32 réponses à ce sujet

[Aelis Eine]

After 10 years of NWN, the flaws of the stock mechanics are starting to feel like an annoyance. Namely, the way the game is designed around checklist-ticking, especially at higher levels.

In many cases in NWN, a fight is pre-decided before it even starts, based on the build and equipment of a player and its opponent.

For example, player has HiPS, opponent doesn't have detection skills or True Seeing, it's pretty much an auto win for the player.

Another example, if a player has Dev Crit, opponent has hittable AC isn't crit immune and there is autofail on 1, win or loss will be decided in 1 minute at most, very frequently less.

It works the other way in PvE too. Suppose high level monsters have Dev Crit, PCs must either be crit immune or make sure the monster cannot lay a finger on them by stacking Epic Dodge, 50% conceal and high AC, otherwise Lady Luck just has to stop smiling on them once and they die.

And in NWN, the list of single abilities with the potential to decide an entire fight goes on almost endlessly - 4 minute holds, 3 minute fears, 720 damage triple IGMSes in a single Timestop, petrification, instant death that ignores death immunity, Knockdown spam etc.

As either a mod designer or a player, I am aware of these abilities and their counters, but it's just such a pain to either find or design modules that can appeal to a wide variety of players. If I try to make a challenge for Powergamer A who has a bunch of checkboxes ticked, Newbie B with significantly less checkboxes ticked and lower AB and AC will run into instant death left and right and quit out of fristration. On the other hand, if I design for Newbie B, Powergamer A blazes through all the content and quits of boredom within 3 days.

Coming back to NWN fresh from GW2, I feel that the gap between high and low end in GW2 is a lot narrower, and it doesn't feel like I have to jump through quite as many hoops as NWN when building a character.

I wonder if anyone else feels the same way and is doing something about it. I would love to see a server that starts on a clean slate - classes completely wiped and a new set of classes and spells designed to avoid the current flaws.

To start with, I would avoid giving immunities or very big AB and AC advantages to any class or race. Especially not permanent ones. Look at RDD, PM, WM and AA - they are popular classes because of these advantages, but it comes at the expense of other classes. Characters with high levels in Fighter or Rogue will have trouble in an environment designed for PM-level ACs or WM/AA-level ABs, and I'm not just talking about Action servers here - even in the Roleplay tab there are many servers like this.

I would also space out class abilities evenly so that taking say, 3 levels in a class would give roughly the same advantages as 3 levels in another class, unlike the current lopsided distribution where certain classes are front-loaded, others are back-loaded and some others have magic levels to stop at.

I know some servers currently do this, like Revenge of the Dead, but it's a zombie survival server and a completely low level experience, so that's not my cup of tea. I wonder if anyone else thinks the same way and/or is doing something though.

[WebShaman]

D&D is an inherently imbalanced system - this is mostly due to the nature in which it was designed to be played. It was originally conceived as a group of players with a DM running things.

Co-op play (players) against the environment (DM) in that sense, though the DM is not against the players, but instead weaves the entire story, mostly based with the players as the middle point.

D&D was not created as a PvP product. Nor was it conceived as a MMO type of product, either, where one has radically different levels playing at the same time.

If you have ever had the opportunity to play in a closed DM session (PnP campaign style), you will see that there is absolutely no real issues here.

Trying to turn the D&D rules into a usable Server-style environment is a pita. It takes a lot of work to get a balanced gameplay type of environment - and it normally starts to break down in Epic Levels.

I would suggest that you contact FunkySwerve from Higher Ground. He and his team have done enormous amounts of work in this direction. I believe Avlis 3 has as well (you might want to contact them).

Be aware that the work involved is huge.

[Shadooow]

I found NWN working very well in PvE environment. My action PW is centered around lvl 40 and PvE looting, with legendary levels, +7AC gear and weaspon from +8 (slotted weapons like in diablo,) to +10 (unique weapons without slots)

The issues you described arent an issue for me really. I just dont give devast to every other creature. Some monsters have it and then players have still these choices:
- have AC greater than his AB+20 (AB reducing is good strategy to achieve this - neg energy burst, bigby interposing, prayer)
- kill him via ranged weapon from distance, this requires to somehow block his movement such as stacked web spell
- kill him via stacked offense AOE such as blade of barrier or creeping doom if not immuni
- disable him via mind-affecting spells if not immune
- knockdown him via bigby or IKD spam if not immune
- disarm him if possible
- get high saves to this can happen only by rolling 1 - if you go this route you need high DPS to get better chance

The possibilities are too many, in our environment it is rarely about luck. Its all about how is the module designed.

[MagicalMaster]

Aelis Eine wrote...

To start with, I would avoid giving immunities or very big AB and AC advantages to any class or race. Especially not permanent ones. Look at RDD, PM, WM and AA - they are popular classes because of these advantages, but it comes at the expense of other classes. Characters with high levels in Fighter or Rogue will have trouble in an environment designed for PM-level ACs or WM/AA-level ABs, and I'm not just talking about Action servers here - even in the Roleplay tab there are many servers like this.

I would also space out class abilities evenly so that taking say, 3 levels in a class would give roughly the same advantages as 3 levels in another class, unlike the current lopsided distribution where certain classes are front-loaded, others are back-loaded and some others have magic levels to stop at.

I've been working on two projects in regard to this sort of thing.  The problem is that I'm hesistant to put a ton more work into them and finish since I'm not sure how many people would even be interested in it.

The former project is more fleshed out, it was mainly minor tweaks to the game without massive revamps that still made important changes.  Removed crit immunity from PM, for example, and fire immunity from RDD.  AC from PM and RDD were halved.

I have about half a dozen different dungeons at max level ranging from solo content to 2-3 man dungeons to 4-5 man dungeons to 6-7 man dungeons.  If you or anyone you know would be interested in seeing what I did, let me know.

The latter project is a revamp of the combat system itself, especially for melee, and basically redesigns the classes.  I have a brief demo of the fighter ideas I had I could show, but that project would take a lot longer to complete.

Again, my main concern is how many people would even be interested in this sort of thing.

WebShaman wrote...

D&D was not created as a PvP product. Nor was it conceived as a MMO type of product, either, where one has radically different levels playing at the same time.

I would suggest that you contact FunkySwerve from Higher Ground. He and his team have done enormous amounts of work in this direction. I believe Avlis 3 has as well (you might want to contact them).

Neither of those is what he was talking about.  He's talking about PvE with characters that are the same level.

And I wouldn't recommend Higher Ground.  If anything, it's worse than most other servers regarding this exact problems (gaps in character power, fights being decided before they started with that often being based on gear, some classes being worthless).  In many cases, my character might as well have gone afk for all the difference it would have made.

That said, if you like super powerful items and the idea of getting up to level 80, go for it...but my distaste for many of the problems of HG was what led me to start working on the second project.  And I don't think it's what you want in terms of balance.

Modifié par MagicalMaster, 28 septembre 2012 - 04:51 .

[leo_x]

I've been working on a combat related project off and on again for awhile.  Like MagicalMaster, I'm wasn't sure how much interest there'd be.  It's a Linux nwnx plugin + Lua library tho, not a game balance thing.  Basically it allows you to script the melee/ranged combat roll with Lua among other things.

Some of the things I am working on.  Some of them are already doable by other means of course and not all of them are immenintly 'practical'.

- A simple interface for combat modifiers.  I.e. AB, AC, Damage Bonus, maximum Hitpoints bonuses/penalties can be easily modified by area, classes, feats, combat mode, race, creature size, skills, versus favored enemies, etc.
- Control of how combat rolls are calculated.  e,g. AB, AC, Damage, Crits etc.  Or you could remove them all together.  i.e. replace crit rolls with crit effects (e,g, x3 crit does knockdown not x3 damage)
.- Control over how effects stack.  eg. Could do Pathfinder style stacking.
- Control over effect maximums on a case by case basis. 
- Expanding effects to be capable of being VS subraces, dieties, individual targets.
- New combat modes and overriding old ones (that function identically to hardcoded ones)
- New special attacks and overriding old ones.
- Abstracting Sneak/Death attacks and Coup de Grace under the rubric of "Situational Attacks".Idea being making it a simple process to add new effects/combat modifications based on target and attacker state.
- Weapon attack bonus ability, damage bonus ability (always strength in the NWN engine), critical hit bonus damage (i.e. from overwhelming critical), critical hit range, critical hit multiplier, and iteration (i.e. amount a creatures base attack is decremented each attack) are all totaly modifiable on a creature-by-creature basis.

