General announcement on in game time compression change

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shad0wfax
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Re: General announcement on in game time compression change

Post by shad0wfax »

HEEGZ wrote:So, going back to the 7 minute hour? Sure! I've never liked this change to be honest. How about a new thread with a poll?

The reason for my initial post is that a single player stated that small groups of players who are adventuring together run low on hit points, run out of magic, can no longer heal, and then log off early stating that because they can't rest, there's nothing left to do without a DM online. The player expressed a desire for a solution that enables the entire group to keep adventuring, which will in theory keep the players who log off interested in continuing to play.

We're talking about two things here:
  • 1) grinding monsters when no DM is online
  • 2) Resting more often (or getting more healing from external sources) to keep grinding.
Regarding HP regain from resting, we have a pseudo-PnPized HP regain rest system, so the effect is relatively marginal for any class without healing ability. Therefore, what we're really talking about is "let players have spells available more often."

To address the magic aspect:

One problem with < 10 min : 1 hr time scale compression is that it makes min/level, 10 min/level, hour/level and persistent (or 24 hour) spells devalued in terms of duration. These spells are typically balanced to have less of a marked effect on character damage output/defensive ability but a longer duration compared to a spell of similar level. The round/level spells tend to be the higher damage output/defensive ability spells compared to spells of a similar level and their inherent balance is that they are short duration (or that they take metamagic feats and higher spell slots to use effectively over long term.)

This is why we moved away from 7 min : 1 hr and to the 13 min : 1 hr currently in place.

The move from 7 min : 1 hr to 13 min : 1 hr was well-received and the data suggest that it had several benefits that were not readily apparent during initial discussion, as Zelknolf pointed out. However, increasing it beyond 13 min : 1 hr may be problematic in terms of player perspective. To illustrate this, with 60 min : 1 hr (true 1:1) compression, balance would be ideal in terms of spell balance and d20 system compliance; it's also terrible from a player perspective because players in certain time zones would always do all of their adventuring at the same time of the day (or night) and rest cycles would be ridiculously far apart given our amount of time spent online.

Therefore, some amount of compression, greater than 10 min : 1 hr but less than 60 min : 1 hr is good. We're at 13 min : 1 hr and that's probably the best compromise.

This doesn't solve the problem of health recovery for adventuring in shorter non-DMd play periods for players who want to grind on monsters.

I think that a better way to handle this is to make consumable healing/buff items less costly, to increase the incidence of consumable healing/buff item drops, and/or to make these sorts of items more available to players. This will require effort on the part of the HDMs and builders. I'm willing to address this from a Standards perspective and also willing to address this from a BG HDM perspective, provided that we have support from other HDMs (or builders) to address it there.

To address grinding itself:
We have to determine what the players want and if that fits what we want to do for ALFA from a HDM/Administrative perspective.
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Re: General announcement on in game time compression change

Post by Zelknolf »

shad0wfax wrote:I think that a better way to handle this is to make consumable healing/buff items less costly, to increase the incidence of consumable healing/buff item drops, and/or to make these sorts of items more available to players. This will require effort on the part of the HDMs and builders. I'm willing to address this from a Standards perspective and also willing to address this from a BG HDM perspective, provided that we have support from other HDMs (or builders) to address it there.
Consumable pricing and loot gen are both ACR, and we pushed that to correctly price multiple-charge consumables and to prevent the existing pattern of people grinding their wealth to significantly higher than the cutoff, respectively -- so a solution would be tech, not build.
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Re: General announcement on in game time compression change

Post by HEEGZ »

I also like the idea of allowing rest more frequently. I don't struggle with these issues generally though.
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Re: General announcement on in game time compression change

Post by Galadorn »

Can someone enlighten us on where all these monster farming PGing areas are please? LOL :P
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Re: General announcement on in game time compression change

Post by Zelknolf »

Galadorn wrote:Can someone enlighten us on where all these monster farming PGing areas are please? LOL :P
Largely through forboding-looking area transitions.

If you're bold to the point of questionable sanity, have a character in the high teens for level, or just don't mind having a trail of dead characters through which you learn our servers, you'll find them.
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Re: General announcement on in game time compression change

Post by Arianna »

Galadorn wrote:Can someone enlighten us on where all these monster farming PGing areas are please? LOL :P
I think I have a dungeon full of demons and undead somewhere
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Re: General announcement on in game time compression change

Post by causk »

how about fiddling with the rest timer instead? If you log in and its not immediately on cooldown that would help already and if you shorten it to something like 12 ig hours adventuring for a longer session would be possible and still not easily abused like a rest area without cooldown.
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Re: General announcement on in game time compression change

Post by oldgrayrogue »

I brought this up to SF when we were both IG. I asked if we could shorten the rest timer as Causk suggests, not change the time compression. I suggested PCs should be able to rest every 8 IG hours instead of every 24 IG hours. What this accomplishes is letting PCs rest (and regain some HP, spells and recharge magic healing like rings) every 1.7 RL hours instead of every 5.2 RL hours. (assuming my math is correct) I really don't ever have the time anymore to play over 5 hours straight. But I may be able to get 3-4 hours in and it would be nice to be able to rest and keep playing rather than log off because it would be suicide to continue adventuring without the ability to heal damage. I think changing the time compression opens a can of worms. I would prefer we just change the rest timer. Instead of 24 IG hours make it 8.

