Avadon: Review from a long-time fan

[Laevistus]

Been a long time fan of the Exile, Avernum, and Nethergate series. I picked up Avadon on Steam recently and decided to see how far everything from Spiderweb has come after all these years and 13 years since I very first played Exile 1 (Not even the remake with Exile 3 graphics!).

 

What I've read (and I think its a lot) people have mixed feelings about where it stands compared to the rest of the treasure trove that has come out of Spidweb. I really think the move to being a more specific and in-depth was a good move, but one that should be used and approached with caution and understanding. I think it fits for the game that Jeff set out to create. The game accomplishes everything that I've come to expect from Jeff's games-- quirky humor, well written dialog, fluid and engaging fighting, fantastic story line and a setting that is very fun to be part of. With that said I think I can join with the majority and say that the Avadon model shouldn't become a staple. The huge amount of world exploration in Avernum/Exile was amazing. I think lots would like to see more of it and I'm also sure Jeff plans on it.

 

Now for the not-so-great parts I'd like to see changed or in someway modified.

 

1) Party Size

 

I was used to the large amount of characters you had in the exile series. Coming from the 6 characters to 4 characters in the Exile to Avernum switch was welcomed by me-- I liked it. However, it feels that 3 people really makes my strategic choices a lot more limited when fighting larger groups (which happens somewhat a lot). I always found myself relying on the shaman's pet for a 'forth' playing pawn. This sort of solved my issue but the summoned unit really was limited to attack and a special ability every so often. I'd really liked to have had a 4th PC, even if it would have meant weaker characters.

 

2) Enchanting Items

 

I liked this system and I'd like to see more of it. My problem was that I constantly found myself dreading enchanting one of my items to find out later that I could have used a better runestone instead. In the end I ended up just hording all of these runestones waiting for the best one to show up-- I felt that this was flawed. I really would have liked to seen the system implemented with a button at the forge to "strip" away the enchants, loosing your runestone enchant but gaining the ability to enchant the item again.

 

3) Lockpicking

 

I felt that the lockpicking system took a step backwards. I don't think you should lose lockpicks every time and I dont think you would need multiple lockpicks. I also didn't like dropping precious points into the skill. I'm pretty cut and dry on this particular spot mostly because I felt that I was already in a confined world compared to the rest of the games and in Avadon lockpicks are somewhat rare, require multiples to unlock sometimes, and after EVERY use were gone-- this didn't seem realistic (I know, I know-- its a fantasy rpg)

 

4) Status Effects/Special Abilities

 

These games had a limited amount of choices when it came to spells. I was okay with this idea. Cut the fluff and give me the meat-- sounds great! I quickly learned, however, that when i made the choice to invest a large amount of skill points into a skill to get a new skill... I'd like it to be at least a bit more useful. Charm felt like it never worked. I've probably used it 30 times and maybe have got 5-10 monsters charmed. I also had the same problem with the stunning blow attack. I constantly felt like the mobs had incredible resistance to everything and that status effects seemed pretty moot on the players behalf. I'd have liked to have had at least maybe a tooltip to tell me "Hey, you've got X% of landing this status effect" or something that doesnt make the ability feel like you wasted a turn. Maybe something like if charm doesnt work, the victim takes backlash damage from having their mind attempting to be dominated-- nothing crazy but, again, something that doesn't feel useless.

 

Really thats the only thing on my plate at the moment. I've not completed the game completely yet, but I'm sure i'll get there this weekend! Wish me luck and thanks for reading!

[Jerakeen]

Good luck, and thanks for posting!

 

I agree with most of your review. The problem of status infliction is handled much better in Avernum: EFTP. Pretty much exactly as you suggested, in fact. Hopefully this will be incorporated into Avadon 2.

 

The only thing I would disagree about is party size. Surprisingly, I found myself enjoying the added strategic element imposed by the limit. It forces a departure from the standard warrior/archer(rogue)/mage/priest party and thus a change from the standard tactics. But it was a little aggravating at times, certainly.

