Splitting the Campaign into Part 1 & Part 2

[Davion Fuxa]

Tales of Maj'Eyal is a pretty long game. It's lengthy enough that people pretty well associate it as Part 1 and Part 2; Before the Master in Dreadfall and after. So the idea shouldn't be too hard to understand - the direct portioning of the campaign in Part 1 & Part 2

For the most part I'm sort of suggesting a Castle of the Winds approach type of design for Tales of Maj'Eyal here. For anyone who played the Roguelike Castle of the Winds, that game was portioned into Part 1 and Part 2. If you created a character in Part 1 then you could run that character all the way through Part 1 and even into Part 2 (if you owned the game before it became freeware). The additional thing to note though is that you could also directly start in Part 2 with a character - you would just have to assign your experience before you could actually start playing it.

Pretty well I'm suggesting this type of format for Tales of Maj'Eyal - the split coming directly after you are Ambushed by the Orcs.

Thoughts?

[Faeryan]

Oh noes! I understand the idea but to me it sounds horrible.

I actually consider the part that you call part 1 the actual game and the part 2 as boring epilogue. It's just that the east has too much orcs and stuff and it's not diverse enough on my opinion.

If people want to start in the east they could always run Sun Paladins or Anorithils and just never go west. There's even an achievement for it.

Why I think it's a horrible idea is because it's like reading only the end of the book because the book is so dang long.

[The Revanchist]

Two things.

1) How are you supposed to get that? I've lost so many Anorithils!

2) Perhaps it's a new birth option, available only after completing the story mode? As an aside, make it immune to the race/class ignore.

[Davion Fuxa]

Personally I was thinking that perhaps starting a Part 2 could be like a bonus after you have dealt with the Orc Ambush with a specific combo - let's say a Halfling Rogue since they're popular. If you died with your Halfling Rogue after the Orc Ambush you could create a new Halfling Rogue at the defacto start of Part 2 (maybe outside the Elder's house in Lost Hope) and continue your journey without having to replay all of Part 1 again.

A Spelunky type of outlook could also be taken too - No Escort Bonuses from Tier 1, Tier 2, or Dreadfall; No Loot that you may have collected along the way, Potentially less levels and experience (like not just Thaloran being below level 50 before the final fight), and probably most damning of all - less lives since you've sort of skipped past gaining them at levels 1, 2, 5, 7, 14, and 24 (I assume we'd start players at 25 I guess with this proposal); and of course the Blood of Life would have a reduced chance of appearing since there is less gametime for it to appear in.

As for the actual character start I see multiple ways it could be approached too - one of the advantages here is that perhaps we could make it so that if say took an Arcane Blade, built it entirely in a way that you didn't like but somehow got to Part 2 and then died; you could restart your Shaloran Arcane Blade and retool it however you would specifically like it to be retooled too.

Or that idea could be abandoned and the character could just simply be locked into the skills of past so that this would be moreso like a checkpoint then an entirely new start.

I'm also entirely fine though if say we sort of went with Revanchists idea and made it only happen after say beating the final fight - you could say go back for the sheer purpose of testing out the talents you didn't use and seeing how you might play the character differently.

[Robsoie]

I think it could be interesting, the campaign would be about the Master threat, as up to him there's no Orc or anything, and if you don't stop the Master with his acquirement of the Staff of Absorption he would soon swarm the world with undead.

Completing the campaign by defeating the Master would then unlock a 2nd campaign, the sequel that is all about the Orc threat as we know, allowing you to either load your victorious 1st campaign hero, or if you like very hard challenge, start a new character from there

And finally completing the 2nd campaign by defeating the sorcerers in Sanctum would unlock the 3rd one, that is always in development .

Something positive i see from that would be that more people would actually try to get to the Master instead of giving up "oh the game is too long" before Dreadfell, as they would feel they really completed a campaign.

After that for other people it wouldn't change much, as they would simply play campaign 1 then campaign 2 with the same character anyways.
But they could get a new challenge with starting campaign 2 with a new character.

[evouga]

As I see it, the main problem is that the game is lopsided: most of the best gameplay occurs in the West, while most of the best plot occurs in the East.

I have several, not necessarily related, suggestions for how to improve this:

1. Rebalance the story a bit. First, far too much game time is spent in "I'll just wander from dungeon to dungeon harassing the wildife and collecting phat lute" mode. This is fine for the intro dungeons, as you're first being exposed to the world of Maj'eyal, but it would improve the game if the player got hooked into the plot earlier. Some lore in each of the T2 dungeons (Old forest, Maze, etc) hinting at the rise of the undead threat would be a good start. Even better, each of the four T2 dungeons could contain a clue about where the master's lair is and what he is up to in the other T2 dungeons. This would give the player a natural motivation for exploring those dungeons and, later, assualting Dreadfell.

