Heroica RPG - Quest Masters' Lounge

[Endgame]

Entertain Me!: The Regret will only let his guard down if his sadism is sufficiently amused. A hero cannot use the same weapon and/or action twice in a row.

...That actually sounds like a viable special, despite being made to be a joke.

[Duvors]

Sorry, But I Am Unable To Act In A Socially Acceptable Manner At The Moment: All heroes become enraged, confused, and stunned.

[StickFig]

Swatting Flies With Nuclear Weapons: The enemy is too small and quick to be hit with anything WP:5 or higher.

[Cutcobra]

Unmovable Object: Rolls of Miss are re-rolled. It's a door, how can you miss.

[Flipz]

I've been tweaking this template (and adding in extra info as I come up with it) for my various characters, but I thought I'd share a blank version of the roleplaying notes template I'm using for all the NPCs on Quest 104, just in case other QMs find it helpful.

<Character Name> - RP

Before Encounter: *The sort of preparations the character would make for a non-combat encounter encounter with the Heroes; Dragonlord, for example, might polish his armor, or Diana might assemble and disassemble her weapon to make sure it's in working order.*

During Encounter: *The character's general course of action in a non-combat encounter; for example, a street thief might try to divert attention away from themselves, while a con man merchant might use haggling and sales pitches to keep the mark occupied while his partner finishes the job.*

Morale: *Overall social attitude, including tactics and abilities they might use to exit/escape a non-combat encounter.*

Avatar image:

General demeanor: *A description of the character as if you had no pictures to show the Questers; this can be surprisingly helpful in describing personality and demeanor as well.*

Descriptive words: *A list of adjectives I can grab from to describe the character; some of Diana's include: Assassin, dark-garbed, sour, silent, bitchy, snobby, stuck-up*

Clothing/garb: *Again, describes aspects of the character's clothing as if there were no pictures; these can be useful in describing a character when we don't know their name yet.*

Languages spoken: *self-explanatory; can give insight into what cultures they've been exposed to, and what their attitudes to them might be like*

Notes:

Background

*Backstory, both relevant to the Quest and not relevant to the Quest; you never know when something might trigger a memory for the character, or some subject may come up in conversation that they might have an opinion on. I have a lot for certain characters, while others only need a few sentences.*

Motivations & Goals

*Fairly straightforward

*These are the reasons the character is present

*Should always be stated as a specific motivation or goal

*Putting in list form keeps them concise and aids organization

*You may want to use numbers instead of bullet points (to create a heirarchy) if you plan to pit these goals against one another a lot

Schemes & Plots

*These are specific plans of the characters

*Schemes and plots are tactics the characters use to fulfill their motivations and goals

*Though the name implies these are secret, it's not necessarily so; an example scheme of a Quest-giver might be "hire a team of Heroes from Heroica to <insert mission here>".

*Each one of these should be traceable to at least one motivation or goal above, though not necessarily vice versa

*There can be multiple schemes for a single goal, or a single scheme that fulfills multiple goals.

*Don't be afraid to change these over time.

Development

*General notes as to how the character will probably develop over the course of the Quest, along with any narrative goals you might want to achieve through them.*

There's also a combat version of this, but that one only has three fields given the simplicity of our system:

Participation Type: [Direct/Buffing/escort/other] (ally/enemy, cooperative/uncooperative)

During Combat: *the character's tactics in combat, which includes who they listen to if they're cooperative or which enemies they'll attack if they're uncooperative*

Morale/Escape: *In what circumstances the character will try to leave combat, and any tactics they may use (Smoke Bomb, Flee, runs when defeated, etc.). This is where I list if an NPC dies if they hit 0 HP in combat*

After that is the normal stat block.

Hope people find this helpful!

Edited July 8, 2014 by Flipz

[Emjajoas]

So for the past little while I've been trying to think up a Quest that'd be fun to take part in/read/QM, and I've got a few ideas that I'm trying to flesh out. That being said, I can't really do much set building and I have never QM'd before (and as people probably know from questing with me, I'm still rather awful with the game mechanics and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't flying by the seat of my pants until recently).

That being said, I was wondering if anyone would like to collaborate? The Quest itself is meant to be funny and playful, and hopefully if we pull it off right as amusing to RP in as to QM. I can PM anyone interested what I have so far. I'm still ironing out details and figuring out how far I can/want to go, but it's enough to bounce around.

Edited July 13, 2014 by emjajoas

[JimBee]

Quest #98: I really enjoyed this one, for the most part. The story has been one of my favorites of all time, mostly because it involved the Moon Elves (who need more development!), but also because it was extremely pertinent to Hybros' character and development.

I enjoyed the characters - Soryx and Posco are both badass characters whose personalities were able to show through a little more in this quest than in 69. Melvin was also a welcome addition, and of course Wally's return was great. His character also has changed, and it will be interesting to see how the outcome of this quest affects him.

As far as PC's go, Pretzel is one of my favorite Heroica characters, and his and Hybros' relationship was one of my favorite parts of the quest. They're very similar in many ways but fundamental and/or superficial differences make them adversaries. Their interactions also seemed dynamic, because while they agree completely on some things (Crimson Crown sux but we have no choice), their way of going about doing it is totally different. The Soul Link Chain offered an interesting medium to fuel their interactions, as well. Jeaux was cool, his cold and frank personality is fitting and sometimes amusing, in a good way. His development has been interesting to follow as well, especially the transition between not knowing and knowing that he is a robot. I wish that had been expanded on more in this quest with the Shades, but he was cool nonetheless. He kind of reminds me of the male AI in one of the Mass Effect games (will post a video if I can find it - EDIT:

. ). Also this:

"Then you remain a threat to this community and must be terminated." Jeaux unshouldered his handcannon, and started loading a round into the barrel.

"I need your robes, your handcannon, and your motorhorse."

I wish Em had been a little more vocal. Yes I understand he is quiet in nature and that you, emjajoas, had run into RL preoccupations several times in the quest. I did enjoy his small character reveal and interaction with Hybros in the PM thread.

Back to the quest itself, I'd like to talk about a few points.

Battles and Balancing: I thought for the most part battles were well balanced, especially at the beginning. Yes, while Hybros can OHKO hordes of enemies, that doesn't mean that the battes weren't challenging. I felt that a good mix of the OHKO-able and weaker Imitation Gnomes and Moon Elf Corpses with the Shades was well-balanced. That being said, other aspects felt imbalanced. Some enemies were just too strong or immune to stuff so that the heroes seemed useless in battle. Jeaux especially. We never used the one-time use Starbeam weapons, but even so a battle should not be decided by NPCs at all, let alone ridiculously OP ones.

I felt that the loot was fair.

Pacing/Timing: I like what Flipz said about the difference between these. There were times where the timing (update speed) felt needlessly slow especially when we were just waiting for an NPC response. But mainly the issue lies with pacing. I think the quest could have taken about a month less and still had all the essential content with faster pacing. E.g. at the beginning when we really had no idea what we were supposed to do when searching Zylstra. I think it was a cool idea for exposition, and even added a very creepy vibe to the environment, but for the time it took to offer just a little introduction and then being told "oh yeah, there's that cavern that just opened, the Shades are probably coming from there"... it probably would have been more effective to just go down there in the first place. I'm not sure though, I still did enjoy that part of the quest but no so much the time that it added.

Overall story and choices: I did feel that we had a lot of choices in this quest that directly affected the outcome of things. What to do with the Baron and Moke while we investigated, how to handle Posco, and who to side with in the climax were some of the most noticeable ones. for that. My only complaint is that the final choice was too one-sided. Maybe in a rare instance a hero would have sided with the Shades, and I really wanted to, but completing the mission was too important and the Shade's refusal to compromise sealed the deal. Even though the Crimson Crown were painted as the evil ones, we really didn't have much of a choice but to side with them in the end. The same issue was apparent in 82. The plus side in this quest, however, was that there were real consequences (Doc's death and Wally's grief, as well as the CC's image). My suggestion is to make the big choices more difficult next time.

I'm sure that seems like a lot of criticism, but frankly there's just more that I can say about the flaws than what made the quest good. And again, I thought the quest was good overall, and really did enjoy it. Thanks for the quest Pie, and I hope to go on another one of yours soon!

[Kintobor]

For the most part I liked what I saw in 98! I thought the plot was good, your characters entertaining and your sets as always excellent. However, I will note that the pacing was off and I felt it dragged a lot. I found it hard to believe the quest was about three months long, and that certain parts felt unnecessarily long. It killed the creepy atmosphere you were clearly trying to build.

Also, some of the fights were almost brutally tough. The Shades during the first fight were quite difficult for the party. Perhaps weening off the immunities would've made it better and more accessible. Other than that, I don't got any real solid gripes, nothing really got under my skin, just things I felt could've been done a bit better. I liked what I saw, Pie, well done!

Edited July 15, 2014 by Kintobor

[Emjajoas]

I have to agree with what everyone said: 98 was an awesome experience, to be sure. I felt a little less awesome about being unfamiliar with the returning characters, but overall it was really cool to interact with them. The pacing was slow at times, and it did diminish from the overall experience (as well as some other things that weren't related to the quest) but I was happy to be along for the ride.

The PCs by far made the quest for me; Having Pretzel and Hybros going at it constantly and have Pretzel constantly make jabs at Jeaux's automaton-ness. It was a really fun quest to be a part of. I've got Em (and his past) ironed out and I know what I want to do with him; I'm hoping to flesh that out a little bit more in the future, especially with his interactions with others. I'll try to be more vocal, or at least vocal in my silence, so to speak.

The loot was good, I felt, and the battles were tough, though they weren't unwinnable and I enjoyed how tough they were. I felt perhaps due to the difficulty of the battles, we could have used a Phoenix Essence drop or two, but overall I was fine with what they were. Tanking an 800 damage explosion is something I doubt I'll ever get to do twice.

The sets were awesome; the mirror puzzle was cool, too. I thought that entire battle with the mirror was just plain awesome.

Again, I'm sorry for dropping the ball mid-quest. I was a little preoccupied for a bit, and I really let it show. Sorry guys. ^^;;

[CMP]

Glad to see you guys enjoyed the Quest.

The pacing did kind of drag on in the middle, for that I apologize. Just bear in mind that's when I was running sixteen person battles and trying to help finish Baltarok. I also think that's also about when exams came up...I noticed the slowness at some point two or three weeks ago and tried to pick up the pace near the end. It was longer than it needed to be, but I hope not offensively slow.

I'm surprised you enjoyed the battles, because I didn't have as nearly as much fun with them as I usually did. For obvious story reasons I couldn't really have a huge range of enemies, save for the Shadowed gnomes, and even then it was pretty straightforward. Still, I'm glad you had fun with them. Sorry if Em and Jeaux didn't contribute much offensively. Both Hybros and Pretzel can deal some really good raw damage, so the enemies had to pretty tough.

Also, Posco wasn't supposed to come with you guys at all. But Hybros had the gall to Command him. I figured it would kind of suck if it just did nothing, something I recall coming up from Baltarok, but he was far more effective than I thought. I think I got the NPC balance down in the final fight. The Scar was strong but I don't he came off as outright overpowered, though I may be wrong.

I tried to weight things in the favor of the Crimson Crown near the end just so that it'd be easier to see things from their point of view. The Baron naturally would've been pretty wary if the heroes left the shades alive. Take a risk and let the shades live, or end the problem here and now? It was the easier choice by design. Whether it was better or not is a matter of perspective.

It can be hard to keep in perspective their ideals when both Hybros and Pretzel have fought them before. I liked how all four heroes interacted with them and the shades. The conflict was obvious, but in the end they did what needed to be done. This Quest is the first in which your choices will be directly affecting whatever (unplanned) finale I come up with. Perhaps you lost Wally's trust but Soryx now knows Heroica gets the job done.

