Im having trouble with this

[GoodOld Jack]

Jeff really needs to have something done about this. I played through Avadon about a year ago and somewhat enjoyed it. Now I haven't played it for a while and went back to Icewind Dale 1 and 2 and frankly I can't even get past the 2nd chapter of Avadon.

 

The problem is definitely that enemies have way too much health and that right there boggles with realistics. Since when does a mage or cleric have more health than all my 3 party members put together.

 

Its even worse in Avernum. Sure melee deals a decent amount for a while and so does spells. But once you get past a few chapters, the game just becomes one endless slugfest.

 

I'll admit the main reason I wanted to see something done is that they have promise. But as of right now, I can't see myself getting past one of the games. It has nothing to do with difficulty, its just an endless amount of tedious grinding battles with regular boss fights taking 20 minutes to half an hour. Since when is that realistic at all.

 

I hope jeff makes some changes because I can't find one reason why anyone would want to play 50-70 hours of tedious grinding with story blocks coming up every 5 feet with nothing in them but pointless banter.

 

The banter would mean something if realistics were in effect. Mages should get their damage upped and leave their health at like 200 for realistics. None of this 1200 health stuff which makes no sense. If this was any other game and you dealt a critical hit on an enemy, they would be in serious hurting.

[Ohsky]

Realism in videogames like this ones?, forget about it. There could be done some tweaks here and there but not much more. I thought enemies in Avadon had a lot of hp due that there were not many amounts of them in every battle, so just to make battles not so easy, they had more hp.

 

If developers of rpgs were aiming for realisms there would be no warriors, they all would be fried by mages from a distance, etc. It´s just fantasy, not realism. Indeed, very rarely Fantasy settings makes sense outside videogaming, you will see how many movies, non animated, are just ridiculous when put on film, well, maybe it´s because they are low budgeted, but beyond Lord of the Rings movies.... and you see there little magic is used.

[GoodOld Jack]

Still doesn't matter though. A 50-70 hour game takes immense patience to get through when you have little battles that take ridiculous amounts of time. I mean how do you expect the gamer to get through that when the little battles take forever to get through and the big ones take 30 minutes. Thats ridiculous with realism or no realism.

 

Because of that, I would say each of these games needs to lose at least 10-15 hours of its already immense filler. Thats what the game is, its just 5 hours of story and 45 hours of filler.

[Ohsky]

The best solution for you is to avoid playing this kind of games then, because they are liked by more people than they are disliked.

 

Turn based games are like chess in the sense some battles are not meant to be Action based, but strategy based. They aren´t fast and if you don´t like calmed strategy you are out.

[Randomizer]

Boss monsters have ridiculous amounts of health. Some have high health because they can't heal like players.

[Goldengirl]

Ohsky, that's not true. There's certainly room for a gamer like GoodOld Jack here.

 

Have you tried adjusting the difficulty? What you're talking about sounds like it could be easily fixed by lowering the setting, say, to casual. Additionally, though I can't say for certain, your strategy may be skewed. Going to one of the strategy central stickies in the game forums may help you optimize your team to more quickly beat opponents.

[Ohsky]

sdrft5t5tf5xtf5rf

[Lauren CW]

It only took me about 25-30 hours to beat the game, and I did everything but kill Redbeard. Not sure how you managed to get 50-70 hours.

[Lilith]

Ohsky, you've made your opinion clear. There's no need to be so aggressive about it.

 

GoodOld Jack, most people don't find Avadon to be a 50-70 hour game: more like 30-40 hours. If most boss fights are taking you half an hour, that does suggest there's something off in the way you built your party -- most early-game bosses can be taken down within three or four turns by focusing attacks on them. Checking out Strategy Central in the Avadon forum for good advice on party building might be worth your time.

[Mosquito---Slayer]

Yes, the only fights that should be taking so long are the Redbeard and the Zephyrine,(+possibly the demon), enemies need to have high health because they can't heal like players, also giving them low HP and killer attack makes the fights too stupid, (if one of your warriors manages to get close to the enemy he is dead, if not then you are dead), the only game where I have felt enemies have too high health is A:eftp .

