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Post by uriziel on Jul 21, 2019 19:00:11 GMT -5
As a preface, I'd like to say this is only my one opinion, feel free to agree or disagree. I'm not going to speak for anyone else. I also understand that events like this are hard on the DM staff, in terms of planning and executing. These are just htings that I hope can be accounted for in future events.
-Please let us know -when- to buff. Oghrann went in and all of our buffs were done by the time the event actually started. Twice. The only thing holding us up is OOC, should not benefit the other side
-NPC's: No npc should have crippling strike. I mean, just legit the dumbest thing. No npc should be rocking into the epics in a PVP event. Just fought dogs stronger than literally ever dragon on the server. And every epic on our server too. Why. What?
-IG barriers: No. NONONONONONONONO. So many problems with it, ooc mechanically. Hard to target, buggy messes .
-Preparation ooc needs to happen OOC. Get the pins and stuff before things happen. OOC needs to not hurt my IC stuff.
-When there needs to be a break in action for OOC, pause so durations don't continue to tick. Or allow for some other mechanic because it's not fair that an OOC pausebreak makes classes useless.
-Gold problems: Dropped about 40k in raises and healing. I'm not alone in that number.
-Reward problems: I got 250 xp for 5 hours of being on and spending 40k gold. So even after all the frustration, I didn't really feel like I got rewarded, it more felt like I got a 2 cent tip.
-Challenge problems: With nothing in the 15-20 challenge range, many of us were either useless or near useless, especially after dying to OOC shenanigans. Add on that, magic casters got to do diddly squat on our side at least from the wild magic surges, I can't imagine they're happy. As a cleric, I wasn't.
All in all, I don't feel happy I participated. I feel like I got to do very little for over 5 hours either due to OOC pauses or OOC mechanical difficulties IE barriers I can target to break. Beyond that, every NPC was either epic or at least far beyond than anything in my level range. Given the epics were having problem too, I can only assume it was epic npc's. It wasn't fun for me, I'll not speak for other people. There were just too many things that lead to being frustrated.
Just my two cents.
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Post by Asgardian Grey Hawk on Jul 21, 2019 19:13:24 GMT -5
That's your side of it yea
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Post by Asgardian Grey Hawk on Jul 21, 2019 19:13:56 GMT -5
But no one was forced into this event both sides suffered.
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Post by Asgardian Grey Hawk on Jul 21, 2019 19:15:58 GMT -5
Thank you dm staff for this Amazing event. It was a learning experience for all and went smoothly for testing faction badges
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HarleyKyn
New Member
I might be potato adjacent~
Posts: 57
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Post by HarleyKyn on Jul 21, 2019 19:26:02 GMT -5
I will say this is my first big DM event, heh, so I don't really have anything to compare it too. And I also think I remember someone saying this is basically a test for faction pins? Or something?
But I felt very similarly in that I felt useless... maybe not quite as useless as Uriziel because I have the benefit of range... but that really didn't help a lot either. I could hit the men at arms at a distance, thankfully, but I couldn't even get near anyone else. Couple in all the wild magic surges I had due to needing to recover my strength... the fact I couldn't heal well due to no heal score and stuck using healing kits.
Then watching as buffs dropped because things were taking so long.
I swear if I had a quarter for each time I heard "Please have a pin" I'd have aaaa lot of quarters. I get you don't want people to get screwed - but in the midst of all of that... all the rest of us got screwed waiting for people to get the pins despite it having been mentioned over and over and over and over and over again. And we got nothing to compensate for the OOC affecting us negatively IC'ly.
Between feeling painfully out leveled in the zone we were put in, and the wild magic hindering us at every turn (including not being able to re-buff safely with potions or items due to surges)... I'm leaving more frustrated than anything else...I mean I'm glad I could at least be useful against the archers, especially the archers that meelee couldn't get to due to location or due to barricades. (And I'll admit being a lil proud of slapping a few arrows to Carek's face. ;D <3 ) But it almost feels like it would have been better to group us up from levels 10-20 and give us our own spot to fight. (Though I saw 23-ers go down too sooooo [insert shrug emoji here]). Something that feels more like a challenge, rather than a roflstomp. I want to -actively- participate too... and not just contributing sassy comments while dead.
I very much understand that it takes a lot of time and effort to put these events on - so this is more of a "I hope this feedback helps in some way" thing... because I don't know all the details of DM-land or scripting or any of that... so I don't know what's possible, what's plausible and what can't be done... so I hope... something here helps?
I do appreciate the time and effort that went into this - and I know DMs had things that were breaking. And I know there is A LOT of things to take into account. So please don't think I DON'T appreciate the effort. <3 <3
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Post by uriziel on Jul 21, 2019 19:30:57 GMT -5
Thank you dm staff for this Amazing event. It was a learning experience for all and went smoothly for testing faction badges Hey, if your side had issues too you should bring them up. The only way that we can grow is through honest criticism. This isn't made as a DM bashing thread, I would never encourage or accept that. DM's are people too. This is an honest critique of my own point of view, regarding issues I see with the event. Nobody can say the DM's didn't put time and effort into this. The event, in some ways, went very well. The new faction system seems to work, though not without issues. I didn't have fun because of the issues that I've stated, but that should in no way take away from any fun anyone else had.
