bazgcMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 184Bounty Hunter
edited October 2013
Hi,
Played this yesterday and enjoyed it. I can tell a lot of effort went into making the city itself.
I did find it odd how Guard Frinko said "patience man" when my character is actually female (I know it's a figure of speech!).
I also found one squint wall on the outer perimeter - it runs from about (330,998) -> (372,996)
I actually managed to break the quest by accidentally tapping "D" instead of "F" when the pop-up box appeared on the fifth interact. Had no way to complete from there and so had to restart the city from scratch.
My Foundry Quests:
The Silver Sword - NW-DEIPWYISA - Daily Qualified A Relaxing Stay - NW-DEEYNZYZ9 - Daily Qualified but going to be updated
First off -- OUTSTANDING work on the environment, the patrols, and the flow of the story. Great stuff. It's obvious that this is a labor of love, so thank you.
However -- I did not finish the adventure. I know others enjoyed the difficulty of the combat, but as a 60 Cleric specced for healing, I found the repeated hard-level difficulty encounters sluggish and wearisome. Lots of dodging red circles in slow, lingering fights. The battles around the seals felt more like what I'd expect from a boss encounter that repeated during the heart of the quest. It just sort of wore me out.
Which is really too bad. Other than the combat, I was really having a great time!!
Love the quest and the way it made me try to avoid monsters(im lazy see).
The combat was great man, it truely was a challenge for a mage with crappy gear like me hehe.
I don't know if im being ridiculous here but I was laughing every time I read the name "Taco", I don't know if it's fitting for a lady of faith.
Taco sounds so....well lets say naughty.
You got one or more invisible walls that needs to be adjusted cuz you can't reach the stone/keepwall to the east if I remeber correctly.
"In dire need of some sun" Haha funny stuff!
Great one, but just so you know im gonna be waiting for the next one so hurry up!
BTW Thank you for trying my quest and for your review, it helped alot, fixed almost all the stuff you pointed out.
NW-DQ8JOM6QF Chaos Curse of Neverwinter - Chaos Curse in Bedlam Street
NW-DNAK9EV45 Adventures of the past - Marriage
thank you everyone for running through my quest, i am actually working on a MAJOR update...redoing the city on a smaller map so I don't have to spread the resources out so much... although, this update may take a while, the map will be totally redone fresh from scratch. Same storyline, characters, and objectives, but on a different map.
I know this particular quest is difficult for Clerics Level 60, amazingly enough, I breeze through this with my CW 60, so it is hard for me to tell, even if I play through with each of the classes in Foundry, since they are all at level31.
Grimah - there is no blood or remnants of the city members because they all disappeared, without a trace, as the dialogue suggests... the invis walls will be a nonissue with the new version of the city
Bazgc - I added a new objective to take the Empowered Seal so if you hit the wrong button, you just reinteract to pick it up... so after you do the fifth seal, a new objective for the empowered seal yields a separate interaction, did you still break the quest on the independent objective to "Pick up the Empowered Seal"? If so, I am not 100% how to fix that since it should simply require to again interact if you didn't take it the first time, or did you play the version before the update where you pick up the Empowere seal immediately after rebinding the 5th seal?
Muses5 - I am happy that I was able to help! I try to take notes for all authors, and I appreciate input same! That character is actually named after my wife, who is nicknamed, Taco, and her real name is Jaime!
DocSc00ter... by the way, I really appreciate your playthrough and your glowing review, despite not being able to finish! You are a very successful foundry author, and I am thankful for the time you took to play through mine!
I am actually working on a massive update where I am rebuilding the city of Grumura to a completely new map. It will probably take me at least a week of working on it for several hours each day (pretty much when the wife and kids go to sleep because I am a night owl). I cannot guarantee it will be much easier, but I will have to restructure the encounters, since the map is going to be smaller and more concentrated... the map I originally created was way too big for the 1500 detail limit, and no matter what I did to revise it, I kept running out of assets.
I hope that you take another shot at it to try to finish it once it is done, I will PM you! It will be a new experience all together!
Bazgc - I added a new objective to take the Empowered Seal so if you hit the wrong button, you just reinteract to pick it up... so after you do the fifth seal, a new objective for the empowered seal yields a separate interaction, did you still break the quest on the independent objective to "Pick up the Empowered Seal"? If so, I am not 100% how to fix that since it should simply require to again interact if you didn't take it the first time, or did you play the version before the update where you pick up the Empowere seal immediately after rebinding the 5th seal?
