PinkDot on 24/5/2020 at 21:46
I finished this mission a couple of days ago. Overall I enjoyed it, as as I mentioned, I like the forest/cave vibes in general and I like mazes too. This mission has much more interesting architecture than The Tough Night, with some vertical gameplay and rope arrows.
Still, I'd like to see more individual touches, to make each place more unique, making the exploration more interesting and navigation easier. The mission took me 5 hrs to complete, but 2hrs at least was trying to get out from the forest and caves and then back to caves looking for the Mages hideout, which I missed initially and had to get a hint in this thread.
I also think you could add a bit more interest to the missions by making objectives more involved, than simply finding certain objects and loot. But that will come with time and experience. I like the ambition that shows from these early works, so I'd be curious to see your next FM.
On a side note - a funny thing about keepers. I attacked the patrolling one, just for the crack, and as result, the one with sword standing beside the fireplace, attacked the companion opposite him, as if it was him, who harmed the other keeper. They never blamed me. Even when I attacked the archer keepers, they wouldn't have anything against me.
On another reload, I actually saw the keeper with sword attacking the unarmed one for no reason - I only entered that area of cave to see them fighting from a distance, so I have no idea what triggered that attack. :)
Master of Dromed on 25/5/2020 at 01:32
Quote Posted by PinkDot
I finished this mission a couple of days ago. Overall I enjoyed it, as as I mentioned, I like the forest/cave vibes in general and I like mazes too. This mission has much more interesting architecture than The Tough Night, with some vertical gameplay and rope arrows.
Still, I'd like to see more individual touches, to make each place more unique, making the exploration more interesting and navigation easier. The mission took me 5 hrs to complete, but 2hrs at least was trying to get out from the forest and caves and then back to caves looking for the Mages hideout, which I missed initially and had to get a hint in this thread.
I also think you could add a bit more interest to the missions by making objectives more involved, than simply finding certain objects and loot. But that will come with time and experience. I like the ambition that shows from these early works, so I'd be curious to see your next FM.
On a side note - a funny thing about keepers. I attacked the patrolling one, just for the crack, and as result, the one with sword standing beside the fireplace, attacked the companion opposite him, as if it was him, who harmed the other keeper. They never blamed me. Even when I attacked the archer keepers, they wouldn't have anything against me.
On another reload, I actually saw the keeper with sword attacking the unarmed one for no reason - I only entered that area of cave to see them fighting from a distance, so I have no idea what triggered that attack. :)
Thank you for your feedback PinkDot! I can see you had a very similar experience with this mission as vfig and Garret TMT had. They also get lost in forest and caves, particularly in caves and they also had to search for hint on this forum to navigate. I will try to fix the navigation problems players have in my next update for this mission by adding marks, hints in the story, a detailed map, deleting some unnecessary links between areas and making a briefing video.
I have no idea why that strange keeper behaviour happens, all keepers are set with AI - AI Core - Team: Good. I have to investigate the problem to see why this happens.
Very funny i looked in dromed and found why, one of the keepers is set in team bad 2 still they cannot see each other most of the time i think because lack of light in that area and not attacking each other. Things look normal most of the time very rarely they see each other and fight :) I will fix that in the next update.
Udo on 26/5/2020 at 13:06
Have finished it on Expert and didn´t enjoy it at all. It´s awful.
Too many confusing and redundant ways, rooms look empty and lack interesting design. Especially the Mage Hideout was disappointing.
Finding loot was also frustrating. At one part the player can softlock himself when not being able to climb out the waterhole in the caves and I had a KO-ed mage drowning in lava, failing the mission.
Some parts of the mines are showing a fully lit light-gem where it doesn´t make sense.
With less redundant ways, more interesting design and adding more soundtracks especially to the mages area I might have liked it, but not the way it is.
Master of Dromed on 26/5/2020 at 17:28
Hello Udo! Don't forget this mission takes place in nature. Burricks don't dig tunnels in a logical manner like humans. Also the water will carve stone in the same illogical way. Yes you got lost because it's a maze and yes it's confusing because it was built to be so.
Yes rooms look empty because they are supposed to look that way, it's wilderness, a huge forest, don't expect marbles and fancy furniture. The mages hideout it's just a hideout in the wild carved in a mountain not a fancy mansion.
Yes the waterhole in the caves it's hard to climb. I will fix that in the next update. You can still climb it by jumping repeatedly and push forward.
