Balance between players

[dergon darkhelm]

Since it looks like we're heading in some direction ( excited about the new MS stores, Cast!) I'll put in some requests.

Rods, staves, Wands: Been wandering around ingame for almost 3 years now and intermittantly shopping. I have yet to see one in a store.

Weapons more powerful than a simple +1 or with additional characteristics (keen, energy, etc): same as above

Armor greater than +1 or with special characteristics: same

Rings: A smattering, but quite limitied options overall.

____

I think that NWN1 ALFA Waterdeep was the model for item access. BG is not the same size by canon, but could still be argued to have access to stuff. Silvy is one of the most magical places on Faerun.

Price them appropriately and put 'em in there, I say.

[Ksiel]

Since it looks like we're heading in some direction ( excited about the new MS stores, Cast!) I'll put in some requests.

Rods, staves, Wands: Been wandering around ingame for almost 3 years now and intermittantly shopping. I have yet to see one in a store.

Weapons more powerful than a simple +1 or with additional characteristics (keen, energy, etc): same as above

Armor greater than +1 or with special characteristics: same

Rings: A smattering, but quite limitied options overall.

____

I think that NWN1 ALFA Waterdeep was the model for item access. BG is not the same size by canon, but could still be argued to have access to stuff. Silvy is one of the most magical places on Faerun.

Price them appropriately and put 'em in there, I say.

+1

[rorax]

Monk equipment!

[thinkpig]

i've never seen an item that provides an ability score boost, wouldn't mind seeing some minor stat boost items around, even just +1's.

i'd like to see more items that cast something 1/day, maybe even bull's strength, eagle's splendor etc. as 1/day are arguably less powerful than straight-up stat boosts.

In any case daily usage items are the sustainable resource of a PW, it would seem, so how about more of those? They meet standards and are a better investment than consumables. Even if you slice the cost of consumables in half they represent a loss of resources versus an investment in something sustainable in 1/days. Why fight this? In the context of PW versus campaign, it honestly seems believable to me that the market for daily use stuff would be stronger... Though from a merchant's perspective the consumables would represent greater profits over time through repeat business.

Anyway, yes please, give me more loot! hehe

[Zelknolf]

i've never seen an item that provides an ability score boost, wouldn't mind seeing some minor stat boost items around, even just +1's.

i'd like to see more items that cast something 1/day, maybe even bull's strength, eagle's splendor etc. as 1/day are arguably less powerful than straight-up stat boosts.

In any case daily usage items are the sustainable resource of a PW, it would seem, so how about more of those? They meet standards and are a better investment than consumables. Even if you slice the cost of consumables in half they represent a loss of resources versus an investment in something sustainable in 1/days. Why fight this? In the context of PW versus campaign, it honestly seems believable to me that the market for daily use stuff would be stronger... Though from a merchant's perspective the consumables would represent greater profits over time through repeat business.

Anyway, yes please, give me more loot! hehe

... really? You're on TSM. These things are available in static merchants in TSM. They don't even have to be randomly generated. They're just there. Shop around some.

[Blindhamsterman]

the only stat boosting item available is a +2 Charisma item afaik.

there are indeed some /day items but not many at all, and 90% of them are fairly useless or prohibatively expensive.

[Zelknolf]

the only stat boosting item available is a +2 Charisma item afaik.

there are indeed some /day items but not many at all, and 90% of them are fairly useless or prohibatively expensive.

Part a) Not true. It's sneaky, and I will not dump meta on everyone, but others exist.

Part b) Yeah. bull's strength 1/day is 2160. 4320 if it's no-slot. 3240 minimum if it's cross affinity. But use/day items are allowing you to pretend that you have class powers that, y'know, you don't. So, yes. Prohibatively expensive. Kinda the gig there.

Even so, they're available. And that one, specifically, exists in a static merchant. As does healing use/day.

[oldgrayrogue]

Yeah. bull's strength 1/day is 2160. 4320 if it's no-slot. 3240 minimum if it's cross affinity. But use/day items are allowing you to pretend that you have class powers that, y'know, you don't. So, yes. Prohibatively expensive. Kinda the gig there.

Even so, they're available. And that one, specifically, exists in a static merchant. As does healing use/day.

Unless you a) are a dedicated farmer b) find lots of dead level 1 PCs to loot or 3) have a dedicated and benevolent DM who rains gold on you, you will not be able to afford items such as this in ALFA. The most gold my PC Corio ever spent on a single item was 2000 gold for a +1 ring of Protection I believe. Everything else of worth he had, for the most part, was a DM reward or found on a corpse. Unless you do a, b or c above it takes forever to save that much gold in ALFA. We have wealth standards for a reason. If a DM sees a PC walking around way over standards in wealth and equipment, then spawn a bandit mob to try to rob him to get him back to standards. Better yet, when you see him farming that same set of mobs each day, spawn a nice big nasty that those poor goblins he has been abusing got to help them against the bane of their existence. If he survives -- reward him! If he dies, its IC, he dies. You can't take it with you after all.

