Coming Soon: Discussion Thread (2020)

[chad878262]

Hi again LT,

I will likely make this the subject of my next suggestion post, but one thing I am already noticing having just reached level 13 is the need to focus on new content (dungeons, specifically) for the higher level ranges. As levels increase, so does the XP required to go up in level. While many players past and present have argued for 'faster leveling' I think the real issue is that, starting at ~level 12 from what I see thus far you basically have to repeat dungeons multiple times in order to advance. From 12-13 I did cloakwood mine 4 times, the sharpteeth orcs twice, the beregost mine twice, the abandoned chaple once, the minotaurs once, the sewer bowels once and at level 13 now my list of areas hasn't expanded all that much and to be honest from a pure gold/loot standpoint hilltop ruins which I started doing at level 4 or so is still a far more lucrative area than any of those I just listed.

TLDR version is I think, should any additional new area's be worked on they should be focused on CR ~10+ and I am sure levels 21+ need the most focus/help to improve the player experience in terms of adventure opportunities. I realize this isn't much an option until the split, but thought I would let you know my thoughts.

Cheers and thank you!

New areas before a server split??? Bravo!

Don't tell anybody, but I'm sneaking this one in. I make things work.

[Legofsalmon]

Details here: https://wiki.bgtscc.net/index.php?title=Feytouched

As always, stuff might change!

<3.

[chad878262]

A few pieces of feedback...

1. 43% chance of no cool down faystep is OP. Especially with only 14% chance of daze. Why not make it d6 with 1 being dazed and 6 being no cool down?
Edit to add: Considering this is a warlock dark invocation (Otherworldly Leap) but better because in every case but when you roll a 1 the cooldown is shorter than that invocation it is a major power up to a standard "Con-Lock." Even if they are dazed their buffs will keep them safe, especially since they have an extra dark invocation they can grab.

2. Wild embrace has no real penalty...DC 15 will save its nothing for a sorcerer and adding d3 means they can cast at least 5 spells and probably more like 7-10 before they have any chance of failure. Not a big deal, but by going S6/AM4/BM10/FT10 as example you hit CL38 which pretty strong considering it is for all spell schools. Could do quite a bit more for enchantment and to a lesser extent necromancy and illusion by mixing in shadow adept. Could end up with better dc or similar dc to a wizard, but in far more spell schools.

It looks very flavorful, but I would suggest testing combos like above as well as for instance s6/fm10/ft10/am4 which may be able to hit very hard with some of the more powerful rta spells (though maybe not as good as mixing in Arcane scholar)

[Nemni]

1.
I actually had it at 1/7 chance for feat reset and 1/7 chance to daze at first. But when I tested it it felt pretty bad. Using it with Wild Embrace should be a risk, but it shouldn't feel like you are better off turning the mode off. I might make it reset on just 6 and 7 though.
Otherworldly Leap is just a 30 second cooldown, not 102 seconds like feystep. No reason a warlock couldn't use them both if they wanted to jump around. Or, as any class, just pick up a dimension door wand.

2.
Yeah if you start buffing after login the chance to fail at first is basically none. But the point is that it keeps increasing until you eventually fail or stop casting with the mode. But I originally designed this for warlocks who basically cast all the time, maybe need to tweak it for sorcerers. On the other hand the cost of losing a spell to madness is higher for them than for warlocks.

As for casterlevels, the way I see it is as a sorc you can raise it with boodmage/archmage/shadowadept/feytouched. You can only pick 3 of those, not all 4. Sure if you go feytouched rather than shadowadept you get it for all schools, instead of being weaker in some. But on the other hand the shadowadept bonus is far higher and you don't risk going mad using that... Feytouched mostly benefits enchantment school which is clearly not the strongest.

Also keep in mind that the required fey heritage must be taken at level 1, which is also when you need to pickup spellcasting prodigy. Highest CHA races like aasimar and drow can't get both. The other CL classes don't have that problem.

[blowuup]

Have considered this class for Bards too? It does seem thematic enough.

They get enchantment spells, and I don't see how it could be too overpowered.

[Nemni]

I dunno, this sort of offensive spellcasting is not what I typically associate with a bard. Besides they have 2 custom made prcs already

[Kiran]

Loving any new content, no idea if overpowered or not, but I love it is towards Warlocks and Sorcerers as they are typically the ones missing some love.

Awesome stuff.

[izzul]

Wow!

[Korchas]

Necromancer Seal of Approval for that one!

[Dragonslayer]

After a lot of staff discussion, we've decided to make some serious changes to loot. This should address some existing player concerns and will hopefully make risking your life in appropriately-leveled dungeons worth the reward!

• We're rebalancing the loot that chests generate so that better chests are less likely to give bad items. Lower-tier chests should give better items than they used to on average, but have a lower chance of giving very good items, so they might feel a little worse. Higher-tier chests should now both give better items on average and be more likely to give something great. (The best chest can still give you a copper ring, but you're much more likely to get the good stuff now.)
• We've gone over every single area (we think!) and balanced the loot based on the CR. That means chests in tougher places all have a better chance of giving good loot, instead of some good chests being mixed in with some bad chests. Some areas had their chests tuned down, some had them tuned up, but it should all match the difficulty of the area now.
• Looting chests below your CR will give worse loot. It's pretty gentle at first, but when you get too far below your CR, you'll just find a little bit of gold. This should free up the low-level dungeons for low-level players and encourage players to seek out dungeons that will give them a proper challenge. (For those who hate parties, solo adventuring is now a riskier proposition, but with the improved loot from higher-tier chests, it should be more rewarding too.) Hopefully this change will mean there are more players looking to form an adventuring party at any given time, so even folks with "RP builds" (or people like me who just can't powerbuild) will have an easier time ganging up on helpless undead/orcs/etc.
• More areas have had their chests randomized. Randomized chests can appear in all sorts of places, so players will have to search dungeons more carefully! Randomized areas can also have chests which are Mimics, and will attack you instead of dropping loot. To compensate for these additional variables, randomized areas will tend to have more chests in total. (Count 'em!)
• The Underdark+Upperdark get to be a part of this too, because we didn't forget about the players we keep locked in the basement.

