Please delete this rock.
Quote from: Cruzel;113274THE ROCK
(http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/9753/rockn.jpg)
And AGAIN (Different time/group)
(http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/5315/rock2.jpg)
Notice the loot. There is like NONE going around, because the AI is too dumb to work around it.
(You should be ashamed of yourselves, especially you, WINSTON MARTIN)
REMOVE THIS ROCK. >.>
I cannot lend my support to Cruzel's anti-rock crusade.
I think this quest could use a serious redesign. It's more than just the rock, but the rock would help a lot!
Photoshop.
no cruzel! you shall not ruin my rock/cliff tactic! i will smite you!
Oh right, the rock. Yes this is infinitely lame, I've been on a team that used it. The orcs get stacked up and come in one at one, making the quest a joke. Removing this would be rad!
Ugh, did I just agree with Cruzel? Damn.
I can proudly say I agree with Cruzel!
That rock is annoying... As Caddies said, it brings down the difficulty of the quest somewhat... So, yeah..
Remove, plix! :D
Do not remove, move it twice the actual distance from clifft will give us more Orcs to kill.
I never liked the quest.
PS: Replace with Flying Shark Island.
The problem with this quest is it does boil down to "hold at that position or another corner, or their sheer numbers hose you". If you recall the "horde of Chosen" quest, that was the same, but with 3 entrances for the mobs. It's risky in how fast it can turn against you, requires discipline, but it does feel stupid that they all back up there.
I'd suggest a re-working of the quest, with it given by a Stygian, Guard or Orderman, and set to be "we need volunteers to investigate the fate of an advance watchpost". Instead of corners to hold, give us barricades with gaps to defend, a couple of Repeaters or Catapults, and basically make it feel like we PCs are playing the other side of Castle Vrazdn.
This is ridiculous, lol.
No regrets tbh.
............. 300 anyone?
The mettle of a player/PC is often determined by whether they use this ROCK or not.
See things like that can be nice for when groups are getting their butt kicked so they can fall back to it, but when perfectly strong groups march up to it like clockwork and use it with perfect coordination just so they can do a rewarding quest without the use of any supplies, it's not particularly impressive.
Change may be forthcoming.
Removing the Rock, wont change much at all, the AI (unless its been changed) will mean if you hang back at around that point the critters will bounce off each other as they try to come round the corner and come through in single file around that point.
A better idea would be to "straighten" the whole quest, less corners essentially. Whenever you have a right angle with NWN you get "single-file-syndrome" as they all try to take the fastest "racing" line to get at you, but only succeed in bouncing off one another. Or as an alternative have the Orcs attack in a pincer movement from two locations thus making any holding positition impossible.
I have a better idea yalta, let's make the mages cast hellball instead of fireball, that will make it challenging right?
But seriously, the quest is hard enough already with out adding the 'pincer move', and as for this comment "Notice the loot. There is like NONE going around, because the AI is too dumb to work around it." all I can say is since you have lenny, taern and drudo they probably died before they could go around the rock >_>
Since this quest was most likely altered to reflect the spending/profit of the earlier groups, who all used the rock, if you remove it the quest should have a slight upgrade in reward. I've done it a few times without any cover tactic, and all times it's been fiercely unrewarding.
Removal is endorsed by myself, and the many constituents from which I derive said authority.
I had no clue people whored the AI like that.
-_-
Quote from: Howland;113320The mettle of a player/PC is often determined by whether they use this ROCK or not.
See things like that can be nice for when groups are getting their butt kicked so they can fall back to it, but when perfectly strong groups march up to it like clockwork and use it with perfect coordination just so they can do a rewarding quest without the use of any supplies, it's not particularly impressive.
Change may be forthcoming.
Do you ever feel like the whole meaning of life is that God is watching you and trying to make up his mind if you are a good person or not?
Hrm, perhaps having the Prophet Orcs spawn at the same time everything else spawns? People use this corner to avoid the prophets so they can only deal with the melee buggers.
Dwayne Johnson will kick all o'ya'll's asses.
Quote from: Listen in Silence;113355Since this quest was most likely altered to reflect the spending/profit of the earlier groups, who all used the rock, if you remove it the quest should have a slight upgrade in reward.
