sparky
Chesterfields
Wishing Well Repair Man
Posts: 243
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Post by sparky on Jul 8, 2018 20:28:29 GMT -5
As you can tell, this is a bit of a meandering rant. When I've had more sleep, and some time to think, I'll come back and put something up top here,to sum up everything below. Thanks for your patience, and for bearing with me.
Let me start this off by saying the things I've enjoyed about this server, and what's made me stick around for so long. I LOVE the world of Engines of Ascension. I love the setting, the feel of the world, the themes, the darkness of it, and the rare times when there's a little goofiness to the world. I love the idea of exploring a world in the midst of its industrial revolution, the tensions (both racial, religious, and political) are high, and gangs take advantage of a broken system to make a quick buck. I like the idea of gun-toting characters passing characters looking like they just walked out of the medieval age on the streets. I love the way technology is treated in this setting, I think they're creative and could be fun to toy around with, and they fit the world fantastically. The community, by the vast majority, has been great! The DM's are great storytellers, and they've greatly helped to make the world feel alive in the past. The players have been fun to RP with, and are usually happy to help out new players with getting acquainted with the system the server uses. However, both DM's and players have been few in number, and I think it's quite related to what I don't like about the server.
What I HATE about the server is the system. Not the levelling system, I'm still rather a fan of that, on paper. No, I hate the combat system. Now, I understand that this isn't Engines of Ascension specific, since EoA's system is base NWN 2's combat system but heavily modified, but it's been a long time since I've engaged in the combat of EoA and had an experience that didn't leave me wondering why I even bother hopping on. There's not even anything specific I can point to as being the main issue, aside from the ways I've had the random number generator work out for me. Seriously, I've had combats where I should've at least been landing a hit or two here and there, if not far more reliably, and not landed a single blow or shot. In that same vein, I've also had combats where the enemies should be having great difficulty landing blows or breaking through armour on me, and yet are landing decent hits almost every single swing. It's infuriatingly frustrating, and there's nothing in particular that I can point to to say "change this, and everything is fixed." I wish there was, so I could point it out and hopefully enjoy this server again. And honestly, I don't find it as bad at earlier levels, but it gets quite egregious later on, as more and more often, it feels like the RNG intentionally screws you over while enemies are hitting you far easier and it's much harder to hit and deal damage to them. Now, I'm saying all of this as someone who primarily plays a light armour stealth gunner, which will either play fantastically or horribly, depending on each die roll, so this may- no, this has a huge role in why I'm so burnt out on this system. Going with light armour, the idea is to not get hit in the first place, though in my experience, light armour is almost useless in that role. Now, I do know that there is a light armour tank that has played here, and I think they still do, when they can find the time, so I know it is possible. But from what I've understood, it still requires you using materials to basically turn your light armour into medium armour that can use light armour feats. If the player I'm talking about sees this and feels I'm misrepresenting the situation, please do correct me. However, many of the people who have left and spoken to me about why they were leaving have echoed many of the same points I've brought up about the combat system. It just isn't nearly rewarding enough for the vast difficulty, and one of the armour skills feels almost completely useless to even look at.
Look, I can't offer any solutions to what I've brought up, other than that the combat system needs changes. I don't know nearly enough about doing anything in the toolset, or coding, in general, to be able to offer anything else. But I do know that it's driven players away, leading to the state that the server's in now. Those players who have stayed have stayed because of the other people they have RP'd with, the world, and the stories told by the DM's. I know that's why I stuck around for so long, and I think it's safe to assume that the majority of those still playing share at least one of those reasons for sticking around. I can't speak for Fuzz, but I can guess that not many people being around to DM for makes it quite difficult to get motivated to get on when he manages to find free time in his busy schedule. And that's not to disparage or blame or discredit him. When players aren't around, it's hard for people to want to get on to play the game. And if there's no one on, why bother? The combat system is incredibly punishing, and this affects pretty much every level of the server. And it has me completely burnt out. To the point that I just can't find it in me to care about the storytelling anymore. I find the RP bittersweet because I know that I'm eventually just going to have to get into the combat again. And while I love hanging out with people on here, every time I've logged in for quite a while now, whether it be for an event, or for a dungeon run, I find myself asking "Why am I even here? Games are supposed to be fun. I'm not having fun, so why am I playing?" And what broke the camel's back for me was getting dicked around in a fight during an event where I should've at least been able to do something, but each chance I had would be a few seconds too little to actually do anything but pick myself back up and move. I don't blame Psionic Entity at all for this, though, since I've been playing long enough to know that's simply how the RNG works. He's done his best to run some fun events, and I will totally give him props for that. Most of his events have been fun and helped make me think I could stick things out a little longer. But that last fight I got into typified my experience with combat in general- I'm unable to actually do anything, so why am I even here? And since I cannot find an answer that is satisfactory to me, I'm moving on.
