George,
How strong should I make the monsters in my dungeon, as I have no point of reference in regard to party strength/monsters. I know the engine scales up the monsters if the party is too powerful, but what I want to know is how strong to make the monsters in regards to the champions I put in my hall of champions.
So...
Lets assume that the strongest characters in the Hall of Champions are Expert level in all four stats (Fighter, Ninja, Priest, Wizard). Based on these characters, how many health points should I give a screamer and how many health points should I give to a Dragon and how many health points should I give to whatever the next monster down from a Dragon is? With this info, I can work out all the other monsters.
Cheers
How strong should I make my monsters?
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Chaos Awakes
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George Gilbert
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Blimey - that's a hard question to answer.
It depends on so many factors; for example how hard do you want to make your dungeon and what items will your characters have available at that point?
If your dungeon is more puzzle based for beginners then you'll want different strengths of monsters than for a combat based dungeon that only the most battle hardened player stands a chance of completing (Lunever, for example!).
Likewise, if your party is going toe-to-toe with nothing but their fists and no magic you'd probably want to give the monsters less health than if the party is tooled up to the nines.
However, to be slightly more helpful, Expert level characters are what are available in the CSB dungeon so have a look at the monsters in there and use them as a good starting point!
It depends on so many factors; for example how hard do you want to make your dungeon and what items will your characters have available at that point?
If your dungeon is more puzzle based for beginners then you'll want different strengths of monsters than for a combat based dungeon that only the most battle hardened player stands a chance of completing (Lunever, for example!).
Likewise, if your party is going toe-to-toe with nothing but their fists and no magic you'd probably want to give the monsters less health than if the party is tooled up to the nines.
However, to be slightly more helpful, Expert level characters are what are available in the CSB dungeon so have a look at the monsters in there and use them as a good starting point!
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Chaos Awakes
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I just want an idea really. The dungeon is supposed to be for players who have played through DM and CSB and are importing battle hardened characters looking for the next challenge - quite possibly Archmaster characters. I don't want the characters in the HOC to be all Archmasters though, I want to tone them down a bit which is why I said Expert.
The problem is that, without any way of knowing how fighting happens and all the internals, I just gave all the monsters ridiculous stats like 800 hit point screamers, thinking "that'll be about right for really strong Archmasters" and of course the game is totally unplayable
So with some idea how strong a screamer should be in a battle heavy (loads of puzzles though, but it is battle intensive) dungeon for Expert/Archmaster starting characters. What items they start with is pretty much up to them as they can choose them at the start, but we're talking the same as with DM, start with simple equipment and find the better stuff.
Is there a list of default monster stats in DM somewhere so I can see how a Knight compares health wise to a Screamer, for example?
The problem is that, without any way of knowing how fighting happens and all the internals, I just gave all the monsters ridiculous stats like 800 hit point screamers, thinking "that'll be about right for really strong Archmasters" and of course the game is totally unplayable
So with some idea how strong a screamer should be in a battle heavy (loads of puzzles though, but it is battle intensive) dungeon for Expert/Archmaster starting characters. What items they start with is pretty much up to them as they can choose them at the start, but we're talking the same as with DM, start with simple equipment and find the better stuff.
Is there a list of default monster stats in DM somewhere so I can see how a Knight compares health wise to a Screamer, for example?
Can I suggest you do a simple amount of ressarch by playign the zoo dungoen having first tweaked the charascters to expert
You will see what good wepaons do damage wise, wth slightl boosted characters and thump them, how much damage they take, etc. Basically knight/golem show heaviest armour, dragons heaviest damage
You can disallow imported characters, and can i suggest you maybe do that if you are worried about balancing between such exteremes (and think Archmaster too high)
You will see what good wepaons do damage wise, wth slightl boosted characters and thump them, how much damage they take, etc. Basically knight/golem show heaviest armour, dragons heaviest damage
You can disallow imported characters, and can i suggest you maybe do that if you are worried about balancing between such exteremes (and think Archmaster too high)
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George Gilbert
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Also, don't forget about the in-built difficulty scaling.
When importing characters, the engine will take a look at your mirror characters and compare them to the new ones. If the imports are significantly stronger, the engine will automatically change the difficulty settings so that the stronger party faces the same level as challenge as the mirror characters would have done.
