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First Playthrough Reactions


Kelandon

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Okay, I just finished my first playthrough of Avadon, and the following is a spoilerific (and long) discussion of my thoughts. I haven't played much of a Spiderweb game since I gave up halfway through GF4, so when I came to Avadon, I was thinking of A4 and GF3 and the like. I found that while Avadon graphically looks like previous Spidweb games, it plays very differently.

 

The towns are huge. This was an interesting idea, You get a real feeling of scale and grandeur, and that each area can be more complex than in previous games. On the other hand, I couldn't find anything again. Once I'd encountered something and walked away, I could spend literally half an hour looking for it again. This was particularly a problem when I was looking for someone who had given me a quest. The question marks on the automap weren't adequate to the task.

 

Early on, we noted the "many exits but one entrance" issue with the zones, but I thought that a bigger issue was that zones don't appear until someone tells you about them. More than once, I received quests that could not be completed at the time that they were given because a zone wouldn't open up for some time. This seemed in keeping with the generally unpredictable nature of the game, which was the biggest thing that took getting used to.

 

In Avernum 1, as in most Spidweb games, it's pretty clear from the outset what you're trying to do, and how far the game is going to go, and when it's going to end. In Avadon, I found that I never knew what was going to happen next or how my actions would fit into that. I still don't have any idea how responsive the world is; if I said different things to different people, or if I chose to take different actions, would the game have played differently? In Avadon, I knew that I was saying things to people, but upon reloading and saying different things, there seemed to be very few short-term consequences. But were there long-term consequences? Did things build over time? I couldn't tell.

 

One example that came up in the endgame involved the final battle. Throughout the entire game, suggestions are continuously made that you'll be able to kill Redbeard and supplant him. However, it's nearly impossible to do this unless you follow a fairly traitorous path to begin with. I tried to walk a very careful "Reform Avadon from within but don't directly contravene Redbeard's wishes" path, and this led to Sevilin and Shima abandoning me in the end. With only Jenell and Nathalie, I tried once to deal with him, but then I gave up. It didn't look promising (although probably, if I tried half a dozen times, I would eventually get it — more on why I didn't below).

 

This was not the only example of what I felt was wild unpredictability. Getting sent back to places I'd already been repeatedly was a cool idea, but it led to a sense of randomness to the missions. Didn't I just do a bunch of stuff in the Kva? What am I going back there for? Wait, that guy again? Didn't I just do a big quest for him? This meant that I couldn't tell when I was getting near the end of the game, too, so I couldn't see where it was all going at all. This was a pretty bold move, since it was a major departure from earlier Spidweb games. I think I like it, though it was frustrating at times.

 

I do wonder, though, if I'll have the patience to get through it a second time. The combats were very slow (sometimes painfully slow — part of this was that the animations did not play quickly on my machine, so any spell took several seconds to cast). A lot of Blades designers think that a tactical combat is one in which the challenge is the first two or three rounds, and if you can figure out what to do then, you're pretty much set for the rest of the combat. Avadon was the exact opposite of this. The tactical challenges were scattered. Some were focused on the beginning, some the middle, some the end. This, combined with the slowdown, led to a lot more thinking on my part than I'd ever really done before, and it was a good challenge in a lot of ways. This did mean, though, that reloading after dying in a very long fight was an incredibly painful experience. Some of these combats lasted half an hour or more. Refighting them could mean an hour wasted.

 

I did feel, too, that the monsters leading up to the bosses didn't reflect the difficulty of the bosses. In most other Spidweb games, I knew that I couldn't beat certain bosses yet because I was getting trounced by the cannon fodder before the boss battle. Here, that didn't happen. Perhaps this is an inevitable consequence of making the boss battles more interesting. Perhaps not.

 

The writing was, as always, outstanding. The personalities given to my companions were interesting to probe. I found it very frustrating that Nathalie had the most interesting personality but I could never seem to figure out how to use her well; she seemed like the weakest one of the bunch, but I always wanted to bring her along because of all the interesting things that she said. Redbeard was completely enigmatic and seemed mildly schizophrenic; most of the side characters were oddly forgettable, though.

