Garrulous Glaahk Clocknova Posted December 2, 2009 Share Posted December 2, 2009 So, I'm at the Great Portal, and one of the crystals has exploded, and there are these demons coming out. The thing is, I've been hacking at these things for almost an hour now, and they keep coming. To make matters worse, I'm not even getting any experience from them, despite that fact that they are easily tough enough to kill me. I figured that was an oversight and I'd just use the editor to give all my characters a level and call it even. But before I can do that, I need for these guys to stop coming out of the portal. Is there something I'm supposed to do to make them stop, because I'm obviously not supposed to just walk out and let these things invade Avernum? What's up? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatchling Cockatrice Randomizer Posted December 2, 2009 Share Posted December 2, 2009 What you are supposed to do. Click to reveal.. You are supposed to walk out and the gates slam shut. Then return to the Castle for new orders. I'm guessing you are playing on normal difficulty since at that level you can easily keep killing them. Some areas give no experience because the scripted monsters are spawned and these monsters don't count for giving experience. The Howling Depths in Avernum 5 had the same type of monsters. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatchling Cockatrice Lilith Posted December 2, 2009 Share Posted December 2, 2009 Yeah. When Nichol told you to run for your life, he meant it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Garrulous Glaahk Clocknova Posted December 3, 2009 Author Share Posted December 3, 2009 Dang. I really hate scripted failures like that. I really feel like I should stay and fight, rather than let Nichol stay behind and die while Avernum is invaded. And no, I'm playing on hard, but my party is around level 13; so long as I keep the imps slowed so they don't get those double hits, and have enough summons to keep them occupied, I can take them out almost indefinitely, or as long as my energy potions last. I guess I've got to give up the fight, then. It still feels wrong, though. Perhaps Jeff could have found a way to force the issue so the player wouldn't feel like they have to voluntarily "fail." Oh, well. Great game so far. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chittering Clawbug Matchstk Posted December 3, 2009 Share Posted December 3, 2009 Yeah I tried all night, last night, to save Nichol too. But he wouldn't retreat to the gate. Hard to know when it's a script you can alter or not. Only after finishing the quest for Gnass did I read a bit about being able to save the son. Once he started attacking me, it seemed unavoidable. Almost started over to get it right. And I still wonder if there's a way to give some food to the couple in the Food Depot, the ones who slip back into the hallway. At that point, I had lots of meat and bread and I kept trying to get a dialog script that would allow me to just hand them some food. (Oh yeah they show up at the portal. At least I got them out of harms way.) As for the Great Portal scripts though - wonderful work Jeff. And now that place is crawling with Imps and Portal Demons. I wonder if they expand outward as the game continues. Great game so far. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatchling Cockatrice Lilith Posted December 3, 2009 Share Posted December 3, 2009 If you've played Avernum 2, you should have some idea of what it takes to close an unstable portal. At that point in A6, you don't have what it takes. Fighting off demons forever as they come out of the portal is a job for the portal guards, not for you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ineffable Wingbolt Dahak Posted December 3, 2009 Share Posted December 3, 2009 What happened to Vanderin? He escaped but I've not seen him for a while. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magnificent Ornk Ephesos Posted December 3, 2009 Share Posted December 3, 2009 Oh, he'll turn up again. Don't worry about him. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Easygoing Eyebeast VCH Posted December 3, 2009 Share Posted December 3, 2009 Yeah Jeff did a poor job of explaining that you need to leave and let Nichol die. I think he should have forcibly moved your party outside the gates to avoid the ambiguity over what needs to be done. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magnificent Ornk Ephesos Posted December 3, 2009 Share Posted December 3, 2009 Originally Posted By: VCH Yeah Jeff did a poor job of explaining that you need to leave and let Nichol die. I think he should have forcibly moved your party outside the gates to avoid the ambiguity over what needs to be done. I wholeheartedly disagree. In my experience, forcibly moving the party is more of a last resort, something to do when there's no more viable way to get the party from A to B. Sadly, this happens a lot in Blades, but the new engine is less suited to such trickery. And forced movement within a single plot event? Blech. Wring the dramatic tension from the scene, in one easy step. My two cents, anyway. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatchling Cockatrice Lilith Posted December 3, 2009 Share Posted December 3, 2009 Having the radiation from the portal itself do gradually increasing damage and eventually kill you if you don't run would probably have gotten the point across, I suppose, but honestly I wasn't in any doubt that the game was expecting me to run away. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Garrulous Glaahk Fael Posted December 3, 2009 Share Posted December 3, 2009 I stayed and fought for a while -- I knew I was supposed to flee, but it wasn't immediately clear to me that Nichol wasn't, so I spent a little while trying to figure out how to keep the demons off him long enough for him to run away. Eventually, it became clear that he was going to advance on the demons no matter what I did, and I gave up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Garrulous Glaahk Clocknova Posted December 3, 2009 Author Share Posted December 3, 2009 I don't think forcibly moving the party was the way to go, but it wasn't obvious enough, to me anyway, that what I had to do was give up and retreat. It was easy enough to fight the demons that I didn't realize that there was no way to win; or at least, I didn't want to admit it. Forcing me to back off by making the situation seem a bit more dire might have worked. Perhaps if Nichol had retreated with me, I wouldn't have felt like I was abandoning him. He could still have turned back after I was through the gate so that I couldn't stop him from making the heroic sacrifice. Would that change have altered the dramatic tension? Probably, but I don't think by much. Anyway, I'm past it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Garrulous Glaahk Fael Posted December 3, 2009 Share Posted December 3, 2009 Yeah, I didn't get it until I reached the point where my entire party was between Nichol and the demons and he had nothing around him and he went and charged through my line to engage a bunch of demons that weren't threatening anybody. At that point, I got the message that he wasn't going to do anything until I'd fled. But it took a while to get there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tenderfoot Thahd entitything Posted December 5, 2009 Share Posted December 5, 2009 Maybe a cheesy "I regret nothiiiiiing" type line from Nichol would have made it more explicit. I figured he was going to die no matter what, but I held them off for a few waves anyway out of sheer cussedness. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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