please don't make the art students do math

[magistrasa]

Here's a fun riddle: What does an Assassin's -assassinate, a Swashbuckler's Feint & Second Intention DC, Parry's AC bonus, a Rogue's AC bonus, a Hexblade's feature scaling, and GMW's enhancement bonus have in common?

Answer: An incongruent, incomprehensible mess of needlessly convoluted equations.

I don't have much profundity to offer here, except that these things make leveling and multiclassing complicated and irritating for no good reason. I understand why things are designed to scale, I understand the concept of scaling, I understand that there are people on this server that have played the game way too long and know how to game the system down to a frightening degree of precision, but what we have right now is, to put it kindly, "inelegant." To put it honestly, "I wish I could confidently tell you what my class is able to do without checking the wiki every time I try to think about it."

When the GMW change went in, I didn't understand the equation for it until I read it over for the tenth time. That said, if you gave me a level and asked me what tier of GMW it'd have, I could not tell you without tabbing out of the game and checking the update note again. Now that I'm playing an Assassin, I was blindsided by the fact that I apparently misunderstood how much damage my -assassinate feature was supposed to do, and I still have no idea what numbers I'll be pulling in the endgame. Why do Hexblade's Hex and Assassin's Assassinate go off of different cooldown timers? What's the point of investing in Parry while you level up when it doesn't reach the potency of a simple shield until the later stages of the game (if you're CERTAIN CLASSES that is), no matter how many points in Parry you have? I'm sorry, but I would literally rather get addicted to ketamine than take the hours required to figure out what a Swashbuckler build's numbers look like.

To be clear, I'm a spreadsheet person. I like figuring out builds, even if I never end up playing them. The process of figuring out how each individual piece of a class fits together is an experience I (typically) thoroughly enjoy. I just find it kinda questionable - and extremely annoying - that so many things have their own unique mathematic equations to account for. Some of the features I named up there are really not that dissimilar either, and could probably be consolidated into the same measurement, or lined up somehow in the same way that things scale in base NWN. Consistency and simplicity are oft-forgotten virtues, and I feel like it's worth considering how much better and easier things would be for us if we worked around the set of guidelines provided by our predecessors. Feels like we're reinventing the wheel with abstract geometric shapes when we got a perfectly functional Michelin tire that's gotten us this far down the road already.

Yes, haha, magistrasa stupid, no math brain so good, whatever whatever, throw it all at me, I'm sure I deserve it. But this is a genuine pinprick point of displeasure that's been digging at me ever since Swashbuckler entered the scene. Every new update seems to come with a new measurement of scaling some new feature and it's just hard to keep track of.

[Jagel]

I can relate so much to this.

It may just be a case of not being in college anymore and having time to memorize every progression, quirk about abilities, properties stacking or not and so on.

The amount of custom content is awesome but also daunting. Not sure if there is a solution that would not transfer time from developing actual content to documenting content but I can really relate to the struggle magistrasa describes

[malcolm_mountainslayer]

One easy solution is to trust the build guides. Being spreadsheet guy and "not math" is interesting to me as I almost never write things down or use spread sheets, but I too have not gotten around to breaking down all the new content. If i felt inspired to play a concept related to said classes, I would, but otherwise I have not clocked the time. I am still doing math on older content i feel gets overlooked some times

[AstralUniverse]

D&D in all of its iterations and PC games has always been filled with math. Every ability has different scaling than the other. If you dont wanna deal with that, sure - preset builds from discord are just there for you. Do you want to actually get better at the game and it's math and builds? then it requires a further time investment in learning them and trying them out on pgcc when you try to build them yourself. Kalopsia's CBC really helps in that department too for many players.

TL;DR, math is a fun part of this game but it's not required to play.

[the grim yeeter]

While I do not agree completely with everything said by OP, I too think Arelith has become too much of:

an incongruent, incomprehensible mess of needlessly convoluted equations

And it is not each ability or (scaling) equation behind it that is complex individually, so much as it is the collection of all of these that make the game difficult to understand/remember by heart if you do not go deep and spend dozens of hours working it all out, having to rely on poor documentation (the update thread's structure makes it hard to look up changes, and the wiki is an absolute mess) and sometimes even undocumented updates (by now, we all know this has happened in the past and, I believe, is still happening nowadays as well).