 

Also, the different nationalities had very distinct cultures but not very distinct names, as far as I could tell, so it was hard to recall what was from where. Perhaps this was just my lack of familiarity with it all, and by Avadon 3, it will all seem perfectly natural. But I never confused nephils and vahnatai, you know.

 

Okay, bottom line: I liked it. I liked it a lot, enough to want to play it again immediately, which I haven't felt about a Spidweb game in a long time. It was unpredictable and complex at almost every level (the plot, the combats, etc.), and this caused me some frustration on the first playthrough that I think will be dramatically reduced on the second. I think this game will be a lot more fun to replay than it was to play initially, and it was fun to play.

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Originally Posted By: Triumph
Just curious, what difficulty level did you play at?
Played almost uniformly at Hard, but got irritated at one fight and dropped it to Casual. Apparently that cost me a medal.

I've already started my second playthrough (on the same difficulty level), and it's astonishingly easier to find things, keep track of characters, figure out which skills to enhance, figure out how to fight combats... everything is vastly better the second time. I find myself not wanting to read any of the early text, though, which is odd.
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But Kelandon quit partway through G4, and to me G4 and G5 were good in similar ways. So he might not be so thrilled with G5 either. I'd suggest A6 instead, if he wants to check out other recent Spiderweb games.

 

I think Keladon has put his finger nicely on something that really distinguishes this game from Jeff's earlier ones. It's really unclear where you're going in Avadon. As in A6, you're part of an army, following orders as they come. So you never know exactly what's coming next. But in A6 the big picture was clear. In Avadon, it seems that anything whatever could come next.

 

Moreover, the player's sense of ignorance in Avadon is different from other games. Avadon is full of Rumsfeldian 'unknown unknowns'. You feel constantly that there is vital information out there, which might radically change your view of what is going on, but you have no idea at all exactly how. One example of this is the fact that everyone's loyalty is in doubt (even Redbeard's, even your own). Another is the multicultural nature of the Pact and its opposition, which means that all your comparisons are apples to oranges, and you're always questioning your standards.

 

Avadon leaves you realistically twisting in the wind, in precisely the way that most games I know do not. But it gives you something else to tie the game together, instead of the role of armchair general. With the big picture all fuzzy, you find yourself identifying with your small group of companions, and basing your convictions on your own decisions and experiences together.

 

The coherent theme that finally does tie Avadon tightly together is the question of whether to believe in Redbeard as the all-seeing general that the player is not, or to conclude instead that the worm's eye view of your small group of Hands is ultimately more valid than his perspective. This is as profound a question, I think, as any Jeff has treated before. It's harder to debate about than, say, Shapers versus Rebels. But it's also more relevant to the real world, and I can imagine that Avadon may stay in my thoughts for a long time.

 

The recent mission in Abbottabad was just the sort of thing a team of Hands might do. How many Avadons are there in reality? How many Redbeards?

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Avadon is the first Spiderweb game where you don't think the end is so near. By getting sent back to the same places to do follow up missions where people tell you they might have more work later on when you return, you have the illusion that the end will occur much later.

 

Even if you figure out what is going on, there is the feeling that you will be sent out on another mission and that the final battle will be elsewhere.

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Originally Posted By: Student of Trinity
Avadon leaves you realistically twisting in the wind, in precisely the way that most games I know do not. But it gives you something else to tie the game together, instead of the role of armchair general. With the big picture all fuzzy, you find yourself identifying with your small group of companions, and basing your convictions on your own decisions and experiences together.

The coherent theme that finally does tie Avadon tightly together is the question of whether to believe in Redbeard as the all-seeing general that the player is not, or to conclude instead that the worm's eye view of your small group of Hands is ultimately more valid than his perspective. This is as profound a question, I think, as any Jeff has treated before. It's harder to debate about than, say, Shapers versus Rebels. But it's also more relevant to the real world, and I can imagine that Avadon may stay in my thoughts for a long time.