[Laevistus]

Looking back at my original post, it would appear that I made party size my #1 concern but it really was just a minor task that required me to just work around and get used to. I come from playing Baldur's Gate and I was used to games having larger parties. Taking a look at having 3 was really more of an added challenge rather than a setback. Only time I got frustrated was when one of my characters was taken out of the picture and then it felt like my party was 30%(or more) weaker than before. I really do enjoy this game and if it means that more games can come out quicker (I can only imagine the time it takes to create entire world maps from Exile/Avernum) then I'm all for it as far as this series goes.

[Randomizer]

Welcome to posting in Spiderweb Software. Please leave any sanity you have left at the door.

 

Lock picking is more the Geneforge system with living tools. At least you only need to raise it to 4 and not a higher amount.

 

Party size makes you think more about what skill sets you want in your party. You can use almost any party combination most of the time, but there are places that punish you if you don't have certain types with you such as fighting Angevine that needs high physical damage.

[Laevistus]

Now that it's been mentioned, it did get a tad irritating when you had tons of fire immune creatures that were really annoying when you had picked a sorceress character but physical damage characters almost seem to not have any 'physical immune' enemies. It does feel like punishment.

[Yuna Corne]

Only need to raise it to 4? That's my problem! I want to go hire, but the game won't let me, and it won't stack, either. It's frustrating.

[Jerakeen]

There's not much need to raise it higher. With the Tinker's Satchel you will be able to disarm all traps, and there are enough picks in the game to open almost all of the locks. Assuming you aren't going after quest rewards early, of course.

[Yuna Corne]

But...but...but...I liked being able to get in where I shouldn't and loot early...

[Laevistus]

I'd have to agree that it was always a tad fun to figure out a puzzle or open a door that you knew was higher level just to get some gear that gave you an 'edge' early game. I remember all of Jeff's earlier games having something similar.

[Death Knight]

Nice review. Yes, out of all the party based games i played, avadon beat them. I like avernum when it comes to a more survival based series 1-3. However, avadon kind of brings me back to when bioware made oldschool rpgs. You get to make 1 character, already much cooler than a whole party imo, as you get to focus solely on that class instead of a group.

 

What makes avadon really cool though and it is probably my favorite part is that you get times where you are separated from your party and have to fight alone. I LOVED those scenes as they were so unique. It was different from when geneforge you were soloing an agent, guardian or servile.

 

I think it will only get better. I have a pretty good feeling that after the 2nd or 3rd avadon, jeff will put some new classes in there, making the possibilities even more endless. Not a bad time for rpgs

[AlphaDuck]

Nice review. I especially agree with #2 about enchanting. I also horded my runestones the whole game for fear of making a mistake. Even then there was a few items that I had enchanted with that +1% protection that I wished I could enchant over them. Somewhat unforgiving system, and it just made me afraid to use it at all until the very end.

 

Also agree a lot with #4. Also to add to this, the buffs were pretty useless too. Well not useless, but there was no reason to get them for your abilities since you could just use items to always have them for the difficult fights. It would be cool if the + %increase to blessings/curses did something other than increase the duration (I assume it increased the duration, didn't really test it but it seemed that it wasnt increasing the strength of the blessing). That would give you a reason to have a support character. I really wanted to make my support blademaster work, but giving my other 2 characters like 10% extra damage each was hard to justify having a weaker bm.

 

One thing I really liked in this game was that it seems to be designed so that you dont feel like you want to start over and build your party differently. You could respec at the trainer, and the only real permanent choice was which class your main character is. Compared to avernum where you choose your classes as well as races as well as traits at the start and then you are stuck with it.

 

With that said, I also feel like there was not enough customizability in this game. I realize it's a balancing act with my previous point, but the skill trees were very limiting. If you wanted to get one of the highest level abilities like call drake, then that pretty much completely decided your skill tree completely. Also it was annoying having to level up skills like daze knowing that you would almost never use them.

