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Post by chirality on Aug 4, 2018 17:37:29 GMT
imo the thing that needs to be emphasized is the L35 weap trade for rings. getting upset over something that was made to be bypassed is funny to me. i mean for all/most of these things a mechanism was made in response to complaints, yet still ppl want to do things the "hard way" ... but wait, not "too" hard, mind you!
(that said, i do like the idea of some more "tips" and guide stuff around, whether "signs" or some more talkative NPCs--altho i get the feeling they'd end up being virtually ignored anyway, just like the gypsies on crossroads...i highly doubt most newbs ever are like "hmm well where do i go next! oh look this guy says there's trouble afoot in gaobin castle, ok quest accepted!"
just like tags, this is something that ppl (esp completionists) latch onto and struggle with until frustration lvl9000, but really it's something that should just be ignored long before it hits that point. if you like to explore and complete challenges and puzzles and visit random useless areas, HG has some of that to offer, but be ready to do some experimenting, asking vets for help/advice, or beat your head on a wall until you figure it out. if you want to play the game and have fun, skip the annoying poorly-designed PoA crap that doesn't need to be visited or accomplished.
little hyperbolic, but i don't get the notion that everything in lowbie experience must be 100% smooth and perfect, with puzzles and secrets having clues littered around that leave no question about what to do or how to do it. it's part of the charm imo, you're playing a game 15+ years old, and most "vets" learned from asking other ppl too (i mean honestly how many ppl since original PoA actually solo experimented to figure out lolth seal order by literally farming sets of seals over and over and randomly clicking the pedestals a dozen times until the right combo popped, or who since 2006 actually collected all the maze notes to learn the dachy pw?)
/rant
as for rogue duties in lowbie game, i don't see how or why there's a big problem. pixies are OP rugbots, there's literally only 3 things to be OL'd--the hall of horrors gates to lev ring and the drowned city door to sissy/RAA and the immo crown box--and the former lets you buy an item in a shop to get the job done. as for spot checks, there's also literally only a couple of these (lev ring secret, gaobin mirror portal...?) and there's easily-available gear to get that job done too if ppl buy/find it.
immo crown needs OL/DT but hey, pixie or rogue on the run isn't asking a lot. i mean heh, before summons update you literally had to have a rogue, yet ppl accepted it and either begged a vet to port one in or they took one on the run.
if new players are encouraged to make toons that excel in LL areas but can't excel in pre-LL areas, that's due to poor encouragement imo. new players should be encouraged to make *classes* that excel in LL areas, yes, but builds that get their job done on the way, there's reinc after all. mages should be rocking builds and spellbooks that make 1-40 easy, and a rogue splash is classic meta that virtually disappeared from low-level play because pixies made rogue duties only something to care about *after* immo.
on the one hand ppl yearn for the feelz of a real dungeon-crawling adventure that demands a rogue (cuz it's D&D, there's traps and locks and secrets, there's a reason the class exists, so PoA delivers rogue content), but on the other hand ppl yearn for a game that they can solo with any class. lil bit of a mismatch imo.
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Post by desocupado on Aug 6, 2018 13:55:44 GMT
... as for rogue duties in lowbie game, i don't see how or why there's a big problem. pixies are OP rugbots, there's literally only 3 things to be OL'd--the hall of horrors gates to lev ring and the drowned city door to sissy/RAA and the immo crown box--and the former lets you buy an item in a shop to get the job done. as for spot checks, there's also literally only a couple of these (lev ring secret, gaobin mirror portal...?) and there's easily-available gear to get that job done too if ppl buy/find it. In an ideal world, those 3 situations that require a rogue class should have some alternative form of solution that works without said class. "Your hear some metal grinding on the other side of the wall, if you only had some assistance to find/spot some sort of passageway" (hints to the shop)
"You see five distinct magic barriers, perhaps if you could find more information about the nature of these magical locks you could find a way to dispell it" (hints to the message. The area should drop 2 wands of those spells, while other are acquirable in town) "Still exhausted from the last battle, the sight of the crown relieves you. But you fear that the Matron might still have some way to stop invaders from getting it." (instead of having a lock it could have a positive energy trap which you can bypass with a potion spell level 2 immunity, disarm with a rogue or cast the darkness spell to avoid it's light from reaching you)
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Post by boho on Aug 6, 2018 21:43:37 GMT
I love a good "kids these days" speech, but if you want players to stick around, you don't obscure necessary stuff with silly gotchas. The genre evolved past that for a reason.
