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Post by dopplegang on Dec 21, 2017 21:58:55 GMT
That is understandable, however the need for the plode immune is really at lvl 40 and above, in the desert run and sissy run where you will be on your back most of the time if you are not immune to plode and the options to avoid the plode spam are remarkably rare.
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Post by chirality on Dec 22, 2017 2:26:15 GMT
it's not just preservation shield and nothing till conservancy. theres UR armor (also giving drown imm for sands, someone prolly did that on purpose eh?), sissy armor, thids armor which work for shifter, cleric, and str tanks. mages should be playing properly (bbod, gv/gs, mantles) to avoid plode. monks have sr, druids and dexers that can't wear the plates and have no preservation should enjoy being the basically the only tanks at those levels that have enuff AC to survive vs the archers/onhits that dominate plode-imm armor wearers as a tradeoff.
if u don't have preservation or plode armor, nor SR/mantles, nor plode-imm tank/bbod in party, then u should prolly pick another run to do. same with fts imm: if u lack it and can't get around the lack with party's help, prolly don't do db.
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Post by nviwraith on Jan 15, 2018 3:46:55 GMT
I'm new and im loving the community everyone is great. The main thing that is making me want to stop playing, is having to rely on people so much, im playing melee and i cant do anything alone, i have to wait and see if someone my level wants to help.
People tell me just to roll a caster, but ide rather play what I like to play, which is melee.
My first char (a rogue) ended terrible because i know nothing about NWN skills/feats/points.
Someone helped me with my 2nd char a warhammer prof WM, and though its better, im still stuck in the same way just now im lvl 32 (after being carried from lvl 20-32).
Hopefully this helps from a new player perspective. I hate that my char feels so useless with or without a PT.
I was thinking about trying a bow character but i feel like it will just be the same issue unless i roll some OP caster type. So i dont know weather to even bother.
Edit : To anyone who says its a party module, can read the part about casters soloing everything pre 40.
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Post by sabregirl on Jan 15, 2018 5:11:48 GMT
I'm new and im loving the community everyone is great. The main thing that is making me want to stop playing, is having to rely on people so much, im playing melee and i cant do anything alone, i have to wait and see if someone my level wants to help. People tell me just to roll a caster, but ide rather play what I like to play, which is melee. My first char (a rogue) ended terrible because i know nothing about NWN skills/feats/points. Someone helped me with my 2nd char a warhammer prof WM, and though its better, im still stuck in the same way just now im lvl 32 (after being carried from lvl 20-32). Hopefully this helps from a new player perspective. I hate that my char feels so useless with or without a PT. I was thinking about trying a bow character but i feel like it will just be the same issue unless i roll some OP caster type. So i dont know weather to even bother. Edit : To anyone who says its a party module, can read the part about casters soloing everything pre 40. We really appreciate your comments and do see this as an issue which we would like to address soon. In the meantime I'd suggest a hybrid tank, one that can cast some weapon buffs but is a meleer such as Ranger, Paladin, Blackguard or some of the quasiclasses like lash of hatred, warchanter, staffmaster or bane knight. Note that you can reincarnate into any class/ quasiclass you want as long as you're over lvl 21 and less than 40. -S
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Post by greven on Jan 15, 2018 5:14:39 GMT
I'm new and im loving the community everyone is great. The main thing that is making me want to stop playing, is having to rely on people so much, im playing melee and i cant do anything alone, i have to wait and see if someone my level wants to help. People tell me just to roll a caster, but ide rather play what I like to play, which is melee. My first char (a rogue) ended terrible because i know nothing about NWN skills/feats/points. Someone helped me with my 2nd char a warhammer prof WM, and though its better, im still stuck in the same way just now im lvl 32 (after being carried from lvl 20-32). Hello. Some melees are better at soloing than others. Weapon Masters are not self-buffing, so they aren't especially good at soloing. Some better soloers include Paladin, melee cleric (aka battle cleric), Stormlord, and Staffmaster. Also, your damage on a melee is going to be very dependent on how good of a weapon you have. The mod was just updated so that certain bosses are supposed to drop weapons; a buffed lvl 29 weapon is going to be quite a bit better than what you have when you try and solo now
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Post by chirality on Jan 15, 2018 5:48:23 GMT