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Post by malclave on Jul 21, 2019 20:32:52 GMT -5
I understand Uriziel's frustrations (and share some of them). One of the more annoying, for me at least, was the buffing at the beginning. It would have been nice to know ahead of time that we would have been able to cast in Greatgaunt. As it was, we were watching our timers run down during the beginning RP and while others were casting in the (somehow, apparently?) wild magic exempt bath house. A note about the pins... they had been distributed ahead of time, but not everybody was present Friday to receive them. I don't think the DMs could have done more in that regard. On the gold and reward side of things, from what I've seen that's typical of DM events, though a 40K loss is excessive in my experience. I think I'm down 11-12K in healing kits and Rune Necklace charges; it would have probably been more but I'm still down from a costly dungeon run that didn't go well. It should only take me a few weeks for my purse to recover from today. . DM events, rather, are more about server-wide happenings instead of character advancement. Challenge... of the 5 characters I could have brought (between Oghrann, the VR Reserves, and the Volunteers), I was asked for RP reasons to bring the most useless, but I knew that heading in. Still frustrating, but that's on me. I guess the Reserves and Oghrann could have been split by level to an 11-20 force and 21+ (which would also help address the low xp), but at the cost of the RP value of having different contingents come together. That said, I do appreciate all the work by the DMs and those PCs involved in pushing the plot line forward, and am glad I participated today.
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Post by Munroe on Jul 21, 2019 20:33:15 GMT -5
I was not present for this DM-driven combat event, either as a DM or a player.
As regards Crippling Strike, any rogue of level 10 or higher can have the feat, which affects sneak attack functionality. It's a standard available class feature of the class. Saying NPCs should not have Crippling Strike is like saying NPCs shouldn't have spells above level 5. It's one more issue that PCs have to deal with when they encounter high level characters. It is certainly possible for too many NPCs in a combat to have the feat, and I'm not making any judgment there since I didn't see this event, but with the change to Improved Uncanny Dodge in Enhanced Edition, more characters than ever are now partially immune to sneak attacks, including Crippling Strikes. Dwarven Defenders were partially immune to sneak attacks before, and now that extends to high level rogues and barbarians with Improved Uncanny Dodge as well.
My general experience with Wild Magic and Dead Magic zones in tabletop D&D and in Neverwinter Nights is that they're just about always un-fun for almost everyone (except some fighters and barbarians that don't need to heal too often). That's why such events are done sparingly. Considering that this was an event centered on a Wild Magic phenomenon, it is to be expected--honestly--that some people were left frustrated at the way it went. Nobody likes for their characters to be crippled by situational mechanics. Hopefully, this Wild Magic will get under control soon. Even if it's an unfun mechanic, it's one that gives a sense of real urgency to the plot, and is good for flavor if used sparingly. Hopefully, it will continue to be an effect used sparingly. :-) Again, I wasn't there for this combat, so I'm only speaking from my own previous experience with the effect.
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Post by Southpaw on Jul 21, 2019 20:54:29 GMT -5
I like challenges that aren't scaled down for level, because it means that any success you have as a player is the result of your decisions either on the spot or in preparation (or both), and not your game mechanics. My character may have possibly been the lowest level character on "Team Marister," outside the Greatgaunt Volunteers, so I'm not saying that as a player of a higher level character asking other people to bear the pain of playing at a lower level. I think there could have been more that we in the 11-25 range could have successfully applied our game mechanics to, but I very much preferred the brain challenge as it was. If I want a scaled challenge, I can go run through a regular, automated orc lair. I can't find something like this every day.
I also think that splitting the battle too much by level can get to feel very artificial. How do our characters know where to be if they are at what level? Why is the enemy only sending forces to face characters who can beat them? I get why we do it, but I personally like to see that minimized.
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Post by DM Hawk on Jul 21, 2019 20:56:19 GMT -5
Howdy folks,
Sincere, constructive feedback is welcome.
As a DM in an event, we realize early on when there are problems. The bigger and more ambitious the event, the more problems (and client crashes) pop up. We try to address these on the fly in game and think about how to prevent them next time.
We could have done a better job grouping players by level for this event by introducing an intermediate group between the Greatgaunt Volunteers and the higher end epic characters. In early discussions for this event we envisioned splitting it up over several different sessions for different level ranges as we have done for some previous events. This would have been the ideal but certain circumstances led us to compress these together into one larger session.
The barriers were the result of one faction's planning and roleplay during the weeks preceding this event. They were placed according to player drawn maps and discussions held by them in game.
I made the barricades destructible so that they could be overcome while still providing in support of the planning effort. My personal testing didn't reveal any issues targeting the barricades but I did so in a silo, not in the middle of a PVP scenario.
Most of the pins were distributed during sessions prior to today's event and extra's were left with players to help distribute them further. Still, we could have coordinated better front end with before-event preparation.
The breaks and pauses during the event are frustrating. They pop up as a necessary evil when running a large scale event with a lot going on simultaneously, whether it's the result of fixing bugged characters, setting up for something that shifted on the fly, or DM's recovering from EE crashes. It's no silver lining but we can say that these delays (and eating buff time) impacted both sides of the event equally, not favoring one side over the other.
Large scale battle scenes can be expensive and consume a lot of resources. The wild magic exacerbated this today for sure. I'd be happy to meet in game with you and talk about the resources your character spent specifically.
For compensation, we ask to keep in mind that this event is part of an ongoing story. Folks were dropping with fatigue at the end. These stories often yield rewards but these may not be awarded every individual session. They often come towards the end of the story. Hang in there.
Thank you for the feedback. When players feel that they can't contribute in an event or that their time hasn't been well spent, we take it to heart and look at how it can be done better next time.
We won't get everything right every time, but we will try to make it better.
