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Post by Spooks on Sept 15, 2005 0:41:23 GMT -5
I am going to say that Thogrimur has a point.
I log on, and usually I see one or two people logged on within my level range, if I'm lucky.
So I decide, Hey! I'll RP abit and see how it goes.
about 40% of the time noone's in the RP hotspots. Either they are somewhere I can'tgo/don't know is a hotspot/or fighting. Then what? Sit... and wait? waste my time? When I can't find people to RP with, I will go solo. I admit it. I go I get exp, I die. I go I get exp I dont die. *shrug* HELL sometimes RP makes me go out and solo. When people Clotho doesn't like make her helpless, she gets pissed and kicks a few heads in.
I don't like to solo, it's boring, its lonely, but it gets something done when there is no RP to be had. I apologize at how I built my character to RP, but it happened, and to change it would be bad form.
If the Diff goes up, I see myself, killing crap for 2 exp, getting bored and either A. Become Torian #2 and just sit in Isinhold all day, or B. Leaving NWN.
I like to RP, I am horrible at powergaming, (Clotho is the only char to get to lvl 10, and I've been here for over a year >_<) I level slow, my soloing is too infrequent or inproductive to be worth much.
wtf Im just rambling at 2 AM... grr.
I hope someone can piece this all together...
If Diff is Hardcore, I'll suck it up as long as I can.
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Post by Keetena on Sept 15, 2005 5:28:05 GMT -5
I see nothing bad in chage a little the way of your roleplay spooks, in truth I think we all have wonderfull possibilities to explore with the unusual people to roleplay... so let's see... other of these days Ranan and Keetena revived a long lost romance they had... I roleplay and talk with evil or good guys, even with those Keetena don't like that much... this makes me think (not your case) why most of evil people talk just with evil dudes? There are some old players who never talked with me for example, even if I don't do nothing to even look like a punisher or something, in truth she is just the singer girl and adventurer... just for example, besides the fact that her order wished Keetena dead, Clotho ever questioned herself exactly why Keetena was hunted? The fact you're loyal to your order is obvious... but your leader vanished for a long time, maybe isn't time to Clotho start question herself of some things that she served as soldier foot? Just a suggestin that I extend to all, we don't need be islands, and this values to me too.
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Post by Keetena on Sept 15, 2005 5:39:36 GMT -5
*now I'm feeling stupid* So that HCR means hardcore? Impressive... I played about 3 years in a server without know it was hardcore *ROFTLMAO* Well, HCR servers were popular one day, nowadays they really aren't, most of these servers changed to normal or simply vanished, but I think we need be fair and honest to those who are entering to play with us, I really don't see problem with hardcore... if not in the name at least in server description we should have hardcore mentioned, if we really are to change the slider difficult... and other thing, in HCR servers at least that i remenber I played, things were more cheap than here and we had slight better stuff, but none of that wondrous ones like vorpals of course... it was just much more hard to get rewards - don't take me wrong, I was just poiting... about HCR as description of a pack of scripts I was talking about the difficult slider information and not the HCR, still I think we could have the information in the server description in this case to avoid be confounded with HCR ones.
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Post by Grozer on Sept 15, 2005 9:52:03 GMT -5
... so let's see... other of these days Ranan and Keetena revived a long lost romance they had... They did? Heh.. Ranan thought it was just a one time encounter for old time sake!
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Post by DM Justicar - Creator of FRC on Sept 15, 2005 10:57:50 GMT -5
HCR implies alot more than just changing the difficulty sliding on the DM client. HCR is an entire rules set that was bent to make the game more like PnP, but all it really did was make the game less fun to play in an online environment, IMO.
FRC uses what I like to refer to as "HCR lite" rules... we took what we felt were the best concepts from HCR, and left out all the stuff that impeded fun gameplay. We have also added in lots of customization to make for what I think are a really fun set of rules to play under.
Changing the slider simply changes familiar mechanics, and not the core rules. We are looking at ways to change the monsters to be more fair if we decide to change the slider difficulty again in the future, but we probably won't until we work that out.
Cheers!