Em

I was surprised to see Em have as much interaction with Selenrae as he did, and I'm looking forward to what else his character turns out to be later. I enjoy the slow pace to his reveals and his somewhat pessimistic view on things. He could voice his view on tough situations a little more often, but I liked the quiet effectiveness of his actions (grumbling or snorting in response to an NPC's proposition, etc.) too.

Hybros

I was excited to have Hybros come along. I know he's got a connection to Zylstra and I think him going on this quest showed why - he sees the city as a bit of an analogue to what he thinks his own culture would be like, isolated under the earth. His interactions with Pretzel were pretty awesome and I enjoyed his mistrust of Soryx and speaking with Posco.

Pretzel

You can't dislike having Pretzel along for your quest. He adds a dynamic to your party that's difficult to get anywhere else. Senile old lunatics are hard to come by in Heroica. As foreseen, his chats with Hybros were great fun to watch, and he genuinely seems to care (a rare occurrence ) for the gnomes, which I found an interesting bit of character. He gets along very well with most of the NPCs. Not so much with his party.

Jeaux

I can never seem to figure out Jeaux. He can seem a lot like a True Neutral at times but generally drifts towards doing the right thing most of the time. He doesn't seem as concerned with philosophy and being as most self-aware machines probably would. He's actually pretty straightforward, though the same can't be said for his summons and his pet fly. I look forward to learning more about him, but he seems to be an effective leader.

Edited July 15, 2014 by CallMePie

[Palathadric]

Sometimes I was wondering if you were specifically making your enemies so that my Dual Staff would be useless in this quest, but those Moon Elf Corpses were satisfying to dispatch of it has to be said. For how difficult the shades were to fight, I wish they would have dropped something in the way of loot, but all-in-all I didn't feel particularly short-changed by this quest (beside the fact that my Magic Shovel never worked ). I had great fun and it's certainly always a pleasure being on your quests. It is interesting how Pretzel seems to get along so well with an awful lot of NPCs, even ones who I wouldn't normally have thought he would (which would have to include Soryx).

I have to say that I much preferred #69 to this one as it was more of an adventure. This one seemed a little bit more like moving from one battle to another. It didn't really bother me though. It was just different. The end was very interesting though. It was great interacting with the other PCs too, especially Hybros. I have to apologize for not really being focused a lot in the middle of the quest. I had a lot on my mind and though I always posted relatively on time it was often nothing more than a one-liner or so or a battle action. I was more focused at the end and it led to some fun interactions that I may have missed otherwise.

I'm sure I have more to say. Overall, this quest has been another great one in my opinion. It was great seeing all the gnomes again.

[Endgame]

This is going to be lengthy, so I apologize in advance.

For those who are (understandably) not going to be able to read the wall of text that is about to follow, I did not enjoy Quest #93.

Plot/Length/Pacing

I'll start with the plot. Sandy, you've woven great stories in the past, but 93 didn't even really had one. There was some context given at the beginning, some information revealed at the end, and that was it. Hell, we even guessed the exact arch demon "working" with Jonah 3 months into the quest, essentially meaning we had the entirety of the plot figured out long before the quest even ended.

The rest was blank space occupied by some of the most aggravating NPCs ever introduced in the game. The clan system introduced no realism and didn't benefit any of the characters, really - and it was never really emphasized enough to even make it a plot point. It was just a six month long chore. It transformed 70+ well designed NPCs into suicidal maniacs who wouldn't budge. Diplomacy? No. Intimidation? No. Logic? Nope. Basic common sense? Not gonna fly. Promiscuity? No dice. I'll explain more about why the system was flawed below, but first I want to talk about the other NPCs.

It really is a shame, because there were a handful of NPCs that were good... They just got constantly trampled over, again and again, by the rest of the crowd. Noel was good, Drucilla was decent, and Sorsha was given depth by Kintobor... And that's it. Hawke got killed off in a sidequest, and Lyren and Nuitan didn't really contribute anything memorable. Almost the entire cast of the quest got objectified in one way or another. Either herd this person to safety, or focus on this person's stats in battle. By the end, the only NPCs who either didn't get fully objectified, dead, or constant annoyances were Noel and Sorsha. Like I said, it really was shame; there was a lot of potential here.

Additionally, with no villain to really pursue, or no mystery surrounding said villain, we lost motivation too. Add in the constant NPC and battle issues, and they sealed the plot's fate. It just was too little, too bogged down with issues such as NPCs, battles, and length. You spread far too little far too much, and the NPCs and battles were the breaking point.

Pacing was touch and go. I understand that you cannot always commit, Sandy, and bleieve me, I respect that - I've hosted 10 quests. But with six months, every absense just got magnified more and more. Additionally, the quest design itself was a little scattered. Or progress would either cruise or be completely sealed off at pretty random intervals, which was jarring every single time. Multiply that by six months, and it's not good. Additionally, memory about the little details faded. If you asked me 2 months in what a certain teacher wnated from his classroom, or who the Rogues were, or that there was even a intruder in the school... And I would've had no idea. In the future, I'd suggest an NPC keeping a journal of facts introduced that the party can refer to whenever.

The six month skip was bizzare as well. it alrtered a few lines of dialogue and... That's it. It's biggest impact was that it had the potential to interfere with character development, albeit reparable damage. It was just... Odd. It felt thrown in at the last minute. Why not introduce it early, and have heroes ponder how much time they're losing in the real world? It could've given the plot a lot more depth, recieving letters from parents with returned children at last/parents whose kids are either missing or deceased... Instead, it's just kind of tacked on to the end.

Escorts Everywhere

The escort system, like I mentioned, commited the cardinal sin of making the escorts annoying or foolish. And there were 73 of them. You called it a quest long puzzle, but really, if the answer is just blurted out whenever we try to mix the wrong cliques, how is it a puzzle? Additionally, we'd run into the impasse where that students who we saved would immediately run away, just because we had no idea who would be in the classrooms. Additionally, although you said opposing clans would follow, just not get into the box; why did things like Mustard's dissapearance then? Or the cyclop's? Or the orc's? Too many exceptions happened to make it an even moderately consistent rule.

Also, why did the escort system had to be designed to harm us if we messed up? Why not benefit us if we did it right? If I was forced to have 73 escortable kids of different alignments in my quest, the heroes would recieve benefits for mixing them correctly, and not be penalized for not doing so. Why not make the Chrls encourage us if we had four of them in a room at once? Why not have Foureyes tell us the enemies' attack patterns if there were enough in the room, making us Dodgy? Stuff like that.

The escort system wasn't just a hindrance to us, Sandy - it was a hindrance to you and your plot as well. It made 90% of everyone encountered in a 6 month quest just... unbelievable. I saw next to none of the students as characters, and barely got attached to the ones that fought for us. Because of the way previous students acted and the clan system, it just made them objects and goals, not characters. Of course, Sandy, I can't expect anyone to introduce 70+ characters within six months. But perhaps that is one of the flaws of the system: There was just far, far too many. If you absolutely need 73 escorts, you probably should've made them, at the very least, not a constant aggravation.

And perhaps worst of all was the fact that the escorts were kids. None of our characters - not even Heckz, really - could justify leaving so many kids to just die. We had to ride the rest of the quest through, or risk putting our character's development at stake.

Battles

The first three were good - in fact, very enjoyable. I liked the taxidermied animals, the Reaper puzzle was pretty good, and the gimmick behind the flower enemy was fresh. Everything else, though was less than enjoyable.

Saga: Suddenly introduced passive specials for added difficulty. I understand you wanted Saga to appear menacing, Sandy, but were the rather scary side quests not enough? It almost would've been good irony, having the demon who wove such perilous stories getting stomped out so quickly. Instead a Gorgmas gift just wnet to waste, and a passive special suddenly thrown int to prevent Saga from going down too easily. It was pretty unfair move - I've had battles completely nullified by Pumpkin Bombs in the past, and I just sat back and let it happen. There was no reason or need for a QM intervention.

Ghosts: I actually did like this one. It was a puzzle battle, and it ended quickly.

Wyrdfire: The gimmick of this fight was okay, but I'm not sure why we had to spend two days prancing around to build it up. Why couldn't Drucilla tell us to do a pincer movement from the beginning and save us an update or two? Beyond that, it was the same case as Saga; the battle suddenly changed to challenge us more. Except this time, the enemy actually put up a pretty good fight before it was suddenly changed! Why? It was especially noticeable, since all the change did was keep the students in peril. We already took out the danger to them, there was no reason to continue. We strategized so that the students would stop getting hurt, and then... They kept getting burned anyway!

Aureole: This is the quest caved, big time. There was no sort of choice against this beast. When the planets went done, Aureole was weak to nothing introduced in Heroica. It had a boatload of HP, and no strategical way to approach it. It got even worse when pleadies got suddenly killed, something we didn't even know could happen, and the demon turned into a TPKO machine. It'd kill our escorts, and possibly even us, in one fell swoop, and there really was no strategy or way around it. We just wailed on it and hoped. It was almost a brick wall by definition. Something that couldn't be approached, and if confronted, had a good chance of wiping us out. Battles should have meaningful choice. This one didn't have any, and the enemy was downright lethal, to boot.

Rusulka: This one was okay, and a nice breather after Aureole. I'm guessing he would've escaped to the Girl's Room, and we would've had to fight him there? It would've been a bit tedious, but after Aurole, it was a welcome change.

Armor: It felt like this battle was only there to waste time... I mean, the armor had next to no offesnive capability, and the entire battle revolved around hoping we wouldn't be unlucky enough to trigger another battle extending special. I don't see why it was included, other than for the sake of another battle.

Cacophonia: This was my least favorite battle to ever appear in Heroica, and for so many reasons. It had a cool design, yes, but it was mathematically unbeatable. With 7 escorts in the room, 10% of our objective was liable to dissapear if we fled, so that wasn't really an option. This battle was insane - I know you intended for it to be beatable, Sandy, but it simply wasn't. I think the best case scenario was that we'd have 1 party memeber left at the end of round one, and... What then? Have them absorb 14 free hits? It didn't seem like it was proofread, really - just kind of rushed out the door. Especially after Aureole, it wasn't a good thing to see.

But there was a second component to this. This was right after you told us to split up, and told us that it would make the quest move faster, and told us you had control over the battles. Then you did the exact thing that made us not want to split up in the first place. We lost a lot of trust in you after that - we didn't know what you woul do, what you would nullify, etc. This fight, beyond being impossible until being rebalanced, made the party lose trust in you, Sandy.

Darkness Battle: This one could've really worked if you allowed communication, but other than that it became a guessing game. After Cacophonia, I was really afraid taht the party would all target Enemy A and get clobbered by free hits, but fortunately, the enemy was relatively nonlethal. Still, cutting off communcation like that was groan inducing.

Forculus: This made the quest come to a screeching halt. it was another luck based fight, much like the Darkness. One bad roll set us back days upon days. This was the point where we all just wnated to get out of this quest, and this battle just kept stalling and stalling and stalling.

Final Battle: Return of the mirror clones! Yay! "Special free hits" - not exaclt yay. Mirror Drucilla? Very not yay. Mirror Drucilla was insane. Any battle, whether a boss, a Threshold Monster, a boss of a stroy arc, a grand finale boss, the final boss of the whole game, should not have a TPKO Free Hit and Special. Combine this with the bizzare ruling of Special Free Hits, and you have a battle with so much potential it kind of loses its shine. Sealing has been around since I very first joined, back in the days where Quest 15 was still ongoing. To have its definition suddenly changed and altered for a single battle was just weird, not to mention a bit aggravating. There's ways to create a tough battle without altering the core of the rules. It's especially glaring as you're the one who made the effect and enforced it in the first place...

