Arelith

RNG loot items, as noted by numerous others, will promote more rungrinding through dungeons for that, more OOC driven competition for dungeons. Before you could buy it from PCs, promote an economy and everything, now you have to pray to RNJesus you find a limited use item to have a chance of fighting a caster. A caster that if they're smart, will wait until they use their limited consumables, disengage, and return fully capable or once their consumable wore off, thus the mundane loses any advantage they had.

Matter of fact is, the meta will change, it's not destroyed, because meta is what is the best at that point in time, which are now casters without a shadow of a doubt while mundane just went down the shitter. Before that, mundane weren't even in a good spot, the only powerful meleers were bards, paladins, BGs and maybe rogues.

Barbarians, WMs, less so rangers, weren't in that good of a spot, powercreeped by other classes with saves and greater AC and damage to match. Casters already were capable of dealing with them, especially with the new spells, True Seeing nerfs, and Greater Sanctuary. This update further widens the power gap between any caster and non caster, where they are nigh invulnerable in the safety of Greater Sanctuary, with summons that cannot be removed, on top of very powerful spells (including one that does saveless half of your HP at range...).

Assuming craftables are added (because RNG loot items are bullshit, read above) that give mundane builds a fighting chance against casters, and that essentially replace UMD/scrolls, you're just back to what it was like, and nothing's changed beyond the ease of acquiring them. At which point, why bother with the change? Although I'll say what me and others have found thus far IG have been a joke.

Let's talk briefly about what rods have been found thus far:
Wand of Weird 1 charge: A death AoE spell that has two saves, DC 17. An one charge mediocre DC spell that is only remotely useful pre-epic.
Wand of Horrid Wilt 1 charge: 18 fort DC that does 90 ish damage to enemies and allies, 45 on save. Again, taking a whole round to use this when you're going to damage allies... I guess it's okay for solo PvE if you ever happen upon it?
Wand of Greater Breach 6 charges: It's an upgrade from Lesser Breach Wand, it's nice, honestly a good loot item, but doesn't fix any of the issues above, as it only does what a Lesser Breach Wand does but better.
Greater Spell Mantle ? charges: Mage sees you use this, they flee, wait a bit, come back and force you to use it again until you've no more of the super limited rod, and then they kill you, because of limited resources.

The current rods found are not "powerful high level spell items" and have no functional use in combat (with the exception of a breach and defensive ones, but due to their rarity create problems of availability which I've covered), none of them replace reliable Time Stops or Disjunctions.

They have low damage die, low dc and as such are not effective. If the intent was to retain the ability to produce some caster vfx's then they succeed.

These being considered effective and powerful, explains why scroll-UMD by many staff and players is considered a mage replacement. As there doesn't seem to be any understanding of the vast difference between a scroll and a spellcast (especially in time taken to use!).


The reality is that "git gud" players always thrive when the meta shifts poorly, because they know how to exploit it the most. I know many have moved onto mages long ago and will likely remain there.

Durvayas wrote: Tue Oct 15, 2019 6:08 pm

Jordenk wrote: Tue Oct 15, 2019 5:59 pm Just curious from peoples' experience, if you had to estimate, how much pvp happens 1v1 as a % of total pvp?

I'd say about half.

You have duels, you have bickering and stabbings in the hub. You have arrests in cordor. You have muggings. You have assassination attempts, you have paladins running into grinding necromancers with their undead out, the list goes on.

You will PvP solo a lot more often than you will do it in groups.

Sounds pretty similar to my own experience, thanks for chiming in .

I've been thinking about this a bit and I was wondering something. People use the word "balance" a lot, but what does that mean, here specifically? Is there even a uniform definition that we have consensus on, are aware of etc? From my interpretation it seems to be considered by many as:

"Mechanically speaking, and all else being equal, characters of different builds have the potential to be equally effective in CvC/PvP combat to a reasonable degree (Using 1v1 as a benchmark)."

I think exploring this premise, and maybe assumptions that it is a valid presence held by the design community may be a valuable exercise for those feeling troubled by this? I don't have the answer nor am I making a recommendation as to what it should be, but we may be speaking across purposes here. It is possible there is another definition of balance being not rooted in mechanical power for single combat but:

"A comparatively reasonable ability to make a material impact on the setting i.e. reasonably equivalent power to affect your surroundings and exert your will."

Take the commoner class as an example. People seem to be concerned about it's ability to have a competitive advantage in a commercial sense, thus wielding massive economic power. As we all know from real life, economic power can translate directly into material, physical power (mercenaries, equipment etc). I see a savvy player perhaps playing the "Don of Cordor" walking through the city escorted by 2x lvl 30 casters, 3x half-orc killing machines, and a lvl 30 priest, all on a generous retainer.

We can ignore the idealistic notion that our RP should not be affected in an outsized manner by our character's mechanical power, it is a reality. My question is, are we being myopic about the definition of mechanical power? And lastly, even though you may dust a mundane in 1v1 with a caster, what are the repercussions? Are there deterrents that preclude this sort of behavior? Does the mundane fill a role in multi-person combat and add a force multiplier (I personally think so). Go ahead and kill that weak mechanically weak character played by a savvy RP veteran in a position of political power, he can sit back and smile knowing you will be hunted into the far reaches of the world for your transgressions.

