Insight and thoughts from a new player
Dec 31, 2017 21:15:50 GMT
sabregirl, Xiayu, and 4 more like this
Post by nereida on Dec 31, 2017 21:15:50 GMT
Hello all!
I'm normally not the kind of person that writes posts in the forums partly because I usually prefer to avoid exposure towards communities that are very passionate about the thing they love (or hate to love!) and partly because I am the kind of person that often prefers to accept things in a "take it or leave it" mindset. However! I feel Higher Grounds is unique and wonderful in ways I hadn't experienced before in a NWN server, and one that I'd love to see prosper, grow bigger and better in time, and so I've decided to offer my own insight of what have been my first 3 weeks as a HG player. In that time I've raised a level 60 Barbarian and a level 59 cleric, as well as a level 55 rogue that I share with my partner, which I'm fortunate enough to have to play with - I feel that without that, I may have never gotten far enough to give HG the real opportunity it deserves simply because I may have ended up too frustrated to go on.
I am aware that a lot of the things I'm about to say are well known and probably widely acknowledged and discussed in the forums, probably even on the way to be fixed! That's great, and I love that the dev team is on top of it and trying to make things better within their ability and availability. Finding free time for a thing like this is always an issue, and inspirational waves come and go, there's no way around it. That said, if my insight and opinions are any helpful at all, then that's wonderful. It may as well be stuff everyone knows or considers "minor", and not worth considering! That's fine too. With that said, I'll list some of my experiences and how I view these experiences as a new player.
First topic would be the "walking into the world". I believe the entry hurdles for HG are minimal, and I haven't found much difficulty navigating town and the several locations that you need to visit in your resupply trips. If anything, I'd group up vendors with your basic supplies more closely rather than having to go to some building for TP gems, some other for NEP potions, some other for Rez Packs, and then to the other map for Resto packs. It's just a minor quality of life thing, though. Something that would be helpful is having a way to track quests ingame, either with the player journal, or a command that shows your quest progress, or what step you're at. Ideally it'd list every quest-givin NPC too, so if you're a new player you can also identify that there are quest NPCs you haven't even found yet and you can take quests from. What my partner and I did was setup a Dicord channel dedicated solely to track quests and scratch off every step once done, moving on to the next and so on. It worked beautifully for us, but again.. it's not what every new player will find user-friendly or comfortable, so that's my suggestion.
Another thing I'd suggest is that for those who are doing the quests (normally will be new players, as vets know how to farm XP faster than doing quests) offer some rewards other than XP and gold. Perhaps key pieces of gear that are expected to be useful for any character around the stage at which they're getting that reward. Could even make the rings of Water Breathing/Levitation/Firewalking/Wallpassing rewards from some of those quests, since to be fair... the level cap on them ins't intuitive at all for new players, and missing on them means missing on a significant part of the module if you're not lucky with drops with gear that have inbuilt water breathing, levitation and such, much later on into the game.
Second topic would be s the levelling process. I've found that there are two phases, level 1-30 and level 30-40. This is likely well known as one of the first things we were advised is "there are a few bosses that are badly dseigned and are basically IGMS sponges. Bring a mage." Luckily enough my partner and I had already decided to play a Barbarian tank-Sorcerer nuker combo, but I believe this is something that would need to be addressed. I personally don't mind that much that some bosses have a zillion HP, but I see two issues with some of those encounters that start popping up at level 30+... they are practically impervious to physical damage (or small amounts of elemental damage that come with most weapons available to you), and they regen faster than you can harm them. And then you have to survive them, which isn't trivial, and it's the fun part of it - no point just beating a 10k HP wall. The problem comes in the the dispartiy that exists in the ability for melee characters to take down enemies opposed to spellcasters. While taking down these dragons and queens and lichs that most people who will read this knows about, the melee character's existence and usefulness is reduced to that of a somewhat more intelligent, human controlled pet for the spellcaster that's fighting with you. That's where I am lucky to have a spellcaster fighting with me. If I didn't have one? Forever stuck, doomed to ignore tags and find a party at 40 that helps me get immortal. Now ignoring tags may not seem the end of the world, but a lot of players in RPGs are completionists (I am!) and if I found such a brick wall I'd be very discouraged, and probably the server would look much less inviting to me.
So I know, the solution can be to shout what you need until you find help from an appropraite level Sorc/Wiz/Druid/Cleric to nuke the score of dragons out there that you as melee can't touch. Still not fun, and not even fair to expect a new player that because she chose barbarian instead of sorcerer, she has to spend one week begging for help stuck at level 30 while someone else just blazed past the encounter summoning a BBoD and killing a stationary brick of 10,000HP. Also to keep in mind that most vets at this point ignore tags altogether, and even if they're levelling a new character, they're most likely just AoE grinding 1->40->Immo->60 without stopping for anything, so they really won't be helping meleers to get their tags either. This in my opinion needs balanced. I believe melee characters should be able to chip at the health of these enemies steadily to eventually defeat it, if the character's gear is on par with the intended for the encounter. And by having gear on par, I don't mean finding that one L29 Rare weapon that has Divine and Electrical damage that drops off an optional boss that spawns only at midnight in a hidden cave. It should be much more trivial as in.. you've grinded well, you've been looting for upgrades, and your AC/AB values are respectable enough.