It's all still in an quite alpha state, lot of bugs to work out, but everything is beyond proof of concept.

If any one is interested, a slighty out of date repo is here: https://github.com/jd28/Solstice

Modifié par pope_leo, 29 septembre 2012 - 08:03 .

[Aelis Eine]

ShaDoOoW wrote...

I found NWN working very well in PvE environment. My action PW is centered around lvl 40 and PvE looting, with legendary levels, +7AC gear and weaspon from +8 (slotted weapons like in diablo,) to +10 (unique weapons without slots)

The issues you described arent an issue for me really. I just dont give devast to every other creature. Some monsters have it and then players have still these choices:
- have AC greater than his AB+20 (AB reducing is good strategy to achieve this - neg energy burst, bigby interposing, prayer)
- kill him via ranged weapon from distance, this requires to somehow block his movement such as stacked web spell
- kill him via stacked offense AOE such as blade of barrier or creeping doom if not immuni
- disable him via mind-affecting spells if not immune
- knockdown him via bigby or IKD spam if not immune
- disarm him if possible
- get high saves to this can happen only by rolling 1 - if you go this route you need high DPS to get better chance

The possibilities are too many, in our environment it is rarely about luck. Its all about how is the module designed.

That's exactly what I'm talking about - too much of the game is based on building a character with as many instant win strategies and instant win blockers as possible. As long as a character was built with Tool X, it only has to make one good decision - use Tool X, and it wins, period. Also notable is that six out of the seven examples given in your list are available to casters, while only three out of seven are available to non-casters, which suggests an imbalance in the tools available to different classes, namely non-casters vs. casters.

Ideally, while building a character around one or more core strategies should be important, there should be a tactical factor involved as well. A player should have to make multiple good decisions to win, and multiple bad ones to lose, with luck playing a minimal role. Having the right tool could take them 1/3 or 1/5 closer to winning a fight, but it doesn't award a win outright.

In general I agree with most of what WebShaman says - that D&D works well enough with a DM, and in a PnP environment. PWs are an unintended byproduct of NWN, and in many ways they function like mini-MMOs, hence some adjustment is necessary to the base NWN system to make it work in a PW environment. Trouble is, I haven't seen any PWs so far with a satisfactory solution to this problem. Some have even made it worse, or at least more apparent.

Incidentally, I'm not looking at making an MMO style system per se, as that implies a focus on party play. With the diminishing population of NWN, I think soloability is now a big part of the multiplayer PW experience. So a CRPG/ARPG-style system might be might be a closer fit, i.e. with all classes being able to function as self-contained MMO Trinitys - having the potential to execute a core strategy and possess damage, mitigation and self-healing abilities without needing to multiclass.

Same with MM, I'm not sure if such a system will be popular in NWN. Judging from the precedent set by WoW - I don't play or like WoW, but I do look at its numbers to gauge trends so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. From what I gather, recently there was a highly controversial revision to talents (which are kind of like mini-feats in NWN terms) in lieu of its latest expansion, and poor player reception of such a radical change was one of the contributing factors towards the expansion's low user score of 4.2/10 on Metacritic.

In NWN, mods which radically reinvent the game have also not been received well, even PWs with decent production values like Elysia and Solar Odyssey. Only the very niche zombie survival genre seems to have gotten away with these changes. Successful mods tend to make more minor adjustments.

[MagicalMaster]

Aelis Eine wrote...

That's exactly what I'm talking about - too much of the game is based on building a character with as many instant win strategies and instant win blockers as possible.

Ideally, while building a character around one or more core strategies should be important, there should be a tactical factor involved as well. A player should have to make multiple good decisions to win, and multiple bad ones to lose, with luck playing a minimal role. Having the right tool could take them 1/3 or 1/5 closer to winning a fight, but it doesn't award a win outright.

Exactly!

P.S.  DEFINITELY don't try Higher Ground, then.

Aelis Eine wrote...

Incidentally, I'm not looking at making an MMO style system per se, as that implies a focus on party play. With the diminishing population of NWN, I think soloability is now a big part of the multiplayer PW experience. So a CRPG/ARPG-style system might be might be a closer fit, i.e. with all classes being able to function as self-contained MMO Trinitys - having the potential to execute a core strategy and possess damage, mitigation and self-healing abilities without needing to multiclass.

By default, the only thing you'd really need to change in the default rules is to add some self-healing to everyone to get close to this.  Or plan on people guzzling potions of Heal, I guess.

In my mod with all the dungeons, I gave every character 10 full heals per day as a feat.  In my other project, I was thinking of doing 5 heals plus one recharges every minute or something.

Aelis Eine wrote...

Same with MM, I'm not sure if such a system will be popular in NWN. Judging from the precedent set by WoW - I don't play or like WoW, but I do look at its numbers to gauge trends so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. From what I gather, recently there was a highly controversial revision to talents (which are kind of like mini-feats in NWN terms) in lieu of its latest expansion, and poor player reception of such a radical change was one of the contributing factors towards the expansion's low user score of 4.2/10 on Metacritic.

You are wrong

For at least three main reasons:

1. Look at the actual scores on Metacritic.  Most of the negative ones are zero.  That's an emotional knee-jerk reaction, some of it directed at a launch issue or two or the idea of pandas (because they're idiots who think it's Kung Fu Panda).  Or simply trolling.  There's 156 ratings of 8/10 or better and 226 negative ratings of which something like 80-90% are zeroes.

2. Metacritic user scores is a horrible way to judge anything for the reasons mentioned above.  And also the fact that it's such a tiny percentage of the population and not representative at all to boot (for example, I haven't given it a rating and I'd give it a 9/10).  In-game, I'm seeing more people online than I have in years.

3. Some idiots may not like the talents.  In the old system, you literally filled out a spreadsheet.  Someone calculated the optimal selection of talents and everyone just did it.  End of story.  No one besides the 0.01% of the game who did the calculations thought about it at all.  Now, everyone has to at least think somewhat.  You're giving six tiers of three (theoretically) equivalent choices and you have to decide which fits your playstyle the best.  In the last expansion, I had no choices to make (well, technically I had one and the choice was to take 4% less magical damage.  Woo-hoo).  In MoP, I have six, and two of them hugely impact my playstyle.  In short, anyone complaining that the talents were "dumbed down" are quite literally 180 degrees wrong.

Modifié par MagicalMaster, 30 septembre 2012 - 05:12 .

[Shadooow]

Aelis Eine wrote...

That's exactly what I'm talking about - too much of the game is based on building a character with as many instant win strategies and instant win blockers as possible.

Havent understood from first post that this is what you dont like on NWN. I dont see whats wrong on this though. Nothing is autogained, the player must choose the right and build for the maximal effect. And it also depends on how builder think of this, usually I hear builders like you that wants the game be "fair" and difficult the same way for ocasional players and powergamers. That is not possible, trust me. Any step in the difficulty increase because of powergamers will only make the game better for them, the easiest is it, the less interesting it is for them. And you cannot really handle the fact that some players can play more than others and will repeat certain dungeons (as thats one of few things you can do in MMO-style of module) over and over again to find more items in loot etc.

I especially aim for very skilled PvE players that will make a special build for each dungeon just to be best in something. For me and my players, there is nothing wrong in default NWN environment. Its build/equip dependant indeed but its more about strategy and player skill (fast reactions, know what to do in unexpected situation) than about luck.

Also notable is that six out of the seven examples given in your list are available to casters, while only three out of seven are available to non-casters, which suggests an imbalance in the tools available to different classes, namely non-casters vs. casters.

partially correct, the casters has indeed much more choices, yet casters doesnt reach the *numbers* of the non-casters. On example: you can be cleric 32 fighter 6 monk 2 archer which has every spell he need but he lacks the firepower or you can be a fighter 8 bard 3 arcane archer 29 which has the firepower but lacks the self-healing/immunities. However the AA can still use any scrolls, potions, any wands and any other items grating the spell to be cast.

