Avernum: Escape from the Pit

[Kreador Freeaxe]

I've seen lots of complaints from people on the Spiderweb forums about being unable to hit at early and mid levels. It may depend on what difficulty setting you're playing at, and it may be that you're trying to fight enemies that are a bit too hard for you right at that point.

[deathknight1728]

I know there are complaints, but the moderators and experienced players act as if the game has nothing wrong with it. I read 2 reviews one of which where the reviewer said that as the game went on, you can only do certain tasks and it heavily limits you to the point where you get to the end of a dungeon and cant hit the boss, forcing you to go all the way back. Ive had this happen with the undead in mertis and it sucked. What was jeff thinking?

[Randomizer]

This goes back to the original first Avernum Trilogy where fighters have a lower base to hit chance than those using spells. Also all the nice pieces of armor that give you a little more protection have penalties to the to hit chance and drive it down quite quickly.

Older players are a bit more use to the problem than those that started with Avernum 4 or later where fighters could hit better.


Slarty is testing a public beta of revisions to Avernum: Escape from the Pit to make the game more balanced for weapons and skills. Plus he's changed several unique items so they have different bonuses and changed some spells to add different ones in place of those that aren't used as much.

[Kreador Freeaxe]

I think a lot of the stuff is where it is and how it is because that's the way it was the first time Jeff made the game. There is a definite mix of easy stuff and ridiculously hard stuff side by side. Mertis is a perfect example. In my playthroughs I left the Spiral Pit until much later in the game, because I remembered how tough it was in Avernum 6 (the first Spiderweb game I played). A bit of meta-gaming there that saved me a lot of frustration.

EDIT:
Understand, I'm not saying that it's great game design to do that. It's a very open world, which annoys a lot of people with the sudden switches from "I'm a demigod wiping out everything" to "OMG I got one-hit killed before I could move!"

[deathknight1728]

Well it doesnt really matter that much. Im glad he's staying true to his fans of that genre. Im just more used avernum 4 5 and 6. I found that the fallout type random battle thing was not my cup of tea anyway, i preferred 4-6 because you actually have to think of how to build your character due to the limited zones you had. You could slack off a little bit more in 1-3 due to the unlimited enemies. Each level was much more important as there were only so many zones to go to before you gained less exp to no exp.

If anything, i still would like to see another series like avernum 4-6, reminded me of icewind dale.

What do you think randomizer, do you think that jeff might ever make another series of create a party type nature like avernum?

[Randomizer]

Shakes a magic 8 ball - The future is unclear.

Jeff hasn't really said what he will do next beyond making Avadon 2 this year and continuing to remake Avernum 2 and 3 to make them run on more recent computers. I suppose he will continue to make the iPad port himself and let others do LINUX and Android ports of the new games.

Three years ago while working on Avernum 6, Jeff mentioned he had an idea for an Avernum prequel taking place before Avernum 1, but he gave no details. We've speculated that it could either be the First Expedition sent down by the Empire or set in the time when Erika, Solberg, and Patrick imprisoned Grah-Hoth and cleared the caves of the demons to establish Avernum.

We have suggested several game ideas over the years and the only things that has been clearly rejected are anything using an older game engine like Blades of Avernum (Nethergate: Resurrection is the last to use that game engine) or another Blades scenario creation game editor like Blades of Geneforge since Blades of Avernum sold so poorly.

[sapientCrow]

Some of the greatest things about Avernum is the writing and the unique style of how the game connects and how the story is told. All the different npcs that have dialog and how so much energy and time was actually put into playing that out.

Some of the worst parts of the game I have now experienced is the obvious lack of play testing if there is any and the really bizarre design implementations such as with avernum the strange need to absolutely not diversify at all and in avadon the way the travel is designed and the total lack of sound effects and music or at least a diversity of them. There is just a huge amount of things re-used in avadon with different names and icons.

My guess is lack of input and testing because I do not see Jeff in the forums or really talking at all. I also think and I am assuming again here is that Jeff does everything himself. At this point I think my biggest suggestion looking at a lot of different Indie games is that he needs some more people on the team to give input.

I am still playing through these games because the story is probably the best written and best woven in any game I have played for a really long time.