I would like to thank the community for the fun RP, it's been some of the best I've ever had the chance to be involved with, and for being some pretty cool people in general. I'd like to thank the DMs Fuzz, YMD, and Psionic Entity for running some awesome events, you've each done a lot to make the world of EoA feel alive. And I'd like to further thank the staff for making some awesome areas and lore, and for making a game setting that I adore. If things change, if the combat system gets an overhaul, I might come back to take another look, maybe even start playing regularly again. But as things stand... I'm just done. However, if anyone else is thinking about leaving, I'd ask that you at least post your reasons why here, and your observations about the problems that are leading you to leave. As a friend of mine has said many a time, problems can't be fixed if they aren't brought up.
Thank you all for the good times, and thanks for reading
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Post by Lugwy on Jul 9, 2018 10:20:04 GMT -5
Unless someone else has been doing it, I'm assuming Sparky is referring to me being the Light Armor tank.
For correction I haven't focused on Armor at all. I'm a dodge tank. And I can say from experience that dodge tanking is about as effective as a heavier tank solo (if better/worse in certain areas) and a whole lot less effective in groups bigger than 2, and the main reason it's even possible for me to solo/duo at all is due to me (and my buddy) having a solid crafting network and the funds to keep gear up-to-date and pulling every trick in the book to make encounters manageable.
I do agree with Sparky to some extent that the NWN2 client the PW is built on doesn't do this place any favours. Which is a shame because I like the setting, the novel method of progression, and the custom mechanics. It's a spin on things and I really liked it when it worked, but when it doesn't or I have to basically exploit mechanics to get something to work, it makes the flaws of the system very much clear. Engines is a very rough gem embedded in a pile of poop and I want to see how well it would work when given the ability to operate without NWN2's constraints.
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fen
Chesterfields
Morbo finds steampunk quaint
Posts: 56
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Post by fen on Jul 9, 2018 15:19:00 GMT -5
I'm going to open this with A: I'm not leaving (not that I'm super active anyway), B: I agree with Lugwy and Sparky, and C: i don't fault any players or staff with anything. A lot of work has been put in story and mechanics wise, and I will not besmirch that. I am fond of the story and setting, I generally love the mechanics more than stock NWN2. Finally, I'm not going to speak for other people. Just myself.
That all being said, as I've told a few people, the only thing really keeping me here is the community, and in particular the folks I actively schedule time with to hang out with in game. Part of this is necessity. I play a shooty support/scouty type in light armor (not terribly different from Carter, besides chain-smoking), toting grenades and a gun. No matter what efforts have been made to make that play-type viable, it's just not fun or frankly possible to solo for me (and even with a hench NPC, my track record has been awful). Even with said PC people, it's kind of a slog regardless for the above-stated reasons, which to -some- degree is perhaps by design. What I can say is it does not incentive-ize me to just 'log in'. it doesn't give me incentive to explore the world and fight stuff. It does not give me incentive to immerse myself and just 'play'. Because of community and scheduling, I can mitigate that by making time to make runs and RP. Beyond that, aside from either idling or grinding areas way below me (areas I've hit many times), there isn't much for me to do. Exploring the world isn't much of an option. TL:DR. Despite the setting and the work put into it, there isn't really a 'draw' there for me anymore to log in. Which sucks, because I appreciate the work story and mechanics wise put in.
