Unintended Effects of Changes

[Anomandaris]

So I have a SD and HIPS is going bye bye. Ok, dead horse moving on. Relevel, thank you. Now I can build into something that will work and that's not going to be SD because we have no clue what that looks like except that HIPS is going from 11 dip eventually too.

However, I have a Shadow Choker that is Runed and has def essence plus a Penumbral Vestiment that is Runed with a def essence, which constitutes tons and tons of time and gold. This is extremely annoying to not be able to wear two items in my kit and have to spend somewhere upwards of 200-500k in gold to re-gear because I don't have the pre-reqs to wear something my PC has been wearing for over 2 years OOCly. I'm pretty sure Shadow Choker was a Greater Bejewled or even Mastwerwork Rune if I'm not mistaken, in that case add a few extra hundred-thousand.

I don't know what the answer is but it's really annoying. Instead of rping I'm going to have to go grind out some gold or try and find new gear while I walk about with no armor... This will take days if not weeks of my time that I would rather not waste on stuff like this. This is an OOC balance thing and has no IC relevancy to why my character is basically bankrupt and naked.

Can we change the pre-reqs on the SD items because WHO is building Shadowdancer until the re-work? Almost no one. Shadow Choker doesn't even have a UMD threshold on it that I could try and meet...

If not can you give us comparable item swap and take the old gear? Something to make this less awful please. And if the answer is, well you "could" build into SD and still use them... please don't bother stating that, it makes no sense. This is just one example of unintended impacts these changes can have that in my case (and I'm sure others') has had a directly negative effect on my desire to want to log into Arelith and play this character I've invested into. Do I need a mechanical nerf and a RP net-worth nerf at the same time...?

I can't imagine any reason why this kind of side effect of these changes should not be addressed as it's a pretty huge IC loss for no IC reason whatsoever, and this is a RP server first and foremost.

[Blossom]

I do see your point, but, you don't have to throw the item away. I am pretty sure even with SD changes meaning less are around you could sell that for hundreds of thousands.

[Talvenlapsi]

I would agree, if it was not your own decision to build away from SD. SD is still playable, and you're making IC and OOC decision to not train as SD anymore.

In your case.. It is IC thing, so you take IC consequence. Sure, the nerf wasn't, but your character is still for (Some) reason deciding to not be SD anymore. So.. Yeah. You do have to grind again, and don't get compensation for your (own) decision to change class.

Does it suck? Yes.
But should this situation be compensated to you? No. Imho.
I realize you said "don't bother stating that" but - It's honestly the truth.

[Anomandaris]

I would agree, if it was not your own decision to build away from SD. SD is still playable, and you're making IC and OOC decision to not train as SD anymore.

In your case.. It is IC thing, so you take IC consequence. Sure, the nerf wasn't, but your character is still for (Some) reason deciding to not be SD anymore. So.. Yeah. You do have to grind again, and don't get compensation for your (own) decision to change class.

Does it suck? Yes.
But should this situation be compensated to you? No. Imho.
I realize you said "don't bother stating that" but - It's honestly the truth.

So either play something which is really not viable as a class and has no clear direction for an unknown period of time, or lose hundreds of thousands of gold and tons of my time? How would I even build that SD? I have no idea what the lvl thresholds for any new features are. The only thing we know is the 11 lvl milestone is going to be irrelevant at some time due to HIPS permeant removal. How could you even reasonably suggest it makes any sense to do this? That's an OOC reason, my character would LOVE to remain a Shadowdancer and if there was a class rework I'd probably stay that way as long as it was remotely useful. That's just not what happened here, it's a big change with no balance to counter act the nerf and nothin but uncertainty around where the class will be down the road.

Honestly if I did build it as a SD and then 3-6-12 months from now it got changed, and I was bummed because I couldn't adjust to those changes (like with the last round of changes before this) people would basically say "too bad" like they have in the past. You know how many times people have said "don't build stuff that's asking for nerfs" or things that are going to get re-worked obviously. Player beware kind of thing... so why do that?