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: AlphaDuck

Also agree a lot with #4. Also to add to this, the buffs were pretty useless too. Well not useless, but there was no reason to get them for your abilities since you could just use items to always have them for the difficult fights. It would be cool if the + %increase to blessings/curses did something other than increase the duration (I assume it increased the duration, didn't really test it but it seemed that it wasnt increasing the strength of the blessing). That would give you a reason to have a support character. I really wanted to make my support blademaster work, but giving my other 2 characters like 10% extra damage each was hard to justify having a weaker bm.

Support blademasters become really good at level 27 when you can suddenly Battle Frenzy your entire party. Before that, though... yeah, you pretty much want to focus on doing damage and retrain into a support build near the endgame.

[Jeremiah]

Good review. I agree with much of what you said.

 

1) Party Size.

 

It's a trade off. 3 makes battles move more quickly, but it limits tactical possibilities. I like the "backstab" and zones of control that Avadon adds. Those things would only get better with more PCs to set up a backstab and to block off softer PCs.

 

I suspect that Avadon's combat style -- where a dungeon often plays like one long continuous encounter -- makes the advantages of Party-of-3 more important. If encounters were fewer, further between, and larger, more PCs (I like 5) would add tactical complexity.

 

2) Enchanting Items

 

I agree entirely!

 

3) Lockpicking

 

I suspect the Multiple-Picks method is an abstraction meant to provide an "economy" to give players a sense of reward for investing points in utility skills. It gives value to an otherwise menial task by limiting it. It is a bit odd, but it cuts out the save-reload cycle that I inevitably fell into with older games, knowing that eventually my 35% chance would pan out.

 

I'd actually like to see a utility skill for each class that has use outside battle. It gives the game more dimensions than just combat, but with a light touch. (Combat is, after all, the heart of the game.) Each would again use a limited resource. Maybe a Smithing skill for Blademasters (uses steel ingots to provide a small bonus to weapons and armor). Maybe a very simple Alchemy skill (turn healing herbs into healing potions). I say "very simple" because I honestly despise the complicated cookbook minigame that is "Alchemy" in most RPGs. I have no desire to look up and remember complex recipes and go foraging or shopping for various herbs and fruits. Just have Healing Herbs as a limited resource like Lockpicks, and turn them into Healing Potions on an easy ratio that decreases as the level goes up (4:1, 3:1, 2:1, 1:1).

 

4) Status Effects/Special Abilities

 

I agree. More transparency about how buffs and debuffs work is key to making them feel "worth it." I know other RPGs do this with two different damage reports: "25, +4!" Some way to check statuses, with meaningful feedback on their effects, would be great. (e.g., "Cursed, -15% to hit")

 

Mental damage for failed Daze or Charm is a fantastic idea.

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: Jeremiah

Some way to check statuses, with meaningful feedback on their effects, would be great. (e.g., "Cursed, -15% to hit")

You can do this already by mousing over the little status effect icon that appears beside your character portrait when you're affected by a status.

[AlphaDuck]

One more thing to add: there were times where I really wish i could set the game speed to faster. Like having to walk somewhere through an empty area that you already cleared and you just sit there watching your guys walk across the map. Also I would definitely not mind turning off spell animations if it made combat move a lot quicker. I kinda remember this sort of thing being in older spiderweb games.

[Yuna Corne]

You can set the game to draw all graphics or to limit them in your options. Press escape to bring up the pause screen, and go to the options menu from there.

[AlphaDuck]

Just played around with that a bit, it doesn't seem to make any difference towards the speed of combat.

[Jerakeen]

No, it mainly affects terrain animations and a few other details. Not spell animations, unfortunately.

[othersean]

I found it helped to play with a book or magazine next to the computer, giving me something to do during long walks. Avadon's larger zones are cool in some ways, but the walk times can be trying, especially when exploring a subzone like Moritz'Kri's Tower.

[jcdenton]

Here's a mail I sent to Jeff with some thoughts and some pointers. I'm copypasta'ing so pardons if it is badly formatted.

