No statics for solos, and a rant

[indio]

I've got a set of statics I'm working on for Skullport that could easily be used in TSM. The answer, as usual, is more statics. I wrote the RM statics to get PCs to Lv2 without unreasonable risk. There used to be 6 or so more statics for RM, but they didn't survive the transition to the ALFA quest system because I couldn't make them work reliably, and was running out of gas.

Now that makes sense to me, because with any PC I rolled up to test on Rivermoot in the early days, I always made Lv2 within a few hours of play. They wouldn't get you to Lv3, but they'd get you started.

So I can write more quests, or someone else can. Less complaints would be good, because they're a genuine downer on everyone.

[JaydeMoon]

Daniel's post made me throw up a little.

[Mulu]

You know, I tried being polite about these issues, but no one listened. They were far too certain of their own correctness to hear any other opinion. Just look at the traps thread, or planetouched before that. Increasing exasperation with dumb decisions has caused me to lose some of my charm.

Mulu,

I wouldn't say it's not a concern or that they don't care. As an ex-HDM I can tell you it's draining and frustrating when you are understaffed. It's all about puting out fires and fixing things with little time to sit back and take a look at what's happening IG and the effect of changes. Heck, there's little time to actually DM with all the overhead involved in running a server.

Fine, but they keep nerfing the xp for first level PC's. That takes work. It's not happening by accident, it's design, and the trend is clear.

I was basically the number two guy on an old RP PW so I'm well aware of the workload involved, and the myopia that comes from the position. But now the frustration of overcoming the first two levels has been pointed out so many times that only the cognitively challenged could fail to recognize it. This isn't a lack of resources, it's simply pretending there is no problem. "It's a feature, not a bug" has been the mentality regarding the low level hamburger grinder since I joined ALFA in 2004. What I saw since then was ALFA NWN1 freefall to empty servers. I think it was due to the hamburger grinder "feature," personally. There is nothing at all even close to PnP in making people constantly reroll their toons until they luck out or PG and make 4th. This is not a matter of they don't know the issue or they don't know how to fix it, this is just a really old stupid ALFA mentality that already killed ALFA once, and looks like it's going to again. It's like the place is being run by amnesiacs or something, it's so frustrating. I want to love this place and play here a lot and have my wife play here and have ALFA thrive instead of die, but I don't see any of those things ever happening, and it's due to bad policy decisions and risk/reward design.

As an aside, I've had no problems with wealth for any of my PC's, but of course they have all been bards so they could cast cure minor a couple times a day to save on CLW money. I'm also used to playing low wealth PC's.

[indio]

Just keep things in perspective.

XP was modified once. Once. That's not a 'it keeps happening' scenario. I'll write some more quests for Rivermoot. Can people go back to doing what they were doing before this thread? People are upset. What, exactly, is the good of upsetting more people with the consistent complaints?

We get it. Really.

[danielmn]

I gave Jayde teh fud poisonings!

[Mikayla]

ALFA has made, in my opinion, some really bad decisions regarding planetouched, warlocks, and all manner of things leading up to NWN2. But those decisions were NOT made by the TSM DM team (yes, the current Lead Admin is on the TSM DM team, but she is a part of those decisions in her role as an Admin, not as a DM). So, it seems unfair to take out your frustration with ALFA's "global" policies on the DM Team which has no choice about those policies. From what I have seen, this DM team is extraordinarily responsive to the Player Base; within a day of the massive animal and hostile-animal spawns, those spawns were being re-worked; many players who needed rebuilds have gotten them; the server's "up" time is fantastic, and when its down, the folks in charge respond very quickly; and from this thread alone we can tell that the DM Team and Acadius are working constantly to improve the server.

The large scale decisions, however bad (or good) they maybe, should not be laid at the feet of this DM Team; and as for "killing ALFA" - nothing has ever done that. Not the ALFAQuake, not bad decisions, not bad Admin, nothing - NWN1 in ALFA trucks along still, even though many if not most other PWs have already gone the way of the Dodo. If ALFA has shown us anything, its that ALFA can and will endure. To paraphrase the Dude, "ALFA abides."

[AcadiusLost]

There is nothing at all even close to PnP in making people constantly reroll their toons until they luck out or PG and make 4th.

