Pulling one of several encounters that are close together with overlapping aggro ranges that cover the center of the encounter just irks my logic. Why aren't they signalling to each other "hey, being attacked here"?
It's generally obvious when I've seen builders do it as well, seeing 20 kobolds standing there in a room and I know they are stacked and go to one corner of the stack and pull. It's not normally a challenge or a puzzle to solve.
This is why I was talking about context, I've only ever done this with zombies specifically as they are generally considered brainless and generally speaking I've tried to keep it fun so that, if you pull them right, they all run off a cliff like lemmings. The only place that isn't true (on the quest I'm currently working on) is in the 'boss' fight where I must admit I may have gone a little over the top since the in-editor level 30's find it too easy.
Zombies are among the worst for non-linear scaling btw. A single group of zombies will destroy a GW's guard bar in seconds at 60. They ramp up to hit like a truck. As I said, unless you have seen the content at level 60 you simply can not understand why so many people are against encounter stacking. Simply put, if you stack encounters your content is not solo-able at the higher levels.
Do you crave a good old fashioned dungeon crawl? One where the dungeon tells it's own story? The Dungeon Delves campaign is just for you! Start with my first release: NW-DQF4T7QYH Any cave can lead to adventure!
Zombies are among the worst for non-linear scaling btw. A single group of zombies will destroy a GW's guard bar in seconds at 60. They ramp up to hit like a truck. As I said, unless you have seen the content at level 60 you simply can not understand why so many people are against encounter stacking. Simply put, if you stack encounters your content is not solo-able at the higher levels.
But I imagine still okay with the aforementioned luring them off a cliff like lemmings yes?
These threads have been very helpful in contemplating my own quests.
First, I'm increasingly in favor of making quests no more than 30 mins long (dividing longer ones into part 1, 2, etc).
Second, I think I WILL have stacked encounters on my next mission specifically for areas you should be avoiding (but some people might blitz through anyway)
Campaign: The Fenwick Cycle NWS-DKR9GB7KH
Wicks and Things: NW-DI4FMZRR4 : The Fenwick merchant family has lost a caravan! Can you help?
Beggar's Hollow: NW-DR6YG4J2L : Someone, or something, has stolen away many of the Fenwicks' children! Can you find out what happened to them?
Into the Fen Wood: NW-DL89DRG7B : Enter the heart of the forest. Can you discover the secret of the Fen Wood?
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boydzinjMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
This is why, technically, you should never get attached to your foundry character lol...
Hmmm. I believe I have never used anything but the Guardian Foundry character. My Neverwinter character is level 60... and a Rogue. After I publish a Foundry quest, I play it with a real character as well. Pre-publish mobs and patrols act different than post publish. There are some glitches and some bugs on certain maps that I still can not get rid of. On some maps, the mobs will glitch under the map for no other reason other than a glitch in the design of the game and not the foundry quest. This for me, is a very frustating part of the Foundry. Sometimes, the only way to tell if something is glitching is to play it out.
So, you are asking for people to show compassion for people who don't even have the common sense to read the instruction on a toothpick before just jabbing in a random spot on their face? All things equal, without reading the first friggin dialogue you run into, you have no idea what to do aside from the quest text at the side of your screen, which amounts to "Place sharp stick in hole"... ok, WHICH HOLE?!?
"Hmmm... maybe this is an ear-swab..."
I do not believe I asked for compassion - I just pointed out something some people may or may not understand. I purposely use 1 as the easiest way to end most conversations on my foundry. Except when I want the player to read. I sometimes will use 1 as a way to get the player stuck on an endless loop until they read the text or press random other buttons.
Witch Hunt is version 1.4 now. Release was 1.0 and v1.1 upward were mostly balancing changes to ensure that encounters and traps are playable at 60. I do not care how many people will be complaining that it has no challenge for levels 15, 20 or 30. The game in general has little challenge at those levels.
Stacking anything more than one standard and one easy encounter (and only if you know those encounters and you know how those mobs are working at higher levels) in solo oriented quests is simply making your own quest unplayable for many people. Nothing wrong with that, but do not be surprised after releasing your quest as a "solo" friendly that it's now disliked by players.
Many people are looking at Foundry quests as a non-tedious alternative for high level main game quests.
Please tell me you read what I said rather than just instant replying? I said it's possible to pull them one encounter at a time... if you are careful.
I can't speak for the others here, but I read what you said very carefully, and what it comes off as is this:
"If you're careless or unlucky enough to pull more than one group at a time, however much the concept of pulling defies logic, I have no qualms about killing your character".
This screams bad quest design to me. I hope you just communicated your intent poorly, because what you described sounds about as annoying as it gets. I guarantee that you are going to receive a bunch of bad reviews over this decision.
Encounter stacking is a tool, it's not inherently bad. It becomes bad when authors use it indiscriminately, without being fully aware of the implications for higher level characters.
Judiciously stacking encounters can turn up tension levels just a notch, but it's certainly not the only tool to do that.
Similarly, pacing matters. Pummel your players all the time, and they won't come back.
As the game ages, there'll be more and more level 60s who will be playing your Foundry creations. So have a thought for the poor L60 clerics!
You can create plenty of challenge without using multiple encounters overlapping. The encounters listed in the foundry as hard are plenty hard enough at level 60 to be more challenge than some players will be able to bypass without epic gear. You can sit and use phrases like "man the #$*& up" but until you are playing through that content at level 60 you simply have no idea what you are talking about.
That is total bs so all foundry adventures need to be geared for a level 60 tune which will be way to easy for lower level players. No the adventure should state what level range the adventure is optimal for and leave it at that.
That is total bs so all foundry adventures need to be geared for a level 60 tune which will be way to easy for lower level players. No the adventure should state what level range the adventure is optimal for and leave it at that.
That is your opinion and you are welcome to it, and you are also welcome to be 1 starred by anyone over level 30 who ever plays your content if they bother to finish it at all. Yes, content should be balanced to all players can have an equal chance to complete it solo. I leave tweaking the difficulty scaling to Cryptic.
Do you crave a good old fashioned dungeon crawl? One where the dungeon tells it's own story? The Dungeon Delves campaign is just for you! Start with my first release: NW-DQF4T7QYH Any cave can lead to adventure!
That is your opinion and you are welcome to it, and you are also welcome to be 1 starred by anyone over level 30 who ever plays your content if they bother to finish it at all. Yes, content should be balanced to all players can have an equal chance to complete it solo. I leave tweaking the difficulty scaling to Cryptic.
I disagree again... all my adventures are geared for group play and will be stated as such. This does not rule out me trying my hand at a solo adventure in the future and if i choose to make one i will certainly take into account that different levels have and easier or harder time at doing such content and will certainly state what level range the adventure is optimal for.
Wow... so we should test the quest 15 times IN the editor (11,21,31 for each class), then on a free to play account, twice more once published (with our levels 45 and 60 toons... don't level them anymore, because you need to be able to find the exact level ranges!!) then change the description to state what the exact preferred level range is on every quest we do? You realize how ridiculous that is, right?
I may do this if they ever decide to give us the ability to respec the foundry toon to 41, 51, and then 60... so I can fully test an adventure finally! But until then, sorry, not happening...
Aside from that... The only time I do stacking really, is when I set up a wandering path for a patrol that crosses over a stationary encounter (just makes people not rush in and watch for openings... sorry, I believe that is skill, not tedium)... OR when I want the story to be furthered... IE, if you are fighting zombies, and I want the feeling of "OMG THERE ARE A LOT OF THEM!!" I will pull out the 6 rotter encounter, and place them far apart, but have them patrol into the spot where the players will be at a very slow rate of advancement (to give the players time to fight 2 or 3 of them at a time)... this way the payer will see a carpet of zombies approaching and feel the need to hurry or move or do something before they get overwhelmed...
And even if they stay put, odds are they will be fine in the end... may take a couple potions if they just sit there and slog it out... more if they charge headlong into the mob... There is usually an out for it, like run away and click something to end the fight... so, is more for the dramatic tension, than for the actual fight or challenge...
