The Chosen Ones

Off-Topic => Questionnaire => Topic started by: CoNteMpT on March 28, 2013, 04:29:49 pm


Title: CoNteMpT
Post by: CoNteMpT on March 28, 2013, 04:29:49 pm
1: Poor
2: Fair
3: Average
4: Good
5: Excellent

versions ive played: i play your campaign more or less frequently for 3 years now, but here ill talk about version 1.9a

1) Gameplay - What do you think about the gameplay. For example, are the abilities, items and spell book spells fine? Is there too much killing? Is the campaign too repetitive?

the gameplay in chapter 1, 5, 6 and 7 is excellent. chapter 2, 3, 4 and everything after 7 feel a bit slow and dont really keep going as hard as the better ones. probably because of lack of story progress and content.  the items, spells and abilities are fine. too much killing? i think its not enough killing, but some of the killing we got is too mindless and not connected to quests, story or purpose. i would appreciate if i had the opportunity to fight bigger groups of monsters more frequently that are actually connected to something more than just grinding.

the gameplay in chapter 1 i would say is 6/5, overall its more of a 3.5/5

2) Bosses - What do you think about the bosses at the campaign? Are they challenging, balanced, different and unique enough? What is your favorite boss and what boss could need some improvements?

most of the bosses are amazing and actually most of them are balanced aswell. i only have one really big problem with some of them: often times their spells have no real way to initially recognize them. sometimes you just fight if you dont know the game and out of nowhere you die. bam. dead. what the **** just happened. on my first playthrough in 1.9a where i didnt play the campaign for a long time and especially not the later chapters, i died many times without knowing what even happened.
i think spells that are really lethal if you dont avoid them should "announce" themselves more, with non-harmfull effects before the damage hits, for example: the axobada-dimension quest in chapter 9 with fradz: i played it for the first time and suddenly - dead. how could i know hes going to throw lightning, and how could i know where? i couldnt. so i died. same thing happens at a lot of boss fights with a lot of spells and that really shouldnt exist because that way it becomes trial and error, and thats a system of boss fights that should be reserved for dark souls and dark souls only.
other than that, if you added more visibility to make the players foresee deadly spells better, it would all be very great.
i think my favorite bossfight is against the invisible monster in chapter 5 even though it has one trial-and-error spell aswell but as i remember right now, its not instakill. other than that he is so ingenious, i love him.
my least favorite boss probably is the obelisk boss in chapter 9, hes horrible and his black nova has zero recognition and instakills everything below 12K hp.

about balance: in chapter 9, the two jurxy's in the top left corner are basically unbeatable. you CANT beat them if you dont seperate them, and if you seperate them, you basically fight two jurxys after another, which is rather easy and defeats the purpose of placing them next to eachother. please completely remove them and put in another boss, or put in a jurxy with more hitpoints or whatever. having two of them is just bad.

and the chapter-bosses are, most of the time,  too easy for my taste, especially all chapter bosses from chp5 onwards. they are so weak, they could be normal monsters. actually in chapter 6 you have these patrolling skeletal guardians. they could defeat their boss easily. why is their boss so weak?
in general you could say: if a chapter boss dies before i can read the stats of the item i could potentially steal from him, he's too weak.
and im talking extreme here.

my rating would be 3/5 which sounds kinda sad because i love your bossfights. still, too many things that drag down the big picture.

3) Difficulty - What is your opinion about the difficulties. What difficulty did you play? What was your impression about it? Do you think the difficulties are balanced enough or do they need improvements?

the difficulty on higher difficultys seems, except the thing i described on the boss panel, very good.
about the lower difficultys i dont know because the only time i played on lower than hard was on my first play where i played on normal and i remember that to be pretty easy. anyways, i think the difficulty setting is great.
my only problem is where you can "cheat" on the difficulty a bit with items that instantly kill monsters below your level. i feel like they make the game, especially bosses with summons, VERY easy and also defeat the purpose of normal monsters. you drink an exp potion at the beginning of a level (if even needed) and basically all normals monsters die without you having to fight them.
i know you probably created those items to increase the speed and flow of the game and as a veteran player i KINDA like them because i dont have to sit through the stupid trashmobs every time, but basically they defeat the purpose.
i wouldnt remove them but i also dont like them because it feels like somehow cheating. not sure about this.

overall balance 4,5/5

4) Terrain - What do you think about the terrain? Is it eye candy or not? What you believe is the most beautiful place and what should be improved.

