NWN2: Passing of time/aging

[fluffmonster]

'Game mechanics' in the sense of combat and spell-casting basically.

[fade]

If 'comic book time' ruins your immersion I'd suggest buying a new imagination.

As for game balance issues the general rule is:

1) If 8 IG hours takes 2 or 3 RL hours instead of 1.5, then clerics become comparitivily more powerful, because most of their buffs are hour per level spells. Yes, even in 3.5, they still get PVE, Prot vs Elements, Magic Vestments, GMW, Death ward and Stoneskin. All they lose in 3.5 is bulls stre and endurance.

2) Wizards become comparitivly weaker. Since in NWN2 they hardly are able to buff fighters as well as in compared to nwn1, with the only usefull ones at 1 hour / level duration being PVE, GMW and Stoneskin. Those buffs might last longer, but as you well know stoneskins seem to wear out pretty fast, and the rest of their spells, well, they wouldn't have as many.

3) Rest of the classes become more powerful compared to wizards, and less powerful compared to clerics.

YMMV.

[ballonger]

Seriously, do you really think I am suggesting we change the time ratio on day and night alone, and not apply it to spell duration as well? Slower time ratio equals less frequent resting to replenish spells, but on the other hand virtually longer duration of the spells when cast. Which of course favours defensive spells more than attack spells.

Give me a better reason not to change time ratio, please.

EDIT: "Which of course favours more of the defensive spells than attack spells."

[White Warlock]

The biggest issue i can think of is locking ingame day to real life day, and ingame night to real life night. If we aim for 1:1, that's what we'll get and a lot of players will only be playing in the nighttime. If we aim for a different ratio, say 6:1, i can see that working. I'm just not sure what the point is.

One thing i see as a negative to this (and i think it's a big negative) is that any lengthening of the ratio means a spell caster must wait longer to replenish his/her spells, thus such a change universally weakens standard spell casters (and makes warlocks a more viable spellcaster option). Most players, after all, only play 2-4 hours, so they won't gain the opportunity to replenish their characters' spells until the 'next' time they play. This means we'll end up seeing 'more' tanks.

So, what benefits are associated with changing the ratio to, say, 6:1?

[fade]

Making clerics more powerful seems like a damn good reason not to to me.

[Keith Mac]

I personally think changing the ratio to 3:1 is the best scenario. The time will not mimic RL and the timeline can remain truly "persistant".

I believe that DM's should be able to "adjust" the timeline where necessary if need be in relation to campaigns.

So essentially the IG time should "always" be running to prevent misleading IC actions/roleplay while at the same time not being a "strict" rule that hampers DM's from forming time dependant plots.

Fewer rests can only be a good thing (keep in mind DM's can still force rest or advance the server clock to add rests on campaigns/technical assistance)

Longer lasting spells can only be a good thing as long as our spells are made to mimic the durations in D&D's current ruleset. Shortening spells to match the D&D ruleset and having them "run" out while someone is AFK or other inumerable circumstances is just outright annoying.

*Starts a chant* 3 to 1, 3 to 1, 3 to 1.................

[ballonger]

I might agree that the ideal would be 3:1 since that would let everyone play at both night and day on their same local time and have time flow as slow as possible (and would be the best for those that like soap opera playing with long dialogues and character developing in extreme), but since that would be one hell of a jump (and bring other complications) I suggested 6:1. Mainly for these two reasons:

- Spells with durations other than instant last longer, which mimics the PnP and have spellcasters be spellcasters and not a box of fireworks someone dropped a burning match into.

- The "it-takes-the-whole-night-to-tell-a-story-by-the-campfire" syndrome becomes less apparent, and the days and nights flickering by doesn't feel like someone's playing with the light switch.

If Clerics become more powerful the problem isn't in the time ratio in my opinion, but in the way their spellcasting is built. That's what need change. Making sure everything is as close to the PnP as possible will eventually bring balance.

It's way too fast at the moment (as fast as it can possibly be without being ridiculous), in my opinion, but on the other hand I don't want it to be too slow either. I suggest it be slowed down a bit.

[ArchAngel_G]

One thing I wonder is if the "average" player plays 2-4 hours per week/day? how long do you want to span by based on this number? 2 IG days? 3? if you do the 6:1 ration a mere 24 IG hours will pass in a 4 hour game period. If this is based on those numbers, what about the other 20 hours in a given day? Multiply that by a week. That's 42 IG days that go by in a week. How do you explain the 41 days you aren't there while other people are still playing? Comic book time I think works. It can attempt to balance issues with spells, give you an oportunity to play out the days and nights that go by while you play, and give players that want to an opportunity to age their characters. Making it 1:1 means that certain people in certain time zones get jacked. Same can be true for 1:6 because there should be down time for people to sleep (c'mon, your character can't be up 24 hours, that's just silly). I say comic book time allows for maximum flexibility. The pros and cons of setting down a deffinate time constraint make it too difficult to manage. Plus, wouldn't you have to syncronize time accross all servers? I agree as close to PnP as possible, but this isn't PnP. We all don't gather at the same time, we all don't always have DMs attention, and the engine isn't that exact.

[ballonger]

ArchAngel_G, you are aware that we have a time ratio of 9:1 at the moment?

I'm not saying we should have a fixed ratio all over. Just that with, for example, 6:1 there will be less days to explain your absence during than with 9:1. Comic book time would still apply. It's mainly that "light on - light off" syndrome that buggers the living b-jesus out of me. All those other things will only follow as a bonus.

Is it really so that I am the only one that gets annoyed by the fact that two days and two nights fly by when you try to recap an old friend on what you've been up to since last you met? That a full day and night easily can go by when you have a mug of ale in the tavern? You come there in the afternoon, and when you leave it's only gone to evening. The next day.. Am I the only one bothered by this?

[fade]

I'm not. I generally ignore the time. For me the time is whatever time the DM tells me it is. Otherwise it just happens to be used for balancing purposes. It really isn't that much of a leap in imagination.

[Audark]

doesn't bother me one bit,

It's all abstract and I sure have found the situations where I'm stuck somewhere waiting and waiting for dawn to be FAR more annoying than the overly quick passage of time when I'm telling a tale or having an ale.

Unless the DMs start manually adjusting time far more often than they do now, slowing time down only causes more time to be wasted in peoples already short play times.

I have absolutely no problem with our current time compression, everytime I've played with people its just something we skirt around discussing if time is moving inconveniently fast, thats sure a lot easier to RP around then time moving inconveniently slow and a player or two having to log before day breaks in game

[HEEGZ]

Hmm, I thought Ronan made a poll and it was decided on 9:1 quite a while back... I can't seem to find those posts though, sorry.

[Fionn]

Hmm, I thought Ronan made a poll and it was decided on 9:1 quite a while back... I can't seem to find those posts though, sorry.

The poll was poorly worded, but the predominant answer was to slow down the game clock. The answer with the most votes was 9:1, with a few wanting faster, and most people wanting one of several slower options. Without a clarifying poll, I'd interpret it as 5:1 (12 minute hours vs the current 7 min hours).

[HEEGZ]

I recall 9:1 having the most votes as well... I thought it was decided to leave it be for NWN2. Guess we need to clarify if a decision was made or not, I can't remember what forum those threads were in though.

[Twiggy]

http://www.alandfaraway.org/phpbbforum/ ... hp?t=30543