About the loot... again this is not a mansion or a city where you're supposed to find a lot of loot. There is loot on this map but you have to search for it - around 3200 loot much more than the requirement on the expert difficulty (2200). I build my map in a realistic manner. You played on expert because you wanted a challenge i suppose. Play on normal or hard and the loot objective will be pretty easy.
About the mage drowning in lava: are you sure that was a fire mage? If he was an earth, air or water mage i think those are supposed to die in lava so it's nothing wrong with that.
About the lightning - that is happening because in those places are placed brush lights. Still this is happening in the original missions too, they liked to place brush lights on some levels to make the visibility better. It's nothing wrong about that i think.
It's ok if you don't liked it, probably not your type of mission :)
Udo on 26/5/2020 at 18:09
Quote:
Burricks don't dig tunnels in a logical manner like humans. Also the water will carve stone in the same illogical way. Yes you got lost because its a maze and yes its confusing because it was built to be so.
Well, but still it doesn´t make much sense as not everything is Burrick tunnels(or seems to be). Most "factions"(if they can be called that way) are too close to each other to be realistic.
Quote:
Yes rooms look empty because they are supposed to look that way, it's wilderness, a huge forest, don't expect marbles and fancy furniture. The mages hideout it's just a hideout in the wild carved in a mountain not a fancy mansion.
I didn´t expect a fully stuffed mansion like the OM Mage Towers, but it´s not only wilderness. Even then, most walls are lowly textured and you re-used this big tree too much.
This is just poor level design. Look at other missions to get an idea how even smaller areas can be designed in an interesting way. I know it´s your first mission, so it isn´t supposed to be perfect, but still it looks bland. I mean, look at this(with the Mage Tower ambience it would have been a tad better):
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https://abload.de/image.php?img=darkforesthlj3c.jpg)
Inline Image:
https://abload.de/thumb/darkforesthlj3c.jpg and this(from "My Favourite Year", that´s how an well-designed hideout should look like):
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https://abload.de/image.php?img=favouriteyearrdkyl.jpg)
Inline Image:
https://abload.de/thumb/favouriteyearrdkyl.jpgQuote:
Yes the waterhole in the caves it's hard to climb. I will fix that in the next update. You can still climb it by jumping repeatedly and push forward.
I didn´t manage to get out, whatever. It seems the mantling is broken at a lot points there.
Quote:
About the loot... again this is not a mansion or a city where you're supposed to find a lot of loot. There is loot on this map but you have to search for it - around 3200 loot much more than the requirement on the expert difficulty (2200). I build my map in a realistic manner. You played on expert because you wanted a challenge i suppose. Play on normal or hard and the loot objective will be pretty easy.
It´s 2300 needed. Yes, I play Expert, but the challenge I seek is not to search the map for hours. Expert for me means: Interesting additional objectives that motivate the player to go for them, to steal well-guarded loot, more enemies to challenge. There were so many places where I thought they would be a good spot to hide loot like on beams, but nope.
Motivation is important for me. A well-designed mission motivates me to progress further. To find the loot, the required artifacts, to see more of it. Here it was unfortunately not the case.
Quote:
About the mage drowning in lava: are you sure that was a fire mage? If he was an earth, air or water mage i think those are supposed to die in lava so it's nothing wrong with that.
Yes, it was a Fire Mage, the one who stands in this one pool. I heard him making hurt sounds like "you cannot change my destiny Thief" one time, so somehow he bumped into the laval and got hurt.
Quote:
About the lightning - that is happening because in those places are placed brush lights. Still this is happening in the original missions too, they liked to place brush lights on some levels to make the visibility better. It's nothing wrong about that i think.
For me it is wrong if a mine is lit as broad daylight by just one or two lanterns. Didn´t had this in any OM. Look at the light radius of the lanterns in Cragscleft and Return, that´s more realistic.
Quote:
It's ok if you don't liked it, probably not your type of mission
Well, I liked Bonehoard and even Trail of Blood, to have some comparison. It´s not about the type of mission, it´s just that I don´t see that your designing skills are currently the best. It´s not that I have something against you, but don´t get the impression that your mission holds up a candle against others. There will be always some folks who praise everything, but to get better one should heed criticism more.
Master of Dromed on 26/5/2020 at 19:14
Well Udo you know.. Dromed has limits unfortunately. This mission reached one of the limits - pathfinding database limit, that means i can't add more stuff on the floors and the ground. That explain the almost empty rooms. You also said the "factions" or places like mine, village, caves, mages place are too close to each other.. this is again because of the dromed limits.. to put them further means to build even a bigger mission. Well that is not possible in dromed. This mission already is a giant.