Second, The natural turning point in the story is not the defeat of the master, but rather the race through the Charred Scar. I would reorganize the plot as follows: after defeating the master and being ambushed, the players chase the orcs into Reknor. Instead of finding the portal East, the player instead catches up to the main orc party and chases them through the Charred Scar, where the sorcerers do their thing. Upon defeat the sorcerers drop an Orb of Many Ways and flee east; the player follows, and Act II begins.

2. Move some of the optional content into Act 2.
Right now the gameplay in the East feels like an epilogue, because there aren't that many optional dungeons in the East compared to the West, and the player has spent so much time West before heading East that she already has access to most of her key class abilities. Moving some content (and exp) into Act 2 would help rectify this. In particular, the Ruined Dungeon could be moved East, and the Golem Graveyard, Mark of the Spellblaze, and's Celia mausoleum moved into Act 2's West, without disturbing much of Act 1's gameplay.

3. Give the player motivation to keep grinding.
Nothing is more boring than hitting level 50 in the middle of wiping out the first pride, knowing that you will need to grind the other 3.5 prides with no rewards other than marginally better equipment (if you're lucky) and stat Orbs. I don't think the level cap should be completely removed, per se, but some minor rewards for gaining exp beyond level 50 would make the East more interesting (and would also give the player a reason to risk more Farportal expeditions.) One stat point, plus one class or generic point (alternates each level) per level over 50, sounds about right. (Last I checked, players entering the ID from the campaign were still capped at level 50, so this also makes entering the ID with a winner more interesting.)

4. Add a "checkpoint" at the beginning of Act 2.
With the possible exception of the Master and some of the optional dungeons (Celia, Mark of the Spellblaze, e.g.) the gameplay in the East is significantly more challenging than back West. After hours of leveling up in the West, then dying horribly in the East, I can see a newbie player being reluctant to sink that much time getting back East again. I suggest adding a checkpoint at the beginning of Act 2: in addition to "restart with the same character", the player in Exploration/Adventure mode is offered "restart with the same character in the East" by the Eidolon. Unlike the posters above, I don't think a penalty is needed for players exercising this option: new players playing Adventure mode, after mastering the West, will be able to master the East at their own pace without feeling like they are wasting time, and experienced players can always ignore the option/play Roguelike.

[Mewtarthio]

1. Rebalance the story a bit. First, far too much game time is spent in "I'll just wander from dungeon to dungeon harassing the wildife and collecting phat lute" mode. This is fine for the intro dungeons, as you're first being exposed to the world of Maj'eyal, but it would improve the game if the player got hooked into the plot earlier. Some lore in each of the T2 dungeons (Old forest, Maze, etc) hinting at the rise of the undead threat would be a good start. Even better, each of the four T2 dungeons could contain a clue about where the master's lair is and what he is up to in the other T2 dungeons. This would give the player a natural motivation for exploring those dungeons and, later, assualting Dreadfell.

Second, The natural turning point in the story is not the defeat of the master, but rather the race through the Charred Scar. I would reorganize the plot as follows: after defeating the master and being ambushed, the players chase the orcs into Reknor. Instead of finding the portal East, the player instead catches up to the main orc party and chases them through the Charred Scar, where the sorcerers do their thing. Upon defeat the sorcerers drop an Orb of Many Ways and flee east; the player follows, and Act II begins.

Interesting. Doom of the World is a simple enough quest that it could probably be modified to fit in there.

As for hints of the undead... How about, after you clear your first T2 dungeon, undead hordes start appearing on the map along with the patrols and adventurers? Perhaps with the possibility of encountering the Dreadfell uniques among them? Naturally, they'd disappear with the Master's death.

[The Revanchist]

Perhaps, instead, after the Master dies, they don't up and vanish.

Instead, we can have them gradually deteriorate, either in distribution or quality. After a month, week or what have you, they're naught more than rickety deteriorated skeleton warriors. After that... *poof*.

Might be more complicated than it's worth, but I think it'd be pretty cool.

[Davion Fuxa]

Perhaps, instead, after the Master dies, they don't up and vanish.

Instead, we can have them gradually deteriorate, either in distribution or quality. After a month, week or what have you, they're naught more than rickety deteriorated skeleton warriors. After that... *poof*.

Might be more complicated than it's worth, but I think it'd be pretty cool.