Do I have an answer to that (well, answers - it's multiple smaller problems)? I want to put on a professor sport-coat and ruminate about the answers, but I'm going to be useless and say 'nope'. a lot of it is just limitations to NWN2, a lack of an overall playerbase (either server-wise or NWN2 as a whole), and some intricacies of the mechanics that had to be sledge-hammered into NWN's base game to make this functional to start with. Would more DM activity help? Mechanics-related tweaks? More to do that isn't just killing stuff for level advancement and phat loot? Probably, but I can't say for certain. Giving the professional academic answer, 'Well, it depends'. In the end, none of us get paid to be here. All any of us get out of this is fun and satisfaction. When that's gone, there's no point.
So long as the server is up, and you people are here, I will keep being around. When I can make it, I enjoy regular scheduled events and will hopefully continue to do so. I'd just like some motivation to log in when (ironically) there may not be people around, outside of those scheduled times. Maybe it'd get more people in, and liven stuff up overall. Or it won't. Either way, life goes on.
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Post by Psionic-Entity on Jul 9, 2018 19:07:01 GMT -5
I'd like to thank you all for posting your thoughts, and encourage other current and former players to do so as well. While it would be great if I could reply saying that I've got a master plan to make combat on engines more fun, the reality is that I don't have nearly enough feedback to do that, so at present it isn't going to happen. It simply isn't possible for me to put in the amount of playtime I'd need to distill these issues in to positive changes, nor is it likely that a handful of posts like these will lead to some larger realization about game design. In short, I'm not going to take shots in the dark trying to address these issues and right now that means not addressing them at all.
That can change, but if it does it won't be a solo effort and it's not something to expect if your plan is to check back in later and see what's different. With a bit of effort I think it might be possible to turn all of the too-vague feedback and lost discord chatter in to a workable change set. I'll outline some things I would find helpful below, but for full disclosure I don't intend to do anything with it until there's enough to make changes big enough to affect the most common complaints. The main thing that makes feedback actionable is that it compares the current state of something in game to an ideal or better state. Not liking something isn't very useful unless you can describe in some way what you would like. Some examples:
- I did X and Y happened, but it would be better if Z happened instead. - Mechanic X is too prevalent because builds like Y are weak against it, or it just isn't fun to have in the game. - If I take skill X I'd want my character to be able to do Y, and the current benefits aren't sufficient. - Encounter X (and ones like it) aren't fun because they're either too difficult or you have to do Y to win. I think you should be able to win with Z instead of Y. - Thing X happens either too quickly or too slowly. - Having the option of investing in a skill/item to do X would make the game more enjoyable. - Skill/item X is required for too many dungeons/encounters, options like Y or Z should be workable as well.
The most important thing is to forget about "developer intent" or "balanced because possible" and just say what outcome you think is ideal. It's also important to give concrete examples, because having a rule like "all dungeons must be possible with these kinds of parties and these playstyles" can't be implemented without those parties actually going in, trying it out, and deciding that it's not workable. With enough comments that roughly follow along with the above I should be able to come up with a changeset that isn't super tough to implement and that brings the system a little closer to what people were hoping to see. Right now we're about 0% of the way there, so I'll need to leave filling in the blanks to you guys. PMs, posting anywhere on the forums, etc. are all fine, public discord messages are useless. If we make any meaningful progress I'll start another post with my own thoughts and we can go from there.
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Post by gazoo on Jul 10, 2018 10:30:36 GMT -5
(Firstly, I'll say that I'm open to any ideas and I'm not defending anything of the current NWN2.)
EoA changes the combat from the base fantasy NWN from high AC, high HP/spells/umd - basically invulnerable at high levels -to a pretty tough zerg experience.
The nature of the Nwn2 engine and AI scripting is limited. Mob fixed location, detection, and scripted AI is pretty limited, when it actually works. AC, dodge, AB and rng have limitations.
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I'm going to suggest that this is more of a PW philosophy issue. I note that peeps take great pride in the RP and perhaps some are feeling that RP should take priority over combat, where combat just adds some more filler to the story - but doesn't have such a significant impact on character development.