Old version. It popped up immediately. Sounds like your change should make it work properly though if someone does something accidentally like I did.
My Foundry Quests:
The Silver Sword - NW-DEIPWYISA - Daily Qualified A Relaxing Stay - NW-DEEYNZYZ9 - Daily Qualified but going to be updated
I appreciate the attempt, Elfwad... go to the "New Tab", and search, "Fall of the City of Grumura", and you should find it. I have the same problem that it may not appear sometimes when using the shortcode. The job board is very finiky. Make sure you also perform the search on the New tab, because the result will not populate through a search on any of the other tabs.
I enjoyed your quest. It was almost out of my skill range, but i'm not a very skillful player. I would agree with many of the comments you've already received and i have a few more.
Your map design was interesting, consistent and creative on both the macro and micro levels. Things fit well together while also offering a fair amount of variety. Nicely done. The scaffolding almost offered access to the building roofs. Another possible way to move about town, perhaps, for those who take the time to find it.
At the 6th seal, you overlap the floor tiles and the textures flicker. If you lower one of the tiles a tad they won't flicker. The opening dialogs were long for me, but the humor helped. There's some inconsistency in where you use MissionInfo and OOC tags, as well as response colors throughout the quest. It would be easier for me to feel like Neverwinter itself was threatened if Grumura was closer to it on the map.
My main suggestion would be to separate the quest into several maps so you can add more fine detail (the ground feels empty, as mentioned by someone else). Putting the portal area on a separate map would be the most obvious choice. You might also be able to separate the city into two halves connected by a gate or archway that would be a map transition, without drastically reducing the openness and variety of possibilities for maneuvering around town.
Thanks for the fun, attractive and challenging quest! Nicely done.
You actualy just played the new map that I literally just published. I assume that you spoke with the non-objective NPC if you state it was long, he is optional, not required. The required dialogue is only the Warrior Priest, and you can bypass the history limiting his dialogue to 6 boxes total, so I am not sure if you meant that was long, or you did the optioal dialogue, of which, I agree, it is long, but that is why it is optional.
I will adjust that overlap, I wasn't sure it if would flicker out of the Foundry testing or not, I appreciate that confirmation!
No matter what I do, I am going to run out of assets, 1500 is just not enough... I have some bare areas where the Court yard is, I agree, but I will have to adjust assets to make some available.
Hehe. I didn't speak with the optional NPC. My attention span isn't what it used to be. Nevermind on the lengthy dialog comment. Splitting the city into two maps would instantly double your available asset count. Detailing the ground would be no problem. Just sayin'...
Hen't seen the city of Grumura really. I got put in a large empty room with an NPC. At the end of the dialog, tons of foes spawned in the room and killed me in a matter of seconds.
I think it was this foundry, I searched "Grumura" and it was the only foundry that the system found. But then, I would suggest to make things a little more progressive at start.
That fight went really fast for me. I was hardly able to find the enemies among all the friendlies, let alone kill them. Before i could get my bearings, the fight was over. Perhaps spawning the friendlies at the outer door and the enemies at the side doors and having them all path to the center would give enough time to get one's bearings before things went crazy.
Actually, that is exactly how they are placed and spawn, the Guardian node is what drives them to the center for combat. Otherwise, they just stand there at each gate. What I think may have happened is that the server for you may have delayed, because it shouldn't happen that fast.
And, also why you get that warning in the dialogue. Were you able to finish, or no? Sorry if you got caught off guard in the ambush.
The first respawn after the dialog, there was a mix of two types of NPCs, the evil ones won easily and then, as I said, killed me as well. I then released and there was only enemies, and again, each time I was more injured and they killed me faster and faster.
The first respawn after the dialog, there was a mix of two types of NPCs, the evil ones won easily and then, as I said, killed me as well. I then released and there was only enemies, and again, each time I was more injured and they killed me faster and faster.
I just edited the gate encounter so that the combat is broken up into two stages so people are not ambushed. The friendlies and the NPCs have also been adjusted for that additional encounter objective in the chain!
