Monk Changes

[Dreams]

This is much more than a mehanical sweep-up. It's a fix for part of Arelith's RP setting too.

Thank you, Xerah, for (indirectly) improving the quality of RP on the server.

This is a big part of why I like this change.

[Its_a_jelly]

I came to Arelith last January and rolled my first character (a multi-classed rogue, monk, fighter). This is the only character I've played on this server.

I was close to level 30 when the "update" happened. Unfortunately, because I only took 20 levels of monk (and I took my first level as a rogue), I was unable to participate in most of the benefits of the upgrade - certainly the best ones. For my build, the upgrade was a nerf because of the lost monk speed. I wanted a rebuild because of all the changes, but I was basically told, "Too bad, so sad...". I was not happy. Since most of the upgrades were reverted, I guess it's all a moot point, now.

That said, as a newish player to Arelith, I'm very disappointed. The cavalier way this server made huge, sweeping changes to this class (with no rebuilds) and then, 6 months later, reverts almost all of them, causes me to pause. Thank goodness, some long-term players talked me out of doing the -losexp command to redo my character because I would have been pissed after this latest change.

"We had to nerf monk speed blah, blah, blah... but look at all of the goodies you get in return...". Well, what do we have now to make up for losing monk speed? Nothing worth giving up monk speed for, that's for sure. So, this feels a lot like a bait and switch. At least, this time, we get a rebuild (thanks).

In the end, it doesn't matter what I say because I'm just one, insignificant player on this huge server. So, I will just rebuild my character (thanks again), continue to avoid PvP, run my shop, RP, and craft - like I have been doing. But, when I finally get bored playing my character, I'll leave Arelith. I won't bother making another character simply because of this experience...it's not worth the aggravation.

[Nitro]

Great change, 10/10. The only thing that could've made it better was if it came two to four months ago. I for one will be looking forwards to the end of the monk dominance era of Arelith.

[Tarkus the dog]

everyone: monks need nerfs

>monks get nerfed

everyone: surprised gnome

I didn't like the pure monk 'meta' mostly because it ruined the entire point of neverwinter nights, and that's combining classes into making a unique build of your own. In my opinion that is what Arelith should strive to do in the future with the class updates. But the devs keeps bringing up these updates which pretty much read "this is how you play this class now and no other way". Rogue is one of them 24/6 or go home, monk was one of them 30 or go home, paladin is one of them 27/3(or 23/4/3) or go home, even weaponmasters follow the rule too (the 20/7/3) meme. Sure, there are rogues with paladin dip, dex paladins, and dex weaponmasters -- But those builds suck Snuggybear and will never be able to stand up to the original deal.

Now go fix the wild mages.

[Sockss]

That said, as a newish player to Arelith, I'm very disappointed. The cavalier way this server made huge, sweeping changes to this class (with no rebuilds) and then, 6 months later, reverts almost all of them, causes me to pause. Thank goodness, some long-term players talked me out of doing the -losexp command to redo my character because I would have been pissed after this latest change.

"We had to nerf monk speed blah, blah, blah... but look at all of the goodies you get in return...". Well, what do we have now to make up for losing monk speed? Nothing worth giving up monk speed for, that's for sure. So, this feels a lot like a bait and switch. At least, this time, we get a rebuild (thanks).

A quick point, monk speed is very broken and hugely exploitable, it needed to go.

But, you're certainly valued as a player!

I'm of the same mind, that huge sweeping changes shouldn't happen unless you're adding something new, because when it's taking something away in bulk it's really horrible and deflating

These big nerfs happen quite a lot and, they really don't need to happen - there just needs to be some level of control and debate before things get added, with people that understand mechanics. Which hasn't happened with many things that have been hugely broken on creation, which is nearly every mechanics update for the last year.

The problem is one for Irongron to address, however. His philosophy of giving developers (relatively) free reign certainly makes those positions more attractive, but it does come at the cost of exactly what you're experiencing.