About the screenshot in "My Favourite Year" i must say i don't like that at all.. those cylinders placed on the ceilings are ugly. "My Favourite Year" is a much smaller mission than this one so the author had more objects and resources at his disposal to add in the rooms. Also i think "My Favourite Year" was built in New Dark i think that has much higher limits. You can't compare those two missions by that standard. Compare my mission with those in the Original Games. Look at Life at the Party - a giant mission - much of the city looks ugly and boxy, that is because they saved resources to build the Mechanist tower. When you build big you can't provide quality on all parts of the mission. Still Life of the Party is a legendary mission despite this.
I must mention that i build my missions in Old Dark, because i don't like NewDark at all and i will do so forever. So i can't provide the same amount of details and the same graphics than the other authors that use modern engines.
About the tree.. that's the only big tree in Thief Gold.. sadly.. so i don't have much of a choice.
About the ambient at the mages hideout - that hideout is open space, don't have doors so it's also an outside area. If i use music that it will cover the birds and outside forest sounds and it will be odd. It's just odd to use music in a forest.. no i will not ever do that.
About the loot - loot is hard to find in many OMs - i remember when i play The Hunted Cathedral on Expert.. i had to explore the whole mission 3 times to find the loot needed. So i am an author that build his missions by the OM standard. I don't think loot must be easy to find especially on expert. All OM are scarce on loot around 2000 - 3000 loot, on expert loot is hard to find. I don't like some authors that place loot everywhere.. that's not realistic. I will never do that.
About the fire mage.. this never happened to anyone until now.. maybe it's a bug.. i will look in dromed. You KO him?
About the lights - the original missions are full of brush lights - if that was OK for them it's OK for me. I will continue to place brush lights on my missions. They are cool, like a light from divinity or Master Builder himself :)
I did not change the radius of the lanterns, they are the same as those in the OMs. Probably the extra light is from brush lights on the ceiling as i told you before. If you look at the ceilings in the mines they have holes in them and you can see the sky. That is light from the moon. Many people are complaining that the mines are too dark, that they can't see anything, you are complaining that is too much light.. well different opinions, that's normal.
About my designing skills - probably are many authors here that are better at this, i'm still new.. that's all i can do for now. Many people liked my missions, also many don't liked them. It's ok to criticise, and yes there's a lot of room for improvement for me i know that. With time let's hope i will get better.
Udo on 26/5/2020 at 21:51
Well then, that´s why I like a well-designed smaller mission better than a big one with not much in it.
I don´t understand why you limit yourself to OldDark. What is wrong with NewDark? It runs much better on newer systems and also looks better. If you don´t want to use it, ok, that´s up to you, but then you must live with the limits and that most players are used to ND standards by now.
IMO My Favourite Year has a good design, but to each his own.
LOTP was also built during a time when the average PC had a HDD with smaller capacity than todays PCs RAM...so they needed compromises. I still like LOTP, yeah, and for now would pick most OMs over FMs any day.
IMO ambience would have been a good fit for the Mage part - I don´t see why open space should be an issue there. THC is also an "open" level and has ambience(the "sawing" sound I hate so much).
Well, of course some of the OMs are challenging when played for the first(or even a couple of more) times, sure. But then I don´t want that kind of frustration in FMs. I don´t mind a challenge even for loot, but it should be rewarding. I also disliked other missions like Feast of Pilgrims because of the annoying loot placement. I don´t expect loot every 2m, but then again too sparse loot on the opposite is also not fun.
Yes I KOed the mage on the plank over the lava, as you know when reloading everything is placed new, so that seems to be the issue and he somehow bumped into the lava.
I´m not talking about light from the holes in the ceiling - I mean the other ones. If it´s brushes, then it doesn´t seem to be right to me.
So, even if you don´t want to, NewDark would definitely help. I´m not really a fan of missions that are that "oldschool". It´s not that the age is a problem. Look e.g. at the mission "Order of the Vine" from 2000, it still looks great today.
Master of Dromed on 26/5/2020 at 22:24
He he :) I hate small missions.. I mean look at the OMs.. all are big or at least medium size. I don't like to wander for 2 hours on 3 streets or in a few rooms. I will never build small that's for sure. Of course if you build small you can provide insane graphics.. but that's noob-ish. The secret is to build big and provide good graphics.. I mean look at The Bank in Thief2 or Cathedral of Soulforge. My goal is to be as good as that. Those missions were built in Old Dark. You don't need more than Old Dark to build legendary missions.
