General announcement on in game time compression change

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Zelknolf
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Re: General announcement on in game time compression change

Post by Zelknolf »

Veilan wrote: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".
Many things in your post there, and they'd make sense from this starting assumption, but I think the starting assumption is a straw man, and the actual situation is more of "we're smart people who can't, with the characters we enjoy playing, marshal resources in a way that gets a satisfying play session out of our logins." Presumably, if it was just about tackling static content, they'd just roll clerics and pick Trickery domain and some other domain with good buffs in it.

I find my odd opportunity to harp on consumable pricing from time to time (including now) because of one weird way that we deviate from PnP by adhering to one of its rules, which is that it's optimal to sell your consumables to buy clickies. This has some arguably-negative influence on the tone of the game, and I think that this makes it difficult for some to effectively marshal resources to get a fair-duration play session out, particularly a problem for those who don't gish their way to glory. Cheaper/more common consumables would presumably have a point at which it's smarter to drink than to sell, and that's probably the point we want for the game/format we're trying to play. Ideally would give us more overlap between "enjoyable characters" and "playable characters."
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Re: General announcement on in game time compression change

Post by Galadorn »

Never DM'd on ALFA in 13 years, played a Fighter to 12, a Druid to 13. One with no healing spells or abilities, and one with huge healing/curing/regenerative abilities respectively. Both solo'd 75% of their entire lives.

Any potions of healing ever gained above cure light wounds are saved and sold. It just makes no economical sense to waste them and it's worth the risk to fight wounded or to run from a dangerous fight to be able to sell them later.

Reducing their sell value would also increase PC survivability tenfold since not caring about using them would mean not selling, using them more, and thus surviving more to fight another day.

Since the dawn of time 50gp for CLW potion??? Is the craziest expensive cost ever for its worth. Yea yea i know I know "it can save your life or the life of another PC"... Fine we all have a few of them.
But 1500 for a CCW? Really? I wonder has any PC in the history of ALFA ever bought a CCW wounds potion from a vendor? I'd be shocked to hear anyone admit it. Even CSW at 750gp. No way.
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Re: General announcement on in game time compression change

Post by Veilan »

oldgrayrogue wrote: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.
Zelknolf wrote:"we're smart people who can't, with the characters we enjoy playing, marshal resources in a way that gets a satisfying play session out of our logins."
Thank you both for clarifying - that is certainly a motivation I can get behind, and I am glad I asked rather than having assumed the intention was as I first interpreted it.

I enjoy adventuring as much as the next person, and think all the other "fluff" you can do in ALFA is not really worthwhile without adventure as the main ingredient.

Still, at the heart of it, the initial suggestion was about increasing power, and it still is. This is not a dig, just an acknowledgement and an explanation of my reluctance with the topic. I am probably a cynical person, but I also had this slight uneasiness about the way of presentation, which to me, before the clarification, had this aftertaste of "well, if we can't grind a dungeon as long as we want, we'll just log out" - which I am now aware it was not intended as. I imagine we are on the same side anyway - a proper balance between the ability to have challenging adventures, while not making adventure a trivial or 100% playtime endeavour. Where our rules impact this ability negatively, and people feel they cannot tackle the content we have despite being more or less matched for it, I am quite in support of easing things up a trifle. I neither want a game that has tavern rp only, nor do I want a game that revolves around going from killing spree to killing spree hitting the rest button on the way without ever being checked and having to take a break to rethink tactics, re-stock, and perhaps recruit help (ideally - I know that's not always possible today anymore).

Frustratingly, what I cannot get out of my mind as the ideal solution still would be: more people, and more DMs, but I accept that the reality does not currently support this.

Obviously that now means to identify the best realistic angle of approach - rest cycles, lower consumable prices, more diverse content etc..
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Re: General announcement on in game time compression change

Post by Veilan »

Galadorn wrote:Since the dawn of time 50gp for CLW potion??? Is the craziest expensive cost ever for its worth. Yea yea i know I know "it can save your life or the life of another PC"... Fine we all have a few of them.
But 1500 for a CCW? Really? I wonder has any PC in the history of ALFA ever bought a CCW wounds potion from a vendor? I'd be shocked to hear anyone admit it. Even CSW at 750gp. No way.
You're absolutely right, the prices for potions that are worthwhile in combat are prohibitive. So far I usually kept them if I found them though - but that is likely just legacy behaviour from when you could not custom-order or self-craft your hot-swapping x/day healing items in ALFA. Selling consumables for custom-tailored "clickies" is certainly the better economic proposition (and would benefit from shorter rest cycles, too).
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Re: General announcement on in game time compression change

Post by Zelknolf »

Yes, to be clear-- the suggestion I'm advocating for is to buff the lagging classes, not to nerf the leading classes. We've already hit clerics with the nerf bat a few times, but they just won't go down.

Well.

They won't stop being the most powerful.


Unfortunately, I don't have good information about how PCs of X level compare to creatures of X CR, which would be the better way to decide between nerfing or buffing to bring people closer to target. Complaints in the opposite indication of the current CR trending would indicate a content problem (or a finding content problem) instead of a mechanics problem. But I'd also do a lot of things better if I had perfect information, and I'm definitely guessing at least a little bit here.
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Re: General announcement on in game time compression change

Post by Heero »

I give the Heero Stamp Of Approval (tm) to the idea of reducing consumable costs.

Why didnt we think of this a long while ago? Kudos to you (not anyone in particular, just you in the general sense...to everyone, I suppose).
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oldgrayrogue
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Re: General announcement on in game time compression change

Post by oldgrayrogue »

Just wondering if this is actually being implemented?
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Re: General announcement on in game time compression change

Post by Zelknolf »

Yes.

But two weeks is awful quick to expect development to be released.
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Re: General announcement on in game time compression change

Post by oldgrayrogue »

No expectations, just wondering if a decision had been made. thanks.
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Re: General announcement on in game time compression change

Post by oldgrayrogue »

The change in consumable pricing appears to be IN on BG! Thanks to everyone who made it happen!
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Galadorn
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Re: General announcement on in game time compression change

Post by Galadorn »

Yes! Super thank you!

50% of magic items too? ...that's for discussion next committee meeting....
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Re: General announcement on in game time compression change

Post by Zelknolf »

Cutting all magic items so that they have the same proportions as before would defeat the purpose of the change; people would go back to selling potions instead of going on adventures while relying on them.

Also, holiday bump is already over, and it keeps solidly on the pattern of being shorter and smaller than the previous year's (by a wider margin than I'd predicted, again). We're back to not really having enough players to justify development.
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Re: General announcement on in game time compression change

Post by Galadorn »

And just curious about the OP, any changes going to occur, or are any changes even still being discussed about any change in the time compression thingy?
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Re: General announcement on in game time compression change

Post by Zelknolf »

No, time compression is not going to change again.
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