Lvl 1, -setstat, -setclass - Changes Feedback

[AstralUniverse]

About relevel... putting it on some sort of timer would suck for me personally only for the reason that when I take 29 lvls on a row I always always screw things up once and then get it right the second time. I absolutely hate having to relevel. It's a lot of lvls to take on a row.

If PGCC wasn't a thing, I would whole heartedly agree with this because i suck at builds. But, PGCC does exists, and its super easy to get your toon from the main server to there (just use -transfer). The very existence of PGCC invalidates this argument.

I dont think you understood what I said. When I click level ups and take feats/skills/stats 29 lvls on a row I make a 'typo' somewhere sometimes and have to relevel again. This has nothing to do with the character's build, I'm not talking about building mistakes. I'm talking about forgetting to dump spellcraft for an epic spell or forgetting to dump disc when I need to grab esf disc, or take the wrong feat/stat somewhere on accident. Stuff like that happens to me a lot on relevels and I need to relevel again.

[Coolguy McMagic]

If we're commenting on tone and presentation, it feels only appropriate to say that your last paragraph comes off to me as rude and entitled towards people who put hours into providing us all free entertainment. As long as they're not throwing insults about they can make server updates however they damn well please, and there was nothing remotely uncivil about this one anyway.

To speak to the more general point - I know it's trendy these days to just drop the phrase "Stormwind Fallacy" into discourse to avoid any critical introspection of how mechanical choices affect roleplay, but I do have to ask - you really don't see how cutting the avenue to "bored of this now, wanna relevel/change class/feat" is a step towards improving roleplay and story integrity?

I do apologize if I came across as rude, that certainly was not my intention. But I do think it's true - nothing of Malkalz's explanation (which is very reasonable) mentions anything about RP, so I think my point is a fair one.
And if you re-read my post, you will see that I literally say that DMs should NOT have to change class/feat because people are bored. However, not allowing ANY class/feat changes does not follow from that, because not every request for such is guided by boredom.

I can bounce the topic of the Stormwind Fallacy right back at you - how does, for example, not having access to Expertise on a mundane martial character further RP? How is a new player, who did not know about the CON requirement of EDR and is following an EDR-based build on a low-CON race, experiencing better or more interesting RP?

I don't understand where the problem is actually.

The current leveling system in Arelith is extremely fast and this is a known fact and can't be contested.
Having insufficient INT for expertise or having insufficient CON for EDR isn't a good example and probably a pretty bad example.
If you're not putting points to INT or CON, surely you felt that other stats are worth more important during character creation and if it was done without any knowledge of mechanics... Probably, you didn't even read any widely available build spreadsheets.

If you're still doing writs, this character is definitely less than a month old so, it's always possible to remake.
Now, i'm not trying to be sarcastic or harsh here but, Arelith is probably the -ONLY- server amongst the entire NWN persistent world that allows as of currently, infinite -relevel.
So, a character that is less than a month old and you feel that you've really done a terrible mistake on the build with regards to initial stats or feats or even class which i've written above that should not be too prevalent, considering that there're plenty of build spreadsheets everywhere.
We've to actually think from the standpoint that both -setstats and -setclass are actually not even supposed to exist.
If my memory is still accurate, three years ago, i'm pretty sure there isn't even a -relevel option freely available for everyone but actually strongly controlled by the DMs team.

This isn't about new or old players actually. Because the effort made, not the DMs, but from the player part to kick off the RP and process for either -setclass / -setstats are usually more hectic and time consuming than it actually takes to remake a new toon(with the ease of the current leveling pace), if there isn't a major overhaul.

Quoting an example of major overhaul imho, if Elementalist/Hemomancer no longer have infinite casting.
Something that seems impossible but actually happens.

This is about two things: New players and class overhauls.
So yes, my point about having stat shortcomings very much is about new players. A player consciously deciding to skimp on INT and forego Expertise only to later regret it would be an example where I'd say it would be fair to deny them the -setclass change, actually.

