Things that bug me about A4
| Author | Topic: Things that bug me about A4 |
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Apprentice
Member # 6149
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written Wednesday, May 3 2006 11:26
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So I'm just past fort remote now, almost done tearing down the pylons before going after Rentar. There's a number of things that bug me about A4, so I thought I'd make a list. These are in no particular order... 1. Monster AI. Now I understand no independant gaming company is going to be able to design killer AI when even the big boys have trouble doing it, but sometimes the monsters are just stupid. They can't open doors, allowing them to be exploited. Sometimes I can pop around a corner while hasted, shoot or cast a spell at them, then pop back into hiding, and they won't come find me. Or archers (casters too) who won't move just into range and fire. If I see an archer and enter combat mode, I can simply step back just out of range. They will then run their fill movement forward. This is too easily exploited; if they would only step just into range and fire, they can force me to fight at range (where they are far more deadly than in melee) or draw me closer (perhaps into some turrets). 2. Carrying Capacity Weight limits, for me, are just annoying. As in not fun. You offer training at crazy prices, then make people make several trips just to cart off loot. On the other hand, weight limits are good for making strength worthwhile, as casters can ignore it but then have trouble wearing heavy armor and such without being encumbered. My solution is to count ONLY items in the quickslots and actually worn by your character against encumberance. Say adventurers get a standard-issue bag of holding for loot. Now you can lower the amount you can carry at any strength to rebalance it for only equipment worn. This way encumberance is still an issue, but you haven't got to either drop all your loot on the ground to pick up later, or go back through an area you cleared to loot it. Both of which solve the problem, but are clunky and annoying solutions. 3. Buying Training Only being able to train if you haven't bought the skill is annoying to me. It encourages you to do without skills until you can train in them...which is annoying. You should be able to train up to twice only in any skill at any time, but have it not count as if you had trained the skill yourself (like it currently does...if you train twice, the cost to increase a skill goes up just like if you trained it manually). Waiting to buy skills is unfun...as is finding out you could have trained in a skill, only you just spent skillpoints on it before finding the trianer. 4. Undefended Turrets This is a big one for me right now, after facing those uber-pylons. Taking out undefended turrets is just time-consuming and unfun. Pylons can't even shoot as far as you can...so you just haste, stand out of range, and attack until it dies. Return to town on occasion to refil mana. Rinse and repeat. Even turrets that have the same range as you are just timesinks once you have haste and can dance in and out of range at will. Now if they were defended by archers and other ranged monsters seeking to draw you into range of the turrets, they would serve a combat purpose. Or worse yet, if there were monsters that had a chance to push or pull your character around, drawing them into range against your will... The only other way turrets/pylons can have an impact on gameplay is covered next... 5. It's too easy to recharge Right now, if you clear an area, it's cleared (with very few and minor exceptions). So you clear as far as you can, run home and recharge, and clear a little further. It's like having effectively unlimited mana once you have enough to get through a single fight. If this were changed so characters were required to have more endurance more often, that would be good. Like when you first talk to Rentar via crystal and he activates a bunch of pylons and monsters and you have to fight your way free. Here you have to have the endurnace to survive several battles in a row to get out. It would be tougher if it wasn't so obviously a trap and if you couldn't destroy the pylons ahead of time... This also makes even undefended turrets useful to gameplay, as you have to spend precious spell energy to haste characters to dance in and out of range to eliminate them, or just run at them and take the hits. The game would change completely if there were more areas that required you to be able to fight multiple battles and press yourself forward before you get to a safehaven to recharge. Potions would be more vital, magical efficiency more important, and battles more strategic...you'd have to really ration your spell use. I'm not sure the best way to accomplish it...traps like Rentar uses on you would work, as would dungeons that regenerate or repopulate over time...so if you try to chip away at them, they just respopulate monsters and such if you run back to town (spawners buried deep in them, perhaps). Wow, this has gotten to be a novel. Those are the issues I can think of at the moment. Let me know what you think! [ Wednesday, May 03, 2006 11:26: Message edited by: Dunbar42 ] Posts: 18 | Registered: Monday, July 25 2005 07:00 |
