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Community Project Support Forum / Re: (Spoiler) Black Wizards/Orc Brutes

« on: February 19, 2007, 10:14:43 AM »

2.) Whatever you do, don't do your playtesting with a cleric! (I've played through most/all of the module with a cleric and managed to whoop most everything's butt with only moderate difficulty, but of course, with default NWN spells thats like pressing the I win button... not sure why this didn't occur to me at the time.)

What? Full Plate, Tower shield, a full load of buff spells and Hammer of the Gods overpowered? Never!

Try my favourite character build for testing: Bard/Arcane Archer... That's the opposite of overpowered.

But when talking clerics: The cleric henchman suffers enough from the abysmal NWN AI, no need to cripple him further. I'd suggest to take away 2 points of pointless (in his silver full plate) dex and 2 points of rather useless charisma (bringing both to "only" 12) and giving him 14 strength in exchange. So he won't be a *complete* loss in combat.

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Community Project Support Forum / Re: (Spoiler) Black Wizards/Orc Brutes

« on: February 19, 2007, 09:06:47 AM »

Thanks for taking the time to reply Lalaith and Talan, a few more comments:

As for the Blackfeather Mountains moongate however, To be fair, Xora does warn you about the dangers of this place.  She states somthing like:
"I should warn you about Blackfeather Mountains though... you will be hard pressed to find many willing to travel there with you. Too many have heard the story of The Shaman of Blackfeather Mountains to take steps to close."  
You also recieve a journal entry that specifies how dangerous the mountains and the shaman are: "She warned me about the dangers of the mountains though, saying that many find the rumours of the shaman alone reason enough not to tread there."

Xora gives you 3 main quest to go and *explicitly* warns you about which to do last (that one's a clear hint for the player). IIRC, the one "Vial Quest" linked to the Blackfeather area is actually the first she mentions. The rest, for me, is just the usual flavour text I'm afraid.
I've been playing D&D and assorted other RPGs for 20 years now, and my alter egoes have been to more "they never return" places than you can shake a stick at. That's the whole *point* of an RPG, to go where no one has gone before...

That's why in a non-linear module you need a few electric cattle prods, or "doorkeepers" for lack of a better word. There's many ways to do it, some more and some less discreet, but all is better than realizing you've been running into a dead end for the last 30 minures. A "doorstop" encounter at the very beginning of an area is a classic, place one encounter that's an indicator of things to come right next to the entry, so players notice after a minute if they are in over their heads and can easily back out. For the pirate quest, the alchemist could be out of water breathing pots and tell the player "I need some time to make a new batch, please check back later", and they'd become available after an undetermined time (aka: once the players has sufficient levels). Elsewhere, a caravan driver could tell you "Sorry, the road is unpassable during this time of the year (flood, draught, snow - you pick it ), come back in a few weeks (so, again, once the PC is high enough). "Escape points" are another option, shortscuts you discover in an area from where you can flee and to where you can return later.

1. If you didn't meet the Shaman to get the key to the moongate, this is a bug, and I can understand then that there wasn't warning.  You shouldn't be able to get the key without speaking to the Shaman.  I'm pretty sure we fixed that though.

The first time I met the shaman was *after* I returned through the beam of moonlight behind that spirit guardian, *then* he handed me some key and disappeared and I was stuck in an area with no exits... (and that was when I quit for good). The moongate simply appeared somewhere in the foothills where I was looking for a way to vial ingredient #1, I entered and could not get back the same way. So, probably some bugginess remains here.

One general suggestions remains: Enemies that stick to the same rules as the player tend to make for a more enjoyable fight in my opinion

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Community Project Support Forum / Re: (Spoiler) Black Wizards/Orc Brutes

« on: February 18, 2007, 07:29:05 AM »

Let me add right more of the same...

*** HEAVY SPOILERS ***

For a non-linear mod it takes WAY too long to notice if one is on a path not suited for one's level. Half an hour into a quest or AFTER I stepped through a one-way door is too late.

Two examples I ran into:

The pirate quest. I need to have a looong walk south for some potion, a naval battle with some orc pirates (no trouble so far), a loong walk across some island and underwater caves only to notice that the captain who had registered as only "very difficult" (usually doable) is in fact *completely* undoable as he's obviously equipped with some totally insane whip of utter doom and mass destruciton +12 (kills both me and the henchman in 2-3 hits). Had only 2 options - reload a saved game and forfeit at least 30 minutes of game time or give up the quest (switching sides not being an option from a roleplaying PoV). So I cowsfromhelled the sucker only to notice that I can't even pry that whip of utter doom and mass destruction +12 from his cold, dead hands.
Two things that I'd suggest:
- in a non-linear mod a level 7 fighter (that's what Hrolf is) should be a level 7 fighter and NOT have the feats of a level 7 weapon master (ki critical, weapon of choice), a 1st level assassin (death attack) and a 10th level fighter (10 picked feats alltogether) - AND the stats of... acually, no idea... what HAS a strength AND dex of 24??? When I don't know what to expect I at least expect the enemies to be fair
- there needs to be an earlier indication that I'm in over my head and an easy way to bail out and pick up later. Being caught red-handed in the treasure cave ain't it

Second example: I step through some "moon gate" in the blackfeather foothills only to find that there's no way back. I kill some branch golems (tough but doable), climb a cliff (one-way AGAIN) to find myself faced with ice spirits that cast cone of cold AND ice storm at me in numbers. Almost undoable, but after a 45 minute game of lure, save and reload in case of accident I got 'em all just to notice that the only way out if through a roadblock "spirit guardian" who AGAIN has illegal feats for his class level (9 barbarian) like weapon of choice, ki critical, EPIC toughness (those feats are called EPIC feats for a reason!!!), excellent equipment that's not dropped and just plain one-hit-kills my brown bear companion with his first attack. General note: enemies with keen two-handed greataxes and improved critical: greataxe are just plain mean anyway even if everything else about them is NOT plain out of bounds.

Sorry if I sound a bit frustrated, but that's exactly what I am atm. I'm going to quit and play a mod that's more entertaining and less running into walls...

Thanks for sharing this mod anyway, even if it's completely not my pice of cake.

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Community Project Support Forum / Re: Towers of Dregar: Xora's Vial - AID Questions

« on: February 17, 2007, 05:44:22 PM »

Armin, I'd love to discuss AID and it's ideal implementation with you (I'm the author of it) if you don't mind registering on the layonara forums tooo much *elbows armin jokingly*

Allright, allright, if one asks so nicely :p

It seems my main early struggle was less with the AID than with a little bug in the murder sideplot (no wonder the beta testers found it difficult , but from what I managed to explore so far, the best implementation I found was still the tutorial...

From what I've seen so far, the problem as with many nifty new gadgets and toys is that people tend to overuse them. And forget that for things that can be done the old way just as well, the old way is usually the faster and thus more elegant one.

Btw: One thing that struck me as counter-intuitive is that the *inspect* action actually tends to yield less information than a plain *look at / examine*. I missed several clues at first, going right to the *inspect* command when I thought a closer look was in order. It would make sense if all info that can be gained from just looking would be included with the closer inspection, but it isn't. Should probably be made more clear in the totorial/introduction.

Well, more after I play some more and at a more civil time... It's a quarter to three in the morning here and an old man needs some sleep