Wow... so we should test the quest 15 times IN the editor (11,21,31 for each class), then on a free to play account, twice more once published (with our levels 45 and 60 toons... don't level them anymore, because you need to be able to find the exact level ranges!!) then change the description to state what the exact preferred level range is on every quest we do? You realize how ridiculous that is, right?
Yes, that is ridiculous. Yet the solution is equally ridiculously easy. Can you tell what it is yet? Hint: it has to do with the thread title.
DON'T STACK ENCOUNTERS! If you don't try to break the combat balance by stacking encounters, the balance will be fine (though you can still mess it up by having a quest filled with nothing but standard and hard encounters, for example. Would be exhausting to play). Follow Cryptic's encounter design that they made so that this would be easy, and you won't have to waste hours of your time testing.
Yes, that is ridiculous. Yet the solution is equally ridiculously easy. Can you tell what it is yet? Hint: it has to do with the thread title.
DON'T STACK ENCOUNTERS! If you don't try to break the combat balance by stacking encounters, the balance will be fine (though you can still mess it up by having a quest filled with nothing but standard and hard encounters, for example. Would be exhausting to play). Follow Cryptic's encounter design that they made so that this would be easy, and you won't have to waste hours of your time testing.
Methinks you did not read through the entire thread...
I don't stack encounters unless I make it absolutely possible to avoid the fight (and encouraged to do so), or if I only use EASY's and then only use 2 at most (and then stage them far enough apart and set on slow patrol towards the player to give them a staged fight against a small bit at a time, not overwhelm them), or etc... I don't throw them in a room, say "Kill Enemies" and put 5 groups in there...
I put 5 encounters, with 8 friendly guard groups, yes... there should be NO reason the player should even HAVE to worry about that fight (and, the task is something like, "Get PAST the bad guys" not "Help The Guards" lol)
What I was referring to, was the problem of people stating that authors should include in their descriptions an optimal level range... that makes no sense... because the author may find that 15-25 might be optimal for a cleric, but 35-45 for a Guardian, and 5-15 for wizard, and no level optimal for rogue or GWF... If adding optimal levels is mandatory, then people are asking the impossible...
Some encounters lend themselves better to some classes and levels than others, and there is NO way to know until 'fully tested' which would mean running it 15 times in the editor, and then more times once published (due to changing of behaviors in the game itself between edit mode and the actual game)... but we can only have 2 characters unless paying for a pack or having multiple accounts, etc... so we have to have others test it, then remove it, tweak it, throw it back up etc... all just to find that the way we built the adventure is best for X over Y...
And that is with using single encounters, going with a 5x, 3y, 1z mentality (where for every hard, we include 3 standards, and 5 easy's) and NEVER stack them! PWE has no clue how to translate what is in the monster manual into a video game where players can easily just throw stuff together... they know how to do it THEMSELVES... but just one look through the foundry is evidence enough that they didn't translate it well!
For instance, I've seen a 'solo' in a standard difficulty encounter (this is completely baffling!), a solo means hard difficulty automatically, hence SOLO... a single solo is supposed to be the equivalent of 4 player characters of equal level, and then is supposed to be a 50/50 shot of who survives (at best)... so yeah, auto-hard difficulty, but they have it on Standard?
Another example... note that only Brutes are solo's... and a single brute elite is a standard, but almost every controller/artillery elite is an easy if by itself... This tells me that they think controllers and artillery types are EASIER than a brute... A simple run through the actual game shows that the first dungeon (cloak tower) is filled with nothing but Brute Bosses (3 of them I think), and all are fairly simple... so much I could solo the dungeon at 19th level on my cleric! Because they have specific patterns, and all you need to do is just dodge big clubs and stay away from them... ooooo, haaaarrrrddd....
Controllers and Artillery types, though... MUCH more difficult, because it doesn't matter where you are, they hit you... they also use special tactics and strategies... and God Forbid if they are bosses or elites, because they run with others then, and trying to get to them becomes a true pain while they just mess you up from far away!
There is a reason why Dragons in the monster manual are different types, and notice the weakest one (the white dragon) is the BRUTE... Brutes are the easiest to fight, always! Yet PWE has them being the strongest according to the listings?
Simple test, make a small room, throw the 'orc - mixed', that has the ogre brute solo, and the orc controller elite, into the room... then go in and fight them... The ogre by itself would be simple, the orc would be about as difficult (but the two are different levels (solo vs elite)... just one fight might take longer only due to HP. That ogre plus other enemies is only a pain, the controller plus other enemies might become impossible to survive due to laying on your face half the fight. Put them together, and you get a very difficult fight, true...
But the point is, that the way they have the encounters put together is more an after-thought, than the way they built the game... they built the game using the ability to modify encounters however they needed to (which WE cannot do, so we can't say, "Follow their model", may as well say just teleport to work like mages do... oh we cannot do that in real life, we don't play by the same rules! So useless to compare US to THEM)... what we received, was a set of encounters that we cannot change or modify really, that are sort of mismatched hodgepodge where some are actually balanced, and some are death on a stick depending on what level and class you are playing... so it is more a roll of the dice to see if you got lucky or not.
And to make matters worse, full testing is impossible since we cannot create an editor toon at whatever level we want, with whatever equipment we want, we have to 'respec' them and get base equipment... we can't even save the testing toons for future use, we have to rebuild them each time we want to test a specific level/class combo...
The foundry is so broken it isn't even funny... we do our best, try to be as rational and reasonable as possible, and we still end up with quirky, odd, deadly, etc quests on the finished product. I agree, don't stack unless you are REALLY sure you want to do so, and test it several times to make sure it is NOT going to kill the players due to the stacking... but even when NOT stacking, the encounters are so out of whack, that a single encounter is a gamble...
TL;DR- That was my point: To fully test would require resources we do not have, and take more time than anyone is willing to spend or has available to spend (like weeks on just testing a single quest)
For instance, I've seen a 'solo' in a standard difficulty encounter (this is completely baffling!), a solo means hard difficulty automatically, hence SOLO... a single solo is supposed to be the equivalent of 4 player characters of equal level, and then is supposed to be a 50/50 shot of who survives (at best)... so yeah, auto-hard difficulty, but they have it on Standard?
I'll let the stacking discussion lie for the moment and tackle this little tidbit instead. You've misunderstood the concept of solo monsters in D&D. I wrote a bit about this in the Encounters For Dummies thread, but I may not have been completely clear. A solo monster in D&D 4E is supposed to be a full encounter for a party of 5 player characters. This you already understand (though you mixed up the number of players, which is merely a minor point).
However, an encounter in D&D isn't meant to be hard on its own. A solo monster at the party's level is unlikely to present any real risk of death, unless it happens to appear after the players have expended most of their resources on other encounters. In order for a solo monster to be truly dangerous, it has to be 3-4 levels above the players, or needs to be accompanied by other monsters (preferably minions). The Neverwinter Foundry doesn't let us do the former, but it most certainly lets us do the latter (even without stacking encounters). For this reason, a lone solo monster in Neverwinter is never going to be a hard encounter. It's always going to be considered standard. Only when the encounter contains other monsters does it become hard.
Basically, your claim that a solo monster is supposed to be the equivalent of a party is faulty, and your claim that there's supposed to be a 50/50 chance for survival against such an encounter couldn't be farther from the truth. That has never been the intention of solo monsters. A solo monster is supposed to be a standard challenge for a party, not their equivalent. The typical math for D&D assumes that 4 or 5 solo monsters in a row might be a party's equivalent (this does not apply to Neverwinter, btw), but one solo monster alone would never be.
Another thing worth noting: In the Neverwinter Foundry, a solo monster is balanced to be a standard challenge for a solo player, not for a party. This is one area where they changed the balance from regular D&D.
You can test as much or as little as you like, but if you don't put in the time for testing it extensively then just be prepared to be downvoted to oblivion.
You can test as much or as little as you like, but if you don't put in the time for testing it extensively then just be prepared to be downvoted to oblivion.