Things do get better, eventually, and big props to xerah for making this happen (even if I believe he shouldn't have ever needed to fix it to this extent!).

[Peppermint]

Everyone: Monks need nerfs!

Also Everyone:

[Liareth]

I'm glad monks have been rebalanced. I feel for players who are stuck with broken characters now. The situation is very similar to the fighter changes back in the day. It's unfortunate, but ultimately best for the health of the server.

I came to Arelith last January and rolled my first character (a multi-classed rogue, monk, fighter). This is the only character I've played on this server.

I was close to level 30 when the "update" happened. Unfortunately, because I only took 20 levels of monk (and I took my first level as a rogue), I was unable to participate in most of the benefits of the upgrade - certainly the best ones. For my build, the upgrade was a nerf because of the lost monk speed. I wanted a rebuild because of all the changes, but I was basically told, "Too bad, so sad...". I was not happy. Since most of the upgrades were reverted, I guess it's all a moot point, now.

That said, as a newish player to Arelith, I'm very disappointed. The cavalier way this server made huge, sweeping changes to this class (with no rebuilds) and then, 6 months later, reverts almost all of them, causes me to pause. Thank goodness, some long-term players talked me out of doing the -losexp command to redo my character because I would have been pissed after this latest change.

"We had to nerf monk speed blah, blah, blah... but look at all of the goodies you get in return...". Well, what do we have now to make up for losing monk speed? Nothing worth giving up monk speed for, that's for sure. So, this feels a lot like a bait and switch. At least, this time, we get a rebuild (thanks).

In the end, it doesn't matter what I say because I'm just one, insignificant player on this huge server. So, I will just rebuild my character (thanks again), continue to avoid PvP, run my shop, RP, and craft - like I have been doing. But, when I finally get bored playing my character, I'll leave Arelith. I won't bother making another character simply because of this experience...it's not worth the aggravation.

I'm sorry you feel this way. I agree with most of what you've said here. I hope that you reconsider leaving Arelith after you're done with your character.

[Eters]

The monk nerf was needed, honestly the narrative has been damaged by some "monks" alongside with many other things, but in the end I think that it's the player's fault here, in a way, we are selfish in our desire to "play the good thing." So when the update (although broken, and everyone knew it was broken) appeared, rather than be like "Hold up this makes no sense." people hopped unto the steamrolling wagon of mass creating monks to "benefit" from the buff that was known to be broken and temporary. It's not a sudden sweep, the re-balancing of the monk has been subject of discussion ever since the change for them occurred.

Personally I avoid playing classes that are subject to change, because they're broken, if you decide to build your character fully knowing that eventually, it will be nerfed because it's just god likely powerful, then in a way you consent to the disappointment of seeing yourself nerfed eventually.

In another side I think this is a good reminder, and perhaps a lesson for the future updates to come, that class changes are something to consider with upmost care, and that any change that is considered ought to be tested beforehand in the PGCC (this platform literally allows all the testing possible) before going live on servers, with a particular attention to what experienced players think about it. Numbers on the papers don't often reflect the reality of the game, what appears to be low can at times, in game be very high and gameplay changing.

As for monk players I would suggest not rolling out of frustration (that is if you genuinely care about your character and didn't build it just to enjoy stabbing people and being immortal) , I used to play a kensai in the past, and I rolled out of frustration when they got nerfed, and honestly, I regret it now, the character never got a full story nor a pleasing finish due to my own frustrated decision and that left a sour taste in my mouth. My advice : Take a day, or shelve and play something else, or head to the PGCC and figure out a way to adapt your build and concept to the new change.

[Peppermint]

Really, you don't even need to test anything on the PGCC. Running updates by several experienced players should be enough to weed out 90%+ of the problems. At the very least, most class revisions would result in healthier designs needing naught but some number tweaks here and there.

