Question about quest difficulty and how to scale it.

pris23

Hi guys,

I have been working on Part 2 of my Secret to Paradise Campaign and I really like that some authors give the player(s) a choice for combat difficulty. I find this to be a good thing for many reasons. It gives my quest replayability and allows people to solo regardless of class/level. How can this be done?

Also, if you are interested, my campaign information is in my signature. Part 1 is finished and I am pretty happy with it so far. You can post comments on Part 1 on the following thread http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?330921-Will-trade-for-reviews-on-The-Secret-to-Paradise-Part-1-Paradise-Lost!

As a side note: I added Part 2 the other day for testing purposes, but it is broken and the foundry is now broken too so I have not been able to fix it yet. Please do not play Part 2 yet because you cannot finish it.

xhrit

You have a few options.

You could add a bunch of mobs to your map, then add an npc with conversation options that despawn some. Or you could do the opposite and have a few mobs on the map, and spawn more depending on what the player does. Or you could have multiple paths with different strength mobs on them.

pris23

Thanks! I wasn't sure if the actual encounter monsters themselves were changing or not. I appreciate the answer.

mosby1

Just be aware you can't make those encounters part of the story; since they may or may not spawn based on the dialog choice. So they have to be extras, but that's fine to make things harder.

rycele

Ive since learned the scaling for Foundry at 60, on the cleric at least, is insane and need to roll another character if I want to continue Foundry Missions. Since I only play this game for the Foundry my strategy is to play through the Foundry and when he gets too high level so scaling is an issue, to delete and make another character.

camamar

A question on scaling.

Does the difficulty scale just based on the level, or does it also scale with more people?

If I bring in a friend, do those Decrepit Skeletons get any harder, or is it solely based on level. If so, is it an average or a specific person's level? (party leader, random)

If anyone has an answer, I'd love it.

neomys99

Encounters don't react to party size, only level. Presumably, the level is that of the quest owner at the time you accept/start it.

pris23

rycele wrote: »

Ive since learned the scaling for Foundry at 60, on the cleric at least, is insane and need to roll another character if I want to continue Foundry Missions. Since I only play this game for the Foundry my strategy is to play through the Foundry and when he gets too high level so scaling is an issue, to delete and make another character.

I can understand what you are saying. I have a high level cleric as well. I usually publish and play through my own quests with my cleric before I post that it is ready for reviews in the forums. This way I know for sure whether or not a 60 cleric can beat the mission solo. It helps me to scale it down, if necessary, for high level solo play.

I appreciate the answers given on this thread because I wanted to give players a choice on difficulty level for some of my quests since scaling can still be hard even testing it myself just based on other player's gear/class/level.

camamar

neomys99 wrote: »

Encounters don't react to party size, only level. Presumably, the level is that of the quest owner at the time you accept/start it.

Bummer. So the sweet spot is as few people as you can handle? That sucks for grouping incentives.

cyguard1

camamar wrote: »

Bummer. So the sweet spot is as few people as you can handle? That sucks for grouping incentives.

You could just change the options like described. Set an npc at the start and have three choices to select from. One would be a casual, solo run. Two for a two to four people. Three to a full well equipped group of veterans who want an elite style run. I was planning four choices for mine, which would be similar to the other DnD MMO. You would have solo, normal, hard, elite. Based on the choice the dungeon scales equally.

xhrit

rycele wrote: »

Ive since learned the scaling for Foundry at 60, on the cleric at least, is insane and need to roll another character if I want to continue Foundry Missions. Since I only play this game for the Foundry my strategy is to play through the Foundry and when he gets too high level so scaling is an issue, to delete and make another character.

I wrote the quests in my campaign for my gf to solo on her l60 cleric; Of course, she is a very good at cleric; she can kite like a pro, and has a pretty high gear score, 10k, with a T1 armor set and T2 accessories, as well as cat and dog pets, switching between them depending if she needs more heals or more dps. So YMMV.

All my quests were designed so you can clear them by killing exactly 10 encounters; using exploration or dialog options you can avoid or despawn most of the enemies in the quest.

In Feast of the Moon, as long as you are careful and pull mobs back into the last room you were in, you only have to fight single encounters until the very end. Just make sure you have enough DP to drop astral shield for the final boss fight (not the devil, but the 12 zombies that spawn after you kill him.) The only non optional stacked fight is the final boss; which is 3 easy stacked encounters that come at you one at a time, which you can kite out of the room and fight one at a time if you are fast.

Rising of the Dark is a bit harder, but has no stacked encounters at all if you pull carefully. You are sent to stop a devil invasion of a small town, and there are tons of mobs everywhere. If you walk into the center of town you are certain to die a swift death, but if you pull mobs out of the town and fight them on the bridge you can clear the whole map pretty safely; it just takes a bit more time then running in and kicking down the door.

As long as you are careful and aware of your surroundings the quest should challenging but not impossible to solo. If you can make it through those two quests you should be able to make it through the rest of the campaign.

^^