I can tell you that I'm still not certain where I lie on the loyalty spectrum. In my first run through, I tried to walk the line and hold off my decision until the very end. I ended up with pretty much everyone dissatisfied with me. Not very satisfying. I'm not playing through one extreme, and I'll try the next extreme sometime in the future. Maybe that'll give me a fuller picture and help me choose.
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Originally Posted By: Master1
In my first run through, I tried to walk the line and hold off my decision until the very end. I ended up with pretty much everyone dissatisfied with me.


Jeez, I hope I don't end up doing this myself. I've been taking the stance of "do what Redbeard says, loyalty to the Pact, hoo rah rah" but then attempting to temper that with some compassion and trying to keep the Little Guy from getting trampled on by the Powers That Be.

So, I've been waiting to be given some sort of semi-obvious choice like:

"Do this morally reprehensible thing Redbeard's Way which seems cruel but is supposedly in the best interest of the Pact as a whole,"

or

"Do this morally reprehensible thing in a way that SEEMS like it might be more compassionate but is sure to piss off Avadon/Redbeard and will probably turn out poorly for everyone but your Party anyway,"

because let's face it, doesn't that sound EXACTLY like the sort of 100%-shades-of-grey, everyone-is-partially-wrong, no-matter-what-someone-suffers vibe that Jeff presents us with continuously in this game?

Unfortunately, it hasn't happened yet. From what I've been reading about the game while trying to stay mostly spoiler-free, I wonder if it'll ever happen at all.
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You eventually get some choices where you're given a pretty clear choice between doing what Redbeard wants and doing what other people want. It's not obvious than someone is right and someone is wrong, but it is clear that Redbeard is playing at realpolitik and you may not want to support that.

 

—Alorael, who also tried to temper Avadon with some justice and mercy. When push came to shove, though, he came down on one side, not the other, and he was quite aware of what he was doing when he did so.

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I went with the what's in it for me choice. Almost completely amoral grabbing any quest that offered me loot and killing them off if they didn't bribe me enough.

 

Moral paths to support Redbeard at all costs results in no allies at the end although they still have uses for one ending. Trying to do the best for the Pact also is somewhat unsatisfactory.

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Originally Posted By: Randomizer
Moral paths to support Redbeard at all costs results in no allies at the end although they still have uses for one ending. Trying to do the best for the Pact also is somewhat unsatisfactory.

I think this is part of what I was trying to get at in the original post. The fact that there are clear paths that you can walk that lead to wildly unsatisfying endings is fascinatingly bizarre. There were lots of different sides in, say, GF2, but there were definite, satisfying victory conditions for each side, and they were not blocked off by trying to walk that particular path. In Avadon, certain decisions will alienate you enough from various sides that, while you're not definitely choosing one side over the other, you're still unable to achieve certain types of victories. This is quite realistic, mildly irritating, and totally hard to predict at each moment. I think I like it, but it's odd.

I think SoT nicely articulated more of what I was going for in the post above, too.

EDIT: It's as though Avadon is trying to FORCE you to be an extremist, even though a moderate path is possible in the game. Extremist endings seem as though they would be far more satisfying than a moderate ending that doesn't really allow you to do much of anything.
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It's this sort of thing (also present in Avernum 5) that can be wearying after a while. Is it more realistic, more "deep" that both sides have (significant) faults? Sure. Does it make you feel like a Hero? No.

 

I like to feel like the Hero at the end of the day in my turn-based, story-driven RPGs. It's bit depressing that, in Avadon especially (but again, A5 had a lot of this too), every choice you make ends up ruining and/or ending many people's lives. Is it a realistic consequence of wielding that sort of power? Absolutely. Do you get warm fuzzies when you turn in each major quest? Quite the opposite.

 

I guess for me it's a good thing that Jeff said in one of his recent blogs that the Avernum re-writes are going to attempt to bring back more of that "good guys save the (under)world" feeling.

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I liked it, maybe not as much as previous games, will have to think about it. From beginning to end, I still don't really feel like I know any more than I did.

 

It was a bit easy to see Miranda's future, if you read the records in the basement halfway through the game. Others I didn't see and still don't really understand, like the Duke.