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Post by uriziel on Jul 21, 2019 20:57:50 GMT -5
I understand Uriziel's frustrations (and share some of them). One of the more annoying, for me at least, was the buffing at the beginning. It would have been nice to know ahead of time that we would have been able to cast in Greatgaunt. As it was, we were watching our timers run down during the beginning RP and while others were casting in the (somehow, apparently?) wild magic exempt bath house. A note about the pins... they had been distributed ahead of time, but not everybody was present Friday to receive them. I don't think the DMs could have done more in that regard. On the gold and reward side of things, from what I've seen that's typical of DM events, though a 40K loss is excessive in my experience. I think I'm down 11-12K in healing kits and Rune Necklace charges; it would have probably been more but I'm still down from a costly dungeon run that didn't go well. It should only take me a few weeks for my purse to recover from today. . DM events, rather, are more about server-wide happenings instead of character advancement. Challenge... of the 5 characters I could have brought (between Oghrann, the VR Reserves, and the Volunteers), I was asked for RP reasons to bring the most useless, but I knew that heading in. Still frustrating, but that's on me. I guess the Reserves and Oghrann could have been split by level to an 11-20 force and 21+ (which would also help address the low xp), but at the cost of the RP value of having different contingents come together. That said, I do appreciate all the work by the DMs and those PCs involved in pushing the plot line forward, and am glad I participated today. On the pins: That's a critique more to players than DM's. They made a bajillion announcements about it, that should not have been a difficult thing for anyone. As for the rewards: I think that's wrong. I'm not even asking that I profit off of DM events, just breaking even. I prepared yesterday and, what I thought, overbought on Raise Deads and kits. That was obviously wrong, I went through almost all my kits and 20 scrolls. That's crazy! On the challenge: I brought a character that I knew had... middle levels of usefullness (Good long term buffs and stuff, but couldn't do the crazy stuff I do day to day). I think it could've been divided, with GG Vols defending the town, 11-20 assaulting the fronts, epics assaulting the interior. But hindsight a beast and we all know that. I disagree that random soldier A should be successfuly fighting off epic characters. Means they're not really epic characters, just satisfactory. I want to reiterate a point I made in my first post though: I'm not criticizing this event or the DM's that did it without a purpose. I saw many other angry players today. But I've noticed that every time there's an event, people say thank you and never bring up the frustration. I'm not even sure if the DM's know how many people were upset, but how can they be since nobody talks about it? I'm always grateful for the amount of time, dedication and thought go into this server from both players and DM's. We come here to have -fun-. I just want to point out things I feel can be done better, things that make it so I don't have fun. Things I see that other people have problems with too, but for whatever reason they don't speak up. I encourage everyone who has a problem to voice those concerns, respectfully. The only way any change can even begin to be affected is by involvement from everyone.
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Post by shivers on Jul 21, 2019 20:58:23 GMT -5
Uriziel - some excellent points. And respectfully presented/written.
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Post by Southpaw on Jul 21, 2019 21:15:02 GMT -5
I ran into a point from time to time in the placement of battles, in that I loaded onto the map in the middle of an area effect damage spell that did damage per round, because the effect was on top of the transition as I loaded in. Or loaded into the jaws of a hound that was ripping up an epic level party, and I survived only because I have a habit of transitioning in stealth mode for no reason except that I can't see past the transition and have had that happen before. I had one such situation where my tactical choice was to sit and stew in an acid cloud, run ahead straight through a blade barrier, or go back through the transition which by server rules is supposed to denote I'm not coming back to a PVP fight. I chose to go back, wait out the gas, let the PVP move off the transition, and rejoin. I understand it's probably very difficult to place *everything* perfectly on *every* map such that that never happens, especially in the chaos of dozens of combatants on both sides moving around, but I did think "transition camping" was kind of a thing here and there.
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Post by Dobian on Jul 22, 2019 0:18:53 GMT -5
I'll give my two cents. First, I have been doing big events here for years, and they are always a challenge. Why? Because NWN is not really cut out for large battles. It's not WoW. The engine can't really handle a fight with more than a dozen or so total players and NPCs. That makes things very problematic when the frames suddenly drop to ten and everything is jerking around and you don't know if you really targetted what you targetted, or find out you are at ten percent health about five seconds after you got to ten percent health. And then you get the inevitable player crashes (I crashed twice - one during a fight and one during non-combat). The second thing is, fights are never going to be fair. No matter what you do, one side is always going to have an advantage and it's going to be a slaughter. That's just how it is. I don't get pissed off at these kinds of things because I know beforehand how it's probably going to turn out. There are things that can be done to mitigate this, though. First is, for a pvp fight get rid of the NPCs. If you give one side NPCs then you've swung the fight indisputably in their favor. It also adds to the lag issue and makes the fights a quagmire to navigate through. And get rid of the barriers. Getting back again to the fact that this is NWN, this game engine isn't built for sieges. It's not Total War. As for the rewards, for an event like this 1000 xp should be given. The 250 xp policy seemed to show up a couple of years ago, when before you would always get 1000 xp for an event like this. Especially when you know how costly in terms of heals, buffs, and supplies the event was. There should be an adequate xp reward at the end. When you invest five hours of time, you shouldn't get less xp than you get from a 20-minute jaunt through the Ogre Bandits. That's about all I have.
