Avernum: Escape from the Pit - Avernum Remix 1.1 Released

[Timesink]

Sounds like you've already rebalanced missiles quite a bit, but the elite archers in some of the late game empire/bandit battles have some very nice abilities which include cleaving arrows (not sure about that one), an a rapid shot/rain of arrows hitting 3+? or a chance of doing lower safe to every opponent? Dunno. The animation is pretty intimidating. Empire got a gattling bow.

[Spidweb]

I just spent several hours going through this, and it was very interesting. I made a number of changes to Avernum 2: Crystal Souls based on it.

 

I almost never copied the exact changes you made, but I tried to keep the spirit alive. I replaced resistances on many items with more useful skills, and raised the resistances on items where they remained. Fatigue costs are generally lower. Different weapon types now have different characteristics. Javelins/razordisks still use charges, but I made their effects much more damaging and dramatic. High value artifacts are generally better.

 

A lot of the changes were sort of baroque and clearly meant to provide variety to people who've played my games for a long time. I generally left those changes be, but I encourage you to make a mod set available for Avernum 2: Crystal Souls to put in a bit of zazz for players bored with the old stuff.

 

All in all, a very cool project. Thank you for all of the hard work you put into this.

 

- Jeff Vogel

[Enobarbus World]

I just spent several hours going through this, and it was very interesting. I made a number of changes to Avernum 2: Crystal Souls based on it.

 

I almost never copied the exact changes you made, but I tried to keep the spirit alive. I replaced resistances on many items with more useful skills, and raised the resistances on items where they remained. Fatigue costs are generally lower. Different weapon types now have different characteristics. Javelins/razordisks still use charges, but I made their effects much more damaging and dramatic. High value artifacts are generally better.

 

A lot of the changes were sort of baroque and clearly meant to provide variety to people who've played my games for a long time. I generally left those changes be, but I encourage you to make a mod set available for Avernum 2: Crystal Souls to put in a bit of zazz for players bored with the old stuff.

 

All in all, a very cool project. Thank you for all of the hard work you put into this.

 

- Jeff Vogel

 

This is the best outcome I ever could have hoped for from this project! Thanks Jeff! Exile II has been providing me with joy and inspiration for almost 20 years now; I'm incredibly happy that I could pass some of it back to you for its descendant -- a game that I was already excited to see. Yay!

[Jerakeen]

Congratulations, Slarty!

[Alorael at Large]

Mod the change you wish to see in the world

 

—Alorael, who thinks there's an important lesson here. Complaining about long-standing elements of gameplay you don't' like will get you nowhere. Putting in the effort to make a demonstrable improvement by literally demonstrating that improvement will get your version rolled into the main body of work if you're lucky.

[Rya.Reisender]

Wow, the first time I've seen Jeff talking!

[JackDandy]

Hi there! I wanted to know, is the latest version of the patch "updated" for the latest version of the game?

 

And, are there any bugs I should know about?

[Jukai]

This is the best outcome I ever could have hoped for from this project! Thanks Jeff! Exile II has been providing me with joy and inspiration for almost 20 years now; I'm incredibly happy that I could pass some of it back to you for its descendant -- a game that I was already excited to see. Yay!

 

Coming out of lurking to give you props, good sir.

[xuerebx]

Is there any way to find out that the mod has been installed correctly?

 

I play on steam so I pasted everything into this directory:

 

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\Avernum Escape From the Pit\Avernum Files\Scripts

[Aleric]

Xuerebx- If you pasted everything into that directory and made sure to override any files when it asked you to, I imagine you are good. Loading the game, you should notice the differences between the remix and vanilla.

[xuerebx]

Yeah I suppose I should have no reason to doubt that it's been installed correctly. I was wondering if there was some sort of watermark indicating "remix 1.1" or something like that.

[Randomizer]

Some items and spells will be different. You won't notice a change near the start.

[Enobarbus World]

Things are absolutely different from the start. Even in the character creation window some skills have different names and many of them have different tooltips. Additionally, weapon and spell effects will look different starting right away.

 

There is nothing that will jump out at you if you've never played A:EFTP before, though, no water-mark or anything.

[xuerebx]

Thank you for this mod!

[mercy]

Thank you for this mod! Finally I can create characters and try this game anew. Its fun deflated when I reached the point ~70% of the story years ago.