 

I ended up siding with the pact and Redbeard, because I didn't see why anyone wouldn't. Nearly all the problems were cause by mad individuals whose motives were purely selfish, seemingly through no fault of the pact. The only thing you could say Redbeard did wrong was get a little lazy.

 

I had a lot of problems with the difficulty too. The "minions" leading up to a boss I could usually deal with without having to reload or use alot of consumables. But the bosses...they are on a whole other level. It felt out of wack.

 

The ending...well I think everyone probably feels the same. A cliffhanger in the worst way. You aren't even able to bring justice to anyone who was responsible, or even get a glimpse of their lands. I could go on, but in all I'd had fun, don't regret playing it, and will certainly play the next one.

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My games are, at the core, works of fiction. There are lots of sorts of fiction.

 

The Avernum rewrites will be Avernum, with all of the good guys, bad guys, lack of moral ambiguity, and pure heroism. They are that kind of fiction.

 

The Avadon games are dark fantasy, with muddy morality, ambiguity, good people who get punished, and bad people who prosper. They are that kind of fiction.

 

No one person likes all sorts of fiction. If someone doesn't like Avadon and loves Avernum (or vise versa), that is entirely reasonable.

 

I've been reading The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss to get myself in a light fantasy sort of mood before doing too much with Avernum.

 

- Jeff Vogel

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What no companions in Avernum rewrite/remake? Ha I'll never buy them!

 

That is a joke, but well companions in Avernum 1 would be dreamy.

 

I'm only close to end but my decision is taken since long, Redbeard is already dead, well I hope. Why? Because he is mad, not enough morality to much obsession of fake efficiency. Order through terror is an old way but I can't believe in it. There's missing a bit of justice and there's too many people above any laws, starting with Redbeard.

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Originally Posted By: AaronC


It was a bit easy to see Miranda's future, if you read the records in the basement halfway through the game. Others I didn't see and still don't really understand, like the Duke.


I must have missed this, cus I suspected, but was never sure, until quite near the end. What exactly is said?

And, Jeff: I dunno. I think people can appreciate both kinds of fiction - I know I can. Sometimes being the unquestionably good guy smiting the unquestionably bad guy is all you want, and other times you want a deep, messy, squalid little world where there is no right choice, and you don't really make much of a difference. I prefer the latter, and Avadon (and the later Geneforge games) were great for this, but there's definitely room for both kinds of adventures.
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Originally Posted By: Impudent Strumpet!
Originally Posted By: AaronC


It was a bit easy to see Miranda's future, if you read the records in the basement halfway through the game. Others I didn't see and still don't really understand, like the Duke.


I must have missed this, cus I suspected, but was never sure, until quite near the end. What exactly is said?


I couldn't tell you word for word, but it just tells you how Miranda came to Redbeard's service. Nothing you don't learn later on through dialogue. Another one down there is the librarian eye's history, which also hints at how she seems so life-less or disconnected.

And maybe something is just wrong with me or it's the inner totalitarian in me speaking, but I never saw Redbeard as anything but the good guy.
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Originally Posted By: AaronC
And maybe something is just wrong with me or it's the inner totalitarian in me speaking, but I never saw Redbeard as anything but the good guy.

Maybe you missed the conversation where he asks your opinion on what to do to the town where some Hands were ambushed? Avadon's policy to encourage others to fear Avadon is interesting,
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Originally Posted By: Impudent Strumpet!
And, Jeff: I dunno. I think people can appreciate both kinds of fiction - I know I can. Sometimes being the unquestionably good guy smiting the unquestionably bad guy is all you want, and other times you want a deep, messy, squalid little world where there is no right choice, and you don't really make much of a difference. I prefer the latter, and Avadon (and the later Geneforge games) were great for this, but there's definitely room for both kinds of adventures.


This. In a way it's a GOOD thing that Avadon has this darker, more politically realistic mood. It's just another aspect that keeps it well apart from Avernum - another way to "keep things fresh".

On the other hand, too much of it (at least for me) gets to be a downer. I hate that feeling of doing a quest for Beleaguered Townsfolk A only to have to turn around and have Quest You Have To Do To Advance The Plot destroy his life.

