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Post-torment run (A2CS) thoughts...


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Just finished killing on Garzahd. Ouch, what a battle. I had to try a few times, because of him flinging me across the room.

 

Some parting thoughts. I knew more or less what to expect because I did a casual-mode overpowered cheat-ful run last month just to experience the story and such.

 

-There were only two people I really wished I could have killed. One was Faye the shopkeeper, she was so rude I wanted to download the mac version just so I could blast her; the other was Rentar-Ihrno. Garzahd may have been somewhat right in his premonitions, it's just too be he turned evil and started butchering people and such to make his point. Though being part-demon, he was probably glad to have the excuse to do it. Interesting that Erika had a couple similar premonitions about the vahnatai.

 

-The most annoying thing to me was enemies coming around a corner (especially after you were sure you'd just cleared that corridor but that's another story). Not so much as I didn't want to have to fight, but I mean, walking toward a chest, enemy appears... kill them down, end battle, one more step, another enemy. Urf.

 

-Secret switch locations became a bit too predictable.

 

-I dislike the Castle's layout but I really hate the Tower of Magi's layout. Getting from room to room is just a pain in there. I played through the game twice and I still have trouble getting around in there.

 

-The one time I turned to the forum for help. The Vahnatai papers. Like many who have posted here, I read both tomes again and again. Turns out that I had simply already found them and turned them in earlier because I went exploring/killing before doing that quest. Perhaps one of the two tomes should have an indication of a job already done in this regard.

 

-I wish there were a way to mark on the map where you encounter the red wax seals, especially before you realize that you will eventually be able to break them. This was the biggest problem on my first playthrough: I backtracked for eons looking for a couple stray spells. I suppose you can record the event but those don't tell you the "where" anyway. Subsequent playthroughs nullify this problem though, I figure.

 

-I really didn't want to destroy the Cotra forge but I wound up having to to clear the quest. I wish there were an alternate, in the event you liberate the town, you can tell the girl "it looks like Avernum can reclaim them after all" or some such. I realize I didn't have to perform the deed, but, points.

 

-Mixed feelings on the food for Harston. The ramifications of doing or not doing that one, would be something neat to see in the "ending." Am I helping the Empire there? Or, does that mean once Garzahd falls, those folks will rally to Avernum since we helped them... or, what?

 

-omg boat pathfinding. Is bad.

 

-I would have loved if you could talk to Boutell after you have that sword he loves so much, and show it off to him.

 

-I realize, tradeoffs and all, but it was a pain how many of the best chest armors and shields had significant hit chance penalties. There were times I was using inferior gear to avoid that because I was already hitting maybe, two times out of three.

 

-I played with one soldier, one priest, and two sorcerors. So, a melee and three casters. And I actually started hating when it was the melee's turn in battle. I don't know how feasible it would be to run torment with four casters and always have enough spell energy though. Still, even a good bow strike from my priest seemed almost as good as a sword bash half the time.

 

-Where I died the most: Garzahd, Portal Tower, Vahnatai Castle, Traps (I'm an explorer so of course I'm going to see all the death scenes like "the garrison butchered you" or "the imps dropped you in the lava"... I even surrendered once to see what would happen). And the arena at the beginning of when you face The Ten. To me that was harder than the Garzahd fight probably. But, I did reload a lot when I got an unlucky string of events in a given battle. A lot of my deaths seemed to be my soldier striking something before I realized it had spine shield.. oops.

 

-Even though roughly two days of it was idle time (when I first bought the game I didn't have time to play, but I left it run to hopefully help with exposure), Avernum 2 has taken the crown as my most-played Steam Game:

http://s27.postimg.o.../mostplayed.jpg

 

Of course, I have played all of Spiderweb Games before, but only Avadon 2 and Avernum 2 were played via Steam Client. I don't expect Avadon 3 to be as massive but perhaps A3RW will give it a run for its money in a couple years (EUIV may also do the job this summer... time will tell).

 

My favorite sidequest had to be the gremlin wives.

 

I cheated once (backtostart, resetboats) to save myself from a quickfire bug in the bonegnawer cave, and this seems to have denied me the achievement for completing the game on torment. I guess I can live without it, because I'm not doing that again. I initially used the cheat a second time because I got quickfire bug in Egli, but when I got back there everyone was dead including Rentar, so I had to reload a save that was a few hours' progress back from that time.

 

All in all, a good time over the past few weeks, and I really look forward to what Jeff comes out with next.

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I don't know how feasible it would be to run torment with four casters and always have enough spell energy though.

As long as you remember to restock energy elixirs, it works better in this game than the others. Garzahd's Fortress is a pain waiting until you make your 20% chance to hit a warded infernal. I got bored before I reached Garzahd on torment difficulty.

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Garzahd's Fortress is a pain waiting until you make your 20% chance to hit a warded infernal.

 

Huh. I thought it was intentional that you could get the anti-infernal bonus (including ward-breaking) with any kinds of attacks, as long as you were holding Demonslayer. I could not get this to work anymore now that rechecked it, so I guess this is the exploit mentioned in the version 1.0.1 fix list.

 

Sigh. And here I was trying to avoid cheating on my first playthroughs.

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Huh. I thought it was intentional that you could get the anti-infernal bonus (including ward-breaking) with any kinds of attacks, as long as you were holding Demonslayer. I could not get this to work anymore now that rechecked it, so I guess this is the exploit mentioned in the version 1.0.1 fix list.

 

Sigh. And here I was trying to avoid cheating on my first playthroughs.

I found out that using blade sweep while holding demonslayer... doesn't count as hitting them with demonslayer. D'oh.
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-I really didn't want to destroy the Cotra forge but I wound up having to to clear the quest. I wish there were an alternate, in the event you liberate the town, you can tell the girl "it looks like Avernum can reclaim them after all" or some such. I realize I didn't have to perform the deed, but, points.

 

Even if you clear out Cotra's current inhabitants, Avernum is probably too busy fighting on the front lines to spare the troops needed to reoccupy a half-destroyed ghost town. Easier to just leave nothing there worth fighting over.

 

-I would have loved if you could talk to Boutell after you have that sword he loves so much, and show it off to him.

 

You can talk to Efram in Silvar, at least.

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Cheats don't interfere at all with achievements.

In late-game in my torment run I started using cheat for mana (because I was wasting like 40-50% of time by going back to town after casting spells few times) and always I was getting achievements, when I could.

 

And Party with 4 spell-casters is just to damn lovely, to not play like this.

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