At any rate I think I can emphasize with people's desire to have a number of builds and a diverse set of approaches to AT LEAST HAVE THE POTENTIAL to be 1 to 1 as powerful as another character build. It's a game, we're competitive, we like to win. That said we may be taking for granted what balance means in the greater context and focusing purely on martial ability, specifically within a single combat context.

Lastly, the glaring inconsistency is that there are quite a few imbalanced classes, it is obvious that there are a (reasonable but discreet) list of characters to make if you want to be really effective in PvP. Did this shrink that? Probably, is the premise that is underpinning the response to this valid? I don't know, maybe, maybe not... just food for thought.

Jordenk wrote: Tue Oct 15, 2019 6:28 pm We can ignore the idealistic notion that our RP should not be affected in an outsized manner by our character's mechanical power, it is a reality. My question is, are we being myopic about the definition of mechanical power? And lastly, even though you may dust a mundane in 1v1 with a caster, what are the repercussions? Are there deterrents that preclude this sort of behavior? Does the mundane fill a role in multi-person combat and add a force multiplier (I personally think so).

There are no repercussions for killing a mundane as a caster, unless that mundane has caster friends, you're effectively immune to consequence. Soft power means nothing when hard power is needed. Anyone with gold can buy a gank squad for five minutes, but they're helpless the rest of the time. If we're taking death seriously in RP, they're weak unless they stay logged off and stay with their posse at all times.

Hard power drives narratives. You either have it, or you buy it. If youre a mundane, you can do neither. Mundane characters struggle to make gold effectively while casters print money with UMD sales (or did. Server economy just tanked pretty hard since the scroll market got eliminated overnight. At least zoo-buffs are still usable)

Mundanes do not function as a force multiplier in PvP anymore. They are a non-threat unless there are several of them. A caster can summon a dragon, or a high end fiend, and then pelt the entire group with AoEs and damage spells, but victory goes to the caster.

Fighting a WM? Summon something to counter him and he can't do anything about it.

Balance is scewed towards magi.
Its always been this way. You don't hear about WMs successfully pulling off a 1vs8, or a 1vs12, or even a 2vs15. But we've seen that done many times, in the past, with druids and wizards before. Casters were already the top tier of the server, albeit by a slimmer margin previously. A well played WM could hold their own against a fairly good mage before. That was (almost) balance.

There is basically no point in bringing a mundane to a fight anymore unless you have absurd numerical advantage, and playing a mundane, you're basically cannon-fodder, at best, except against another mundane, who is in the same situation you're in. Neither of you are any threat to any casters on the field. You're window dressing.

update: I knew bardic knowledge didn't count for Lore, but why doesn't Bard Song assist? Why doesn't Curse Song hinder? What? Can we get that included in the update/wiki?

Aodh Lazuli wrote: Tue Oct 15, 2019 6:47 am

Babylon System is the Vampire wrote: Tue Oct 15, 2019 12:12 am I think your point is a false equivalency. Sure, your best friends in life are the ones who tell you that red isn't your color or the person you are dating is a leech when that's not exactly what you want to hear. This isn't that though. If I were developing things for a server currently, and had a balance team to help me with it, I expect the relationship to be "here's my idea, tell me how to break it so I can make the necessary tweaks".

Apologies for not making myself clear enough, then.

I was referring to work, leadership, the creative process, responsibility, and the ability to listen to criticism. The fact you somehow managed to reduce this to facile trash about "red not being your colour" is frankly Snuggle a Bugbear offensive and displays an interesting attitude from you to engaging in dialogue with differing opinions.
_____________

I will illustrate my point with a slightly facetious example.

Let us imagine a scenario in which someonehas comissioned a submarine, and they hire a submarine engineer to assist technically and ensure the design will be functional... This is what a balance team is meant to do - ensure the game operates in a balanced (read; functional) manner. Sometimes, this involves saying "no."

Project lead: "I have this concept for a submarine."

Engineer: "But Project lead, this submarine is made entirely out of ham."

Project lead: "Yes, that is the concept."

Engineer: "But ham is not a good material to make submarines from. This submarine will be a deathtrap."

Project lead: "Well. Tell me how to do it.. This is what I hired you for - To make my creative vision a functional reality."

Engineer: *Goes to the drawing board and creates blueprints a functional submarine made from tried and tested submarine components, then adds a cosmetic covering of ham, before presenting this to the Project lead*

Project lead: "But this is no longer a submarine that is made of ham. This is a normal submarine wearing a ham coat!"

Engineer: "Yes, that is because a ham submarine is a terrible idea which will get people killed. I have drawn up the closest thing I could manage, drawing on my years of experience and specialist knowledge to make this functional, yet also looking like your original concept."

Project lead: "You are fired. I will proceed without your specialist knowledge."

And then, the ham submarine has an abnormally long construction process and sinks on its maiden voyage, killing all on board.