All that said, I'm having a blast with Avadon and am greatly enjoying some the MMO influences (skill trees, ability Cooldowns) and the way they change up the combat vs. the later Avernum titles I've played recently.
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I also had a hell of a time keeping track of who the different characters were. I think part of my problem was that they all look very similar. I didn't realize how important differentiating graphics were until in Zethron's lair, for example, the people who give quests look just like everyone else. Had I kept track of who Miranda was, I probably would've figured out what she was up to, but I honestly couldn't keep the name in my head.

 

I guess another of my issues, really, was that I tended to play for long periods weeks apart. I'd play for four hours one day and four the next, and then nothing for two or three weeks. The immersion element was completely gone.

 

On my second playthrough, which I'm thinking about posting about as I go, I'm going for a slightly harsher take. I will kill anyone who appears to be an enemy of Avadon or of me. I think this path leads to killing Redbeard and taking over at the end, but we'll see.

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Originally Posted By: Kelandon
On my second playthrough, which I'm thinking about posting about as I go, I'm going for a slightly harsher take. I will kill anyone who appears to be an enemy of Avadon or of me. I think this path leads to killing Redbeard and taking over at the end, but we'll see.


Uhh, you're going to be lording over an awfully empty world by the time you're done. I think you just named about 98.6% of the NPCs in the game as people you're going to snuff. =p
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So I finished it or more exactly I decided I have finish it. Many great parts, the companions was a good plus.

 

But I'm a bit sad the game ends with such a boring fight. It is a sort of waste of my pleasure and will throw a shadow on my remembering of the game. Yes I'll never finished it, nobody in my life (I'm older than Jeff) ever forced me do such a boring thing, it won't start now, even less for a leisure time.

 

Ha well it's a short part for the game size but I'll still never see the real end, but in all cases I'll never surrender a Tyrant, I mean Redbeard!

 

Ha well not the first nor the last game I won't finish.

 

EDIT: To be clear about that, I found the switches and that I should keep golems number low. The worse was to constantly scroll to a position to another, but the point is it's just tedious and a lot too long (I got an estimate by playing it about 1 hour, lol can't believed I had this patience!

 

I'd say it's a bit strange from a design decision point of view, I wonder why waste somehow a game by such ending, an end of a game is a quite important part.

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Originally Posted By: Marak
Originally Posted By: Kelandon
On my second playthrough, which I'm thinking about posting about as I go, I'm going for a slightly harsher take. I will kill anyone who appears to be an enemy of Avadon or of me. I think this path leads to killing Redbeard and taking over at the end, but we'll see.


Uhh, you're going to be lording over an awfully empty world by the time you're done. I think you just named about 98.6% of the NPCs in the game as people you're going to snuff. =p

Yeah, that thought did cross my mind. tongue

As to Vent's comment above, I do wonder about that effect of the combat slowdown. The tactics are much more complicated and potentially interesting — except that some battles boil down to hack n' slash, hack n' slash, decide when to heal, oh wait, I should've healed last turn and now I'm dead, reload, hack n' slash, heal, hack n' slash, etc. The combats are always so precarious that even relatively easy-seeming combats can lead to full-party death and reloading if you mess up, but some of them are time-consuming enough and repetitive enough that reloading is kind of a pain. I'm frankly not sure that there's any way around this in game design, though.

At any rate, this means that the Redbeard fight at the end is certainly long and challenging, but I'm not sure that it's all that much fun. I did reach a point where I probably could've won if I'd tried it six times, but I decided that it wasn't worth it.

The second playthrough is going fabulously well, by the way. It's going much faster, and everything seems dramatically easier this time around. I made the simple decision to raise a few skills to extremely high levels rather than grabbing as many skills as I could, and this is working fantastically better.
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Originally Posted By: Kelandon
The second playthrough is going fabulously well, by the way. It's going much faster, and everything seems dramatically easier this time around. I made the simple decision to raise a few skills to extremely high levels rather than grabbing as many skills as I could, and this is working fantastically better.
This is something I really noticed, and I just played the demo so far. I've also forgotten how much of a relative impact the first couple level-ups have in SpidWeb games, compared to level-ups in the end game. There was a relatively large difference in damage output in the demo levels depending on whether you tried to cover all skills or whether you tried to maximize the basic static skills.
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Well, here is my FPR.

