Arelith

Had a convo and I'm not sure where to look in the pile of rulings, so maybe a fresh direct question is best here:

Is it considered exploiting to bypass the local-server God save timer by jumping between servers to use basins/crafting/etc?

I'm pretty sure it is, but I can't seem to find it.

If it were an exploit, I'm sure they would have disabled it.

There's other exploitative behaviors ruled against rather than strictly mechanically enforced. I'm not sure that 'if it isn't disabled it's totally fine' is a metric I'm comfortable with here.

Skibbles wrote: ↑

Fri Jan 21, 2022 3:55 am

There's other exploitative behaviors ruled against rather than strictly mechanically enforced. I'm not sure that 'if it isn't disabled it's totally fine' is a metric I'm comfortable with here.

Play by the standards you feel you should play by, but there is no rule against it (yet?).

FWIW, if it makes you feel any better at all, it has always been my experience that basin-crafters will happily travel just about anywhere or do anything to improve their odds at the basin (including praying at an altar for 15+ minutes and literally asking god/dess for a miracle), even if they're crafting for someone other than themselves, not infrequently with some sort of comment or anecdote that amounts to why that particular basin likes them more.

It's definitely cheesy, but I suspect it's the underlined part above that's let it fly under the radar for so long. Everyone benefits from it (kind of like the potion hijinks), and for non-crafters the benefit is usually at the behest of someone else's generosity, who could be burning that godsave on their own crafting project. It's unlikely to ever generate a situation where another player points it out and says, 'that's a problem and ruins my fun' because everyone wants their basin-crafter to succeed; failures are expensive.

No one who drops that hammer is going to be popular - kind of like the potion hi-jinks.

Pretty sure an update came through and eliminated this, iirc

I just thought I'd seen it in an ancient thread somewhere, but if I'm wrong that's okay too! Thanks for the responses.

Aelryn Bloodmoon wrote: ↑

Fri Jan 21, 2022 4:46 am

that particular basin likes them more.

I can say for a fact that there are basins who are merciful and basins that are downright malicious. Not spurious pattern reading from random noise or superstition at all.

I can neither confirm nor deny that all basins are the mouths of a ravenous under-beast that grows more powerful with each failed enchantment.

I can also not confirm that the recent changes to warlocks are proof of its waxing power.

Aelryn Bloodmoon wrote: ↑

Fri Jan 21, 2022 4:46 am

Skibbles wrote: ↑

Fri Jan 21, 2022 3:55 am

There's other exploitative behaviors ruled against rather than strictly mechanically enforced. I'm not sure that 'if it isn't disabled it's totally fine' is a metric I'm comfortable with here.

Play by the standards you feel you should play by, but there is no rule against it (yet?).

FWIW, if it makes you feel any better at all, it has always been my experience that basin-crafters will happily travel just about anywhere or do anything to improve their odds at the basin (including praying at an altar for 15+ minutes and literally asking god/dess for a miracle), even if they're crafting for someone other than themselves, not infrequently with some sort of comment or anecdote that amounts to why that particular basin likes them more.

It's definitely cheesy, but I suspect it's the underlined part above that's let it fly under the radar for so long. Everyone benefits from it (kind of like the potion hijinks), and for non-crafters the benefit is usually at the behest of someone else's generosity, who could be burning that godsave on their own crafting project. It's unlikely to ever generate a situation where another player points it out and says, 'that's a problem and ruins my fun' because everyone wants their basin-crafter to succeed; failures are expensive.

No one who drops that hammer is going to be popular - kind of like the potion hi-jinks.

This is what bugs me about some game mechanics.

"Our team" argument. And people get mad at me for pointing these out. I really wish these save mechanics were linked, like buffs. God-saves arbitrarily being tracked different by server.. make no real sense. It's kind of an old script-limitation when Haste and buffs goes server-to-server.

I mean, I guess it encourages people to travel ... but-- feels gamey, you know?

Wethrinea wrote: ↑

Fri Jan 21, 2022 6:07 am

Aelryn Bloodmoon wrote: ↑

Fri Jan 21, 2022 4:46 am

that particular basin likes them more.

I can say for a fact that there are basins who are merciful and basins that are downright malicious. Not spurious pattern reading from random noise or superstition at all.

That's what needs the fix. The superstition is starting to feel like a shield for meta behavior in a lot of cases as people figure out what the mechanics are over time?

I mean, it IS a game. We're role playing and staying in character but we can't pretend it isn't a game. This isn't a fully immersive environment.

My own attitude not to get in the weeds with this stuff because trying too hard to justify IG how a game mechanic like the basin and its menu and quirks and limitations works is (to me) what usually comes across as cheesy. Switching servers hoping to get a god save? Whatever, server transitions are an OOC mechanic that it best not dwelled upon too much IG. I've seen so many hackneyed attempts to explain why server transitions exist when the simplest thing, and best for RP flow, is to just pretend they don't.

