Haeo

The Elder Scrolls: Fruits of Contention - Chapter 1 (Completed)

I've actually never collabed anything so that could be interesting but I'm already familiar with open response so I guess I'm open to either. I've been holding off on posting largely due to indecision about how I should proceed. Now, at least, I have a direction of sorts to plan for. I'm looking forward to this.

@gcold

Side Quest - Sword Art Online

@Lightbox
its okay, I'm just excited :)

@BlackPanther

Me too. Don't sweat it! We're just looking forward to the fun.

Side Quest - Sword Art Online

I'd put them in the woods just outside of the starting town, mostly diurnal level ones and twos, with a maybe a few rare level three nocturnal boars that drop rarer food ingredients (roast pig/rack o' ribs). That's my two cents. It lets beginning players see the difference between day and night in mobs before things get too dangerous.

@Tracyarmav

That would be a good idea, but Ikanus/Reaper placed them in the vicinity of Bull's Run. That is the present difficulty, really. Perhaps the gorge to the east? It could be a higher danger zone at night but just a 'boar' during the day.

Side Quest - Sword Art Online

@BlackPanther I'm waiting on light before we finally get out the gate.

Side Quest - Sword Art Online

@Tracyarmav Those were initially in the fields around the Town of Beginnings as level 1 mobs. However, there was a mention of boars around Bull's Run. I'm unsure whether they should be in the wolf plains, the dog plains, or the bear woods. I do think that they should be only level two at the highest and mostly good for food.

Side Quest - Sword Art Online

@Haeo this is an RP. We have a guy with a jackal pet, two fox girls, and general insanity.
We can afford not to be 100% canon the whole time or this WILL get boring.
We can afford to make our own stories bit by bit so long as its not totally ass backwards.
We're having fun too remember

@Zelosse

I know. That's why I was adapting the monster levels and concentrations to what people did in character. If you recall, it was you who objected to how far I was going away from canon.

However, in the end I think we have come up with something that can work well. Though none of this has LadyTale's stamp of awesome just yet, it is in the ooc which is where such things go.

So, to sum up what everyone found acceptable.

Wolves: east of town in open plain, level 3 in groups of 3 during the day + free roaming but avoiding the road, level 3 in groups of 4-5 at night staying near dens and away from the road with limited pursuit range, more aggressive at night
Loot: Wolf hide (one step above Wild Dog Hide), Wolf's Fang (level 4 dagger, rare drop from pack leaders at night only), Wolf Tooth (material for various tooth, fang, or bone accessories)

Black Foxes: level 5 pair hunter ambushers, refuse to attack head on, deepest part of the forest only with fixed spawn point dens, nocturnal only
Loot: Fox Eye (level 3 potion ingredient), Black Fox Fur (level 3 leather crafting), Fox Blood Vial (level five required to wear-Amulet type accessory that also gives a bonus to anyone trying to tame a Black Fox as a pet)

Moss Bears: level 5 forest only with fixed spawn points, solo avoiding each other at all times, far less aggressive during the day
Loot: Bear Sinew Bow (level 5 bow - Rare drop requires final blow to be a bowshot), Bear Hide (level 5-10 leather crafting), Bear Claws (level 5-10 weapon crafting/potion ingredient)

Wild Dogs: level 2 west of Bull's Run in plains only, solo random wander, only active during the day
Loot: Wild Dog Hide (low end leather crafting item), Rancid Meat (weak poison ingredient), more money per kill than the wolves.

With this setup the following things need to be noted.

Ranges for monsters are general guidelines for my idea. If something specific needs to be limited to a mini dungeon or quest specific zone then just let me know specifically and I can update this list to help keep it straight. This is assuming that it's functional overall.

-Bears are not in all wooded areas, are few in number, and never enter the deepest part of the forest. In fact, during the day, there could be no monsters in the Deep Woods and no more than maybe ten bears in the entire region around Bull's Run, excepting mini-dungeons and quest battles where they can display group combat or higher solo levels up to maybe 10 if there's only one bear and it's a boss.
-wolves are not in all open plains farther east than Bull's Run. I assume that there will be ranges with level 2 Wild Dogs operating in packs farther east as well. Higher level wolves and larger packs likely only occur in mini-dungeons. The Wolf's Fang may only drop in these areas too, from higher level pack leaders. The level range in mini-dungeons could rise as high as six or seven level 5 wolves with a level 6 or 7 leader, potentially. I only expect that kind of level if somebody is planning on killing off a character though.
-foxes only exist in very limited areas and are among the most dangerous monsters in the region, if not the entire floor, due to their combat strategy. There is probably only one pair of foxes available outside mini-dungeons and they are nocturnal only in the deepest part of the forest, several days to a week away from town. You really, really, have to go looking for them.
-wild dogs are the most common monster on the floor and provide the best money/time ratio on the floor but have minimal loot available. Basically, they're for cash farming early on with the simplest AI and low damage attacks.

