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mossyfisk posted:Playing an avernum game and flipping a coin to find out if putting points in Bows made a character overpowered or completely useless. In what games are they OP? They've usually been underpowered, in my experience, until the most recent three games, where they're comparable to melee. Less damage per hit, but you don't need to walk around, so they can almost always use all of your action points to attack. The real OP thing is that stacking enough DEX makes your characters nearly invincible.
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Dec 12, 2023 23:53
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:In what games are they OP? They've usually been underpowered, in my experience, until the most recent three games, where they're comparable to melee. Less damage per hit, but you don't need to walk around, so they can almost always use all of your action points to attack. The real OP thing is that stacking enough DEX makes your characters nearly invincible.
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Dec 13, 2023 00:25
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ilitarist posted:I also sadly didn't like Geneforge 1 as much as I did. I played Geneforge 4 & 5 when they were released and loved them, but Geneforge 1 feels too basic to me. Both in terms of story and gameplay. Maybe I just misremember the complexity of later Geneforge games. Hope that the second game has a more interesting setting than an island full of people bred and taught to sound stupid and exotic invaders. nah, the later games are absolutely more complex; the slow ramping up of conflict as every cat is let out of every bag is one of the most interesting things about Geneforge as a series imo i personally really like the first game’s tone but im also a sucker for the mystery of a self-contained forbidden island adventure
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Dec 13, 2023 00:55
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Yeah the second game has you as a slightly more advanced apprentice shaper on one of your final missions before graduation investigating weird poo poo with your mentor (before things start going horribly wrong). Third game has you as a student at a Shaper School which gets attacked as a rebellion based on the Geneforge kicks off. The final games definitely get a lot more fun with how they start.
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Dec 13, 2023 02:32
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dmboogie posted:nah, the later games are absolutely more complex; the slow ramping up of conflict as every cat is let out of every bag is one of the most interesting things about Geneforge as a series imo Also, in terms of gameplay complexity, Geneforge 1 is the first game of a new series and it absolutely shows in the gameplay. The remake smooths a lot of this out, but it's still starting from the much more limited template of GF1.
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Dec 13, 2023 02:49
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Yeah if nothing else GF2 has tier 4 creations which helps a bunch (and another all new creation in the remake that's gonna be a plant turret which sounds really cool)
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Dec 13, 2023 03:18
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What a fun write up! Reminds me why I've enjoyed this series from the start. One note, while nominally everyone who gets Exiled is a criminal, that can mean being on the wrong side of a political dispute, refusing the wrong person's advances, or just not fitting in. It's pretty heavily implied some of the NPCs were Exiled simply for being gay, which was pretty shocking to see portrayed as an injustice in a game in 1995.
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Dec 13, 2023 07:08
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dmboogie posted:i personally really like the first game’s tone but im also a sucker for the mystery of a self-contained forbidden island adventure I sure hope the second one will keep my attention for longer. The forbidden island thing is fine but it didn't have enough to keep me guessing for long. I was probably a bit over the middle of the game and I knew about the Geneforge, and vaguely understood what everybody on the island wanted. I still had a lot of locations to clear and some places looked high above my head, but I felt like I've seen everything in the game. It also doesn't help that the character progression is not very rewarding. Warrior and Agent classes sound like something reserved for the second playthrough, cause of course you're gonna play as a Shaper. And shapers do not care about items or equipment, which begs for comparison with Elden Ring. You constantly find new stuff you won't care about even as something you could sell, because you don't need to buy stuff beyond some consumables and living tools. So I didn't find the usual RPG loop of getting narrative or numbers-go-up rewards for exploration and fights. I don't remember how Geneforge 5 handled it, but I think you wanted money for training and canisters played a bigger role.
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Dec 13, 2023 10:31
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Which Spiderweb software game should I start out with? I gotta appreciate this guy for sticking to what works for him.
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Dec 13, 2023 11:36
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idhrendur posted:What a fun write up! Reminds me why I've enjoyed this series from the start. One note, while nominally everyone who gets Exiled is a criminal, that can mean being on the wrong side of a political dispute, refusing the wrong person's advances, or just not fitting in. It's pretty heavily implied some of the NPCs were Exiled simply for being gay, which was pretty shocking to see portrayed as an injustice in a game in 1995. There's even a sweet little progression where in Exile 1 they're a female-female couple who say "We were sent down for not fitting in, we don't want to talk about it more" and in Exile 3 there's a dude with a little rainbow insignia on his pen which he says is a mark of pride. Not only does the game have LGBT representation but it's also showing as Exile develops, its inhabitants are increasingly safe and confident to be out and proud.
