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Caravel Forum : DROD RPG Boards : RPG Architecture : The 'Neatherhood (Short RPG hold)
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kieranmillar
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File: The Neatherhood.drh (29.8 KB)
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icon The 'Neatherhood (+2)  
NOW PUBLISHED ON CARAVELNET. PLEASE DOWNLOAD FROM THE RPG HOLDS THREAD!

Hello all!

While procrastinating... uhhh.. I mean "suffering a lack of creativity" towards my ongoing DROD projects I decided to make a small RPG hold. Here it is. It's playable from start to finish but would be grateful of any feedback if anybody would be so kind as to play it before I promote it to the HAs.

I have no idea how difficult it will be for people who are not me as I don't have any previous experience with making RPG holds. I don't think it's particularly tough to get the regular ending.

Here are some cool facts about the hold, I'll spoiler them just in case you like surprises.
Click here to view the secret text


Congratulations to Pearls for winnig the "name the mountain to not get punched in the face" contest I ran in chat. His prize is the mountain name he suggested being in the hold, followed by not getting punched in the face.

[Last edited by kieranmillar at 03-25-2015 08:47 PM]
03-14-2015 at 11:48 PM
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Red-XIII
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icon Re: The 'Neatherhood (+1)  
Last time I played Drod: RPG was last year so I'm a bit rusty and my status are definitely not good. I just entered the East part, after blue door, and I think that until now the hold is quite hard, not extremely challenging but I had to restore many times, and it's definitely harder than Trial tower. Also, I preferred an attack route, but now I think that a defense route might be better, I'll try to find time to do that too.
The "no hot tile, aumtlich, lucky blade, custom monsters" is also good for me, too bad I don't have a sword :P
Aesthetics and story are quite good!

Click here to view the secret text




____________________________
There's not some other world out there where everything's gonna be okay.
There's just this one, just this rock.
-33th Skywatcher

[Last edited by Red-XIII at 03-15-2015 10:35 AM]
03-15-2015 at 10:33 AM
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kieranmillar
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Hey Red, thanks a ton for playing! I'm not at my PC right now so can't confirm what my stats are at each score point but it looks like you are definitely undervaluing defense. Both of those bosses can do less than half of damage than you are taking, the bosses are designed to have high HP and stats very close to yours so picking up any type of powerup will make a big dent in their damage.

I should also mention that I've tested it so picking up EVERY stat point will make things very difficult, so you're not expected to do that on your first play through, but you want to get more powerups than you have done at the moment.

Of course if I'm sitting here giving my playtesters advice then that implies I may have done something wrong with the balance. I'll have another look over the stats I've given the monsters and see if there are ways it could be more forgiving without breaking anything.

[Last edited by kieranmillar at 03-15-2015 11:08 AM]
03-15-2015 at 11:06 AM
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Gordius
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kieranmillar wrote: I should also mention that I've tested it so picking up EVERY stat point will make things very difficult, so you're not expected to do that on your first play through, but you want to get more powerups than you have done at the moment.

Hmm..., this has been what I'm doing, and I advanced to the boss behind the blue door without too much difficulty. I'm having to play the east side a second time, because I misused a green key and fixing that would make killing the boss on that side possible.

In general, I really like the key management aspect of various places. If you save up all your yellow keys early on and blue keys in the east, you can trade up and then go spend them where you will.
03-15-2015 at 01:36 PM
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kieranmillar
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Thanks for playing Gordius! The key management was definitely something I was going for so I'm glad people are noticing.

Earlier today I had an epiphany about a technique I could use to make a secret boss run-through much easier and just tried it out. It did in fact work and made the latter half of the hold a bit of a joke, with me beating the secret boss with almost 4,000 HP spare, so I'd like to fix it. I know how to, however I'm also looking at trying to make things a bit more forgiving for non-optimisers who just want to play through and see the ending.

Some things I have in mind include buffing the non-optimal choices, and also maybe reducing the defence of the Nocturnal Eyes because they are so obviously non-choices when playing through the first section because they are too tough. Maybe I'll take a look at making the bosses scale a bit slower to stat changes so picking up less stats is a bit more viable and make optimizing each scorepoint for scores a bit more interesting, but I'm hesitant to change too much on a whim. I'll think about it a bit more.

It looks like the hold, particularly the Eastern section, might be a bit tougher than I thought. This is fine but I think it never hurts to give a bit more leeway to the less optimal crowd, and the secret boss works as a good incentive to force people to experience the sort of optimisation problems I had in mind if they're up for the challenge.
03-15-2015 at 07:09 PM
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kieranmillar
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I have now attached Version 2 to the opening post. If you've already started playing then it's not critical to download the new version and start again, as the changes are largely minor and aimed at helping out non-optimal players, particularly decreasing the amount of difference your stats make to the damage the first three bosses cause. I also fixed the aforementioned easy way to optimise going for the secret boss.

