Suggestion: Double Rest Timer Cooldown for Overall Balance

[Planehopper]

Unless martial party members want to forsake OOC politeness and go ahead of their grounds while the casters need to rest (which is unlikely).

Reason #12,862 that people don't want to party with me, I guess. If a casting character won't conserve their magic, thats an IC thing with IC consequences.

[aaron22]

if buffing is the key to all this, then another route would be to request +5 gear to be made available. then the buff is less than the "end game" statistic. some buffs will equate and even exceed, but the most will lie under the gear.

[Steve]

It literally would do nothing but increase the time people stand around or go AFK.

Well, perhaps it would!

I think you illustrate just how ingrained the idea of 24/7 Buff and Slash...and Win the mindset on this Server is.

However, I do think your argument that an increased rest timer will hamper those Players will less play time, is incorrect. Let me explain: I'm not asking for SHORTER buff duration.

Already, a Level 30 CL 30 mage can buff most of their most important buffs for 30 minutes. A CL 25 gish, which I deem the minimum anyone should play a CL gish, has 25 minutes.

Now, I'm suggesting a 14 to 19 minute window in which a) the Caster/Gish will have to rebuff, but at a slight reduction of amount, b) will have to experience the reality of power drain, in exchange for the ability to otherwise ROFL-stomp the Server content.

I ask you this: when you play a Build that can ROFL-stomp the Server content, what is in this game for you? How many ROFL-stomps can you perform in a week, in a year, before you go "meh." ???

I just cannot see a justification for 24/7 Buffing Program. Though it might provide Players with a constant experience, it as well creates a type of Balance Standard where EVERYTHING must be taken into account because Steve's Gish can constantly slay the dragon, 16 time in a Server Reset.

Now...do you really want to let Steve have this ability?!?! C'mon!!!! That would be crazy talk!

[Hoihe]

(do-me) this.


If we're doing this - introduce stamina for fighting without spells.

The server is already strongly balanced for characters who can deal the same damage 24/7 without ever looking at the rest button.

I already barely play on this server lately because PvE became more and more of a drag (why don't I just RCR to WM/FB/R/SD already? Not like it matters. Or a bard) lately.

Let's make buffbot gameplay, summon (germbag) gameplay and whack a mole gameplay the primary ways to play PvE and crap on active playstyle characters even more.

[Sun Wukong]

IF you want to gimp melee characters, just put a limitation on how many healing kits they can use and on the number of potions they can drink per rest.

[NeonAvenger]

Since it hasn't been brought up...

Doubling the cooldown on the rest timer would also be a hassle for crafters, brewers especially.
If you don't already have the right spells memorized when a customer turns up you have to rest to get them, that means you're then without those slots until you can rest again. This is a minor annoyance for a wand crafter but for a brewer or scribe it's a serious problem.
When a player comes up and asks for 30 or 40 of a potion or scroll (far from unheard of since people who use consumables like to stockpile so they don't run out if they can't track down a crafter) that knocks you out of play for 3 or 4 full rest cycles.
At the moment that's about an hour where you lose one or two full levels of spells and therefore can't go anywhere without getting murdered, doubling that would make things worse...

[DarkKnight]

if buffing is the key to all this, then another route would be to request +5 gear to be made available. then the buff is less than the "end game" statistic. some buffs will equate and even exceed, but the most will lie under the gear.

Honestly I think this is something that should be considered. Or perhaps, if this isnt in the cards temper what buffs can achieve. Right now it is the buff/slash lifestyle, because it produces the best possible result. If the same result can be achieved without it , then it opens the playing field.

The inherent argument against this is of course, why am I playing a caster if a fighter doesn't have the hassle and can do what I can do? Well the general concept is, if you gave access to fighter styled characters to the same numbers buffs could achieve, buffing STILL has an advantage in the sense it doesnt have to itemize for these numbers and can take advantage of a bunch of other things to put in those slots.

I think the core question is: What is the argument here? Is the conversation that casters are too strong? Is it that non casters are weaker? Or is it a matter that some spells should be on very short duration's, some very long duration's to create more situational concerns where you keep a few spells up your sleeve for the really hard moments? (which does create a gather up, splat the mob environment, but it at least makes things a bit more interesting for the pvp/rp aspect of it) What really is the core of this that needs to be addressed to make both sides happy?

