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Member, NW_CrypticDev, Cryptic Developer Cryptic Developer › Posts: 175 Cryptic Developer
Hey Gang,
WE need to lock down the tags we are going to have when Fury of the Feywild launches.
Some Guidelines first,
What I want to do is get the feedback and then start posting potential lists.
We will have a round of feedback on a list and keep posting lists until we feel good with the end result.
Here are the tags we have do far:
WE need to lock down the tags we are going to have when Fury of the Feywild launches.
Some Guidelines first,
- I only really want to have 10 - 12 tags at most.
- Really think about what the tags are going to be as we are not likely to change them (we get one shot at this)
- Think of experiences instead of getting everything covered. for example: RP, Story, Hard, Easy, Lore, Unique, silly and serious are things that could be universally understood by gamers and fans.
What I want to do is get the feedback and then start posting potential lists.
We will have a round of feedback on a list and keep posting lists until we feel good with the end result.
Here are the tags we have do far:
- Challenging
- StoryRich
- CombatHeavy
- LoreFilled
- Exploration
- Surprising
- Secrets
- Humorous
- Dramatic
- Unusual
- Solo
- Group
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Solo vs. Group
Dramatic vs. Humorous
Exploration vs. Linear
Surprising vs. Predictable (although that could be considered a negative description I guess)
Challenging vs... I don't know, Casual ?
And I definitely think we need at least one tag to capture anything that is heavy with puzzles, riddles, and/or platforming exercises.
While we're on the subject, I'm going to pitch the popular "Hey, can't the authors at least tag their own quests?" request again. First, because without it, brand spanking new quests still have the issue of not showing up on anybody's radar. At least with the author tagging things, there's a chance they'll show up in some advanced searches. (Maybe limit them to three choices so they don't just spam every category in the hope for hits.) And secondly, what about long-established quests that may not be getting as many plays as some of the shiny new ones do? With a 100% player driven tagging system, it's a similar deal as the new quest - they'll have to get a fair amount of new plays for the tags to mean anything.
Anyways, looking forward to this going live and thanks for listening to the player feedback!
The Crystal Relics - NWS-DMXNCNAVJ
Tower District Contest Entry: Undercover Brother - NW-DCD6OI9JE
D&D Home Page - What Class Are You? - Build A Character - D&D Compendium
I would ask, nay; BEG that you add one word: "Focussed" to four of these. So this list might look more like this:
These are great tags... However, the primary criteria (I suspect) many people are considering is the "Story" to "Combat" ratio, then whether the quest is designed for solo or group play. By adding the word "Focussed" makes it CLEAR that the quest is designed with that thought in mind.
The PROBLEM I am seeing right now is that there are too many quests manually tagged with "STORY HEAVY" *and* "COMBAT HEAVY" in the same quest because authors think their quest is both simultaneously. By adding "FOCUSSED" tells authors to PICK ONE, NOT BOTH.
As for the new "SoloGroupChoice" - My quests (and I am seeing many more authors also doing it) are being designed for solo play, but allow the players to choose to "up the ante" combat-wise that would be suitable for small groups (2 or 3 players) - but a nightmare for solo players. Having such a tag would be useful, rather than using BOTH "Solo" and "Group" which would look confusing.
TL;DR: Too many authors claim BOTH "Story" and "Combat" rather than one or the other (it's usually a lot more combat than story) - Adding "Focussed" tells author pick ONE or the OTHER not BOTH.
Just my own too sense, your milage will obviously vary.
EDIT TO ADD:
Add a NEW TAG:
TestingOnly
So that a published quest that that author doesn't want people to play can be clearly tagged as such and players will know it's a work in progress that might not be completable, etc..
#JustSaying
And I would beg that it be spelled "Focused." Although I can completely see the desire, I think authors would just as soon double tag something with multiple foci, so I would propose either the more qualifying "Centric" or disabling opposite tag pairs - like selecting Combat Heavy (Combat Centric) would disable Story Rich (Story Centric). That might be a better alternative -- don't even allow the conflicting data to be entered in the first place.
