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Post by Psionic-Entity on Aug 12, 2018 16:14:59 GMT -5
Update Today:
- Redid the clues and hints in the thermal ruins dungeon. - Added additional dungeon clues and lore to library books. - Bug fixes.
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Post by Psionic-Entity on Sept 9, 2018 20:35:43 GMT -5
Update Today:
- Northern expedition area is open and can be accessed from the East gate via train and then ship. Level range is 65-75. - Finished a boss encounter for a new northern area dungeon, expected release around when the areas get moved to the dwarven realms. - Bug fixes.
RP for the expedition areas is that anyone can arrive about 10 weeks after the settlement's founding date. A crew has already left for the very far North, and the current settlement is being managed by representatives of the Walker corporation, who are allowing irregulars from Calidor to come up and help map out terrain, drive out unwanted beasts, and keep supply ships safe.
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Post by Psionic-Entity on Sept 21, 2018 14:01:02 GMT -5
Update today:
- Bug fixes and content update for the North areas.
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Post by Psionic-Entity on Nov 18, 2018 12:21:39 GMT -5
Update Today:
- Added several new hat appearances for all races. - Added the past several weeks of update notes mentioned in feedback/suggestions. - Bug fixes.
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Post by Psionic-Entity on Nov 24, 2018 15:04:32 GMT -5
Update Today:
- Bug fixes and some backend updates.
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Post by Psionic-Entity on Dec 16, 2018 18:41:30 GMT -5
Update Today:
- Some area and hak updates with new placeables. - Changed dragon behavior so they'll fly down from nests after a fixed amount of time. - Bug fixes.
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Post by Psionic-Entity on Dec 23, 2018 23:15:19 GMT -5
Update Today:
- Added some winter content. - New snow system using less placed effects, hopefully lighter on systems. - Fireworks have been changed to have projectiles that rest on the ground before firing. - Added a new hospital area in downtown, and moved the morgue there as well from the trade quarter. - Temple of Hera now has an inner sanctum, similar to the one in the cathedral this will eventually be members only.
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Post by Psionic-Entity on Dec 30, 2018 22:06:42 GMT -5
Update Today:
- Character sheet UI now populates automatically when opened. - Retraining is now done by selecting an ability from a list rather than a separate window. - Bug fixes.
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Post by Psionic-Entity on Aug 9, 2020 14:21:56 GMT -5
Reopening this thread because I've been working on a remake and it's at a point where most of the work is done. Until we get closer to launch I'm going to make some larger posts about whole issues rather than the usual bullet points. New Store UIThe default nwn2 store UI carries some pretty big limitations so I've set up a custom one that lets us make some important changes to economy and item prices. The old UI was limited by a fixed formula for pricing items to be bought from players, namely a percentage of the item's value, capped at some level. With a custom one we can set whatever prices we want, meaning that store buy prices can be unlimited without ruining the player economy. We'll do this by making the sell price a concave function of item value, so while you might get $20 for a $100 item (or 20% of its value), you could only get $500 for a $10000 item (only 5% of its value). We can also make the UI larger to fit modern monitors, and display more item information without the need to examine in a separate window. The new store UI opens showing every item by default, you can restrict down to specific categories by clicking the buttons but this eliminates the need to (for example) navigate to the weapons view when buying from a weapons merchant. Item levels are displayed in their own area instead of in the name, and item weights are included in their own column. The new UI also let us replace gold with our own cash system. Double clicking an item shows a popup window to confirm the buy. Instead of using the player inventory to sell items, the store UI has a switch button that displays items in the player's inventory that the merchant is willing to buy. Zero cost, plot, and ineligible items are hidden. Double clicking or pressing the sell button sells an item after a popup confirmation. The new UI also allows custom pricing for ammunition and fuel, in addition to a much larger stack selection window. You can buy up to 500 rounds at once, at prices much lower than the old minimum.
