TOPIC: Spolier Free Feedback for V1

Overall I thought the experience was great! (We played on Nightmare.)

It was awesome to see all the new elements used that the new way of playing allowed.

The last puzzle was challenging but my party was able to figure it out and still have time to spare.Overall we were able to figure out all the puzzles but took a fair amount of damage on the 2nd puzzle.

Only thing I wish was possible was a higher bit rate for the video feed from TD.

The one run I've done so far was 5 people who coordinated on the forums and 5 surprise members. We had 2 people who were HC geared, so the extra time in training ended up being a blessing so we could loan them up closer to NM. But overall, it did feel like there was more time than necessary before the game started. This was still fine, as we all got to chat, get to know each other better, and notify people of the existence of the forums.



Aside from one audio encoding hiccup (and the DM just restarted the clip to fix it), everything ran pretty smoothly. And on the topic of puzzle damage, if Nightmare isn't trying to kill you, is it really Nightmare?

Also, SUCCESS LAG!

VTD Exceeded my expectations. I also got positive feedback from veterans and people who've only played once or twice on my run after the fact.

Nice work everyone!

Thank you to all the vols and staff!

Matthew Hayward wrote: VTD Exceeded my expectations. I also got positive feedback from veterans and people who've only played once or twice on my run after the fact.

Nice work everyone!

Thank you to all the vols and staff!

Agreed, I really enjoyed it and everyone involved with creating and running N&N has done a great job overall. I also like the way that VTD has been used to provide features which aren't part of physical runs by including videos inside the run and providing virtual packs of starting tokens for newer players.

Great show!!! I hope we can do this again in September. We would do another run of Nimble if only to see the mischievous man Mike Dalin.

We did one NM run so far in a pub. It was a lot of fun. Really enjoyed the puzzles and their difficulty despite the remote limitations.

Most of my "even better ifs" have been stated so I won't say them again, but I agree with those stated thus far.


1-off rant below not VTD specific more general TD:

I was moderately frustrated that the DM consistently either forgot or neglected the charm of quick strike. I needed to remind him in the first combat just after stating the soft spoken Barbarian is wearing it. Then in the next->final combat's I stated that the Barb received the bonus but it was never acknowledged. To save time I didn't push the point as I had in the first combat, but it did irk me. What good is an UR/charm slot if it is ignored/forgotten? A charm of health would have been better in this case.

*sigh* feels good to get that off my chest. Thanks for listening.

*UPDATE* Second DM was right on the money and got them all. Not bad 1/2. We also changed our strategy to have the person rolling initiative where the charm. This helped reduce confusion.

Have a wonderful weekend!! Can't wait to see you all again!
-THOT

P.S My wife had a good idea that we should have a TD discord going similar to what GC is doing. It would give us a semblance of the Tavern.

One thing that VTD did better than in-person True Dungeon:

You could actually hear the NPC's! And the audio intros were easy to hear. With the ambient noise of TD, often, if you are not close up on the NPC or audio, it can get lost a bit. It was awesome that the characters and narrator was seemingly speaking to only you.

raptorov wrote: One thing that VTD did better than in-person True Dungeon:

You could actually hear the NPC's! And the audio intros were easy to hear. With the ambient noise of TD, often, if you are not close up on the NPC or audio, it can get lost a bit. It was awesome that the characters and narrator was seemingly speaking to only you.

I like the fact that the text was presented on the screen for the various rooms. It help to clarifying what was being said.

edwin wrote:

raptorov wrote: One thing that VTD did better than in-person True Dungeon:

You could actually hear the NPC's! And the audio intros were easy to hear. With the ambient noise of TD, often, if you are not close up on the NPC or audio, it can get lost a bit. It was awesome that the characters and narrator was seemingly speaking to only you.

I like the fact that the text was presented on the screen for the various rooms. It help to clarifying what was being said.

I didn't like that the audio and text seemed quite off.

A very minor complaint to be sure.

Completed second run with my group. Everyone seems to have had a good time. I will get specific feedback from them over the next few days to share. That said I have some critical things to say while everyone is giving the great reviews of VTD.

