A-EftP - Is this the new normal?

[Lightning Spammer]

Is it just me, or is this game significantly harder than any of Jeff's games so far? I'm not sure if it is any one thing that I've noticed, but "normal" seems quite "hard" and I never had this much trouble with past Avernum games nor with Geneforge. Yes, I've been paying attention to the forums and correctly allocating STR for melee to-hit, DEX for ranged to-hit, and INT for spell to-hit. I also have given my party a little leg-up with stats/skills/spells using the editor (which I often do in Avernum games in particular). If I'm having this much trouble on "normal" with a slightly augmented party in the early areas of the game, something seems wrong about that to me. Or perhaps I went into the game with completely wrong expectations:

 

The old Avernum normal (what I was expecting) = your PCs hit enemies most of the time; enemies will miss you fairly often; dying is a relative rarity if you're careful; buffing is helpful but not strictly necessary to win most fights.

 

The new Avernum "normal" (what I got) = your PCs cannot hit enemies reliably; enemies will hit you very reliably; dying is commonplace even if you're careful; buffing is strictly necessary to win even basic fights.

 

Should I just be adjusting my expectations here, or is there something wrong here with me or the game balancing?

 

To me, I think the biggest frustration is that the contribution of melee/pole/bows/thrown to your to-hit rating is severely downgraded. It's a major shock to me to be unable to hit things reliably, even with my front-line fighter. Many standard encounters would be difficult enough, I think, without the tanked contribution from melee/pole/bows/thrown skill. Some of the early-game boss fights are just unspeakable horrors. I hear some of those are being retooled, thankfully. I've never felt the urge to give up on one of these games before, but after the horror that was Tassik-Schai, at this point I think I am going to (at least until the update comes out).

 

Or I just need to play on "casual" for the first time ever in Jeff's games. *wince*

[Death Knight]

In reality, i thought the same thing that you did. Now im playing with 2 melee guys, no magic/high first aid and the game is just the right amount of toughness. There are a few quests that you HAVE to do before you fight anything other than encounters.

 

-bandit keep

-goblin cave

 

2 fairly easy quests that will boost your skills.

 

From there try the bat cave and maybe then try some of the nephil fortress quests.

 

You just got to get past that initial dive where you cant hit a thing. fight thugs and goblins and other basic enemies to level up. Once your higher level you can do more.

[Soul of Wit]

My thoughts on this:

 

The game certainly changes, significantly, once you level up to a certain point. It's only the early going that is so challenging. Figuring out that you have to go away, and try something else first, is a significant part of the early gameplay. Reading the forums (or experimenting with a few starter parties) seems to be more necessary than in the past. As usual, a first-time Spiderweb player will have a tougher go than those experienced with Jeff's eccentricities.

 

Jeff plans to nerf some of the tough bosses in the early game. I found myself wiping out an entire starter dungeon and then running away like a little girl when I saw the boss. The 1.01 version should be out soon. I haven't heard about any other balance adjustments, but there may be other changes related to the early gameplay.

 

Jeff has always suggested, in his game's instructions, that a player needs to rely upon their magic casters in the early gameplay. With this game, he has finally made that truly, useful advice.

[Superba]

I use to do the very same with the "leg-up" in the beginning of all Avernum games, so the party gets XP and reach a stats/skills/traits standard quicker.

I noticed weapons are less effective comparing to other Avernum and Avadon, as well, at least until about two third of the game, when the sum of traits plus special weapons bonus contribute to build a dual wielding character that here is really more effective than a pole warrior.

 

Pole warrior was not the best fighter in Avernum 6 but the gap in Escape from the Pit is wider; here you can use two swords, one blade hitting the main foe and also another close to him, and the other sword hits once adding special features as fire, so sometimes you strike three times in one hit the main foe with side effect too. All this while the pole warrior is stucked with a main hit, the side foe one and his stikes are weaker, in terms of points.

 

Archer special items and bonus are good and very few foes are immune to the side effect of a Lightning bow. For this reason, quest after quest I understood I better have given magical war skills to more that one or two party members,and

I was however so used to rely more upon magic that Runeward Bones in Grah-Hoth place put me in serious troubles.