Overall: A few good ones that are bogged down with the staggering number of subpar and downright unpleasant ones. Difficulty was all over the place and inconsistent.

Plus, was there any need for so many battles? next to none relayed any real plot. Very few were even characters, or had speaking lines. You could cut the amount of rooms, students, and battles in half and get the same quest.

Sidequests

I'll speak for mine personally, and if I had to choose one word for it, it'd be "unintuitive." Players need to get a grip on their surroundings, especially when the rules change so suddenly. I needed to get a grasp on how this new world worked, and it all happened too fast with too many consequences to make it enjoyable. From the very beginning, any action I took more or less condemned Caloriel and Hawke. Fire an arrow? Some one dies! Think it's a one time affair and try again? More people die! Stop and hold your ground? Bad things happen. Try firing again? Nothing happens to the monster! Hold your ground and try nonviolence? pretty much everyone dies!

Overall, it felt like It was a "damned if I do, damned if I don't" scenario, where I failed as son as I entered the archery competition. If there was a third option, I wouldn't know - I've never read the story of Robin Hood, and to stop metagaming, I didn't I wanted to react as Sorrow would, and ultimately, it seemed like there was nothing I could do.

Similaritieas to Q50:

-Huge, expansive, somewhat jumbled dungeon

-A boatload of NPCs that go more or less undeveloped, with a counter in both to boot.

-Battle after battle after battle

-Occasional puzzle

All while playing through 93, I had one recoccuring thought: "This is 50 all over again." They really are similar - it's more or less an escort mission flavor of Quest 50. We started to display the same feeling as the Quest 50 party did, and at some points, we thought the quest would end like 50 did: With the players so exasperated they just gave up and succumbed.

Pictures

For what it's worth: 93 had, in my opinion, the best sets/photography out of all of Heroica. :thumbup: The sets were large and expansive, not to mention detailed, the photography as crisp as could be, the editting great, and the designs for the NPCs and demons fantastic.

HUGE in this aspect, Sandy! I loved the pictures, but the rest of the quest became too much to endure. The pictures kept me going for the first 25%, but eventually even they couldn't help that much...

Experimentation:

It was clear that 93 was your sandbox, Sandy - there were so many things introduced here, so many mechanics and gimmicks, that it would've been blatant even if you haven't come right out and said. But unfortunately, not a lot of them were enjoyable...

The core escort system was flawed, the Rusulka gimmick could've proven annoying, Cacophonia was downright impossible due to this, the darkness room threw away some of Heroica's most basic core battle mechanics, Aureole's ordered planet thing was ruined by Aurole's unbalanced-ness, Wyrdfire's pincer movement gimmick was ruined by the sudden rule change, the armors were simply too cowardly, the Final Battle's "special free hits" violated some of the first and most consistent rules in the game... It was too much.

I think part of the problem is that you decided to take every gimmick to the extreme as soon as you possibly could've. I think this is demonstrated pretty clealry by the sheer number of NPCs in the quest, and thing slike the dark room. Introduce in bite sized pieces first, then expand.

And don't be afraid to talk to other QMs about it! We're all friends here, and a lot of us are QMs who'd be happy to listen to what you may try and offer feedback. We do it in the QM Lounge all the time. Hell, if you were to hand me a test battle and a gimmick to run it with, i'd gladly either participate in the test battle as a PC, or run it for you. Don't be afraid to reach out sometimes! In 93, you introduced so many things in their most radical form so quickly, it became too much. by the end, a lot of us were fed up being lab rats, more or less.

Questions:

What would happens if Djinnifer's offers were taken? (Taken/self explanatroy offers removed from list)

-Thalion getting married

-Karie getting her hair dyed

-Sorrow getting skin

I feel like I'm fogetting a few...

Overall

66 is one of my favorite quests of all time, Sandy, if not THE one. When I first joined, my first thought was, "Wow - this Sandy person has a lot of good quests, I'll read those." This was before I knew you were the Head QM that started the game. I've followed your plot vigilantly, and I can't thank you enough for creating this game. It's clear that you put a ton of effort into 93, Sandy, but the issues just kep piling and piling and piling. i really wanted to love 93, Sandy. But it became too much. First I lost faith in the NPCs, then I lost faith in the quest, then I lost trust in you as a QM. 93 was my least favorite quest to date, but I wrote this entire wall of text in hopes that you'll be able to continue making great quests as you've almost always done in the future.

Edited July 17, 2014 by Endgame

[Kintobor]

I hate to say this, but 93 was my least enjoyable experience in Heroica to date. I don't say this trying to be harsh, but I'm saying this as honestly as I can. 93 was plagued with issues that made it hard for me to really enjoy. So, here I go. Instead of a few paragraphs I'm going to take some space to talk about each issue I had with the quest separately.

Core Mechanics/ Railroading

This quest felt like a glorified, six-plus month escort mission. Trying to keep all these characters alive was a chore It became a hassle trying to ensure all the low level NPC kids stayed alive, particularly with them having perm-KO on them and a dwindling supply of phoenix essences. I also would have thought after 15 and 50 you would have realized that dungeon crawler quests don't work well on Heroica. And it still doesn't. The amount of stuff to do was insane. I worried we'd be here longer than 48, with half the pages it took to complete it, and I was right. Six months is an insane amount of time for both a QM and players to commit to, and I felt I was missing out on opportunities in the hall and on other quests. That and I felt we were railroaded. Perhaps it had to do with the fact we had to get Drucilla to get the lamp to light the hallway, maybe it has to do with the surplus of uncooperative NPCs, I felt as if we were being railroaded through an open world quest. It was really awkward.

Also, I'm going to take a moment to talk about Djinnifer. I really enjoyed her at first, and thought her character believable: a genie looking for companionship. Awesome! With Thailon and Heckz's first offers, I really enjoyed the idea of Djinnifer looking to find someone to talk to after years stuck in her lamp. However... something slipped. She went from "companion seeking genie" to "genie with silly trickster-esque wishes". Why would Karie agree to dye her hair when Heckz's offer was so much simpler? Same goes for Sorrow. Was their any real reason for it besides "trickster archetype"? Perhaps doing some character background checks could've resulted in better offers. Imagine Djinnifer offering Karie to have her be her "sister". Or Sorrow being offered another one hundred years of life, if only to be with Djinnifer longer. She went from interesting to rather silly, which is why she never got used, which is a shame because I really enjoyed her for those few moments we saw her during the Aureole fight.

Difficulty Curve/ Combat

Now, before I go on an all out rant, allow me to make something very clear: the first three fights, the one in the Storage Room, the one against the Reaper, and the one against the Rafflesia, were well thought out, fun, and still challenging. I liked them! I'm going to ignore those three since in all honesty they were fun fights. It's just about everything else I'm going to complain about. Each and every other fight just to get my point across that this quest's difficulty curve was all over the place. There were too many fights that drew the quest out exponentially, and they often felt disjointed and unimportant to the quest. We were fighting demons for the sake of fighting demons and extending the length of the quest. So, here's my take on every fight this quest, excluding the ones above, to get my point across.

Saga: This fight was so infuriating. Don't penalize players for using items in their inventory to get an advantage by adding in a passive special at the last minute. I've had enemies curbstomped in the past by players using items they rightfully acquired, and was fine by it. If I was hosting you how would you feel if I decided to pull a passive special out to prolong a fight and nullify the valuable consumable you just wasted? It's why we didn't toss the other pumpkin bomb: we as a party were under the impression you'd simply nullify it's effects again.

Apparitions: This one was... okay. It was a little cheap that they were all immune to just about everything besides healing, but it wasn't as maddening as other fights were, and it was nice to finally see someone kill an undead through healing, so this one was alright.

Wyrd-Fyre: The gimmick was rather pointless. I don't hate the concept, it's just I felt like it was adding an extra day onto the quest as half the party had to split up. As well, the changes in the passive specials just to ramp the difficulty up were unnecessary and infuriating! Why was it needed to be thrown in? To add more drama? To extend the fight? The threat was eliminated, so why suddenly pull something out of thin air? It's cheap, and infuriating to the players, especially when it happens twice.

Aureole: This is the moment the quest stopped being bearable and became a chore. No weaknesses whatsoever. No elemental weakness, immune to Negative Effects and sudden death: you rendered each member of the party's special abilities useless, and that is the last thing you want to do. It's like this enemy wasn't even looked over, he was made and then never double checked to ensure he was beatable. It should've been stated if Pleiades could've been affected by Sudden Death, which it wasn't and completely screwed us over. This fight was just wrong. It's a textbook example of an encounter that should not be made. This is the point where we finally got together in PM and decided we were having problems with the quest. You at least listened to us, so I'll give you that much in that you understood the position we as players were in. However, the fight was one of many low points for the quest.

Rusulka: I didn't hate this fight, really. When you compare it to the rest of the fights that were either stupidly difficult or rather easy, this one was in the middle in terms of difficulty. It was actually pretty good. I liked it.

Suits of Armour: You changed stats, but before the first round, so I won't complain because it was in the middle of combat. Other than that, this fight was way too easy. Even with all the specials I rolled, we ploughed throw that fight like it was nothing.

Cacaphonia: After myself, Endgame, and many players protested the insanity of Aureole: Cacaphonia comes along and brickwalls the party again. The passives were insane. There was no way to really get at any of the demons without reviving one or healing another, or taking massive amounts of free hits, or the fact it was immune to magic and negative effects, or the that the chances of us rolling our actual attacks was little to none. This infuriated me even more after you said that you'd lighten up on the fights so long as we split up. Well, we did, and you tossed another insanely tough, nigh invincible fight on our hands. There's a difference between a tough fight, and this. A tough fight allows players to strategize and come up with ways to exploit the enemy. The Cacaphonia fight shut the party down again due to the immunities, and positive effects. We could do literally nothing but smash away and pray, the exact same tactic we had to us for Aureole. We spent more time talking and strategizing in that fight than we did actually fighting the demon! In the end we decided we'd just smack it and if we TPKO'd, oh well, we'd get the quest over sooner. You listened to us again when we complained... but the problem wasn't solved. We still couldn't attack the enemy, and we were still getting kicked around. You effectively created another brick wall. I get the gimmick, it's just not a very fair one. Each enemy buffing each other was fine until you gave on of them Lucky. Then it became almost untouchable. If you simply dropped the Lucky granting enemy, this could've been a fun fight, and it would've been perfectly suited for the split parties. This one along with Aureole had no real exploitative advantage.

The Darkness: I really didn't like this fight. You took the core mechanic of the Heroica battle system and tossed it out the window. If the party could talk to one another, this would be a different story, because the basic mechanic is decent. I like the idea of the party having to figure out who's in the darkness and who's friend or foe. I don't like the fact that you wouldn't allow for party interaction. It basically made Heckz run the fight with everyone else running about like chickens with their heads cut off.

Forculus: Another relatively pointless battle, and largely a waste of time. Why not just have the party open the doors? It was also rather infuriating when we'd all get it with the exception of one group, having to force us to start over again. Also, the levels were an issue. The fight was easily exploitable with the regenerating door. If we so choose so, we could've just stayed their and built levels, grinding away at the door, but we'd been on the quest for so long we decided against it. This was annoying, if anything, since success or failure really could've been screwed over by a few cruddy die rolls. And the time it took to actually defeat the door was tedious. The battle literally ground the quest to a halt. It felt like we had better chances of winning the lottery than beating this door.