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Agent
Member # 4506
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written Wednesday, May 3 2006 11:32
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Glad you enjoyed the game. ;) I found the recharge annoying, but quite frankly no-one expected great things from Avernum 4. This game was the "engine-tweaker". Avernum 5 is meant to be polished. The monster AI while stupid did manage to get archers to hammer at me properly though, maybe it's just you. The weight is fine by me, as it's good enough. The AP system of the previous Avernum's was FAR better, but I think that it'll get better as you get used to it. Turrets = Annoying. Simple as that. Don't expect anything more from them. - Archmagus Micael -------------------- "You dare Trifle with Avernum?" ~ Erika the Archmage -------------------- My Scenarios: Undead Valley : A small Undead problem, what could possibly go wrong? -------------------- Richard Black - PROOF of his existance (the Infernal one's website). -------------------- MY FORUM! Randomosity at it's highest! :) Posts: 1370 | Registered: Thursday, June 10 2004 07:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 4153
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written Wednesday, May 3 2006 11:39
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Many of these have been addressed before. 1. Monsters haven't been able to open doors reliably since Exile. But yes, most of the A4 AI is just gratuitously stupid. 2. "Standard issue bag of holding"... no. I like the encumbrance system in A4, since it finally makes sense. In previous Avernums, it was incredibly difficult to isolate the problem that was suddenly causing your fighter to lose an AP. And besides, it never made sense that you could carry 750 pounds of gear, but not 751 pounds. 3. True, but trainers have always been weird in Avernums. At least spells kind of got fixed, away from the simple 1-2-3 system of A1-3, but avoiding the broken-ness that is the BoA spell-levelling system. 4. Pylons are just bad. They shouldn't have been dredged from the Geneforge pile. They're bad enough without making them more complicated. 5. I feel like many people agree here. I, for one, liked resting, but I also liked the outdoors. Even the "dancing back and forth" recharging strategy from A1-BoA was nicer than just getting fully recharged once you took one step past the town's gates. I recall that in previous Avernums, there were dungeons that would mildly repopulate if you didn't slay the source of monsters (be it the goblin chief, giant chitrach, or head vampire). This is also doable in BoA. I don't understand why it failed to make the cut for A4... perhaps engine difficulties. So, in short, thank you for sharing, and thank you for keeping the complaints away from the standard "i just dident lyke et" that we get way too often (it is a relief, seriously). -------------------- Thuryl: "Runescape: for people who are too stupid to save their games." Gamble with Gaea, and she eats your dice. Posts: 4130 | Registered: Friday, March 26 2004 08:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
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written Wednesday, May 3 2006 14:54
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3. If training could just be bought like spells, everyone would just buy all the useful skills. This way at least makes you put some effort into getting ahead of the curve. 4. Pylons serve their purpose. They're tedious but easy when unguarded, and I think maybe the tediousness could be toned down, but there are some places where immobile, powerful enemies are good. I think the "deadly" pylons scattered around the Basalt Fortress should have their range increased to be equal to the party's, though. 5. Avernum didn't repopulate either, and to be honest the recharging doesn't bother me. You could do it by dancing around by a town before, or by paying a few coins, so the only real difference is time saving. I wouldn't mind a little dungeon repopulation, but that's a different issue and I don't really feel strongly about it. —Alorael, who can see one reason for encumberance, too: helpful stuff. You can't lug all your potions, wands, various pointy implements, and so on with you everywhere anymore. Now you need to prioritize. Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00 |
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BANNED
Member # 4
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written Wednesday, May 3 2006 16:02
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Things that bug me about A4: 1. It sucks ass. -------------------- * Posts: 6936 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
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Lifecrafter
Member # 6403
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written Wednesday, May 3 2006 16:06
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quote: quote: -------------------- ??? ?????? ???? ????? Posts: 883 | Registered: Wednesday, October 19 2005 07:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 6785
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written Wednesday, May 3 2006 18:19
