Ideas to help lessen the bored 40 issue

[Hard Aers_ns3]

I'am probly the worst one in this instance, at least on East. I'am the type of gamer that building characters isnt fun for me. It's a extremely dull task that is only worth while after the character has become a force of power within the game world. With this in mind the usual reply to the problem of boredom isnt really a solution for me and those like me.

What I would suggest is to expand upon the things available to be done to the high level characters. Currently it consists of build the char, collect the gear, help friends get gear. Build a new char, collect/transfer gear. Help friends get gear.

What if some things were made available to the high levels? Like modding NS items for HUGE amounts of gold (item forge anyone? Also this would help make gold actually worth something other than a few ports to EC or a couple stacks of healing potions).

How about adding a quest/method/ect... that would allow a character to lose a level of experience? If it was done for large amounts of gold, this would help the economy and help alleviate the problem/issue/culture/whatever of people having to build 50+ toons to get the one just right. If it was made into a reasonable length quest (and think outside the box of 'go to <X>, kill <Y>, bring back <Z>') then it could add another layer to both solo and party adventuring.

How about some different use items? Sequencers for one example. Some ring or other item to boost crafting skills? Some puzzle quests (existing areas could be used with a little modification, Garagoth for one that sees little use on East at least).

And of course as stated different kinds of quests. At this time to the best of my knowledge all quests involve running all over creation, killing something to get item x and going back to the quest giver/rewarder.

Hard Aers (lvl 39 sorc lvl 1 ranger) NS 3.5 East
Alastair Nyght (lvl 38 sorc lvl 1 paladin lvl 1 monk) NS 3.5 East
Jerren Nyght (lvl 28 sorc lvl 10 arcane archer lvl 2 paladin) NS 3.5 East

[DM ex Machina_ns3]

note: i'm the opposite. i spend more time building than playing. also, take nothing I say as The Official Stance. i'm just spouting cause i like to type.

i'm afraid, that unless you're into building multiple toons, there just aren't that many ways of keeping you entertained. this has to do with the limits of the format.

it's a mod. and even though it gets tweaks and additions, it stays mostly the same. it's a persistent world. that means the longer you play, the more you get to know the mod, etc, which is a good thing. it also means that you will, eventually, hit the wall. once you've done everything there is to do, it's about replayability. because if you've played for months and done Everything, there's literally no way for a dev team to keep up with you. it takes longer to code a quest than to complete it, which means you'll always be one step ahead. plus, if we add a ten hour quest, that delays your Lvl 40 Boredom by 10 hours, which isn't much in the grand scheme of things. some people have been playing for years. same problem with adding items. eventually you'll have them all.

i'm not saying things can't change or be better. but i just can't imagine making a game that could be played for months linearly (espcially considering the realistic limitations on dev time and server capacity on a free mod). at some point, it seems like making new characters and starting over *must* enter the equation.

i can, in general terms, conceive of some sort of quest that would never be the same twice. something involving a bunch of random variables that always converge to make a possible narrative but never repeat. i'm reminded of Queneau's Hundred Thousand Million Sonnets. he wrote a 100 sonnets on the same rhyme scheme, so every 1st line is interchangeable, etc. so he actually wrote a hundred thousand million possible poems (there's a perforation below each line, so you can flip individual lines to physically make the new combinations). a 100 page book that literally impossible to finish in a human lifespan. unfortunately, the results are quite dull. after a while, they all seem the same.

question: i'm not sure i see the point in the being able to delvl for huge amounts of gold. if it was an enormous sum, then it'd take just as long to acquire said sum as it would to lvl up a new character. and farming for gold seems more tedious than lvling, since you at least move from area to area as you gain lvls.

question: for various reasons, replayability seems essential to the longevity of a player. what makes something replayable? i'm sure there's as many answers as players, but it seems like a useful question to ask. adding a quest or item or service doesn't really address the Lvl 40 Boredom, unless it's something that can be done over and over.

my intuition tells me that some people have been able to play the same mod for so long because 1) a sense of community and 2) there's a huge amount of possible builds (most of the possible builds are bad-very bad, but there's a lot of possible good builds too, and which builds are good sometimes swings based on tweaks to gear and/or abilities).

[Hard Aers_ns3]

i'm not saying things can't change or be better. but i just can't imagine making a game that could be played for months linearly (espcially considering the realistic limitations on dev time and server capacity on a free mod). at some point, it seems like making new characters and starting over *must* enter the equation.