Yes, but there are several quests up for review with bad reviews because of being very difficult to near impossible to complete due to encounters... and if you play them, some of them are not even stacking the encounters... just single encounters that were poorly put together by PWE... it doesn't matter if you spend only 2 minutes testing those encounters or 5 years... they will still be bad encounters! So, yes, you can take the easy road and just sit back and say, "prepared to be downvoted to oblivion", but that's the "troll's way out", just saying, "your fault for not testing properly" when it doesn't matter how much you test THOSE particular encounters... More testing and balancing needs to be done on PWE's side to fix THOSE issues... we can't change the encounters, and we have to hope we can find stuff that works with the resources we HAVE.
For instance, like I said, we can only test with 11, 21, 31 level on each class, and then only with the basic equipment set up... what if the setup is not what most players are going with for gear? then we are basically testing with a false premise! That is like saying safety protocols for a camaro are X when all we used to test drive simulations was a Ford Taurus... starting with a false premise is worthless testing. Then, with only 2 character slots for most people, how can we test capabilities of a 60 cleric, rogue, guardian, wizard, and GWF? Soon to be even more types... We cannot, so how do we know if we have used one of these bad encounters? We don't until we see reviews start pouring in on stuff like, "Impossible encounters, stupid quest can't even be completed" or "Got slaughtered before even making it midway through" and THOSE are the NICE reviews... and it isn't even the author's fault for that... PWE made the encounter, not the Author!
And the Author may have honestly tested out the quest, start to finish, several times, and NEVER had a real problem... but, then, the limit is 31st level in editor (who knows why, it isn't like we can use the character to do anything else, right?), but when 40-60th lvl players run through, they may see abilities (that didn't show up until scaled for a 40-60) that when coupled with some basic terrain choices, or dungeon level design choices, etc... become impossible to kill... but how was the Author to know that would happen? They don't have the necessary tools to test that.
As for Tilt42, I get what you are saying... but consider that a beholder by itself in 4th Edition is deadly (hardly a standard), and most dragons are deadly (still not Standards)... And they have so many HP, do so much damage, etc... most Solo's are plenty challenge by themselves against 4-6 players (you say 5, and that does sound right now, ty for the correction)... if you added even an elite to it, or minions, or whatever, the solo becomes utter death/destruction...
and oddly enough, you are correct that no solo shows up as a hard by itself... although, the Battle Wight Commander (elite) by itself is a hard difficulty! It is the problem I have with how they organized the encounters... they don't make sense all by themselves... one standard encounter will be much more difficult than an easy, and some hard's are easier than some standards... some encounters, depending on group makeup and levels, are nigh impossible to beat without several potions being used (which as above will gain the author some bad reviews, and it isn't their fault because they COULDN'T test it at those levels)...
This is why the ones that have the best reviews are very simple straightforward quests... but they take no risks, they do nothing NEW. the ones that take a step out on the limb and use different enemies, or throw a few tactical elements into a fight... the simple addition of a few traps, or a ledge, in a fight, could turn that standard encounter into a Super-Hard... but only at certain levels, and like I said, if you cannot even test at those levels... who is to blame for that then?
Are we just supposed to have thousands of players all regurgitating the same quests? what is the point of the foundry then, if no one does anything new and original? PWE should be balancing things and making the testing ability better, IMO... give me the tools to properly test, and I WILL.
Also, Since solo's with friends is ok... then why is it bad to look at a typical solo encounter (pre-made) and see something like Brute Solo (ogre) + 2 standard brutes (battletested orcs) "Orc - Melee - Hard Difficulty" but decide, I don't think ogres HAVE to pal around with orcs all the time! So, I find 2 brute melee's, "Gnoll - Melee - Standard Difficulty 1" with Deathpledged Gnolls... and use the single ogre encounter, "Orc - Melee - Standard Difficulty 1"...
Now, I have 'stacked' encounters, but the exact same balance: One Brute Solo + 2 Brute Standards... and through testing the 15 possible ways that we can test (assuming standard builds, if one can even call a build standard at this point) found NO problems... but new abilities show up from 32-60 that make it almost insta-death...
So, 2 questions: Why is it ok to have a single encounter with X makeup, and not ok to have 2 encounters with the exact same amounts and makeup? And how is it the fault of the author when they utilize the exact encounter that PWE gave them? (second question goes back to the top)
Btw, on my current quest, I am working with "Goblin - Mixed - Hard Difficulty" and the only change I have made to it is purely cosmetic making them look like guards (but still act like goblins - they've had an illusion cast on them)...
Using the 31st level Guardian, the encounter was a cinch, using cleric - near impossible, etc etc... just the one encounter could make or break the entire quest, and it is a pre-made encounter designed by PWE, not ME... but, it is the ONLY goblin encounter that has a Hexer (caster) in it... so am I to just not use a caster? am I supposed to look in other monster types and use a caster from there? Should I use a few goblins in one encounter and grab a single caster from somewhere else? (IE, use a 3 goblin encounter plus an Eye of Gruumsh maybe?)...
By saying no stacking, it limits to only what is there... and what IS there sometimes ties your hands as well... (IE only one caster under Goblins, and THAT encounter could be impossible for certain classes at certain levels)
So, 2 questions: Why is it ok to have a single encounter with X makeup, and not ok to have 2 encounters with the exact same amounts and makeup? And how is it the fault of the author when they utilize the exact encounter that PWE gave them? (second question goes back to the top)
As to the first question, this entire thread is a situation of "you can't break the rule until you understand the rule". The rule of "don't stack encounters" (and this entire thread) exists simply as a friendly tip to new authors to help them get on their feet and keep their quests reasonable. Trust to cryptic's encounter mechanics which, for the most part, are sorta kinda reasonable and accurate. Trust that at level 60 a normal encounter really is normal and not ridiculously easy like it is at level 10 or 15.
No one is really saying "you can't stack encounters just because". They're saying that once you understand the rule well enough you'll know exactly when and why it's OK to break the rule, and until you reach that point, the safest/best course for new authors is to follow the rule.
As to the second question... well, yeah, but that's a different topic. Can you accidentally make your quest harder than intended even without stacking encounters? Sure -- a forgecaller and a magma giant... really cryptic? -- but you are far LESS likely to do so if you are following the simple rule of not stacking encounters. It's a reasonable place to start for new quest authors no matter how you look at it.
Once an author is mature enough in the foundry to break the stacking rule, they should also be experienced enough to know that they simply need to test all the encounters with various classes at level 60 to understand how they are going to work.
Once an author is mature enough in the foundry to break the stacking rule, they should also be experienced enough to know that they simply need to test all the encounters with various classes at level 60 to understand how they are going to work.
So, then the only people who should be messing with the foundry are people who have paid enough to have 5 slots AND played enough to have 5 60's (one for each class)? I don't think that is what you are saying, but if it is, really?? How else would you successfully, TRULY, test your quest at level 60 for each class? The editor only lets you respec to 31 max... so how can we test at 60 for each class?
So, then the only people who should be messing with the foundry are people who have paid enough to have 5 slots AND played enough to have 5 60's (one for each class)? I don't think that is what you are saying, but if it is, really?? How else would you successfully, TRULY, test your quest at level 60 for each class? The editor only lets you respec to 31 max... so how can we test at 60 for each class?
If someone isn't willing to commit the week it takes to level a character to 60, then yeah, it's unlikely they are going to be a good foundry author. And they don't have to have 5 slots and 5 60's; level a healing (non blue-circle kind) cleric or GWF to 60 and use that toon for testing to get a pretty clear picture. Every other class is going to have an easier time of it compared to those two except for very specific map layouts/encounters. And don't the regular F2P accounts get 2 slots by default? 1 for your main, 1 for a foundry test character.
On top of that, it only (mostly) matters if you are choosing to stack encounters or explicitly ignore the advice provided in these forums about which specific encounters are way harder than might be expected at 60 for certain classes. Otherwise you can probably skate by without too much worry unless combat challenge is a primary focus.
Now yes, long term I hope we get more and better options for testing foundry content. I guess I just don't see it as some dire foundry-breaking situation that cryptic needs to fix right now; at least not as compared to the other issues they have.