[Ohsky]

great

[keira]

Ohsky, you need to either stop posting in this topic, or add something more productive than "sdrft5t5tf5xtf5rf" and "great ". Thank you!

 

I would second what Lilith says about pursuing the Strategy Central in the Avadon board.

[Ohsky]

Content Removed by Moderator

Edited July 8, 2013 by Triumph
Insults and language

[Juan Carlo]

I actually found Avadon to be one of the better Spiderweb games when it comes to hitpoint bloat (the final redbeard fight being the major exception).

 

If you really want to get angry try "Avernum 5." Every single enemy you fight, be it rats, wolves, or chitrachs, has tons of hitpoints, and there are endless trash mob type enemies so it's super repetitive (get used to fighting wave after wave of chitrachs in the middle section, which are just a prelude to the 10,000 hitpoint wolves in the later portions of the game).

 

Plus, it's the most linear Avernum and has next to no plot (it's more or less just "Kill the bad guy!"), yet will take 100+ hours to beat on the harder difficulties.

 

I still consider "Avernum 5" to be far and away the worst game Spiderweb's ever done.

 

Because of that, I would say each of these games needs to lose at least 10-15 hours of its already immense filler. Thats what the game is, its just 5 hours of story and 45 hours of filler.

 

I'm a big Spiderweb fan, but I would totally agree with this. I think most of the Avernums could knock 20 hours each off in trash mob combat and not lose much as games. But generally, "less combat, but more challenging when it does happen" is a rule that 99% of all RPGs could stand to learn from, not just Spiderweb games.

 

It's part of the reason why I like the Geneforges so much--most are in the 30 to 60 hour range and a good deal of the combat can be skipped entirely depending on your skills or if you stealth.

[GoodOld Jack]

Ohsky, that's not true. There's certainly room for a gamer like GoodOld Jack here.

 

Have you tried adjusting the difficulty? What you're talking about sounds like it could be easily fixed by lowering the setting, say, to casual. Additionally, though I can't say for certain, your strategy may be skewed. Going to one of the strategy central stickies in the game forums may help you optimize your team to more quickly beat opponents.

 

This is my party-

 

Lvl 22 Shaman with mastery in healing and middle column. The healing specialize is for bonus to healing which stacks from high lvl. The middle column is for extra resistances and health bonuses. I was going to take that column again for a nice 450 health. My damage with javelins is 70-200 something but it doesn't matter. I have all the critical hit equipment so I usually have about a 55 or 60% chance to critical every hit. My character deals the most damage per throw. I have 40 dexterity.

 

Lvl 22 Shima-I had him go with left column all the way. He deals similar damage to my character but my character deals more due to critical hit chance. He uses melee but isn't the best at it. He is better at taking hits than my character due to his excellent resistance, but my character has much more health than him. His dexterity is 35.

 

Lvl 22 Nathalie-She went with the left column and a bit with the middle for offense and defense. She has 34 dexterity.

 

My biggest problem didn't come from damage but moreso with tactics. I found very few tactics to use altogether. The main bad guys that are your chump enemies all need area of effect attacks to take down. The problem is they usually aren't your main heavy hitters. The bosses require major single attack damage from whatever the source. I found that the tactics used in games were more or less-

 

Low enemies-AOE

Medium-AOE, single attacks

Heavy hitters or bosses-Single attacks with as much direct damage as can be dealt.

 

In this case, having ranged combat was almost a necessity. The problem is that AOEs don't really do anything to a major boss unless he has miscreants in which it still doesn't matter. I must be doing something extremely and stupidly wrong with regards to tactics because I usually just hope for a critical. So for tactics in combat, my approach is to pelt on them until their dead.

[Kelandon]

In reading this, I'm reminded of something that I may have brought up before: in recent Spiderweb games, the general problem with an inappropriately designed party is not that it can't make progress but that it does so incredibly slowly and tediously. I think on my first play-through of Avadon I may have spent as much as 50 hours, and enemies felt as though they had unlimited HP. The problem was that I had a horribly designed party, though; with a better party, I got through in the more typical 20-30 hours, and fights never took anywhere near as long as they had in my first play-through.

