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So thinking of working on my first foundry
charononus
Member Posts: 5,715 Arc User
As stated I'm thinking of working on my first foundry, and I have a few questions. My goal is to have it be combat based with very very light story, however I want to ramp the difficulty up, way up. So here we go.
I know that having perch spots for players is a no no, however can you create perch spots for ranged mobs so they can rain down death on players? Or would this be against the rules?
Traps in this game hit pretty weakly, can you stack the traps for increased effect? For instance put a spike trap in a location that would also have a dart trap hit you and spear trap hit you all at once?
I really want this quest to smash peoples face's in solo even at 60 with gear which will be difficult to pull off.
Thanks for the help.
I know that having perch spots for players is a no no, however can you create perch spots for ranged mobs so they can rain down death on players? Or would this be against the rules?
Traps in this game hit pretty weakly, can you stack the traps for increased effect? For instance put a spike trap in a location that would also have a dart trap hit you and spear trap hit you all at once?
I really want this quest to smash peoples face's in solo even at 60 with gear which will be difficult to pull off.
Thanks for the help.
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2) Bad idea. You'll just p*ss-off your players. Besides: traps do heavy damage to some classes at lower levels.
3) Just stack your encounters like amateurs do - you'll get the (p*ssed-off player) effect you want.
The simple answers are actually pretty simple: dive-in and have a go. Whatever comes out at the other end will probably need a lot of tweaking, but the only way to answer these questions is for you to just dive-in. Since you're planning to make a typical Cryptic style quest ('nuther silly hack-n-slash) - do us all a big favor and be sure your quest description clearly states this.
Nothing at all wrong with "hack-n-slash" quests - except when the author tries to describe it as something else. If it's clearly described, I can avoid it and those who love that stuff will flock to you.
To create a Cryptic-style quest there are only two story objectives: meet NPC What's-his-name to get a description of what's going on. The second objective is usually "Kill what's his name" - and then boom, done. The following automatic objective is to "claim reward". Le Fin.
All encounters scattered through the map are basically optional and just there for combat-fodder; something for the player to do as they follow Tinkerbell's sparkle-path. The Foundry isn't something that is easily described, and it can take a long time to create quality content. But the Cryptic style quests are stencil-cut-outs that can be knocked-out in about 30 minutes apiece.
I wanted the same, but they always jump down. I couldn't experiment on the hight for mine but that make affect it.
'Traps in this game hit pretty weakly, can you stack the traps for increased effect? For instance put a spike trap in a location that would also have a dart trap hit you and spear trap hit you all at once?'
Yes, you can stack traps to make them more effective but watch out that you don't cause perma-trap.
My advice would be to work out your boss fights first and then work backwards. Helps me. Try to avoid stacking encounters and instead have waves.
My first quest was out about a week before the tab was broke and I have over 50000 plays a featured quest and a steady set of subscribers.
On the other hand, if you're doing it because you enjoy doing it (like myself) then more power to you, and be sure to share it when it's done.
I can't answer your questions though because I haven't tried it myself though.
As far as the views etc being borked, they'll fix it or they won't. I'm doing this for me. I'm disabled and have a lot of free time, if I have fun building it and it takes some time, I win.
As far as it being hack & slash yup. I'll label it that way too. It's different things for different gamers. I think story driven ugc is really better suited for guys playing pnp. In video games my view is it's the combat and the challenge of the map that drives things. Some people will disagree with me, that's natural, normal, and completely fine. Honestly part of it is I feel bored with some of the foundry maps because they don't feel challenging so part of this is an experiment to see if I can turn difficulty to eleven and create a map that will smash faces in.
As far as making it hard for lowbie plays, I'll probably put a disclaimer in the description when I get done that it's meant for 60's and ymmv when doing it below this.
Just because something has a good story/plot and some lore behind it doesnt mean it has to be devoid of combat either. You can very easily combine the two. Have a set piece where you look around a village or a slum for info, and then you act upon that info, sneaking or storming a base. Nonstop combat is just as bad as no combat. You need to give a player breathing space in between action setpieces.
This is standard game design theory (which of course is a theory and others disagree with)
As far as the mechanics of the foundry the only thing I could think of is maybe something that the NPC enemies can't just over but can still draw LOS and fire on the player for Archery nests? I would not stack traps but putting a trap maze in a hallway could be interesting, with only 1 true path to take to get through it. Kinda like this (X = Trap Trigger)
|-HAMSTER|
|--XX|
|X-X-|
|X---|
|XX-X|
|X--X|
|--X-|
|-X--|
|---X|
That would be more interesting and still dangerous. Hell stack 2 traps on each trap spot if you want, a spike and like a spear or something.
Character Name: Argothial@Stomphoof
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I concur and agree. @OP - here is one kind of "hack-n-slash" I can appreciate (and this is just an example, not an outright request):
Player comes to a large room filled with trash (real trash, not encounters) and a lot of wreckage... the way is blocked by a bunch of really mean-looking bad guys. The player has a choice:
Fight a couple really tough ones to make it to the jumping "puzzle" to sneak past the hordes - or takes on the hordes to avoid the really tough guys... etc. As long as you make an effort that it's not totally mindless, I'm all in.
