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#151
ColorsFade

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-Semper- wrote...
in my book it's better to create few special encounters which can be beaten in different ways with different outcomes.


I could not have said that better myself. 

The other thing is, quest XP, at least from my point of view, is a lot easier to map out and control over the course of a module/campaign. Controlling XP and balancing it is important to ensure the party is a certain level when they reach a certain encounter. 

I have an Excel spreadsheet where I track every quest in my campaign. Quests are tagged in a column as optional or plot (required). I keep running totals in the spreadsheet for the total XP at given points in the campaign. I know, at any given point in the campaign, how much XP the party will have if they do only the required quests or the required and optional side quests. 

I use this data to balance the campaign and calculate progress. I can figure out what level the party should be when they enter X dungeon, or encounter Y creature. If the party isn't leveling the way I want, I can then add or remove XP from certain quests to make sure the party reaches the levels I want when I want. 

For this reason, monster kill XP is going to be very minimal, because it affects the overall XP and I want to have very tight control on the XP doled out during the entire campaign. 

#152
Guest_Iveforgotmypassword_*

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I know a lot of people don't like xp for killing things but I do as it does have one massive advantage and that is that it varies with the party's level. So even if somebody doesn't do any side quests they will level up at roughly the same rate so you always know what level everybody's at and don't need to keep track of it  It's what I use and quite frankly I can't see the difference between giving xp for killing each orc or a big chunk for doing the orc kill quest other than you have to be more careful with party level.

In the module I'm working on I've even used this feature of the engine to my advantage by introducing a level 1 companion when everybody else and encounters are set much higher so when you have a fight and manage to keep the level1 person alive throughout it you get more xp as your party level average is lowered.

Modifié par Iveforgotmypassword, 24 juillet 2013 - 07:30 .


#153
ColorsFade

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Wow, been a while!

I have to say, I really admire the mod community here: you folks who keep working on your mods in a consistent manner really impress me.

I had a very busy summer, to say the least, and because of that I just didn't devote any time to my campaign. I feel bad about that because this is something I really want to do. So now it's time to take something I learned over the summer and apply it.

About eleven weeks ago I started on a journey toward a much more fit version of myself. I started weightlifting (Stronglifts 5x5, I won't go into details because Google is sufficient).

I started that because (a) I have wanted to get into much better shape as I enter my early 40's and (B) some key advice was given to me, which was basically: Do something you enjoy, and you'll stick with it, because consistency is the key to success.

Over a year ago I had started running. Running turned out to be very good for my cholesterol numbers and my EKG, but it didn't take a single pound of fat off my body. I also don't enjoy running, so it's very difficult for me to stick with it. But weightlifting.. I really enjoy strength training and seeing my lifts go up every week, and seeing that progress. I have since learned that building lean muscle is a key component to body reconstruction, and I wasn't doing that when I was just running. So this has been a good addition to my fitness goals (I still run, but not often, because I know it's done great work for my heart, lungs, cholesterol and endurance).

Anyway - I ramble. The lesson I have learned from my fitness path this year is that consistency is what matters. I lift 3 days a week and I never miss a workout. I enjoy the workouts, and that is part of the reason I never miss one. But I also never miss because I understand: in order to be successful and see real change I must be consistent.

That is the lesson for my campaign as well. I realize: if I ever want this thing to see the light of day, I must maintain consistent effort. An hour a day would do wonders for progress.

And so, this week, I am committed to an hour a day, every day, to work inside the Toolset and get things done, no matter how big or small.

I'll be back on these boards a bit more, and hopefully can lend a hand to anyone with scripting issues or such.

I hope everyone is kicking butt with their modules :)

#154
andysks

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The inactivity made me thought of two things. Either real life caught up or you worked too hard on your project :). It's good to hear that you're OK, hell I also need to do all these things you mentioned. But I'm happy you work on the project again since it's probably the most anticipated campaign for me at the moment.

#155
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They do say that a healthy body leads to a healthy mind.

Tai Chi, cycling and working outside doing a physical job... What the hell happened to my mind then ? Don't believe all you hear !

#156
ColorsFade

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andysks wrote...

But I'm happy you work on the project again since it's probably the most anticipated campaign for me at the moment.


You are too kind! 

I am very happy to be working on it again. It is going to take some serious effort and time...

I was just as excited to work on it last night as I was the day I started. My wife was doing her Facebook thing, and I was coding on my campaign, and we were sitting there making googly eyes at each other... Fun times. And I was just struck by how much fun I think this campaign is going to be. 

