Profile for Vent
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Displayed name | Vent |
| Member number | 4186 |
| Title | Warrior |
| Postcount | 175 |
| Homepage | |
| Registered | Friday, April 2 2004 08:00 |
Recent posts
Pages
| Author | Recent posts |
|---|---|
| skills in Blades of Avernum | |
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Warrior
Member # 4186
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written Monday, April 12 2004 03:07
Profile
quote:I think that's exactely that and that is why I had a char that didn't seem get the skills. It's because it's base was high. For example parry need 6 training for dex and defense without take in count the base nor item bonuses. So he has a base of dex 6 and a base of 0 for defence. so he needs dex 13 and defence 6 but it's just 6 training in dex and 6 training in defence. BUT, at least for this char, its base isn't the base at it's creation but what I can see in character editor. At creation it had dex 4 and defence 2 but in character editor I can't lower the dex bellow 6 but I can lower defence to 0 and it's this 6 and 0 the bases to use. Strange, seems to me like a minor bug. Posts: 175 | Registered: Friday, April 2 2004 08:00 |
| stuck on ... in Blades of Avernum | |
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Warrior
Member # 4186
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written Monday, April 12 2004 02:23
Profile
quote:Thanks for this kind welcome in the forum :D . Posts: 175 | Registered: Friday, April 2 2004 08:00 |
| Move mountains in Blades of Avernum | |
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Warrior
Member # 4186
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written Monday, April 12 2004 02:21
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He he, you are talking about replay :) . That said, they are a high temptation to cheating in order to not spend one for junk. I'm too lazy for that and damit "Run" scenario made me spend most those had. Posts: 175 | Registered: Friday, April 2 2004 08:00 |
| scenario criticism in Blades of Avernum | |
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Warrior
Member # 4186
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written Monday, April 12 2004 02:02
Profile
We all agree on these points, you just write it better :P . But :D there are two points that are different points. 1 - Puzzles Puzzles is another subject than fights. There are many categories of puzzles, I like puzzles more than the common average but I think that there are too things to take care : * It's easy to get a frustrated player because the hints are cultural references he doesn't know, because the logic is too complex and he can"t solve it, because he didn't take care of a hint or didn't make the relationship with a hint and a puzzle, and so on. * A mistake sometimes seen in puzzle is to make it too long and somehow boring because it involves a non fun action. Then because it is too long, it becomes tiedous. That's subjective but I'd like take two examples. In "Run", the bean puzzle that lead to the dragon is a good one but is boring too. The pure puzzle stuff has three main bases : * Visual memory (remember well where there was a bean). * Care and patience (explorate a relatively large area to fin what to do and care to avoid beans and manage switches from combat to normal). * A sample trick to solve a thing. That's a good base so it's a good puzzle but it is also a not good puzzle that will also frustrate many players. It is just too long for a special action that become tiedous if not boring and frustrating. You need to often to move your party in combat mode to avoid a switch to normal mode that could lead to a bean death. It's strongly boring to have to move the 4 chars. You don't always see in action screen all the engines that will throw a bean and if your visual memory not perfect plus a 3D not natural, this will lead you too often in a death. The switch from combat mode to normal mode isn't always easy to manage and that leads to tiedous death. It is for me a perfect example to avoid because it involves for a too long time a too tiedous action. That said it is also a good puzzle. Another example is also taken from "Run". It's deep cavern. That's not a puzzle? Well in fact it is a "sort of". The "no light" involves much more care in managing movements and a special action that requires using the auto-map with a special care, moving with care, navigate through a sample labyrinth. At first when I saw there was no light, I said myself "ho no that will be boring". In fact it's a dam good puzzle. The only trick here is to manage well the exploration in order to find of the stuff on the ground and manage the surprise encounters but that works well. The mood is very good and if your party isn't too strong, meeting the beasts just in front of your nose is a real tension, plus some warning that a beast detected you help build a tension/mood. That links to a special exploration involves a special action but unlike previous example, this one is dam fun. So despite the puzzle itself isn't as good, globaly it's a much better puzzle. 