Avadon after AEFTP

[Brocktree]

After playing part of AEFTP and feeling rather disappointed, I thought I'd give Avadon a whirl. I've held off trying it out for a while, since what I heard wasn't good. Comments included: Skill trees that were a poor imitation of those in Diablo II, a cookie-cutter swords and sorcery game in a generic fantasy setting, a stale plot, and linear gameplay.

 

Either way, I went through the motion of the starter dungeon, and wasn't too impressed. The Kva lands weren't much better. But as I kept playing, the game grew on me. The story is decent enough to be engaging. The maps, while linear, still allow for a certain degree of exploration via side quests. The skill trees are actually *very* well implemented, much more so than its successor (AEFTP). Investing in lower end abilities eventually unlocks the opportunity to invest in high-end abilities, yet lower tier abilities remain vital to success. Better yet, consumable items remain useful through the entire game.

 

The difficulty is a bit of an issue. There is a huge spike at the mindtaker drake, and from then on the game gets more and more merciless. I had to drop the difficulty from torment, to hard, to normal, and eventually to casual for the end fight. And holy hell, is the end fight against Redbeard *insane*. I got my teeth kicked in on the first attempt, and just managed to scrape through on the second attempt. I understand he's an optional challenge boss, but come on, I could hardly lay a hand on the guy. It came down to who would break first: Redbeard, or my mind.

 

I was gunning for Redbeard since about half-way through the game, simply because he came across as a bit of a douchebag. He has a complete lack of cultural sensitivity (a real bad trait in an international peacekeeper), a nasty habit of having people he has tortured serve as his trusted advisors (Miranda and Leila), and does nothing to stop his servants acting as assassins for hire. It's a shame the PC is so stupid (eg. not realizing that the Wayfarer is *gasp* acting against the Pact) and railroaded into acting as a loyal hand.

 

I played through as a druid. I first tried a summoner, which failed miserably. I then retrained to specialise in attack spells. This provided me with a PC who could hit with a variety of different elements, which was much better. If I had my time over again, I'd probably try a sorceress or blademaster who specialised in buffs/debuffs.

 

Oh well. The game gets a tick of approval from me. It sure craps all over AEFTP.

[Mosquito---Slayer]

I agree with most of what you said, except the last line (long time fan of avernum here ).

[Randomizer]

Avadon (linear) vs Avernum, (open world are different playing styles. The skill tree in Avernum is a compromise to keep the old skill system and reshape it to a tree which makes it harder to build certain skills. Avadon doesn't have that limitation since as a new system, Jeff could experiment.

 

The difficulty in Avadon really spikes and mostly that is due to rebalancing the game during beta testing. Jeff tries to make the game work for different playing styles and no require one build from the start in order to succeed. He never quite fixed it so high dexterity was the way to go to win.

[Death Knight]

Well that was why I found Avadon to make sense because dexterity characters rule. The battles and the tactics are particular about what you do, but mostly as long you focus a decent amount in dexterity you don't even really need endurance. I got through the game with 2 points into endurance for a shaman and now with a shadow walker the same. If you play your cards right, you can enhance your equipment with endurance and or even better use a few necklaces or rings that add endurance.