What I see, is people complaining and fussing that the foundry quests are not properly tested... and while that might very well be true for a good portion of them, it certainly isn't true of all of them... and don't think I am talking about mine, because I published one quest, played around with it, decided I did a decent enough job, deleted it, started on a new project... why? Because I only have so many slots, why waste one on something I consider my "tutorial" phase? Even if it is better than most of the ones on the review list (not saying it was, but even IF) why should I waste a slot on my "tutorial"?
As for take a week and level to 60... you are making GRAND assumptions there... First: That people have nothing to do with their time besides play this game (I played for a 4 days and made it to... NINETEEN!! Because I have things to do in RL besides play a game)... so, for me to get to 60 on a TEST toon... it would take me around a month... and that is assuming I want to PLAY the game... which I don't, and that brings me to the second point: Some people love D&D, some people love RUNNING D&D games, some people love PLAYING D&D games... there is a decent chunk of people who like to do 2 of those, but there are also some who just like to BUILD...
I am one of those people... I love to write stories, I love to create things, invent various concepts, etc... Not much of a player. It takes me forever to get to max level in any MMO I play, because I spend so much time wandering around, seeing the sights, testing boundaries, etc... I also create a max load of toons and play ALL of them... I've been DM'ing games since I was 11 years old (25 years ago btw) and during that time, maybe have played 3 times? 4? Because I create, I invent, etc... I don't play, and when I do, I get screwed up because I want all sorts of characters (why? because a DM has all sorts of characters at all times... never just ONE lol)...
So, yes, you are making assumptions, bad ones... I spend all of my playtime on the foundry now... I really cannot stand the actual game because the storyline seems exceedingly trite and played out, the areas are way too predictable, the boss mobs are moronic by design, etc... why would I drag myself through that tedium when instead I could focus on enjoying myself? And how do I enjoy myself? What gives ME pleasure? The easiest way for my face to light up (aside from setting it on fire) is to see several other faces light up with enjoyment! When I create something that others enjoy, I get enjoyment. So, I focus on the foundry, I create, I plot and plan, and when stuff doesn't work right I try to work around it... when I hit so many roadblocks that I cannot move further, I have to scrap and back up and try a different approach... and sometimes I have to scrap an entire quest because the foundry just will not allow me to do what I had planned...
And... I have had to do this way too many times already... which is why I keep saying PWE made a great tool for us to play with, but it is FAR from working... They gave us a quirky/odd beginner's set that behaves REALLY strangely at times... But all I see for all the work these Authors put in, is players complaining, trolling, and more... and a lot of them haven't even tried the foundry, have not REALLY dug in to see what is in there...
It comes off as the tank complaining that the cleric didn't do their job, when A: they've never tried playing a cleric; B: Have no clue what the cleric is looking at, so doesn't know what the CD's are or how much they heal for, etc; C: Ran screaming into 3 encounters at the same time, then blames the cleric... etc etc... THIS is what it ends up looking like. Bad reviews for what? Inability to test properly? Using the only tools provided? Bad decision making on the part of the person playing, but blames the designer?
And again, I will say, yes, a lot of authors out there are lazy and just throw stuff together and who cares if it is death on a stick... but there are still many others who work hard and craft a great adventure that all falls apart because the tool itself is wonky. I won't hold THEM responsible for PWE's design being good but unfinished and not tested properly.
Sadly testing with every class at level 60 is still useless. Cause you're testing with your skill and with your equip.
So either you aim for the lowest unskilled under-equipped player by just using unstacked easy encounters, or you just don't give a **** about it and make it challenging as you like it to be and deal with it (both you and the players).
[EDIT] Clark Gable wouldn't be able to spell his most famous phrase on this forums...
Yes, that is ridiculous. Yet the solution is equally ridiculously easy. Can you tell what it is yet? Hint: it has to do with the thread title.
DON'T STACK ENCOUNTERS! If you don't try to break the combat balance by stacking encounters, the balance will be fine (though you can still mess it up by having a quest filled with nothing but standard and hard encounters, for example. Would be exhausting to play). Follow Cryptic's encounter design that they made so that this would be easy, and you won't have to waste hours of your time testing.
Sorry but you are wrong. As a lvl 60 CW (GS ~10k) a single typical encounter is not very challenging. If a foundry author follows "only" this rule, fights would be utterly boring.
Additional it should not be our job to do game balancing.
We've updated our data files, you are now marked as wanting to fight enemies -/+X to your level.
I want to change the number of powered individuals to which I'm equivalent
I think I'm as good or better than 1 standard powered individuals .
I think I'm as good or better than 2 standard powered individuals .
I think I'm as good or better than 3 standard powered individuals .
I think I'm as good or better than 4 standard powered individuals .
I think I'm as good or better than 5 standard powered individuals .
I think I'm as good or better than 6 standard powered individuals .
I think I'm as good or better than 7 standard powered individuals .
I think I'm as good or better than 8 standard powered individuals .
We've updated our data files, you are now marked as equivalent to X standard powered individuals.
I want to fight bosses even when solo
We've updated our data files, you now want to fight Bosses when solo.
I don't want to fight bosses when soloing.
We've updated our data files, you now no longer want to fight Bosses when solo.
I would like to fight Arch-villains at their full strength, not as Elite Bosses
We've updated our data files, you now want to fight Arch-Villains.
I don't want to fight Arch-villains at their full strength, I'd rather fight them as Elite Bosses.
We've updated our data files, you no longer want to fight Arch-Villains.
On top of this, in the City of Heroes Mission Architect (foundry) you could restrict the missions to say lvl 50. Now if a lvl 25 enters this mission the would autolvl to lvl 49.
Today even STO (same engine) has a difficulty option. Now add that we have a autolvling system in place for Neverwinters PvP System. It is not our job to know every class in this game and don't get me started about "endgame" gear progression and what it means for foundry encounters. So I blame Cryptic for this mess.
For my first foundry missions the feedback was mixed. Some said it was to easy, others found it ok, then next tedious. One GWF needed 40min for the same mission my 60 CW could do in 16min.
My next step was to add a difficulty dialog option for mission and thats it. Now you can choose between easy-normal(non stacked) normal-hard(stacked "boss" fights) and that's as far as I'll go.
But in the end it's Cryptics fault to not add a prober difficulty slider to the game.........
Btw, on my current quest, I am working with "Goblin - Mixed - Hard Difficulty" and the only change I have made to it is purely cosmetic making them look like guards (but still act like goblins - they've had an illusion cast on them)...
Using the 31st level Guardian, the encounter was a cinch, using cleric - near impossible, etc etc... just the one encounter could make or break the entire quest, and it is a pre-made encounter designed by PWE, not ME... but, it is the ONLY goblin encounter that has a Hexer (caster) in it... so am I to just not use a caster? am I supposed to look in other monster types and use a caster from there? Should I use a few goblins in one encounter and grab a single caster from somewhere else? (IE, use a 3 goblin encounter plus an Eye of Gruumsh maybe?)...
By saying no stacking, it limits to only what is there... and what IS there sometimes ties your hands as well... (IE only one caster under Goblins, and THAT encounter could be impossible for certain classes at certain levels)
I have the exact same encounter in a room by itself as a mini-boss encounter about half way through my Any cave can lead to adventure UGC. That encounter was so hard for one of my reviewers on a lvl 46 Guardian Warrior that they asked if it was a stacked encounter in a PM. So yes, the encounters in the game right now are not "perfect". But:
No one is really saying "you can't stack encounters just because". They're saying that once you understand the rule well enough you'll know exactly when and why it's OK to break the rule, and until you reach that point, the safest/best course for new authors is to follow the rule.
Is really the crux of what is discussed. Same exact UGC I mentioned above has a room not 3 rooms later that has 2.5 easy encounters stacked to make you feel like you are going through the "housing" part of a goblin lair (The warren). At first it was 2 easy's and 1 standard with a hex hurler. Same reviewer let me know that again it really was too hard. Why was it hard? It had nothing to do with being stacked in and of itself and everything to do with the damage the minions could do while the player was cc'd by a knockdown from the hex hurler. That one mechanic alone caused me to rip the whole room apart and change it. But I understood the rule. When I re-stacked that room it now has the same "big fight" feel without abusing the player or running the chance of death with no ability to respond/avoid.
