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Avalerion posted:Has he ever said why he lowered the party limit from 6 to 4 in his recent games/remakes, that’s really my only complaint with them. In avernum polearm fighter and archer have to compete for the last slot. I think the official reason he's given was that a 6-character party gives you too much redundancy and makes each individual party member feel less strategically important, although I wouldn't be surprised if the fact that the pathfinding algorithm misbehaves when it's moving a large number of characters in a small space was also a consideration. (You can see this in Geneforge if you have a large number of creations; sometimes when you enter certain areas, the game will just place one of them somewhere weird and far away from everyone else.)
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Aug 27, 2019 11:18
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Can't imagine that's the reason. There are typically a lot more than six hostiles per map and presumably they all use the same pathfinding algorithm you do, glitches nonwithstanding. Hasn't yet stopped him from putting them in there anyway.
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Aug 27, 2019 11:32
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GreenNight posted:Another blog post by Jeff after the flak he got for his last post. “Jeff in the comments” posted:It was been a full decade since we have had a serious recession. I feel like a lot I've been hearing about financing companies comes from a mindset of never having really experienced a bad economy, with poor scared customers and tight credit. Some customers directly lose their jobs. Others might stay employed but don’t get raises so they cut back on extras since rent and the like still increase every year even in a bad economy. And others (usually the vast majority) are actually doing just fine financially but see what’s happening around them and maybe delay optional purchases out of caution. And games are going to be pretty far down the list of optional entertainment items for many people - not because they’re not fun or important, but because everybody has a huge-rear end backlog. Pull up your Steam library (or GoG or Epic or wherever you store you games) right now. Count up the number of games you have that are either: (1) never played or barely touched, (2) played a bunch and enjoyed but never finished, or (3) played extensively but you would still happily replay. I’ll bet every single person in this thread is well into double digits. Some of us are probably 50+. When a recession hits, are you really dropping $25 on a new game or are you going back to a game already in your library (i.e., free)?
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Aug 27, 2019 12:25
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I thought it was for game balance reasons
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Aug 27, 2019 12:25
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Cardiovorax posted:Can't imagine that's the reason. There are typically a lot more than six hostiles per map and presumably they all use the same pathfinding algorithm you do, glitches nonwithstanding. Hasn't yet stopped him from putting them in there anyway. The player doesn't generally care if hostiles make bad pathing decisions, but they definitely care if their own party does. That said, I've always been of the opinion that he dropped the party size to make each party member individually more important. In particular, with 4 party members, he can generally count on each party having roughly similar composition, and can therefore balance the dungeons around "you'll probably have one priest, one mage, one frontliner, and one flex character". That's far easier for him to deal with than "you have 1-3 frontliners and 2-4 casters who have some unknown split between priest and mage spells". It's pretty clear he doesn't have the QA resources to spend on making sure that dungeons are fun for a wide range of party compositions, and I wouldn't take it as given that it's an easy job just because he managed to pull it off a few times in the early days.
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Aug 27, 2019 15:42
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:The player doesn't generally care if hostiles make bad pathing decisions, but they definitely care if their own party does.
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Aug 27, 2019 15:51
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im honor bound by catholic guilt to buy every new Vogel game cause I spent the entirety of the 90s using keygens to play all his games for free while in junior high and will never forgive myself
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Aug 27, 2019 20:12
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Berke Negri posted:im honor bound by catholic guilt to buy every new Vogel game cause I spent the entirety of the 90s using keygens to play all his games for free while in junior high and will never forgive myself Jesus died for your sins. Say two Hail Mary's and you're golden.
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Aug 27, 2019 20:16
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Berke Negri posted:im honor bound by catholic guilt to buy every new Vogel game cause I spent the entirety of the 90s using keygens to play all his games for free while in junior high and will never forgive myself The Queen's Wish kickstarter explicitly had a tier for people who had pirated his games in the past and wanted to be absolved of that sin.
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Aug 27, 2019 20:25
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:The Queen's Wish kickstarter explicitly had a tier for people who had pirated his games in the past and wanted to be absolved of that sin. that owns
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Aug 27, 2019 20:29
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Berke Negri posted:im honor bound by catholic guilt to buy every new Vogel game cause I spent the entirety of the 90s using keygens to play all his games for free while in junior high and will never forgive myself You didn't buy the Scroll of Reconciliation in the Queen's Wish kickstarter? EDIT : Forgot to read entire 4 posts before posting.