One of the reasons for this gradually increasing convolution, I think, is that to this day, most developers mostly focus on adding new things that interests them on a personal level (e.g., three new (relatively poorly thought-through) classes that, honestly, do not really add much content-wise), but little to no time is spent on improving existing code. Speaking from experience, this, over the years, typically results in an assemblage of incoherent code held together by band-aids, which in turn produces unnecessarily complicated mechanics. I can very much imagine this scares off new players unfamiliar with the game.

[Seven Sons of Sin]

I definitely wish we could have a universal-ish standard when it comes to scaling and cooldowns. That might buff some stuff, that might nerf some stuff, but, for example -

Why god why do we have cooldowns that care about seconds (s) and cooldowns that care about turns? And cooldowns that care about rounds?

I get it. I get it that seconds have to do with flurry timing and what have you, but can we not standardize ALL cooldowns to rounds?

Or turns?

Nerf stuff, buff stuff, I don't care, but it's not even the misalignment of time intervals, it's the misalignment of TERMS that grate me.

[AstralUniverse]

Its kinda what you get from a volunteer staff, eventually. No one should be working on something that doesnt interest them unless they get paid or WANT to volunteerly do boring stuff for the sake of the continuation of the server. The latter is not something we can ever expect form anyone.

On top of that, nwn has never been an optimal platform for competitive playing and persistent worlds so all of these things added, ultimately meant to overcome some fundamental issues. The downside is indeed, lack in documentation, hard to remember and you discover (im)pleasent surprises in your build on the fly because of the lack of documentation.

This isnt something that I expect to change and I know the staff is trying their best to make time for the boring stuff too, but naturally, only to a limit.

[-XXX-]

This is a good observation IMHO

In order to make a game fun, the game mechanics need to be:
1) intuitive
2) easily comprehensible
3) open information

ATM Arelith's mechanics seem like neither of those.
The base game can be complicated enough, but we've reached a point in which the volume of custom content and (probably even more importantly) the margin by which this content deviates from some of the core game's fundamental principles is getting too large.

Especially the PvP aspect of the game suffers as a result IMO. An imperfect rock paper scissors game has turned into the "rock paper scissors lizard spock" that requires taking a 20+ hrs PGCC crash course from anyone who wants to participate.

[Drowboy]

Something to think about is that the base mechanics have been being played with for almost 20 years, and the new classes for, what, a couple months?

The lore change is still confusing and unintuitive tho

[-XXX-]

Yeah, if players who have played the game for almost that long can struggle with this, how must new players feel?

[Baron Saturday]

Few years ago I could poke my brain and find, gelling in some dark corner, approximate knowledge of common builds and their strengths and weaknesses. These days I haven't got a clue. And honestly, I don't mind that so much. It adds a bit of mystery and suspense to the game when I have to actually spend significant time with another character to know what they are capable of.

One area where I could see room for improvement, however, is ingame spell/feat/ability descriptions. These have come a long way since the switch to haks, but I know there's quite a few that still need to be updated. You should absolutely not need to alt-tab to the wiki to remind yourself of what your own character's abilities actually do! Perhaps it would be helpful to have a stickied thread in Feedback or Bugs for people to post things that have outdated descriptions?

[magistrasa]

D&D in all of its iterations and PC games has always been filled with math.

See, this is why 5e is so popular and has drawn in more new players than any other edition. Need an attack roll? Prof. Bonus + Modifier. What's your Prof. Bonus? It goes up every 4 levels. Sure, there's math in every iteration of D&D, but normally the equations you're doing are: 1) Simple; 2) Recycled and reused throughout several different features, and not bloated by feats of data processing. 3e is no different. NWN is no different.

Every ability has different scaling than the other.

If you look at everything in base NWN, most things honestly don't scale at all. You don't have to wait until a certain level for Expertise to gain certain ranks of AC or for KD's cooldown to scale downwards so you can use it more often - you just have those abilities and can use them as you please. The only thing that really "scales" in the traditional sense of the word is BAB (which is, again, a formula shared between groups of classes), and spell potency (which is normally "Xd6 per caster level, up to Y," and Y is usually 20). Things that have "different scaling" in the weird sense of the word are class milestones, but even that's arguable as class features typically get added to your character sheet every two or three levels - Casters unlock higher tier spell circles every odd level up to 17, Rogues gain Sneaky Stab Die every odd level, Monks are a ceaseless train of free feats every three levels, et cetera. And if something happens to break the pattern that I can't think about for whatever reason, I guarantee you the devs for NWN at the very least didn't spit some mathematical gobbledegook into your face to force you to guess at what it did and when it could do it - they'd just plainly tell you, "Hey, this does this at level X, and this at level Y, and this at level Z."