That's a rather narrow view to take. Been then again it seems to be the norm in MMORPG's where levels are the dominant factor in determining a character's 'life span'. This being the way NWN is, you've gotta think outside that level box. If we accept that level 40 is the 'ceiling' for any given character then you need to address ways to diversify the character once the ceiling is reached. There's been literally thousands of attempts (some successes, some failures) at doing this which can be seen on the bioware forums and nwvault.

i can, in general terms, conceive of some sort of quest that would never be the same twice. something involving a bunch of random variables that always converge to make a possible narrative but never repeat. i'm reminded of Queneau's Hundred Thousand Million Sonnets. he wrote a 100 sonnets on the same rhyme scheme, so every 1st line is interchangeable, etc. so he actually wrote a hundred thousand million possible poems (there's a perforation below each line, so you can flip individual lines to physically make the new combinations). a 100 page book that literally impossible to finish in a human lifespan. unfortunately, the results are quite dull. after a while, they all seem the same.

I agree with you in part...So what you do is change the tune and the lyrics. Is it easy? Parts of quest creation are. Parts are not. Creating and working on any sort of game server is a time consuming endeavor that takes a special kind of person. The suggestions I made above arent by any means the end all answer. Perhaps though by making suggestions it might spark the thought processes of other people who in turn make their own suggestions and a solution or at least some alternatives come into view.

question: i'm not sure i see the point in the being able to delvl for huge amounts of gold.

Because currently once you hit the aforementioned 'ceiling' gold becomes worthless. Finding alternative uses for gold adds to the choices of things to do. Farm gold or farm xp. Granted they're both approximately the same and in some cases/places can be done at the same time. Again, adding choices of things to do, not limited what few choices we have.

question: for various reasons, replayability seems essential to the longevity of a player. what makes something replayable?

That is one of the key issues that the nwn persistant world has to address. Each server seems to find their own way of dealing with it. Some offer things like in-game player vendors. Others offer housing systems, various hak-packs...the list goes on and on.

my intuition tells me that some people have been able to play the same mod for so long because 1) a sense of community and 2) there's a huge amount of possible builds (most of the possible builds are bad-very bad, but there's a lot of possible good builds too, and which builds are good sometimes swings based on tweaks to gear and/or abilities).

There is a third possibility here and it is the case for me. Loyalty. I'am the type of player that I will look for quite a while until I find a game/server that I like. Once that particular server (in any number of games) has my attention and proven good enough to keep me for more than a day or two, then odds are I will be there until the server shuts down for good. I offer my views on things and suggestions because I think the project is good enough to keep on growing, to attract more diverse types of players and to provide fun for all involved.

[R Gast_ns3]

Hello you two.

Every time I think of issues like maxxed-level boredom (or thieving/abuses or any number of supposed short-comings of nwn mods), I ask myself, "What if this D&D lored [fantasy] realm were real -- Would this problem exist at all in such a place -- If not [and usually doesn't], what would be eliminating this problem in such a world -- How can these 'naturalistic' solutions/concepts be implemented [in the sense of a D&D world, which ok is not natural for Earth]".

As far as level-capped boredom -
The big levels should not have it so easy to sit on their laurels and only idly play in their big toybox of magical items. Why do the low-levels have tough-times [i.e. good times]? - because there's always forces or creatures that lurk and threaten their security [i.e. challenge]. Usually this occurs as lower levels intrude into dangerous monsters' lairs to try to wrest/steal some power/items from them. But I'm not proposing that as a solution for the highest-pc-levels. In the lored D&D world, there would always be a chance that a pc who has acquired any power [or items] might attract an encounter from some npc (or npc organization, deity, being, etc) - maybe a potentially beneficial encounter or maybe a potentially deadly [or worse (items!)] encounter. These encounters become more probable and greater in their magnitude of consequence depending on how powerful (or possibly infamous etc) the pc has so far become -- so that the most powerful pc's must periodically (infrequent or not) gamble somewhat on the maintenance of their level of power. So a pc's higher "standard of living" (more trinkets and power) would be challenged and would be more precious and impressive (or possibly legendary) to sustain.

To break this down closer to what modders can build, I would like to see as much effort devoted to designing npc map-areas for pc's to invade [populated with bosses and guards etc ] as to designing very many "encounters" where a pc [or party] is approached/accosted/intruded upon by npc's/beings. So the extended concept initiated by an encouter might be as richly and complexly designed as some particular npc realm to invade [and in part possibly involve visits to some mapped areas or not, maps new or not]. Some gauging of a pc's "overall power" could determine the probability or nature of an encounter. Or maybe the pc just has some specific item collected that "belongs" or is coveted by some especial npc or group. Like an item that really is too powerful is yet balanced against the truly real danger of some scary encounter(s). So I think, in the D&D world, an epic character for example, would "attract the attention of" demi-gods and their avatars/followers.

