Battlefield + Darkness change.

[Void]

Well, what can I say.

Thanks for "fixing" one of the few areas where my glass cannon true flame with non existent ac and hitpoints could have fun before with only 10% chance of sudden horrible death. It really helps the situation that god raise resets speed boosts from skill and strips away all the buffs.

I hope it doesn't turn into a tradition where any avenue of having too much fun gets plugged with a fix. Really reminds me of bgtscc troll monsters which had 30 on all saves, DR and deflect arrows feat to boot because reasons.

It is worth keeping in mind that Undead do not possess ability to see through MAGICAL darkness in pnp and only have darkvision, but no inherent ultravision ability. If the idea was to deter darkness users from the area, an infrequent ultraivision mage would do the trick and up the challenge, while still keeping the area entertaining.

[Sockss]

Don't label your feedback as negative. Trying to improve things is positive.

I agree though, it's not intuitive and I can't see a need for it to behave so abnormally with undead.

[Void]

Don't label your feedback as negative. Trying to improve things is positive.

I've changed that, thanks for the input.

[Opustus]

I'm a big big BIG ole darkness hater. I know fun is subjective and all, but I claim that the main problem with Darkness is that designers and players alike have just got complacent with it and can't recognise it for the truly horrid thing it is. First and foremost it's a design flaw, because the Trueflame has been balanced around it without any plausible alternative for solo survivability. Any infini-caster having Darkness in the vanilla form was a mistake and am happy to see the change. It's literally been my biggest gripe with Arelith balance as a player who thinks PvM is mightily important to player enjoyment as a thing that makes up a decent chunk of the hundreds or thousands of hours spent here. I'll be quoting myself from another thread to spare my fingers.

There's a clear difference between being able to cast darkness with 1) the basic restrictions of spell slots as a regular caster, 2) spending magic items to cast it, 3) being able to infini-cast it. As far as I can tell, based on my 15 years of experience on various servers, I have only seen the total and absolute spammage of the spell by Warlocks and Trueflames on Arelith. Other builds mainly use it as a very specific tactic, mainly to sneak attack or re-enter stealth, or as an escape tool from mobs.

The problem becomes the darkness spam, which encourages gameplay that relies on a broken mechanic of disorienting spawns of monsters because of faulty or primitive AI. My whole point is that playing is supposed to be fun, and it is my boldest statement that the darkness spam is horribly, hooorribly boring, whether the boringness stems from how the spell interacts with AI, because it minimises all risk that might make gameplay thrilling, or because you do it probably a hundred times over during a single dungeon crawl and you just become numb. If this isn't an experience shared by many, I will gladly change my perception of the silliness of the darkness spam - my view is based on my personal experience of its tedium.

So yes, my argument is that no-one should be able to do it, because it makes for dull gameplay. Behavioral patterns and their exploitation is important, whether an intended feature or just an accident of design; further, good shooter games can be based on simple AIs that produce a sort of hide-and-seek gameplay of peeping from cover to shoot at each other. Casting a spell that makes you invincible and turns terrifying monsters into aimlessly lumbering idiots who just gladly eat your fusillade of spells because they're too scared or confused to chase you into darkness isn't fun, it just strips the mobs of their agency to interact with the character in any way, it's like playing Lego games on very easy or such, pressing X to attack because it just suffices while an actual threat could intencivise you to press X, Y, B, A for cool combos.

Who in their right mind makes the decision to include a spell that effectively exploits primitive AI and makes for the most tedious, repetitive PvM content in the history of NWN? I think it's a huge mistake to make a buggy interaction with AI and game mechanics a prominent feature of any class; I do understand the good intention of making Trueflame able to fend for itself, but there has to be a better option, even if it requires more work. One can fathom a number of ideas very quickly: lower level summons to feed to mobs and draw aggro, hardy CC spells, something to help kiting, or the regen idea by MissEvelyn one post above this.

[AstralUniverse]

Darkness was nerfed because you can REKT dungeons 10 lvls higher than you as a trueflame vs undead. I can only assume that the testing of the new crypt showed the Trueflames true colors to some DEVs.

