devilkingx

Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES Quote: Also, you like the story progression but dislike the linear plot. I think that asking for a non-linear plot with the same amount of story progression is pretty, well, naïve. Having the huge, open plots of, say, G1 while wanting the story development of Avadon seems impossible. Except that G1 had at least as much story development as Avadon. It was a bit less linear, and it took longer to get to, but it was there. not really..... there was no sense that you had something to be doing, it felt like you were exploring an island(mainly because every single story development happens in the last 2-3 hours) you find the boat, meet trajkov, get to goettsch, find the history of the shapers, help/kill trajkov and/or goettsch and then escape on the boat all around the same time, there are plenty of games with free roam and a story that progresses(oblivion and morrowind for AAA examples) its just that none of jeff's games except G3 did that Originally Posted By: Dikiyoba Dikiyoba actually really liked Avadon the first two playthroughs and then got bored after attempting a third playthrough. It's an improvement over other recent SW games, but not one of Jeff's best. let me reply to this again because i just realised something THIRD PLAYTHROUGH?!?!?! are you a madman? do you not know how jeff's games work? it takes you a few days to beat it the first time, and all subsequent times only take a few hours atmost if you do it right(i.e save after meeting trajkov and goettsch in G1, so you can just reload and help/kill 1 or the other or both to get your ending easily) except for G3 because you have to choose on the third island instead of waiting til the last area for ending experimentation although there is the chance that you replayed it, not for the endings but for a different game experience, but i didnt like any class in Geneforge except guardian so i wouldnt know Originally Posted By: Simmering Ephemera And from a magical perspective, think of it as a highly protected imp that can pass part of its protections on. If it's granting something else immunity, it has to give up that immunity itself. Think that makes no sense? Magic doesn't have to. Originally Posted By: Dikiyoba Originally Posted By: devilkingx i can see how thats confusing, to people(wait, so steelwards are only weak to swords.... yet they make the boss only immune to swords..... the hell?) i cant see how that makes sense from a game design persective, because whatever steelward means it cant satisfy immunity and weakness to steel at the same time meaning 1 of the 2 makes no sense Maybe the imps are ordinarily immune to everything but project one of their immunities to Moritz'Kri, leaving the imps vulnerable to that type of damage. i never would have thought of that, you people are geniuses Originally Posted By: Simmering Ephemera —Alorael, who will go ahead and defend Avadon's linear world. Yes, he'd like some open exploration too, but he doesn't think the plot as written would work well if you weren't forced to deal with areas one at a time, in order, and then return to old areas with different plot sections in the middle. Could there be free exploration as well? Yes, but not for the main plot, or it would not work as well. what about the geneforge games? surely 3 is the perfect example of having a story driven plot but still having free exploration(on each island, you must progress the plot to unlock each island though, thats the system they could do with avadon, you can go anywhere in the kva, but you cant unlock khemeria until you finish the kva, etc. and areas like the wizards tower(as it plot specific areas that have no use that isnt plot related) can just be locked until you go there for plot reasons, like the tower was when you originally see it) Originally Posted By: Lilith Originally Posted By: devilkingx i can see how thats confusing, to people(wait, so steelwards are only weak to swords.... yet they make the boss only immune to swords..... the hell?) i cant see how that makes sense from a game design persective, because whatever steelward means it cant satisfy immunity and weakness to steel at the same time meaning 1 of the 2 makes no sense Well, it means that if your entire party is set up to do only physical damage, you're not completely stuck. yes, but if your* that stupid completely intelligent this is either your* first RPG or your* a vegetable on life support small child its like RPG 101, having an entire party of people who do the same type of damage is a recipe for disaster(unless your* party was specialized for a specific fight) * i use "your" as if to say "the person doing this, as if i am talking to them and not to you" just putting this disclaimer to avoid offending anyone's honor/disgracing their family forcing us to have a duel to settle the dispute Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES I'm guessing you never went into the lower dungeons and found the interesting, um, reading material down there, either, then. Originally Posted By: Dikiyoba Quote: she's the person i'd least suspect... Not if you find the book in the dungeon that reveals she was originally engaged to a Hand who wanted to assassinate Redbeard... Dikiyoba. remember how i said that its annoying that you cant go somewhere until you can go there for plot reasons and how it annoys me? well i didnt really feel like going back into the dungeon that i cleared out after i left, not even for that find and free the prisoner side quest, i didnt really feel like it

Originally Posted By: Goldenking Originally Posted By: devilkingx and can you explain the reason to me?(in spoiler tags if you wish) i dont really want to have to replay that travasty Click to reveal.. Heart Miranda is a traitor against Avadon and Redbeard. So, she specifically assigned other Hands who have wavering loyalty, for various reasons, to you so that they would hopefully sway you into treason. thank you, that was quite.... informative, shocking, mind blowing, whatever you want to call it she's the person i'd least suspect...

