-Troll Caves-
Main problem here is that the enemies get insta-death stuff and take a LONG time to kill, giveing their AI plenty of chance to decide to use it. It also makes respawns and getting overwhelmed much more likely. In this cave I have been Harmed to death(lower floor) and Death Arrowed several times(The Sureshotters). D&D is not a 'tight' game. In for example WoW if you can fight something for 5 minuets you can fight it for 50 because everything is balanced around combat stability. D&D is not, the longer the fight goes on the more likely your opponent is to roll 2 20's and paste you; you fail a will save, ectera. In P&P this is countered by a DM who is encouraged to fudge the rolls. In a cRPG it is not.
By giving the advantage of stability to the enemy(only fire hurts, limited fire damage) and not to the players(who can still be crit/harmed/deathshotted) you increase the likelyhood of a 'lame' death. While most people won't be able to point out why they don't like this area, I feel this is the primary reason.
I would say a big problem this area faces is it's lack of risk/reward balanceing, I hear you added loot, so it'll probaly be done more. The experiance could however be raised to a level that allows 1 level-approite death and still coming out positive. To allow for the looseness of Coputer controlled D&D.
Area/Creature Balance
I dont really think that an adventure should have a steady rate of difficulty all the way through. That seems rather dull to me. I would say that about the tower as well. Pretty much your suggestions on the tower equate to lowering the difficulty level by changing the guards weapons and making the captain easier to kill while lowering the reward as well on what is currently a quest that is quite soloable by many people in the level range of the quest.
I hear your suggestions, but I am not sure if that is the right path to addressing it. An equally valid perspective would be perhaps a toughening up across the board is more appropriate while keeping the reward the same. It would yield the same result as your suggestion. I am not sure if there is a problem there though. Based on what I see from the people going through it, it doesnt seem to pose problems to anyone that completes it. Consistency in every creature definately isnt the goal, I wanted the area to have spikes in difficulty as one progresses through the content. Theres nothing wrong with a nice weapon dealing with stoneskin. The same could be said of the DR on the rats. Being properly equipped for content is a feature in my mind and not a balance issue.
The reward for the tower area right now is a bit out of wack, and will be reduced when we get more content in in that range.
Any time I have played in the rat lair with a balanced party, its been a pretty simple matter to deal with the elders. I think you may be right about the level limit standing raising up a level or 2, but I would hate to have soloer 9's in there taking the place from parties of 5-7. That was the idea there- a short party quest.
I hear your suggestions, but I am not sure if that is the right path to addressing it. An equally valid perspective would be perhaps a toughening up across the board is more appropriate while keeping the reward the same. It would yield the same result as your suggestion. I am not sure if there is a problem there though. Based on what I see from the people going through it, it doesnt seem to pose problems to anyone that completes it. Consistency in every creature definately isnt the goal, I wanted the area to have spikes in difficulty as one progresses through the content. Theres nothing wrong with a nice weapon dealing with stoneskin. The same could be said of the DR on the rats. Being properly equipped for content is a feature in my mind and not a balance issue.
The reward for the tower area right now is a bit out of wack, and will be reduced when we get more content in in that range.
Any time I have played in the rat lair with a balanced party, its been a pretty simple matter to deal with the elders. I think you may be right about the level limit standing raising up a level or 2, but I would hate to have soloer 9's in there taking the place from parties of 5-7. That was the idea there- a short party quest.
The intent of the trolls was to provide a nice hack and slash relief from long content quests. Many people do things like that for entertainment...you know...because its fun, not just for the reward.
That was the design goal there, though the reward could be easily adjusted.
Not all content pieces are for every type of play-style, and I think that it is to everyone's benefit when we have various types of play-type adventures.
That was the design goal there, though the reward could be easily adjusted.
Not all content pieces are for every type of play-style, and I think that it is to everyone's benefit when we have various types of play-type adventures.
I did intend for the troll caves to involve more drawn out fights. They don't have uber strength or hp, but that regen and DR is a HUGE factor in the longevity of the battle. Your point about the longer a fight goes on, the more chance they have of critting you, yes, I can see that, especially when critical damage in that area is worthless on the PCs side.
In my last update I added medium and a couple (I think) of high loot chests on both levels, and I increased the CR on all of the Trolls by 1 to hopefully increase the value, xp-wise, of going there. I admit it was set low initially, because it was one of the first combat areas I developed using NWN 2 and I was nervous about overdoing it. It seems I scaled it back a bit too much. Let me know how it is now (anyone who feels like venturing there) and let me know if anything else needs to be altered.