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Post by ID10Tango on Jul 22, 2019 0:38:25 GMT -5
I would like to start by giving a HUGE thank you to the DM Team who put in a lot of time and effort, and plenty of behind-the-scenes stuff to make this happen. I'm glad I waited a bit to respond, as I feel Monroe and Hawk adequately address many of the points that were brought up. There are however a few things I disagree with and tactfully provide my feedback here for both players and DMs alike. First: When this event was first proposed to me there were some explicit notes that came with it. Participation was voluntary, it would be open to a wide variety of levels, and that while some steps would be taken to limit Epic vs Lower encounters therein lies a possibility where you could face a stronger opponent during the PVP. If you feel your character wasn't able to keep up, I submit to you to go back and look at those precautionary notes of the event, and perhaps reconsider your participation in any similar future events. Second: The comments about how many resources were used and the feelings towards the XP/Gold reward being inadequate just don't sit well with me. I will cautiously share as an example that on two occasions my character had to assault and take a Keep, it resulted in multiple instances of deaths (up to and including the full party) and vast quantities of resources being used. Those examples are par for the course for me, and almost every event I've participated in (except Greengrass ) has been a full blown meat grinder. My group even has a longstanding joke that "Hawk is trying to kill us" //ADMIT Hawk, you really do want to kill us all!!! LOL. So I submit to you to look at these events as RP opportunities more than XP/Gold runs. I appreciate ANY DM experience granted, regardless of quantity, and feel that if you're doing this only for the XP then you're in it for the wrong reasons. Furthermore, I've gotten into the habit of expecting every "quest event" to start on-time just for "roll call" and to run at least 3hrs total to account for pre-RP and late arrivals, the event, and post-RP. That has worked out well for me in terms of personal scheduling and expectations. *Special Note: It's not my intent to start any argument, but feel this should be shared Third: Many of us on the Matthias side had hesitations about whether we should even participate, and were worried that we were being setup to "lose" from the start no matter what we did in-game, and with the risk of PVP death and RP repurcutions looming we almost didn't participate at all. I would like to point out that we successfully defended the "first wave" and had secured the entire map when GOD MODE BARON CROWNSILVER showed up and kicked us in our teeth. That NPC is the sole reason we had to retreat, and is viewed as an impossible obstacle from my perspective. I suspect...and understand to some degree that he may have been placed on the battlefield in-lieu of 1000 VR Guards in an effort to simulate the overwhelming odds Matthias was up against. But to speak plainly, there is a group of us that want to see a real win...not a partial win, and our participation in this story was with that in mind, and it didn't exactly turn out the way we had hoped and we were (again, as always) left running with our tail between our legs and once again faced with possibly being labeled outlaws (we'll have to wait and see), which makes playing our PC's nearly impossible. Edit: Based on Lady Frost's comments, I am willing to concede this point.
Nevertheless all things considered, I truly enjoyed the event itself and all the RP leading up to it. I appreciate all the time and effort from the DMs in setting the scene and dealing with all the behind-the-scenes issues. So another HUGE thank you to the DMs for all their work in this, as well as the players who helped make the story so interesting. It was certainly one that will go down in my record book -Tango-
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Post by uriziel on Jul 22, 2019 1:02:21 GMT -5
I would like to start by giving a HUGE thank you to the DM Team who put in a lot of time and effort, and plenty of behind-the-scenes stuff to make this happen. I'm glad I waited a bit to respond, as I feel Monroe and Hawk adequately address many of the points that were brought up. There are however a few things I disagree with and tactfully provide my feedback here for both players and DMs alike. First: When this event was first proposed to me there were some explicit notes that came with it. Participation was voluntary, it would be open to a wide variety of levels, and that while some steps would be taken to limit Epic vs Lower encounters therein lies a possibility where you could face a stronger opponent during the PVP. If you feel your character wasn't able to keep up, I submit to you to go back and look at those precautionary notes of the event, and perhaps reconsider your participation in any similar future events. Second: The comments about how many resources were used and the feelings towards the XP/Gold reward being inadequate just don't sit well with me. I will cautiously share as an example that on two occasions my character had to assault and take a Keep, it resulted in multiple instances of deaths (up to and including the full party) and vast quantities of resources being used. Those examples are par for the course for me, and almost every event I've participated in (except Greengrass ) has been a full blown meat grinder. My group even has a longstanding joke that "Hawk is trying to kill us" //ADMIT Hawk, you really do want to kill us all!!! LOL. So I submit to you to look at these events as RP opportunities more than XP/Gold runs. Furthermore, I've gotten into the habit of expecting every "quest event" to start on-time just for "roll call" and to run at least 3hrs total to account for pre-RP and late arrivals, the event, and post-RP. That has worked out well for me in terms of personal scheduling and expectations. *Special Note: It's not my intent to start any argument, but feel this should be shared Third: Many of us on the Matthias side had hesitations about whether we should even participate, and were worried that we were being setup to "lose" from the start no matter what we did in-game, and with the risk of PVP death and RP repurcutions looming we almost didn't participate at all. I would like to point out that we successfully defended the "first wave" and had secured the entire map when GOD MODE BARON CROWNSILVER showed up and kicked us in our teeth. That NPC is the sole reason we had to retreat, and is viewed as an impossible obstacle from my perspective. I suspect...and understand to some degree that he may have been placed on the battlefield in-lieu of 1000 VR Guards in an effort to simulate the overwhelming odds Matthias was up against. But to speak plainly, there is a group of us that want to see a real win...not a partial win, and our participation in this story was with that in mind, and it didn't exactly turn out the way we had hoped and we were (again, as always) left running with our tail between our legs. Nevertheless all things considered, I truly enjoyed the event itself and all the RP leading up to it. I appreciate all the time and effort from the DMs in setting the scene and dealing with all the behind-the-scenes issues. So another HUGE thank you to the DMs for all their work in this, as well as the players who helped make the story so interesting. It was certainly one that will go down in my record book -Tango- I could sit here and dissect your post, point by point, and tell you why I disagree with you. But beyond all those points, your post is saying "We had problems too, so your problems aren't valid." And that is what I have the biggest problem with. If you had problems too, then voice them, constructively. Help the community grow. Because when you say that people who don't like it shouldn't play, that's bad. When you invalidate other peoples problems, that's bad. When you try to go through the trouble olympics, that's bad. It stunts the server with that mentality. And that's truly the worst thing we could do.