 

Magical skills seem to be far more effective, vital and costful in Escape from the Pit, I honestly don't understand how to give higher magical skills to everyone in the party without cheating more than a bit with money.

[Randomizer]

A:EftP is significantly harder in the demo than A4 through 6, however now that I think about it the original Avernum trilogy (1 to 3) also suffered from fighters not being able to hit as easily as mages and priests. I think it more that we were spoiled by the dumbing down of the recent games.

 

Geneforge has the same thing that fighters have a harder time than using spells unless you significantly build to maximize to hit.

[Death Knight]

Archers suffered the most with regards to not being able to hit in previous games. In avernum 1 and 2, my archer would be lucky to hit an enemy 1 out of 5 times. I had no problems with hitting enemies in avernum 4-6 as well as no problems with hitting anything in geneforge 1-5. Although g1 was a little weird sometimes.

[Lightning Spammer]

Originally Posted By: Randomizer

A:EftP is significantly harder in the demo than A4 through 6, however now that I think about it the original Avernum trilogy (1 to 3) also suffered from fighters not being able to hit as easily as mages and priests. I think it more that we were spoiled by the dumbing down of the recent games.

Now that you say that, that may be true... at least in the early part of the game. I do recall spells hit virtually all the time in the original trilogy (and also in the Exile trilogy) and melee lagged behind for quite a while.

There are some other general differences that are making things tricksy for a low-level party. Mental effects are used considerably more in this remake. I actually like this, but it has lead to some minor agonies. "Daze" is like the new "slow" except I've had a few instances where it's been worse since low-level parties have poor mental resist. I'll take "haha... you can only act every other round!" to "haha... you can't act ever because I shall keep spamming daze on your party!" >_<

To balance out the commentary, there were a few points where it was easier than it should have been. Notably, the Nepharim fortress north of Cotra. Apparently, the AI can no longer open doors? Are they sacred of doors? Does this have something to do with the fact that we can't close doors also? This made that area ridiculously easy (excepting the demons, which in my mind don't quite count).

[Fael]

Stick with it. The game gets significantly easier as it progresses. It takes a while, but you will get back to the point you're used to where your characters are rarely missing (I think it was around level 15, but maybe it was more like 20). I was one of the first "this game is too hard" whiners and by the end I was blowing through the final battles without reloading.

 

My suggestion for right now is, if you haven't already, take advantage of the fact that you can go everywhere to do a bunch of the delivery quests, which let you rack up some XP for little risk.

 

Originally Posted By: Soul of Wit

Figuring out that you have to go away, and try something else first, is a significant part of the early gameplay.

 

I don't want to pick on Soul, but every time someone complains about difficulty, the really good players come out of the woodwork with this advice. The thing you're not getting is that those of us who are complaining about difficulty are doing it right at the beginning of the game. We're already in the easiest areas of the game and we're still frustrated by the fact that we're only hitting 20% or 25% of the time. There is no easier area we can go to. The problem isn't that we're wandering into areas we shouldn't be. The problem (until Jeff addresses it in 1.0.1, of course) is that the easy areas are still too hard for us.

[Lightning Spammer]

In some cases, trying something else first does work, but I agree with Fael's criticism. I was by and large handling the Eastern Gallery areas in the "correct" order. I like having to use a bit more tactics in this game than I did in the other games, but the early-game difficulty is much more brutal than I was expecting (especially since I was using a slightly augmented party).

 

Perhaps one thing I'll do is ignore any and all armor that has to-hit penalties excepting the chest pieces and maybe shields. Those -5%'s (or greater) become brutal when a rank in melee skills only offsets it by 1%. Yet I'm not sure which is worse: soaking more damage due to poor armor or being unable to hit consistently.

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: Lightning Spammer

Perhaps one thing I'll do is ignore any and all armor that has to-hit penalties excepting the chest pieces and maybe shields. Those -5%'s (or greater) become brutal when a rank in melee skills only offsets it by 1%. Yet I'm not sure which is worse: soaking more damage due to poor armor or being unable to hit consistently.