If this is indeed the opinion, then perhaps combat needs to be toned down to less damage and more durability. Combats would last longer and would be safer. Some feats would need to be toned down too, as while combat would be safer, the PC should not be one-shotting everything.
Fights might need to be reworked to avoid endless "safe" fight sequences, though. That would get boring (tedious) quite fast.
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Post by Kitsunenotsume on Jul 10, 2018 21:12:33 GMT -5
The issue isn't the RP focus, in my observation. After having run some numbers, I have come to the relatively solid conclusion that Light Armor becomes strictly worse relative to weapons as ranks increase.
With some assistance from Serena, I identified that over 85 ranks, a full kit of Studded Leather Armor gains 8.1 armor. Over those same 85 ranks, the lowest damage progression weapons gain 12 (1 per 10 ranks, plus 1 per 20 ranks with an ability). Over that same duration, assuming the individual invests into Light Armor Defence, they remain just as easy to hit, while melee weapons increase their number of attacks by at least 50%.
This results in a net decrease in survivibility to a lightly armored character, which is backed by the numbers.
I have some thoughts on how to address this disparity, and will be bringing it up in it's own thread.
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Post by guest on Jul 11, 2018 2:07:32 GMT -5
The combat system and lack of players is the reason I quit ages ago as well, and the first is definitely causal to the second. RNG based combat just feels awful. NWN2 was designed for one person to control an entire party of characters, where one getting boned by bad rolls isn't an automatic fail state like it is in online play where we're only controlling one avatar. Forcing party play is impractical because there just aren't enough active players in NWN2 anymore, and Engines suffered early on for this as well... same with the player economy. A good example is back at launch, when most Crowders were too afraid to do anything villainous because the faction had no active crafters or tanks, and being ostracized from the rest of the playerbase would have killed off their ability to progress their skills.
Most servers allow you to get around the ingrained awfulness of NWN2's dice-based combat system by letting players get ahead of the NPC power curve with buffs and whatnot. Even when your AC is so high that NPCs can only hit you on natural 20s, fighting groups can be pretty dicey without spells to mitigate incoming damage. On Engines, though, with the lower AB values relative to AC and the way armor works, it feels like you're perpetually stuck in that awful pre-10 phase of vanilla NWN2 where everything's a whiff-fest and you're always just one really bad enemy roll away from dying and losing all your progress. The D20 is the main determinant of combat prowess, not your character stats or abilities. "Tanking" involved a guy in heavy armor standing in place and chugging potions, hoping his party could kill the NPCs before he maxed out his toxicity and died while puking all over himself. I'm not sure how much it's changed since then, and I don't want to disparage the massive amount of work PE put into the module, but the combat just... did not feel very good at all. I'm not really sure there's a way to fix it while remaining true to what Engines wants to be, though. You're forced to operate within the constraint of a dice-based system and that's responsible for a lot it.
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Post by Kitsunenotsume on Jul 12, 2018 2:57:36 GMT -5