Final Fight: This one was actually pretty darn good at first glance. I don't know if it's because you listened to us or not, but the final fight had potential. I'm kind of reminded of the Changeling from 91, and I don't know if that was intentional or not. However, we get to Drucilla and the "Special Free Hits". Mirror Drucilla was insane. Her Special and by extension her Free Hits basically TPKO'd the party if we got an unlucky roll. You know how I feel about this. The "Special Free Hits" more or less bent the rules. The rules were made and overseen by you to ensure the game doesn't get derailed. You've enforced the rules on occasion, which is fine, but when you, the Heroica Master, the individual who runs this game, begins to bend the rules, it's not a good sign. You're supposed to be an example to other QMs on what the game should look like. When you bend the rules, it's a free invite for others to bend the rules. It was around this time I was actually starting to enjoy the quest once again. I felt like something was getting done, but instead we went back to issues that were drudged up four months ago.

The point I was trying to get across was that this quest had no progression of difficulty. It was all over the place, and a mess. Some fights were a reasonable challenge, others were overly easy, and some were so hard I don't even think some of our Expert Classes could deal with them. Also, look at the length of this list. The list has a total of thirteen combats. Was there really a need for this many encounters? Also, it's weird, but it's also not a case of all the gimmicky fights were bad, as much as certain fights irritated me either because of sudden changes you made or insanely hard enemies.

NPCs/ Player Knowledge vs. Character Knowledge

Sandy, you're generally really good with NPCs, but this quest suffered with the overabundance of them. I never really latched onto any of the staff or students, maybe with the exception of Noel, Drucilla and Hawke. I'm not sure why Sorcha was really even needed. I eventually grew to really like her, but she could of easily been omitted from the quest and nothing would have changed. Same goes for Nuitan and Lyren. I know people like the two, but with so many NPCs, no one really got fleshed out enough for me to really care. I felt forced to care for the minor NPCs. The major NPCs were fine, it's just all these students just felt superfluous. That and the fact that none of them listened to a word we said. I felt as if none of the NPCs could be influenced. We couldn't do anything because "he's a fonzie and she's a goth". The mechanic made for rather unrealistic characters. We straight up told kids their going to die, and they'd run off because we had a goth in the group. Omitting the ability that students would get into Noel's box but wouldn't follow him sort of riled me. It was a key mechanic that was omitted for whatever reason and probably would've helped us in the long run if you had mentioned it earlier. Karie getting mad at Noel was more myself getting mad at the quest in general, but I'll get to that later. Also, your intention was to obviously split the group up. You made that clear after we as a whole PM'd you. If that was your intent, you should've made it more clear. Perhaps hinting at the Void Eater early on as an incentive to split up the party and speed the process up.

I'm going to take a moment to talk about Sorsha, actually. For me, she sort of helps redeem the quest. Not fully, but partially. When she was interacting with characters and PCs, I found myself getting invested in her character, something I eventually lost in Noel. She felt genuine. She felt real. I really freaking adore Sorsha to the point where I'm willing to forgive some of the quests faults. I love her CANTERLOCK VOICE, I love her naivety, I love the fact she's very emotional: just like a teenage girl! You really did an excellent job with Sorcha, to the point where she was one of the highlights for me. I enjoyed talking to Sorcha. The problem with her stems from the fact that no one talked to her for awhile. Maybe that was the intent, but those moments of Karie talking to Sorcha were really enjoyable, and maybe that's why you rewarded me with that moment before the final boss. Also, you clearly had no intention to do anything with her or the Sheep Tribe for that matter, so what was her purpose to the plot besides extra baggage? Her as a plot and combat mechanic is disappointing, but her as a character I found enjoyable.

I didn't care for the side-quests. I've told you about this before back during my analysis of Marketplace Mystery: there's a difference between what the player knows, and what the character knows. I felt as if the idea was interesting, but having them based of stories that the players knew was... weird. I had to force Karie to know the story of the Wizard of Oz, and it felt really wrong.

Length/ Focus/ Plot

The length killed the quest. Six-plus months is way too long for any quest. In general the pacing was killed by the length. Sometimes I felt we made progress. Other times I felt two weeks would go by with us just going through rooms, getting people out, and then repeating. Also, the length made me forget all the little things everyone wanted us to do. I forgot about the rogues, I forgot about most of the faculty, I forgot about the encounter with Bohring, I forgot about the stranger, I forgot about Abbot wanting the artifact from the history classroom: there was no real focus, no real plot, and nothing for us to truly want to see defeated. In terms of long term villains there was nothing to want to see beaten. I guess the door demon was always around, but we couldn't fight him until the very end, and that still felt unsatisfying. The lack of focus killed this quest. We didn't have any clear goals, just things that we knew we needed to do in order to get to the end. At times it felt like we were babysitting for a bunch of NPCs who were the real protagonists of the quest. The NPCs went through the most change and the most emotions. I never felt like the heroes were really very important to the story.

I'll also note that things just seemed to happen because of Deus Ex Machina. The Void Eater showing up out of nowhere was random and jarring, and the "twist ending" was really confusing. If it was hinted at, maybe I'd buy it, but there was no moment when the party was away from Noel. Perhaps this twist would've felt better in a shorter quest. Also, did the ending really need to be a week?

Now we get down to the things that ruined this quest for me. About halfway during the quest, right after the Wyrde-fire fight, I lost my trust in you as a QM. Not respect, that's something completely different. I couldn't trust you in the sense that I felt whatever we did, you'd somehow manage to set us back. From nullifying Endgame's Pumpkin Bomb during the Saga fight, to adding the passive special during Wyrde-Fire, I no longer could trust you during combat, and eventually out of combat. Nothing we did seemed to affect the students. We could use Promiscuity, Intimidation, Diplomacy: it seemed anything we did would do nothing to the NPCs.

And the worst part: I felt coming on and posting in 93 was a chore, something I had an obligation to do. I stopped having fun portraying Karie and I felt I was stuck in this school dealing with kids and demons, not Karie. Karie and the roleplaying in general took a back seat as I took over, causing my feelings towards the quest to bleed into her character. Karie was frustrated because I was frustrated, and she was exhausted and bored because I was exhausted and bored. This just wasn't a fun experience.

I don't want to come off as if I hated the entire quest, but I came really close to. You're character designs and sets were great, as always, the first three battles were incredibly enjoyable, and I really enjoyed some of your NPCs. You managed to make me change my mind on an NPC I originally didn't like, and the NPCs that stuck around were all good characters. However, everything else didn't fall into place. I appreciate you putting the effort into this quest Sandy, but I don't believe it was worth six-plus months to slog through. It was boring, drawn out, there were too many battles, and your interferences with the battles made the quest often times very infuriating. I could keep going with things I didn't like, but I don't want this to be completely full of negativity. The worst part is I know you can create a great quest. I've seen them before, and I love to watch them. I'm not angry with you Sandy, more disappointed. I still have faith in you with 100 and whatever else you decide to create. I really just wish this quest had some actually meat in it besides a six month testing facility of nothing really happening except the very beginning and the very end.

Edited July 17, 2014 by Kintobor

[Flipz]

It's funny--a LOT of 93 seems like it was drawn out from my plans for my Cathedral of Mercutio Quest (which will not be happening now, because...well, I've seen that it just wouldn't work): A nearly all-Rogue party, an open world within one building, boatloads of allied NPCs, an underdeveloped plot about obscure secrets that never really reached out to grab the Heroes in particular...the list goes on and on. When I realized this early on, I was super excited, because I thought I'd be able to take this Quest (which, as a Sandy Quest, I assumed would be far better than anything I could accomplish), learn from its mistakes, and tweak things to make my own even better. Instead...I got to watch a crash course in how not to design a Quest.

First of all: yes to everything Kinto has said. But I feel like I should add: this Quest was completely unforgiving--one f*ck-up, one bad roll and the entire party was screwed; there were no second chances, no "good-but-not-optimal" moves, and, worst of all, no way of strategizing or planning ahead because there was no consistency. Look at Quest 53: despite it being the Arc Finale of one of the most cataclysmic story arcs we've seen, featuring enemies we almost ALL complained about because of their difficulty, 53 was still more forgiving than 93. A Quest with perma-KO for players was more forgiving than a simple rescue mission. That's not a good thing.

I do want to address some things on the player side that I noticed as a spectator: Heckz was completely overpowering, and I feel like sometimes a lack of characterization happened on the part of both players and NPCs because he would not just shut the f*ck up. I really admire the consistency of Heckz' characterization, Cutcobra, and there was some really nice development over the course of six months, but sometimes it's best to just not say anything, even when it would make sense for the character to say something. It's selfish roleplaying, just like most of my RP on 31, 38, and 53 was, and the longer the Quest goes on, the more obnoxious the Quest becomes to read because of it. (Sorrow and Karie were similarly guilty of this as well, just not quite as much in my opinion.)

On another facet of the same issue, I do also feel that some of the lack of NPC characterization came from the party's side as well. Heckz is pretty much impossible to work with (which is fine, because his whole schtick is "impossible to work with"), but other than that the only ones I really saw interacting with the characters in any meaningful manner were Karie and Sorrow, and the latter spent half of his time delving into Karie's backstory or bemoaning the fact that he's going to die soon. (Endgame, I'm going to give you the advice people keep giving to me and that I've only recently managed to start putting into practice: say more with less.) I barely saw Thalion, I barely saw Erik, and was Amorith even on the Quest? I see posts, but I can't remember a single stand-out moment between him and an NPC. Stand up! I've seen you give us more in the past, I want to see you give us more now. I know it's hard to do with Heckz, Sorrow, and Karie of the Spotlight Stealer Squad prancing about on center stage all the time, but it only makes things more fun for everyone if EVERYONE gets to have their time in the limelight.

Flip side: I really think those NPCs could have done more to try to draw out the quieter characters. It's one of the thing that Zepher and Endgame NPCs do: there'll be a quiet lull in the Quest (whether by accident or design), and they'll pop up and start prodding the players for a roleplaying sequence. It's simultaneously one of the most annoying and the most awesome parts about them, but it also serves to give them depth: they become active participants, rather than passive followers. Compare how people responded to Denerii (actively voiced by Chromeknight) versus Flavius in Dastan, or Knife-Tongue in 51 and 82 versus Knife-Tongue at the start of Baltarok. Hell, not to toot my own horn, but compare how the party is responding to Diana (active NPC) and Stealth Shadow (slightly active NPC) versus Dragonlord and Nicole (passive NPCs/exposition fountains) in 104. It doesn't have to be through cool combat abilities (see: the Alchemist in 93 whose name I can't even remember despite having an awesome class), just have them...talk. Have them take an interest in the players, and the players will take an interest in them.

And don't get lazy--be consistent! I distinctly remember several moments where people tried to interact with Nuitan and Noel and just got nothing back in response. If you want a player to take ownership of a character the way I did with Knyghton or Chrome did with Denerii, then by all means let them (it can lead to very cool things), but if you want to voice them yourself you have to bite the bullet and do it. Yes, it's hard, believe me, I know. Sometimes it requires an intuitive knowledge of what will provoke an interesting conversation, and sometimes that intuition is difficult if not impossible to find. But it's important, especially for a long-term NPC or Escort Mission.

I think in the end, making the players want to save the kids would have made things a lot more pleasant for everyone. What makes an Escort Mission is the conflict between conflicting ideals--in its most basic form, it's the conflict between self-preservation and completing the mission, but the basic form is just plain frustrating. A good escort mission pits the players' desire to keep someone they like (or at least find interesting) alive against the need to stay alive themselves to complete the mission--if they fail to protect the escort, they aren't failing their mission, they're failing themselves. That's not to say a mission-critical escort mission can't be good, but the escort has to be smarter than a sack of dung. With regards to the kids and their factions specifically, it seemed like you tried to pit the players' desire to save certain kids against their desire to save other kids, but the end result fell flat because they didn't really want to save any of them. I like Endgame's suggestion: why not let multiple kids from a set buff the party with a positive effect, but only if they're not also with kids they hate? It would have at least given a mechanical reason to want to save kids, and would have made it both more desirable and more viable to split the party as you originally intended. (Even something as simple as Camaraderie would have been enough--though obviously that specifically wasn't invented until 102, but still, even something that simple would have helped.)

