Guild Difficulty Coordination Thread

xflclx · Post by **xflclx** » Tue Aug 02, 2005 5:18 pm

Alright, here is the low-down. There is an issue of quest and creature difficulty in TR that needs to be addressed. So far, I have seen a great deal of support for players creating a new character exclusively for TR. However, I would also like to see more powerful characters at intermmitent stages of the Nerevarine MQ be able to play TR, so here is my proposal:

Instead of making TR more difficult as the player goes from map to map, TR should become more difficult as the player goes from guild to guild. Omicron mentioned that he is making some quests in Map 2 (Morag Tong, for instance) more difficult, with a minimum level requirement to join. There should be a number of easy, medium, and difficult guild questlines (say, for instance, Map 1 and 2 TG are easy, 3 and 4 and 5 are medium, 6 is hard). This way, a fresh character and play straight through TR going from easy guilds, to moderate, to more difficult guilds. In addition, a moderately powerful character can skip the easy guilds and jump right into the moderate guilds, and the same goes for the ubermench character that has completed the Nerevarine MQ.

So here is the point of this thread: to coordinate which guilds are going to be easy, which are going to be medium, and which are going to be hard. Another point of this thread is to determine if my proposal works, and to refine it or come to a consensus on a different method of difficulty progression. Whichever method wins out in the end does not matter, what matters is that we all agree to one method.

Nairb · Post by **Nairb** » Tue Aug 02, 2005 5:35 pm

This is a very good idea. The requirements should be based on the skill level of the player. the skils checked should be the skills that the guild favors.

The easy quests anyone should do

In meduim quests the player should have at least 4 skills above 40 to play

In the hard quests the player should have at least 5 skills above 60+ and the rest above 40.

Stalker · Post by **Stalker** » Tue Aug 02, 2005 5:38 pm

Don't agree. Guild difficulty should not depend on the region. Actually the difficulty should go up with your rank in a guild.

xflclx · Post by **xflclx** » Tue Aug 02, 2005 5:38 pm

That brings up the point that harder guilds, in order to keep a good number of ranks, would have to have much more difficult requirements, much like the Blades (if anybody paid attention as they ranked in the Blades, they would see the requirements are a bitch).

Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Tue Aug 02, 2005 5:40 pm

Or just make the quests more dependant on the player. A quest which involves nothing but combat will allways depend on stats, but something which actually involves some decisions or clue hunting can be more about the player.

xflclx · Post by **xflclx** » Tue Aug 02, 2005 5:40 pm

I would agree with you, Stalker, except that if we simply did intra-guild difficulty progression, it still might not be hard enough for high level players, and all the tasks would be too easy and feel inane. There should at least be some guilds more difficult than others. And what will happen if Map 1 TG is just as difficult as Map 2 TG? After finishing Map 1 TG, Map 2 TG will be boring. It would be as if Balmora FG were just has hard as Sadrith Mora FG. Just as there is in the Morrowing guild questlines, there needs to be difficulty progession in the overall guild questlines, so that the player remains challenged going from a TG chapter in one map to a TG chapter in another map. But it would be boring to have the difficulty progession go Map 1-2-3-4-5-6. It can be switched up to go Map 1-3-5-back to 1-2-4-6 We want people to be able to play through all 6 Maps in one go, right?

Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Tue Aug 02, 2005 5:45 pm

We dont want to force the player to go through map by map in a certain order. Why on earth would the difficulty increase when you cross into another map? Thats jsut not logical. Anyone joining a new guild should expect to have to do some easy quests. They could even go through all of the mpas doing the easy quests first. People can always make new characters.

xflclx · Post by **xflclx** » Tue Aug 02, 2005 5:49 pm

Make a new character? That is ludacrous! It is like going from Balmora FG, to Ald-Ruhn FG, to Sadrith Mora FG. It gets more difficult as you go on. And as I said it does not need to go 1-2-3-4-5-6. TG could go 2-4-3-5-6-1, FG go 1-4-3-5-6-2, IC 3-4-1-2-5-6, etc. Non-linear, but still a progression in difficulty.

Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Tue Aug 02, 2005 5:51 pm

Again that is just leading you through the maps. Id rather pick where I want to work, thanks. Why would the work in one place be so much harder than the one next to it? The best way to do it would be to have them say 'if the work gets too tough you can always try another region' and leave it at that. You werent even forced on your path in Morrowind, since you could pick which person's quests you did next.