On a side note, I think that characters should -- at some point eventually -- have their ability scores reduce with age, and eventually they should permanently die of old age if not something else [could make for an impressive "funeral" of a legendary pc "who time and again dared the very gods themselves"].

I hope someone can imagine some feasible detail into this, because I think the concept [to make pcs always strive in proportion to the power they dare to maintain] would make a mod really interesting and more dramatic, even at the highest levels.

[DM ex Machina_ns3]

i think the main problem isn't challenging 40s; it's rewarding them. if we just set up a map that kills 40s with no reward, then no one goes. if we introduce a permanent item (armor, wpn, etc) that seems to be worth the effort to get, then that exacerbates the bored lvl 40 syndrome. because if it takes a hour to get, and you keep it forever, you're running around with that wpn thinking "dude. i'm bored. i totally rock."

don't take this as discouragement.

tweaking ns is like throwing a stick in whitewater and betting on which bank it drifts towards. the system is so incredibly complex that it's nearly impossible to predict the results of a single tweak, much less an overhaul. can anyone say high sensitivty to initial conditions and nonlinear realtion between cause and effect?

as for aging toons, i think people do that on their own. either they finish a toon and think of a minor change that will make it Teh Ubah, or they get bored and abandon it. i realy don't know anyone that plays their *really* old toons.

[TGPO_ns3]

Well, as a semi joking idea. To account for the effects of aging ... why not instute perma death for anyone with over 1 million exp?

(I started that as a joke, the more I think on it though, it doesnt sound half bad. Even if it does fly in the face of one of the ideas I tossed out recently to the other DMs and devs)

[DrakhanValane_ns3]

Of course, any player can enforce that on their own characters without DM or Dev involvement. Simply go delete the character. ^_^ No reason to annoy the rest of us with it.

[jwiwchar_ns3]

why not instute perma death for anyone with over 1 million exp?

*Runs to the DM chair and starts playing chair-drop by himself before TGPO gets his way

[duodave_ns3]

I used to play on a MUD where items aged over time. With dragon eggs you could increase the length of time. If you had more than one character, you spent pretty much all your time either earning enough gold to buy eggs to maintain your leet equipment or you spent all your time collecting eggs. Most people spent so much time doing this you couldn't effectively support more than about 4 characters.

I'm not suggesting we do such a thing. Not at all. One of things I love about NWN is we dont have to spend a great deal of time keeping items from aging.

I'm just saying that was how a lot of people spent a lot of time in Medievia.

[TangleRED_ns3]

perhaps there could be legenday Items that only last a days worth of use? or perhaps you could make Items that HAVE to use charges to be activated?



There is always the crafting system.. I know that starts a whole slew of ugly problems.. but theres a nifty craft system I've seen in a fwew muds, I don't know what its called, but instead of questing for Items you quest for magical componants or recipe's for these ITems, then a mage uses the recipe and the componants to create whatever Item he wants.. the problem for the Pc;'s is that the cost to power ratio geometrically increases..

lets say it takes 1 power componant to make a +1 enhancement bonus on any normal weapon. It then takes 3 to make it +2, 6 to mak e it +3, 10 to make it +4 now imagine componants and recipes for

* Immunity to effect types
* scalable Immunity to dammage types
* Scalable resistance to dammage types
* scalable ability bonuses
* Feats
*scalable saves
* haste
* adding spell slots

and you can increase the challenge by requireing the permanant death of certain characters in order to create the componants
for instance lets say you wanted to make robes of Crit immunity.
the componant is the bottles spirit of a level 40 epic pale master PC.
that means to create a crit immunity Item you have to have a pale master and get it both epic levels an to level 40 then sacrifice it.


now suppose these Items also had expiration dates built into them. and you could also have recipes to extend the life of these ITems. now theres a PC driven echonomy.

[Aaron315_ns3]

So far there's been some great points here, I myself am like Mistress X who enjoys the building part of playing. I rarely ever collect a complete set of NS gear because by the time I hit 40 I've already thought of another build and want to be getting on with it.
I have to agree that putting in a new area for lvl 40's would only be viable if there was a reward and since generally thats an item, once you have it you've got no reason to go again.
The one idea I do like however is the modding ideas, I'd love to be able to mod the way my NS armour looks but 90% of the time I can't justify the skill points in Modify Armour. Since NS armour can't be transferred you can't just build a character to mod it, you'd have to put the skill points into every build. I have no idea about coding so imagine this might be quite difficult, but an NPC that offered chaging the look of your armour would certainly be great addition if its achievable. Its certainly a use for gold.
You could also have to fight to him maybe through the 'Cavern of Alternation' (or something equally silly) and maybe have to fight creatures that morph or something. Just throwing ideas into the fray.