The Big UMD Change Thread

[Reallylongunneededplayername]

Eh, let's just equal it out and have caster under a greater award and clerics under a major award.

[HA GOTEM I DIDNT ROLL]

Say this new loot comes out tomorrow and we all have the tools we need to balance ourselves once again. We could've been here yesterday but we're here now. We are now victims to RNG loot that is wholly controlled by the development/admin team on the whim of every restart. Not only do we have RNG to contest with, we also have the spawns and our own mundane builds to contest people who dedicate their every day/night life cycle to waiting for restarts to go and rush the biggest chest with rare loot/ingredients nearby.

[Gobbo Champion Inc]

I don’t why dramatically increasing the power of wizards, spellswords, sorcs and clerics in comparison to other classes was needed or desirable.

[godhand-]

I don’t why dramatically increasing the power of wizards, spellswords, sorcs and clerics in comparison to other classes was needed or desirable.

Except it doesn't increase their power. It just means that certain things, like a timestop scroll, are restricted to the niche that can create it.
And besides, Why does a mundane NEED a mords to beat a caster?
A well built fighter will have a +5 Weapon, with 50+AB - Throw in a 2hand weapon and the One-Per-3-Rounds KD will STILL be all you need to win. KD, hit 4-5 times. /Dead.

I welcome the changes, i think it will diversify the roles of each class/character, as opposed to being the jack-of-all-trades that exist in the current meta.

You're only really being "punished" if your a f/wm/ba with a scimitar/rapier at this point, because your tiny sharps aren't effective against a caster anymore.

[14All]

In some ways, this update is as necessary as Mithreas' grind script was.

It's gonna be okay. I'm sure stuff will change.

[n00bdragon]

In the future can y'all seriously consider deploying changes like this to the PGCC before putting them live in the server? I get that you don't want to tell people stuff is coming before its done but maybe just when you finish things let them sit and gel for a few weeks in a place where all the obvious problems can be identified. I realize you say you've thought through all the implications of this change but... wow. That's all I can say. Between this and the change to knockdown/disarm I can't imagine why anyone would be stupid enough to play anything but a wizard or maaaaaybe a cleric, druid, or sorcerer. Are greater gems of nullification really the only answer now? How is one supposed to deal with summons exactly? And maybe you have thought through all this stuff. Maybe answers are in the works. But we don't know right now and we've been given 48 hours (why is this crazy short deadline in place) to figure it ALL out and totally adapt to this new paradigm when even by your own admission all the pieces aren't in place yet.

[Peppermint]

I have no words.

[Anomandaris]

I think the concern that resonates the most with me is that the mundane characters are using this rebuild, within a 48 hr window, trying to fit into the new paradigm. This is a paradigm, that will admittedly change again. So how it seems very tricky to make the right decision at this point during said rebuild. It may help to group releases that have massive dependencies like this.

If there's functionality that will balance this change, release it all together so players A) Don't freak out and waste your time with issues you've thought of and/or are going to fix, and B) In the context of a rebuild, can make intelligent decisions.

Other than that, creative direction is creative direction, and I'm down to roll with the punches as the server changes, knowing you are keeping balance in the back of your mind to the best of your ability.

[Gobbo Champion Inc]

A mundane needs mords against casters to remove sufficient sr off a summon that you can wof them. It is also important to deep enough into the stack of breachable spells to get rid of a damage shield. DR is not the problem when dealing with casters. Damage shields are. And you will need 2 or 3 rounds to dig through top layer of breach stack before you start hitting dr shields, depending if you use breach scrolls or wands to do it.

Also the timer on kd, assuming you get the damage shields breached off (or attack into them while a edk beats on you) is something you can expect the mage to pray out of and survive.

Lack of mords as a central part of the meta makes 2343 spellsword and battlemage builds more viable, as the threat represented by mord scrolls is absent.

Druids are also boosted, as without an targeted aoe mord to strip spell resistance off the pets, and animal companion, you cannot reliably get rid of them fast enough.

[FingerVacation]

One thing that came to mind, was to implement the "Able Learner" feat. Which would still be an investment in itself, but give people a chance to bump up their lore skills.

This would give low SP classes a chance to use some magical items?

This would also open up for some creative characters.

[Imperatrix]

The fact is that PvP power plays strongly into RP, as we saw when we had 10+ monks forcing themselves into every little thing during the period in which they were practically unkillable. If you want to defend yourself from people brute forcing you, you need to play some kind of viable build. Until now, almost every class was viable in this way.

We've gone from a server where every class was roughly equal in power to one where they objectively aren't for no discernible reason beyond "lol why can mundanes use time stop scrolls?" which is an attitude that is completely out of touch both with how NWN functions and how even D&D 3.x, the game it is based on, functions.

I would personally have fully endorsed a change which raised UMD requirements for scrolls to PnP levels since this would mostly just result in investing 15-20 more points into UMD, which is a perfectly reasonable investment for level 9 scroll capability.

As it stands, no one except Wizard builds can access both Disjunction and Word of Faith, which are required for battling EDK's/warlock summons/necromancy summons as a mundane class.

What this means is we are returning to the early 2000s of NWN history when all you'd really see were a lot of battleclerics and wizards being played over any other build.

Furthermore, if these mysterious items are being added to fulfill the role that UMD scrolls previously filled, why aren't they being released along with the update? Why are they being kept secret while everyone is being forced to rebuild without knowing the full extent of the changes? And most of all, if the items are intended to fulfill the same role, why was the change even made?