Well, that's certainly a more amusing way of making your point, but all it does is identify the point of contention. It assumes that irongron's ideas are made of ham, which isn't a place I am willing to go. As far as me having issues with people disagreeing, I don't see how you got that. The point I was trying to make, one that seems to be glossed over or straight up ignored by many that posted here, is that this is Irongron's server. If he has an idea he wants to do, that's his right. A balance team in that instance's role is to help him make it work, or prove it can't. If the only proof that is offered comes in the form of "I know you are wrong, and I know so much about nwn that you are fool to not listen to me" the only thing certain that you get out of that is that you have a really poor balance team.

As far as my actual opinion on the changes go, which I haven't even mentioned yet, I think they have a lot of potential to make more classes viable and are heavily dependent on what the rest of it is. I realize that's frustrating because it feels like the game is in limbo, but I would assume that its being rolled out this way because its easier to identify bugs with two or three different updates rather then one big one. But that's just my assumption, I have no idea what their reasoning is.

Babylon System is the Vampire wrote: Tue Oct 15, 2019 7:39 pm The point I was trying to make, one that seems to be glossed over or straight up ignored by many that posted here, is that this is Irongron's server. If he has an idea he wants to do, that's his right.

This kinda attitude once resulted in a script that basically prevented you from adventuring for a large portion of playtime being implemented, drastically or totally (can't remember) reducing xp if you did a certain amount of it. This resulted in an enormous drop in player numbers and probably could've killed the server.

This kinda attitude is also incorrect, because Irongron might 'host' it and have creative control, etc; but the module owes it's existence and state to many, many, many more people than Irongron. If he didn't have people who could script, nothing would really get done, or at least, he'd have to devote all the time he does to area design to learning to script instead. This server is atypical in that it is made of the contributions of many, many people; and tbh, it wasn't even conceived by Irongron... he's the third longterm direct caretaker over it's long, long history.

NauVaseline wrote: Tue Oct 15, 2019 7:46 pm

Babylon System is the Vampire wrote: Tue Oct 15, 2019 7:39 pm The point I was trying to make, one that seems to be glossed over or straight up ignored by many that posted here, is that this is Irongron's server. If he has an idea he wants to do, that's his right.

This kinda attitude once resulted in a script that basically prevented you from adventuring for a large portion of playtime being implemented, drastically or totally (can't remember) reducing xp if you did a certain amount of it. This resulted in an enormous drop in player numbers and probably could've killed the server.

This kinda attitude is also incorrect, because Irongron might 'host' it and have creative control, etc; but the module owes it's existence and state to many, many, many more people than Irongron. If he didn't have people who could script, nothing would really get done, or at least, he'd have to devote all the time he does to area design to learning to script instead. This server is atypical in that it is made of the contributions of many, many people; and tbh, it wasn't even conceived by Irongron... he's the third longterm direct caretaker over it's long, long history.

I'm currently writing a long post on this issue. The way Arelith has always been run is that, ultimately, authority to decide what happens to the server resides in one person.

I think that's insane and that it's time to reevaluate it. It might have made sense 15 years ago when Jjjerm created and hosted the server. Now it has existed for 15 years and has become, in a sense, a living artifact to which many have contributed. It's not clear that it belongs to one single person, even if the computer that hosts it does. It's also not clear that the current leadership model is in the best interest of the server.

There needs to be a conversation about whom Arelith belongs to. My answer, in brief, is that it belongs to the Arelith community, and that the decision-making structure needs to reflect that in some practicable way.

Cortex wrote: Tue Oct 15, 2019 6:11 pm RNG loot items, as noted by numerous others, will promote more rungrinding through dungeons for that, more OOC driven competition for dungeons. Before you could buy it from PCs, promote an economy and everything, now you have to pray to RNJesus you find a limited use item to have a chance of fighting a caster. A caster that if they're smart, will wait until they use their limited consumables, disengage, and return fully capable or once their consumable wore off, thus the mundane loses any advantage they had.

Matter of fact is, the meta will change, it's not destroyed, because meta is what is the best at that point in time, which are now casters without a shadow of a doubt while mundane just went down the shitter. Before that, mundane weren't even in a good spot, the only powerful meleers were bards, paladins, BGs and maybe rogues.

Barbarians, WMs, less so rangers, weren't in that good of a spot, powercreeped by other classes with saves and greater AC and damage to match. Casters already were capable of dealing with them, especially with the new spells, True Seeing nerfs, and Greater Sanctuary. This update further widens the power gap between any caster and non caster, where they are nigh invulnerable in the safety of Greater Sanctuary, with summons that cannot be removed, on top of very powerful spells (including one that does saveless half of your HP at range...).

Assuming craftables are added (because RNG loot items are bullshit, read above) that give mundane builds a fighting chance against casters, and that essentially replace UMD/scrolls, you're just back to what it was like, and nothing's changed beyond the ease of acquiring them. At which point, why bother with the change? Although I'll say what me and others have found thus far IG have been a joke.