Later in the same dungeon there is the actual boss fight. Phase 2 was the undead hard 2 deathlock wights and 1 zombie hulk. I did some fancy reskinning and phase them in right after a zombie horde, so for the first half of the fight you are fighting never ending waves of zombies, two summoners, and a hulk. The GW I mentioned above found it a challenge but manageable. A level 28 DC face rolled the encounter with no challenge. A level 60 DC never got a single hit on either wight before dying. The moral of the story, until you KNOW the encounters you can't effectively place them, and until you really understand how they work for every class at every level you simply shouldn't stack them.
In the end I'm not asking people to play every class, hell I'm the worst DC or CW in the world. I barely make a passable TR or GW. But I can certainly listen to people who are good with those classes when they give me feedback. I now know how those classes handle those encounters, at those levels, and that gives me the understanding of when and where it is ok to stack. But I still say the general rule is "Don't stack encounters". I stand by my earlier comments, the editor should automatically flag UGC that has stacked encounters as a warning to the player.
Do you crave a good old fashioned dungeon crawl? One where the dungeon tells it's own story? The Dungeon Delves campaign is just for you! Start with my first release: NW-DQF4T7QYH Any cave can lead to adventure!
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sasheriaMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 1Arc User
edited May 2013
I am trying to make a quest that is "short enough" for dailies and yet hard enough to be fun. The problem is when people are playing from level 1 vs 60. The SAME mission can take 8-10 minutes for level 1 but it will take much longer at 60 if I extend it for level 1 it will much harder for level 60
I am trying to make a quest that is "short enough" for dailies and yet hard enough to be fun. The problem is when people are playing from level 1 vs 60. The SAME mission can take 8-10 minutes for level 1 but it will take much longer at 60 if I extend it for level 1 it will much harder for level 60
Hard to find that magic balance
Try to make your mission longer/shorter with use of non-combat solutions. Like time needed to go back to questgiver and return one part of the quest before being given next one, or avoiding traps, or mazes, puzzles, map transitions.
Just make sure that while all those things in level design together are adding one to each other to reach this 15 min requirement, when separated those time sinks aren't excessive and invasive (like very very very long and boring corridor with few encounters inside - don't do things like this one).
If you can do it diverse people won't even notice it.
I am trying to make a quest that is "short enough" for dailies and yet hard enough to be fun. The problem is when people are playing from level 1 vs 60. The SAME mission can take 8-10 minutes for level 1 but it will take much longer at 60 if I extend it for level 1 it will much harder for level 60
Hard to find that magic balance
To keep this thread on topic I created a discussion just about this here.
Do you crave a good old fashioned dungeon crawl? One where the dungeon tells it's own story? The Dungeon Delves campaign is just for you! Start with my first release: NW-DQF4T7QYH Any cave can lead to adventure!
I've dabbled a touch(never published anything, and don't know if I ever will), but I do play Foundry quests on a daily basis. Honestly, I'm probably your Joe Average dungeon crawler when it comes to my overall expectation(but probably well above average in actual character manipulation), and hopefully they'll help make for better foundry missions.
The things that tend to stand out to me:
1.) "Artificial difficulty" bores me, and it'll cause a downgrade. A challenging enemy or group of enemies is great fun. Wave after wave, or "stacked" encounters to artificially make difficulty usually result in me thinking"groan.......another <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> DM that just likes to kill his players". Victory or defeat, amount of consumables used or damage taken, doesn't really make challenge, rather, the fight should make me feel like I really had to motor to get it done.
2.) Big mobs in small rooms. Seriously, just don't do this. If you want to use a giant with which my dwarf will be looking at his ankle for the majority of the fight, don't put him in a hallway with his shoulders against the walls and his hair brushing the ceiling. Even if it's beatable, I might as well be fighting him on a calculator because graphics are no longer a factor.
3.) BE AWARE OF KNOCKBACKS! While I don't think an author should be obligated to become an encyclopedia of class knowledge, please understand that knockbacks and knockdowns are probably the most significant damage reduction abilities in the game and as such players WILL bring them. Given the weird clipping problems and such that sometimes happen I know that not all instances of it can be avoided, but please, try your very hardest to avoid placing enemies in such a way that they are likely to get stuck. If this happens you don't leave combat, and if you don't leave combat, you don't get to interact with objects. For example:
I recently did a mission in which I ascended a broken, ruined staircase/hallway thingy. Between the massive fire golems blocking my view, I fought wave after wave of smaller enemies. Thankful to reach the end, I went to pull the chain to open the next door.........and was in combat. Something had fallen off the side and not died, and I couldn't continue. A needless half hour fight spent mostly in the blindness of a golems waistline, all wasted. The beautiful custom architecture of the location couldn't save this from going into the bin, it wasn't playable.
Hopefully, this gives some ideas of what to watch for when playtesting your encounters, and I hope it was helpful.
Comments
I tried that... doesn't come up.
EDIT: My mistake - I'd previously searched the wrong tab and then unpublished the specific quest I was looking for anyway.
Thanks for the tip, when I get any of my quests published again I will be make sure to play through with my real in game chars.
This is why I was talking about context, I've only ever done this with zombies specifically as they are generally considered brainless and generally speaking I've tried to keep it fun so that, if you pull them right, they all run off a cliff like lemmings. The only place that isn't true (on the quest I'm currently working on) is in the 'boss' fight where I must admit I may have gone a little over the top since the in-editor level 30's find it too easy.
But I imagine still okay with the aforementioned luring them off a cliff like lemmings yes?
First, I'm increasingly in favor of making quests no more than 30 mins long (dividing longer ones into part 1, 2, etc).
Second, I think I WILL have stacked encounters on my next mission specifically for areas you should be avoiding (but some people might blitz through anyway)
Wicks and Things: NW-DI4FMZRR4 : The Fenwick merchant family has lost a caravan! Can you help?
Beggar's Hollow: NW-DR6YG4J2L : Someone, or something, has stolen away many of the Fenwicks' children! Can you find out what happened to them?
Into the Fen Wood: NW-DL89DRG7B : Enter the heart of the forest. Can you discover the secret of the Fen Wood?
I would just level a character in game to 60 and test your foundry post published.
I do not believe I asked for compassion - I just pointed out something some people may or may not understand. I purposely use 1 as the easiest way to end most conversations on my foundry. Except when I want the player to read. I sometimes will use 1 as a way to get the player stuck on an endless loop until they read the text or press random other buttons.
Stacking anything more than one standard and one easy encounter (and only if you know those encounters and you know how those mobs are working at higher levels) in solo oriented quests is simply making your own quest unplayable for many people. Nothing wrong with that, but do not be surprised after releasing your quest as a "solo" friendly that it's now disliked by players.
Many people are looking at Foundry quests as a non-tedious alternative for high level main game quests.
I can't speak for the others here, but I read what you said very carefully, and what it comes off as is this:
"If you're careless or unlucky enough to pull more than one group at a time, however much the concept of pulling defies logic, I have no qualms about killing your character".
This screams bad quest design to me. I hope you just communicated your intent poorly, because what you described sounds about as annoying as it gets. I guarantee that you are going to receive a bunch of bad reviews over this decision.
Judiciously stacking encounters can turn up tension levels just a notch, but it's certainly not the only tool to do that.
Similarly, pacing matters. Pummel your players all the time, and they won't come back.
As the game ages, there'll be more and more level 60s who will be playing your Foundry creations. So have a thought for the poor L60 clerics!
That is total bs so all foundry adventures need to be geared for a level 60 tune which will be way to easy for lower level players. No the adventure should state what level range the adventure is optimal for and leave it at that.
That is your opinion and you are welcome to it, and you are also welcome to be 1 starred by anyone over level 30 who ever plays your content if they bother to finish it at all. Yes, content should be balanced to all players can have an equal chance to complete it solo. I leave tweaking the difficulty scaling to Cryptic.