I don't like New Dark because of the way that shadows are cast.. shadows are not shadows anymore, you can see in the dark. I'm definitely an oldschool author, i like the dark feeling of Thief Gold and i try to bring back to life that feeling in my missions. "Into the Dark Forest" was built and tested in the Old Dark, many of the poor graphics were hidden in the shadows and the player can't see them. Try playing this in Old Dark to see the full atmosphere and felling of this mission. In New Dark you can see details in the shadow and the graphics look poor. You can't create the atmosphere of Thief Gold in New Dark.
About the loot placement - this mission is meant to be part of a campaign of 14 missions, i designed this for replayability, this is not a mission that you play one time (probably at expert mode as all of you do) and forget about it, you play this for years and discover something new every time. If you play this 50 times as you probably did with Down in the Bonehoard and Trail of Blood the maze will not be a problem because you already know how to move around. Remember all the OM have walkthroughs and many of us needed hint to finish them. So yes if you play my mission for the first time this is frustrating but this also happened when you play Down in the Bonehoard for the fist time and other OMs. I remember i spent 3 hours and a half to finish the Bonehoard for the first time and finding the Horn in that labyrinth was incredible hard. Yes they are some markings on the walls in some places but many caves and tunnel are not marked if you get lost you move in circles for hours. In the tombs part no hint in finding the horn only the sound which is a poor indication because there are many levels and cylinders. Map is poor and almost useless. Loot is hard to find and well hidden. On expert is a real challenge.
Galaer on 27/5/2020 at 06:17
Quote Posted by Master of Dromed
About the loot - loot is hard to find in many OMs - i remember when i play The Hunted Cathedral on Expert.. i had to explore the whole mission 3 times to find the loot needed. So i am an author that build his missions by the OM standard. I don't think loot must be easy to find especially on expert. All OM are scarce on loot around 2000 - 3000 loot, on expert loot is hard to find. I don't like some authors that place loot everywhere.. that's not realistic. I will never do that.
You refer a lot to LGS work. But I disagree with you, loot in this mission isn't scarce in the same way. First of all, this mission is 3 times bigger than any OM created by LGS. Outskirts and mine could be Mission 1, forest + Mechanist Compound (which is much bigger than I initially thought) could be Mission 2, caves + Mages Hideout could be Mission 3. Each of these areas could have 2000-3000 loot, which means your mission should have 6000-9000 loot.
Second thing is that you prefer to use big value loot. Purses worth 100, diamonds worth 100, nuggets worth 50 or 100. There is very little low valued items. LGS doesn't design that way. They prefer to use low valued loot. Few coins here, few coin stacks there, 2 bags of spices worth 40 each in kitchen, dining table with 2 candlesticks worth 50 each and couple of plates worth 15 each. Near fireplace there is bottle of fine wine together with 2 goblets (worth together 80). If you are more observant you may notice barely visible fire poker worth 100. That's right. More valued loot is rare or better hidden than other less valued loot.
Question is why LGS is doing that? I can only talk about myself here, but I prefer to collect more loot pieces at once than just 1. For example: which is better 10 golden coin stacks worth 12 each or tapestry worth 150? Obvious choice would be tapestry, because it's worth more. But gathering 10 coin stacks is just more exciting. I remember how much fun I had from gathering all money stored in old kitchen in Undercover mission.
There are points where LGS don't put any loot. There are places where LGS wants to create atmosphere. For example - 1st level of mine leading to Cragscleft Prison has no loot. It's done, so player will feel this place. In your mission there is too many places without any loot for no reason. I remember when exploring Mages Hideout I found, I think it was, candlestick on table. I was very surprised. I searched 20 or 30 rooms before and none of them had any loot. I was 100% sure that Mages Hideout has no loot at all.
If you want to have this 2000-3000 loot, but few times more loot pieces than now, there is another way. In other words - you can lower value of loot pieces. For example: guard that was only drinking may have purse worth only 5, other guard was sleeping on duty, so he got purse worth 25, etc. You can experiment with that. I know that few FM creators did that and their missions are still really fun.
And yes, I played Haunted Cathedral. It was very confusing and dark mission with a lot of monsters and very well hidden loot. I also need to explore this place few times just to complete loot objective. That was a nightmare, but still Haunted Cathedral is few times smaller than your mission. In your mission there is a lot more walking. So searching for loot is more troublesome.