And no, the rings aren't formally necessary, but a new player won't know that, and even if they do, they won't know how difficult finding one of the weapons might be. You're literally just handed a context-free list of weapon names - for all you know they're out of end-game areas.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 7, 2018 4:37:14 GMT
He goes #WallOfText over everything. Don't worry about it.
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Post by chirality on Aug 7, 2018 5:20:01 GMT
In an ideal world, those 3 situations that require a rogue class should have some alternative form of solution that works without said class i agree, i guess, but you still need a rogue for some "must have" loot so what's the difference in the end? portarogue dynamic is a sad reality, but hey, good luck trying to get a spot in nessus on anything other than a core they don't have atm, if there's a rogue competing for your slot. much like the oft-hated-on structure of "need cores to hg!!", i don't really think it's asking a lot, even in this dying time. why bother with a rogue class at all? don't need em for the one thing they do? they only exist for secrets traps and locks (at least in PnP there's roleplay/diplomacy/noncombat XP reward/quest completion uses for rogue skillset). so if there's an alternate way to get secrets, traps, and locks, what value and role does it have? if this is purely for lowbie discussion, eh, i can see some room for leeway, but even still, you hit a wall deeper into the game when there's more "situation that require a rogue", and not to take a slippery slope argument but where does it stop? "well earlier in the game i was able to finesse my way to the endboss without opening the locked and trapped chest to complete the run, but now nope, gotta have a rogue". it's already a pretty big 'handout' that NWN works in a way that you can just take 1 level of rogue on any class and be a fully effective rogue without even being "a rogue". then ofc there's assassin and SD which also OL/DT/search. dex assin is really a joke if their roguish duties aren't even unique or valuable imo. defiled temple door can be firewalled thru or pixie'd, same as lolth crown. really, is demanding at least 1 of like 5 diff classes such a huge impediment to fun or balance or newbie retention? maybe, but i tend to think that's easily one of the least of the issues.... ...like tanks that are cucks without caster buffs, bosses that aren't fun, shop gear that sux, dragons that don't give gold, dragons with timestop, gold that isn't barterable, mages with 20 ruins, breakable quests like shadow pontiff or lolth doors (really shouldn't consume seals on a wrong order), crappy AI like drow casters, endless heals like matrons, way-too-fast respawns like zhent and razhid, no waypoint system/town portal mechanic, ECLs/xp rewards that often don't make any sense, secrets that aren't very rewarding, breach/mord/dispel with no immunity, permacurse in catacombs (seriously one of the least fun areas in the game imo), stat drain that empties caster's spellbooks, stat drain that encumbers you, restspawns that make soloing anything a huge chore, archers that ignore GS, buff queues that sux cuz you don't have a TA, using splitter in wyrm cuz you don't have a guild... *pant pant* I love a good "kids these days" speech, but if you want players to stick around, you don't obscure necessary stuff with silly gotchas. The genre evolved past that for a reason. And no, the rings aren't formally necessary, but a new player won't know that, and even if they do, they won't know how difficult finding one of the weapons might be. You're literally just handed a context-free list of weapon names - for all you know they're out of end-game areas. I don't see the "gotcha" in having a secret thing that you may not be able to access immediately but can get later any time you want. Calling it necessary stuff that's obscured with a silly gotcha is little bit much. To me a gotcha would be if you can't get it in any other way, forcing you to lose out on it forever on that toon. Again, the weap trade exists (and for our own QoL), so it's hard to see what the problem is. if there was no solution to the dilemma of being unable to find the secret spot, sure, that's a big problem, but hey, kewl, there is "another way" implemented for that very reason... There's a reason wiki, tons of forum guides, and !newbie chat exist. If a new player doesn't know about weapon swap, no one told them or they didn't ask. I'm not saying the onus should only be on them and screw em if they aren't investigative journalist allstars, I'm just saying it's a stretch to imagine they somehow were tricked into not understanding the situation. I agree that the book could be a little more informational, but ofc with literally every item in the game ez to find on the wiki, all you'd have to do is type a name from that list in the search bar and you discover what they are (well, it's what I did as a newbie, but then I like reading wikis). I mean how did they know about the lev ring location in the first place? Prolly because they read it or someone told them, meaning they asked...usually cuz they saw it in !list acc prell and had no clue what it was or how to get it...if they never asked or learned about its existence, how would they even know there's something there they can't get to? shrug, like i said, if it's that big of a deal just move it to a different area that's obvious (aka not out of the way like HoH) and freely open, i dunno, behind a boss maybe like 2 other rings or in an adjacent area like the other 1 ...what's the point in having a locked secret that's not really locked and not really a secret?
