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Avernum: Escape from the Pit

Johannes

Arcane
Joined
Nov 20, 2010
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casting coach
Avernum: Escape From The Pit on Android is an excellent port.

The game is wonderful, one of my favorite recent RPGs that I've played. I love the rewarding exploration. To say there are interesting things around every corner would be an understatement - the whole game is an interesting thing. :)

Would have liked to see a different style of character development, though. I don't mind putting points in character stats, but the skill tree is a bit underwhelming. I really don't care much for skill trees in RPGs to begin with.

I would have liked to have seen more non-combat skills as well. Fix those things and you literally have a near-flawless RPG, at least for me it would be.

I think the writing is great, too. The game is just very interesting and keeps you wanting to explore more and more, which is the mark of a great game, in my book.

Yes, the writing and the lore are extremely interesting. I love the opening of the game, so simple, so efficient and somehow poetic. Translated to book it would be something as great as Kafka's Metamorphosis's opening lol Radical.

But you're absolutely right I sometime regretted something above the non-stop combats. Maybe more situations explores through dialogs or non-combat skills as you say. THe thing is, despite the very good impression this game made on me I still haven't toouched my mid-game save, one year after I left it unfinished.
Actually the opening of the game was a terrible thing to change from original Exile/Avernum. Those just put you into the starting Fort, without having to trudge through the starting tutorial dungeon.
 

Mustawd

Guest
Yeah, the tutorial dungeon was kind of meh. The beginning of the old Avernum helped set the mood a lot better IMO.
 

Dwarvophile

Liturgist
Joined
Dec 1, 2015
Messages
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I remember you're just brought in front of a huge mirror or door by two guards, thrown through it and fall directly on Avernum's floor.
 
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Started playing this for the first time after it sitting in my library for years upon years after being bored out of my fucking mind with Avadon and... I'm enjoying it. Can certainly see the same greasy fingerprints of the developer as Avadon, and mechanically it's quite similar, but after playing a few hours of it today I think there are a couple key spots that make it feel more engaging.

1. Avadon was/is more linear. You'd enter a distinct adventure-area with an overarching goal for your reason being there and there might be a few side quests, then you'd have an hour or two of adventure and teleport back to the keep to do it again. Avernum's guiding me toward recommended quests and locations but letting me just fuck off if I want to.
2. You're more important/tougher in Avadon's story. In actual power-level I'd say you're mostly the same between the two games, but in the story of Avadon you're big badass adventurer man and people are scared of you because of Avadon, while in Avernum you're bumfuck adventurer thrown into the stygian abyss in your skivvies. Even though there's no mechanical difference, it's more entertaining if the world FEELS deadlier and like I'm punching up.
3. Avernum's moving at a faster clip. Not sure if there were settings in Avadon that I just never toyed with, but once I saw I could turn off the walk animation in Avernum and my dudes haul ass across the map things got a lot more laid back and fun. It sounds more condescending than I intend, but with that fast play speed and the fact that the game isn't a system hog (And playing on normal there isn't much to consider in almost every combat) it's a really relaxing game to play while noodling around online or chatting with buds.
4. WORLD MAP WORLD MAP WORLD MAP. Connected a bit with the linearity complaint with Avadon, but exploring the world map and finding secrets and getting little text-snippets and adventures has been great. It's strange that such a simple implementation (Seems like essentially no time passing, no food system, it's basically the same as the regular game for movement and a lot of the terrain) feels as satisfying as it does, but hot damn that's good.

Pretty pointless rambling since it's mainly geared toward my very specific case of trying Avadon years ago as my first dipped toe into a Vogel game and getting too bored of it to want to continue (And even putting me off other Vogel games for ages) but finally trying this on a whim and I'm having a good time of it. I will slightly bitch about tab not highlighting usable objects/containers though, and constantly bringing up the inventory to check the ground for coins/gems is a bit of OCD I can't seem to shake. Another positive to mention while I'm rambling, spending money on skills. Love that shit. LOVE IT. EVERY FUCKING RPG SHOULD HAVE IT, works as a giant money sink so treasure always feels valuable. I'd be hard pressed to think of a RPG that had that where I didn't enjoy it.
 

