The new rod usability

[Xerah]

Come on people, the epic loot from HoTU has existed in the game since 2005. The fact that these exist in the palate is not as end of the world as you are stating. If there are a bunch of "DM friends" out there with +10 weapons with haste, then I take it back, but there are not, as far as I know.

[Peppermint]

Handing these rods out even once per DM would be a huge issue.

If they're not intended to be handed out with even that much frequency, why add them to begin with?

Players aren't overreacting, Xerah. They're drawing the obvious conclusions.

[Irongron]

On an official level, we've gone from "rods/loot are the answer to the problem" to "rods/loot are an uncommon solution" to "rods/loot are not the answer".

It feels as though this wasn't thought-out on a mechanical scale whatsoever, and that's something I'm not comfortable pointing out. Is the actual stance just getting lost in translation? Is it just me?

I was probably not clear enough in this post:

It's no doubt a change that's going to require a great deal of follow up work.

With the team discussing this for a long time, we're well aware of the major issues. Its a huge boon to wizards, punishing for low skill point characters, and with the issues with dismissal and the almost outright restriction of high level scrolls makes certain situations far more difficult.

It has always been a problem for loot and crafting that scrolls are so commonplace. The low UMD investment, and within a PW environment it was the case that almost every character could use extremely powerful magic without needing to consider 'treasure' items, such as recipes or loot. We're adding in a lot more loot items to counter the most problematic situations, many of which will require neither Lore or UMD, and new recipes will follow soon after.

But the team is under no illusions here; the follow up work is going to be extensive, and based heavily around the situations that only the testbed of the live server can provide. The update itself will not be 'undone' though, the developers that worked on this were all too aware of how mixed the reaction would be, but ultimately the team took the decision that this really was the best for the future of Arelith. When it comes to nerfing summons, changing how skill points are calculated, or making new items & looking at issues with specific spells suggestions and feedback will be most welcome.

I never meant to indicate that 'loot was the answer to the problem' only that more loot items dealing with these 2 specific issues (dispel and desummon) would be added on top of those that are already there. After I announced rods it was really leapt on as the promised return of universal high level spell use in PvP, which isn't going to happen.

My mention of loot there was in reply to two very specific issues raised in that thread, both of which we knew we'd have to deal with after the update, and neither of which much matter in PvE, namely the deadly power of some summons when they have no counter, and the lack of high epic mundanes to use dispelling magic. The loot, be it wands or ammunition, exists almost purely to help in those two situations, it was never meant to be the case that 'loot' is the new metric by which all can be judged. It is also the case that both of these, disjunction/dispel, and Banishment/Dismissal, were relatively common in loot already, for much the same reason that their volume has been increased. I somewhat regret announcing rods as I did, as I think many of our more disheartened players saw it is as a partial reversal of the scroll restriction.

Yes, there is more loot, and we'll do all we can to mitigate the level 30 PvP vs Mages caused by this update, without ruining their potential in PvE. Updates will likely be announced in the coming days, and I will try to give more insight into what to expect in the meantime. You're right to point out and inconsistency of message here, and I apologise if my above post gave the wrong impression.

[Apothys]

Come on people, the epic loot from HoTU has existed in the game since 2005. The fact that these exist in the palate is not as end of the world as you are stating. If there are a bunch of "DM friends" out there with +10 weapons with haste, then I take it back, but there are not, as far as I know.

Im with Xerah on this.

These are special rewards that can be given by DMs. I trust that they will be only giving them out rarely if ever and only for outstanding RP. I trust our DMs to be careful with these.

[NauVaseline]

What.

Irongron, let me give a word of advice here.

Lock this thread. Right now.

You've just posted the most insane drivel in order to justify what is, frankly, the worst update since the circle grind script. This thread will explode.

If you seriously intend to double down on this--if you genuinely think that most of your playerbase is out of touch, rather than yourself--then do yourself a favor and lock this thread.

This has already blown up in Arelith's discord. It won't be long before that happens here too.

