Hey there! It's been awhile since I visited here. I haven't been touching Temple since I found that my party was a little too powerful for them bugbears and all the challenge in the game had been sucked right out. Toooo many bugbears, even for my ranger who is a bugbear killer. I've just been wondering how the rebalancement project is coming along. I can't quite tell from the thread in the general modification thread. Not sure if non-modders should even post there. I'm very grateful for what has been done for the game so far, for free. I have a feeling that I'll end up just waiting it out for the keep on the borderlands campaign though. Or not pick this game back up at all.
This is on the back burner for now while work on Keep on the Borderlands progresses. Search for that thread if you want to find out how to modify the XP function. More testing is always needed, and your input could be quite valuable when that project comes back into focus.
Hmm. Personally? I think one of Temple's main flaws is the lack of variety. You can only fight so many bugbear beserkers over so many areas before you get really bored. Part of this problem is caused by the fact that Temple is a remake of an old game. It was a fantastic campaign in it's time, but don't you think RPG making has rogressed a little since then? It's too much to ask that Temple be changed to add more variety, more surprises and more breaks in monotony. But Keep on the Borderlands is very much in danger of making the same flaws as it's also built around an old campaign. Let's take an example of a level's design from Baldur's Gate 2, specifically investigating the killings at the Umar Hills quest. I'll refer to this whole quest as a 'scenario', to differentiate it from all those mini-quests like the fetch-mes or kill-that type of fed-ex 'quests'. In this scenario alone, we've got investigation of the murder scene to get clues to temple ruins, meeting Anath the werewolf and following her to her cave, fighting your way to the temple ruin entrance, Anath dying after leading to a trap (BIG mob of shadows), going down to fight various skeleton warriors, the occasional mummy and even a bone golem (very memorial bone golem since it was very strong against my party at the time), collecting rituals to operate some mechanism, dodging pillars of flame on a trapped floor puzzle, trying to minimis damage from walking through a room covered in 'lava', restoring the ghost of a priest to get the ward that saves you from the shadow dragon and killing the shade lord. Don't forget coming back later to kill that annoying shadow dragon... It's a lot, even to summarise. To me, ALL of Temple's main campaign has only two real quests or 'scenarios'.The moathouse encounter, and the Temple encounter. That's it. The two modded scenarios can sort of be counted as separate arches story-wise. My input? Keep of the borderlands should be kept as a small arch. Don't aim to big. Aim for a good, well packed scenario that doesn't at most levels up the players 3-4 times. Deviate from the original campaign if necessary.
the shadow dragon is killable when you first reach it; lower resistance makes the fight much easier. not that that was the point of your post... :doh:
It's well beyond that already. That's one reason why it's taking so long. Another is that doing it with the tools available is like doing brain surgery with a butterknife & a spoon. No wonder Ted's in the shape he's in... But on a serious note, you'd realize this if you'd read any of the KotB stuff that is available around here. I'm all for variety, but adding it is a lot of work, and only a very few people are really focused on it. I appreciate your iunput, but what I was actually suggesting was you testing the reduced XP Mod & reporting on that.
Hrm, test the reduced XP mod eh? I'll consider looking for it and trying it out after I settle some pressing RL issues.
