30 réponses à ce sujet

[Genisys]

I gotta ask the community, how hard do you like your game play?


Also, How rough is too rough for you?

[NWN DM]

Well, this is a different topic than I was expecting.

I like combat to be realistic as possible - PCs get almost as good as they give. Healing via spells, potions, etc... is needed after the average encounter. There is always a chance of PC mortality.

Modifié par NWN DM, 22 août 2010 - 10:31 .

[Genisys]

hehe.. The title needed a little attraction I decided.. (*winks)



Realistic, meaning you should get hurt, but not having to use the heal button more than your spell buttons eh?



Realistic, meaning you don't want to have to heal every other round or more often?

[TSMDude]

For me and for most players are two different things I would guess.



I like it that permadeath happens if your alone, you cannot heal in battle with some bandages though a potion or spell could work, the bad guys spawn in with varied abilties and strengths just like a player, switching weapons causes a AoO, you must take your armor off to us heal kits, and anything you do as a player the monster can do as well. I also think you should lose weapons or items on a regular basis from damage to useage and to use wands or rods you need to equip them.



Most players hate permadeath. Many players do not like to think of these things and chalk them up to just rping them out. It is not wrong of them at all. There is no wrong way or right way. There is just different ways and obviously I like it rough.

[Shadooow]

First to say, Im action-type player. And I like it rough.

Its not all about difficulty though. Everything what is constant makes is easy, when you learn that there is always archer and that the archer is always vulnerable to cold its easy...

Servers like HoW and DEX are relly lame, you just clicking and killing raft creatures in first hit. Thats sooo boring.

EDIT: I was making big post about my settings in my PW, but then I considered that I keep it for myself, who will be curious gets access to my server after I translate it into english.

[Lightfoot8]

One can not truly appreciate a character and how to RP him without the risk of death. Once you add the risk of death (Permadeath) there is no such think as a trivial combat or a trivial wound.



Rough.

[B_Harrison]

Unrealistic and easy.

As long as it looks cool and gives my character (and the foe) time to use various abilities and tactics, I'm happy with NWN's combat, in general. Large, classic fantasy creatures are much preferred over droves of humanoids and animals (dragons, wyverns, ogres, giants, etc). I can appreciate difficult encounters -- when they aren't simply a matter of roll high or die -- but a high level, relatively safe battle against a big fantasy creature with lots of HP is my favourite.

I sincerely hope no one ever makes an RPG with realistic combat, which tends to be short-lived, ugly, and stomach-turning.

[HipMaestro]

I like the game situations difficult enough that it makes the veins stick out in my neck, essentially on the verge of heart failure... like the first suicide drop on a thrill ride.  But that's just me

I believe a situation like that can be fabricated with just standard AI and resources, if the sequence is planned out well and is tested through with a full spectrum of solid class combinations.

As an example (dam, I hope this isn't spoiling just to make a point), the HotU string of events from the first army attack followed by the rapid transition to the second army attack and finally transitioning immediately to the solo encounter against the Valsharess... that whole sequence had me grinding my teeth until I could survive it.  Today, it's become old hat and predictable (what would you expect after a dozen replays?) but the initial impact of that single challenge was insanely compelling to me.  Much better than either a single godly boss or respawning mobs.  I also like the "you can run, but you can't hide" and point-of-no-return situations that force maximum resourcefulness.

It's the whole set-up that creates the challenge experience.

Yeah. The rougher the better for my taste.  

[Tren of Twilight Tower]

With all respect toward readers who might disagree:



In my opinion, nothing beats variety. For example, if every encounter is hard, then I am well on my way to be turned away from a module. Sure, make boss encounters hard, but if my character is having troubles to kill skeletor's backyard grass trimmers..., no, thank you.



Now what makes one module hard, or not hard? The answer would walk over the line that separates circumstances of playing alone or in group, playing in SP or MP, tools that are at my disposal (equipment, henchman, environment...), as well as at which point of the game one gets introduced to tough fights.