Here's the full spoileriffic changelog if you're interested:
Click here to view the secret text


[Last edited by kieranmillar at 03-15-2015 09:50 PM]
03-15-2015 at 09:35 PM
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Midootje
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icon Re: The 'Neatherhood (+1)  
Excellent hold! Lots of viable choices, very tight greckle and key reserves, and a very smooth difficulty slope.
Is there any chance there will be some sort of sequel hold (or maybe even just new Levels added to this one)? Because I have honestly never seen such a large hold that is balanced so well while only giving out 36 stat points maximum. If you can make a hold this big without even using any equipment and such slight stat differences, imagine what an incredible masterpiece you could craft if this custom monster hold would go all the way up to 500 ATK/DEF!
Stats (after defeat):
Scout: 370/15/12/4/7, 0/0/0.
Captain: 667/25/21/18/44, 1/0.0.
Snow Queen: 1169/35/28/0/85, 0/2/0.
Bummer, no autosave after the Archmage. I don't quite remember, but it was about 8K+. Didn't get that last ATK gem though, I went for the keys instead..
SPOILERS:
Click here to view the secret text
On a side note, I loved the Ice Ice Babies. Tore me up ;)
Edit: on a second playthrough,
Click here to view the secret text


____________________________
Don't worry, be happy, and slice monsters. You'll probably do better than me at all three.

[Last edited by Midootje at 03-16-2015 05:05 PM]
03-16-2015 at 03:10 PM
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kieranmillar
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Thanks for playing Midootje! I'm glad to hear you enjoyed it. You did awfully well for your first and second attempts looking at those stats.

I have no plans to extend this hold or make a direct sequel but I've definitely got ideas for another RPG hold. However I do have some other DROD commitments I need to complete first, including finishing a level for a collaborative project that's way overdue at this stage.
03-16-2015 at 09:05 PM
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Gordius
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icon Re: The 'Neatherhood (+1)  
Finished. A couple of suggestions:

I killed the archmage, expecting a reward or something and to then go see about
Click here to view the secret text
Instead, the game just ended. Making it clear beforehand that killing the archmage is a one-way trip (by, for example, surrounding him with arrows pointing in) would be helpful.

Also, if you want to make your secret more of a secret, it might be helpful to
Click here to view the secret text

03-19-2015 at 11:13 AM
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Blondbeard
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Fun! I had 2934 HP to spare in what I think is the latest version for the secret MOAR boss. I can't really think of a way to make it better, and I really liked how both ATK and DEF was important.
03-19-2015 at 08:19 PM
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kieranmillar
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icon Re: The 'Neatherhood (+1)  
Thanks for playing dudes, I appreciate the comments.
Gordius wrote: Finished. A couple of suggestions:

I killed the archmage, expecting a reward or something and to then go see about
Click here to view the secret text
Instead, the game just ended. Making it clear beforehand that killing the archmage is a one-way trip (by, for example, surrounding him with arrows pointing in) would be helpful.

I can easily do this sure. I put the checkpoint right next to him in the hope that people would save before fighting him, but I also don't know if putting arrows around him will make people think it's a trap or something? An alternative thing I could do that might help and I would feel more comfortable about would be to trigger an autosave after each brain kill, which would help minimise any replaying if people forget to save beforehand.

Gordius wrote:
Also, if you want to make your secret more of a secret, it might be helpful to
Click here to view the secret text

I think I'm happy with how it is right now, I was aware the minimap being red would give it away, but I'm also OK with that because I would much rather people find it than not. The existence of there being a secret boss is not something I feel any need to hide, but I felt it had to go in a secret room so it was very obviously the secret boss.

[Last edited by kieranmillar at 03-19-2015 11:16 PM]
03-19-2015 at 11:15 PM
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Chaco
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I'm still in the middle of playing this hold, but I'd like to take a moment to praise the architect's decision to have all monsters give out 2 GR and 1 REP, which makes greckle gates highly relevant and tricky decisions, rather than just money sinks for the loads of money one typically earns in an RPG hold with the default monsters.

The Peaks look a little confusing, but I've been having fun trying to figure out good orders to tackle everything in.

____________________________
Quick links to my stuff (in case you forgot where it was):
Click here to view the secret text

03-20-2015 at 04:34 PM
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kieranmillar
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icon Re: The 'Neatherhood (+1)  
While I know some people are still in the middle of playing this hold I feel that it is ready for submission. I'm going to make a walkthrough to help with the submission process and will then be submitting the final version, which will have no gameplay-relevant changes to the current version that's available.

If you're playing through it now and think there might be something to say that might change anything before submission, let me know and I'll hold off of the submission process for a while.
03-21-2015 at 04:39 PM
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