There are 2 big selling points for physical True Dungeon that make I don't think any other gaming experiences I have done do EXTREMELY well. They are the reasons that I drag groups of folks to the dungeons year after year as the price goes up year after year. I take new people, I take people that started playing with me and folks in between. We have a great time. Part of that is because Jeff and company do a really good job of creating a more and more immersive environment for true dungeon. The amount of detail that goes into constructing the dungeons is phenomenal. When you have the free time in the dungeons and can notice those small details it is amazing. That quality to bring ever more immersive environments seems to increase every year. Personally it is not something I need, but I can respect and am impressed by it every year. The second thing that Jeff and Company do is having a wow factor. That might be the 30 snake god monster that unexpected rises up from behind an outcropping of fake rocks. It might be room itself (part of that immersion) that you are feel like you are taken to another place like the astral plane 2 years ago. It might be a puzzle that you interact in a fun way like the giant labyrinth maze ball puzzle that we have seen at multiple dungeon dating back to Smoak, but I still find enjoyable to do when it shows up in retro dungeons. That wow factor whichever area it might have came from is the thing that the folks talk about for the years that follow. Sure we may remember a particular combat or difficult puzzle, but overall the combat start to run together not the monsters we faced, but what happened on any given run. The difficult puzzle mostly we learn the answers to and we don't talk about them as selling points for why TD is great.

Virtual TD cannot do the immersion, and I completely understand that is a limit of the it being virtual. Room designs might have been on the same level or higher than what we have had in the past, but we unfortunately cannot experience them. I do not fault VTD for that, because it is again what we are dealing with. Maybe more could be done with sound, but it is not something I would complain about, because it is not important to me, even though it does always impress me.

The wow factor is something that I have come to expect from TD. I think it was completely missing at TD at Origins last year. Jeff and I spoke a bit about it. Gen Con had more of that wow factor with lazers and fog machines. I don't think it was on par with previous years but that is just my opinion.

VTD I felt didn't have much wow. Don't get me wrong I liked all the puzzles. I felt they were mostly go engagement for the party which I think is very hard to do over zoom. In fact 3 of the 4 puzzles I think worked really well for groups over zoom. Granted it might be how we tackled them but they felt like the group worked on them not one person just directing the golem to solve the puzzle. I was very impress with how well that teamworking worked over zoom and I cannot say enough good things about how to me that felt very much life physical TD. There was no wow for me though in the puzzles. There are none that I was impressed from the design of the puzzle itself. I liked that they worked well for groups. I think the 4th puzzle that didn't work as well over zoom for a group, probably would have worked well for a group in physical.

Combat was the biggest disappoint that I was not expecting. The digital effects of attacks I felt were worse than the practical stuff or dm descriptions we have got in the past. I understand others may not feel that way but I found them low quality. Combat itself I found boring. Wait for my turn and report my damage dealt. There will be no great stories of someone bumping someone into a 20 to slay the monster. Or when the wizard bumped the Barbarian off the 20 dooming the entire party. Though you could still get the story of a player making a bad choice or great choice for the party. We don't get to see the look on everyone's face when they reason that someone has saved or doomed the party based on a slide or a choice. There was also no wow in combat for me. Not of the things faces were impressive props over zoom, maybe they would have been in person, I don't know.

TLDR version: Maybe I have just become a jaded player because of the greatness TD has provided over the past 10 years I have been playing. I thought it was fun and enjoyable. But was it an experience of par with TD, no I don't think anyone, myself included expected it to be. So that raises the question is the product worth the same price as the physical dungeon. This is where I have to say no. Not because it was virtual. Like I said I expected to lose the immersion, and never has been something important to me, though I think it is done well in the past. The most of the puzzles were better than I expected for group play. But ultimately there wasn't a wow factor that I have felt always puts TD apart from any other gaming experience. It was good, but it wasn't physical TD good. Maybe it isn't possible to be physical TD good in a virtual environment, and I would find that acceptable if I wasn't paying physical TD prices.

I believe my group will want to try V2. I have now have tickets for them if they do. I don't know if I will have a group to finish V3, V4 and V5. I will play out the VTD and hope to be wowed.

edwin wrote:

raptorov wrote: One thing that VTD did better than in-person True Dungeon:

You could actually hear the NPC's! And the audio intros were easy to hear. With the ambient noise of TD, often, if you are not close up on the NPC or audio, it can get lost a bit. It was awesome that the characters and narrator was seemingly speaking to only you.

I like the fact that the text was presented on the screen for the various rooms. It help to clarifying what was being said.

+1 to being able to hear the DM and NPCs much better in virtual TD than in-person TD, and enjoying the scrolling captions for the NPCs' dialogue. It's a huge help for all players, and particularly useful for players with hearing loss/difficulties. I'm all in favor of anything that makes TD more accessible to more players.

I liked that the DM took my suggestion regarding combat order, which is more of an issue here in VTD. We killed one monster so fast some players didn't get to attack. So after that, I asked if the DM could go in reverse order, or start in the middle of the line-up, and he was very willing. It was a great adjustment.

more of a zoom question thing, i didn't know whether to pin the camera on the dm, or the golem after everybody turned off their video. the video screens showed up tiny on the view we were in until i did that.