I like to see my character grow. And I do not mean to grow in levels only, but also in power. If my character is to save a common folks, kingdoms and worlds, then let me have enough power to blow minor opposition out of their smelly socks. How can I kick some major power (i.e. Dragon!) if I have hard time with some minors at the Goblin kindergarten?



Tren

[Redunct]

I like the creatures to use abilities equivalent to the player.



I also like combat to utilize of a character's ability, that being, things not being immune to knockdown, disarm, etc. Though I do like limitations put on abilities like harm to make it less ridiculous on epic creatures.



NwN uses the brilliant D&D system and I feel it should utilize it to the fullest. I don't like to the be another easy-,mode hack and slash game. I like to strategist.

[tmanfoo]

If I have to drink healing pots more often than I need a new
beer, it's too often.

I like the combat difficult and engaging, I want there to be
a need for resourcefulness and good timing.  Nearly dying or barely
walking away from an encounter is great fun.  I don't want to have to
drink heals in battle though.  I despise seeing 70% of an encounter
standing there disabled in some way, or worse yet chugging heals.  I guess
it’s one of those ‘get on with it’ things.

Don’t get me wrong, the mechanic I like, it’s more a matter
of application.  But I feel that many of those effects should be reduced
in duration and the DCs kept within the range of reality.



I really enjoy seeing good itemization in conjunction with
de/buffs, so that it’s not either be immune or be dead.  An all or nothing
approach here seems like a bad attempt.  I guess I feel that a challenge
should be just that, regardless of gear.



Anyways, I’m going OT.



Cheers,

T

Modifié par tmanfoo, 23 août 2010 - 02:41 .

[WebShaman]

Hmmm...this is a good question, actually.



I personally like a challenge. However, I believe that the more successful PWs use the strategy outlined by Ben.



I have played perma-death PWs, and even though I do find that it adds a certain level of gritty reality to the game, I also know that it is really not much fun to lose a character after a months of play due to the lag monster.



No matter how good one is, no-one can beat the lag monster. No-one.

[Bubba McThudd]

I prefer mods that are unpredictable, but fair. One of the things I loved about Baldur's Gate was the fact that if you followed the main plot, you had a challenging, but doable, time of it. The main plotline was very well balanced. But if you wandered off the path things could get more interesting. Might be a nest of gibberlings, might be a group of Basalisks. Risk and reward.

[olivier leroux]

I like challenges if they're not over the top for the average player and if it's reasonable in terms of storytelling and setting; bloodletting crazy hard battles with minor creatures every two or three minutes will most probably put me off. Because even if I can appreciate good combat, I'm mostly interested in NWN as a storytelling and roleplay engine and like to be able to explore and acknowledge my PC's environment and chat with fellow players in MP mode without getting killed for a moment of inattentiveness. Permadeath is fine in SP mode (because you can cheat your way around it and just load a savegame, heh) but I don't like it much on PWs, although I appreciate it if builders put some thought in PC respawns and give a good IC explanation why it's possible.

Apart from that, I can relate to the comments of Ben Harrison, Tren of Twilight Tower and tmanfoo.

Modifié par olivier leroux, 23 août 2010 - 11:13 .

[Genisys]

I have to admit, the response you guys gave here was...

1) Very Entertaining to read
2) Very insightful & helpful
3) Much appreciated
4) Helps other builders see the general consensus of the community on the subject
5) Unpredictable, yet very well thought out..


All of you gave excellent feedback and added to the post a lot, thereby making
it an even better post, truly, thank you all...

This will definitely be a good read for players / builders who come here
looking for something to mull over with a coffee or tea cup, without a doubt.
(Even if you don't drink those, get something to drink, because it's about to
get even more interesting indeed.)

In light of the above post, most of which transcribed to "I like a
challenge, but not TOO challenging.."

The NWN module builders should take special notes on what the
"Community" of players & builders like and don't like, for this
post should offer you a lot of insight and feedback enough to help you
determine how to make a world better..