Well, think of it this way: if a hit penalty brings your accuracy down from 50% to 45%, that means you're doing 10% less damage, in exchange for maybe taking 2-4% less damage from some types of attack. From that perspective, equipping gear with hit penalties is not a very good tradeoff!

[Ceiling Durkheim]

Quote:

Well, think of it this way: if a hit penalty brings your accuracy down from 50% to 45%, that means you're doing 10% less damage, in exchange for maybe taking 2-4% less damage from some types of attack. From that perspective, equipping gear with hit penalties is not a very good tradeoff!

Agreed. This is a bit of an issue for heavier armor. e.g. leather pants, which give 3% armor vs. leather greaves, which give 4% armor, 1% evasion, and -5% to hit. And are also heavier. That's a terrible tradeoff. Absolutely stone-cold shoot yourself in the face with a shotgun until you die awful. I think one of the reasons that the early game is so hard for many people is because previous SW games (and most other RPGs) condition us to put on the heaviest armor that the character can carry, which is pretty much a death sentence in early-mid A1 (especially on harder difficulties). This is a balance issue that should maybe be addressed?

[Harehunter]

Originally Posted By: Randomizer

A:EftP is significantly harder in the demo than A4 through 6, however now that I think about it the original Avernum trilogy (1 to 3) also suffered from fighters not being able to hit as easily as mages and priests. I think it more that we were spoiled by the dumbing down of the recent games.

Geneforge has the same thing that fighters have a harder time than using spells unless you significantly build to maximize to hit.

It is from this experience that I developed my great fondness of cross-training my fighters with Priest skill. I have been told again and again, in no uncertain terms, that this was a bad tactic. Exile (1 to 3) all had this problem with melee, stone swords and leather armor actually have a negative bonus factor, but Wound always hit with significant damage. After cleaning out the Nephilim Fortress, then you have enough skill points and effective weapons to be successful in most any melee fight.

I know the game engine changes in Avernum (1-3), but the handicap of stone weapons is still a hampering effect. Only when you get into the Second Avernum Trilogy does this characteristic go away. But once I had developed this technique, I found it adaptable to all scenarios. Mind you, I never attempted any difficulty above normal, so I never had to worry about optimizing my skills in Battle Disciplines. But my goal was relaxation, not trying to stress myself any more. I respect the work of the Cryptanalysists, and should you go into the world of "Torment", you may find their divinations beneficial.

Now that I've thoroughly muddied the stream again, I'll duck back into my cartographic expedition.

Maybe I should have made a left turn at Albequerque.

[Lightning Spammer]

There used to be an armor training skill that offset encumbrance. We could either use one of those, or bump the to-hit increase from melee/pole/bows/thrown to 3% per point instead of 1% per point. But I don't know how well that would scale either. Greaves have always been somewhat awful from what I remember, so I've tended to ignore them unless they have some extra enchantment on them.

[blackwight]

i suggested ages ago that the quest list should be sorted by difficulty with easiest at the top, it went over like a lead balloon. I suggest it again.

[Randomizer]

Yeah, but the players that know the quest list the best are all insane min/max power gamers. When ever they see a hard boss monster all they are thinking about is what type loot will it drop.

[Erika Maroonmark]

Originally Posted By: Lightning Spammer

Is it just me, or is this game significantly harder than any of Jeff's games so far? I'm not sure if it is any one thing that I've noticed, but "normal" seems quite "hard" and I never had this much trouble with past Avernum games nor with Geneforge.

Hmm…I'm only really familiar with the Exile trilogy and Avernum 3, but I thought the opposite. I'm pretty far – just lost to Grah-Hoth, will try him again later – and I don't think I've really done any deliberate level grinding, unlike in Exile. In this game, I pretty much just went out and started doing stuff, a mentality which I think was primed by the addition of the tutorial.

In fact, while playing this I often thought "hey, I could probably have done this on Hard" (which surprised me, since I'm really more of a casual gamer by nature).

I've also never felt trapped in a dungeon, or in an outdoor area by a group of wandering monsters. When I first got to the Great Cave, I found myself avoiding monsters and not doing much exploring until later, but avoiding monsters was pretty easy because there are so few of them. I also didn't use the editor.