[Sun Wukong]

Unless martial party members want to forsake OOC politeness and go ahead of their grounds while the casters need to rest (which is unlikely).

Reason #12,862 that people don't want to party with me, I guess. If a casting character won't conserve their magic, thats an IC thing with IC consequences.

And lets face it, in a party, you do not even need to bring your A game. With more players you simply got more attacks per round, and if everyone targets the same target, it goes down faster. Not to mention that you will take less damage because there are more people to absorb the hits going your way.

[dedude]

I don't think an increased rest timer will solve anything. Much of what you are looking for comes down to level design. Dungeons need to be designed to have areas/elements that allow different character types to shine. That is how a good DM would do it in a PnP setting. This could include anti-magic areas, or areas with high dispel chances, forcing casters to conserve spells, while allowing the martial builds to carry the group through.

And yes, dungeon areas should be mostly non-rest areas. Having a free rest area right before a boss makes no sense to me. That simply voids a lot of possibility for creating a challenging dungeon crawl. Imo we have too many grinding areas and too few coherent dungeons. IC, you are more likely to gather a group of adventurers to dare a deep challenging dungeon, than to go slay xvarts for an hour.

[Steve]

Much of what you are looking for comes down to level design. Dungeons need to be designed to have areas/elements that allow different character types to shine.

On this I completely agree. But to redesign and tailor the existing content on BGTSCC...that seems entirely WAY more work than typing in 90 where it says 45.

But Area Design is apart fro how Builds interact with each other in many other ways, which is also a big issue regarding how Balance is determined.

There have already been a number of reductions in spell durations that relates to this point, but has enough been done? Doubling Rest Timer fundamentally changes the interpretation of Time and Energy (power) on the Server. It is not just about Place (Area).

[Sun Wukong]

Doubling Rest Timer fundamentally changes the interpretation of Time and Energy (power) on the Server.

No, it simply does not. A proper gish already memorises nothing but gish spells on their spell book and with proper management they will last well beyond even quadrupled rest timer. It just basic mathematics. Therefore, what you are hoping to achieve here is to gimp the non-gish side of spell casting even further, what you wish to hinder is the UMD consumable creation. These aspects do not do a single thing to 'rebalance' the server nor change interpretations of 'time' and 'energy'. All the change you create with this is just a minor twist in the memorized selection of spells. Instead of two Bull's Strengths someone just memorised three or gets that extended slot.

Divine and Arcane gishes are going to gish as they gished before. What you have robbed them is a few spells of flavour they could spare.

Not to mention that if we just fast forward a few months after this change, and what we will hear and see on this forum is how the 'DC Save or Die' casters complain about the too long rest timer. They only have a limited number of ninth level slots, and now they have to wait 45+ minutes or so to refresh them. Even if their defensive buffs last long enough they still do not have any offensive capacity left to actually kill things. Also do consider how many of the actual staff of this server are or were primary 'DC caster character' players. From DMs, to QC, and Builders... Increased rest timer is a change that will not last, because it never has.

[Nemni]

One of the DnD archetypes that work badly on this server is the fireball (or similar spell) flinging mage. Or the lightning calling druid. I wouldn't want to see any change making this even harder.

[Theodore01]

Maybe it's time to nerf or just remove some of overpowered spells.

What would happen if divine power would get removed - Clerics/FSs would still be powerful, don't you think ?

[ZestyDragon]

Never going to happen. As is most actual casters (Non Gish) spend a lot of their time in a party following and doing nothing so they can save on spells. The only time a caster is better then most is in pvp or events and this won't change that at all. Druids, Bards, Gishes, Clerics, Favoured souls these are the best pve classes and for the most part don't need to rest except for once every 30 minutes.

Secondly i don't agree fighters are weak. melee based builds are a lot harder to make and with the servers drummed up AB/AC and frankly odd boss DR. It is beyond easy to make a poor melee build. However these are issues that should be dealt with directly. The server balanced bosses and monster spawns with power-builds in mind instead of RP builds. This change also again targets at those high end builds without considering the low end builds with limited spell slots, stats and weird class combinations.

[AC81]

Get rid of the rest timer altogether. Make it so you can only rest at an inn by hiring a room. If you want to rest outside, make it risky - unless you are with a specialist like a ranger. No resting randomly on city streets or in hostile dungeons.