What is the justification behind +4 max enchantments?

[Passiflora]

I confirm, Maverick's awnser seemed correct.

[Maverick 40]

I believe it rather intuitive but if you insist....
2.) System lag: This is even easier, the more multipliers that your machine and the server has to add, the greater the strain. If you have alienware, NP but if you have a base, or antiquated machine then your screwed...... So, I guess if you have Alienware, that's not a problem for you.

Uh, no. There is literally no difference in the processing power required to calculate a roll using +4 vs +8 gear.

Most microprocessors today can do 4 FLOPs (FLoating-point Operations Per Second) per clock cycle. Therefore, a single-core 2.5 GHz processor has a theoretical performance of 10 billion FLOPS = 10 GFLOPS.

Just no.

Ok, I can't argue with that.......I stand corrected.

That being said, I had made the statement from two personal observations.

1.). Having been included within several meta-plot 20+ character events in which gameplay was brought to a screeching halt due to lag. The server simply had a hard time handling everyone initiating attacks, firing off spells and hitting their kill switch feats all at the same time. I didn't think that adding to that equation would help

2.) I have noticed a marked issue when simply adding Blades of Fire 1d8 to my +4 EB 1d4 magic Dmg swords. It seems to lag the auto-combat which is noticeable when firing off expose weakness, causing the animation to pause (lag) and then jump forward. That would not happen ordinarily. Could be my old 2010 machine but, that has just been my observation.

So, it is definitely more opinion than fact on that argument. The balancing issue was one I had heard made before by staff.

[Passiflora]

I even prefered when +3 was the max you could find in chests.

Why? Because it gave more room for DMs in giving rewards.

Now considering everyone and their grandmother are geared with +4 items, if a DM hands a +4 one in an event as a reward it's a laughing matter.

[Deathgrowl]

In my one and a half year on this server I have been given DM item reward twice for events, and both were Tear of Talona events you ran Passi. First one was a Rod of Resurrection (always nice to have!), second was a Ring of Greater Intellect (The +3 int, 10 magic damage reduction ring).

So I've sort of been under the impression DMs don't like to give item rewards anymore, regardless of what drops or not outside of events.

[Elthan]

Two points come to mind:

The gods themselves wield +5 gear.

Plus all sorts of powerbuilds can be made possible with the gear you can get in the OC - it makes it easier to manage balance.

[Deathgrowl]

Plus all sorts of powerbuilds can be made possible with the gear you can get in the OC - it makes it easier to manage balance.

I found a kukri with +3 enchantment and +2d6 electrical damage in the OC. Very glad we don't have that stuff here.

[Ruffstuff]

I agree that being buffed by a caster substantially increases the effectiveness of melee due to the increase in AB/HP/AC/saves and I would love to constantly be grouped with one. However, if the caster can make themselves almost or as effective as the melee char, what reason do they have (mechanically) to include one? The forums are rife with examples of casters soloing BOSS X which lends credence to the idea that people (playing casters) would prefer to solo things they can without having to rely on others.

Two points come to mind:

The gods themselves wield +5 gear.

Plus all sorts of powerbuilds can be made possible with the gear you can get in the OC - it makes it easier to manage balance.

A god with a stick in it's hand is still a god. A naked mage is still a mage. A naked fighter is next to nothing. For fighters, gear = power, for gods or casters, the power is innately baked in. If we use your metric to establish how power is granted, you'd be forced to concede that the current situation is immeasurably in favor of the casters as melee cannot get epic gear. Arcane/divine casters are inherently powerbuilds.

[Knightmare]

I am guessing that +4 max enchantment on weapons and +3 max stats on items are in place so that you don't make Greater Magic Weapon and Bull's Strength, Bear's Endurance (and that line of spells) completely obsolete. It's a party game, not a single character game. Classes are designed so that they can improve each other.

This exactly.

And also because all the monsters on the server are designed around these numbers.

The line had to be drawn somewhere and it has been drawn exactly right on BG.

[Hoihe]

You forget that spells are limited. Unless a caster plays smart, they'll run out before they reap any great benefits. A fighter can just dish out large amounts of damage for a looong time.


fighter does around say 40 damage/hit, and 4 hits land a round. that's 160 already.
He can keep doing that forever.

