A5 Questions

[Lemur Industries]

I have some questions on the possible return of some features that were strangely lost in the transition from Exile to Avernum.

 

Dual-weilding with the ambidextrous trait. This just seems silly not to have, so long as the two-handed weapons are kept equal or superior in strength to two one-handers. Gives more options for playstyle.

 

Bashing weapons. I realize 'edged weapons' no longer exists either and all non-pole weapons were lumped into "Meele" but the total lack of maces and flails in Avernum confuses me. Especially with that stun mechanic in A4.

 

Field style magic. BoA had this with wall of knives, but anti-magic field seems so essential for being able to take out enemy casters and conflag. was a great low level AOE DOT. Again, these are just more flavours to playstyle.

 

Weapon poisons. I'm a broken record. More options! Makes a member of my party feel more like a thief besides pumping in tool skill.

 

If not for A5, then hopefully A6.

 

-Ed

[Student of Trinity]

Dual wielding always seems hokey to me. Ambidexterity means you can use one sword equally well with either hand. Using two swords at once, each as well as a single sword, would seem to require a lot more than just ambidexterity. I mean, a real blow with a sword requires a major lunge or swing with the whole body, not just a flick of the wrist. No matter how ambidextrous you are, doing that with two swords isn't really much easier than doing it twice with one sword, in the same amount of time.

 

Which is as much a matter of balance as of credibility. Ambidexterity sounds like a reasonable positive trait, if you're thinking how useful and common it is in real life. If it were called 'double all my attacks' it would sound broken.

[Alorael at Large]

1. Dual-wielding was broken. Instead of trying to balance it, which would require two-handed weapons to be twice as powerful as one-handed or strange damage modifications for ambidexterity, I think just saying no works fine.

 

2. There's no reason the engine can't do bashing weapons, but they're just not part of Avernum anymore. They were always poor man's swords in Exile anyway.

 

3. Fields are nice. I think their removal might be balance-related, though. The AI probably wouldn't do too well with them, and walking through 8 AP of fields would be a mess.

 

4. I have no problem with weapon poison only coming with magic weapons. It's a powerful ability.

 

—Alorael, who was happy to see area spells reappear in A4. It's a bit of a shame there's still no way to fry your own party with a fireball, though.

[Randomizer]

4. The only weapon poison is the Alien Waveblade and Assassin's Dagger.

 

3. Fields are out because the AI doesn't have a way to handle them. It's the biggest exploit that you can hide behind them and monsters won't go through them to attack you. Only chitrachs going through a null bug's antimagic field.

[Lemur Industries]

I think "it was unbalanced" is never an excuse, especially on a completely new engine...

 

Adding more options to playstyle shouldn't be scrapped for the mentality that it's 'just easier to leave out.'

 

These were good features, so long as they are kept in line.

[Randomizer]

It's a matter of the time required to balance a feature with the rest of the game. A5 adds battle disciplines so fighters have more options than melee or missle.

 

We've barely started testing and Jeff was surprised that I had adrenaline rush before leaving the demo (Yeah, it's my fault that you can no longer legsweep with starting characters, too). It affected the balance that it was too easy to acquire new battle disciplines so it's now takes longer.

 

When you have jaded min/maxers that take the game to an extreme any new feature can get out of hand. Also some features were dropped because players didn't like them.

[Frobozz]

So what features were dropped? Or are you on an NDA and can't say without being stabbed repeatedly?

[Synergy]

Random is being stabbed repeatedly at this moment.

 

-S-

[Randomizer]

It's still in a state of flux. Jeff can change his mind at any moment.

[Kat Zarai]

Quote:

Originally written by Student of Trinity:
Dual wielding always seems hokey to me. Ambidexterity means you can use one sword equally well with either hand. Using two swords at once, each as well as a single sword, would seem to require a lot more than just ambidexterity. I mean, a real blow with a sword requires a major lunge or swing with the whole body, not just a flick of the wrist. No matter how ambidextrous you are, doing that with two swords isn't really much easier than doing it twice with one sword, in the same amount of time.

Hate to tell you this but it is a valid real life style of fighting. a lot of moderns call this style 'Florentine', although it is not exclusively European.
It is a difficult style not because you cannot do sufficient damage but because of the difficulty of not falling in to an easily read pattern. Simply, if your pattern is short it is easy to decipher in the quickest battle and you die - if it is longer it requires a longer battle to work out making your chances better.

