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Post by Ralkain on Nov 12, 2005 17:25:16 GMT
Hi,
First congrats to Funky and the DM team for implementing/testing this, proving once again just how good they are at keeping the server interesting and not letting things get static (all the while doing a remarkable job on balance).
Second, from the BB it seems folks are now digging into the implications for all their builds and having some trouble with skills (ie., they can't control skill advancement like they could before LLs). Its obvious why you need a control class, and if you want folks to tweak/rebuild some of their builds, by all means leave it as is.
However, a slight tweak to the CC's list class skills would solve many of these issues. You could add to their CC's class skills any skill in which they have 40 or more ranks.
So don't add all the class skills from their other classes, just the ones the character has super-emphasised (40+ranks). Its reasonable to assume the character would continue to emphasise these during their Legendary adventuring.
Just thought I'd put an alternate suggestion out there, though I understand if the current limitations are intentional.
Dave.
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Post by Balduvard on Nov 12, 2005 18:12:24 GMT
The current skill distribution system (really the entire LL system) was modeled after the system that the game engine uses, for purposes of continuity should other game worlds decide to implement it. That system follows the skillset of the control class exactly, so the end result of LL is exactly the same as levelling up through the client-side before you hit 40 (of course foregoing things like AB additions which cannot be reasonably added due to their stacking nature with current elements in the game).
Not sure exactly what you mean in that characters can't control their skill advancement, unless by that you mean that they wanted a majority of their skills going into a class skill that does not belong to their control class. While we could allow them to keep their focused skills (+40) as class skills, we would really be lying to them and would be straying away from the idea of keeping to how the client-side leveller handles it.
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Post by FunkySwerve on Nov 12, 2005 18:48:51 GMT
Given this and the tumble post below, I should probably make a few remarks re: legendary levels.
Re: Skills
The system was in planning for 4 months. Bugs aside, everything it does was done the way it was deliberately. In this case, it's not only for the reason that Balduvard offered (though that was a factor), it was also a mild rebuff to cheezer builds like sorcs with maxed discipline thanks to their one pally level, intended to bring the character more in line with its core concept, and make it more distinct from other builds. Casters get more spell feats, less discipline, meleers dont get maxed tumble unless they should get it, etc etc. As far as us wanting pleople to tweak and rebuild, well, we do, but that's sort of a built-in consequence of change rather than a deliberate machination. While the mod is in development, no build is likely to remain optimal for very long, because too much is changing.
Re: Balance Issues like too much tumble
We thought of all this stuff. I promise. Most abilities will scale up by roughly 5 points, including dc, ab, ac (dexers), and saves. That is why, in part, we slowed down the save progression an boosted stat progression. We contemplated doing less bonuses overall, but decided that scaling challenges to this increased level of power was feasible. We didn't go PAST 60 for the same reason - scaling challenges and maintaining balance between classes would just be too difficult. Some classes like shifters and dragon druids are already facing serious challenges. Rest assured the new issues created by the advent of legendary levels have been anticipated, and there are plans in place to deal with them.
Funky
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Post by Lord FlashHeart on Nov 14, 2005 8:10:00 GMT
Some classes like shifters and dragon druids are already facing serious challenges. He he I find the most serious challenge my dragon druids have to face is squeezing my big fat dragon arse over those tiny bridges in the new Ssrith areas
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Post by Ralkain on Nov 14, 2005 12:34:49 GMT
Not sure exactly what you mean in that characters can't control their skill advancement, unless by that you mean that they wanted a majority of their skills going into a class skill that does not belong to their control class. Sure, but maybe not including the word majority. You already have strayed by making all LLs the same class (understandably so), this idea simply allows for the same skill selection control they had before LLs. It essentially merges all three of their classes into a Legendary class (at least as far as skills go) allowing them to buy what they bought pre-legendary. IMO there are two valid positions at odds here. First, if you allowed the LL character to select 40+ rank skills as class skills, it would be more true to normal NWN. They would be able to continue to level as they always had been focusing on what skills made them legendary in the first place. Without that, they loose control of all those skills from their splash classes (and we know many splash classes are precisely for skills . Second, the control class as currently implemented, makes a character more true to what it should be, but less like what normal nwn allows. Normal nwn allows for what we've always called "couch potato" points (you know, you watch olympic tumbling for 37 levels, never trying it, but then suddenly you spend your couch potato points and viola, you are an olympic gymnast . The current CC implementation fixes what I always thought of as an abuse in NWN, but makes the character seem less than legendary since they get relatively worse as they take LLs (i.e., they were a world class tumbler at L40, but not at L60, merely a college tumbler). This helps mitigate an abuse in my mind, but doesn't seem very legendary that they can't continue to do what they did to become legendary. Perhaps they periodically trained at master Yao's monestary (L 2, 7, 12, 17, 22, 27, 32, 37) to advance their fighting and tumbling, but now that they are legendary they can't. On the other hand it never made sense to me that an 8 monk (or even 1 really) tumbled as well as a L37-40 Monk (IMO, skill maxes should have been implemented by taking the summation of all class levels that have that skill+3, but DnD & NWN didn't implement it that way). So two competing methods, one more like NWN, one more like it should be. I probably would have chosen the one more like NWN, but think I prefer the divergance that was chosen as it helps mitigate what I consider an abuse (even though it seems less than legendary). It also helps characters who have focused on skill based classes be better than others at those abilities in the long run. Again, congrats Funky and DMs on a job well done. I only made my inital post in this thread in case the CC class wasn't intentionally this way, but they couldn't find a method to allow it that they liked. Dave.