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Post by kenny26 on Sept 15, 2005 11:49:54 GMT -5
LMAO ;D that one cracked me up... anyhow i think some of the people here are right, if we make soloing too tough we might just ruin the fun for some of the players since our player base is quite small at certain times of the day. it isn't really that big until the americans start logging on (and the europeans who like sleep deprevation, or just suffer from insomnia) that we see lots of players on the list... but if this were to change and there'd be alot of people on most of the time, then i could see how it would be a good idea to really make this a party-based server. anyhow i guess the changes if you DMs decide to set the slider to hardcore aren't going to take effect very soon as it's alot of work, and by that time maybe more people will be on.
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Post by Spooks on Sept 15, 2005 13:41:28 GMT -5
*shrug*
Feel free to think clotho is a foot soldier ^_~
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Post by soulfien on Sept 15, 2005 15:57:51 GMT -5
Giving monsters their crits isnt going to make it impossible for people to solo. Its just going to help take that safe secure feeling away. Actually, what you're talking about isn't much of an increase in power. You're going to weaken monsters and give them crits. Frankly, I prefer this I'm tired of throwing everything I have at orcs and having them shrug it off. Then when and if I finally do manage to slay the beast, I get 2 xp and maybe 1 or 2 gold if I'm lucky. It's disheartening. There are lots of things I'd like to see made "normal". Go ahead and give them crits.
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Post by Spooks on Sept 15, 2005 17:02:57 GMT -5
I dont think they meant "lower their HP form wha they usually have" More like "HCR setting just raised their HP... lower it back to normalish"
So it'd be like what they are now... with crits.
this is what I Interpretted from it, I may be wrong.
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Post by Laurk on Sept 15, 2005 18:14:59 GMT -5
No, we are actually talking about decreasing the enemies HP. For example. Say an orc now has 200HP and deals on average 20-25dmg. When the slider is adjusted and creatures are modified, the same orc will have closer to 100hp and deal the same damage except that his crit will be around 50-70 dmg. Though he will fall much faster, he has the potential to leave a pretty large dent in your helment. The difficulty will remain about the same, since he would have delt that damage over the time it would take him to loose the original 200hp, however, now, the fighter isnt the only one capable of doing real damage to him. The danger to the fighter increases, as he cannot predict how many more hits he can take, and cannot depend on potions to save him, so he must depend on the others in the party to help him drop the enemies quickly. The 10 - 12 damage that the archer will deal now will represent a lot more of the creatures HP, so he will be able to make much more of a differance in how quickly the orc drops. It will simply make tactics more valuable, and even out the efforts of all the classes. It will become more difficult for soloers however, because if they become surrounded by enemies, it could get ugly fast. But lets be serious here. Going into battle against numerous enemies with no back up should be dangerous. You can still use healing kits to full effect when not in a fight, so perhaps those are a good way to go.
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Post by soulfien on Sept 15, 2005 18:41:59 GMT -5
My mage will still use invisibility when walking past the orcs west of Redmist
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henny
Proven Member
No Comparison. Period.
Posts: 218
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Post by henny on Sept 15, 2005 20:06:01 GMT -5
So what's the problem? Why not try it out for say one week, then ask everyone's opinion on it then when they have formed honest opinions of it. Everyone's opinion right now is based on what they think they will think about it. (I'm sure there are players out there that have played elsewhere and have experienced the diffrence, you are excluded from the previous statement.) I understand that all the players would want some advanced notice of such a shift to lessen complaints when it hits. And I understand that to do it would require a major un-nerfing of all the NPC/critters in the game. Something that would take hours upon hours of work. And god knows how many quests would have to be altered whe the quest bad guy goes down in half the timenow but can wipe out the entire party a lot faster. So were talking it could affect xp as well.. and what affects xp leads to affecting loot drops and then we get into farming and players arguing over wether they're farming or not and then.. well geez. If there is a DM that wants to go through all those headaches and have it finished by the Dec 31st deadline, then I support you in your endeavors. But I honestly think I wouldn't want to open up that can of worms for all the gold in the Banite Temple.
oh yeah please read this post with all the sarcasm that was intended with it. If you find you disagree with it then re-read it with sarcasm intact and you'll see how it was intended. LOL. Later
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Post by Munroe on Sept 15, 2005 21:56:09 GMT -5
Actually, they are talking about "nerfing" the creatures to compensate for the increased difficulty because the creatures were beefed up before to be competitive on the lower difficulty. When fighting spellcaster creatures the only thing that would really be affected (since spells don't have criticals) would be how much healing the healing potions do (and the possibility of an AoO when using a ranged weapon in melee, but with a spellcaster enemy that shouln't be too much of a problem).
