Baldur's Gate : The Sword Coast Chronicles : NWN2 Persistent World

Ariente wrote: ↑Thu Sep 29, 2022 10:47 am "RP starts at level 30" is what plagues this server

Not solved by propositions in this thread.

Ariente wrote: ↑Thu Sep 29, 2022 10:47 am "RP starts at level 30" is what plagues this server

Most of the server is lvl 30 already so this is a moot point.

I am for letting the players play how they want to play. We need more bodies on this server, not less. I don't want to see any more reasons to leave the server, only reasons to come and stay.

To answer OP, this is what creature tokens are used for, to make building mobs easier.

Ariente wrote: ↑Thu Sep 29, 2022 10:47 amPeople are afraid of wipe like it is something what would ruin their RP experience or ability to RP here further. Because you are playing on roleplaying server mainly to do roleplay and not circle grind dungeons or make character builds what break the game, right?.... Right?

(...)

Besides vault wipe would not mean "lore wipe" all characters and storylines would remain.

So how do you roleplay losing all your belongings and all your skills all at once? Losing precious, thoroughly storied artifacts that cannot be reasonably replaced without DM intervention? Going from a mithral-clad knight capable of reasonably participating in a conflict like the siege of Darkhold to a peasant in rags who can't reliably defeat a rat in a warehouse?

As much as everyone advocating a vault wipe keeps saying you don't have to force-close all your wiped characters, it's impossible to overlook that nobody has put forth an explanation beyond "no you don't, you can totally keep playing them". How do you maintain continuity?

Aspect of Sorrow wrote: ↑Thu Sep 29, 2022 11:02 am

Ariente wrote: ↑Thu Sep 29, 2022 10:47 am "RP starts at level 30" is what plagues this server

Not solved by propositions in this thread.

Also a good point. If people keep insisting on not RPing until they've powerleveled to the level cap, it doesn't matter whether that cap is 30 or 5.

I have experience with a level 15 system, or E15 as we called it which was more elaborate than just capping at level 15.

I owned (& hosted at home - much better than hiring imo) a server along with Narks and Yazen - We did most of the work along with contributions from many great developers in the community over those years. It went through various iterations which have developed into a meme in certain circles - ToA > Port of Shadows > ToA 2 > TotM (Tyrants of the Moonsea, my favourite) > Skullport. There might even have been more.

Two of these iterations, ToA2 and Skullport were both E15. There was a level cap of 15, but in addition to normal levelling, all characters were able to select a "reserve feat" I think we called it every two levels. The pool of reserve feats included things like +20 HP increments, +1 save increments (with limitations), and was selected from a custom GUI after level up. These reserve feats also continued post level 15 up to a defined XP cap. All classes and PRCs were changed and condensed, for example many 10 level PRCs became 5 levels.

I won't go into any more detail on it, as my intention is not to promote that system but rather to say having any form of level cap different to the standard 1-30 is strategically a bad decision for any NWN2 server in this day and age. I argued against it back then even, but was out voted. The reason it is bad is because we play in a time when the community as a whole is small, and it is simply not wise to create niche mechanics that deviate from standard 1-30 as this alienates the player base. It's just too drastic for such a small community. If the community was much bigger, then it would make more sense. I personally believe that 15 mechanic contributed a lot towards the demise of that server (It also created many disagreements between staff).

My preference would have been to keep level 30 and cap BAB at 20 (or cap attacks with consideration to 2wf/flurry etc) and allow only AB (or BAB with capped attacks) to increase beyond 20. Which is similar to one of the proposals here. That had been discussed at the time. Obviously a lot more thought and planning will need to go into it like addressing spell damage die rolls and caps, high AC to AB ratios, etc etc.

Rules like 3b20 are silly.

My main point with the above though is just to reiterate how strategically disastrous any kind of sub 30 level system would be given the state of the present community size.

I will make some observations about BGTSCC after playing here again. I don't intend any of these points to be "having a dig" but rather just my honest view.