Let's talk briefly about what rods have been found thus far:
Wand of Weird 1 charge: A death AoE spell that has two saves, DC 17. An one charge mediocre DC spell that is only remotely useful pre-epic.
Wand of Horrid Wilt 1 charge: 18 fort DC that does 90 ish damage to enemies and allies, 45 on save. Again, taking a whole round to use this when you're going to damage allies... I guess it's okay for solo PvE if you ever happen upon it?
Wand of Greater Breach 6 charges: It's an upgrade from Lesser Breach Wand, it's nice, honestly a good loot item, but doesn't fix any of the issues above, as it only does what a Lesser Breach Wand does but better.
Greater Spell Mantle ? charges: Mage sees you use this, they flee, wait a bit, come back and force you to use it again until you've no more of the super limited rod, and then they kill you, because of limited resources.

The current rods found are not "powerful high level spell items" and have no functional use in combat (with the exception of a breach and defensive ones, but due to their rarity create problems of availability which I've covered), none of them replace reliable Time Stops or Disjunctions.

They have low damage die, low dc and as such are not effective. If the intent was to retain the ability to produce some caster vfx's then they succeed.

These being considered effective and powerful, explains why scroll-UMD by many staff and players is considered a mage replacement. As there doesn't seem to be any understanding of the vast difference between a scroll and a spellcast (especially in time taken to use!).


The reality is that "git gud" players always thrive when the meta shifts poorly, because they know how to exploit it the most. I know many have moved onto mages long ago and will likely remain there.

there seems to be a lot of focus on melee vs mages. Where do archers fall in this, a mage going to kyte an archer?

The same applies, really. There's archer cleric which is still good, then you have mundane archers who suffer the same as melee does, they still can't deal with summons as well or hit a mage in GSanc, and if they expose themselves to summons, they're liable to be nuked just like anything else.

Dr. B wrote: Tue Oct 15, 2019 9:09 pm

NauVaseline wrote: Tue Oct 15, 2019 7:46 pm

Babylon System is the Vampire wrote: Tue Oct 15, 2019 7:39 pm The point I was trying to make, one that seems to be glossed over or straight up ignored by many that posted here, is that this is Irongron's server. If he has an idea he wants to do, that's his right.

This kinda attitude once resulted in a script that basically prevented you from adventuring for a large portion of playtime being implemented, drastically or totally (can't remember) reducing xp if you did a certain amount of it. This resulted in an enormous drop in player numbers and probably could've killed the server.

This kinda attitude is also incorrect, because Irongron might 'host' it and have creative control, etc; but the module owes it's existence and state to many, many, many more people than Irongron. If he didn't have people who could script, nothing would really get done, or at least, he'd have to devote all the time he does to area design to learning to script instead. This server is atypical in that it is made of the contributions of many, many people; and tbh, it wasn't even conceived by Irongron... he's the third longterm direct caretaker over it's long, long history.

I'm currently writing a long post on this issue. The way Arelith has always been run is that, ultimately, authority to decide what happens to the server resides in one person.

I think that's insane and that it's time to reevaluate it. It might have made sense 15 years ago when Jjjerm created and hosted the server. Now it has existed for 15 years and has become, in a sense, a living artifact to which many have contributed. It's not clear that it belongs to one single person, even if the computer that hosts it does. It's also not clear that the current leadership model is in the best interest of the server.

There needs to be a conversation about whom Arelith belongs to. My answer, in brief, is that it belongs to the Arelith community, and that the decision-making structure needs to reflect that in some practicable way.

Respectfully, this isn't true. Arelith really does belong to whoever it belongs to, which seems to be Irongron, but whether or not community outrage (or criticism, to be more delicate) should be taken more seriously for the sake of the server's longevity and sanity is another question. Irongron quite literally could, ethically and legally, just turn off the server, if he's the owner (I actually have no reason to suspect he ACTUALLY is, other than people saying he is - I am not knowledgeable about Arelith history/ownership particularly). If Irongron actually owns (or rents from a datacenter) and is responsible for the upkeep of the actual server and its data, it is his.

We're just people who use his toy and that he lets contribute to it so that others may enjoy the creation.

But it is his. Contributors to a private project are just that, contributors and volunteers, but they are not owners.



Again however, that doesn't mean community critiques (and outright panic lol) shouldn't be listened to. But I strongly advise we not start trying to go the route of "well you aren't the REAL owner of Arelith!" because it's just not true, as poetic and romantic as it might sound.

I really want to know why the lore requirements are so ludicrous. There's absolutely no reason why they should have that high of an investment. Dropping it to 33 - 40 and switching it back to UMD is way, way more reasonable. Rods and loot are not the answer. You "fixed" something that wasn't broke

Alas, no.

I once worked as a contributor. I formed the 'balance team' and was involved in several updates, such as healers, rangers (v1.0), PDKs, the associate tool, summons (and streams), and healers. I, along with other contributors and administrators from the time, joined a push to modernize Arelith--to turn it into a worthwhile game. Where once there was a ramshackle hodgepodge of ideas and uneven classes, the environment was instead shaped into something more cohensive--where all character archetypes were viable.