 

The game becomes tedious and not fun if you design your party wrong, but you may not ever know that that's what the problem is, because you can still keep going.

[Aran]

Some of the design blunders become obvious very quickly though. I went into the wretch warrens with two sorceresses, and learned almost immediately that it's a bad idea to have no close combat character - particularly when there are monsters that are immune to your only basic attack.

 

But I suspect there are other things I haven't learned yet, and still going a lot slower because of it. Exile 3 (my first one) was preferable in that sense because if you made a bad party you got wiped almost immediately.

[Cairo Jim]

Jeff's games are, admitingly can be a bit hard to get used to at first. That being said, the longest battle I ever had was in Exile 3. It took 5-10 minutes. I for some reason decided to pick on a group of troglo's, in which I wasn't ready for. The only reason it took so long was because their mages did summon upon summon.

[Nim]

Jeff's games are, admitingly can be a bit hard to get used to at first. That being said, the longest battle I ever had was in Exile 3. It took 5-10 minutes. I for some reason decided to pick on a group of troglo's, in which I wasn't ready for. The only reason it took so long was because their mages did summon upon summon.

Hah. Try the big Perikalia Orchards battle in G5. That is one crazy overlong battle, don't even want to know how long that would take on torment with the bloated HPs.

[GoodOld Jack]

So I designed my party poorly and made a bunch of hacks?

[Lilith]

Kinda, yeah. You've raised everyone's Dexterity very high, so I assume you've heard the general advice that Dexterity is very powerful in Avadon, but that depends on having characters who can benefit from high Dexterity. If you're going to pump Dexterity on Shima, you should be using him as a ranged character rather than a melee character (remember, you can always take one step back from an enemy to use a ranged attack); if you're going to pump Dexterity on your Shaman, you need a fairly specialised skill build designed to take best advantage of that rather than just throwing javelins; and pumping Dexterity on a Sorceress really isn't very viable at all. It's no wonder fights are taking forever for you when you're not increasing the stats that actually help your characters do damage. Luckily, once you've reached the trainer in Beraza Woods, you can just visit her anytime to reset your party's stat and skill allocation.

[GoodOld Jack]

So then besides shadowalkers and blade masters, what is a viable stat build for sorceresses and shamans that cast spells? I usually don't know of any other way to mitigate damage other than using high dexterity. I give them increases to dexterity every level except 5th which goes to intelligence. For Shima I give increases to dexterity and endurance. My character got increases of dexterity every lvl except every ninth level in endurance.

 

Its confusing on how to build successful characters as there are many ways of making bad ones. Its not like the other games where you can build somewhat outside the box. In Avadon I had to reset my characters once for my 1st time playing through the game. It seems like the only way of playing correctly is to just go all out with the left column.

 

The thing that is lame is that for once I'd like to start the game up and get to the end without having the reset the characters once.

[Randomizer]

You can get by for a sorceress with just increasing intelligence and knowing you will take lots of damage. Otherwise every 3 level increase either dexterity or endurance to reduce your chance to be hit. Too little intelligence means near the end of the game you can't do enough damage.

 

Because of an error, Shaman's top tier ability, earthquake, is based upon dexterity. Still you can use the same stats as a sorceress.

 

For hard and torment difficulty you want the center column to maximize defensive abilities and get damage multipliers. For attackers you want the left column abilities at 8. A shaman using a pet wants the right column abilities at 8 to have a strong pet that can attack for her.

[Student of Trinity]

n recent Spiderweb games, the general problem with an inappropriately designed party is not that it can't make progress but that it does so incredibly slowly and tediously. ... The game becomes tedious and not fun if you design your party wrong, but you may not ever know that that's what the problem is, because you can still keep going.