Common sentiment seems to be that you are completely off your rocker, and the only way to stop it from getting out of hand is to clamp down on it hard, now.

Dude sadly +1 to all this

Handing these rods out even once per DM would be a huge issue.

If they're not intended to be handed out with even that much frequency, why add them to begin with?

Players aren't overreacting, Xerah. They're drawing the obvious conclusions.

and this
I think you're on a foe list btw

Im with Xerah on this.

These are special rewards that can be given by DMs. I trust that they will be only giving them out rarely if ever and only for outstanding RP. I trust our DMs to be careful with these.

that's a naive assessment of Human nature. there's no money involved to motivate a straight and narrow, it relies 100% on character. Eventually, someone will abuse this, as has happened numerous times in the past with far less tempting stuff. Even the best DMs of Arelith's past have succumbed to temptation.

[Adam Antium]

As someone who has not been present for more than 1 DM event in my entire time on Arelith, because these things are never planned or communicated OOC and you just need to be online at the right place and right time for them most of the time (rare exceptions for meta-plot sorts of events which have scheduling shared ICly sometimes)...

I really hate the concept of these rods being given out by DM's to players in events. Or for any reason.

I don't hate the concept of these existing as incredibly rare loot (a rod with GR which is as rare as T3 runic materials sounds kind of neat to be honest) but I hate the concept of DM's handing them out to characters. Please don't do that? Pretty please?

[Cortex]

The thing is, dms have given busted crap. Ranging from 5 dr armors, overpowered books, and free xp. Some of those "rewards" were not malicious in nature but happened because the dms could not grasp the consequences.

Arelith dms have a long history of mechanical unawaraness, and theres been a fair few of corrupt dms.

[Party in the forest at midnight]

I'm very concerned the server is going to go down a very dark path now. The issue of giving dungeons special, rare, overpowered loot has very extreme effects in the long run, and is absolutely disastrous to a server's continued viability. In short, it chases off dedicated roleplayers and storybuilders who don't want to deal with the grind, and don't want to deal with the people who only go and grind and have a lot of extremely powerful equipment as a result.

As some history, I came to this server after leaving PotM. I was exhausted and felt like it was a huge grind to even get any kind of story started with people, because everyone I'd start RPing with would end up dying. Usually to the same group of stupidly overpowered characters.

The problem was, gearing is entirely based on grinding. There's an enchanting system that uses a huge amount of xp, enough to delevel you on an already slow-leveling server. Which means people who grind dungeons benefited the most from it, and could effectively become level 30 on a level 20 server by converting XP into gear that was unobtainable to casual people.

So you'd end up with a situation where good RPers were making stories and closing their charaters, which led to a power disparity between them and people who kept the same characters for years and acquiring more and more equipment. It makes it very difficult for any kind of conflict RP, because if these people get involved, they win. It's one-sided. That's that.
The last time I asked a friend about how the server's doing, he said that since the group camps out in the travel hub, it means it's impossible to travel between domains if you're a character they don't like because they'll just kill you. They gate people being able to do content, essentially. Or even travel between RP hubs.
I'm saying all of this because making things dungeon-focused enables this kind of thing. When people talk about mechanics and RP being oil and water, I think they're extremely misguided.
It's dungeon grinding and RP that is oil and water.
Dungeon grinders don't necessarily need to be good at the game. But once they acquire a huge set of intentionally overpowered and rare items, it's hard to do anything about them. The disparity between characters who grind extensively and those who don't is very, very real.

I came to Arelith after EE came out and I was amazed at just how much fun it is to play here. I love how easy it is to make a character and get into the game, you can get into the story by following message board posts, you can make your own equipment with dweomercraft easily, and I can go out solo and adventure and not be entirely blocked out from advancing. I really like the server and I want to see it do well, but right now I'm worried it will start to go down the path of overpowered dungeon loot. Because I know what happens when this starts. I played PotM for 8 years and got to watch it unfold, the change was gradual but now is impossible to compete with.

