A-EftP - Finished. Likes and Dislikes

[Sedape]

I thought about adding to another "final thoughts" post, but I want to really talk specifics on which changes were awesome and which were... not so much.

 

I'll start by saying that I really like Aeftp. It felt fresh, not just a rough copy and paste (which is how I felt about N:R) but a full remake of the original. I think overall this is a huge improvement over A1, and generally quite a fun game. I'm now really looking forward to the revamps of A2 and A3.

 

Likes:

1. I'm a huge fan of the new spell-levels system. When I saw that higher level spells get added effects and not always simply added damage/healing/effect, I was very pleased. It made me excited to level up my spells to discover the new effects.

2. New content: awesome. It didn't feel forced at all. In fact, most of it fit so seamlessly that I had to rack my brain to remember if it was in the original or not.

3. Challenge: good. I played on Hard and found myself usually needing to use some items and approach fights a handful of times before I could pull it off. It seems like Jeff is getting a better sense of what makes for *good* difficulty. In Aeftp, this mostly amounted to slashing boss HP and seriously boosting their damage. Fights were exciting because I was usually on the brink of death, trying to balance the need for healing vs damage vs crowd control.

4. World: great. I think the open world system is simply better than the zone system of GF and Avadon, and vastly superior to the continuous world of the latter A4-6.

 

Dislikes:

1. Darkness rooms. It's been said before, and I'll say it again - these were bad. Not fun, not especially challenging, mostly just annoying.

2. Difficulty Curve: the game was very challenging early on, but got substantially easier from about level 20 on. Once I got to Hawthorne and Grah-Hoth, I found the fights less difficult than some of the early battles in the Eastern Gallery had been.

3. Skills balance: way off. This was my biggest disappointment with the game. Pole weapons? Pathetic. Thrown weapons? Completely useless. I felt like the game had very few viable character builds, and the structure of the level-up system left me pouring points into the same few skills every level. I'd rather see some real diversity, where these skill lines branch off in ways that result in characters that play differently. My "rogue" ended up being indistinguishable from my "tank" by lvl 20, and my Mage and Priest were identical other than their spell sets. I want different *paths* for my characters to follow, so that I must choose between optimizing different aspects of my character. I never had that sense of choice in Aeftp. I want to choose between offense vs defense on my warriors, high damage per hit vs chance for multiple hits with my rogue, more damage or higher curse effectiveness for my mage, and more healing versus more damage versus better buffs for my priest. And I want those skill trees to be constructed so that I can't have the best of all worlds... make me pick.

4. Traits: close, but room for improvement. I thought this was a cool way to change the traits system from A1, and I will say that I liked this method better than the A1 traits. However, getting a trait point every 2 levels made it feel more like just another skill/stat point, especially when some traits are just that. I'd rather see traits be a little rarer (every 7 levels?) and come with commensurately larger bonuses. In other words, more like specializations from Avadon. I feel like traits should be more momentous decisions about how your character is going to play rather than just another tiny incremental increase in power (which is what stat and skill points are for). It would also be nice to see them in "tree" format rather than "list" format for the reasons listed under #3.

 

In the end, great game. And none of my complaints will deter me from buying A:CS (especially that discount for having registered the original is very nice). But, for me these were the main sticking points that left Aeftp a great game rather than being an amazing game.

[Triumph]

Agree about the darkness room. Just plain annoying.

[MissSea]

Another "yea" for the hated darkness rooms. They especially blow when you're looking for those foolish hidden switches. Grr ...

[nikki.]

You know, I really enjoyed those in the original game. I have no idea why, but they seemed to fit.

 

In this new version, they do seem a little obnoxious, but I think that's because one has to constantly go into battle-mode to fight, rather than being able to attack whilst in town mode, as per the original.

[Soul of Wit]

Originally Posted By: fade out again

You know, I really enjoyed those in the original game. I have no idea why, but they seemed to fit.

In this new version, they do seem a little obnoxious, but I think that's because one has to constantly go into battle-mode to fight, rather than being able to attack whilst in town mode, as per the original.

Valid point on combat in town mode. I'll chime in on the dark rooms. Took me right out of the game more than once. I was used to it by the endgame, so that helped.

[Ociporus]

I wish that HASTE meant what it says. The only way to truly "haste" seems to have been to consume potions. The haste spell gave any extra action point, but rarely resulted in any more attacks.

I think that by partway through the game, melee characters have little to truly do other than sacrifice their bodies "to the cause" and hope to be healed before they pass out. They just sacrificed themselves until the mage & priest wiped everything out with area spells. I tried giving my tanks a couple levels of priest and a bit of intelligence but after awhile even the "call storm" spell did little but push the guys back a couple squares with little damage.

At least when tanks got two swipes per round in E1 & A1, they could actually contribute to the cause. Now they are mostly pointless. I can't imagine a team of 4 melee characters surviving very long (not that I've ever tried that combo). They'd be totally wiped out.

Also found that melee PCs also got stunned way too much, even with top-grade armor. Then they just got pounded for a couple rounds before they woke up.

Those fancy bows seemed to have little impact after the halfway point as they barely did any damage. But maybe that's because I didn't put any more into bow skill after a bit.

[chimp]

Originally Posted By: Ociporus

Those fancy bows seemed to have little impact after the halfway point as they barely did any damage. But maybe that's because I didn't put any more into bow skill after a bit.

Having failed to finish the game with a couple of mega-archers, I've just offed Hawthorne with one mega-archer, an archer/mage, an archer/priest (both more archer than magic-user) and a tank. The problem with archery in most of the Avernum series (apart from that one where Heartstriker did silly amounts of damage) is that you need tens (twelves) in everything before things get good. It _is_ good then, but you've got to get through a third to a half a game of hell to get to that point.

One tip: don't give your best archer the Bow of Storms (or, arguably, Heartstriker). With buffs, s/he'll do lots of damage (2000+ per round) with one of the three big longbows (my duo, of course, didn't stand a chance of getting the First Expedition Bow), while a gifted, but less dedicated archer will benefit much more from the fancy ones.

One more: put a tank in fourth place - archers tenderise, tank charges in, archers mop up. Works on surprisingly numerous/tough opponents. (Even without magic, the three flyweights can use scrolls and crystals to keep the tank moving and conscious.) The key is to keep as much control as possible of who's attacking who, and when, which I find easiest with missile attacks, for a some reason.

But for all the fun to be had from bouncing a beastie (like a demon, or the big guy from the Slith Fortification) between two archers until it falls (and it really is a lot of fun), it's always going to be a grind. I'd go for missiles + low-level magic over magic-free melee, as a fun, off-beat replay, but you just can't argue with magic damage in the end.

Still, the most important reason for making the most of archers in SW games is that they sound nice when they hit things.

[Fael]

Originally Posted By: Ociporus

I wish that HASTE meant what it says. The only way to truly "haste" seems to have been to consume potions.

Battle Frenzy.

On Normal difficulty, I found that, once I got their hit chances up so that they weren't always missing, my fighters were consistently doing more damage per round to a single target than my spellcasters were. For big monsters that don't summon, the fighters were more useful than the casters were.