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Post by hiryuu on Nov 14, 2005 21:41:08 GMT
The current CC implementation fixes what I always thought of as an abuse in NWN, but makes the character seem less than legendary since they get relatively worse as they take LLs (i.e., they were a world class tumbler at L40, but not at L60, merely a college tumbler). It's not a regression so much as a lack of progression. It's more like being the team star in the college and high school circuits, but a bench warmer in the pros (which is a common situation). Now that LL are here, a tumble of 40 makes you a worthy starter in the pros, but that still won't get you in the Hall of Fame.
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Post by fusa on Nov 15, 2005 3:05:16 GMT
can you post the LL book in the forums...need to update the pdf.
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Post by hfb on Nov 15, 2005 12:15:12 GMT
Good day to you all,
I would like to add my applause to that of the others here. Wow, this is amazing stuff with which to play!
My paranoid self though is wondering if LLs will affect party xp receipt. That is, if I have 20 LLs and am in a party with just a flat 40th lvl chara, will my companion gain xp from our encounters. Similarly (not sure if this is a different case or not, really), what of my 20 LL chara traveling with a 34th lvl chara?
Finally, just out of curiosity (and I am aware of the assumptions behind the following, so I ask out of desire for confirmation) do xp penalties apply at the LL level for unbalanced class progression?
Thanks for your efforts and your responses.
All the best,
The Dancer
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Post by Ralkain on Nov 15, 2005 12:20:11 GMT
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Post by hiryuu on Nov 15, 2005 13:45:51 GMT
My paranoid self though is wondering if LLs will affect party xp receipt. That is, if I have 20 LLs and am in a party with just a flat 40th lvl chara, will my companion gain xp from our encounters. Finally, just out of curiosity (and I am aware of the assumptions behind the following, so I ask out of desire for confirmation) do xp penalties apply at the LL level for unbalanced class progression? Unless explicitly declared otherwise, LL have no meaning outside of the levelling altar. They won't affect party experience distribution, nor will they reduce the experience you get for encounters. The reduced XP for unbalanced progression does, and always has, continued to apply after level 40. It just didn't mean much before.
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Post by FunkySwerve on Nov 15, 2005 15:52:27 GMT
Unless explicitly declared otherwise, LL have no meaning outside of the levelling altar. They won't affect party experience distribution, nor will they reduce the experience you get for encounters. The reduced XP for unbalanced progression does, and always has, continued to apply after level 40. It just didn't mean much before. Dead on on both counts. One of the changes I'm considering is including LL in the 6 level limit, however, though I want to see a bit more playtest first. It seems like they'd clump neatly into just made legendary, a few M xp, and level 60. The final break would be 54-60, and that would both exclude a lotta leeching and not be a serious barrier to play I think (12M of the total 17.5M required is in that final break). The other change is more prospective, down the road, and that would be to add a few caster levels in damage to spells at certain LL levels, given the right class, and possibly spell pen as well. It'd require a lot more work, and makes sense, but will only occur if it appears that caster builds are too weak - they definitely aren't right now. DCs are unlikely ever to increase (outside of gains from ability increases), save for a (possible) future feat addition of legendary spell focus and/or penetration. Funky
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Post by hfb on Nov 17, 2005 13:44:14 GMT
Greetings again,
I heard thru the grapevine that LLs are to begin to affect party xp. I would like to take this opportunity to write against this change.
1. One aspect of the strictures on party xp is to promote party play, teamwork, etc. To which I say "Amen!". At the levels now in question, survival does the same only much more effectively as soloing is impossible in the areas frequented by those of LL status. Net gain for this aspect = 0.
2. Leeching: A. Another aspect is the prevention of leeching by lower level characters. Whereas, a chara who cannot hang in parallel dimensions or other such places is not often partied with until improvements happen. Weak links tend to respawn anyway. B. On the other hand, in LL areas, "hanging back" and leeching xp is not really an option given the aggressiveness and effectiveness of the opposition--there is no improved invis get out of the maw of death option in the ruined academy, imho.
3. The MASSIVE amounts of xp required will probably cut two ways: A. 60s will either not get partied with by those of insufficeint level; or B. Insure that those not at 54th will not arrive there for a long long long time. It will already take a long long time just given the xp needed. C. In either case, division of the number of LL status chara.s on the server at any given time seems like a non-beneficial impediment to good party play which is required by the areas they would visit as it stands. D. Furthermore, the large spans of xp would seem to make finding 7+ players for a good Sssith realms party exceedingly difficult to assemble. That is, because the time required to garner the hundreds of thousands of xp the distribution of those in the middle of the LLs would be broad and difficult to overcome at all and impossible to overcome in a timely fashion.