[14All]

stuff

Thanks, Irongron. I'll turn off my sarcasm for a minute.

No, things haven't been very clear. A lot of the official posts feel like they're backpedaling from the original statement. It feels like this because so many of the updates, current and upcoming, are being left intentionally vague. It's hard to defend a point when the point hasn't been publicly made. People are going to bite their nails and worry because they can do very little with the information presently available to them. We can't blame people for feeling that way.

Personally, I'm not a builder or a mechanics-savvy person. That's why I go to people who are before I make decisions on mechanics and balance. If you have little/no knowledge on electrical appliances and your microwave breaks down, you don't just dive in to work on it. You look up a guide, or better yet, you contact a specialist. This is common sense. This keeps you from a) making things worse, b) hurting yourself and c) hurting people around you.

It feels as though this update was not thought-out because this update is being kept very foggy for no apparent reason. I don't blame anybody for feeling a little (understatement) irked over the changes, especially when some responses have read, "I know what's good for you so take your medicine."

I don't think that's a very fair way to speak with anybody.

[Apothys]

@NauVaseline

Its not Naive to trust that the DMs we have currently are aware of the power of these items or that i dont have an understanding of human nature. Not everyone is corrupt or prone to temptation.

[Queen Titania]

We have item guidelines that we adhere to help prevent that, and if we think it pushes those boundaries, we often talk about it so we get a design that works. It helps us make sure we have balanced items in our quests.

I can't see any of us just giving anything out like candy, either.

[Sockss]

I wasn't going to post, but it is really, really sad to see Arelith go this way.

I haven't been playing for the last month because I was burnt out and didn't see things getting any better.

Honestly I had a really good laugh reading through the updates that are so short sighted, incomplete and just plain idiotic it's baffling. The more that people find out about it, the more silly it gets.

Then I was saddened that this wasn't a spur of the moment decision, but a collectively discussed update from the team, over a lengthy period of time. That killed what little hope I had left.

And this has trodden on it. The inability to see how damaging this is, not even for the glaring balance issues, but for the real damage it is causing to the community, is awful.

It's poor communication, poor leadership, no discernable vision or direction. Ego's so undeseveredly inflated. The entire update is a big troll, how it was delivered, communicated, how criticism is dealt with (or rather ignored), how devs think they know better than players purely because of a title, and how the work of a whole bunch of people before is going down the drain.

If there was one other option for a server with the same arelith-ish rules, arelith would have died, and with all this going on, it may regardless of an alternative.

It is depressing.

I hope it gets better for you guys. I hope the times roll back around where everyone was hyped for updates, rather than terrified and annoyed with them.

Good luck.

[Curve]

Just to drop in with an anecdotal piece of information, my first 'successful' character on Arelith many years ago got caught up in a DM event where he was given a very overpowered item, this lead to be just -deleting and vamping from the server for a year. This DM was/is a very upstanding and respected member of the community. I don't mean to aim the finger of justice, or hurt anyone's feelings. I just mean to say, in the right situation anyone can do dumb shit they will regret despite knowing better than to do it in the first place.

[NauVaseline]

@NauVaseline

Its not Naive to trust that the DMs we have currently are aware of the power of these items or that i dont have an understanding of human nature. Not everyone is corrupt or prone to temptation.

After playing here for many, many years and seeing/learning of many, many examples where this was not the case, while simultaneously staff and players alike espoused ideals like you are now, I respectfully disagree with your assessment.

It's poor communication, poor leadership, no discernable vision or direction. Ego's so undeseveredly inflated. The entire update is a big troll, how it was delivered, communicated, how criticism is dealt with (or rather ignored), how devs think they know better than players purely because of a title, and how the work of a whole bunch of people before is going down the drain.

...

It is depressing.

+1

[the grim yeeter]

post

This.

[Wrips]

I trust that they will be only giving them out rarely if ever and only for outstanding RP.

So, special cookies handed through subjective methods to a select few? I don't think I even need to say how unnecessarily damaging to the health of the server it might be, in general.