[Student of Trinity]

Fighting with a sword and a dagger, or perhaps two daggers, is a lot more doable than fighting with two longswords, which was what I believe the Exile dual wielding was about.

[Starman1985]

I agree weapon poisoning should come back.

[Xaiya]

Quote:

I agree weapon poisoning should come back.

Do you mean as a spell?
Because some weapons already have that.

Edit -Actually, this would imbalance things for how it is now. Besides, you have spells to inflict acid on enemies.

[Starman1985]

I mean you make a potion that you can use to poison your weapon for a time like in Exile.

[Ephesos]

Or, heck, just have more weapons that drip poison like the Alien Blade. Or, for that matter, bring back item augmentation like in A3.

 

Of course, the idea of dual-wielding with one acid dagger and one poison dagger is too appealing to rule out.

[Sudanna]

Nalyd knows this much: he's tired of stabbing. Every single attack animation, since the early days of G1! Just one slash thrown in there would be a great relief.

[CandyStick]

The biggest thing for me, would be if equipment worn was better reflected. I am not talking about anything major, for example, if one of my characters was using an acid sword, it would be cool if the sword changed color to green, same with armor, just so that there is some visual interest to the characters, rather than staring at exactly the same sprites the whole game.

[Zummi]

Yeah..a changing graphic due to equipment would be nice..

 

And at Nalyd's idea of different attack animations..I want to see my swordie do an overhead slash!

 

I mean..with the upcoming Battle Discipline System..the old stabbing animation just doesn't cut it..

[Starman1985]

Well the bsttle discipline system might not even need difrent strokes if used in real life so it wouldn,t be necessary.

[Ephesos]

The extra animations probably won't happen. If you're expecting super high-end graphics, you should look for a different game.

 

You Geneforge/A4 vets are spoiled. Back in the day of the Trilogy, back when it was a proper trilogy, we had one attack frame and we liked it.

[Starman1985]

Yeah the games were still good back then just insanly huge.

[Zummi]

Uhm..I don't want want uber animation graphics..just..something added..heck..I still will like the poking motion..

 

And..Starman1985..could you shorten your signature? It's pretty long and boring..

[Frobozz]

This will probably be shot down, but if 3D graphics were used it would be easier to add effects like different armor colors (or textures). It would also make adding attacks easier since you wouldn't have to draw each position the character could potentially be in - you'd just rotate the model. This might not sound like much of an advantage until you consider that games using Geneforge's engine have around 16 positions along with around eight or so frames per position. That's 128 individual graphics cells that have to be drawn. Even if you drew in such a way that you could copy and paste whole chunks it is still time consuming and possibly quite expensive.

 

Edit: Before anyone complains about the increase to system requirements, consider other games. Age of Empires 3 for example has pretty fancy graphics and yet it runs on cards from up to three years ago (friend of mine has an FX 5700 which is really on par with GeForce 3 Ti). Granted the engine is highly optimized compared to most but it also makes use of fancy shader effects. Spidweb games would probably do well even without shader effects - especially if things like lighting were pre-calculated.

[Lilith]

My understanding is that the graphics are already made in Poser, so I suppose something like that isn't completely out of the question.

[La paix]

Quote:

Originally written by Ephesos:
The extra animations probably won't happen. If you're expecting super high-end graphics, you should look for a different game.

You Geneforge/A4 vets are spoiled. Back in the day of the Trilogy, back when it was a proper trilogy, we had one attack frame and we liked it.

Exactly! But, change can be good. These games are evolving. And you can always replay the good oldies.

[Drakefyre]

Excuse me. Two attack frames. Right and left, baby!

[Lifecrafterandnoobeditor]

I still think we need more attack graphics. My character: "Yes i am an experienced swordsman who can slaughter without effort, but i only know how to stab. I'm serious. And of course when i'm fighting 10 enemies or so nobody notices that every freaking ime i'm going for their gut/chest area. after fighting over 1000 enemies, nobody realises that i can only stab. of course not. Now if you'll excuse me, i've gotta go practice my stab for 6 hours then read up on scrolls that allow me to make a ption that will make me invulnerable and then make me able to summon acid out of thin air and direct t, which is much easier to create than a upwards or downwards sword attack. Goodbye."