Specifically, you don't have to design your dungeon to cope with both Expert and Archmaster characters. Just design it for your expert party, and the engine will take care of anyone that's too strong for you.
When importing characters, the engine will take a look at your mirror characters and compare them to the new ones. If the imports are significantly stronger, the engine will automatically change the difficulty settings so that the stronger party faces the same level as challenge as the mirror characters would have done.
Specifically, you don't have to design your dungeon to cope with both Expert and Archmaster characters. Just design it for your expert party, and the engine will take care of anyone that's too strong for you.
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Chaos Awakes
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Hmmm, this is the opposite of how I enjoy playing games. I've always been annoyed that there isn't some sort of universal system so I can import characters from any RPG game ever made into any other. There's nothing more annoying than training up characters and then having to train up new characters in the next game.beowuuf wrote:You can disallow imported characters, and can i suggest you maybe do that if you are worried about balancing between such exteremes (and think Archmaster too high)
You don't get that with paper and pencil. You play the same trained up characters forever until they die.
Originally, I wanted to ban new parties and only allow imports but I have to have a HOC for the scaling of imported parties to work so I thought I might as well have it available.
Hmm, then basically you would have new people to play through DM or CSB just to be able to play your dungeon!
I have nothing again the RPG continuity though, just sometimes since none of the stories and stuff are continuing, I think it's nicer to play dungeons with the charatcers the desinger envisioned - of cours,e for your one you haven't! : )
I have nothing again the RPG continuity though, just sometimes since none of the stories and stuff are continuing, I think it's nicer to play dungeons with the charatcers the desinger envisioned - of cours,e for your one you haven't! : )
What George said is the bottom line. Test your dungeon using your HoC champs and see how they fare. If the difficulty level is right for them then job done - RTC will raise or lower the monsters according to the relative strength of an imported party.
This relies on your test being accurate of course. With a big dungeon it will take quite a time to do the testing. I self-tested Angel's Egg 4 times all the way through with different combinations including reincarnated characters, and I'm still not sure if it's too easy or too hard.
Most dungeons tend to start with fairly weak characters - Surgical Strike starts with high level heroes and plays a treat which shows it can be done.
@Beo - is there a way in the editor to disallow imported parties? I did it in my dungeon just by placing the import start in a dead end. Come to think of it, I'm not sure why I did it as I'm generally anti-restictions. I'll change this in the next version.
This relies on your test being accurate of course. With a big dungeon it will take quite a time to do the testing. I self-tested Angel's Egg 4 times all the way through with different combinations including reincarnated characters, and I'm still not sure if it's too easy or too hard.
Most dungeons tend to start with fairly weak characters - Surgical Strike starts with high level heroes and plays a treat which shows it can be done.
@Beo - is there a way in the editor to disallow imported parties? I did it in my dungeon just by placing the import start in a dead end. Come to think of it, I'm not sure why I did it as I'm generally anti-restictions. I'll change this in the next version.
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Chaos Awakes
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I'm going to have a Hall of Champions for new people, just with good characters.
An interesting point is raised here though. It's quite difficult to playtest a large dungeon because as soon as you find a bug you've got to start again because you can't edit the save game. So 20 level dungeon, find a bug on level 19 which stops you continuing, correct bug and start again from level 1. Yes, you can place a teleport to take you to where you were but you won't be continuing and have any items you had or any experience or have triggered anything vital in the dungeon that you previously had.
There needs to be some way of either editing a save game or some other method of fixing a bug and then still carrying on testing from where you left off.
An interesting point is raised here though. It's quite difficult to playtest a large dungeon because as soon as you find a bug you've got to start again because you can't edit the save game. So 20 level dungeon, find a bug on level 19 which stops you continuing, correct bug and start again from level 1. Yes, you can place a teleport to take you to where you were but you won't be continuing and have any items you had or any experience or have triggered anything vital in the dungeon that you previously had.
There needs to be some way of either editing a save game or some other method of fixing a bug and then still carrying on testing from where you left off.
Never works like that though, does it? If you keep editing a saved game, are you sure you cought the bug for someone knew playing? Did you correct one problem and haven't noticed it generated another?
