CAGD 270 Post 2

 Simple DnD Map v2

For our second playtest I play tested with my same partners from last time Muhammad and Jacob so that we can see and test each other's improvements on our maps. This time around we did select new roles for their characters in the game so that we could get a different experience from the player’s side. Muhammad went with the Mage character type and Jacob chose the Warrior character type. This allowed them to engage with different stats that these characters have and use them to their advantage.

Improvements

I’ll start with some of the improvements that I made to my map since last time. First, I changed a couple of the beginning pathways leading to my first enemies on my map by adding some jumping points where players would need to use their jump action/skill in order to progress further. I also made some changes to the enemy's stats including health to force some conflict there. Lastly, I created a fake pathway in a sense that would lead the players to believe they have chosen the correct path later to find out the complete opposite.

What went right

As for the improvements I made to the map, they did indeed prove to be effective and overall great with some minor exceptions. However, both players communicated to me that they did in fact like the way my version 2 map came out. They really liked the variety added to it since last time and enjoyed playing it this second time around. With these improvements they actually got a chance to reach my last boss fight as well. Something that was definitely missing from last time's playtest. This allowed them to see the full potential of my map as well as the creativity that went into creating it.

 

What went wrong

As for the major problem that went wrong this time around was that there was a particular moment in my map that felt unbalanced and just out of place. 

It was the confrontation between the players and the first enemy. The players were stuck for quite a while fighting off what should have been a pretty easy enemy to kill. However, I had given this specific enemy the defense stat of a boss level. As frustrating as it was to see, the enemy kept defending the player's attack causing it to receive no damage for at least a good 5 turns. Later in the feedback that I received from both players, it became clear that my first enemy just seemed too overpowered to begin with. They mentioned that it would have been nice to see that my other enemy ahead, which was the guard they had to defeat in order to retrieve the key for the locked door, had the stats that that enemy had. That would have made a little more sense at least they said. Which I totally agreed with.

In this case it resulted in them kind of being slowed down a bit causing them to reach the boss fight with little to no time to spare in our playtest. This was something that could have easily been avoidable and that I will work hard to prevent it from happening again. 

Overall

This version 2 map did improve on some of the areas that needed some work from last time, such as creating new pathways for players to adventure and allowing the players to use their skills and actions early on in the map. However, it did create a minor but big problem that could have easily been avoided. That is definitely something I am going to have to fix about my map while making improvements on it.