In my last update I added medium and a couple (I think) of high loot chests on both levels, and I increased the CR on all of the Trolls by 1 to hopefully increase the value, xp-wise, of going there. I admit it was set low initially, because it was one of the first combat areas I developed using NWN 2 and I was nervous about overdoing it. It seems I scaled it back a bit too much. Let me know how it is now (anyone who feels like venturing there) and let me know if anything else needs to be altered.
It's just a game...
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baby1111007
- Dragon Rider
- Posts: 878
- Joined: Fri Sep 22, 2006 9:33 pm
- Location: cooking up a storm in the kitchens
People should keep in mind that many of the dungeons will be tailored for party play, usually a well balanced party. There will be areas that will be impossible without a good rogue, areas more tailored to the magically inclined. A good healer is a must in any party.
Will these areas be doable by some of the uber builds...unfortunately yes. But the idea is to promote party play. Many of the old times would agree that this does work. Defile always needed a decent rogue, Raven was designed for a well balanced party. Get it right it was a great fight, get it wrong and you got slaughtered. Talon would take a whole party of people to do right, tanks, casters and rogues.
I am very much concerned with the fact that some seem to want things so dumbed down that most of the areas will be able to be soloed. It would reduce the need for parties, and that will take away the idea of playing with other people. If you want to solo all the time, why come into a community to play?
Will these areas be doable by some of the uber builds...unfortunately yes. But the idea is to promote party play. Many of the old times would agree that this does work. Defile always needed a decent rogue, Raven was designed for a well balanced party. Get it right it was a great fight, get it wrong and you got slaughtered. Talon would take a whole party of people to do right, tanks, casters and rogues.
I am very much concerned with the fact that some seem to want things so dumbed down that most of the areas will be able to be soloed. It would reduce the need for parties, and that will take away the idea of playing with other people. If you want to solo all the time, why come into a community to play?
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Reina Lianacia Mellan, Musae Magister of the Ordo Magica
Tahl'Nae Rhaz
Cynthia Ashallows , Moonsinger
Yaassima
Isabella Quick
Reina Lianacia Mellan, Musae Magister of the Ordo Magica
Tahl'Nae Rhaz
Cynthia Ashallows , Moonsinger
Yaassima
Isabella Quick
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daniel.alcantara
- Commoner
- Posts: 61
- Joined: Tue Dec 19, 2006 6:08 am
- Regarding quest xp
Have you guys ever considered reducing the xp you gain from a quest if you do it with a larger party?
I mean, 1500 for soloing, 1000 for 3 adventurers and so on...
If this has already been discussed and you decided that this is the way it will work, let me know please. Otherwise, i could spent a few minutes elaborating my reasons.
Have you guys ever considered reducing the xp you gain from a quest if you do it with a larger party?
I mean, 1500 for soloing, 1000 for 3 adventurers and so on...
If this has already been discussed and you decided that this is the way it will work, let me know please. Otherwise, i could spent a few minutes elaborating my reasons.
-Monk Enclave/Recapture the slaves quest-
I have NEVER found an 'approite' group to do this with. Most of the no-thanks comments I get are along the lines of "Sorry monks too hard". Or "Too long". Or "Not enough Exp".
It's long, it's hard, and it dosen't give much exp. If you want to 'fix it' just raise the level by 3ish and remove the harm-spamming cleric at the end.
Monks are just a PITA after level 13, and this place has a lot of them. They hit hard, alot, and are hard to hit. Arrows they do nothing! Once you get past the monks it dosen't get any easier either....
I count 3 distinct 'hard' encounters in this quest. There's the one with the initial 3 clerics all in diffrent corners of the room after you get down to the 2nd level. A flame-striker a cleric and a fighter. They are all pure class uberbuilds, making it hard for anyone who's not to take them out. Nothing in particular wrong with this encounter, it just shouldn't be a starting encounter in the level of it's quest. Feels more like a boss fight.
After that there's the buggy instance where you talk to the merc. Don't rember what she says, but no matter what you say it dosen't affect anything, yas still gots ta kill her. And her 4 friends. We managed to get through this by cowering in a corner and fighting one at a time. Just too many hitpoints under too much AC with too high an AB.(This was versus Wall too, the cleric and wiz I went in there with didn't do nearly as well)
Further down that corridor are several instances where you fight a guard blocking the way past a barricade with a caster sitting on the other side of it. There's usually an archer on the other side of the barricade. Suffice to say that you have to either kill the 'cade and the archer, or the fighter, to get at the wizard. At which point he's out of spells anyway and you are at half life^_^ Could problay do with just removeing the archer or the wizard. That much extra un-solveable firepower is hard to deal with.