And you cannot say it is non-linear to be told to go to the next place and not allowed to do quests elsewhere. It should have been a sign that it was linear when you had to do diagrams which are distinctly line shaped.

xflclx · Post by **xflclx** » Tue Aug 02, 2005 5:52 pm

Yes you were forced to go in a certain order inside guilds in Morrowind. If you went to Sadrith Mora FG as a FG newbie, they would tell you to get lost. We are not forcing the player to go map to map, we are simplying making quests more difficult, more expert, in one questline than another. Yes, going Map 1,2,3,4,5,6 would suck, I agree, and the player does need to be able to choose.

Dr.Evil · Post by **Dr.Evil** » Tue Aug 02, 2005 5:55 pm

basicly it should be like every quest line has it's gradation and that the players travels between the guilds. but there might be quest lines that start on higher ranks (so just like in the original game, only harder in the end)

xflclx · Post by **xflclx** » Tue Aug 02, 2005 5:58 pm

Thank you Dr. Evil, that is what I have been trying to say. And Jale, the questlines are linear: you do a guild's quests in a certain order. You couldn't say "screw you Balmora TG, I am going to Sadrith Mora TG." The non-linearness in Morrowind is in freely going from guild to guild, doing FG quests when you tire of MG quests, but within each guild the questline is linear.

Vegor · Post by **Vegor** » Tue Aug 02, 2005 5:58 pm

I think the solution is simply what Stalker said. On top of that, really high level characters (60+) won't have any difficulty with any quest unless we make it all too overpowered. We need to keep the quests interesting by adding interesting storylines and force the people to make interesting and challenging decisions. Focusing quests on people that overpower their character by exploiting the game's flaws is not something we should do.

Yes, rising in rank will be harder than on Vvardenfell. And yes, some guilds will be tougher than others. But for ubercharacters of those levels, no 'destroy this' quest will be believable challenging.

xflclx · Post by **xflclx** » Tue Aug 02, 2005 6:01 pm

I very much agree with you, Vegor. When I meant ubermench, I misspoke. I was thinking more along the lines of level 25+, the level you are when you finish the Nerevarine MQ. Of course by the time you are level 60, it is time to make a new character to keep things interesting. However, some guilds should be more difficult than others in order to allow level 15 characters to jump right in and get their feet wet in TR. And of course, as it is in morrowind, the difficulty will progress within the guild, getting harder as the questline progresses. That is only natural, and almost goes without saying.

Dr.Evil · Post by **Dr.Evil** » Tue Aug 02, 2005 6:01 pm

wont most people start over anyway ? (who likes creeping up the ladder and dealing with anybody-work, if he is definetly over-qualified)

xflclx · Post by **xflclx** » Tue Aug 02, 2005 6:06 pm

The best mechanism seems to be to have the quests progess in difficulty as questlines continue. What I am curious about, though, is a problem I am currently wrestling with. In map 2, there are 2 TGs, one in Darconis and one in Neommaeor. Which should the player do first? Are they both equally difficult? If so, what is point of doing both? Should Darconis be harder than Neommaeor, or Neommaeor harder than Darconis? And once you get out of Map 2, and go to Map 3 TG, should it start over or get even harder? Basically, how will difficulty progression work going from map to map? Is each Maps chapter an entirely new guild, where the player starts over in rank? Or is it just like going from Balmora TG to Ald-ruhn TG, you keep your rank and things just get harder?

Dr.Evil · Post by **Dr.Evil** » Tue Aug 02, 2005 6:21 pm

why not simply two parallel ladders? the difficulty will increase faster and faster and the player himself will see that he should better start another quest ladder than continue the current.......

xflclx · Post by **xflclx** » Tue Aug 02, 2005 6:27 pm

We would have to make sure that the two quest ladders did not interfere with one another, so that moving freely from one to the other would not cause problems, but that shouldn't be too difficult. However, I still favor Bethesda's method of going city to city, with the questlines getting more difficult as you progress in rank and from one chapter to another.

Has TR yet come to a decision on how difficulty progression will be handled? It basically comes down to how the guilds are handled: does each Map have its own seperate guilds (Map 1 FG being a whole diff. guild from Map 2 FG), or does a guild's questline extend across maps (in each map, there are different chapters)?
Anyway, I am going to do some hands on MW research (play!) Will be on later to check on progress of thread

Gez · Post by **Gez** » Tue Aug 02, 2005 7:13 pm

The "parrallel ladders" solution seems a good one. IF we make, say, 15 quests per guild per map, what about 3 for low-level, 3 that can be taken only for a character of level 8 or more, then 3 that requires character level 16, 3 for character level 24 or more, and the last three for character level 30 or more. (Numbers are for illustration purpose.)