Quite true. However, in PnP you don't throw your PC up against the random encounter tables while you wait to hear back from the DM about when the next game session is. There is no minimum level for DM interaction, believe it or not. As crazy as it may sound, I'd certainly prefer to DM for a level one who has been around for 2 weeks, than a level 3 that was rolled up yesterday. The former has had a chance to develop the startings of a history, goals, relationships with other PCs, positive and negative. I'm not a TSM DM, but I doubt I'm alone in this perception. I get that you'd rather play a 3rd level character, and that you see all the time before that as some kind of tedious OOC chore. I personally don't see any need to adjust things to that perception. I see levels 1 and 2 as equally important to 3rd and beyond. Events that happen there are just as meaningful, if not more so. The constant reroll cycle seems to be stemming from players who, for whatever reason, think it's all there is do so (or are convinced somehow that it's OK, even encouraged, to make throwaway characters and "see which ones last"). It's disruptive and damages the immursion of other players who are trying to play things IC. Would it stop if quest XP were higher? You'd have to tell me, honestly. Maybe some people think it would? Maybe it would just mean the most successful PCs would be that much further "ahead", and be that much more pressure on the anxious kamakazi crew.

In my experience it's always been about the story ingame, and in the last 3.5 years of ALFA, most of the dead PCs I've seen came from eager beavers who couldn't resist hitting up spawns or caves in the off-time to level up faster. In some cases they were really well-played characters I really enjoyed RPing with, but got cut short by the short-sightedness of their players.

This is a bit of a sidetrack, but blaming the builders and/or the DMs for the serial rerolling phenomenon is just too much to stand unanswered.

The server has plenty of problems, and there is active work on improvements and solutions. I don't play the apologist for bad coding or pull the "it's not a bug, it's a feature" act on legitimate bugs. I definitely felt that with Shadowdale back in the early days of NWN1, and since it was run by ALFA's then tech-admin, I can see how it might have felt more pervasive- but this isn't the same ALFA it was back then. If you can't see that clearly, I'm not sure what else I can say to convince you. More statics will be added, absurd and out of place content will be pulled and/or reduced. It's not going to turn TSM magically into a PnP campaign in which you start at 3rd, though.

[oldgrayrogue]

I originally posted on this thread early on just sort of wanting to know if there would be more DM interaction and checked it back today and

Wha happen??? Everyone please just chill out.

I don't know how many of you play or have played on other NWN2 servers, but I have played on many over the last year or so and IMHO the building, scripting, standards and content here far surpass what I have seen in other places. The Staff is certainly to be commended, and as a former Staff member on another server I can honestly say that nothing kills your motivation more than complaining. Feedback is good. Complaining -- well its just a huge buzz kill.

So as someone who is on his third toon who is currently a few hundred XP or so shy of level 3 please consider this feedback and a few suggestions:

1. Loot. Either increase the loot drops or reduce the cost of healing potions. Even in a group my level 2 Wild Elf Barbarian -- who is actually fairly uber as toons go -- has to spend at least 2 38GP CLW potions to engage a fairly mundane group of orcs -- unless he is in a group of like 7 or 8 which ends up being no fun because the higher levels just kill everything. So I think increasing the loot drops or lowering the cost of healing (i.e. the true cost and risk of an encounter to me) is an easy fix for this. My second level toon currently has 88 GP, wears most of his equipment on his back and like two healing potions. (Thank god he recently discovered goodberries). So I think the loot drops or the healing need a bit of an adjustment as to the risk/reward ratio.

2. Resting. In lieu of the loot fix/decrease in cost of healing potions described above just fix the rest script to return all of your XP instead of 1 or 2 HP per rest. It is already limited by time which is proper. If my toon drops to say half XP I have the following choices to heal: a) Find a cleric and beg/pay for a heal b) rent a room to rest with gold I don't have c) use a potion that cost like half the gold I have d) log off. I think logging and then relogging to take advantage of the return of XP is an exploit, so usually I just log off and quit playing for the day. I think everyone would agree that when logging and not playing is the most desirable option something needs tweaking. This has actually led me to avoid adventuring when logged on. While I enjoy simple conversation RP (a lot actually) why build this gorgeous dynamic world with tons of cool stuff to experience if the players are too scared (or poor) to go out into it?

I have tried to RP being injured for a while after taking serious wounds but honestly its not IC for my very practical PC to not just go rest and heal up if he's like half dead, and the emotes of others looking over and then commenting on your wounds gets kind of tiresome after a while. Letting the rest script restore all of your XP -- which you can't do over and over after every encounter and must be in a safe place to do -- is a simple fix to this problem without changing the loot scripts or healing potion prices at all.