My additional Tag suggestions (in CamelCase):
I would also LOUDLY re-iterate the need for the Author to at least enter the initial tags - could be exactly like the reviewer does, it doesn't need to be maintained separately it would just start off the quest with a chance to be searched.
It also seems like Exploration/Surprising/Secrets have an awful lot of overlap.
When the "final" tags get narrowed down, I hope there is at least a brief summarization of what the Devs feel that tag "represents."
Encounter Matrix | Advanced Foundry Topics
Instead of Challenging use
StandardDifficulty
EasyDifficulty
HardDifficulty
Insteadof StoryRich use
Story
Instead of CombatHeavy use
Action
Instead of LoreFilled, use
DnDLore
ForgottenRealms
Keep Exploration
Nix Surprising. It isn't a surprise if you are expecting it..
Nix Secrets, what does this even mean?
Keep Humorous
Nix Dramatic, this is the same as Story
Nix Unusual, this has little meaning
Keep Solo
Keep Group
Add Puzzle
Add RolePlay
Add Jumping
*cough* Parkour *cough* -- not as limiting as Jumping and widens scope a wee bit. And maybe young 'uns will learn a new word, get excited by them and go on to become the next great novelist. :cool:
Encounter Matrix | Advanced Foundry Topics
FIRST: It was my KEEBORD! It's EEEVIIIL. Yeah, that's the ticket - it was the keyboard!
I cocnur with your comment. I'm not saying it has to be the way I suggest - but the CONCEPT of making it more specific.
This would be an ideal list for me (AS A PLAYER, I don't author quests).
I really hate the idea that something is labelled 'dramatic' or 'surprising' etc. Those concepts are entirely subjective and could lead to expectations not being met (or surprises being spoiled).
I'd go with that list. except Story and Lore. A good Story could be very far away from the D&D Lore.
D&D Home Page - What Class Are You? - Build A Character - D&D Compendium
Fair enough. I think we could add Lore in without going over the allotted 12 categories
I'm not playing the preview shard, so don't know how many options we can pick to describe a quest. If it's more than one, I think your version is fine. However, you don't have to specify that story be 'original', which could be confusing and puts story quests such as Celantra's recent contest winner in limbo. Plus for people who are giving the list a quick glance, they may only see the 'Original' part of the description and miss the part where it says 'story'.
If we can only select one option, then I do think 'Balanced' should be an option for those quests that don't lean heavily one way or another. Story/combat quests make up a huge percentage of the catalogue after all.
EDIT: I realised that some quests provide both solo or group content and the author would probably want to see that reflected in the tags. Added Solo to the list.
[edit: snipped somewhat harsh diatribe against society.]
I think the actual people who are interested in jumping/platform/freerunning know exactly what it means.
YouTube:About 5,560,000 results
Google: About 22,100,000 results
Encounter Matrix | Advanced Foundry Topics
Surely if you were really worried about dumbing down, you would be championing the original French version and not the simplified derived term that is currently fashionable? (Not being a follower of fashion, 'obstacle course' works fine for me).
Aside all that, we are restricted to 10-12 tags which doesn't allow for niche genres or sub-headings, or sub-sub-headings - if we allow Parkour or Jumping, what about Maze maps, or Hidden Objects? Or Maze Maps with Hidden Objects?
"Puzzle" encompasses all types of puzzle, including 'Action Puzzle' (211,000,000 results returned) of which Parkour is just one of many of that type.
Given that the devs are considering a mix of genres and emotive adjectives (Please reconsider the latter Devs!), we have even less tags to play with. Let's try to be sensible?
Well stated (the entire message, actually). Agree. I think given a well worded tooltip that goes along with each tag "Puzzle" works great (and saves a tag!)
Encounter Matrix | Advanced Foundry Topics
This comment is not needed. It's simply not true and is offensive.
Snipped diatribe against society.
Encounter Matrix | Advanced Foundry Topics
It's just not true though, 100 years ago we had no computers and mobile phones etc. As a society we are getting clever'er (haha) The problem is when things like the internet are created it means that anyone has a voice. Even the not so bright.
I think you were referring to people being ignorant. Everyone is ignorant of something. Who has time to learn everything.
And I didn't mean to come across as an $#@#, which I probably did.