Edit : To anyone who says its a party module, can read the part about casters soloing everything pre 40. Not saying this to be argumentative or be a troll, but the reason (new) players are told this is because it's true (multiboxing aside). Casters can indeed solo a lot even past L40, but LLs begin introducing quickly-diminishing returns the deeper into the game one progresses (which is largely true @l40 as well--it's technically possible, but extremely difficult, to complete Lolth, MoaD, and Immo as a solo caster). In other words, a caster may solo LL runs (or shifter--close to a caster for HG's purposes tho--at comparable efficiency, in many cases), but these runs quickly scale in difficulty and design-based hindrances, until Hells+, at which point the closest a caster comes to "soloing" is in a 2-toon party (at minimum), where the caster may be doing the brunt of the offensive work, but there is another badly-needed toon there to support them or fill holes that given caster class cannot. Indeed it may be possible to "fully" solo a Hell+ run (literally only 1 toon), but due to various design "features" (including but not limited to: loot scripts, anti-exploits, spawn/random/boss mechanics, and mob design), it's essentially a futile effort. Even a 2-toon party in Hell+ (and that's really only reasonable in "shallow" runs anyway) requires very good teamwork; knowledge of the game in general and the run in particular; gear; and technical skill; 3-4 toon runs still require all the above (although run possibilities are expanded to include nearly any run on the server, probably excepting only limbo part 2?, although the "deepest"/hardest runs will still generally be a thing that few players can/want to efficiently complete with a 4-toon party). Casters soloing everything pre 40 is hardly relevant to the "big picture" (and the big picture is also where HG really earns its place as a great game). Casters soloing much of post-40/pre-55 content is much more relevant to the big picture, but less of an issue (and rarely latched upon as a source of complaint, since new players that stick around long enough to find that dynamic troublesome usually have accepted it and either gave up or progressed into Hells). In terms of solo vs group play, I don't think HG is very much different from the many other "party-based" RPGs that may allow solo play up to a certain point, yet mandate partying for later-game content; or at the least it shares much in common (which is why many HG players came from/still play other online RPGs). The complaint to be made is that tanks suffer from not being able to comparably compete on the same solo-able dynamic, which is why (new) players are told to make a caster. I'm not sure this will ever change (nor should it, imo), but to be fair to the developers (and the community at large), there's been a lot of attention given to this complaint lately. Casters able to solo pre-40 is, of course, quite relevant when discussing the perceptions of (new) players, and the acquisition/retention thereof, but again, this is something that's been deemed as an important thing to focus on improving recently. In other words, it's strange to consider stopping playing the game just at a time when the thing that's a huge turnoff for you (and many) is finally (after years of inattention) being attended to. Anyway, tldr: if you don't want to play a caster, that's fine (it's common), but you won't have much luck doing anything by yourself. That sucks, and many believe it shouldn't be that way, but imo (non-RP) NWN makes it very difficult to accommodate a truly egalitarian balance across "casters" vs "tanks". There are some modules where tanks reign supreme and casters sux, and some where both archetypes are reasonably equal in terms of power, but these modules tend to predicate that balance on world/run/customization design that usually looks far more rudimentary than HG (and therein lies HG's rub). Casters got a lot of love on HG, it's true; but then, without that love, they'd be very, very weak. Modules lacking the depth of HG's spellcaster customizations (and HG's caster gear) tend to produce casters that are very underwhelming, imo (except for cheese). Tank power and over-power is largely dependent on gear (moreso than build usually, as even a crappily-built/played tank with uber gear will succeed), and well-geared tanks on any module will dominate, whereas HG allows even poorly-geared but well-built/played casters to succeed, and supremely-geared casters largely only gain QoL/ease of life vs poorly-geared casters (whereas poorly-geared tanks often struggle, even when played and built well [and poorly-built+played tanks are a vulnerability to the party], and supremely-geared well-built/played tanks are highly sought after. Imo HG makes casters shine, not "more" than tanks in the long run, but enough that it seems like a discrepancy until later in the game. On the other hand, vanilla NWN caters to tanks being OP and casters largely only shining in roleplay/overpowered cheez like hellball/summons (outside of PvP cheese like bigbies/dispels/disables/timestops/bbods). I'm not here to tell you how to play the game, or how to spend your free time, but I don't think makes much sense to demand to have the cake and eat it too. My rule of thumb in games is that I need to take advantage of the metagame and build a character powerful enough to solo, with the tools to do so, if I want to solo. In some games this is less about character class (indeed, many RPGs are class-less) and more about other character attributes/build, in other cases it's more about equipment, in other storyline choices. In HG, it happens to largely be about class choice, but after all, it is D&D, and unlike many "soloable" games, there's