Where Are We Headed?

Okay, now seems as good a time as any to lay out some information about what I've been thinking for the future of the Co8 modpack in general, as pertains mainly to 'Tales of the Wild Coast' and Hickory Branch, Verbobonc, Moathouse Respawn, Arena of Heroes, et al.

[Long post on the way ...]

I've been leaning for some time now toward making HB and Verbomod 'substitutes' for original elements of ToEE that are widely perceived to be lacking or problematic in some way. The two biggest problems Vanilla ToEE has, as far as I've been able to gather by browsing related discussion here and elsewhere on the internet, are:

1. Hommlet is boring and blah
2. The elemental nodes are frustrating to play due to the slowdowns problem

Inasmuch as this is the case, I've been thinking of offering the new and improved HB as an optional replacement for Hommlet fed-ex quests, basically, and likewise Verbobonc for the nodes. This is not something that would be delivered with pinpoint accuracy, however. What I envision is to have HB and Verbo offered as selectable options at installation, with it being made clear that they are balanced for difficulty and set up chronilogically so as to replace Hommlet and the nodes specifically, if people dislike playing those for the reasons listed above. Hommlet and the nodes would not be 'deactivated' if people elected to install HB and Verbo, however; instead it would be made clear that playing Hommlet and HB, and the nodes and Verbo, would likely result in balance issues, but that people would still be free to do so if they wished. This is because while people may think the current Hommlet sucks, many of them would probably take offense at having it removed nonetheless, given the general trend toward entitlement that players display today. (Not to mention that it would be difficult to remove or disable the entirety of the Hommlet quests, and it would have a potentially large impact on what little story ToEE has to begin with. And not to mention the fact that we really shouldn't be in the business of eliminating original content to that extent anyway, no matter how blah it is.)

This leads us of course to the question of whether Hommlet will be as bad as it was after we get done with our current crop of mods for it - Sitra's Traders expansion, thearioch's conversion/Althea efforts etc., and my own labor camp mod and other things. I believe that Hommlet will be significantly improved at that point, so this plan really isn't perfect and it in fact could be thought to be somewhat contradictory. However, there is a significant block of players out there who will still adamantly refuse to play our new content, and who will likely not believe that a third party group (especially one which in some circles has suffered a reputation of having not-neccesarily-top-notch original content in the past) could produce anything worthwhile. For those players, Hommlet will remain, improved or not, and HB will be able to be ignored if desired by choosing not to install it. Likewise, again, with the nodes and Verbobonc. If they choose to install these mods anyway after being so advised, any subsequent imbalance will be their own fault. And there will probabaly be a significant number of people who just choose to play all the content regardless of imbalance issues. This would not neccesarily be a bad thing if you by into Zebedee's assertion that the game by it's nature can't be balanced anyway ... but at least people will have been warned.

So onto 'Tales of the Wild Coast.'

To be honest, until just recently I had basically dismissed the notion of having such a thing anymore (due in large part to the acrimony that arose from previous discussions). However, it seems that there is new interest in doing the TotWC, even to the extent that a sensible plan has been proposed by Sitra for its execution. There also remained the problem of what to do with the Moathouse Respawn, which I had initially figured would just stay where it is (rationalizing that the removal of HB and Verbo from that point in the game would remove enough XP to balance things out again, or at least come close). However, if we were to do TotWC, the MR would be a suitable candidate for it imo, being as it reuses an existing area and it would thus be good to have it as far removed in the timeline from the regular Moathouse chapter as possible. I think it could fairly easily be re-tweaked to accomodate a higher level party, and in fact Ted has expressed a willingness to do this (or at least modify it in some way) iirc. Additionally, other expansions could go there as well, including AoH and possibly the Orc Cave prespawn (which would allow us to make use of all those orcs that have been added into protos.tab, as well as HK's new orc portraits, since they won't be in the new HB). Furthermore, the original HB itself could concievably go there, being as it's 'story-lite' and it seems that TotWC would be battle oriented anyway - someplace to make use of all our new higher level spells, among other things. The only change I would require for HB v1 in that scenario would be that it would have to have new maps. Krunch's raging orc commanders and evil lichs and whatever else is there could remain as is. We could even concievably make the HB v2 that I'm working on something else altogether, being as, quite frankly, the only thing v2 is shaping up to have in common with v1 is the name.

Likewise, any new mods for ToEE that people created in the future could be appended to the end of TotWC without creating balance issues.

However, let me also point out at this juncture that at some point we'll have to call it a day for ToEE, so there really shouldn't be many new mods created for it in the future. Once we fix up ToEE and put a lid on it, new modding would be best directed toward KotB, of course.

To wrap up, I think now that we should go forward with TotWC again, which would include modifying AoH to serve that end. I strongly suspect that Morpheus would have no objections to this, and being as it doesn't appear that AoH would 'fit' where it is now at this stage, it seeing the light of day at all would probably depend on it being so altered.

So ... @Sitra, since you've already started fiddling with AoH and you're the guy with the ideas for it atm, I'd like it if you would spearhead this whole TotWC modding movement, assuming you are indeed willing to put forth that effort. My own immediate modding future lies in the direction of Nulb and then Verbobonc, once I get done with the Hommlet/new HB stuff I'm working on.

'Discuss,' as they say ...

 

Yes, the TotWC would be situated at the end of the current game, so parties would normally be level 10 or above.

@Cuch - I'm not so sure about the MR's effect on balance. With all the battles there, it adds a significant chunk of XP (although I suppose we wouldn't know for sure without testing it). If you get enough to advance even one level during that time, suddenly everything that comes after is out of whack to one degree or another. At least theroretically; I'm really not sure to what extent the system is supposed to be malleable, and other considerations like crafting XP loss would have an impact, I suppose.

It's kind of a tough call, but if there's any doubt (and if we are going to do TotWC anyway), I've got to think it would be safest to move it. More input and maybe some testing would be good.

 

Just so you know, the Drow in the MR are using the same protos's as the ones in Verbobonc, beef up one set and the the other gets tougher too.

I'm all in favour of the TotWC idea, always have been, it will simultaneously take care of the "I don't like new content" and "this game is way out of ballance" people in one fell swoop. That can only be a good thing.

 

Yeah, I mugged Al's Drow - I'm a lazy man Roger :blush: but both involve mobs, which can individually have a lot of stats changed using sections of the mob I doubt anyone much bothers with, but are still there. I am pretty sure they use the Script Override thing.

People who don't like the gun really should choose a different reward :shrug: If everyone wants it removed I will certainly do so, but the fact is I use it a lot in testing and I just felt there should be somewhere in the game the normal punter should get their hands on it, IF they want it. No-one roleplaying an evil alignment should have it, since the dialogue leading up to that specific option is very goody-goody.

 

That's weird - I always thought they were different because there's two separate blocks of them in there, one in amongst the other Verbo stuff and one with the Gnarley/Moathouse witches.

Re: the gun, I have to say that it's removal will be part and parcel of the theme of the new modding movement for v6. Sorry if that's harsh or anything, but it being overpowered and non-rulesy is enough reason to remove it in my book. As a testing tool it's fantastic, but stuff like that should be consigned to that realm alone.