[Randomizer]

Jeff has about 4 months of beta testing before releasing the Mac version. However the first round beta testers that start the testing are all insane min/max power gamers that have tested previous games. The second round testers start about 2 months later and are selected on writing ability to tell Jeff what they find wrong so he can fix it and to diversify the computer platforms with more operating systems and hardware to catch problems that might be unique to a specific system like Apple's Magic Trackpad or Power PC cpus.

Avernum 5 was the first time Jeff really wanted to know how players did boss fights. He wasn't pleased with all the exploits that we used to turn hard fights into trivial loot fests. So no more using terror wands/spells to keep the boss monster from doing anything but cower in the corner until it died, or summon a horde of creatures to deal with the monster. My favorite of spray acid on the monster and walk away only to return later when its dead to collect the loot was replaced with you had to stay there and risk damage.

Avernum 6 showed the difference between first round testers that finished the game and second round testers that were giving up in the last quarter as they couldn't fight their way to Formello. Jeff had to make the game easier to get testers to finish. I know players would have freaked out if they knew how hard the early rats in Avadon's dungeon cells were for starting players. Originally the rats each took 5 or 6 rounds to kill on normal difficulty

Mostly the testing looks at typographical errors in the texts, wrong graphics, mismatched graphics and id tags when you use the TAB key, just plain wrong information that tells you the wrong place to go, quests that can give infinite rewards because you can keep turning them in, and no quest reward when you turn it in. Then there are the combat problems like the blasted monster just won't die because there is an error in the script. Abilities and/or spells that don't work right. Some testers make sure the sound effects match the actions.

There used to be more sounds and music in the Exile games, but Jeff has gone away from it.

Jeff does over 90% of the work with some help for item placement and he contracts out artwork.

[blatherbeard]

After some talk in another thread about spiderweb, i decided to take another plunge and buy this one.

Started out great, tough but not impossible on normal. Got to level 8 with my characters, a death here and there, pretty cool says i. I didnt expect a whole city, just figured itd be an escape back to the surface type story os that was another plus.

then the brakes were applied.

It got old real damn quick, consistently losing at least 1 if not the whole party in what looked to be something that should have been a relatively standard battle. Then i saw a pattern arise, pretty much every monster was hitting 2 to 3 times, per round, and both my fighters missed about every 4th turn, if not more often. Mages started missing with spells, consistently.

Thought i may have gone south too far, not the case. Still in the north where its supposed to be "easier", and getting my arse handed to me by everything.

Still a fun game though, and for what i paid, still worth what i spent.

I do get a bit irritated though, having to put it on casual, since i consider normal more difficult than what should be "normal" at this level.

Taking into consideration this was my first day of gameplay, not ready to give up the ship yet!!!!

But as it stands now, i feel like im playing a game of old fashioned DnD where the DM relished killing players.

[Painted Lady]

I've been working my way through the Spiderweb games for a while now, and have enjoyed them immensely. I recently had a huge problem with Nethergate:R - it seems some skeletons moved some blocks around and boxed me in. Anyway, a restore and replay fixed the problem.

Regarding the difficulty level, I have pretty much found the games challenging, but doable. I was involved in the iPad beta for Avernum: EftP and really had to work to get through it. I ran out of encounters that I could handle, so I went back up north and eventually leveled up enough to make it through, but it was tough. Apparently others were having the same problem because Jeff toned down the boss fights just enough (after I was through them!) to make the early part of the game more reasonable.

The only fight I've bailed out of was the Avadon ending that involved killing Redbeard. It looked like more agony than it was worth.......

The games seem rewarding because you really feel you have accomplished something when you make it through to the end. I think they are terrific.

[blatherbeard]

Regarding the difficulty level, I have pretty much found the games challenging, but doable. I was involved in the iPad beta for Avernum: EftP and really had to work to get through it. I ran out of encounters that I could handle, so I went back up north and eventually leveled up enough to make it through, but it was tough.

Im down with tough. I've played tough. Final Fantasy--the original-was one of the hardest, most challenging rpgs ever made, and i beat that.

Where in the "north" can you level? Im fine with having to grind a bit to gain an advantage. Im one of those idiots who spend hours just leveling up so i can beat the game more easily, even if it takes hours to get there(what you pretty much had to do in FF).

I just seem to have pretty much run out of enemies in the north. Nothings respawned as of yet, and i cannot find quests, that dont have some kind of monster that hits for more hp than at least 2 of my characters have at the moment.