[Hazard]

I still think it'd make more sense to give the undead ultravision, than to give them an ability they shouldn't have.
Already voiced my opinion in another thread, but I'll tack it on here too. Not a fan of these kinds of inconsistencies. One rule for spawns and another rule for players. Sorry, I don't like it.

[Void]

I'm a big big BIG ole darkness hater. I know fun is subjective and all, but I claim that the main problem with Darkness is that designers and players alike have just got complacent with it and can't recognise it for the truly horrid thing it is. First and foremost it's a design flaw, because the Trueflame has been balanced around it without any plausible alternative for solo survivability. Any infini-caster having Darkness in the vanilla form was a mistake and am happy to see the change. It's literally been my biggest gripe with Arelith balance as a player who thinks PvM is mightily important to player enjoyment as a thing that makes up a decent chunk of the hundreds or thousands of hours spent here. I'll be quoting myself from another thread to spare my fingers.

We had this discussion a few months ago and it increased number of people on my block list. I'd rather not have it again.

I'd like to point out, however, that the AI is not as broken as some might think and can lock on you and kill you in darkness as well. Given the total lack of defenses the death comes quickly.

I still think it'd make more sense to give the undead ultravision, than to give them an ability they shouldn't have.
Already voiced my opinion in another thread, but I'll tack it on here too. Not a fan of these kinds of inconsistencies. One rule for spawns and another rule for players. Sorry, I don't like it.

Yep, a random ultravision skeleton mage would be a good way to make things more challenging and would make more sense than undead who see in magical darkness on top of already having a ton of magical immunities.

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Darkness was nerfed because

It would be great if people didn't speak on behalf of dev team while not being part of the dev team.

[Shadowy Reality]

Come on. Arelith in not pnp.

In pnp you do not have hordes of epic undead around. And if you had, they would have a way to pierce magical darkness. Darkness just broke and trivialized everything that could not pierce it, after a certain level, it doesn't make any sense. I know some time ago AI can track you inside darkness, but that has a random element to it. They run in and attack for a round, and then run out.

It should also be noted that many other classes and builds cannot safely solo level, True Flame used to manage, now it is much harder but it is not special in any way.

[TimeAdept]

I would have sooner seen the spell changed rather than inconsistencies between NPCs and PCS re: spell action created.

I'm honestly not sure why we haven't all just bitten the bullet, and gotten rid of the "Darkness" status effect thats notoriously buggy for PCs and AI, and just replaced it with a stationary no-save Blind AoE. It would work the same way, to my knowledge the AI reacts better to the status effect and doesn't stand there and die, and it doesn't have the game-bug issues that Darkness does.

Opustus sums up the rest of my point pretty nicely. Darkness was using a faulty and busted AI to function, but I don't think the elegant solution is t cause weird lore-inconsistencies in the spell's function - it's just to fix the spell.

All this said: If there's no other option, I'm glad this was the path chosen rather than nerfing the area. Still wish the Infernal Battlegrounds in Avernus would go back to being infinite and claustrophobically infinitely spawning, because that was tons of fun.

[AstralUniverse]

I'm a big big BIG ole darkness hater. I know fun is subjective and all, but I claim that the main problem with Darkness is that designers and players alike have just got complacent with it and can't recognise it for the truly horrid thing it is. First and foremost it's a design flaw, because the Trueflame has been balanced around it without any plausible alternative for solo survivability. Any infini-caster having Darkness in the vanilla form was a mistake and am happy to see the change. It's literally been my biggest gripe with Arelith balance as a player who thinks PvM is mightily important to player enjoyment as a thing that makes up a decent chunk of the hundreds or thousands of hours spent here. I'll be quoting myself from another thread to spare my fingers.

We had this discussion a few months ago and it increased number of people on my block list. I'd rather not have it again.

I'd like to point out, however, that the AI is not as broken as some might think and can lock on you and kill you in darkness as well. Given the total lack of defenses the death comes quickly.

I still think it'd make more sense to give the undead ultravision, than to give them an ability they shouldn't have.
Already voiced my opinion in another thread, but I'll tack it on here too. Not a fan of these kinds of inconsistencies. One rule for spawns and another rule for players. Sorry, I don't like it.