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Dec 13, 2023 12:39
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ilitarist posted:I sure hope the second one will keep my attention for longer. The forbidden island thing is fine but it didn't have enough to keep me guessing for long. I was probably a bit over the middle of the game and I knew about the Geneforge, and vaguely understood what everybody on the island wanted. I still had a lot of locations to clear and some places looked high above my head, but I felt like I've seen everything in the game. Even though "make your own army" is the biggest draw which makes Shapers seem like the no-brainer pick I can tell you that Agents, specifically, can break every single game over their knee. Their powerful magic & combat ability lets them shut down practically any foe. Horace Kinch fucked around with this message at 13:20 on Dec 13, 2023 |
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Dec 13, 2023 13:17
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Node posted:Which Spiderweb software game should I start out with? I gotta appreciate this guy for sticking to what works for him. Avernum: Escape From the Pit or Geneforge: Mutagen.
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Dec 13, 2023 14:12
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Node posted:Which Spiderweb software game should I start out with? I gotta appreciate this guy for sticking to what works for him. I second Avernum: Escape from the Pit and Geneforge: Mutagen. If you want comparisons then Geneforge is more similar to Gothic/Risen/ELEX games or modern more combat-oriented Fallout games: you play as a single character (you can control other creatures but they're summoned on demand and are not party members) and you travel the not-quite-open world with relatively linear progression and quest hubs. It's also an interesting flavor of fantasy where (almost?) all non-humans are artificial life forms. Avernum is a more traditional fantasy. You control mercenary party in a relatively open world. The plot of these games is usually not as involved as in most RPGs, the focus is on side quests, exploration and tactical combat. It sounds like a very simple premise but it's hard to think of a comparison because nowadays party RPGs focus on companions and story. I guess it's similar to Might & Magic or Wizardry games. Horace Kinch posted:Even though "make your own army" is the biggest draw which makes Shapers seem like the no-brainer pick I can tell you that Agents, specifically, can break every single game over their knee. Their powerful magic & combat ability lets them shut down practically any foe. Yeah, it's not about the game balance but about the fantasy the game is selling. Agents are somewhat interesting cause the game has non-combat skills (which was probably a bigger draw when the game was released compared to now when the biggest RPG like BG3 is part immersive sim) but the other option is literally Human Fighter and from what I remember the majority of rewards in the game are for this boring archetype.
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Dec 13, 2023 14:40
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Node posted:Which Spiderweb software game should I start out with? I gotta appreciate this guy for sticking to what works for him. I'd vote for the Avernum games. He's rebooted it several times already, and the most 'recent' (2011 lol) certainly looks the most accessible it's ever been. The older you go in the reboots, the grittier and less streamlined it gets, but as much as I prefer the older styles they're probably harder to get into from a modern perspective. Exile (aka earlier Avernum) is what got Spiderweb their fans, so clearly the grassroots are there and so why I'd suggest that series/IP over his others.
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Dec 13, 2023 15:13
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Honestly I think the queens wish games are the best place to start. They're fantasy rpgs so solidly in his core wheelhouse, and they have the most modernized mechanics.
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Dec 13, 2023 15:17
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the originals are actually pretty accessible once you get them set up in a VM or something. while the plot beats are exactly the same the overall experience is pretty different, a ton of spells (most of them pretty redundant but some having cool interactions) got stamped out in the remakes, and party size got reduced down to 4 which makes less room for hybridized characters. i kind of want to recommend playing these originals even though rationally im aware the remakes are a streamlined and better polished experience. they've just got this raw shareware creative energy to them.
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Dec 13, 2023 15:21
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My takeaway from when I cut my teeth on Exile3 was "utility character are unplayable", due to how xp splitting was most ungenerous; my mage dramatically overlevelled the rest of the team due to his nuke-spam at the start of every fight, while my ranged/poison/traps guy got 0 kills and subsequently was perpetually useless. The cleric was behind the team too, but at least his newbie rear end was useful as a healbot.
