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RE: =DF= February 7th Design Notes: The Corrupted Seven: Finale!

 
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2/8/2020 21:25:40   
brotherinlaw
Member

You know, I love AE. I'm usually one of the first to jump on a naysayers back for harping unnecessarily or nitpicking an AE game. Among those, Dragonfable is perhaps my favourite.

So it is with the utmost love and respect that I say: I am SO sick and tired of the Inn at the Edge of Time. You've got classes being designed, Reimagined releases being made, and holiday releases being made (while feeling more like a side-note than an actual celebration or special event). Meanwhile, you have about four or five storylines that exist all over the timeline, including Book One's True Mortal saga and a "War" themed event that feels as imminent and important as a turtle climbing up a warm hill of molasses to deliver us junk-mail.

Important events and storylines feel trivial, The story is impossible to remember across several storylines with often month-long gaps, and what we do get is often imaginative and bland, with resources and creativity dedicated to the Inn.

This should not be happening. A niche area like the inn, which exists for grinding gear and adding little-to-nothing to the story or worldbuilding of your game, should NOT come before the core gameplay and storyline. As someone who's played this game for years and loved it, the fact that I have lost some of my attachment to the characters and story I've loved most of my life, Is not a good sign.

I mean no offense, and I know this is just my own opinion. But dang it, when I feel genuinely tired of a game I have loved for most of my life, I need to speak up! And it's not that I don't like a challenge, I loved the Codemonkey challenges. Those, however, were released far apart, and did not take up to much of the staff's time and energy. They were fun, funny, and drew you into the game, rather than just being a bland puzzle of game-mechanics.

If I may make a suggestion? Keep the challenges, but do one a year. That way you can release your storyline releases somewhat close together, they can feel fun and fleshed out, and the wait will make those challenges so much more interesting and anticipated. Knowing that "Inn Week" was coming up could generate buzz, theorising what the next challenge was or re-evaluating how to beat the previous challenge.

Just, please, don't let this game continue to be dominated by the Inn challenges. Honestly, nobody plays Dragonfable exclusively for the challenges. They're fun on occasion, but it's a freakin' turn-based Flash game. Skill isn't necessary, you just throw stuff at the wall to see what sticks, or go to the forums to see what other people did. You can do things like the Inn but, if your story or worldbuilding suffers from it, you will lose your fanbase.
AQ DF MQ AQW Epic  Post #: 26
2/8/2020 22:33:19   
Vikken101
Member


@brotherinlaw

Respectfully, You seem to have a misunderstanding of several things in your comment.

quote:

So it is with the utmost love and respect that I say: I am SO sick and tired of the Inn at the Edge of Time. You've got classes being designed, Reimagined releases being made, and holiday releases being made (while feeling more like a side-note than an actual celebration or special event). Meanwhile, you have about four or five storylines that exist all over the timeline, including Book One's True Mortal saga and a "War" themed event that feels as imminent and important as a turtle climbing up a warm hill of molasses to deliver us junk-mail.


1.A slower Storyline progression is about that the fact that df developers are not plentiful enough to make several story releases one after another, its literally not possible


2. The Inn of Time LITERALLY exists to give Devs LESS work, this has been confirmed by both Developers. The Inn of Time takes less resources then normal story quests. If Inn of Time Challenges did not exist there would not be more story quests, you would be getting empty filler content instead. As it stands now endgame players are getting something to do while we wait for story releases.
The inn of time literally happens once a month, it does not overshadow the other aspects of the game.

quote:

rather than just being a bland puzzle of game-mechanics.


You are really downplaying all the hard work Verlyrus is putting into coding and designing these Inn challenges.

3.

quote:

Just, please, don't let this game continue to be dominated by the Inn challenges. Honestly, nobody plays Dragonfable exclusively for the challenges. They're fun on occasion, but it's a freakin' turn-based Flash game. Skill isn't necessary, you just throw stuff at the wall to see what sticks, or go to the forums to see what other people did. You can do things like the Inn but, if your story or worldbuilding suffers from it, you will lose your fanbase.


The game is not being dominated by inn challenges far from it, they do however generate a lot of discussion, because of their design and mechanics, which people are passionate for. And from i have seen, a lot of people enjoy Dragonfable because of Inn challenges and do in large part play it for the gameplay. Of course not everyone, not everyone is gonna enjoy the gameplay of df, but if you notice, it has a ton of depth that’s being explored through the Inn of Time, which would not be possible anywhere else.

4. In my opinion, while story releases happens less often than ideal, their quality overshadows story quests from earlier periods of Df, and are well worth the wait. And the World Building under Dove and Verlyrus and the other writers is quite frankly insane in their depth. And if you pay attention Inn of Time releases are not randomly thrown together challenges with no story, challenge boards like the Exaltia Tower and the Corrupted Seven, contain a ton of lore. For example, current events in the book 3 main story, are actually elaborated upon in the Exaltia Tower, it’s not strictly necessary for the main story, but it gives a ton of supplementary information about the df world and pantheon. But without requiring as much work as a main story release would.