Also, this is not about "grinding monsters." Its about grouping up with other players without a DM and adventuring. Mostly what we have been doing is statics together which is the entire idea behind the statics --Something for players to do together and RP around when no DM is on, which nowadays seems to be most of the time. Most of the statics have a combat element to them, except for the very beginning fed ex type and the mail runs which are frankly just too boring.

With less DMage going on there is simply no way for players to earn enough gold to afford consumables at current pricing levels. I thought adjusting the timer might be an easy fix that would allow folks to stay logged in longer and adventuring rather than decide to log out because all of your magical healing is exhausted. I have noticed anecdotally that people seem to log on more when they see other players on -- I know I do. This could help that as well.

Not trying to give more work to anyone or stir up and controversy. Just a suggestion. And I have never played a pure caster in ALFA except a Pally or a Ranger so its not about that.
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Re: General announcement on in game time compression change

Post by Zelknolf »

Eh... consumable pricing would probably be the balance disruption going in the direction we'd like (that is, cheap potions benefits everyone, but favors martial and skilled classes; more-frequent resting benefits everyone, but favors primary spellcasters), and we've had the evidence that PnP pricing on consumables doesn't work for ALFA for quite some time (our successful characters are the ones who sell their potions to buy spellcasting clickies).
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Re: General announcement on in game time compression change

Post by shad0wfax »

HEEGZ wrote:I also like the idea of allowing rest more frequently. I don't struggle with these issues generally though.
causk wrote:how about fiddling with the rest timer instead? If you log in and its not immediately on cooldown that would help already and if you shorten it to something like 12 ig hours adventuring for a longer session would be possible and still not easily abused like a rest area without cooldown.
oldgrayrogue wrote:[...]I asked if we could shorten the rest timer as Causk suggests, not change the time compression. I suggested PCs should be able to rest every 8 IG hours instead of every 24 IG hours.[...]
My post was either not read or it was disregarded.I laid out the reasons why we will not deviate from a 24 hour rest cycle:
  • It requires a Charter/Pillars amendment, which is:
    • Not within my exclusive authority
    • Doesn't have unilateral administrative support
    • violates D&D 3.5 Edition (and from 1st Edition through 5th Edition)
  • further imbalances ALFA by:
    • further empowering casters
    • widening the disparity between casters and non-casters to the detriment of non-casters
  • has very marginal impact on health regeneration and the commonly purchases limited use/day heal items
I examined time compression changes for a point of discussion and to be thorough.

This is on the right track:
oldgrayrogue wrote:[...] letting PCs rest (and regain some HP, spells and recharge magic healing like rings)
However, I'll edit the statement in a way that doesn't imbalance casters, and instead accomplishes your goals while simultaneously encouraging you to spend the gold that you earn adventuring on reduced cost sinfle use items:
Let PCs recover health more often via single use items, by making single use items cost less to buy and to craft and simultaneously making simgle use items drop more often as treasure.
This accomplishes your goal of more adventuring and does not further imbalabce ALFA; it actually encourages use of currently underused resources, like potions.

For the reasons reiterated in a concise manner above, I am not changing the rest timer by seeking a Pillars/Charter amendment.

Consumable pricing is the only solution that I support at this time.
Further discussion here:


http://www.alandfaraway.info/phpBB3/vie ... 11&t=51945
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Re: General announcement on in game time compression change

Post by causk »

I still dont seewhere you pointed all that out in your earlier post shadowfax.

But regardless: what about changing the cooldown when you first log in? Currently you log in and are rested so you can only rest again 24 ig hours later. This is particularily annoying for studied spellcasters who arent certain about their spell selection yet. And it is something that was not implemented this way when i first started playing here, so charter issues shouldnt be a deciding factor.

As to balancing casters vs noncasters: I think that ship sailed ages ago. As a pw we have no way to recreate the 4-6 cr equivalent encounters per resting cycle outside dming. Thus for short adventuring days casters will always have more resources to throw at a problem then dnd design intended. Furthermore I think the buff/meele caster is actually what is most favored by our current rules. Blasters are always dependant upon a group to protect them and due to our monster max hp they do relatively less damage. Buffcasters can stretch whatever gold they get even further by buying only items that produce boni they cant cast themselves and eventually get to high enough protective levels that fighting encounters only drains negible amounts of resources.
I dont really see how we can balance that without rewriting alot of the spells to deviate from pnp(pillars so no go, doubt we have the builders either), introducing some sort of realistic traveltime that takes buffs off(doubt well have volunteers to actually do that) or adding alot of affordable non-caster-only magical items(pillars again).

