Curve wrote: Mon Mar 15, 2021 2:27 pm
Seven Sons of Sin wrote: Sun Mar 14, 2021 3:43 pm
I also believe we need to dismantle every mechanical facet of the engine that is a "barrier to entry"
Seven Sons of Sin wrote: Sun Mar 14, 2021 3:43 pm
You would think after the Monk Saga we would all have the assumption that every character build could wildly change overnight. For what ever reason, people were placated and this implication was lost.
These two statements seem to contradict each other. I consider an ever changing meta to be a barrier to entry.
The position you are taking seems not to concede that there is any right opinion except your own. I can say that change needs and should happen for many reasons. DEVs/Contributors need to enjoy their work. When mechanics are found to be out of line with balance they need to be swiftly altered. As any reasonable person would I also think HiPS needed to go. Monks needed to be changed from the monsters they were at one point.
My issue is not with the specific changes themselves, but with the lack of foresight in putting these mechanics into the game in the first place. My issue is with creating an Arelith that has a shifting meta based on what is broken at the time. This game should be different than others. I draw a direct line between the mechanical situation on Arelith to the current trends of server culture on Arelith.
I would like to further understand your position and I can say that I am willing to change my own. Please, just ask and I am willing to expand on anything.
That is a fair interpretation! I can see how these statements seem to be contradictory.
For a long time, Arelith had very little mechanical change. It's probably people (like myself) who have been playing for awhile have this habit of shrugging off monumental change - as Jagel aforementioned, Arelith had a strict "No Rebuilds" policy under Mithreas and jjjerm. This was, as DM Watchtower said, an example of "bad things happening to good adventurers."
Culturally, though, when builds and mechanics fundamentally changed everything (like the Gift System), we were just usually all so excited for something new and fresh we didn't care how this undermined our current mechanical power. However, that's probably my bias - there have been mechanical discussions that have plagued the server forever, like portals, Devastating Critical, stealth, etc.
But, that was also just a different time. People didn't have the same mechanical expertise - many of those of ages past *now* have that mechanical knowledge. Because through years of playing, you just learn things. These are also segments of the playerbase that have vast amounts of server knowledge.
It's really one thing to play Arelith understanding BAB progression and skilldumping, and it's another thing to put all of that in practice. To understand how mobs work. How areas work. Where map loops are.
I consider a lot of server knowledge (that is, that which can't be found on the wiki) to be "barriers to entry." Since we have lovely Devs/contributors, and Discord, and the forums, and the wiki, there is generally a lot more information about your "character sheet."
I think this is a lot easier to learn. However, mechanics like HIPS is something we might grasp on paper but are only truly understood when you see it in practice.
Like watching someone, in-game, use HIPS against you, really re-contextualizes the entire mechanic.
Scurvy Cur's footage of the WASD-archery gimmick is another great articulation of something we might get on paper, but when seeing it in practice, really shakes our perspectives.
These are facets learned by *playing the game*, and sometimes, playing the game for a *long* time. I think this is a different category than understanding how numbers and character progression works - although, maybe, that's my own fault. *I* know what good ballpark numbers are, but it's also because I know how to achieve them.
(I'm undermining myself here haha.)
I guess all of this boils down to reconciling that,
a) Arelith is ever-changing
b) does this ever-changing environment make it difficult to play?
Personally, and because I'm a "veteran", I find the ever-changing environment actually uplifts newer players because they have the opportunity to enter into new mechanical systems at the same time as old players. That, in effect, levels the playing ground on the Character Sheet Difficulty.
There's no way to topple more established player's server knowledge without dramatic changes, but we can do stuff to keep them build-brewing. In that sense, people who've been playing for 5+ years can be in the same chat with those who have been playing for 6 months, and maybe, there's more commonality.
Of course, this could all be a non-issue.
I just would say what's more important than losing/gaining stuff on your character sheet, is Server Knowledge. Shitty builds can be powerhouses in the hands of the experienced, because they understand how the server can be leveraged to cover their weaknesses.
That's intense stuff. I consider that some of the greatest difficulties to onboarding new players, and elevating recently arrived ones.