However, there's never been much in the way of internal supervision with the current development model. This year hasn't been hectic due to a shift in priorities; it's been hectic because this year's most active developers just so happen to have been, for lack of a better word, uninformed. Previous years haven't been better or more stable due to better leadership. Previous years' updates were more consistent for reasons unrelated to leadership--and owing to the work of other contributors.

Ensuring that updates are polished, more stable, or better-considered has never been a priority of Arelith's leadership. The administration espouses a "developers first" philosophy, reasoning that if developers are subjected to as little internal debate as possible, then they'll be more eager to continue their work. On some level, I suppose that's commendable. However, when this model's shortcomings become palpable (like this year), it certainly results in a lot of frustrated players.

[RedGiant]

Peppermint put a finger on part of the problem here.

Did monk need some tuning, maybe some major tuning?

Sure.

Did it have to be done exactly like this?

No. Not at all.

Despite all the "fun" surprise memes, people are not shocked that change happened, people are shocked about the choices made in the change and particularly the seemingly callous way it was executed.

There was not proper documentation on release, a forced relevel, and not just tuning...but so significant an overhaul that entire concepts were flushed.

In many situations, players were screwed. From those of us who deleveled but who hadn't yet completed relevel...to those who were forced to relevel, and messed it up because...documentation.

There is also a twisting of the knife by certain community members at the pain or frustration experienced by others, without even trying to see how any of this could be done differently.

Thanks to those who, even if you didn't agree, at least expressed sympathy.

I do earnestly hope we can move to class stabilization, and that we do so in a way that brings the community along.

[Aila]

In the end, it doesn't matter what I say because I'm just one, insignificant player on this huge server. So, I will just rebuild my character (thanks again), continue to avoid PvP, run my shop, RP, and craft - like I have been doing. But, when I finally get bored playing my character, I'll leave Arelith. I won't bother making another character simply because of this experience...it's not worth the aggravation.

This pretty much sums up my feelings on it.

[Nitro]

I do earnestly hope we can move to class stabilization, and that we do so in a way that brings the community along.

I disagree with you on a lot, this I do agree with a great deal. When classes get buffed/reworked on Arelith it has a tendency to be all in one go, a long time of development all added in together which makes it usually very overpowered or very underpowered meaning that when the time for nerfs/buffs come they have to be exhaustive to actually provide balance. I think it'd be for the best if class buffs were introduced in small increments, maybe spaced out over a couple of weeks so the egregiously overpowered things can get caught and brought in line with the next group of changes.

those who were forced to relevel, and messed it up because...documentation.

I'm actually quite curious, what documentation did you find lacking that screwed up your relevel? It all seemed pretty clear-cut to me.

[Test Drive]

As a new player to this server, I rolled monk because of all the bonus weapons. It was extremely enjoyable to be able to swap to whatever weapon I had that was best for the situation, and now I feel like I'm being locked to unarmed monk or only taking a dip of monk, due to the loss of quite literally everything that made monk an interesting class (mechanically speaking, of course) for me. I knew the nerf was coming, but I didn't expect a lead pipe to the knees.

This current version of monk receives as a bonus...
Between 1 and 3 AB, between 1 and 3 damage. (Most likely 2 ab, 3 damage now.)
A feat that will break your APR and render you useless for 10 seconds until you can use it again.
Uncanny Dodge (Which comes from Shadowdancer 2, or rogue 3. Classes we're basically forced to take if we want to play a fist monk.)
Weapon Focus: Unarmed Strike (Enabling us to take Improved Crit on non humans or a save feat.)
Spot (Awesome!)
Perform (Disguises!)

And as a negative...
Monk speed is now nerfed to the same speed as haste, and does not benefit from haste.
We can no longer play stun monk, which was a niche build and did poorly without the movement speed buffs to begin with
We can be breached now, in addition to SR being capped, rendering SR pretty much useless unless we want to spend very important feats.
Ki strike +4/+5 are no longer free, forcing us to drop AB to gain the bonus +4 damage and being able to hit due to the extreme pre-requisite of 21 wisdom, which actually makes this feat pretty much unreachable for me unless I cripple my character. Also negates the damage bonus we get in most situations.
Epic Dodge now forces us to either grab Shadowdancer or rogue, pushing perfect self back either 4 of 10 levels.