Nobody has to build based upon a set of rules, in fact, that's what make NWN so
great..

However, if you want the module to be attractive to most of the community, I'd
listen to what people are saying here..

As far as the topic about Permanent Death / Hard Core Death,  I agree,
this should be an OPTION, but definitely NOT a Forced Thing of a module, unless
the whole theme / point of the module is purely about hardcore, even then you
risk jeopardizing a large portion of your potential player base if it's a
Multi-Player Module..

I originally posted this to get feedback, and now that it has
come in, I have some comments / feedback of my own..

This is my opinion on the subject matter at hand..

It is important to prevent the boring effect, for slaying
goblins is rather boring, since they tend to die with one spell or hit, but
that doesn’t mean it can’t be fun once in a while to encounter goblins.

Furthermore, it’s also important to prevent players from
being too challenged, and like one poster says it best: “I don’t like to have
to drink heals during a battle.”  This
would be what I would consider too easy, but challenging to require rest after
the encounter, and of course if healing has been nerfed in any way, then you definitely
can’t make encounters kill the PC outright…

I completely detest damage assigned by scripting which
cannot be prevented, no matter how it’s assigned, other than by normal combat
(attack with a weapon or casting a standard spell). 

Furthermore, if you make monsters godly, players have to be
equally well equipped to handle the challenge, for who wants to face the
impossible all the time?  I’ve played on
enough servers that I’ve encountered the “Impossible” quite frequent enough to
leave a bad taste in my mouth…

If player(s) are dying in the first round of combat, it’s
obvious that the encounter is way too hard, note I said player(s) and not
Player, because if it’s a multiplayer game, then you will have more than one
player, therefore if multiple or even one is dying in the first round, the
challenge is too strenuous for the players, by far..

How you build your module / encounters will greatly be
dictated by if your building a single or multiplayer module, nevertheless, if
you make monsters pretty uber, then it becomes very hard to control encounter
triggers..  Painting multiple encounters
may help, but that doesn’t mean the encounter will be balanced if only 1 person
is entering the area, for 2-4 monsters on a single player, if one of the
monsters is challenging enough, may prove too challenging for that single
player.

Many servers strive to prevent soloing monsters /
encounters, and if that’s the whole point of the server, that should be stated
outright at the beginning of the module, but that doesn’t mean the players on
the module will party up with others, nor does it mean the players are friendly….

To ensure the module is a good, consider the soloing player,
if you don’t or won’t then your server module will have issues & get ready
to hear the complaining, and lots of it…

All too often I hear players cry, “It’s way too hard!”, but
they do so on deaf ears, or worse, get banned or told to shut up (even by other
players).  Unfortunately, complaints are
going to exist, no matter how your server is setup, but it’s the builder’s job
to listen to them, and handle them without being biased or bandwagon everyone
who complains as a complainer.

I’ve seen some pretty Uber monsters in my days, when you go
to an RP module these monsters, because of the lack of powerful gear, become
extremely challenging, even something simple as disease or poison can downright
make future encounters extremely challenging!

It’s hard as a builder to balance for parties and still
consider the soloing player, but it has to be done, otherwise you will hear it
from the players who like to solo, and this being a very large amount of
players, because in effect, we learned to play or have all been conditioned to
solo by playing offline modules…

No matter where I’m playing, whether online or offline, I
don’t like to die a lot, despite what some people may think, dying flat sucks,
and that’s because I may spend X months building / testing / playing my
character, to see him die frequently only increases my frustration &
discontent with a module…

I like it rough, but not so rough that I have to be drinking
heals more than 1once an encounter, 1or 2 times on hard encounters / bosses is
ok, but if I’m chugging heals every other round, it’s not only ridiculous, it’s
completely inconsiderate toward all the players, let’s face it, most players
are experienced now, so if those experienced players are complaining, then…

What are the inexperienced players going to do?

See My Point?

In light of the inexperienced, soloing player, we should all
make good use of the thoughts, ideas, suggestions, and feedback in this post,
for much of it applies to not just builders, but to players as well, for we can
learn a lot from a good player, and by being friendly to others, we make
friends..