 

I think Avadon 2 lost buyers, because you can't create characters there from the ground up as it should be, as you can do here! (IIRC)

[Enobarbus World]

Glad you all are enjoying it!

 

I don't know about the lost buyers part... but it might surprise you to hear that Spiderweb generally prefers free-assignment systems to class systems, too. Jeff wrote a bit about it when he first started publishing games. Personally, I'm the opposite: I think classes and class-like restrictions make for more interesting mechanics. Doesn't stop me from appreciating quality games that take a different approach, though.

[GiantFriendlyTalkingSpiderman]

Glad you all are enjoying it!

 

I don't know about the lost buyers part... but it might surprise you to hear that Spiderweb generally prefers free-assignment systems to class systems, too. Jeff wrote a bit about it when he first started publishing games. Personally, I'm the opposite: I think classes and class-like restrictions make for more interesting mechanics. Doesn't stop me from appreciating quality games that take a different approach, though.

Free-assighnment is the first of two things that brought me into this serise back when I was 13 or so, 1 of those things has become more common in games in this decade but what brought me back to spiderweb games was remembering how I liked just making characters in exile 3. My youthful thought process was:

"so you make your characters in this game, so like you pick a class or... what the, what are all these stats? wait I just put the points where I want them without any restrictions? no way, I can make a guy who uses a sword in 1 hand, a hammer in the other and casts magic if I want too? this is so cool"

 

I died a lot early on and restarted each time, started making my characters smarter and got farther each restart until I made it a fair ways into the game and I ended up quitting because I got tired of the characters I was using I came back to spider web games after I got a longer attention span.

[esquivalient.abacot]

Fatigue costs are generally lower.

 

this was my idea originally hehe

i'm so proud now

 

proof: http://spiderwebforums.ipbhost.com/index.php?/topic/17244-avernum-remix/#entry227948

[Gharbad the handsome]

I just spent several hours going through this, and it was very interesting. I made a number of changes to Avernum 2: Crystal Souls based on it.

 

I almost never copied the exact changes you made, but I tried to keep the spirit alive. I replaced resistances on many items with more useful skills, and raised the resistances on items where they remained. Fatigue costs are generally lower. Different weapon types now have different characteristics. Javelins/razordisks still use charges, but I made their effects much more damaging and dramatic. High value artifacts are generally better.

 

A lot of the changes were sort of baroque and clearly meant to provide variety to people who've played my games for a long time. I generally left those changes be, but I encourage you to make a mod set available for Avernum 2: Crystal Souls to put in a bit of zazz for players bored with the old stuff.

 

All in all, a very cool project. Thank you for all of the hard work you put into this.

 

- Jeff Vogel

 

Would it be possible for you to port any balance changes you felt improved Avernum 2 over to Avernum 1 when you release Avernum 2, as a balance patch?

[Randomizer]

Jeff doesn't tend to read this board except for comments on newly released games or extremely bored.

 

Email works better, however since he is in Las Vegas on a family vacation he won't reply quickly.

[Earth]

while its possible that JV will bring ACS balance to AEFTP its unlikely.

[Edgwyn]

I would rather that Jeff focus on Avadon 3 than altering A:EFTP.

[Earth]

since balancing ain't exactly a bug it has small chances to get changed.

[Enobarbus World]

Rationalizations aside, the different games of a series aren't really intended to be three (or five or six) different scenarios for the same exact game. There are incremental changes made, which sometimes even fit with stuff going on in the plot (Vahnatai spells in X2, Augmentation in G2, etc.). Playing Avadon 2 is going to be a slightly different experience, mechanics-wise, than playing Avadon, even if the engine is very similar. That's part of the charm of their being separate games and not just extra DLC.

[Carranzero]

Shields also require more strength to wield, and mages in particular will find their bulk interfering with the gestures they need to make when they cast spells.

 

will this affect my party? i'm used to using a 2-people party, a priest/fighter and a mage/fighter... so is the shield going to seriously affect my mage to the point that he won't be able to cast mage spells?

 

cheers

[wackypanda]

I know this is no longer being updated, but I loaded an endgame save and found that my warriors parried the Hawthorne sentinels' radiating attacks. Is the ability to parry magic intentional?

[Enobarbus World]

Area effect magic can't be parried. Single target magic, I believe, can be parried (at low rates) in the original game. I definitely didn't change that though -- it's hardcoded.