On my PW we have the default bio craft enabled so you can brew any potion (good for characters without UMD), craft any wand and scribe any scroll (except the limits on spell level of course). +there are items such as musical instrments that grants some extra spells (also vanilla items) and some custom items such as gloves with improved invisibility once per day. Also we have monsters dropping potions of full-healing quite frekvently, so you can have everything that cleric would have. Its not as practical to use wands/scrolls/potions as they are shorter and requires full round to be used, but you can do anything that caster can with the advantages you get for not being caster. (Of course I do realize that many classes doesnt get such big bonuses to outshine the cleric, but speaking of WM and AA they do, to a certain degree even ranger does with his FE bonuses)

[Shadooow]

One addition to the Higher Grounds. I would actually say its pretty balanced. You can play any character and you ll be fine. Yet from my own personal perspective, such game lost the appeal for me. There is no difference what I play except the abilities the build have of course but every character I played was the same for me. I consider overbalanced modules to be uninteresting. Of course, its just my personal feeling. Do what you think is best for you - I know you didnt asked me for my opinion, yet I am around in NWN very long time both as player and builder (see my project in my signature) and I certainly learned a lot. It seems to me that some peoples just trying to reinvent the wheel there - there were peoples that already done this and found that it works/doesnt work. Would be nice if current builders took this in consideration.

[MagicalMaster]

ShaDoOoW wrote...

Havent understood from first post that this is what you dont like on NWN. I dont see whats wrong on this though. Nothing is autogained, the player must choose the right and build for the maximal effect.

There's nothing "wrong" with it on a moral level or something.  But his point is he wants actual playing skill to matter more than simply coming in with the correct build/gear.  Or in many cases, even matter at all.  Lots of stuff in NWN where having the right build/specific items makes something pretty much an automatic win, but if you don't have them then it IS an automatic loss.

ShaDoOoW wrote...

And it also depends on how builder think of this, usually I hear builders like you that wants the game be "fair" and difficult the same way for ocasional players and powergamers. That is not possible, trust me. Any step in the difficulty increase because of powergamers will only make the game better for them, the easiest is it, the less interesting it is for them. And you cannot really handle the fact that some players can play more than others and will repeat certain dungeons (as thats one of few things you can do in MMO-style of module) over and over again to find more items in loot etc.

Except it's not a matter of making it more difficult because of powergamers.  The main thing is making the gap less.

Let's assume an occasional player and a powergamer each make a fighter-type.  Given equivalent quality gear, it is *easily* possible for the powergamer to have a character that is four times stronger (or more) because of better stat allocations, better feats/skills, and better gear selection.  I'm not even talking about playing skill yet.  Speaking of which...

I remember running across a 40 cleric with 14 strength.  She wanted to melee stuff and said she couldn't hit anything in my module.  For reference, the mobs have 60 AC, I believe, and a fighter built with the recommend button will have 54 AB.  So a 75%/50%/25%/5%/75% attack schedule.

When I see 40 cleric and 14 strength, I think...

25 BAB
5 Divine Favor
5 Divine Power
2 Battletide
1 Prayer
1 Bless
1 Aid
5 GMW
4 from strength (18 minimum with Divine Power, likely more)

So even with the cleric lacking strength gear and not having Weapon Focus, Epic Weapon Focus, and Epic Prowess, that's still 49 AB.  Potentially up to 57 AB, but let's assume worst-case.  Which is 50%/25%/5%/50%.  Not hugely impressive, but she should still land 1.3 hits a round.

I inquired more and found out the issue.  She wasn't running with buffs with Divine Power/Divine Favor/Battletide/Prayer.  So instead of 49 AB, she had 36.  Which would only hit on a 20.

That's the gap in playing skill you can have when you assume something like a cleric has standard buffs, even while assuming the character is built poorly and has chosen poor gear.

Fortunately or unfortunately, there's really only one solution to this problem...which is to standardize builds far more.  So that the difference between a fighter-type built by a new player and a fighter-type built by a veteran is like 50% better, not 300% better.  And this gap will still widen with gear selection and actual playing ability, of course.  But it means you have to reduce the options people get when building.

ShaDoOoW wrote...

I especially aim for very skilled PvE players that will make a special build for each dungeon just to be best in something. For me and my players, there is nothing wrong in default NWN environment. Its build/equip dependant indeed but its more about strategy and player skill (fast reactions, know what to do in unexpected situation) than about luck.

The idea of making a special build for each dungeon rather than playing differently in each dungeon is exactly the concern here.  You and your players like that idea.  Great.  We...don't.

ShaDoOoW wrote...

One addition to the Higher Grounds. I would actually say its pretty balanced. You can play any character and you ll be fine.

I found the opposite to be true.  I'd often find myself in situations where I literally might as well have afked because I could do nothing.  I remember a dragon fight I did with a friend.  I had a pure fighter (which gets special bonuses there for extra damage per hit) using a Bastard Sword with the best one I could reasonably obtain for the level.  I literally could not even do 1 point of damage to many enemies.  My friend was playing an Arcane Archer.  We wound up using his unlimited Seeker Arrows to deal 5 points of damage (or something like that) to the boss every 3 seconds.  And wore the boss down over the course of 15 minutes doing nothing but standing there with me spamming healing potions and him spamming Seeker Arrow.

Nor was that dragon fight the only time we had to use that strategy.  And that's not even mentioning the required resists/saves/immunities/damage immunities.  Some people like that sort of play.  I don't.  

ShaDoOoW wrote...

It seems to me that some peoples just trying to reinvent the wheel there- there were peoples that already done this and found that it works/doesnt work. Would be nice if current builders took this in consideration.

Higher Ground *definitely* didn't reinvent the wheel in the manner we're talking about.  In fact, in many ways it made the problem worse (for what we consider to be a problem).

Side note: ShaDoOoW, I'd be curious to see what you (and potentially some of your friends) thought of my projects if you were interested.  Though it sounds like you wouldn't be

Modifié par MagicalMaster, 30 septembre 2012 - 05:37 .

[WebShaman]

Well, as a builder and having been on a number of Staffs on a number of PWs (as well as running my own) AND having played on a number of PWs, Mods, etc, I can say that I have never seen a "perfectly balanced for every possible player-type" environment.

Because it is simply not possible, and certainly not desireable!

Most PWs that I have played on (and built, etc) have varying difficulty type areas that are designed for different playing styles, from easy to insanely difficult (for those PGers looking for that "extra kick").

There was never a "one path to x" sort of thing, but rather multiple ways to "level and get lootz", being balanced according to what the main foes were.

And here we come to some of the main parts of D&D - a well-balanced group will do better than a solo artist, if the environment is made to cater to that group.

As for HG - well, you were what, two characters? Perhaps you should have brought a party for that area. I personally find it curious that you and your friend (Fighter and Archer) run into a place and you complain about things miserably. Would also having a Cleric type and a Wizard type have helped things (buffs, etc)?

I would like to hear FunkySwerve's comments on that area, before I make any type of decision here. The more I hear your negative comments towards HG, the more I begin to ponder what your actual motive here is. HG is not WoW, and WoW is not D&D.

HG has a large playerbase, especially for a NWN PW. I rather begin to suspect that you are somewhat biased here, but I am not sure as to how yet. My experiences with HG are very different than what you are posting here (and when one looks through youtube at the different videos for bosses, etc, it seems to reinforce what I am posting here).

Most encounters in NWN go like this - first time encounter, perhaps the player(s) win (depends on the experience base of the players themselves, really). Knowing when to RUN is an often overlooked ability. I know from experience that often, we had to retreat, lick our wounds, then prepare appropriately for what we would be encountering in order to "rescue" those that had fallen (and were waiting for us to come and rez them).

After the players realize what is needed to defeat said area(s), normally it is a pushover to repeat (although occasionally things will happen). Then it is on to the next. Rinse, repeat, yadda yadda yadda. So goes the PGer. After everything has been experienced and reduced to a red smear, on to the next PW, and so on.

RPers are normally the ones who dwell in an environment, long after the PGers have come and gone. They are not there for the challenge of the environment, but to RP in it.

HG is a PG PW. One needs to be aware of this, and to play accordingly. MM, you say you and another was basically doing the environment there. Are you certain that the environment you and your friend was adventuring in was "balanced" for two adventurers? I rather tend to believe that it wasn't. Therefore, you were (purposefully, though perhaps you were not quite aware of this) intentionally increasing the challenge of the area, by reducing the number of adventurers AND abilities that you had available to defeat the area.