Then there's the end encounter with the harm-spamming cleric.....Ya ya Deathward and so on and so forth. It wouldn't be so bad if that's all you had to deal with. There's also the pure-class uberbuild figther there to fight, and the named wizard. Then there's about 6 archers spread throughout the room. Boy is that a hard fight. As it happend the only time I ever got to it we didn't know about the harm spam and wiped. Don't know what to do specfically about this particular encounter, just that it needs to be toned down. Remove harm, or make it single cast, for one. Lower the levels on the 3 named, mabey remove the archers that pop behind you alltogther. It's just a brutal encounter all around and feels like it was designed for a well balanced group of level 14's...not level 7-11's.
I am told that when you first tried to play this map you went in with 6 people and wiped. Repeatdly. Then you got someone's vault char and soloed it. My guess is you used Kitsu or a clone like him and you abused the enemy AI with darkness. Don't do that:D Abusing the enemy AI makes a hard encounter a peice of cake, and I wouldn't be suprised if Kitsu could infact solo this place....Only because the enemies would never attack him.
I have NEVER found an 'approite' group to do this with. Most of the no-thanks comments I get are along the lines of "Sorry monks too hard". Or "Too long". Or "Not enough Exp".
It's long, it's hard, and it dosen't give much exp. If you want to 'fix it' just raise the level by 3ish and remove the harm-spamming cleric at the end.
Monks are just a PITA after level 13, and this place has a lot of them. They hit hard, alot, and are hard to hit. Arrows they do nothing! Once you get past the monks it dosen't get any easier either....
I count 3 distinct 'hard' encounters in this quest. There's the one with the initial 3 clerics all in diffrent corners of the room after you get down to the 2nd level. A flame-striker a cleric and a fighter. They are all pure class uberbuilds, making it hard for anyone who's not to take them out. Nothing in particular wrong with this encounter, it just shouldn't be a starting encounter in the level of it's quest. Feels more like a boss fight.
After that there's the buggy instance where you talk to the merc. Don't rember what she says, but no matter what you say it dosen't affect anything, yas still gots ta kill her. And her 4 friends. We managed to get through this by cowering in a corner and fighting one at a time. Just too many hitpoints under too much AC with too high an AB.(This was versus Wall too, the cleric and wiz I went in there with didn't do nearly as well)
Further down that corridor are several instances where you fight a guard blocking the way past a barricade with a caster sitting on the other side of it. There's usually an archer on the other side of the barricade. Suffice to say that you have to either kill the 'cade and the archer, or the fighter, to get at the wizard. At which point he's out of spells anyway and you are at half life^_^ Could problay do with just removeing the archer or the wizard. That much extra un-solveable firepower is hard to deal with.
Then there's the end encounter with the harm-spamming cleric.....Ya ya Deathward and so on and so forth. It wouldn't be so bad if that's all you had to deal with. There's also the pure-class uberbuild figther there to fight, and the named wizard. Then there's about 6 archers spread throughout the room. Boy is that a hard fight. As it happend the only time I ever got to it we didn't know about the harm spam and wiped. Don't know what to do specfically about this particular encounter, just that it needs to be toned down. Remove harm, or make it single cast, for one. Lower the levels on the 3 named, mabey remove the archers that pop behind you alltogther. It's just a brutal encounter all around and feels like it was designed for a well balanced group of level 14's...not level 7-11's.
I am told that when you first tried to play this map you went in with 6 people and wiped. Repeatdly. Then you got someone's vault char and soloed it. My guess is you used Kitsu or a clone like him and you abused the enemy AI with darkness. Don't do that:D Abusing the enemy AI makes a hard encounter a peice of cake, and I wouldn't be suprised if Kitsu could infact solo this place....Only because the enemies would never attack him.
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muletang
- Dasarian Hero
- Posts: 826
- Joined: Fri Sep 22, 2006 10:04 pm
- Location: Aotearoa - Land of the Long White Cloud
I rekon 2k for party and 10xp (not 10k) for soloI mean, 1500 for soloing, 1000 for 3 adventurers and so on...
sounds like the entrance to Talon past ravenwatch, haha, only smaller.Further down that corridor are several instances where you fight a guard blocking the way past a barricade with a caster sitting on the other side of it. There's usually an archer on the other side of the barricade
Personally i rekon everything is pretty good, sometimes I die, sometimes I don't and if its too easy I use it as some stress relief occasionally and try and work out the harder bits. You don't necessarily have to make xp everytime you log in (comment not directed at anyone)[/i]
I don't feel any shame, I won't apologise
--
"...I do not entertain the possibility of an afterlife, or any deity capable of offering it. Given the world that he created, it would be an impiety against God to believe in him..."