Is there anything here that still feels like it's balanced wrong? Obviously, this won't even be locked in as acceptable until it receives GM approval. Basically, I don't want LadyTale to be out of the loop at all.

Side Quest - Sword Art Online

I've taken a minute to gather my thoughts on these matters so here's my proposal and the problems I'm still facing in a nutshell.

@Haeo alternatively it could be a really shitty map.
It doesn't display the stuff in the way, the pace you would have to take, the stopping, the fighting, the climbing, the backtracking. There's no yellow brick road in my mind that goes perfectly down the middle.
Except from first town to bulls run.

So that's not really a big issue. We're focused on meownsters

@Zelosse

This is very true and accurate. And, as we're focused on monsters I should remember that the entire first level would count as a beginning zone and would have a very, very limited variety of monsters and items.

<Snipped quote by BlackPanther>

I was willing to let people find other animals and such. Even non hostile ones. There's bound to be more than just a handful of animals.
Vultures, hawks, giant ants, swarms of insects, giant frogs, snakes, wild horses, BULLS, etc.

@Zelosse

I think that the variety would be in animals as opposed to monsters. The kind of things that give no experience and only food ingredients.

Puttin' a lotta thought into this and I like it. We'll roll with that since its way more plausible.
But I do wanna keep in mind that each floor of Aincrad is gargantuan. I originally had a unit of measurement that just said "hella" on it.
What do you think would be an acceptable amount of time to travel in this area, given that teleportation is possible.
I'd thought of saying there were signposts or something that acted as a teleport location to certain safe areas across the first floor. Because walking everywhere one end to another in my mind would take up days. From start zone to the floor boss it would take a week of travel at least. I'm talking about on foot, overnight, walking.

The potential for people making camps during the initial exploration phase is very high so there needs to be areas, despite being in the forests or deep in the tunnels of the gorge, that are considered minor safe zones.
Monsters dont come close.

@Zelosse

The SAO canon included teleport crystals and town to town portals but did not show any other forms of teleportation. They also showed neither camping nor equipment for it, leading me to believe that towns were not far apart. Most of the tough marathons were inside the dungeons themselves. I'd say about a day or two at most between towns and probably simple shelter being necessary for safe camping. Basically, buy or build a tent and use it to be safe inside through the night. Outside the tent is full nocturnal monster turf.

This seems to mean that the level of the monsters can be anything so long as players have the same level mobility. How flexible do we want this to be and when do we want to time-skip? The first boss was cleared after two months. What happens in the mean time would be pretty repetitive.

Side Quest - Sword Art Online

You know, since the upper limit of character level was never stated in SAO, we could simply ignore the Boss dungeon on that map and assume that it's a limited region map. If that's the case then the bears and foxes would only be in special hostile zones and the wolves would all be level three.

The loot could remain as stated but people would have to be a lot more restrained about getting stronger and obtaining upgrades, like not getting anything better at all until after the first boss gets cleared... which took months according to canon.

@Zelosse

Side Quest - Sword Art Online

Well, from what has already happened IC, it takes one day to get from the Town of Beginnings to Bull's Run. So, either the scale of the map is completely unusable or the levels increase in size as we go up which would contradict the external view of Aincrad.@Zelosse

Side Quest - Sword Art Online

@ZelosseMost players aren't going out at night, especially without a party. During the day, the wolves would only be in groups of about three and the bears would be alone in the fringe areas of the forest. All of them would have limited pursuit ranges. Also, this isn't a newbie zone. These monsters are on the far side of the second town. Every player here can be expected to be at least level three before they arrive and they would likely be expected to hunt the wild dogs first.

The Wolf Packs will have spawn points, dens. They will not wander far from these dens and stay away from the roads at night.

The Bears spawn in the forest and refuse to leave it. They also will avoid each other.

The Foxes are only in the deepest part of the forest and they are nocturnal only. In short, you have to go looking for trouble to find them at all.

Also, this is the highest level area before the first level boss dungeon. Since we have characters who are not beta-testers and are already stated at being level six we have to account for them being able to advance that far in a one day period.

[[Edit: There are 100 levels to Aincrad and the maximum character level, if I'm correct, was 100. If we were actually following the MMO pattern of the world then it would be impractical for any player to rise over level three before the first boss.]]