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Post by Psionic-Entity on Aug 23, 2020 12:08:25 GMT -5
Custom HotkeysThe neverwinter eye menu (like the windows start menu) can be pretty useful for adding new UI elements that don't have assigned hotkeys. So far I've added the new spell system, crafting UI, and ingame manual to it. Since engines doesn't use the quickcast and the standard spellbook, the B and F keys are open to be used for something else. People might have different preferences, so I added a new window that you can use to pick what each of these keys do. I've been considering also trying to add the G key to the list. Engines only uses stealth, detect, and block modes and we might be able to put that on the hotbar.
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Post by Psionic-Entity on Aug 24, 2020 15:53:10 GMT -5
CraftingThe server remake is a chance to change up how crafting and player economy works. The old system really only allowed for one play style, which was to maintain a set of equipment and continuously upgrade it through player crafting. Everything else was more expensive and provided no added benefit other than not needing to hire player crafters. In the new system the price of crafted items will be almost the same as buying a similar item at the store (almost because we don't want max mercantilism to make it cheaper to buy than craft), and the price of improvements is 50% more than the difference in value between the new and old item. This means that for significant improvements it's better to craft something new than to find any old item with the same base type. Hopefully this will make item churn a little more frequent that it is currently and add some opportunities to sell, retire, or trade gear. The net effect is also that it will take more cash to fully outfit a PC, especially at high levels. The new store UI enables this by allowing much higher max buy prices for high level loot. Now it might make sense to sell a level 80 item drop because it won't be capped out. The new crafting UI has room for two additional crafting components and the description window is much larger, which will help with some of the longer descriptions you can get when using multiple item properties. There are also sections for each of the six crafting skills. Pressing the button searches for a party member with a higher skill level and uses their skill for crafting. That party member will receive experience associated with that crafting skill when the crafting is done. A new feature added with this update is guild crafting, which is designed to let players have access to high quality equipment even if they can't find a player crafter to make it for them. Guilds are NPC groups who charge double the usual item creation cost to craft and who do not support item upgrades. Components must be provided by the player, and the guild is only able to add properties for which the player has schematics. Schematics are consumed in the process as well. I wouldn't expect this service to be used much with an active playerbase, but for less active time slots or players who've been alienated from available crafters, it might be the only option.
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Post by Psionic-Entity on Aug 30, 2020 13:17:02 GMT -5
Calidor Areas RevampThe old Calidor areas were a set of continuous 24x24 areas, where each transition would take you to an identical location in the next map. This can be cool in the sense that transitions don't feel jarring and that I don't have to build a big chunk of filler on the outside of each area, but it also has the effect of making the city feel smaller, as if the entire city is represented in a few areas. We also got feedback throughout that the 24x24 size was too tough on many machines, loaded slowly, and caused lag for some players. The new setup moves to 12x12 for all city areas, or 16x16 in some less intensive outdoor ones. Transitions are no longer continuous, so with each one it's implied that characters are traveling much further than just the length of an area. When we say Calidor has a large population, we want it to be convincing. Trade QuarterThis area contains most of the content from the old trade quarter, minus the cathedral and surroundings. Areas from the Northeast side of the original trade quarter such as the adventurers' guild and crafters' union were brought closer to the main square. Cathedral District
This area contains most of the Northwestern content from the original trade quarter. The opera house has been moved in to a much larger building, and the fancier clothing store was moved here from downtown. The cathedral and graveyard are the same as before, but the large city walls to the North were replaced by shorter walls and additional city content. The swamp is now much further away from the cemetery. The Wards
The new wards area connects to the swamp, cathedral district, and warren. It contains the forum of the priory and the public library, as well as the headquarters of a new union-based faction. The Warren
The warren is also a section of the old wards area, it connects to downtown via elevator. Mining District
The mining district is the third area based on the old wards, it connects to the warren and allows access to warehouse rentals, the crags, and some dungeons. Downtown Calidor
Downtown has most of the content from the old area, in particular the casino, hotel, and airport. It connects to the wards, docks district, and university. There's also a new connection on the western side for a train terminal, since the one in the outskirts was removed. Calidor University
Calidor university consists of the old university areas, plus a newly created zone for the hospital and morgue. Docks District
The docks district is mostly the Southern section of the old docks, it has several warehouses, dungeon entrances, and boats that can be used to travel to other areas. Museum DistrictThe museum district has most of the content from the Northern section of the old docks district. The temple of Hera was moved from its old location and made much larger. Calidor Outskirts
The outskirts is based on the old east gate area. City walls are gone, replaced by a gradual buildup of buildings and houses that lead in to the city. It still connects to the swamp and trade quarter, but the train station and mercenary guild were removed. The carnival from the old wards area was moved here.