Now, I know this is a favored strategy of most PGers (being that I like doing it myself, Solo being the ultimate "high", so to speak - bragging rights and all that). But sometimes, areas are actually created that are very difficult (if not impossible) to use such strategies in - if one can solo it, something is very wrong with the balance, or someone has discovered a "loophole", exploit, etc.

Case in point in the actual OC - it is possible to take care of one encounter (considered difficult) with a bow by positioning one correctly. Then it is just a matter of having enough arrows. A "loophole" or exploit that was not planned for by the devs.

In the case of the player playing a 40th level cleric - it seems almost incredulous to me that someone can reach level 40 WITHOUT being aware of what their spells are for! It boggles the mind. I cannot begin to fathom someone complaining that they could not hit with their cleric without at least trying to use the resources available to change the outcome (or at least influence things).

I personally do not have any real sympathy for that player here. It is my opinion that the environment should take into account standard use of resources to progress in. Even the most ardent RPer anti-PG rabid **** is normally aware of what standard resources their character has, and will make use of them (perhaps for diffferent reasons, certainly, but still...)

To make things short - I do not think one should create environments with the ignorant in mind. Perhaps beginning areas, etc - to get beginners used to the D&D system, etc. But anything in Epic and above should be created by taking standard resources into account - and having special areas for those inclined to min/max things (ultra PGers, so to speak) is also something that I personally enjoy.

[Shadooow]

MagicalMaster wrote...

Side note: ShaDoOoW, I'd be curious to see what you (and potentially some of your friends) thought of my projects if you were interested.  Though it sounds like you wouldn't be

My note about re-inventing a wheel was meant for you and pope_leo actually.

It seems to me that you both trying to make something that was already tried to be done without taking these previous tryes in account. Ive seen lot of balance changes and speaking of HG or for example HoW/DeX it only make the game ridicuously fussy. There is so many changes that the new player coming here have no chance to orientate in the mess.

IMO the less changes the better, the minor changes the better.

PS. whatever it seems from my comments, I still consider HG to be great server, every action player should try it, there are lot of interesting things and moments in gameplay that I enjoyed when playing there. Its definitely good server. And when there is someone looking for action type of module I always recommend the HG.

Modifié par ShaDoOoW, 30 septembre 2012 - 11:23 .

[Aelis Eine]

There will always be a gap between the casual and hardcore, but ideally, a game should be designed like chess - easy to pick up, but hard to master. The problem here is that designing based on instant wins and instant win counters creates a very high barrier to entry, because it requires casual players to be aware of the metagame - the multitude of ways by which they can instantly win or lose and how to prevent them. And that makes the game difficult to pick up. In chess, there is no instant win - it's a chain of events where a player slowly gets funnelled into a loss, so every step of the way they can analyze and learn what went wrong.

A bit of context placed in the quote tag (I wish there were spoiler tags here for those who want to skip walls of text)

On the server I am currently playing on - mid magic, no permahaste, no immunities, this problem is very apparent. Experienced players like me go in with a build like say, Monk/Cleric/DD and blaze through the content because we build for a wide array of ways to win and prevent insta-losing. Then I see less experienced players coming in with pure melee and they hit a brick wall because their build just doesn't work.

At around level 25 they will run into an area where mobs spawn in groups of three with instant death auras, and no scrolls means no death ward/shadow shield, so even with maxed fort, they have a 14% chance to die every spawn by rolling 1. There will be at least 5 spawns of 3 per map, so it's effectively a 50-50 chance for a non-cleric/mage melee character to die at that level range.

After that, at around level 28 the next challenge they will hit is mobs that spawn in groups of 3 and open with Implosion. Again, I have it easy - just drop Darkness on them or Silence on myself, problem solved. However, anyone who doesn't have Darkness or HiPS will die horribly.

Yet after that, at around level 32, they will run into a mob that spawns in groups of 3, spams IGMS and spawns minions on heartbeat that have True Seeing and immunity to Lv9 spells and spam ILMS. Again, I have it easy - Silence on myself, Turn Undead to bug the Lv9 immunity, stealth mode and go in eating a couple ILMS tops. Silence the 3 IGMS users along with the minions and then melee them down. An arcane caster can use Darkness to blind the IGMSers and Globe of invulnerability to block the ILMS minions, 

This is just one RP server, and it has the good fortune of being populated... for now. I've been to many other servers with similar design, i.e. certain builds will simply run into a brick wall at some point. Sometimes it's Rogues when they find everything level 28+ has True Seeing, Critical/Sneak Attack Immunity and very high ACs. Sometimes it's archers when they found out the shambling zombies in level 30-40 somehow move at the speed of high level Monks and have Deflect Arrows, Epic Dodge and 50% conceal, while arrows are so expensive that they cannot recoup the losses from the sheer number of wasted arrows they fire in high level areas.

I used to build, myself, and I would use Excel sheets, templates and very extensive testing to make sure that the major archetypal builds are challenged, and yet never find themselves feeling like they have run into an unwinnable situation.

Cases like these, I would fault the builder for not knowing the game well enough rather than the player for playing what might be a decent build in a downright unfriendly environment. But at the heart of the problem, I believe it's not bad players or bad builders, but a PnP-based system being used in a CRPG that makes it very easy for lopsided challenge levels to happen.

@ ShaDoOoW

Could you elaborate more on how every character felt the same to you except for abilities on HG? On one hand, you seem to advocate a standardization of options available to all characters via scrolls, potions, wands, items that cast spells etc, but on the other you don't seem to be in favor of how HG standardizes their classes, so I'll have to understand your position better before I can reply to that point.

Modifié par Aelis Eine, 30 septembre 2012 - 12:11 .

[Shadooow]

The quoted text is great example of terrible designed environment. I wont pretend that in the PW I am admin of this doesnt happen. It will we also have mobs that spams banshee - but at the same time we have a many other choices where to go on the same level. Yet its wrong, a remnant from the previous builders - im just new admin, I didnt created this module.

As WebShaman said, the DnD wasn't created for MMO use. The insta-kill spells are fine in the default PnP gameplay as its rare and DM will make sure that the DC is appropriate to the PCs level. In NWN you create a dungeon, place dozens spawns of the monster that has implosion multiple times and then you expect what? This is absolutely wrong. Its totally fine to make a boss at the end of the dungeon that will have implosion, but each mob in that dungeon thats just stupid.

Aelis Eine wrote...

Could you elaborate more on how every character felt the same to you except for abilities on HG? On one hand, you seem to advocate a standardization of options available to all characters via scrolls, potions, wands, items that cast spells etc, but on the other you don't seem to be in favor of how HG standardizes their classes, so I'll have to understand your position better before I can reply to that point.

I wont lie that I played all character on HG. I didnt even tried the casters as I didnt want to read thousands of spell changes related to them - every spell is modified on HG and I hadnt mood to find this out on my own. Thus I played fighter types, pure fighter, fighter/DD, bard/DD, bard/RDD/BG.

The whole server is about getting all immunities which are found on items. Each ability is separeted here so mind-affecting immunity will not protect you against daze, fear, stun, paralyse - Im unsure if the mindaffecting immunity even exists there. (good idea)

And these items are spawning always on the same place as the loot is constant (+- ofc there are chests that contain more than one items, kind of pseudo-random, but mostly constant). (dont like this at all)

So whatever I picked, it was always about get as much AC possible in order NPCs couldnt hit you without rolling 20. Get as much immunities as possible, or at least those that are spammed in that dungeon (for beholders player needed all of them). Get at least 10 scrolls of resurrection just for case your teammate dies, and get potions for each ability, barkskin, and fullheals. All this from very early stages of game, later you just bought better potions and better items. The special abilities of the classes just like bard song just allowed to go on place one level higher than intented, nothing more. I found the gameplay to be boring grinding after I finished the module main quest about crown of immortality.

Modifié par ShaDoOoW, 30 septembre 2012 - 01:34 .

[leo_x]

ShaDoOoW wrote...
My note about re-inventing a wheel was meant for you and pope_leo actually.

It seems to me that you both trying to make something that was already tried to be done without taking these previous tryes in account. Ive seen lot of balance changes and speaking of HG or for example HoW/DeX it only make the game ridicuously fussy. There is so many changes that the new player coming here have no chance to orientate in the mess.