In my experience new players consider the process of leveling to be rather daunting. For us veterans leveling is a breeze, that's very true, and I don't have an issue with leveling myself; I quite enjoy it. But I keep hearing from newer players who thought leveling was a slog and very difficult, especially in the Underdark. Even if their character is "only" a month old, telling them to just remake is not helpful - they don't want to give up on all their progress and do it all over again. It's super disheartening. I think Arelith veterans underestimate how much of an investment a level 30 one-month-old character actually is. We're all used to spending incredible amounts of time on the server and don't mind, but a new player who learned that their build is never going to compete with other builds, either in PVP or PVE content (which people still run after hitting 30, since you need so much gold for your endgame gear), will not be happy to hear that they have to start all over now. They are not as invested into the server as we are, at least not yet. Being faced with a choice like this could very well cause them to quit.

The other point is class overhauls. I'm not sure what there even is to argue about here - if someone made a level 1 choice with a certain build in mind, and a class change renders that choice moot, why would they not get the chance to remedy that, as long as the change is within reason? The counter-argument to that would be that it's too much effort for the DMs and I already said that I understand that argument and have no issue with it - but if that's the argument, say that it is and leave it at that.

That is my entire issue with this: if level 1 class/feat changes were taken away because it's too much time and effort, I wouldn't have had a problem with it. I'd be sad to see it go, but I wouldn't feel annoyed. It's the fact that the announcement referred to RP as a justification that bothers me.

[Cataclysm of Iron]

All I'll say on the new player thing is that I expect most of Arelith's current playerbase found it, enjoyed it, stuck with it, etc. when progression was considerably slower, harder, and more unforgiving than it is now. No -setclass/-feat, no -relevel, much slower levelling, reduced/no writs, etc.

I obviously don't know that, but I do know that the place sustained a healthy enough playerbase to be thriving back when that was the case.

Call me cynical, but I find it hard to take seriously enfranchised players calling for these features to be maintained "for new players' benefits". Seems to me like it's a convenient way to argue for keeping features that new players will largely never touch but experienced players will use frequently to keep themselves on top of the pile.

Goes without saying, I hope, that they should still be on the table if a major mechanical overhaul substantially reworks a class.

[PowerWord Rage]

I get what AstralUniverse is writing but i don't believe that it's even a problem at all about the mistake on -relevel.
The only reason that, even i've done these errors and still do because of carelessness is because -relevel is currently infinite.
Had it been a one-time matter, i dare say that everyone will probably be super serious about it hence, mistakes such as being careless isn't going to happen.
However, i actually agree that having a timer is good for reasons such as Sorcerer, Bard, Warlocks etc that needs -relevel in order to repick spells.

And...leveling is truly not daunting. It used to be one of the most tedious to level among the NWN persistent world in the past as early as 2 or 3 years ago to 10 years or longer. Currently, it just isn't. Mundane used to be very much more unforgiving than it is now. Much less when i've simply observed that almost every PC among 5, there're more than half that isn't considered mundane but perhaps Spellswords, Ranger, War priest, Druids etc.

It's difficult to convince perhaps such as myself, that leveling or -setclass -setstats is so important, when there isn't a game-changing/breaking overhaul, that it decides whether a player stay or leave because we used to have very terrible leveling curve and whenever you heard "DING", it really felt good and very good. Oh...on each level up, each step taken is extremely careful because there isn't even a -relevel option during then.

[definatelynothealbold]

I'm not personally against -setstat and -setclass being limited. I do hope -relevel stays mostly the same, I'd not be against a cool down on it to stop people form cheesing things like Epic spell Focuses for the benefits.

I do have some concerns that people are assuming everyone puts hours of research into builds, have deep intricate knowledge of the changes that Arelith's system has compared to the base game.

Arelith is drastically different than any other setting. Not to mention the difficulty in dungeons ramps up rather quickly, rapidly. There's plenty of places where people are often seen getting frustrated at what feels like sudden difficulty spikes on wirts or areas that feel much stronger than the suggested level.

The overall design of the server seems to significantly assume the power level of characters is much higher than average. Character Flaws can lead to good RP. Mechanical flaws leads to an unfun character to play.