In summary, story releases are not effected by the inn of time, not their writing quality nor quest design. And the Inn of Time does not overshadow story releases, you might think so because it generates some more discussion on the forums. But world building and story is being discussed every day elsewhere. And there is a ton of through-lines between several of the on-going story-lines, that are forming a large hidden narrative if you pay attention. And the worldbuilding thats is being created around the df world is quite impressive with such a small team.
Post #: 27
2/8/2020 22:35:23   
ProbablyCallum
Member

You know inn literally exists to lower doverly's heavy workload right? It was literally started because the amount of work for mainstory and sidestory is vastly more than other content.
You also claimed that the story is "bland and unimaginative" yet everyone else in the playerbase unanimously agrees that df's writing since doverly took over is the best that its ever been. Would you prefer it to go back to the days when rolith and alina were writing "haha randumb funni" for the entirety of book one?
Inn only gets one update per month as well, that's a quarter and occasionally a fifth of the releases dragonfable gets in a month, generally 2 of the other releases in the month are a sidestory and mainstory and the last is reimagined. If this looks like the "inn is taking over" you should get your eyes checked, not that you've ever looked at the inn in the first place since you're a level 57 player despite having an account from 2008.
The storyline is also not "impossible to remember" and I've never seen a single person bring up such a baffling complaint, especially not since the timelines got added for book 1 and 3.
Your suggestion is absolutely awful both for doverly's workload and the majority of active players who strangely enjoy the concept of games having gameplay. You were also clearly talking out of nothing since you somehow think the codemonkey challenges were anything other than repetitive sequences that needed to be bruteforced by people on the forums who then recorded the answer in the pedia so it would never have to have any player engagement ever again. Probably the only reason you claimed to like codemonkey was that someone else could handhold you through it by posting a guide, unless you're claiming to be one of those ancient forum users who solved them on release? Is the idea of a good challenge to you something that consists of doing things in random sequences with no way of predicting what is correct or incorrect? That sure sounds like really wonderful fun tbh
quote:

Skill isn't necessary, you just throw stuff at the wall to see what sticks, or go to the forums to see what other people did. You can do things like the Inn but, if your story or worldbuilding suffers from it, you will lose your fanbase.

These are some really bold words for someone who's never played said content, there are in fact a great deal of people who play the game for the inn content as this thread has proven and the fact that you dismiss df as "just some flashgame the gameplay doesnt matter lol" really shows just how little respect and love you actually have for it.
DF  Post #: 28
2/9/2020 3:48:19   
dragon_master
Member

Nonsense. Please don't do this again.
quote:

Just, please, don't let this game continue to be dominated by the Inn challenges. Honestly, nobody plays Dragonfable exclusively for the challenges.


1.making claims that aren't true at all.

quote:

They're fun on occasion, but it's a freakin' turn-based Flash game. Skill isn't necessary, you just throw stuff at the wall to see what sticks, or go to the forums to see what other people did. You can do things like the Inn but, if your story or worldbuilding suffers from it, you will lose your fanbase.


2. even more claims that are not true.

Is your ego hurt... or something?


< Message edited by dragon_master -- 2/9/2020 3:52:29 >
DF  Post #: 29
2/9/2020 4:38:59   
HellsWolf666
Member

quote:

Important events and storylines feel trivial, The story is impossible to remember across several storylines with often month-long gaps


can't you just... you know- replay the previous quest or read it's script on the forum, either way it will only take like 5 minutes.

quote:

and what we do get is often imaginative and bland, with resources and creativity dedicated to the Inn.


you have every right to have that opinion but IMO DF(book 3) has some of the most well written stories and characters i ever encountered, you hardly ever get to see a villian characters that you can relate to and understand the reasons behind it's actions (be is Jaania or even the magesterium that wishes to protect it's nation from the evil anti magic group) rather than simply write it off as some generic bad guy who is evil just because you need an antagonist.



just a question though but if the inn is bad and the story is trivial, imaginative and bland so why bother playing? why not just stop or take a brake and return in a few months after the story quests have piled up in hope that it got better or that the plot has advanced enough to satisfy you??
DF  Post #: 30
2/9/2020 7:01:39   
aceflashwater
Member

i am so dissapointed with the new release :(
Post #: 31
2/9/2020 9:14:29   
TFS
Helpful!


So, after another day of playing I've had enough time to actually get to Pandora enough times to map her out. I'm sorry to say that she's very similar to her children in that she's very complex and there's lots of stuff going on, but the fight is just too easy for it all to get a chance to shine; it's harder to map out what she does than it is to actually beat her, when it should be the other way around IMO.



So the gist is that she cycles through the mechanics and elements of each of the seven sins as the fight progresses, more or less, spending 2 turns overcome by each sin before the mechanic disappears. I believe it's something along these lines:
Lust - Fire element, reflects damage
Envy - Poison element, no additional effect(?)
Wrath - Water element, immune to critical hits
Gluttony - Wind element, purges target and heals for every status (including Pressure but excluding Stuffed)
Sloth - Nature element, gets mad if you don't attack
Pride - None element, no additional effect(?)
Greed - Energy element, heals for every status on the target
Repeat
She'll also inflict a permanent 'Pressure' DoT on the player
spoiler:

PANDORA is exerting its pressure!
and her damage will very slowly ramp up over time. Her actual attacks don't seem to do anything besides just damage. Will update if I learn more.