Finally, on an ending note, I've built a few server modules, some of which were very uber, and one thing I definitely learned after building / playtesting is, uber is very hard to balance, not just for combat, but also for the builder, for once things get out of balance, it's very hard to pull them back into balance, indeed...


Cheers & Hope you enjoyed the post, please continue to
express yourselves freely while staying on topic, thanks..

NWN Will Never Die!

Modifié par Genisys, 23 août 2010 - 05:41 .

[tmanfoo]

I've often thought on the subject of balancing for soloists and players at the same time.

Would it make sense to come up with some sort of character evaluation function? Then use it to help decide how many of what to spawn?



Just going by body count and level probably wouldn’t be enough. I expect that a level 20 Ftr/WM/Rog build would be far tougher than a level 20 bard, so throwing the same thing at both would result in one dead bard. Of course, we all know that mounds of dead bards are great to hide behind.



If this is indeed a useful idea, how complex should the evaluation be? What all should it take into account? We would probably need to assign a value via script for each thing we want to evaluate. It might well be more work than it is worth, but the end result would be nice. I guess I should look and see if anyone has already done this. Hopefully this is still reasonably on topic.

[leo_x]

i have a question about roughness... i think it's close enough to the topic at hand. how does a builder go about managing roughness with the vast level range in nwn (1-40 or even to i guess people are doing 100th level these days)? (supposing you like it rough, and not just click-and-kill).  it's naturally not as as easy as PnP module geared to 8-12th level characters.

it seems to me roughness has to be a function of level, gear, strategy, build. if say a 30th level wizard (whose only strategy is to dive bomb) with 20th level gear goes into a 40th level area and gets excessively roughed up, how does one deal with that? spoilers? map pins? signs? handouts? make everything super linear, so there's no chance he could have gotten there unless he was ready for it? add stores with necessary gear?  just let them log out in tears?

(made some edits for clarification)

Modifié par pope_leo, 24 août 2010 - 05:05 .

[Genisys]

Hey Leo

Nice to see you on the boards..

First off, let me say this, this post has little to do with your server, I am trying to gauge the general communities desires of game play.

Balance is a very difficult thing to obtain, if it is indeed possible...
Even the best builders struggle to obtain a balanced module..

Now as far as making your module appealing to the general public / nwn community, I suppose the above replies to this post should answer most of your questions, undoubtedly.

I think your steering in the wrong direction, gear / level / and build have little to do with how rough it is, unless of course your talking about uber gear, and levels beyond 40, then of course it's going to be difficult to make it rough for the PCs, no doubt..

If I give a monster 4d6 Magical damage, and there is no way for the player to resist it, then yes, that's pretty rough, becuase no character can resist it, but If I stack that with 3 other monsters dealing the damage, then yes, it's going to be very rough...

You have to look at the amount of damage the players are taking (per round), how often they die, and determine where you can make improvements based upon the results, this is where hopping on as a DM comes in, because you can clearly see where the PCs are struggling, and make adjustments as needed..

Roughness has mostly to do with the challenge you present the PCs, spamming uber spells on a party is going to lend toward frustrations if those spells are constantly hurting players significantly, or worse, killing them consistently, and roughness has a lot to do with the amount of damage a PC takes every round..

If a PC has say, 1000 HP, and they die in just one round from combat wounds (not spells), then I'd say it's time to turn the damage down significantly, if the spells are owning the PCs, it could be high time you add some more Bonus Saving throws, or consider removing the spell from the monster, or maybe reassign it to the big boss or something.. (Bosses are meant to be a great challenge, not his lackeys)

You can make monsters tougher, so the game play isn't click and kill..

Furthermore, parties for the most part are extremely difficult to challenge, and building a module based upon the results of a large party is a very bad Idea I have found, from previous mistakes I made in building, (The Underworld)

I'm sure you can contest to a lot of information here having relevance to your questions, the discussion, and may even help you find solutions to any roughness in your game play..  On an ending note, as a tip, you can turn down the difficulty settings while on as a DM and see if this helps gameplay, if so, you can set it permanently in your ini file.