RP-wise I don't think it's cheesy as crossing server transitions isn't something that happens to my character, it happens to me as a player (area transitions the same). Mechanically it may be an exploit but it seems like one that would be so difficult to enforce (are DMs going to pull aside everyone enchanting within 10 minutes of changing servers?) they either need to shut it down or accept people are going to do it. There are a lot of little minor cheeseball things that probably shouldn't be but are de facto tolerated since it's too much trouble to either script them out or micromanage players who might be doing them.

That was more or less my line of thought too, and why I could swear I saw something on it a long time ago.

dominantdrowess wrote: ↑

Fri Jan 21, 2022 7:54 am

Aelryn Bloodmoon wrote: ↑

Fri Jan 21, 2022 4:46 am

Skibbles wrote: ↑

Fri Jan 21, 2022 3:55 am

There's other exploitative behaviors ruled against rather than strictly mechanically enforced. I'm not sure that 'if it isn't disabled it's totally fine' is a metric I'm comfortable with here.

Play by the standards you feel you should play by, but there is no rule against it (yet?).

FWIW, if it makes you feel any better at all, it has always been my experience that basin-crafters will happily travel just about anywhere or do anything to improve their odds at the basin (including praying at an altar for 15+ minutes and literally asking god/dess for a miracle), even if they're crafting for someone other than themselves, not infrequently with some sort of comment or anecdote that amounts to why that particular basin likes them more.

It's definitely cheesy, but I suspect it's the underlined part above that's let it fly under the radar for so long. Everyone benefits from it (kind of like the potion hijinks), and for non-crafters the benefit is usually at the behest of someone else's generosity, who could be burning that godsave on their own crafting project. It's unlikely to ever generate a situation where another player points it out and says, 'that's a problem and ruins my fun' because everyone wants their basin-crafter to succeed; failures are expensive.

No one who drops that hammer is going to be popular - kind of like the potion hi-jinks.

This is what bugs me about some game mechanics.

"Our team" argument. And people get mad at me for pointing these out. I really wish these save mechanics were linked, like buffs. God-saves arbitrarily being tracked different by server.. make no real sense. It's kind of an old script-limitation when Haste and buffs goes server-to-server.

I mean, I guess it encourages people to travel ... but-- feels gamey, you know?

Speaking of which, what happened to the Meta Mechanics thread?

Does it make sense that you deity from on high would go

WHY YES, YOU HAVE CHANGED AREAS. THAT MANS FOR NO APPARENT REASON I WILL ASSIST YOU WITH CERTAIN THINGS ONCE MORE! FOR MOVING A FEW METERS TO THE LEFT HAS ENTIRELY REJUVINATED MY FAVOUR IN YOU! GO FORTH!

No?

Then it's pretty much an exploit. Maybe not the worst exploit in the world, but an exploit and likely needs fixing.

^

At this point, I think it's kinda old server limitations that haven't been looked at in a while in favor of newer and shinier mechanics because it worked 'well enough' for so long and becomes more apparent the more Arelith servers split up it multiplies the reoccurrences until people can't help but notice it.

MissEvelyn wrote: ↑

Fri Jan 21, 2022 9:05 am

dominantdrowess wrote: ↑

Fri Jan 21, 2022 7:54 am

Aelryn Bloodmoon wrote: ↑

Fri Jan 21, 2022 4:46 am

Play by the standards you feel you should play by, but there is no rule against it (yet?).

FWIW, if it makes you feel any better at all, it has always been my experience that basin-crafters will happily travel just about anywhere or do anything to improve their odds at the basin (including praying at an altar for 15+ minutes and literally asking god/dess for a miracle), even if they're crafting for someone other than themselves, not infrequently with some sort of comment or anecdote that amounts to why that particular basin likes them more.

It's definitely cheesy, but I suspect it's the underlined part above that's let it fly under the radar for so long. Everyone benefits from it (kind of like the potion hijinks), and for non-crafters the benefit is usually at the behest of someone else's generosity, who could be burning that godsave on their own crafting project. It's unlikely to ever generate a situation where another player points it out and says, 'that's a problem and ruins my fun' because everyone wants their basin-crafter to succeed; failures are expensive.

No one who drops that hammer is going to be popular - kind of like the potion hi-jinks.

This is what bugs me about some game mechanics.

"Our team" argument. And people get mad at me for pointing these out. I really wish these save mechanics were linked, like buffs. God-saves arbitrarily being tracked different by server.. make no real sense. It's kind of an old script-limitation when Haste and buffs goes server-to-server.

I mean, I guess it encourages people to travel ... but-- feels gamey, you know?

Speaking of which, what happened to the Meta Mechanics thread?

Probably the same thing that happened to my thread on hidden 'in-the-know' mechanics- the Team co-opted it over to their forums to discuss how they want to handle it before the knowledge spreads too far- it's still at the tail end of the holiday season, so give them a little while to figure out what they want to (or can do, in some cases) about them, and I'm sure they'll pop up again... eventually.