As someone whose played characters that do have limitations. It's far more enjoyable that it's specifically RP that leads into this, not some mechanically reinforced: "Sorry I'm not pulling my weight in this dungeon, It's for the RP you know?"

This isn't a tabletop setting with a tailored DM experience. It's a persistent world, with periodically getting DM events going on. I can probably guess at least 95% of all player's time will be without ever interacting with DMs at all. All their interactions are with the world itself or other players. Thus being mechanically weak just makes you worse off. We're not in a setting where my physically weak character can just talk their way through writs.

Leveling is faster on Arelith that's true, but I do not think taking a callous approach to telling people to completely delete months of their life worth of effort due to mistakes should be an okay thing. Might take you a month to get a character to level 30, but it takes some people longer, it takes some people shorter. People still invested their personal time and life into that, and to be just told "Start over" is very disheartening when it's done for reasons we might not really agree with.

[JingeKing]

All I'll say on the new player thing is that I expect most of Arelith's current playerbase found it, enjoyed it, stuck with it, etc. when progression was considerably slower, harder, and more unforgiving than it is now. No -setclass/-feat, no -relevel, much slower levelling, reduced/no writs, etc.

I obviously don't know that, but I do know that the place sustained a healthy enough playerbase to be thriving back when that was the case.

Call me cynical, but I find it hard to take seriously enfranchised players calling for these features to be maintained "for new players' benefits". Seems to me like it's a convenient way to argue for keeping features that new players will largely never touch but experienced players will use frequently to keep themselves on top of the pile.

Goes without saying, I hope, that they should still be on the table if a major mechanical overhaul substantially reworks a class.

To help with your perception of "New players" then, I only bought NWN last year. Me and a group of others were introduced to it via 1 of our group.

I don't think it's un-common for there to be new-players at all, even if it's an old game or a longer running community/server. If anything those two things assists with the foot-fall of the player base.

Plus new-players I feel like do touch these features a lot as we often make mistakes and are advised by the more "Not new" players to use said features to fix the mistakes.

Also it shouldn't be difficult to weed out applications/tickets made between the genuine ones and the ones who're just trying to squeeze out things to keep their builds or whatever on the top of pvp meta.

[Eyeliner]

Long before -relevel we had -losexp. You'd drop the amount of your choice to go to a lower level so you could fix a mistake or adjust to class changes. Then you'd have to grind those levels back. Players dropping characters from epics to 3 and spending months getting back to where they were wasn't unheard of (and of course they'd disappear from significant RP because they'd be off circlegrinding those levels back)

Then they killed -losexp and we had to ask DMs for help if we made a mistake. Which meant waiting days or weeks or just being ignored or told no. At least relevels for big class changes started to enter the picture, though those were at the devs discretion and were only done in certain cases.

I'm just saying the good old days weren't that great. -Relevel is a fantastic tool for players and the discussion shouldn't be losing it or not, it should remain available but regulated to limit abuse. Mistakes are easy to make and it's always nice to be able to make adjustments to keep up with the updates thread.

[Cataclysm of Iron]

Long before -relevel we had -losexp. You'd drop the amount of your choice to go to a lower level so you could fix a mistake or adjust to class changes. Then you'd have to grind those levels back. Players dropping characters from epics to 3 and spending months getting back to where they were wasn't unheard of (and of course they'd disappear from significant RP because they'd be off circlegrinding those levels back)

Then they killed -losexp and we had to ask DMs for help if we made a mistake. Which meant waiting days or weeks or just being ignored or told no.

You present this as though it was/would be a bad thing? It's just considerably better imo - a level of neutral oversight to ensure silly things aren't being done with the system and a genuine cost (in needing to manually regain the levels) to avoid trivialising the process.

[JingeKing]

Long before -relevel we had -losexp. You'd drop the amount of your choice to go to a lower level so you could fix a mistake or adjust to class changes. Then you'd have to grind those levels back. Players dropping characters from epics to 3 and spending months getting back to where they were wasn't unheard of (and of course they'd disappear from significant RP because they'd be off circlegrinding those levels back)

Then they killed -losexp and we had to ask DMs for help if we made a mistake. Which meant waiting days or weeks or just being ignored or told no.