I'm excited about this campaign because it's something I've wanted to play for such a long time. I've had this thing sitting in my head for quite a while. Every time a new (fantasy roleplaying) game comes out and I play it, I think, "If only I could make my game... it would be so much fun." 

I'm particularly excited to get back to work finishing the AI I've come up with for these boss mob fights. And to get this first prologue act out of the way. It's almost there... 

#157
ColorsFade

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Journal Update

Happy to finally be getting some things done, decisions made, etc. 

I loath tedious tasks in generating content, but they have to be done. Case in point was coming up with a conversation for the player's first Artifact Reward and then testing every single option. 

As I've mentioned previously on this thread, the Artifact system was something I wanted to create akin to what you experience in Baldur's Gate 2, where you find unique artifacts in the game world and then some NPC can shape them into a cool reward for you. But I wanted more flexibility with my system. In Baldur's Gate 2, for instance, if you find a dragon scale, it can really only be made into one specific piece of armor. I want the player to have choices. For example, they turn in an artifact and a couple other "ingredients" to the artificer, and in return they are asked what type of weapon they want in return. This is a flexible system that allows the player to tailor rewards to their character build (a necessary step in my mind, since there will be no crafting in this campaign, and the artifact system is, in fact, meant to replace creafting as a reward/customization system). But all of this means a dialog tree, a lot of scripting and very complete testing. 

The trick to making this easy and repeatable (for future Artifacts in the story) was to do it via scripting. I don't want to create and maintain 30+ blueprints for, say, a single weapon reward, which is what you have to do if you don't script it. That's simply too much work for the number of artifacts I am envisioning (and really, even for one, it's too much work).

Instead, I create a single item blueprint with appropriate stats and lore, and then via a script, we have the NPC change the base weapon type and icon prior to handing over the reward to the player. 

This isn't difficult to do - just time consuming from a coding standpoint. The conversation is easy enough to setup and it's easy to copy to another NPC for another reward when the time comes. But it was the scripting that was just tedious, writing out all the case-statements for each base weapon type (to return the weapon template and icon string). 

Today all of that got tested and tweaked and finished (at least for weapon artifacts; armor is yet to come) and I was really pleased with the result. It made the whole thing really easy. 

Image IPB

The other thing was finally coming to a decision on how to handle party management. 

I have been loath to handle it through dialog. It's just tedious. I want party management to be easy for the player, because this campaign is very focused on adventure, encounters and fun. I'm not into creating a virtual world, or attempting to make everything "realistic". 

One of the things I find myself doing in a large campaign like this is swapping gear between companions. I did it a lot in the OC with Sand and Qara, and same for Khelgar and other fighters. There's almost never enough good gear to go around for your companions and it costs every gold piece you have to outfit your party with belts, boots and rings. 

The problem with swapping gear in the OC is that you can only alter your party on the way out of the Inn.  It's inconvenient to say the least. 

I decided that what I wanted to do was provide a book, in certain places in the campaign (inns are popular, but so will the player's "Stronghold" be when they encounter it) that would launch the roster management GUI. 

Problem I had with the GUI is that after you change your party, the characters you dump disappear. This is part of the RemoveRosterMemberFromParty() call which causes the character to disappear, and the game saves their state. When you add them back into the party via the GUI, they reappear. 

I tried various ways to make the companions return and stand at their home spot, but it just never worked right. The game gets confused with which characters are in or out the party. It was after toying with this for a few days that I understood why the OC does it the way it does it (which is when you click on the door to exit the Inn): Because as soon as you close the GUI, you exit the Inn, and you don't see the companions disappear. When you re-enter the inn, the game repositions the companions at all their home points. 

That was when I decided I just had to do it through conversation. But shortly into coding all of that into every companion's conversation I decided against it. For one thing, it's just tedious to walk around the inn conversing with the various characters when you want to change your party composition. Plus, it's just easier to use the GUI.

I don't really care of the characters disappear. I rationalize it by figuring the companions are going to their rooms, or to attend to errands in town, whatever. But it makes it really easy for the player to deal with their party, and that's the most important thing, I think. 

#158
PJ156

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I really liked that aspect of BG but what i did not like was the rarity and dispersed nature of the ingredients. I always felt very good artifacts should be a quest in itself, not something you find along the way.

Happening upon parts of a long lost sword over the course of an adventure feels wrong to me. Pulling together special ingredients does not. For instance you mention dragon scales? Those you might find and craft from.

