61 réponses à ce sujet

[Giuice]

 MasterMagic Could you give me a summary of what you found so far? I have the same interests as you, but the most important points for me are: fast leveling and solo play after(and before) level cap, cause Im very casual player, sometimes I have 2 minutes to play, sometimes I have 2 hours. I Own neverwinter 2013, GW2 but I can´t find another game that give-me the pleasure to play like neverwinter nights 1 and Guild Wars 1(played all content solo!)
Thx

[MagicalMaster]

I suppose. Here's (I believe) a complete list of servers we've tried (3 Towns, Heart of Winter, and Neversummer 4 are ones we haven't really tried yet):

- Higher Ground
- Isle of Thain
- Legion of Darkstar
- The Awakening
- World of Aenea
- World of Caenyr
- World of Greyhawk
- World Serpent Inn
- Argentum Regio
- Kharlindale
- World of Amia

Ignoring ALL (and I mean ALL) factors besides fast leveling and solo play...

- Higher Ground: there can be very fast leveling (though by default you'll level faster than you can complete certain "goals" so most people don't actually take levels when they earn them), definitely not meant for solo play. Would not recommend.
- Isle of Thain: slow leveling, harsh death penalty heavily discourages solo play, would not recommend.
- Legion of Darkstar: relatively fast leveling, no real solo play past level cap that I noticed. Would not recommend.
- The Awakening: relatively fast leveling, no real solo play past 2/3 of the way to max level, would not recommend.
- World of Aenea: slow leveling and other stuff, would not recommend.
- World of Caenyr: would not recommend.
- World of Greyhawk: fast leveling in challenging areas but you just quit and restart at 40, would not recommend.
- World Serpent Inn: I honestly don't remember a ton about this -- I remember getting annoyed and quitting around level 15-20 if I recall correctly. Would not recommend for your purposes.
- Argentum Regio: slow leveling, would not recommend.
- Kharlindale: leveling was fast initially, we quit around level 7 due to issues with doing quests in a group and issues with playerbase. You might actually have better luck with this than we did due to it not being group friendly but I can't really say anything past level 7 or so. Try it if you want, I suppose.
- World of Amia: very slow leveling, would not recommend.

I realize that doesn't sound promising, sorry. The only world we tried that might possibly fit your goal is Kharindale...and that's a world we got annoyed with and quit before even hitting level 10 so take it with a grain of salt.

The good news is the world I'm designing would fit your desires perfectly...but it's probably six or more months away, so that does not really help you now.

[Gregor Wyrmbane]

MM,

Please explain the "harsh" death penalty you experienced on Thain.

[MagicalMaster]

If I recall correctly, dying on Thain locked your character from gaining experience for 10 minutes per level. So die at level 4 and you cannot gain experience for 40 minutes -- effectively erases 40 minutes of experience gain. Die at level 15 and you cannot gain experience for 150 minutes -- effectively erases two and a half hours of experience gain.

This timer also did not count down while offline, so if you died at the end of a night and went to sleep, you'd still have a 150 minute penalty the next day.

[leo_x]

Giuice wrote...

 MasterMagic Could you give me a summary of what you found so far? I have the same interests as you, but the most important points for me are: fast leveling and solo play after(and before) level cap, cause Im very casual player, sometimes I have 2 minutes to play, sometimes I have 2 hours. I Own neverwinter 2013, GW2 but I can´t find another game that give-me the pleasure to play like neverwinter nights 1 and Guild Wars 1(played all content solo!)
Thx

I really shouldn't butt in to MagicalMaster's thread, but I think it's worth keeping in mind that one's initial playthrough of any particular world can be a radically different experience from the second, third, etc with regards to leveling speed and the soloable space.  Due to any number of factors like persistant banks, muling, XP banks, no ILR, general familiarity with the world and its difficulty vectors, and so forth.  Some of those might not be your cup of tea either tho.  Sadly the one server I would have recommended for a complete, casual, soloable experience is gone.