IMO the less changes the better, the minor changes the better.

In all fairness that particular project of mine is more like reinventing rubber, it's a framework for replacing the combat engine with whatever rules you want.  I've been running a reasonably successful server for a few years now, so I've learned first hand the wisdom of what you're saying.  That said, I disagree wildly about changes.  I really don't understand why anyone would want less gameplay variety among action PWs.  It's already the same tilesets, same monster models, same etc.  Most servers aren't going to get many players at this point regardless of what they do.

@MagicalMaster
I like your idea about the innate health, especially if it's largely in lieu of potions.  It reminds me of the change from the Grass [1] in Demon's Souls to Estus Flasks [2] in Dark Souls.  It added a nice new dimension to the game, IMO.

For those unfamiliar with the Souls games:
[1] Basically infinitely consumable heal potions.  Only limit to how many you can have is how much currency you have to spend on them.
[2] Essentially innate potions that are upgradedable, refillble on rest to a maximum of 20 per rest at the highest levels.  There are other ways to heal but at a greater cost/risk to the player.

Modifié par pope_leo, 30 septembre 2012 - 05:09 .

[MagicalMaster]

Forgive me for going a bit out of order, but some things seemed to be a larger priority.

[quote]WebShaman wrote...

I would like to hear FunkySwerve's comments on that area, before I make any type of decision here. The more I hear your negative comments towards HG, the more I begin to ponder what your actual motive here is. HG is not WoW, and WoW is not D&D.

HG has a large playerbase, especially for a NWN PW. I rather begin to suspect that you are somewhat biased here, but I am not sure as to how yet. My experiences with HG are very different than what you are posting here (and when one looks through youtube at the different videos for bosses, etc, it seems to reinforce what I am posting here).[/quote]

My motive?  If you recall, you're the one who brought Higher Ground up.  And Higher Ground is certainly a popular PW.  But based upon the comments the original poster made, it is exactly the opposite of what he wants.  The OP is trying to get away from crazy build dependencies, extremely specific gearing requirements, and battles usually being decided before they start.

All three of those are ramped up to the extreme on Higher Ground.  And again, some people like that.  But the OP isn't looking for that, hence I recommend he stay away from Higher Ground.

If, on the flip side, the OP wanted an Action PW full of immunities, necessary build types, insane gear dependency, and planning mattering nearly infinitely more than playing...I would heartily recommend HG.  It has its own play style and it's a well-crafted world.

This is NOT a "BASH HIGHER GROUND" thread or something.  Many of its systems are amazing (like its banking system).  I'm very impressed by the whole server hopping, special tools it has, and how smoothly it runs with its population.  But it's not what the OP wants.

For reference, I believe my three characters there were...

53ish Weapon Master
35ish Fighter
35ish Sorcerer

Highest "dungeon" I completed was first level of Hell.

[quote]WebShaman wrote...

As for HG - well, you were what, two characters? Perhaps you should have brought a party for that area. I personally find it curious that you and your friend (Fighter and Archer) run into a place and you complain about things miserably. Would also having a Cleric type and a Wizard type have helped things (buffs, etc)?[/quote]

No, buffs wouldn't have mattered.  Our weapons were equal to or better than what GMW would give at that point.  The boss had resistances that would have soaked up any minor elemental damage.  And hitting the boss wasn't the problem, damaging it was.

Thus, even bringing a party of 10 fighters wouldn't have helped.  With pretty much the best weapons for our level, we couldn't scratch it (while standing there for 15 minutes, I did some math...the boss had 75% physical immunity, at least 15 damage reduction (meaning we needed to do 60+ damage per hit to scratch it, but it could have been beyond 20 or more reduction), and critical immunity).

That said, having a Cleric or Wizard would have tremendously helped...because they could have done more than 10 damage per round to it.  In fact, I soloed said boss on my Sorcerer with little effort.  Just spammed IGMS on it a bunch of times.

[quote]WebShaman wrote...

After the players realize what is needed to defeat said area(s), normally it is a pushover to repeat (although occasionally things will happen). Then it is on to the next. Rinse, repeat, yadda yadda yadda. So goes the PGer. After everything has been experienced and reduced to a red smear, on to the next PW, and so on.[/quote]

The whole point of the OP is that he wants something where it isn't a pushover to repeat.  Where even realizing what is needed doesn't guarantee success, where you still have to play well to win and can very easily fail.

[quote]WebShaman wrote...

HG is a PG PW. One needs to be aware of this, and to play accordingly. MM, you say you and another was basically doing the environment there. Are you certain that the environment you and your friend was adventuring in was "balanced" for two adventurers? I rather tend to believe that it wasn't. Therefore, you were (purposefully, though perhaps you were not quite aware of this) intentionally increasing the challenge of the area, by reducing the number of adventurers AND abilities that you had available to defeat the area.[/quote]

The number of adventurers didn't matter.  As mentioned above, it was easily soloed on my sorcerer.

The problem was that melee couldn't DO anything.  And archers barely could either.  Let's say we had a party with 3 fighters, 1 cleric, and 1 mage.  Two of the fighters might as well go sit in the corner and AFK.

It's not a matter of saying "Well, caster damage is twice as good on this fight," it's saying "caster damage is hundreds of times better (or infinitely better)."   And the reverse is true, I remember an area on my sorcerer where I literally could not do 1 point of damage to any of three boss enemies.  Not with spells, not with familiar, not with buffed summon (and summons are far more powerful there).

I am perfectly fine with not being able to solo or duo stuff.  If anything, I encourage it.  But I despise trying to achieve this by saying "X will be completely useless here so you need Y" and then also saying "Y will be useless here so you need X."  I think certain classes or roles can be more useful without making the others useless.  However, bringing along four extra fighters should be as good or better than bringing one mage, in my opinion (comparing a party of fighter/cleric/mage/rogue versus fighter/figher/fighter/fighter/fighter/cleric/rogue).

But if you disagree, then many NWN worlds, including HG, will work perfectly for you.

[quote]WebShaman wrote...

In the case of the player playing a 40th level cleric - it seems almost incredulous to me that someone can reach level 40 WITHOUT being aware of what their spells are for! It boggles the mind. I cannot begin to fathom someone complaining that they could not hit with their cleric without at least trying to use the resources available to change the outcome (or at least influence things).

To make things short - I do not think one should create environments with the ignorant in mind. Perhaps beginning areas, etc - to get beginners used to the D&D system, etc. But anything in Epic and above should be created by taking standard resources into account - and having special areas for those inclined to min/max things (ultra PGers, so to speak) is also something that I personally enjoy.[/quote]

For the latter, part of the problem is that you generally have to start over to fix a bad build, which I consider a huge flaw.

For the former, they played through the OCs and then on an RP world that was made to be easy.  Mobs with mid 40s AC at most at level 40.  They picked spells they thought were cool and figured melee would be their back-up if they ran out of spells.  The idea of expecting full battle buffs was foreign to them.

[quote]ShaDoOoW wrote...

My note about re-inventing a wheel was meant for you and pope_leo actually.[/quote]

I know.  Hence why I said you likely wouldn't be interested in it!

[quote]ShaDoOoW wrote...

It seems to me that you both trying to make something that was already tried to be done without taking these previous tryes in account. Ive seen lot of balance changes and speaking of HG or for example HoW/DeX it only make the game ridicuously fussy. There is so many changes that the new player coming here have no chance to orientate in the mess.[/quote]

Except HG isn't what we're talking about.  Higher Ground effectively takes the issues we're concerned about and ramps them up to extremes.  It is the opposite of what we'd like.

[quote]ShaDoOoW wrote...

PS. whatever it seems from my comments, I still consider HG to be great server, every action player should try it, there are lot of interesting things and moments in gameplay that I enjoyed when playing there. Its definitely good server. And when there is someone looking for action type of module I always recommend the HG.
[/quote]

As long as you walk into it with both eyes open, sure.  Just be aware of the insane gear dependency, plenty of ways to instantly die, and balance design that I dislike.  If you're fine with all that, it is definitely an amazing server.  But not for me.  And not for the OP.

[quote]Aelis Eine wrote...