The PvE content is a mess and I dread to think what the module looks like behind the scenes. I imagine this is due to years of staff changes, no standardisation and cutting corners. When we changed our servers over to E15 (ToA2), back to normal (TotM), back to E15 (Skullport), it took me no more than two days (4-5 hours per day tops) to completely rebalance the dungeons and mob pools. There would have been at least 30 dungeons. Provided you have an organised module and follow template rules, i.e different classes of mob per dungeon with unique constraints (Peon, Grunt, Warrior, Archer, Rogue, Mage, Champion, Boss etc), it should be very easy to breeze through the lot and rebalance them to suit. If that process instills dread and is anticipated to take a long time, then something is drastically wrong. It would sound like the server needs a standardised system to organise everything properly, which should be one of the goals to change.

I also think that BGTSCC style of "dungeoneering", is stale. It is basically the bog standard style of dungeon play that day 1 servers had when NWN2 launched. Run multiple loops around an area smacking waves of monsters that spawn in front of you from thin air and charge you down with little to no tactics for ticks of XP. There are some exceptions, such as Banovitsky's excellent new Kuo-Toa area, which while still restricted by the confines of BGTSCC play style is very fun and somewhat more linear (in a good way). I don't think people realise just how interlinked that issue is when it comes to difficulties with balancing PvE content.

From day 1 ToA (and iterations) had dungeons that were linear but with options and reset/cleaned up after exit with a timer before the area was reinstated (Mobs, objects, litter cleaned and so on). Not overly complex by any means, but I believe it was better. We ended up with other styles of dungeons like random dungeon generator, but that is another topic.

When you have a dungeon set up this way, there is a lot more you can do with it such as setting up objects which form part of the challenge. As an example you can make barricades that are an essential part of the challenge and if they are destroyed, they will be reinstated back to normal when the clean up script runs. These dungeons had a clear start and finish, so again you can create much more interesting concepts and designs with, as opposed to having areas where you just run in circles for hours. There are so many little nice touches you can add to dungeons too, such as poisonous sulphur spouts which erupt if you disturb them (checks involved - Reflex to not disturb, Fort vs poison or w/e) which are known to the Underdark. With linear style dungeons you can also set up story points along the way, including ambushes, kill zones etc which need to be overcome. Those are not possible when dungeons are designed to be ran in loops endlessly. When the dungeon is exited, it needs to be empty of players for X amount of time and then it would clean up automatically and reset. To our players at the time, the feedback was that this way way more fun and engaging. It was also somewhat more rewarding XP wise, but not overly so as the increased award was offset by the aforementioned wait time - 240 seconds was common. Longer for the higher EPIC equivalent dungeons, but again, rewarding and meaningful when you ran it. As a side effect this used to generate more role play too as people would not feel the need to do repeated grinding for hours to progress. A dungeon was a bit closer to an adventure than a chore/loop, though obviously nothing compared to a DM event.

Perhaps the above is not the right solution for BGTSCC, but there needs to be something done that is better than dungeon looping.

Worrying about how painful and time consuming it will be to balance PvE content is a symptom of a deeper problem IMO. You just have to be organised, inventive, think outside the box in how you create and balance dungeon content but at the same time follow clear global guidelines - i.e if an encounter appears too easy, don't fix by banging on 60+ saves and disjunction/greater dispell showers. Perhaps the term I am looking for here is a lack of standardisation.

On the other hand I have seen a lot of improvements on BGTSCC since I used to play here many years ago. Area improvements, additional content, fixes to problems and so on. Not to mention the community is still pretty strong to support the server.

There will always be homebrewing since this game is not and cannot be turn based. For example, there are single round abilities and spells that are very powerful in a turn based game but just do not work anywhere as efficiently with nwn2. I understand that many want to make this game like pnp but that will never happen with nwn2. Many servers tried similar things and I cant say anything turned for the better. Some liked it, others did not. What will certain happen is increased churn rate for players and mostly devs.

In addition, there are no playing time restrictions or a dm supervising each player, so it cannot be anything like a pnp campaign. There will always be character level and item discrepancies, and most important difference on how each one decides to play to the game.

4. Hasn't BG bled enough players over the summer? Ripping the rug out from under the remaining player base is a bad idea.