But I think stacking traps is cliche, and please never stack encounters. Chaining them (wave after wave) is fine, but please never stack them - unless they are all easiest level melee and then never more than 6 to 8 individuals. (I mean: if you feel you must and all).
Everyone keeps talking about not stacking mobs, the problem I see with this is since the mobs don't do a lot of damage since you are limited to at most strong trash mobs, without a few in each fight you don't get challenge. Not saying I want to make the fights look like cryptic boss fights with the add army, but I think you need more than just a few mobs in each encounter if you want a challenge. That way fighting tactically becomes nessecary rather than just facetanking everything and nuking it down as fast as you can.
If you have solutions to these problems that don't involve stacking them I'm all ears, but I want the guy with a 14k gs to have to think in this too would be the challenge.
I suggest you take a look at my A Pirates Plunder, I know that's a shameful plug, but I have tried to be clever with the mobs. Like bring them in with a one way patrol from distance so that the player is half-way through the fight. I also tried to have archers firing from above while the play deals with Melee at the bottom. It didn't quite work how I wanted it to as they had a liking to jump down but the idea was sound and it's ok. If I could do it again I would get the fight right before I built the surroundings. I can't tell you what the combat is like for a 14k gs because I am far from that as of now. But I will get their soon enough and then start testing combat all over again.
The problem I found with stacked encounters is they are not really harder if at all possible, it just becomes a drain on potions. If you don't stock up before you enter the quest it can be frustrating. I think the best way to get a decent combat level is to really experiment with the types of combat and mixing it up. When I say stacked I mean so many that it becomes silly. You can have a few encounters at once for sure.
I agree with you Charononus. I'm a bit offended with the "Amateurs" comment with respect to stacking (edit: not really offended). I am bored with the wave encounters and the predictability of them. Particularly if I run a quest more than once. Having said that, I guess I am an amateur in this version of Neverwinter.
There are smart ways to stack encounters. I look at the encounters I create as a puzzle. You see three sets of mobs moving in different directions. Which do you pull first and how far back? What happens if I get knocked back into a mob? I better keep my back to the wall. That's the type of strategy I try to create when "stacking" mobs. A lot of thought goes into this, if doing it correctly. Charononus, try my quest 5 final catacomb map and I think you will see what I am talking about. You can run that map a few different times and have different things happen, depending on if you pull one way or the other, or if you decide to knock a mob off the ledge. You never know what might come up the stairs with it when it's making its way back.
Plopping 4 Hard encounters in one spot and calling it a day...well that's another story.
Make something, publish it. Try it and if YOU like running it, does it matter what others think? One thing I can tell you is that playing the game in Foundry mode is much different than playing it after published. It seems the AI is better in "live" game. So keep this in mind until you get the feel of how much different it is once it goes live.
-Kell
Lands of Mirent Tusk
NWS-DITF6RXSK - All Daily Qualified
Q1 - Dungeons of Mirent Tusk - 16 minutes Featured
Q2 - The Legend of Prince Brightblade - 30+m
Q3 - The Legend of The Lady - 30m
Q4 - Finding the Way -20m
Q5 - King Mirent Tusk - 50m
Mindflayers are also really hard at high levels.
Choosing really hard enemies can really push the wire.
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?
The player then will then encounter a Marut along with a standard difficulty enemy. Killing the standard difficulty enemy spawns two more, each of those spawns two more. Basically similar to Throne of Idris.
The third boss is another solo difficulty enemy, like the first two. I have a guard/mob timer that "Activates" the summoning circles around the room. If the player does not run into the summoning circle within a few seconds, another mob (usually hard difficulty.) will spawn as well, this is my favorite so far though they are all still subject to change.
The fourth and final boss consists of four different mages (All three of the new thayan red wizards plus a Shadar-kai witch.). This is the hardest of these bosses since killing any of them despawns a platform with an encounter on it, when the encounter is defeated (A couple seconds after one of the bosses is killed.) some enemies spawn. I have not decided on the exact difficulty but it is very challenging, the encounter on the platform disappears when the objective is complete so it is best to kill all four bosses at around the same time. You might want to consider something similar to what I am doing for your bosses rather than just stacking encounters.
Edit: Why are paragraphs not working for me?
If you want to see what I mean: take your highest-level, any-class character on Live and play my second foundry quest (Black keep) - you can do it pretty quickly. Once inside the keep and questioned by the "Keep Guardian" - just choose to not do the right thing (destroy the crystal) and choose to "take it for yourself" and see what happens.
The player is warned beforehand - but it will rez five stacked encounters. All I can say is good luck. Ooh, and if you take-up that challenge: you did NOT survive the stacked mobs unless there are screenshots of their corpses. LOL
Really - even for a hack-n-slash quest, try to be more creative with your challenges. As for traps: the spike trap is good. Stacking traps is doable - *as long as* you can do it so this don;t look stacked (perhaps the rotating blade, place literally next to each other so it might look "thicker" than usual and pops two blades at once).
I understand what you're trying to do. The only thing I'm trying to convey is this: lower levels can breeze through a foundry quest where higher levels will often insta-death through exact same quest with same encounters if they are not managed properly. That's all. Once you're ready to test - publish it to live and test, retest, re-retest and re-re-retest. a lot.
Or face the wrath of one-star-rage-reviews.