Anyway, a good game. I could see playing it a third time, even, which I only occasionally do with Spidweb games (Avernum 1, Avernum 2, Nethergate, Avadon 1).

[Randomizer]

I saw the same thing fighting Vardegras, going from level 29 to 30 made it possible to win the fight even though I didn't change anything else with the party or their equipment. The extra to hit and damage shouldn't have made that much of a difference.

[springacres]

I've been noticing too that there are issues with the quest sequencing - the biggest indicator for me was when Dedrik talked about the breeze in Dharam "blowing the filth from the Corruption off us" when the previous mainline quest was in the Contested Lands.

 

Alcander's side quest is definitely in keeping with his character. I did wonder why, if the Eliades were as incompetent as he claimed on our first trip to the area, he was so interested in getting his hands on their wealth, but I suppose that can be put down to his general philosophy of "if I want it, it's mine; if it's not nailed down, it's mine; if I can pry it loose, it's not nailed down."