After a rather enjoyable day messing with numbers and spreadsheets and all that fun stuff, I have compiled the following graph, for refferential pleasure, backed by data and a Google-Spreadsheet and tool I would be most willing to share and explain if inquired. I have confirmed that all armors experience an increase in expected damage per round against all weapon types as they progress: In effect, everyone becomes squishier. A few assumptions and simplifications: I am not applying armor or weapons materials or mods, and am only accounting for the Damage and Defense lines of abilities. This might not be 100% realistic, but illustrates trends easily. All armors were run against the statistics for weapons of equal rank at all datapoints. My initial three weapons were Longsword (the bottom set of lines), Claymore (The middle set of lines), and the SMG (the scattering on the upper half). All armors for each weapon-type share the same colours for a given class (so Padded is Pink, Plate is navy blue, etc.). I have since gone through and looked at various other weapons, and most seem to fall into those brackets: one-handed and ranged weapons with RPM 20 and under mostly match the longsword bracket, two-handed weapons match the claymore bracket, and high Rate-of-Fire guns scatter towards (but not as much as) the SMG bracket. I have not yet run the numbers for Dual-Wielding, nor accounted for the ability to Block, but the trends are visible enough for meaningful discussion. The interesting points here are the rates, since against every weapon I have tested, no armor was taking less than two and a half times as much damage per round at rank 100 than rank 0.This is, as noted, a significant diversion from 'traditional' NWN2, and similar RPGs, where you expect to become more durable as ranks increase. Technically, with application of various ability synergies and materials, this can become the case, but it is the exception rather than the rule.The other aspect I noted, which I had suspected before, was that while heavy armor ends up taking a higher ratio of damage late-game compared to early, Light armors (with notable exception against slow, heavy weapons), almost universally take more net damage over that same time. Admittedly, this is not nearly as dramatic as I had expected, but an interesting confirmation on hypothesis. This fails to hold true when elemental damage is brought into the mix, certainly, but simplifications are what they are. My brief analysis with a Tesla SMG resulted in plate armor doubling incoming expected damage while effect on Padded was minimal, for example. It is probably expected that a large counteraction to this is the fact that HP is expected to increase as ranks increase. However, to maintain such a ratio under the limitations of my test at rank 100, players would need to expect to have 250-380 HP to expect to have a combat durability on-par with a starting character. This would require 30-50 stat-boosts worth of investment, which is somewhat impractical if one is also balancing Stamina and Metabolism requirements. [Edit]: I think what it is missing, and that is key to player perception, is hits per round, and average or potential hit strength, since heavy armor has a high hit count at lower damage, while light armor has a lower hit count, but a few in the same round can leave you dead. This is technically true with any armor, since heavy armor can roll a bad armor roll when the opponent rolls high damage, but with light armor offensively is more reliant on 2 rolls being unfavorable (atkRoll, damage), instead of Heavy Armor's 3 or 4 (AtkRoll, damage, armor, possibly block). My raw datapoints for the table: DPR/Longsword 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 Ratio increase Flat increase LS/Padded 7.656428571 8.475 10.125 10.95 12.225 14.75 16.505 16.9825 18.7375 19.615 21.8475 2.853484467 14.19107143 LS/Leather 7.497 8.381 9.793545455 10.302 11.73392308 13.9 15.875 16.4125 17.9375 18.475 20.9875 2.799453115 13.4905 LS/Studded 7.203557692 7.749320513 9.2378 9.7945 11.32735294 14.245 15.99315789 16.6215 18.387 19.01645455 21.945 3.046411362 14.74144231 LS/Bplate 6.850648352 7.38602381 8.84925 9.401647059 10.91233333 13.76605263 15.498 16.125 17.87863636 18.5073913 21.422625 3.127094532 14.57197665 LS/Scale 6.215588235 6.771169591 8.246478947 8.49269697 10.0198913 12.82368 14.64923077 15.34666667 16.7462069 17.448 20.05125 3.225961766 13.83566176 LS/Chain 5.696914141 6.260560606 7.427594444 