It's a tough world out there.

[LinuxPup]

So what do most of you players think? Some players are extremely vocal, and some not so much... Is NS4 worse than it used to be, better, or pretty much the same? Believe it or not, I actually want NS4 to be fun... I'm not trying to make people feel bad by nerfing, but some things are overpowered and need to be fixed. That said, it hasn't been all nerfing in the past year:

-AAs are now more powerful than they used to be.
-Traps are more popular now for PvP (I saw lots of trap setting during the last relic event)
-Druid spellcasting is now more powerful than it used to be.
-Artifact system
-Faction reputation bonus for capping relics
-PDK Bonuses
-HoK, Celestia, and Abyss
-Bloodstains!

[Amoenotep]

liar...you hate us all..just admit it

[Daltian]

Server was very good before, and its even better now.

[frogofpeace]

Better now, no doubt.

Personally, I wouldn't mind seeing L1-5 (or L1-10) go a little easier, only because it's nigh on impossible to find a party around any of the faction cities, and you kind of need a party to make any headway with many builds. With 40 people at a time on the server and 5 faction areas (or is it 6? NC, TC, AO, MA, SL ... yep, it's 5 ), it ain't gonna happen, there just won't be enough lowbie poputlation at any one time. That's why I dual log, just so I can power level. I don't really seem to have fun otherwise until I get to the mountain or thereabouts. Something about seeing them little rats trying to face L40 buffs, tho, gives me the shivers ....

I agree with Celorn on the other thread about build limitations. I'd like to see some of the current restrictions relaxed a little. I miss LA because of that, I think.

Other than that, nerfs, powerups, meh - the vast majority have been very good, many have been very, very creative (I like pure class bonuses and think they add flavor - I disagree that they allow you to be uncreative; there are some pure fighters and barbs I chuckle gleefully every time I face them), some maybe not so much (I'm still annoyed that CoTs got nerfed, but I've stopped complaining in party, I guess), it all keeps it fresh. I think you guys do a great job balancing. Is everything perfect? No, but I think that's what gives a place charm. I don't think there's an 'I win' button, either.

Also, NC should have rogues.

[Celorn]

Gee, that's a good attitude tep...

I have been trying to play again, I have had trouble with NWN client crashing every 5 minutes or so not sure why.. I am running Vista 64 bit, so there may be something I have to tweak for more stability.

I really want to get back in and see some of the planes that I never did get to explore, I'm kind of less interested in pvp and the relic game, as I put in far too many hours into that (and remember? I was the first one ever to capture a relic!).

---

Linux! I do love; bloodstains & the pvp-kill notifications, these are things I wanted for a while... AAs, PDKs, don't really effect any toon I would be building, I'm pretty bored of the relic game, it gets old for me I dunno why.. All the new content is fantastic, I'm endlessly amazed what you guys can do with this ancient game engine especially without HAKs! All the new stuff is great, but some of the 1.69 changes struck a blow to me, I had too much freedom with LA, and so many builds were so much fun to tweak out - possibly a lot of it for me is being stuck with tLB in RK, I prefer playing elves and humans.

The other thing that frustrated me a lot in the past were some of the mobs in some zones that can 1-shot strip ALL buffs from you, to me this was game-breaking, especially because it was stripping RACIAL abilities like earth gen armor... the only way I could see to avoid it was to have extremely high will saves, i'm sorry but i'm not going to build every toon with 55+ will saves just to get past a few OP mobs. Other mobs like the umber hulks were amazing from a dev perspective, but NOT very fun from a player perspective -- insane DR and mind control that removes you from your party and makes you hostile - VERY EVIL!!!

I'm going to figure out my crash problem and see if I can get back into it! Blizzard has pissed me off so it may be time to return 'home', I have some unfinished toons that need some love.

[Amoenotep]

nwn crashes on vista if you have to verify your user account control on startup...

[LinuxPup]

I've been having NWN crashing issues lately too since I got my new computer... everything else is rock stable but NWN (big surprise). Are you using an AMD/ATI video card? I have one, and wonder if that's it... I have shiny water disabled btw, but its still bad.

Running Win7 RTM x64

[Bargeld]

Vista 64 home premium with geforce 8800GTS here... I had issues with sound drivers and video drivers. I am currently using vid drivers from Jan '08 with no crashes due to video probs. I don't remember my sound driver, but i think i changed the GAME's sound driver setting to one of the other hardware based options and it fixed my crashes.

If you have dual/quad processors, you need to add the CPUAFFINITY = 1 to one of the .ini's. You can also increase the RAM setting in the .ini as well.

[Chernobyl_Glow]

ya. check your sound card and drivers too. on a recent reinstall i had major issues. i read that if the sound portion of nwn is running ineffeciently then it will look like vid problems. you can load NWN and 'disable' sound which will remove the ineffeciencies. so test that if you think and if the problem goes away then its sound related.

i did something pretty dumb too but maybe others have. i installed nwn to a remote directory. that caused really bad lag for some reason. i reinstalled to C:\NWN folder and got much better performance.