3. Crafting. Allow for the crafting of mundane items. My toon has skill points in craft weapon and armor. It makes IC sense for him to have those skills. He chops some wood. He skins some animals he hunts. He no can make a bow or arrows for himself or a pair of nice boots. My poor elf would love to have a bow and arrows -- he simply can't afford one. My point being crafting would solve a lot of problems I think. If crafting of magic items is the problem just don't include any of the magic or enhanced item ingredients in the loot drop tables. And remember, a wood plank for a bow or fur for a cloak is only gotten with risk so I think its fair. If there is little to no opportunity to earn even a little gold with out grave risk of death or injury, then give us the chance to make stuff for ourselves.

4. Statics. In my experience you cannot get to level 2 just doing the Rivermoot statics. I didn't count the XP but I am fairly certain of that. As has been pointed out the later RM statics are actually quite difficult for a level 1 and bring great risk even in a nice party. I didn't even try the HH statics until level 2. Most of the HH statics are way too hard for a Level 2 without several higher levels with you. ((The boar quest is misleading IMO. I did the first HH exploration quest solo, then tried the boar bc its description seemed to suggest you could to me and my toon came within 3 hp of dying and only survived by burning two potions and then fleeing -- he's a lvl 2 barbarian with 28 XP and 21 AC with his shield)) Then you have the wealth issues above that make you poorer as a result of adventuring instead of better off. For someone who works in RL a lot and has a family like me the RP XP from the script while a very nice feature I am thankful for, is negligible in terms of advancement for someone with limited playing time.

If the idea is to keep players interested and motivated partially through a great RP experience and partly through the opportunity to advance, then more non-combat oriented statics would seem to be an easy solution. To increase the challenge you could make them harder to find or "unlockable" based only on a specific action or dialogue response by a PC. For example, the druids at the Silvanus shrine give you a quest to go find a plant or something. You only get it if you actually travel to the shrine and then only if you answer the questions correctly. Just a suggestion, you folks are much more creative than I am.

4. DM Spice. Spice, spice and more spice. IMHO DM spice events are really what makes an environment immersive and come to life. There are few things more engaging and fun to me in a PW than when that merchant or guard you have talked to in set dialogue suddenly starts talking back to you and sends you out on a little quest or to solve a little problem for him, or tells you he is having an affair with the barmaid =p. I know DM's like to get involved in group campaigns, but that sort of leaves a lot of potential more casual players out of the equation sometimes. Spice spices things up for everyone =P . From experience I know its fairly easy to do as a DM (just possess an NPC and start RPing, maybe spawn a quest reward in a crate or something) so you get a lot of return for a little investment. What results is more player fun. Then they tell the DM's how much fun they had. This makes the DM feel good and motivated and all fuzzy inside. It's a vicious cycle =)

**********

These are just a few observations/suggestions that I think could address some of the ideas discussed in this thread. I hope they have been conveyed in a constructive manner and are not too obvious or silly. Please if people read this post and think all of my suggestions are dumb send me a PM and call me dumb all you like, this thread has become too hot as it is.

Thanks for asking and for listening.

~OGR

[ThinkTank]

Kate stop trolling.

Pfft. Like I'm the only one allowed to troll. Stfu.

[AcadiusLost]

I appreciate the well-constructed and thoughtful feedback, Oldgrayrogue. You certainly raise some good points.

Healing potions: I have to apologize slightly on this one, since I just fixed a toolset pricing bug the other day that was causing potions to be... underpriced. They're supposed to, by ALFA's standards, cost 50 gp for a Cure Light Wounds potion. The 38gp price they were showing as in merchants is due to a toolset oddity, where it displayed their value lower ingame than it did in the toolset. It's a very level-one unfriendly price for the healing lifeline they represent. It's possible a pricing exception could be considered for CLW potions, since they're a major factor in low-level survival. A perennial problem with inexpensive potions is the potential for well-off PCs to load up on stacks of them, which allow them to take on much higher-CR challenges than intended, leading to additional imbalance. Perhaps a compromise might be to halve the price of CLW potions, but also put a scripted cap on how many a PC can carry (say, no more than 10?). Just brainstorming here, naturally a consensus would have to be reached, since it's something that would impact other servers as they go Live as well. In any case, I do apologize to anyone who first saw a leftover NWN2-campaign CLW potion in a store somewhere for cheap, then a mispriced ALFA one, useable on others, for 38 gp, then a full-priced ALFA one at 50 gp. That's certainly going to look like we're jacking up healing prices, but all it really represents is a lack of quality control in the first month of Live- with parts of the mod changing hands between several active builders, and the toolset misreporting prices, we've got our hands full just trying to get things in line with our own standards- it's not intended to to punitive for the players.