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Post by magiuss on Jul 22, 2019 1:23:38 GMT -5
[quote author=" HarleyKyn" source="/post/331274/thread" (And I'll admit being a lil proud of slapping a few arrows to Carek's face. ;D <3 ) Hope i got to tap you back then i honestly don't know what the hell happend half the time [/quote] Our Problems was the same as your problems, our own men killing us, wild magic invalidated us as much has you. But This is how it is when you fight in a wild magic zone.. do you think it's fun for a pure wizard to fight in wild magic ? i still had tons of fun with the effect i sometimes made, and when it comes to resources, thats just how big events go.. this is not my first big pvp event or Pc vs NPC event.. and they always.. always cost in the good of 20-40 thousand sometimes more.. this time how ever it was even more expensive cause of the wild magic. Carek spent the better part of 5 ressurection scrolls in the end, 100 healing kits. and a good chuck in my healing potions.. + about ''20'' 7-8-9th circle scrolls. but that is what i was expecting. And as Tango said, Dm's had warned us that this would be a mixed PVP and told us it was free choice as to join the PVP, Matthias side did so with only 4-5 people i belive above lvl 20. fully knowing that we were going to fight an army of players in their mid twentys to thirtys Uriziel, about your corncern on the army you were fighting, You had the same strong archers as we did.. BUT you were trying to Seige a very unfvaorable advantage point, AND THIS is how seiges go, and all these preparations have been over months of 2-3 long role play sessisons each weeek of preparation as Hawk mentioned, i can not say how much Marister's side had done to prepare their army for this siege. And do remember as well that you were about 50 Marister side PC vs 7 PC on Matthias side. so when i hear the words unfair in a sentence to this event, i don't see how that is . All in all even though i was a pure wizard trying to work in wild magic, i had tons of fun with this entire event.. the weeks up to and during the fight though my own men shooting me was very frustrating As to constructive feed back about the event, i belive i gave our side's DM a releif of my frustration about hitting a memeber of my house hold at the front line, made an entire keep and army behind me knowing it, and all wanted me dead for it
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HarleyKyn
New Member
I might be potato adjacent~
Posts: 57
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Post by HarleyKyn on Jul 22, 2019 1:26:29 GMT -5
I would like to start by giving a HUGE thank you to the DM Team who put in a lot of time and effort, and plenty of behind-the-scenes stuff to make this happen. I'm glad I waited a bit to respond, as I feel Monroe and Hawk adequately address many of the points that were brought up. There are however a few things I disagree with and tactfully provide my feedback here for both players and DMs alike. First: When this event was first proposed to me there were some explicit notes that came with it. Participation was voluntary, it would be open to a wide variety of levels, and that while some steps would be taken to limit Epic vs Lower encounters therein lies a possibility where you could face a stronger opponent during the PVP. If you feel your character wasn't able to keep up, I submit to you to go back and look at those precautionary notes of the event, and perhaps reconsider your participation in any similar future events. Second: The comments about how many resources were used and the feelings towards the XP/Gold reward being inadequate just don't sit well with me. I will cautiously share as an example that on two occasions my character had to assault and take a Keep, it resulted in multiple instances of deaths (up to and including the full party) and vast quantities of resources being used. Those examples are par for the course for me, and almost every event I've participated in (except Greengrass ) has been a full blown meat grinder. My group even has a longstanding joke that "Hawk is trying to kill us" //ADMIT Hawk, you really do want to kill us all!!! LOL. So I submit to you to look at these events as RP opportunities more than XP/Gold runs. Furthermore, I've gotten into the habit of expecting every "quest event" to start on-time just for "roll call" and to run at least 3hrs total to account for pre-RP and late arrivals, the event, and post-RP. That has worked out well for me in terms of personal scheduling and expectations. *Special Note: It's not my intent to start any argument, but feel this should be shared Third: Many of us on the Matthias side had hesitations about whether we should even participate, and were worried that we were being setup to "lose" from the start no matter what we did in-game, and with the risk of PVP death and RP repurcutions looming we almost didn't participate at all. I would like to point out that we successfully defended the "first wave" and had secured the entire map when GOD MODE BARON CROWNSILVER showed up and kicked us in our teeth. That NPC is the sole reason we had to retreat, and is viewed as an impossible obstacle from my perspective. I suspect...and understand to some degree that he may have been placed on the battlefield in-lieu of 1000 VR Guards in an effort to simulate the overwhelming odds Matthias was up against. But to speak plainly, there is a group of us that want to see a real win...not a partial win, and our participation in this story was with that in mind, and it didn't exactly turn out the way we had hoped and we were (again, as always) left running with our tail between our legs. Nevertheless all things considered, I truly enjoyed the event itself and all the RP leading up to it. I appreciate all the time and effort from the DMs in setting the scene and dealing with all the behind-the-scenes issues. So another HUGE thank you to the DMs for all their work in this, as well as the players who helped make the story so interesting. It was certainly one that will go down in my record book -Tango- 1st Point: I will admit that I do not agree with the "it was voluntary, maybe reconsider your participation in future events" argument. Considering this was open from lower levels to epic levels, and everything in between, cautionary or not, everyone should feel like they can participate and have a little fun with it. That's why having an intermediate group could have possibly helped elevate a bit more of the PVP level distance. Of course there is -always- going to be some gaps, but the gap for the 11+ group was -way- too large. If it's a possible thing to fix slightly, why wouldn't the DMs consider it? Why keep it the way it is and make it so participation is almost -discouraged-? You are legitimately discouraging us from taking part of the game, and that's not a great feeling. If me, a level 17, is being told to reconsider my participation in future events like this, then you're telling QUITE a few people that they need to reconsider. That's not right. If the event is open to those levels it needs to be open to all those levels. 