I also tried it but as with others playing with a lvl 60 DC I couldn't finish it. I even tried to kite things back into the beginning courtyard in the desperate hope that they would fight with me. DCs take a long time to kill things so I couldn't kill one group fast enough not to get another patrol, even when I was kiting things around. Once a healing DC gets two elites? It's all over. At level 60 all mobs heal and our damage can't overcome that.
I've read great things about the quest and I know you are still working on it. So I would request a difficulty slider for those of us who who keep the rest of you alive in dungeons.
Find me in game with @DoctorBadger (Un)Academic Field Work Foundry Campaign: NWS-DAPZB2CTZ
I completed this today will use my typical format.
Map: Really nice map. The seals are all well placed, and the interaction change works great. The map is the strongest element of the adventure. Really liked exploring the city after I defeated all the mobs.
Story: This seems to follow a bit with your mega campaign and has innocent city goers caught in the games of gods demons and cross planes portals. You have several nice extra pieces of story that role players should like.
Combat: This is the weakness of the module by far. It simply is very hard and very repetitive. You use 15+ silver mobs. Most foundry authors keep this to 3-5 tops and use them as the bosses often times in the stories. You have all 6 seals, 8 patrols, two encounters in the courtyard and then the final encounter as well. I am a well geared fully booned GWF so for me I didn't have much problem. Then again I usually beat most people by several million damage in dungeons. That said even with my dps this still took me a long time to pull encounters, so I didn't have to fight stacked patrols. Some of the challenge at first was interesting, then it just got to be the same fight over and over. Guess it is a solid farming map for Coins of Waukeen though I did have 3 drop which I liked.
NPC's I think you went opposite of your last foundry and limited your story and npc's Cleric Pias did have some nice story adds.
Flow Flow was good. Placement of your seals and the ability to go any way around the city was all good stuff. Love the option to explore. The flow of the story was broken up a bit by the amount of enemies at times.
You clearly spend a ton of time on your modules and enjoy making foundry creations. If you really want plays from the limited amount of players left playing, try making a solid 15 minute map. You are a gifted writer but remember to find a balance between story and combat. I am almost done your epic 6 hour campaign map with much more story and npc's.
Thanks boomba, that is a great review! I truly appreciate the feedback and the fact that you enjoyed running the quest. Funny enough, I actually redid the entire map, and it is smaller than the last map, but the average time boosted up from 25 minutes to 60 minutes because people end up exploring. You can actually finish the quest in about 25 minutes if you skip the optional dialogue.
I know that the encounters are all very difficult, but that was kind of the point of the map. I wanted to make a farm quest, but give it some breath, instead of sticking a bunch of redundant Standards and Elites on an open map. Thus, the difficulty. Actually, this version is toned down from the original version on the former map that had a lot more elites, practically all elites. If you noticed, the end battle progression is actually more difficult than the looping encounters, which was also a change. Originally, it was very linear.
However, take into consideration that this map was made so that people could also use a small group. Since it is a single map isntance, I really couldn't use a difficult slider, so I had to go with somewhere in between to make it compatible to solo or group. Certain classes must group, like Clerics. However, CW, GWF and GFs should have no problem with a high enough GS.
Thanks again! And, I have another one coming which will be the follow up to this one as the campaign. If you liked this map, wait until you see the next ones coming!
Melindin. Yes, I understand... and I actually have that warning in the description, that DCs should not attempt without a group due to the difficulty. I will get back to it again once I have some time to really try to work on adding a difficulty slider, because it will require me to reset all of the encounters, since the full assets were used. I would literally need to free up half of them to incorporate that option. It is not an issue, but will require some time to strategize the flow, which I will have to get back to once I am done with the follow up quests of the campaign. I appreciate that you attempted, and I would suggest that you take a friend. I am happy to run it through with you if you would like, I have a 60 CW 12,640GS, with a 10k DPS
Comments
Played this yesterday and enjoyed it. I can tell a lot of effort went into making the city itself.
I did find it odd how Guard Frinko said "patience man" when my character is actually female (I know it's a figure of speech!).
I also found one squint wall on the outer perimeter - it runs from about (330,998) -> (372,996)
I actually managed to break the quest by accidentally tapping "D" instead of "F" when the pop-up box appeared on the fifth interact. Had no way to complete from there and so had to restart the city from scratch.