I don't like - class-based character system.

Moreover, I can not attack who I want to attack.

It reminds me of the worst examples of "best AAA titles", the worst part of them.

Click to reveal..
all sorts of bioware game, betheda, etc.

And some minor design flaws, I think.

White letters on a black or dark background - Jeff, hear my call - don't do it anymore!

Such things are very devastating to the eye.

 

Everything else I like a lot.

Due to translation difficulties will not speak in detail.

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Originally Posted By: Randomizer
Originally Posted By: AaronC
And maybe something is just wrong with me or it's the inner totalitarian in me speaking, but I never saw Redbeard as anything but the good guy.

Maybe you missed the conversation where he asks your opinion on what to do to the town where some Hands were ambushed? Avadon's policy to encourage others to fear Avadon is interesting,


I guess that's the one where he said that the best option is to raze the town? I'd say if a country sent emissaries or diplomats to a foreign country and they were murdered and the people or governing body were complicit it wouldn't be pretty either.
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Originally Posted By: AaronC
I guess that's the one where he said that the best option is to raze the town? I'd say if a country sent emissaries or diplomats to a foreign country and they were murdered and the people or governing body were complicit it wouldn't be pretty either.


So it's okay to destroy a whole town and ruin/end thousands of lives just because a small fraction of that population did something wrong, even if, whilst the others knew about the deed, they had no hand in its doing?

Seems kind of extreme, and pretty evil.

(In fact, I actually agreed with Redbeard and said the town should be razed, but only because I wanted him to like me. :()
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Yeah, Avadon really encourages you to pick two columns out of three, and ignore the third. It's having to pay two points for that first level of the skill, plus the fact that the better effects you earn at 3 and at 6 or 7 are really quite decent. What this means in effect is that there are several significantly different builds possible for each class, even.

 

So far the consensus seems to be that pumping the middle skill column is always good, though.

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Originally Posted By: Spidweb
I've been reading The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss to get myself in a light fantasy sort of mood before doing too much with Avernum.

- Jeff Vogel


I would just like to point out that I have this book sitting on my shelf waiting for me to reread the first book. I feel a deep connection with Jeff now!

And yeah, I'll read the rest of the posts and contribute more later.
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Originally Posted By: Student of Trinity
So far the consensus seems to be that pumping the middle skill column is always good, though.

You need the middle column for the two highest skills, so that makes sense to me simply on that ground. Though I'm starting to think that maybe I don't want those two highest skills for some of my characters.

I was a little frustrated by capping out at level 30. I capped out far enough before I finished the game that I felt that I could've gotten to level 32 or so, and that was without doing absolutely every single quest all the way through to completion (as I'm trying to do now). An arbitrary cap like that — especially when it's not telegraphed, so I didn't realize that it was coming — seems unnecessary.

I'm sure Jeff can give a good explanation, but it seems more like a matter of preference, and I would've preferred not.
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The two highest skills are mostly not worth the skill contortion required to get them, at least beyond level 1. The middle column skills are not all equally useful either. The trick is that they become quite powerful at high skill levels, whereas the attack and utility skills just get marginal power increases. The skills that boost armor and resistance are particularly good, and the ones that increase damage by a percentage (or the chance of a critical hit) also provide much more value than the ability-specific skills do.

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Not sure if this is useful to know, but I played through the game on Casual with the following arrangement:

 

My character, a Blademaster, put all three specializations into the middle column, and only added points to the left and right columns when necessary for middle column skills or when there was nowhere else to spend points. Maxed out Challenge and the basic melee attack.

 

Jenell, same approach but with the right hand column.

 

Nathalie, same approach but with the left hand column.

 

I used the same two companions exclusively and did not put points into the two top level skills for any character.

