Thoughts/Dislikes of Geneforge 4

[Death Knight]

Well not much to say about the geneforge series. Its so far my favorite series with avadon series a close second. Geneforge 1-3 are all very cool and original because of the little things. The story is great with all 3 but geneforge 3 was my favorite because of the item enhancements and the story was cool too.

 

Geneforge 1 and 2 are both very good games but are very difficult to play. Of those, 2 is more interesting as you can end the game different ways.

 

Then comes geneforge 4 with new things that were little to most, but were big to me. The ap cost of 5 was a big problem for me in g4 and g5. Because of that, melee is almost no fun compared to before. I used to inch my way away from an enemy to setup a strike. Now with 1ap cost to attack, there's no point and melee doesnt work as well as it did for solo chars. Now with g4 and 5, shaping gets boosted while solo chars get screwed.

 

Another problem in g4 was acid and poison was highly overpowered. I had 90% resistance to both yet im getting hit and killed by it easily. Geneforge 5 doesnt have this as armor protects from acid which makes sense. G2 and 3 never had this problem.

 

The story was fairly good but because of these two things, i wont get through this game and i find it to be the worst of the series.

 

G5 i played a bit and it was pretty good but still cant compare with 3 and 2. Its almost the same with avernum second trilogy. Avernum 4 was my favorite, avernum 5 was my least favorite and ive yet to play avernum 6. Avernum4 either way is probably the best in my book for that series.

[grasshopper]

All the geneforges need to be remade to the same engine before any kind of decent comparison can be made.

 

I played through geneforge one again a while ago, and while the story is still one of the best, some of the interactions with the serviles were a little, um, twee.

[MMXPERT-seraph of thermodynamics]

I find it sad that Avernum Escape from the pit is using a part-Avadon engine

 

I really like the Avernum 6 engine and I wish the Avernum remakes would use that instead.

[Dikiyoba]

Originally Posted By: Boggle

I played through geneforge one again a while ago, and while the story is still one of the best, some of the interactions with the serviles were a little, um, twee.

Well, they have been isolated for two hundred years and have never seen a real Shaper before, so it's not too surpising that the serviles tend to act a bit odd.

Dikiyoba.

[Dikiyoba]

Originally Posted By: Death Knight

I used to inch my way away from an enemy to setup a strike. Now with 1ap cost to attack, there's no point and melee doesnt work as well as it did for solo chars. Now with g4 and 5, shaping gets boosted while solo chars get screwed.

I did a melee-based solo servile run a few months ago, actually. It was only on normal, but I only had one real issue (%#^@* health-regenerating clawbug queen in the Sealed Catacombs) and everything else was fairly easy. I don't see how the AP system has hurt solo characters any.

Dikiyoba didn't even have to use mental magic much. (It sucks, anyway. Mechanics and leadership is for trickery. Combat mode is for straightforward battle, not all this daze and charm crap.)

[Randomizer]

When Jeff got rid of the higher AP cost for an action it changed the game dynamics. I remember it was during GF4 beta testing of the Fens to reach Monarch. Instead of a slow careful advance fighting hordes of spawning monsters it was possible to leap across the field and slip inside the ruined city before too many spawned.

[Ceiling Durkheim]

Quote:

I did a melee-based solo servile run a few months ago, actually. It was only on normal, but I only had one real issue (%#^@* health-regenerating clawbug queen in the Sealed Catacombs) and everything else was fairly easy. I don't see how the AP system has hurt solo characters any.

I've run a servile through on torment, though that wasn't exclusively solo (I had a kyshakk for the last ~25% of the game), and I used a lot of mental magic. Solo characters don't seem to do all that well in G4, but it's not true that non-shapers get screwed: if you make the right artifacts, anyone can have several points in any shaping skill. This makes lifecrafter skill bonuses/cost reductions kind of redundant, especially in the late game. Shaper classes are better in G5 than G4.

[Death Knight]

I disagree. In geneforge 1-3 and avernum 4 as well, you have many more tactics that you can use. You can bait enemies into reaching you and by the time they do, they cant attack you due to no ap. Also you can position your finesse characters in front so when the enemy misses them, the tank can demolish them with 1 attack. Whereas in the new system its completely the opposite. Enemies can attack with 1 ap point. This might be ok for avernum 5 and 6 and avadon, but in my opinion, it destroyed the entire geneforge 4-5.

 

The reason that non-shapers get screwed is because this one thing that was changed affected them the most as they are alone. When not alone, shapers get the boost in the end. It really was the worst change made.

[Dikiyoba]

Originally Posted By: Death Knight

You can bait enemies into reaching you and by the time they do, they cant attack you due to no ap.

That's still a valid strategy. You just have to be a bit sneakier and initiate combat while enemies are far away so they run out of AP right before you reach you. It might have messed up the hit-and-run strategy, but as moving after you've attacked/cast a spell was also nerfed, that strategy was screwed either way.

Dunno. Dikiyoba thinks the reduced AP cost means the PC can do more each round, which leads to more flexability and strategy. You couldn't use two items and then attack under the 5-AP attack, for instance, or finish off one enemy while hasted and then be able to attack another enemy that was several squares away.

[A less presumptuous name.]

I really like the reduced AP for attacking. True, you have to be more careful with melee, but it also lets your melee creations act much more easily (this is really nice in G5, where battle creations shine).