Usually teleporting a test charatcer with appropriate stats and items back to before wher you left off is perfectly reasonable in a linear dungeon, or with all the necessary clue items in a fresh dungeon. Depends on the dungeon really.
Usually teleporting a test charatcer with appropriate stats and items back to before wher you left off is perfectly reasonable in a linear dungeon, or with all the necessary clue items in a fresh dungeon. Depends on the dungeon really.
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Chaos Awakes
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Well you could export the characters and reimport them so at least the characters wouldn't be lost. That's the main thing, knowing that the characters as they are expected to be trained up at that stage are okay.
Sophia, what was your post about? "No there doesn't". Of course there needs to be a way of doing this, what sort of person would not want any help fixing bugs? RTC is a development tool, no different from Visual Basic or C++ except it designs dungeon games. If you are saying that you believe that a dungeon designer should be forced to test his 20 level dungeon from the beginning every time he corrects a bug, then 2 things are true:
1) Nobody in their right mind would ever design a dungeon. The first time I played the DM dungeon on RTC and found a bug that stopped me progressing, and George issued a new version that corrected the bug but I had to start again, my reaction and I think any players reaction, was "sod that. I'm not starting again, I've done all this once. I'm not doing it again, how boring. I've got better things to do than playing the same game 5 times".
2) You also have to say, by the same logic, that anyone who has written a 3000 page document in Microsoft Word should be forced to erase it and start again from page 1 every time Microsoft fix a bug in Word.
Sophia, what was your post about? "No there doesn't". Of course there needs to be a way of doing this, what sort of person would not want any help fixing bugs? RTC is a development tool, no different from Visual Basic or C++ except it designs dungeon games. If you are saying that you believe that a dungeon designer should be forced to test his 20 level dungeon from the beginning every time he corrects a bug, then 2 things are true:
1) Nobody in their right mind would ever design a dungeon. The first time I played the DM dungeon on RTC and found a bug that stopped me progressing, and George issued a new version that corrected the bug but I had to start again, my reaction and I think any players reaction, was "sod that. I'm not starting again, I've done all this once. I'm not doing it again, how boring. I've got better things to do than playing the same game 5 times".
2) You also have to say, by the same logic, that anyone who has written a 3000 page document in Microsoft Word should be forced to erase it and start again from page 1 every time Microsoft fix a bug in Word.
This is difficult to judge - I think there is just trial and error.
bear in mind that the monster strength required to be challenging (but of course not to hard) also much depends on how skillfull the player is at playing and how well he knows the dungeon. While the dungeon knowledge can be assumed to be low at a first try (what Antman did to poor Chaos in CSB is marvelous but couldn't have been done without intimate knowledge of the dungeon), the engine handling of beginner players will far inferior compared to that of veteran players. Probably we all died at some point when encountering our very first mummies in DM1, but today with the same characters and monsters those poor mummies won't strike a single hit against most of us.
Basically the conflict is, do you do a hard, devious dungeon like CSB designed to be a challenge for experienced players, or do you do an easy to mediocre dungeon playable by a broader goup of players, like DM2.
bear in mind that the monster strength required to be challenging (but of course not to hard) also much depends on how skillfull the player is at playing and how well he knows the dungeon. While the dungeon knowledge can be assumed to be low at a first try (what Antman did to poor Chaos in CSB is marvelous but couldn't have been done without intimate knowledge of the dungeon), the engine handling of beginner players will far inferior compared to that of veteran players. Probably we all died at some point when encountering our very first mummies in DM1, but today with the same characters and monsters those poor mummies won't strike a single hit against most of us.
Basically the conflict is, do you do a hard, devious dungeon like CSB designed to be a challenge for experienced players, or do you do an easy to mediocre dungeon playable by a broader goup of players, like DM2.
Parting is all we know from Heaven, and all we need of hell.
There does not NEED to be a way to do this. You would find it helpful. Maybe other people might. But it by no means mandatory.
It also depends what you mean by fixing bugs. Persoanlly I have only ever generated one cannot finsh game bug in a dungeon (and that was inan upgrade), because I didn't follow the basic rule. Test as you build. You do an area, you quickly play through it ith a test character.
