Hard or torment for first game?

[kryft]

Hi,

 

I just picked up Avadon on Steam. I've heard of Jeff Vogel's games, but I haven't actually played one before, so I'm not sure how to gauge the difficulty settings. Would Torment be utterly impossible for a CRPG veteran who enjoys build optimization and difficult combat?

[Dintiradan]

You can change the difficulty setting at any time, so you risk nothing by starting out on Torment, and lose nothing other than pride (and a Steam achievement, if I recall correctly) if you change the difficulty halfway through.

[Sterno]

I know psychologically it can be hard to downgrade your difficulty mid-game once you've picked one. I think you'll be pretty safe at least on Hard, though. I was a newbie as well about a year ago and played Avernum 1 & 2 on Hard without too much trouble, and by all accounts those were tougher than Avadon.

[Jerakeen]

Just don't be surprised if it feels like your opponents are cheating sometimes.

[Lilith]

The main differences between difficulty levels in Avadon:

 

* Enemies on higher difficulties have a higher chance to hit and do a lot more damage. It's difficult to build a character that can reliably dodge enemy attacks on Torment, although for most of the game it's possible.

 

* Hard difficulty gives some bosses an extra action per round in combat: this extra action takes place regardless of status effects like slow or stunning. Torment difficulty gives most bosses and some elite enemies an extra action. Some enemies also have powerful special attacks that they only use on higher difficulties.

 

Unlike in previous games, difficulty level doesn't have a dramatic effect on enemies' health, so battles aren't much longer on higher difficulties, just more lethal. If you want a challenge, try Torment and feel free to tone down the difficulty if you get frustrated.

[kryft]

Thanks for your responses. I didn't realize that you could change the difficulty on the fly. I don't know why I assumed that you couldn't.

 

I think I'll start with Torment and see how it goes.

[Randomizer]

All the games start off easy for the first part of the games. About the middle the difficulty curve rises sharply.

 

Welcome to Spiderweb Software. Please leave your sanity at the door. Why lose it slowly playing the games.