More R10 Feedback

Here's more feedback on various areas of R10. It's critical in tone, but just remember I think you guys rock when you read it.

Blackblade Pass
- I like it.
- I'm getting stuck on the exit for the (elemental area) a lot! I'm even taking damage there when I try to jump out.
- Here's an idea. When you have a secret door that has "smoke" on the other side of it...how about making some smoke trikle out under door? Don't give it away, but give players a clue.
- Skeleton Mage had 3 Fire Elementals. I died and now he has none? What's up with that?
- Monsters don't follow into secret areas. Ok.
- Why is there a chest in a secret room? Perhaps give the player some clue as to why this happened. A note, a scribble on a cave wall, something.
- Chest room, water doesn't kill me. Cool. Maybe it should make me smell or something? It looks very dirty. Even if it's just a message in the chat window, that's good for emmerssion.

Public Portals (Current Thinking)
- I was glad to see that the time between destination changes was dropped from 15 minutes to 5 minutes. I assume (and hope) that's just
for testing.
- I think it would still be great to give players a way to MANUAL change the channel on portals.

In the case of the Owl's Head portal, it looks partially broken and I'm hoping that sometime near launch it may have limited functionality.

For example:
It may not always send people to the right place.
The portal may randomly turn on and off.
The portal may require some type of ritual magic to control or change the channel.

This might all be related to how many of the interier and exterier pillars are in tact. So many the fact that the Owl's Head portal has
only 3 of 4 interier pillars in tact limits the functionality in some MEANINGFUL way?

It would also be nice to see a non-damaged portal that works PERFECTLY and has all kinds of functionality, but then takes people to places that don't work well (are broken) and require a lot of effort to get back to the original destination.

This also seems like a great opportunity for a dynamic quest: Find the materials to repair the public potral.

Scenes (in general)
- They're very small and static at the moment, and I'm not sure if this is just for testing, a byproduct of where we're at in development,
or if this is similar to what most scenes will be like in the future. I assume it's a mixture of all three.
- So I guess I'm wondering if scenes will reset for individual characters? Or if once one person goes through and kills all the monsters
the next person or group that goes through will just see a plundered tome and daed monsters? It would be great to see (or hear) what a
semi completed scene is supposed to look like. I think this would help people test more if they knew what the end goal was.

For exmaple, Fergee's Battlecamp appears to be incomplete (I know, pre-alpha), but what's the deal with that scene. Are the NPC's forever going to stand there and say the same things? 20 years from now they're still going to say the same lines and never really do anything as players funnel through the camp, kill kobolds and then go off to solve the same quest over and over again? Just asking for clarity.

Again, there seems to be great opportunity for a dynamic quest: Players solve this problem and it creates another one at the end of the quest. New players now have a different problem to solve based on what the other players did. It's not the most sophisticated way of doing it, but it seems better than just 100% static.

Vertas Pass
- I like it.
- Seems like there's a wall that will be breakable in future releases (that it's being protected by an invisible barrier right now).
- I know this is going to be a "control point", that's very cool. I'd like to see some room for dynamic content here even more than the
other scenes if it's to be fought over by players and NPC's.
- Right now I can use the buildings for cover, to heal up, and pick off the dark elves one by one. It seems like this would be a good
opportunity to have the Dark Elves AI "get smart" and storm the houses when needed.
- I mentioned it in another thread. Spiders in winter, really? Maybe when more assets are built out this could be switched.
- Question, once the control point is taken over, is it the intent that players will live there? Pretty cool to think about someone's
tavern being there some days, and then other days there's a pack of Dark Elves shooting at you.
- As far as dynamic elements, here are a few ideas:

1. Maybe give players a way to reach a balista. This will greatly increase the odds of being able to defend the town from invaders.
2. Perhaps allow controlling players the ability to set their own NPC guard's to watch over the place.
3. How about letting players remodel the place a bit, move or exclude secret passages? Make this more of a sandbox with a number of
customizable options. It will keep things more fresh and interesting.

Lighting Effects
- I think the darkness level is DEAD ON perfect (in caves). The outdoor darkness in wide areas like towns is still probably too light.
- The only thing that really impacts darkness for me at the moment is the names floating over the heads of people and the hit point bars.
- This is great for roleplaying, immerssion, and honestly it's just a more fun experience knowing that you need a torch or a light source when it's dark.

 

I'm going to add one more here.

Undead
- Undead aren't any fun, they don't play they don't even run. The undead in this game are using the new improved AI where they run away when they get low on hit points. Undead don't act like that, they're not thinking beings, they just perform actions like "guard that entry way" or "kill everything that moves". A good DM once explained it to me like this, "Undead are like young children. They can't do more than a few tasks before they get confused. If you tell them to dig in a certain spot, they will dig in that spot forever. But if you tell them to dig in that spot, guard the room, fix your breakfast and only attack people wearing blue...you're in for a big surprise at what happens next."

The undead need to have special AI. They fight to the death. They don't run under any circumstance. And they only care about 1 to 3 things, the more rules they have to follow the less likely they are to complete those tasks.

Again, yes it's pre-alpha...but it doesn't hurt to talk about it now.

 

Um, what if undead don't act that way in this world....what if they are magically self aware?(just being devils activist)

I agree with your darkness comment...but, I think that torches could use a bit more light radius.

 

Btw, I want to add that I think a lot of things like lighting, weight allowances, damage, hunger, reagent requirements, etc., that benefit immersion and role-playing, will seem more annoying now than they will when the game is final. People right now are just busy testing and trying to go everywhere to get the maximum mileage of the 4 day release. When the game is final, we'll be wrapped up in a story with actual skill progression and exploration, and items will be easier to find and repair. So I hope people keep an open mind on these things.

 

Sure we can play that game. But do we say the same thing about rabbits and cows too? Maybe cows pick up swords and fight you with karate. See how this works?

 

Adding another item.

- We need spells that Banish Summoned Creatures. For both the summoner and the opponents of the summoned creatures. It would also be great if we had circles of protection that could block summoned creatures. Everything here seems like a very EASY first step towards adding active counters for R11. The ability to block and counter summoned creatures.

 

On the other hand cows and rabbits are real, we know and expect certain things from them.
Undead though behave very differently depending whose world or fairy tale you listen to.
The difference between slow zombies of the 60s and the fast zombies of the millennium shift being just one.
Intelligence differs also between the fairy tales of ghouls and what we see in movies etc.
Look at pirates of the Caribbean they are zombies.
Then different undead have different levels of intelligence as a matter of lore, liches for instance are almost universally described as intligent (even when their AI doesn't really live up to that).

But I do agree with your point about the AI, ordinary skeletons etc should be mindless and fight to the death etc, but that is a preference on our part, not a given state. And I wouldn't mind them having one AI when alone (simpletons) and a different when controlled by a someone like a lich (cooperative) and I would love to see them switch AI when their controller dies, take out the mind first etc.
But again it's a preference not a given.

 

Um, since there's been skeletons we can actually talk to and apparently that's going to be an even bigger theme in Ardoris I think it's fair to say that they aren't your traditionally animated skellies. Plus liches in pretty much any source material are still cogent and will bugger off if it looks like it's about to go south.

 

I'm ok with the talking....the "thinking" is what's really getting me. Undead don't have fight or flight mode.

 

I seem to recall Dracula and Imhotep fleeing a few times

 

High level boss, check.

Low level skeleton at the gate standing guard...uh, no.

 

(bah - starting at 29 seconds, stupid embedding)