Making loot largely unavailable does not stop the dedicated farmer -- they just become more dedicated and farm even more. What it does is detract from the gaming experience for those who don't go out farming every day. Eventually, as a player you say why bother? and confine yourself to DM events and tavern RP. When I RP an "adventure" in party -- like a typical dungeon crawl -- the thrill of the risk, the expectation of a reward commensurate with the risk, and the hope for advancement of my PC if he survives is part of the fun for me. Yes this is a "story based" roleplay driven PW. We all are serious RPers and the story is primary. But adventure, reward and advancement is a core part of D&D. It is part of what makes the game fun. Static content that players can RP adventures around without a DM, and that provides real risk/reward and the opportunity for advancement is essential to a PW format IMO. Otherwise, just call ALFA a bunch of campaign servers, because that is where we are headed.

I'd rather play in a PW where you can group up, encounter the thrill of that risk and if you survive get that reward and advance and move your story forward. As a low level PC in ALFA the risk of adventuring is too incredibly high, and often yields negative returns -- i.e. it costs you consumables and gold to go on an adventure. There is no tangible reward and very high risk. Why continue adventuring if all I ever do is break even or worse -- lose everything! Conversely, as a high level player, there is almost no risk posed by static content, and the only way to obtain a reward from it is to farm it over and over and over again. BORING! Neither encourages the type of story based D&D style hardcore roleplay we want to foster. In my view, the platform should be flipped: as a low level the challenge should be there but much less lethal, allowing for real reward and steady advancement. As you advance to higher levels though the risk should increase exponentially -- with a real risk of death -- but also a corresponding suitable reward if you survive. Under this type of platform, new off the farm adventurers will be out and about earning their stripes (and their players having fun doing it) and advanced PCs will have something fun to do without a DM as well, that is worth the IC effort. If players abuse it and go farming bonkers then DMs are there to knock them down to standard -- preferably ICly.

The higher risk at higher level also will result in more high level PC deaths -- which is a good thing. Eliminating the low level doldrums also is a good thing, and won't influence players to cling to their high level PCs, seek rezzes when they die etc because they don't want to deal with the low levels again. This is the kind of balance we should be talking about IMO.

[Mirabai]

I'd rather play in a PW where you can group up, encounter the thrill of that risk and if you survive get that reward and advance and move your story forward. As a low level PC in ALFA the risk of adventuring is too incredibly high, and often yields negative returns -- i.e. it costs you consumables and gold to go on an adventure. There is no tangible reward and very high risk. Why continue adventuring if all I ever do is break even or worse -- lose everything! Conversely, as a high level player, there is almost no risk posed by static content, and the only way to obtain a reward from it is to farm it over and over and over again. BORING! Neither encourages the type of story based D&D style hardcore roleplay we want to foster. In my view, the platform should be flipped: as a low level the challenge should be there but much less lethal, allowing for real reward and steady advancement. As you advance to higher levels though the risk should increase exponentially -- with a real risk of death -- but also a corresponding suitable reward if you survive. Under this type of platform, new off the farm adventurers will be out and about earning their stripes (and their players having fun doing it) and advanced PCs will have something fun to do without a DM as well, that is worth the IC effort. If players abuse it and go farming bonkers then DMs are there to knock them down to standard -- preferably ICly.

The higher risk at higher level also will result in more high level PC deaths -- which is a good thing. Eliminating the low level doldrums also is a good thing, and won't influence players to cling to their high level PCs, seek rezzes when they die etc because they don't want to deal with the low levels again. This is the kind of balance we should be talking about IMO.

I agree 100%

The challenge, however, is that if you manage to get enough people/admin to actually agree to such as this and you haven't died of old age in the meantime, you have to get someone to implement it- build the statics, areas, NPCs, convos, script crap, etc. Who will do this?

[NESchampion]

the only stat boosting item available is a +2 Charisma item afaik.

there are indeed some /day items but not many at all, and 90% of them are fairly useless or prohibatively expensive.

Part a) Not true. It's sneaky, and I will not dump meta on everyone, but others exist.

Part b) Yeah. bull's strength 1/day is 2160. 4320 if it's no-slot. 3240 minimum if it's cross affinity. But use/day items are allowing you to pretend that you have class powers that, y'know, you don't. So, yes. Prohibatively expensive. Kinda the gig there.

Even so, they're available. And that one, specifically, exists in a static merchant. As does healing use/day.

In fairness I've been on TSM for ~6 months now and I've never seen a healing use/day or bulls strength use/day item for sale for my PC. I know some such items exist within some priest merchants, for instance, but I don't think that really fits the idea of "available" with what's being discussed.