I disagree again... all my adventures are geared for group play and will be stated as such. This does not rule out me trying my hand at a solo adventure in the future and if i choose to make one i will certainly take into account that different levels have and easier or harder time at doing such content and will certainly state what level range the adventure is optimal for.
I may do this if they ever decide to give us the ability to respec the foundry toon to 41, 51, and then 60... so I can fully test an adventure finally! But until then, sorry, not happening...
Aside from that... The only time I do stacking really, is when I set up a wandering path for a patrol that crosses over a stationary encounter (just makes people not rush in and watch for openings... sorry, I believe that is skill, not tedium)... OR when I want the story to be furthered... IE, if you are fighting zombies, and I want the feeling of "OMG THERE ARE A LOT OF THEM!!" I will pull out the 6 rotter encounter, and place them far apart, but have them patrol into the spot where the players will be at a very slow rate of advancement (to give the players time to fight 2 or 3 of them at a time)... this way the payer will see a carpet of zombies approaching and feel the need to hurry or move or do something before they get overwhelmed...
And even if they stay put, odds are they will be fine in the end... may take a couple potions if they just sit there and slog it out... more if they charge headlong into the mob... There is usually an out for it, like run away and click something to end the fight... so, is more for the dramatic tension, than for the actual fight or challenge...
Yes, that is ridiculous. Yet the solution is equally ridiculously easy. Can you tell what it is yet? Hint: it has to do with the thread title.
DON'T STACK ENCOUNTERS! If you don't try to break the combat balance by stacking encounters, the balance will be fine (though you can still mess it up by having a quest filled with nothing but standard and hard encounters, for example. Would be exhausting to play). Follow Cryptic's encounter design that they made so that this would be easy, and you won't have to waste hours of your time testing.
Methinks you did not read through the entire thread...
I don't stack encounters unless I make it absolutely possible to avoid the fight (and encouraged to do so), or if I only use EASY's and then only use 2 at most (and then stage them far enough apart and set on slow patrol towards the player to give them a staged fight against a small bit at a time, not overwhelm them), or etc... I don't throw them in a room, say "Kill Enemies" and put 5 groups in there...
I put 5 encounters, with 8 friendly guard groups, yes... there should be NO reason the player should even HAVE to worry about that fight (and, the task is something like, "Get PAST the bad guys" not "Help The Guards" lol)
What I was referring to, was the problem of people stating that authors should include in their descriptions an optimal level range... that makes no sense... because the author may find that 15-25 might be optimal for a cleric, but 35-45 for a Guardian, and 5-15 for wizard, and no level optimal for rogue or GWF... If adding optimal levels is mandatory, then people are asking the impossible...
Some encounters lend themselves better to some classes and levels than others, and there is NO way to know until 'fully tested' which would mean running it 15 times in the editor, and then more times once published (due to changing of behaviors in the game itself between edit mode and the actual game)... but we can only have 2 characters unless paying for a pack or having multiple accounts, etc... so we have to have others test it, then remove it, tweak it, throw it back up etc... all just to find that the way we built the adventure is best for X over Y...
And that is with using single encounters, going with a 5x, 3y, 1z mentality (where for every hard, we include 3 standards, and 5 easy's) and NEVER stack them! PWE has no clue how to translate what is in the monster manual into a video game where players can easily just throw stuff together... they know how to do it THEMSELVES... but just one look through the foundry is evidence enough that they didn't translate it well!
For instance, I've seen a 'solo' in a standard difficulty encounter (this is completely baffling!), a solo means hard difficulty automatically, hence SOLO... a single solo is supposed to be the equivalent of 4 player characters of equal level, and then is supposed to be a 50/50 shot of who survives (at best)... so yeah, auto-hard difficulty, but they have it on Standard?
Another example... note that only Brutes are solo's... and a single brute elite is a standard, but almost every controller/artillery elite is an easy if by itself... This tells me that they think controllers and artillery types are EASIER than a brute... A simple run through the actual game shows that the first dungeon (cloak tower) is filled with nothing but Brute Bosses (3 of them I think), and all are fairly simple... so much I could solo the dungeon at 19th level on my cleric! Because they have specific patterns, and all you need to do is just dodge big clubs and stay away from them... ooooo, haaaarrrrddd....
Controllers and Artillery types, though... MUCH more difficult, because it doesn't matter where you are, they hit you... they also use special tactics and strategies... and God Forbid if they are bosses or elites, because they run with others then, and trying to get to them becomes a true pain while they just mess you up from far away!
There is a reason why Dragons in the monster manual are different types, and notice the weakest one (the white dragon) is the BRUTE... Brutes are the easiest to fight, always! Yet PWE has them being the strongest according to the listings?
Simple test, make a small room, throw the 'orc - mixed', that has the ogre brute solo, and the orc controller elite, into the room... then go in and fight them... The ogre by itself would be simple, the orc would be about as difficult (but the two are different levels (solo vs elite)... just one fight might take longer only due to HP. That ogre plus other enemies is only a pain, the controller plus other enemies might become impossible to survive due to laying on your face half the fight. Put them together, and you get a very difficult fight, true...
But the point is, that the way they have the encounters put together is more an after-thought, than the way they built the game... they built the game using the ability to modify encounters however they needed to (which WE cannot do, so we can't say, "Follow their model", may as well say just teleport to work like mages do... oh we cannot do that in real life, we don't play by the same rules! So useless to compare US to THEM)... what we received, was a set of encounters that we cannot change or modify really, that are sort of mismatched hodgepodge where some are actually balanced, and some are death on a stick depending on what level and class you are playing... so it is more a roll of the dice to see if you got lucky or not.
And to make matters worse, full testing is impossible since we cannot create an editor toon at whatever level we want, with whatever equipment we want, we have to 'respec' them and get base equipment... we can't even save the testing toons for future use, we have to rebuild them each time we want to test a specific level/class combo...
The foundry is so broken it isn't even funny... we do our best, try to be as rational and reasonable as possible, and we still end up with quirky, odd, deadly, etc quests on the finished product. I agree, don't stack unless you are REALLY sure you want to do so, and test it several times to make sure it is NOT going to kill the players due to the stacking... but even when NOT stacking, the encounters are so out of whack, that a single encounter is a gamble...
TL;DR- That was my point: To fully test would require resources we do not have, and take more time than anyone is willing to spend or has available to spend (like weeks on just testing a single quest)
I'll let the stacking discussion lie for the moment and tackle this little tidbit instead. You've misunderstood the concept of solo monsters in D&D. I wrote a bit about this in the Encounters For Dummies thread, but I may not have been completely clear. A solo monster in D&D 4E is supposed to be a full encounter for a party of 5 player characters. This you already understand (though you mixed up the number of players, which is merely a minor point).
However, an encounter in D&D isn't meant to be hard on its own. A solo monster at the party's level is unlikely to present any real risk of death, unless it happens to appear after the players have expended most of their resources on other encounters. In order for a solo monster to be truly dangerous, it has to be 3-4 levels above the players, or needs to be accompanied by other monsters (preferably minions). The Neverwinter Foundry doesn't let us do the former, but it most certainly lets us do the latter (even without stacking encounters). For this reason, a lone solo monster in Neverwinter is never going to be a hard encounter. It's always going to be considered standard. Only when the encounter contains other monsters does it become hard.
Basically, your claim that a solo monster is supposed to be the equivalent of a party is faulty, and your claim that there's supposed to be a 50/50 chance for survival against such an encounter couldn't be farther from the truth. That has never been the intention of solo monsters. A solo monster is supposed to be a standard challenge for a party, not their equivalent. The typical math for D&D assumes that 4 or 5 solo monsters in a row might be a party's equivalent (this does not apply to Neverwinter, btw), but one solo monster alone would never be.
Another thing worth noting: In the Neverwinter Foundry, a solo monster is balanced to be a standard challenge for a solo player, not for a party. This is one area where they changed the balance from regular D&D.