There is commonality and consistency in every class's design, below the surface. Because the game was designed around a level 20 cap. Arelith is not designed for the level 20 cap. It's designed for a level 30 cap. Which is probably why our custom classes have such incongruous math to the base game classes. Not only that, but with how Arelith designs some of its features, it demands that you reach certain criteria and certain numbers for a feature or investment to be worth using literally at all. If you don't have at least 11 Hexblade levels, you should have zero. If you don't reach 20 BAB, don't bother with Parry.

If you dont wanna deal with that, sure - preset builds from discord are just there for you.

I'm torn as to whether I think this is a harmful mentality to present to other people, or just plain silly. "If it's hard, just let other people do it!" Okay, but what if I enjoy the agency and familiarity that comes with making your own class spread, or--ugh god okay I'm going to go with this just being silly, I can't even muster the energy to explain to you why building your own class makes for an easier and more enjoyable experience compared to relying on someone else to do the thinking for you. I've done it both ways and doing it yourself is just better. What you're saying is just discouraging people from even trying, and that should not be the objective. Base NWN is straightforward and approachable. Arelith math has hidden needles in my otherwise normal and sensible number soup.

Do you want to actually get better at the game and it's math and builds? then it requires a further time investment in learning them and trying them out on pgcc when you try to build them yourself.

Yeah dude, that's the reason why I made this thread: I don't think "git gud" is a fair expectation because I don't think random number memorization should be required to this extent just for the privilege of functioning within the game. I've paid my pound of flesh to the PGCC. I've done my years of time on the wikis, both the old and new testaments. I know how to build a character. Memorizing all the new nonsense doesn't help you "get better at the game," it just makes you more tolerant to masochism.

After making my opening post, I had a full five-minute struggle with my husband - who has been on this server for like 8 years or something and is better than me in every way (at character building, and nothing else) - and the two of us really, genuinely tried our damnedest to remember and go through the GMW enhancement calculation off the top of our heads. I forgot that there was even a point in that equation where you had to divide numbers. Both of us got a different result in the end. Then as I was going to sleep I remembered something about scrolls not being affected by the change? It's just a god damn mess that could very easily and entirely be avoided by cutting out the GMW equation write-up entirely to instead just listing the levels at which the enhancement bonus increases. I can memorize numbers just fine. I don't know what the sam hell is going on with anything else though. These days I find I'm tabbing out of the game in the middle of PvE or RP to double-check the wiki and the update notes way too often. I've had to delete characters halfway through their lifespan because I misunderstood what levels I needed to take to reach certain milestones, easy mistakes which rendered the build irredeemably flawed, and rather than figured out a fix on the fly it was better to just go back to the drawing board. Of course, I haven't gone back to the drawing board, because I don't hate myself enough to go through that agony again. All the nonsense that's bloated the systems in-game are just adding an artificial layer of difficulty to slog through.

It adds a bit of mystery and suspense to the game when I have to actually spend significant time with another character to know what they are capable of.

I'd find it easier to agree with you if I ever actually saw any of these new classes in the wild. From what I see, very few people have given them a good try. And I'm tempted to think there's a correlation between the convoluted math and the low amount of players attempting to build with them.

I liked the mystery back when I first started playing the game and was still learning all the different class cues. Call me a metagamer if you want, but there's still a rush of excitement every time I feel like I've confidently pegged someone else's class spread. "Look at me, knowing things, I'm such a clever girl." But there's no alluring sense of mysticism when you use an ability and it doesn't do what you think it did. You don't feel excitement when you reach 15 ranks of Parry and you unequip your dinky little shield only to realize that your AC went down, not up. It doesn't feel good when you use -assassinate for the first time and then confusedly check the wiki to realize it isn't going to do you much good for at least another 6 or 7 levels, and will never be as good as you thought it would be. I don't want to know a thing about the people I'm playing with - the less I know the better. But after studying the wiki for over an hour while putting together the roadmap for a build, I at least want to know what I can do.