no built-in "henchman" or "follower" mechanism, which imo is generally the main reason that some games are "soloable", but that's a design choice to make the game soloable, not a design choice for the game to be party-based (as is HG). In other words, if you want to play by yourself, play a caster; if you want to play a tank, don't play by yourself. If those options are irreconcilable with your desires, then perhaps HG really isn't suited to your tastes after all (maybe try it and make sure though ),; although again, to be fair to HG, I don't believe there are many online "party-based" (aka non-henchman/follower package) RPGs that offer the opportunity to pick any class/archetype you want and solo successfully (other than non-combat oriented progression such as quests, resource gathering, skill training, etc).
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Post by dopplegang on Jan 15, 2018 5:49:39 GMT
I'm new and im loving the community everyone is great. The main thing that is making me want to stop playing, is having to rely on people so much, im playing melee and i cant do anything alone, i have to wait and see if someone my level wants to help. People tell me just to roll a caster, but ide rather play what I like to play, which is melee. My first char (a rogue) ended terrible because i know nothing about NWN skills/feats/points. Someone helped me with my 2nd char a warhammer prof WM, and though its better, im still stuck in the same way just now im lvl 32 (after being carried from lvl 20-32). Hopefully this helps from a new player perspective. I hate that my char feels so useless with or without a PT. I was thinking about trying a bow character but i feel like it will just be the same issue unless i roll some OP caster type. So i dont know weather to even bother. Edit : To anyone who says its a party module, can read the part about casters soloing everything pre 40. You have to take a closer look at some dynamic concepts about role playing games to consider the situation here, and I mean this in the nicest possible way: Why is melee so appealing to every new player, or a lot of players at least lets see. when I join a new server yes I start with a fighter cause I know i have no idea what to do on the server and i need to find out whats around , live long enough to learn and observe. and generally a fighter will do fine on the rats you have to clear out of cellars at lvl 1 from the first place you always wind up. a bar I don't actually desperately need to be a fighter(melee) but its easier than figuring out which of the 15 spells you start with works on the rats enough to kill them, no AOE spells available yet so one by one against average of at least 3, then find a place to rest and use that spell the two times you booked it cause your intel/cha is not amazing yet, then hope you can rest again in some area to repeat, and hope your 4 hp is enough with such low dex ac and robes to stay alive to manage that and no money to really make it any easier. Its less cumbersome to use the 100 gold you start with. Oh look a club, look a rat, smack. Done. FAR less learning curve its like engineering school vs high school SO, casters deserve to be more powerful, they are a hell of a lot harder to figure out, to work with and to survive. Casters aren't worth much at lvl 2 if you don't consider power creep and sharing items and gold. Starting a new server at level 1 with a sorc limited to two spells and 4 shots and 4 hit point is very challenging. Now there deserves an honorable mention quite recently that a great many of the bosses available at these higher levels have become possible to kill with a melee toon (easier by far with several melee toons) quite readily. I tested several myself and found that you certainly don't need an arcane to kill any of the 30s at this point, but if you don't have the right AC you are going to find it still quite a challenge, and that is really just dodging the truth of this statement: It is still much easier when your friends can throw artillery shells at your enemies, that will always be true with any combat situation. I will give mention to the fact that being a GOOD melee toon requires a player to know what their friends(casters) can instant kill quickly, so that you only bother to spend 10 minutes hitting the big guy in the room who needs to be hit, instead of spending 10 minutes getting a mob down to near death only to have the cleric instant kill it like he could have done at any time but he was busy worrying about the hard mobs that the melee should be hitting. There is a great deal to learn even as a melee toon if you want to be good at what you do. I presume that a good tank will understand this fact. This is specifically the opposite of saying the melee is useless. There are mobs the casters shouldn't waste spells on and the melee should get rid of, or wear down to the point that the caster isn't wasting an excessive amount of their spells on it. The real currency here is time and rest. In the areas with free rest, you don't want to waste your whole play time resting cause the party is not working well as a team, the casters are burning spells on things they cant kill and the tank is hitting the things he cant hurt so they have to rest after every spawn. And in the ring rest only areas of the game you have 10 rests total, that's a drop dead limit and sometimes it is even less. If you waste those you fail. The learning curve only gets harder.