I think the biggest reasons that this fight is so easy are that Pandora isn't very threatening offensively and that the extremely diluted uptime of each sin passive (except for Gluttony and Greed) make them largely non-factors during the fight; Pandora therefore isn't very threatening defensively either. There's no real pressure anywhere, no pun intended. I also expected Mama Chaosweaver to get mad if you tried to use ChW against her, for both flavor and balance reasons, but ironically enough it's actually the best class for farming her. If this fight were to be rebalanced, I think having a way to deal with hyperoffense (maybe by having sin passive uptimes increase/overlap?) would be a good place to start.

Though I of course understand that Pandora isn't supposed to be super hard given that she can only be fought at the end of a gauntlet that's already super grindy. It just felt a bit underwhelming having the big final boss be more a victory lap; the real challenge is not getting outRNGed by Pride (or to a much lesser degree Wrath) after you've already invested 20-30 minutes into a single run.



Also, a few people mentioned that having to fight every single spirit with the same class was overly restrictive. I disagree and found the actual gauntlet very managable with numerous (free) classes like Soulweaver and Technomancer (going to try Ranger and for my next run). Since Greed and Envy are un-bosses and Sloth is kind enough to let you heal up during the first several turns of the fight, It's really just a test to see if you can do Gluttony after already having lost HP from Lust, and you can easily get around that with food. If you're going for the no-heal challenge run, though, then yeah, that's a lot more restrictive for sure in that it forces fast offense; don't think this requires elaboration.

It's the grinding aspect that forces restriction, IMO - it takes like a minimum of 6 hours to get all the drops with the fastest possible blitz classes (Chaosweaver and DoomKnight). No one is going to want to drag that out even longer, especially not when the actual runs are the exact same experience every time (unlike Exaltia), and especially especially since you've already farmed each of these monsters several times over (barring Pandora of course).

So, uh, think that's everything I wanted to say. Will update this post with more Pandora mechanics as I find them. Really looking forward to future changes, it's evident there's a ton of really fun stuff buried under a thin surface layer of questionable execution.
Also want to say that I'm really, really grateful Verly is responding to feedback, this is a lot of stuff and it can't be fun being spread super thin. That's the sign of a really dedicated developer who cares a lot about both the game and its players, and I am both amazed and appreciative. Thank you.

< Message edited by TFS -- 2/9/2020 9:17:34 >
DF  Post #: 32
2/9/2020 11:37:18   
The Betrayer123
Member

Is Elpis a merge of Pandora and Tomix in a Secundus like scenario? Looks like it has both male and female characteristics, as well as the nose scar. Not that I've managed to beat the challenge and obtain it yet
AQ DF AQW  Post #: 33
2/9/2020 15:00:54   
GearzHeadz
Member

I'm officially done with this game. Its been a real 13 years but I don't feel respected as a player anymore. Good luck folks.
DF AQW Epic  Post #: 34
2/9/2020 15:19:42   
Vikken101
Member

Regarding Pandora's Scythe changes, some of us thought it would be cool if the Scythe keeps it stats. But that you would be able to do something similar to soulforging, which i mean that we could merge the scythe with a chibi cape, and as a result changing the Scythe's element to that spirits. But to make it balanced, like a soul-forged weapon, you can only have it be one element at a time, to not make it overpowered. It would also give the chibi capes an additional function besides fashion and would it would also give incentive to those who have only done the C7 once to reach the Final Challenge, something more to do.

< Message edited by Vikken101 -- 2/9/2020 15:23:25 >
Post #: 35
2/9/2020 15:23:35   
BluuHorseOfficial
Member


Oh yeah that'd be really cool! With like, the Spirit's Sigil in place of Pandora's and the blade recolored based on the spirit and the default would probably be a ??? or None Scythe or something!
DF  Post #: 36
2/9/2020 16:07:35   
Ultima29
Member

I'd probably keep it in the default because I love it being Pandora's
Post #: 37
2/9/2020 17:02:15   
Kurtz96
Member

When will the changes that Verly mentioned in the design notes go into effect? And what about the rewards that have already been bought? If I already bought Pandora's scythe and Elpis will I get to keep them?

quote:

But to make it balanced, like a soul-forged weapon, you can only have it be one element at a time, to not make it overpowered. It would also give the chibi capes an additional function besides fashion and would it would also give incentive to those who have only done the C7 once to reach the Final Challenge, something more to do.

How would having multiple elements be unbalanced? Cause the Exalted Apotheosis has better stats and can freely toggle between 2 elements. By that standard, having Pandora's scythe toggle between 2 elements (lust-fire, envy-poison etc) would be perfectly fine.