Which way are you going with this, is this crafted from mundane (relativly speaking) itmes or will we happen upon the three long lost parts of the "Hammer of eternal trumping (note 1)" as we meander through the adventure?

PJ

Note 1: Some say the pieces were not lost but hidden by its last owners wife.

Modifié par PJ156, 20 octobre 2013 - 09:56 .


#159
ColorsFade

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PJ156 wrote...

I really liked that aspect of BG but what i did not like was the rarity and dispersed nature of the ingredients. I always felt very good artifact should be a quest in itself, not something you find along the way.

Happening upon parts of a long lost sword over the course of an adventure feels wrong to me. Pulling together special ingredients does not. For instance you mention dragon scales? Those you might find and craft from.

Which way are you going with this, is this crafted from mundane (relativly speaking) itmes or will we happen upon the three long lost parts of the "Hammer of eternal trumping (note 1)" as we meander through the adventure?

PJ
.


Yeah, I didn't like the sword pieces in BG2. I felt that was... really random. Like, "Oh, hey, I just found the hilt of the Equalizer!" But there was no quest to find the other pieces, and no clues as to their whereabouts. So you just had to sit back and wait until you collected all the pieces at random throughout your adventure. I felt that was lame. 

The way I'm doing it is like this a bit different: You kill a creature or loot a container and find something like a zombie hand or a skeleton rib or a piece of flesh or a vial of blood (all custom created by me, having a specific lore so you know it's an "artifact")... something that emits a "powerful magical glow". You take it to someone who knows something about artifacts (there's a quest early on with the blacksmith in the first town where you can learn a bit about artifacts), and they will tell you if they can do anything with it.

Various artificers will specialize in certain types of artifacts. Some might make weapons, others armor, some will make rings/amulets, and others perhaps will craft powerful robes or staves. 

The artificer might say something like, "I can fashion a special weapon with this, but I need some ingredients to do the job". The ingredients will be (mostly) fairly mundane: gems, spells, components, etc. Some really powerful artifacts might require rare components - and that becomes a "side quest" in its own right. The artificer might say, "I can make a powerful weapon with this, but I need some Giant blood." And then you need to go find some Giants... And that becomes a quest in and of itself. A quest to kill some giants might tie in with a side-quest available if you ask the right people, or part of the main quest, etc...

Once you have all the compoents together you take everything to the artificer and they will craft you your reward. You get to choose within a set. For instance, if it's a weapon reward, you get to choose the type (as shown in the SS).

As for rarity... The intent is to have a LOT of these kind of stuff. Weapons, armor, cloaks, whatever. I want lots of unqiue loot done this way. And lots of "artifact" pieces will be usable for different rewards, so you can make choices. For instance, an artifact "ghoul hand" might be used to make a powerful weapon, but it could also be used to make a powerful robe. Depending on whether you play a melee or caster type might determine which sort of reward you want to go after. If you play a hybrid, like an Eldritch Knight, your choice might not be so simple as to who you take your artifact to... You'll have to do some question-asking to figure out what reward you want to go after. 

The idea is to replace crafting (because I don't want to support crafting in this campaign, for various reasons, and because this feels more fun and intresting to me - I like the idea of all the various artificers having more impact in the game). 

#160
kamal_

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I thing I felt was overdone in BG was that there were so many artifacts that could be assembled. I felt like I could go into random houses in the city and there were artifact pieces lying around to be gathered. Even in high magic worlds, if something is an artifact it should be "above and beyond", and correspondingly rare.

Lots of lower power but unique items are good for me though.

Modifié par kamal_, 20 octobre 2013 - 11:51 .


#161
andysks

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The companion thing was a problem for me too. Everything seemed unrealistic, and the ones that could fix this were too complicated for me to script. Sometimes you got to sacrifice some stuff.
As for the artifacts, I like loot and I won't hide it. I'm the kind of person that loots a simple dagger even if I'm level 20, and I stop every half an hour to short my inventory nicely and clean.
I don't like though, when artifacts become meaningless. I liked in BG2 that Caspenar could forge me some items, with special goodies I found around the world. If I was finding these same artifacts lying around wouldn't be the same. Plus it gives me the excitement when I find a peculiar item, to go to the crafter and see what he has this time.
Of course, this whole system would be ridiculous at low levels, so at least it should unaffordable if reachable by the player.

#162
Arkalezth

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I agree with Kamal. I like artifacts and I've always liked the BG2 system (and especially the Crom Faeyr), but I'd personally prefer just a few.