Yep, a random ultravision skeleton mage would be a good way to make things more challenging and would make more sense than undead who see in magical darkness on top of already having a ton of magical immunities.

-------

Darkness was nerfed because

It would be great if people didn't speak on behalf of dev team while not being part of the dev team.

@Void.

1. it doesnt take a dev to understand that 1+1=2 when such a change goes live.
2. You are clearly upset. I suggest you stop posting on the forums for few hours and chill because your OP is sarcastic and is outright rude and it disrespects people who work hard here, just because they make decisions you disagree with.
3. If you dont want to discuss Darkness why do you even make this thread? Do you expect to be taken seriously if you're just here to rant but not to listen?

It would be great if you dont shut me up when I speak my mind in direct relation to what the thread is about. Thank you. My recommendation that you probably dont want: Close the forum until you chill. I speak from experience when I tell you that you're not doing your own arguments any good right now. Your class ate a massive nerf and I dont judge you really. I felt the same when they nerfed monk's movement even though it came with a huge buff to the class, I didnt care and all I saw was the ability I love the most in whole nwn gone entirely forever. Things will look differently soon. <3

[Void]

3. If you dont want to discuss Darkness why do you even make this thread? Do you expect to be taken seriously if you're just here to rant but not to listen?

This forum is called feedback and I'm using it for its intended purpose.

If I wanted to discuss darkness, I would have started a thread in another forum, and called it "let's discuss darkness". As you can see this is not what this thread is called. here I'm reporting my experience. I'm also absolutely do not "expect to be taken seriouly", because I'm reporting experiene and not fighting for somebody's seal of approval. What's more, online arguments almost always result in nothing, as people do not change their opinion, but instead entrench. So no matter what kind of argument I provide, it will change nothing. Hence there's no point. Already participated in past discussions, anyway.

What I AM betting at, however, is that small chance of this being read by a dev who might reconsider the blanket application of ability undead are not supposed to have and instead implement a more fun option, like, for example, strategically placed ultravision mages with highly destructive spells which may or may not have hellball, gate and greater ruin in their spellbook. This approach had great effect in other areas.

As for the dungeons, as long as it is not battlefield, chances are a single character will be able to solo them anyway. At a slightly slower rate, perhaps.

[MissEvelyn]

As someone who plays a TF, of course I loved the old Darkness. But I absolutely hated how dumb it made the AI. Darkness isn't supposed to make you completely hidden. The way it used to act was that you became both unseen and unheard by the monsters, which is absolutely silly.

Now there is a chance that the monsters actually still perceive you. With Undead they will *always* perceive you in the Darkness. This just encourages the TF brings along a few party members, and I am all for that.

Overall, the problem was with the monsters and their AI. I wish Beamdog would make them far better at making tactical decisions.

[Void]

As someone who plays a TF, of course I loved the old Darkness. But I absolutely hated how dumb it made the AI. Darkness isn't supposed to make you completely hidden. The way it used to act was that you became both unseen and unheard by the monsters, which is absolutely silly.

Now there is a chance that the monsters actually still perceive you. With Undead they will *always* perceive you in the Darkness. This just encourages the TF brings along a few party members, and I am all for that.

Overall, the problem was with the monsters and their AI. I wish Beamdog would make them far better at making tactical decisions.

There was a chance of being perceived before, perhaps not as high as someone would want, though.

Also... it may be possible to fix the ai. It shoudl be implemented as bunch of scripts and not hardcoded.

[Aeralad]

Nah let's strike at the true problem. Seems without darkness some just get pretty much insta killed. Take away their armor and that returns.
It's so pervasive you don't even need to be level 30 or such to start doing it.

[a shrouded figure]

I’ve seen the argument of “this is my feedback, if I wanted to defend it I would post it in the mechanics forum” quite a bit lately... if you don’t want to defend your feedback publicly you may consider sending a PM to the dev team. Just saying.

Outside of that note, I do feel your pain. This was a brutal change to TF’s vs undead.

[Void]

I’ve seen the argument of “this is my feedback, if I wanted to defend it I would post it in the mechanics forum” quite a bit lately...

