scenario criticism
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BANNED
Member # 4
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written Saturday, April 10 2004 10:52
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I agree. Imban, beating B2 with a level 4 party, is godlike. The Creator, beating Falling Stars with a level 1 party, is more like god. Thuryl, beating Echoes with a level 1 party, is God period. :P -------------------- * Posts: 6936 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
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Warrior
Member # 720
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written Saturday, April 10 2004 14:50
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Perhaps at the Lyceum or elsewhere, it might be possible to allow web surfers to vote so that you had an average 'user-rating' as well as the reviewer's rating (as well as the SpidWeb rating if was put on Jeff's site)? -------------------- -Daravon Posts: 104 | Registered: Friday, March 8 2002 08:00 |
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Shock Trooper
Member # 455
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written Saturday, April 10 2004 15:11
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What's preventing you from adding reviews of your own to the Lyceum or Alexandria? They don't have to be long, and mine alone set the bar pretty low for intelligibility and relevance. Blind, unaccountable "user voting" is what made the Spidweb tables the mess they are. [ Saturday, April 10, 2004 15:15: Message edited by: Boots ] -------------------- Forgive them, for they are young and rich and white. Posts: 265 | Registered: Saturday, December 29 2001 08:00 |
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Warrior
Member # 4186
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written Sunday, April 11 2004 06:48
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quote:Good point and the character editor could help for that. So that make no sense to do very tough scenario when the player will manage that as he want. Well I don't find useless difficulty setting in BoA, it's more easy to manage for the player and that's very pratical and it already worked very well for me. [ Sunday, April 11, 2004 07:14: Message edited by: Vent ] Posts: 175 | Registered: Friday, April 2 2004 08:00 |
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Warrior
Member # 4186
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written Sunday, April 11 2004 07:12
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quote:It's not his vote he wants to be added :) . Anyway, it depends how blind they are (I checked quicky the site and couldn't find Spidweb tables). If it's anonymous then ok that can hardly work. If it's only hidden but based on email used to register the game and only one vote per scenario per email and ability to change a previous vote, then it could work well IF there are a sufficient number of votes making a low set of vote (like 1 to 5) non significant. The resulting rates will then have some sense, certainly not the same than any single reviewer but some interest anyway. Still for large numbers, a review system will hardly work, plus it removes from vote a whole category of users. In few case I saw that well managed, that was working well (even with anonymous email), and reviewers rates wasn't that much accurate. Exact order could be questionable for some cases but top list was pretty accurate if time wasn't forget (an old popular module could have cumulate enough rates to stay pretty high despite it became old and suffer a bit comparison with more recent modules, that was mainly a problem of decreasing user base as time progress). Posts: 175 | Registered: Friday, April 2 2004 08:00 |
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Shake Before Using
Member # 75
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written Sunday, April 11 2004 10:03
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The point of a difficult scenario is to provide a tactical challenge to the player at the recommended level. If a player doesn't feel confident, he can always come in with a higher-level party. We shouldn't have to drag level-1 parties into adventures made for supermen in order to obtain a challenge - after all, there are interesting tactical possibilities for high-level parties as well, and the typical 'difficult scenarios' allow us to put these in action. (Points to Creator for Deadly Goblins, an atypical difficult scenario in that it is made for a beginner party and made to be difficult for that party.) Posts: 3234 | Registered: Thursday, October 4 2001 07:00 |
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Warrior
Member # 4186
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written Sunday, April 11 2004 12:03
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quote:Not confident? :) Is there any despise? It's not rare behind difficult user made modules to have an author "look like I'm god player". Anyway, that's first adventadge of having a good difficulty level setting, you can adjust easily and don't need do that sort of try. quote:Ok you bring arguments to what I wrote, it's much better for a game to have a good difficulty setting that the player can adjust. I think we agree on that, and nightmare setting should allow the higher challenge for 1st level party and higher level party. No need to design a specialy difficult scenario, it will be unbeatable at nightmare setting. On another part having more difficult scenario than other particularely those more recent, is a good thing. But that wasn't the point I was talking about but about highly tough scenario. A major difference for me is how much it forces try reload and try again without allowing learning new tactics for most users but need patience and persistence. There's nothing more easy to do a too tough scenario, at least much more easy than a well ballanced with some learning curve. Posts: 175 | Registered: Friday, April 2 2004 08:00 |
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Shake Before Using
Member # 75
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written Sunday, April 11 2004 13:25