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Aug 27, 2019 21:06
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Avalerion posted:Has he ever said why he lowered the party limit from 6 to 4 in his recent games/remakes, that’s really my only complaint with them. In avernum polearm fighter and archer have to compete for the last slot. Everyone makes good points, but lowering the party size really hurt the fun factor for me. Five would have been a cut, but four is an amputation. There is so much less playing with gear and goofy builds with a four-man party. Berke Negri posted:im honor bound by catholic guilt to buy every new Vogel game cause I spent the entirety of the 90s using keygens to play all his games for free while in junior high and will never forgive myself Same but Brit/Jew guilt. Mind you, I haven't purchased Avernum 3 remake yet as I'm so far behind.
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Aug 28, 2019 01:56
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JustJeff88 posted:Everyone makes good points, but lowering the party size really hurt the fun factor for me. Five would have been a cut, but four is an amputation. There is so much less playing with gear and goofy builds with a four-man party. 
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Aug 28, 2019 02:11
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yeah id like 5 as is you got tank + mage school caster + priest school caster so youre super limited with that flex
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Aug 28, 2019 03:07
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Cardiovorax posted:Maybe, but I imagine Jeff Vogel would if it turned out that numbers larger than four make it glitch out completely and regularly get them stuck inside walls and such. This could straight-up happen to your party in Blades of Avernum if you entered a new area with a very narrow entry zone and guest party members tagging along; usually map design in official games had a little bit of open space around the entrance of every map area so that nothing quite that bad would happen, but obviously BoA had player-made scenarios made by people who weren't aware of that engine limitation and therefore didn't take the necessary precautions.
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Aug 28, 2019 06:44
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Thuryl posted:This could straight-up happen to your party in Blades of Avernum if you entered a new area with a very narrow entry zone and guest party members tagging along; usually map design in official games had a little bit of open space around the entrance of every map area so that nothing quite that bad would happen, but obviously BoA had player-made scenarios made by people who weren't aware of that engine limitation and therefore didn't take the necessary precautions. Didn't Jeff also say Blades of Avernum took up more of his time than any other game he's made, for reasons like this?
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Aug 28, 2019 07:28
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Berke Negri posted:yeah id like 5 One of the annoying things for me is the tank is usually necessary to survive in the early game but by the end of the game your tank can be pretty useless if you haven't been really careful with your build and items. A level 30 something mage or priest in one of the Avernum games is better in basically every way than a melee heavy tank unless you're facing a specific enemy resistant to your best spells. I haven't played them in a long time, but from what I remember of the Exile series it was even worse.
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Aug 28, 2019 07:32
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fart simpson posted:Didn't Jeff also say Blades of Avernum took up more of his time than any other game he's made, for reasons like this? Yeah, he's mentioned that just writing enough documentation to make the engine usable to other people took almost as long as writing a full game normally would. fart simpson posted:One of the annoying things for me is the tank is usually necessary to survive in the early game but by the end of the game your tank can be pretty useless if you haven't been really careful with your build and items. A level 30 something mage or priest in one of the Avernum games is better in basically every way than a melee heavy tank unless you're facing a specific enemy resistant to your best spells. I haven't played them in a long time, but from what I remember of the Exile series it was even worse. In the new Avernum trilogy, healing spells aren't affected by your stats, so you can make a surprisingly effective priest-tank who's a pure healer/buffer and puts everything into Endurance and defensive skills. It ends up being a bit of a boring character to play, but it's a viable build. Thuryl fucked around with this message at 07:41 on Aug 28, 2019 |
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Aug 28, 2019 07:38
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Now I'm remembering Nethergate and some first gen Avernums where I'd just have as many people as possible capable of casting Ice Lances at creation regardless of their final role.