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Post by nviwraith on Jan 15, 2018 9:06:11 GMT
Edit : To anyone who says its a party module, can read the part about casters soloing everything pre 40. Not saying this to be argumentative or be a troll, but the reason (new) players are told this is because it's true (multiboxing aside). Casters can indeed solo a lot even past L40, but LLs begin introducing quickly-diminishing returns the deeper into the game one progresses (which is largely true @l40 as well--it's technically possible, but extremely difficult, to complete Lolth, MoaD, and Immo as a solo caster). In other words, a caster may solo LL runs (or shifter--close to a caster for HG's purposes tho--at comparable efficiency, in many cases), but these runs quickly scale in difficulty and design-based hindrances, until Hells+, at which point the closest a caster comes to "soloing" is in a 2-toon party (at minimum), where the caster may be doing the brunt of the offensive work, but there is another badly-needed toon there to support them or fill holes that given caster class cannot. Indeed it may be possible to "fully" solo a Hell+ run (literally only 1 toon), but due to various design "features" (including but not limited to: loot scripts, anti-exploits, spawn/random/boss mechanics, and mob design), it's essentially a futile effort. Even a 2-toon party in Hell+ (and that's really only reasonable in "shallow" runs anyway) requires very good teamwork; knowledge of the game in general and the run in particular; gear; and technical skill; 3-4 toon runs still require all the above (although run possibilities are expanded to include nearly any run on the server, probably excepting only limbo part 2?, although the "deepest"/hardest runs will still generally be a thing that few players can/want to efficiently complete with a 4-toon party). Casters soloing everything pre 40 is hardly relevant to the "big picture" (and the big picture is also where HG really earns its place as a great game). Casters soloing much of post-40/pre-55 content is much more relevant to the big picture, but less of an issue (and rarely latched upon as a source of complaint, since new players that stick around long enough to find that dynamic troublesome usually have accepted it and either gave up or progressed into Hells). In terms of solo vs group play, I don't think HG is very much different from the many other "party-based" RPGs that may allow solo play up to a certain point, yet mandate partying for later-game content; or at the least it shares much in common (which is why many HG players came from/still play other online RPGs). The complaint to be made is that tanks suffer from not being able to comparably compete on the same solo-able dynamic, which is why (new) players are told to make a caster. I'm not sure this will ever change (nor should it, imo), but to be fair to the developers (and the community at large), there's been a lot of attention given to this complaint lately. Casters able to solo pre-40 is, of course, quite relevant when discussing the perceptions of (new) players, and the acquisition/retention thereof, but again, this is something that's been deemed as an important thing to focus on improving recently. In other words, it's strange to consider stopping playing the game just at a time when the thing that's a huge turnoff for you (and many) is finally (after years of inattention) being attended to. Anyway, tldr: if you don't want to play a caster, that's fine (it's common), but you won't have much luck doing anything by yourself. That sucks, and many believe it shouldn't be that way, but imo (non-RP) NWN makes it very difficult to accommodate a truly egalitarian balance across "casters" vs "tanks". There are some modules where tanks reign supreme and casters sux, and some where both archetypes are reasonably equal in terms of power, but these modules tend to predicate that balance on world/run/customization design that usually looks far more rudimentary than HG (and therein lies HG's rub). Casters got a lot of love on HG, it's true; but then, without that love, they'd be very, very weak. Modules lacking the