Originally Posted By: Dikiyoba Originally Posted By: devilkingx but i didnt know that the imp name had to do with the shield..... that seems kind of arbitrary, the name makes sense when you think about it, but your not going to see the name and make the connection because most people wont notice that steel stops working when the steelwards arrive How much more obvious do you want it to be? Especially since Geneforge already used terms like "steelward" and "fireward" to indicate creature immunities, so it shouldn't have been a totally foreign concept to you. Dikiyoba actually really liked Avadon the first two playthroughs and then got bored after attempting a third playthrough. It's an improvement over other recent SW games, but not one of Jeff's best. when were they in geneforge? i dont remember that? the only game i can think of that avadon was even considerable for improving on is the avernum series(because i havent played them so i cant comment on their quality) and G3(because it sucks) but even thats debatable Originally Posted By: Lilith One thing that threw me was that the Steelward Imps grant immunity to physical damage, but are themselves immune to everything but physical damage. I can see how this setup makes sense from a game design perspective, though, and I got how it worked after the first couple of failed attacks. i can see how thats confusing, to people(wait, so steelwards are only weak to swords.... yet they make the boss only immune to swords..... the hell?) i cant see how that makes sense from a game design persective, because whatever steelward means it cant satisfy immunity and weakness to steel at the same time meaning 1 of the 2 makes no sense Originally Posted By: Master1 It seems to me that some of your likes and dislikes contradict each other. You like the skill trees and dislike them at the same time. Also, you like the story progression but dislike the linear plot. I think that asking for a non-linear plot with the same amount of story progression is pretty, well, naïve. Having the huge, open plots of, say, G1 while wanting the story development of Avadon seems impossible. You also like that the leveling doesn't stall out near the endgame. This is because the game has a much lower level limit than do previous games. Defeating Avadon without reaching the highest levels is nearly impossible, while previous games were beatable far below the level cap. Lastly, your complaint about the behavior of companions and other hands would be remedied had you played the full game. The reason why you have them and why you're sent on these particular quests instead of joining the fight with the other hands is explained upon your final return to Avadon. i liked that they added skill trees, but i hate how they were pulled off i liked that the game seems like it has a point, but its even worse than G3 with the linearity(you cant go anywhere until the plot says you can, which kills exploration because honestly, when you can finally go somewhere, you probably wont want to go there anymore, you'll lose intrest waiting for the game to tell you that you are allowed to go there(AGAIN as if your char cant figure things on his own) atleast G3 allowed you to explore the entire island as you pleased its just that new islands come as the plot allows you to go there) and it makes sense that slaying redbeard would be hard, he's like the optional final boss, like geneforged trajkov in G1 or yiazmat in FFXII or that gazer in lermans pass in G5 hes supposed to be rediculously impossible and can you explain the reason to me?(in spoiler tags if you wish) i dont really want to have to replay that travasty

Originally Posted By: The Turtle Moves Quote: but i still think they should atleast warn or give some hint of what to do, rather than "figure it out for your damn self" it doesnt have to give a 20 step guide, but atleast a "he's put up a shield to make him invulnerable to physical damage, we'll have to use something else" Well, there is a bit of a hint: Click to reveal.. Quote: Moritz'Kri calls out, "Beloch, I command you. Give me shielding from beyond!" Beloch looks at you and shrugs, as if to say, "What can you do?" Then he pokes at the membrane that holds him out of your world. Imps start to appear in a circle around you. As each appears, a faint shield of energy appears around the wizard. Then the names of the imps (steelward, fireward, etc.) tell you what kind of shields he has active at any given moment. i knew the spoiler, but i didnt know that the imp name had to do with the shield..... that seems kind of arbitrary, the name makes sense when you think about it, but your not going to see the name and make the connection because most people wont notice that steel stops working when the steelwards arrive, or that magic works because i was using nathalie to murder the imps while me and my ninja sidekick were kicking the wizards ass Originally Posted By: Lilith Originally Posted By: devilkingx most middle column skills sucked, i find that the left column is usually the best, except for teh ninja and the witch doctor Can you elaborate on why you found this to be the case? The consensus on these forums is that the middle column is the most useful one for almost all character builds, since maxing it out can give you things like a 40% bonus on the damage of every single attack you do, or a similar bonus to all resistances. because the left column had all the skills i deemed important enough to remember, while the middle was just passives, although i do remember the damage increase and the health increase, but i can remember many more skills that i used from the left

Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES As I said, some skills are very useful (most middle column skills, the archery AoE attack, summons, group heal, group battle rage, ninja teleport), and some of the scarabs are fantastically good -- all of the attack & healing ability scarabs are STUPENDOUS when put on a character with the right stats. Based on your last post it seems like one of your big complaints is that the game doesn't tell you things ahead of time -- about how stats work, about enemy vulnerabilities, etc. I agree that some of this would have been nice, but many players also enjoy finding this stuff out on their own. most middle column skills sucked, i find that the left column is usually the best, except for teh ninja and the witch doctor archery and summons and heal and teleport were awesome i do agree but i still think they should atleast warn or give some hint of what to do, rather than "figure it out for your damn self" it doesnt have to give a 20 step guide, but atleast a "he's put up a shield to make him invulnerable to physical damage, we'll have to use something else"

Originally Posted By: Lilith The reason you found Berserk Leap and Steel Tornado to be so disappointing is that despite the fact that they're described as melee skills, their damage is based off Dexterity, not Strength. If you pump Dex, they're actually pretty powerful. Of course, the arbitrary way in which different skills depend on different stats is kind of a design flaw in itself. REALLY? i actually just pumped STR, on my BM and my ninja guy* and i pumped INT on nathalie and that witch doctor shaman chick, you'd think they'd warn you beforehand, maybe thats an addition for avadon 2 Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES A lot of your criticism is pretty reasonable. I'd disagree with a few details (some skills are very useful, and some of the scarabs are even better). But mostly I agree with you -- I'm just not sure how those complaints got you all the way down to 3/10. I guess this comes down to a matter of preference. Different people may care more about different elements of a CRPG, and have very different deal-breakers. what details would you disagree wih? and es m being a bit too unfair with the rating, but maybe im bitter because of the reason i rage quitted this game Originally Posted By: Dikiyoba Originally Posted By: devilkingx whats with that leader guy of khemeria? why is he not the least bit concerned that his most trusted wizzard was really an evil psycho mastermind that almost got him and the rest of khemeria screwed by avadon? What do you mean "almost"? Your final quest in Khemeria is to kill him and any of his followers who refuse to get out of your way. (Also, he totally knew all along that his wizard was evil but didn't care.) Dikiyoba. well i kind of rage quitted at the "slay the wizard" quest any knowledge of anything that happened afterwards is because of spoilers i got from lurking the forums, i got the jist of killing the khemerian leader guy but not full details i rage quitted because i died in the final battle with the wizard(why did nothing mention that only magic damage could hurt him when he donned the invinci shield permanently? and how does it make sense that a magic user is only vulnerable to magic, BUT NOT SWORDS?) then because of how autosave works(and because i forgot to save) i would either have to redo the entire mission, or just the part with the wizard's tower(the last autosave was in the city and not the woods nor the tower) but the rest of the review was my genuine frustration with the entire game *i havent played since i rage quitted which was around a week ago so i have bad memory of the names of stuff

i have catalouged or whatever the word is, all geneforge 1 endings(or rather 5 of the apparantly 6) no i do not have all the servile faction variants as that would be too much work, i was never awakened during any of the endings mostly unaligned but i was a taker for a few and a obeyer for others, i didnt do any quests(not even the entry one) nor did i kill any faction leaders or anything, i basically just joined and got an ending to see if just joining had an effect if you dont want spoilers(why in gods name did you click on this thread?) for any of them dont download, if you dont want spoilers for specific endings dont read(all of them are named so that you could figure out what caused it.... mostly) http://www.mediafire.com/?i0md7p4joo37q33 let me know if theres anything i missed or something, and no i couldnt upload it image by image on imageshack or something it'd be too much work