2 - Fighting The second point is about fighting, I agree on tactics to learn and discover. That said, once you discover them or even when you already know them the fight won't be difficult and most players won't qualify the module as "hard as hell". That's a good point that difficulty adjusted by the player just change a ballance and not the pure design of the fight. This ballance is related to powerup that cost you money and that you use during the fights. The income isn't equal, for example : * Finding some very tough secrets like with no of few hints, * find all the puzzles even the much harder that stuck you a long time, * it's to take some risks to save some powerup (or mana to save mana potion later), * it's to take care always do the best trade for the less money cost and best income, * it's to tune at the best the level up of you chars for a maximum efficiency and not ony for you fun as role playing or curiosity, * and so on. For many people some or all of these actions will be tiedous at a certain degree and for a more fun play they'll get a significantly lower income or/and they will want less reload so will take less risk and then will have a higher expense. That's far to be non significant and that's where fighting difficulty is also indepedent of any smart tactics. That's where difficulty setting choosed by the player has a significant role. That's also where most (all?) scenario will really find a "hard as hell" trademark. And for my point of view, I understand all won't share it, that's not a good design if at any difficulty setting it keeps it label "hard as hell" and that's not related to smart tactics to find. [ Monday, April 12, 2004 03:42: Message edited by: Vent ] Posts: 175 | Registered: Friday, April 2 2004 08:00 |
| Getting rid of webs in Blades of Avernum | |
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Warrior
Member # 4186
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written Sunday, April 11 2004 12:18
Profile
quote:Because you get web during a fight, because you did the wrong click, because you find faster get webbed and just press 5 after, and many more reasons :) . Posts: 175 | Registered: Friday, April 2 2004 08:00 |
| Differences between BoA and BoE, what's Nethergate in Blades of Avernum | |
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Warrior
Member # 4186
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written Sunday, April 11 2004 12:11
Profile
Thanks for the answers and links. Nethergate is suprising I hope its old age won't hurt it's scenario quality. I'll try the both demos in all cases. [ Sunday, April 11, 2004 12:14: Message edited by: Vent ] Posts: 175 | Registered: Friday, April 2 2004 08:00 |
| Roses of Reckoning (BoA) is Released! in Blades of Avernum | |
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Warrior
Member # 4186
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written Sunday, April 11 2004 12:08
Profile
Is it more advised to play this new BoA version than BoE version? There's a high possibility that I will buy BoE if I like its demo. I don't think I'll get a lot of fun to play both versions so I would know the more advised version. Posts: 175 | Registered: Friday, April 2 2004 08:00 |
| scenario criticism in Blades of Avernum | |
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Warrior
Member # 4186
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written Sunday, April 11 2004 12:03
Profile
quote:Not confident? :) Is there any despise? It's not rare behind difficult user made modules to have an author "look like I'm god player". Anyway, that's first adventadge of having a good difficulty level setting, you can adjust easily and don't need do that sort of try. quote:Ok you bring arguments to what I wrote, it's much better for a game to have a good difficulty setting that the player can adjust. I think we agree on that, and nightmare setting should allow the higher challenge for 1st level party and higher level party. No need to design a specialy difficult scenario, it will be unbeatable at nightmare setting. On another part having more difficult scenario than other particularely those more recent, is a good thing. But that wasn't the point I was talking about but about highly tough scenario. A major difference for me is how much it forces try reload and try again without allowing learning new tactics for most users but need patience and persistence. There's nothing more easy to do a too tough scenario, at least much more easy than a well ballanced with some learning curve. Posts: 175 | Registered: Friday, April 2 2004 08:00 |
| Differences between BoA and BoE, what's Nethergate in Blades of Avernum | |
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Warrior