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"...I do not entertain the possibility of an afterlife, or any deity capable of offering it. Given the world that he created, it would be an impiety against God to believe in him..."
If an encounter is proving to be extremely difficult, I would simply suggest increasing the reward output. Not just in XP but perhaps unique item drops. This will encourage people who say "Too long" or "Too hard" to stay away, but it may draw people in if they feel that they can get that "Bow" that just doesn't appear anywhere else.
I think the LAST thing we want to do is make encounters easier, since People/items/Equipment always become stronger - but scripted monsters and encounters, do not.
I think the LAST thing we want to do is make encounters easier, since People/items/Equipment always become stronger - but scripted monsters and encounters, do not.
Are you talking to me? Surely you are not so crazy as to think I would use an AI exploit to guage difficulty. If you think that, I have to ask...why are you playing here?My guess is you used Kitsu or a clone like him and you abused the enemy AI with darkness. Don't do that:D Abusing the enemy AI makes a hard encounter a peice of cake, and I wouldn't be suprised if Kitsu could infact solo this place....Only because the enemies would never attack him.
I tested that with IRC (a mistake I will not repeat now) members with 5 run throughs with 5 adjustments to difficulty each time. Surely you dont think that we are so perfect as to nail everything on the 1st try. That is why I ask for testers and that is why the server is in Beta. If you can make an area perfect without testing, I would highly suggest that you open up the toolset and make a PW. I am sure it would be wonderful.
I soloed the entire content up to the bosses with Kazak's Vor and I know nothing of that class aside from equip weapon, attack, and drink potion. But I didnt use that to base my decisions on, as he is a special case. It was just something to consider as people with builds like Vor and other strong characters can go in there and solo.
There are quite a few unique item drops and nice treasure in there for the level that would encourage me to do to the quest, along with 5 total quests involving the area. That makes for a pretty nice reward if you are thourough. I am sure that it could use some adjustment to the encounter placement, and it seems like the spawn encounters are bugged perhaps.
By the way, since you laid out the spoiler for the people, if you have the money for the merc captain then you wont have to fight her and her friends. If you dont have the cash, you dont get the option to buy her off
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Stormknife
- Dasarian Hero
- Posts: 1126
- Joined: Sat Sep 23, 2006 7:24 am
- Main Player Character: Draco
- Other PCs: Shroud, Lorcann
- Location: The Original Dasarian Kitsune.
Because you enjoy levelling but have a hell of a time finding people to group up with. It sucks spending half an hour trying to find someone to group with you, who then spends the entire damn dungeon babbling on OOC about this or that inane topic.baby1111007 wrote:If you want to solo all the time, why come into a community to play?
Some ability to level up solo without having to resort to being a cleric or a wizard would be nice. That said, I don't think the current areas should be tweaked to accommodate it.
For us old-schoolers: like a whatever-level-it-is equivalent of Koa'lisk?There are quite a few unique item drops and nice treasure in there for the level that would encourage me to do to the quest, along with 5 total quests involving the area.
Draco - "Allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste."
Lorcann - "BACON!"
<*>
Lorcann - "BACON!"
<*>
My problem when I play is that I hate to leave anyone out of a party that wants to play. I wind up with a hoard like the mongols smashing through an area. In prime time play hours, I cant see finding a group being a problem. We will though get some solo type quests in as we grow. Right now we are just trying to get party content with some diversity in all the level ranges.Because you enjoy levelling but have a hell of a time finding people to group up with. It sucks spending half an hour trying to find someone to group with you, who then spends the entire damn dungeon babbling on OOC about this or that inane topic.
About the koalisk thing, i wouldnt put it that high on the scale, but some nice stuff drops in there that is unique to the area.
I personally feel the monastery is just right...if anything its TOO rewarding for the difficulty...granted I play a strong melee build, but its not min/max, just better suited for balance and survivability.
I can solo the entire place if I take my time (although I prefer not to, partying is much more fun and rewarding for me). The last 3 bosses are tough even in a party, but I feel thats perfect. Nothing is stopping you from just leaving the building if you don't feel up to it.
If you are bringing less than 4 people (10+ each) and complaining this place is too difficult then you should recruit more friends.
I can solo the entire place if I take my time (although I prefer not to, partying is much more fun and rewarding for me). The last 3 bosses are tough even in a party, but I feel thats perfect. Nothing is stopping you from just leaving the building if you don't feel up to it.
If you are bringing less than 4 people (10+ each) and complaining this place is too difficult then you should recruit more friends.
-k9burn
When everything is coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.
When everything is coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.
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broncoblitz
- Dasarian Hero
- Posts: 1126
- Joined: Sat Sep 23, 2006 1:55 am
- Location: A modern magician working in a Lab