TL;DR at the bottom folks! this game in a way is much worse than jeffs other games in this completely objective review i shall compare avadon to geneforge because ive played that extensively but i never could get into avernum because of mechanics i didnt like things i liked(so that people dont think that i 100% hate the game, its only 99.98%) - improved graphics geneforge 5/avernum 6 quality or maybe even above i like them - graphics that represent the game, when they said that red dragon wasnt that big they meant that he wasnt that big unlike how in geneforge 1 they say that one drayk you meet was like 20 feet long yet the sprite was barely bigger than the PC this goes for later ones too - SKILL TREES! because it makes no sense to cast spell of ultimate doom III without learning spell of regular doom I first - actual story progression, in every geneforge game except 3(which sucked in most other regards but not this one) there was little story progression the game played more like a sandbox with stats(which was still awesomesauce extraordinaire) enter G3 ruining almost everything great about the series but ateast it actually bothered to imply you were doing something other than exploring until you stumble upon something you care about - demons, they're awesome but they werent in any geneforge but G2 and then they were mysteriously removed, probably to quell the "magic and demons in video games is the equivalent of devil worshiping and satanism in real life" crowd but whatever the reason its nice to see them back in the series, they are mythology staples - different cultures and customs and such, it made no sense in geneforge how all of terrestria was basically the same i mean i know the shapers conquered the place, but most COUNTRIES are all ruled by their government but kansas looks different from florida which is a start contrast to chicago which pails in comparison to new york etc. its nice to see that the many lands of avadon atleast acted different - leveling chekhov's gunman(if you dont know, things that are useless upon acquiring but become useful later are refered to by TV tropes as chekov's for some reason EX: chekhov's skill, chekhov's gun, etc.) avadon avoids the final fantasy style "this character is useless as hell now but when you inevitably leave them low level and weak because of not using them you'll be screwed when we force you later" problem by leveling those you do not use for you - decent leveling scaling, leveling in geneforge becomes near impossible because at some point not even the strongest of the strong monsters can give you enough EXP to level reliably unless you run around "dbugkill"ing entire areas for EXP grinding purposes, i remember getting 40 EXP for killing an unbound in G5, one of the hardest beasts of teh game and it cant even give decent EXP like 400 or something? but in this game leveling is actually possible without heavy grinding or gaining a free level 2 secs from the end of the game because of what you do with the geneforge - junk bag, the junk bag alone has to be the single greatest thing in this game, FIANLLY! no more clogging all my glorious inventory space with useless crap i'll never bother to use and now for the incredibly large amount of bad - SKILL TREEES!!!!!!!!!, I HATE THE SKILL TREES OF THIS GAME SOOOO MUCH!!! every single damn skill worked out like this, to get skill C you need both A and B but A is the only skill that relates to C of the two and A is the only good skill of the two, but find i have a skill point to spare- WHAT THE HELL DO YOU MEAN I CAN ONLY RAISE SKILL C TO THE LEVEL OF THE LOWER OF A AND B? its retarded, its like saying you need to master karate to learn kendo or you need to be able to grill sasuges and brew beer before you can fry burgers - geneforge 3's avadon's tedious boat system teleporters, why do i need to run back to goldcrag then touch the pylon then run across avadon then touch another pylon to go to khemeria? thats so tedious, in G4-5 you just go to a map and run across it then you can fast travel the rest of your journey as long as you've been there before but it isnt nearly as bad as - characters and plot, why is it that all the hands but you are either dead or twiddling their thumbs until your beckoned call for a mission? why cant your 4 allies take you out on missions? why do you always have to go? why is it that convieniantly all other hands are either busy, dead or incompetent? the only one that makes sense is the dragon one because he asks for you by name because of your competence, and whats with that leader guy of