One thing I'm definitely appreciating is the lack of PC death/being turned to stone in AEftP. (And Return Life is such a great spell!) This might be why I found Exile and the original Avernums harder, but what I used to do was to reload the game whenever a character was killed (carrying all their equipment around until I could get to a healer was too much of a pain, especially when you can only carry 12 items or whatever it was in the original Exile). Same with stoning. I didn't have to be afraid of basilisks in this game! =D

The order to do the quests/dungeons in did take a little figuring out, though (especially since Exile was very "ok, here's a dungeon, kill everything", rather than "well, you beat the first tier, come back later"). I'd always thought that the Nephilim castle (with Anastasia and the necklace) came "after" the Nepharim fort (with the Cotra prisoners), so I put it off relative to other things, but then I blew right through it when I finally went there. (Weren't there also Nepharim in there in earlier incarnations?)

I also found that what I was capable of taking on advanced quite abruptly – sliths kept killing me, and then suddenly they weren't really threatening anymore. It was the same with the ogres, and especially the giants.

[Slawbug]

Originally Posted By: blackwight

i suggested ages ago that the quest list should be sorted by difficulty with easiest at the top, it went over like a lead balloon. I suggest it again.

This is a really good idea... AND it's one I could see Jeff implementing in future games. I think you should email him.

[Demseinwetter]

Actually, that is a nice idea. Also, it might help to sort the quests by making a difference between major and minor quests in the list.

But besides being harder than Avernum 6 and definitely Avadon, the open world does its part, too. It's kind of hard to figure out, where you're supposed to go next (partly because there is no definite answer), so I had to trial-and-error my way through large parts of the game. I still majorly enjoy Avernum, but it's a bit weird to die a lot in the beginning of a game and find it getting gradually easier as you keep playing.

Also, as mentioned in another thread, the game actually makes it pretty simple for you to screw up you're entire party, the skill system's great if you know what you're doing. But just trying things out... not so much fun. You'll wind up with being able to hit enemies very scarcely.

[Jerakeen]

It's too bad the respec option was omitted, but presumably this was because of the existence of skill trainers (which are absent in Avadon). I'd be pretty annoyed if I had spent thousands improving my skills, only to have those points vanish.

[Tyranicus]

Originally Posted By: The Turtle Moves

It's too bad the respec option was omitted, but presumably this was because of the existence of skill trainers (which are absent in Avadon). I'd be pretty annoyed if I had spent thousands improving my skills, only to have those points vanish.

You can respec with the editor if you keep track of the points.

[Jerakeen]

For stats, not skills.

[Randomizer]

You can do skills and traits too, but you can't remove ones obtained from trainers and/or quests and you can't lower one below a higher level.

[Soul of Wit]

Originally Posted By: Fael

... I don't want to pick on Soul, but every time someone complains about difficulty, the really good players come out of the woodwork with this advice. The thing you're not getting is that those of us who are complaining about difficulty are doing it right at the beginning of the game. We're already in the easiest areas of the game and we're still frustrated by the fact that we're only hitting 20% or 25% of the time. There is no easier area we can go to. The problem isn't that we're wandering into areas we shouldn't be. The problem (until Jeff addresses it in 1.0.1, of course) is that the easy areas are still too hard for us.

I get it just fine. If you read my entire post, it clearly indicates that I find the early game too difficult. I, too, was one of the early "whiners" in the "too hard" threads. My advice (actually Jeff's) to rely upon your magic casters in the early going is mandatory in the 1.0.0 version of this game. Avoiding to-hit penalties will help, but your fighters still won't be hitting enough in the early game. I also point out that players may have to either spend a lot of time in these forums, or struggle through multiple experiments with play.

Another thought: Jeff's Mac beta testers are often taken to task for letting the game be released as too hard (most often by Jeff.) The reality is that the early adopters may find a game that is still in need of tweaking. My opinion is that this game will need significant tweaking compared to other Spiderweb games. Mind you, that's still very little tweaking. It's all relative.

