Requesting feedback on fixing awful King's Reward in Orzammar

[LadyHonor]

I'm with you on that....Not actually doing bug fixes, but making sure it all runs right is as much fun as playing. I haven't played thru this a full game in probably 2 years. Lol

[Qwinn]

Okay, so after actually messing around with designing the new items, here's what the prizes have evolved to:

 

 

 

High Bhelen Support: Royal Aeducan Mace. Dragonbone (Tier 7). Strength +4, 10% Spell Resistance, +0.75 stamina regen in combat, chance to stun (8%), +6 damage vs. darkspawn

 

High Harrowmont Support: Endrin's Mace. Dragonbone (Tier 7). Constitution +4, +10 mental resistance, +10 physical resistance, 10% chance do dodge attacks, +0.75% health regen in combat, +6 damage vs. darkspawn

 

Low Bhelen support: Trian's Maul. Silverite (Tier 6). 2% melee critical chance, +15% critical/backstab damage, +4 damage vs. darkspawn

 

Low Harrowmont support: Harrowmont's Staff. Silverite (Tier 6). +1 magic, +2 constitution, +2 willpower, +0.5 mana regen in combat.

 

 

 

For the high support maces, I went with Bhelen giving a nice berzerker / attack weapon, and Harrowmont a nice tanking weapon. Any comments/input are welcome. I'm fairly happy with them, the only consideration maybe being beef up Trian's Maul a little more since it is 2 handed.

Edited March 2, 2017 by Qwinn

[Thandal]

Yep, 2-H weapons should definitely pack more of a wallop! Maybe +2 Strength, but only +10 Backstab/Crit?

[Qwinn]

+2 strength sounds good (I was thinking either that or +0.5 stam regen), and I'll leave the crit damage at +15%.

 

I actually had to create a new item for Trian's Maul, seeing as Trian actually uses the original against you in the dwarf noble origin and I didn't want to accidentally make that fight harder for dwarf nobles, heh.

Edited March 2, 2017 by Qwinn

[aeroldoth]

Qwinn, I'll add my two cents.

 

1) I wasn't even aware until now that we were being graded on our support. I thought you picked a king and that's it. I've played before but don't recall anything about "the more support you get me, the bigger the reward when I'm crowned". So I wasn't aware there were even two rewards, let alone four.

 

2) I don't like Orzammar and save it for last. My mage is currently L16 and I haven't even gotten there yet. When giving rewards, there are a few things to think about.

 

a) Is the quest-giver giving a static reward regardless of what race/gender/class you are, or is it personalized?

b) Is the reward(s) going to be something you want the player to use, or to sell?

c) How does your reward(s) stack up against other items the game gives you, especially after major quests?

d) Are the reward(s) going to scale with level?

 

My mage has no use for weapons or armor, so anything gotten would be sold. "Oh.... a weapon.... how thoughtful. Let me just put it in this wagon with the 1000 other weapons I have. No really king, it means a lot to me. I'll treasure your dagger... javelin... whatever, forever."

 

To me, not only is getting a weapon useless for a mage, getting just ONE thing seems insulting for a king to give to any kingmaker. All that wealth and power and he gives you dusty old mace? Have you SEEN that solid gold bejewelled paragon-made crown you can give them? GIVE them? And you give me a +2 butter knife?? I'll kill you myself!

 

You barely have to go far in Soldier's Peak to get the amazing staff winter's breath... maybe a half hour of gameplay. Orzammar requires hours and hours and hours and multiple missions and backs and forths... it's a lot of work. I would like a major reward suitable for all that work of basically single handedly putting this guy on the throne. I would like a reward that consists of multiple items and is useful for all classes... a king's ransom.

 

Say you get as much coin as you can carry, which translates to gold sovereigns equal to your strength score. You'd also get gems, tons of lyrium dust, potions (rock salves?), a few weapons (2H, 1H and shield, and two daggers for all combat styles), and a full suit of armor. They could also give you a powerful staff or three, and/or a jewelry set, since any mage items in their vaults are worthless to them and only useful as gifts to surfacers.

 

I would just have this "one" reward regardless of high or low favor, and regardless of who wins. I would even lean more towards coercion improving your reward over these different missions, although i acknowledge I've only just learned of getting favor from them, so take that with a pinch of salt. And just to repeat, getting a minor weapon I suspect most players will sell anyways really does seem intentionally insulting on the part of the new king. Compare that with the many times the game practically gives you free stuff that's better, and the "reward" leaves a really bad taste in my mouth. "I spent fifteen hours solving this lazy dwarf's every little problem and even made him king, and all I got was this lousy t-shirt." Every time I play I hate Orzammar more.

 

That's my two cents. Oh, and thank you for all your time and effort working on and improving this. Modders never get enough praise, so a dwarf mountain of praise to you whatever you do here!