Sorry if this obvious, but in my experience people are rather too quick to pan servers they might have enjoyed had they given them a bit more time.

Good luck on your search.

Modifié par pope_leo, 25 octobre 2013 - 11:37 .

[AtraAngelis]

I'm going to agree with pope here
MM, you are looking for the Holy grail of Servers in this day and age of NWN1.
Its just not going to happen. Perhaps 3-4 years ago..
Servers of today have become more Focused. Heavy RP, Action, and the community that remains is dedicated to one or two of those elements.

Sorry bro..

[Dante2377]

So I did want to provide some complementary feedback to MM's feedback - having played hundreds of hours on both Kharlindale and The Awakening and thousands of hours on Sword Coast Adventures (old Legion of Darkstar), I'd like to flesh out my own experiences there, particularly towards Guice's fast level/solo desire.

Kharlindale - I'm not sure what MM experienced in that he didn't like the playerbase, but playing end of 2012/early 2013, the vet players were nothing but helpful to me, helping with advice, gear runs, gear/gold gifts, etc. That said, what he mentioned about the "main quest" was true - whoever actually dealt the killing blow to the boss got the "quest update" in journal, which can make the boss fight tricky in a group. I'd say leveling is moderately fast if you know where to to, but the post 40 areas are definitely geared towards a party. That said, there would be 100's of hours of enjoyment here just getting 2-3 PCs to that point and doing the runs/quests necessary for all the top end +6 gear. The other slightly annoying thing for me, was that there is no buff stone/rod, so having to cast a lot of buffs on a self-buffer was really annoying (not that annoying since I'm super fast with the radial dial, but still)....maybe they've added one once, but not when I was there. So all in all, I recommend this server, but if you're looking for top-end post 40 soloable, this is the least soloable in that aspect of the servers I've played on. This is also probably the closest of the PW's I've played to NWN Sotu/Hotu in terms of power level and gear - tops out at +5 with medium damage bonuses on weapons (4x4d12 or so) and not much immunity gear (mind, knockdown, level drain, etc). Of the 3 servers mentioned here, this is probably the least solo-able at high level IMO.

The Awakening - fast leveling with gear hand-me-downs and xpbank and free releveling (except RDD, PM, and if you do a specific custom feat conversion). Not sure what MM means by "no solo play at 2/3 of level max [assume that's level 40 out of 60]" as I have several PCs who have solo'd most of the high level areas (not the entire craggy island with cleric subbosses but enough to move ahead and not die). But other than that Island, with a good build and solid play (e.g. don't run ahead and trigger 4 spawn groups at once), higher level areas are definitely soloable, although it can be slow going. Biggest complaint I'd say is that getting to some of the high-level quests takes grinding through 5-8 maps of tough mobs first, but like most post-40 content, it's probably designed for parties more than solo. Playerbase here is also friendly and not only willing but looking to help players on gear runs for their PCs. All the elite gear does require boss kills to equip, but help is generally always there. You do need to constantly upgrade your gear to the levels ILR allows as the module expects this (e.g. +4 at 18, +5 at 28, and +6 at 38 with your special mithral +8 weapon at 38 also). If you know the areas to go to for your level, you can always get 600-800xp per kill. Decent amount of immunity gear (KD, mind, paralysis, death magic are all common, level/ability drain is not) and gear tops out at +6 except for shield (several +8 shields) and each PC can get special mith weapons that are +8 (ranged can be upgraded to +8 ab as well).