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Post by DM Justicar - Creator of FRC on Sept 15, 2005 23:26:10 GMT -5
I am seriously laughing my kiester off... and you can translate that to (LMKO). It has come to my attention that some folks might not know what a "Nerf Ball" is; hence, the reason some may not know the term "Nerfing". "Nerfing" is when anything that has a normal ability is reduced. Much like when somewhere in the 70's, some guy decided it would be a good idea to turn a football into a piece of dense Styrofoam and market it to the unwanting masses. But it gets worse... My fiance' told me that a dingo ate my baby, and that the term "nerfing" is unclear to begin with. So, in short, "Nerfing" is the act of reducing any normal abilities/spells/activated ability's that would normally cause much greater harm to your digital persona. "Buffing" is (I think) an EQ term, and means to strengthen things: see "buffering". We have a very few "nerfed" spells... these are Harm/ Heal/ Timestop/ Summon Creature(s)/ and Continual Light. And that's about it! In fact, players are almost never nerfed. Our creatures on the other hand are both buffed, and nerfed in equal quantity. Most everything you will find on FRC has been touched by the human hand, but in a good way I think. We have tried to make everything here more interesting than it was originally. Some things are better, some things... you don't wanna mess with, I am sure. Most things have been built for fun gaming and campaigning. I feel like I am running for the Jesse Jackson award of rhymes now. Point is, if it IS in fact broken, we always fix it. And this sometimes takes a little while given the scope of what we are doing. But I can assure everyone we always listen, and try our best to make things fun and playable and reasonable. The best thing you can do is submit individual reports when necessary.. that way we are acutely aware of issues. Cheers y'all!
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Post by Quadhund/Greenhouse on Sept 16, 2005 0:35:01 GMT -5
Dingo ate your baby eh?
"So I looked the great fish in the eye.." "Mammal." "Whatever ... and said, 'WOAH BIG FELLA.' Just then a wave lifted me off the ground and tossed me like a cork. I came face to face with the blow hole. I could see something was obstructing the beasts breathing. As the waves crashed down on me, I reached in and felt around and pulled out the obstruction." *shows golf ball* "Is that a tidalis (spelling?)?" *nods* "Hole in one."
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Post by Booze Hound on Sept 16, 2005 4:33:35 GMT -5
gee thanks buddy a couple things... 1.) Vind and Rav kick butt. Just thought I'd get that out of the way. ;D 2.) A "Well rounded party" can easily be a party of 2 if you sit back and think about things a bit. Believe me, Vind just hit lvl 15 tonight, and he's seen damn near every nook and cranny of the server. If you find someone of almost any class other than your own, and sit back and use some tactics, and think things out, you'll find you can get through almost any situation. Ask Manshin, Rav, and Hroth. It works. I know that Rav and I get real annoyed when that tank guy goes running into the crowd stabbing and hacking away, and next thing you know we have a horde on us too. Changing monsters to less HP but adding crits seems like a great idea, it'll slow down the moving through areas and get people to talk before combat instead of jumping into it. 3.)..........crap, now that I ranted on #2 I for got what #3 was...oh here's one...just because you can't find someone to party or RP with doesn't mean you have to go somewhere and kill things to kill time...what would your character do? try wandering somewhere new...who knows what might drop in on you. 4.) Vind and Rav rock. ARCHERS RULE! *ahem* sorry I had to throw that in there. ;D
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Post by Slanker on Sept 16, 2005 5:00:09 GMT -5
Haha..well I consider Crom a tank person, but never really noticed you and Rav got annoyed with Crom for 'charging in like a dumb ox'.
But I agree with you on point 1 and 4 and ehh 3 too.
