PC feedback time!

[Anastasia]

I didn't realize it had been so long, but it's been since November. Yikes. I'm going to keep this one simple and let you guys run with it where you will.

1.  What's good about Balmuria? What do you like? What do you want to see more of? Go into as much detail and list examples as you please. Get into the whys of it.

2. What do you dislike about Balmuria? What do you dislike? What do you want to see less of? Again, detail is good.

3. Is the fight/RP balance decent?

4. In short: Am I doing this right?

[Ebiris]

Not much to say, really - you're doing a good job, as you have the whole way through. I think the mix of RPing and combat is fine, neither side feels neglected.

I admit things are getting a bit disjointed over this 'break' period, and I'll be glad when the party is reunited and we can have a good old fashioned dungeon crawl to break the next seal - that's one thing I've missed with all the epic set piece battles and roleplaying lately, it's nice to explore a trap and monster infested maze now and then. And likewise, it'll be nice for us all to be together again, since it's been solo stuff for a while.

Hmm... I guess one observation I can make, though I feel a bit conflicted about it, is - we don't really feel like the world-conquering heroes we seem to be. It's a tricky issue, since we do need to have viable opposition, but at the same time it feels a bit weird to come back from an epic campaign against a horde of greater fiends and then find NPCs who've been sitting around killing rats and goblins or whatever who're on par with us, and vastly eclipse other friendly NPCs. I guess the main sticking point with this is the renowned 'manly speardude' who happens to be a level 1 warrior with +2 to hit and 5hp. It feels weird to compare such NPCs with say CR 5-6 (I'm estimating) Sahaugin bandits. Or for higher tier types we've got say Obureth and Donald at say levels 8-9 who we know have seen lots of really intense action, compared with Eudard who seems to sit around his temple all day and looks to be level 11 by my guess.

It's a bit like the level scaling problem in Oblivion where you'd be fighting the same bandits at level 30 that plagued you at level 1, except now with more hp - it feels a bit like the world revolves around you rather than having an internal logic of its own.

I'm not saying we should have everyone be weak compared to us, that's just silly. But it might be better if there was more to seperate stuff of various 'tiers' (don't shoot me for using 4e terminology) instead of facing the Sahaugin who look identical to the ones we were fighting 5 levels ago except now with more hd, perhaps have more numbers of 'fodder' identical to the old ones but now with higher powered ones who look the part (fancy equipment, mutated 4-armed super strong monsters, whatever) to challenge us at our own level.

It looks a bit like you're doing that already with the new trolls showing up in the Barbarian Lands being explicitly described as bigger and with different posture, so maybe my comments weren't even necessary, but I just felt the need to iterate them.

[Anastasia]

Not much to say, really - you're doing a good job, as you have the whole way through. I think the mix of RPing and combat is fine, neither side feels neglected.

I admit things are getting a bit disjointed over this 'break' period, and I'll be glad when the party is reunited and we can have a good old fashioned dungeon crawl to break the next seal - that's one thing I've missed with all the epic set piece battles and roleplaying lately, it's nice to explore a trap and monster infested maze now and then. And likewise, it'll be nice for us all to be together again, since it's been solo stuff for a while.

Okay, noted. I kind of agree with this, but I view it as an unavoidable side effect of everyone working on solo stuff. (Admittedly, RL shit hasn't helped.)

Hmm... I guess one observation I can make, though I feel a bit conflicted about it, is - we don't really feel like the world-conquering heroes we seem to be. It's a tricky issue, since we do need to have viable opposition, but at the same time it feels a bit weird to come back from an epic campaign against a horde of greater fiends and then find NPCs who've been sitting around killing rats and goblins or whatever who're on par with us, and vastly eclipse other friendly NPCs. I guess the main sticking point with this is the renowned 'manly speardude' who happens to be a level 1 warrior with +2 to hit and 5hp. It feels weird to compare such NPCs with say CR 5-6 (I'm estimating) Sahaugin bandits. Or for higher tier types we've got say Obureth and Donald at say levels 8-9 who we know have seen lots of really intense action, compared with Eudard who seems to sit around his temple all day and looks to be level 11 by my guess.


It's a bit like the level scaling problem in Oblivion where you'd be fighting the same bandits at level 30 that plagued you at level 1, except now with more hp - it feels a bit like the world revolves around you rather than having an internal logic of its own.

Mmm.

Your last sentence hits some of it. While the world does have it's own consistency and logic, you three are also the heroes of the story. Some revolution around you three is inevitable, especially since you're the big leaders and movers now.  Anyway, the thing to remember is that there's a lot of stuff going on that you don't see. For example, what did Eudard do before he came to Balmuria? He mentioned some fighting and experience back in the Free Cities and looks to be competent.  This may largely be -his- downtime, dealing with a non combat situation, if that makes any sense. He hasn't levelled any in Balmuria(Though I did retrain a couple of his feats and tinker with a few things).