Maybe it's meta to ask about such things, but for a PC who's been living in a city for a half year, it seems like it'd be common knowledge if such things are even available to everyone and not just certain faiths.

[thinkpig]

i've never seen an item that provides an ability score boost, wouldn't mind seeing some minor stat boost items around, even just +1's.

i'd like to see more items that cast something 1/day, maybe even bull's strength, eagle's splendor etc. as 1/day are arguably less powerful than straight-up stat boosts.

In any case daily usage items are the sustainable resource of a PW, it would seem, so how about more of those? They meet standards and are a better investment than consumables. Even if you slice the cost of consumables in half they represent a loss of resources versus an investment in something sustainable in 1/days. Why fight this? In the context of PW versus campaign, it honestly seems believable to me that the market for daily use stuff would be stronger... Though from a merchant's perspective the consumables would represent greater profits over time through repeat business.

Anyway, yes please, give me more loot! hehe

... really? You're on TSM. These things are available in static merchants in TSM. They don't even have to be randomly generated. They're just there. Shop around some.

i know *some* are available. What I'm suggesting is, how about some more:D

yeah, i forgot about that charisma cloak.

[Zelknolf]

Unless you a) are a dedicated farmer b) find lots of dead level 1 PCs to loot or 3) have a dedicated and benevolent DM who rains gold on you, you will not be able to afford items such as this in ALFA. The most gold my PC Corio ever spent on a single item was 2000 gold for a +1 ring of Protection I believe.

... in fairness, you are citing an example of where you bought a 2000 gold item as evidence that it's impossible to buy a 2160 gold item without farming. It is an achievable number to one who does a few statics a week and is willing to join up with the others in the same area to kill all the things in a cave full of [x] when they rally to do so. It's eons if you're a once-weekly player, granted, but everything takes eons if you're at it once a week.

That's not to say that it's easy as it should be. Rewards are pretty borked currently, unless you happen to be whoever found all of gollumnator's characters. But, y'know, that does kinda read as exaggerated.

[oldgrayrogue]

Unless you a) are a dedicated farmer b) find lots of dead level 1 PCs to loot or 3) have a dedicated and benevolent DM who rains gold on you, you will not be able to afford items such as this in ALFA. The most gold my PC Corio ever spent on a single item was 2000 gold for a +1 ring of Protection I believe.

... in fairness, you are citing an example of where you bought a 2000 gold item as evidence that it's impossible to buy a 2160 gold item without farming. It is an achievable number to one who does a few statics a week and is willing to join up with the others in the same area to kill all the things in a cave full of [x] when they rally to do so. It's eons if you're a once-weekly player, granted, but everything takes eons if you're at it once a week.

That's not to say that it's easy as it should be. Rewards are pretty borked currently, unless you happen to be whoever found all of gollumnator's characters. But, y'know, that does kinda read as exaggerated.

Its acheivable, your right, if you confine yourself to statics that involve no combat or risk, or if you play a cleric, or hang out with one. Otherwise, as a low level you will burn whatever rewards you get from statics or spawns on healing, or worse die trying. But in fairness, I was exaggerating a bit, to make a point: Risk/reward is borked when compared to the availabilty and cost of consumables and magic items.

[Ithildur]

Hey, wow. People are making sense around here.


What kind of stupid adventurer would continue adventuring, risking life and limb, when the best they can hope for is to 'break even' day after day? I think all but the most suicidal types would go back to (the more traditional kind of) farming at some point. And forget hanging out in taverns; you'd go broke eventually on all those expensive drinks that cost a freakin gold piece.

Adventurers may be considered rather reckless and slightly loony by commoners, sure, but at least they come around from time to time with a big haul, as well as doing good deeds or whatnot, and thus are not considered COMPLETELY insane. If those guys came back to town boasting day after day of how they dodged arrows and blades and spent hundreds of gold pieces worth of stuff while finding 50 gps worth of stuff, then they truly would be ready for the loony-bin. I mean, even Tolkien's hobbits come home filthy rich, those damn farmin' powergamers.

Seems pretty simple really; to paraphrase what Jayde said, why not actually follow the wealth guidelines ALFA has in place?

[paazin]

Seems pretty simple really; to paraphrase what Jayde said, why not actually follow the wealth guidelines ALFA has in place?

And ... we do. But you can't fix wealth gaps overnight.

Add to that there are a good number of folks who never see a DM due to timezone/scheduling and it becomes a much more tricky situation.

And, Zelknolf, Re: using statics: TSM is pretty cool as it offers the players (relatively) high-reward statics. Unfortunately as it's the only server that does, the others are reliant on DM-spawned loot. Also, your character isn't exactly the norm; she wasn't dishing out crazy gold on consumable healing due to not needing it, thereby naturally saving more.