[Randomizer]

Originally Posted By: Soul of Wit

Another thought: Jeff's Mac beta testers are often taken to task for letting the game be released as too hard (most often by Jeff.) The reality is that the early adopters may find a game that is still in need of tweaking. My opinion is that this game will need significant tweaking compared to other Spiderweb games. Mind you, that's still very little tweaking. It's all relative.

The Demo part of the game during beta testing was much harder than the released version. Some of the final fights were increased in hardness.

[Soul of Wit]

Originally Posted By: HOUSE of S

Originally Posted By: blackwight

i suggested ages ago that the quest list should be sorted by difficulty with easiest at the top, it went over like a lead balloon. I suggest it again.

This is a really good idea... AND it's one I could see Jeff implementing in future games. I think you should email him.

The problem with sorting the quests by difficulty is that is only feasible for the early game. How you have altered your party will determine the difficulty of the later quests. It's also a matter of opinion. I hate stumbling around in the dark. Another player hates wizards who can summon. You get the idea. There are other issues. If Jeff tweaks the balance by nerfing a boss, then he also has to remember to change the difficulty rating of the related quest. It opens up a huge bag of rat tails.

My suggestions for improvement:

• Jeff knows that (most) people won't read the instructions. Many won't come to these forums for help. The tutorial has to do a better job of helping the rookie. One way to do that is to present the new player with enemies they can't hit, but can blast away with a fireball. The encounter, of course, would hold your hand and explicitly tell you what to do. The tutorial dungeon would be a series of battles acting as a primer on the early game. This is far better than too-easy (but no hand holding) battles.
• The skill tree descriptions are bad. Really bad. The wording needs to change and the first time that you upgrade should also be a tutorial. "Fighters need strength. Spell casters need intelligence. Everyone needs endurance." This can be made easier. There would also be an opt-out for experienced players.
• Another issue is that new players don't always talk to everone that they should. It is vital--in the early game--that a player know where to go next. I'm a huge fan of non-linear play, but there needs to be nudging about where to go. I'm visuallizing big floating arrows pointing first to Silvar and then next to Formello, but I'm sure that this can be handled better than my suggestion. It certainly can be improved from the sparse hints offered through dialog.

[Ceiling Durkheim]

Quote:

The problem with sorting the quests by difficulty is that is only feasible for the early game. How you have altered your party will determine the difficulty of the later quests. It's also a matter of opinion. I hate stumbling around in the dark. Another player hates wizards who can summon. You get the idea. There are other issues. If Jeff tweaks the balance by nerfing a boss, then he also has to remember to change the difficulty rating of the related quest. It opens up a huge bag of rat tails.

I think by "difficulty," the above posters essentially meant "expected level for a party of 4." This is a common practice in other RPGs, and wouldn't be hard to implement. Of course, this doesn't indicate the actual difficulty for any given party, but it's a useful marker, and wouldn't be hard to keep self-consistent.

[Slawbug]

Originally Posted By: Othar Trygvassen: Gentleman

I think by "difficulty," the above posters essentially meant "expected level for a party of 4." This is a common practice in other RPGs, and wouldn't be hard to implement.

This doesn't work.

In other RPGs, experience level is a MAJOR indicator of power level. Frequently it is linked to what spells you can use and affects all of your stats in a major way. A level 20 character will beat a level 10 character in a fight no matter WHAT choices a player makes about skill emphasis. Compare to AEFTP where experience level affects only the stats you choose to invest in. A level 10 character with useful and complementary skills may well be able to beat a level 20 character with less useful and more divergent skills.

[Ceiling Durkheim]

@Slarty: Mostly agreed on the substance of the point, disagreed on its relevance to the topic at hand. Even with an exceptionally well or poorly designed party, the difficulty levels of relevant quests could still be consistent relative to one another, and thus useful bases for comparison. If one had a color scale for expected level (e.g. gray for 1-5, green for 6-10, blue for 11-15, yellow for 16-20, orange for 21-30, red for 31+), it would still be easy to compare the quest difficulty levels: if a player has trouble with yellow quests, they can save themselves trouble by concluding that orange quests are generally out of their league.