This tends to apply to NPCs as well: For example, the only ones that levelled up last time were Donald and Antenora, who both fight with you. Pollyanna, who hasn't done all that much lately, hasn't levelled up. (Sorry Deme. She's getting close to do with the war experience+stuff with you lately. <_<)

As for the sahuagin? One liberty that I can take with differing environments is shifting around the power level. Just like how a new continent may have stronger monsters(Video game alert har),  new terrain may have stronger problems to cope with. I tend to use that a fair bit - for example, the justification of the wastelands having a lot of nasties has a good deal of that in it.

I'm not saying we should have everyone be weak compared to us, that's just silly. But it might be better if there was more to separate stuff of various 'tiers' (don't shoot me for using 4e terminology) instead of facing the Sahaugin who look identical to the ones we were fighting 5 levels ago except now with more hd, perhaps have more numbers of 'fodder' identical to the old ones but now with higher powered ones who look the part (fancy equipment, mutated 4-armed super strong monsters, whatever) to challenge us at our own level.

It looks a bit like you're doing that already with the new trolls showing up in the Barbarian Lands being explicitly described as bigger and with different posture, so maybe my comments weren't even necessary, but I just felt the need to iterate them.

Yeah, that's some of what I'm working on. For example, it's like how Erinyes have gone from a solo mini boss encounter to being supporting fodder these days. Incidentally, I did consider something new instead of a few sahuagin raiders, but with all the crap you had stacked on you with this quest, I figured it would be best to keep things simple.

Anyway, thanks and I'll bear all this in mind. It gave me some stuff to think about.

[Ebiris]

Also!

Making custom magic items through random experimentation, like Frozen Oath and Antipode. I miss that.

[Taishyr]

We are getting more disjointed, and that's in part because ONE of us just HAS to never be AROUND more often than not. ...That part of the issue will be remedied by late July/beginning of August, and then from there we'll see but there won't be any more of this pansy "I can't stay up that late" crap.

Yeah, old-fashioned dungeon crawl - for the Second Resort seal, for the Elven Resort, maybe the Beach Resort... er uh anyway, yeah, that'd be cool. Um. There is the slight bit of Weirdness regarding opposition, but not only is it kinda inevitable but it also is usually sensically presented, so yeah.

Mmm. Geh, had more of this before a computer restart. Seeing some more of the custom experimentation would be cool, delving back into gnomish ruins one way or another would be sweet. Going to the capital will likely net us some backstory there either way, it'll be interesting to see what another actual Baronies land felt like during the whole second clash with Malmuth since it honestly felt kinda like not much was happening with/from them, which would make sense if Balmuria and not Mystical Capital Fancypants City was the capital, but. >_>

Also, Malmuth: Russia or Germany?

Anyway. Still interesting to see how people are reacting to the three heroes in various forms; Seira and Deme have seen a lot of this, not so sure how much Alicia has. So uh yeah.

On the final tangent, yeah it makes sense Pollyanna hasn't leveled yet, as you said she's mainly just been training. Fire arrows against devils aren't the wisest of ideas, you know?

[Anastasia]

Yeah, old-fashioned dungeon crawl - for the Second Resort seal, for the Elven Resort, maybe the Beach Resort... er uh anyway, yeah, that'd be cool. Um. There is the slight bit of Weirdness regarding opposition, but not only is it kinda inevitable but it also is usually sensically presented, so yeah.

When you guys do wanna get together and plunge into one of the dungeon hooks you have, by all means lemme know.

Anyway, yeah. Part of the design process on my end is making sure I can fix up believable ways for suitable opposition to show up. Considering the state of the world, this often takes a fair bit of thought. However, your various deeds have made it a helluva lot easier.

Mmm. Geh, had more of this before a computer restart. Seeing some more of the custom experimentation would be cool, delving back into gnomish ruins one way or another would be sweet. Going to the capital will likely net us some backstory there either way, it'll be interesting to see what another actual Baronies land felt like during the whole second clash with Malmuth since it honestly felt kinda like not much was happening with/from them, which would make sense if Balmuria and not Mystical Capital Fancypants City was the capital, but. >_>

Yes. Balmuria's very much become a focal point for the Baronies. It leaves the capital in mystery, which does make you wonder...>_>

Also, Malmuth: Russia or Germany?

Russia. They had great hordes and a charismatic monster of a leader. Granted, that's not that far off from Germany anyway. Really, the two weren't that different when you peel away all the nationalistic crap. Anyway, the point is that they were meant to be way out of your weight class for raw population and resources, to reinforce that a war of attrition wasn't terribly productive over the short and mid term.

The Baronies won in part last time due to collapsing Malmuthian leadership and will. That doesn't work so well with a fanatic on the throne.

Anyway. Still interesting to see how people are reacting to the three heroes in various forms; Seira and Deme have seen a lot of this, not so sure how much Alicia has. So uh yeah.

I've made a point to try and have all of you see it in various ways, sizes and shapes. Sometimes it's obvious, sometimes it's very subtle.

On the final tangent, yeah it makes sense Pollyanna hasn't leveled yet, as you said she's mainly just been training. Fire arrows against devils aren't the wisest of ideas, you know?

Oh, I know, I'm just saying. Archers have issues against outsiders in general. The useful elemental damage enhancements shit out and beating DR can be a concern unless you blow money on a selection of material arrows. Plus, you can't use flanking to get SA and most outsiders have really good spot checks. So really, it's not a winning setup.