7.75758547 9.248139771 12.31867241 13.80375907 14.55095455 16.06114286 16.42256757 19.10769231 3.354042528 13.41077817 LS/Partial 5.468909091 6.083679487 6.888762125 7.610830645 8.250393048 12.42323423 13.59194332 14.67375 15.94065909 17.47849734 19.84758588 3.629167271 14.37867679 LS/HScale 5.118696581 5.738431034 6.376947443 7.093261905 7.788809042 11.6780814 12.88521591 13.96979167 15.27885882 16.12632099 18.4773049 3.609767566 13.35860832 LS/Plate 4.835903226 5.452473856 6.129867743 6.67476626 7.576141381 11.53765772 12.55322857 13.57049831 14.63628095 15.50570339 17.85856375 3.69291173 13.02266052 DPR/Claymore Ratio increase Flat increase Cm/Padded 10.125 10.95 13.425 14.25 16.35 19.1375 20.8925 22.2475 24.0025 25.7575 27.99 2.764444444 17.865 Cm/Leather 10.218 11.1395 13.515 14.025 16.405 18.8375 20.8125 22.3375 23.8625 25.3875 27.9 2.730475631 17.682 Cm/Studded 10.11040724 10.67073529 13.23852941 13.80643382 16.43795848 19.95 21.735 23.52 25.305 27.09 30.03 2.970206767 19.91959276 Cm/Bplate 9.701176471 10.25776471 12.79286765 13.35916955 15.97117647 19.4279257 21.21 22.995 24.78 26.565 29.505 3.041383701 19.80382353 Cm/Scale 9.075778547 9.668506192 12.30352941 12.49191176 15.2180179 18.81345882 20.77683258 22.76235294 24.19667343 26.20235294 28.93985294 3.188690953 19.86407439 Cm/Chain 8.452309651 9.069278075 11.33713971 11.60676094 14.36147059 18.41717647 19.98297794 22.08441176 23.66901681 25.25744833 28.21316742 3.337924021 19.76085777 Cm/Partial 8.129612299 8.850904977 10.67950027 11.56014991 13.19739305 19.07848172 20.29914742 23.12164452 24.44815107 28.06639158 30.61058824 3.765319564 22.48097594 Cm/Hscale 7.656674208 8.397711968 9.957987132 10.84685294 12.53921946 18.05931063 19.35784291 22.15013393 23.55829412 26.05624837 28.64754101 3.741512337 20.9908668 Cm/Plate 7.280342505 8.02540107 9.625082583 10.26860823 12.25326949 17.91346738 18.93139412 21.58916226 22.65140336 25.14387288 27.7778463 3.815458721 20.4975038 DPR/SMG Ratio increase Flat increase SMG/Padded 21.385 21.385 26.555 29.14 33.135 35.72 40.89 42.3 47.47 50.055 54.05 2.527472527 32.665 SMG/Leather 20.25188889 20.25188889 24.67042929 26.25831019 30.74 32.33 38.16 39.75 44.255 45.845 50.35 2.486187845 30.09811111 SMG/Studded 18.8333547 17.76555556 22.26157407 23.98616319 28.68633987 30.43598765 35.26888889 37.03069444 41.94931217 43.71661616 48.68853865 2.585229207 29.85518395 SMG/Bplate 17.76555556 16.78877778 21.14986111 22.85575163 27.4504784 29.18861111 33.94138889 35.69656085 40.5565404 42.32038647 47.25189815 2.659747847 29.48634259 SMG/Scale 16.11805556 15.4 19.65425 20.635 25.09673913 26.0392 30.65403846 32.52537037 36.29051724 38.18283333 41.98390625 2.604774882 25.86585069 SMG/Chain 15.0239899 14.45853645 18.01153333 19.20530864 23.55119048 24.73077778 28.52322917 30.44616162 34.33780952 35.48556306 39.41220085 2.623284568 24.38821096 SMG/Partial 14.45853645 14.22088889 16.82064962 19.16378987 21.40669118 24.35551802 27.38456197 30.12949612 33.38535185 37.14645833 39.96997549 2.764455146 25.51143904 SMG/HScale 13.75118708 13.58316667 15.80112098 18.30006614 20.7133547 23.09932155 26.18965741 28.94717102 32.26526961 35.03734755 37.93208333 2.758458823 24.18089625 SMG/Plate 13.16724731 13.17468806 15.52294691 17.57606724 20.53973606 22.94339423 25.67363929 28.64493529 31.53050884 34.34557439 37.37928561 2.838807894 24.2120383
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Post by Kitsunenotsume on Jul 13, 2018 3:00:33 GMT -5
The point I edited in last night seems to be the highly relevant of what I see being one of the main complication factors to the combat on Engines.
Having run the numbers today, I can conclude, as one might expect, that Light armor is inclined to take much fewer, but more more damaging hits. The issue therein occurs when the RNG puts these close together, you can end up with 3 or 4 hits that flatten them. This can happen to heavy armor as well, but tends to be slowed enough that the Heavy armor can respond by stuffing potions up their nose, while Lights don't seem to get that option as often on a bad streak.
