Primary server stat

[chainlink]

Is it possible for the server to declare the first Paragon level stat point it will give as part of the character login information, this would save people, primarily DB having to level up characters to find out in test chamber

[chirality]

obviously no, or it would have been implemented that way to begin with. it's some unintended cheeze. we were never meant to have control over that; it's why it was coded to be random in the first place.

[woqued]

Could just change it tbh.

Silliness: builds that are either potentially broken if played through or suboptimal, and reincarnation allowing you to skip those things if played to 80 and no harsh exp pens afterwards; being forced to skim through servers with testchamber barbarians to optimize these builds is arguably even sillier... Then there's the fact that rng decides whether our build is optimal or even workable at lvl 73 or 70 *million* experience points later feels even wonkier, DC is negligible but fun to have, 40 base str crit immunity relying on that is a pain, considering how much you have to play to get there. Some "optimal" builds rely on these.

Just let us choose at creation with a special command similar to the feat change ones. Tying it to servers seems weird, but the stats also being tied to servers could indicate that changing it isn't a walk in the park so there being a command that lets you know without testchambering a barbarian through would be neat. !serverstat or somesuch that displays it.

Edit to bale: just because it is an unintended cheese doesn't mean it shouldn't be that way. I'd argue the rngbased 70 million experience swings are plain unfair and is not an ideal state of things. 

[Deleted]

I think it’s a fantastic idea to have a command to advise of the stat or just have it in the text on joining indicating what it is. A huge quality of life improvement.

[chirality]

Jul 5, 2019 16:19:02 GMT woqued said:

Could just change it tbh.

just because it is an unintended cheese doesn't mean it shouldn't be that way. I'd argue the rngbased 70 million experience swings are plain unfair and is not an ideal state of things. 

agreed but offtopic imo. i was replying to OP. a new thread could be in order to start that discussion. i'd rather talk about changing the functionality itself than "coping" with how broken it is by making it easier for us to serverhop reinc. although, i really, really, really would be surprised if anything about this changed anytime soon (or ever for that matter). so to address both OP and that, yeah, i'll stick with "obviously no", after all ppl whined about it since first hours of PLs and i don't think funky ever saw anything that convinced him the mechanic should be changed.

[drunkenboastor]

Shortening the time between !level from 15 seconds to 12 seconds would be a better quality of life improvement. I suggest 12 seconds because it seems to force time between !level to full rounds of 6 seconds no matter if it says 1 second left or 5 seconds left.

[chirality]

i don't understand the purpose of the timer in the first place. or at least what does it do anymore? remove it entirely. if we have to wait a few secs for shit to load then we just wait...just like we already do on a feat level...like without the timer would people be taking LLs so fast that something would break? i can't imagine that the game would suddenly get broken or servers would crash without that...could be wrong? but if it's not absolutely required, getting rid of it would be pretty great, it's quite a QoL hindrance imo, and that's even without touching on the PL stat lottery issue.

[madzapper]

Jul 15, 2019 15:10:09 GMT chirality said:

i don't understand the purpose of the timer in the first place. or at least what does it do anymore? remove it entirely. if we have to wait a few secs for things to load then we just wait...

I believe the delays are usually to guard against abuse and to protect the server and the play of other players as well as protect the current user from causing damage to themselves.

Something to consider is that NWN (client and server) runs as a single thread and that means exactly one thing can happen at a time. Anything else is illusion because it happens so fast. If you remove the safeguards and open the system to potential abuse, sooner or later you're going to have a problem.

I agree on the QoL, though, 'cause I sit there waiting too...

[chirality]

well that was always my assumption, but i guess funky will correct--is it still a requirement for server health atm? i mean once upon a time you also had to literally visit the altar of legends to take LLs (not to mention stuff had to be built with the premise of dozens upon dozens of concurrent players in mind). good point on the thread but eh. i guess what i mean is: is it the case that without that timer, bringing up the LL dialogue convo again "too early" would seriously cause issues? i would be kind of shocked if that crashed a server considering how much other abuse they evidently can handle.

i know it's a dead horse/useless pursuit much like the PL server stat issue itself, it's just one of the most annoying things that's always irritated me. short of some issue that effects keys/loot/tags/pelorfight(kek), really nothing worse than waiting level timer on a reinc or checking server stats. anything involved in making a new character should never feel like zero-fun work imo, and that's exactly what the level timer does.

[drunkenboastor]

I am not a fan of the new random paragon ability scores. I am very meticulous about my builds, I find it frustrating that builds that I had planned are now sabotaged because the ability score order is no longer what it was before.

I really do not understand why anything about a character should be random.

[Deleted]

Agree with DB 100%.

[chainlink]

Historically things such as HPs were in fact de-randomised to help prevent significant differences between exactly the same build output weren't they?

[FunkySwerve]

Feb 27, 2020 2:16:42 GMT Iceblink said:

I also agree; being able to choose the first paragon stat point at 62 (using the same mechanic as legendary levels for instance) would be such a huge quality of life improvement.

That's not what quality of life means. This is a balancing issue, whereas QoL is definitionally things meant to improve play experience without other substantial impact.

Funky

[FunkySwerve]

Feb 27, 2020 8:26:11 GMT chainlink said:

Historically things such as HPs were in fact de-randomised to help prevent significant differences between exactly the same build output weren't they?

Indeed. But that does not mean that this proposal would have the same impact.

Funky

[drunkenboastor]

How is this a balancing issue? When you introduce randomness into a set situation you are in effect creating imbalance. You cannot say that it was random before the change because was not random, it was set. Because it was set, many players embraced it, and I would argue it enhances the communal experience through players sharing the information of which server gave which ability.