The Vaalyr Prophecy - Ch. 1: Goblin Grotto

beeblebrox69

The Vaalyr Prophecy
Chapter 1: Goblin Grotto
NW-DSR6ZDUM2

CAMPAIGN: The Vaalyr Prophecy
QUEST: Ch. 1: Goblin Grotto
AUTHOR: @beeblebrox69
ID: NW-DSR6ZDUM2

CATEGORY: Balanced
EST. LENGTH: 20-30 minutes initial/exploratory run, 15-20 minutes subsequent runs
PLAYERS: 1+companion... probably okay for 2 players, but a few triggered invisible walls may cause problems

SYNOPSIS: A mysterious orc chieftain requests your aid assaulting a den of foul goblins to recover an ancient sword. Explore a deep volcanic lair and challenge the forces of the dreaded Grimknuckle Soggybottom, the dastardly goblin chieftain! Beware of ambushes and foul goblin traps, and wind your way down twists and turns through hand-crafted, custom maps!

The adventure consists of 5 maps, 3 of which are combat maps, all custom-made caverns. The climactic encounter has a number of environmental FX and the battlefield changes dynamically as the fight continues. There are lots of side jokes and silly bits, but mostly if you explore off the beaten path.

Although this is a stand-alone adventure, there are some story bits that carry over from the Prologue: Misty Hollow. I recommend playing that adventure prior to this one, but there is a book right in front of you as the adventure starts that you can read if you don't want to play the earlier adventure but want to catch up on the story.

NEED FEEDBACK!
-Is the climactic encounter too hard? Too easy?
-Any gamebreaking bugs or issues?
-Are the caverns too dark? I put in a lot of light objects, but do you need more and if so, where?

beeblebrox69

CHANGE LOG

1.2
-Hobgoblin Commander Snork had his name/group name reversed to match the other 3 commanders.
-The clicky designating the "lock" on Pesty's cage has been moved slightly to hopefully differentiate it from the clicky for Pesty himself.
-Big Bad Jo Jo had an unfortunate accident and fell down Da Pooper, never to be seen from again. The goblins have scheduled a wake for next week.
-The initial goblins hanging out on the rope bridge have disappeared, presumably eaten by Big Bad Jo Jo prior to his accident.
-Other than the hobgoblin guards molesting Pesty, the other violent goblinoids hanging out around the latrine have decided to take a coffee break and will no longer bother intruders.
-The goblin platoon that appears on the rope bridge now disappears rather than falling to their doom. Particularly at higher levels, they weren't dying like they were supposed to and some of them were slipping under the invisible walls to attack. Pesky, tricksy goblins!
-These changes should make THE DESCENT map much less of a combat grind without completely gutting it.
-Fixed a typo on one of the Village People
-Hobgoblin Commander Snork has been de-ogred so he's easier to kill, but his lovely wife has decided to join him on his patrol. Fleegle and Drooper were already ok, and Bingo's still on steroids, so he'll continue to bash you around some... gotta leave ONE challenging fight in the Grotto...
-A couple of the encounters in the GOBLIN GROTTO map have been removed or converted to noncombatants, plus a number of noncombatants have been added to make the massive cavern seem a bit more lively while at the same time lowering the difficulty a bit. Will continue to make adjustments.

1.1
-Fixed an issue where player would respawn behind an invisible wall in The Descent map
-Lowered a teleporter clickable in the respawn location in the Lair of Grimknuckle map
-Removed the timer to cut the rope bridge down
-Pushed the goblin horde back a few feet for the rope bridge showdown as it seems like a few of them keep finding a way to get on the other side of the invisible wall. I'll keep an eye on this and implement a harsher fix if it keeps happening...
-The second goblin encounter in The Descent map was mysteriously floating about 20 feet off the ground and have now been lowered... floating goblins are just too much
-During the climax, hopefully all of the smoke FX signalling the disappearing rock tiles have been changed to small fires... the smoke was just too hard to see during a big fight
-Added some quest update popup text to inform the player to RUN across the burning and collapsing rock bridge in the Lair of Grimknuckle map... your instinct is to fight all those goblins, but between the highlighted clue in the your journal and the popup telling you to "RUN! RUN!" hopefully most people won't fall when the bridge collapses...
-Added a couple goblin archers to the climactic encounter

1.0
Initial Publish

KNOWN ISSUES/TO DO LIST
-Companions REALLY don't like these custom maps...probably can't be fixed, unfortunately. They seem to have a real fear of crossing bridges and ledges, and will frequently walk right into a gaping hole. Sorry!
-The Grimknuckle hostile NPC spawns a few feet away from his Contact NPC version. Doesn't seem to be fixable.
-If a player leaves The Descent map after cutting the rope bridge and later returns, respawning at the entrance, there is no way to get across the chasm... Probably a rare occurrence, but I need to add an emergency "rope and grapple" teleporter system as in the Lair of Grimknuckle map just in case.
-Add some sound and music to The Descent map and the Goblin Grotto map.

chieori

Greetings!