If I would be ghosting this mission, I would spent only 10 min in this huge mine you built. Gather all the loot and complete objective in flooded part and skip most of the mine. Because there is barely anything to do there.
I agree about softlock in water hole. When you fall into water, there is no way out. At least I couldn't get out. Luckily I predicted that and did back up save. Loot above this water hole was the hardest challenge in this mission. I wasted 20 min in order to jump on rope arrow, because most of the time I was bouncing away. And then mantling on this island, which most of the time fails. And of course return, which is pretty much the same thing, but done in opposite direction.
And don't mistake anything. It was just discussion about loot in your mission. Despite problems with it I still had a lot of fun. Hint for others: good idea when dealing with confusing missions is to always go in 1 direction. Path must end at some time or it will connect to some other place you visited. Going back and forth to check where every path goes isn't good idea, you will just get more and more confused.
Master of Dromed on 27/5/2020 at 08:49
Quote Posted by Galaer
You refer a lot to LGS work. But I disagree with you, loot in this mission isn't scarce in the same way. First of all, this mission is 3 times bigger than any OM created by LGS. Outskirts and mine could be Mission 1, forest + Mechanist Compound (which is much bigger than I initially thought) could be Mission 2, caves + Mages Hideout could be Mission 3. Each of these areas could have 2000-3000 loot, which means your mission should have 6000-9000 loot.
Second thing is that you prefer to use big value loot. Purses worth 100, diamonds worth 100, nuggets worth 50 or 100. There is very little low valued items. LGS doesn't design that way. They prefer to use low valued loot. Few coins here, few coin stacks there, 2 bags of spices worth 40 each in kitchen, dining table with 2 candlesticks worth 50 each and couple of plates worth 15 each. Near fireplace there is bottle of fine wine together with 2 goblets (worth together 80). If you are more observant you may notice barely visible fire poker worth 100. That's right. More valued loot is rare or better hidden than other less valued loot.
Question is why LGS is doing that? I can only talk about myself here, but I prefer to collect more loot pieces at once than just 1. For example: which is better 10 golden coin stacks worth 12 each or tapestry worth 150? Obvious choice would be tapestry, because it's worth more. But gathering 10 coin stacks is just more exciting. I remember how much fun I had from gathering all money stored in old kitchen in Undercover mission.
There are points where LGS don't put any loot. There are places where LGS wants to create atmosphere. For example - 1st level of mine leading to Cragscleft Prison has no loot. It's done, so player will feel this place. In your mission there is too many places without any loot for no reason. I remember when exploring Mages Hideout I found, I think it was, candlestick on table. I was very surprised. I searched 20 or 30 rooms before and none of them had any loot. I was 100% sure that Mages Hideout has no loot at all.
If you want to have this 2000-3000 loot, but few times more loot pieces than now, there is another way. In other words - you can lower value of loot pieces. For example: guard that was only drinking may have purse worth only 5, other guard was sleeping on duty, so he got purse worth 25, etc. You can experiment with that. I know that few FM creators did that and their missions are still really fun.
And yes, I played Haunted Cathedral. It was very confusing and dark mission with a lot of monsters and very well hidden loot. I also need to explore this place few times just to complete loot objective. That was a nightmare, but still Haunted Cathedral is few times smaller than your mission. In your mission there is a lot more walking. So searching for loot is more troublesome.
If I would be ghosting this mission, I would spent only 10 min in this huge mine you built. Gather all the loot and complete objective in flooded part and skip most of the mine. Because there is barely anything to do there.
I agree about softlock in water hole. When you fall into water, there is no way out. At least I couldn't get out. Luckily I predicted that and did back up save. Loot above this water hole was the hardest challenge in this mission. I wasted 20 min in order to jump on rope arrow, because most of the time I was bouncing away. And then mantling on this island, which most of the time fails. And of course return, which is pretty much the same thing, but done in opposite direction.
And don't mistake anything. It was just discussion about loot in your mission. Despite problems with it I still had a lot of fun. Hint for others: good idea when dealing with confusing missions is to always go in 1 direction. Path must end at some time or it will connect to some other place you visited. Going back and forth to check where every path goes isn't good idea, you will just get more and more confused.
Good suggestion about the loot Galaer! Indeed i was using few loot pieces with high values.
As you mentioned this mission has issues but it's not unplayable as Udo has stated here seeing this as crap.