The steps to take to achieve this are several, and I know the devs and thinking heads of HG are very capable. I may but offer a suggestion - remove all regeneration from pre-LL bosses, and lower physical immumities vastly as well as flat physical DR. Something like 50-75% Physical immunity and immune to crits (no flat DR at all!) would mean that even if the meleer's elemental damage is mostly nulled she'll still be able to chip some 20-50 HP per hit, and eventually kill the target if their gear and skills prove to be good enough to withstand the dragon's assault, as you at least can damage it somewhat reliably.
That sums up my feelings on that topic. I loved the levelling, the variety of areas, the enemies, how you have to learn to deal with each different kind of foe, how you need to priorise targets and use any tools at your disposal. That's pretty wonderful, and has made me kind of addicted to HG. But it's a shame to think that this is all only possible because I had someone with me that played a "proper" class and thanks to that we could do the content. If not for that, it's very likely I wouldn't have stuck around.
A third topic (and the last I'll touch for now as the post is getting long!) is the multiboxing. I don't like multiboxing. I find it stressful, and unfair. However, I am forced to multibox. The sole reason being that it is allowed! Sounds silly, doesn't it? Well, here's the thing. In the time I gain XP/gear/tags for 1 character, I can get XP/gear/tags for 3 characters. And cover all of the buffs requirements to do most if not all runs. And keep 100% of the loot from that run. So if my partner and I multibox 3 characters earch, we get a paty of 6 with Tank, Buff/Imploder cleric, DC mage, bard, druid and rogue. We've got it all, and we get 100% of the loot too, to distribute, store and sell as we please. I feel this is not good for HG, but it's so efficient that's impossible to refuse it. It's as if you go to your office and they tell you "hey, today you can log on three computers, with three logins, and even though you'll be mainly working just on one, you'll get three times the monthly pay!" You'd be puzzled and wonder "uh.. that's kinda cheating.. right?" they'd tell you "well, we are allowing you to do it!". Hell yeah, I'd do it. Everyone who can would do it.
I don't want to delve deep into this topic because I know it's one that probably has seen rivers of ink spilled in these forums. Here's my suggestion: Disallow multiboxing! It's my opinion. It'll make the module more fun, the community more associative, an the whole thing fairer for everyone.
That's all for now. Before I close this post I need to say - great work on HG. These things I talk about, are merely things that could have been better, but to be fair, if they weren't good enough I wouldn't have become helplessly addicted, with a couple characters getting ready to tackle hells in merely 3 weeks from my first login!
Cheers and see you all around!
I'm normally not the kind of person that writes posts in the forums partly because I usually prefer to avoid exposure towards communities that are very passionate about the thing they love (or hate to love!) and partly because I am the kind of person that often prefers to accept things in a "take it or leave it" mindset. However! I feel Higher Grounds is unique and wonderful in ways I hadn't experienced before in a NWN server, and one that I'd love to see prosper, grow bigger and better in time, and so I've decided to offer my own insight of what have been my first 3 weeks as a HG player. In that time I've raised a level 60 Barbarian and a level 59 cleric, as well as a level 55 rogue that I share with my partner, which I'm fortunate enough to have to play with - I feel that without that, I may have never gotten far enough to give HG the real opportunity it deserves simply because I may have ended up too frustrated to go on.
I am aware that a lot of the things I'm about to say are well known and probably widely acknowledged and discussed in the forums, probably even on the way to be fixed! That's great, and I love that the dev team is on top of it and trying to make things better within their ability and availability. Finding free time for a thing like this is always an issue, and inspirational waves come and go, there's no way around it. That said, if my insight and opinions are any helpful at all, then that's wonderful. It may as well be stuff everyone knows or considers "minor", and not worth considering! That's fine too. With that said, I'll list some of my experiences and how I view these experiences as a new player.
First topic would be the "walking into the world". I believe the entry hurdles for HG are minimal, and I haven't found much difficulty navigating town and the several locations that you need to visit in your resupply trips. If anything, I'd group up vendors with your basic supplies more closely rather than having to go to some building for TP gems, some other for NEP potions, some other for Rez Packs, and then to the other map for Resto packs. It's just a minor quality of life thing, though. Something that would be helpful is having a way to track quests ingame, either with the player journal, or a command that shows your quest progress, or what step you're at. Ideally it'd list every quest-givin NPC too, so if you're a new player you can also identify that there are quest NPCs you haven't even found yet and you can take quests from. What my partner and I did was setup a Dicord channel dedicated solely to track quests and scratch off every step once done, moving on to the next and so on. It worked beautifully for us, but again.. it's not what every new player will find user-friendly or comfortable, so that's my suggestion.
Another thing I'd suggest is that for those who are doing the quests (normally will be new players, as vets know how to farm XP faster than doing quests) offer some rewards other than XP and gold. Perhaps key pieces of gear that are expected to be useful for any character around the stage at which they're getting that reward. Could even make the rings of Water Breathing/Levitation/Firewalking/Wallpassing rewards from some of those quests, since to be fair... the level cap on them ins't intuitive at all for new players, and missing on them means missing on a significant part of the module if you're not lucky with drops with gear that have inbuilt water breathing, levitation and such, much later on into the game.
