Spawn bugs

[Blaze]

A dungeon with more than one yellow mob (a lot of bosses) is an idea, a bandit hideout for example.
Inside there could be the wizard, perhaps in a sort of library full of stolen books, in the kitchens there could be the cook (a frienzed berserk), in the waukeen sanctuary there could be a cleric and finally, in the main/treasure room, the chief ( weapon master) with his right arm (an assassin) and many henchmen (stronger than the others you can meet in the dungeon).

I believe there is a need to value mobs and make them strong for a reason, not to make ALL encounters lethal, including of course the boss one. I agree on reviewing the dungeons but I agree even more not to make encounters something literally impossible for a player who decides to venture alone, especially if he does not have the opportunity to have a large group with him. I don't see why there is this need to put players in difficulty when it comes to epic dungeons instead of giving them a way to focus on the content itself, which is not necessarily translatable with the term `` grinding '' but rather a different RP style If player A prefers campfire RP and player B prefers to venture out (and RP inside dungeons), why should player B's RP be difficult at all costs? Don't you like running in dungeons? Set deadly traps, but do not let mobs have immunities that do not absolutely reflect them in RP, motivating everything in a mechanical way.

[MrSmith]

I don't think it is the drastic power change you're painting. Can you try the encounter a couple more times instead?

I just fought the Fire Giant General in a party of two players. After cleaning up the elementals, we were about to target the General when three Fire Giant Mages appeared from the rear of the cave. Each one began their usual buffing sequence all while spamming us with Magic Missle attacks. We were both on Skype talking to one another while we played and were absolutely convinced a DM was in-game creating mayhem. Needless to say, we both died.

It's not clear to me why it was necessary to create additional spawns, albeit three Mages to boot... I personally will not run this dungeon again.

Cheers!

[Valefort]

I'm exclusively speaking about the FGK here, the fire giant general is another issue where previously rats spawned, something that was fixed but resulted into a new issue because the spawn rate was initially set way too high.

[Hoihe]

I'm not averse to improving existing content if we can find ways to address deficiencies.

Hoihe's implied concern here is that the improvements will keep taking away what few epic zones Atria is capable of soloing.

I understood and was trying to communicate that if we can do things that improve the RP around existing areas, I want to do that.

I'm not trying to stop solos, but I'm not balancing for them. I try to build for RP so that players will develop their characters in interesting locations and tense situations. I don't like players sprinting through dungeons and killing everything as quickly as possible. I want dungeons to be a slow, thoughtful experience where there is time to RP. I also don't like content being extremely predictable; I want players to wonder what will happen as they are exploring a dungeon, not repeat the exercise as a rote, mechanical experience.

Bar people playing powerbuilds, or specific archetypes that are favoured...

Content that one is forced to do (CR23+, thanks loot rebalance...) is already slow, fights taking 5-10 rounds each if 1v1, more if not. Dungeons are already slow, dungeons are already a "thoughtful experience" where missing a single HiPS dodge or not noticing a mage spawning means near immediate death. Or just having an enemy spawn too close while you're fighting another so now you're being flanked and suddenly need to use UMD to be able to kill them in a reasonable amount of time.

These changes turned what was already difficult and slow into... painfully frustrating and stressful. If I wanted stressful, I'd boot up Dota ranked or something. If I wanted frustrating, I'd boot up Dwarf Fortress and embark near a necro tower. By not playing either when logging onto BG for a 20-40 minute run (I'd prefer to RP, but that's difficult due to a number of reasons I have made Discord more than familiar with. In short, IC and OOC alike), I have very clearly communicated I am not looking for the free to play alternatives that are known for their difficulty. I want something that's between relaxing and challenging, that provides tangible long-term rewards that I can later use to either give to guild members or to contribute to some crowdfunding project. (or just buy 70 potions of Heal for that one time I do get dragged into a DM event... and burn through them all despite 63 unbuffed AC)

Difficulty does not give time to RP. It makes RPing harder. If a dungeons is easily handled mechanically, then players can roleplay for they don't need to balance a million timed resources just to survive or fear running out of consumables by the time they reach the exit.

For predictability, unless Mabinogi style instanced dungeons are invented (and even they were predictable), I feel that's a false hope and will just gate content further. If one still insists, one should only do so after ensuring all players have something to do rather than taking away even more and gating it behind things not everyone can access.

[gedweyignasia]

I would love to see 5-10 round combat when a party is engaged, but with a 4-6 person party, things seem to go down in a single round, forcing players to rush from target to target in a mob.