2nd Point: Honestly, I wasn't angry it took 5 hours. I was upset that so much time was spent waiting and waiting, causing buffs to fall off which caused issues on both sides, it seems. (I can only speak for my side.) So it wasn't the time frame I had an issue with personally (not speaking for others), just a nice little heads up to each section leader like "hey don't buff yet" would be nice if possible. That way buffs aren't getting wasted, and it gives DMs a chance to fix whatever they may need to fix during the lull. I honestly see it as a win-win. And hey if a section leader misses the "hey don't buff yet", then it's on them. Their party can take it up with them. I'm not touching the xp/reward thing because it would just repeat a lot of things said already. 3rd Point: Look, I love a good bad guy, or even a set of good bad guys. Vindel entertains the hell out of me, I absolutely adore Carek (even if Cas is still very determined to lodge more arrows in his face). I can't speak of the rest since I haven't had any real solid interactions with them, but I -love- a good player character that is on the 'bad' side. Yes, rolling with evil has it's rp repercussions! Any alignment comes with it's RP repercussions (Uriziel has stories about that back from his Melchior days), but evil (and evil-ish!) most of all. But evil also comes with the tendency of "good triumphs over evil" - sometimes the triumph is quick, sometimes the triumph is slow. That's all dependent on the event runners. But all in all, you have the problem of "we kicked ass but still got kicked in the teeth" and I have the problem of "we somehow won despite getting kicked in the teeth? ". So either way... it's still a problem, for both sides. But this is why this is here now. So everyone can air their concerns, can talk about their hesitations, that way we can hopefully find some semblance of balance (ish. look I know perfect balance doesn't exist. ^^ and work towards it together. We shouldn't just accept everything as it is and stagnate. Let's grow. Let's evolve. THIS AIN'T OUR FINAL FORM. And the only way we can do that is if we tell the powers that be our issues. And this way it can be talked about between members and DM staff a-like about better alternatives for the future. And yeah there will be some things that can't be fixed sometimes. But hey... (just as an example) if an intermediate group would've made it feel a little more participate-y for those mid-level characters... what's the harm in trying it out for a couple events? It never hurts to try.
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Post by magiuss on Jul 22, 2019 1:56:01 GMT -5
50 Marister side PC vs 7 PC on maristers side. <3 you Know what i ment, 7 Matthias
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HarleyKyn
New Member
I might be potato adjacent~
Posts: 57
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Post by HarleyKyn on Jul 22, 2019 1:56:11 GMT -5
[quote author=" HarleyKyn " source="/post/331274/thread" (And I'll admit being a lil proud of slapping a few arrows to Carek's face. ;D <3 ) Hope i got to tap you back then i honestly don't know what the hell happend half the time Our Problems was the same as your problems, our own men killing us, wild magic invalidated us as much has you. But This is how it is when you fight in a wild magic zone.. do you think it's fun for a pure wizard to fight in wild magic ? i still had tons of fun with the effect i sometimes made, and when it comes to resources, thats just how big events go.. this is not my first big pvp event or Pc vs NPC event.. and they always.. always cost in the good of 20-40 thousand sometimes more.. this time how ever it was even more expensive cause of the wild magic. Carek spent the better part of 5 ressurection scrolls in the end, 100 healing kits. and a good chuck in my healing potions.. + about ''20'' 7-8-9th circle scrolls. but that is what i was expecting. And as Tango said, Dm's had warned us that this would be a mixed PVP and told us it was free choice as to join the PVP, Matthias side did so with only 4-5 people i belive above lvl 20. fully knowing that we were going to fight an army of players in their mid twentys to thirtys Uriziel, about your corncern on the army you were fighting, You had the same strong archers as we did.. BUT you were trying to Seige a very unfavorable advantage point, AND THIS is how seiges go, and all these preparations have been over months of 2-3 long role play sessisons each weeek of preparation as Hawk mentioned, i can not say how much Marister's side had done to prepare their army for this siege. And do remember as well that you were about 50 Marister side PC vs 7 PC on maristers side. so when i hear the words unfair in a sentence to this event, i don't see how that is . All in all even though i was a pure wizard trying to work in wild magic, i had tons of fun with this entire event.. the weeks up to and during the fight though my own men shooting me was very frustrating [/quote] Can Carek just be Cas's arch enemy? It sounds fun. And stupid. I actually got trapped behind the magical wall of painful blades at the first fight - I was slowed by the time we got in so I couldn't walk through without basically dying. So I literally just sat there and smacked you in the face every so often when you'd come to the ledge. I will admit that was probably the GREATEST moment of joy. You were good and pulled away, so I never could land LOTS of damage on you, but it definitely was still hilariously entertaining for me. Until you left. Then I was all alone. With no red wizard buddy to mess with! I still have no idea how I got slowed either, but that isn't a complaint, I'm legitimately just curious and want to know. xD I did notice your guys monk (I can't remember his naaaaame - is he a monk? Ihonestlydon'tknow.) getting shot while we were all dead by his own man. DEFINITELY SYMPATHY THERE. I will say that if people are spending time dungeoning and saving their gold for an item (looking at you +3 dex belt ), having 20-40k of their savings wiped out for an event is... painful. I understand the "that's just how it's been for a long time" thing, but I feel it's something that could be improved, so it's less gut wrenching. I think appraised saved me... and the fact I'm ranged. But I did still get 100 kits. I already had 4 raise deads on me and my silly self thought that was enough. :'D So I didn't lose nearly as much as some -- and I also have a decent appraise so if the dice gods like me, I don't spend quite -as- much. But considering how much time and effort goes into getting 30,000+, if that gets lost on an event... it basically wipes out all those hard work you put in for it. ESPECIALLY right now where you've gotta be creative on your dungeon seeking habits. Can't just make a day to destroy orcs right now. (I REALLY miss orcs. I miss orcs so much. T-T I just wanna shoot an orc.) So it's kind of the timing of everything that makes the gold hit hurt a bit more than it probably would have if orcs... were... destroyable. :'D So don't get me wrong, I don't think it should be a huge payday where you profit, but also not dropping half or all of your savings. I actually did feel bad for the magic users. I also had to keep constantly chanting "don't mage armor don't mage armor DO. NOT. MAGE. ARMOR" to myself.
