Modding and game difficulty

Discussion in 'The Temple of Elemental Evil' started by blackfly, May 11, 2009.

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  1. Gaear

    Gaear Bastard Maestro Administrator

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    Interesting about the ToEE PnP module, but the ToEE video game was not unbalanced at the outset. People never complained about too easy or too difficult sections of the game, to my knowledge, aside from the usual ease of dying at low levels. The imbalance didn't arrive until we started adding significant new content. Sorry people, but the practicality of this measure is so simple it can hardly be misunderstood:

    Original game = balanced
    Original game + added content = unblanced
    Original game + added content - same added content = balanced

    It's like:

    1 = 1
    1 + 1 = 2
    1 + 1 - 1 = 1

    Really simple. Any argument to the contrary relies on the assumption that the original game was not balanced.
     
  2. Weegob

    Weegob Member

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    Hi, new to this..........

    I've enjoyed TOEE as I played D&D role play on paper and rolling dice. I have played other games such as Neverwinter which are no where as good as TOEE.

    I think it great that there is a chance to do modling, I would agree that most who like d&d would not make the game easier because they no one of the great things about gaming is winning a challenging situation being strategic. A game too easy becomes dull and players get bored. If you play some of the early original d&d games one of the 1st was a dungeon crawler which became a game of kicking a door down rather than searching for traps and listening to get the initiative. ToEE does not have enough traps which I used to love reading all the inventive ones which were in the books. Making a game which has occurrences which are unexpected is better makes the players a lot more cautious.

    I would like to see an expantion set which your party could go up more levels rather than just stick at level 10.

    Also here is a suggestion to bring back the social aspect like the old days before computers and internet, which meeting up with friends having some beers and banter. It would be great if you could set up the game where everyone brings their laptops round and they are all linked(not via internet!) but a cable. One person is the DM who modules the game but also can input along the way. Everyone else has their own character to control making the game play even better because everyone has their own individual way of doing things. Also those with different alignments would be able to do things which others would not.

    Anyway there's my thoughts......................
     
  3. Shiningted

    Shiningted I want my goat back Administrator

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    Shazzam!
    I am thinking of restoring a few of the modular traps, such as can be done here and there. However, the 'save-or-die' traps which littered the original Temple were deiberately removed by Troika, in direct discussion with E.G.G as to how he wanted the game to play. (Or so interviews with the developers said at the time).
     
  4. Zebedee

    Zebedee Veteran Member Veteran

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    That's my argument :D It can't be balanced, even Troika were left with trying to narrow down story angles at specific points (the story_state indicators) and then playing cheeky monkeys with the module's stats and information. Just part and parcel of an open-ended game really - the only true solution is to railroad players into certain decisions at specific times. (eg by hiding access to areas).

    Looking forward to trying out the latest stuff guys, and absolutely agree that too much custom content has been a major cause of unbalancing the game still further.
     
  5. vampiricpuppy

    vampiricpuppy cuddly nosferatu

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    What parts of the custom content are non-optional, out of curiosity? ;) moathouse end encounter is the only one i can think of off the top of my head.
     
  6. Avatar_do_Grafite

    Avatar_do_Grafite Established Member

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    Really.
    Lareth is the only thing you NEED to do do or ya will not end the game.
    To be true, his diary is the hot-spot here....
    I'he played once with a group of CE half-orcs, as an CE half-orc group shall play: I entered Hommlet killing each children, animal and living being I become able to see!
    Well, as result, I've raise to level four, and without some notable exceptions (the church, the groove and the tower) I've turned Hommlet in a ghoust town... And realized that NOBODY in all the city have a map to the moathouse!!! So, the first REAL thing ya need to do is to take a way to the Moathouse. The secound is to put ya hands on the diary of Lareth. So, ya need to read it! This is what is really necessary to go to the end. All but this is optional.

    I'll use this little entry to make an appeal: Its possible to put a moathouse map in the body of someone in Hommlet? Considering the Ambush, at least Zert or Toruko shall have a map to that place, hum? Its sad to do a CE warband with a lot of half-orcs with Charisma 6 or less that need to stop in the inn first of a great defflagration of destruction, to ask the little wizard right there if he "knows where is locate the moathouse, please?"

    Umpleasant, to say the less....
     
  7. erkper

    erkper Bugbear Monk Supporter

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    I don't think ToEE was ever designed to be too friendly to "stupid evil."

    That's actually one reason I kinda liked Jade Empress' caravan - try that KOS routine on her, and you'll have a very short game, indeed.
     
  8. Avatar_do_Grafite

    Avatar_do_Grafite Established Member

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    Indeed, but the option is in there!
    Whats the problem being evil, caótic, more evil and some stupid, if the game give ya this possibilities? Its simple to kill everything, just this. And is a way of interpretation of evil, too. Like a bunch of Bugbears or orcs.
    Imagine a 9 feet tall half-orc using rides and with a enormous piece of wood carved with nails (and charisma 6) coming to yer table, and asking "hullo! Tell me about ya!"

