Upcomming Changes - Spells, Evil, and You

[GodBeastX]

So, Saulus and I have been doing a bit of scripting and trying to think of ways to help balance things a bit more. This is only a phase in balancing, however, once we test and approve these changes, you will feel them on the public server.

• Detect Evil and Detect Good will be added for Blackguards and Paladins respectively. Since we did not wish to add entirely new spells to the engine to block these abilities, Protection From Good and Protection From Evil will block detection (Prot from evil will block blackguards, and vice versa).
• Mage Armor and Improved Mage Armor recoded. We decided the old NWN1 method makes more sense for balance as the spells don't automatically stack with armor and other effects, helping to keep things in line. Mage Armor will give +1 to Deflection, Armor, Dodge, and Natural AC. Improved will give +2 and +3 at level 17+ caster. The duration has been greatly reduced as well.
• Magic Vestments will now give up to +4 to armor instead of previous +5. It also is scaled to caster level / 4 now instead of / 5 for each increase in AC. Duration also lowered.
• Shield of Faith has gotten the same change, duration also lowered.
• Shield and Shield Other both give +4 Deflection Bonus (Non-stackable) now. Their duration has been lowered.

All of these spell changes were to help bring into the balance the ability for some classes to buff to all hell and shrug off any attacks from enemies. However, we didnt' want buffs to become useless, as they will be useful for keeping parties alive.

Also, expect their to be traps that dispel some buffs from the party. This has been agreed upon as a good way to keep buffs from becoming the way to dungeon crawl without problems. Keep those rogues handy! ^_^

[Raksha]

And the original 3.0 Mage Armor makes a return. ^^

Question on Protection vs Good / Evil: Is there a way to cut the stupid swirly ball effect server-wide instead of just for those who have reduced spell buffs? Seems to me that it's basically begging for people to metagame "ooh, swirly ball, you must be hiding from the paladin!" When there should be -no- visible effect at all. *bites Obsidian*

[Venture]

yeah those buff effects are pretty horrendous, there is that nice little override on the vault that gets rid of the effects, but its obviously not server side.

[GodBeastX]

Oh, I already took out the mage armor visual and protection from good/evil visual.

[Ithildin]

aren't the shield spells already 60/secs per level? That doesn't last very long to begin with how short is the duration being changed to now?

[Saulus]

Actually most of the spells we've modified originally had 1 hour per caster level. Which is 5 minutes per level realtime. Waaaaay too long.

[GodBeastX]

Our thinking is that it takes X time from point A to B in a hostile area, depending on the party. Making spells last well beyond that makes it so some classes don't have to really be choosy with what they bring into a dungeon.

Lower dungeons are pretty much designed to be easier, and the most soloable, because it's meant to ease you into the style of play we're trying to setup. Places like the necropolis weren't designed for one person to buff up and run through it, then come back to a camp and say "Yeah, it was a breeze!" like players are doing right now.

Xeraph is redoing the necropolis and making it a MUCH better dungeon. I really say this guy is design-wise a genius. Sundren is lucky to have him really But this is why the necropolis hasn't been refactored much, since any changes we make will end up redone soon anyway.

To add to upcomming changes I would like to add the following to the list:

• Grim Axe hold in Viridale will be getting populated with the Grim Axe Orcs encounters.
• Viridale Encounters are going to be resetup to be more how they were designed.
• Loot is going to be expanded outward to other dungeons now so expect to start finding treasures in chests and such in other dungeons now (Maybe more chests).
• Bosses will drop specific items for their dungeon level meant to help progress players to the next dungeon. They will not drop items from the random generator. They will also drop more than one item, to take into consideration a party has entered, not a single individual. So expect to get setup for harder dungeons after you run previous ones a few times. These drops will still be random, however, so you might get what you want the first time, you might not

[ThePaganKing]

These changes sound great guys. Now if only I can get a couple levels so that I can make some of these other places without being the guy that everyone needs to heal to stay alive, LOL!

[Scourn]

Sounds very very good indeed! I dont want to stray from the topic to much but, is each dungeon going to be designed on average for a set ammount of people, or will each one vary on party size? Like ive noticed Necropolis seems best at 4 people(obvisouly i think its going to change)

[GodBeastX]

5 people will always be best number to take into a dungeon. Some you may be able to get by with certain class grouping and such, however why take three if you can take five? ^_^

[Poor_Otis]

Glad to see rogues beiing made more valuable. All the changes look well thought out in light of server balance.

BTW - I can't believe that there are folks soloing necro so soon already after the wipe. Sheesh.

[ThePaganKing]

I am not sure there is a good, efficient way to stop some character classes from soloing certain areas. Some combinations just rock in certain areas. I remember on the NWN1 server that I played on, mages could solo just about every area except the dragon areas. for some reason, the dragon areas were harder for the mages, but almost every other area they could solo easily. One reason is the high dispel ability the dragons had and used all the time, thus dispelling the mages defensive buffs and making him much more killable.

So, it is a very hard balancing act, because if you make it too hard, then everyone gets wiped out and nobody has fun, but too easy, then you have some characters that solo. Maybe make areas where you cannot rest or if you try and rest, have creatures appear randomly, spoiling your rest. And the aforementioned dispel spells work also.

And if you are worried about these "uber" characters and fighting, whether in holy wars or because he stepped on your toe and messed up your pretty boots, whatever the RP reason is (hopefully you have an rp reason), just take them out before they can buff. It is ridiculous that someone would be running around fully buffed unless they were in imminent threat of attack. Lessening the buff longevity or the stacking makes the player less powerful also. You could just run around until their buffs wear off, then take them out, LOL!

But, personally, I don't care because I enjoy the RP more and if you KO my character, oh well, its a game

Just a suggestion, but I am sure the DMs have a bunch of ideas for balancing areas and classes.

[undeadsteak]

Whee, more monsters n all? And new spells? AWESOME!

[GodBeastX]

I am not sure there is a good, efficient way to stop some character classes from soloing certain areas. Some combinations just rock in certain areas. I remember on the NWN1 server that I played on, mages could solo just about every area except the dragon areas. for some reason, the dragon areas were harder for the mages, but almost every other area they could solo easily. One reason is the high dispel ability the dragons had and used all the time, thus dispelling the mages defensive buffs and making him much more killable.

So, it is a very hard balancing act, because if you make it too hard, then everyone gets wiped out and nobody has fun, but too easy, then you have some characters that solo. Maybe make areas where you cannot rest or if you try and rest, have creatures appear randomly, spoiling your rest. And the aforementioned dispel spells work also.

And if you are worried about these "uber" characters and fighting, whether in holy wars or because he stepped on your toe and messed up your pretty boots, whatever the RP reason is (hopefully you have an rp reason), just take them out before they can buff. It is ridiculous that someone would be running around fully buffed unless they were in imminent threat of attack. Lessening the buff longevity or the stacking makes the player less powerful also. You could just run around until their buffs wear off, then take them out, LOL!

But, personally, I don't care because I enjoy the RP more and if you KO my character, oh well, its a game

Just a suggestion, but I am sure the DMs have a bunch of ideas for balancing areas and classes.

It's funny all your suggestions for making it more difficult are basically in the thread already ^_^ So I guess I agreed.

[ThePaganKing]

I guess in a long winded way, I was trying to stress how hard it is to balance a game that was primarily made for single player.

I was also trying to make the point that an RP server should be worried about more than uber characters. If you want an uber character and beat everyone, go for it, but if not, then just enjoy your character and the RP value he/she brings.