Yes, but there are several quests up for review with bad reviews because of being very difficult to near impossible to complete due to encounters... and if you play them, some of them are not even stacking the encounters... just single encounters that were poorly put together by PWE... it doesn't matter if you spend only 2 minutes testing those encounters or 5 years... they will still be bad encounters! So, yes, you can take the easy road and just sit back and say, "prepared to be downvoted to oblivion", but that's the "troll's way out", just saying, "your fault for not testing properly" when it doesn't matter how much you test THOSE particular encounters... More testing and balancing needs to be done on PWE's side to fix THOSE issues... we can't change the encounters, and we have to hope we can find stuff that works with the resources we HAVE.
For instance, like I said, we can only test with 11, 21, 31 level on each class, and then only with the basic equipment set up... what if the setup is not what most players are going with for gear? then we are basically testing with a false premise! That is like saying safety protocols for a camaro are X when all we used to test drive simulations was a Ford Taurus... starting with a false premise is worthless testing. Then, with only 2 character slots for most people, how can we test capabilities of a 60 cleric, rogue, guardian, wizard, and GWF? Soon to be even more types... We cannot, so how do we know if we have used one of these bad encounters? We don't until we see reviews start pouring in on stuff like, "Impossible encounters, stupid quest can't even be completed" or "Got slaughtered before even making it midway through" and THOSE are the NICE reviews... and it isn't even the author's fault for that... PWE made the encounter, not the Author!
And the Author may have honestly tested out the quest, start to finish, several times, and NEVER had a real problem... but, then, the limit is 31st level in editor (who knows why, it isn't like we can use the character to do anything else, right?), but when 40-60th lvl players run through, they may see abilities (that didn't show up until scaled for a 40-60) that when coupled with some basic terrain choices, or dungeon level design choices, etc... become impossible to kill... but how was the Author to know that would happen? They don't have the necessary tools to test that.
As for Tilt42, I get what you are saying... but consider that a beholder by itself in 4th Edition is deadly (hardly a standard), and most dragons are deadly (still not Standards)... And they have so many HP, do so much damage, etc... most Solo's are plenty challenge by themselves against 4-6 players (you say 5, and that does sound right now, ty for the correction)... if you added even an elite to it, or minions, or whatever, the solo becomes utter death/destruction...
and oddly enough, you are correct that no solo shows up as a hard by itself... although, the Battle Wight Commander (elite) by itself is a hard difficulty! It is the problem I have with how they organized the encounters... they don't make sense all by themselves... one standard encounter will be much more difficult than an easy, and some hard's are easier than some standards... some encounters, depending on group makeup and levels, are nigh impossible to beat without several potions being used (which as above will gain the author some bad reviews, and it isn't their fault because they COULDN'T test it at those levels)...
This is why the ones that have the best reviews are very simple straightforward quests... but they take no risks, they do nothing NEW. the ones that take a step out on the limb and use different enemies, or throw a few tactical elements into a fight... the simple addition of a few traps, or a ledge, in a fight, could turn that standard encounter into a Super-Hard... but only at certain levels, and like I said, if you cannot even test at those levels... who is to blame for that then?
Are we just supposed to have thousands of players all regurgitating the same quests? what is the point of the foundry then, if no one does anything new and original? PWE should be balancing things and making the testing ability better, IMO... give me the tools to properly test, and I WILL.
Also, Since solo's with friends is ok... then why is it bad to look at a typical solo encounter (pre-made) and see something like Brute Solo (ogre) + 2 standard brutes (battletested orcs) "Orc - Melee - Hard Difficulty" but decide, I don't think ogres HAVE to pal around with orcs all the time! So, I find 2 brute melee's, "Gnoll - Melee - Standard Difficulty 1" with Deathpledged Gnolls... and use the single ogre encounter, "Orc - Melee - Standard Difficulty 1"...
Now, I have 'stacked' encounters, but the exact same balance: One Brute Solo + 2 Brute Standards... and through testing the 15 possible ways that we can test (assuming standard builds, if one can even call a build standard at this point) found NO problems... but new abilities show up from 32-60 that make it almost insta-death...
So, 2 questions: Why is it ok to have a single encounter with X makeup, and not ok to have 2 encounters with the exact same amounts and makeup? And how is it the fault of the author when they utilize the exact encounter that PWE gave them? (second question goes back to the top)
Using the 31st level Guardian, the encounter was a cinch, using cleric - near impossible, etc etc... just the one encounter could make or break the entire quest, and it is a pre-made encounter designed by PWE, not ME... but, it is the ONLY goblin encounter that has a Hexer (caster) in it... so am I to just not use a caster? am I supposed to look in other monster types and use a caster from there? Should I use a few goblins in one encounter and grab a single caster from somewhere else? (IE, use a 3 goblin encounter plus an Eye of Gruumsh maybe?)...
By saying no stacking, it limits to only what is there... and what IS there sometimes ties your hands as well... (IE only one caster under Goblins, and THAT encounter could be impossible for certain classes at certain levels)
As to the first question, this entire thread is a situation of "you can't break the rule until you understand the rule". The rule of "don't stack encounters" (and this entire thread) exists simply as a friendly tip to new authors to help them get on their feet and keep their quests reasonable. Trust to cryptic's encounter mechanics which, for the most part, are sorta kinda reasonable and accurate. Trust that at level 60 a normal encounter really is normal and not ridiculously easy like it is at level 10 or 15.
No one is really saying "you can't stack encounters just because". They're saying that once you understand the rule well enough you'll know exactly when and why it's OK to break the rule, and until you reach that point, the safest/best course for new authors is to follow the rule.
As to the second question... well, yeah, but that's a different topic. Can you accidentally make your quest harder than intended even without stacking encounters? Sure -- a forgecaller and a magma giant... really cryptic? -- but you are far LESS likely to do so if you are following the simple rule of not stacking encounters. It's a reasonable place to start for new quest authors no matter how you look at it.
Once an author is mature enough in the foundry to break the stacking rule, they should also be experienced enough to know that they simply need to test all the encounters with various classes at level 60 to understand how they are going to work.
So, then the only people who should be messing with the foundry are people who have paid enough to have 5 slots AND played enough to have 5 60's (one for each class)? I don't think that is what you are saying, but if it is, really?? How else would you successfully, TRULY, test your quest at level 60 for each class? The editor only lets you respec to 31 max... so how can we test at 60 for each class?
If someone isn't willing to commit the week it takes to level a character to 60, then yeah, it's unlikely they are going to be a good foundry author. And they don't have to have 5 slots and 5 60's; level a healing (non blue-circle kind) cleric or GWF to 60 and use that toon for testing to get a pretty clear picture. Every other class is going to have an easier time of it compared to those two except for very specific map layouts/encounters. And don't the regular F2P accounts get 2 slots by default? 1 for your main, 1 for a foundry test character.
On top of that, it only (mostly) matters if you are choosing to stack encounters or explicitly ignore the advice provided in these forums about which specific encounters are way harder than might be expected at 60 for certain classes. Otherwise you can probably skate by without too much worry unless combat challenge is a primary focus.
Now yes, long term I hope we get more and better options for testing foundry content. I guess I just don't see it as some dire foundry-breaking situation that cryptic needs to fix right now; at least not as compared to the other issues they have.
As for take a week and level to 60... you are making GRAND assumptions there... First: That people have nothing to do with their time besides play this game (I played for a 4 days and made it to... NINETEEN!! Because I have things to do in RL besides play a game)... so, for me to get to 60 on a TEST toon... it would take me around a month... and that is assuming I want to PLAY the game... which I don't, and that brings me to the second point: Some people love D&D, some people love RUNNING D&D games, some people love PLAYING D&D games... there is a decent chunk of people who like to do 2 of those, but there are also some who just like to BUILD...
I am one of those people... I love to write stories, I love to create things, invent various concepts, etc... Not much of a player. It takes me forever to get to max level in any MMO I play, because I spend so much time wandering around, seeing the sights, testing boundaries, etc... I also create a max load of toons and play ALL of them... I've been DM'ing games since I was 11 years old (25 years ago btw) and during that time, maybe have played 3 times? 4? Because I create, I invent, etc... I don't play, and when I do, I get screwed up because I want all sorts of characters (why? because a DM has all sorts of characters at all times... never just ONE lol)...