[Painted Lady]

Where in the "north" can you level? Im fine with having to grind a bit to gain an advantage. Im one of those idiots who spend hours just leveling up so i can beat the game more easily, even if it takes hours to get there(what you pretty much had to do in FF).

I just seem to have pretty much run out of enemies in the north. Nothings respawned as of yet, and i cannot find quests, that dont have some kind of monster that hits for more hp than at least 2 of my characters have at the moment.

Well, I can only speak from my own experience of course, but I headed off for Formello before I really did all the quests around Fort Dranlon, Fort Draco and the Island Fort. The Honeycomb and Almaria had some places to pick up XP. I also got into the Spiral Pit near Mertis. I wasn't able to deal with the boss fight right away, but was able to harvest some XP before I headed out for a while.

[Kreador Freeaxe]

You can also buy a boat in Cotra and do some exploring, which can gain you experience for finding places, and also for completing some of the simple delivery quests. If you remember to save before you get out of the boat, you can restart without losing much ground if you get out in the wrong place.

Also, though, it may be a matter of how you built or outfitted your characters. While heavy breastplates and stuff look like great protection, they do more to damage your to-hit than they benefit in reducing incoming damage. You REALLY want to be careful of the -% to hit on armor. Focus melee characters on Strength and magic characters on Intelligence and you should start to get better. You take much less damage from dead opponents.

[deathknight1728]

You start off with 3 missions that you can do to gain experience and levels. they are from lvl 1-3 (or 4) and are as follows-

Lvl1-4

-Bandit fort north of dunno (this can be done except for the mage unless you get lucky and divide his forces.
-Goblin cave north of bandit fort. This whole area can be done for a lvl at least at any lvl. This is an ideal dungeon for 1st lvl characters.
-Bat cave northeast of fort duvno. This can be done except once you reach the fierce rats (the red ones), and stay clear of the hidden undead as they will cream you.

Lvl4-6

At this point you have many choices. If you haven't already i would do some of the fetch quests that are easy, message to dranlon from cotra, message to duvno from silvar, bandits from farm merchant in duvno, the girl finding her sister in fort avernum. Those are all easy quests.

At this point you can go to silver at lvl 4 or later and do the sewers mission from the mayor.

Lvl6-8
Once you do all this and wander around and gain lvls up to 7 or 6. Proceed to formello. You can clear out the rats underneath town, go to the deadly crypt and fight most of the undead except the really tough ones. Do a few easy fetch quests for the priest in formello church. There are also a few combat quests such as the ogre and others.

From then on you have to chip away or do all of the nephilim fortress.

This is where it gets cool. You can go south and fight some undead, killing most if not all in the fortress.

Or you can do some of the aranea fights but not all at lvl 8,9, or 10.

Once you reach lvl 11, you should be able to lvl a bit in ogre areas next to mertis and tower of magi.

Once there you have a bit of choice again. You can do a few slith fights on island fortress if you are careful enough at lvl 11 or 12. You can alternatively go north and run into kyass of freehold and complete his first quest. Heh, its tough though at that lvl and the main reason i completed it was because i holed myself into the doorway and let each melee come at once.

From there you are in the same boat i have been in. Staying in almaria and doing quests underneath sewers. Or if you want you can go to the capital and do minor fetch quests.

Ill stop here as its the furthest I've got and i don't like writing guides.

I think that in all honesty, there are at least 2 places that you can go for each lvl that you are currently at. If you are like me and don't like waiting for enemies to appear then you will find something to slay eventually. Although i really should lvl my chars a bit that way as it supposedly works.

[blatherbeard]

THanks for the tips all.

I think ive done pretty much what you said dk, before i even read your response.

I found the Areanea spider quests, did alot of them, but when i got to the section where imps appear at random, about 10 of them, i gave up on that section.

I also found the undead, which were easy, til i hit the part where it goes dark, had to give up on that as well.

I believe im lvl 8 or 9, lvl 10 with 1 toon.

Most everything else is handing me my ass. May have to rethink builds. 1 fighter is ok, 1 fighter with dex sucks. the one with dex, hits less than the one with str wearing nearly full plate.

Magic user and priest are hit or miss, depending on my luck or if i get hit with 5 spells at once and just die.

Still a good game overall though, if i get pissed enough ill just casual it for the story.