Playtesting should be exactly that, testing the play. If smaller thing escape your notce, in which case you have a list of stuff, and a general note of if a game balances well in terms of charatcers, food, etc.
It also depends what you mean by fixing bugs. Persoanlly I have only ever generated one cannot finsh game bug in a dungeon (and that was inan upgrade), because I didn't follow the basic rule. Test as you build. You do an area, you quickly play through it ith a test character.
Playtesting should be exactly that, testing the play. If smaller thing escape your notce, in which case you have a list of stuff, and a general note of if a game balances well in terms of charatcers, food, etc.
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Sophia
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It's very easy to say "there needs to be X" as some broad, sweeping assertion, without really understanding the underlying ramifications.
As a saved game is simply the state at the present time, it is impossible to import an old saved game to a new dungeon.
That means, the only real way to fix the bug would be to fix it in both the real dungeon, AND the saved game. Find another bug, fix it in both places again. Rework something? You'll have to remember to rework it in the save game too, and of course, what if you don't precisely duplicate the changes? It gets very messy, very fast.
However, I am not saying that dungeon designers should be forced to test their 20 level dungeons from the beginning-- if they do, they are obviously unaware of the features they as dungeon designers have access to in order to improve testing, such as temporary teleporters to advanced areas, souped-up testing champions, and the ability to insert piles of needed items in hidden cache locations, all of which can easily be inserted in the editor, and removed before the final release.
I think that addresses your first statement. Your second statement is just completely invalid, because Word is like RTC, the engine. Both are backwardly compatible-- you don't have to start over when new versions of RTC are released.
As a saved game is simply the state at the present time, it is impossible to import an old saved game to a new dungeon.
That means, the only real way to fix the bug would be to fix it in both the real dungeon, AND the saved game. Find another bug, fix it in both places again. Rework something? You'll have to remember to rework it in the save game too, and of course, what if you don't precisely duplicate the changes? It gets very messy, very fast.
However, I am not saying that dungeon designers should be forced to test their 20 level dungeons from the beginning-- if they do, they are obviously unaware of the features they as dungeon designers have access to in order to improve testing, such as temporary teleporters to advanced areas, souped-up testing champions, and the ability to insert piles of needed items in hidden cache locations, all of which can easily be inserted in the editor, and removed before the final release.
I think that addresses your first statement. Your second statement is just completely invalid, because Word is like RTC, the engine. Both are backwardly compatible-- you don't have to start over when new versions of RTC are released.
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Chaos Awakes
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Word was a silly example, it probably would've been better to use an example like "Arx Fatalis" since it is also a game.
You have to remember that this problem affects not just designers but the players too. To take my example, I was playing Arx Fatalis and I found a bug which meant that I couldn't cast a particular spell and therefore couldn't complete the game. I went to the Arx Fatalis website where I found a patch to correct the bug. I downloaded the patch, ran it and then was able to load the game as normal and carry on from where I left off. It didn't make me start from the beginning after I applied the patch.
So, if I give you my 20 level dungeon and you get to level 19 and find that, through some oversight, I've left a wall blocking the stairs so that you can't continue, you are going to say to me "can you fix this bug please, but I don't expect to have to start from the beginning" and I have to say "No, sorry, you've got to start from the beginning." at which point you are probably going to hit me lol.
I have no problem editing in two places - the save game and the original - just so I can carry on playing. Putting a teleporter and a hidden cache of items in the game doesn't help in a complex dungeon environment. Suppose I have a level (as I do) where merely walking around changes the layout of all the walls on several other levels of the dungeon. Obviously, if I just teleport back to where I left the game, those walls will not be in the same places because I haven't walked around on the previous level, so the layout of the dungeon is not identical to how it was before. Since the layout relies on how the player walks about, it will be different for each game and therefore not replicable.
You have to remember that this problem affects not just designers but the players too. To take my example, I was playing Arx Fatalis and I found a bug which meant that I couldn't cast a particular spell and therefore couldn't complete the game. I went to the Arx Fatalis website where I found a patch to correct the bug. I downloaded the patch, ran it and then was able to load the game as normal and carry on from where I left off. It didn't make me start from the beginning after I applied the patch.