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Post by magiuss on Jul 22, 2019 2:00:50 GMT -5
Can Carek just be Cas's arch enemy? It sounds fun. And stupid. I actually got trapped behind the magical wall of painful blades at the first fight - I was slowed by the time we got in so I couldn't walk through without basically dying. So I literally just sat there and smacked you in the face every so often when you'd come to the ledge. I will admit that was probably the GREATEST moment of joy. You were good and pulled away, so I never could land LOTS of damage on you, but it definitely was still hilariously entertaining for me. Until you left. Then I was all alone. With no red wizard buddy to mess with! I still have no idea how I got slowed either, but that isn't a complaint, I'm legitimately just curious and want to know. xD I did notice your guys monk (I can't remember his naaaaame - is he a monk? Ihonestlydon'tknow.) getting shot while we were all dead by his own man. DEFINITELY SYMPATHY THERE. [/quote] Zyraxas- though he was there Undercover so no one knows it was him.. = OOC knowledge. I got 2 slow spells of on you when you entered from the sides i saw alot of people get effected by it. IM GLAD IT annoyed you guys Oh that was you shooting me every time i stepped forward!
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Post by Lady Frost on Jul 22, 2019 2:20:30 GMT -5
I have a couple of things. (I wasn't in these battles.)
First, many of the concerns being voiced are things that are inherent to every large scale event. It's simply part of the nature of the event. Things like not starting active progression at the time listed, using tons more resources than you get out of it, having to wait and having buffs fall off. Those things have always been the case and will not likely change. That's just how large events work. Players with buffs have to keep in mind how and when things are prepared. I also have a pet peeve about players expecting each and every adventure and event to be a monetary success. There have to be losses, that's part of the 'adventure', otherwise, it's just called 'winning'.
Second is about the comments on one side being overwhelmed and the not seeming to have a chance. RP led to the situation that the event played through. Many pieces behind the scenes were involved in that not being a fair fight. The DM's didn't 'choose' one side to win and one side to lose. Characters and factions have been plotting and twisting things in ways that are generally not known to most people. Just because a player see situations and outcomes doesn't mean it is what it appears to be. For example, Zodika and her allies are hardly seen in-game and we're easily overlooked, but we have dozens and dozens of hours over months of plotting and posting and DM meetings (IC and OOC) revolving around these plots (and similarly with just about every plot that comes through the server) pulling and twisting the politics behind the scenes. We do it very obscurely and I'm sure other characters try to do as well. Don't always put outcomes on the DM's, they're moving pieces for a lot of characters, seen and not seen.
Lastly, is risk. Risk makes things exciting, but it also makes it dangerous. Being on the losing end of the bad guys can come with terrible consequences, like being outed as evil, being labeled a murderer, or being jailed or executed. Things like that can be -massive- setbacks for characters. If Zodika was ever caught and convicted of a bad crime it would be crippling to her politics. So... Zodika doesn't put herself at risk of those things. She makes sure people see the beneficial things she does and she carefully hides the controversial things. Make sure you consider what side your character is taking, what fame or infamy you'll get from it, and whether the risk is worth it. Skipping out on the fun of an event may be worth not landing your character in a crippled position - though I guess your characters wisdom score may influence that too.
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Post by ID10Tango on Jul 22, 2019 2:47:32 GMT -5
That's a fair assessment Lady Frost...
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Post by nemusator on Jul 22, 2019 3:03:18 GMT -5
It was very hard to pull of like that, so cudos to the DM team. Nothing to complain about from my perspective. The way I see it, being part of that story is reward of its own. Of course mutual analyzing and talking about events can only be constructive and beneficial.
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Post by malclave on Jul 22, 2019 3:10:58 GMT -5
when it comes to resources, thats just how big events go.. this is not my first big pvp event or Pc vs NPC event.. and they always.. always cost in the good of 20-40 thousand sometimes more.. Not sure what character levels are involved in those numbers, or what you mean by "big" event, but the gp cost of events is problematic IMO, and I hope the DMs keep an eye on resources expended. Not just in events like this one, but in any scheduled events. I had a character I used to play who was losing a few K in gp pretty much every time she went on a Volunteers or Reserves mission, which can be a lot of money at those levels, especially when you don't have friends on the server to group with. If there were rewards for the mission, they tended to be RP-centric items which were fun and nice but not much practical use.. and that's if you even won a dice roll to get something at all. Meanwhile, losing all that gold on missions meant she couldn't afford better gear, leading to semi-regular respawns after death and increasing frustration until I pretty much gave up trying to play her except on rare occasions. (sorry for the tangent, I know this is only peripherally related to the Isinhold event... I'll stop whining now )
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Post by magiuss on Jul 22, 2019 3:41:40 GMT -5
when it comes to resources, thats just how big events go.. this is not my first big pvp event or Pc vs NPC event.. and they always.. always cost in the good of 20-40 thousand sometimes more.. Not sure what character levels are involved in those numbers, or what you mean by "big" event, but the gp cost of events is problematic IMO, and I hope the DMs keep an eye on resources expended. Not just in events like this one, but in any scheduled events. I had a character I used to play who was losing a few K in gp pretty much every time she went on a Volunteers or Reserves mission, which can be a lot of money at those levels, especially when you don't have friends on the server to group with. If there were rewards for the mission, they tended to be RP-centric items which were fun and nice but not much practical use.. and that's if you even won a dice roll to get something at all. Meanwhile, losing all that gold on missions meant she couldn't afford better gear, leading to semi-regular respawns after death and increasing frustration until I pretty much gave up trying to play her except on rare occasions. (sorry for the tangent, I know this is only peripherally related to the Isinhold event... I'll stop whining now ) Oh the greed of the dwarven charater is rubbing on its players! ''that is a joke'', if anyone IC is greedy it's the red wizard! i know that it hurts when you are in the lower levels and you were saving that gold for something big, but again no one is Forcing anyone to participate in events that costs them gold. it is a choice after all. perhaps i don't feel that bad about spending the gold because my char is not needing the gold sept for RP interactions. I may go out on a limb here since i have never been in the greatgaunt or valkurs roar reserves, but don't all those events usely bare fruit in some kind of Dm reward in the end ''a item'' or ''influence'' of some kind. then i would say that the coin is still well spend.