The battles were too complex. At some points I was getting daily requests for strategy suggestions, and so many times I was unable to help, simply because there was no good strategy. If I can't find even a decent strategy, you know something's terribly, terribly wrong. I agree with everything Kinto said about them.

Bottom line: you lost your players--at a few points, I was literally begging Endgame to at least save Lyren before he gave up, just because "Ly and Nute" is one of my favorite storylines and it would be heartbreaking to see it end as anticlimactically as "and then they died because the party couldn't handle the Quest". Once you lose your players, your Quest is dead--at that point, you might as well just try to finish as quickly as possible so they don't have to suffer any longer than is absolutely necessary.

On the plus side: as always, your sets were beautiful. Noel is among my favorite recent designs of yours, and most of the teachers were really interesting to look at. You also dropped, as usual, some really nice loot, and the reputation options you offered were pretty sweet as well. It's just unfortunate that the rest of the Quest fell so thoroughly apart.

Edited July 18, 2014 by Flipz

[Cutcobra]

I do want to address some things on the player side that I noticed as a spectator: Heckz was completely overpowering, and I feel like sometimes a lack of characterization happened on the part of both players and NPCs because he would not just shut the f*ck up. I really admire the consistency of Heckz' characterization, Cutcobra, and there was some really nice development over the course of six months, but sometimes it's best to just not say anything, even when it would make sense for the character to say something. It's selfish roleplaying, just like most of my RP on 31, 38, and 53 was, and the longer the Quest goes on, the more obnoxious the Quest becomes to read because of it. (Sorrow and Karie were similarly guilty of this as well, just not quite as much in my opinion.)

Noted. I'll take it into consideration the next time I go on a quest. Thanks for the feedback though.

[Endgame]

On the subject of Sorrow sort of snatching the spotlight: it was something I noticed I too - I tried reaching out to Erik and succeeded, Sorrow had a few moments with thalion, but I still couldn't figure out how to reach out to Amorith.

However, that what was keeping me going, in a way. Sorrow's constant remarks, conversations, bemoaning, reflecting, musing - it was my sustenance. It was when Sorrow was Sorrow, and it allowed me to trudge on through the rest of the quest: The rest of the time, Sorrow was more of a bitter Endgame using his PC as a mouthpiece.

It's something I won't do again - not with Sorrow, or any of my PCs that may follow.

Edited July 18, 2014 by Endgame

[Lind Whisperer]

Just as a side-bar, I just want to thank both Kintobar and Flipz for their posts - I was of course not a participant on #93, but reading two of the most experienced players' reviews of what works and doesn't work for a quest was extremely enlightening.

[Endgame]

Just as a side-bar, I just want to thank both Kintobar and Flipz for their posts - I was of course not a participant on #93, but reading two of the most experienced players' reviews of what works and doesn't work for a quest was extremely enlightening.

I see you took me up on my warning about not reading mine, then.

[Myrddyn]

Quest 93.

In a sentence, it was a reasonably good quest that went on far too long.

I suspect if everyone had written reviews halfway through, those reviews would have been far more positive.

I suppose I'll start at the beginning.

The first page or two was, probably similar to most quests, working out what exactly we were meant to do, meeting the rest of the party, et cetera.

Working out how to get into the Academy was a bit of fun there.

The next ~3 pages was the fight with all the taxidermy animals.

That was really good - 21 different enemies with varying levels and stats against 6 heroes (plus a low-level NPC) makes for a great battle.

It went on for 7 rounds, but every round some damage would be taken or effects would be inflicted, and we'd have to review our actions and battle order. It really kept things interesting, and it didn't have confusing special rules.

I would strongly recommend this to any QM trying to make an interesting battle. (Link) Simple enemy variation is vastly underrated.

Then we met Professor Watt and fought the Reaper.

That was a nice puzzle. Watt was fun.

We spent some time dealing with the kids factions, and at this point it was a nice challenge working everything out.

The Rafflesia was on page 16. Hits instead of hitpoints on the vines, sucking health from the students - this was a fun battle.

Met Professor Hawke, he seemed cool. Shame he died.

We went back to Ixion's corpse, and met Senor Calacas, the bonecrafter.

Then we tried to get into the dark corridor, before meeting Sorsha and the Bohring statue.

This bit was fun as well.

Sidequest.

This was great. Although I felt a bit like Erik was the center of attention with his diplomacy, Amorith seemed to have stuff to do as well.

Saga fight, page 23, about 3 months in. This was pretty good, but all the opponents having ranged attacks was a bit annoying, as it took some of the strategy out and meant few people could survive attacking Saga. The books respawning came as an annoying surprise as well, and meant we'd wasted a Pumpkin Bomb.

Ghost fight. Short and fun.

Wyrdfire. Fun again, three sided battle, had to keep the kids alive.

Lantern puzzle and crazy girls. They were nice puzzles, but by this point, about 4 months in, the student factions puzzle had definitely become annoying.

Aureole. Admittedly we probably shouldn't have murdered the professor, but that battle wasn't the best. The kids with planets on their heads were fun, but beyond that, Aureola took far too long to kill and had a really nasty special that was also used on free hits.

Then the secret passage to the secret room with Bohring's ghost. This was really good - it gave us a break from the students, and it was a nice surprise that gave us useful information.

Rusalka. This was another fun battle.

The armour.

Note: Each successful hit has 1/3 chance of randomly breaking one of the three drops. The Living Armour’s stats will be affected accordingly.

:thumbup:

I'd normally be annoyed at missing out on loot, but this was still a really great gimmick.

Cacophonia. This battle was hard, and would have been even harder if we hadn't been lucky with Sorrow assassinating Saxaphone.

Darkness battle. Erik didn't participate in that, so I didn't pay much attention.

Rogues and Dean Morrible, then we found a bunch more students, picked up Watt's artifact, and fought the Demon Door.

I don't know what to say about the rogues; It was a good puzzle getting them out, but I'm surprised that a) students would actually try to ransom/kill a teacher in cold blood, and b) that, especially after feeling so strongly that the Dean was "evil" for his actions a few years before, so many characters, PC's and NPC's, had no problem with the actions of the students, solely because the students were (barely) under 18.

Boss fight. I get that the enemies were all mirrors of the heroes, but the AOE, ranged special damages were too much.

Especially Drucilla's, which was also used as a free hit. Beyond that, though, it was a good battle.

I think a lot of the problems people had with the quest would have been lessened considerably if it hadn't gone on so long.

7 months is a long time for "Search the building, rescue the children". Plotwise, it was similar to #32, which lasted for almost exactly 1 month.

[JimBee]

I'll have more to say about 93 as a spectator, but for now I just wanted to say that those in the quest complaining about the battle difficulty: I think you're complaining too much. I do agree that the addition of a passive special mid-battle "because it was too easy" was cheap, but other than that I thought they were fair battles. You can't expect every battle to be a breeze or have a good strategy available to that particular party - sometimes you just have to face the difficulty and muddle through. That's how it works sometimes, and I've definitely had my share of battles where I wasn't effective at all. Drucilla's special is nothing compared some others, and all of the mirror enemies were OHKO-able. And like Sandy said himself, the boss battle as a whole was kind of a pushover. It didn't seem very difficult at all.

[Bricksandparts]

Here are the calculations I've made for the basic classes I was working on. I still need an outline for the battle itself and the rest of the classes, but hopefully when it's finished QMs can use it to run battles more easily, if they so choose.

Barbarian:

1:

([row]) [Hero] vs. [target]: Frenzy

Frenzy vs. [target]: ((WP#+PWR#+LVL#)/Row(melee/ranged)#*Mult#([Reason/Calc]))-SP#=# Damage Dealt

(Above for all targets)

Deal effects:

Notes: [For special weapons/notes on enemies]

2:

([row]) [Hero] vs. [target]: Extra Critical Hit

ECH vs. [target]: (((WP#*3)+PWR#+LVL#)/Row(melee/ranged)#*Mult#([Reason/Calc]))-SP#=# Damage Dealt

Deal effects:

Notes: [For special weapons/notes on enemies]

3:

([row]) [Hero] vs. [target]: Hit

Hit vs. [target]: ((WP#+PWR#+LVL#)/Row(melee/ranged)#*Mult#([Reason/Calc]))-SP#=# Damage Dealt

Deal effects:

Notes: [For special weapons/notes on enemies]

4:

([row]) [Hero] vs. [target]: Miss

Nothing happens

Deal effects:

Notes: [For special weapons/notes on enemies]

5:

([row]) [Hero] vs. [target]: Damage

Dmg vs. [Hero]: (LVL#/Row#*Mult#([Reason/Calc])-SP#=# Damaged Recieved

Deal effects:

Notes: [For special weapons/notes on enemies]

6:

([row]) [Hero] vs. [target]: Special Damage

SD vs. [Hero]:

Deal effects:

Notes: [For special weapons/notes on enemies]

Cleric:

1 (With avaliable Ether):

([row]) [Hero] vs. [target]: Miracle

Miracle vs. [self]: (((WP#*2)+PWR#+LVL#)*Mult#([Reason/Calc]))=# Health healed, -1 Ether

(Above for all allies)

Deal effects:

Notes: [For special weapons/notes on enemies]

1 (Without avaliable Ether):

([row]) [Hero] vs. [target]: Miracle Fail

Nothing Happens

Deal effects:

Notes: [For special weapons/notes on enemies]

2 (For physical):

([row]) [Hero] vs. [target]: Critical Hit

CH vs. [target]: (((WP#*2)+PWR#+LVL#)/Row(melee/ranged)#*Mult#([Reason/Calc]))-SP#=# Damage Dealt

Deal effects:

Notes: [For special weapons/notes on enemies]

2 (For heal):

([row]) [Hero] vs. [target]: Heal More

Great Spell vs. [target]: (((WP#*2)+PWR#+LVL#)*Mult#([Reason/Calc]))-SP#=# Health healed, -1 Ether

Deal effects:

Notes: [For special weapons/notes on enemies]

3 (For physical):

([row]) [Hero] vs. [target]: Hit

Hit vs. [target]: ((WP#+PWR#+LVL#)/Row(melee/ranged)#*Mult#([Reason/Calc]))-SP#=# Damage Dealt

Deal effects:

Notes: [For special weapons/notes on enemies]

3 (for heal):

([row]) [Hero] vs. [target]: Heal

Spell vs. [target]: ((WP#+PWR#+LVL#)*Mult#([Reason/Calc]))=# Health healed, -1 Ether

Deal effects:

Notes: [For special weapons/notes on enemies]

4 (For physical):

([row]) [Hero] vs. [target]: Miss

Nothing happens

Deal effects:

Notes: [For special weapons/notes on enemies]

4,5,6 (For heal):

([row]) [Hero] vs. [target]: No Healing

Nothing happens

Deal effects:

Notes: [For special weapons/notes on enemies]

5 (For physical):

([row]) [Hero] vs. [target]: Damage

Dmg vs. [Hero]: (LVL#/Row#*Mult#([Reason/Calc])-SP#=# Damaged Recieved

Deal effects:

Notes: [For special weapons/notes on enemies]

6 (For physical):

([row]) [Hero] vs. [target]: Special Damage

SD vs. [Hero]:

Deal effects:

Notes: *1/2 chance for protection against negative effects*, [For special weapons/notes on enemies]

Knight:

1:

