Can We Talk Game Balance and Design Here?

[Svrtr]

Totally agree on everything said on this finally someone understand the core philosophy of nwn, the damn ab, dc, ac creep is so important in grand scheme behind rolls even a one more makes huge difference. No wonder some players goes max ab giant races two handing and deleting anyone in first two hits thats how bad it is.

(For reference, its better to go for small races like wild dwarf. Large races get an untyped -1 to AC and AB, and the huge sized weapons on average do as much or LESS damage than large sized weapons. The most optimal AB max would be a no STR malus small race like wild dwarf, or going for half orc which can get +4 STR and thus have as much AB as an ogre or more AC than a fire half giant or 2 more AB than other large races that don't have +4 STR like all the half giant iterations that aren't fire)

TLDR: Large races lose 1 AB just for existing, and so even +4 STR races like fire half giant have 1 less AB than medium races, and colossal weapons tend to have worse stats overall than large races despite the bigger base damage die as the base damage die generally only equates to 1.5-2 more average damage, damage which the large size uniques themselves make up for

[Sandrow]

We better change the topic entirely, and discuess what all these updates and balance for.

What does Arelith mean to you? A thrilling battlefield to PVP? A playground for math nerds? A social place for yo old dungeon & dragon mates?

Maybe all of them, but it's the stories that make everything alive, and makes such a large population of Arelith. Your stories within the Arelith and other people together makes your play through experience.

We need mechanism hooks to attract people sacrifice their old characters for new ones. We need updates to creates new stories in new environments. We even have community classes to help players creating better stories.

If I come up with an OP build and makes a very strong character, I might repeat one story over and over again. It could be fun for myself, but other players will get tired eventually. But it it's me, and I does create such a character, I would hope I can play that character for a period of time, like a badge of destiny with only three charges. Or a coming rebalance patch announced half a month eariler other than the next day I showed my build.

The balance should run like a wheel: Differences exist, everyone have a chancee to arrive top, and none stay in the bottom.
You can't satisify everyone at the same time. But you could satisify someone at a time, and make sure the others also have their time.

[But Will It Blend]

So. I'm going to discuss what mechanics mean to me here just generally, and why I don't think everyone has to rise to the top.

Not everyone actually desires to do so.

I am a very strong believer in mechanics existing primarily to help give context to what your character is, and does. The decisions and options that you pick are limited and inherently give meaning to what you're able to do well, and importantly, what you cannot do well. Nobody should be good at everything. And that's generally what you're always going to see. There are issues where certain classes don't really fit mechanically with a substantial role (Not the topic of this discussion). But beyond that classes in general do have limited scope.

Beyond this not everyone builds for power. Some people build for purely languages, and trade vast amounts of hard power for this. Some people build because they love a theme. It doesn't mean they will be OP, but they should still at least be viable. (If they aren't doing like. 10 Wizard, 5 fighter, 15 ranger and then wondering why they are bad. You still need some general idea)

We shouldn't exist in a world where every 3 months the balance entirely uproots, and makes certain people randomly worse, and other people randomly more powerful. That's absurd. Even within the context of the world these characters exist in, where you have characters who can be like "Man I remember when this spell was better than it was" (Elminister I'm looking at you), it'd still be something genuinely unfun to exist within. I hope this never happens.

I'd truly had to sit there having come up with a mechanical concept I love, and build a character supported by those mechanics, only to have somebody come along every 3 months to be like 'Lmao now your concept is shit and you're bad, because we've decided that druids are going to be the most OP thing in the game'. And then in 3 months druids are also bad and now for some reason it's favoured souls.

There's nothing fun about that. There are certain outliers that do require adjustment because they are clearly too much. But it just feels bad when at the same time it makes characters unplayable when there are definite ways that this can be resolved. Yes it takes work and requires additional steps but the idea of 'Well I guess you should just move on and not play something you enjoy because of changes nobody saw coming or explained ahead of time' isn't healthy.

So the discussion is really about understanding design philosophy, as well as how to make these changes not ruin entire sections of RP or characters. And I say this as a player who doesn't hang onto characters. I'm not one of those people who sits there for characters beyond 6 months usually. But at the same time I do know there's a lot of people who do get genuinely a lot more frustrated with some of these bigger changes. I've not even been hit with these issues as much, my concern is primarily around those who are, and some of the negative feedback it creates.

People play here as much for the overall experience, and not inherently because of (Or sometimes in spite of?) mechanical changes. It's difficult to just move to another place even if you disagree with how things are happening if everyone you have fun playing with chooses to stay, and I feel like that just creates toxic environments that bring down the environment for everyone. So finding ways to make even big hits less agonizing is something that I think is important.

This isn't to suggest that the development team doesn't either. Just that sometimes I think additional work could be done in relation to releasing certain changes at the right time, or in tandem with other changes that will mean people don't lose everything as a result.

Arcane Archer changes for example being removed from rangers becomes a lot more easy for those rangers to take, if they have, at about the same time, expanded archery stuff that feels good so it's a side-grade or a change but not a loss.

That's my overall idea on it anyway.