You present this as though it was/would be a bad thing? It's just considerably better imo - a level of neutral oversight to ensure silly things aren't being done with the system and a genuine cost (in needing to manually regain the levels) to avoid trivialising the process.

Honestly its not a good thing.
Causing something which should be a simple process into an elongated chore doesn't help with enabling a fun and enjoyable experience.
Not everyone will have the time to be able to conform to this as well.

And those who abuse it surely are able to be easily noticed doing so.

[Eyeliner]

This was before the support ticket system so getting a DMs attention could take days or weeks, especially if you aren't online at the right times. It's almost impossible to find a DM in my time zone. So hell yeah, I think it's a bad thing that when I misclicked a feat on a level up and wanted to do it over I needed a DM to assist. I deleted and remade mid-level characters on several occasions because getting a DM to help correct that would take longer than grinding writs again.

IMO we shouldn't all suffer over a little silliness. I am sure there's some abuse of the free -relevels, but I don't see the effect of it in game so it can't be that terrible. I am sure there's a happy medium where we can keep access to it, with minimum hassle and DM involvement needed to use it occasionally but also with enough restriction to limit and keep track of abuse.

[MRFTW]

I love /relevel. I recommend it to many who /ama me with build issues. Newer players don't take disc on their casters or spellcraft on their melees, for example, or don't know they can take a point in animal empathy here. They don't realise that 16 UMD is enough for their 8 CHA dude to reliably use wands, or what unbuffed lore they should be aiming at, etc.

/remake should give you your reward back, trigger the award cooldown and allow the new award to only be used with the same name as before.

If it's really that bad, set up a log for when people use /relevel and similar features and observe / speak to players that are doing it too often or to be a sweaty pvper or whatever.

You can only really test a few things on PGCC. I relevelled a FTR/LM/EKD to drop both yoink and scry for explorer and gatherer secrets, because it suited me and the character more. Skill changes like investment into things like spot and search can't be felt out at all on PGCC, and only on the actual server with some time investment.

[Curve]

Back in my day you had to punch death or change deities over and over to lose xp and then gain it back like god intended: circle grinding frost giants.

I could see a world where retaking the last level you gained is a command and only works once for seeing you made a mistake and promptly correcting it.

But that’s it. All the other things are too easy to abuse and their need rectified by being careful with your build. We did it for years and things were fine.

[AstralUniverse]

Back in my day you had to punch death or change deities over and over to lose xp and then gain it back like god intended: circle grinding frost giants.

That awful three-screen circle still appears in my dreams. Plz not again lol.

[JingeKing]

Back in my day you had to punch death or change deities over and over to lose xp and then gain it back like god intended: circle grinding frost giants.

I could see a world where retaking the last level you gained is a command and only works once for seeing you made a mistake and promptly correcting it.

But that’s it. All the other things are too easy to abuse and their need rectified by being careful with your build. We did it for years and things were fine.

You might of had to do it before but doesn't mean we should do it now. Many simply don't have time to grind and grind and grind for one, and even if you do (Which is a rarity) it turns a fun hobby into a laborious chore.
Enabling things to flow better and things to be a smoother experience outweighs tedious solutions to target the minority who abuse (Of which surely can be seen somehow?)

I'm sure the majority of the player-base don't abuse so why hurt them due to the minorities actions

[Cataclysm of Iron]

Back in my day you had to punch death or change deities over and over to lose xp and then gain it back like god intended: circle grinding frost giants.

I could see a world where retaking the last level you gained is a command and only works once for seeing you made a mistake and promptly correcting it.

But that’s it. All the other things are too easy to abuse and their need rectified by being careful with your build. We did it for years and things were fine.

You might of had to do it before but doesn't mean we should do it now. Many simply don't have time to grind and grind and grind for one, and even if you do (Which is a rarity) it turns a fun hobby into a laborious chore.
Enabling things to flow better and things to be a smoother experience outweighs tedious solutions to target the minority who abuse (Of which surely can be seen somehow?)