So, yes, you are making assumptions, bad ones... I spend all of my playtime on the foundry now... I really cannot stand the actual game because the storyline seems exceedingly trite and played out, the areas are way too predictable, the boss mobs are moronic by design, etc... why would I drag myself through that tedium when instead I could focus on enjoying myself? And how do I enjoy myself? What gives ME pleasure? The easiest way for my face to light up (aside from setting it on fire) is to see several other faces light up with enjoyment! When I create something that others enjoy, I get enjoyment. So, I focus on the foundry, I create, I plot and plan, and when stuff doesn't work right I try to work around it... when I hit so many roadblocks that I cannot move further, I have to scrap and back up and try a different approach... and sometimes I have to scrap an entire quest because the foundry just will not allow me to do what I had planned...
And... I have had to do this way too many times already... which is why I keep saying PWE made a great tool for us to play with, but it is FAR from working... They gave us a quirky/odd beginner's set that behaves REALLY strangely at times... But all I see for all the work these Authors put in, is players complaining, trolling, and more... and a lot of them haven't even tried the foundry, have not REALLY dug in to see what is in there...
It comes off as the tank complaining that the cleric didn't do their job, when A: they've never tried playing a cleric; B: Have no clue what the cleric is looking at, so doesn't know what the CD's are or how much they heal for, etc; C: Ran screaming into 3 encounters at the same time, then blames the cleric... etc etc... THIS is what it ends up looking like. Bad reviews for what? Inability to test properly? Using the only tools provided? Bad decision making on the part of the person playing, but blames the designer?
And again, I will say, yes, a lot of authors out there are lazy and just throw stuff together and who cares if it is death on a stick... but there are still many others who work hard and craft a great adventure that all falls apart because the tool itself is wonky. I won't hold THEM responsible for PWE's design being good but unfinished and not tested properly.
So either you aim for the lowest unskilled under-equipped player by just using unstacked easy encounters, or you just don't give a **** about it and make it challenging as you like it to be and deal with it (both you and the players).
[EDIT] Clark Gable wouldn't be able to spell his most famous phrase on this forums...
Author: @BardicKnowledge
Q1: Prologue - The Lady and the Worm NW-DPQPJSVTH
Tags: #Challenge, #Story, #Solo, #Group
Sorry but you are wrong. As a lvl 60 CW (GS ~10k) a single typical encounter is not very challenging. If a foundry author follows "only" this rule, fights would be utterly boring.
Additional it should not be our job to do game balancing.
Look at the first Cryptic MMO City of Heroes
Notoriety Options:
http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Notoriety
On top of this, in the City of Heroes Mission Architect (foundry) you could restrict the missions to say lvl 50. Now if a lvl 25 enters this mission the would autolvl to lvl 49.
Today even STO (same engine) has a difficulty option. Now add that we have a autolvling system in place for Neverwinters PvP System. It is not our job to know every class in this game and don't get me started about "endgame" gear progression and what it means for foundry encounters. So I blame Cryptic for this mess.
For my first foundry missions the feedback was mixed. Some said it was to easy, others found it ok, then next tedious. One GWF needed 40min for the same mission my 60 CW could do in 16min.
My next step was to add a difficulty dialog option for mission and thats it. Now you can choose between easy-normal(non stacked) normal-hard(stacked "boss" fights) and that's as far as I'll go.
But in the end it's Cryptics fault to not add a prober difficulty slider to the game.........
Part 1: NW-DMFKR9RPL http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?427711-Brunnen-des-Lichts-Teil-1
Part 2: NW-DLBTN8W28 http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?444281-Brunnen-des-Lichts-Teil-2
Icewind Dale campaign Osthafen sehen & sterben (German)
NW-DMC3IOWAE http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?477201-Osthafen-sehen-amp-sterben
I have the exact same encounter in a room by itself as a mini-boss encounter about half way through my Any cave can lead to adventure UGC. That encounter was so hard for one of my reviewers on a lvl 46 Guardian Warrior that they asked if it was a stacked encounter in a PM. So yes, the encounters in the game right now are not "perfect". But:
Is really the crux of what is discussed. Same exact UGC I mentioned above has a room not 3 rooms later that has 2.5 easy encounters stacked to make you feel like you are going through the "housing" part of a goblin lair (The warren). At first it was 2 easy's and 1 standard with a hex hurler. Same reviewer let me know that again it really was too hard. Why was it hard? It had nothing to do with being stacked in and of itself and everything to do with the damage the minions could do while the player was cc'd by a knockdown from the hex hurler. That one mechanic alone caused me to rip the whole room apart and change it. But I understood the rule. When I re-stacked that room it now has the same "big fight" feel without abusing the player or running the chance of death with no ability to respond/avoid.
Later in the same dungeon there is the actual boss fight. Phase 2 was the undead hard 2 deathlock wights and 1 zombie hulk. I did some fancy reskinning and phase them in right after a zombie horde, so for the first half of the fight you are fighting never ending waves of zombies, two summoners, and a hulk. The GW I mentioned above found it a challenge but manageable. A level 28 DC face rolled the encounter with no challenge. A level 60 DC never got a single hit on either wight before dying. The moral of the story, until you KNOW the encounters you can't effectively place them, and until you really understand how they work for every class at every level you simply shouldn't stack them.
In the end I'm not asking people to play every class, hell I'm the worst DC or CW in the world. I barely make a passable TR or GW. But I can certainly listen to people who are good with those classes when they give me feedback. I now know how those classes handle those encounters, at those levels, and that gives me the understanding of when and where it is ok to stack. But I still say the general rule is "Don't stack encounters". I stand by my earlier comments, the editor should automatically flag UGC that has stacked encounters as a warning to the player.
Hard to find that magic balance
Please review my campaign and I'll return the favor.
Try to make your mission longer/shorter with use of non-combat solutions. Like time needed to go back to questgiver and return one part of the quest before being given next one, or avoiding traps, or mazes, puzzles, map transitions.
Just make sure that while all those things in level design together are adding one to each other to reach this 15 min requirement, when separated those time sinks aren't excessive and invasive (like very very very long and boring corridor with few encounters inside - don't do things like this one).
If you can do it diverse people won't even notice it.
To keep this thread on topic I created a discussion just about this here.
The things that tend to stand out to me:
1.) "Artificial difficulty" bores me, and it'll cause a downgrade. A challenging enemy or group of enemies is great fun. Wave after wave, or "stacked" encounters to artificially make difficulty usually result in me thinking"groan.......another <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> DM that just likes to kill his players". Victory or defeat, amount of consumables used or damage taken, doesn't really make challenge, rather, the fight should make me feel like I really had to motor to get it done.
2.) Big mobs in small rooms. Seriously, just don't do this. If you want to use a giant with which my dwarf will be looking at his ankle for the majority of the fight, don't put him in a hallway with his shoulders against the walls and his hair brushing the ceiling. Even if it's beatable, I might as well be fighting him on a calculator because graphics are no longer a factor.
3.) BE AWARE OF KNOCKBACKS! While I don't think an author should be obligated to become an encyclopedia of class knowledge, please understand that knockbacks and knockdowns are probably the most significant damage reduction abilities in the game and as such players WILL bring them. Given the weird clipping problems and such that sometimes happen I know that not all instances of it can be avoided, but please, try your very hardest to avoid placing enemies in such a way that they are likely to get stuck. If this happens you don't leave combat, and if you don't leave combat, you don't get to interact with objects. For example:
I recently did a mission in which I ascended a broken, ruined staircase/hallway thingy. Between the massive fire golems blocking my view, I fought wave after wave of smaller enemies. Thankful to reach the end, I went to pull the chain to open the next door.........and was in combat. Something had fallen off the side and not died, and I couldn't continue. A needless half hour fight spent mostly in the blindness of a golems waistline, all wasted. The beautiful custom architecture of the location couldn't save this from going into the bin, it wasn't playable.
Hopefully, this gives some ideas of what to watch for when playtesting your encounters, and I hope it was helpful.