If you don't have the level for the next series of quest, the questgiver just tell you he doesn't have any work to give you for now, but to come back later as your services may be needed in the future.

The city-by-city approach presuppose the character will explore the immensity of TR in a roughly linear way... And it does result in the Goblin God syndrome (why do the Dunmer believe that A, S, and V are gods when a random goblin is more powerful than any of the Triune?), as you get monsters in Map 1 that are more dangerous than those from Vvardenfell, but less than those from Map 2, and those in Map 6 are godlike titans of epic proportion, able to tear away the moons and stars from their celestial home.

In my newbie's opinion, all regions should be balanced in the overall challenge they offer.

A player won't realistically be able to play all quests in order. With TR, he'll incited to concentrate on a couple of factions in many regions, contrarily to Morrowind alone where he's incited to concentrate on a single region (Vvardenfell) and typically compensates by joining every joinable faction.

Anyway, in the event the player do all faction quests, misc. quests, and main quests in order; how do you want to challenge him? At the end of MW+TB+BM, the player has vainquished three, maybe four, gods... How do you want to challenge that? With new creatures that are more powerful than gods, even if it doesn't make any sense (the goblin syndrome)? With hugely overpowered quests involving all the daedra princes attacking the Nerevarine at once during his sleep, Dark Brotherhood-style?

Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Tue Aug 02, 2005 7:14 pm

I think what we should do is have a final few quests at the top of each guild to become a sort of regional overseer. Like if you are Archmage in every Mages Guild you can do a las few really hard quests to become the Archmage of all Morrowind. If not that, at least some extra hard ones at the end at the same rank.

xflclx · Post by **xflclx** » Tue Aug 02, 2005 7:28 pm

That sounds like a good idea, and an option for stronger characters. Kind of like the Morag Tong guildmaster quests

Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Tue Aug 02, 2005 7:40 pm

Yes but even harder...as in worthy of anyone who has taken the time to do all the other quests. The mages guild would be the most fun with this, I think it should be about making your own artifact, since the lore is littered with stories of powerful mages making things like staffs etc.

Stalker · Post by **Stalker** » Tue Aug 02, 2005 7:48 pm

You can't be Archmage of every guild. We have only 1(!) guild per province. So one FG, one MG etc. There is no such thing as Map 2 MG.

Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Tue Aug 02, 2005 7:57 pm

Ah I was under the impression that we had one guild section per map. What I meant is if you become the head of that regional denomination of the same guild.

xflclx · Post by **xflclx** » Tue Aug 02, 2005 8:04 pm

Alright, that was what I was trying to figure out. So the Map 2 FG is simply another chapter of the FG in the mainland, kind of like Balmora FG and Ald-Ruhn FG. So now we much figure out which guild chapters will have the more difficult quests, and which ones the easier quests, and what order you must do the chapters in. On Vfell, you have to go from chapter to chapter, and are sometimes able to choose which chapter of two to do first. I beleive this is how it should be in TR. So, a TG Chapter tree might look like:

Map 1 - Map 2 - Map 3 or 4. Map 4 to Map 3 or 5. Map 3 to Map 4 or 5. - remaining map

That way there are multiple paths to take

Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Tue Aug 02, 2005 8:25 pm

I think a better way to do it is to have a few intro quests per map so you can join at any guild but then after those you can go and do the normal missions at any guild hall, ending up in a big one at the end.

Thus your carreer is like this

1. Do 4 or so easy quests at any hall
2. Do Medium quests at all the halls
3. Do the Final Master Quest.

xflclx · Post by **xflclx** » Tue Aug 02, 2005 9:29 pm

It sounds like a good idea, with certainly more open-ended gameplay than the original game offered, however it would be a serious break from the normal questline design in-game. I like the idea, it could give TR its own unique flavor. The easy quests could be general quests not specific to any single guild chapter, like how you could get the same MT writs from any steward in MW. The medium quests would be chapter-specifc questlines, and the final two or three quests would be right from the mouth of the current mainland Guildmaster. Once completing the final quests, you assume the roll of guildmaster.
How does this all sound?