I'm not saying that the work I did was perfect, or that I can take full credit for Arelith's state today. I'm not saying that I'm inherently special or that I'm entitled to more. I'm simply stating the truth: that I poured my heart and soul into Arelith for well over a year. And even when I vehemently disagreed with internal discussions or had doubts about the direction of the server, I publicly toed the party line. Because it seemed the right thing to do, and ultimately, I just wanted to support the team and help the server thrive.

Which is all just to say that--yes, I'm pretty emotionally invested. And I feel something has changed. Updates like this one were proposed internally before, and then taken off the table due to contributor concerns. Out of respect for those who'd poured their time into the server to make it great, and out of the idea that sometimes it's better to heed feedback from one's peers.

Yet here we are. And in one fell swoop, I feel like everything I've ever done has been for naught. To many of you, I'm sure that's overly dramatic. But to me, it feels like years of progress have been discarded to an artistic whim. A whim that we'd been assured would not happen. And the environment that we'd worked so hard to foster back then has been replaced with a chaotic limbo.

Maybe it's better in the long run. I really don't know. Arelith clearly isn't my server anymore.

And, in truth? It's never even really belonged to me. It's Irongron's. I know better than to suggest otherwise. Petitions of that nature will not help.

Adam Antium wrote: Tue Oct 15, 2019 9:35 pm
Respectfully, this isn't true. Arelith really does belong to whoever it belongs to, which seems to be Irongron, but whether or not community outrage (or criticism, to be more delicate) should be taken more seriously for the sake of the server's longevity and sanity is another question. Irongron quite literally could, ethically and legally, just turn off the server, if he's the owner (I actually have no reason to suspect he ACTUALLY is, other than people saying he is - I am not knowledgeable about Arelith history/ownership particularly). If Irongron actually owns (or rents from a datacenter) and is responsible for the upkeep of the actual server and its data, it is his.

I disagree. The server owner owns the hardware that hosts Arelith, but not Arelith. If the server owner were unable or unwilling to continue hosting it, they would be obligated to give the module to someone who was. Morally speaking, it's not theirs. They're entrusted with it, but they don't own it. It will obviously need to be maintained and updated, but when they do something to do it that severely impact its functioning and enjoyability, they've overstepped their bounds.

Obligated by what?

EDIT: I actually concede, just because this is pretty off-topic and not important, my bad. I concede to you, whatever your chosen stance is on this.

Another base level QoL and PvP readiness issue is that UMD is still required to maintain zoo buffs beyond the short time potions work or without creating equivalent items for other stats like the Girdle of Fortitude. It's not viable for any character that is not STR based to carry around 100 stacks of stat potions. It is a giant advantage to characters who can maintain max stats without potions. And it is silly to walk around downing potions as your RPing in non-combat situations. I suppose these mundanes could just gear differently, trying to get closer to max crucial stats, but that seems to be heading down another rabbit hole of caster>mundane advantage.

Adam Antium wrote: Tue Oct 15, 2019 10:11 pm Obligated by what?

They're obligated by the value that the module has for the Arelith community, and by respect for the work of other people who have contributed to it, present and past.

They're obligated in much the same way that curators are obligated to care for and protect works of art. Great works of art have intrinsic value for many people and ought to be preserved and protected. If the board of trustees in the Louvre decided to vandalize the Mona Lisa, they would have done something wrong. The Louvre is entrusted with something, something valuable--something that they did not create, though that they have taken it upon themselves to maintain. They stand in a fiduciary relationship, and I think this is the sort of relationship standard to which Arelith's host should be held.

Arelith is a more complicated affair than the Mona Lisa. Its function is to promote excellent and enjoyable roleplay, which is fostered by a diverse environment in which characters of many faiths, alignments, and professions exist. The server is better to the extent that this goal is met. Aodh Lazuli explained this very well in a previous post. The updates up until now have done a lot to promote that. There is a clear sense in which this latest update stands to make Arelith worse. This is not how a caretaker should treat the thing in its care. Of course, I understand the caretaker thinks the server is better this way. But the feedback overwhelmingly says otherwise. The caretaker, in this instance, should defer to the feedback.

But more important, my argument for this is ameliorative: it would be better for Arelith and the community at large if it were understood that this were the host's role. If it isn't, it ought to be, because it stands to benefit Arelith. And I also think the server host should be honored by that role. It's an honorable thing to do, as would be deferring to the feedback in this instance.

But I won't say any more on that in this thread, because it's taking us off topic. So, back on topic: it would be better for Arelith if the changes to UMD were reversed, or if mundane items that cast Time Stop, Word of Faith, and Disjunction were made as readily available as the scrolls were.

