Player Count Conclusions

[Marsi]

it doesn't really add anything to my RP. most language lessons are clunky and awkward, either resulting in a lot of people going AFK as they actively increase their language % or making non-effort posts, regardless of if the host is putting in the work or not.
this is something i do my best at attempting.

I remember coming back to the server and discovering the explosion of language lessons and other language learning social events.

At first I thought this was cool - a way to make a roleplay event mechanically lucrative.

I soon found them to be boring and uninspired. They have lead to an expectation that any big social event or anything that has to do with languages, should be expressly for the purpose of peer-to-peer language grinding. Or that any good faction leader or settlement figure should be offering these events as a given. I've had to learn to read between the lines of event ads to figure out if there is really something interesting going on, or it's just "infernal language xp fest of the week".

Honestly, I don't think any form of Runescape- esque "action" based XP progression belongs in a D&D based MMO. Languages should be selected on character creation or granted as feats. At the very least, fluency should be never be guaranteed, and a non-native speaker should not be able to, in every circumstance, perfectly comprehend and speak their hobby language -- there ought to be some friction or non-determinism.

Polyglotism used to be somewhat rare. That was when the server was just smaller and grinding was less socially acceptable. Now every character knows 10 languages, or aspires to. The system no longer makes sense with 2024 player demographics. I rarely would see racial language based dialogue go uninterrupted by wisecrack eavesdropper with nothing but time, reminding the conversants that "hey, we can all speak elven too ))".

[ArelithMarketCrash]

it doesn't really add anything to my RP. most language lessons are clunky and awkward, either resulting in a lot of people going AFK as they actively increase their language % or making non-effort posts, regardless of if the host is putting in the work or not.
this is something i do my best at attempting.

I remember coming back to the server and discovering the explosion of language lessons and other language learning social events.

At first I thought this was cool - a way to make a roleplay event mechanically lucrative.

I soon found them to be boring and uninspired. They have lead to an expectation that any big social event or anything that has to do with languages, should be expressly for the purpose of peer-to-peer language grinding. Or that any good faction leader or settlement figure should be offering these events as a given. I've had to learn to read between the lines of event ads to figure out if there is really something interesting going on, or it's just "infernal language xp fest of the week".

Honestly, I don't think any form of Runescape- esque "action" based XP progression belongs in a D&D based MMO. Languages should be selected on character creation or granted as feats. At the very least, fluency should be never be guaranteed, and a non-native speaker should not be able to, in every circumstance, perfectly comprehend and speak their hobby language -- there ought to be some friction or non-determinism.

Polyglotism used to be somewhat rare. That was when the server was just smaller and grinding was less socially acceptable. Now every character knows 10 languages, or aspires to. The system no longer makes sense with 2024 player demographics. I rarely would see racial language based dialogue go uninterrupted by wisecrack eavesdropper with nothing but time, reminding the conversants that "hey, we can all speak elven too ))".

Having played multiple characters with Gift of Tongues, getting a character that knows more than 6 languages can be pretty tough for some reasons, but a few select races get a load of languages. A human will start with nothing, a vanilla human martial with 14 INT will get 2 learnable languages. On the other hand, wizards can learn 9-11 languages.

Now, some races are more special than others in regards to languages. Drow get Undercommon, Xanalress and Sign, gnolls get Undercommon, Gnoll and Abyssal. With only 14 INT they can know 5 languages (on top of common), far more as a wizard or Loremaster. I played a drow wizard who learned every learnable language (pre-elemental tongues), all things considered it was a fun oddity.

I think a lot of people bump their INT higher than "powerbuildingly" advisable too, for skills and languages, but that's just observations that I can't confirm. I do not personally think there's that many people who know a dozen languages, but there's 100% popular languages such as elven, undercommon and xanalress. LM being popular certainly skewes things.

Characters learning a language per INT modifier is pretty close to the tabletop rules iirc, and I do agree that learning languages can be soulless and boring. But, the way it works right now is the most organic and sensible to learn more exotic languages, such as surfacers learning undercommon or xanalress, being able to simply pick them from having higher INT or a feat would be a bit silly, as would be locking access from them if you're a surfacer or similar.

[Kuma]

it doesn't really add anything to my RP. most language lessons are clunky and awkward, either resulting in a lot of people going AFK as they actively increase their language % or making non-effort posts, regardless of if the host is putting in the work or not.
this is something i do my best at attempting.

I remember coming back to the server and discovering the explosion of language lessons and other language learning social events.