holy **** the terrain. i LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE chapter 1 and i LOOOOOOOOVE chapter 5. other than that, its... humble. chapter 2 basically has no terrain except the murloc place and even though its supposed to be partially desert, its too realistic (really 'deserted' and stuff). i would enjoy different textures and maybe dunes in the desert
http://optimusspine.deviantart.com/gallery/450613 (http://optimusspine.deviantart.com/gallery/450613)
check this on what a desert can look like.

chapter 3 is decent for what the theme is about, cant really comment on it.
chapter 4 though bothers me since it really doesnt look like a swap but not like a jungle either. i know its supposed to be marshes but that level just feels dirty, but PROBABLY thats what marshes should feel like? at least it does make me feel SOMETHING, so it could be considered good.
chapter 6 is also on a very high level, its really good. chapter 7 is amazing from the pure thought you put into that city, even though a third of it is occupied by that useless toy-racing track.
my suggestion would be to remove the toy racing and put in something useful like some sort of slums with illegal fights to the death (similar to the arena but for **** duelists only, and less "rules" at least for your enemys).

chapter 8 and 9 i hate so much right now, i would rather want to leave them out of my rating but since i cant, here it goes.
3/5. yep. not more. thanks to chp8/9.

5) Atmosphere - What do you think about the atmosphere of the campaign? Too funny? Too sad? And what about music, does it fit?

okay here goes my favorite part. the atmosphere overall can be considered GODLY. you DID play legend of dragoon right? yes, its that kind of atmosphere where you get a boner before you even start playing just from the expections it creates in your mind.
not too funny but perfectly fine, MAYBE the funny part is too much on fradz side, but its very well integrated in the story and overall feeling. the feeling of sadness and hatred in the first chapter is amazing and can also be considered godly. its so well written man, just wow. the only problem with the atmosphere for me is after he defeats xada when phodoms own story gets kinda "cut off" for the greater purpose of the dragon quest and all you get from that point on is only in chapter 7, and its all optional.
lets say i didnt check all the cinematics in therdoom castle and lets say i didnt fight the epic boss and get to see the cinematics, then i actually start forgetting that phodom ever had problems. i forget that he lost his family and i forget that hes actually a broken man. oh, and  to give you credit, the crystal quest from chapter 9 brings back some memorys but its optional aswell.
i think connecting phodoms sad fate to later chapters would be very satisfying because even if you have three characters, emotionally you still connect with phodom the most, so i want to have this sadness and lonelyness with me all the time. dont let me forget about it, phodom wouldnt forget either.

okay now to the music: i think its unbelieveably good but later on it gets too repetetive. it would be great if you threw in some new tracks and in kar'gath maybe even something thats very heavy and evil.
i know it uses up alot of space and is bad for the load time if you have multiple tracks in one map but how about this: legend of dragoon - ruined celes soundtrack for only the area of the destroyed city and rot'afor in chapter 8? THAT is atmosphere.

other than that, yeah, just change the music more so that each or almost each chapter has its own recognizeable soundtrack fitting the overall chapter theme, and dont be shy to have an area in the chapter (like rot'afor) that gets its own soundtrack just to make it stand out more and support the feeling it should create.
also, as last point, i want the legend of dragoon theme back that you had to introduce all levels.

as a rating i give 3,5/5 because even though its really good, its also too limited later on and since its always the same or similar music, i kinda forgot at some point that this campaign even has music. until a bossfight starts, ofcourse ; )

6) Story - What do you think about the story. Is too simple or confusing? Is it mysterious and complicated enough? What is your favorite character?

its godly, enough said. my favorite character is tharo.
6/5

7) Cinematics - What do you think about the cinematics. Tell what is the worst and the best cinematic and why.

cinematics are hard to judge really because one cinematics experience is based so much on everything that happened in this chapter before and the overall design, its just really hard to judge.
my favorite cinematics are, i guess, all those related to phodoms family in chp1, all tharo cinematics especially the one with the dragon in chp7 aswell as the yugrimar cinematic which made me feel extremely extremely weak and meaningless.

what i cinematics i dont like is very hard to say since i dont remember them very well, naturally. the first that comes to mind is the cinematic in kar'gath after defeating xada. basically they cheer-talk alot and fradz+galeoth blabla alot while phodom should be the main focus here. he just killed the murderer of his family and is most likely motionally torn apart right now, but still he talks like its all cool and hey galeoth long time no see. that cinematic just disturbs me. cant think of any others right now.