[Baron Saturday]

But there's no alluring sense of mysticism when you use an ability and it doesn't do what you think it did. You don't feel excitement when you reach 15 ranks of Parry and you unequip your dinky little shield only to realize that your AC went down, not up. It doesn't feel good when you use -assassinate for the first time and then confusedly check the wiki to realize it isn't going to do you much good for at least another 6 or 7 levels, and will never be as good as you thought it would be. I don't want to know a thing about the people I'm playing with - the less I know the better. But after studying the wiki for over an hour while putting together the roadmap for a build, I at least want to know what I can do.

I completely agree. Like I said, in the year of our Hak 2020, I would love for all abilities, feats and spells to have accurate descriptions ingame. To take your example: The Assassinate ability currently exists as a command (-assassinate) and through Player Tool 2 on the radial menu. This was likely the best possible implementation when it was introduced in 2018, but I think at this point it really should be turned into a class feat that can be looked at in your character sheet for an accurate description of what it does. I imagine there's more than a few abilities this applies to!

To have all custom & changed features fully documented and reflected ingame is, I'm well aware, a monumental undertaking. But it really would be a huge quality of life improvement.

[Hunter548]

But there's no alluring sense of mysticism when you use an ability and it doesn't do what you think it did. You don't feel excitement when you reach 15 ranks of Parry and you unequip your dinky little shield only to realize that your AC went down, not up. It doesn't feel good when you use -assassinate for the first time and then confusedly check the wiki to realize it isn't going to do you much good for at least another 6 or 7 levels, and will never be as good as you thought it would be. I don't want to know a thing about the people I'm playing with - the less I know the better. But after studying the wiki for over an hour while putting together the roadmap for a build, I at least want to know what I can do.

I completely agree. Like I said, in the year of our Hak 2020, I would love for all abilities, feats and spells to have accurate descriptions ingame. To take your example: The Assassinate ability currently exists as a command (-assassinate) and through Player Tool 2 on the radial menu. This was likely the best possible implementation when it was introduced in 2018, but I think at this point it really should be turned into a class feat that can be looked at in your character sheet for an accurate description of what it does. I imagine there's more than a few abilities this applies to!

To have all custom & changed features fully documented and reflected ingame is, I'm well aware, a monumental undertaking. But it really would be a huge quality of life improvement.

I don't have an assassin anymore, so I can't comment on whether the description is a useful one, but it absolutely is a custom feat now, that works just like smite evil/knockdown/called shot/etc.

[Baron Saturday]

I don't have an assassin anymore, so I can't comment on whether the description is a useful one, but it absolutely is a custom feat now, that works just like smite evil/knockdown/called shot/etc.

Fair enough. I was just pulling from the wiki.

[Draco]

Mathematics is really important in life regardless of what some might have you think. I get it can be hard or boring, but like anything, it gets easier with practice. The best way to achieve balance with all the changes to abilities and classes added makes math is entirely necessary.

This reminds me of TV shows that hold your hand through every single step, telling you the obvious so as not to lose anyone in the story, but if you were paying attention you'd figure it out. Severely hindering the enjoyment in the program and storytelling. (Maybe that's just me) In that same sense, more complex math is absolutely necessary to maintain the balance of the classes and enjoyment for all players involved.

If you want the most optimized build for your character in combat, then yes you're going to have to bust out that calculator.

[dallion43]

What you are saying has a very rough similarity to:
Entering a big paint gallery with different artists from different styles.
Gathering all of them and saying that because you are having a hard time following up with the fact that throwing random paint on a wall is now considered an art they should start painting using one method, using one type of brush, etc.
But you still expect them to keep the new paints coming and provide pre-change variety at the same speed.

Arelith is a service provider with very adequate customer support.
Tier 0 forums: arelith wiki. Whoever maintains that is simply OP that I admire.
Tier 1 India phone support: Mechanics forum.
Tier 2 Experts. Discord. Just don't come to them asking for more internet speed without understanding that a new internet package might be required.
Tier 3 Devs. Blue and yellow fellas on the forum. Unlike real life, tier 3 is approachable and very helpful.

So at this point, you are unwilling to learn to tweak your router with the newest tricks you can learn via google-fu and you are not even willing to call ISP support to provide you with the trick to resolve it.
And, you are unwilling to stay with your old internet speed, because of x reasons.
Instead you write a letter to Spectrum CEO wanting everyone to spend ten times the time to readjust everything to your liking.
Are you on the shareholders board, holding 51%?

Did I sum most of it up wrong? If I did I apologise :p.