khemeria? why is he not the least bit concerned that his most trusted wizzard was really an evil psycho mastermind that almost got him and the rest of khemeria screwed by avadon? and whats with the personal quests? what is this dragon age? if ima have to go risk my ass because nathalie is retarded and wants to get herself killed by a big scary dragon then i should atleast be able to bang romance her - SKILLS, every last one of them sucks, the CD's are a million and 1 turns long without that cheat code, and all of the skills for the blademaster are "hit really hard and have a status effect" or the other type of skill he shares with everybody else "hit real soft but be of actual use" beserker leap and that thing the ninja guy has that attacks everything around him in a circle would be useful if not for the crappy damage - SCARABS the only useful one i found in my travels was the one that allowed for teleporting, too bad that this isnt X-men legends 2 where when you get a skill you can actually use it to its logic limits(there are places you can only go by teleporting, and some places that require either teleporting or flying) teleporting was almost useless because you could only go places you could walk(making it useless outside of battle) and it was useless in battle unless you had more than 7/8 AP's worth of walking space directly in front of you and then it gets stricken with a like 15 turn cooldown - the big kahuna LINEARITY the game was so linear its not even funny, you cant go anywhere unless someone explicitly tells you somewhere, because your character apparantly isnt intelligent enough to explore places and go somewhere himself, it really killed exploration for me, because i didnt feel like going back(TEDIOUSLY! as mentioned above) - yet somehow i still didnt know what to do, i remember that mission where you need to make the 2 kingdoms get along and clear out the contested woods, holkanda and that other place nathalie is from i think, anyway you've gotta clear out the woods with 4 soldiers and the kings right hand dude, they bicker like 5 year olds(reminded me of me when i was younger, and evidently reminded me of me now) you go down and the soldiers get themselves owned by the the huge ass dragon, when you kill them all you'd expect something to happen right? something saying "quest completed" or some kind of story progression or something right? wrong, the only way you know that your done is you eventually thinking that you should leave and go talk to that other guy, who ran off(the coward) then you must take it upon yourself to check with that king if your done, AND THEN YOUR DONE you think they could've had a character go "we're done here lets go back?" or maybe i dont know put "quest complete" in the quest log, OR SOMETHING!?!? - stark contrast of G1, in geneforge 1 there were WAAAAAY too many living tools there were just so damn many that i had to frequently sell some by the end of the game to keep from being encumbered constantly, i had to sell over 60 living tools in that game, but maybe thats because i screwed up and my guardian had like 15 or 17 mechanics and 15 or 17 leadership, BUT I RATHER THAT THAN NOT BEING ABLE TO FIND ANY!!! what the hell? why were there so little lockpicks or maybe they were just ultra hard to find, regardless you'd need a wizard(nathalie) and a ninja(that awesome guy who's clan got decimated) in your party to maximize your efficiency, even with the guide i had a whole lot of trouble finding any lockpicks in this game, probably because they look like a generic useless item like a paperclip rather than the quite unique purple hands that i found in living tools - why wasnt the chat log on by default? seriously, i turned it on by accident, it should've been on, the only downside is the chatlog spam if you do something wrong repeatedly but even that is worth dealing with for the benefits in the end avadon is a terrible game with good/decent trends/concepts mixed in with crappy tinkering of great mechanics, i know that this isnt geneforge and so he had to change things, mechanics, names, concepts, etc. but why was/were most if not all changes for the worse? 3/10 5 or 6/10 its possibly the worst spidereweb game(making it worse than G3, making it a acheivement, no a bad achievement, like a downcheivement) that ive played(which means excluding all of them except the geneforge series, because i didnt even get past the tutorial in avernum because the graphics of the first 3, and UI turned me off and then the movement graphics of all 7 of them) TL;DR avadon is a terrible game with some good stuff, but in 99% of ways a step down from geneforge and presumably a step down from avernum 3/10 5 or 6/10 EDIT: added junk bag praise EDIT 2: increased rating, i gave G3 a 6 or 7(no i havent posted a review.... yet) so ive gotta give this a more fair score EDIT 3: changed the made up trope name i had(chekhov's character) and replaced it with the proper name