I'm sure the majority of the player-base don't abuse so why hurt them due to the minorities actions

I feel like you're missing the argument being put forward here. Yes, a minority abuse these features and that is - I think by consensus - bad.

But most people who use(d) these features are/were using them as intended and are doing nothing wrong. But that's still detrimental to the server ethos because if characters can chop and change to match the new hotness, or because the "meta" has shifted, or because a choice proves less optimal than imagined, it undermines the story their progression represents. It also simplifies convergence on a small number of optimal "builds" which worsens roleplay, not because any individual player doing so is roleplaying any less well by doing so but because diversity is essential to storytelling.

I appreciate you might disagree and that's fine but I want to be crystal clear that my view - and I think the view of at least a couple other commentors here - is that even when used as intended and in the spirit of their implementation, the features are largely a bad thing.

And I say that as someone who both played 35+ hours per week and ground a Lv30 over months in the old days when there were no writs and no adventure RP and death/response could cost you RL days of XP, and as someone who dips in for maybe 5-7 hours on a good week nowadays.

[JingeKing]

Back in my day you had to punch death or change deities over and over to lose xp and then gain it back like god intended: circle grinding frost giants.

I could see a world where retaking the last level you gained is a command and only works once for seeing you made a mistake and promptly correcting it.

But that’s it. All the other things are too easy to abuse and their need rectified by being careful with your build. We did it for years and things were fine.

You might of had to do it before but doesn't mean we should do it now. Many simply don't have time to grind and grind and grind for one, and even if you do (Which is a rarity) it turns a fun hobby into a laborious chore.
Enabling things to flow better and things to be a smoother experience outweighs tedious solutions to target the minority who abuse (Of which surely can be seen somehow?)

I'm sure the majority of the player-base don't abuse so why hurt them due to the minorities actions

I feel like you're missing the argument being put forward here. Yes, a minority abuse these features and that is - I think by consensus - bad.

But most people who use(d) these features are/were using them as intended and are doing nothing wrong. But that's still detrimental to the server ethos because if characters can chop and change to match the new hotness, or because the "meta" has shifted, or because a choice proves less optimal than imagined, it undermines the story their progression represents. It also simplifies convergence on a small number of optimal "builds" which worsens roleplay, not because any individual player doing so is roleplaying any less well by doing so but because diversity is essential to storytelling.

I appreciate you might disagree and that's fine but I want to be crystal clear that my view - and I think the view of at least a couple other commentors here - is that even when used as intended and in the spirit of their implementation, the features are largely a bad thing.

And I say that as someone who both played 35+ hours per week and ground a Lv30 over months in the old days when there were no writs and no adventure RP and death/response could cost you RL days of XP, and as someone who dips in for maybe 5-7 hours on a good week nowadays.

So, in terms of change and chop or to fit the new meta, yes these forms of QoL like -relevel or tickets for stats/class shouldn't be used for that. As any big change to a character (For example going from Fighter to Wizard) should be done via a -remake.

I agree with you up to that point. I am of the same PoV of, I do things for the role-play. I enjoy the option of being able to adapt the mechanical build dependent to what outside factors is influencing my character, Though do disagree that it effects role-play as a whole and would make the case for it helps enhance it even (With the smaller cases for fixing mistakes and the reason I typed in the sentence above.)

It's definitely understandable from some views for there to be none of these QoL processes/systems though without them it would seem a lot more of a chore to simply just make a character and go with the flow, with a game which has such a heavy implement of mechanical features. It's not like playing at the table.

[ReverentBlade]

Having done these by hand with LETO on servers long dead and gone in the pre-EE days, I can sympathize with the workload. I cannot, however, sympathize with the "rp server" justification. On an "RP server", characters can grow and change to follow the narrative. They can be mentored, taught, sculpted. Characters that are fixed in stone is ANTI-RP, not pro-RP. Making sure barbarians aren't turning into wizards is the job of DM oversight.