The Silver Sword - NW-DEIPWYISA - Daily Qualified
A Relaxing Stay - NW-DEEYNZYZ9 - Daily Qualified but going to be updated
First off -- OUTSTANDING work on the environment, the patrols, and the flow of the story. Great stuff. It's obvious that this is a labor of love, so thank you.
However -- I did not finish the adventure. I know others enjoyed the difficulty of the combat, but as a 60 Cleric specced for healing, I found the repeated hard-level difficulty encounters sluggish and wearisome. Lots of dodging red circles in slow, lingering fights. The battles around the seals felt more like what I'd expect from a boss encounter that repeated during the heart of the quest. It just sort of wore me out.
Which is really too bad. Other than the combat, I was really having a great time!!
The combat was great man, it truely was a challenge for a mage with crappy gear like me hehe.
I don't know if im being ridiculous here but I was laughing every time I read the name "Taco", I don't know if it's fitting for a lady of faith.
Taco sounds so....well lets say naughty.
You got one or more invisible walls that needs to be adjusted cuz you can't reach the stone/keepwall to the east if I remeber correctly.
"In dire need of some sun" Haha funny stuff!
Great one, but just so you know im gonna be waiting for the next one so hurry up!
BTW Thank you for trying my quest and for your review, it helped alot, fixed almost all the stuff you pointed out.
NW-DNAK9EV45 Adventures of the past - Marriage
I know this particular quest is difficult for Clerics Level 60, amazingly enough, I breeze through this with my CW 60, so it is hard for me to tell, even if I play through with each of the classes in Foundry, since they are all at level31.
Grimah - there is no blood or remnants of the city members because they all disappeared, without a trace, as the dialogue suggests... the invis walls will be a nonissue with the new version of the city
Bazgc - I added a new objective to take the Empowered Seal so if you hit the wrong button, you just reinteract to pick it up... so after you do the fifth seal, a new objective for the empowered seal yields a separate interaction, did you still break the quest on the independent objective to "Pick up the Empowered Seal"? If so, I am not 100% how to fix that since it should simply require to again interact if you didn't take it the first time, or did you play the version before the update where you pick up the Empowere seal immediately after rebinding the 5th seal?
Muses5 - I am happy that I was able to help! I try to take notes for all authors, and I appreciate input same! That character is actually named after my wife, who is nicknamed, Taco, and her real name is Jaime!
I am actually working on a massive update where I am rebuilding the city of Grumura to a completely new map. It will probably take me at least a week of working on it for several hours each day (pretty much when the wife and kids go to sleep because I am a night owl). I cannot guarantee it will be much easier, but I will have to restructure the encounters, since the map is going to be smaller and more concentrated... the map I originally created was way too big for the 1500 detail limit, and no matter what I did to revise it, I kept running out of assets.
I hope that you take another shot at it to try to finish it once it is done, I will PM you! It will be a new experience all together!
Old version. It popped up immediately. Sounds like your change should make it work properly though if someone does something accidentally like I did.
The Silver Sword - NW-DEIPWYISA - Daily Qualified
A Relaxing Stay - NW-DEEYNZYZ9 - Daily Qualified but going to be updated
City of grumura is completely being revamped with a new city build and adjustments to the storyline...
It will make it more challenging, yet more progressive in the encounters, leading up to a climax.
I WILL POST ONCE IT IS PUBLISHED!
Your map design was interesting, consistent and creative on both the macro and micro levels. Things fit well together while also offering a fair amount of variety. Nicely done. The scaffolding almost offered access to the building roofs. Another possible way to move about town, perhaps, for those who take the time to find it.
At the 6th seal, you overlap the floor tiles and the textures flicker. If you lower one of the tiles a tad they won't flicker. The opening dialogs were long for me, but the humor helped. There's some inconsistency in where you use MissionInfo and OOC tags, as well as response colors throughout the quest. It would be easier for me to feel like Neverwinter itself was threatened if Grumura was closer to it on the map.
My main suggestion would be to separate the quest into several maps so you can add more fine detail (the ground feels empty, as mentioned by someone else). Putting the portal area on a separate map would be the most obvious choice. You might also be able to separate the city into two halves connected by a gate or archway that would be a map transition, without drastically reducing the openness and variety of possibilities for maneuvering around town.
Thanks for the fun, attractive and challenging quest! Nicely done.
