Character Progression

[nimoyfish]

We are now on beta 3 and the character progression bugs are still rampant.

 

I have no idea what the story mode selection screen means at this point, just that if I touch my party, all my character progress is in jeopardy.

The talk of switching parties up and trying new groups and all of that is definitely not working right now, but I also don't know what its supposed to look like anymore.

 

This might be too demanding, but can a developer shed some light on the situation regarding

1) The known bugs about character progression and if beta 3 was supposed to address them.

2) There is character progression (feats and decks) and adventure progression. I don't know which of these is tied to what screen or how it is controlled at all. Please clarify what the plans are.

3) How are quest mode characters supposed to interact with story mode

 

This is probably the most frustrating and difficult thing for me to help test since I just lose a bunch of progress that is irrecoverable, which means I have a hard time even reproducing/testing it further. It's also a true dealbreaker in terms of playing this game as a customer.

[Lithrian]

Along these lines, I think part of the problem may simply be a mismatch in how I imagine things to work.  I've read elsewhere that they're trying to differentiate between "account" data (purchased adventure decks, available difficulties, gold), "party" data (what adventures, scenarios have been completed), and "character" data (cards, feats, and which scenarios/adventures the character has completed).

 

Starting with story-mode, here's what I expected:

• Purchased decks - Working mostly as expected; once I buy it, I have access to it (presuming I've advanced the storyline far enough).  I thought that the Base adventure was optional, so that someone using the season pass could jump right to Attack on Sandpoint, if they wanted, but don't see this as a big deal.
• Available Difficulties - Exactly as expected; once I've finished Brigandoom on Normal, if I want to start a brand new party on Heroic difficulty, I can do that.  The other scenarios wouldn't be available at all for the new party until I finish Brigandoom, but at that point (presuming I'd previously beaten them on Normal), I'd be able to go right to Heroic.  Ditto for Legendary, presuming I'd beaten Heroic.
• Gold - Exactly as expected; doesn't matter where it comes from, it just all goes into one single place that you can spend it from.
• Completed Adventures & Scenarios - Presently, when starting a party, regardless of whether using new or experienced characters, that party has their progression at an initial state (i.e. nothing completed).  Since this is also tracked at the character level, I think this is the source of my confusion.  If my Merisiel and Kyra have credit for all of the Base adventure, and I start a new party with experienced adventurers, it's confusing to be restricted to only Brigandoom.
• Cards & Feats - These are probably the most important thing to get right, as they're essentially the "identity" of the character.  These should be always consistent, from creation to deletion of the character.  (I had thought there was a way to "clone" a character who was already in a party, but I'd guess it was me misunderstanding having multiple Kyras.)  In the event that a party is deleted, and the experienced character integrated into a new party, I would expect all of their data to follow along with them.

Since Quest-mode includes an XP total, it makes sense to me that it would be a separate set of characters from story-mode.  Here, though, there's no need for any tracking around scenarios or adventures (hence, XP, I imagine).  It appears that awarded XP is not maintained if you Forfeit, but that acquired boons are.  That seems consistent with behavior in story mode (i.e. you're not getting feats if you don't finish scenarios), but probably should be added to the dialog shown when you're forfeiting.

[Hannibal_PJV]

Yep. New party Starts From Beginning, because the cards have to be found to that party separately. Allready experienced characters Are good if you use permadeath and want to have a character that has some experience beforehand.

You can not transfer characters with their boons between boxes aka partys. It would lead to situation where there would be X amounth of unique items in one party.

[Lithrian]

Hmmm...  That leaves me more confused than before.  I know I'm able to create a new party with "experienced" adventurers; are you saying that in this situation, the only thing that's going to transfer is their feats, and not their cards?

[Hannibal_PJV]

yes because their cards has not been found yet From the new box yet. Their old cards Are From different box. (Where They did get their experience).

[codepoetz]

Thanks for letting us know about your experiences with beta3. Today, I took another look at this code and found some new problems. I have fixed those, so characters should be more stable in the next beta.