Nope, just bringing my sometimes caustic bitter sarcasm to light. ;-)
Back to tags...
Encounter Matrix | Advanced Foundry Topics
I agree with that. I have a most awesome farming quest but I'm a little afraid to publish it. For one thing I'm not sure if they are allowed also I don't want to upset the foundry community.
Mine is basically a little story where you protect a caravan around a spawn point and they run at you in turn, giving you just enough time to heal up before they get to you. It works really well. I designed it so I could test all the hard encounters re-skinned as a human. I was going to add a 2nd part the same but with them re-skinned as a bear. It was just so I could see what they looked and fought like but it works really well as a farming quest. I have not bought a potion or scroll thing since I designed it. It is odd that you get loot in the foundry, but I'm not complaining.
I'd definitely say both Farming and Arena are Combat maps, so maybe we best stick to the sensible option that is actually likely to be put in place?
Still undecided if eldarth is being facetious or not, but leaning toward, probably.
No,actually I think the people who care nothing about story and just want to basically wade through hundreds of spiders for simple loot drops, or grind through tougher encounters for their drops or Exp -- those kind of farmers.
Look at all the exploit, "pit" map quests. They are going to exist until Cryptic figures out how to deal with them Then once they do, there will be thousands of "farming" quests for experience or loot that are devoid of any story or design.
Those "authors" [term used facetiously
Encounter Matrix | Advanced Foundry Topics
Exploits are actually being dealt with quite quickly now, but they do have to be reported. However that is another topic, not a discussion for this thread.
I think it needs to be a discussion for this thread. The type of individuals who create and use exploit quests are the same ones that will bend any restriction they can to create maps that farm either experience or loot with either least risk or least time and story/lore all the rest of the tags mean absolutely nothing to them.
If we create a "Farming" (or other word) tag that means rapid experience and/or loot with least risk/least time then they will have something to search on and not muddy the waters for people who want all the other tags to have meaning.
That's my 2 cents anyway.
Edit: Not that exploits need to be reported, but the idea of a "farming" tag needs to be discussed.
I essentially don't want to see "Combat Heavy" usurped by the farming crowd. And if we don't have a tag for farmers, then as authors we can kiss Combat Heavy goodbye as a usable tag.
Encounter Matrix | Advanced Foundry Topics
I can't seem to find a screenshot at the moment and as I am also curious to see how many tags we can select on review, I think its about time to jump onto preview.
EDIT: The Foundry is temporarily disabled on the Preview shard at the moment. Hopefully it will be back soon.
I have a list that we should take a look at.
The team looked at all the feedback and suggestions.
How does this look?
Roleplay
Puzzle
Lore
Humor
Exploration
Story Focus
Combat Focus
Solo
Group
Challenging
Eventful
Unusual
What does Eventful signify? Or how is Challenging distinguishable from either Puzzle or Combat Focus?
Could we maybe get a simple 1-sentence "summarization" of what they mean to you all??
i.e. How would a "tooltip" be worded for each tag?
Edit: I also still want an Adjustable Difficulty -- most of mine have Normal/Easy/Hard/Elite levels.
Encounter Matrix | Advanced Foundry Topics
Challenging - used in the case where the content or combat was challenging. This is the opposite of easy. The word challenging was used instead of hard or difficult because of it's more positive tone. The use of challenging along with other tags gets us a lot. For instance: Solo, combat focus, challenging takes care of a "hard" tag and while it does use multiple tags it allows us not to have an easy tag. Think of this as a qualifier for other tags.
We did skip the normal/easy/hard tags on purpose. On one hand they are subjective and on the other, as with the farm tag, may be equally misleading, confused or over used.
Absolutely - I definitely wouldn't put in normal/easy/hard individual tags - but I know a fair number of us make our quests adjustable from combat light to combat heavy - hence "Adjustable Difficulty." If I put in tag Combat Focus, Challenging then I lose everyone looking for something not too difficult. If I put only Combat Focus, Solo then I lose everyone looking for a Group or Challenging.
Either way I'm forced to lose half (some?) of my potential audience.
Encounter Matrix | Advanced Foundry Topics