Saibot · Post by **Saibot** » Tue Aug 02, 2005 9:32 pm

Exactly how many different locations are we planning for each guild in Morrowind.

xflclx · Post by **xflclx** » Tue Aug 02, 2005 9:34 pm

There will be, on average, one chapter for each of the 6 maps, although some maps could have multiple chapters (MG and TG have 2 chapters each in Map 2) and some maps could have no chapters for a particular guild. Look around, there might be a thread listing guild chapters for each map. If not, we should start that here.

Saibot · Post by **Saibot** » Tue Aug 02, 2005 9:38 pm

I just think that knowing how many locations were planning for could influence this discussion.

xflclx · Post by **xflclx** » Tue Aug 02, 2005 9:41 pm

Well, not really, except to know that there are multiple chapters for each guild, the lower end being perhaps 3-4 chapters and the higher end 7+ chapters. Also, it would be nice for there to be some post-guildmaster or optional insane difficulty quests, like the Archmage Trebonius quest where you kill all of the Telvanni Lords (it was a bitch to do).
In any case, I am going to go play Morrowind, but people, start submitting what chapter for what guilds are in what regions, and ill make a master list on this post sometime later tonight or tomorrow

Saibot · Post by **Saibot** » Tue Aug 02, 2005 9:57 pm

This is a difficult question to answer. The easiest way would be to only allow the player to join a faction from one location, like the main HQ. But I don't know if its the best way to do it.

Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Tue Aug 02, 2005 10:57 pm

tits are always the best way

Best thing to do would be having a regional HQ rather than a main one, and doing a few easy quests from a regional one are just your initiation. After that you are pretty much free to go as your please.

Edit: However this would only definitely apply to the FG, MG and TG. The legion has its own structure, for example.

xflclx · Post by **xflclx** » Wed Aug 03, 2005 12:11 am

Well, the way things are shaping up, it looks like there are going to be regional chapters (sometimes more than one per region), each chapter with its own questline that is part of the main guild questline (exactly as it is in morrowind). For example, Map 1 FG will have the same relation to Map 2 FG (Darconis) as Balmora FG has to Ald-ruhn FG. That is the way things are turning out.
Does anybody know guild chapters by region? I know mosly Map 2, because that is what was under construction when I joined. I could go sort through all the Map 1 Threads and questlines...but im playing morrowind, and there has to be SOMEONE out there who knows. Eveybody, submit whatever you know and i'll compile all of it for an easy-to-reference guild chapter listing in a new thread (please don't submit things you are not sure of).

Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Wed Aug 03, 2005 12:31 am

What exactly are you asking for? The locations of the three guilds in Map 1?

This might be a bit old: http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?t=9588

Basically its all in Firewatch, since that is the only real Imperial powerbase in Map 1.

xflclx · Post by **xflclx** » Wed Aug 03, 2005 1:04 am

Ty, Jale. That is exactly what I am looking for. And here are all the guilds from Map 2. I will update this to include Map 1 in a few:

Imperial Knights:
*Darconis

Imperial Legion:
*Darconis

Imperial Cult:
*Darconis

House Telvanni:
*Alt Bosara
*Helnim Watch
*Marog

House Indoril:
*Dragon Glade
Wait for Map 3

Tribunal Temple:
*Necrom

Ordinators:
*Necrom

Fighters Guild:
*Darconis
*Neommaeor

Mages Guild:
*Darconis (To be built during the questline)
*Neommaeor

Thieves Guild:
*Darconis
*Neommaeor

East Empire Company:
*Darconis

Imperial Archaeologist Society:
*Darconis
*Kemel Ze

Morag Tong:
*Necrom

Question to all: Do houses Telvanni and Indoril offer quests?

Post by **Haplo** » Wed Aug 03, 2005 1:15 am

Indoril will definitely offer at least a few quests, if only small, single-city, quests.

xflclx · Post by **xflclx** » Wed Aug 03, 2005 2:06 am

Has it been approved that house Indoril will have quests, or is that a best-guess? I would agree, but that is just my best-guess.

Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Wed Aug 03, 2005 2:34 am

They will in the larger scale be playable, but in Map 2 you are looking at a borderland, so they arent very large quests.

Vegor · Post by **Vegor** » Wed Aug 03, 2005 4:19 pm

Dragon Glade is a House Indoril city but it holds no real house base, it's just a bunch of manors, mines and shops. There will be some Indoril related misc. quests here, but no real House Indoril quests. If have to check this though when merging.