 

This worked quite well, better than the more balanced approach I tried to take in my first playthrough. Most notably, this approach made the Blademaster REALLY tough in terms of absorbing damage.

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Nice game.

The begining was very easy even at tornment and i start to think that this game will be very boring, but as i progress the battles become more challenging.

I found bug where i buy scarab +1 str, +1 end and endurance seems doesnt affect my character and after beating demon in dragon lair secret passage it drop steel dagger instead buckler.

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Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES
The two highest skills are mostly not worth the skill contortion required to get them, at least beyond level 1.

The one I am seriously hankering for is the one that grants Battle Frenzy to all nearby allies. Other than that, I think I agree.
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With the big picture all fuzzy, you find yourself identifying with your small group of companions

 

Not me.

 

Sevelin, despite his armor and muscles, is still at heart a little kid whose lunch money got stolen.

 

I fought his battle for him anyway. It would have been better for him if he'd fought it himself.

 

I fought for a reason Redbeard gave me.

 

Sometimes stability (of my team) is more important than justice.

 

The shamaness wants to have her cake and eat it too, between her people and Avadon.

 

But I helped her.

 

Nathalie is a psychotic danger to herself and everyone around her, but boy can she burn stuff up.

Shima takes himself far too seriously and is mostly a bore.

 

But it was the backstory of his personal quest that finally turned me away from Avadon.

 

The coherent theme that finally does tie Avadon tightly together is the question of whether to believe in Redbeard as the all-seeing general that the player is not, or to conclude instead that the worm's eye view of your small group of Hands is ultimately more valid than his perspective.

 

Obviously Redbeard is anything but all-seeing. He cultivated that image though, and died by it, beholden to it. Even if one supports Avadon, Redbeard himself is unfit.

 

The simple proof of this, by his own terms, is all that everyone else got away with.

 

That Redbeard did not resign after finding out Miranda betrayed him shows that he doesn't even himself believe the vision he evangelizes -- or is a vain coward, despite all his power.

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Quote:
Obviously Redbeard is anything but all-seeing. He cultivated that image though, and died by it, beholden to it. Even if one supports Avadon, Redbeard himself is unfit.

The simple proof of this, by his own terms, is all that everyone else got away with.


Agreed. If the question is whether Redbeard really uses his power well and deserves the sort of authority he has, the answer is an overwhelming 'No.' The fact that he completely missed that his most trusted lieutenant was a traitor who undermined both Avadon and the Pact is proof of this alone, let alone his playing at Holklandan politics (at best questionably within the purview of his mandate), and condoning, perhaps even encouraging corruption within his own organization. At the same time, Avadon's continued existence as a power in Lynaeus may well be the only thing preventing a catastrophic war that kills huge numbers of people. So the central question for me is not whether Redbeard is a good and worthy leader, but whether someone else could do better. And that one, I think, is much harder to answer.
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Actually the plot as a whole makes about 300% more sense once you confront

Click to reveal..
Heart Miranda
near the end of the game and she basically confirms that
Click to reveal..
the entire game you've been given missions and tasks and companions designed very specifically to show you the bad side and weaknesses of Redbeard and Avadon.

 

At least Jenell and Nathalie's side quests were tolerable and didn't force me to kill a bunch of people that specifically had Avadon's backing from prior services rendered.

 

Hunting down a Rogue Shaman using her Nature powers in hideous ways, who is capturing and murdering people for Jenell? Yeah, that's doable.

 

Killing a Drake that uses your mind-eaten human companions against you and cowardly hides behind about 700 different illusions for Nathalie? I'm all over that.

 

However, siding with Sevelin was pretty ridiculous considering A) he was a crybaby and B) I think I used him for about 3 seconds total throughout the whole game (when Shima was gone). But I did it anyway, just because I wanted a "everyone <3s me" save.