[Queen Titania]

I trust that they will be only giving them out rarely if ever and only for outstanding RP.

So, special cookies handed through subjective methods to a select few? I don't think I even need to say how unnecessarily damaging to the health of the server it might be, in general.

By this philosophy, we could not really do anything. We couldn't do PrCs. We couldn't run quests or events. We couldn't hand out any item, because it's "subjective", despite standards set for everything. At least the rare rods you can get without us. And while everyone is welcome to their opinion, I don't think your philosophy is a good one

[Cortex]

I trust that they will be only giving them out rarely if ever and only for outstanding RP.

So, special cookies handed through subjective methods to a select few? I don't think I even need to say how unnecessarily damaging to the health of the server it might be, in general.

By this philosophy, we could not really do anything. We couldn't do PrCs. We couldn't run quests or events. We couldn't hand out any item, because it's "subjective", despite standards set for everything. And while everyone is welcome to their opinion, I don't think that's a good philosophy to have.

Those things you mention also do not include pocket epic spells or mechanical advantages. Even prc applicationshave nearly all but phased out.

[TimeAdept]

My opinion is the DM team should take a stand and say they will NEVER hand out an item with epic spell casts.

[Subutai]

I never meant to indicate that 'loot was the answer to the problem' only that more loot items dealing with these 2 specific issues (dispel and desummon) would be added on top of those that are already there. After I announced rods it was really leapt on as the promised return of universal high level spell use in PvP, which isn't going to happen.

I'm confused as to what issue you're trying to fix here. I didn't like the way that other players immediately started criticizing the changes as an "artistic whim", but I have to admit I'm having a harder and harder time believing it's anything but. PvP and balance have never, ever, in the entire history of NWN, been in favor of mundanes against casters. Casters, particularly wizards, have never been at a disadvantage. Even with everyone using UMD and scrolls, wizards in particular still had the upper hand, simply by virtue of the fact that they had innate access to every single spell (sans Word of Faith) that were being used in PvP, along with many more, and their summons.

There was no wide-spread clamoring for wizards to be nerfed, besides maybe a small tweak to Wild Mages. No one concerned with balance to any degree had any issue with mundanes being able to counter mages. The mechanics of it all worked fine, aside from the need to take a UMD dump. I'd hoped that these changes were aimed at removing the need for UMD to make a mundane effective, but you saying that the return of these spells isn't going to happen makes me think that I've been giving too much credit here.

My mention of loot there was in reply to two very specific issues raised in that thread, both of which we knew we'd have to deal with after the update, and neither of which much matter in PvE, namely the deadly power of some summons when they have no counter, and the lack of high epic mundanes to use dispelling magic. The loot, be it wands or ammunition, exists almost purely to help in those two situations, it was never meant to be the case that 'loot' is the new metric by which all can be judged.

This paragraph seems to either contradict the previously quoted one, or to display a misunderstanding of what people used scrolls for in the first place. People weren't running around using high-level spells at random. A few people were using high-level summon scrolls to help soloing, sure (something I see no issue with. Why should mages, clerics, and druids be the only ones allowed to solo?), but scrolls were used, overwhelmingly, specifically for the situations you mentioned. Disjunction and Word of Faith have been mentioned over and over and over in the past days because that's almost entirely why people used scrolls.

They're absolutely necessary for balanced PvP. Mages need some kind of counter, and those scrolls provided that counter. If you're removing the ability to use scrolls, only to add in rods that do those two or three things, while simultaneously promoting your vision of removing high-level magic from mundanes, I'm starting to fall in with everyone else. What's even the point of the change?

I somewhat regret announcing rods as I did, as I think many of our more disheartened players saw it is as a partial reversal of the scroll restriction.

People saw it as a partial reversal, or continued development, or a planned process depending on what they theorized the overall update to be about. I'll restate what I said about. What's even the point of the change?