Look, saying "Irongron owns the server" and "the community should have some feedback into changes to the server" are two different things. I have only been here for three years and I have seen many things get tweaked based on community suggestions and outcries. The point is this thread could be 9 pages worth of suggestions to make this new environment work, or changes to the numbers, or whatever. Instead its a bunch of insulting commentary mixed with a sense of entitlement backed up by claims of nwn knowledge superiority. The minute that becomes the tone is the minute that you are instantly wrong, no matter how good your points are. I'm not saying you are bad people, I get being invested in the game so much that your passion rings out, I'm just saying you are going about this wrong.

if youre going to shitpost about whose right is to arelith do it in ur own thread goddamnit

Curve wrote: Tue Oct 15, 2019 10:12 pm Another base level QoL and PvP readiness issue is that UMD is still required to maintain zoo buffs beyond the short time potions work or without creating equivalent items for other stats like the Girdle of Fortitude. It's not viable for any character that is not STR based to carry around 100 stacks of stat potions. It is a giant advantage to characters who can maintain max stats without potions. And it is silly to walk around downing potions as your RPing in non-combat situations. I suppose these mundanes could just gear differently, trying to get closer to max crucial stats, but that seems to be heading down another rabbit hole of caster>mundane advantage.

Umd can still use wands for QoL

Honestly if we wanted to do thematically properly, wed flip literslly everything upside down. No stacking enhancment bonuses (would need strong items like a belt of physical perfection) making potions and wands for buffing completely obsolete and old-school barbarian rage useful again. Trip/discipline system would be gutted and redone no stacking of any same source bonus (like multiple plus 2 uni saves), except basenwn makes no such distinction.

Again that would require undoing a decade of arelith work with assumed foundation. Maybe with this hak talk, that is the intention. I have no clue obvously but the full way down this path would be a completely different game.

Aodh Lazuli wrote: Mon Oct 14, 2019 10:00 pm Long post from Page 6

I want to reach all the way back to Page 6 here, because I want to focus on a similar thing. Not this change in particular, but the general course of Arelith development as it appears from the outside. While it's semi-targeted towards the dev team in general, I think it's safe to say most of this post if particularly focused on Irongron, and I'll probably write it directed more or less towards him.

First, though, I want to cover a couple other things. I want to encourage everyone, whatever side you're on, to please be civil. People who don't make good points, whether subjectively or objectively, are almost certainly not doing it to be dismissive, insulting, entitled, etc. People have a lot of emotions, time, work, and passion involved in Arelith, and everyone, from dev to DM to player, are integral to the success. None of us would be here without the others. It's very important in these kind of discussions to remember that there's no reason to make people your enemy and attack them, whatever side you're on or whoever you are. Being mean, dismissive, or condescending won't further your arguments, won't help your side, and will, if anything, just make anyone who has the same ideas as you seem condescending as well. If you, anyone on any level, feels the need to attack or condescend others, consider taking a break and coming back later.

Second, I want to thank the DMs and admins for keeping this thread unlocked, along with the other related threads. These kinds of change can bring heated discussion, and not everyone shines in those situations. It's fantastic to see threads continuing on even when there's occasional incivility happening. I've seen a lot of topics locked in my time on Arelith, and I have to say I think that moderated but open discussion is much more helpful to the server and community. So thank you, again.

So finally, I'll get to the main points I wanted to make. I hope you'll sit back and enjoy some nice, refreshing water while you read because I do not have the gift of brevity. As another post I wrote in another thread a while back, that I can't find right now, I'll preface this by saying that I'm viewing a lot of this through the lens of a professional software, but not video game, developer.

Between this major change, the way it was released, the direction of the additions, the monk changes, fixes, and rechanges, the spell changes and unchanges, and I'm possibly more that I'm not thinking of, I feel that Arelith development is lacking in several things that I think would really improve the development process.

The first of those, as much as Irongron will hate to see it, is process. Working as a developer, I've been on projects all over the process spectrum. I've worked with teams that, like the Arelith dev team, don't really have any process at all. I've worked with teams that have been all process all the time. But by far the most effective teams I've been part of have been teams that used processes carefully tailored to the project, and in just the right amount. Not so little process that people lacked direction and development lacked essential pieces, but not so much that the team was run with an iron fist.

For Arelith, the process (or lack of) seems to be lacking a few very key things. I hope that no one reading this will feel insulted or offended. Anything lacking here isn't a personal failing of anyone. Rather, I say it knowing very well, from my own frequent experiences, that no one can, or should, wear too many hats, and it's far better to bring on more people to distribute the hats to than to try to pile them on a few key resources.

QA: One thing that's very common on small software development teams is a lack of QA. Non-devs at the top of the organization often assume developers are best suited for this, and can be relied on to test their own work. Devs also, for some reason, tend to assume the same, and often think of QA as their opponents. This leads, almost inevitably, to bugs that should have been caught being released to production. Arelith suffers from this, sometimes quite badly. There are, honestly, not very many changes, no matter the size, that seem to be released without some sometimes very significant bugs showing up. It's not uncommon for changes to be released that immediately break something directly related to what they were supposed to change.

The dev team's workload could be reduced dramatically by either bringing in a couple of resources to do QA on changes before they're released, or by the dev team as a whole testing changes, not only testing if the change does what it's supposed to, but regression testing to make sure it doesn't break something else. Once the changes are compiled into the release bundle, they should all be tested together, and regression tested again. This might be happening already, but as I said above, the prevalence of significant bugs after many releases suggests to me that it isn't.