Because that's the right idea. This forum would've been much better if feedback section did not allow discussion.

Because most of the time it feels like being asked to defend your choice of favorite color through trial of combat or something.

[Quidix]

I think open discussion with responses is a critical component to ensuring we continuously improve the systems on the server - otherwise we'd get a flood of threads with one post each responding to each other.

I can't speak for from the perspective of a TF, but darkness was certainly in need of a change.

[Aeralad]

I actually agree with void a bit on the discussion thing. Just state opinion and let it float. On forums if a discussion happens you can end up addressing the same points over again, get talked down to for being argumentative, told to stop giving your opinion halfway through even though feedback is supposed to be sought and not discouraged, fail to persuade people on the other side even though arguments might be as simple as 2+2=4, addressed disrespectfully even though oneself is being respectful.
You also have to persuade not only one or a few, but seemingly the entire crowd. It's very strange all in all, and I think it might be something about people not being persuaded to another point of view in general. We all know the values of having a discourse, but sometimes it doesn't seem that way. Speaking to the crowd is not as simple as it seems to be.
So don't talk too bad toward void please, I sort of agree.

Darkness as armor isn't only for TFs, but basically for everyone if not most. I call it the "drow strategy" for melee.

[Void]

I think open discussion with responses is a critical component to ensuring we continuously improve the systems on the server - otherwise we'd get a flood of threads with one post each responding to each other.

I can't speak for from the perspective of a TF, but darkness was certainly in need of a change.

My experience led me to opposite opinion.

Open discussion only encourages conflict, people clawing at each other throats, and group of "defenders" which will try to shut down any suggestion. This leads to conflicts, grudges and people leaving. Because dealing with "defenders" becomes tiresome, people submit less ideas. Basically, I don't need to go through trial of combat to feel in particular way about a game mechanic, and arguing for 6 pages about something is time consuming.

The best approach is to let the developer decide, based on unfiltered feedback from everybody. So, dialogue with developer is good, community being able to argue about feedback is bad.

Additionally, people almost never change their opinion based on argument. They entrench instead. And when their opponent doesn't budge, things get heated.

[Sockss]

Although my opinion hasn't changed regarding the undead-immune darkness change. (Which is just un-intuitive and out of place)

Darkness in of itself isn't problematic in PvP so much. As it's simply a check for 'did you put on ultravision'. (Not very interesting but, whatever, put on UV)

I don't think it's problematic in PvE in a limited use context, however, like with everything, infinite casting is extremely difficult to balance alongside a limited casting system. I think this could be improved with AI casting UV if they're able and affected by darkness.

I think it should be changed - but only when something more interesting for True Flames (and to a lesser extent) fiendlock is created. It is really the only saving grace for soloability of the path.

[Void]

I think this could be improved with AI casting UV if they're able and affected by darkness.

Ai actually does that. Ogre Seers, and Necromages do that, and bunch of other monsters too. At least pre-update necromages used to do that. I think Boss Bugbear Firestares do that too. Extra fun when they also cast invisibility on themselves. Miniboss system can also spawn things like a buffed Ettin with Ultravision and Freedom of movement on. Thinking about it Cracked Skull caves used to spawn a very fun goblin which was ALSO a true flame, but had ultravision on and was perma-hasted. That dude is a very fun encounter, can be tougher than area boss.

[satan]

A feedback thread is it?

Ok here's some feedback. Having a tf in party makes all the content 10x easier , even without darkness. Guard them up and watch everything melt.

They don't need a broken mechanic that makes the already doomed NPCs wander around like they've been shell shocked.

100% in favor of the fix.

[Morgy]

Never been a fan of TF darkness spam on mobs. It's especially dull for any party.

Perhaps they need another defensive tool, however.

[Shrouded Wanderer]

Trueflames certainly need some other protections. I'm more of a fan of them getting some abjuration necessities over darkness spam any day of the week.

[chris a gogo]

I certainly don't want to see a mage with unlimited offense getting anything extra the fact they have no defence and limited to one spell school is the only reason they are still in the server at all.

I certainly don't want to see unlimited mords thrown around along with unlimited maximised missile storms.