Second topic would be s the levelling process. I've found that there are two phases, level 1-30 and level 30-40. This is likely well known as one of the first things we were advised is "there are a few bosses that are badly dseigned and are basically IGMS sponges. Bring a mage." Luckily enough my partner and I had already decided to play a Barbarian tank-Sorcerer nuker combo, but I believe this is something that would need to be addressed. I personally don't mind that much that some bosses have a zillion HP, but I see two issues with some of those encounters that start popping up at level 30+... they are practically impervious to physical damage (or small amounts of elemental damage that come with most weapons available to you), and they regen faster than you can harm them. And then you have to survive them, which isn't trivial, and it's the fun part of it - no point just beating a 10k HP wall. The problem comes in the the dispartiy that exists in the ability for melee characters to take down enemies opposed to spellcasters. While taking down these dragons and queens and lichs that most people who will read this knows about, the melee character's existence and usefulness is reduced to that of a somewhat more intelligent, human controlled pet for the spellcaster that's fighting with you. That's where I am lucky to have a spellcaster fighting with me. If I didn't have one? Forever stuck, doomed to ignore tags and find a party at 40 that helps me get immortal. Now ignoring tags may not seem the end of the world, but a lot of players in RPGs are completionists (I am!) and if I found such a brick wall I'd be very discouraged, and probably the server would look much less inviting to me.
So I know, the solution can be to shout what you need until you find help from an appropraite level Sorc/Wiz/Druid/Cleric to nuke the score of dragons out there that you as melee can't touch. Still not fun, and not even fair to expect a new player that because she chose barbarian instead of sorcerer, she has to spend one week begging for help stuck at level 30 while someone else just blazed past the encounter summoning a BBoD and killing a stationary brick of 10,000HP. Also to keep in mind that most vets at this point ignore tags altogether, and even if they're levelling a new character, they're most likely just AoE grinding 1->40->Immo->60 without stopping for anything, so they really won't be helping meleers to get their tags either. This in my opinion needs balanced. I believe melee characters should be able to chip at the health of these enemies steadily to eventually defeat it, if the character's gear is on par with the intended for the encounter. And by having gear on par, I don't mean finding that one L29 Rare weapon that has Divine and Electrical damage that drops off an optional boss that spawns only at midnight in a hidden cave. It should be much more trivial as in.. you've grinded well, you've been looting for upgrades, and your AC/AB values are respectable enough.
The steps to take to achieve this are several, and I know the devs and thinking heads of HG are very capable. I may but offer a suggestion - remove all regeneration from pre-LL bosses, and lower physical immumities vastly as well as flat physical DR. Something like 50-75% Physical immunity and immune to crits (no flat DR at all!) would mean that even if the meleer's elemental damage is mostly nulled she'll still be able to chip some 20-50 HP per hit, and eventually kill the target if their gear and skills prove to be good enough to withstand the dragon's assault, as you at least can damage it somewhat reliably.
That sums up my feelings on that topic. I loved the levelling, the variety of areas, the enemies, how you have to learn to deal with each different kind of foe, how you need to priorise targets and use any tools at your disposal. That's pretty wonderful, and has made me kind of addicted to HG. But it's a shame to think that this is all only possible because I had someone with me that played a "proper" class and thanks to that we could do the content. If not for that, it's very likely I wouldn't have stuck around.
A third topic (and the last I'll touch for now as the post is getting long!) is the multiboxing. I don't like multiboxing. I find it stressful, and unfair. However, I am forced to multibox. The sole reason being that it is allowed! Sounds silly, doesn't it? Well, here's the thing. In the time I gain XP/gear/tags for 1 character, I can get XP/gear/tags for 3 characters. And cover all of the buffs requirements to do most if not all runs. And keep 100% of the loot from that run. So if my partner and I multibox 3 characters earch, we get a paty of 6 with Tank, Buff/Imploder cleric, DC mage, bard, druid and rogue. We've got it all, and we get 100% of the loot too, to distribute, store and sell as we please. I feel this is not good for HG, but it's so efficient that's impossible to refuse it. It's as if you go to your office and they tell you "hey, today you can log on three computers, with three logins, and even though you'll be mainly working just on one, you'll get three times the monthly pay!" You'd be puzzled and wonder "uh.. that's kinda cheating.. right?" they'd tell you "well, we are allowing you to do it!". Hell yeah, I'd do it. Everyone who can would do it.
I don't want to delve deep into this topic because I know it's one that probably has seen rivers of ink spilled in these forums. Here's my suggestion: Disallow multiboxing! It's my opinion. It'll make the module more fun, the community more associative, an the whole thing fairer for everyone.
That's all for now. Before I close this post I need to say - great work on HG. These things I talk about, are merely things that could have been better, but to be fair, if they weren't good enough I wouldn't have become helplessly addicted, with a couple characters getting ready to tackle hells in merely 3 weeks from my first login!
Cheers and see you all around!