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Aug 28, 2019 13:49
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JustJeff88 posted:Everyone makes good points, but lowering the party size really hurt the fun factor for me. Five would have been a cut, but four is an amputation. There is so much less playing with gear and goofy builds with a four-man party. I liked having a more diverse frontline and a dedicated hybrid spellcaster that had access to a billion spells, at least 0.9 billion of which are redundant or not worth casting
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Aug 28, 2019 13:53
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One of the big things that turned me off of the newest avernum games is that there don’t seem to be many “builds” at all that aren’t really obvious. There might be some slight variations between different types of fighter, but for the most part there’s little reason to go for hybrid builds, or make a dexterity fighter or something. A fighter is going to pump strength, an archer is going to pump dex, etc. Choosing which stats to raise and abilities to pick often seems like a false choice when the systems push characters into relatively strict roles. Since that’s probably the first thing I look for in an RPG, the lack of it has kept me away from Spiderweb games for quite a while. Somebody please correct me if I’m wrong about this, though!
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Aug 28, 2019 15:14
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Yea pretty much. His new game supposedly uses a new system, I hope there’s some more choice and depth to it.
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Aug 28, 2019 15:21
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CYBEReris posted:I liked having a more diverse frontline and a dedicated hybrid spellcaster that had access to a billion spells, at least 0.9 billion of which are redundant or not worth casting I agree. I still technically have a game of Exile 1 going where my part was basically: sword and board tank, polearm master who hits hard, classic priest, dual-wielding rogue type, dedicated wizard who also throws things well, and wizard/cleric who is useless at anything but casting. I've abandoned the playthrough largely because I can't remember where I left off, but it was fun to experiment. Granted, I abused E1's cheap skill point potions to make sure that everyone has 99 spell points, but point being is that I was able to experiment with things without making the game unwinnable. Heithinn Grasida posted:One of the big things that turned me off of the newest avernum games is that there don’t seem to be many “builds” at all that aren’t really obvious. There might be some slight variations between different types of fighter, but for the most part there’s little reason to go for hybrid builds, or make a dexterity fighter or something. A fighter is going to pump strength, an archer is going to pump dex, etc. Choosing which stats to raise and abilities to pick often seems like a false choice when the systems push characters into relatively strict roles. Since that’s probably the first thing I look for in an RPG, the lack of it has kept me away from Spiderweb games for quite a while. Somebody please correct me if I’m wrong about this, though! I also agree here.
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Aug 28, 2019 15:23
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i think avernum (exile) 1 is still my favorite of the series 2 has the wild and crazy second act that feels like you're really in over your head 3 the most epic and expansive with all the different plagues and huge world but i just like the simplicity of 1 and all the world building of the underground nation is the best stuff
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Aug 29, 2019 06:20
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The real problem with the Avernum remakes - I don't remember if Exile or the pre-remakes were the same, it's been so long - is that magic very quickly becomes way better then non-magic, to the point where in Avernum 2 I just rolled with four spellcasters, and in Avernum 3 it was two mages, a priest, and an archer-tank. Adding a fifth slot just means I have one more person throwing down massive AoE attacks. There's all this cool fun weapons, and no reason to ever use them...
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Aug 29, 2019 07:40
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ProfessorCirno posted:The real problem with the Avernum remakes - I don't remember if Exile or the pre-remakes were the same, it's been so long - is that magic very quickly becomes way better then non-magic, to the point where in Avernum 2 I just rolled with four spellcasters, and in Avernum 3 it was two mages, a priest, and an archer-tank. Adding a fifth slot just means I have one more person throwing down massive AoE attacks. Yeah this is basically what I was saying. I think exile was probably worse because you got the Fireball spell pretty early, and light heal all pretty early Also similar is that there’s really no reason to use polearms. Some of the late game polearms hit pretty hard but they don’t hit harder than two good swords and they are much worse for defense because you can’t use a shield
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Aug 29, 2019 07:46
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fart simpson posted:Didn't Jeff also say Blades of Avernum took up more of his time than any other game he's made, for reasons like this?
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Aug 29, 2019 21:52
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fart simpson posted:Yeah this is basically what I was saying. I think exile was probably worse because you got the Fireball spell pretty early, and light heal all pretty early IIRC Exile tried to get around this with magic-immune enemies and stuff like anti-magic fields. That said the games were overall easier and by endgame a multi-Blessed and Hasted warrior was an engine of destruction in its own right even if it couldn't quite keep up with the casters. E: The true overpowered playthrough was a singleton, whereas it's a challenge in the new games once it got off the ground in the old games you became an unstoppable god.