Had a chance to run Goblin Grotto tonight, no quest stopping issues this time

The story is well written, the detailing on all maps was very good, few of the combat's were a bit more challenging than I anticipated, but no deaths, so all is well. Also, yes, companions don't like the caves.

I did find a few things, but nothing major, all in all a well done quest, thanks for a fun and exciting quest

Sending you a PM with a few things. Also, thanks much for running my quest

tipadaknife

I like the most interesting half-elf in the bar Carlos Danger? lol ;-) Hey, now I know what the Fox says.

First combat map is just that -- combat combat combat combat combat combat combat combat combat bridge. Just one encounter after another was very tedious, and I am sorry I brought my cleric. This should be marked as heavy combat, only bring characters specced for heavy combat, or a group.

Not sure if I'm going to be able to get past those hobgoblins. I know my GF would do very well here, but she's already max level and has T1+ gear. Okay, I tossed them down the sanitary disposal. Hope I don't come across them again!

Pesty was a clever chap. It WOULD have been nice for him to join me ;-)

Unable to read second painted sign as I had aggro for something I couldn't see.

Remains of fallen rope bridge, a nice touch.

I should have brought a lot more healing potions and injury kits. Were all these endless encounters necessary to the story?

Making progress by flinging them off bridges. Slow progress. Racking up those Ogre slaying achievements, though.

Finally finished. Well, I guess I'd have liked it better if I'd brought a more combat-oriented class.

I really loved the level design!

If you could play and review The Sealing of Najena's Lair, NW-DBQH5L5QB, I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks!

beeblebrox69

Thanks guys...this is exactly the kind of feedback I need for this one. As with my previous quest, I tend to overpopulate the combat maps at the initial publish, and need to scale back a bit. I just didn't want these big labyrinthine caverns to be desolate since they were meant to be a goblin community. But thanks to feedback I read on someone else's quest, I've got an idea to remedy the situation.

Possible Fixes:
DESCENT
-Probably will do away with Big Bad Jo Jo and make two of the latrine encounters noncombatants, since that area in particular does seem a bit overcrowded.
-Need an automatic disappear trigger on the bridge platoon...those buggers keep finding a way to squirm under the invisible wall instead of falling to their doom as designed.
GROTTO
-Two of the hobgoblin commanders are reskinned ogres...back that off to one, or possibly neither.
-Replace a couple of the encounters with noncombatants
-Add a number of other noncombatants to flesh it out
LAIR OF GRIMKNUCKLE
-Only 4 encounters...first should be pretty routine, second SHOULD be easy enough if you just run and hold them off on the other side until they fall, third I need more feedback on whether it was hard vs too hard, and fourth is... yeah.

So thanks for the feedback...like I said, it's exactly the kind of info I need to know. I had to knock out about a third of my encounters in the Prologue, but it plays much better now because of it...so I will do the same here thanks to your feedback and future players will be find it all the more enjoyable.

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!

And don't worry, The Most Interesting Half-elf in the Realm and Pesty will return, as will Monty.

Thanks again, and I will definitely play your adventure tomorrow.

tipadaknife

Strat for the last combat map is -- ignore the urges to run through stuff, just wait until everything falls. Allows more enemies to suicide, and the ranged ones get into a range fight, which my cleric could win

If you're going to give the strat away when you enter the last combat map, then it makes finding the loser goblin and getting the same advice from him a little less special.

Died in that map because I took advice to heart and raced through it. When I respawned and returned, all the rocks that were going to be gone were gone, and it was relatively simple to navigate. I did the last (non) fight from Grimknuckle's tent, figuring THAT would be safe from vanishing.

That said, I really did enjoy the platform aspects of that map, and the whole vertical maze of the previous one. If I'd gone there with my GF, I don't think I'd have had anything but a great time. But my cleric is soooo close to 60 that I'm trying to get xp for her wherever, and it was just a little much. Once I booted the ghost paladin as companion and brought in the dire wolf, things got a lot easier -- dps companion was just the thing. Still had to spend a lot of time flinging mobs from bridges because if I had to tank those huge hits -- and since clerics can't cast and run, I had to take them -- I'd not have been able to finish.

I have to admit that I was impressed with Cryptic's pathfinding code; those gobbers (and hob-gobbers) always eventually found their way back to me if they survived the fall, but it gave me time for my encounters to come back and for my heals to top me off.