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Dec 13, 2023 15:25
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Reading this thread blindfolded so I don't get spoiled on Avernum 2+ or Geneforge, but: 1) Thank you for the compliments! Avernum owns and I'm so happy I could share that 2) All ways of enjoying these games are valid, remakes are good, originals are good, anything that actually works in a technical sense haha 3) Avernum 2: I got to the twist and  was not expecting that! Really enjoying myself so far! ... but also it's on hold for IRL reasons and I'm swapping to Nethergate for the time being.4) so the flaws in Nethergate  lol, lmao, this does not say "characters cannot use items AT ALL", the Roman side opens by having you pick up a note from the table and reading it, and my rational characters cannot read it at all. I only have two rational minds, but it's very silly that they're so rational they can't light a candle or read their orders...
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Dec 13, 2023 19:44
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That's a true hardcore RPG experience sanitizer in modern games made for babies! Jokes aside, I didn't play Nethergate but it looks like a game of its time with a huge ambition. It's historical, but Jeff Wogel is not a historian so it's likely that two minutes on Wikipedia can break your immersion. It has two different starts (as Roman or Barbarian commandos) and I can't imagine the difference not being underwhelming. I imagine it requires a lot of suspension of good will on the player part.
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Dec 13, 2023 20:56
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I remember Jeff saying that he didn't like how he portrayed some cultures in the Nethergate games, which is why he remade the original. He also apparently didn't think the series was as marketable to a 'mainstream' audience, which is why it did not continue. The latter I can believe, but as for the former I'm skeptical as to his real motivations. The Romans were imperialist, slaving bastards and the Celts were so far in the past and so obscure these days that I can't imagine that an unflattering portrayal of either or both would trigger your modern SJWs.Serephina posted:My takeaway from when I cut my teeth on Exile3 was "utility character are unplayable", due to how xp splitting was most ungenerous You have a point. It was very unnatural and just bad game design overall. The solution is to always have equal advancement even for characters that are dead or disabled. I agree with you wholeheartedly, but I'll take this over prosaic four-person parties.
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Dec 13, 2023 21:45
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ilitarist posted:Jokes aside, I didn't play Nethergate but it looks like a game of its time with a huge ambition. It's historical, but Jeff Wogel is not a historian so it's likely that two minutes on Wikipedia can break your immersion. It has two different starts (as Roman or Barbarian commandos) and I can't imagine the difference not being underwhelming. I imagine it requires a lot of suspension of good will on the player part. I set my expectations for "Nethergate was written by a lay person working in the 90s" and so far - the opening fort area at least - so far it's meeting that. I would never recommend this game to anyone wanting to learn something, but it works as a cool flavor/backdrop here. Which, hey. I read historical romance novels a bunch (just started the Wolf and the Dove today!) and very similar mindset there. If it's inaccurate, just roll with it. JustJeff88 posted:I remember Jeff saying that he didn't like how he portrayed some cultures in the Nethergate games, which is why he remade the original. He also apparently didn't think the series was as marketable to a 'mainstream' audience, which is why it did not continue. The latter I can believe, but as for the former I'm skeptical as to his real motivations. The Romans were imperialist, slaving bastards and the Celts were so far in the past and so obscure these days that I can't imagine that an unflattering portrayal of either or both would trigger your modern SJWs. Can you dig up this interview or forum post or something? I'd be interested in reading Vogel's thoughts on remaking games, especially this one.
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Dec 13, 2023 22:05
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Catgirl Al Capone posted:i kind of want to recommend playing these originals even though rationally im aware the remakes are a streamlined and better polished experience. they've just got this raw shareware creative energy to them. Exile 3 is still a fantastic game. The scope is huge and it has a ton of retro charm to it. It's where he really found his stride with the top-down combat system, IMO. Also, critically, it has the really zoomed-in world view that helps sell that you're exploring a giant continent. The remakes all pull the camera back and, consequently, the world feels a lot smaller. Also, you can make a party consisting of one super character with all the perks, and it's totally viable. That's definitely not the case in the most recent remake... it's been long enough since I played the first remake that I can't remember how friendly it is to soloists.
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Dec 13, 2023 22:16
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StrixNebulosa posted:I set my expectations for "Nethergate was written by a lay person working in the 90s" and so far - the opening fort area at least - so far it's meeting that. I would never recommend this game to anyone wanting to learn something, but it works as a cool flavor/backdrop here. Which, hey. I read historical romance novels a bunch (just started the Wolf and the Dove today!) and very similar mindset there. If it's inaccurate, just roll with it. I can't site here, I'm afraid. There's a reason that the original Nethergate is the only Spiderweb game that is not available anywhere, and that was the reason that I was told. As for the sales issue, I can sadly see fickle gaming fans not being interested in a game set during actual history. Elves and wizards sell well to the boring.