#163
ColorsFade

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I think, for me, the key is to balance the quantity so it's fun. What I didn't like about BG2 system was the items were fixed in type. The Equalizer, for instance, is a longsword, and always a longsword. If you specialized in another weapon, you were out of luck. And so the rarity of the artifacts and their usability could be REALLY rare if you tended to not be a longsword user...

Hence, why I am doing my system the way I am, so the player has some control over the specifics of the reward, and thus artifacts, the truly powerful things in the game world, are actually usable.

I expect there to be a good amount of "unique" loot that you find courtesy of killing boss mobs and opening rare chests, as is the norm in most of these things. But artifacts, as I intend them, are meant to be truly unique, rare and powerful, and to have an interesting combination of effects and powers on them.

When I played through the OC, I found that I could craft the best weapons in the game. Nothing that was generated as unique loot could compare to the things I could make from crafting (and that is something I don't think is right or balanced correctly). Since I intend artifacts to be replacements for crafting in this campaign, that's how I expect it to work, as far as balance goes. Artifacts should be the most powerful stuff (if I do it right).

#164
ColorsFade

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Journal Entry

So, an interesting development the past couple of days. This thread about campaigns and module sizes popped up recently, and it got me wondering about my own structure and module sizes. I was wise enough to build my mod as a campaign from the get-go, but I had been building my entire prologue into one module. Needless to say, it was too big and needed to be split up. 

So, I decided to do some partitioning and came up with a logical way to break the story areas into separate modules. 

It was a bit of work to break things up, but not too terribly painful. I had managed to use some decent naming conventions, so it was fairly easy to pick things out that belonged in a new module and export as a .erf, then import into my new module. The new module then got associated with the campaign, and things more or less worked. I then opened two versions of the toolset and split them side-by-side so I could ensure blueprints and areas were really imported into my new module before deleting them from the old one. 

I also have to add: being able to export and import script sets and variables at the module level was a life saver in terms of time. I was so glad that existed. 

The starting town now resides in it's own separate module. There's a variety of houses and interiors associated with it, so it's still fairly large (by far the largest module in the Prologue), but it should be a bit more lightweight and stable standing on its own. 

The remainder of the content got split up into three other separate modules, none of which are terribly big. 

Then came time to test everything and make sure stuff was connected properly. I fired up my trusty master test script in debug mode (which sets journal entries, forms appropriate parties, levels up my companions, provides gear, and then transports me to various waypoints to test certian areas). The script worked as usual, except for the transportation part... I had to make an adjustment in the script for waypoints that belonged in my *new* modules... Easy enough though. 

But one area kept failing to transport my characters. I looked and looked and couldn't figure out the issue. I thougth maybe the Toolset had an issue with Moule names larger than 16 characters, so I renamed it shorter and re-associated it with the Campaign. Then it worked. 

I only have one other bug that I encountered. One of the exported areas from the original module - when I open it in the new module that I imported it into, it doesn't center in the center of the area. It centers on a corner, just outside the area boundary. When I used my test script to transport my party to that particular area, they transported to that same corner, off the map. I could not move, of course... 

I am wondering if another export/import will fix the issue, or if I need to use some sort of map adjustment tool to fix it... bothersome. 

At any rate... I feel better having the separate modules now, and being more aware of module size, etc. 

#165
andysks

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How big of a module is the intro Colors? When I started mine I had this thing in my head, that a new area in the world map, should be a new module... I don't know why, it just was. So my intro is happening in three world map areas=3 modules. They are 70-120-290. I am glad now that it is like that, 'cause if I was making only one it would be a 480mb module. That could be a problem and I should do the exporting importing you did.

The thing with the area on the corner, maybe terra coppa can help? I only used this plugin a couple of times, but it seems like something it could do.

#166
ColorsFade

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andysks wrote...

How big of a module is the intro Colors?


It was well over 500 MB. It's down to 335 now. It's a single exterior area, and several interior areas (it's a small fort-type town... called Triel).

The other three modules are now very small and managable, all less than 100MB. One is finished (save some testing) and sits at 75MB. So I'm happy with that. 

andysks wrote...
That could be a problem and I should do the exporting importing you did.


It's not too bad. One just has to be careful and dilligent to ensure all your objects (areas, scripts, blueprints) are exported & imported correctly before deleting them from the original module. 

andysks wrote...
The thing with the area on the corner, maybe terra coppa can help? I only used this plugin a couple of times, but it seems like something it could do.


That's the name I was lookin for. I've used Terra Coppa once to move an entire area vertically (a prefab that had some part of it's walkable z-axis below zero, which messes with triggers). I'll give that a try and see what happens. Just have to figure out which direction to move it in first...