[Power Word, Haste]

Having done these by hand with LETO on servers long dead and gone in the pre-EE days, I can sympathize with the workload. I cannot, however, sympathize with the "rp server" justification. On an "RP server", characters can grow and change to follow the narrative. They can be mentored, taught, sculpted. Characters that are fixed in stone is ANTI-RP, not pro-RP. Making sure barbarians aren't turning into wizards is the job of DM oversight.

I agree.

[Spriggan Bride]

Class changes in the past were never as drastic as they have been in the last 5 ish years. Dropping XP to change your character's build was rarely about adjusting to a new meta because the meta didn't change much. Arelith is now a dev's playground and it's only right to let players adjust to the tinkering.

Plus, rp-wise, when a class is messed with mechanically that changes the game world's reality. But there's usually not an explanation in game for why some class has changed for mechanical reasons. Letting players adjust their characters to this new game world reality (in essence, pretending this is how that class has always worked) does lead to good RP in my opinion, if only because it will keep people happy with their characters and happy players make better stories.

[riffraff]

So I beg we keep the setstat and setclass available for genuinely new players under 2 months on their most playtimed character. If someone's made a battle cleric (A very popular option for new players) but discover it kinda sucks and they've executed it wrong because they had conceptions as a newbie from 5e that didn't translate to arelith they should get leniancy.

Those who were highly unoptimal often quit the server generally if they felt it. It's a player retention issue at that point.

Please let newbies, genuine fresh people to the server, still access this.

I just wanted to chip in on this just to also say that it's not even just expectations from 5e. I had expectations from both base NWN and 3.5 when I started on the server and Arelith is so different from both in many ways that I fell into the trap of making some awful character build decisions based on those assumptions. It made my character pretty much useless and I've only partly managed to salvage it. Even if you scour the wiki with a fine-tooth comb for all the class, skill, feat and spell changes, there's nothing to prepare you for the intense power creep of Arelith. I never would've imagined from vanilla NWN or tabletop 3.5 that over 40 AC is regularly expected, for example. For a roleplay server, min-maxing doesn't feel like a choice here, it feels pretty much essential.

And I'm speaking from the point of view of someone who is far more interested in the actual roleplay than the mechanical content and who did as little writ stuff as possible by choice. It was still always frustrating not being able to contribute when fighting happened, whether it be PVE or PVP.

[TheDoctor]

Honestly I am getting pretty tired of a character being one thing one day and something else entirely the next.

Get rid of -relevel -setstat and -setclass

Bring back -losexp available by request like I have seen other places.

Make -relevel -setstat and -setclass only available by request to be approved by DM's/Admins like I have seen other places.

We have alot of people listed as active DM and lots as well as admin. Should be no reason what-so-ever why this cant be done as a request only thing. Like I have seen other places.

I say this because mistakes DO happen... I feel like someone who made a small error should no be penalized because the majority abuse it. Lock it all behind a request.. Problem solved.

[AstralUniverse]

Having done these by hand with LETO on servers long dead and gone in the pre-EE days, I can sympathize with the workload. I cannot, however, sympathize with the "rp server" justification. On an "RP server", characters can grow and change to follow the narrative. They can be mentored, taught, sculpted. Characters that are fixed in stone is ANTI-RP, not pro-RP. Making sure barbarians aren't turning into wizards is the job of DM oversight.

It's only true because characters spend the vast majority of their life span at lvl 30.

[-XXX-]

Make -relevel -setstat and -setclass only available by request to be approved by DM's/Admins like I have seen other places.

If I recall correctly:

-relevel was introduced to allow players respond to changes in skill and spell functionality. I can imagine our friendly neighbourhood DMs not surviving loremageddon and spellmageddon without this in place. Enabling this feature only for grace periods after any such changes (which also used to be the case) doesn't really work that well either, because players come and go, shelf and dust off characters almost constantly.

-losexp was disabled and replaced by -relevel, because it enabled an abuse of the crafting system.

[Aquanaut]

-Removed Post

[Curve]

Sorry if I seem like a wackjob

You dont seem like anymore of a wackjob than the rest of us. Thanks for sharing.