This is an interesting but dismaying observation. It's something that's going to be hard for Jeff to fix, I think. Too many of his beta testers are old hands who know the ropes, or else are gluttons for punishment and may not complain when they should. And even if beta testers could convey the problem clearly to the maker of the games, it might just be too much work to fix it. So Jeff may not really want to fix it, if he's doing well enough as it is. Spiderweb doesn't even try to sell games to people who really want cutting edge graphics. It may also be that Spiderweb also just lets a lot of other customers go, who would have stuck around if everything were better balanced. Maybe achieving really thorough balance is just as unfeasible, with a small company, as cutting edge graphics.

[Aran]

Maybe I have it backward, but I kind of assumed that this evolution of the SW game engine (from Exile all the way through Avadon) was already driven by the attempt to widen appeal.

 

You can now (maybe tediously) reach the late mid-game with a mess of a character build instead of (as in E1) taking multiple attempts even beating the first few wandering encounters with a fairly good party. One of the largest steps in that direction was effectively removing death since A4, in that (excepting TPK) eliminated characters are trivial to revive, and in Avadon will actually return as soon as combat ends. In the old series, you lost your inventory and had to pay gold to get the character back. The games haven't become easier per se, but the penalty for doing badly has been repeatedly reduced.

 

In that sense, I think what you describe as a problem to be fixed may be the desired effect. It almost certainly gets a larger fraction of players to continue playing until mid-game, which in shareware games directly translates to sales.

[GoodOld Jack]

So the question is not about the sorceress and basic shamans that spell cast, but the shaman I made that throws javelins and utilizes her high dexterity for aoes. Early on I gave my shaman a scarab that shoots an AOE cone of fire. It deals a pretty crazy amount of damage for a low item and I think it scales on dexterity. I will still keep pumping dexterity on my shaman as the çritical hit equipment allows her to have the highest hits in combat.

 

I guess I am crazy but I can't find playing a shaman as a spell caster when for me its much more bad to the bone with as a hunter.

 

Edit-Just retrained nathalie and did what was said which was dex and endurance every 3 or 4 lvls. While I'm at it even though my shaman will stay a ranged attacker, I might as well make shima melee as his blade sweep is lethal as an aoe.

For warriors is strength every lvl with a point in dex or endurance sometimes good or should I do something else? This will be very useful to know in the future so I appreciate the any tips you guys give.

[Lilith]

So the question is not about the sorceress and basic shamans that spell cast, but the shaman I made that throws javelins and utilizes her high dexterity for aoes. Early on I gave my shaman a scarab that shoots an AOE cone of fire. It deals a pretty crazy amount of damage for a low item and I think it scales on dexterity.

 

All scarab-based attacks scale with Dexterity for Shadowwalker and Blademaster, but with Intelligence for Sorceress and Shaman.

 

For warriors is strength every lvl with a point in dex or endurance sometimes good or should I do something else? This will be very useful to know in the future so I appreciate the any tips you guys give.

 

A 3:1 ratio of Dexterity to Endurance works pretty well for a ranged Shadowwalker or Blademaster, although you have to watch out for cold and acid attacks that dexterity doesn't help you dodge. Melee attackers... have it kinda rough. On higher difficulties they'll tend to just die all the time, since they're right in the middle of battle and don't have good ways to mitigate damage. Still, if you want to try making one, a 2:1 ratio of Strength to Endurance might work.

 

Another thing to note: all of the Blademaster and Shadowwalker's ranged and AoE attack skills scale off Dexterity, even the ones that are described as using a melee weapon. That includes things like Blade Sweep.

[Alorael at Large]

Scarabs scale with Dexterity on blademasters and shadowwalkers but with Intelligence on shamans and sorceresses.

 

—Alorael, who played through Avadon on normal difficulty without much trouble the first time through by raising almost entirely Strength on his shadowwalkers and blademaster and Intelligence on his shaman and sorceress. Optimal? No, but it works perfectly well. It's when you go for very niche builds that Jeff wasn't expecting (Dex on everyone, for example) that you find either great success or miserable failure. Sometimes they're very close builds.

[Kelandon]

On my last play-through of Avadon, I just pumped Dexterity for everyone (except Nathalie, who got Int). Nothing else. Just Dexterity. Among skills, my priorities were (in this order):

 

1. Bows/ranged weapon skills

2. Critical hit skills

3. The middle column

4. Interesting abilities (usually the left column)

 

Everyone (except Nathalie) got some kind of bow or ranged physical attack. (Nathalie used her default magic attack.)