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Aug 29, 2019 22:25
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Exile 1 gave you Major Blessing in the second mainline dungeon, the one with the Formello mayor's amulet. That spell alone wrecks the difficulty curve since it blesses and hastes your entire party for 7SP. Of course, by the time you get it you'll probably have L4 mage spells at most, and only 20-30 SP on your casters, but it's still ridiculously powerful. Exiles 1 and 2 were both pretty easy games, not that there's anything wrong with that. Enemy spellcasters were rare, and most enemies only had melee attacks, which were completely neutered by Bless/Curse. Exile 3 made enemy casters more common and had a lot more enemies with special effects like firebreath, damage fields, and acid spit, but it was still on the whole a fairly easy game if you knew what you were doing. They also included a lot of awful skills though -- who here felt like they ever got their money's worth out of Poison, or Item Lore (4 skillpoints per point!), or Thrown Weapons? Then the first Avernum series replaced the character build system...with one where you were best-served by hoarding all of your skillpoints so you could spend them in the superpowered secret skills once you'd unlocked them. I think that in the process of trying to remove trap options from the character build system, Jeff oversimplified. That said, with a new title series most likely comes a new character build system, so hopefully Queen's Wish will be better on that front.
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Aug 29, 2019 22:42
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If you backed the Queen's Wish Kickstarter, check your email, I just got the notification that they needed my email address to deliver the game to on Wednesday.
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Sep 8, 2019 00:58
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Exciting! Hope Queen's Wish is good. I just started Avadon, I keep having to remind myself that I'm not playing Geneforge again. So many shackles and restraining posts... Game's been good though. I dig the HP/Vitality system.
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Sep 8, 2019 16:32
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poo poo I forgot it was coming out so soon 
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Sep 8, 2019 16:57
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At the risk of seeming like a shill, I sat down with Jeff Vogel and his wife Mariann Kriszan right before PAX this year to talk about Queen's Wish, and I pulled a couple of questions for the interview from this thread. https://www.gameskinny.com/hr5qq/yo...h-the-conqueror
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Sep 9, 2019 16:12
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Wanderer posted:At the risk of seeming like a shill, I sat down with Jeff Vogel and his wife Mariann Kriszan right before PAX this year to talk about Queen's Wish, and I pulled a couple of questions for the interview from this thread. Na man, thanks for the link. Now I want to play the game even more. GreenNight fucked around with this message at 16:30 on Sep 9, 2019 |
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Sep 9, 2019 16:20
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Yeah, that was a neat read. Thanks for linking it.
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Sep 9, 2019 16:33
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Thanks for sharing. An answer to 4 vs 6 party size is nice to see (even if I want 6.)
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Sep 9, 2019 17:22
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What Jeff doesn't seem to realise is that by his own logic, he's leaving the door wide open to have his lunch eaten by an even smaller indie developer releasing games near-identical to Spiderweb's in style and theme but with six player slots.
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Sep 9, 2019 23:31
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Wanderer posted:At the risk of seeming like a shill, I sat down with Jeff Vogel and his wife Mariann Kriszan right before PAX this year to talk about Queen's Wish, and I pulled a couple of questions for the interview from this thread. Good interview! Since I kickstarted the game I wasn't paying attention to a lot of the info out there and his answers there have definitely gotten me excited to play it, on 9/11.
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Sep 9, 2019 23:42
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Whybird posted:What Jeff doesn't seem to realise is that by his own logic, he's leaving the door wide open to have his lunch eaten by an even smaller indie developer releasing games near-identical to Spiderweb's in style and theme but with six player slots. I think his response would be something along the lines of "Hey, come on in, the water's fine! I look forward to playing your game when it's done." There's a big difference between "there's two people making similar games" and "the genre is oversaturated".
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Sep 9, 2019 23:53
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Yeah, there's a thing in one of the blog posts from earlier this summer about how Vogel views himself as being in the business of making Jeff Vogel games. Technologically, we're at the point where people are getting comparable amounts of mechanical complexity out of RPG Maker, but you sure aren't getting something Jeff Vogel would write.
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Sep 10, 2019 00:11
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