Sword Coast Adventures/Legion of Darkstar - fast leveling with gear hand me downs and recently introduced xpbank and releveling. Other player friendly features include widget that lets you save your PC and location independently (doesn't happen on rest so that casters can rest without resetting their save location) as well as port to party leader. Also, when respawn you have the option to go to the staring city OR right where you died so if you spent 2 hours doing a quest and die, you don't have to start all over, which is a constant solo threat many places. Module also expects you to upgrade your gear as you go (if you check the forums, you'll know where to go, there's less in-game direction, although any PC on can help). If you know the areas to go for your level you can generally always get 500-1000xp per kill. Also they have buff rods for both self and target others. Epic Gear is a mixture of quest rewards (most can be done more than once) and purchase and there are both low level forges (up to +5 gear and +5 EB/+10 AB) and epic upgrades in the epic shop, although epic gear purchases and upgrades require certain quest items from either main quest (there is the original "Time of Dragons" mainquest that's available to anyone and then there is the drow house quest, which has 3 different paths depending if you are drow, undead, or anyone else). I spent most of my first 2 PC's lives playing mostly solo (75% of the time) and I can tell you that you can get to level 40 and then go decently far into the main quest (at least up until the Abyss) as a solo PC, both straight melee, self-buffer melee, and blaster caster. It might be slow going in some areas but it's doable with a good build, good gear, and solid play. Gear goes to +10 on all items, both weapons and AC items. The really high levels areas [e.g. main quest abyss and hell areas] are less "soloable" than The Awakening, but not by much and there's definitely more of a progressive quest feel - e.g. the feel that you're part of a story and making progress rather than just doing individual runs/quests.

So I think the overall feedback to Giucice's request is that from what I've seen, most high-level post-40 areas for the PW's that have them, are designed to present a challenge - meaning a party of well-equipped, max level players who are familiar with the world and at least average in playskill/tactics. e.g. a casual build by a casual player generally won't have the firepower or playerskill to be able to solo those areas. In general, unless you start scaling all the spawns by total party level or some other spawning metric, if you design the high level areas for a solo PC, then when you get a party of 3-4, there's no risk of death/failure.

So I think most worlds design their post-40 content aimed at those people who want a challenge and that typically means challenging a well-equipped party, not a well-equipped solo PC. So I think your particular set of requirements (fast leveling, lots of post-40 content that's all soloable for a casual player) is going to end up with a solution set of 0 servers, which is why MM has none recommended in his list that he has tried.

I'm happy to discuss more on any of the above servers in a different thread if we don't want to clutter this one...

[MagicalMaster]

First of all, I don't mind the discussion -- it's a fairly dead thread otherwise, after all

pope_leo wrote...

I really shouldn't butt in to MagicalMaster's thread, but I think it's worth keeping in mind that one's initial playthrough of any particular world can be a radically different experience from the second, third, etc with regards to leveling speed and the soloable space.  Due to any number of factors like persistant banks, muling, XP banks, no ILR, general familiarity with the world and its difficulty vectors, and so forth.

Absolutely.

AtraAngelis wrote...

Servers of today have become more Focused. Heavy RP, Action, and the community that remains is dedicated to one or two of those elements.

We'd be fine with heavy action focused that suits our desires.

Dante2377 wrote...

Kharlindale - I'm not sure what MM experienced in that he didn't like the playerbase

I was insulted and belittled for following a quest's directions too literally by a player and most of the other players seemed rather apathetic.  When we were trying to figure out what the heck was going on with quest drops their general attitude was "That's the way it is, if you don't like it bugger off" instead of "Yeah, it's silly but since there aren't any active admins we just have to live with it."

The latter would be understandable, the former wasn't.

It also felt like pulling teeth at times trying to figure out basic stuff about the world like "How does healing work at higher level?" and "What kind of immunities, if any, are there?" -- and I was asking this in the server party so it's not like I was bugging one particular player too much.

Maybe I'm much more "hardcore" than the typical player and thus they don't really give a damn about stuff that I care about, but it was not a pleasant experience.

Dante2377 wrote...

That said, what he mentioned about the "main quest" was true - whoever actually dealt the killing blow to the boss got the "quest update" in journal, which can make the boss fight tricky in a group

And it makes soloing significantly better most of the time.  My friend and I were trying to level together but it was incredibly obvious we'd be leveling twice as fast by splitting up, sadly.  Ditto for larger groups.

Dante2377 wrote...