We're still finalizing some of the work, but hopefully you'll get to experience this soon! It should make dungeons more of an adventure and less of a tedious grind.

Hidden: show

The following dungeons have had their chests randomized:

• Hilltop Ruins
• Gibberling Caverns
• North of Beregost, Goblin Mine
• Lion's Way Gnoll Cave
• Cloakwood Minotaur Ruins
• Durlag's Tower
• Serpent Hills Temple
• Vault of the Dead
• UD The Tarpits
• UD Oghrann

It would be nice to eventually have half of the dungeons at each CR randomized, so please request areas that you would like randomized.

While probably an unpopular opinion, I approve wholeheartedly of the idea and implementation of this.

Get yo epic PC's out of the level 1 dungeons.

[zhazz]

Something to keep in mind, and I hope this has been considered, is that these change will increase traffic in appropriate areas. While not an issue in low level areas, due to primarily chest hunting in those, it can be an issue in the higher level areas, where some chests require a boss drop key to open. A drop that may be unavailable due to someone else having been there recently, and the boss has yet to respawn.

The above scenario has happened before, on several occasions prior to the changes, and it feels really bad to use consumables prior to entering a high level zone, only to find no boss, locked boss chests, and be left with only regular chests.

I approve of the changes though, as long as it doesn't force level 30 characters to only seek adventure in areas such as the Grey Peaks, Forest of Wyrms, or Balor/White Dragon.

The Serpent Hills, Nashkel Mines, Reaching Woods, and similar should be considered appropriate for level 30 characters in my opinion, to avoid the overcrowding described above.

[Blackman D]

enter at your own risk?

[chad878262]

Something to keep in mind, and I hope this has been considered, is that these change will increase traffic in appropriate areas. While not an issue in low level areas, due to primarily chest hunting in those, it can be an issue in the higher level areas, where some chests require a boss drop key to open. A drop that may be unavailable due to someone else having been there recently, and the boss has yet to respawn.

The above scenario has happened before, on several occasions prior to the changes, and it feels really bad to use consumables prior to entering a high level zone, only to find no boss, locked boss chests, and be left with only regular chests.

I approve of the changes though, as long as it doesn't force level 30 characters to only seek adventure in areas such as the Grey Peaks, Forest of Wyrms, or Balor/White Dragon.

The Serpent Hills, Nashkel Mines, Reaching Woods, and similar should be considered appropriate for level 30 characters in my opinion, to avoid the overcrowding described above.

Valid concerns zhazz, I'll try to give a few details to (hopefully) alleviate your concerns.

1. As Ged mentions, the penalties are relatively light at first and only become overly noticeable when you are pretty far below appropriate CR. Frankly, with the fact that chests have been corrected in (hopefully) all areas you likely won't notice any difference from today if for example your max level PC is in Yuan-Ti or maybe Nashkel for example. However, with CR appropriate toons the loot in those areas should actually be better.

2. While not an immediate improvement, at some point the server split will occur allowing for our wonderfully skilled Area Builders to create more content. It is well understood that more CR11-30 areas are needed, but the problem is certainly most readily apparent in low, mid and high epics. I would expect that, while builders are free to create the type of content they want to create, most will focus on the mid-to-high CR ranges once the split occurs.

3. Dungeons should be handled IC'ly so if you get to the Frost Giant King, and there is no King I'd recommend the RP be something about going looking for him. OOC this will allow the party to explore the rest of the Keep and by the time they get back the respawn timer will likely have reset. While this may require more consumables, my thought is that is the price you pay as an adventurer, but again this will hopefully be offset (and more) by chests in that area giving much better loot overall.

4. Obviously once it goes in staff will be testing ourselves and of course continue to monitor feedback from players. If adjustments are warranted, no one is opposed to making them.

Thanks for the feedback and hopefully this somewhat alleviates your concerns (and I'm sure you aren't the only one who has them!) Cheers!

[gedweyignasia]

I'd like to echo what Chad said and add that I would try not to focus too much on the boss chests; they're only a modest improvement over the other chests in an area.

[Cinnamon]

Mimic hype

Gods please no.

I have to take my time to discuss my aggravation over the new Mimic, that almost always spawns on the first rock removal in Hilltops 2nd Floor.

That thing is ridiculous to kill with an under 10 PC, even one that is mulled with a bunch of +2-3 gears.

Unless you have a tank handy, you're probably dying or spending a significant amount of time killing it.

Considering the Wyrmling Boss fractions of a walk away is not even remotely as difficult, I would like to request the Mimic be scaled down and perhaps the Wyrmling scaled up a bit.


Edit: Though I do want to see more Mimics in all other areas of the game. Give me Mimicssssssssss