Resting scripts: These are somewhat incomplete, eventually they will include healing bonuses for better resting conditions (nice inns, long term care provided via Heal skill), and ability damage healing for diseases and poison. However, there are a few aspects of the scripts currently that ought to help (assuming they're working).
1. You can rest for free in any natural outdoor area, if you're near a tent (set one up via PC tools). Rangers and druids can do this without the tent.
2. You should be healed 1 hp / level for each rest cycle you spend offline, on login. So, if you stop playing for the night as a 2nd level PC, at 10 PM, then log back on at 7 PM the next RL day, that's 7.5 game-days of healing, or 14 HP that should be healed when you log back in. Ideally, it means you should be able to bounce back pretty well "between sessions", and only really be limited during long marathon sessions.

[Mulu]

Just keep things in perspective.

XP was modified once. Once.

For the Marshall quests. Others quests have since been nerfed, just to be exact about it.

I get that you'd rather play a 3rd level character, and that you see all the time before that as some kind of tedious OOC chore.

You should ask "why?" Because in PnP and at NWC, I always gladly start 1st level PC's. The problem is ALFA servers are never balanced for 1st level play. You know what's OOC? Having a 1st level fighter who has to sit on his butt soaking up RP xp in hopes of being able to go adventuring. That's as OOC as it gets.

I just recently started DM'ing a new campaign at NWC. Of course everyone rolled up new PC's at first level. After the initial "getting to know each other" rp, most of which was actually done as pre-game forum posts, guess what they did? The went out and fought a bunch of monsters. It was B2 Keep on the Borderlands, after all.

In ALFA, you roll up a 1st level PC and you either try to do the above and die, or you sit around and hope some higher level PC's will take you under their wing, or you just sit around. It's horribly OOC for adventuring class PC's to be relegated to the safety of being within the town walls all the time.

Anyway, I'm done banging my head against the wall.

[Magile]

He says that, but I bet he continues to talk and rant about leaving for the next few pages.

[MorbidKate]

The constant reroll cycle seems to be stemming from players who, for whatever reason, think it's all there is do so (or are convinced somehow that it's OK, even encouraged, to make throwaway characters and "see which ones last"). It's disruptive and damages the immursion of other players who are trying to play things IC.

I sincerely hope you don't really think the current high mortality rate of Level ones and twos is the players fault and that their concepts are throwaway ideas to see what manages to survive. We're the Sea Monkeys in this persistant world and we try to survive in the environment created for us. What's disruptive is the constant gleaning of IC friendships due to death after death of those our characters know. We all saw what affect it had on ALFA1 so it's important not to repeat history here... which is where much of the concern is coming from. It's certainly fixable.

Kate

[JaydeMoon]

Told you, Mulu, should have come play with me in NWN1.

C'est la vie.

[oldgrayrogue]

AL:

Given ALFA's pricing standards then, I think altering the resting script is a possible solution to some of the player frustration. I am aware of the tent resting script. However, under the current script as you explained it, my level 2 toon gains 2 HP per rest cycle -- not a whole lot. If the concern with potions and rest is the possibility of abuse by higher level high gold players, why not just script it that any PC level 1-3 gets one free rest per game day (in a safe place with a tent) that restores all of his HP. Over level 3 the regular script of one per level kicks in. Limiting it to one per IC 24 hours prevents people from abusing rest, but also prevents low level PC's from going broke buying potions. I have played on at least 3 servers with this script and it seems to work well. To me, logging off and playing tomorrow is not a desirable solution as I always thought the goal was to keep players logged on and RPing.

Frankly, I don't know how anyone can have more than 1 or 2 healing potions at level 1-2 without some serious farming. So upping the cost just promotes farming IMO. I like your inventory limit idea much better.

On my last server, problems with balance issues between high level and low level players led to a huge drop off in new players joining and ultimately a wipe. Anything that discourages new players joining and immediately enjoying the experience should be avoided IMO. Also, I have always preferred to deal with cheaters through enforcement rather than scripting. Eventually, most of the cheaters get caught. Again, just my opinion.