Hobo Elf

Arcane
Joined
Feb 17, 2009
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Platypus Planet
Avadon is unplayable, soulless trash. It's like Avernum but worse in every regard, as you pretty much came to realize.

Geneforge 1/Mutagen doesn't have (many) trainers due to story reasons, but starting with G2 the main method of learning spells and creations is by dumping heaps of gold on trainers. Since that game is heavily faction based you'll also need to be sneaky and careful not to commit to the wrong people too early in case they can't provide you with the abilities you want to learn, or figure out a way/have enough Leadership to become a quadruple agent and keep betraying everyone and reaping all the rewards.
 

Correct_Carlo

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I will slightly bitch about tab not highlighting usable objects/containers though, and constantly bringing up the inventory to check the ground for coins/gems is a bit of OCD I can't seem to shake. Another positive to mention while I'm rambling, spending money on skills. Love that shit. LOVE IT. EVERY FUCKING RPG SHOULD HAVE IT, works as a giant money sink so treasure always feels valuable. I'd be hard pressed to think of a RPG that had that where I didn't enjoy it.

If you are super OCD, be aware that there are two ways to level skills: via skill points gained from leveling and via trainers for money. Many skills (except, I think, for base melee/magic ones) have caps of 10-12 levels. Once you hit those caps, you can't go beyond them via skill points gained from leveling. However, you can go beyond them with skill points gained from training.

So, for example, if you level your sharpshooter skill to 12 (or whatever the cap is) via skill points, you can then buy 2 additional levels at the trainer and get it to 14. However, if you buy 2 levels right away, then you will only ever be able to level the skill to 12.

Given this, most min-max players hold off on buying skills from trainers until they have the core skills all leveled up via normal leveling. However, it does pay to buy skills that characters don't necessarily use much via trainers. Like, for example, buying 2 levels of gymnastics for your entire party because gymnastics gives a 3% chance to dodge per level, so it's worth it. Or buying 2 levels of bows and sharpshooter for your entire party, for when they are out of magical essence or just in a place when they can't attack.

If you are playing on normal, though, none of this matters. Normal is easy enough to not care about builds much.
 
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Mangoose

Arcane
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I'm a Banana
Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity
Avadon is unplayable, soulless trash. It's like Avernum but worse in every regard, as you pretty much came to realize.
Clearly Multi-headed Cow does not even check reviews because that's the main criticism lol. I've played Avernums and Geneforges but I remember quite well taking a look at Avadon. Check opinions, basically everyone saying it's linear and dumbed down. You don't have to play to know that it's linear. I don't even have it in my library because I saw the specific complaint.

Gotta say, Steam user reviews are pretty good. Because nerds who aren't gaming journalists will actually elaborate in their review. Of course my other opinion source is here.. because you guys also elaborate.

Seems like corporations have trouble "padding" reviews a la Amazon. First, you can see how long they played and whether they got it for free. Secondly, the AAA publishers decide to make their own digital platform to be like Steam, and who's gonna trust their reviews to be objective?
 

Correct_Carlo

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Avadon is OK, but there's no reason to play it first or at all if you haven't played all the other SW games. Because of its linearity it's actually one of the hardest SW games out there, and it probably has the best boss-fight design, in that many boss fights are almost puzzle-like in their construction. It's also very limited in party builds, and lacks the super OP tinker class of Avadons 2 and 3, so it's an incredibly difficult game on torment. There aren't many ways to over level or power game, so you either have to "get good" (at reloading fights due to RNG) or go home.

The final (albeit optional) Redbeard fight is infamous among SW fans for being the single most difficult and frustrating boss fight in any SW game. You have to run back and forth between rooms to kill Golems in order to open up a brief window through which the main boss (who is lobbing magic at your the whole time) can take damage. It's the sort of battle of attrition where you can spend 30 minutes whittling his health down only to have your party wiped and have to start over.
 