At first I thought this was cool - a way to make a roleplay event mechanically lucrative.

I soon found them to be boring and uninspired. They have lead to an expectation that any big social event or anything that has to do with languages, should be expressly for the purpose of peer-to-peer language grinding. Or that any good faction leader or settlement figure should be offering these events as a given. I've had to learn to read between the lines of event ads to figure out if there is really something interesting going on, or it's just "infernal language xp fest of the week".

Honestly, I don't think any form of Runescape- esque "action" based XP progression belongs in a D&D based MMO. Languages should be selected on character creation or granted as feats. At the very least, fluency should be never be guaranteed, and a non-native speaker should not be able to, in every circumstance, perfectly comprehend and speak their hobby language -- there ought to be some friction or non-determinism.

Polyglotism used to be somewhat rare. That was when the server was just smaller and grinding was less socially acceptable. Now every character knows 10 languages, or aspires to. The system no longer makes sense with 2024 player demographics. I rarely would see racial language based dialogue go uninterrupted by wisecrack eavesdropper with nothing but time, reminding the conversants that "hey, we can all speak elven too ))".

real

Trying to translate event fliers in terms of 'will this be interesting or will it be someone copypasting paragraphs from the Wiki in three languages' definitely coincided with the 'scheduled events are the prime marker of activity' shift some time post-EE, as opposed to time logged in. Pre-planned RP arcs also followed.

Now that I'm in my thirties and no longer able to dedicate days per week of my life to this infernal machine I do somewhat appreciate being able to schedule play-time a bit better but I still dislike the assumption that a faction or settlement is only active because its Chronus calendar is expansive, and lowest-common denominator language lessons filling that glut definitely drives my dislike more.

the language lesson revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the etc etc you know the meme

[Ork]

language lessons are so bad please kill them.

[AddledPunster]

I think a lot of people bump their INT higher than "powerbuildingly" advisable too, for skills and languages, but that's just observations that I can't confirm. I do not personally think there's that many people who know a dozen languages, but there's 100% popular languages such as elven, undercommon and xanalress. LM being popular certainly skewes things.

Hello, yes. This is me.

I will gut my character's combat viability with gusto so I can get more skillpoints to dump in things like Craft Mastery and high skillpoint classes like Bard and Rogue only make this urge of mine worse. I honestly don't really care about languages very much because I find most language lessons to be too dull of an experience to bother sitting through. When I -remade Gwenno from Ye Olde Spellsword to become an Illusionist/Loremaster, I ended up picking the languages she had previously known to "maintain canon" as it were, then proceeded to get exactly 0 languages learned above 25%.

While I disagree with Ork's statement to do away with them, I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment. I really just can't think of another system that would be better suited than what we have.

[Second Breakfast]

they're coming for my god given right to make my character's builds even worse

if bard/[insert other class]/LM is wrong, then i don't want to be right

shut it off from the mundies, i don't really care about that, but what sense does it make to shut it off from bards. why should have to cast 9th level spells to get my cookies

[AddledPunster]

Honestly, taking Loremaster away from Bard would take some serious mental gymnastics given that Bard is already rather lore-centric (or knowledge-centric, in the tabletop). Bards becoming Loremasters makes a whole lot of sense, even if it doesn't play well mechanically.

I don't think this is a fair criticism because we don't know whats on people's character sheets. You don't know how someone is implementing loremaster into their concept. With the various secrets you can take, your character can roleplay as a well-learned botanist, a cartographer, someone who has studied the blade, a magician, or any variety of flavor the various secrets give. Do people take the quality of life ones like teleport and yoink? Sure. Do people utilize those levels to enhance their concept? Absolutely.

I have to concede that you are correct; this isn't an entirely fair criticism. As much as I would like to say I have seen people who aren't taking the flavour of the class into consideration when they take those levels, such an observation would require no small amount of mind reading. Neato as I am, I cannot read minds. Thinking back to when I made this post, I was balking at the high LM numbers, which is a very biased state of mind.

As well, I ABSOLUTELY don't want to come off like I think mundane concepts should be barred from Loremaster, because they shouldn't. I've seen plenty of very fun concepts with fighter/loremasters that are very enjoyable to be around, including one who flavoured their portal opening as them cutting the runes for the portal with their sword in the air. Very neat stuff to see from a bookish swordboy!

[Aellowyn]

In regards to the player count it shows people like variety, flexibility and fun, for the most part it's nice to see the basic DnD classes up at the top.