([row]) [Hero] vs. [target]: Sentinel

Sentinel vs. Party: *Sentinel*

Deal effects:

Notes: [For special weapons/notes on enemies]

2:

([row]) [Hero] vs. [target]: Critical Hit

CH vs. [target]: (((WP#*2)+PWR#+LVL#)/Row(melee/ranged)#*Mult#([Reason/Calc]))-SP#=# Damage Dealt

Deal effects:

Notes: [For special weapons/notes on enemies]

3:

([row]) [Hero] vs. [target]: Hit

Hit vs. [target]: ((WP#+PWR#+LVL#)/Row(melee/ranged)#*Mult#([Reason/Calc]))-SP#=# Damage Dealt

Deal effects:

Notes: [For special weapons/notes on enemies]

4:

([row]) [Hero] vs. [target]: Miss

Nothing happens

Deal effects:

Notes: [For special weapons/notes on enemies]

5:

([row]) [Hero] vs. [target]: Damage

Dmg vs. [Hero]: (LVL#/Row#*Mult#([Reason/Calc])-SP#=# Damaged Recieved

Deal effects:

Notes: *1/6 chance to negate*, [For special weapons/notes on enemies]

6:

([row]) [Hero] vs. [target]: Special Damage

SD vs. [Hero]:

Deal effects:

Notes: [For special weapons/notes on enemies]

Mage:

1 (With avaliable Ether):

([row]) [Hero] vs. [target]: Magic Burst

Magic Burst vs. [target]: ((WP#+PWR#+LVL#)*Mult#([Reason/Calc]))-SP#=# Damage Dealt, -1 Ether

(Above for all targets)

Deal effects:

Notes: [For special weapons/notes on enemies]

1 (Without avaliable Ether):

([row]) [Hero] vs. [target]: Magic Burst Fail

Nothing Happens

Deal effects:

Notes: [For special weapons/notes on enemies]

2 (For physical):

([row]) [Hero] vs. [target]: Critical Hit

CH vs. [target]: (((WP#*2)+PWR#+LVL#)/Row(melee/ranged)#*Mult#([Reason/Calc]))-SP#=# Damage Dealt

Deal effects:

Notes: [For special weapons/notes on enemies]

2 (For spell):

([row]) [Hero] vs. [target]: Great Spell

Great Spell vs. [target]: (((WP#*2)+PWR#+LVL#)*Mult#([Reason/Calc]))-SP#=# Damage Dealt, -1 Ether

Deal effects:

Notes: [For special weapons/notes on enemies]

3 (For physical):

([row]) [Hero] vs. [target]: Hit

Hit vs. [target]: ((WP#+PWR#+LVL#)/Row(melee/ranged)#*Mult#([Reason/Calc]))-SP#=# Damage Dealt

Deal effects:

Notes: [For special weapons/notes on enemies]

3 (for Spell):

([row]) [Hero] vs. [target]: Spell

Spell vs. [target]: ((WP#+PWR#+LVL#)*Mult#([Reason/Calc]))-SP#=# Damage Dealt, -1 Ether

Deal effects:

Notes: [For special weapons/notes on enemies]

4:

([row]) [Hero] vs. [target]: Miss

Nothing happens

Deal effects:

Notes: [For special weapons/notes on enemies]

5:

([row]) [Hero] vs. [target]: Damage

Dmg vs. [Hero]: (LVL#/Row#*Mult#([Reason/Calc])-SP#=# Damaged Recieved

Deal effects:

Notes: [For special weapons/notes on enemies]

6:

([row]) [Hero] vs. [target]: Special Damage

SD vs. [Hero]:

Deal effects:

Notes: [For special weapons/notes on enemies]

Ranger:

1:

([row]) [Hero] vs. [target]: Tripleshot

Tripleshot vs. [target]: ((WP#+PWR#+LVL#)/Row(melee/ranged)#*Mult#([Reason/Calc]))-SP#=# Damage Dealt

(Above to next two enemies in battle order)

Deal effects:

Notes: [For special weapons/notes on enemies]

2:

([row]) [Hero] vs. [target]: Critical Hit

CH vs. [target]: (((WP#*2)+PWR#+LVL#)/Row(melee/ranged)#*Mult#([Reason/Calc]))-SP#=# Damage Dealt

Deal effects:

Notes: [For special weapons/notes on enemies]

3:

([row]) [Hero] vs. [target]: Hit

Hit vs. [target]: ((WP#+PWR#+LVL#)/Row(melee/ranged)#*Mult#([Reason/Calc]))-SP#=# Damage Dealt

Deal effects:

Notes: [For special weapons/notes on enemies]

4:

([row]) [Hero] vs. [target]: Aim

Aim vs. [target]: WP#/Row(melee/ranged)#*Mult#([Reason/Calc]))-SP#=# Damage Dealt

Deal effects:

Notes: [For special weapons/notes on enemies]

5:

([row]) [Hero] vs. [target]: Damage

Dmg vs. [Hero]: (LVL#/Row#*Mult#([Reason/Calc])-SP#=# Damaged Recieved

Deal effects:

Notes: [For special weapons/notes on enemies]

6:

([row]) [Hero] vs. [target]: Special Damage

SD vs. [Hero]:

Deal effects:

Notes: [For special weapons/notes on enemies]

Rogue:

1:

([row]) [Hero] vs. [target]: Mug

Mug vs. [target]: ((WP#+PWR#+LVL#)/Row(melee/ranged)#*Mult#([Reason/Calc]))-SP#=# Damage Dealt

Gold:

Deal effects:

Notes: [For special weapons/notes on enemies]

2:

([row]) [Hero] vs. [target]: Critical Hit

CH vs. [target]: (((WP#*2)+PWR#+LVL#)/Row(melee/ranged)#*Mult#([Reason/Calc]))-SP#=# Damage Dealt

Deal effects:

Notes: [For special weapons/notes on enemies]

3:

([row]) [Hero] vs. [target]: Hit

Hit vs. [target]: ((WP#+PWR#+LVL#)/Row(melee/ranged)#*Mult#([Reason/Calc]))-SP#=# Damage Dealt

Deal effects:

Notes: [For special weapons/notes on enemies]

4:

([row]) [Hero] vs. [target]: Hide

Hide vs. [Hero]: *Immune to everything* until end of round

Deal effects:

Notes: [For special weapons/notes on enemies]

5:

([row]) [Hero] vs. [target]: Damage

Dmg vs. [Hero]: (LVL#/Row#*Mult#([Reason/Calc])-SP#=# Damaged Recieved

Deal effects:

Notes: [For special weapons/notes on enemies]

6:

([row]) [Hero] vs. [target]: Special Damage

SD vs. [Hero]:

Deal effects:

Notes: [For special weapons/notes on enemies]

[legobodgers]

First off, agree with what others have said about the quest and don't really have anything else to add.

I barely saw Thalion, I barely saw Erik, and was Amorith even on the Quest? I see posts, but I can't remember a single stand-out moment between him and an NPC.

I agree with this and it is something that I am trying to work on. Most of the problem is me being lazy but I do think that there are a couple of other contributing factors, partially I think it is that I started the character with no direction or defining characteristics. Also, with the on and off way I have been playing over the last few years I felt like the characters I used to have some sort of connection with (Boomingham, Karie), have developed significantly since the last time the characters met.

Anyway, I am definitely going to make a larger effort in the future.

Edited July 18, 2014 by legobodgers

[Sandy]

Thank you for your honest and constructive critiques, everyone, and once again, a big thank you for bearing with me.

Like with Quest#50, this was another example of me putting out bigger bits than the players could chew. The quest was inspired by my favourite side-mission in the video game Final Fantasy X-2 where you have to rescue a bunch of uncooperative tourists trapped in a cave. It was thus supposed to be very video-game-y in design, with the focus on mechanical things rather than storyline, but obviously it ended up being too bloated.

I think it started because I was too stuck on making the Academy realistic in proportions, adding all the classrooms and other spaces I thought it should contain (and Quest#10 dictated many of them, as well), and that lead to having a specific number of faculty and enough students to fill the rooms. I should've edited myself and drop at least half of the rooms. I understand how many of the locations felt like fillers.

The other problem was obviously the battles. After hosting over a dozen quests and getting feedback on how my battles weren't really challenging or varied enough, I had an urge to test my wings, so to speak. Obviously it got out of my hands, and I really did make several bad design choices. I really suck at maths, honestly, so finding the right balance between too easy and impossible is always an issue for me. The gimmicks I thought up only added to that issue.

I'm ashamed to admit it, but I actually had several other battles planned, as well. The Hallowed One would have burst through the front doors, the Rogues would've fought the party in the Auditorium, the paintings in the Atelier would've sprung alive, there would've been a Void Eater in the secret passage at the Faculty Office (featured in Quest#10), etc. I decided to drop these for obvious reasons.

I never intended this to be a six-month long drag, I hope you realize that. It's just very difficult to estimate length when designing a quest, and there were several long pauses due to unforeseen circumstances as well. The players remained active, though, for which I am truly grateful. I guess it also gave me false sense of doing things right, since I didn't start to get complains until the fourth month.

I hope I now know better than to make another long quest in a confined space. I won't give up trying out new things, though, since I also think I know better now what works within the concept of this game and what doesn't.

I'll try to answer your concerns about the details of the quest a bit later. Most of them can be jotted down to just not thinking straight. I hope you remember that I am a human, as well, and thus prone to making errors and not always remembering everything and all that. Some of you may have lost trust in me, but I have every intention of getting it back.

[Kintobor]

Thank you for the response, Sandy! I'm going to give a few last comments based on what you said, but I'll make it quick, I promise!

The other problem was obviously the battles. After hosting over a dozen quests and getting feedback on how my battles weren't really challenging or varied enough, I had an urge to test my wings, so to speak. Obviously it got out of my hands, and I really did make several bad design choices. I really suck at maths, honestly, so finding the right balance between too easy and impossible is always an issue for me. The gimmicks I thought up only added to that issue.

I hope I now know better than to make another long quest in a confined space. I won't give up trying out new things, though, since I also think I know better now what works within the concept of this game and what doesn't.

I'll try to answer your concerns about the details of the quest a bit later. Most of them can be jotted down to just not thinking straight. I hope you remember that I am a human, as well, and thus prone to making errors and not always remembering everything and all that. Some of you may have lost trust me, but I have every intention of getting it back. :smile:

If you ever need help designing a fight, or getting a second opinion on something, you can always ask the other QMs, Sandy! You may be the foremost authority on the game, but there is no shame in asking for a little help with something. We'd be more than willing to give you a hand.

No one's asking you to stop trying new things, because that's what makes the game interesting. However, keep it in smaller doses. When every fight was more or less you trying something new, we got the feeling we were acting as guinea pigs. However, there were a few of those fights I enjoyed, like the Rafflesia! When you experiment, you sometimes get something good, just remember not to go overboard.

I wouldn't say I lost full trust in you. I lost trust as you in your QMing abilities, but I still think you can run this game, and I still think you can run a quest. I would love to give one of your quests another go in the future, for all its worth, because I still really want to get that Sandy Quest experience.

I'll have more to say about 93 as a spectator, but for now I just wanted to say that those in the quest complaining about the battle difficulty: I think you're complaining too much. I do agree that the addition of a passive special mid-battle "because it was too easy" was cheap, but other than that I thought they were fair battles. You can't expect every battle to be a breeze or have a good strategy available to that particular party - sometimes you just have to face the difficulty and muddle through. That's how it works sometimes, and I've definitely had my share of battles where I wasn't effective at all. Drucilla's special is nothing compared some others, and all of the mirror enemies were OHKO-able. And like Sandy said himself, the boss battle as a whole was kind of a pushover. It didn't seem very difficult at all.