 

Insert tons of gushing here

Just playing the fantastic and generous demo here, me being a broke

college student, but it is still enough gameplay that rivals most

other FULL releases like damn Call of Duty Modern Warfare or other

games with 4 or 5 hour campaigns

Different audiences, but still. Four or five hours at $60?

Multiplayer hasn't always been enough of a reason to drop that kind of

dough for me.

 

Mini-review and random requests here, feel free to use whatever.

Besides, my best ideas I keep to myself

 

- (Request) Junk bag ease-of-use addition

BEST FEATURE EVER PUT INTO AN RPG!

Drag and dropping each and every single item to the junk bag gets

really tiring and may be more difficult for those with arthritis or

other issues who want to limit repetitive mouse movements.

Why not have 'right click' be the 'send to junk bag' option?

If I open inventory and something is either on the ground or in the

pack, right click to send it straight to junk, no fuss no muss!

Currently, right click doesn't even equip weapons/armor, just does the

same thing as the left click.

Another option is to have a keybinding to change the cursor into a

'send to junk' mode and then click on whatever to immediately send it

to the junk bag rather than having to drag/drop everything.

 

- (Request) Vendor in the town of Avadon

Still haven't found one yet. If it wasn't for the junk bag being

equivalent to a weightless portable-hole-of-storage, I'd have been

forced to make tons of trips back and forth to leave piles of loot

everywhere on the ground and hoping it would be there later. So why

not make a vendor available at the start, even if they only buy your

items and don't sell much, or only sell a limited quantity of certain

things?

For those who are kleptomaniac wh0res like myself, might not hurt to

have *every* item in the game be worth at least one coin, please?

Even could have it be a separate copypasta thing posted in the forums

(similar to the one for glowing lockpicks or revealing secret

passages).

 

-Graphics/Aesthetics

Both the actual graphics and the art style aesthetics are fantastic.

Everything is very clean, has no visible borders/lines, and while

staying square you do have some rooms with roundish centerpieces that

draw attention away from the blocky hallways to be a truely wonderful

and eye-pleasing choice! Easily the best looking game you've made

yet! Animations are top-notch and great attention to detail =D

Kudos to the artwork person/people who made the various loading screen pieces!

 

- (Request) Object pickups and range

Having 'worthless' objects able to be picked up seems an odd design

choice; not really needing 'realistic' in a world where you can

conjure up fire and ice at will.

Not being able to pick up something unless you are within a certain

distance of it or looking at it even if you can see it on the table

near you but it won't let you pick it up until you're almost right

next to it. This seems to vary by location and not really 100% sure

how it works. Again somewhat 'realistic' but odd. Might not hurt at

times to sacrifice 'realism' for game enjoyment.

Running around hitting 'g' each time just to see what's on the ground

might break the flow of the game. Objects aren't easily visible and

have no sparkly or glowy effects without modifying files. Diablo 2

let you press the ALT key (on Windows) in order to view the object

names and find loot easier. Perhaps having a similar feature or

implementation of such might be beneficial. In some of your older

games, you could hit the 'pickup' button and have letters appear over

objects so you could pick up whatever you wanted without pulling up a

separate screen every time. Even further, perhaps an 'auto pickup and

sort' feature for those who don't want to miss a thing.

Work on this however you feel you need to do so. Just thoughts, that's all.

 

- (Request) Zooming the game in/out

Environmental objects can be really tiny and changing the text to

'larger' doesn't seem to have a noticeable effect to me. Any way to

add in a 'zoom' feature? Going back to Diablo again, in that game you

hit the 'Z' key to zoom in really far and detailed/pixelated in order

to closely examine your character or the environment. That was in

1996/1997. So why no zooming available here? >_> You already have

unviewed areas darkened so zooming out a bit for a more tactical view

wouldn't be cheating.