 

Siding with Shima also stunk because I used him constantly and he had a build I liked and he was geared to the teeth... so I didn't want him going all emo on me. Alas, there were zero reasons to help him complete his side quest other than "I don't want him going emo on me". I wanted nothing more than to walk right back out of that ravine, pulling him along by the ear - but by that point he had become my indispensable "tank" character. mad

 

As others have alluded to, I think the biggest problem with Avadon is that the game prods you constantly to denounce Avadon and Redbeard. Constantly! As in, "18 times a mission and I'm barely exaggerating" constantly. But then, if you go ahead and actually do this thing that the game is basically telling you to do, you're forced into this grueling, super hard, hours long, monotonous, frustrating, "bad ending super-secret omg" Boss Fight with Redbeard that the average player is going to try once, die after 45 minutes of tedious combat, and ragequit.

 

Staying loyal to Redbeard and Avadon and getting the "good" ending feels like the wrong thing to do.

 

Turning against Redbeard and getting the "bad" ending (assuming you can defeat Redbeard, which is very difficult) feels like the right thing to do.

 

Oh well, it sounds like I'm griping hard on the game's plot at this point, but honestly I had a blast playing it. I can't think of any non-Spiderweb game where a dialogue choice would pop up and I'd end up rereading all the choices and actually feel nervous about picking the wrong one even though I can go back with F4 and re-do the conversation.

 

It's like reading a good book: very hard to put down, even if you're not real keen about the hard choices the Main Character is forced to make.

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Originally Posted By: Marak
Siding with Shima also stunk because I used him constantly and he had a build I liked and he was geared to the teeth... so I didn't want him going all emo on me. Alas, there were zero reasons to help him complete his side quest other than "I don't want him going emo on me". I wanted nothing more than to walk right back out of that ravine, pulling him along by the ear - but by that point he had become my indispensable "tank" character. mad

There is one place in the Monitor Camp where you find the Holklandians are stockpiling supplies near the disputed woods. It's strongly hinted that this is in preparation to take over the area by force. So in spite of the claims of supporting Avadon, they are out for themselves and just using the alliance to gain strength over the stronger competition.
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I imagine that my reaction (not wanting to side with Sevilin or Shima but having little problem siding with Jenell and Nathalie) was a pretty common one. I'm wondering, now that I'm trying it again so that I will side with all four of them, whether I'll really have that much of a problem doing what I'm doing here. I'm starting to doubt it. There's a difference, I guess, between opposing the ideals of Avadon (peace, stability) and opposing the person of Redbeard, who sides with certain factions over others, apparently somewhat arbitrarily. Redbeard always has good excuses, but never more than excuses, as far as I can tell.

 

I wonder whether — and if so, how — Avadon 2 will try to maintain the same level of unpredictability as Avadon 1 had. I mean, will there be companions? Will those companions have sidequests? Will those sidequests have similar implications to the ones in Avadon 1? I imagine the formula can be recycled, but with stronger reactions. If you help your companions oppose Avadon the second time, you might find yourself betrayed, or turned in, or cast out by Avadon, or something. This would be interesting.

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I really liked the morality of the entire game, the political dimension and the idea of really considering what consequences any action will have and how Avadon makes you go through really tough breaks just messing with your head and doing terrible things.

 

The big question: Will you change the company or will the company change you?

 

I really enjoyed that. Also, the game is just player-friendlier than Avernum 6. Re-Training, the Junk Bag, Characters heal after Combat, the Map system, it just really took away lots of annoying walking to and fro. Also, the fighting and spell system was much more fun (I'd rather wait for a few turns on my best attacks than blast through a group of enemies performing my nuclear blast area attacks twice a round).

 

And still, the humour I appreciate so much about the Spiderweb Games, is still there and that makes for a lot of relief during the game.

 

Great Game, even though the World's a bit small. And what's with the mullet on Sevelin, seriously?

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Originally Posted By: Kelandon
I wonder whether — and if so, how — Avadon 2 will try to maintain the same level of unpredictability as Avadon 1 had. I mean, will there be companions? Will those companions have sidequests? Will those sidequests have similar implications to the ones in Avadon 1?

I'm hoping for someone from Dharm. It seems a bit unimportant (so far, anyway) compared to the other four Pact nations.

Dikiyoba also wants a Dharm-specific class that is sea-themed. Shadowwalkers are basically ninjas, after all, so why not throw a pirate into the mix?
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