Put the fort back in Orcs, or something?

[Egon the Monkey]

For those of you unfamiliar with this quest's past, the history goes something like this:[LIST=1]

• Orcs is released, everyone uses THE ROCK to ensure that only 2-3 orcs reach them at a time because this magic foot high lump of granite cannot be passed.
• DMs remove THE ROCK because it is cheesy.
• Everyone uses THE CORNER to cut down on the number of orcs reaching you at a time.
• DMs remove THE CORNER because it is cheesy, and have the orcs come in from two sides.
• Orcs becomes a giant open killing field where Prophets spam you with max range Fireballs and Dispels before you can even see them. Everything else surrounds you, making it a desperate, mindless struggle livened up by the occasional potion-chugging Gaathmar goon. Teams are chewed up, spat out. Quest fades into obscurity except for with highly effective powerquest squads.
• DMs introduce THE FORT, where ranged PCs can have a vantage point, melee PCs can take cover and avoid the max range dispels, but the orcs can come at you from both sides in reasonable numbers. Quest becomes challenging but enjoyable.
• THE FORT vanishes, possibly as a couple of placeables near it have become the new version of THE ROCK.
• Orcs becomes giant open killing field etc etc.

I think the problem with this quest is that it is a nice idea but hard to balance. Teams that don't know the latest trick get stomped flat, those that do know it metagame the perfect tactic. DMs change it to stop the latest cheesy trick, TPK ensues. I'd love to see the fort back, but without the nearby trees that served to restrict attackers to 1-2 per side if you positioned right. For starters there's no IC reason to fight them at the widest point of the pass rather than in the woods leading up.

Really though, it'd be great to see an idea for how to break this quest's constant cycle of "Tactics that make the quest too easy followed by responses that make it unreasonably hard for most teams until they're balanced back". Comparing it to the Longest Night, that other quest always felt more forgiving and less totally set against anyone not using the Tactic of the Month. It had a few places to fall back to and hold them off if you were losing, slighty weaker enemies and no crippling sudden events like Disarm and Dispel.

What might serve to do that is to remove or change the long ranged spells on Orc Savage Prophets. Compare them to Gnolls, where the casters are nasty, but cast mostly support and disabling spells from afar, then close in to blow you up. They can really ruin your day if you ignore them, but they won't suddenly remove all your buffs then fry half the team before you've even seen them. Without that dispel and fire spam from halfway across the map or behind a horde, players wouldn't always be looking for the next cover, then finding a way to cheese it. For example, if they used Web then Burning Hands or the custom Fire Blast spell, it would be annoying and could drive PCs out of staying in the same place, put not suddenly wallop characters like Dispel and force them to always find cover or be doomed.

[Caster13]

Is it possible to control the rate of new monster spawn depending on party size/level/rate-of-orc-killing?

[The Beggar]

Would it be possible to make the Orcs stronger, say, by some sort of damage reduction to some elemental type so they get hurt less with their mob tactics? Orcs want more TPK please.

Sarcasm aside, you do have to know how to pull aggro (mechanically) effectively with this quest battle area wide open to survive - and that can be very tricky.

[Egon the Monkey]

Beggar. THey are about 50% fire resistant for that reason. Previously you could have a couple of PCs with Evasion up front and let the Shamans kill everything that wasn't you xD. I did think that making each wave led by a sub-boss (but not Hero with Loot) might help pace things, so the next lot don't come until a couple of Turns after he's dead. Or to have fewer waves of attackers to set the scene, then barricades and groups of orcs to fight through as you make your way up to the camp.

[Mort]

The FORT was possibly the biggest mistake ever made in generating heaps amounts of lag. If an NPC gets blocked, you see them getting stuck somewhere, that's very BAD for the server performance. It's good for you as it means the quest a joke, but it's bad overall. For this reason, we cannot place things in the AI's way without creating lag. We have to take that into account while building any scripted quest.

I'm trying to work on the AI so it can attack wooden barricades placed in its way, but it's not that obvious. That way, PCs could like place a few barricades, and the invading monster would smash through the barricade blocking them only for some time.

[Kinslayer988]

The concern of the players above is more for the savage prophets

[Caster13]

Sarcasm aside, you do have to know how to pull aggro (mechanically) effectively with this quest battle area wide open to survive - and that can be very tricky.

That's taking advantage of the AI and against the rules :(

[Ebok]

Pulling aggro is not AI abuse, it's intelligent warfare. You pull aggro in actual combat situations as well. However, I have no interest in doing this quest at all as it is, and since I'm a quest addict, that's actually impressive.

[Porkolt]

Ebok has experience with actual combat situations.

[Ebok]

Porkolt has experience being a troll

[Drakill Tannan]

Often it's a few events that make things get out of hand by destroying your upper hand. Either three two fireballs in a row, getting dispelled of all your buffs or a chosen of grathamar appears.

If the sight range of the shamans was shorted, you would see comming the dispels and the fireballs, thus when things are going to get messy you can prepare, or start running away.

[Ebok]

Would it be a solution to zig-zag the paths some to reduce the range of the magi? The orcs would still come, but if they had to meander before firing it prevents fireball and dispel sniping. Though i suppose that provides a number of corners that could potentially catch NPCs.

( <-- A path that beveled would still bring them in, but LoS wouldnt trigger until they were twice as close as before. Which in some cases was the instant and exact place they spawned. I dunno, do what you want.

[The Beggar]

It's not a quest I like doing without an optimal party. Yes, that is very OOC and metagamey.

Ebok nails it, proper pulling and holding aggression in a party is a tanks primary responsibility, and really important on this quest. It's pretty cool to see when someone good at playing a tank does it.

Note that this is not "pulling" creatures, where you run in  briefly to yank off a few creatures to have them follow you back to some way far away distance for your party to pick them off. That would be "against the rules".

The rewards on the quest are great, but you do have to spend (have some good supplies) to get it.

[Portal Rat]

That's taking advantage of the AI and against the rules :(

This is an old game and there are some things about it that will never, ever improve. It is literally impossible to avoid "taking advantage of the AI" with the way this server is set up, and it's unreasonable to expect players to essentially commit suicide each and every time they encounter a limitation of the game engine.

There are many, many ways to counterbalance these limitations of the engine within the toolset. Enemies can be made tougher if they are too easy. There is no way whatsoever to eliminate these limitations completely. Players should be able to play the game the way it's presented to them without second-guessing themselves about whether or not they're taking unfair advantage of a computer program that is designed to kill their PCs.

/end rant

[Nightshadow]

So long as you don't purposefully make them do something that seems.. odd, you're fine. The rules are for those who exploit the AI, not those who just quest and come across oddities every now and then.

At least, that's my understanding.. Use common sense.