This is ridiculous. I have never ever seen or heard of anybody using the rock until the other day when I went on the quest with you. I was in many of the 'earlier groups' and we never did this because its exploiting.
>_<
Early groups held at the corner, as far as I know, up ahead of the rock.
You played for a long time a very high lvl, very well supplied character, Caddies. Ortred could afford the stylish charging and dashing about to beat the crap out of the orcs in open field.
Most groups couldn't do that, because they were simply overrun and killed as soon as they tried. To be honest, the only groups I've been in that didn't use this rock earlier on was the de Olid groups, and the two recent ones after this has been publically renounced an exploit.
Note, both of those recent groups, who would've gone fairly evenly in profit and expense had they used the corner, instead were almost entirely TPK'd, and spent massive supplies before so, receiving little at the end.
I'm not sure that justifies abusing the AI.
Its not that hard a quest. Though I do admit that it would be pretty difficult if you charge right on, but using the rock is not needed. If you need to exploit the AI to survive, then its best you simply stay away from this quest.
But yes, a change to this quest might be good.
Any group Kawurachi went on never did this quest with this rock.
Quote from: Listen in Silence;113450You played for a long time a very high lvl, very well supplied character, Caddies.
I did this quest from about L5 onwards and most of the time had mediocre/average supplies. Not once did we use the rock to lame the AI, and I can't recall a single instance of us not finishing the quest. Sorry, but I don't buy your argument.
I'm definately not arguing for keeping the rock. I am suggesting that should it be removed, the reward should be scaled slightly to reflect the difficulty increase. I dislike that lame tactic just as much as anyone else.
Move the rock and let's roll it.
Quote from: Listen in Silence;113458I'm definately not arguing for keeping the rock. I am suggesting that should it be removed, the reward should be scaled slightly to reflect the difficulty increase.
Difficulty increase from not being able to exploit the AI anymore?
Things are getting a bit heated.. :(
I think Caddies quote below sums it up. Use real features as part of tactics but try not to take the piss.
QuoteIts perfectly IC to use the cliff angle to get out of range of their sorcerers. In fact, its often plainly idiotic IC not to. Maybe you should stop telling people how to play the game, Cruzel.
No heat on my part, just amused disagreement that the quest rewards should go up to compensate the lack of AI exploiting now that this issue has gone public.
Maybe have an alternate path leading from the main camp to some distance behind the first cliff wall. Or many narrow footpaths through the cliffs.
The cliff is, never the less, imperative for survival against fireballz and arrers. If the quest is straightened, cover still needs to be in place.
Remove the rock, of course.
Turn the quest into an all rounder single massive battle, imo.
The 'waves' timing sure is neat to allow the pcs to heal a little, and to give that impression of slowly being submerged, but consequence is PCs can and will wait from orcs in a single file: rock, corner, cliff cave in, etc...
I say we keep the rock. We just make it trigger a hostile invisble placable nearby to cast CIRCLE OF DEATH at ALL pcs in the ROCK AREA if it is whored.
So instead of being a ROCK of exploits and easier XP and loot, it becomes a ROCK OF DEATH
STAY AWAY FROM THE ROCK RAUGHHH
Straighten the whole quest with no cliffs, obstacles, rocks or edges to take cover / hide behind.
or
Make the orcs attack from multiple directions.
Make it a str check so if player wnat to move the rock they can
Since we're on this subject, I'd like to hear someone make a clear distinction between use of effective tactics and AI abuse. I've never seen anyone lame the rock, but my basic assumption has always been that any field advantage you can find in a quest was deliberately put there by the DMs for us to use. Some players have questioned me about this from time to time, and I would like to hear the official answer.
For instance, is there anything wrong with slamming a door in a monster's face? Most mobs will open them anyway, but I've been sent tells about it. What about using archers against a melee target that cannot get to you? This seems like common sense to me, and even the kobolds at Scalemount use this tactic against PCs, but I've been accused of abuse for doing this as well.
Some clarity would be appreciated.
Quotebut my basic assumption has always been that any field advantage you can find in a quest was deliberately put there by the DMs for us to use. Some players have questioned me about this from time to time, and I would like to hear the official answer.