P.C
I actually wrote a different response first, much more delicate draft post , but that isn't relevant anymore after reading your second post responses to people.
Not to mention calling new much appreciated content "nonsense" is just unfair and wrong.
All above is imho, of course.

[Jack Oat]

https://www.khanacademy.org/

here u go frend

[-XXX-]

There's a big distinction between being too dumb/lazy to do the math and not wanting to be subjected to a series of meticulous calculations in order to participate in what is supposed to be a fun leisure activity.

Please stop suggesting that the former is the case when it's actually the latter that has been outlined

[strong yeet]

As amused as I am by the irony in a bevy of smug "just get good" posts by those who are fairly ignorant themselves, I doubt it's very conducive to a healthy discourse.

Anyway, yes I agree with the general thrust of the OP's idea; there are exceptions to exceptions to exceptions now with the mechanics of the server. It's not really more intricate as much as there are weird idiosyncrasies that while yes, probably help the meta from favouring overmuch too many unhealthy things, aren't exactly intuitive.

For an easy and fairly topical example let's take the recent div shield/monk AC thing. I'm not going to pretend it was unnecessary by any means, the builds that were enabled by ludicrously easy quad-stat gearing from a combination of runes and extremely powerful monk gear should definitely be curbed (to say nothing of what environment produced such builds in the first place, but nobody wants to hear about Lore because we all know it already)

Like grim yeeter says, the wiki is -- as is to be expected by an entirely volunteer team of non-developers, non-contributors, non-Arelith affiliates in any way shape or form, so don't take that -- fairly messy and uneven in terms of detail. What I mean by that is some pages are simply far more detailed and clean than others; note that I don't have any particular feedback on this front and I'm more "eyeballing" the concept, so to speak.

NWN is a really clunky, awkward game to begin with. Arelith's host of changes do serve to further complicate things, even if that's not altogether a bad thing. Pretending that the learning curve for this game, and especially this server's mechanics is dishonest at best and outright shittiness at worst... you know who you are.

Let's also not pretend that these added layers are altogether a bad thing. But they do serve to steepen that aforementioned curve and quite significantly. As for solutions? I don't have any. But maybe let's not take potshots at those who point out the problems.

[Rico_scorpion]

This is a tricky one.

The base simple formulas of "old nwn" aren't working when you put them in arelith environment and player behaviours. Something as simple as encouraging "pure classes" requires scaling (vertical or horizontal, vertical being an ability being stronger over levels, and horizontal is "unlocking new toys").

But at the same time, one area of improvement for past, present, and future class-content, would be to go back to the "old nwn" spirit while bringing it further. It feels sometimes that new content is "a game in the game", not following even the basic principles of the foundation it's built on. I would advise more conservatism within innovation.

A few examples of things that don't really match "old nwn" (exceptions apply):

- Feats and class features that are mostly useless if not massively committed to the class
- Classes with no powerful and class-defining boon within the 3 first levels (Hexblade, swashbuckler). I find that a BIG design issue in recent content. You do not dip into the new classes, which means they are pigeonholed. Classes should be build in the spirit of mixing them for a greater outcome of "possible builds".
- Erratic scaling cross-class (note: there's already that in old nwn I think though)
- Overly complex formulas. Maybe we should lose a tiny bit of perfection, to gain some elegance by using the same building blocks as old nwn. Maybe use "class levels" and "ability scores" more.
- New scaling schemes. Old Nwn, for most "spell-like" scaling, goes by +1dX per level, or per 2 level for damages, +1 per three levels for intermediate buffing spells (barkskin, greater magic fang, and greater magic weapon come to mind), and there are "caps" to all of these, generally based on a multiple of 5 (10/15/20) (exceptions apply... maybe?). Recent content, for reasons that i understand (scales off 30 levels, not 20), uses "every 4 levels", "every 5", "every 7", even "every 8". That goes a long way into make things a complete mess to keep track of for anyone that doesn't want to dive deep.
- Unnecessary complexity. Take the current state of the Barbarian, and JUST the barbarian. Read its wiki. The guy has a rage bonus that scales of level, but is nerfed if you have 17 or less con, has scaling rage damage bonus different with 1h and 2h, AND has scaling passive non rage damage bonus with two different scaling schemes (pre epic and post epic) AND capped by (base) con. Personally i don't mind that complexity myself (and might even enjoy it)... but i'm a pro game designer, an hardcore gamer, a number cruncher, my profile is COMPLETELY irrelevant whenever we're talking about accessibility, and that's what we are talking about here.