#167
Friar

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I mostly run, but love weight lifting. Unfortunately, the gyms in my area try to keep me in a business contract and I don't like that. I hear cycling is great for cardio while also mixed in with resistance training which you are already doing. I had to lose some weight after I realized how heavy I looked in the movie Parkland and yet I was supposed to be one of the more fit Secret Service agents.

Anyway, I'm glad you are sticking to this too. So many distractions! right?

Really like that dialogue already and how you are creatively approaching an alternative for the weapon store.

#168
ColorsFade

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andysks wrote...

The thing with the area on the corner, maybe terra coppa can help?


Figured it out. 

Moving four areas to a new module. you have to set one of the areas to be the "default". I had set this one to default, and as a result, without opening it, the toolkit had stuck the red starting spot on the corner, off the map. 

In addition, since my test script jumps the player to a waypoint, I had the waypoint wrong (as lowercase instead of uppercase, as the waypoint was really tagged uppercase). So, since the script failed to jump me to the correct waypoint, it jumped me to the default spot, on the corner, off the map. 

I moved the default spot, but the correct fix was simply getting the waypoint tag name right for the script jump spot. This happens to be the spot where the user zones in from the world map, so the world map would have failed as well. 

One thing I noticed is that I've been inconsistent with my waypoint names as far as upper and lowercase. I'm going to go through all of them and convert them to all uppercase. Consistency is key. 

#169
ColorsFade

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Journal Entry

Fun times. 

So, the first thing is: this is kinda cool and fun "rediscovering" this adventure and seeing what I've done with it so far.  

Here I go and basically "take off" the summer from building this mod. That's a lot of time away from this story and I had forgot a few details. I was recollecting some of the decisions I had made, some of the conversations I had written, and specifically, wondering if some of the choices I had made regarding a certain compaion were right or not.

I keep an Excel sheet with every task I have to work on, and in that sheet were a few lines regarding this companion's meeting, the dialogs and scripts and area that needed work, etc. And I was thinking about the general "feel" of this character and thinking maybe I had made a wrong decision. 

Then I went to test the encounter.

Sidebar: In that same Excel document is an entire sheet devote to "Notes", which are detailed notes on how to do things in the toolset and scripts. Things like, How to setup scripts & variables on creatures for loot drops, or how to quickly setup the Scripted Lighting System for an area. I sure have been glad I made all those notes...

So I go to get this encounter where you meet one of your potential companions for the first time... 

And I was totally taken aback by not only the length of the conversation, and where it was going, and how it was put together, and the encounter overall, but just the FUN it was to do this encounter. This is a companion character's "introduction" sequence, and the ensuing conversation was just... fun. I was worried it would be lame, or dumb, or just not well-written (and it still may not be well-written) and I was sitting there just smiling and laughing and thinking to myself, "Yes, this is right for this character. This is how you do this character. This will be fun."

I have no idea if the player will think that or not, but I continue to be driven with the same mindset I possess when I make music, which is: I have to like this first. If I don't like this, it doesn't matter what anyone else does. 

The other thing that was really cool was putting together another "boss mob" type encounter today. I've been dreading this one just because doing all the conversation points and options kind of drives me nuts. But it was really cool to see it all come together and actually WORK. It finishes off this area too - which makes me really happy!

The scripting is getting easier, and putting conversations together is getting easier and faster, and so I think my dread with these is easing up a bit. 

Happy with where this is going. Feel like I've got a lot done this week. Lots of stuff coming off my To Do list. 

#170
andysks

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I wish I had made these notes earlier. I wouldn't have to think all the time "I believe I read this somewhere", and searching the forums. But, it's never late so I did it later on. It's good you are progressing. How many hours of play do you think it will be? Or is it too early for such talk?

#171
ColorsFade

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andysks wrote...

How many hours of play do you think it will be? Or is it too early for such talk?


Too early. 

I know what I'm aiming for though. I've said, since the beginning, I want this to be a full fledged campaign. I want something to rival the OC in terms of scope, size and playtime. 

I still tend to think of Baldur's Gate 2 as the blueprint. It was a large game with a lot of levels. It had a lot of hours of play. Lots of content. It had a big city with tons of side-quests (some of them really challenging, like Kangaxx) and the game world overlal had loads of locations, a bunch of companions (each with a side quest) and a host of quests. I like that. I want that.

I think I have the story for that size of a campaign, I think.