Member # 4186
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written Sunday, April 11 2004 07:48
Profile
What are the main differences between BoE and BoA? And what is Nethergate? I checked on Spiderweb site and found at BoE review press that BoE (not BoA) includes : The Valley of Dying Things, A Small Rebellion, ... Well :D . And when checking games list I couldn't find Nethergate nor a description of it anywhere. Posts: 175 | Registered: Friday, April 2 2004 08:00 |
| How crap can you get? in Blades of Avernum | |
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Warrior
Member # 4186
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written Sunday, April 11 2004 07:37
Profile
quote::) :rolleyes: :D Posts: 175 | Registered: Friday, April 2 2004 08:00 |
| Move mountains in Blades of Avernum | |
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Warrior
Member # 4186
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written Sunday, April 11 2004 07:33
Profile
quote:I hate have hope find a key for those barriers all along the scenario :D . And despite I played deeply this scenario including a bunch of subquests and explored any squares and many secrets but not those. :eek: Posts: 175 | Registered: Friday, April 2 2004 08:00 |
| scenario criticism in Blades of Avernum | |
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Warrior
Member # 4186
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written Sunday, April 11 2004 07:12
Profile
quote:It's not his vote he wants to be added :) . Anyway, it depends how blind they are (I checked quicky the site and couldn't find Spidweb tables). If it's anonymous then ok that can hardly work. If it's only hidden but based on email used to register the game and only one vote per scenario per email and ability to change a previous vote, then it could work well IF there are a sufficient number of votes making a low set of vote (like 1 to 5) non significant. The resulting rates will then have some sense, certainly not the same than any single reviewer but some interest anyway. Still for large numbers, a review system will hardly work, plus it removes from vote a whole category of users. In few case I saw that well managed, that was working well (even with anonymous email), and reviewers rates wasn't that much accurate. Exact order could be questionable for some cases but top list was pretty accurate if time wasn't forget (an old popular module could have cumulate enough rates to stay pretty high despite it became old and suffer a bit comparison with more recent modules, that was mainly a problem of decreasing user base as time progress). Posts: 175 | Registered: Friday, April 2 2004 08:00 |
| scenario criticism in Blades of Avernum | |
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Warrior
Member # 4186
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written Sunday, April 11 2004 06:48
Profile
quote:Good point and the character editor could help for that. So that make no sense to do very tough scenario when the player will manage that as he want. Well I don't find useless difficulty setting in BoA, it's more easy to manage for the player and that's very pratical and it already worked very well for me. [ Sunday, April 11, 2004 07:14: Message edited by: Vent ] Posts: 175 | Registered: Friday, April 2 2004 08:00 |
| Special ability lost in Za-Khazi Run in Blades of Avernum | |
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Warrior
Member # 4186
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written Sunday, April 11 2004 01:13
Profile
quote:Cheater! But thanks to focus my attention on that, that tricks could help me in another stuck case. quote:you probably means the lava area inside the treasure area. Thanks a lot, I was believing I hadn't trigger something before :) . Honestely it's a bit late, I already took back my first saving and succeed fail the scenario! But I am replaying it and this hint will help a lot. quote:Lol I didn't quoted that at all :) . Thanks for the hint. [ Sunday, April 11, 2004 01:21: Message edited by: Vent ] Posts: 175 | Registered: Friday, April 2 2004 08:00 |
| Special ability lost in Za-Khazi Run in Blades of Avernum | |
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Warrior
Member # 4186
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written Saturday, April 10 2004 00:00
Profile
No solution? To get back the skill for one of my character, it's fine if it's through cheating from character editor (I see the lost of this skill as a bug so I don't care to cheat to solve that). I try the character editor but I don't see how I could restore the skill. Any suggestions? Also, I don't want check the hint guide but at my replay I got stuck in the area where you can steal Morog's treasure. I entered the area, a green rune was closing the door, but by puting the leader on it and last member near a lever, I could open the door enter the area and not trigger it's close. But now I want escape, going to the green rune close the door and I'm stuck. I founded a secret area with a rune but it doesn't seem to help me escape the area. Is there any way to escape? Posts: 175 | Registered: Friday, April 2 2004 08:00 |