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Post by Psionic-Entity on Oct 5, 2020 16:13:24 GMT -5
Quests and Dungeons
As part of the relaunch updates we're redoing the leveling scale so that it's faster and easier to go from a fresh character to a mid level one capable of tackling more difficult dungeons and bosses. The biggest change is a large increase to experience gain rates, particularly at lower levels, but this is partially offset by reducing the speed at which dungeons refresh their experience caps to encourage branching out and trying multiple dungeons. I've also reduced the width of dungeon level ranges to be uniform and created a list of dungeons in each range along with a series of quests that point you to the best place to earn experience at your current level. Hopefully these changes will make leveling up a bit more painless without encouraging a style of play that focuses on a few dungeons that might be easy for their level, quick to access, more suited to a certain build, etc.
Quests
In the previous server iteration we mostly relied on word of mouth and trial and error to tell how difficult a dungeon was. Later I added a minimap feature to state an area's level range so that it was more obvious upon entering how difficult it would be. This time around progression will be a little more clearly defined. The option of exploring and checking an area's intended level is still there, but there will also be a series of quests that point you toward dungeons of an appropriate level for your character. You can only unlock these quests once you reach the minimum required level for the dungeon, and completing them gives a sizeable experience reward. Since character experience is a relatively rare commodity the quests will be an integral part of character progression. For quests with multiple endings there will be the same experience reward for each ending, but you might earn additional money, items, or bonus experience for completing them a certain way.
Finding quests can be annoying, particularly when higher level quest givers won't talk to you, so I've added the option to ask innkeepers about where to find work. Each innkeeper will offer the lowest level incomplete quest for their region, as long as least one quest is available for your character's level. Once you've taken the quest, the innkeeper will direct you to the next available one even if you haven't finished. The innkeeper in Calidor will give you a constant stream of quests until around level 50, after which you'll be able to travel to new regions and talk to innkeepers there. By the time relaunch rolls around there will be a quest associated with every single dungeon on the server, even if that dungeon already has a boss mechanic for earning character experience. It should always be the case that you've either visited every dungeon available for a character of your level, or that somewhere on the server an innkeeper can direct you to a quest that you can complete, discovering a new level-appropriate dungeon along the way.
Dungeons
Under the new system every dungeon will have a ten wide range of target levels, for example you'll see dungeons that look like [5-15] or [30-40], but nothing where the high and low end are different by anything other than 10. The number 10 isn't particularly special, but it's round and roughly lines up with how many dungeons I had to work with. Usually there's two areas in each level range, at least one of which is a raid style dungeon that has a boss. This means you'll effectively unlock two new dungeons every 5 levels, and that you'll always have at least 4 options for places to earn experience. Currently there are a few holes (ranges with only one dungeon) but I've got plans to fill them by the time we launch. This will involve a new low level [10-20] dungeon, as well as a couple higher level dungeons to fill the top range. There's only one 100+ level on the server, but this probably won't be added to until after launch.
Part of the reason I'd kept leveling so slow in the old iteration is that I was worried players would end up getting all the way up the leveling ladder while only experiencing a fraction of the dungeon content while in an appropriate level range. It would be bad if everyone played through the same 3 or 4 dungeons until level 80, then went back and crushed all the low level ones to grind boss experience later on. This is also the reason difficulty ended up being so high. By trying to make sure it was difficult or impossible to go through dungeons while underleveled I ended up making it way too hard for less optimized parties to go through content at their level. The combination of quests, innkeeper pointers, and difficulty reductions should mostly address this, but I'm also introducing skill cups in dungeons to go along with skill caps. Skills that are too far under the lower end of the dungeon's range will be trained at a lower rate. It won't drop to zero but a bottom rate of 25% is the current plan.