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Random monster encounters were almost entirely dropped from A4 except for rats and bats. Maybe A5 will bring them back so when you are damaged you can't stroll back to town to heal. The weight system makes sense now. At least there is some balance since you haul almost everything back to town to sell. The pylons should have had more monsters mixed in with them. A smarter AI would have had the few that were there retreat behind the pylon/turret range to heal and pop out and attack. Posts: 4643 | Registered: Friday, February 10 2006 08:00 |
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BANNED
Member # 4
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written Wednesday, May 3 2006 19:01
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quote:Fine, you want clarification? It suffers from the Galactic Core bug. -------------------- * Posts: 6936 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
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Shock Trooper
Member # 6821
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written Wednesday, May 3 2006 21:31
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1. I somewhat agree . Fighting a few Runed Pylons wasn't bad, but a ton of Runed Pylons is simply too much. Fortunately, you don't actually have to fight the Runed Pylons near Rentar's second keep - there's a trick to get past them, even if you want to get the Heartstriker Bow. I liked the Radiant Pylons, though, as they weren't as bad. 2. I agree on the fact that carrying capacity sucks, but I disagree with the way you want to solve it. Not only would it not make sense, some people (*cough*such as me*cough*) don't even use quickslots. 3. Yep, I also think this is annoying, but on the other hand, you don't really need to buy skills to finish Avernum 4. 4. There aren't that many undefended turrets, actually. How about turrets who would have a longer range than yours? Nevermind, I'm evil. ;) 5. Sounds interesting, but I still prefer the A4 resurrection over those of the previous Avernums. The idea that fights should require more strategy does sound nice, however. EDIT : And rentar is a she, by the way. [ Wednesday, May 03, 2006 21:35: Message edited by: The Lurker ] Posts: 363 | Registered: Wednesday, February 22 2006 08:00 |
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Raven v. Writing Desk
Member # 261
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written Wednesday, May 3 2006 22:35
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quote:Quoted for intelligence. This is a really good solution. It allows strength to still matter, while getting rid of the annoying "I need to make four trips to loot the giant fort" syndrome. One of Jeff's goals, with most of the positive changes in A4, was to reduce waste of time and annoyance factor. In some ways, this succeeded. Changing encumbrance to focus on equipment worn would be a great way to keep on doing that. -------------------- Slarty vs. Desk • Desk vs. Slarty • Timeline of Ermarian • G4 Strategy Central Posts: 3560 | Registered: Wednesday, November 7 2001 08:00 |
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Apprentice
Member # 6149
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written Thursday, May 4 2006 14:22
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quote:Actually, I am enjoying the game...I know my post was negative, but there are a few things about the game that lessen my enjoyment. Overall I'm having fun, and I'm interested enough in Avernum now to go back and try A1-A3. There are ways the gameplay could be improved, however, so I thought I'd voice my opinions. Having the monsters be a bit more intelligent would be nice, even if it is just some heavily-scripted battles. The tedium of some of the game sometimes just gets to me, though. Fields of uber-pylons that are nothing but a time-sink are just unoriginal and boring. Carting off loot gets old really fast...it's the same problem in the geneforge games as well. I remember replaying G3 and using a money cheat. It was actually a lot of fun to just play through the game, and ignore any loot that wasn't an upgrade. I realized just how much of a timesink gathing and selling items was...and from the first time I played, I knew what training I could afford when, so I only gave myself the appropriate amount of money at different points in the game. So it was, to my mind, "fair" cheating...I was only really avoiding an unfun timesink. But I'd really love to see epic dungeon crawls where you do not have the ability to go home and recharge in the middle...geneforge suffers from this problem as well. I'd like to see gameplay that requires characters to have some endurance, to have to ration their resources, to make me think hard about how I will press forward because I have to. Instead of just saying hmm, I'm low on spellpoints, I'll just pop back to town and pick up where I left off. If you are going to do that, just add a rest button that refills your health/mana if you are out of combat and no monsters are coming for you. This would really change the game, and for the better IMHO. You have to really think about your tactics beyond just winning the current battle. Posts: 18 | Registered: Monday, July 25 2005 07:00 |