So, if I give you my 20 level dungeon and you get to level 19 and find that, through some oversight, I've left a wall blocking the stairs so that you can't continue, you are going to say to me "can you fix this bug please, but I don't expect to have to start from the beginning" and I have to say "No, sorry, you've got to start from the beginning." at which point you are probably going to hit me lol.
I have no problem editing in two places - the save game and the original - just so I can carry on playing. Putting a teleporter and a hidden cache of items in the game doesn't help in a complex dungeon environment. Suppose I have a level (as I do) where merely walking around changes the layout of all the walls on several other levels of the dungeon. Obviously, if I just teleport back to where I left the game, those walls will not be in the same places because I haven't walked around on the previous level, so the layout of the dungeon is not identical to how it was before. Since the layout relies on how the player walks about, it will be different for each game and therefore not replicable.
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Sophia
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If you left a bug that glaring on level 19 I wouldn't hit you, but I probably say you didn't really playtest it right... 
Proper playtesting can avert a lot of this. And yes, I realize that wasn't your point, but Beo has it right-- test as you build. It saves a lot of headaches.
Keep in mind that since you bring players into this, you won't be editing in just two places any more: every single player that hits that bug will require that you fix their savegame. How many save games do you want to fix? 5? 10? 20?
I do see your point, I'm just trying to point out that it's not all as rosy as you seem to think, and the feature you're talking about does not "need" to be there.
Anyway, for something that complex, you'll just need to add buttons that duplicate the function of your triggers. If you have them keyed to relays, and such, it's simple, just add a button and make that relay the target.
Proper playtesting can avert a lot of this. And yes, I realize that wasn't your point, but Beo has it right-- test as you build. It saves a lot of headaches.
Keep in mind that since you bring players into this, you won't be editing in just two places any more: every single player that hits that bug will require that you fix their savegame. How many save games do you want to fix? 5? 10? 20?
I do see your point, I'm just trying to point out that it's not all as rosy as you seem to think, and the feature you're talking about does not "need" to be there.
Anyway, for something that complex, you'll just need to add buttons that duplicate the function of your triggers. If you have them keyed to relays, and such, it's simple, just add a button and make that relay the target.
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Chaos Awakes
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Headache
This is why the editing of savegames isn't the best solution. I couldn't fix everyone's save games so I suppose there should be some sort of patching system to fix bugs.
It's very easy to say you should thoroughly playtest, but most software is sold and licensed on the basis that there is no warrenty of fitness for purpose purely because it is impossible to find and remove all bugs that will happen on all computers under all circumstances for all people. It is a simple fact that there is no such thing as bug free software and there never will be, however well you test there will always be a bug in there somewhere. The key is to have a nice way of removing those bugs for the user when found without inflicting any terrible results on him such as having to throw his work away or start his game again.
This is why the editing of savegames isn't the best solution. I couldn't fix everyone's save games so I suppose there should be some sort of patching system to fix bugs.
It's very easy to say you should thoroughly playtest, but most software is sold and licensed on the basis that there is no warrenty of fitness for purpose purely because it is impossible to find and remove all bugs that will happen on all computers under all circumstances for all people. It is a simple fact that there is no such thing as bug free software and there never will be, however well you test there will always be a bug in there somewhere. The key is to have a nice way of removing those bugs for the user when found without inflicting any terrible results on him such as having to throw his work away or start his game again.
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Gambit37
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You made the example of Arx Fatalis being fixable with a patch -- lots of other games have worked that way and not required you start again, yet other games have forced you to start over with patches -- the Tomb Raider series for example.
Anyway, I think there's a big difference between bugs in software and bugs in data files produced by end users.
Do you do small amounts of testing as you go along? If not, that really is a recipe for disaster. As for your non-replicable shifting maze -- if you're getting that complex in your dungeon then you have to live with the associated problems and deal with it -- through testing!
Yes, it's easy to say playtest, playtest, playtest and it's also easy to say all software has bugs. That's no excuse not to make every effort to ensure your software (dungeon) is not bug free. I do sympathise with the "20 levels uh-oh bug on level 19 problem" but really, you shouldn't be releasing dungeons with show stopping bugs like this.
Anyway, I think there's a big difference between bugs in software and bugs in data files produced by end users.
