Encounter issues

crimsonconcepts

I have been trying to create a basic encounter with some humans that would be wielding swords and shields. I didn't think this would be that difficult, but was I ever wrong.

I have tested out a number of different encounters and the closest that I could find was the Kobald encounters, which to get the right number of Melee only monsters gives me a rogue in the mix, 3 mace users, and 1 sword and shield.

I understand now that the Encounter groups are just templates. They are more for creatures with special abilities and easy ways to place them at what D&D would consider a certain level of difficulty. This is where my problem starts, and I would recommend some changes to make this system make a lot more sense.

1) Templates - Make the templates based on ability or spells and not race. In the description give an idea of "Fire Wizard", or "Claw weapons", rather then just describing the names of the monsters.
2) Give General Templates - Maybe something with no Costumes selected, and you have to actually do it yourself. This could include groups of 'Rogue, Wizard, Cleric, Fighter, Fighter with Shield, etc' It could also give basic info for weapon types.
3) Allow adjusting weapons on the Costume - This would completely changed the whole idea of what is needed above, since you could just set it and they would use it as they have available. I have yet to figure out why this was not added in the first place since weapon type is normally almost as important as the armor they are wearing.
4) Allow changing the class of a monster in the encounter - I know that this could change the encounter level from Easy to Standard or Standard to Hard, but I am sure that the code could be adjusted with some formulas to figure out how to tweak HPs and damage to make it fit.

Last thing is why not make more templates for guards encounters that are not friendly?

groshie

One thing, the Nasher Rebel Enforcers (1 = Standard, 2 = Hard) are basically the stronger guards, only reskinned.
For finding good encounters to make use of in your own Foundry, the best way really is to play the game and see what every encounter group plays like.
Hope you do find some encounters you feel will fit your story while we wait for the Foundry to improve more!

eldarth

crimsonconcepts wrote: »

3) Allow adjusting weapons on the Costume - This would completely changed the whole idea of what is needed above, since you could just set it and they would use it as they have available. I have yet to figure out why this was not added in the first place since weapon type is normally almost as important as the armor they are wearing.

I can't see this ever happening. Think of what this means for the animators...just for one monster:

• Animation for Goblin that fights with mace
• Animation for Goblin that fights with bow
• Animation for Goblin that fights with sword
• Animation for Goblin that fights with spear
• Animation for Goblin that fights with club
• Animation for Goblin that fights with hammer
• Animation for Goblin that fights with staff
• Animation for Goblin that fights with wand
• Animation for Goblin that fights with holy symbol
• Animation for Goblin that fights with daggers

Right now they've got 1 or 2 of those.
Multiply that times the total number of creatures in the game.
We would get new creatures about once every four years.

crimsonconcepts

eldarth wrote: »

I can't see this ever happening. Think of what this means for the animators...just for one monster:
Right now they've got 1 or 2 of those.
Multiply that times the total number of creatures in the game.
We would get new creatures about once every four years.

Well most of them are the same, it just ends up being the basic animation that they apply to the attack model. PSB, Piercing, Slashing, Blunt. Those are the Three animations, along with maybe a Melee Bash. Reskin a spider as a humanoid and you will see a problem already, this is nothing different. If someone attacked me with a Sword and a Mace and they had the same animation, I don't think I would be heartbroken as long as I could actually choose the weapon. If the player model can do the animation for it, then they have the animation already created, that is the whole reason they have 'skins'.

I think any humanoid would have a variable that says 'Wield Weapon' and then a drop down for the options of what they can wield. Same with Off hand, which could include a shield.

neverwinter1776

I agree that it would be sweet if there were more control over the mobs.
And if they just gave us more presets the amount they would HAVE to create to satisfy us would be exponential. So that wouldn't be too feasible.
It would be nice to have a "Create Group Encounter" option.
Even as simple as:
1) Pick Race (this would determine the weapon styles)
2) Add number of mobs (1-6)
3)Add Fighting style (Mage, Rouge, Warrior, Cleric -- Caster, melee, archer, brawler .. etc)

And the thing that annoys me too is that they seem to end up with a few double weapons. i.e. They fight with a shield but the shield is still on their back. If you skin a archer, they now have a bow on their back and in their hand.
The Mage staff detaches when the mage character is following you and flies about 4 feet to the right.