You actualy just played the new map that I literally just published. I assume that you spoke with the non-objective NPC if you state it was long, he is optional, not required. The required dialogue is only the Warrior Priest, and you can bypass the history limiting his dialogue to 6 boxes total, so I am not sure if you meant that was long, or you did the optioal dialogue, of which, I agree, it is long, but that is why it is optional.
I will adjust that overlap, I wasn't sure it if would flicker out of the Foundry testing or not, I appreciate that confirmation!
No matter what I do, I am going to run out of assets, 1500 is just not enough... I have some bare areas where the Court yard is, I agree, but I will have to adjust assets to make some available.
I think it was this foundry, I searched "Grumura" and it was the only foundry that the system found. But then, I would suggest to make things a little more progressive at start.
And, also why you get that warning in the dialogue. Were you able to finish, or no? Sorry if you got caught off guard in the ambush.
I just edited the gate encounter so that the combat is broken up into two stages so people are not ambushed. The friendlies and the NPCs have also been adjusted for that additional encounter objective in the chain!
Thanks for the feedback!
I've read great things about the quest and I know you are still working on it. So I would request a difficulty slider for those of us who who keep the rest of you alive in dungeons.
(Un)Academic Field Work Foundry Campaign: NWS-DAPZB2CTZ
Map: Really nice map. The seals are all well placed, and the interaction change works great. The map is the strongest element of the adventure. Really liked exploring the city after I defeated all the mobs.
Story: This seems to follow a bit with your mega campaign and has innocent city goers caught in the games of gods demons and cross planes portals. You have several nice extra pieces of story that role players should like.
Combat: This is the weakness of the module by far. It simply is very hard and very repetitive. You use 15+ silver mobs. Most foundry authors keep this to 3-5 tops and use them as the bosses often times in the stories. You have all 6 seals, 8 patrols, two encounters in the courtyard and then the final encounter as well. I am a well geared fully booned GWF so for me I didn't have much problem. Then again I usually beat most people by several million damage in dungeons. That said even with my dps this still took me a long time to pull encounters, so I didn't have to fight stacked patrols. Some of the challenge at first was interesting, then it just got to be the same fight over and over. Guess it is a solid farming map for Coins of Waukeen though I did have 3 drop which I liked.
NPC's I think you went opposite of your last foundry and limited your story and npc's Cleric Pias did have some nice story adds.
Flow Flow was good. Placement of your seals and the ability to go any way around the city was all good stuff. Love the option to explore. The flow of the story was broken up a bit by the amount of enemies at times.
You clearly spend a ton of time on your modules and enjoy making foundry creations. If you really want plays from the limited amount of players left playing, try making a solid 15 minute map. You are a gifted writer but remember to find a balance between story and combat. I am almost done your epic 6 hour campaign map with much more story and npc's.
Keep up the work.
I know that the encounters are all very difficult, but that was kind of the point of the map. I wanted to make a farm quest, but give it some breath, instead of sticking a bunch of redundant Standards and Elites on an open map. Thus, the difficulty. Actually, this version is toned down from the original version on the former map that had a lot more elites, practically all elites. If you noticed, the end battle progression is actually more difficult than the looping encounters, which was also a change. Originally, it was very linear.
However, take into consideration that this map was made so that people could also use a small group. Since it is a single map isntance, I really couldn't use a difficult slider, so I had to go with somewhere in between to make it compatible to solo or group. Certain classes must group, like Clerics. However, CW, GWF and GFs should have no problem with a high enough GS.
Thanks again! And, I have another one coming which will be the follow up to this one as the campaign. If you liked this map, wait until you see the next ones coming!
Melindin. Yes, I understand... and I actually have that warning in the description, that DCs should not attempt without a group due to the difficulty. I will get back to it again once I have some time to really try to work on adding a difficulty slider, because it will require me to reset all of the encounters, since the full assets were used. I would literally need to free up half of them to incorporate that option. It is not an issue, but will require some time to strategize the flow, which I will have to get back to once I am done with the follow up quests of the campaign. I appreciate that you attempted, and I would suggest that you take a friend. I am happy to run it through with you if you would like, I have a 60 CW 12,640GS, with a 10k DPS
Video Review: http://www.twitch.tv/zovya/c/2671017
I have played yours a couple of times, love it!