[wackypanda]

That is incredibly strange, because my warriors parry the radiating attacks every time I load the remix, and, like you said, never on vanilla. I could even catch them doing it on video if you like.

 

This could be related to a bug mentioned many pages back about needing to choose a target for radiating scrolls. Oh well.

[Enobarbus World]

Yes, I think you're right. Looks like I fixed that, but only in 1.2, which I never got around to releasing (and don't have a clean version of anymore). Oh well.

[wackypanda]

On that note, I am incredibly late to the party, but I've made an unofficial v1.1.1 implementing some of the quality-of-life fixes from Kestral's list.

 

As noted below, all fixes, where I've even attempted them, have been done in the laziest possible way.

 

This is not intended to be and shall not serve as a promise of future updates.

 

Fixes confirmed by House of S:

a-1) Changed all short bows to use long bow ability, too. Now all bows have the chance of bonus damage so bows don't suck early.

a-2) Fixed Warmth Ring and other rings. Whoops. It does give melee damage in addition to the resistance. Just not 15%. 2%. :-P

a-3) Lightning scrolls already fixed, all radiate abilities were fixed.

a-4) Both ranged battle disciplines did not take levels of damage from an equipped weapon. Whoops. Now Flawless Shot should actually do the full 3.5 damage per level.

a-5) Increasing the bonus percents or base damage of ALL the direct damage battle disciplines.

a-6) Flawless Shot also fixed from causing ensnare which it wasn't supposed to in the remix (ranged battle disciplines have 2 variants, and one one was correct before)

a-7) Fix for bug that caused Bladeshield to give you weakness when it was not intended to.

 

 

Reports that I don't think were confirmed as fixed (some may not be confirmed as being real bugs):

b-1) Cloak of Curses level was listed incorrectly on the screen when you check buffs.

b-2) Possible problem with Splinter spell fixed (had issue with targeting at range which caused your turn to be wasted)

b-3) Re-balance Bronze Bracers vs. Fine Steel Gauntlets (in vanilla the bracers are strictly better despite much lower value)

b-4) Bug that caused Bladeshield to end your turn after use when it shouldn't.

b-5) "Incorrect animation for throwing javelins"?

b-6) "Pole weapons don't seem to have any sound effects indicating hit or miss"?

 

a-3, a-7, b-4, b-5, and b-6 are fixed.

a-2: Also fixed Ivory Band, now gives 15% mental resistance and 2% blessings/curses. I think this was intended because it had two values for stats to affect but had the same typo as the Warmth Ring. Correct me if I'm wrong.

a-4: Hopefully fixed.

b-1: Has been fixed in the most dangerous possible way, by changing its import to match its vanilla version.

b-2: Player targeting has been fixed. I have not done any testing looking at enemies casting it.

 

a-1: Too lazy to figure out how to keep enemies from getting the same damage boost.

a-5, b-3: Not touching balance.

a-6: Too lazy to untangle.

[Deckard]

@wackypanda:

 

Thank you very much for your attemp in fixing this Remix mod. It's a pity it never was finished.

 

Kudos!!!!

 

[Clintone]

I just started playing this mod. Thanks to all the people who worked on it. It's been awhile since this was originally made, but thanks anyway. 

 

It looks like it definitely improves many of the issues the game originally had. It was always a good game...but it did have a few irritating aspects. I especially appreciate the infinite thrown weapons modification. It'll be nice actually being able to use a fine razordisk without thinking about how I'm throwing money down a hole. 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 24, 2021 by Clintone

[Hotherewanderer]

Sorry for reviving an old thread.

But does anyone know a few pointers on how to mod the Android version?

I'm not particularly tech-savvy myself but I did try a few methods to no avail. Thanks in advance

[Enobarbus World]

Hiya!

 

In theory, if the Android version stores its data the same way (in text files), it should be possible in the same way -- just find the data and replace the appropriate text files.

 

However, I don't know if it does; things might be bundled up and compressed (or simply encapsulated) differently.

[Hotherewanderer]

Technically, it does stay the same. However it's in the OBB file, which is... really finicky

I tried to patch the files in with RAR, then ZArchiver... and then rename... then repack... 

Didn't work. Thank God I had a backup from ages ago lol

[Enobarbus World]

Oh, you know, there might be a checksum in there somewhere.  That issue came up with the Mac App Store version.  Probably hard to get around that, if so 

[Hotherewanderer]

Quite a damn shame. I'd love to give the mod a try 😔