While I do not think that the combat on EoA needs to be 'safer' by the raw averages, I think it would be a positive change to see some form of 'streak-protection'. EH suggested earlier today about using batches of pre-rolled array of armor rolls, which could be curated to ensure a consistent spread of defensive armor rolls, but would not help significantly with incoming damage streaks against low-armor. I would be supportive of having a brief percentage Damage Immunity buff that kicks in if over a certain percentage of HP is lost from a single attack, which could be tied either to an Armor passive or generally. I don't think this should last longer than six to eight seconds or so - enough that a mostly healthy character can recognize that their HP just dropped into orange or red and slam potions or panic-buttons as required. The intent here being to reduce the probability that a follow-on hit of similar damage is lethal before the player can actually respond.
Another point I think is relevant is Stat distributions. From what I have seen, there are two general schools regarding how to allocate level-ups. We have solo-ers, who are driven by selective pressure to prioritize HP, as being downed with hirelings leaves combat entirely up to the NPCs. And we have Party-support, who are driven by selective pressure towards Stamina so as to provide ability synergies.
Given that Stat allocations cannot be changed, this effectively locks a player into one play-style or the other unless they expend a significant effort in gaining the level-ups to purchase into the other.
The result is that the Solo-players, in my observation, seem to have HP that roughly aligns with the expected increase in damage-per-round as levels increase, and maintain a consistent durability trend. The drawback, however, is that I rarely see solo-focused characters expending active ability uses, as their abilities and stamina are presumably weighted towards attrition combat.
Party-support charachters, on the other hand, are capable of significant Stamina and ability expenditures when behind another character, which can allow for taking on content above their weight-class when grouped. The drawback that I have observed is that they fold very easily, quickly mitigated in a party due to the availability of revives, but exceedingly difficult to overcome solo or with hirelings. Effectively that the utility of revive effects reduces selective pressure to acquire survivibility, and increases selective pressure to optimize roles.
I can see a couple of possible solutions: - Having the option to maintain two seperate stat-allocations - one for solo, one for party; - or having a progression bonus to at least HP to ensure that HP actually *is* increasing as level increases.
I would honestly support the guaranteed HP progression, because it is an assumption inherent in the system which is not strictly true, and not nearly as great in magnitude as the initial balance calculations seem to suggest should be. This could be based off highest stat, similar to how the other passive defense bonuses work, or a ratio based on current level-ups gained. The only build I see that might be negatively effected here would be one based around Overconfident Taunt - and I highly doubt that it was ever intended to be used by a rank 90+ character with a mere 100 HP.
The flip-side of doing so would be that HP heavy characters would have an opportunity to either literally compete with the mobs we are fighting for HP totals, or to siphon some of those level-ups off into stamina and tox, effectively providing insurance that characters are more likely to be rounded out.
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Post by drunkensolamnic on Jul 13, 2018 9:31:45 GMT -5
One of the suggestions I made a while ago was that boost all character HP by 50HP, or progress HP at 5 per level so a tank would be doubling down for 10HP per level, but still also have the option for stamina or tox. The other idea would be to slide the ratio of HP restoration up for First Aid and/or Healing potions. Of course every one of these changes ups the survivability of solo play for already strong characters; but if we want to be able to retain and keep characters that fill a variety of areas/roles we may just have to accept that over-optimized approaches may have a significantly easier time the same as in base NWN.
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Post by drunkensolamnic on Jul 13, 2018 10:55:32 GMT -5
Sorry I realized I posted above with my thoughts half-finished.
I do realize that +5HP a level as a base is far too much, but if we added an HP boost to the current boosts gained every 20 ranks with the highest skill that may be a good solution. If its +25HP every 20 ranks, I feel like that would be a reasonable balance which might actually address the armor issue without needing to tweak those systems as much as it makes taking damage more forgiving in scale. +125hp at level 100 gives you the ability to eat a crit and keep swinging essentially, which is a game changer for countering "a few really bad rolls happening together"; but at the same time doesn't make creatures spawned in groups that do 70 damage a swing less scary, as its just 2 rounds more of HP if you aren't devoted to your own defense.
In reflection, many of the most successful melee characters we've had have focused first on HP with minor investments in stamina and toxicity. This has also lead to past issues with the idea that two-weapon fighting might be under-powered as you just could not argue raw numbers of stamina investment/use vs having more raw HP.