Should perhaps factor in Pale Drake (the Backup Dreadfall Guardian) into the equation. Maybe after the Master falls, they Undead Minions simply get reduced in number but not quality. When Pale Drake dies they get stop spawning (kind of like how Orc Breeding Pits worked).

It might make sense if Backup Guardians got a bit relooked at too - maybe their dungeons could get reinfested a bit? Or at least in the cases where it could make sense.

But anyhow, the above really all correlates to making two fully functional 'Part 1' and 'Part 2' campaigns. If that was done, would it make more sense to players to have that total partitioning of the game as I initially suggested or is there other concerns that were missed?

[HousePet]

Other than messing up the ability to play through the dungeons in whatever order you like?

[Davion Fuxa]

Other than messing up the ability to play through the dungeons in whatever order you like?

A player will still be able to go wherever he likes, he'll just be started further in to the game and have lesser dungeons that would likely have been completed already, completed (probably need to discuss Sher'Tul Fortress and Anti-Magic; making it sort of a checkpoint idea an locking in your character though would solve that issue however).

[Darkmere]

What about the backup guardians and farportal energy/activation? Alchemist quests? optional but highly dangerous areas like the Dark Crypt or graveyard? Randart merchant? Also, all the random bonus events are in the west.

[Davion Fuxa]

Everything is dependent on what approach is taken to the portioning of the game into Part 1 and Part 2. If we go with a checkpoint system like evouga's forth idea states then all you are really doing is falling back to an earlier time with the character you were originally playing with before it died in the East. You'd still have your escort bonuses or have saved/doomed Melinda in such an idea.

Aiming sort of for the Castle of the Winds idea I'm suggesting though, it sort of gets a little bit more complicated. Let's say for general practice that we have it sorted out that you have to achieve something (at bare minimum, beating the Master) and that you are able to create pretty well a new character for use - with some levels under its belt to make the content more palatable. It could be like I suggest - only a character that is of the same race/class combo that you played through Part 1 Completely or it could be entirely any combination:

The Backup Guardians shouldn't really be an issue since they are Eastern Content. It isn't like Trollmire wouldn't exist for you, it would just be void of monsters - until you came back West (I'm all for perhaps repopulating some of the dungeons with more then just Backup Guardians).

The Sher'Tul Farportal could perhaps already be cleared up to and all your new character has to do is find a Rod of Recall - maybe available from the first Boss Enemy you defeat. Once you get that Rod of Recall, you can go to the Sher'Tul Fortress and use it as you please and start building up Farportal Energy. Obviously any energy you would have got by playing from Part 1 would be lost in this scenario.

The Brotherhood of Alchemists could still be there. How they operate though could be up for discussion: Maybe each of the four would be alchemists have completed one of their potions at random? Perhaps we don't want people scumming so instead they have yet to complete all their potions; or vice versa they are done and the Brotherhood has its new Alchemist already.

Some Optional/Random areas could still be available, or all of them, or none of them. It's entirely up to taste and redesign. One important thing to also make a note of as well about zones in Maj'Eyal - they do scale to level; The Elven Ruins can scale up to level 42 for example. Redesign could make any dungeon something that could appear in Part 2 (if we want to move stuff over to Part 2) appear, but the scaling level modifier could be a good measuring stick on what's available - with some forethought (don't want Dark Crypt probably appearing at 24+ for a Part 2 starting character for example).

That all said, going by what probably shouldn't be accessible regardless of redesign: Halfling Ruins are unavailable. I would also probably make class specific places like Tranquil Meadows and Paradox Plane (and by extension Temporal Rift) unavailable as well. All these places really would do better to exist as purely Part 1 areas.

Only thing to add is that the Unknown Tunnels occur very early in Part 1 - going by what I said with the Brotherhood of Alchemists, it really is up for discussion what to do with the Lost Merchant. Maybe going a Spelunky route he is not available (you only get him if you slog all through Part 1) while perhaps he could be available in Part 2 - assumed to be saved already.

[Peony]

I'm not really sure what you hope a part 2 start will achieve. If the first part is too long, the obvious correction is to make it shorter. My suggestion is that the game randomly give you access some dungeons but not others. This makes the game shorter and more varied (which I think are both plusses).

The Castle of the Winds approach worked there because you couldn't go back to the previous dungeons, so the only things you had to generate were experience and equipment - the latter being easily solved by giving you money and plentiful shops.

[tylor]

I think game length is pretty ok, but I would split campaign in two, because they have very different feel. PG sanitized merry dungeon romp (mostly) in the West, probably even set in less post-apocalyptic era. And story-driven grimdark saga (mostly) in the East, unlocked only after finishing first one at least once.