Sorry, JimB, I have to disagree with you here. I'm fine with a tough fight, and I found Endgame's Amalgam battle to be rather enjoyable. It was tough, yes, but it was beatable. I could find a way to exploit it. There have been battles where I haven't been as effective, I'm fine with that too. Everyone is going to be better in certain scenarios due to their weapons, their class skills, or their items in their inventory. Certain enemies in 93 had no weaknesses, period. No elemental or status effect weakness. There was no real way to beat them besides bashing it and praying no one rolled special. We spent more time talking about a potential strategy than we did fighting certain enemies. When a battle makes everyone in the party ineffective, something's not right.

Edited July 18, 2014 by Kintobor

[Sandy]

Okay, I'll try to answer some of the specific concerns you had about my quest, so we can all learn from it.

I just want to say that while I cannot even defend some of the choices I made, there were some misunderstandings and misconceptions on the player's behalf involved, as well. I tried to correct them as we went, but with so much going on at such a long interval, it was understandable that some details got muddled in the progress.

It transformed 70+ well designed NPCs into suicidal maniacs who wouldn't budge. Diplomacy? No. Intimidation? No. Logic? Nope. Basic common sense? Not gonna fly. Promiscuity? No dice.

The students were confused and dazed teenagers, so they didn't want to negotiate. Also, having the heroes be able to convince rivaling student factions to work together through job traits would have made the whole "quest long puzzle" obsolete.

But I think that was what you wished for.

It really is a shame, because there were a handful of NPCs that were good... They just got constantly trampled over, again and again, by the rest of the crowd. Noel was good, Drucilla was decent, and Sorsha was given depth by Kintobor... And that's it. Hawke got killed off in a sidequest, and Lyren and Nuitan didn't really contribute anything memorable.

The point of these above-mentioned NPCs was that they were one of the few to offer you physical help in the quest, so you could take them with you and lead them into situations that would make them stand out as characters. That also made them more vulnerable than the other NPCs, since they had more chances of dying than the others.

You blame me for not doing much with the important NPCs, but just think about a situation where either Lyren or Nuitan would have actually died in a battle. Think of the prepercussions it would have for the whole Hinckwell/Shadeaux storyline! I don't know what more I could have done with them than to give their fate into your hands.

Almost the entire cast of the quest got objectified in one way or another. Either herd this person to safety, or focus on this person's stats in battle. By the end, the only NPCs who either didn't get fully objectified, dead, or constant annoyances were Noel and Sorsha. Like I said, it really was shame; there was a lot of potential here.

There should have been much less students to save, I can see that. That way you probably would have felt more personal with each of them, but just remember that it was my intention that the heroes would get frustrated with the teens refusing to cooperate. Otherwise saving them would've been a walk in the park, if the battles weren't taken into consideration.

Or progress would either cruise or be completely sealed off at pretty random intervals, which was jarring every single time.

Like I said, the quest was meant to be "video-game-y", and the school was like a dungeon from a classical RPG - you need Key A to open Door B, and Item C to progress to Room D where the key lies.

If that's not your cup of tea, then I apologize.

In the future, I'd suggest an NPC keeping a journal of facts introduced that the party can refer to whenever.

Or you could've written down such facts yourself to keep your focus straight.

It felt thrown in at the last minute. Why not introduce it early, and have heroes ponder how much time they're losing in the real world? It could've given the plot a lot more depth, recieving letters from parents with returned children at last/parents whose kids are either missing or deceased... Instead, it's just kind of tacked on to the end.

It was tacked on, because I had no idea the quest would take as long as it did.

I thought I did you guys a service by giving you an in-game explanation why your character was missing from the world for half a year, since I know such roleplaying details are important to you. I'm sorry if the execution wasn't to your liking.

Besides, I had quite enough of writing letters to PCs from the Grogmas event, thank you very much!

The escort system, like I mentioned, commited the cardinal sin of making the escorts annoying or foolish. And there were 73 of them. You called it a quest long puzzle, but really, if the answer is just blurted out whenever we try to mix the wrong cliques, how is it a puzzle? Additionally, we'd run into the impasse where that students who we saved would immediately run away, just because we had no idea who would be in the classrooms. Additionally, although you said opposing clans would follow, just not get into the box; why did things like Mustard's dissapearance then? Or the cyclop's? Or the orc's? Too many exceptions happened to make it an even moderately consistent rule.

Why is it a cardinal sin? Why does every character need to be likeable and relatable? Again, these were teenagers who were supposed to be annoying, so you'd have more of a hard time saving them.

And you remember wrong. The students wouldn't just "run off" when you went to their classroom. The different cliques prevented students from following the party if it was followed by a member of a rivalling faction. They also wouldn't get into the box with said person. The only time the students would run away was if you tried to make them follow you with a student of an opposing faction. It was consistent, trust me.

The whole point of the puzzle was that you had to split up to effectively gather everyone. You could've also sent in rogues to investigate different rooms by themselves (since they could've fled if encountering a battle) instead of walking around in one or two big groups. I tried to point this to you several times, but you decided to choose the slower way.

Also, why did the escort system had to be designed to harm us if we messed up? Why not benefit us if we did it right? If I was forced to have 73 escortable kids of different alignments in my quest, the heroes would recieve benefits for mixing them correctly, and not be penalized for not doing so. Why not make the Chrls encourage us if we had four of them in a room at once? Why not have Foureyes tell us the enemies' attack patterns if there were enough in the room, making us Dodgy? Stuff like that.

Nice suggestion, and the answer is simply because I didn't think of it. The reward was always planned to be a monetary compensation in the ending if you saved all members of a clique.

Saga: Suddenly introduced passive specials for added difficulty. I understand you wanted Saga to appear menacing, Sandy, but were the rather scary side quests not enough? It almost would've been good irony, having the demon who wove such perilous stories getting stomped out so quickly. Instead a Gorgmas gift just wnet to waste, and a passive special suddenly thrown int to prevent Saga from going down too easily. It was pretty unfair move - I've had battles completely nullified by Pumpkin Bombs in the past, and I just sat back and let it happen. There was no reason or need for a QM intervention.

It was a misstep to add in the passive special, I agree.

Wyrdfire: The gimmick of this fight was okay, but I'm not sure why we had to spend two days prancing around to build it up. Why couldn't Drucilla tell us to do a pincer movement from the beginning and save us an update or two? Beyond that, it was the same case as Saga; the battle suddenly changed to challenge us more. Except this time, the enemy actually put up a pretty good fight before it was suddenly changed! Why? It was especially noticeable, since all the change did was keep the students in peril. We already took out the danger to them, there was no reason to continue. We strategized so that the students would stop getting hurt, and then... They kept getting burned anyway!

You keep flip-flopping between having wanted more hand-holding and me railroading you too much. Which one was it?

Also, didn't you catch the fact that the whole point of most of the battles was to keep the students in peril? The demons wanted to feed their souls to the Mistress by torturing them.

Aureole: This is the quest caved, big time. There was no sort of choice against this beast. When the planets went done, Aureole was weak to nothing introduced in Heroica. It had a boatload of HP, and no strategical way to approach it. It got even worse when pleadies got suddenly killed, something we didn't even know could happen, and the demon turned into a TPKO machine. It'd kill our escorts, and possibly even us, in one fell swoop, and there really was no strategy or way around it. We just wailed on it and hoped. It was almost a brick wall by definition. Something that couldn't be approached, and if confronted, had a good chance of wiping us out. Battles should have meaningful choice. This one didn't have any, and the enemy was downright lethal, to boot.

It was because of my bad math skills that the monster ended up being too powerful for the party. I compensated that to you by allowing the students to flee and autorolling.

Rusulka: This one was okay, and a nice breather after Aureole. I'm guessing he would've escaped to the Girl's Room, and we would've had to fight him there? It would've been a bit tedious, but after Aurole, it was a welcome change.

There were four lavatories in the school because of this battle. If Rusalka had escaped, you could have fought him again in the next lavatory.

Armor: It felt like this battle was only there to waste time... I mean, the armor had next to no offesnive capability, and the entire battle revolved around hoping we wouldn't be unlucky enough to trigger another battle extending special. I don't see why it was included, other than for the sake of another battle.

It was another throwback to Quest#10, and a way to introduce another recruitable NPC.

Cacophonia: This was my least favorite battle to ever appear in Heroica, and for so many reasons. It had a cool design, yes, but it was mathematically unbeatable. With 7 escorts in the room, 10% of our objective was liable to dissapear if we fled, so that wasn't really an option. This battle was insane - I know you intended for it to be beatable, Sandy, but it simply wasn't. I think the best case scenario was that we'd have 1 party memeber left at the end of round one, and... What then? Have them absorb 14 free hits? It didn't seem like it was proofread, really - just kind of rushed out the door. Especially after Aureole, it wasn't a good thing to see.

You're right - it wasn't proofread. I did edit it once I realized my miscalculations.

But there was a second component to this. This was right after you told us to split up, and told us that it would make the quest move faster, and told us you had control over the battles. Then you did the exact thing that made us not want to split up in the first place. We lost a lot of trust in you after that - we didn't know what you woul do, what you would nullify, etc. This fight, beyond being impossible until being rebalanced, made the party lose trust in you, Sandy.

Let me get this straight: you knew the room had a demon in it, yet Cutcobra chose to rush in with a party full of followers when he could've peeked in by himself to see if the monster was a threat or not. It did not come out of the blue.

It really was purely a coincidence you entered the room after you took my hint about splitting up. I banged my head on my desk when it happened, but you made the choice yourself.

I'm deeply sorry you lost trust in me, but I never tried to purposefully make you fail the quest - and the several times I gave you a hand by changing the stats of a too-difficult battle showed it.

Darkness Battle: This one could've really worked if you allowed communication, but other than that it became a guessing game. After Cacophonia, I was really afraid taht the party would all target Enemy A and get clobbered by free hits, but fortunately, the enemy was relatively nonlethal. Still, cutting off communcation like that was groan inducing.

It was dictated by logic. If the party could hear each other, why couldn't they have heard the other NPCs in the room? Allowing party communication would've made the battle pointless, and remember, the point of these battles were to put the students with you at risk.

Forculus: This made the quest come to a screeching halt. it was another luck based fight, much like the Darkness. One bad roll set us back days upon days. This was the point where we all just wnated to get out of this quest, and this battle just kept stalling and stalling and stalling.

It lasted seven rounds, if the autorolled ones are counted as one. Hardly more than a normal end-quest battle. It was stalled because I didn't have the computer access I thought I had, not because the battle was too tricky.

Final Battle: Return of the mirror clones! Yay! "Special free hits" - not exaclt yay. Mirror Drucilla? Very not yay. Mirror Drucilla was insane. Any battle, whether a boss, a Threshold Monster, a boss of a stroy arc, a grand finale boss, the final boss of the whole game, should not have a TPKO Free Hit and Special. Combine this with the bizzare ruling of Special Free Hits, and you have a battle with so much potential it kind of loses its shine. Sealing has been around since I very first joined, back in the days where Quest 15 was still ongoing. To have its definition suddenly changed and altered for a single battle was just weird, not to mention a bit aggravating. There's ways to create a tough battle without altering the core of the rules. It's especially glaring as you're the one who made the effect and enforced it in the first place...

Yet you had no trouble breezing through the battle. I don't even want to know how much you would've complained if you would've faced Marilith with the specials I planned for her...

Again, I did not change the definition of any effects. The enemies had two Free Hits - one nullified by sealing and one nullified by blinding. It was clearly stated, and it was only for this one battle.

I understand a lot of your complains come out of frustration, and I did really push the boundaries of exploring the battle mechanics. I think you're just making a big deal out of nothing with this final battle.