There's definitely a big city involve (Scornubel) which should yield a lot of interesting side-quests given the main story arc and the conditions of the world that the player finds themselves in (and Scornubel has the benefit of some mystery as well, not the least of which is the Crypt of the Wondermen, which I'm kind of excited to get to play with a bit). The Reaching Wood, Forest of Wyrms and Mysty Forest are large playgrounds that actually are key to the story as well (I'm going to be using a lot of trees...).

In fact, the forests are something that really excites me a lot, because they're each so different. As a designer, I'm excited about the chance to build three very different looking and feeling forests. The Reaching Wood, as I am envisioning it, is more of your classic wood, like the Cloakwood, etc. The Mysty Forest... well, I've already done some area testing with some ideas to create the specific look and I was super pleased with it. It is not a classic forest in places... And then the Forest of Wyrms... there's the chance to do a lot of darker stuff, swamp stuff, poison pools and traps, and to create a lot of dangerous encounters. I'm excited about that one. 

And that's just the forests. There's a whole bunch of other areas in the Western Heartlands, where this is set, that are going to be key to the story. And I'm excited to make them come to life and give them a visual presence. 

I'm anxious to get the prologue out of the way. It feels so close now, especially as I look at my dwindlign To-Do list. There's only one area left to create, and a couple encounters left to script. Some busywork in between - some decoration of placeables, a couple conversations to polish off. It's close. 

The only thing I really am trying to figure out now is level range. I pre-plan all the levels in an excel sheet. I have every quest listed, and the amount of XP the quest gives (at it's max - several quests have different routes to completion and offer different XP rewards).  And I'm trying to figure out exactly what level I expect the player to finish the prologue at. Make it too high and the player might feel like the XP is too easy, make it too low and I will have to adust a couple areas of encounters to get the level range right... So I'm still dealing with that. I'm thinking level 4 might be about right. We'll see. 

#172
andysks

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I had the same problem, which can be solved only by a good testing I think. Beginning to end of prologue. I can never calculate exactly the level, I don't know which quests the player will pick and which not. So I made a test run in which I picked everything and fought everything, and ended up around 7 level in my prologue. Was too much. So I fixed some quest rewards and stuff like that. But I believe level 4 for a prologue is well.
I remember in the OC, you get from level 1 to 2 only in the tutorial, and on the attack another level. After that it gets normal... but these two levels made me feel a bit like... What!? So fast?

#173
ColorsFade

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The OC was fast for the first couple of levels, yes. But it also had the disadvantage of trying to be a tutorial for the user at the same time. And when you're creating a tutorial you really want people to see all the mechanics at work, including leveling and such. So I understood it from that point of view.

The other thing I like to consider is: in AD&D, if you are a wizard to start out, the first few levels are brutal. You have about 4 hp and you're a squishy bug. Everything can kick your ass (which is part of the reason I give folks companions almost right away).

I want people to play my campaign with any character they desire. I enjoy playing all sorts of characters and trying out builds, and I want folks to be able to do that. So you kind of have to balance things a bit early on so wizards don't feel so squishy, and yet it's not too easy for fighters.

I had originally intended my prologue to finish around level 5, but the problem with that is wizards can get Fireball by then, and I don't want to have to deal with that spell quite yet in the encounters. Five just feels like too much advancement to me... so I'm really aiming for level 4. With some tuning I know it will get there.

The final difficulty in all of that is, I enjoy playing ECL characters, like dark elves. And ECL -2 really can make for a tough early game for people. So I'm intentionally going to do a playthrough or two with a dark elf just to see how the character progression goes. I don't want ECL characters to suffer.

The prologue has, I think, a good combination of early quests. Some of it is simple FedEx, and the combat opportunities are easy and simple, and you get a companion very early, so I am hoping with all of that at play the first two levels won't be brutal.

I want the player to be level 3 when they hit the crypt... Because that's when things get hairy.

#174
I_Raps

I_Raps
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andysks wrote...

I remember in the OC, you get from level 1 to 2 only in the tutorial, and on the attack another level. After that it gets normal... but these two levels made me feel a bit like... What!? So fast?


???  I normally get to lvl 4 in the OC prologue (i.e. the Festival);  that's including doing Uninvited Guests first, but I still can't see how you could fail to reach lvl 3 at least.  In any case, lvl 4 in your prologue is not too high IF your campaign is going to lvl 20 or thereabouts.  Lvl 4 out of 6 total levels would be a joke.  All things are relative.

Modifié par I_Raps, 26 octobre 2013 - 06:26 .


#175
andysks

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Is been a hile... I just remembered that it was a lot :D