oh yes, and i think the text-speed in all NON-MAINSTORY cinematics should be increased.
so overall your cinematics are very good and deserve a rating of 4/5

8) All things considered, how would you describe your playing experience the game? What could be done better and what you believe doesn't anymore need my attention?

i can tell you how i feel when playing TCO.
it all starts like this: i turn on the campaign and immediately im like "oh cool, character customization". then the first chapter begins and i immediately love the characters and the music and i love that i actually feel the LOVE between phodom and his family. not sure how you made it that good, but it catches me completely.
then during the whole first chapter i feel brilliant, its amazing. dont touch the first chapter except for bugs.
in the second chapter though, i feel a little bit disturbed by being taken away from what horrible and emotionally tying experience i just had with phodom. whos this other guy and why do i have to play him NOW? okay, after a while i actually get into him because he seems to have an outstanding personality and i just bond with im, hes cool and after fighting the epic boss i loved him. im very satisfied and im totally curious about those two meeting up. lets get going.
chapter three, oh god no, not another character and not in a level without other people where he can have no conversations and develop zero personality. who the **** is this old man? i dont know **** about him and i sadly dont learn **** about him either during the whole chapter, except that he somehow is possessed with searching for dragons but i dont learn why, i dont learn about his past, about anything.
basically i just "work" my way through this chapter not because the gameplay, bosses and quests are insufficient, but because i dont know about the character and i couldnt care less about him, and to the very day the introduction of galeoth left scars on me since i STILL not like him, even though i now know alot more about him. also, hes weak and squishy and useless, but thats just a side-effect.
so chapter 3 really rips me out of every feeling i had for the characters. then chapter 4 comes along and its KINDA good when it directly connects to the first one, but since it has to get you OUT of galeoth ( which isnt too hard~~ ) and fradz and back to phodom, it does rather weak. at least you meet some other dragon slayers who dont matter for **** but are at least a bit of a distraction, so you finish that chapter too.

chapter 5 is where it gets going again. i love it and its amazing, you learn so much about fradz, phodom, THARO and also dragons and history of balgaron, its just extremely good. chapter 6 is the most massive chapter in the game and on the first playthrough i remember it took me SIX hours to complete 100% on EASY... and just as a side effect, it never gets boring for all those six hours. **** yugrimar, he knows his stuff.
chapter seven is very nice but realy ONLY if you get all the optional stuff done. the plot progress here is weak and doesnt get me into anything. you should connect more optional things to the main progress and this chapter would be golden, no need to even add anything.
after chapter seven, it sadly only feels like grinding and work to me. up until now im still very disappointed with chp 8 and 9.

so overall i give you a rating of 3/5 here too, which doesnt really reflect on how well you did at some points. if i had to rate the chapters individualle it would be like 100/5 for the first one.
so what i recommend here is to make the player bond with the characters more and be emotionally involved in their story, just like phodom.

9) Would you recommend this campaign to your friends?

i allready did many times, but when im asked like this, no, i wouldnt until its finished. paradox but thats what i would say.

10) How did you found this campaign? You might have any hints for me to bring this campaign more to the daylight? Some sites for example where I could advertise the campaign?

i probably found it by randomly browsing hive. sorry mate, but wc3 is basically dead and i doubt that there are any sites besides hive where you could really advertise it. there's this german community site called inwarcraft.de but there are not too many people left and man i dunno, i wish there was a way, but i know none.


keep up the astonishing work
sincerely
CoNteMpT
Title: Re: CoNteMpT
Post by: liauyuancheng on March 31, 2013, 10:59:24 am
the gameplay in chapter 1, 5, 6 and 7 is excellent. chapter 2, 3, 4 and everything after 7 feel a bit slow and dont really keep going as hard as the better ones. probably because of lack of story progress and content.

OMG totally agree with you. Chapt 2,3 and 4 seriously nd some revamp nxt time to develop the story further!! Now, it's just mindless travelling.....

i only have one really big problem with some of them: often times their spells have no real way to initially recognize them. sometimes you just fight if you dont know the game and out of nowhere you die. bam. dead. what the **** just happened. on my first playthrough in 1.9a where i didnt play the campaign for a long time and especially not the later chapters, i died many times without knowing what even happened.