I could support 1 or 2 with a vault wipe, just have everyone start with a clean slate, but that's another can of worms. I personally think a hard reset would be positive.

3 just punishes martials, so no.

FearBeforeTheFlames wrote: ↑Thu Sep 29, 2022 9:28 am I'd stick firmly to 4; and focus on homebrewing content within current systems and operating improvements in other areas. - I appreciate the thought and the work that's been done. Some of the larger radical changes have implications that have heavy penalties for players that have spent years on things they've lovingly crafted here working under the current system. Change is good; but we're an old community of friends - with amazing new editions. There's ways here to avoid nuking the camp.

I agree with this. Look at the Kuo Toa dungeon in the UD. It can be a challenged for higher level characters because of the way it is built. This could be true of plenty of epic areas by reworking the design of the encounters instead of reworking the entire server.

Make epic encounters like the devils and dragons far more powerful and there’s no need to nerf everything else.

As someone both relatively new in this community, and someone who, because of timezone, most likely will never get into anything long-term RP-wise, the current model is a slog. It just is. 1-30 with the exp rate that we have right now, and 95% one-off RPs that lead to nowhere makes logging in daunting when you see the population at or below 10 most of the time.

Takes you a miracle to get an RP partner who'd stick with you + takes you forever to do PvE = why would I bother to play? As some people would aptly put it, I would instead go to newer games to do the "killing of pretty pixels" shtick.

Couple that with the current economy where everything is pretty much set in stone, and everyone and their mother hoards +4s like peanuts, with no alternative to that, it further cements the idea that you have to grind to be anything meaningful here.

That said! I'm on the outside looking in, and if the majority of the players are old guard and are fine with the status quo, then it's probably the smart thing to go with what they say.

(my answer would be 1-3, btw!)

4

3 just screws with martials, and martials only, so it's not a good solution.

*crawls out from the grave for a brief moment*

I don't play here anymore, so my two cents worth may carry less weight. However, nlyh is correct about the level 15 system. As much as I too enjoy the ideas behind them, I also feel that it's to much of a niche concept that deviates from the 1 - 30 standard. And I said it before myself in the past. what is left of the community is too small for it.

In my own personal experiences across many games, including nwn2, there's a working popular formula and pattern across most platforms.

Design is about pulling from a player base that is familiar with X Y and or Z, be it marking to a specific fan base, marketing to a sub culture with A B and or C desires in mechanics (How hard, easy, how flexible or not to players choices, customizations, etc.). This is partly were economics comes in, to sell to a sub culture with data they have received on the field or labs through tests.

A game that is often more challenging and leans to team play will have a higher form of stress factor vs a ie run and gun game that's just about that and having fun with being a one man army. Or as I call it self mastabatory power play mechanics, much like assasins creed, etc.


And what is left of the nwn2 community? Is mostly bent on the familiarity of what is and has been provided to them already. Anything that deviates from that? Will struggle more in player populations nowadays. As nlyh said , if it was bigger, there would be more of a higher chance to pull players in that would be interested, but due to the fact it's so niche comparable? Your player retention rate is at high risk of lowering.

And the more dramatic changes that do get deployed and the less familiar things get that most players here would enjoy? The more risk you are at losing more players.

DaloLorn wrote: ↑Thu Sep 29, 2022 11:13 am

Ariente wrote: ↑Thu Sep 29, 2022 10:47 amPeople are afraid of wipe like it is something what would ruin their RP experience or ability to RP here further. Because you are playing on roleplaying server mainly to do roleplay and not circle grind dungeons or make character builds what break the game, right?.... Right?

(...)

Besides vault wipe would not mean "lore wipe" all characters and storylines would remain.

So how do you roleplay losing all your belongings and all your skills all at once? Losing precious, thoroughly storied artifacts that cannot be reasonably replaced without DM intervention? Going from a mithral-clad knight capable of reasonably participating in a conflict like the siege of Darkhold to a peasant in rags who can't reliably defeat a rat in a warehouse?

As much as everyone advocating a vault wipe keeps saying you don't have to force-close all your wiped characters, it's impossible to overlook that nobody has put forth an explanation beyond "no you don't, you can totally keep playing them". How do you maintain continuity?