 

-Using potions and regaining health

Fantastic way to make things much more fluid and fun! No longer

having to sacrifice your turn just because you ate some food or drank

a potion

 

- (Request) Combat planning mode

Have a 'planning mode' available for combat where you plan out where

your characters move and who they attack, and what they do in what

order, then you confirm the actions and they all play out. Slows down

combat a bit but would greatly help certain fights where you might

easily click in the wrong spot for moving a character or might not

realize they were close enough to be stopped by an enemy (Zone of

Control), etc. Would also let players 'undo' the last move as long as

they didn't confirm the actions.

 

- (Request) Sounds

I'd love to hear the 'battle yell' sound (or a better-version of it)

from Nethergate be used for the 'Battle Frenzy' ability. It would

seem to work well for that purpose and always elicited a chuckle from

me whenever I heard it.

Standard sound effects that I've heard so far, nothing super special

but they work.

 

- (Request) Music

Would love to have the option of background tracks playing. You

already have SOME music in the game, let us loop it please without

having to use a separate program for that.

 

-3 party members instead of 4

A design choice, but stronger for it. Makes battles that much faster

 

-Good difficulty scaling that matches the stated difficulty

Normal that is what it says instead of being too easy or hard, and

hard/torment for those who want challenge

 

-Medals/Achievements

Nice for completionists, much appreciated that these were added in

 

-Skill Trees

Need a bit of work in designing them a bit more intuitively but a

great effort nonetheless. Having people start at the bottom and go

upward is an interesting design choice.

 

- (Request) Stat Point Allocation Balancing

Yeah it breaks things, but THANK YOU for having this in. So sick of

so-called 'RPGs' out there that don't even let us stat-allocate! It

has been in there since D&D first edition! Please don't remove it in

the next game, just make it so that maxing the stat has to be done

with a significant penalty, gimping yourself in another way. You

could max DEX and be nearly impossible to hit, but your damage output

would be severely gimped instead. Max STR and ignore DEX but you'd

have a hard time hitting anything. Or start having a stated penalty

if the difference between both stats is off by more than X amount. Be

creative with it, you can figure it out without having to take away

stat allocation O_O

Or just put a hard cap that keeps a person from maxing it too high.

 

- (Possible Bug/Confusing UI Stuff) Resistances

Armor resistance? WTF? Shouldn't this be 'physical' resistance?

That would make more sense. A bit confusing >_>

Perhaps modify the armor resistance levels so that they can easily

'stack' and we wouldn't need to do tons of math just to figure out how

much physical defense we have. There was the 'THAC0' system which

seems a bit confusing at first but was intuitive when you understood

it. Lower numbers = better defense. It could be reversed and have

higher numbers = better defense instead, with a hard cap put into

place to prevent 'unhittable' characters.

 

- (Request) Vitality and 'Resting'

I understand why this system exists (perhaps to encourage players to

take breaks during long gaming sessions?) but why doesn't it slowly

recharge outside of battle? WHY IS THERE NO 'REST' FUNCTION!? We

could rest in D&D and many of your earlier games (at the risk of being

ambushed by mobs if it was a dungeon) but that was our risk to take.

Perhaps the two mages could use 'mana' instead of vitality, but that's

your design choice to name it w/e you want as something universal

instead of different names. I always imagined vitality to be yellow

or orange or something, not blue like mana. Players who have played

games before see certain colors in certain ways. Red is health, Blue

is mana, Yellow/Orange are vitality/rage/whatever. Purple could be

for warlocks/necromancers and dark magic.

 

-Scarabs duplicating class skills

Honestly, this may be convenient but also upsets people who invested

the skill points to get those coveted skills. Scarabs are an

awesome-enough idea that would really benefit from allowing unique

game mechanics rather than duplication. I still understand why they

are like that but it is just a thought. Making certain classes

obsolete by scarabs sorta undermines part of your well-done class

design.