 

And Drakefyre, i support your love for mac. GO MAC! Don't make me go back to PC. the things i saw..... the things i had to do...... i felt....violated...... please don't make me go back. i still have nightmares... *Shudder*

[Drakefyre]

Thanks, I know how it is. But please edit your signature to stop it from stretching the browser. Just put a space somewhere in that long hyphenated word. Or I'll do it for you, and you wouldn't like that

[Lifecrafterandnoobeditor]

ok i WILL put a break, right where the swedes part is. Dont do it yourself... it hurts...... i can't sleep in the dark anymore Can we go back to the graphics now, this stuff.... hurts (shiver shiver) . for my graphic thoughts , go bakc to my character's dialouge at the top of this page

[Student of Trinity]

What about the breathtaking Swiss fjords, then?

[Alorael at Large]

Quote:

Originally written by Drakefyre:
Excuse me. Two attack frames. Right and left, baby!

Untrue! One frame, but two different graphics.

—Alorael, who sees no need for pretty animations in Avernum games. He was perfectly happy just getting highlights in earlier Exiles. It's not a stab, it's an indication that you are, in fact, performing an attack.

[Lifecrafterandnoobeditor]

it looks more like a tab to me. And i will not diss the arrogant little banker swiss who sit on their thrones and eat choclate fo their natural resources, i have plenty of ammunition besides that

[Drakefyre]

It was a shocking and marked improvement over the Exile and Exile II graphics that didn't attack at all. Exile III was still my first love. *sigh*

[Lifecrafterandnoobeditor]

welcome to 2007. pull yourself out of the exile era. we crave better grphics these days, exile was WAY in the beggining

[Ephesos]

Quote:

Originally written by Lifecrafterandnoobeditor:
welcome to 2007. pull yourself out of the exile era. we crave better grphics these days, exile was WAY in the beggining

Speak for yourself. And if you really do crave these "better grphics," then go play Gears of War or something.

[Lifecrafterandnoobeditor]

well, i prefer the storyline, gameplay creativity over it, i'm simply making suggestions for improvments

[Dintiradan]

By Ephesos:

Quote:

Speak for yourself. And if you really do crave these "better grphics," then go play Gears of War or something.

I agree that graphics aren't everything, but they are something. I don't think graphics will ever be a major selling point for Spiderweb (unless there will be games developed on a licensed engine, which would be a diffent story), but that doesn't mean that Jeff should strive for low-end graphics.

 

(Though I do agree that extended attack animations don't have a place in Spiderweb's turn-based, tactical-minded combat.)

 

--------------------

I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.

- Gwendolen

[Lifecrafterandnoobeditor]

i think aother attack motion would be better. it became somewhat better with the throwing motions but i still crave another attack motion. and esphesues, no offence, but you sound like an old guy with these remarks:

 

You Geneforge/A4 vets are spoiled. Back in the day of the Trilogy, back when it was a proper trilogy, we had one attack frame and we liked it.

[Drakefyre]

That was the intent ... he's being playful.

 

Still, I actually do prefer the old graphics and interface - the new system just seems bloated and much too slow. But to each his own.

[Lifecrafterandnoobeditor]

that is true, but i'm sure jeff will give us anothr good game. i mean, i would prefer a extra attack motion, but that is'nt exactly the selling point for the games.

[Lemur Industries]

I would play Exile/Avernum if it was text based (I play a fair amount of text based games). Graphics mean nothing to a game. It's gameplay and story that I care about.

[Lifecrafterandnoobeditor]

i like the gamplay and story but i dont think i would play it text-based, aaas you cant really see everything, and you dont get as good a feel

[Andraste]

Quote:

Originally written by Ephesos:
You Geneforge/A4 vets are spoiled. Back in the day of the Trilogy, back when it was a proper trilogy, we had one attack frame and we liked it.

Ha. Back in my day, we didn't even have attack animations and we walked through solid cavewood doors.

:Edit: Hmmm. I forgot there was a second page. Oh well.

[Lifecrafterandnoobeditor]

umm...... ok....... when was that? that sounds liek the old dark ages when computers were new inventions and mac's were'nt around yet.

[Randomizer]

Exile games didn't have the animations.

 

Although back when I started playing we had text characters for graphics. You swung at a "D" by moving onto that square to attack the dragon.

[Student of Trinity]

You had D's?! We had to push the beads around on the abacus. But the gameplay was awesome.

[Alorael at Large]

At least you got an abacus. All we had was a stick to draw in the dirt.

 

—Alorael, who was always jealous of the kids whose parents could afford sharp sticks. His sticks were always completely blunt. Also they were covered with poison ivy.

[Drakefyre]

And when the rains came, forget about it. Talk about corrupting saved games!

[Swimmin' Salmon]

Flithy spammers!

[Xaiya]

Quote:

Flithy spammers!

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