Ultimately I'm just really curious what the design philosophy being followed here? We've been told that scrolls were a problem with no explanation as to why this is the case, leaving me to assume that someone somewhere didn't get the memo when D&D converted from 2E to 3E and cross classing became an expected build choice.

tl;dr: we went from a mostly-balanced server to an unbalanced server for no reason and no explanation of design philosophy.

[godhand-]

an attitude that is completely out of touch both with how NWN functions and how even D&D 3.x, the game it is based on, functions.

I don't remember skilldumping being a functional thing in D&D 3.x.....
"here, let me take one (3 in arelith case) levels of x class and gain access the skill utility of 30 levels of it"

Skill dumping is fine, except when it gives you access to almost the full stack of abilities of every class in the game.

[Sea Shanties]

As a mundane my biggest complaint at this immediate moment is that we are being told the follow-up is going to be extensive, but we only get 48 hours after our log-in to choose to rebuild, a decision that is completely dependent on the full, polished update, not just "stage 1".

If I want to make an educated decision based off of the finished result and not preliminaries, I have to shelf and/or quit my character and play something else or just not play at all until the remainder of the changes roll out and things are tweaked.

Guess this is how I feel too on my "mundane" character. I'm frankly scared to log in and to make a choice that will screw them up later. When do these rebuilds expire, if I wait a few months to see where the back and forth of tweaking goes am I out of luck?

[Imperatrix]

an attitude that is completely out of touch both with how NWN functions and how even D&D 3.x, the game it is based on, functions.

I don't remember skilldumping being a functional thing in D&D 3.x.....
"here, let me take one (3 in arelith case) levels of x class and gain access the skill utility of 30 levels of it"

Skill dumping is fine, except when it gives you access to almost the full stack of abilities of every class in the game.

The only difference between NWN and 3.0 skill dumping is you need to spend 2 skill points for every 1 skill point put into a cross class skill when taking a different class and you can't save your skill points for a skill dump.

A fighter or a wizard with 1 rogue level can still max their rogue skills, it just costs more.

It definitely was functional and an expected build choice, not just for UMD.

[satan]

What iffff...

You had to spend all your SP every level?

Problem solved.

[Reallylongunneededplayername]

As a mundane my biggest complaint at this immediate moment is that we are being told the follow-up is going to be extensive, but we only get 48 hours after our log-in to choose to rebuild, a decision that is completely dependent on the full, polished update, not just "stage 1".

If I want to make an educated decision based off of the finished result and not preliminaries, I have to shelf and/or quit my character and play something else or just not play at all until the remainder of the changes roll out and things are tweaked.

Guess this is how I feel too on my "mundane" character. I'm frankly scared to log in and to make a choice that will screw them up later. When do these rebuilds expire, if I wait a few months to see where the back and forth of tweaking goes am I out of luck?

Yeah, The relevel option would been better is we had it "next month" so we can see how the dust clears.

[HA GOTEM I DIDNT ROLL]

As a mundane my biggest complaint at this immediate moment is that we are being told the follow-up is going to be extensive, but we only get 48 hours after our log-in to choose to rebuild, a decision that is completely dependent on the full, polished update, not just "stage 1".

If I want to make an educated decision based off of the finished result and not preliminaries, I have to shelf and/or quit my character and play something else or just not play at all until the remainder of the changes roll out and things are tweaked.

Guess this is how I feel too on my "mundane" character. I'm frankly scared to log in and to make a choice that will screw them up later. When do these rebuilds expire, if I wait a few months to see where the back and forth of tweaking goes am I out of luck?

Yeah, The relevel option would been better is we had it "next month" so we can see how the dust clears.

big agree

[Sathiroth]

Guess this is how I feel too on my "mundane" character. I'm frankly scared to log in and to make a choice that will screw them up later. When do these rebuilds expire, if I wait a few months to see where the back and forth of tweaking goes am I out of luck?

Yeah, The relevel option would been better is we had it "next month" so we can see how the dust clears.

big agree

Goodbye mundane life, hello magical one.

[NauVaseline]

irongron, this is really off the rails. idk what the thoughts were behind this, but i wish you the best of luck, because I sincerely believe you and the current team made a colossal... upheaval to your server dynamic that in some time, upon reflection, you may feel was less than ideal.

edit: seriously lmfao y'all

[susitsu]

It's actually not even hard to reach for the lore requirements is the ironic thing.

So, what has been done? Ah, yes, many current PCs have been gutted and will be deemed unplayable by numerous players. Meanwhile, I just have to adjust my not level 30 character to do the exact same things regardless of this change.

[TimeAdept]

an attitude that is completely out of touch both with how NWN functions and how even D&D 3.x, the game it is based on, functions.

I don't remember skilldumping being a functional thing in D&D 3.x.....
"here, let me take one (3 in arelith case) levels of x class and gain access the skill utility of 30 levels of it"

Skill dumping is fine, except when it gives you access to almost the full stack of abilities of every class in the game.

YEah at this point I feel like removing skill dumping is the natural next step for bone headed moves that will destroy any semblance of balance.

[Ork]

Sad.

[NauVaseline]

Sad.

after every golden age a must circle grind script will rise
so sayeth the wiiiiiiiiiise alauuuunnnndo

[Aila]

So, so happy to see the UMD change!!!

Thank you!

[Curve]

Hello, this is meibellum/conversations with your car alarm/IntoApocalypticSkies/WhatEvilLurks and half a dozen other logs from the past decade checking in to say I think this a really bad idea and makes me terribly sad because I love Arelith but feel zero desire to play on the server now.