I hope this was helpful to ya Leo...

Sincerly, your friend,

Genisys / Guile..

Modifié par Genisys, 24 août 2010 - 06:25 .

[leo_x]

hey thanks.  i figured i shouldn't lurk forever.  no, not really, but it was probably too far off topic.

as for me, i play action, i prefer it to be rough.  if i can start a fight, walk out of the room grab a beer and still be alive when i come back in what is supposed to be challenging area...i just feel like a rat clicking on a dispenser for pellets.

Modifié par pope_leo, 24 août 2010 - 11:57 .

[Onion Eater]

Moderately difficult, but manageable encounters, but in an exceedingly dangerous situation.



Basically, you shouldn't have too much difficulty with any single fight, but when you string 'em all together, finishing an area is as difficult as can be.



Incidentally, one of the best ways I know to achieve this is to limit healing and resting. Nothin's scarier than finding yourself several layers down in a dungeon, with two cure crits left, and seven HP. Well, I guess you could have lost all your equipment to a rust monster... That would be scarier.

[Genisys]

Onion Eater wrote...

Moderately difficult, but manageable encounters, but in an exceedingly dangerous situation.

Basically, you shouldn't have too much difficulty with any single fight, but when you string 'em all together, finishing an area is as difficult as can be.

Incidentally, one of the best ways I know to achieve this is to limit healing and resting. Nothin's scarier than finding yourself several layers down in a dungeon, with two cure crits left, and seven HP. Well, I guess you could have lost all your equipment to a rust monster... That would be scarier.

I glady leave any server that inflicts PC Rape or Nerfs Rest, instantly too...

Modifié par Genisys, 28 août 2010 - 02:44 .

[Shadooow]

good to know you don't like it, but I think its good hint

Modifié par ShaDoOoW, 28 août 2010 - 03:28 .

[Sharona Curves]

Genisys wrote...
I gotta ask the community, how hard do you like your game play?
Also, How rough is too rough for you?

 
Do I like it rough?
 
Without a doubt.  No module out there has provided me with the spells , the rhythm , the feats and powers, and of course the extremely modified iprp_damagecost.2da file in order to provide the utter and complete unnecessary roughness this gal has come to appreciate. 

With the lack of such things available to me elsewhere, I simply had to do it on my own.  And what did I realize?  I like it really really . . flesh-ripping, soul-crushingly rough.  Somehow going back to standard NWN/D&D rules just doesn't cut it anymore.

[Genisys]

Sharona Curves wrote...

Genisys wrote...
I gotta ask the community, how hard do you like your game play?
Also, How rough is too rough for you?

 
Do I like it rough?
 
Without a doubt.  No module out there has provided me with the spells , the rhythm , the feats and powers, and of course the extremely modified iprp_damagecost.2da file in order to provide the utter and complete unnecessary roughness this gal has come to appreciate. 

With the lack of such things available to me elsewhere, I simply had to do it on my own.  And what did I realize?  I like it really really . . flesh-ripping, soul-crushingly rough.  Somehow going back to standard NWN/D&D rules just doesn't cut it anymore.

Yeah, I gotta hand it to ya Sharon, your not alone in that category, I think that's why many servers are pretty popular..

I on the other hand, can't take it when it's uber hard, e.g., the monsters never miss, and you rarely hit...
Gameplay like that turns me off fast, however, having to heal because the monsters are punching really hard isn't so bad, as long as I can breath in between heals...

[Urk]

I prefer MP with perma-death and resting restrictions, so in that sense I like it rough. But in a game like that, where each encounter can be your last and you can't retreat to saved games, it's best to find ways to make the game challenging other than combat. Good riddles and puzzles, role playing quandries, and failable quests are a much better source of difficulty than just throwing together a bunch of hard encounters.