< Message edited by Kurtz96 -- 2/9/2020 17:04:32 >
AQ DF MQ  Post #: 38
2/9/2020 17:43:12   
The_element
Member

To be fair, I think it would be nice if Pandora's scythe could toggle between Evil and Fear element as opposed to using the chibi capes to change element. I also think it would be nice if the trinket had an enhanced effect and did more damage if Pandora's Scythe was equipped and shown.
Post #: 39
2/9/2020 19:39:42   
brotherinlaw
Member

Thank you to the people who replied to me without tearing a new one.

First of all, I apologise. I should have fact-checked before making that post. In reality, there are only 1-2 Inn releases a month. Though, with 4 Fridays a month, 1 of which will be a reimagined release and 1 of which may be a seasonal release. To put that in perspective, the Proclamation War event started November 15, 2019, the first storyline release since October 11. During December we got more of the amazing, but definitely seasonal Maleurous Saga. Admittedly, December is usually a month Dominated by the seasonal release, but it's worth noting the extra "slots" were taken by an Inn event and a Reimagined. The first storyline event, telling us part of the core story involving this massive, urgent, and world-dominating war, was January 11, nearly two months later!

Now, I admit, I did not think the Inn challenges were meant as easy filler. I hadn't seen any posts describing it as such, and I thought programming and designing new challenges and creatures with unique mechanics was far more complicated to create.

That's on me.

However, as any fan of anime can tell you, there are different kinds of filler. There's filler that adds nothing to the story or characters, feeling bland as it pads out time. There's filler that actually detracts from the story, contradicting certain histories or universal laws and forcing it to run askew of the anime. And there's filler that works with the story, establishing self-contained stories that build on the relationships and old or new characters that the fans love, without impacting the story other than to enrich it. The Verylus and San Robin storys are basically the last one, getting to know characters we come to love without majorly impacting the storyline and lore.



Therefore, I will definitely amend my statement. I feel the staff should, in fact, utilise filler to make their job easier. However, I would ask that they alternate their filler to a degree. I, for one, would not mind if we got a new storyline that utilises old art and enemies to enrich the narrative of several old hallmark characters from Dragonfable. This would actually be the perfect opportunity as well. We recently went through a time-skip, and we still haven't caught up with most of the Book One characters.

Can you seriously say it would be harder to write up a short quest that reuses old assets than it would be to do an Inn challenge, which history shows will likely take more time as said challenge gets patched or rebalanced at a later point?
AQ DF MQ AQW Epic  Post #: 40
2/9/2020 20:41:59   
Kurtz96
Member

It occurs to me that all the spirits that are irrelevant (Greed, Envy, and Gluttony) are male and all the spirits that cause problems are female (Lust, Wrath, and Pride) while thee due gender spirit is average difficulty. Funny thought.

I don't think the grind is too big deal for the same reason the endless tog grind is OK. You don't have to do it all at once. Do one or 2 runs a day if you start finding it monotonous. These items aren't that good anyways.
AQ DF MQ  Post #: 41
2/9/2020 22:27:19   
ProbablyCallum
Member

quote:

In reality, there are only 1-2 Inn releases a month.

There is one, there has only ever been one inn release per month, where are you getting the two from other than your own dishonesty. The only exception is when a release got emergency delayed at the last minute and dove had verly throw exraveler and ex sea chicken together within an hour because that is a better outcome than no release.
quote:

Though, with 4 Fridays a month, 1 of which will be a reimagined release and 1 of which may be a seasonal release

This is why seasonal releases have been getting gradually pushed together with the mainstory/sidestories like how last year's frostval was a malerous installment. Last year's hero’s heart day was also skipped altogether with just a scythe shop being added for the year and a mainstory release on the same release. It is likely going to be the same with several seasonal releases this year as well, most notably lucky week as a friday the 13th coincides with it.
quote:

Can you seriously say it would be harder to write up a short quest that reuses old assets than it would be to do an Inn challenge, which history shows will likely take more time as said challenge gets patched or rebalanced at a later point?

Verly's cat quests are literally what this is. They're for when dove is sick and unable to animate/art new things. They dont do storylines relevant quests with those because recycled content wouldnt come up to the standards that they have for mordern story releases and it would also require significant planning because doing story related filler is how you get plotholes. You've also again proved you know nothing about the inn because nearly all the animations used for it as well asa great deal of the art found in it are recycled content.
Also, inn content is hardly ever patched or rebalanced at a later point, especially not to any significant degree, this is the first time something like this has happened.
Come back with complaints about the inn when you've actually hit level cap and played inn content, until then please stop barging in on inn releated discussions that you know nothing about.

< Message edited by ProbablyCallum -- 2/10/2020 1:59:50 >
DF  Post #: 42
2/10/2020 0:29:20   
EdyMaster
Member

The Pandora Scythe is perfect for changing between the various elements related to each sin, it would be incredible to see that happen. It is not a bad weapon after all, it has great stats, the bad thing was the choice of the element. I really hope that it can be switched between all 7 elements and maybe even an eighth that represents Pandora, even if that was over the barrier of an eventual Extreme Pandora.

