Resistance and Stupid Characters

[Rent-an-Ihrno]

ive been walking around thinking about certain questions concerning spidweb-games for a long time, and i thought its time to go public.

unfortunately, i cant recall the questions.

two i remember.

 

1. how do resistances work in avernum (3)? my slith has a fire resistance of, like, 160% or something, and still takes up to 20 dmg from efreet or golems.

shouldnt 100% mean hes immune?

 

2. is it possible that the playable characters are a little stupid? for example, in a3, they ask every single avernite they meet "'unspec?'", "whats 'unspecified services'?" etc.

shouldnt asking once suffice, if they dont even know their own employee.? (yeahyeah i know its explained to the player that way)

or in a2, they simply dont understand what people mean with "our friends below" or "the surface filth/the great foe above"... hard to comprehend, right? annoying.

etc, etc, etc.

[Micawber]

1. Despite the misleading display on the stats screen, resistances are multiplied, not added. So for example, if you have 2 fire resistance items giving 40% and 20% resistance respectively, then first item takes 40% off the damage and then the second item takes 20% off what's left, i.e. 12% not 20%.

 

2. Probably. It makes the coding a lot easier not to have too many conditionals, and anyway it's quite useful to have things repeated as not everyone has a perfect memory.

 

However your second example is not a good one, in this case the PCs are not questioning not in incomprehension but in challenge. Think of it like "Hey you fat face", "Did you call me fat?" - here the questioner is in no doubt they were described as fat but they are challenging their interlocutor to repeat the insult at their own risk.

 

Edit: I should also point out that the dialogue options are only that, options, you are under no obligation to select them. If you choose to select them in roleplay, then you are yourself consigning your PCs to the stupid bin...

[Alorael at Large]

You can also ask questions with motives other than getting literal answers. For example, if you ask someone what Unspecified Services is (or Covert Ops, actually, since Unspecified Services disappeared in Avernum), you may be more interested in hearing what they think of it than what they think it is.

 

—Alorael, who is sure many people have used such inquerical manipulations before. He is also sure that the previous sentence was an unabashed excuse to create the word inquerical.

[Rent-an-Ihrno]

oh, alright! that explains alot. thx.

 

however, i still think that the player is put into a position of lacking intelligence in avernum. hey, maybe that lead to being thrown down there in the first place!

 

which reminds me, wouldnt it be cool if the game would randomly choose one of thousands of backgrounds for each character created? (i say one of thousands because i find the idea that first came to my mind unwillingly, that each character slot has its history for the according char, utterly useless)

 

by the way. (i presume these new topics arent off-topic since this thread was actually made for the whole garbage in my mind) it appears to me that a3 has by far fewer missions to offer than a2, that the existing ones are less interesting but linear although they dont really belong together, dont serve a cause that necessarily is to be supported, are exhausting ("could you please walk to the other side of valorim, grab some boring book and bring it here?") and in the end dont bring much fame? in a1, you win the slith and grah-hoth wars, in a2 the empire war, and in a3? please.

[John S]

Well, you do save the surface and cast down the sworn enemy of the general human population. You just don't get any time to enjoy it.

[Randomizer]

A3 is the start of blatant linearity in game play. A4 is even worse in that your path is forced by barriers and sea monsters.

 

I blame the creeping Geneforge influence on Jeff's thinking. When Exile came out you could do any major or minor quest that you thought you handle. Only the Dark Waters part of E2/A2 was linear because of those waterfalls.

[Alorael at Large]

A1 has three game-winning quests, one of which is decidedly less glorious than the others. A2 also has three, all of which are related to defeating the Empire. A3 has one and only one quest, and you're working on it from day one.

 

All three games also have piles of minor kill this, fetch that, deliver this, find that quests. Avernum 3 is the largest, so it has more of those.

 

—Alorael, who still think A4 deserves recognition for having the most drawn out minor quest. Lark is at least good for a full game of entertainment.

[Rent-an-Ihrno]

speaking of deliver-that-quests. wouldnt it be great if one could cancel minor missions? im thinking of "xxx will give you 25 gold for every research tome.." missions here. i always get them unwillingly while talking to someone, and they annoy me. i never do them but they take up space in my quest list.

 

back to a3. you really dont save the surface. you just relieve an unimportant continent of some pests that wouldve been erased anyway, once the empire wouldve unleashed their armies. you didnt kill the source of the plagues, you just destroy some replaceable tower. and you dont defeat the enemy of all humans, you make your allies enemies. and dont defeat them.

wouldnt it be smarter to ask the vahnatai kindly to let that stuff be and take their revenge in another way? you know, diplomacy, and such.

[AnarhIztok2511]

Quote:

Originally written by Randomizer:
I blame the creeping Geneforge influence on Jeff's thinking.

Well, geneforge 2 is not so linear. And a3 is based on e3, so the linearity stated before geneforge series.

[Ephesos]

Quote:

Originally written by Rent-an-Ihrno:
once the empire wouldve unleashed their armies.

Right... Like they did in Tinraya. And look how much success the Empire forces in Valorim had with even the slimes. (Don't talk about Baziron)

[Rent-an-Ihrno]

the keep of tinraya was caught by surprise and krizsan is laughed at even by the other cities in valorim for its the extremely weak forces the empire had sent there. both situations would look very much different if they wouldve been handled by powers similar to those sent down to avernum during the war.

 

the geneforge-influence is undenyable. but although i have no great love for geneforge, there you can at least choose sides etc, which would be quite a revolution for the avernum series.

actually, i hoped for a feature like that in a4 and the lack of this is the reason why i refuse playing the game.

 

edit: coming to think of it, wouldnt a3 have been perfect for a choose-your-side-rpg? (i mean more than 2 sides)

[Drakefyre]

Well, Valorim was kind of like the Exile of the Empire. It was a frontier land where some misfits and rugged rougish types moved. All of the settlements were fairly new, and the only important resources were the gems around Monroe Province (where, in no coincidence, Baziron commands). The one army that's there (3rd Empire Army) is content to sit back and survive in its little cove, and the Alien Beasts really are a threat to Empire soldiers.

[Rent-an-Ihrno]

hm. why does the strongest of all monsters, the alien beasts, have the weakest source? a little building in tinraya, with 2 tiny, featureless rooms in it for breeding?

besides, that building mustve been grown AFTER the destruction of the keep of tinraya, because the survivors couldve given clues on who is responsible for it all.

so do the alien beasts have another production site?

[Drakefyre]

Haven't you passed through the New Factory?

[Randomizer]

It's the packs of Alien beasts, traps in the city, and the 3 crystal souls that you have to get through to get to the source that is the issue. Once you get past everything the destruction is easy.

[Rent-an-Ihrno]

of course ive passed through there, but the whole thing is so non-factory-like i never considered it to be the factory. of course, there is the crumbling factory, but was that one for alien beasts?

i mean, look at the golems. what machinery, what a complex! and you see exactly how those numbers of golems were made (and you get to destroy the things).

those crystal souls dont seem to have any connection to anything, they just stand there.