 

Also, while SW games allow a lot of leeway on build optimization, they're hardly unique among RPGs in this respect. It was possible to seriously screw up one's build in old World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XII, and those had useful quest difficulty indicators (and the former was clearly level-linked).

[Harehunter]

@Slarty. Agreed that your level 20 will practically always defeat a level 10, but when he is attacked by a party of 4 level 10s, applying multiple attacks against his, the playing field is significantly more leveled.

 

One tactic I have used with my Mad Monk Squad (definition of it on another post) is to protect my spell casters by using my fighter/priests to cast the first attack spell. In my experience, the game tends to target ranged attacks at the spell casters, who are generally less armored (due to encumbrance) and are therefore more vulnerable to physical damage (no numerical proof, just empirical experience). However, when my heavily armored 'tank' casts the first wound or fireblast spell, He becomes the focus of attack, to which he is less vulnerable. By changing the order of which PC fires the last offensive spell, I find that the enemies attacks are no longer focused, and I have a better survival going against a much stronger foe.

 

If you have numerical data that disproves the perception I have regarding the games targeting algorithm, I would find that interesting. One thing that comes to mind is that I think the effect is more pronounced in the Exile series than in the Avernum series, which seems to be stronger in A1-3 than in A4-6. This would be because the game engines go through radical changes at those junctures.

 

When it comes to a one on one situation, your calculated specs for skill distribution are no doubt superior. When it comes to torment difficulty playing, optimizing certain special skills may be the key to defeating certain opponents.

 

However, I was trained in Combined Arms tactics, where each unit has a special skill and mission, but they are also diversified in their abilities. Ranged indirect fire is not restricted to the field artillery; infantry has it as well with a lighter but still effective mortar. Every unit has medical specialists and mechanics organic to its structure. When infantry goes to the field, specialties that are not organic to its primary mission, such as engineers and signal, are attached to the infantry commander and travel with them. Armor does not fight without Infantry, Infantry does not lack defense against opposing Armor. Air power is not restricted to the Air Force. Navy and Marines have it, and even the Army has it with attack helicopters and with Air Force field observers attached. And last, but not least, everyone regardless of their specialty is trained in infantry tactics.

 

While this may not appear to matter within the scenarios of these games, it explains why I so strongly adhere to the philosophy of combined skills. I have been trained in this method of combined arms, and I have done training for other units.

[Slawbug]

I am not having this argument again, Harehunter. (Especially not when nobody was talking about it!) Telling more stories about your military training, your job as a Database Administrator, and/or Chess Club is not going to change anyone's mind.

 

However, I will advise you to reread my post more carefully, because I was not saying that a level 20 will practically always defeat a level 10 as you seem to think I was -- in fact, I stated pretty much the exact opposite.

[blackwight]

I should add that you're right, the game is hard. You have to make trips to town to clear a dungeon. It used to be that you could wait in a dungeon to get some strength back, or even find a room to rest in. Those trips are too much like work, and not enough like a dungeon. The forum posters seem to focus on points and levels instead of the dungeon experience.

 

I also find that I keep completing quests without getting the reward. Those drakes past Fort Remote: didn't kill until after Sss-ths. Sss-ths was much easier! Drath: killed and cleaned out before I heard anything from the four or so people who wanted that book. I think there were other cases. I like that the game is 'open', at the same time I wish the quests wouldn't clobber each other.

 

The game is still very enjoyable. There are lots of connections between places, and bits of stories. There is not enough deduction work, it's a bit too procedural. I was unable to solve the murders in Cotra (?) this time, I did before. Is the crime unsolvable now?

 

I'd like to see more open spaces -- the castle is on Alamaria's doorstep! Double the map sizes and add some desolate space.

 

I also would like the ghost in fort Remote to be hidden again. It was cool finding her the first time, hiding way in the back. Putting her out in the open is... blah. The game industry is always going the way of TV, underestimating people's intelligence to a ridiculous degree. Hide that chick! 90% of the players will find her.

[Randomizer]

Cotra Murders - You can report them to the Mayor for an experience reward.

[blackwight]

I seem to remember figuring out who did it by breaking into people's rooms.