You are not forced to engage with any content. You are not rewarded very much for content that is below your level, but it's available if you find that experience more enjoyable. Dungeons, like every other part of this world, are designed to be played as a group. I understand that some of our talented players are able to get through them on their own, but that's not what they're made for. If this were designed to be played alone, it would be available offline. I feel like I've tried to communicate this point to you in particular many times and have been unsuccessful so far.

[Hoihe]

I would love to see 5-10 round combat when a party is engaged, but with a 4-6 person party, things seem to go down in a single round, forcing players to rush from target to target in a mob.

You are not forced to engage with any content. You are not rewarded very much for content that is below your level, but it's available if you find that experience more enjoyable. Dungeons, like every other part of this world, are designed to be played as a group. I understand that some of our talented players are able to get through them on their own, but that's not what they're made for. If this were designed to be played alone, it would be available offline. I feel like I've tried to communicate this point to you in particular many times and have been unsuccessful so far.

Do go ahead and try to party up as a level 30 chaotic good, religious fanatic PC without breaking character, without risking getting murdered/betrayed/stabbed in the back by shady types with specific OOC preferences for how content is ran, and also other OOC limitations... While there are 12 players online altogether on the server.

[DaloLorn]

I would love to see 5-10 round combat when a party is engaged, but with a 4-6 person party, things seem to go down in a single round, forcing players to rush from target to target in a mob.

You are not forced to engage with any content. You are not rewarded very much for content that is below your level, but it's available if you find that experience more enjoyable. Dungeons, like every other part of this world, are designed to be played as a group. I understand that some of our talented players are able to get through them on their own, but that's not what they're made for. If this were designed to be played alone, it would be available offline. I feel like I've tried to communicate this point to you in particular many times and have been unsuccessful so far.

I feel like Hoihe and I have tried just as frequently and just as unsuccessfully to communicate the counterpoint that the design and the reality are not as compatible as the three of us might like.

I am not nearly as inflexible with regards to choosing the people I play with, and I have a large enough roster that IC conflicts are mitigated by the amount of PCs I can throw somewhere (though this, in turn, is constrained by my awareness of how many PCs I can reasonably play without taking a page out of some people's books and only logging on various PCs for events and preplanned adventures with no regard for character continuity). Despite this, the average party size for my adventures is barely greater than 2, even though I refuse to solo content anymore.

My refusal to attempt solo runs has actually led me to log off for hours at a time, because there was nobody interesting to chat with in any of the social zones (I tend not to park at campfires unless I'm expecting someone familiar and/or otherwise relevant to my PCs), and nobody I could possibly adventure with. Even when there were people whose scry status implied an ongoing adventure I could join? It was always too far along for me to reach them. I've been burnt enough times to know that trying to catch up to a party mid-adventure is tantamount to suicide for most of my roster, and a net loss of XP and/or time is not a particularly enticing proposition when I can simply go play other games.

[gedweyignasia]

I realize that there won't always be a party available for dungeons, or that there might be IC reasons to avoid such a party. For those reasons, it might be wise to roll an alt which is either a powerbuild (if you enjoy dungeons solo and are set on pursuing that course of action) or a PC has IC reasons to team up with a more diverse group of individuals. The server cannot (and should not) be tailored to every character possibility; some choices will bring you adversity. Just as a wizard who put all his stats into Charisma might have difficulty in a dungeon, so too might most characters who adventure alone.

It's a little bit like the dungeons in this game are a mountain and you're requesting an elevator be installed on each because your character is inclined to shoot themselves in the foot. I keep trying to explain why elevators don't make for good mountaineering, and you insist they're necessary for the shooting-yourself-in-the-foot demographic. Not everybody makes it to the top.

[Hoihe]

I realize that there won't always be a party available for dungeons, or that there might be IC reasons to avoid such a party. For those reasons, it might be wise to roll an alt which is either a powerbuild (if you enjoy dungeons solo and are set on pursuing that course of action) or a PC has IC reasons to team up with a more diverse group of individuals. The server cannot (and should not) be tailored to every character possibility; some choices will bring you adversity. Just as a wizard who put all his stats into Charisma might have difficulty in a dungeon, so too might most characters who adventure alone.

It's a little bit like the dungeons in this game are a mountain and you're requesting an elevator be installed on each because your character is inclined to shoot themselves in the foot. I keep trying to explain why elevators don't make for good mountaineering, and you insist they're necessary for the shooting-yourself-in-the-foot demographic. Not everybody makes it to the top.

It's more like we had a flat, perfectly accessible plain.

Then someone came along and started piling rubble on it, then claimed "those who cannot climb the rubble should just not go where they used to go. They're selfish for expecting to be accomodated!"

And playing alts should not be required. I for one cannot play alts without feeling like I violate my internal standards, as I cannot reasonable invest what is required into two concurrent characters.

[gedweyignasia]

It's more like we had a flat, perfectly accessible plain.