Yeah thats true, but I guess we should suck it up and live on. Such boss fights is actually a trial and error game for beginners cause they do not know what kind of spells and events bosses can do. This forces people to learn from mistakes (aka deaths) and take steps to avoid dying again. So nothing should or can be done to this.

if you dont avoid them should "announce" themselves more, with non-harmful effects before the damage hits
other than that, if you added more visibility to make the players foresee deadly spells better, it would all be very great.

Agree! That was my suggestion to Aero too, allowing bosses to shout the name of the spell/event before casting it.

and the chapter-bosses are, most of the time,  too easy for my taste, especially all chapter bosses from chp5 onwards. they are so weak, they could be normal monsters. actually in chapter 6 you have these patrolling skeletal guardians. they could defeat their boss easily. why is their boss so weak?
in general you could say: if a chapter boss dies before i can read the stats of the item i could potentially steal from him, he's too weak.
and im talking extreme here.

Agree too! The normal bosses and minibosses generally only has one spell to cast, which is quite lame and easy for the player to defeat them... Suggested to add more spells to increase difficulty.

chapter 7 is amazing from the pure thought you put into that city, even though a third of it is occupied by that useless toy-racing track.
my suggestion would be to remove the toy racing and put in something useful like some sort of slums with illegal fights to the death (similar to the arena but for **** duelists only, and less "rules" at least for your enemys).

Agreed! The car race track takes up WAYYY too much space, which can be converted to other stuff, like more optional quests to complete and more minibosses to fight.
Title: Re: CoNteMpT
Post by: Aeroblyctos on April 03, 2013, 02:58:50 am
The problem with the story is that I created a very weak basic structure 5 years ago when I was young and fool. After that I've been trying to improve the story more and more. Some things however I cannot change and that is why the story is occasionally ****. It's too late to change now, I can't forever be stuck on this one abomination story. I'll move to "higher level" by writing the  book that continues the story.

most of the bosses are amazing and actually most of them are balanced aswell. i only have one really big problem with some of them: often times their spells have no real way to initially recognize them. sometimes you just fight if you dont know the game and out of nowhere you die. bam. dead. what the **** just happened. on my first playthrough in 1.9a where i didnt play the campaign for a long time and especially not the later chapters, i died many times without knowing what even happened.
i think spells that are really lethal if you dont avoid them should "announce" themselves more, with non-harmfull effects before the damage hits, for example: the axobada-dimension quest in chapter 9 with fradz: i played it for the first time and suddenly - dead. how could i know hes going to throw lightning, and how could i know where? i couldnt. so i died. same thing happens at a lot of boss fights with a lot of spells and that really shouldnt exist because that way it becomes trial and error, and thats a system of boss fights that should be reserved for dark souls and dark souls only.

Like what other bosses than Axobada?

about balance: in chapter 9, the two jurxy's in the top left corner are basically unbeatable. you CANT beat them if you dont seperate them, and if you seperate them, you basically fight two jurxys after another, which is rather easy and defeats the purpose of placing them next to eachother. please completely remove them and put in another boss, or put in a jurxy with more hitpoints or whatever. having two of them is just bad.

But I want Jurxys to be there. In the epic boss fight you can too fight against multiple Jurxys so I don't see reason why I should delete them. Are they really that hard? Why?

and the chapter-bosses are, most of the time,  too easy for my taste, especially all chapter bosses from chp5 onwards. they are so weak, they could be normal monsters. actually in chapter 6 you have these patrolling skeletal guardians. they could defeat their boss easily. why is their boss so weak?
in general you could say: if a chapter boss dies before i can read the stats of the item i could potentially steal from him, he's too weak.
and im talking extreme here.

The idea is that you don't need to complete all quests and kill all enemies to require to finish the campaign. The basic bosses should be easy enough. I will however, make this boss a little stronger.

after chapter seven, it sadly only feels like grinding and work to me. up until now im still very disappointed with chp 8 and 9.

You think chapter 8 and 9 is are dissapointment? Why?

Quote from: liauyuancheng
Agree! That was my suggestion to Aero too, allowing bosses to shout the name of the spell/event before casting it.

I do not like the way that bosses shout their magics. It feels like Naruto/Bleach/One Piece which looks so stupid.

Quote from: liauyuancheng
Agree too! The normal bosses and minibosses generally only has one spell to cast, which is quite lame and easy for the player to defeat them... Suggested to add more spells to increase difficulty.
Then start a topic, tell a boss and a new spell to it. Your current topic just randomly tells boss spell ideas.