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Post by Booze Hound on Sept 16, 2005 5:06:01 GMT -5
haah not you ya dumb old ox! SOME tanks. you're one of my favorites because deep down you really and truly agree with #1 and #4 ;D ;D
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Post by olwentheold on Sept 16, 2005 9:39:04 GMT -5
4.) Vind and Rav rock. ARCHERS RULE! *ahem* sorry I had to throw that in there. ;D Hell yeah!! Archers do kick serious butt! Have any of you seen Febrien in action (yeah, yeah, given the fact she's a major Epic character aside) she'll put down most foes even before those over zealous tanks (no matter who they are ) can even raise their swords!
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Post by kenny26 on Sept 16, 2005 9:50:57 GMT -5
alright alright! archers are cool! *ducks behind a small wall fearing someone will throw something big and heavy at him*
but i just wanted to make my point that the archers will be even cooler with this crit thing implemented... *said from behind the wall*
that asides, jargo has a valid reason for charging into combat as one of the first. he used to be semi-suicidal when i first made him, and even though he's found plenty of reasons to live, he still hasnĀ“t shaken the habbit in combat...
*peeks out from his hiding spot* oh, a thought just occured to me... can you even begin to imagine how much the cloud giants would hurt if they could make crits?? *shudders*
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Post by Kolfrosta on Sept 16, 2005 14:16:11 GMT -5
But I know a "Light weight tank" that has learned to let the archer do their thing, and take on the enemies as they close in to the archer!
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Post by Quadhund/Greenhouse on Sept 16, 2005 15:07:58 GMT -5
Is his name hroth?
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Post by Kolfrosta on Sept 16, 2005 22:06:35 GMT -5
Posted by Quadhund on Today at 16:07
LOL. Actually, I was thinking of a certain female pally, but, in any case, I'd like to see the difficulty slider moved. It wasn't until recently I noticed the critters don't critical hit, but they do always "hit" on a 20. Just doesn't seem right to me that we can crit and they can't. It will certainly make a lot more places more challenging. And that's a good thing
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Post by Booze Hound on Sept 17, 2005 10:19:41 GMT -5
Yeah Shari rules to see? with the slider moved up, we would have a lot more of the great battle tactics that go on like this. Me vote yes!
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Post by soulfien on Sept 18, 2005 20:32:00 GMT -5
wow. really strayed from the topic haven't we? Well, since we're bragging about PC's now, Garistan and Glewien kick butt together! If you see us together, you may want to make way!
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Post by kenny26 on Sept 18, 2005 23:58:26 GMT -5
i saw a monster score a critical hit on my animal companion tonight (was playing with my demented druid, kruhl), and that was actually kinda nice to see. it's somehow just more natural to see the crit hit floaters appear over the head of the enemies as well.
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Post by duskvermilion on Sept 22, 2005 11:40:32 GMT -5
With all respect toward you guys, you are all great role-players, and Jurivancer is one heck of a builder, I don't think you really have thought the critical hits thing through entirely. Like I said before, this isn't pen and paper. When you are playing pen and paper, you have time to think things through and react by the time your turn comes up in melee. In NWN, things go much quicker and you dont have the same control over your character. For example, in my table top game I used to run, my players ran into a pair of umber hulks. The monk got critted, and was gonna die. The players had enough time to think things though, *and* had enough control over their characters to do what they needed to do. In NWN, there is lag, a clumsy interface, and real-time gaming. You will not be able to reproduce a PnP feel with this video game.
You might want to alter the death penalty as well, because people are going be dying a lot, maybe not the higher levels as much as the people just entering the mod, or even at levels 5 and 6... Not to mention you might as well take out things like the orc caves to the east of isinhold (what player at that level in their right mind would even go there to the end with that change), and the ogre berzerkers in the mistwood, who will be way too dangerous in comparison to the other things around them. Juri said he has it hardcore lite because HCR (which stands for hardcore rules btw, not HardCoRe) is not fun. After he gets done re-working the whole module for this change, I don't think the amount of problems any new player will face will be fun at all. Maybe for you level 15+'s it will be amusing.. for a short while at least.