Not sure what MM means by "no solo play at 2/3 of level max [assume that's level 40 out of 60]" as I have several PCs who have solo'd most of the high level areas (not the entire craggy island with cleric subbosses but enough to move ahead and not die).....Biggest complaint I'd say is that getting to some of the high-level quests takes grinding through 5-8 maps of tough mobs first, but like most post-40 content, it's probably designed for parties more than solo.

Yes, I meant past 40 -- mob difficulty spiked with no clear way to compensate and some of the mobs were crazy compared to their pre-40 counterparts.  Trying to get to Haven at level 40-45 was rough -- though I understand we were supposed to have a larger party instead of two people (and probably be higher level).  We'd just go from mobs with 40 AB to mobs with 70 AB (or something like that) and it seemed a bit silly.

And yeah, it's POSSIBLE to solo some stuff but clearly not intended and very painful at some points.

Dante2377 wrote...

It might be slow going in some areas [for Sword Coast Adventurers] but it's doable with a good build, good gear, and solid play.

And by slow going he means it will take hours to do the runs.  Not something you can log in, spend an hour, and make progress -- you'll likely need to be able to commit 4+ hours.  I remember reading a thread on those forums where a person was talking about doing a dungeon, spending 4+ hours there, dying on the last boss, and then having to start all over again for some reason (either couldn't return to where they died or the boss despawned or something like that).

(That said, I seem to recall that there was some kind of bind point saving or something but not sure if that would work in some of the areas).

Dante2377 wrote...

So I think the overall feedback to Giucice's request is that from what I've seen, most high-level post-40 areas for the PW's that have them, are designed to present a challenge - meaning a party of well-equipped, max level players who are familiar with the world and at least average in playskill/tactics. e.g. a casual build by a casual player generally won't have the firepower or playerskill to be able to solo those areas. In general, unless you start scaling all the spawns by total party level or some other spawning metric, if you design the high level areas for a solo PC, then when you get a party of 3-4, there's no risk of death/failure.

Yeah -- tends to be all group areas instead of some meant for soloing and others meant for grouping.

Dante2377 wrote...

So I think your particular set of requirements (fast leveling, lots of post-40 content that's all soloable for a casual player) is going to end up with a solution set of 0 servers, which is why MM has none recommended in his list that he has tried

Bingo.

Modifié par MagicalMaster, 25 octobre 2013 - 11:05 .

[Dante2377]

MagicalMaster wrote...
And by slow going he means it will take hours to do the runs.  Not something you can log in, spend an hour, and make progress -- you'll likely need to be able to commit 4+ hours.  I remember reading a thread on those forums where a person was talking about doing a dungeon, spending 4+ hours there, dying on the last boss, and then having to start all over again for some reason (either could return to where they died or the boss despawned or something like that).

(That said, I seem to recall that there was some kind of bind point saving or something but not sure if that would work in some of the areas).

To be fair, yes some of the runs will take a long time if you are solo and aren't familiar with them - some of them took me 4+ hours the first time.  Some of them also took me 45 minutes, so there's definitely a mixture.  For example, just today after a little under 4 hours of play, I did the entirety of 2 dragon boss runs include the pre-lairs and half the pre-lair of a 3rd.  As compared to my first time solo when yes it took me roughly 3 hours each.  But a couple points here - 1. with the new player widget tool, you can save your location wherever you want and port directly back there.  So if you only have 30 mins and can only get past a couple of maps, save location when it's time to log and come back to it when you can.  You can even mid-session save your location, then port away to another town or guild hall and do some other adventuring with your save location intact for when you want to return to the longer quest.  Also, all the long main quest lairs have portal stations along the way where you get a gem that ports you back to it, in addition to being able to use your widget to save location. 

but also 2. when I did complete these long quests, there was a much bigger sense of accomplishment as part of a larger story/quest than just "login, kill a few mobs, kill boss, get treasure".  but there's plenty of that there as well - go kill the chaos manifest in 20 minutes and get a 5 million gold belt.  Got 30 minutes, go clean out Iliana of Bane.  Got 1.5 hours, go lay waste to the castle full of vampires or do half a dragon boss lair. 