Do you do small amounts of testing as you go along? If not, that really is a recipe for disaster. As for your non-replicable shifting maze -- if you're getting that complex in your dungeon then you have to live with the associated problems and deal with it -- through testing!
Yes, it's easy to say playtest, playtest, playtest and it's also easy to say all software has bugs. That's no excuse not to make every effort to ensure your software (dungeon) is not bug free. I do sympathise with the "20 levels uh-oh bug on level 19 problem" but really, you shouldn't be releasing dungeons with show stopping bugs like this.
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George Gilbert
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Yes, bugs in the engine are usually fixable and do not require restarting of a save game. Nearly all bugs that are found fall into this category (which is good, or bad, depending on who you are!).Gambit37 wrote:Anyway, I think there's a big difference between bugs in software and bugs in data files produced by end users.
Bugs in the dungeon however usually require a restart as the save game itself is wrong. As mentioned above, here there's no substitute for lots of testing.
If its any help, then part of a good dungeon design is not only its playability by other people, but also the ease with which it can be debugged. For example, if you take a look at the DM dungeon, each level can be played in its own right (and so teleporters etc to get you there directly work quite well). Even CSB, which on the face of it is hugely complex, is quite easy to debug as each puzzle (with a couple of exceptions) stands alone and can be tested individually.
Speaking with my (non-gaming) professional programmer hat on. At work I probably spend less than 10% of my time actually coding. The vast bulk of time is spent designing how things will work on paper (at least 50%) and then testing (of each small unit of function), testing (of groups of functions) and more testing (of the entire product).
Although for games programming, bugs are more tolerated than the field I work in (network routing - people don't take kindly to picking up the phone and not getting a dial tone because the core network has crashed or typing in one URL into a browser and "the internet" routes the wrong information back to you - so a downtime rate (the total time to crash, reboot and be ready to process more information) of less than 1 second per year is typical), I would still expect the majority of time to be spent designing / testing...
...an unfortunate reality of trying to have something as bug-free as possible.
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Chaos Awakes
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Don't get me wrong, this is a pre-emptive thing. I test my dungeon thoroughly as I go and pick up the bugs, but I KNOW there is going to be a bug left in there somewhere because it's inevitable with all complex games. My dungeon is very complex, when you see it you'll understand.
I have all the graphics, monsters, animations etc from DM2 in the game, and the puzzles are very complex. There are sub-puzzles which you do not have to solve relying on the solving of other puzzles. For example, there is a level where you have to collect 3 blue gems - but there are four puzzles so you can collect 4 blue gems if you wish. Only 3 are needed to open the doors to the next level, so you could possibly have an extra blue gem left over. This gem can then be taken to a reward vault where you use it to get a reward for solving more puzzles than you needed to, or you can take it with you. If you take all the rewards you find to the reward vault, a secret area opens at the end of the game as a reward for finding all the rewards. However, suppose you didn't take the blue gem to the reward value but instead took it with you - later in the game there is another area where you need blue gems to open doors and you can bypass an entire difficult level if you already have a blue gem, but then you won't get the end of game secret area.
Now, if I just teleport into the middle of the game, all of the works of this will be lost.
I have all the graphics, monsters, animations etc from DM2 in the game, and the puzzles are very complex. There are sub-puzzles which you do not have to solve relying on the solving of other puzzles. For example, there is a level where you have to collect 3 blue gems - but there are four puzzles so you can collect 4 blue gems if you wish. Only 3 are needed to open the doors to the next level, so you could possibly have an extra blue gem left over. This gem can then be taken to a reward vault where you use it to get a reward for solving more puzzles than you needed to, or you can take it with you. If you take all the rewards you find to the reward vault, a secret area opens at the end of the game as a reward for finding all the rewards. However, suppose you didn't take the blue gem to the reward value but instead took it with you - later in the game there is another area where you need blue gems to open doors and you can bypass an entire difficult level if you already have a blue gem, but then you won't get the end of game secret area.
Now, if I just teleport into the middle of the game, all of the works of this will be lost.
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George Gilbert
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What I did when writing the DM dungeon for RTC was to strategically place items in the dungeon purely for testing (e.g. in the riddle room, put a bow, mirror, coin and gem in the middle of the room).
That way you can just teleport straight in and use the items as if you'd collected them.