[Qwinn]

Wow, and I was worried my maces would be overpowered! No, seriously though, I really appreciate the input.

 

I get most of what you're saying. I can't really go hog wild like that though, because the items they give you are mentioned in their dialogue, and I don't have available dialogue to say "oh, and here's a bunch of other stuff as well".

 

The only thing I disagree with is the idea that as a mage you have no use for these weapons. I mean, YOUR character may not have a use, but Alistair, Oghren, Sten, hell, just about anyone except Morrigan and Wynne would be better off equipping one of those maces. And if it's an upgrade to them, it's an upgrade to your team. That said, even before I read your post I felt that these weapons should fetch a nice price just based on who their previous owners were. You'll get a bit over 25 gold for selling the high support maces, so even if that's all you do, I think that's still not bad (buying them back is about 150 gold, which is what most of the uberest gear on merchants goes for, and I used that for my standard).

 

(Also, I'm playing as a mage and I'm using Endrin's Mace when I'm done here. Why? Arcane Warrior. And a really good tanking weapon is very nice for an arcane warrior.)

 

Because I agree with you that Orzammar is one of the more difficult and time consuming areas, I actually did try to make the weapons superior to anything you pick up from side quests in Orzammar (and there are some nice weapons there), and that would stack up reasonably against most DLC stuff (you really *can't* beat stuff like Cailin's Arms from Return to Ostagar though - +5 stamina/mana regen if you use the set! That's just nuts.) I made them good enough that I would choose them over most of the weapons I might have at the time, and they're sure to be superior to the gear at least ONE of my companions is using.

 

In my current case, I did Orzammar third, after Broken Circle and the Brecilian Forest, and they're better than anything else I've picked up so far. I don't remember offhand anything else clearly better than them prior to the Landsmeet in the areas I haven't hit yet either. I'd even use Harrowmont's Staff over any other staff I've picked up, tho the only DLC I've done so far is Honnleath to pick up Shale.

 

I think it would be too much for me to inject DLC level gear into the base game. A lot of that stuff is just crazy overpowered, and if that's the standard I'm supposed to set for this stuff, then yes, I'll have to make *the best gear in the game*. That's not the purview of a fixpack. My goal here is to make them decent enough that it's not *broken*, which they plainly are in the vanilla game. I mean, a king gives you the same mace that Duncan gives to a dwarf commoner at the end of their origin? Arrrrrrgh. THAT is an insane insult to the player, and that's what I'm trying to fix. What I think I've designed here is no longer insulting, it stacks up against the best gear in the base game which Orzammar is a part of, and they're a fair bit better than anything you could pick up in at least 3 of the main plot areas. But a lot of people would simply choose not to use my fixpack if I tried to go way overboard and make it DLC level gear, because doing that means it's no longer a *fixpack*.

 

(Note that a big difference between these weapons and others you might have gotten is that other weapons LOOK great but a lot of the abilities are broken. Ageless looks awesome (Messy Kills! Increase hostility! Weaken Darkspawn! +4 damage to darkspawn! Stamina regen!) until you realize... only the last two actually do anything. The rest are unimplemented or broken. As far as I'm aware, every stat on the 4 rewards I'm giving is working. So, yeah, I think that's about as good as I can make them without making them OP for the base game.

 

And it's not surprising you didn't know there were 4 possible rewards, because there weren't, there were only 3 possible (the Harrowmont support bugs made Endrin's Mace unobtainable), and one of the 3 remaining was the dwarf commoner noob mace, lol, and you could only get that one siding with Bhelen publically and doing everything possible for him. That was Bhelen's BETTER reward. Yeah. Broken. I'm hoping that what I've implemented here takes it out of the broken category, and that's all I'm really aiming to do.

 

Oh, and to answer the last question I didn't answer: No, they don't scale. Tier 6 for the low support rewards, tier 7 for the high support.

 

(Also, when you feel that the king is insulting you by not giving you cartloads of stuff - remember, he IS giving you cartloads of stuff, and troops, to help you fight the Darkspawn. That's all he promised you too. I think his extra reward deserves to be nice, and the weapons have to be at least good enough that a king would choose to use them himself, and given the other gear that can be found in the base game that I'm familiar with, if I were a king, yeah, it's plausible I'd use those maces. That's my only goal with this fix. To make that plausible.)

Edited March 2, 2017 by Qwinn

[aeroldoth]

Don't forget some people play solo, so some items are just sell-bait.

[Qwinn]

Sure, but if that's the case, a whole lot of my fixes (to all the companion dialogues, for example) won't be applicable to you. Consider this another :) You'll get roughly 25 more gold than you would have previously if you get the high support rewards, so there's something in it for you anyway.

[aeroldoth]

Thanks for all your work!