[Talvenlapsi]

So either play something which literally makes no sense and is not viable as a class and has no clear direction for an unknown period of time, or lose hundreds of thousands of gold and tons of my time? How would I even build that SD? I have no idea what the lvl thresholds for any new features are. The only thing we know is the 11 lvl milestone is going to be irrelevant at some time due to HIPS permeant removal. How could you even reasonably suggest it makes any sense to do this? That's an OOC reason, my character would LOVE to remain a Shadowdancer and if there was a class rework I'd probably stay that way as long as it was remotely useful. That's just not what happened here, it's a big change with no balance to counter act the nerf and nothin but uncertainty around where the class will be down the road.

Does it make sense you're going to change off of Shadowdancer, without In Character motive, while your character still will say "I'd love to stay BUT"? Yeah. That doesn't make sense either. Maybe enjoy the rp of the shadowdancer class untill the proper rework and after that there can be reasons to ask solution for some ingame gold loss.

Also, all gear has UMD rating. If it doesn't have any increased UMD rating, it's based on the class/alignment restrictions. I don't remember from on top of my mind what they are, but you can surely UMD your gear if it's important to you.

[Anomandaris]

So either play something which literally makes no sense and is not viable as a class and has no clear direction for an unknown period of time, or lose hundreds of thousands of gold and tons of my time? How would I even build that SD? I have no idea what the lvl thresholds for any new features are. The only thing we know is the 11 lvl milestone is going to be irrelevant at some time due to HIPS permeant removal. How could you even reasonably suggest it makes any sense to do this? That's an OOC reason, my character would LOVE to remain a Shadowdancer and if there was a class rework I'd probably stay that way as long as it was remotely useful. That's just not what happened here, it's a big change with no balance to counter act the nerf and nothin but uncertainty around where the class will be down the road.

Does it make sense you're going to change off of Shadowdancer, without In Character motive, while your character still will say "I'd love to stay BUT"? Yeah. That doesn't make sense either. Maybe enjoy the rp of the shadowdancer class untill the proper rework and after that there can be reasons to ask solution for some ingame gold loss.

Also, all gear has UMD rating. If it doesn't have any increased UMD rating, it's based on the class/alignment restrictions. I don't remember from on top of my mind what they are, but you can surely UMD your gear if it's important to you.

Ah ok thanks for the tip on UMD I'll see what that threshold is for Shadow Choker. That's the biggest one honestly.

Honestly there's lots of things that happen OOCly mechanically that make no sense IC. One day your PC can do this thing, the next it can't, not because you changed class but because the class was changed (this happens ALL the time). So it's incongruent to expect me to take the onus of the impact on my PC for making a change in the build based on a pretty fundamental mechanical change.

Relevels themselves make no sense. How did I just forget to be a SD in 20 minutes? It's an OOC thing due to external balance factors. The IC world doesn't care for balance, the OOC one does for player happiness.

Edit: Honestly at the end of the day, why not do somethin to make this sting less? It's not going to upset the balance of the server, it's just going to save a lot of headache for a bunch of players that are inevitably changing out of SD class because it kinda sucks now. Like there's almost no value in NOT helping unless it's just basically a waste of team time to do something about it, which frankly to me is the only fair rationale not to do something in this kind of case.

[Flower Power]

So either play something which literally makes no sense and is not viable as a class and has no clear direction for an unknown period of time, or lose hundreds of thousands of gold and tons of my time? How would I even build that SD? I have no idea what the lvl thresholds for any new features are. The only thing we know is the 11 lvl milestone is going to be irrelevant at some time due to HIPS permeant removal. How could you even reasonably suggest it makes any sense to do this? That's an OOC reason, my character would LOVE to remain a Shadowdancer and if there was a class rework I'd probably stay that way as long as it was remotely useful. That's just not what happened here, it's a big change with no balance to counter act the nerf and nothin but uncertainty around where the class will be down the road.

Does it make sense you're going to change off of Shadowdancer, without In Character motive, while your character still will say "I'd love to stay BUT"? Yeah. That doesn't make sense either. Maybe enjoy the rp of the shadowdancer class untill the proper rework and after that there can be reasons to ask solution for some ingame gold loss.

Also, all gear has UMD rating. If it doesn't have any increased UMD rating, it's based on the class/alignment restrictions. I don't remember from on top of my mind what they are, but you can surely UMD your gear if it's important to you.

