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First Quest: "Loose Cannon Squad"
two30
Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 1,168 Arc User
I've just published my first quest and decided to share some thoughts about the experience.
"Loose Cannon Squad" NW-DHVMPLWNT
If anyone wishes to run the quest without preconception, don't read below this line. (Although I don't know when the publication process will complete.)
_____________________________________________
Design
My plan was to create a quest based on action-movies with cops, shootouts and comedic banter. No plan survives contact with the enemy. The enemy, in this case, being the limitations and difficulties of the Foundry system.
Encounters
I wanted all the encounters to be ranged-only, and varied. This narrowed the options to:
Every other ranged encounter is a subset or reskin of those five encounters. For instance, there's no substantive difference between Skeleton Archers and Rebel Snipers, just skins, animation and sounds.
The Plaguegazer encounter proved particularly problematic. I wanted to reskin them into creepy contract killers with nasty dialogue like "Let's pluck out their eyes, Miss Blue" and "No, let's cut off their feet, Mister Red". This was impossible for two reasons:
Eventually I turned the Plaguegazer encounters into enchanted toys. I then discovered that most animations don't work with animal models, but you can't know which will work until you run the encounter.
NPC chatter
My solution to the dialogue limitations was to place a "gossiper" near each encounter. I made dozens of gossipers, each set to say something, then cower when combat began. Unfortunately, cower is broken. NPCs set to cower will react to combat from far across the map, and won't reset if they're near an out-of-combat enemy. My gossipers now ignore combat completely, which is an ugly workaround. By this point, I gave up on ever salvaging my plans.
Interface Trouble
I knew from the start that the Foundry interface would be awkward, but there was one issue that really bothered me: Copying an encounter scrambles the names and skins. One of the minions gets the name and skin from the elite, and the elite gets the name and skin from one of the minions. As a result, making each encounter from scratch was tedious, but less messy.
What Worked Well
Making wagons overturn and catch on fire during the street phase worked. If I were to start all over, I would abandon the indoor maps, and extend the streets maps into a riot of chaos, culminating in a battle that destroys the graveyard's statuary.
Conclusion
The end product is a bit of fun, but not what I hoped for. If I could change one limitation in the Foundry, I would make "override attack text" enemy-specific not encounter-wide.
"Loose Cannon Squad" NW-DHVMPLWNT
If anyone wishes to run the quest without preconception, don't read below this line. (Although I don't know when the publication process will complete.)
_____________________________________________
Design
My plan was to create a quest based on action-movies with cops, shootouts and comedic banter. No plan survives contact with the enemy. The enemy, in this case, being the limitations and difficulties of the Foundry system.
Encounters
I wanted all the encounters to be ranged-only, and varied. This narrowed the options to:
- 3 Greenscale Darters
- 1 Duergar Theurge + 2 Duergar Guards
- 1 Foulspawn Seer + 2 Foulspawn Grue
- 2 Nothic Plaguegazers + 2 Blue Fire Eyes
- 1 Rebel Hexer + 3 Rebel Snipers
Every other ranged encounter is a subset or reskin of those five encounters. For instance, there's no substantive difference between Skeleton Archers and Rebel Snipers, just skins, animation and sounds.
The Plaguegazer encounter proved particularly problematic. I wanted to reskin them into creepy contract killers with nasty dialogue like "Let's pluck out their eyes, Miss Blue" and "No, let's cut off their feet, Mister Red". This was impossible for two reasons:
- You can rename and reskin each enemy in an encounter, but you can't change their animation or voices. Plaguegazer and Blue Fire Eye animations are terrible when reskinned to humanoids.
- It's impossible to make individual entities in an encounter say different things. They all parrot the same statement.
Eventually I turned the Plaguegazer encounters into enchanted toys. I then discovered that most animations don't work with animal models, but you can't know which will work until you run the encounter.
NPC chatter
My solution to the dialogue limitations was to place a "gossiper" near each encounter. I made dozens of gossipers, each set to say something, then cower when combat began. Unfortunately, cower is broken. NPCs set to cower will react to combat from far across the map, and won't reset if they're near an out-of-combat enemy. My gossipers now ignore combat completely, which is an ugly workaround. By this point, I gave up on ever salvaging my plans.
Interface Trouble
I knew from the start that the Foundry interface would be awkward, but there was one issue that really bothered me: Copying an encounter scrambles the names and skins. One of the minions gets the name and skin from the elite, and the elite gets the name and skin from one of the minions. As a result, making each encounter from scratch was tedious, but less messy.
What Worked Well
Making wagons overturn and catch on fire during the street phase worked. If I were to start all over, I would abandon the indoor maps, and extend the streets maps into a riot of chaos, culminating in a battle that destroys the graveyard's statuary.
Conclusion
The end product is a bit of fun, but not what I hoped for. If I could change one limitation in the Foundry, I would make "override attack text" enemy-specific not encounter-wide.
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments
I learned a lot from the comments and suggestions I received for my first quest and some of my comments and critiques are similar to the ones I received. Both the sewers and the streets of the city were a bit empty, sewers are way to clean with not enough atmosphere, each stretch of sewer felt the same as the next, maybe adding some "decorations", decor or debris of some sort. The city streets were good with the horses and carts, I liked the cart animations but again I'd add some more atmosphere, maybe some market stalls, stacks of goods, or more random bystanders. Why does everyone burst into flame? I can understand having some of the mobs do that in the indoor maps to add some action flair but did every single mob need to do it? In the cemetery I had trouble reaching the last mob at the top of the tiers, the "corrupt sculptor", there was no stairs or easy way up to him, I had to use some old fashioned platform jumping skills, was this intentional?
I liked the plot of a city guard raid on organized crime quite a bit but maybe start the whole quest with a guard briefing the player on what they're doing, I think it would flow better that way. At the end please add a boss battle of some sort, it felt very anticlimactic to chase the boss all over the city only to have them simply surrender. Having the boss put up a big fight before surrendering would really cap off the quest.
I thought it was a great first effort and I'm looking forward to your next quest and playing this one again if you make any changes.
Please try out my quest and let me know what you think, bearing in mind that its current form is after several revisions.
The Missing Unseen NW-DLW8SB9CN.
BUT. These were basic maps that have a lot of resources available yet. I would suggest putting a lot more effort into details. It will be worth it, since this can be a very cool quest as it is if there were more than, almost raw, basic maps being shown.
Solution. Detail the bejeezus out of these maps and publish anew with the finished product.
Dialog. I must have missed something, but maybe not since it is very low on talk. What I saw made sense so no problems there.
But why is everything on fire when dead? If they are vampires, I missed the connection.
The story concept is new and different. Some more gab to keep the players immersed will go a long way.
Maybe we can kill that little HAMSTER of a boss in part 2. We can hope.
So... Excellent combat, Great story concept. Dress up the maps, get some gabby NPC's, and you have a winner.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
1- 20, 2- 35, 3- 18, 4- 20 min
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