A huge portion of this mess, maybe more than anything else, has been caused by the fact that no one knows what's going on. You claim this was all planned far in advance, and it's all part of some big idea, but you don't tell anyone what the idea is. Maybe you know what the end results are going to be, maybe you don't. Maybe the devs do, maybe they don't. What I can assure you though, is that absolutely none of the players have any idea why the change happened, what the end goal is, or why any of this was necessary.

If people are supposed to just trust that it's all going to work out in the end, I hate to say this, but they don't, and they won't, especially in the current state of Arelith. I covered the many ways you could work to fix this going forward in a post on the UMD thread, and I'd be happy to work with you and the team to figure out processes to make the dev process smoother and more transparent, to help restore trust from the players and make development more rewarding for everyone involved at every level. You don't have to take me up on it, or even listen to any of my or anyone's points, but I can absolutely assure you that when these kinds of huge changes (often also full of bugs) keep being released with absolutely no transparency into what the goals of the changes even are, you'll never have the trust of the larger player base.

I don't mean that as an insult or some kind of threat. I want Arelith to succeed, and I want you to succeed. But the way things have been going, especially these past months, I can't help be feel that Arelith will continue on despite the dev team's work on these changes, not because of.

[Ork]

The great irony is these deadly summons once did have a counter. We did really enjoy an era of by-and-large mechanical balance.

[Wrips]

I trust that they will be only giving them out rarely if ever and only for outstanding RP.

So, special cookies handed through subjective methods to a select few? I don't think I even need to say how unnecessarily damaging to the health of the server it might be, in general.

By this philosophy, we could not really do anything. We couldn't do PrCs. We couldn't run quests or events. We couldn't hand out any item, because it's "subjective", despite standards set for everything. At least the rare rods you can get without us. And while everyone is welcome to their opinion, I don't think your philosophy is a good one

Items have objective power, events and quests have subjective ramifications that can be altered with the addition or removal of the actors. Look, I'm not saying I don't trust the DMs, I do. What I'm saying is that distributing objective power through subjective methods is often not a good thing - as much as honest a DM team can be. It's not a criticism or lack of faith about the team, it's a concern about a practice that's often unnecessarily damaging - especially if these items are better than the ones that can be acquired through normal means.

[Anomandaris]

Are these epic spell rods limited to 1/day? Or can someone spam GR or Hellball, can you just summon a new EDK if your current one dies or gets dismissed? Epic Spells are extremely strong as they are, limited to 1/day, that's why it takes such high levels and high investment to get them.

Single use means they destroy when used, and nobody yet has anything to my knowledge, besides one of Greater Ruin. When I say added them to the palette, that means they simply exist in the game engine. Base NWN is full of such OP items, many of which would entirely destroy Arelith balance if distributed, which they're not. If anyone is asking whether I trust a DM to use a single-use Hellball rod during an event? Yes, of course I do, but they're not, by any definition, being distributed to players.

Phew, thanks for the clarification! I was sweating a bit... I mean don't get me wrong, my bat**** crazy Svirf SD would love to have a Hellball Rod, nay, he would cherish it almost as much as his Rune hammer, but that would be a baaaad idea! I see an item like this much like Raven from snowcrash having a nuclear bomb attached to a heart monitor. It's epic, should be one in a million, and considered a devastatingly terrifying reality.

Excited to see these toys in the hands of some mischievous DM's tho >:)

[-XXX-]

Um. Is a Greater Ruin rod that much more powerful than a gonne?

...or a single cast of IGMS.

...or a WM critical hit.

Dunno, Greater Ruin rods seem fair and balanced to me, but that's just my opinion.

[HA GOTEM I DIDNT ROLL]

Um. Is a Greater Ruin rod that much more powerful than a gonne?

...or a single cast of IGMS.

...or a WM critical hit.

Dunno, Greater Ruin rods seem fair and balanced to me, but that's just my opinion.

Let's give it to the guy with the spell already on his belt, and let's give him about... 5, since he found them in DM events.

spams "HALT" in gruin