Aspect of Sorrow wrote: ↑Thu Sep 29, 2022 11:02 am

Ariente wrote: ↑Thu Sep 29, 2022 10:47 am "RP starts at level 30" is what plagues this server

Not solved by propositions in this thread.

Also a good point. If people keep insisting on not RPing until they've powerleveled to the level cap, it doesn't matter whether that cap is 30 or 5.

I am sorry, but if there is a will, there is a way. With it's current player numbers server is on it's lowest low. Reason? IMHO it is the fact that NwN2 is garbage game and that the whole "dungeoneering" experience can get you only that far regarding entertainment value. Aside of that gameplay itself is hollow, there are no crafts, no activities, nothing except of weekly repeatable quests. If there is a chance to completely change the experience with something radical like making levelcap 20 or 15, denial of epics, vault wipe, I am all in. Big changes are needed and will be needed to keep server fresh and interesting for new people (Yes I believe that if people can still play ancient MMOs like for example Star Wars: Galaxies, they can also play old nwn2 PW). Turning whole game experience more towards DnD rather than World of Warcraft MMO grind is a move in right direction. Wipe will be needed at some point anyway and if you think it wont? Well, you should know that Copium addiction kills.

I think if I have to vote for one of the listed options, it would be to adjust the attacks and damage.

I absolutely would not feel happy with a lower level cap.
That would make it far more difficult to make a unique build and take away feats that are important to my roleplay.
I had a really long post written up about this, but decided to start over so it's less of a rant.
Essentially I feel lowering the cap would both ruin characters and discourage making anything more interesting than a basic hack and slash type, simply because with the way the class and feat system works it is already extremely difficult to mechanically represent something complex and interesting.

If I may make my own suggestion, it would be something halfway between options 2 and 3.
To not add a level cap or remove options for players to build with, but instead lower over overall inflated HP and damage across the board for both mobs and players to where you have a fair chance regardless of build, and then add additional rewards/feats that can be gained through roleplay and mechanical skill checks, even past the point of reaching max level.
All leveling and leveling options would remain the same, but there would be additional things that could be unlocked purely by investing in them, beyond what you can actually take for basic level ups.

For example, let's say that you wanted to play a golemcrafter who isn't specifically a techsmith.

You could go out and study golems and practice through the suggested crafting system. You could gain small amounts of knowledge battling them, and greater knowledge studying their parts or observing them. We have a perfect dungeon already for studying mysterious constructs and it pains me that you can't do anything with it.
Once you have done enough, you could gain a feat to design and summon your golem, similar to the techsmith, and based on how many points you invest in the mechanics skill and how many you've gained from study and practice, probably tracked as tokens or something, you can become better at golemcrafting outside of taking the class.

For something with a less immediate mechanical benefit, there could be places where you can use your lore skills to practice/learn about your subject, collecting points for successful checks in order to earn something special like additional lore feats to inform you about the subject you want to be knowledgeable in, or for mages you could unlock some deep magical secret of you actually study for it.

More social skills could be used to earn additional NPC dialogue, store discounts, or information that can be used to find something interesting or help in an event.

Athletics could be used to reach unique portions of maps, or to find other ways to get past obstacles. For example, using jump, or adding a climb feat, to get across somewhere difficult and then help the party from the other side, or find something hidden that you need to use clicky adventurer related skills to reach.

Escape artist could be used to squeeze through small areas, like that tunnel where you have to use reduce person or be born a halfling to get inside to the puzzle.

Some places could combine a skill and stat, like athletics and constitution for swimming to a location underwater. Athletics for how quickly you get there, and constitution for how long you can hold your breath (assuming you didn't cast water breathing). This could also encourage a spread of stats with less min-maxing unless you are designing with intent to team up.

I feel that things like this would make investing in roleplay far more appealing mechanically, and combined with lowering the enemy difficulty to be more reasonable could help with some of the craziness.