    Hum...

    *read again the description of the orc entering the inn*

    This makes me see the thing for another point of view... A bunch of half-orcs shall be something like a gang of hell's angels or so... Very intimidating...

    *shake the head and come back to the first line of thinking*

    But the fact is that a little map of the moathouse in the body of Toruko is not that complex to do, right? There (in the "map") shall be too the indication of the room of the cloacks, and maybe a keyword (obviosly impossible to read, for mechanical porpouses) to pass from Lubash safe. Put some salt in the game, and open a possibility to a a real Rack´n´slash TRUE game! And dont looks exactly hard to be made.

    For the same game possibilities, I believe that the game shall offer some kind of indication of Nulb withou the need to clear the moathouse first. Something like a map works, but even a dialogue with some NPC (like the stonemason) shall cover this.
     
  9. erkper

    erkper Bugbear Monk Supporter

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    Not to totally derail this thread, but...

    True, but then again, think about it: those Hell's Angels are good at intimidating folks, but even they don't just roll down the highway popping random innocents at a whim, or very soon Johhny Law will take them down.

    Same thing in Hommlett: stir up too much trouble, and the forces of Law and Order (in this case, the Knights of Furyondy or whoever) would quickly rally to put an end to the chaos. Only where there has been a complete overrunning of demi-human rule will you see the humanoid hordes rampaging freely.

    Think about it: Hommlett houses it's fair share of evil folk, even CE such as Zert and the merchant spies Gromag and Rannois(?) - but they don't go around openly killing off the townsfolk, do they? Assassins in the dead of night, maybe, but not open murder that can easily trace back to them.
     
  10. Avatar_do_Grafite

    Avatar_do_Grafite Established Member

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    Erkper, I totally agree on ya!
    But is not this the point! I'm trying here to "defend the rights" of someone that, sometime, shall just overrun hommlet with a bunch of bloody barbarians! Its an option of the game, so, why we don't let people try this way? Is not so charming, of course, but some people just are NOT intrested in a charming game! Those are the D&D rules, and in the end, Ill love to just try some characters builds - for my chars and for my NPCs too - and do some rack'n'slash, why not? Yes, I shold be able to do this just speaking with sprugnoir in the inn and so going to the moathouse, but I´ll be a little weak yet to deal with the very first monsters, maybe; Shure, I shall do this and so go kill anybody, but this is a RP break.
    "Ok, friend, tell me about this moathouse that I know you shall point me in the map, and then let me bring some chaos to this town!"
    The option to just entering Hommlet killing anything that moves is bloody RP!

    And after to make that little explanation about the Hell's Angels, I create a bunch of Thugs, like the HA, that are another way to play CE, but not the only!
     
  11. Gaear

    Gaear Bastard Maestro Administrator

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    Thing is Av_d_G, people who just showed up in town to slaughter probably wouldn't gather much information. You're already free to do that in ToEE, you just have to live with the consequences: kill everything that moves and learn nothing.

    BTW, special insider tip: in a future release, there may be much more dire consequences for going on killing sprees than cutting off further game exploration. Knights of Furyondy indeed!
     
  12. Shiningted

    Shiningted I want my goat back Administrator

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    O yah: Knights is a much better outcome than 'convenient map'. Far more realistic, as it were.
    Yeah, this one comes up periodically. Other people might see this differently, but my answer to this would be a flat "no". As you yourself said, Avatar, this is the one moment in the game Troika explect you to play. Ergo, it is the one moment in the early game that the later game functions as expecting to already be done. If we change that, we have to change the Tower Ruins to give it a "never met Lareth" option, we have to change Otis who assumes the story_state has advanced past clearing the moathouse, all the generic dialogue in Hommlet that says "hey you're the guys who cleared the moathouse!" gets broken, all the Nulb reactions from the Temple folks who see you as the goody-goodies that killed Lareth gets broken, etc etc etc.

    In short, a bunch of the game gets broken so people don't have to play it the way it was designed to be played? No thanks.
     
  13. GuardianAngel82

    GuardianAngel82 Senior Member

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    I guess that quashes my suggestion that the party find out the location of the moathouse by waater-boarding Terjon. :bored:
     
  14. Shiningted

    Shiningted I want my goat back Administrator

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    No, I'm talking about the location of Nulb, not the Moathouse. Beating the location of the Moathouse out of people (or Nulb, once they have finished it) makes sense, if anyone could be willing to mod it.
     
  15. Basil the Timid

    Basil the Timid Dont Mention the War

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    I believe Sitra handled some, if not most, of those contingencies.
     
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