As for the thrinket I don't think it would hurt if there was a little buff in it. And it doesn't even have to be an increase in stats, it can just be a better effect (greater boost or longer duration), or greater skill damage (after all, it changes between various elements which makes it not optimal for all situations), or simply reduce the cooldown of the skill as 34 turns is very exaggerated. The thrinket could be obtained by combining two items, one from the gauntlet and the other from the normal version of the solo Pandora, so it would be necessary to complete only once the gauntlet, which is the most boring part of all.

And of course, adjust Pride Superior Superiority, please Verlyrus. If it is not possible to have a fixed rotation for this, at least make it have an initial cooldown so that -1 does not happen right from the start of the fight.

Anyway, thank you very much to the developers for another release. Your work is incredible and deserves recognition.
DF  Post #: 43
2/10/2020 6:15:08   
xelessarx
Member

To be honest, the biggest problem is not about the inn but rather the side stories in my opinion. If you asked me some time ago I'd fiercely argue that side story releases are better than IatEoT releases but at this point, ngl, I prefer IatEoT releases 10 times better. That is not because the Inn releases became more fun but because (imo) that the side stories all became so bland, slow, uninteresting and unsatisfying. This is ALSO why we don't feel satisfied with the current way the story is released because there is not much plausible content to those side stories. If they were richer in concept, I am pretty sure I'd be more content with the current release schedule.

Yet, after the end of Calamity saga (and maybe that Swordhaven Notice Board storyline by Elryn, which was also interesting overall), we literally had side stories with unsatisfying content, imo.
Well this will be a bit like a critique and I mean no offense to the writers but well simply put (All is just my opinion):

-Thorns saga was good at start as it was relevant to the main story and complementing unknown bits of it in a way but it turned bad very quickly. The villain literally doesn't have any depth. He is just a weird edgy guy who does evil "BeCaUSe It iS FuN!" as paraphrased from his dialogue in a quest. There is also a ridiculous Darth Vader plot twist in this saga, which is pretty lame at this point. Aaand all that "Wow, it was all a bait m8, you fell into my trap." thing from death was *eyeroll*. Hello? You are Death. Don't you have anything better to do? At least this saga is finished. On the other hand...

-True Mortal saga!!! Should I really talk about this one? It's been dragging since... Since I don't even remember when. At this point noone wants to play this saga, noone wants to go through the horrible quest design it has over and over again (Because you know, when a release comes once in six months or a year people must replay to remember what happened so far) and noone cares about this saga (Maybe with 1 or 2 people as exceptions, because there is always that 1 dentist who doesn't suggest the toothpaste). Villains have interesting lore (Book about ice dwarves and Ahmed Ptah's tablets etc.) yet they don't have the same interesting role in the story itself. Everyone surely wants this saga to just end at this point, however it'd be.

-Sanctuary's Return saga can actually be interesting. Yet conflicting its name, this saga can not return, last quest being released 2 years ago or smt? Pretty sure that is not without reasons but it doesn't change the fact that we don't get releases for this saga either, so it doesn't have any weight in evaluating how good the side story content currently is.

-Six Heroes saga is painfully slow... Who are the Six Heroes? Do we even know that yet? When will they assemble? And God, why is the villain Joker v3. & Zaheer v2.? This whole saga looks more fitting for an animation series but not a DF style cutscene game also. We have a character named Faust which is super-duper powerful like everyother anime protagonist (And also, his edgy looks are very much so, too. Sheesh, he has red eyes...) and presumably he made a bargain with devil... Did we have any actual character development in this saga maybe aside from "Reminiscence" (which happened in the past by the way), which had *SIX* quests so far? Nope, everything is superficial with this saga just like the "Thorns saga", even though this saga tries to tackle with some traumatic events like Sophie burning. While being an *EIGHT* quest book 1 storyline, "Rise of the Dragonmage" does the character development "tons" better than these six quests could do so far.

-And The Nest... Okay all the "Orphanage" stuff is a nice touch. We get to see what happens to all those children of war. But the story? It has been years since this saga started and we still have no idea what this saga is about or what motives Siofra has. Dude... Learning the motives of the villain at the ending is not a good trope especially if the story will take years. And DF already has done such tropes in the best way such tropes could be executed. Look at Secundus, we learnt his motives right in the ending of the First Weaver. And it was good because it made sense. Can you top it? Probably not. Then just don't and give us some reasons as to why things are happening. And look at First Weaver again, in that saga we also had other knowledge to keep us satisfied about it like what "Roirr" was planning and his motives AND his past. We learnt about his children. We also got introduced to a complete new culture at the same time. And this saga is 8 quests long as well. Look at how much can be told in a short saga while current sagas fail to tell anything at all. What did the last 5 quests of The Nest deliver to the player aside from what I mentioned in the beginning really?

So you see my opinion is that none of the side stories are actually enjoyable at this point that it just feels like as if we don't get enough story releases. And all of them dragging a hellish amount of time is probably the biggest reason aside from lame villains that makes them lose their charm. Maybe it'd be wiser to just finish one side story at a time but I guess everyone needs their money so that's not possible *shrugs*. It only takes its toll from the player this way though.


< Message edited by xelessarx -- 2/10/2020 6:23:03 >
Post #: 44
2/10/2020 8:15:37   
BluuHorseOfficial
Member


While I agree that Side Stories should probably be done one at a time, I feel like you're being too harsh with your criticism.