HOWEVER: let's not pretend that "old nwn" wasn't filled with inconsistencies, poor design, and blatantly useless features and feats, or poorly integrated stuff. The team has ALSO been doing a stellar work at updating/fixing all the crappy job of Bioware back in the days. NWN was still a top notch game, but the ugly corners, were damn ugly.

TLDR: I feel the team is doing a great job at keeping the game alive, but should make a point of not stepping too far from its foundation in terms of mathematical complexity. "Not too far" already allows a lot of innovation, even more with haks. Keep it up guys, and don't listen too much to the "armchair devs", take it in strides.

[The Rambling Midget]

I don't have an assassin anymore, so I can't comment on whether the description is a useful one, but it absolutely is a custom feat now, that works just like smite evil/knockdown/called shot/etc.

All of the relevant details are in the feat description on the character sheet, but they're in paragraph form, and about as clear as your average SAT question.

It'd be nice to have mathematical formulas written out in the descriptions, so players can easily plug in numbers.

[Gouge Away]

Somewhat related, I have difficulty with a few really obtuse systems like archery templates and high end runic crafting. The former isn't so difficult to pick up but it's very nonintuitive for what should be a pretty basic thing (getting decent ammo) and I think it's a pretty big barrier for new players and casual archers. Runes, I get are supposed to be FOIG knowledge but I find that knowledge very difficult to acquire in FOIG ways and very difficult to explain it to someone else in character once you have it, meaning it's tough to find those who have time or interest in explaining how it works using IG terminology. Which leads to asking on Discord, where you'll get the answers easily if you know who or where to ask but I assume that's the opposite of what was intended when the system was created.

Can or should anything be done about either, or about the really fiddly mechanics on some of the new classes? I dunno. I guess I don't have to play every class in the game nor take full advantage of every system. I look at Hexblade and I'm at a total loss, but there's also no reason I have to play a Hexblade.

[Ascended Mage]

Yeah dude, that's the reason why I made this thread: I don't think "git gud" is a fair expectation because I don't think random number memorization should be required to this extent just for the privilege of functioning within the game.

There are always opportunities to spend personal time to memorize random numbers to learn what exactly buttons needs to click. This is not a privilege. It is a direct result of spend time and done work.

Bad with math? Can't learn numbers? NWN recommends to play a fighter. Player want to be creative? Can always play RP builds or even try to play commoner, or play own made bad builds and learn on own mistakes.
Player want to win game? Min/max, need learn numbers, create many many builds on PGCC.
No need to forget what Arelith always offers to play something that will not require big efforts with any numbers and deep knowledge of mechanics. But if player want to master game, want to sharp skills - need to spend time, need to do some work and in end it will be a result and never some kind of privilege.

And I just want to remind, what no numbers will ever matter if player having fun in game.


Just have fun. Were playing wizards on computers thousands of miles away from each other, and not everyone is as good at it so just treat them fair and have fun with them too

[Irongron]

Even I don't understand quite a few of the systems without having to remind myself, and I approved them.

Do I mind much? Not really. I don't need to know the exact numbers for a spell, or the cooldown duration on a spell in order to use it, far from it.

I'd go so far as to say I've always found the meticulous planning of characters wretchedly dull, and so very far from the core reason why I play the game. At least though, with many of these new changes, it is at least a rewardingly complex experience should I choose to do so.

More than anything I've always wanted to increase diversity of characters and builds, and after experiencing years of seeing the same few builds dominate the server I am just so very pleased, almost ecstatic to see the situation we are in now. The world just seems so more interested now it is not populated by clones.

So, I'd you don't want to do the math? (Me neither), then simply don't. It so many cases it really isn't necessary. If you do want to plan your character out to the last decimal, then break out the pen and paper because this can actually now be a fun and creative experience, and the character you come up with might well be the only one on the server.

Still, for all of that there are some good suggestions here as we move forward with development.

- uniformity of measurements in respect to cooldown
- better in-game documentation
- a review as to the necessary of some of the more complex layers of balance adjustments.

Finally, just to echo one sentiment shared above - nobody should be belittling anyone on the forums for not wanting to do excessive math. If someone would prefer Arelith to be be grounded in simpler equations that is an entirely reasonable position.