Anyway part of what draws me back to SCA is the epic scope and feel of the main quests and that there's a continuity of plot along a main quest that's more than just doing a bunch of runs to get some more gear (although you do need to do that to be effective at the really epic quests), but still having the option for many short quests and/or hunting areas.

But to each their own, that's why there's dozens of PWs out there..

[MagicalMaster]

Dante2377 wrote...

But a couple points here - 1. with the new player widget tool, you can save your location wherever you want and port directly back there.  So if you only have 30 mins and can only get past a couple of maps, save location when it's time to log and come back to it when you can.

Does that work across server resets or mess anything up with spawns/scripting?

Dante2377 wrote...

but also 2. when I did complete these long quests, there was a much bigger sense of accomplishment as part of a larger story/quest than just "login, kill a few mobs, kill boss, get treasure".

Any feeling of accomplishment vanished when we were hitting the third or fourth map of lots and lots of trash mobs that you just had to grind through.  Map after map and spawn after spawn of the same few types of mobs -- felt like shouting "ENOUGH ALREADY!  WE GET IT!"

It was just a massive, massive time sink -- it wasn't interesting spending an hour and a half killing the same trash pack again and again and again.  That's why we quit -- we just felt it wasn't worth it.  We'll invest time into stuff we find interesting...and it simply wasn't interesting on those runs.  Way, way, way too much trash.  Felt like we spent three hours accomplishing something that should have been done in one hour.

Dante2377 wrote...

but there's plenty of that there as well - go kill the chaos manifest in 20 minutes and get a 5 million gold belt.  Got 30 minutes, go clean out Iliana of Bane.  Got 1.5 hours, go lay waste to the castle full of vampires or do half a dragon boss lair.

20 minutes for Manifest?  30 minutes for Illiana?  

I had those runs down to a science -- could kill the Chaos Manifest, Wererat Lord, another Wererat Lord, and Illiana of Bine in like 20 minutes total.  Had to wait for it to reset and then repeat.

Granted, I was being devastatingly effective as a sorcerer -- doubt many other characters could plow through it like that.

So please keep that in mind when I talk about something taking a long time and being tedious -- this is coming from someone who was blazing through the other bosses and grinding them over and over again without complaint.  But the sheer amount of trash (that was simply the same trash again and again and again without even a mini-boss or two to break things up) on the main quest broke my will to live.

Others may simply have more free time and be willing to put with it.  We...just got tired of it and felt like it was wasting our time.  Even with the ridicuously overpowered summons from a sorcerer (friend was a strength-based bard).

[Sadira of Tyr]

MagicalMaster wrote...

But a couple points here - 1. with the new player widget tool, you can save your location wherever you want and port directly back there.  So if you only have 30 mins and can only get past a couple of maps, save location when it's time to log and come back to it when you can.

Does that work across server resets or mess anything up with spawns/scripting?

Yes it does work through server resets, and does not mess up any scripts that I know of.

MagicalMaster wrote...

Any feeling of accomplishment vanished when we were hitting the third or fourth map of lots and lots of trash mobs that you just had to grind through.  Map after map and spawn after spawn of the same few types of mobs -- felt like shouting "ENOUGH ALREADY!  WE GET IT!"

It was just a massive, massive time sink -- it wasn't interesting spending an hour and a half killing the same trash pack again and again and again.  That's why we quit -- we just felt it wasn't worth it.  We'll invest time into stuff we find interesting...and it simply wasn't interesting on those runs.  Way, way, way too much trash.  Felt like we spent three hours accomplishing something that should have been done in one hour.

Strangely enough, I also thought the white dragon lair was a little too much of the same creatures, but I decided to leave it that way. If you had tried the other lairs, you would have noticed an increase in variety and minibosses as well. The green lair even included a pretty nasty flower tree. The red lair contains about a dozen types of creatures, and about 7 or 8 minibosses. The remainder of the quest contains a wide variety of creatures and bosses: undead, golems, demons, and plenty of unique nasty creatures in Hell.