I actually liked Thorns. The Fear quest had a very nice and scary atmosphere and a piece of lore about how SoulWeavers are considered ChaosWeavers if they use SoulWeaving in battle which has been known on discord for ages is finally touched upon in the saga. Belle is also a pretty interesting character and ManaWeaving is an interesting concept. Theano wasn't a bad guy just for the sake of being a bad guy, though. His pregnant wife, Persephone, died before she could deliver the baby (who he assumed was a boy) and he was on a quest to recover his son. His methods of doing so were extreme and stood against what the Rose stand for (which isn't much though lol) and that's what made this saga interesting for me.

I couldn't agree more about True Mortal. If I recall correctly, Eric Greydawn wanted the quests to be very lengthy and that honestly takes away the replayability of the saga. As you said, with a gap of about a year between each new quest, one will have to replay the saga to catch up with the Lore and several of the quests (such as Origins and The Maker) are long and tedious. I was actually really interested in the saga a few years back because it seemed genuinely cool to me, and the storyline is still pretty good, it's just that being a saga with the fate of the world at stake, you have no real connection with True Mortal (or any of the supporting characters) as you do with, say, Tomix in the Ravenloss Sagas. I, too, just want the final war to drop and for the storyline to be over.

I really want more Sanctuary's return, too. I love Sir Leon and Crest and would really like to know what's happening on their side of the World.

The issue I have with the Six Heroes Saga is the fact that there are a few pretty much cutscene-only quests. I like how the story is progressing so far, and Lysander's Introduction in Darkheart genuinely intrigues me. I'm not a fan of overpowered villains myself, but Darkheart's dialogue makes me curious about his organization and their motives, and I can't wait to have more from it. The Burning Village was also a nice and dark quest and builds up Faust's justice-minded character really well though we should probably tone down burning things in that saga lol. Fun fact: Lysander is actually in the Gala! I only found out about this myself a few days back while replaying the story, but that makes it more interesting for me. Could he have helped the Magisterium Sentries sneak into the castle unnoticed? He did say Auralmancy has several applications, so who knows, maybe he could've.

I don't have much of an opinion on The Nest, and I honestly don't recall much of it, but from what I remember, the hero didn't stop Siofra from grabbing the Dragonbane necklace even though he was clearly struggling with it, and iirc Messimy's the only dragon/draconian we know of who willingly joined the Rose, I wanna see how that plays out.

I found a few of the side story releases pretty impressive and fulfilling, myself, but I think more focus has to be given to the main story; having to prepare three different main story quests for one release cannot be easy, and imo the Proclomation war should be prioritized and finished off as fast as possible so it isn't a burden to the developers. I do hope that in the next Magisterium war we'll get two factions, though, say Rose+Vind and Golden Hand+Amityvale stuff, but only as long as it's not too much trouble.
DF  Post #: 45
2/10/2020 16:25:26   
spirit of greed
Member

I liked this release though i see why others don't. My only problem with it is that the rewards are not that powerful for a challenge like this. You get rewards like these after normal quests and not for some hard challenges like these. Other than that i liked it. Since i like the Tomix saga i'm just happy we get to see all the corrupted spirits. The designs of them are awesome honestly.

< Message edited by spirit of greed -- 2/10/2020 16:26:05 >
DF AQW  Post #: 46
2/10/2020 20:21:20   
brotherinlaw
Member

@ProbablyCallum

First off, chill the hell out. I'm not kicking your dog, I'm not holding your daughter hostage, I'm not even personally attacking the game. I'm offering constructive criticism, pointing out observed flaws and suggesting ways to fix things. I even point out that it's from my limited perspective, and that, from a development standpoint, my ideas and observations may have no basis (at least, I hope that's what I'm getting across). If the staff reacted as defensive and vitriolic as you are right now, we'd have no influence on the game whatsoever. And that's exactly why these forums exist, to promote discussion and try to influence the development of the game for the better. So take a chill-pill.

Secondly, I may have been wrong. I wrote "1-2 Inn releases" to cover my bases, simply because I was not sure. And, yes, I did a (rough) fact-check on the Design Notes and, at least back as far as October, you are right. There was only one Inn-release per month. In fact, the one month I remembered getting two Inn challenges, was actually two released at once, explaining my confusion. I am certainly not above admitting my mistakes. Heaven knows I've made more than my fair share on the forums alone. I do NOT, however, make it a habit of accusing others of purposely spreading misinformation for malicious purposes, and I'd appreciate that you never make that mistake against any other user ever again.

Thirdly, the Malerious saga, if you haven't noticed, is a seasonal event. It's the very point of the saga, as it has no bearing on the rest of the story (far less, in fact, than the previous saga with Caitiff in it) and connects only with it's own saga. Even Uuanta, who you'd think as a hero would pitch in for other emergencies happening at the same time, doesn't seem to exist outside of it. And I respect that. Like I said, Frostvale events usually take up the whole month, and it was spliced with AE's second biggest holiday, Friday the 13th, so it all was to be expected. I addressed it as such.