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Post by Psionic-Entity on Dec 25, 2020 23:50:07 GMT -5
Long time without an update! I blame the holidays and associated business. Adventuring HubsOne problem we had in the old server setup was that it wasn't immediately clear where players should go after finishing on-level Calidor content. The addition of innkeeper hints towards quests for appropriate dungeons helps point the way to fresh areas that won't be too difficult, but if we left everything else the same as before this would have you bouncing between different cities one dungeon at a time. It also wasn't great from a merchants perspective, cities had merchants all around the same level but they didn't necessarily reflect nearby content. Going in to the server reboot we're going to make hub progression take place alongside the breadcrumb quests that lead you to new dungeons. Without spoiling too much of the new content, this is how I envision players progressing under the new hub system. Calidor 0-50 Calidor is the server's starting location, it has enough dungeons to get players to around level 50 and various item stores with equipment in the 1-50 range. Most role playing happens around Calidor so even after level 50 it's necessary to go through it on the way to higher level content or if you want access to certain services like faction headquarters or the crafters guild. Newport 50-60 Newport sells items in the 50-60 range and has several dungeons designed for players between those levels. It's a quick boat ride from Calidor and represents the smallest actual settlement you can travel to. Rough around the edges and not a lot of infrastructure, so you'll find plenty of reasons to go back to Calidor in that level range. After you've completed all the Calidor quests innkeepers everywhere will suggest a trip to Newport, so it's easy to know when you should go. Emerald Isles 60-70 Plencken is the capital city of the Emerald Isles. Shopkeepers there sell items in the 60-70 range and there are a few dungeons that cover those levels, including one longer raid style dungeon. Innkeepers point you here once you're done with quests in the desert. Northern Continent 70-80 Dvergerhove is the largest dwarven city, it's fully underground but you get there through a frozen mountain pass that also has links to exterior exploration areas and dungeons. Shopkeepers have items in the 70-80 range and there are a few raid dungeons that cover those levels as well. Innkeepers point you here once you're done with quests in the isles. Travel and Raid Dungeons 80-100 For the last 20 levels of progression there's only one new hub type area, Sedis, but it only exists for a single dungeon in the 75-85 range that you get pointed towards immediately after finishing quests in Dvergerhove. After that various quests point you back to each of the original hubs for another large dungeon. These take some work so I expect the last 20 levels to take quite a while, even with the faster experience gain. Insane Dungeons 100+ I've half built one of these but there actually is a progression available for post level 100, you can get additional CXP for more ability/stat upgrades. DvergerhoveIntroducing the newest adventure hub, this and the areas around it took up most of my building time for the past few months, but now that those are done I can focus on ironing out the last few dungeons and doing balance/equipment/abilities passes with testing feedback. This is most of the work that needs to be done before we can invite players in in an alpha testing capacity, so I'm pretty excited. Here's some screenshots of the new zones. Here's a screenshot gallery.
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Post by Psionic-Entity on Apr 15, 2021 10:18:56 GMT -5
First update of 2021! QuestsQuests for every dungeon between the levels 0 and 100 are finished! I've also added a series of simple quests offered by henchmen, usually they involve returning to a dungeon several levels after initially reaching the minimum level for it, with the henchman in your party. Completing one of these gives that henchman a small stat increase when you hire them again. Innkeepers will also direct you to talk to henchmen when their quests become available. CantripsOne problem I noticed during playtesting was that magic users felt underpowered during low levels, they sacrifice 25 each of health, stamina, and toxicity in order to get insanity, but only start with one or two spells. To address this I added 8 new cantrip spells, two of which become available immediately after taking any ability in a certain magic skill. These spells are designed to be useful early on, but quickly diminish in value at higher levels due to fixed bonuses and high insanity costs. Each skill gets one passive and one activated spell. TravelA while ago I removed the train station from the eastern gate area of Calidor, which cut Sedis off from the rest of the gameworld. To fix this I finally built the train station area located in downtown Calidor. The entrance has been there since 2016 when I made the area, but it has always been empty. I used the interior/exterior approach again for this one, where the player camera is clamped below the ceiling and some default terrain is visible beneath the tracks.
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