In making the main quest, it was basically a learn as I go, so new things were added as I learned them. You cannot really judge the whole quest based on one dragon lair. I noticed you grouped the lair with the quests to enter the lair, but failed to mention the various pirates, and the unique timed encounter on board a burning pirate ship.

I'm not trying to change your mind, but just pointing out that our server is more than just trash grinding through the same creatures over and over.

[MagicalMaster]

Sadira of Tyr wrote...

I'm not trying to change your mind, but just pointing out that our server is more than just trash grinding through the same creatures over and over.

I don't mind if you ARE trying to change my mind -- by all means defend your world and your decisions!

I just sent you some comments I made to Yelpir about six months ago when we quit.  You might find them interesting if you haven't seen them (don't know if you have).

Sadira of Tyr wrote...

Strangely enough, I also thought the white dragon lair was a little too much of the same creatures, but I decided to leave it that way. If you had tried the other lairs, you would have noticed an increase in variety and minibosses as well. The green lair even included a pretty nasty flower tree.

It wasn't just the white dragon lair, though, that was basically the 2000 lb weight that broke the camel's back.  Offhand I also remember part of the Fire Giant lair being extremely long and basically making no sense to boot and Undermountain was incredibly painful -- five levels of the same mobs again and again and again and again and again.

We ran into the same problem multiple times and said "This just isn't worth it."

Sadira of Tyr wrote...

In making the main quest, it was basically a learn as I go, so new things were added as I learned them. You cannot really judge the whole quest based on one dragon lair. I noticed you grouped the lair with the quests to enter the lair, but failed to mention the various pirates, and the unique timed encounter on board a burning pirate ship.

As I just mentioned, it wasn't just the one lair -- it seemed to be most things at that point.

And these issues aren't the only issues we had -- other issues include lack of negative space, hostility to new players (in world design not playerbase/admins), random locks, and some very strange design choices like the mage summon that was about 10 times as powerful as my friend playing a strength melee character and putting weaknesses on bosses to specific damage and then making it impossible to damage those bosses with appropriate spells!

I don't mind IGMS spam at all.  I am fine with IGMS spam.  It's a simple and easy solution to making sure mages are effective against single targets.  Bring on the IGMS spam if needed, it doesn't bother me.

But saying "This guy is vulnerable to cold, you need to hit him with cold" and then functionally making him immune to cold spells doesn't make any sense.

I went over many of these issues (and more) in the PM I forwarded to you.

And the pirates...the pirates.  Yeah.  I was trying to leave that out since it only pissed us off for multiple reasons.

To quote the PM...

Third, the riddles often don't say enough. And no, I don't mean "the riddles are too hard." Take the white dragon one, for example - we found the white dragon cave and then found the pirate ship but couldn't figure out how to get into the pirate cabin or ship. We saw the part about the broken tree and explored the area - finding a hollowed out tree stump (nothing) and several broken trees (nothing). We continued north and found the innkeeper talking about a cave with pirates and an underground entrance to their hideout. So we tried to do that, figuring maybe we needed to find the entrance to their hideout which would then have a key for the ship.

After searching the pirate cave for 15+ minutes (after clearing the bears and with my pixie out who has very high spot), we couldn't find a trap door and asked for help. At this point we were told the pirates thing we were trying to do had nothing to do with the pirates thing involved with the dragons. So we returned to the forest. We had noticed a log earlier but we couldn't interact with it so we paid it little heed. This time we accidentally discovered that at one end of the log you actually could interact with it. But then we also discovered we needed at least 10 search skill to even find the key in the log. Thankfully, bard song was sufficient to get our skill high enough so we could succeed on a 19+, but otherwise we would have been hosed.

The whole convoluted affair was extremely aggravating and it sounds like it only gets worse in the drow houses. Occasionally dealing with keys and such can be a nice change of pace. But "KEYS EVERYWHERE" just gets frustrating.

That's not even referring to the ridiculousness of "being captured" by the pirates or whatever.

Modifié par MagicalMaster, 26 octobre 2013 - 06:48 .