depth of HG's spellcaster customizations (and HG's caster gear) tend to produce casters that are very underwhelming, imo (except for cheese). Tank power and over-power is largely dependent on gear (moreso than build usually, as even a crappily-built/played tank with uber gear will succeed), and well-geared tanks on any module will dominate, whereas HG allows even poorly-geared but well-built/played casters to succeed, and supremely-geared casters largely only gain QoL/ease of life vs poorly-geared casters (whereas poorly-geared tanks often struggle, even when played and built well [and poorly-built+played tanks are a vulnerability to the party], and supremely-geared well-built/played tanks are highly sought after. Imo HG makes casters shine, not "more" than tanks in the long run, but enough that it seems like a discrepancy until later in the game. On the other hand, vanilla NWN caters to tanks being OP and casters largely only shining in roleplay/overpowered cheez like hellball/summons (outside of PvP cheese like bigbies/dispels/disables/timestops/bbods). I'm not here to tell you how to play the game, or how to spend your free time, but I don't think makes much sense to demand to have the cake and eat it too. My rule of thumb in games is that I need to take advantage of the metagame and build a character powerful enough to solo, with the tools to do so, if I want to solo. In some games this is less about character class (indeed, many RPGs are class-less) and more about other character attributes/build, in other cases it's more about equipment, in other storyline choices. In HG, it happens to largely be about class choice, but after all, it is D&D, and unlike many "soloable" games, there's no built-in "henchman" or "follower" mechanism, which imo is generally the main reason that some games are "soloable", but that's a design choice to make the game soloable, not a design choice for the game to be party-based (as is HG). In other words, if you want to play by yourself, play a caster; if you want to play a tank, don't play by yourself. If those options are irreconcilable with your desires, then perhaps HG really isn't suited to your tastes after all (maybe try it and make sure though ),; although again, to be fair to HG, I don't believe there are many online "party-based" (aka non-henchman/follower package) RPGs that offer the opportunity to pick any class/archetype you want and solo successfully (other than non-combat oriented progression such as quests, resource gathering, skill training, etc). Its not about having to party, i love being in a group, its having to rely on a party to progress. you HAVE to party to progress as most melee. Im not saying casters dont deserve love, but obviously melee is out-shined hard in the early game, and as this post is about early game and retention of new players, so telling someone "maybe HG isnt for you" isnt how you keep players, if you want to have retention of new players, the best thing you can do is try to appease ALL sides of the community to the best of your ability. I love HG ive had great player interaction, everyone is super helpful and nice, I've been playing non-stop since i found it. Tanks are obviously gimped, while leveling its been apparent to me since i started, all im saying is make everything have the same accessability. Why do casters deserve to be the only classes that can solo? is there actually specific reasoning to it?
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Post by dopplegang on Jan 15, 2018 9:52:57 GMT
It's not that they deserve it, its just that by the very nature of instant death attacks and mass area damage spells, tt is "highly" unlikely to make single target characters competitive with that.
You could add AOE dmg attacks to melee toons, and instant death criticals to melee toons, that would make them competitive, arguably HG has come the closest in the attempt at fixing such a problem as any mod I have seen since NWN was published.
but then you could also argue that there is plenty of that already in play, assassins, called shot rangers, the vast pile of available battle caster types that could employ instant death spells...
