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Foundry missions group setting or solo only?
karisch
Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 0 Arc User
Sorry if this has been answered elsewhere but i didnt find it.
Basically can you make foundry missions that need say a full party to do, i had a look and couldnt see any search function for group or solo content during the last beta, and seeing as it says the missions scale the difficulty to your level on entry i am curious about being able to make them challenging for a group or easy enough for a solo player if wished.
Basically can you make foundry missions that need say a full party to do, i had a look and couldnt see any search function for group or solo content during the last beta, and seeing as it says the missions scale the difficulty to your level on entry i am curious about being able to make them challenging for a group or easy enough for a solo player if wished.
Sarcastic Malevolence
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Post edited by karisch on
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Yes, you design for solo only. The idea here, I think is, it's harder to exploit solo content, where as group play can lead to ridiculous low-power boss farms that can mine too many rewards.
It's very unfortunate. It's also unfortunate that the way Cryptic fights exploitation is with heavy restrictions, that inhibit creativity. I understand the difficulty of fighting exploitation, but several of the limiting factors are a tad cumbersome. The 4-hour rule bothers me. As a RPer, you often lolly-gag during missions, because you are actually role playing. So while I don't expect XP while we RP, I'd hate to think we're going to hit a 4-hour cap and get nerfed from any Foundry XP, simply because we like to take our time.
Again, I understand the reason behind the cap, it just, well it limits you.
You can compensate a little in your design, to make the content fairly compatible for a group.
I also don't know the solution to keeping UGC fair and honest, without some of the draconian limitations on what you can do with it. There's a thread on that very subject.
Check out SHADOW on YouTube!
I hadn't heard this. All of the Foundry missions I did in the last beta weekend, I did solo. But if this is the case, that's actually really great news.
When building-out your map and placing NPCs - they are placed in groups of 5 characters (you can remove some if you want fewer, or place multiple groups in the same area and even spread-out the individual NPCs). Each bad guy NPC group has a level, in terms of of how easy or difficult to defeat them.
I'll use Star Trek Online-specific descriptions to remain truthful and accurate here, partly because Neverwinter might have differences...
In STO each bad guy race has a different level: the Klingons/Gorn are low-level and the first a new player encounters. The Romulan/Remans are the next level up. Then come the Cardassians, etc. The means if I create a map and place Klingons, any player can play this foundry mission. If the player is at the same level as the NPCs, rather than all five appearing in a solo mission, only one or two may appear (even though I placed 5). If a team plays the mission, then all 5 will appear.
However, if I am at a higher level, say the level for the Cardassian missions and I play this Foundry mission, then all 5 klingons will appear. They do scale slightly in powers, but where more balance is needed, more NPCs will be added, provided the author has taken that into account.
The flip-side of this is: if I create a mission with Cardassians in it, then only players at that level or higher can play that mission. NPCs can scale-up somewhat, but never scale down. So depending on the power level of NPCs you place on your maps will determine who can play that Foundry mission. In STO the player must be at "Captain" rank to play Romulans (level 30) - if I create a Foundry mission with Romulans in it, then only players at level 30 or higher can play it.
I imagine the Neverwinter Foundry will work similarly, albeit it is more advanced than STO Foundry so it could be completely different in a more flexible sort of way.
click 'developer interview' at the start.
It also speaks about the scaling of content. I think in NW the content scales better than in STO and there is no level requirement. But they were still toying with that.
What I don't know is how things change with multiple people entering as a group.
I will reiterate: when author places an NCP antagonist group, there are usually five entities. For example: I place "Skeleton Undead 1" (meaning variety #1) - there are five skeletons placed in a circle around the "pin" I use to place and move them around the map (note: you can move and arrange the individual entities as you want).
When a player comes in solo: only two or three of them will actually spawn depending on the player's level (if player is less than or at equal level - the spawned entities will be the same level, but fewer if they are leveled DOWN to match the player). If a team plays, then all of them will spawn - or - the system will spawn one "set" (all five) for each team member playing. This is how it's always worked, unless they've changed it in the last couple months.
And I offer this caveat: the STO Foundry is only a partial port of the Original Neverwinter Foundry - so the Neverwinter version is far more advanced.
HOWEVER: To answer the question of the OP (I think this is the question anyway): "How do I create a Foundry quest for groups versus solo play?"
The answer is easy: Always design the quest for solo play (don't place ten copies of "Skeleton Horde" in the same part of the map) Just keep in mind that as a general rule of thumb: Foundry (and most) quests will scale UP to meet team/group sizes, but they don't necessarily scale DOWN for solo play. So it is always good practice to design your Foundry quests for solo play. If you do design it for team play, make absolutely certain to explain this in your quest description or you'll just HAMSTER-off a lot of people.
Was that supposed to be NPC or is it yet another acronym I don't know?
Really seriously not sarcastic.
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My only complaint is not exclusive to Foundry tho... a lot of the quests in the general world and in the Foundry simply would not work in group. My fiance and I found ourselves having to drop group to progress a quest or mission ... and almost always to exit the mission or area. This was a minor annoyance at first, but turned major the more we played. It seemed simply like a bug in the scripting.