• Loremaster is high, showing the dip class is being taken by a lot of builds as a dip class doing exactly what it's supposed to do. Add variety and fun. It's not a "primary" class, so I excuse this for being at the top.

• Sorcerer isn't fun, so this main class has been replaced by Warlock instead, which is sad. These numbers should be flipped.

• Too many Spellswords. Ranger is sad and should be in the Spellsword slot.

• Monk will increase when the rework is released. (I'm waiting to make my own~)

• Barbarians I love, but I understand if there aren't small armies of them running around. Variety with them is difficult. <3

• Fighter allows for the existence of variety. So many builds use fighter in so many different ways.

• The same goes for rogue. Very flexible classes that allow for a broad range of builds.

• Bard, again a very flexible class for different builds.

All the other classes seem pretty good where they are.

[Lass is Class]

> Bards becoming Loremasters makes a whole lot of sense, even if it doesn't play well mechanically.
One of the more mechanically broken combination of classes, in correct hands (:

Loremasters need rework - not a straight nerf, but a rework, at how easily languages are accessible, and epic caster feats.

[Rubricae]

All the other classes seem pretty good where they are.

i

[AstralUniverse]

Guys when will you learn to stop biting Kenji's baits...

bites

Kenji you forgot healing domain nerf.

[Quizmar]

In regards to the player count it shows people like variety, flexibility and fun, for the most part it's nice to see the basic DnD classes up at the top.

• Sorcerer isn't fun, so this main class has been replaced by Warlock instead, which is sad. These numbers should be flipped.

• Too many Spellswords. Ranger is sad and should be in the Spellsword slot.

I think Sorcerer is fun right now, but certainly leaves much to be desired. Sorcerer isn't what it should be due to a lack of any mechanical updates. Epic sorcerer gets nothing helpful, and is forced to take the div dip (which from RP perspective is extremely lame) or else they lose access to PVP. The fact that sorcerer needs to take power attack while already feat starved, to get div shield makes 0 sense RP or mechanics wise, they are already severely starved for feats due to missing out on 4 feats relative to wizard. Additionally, without the div dip sorc doesn't have access to dicipline as a class skill, which on its own disqualifies them from pvp (i don't necessarily think they should have it in the base class, its just an issue). I've also never understood why sorc/wizard doesnt get UMD...

There are too many spellswords because it is just better than the magical commoner wizard, and is extremely in alignment with the power/ crunch gaming meta. I think spellsword needs much more limitations, to be closer in design to the warpriest cleric path, instead of being a wizard with full bab (why do they get a familiar?)

[Griefmaker]

Spellsword is too much might and too much magic mixed together.

I love it, but it really gets a bit too much into wizard and sorcerer territory with its spell list, more than decent ability to dispel, whilst still having incredible melee capabilities. If I were to do something to it, I would make it max out at level 6 spells, like bard. This would show the actual "compromise" the wizard had to do to learn to mix might and magic together.

Plus, their imbuement is their magic!

[Preserver]

It's an interesting analysis of what is going on Arelith.
However, as a Loremaster aficionado, allow me to express one small sentiment...

Whatever is done to balance/nerf/execute/terminate Loremaster, please allow the continued existence of a mechanical class or PrC that allows people to RP loremasters, sages, academics, etcetera. It's, I believe, a well-beloved RP niche.

[chris a gogo]

Whatever is done to balance/nerf/execute/terminate Loremaster, please allow the continued existence of a mechanical class or PrC that allows people to RP loremasters, sages, academics, etcetera. It's, I believe, a well-beloved RP niche.

I wouldn't worry to much it is pretty much here to stay.
But all those RP niches you mentioned were taken up by wizards previously.

[Xerah]

Language progress is a neat idea in theory, terrible in actual play.

Just give us free languages = INT mod

And

Cross class skill for all classes for an additional language each rank.

That’s how D&D does languages and no reason not to decide that language progression bars have been a failed 20 year experiment.

[Irongron]

I'm not sure what, if anything, to do with languages, but I do feel that the one main attraction of them (having a secret language) is heavily undermined by how easily anyone can master them. I would have thought learning a language like elven would be lifelong undertaking.

[Royal Blood]

Spellsword is too much might and too much magic mixed together.

I love it, but it really gets a bit too much into wizard and sorcerer territory with its spell list, more than decent ability to dispel, whilst still having incredible melee capabilities. If I were to do something to it, I would make it max out at level 6 spells, like bard. This would show the actual "compromise" the wizard had to do to learn to mix might and magic together.