There will always be a gap between the casual and hardcore, but ideally, a game should be designed like chess - easy to pick up, but hard to master. The problem here is that designing based on instant wins and instant win counters creates a very high barrier to entry, because it requires casual players to be aware of the metagame - the multitude of ways by which they can instantly win or lose and how to prevent them. And that makes the game difficult to pick up. In chess, there is no instant win - it's a chain of events where a player slowly gets funnelled into a loss, so every step of the way they can analyze and learn what went wrong.[/quote]

Exactly.  And in NWN, you often have to completely start over to fix any mistakes in character building, which makes this problem worse.  It's not a matter of leveling up, saying "Wow, I did some dumb stuff" and fixing it, you need to make a new character.

And the only way around this problem is to limit the player's options when it comes to making a character, sadly.

[quote]ShaDoOoW wrote...

The whole server is about getting all immunities which are found on items. Each ability is separeted here so mind-affecting immunity will not protect you against daze, fear, stun, paralyse - Im unsure if the mindaffecting immunity even exists there. (good idea)

So whatever I picked, it was always about get as much AC possible in order NPCs couldnt hit you without rolling 20. Get as much immunities as possible, or at least those that are spammed in that dungeon (for beholders player needed all of them). Get at least 10 scrolls of resurrection just for case your teammate dies, and get potions for each ability, barkskin, and fullheals. All this from very early stages of game, later you just bought better potions and better items.[/quote]

Also damage immunities.  If you don't have 75% or 50% damage immunity to certain types, you'll just repeatedly die in many areas (in addition to repeatedly dying from all of the above).

Mind-affecting does exist, but it doesn't DO anything past level 40 for most stuff.  Aka, even though you're immune to stun via it, you'll still get stunned unless you specifically have Immunity: Stun from an item.

[quote]pope_leo wrote...

@MagicalMaster
I like your idea about the innate health, especially if it's largely in lieu of potions.  It reminds me of the change from the Grass [1] in Demon's Souls to Estus Flasks [2] in Dark Souls.  It added a nice new dimension to the game, IMO.[/quote]

Yeah, the idea was that you had certain amount of healing per day along with spells per day.  You could balance damage from enemies without having to assume infinite healing potions.  Finding a potion of full healing would be a treasure only to be used in the most dire of situations.

It also means a healing cleric or druid is a nice bonus (they can allow the party to survive something like 50%-100% longer) but not mandatory.

Modifié par MagicalMaster, 30 septembre 2012 - 09:20 .

[Aelis Eine]

pope_leo wrote...

I've been working on a combat related project off and on again for awhile.  Like MagicalMaster, I'm wasn't sure how much interest there'd be.  It's a Linux nwnx plugin + Lua library tho, not a game balance thing.  Basically it allows you to script the melee/ranged combat roll with Lua among other things.

Some of the things I am working on.  Some of them are already doable by other means of course and not all of them are immenintly 'practical'.

- A simple interface for combat modifiers.  I.e. AB, AC, Damage Bonus, maximum Hitpoints bonuses/penalties can be easily modified by area, classes, feats, combat mode, race, creature size, skills, versus favored enemies, etc.
- Control of how combat rolls are calculated.  e,g. AB, AC, Damage, Crits etc.  Or you could remove them all together.  i.e. replace crit rolls with crit effects (e,g, x3 crit does knockdown not x3 damage)
.- Control over how effects stack.  eg. Could do Pathfinder style stacking.
- Control over effect maximums on a case by case basis. 
- Expanding effects to be capable of being VS subraces, dieties, individual targets.
- New combat modes and overriding old ones (that function identically to hardcoded ones)
- New special attacks and overriding old ones.
- Abstracting Sneak/Death attacks and Coup de Grace under the rubric of "Situational Attacks".Idea being making it a simple process to add new effects/combat modifications based on target and attacker state.
- Weapon attack bonus ability, damage bonus ability (always strength in the NWN engine), critical hit bonus damage (i.e. from overwhelming critical), critical hit range, critical hit multiplier, and iteration (i.e. amount a creatures base attack is decremented each attack) are all totaly modifiable on a creature-by-creature basis.

It's all still in an quite alpha state, lot of bugs to work out, but everything is beyond proof of concept.

If any one is interested, a slighty out of date repo is here: https://github.com/jd28/Solstice

This is some very exciting stuff! I could definitely use a lot of that - it solves a lot of workaround hacks I had in mind, since so much of melee is hardcoded. If it can do floating point crit multipliers and D100 combat rolls that would be a dream come true, and the way it's looking, I think it can...

My biggest two wishes for NWN though, is first a UI mod that will grey out an icon and display a cooldown timer before it can be used again, a la NWN2, and second, a UI mod that displays a Mana or Energy bar. I highly doubt they will ever come true.

It should be apparent that I am looking beyond D&D/NWN at this point. I want to create a homebrewed, IP-neutral class, spell and feat system that, while birthed on NWN, is almost completely wiped clean of stock NWN content at the 2da level so that it can be easily ported to say, Multiverse or a future Dragon Age game that supports PWs. I won't say it's "reinventing the wheel" per se, because the majority of the groundwork for modern CRPGs has roots in PnP D&D and its peers, and I won't say they reinvented the wheel as much as they gave it armor plates or put monster truck tyres on it so that it can navigate a different kind of terrain.

And with the system I want to create, I definitely don't envision all classes being equal, but I do envision them having a basic set of tools to handle a variety of situations.

For example, I plan to give all classes a basic single target attack. For the melee classes this is straightforward enough - the left click autoattack works fine, but I'll be giving out Weapon Finesse for free, so that Dex-based characters can go with melee or ranged as their preferred style right from the start. For casters, there will be one caster class geared towards each mental stat, and these classes each get an infinite uses per day single target spell based on their respective stat that will let them do comparable damage per round to a melee character.

I also plan to give all classes a basic AoE, which does less damage per target than the single target attack, but will do more total damage over 2 or more targets. Also infinite uses per day, but different classes get different AoE shapes, like Str-based fighters getting a circle right in front of them, Dex-based getting a fan-shaped knife throw/arrow shot etc etc.

Every class also gets a healing skill, set to 1x/day but scripted to recharge after 5 rounds or thereabouts, and different classes use different mechanics for their heals, like maybe Druids get an AoE plant growth that they have to stand inside for some fast regen per tick, Necromancers get a vampiric heal or a heal where they sacrifice a summon and heal themselves for a percentage of the summon's remaining HP, Fighters probably get a very straightforward "Push button for HP" deal to reflect that they're a straightforward class etc. These heals are drawn from a shared pool, such that using one heal will drop all other heals to 0x/day.

After that, I'm planning to have each character being able to select 6 more skills, out of a possible pool of 12 per class, split into tiers such that level 1-8 in a class can only select from the first pool of 4, then level 9-14 gets an additional 4 skills to choose from and 15+ gains access to the full list. These skills are limited uses per day, but are either stronger than the basic skills or expand on a core mechanic of the class, like Rogues might be able to learn Invisibility, some stuns and blind skills to set up Sneak Attacks, Rangers get to learn Web shots and short duration movement buffs to help with their kiting. Necromancers learn skills to apply, spread and take advantage of diseases and debuffs on a target.

This sounds like a lot of work, but I think in the long run it will save effort, because I'll be paring down the number of classes from 24 to maybe 9, and the total number of player skills, assuming 12 selectable, 2-3 basic per class works out to 129, which is smaller than the Wizard's entire spellbook

[MagicalMaster]

Aelis Eine wrote...

This is some very exciting stuff! I could definitely use a lot of that - it solves a lot of workaround hacks I had in mind, since so much of melee is hardcoded. If it can do floating point crit multipliers and D100 combat rolls that would be a dream come true, and the way it's looking, I think it can...

Both of those would be amazing.

Aelis Eine wrote...

My biggest two wishes for NWN though, is first a UI mod that will grey out an icon and display a cooldown timer before it can be used again, a la NWN2, and second, a UI mod that displays a Mana or Energy bar. I highly doubt they will ever come true.

The former is definitely a huge wish.  The problem is not establishing a cooldown, the problem is communicating it to the player.

Also, you can simulate mana/energy/whatever using feats.  For example, for Energy, make a feat that has 20 uses and regenerate 2 uses per second or something.  Can use this type of system for a lot of things.

Aelis Eine wrote...