You are referring to loot and not dungeons? Then yes, but it was not always that way, and it should never have been. When people talk about inflation and +3 gear being worthless, this is why. I understand why at a personal level this is inconvenient, but this server is about a lot of people and we need to think on a systemic level.

And playing alts should not be required.

It isn't required, but if the only character you play is one who shoots themselves in the foot, you might be doing the same.

[DaloLorn]

I likewise refuse to roll powerbuilt grinding alts. It reeks of the worst parts of MMO gameplay, rolling up alts specifically to feed your main characters, and should not have any place on an RP server. (I get that it is unavoidable to an extent, but current examples of such behavior tend to involve a great deal of inconvenience for very limited benefits.)

Additionally, Hoihe's analogy is fairly on-point, considering the fact that the current trend has been "nerf without viable replacement". Don't get me wrong, I absolutely approve of the overall vision behind your changes, but I feel that this vision is distorted by the realities of BG's environment, and you are doing very little to either diminish or compensate for that distortion.

[Snarfy]

I realize that there won't always be a party available for dungeons, or that there might be IC reasons to avoid such a party. For those reasons, it might be wise to roll an alt which is either a powerbuild (if you enjoy dungeons solo and are set on pursuing that course of action) or a PC has IC reasons to team up with a more diverse group of individuals.

Please, Ged, no. Let's not promote the idea of creating alts as some sort of solution to dungeon-frustration, be they powerbuilds(really?) or created with group compatibly in mind, ever again. Character continuity is not so small an issue already, and the cast of characters already varies greatly from one month to the next thanks to alt-aholism. This coming from someone who has 12'ish characters, and who also stopped logging on over half of those for various reasons(including the feeling of being pigeon-holed behind an OOC CR-loot barrier... but I'm probably in the minority of players who are fine with a lower probability of finding epic loot in all areas, rather than having to re-visit higher-probability areas X, Y, and Z only).

I don't think anyone in this conversation cares about being able to solo PWN dungeons, so much as they want to experience dungeons solo while not getting swarmed by inflated mobs that spawn right on top of them.

The server cannot (and should not) be tailored to every character possibility; some choices will bring you adversity.

100% agreed. BUT, conversely, the server and content also shouldn't(imho) be universally tailored towards build optimization and party play, which becomes something that is a tangible and real thing once a player hits a certain level.

[Steve]

No dungeon, hellz, no adventuring should be soloable. That isn’t D&D, that’s single player CPRG. Which one can have—go fire up Mask of the Betrayer.

1. Playing on BGTSCC is your choice.
2. Choosing your Build is your choice.
3. Choosing your Character (RP) is your choice.

The way this Server is designed IS NOT your choice, unless you build it yourself (or contribute to it).

Find a way to balance those things for your own peace of mind!

[Hoihe]

No dungeon, hellz, no adventuring should be soloable. That isn’t D&D, that’s single player CPRG. Which one can have—go fire up Mask of the Betrayer.

1. Playing on BGTSCC is your choice.
2. Choosing your Build is your choice.
3. Choosing your Character (RP) is your choice.

The way this Server is designed IS NOT your choice, unless you build it yourself (or contribute to it).

Find a way to balance those things for your own peace of mind!

Ah yes, we should be content with people piling rubble on the path we took for years because some mountain climbers felt they needed a challenge, screw those who may lack the physical well-being to climb!

[DaloLorn]

No dungeon, hellz, no adventuring should be soloable. That isn’t D&D, that’s single player CPRG. Which one can have—go fire up Mask of the Betrayer.

Okay, sure. Let's drop down to a level cap of 20, port over Ravenloft's gameplay design... and while we're at it, let's also pull in their considerably higher population. Between the compacted level range, transformed party mechanics, and a peak population of up to a hundred concurrent logins, we might actually be able to pull off a server with a hard ban on soloing. (... Not that even Ravenloft is able to prevent soloing, under the right circumstances, but they do a much better job of discouraging it without making the server unplayable.)

1. Playing on BGTSCC is your choice.

Only insofar as I'd like to play on an NWN2 PW in the Forgotten Realms setting, but sure.

2. Choosing your Build is your choice.
3. Choosing your Character (RP) is your choice.

Actually, one dictates large swaths of the other. That's what playing your sheet means, if I'm not mistaken.

The way this Server is designed IS NOT your choice, unless you build it yourself (or contribute to it).

Find a way to balance those things for your own peace of mind!

I actually did apply for dev nearly two months ago. I haven't gotten a response yet, and I don't expect to have half the influence Ged and Valefort have on the server design, but I certainly hope to balance my desire to limit soloing with my understanding that it's a necessary evil in the current environment.