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Geneforge 1/Mutagen doesn't have (many) trainers due to story reasons, but starting with G2 the main method of learning spells and creations is by dumping heaps of gold on trainers. Since that game is heavily faction based you'll also need to be sneaky and careful not to commit to the wrong people too early in case they can't provide you with the abilities you want to learn, or figure out a way/have enough Leadership to become a quadruple agent and keep betraying everyone and reaping all the rewards.
Geneforge was higher on my interest list, but since he's starting to crank out Geneforge remakes (And hearing that they're particularly good ones) it makes me want to hold off, even though I've heard that basically every Vogel game is standalone anyway. It's silly reasoning but since I've got 3 remade Avernums stacked up and they still sound interesting I figure I may as well.

If you are playing on normal, though, none of this matters. Normal is easy enough to not care about builds much.
Thanks for the protip! Yeah, I am on normal since I've been having the most fun playing it casually. The two things that have gotten in the way of that are bringing up the inventory to check ground-items, and leaning forward in my chair to look for secrets. Neither of those is probably necessary for normal either but picking up trash and secret hunting is what you do as a band of murderhobos so I can't really stop myself. Plus I haven't got the money yet to do much training, only thing I did was train my priest for a few higher tier spells.

Clearly Multi-headed Cow does not even check reviews because that's the main criticism lol.
Hey, I like to check stuff out myself! Mixed reviews can also mean a polarizing game which means it could give higher-highs to the people who like it and lower-lows to the people who don't. Avadon might've been a boring game with lame combat but an amazing fantasy political storyline and then I'd eat it up with a spoon! It wasn't, but it was worth the look when I was in the mood to try it.

Multi-headed Cow what mindy said is true.
you should play the originals and compare to avadon see the true measure of decline
I don't much doubt it, but I'm a lazy agent of decline and that's what I've got.
 

almondblight

Arcane
Joined
Aug 10, 2004
Messages
2,549
I'd suggest starting with Exile II or III, though. Exile I is pretty empty compared to the rest of the series.
 
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You can train spells all you want.
Oh? I was a bit concerned about that because I could've sworn I saw a tooltip saying you could only raise a spell's level once via a trainer. Though thinking about it a little more now I guess that makes sense. Spells can (Apparently) reach a maximum of 3rd level, and I can find means of increasing them in the wild and via trainers. Or maybe the limit is per-trainer, so I could raise a spell to 2 in one town and travel to another and raise it to 3. Should've checked that when I was talking to the priest in Formello. I'll hit 'em up next time I boot it up. Actually need to check Formello out again anyway since I've leveled up and have a bit more tool use so I want to see if I can disarm those traps in the secret rooms there. Secret rooms in a town guarded by traps is too alluring to resist!
 

Elwro

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Dec 29, 2002
Messages
11,746
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Krakow, Poland
Divinity: Original Sin Wasteland 2
Glad you like it, Multi-headed Cow . It's a really good game and it's a shame how much of the exploratory fun of Avernum was lost in the Avadon series.

...and there are quite a few things nicely hidden, as well as multiple ways of getting into some territories. Do you have a boat already?
 
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Glad you like it, Multi-headed Cow . It's a really good game and it's a shame how much of the exploratory fun of Avernum was lost in the Avadon series.

...and there are quite a few things nicely hidden, as well as multiple ways of getting into some territories. Do you have a boat already?
The exploration's a blast, I'm still not entirely sure why I've just been playing the game in a trance and way fucking more than I normally game in a given day (Roughly 10 hours over the last two days, admittedly a little bit of that is multitasking but a lot is just plopping my ass down when I've got free time and booting it up) since a lot of the combat/encounter design is so simple, there's seemingly little to no C&C, and the writing/story so far is nearly non-existent but it's scratching my adventuring itch something fierce. Which is EVEN MORE surprising given how I bounced off Avadon even after trying it a couple times. Might just be particularly in the mood for this style of game at the moment, I guess.

Haven't got a boat yet. Definitely have the money for it by now (Pushing near 4k in cash and haven't emptied my trash bag in a while) but since my quests have been leading me north I've been looking into that more. Yiffing the furries from behind right now, I'm probably overleveled since I went and checked out that undead crypt before dealing with Fort Furry but I smashed through the first floor and then saved and I'll check out the upper floor and basement tomorrow. The ogre magi was the one fight in there that gave me some guff, really need to jack up the endurance on my rogue since I've got her as a major glass cannon and that gets ugly with AoE flying around. She kicks out hilarious amounts of damage though so it's almost worth it. And being overleveled (And underleveled) just makes exploration all the more fun, had to back off from a few areas only to come back with a vengeance later.