Could you imagine if this was a more modern game, and you dedicated 100 hours into playing a class, to login to these patch notes;

Improved Movement Speed - remains in its current nerfed state.
Weapon Focus: Club, Quarterstaff, Kama, Katana removed.
Epic Weapon Focus: Club, Quarterstaff, Kama, Katana removed.
Weapon Specialization: Unarmed, Club, Kama, Quarterstaff, Katana removed.
Improved Critcal: Unarmed, Club, Kama, Quarterstaff, Katana removed.
Epic Dodge Removed.
Ki Strike +4/+5 removed.
Blinding Speed Removed.
Spell Resistance nerfed to near uselessness.
Reduced hit chance by 10%
Removed 3 Damage.
Removed an unpopular build path that enabled monks to stun players at a 50% increased rate.
Weapon Focus: Unarmed Strike added.
Added Spot and Perform to skills.

Monk is now worse than the base game variant, which is an incredible feat to pull off. The class should just be disabled at this point, because that's how my character feels mechanically compared to any of the other builds I've played with. Unless of course I want to just do what most people do on every other server, and simply dip 3 (1 in most cases) monk to make another build better.

[MalKalz]

Earlier up in the thread, there is this:

In the end, it doesn't matter what I say because I'm just one, insignificant player on this huge server. So, I will just rebuild my character (thanks again), continue to avoid PvP, run my shop, RP, and craft - like I have been doing. But, when I finally get bored playing my character, I'll leave Arelith. I won't bother making another character simply because of this experience...it's not worth the aggravation.

And, I want to address that most right now. This is not how we handle the server; you are not assigned a number, you are not insignificant and your opinion and feedback does matter. We are not here to say: "Screw you, too bad". We are here to develop the community in a way that is enjoyable for the mass and adjust things in favor of balance. However, it may come at a cost of some immediate enjoyment for some people sometimes. But, it is happening for a reason. And, we apologize that some changes come at a steep cost. But, when something is introduced that needs such an overhaul, it is necessary to just rip the band-aid off and get it back on par with expectations.

Now the argument of whether it could have been done in chunks or avoided all together by not implementing the changes the base class like it was. The answer is more than likely "yes". Should monks have been in that state? Most likely not. But, they were and we have to live with what changes were made and then removed to re-balance it. Why? Because nothing in Arelith is set in stone. It is an ever changing, ever developing module lead by some of the most creative developers that it has to offer. And, I did see earlier that people believe we give free reign to the developers. But, that is entirely untrue.

There is a process to be followed. There is constant discussions on changes. And, should they involve mechanical changes, they are also run through a balancing team. While the initial proposal looked good on paper, it did not add up well in-game and was toned back. But, that is part of the balancing act - you really don't know until its live with people using it against other scenarios. Unless there is something that is a red flag immediately in the paperwork. So, Xerah took the task of taking on the approved changes and did the work - were they responsible for the change? No. They were just the one that pushed the change.

There can be improvements on how we handle this and it will be a topic of debate on where to proceed going forward with class changes and how they are distributed and announced. We do not want to impede on your fun, but class can and will be tweaked as need be. However, we should be doing our best to make it as painless as possible in the long run.

But, going back to the quote. I apologize if you feel that way, and I do hope you reconsider staying when this character is over. Arelith is not about the mechanics per say - they are enjoyable and add to the server. However, it is the narrative that should be keeping people here. And, the community as well. Without the community, Arelith would not be where it is or even be an option. So every last person here is significant in enabling everyone to enjoy a long standing server of ever changing stories that they can enjoy. Just consider what makes Arelith fun for you in the end; I won't try to convince you otherwise though. It is, in the end, your decision.

[Peppermint]

Unless something's changed within the past couple of weeks, Arelith doesn't have an official balance team.