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Dec 13, 2023 23:30
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Horace Kinch posted:Even though "make your own army" is the biggest draw which makes Shapers seem like the no-brainer pick I can tell you that Agents, specifically, can break every single game over their knee. Their powerful magic & combat ability lets them shut down practically any foe. In Geneforge No Subtitle 2, Mass Daze even doesn't fail unless the target is outright immune to it. combine this with hasting up so you can cast two spells a round and, well. Nobody else gets to take actions. Serephina posted:My takeaway from when I cut my teeth on Exile3 was "utility character are unplayable", due to how xp splitting was most ungenerous; my mage dramatically overlevelled the rest of the team due to his nuke-spam at the start of every fight, while my ranged/poison/traps guy got 0 kills and subsequently was perpetually useless. The cleric was behind the team too, but at least his newbie rear end was useful as a healbot.
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Dec 14, 2023 14:47
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Zereth posted:I believe XP is evenly divided in Avernum No Subtitle and Avernum Escape From The Pit. EDIT: Of course you don't have room for a pure utility guy anymore anyway. Yeah, all characters get most of the experience when an enemy is killed. I think the PC that strikes the killing blow gets slightly more, but it's not really significant, especially due to the strict scaling on XP when you outlevel enemies. If you're at all thorough about doing sidequests, you'll end up soft level capped because enemies will only be giving 1-10XP per kill. (As a corollary, this makes the perks that give you +% experience gain basically worthless -- at best, you end up 1 level ahead of the curve, and then the scaling counteracts the perk)
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Dec 14, 2023 17:58
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:(As a corollary, this makes the perks that give you +% experience gain basically worthless -- at best, you end up 1 level ahead of the curve, and then the scaling counteracts the perk) Interestingly I think this is a "yes, and no" situation; certainly crippling your guy to get +xp is a bad idea as the benefits are minor, but if you're running a solo char in Avernum:NoSubtitle you'll quickly notice that being 'only' 2 or 3 levels above the curve renders most normal combat trivial, and it becomes a game of 1 OP guy trying to compensate for 4 decent ones, which is where all the fun of the build is. But again you're right, even in that scenario, the right choice is to take something like -50% xp as the perks outweigh the temporary tempo loss of a level on the curve.
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Dec 15, 2023 00:58
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StrixNebulosa posted:4) so the flaws in Nethergate Very cool to see someone getting into these games for the first time in 2023, as I and I assume most other people in this thread grew up with these games in the 90s and early 2000s when they were often found on shareware CDs bundled with computer magazines and such. Arguably still not the worst character trait you can pick in a Jeff Vogel game, that award goes to "Pacifist" from the original Exile II, the first game to feature character traits. A character with the "pacifist" traits can't attack enemies at all. (if you try, you just get a message that says "But you're a pacifist!") Which might be fine for a healer character, but also pacifists aren't allowed to cast a lot of the buffing spells like Haste because it's supporting fighters in combat or something. Meaning they lose a lot of the utility where you'd normally want the healer casting a lot of buffs on the turns when no one is injured. Which is especially funny since Exile II has a very rare case in the series where Haste is useful in a non-combat situation (going into combat mode and casting haste on everyone is the easiest way to deal with a certain part of the game where you have to escape from a dungeon which is being rapidly consumed by fire.) (Incidentally, if you have a lot of time on your hands and want to see a really cool take on a "pacifist" character that works similarly, check out the recently completed LP of Tengai Makyou II: Manjimaru.)
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Dec 15, 2023 05:42
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Item Getter posted:Which is especially funny since Exile II has a very rare case in the series where Haste is useful in a non-combat situation (going into combat mode and casting haste on everyone is the easiest way to deal with a certain part of the game where you have to escape from a dungeon which is being rapidly consumed by fire.) I thought this was the case in all the Exile/Avernum games? (That going into combat mode and hasting, or even without hasting, multiplies movement speed relative to enemies and effects).
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Dec 15, 2023 06:53
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Redmark posted:I thought this was the case in all the Exile/Avernum games? (That going into combat mode and hasting, or even without hasting, multiplies movement speed relative to enemies and effects).