And while I'm rambling, I guess I still don't fully grok how you get to 3rd level on spells. I checked the priest in Formello and she wouldn't sell me heal (The tooltip saying merchants can raise you to 2nd rank or something like that) so... Maybe I can buy spells from trainers up to 2nd rank, but if get rank 1 or 2 of a spell via a scroll/book out in the wild, maybe I can return to the scroll/book and get up to 3rd rank after I purchase 2nd rank from a shop? That doesn't fully make sense either though, since then I guess I would buy first rank from a trainer and then could double-learn from a book. Unless you can just fuck yourself over by learning rank 1 from a trainer and then rank 2 from a learning point.
 

Elwro

Arcane
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Messages
11,746
Location
Krakow, Poland
Divinity: Original Sin Wasteland 2
Sorry, can't help you there. Haven't played this last remake and forgot this stuff regarding the previous one...

Somehow the combination of succinct and terse text with exploration really works in this game. In later titles you can revisit some old areas, meet NPCs you [as a player] got to know previously... I have no idea how on Earth did this not feel like a poor rehash, but rather a full-bloodied evolution, 'progress' of the game world.
 
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TERRIBLE NEWS, as I was leveling up the party I was about to take a second rank of "Challenger" trait for my fighter, then I decided to search the forum since the description of the trait was vague and I wanted to know the specifics of how it worked/how effective the different ranks were. Unfortunately apparently that trait is bugged and either does nothing or does so little as to be meaningless, so I guess I dumped a point into a dead trait. Fortunately I learned that before I put another trait point in. Also kind of a bummer since I was making my rogue a glass cannon because I thought challenger would keep enemies glued to my fighter's ass, but they understandably go for squishier targets fairly often. Oh well.

On the bright side, got some dragonskin gloves just to make my rogue's damage output even more disgusting. Also murdered the furries and have been rampaging up and down the map. Learned about the hidden caches on the map too, not sure if I flat out couldn't see them before due to lack of cave lore (Possible, I had essentially 0 cave lore for a while) or if I just never noticed them since they're easy to overlook, but eh. Even more fun to hoover up while filling in the map. Not quite as pleasing as filling in every square I can in Xeen but similar. Just so I'm not TOO positive about the game though, quests for no-value junk items sure are obnoxious. It's made more tolerable because of the fast speed you move with animations disabled but still a pain in the ass. Only one I particularly liked was with the gremlins since it was an unmarked quest, and the item DID have value. Then again some of the other do too, like the bags of mushroom meal and bars of iron and shit.
 

Correct_Carlo

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TERRIBLE NEWS, as I was leveling up the party I was about to take a second rank of "Challenger" trait for my fighter, then I decided to search the forum since the description of the trait was vague and I wanted to know the specifics of how it worked/how effective the different ranks were. Unfortunately apparently that trait is bugged and either does nothing or does so little as to be meaningless, so I guess I dumped a point into a dead trait. Fortunately I learned that before I put another trait point in. Also kind of a bummer since I was making my rogue a glass cannon because I thought challenger would keep enemies glued to my fighter's ass, but they understandably go for squishier targets fairly often. Oh well.

On the bright side, got some dragonskin gloves just to make my rogue's damage output even more disgusting. Also murdered the furries and have been rampaging up and down the map. Learned about the hidden caches on the map too, not sure if I flat out couldn't see them before due to lack of cave lore (Possible, I had essentially 0 cave lore for a while) or if I just never noticed them since they're easy to overlook, but eh. Even more fun to hoover up while filling in the map. Not quite as pleasing as filling in every square I can in Xeen but similar. Just so I'm not TOO positive about the game though, quests for no-value junk items sure are obnoxious. It's made more tolerable because of the fast speed you move with animations disabled but still a pain in the ass. Only one I particularly liked was with the gremlins since it was an unmarked quest, and the item DID have value. Then again some of the other do too, like the bags of mushroom meal and bars of iron and shit.