eldarth

crimsonconcepts wrote: »

Well most of them are the same, it just ends up being the basic animation that they apply to the attack model. PSB, Piercing, Slashing, Blunt. Those are the Three animations, along with maybe a Melee Bash. Reskin a spider as a humanoid and you will see a problem already, this is nothing different. If someone attacked me with a Sword and a Mace and they had the same animation, I don't think I would be heartbroken as long as I could actually choose the weapon. If the player model can do the animation for it, then they have the animation already created, that is the whole reason they have 'skins'.

I think the problem is still that each player/mob model is different enough that they have to create animations for each one. I don't think there is a "skeletal" structure animation possible -- all the different skeletal sizes, etc. still makes for different animations being required for each creature. I could be wrong - 3d/animation modeling has come along way in the last few years -- maybe a nice Cryptic animator can shed some light on the work involved.

cipher9nemo

Just for the record, Undead Pirate brutes has swords and no shield or anything else if you just wanted swords alone. It's nice that we can re-skin mobs as needed. But I wish we could reskin their weapons too.

crimsonconcepts

I just found another small issue with the Reskinning of a group of Kobolds, even when they all look like humans, I got the Kobold Slayer when I reached 50. Kinda kills the whole feeling of them being guards..

croffile

crimsonconcepts wrote: »

I just found another small issue with the Reskinning of a group of Kobolds, even when they all look like humans, I got the Kobold Slayer when I reached 50. Kinda kills the whole feeling of them being guards..

Perhaps they are Half-Kobolds? No? Well, never judge a Mob by it's costume! I agree it would kill the idea though, but it is a minor issue compared to some others.

eldarth

crimsonconcepts wrote: »

I just found another small issue with the Reskinning of a group of Kobolds, even when they all look like humans, I got the Kobold Slayer when I reached 50. Kinda kills the whole feeling of them being guards..

Bug report it.

klixan

It would be nice to have a "Create Group Encounter" option.
Even as simple as:
1) Pick Race (this would determine the weapon styles)
2) Add number of mobs (1-6)
3)Add Fighting style (Mage, Rouge, Warrior, Cleric -- Caster, melee, archer, brawler .. etc)

I've just started to learn the Foundry Editor and I was stumped that these basic monster options weren't included. It really bugs me that I can't make single enemy encounters. So I really hope these options get added to the Editor.

runebane

crimsonconcepts wrote: »

I just found another small issue with the Reskinning of a group of Kobolds, even when they all look like humans, I got the Kobold Slayer when I reached 50. Kinda kills the whole feeling of them being guards..

Pretty sure all the encounters act that way. Running foundries with lower level characters I get all kinds of wrong slayer notices. Higher level characters running foundry missions are more likely to already have most of the slayer achievements. So they probably won't notice it.

I do agree they need to revamp the encounter system. I don't know if they could make them totally generic as people would have to re-learn what moves each group/monster would have. Would be nice to be able to change/hide weapons and link attacks to a models existing animations.

raphaeldisanto

eldarth wrote: »

Bug report it.

That's not a bug. That's the way it's always worked. When you reskin an encounter, the mobs are still treated as their original racial types for the purposes of achievement counting. There's nothing we as authors can do about that, and so the Foundry is FULL of bandits who give you Nasher Rebel counts, and soldiers who give you Kobold counts, and pirates who give you Orc and ogre counts, etc etc.

It's just the way it is. Most people are used to it by now.

eldarth

raphaeldisanto wrote: »

That's not a bug. That's the way it's always worked. When you reskin an encounter, the mobs are still treated as their original racial types for the purposes of achievement counting. There's nothing we as authors can do about that, and so the Foundry is FULL of bandits who give you Nasher Rebel counts, and soldiers who give you Kobold counts, and pirates who give you Orc and ogre counts, etc etc.

It's just the way it is. Most people are used to it by now.

That's not what I was suggesting reporting it was...

I just found another small issue with the Reskinning of a group of Kobolds, even when they all look like humans, I got the Kobold Slayer when I reached 50. Kinda kills the whole feeling of them being guards..