Ariente wrote: ↑Thu Sep 29, 2022 12:11 pm

DaloLorn wrote: ↑Thu Sep 29, 2022 11:13 am

Ariente wrote: ↑Thu Sep 29, 2022 10:47 amPeople are afraid of wipe like it is something what would ruin their RP experience or ability to RP here further. Because you are playing on roleplaying server mainly to do roleplay and not circle grind dungeons or make character builds what break the game, right?.... Right?

(...)

Besides vault wipe would not mean "lore wipe" all characters and storylines would remain.

So how do you roleplay losing all your belongings and all your skills all at once? Losing precious, thoroughly storied artifacts that cannot be reasonably replaced without DM intervention? Going from a mithral-clad knight capable of reasonably participating in a conflict like the siege of Darkhold to a peasant in rags who can't reliably defeat a rat in a warehouse?

As much as everyone advocating a vault wipe keeps saying you don't have to force-close all your wiped characters, it's impossible to overlook that nobody has put forth an explanation beyond "no you don't, you can totally keep playing them". How do you maintain continuity?

I am sorry, but if there is a will, there is a way.

You're just proving my point here...

nlyh wrote: ↑Thu Sep 29, 2022 11:17 am I also think that BGTSCC style of "dungeoneering", is stale. It is basically the bog standard style of dungeon play that day 1 servers had when NWN2 launched. Run multiple loops around an area smacking waves of monsters that spawn in front of you from thin air and charge you down with little to no tactics for ticks of XP. There are some exceptions, such as Banovitsky's excellent new Kuo-Toa area, which while still restricted by the confines of BGTSCC play style is very fun and somewhat more linear (in a good way). I don't think people realise just how interlinked that issue is when it comes to difficulties with balancing PvE content.

From day 1 ToA (and iterations) had dungeons that were linear but with options and reset/cleaned up after exit with a timer before the area was reinstated (Mobs, objects, litter cleaned and so on). Not overly complex by any means, but I believe it was better. We ended up with other styles of dungeons like random dungeon generator, but that is another topic.

When you have a dungeon set up this way, there is a lot more you can do with it such as setting up objects which form part of the challenge. As an example you can make barricades that are an essential part of the challenge and if they are destroyed, they will be reinstated back to normal when the clean up script runs. These dungeons had a clear start and finish, so again you can create much more interesting concepts and designs with, as opposed to having areas where you just run in circles for hours. There are so many little nice touches you can add to dungeons too, such as poisonous sulphur spouts which erupt if you disturb them (checks involved - Reflex to not disturb, Fort vs poison or w/e) which are known to the Underdark. With linear style dungeons you can also set up story points along the way, including ambushes, kill zones etc which need to be overcome. Those are not possible when dungeons are designed to be ran in loops endlessly. When the dungeon is exited, it needs to be empty of players for X amount of time and then it would clean up automatically and reset. To our players at the time, the feedback was that this way way more fun and engaging. It was also somewhat more rewarding XP wise, but not overly so as the increased award was offset by the aforementioned wait time - 240 seconds was common. Longer for the higher EPIC equivalent dungeons, but again, rewarding and meaningful when you ran it. As a side effect this used to generate more role play too as people would not feel the need to do repeated grinding for hours to progress. A dungeon was a bit closer to an adventure than a chore/loop, though obviously nothing compared to a DM event.

Even having snipped out half of your post, I feel like I could have cut more out. And yet I should probably not even have cut the stuff I did cut.

Your description of ToA's dungeons reminds me somewhat of Ravenloft's, and... I absolutely would prefer that sort of dungeon design. It was one of the better things I remember about my time there.

To be honest I'm totally fine with Proposal 4. I don't think what we have is really all that terrible as it stands. Is it perfect? No, but I think it's okay where it stands right now. You can go out and do things as a player without nearly as much fuss as I've had to deal with on other servers. I think we're good.

Dramatically changing the server will kill it. That's the sad truth. I've played hardcore RP servers with a lower level cap that while yes, it was a lot more fun to play and balance... The population was always garbage. People tended to gravitate to the bigger servers with more customization. Each of these servers died due to low population.

Whatever choice is made just keep that in mind. Just call me the Alaundo of nwn2 prophesies.