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Post by Southpaw on Jul 22, 2019 4:37:54 GMT -5
To ID10Tango’s point about xp:
To me, the point with xp is that after around 35 years of role playing games, I have it pretty firmly lodged in my brain that xp is supposed to be merit based. You get more for larger accomplishments. So to me, it’s not “all about the xp” in that connotation, but about preserving the merit based nature of xp itself. I honestly feel surviving an entire event like that without dying once as a level 14 character, even after crashing with Mobius within melee range (thank God invisibility potions worked from time to time!) was probably worth about 5,000 xp. Receiving 250 for this but over 1,000 for a trip through an automated dungeon that’s built for you to beat, changes the nature of xp to something that isn’t merit based. I wouldn’t mind getting less xp for lesser challenges if that’s what it took to make it okay to give out more xp for your character’s greatest coup. I’d just like to see bigger accomplishments get more xp than lesser accomplishments so xp remains merit based at all.
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Post by hellscream123 on Jul 22, 2019 4:50:51 GMT -5
Alrighty. As someone whom pretty much tapped out mechanicaly round 1 here's my suggestions reguarding the structure.
Above anything! Split level up more means everyone feels to their level. Understandably this event dictated a level of not doing that. The RP made sense. But when the reserves set up. BLUE a mid/low epic with terrible design. Had the most stats in the party. Our enemies npcs were scaled under theory of forces like the durfs and ironsworn. I turned it into an rp exercise day(thanks for everyone who played along with blue btw. Yhe event started 4am for me and that made a HUGE amount of worth)
Not everyone will do that and newer folk shouldn't be expected to know what us oldies fo about event structure. "Open to all over 10's" means the 11 will be there. Despite there being more fun and sense for him to play the lvl 10 under event. Scale matters and it grounds our characters in what their own scale to the world is. Props to team evil, ya'll did well with a rough set up ((turbo baron aside but as pointed out, hard to represent true entire armies))
To cite the siege itself if each flank got it's own bracket 11-16 17- 21 22-27 27+ or some such. Everyone's numbers would work in it's own field and the pvp would be more fun too, as opposed to high end evil biting a proverbial bullet and wailing on some middle teens. ((Please don't grump them guys they're just trying to have fun too))
Spawn all npcs. Then let the players charge. Because otherwise the AI alpha strikes us one at a time and the numbers game says we loose. When blue finally got his faction working everyone else had died to this so i got shot by a whole army and blue sadly isn't hyper swole mc-unkilla dude. See if the npcs startduking first then the players get to be the heroic great guys pushing through, as opposed to first cannon fodder.
Wild magic is cool. I had fun with it. Moo moo blue made me chuckle. We all signed up for that one, it was the true antagonist for us all. I'd personally turn it off and on as a secret timer so it happens in waves of craziness changing up the battlefield. But i don't know if nwn lets you. Moving on.
Hit the pause button more to deal with hiccups please? Lets everyone breathe and assess. Doesn't drain spell timers. Keeps everything IC. We're adults who can wait the real life time. We even already did. But every character suffered for it.
These are suggestions of course of hindsight. The event was memorable and im going to be riding it's rp for ages to come. What salt i had in play was mostly because i stayed up super late to headbutt a wall for a while. But my choice my fault. Events be hard and blue doesn't mesh with him. Cie est la vi.
Thank you to hawk, muse and Unknown for what you did manage to pull off. It was a truely horrific siege with even greater repercussions. Just needs more tuning.
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emonom
Proven Member
"Truly free are those that fly with their own wings."
Posts: 154
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Post by emonom on Jul 22, 2019 5:17:06 GMT -5
Speaking for all I felt the event was great. Knowing the event was dealing with roughly 45 people. I mean imagine from table top perspective you have to always put yourself in that mind frame with events like this. huge. Sure the Npc's were op. But I know they were meant for upper class men and to give -them- a challenge aka talking about 25+ lvl wise. But for the first time I got to run with PC's I never could due to mechanic wise (xp scaling) some for the First time! So the Rp was already there for me. The -only- issue is yeah the XP for a battle that decides over four factions for the entire server that ushering us into our 4th edition so to speak...was kinda a let down since most did use like 5+ raise scrolls but again due to mechanic failure of the wild magic so it's to be expected. And I think everyone miss judge supplies to low for that mechanic lol I know I did. PLus I mean come on 5+ hour event *nudge* give us a little more love <3
So thank you Hawk, thank you Unknown, thank you Muse! all great DM effort.
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Post by magiuss on Jul 22, 2019 5:49:43 GMT -5
I like the idea if it had been possible to make Surges of wild magic, and not constantly wild magic but again.. speaking as a wizard who threw 40 spells and maby 10 of them got through intented. It Feels like team Marister is saying they had no NPCs, that is a wrong impression, there was alot of Valkurs roar guardsmen, and they were as dangerous as the Matthias side. they hurt like mofo atleast. Granted, on the Exp, but i think it's a generel decision from the Dm's side that Exp is reduced with events as it was aswell with all the dungeons getting exp nerfs. I always see it like this.. when a DM throws a Exp bonus at you be happy its 250 kobolds
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