Disappointed

[The Red Mage]

Hey everyone, long time player first time poster. When I heard Spiderweb was launching an all new series, I got rather excited. I spent most of yesterday playing the Avadon demo though, and what I've seen has discouraged me from buying it. It seems like a solid game with an interesting plot, but there's one thing that kills it for me; the utter lack of class customization.

 

There is character customization, sure; you choose which stats and skills to upgrade as is par for the course with any RPG, but there's no customization of the classes. Every character you have in one class is going to look exactly the same, with the same color scheme. Exile and Avernum let you assign any graphic to any character, which was great. Geneforge at least allowed you to re-color the pre-set character graphics, which was something.

 

That's not the worst part though, that's just a graphical gripe that could be overlooked. I began Avadon as a sorceress because I tend to like playing the sword wielding spellcaster in most any RPG only to quickly find out that weapons and armor are class-restricted. Games like Geneforge and Diablo II get a free pass on making every character of a specific class look the same because in either you can start the game as the most magic-centric class and still wield a blade.

 

Avadon's class system is rigid in both appearances and practice; every blademaster will look like a blademaster and will only use blademaster weapons and blademaster skills, every sorceress will look like a sorceress and will use only sorceress weapons and sorceress skills, etc. etc. I'm just going to wait for the next reboot of the Exile/Avernum series.

[VCH]

I like the weapon restrictions. In Avernum you might equip a sorceress with a blade, but realistically she'll never be much of fighter. So why bother?

[jlsgaladriel]

The weapons restrictions aren't much of a problem once you've gotten used to them. The problem is really at the beginning, when even those of us used to old-school class-based weapons restrictions expect that a sorceress will be able to use a dagger, and a rogue will be able to use a bow.

 

Yes, there's red text which tells a character (s)he can't use a particular weapon, but it doesn't appear if the character *can* wield a weapon. So when I played my first runthrough, and was first getting weapons, I distributed them to my comrades, and then on opening *their* inventory screens discovered they weren't compatible, and had to reshuffle. It felt like a barrier put in my way right at the beginning of the game -- and that's exactly the time when users are trying to decide to buy or not to buy. It strikes me as an unfortunate way to enforce character balance.

 

The only one that really killed me later in the game was the greaves of the ramparts, which offer +15% to healing. They're not wearable by shamans. Ack?!

 

@Red Mage -- you'll get used to these particular restrictions pretty quickly. If that and the customization are your main reasons for not playing, I'd say give it another chance. No, I don't like Avadon as well as either Geneforge or Avernum/Exile, but it's still a spiderweb game. If nothing else, it's well written, and that's a joy.

[VCH]

The +15% to healing means your character heals 15% faster, not that the healing spells are more effective.

[jlsgaladriel]

Quote:

The +15% to healing means your character heals 15% faster, not that the healing spells are more effective.

Oh! I'd misunderstood. Well, that's less good!

[Slawbug]

Less good nothing, that sounds completely worthless. Are you sure it's not +15% to healing abilities?

[Clocknova]

%15 faster healing is worthless. All characters heal in just seconds as soon as the battle is over. What a waste!

[VCH]

Maybe I'm wrong, someone check it out.

 

But then what's up with the Greaves of the ramparts?

[Randomizer]

Greaves of the Ramparts has +10% to evasion plus better armor than Smoky Greaves.

 

The +15% to healing probably applies to Second Wind and Recovery abilities. I don't know if it works with scarabs and potions/scrolls.

[Slawbug]

Originally Posted By: VCH

Maybe I'm wrong, someone check it out.

But then what's up with the Greaves of the ramparts?

I take it that your statement was just an assumption, then, and was not based on any actual gameplay observation?

[VCH]

Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES

Originally Posted By: VCH

Maybe I'm wrong, someone check it out.

But then what's up with the Greaves of the ramparts?

I take it that your statement was just an assumption, then, and was not based on any actual gameplay observation?

You are correct.

[Kelandon]

I'm playing through (very slowly) with two fighters right now who are quite different from each other. I basically have a meat shield and a glass cannon. One only trains Endurance, and the other only trains Strength. The meat shield has trained all the damage reduction/parry skills to max, and the glass cannon has all the direct damage skills going to max. They play totally differently; I basically have to throw the meat shield forward and get everyone to target him, and then have the glass cannon come in and throw abilities to kill everything.

 

So customization is pretty minimal at the beginning, but it gets more significant as you go along. I'm now starting to wonder if I should give a character significant bow/razordisk abilities, because I seem to die in range-based combats, and this is yet a third direction of customization.

[Randomizer]

For a blademaster archery training to level 8 to maximize Sharpshooter Spray along with the high dexterity from evasion is very useful in the last half of the game. Some fights become one shots to remove a swarm.

[Txgangsta]

I usually have all glass canons and just kill things fast. Does having a meat shield help more than killing faster?

[Randomizer]

It depends upon the difficulty. At hard and torment a meatshield is definitely needed for fights where the monsters don't drop within 2 rounds.

 

In this game versus melee attacking monsters a meat shield is perfect since it can keep the monsters from moving after the other party members.

[Slawbug]

Yeah, it seems to me that the utility of increasing Str and Dex for damage alone drops off at some point. The average damage increase before % multipliers is 2 for melee weapons, or 2.5 for non-sorceress ranged weapons. With % increase skills, and backstab, this can become closer to 3-4 extra damage per point of Strength, or 5-6 on a crit. While not bad, it doesn't have a huge impact when your damage is in the 100-200 range already.

 

Meat shields are fine vs single enemies, but they fail against enemies with ranged attacks, especially spells, and against groups they can't block everyone.