Plus, their imbuement is their magic!

They've dialed back the magic a spellsword has access to quite a bit. I think it's in a comfortable spot tbf. If it leaned too far into the imbuements Idk it may just be a Weapon Master build with extra steps. Maaaaaaybe it could work similar to a 'Dip' class where you build a melee build then dip into Spellsword for imbues etc but that would require another redesign of the clas.

They could maybe play with of the other imbues a bit to make them more relevant but they're not bad as I sometimes rotate them depending on what situation I am in.

Right now I really enjoy the class despite recent nerfs. I think it's good enough with the right strategy to be enjoyable and like useful.

As far as the other classes go it all seems rather predictable imo. I am always ehhh about class designs because once they start getting messed with, they usually go through the following stages:

A: Either overpowered or complete useless.
B: Slightly less overpowered but still too strong or slightly less useless.
C: Settling somewhere between okay but fundamental changes from where the class began.

NWN is complicated so I don't envy anyone who rebalances classes. Minus some bumps and some current angst I think everything is more balanced than it used to be.

[Royal Blood]

I'm not sure what, if anything, to do with languages, but I do feel that the one main attraction of them (having a secret language) is heavily undermined by how easily anyone can master them. I would have thought learning a language like elven would be lifelong undertaking.

The RP behind learning the language can be okay, there are frequently events behind learning languages too which I would argue sorta validates the system. Because like, all the systems should be a conduit to some form of role play. I think it's in an okay spot where it's challenging enough to learn but not like so challenging it's super off-putting.

That being said, it can be a bit of a pain! Maybe it could be cool to leave like for certain languages like elven, runes or lore around that when discovered allows players to make progress. Like there's a ton of ruins in the Abyss, the ruins there could have inscriptions players could decipher. Maybe it rolls off their intelligence modifier to determine how much progress they make? Add in some XP and make it worth the time for players to like go find these things. I think it could make language learning a lot more engaging!

[Rubricae]

I'm not sure what, if anything, to do with languages, but I do feel that the one main attraction of them (having a secret language) is heavily undermined by how easily anyone can master them. I would have thought learning a language like elven would be lifelong undertaking.

sure but it's also a video game played by people that have lives outside of it
i don't think many people want to spend the equivalent amount of time on a video game learning a language as they would irl

which is where the difficulty comes in of trying to find a happy medium regarding the language system
make it longer and even less will be used outside of the 'popular' ones so people can follow what's being said
leave it alone, you have the status quo

[Spriggan Bride]

I'm not sure what's to be gained from everyone speaking so many languages myself. It denies the bonding that happens when a small group of the same race characters are in public and speaking their own language amongst themselves, because it's guaranteed many other people from different races are around and speak it too. As it is languages just offer a little flavor and not much more.

I'd actually prefer it if when 4 elves are in cordor speaking elven other races couldn't understand them (or were very very unlikely to, at least.) It makes the world feel bigger and adds to the feeling that a member of another race isn't just a pointy eared human. I mean we all speak common so there's always an avenue for communication.

[Rubricae]

I'm not sure what's to be gained from everyone speaking so many languages myself. It denies the bonding that happens when a small group of the same race characters are in public and speaking their own language amongst themselves, because it's guaranteed many other people from different races are around and speak it too. As it is languages just offer a little flavor and not much more.

I'd actually prefer it if when 4 elves are in cordor speaking elven other races couldn't understand them (or were very very unlikely to, at least.) It makes the world feel bigger and adds to the feeling that a member of another race isn't just a pointy eared human. I mean we all speak common so there's always an avenue for communication.

which then feeds into the issue of exclusion and using languages to 'hide' or prevent others from interacting
which isn't great

[Cthuletta]

As someone who's played two polyglots, it has taken me over an RL year to actually get some languages on BOTH of them.
Please don't make it harder. ;_;

[Spriggan Bride]

I can only agree to disagree. I don't see any reason for language if it's not used to reinforce race and class otherness, and I don't think that's exclusion, I think that's immersion. Some of the best bonding moments I've had were through using language to hold a sensitive conversation, but that can't be done any more with any reliability. Besides if someone wants to exclude you all they have to do is ignore you.

[AstralUniverse]

Hi. I'm just here to remind you that 20% of active characters have 4-5 free languages from loremaster that they didnt need to actively learn in game, were granted entirely fluent out of the blue, and do not count towards their respective language cap.

It is absurd, and I've been saying it's absurd since loremaster's rework into 5 lvls.

Cheers.