But hey, what do I know? Ive only been playing DnD for 25 years, and playing NWN since 2001 or something, and DMing my own mods for a while on neverwinter connections. Ignore me at will ;-p
Sorry for the rant, but I find the whole idea to be rather discouraging. I also wonder about this list of things to do, where at the top lies attacking farmers. Now, Im not saying farming is good. I dont like a mod which attracts morons. If I didn't mind them, I would go off and play some MMORPG. However, I have so far seen one circumstance where I was in a place that seemed appropriate for my level, with another player, and we were role-playing exploring the kobold caves, at level 5 and 6 (I think, and the level 6 was a monk having a harder time than my level 5) and I assume it was a DM that dropped a dragon cult guy on us. If this was a case of a DM discouraging farming... then I have to question that DM's judgement. There are generally a limited number of places one can adventure at that level, and I *thought* the kobold caves was an acceptable place to venture to. So, if it wasn't, let me ask this: Where does the line get drawn? I mean, I try not to do things like go down the well at level 5+ (once I was down there with Zepp, but thats because Vorta dragged me down there, and we did deserve the squashing, I should say). But if the kobold caves are too easy for me at 5th, how am I supposed to know where to go? I don't mean to offend DM Laurk, but heck, to say soloing is illegal makes me think he may be a bit too iron handed... Reality is reality, and if you want to look at things realistically, look at the fact that this is an online video game, on an open server. The odds of finding a perfectly suitable party are low most of the time. Yesterday, I would check in every once in a while to see if there was *anyone* for Mwabe to group with... Eventually I got tired of it, and went soloing... All the while wondering if some DM was gonna pop in and spank me like a school nun for doing so, making me lose 1000 exp. Again, I approve of your efforts to curb powergaming, but I wonder if perhaps someone is a bit too overzealous. If you are *punishing* players for just being in the same area more than once, when there are a limited number of areas one can go to at a given level, for monsters that basically give 4-8 experience, you are going to be dealing out a lot of punishment. Im 36 years old, I don't like to be spanked anymore. I'm just asking that maybe some better judgement is needed here.
It's a game... I should be having fun, right? Just wanted to check.
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Post by DM Justicar - Creator of FRC on Sept 22, 2005 12:08:43 GMT -5
With all respect toward you guys, you are all great role-players, and Jurivancer is one heck of a builder, I don't think you really have thought the critical hits thing through entirely. Like I said before, this isn't pen and paper. When you are playing pen and paper, you have time to think things through and react by the time your turn comes up in melee. In NWN, things go much quicker and you dont have the same control over your character. For example, in my table top game I used to run, my players ran into a pair of umber hulks. The monk got critted, and was gonna die. The players had enough time to think things though, *and* had enough control over their characters to do what they needed to do. In NWN, there is lag, a clumsy interface, and real-time gaming. You will not be able to reproduce a PnP feel with this video game. You might want to alter the death penalty as well, because people are going be dying a lot, maybe not the higher levels as much as the people just entering the mod, or even at levels 5 and 6... Not to mention you might as well take out things like the orc caves to the east of isinhold (what player at that level in their right mind would even go there to the end with that change), and the ogre berzerkers in the mistwood, who will be way too dangerous in comparison to the other things around them. Juri said he has it hardcore lite because HCR (which stands for hardcore rules btw, not HardCoRe) is not fun. After he gets done re-working the whole module for this change, I don't think the amount of problems any new player will face will be fun at all. Maybe for you level 15+'s it will be amusing.. for a short while at least. But hey, what do I know? Ive only been playing DnD for 25 years, and playing NWN since 2001 or something, and DMing my own mods for a while on neverwinter connections. Ignore me at will ;-p Sorry for the rant, but I find the whole idea to be rather discouraging. I also wonder about this list of things to do, where at the top lies attacking farmers. Now, Im not saying farming is good. I dont like a mod which attracts morons. If I didn't mind them, I would go off and play some MMORPG. However, I have so far seen one circumstance where I was in a place that seemed appropriate for my level, with another player, and we were role-playing exploring the kobold caves, at level 5 and 6 (I think, and the level 6 was a monk having a harder time than my level 5) and I assume it was a DM that dropped a dragon cult