Bar'thok Rising - Orc Raid Investigation

solomonlok · January 2014

Bar'thok Rising - Orc Raid Investigation by @solomonlok
Short Code: NW-DQFVBUZKY

Mission Type: Open Map Combat Mission
Average Duration: 15-18 minutes

Amount of Combat: high

Starts at: Guard Frinko in Protectors Enclave

Mission Summary: Orcs have always been a problem for Neverwinter, but the random raids become more frequent and organized day by day. Rumours spread that a new Warlord is attempting to unite the Orc Clans and assault Neverwinter. While a large orc force has been spotted in the North someone has to deal with the attacks on the villages. The Neverwinter guard has send scout troops led by Captain Eisenschild to the Savage Foothills to investigate recent attacks on the villages to find out if they are part of the orc army. In the meantime a larger force led by General Ravenor is preparing to face the main Orc force and needs the supply routes through the Savage Foothills secured.
Author tips/hints: Use the guards to your advantage.
Screenshots/attachments: will do some later

Hello Foundry Authors,

this is the first Quest in the campaign and I'd like to ask you for the feedback so I can improve it.
This campaign features (and will in the following maps too) a lot of friendly encounters and I attempted to give the player to be a natural part of the Neverwinter Guard and not some lonely hero who can bash armies single-handedly.

The most likely bugs I expect are
a) the patrol paths of the encounters are a bit buggy sometimes, please report so I can try to fix that
b) typos and story errors.

Map 2 is 80% done and should be published in January, depending on how much time I have during the holidays.

Would be great to have this one eligible for Dailes by then

PS: if you have a freshly made map as well and want it to be eligible for dailies just drop me a note and I will review it.

tipadaknife · January 2014

Played with a 25 HR in green gear. And... I'm a grammar HAMSTER. I know, it's always been a problem.....

Good old Guard Frinko

It's Sergeant Knox, not General Knox.

"Report to Captain Eisenschild in the Savage Foothills" would be better.

Savage Foothills -- map looks beautiful from zone-in. If this is custom, you did an amazing job. I want to live here! Except for the orcs. Well, I can take care of that. Split arrow, do your duty.

Why couldn't all those soldiers and clerics and stuff deal with those orc drudges? Instead of just having them be at zone in, perhaps you could have them rushing the encampment, add a sense of urgency?

Please be consistent with Eisenschild's title. Cpt. or Captain.

I'm waiting and waiting but no orcs are assaulting anything. All the patrolling soldiers are likewise un-assaulted. I'll run down to the circle. Ah, there they are. That was a pretty challenging fight! Nice to see the guards join in.

"Needed here tp organize defenses" -- "TO organize..."

All the orc encounters seem generic. Could they have named commanders, tribal affiliations or something to make them unique? Likewise, they are just standing around until I get to them. Maybe they could be doing something -- threatening peasants, chopping down trees for fortifications, something.

It's nice of Old Lenn to give us his supplies for the winter, but won't he be needing them in the winter? Cpt. Eisenschild never mentioned that they were low on supplies. Maybe Lenn could, instead, offer to repair armor and weapons or something like that. Some useful service.

The supplies have generic names like Crate - Wheat - Grains 01, etc. Those should be renamed. After I gather the supplies, they are still there on the ground.

Oh, I just recognized the map. It's from the Midsummer festival. Well, it's still a nice map.

After asking the Captain to see to the old man and his daughter, he does not reply. I guess he's not interested in helping them.....

Why is Frank so Mad? Inquiring minds want to know!

I like how the soldiers inch forward with me

I still have the supplies after giving them to Captain Eisenschild...

From where are all these orcs coming????

"General Ravenor is can hold them at bay" -- "General Ravenor can hold them..."

Again, Knox is just a Sergeant.

"... as a supply route to a larger force..." = "supply route FOR a larger force"

"Hopefully the main orc army" = "I hope the main orc army...".

"See you at the battlefield, I guess?" He guesses? He should command us to be there!

---

I liked this, it was fun and would be good for any character, but maybe too easy for one with decent gear. Just a couple things, as noted above. Specifically, where are these orcs coming from? They seem to be coming from all directions. Second, all the orcs are just generic encounters, except for the boss encounter, who had a name. More of that -- and more about their tribe, their history, etc, that you could use to customize them somewhat. Fighting Eye of Gruumsh encounters one after another reminded me of the Tower District, but this isn't the Tower District. This is a scouting army for an orc invasion.

I enjoyed it, starred and tipped.

Thank you

chieori · January 2014

Greetings solomonlok!

First off, thanks for running my quest, much appreciated!