It is rather shocking how some mechanics never made it out to the wider internet at large, like gamefaqs or the NWNwiki, though.

any dev that knowingly "fixes" the per-server godsave "problem" will be discovered in seven different dumpsters in three counties

Enchanting, as it currently is, relies on these quirks.
Without them you would find the creation of custom gear via the basin to be nightmarish.

Allow me to divulge why fixing it is bad:
You enchant an item
It has an 87% success chance.
This actually falls into the allowed godsave range.
It procs a godsave.
Great, now you have to wait a substantial amount of time to actually finish an item.

Compared to:
You proc at god save.
You can now use that server to prepare your equipment up to a threshold.
Move to another and try applying a NOT EVEN GUARANTEED property with a godsave.
This item is still not done if it you need a rune or is not your end end game tier.

While yes you could do the current with a "fixed" god save, it would be far more punishing and I have to ask why we would punish an already annoying system.

I've been apparently doing this the wrong way for a very, very long time.

I'm not sure anyone would ever believe I've almost hard 5%d an entire inventory all on one server.

What's up with a DM saying,

The GrumpyCat wrote: ↑

Fri Jan 21, 2022 9:33 am

Then it's pretty much an exploit.

and a contributor saying,

Sincra wrote: ↑

Fri Jan 21, 2022 11:53 am

Enchanting, as it currently is, relies on these quirks.

The message reads as it's against the rules but go on and do it because it makes things easier.

I too was positive that the godsave state not carrying over from server to server was fixed at the same time as they made buffs and summons persist across server transitions....

As some have mentioned above, this exploit is sort of an open secret that folks look aside whenever they hear about it because the basin system is mind crushingly awful in many ways. Losing your godsave when failing a 90% chance enchant of +2 skill on a near-blank item you've just started working on is not fun.

I've not made use of it (well, intentionally anyway), but I've also never really blamed anyone who did.

Well, I didn't know about this until just now. And I answered with what my gut told me - which is that it y'know, seems to go against the setting of the server.

That said, as well as server setting we do have to consider balence and mechanics, and Sincra is looking from it from that perspective - which honestly is valid. (example - it's against Lore/Setting that every single pc can miraciously come back to life no matter what if they wish. But it'd be horrible for gameplay if that weren't the case.) It's sometimes finding a middle ground for these things.

It seems to me that if, as he says, the entire enchantment system revolves and depends on using this exploit then we need to adjust the enchantment system some how.

I will add that - as far as I know, we as DMs arn't currently and havn't been policing this. I'm opening it up to DM chat right now to see if we want to... though I'm not entirely sure we do. it's gamy as heck and poor form, but if it's so widly done and so difficult to police I'm not sure that it's worth our time. And it's not really the worst of problems anyway, lets be honest. If we do decide to police it, I'll come back to you guys. Otherwise I'd leave it to your own concience, I suppose.

My take is: Who cares?

I wouldn't waste effort on fixing it, unless it was quick and easy.

It provides no immediate advantage, and really only becomes gamechanging, in terms of time savings, when you're doing 5% spam on top of complex custom base items. If the server timers are linked, and I can only get one godsave per time period, then okay. I can log out by a basin with my thing, and pop on for two minutes to make another attempt, every cycle.

It really only hurts people who have RL responsibilities that don't allow them to log in periodically.

I hear what y'all are saying, and I don't think it really hurts anything so long as everyone is playing by the same rules. If it turns out that this is not against the rules, then maybe it can be added to the wiki as an aspect of enchanting because it is a tremendous boon to enchanting and it should be available to everyone.

I will also add that it burns my buns when doing what seems like the right thing ala not server jumping enchanting or not running everywhere does not seem to matter. That doing the gamey thing benefits you and doing the cool thing only really lets you sleep better.

Sincra wrote: ↑

Fri Jan 21, 2022 11:53 am

Enchanting, as it currently is, relies on these quirks.
Without them you would find the creation of custom gear via the basin to be nightmarish.

Allow me to divulge why fixing it is bad:
You enchant an item
It has an 87% success chance.
This actually falls into the allowed godsave range.
It procs a godsave.
Great, now you have to wait a substantial amount of time to actually finish an item.

Compared to:
You proc at god save.
You can now use that server to prepare your equipment up to a threshold.
Move to another and try applying a NOT EVEN GUARANTEED property with a godsave.
This item is still not done if it you need a rune or is not your end end game tier.

While yes you could do the current with a "fixed" god save, it would be far more punishing and I have to ask why we would punish an already annoying system.

+1

Enchanting is already is own form of expensive pain. Let's not make it worse by trying to fix an issue that does not negatively effect anyone's RP or gameplay.

Doing this represents and occassional opportunity to randomly save what... ~4500gp?
Why even bother? The time wasted by server transitioning this way would probably be better served by grinding (which'd likely net you more gold too).
It's not a game changer, but sure is awkward to see people doing it.