A caster does that for a short while then he's out of munitions.

[Knightmare]

That's not really due to the item balance but rather the resting system.

[Hoihe]

I know, I merely explained casters aren't that powerful compared to fighters. They can be powerful for short, yes. But not for long! [bob hale voice]

Fighters retain the same strength they had even when rest is coming.

[Ruffstuff]

1.). Having been included within several meta-plot 20+ character events in which gameplay was brought to a screeching halt due to lag. The server simply had a hard time handling everyone initiating attacks, firing off spells and hitting their kill switch feats all at the same time. I didn't think that adding to that equation would help

That's reasonable, but it's the single thread of the server is the actual issue. You need brute strength to due everything sequentially. Had they made the server multi-threaded this would not be an issue, but the market for NWN 2 was too small to justify the expense of rewriting the existing NWN engine as multi-threaded.

2.) I have noticed a marked issue when simply adding Blades of Fire 1d8 to my +4 EB 1d4 magic Dmg swords. It seems to lag the auto-combat which is noticeable when firing off expose weakness, causing the animation to pause (lag) and then jump forward. That would not happen ordinarily. Could be my old 2010 machine but, that has just been my observation.

Do you have extremely limited RAM or a non-discrete video card? I could see both of those causing a problem with animations.

So, it is definitely more opinion than fact on that argument. The balancing issue was one I had heard made before by staff.

You are partially right with the onHit effects as Rasael stated.

[Druehan]

The forums are rife with examples of casters soloing BOSS X which lends credence to the idea that people (playing casters) would prefer to solo things they can without having to rely on others.

(This post is not meant to offend anyone in particular. Each of us have our own play style.)

Yes there are several who prefer to solo things. These are also the power builders who mainly walk around talking about how great they are while having little to no impact on the server overall.

This is a team game. It is those who actually team up and interact with others that make an impact. Dimitri is a fine example. From what I saw of him a few times, he could have handled just about the entire server single handedly. However, outside of the FAI or BG (and the path in between) I never saw him without at least one Thayan Knight, and normally it was more Reds than that with him.
It is the same with other high level mages that actually make an impact on the server. Rhys from Doron Amar, Wendel from Candlekeep. Never saw them out by themselves grinding or trying to solo the server. Why? Because at the end of the day, no matter how much of the server you can solo, you still do not win if no one knows your name or any of your deeds.

[Ruffstuff]

You forget that spells are limited. Unless a caster plays smart, they'll run out before they reap any great benefits. A fighter can just dish out large amounts of damage for a looong time.


fighter does around say 40 damage/hit, and 4 hits land a round. that's 160 already.
He can keep doing that forever.

A caster does that for a short while then he's out of munitions.

Casters usually have summons that are close to or equivalent to an equal level fighter or they are gishes. I've very rarely seen casters that aren't somehow built to solo, I'm talking one or two. Again, the amount of soloing casters can and often do on this server is testament to that.

I wll speak for myself (main char is a lvl 17 (RcRed) 2h fighter with high-ish AB): I do not connect very often with my last two of four attacks, so you can scrub those last two hits. My average damage with crits is 40, without 26, so let's settle for 33 overall for 66 dmg / round. Now, to be a 2h fighter, I've greatly sacrificed my AC, which I accept. The benefit it seems after RcRing twice to try to powerbuild away from my own complaints is just not enough to justify a 2h fighter as there are not enough methods to hit often enough or for enough damage to mitigate how often and for how much I get hit.

[Maverick 40]

(This post is not meant to offend anyone in particular. Each of us have our own play style.)

Yes there are several who prefer to solo things. These are also the power builders who mainly walk around talking about how great they are while having little to no impact on the server overall.

, You wound me Sir......ah, who am I kidding, I must be the worst builder on this server

Do you have extremely limited RAM or a non-discrete video card? I could see both of those causing a problem with animations.

Uh, I got this for a good price........don't know what it is capable of truthfully

http://www.pcworld.com/article/206183/a ... m3400.html