 

- (Request) Resizing of UI objects

Not sure if this is an engine limitation or a design choice to not let

anything be resized. While I greatly enjoy being able to hide and

move around certain elements of the UI, I'd love to be able to resize

the minimap (and zoom in/out), change the transparancy of it, or do

the same with any of the other game windows, including the roster and

the interface at the bottom. Maybe even an 'auto hide when not in

combat' feature? I'd love to be able to resize certain game windows

for easier and cleaner reading, especially since one of them overflows

the text out of the box (the one that lists the credits and special

thanks to so and so).

 

- (Request) Augmentations/Runestones being more useful

Fantastic implementation of this feature =D

Runestones are a bit too rare to be used by many players until

end-game, for fear of using up a runestone on a piece of gear they'll

later replace anyways. One way to handle this would be a fixed coin

cost to remove a runestone and possibly lose either the gear or the

runestone itself as a tradeoff. Up to you how you wanna do it, though

you could just be kind and let us keep both

I think about the 'Materia' system from Final Fantasy 7 as one of the

most flexible ways that the whole 'gem socketing' has been done while

making it very easy and effective to experiment with different

combinations at any time.

 

- (Request) Crafting?

I remember Temple of Elemental Evil having a (broken at release)

feature of being able to gather certain materials and craft your own

gear while paying a cost in XP and gold. This was later fixed by fans

but the idea was fantastic and has worked fairly well (once it was

fixed). Would love to see your take on this either in an update patch

or a future game.

 

- (Request) MMORPG?

Ever considered making a multiplayer isometric RPG, perhaps MMORPG?

If you could bring over your attention to detail and storytelling

abilities, it may be quite the hit, especially if it were Free-to-Play

with an 'ethical' cash shop that didn't sell power.

 

By

Mistah JC Denton, En Da Fresh!

[Earth]

spidweb doesn't have resources to do mmorpg, before it starts bringing money it has required alot money.

[Lilith]

You can sell your stuff to the blacksmith in Avadon, just so you know.

[Jerakeen]

Also, command-click will send items directly to your junk bag in the Mac version. I don't know what the Windows equivalent is, but I'm sure there is one.

 

What a thorough review! Welcome to the Spiderweb boards. As they say here, leave your sanity at the door.

[jcdenton]

Jerakeen, you're a mad genius!

I didn't see the tooltip that comes up because I'm usually moving so many items at once that I don't bother reading it, especially with it being off to the side a bit.

 

On Windows, to send an item directly to junk, you control-click it.

 

*facepalm*

 

You know Jeff is awesome and all but they ignored the fact that PC mice have 2 buttons. Right clicking would be a lot faster/easier. Wish it was an option.

 

The MMORPG thing was a pipe dream. Someday perhaps, but with kickstarter funding it might be possible for Spiderweb Software to do something like that. Remember how primitive Ultima Online used to be? You realize how many utterly crappy F2P MMOs come out and yet tons of people still play and pay for those? Imagine a GOOD isometric-style MMO coming out! Just dreams and all, of course.

 

Lilith, thanks for that heads up. I've done the initial dungeon quests and can now sell stuff to the blacksmith, finally!

 

I'm kinda still hoping someone would have the patience to go through and make everything worth at least one coin, unless that already isn't an issue.

 

Still would love a 'rest' feature to regen vitality like previous Spiderweb games have had.

[Jerakeen]

I felt the same about vitality at first, but you'll find that it's rarely an issue. And for those occasions you can use potions.

[Randomizer]

Money is too plentiful in Jeff's view which is why most items are worthless. It didn't help that beta testers both pick up everything that can be sold (before the invention of the junk bag) and keep huge amounts of coins available in hopes there will eventually be something really nice in the next zone.

 

There is enough money by the end of the game. Almost all the best weapons and armor are available as loot.

[Earth]

cost to make mmorpg nowdays compared when UO was made is many times bigger, need servers, alot coders (atm SW games are done mostly by Jeff), long beta-testing (99% of bugs must be out of game before launch or it will get bad reputation), it needs alot things to do (if Avernum/etc has 30 quests then mmorpg needs alot more) and things to kill (and better scaled between levels than SW games have between 4 difficulties) and more things and most important is that mmorpg needs more things to do and kill frequently.