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Post by boho on Aug 7, 2018 17:45:32 GMT
shrug, like i said, if it's that big of a deal just move it to a different area that's obvious (aka not out of the way like HoH) and freely open, i dunno, behind a boss maybe like 2 other rings or in an adjacent area like the other 1 This works too. The Levi ring is a bizarre difficulty peak compared to the other three, which come in line with tags (which, like it or not, function as the new player's guide since quests have such poor QoL). I'd put it in something like the Disciple's Tower.
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Post by jeanhelixü on Aug 11, 2018 3:14:01 GMT
Here's another idea. Decrease the respawn timers on tag bosses. I've seen a lot of missed tags lately for various reasons and the wate for them to respawn is quite painful. Having tag bosses respawn uniformly after 5 minutes instead of what seems more to vary from 5 minutes to 2 hours would be very nice. The variability kind of lures you into waiting because you expect it to respawn any time now.
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Post by woqued on Sept 4, 2018 10:44:54 GMT
Here's another idea. Decrease the respawn timers on tag bosses. I've seen a lot of missed tags lately for various reasons and the wate for them to respawn is quite painful. Having tag bosses respawn uniformly after 5 minutes instead of what seems more to vary from 5 minutes to 2 hours would be very nice. The variability kind of lures you into waiting because you expect it to respawn any time now. This should be a nobrainer implementation for at least some of the tags (why not all really - there's little to no farm abuse potential). Immersion is quite broken when you realize what you adventured 30+ minutes for is dead because you happened to be on the wrong server and couldn't have known as a new player, and don't know how long you'll be listening to elevator music before you get back to the adventuring part. Also sort of happy to see this thread still alive and kicking. Hi. Should be skimmed for the good stuff, ignore the bad stuff, pats on back for the stuff that's been implemented and lock the thread and let new proper ideas get the shine they deserve without prompting skimming through pages and pages of discussion for things that may or may not be relevant at this point.
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Post by chainlink on Sept 4, 2018 12:03:30 GMT
Here's another idea. Decrease the respawn timers on tag bosses. I've seen a lot of missed tags lately for various reasons and the wate for them to respawn is quite painful. Having tag bosses respawn uniformly after 5 minutes instead of what seems more to vary from 5 minutes to 2 hours would be very nice. The variability kind of lures you into waiting because you expect it to respawn any time now. I'd happily vote for a flat pre-LL respawn timer for mobs and bosses, as it currently stands some are 30 mins or so and some are 5 mins. The long ones can be painful to wait for and the stupidly short ones (East Road comes to mind) encourage camping and can also cause problems for less experienced players. On a similar subject rest spawns in pre-LL areas is pretty much random it might be nice for new players if they received a warning that rest spawns are possible when entering a map especially as they give zero exp so there is absolutely no benefit in intentionally doing this.
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