guy on us. If this was a case of a DM discouraging farming... then I have to question that DM's judgement. There are generally a limited number of places one can adventure at that level, and I *thought* the kobold caves was an acceptable place to venture to. So, if it wasn't, let me ask this: Where does the line get drawn? I mean, I try not to do things like go down the well at level 5+ (once I was down there with Zepp, but thats because Vorta dragged me down there, and we did deserve the squashing, I should say). But if the kobold caves are too easy for me at 5th, how am I supposed to know where to go? I don't mean to offend DM Laurk, but heck, to say soloing is illegal makes me think he may be a bit too iron handed... Reality is reality, and if you want to look at things realistically, look at the fact that this is an online video game, on an open server. The odds of finding a perfectly suitable party are low most of the time. Yesterday, I would check in every once in a while to see if there was *anyone* for Mwabe to group with... Eventually I got tired of it, and went soloing... All the while wondering if some DM was gonna pop in and spank me like a school nun for doing so, making me lose 1000 exp. Again, I approve of your efforts to curb powergaming, but I wonder if perhaps someone is a bit too overzealous. If you are *punishing* players for just being in the same area more than once, when there are a limited number of areas one can go to at a given level, for monsters that basically give 4-8 experience, you are going to be dealing out a lot of punishment. Im 36 years old, I don't like to be spanked anymore. I'm just asking that maybe some better judgement is needed here. It's a game... I should be having fun, right? Just wanted to check. Of course you should be having fun! I wouldn't work so hard on the module if this weren't the case! There are actually several major places to adventure at your level in both Isinhold and Redmist. At 5-6th level, you should be able to enjoy the Hobgoblin caves south of Isinhold, the Bramblewood, in all of it's glory, every place on the way to Redmist... into the forest beyond Redmist, the tower in Redmist, the sewers in Redmist. The ruins south of Redmist, the Abandoned Isle South of Isinhold (accessible by the docks), there are also multiple caves on the way to, and near Redmist, and around Isinhold. There are many,many other places I didn't mention... Please look around a bit more, and I think you will like what you find. There are around 500 areas in the module now, and I can only say that we will continue to improve the the diversity of areas available to all levels. Anyway, like I stated earlier we really aren't planning to mess with the difficulty slider until at least three things occur: 1. Lag must be reduced to near negligible levels (coming soon). 2. Creatures must be altered to support the change. 3. The module must be very close to being finished (also coming very soon). I hope that sheds a little light. Hang in there, it's really not so bad! Cheers!
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Post by duskvermilion on Sept 22, 2005 12:50:26 GMT -5
I know of all these spots, and I agree that there are a lot of places to go. I wasn't trying to say that its limited, what I meant is that there are still only so many places to go, and its even more limited if youre solo cause you cant find a group, so I was questioning the previous comment someone said about the first thing on the DM list being dropping things on players being in the same spot. I know that character had only been in the caves three times at that point, so it seemed to me that the dragon cult warrior popping up was a bit severe.
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Post by DM Justicar - Creator of FRC on Sept 22, 2005 13:41:02 GMT -5
I know of all these spots, and I agree that there are a lot of places to go. I wasn't trying to say that its limited, what I meant is that there are still only so many places to go, and its even more limited if youre solo cause you cant find a group, so I was questioning the previous comment someone said about the first thing on the DM list being dropping things on players being in the same spot. I know that character had only been in the caves three times at that point, so it seemed to me that the dragon cult warrior popping up was a bit severe. I agree a dragon cult warrior was probably a bit harsh. Sometimes though DM's want you to run from their baddies, not stay and fight. Often this leads to a developing plot. I don't know if this was the case, but if the fight seems unwinable, it usually is. Anyway, I will make a note to the DM's to relax in the regions around Isinhold... I doubt anyone was being maliscious on purpose. Just remember that we still have some "new blood" as far as DM's go and they are still learning the ropes. The Dragon Cult Kobolds are rated 7-8 CR, and they perform more like a 12... it was probably just because of this, and that would be my fault. I will be looking to alter CR's more in the future, once I get this lag a little more under control. Cheers!
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