Furthermore, monk was red flagged before release (and pushed through anyway). It was also red flagged by many players on day one.

There's no excusing what happened here. The ball was dropped pretty hard. Denying those mistakes won't help anyone, but learning from them certainly could.

[Seekeepeek]

I know the feedback section of the forum is usually for players to post in, but I'd really appreciate if a class change mockup was posted there by the Admin/DMs/devs/whatever so players can come with feedback before it go live. Right now i just feel a lot of pent up frustration from playing Arelith... out of 14 characters... 7 characters been having a mechanical change, that turn their build upside down.

[Sockss]

And, I did see earlier that people believe we give free reign to the developers. But, that is entirely untrue.

There is a process to be followed. There is constant discussions on changes. And, should they involve mechanical changes, they are also run through a balancing team. While the initial proposal looked good on paper, it did not add up well in-game and was toned back.

Spyre, I was part of a balance team through all of Dejapes changes and I can categorically say that this did not happen.

The development process (through the majority of dejapes class updates) was:

Dejapes showed an update to the team.
This was already written and pushed live.
Whoever was online and available would freak out about the change.
The response was a "if it's broken it'll be fixed "

This was no different for monks.

There was no attempt to run this by anyone.

In several cases the full plan was never revealed and patch notes came as a surprise. (Such as katana being a monk weapon, the free feats)

In other cases this balance team was never given numbers, and still haven't been for hidden things (like rogue grenades).

In at least one case there was an update for a class ability which has still not been announced and was only found out about because someone (mistakenly) mentioned it. (Also for a class they played at the time which didn't sit well at all with me)

I left the team because it wasn't a team, rather a scapegoat for a few people playing around.

[chris a gogo]

The changes to the class removed the speed,removed the SR, removed the mind immunity and added....whirlwind attack.

I had a level 30 monk I now have a level 30 piece of trash.

[Cortex]

The changes to the class removed the speed,removed the SR, removed the mind immunity and added....whirlwind attack.

I had a level 30 monk I now have a level 30 piece of trash.

They still have 150% move speed, 30-32 SR(more with feats) and Perfect Self immunity is unchanged.

[chris a gogo]

Sorry your correct they don't lose mind immunity.

You just lose over 10 points off there SR for no reason other than to make them weaker as a class.

[Sockss]

Sorry your correct they don't lose mind immunity.

You just lose over 10 points off there SR for no reason other than to make them weaker as a class.

Yes, that was the idea.

They were very strong and needed to be made weaker.

[Terenfel]

are clubs still a monk weapon.. and a rogue weapon for the AB bonus? need to make sure of this before i make the relevel..

[Xerah]

The only change to club was removing the free feats.

Katana was the only one that was removed as a monk weapon.

[malcolm_mountainslayer]

The changes to the class removed the speed,removed the SR, removed the mind immunity and added....whirlwind attack.

I had a level 30 monk I now have a level 30 piece of trash.

They still have 150% move speed, 30-32 SR(more with feats) and Perfect Self immunity is unchanged.

All acquired by like lvl 22 monk? And a capped speed that of course any class achieves via haste, blinding speed, etc.

[Infinite Solutions]

One of my first characters on the server was a DIY spellsword created in that brief window when wizards were given a flat 3/4 AB, no other changes. The fighter/mage I got to level 20-ish was completely at odds with the actual spellsword path when it was introduced and was garbage as a regular wizard when AB was dropped to 1/2 again. So I deleted a character who still had plenty of life and story left. I got almost no sympathy over this and certainly no opportunity to rebuild and while I'm over it, it's still an ugly stain on my memory of Arelith.

Apart from anything else I am just glad rebuilds are being given instead of saying "tough s---" like most other major class changes in the past (kensai, druid dragonshaper/monks etc etc etc.) I'm up for most anything as far as class changes go, but you HAVE to let players have a chance to tweak their builds accordingly and I hope this policy remains in place for every change in the future that affects choice of feats.