If you want to break all the Avernums, give your mages enough fighter skills to get the battle frenzy skill (or adrenaline rush....I can't recall the exact name of it). I think you need, like, 12 or so points in melee weapons to get there (can't recall exact amount), and you can buy some too. It seems counter intuitive to invest in melee, but battle frenzy allows a character to move 2-3 times per turn. Which means that your mages can all spam their AOE spells 3 times at the start of the battle.
 
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If you want to break all the Avernums, give your mages enough fighter skills to get the battle frenzy skill (or adrenaline rush....I can't recall the exact name of it). I think you need, like, 12 or so points in melee weapons to get there (can't recall exact amount), and you can buy some too. It seems counter intuitive to invest in melee, but battle frenzy allows a character to move 2-3 times per turn. Which means that your mages can all spam their AOE spells 3 times at the start of the battle.
Nice, that does sound good! I'd actually forgotten to even look at the disciplines as I was leveling. Gave my fighter and rogue the mega-smack or whatever it's called when I first started but then promptly forgot to look at it again since it's not something you train up like a spell. Looks like the one you're talking about is either "Adrenaline rush" (You gain 20 action points) or "Battle frenzy" (Your actions come much faster). Adrenaline rush requires 15 combat skills and frenzy requires 20, so they'd be hefty investments. May just keep my casters as-is, especially since I can already kind of half-ass extra actions with both haste and slow spells on my wizard. Alpha striking a bunch of AOE would be handy but so far things haven't gotten too rough on normal. Hardest fight might've been killing the cave giant and his ogre posse, and the only reason that was hard is they had the initiative for some reason so they all got to gangbang my fighter. Still got through it by dazing with my wizard and my cleric spamming heals/shields. IIRC that was before I made the trek to the mage tower in the south and dropped a ton of gold on spells, too.

All THAT rambling though and now I think I should've been bumping my base combat skills on the fighter and rogue more. Or at least the rogue. Had been taking the defensive skills on the fighter and the dual wielding skills for the rogue but I'd been overlooking the battle disciplines, incremental damage/accuracy buffs from those skills are useful but likely not as useful as having extra tools in the toolbox like instantly getting 20AP and shit.
 
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So help me god, Vogel. Entered the aranea caves, went smoothly except for some wizard-heavy encounters that just perma-daze my entire party. Think "Oh ho, I'll run back to town and train up ward of thoughts so I resist daze!", bump ward of thoughts to rank 2, come back and it makes no appreciable difference. Search ward of thoughts in the forum and that's another case where people say "YEAH DOESN'T SEEM LIKE THAT DOES JACK SHIT". Real nuisance since I need to kill those aranea so I can get some sweet sweet spider pussy. New plan will likely be fighter and rogue go get slowed/dazed in front while the priest and wizard fling spells from behind. May even go in wands-a-blazin' since I haven't been using them much.
 
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B6E36C78E132646369B6080F5F1D889EF2171368


Out of mild curiosity, does anyone know why Kyass has a black and white portrait of (Maybe?) a real face, while every other NPC portrait seems to be in color and 3D art that's touched up? Could be mistaken on the 3D part since I don't pay terribly close attention to them, but they typically don't seem entirely drawn like the PC portraits. And everything's in color. When I first got to that city that dude's unique portrait struck me, and then a few days later I realized I may as well come ask if anyone knows just because I've been wondering about it. Didn't know if there was some particular story behind it and if so, if Vogel ever spilled the beans.
 

Correct_Carlo

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Out of mild curiosity, does anyone know why Kyass has a black and white portrait of (Maybe?) a real face, while every other NPC portrait seems to be in color and 3D art that's touched up? Could be mistaken on the 3D part since I don't pay terribly close attention to them, but they typically don't seem entirely drawn like the PC portraits. And everything's in color. When I first got to that city that dude's unique portrait struck me, and then a few days later I realized I may as well come ask if anyone knows just because I've been wondering about it. Didn't know if there was some particular story behind it and if so, if Vogel ever spilled the beans.

If it's the location I'm thinking of, I believe it was the only new location added to the re-re-make. Knowing Vogel, he probably just found a public domain photo at the last second and used it for the portrait. Either that or it's one of his friends.
 

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