It should be apparent that I am looking beyond D&D/NWN at this point. I want to create a homebrewed, IP-neutral class, spell and feat system that, while birthed on NWN, is almost completely wiped clean of stock NWN content at the 2da level so that it can be easily ported to say, Multiverse or a future Dragon Age game that supports PWs

Yeah.  The thing we love about NWN is the idea of toolset, not the game mechanics themselves.

Aelis Eine wrote...

For example, I plan to give all classes a basic single target attack. For the melee classes this is straightforward enough - the left click autoattack works fine, but I'll be giving out Weapon Finesse for free, so that Dex-based characters can go with melee or ranged as their preferred style right from the start. For casters, there will be one caster class geared towards each mental stat, and these classes each get an infinite uses per day single target spell based on their respective stat that will let them do comparable damage per round to a melee character.

Dex/ranged characters not working properly at level 1-2 is definitely something I think is flawed by default.

Aelis Eine wrote...

I also plan to give all classes a basic AoE, which does less damage per target than the single target attack, but will do more total damage over 2 or more targets. Also infinite uses per day, but different classes get different AoE shapes, like Str-based fighters getting a circle right in front of them, Dex-based getting a fan-shaped knife throw/arrow shot etc etc.

I wouldn't do 2 or more targets, I'd do 3.  I'd suggest 40% of the single target damage.

Aelis Eine wrote...

Every class also gets a healing skill, set to 1x/day but scripted to recharge after 5 rounds or thereabouts, and different classes use different mechanics for their heals

I'd consider doing multiple uses initially but only recharge 1 use per minute or something.  So it's like a pool you'd wear down versus "if you take more than X damage in 5 rounds, you die.

Modifié par MagicalMaster, 30 septembre 2012 - 09:18 .

[Aelis Eine]

Also, you can simulate mana/energy/whatever using feats.  For example, for Energy, make a feat that has 20 uses and regenerate 2 uses per second or something.  Can use this type of system for a lot of things.

That works, but I suppose I was thinking of an Energy system that interacts with the UI, so that if a character is out of Energy, they wouldn't be able to cast a spell, rather than spend 3 seconds casting the spell only to have it fizzle out because it failed the energy check at the spell hook.

Unless... I were to do a energy builder/spender system with it instead, so that I can use very small denominations that make it easy for the player to keep track of which skills they can use, e.g. 1 for most skills and 2 for big ones. Then I could hook autoattacks and the single target infinite use spells to build energy. And it solves a few other problems like perma-stuns or fears, since energy building is required to maintain it, and rest restrictions !

I wouldn't do 2 or more targets, I'd do 3.  I'd suggest 40% of the single target damage.

Why do you suggest 40%? I'm still in the air about the exact number myself, but my gut feeling is that around 70% should be fine. My impression of Aion and RIFT, which I assume to be the case in WoW, is that PvE is largely designed around quality over quantity: mobs are usually statistically equal or superior to players, but rarely come in superior numbers to the player's party unless it's an overpull or a mechanic like boss adds, so lower AoE damage might work there since the idea is to not overaggro.

On the other hand, the more actiony RPGs like Guild Wars 2, Champions Online and Torchlight make it a point to swarm the player regularly, but they get stronger AoEs to handle that. Single target skills might also have better utility, like in the case of archers, the autoattack range goes as far as the screen can clip, while casters may have a higher chance to apply their spell effects on their single target skill.

As for NWN... I suppose in some cases it can be considered 100%, because an instant kill Wail does the same theoretical DPS as any other instant kill a mage throws out, and in some cases it's 0% because characters like a ranged Ranger might have no AoEs at all.

I'd consider doing multiple uses initially but only recharge 1 use per minute or something.  So it's like a pool you'd wear down versus "if you take more than X damage in 5 rounds, you die.

5 rounds could be a little strict, and I might drop it to 4 or even 3 with testing, but I think the idea of dying after taking X damage in 3-5 rounds is fine. As I mentioned, I wanted all classes to be able to function as a self-contained Trinity. In a Trinity, apart from healing to increase survivability, there is also damage mitigation/prevention - straight up defensive buffs or control skills like Fear used defensively, or even killing something outright because dead mob = 0 damage. Healing skills should really be considered a last line of defense.

[WebShaman]

Well, as you both are discussing things not remotely D&D related, I will bow out here.

[MagicalMaster]

WebShaman wrote...

Well, as you both are discussing things not remotely D&D related, I will bow out here.

That's not quite true.

We're still talking the NWN toolset.

We're still talking AB/AC.

We're still talking the D&D classes and the idea of feats/skills.

In fact, if anything we're talking stuff similar to 4E D&D, I think, if I understand how that works roughly correctly.

Aelis Eine wrote...

Unless... I were to do a energy builder/spender system with it instead, so that I can use very small denominations that make it easy for the player to keep track of which skills they can use, e.g. 1 for most skills and 2 for big ones. Then I could hook autoattacks and the single target infinite use spells to build energy. And it solves a few other problems like perma-stuns or fears, since energy building is required to maintain it, and rest restrictions !

Indeed.  It's what I set up for fighters in the second project I mentioned.  I can show you the system if you'd like (and it can easily be converted to casters as well...the only catch is that you can only check when the spell finishes.  But easy enough to say "if you couldn't check to see if you had 5 mana, too bad" if needed).

Aelis Eine wrote...

Why do you suggest 40%? I'm still in the air about the exact number myself, but my gut feeling is that around 70% should be fine

Two main reasons.

One, to control the difference between AoE and single target damage.  Imagine if there are 5 targets.  With your value, you're doing 3.5 times the damage per round in AoE.  In mine, it's 2 times the damage.  Still a large increase, but it doesn't get too insanely too quickly.

Two, to make using AoE a decision.  It's still technically more with 3 or more mobs, but with 3 mobs you have to ask yourself if the 20% more damage is worth not focusing the target down.  But as you move to 4+ mobs it definitely becomes worth it.  Otherwise, you could still do reasonably well spamming AoE on single target.

Aelis Eine wrote...

5 rounds could be a little strict, and I might drop it to 4 or even 3 with testing, but I think the idea of dying after taking X damage in 3-5 rounds is fine. As I mentioned, I wanted all classes to be able to function as a self-contained Trinity. In a Trinity, apart from healing to increase survivability, there is also damage mitigation/prevention - straight up defensive buffs or control skills like Fear used defensively, or even killing something outright because dead mob = 0 damage. Healing skills should really be considered a last line of defense.

Well, there's two main lines of thought regarding healing.

One, you should be able to survive indefinitely.

Two, you should have a steady drain on your health and eventually run out.

In your method, if the player ever takes more damage than their max HP within 30 seconds, they're dead.  Period.  Doesn't matter if they played amazingly for 5 minutes and then messed up.  Perhaps you want that.

In my method, they might still gain a heal every 30 seconds, but they start with 3-5.  It acts as a buffer of sorts.  It means you can introduce segments where they have to heal more.  It means that if they get down to 1 heal but play perfectly maybe they can get "ahead" of what's intended and have some margin for error.  It helps protect against burst damage or a series of bad crits.

In my idea, you can imagine the player with a total health pool that steadily decreases as the fight goes on.  Eventually they'll run out of heals in most cases.  In your idea, every 30 second window is a self-contained event.  I prefer the former idea, generally speaking.

[Aelis Eine]

Indeed.  It's what I set up for fighters in the second project I mentioned.  I can show you the system if you'd like (and it can easily be converted to casters as well...the only catch is that you can only check when the spell finishes.  But easy enough to say "if you couldn't check to see if you had 5 mana, too bad" if needed).

Sure And I had a feeling it would be like D&D4E, but I haven't actually seen that system in action yet. Waiting for Neverwinter though, to at least give it a look/chance.

Two main reasons.

One, to control the difference between AoE and single target damage.  Imagine if there are 5 targets.  With your value, you're doing 3.5 times the damage per round in AoE.  In mine, it's 2 times the damage.  Still a large increase, but it doesn't get too insanely too quickly.

Two, to make using AoE a decision.  It's still technically more with 3 or more mobs, but with 3 mobs you have to ask yourself if the 20% more damage is worth not focusing the target down.  But as you move to 4+ mobs it definitely becomes worth it.  Otherwise, you could still do reasonably well spamming AoE on single target.