As for consumables, im all for relaxing prices. My gutlevel suggests 1/5 on everything and dont change cost on single use per day items(they are probably still worth it).
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Re: General announcement on in game time compression change

Post by Zelknolf »

Probably of note that we don't have any granular control over the cooldown specific to auto-resting from login; there used to be none and now there's the same cooldown we use everywhere. We could try to acquire that granular control, but such shenanigans are either labor intensive (rewriting how we calculate rest cooldowns) or a good way to acquire unexpected behaviors (spoofing how we set timestamps).

I'm also not sure about the logic of saying that we can't have perfect balance so we shouldn't care about making it worse. Presumably, "the best we can muster with the resources we have" is always the target.
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Re: General announcement on in game time compression change

Post by oldgrayrogue »

If cheaper healing pots and other items, and more frequent drops, are the best we can do I will take it and say thank you very, very much. I don't see the need for a charter change on the timer as I think there are other areas where we probably don't comply with 3.5 due to game limitations, and as Causk said, it didn't used to be this way for years. I thought changing the timer would be the least amount of work for the greatest returns, but I will absolutely defer to those in the know. Thanks again for considering my suggestion and alternate solutions.
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Re: General announcement on in game time compression change

Post by Veilan »

I am unsure I understand the initial premise correctly; dumbed down to the extreme what I am receiving is "people should be more powerful to tackle more static content as they please". The heart of the argument as I understand seems to be one of power, or rather a complaint about the lack thereof: Resting more often simply means more power. If this is the case, I am not certain I find it desirable. The fact that in ALFA you cannot open the group finder and queue up for the next dungeon is one of its draws for me, and I think roleplaying with limitations one one's combat-readiness can be rewarding - if a game night ends when people run out of spells to crawl through a dungeon, I am reluctant to find the fault with the dungeon or the availability of spells first. Husbanding resources, retreating, regrouping, discussing new tactics for the next approach, or even having intra-party roleplay conflicts about the merits of continuing or not seem, to me, part of the simulation of a challenging game world. After all, the game ends temporarily when you run out of hit points and have to come up with a new character, too. Though, then again, I do think that in one reasonable-length session resting once should be possible and part of the game; if current timers make that impossible, it could be beneficial to say "once in 24 hours, available from login" rather than "24 hours after login".

Of course, I might be misreading the problem entirely, and be mistaken about the motivation behind the request. In general I would rather find a solution in a different way, such as Zelk's suggestion about content, making it attractive to do other activities than back-to-back dungeoneering sans DM, or at the least have a choice of finding a dungeon that can be tackled without frequent rests. Of course, the direction of consumable pricing seems promising too, and I am not trying to restart the rest discussion - simply seeing if I understood the initial intention correctly at all or missed the topic.

But anyway, my main reason for chiming in is the argument that we cannot alter spells or our game because of a DnD pillar. Clearly, DnD itself evolves - the current edition is the 5th, so following that argument to its extreme conclusion, we would better find a platform that offers that. The pillar says:
D&D
ALFA uses Dungeons & Dragons ("D&D").
We use DnD, which defines the platform - we cannot change to Shadowrun rules. But using something is different from slavishly adhering to that thing. There is nothing in the pillars speaking against making rule iterations of our own to come to the DnD "edition" most suitable for our weird game trying to emulate a PnP feel in a CRPG. ALFA's benefit and the conducibility to our game experience & balance beats the definition of a specific spell in some specific edition any day. Or even simpler: DnD clearly supports DM arbitration and house rules. We are free to make use of those abilities, along the lines of Zelk's apt statement of "the best we can muster with the resources we have". DnD is a common denominator, a starting point - not the end-all killer-argument and stopping point to curb improvement.

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Re: General announcement on in game time compression change

Post by oldgrayrogue »

So grinding was not and is not the motivation, and the lecture on roleplay is a little condescending. Veilen, the reality is that in the current environment of ALFA, if you are not playing alone or in a pre-scheduled session, you might have 1 or 2 other players (if you are lucky) to group up and go adventure with. Without regular DM coverage -- which in my experience rewarded PCs so that they could have a reasonable possibility of surviving encounters -- you simply cannot earn enough wealth to equip yourself to survive anything but tavern RP. Many of us have always enjoyed the adventuring RP style of D&D. The suggestion was to 1) make that possible without regular DMage and 2) allow people to continue playing rather than deciding to log off because survival is no longer possible. The idea is to get more people logged on and playing which I think is desirable. You also should come to terms with the reality that ALFA was designed for balanced group play in most of its adventuring areas. Those balanced groups simply do not exist at present most of the time. If you are OK with most of the content being off limits to players who actually still want to enjoy the ALFA experience regularly then don't change anything. If ALFA is going to adhere to that paradigm, then we should officially become a "campaign only" PW and focus our energies on recruiting existing members to DM regular campaign only sessions of scheduled game play which is more in line with the PW design.
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