I had a chance to run Orc Raid Investigation tonight, I really enjoyed the map, it was very beautiful! The story was well written and the combat was smooth, nice work!

I did find a few things in my run ...

Guard Frinko - How does he know who I am?

Travel to Savage Foothills - no trail or marker showing to go to the city gates, I know it's not a must, but it can confuse anyone new to the foundry, thinking they had to go somewhere in PE itself.

The Savage Foothills map marker, is partially on top of the Blackdagger Ruins marker, it's still clickable, but might want to move it a bit more north or east.

The Orcs kept attacking the main camp through out the entire adventure, not sure if they were supposed to or not?

First group of guards, all of them have single names .. Soldier, Archer or Recruit .. except for 1, who is named Guard Cleric, Cleric alone would probably suffice and match up better.

Captain Eisenchild - second talk ... "easilly" should be easily ... "windmilll?" should be windmill?

Old Lenn - "rewards" should be reward.

Supply crates - default name - "Crate-Wheat-Grains-01" .. also it is still there after pickup.

Captain Eisenchild - should add a response after telling him there is an old man and girl at mill.

At the end of the quest, it just says "Press F to go to next map" no actual exit and it doesn't say to "exit" just to go to next map. Maybe put an exit or at least change the text to note exit.

solomonlok · January 2014

Wow, that you both for those detailed reviews.

@tipadaknife:
Typos: will fix them with the next release. I'm surprised you haven't found more.
Map: yes, I decided to use the most beautiful premade one I could find for my first foundry. My second has a 'custom' one although it also relies on premade landscape.
Generic Orcs: since this is a campaign I should probably add some lore about the specific orc tribe and name them properly. Also the windmill area could probably do well with a 'boss'.
Old Lenn: actually you are right, this is not relly logical. Maybe it would be better to have him fetch his supplies back to himself and not to the guards. Depending on how I change that I will adjust the dialog with Eisenschild and add a reaction to the cleric thing. Will rename the crates and stuff.

Orcs Doing nothing: true, need to add some activities. Sadly I'm slowly running out of patrol points. Anyway when you enter the map one orc encounter is right in front of you while another is charging the guards through the gate further down. Also - if you let the two ogres take on the guards without your help you'll realize why they can't handle the orcs themselves :P

@chieori: yes I really should add a map exit...
I'm not sure why the marker doesn't appear on the gate, I will look into it. On the other hand most other foundries I play also don't have one (yours for example) so I figured it's a bug. Will still move the marker though.
Will rename Cleric and Crates.

Guard Frinko knows who you are 'cause everyone does. You are the "Hero of Neverwinter" from very early in the game

Thanks again for the inputs

solomonlok · January 2014

So I updated the foundry and implemented most of the suggestions and fixed the bugs.Thanks again for the feedback.

Changes:
- altered quest line around the supplies to be more logical and fit the setting better
- added a NPC who tells the interested player all about the story (essentially doubled the text in the whole foundry)
- renamed the opponents and gave them a background story so they feel less generic
- minor adjustments of encounters for balancing etc.
- typos, typos, typos

Still interested in trading reviews. Would be great if someone could take a look at the large dialog I added, I fear it has a lot of typos. General feedback is always appreciated.

basilisque · January 2014

Alright, I played through your map!
It was generally a d*mn solid experience with very few things to really point out. The area was nice, the combat was solid and the plot (although horribly underexplored at this stage) seemed reasonable despite not being anything out of the ordinary.
Like, the biggest issue I had with this map is a what I assume to be a typo where Lenn says 'Food luck!' when asking you to go get supplies.
I mean, it's KINDA fitting, but I still think it feels out of place. :P

I know from Knife's review that the map aint custom, but it still looks d*mn good and fits the scenario, so there's not much to complain about there. As far as the combat goes...
Well, my only character is a Level 49 Great Weapon Fighter on whom I have been stacking regeneration gear since the end of Blacklake (Aka; Potions? What's potions?) so I'm not certain I'm in the best position to comment on it, but in my playthrough it was a complete lawnmowing.

Final Rating: 4/5, left tip.

solomonlok · January 2014

Thanks for the review. I did another update and increased the difficulty slightly, but it's really hard to balance properly. I would say it's about as hard as the daily lairs in Sharandar and Dread Ring made by cryptic, which are really easy, lol.

Also I improved the dialogs slightly and fixed the Food Luck typo :P (probably introduced new ones though).

In good news, it's now eligible for dailes

I will develop the plot further as the campaign progresses but unless someone has a brilliant idea how I can make this map a solid 5/5 I'll focus on the next foundry and try to avoid the mistakes I did in this map from the start

PS: still trading reviews if anyone is interested though.

Bar'thok Rising - Orc Raid Investigation

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