[TriRodent]

Originally Posted By: jcdenton

Still would love a 'rest' feature to regen vitality like previous Spiderweb games have had.

If you want a "free" vitality refill, just go back to the transportation pylon & touch it (you have the option of NOT going back to Avadon). I'll sometimes do that after clearing an area but before entering the main dungeon/quest for that section.

However vitality potions generally are fine & plentiful enough to get you through most any area.

[adc.]

Oh, new arrival eh? Welcome to Spiderweb Software. Please completely emancipate/leave your sanity at the door. You are welcome to take it back if there is still one remaining...

[BMA]

Originally Posted By: jcdenton

Having 'worthless' objects able to be picked up seems an odd design
choice; not really needing 'realistic' in a world where you can
conjure up fire and ice at will...Might not hurt at
times to sacrifice 'realism' for game enjoyment.

I think the 'realism' you're talking about is debatable. All fantasy is based on real life, after all. Its like fantasy is obtained by mixing reality with dream-it-up's. As for picking things up, dont we need a bit of trivia for the games? - doesn't hurt and keeps us comfortable. Its a void-filler; better have something useless than have nothing at all.

[adc.]

Originally Posted By: jcdenton

Having 'worthless' objects able to be picked up seems an odd design
choice; not really needing 'realistic' in a world where you can
conjure up fire and ice at will...Might not hurt at
times to sacrifice 'realism' for game enjoyment.

Have you remembered the pickaxe in geneforge? Wait, maybe you're not a geneforge player... Anyway, pickaxe and shovel is pretty useless in Geneforge, but I modified the script, turning it into a monster blade with 500-1500 damage range!!! For the shovel, It fires diamond spray unlimited. But when I'm bored, I play minecraft with my god-mode tools. Sanity liberation!

[AlphaDuck]

About armor and resistances: I feel like the best way to do armor is the way wc3 did it, where armor came in armor points instead of a straight percentage, and each point increases your damage reduction % by a little less than the previous point did. So for example the first 10 points of armor might give you 20% resistance, but then the next 10 points after that only increase your resistance to 30%. This way you can never reach unkillable levels of resistance, and even going from say 70% to 75% resistance takes a huge amount of armor.

 

From what I understand (correct me if I'm wrong), in Avadon each armor piece that you were wearing reduced incoming damage seperately, so if you just had two pieces of 50% resistance armor and you took 100 damage, the first piece would reduce it to 50 damage, then the next piece would reduce it to 25 damage. This is nice in that you can't ever reach too high of resistance levels, but it also makes it really difficult to understand what going from a 20% armor item to a 30% armor item is actually going to do for you. And I'm not too sure how the other resistances/parry/dodge stacking worked, but it seemed like stacking dex/dodge definitely lacked some sort of mechanism to keep it from getting really close to, if not equal to 100% dodge.

 

Then there are systems like skyrim used, where armor just goes up linearly until a certain point where it is hardcapped. This is stupid because it becomes a game of getting up to that cap but not going over it, cuz that's just wasted armor. Also the lower levels of armor do less work, and the higher levels of armor as you get closer to the cap do a lot more. You could half the incoming physical damage by going from 0% armor to 50% or by just going from 80% to 90% (I believe armor was capped at 90% in skyrim).

 

Going back to wc3 armor now: here is how the actual math of it worked:

damage reduction =((armor)*0.06)/(1+0.06*(armor))

damage increase = 2-0.94^(-armor) <- this would happen if you had negative armor

Now here's the cool thing - That's an ugly formula to figure how much armor is going to do for you (actually not too bad compared to some others). But each point of armor increased you effective hit points (EHP) by 6%, assuming you were only being hit by phsyical damage. So if you had 1000 hit points and you buffed yourself to get 10 extra armor, that means it takes an extra 600 damage to kill you from full with only physical damage.