I know for myself I had to hit 200HP before I could really invest heavily in stamina because it was only as I reached that level in conjuction with my partial plate and block style that I hit the resilience where I could stay alive to do things like fire off a stamina bar worth of power attacks and other maneuvers.
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bel
Just Wandered In
Posts: 11
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Post by bel on Jul 13, 2018 10:59:20 GMT -5
When I came back to the server, I could see that the character I intended was going to need a high stamina to maintain a skirmishing and support role. Armour, pet, reloading, grenades, healing and maybe dare an occasional attack ability. This changed slowly though, having to invest more and more in Hit Points to mitigate spells of bad luck, either chains of multiple criticals or individual ones for over 120 damage that killed my badger in one blow. As was said above, this need is exacerbated when having only one player controlled member in a party. Metabolism remains ignored, for me at least. So long as I have enough to cover the long term potions that will reserve a portion of it, and so long as I have enough spare to take one healing potion, I can't see a purpose to taking more of it. Given the additional toxicity to cover a second potion is higher than the Hit Points restored by it, I may as well just invest in more Hit Points instead. This was actully one of the reasons I quit my last character; I had invested in metabolism, found it to be not quite what I expected and then discovered I could not reassign it into Hit Points instead.
Being given some option to reassign these stats would be good, and not just for mistakes but also for when the server mechanics of abilities are changed and alter the need for one stat over another. Being able to shift just 5 points a month from one stat to another would open a useful path.
On the original question of higher level survivability, I can't comment yet, nor on the subject of dice being evil. I'd agree that light armour needs a boost besides the issue of stats. As for player count, which is probably the largest factor of bringing in new and old players, I can say I'll be on EU evenings and weekends from August to give party support to any who want.
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Post by Kitsunenotsume on Jul 13, 2018 12:24:30 GMT -5
I do realize that +5HP a level as a base is far too much, but if we added an HP boost to the current boosts gained every 20 ranks with the highest skill that may be a good solution. If its +25HP every 20 ranks, I feel like that would be a reasonable balance which might actually address the armor issue without needing to tweak those systems as much as it makes taking damage more forgiving in scale. +125hp at level 100 gives you the ability to eat a crit and keep swinging essentially, which is a game changer for countering "a few really bad rolls happening together"; but at the same time doesn't make creatures spawned in groups that do 70 damage a swing less scary, as its just 2 rounds more of HP if you aren't devoted to your own defense. I was actually thinking a slower but nonzero progression, along the lines of: 1 hp per level up, Or 5 hp per 4/5 level ups, Or 5-10 hp per 20 ranks in highest skill. These would result in a gain of 50-70 HP over 100 ranks, which is still less than the increase in damage over the same time, but means that it is then a charachter option to focus fully on HP to surpass DPR increases, or to focus on Stamina and tox with the added benefit of reduced likelyhood of a round-one death.
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Post by gazoo on Jul 13, 2018 13:01:12 GMT -5
Bel brings up a couple of good points. And I essentially came to a similar conclusion.
When I started, I realized that since HP/Stam/Tox could not be changed and this changed the way I got to know the game. To understand the impact of these there are 3 choices: 1. play a lot of characters with emphasis on each one 2. slowly add a bit to allow your playstyle/character to function 3. get advice from experienced players.
When I joined, there were not too many players up past the 50 mark and changes were happening...so 1 and 3 were not too practical.
Effectively I tweaked HP/Stam/Tox as needed to get through stuff. For my play style, each time HP was the obvious QoL choice. For a while I saved levels and only cashed them in when dire need for the extra HP/stam/tox. After a certain amount of play I felt comfortable enough to know exactly where to apply the remainder.
Hp is pretty important for the QoL just due to the nature of RNG inherent to the system.
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Post by Psionic-Entity on Jul 13, 2018 13:44:43 GMT -5
I can add something to the UI that allows limited mobility in the stat upgrades. The code already exists.
I do not like singling out HP to get regular increases, but I could see having all 3 increase by 5 at some intervals, maybe every 10 levels. This would probably require some rebalancing in stamina and toxicity costs, however.
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