Balance: This is the big one in relation to the most recent changes, and some of the previous ones. Despite things that have been said in the past, I won't make any assumptions about what anyone on the dev team feels about balance, but as Aodh Lazuli put it very well, balance is absolutely essential to Arelith. The entire game hinges on it. Many of the recent changes have given me the overwhelming impression that the dev team doesn't really have a thorough understanding of balance and mechanics to the point of being able to consistently release roughly balanced changes. As before, this isn't meant to be dismissive or insulting, or to bring anyone down. Understanding balance to this level isn't something necessary for development. Not knowing it doesn't make someone a worse developer, or even not a great developer. I'm sure many, maybe most, of the best NWN developers would be in the same boat.

What this does mean, though, is that the dev team needs to find a way to make up for their lack of knowledge in a subject. If I'm working on a project that requires significant knowledge in something I don't know much about, it's to everyone's advantage for me to find someone who does know. If a team I'm on has no one with this knowledge, we'll bring in people who do. A balance team that vets any and all mechanical changes is absolutely indispensable for this, in the same way QA is. They can go over mechanical changes before they're released, or ideally before they're even developed, and ensure that, at the very least, the changes aren't completely breaking, as happened with the monk update, several new spells, and (to an extent, which I'll touch on next) this most recent UMD change.

Longer development cycles: I'm not sure if this is the right way to call this, because I'm don't think Arelith even has dev cycles, in the traditional sense. What I mean, though, is that it seems to be rather common on Arelith for changes to be partially implemented. Adventure XP for writs was restricted with the assurance that new writs were coming "soon", but they never came. New spells were added with the promise that scrolls would be added later. New weapons are added but not craftable. UMD is changed without an alternative being prepared.

In some cases, there's some argument to be made (as was made for the UMD changes) that more playtesting was needed to figure out what was needed. That's probably often true, to an extent, the same way that in software development we almost always know we'll be making changes and additions once a feature is released and used for a while. However, many of the situations that needed playtesting, like the overwhelming majority of the monk changes, and the lack of disjunction, Word of Faith, etc., replacements to scrolls absolutely did not need playtesting. They were immediately and rightly called out by many players as being huge problems.

With longer development times on these, long enough to really fully develop, balance, and test, vast amounts of the anger and frustration experienced by players could have been avoided. There would still have been anger and unhappiness. That's something that's unfortunately almost entirely unavoidable here or in a professional environment. But it could have been very significant alleviated with, for example, the inclusion of 3-4 items to replace the missing core scrolls, or the addition of those scrolls to the current unrestricted list, like Restoration.

The same goes for the new writs and new spells. If the adventure XP changes were indeed made with the goal of releasing new writs shortly, the change should have been kept until the new writs were released. That would have prevented the current situation, where the new writs have never been added, but adventure XP is still restricted.

New spells not having scrolls is in some ways the most surprising one. A huge amount of work went into the new spells, and other than some balance issues, it was 90-95% done when it was released. A few more hours of work and the scrolls could have been made, added to the loot tables and vendor tables, and we would have avoided the whole issue of wizards deleveling to take the new spells entirely. People would have been elated about the new spells, rather than frustrated they couldn't get them.

Lead Developer: This one might be difficult to read, but I assure you, I don't mean anything negative by it. Irongron's role on the dev team is ostensibly Dev Lead, but from what I can see from the outside, he's much more of what we'd call a Product Manager. He sets the goals and direction for Arelith, decides what should be worked on, how things fit together, etc. He's also an Area Builder, which I won't discuss here because it isn't particularly relevant.

To reiterate what I said above, I don't mean any of this as an attack, or to diminish Irongron's work. Rather, I simply what to clarify what role he seems to fulfill on the dev team.

A Dev Lead, in the professional sense, often has little to do with the actual direction of a project. In fact, assuming there's an Architect on the project, he may even have little to do with how the project comes together (if we want to be loose with the definition, we could even call Irongron the Architect, but we won't confuse things by adding more titles). What a dev lead does is, essentially, tie the development team together on a technical level. They can help to find solutions to coding issues, connect different team members with different skills and work with them to find other solutions, etc. It's a somewhat managerial role, but it's also a highly technical one.

Irongron, to my knowledge, isn't overwhelmingly technical outside of his area building. He doesn't do scripting or coding work, doesn't do mechanical balancing, etc. There's absolutely nothing wrong with this. As I said far above, no one should wear too many hats. All it means is that, where a team like Arelith's would really do well with someone in a technical, code-level leadership role, it doesn't have one. It essentially as Irongron, as the Product Manager/Architect, working directly down with the various developers.

A more effective hierarchy might be Irongron at the top, coordinating area builders, monster builders, coders, the balance team, etc., and then a dev lead heading up the coders, scripters, etc. on a technical level. The same could easily go for other teams. The balance team would have a balance lead, the area builders would have an area lead (probably Irongron, here).