I'll speak for mine personally, and if I had to choose one word for it, it'd be "unintuitive." Players need to get a grip on their surroundings, especially when the rules change so suddenly. I needed to get a grasp on how this new world worked, and it all happened too fast with too many consequences to make it enjoyable. From the very beginning, any action I took more or less condemned Caloriel and Hawke. Fire an arrow? Some one dies! Think it's a one time affair and try again? More people die! Stop and hold your ground? Bad things happen. Try firing again? Nothing happens to the monster! Hold your ground and try nonviolence? pretty much everyone dies!

Overall, it felt like It was a "damned if I do, damned if I don't" scenario, where I failed as son as I entered the archery competition. If there was a third option, I wouldn't know - I've never read the story of Robin Hood, and to stop metagaming, I didn't I wanted to react as Sorrow would, and ultimately, it seemed like there was nothing I could do.

Remember those holes that started to appear everywhere? It was the book "ripping" because you didn't follow the story. That's why the people went crazy as well.

Remember how I made you fall through the hole after the NPCs had died? It was because you should've jumped through the holes with the NPCs in tow to get out of the book.

Other players besides you and Thalion realized this, and that's why your NPCs died.

The sidequests had nothing to do with knowing how the respective stories went, they were just backdrops. Demons are interdimensional, so the stories weren't from Heroica's dimension either.

All while playing through 93, I had one recoccuring thought: "This is 50 all over again." They really are similar - it's more or less an escort mission flavor of Quest 50. We started to display the same feeling as the Quest 50 party did, and at some points, we thought the quest would end like 50 did: With the players so exasperated they just gave up and succumbed.

Yet you prevailed! I'm truly sorry you didn't have fun, but I hope the in-game rewards were at least sufficient.

For what it's worth: 93 had, in my opinion, the best sets/photography out of all of Heroica. :thumbup: The sets were large and expansive, not to mention detailed, the photography as crisp as could be, the editting great, and the designs for the NPCs and demons fantastic.

Thank you! I invested a lot of time and effort to the sets and pictures, so I'm glad it shows.

I think part of the problem is that you decided to take every gimmick to the extreme as soon as you possibly could've. I think this is demonstrated pretty clealry by the sheer number of NPCs in the quest, and thing slike the dark room. Introduce in bite sized pieces first, then expand.

And don't be afraid to talk to other QMs about it! We're all friends here, and a lot of us are QMs who'd be happy to listen to what you may try and offer feedback. We do it in the QM Lounge all the time. Hell, if you were to hand me a test battle and a gimmick to run it with, i'd gladly either participate in the test battle as a PC, or run it for you. Don't be afraid to reach out sometimes! In 93, you introduced so many things in their most radical form so quickly, it became too much. by the end, a lot of us were fed up being lab rats, more or less.

I won't do the same mistake again - and it was a mistake to throw so many quirky battles and mechanics into one quest. I thought I could pull it off and make the quest more varied because of that, but I failed.

I don't see a whole lot of point in running test battles outside of quests, though. The best thing about the game is that if something doesn't work, we can always change it on the go. This is not a video game, where play testing is crucial before handing the product to customers. None of us are getting paid or have to pay for playing this game.

This is a hobby for me as much as it is to everyone else playing. In the end, we shouldn't take it too seriously. If a mechanic is broken, let's fix it! If someone wants to try out something different, let's find a way to incorporate it into the game! I went over the board with this quest, I admit it, but I don't think anyone was seriously injured because of that.

Besides my reputation as a QM, perhaps.

What would happens if Djinnifer's offers were taken?

Djinnifer's wishes were purely roleplaying, which I knew is important to several of you who were playing in this quest. I tried to see how far you'd be willing to go roleplay-wise to get mechanical benefits.

I would've left it up to the individual heroes to decide whether the effects of the wishes were permanent or not.

93 was my least favorite quest to date, but I wrote this entire wall of text in hopes that you'll be able to continue making great quests as you've almost always done in the future.

I truly appreciate your effort. Hopefully I have answered to your concerns to your satisfaction.

Also, I'm going to take a moment to talk about Djinnifer. I really enjoyed her at first, and thought her character believable: a genie looking for companionship. Awesome! With Thailon and Heckz's first offers, I really enjoyed the idea of Djinnifer looking to find someone to talk to after years stuck in her lamp. However... something slipped. She went from "companion seeking genie" to "genie with silly trickster-esque wishes". Why would Karie agree to dye her hair when Heckz's offer was so much simpler? Same goes for Sorrow. Was their any real reason for it besides "trickster archetype"? Perhaps doing some character background checks could've resulted in better offers. Imagine Djinnifer offering Karie to have her be her "sister". Or Sorrow being offered another one hundred years of life, if only to be with Djinnifer longer. She went from interesting to rather silly, which is why she never got used, which is a shame because I really enjoyed her for those few moments we saw her during the Aureole fight.

I think first impressions fooled you. Djinnifer was a vain, selfish thing. She responded well to Thalion and Heckz because she thought they were good-looking, but the rest of the gang repulsed her. She also didn't take well with being constantly handed out from one person to another (without anyone ever making a wish), so in the end she just got fed up with the party.

Difficulty Curve/ Combat

Now, before I go on an all out rant, allow me to make something very clear: the first three fights, the one in the Storage Room, the one against the Reaper, and the one against the Rafflesia, were well thought out, fun, and still challenging. I liked them! I'm going to ignore those three since in all honesty they were fun fights. It's just about everything else I'm going to complain about. Each and every other fight just to get my point across that this quest's difficulty curve was all over the place. There were too many fights that drew the quest out exponentially, and they often felt disjointed and unimportant to the quest. We were fighting demons for the sake of fighting demons and extending the length of the quest. So, here's my take on every fight this quest, excluding the ones above, to get my point across.

I think you and Endgame shared your concerns about the battles, so please refer to my answers to him.

You know how I feel about this. The "Special Free Hits" more or less bent the rules. The rules were made and overseen by you to ensure the game doesn't get derailed. You've enforced the rules on occasion, which is fine, but when you, the Heroica Master, the individual who runs this game, begins to bend the rules, it's not a good sign. You're supposed to be an example to other QMs on what the game should look like. When you bend the rules, it's a free invite for others to bend the rules.

Again, you're making a really big deal out of practically nothing. The "Special Free Hits" didn't bend the rules, they were just a minor addition to make the battle challenging. I've had several enemies using their special attacks as Free Hits before, and nobody has complained before. These enemies just had two types of Free Hits - one nullified by sealing and one nullified by blinding. Again, I explained it to you guys from the get-go.

It's not like they're going to appear on every battle after that one. All of them were nullified by the pumpkin bomb, anyway.

The experimentation was over the top, I admit it, but at least we now know better how far the battle mechanics can be stretched. And I think it's my self-proclaimed right as the creator of these mechanics to give them a nudge every once in a while.

Omitting the ability that students would get into Noel's box but wouldn't follow him sort of riled me. It was a key mechanic that was omitted for whatever reason and probably would've helped us in the long run if you had mentioned it earlier. Karie getting mad at Noel was more myself getting mad at the quest in general, but I'll get to that later.

Also, your intention was to obviously split the group up. You made that clear after we as a whole PM'd you. If that was your intent, you should've made it more clear. Perhaps hinting at the Void Eater early on as an incentive to split up the party and speed the process up.

I guess I thought it was obvious that you could split up - it was made clear the school was big from the start, after all. But I could have pointed it out more clearly, you're right.

Also, you clearly had no intention to do anything with her or the Sheep Tribe for that matter, so what was her purpose to the plot besides extra baggage? Her as a plot and combat mechanic is disappointing, but her as a character I found enjoyable.

I wanted more recruitable students than just Noel, Nuitan and Lyren, so I thought of Sorsha (Carrot became recruitable by a spur of a moment, it was never planned). I wanted her character to reflect an ostracized student, and thus mirror Isabeau Carpenter - unlike the latter, Sorsha could defend herself, though. At one point I thought about making Sorsha a friend of Isabeau, but I dropped it for consistency reasons.

She was also supposed to go into a berserk rage more time, but I missed the opportunities to do that with her.

I didn't care for the side-quests. I've told you about this before back during my analysis of Marketplace Mystery: there's a difference between what the player knows, and what the character knows. I felt as if the idea was interesting, but having them based of stories that the players knew was... weird. I had to force Karie to know the story of the Wizard of Oz, and it felt really wrong.

Like I said to Endgame, it was by no means necessary for the player characters to know the story of the sidequests. In fact, they were supposed to get chaotic because of the heroes' cluelessness.

The Void Eater showing up out of nowhere was random and jarring, and the "twist ending" was really confusing. If it was hinted at, maybe I'd buy it, but there was no moment when the party was away from Noel. Perhaps this twist would've felt better in a shorter quest. Also, did the ending really need to be a week?

The Void Eater was planned from the get-go to appear to restrict exploration at some point and to give you a sense of urgency. I don't know how else I could have introduced it than make it appear through the wall...

I already explained why I added the "twist" to the end - to give you guys an excuse to be away from the rest of the world for six months, even though the quest only took place in one day or so. I had no way of knowing the quest would take so long when we started.

And the ending didn't need to be a week, but like I explained, my internet connection crashed. Of course I wanted to give you your rewards and a chance to say farewell to the characters you met during the quest, and thus wrap up any loose ends.

Now we get down to the things that ruined this quest for me. About halfway during the quest, right after the Wyrde-fire fight, I lost my trust in you as a QM. Not respect, that's something completely different. I couldn't trust you in the sense that I felt whatever we did, you'd somehow manage to set us back.

I wanted to keep the quest challenging. I'm sorry I executed it so poorly.

First of all: yes to everything Kinto has said. But I feel like I should add: this Quest was completely unforgiving--one f*ck-up, one bad roll and the entire party was screwed; there were no second chances, no "good-but-not-optimal" moves, and, worst of all, no way of strategizing or planning ahead because there was no consistency. Look at Quest 53: despite it being the Arc Finale of one of the most cataclysmic story arcs we've seen, featuring enemies we almost ALL complained about because of their difficulty, 53 was still more forgiving than 93. A Quest with perma-KO for players was more forgiving than a simple rescue mission. That's not a good thing.

What can I say other than repeat that I suck at maths? Counting the odds doesn't come naturally to me like it comes to you... I adjusted the battles on the go as the players complained. However, I firmly believe there should always remain a chance to fail a quest.

Flip side: I really think those NPCs could have done more to try to draw out the quieter characters. It's one of the thing that Zepher and Endgame NPCs do: there'll be a quiet lull in the Quest (whether by accident or design), and they'll pop up and start prodding the players for a roleplaying sequence.

You're right, I could've made the NPCs initiate conversations with the party more. It's something I will take more notice in the future.

And don't get lazy--be consistent! I distinctly remember several moments where people tried to interact with Nuitan and Noel and just got nothing back in response.

Can you point out those moments? I thought I always responded when the players talked to the NPCs...

I don't know what to say about the rogues; It was a good puzzle getting them out, but I'm surprised that a) students would actually try to ransom/kill a teacher in cold blood, and b) that, especially after feeling so strongly that the Dean was "evil" for his actions a few years before, so many characters, PC's and NPC's, had no problem with the actions of the students, solely because the students were (barely) under 18.

You forget that Eubric doesn't have a justice system. The Rogues also come from rich families, so the best thing Dean Morrible could do if she felt violated was to approach their parents to demand reprise. The dean, however, was really accustomed to the students running amok and jumping on the teachers' noses, and in the end of the day, they didn't actually hurt her.

The Rogue's clique was one of the things I intended to delve deeper into, but since the party arrived there late and fatigued, I decided to get it over with quickly.