Player Input - Epic Level Progression

[GodBeastX]

We put in our first epic area (but the area is bugged and needs some work of course), but we're looking at inventing an epic progression system for people level 20+ where they can gain HIGH RISK experience. The idea is, you risk your life in epic confrontations to progress beyond level 20 instead of the current method of progression past level 20.

The Rewards for these confrontations will be extraordinary, such as epic items, and of course experience. But your character may end it's career or seriously hamper it's career.

What I want to know is people's opinions of how they'd like a system like this to function. If you could, say, get +5 items and go beyond level 20 and such from risking yourself to either a permadeath or something very close, would this be worth it?

This is a discussion on the matter. We have other epic locations planned, and I wanted some feedback on how players felt about it.

[Cornuto]

Support!

... so long as the risks are adequate to counterbalance the epic stuff you'll potentially get.

[roguethree]

I'm all for it. Something for epics to do/something to get rid of epics/something to create epics is just what the doctor ordered.

[roguethree]

Would these areas be repeatable? Will the dynamic spawn system keep it so PC's can't "master" the run, as they can with other instances?

[JotunWarrior]

I foresee hordes of epic level casters with +5 equipment.

[MelancholyWinds]

What sort of risks? Something like a level drain that lasts for a period of time like a week or two? Or like ability reduction, or something lol?

[Atmosphere]

I foresee hordes of epic level casters with +5 equipment.

I'm not a fan of hordes of epic level casters with +5 items either. So, I think it is very important that such areas are treated as "High risk - high reward" as GBX stated.

Clearly items and experience can be the reward but what about the risk? Perma death is clearly the most drastic result and I'm for that. Maybe lost of all items?

[JotunWarrior]

I'd suggest dying in an epic level area= only being ressurectable via temple. It's not quite as harsh as some are thinking, but I'm not a fan of having characters permakilled due to lagspikes.

[Doubtful]

I'm a bit leary of epic stuff.. But, with the right risk/reward balance I can see it working.

The risk being something like total permadeath (as in deleted from vault), loss of 20-50% of total XP, or total inventory wipe vs the opportunity to get to level 2x.. Sounds fair.

[GodBeastX]

The idea is failure is not an option sort of scenario. People should be 100% prepared and ready to deal with the results of going in. These will be places where your god might sit down an have a talk with you before going:

"Now Tommy, I know you want that Sword of Utter Destruction, but hear me out, it's suicide to go in there."

But if you succeed you would come out with O_O eyes.

AND DEFINITELY will be setup to be party content, not solo content, even for casters.

It will be repeatable, but I'm thinking a cooldown on repeating so the server isn't flooded by people burning through the levels will likely happen, or some sort of cap.

"You got your loot for the week, go take a rest."

Some possible punishments I've considered, may end up one or more of these:

- Permadeath (I personally like this one )
- Extended Death (We'll see you in a few weeks)
- Inventory Wipe (Whoops, looks like the baddies ate your stuff d00d)
- Reset to Level XYZ (You were level 22? Awww shucks, welcome back to 20)
- Only Raiseable with massive gold tax on someone (100k to res you? Guess thems the breaks)
- No experience gains for awhile

[Dragor]

How far past lvl 20? Do you plan on making the dynamic aspects of the system stand alone?

I agree that temple only Rez's would be a good penalty since as was said risk reward

An interesting thought...

What if the player/party could input how much xp they are willing to risk, and the difficulty is scaled based on that? If they retreat out of the area after the first engagement with the enemy they lose half...if they die they lose all that was risked

in the party format what is risked is spread evenly throughout the party and as partymembers die the dead member takes his portion of the hit and the reward pool is decreased accordingly

i forsee lots of bugs and if someone has an emergancy pop up and has to leave they shouldnt get pwned for it and it would be alot of work but i'm throwing things out there


EDIT: Reset to lvl xyz...nasty...I like it especially if no matter how high you are if you fail you go back to 20

[Raksha]

I am against permadeath for two reasons:

1. It breaks the norm for the rest of the server without adequate explanation. If you die in one place, you can respawn, get temple ressed, get caster ressed... in another place, nothing works, despite no clear lore establishment?

2. It locks out people with unreliable connections or other similar issues. Sure, crashes happen, but if they happen in a permadeath area, high-level DnD combat being what it is -- that crash might not just kill you, but lots of other people. Would you want to take someone in your party who had even the slightest chance of dropping out at a bad moment?

Epic-level content in NWN also has the problem that build differences are exascerbated. What might be just a +1 or +2 difference at lower levels, and an insignificant number of hit points, becomes huge. Therefore, someone who makes a powerbuild and then roleplays the restrictions out interestingly has a huge mechanical edge over someone who makes a less-powerful build. Again, making a less powerful character does not make you a saint, nor does it guarantee good RP, but at higher levels it really matters.

High-risk? Absolutely. But content is made to be experienced. Otherwise it just sits there and gathers dust.

So put in my vote for a slightly milder variation of risk and reward (higher XP or gold penalties, necessary recovery period) simply because the game isn't meant to support anything else.

[Kaeldorn]

Epic stuff isn't my cup of tea. Personally, I like it that progress is currently limited to DM awarded (RP) xp only. But *shrug*. To each his own I guess, as long as more uses become available for skills and such and people with les powerful combat characters are catered to by other means. A lot of people just won't be able to participate in this epic level content because their characters aren't optimized for it.

[Lilene Jora]

I can't say I'm overly fond of this proposal. Penalties like that doesn't make it balanced - just erratic and exclusive. Most encounters on the server aren't a matter of barely surviving after a hard fought battle, you either completely steamroll it, or it steamrolls you. The only people/groups that will be able to do it will be the most powerful to begin with. With penalties that stiff, even in a group, one character dying is totally unacceptable for risk-reward...which means you'll either not do it if the mobs crit you to death in 2 seconds...or you have enough armor to seldom get hit and do it in relative safety.

The problem of strong gear availability is something of a broader problem. Let's face it, it's pretty lame that a max level 20 wizard only has a 50% chance to successfully craft a +4 weapon under the best of circumstances, suffering a month and a half wait to try again, win or lose. No doubt the much anticipated new crafting system could relieve some of the woes.

The second half is current random drops - I'm going to be honest, if you grind the highest current zones right now...you're lucky to find even a +2 item...which you probably have anyways, (or better if you're fortunate enough to be in a faction, the only real consistent source of gear). Even if you find an item, the random generation is 'too' random. Sometimes a blue item spawns with only one property instead of 2-3. Sometimes the properties aren't matched to the items at all. Defensive crossbows? Sling of strength? Scythe of charisma? It is a minor miracle to find a weapon with +1-2 eb, 1d4 of an element, and one other relevant bonus.

Before we worry about elevating the ceiling, maybe we should go back and take a look at the rest of the gameplay experience. Making a random drop system that was more generous (actually giving useful +1-2 items for low-mid level PC's, and perhaps +3-ish items for level 20 zones) would be a good start. Next, instead of pure random stat allocation, maybe different classes of weapons would have a limited "pool" of stats that can be randomly assigned, for example:

Light weapons:
+con
+dex
+EB
+physical or elemental damage types

Two handed weapons:
+str
+con
+EB
+physical or elemental damage types

Staves:
+wis
+Int
+cha
spell slots?

Simple changes like this for all "categories" of items would go a long way towards making some of what drops even remotely useful. As a sidenote, some things don't randomly drop at all right now - I'm pretty sure staves don't exist at all, for example.

[The Butcher]

Permadeath on failure.

These are grave consequences, but it will help mitigate RP being dominated by the elite grinders and power builds who can strongarm people that disagree with them.