 

The game was remarkably doable with this strategy (even on Torment), and what I like about it is that it is so simple and clean. You might not be able to beat some of the worst optional final fights this way, but you can do pretty much anything else.

[VCH]

I've always believed that Jeff should include a "recommended button" when a character levels up, like what the NeverWinter series did. IN NWN 1 and 2 I went with a fighter and clicked the recommended button ever single time he levelled--simple and fun

[Randomizer]

Jeff doesn't know how to make great characters. Look at the pre-generated characters in Exile.

[Cairo Jim]

Look at the pre-generated characters in Exile.

 

Except for once or twice, I always used pre fab.

[VCH]

I also used prefab characters . . . like every time.

[keira]

I sort-of used them, as in instead of deleting all of them I deleted everyone but Frrrrr and made a slot three singleton. 'Create new character' gets you 60 skill points, while editing Frrrrr gets you 81.

[Aran]

I sort-of used them, as in instead of deleting all of them I deleted everyone but Frrrrr and made a slot three singleton. 'Create new character' gets you 60 skill points, while editing Frrrrr gets you 81.

 

Oh yeah, I remember that trick; some of my most interesting E3 and BoE play-throughs were third-slot singletons.

Never did figure out why Jeff did this. My best explanation is that he noticed the archer build being underpowered when using the pre-fabricated party, and decided to train him a bit more instead of revising the archery mechanics.

 

I suspect this balance stuff is why recent games have been increasingly insistent on pre-fab parties, fixed classes and pre-ordained skill trees. Which is a pity; I really liked being able to mix and experiment with strange builds. Playing E3 with a priest party (Anama, of course) was kind of awesome. It was also hard to part with the vast array of spells available in the Exile games. So many different status effects and fields and summons.

[Lilith]

Oh yeah, I remember that trick; some of my most interesting E3 and BoE play-throughs were third-slot singletons.

Never did figure out why Jeff did this. My best explanation is that he noticed the archer build being underpowered when using the pre-fabricated party, and decided to train him a bit more instead of revising the archery mechanics.

 

All of the pregens have nonstandard starting skill totals for a level 1 character; Frrrr is just the worst offender.

[Death Knight]

I actually found Avadon to be one of the better Spiderweb games when it comes to hitpoint bloat (the final redbeard fight being the major exception).

 

If you really want to get angry try "Avernum 5." Every single enemy you fight, be it rats, wolves, or chitrachs, has tons of hitpoints, and there are endless trash mob type enemies so it's super repetitive (get used to fighting wave after wave of chitrachs in the middle section, which are just a prelude to the 10,000 hitpoint wolves in the later portions of the game).

 

Plus, it's the most linear Avernum and has next to no plot (it's more or less just "Kill the bad guy!"), yet will take 100+ hours to beat on the harder difficulties.

 

I still consider "Avernum 5" to be far and away the worst game Spiderweb's ever done.

 

 

 

I'm a big Spiderweb fan, but I would totally agree with this. I think most of the Avernums could knock 20 hours each off in trash mob combat and not lose much as games. But generally, "less combat, but more challenging when it does happen" is a rule that 99% of all RPGs could stand to learn from, not just Spiderweb games.

 

It's part of the reason why I like the Geneforges so much--most are in the 30 to 60 hour range and a good deal of the combat can be skipped entirely depending on your skills or if you stealth.

 

I think it depends on the game. If you really like a game you usually can deal with minor things much better than if you don't like the game.

 

However when the game you are playing has something you find tedious, its usually hard to get far. I find Avernum remake to be just right and still epic with regards to battles. I completed the game the first time with a terrible party. The 2nd time I played just the opposite, an awesome party. You live and learn I guess. I wish I hadn't attempted Hawthorn as my 1st ending the first time I played the game.

[Randomizer]

Avernum 5 replaced most trash mob fights with mini boss fights that each needed a different set of tactics to win. Then Jeff raised all their healths.