| skills in Blades of Avernum | |
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Warrior
Member # 4186
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written Friday, April 9 2004 23:22
Profile
quote:Why I don't have any of those it seems my characters have the requirement? One character has Str 14, Dex 10, Melee 8, Defense 8 and it has none of those : Quick Strike: Dexterity at least 8, Melee or Pole Weapons at least 6 Parry: Dex 8, Defense 6 Gymnastics: Strength 8, Dex 10 The only skill I got is for one char Magery, I also bougth sharpshooter but can't train it normally but the characters doesn't match the requirements of this skill. Are those numbers requirements really right? Why this doesn't work for my char? EDIT : In fact I got 2 special abilities, magery for two chars and pathfinder for one. It's seems one char (the one mentionned above) cannot get any special ability. Is that possible and why? [ Sunday, April 11, 2004 01:33: Message edited by: Vent ] Posts: 175 | Registered: Friday, April 2 2004 08:00 |
| scenario criticism in Blades of Avernum | |
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Warrior
Member # 4186
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written Friday, April 9 2004 22:51
Profile
quote:Lol, I won't do it because I can't delete my own messages. quote:Good point, so that falls in what I mentionned, wrong game design for BoE. It seems BoA allows to the player to adjust the difficulty, if that really works that is a major improvement versus BoE. Posts: 175 | Registered: Friday, April 2 2004 08:00 |
| scenario criticism in Blades of Avernum | |
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Warrior
Member # 4186
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written Friday, April 9 2004 13:32
Profile
quote:Wrong, appart if you want a post on 5 pages about 10 subjects. But I bet you don't want that. Hint, don't care of the author and imagine there are many different Vent :) . Or perhaps I sould suscribe more than one to make that softer ;) . I have a hint to stop me (for now) posting here, just answer my question about "Run" scenario :P . Edit :D : About making the 4 posts into one not including this one, afterall I don't care and if a forum leader want to concatanate them (those that didn't get an answer) and remove those that became useless, that's ok for me. I'll perphaps post another longuer post, please don't include it in the concatenation. [ Friday, April 09, 2004 13:42: Message edited by: Vent ] Posts: 175 | Registered: Friday, April 2 2004 08:00 |
| scenario criticism in Blades of Avernum | |
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Warrior
Member # 4186
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written Friday, April 9 2004 13:27
Profile
quote:For me the global game design has a real flaw in difficulty setting design if to match difficulty whish of some hardcore players, a module need to be as difficult than you describe at any difficulty level setting. If it has this difficulty level at normal difficulty setting then how it is at nightmare difficulty setting? If it is still bloody hard and not impossible to end then game design has a problem, I mean BOE not the scenario. If it becomes impossible to end (I don't mean with a cheating overpowerfull party) at nightmare setting then the scenario design is wrong. I strongly agree with Jeff comment about that in editor doc. A good game ballance should be achieved without a too high difficulty (nor a too low). That is for normal difficulty setting. And nightmare difficulty setting should be for hardcore players that want high challenge. Posts: 175 | Registered: Friday, April 2 2004 08:00 |
| scenario criticism in Blades of Avernum | |
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Warrior
Member # 4186
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written Friday, April 9 2004 12:44
Profile
quote:That's a common and sensible argument. I understand it but I don't share it. Through various games along the time with users addon you'll find plenty very low quality addon that required hundreds of hours if not thousands. As player I have firstly a deep thanks to the author to have provide this free stuff for the game I like. I could also be impressed by the amount to time, talent, brain and sweat that it required. That won't change that if I disliked it, I could tell it. I'll try not hurt anybody and see the positive points too. But at the end what is important is the effect the addon had on me when I played it, how much fun and pleasure it involves, not how much I'm impressed by that amount of work, time spend, end so on. Posts: 175 | Registered: Friday, April 2 2004 08:00 |