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Dec 15, 2023 06:57
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I think very limiting traits like this are cool, but the game should mark them as "Only for expert players who know what they're doing, don't use this if you want to have an intendent experience!" I've finally started playing Avernum 2 Crystal Souls (the re-remake). I've played Avernum 4-6 and 1 re-remake, but haven't actually finished 1. In one I took a long break from the game and when I came back I didn't remember a lot about the game, and the journal was extremely limited, so I had a lot of quests I've completed but couldn't even guess where the quest giver was. I guess that's what the "Record" button in the conversation is, but returning to the game and not remembering where are all the important traders, trainers, quest directions, dungeons with extra enemies I had to return to was not fun. Anyway, Avernum 2 has a quick great start even if I can already quote the stats of all the early equipment (I think the whole Geneforge series uses exactly the same items). What I like about Jeff's writing is he understands he's not writing some masterpiece fantasy novel, he writes context for an RPG. He goes a litle bit beyond this in later Geneforge games and this didn't work for me in Geneforge 1 Mutagen, but in Avernum it's perfect. It's an often problem with these smaller RPGs where the writers just can't stop, they require trust in their writing and then give me some very uneven bloated writing, like, say, Age of Decadence. Big AAA RPGs like whatever Bethesda or Ubisoft do are often poorly written, but the writing by committee not only produces bland writing but also polishes it enough to not be distracting and demanding. Avernum knows that I know what an evil Empire is. It knows that I look at the premise and see "colonial war for independence but with magic and cat-people". It explains some basic stuff to me like where are edible mushrooms come from, enough for me to assume there's an internal logic behind it all, but it doesn't give me a quest NPC who explains to me their version of boring fantasy cliches.
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Dec 15, 2023 10:50
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Yeah, what I like about Spiderweb Software's storytelling is that it credits the reader with basic reading capability. That sounds sarcastic but it really isn't, a lot of games are so terrified that a player might miss a plot beat that they punch you in the face with everything you need to know and it bugs the heck out of me.
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Dec 16, 2023 02:12
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Avernum 1 got me super hype with text along the lines of "The demon-killing sword starts glowing and the demon king freaks out". So it's good, imo.
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Dec 16, 2023 04:37
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Avernum's biggest mistake was replacing hydras with salamanders. Petting the baby hydras in Exile 2 was the best reward for saving the nest from a chitrach infestation.
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Dec 16, 2023 05:42
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Horace Kinch posted:Avernum's biggest mistake was replacing hydras with salamanders. Petting the baby hydras in Exile 2 was the best reward for saving the nest from a chitrach infestation. If it's the latest Avernum remake, probably because Jeff couldn't afford a 3D model of a hydra. I always felt like the Geneforge series suffered from a limited budget more than any of the other games (which are basically fine) do, since given the premise of the games and him saying directly that it was inspired by Pokemon, that there should have been a much wider variety of creatures in the game instead of, like, 9 kinds of creatures in the whole game in Geneforge 1.
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Dec 16, 2023 13:38
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The funny thing about Jeff's graphics is that you could release a game with Exile 2/3's graphics today, and people wouldn't bat an eye. They've actually aged better than most of the rest of his stuff.
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Dec 16, 2023 16:19
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I find I kinda can't stand how the various remakes look like and whenever I feel like Spiderwebbin I go figure out how to run Exile on a modern machine rather than play the uglier but more fully featured remakes. The top down grid style is evocative and timeless and your imagination covers for it better than the meh isometric tilework of later games.
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Dec 16, 2023 16:27
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Sumerian Telecom posted:I find I kinda can't stand how the various remakes look like and whenever I feel like Spiderwebbin I go figure out how to run Exile on a modern machine rather than play the uglier but more fully featured remakes. Replace 'exile' with 'avernum 2000' and this is my post.  That said I appreciate that we have the 'holy poo poo more cakes' meme here, and I wish I could get you the top down grid style for Geneforge too.
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Dec 16, 2023 16:30
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Also Exile as a name is much more serious and evocative with it's political undertone than the general purpose fantasy syllable sounding mush of Avernum, even with its Greek underworld connotations. Thank you for reading my boomer opinions on obscure roleplaying games.
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Dec 16, 2023 16:32
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Sumerian Telecom posted:Also Exile as a name is much more serious and evocative with it's political undertone than the general purpose fantasy syllable sounding mush of Avernum, even with its Greek underworld connotations. your welcome
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Dec 16, 2023 16:34
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Sumerian Telecom posted:Also Exile as a name is much more serious and evocative with it's political undertone than the general purpose fantasy syllable sounding mush of Avernum, even with its Greek underworld connotations. Nah that's a legit opinion. If I could have best of both worlds I'd rename the games to Exile but leave the place as Avernum, as 'oh no I've been exiled to Exile' sounds silly imho
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Dec 16, 2023 16:35
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