That's about all I have for now. If I upset anyone or anyone feels insulted, I'm truly sorry. I didn't intend it. I genuinely want Arelith to continue to succeed, and I hope that with a few core changes in the development structure, Arelith's development could really be taken to a new level of success and much smoother operation. If anyone feels upset, offended, or anything else, I invite you to please send me a PM and I'll be happy to talk with you and try to resolve any issues.

Thanks to everyone who stuck this out. I know it was a long read, but I hope it was at least sort of worth it. Go refill your water, and it would probably be good to look out a window for a minute or two since you've been staring at my giant wall of text for so long.

Edit:

I wanted to add one more.

Transparency: One thing I've noticed is consistently absent from updates on Arelith is really any form of transparency. Big changes are released without warning, smaller changes often have almost no documentation, future plans, even in the immediate future, are left extremely vague. While this might help prevent people from being a little angry at first, it's a bit like the scene in The Office where Michael tries to appease everyone by telling them he'll have a big surprise for them at the end of the day. When the end of the day comes, they all stand around waiting for the surprise, only for him to panic, try to come up with something, and then shut down as they all walk out in disgust.

If people can know what to expect, they can prepare. They can start to come up with ideas and plans, potential issues, potential fixes, etc., all of which can be taken into consideration for the upcoming changes. Sure, there will always be anger and frustration when things seem like they're not going well, or going against what people want, but it's much easier to handle for players than what can feel like suddenly being ambushed with potentially game-breaking changes all at once, with no idea it was even coming.

This can easily be done by more-or-less comprehensive patch notes. Release the upcoming changes to UMD, for example, a few days early and let people go through the changes and find the potential issues. This not only gives devs time to make any changes that the community comes up with, but also leaves time to detail and define some potential solutions to predicted problems in a calmer environment, rather than in the storm of bug fixes, changes, and tweaks that come after release.

Subutai wrote: Wed Oct 16, 2019 12:43 am

Aodh Lazuli wrote: Mon Oct 14, 2019 10:00 pm Long post from Page 6

Long post

Im not sure the volunteer manpower works that way. Shortly after Xerah reigned in monks someone else made a half decent explanation which Xerah replied that in theory its a good idea but he isn't into monks and someone more passionate.

Irongron goes through the suggestion box like crazy and approves things for developers who want tackle it the freedom to tackle it. Sometimes they come up ideas themselves then it gets ran through by whoever. Monks was done while iron was busy. Volunteers just are not going to do work they dont want to do. Sometimes they will when certain factors are in, but for the most part burn out is managed by passion driven development.

If we want to seriously consider qaulity control from people who are super mechanic savvy, it needs to be people who can help them correct course, to adjust accordingly, to help achieve their vision, not tell them their vision is wrong.

Its one thing to tell someone "this house is not possible" versus "if we further tweak it this way." Or even "redo the foundation this wsy instead could still get the house you are looking for."

They need to enjoy their passion project and surround themselves with people that create a positive environment and, or help them accomplish their goals. So i could see why they may not enjoy/want a proper balance team from time to time.

Subutai wrote: Wed Oct 16, 2019 12:43 am

Aodh Lazuli wrote: Mon Oct 14, 2019 10:00 pm Long post from Page 6

Long Post P9

This is a great post with alot of insight into development in prof orgs. However as Malcom above mentioned, Arelith is a passion project by volunteers in their free time. Adding constraints and regulations and rules can really begin to challenge that, and could potentially drive these volunteers away.

Another suggestion - you've clearly got the know how and the skills, Perhaps you could work as a volunteer yourself to help create some baseline processes to improve in the future? Something like a monthly release cycle, so having all updates queued (unless fixing borked things) until end of month and pushed out. this also gives time for QA etc. to be completed.

But, alas, i could also understand why you wouldn't want to do this....
When i used to work in IT, the last thing i wanted to do when i got home was fix a friends broken computer (which, inevitably when people find out you work in IT they will ask this of you). Same situation i guess.

godhand- wrote: Wed Oct 16, 2019 2:28 am

Subutai wrote: Wed Oct 16, 2019 12:43 am

Aodh Lazuli wrote: Mon Oct 14, 2019 10:00 pm Long post from Page 6

Long Post P9

This is a great post with alot of insight into development in prof orgs. However as Malcom above mentioned, Arelith is a passion project by volunteers in their free time. Adding constraints and regulations and rules can really begin to challenge that, and could potentially drive these volunteers away.

Another suggestion - you've clearly got the know how and the skills, Perhaps you could work as a volunteer yourself to help create some baseline processes to improve in the future? Something like a monthly release cycle, so having all updates queued (unless fixing borked things) until end of month and pushed out. this also gives time for QA etc. to be completed.

you mean like the balance team?

Check out cataclysm: dark days ahead for an example of how a volunteer project can successfully organize efforts. It is possible.

Change is good. That's quite a statement to make, yet I do believe this change is good.

The fact that a character with 0 lore could go from nothing to being able to understand every single scroll and wand in the world, with full knowledge on how to use them made little to no sense. Like at all. And the fact that they somehow were better than Wizards at it was even worse.

It's a big change and will naturally take time to adapt to. Which is why everyone is given free relevels. My takeaway from this is that change is, indeed, good.