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Post by nviwraith on Jan 15, 2018 10:02:27 GMT
It's not that they deserve it, its just that by the very nature of instant death attacks and mass area damage spells, tt is "highly" unlikely to make single target characters competitive with that. You could add AOE dmg attacks to melee toons, and instant death criticals to melee toons, that would make them competitive, arguably HG has come the closest in the attempt at fixing such a problem as any mod I have seen since NWN was published. ive played more on HG more than ive played Vanilla NWN haha, so I know nothing about whats changed and all that jazz. But yeah thats all I'm saying just make everything fun and people will stay! For instance, right now im sitting in town for the last hour waiting for someone to come on that might want to do 35 pres. Its not fun, waiting around doing nothing. I would love to be grouped up running stuff, but its just not possible at all hours of the day.
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Post by dopplegang on Jan 15, 2018 10:13:56 GMT
I agree. I cannot stand to log into a game and find myself sitting there doing nothing, or look back and realize I have stood still for an hour. For any game and for any reason. My time is highly valuable to a good many people, myself most of all. That is why I left MMO forever. That problem can come up in HG, however I solved that problem by making a new toon to capitalize on some things I noticed I could do better or I could help someone else with or something new I wanted to try. When no one is around, which does happen, I play someone I can progress in at the time.
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Post by madzapper on Jan 15, 2018 12:50:47 GMT
It's not that they deserve it, its just that by the very nature of instant death attacks and mass area damage spells, tt is "highly" unlikely to make single target characters competitive with that. You could add AOE dmg attacks to melee toons, and instant death criticals to melee toons, that would make them competitive, arguably HG has come the closest in the attempt at fixing such a problem as any mod I have seen since NWN was published. ive played more on HG more than ive played Vanilla NWN haha, so I know nothing about whats changed and all that jazz. But yeah thats all I'm saying just make everything fun and people will stay! For instance, right now im sitting in town for the last hour waiting for someone to come on that might want to do 35 pres. Its not fun, waiting around doing nothing. I would love to be grouped up running stuff, but its just not possible at all hours of the day. What I'm going to say isn't going to change your soloing ability. It's just about finding solutions for being stuck. One way to overcome sitting stale is to build more toons while waiting for a leveling group to get near your level. As for playing in groups, if you get into a party doing 30's, eventually they get to 35's. While in parties discuss the problem areas you are having. It's possible that other party members have toons that are stuck in the same spots. I go so far as to hold levels at 30 even when I am on 35 tags just so I can join level 30 parties. I'd also point out that it's not just melee that get stuck. Casters do too. Not all types of casters can solo all areas. It's only certain casters that made the correct choices while leveling and have the right gear to succeed that will be able to solo. This usually takes making a handful of characters to start getting the gear to make that happen. Eventually it's just easier to play with a party than it is to play by yourself (as Chirality said, multiboxing aside).
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Post by FunkySwerve on Jan 15, 2018 15:04:01 GMT
I will also add that we are planning to add henchmen to town that should make soloing easier. We appreciate the feedback, as we're currently working hard to make the module friendly to newcomers.
Funky
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Post by Deleted on Jan 15, 2018 15:22:00 GMT
but then you could also argue that there is plenty of that already in play, assassins, called shot rangers, the vast pile of available battle caster types that could employ instant death spells... Is it really THAT hard to play a caster? Cause I don't think it is. Yes, you got some more buttons. Not that many. And you can sit back there and insta-kill big groups of mobs with just one of those buttons. Rangers I've seen insta-kill too. For some reason meleers can't. Even dev crit is disabled. Would it hurt so much if meleers could dev crit too? It's not even a case of "roles", in my opinion. Those insta-killing machines sitting in the back actually have the same or better defenses than a meleer, in terms of AC and immunities. I'm not saying they don't deserve love, I find it funny how defensive everyone gets and how unpopular this opinion is, but it's a bit ridiculous as it is. If anything, the risk-reward argument should mean meleers get more for being up there. So, don't want to beat the dead horse but, why exactly is dev crit disabled?
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Post by Paradoom on Jan 15, 2018 15:32:58 GMT
So, don't want to beat the dead horse but, why exactly is dev crit disabled? Cause most mobs take critical hits including even bosses. E.g. Black Slaad vs Graz'zt. Ends in 1 hit in w/c in favor of the slaad because of DC. As fun as that would be as player, this would be game breaker.
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