For instance, is there anything wrong with slamming a door in a monster's face? Most mobs will open them anyway, but I've been sent tells about it. What about using archers against a melee target that cannot get to you? This seems like common sense to me, and even the kobolds at Scalemount use this tactic against PCs, but I've been accused of abuse for doing this as well.
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I have asked this in the past, and it's a slippery slope - One that largely depends on HOW the monster cannot get to you.
If it's stuck by a placable or a small stream that (Common sense) would dictate that it should easily be able to pass but cannot because the AI is dumb, Don't do it. That is pretty clear abuse.
Now however if you are on say a cliff that the enemy cannot climb (There is no way around/up that the monster could take - And it's not something that cna climb walls like a spider or something) Shooting them from the cliffs is not so bad, but its still kind of exploiting because almost no intelligent creature would simply stand there and get shot.
To me, Door slamming is kind of lame because of one thing ; ATTACK FOCUS. I have seen people do this to shift focus from themselves to another PC. Now, this CAN be perfectly IC, but as soon as the door makes the NPC lose sight of the PC, there is a very good chance the perception scripts will give them a new target.
Abuse of the AI is pure common sense, To be honest. Just think about behaviour! Bottlenecking foes is one thing, and a great strategy. But when there is a clear way around that the monsters can easily see and SHOULD take, but can't because of the AI, that Starts to turn to abuse if you bottleneck them in a spot where you know this will happen, like THE ROCK.
Ledge/stream shooting is also pretty common sense. I see this most on gnolls, people picking off the elites/elite shamans/other up close dudes while they are stuck on barricades. Big no-no, Guys. It's definately not fun when these big scary meleer's are stopped by a few twigs and some shallow water. Quests can be fun when they are easy, but being too easy because of lameness is never fun!
Probably the MOST common AI abuse I see is 'Luring' one by one with a ranged weapon! If there is a group of foes, unless the creatures are -really, really stupid- (Like, We're talking mentally retarded levels here - Which pretty much NO monster/creature you would see on a quest has, with the exception of like, low level zombies and ghouls, and other nonsentient creatures!) They are not going to just stand around picking their ass while their comrades are charging/shooting. If you're going to try to pull some of a large group away, pull them in groups. Shoot any of them that you have sight of to pull them all in, or just let them see you if you creep close, whatever. You get the idea, but 1by1 when there is a LARGE group does not make sense, and makes almost any quest WAY too easy (not to mention too LONG) to be fun.
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It's hard when three warlord's spawn and a lag-spike hits.... simultaneously.
I think the AI should stop using its "fireball launches from across five screens wayyy further than a pc could ever cast" exploit and stop using the "archers can still target invisible people at full range" exploit, and stop using the "I can see through cliffs and around corners to get you" exploit.
Oh and Cruzel, since your screenshot only showed the rock area, of course nobody can see the orc loots anywhere else.
You can do that 'exploit' with PCs, just zoom in on your PC and look far and you'll be able to target people from far far far away.
I do this all the time to put pressure on people and used with PCs too. It's very deadly to receive 4 hasted isaac missile storm from two screens away from another PC (I got this thrown on me once, very much instant panic!).
...
As for exploits in map. It's really really really annoying me that it has come down to this. One of my main consideration in designing such quests is usually artistic and if I have to remove every placeable and make the land FLAT and STRAIGHT in order to avoid exploit, it will be a borefest soon.
Just to avoid the entire situation: Just don't use the rock!
I just want to point out that the NWN perception ranges for NPCs suck, btw.
"long" -is- further than any PC can target, and 'Medium' is a fair bit shorter.
So the mages can target you from longer than a PC is able to shoot. A PC technically can shoot that far, as the spell range allows it, but the client itself cannot allow the PC to see that far due to camera limits/fog.
This is truth. For all the rebuttal that PCs can see just as far and attack at the sames distances as monsters can if you can somehow find the magic camera angle, I will say that lowering and zooming in to give me the best range possible sometimes leaves me shy of being able to target the baddies that are happily targeting me.
I much prefer the simple explanation of, "That's just how the game goes, sometimes. Deal with it!" It's really REALLY hard to argue with that!
Try this folks: "## mainscene.fog 0" without the quotes.