| scenario criticism in Blades of Avernum | |
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Warrior
Member # 4186
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written Friday, April 9 2004 12:25
Profile
It's interesting to quote how most people that comment on best qualities for a module end to detail mostly only about quality on story writing implemented through the game. This is probably because the game is really good to design that but less on having fun from other game features. Like fighting design, puzzles design, secrets design, exploration design, character building design, sneaking action design, and many more game features you can find through different computer RPG, not necesseraly BOA. I don't say that story writing qualities of a module is (or not) much more important than all other features. Also I don't say that it's pure story writting but here the pen and pencil are the editors and the words aren't only the sentences. Still when reading the thread, the special words as fights, secrets and so on seems really important through their role in the story writing. Posts: 175 | Registered: Friday, April 2 2004 08:00 |
| Special ability lost in Za-Khazi Run in Blades of Avernum | |
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Warrior
Member # 4186
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written Friday, April 9 2004 12:12
Profile
In Za-Khazi Run I lost a special ability from licorns but noticed that only after many game saving and progress. I took back a much older save game but succeed get trapped without seeing how to escape an area! So afterall I'd like get back the ability without to have to get back to an old save game. Is there any way to get it back? It disapear when you use the ability more than one a day then second time the button disapear and never come back. Posts: 175 | Registered: Friday, April 2 2004 08:00 |
| scenario criticism in Blades of Avernum | |
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Warrior
Member # 4186
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written Friday, April 9 2004 12:04
Profile
quote:What you describe is more having a scale on 9 not on 10 ;) . I just wanted to point how having a rate scale through time is mostly impossible particularely when you have rate hundreds stuff. You can't rate them again if your scale evolves and even with small numbers just because of two reasons : - After some times your memory make you look different a scenario. - Even if you had the time to replay them, you'll in part rate it again as a replay not a play. It doesn't matter that on a scale on 10 you stick rating to 9 or 9.5. At the end you'll have modules rated 9.5 or 9 that have very different values. If you had to replay them in a row as it could happen to a newbie you'll be hurt to gave them a same rating. That's just a remark, no deep consequences :P Posts: 175 | Registered: Friday, April 2 2004 08:00 |
| scenario criticism in Blades of Avernum | |
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Warrior
Member # 4186
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written Wednesday, April 7 2004 16:03
Profile
quote:Rates are generaly hurt through time. Appart if the engine is too much limited you'll find your 10 rated scenario and some month later you'll find another one clearly better. Constantly redo the rates of all modules you had play is also an impossible task because your memory will change many thing. So well rates doesn't work well through time so I don't think there's a need to plan for future. quote:It's better to use words to make more concrete asbract numbers. But it's still not an absolute scale. "super awesome" isn't more an absolute rate than 10. "best scenario out there" is a typical comparison scale and I don't see how doing different. It's just related to the problem mentioned above, the scale evolves because module makers will overall improve through time. It's sure that an engine even with plenty depth and possibilities will reach a limit crossed with a human invest time and effort limit. But just one maker could be enough to break the limit that you thought to have been reach. That said, BOA engine is perhaps so close to BOE engine that using the older BOE scale make sense and then a 7 rate of the best BOA 4 scenario is fair compared to BOE scenario. It's even more fair because BOA is more new and you can hope it allows better stuff. Posts: 175 | Registered: Friday, April 2 2004 08:00 |
| Using a party form VoDT to ASR in Blades of Avernum | |
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Warrior
Member # 4186
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written Friday, April 2 2004 11:15
Profile
Thanks for the advice, so go to new adventures! For care I'll rise difficulty, afterall I think VoDT was too easy at default difficulty. Posts: 175 | Registered: Friday, April 2 2004 08:00 |