Let me try some theorycraft here. Suppose an AoE does 7 damage and a single target does 10 damage, and mobs have say, 25HP. Mobs die after either 4 AoEs or 3 single target hits. Lets say mobs do 1 damage in the time it takes a player to do an attack. With a spawn of 3, spamming the AoE means the player takes damage from 3 mobs 3 times, for a total of 9 damage.

However, taking range into account, suppose the player pulls from max range and gets 2 attacks off, then drops an AoE, 1 mob goes down with 0 damage taken, then the remaining 2 get into melee range. Now suppose the player uses a breakable CC like Sleep and disables 1 mob, that's 2 damage taken so far. The player then does a single target on the second mob and takes 1 damage in return, but if the player manages to proc say, a Slow or a 2x Critical, they can avoid taking more damage either by kiting or because the mob died outright. The player can then reposition to kite the remaining mob. Total damage taken is either 3 or 4, but instead of taking 4 attacks, the player takes 8 attacks, so half the DPS, but half the damage taken in return.

Of course, this is all theorycraft, but the point I am trying to make here is that raw numbers can't accurately reflect actual combat situations all the time. AoE is a big brush, but it's also a clumsy brush and sometimes the finesse of a smaller brush might get the job done better. I think while theoretical numbers point towards 40%, practical testing might suggest a higher number for AoEs to be considered attractive.

Well, there's two main lines of thought regarding healing.

One, you should be able to survive indefinitely.

Two, you should have a steady drain on your health and eventually run out.

In your method, if the player ever takes more damage than their max HP within 30 seconds, they're dead.  Period.  Doesn't matter if they played amazingly for 5 minutes and then messed up.  Perhaps you want that.

I'm guessing mine follows the first line of thought? =p I think it's fair enough that if a player messes up enough in the span of 18-30 seconds, they die, provided they mess up a lot in that timeframe. Typically, after a heal I'd expect the player to play more defensively, like kiting or pressing an emergency button like an AoE fear, going into Invis/Stealth, popping a bubble etc. A combination of that and lesser CCs like roots/snares, knockdowns, attack debuffs etc will tide them over to the next heal, or at least cover their escape.

I think most MMOs follow the first line of thought as well - as long as you don't run out of mana pots, you can survive indefinitely because your healer manages to make it from one big cooldown to the next.

Also, I'm put crit-increasing feats and access to Keen very high up the Dex tree, and I don't plan to have crit multipliers higher than 2x. Mobs will follow the same rules, so a series of bad crits won't be nearly as bad as it is on stock. With Leo's plugin, hopefully I can set 1.5x as the base crit multiplier for most weapons to alleviate this further, with scaling crit damage based on Dex or feats related to Dex.

Modifié par Aelis Eine, 03 octobre 2012 - 12:39 .

[Squatting Monk]

Had a thought today on how to give feedback on cooldowns. NWNX allows you to get and set quickbar slots. Assuming these changes show up immediately rather than requiring relogging...

Create dummy feats (they don't have to be granted to the player, since feats the player doesn't know can still be added to the quickbar) with icons displaying a number corresponding to the number of rounds remaining in the cooldown. (You would only need the numbers 1 - 10. Cooldowns lasting longer than ten rounds would need a 1m, 2m, etc.). Then, when one of the abilities is used, swap its quickbar slot out for the dummy feat and use a pseudo-heartbeat to update it once per round until the cooldown has expired, at which point the ability is returned to the quickbar and made usable again.

So if you used an ability with a cooldown of five rounds, its quickbar icon would change to a 5, then 4, 3, 2, and 1 in succession, followed by the ability being returned to the quickbar.

Of course, you'd still want to decrement the number of uses on the ability so the player can't just turn around and use the ability from the radial menu. All this system would do is give visual feedback to the player to tell them how much time remains before they can use the ability again.

You'd also need to find some way to restore all the quickbar slots in case a player logs out while some abilities are still on cooldown.

Modifié par Squatting Monk, 04 octobre 2012 - 09:21 .

[MagicalMaster]

Aelis Eine wrote...

Sure And I had a feeling it would be like D&D4E, but I haven't actually seen that system in action yet. Waiting for Neverwinter though, to at least give it a look/chance.

Never played DnD of any type, so no idea.  I'm working on the last 4 test chambers for Fighter atm (the abilities themselves are functioning but still setting up the tests).

Aelis Eine wrote...

However, taking range into account, suppose the player pulls from max range and gets 2 attacks off, then drops an AoE, 1 mob goes down with 0 damage taken, then the remaining 2 get into melee range...Total damage taken is either 3 or 4, but instead of taking 4 attacks, the player takes 8 attacks, so half the DPS, but half the damage taken in return.

That's not a fair comparison.  To use your idea, the player would pull from max range and drop 3 AoEs before the mobs get there.  And then drops one more AoE, so each mob hits once.  So you take 3 damage and take 4 attacks.

Aelis Eine wrote...

Of course, this is all theorycraft, but the point I am trying to make here is that raw numbers can't accurately reflect actual combat situations all the time. AoE is a big brush, but it's also a clumsy brush and sometimes the finesse of a smaller brush might get the job done better. I think while theoretical numbers point towards 40%, practical testing might suggest a higher number for AoEs to be considered attractive.

The combat situation you outlined isn't even really an AoE situation (at least not the second one).

I suppose one of the main points is we need to figure out what AoE means.  If you mean 2-3 targets max, then 70% or so would be needed, yes.  But if we're talking 5-6+ mobs in AoE (which to me is what AoE really means), then 40% is far more reasonable.  That means you're dealing double the total damage with 5 or more targets.  And it becomes a total damage increase at 3 or more targets.

Aelis Eine wrote...

I'm guessing mine follows the first line of thought? =p I think it's fair enough that if a player messes up enough in the span of 18-30 seconds, they die, provided they mess up a lot in that timeframe. Typically, after a heal I'd expect the player to play more defensively, like kiting or pressing an emergency button like an AoE fear, going into Invis/Stealth, popping a bubble etc. A combination of that and lesser CCs like roots/snares, knockdowns, attack debuffs etc will tide them over to the next heal, or at least cover their escape.

"Mess up a lot" is awfully vague.  The thing I also don't understand is theoretically a player should *already* be playing defensively like that before they take damage.  Or will be, if the content is hard.

I think the question to ask is whether you care about how many total times the person messes up or solely how many times they mess up within a small window of time.

Aelis Eine wrote...

I think most MMOs follow the first line of thought as well - as long as you don't run out of mana pots, you can survive indefinitely because your healer manages to make it from one big cooldown to the next.

I can't speak to MMOs besides WoW, but that's definitely not true in WoW.  Even initially, you could only use a mana potion every two minutes.  And for a while for, you can only use one potion per combat.  The whole point has been, in fact, to get away from "spam potions to win."

Also, in most MMOs, bosses typically have a mechanic that makes them kill everyone after a certain length of time (aka, after eight minutes they start doing 1000% more damage), has tem ramp up something to achieve the same effect (so adds start off spawning every 60 seconds, then 55 seconds, then 50 seconds, etc), or they run the healers out of resources simply because the healers steadily lose mana.  Unless you're planning to include one or more of these in your fights, they'll hugely reward defense over offense.

My method still allows for the "instant death" stuff or the "ramping up," but also effectively creates that steady drain to ensure fights can't drag on.  So you'd start at 5 heals, for example, and will require a heal, say, every 15 seconds and regain 1 heal per 30 seconds.  Second column is heals available, third is heals used

000 *** 5 *** 00
015 *** 4 *** 01
030 *** 4 *** 02
045 *** 3 *** 03
060 *** 3 *** 04
075 *** 2 *** 05
090 *** 2 *** 06
105 *** 1 *** 07
120 *** 1 *** 08
135 *** 0 *** 09
150 *** 0 *** 10

And then you'd die at 165 seconds.  If you played poorly and took extra damage, you'd die sooner (and could be unable to heal in time as well, of course).  That's just an example to show what I mean.

[MagicalMaster]

Squatting Monk wrote...

Of course, you'd still want to decrement the number of uses on the ability so the player can't just turn around and use the ability from the radial menu. All this system would do is give visual feedback to the player to tell them how much time remains before they can use the ability again.

I thought any feat not gained from leveling up had unlimited uses?

And yeah, that sounds like it would be hell on the quickbar slots.