[Alorael at Large]

I'd actually say that Dex is more important for meat shields. You don't need to absorb damage if you don't take damage, and the attacks that you don't dodge you can deal with adequately. But then you do get that bonus damage to ranged skills, and while it's not essential, it's nice.

 

—Alorael, who thinks an meat-archer would work oddly well. You can always shoot enemies who haven't quite reached you, or pick off the numerous ranged enemies. If everyone's in melee, well, you boosted your bottom left skill to get archery, and your Strength is no worse than if you'd been pumping Endurance.

[Kelandon]

I've been playing on "Hard," and in most hard combats, my meat shield is the only one left alive at the end. I'm starting to think that I need to make everyone else a meat shield, too, because having my glass cannon die before he can even use all his abilities for the first time is getting pretty annoying. Cleave is killing me.

[Slawbug]

IMHO, glass cannons are not really a viable option in Avadon, at least not on the higher difficulties. If you face a large number of generic enemies, they'll eventually get knocked out, and bosses use enough AoE attacks, ranged attacks, and all have multiple attacks per round, that you need everyone to be able to take a few hits.

[VCH]

Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES

IMHO, glass cannons are not really a viable option in Avadon, at least not on the higher difficulties. If you face a large number of generic enemies, they'll eventually get knocked out, and bosses use enough AoE attacks, ranged attacks, and all have multiple attacks per round, that you need everyone to be able to take a few hits.

Glass cannons work, it's just you have to keep distance between them and the main battle. I've found that Avadon's monsters focus almost exclusively on the first character they bump into. So as long as you thrust your tank into the mob first, your glass cannon should be fine.

[Alorael at Large]

Only if there aren't swarms, aren't ranged attacks, and aren't wide-area scripted attacks. Squishy characters end up dead a lot. Sorceress, I'm looking at you.

 

—Alorael, who actually found the shaman to be the toughest because of those huge passive bonuses to health. He didn't raise anyone's Endurance, so his so-called meat shields weren't meaty. They did have plenty of passive bonuses and heavy armor, though, and it worked well enough.

[Randomizer]

The Sorceress isn't that squishy because even with the weakest physical armor, the resistances more than compensate to give better passive protection than the Shaman.

[Ceiling Durkheim]

Yeah. Despite having better armor available, a shaman with heavy middle column investment has substantially worse physical resistance than a sorceress with similar skill/stat distribution. Even with really high HP, shamans tend to fall very quickly when subject to direct attack. Fortunately, they have pets and ranged attacks, so they can often avoid direct attack.

[Slawbug]

Huh? That really confuses me.

 

Hardiness (automatic)

--- increase health 4%/level (maximum 44%)

--- at level 3 - resistance to acid, poison, and cold of 6%/level (maximum 54%)

--- at level 7 - resistance to magic and fire of 12%/level (maximum 60%)

 

Ward Mastery (automatic)

--- resistance to physical damage 3%/level (maximum 33%)

--- at level 3 - resistance to mental attacks 8%/level (maximum 72%)

--- at level 7 - resistance to magic and elemental attacks 10%/level (maximum 50%)

 

The shaman gets slightly better but essentially comparable resistances to all the magical stuff, so let's wipe those away. Then, even if we ignore the shaman's better armor options, the shaman's HP bonus allows her to survive an extra 44% of physical attack damage, while the sorceress's passive armor bonus allows her to survive an extra 33% of physical attack damage. I don't think the difference in equippable armor is that significant, but it puts things an extra 5-10% in favor of the shaman, maybe.

 

The sorceress does get Shadow Charm, which is very nice. However, it takes a turn to use, which means you either pre-buff or waste a turn on it, and in long fights you'll have to repeatedly waste turns to keep up that protection. I think this is balanced out by the shaman's very strong healing powers, coupled with her boosted HP which allows her to make good use of them. Particularly since the sorceress's lack of healing abilities reduces the total non-item healing available to your party, which is a problem no matter which party members are getting attacked.

[VCH]

I still fail to see the problem with the shaman or sorceress. In my torment game they rarely died. It's a simple matter of keeping them as far back from the main action as possible, and healing them when necessary. And, like I said, you have to make sure they aren't the first PC the game monsters lock on to.

 

I didn't put any points into shadow charm because it seemed unnecessary. If she was swarmed I did something wrong in the first place.

[Randomizer]

Shadow Charm lasts long enough that you shouldn't cast it more than twice in a fight unless it's a major boss fight.

 

Shamans are squishier to physical damage than Sorceresses. By the middle of the game, Sorceresses are almost immune to elemental and magic damage from focus mastery.

[Ceiling Durkheim]

What Randomizer said. I didn't find the better armor options for the shaman made up for the armor increase from ward mastery, especially since the skill increasing equipment (otherwise the best armor) for shamans tended to have lower armor than some of the other options. Meanwhile, focus mastery dramatically decreases spell damage at higher levels.

 

You make a good point about the lack of healing on the sorceress. Strictly speaking, I'd call the shaman's healing and summons a contribution to the health of the party overall, as opposed to one character as with second wind and such. The shaman definitely makes a greater contribution to the party's defense, but I did find that with no healing to each character, or equal amounts of healing (whether due to shamanic altruism or a self-heal scarab on the sorceress), the sorceress tended to live longer.

 

Addendum: also, ceteris paribus, damage resistance seems somewhat superior to HP. I'm not aware of any unblockable attacks (circumventing high resistance), or attacks that deal damage by % of HP (circumventing high HP), so they're equally effective in avoiding KO. On the other hand, healing is clearly more effective on characters with low HP and high resistances, because it recovers HP by a fixed numerical amount, rather than percentage.