Ah ok thanks for the tip on UMD I'll see what that threshold is for Shadow Choker. That's the biggest one honestly.

Honestly there's lots of things that happen OOCly mechanically that make no sense IC. One day your PC can do this thing, the next it can't, not because you changed class but because the class was changed (this happens ALL the time). So it's incongruent to expect me to take the onus of the impact on my PC for making a change in the build based on a pretty fundamental mechanical change.

Relevels themselves make no sense. How did I just forget to be a SD in 20 minutes? It's an OOC thing due to external balance factors. The IC world doesn't care for balance, the OOC one does for player happiness.

Shar got angry at all these people channeling Shadow Plane powers without giving her due respect, or at the few Sharran SD's using her powers willy-nilly and she reached out and throttled access to her Realm, because she's a megalomaniac with control issues (as you can see from her tightfisted control over the Shadow Weave.)

Problem solved. Blame Shar.

[Anomandaris]

Does it make sense you're going to change off of Shadowdancer, without In Character motive, while your character still will say "I'd love to stay BUT"? Yeah. That doesn't make sense either. Maybe enjoy the rp of the shadowdancer class untill the proper rework and after that there can be reasons to ask solution for some ingame gold loss.

Also, all gear has UMD rating. If it doesn't have any increased UMD rating, it's based on the class/alignment restrictions. I don't remember from on top of my mind what they are, but you can surely UMD your gear if it's important to you.

Ah ok thanks for the tip on UMD I'll see what that threshold is for Shadow Choker. That's the biggest one honestly.

Honestly there's lots of things that happen OOCly mechanically that make no sense IC. One day your PC can do this thing, the next it can't, not because you changed class but because the class was changed (this happens ALL the time). So it's incongruent to expect me to take the onus of the impact on my PC for making a change in the build based on a pretty fundamental mechanical change.

Relevels themselves make no sense. How did I just forget to be a SD in 20 minutes? It's an OOC thing due to external balance factors. The IC world doesn't care for balance, the OOC one does for player happiness.

Shar got angry at all these people channeling Shadow Plane powers without giving her due respect, or at the few Sharran SD's using her powers willy-nilly and she reached out and throttled access to her Realm, because she's a megalomaniac with control issues (as you can see from her tightfisted control over the Shadow Weave.)

Problem solved. Blame Shar.

There's a fantastic meme for that btw... it involves a bicycle rider putting a stick in their front tire and then a "f***ing voidcult" tag at the end.

This is great but besides the point. Mechanical balance change now results in houuuuuurs lost and hundreds of thousands of coin. It doesn't HAVE to be that way...

[Hinty]

It sucks, and what side of the reasonable/unreasonable fence you fall on on this issue, we all know how much it sucks to have to make this choice. Loose valuable items, or Gimp your build. No one wants to do either of these things.

BUT.

What it comes down to is not weather you are right or wrong. I am afraid what it comes down to is, if the DMs do swap items for you, they have to do it for all the other players in your dilemma, AND all the players playing other classes that get affected by balance changes in the future, then players whose balance changes were considered too small to deserve such services will get angry that they are being left out.

But even if the DMs announced they would do it this once, AND THIS ONCE ONLY, no ifs ands or buts, that is still a SHIT TON of DM time, effort and patience expended on replacing gear for who knows how many characters. Including no small amount of effort put into making sure no one abuses the offer to, say, bring back a char they shelved and had no plans to play again because the build sucked, but now they can rebuild AND get new gear for free?



It is essentially the same rule as the "I lost my gear to a bug/crash" rule. We all agree that sucks. We all agree that we want people to get their stuff back, but it is just not remotely viable for the DMs to have to deal with that, they don't have the manpower. The DMs do not have the time, nor patience to wade through every last request for new gear, and, frankly, I think it would be unfair for us to expect someone who volunteers their time to us to have to do that.

[Dreams]

HiPS was only one gimmick of SD. I’m sure there will be other people who remain SD despite the changes, so you could try and find those people to trade with.

You’ll be able to get some value back pretty easily.

You could also consider a new character, which really frees up all concerns of hanging onto old loot.