SevenMass

Quote: Originally written by Small Fry: you can't shoot down pylons though, because they recharge if you arent close enough to shoot at you. I disagree. You need (a) character(s) with well enough developed bow skills to do enough damage to counter most of its recharge. I bowed down all hostile pylons with my first party I took through A4 (normal difficulty though) And I will soon try it with my 2th party Torment difficulty. They are about to hit the first forrest of pylons. Quote: Originally written by Nioca: There are a few which regenerate all damage done every turn The only ones I know of are the ones in the Darkside base in the scree caves. You can solve that problem by disabling some power supply in the back of their base.

Quote: Originally written by Small Fry: you can't shoot down pylons though, because they recharge if you arent close enough to shoot at you. I disagree. You need (a) character(s) with well enough developed bow skills to do enough damage to counter most of its recharge. I bowed down all hostile pylons with my first party I took through A4 (normal difficulty though) And I will soon try it with my 2th party Torment difficulty. They are about to hit the first forrest of pylons. Quote: Originally written by Nioca: There are a few which regenerate all damage done every turn The only ones I know of are the ones in the Darkside base in the scree caves. You can solve that problem by disabling some power supply in the back of their base.

To my understanding, the Luck skill does almost nothing in A4.

Quote: Originally written by Z(n) - 1: —Alorael, who can add a little bit more generally. The formulas for weapon damage are no different for melee and ranged. The only difference is in the weapons that are available. You'll certainly find more powerful swords and spears than bows. Not exactly, melee has the chance of a double hit with quick action, bow don't. But at the end of the game I think I still did more total damage with bows than with melee. Lots of misses from parry, and of course, I arrowed down the pylons. The message is clear though, making ranged characters in A4 is not a bad idea.

Quote: Originally written by Z(n) - 1: —Alorael, who can add a little bit more generally. The formulas for weapon damage are no different for melee and ranged. The only difference is in the weapons that are available. You'll certainly find more powerful swords and spears than bows. Not exactly, melee has the chance of a double hit with quick action, bow don't. But at the end of the game I think I still did more total damage with bows than with melee. Lots of misses from parry, and of course, I arrowed down the pylons. The message is clear though, making ranged characters in A4 is not a bad idea.

Melee has a bigger damage potential , but... The damage from a well build bow-character is enough to make it a very viable way to go. And there are other advantages to boot. Thuryl mentioned 2, a 3th is that you don't have to fear riposte, or those effects that curse/poisen your character when your character hits an enemy. And when I say "very viable" I mean on Torment difficulty, with lower difficulty levels, it is even less of an issue!

Melee has a bigger damage potential , but... The damage from a well build bow-character is enough to make it a very viable way to go. And there are other advantages to boot. Thuryl mentioned 2, a 3th is that you don't have to fear riposte, or those effects that curse/poisen your character when your character hits an enemy. And when I say "very viable" I mean on Torment difficulty, with lower difficulty levels, it is even less of an issue!

Quote: Originally written by Proctors don't gambol: But what's the point? What is the point of any game? Yeah, I know that the higher degree of challance is in and of itself rewarding, but still... If a higher diffeculty would give some ingame rewards aswell, it would add to the enjoyment of playing at that higher diffeculty. At least, to me! But I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who thinks that way. I'm sure it is possible to balance it right! Just look at it this way, if you want "hard" to be 100% more diffecult than normal and give 50% more XP, and each 1% more exp makes it 1% less diffecult, then you just make diffeculty hard 150% more diffecult and give your character 50% more xp, this way, you get more reward but it stays 100% more diffecult. Or something like it. Same for giving extra equipment as a reward. Is it to much more efford to balance it for Jeff? I don't know. And I don't think it is importand in this discussion. I'm merely saying it is possible, and that I would prefer it.

Quote: Originally written by Dikiyoba: That seems like it defeats the entire purpose of playing on a higher difficulty. If you get more experience, you gain more levels. If you gain more levels, the higher-level monsters become easier to defeat, and you're back to unchallenging combat. Dikiyoba. Isn't it always so in these types of games that your character becomes more powerfull when he fights tough battles, or does diffecult quests, and this new power allows him to more easily fight even harder opponents and do even more diffecult quests? The more diffecult the challance the higher the reward. The way it works in D2 is that the curve moves a bit diffrent than otherwise, at some point you will be a bit more ahead of the curve, but at the end the curve will pass you again. Being ahead of the curve means you have a higher chance to hit, but you still have to remove more HP's. And the longer the creatures stay alive, the more dmg they can do to you. Anyway, D2 is not the most balanced game in the world but I think It can be done so that a higher diffeculty makes things more diffecult while upping the reward at the same time.

Quote: Originally written by Randomizer: You don't get more XP for the higher level. The monster's level for calculating XP remains the same, but the difficulty in killing it increases and its ability to hit you increases. Thank you! Ah, bummer, I always liked to ramp up the diffeculty in Diablo 2 with the playerX command. Creatures get more HP so they are harder to defeat, but you'll get more XP at the same time. No such luck in A4...