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Methinks our man doth miss the point. Anyway, while it's true that turning up the difficulty will make the game harder by increasing the statistics of one's enemies, this only makes them more difficult in the sense that they're larger, tougher, harder-hitting versions of what they were before. Real difficulty typically comes from the author putting forth effort to make tactical challenges, not from the author just throwing large, tough, hard-hitting goblins in your way over and over again. A goblin at level 50 still fights like a goblin, after all. Posts: 3234 | Registered: Thursday, October 4 2001 07:00 |
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Shock Trooper
Member # 4180
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written Sunday, April 11 2004 14:01
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quote:Exactly. To me, at least, there's difficulty and then there's challenge. Difficulty is just skewing the dice rolls against me (or for me on Easy). But it does absolutely nothing (IMO) to add challenge to a scenario. You're still fighting the same number of creatures starting in the same locations, each of which uses exactly the same tactics it did on a lower difficulty setting. Challenge is up to the scenario designer, and is, in many ways, completely independent of the level of the PCs (though it certainly needs to take level into account). It can also demonstrate itself in ways other than combat (challenging puzzles, for example). If a designer can't make the scenario challenging to me, as opposed to merely difficult, odds are I won't be playing it for long. :) OTOH, there's such a thing as TOO challenging, AFAIC. After all, I'm playing a game to have fun, not to become hopelessly frustrated. ;) -spyderbytes -------------------- -spyderbytes Posts: 200 | Registered: Wednesday, March 31 2004 08:00 |
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Warrior
Member # 4186
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written Monday, April 12 2004 02:02
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We all agree on these points, you just write it better :P . But :D there are two points that are different points. 1 - Puzzles Puzzles is another subject than fights. There are many categories of puzzles, I like puzzles more than the common average but I think that there are too things to take care : * It's easy to get a frustrated player because the hints are cultural references he doesn't know, because the logic is too complex and he can"t solve it, because he didn't take care of a hint or didn't make the relationship with a hint and a puzzle, and so on. * A mistake sometimes seen in puzzle is to make it too long and somehow boring because it involves a non fun action. Then because it is too long, it becomes tiedous. That's subjective but I'd like take two examples. In "Run", the bean puzzle that lead to the dragon is a good one but is boring too. The pure puzzle stuff has three main bases : * Visual memory (remember well where there was a bean). * Care and patience (explorate a relatively large area to fin what to do and care to avoid beans and manage switches from combat to normal). * A sample trick to solve a thing. That's a good base so it's a good puzzle but it is also a not good puzzle that will also frustrate many players. It is just too long for a special action that become tiedous if not boring and frustrating. You need to often to move your party in combat mode to avoid a switch to normal mode that could lead to a bean death. It's strongly boring to have to move the 4 chars. You don't always see in action screen all the engines that will throw a bean and if your visual memory not perfect plus a 3D not natural, this will lead you too often in a death. The switch from combat mode to normal mode isn't always easy to manage and that leads to tiedous death. It is for me a perfect example to avoid because it involves for a too long time a too tiedous action. That said it is also a good puzzle. Another example is also taken from "Run". It's deep cavern. That's not a puzzle? Well in fact it is a "sort of". The "no light" involves much more care in managing movements and a special action that requires using the auto-map with a special care, moving with care, navigate through a sample labyrinth. At first when I saw there was no light, I said myself "ho no that will be boring". In fact it's a dam good puzzle. The only trick here is to manage well the exploration in order to find of the stuff on the ground and manage the surprise encounters but that works well. The mood is very good and if your party isn't too strong, meeting the beasts just in front of your nose is a real tension, plus some warning that a beast detected you help build a tension/mood. That links to a special exploration involves a special action but unlike previous example, this one is dam fun. So despite the puzzle itself isn't as good, globaly it's a much better puzzle. 2 - Fighting The second point is about fighting, I agree on tactics to learn and discover. That said, once you discover them or even when you already know them the fight won't be difficult and most players won't qualify the module as "hard as hell". That's a good point that difficulty adjusted by the player just change a ballance and not the pure design of the fight. This ballance is related to powerup that cost you money and that you use during the fights. The income isn't equal, for example : * Finding some very tough secrets like with no of few hints, * find all the puzzles even the much harder that stuck you a long time, * it's to take some risks to save some powerup (or mana to save mana potion later), * it's to take care always do the best trade for the less money cost and best income, * it's to tune at the best the level up of you chars for a maximum efficiency and not ony for you fun as role playing or curiosity, * and so on. For many people some or all of these actions will be tiedous at a certain degree and for a more fun play they'll get a significantly lower income or/and they will want less reload so will take less risk and then will have a higher expense. That's far to be non significant and that's where fighting difficulty is also indepedent of any smart tactics. That's where difficulty setting choosed by the player has a significant role. That's also where most (all?) scenario will really find a "hard as hell" trademark. And for my point of view, I understand all won't share it, that's not a good design if at any difficulty setting it keeps it label "hard as hell" and that's not related to smart tactics to find. [ Monday, April 12, 2004 03:42: Message edited by: Vent ] Posts: 175 | Registered: Friday, April 2 2004 08:00 |