Quote from: liauyuancheng
Agreed! The car race track takes up WAYYY too much space, which can be converted to other stuff, like more optional quests to complete and more minibosses to fight.
The chapter has enough of mini-bosses already. And I don't want to create too many quests to a single chapter. But I was thinking to create a Death Knight quest.
Title: Re: CoNteMpT
Post by: CoNteMpT on April 04, 2013, 04:58:01 am
1. the bosses without enough visibility to their spells that i have in mind right now are only axobada and the obelisk from chp 9. there are more, but i cant remember them now.

2. no problem about the jurxys, i just think two of them at the same time are a bit too much, but no problem if you want it like that. i just have to get better.

3. yes, chapter 8 and 9 are very disappointing. especially 8 though. there is so little to do and basically everything there is, is extremely boring. that crystal cave puzzle  is so boring. the obelisk puzzle i cant figure out really because sometimes i let the characters attack in a certain order and something happens and the next time i let them attack in the same order and nothing happens. just cant figure it out.
also aside from the main quest which takes like 2 minutes, there is VERY little to do. the best part is that 1on1 fight between fradz and the elemental boss.
there is no addition to the story at all. the trolls have nothing to do with anything and yeah, you got that "The Healer" fight, which is kinda good, but i dont know man. it just feels like the level is completely empty and has a boring design. i cant help it.

chapter 9 just feels very unfinished. the terrain of the caves is very plain and its VERY straight forward. its actually a cool idea to have the heros seperately fight death knights and a cavemonster boss but... you know, it just FEELS so empty all chapter long, nothing really goes on.
the truth about fradz yeah, but thats really just a conversation. nothing really HAPPENS or anyhing.
tbh i dont even remember how they even noticed...^^

Title: Re: CoNteMpT
Post by: liauyuancheng on April 04, 2013, 06:46:27 am
Quote from: liauyuancheng
Agreed! The car race track takes up WAYYY too much space, which can be converted to other stuff, like more optional quests to complete and more minibosses to fight.
The chapter has enough of mini-bosses already. And I don't want to create too many quests to a single chapter. But I was thinking to create a Death Knight quest.
[/quote]

I suggest to include a Death Knight quest for Chapters 5, 6 and 7. Currently, only chapters 4, 8 and 9 have it. Continuation and development of storyline is important. :)
Title: Re: CoNteMpT
Post by: Aeroblyctos on April 11, 2013, 02:56:17 am
1. the bosses without enough visibility to their spells that i have in mind right now are only axobada and the obelisk from chp 9. there are more, but i cant remember them now.

I see. But the boss just has that carrion swarm and it always starts from the north so it shouldn't be a problem. Is there another spell that is a problem?

chapter 9 just feels very unfinished. the terrain of the caves is very plain and its VERY straight forward. its actually a cool idea to have the heros seperately fight death knights and a cavemonster boss but... you know, it just FEELS so empty all chapter long, nothing really goes on.
the truth about fradz yeah, but thats really just a conversation. nothing really HAPPENS or anyhing.
tbh i dont even remember how they even noticed...^^

chapter 9 just feels very unfinished. the terrain of the caves is very plain and its VERY straight forward. its actually a cool idea to have the heros seperately fight death knights and a cavemonster boss but... you know, it just FEELS so empty all chapter long, nothing really goes on.
the truth about fradz yeah, but thats really just a conversation. nothing really HAPPENS or anyhing.
tbh i dont even remember how they even noticed...^^
The idea is for chapter 9 is that it is first straight forward but after the heroes unite then the chapter is open. And nothing really happens after the truth is told because they are still shocked. At the interlude between 9 and 10 happens but also in the last chapter.

And about the terrain; no can do. I'm a **** terrainer and that is best I can do with cave terrain.

And once again, the campaign basic structure has been created long time ago and I can't do anything about it anymore. I will just have to do my best to improve the poor house I build years ago. I feel like this is a great introduction for the world of Oelivert. The well designed story is being written to the book. This is just the beginning.

I suggest to include a Death Knight quest for Chapters 5, 6 and 7. Currently, only chapters 4, 8 and 9 have it. Continuation and development of storyline is important. :)
Chapter 7 will have an optional quest about the death knights. I feel like the death knights are for the later story so they're not so much shown at the early chapters.