Fourthly, as I'd said already (making me think you skimmed my comment just so you could argue with me, a poor habit you should give up), I know the Verylus and Sans Robin quests are filler (though, it should be noted, the last Verylus was original art, defeating the point you made). In fact, my point was that those quests, which build on existing characters and develop world lore, are great filler. The Inn challenges, though, are an extra week of nothing for new players while end-game players can grind for a new toy. If they could make their filler content from only reused assets and just put some interesting writing to it, I think that would go much farther for the fanbase. After all, that's the formula used for about 30% of Book 1.

And finally, two more points. To begin, the animations and art used for the challenges are, looking at the page of the encyclopedia, is about 50% original and 50% reused, though in the case of boss monsters this is often scaled up or slightly altered from any previous appearance in terms of power. That's still probably more time-consuming than simply reusing all old assets. In addition, this is most certainly NOT the first time this has happened. Challenges have, on several occasions, taken more time than expected from the developer's time. They've been released a day ot two late, rebalanced or bugfixed at a later point, or some other change like keeping guests from entering the challenge fight.

You see, I've done challenges, despite your own erroneous assumptions, and have since the Inn first released. I remember several such fixes or rebalances, some of which before I actually beat the challenge, which was annoying. I even remember one being considered far too easy for people on the forums, but they ramped up the difficulty before I was free to get on. Another, either the Unraveler or around that time, made the staff believe that the Guardian class's potential insta-kill was too OP, so they changed it.

quote:

Come back with complaints about the inn when you've actually hit level cap and played inn content, until then please stop barging in on inn related discussions that you know nothing about.


Never assume yourself to be the smartest and most experienced while the other's an idiot, you're sure to make a fool of yourself. And there's no need for hostility to an opposing viewpoint, anger and hostility only serve to make one seem ignorant and bigoted. There's no reason we can't have a nice chat without a heated discussion.




@xelessarx

Interesting, you seem to feel the Inn releases add quality to the game, while storyline/side quests have degraded in quality on their own. I just find that interesting because my conclusion was that they'd declined as a result of the staff focusing on Inn content, though that has been proven wrong to me (well, not proven, per se, but I trust that they know what they're talking about.) I do agree with @BluuHorseOfficial in that having so many storylines running simultaneously is the reason there's so much detachment from them, and it's actually something I forgot to mention in my previous posts.

After all, we're already getting between two storyline quests a month and one storyline quest in two months (depending on class-releases or holiday releases, in addition to Inn and Reimagined). The fact that, with so many questlines existing with open-ends, means that every quest that is released for one means other storylines go another month until they continue their own stories. It's quite frustrating, to be honest.




I'm not claiming that I know everything, understand all the issues, or have all the answers. I just know that the way things are isn't a good place to be, and that it needs to change. If what I say seems heated, it's only because I'm passionate about a game I have loved and known since childhood.
AQ DF MQ AQW Epic  Post #: 47
2/10/2020 22:57:59   
TFS
Helpful!


I'm loath to get mixed up in an argument like this, but there's a fair amount of misinformation that needs correcting...

quote:

To begin, the animations and art used for the challenges are, looking at the page of the encyclopedia, is about 50% original and 50% reused, though in the case of boss monsters this is often scaled up or slightly altered from any previous appearance in terms of power. That's still probably more time-consuming than simply reusing all old assets.

As the person who makes these pages... no. The past two boards, the Exaltia Tower and the Corrupted Seven, have had mostly new art assets; as cool and amazing as this is, it's not the norm for the inn. Outside of these two boards, all but four of all the monsters in the entire inn reuse or slightly alter art assets that are present elsewhere in DF or in another AE game. As cool as these boards are in that regard, they're the exception rather than the rule and Doverly went all out on them (which is another reason the attitudes presented in this thread are disheartening). Barring these exceptions, Inn releases do indeed generally lower art/animation workload.

quote:

Another, either the Unraveler or around that time, made the staff believe that the Guardian class's potential insta-kill was too OP, so they changed it.

As the person who got this one changed.... no. The Awethur rework occurred after a discussion on Discord about whether or not 1% instakills were either fun or balanced (they're neither) and the devs decided to up the proc rate to 10% but then make it not work on inn bosses, so that everyone would be happy. That was not a direct result of Unraveler Ex being released and the timing was coincidental; moreover this update rolled out on the same day as a story release so this wouldn't be a good example to claim that the inn harms the release schedule even if it was true lol.

quote:

I just know that the way things are isn't a good place to be, and that it needs to change.