It's then trivial to comment out the test items when releasing the final version of the game...
That way you can just teleport straight in and use the items as if you'd collected them.
It's then trivial to comment out the test items when releasing the final version of the game...
Really - I think you'll find alot of people suddenly being your best friend as there are moves afoot to do the DM2 dungeon in RTC and if someones already got the graphics in the right format it would save alot of time!I have all the graphics, monsters, animations etc from DM2 in the game
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Chaos Awakes
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I have a few monsters left to put in, but most of them are there. The fun thing is when you add a new feature to the engine and I can finally do something that was difficult before.
Now that I can set a ranged attack for monsters I can finally get the archer guards to fire arrows!
I haven't attempted to make the monsters from DM have the same basic behaviours and hit points,etc - otherwise there would be no surprise for the player. I want players to go "wow, they didn't do that before". Perhaps Chaos has "played" with the monsters a bit. "Rocky", for example, now throws fireballs rather than rocks.
Now that I can set a ranged attack for monsters I can finally get the archer guards to fire arrows!
I haven't attempted to make the monsters from DM have the same basic behaviours and hit points,etc - otherwise there would be no surprise for the player. I want players to go "wow, they didn't do that before". Perhaps Chaos has "played" with the monsters a bit. "Rocky", for example, now throws fireballs rather than rocks.
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Chaos Awakes
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- Location: Ipswich, UK
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Sophia
- Concise and Honest
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Yes, we seem to agree on editing savedgames not being the best solution. However, as I've mentioned before, since a saved game is just a snapshot of the state of dungeon at the present time, some sort of "patching system" as you say is impossible. This is why I and many others here remain convinced any such system would be sub-optimal and nothing is really "needed."Chaos Awakes wrote:This is why the editing of savegames isn't the best solution. I couldn't fix everyone's save games so I suppose there should be some sort of patching system to fix bugs.
Er, what's your point? The net effect is that you might have a blue gem or you might not-- so all you really would have to do is put a blue gem in a testing location and there you go. The rest of that stuff doesn't really matter.Chaos Awakes wrote:Now, if I just teleport into the middle of the game, all of the works of this will be lost.
I would also worry, if you game is as complex as you say, hat patching the saved game and carrying on is foolhardy anyway - how can you be sure you fixed the original problem just because your saved game now works? Perhaps a trigger that was enabled and blocking thigns before was disabled by subesquent actions. You think you have now solved the problem, your saved game is fine, and you carry on - then people playign fresh get hit with the problem where it's really inconvienient and you have 20 saved games to fix or a new version to relase and playtest anyway
Anyway, just i think the debate just stems from the fact you seemed to be arguing that ability to edit the saved game is mandatory - some of us don't agree with that statement in general, and prefer the locked nature of it to the cost of occasional niggles. So therefore there is no agreement on mandatory save game editing if the argument is for bug fixing alone. At the end of the day it is GG's engine, so really that is that - the either will be or won't be.
Anyway, just i think the debate just stems from the fact you seemed to be arguing that ability to edit the saved game is mandatory - some of us don't agree with that statement in general, and prefer the locked nature of it to the cost of occasional niggles. So therefore there is no agreement on mandatory save game editing if the argument is for bug fixing alone. At the end of the day it is GG's engine, so really that is that - the either will be or won't be.
I agree with Sophia on this one - I can't see what your problem is with your gem, or any other, example. When you get to a certain point in your dungeon something has either happened or it hasn't. If it has, you can reproduce the effect yourself, like activate a trigger or spawn an item. If it hasn't, you don't. Simple testing. As a designer, it's your dungeon and you have the power to do what you need to. Besides, you're testing the dungeon with prior knowledge of it's mechanics. Maybe you could ask someone else to test your puzzles / dungeon for you.
I don't agree with the save editing either. Although being one of the players who has found a few bugs in Sophia's Surgical Strike dungeons, making further progress impossible, it didn't matter much. A fixed version was released with all the items I'd collected to enable me to return to my prior position. No probs
I don't agree with the save editing either. Although being one of the players who has found a few bugs in Sophia's Surgical Strike dungeons, making further progress impossible, it didn't matter much. A fixed version was released with all the items I'd collected to enable me to return to my prior position. No probs