4. Caveats: A. I may be incorrect in my rumor-mongering and so all of this is for naught B. I may not see the "big picture" beyond an argument for consistency. C. This is really cool in any case and my hat is off to all involved for such great times!
Thanks! May the best of musics bless your feet and ears,
The Dancer
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Post by Ralkain on Nov 17, 2005 14:26:08 GMT
4. Caveats: A. I may be incorrect in my rumor-mongering and so all of this is for naught I'd say its not a rumor since I've heard Funky say it, but I'd also say its not certain to happen. I'd also wanted to weigh in against it for many of the reasons you list above, but haven't had time. I think one of the reasons the ssith parties have been so big lately is that folks are afraid to fall too far behind on exp and eventually not be able to go to ssith if they do. I know I've jumped out of leveling a lowbie to join, to stay within 6 of the pack (just in case). I agree that if your 40 can't hang, then he won't last long there and won't be able to leech. If he can hang, then he's not really leaching... Even though I've heard Funky say he's going to implement it, he hasn't yet, so he may not be 100% for it. Lets just wait and see, if they implement it, I'm sure they'll say why. Dave.
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Post by FunkySwerve on Nov 17, 2005 17:03:05 GMT
Well, I did that playtesting, and the lilmit is going in. Wanted to address a few of your points. 1. One aspect of the strictures on party xp is to promote party play, teamwork, etc. To which I say "Amen!". At the levels now in question, survival does the same only much more effectively as soloing is impossible in the areas frequented by those of LL status. Net gain for this aspect = 0. No idea what you're driving at here. How does the limit promote party play other than preventing leeching (which you deal with seperately below)? By keeping party size down to a socializable level? In any case, I don't see any gain, so I'd agree with the net gain of zero here... Playtest has shown this to be false. In parties I'm in, it's a bit different, since I have to avoid playing faborites or restricting access as a dm, but I've seen plenty of characters down there already that simply weren't ready, many of them NOT invited by me. As for weak links respawning, that only occurs if the party is small enough. Which I'll get to in a moment. Again, playtest has disproved this. Leeching can easily occur, if the party is big enough. Was very frustrated with it at several points in one particular session (not getting more specific than that). As for escape tactics, the spell you want isn't imp invis, its GS. Obviously 60s wouldnt get partied with if they were too high, save as a bailout, but thats the point. I don't see how this cuts against doing it. I really don't expect it will take characters all that much longer because of the break. Look at the experience breakdowns. Getting the first 10 LLs is pretty easy. Getting the last 4 takes forever.This was the point I was making when I pointed oput the 3 'clumps' of levels. Most of my characters had around 2M experience just from running around trying to aquire all the loot they needed, putting them at level 49-50. Again I have no idea what you mean here. At first I thought you meant it would make it too hard to get a large enough party, but you deal with that seperately below. I don't see how the limit in and of itself affects teamwork beyond limiting size and to an extent composition. This just isn't so, as demonstrated by playtest. And it's actually one of the main reason's I'm putting the limit in. Without the limit, parties grow to a server-halting size. The last two days, the ssithrak parties grew to such a size that we had to split them, because it was lagging the server so badly (one was 16 members at one point, the other 14). Once you put enough characters into an area, the calculations the engine has to make for their interactions get very burdensome. We seem to have a workhorse of a server, but after around 10 the lag was unplayable, though it varies somewhat with the number of other players on - 8 seems to be tops with a full server, but that of course depends on the size of the other parties that are on. I could cap party size at 10 instead of level range restrictions, but that seems like an inferior solution for the other reasons below. Not only is that party size far more players than can conceievably exercise anything more that the most rudimentary teamwork/roleplay/what-have-you, it made the areas laugably easy, turning them into an xp fest. It also made plenty of leeway for leechers and builds that just aren't ready. More than one character has already got tagged with Ssthrak taint that definitely shouldn't have, by any measure, including one that had never even set foot in the maze. Getting through there should be an accomplishment, and it just isn't in an army-sized party. Of course, as we progress, the level cap will be less restrictive, as more an more payers fall into the top level division, but that's as it should be, since there will be other areas to occupy their attention (and lend incentive to form seperate parties with distinct goals). Of course, these are really the same reasons we have the 6 level limit in the first place, so this really just a natural extension of that setup. The only reason that I didn't put it in initially was because I wanted to see if some of these concerns played out in reality. They haven't. Best, Funky
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Post by hiryuu on Nov 17, 2005 23:48:25 GMT
C. In either case, division of the number of LL status chara.s on the server at any given time seems like a non-beneficial impediment to good party play which is required by the areas they would visit as it stands. I'm not sure if this is what was meant, but it's my own concern. Currently, once you hit 40, you can freely mingle with characters both fairly new (34+), and very old (Brig, Deva, etc). That's not such a good thing in Ssith, but I found it very helpful my first few times in the Drow, Immo, Maze stage when there are lots of tags to get and it's all a rather complicated sequence. My concern is that, just as I have 'gaps' between my various young character levels, players reaching that stage will have trouble finding veteran players to learn from.
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