This is just my opinion, but I guess while I'm at it I might as well express this too. I very strongly disagree and think that DragonFable has been the best it's ever been these past few years; there's a release schedule that ensures there's something for every type of player while the quality of each release is indicative of a very passionate and talented developer team. And when something doesn't quite hit the mark, like this week's release, the team takes it upon themselves to change it so that it does. While there aren't as many people working on it as there used to be, the current leads are (IMO) far better than their predecessors and I am very comfortable with this move from what I view as quantity -> quality. I'm not saying you have to agree with my opinions, of course, but seeing such negativity presented as fact (same with post #44) can be really irritating or disheartening to people who really love the current direction DragonFable is taking. Not everyone agrees, y'know? A lot of us love DF more than we ever have and when criticism of a single release balloons into inflammatory statements about the entire game that's likely to ruffle to some feathers.
DF  Post #: 48
2/10/2020 23:07:49   
ProbablyCallum
Member

quote:

Thirdly, the Malerious saga, if you haven't noticed, is a seasonal event. It's the very point of the saga, as it has no bearing on the rest of the story (far less, in fact, than the previous saga with Caitiff in it) and connects only with it's own saga. Even Uuanta, who you'd think as a hero would pitch in for other emergencies happening at the same time, doesn't seem to exist outside of it. And I respect that. Like I said, Frostvale events usually take up the whole month, and it was spliced with AE's second biggest holiday, Friday the 13th, so it all was to be expected. I addressed it as such.

There's a load of "deeplore" in the Malerious which along with the other hidden bits that doverly have been putting throughout the game since around 2016 is leading into what is probably the next "big" story arc to DF after the rose/book 3 is done. I wont go into it because what it actually will be and what is or isnt relevant is up in the air but there's way more to it than you're claiming.
quote:

Secondly, I may have been wrong. I wrote "1-2 Inn releases" to cover my bases, simply because I was not sure. And, yes, I did a (rough) fact-check on the Design Notes and, at least back as far as October, you are right. There was only one Inn-release per month. In fact, the one month I remembered getting two Inn challenges, was actually two released at once, explaining my confusion. I am certainly not above admitting my mistakes. Heaven knows I've made more than my fair share on the forums alone. I do NOT, however, make it a habit of accusing others of purposely spreading misinformation for malicious purposes, and I'd appreciate that you never make that mistake against any other user ever again.

You literally came in here with "inn is bad because: " and then spouted off a bunch of misinformation and used that as a justification for demanding that content which most people enjoy and you've never even tried get cut down to only once per year.
quote:

And finally, two more points. To begin, the animations and art used for the challenges are, looking at the page of the encyclopedia, is about 50% original and 50% reused, though in the case of boss monsters this is often scaled up or slightly altered from any previous appearance in terms of power. That's still probably more time-consuming than simply reusing all old assets. In addition, this is most certainly NOT the first time this has happened. Challenges have, on several occasions, taken more time than expected from the developer's time. They've been released a day ot two late, rebalanced or bugfixed at a later point, or some other change like keeping guests from entering the challenge fight.

This is a pretty funny one, proving once again that you've never touched the inn. Nearly everything in it is either completely reused or reskinned enemies with the only ones that are original being uthuluc, abomination, the exaltia bosses and some of the enemies there, 6 of the 8 corrupted 7, though a lot of those reuse attack animations that already exist and unraveler.
That really sounds like 50/50 original vs recycled huh.
quote:

You see, I've done challenges, despite your own erroneous assumptions, and have since the Inn first released. I remember several such fixes or rebalances, some of which before I actually beat the challenge, which was annoying. I even remember one being considered far too easy for people on the forums, but they ramped up the difficulty before I was free to get on. Another, either the Unraveler or around that time, made the staff believe that the Guardian class's potential insta-kill was too OP, so they changed it.

You're literally and quite blatantly lying here. There is not a single item originating from the inn in your inventory, you're barely halfway to the level cap and to top it all off, your incredible inn-worthy build is 40 into every stat. At least hide your character page next time to make it not so obvious, though the fact that you know so little about it is still a dead givaway that you havent done any of them. Slight changes to damage numbers and stats for an inn challenge for inn balancing would take a few minutes of editing at most. They're nothing in comparison to the situation with the corrupted 7 gauntlet and if you think bringing the fact some bosses got thier numbers tweaked on the day after release date is a big win then by all means go ahead.
quote:

Never assume yourself to be the smartest and most experienced while the other's an idiot, you're sure to make a fool of yourself.

Just quoting this one for comedic effect.
quote:

Fourthly, as I'd said already (making me think you skimmed my comment just so you could argue with me, a poor habit you should give up), I know the Verylus and Sans Robin quests are filler (though, it should be noted, the last Verylus was original art, defeating the point you made). In fact, my point was that those quests, which build on existing characters and develop world lore, are great filler. The Inn challenges, though, are an extra week of nothing for new players while end-game players can grind for a new toy. If they could make their filler content from only reused assets and just put some interesting writing to it, I think that would go much farther for the fanbase. After all, that's the formula used for about 30% of Book 1.

The last verlyrys quest wasnt original art. It was all reused assets, just like the rest and that's perfectly ok. You're also talking about inn challenges ignorantly again so i'll ignore that bit and if you're implying that book 1's formula is an example that should be followed you've really got another thing coming lmao.

< Message edited by ProbablyCallum -- 2/11/2020 9:14:26 >
DF  Post #: 49
2/10/2020 23:08:29   
Ultima29
Member

I thought one shot instakills died back in the Ash era because of the unpossible crawler rework.

Edit: Mb lol

< Message edited by Ultima29 -- 2/10/2020 23:12:51 >
Post #: 50
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