Quote: Originally written by Randomizer: It means that you will have to work harder to stay the same as an easier level. It's supposed to be a challenge, Obviously. But that doesn't answer my question. XP gain depends on the differents between character level and monster level. I always though that higher diffeculty just gave monsters more HP and a higher dodge/to-hit, but John Paul v. Jean-Paul said it gives the monsters a higher level, and the increased HP and dodge/to-hit is because of the higher level. If he speaks the truth then my character should also get more XP.

Quote: Originally written by Anti-Fairy: Difficulty setting affects monster level. When their level is higher, they have more HP, better to-hit and to-dodge rates, and do more damage. Is that true? Does that mean my party wil get more XP, because they fight higher level monsters?

I do not have A1-3 so I can't aswer your question that way, but I can tell you this: The summons in A4 are next to useless. In the fights where they can possebly be helpful you do not need them, in the fights where you do need them, they all one hit die to some area of effect damege before they could make themself usefull, even as mere distraction.

I bothered to loot everything that has a value greater than 3 or could be stacked untill it has such value. yes EVERYTHING. Because Dowdy gives a better price for iron bars than normal merchants do, I also bothered to bring him EVERY bar I could loot, including some with a NY tag. I didn't count them, but I think it must be somewhere around 500 bars in total. And he only accepts iron, fine steel he doesn't want.

Quote: Originally written by Randomizer: It depends upon you party's luck on how soon you can find the items. They will all be available in the Basalt Fortress if you need to wait. Exept my party was unlucky enough to only find normal waveblades in the BF. Not untill the giant lands I found one of the needed qualety. So they "will" not, they could...

Quote: even more advanced The most advanced old-school tech evar! But yeah, I couldn't agree more. Imagine if Bioware and Jeff cooperated, and Jeff would make a series of premium modules for NeverWinter Nights... ...Naah, It wouldn't be the same.

Alright, I think I figured it out. Some kind of of error must have happened. I e-mailed Spiderweb about it, and they e-mailed me the back-up information. I'm a happy costumer again!

Quote: Originally written by My Spleen: —Alorael, who always found something to spend his cash on before hitting the cap and never resorted to the First Bank of Character Editor. It's a good thing, too, because it went under after A3. Well, I did plan on buying trainings, but I didn't figure out yet what traing I should buy first, and I was happely questing along in the Great cave. I thought I wasn't forced into buying it before I was ready for it myself. I thought wrong. As for the weight, you know: gameplay > reality! And the amount of coins a character can have is one of those things where I think this is the case. I could of course drop some cash near the portal, just like I drop other stuff there. But I think that would be more annoying than the "fun" this bit of "reality" provides. Ah, maybe we are just given a reason to buy Avernum5 when it arrives.

Sorry if this sounds like a stopid question, I didn't bother to check if this has been mentioned before. It seems there is a coin cap at 30k. Are my observations correct? When I realised I couldn't get more than 30k, I bought some training before selling more stuff. Why is this coin cap?

So higher levels characters get less to no XP for killing things of lower level. But the XP from quest rewards is the same. I wonder, would it be worth it to save up quest XP for as long as possible (exept where you need to talk to the quest reward giver to advance at all) Becouse your characters remain a lower level, they get XP for killing things for a longer time. Would you end up with more XP this way?

Sometimes when I try to turn a wheel to open a gate, I get the message that I'm not stong enough to turn it. Is this merely a plot thing, or are there actually some blocked gates that CAN be opened, as long as you have enough strenght to turn the wheel. And if the later is the case, how much strength do I need for each of those wheels?

Quote: Originally written by Lo material lo tov: —Alorael, who can assure you that installing an upgrade does not unregister any Spiderweb game. That would be too much of a pain for anyone, including Jeff, who would have to send out many new codes every time he released a patch. So the registration code and the key are not linked? So if I upgrade my hardware and have to do a completely clean install, there are no files I have to transfer from my old system/back-up? (other than the safed game files of course) Just re-type the key and its unlocked again? Then what was the point of the registration code?

Quote: Originally written by Zeviz: When you register, you'll recieve instructions on how to back up your registration, so you will not have to e-mail Jeff every time you reinstall the game. Seems more likely to me than the first reply. And I do vaguely remember reading this somewhere. But.... These instructions can't be send through e-mail? I recieved the key 12th of april, about 14 days ago.

If I'd re-download A4 for say.. to replace v1.0 with v1.01 (or any other possible future update) Wouldn't I be re-installing it? Anyway, such a system seems to be giving Jeff a lot of extra work. And even if it is not a lot, there must be a better way than that!

Hi all, So I registered A4, and I'm having great fun. But there is this thing that I'm wondering about... I needed to give a registration code when ordering A4, and I'm wondering: Is the "unlocking code" that is send through e-mail after you bought A4, linked to this registration code? If so, what if I ever needed to re-install A4? How does this work?