- glow -

[Celorn]

lol.. i have EVERY possible bad thing...

Vista64 with account control on -- i'll disable it and see
ATI 4890 -- latest drivers, shiny water always turned off
4 Gigs of ram -- reason for running vista64
intel quad core -- always have the affinity flag set, had that problem back with my dual core AMD
Soundblaster XFi -- i have the latest drivers and the special driver i forget what it's called, but it was needed for nwn to work with hardware sound...

Sound is probably it, I know in the past I had trouble with that -- there are like 50 different combinations, I wanted to hear footsteps but for some reason only certain sound modes would play footsteps, and had crashing with those modes.

Works fine on my other box (for dual boxing ) which runs XP with all onboard video/audio stuff, but it's a very slow computer that I can't leave running for a very long period of time.

[Chernobyl_Glow]

so to test if the sound is the problem just set it to disabled. turning the sound all the way down won't help you. there is that test screen (the one that automatically sets the resolution) look for a drop down list there and change that to disabled. if the performance gets better then you've discovered your problem. for me it didn't fix it. it was the location that fixed it for me.

you are running NWN in administrator mode right? (right click) or change in properties? i have to give vista permission to run nwn everytime i start it. the 1.69 upgrade forced some weird things in vista.

(this thread is totally hijacked. lol)

- glow -

[Cijah]

So what do most of you players think? Some players are extremely vocal, and some not so much... Is NS4 worse than it used to be, better, or pretty much the same? Believe it or not, I actually want NS4 to be fun... I'm not trying to make people feel bad by nerfing, but some things are overpowered and need to be fixed. That said, it hasn't been all nerfing in the past year:

-AAs are now more powerful than they used to be.
-Traps are more popular now for PvP (I saw lots of trap setting during the last relic event)
-Druid spellcasting is now more powerful than it used to be.
-Artifact system
-Faction reputation bonus for capping relics
-PDK Bonuses
-HoK, Celestia, and Abyss
-Bloodstains!

Having been here longer than most I do like change especially the tweaking of spells and changes to classes like AA, PDK, Harpers, BG, RDD, Shifters etc. I disagree with Pure Class being boring - noone is forcing players to make pure classes and it adds a dimension to game play and can be effective in party play whether pvp or pve.

I do agree the "Nerfs" can be frustrating and target the time-poor player over the regular players more. The time poor player may only have one or two toons and to suddenly find they have been affected by a change can be disheartening. Whereas, a regular player with 6+ 40 toons may feel hard done by but is in a better position to respond/react to that change by making another toon relatively quickly.

It is a balancing act to fine tune the server so the contents don't spill out into some chaotic mess! It's usually a consequence of the player-base finding something that is ridiculously-overpowered and gaining mileage out of it and then crying foul when it's been discovered by the devs/dms. It's as much a credit to the players for finding what works and doesn't but also to the devs to keep it all together. That is why this server is hands down the best. I came here in 2004 and I haven't left!

I think AC's are way too high - I dont believe a player should have more than 70 AC - 30 PM or not.

Playing mostly out of NC with some crafters in other factions, I find the base class restrictions do affect the build choices, on top of the already tight NC alignment restrictions. For example the only way for an NC player to get Epic Dodge is to have 10 SD levels or Monk 9/SD 5. Any Dex-Build in NC can only get Uncanny Dodge through SD. This is an important foundation in a Dex-Build (even though uncanny dodge doesnt always work as it should!). I believe Rogues should be part of NC. If it's felt to be too overpowering, limit the levels. Make it minimum of 5 levels and/or maximum of 10 levels (if this is possible).

I agree with Lorkar? regarding the monty haul element creeping into NS4 - I moved to NS4 5 years ago because it wasn't like NS3/3.5 and it was all about the build and not the gear and I liked the level restriction on items. You looked forward to hitting the next item level and deck out with new gear. I would like to see more faction-based gear so that people are proud to be associated with their faction and the item is in keeping within faction themes. For example no Hide/MS faction items in AO, No Vamp Regen/Neg Damage faction items in NC etc. and more items with alignment restrictions to encourage other alignments to be used (where possible <- NC ) and not simply to avoid consequences (smite etc)

The Artifact system is great - changes things up and can surpise in pvp if the gear your wearing offers something your opponent never thought it had!

More things I would like to see (and happy to help if I am able/have the skill)

• Items stripped back to +5 (to Level 25) and +6 (for 30+). In effect Ragnar should have been the template for all bosses in terms of gear.
• Crafted gear tweaked to be a little better than mob gear. For example weapons made by Faction Crafters to have elemental damage of the faction as per the Darkfire spell implementation from a while back. Can they be tagged Faction Only so not tradeable?
• Encouragement for using 2-Handed weapons i.e. extend the damage resistance to all 2-Handed weapons and not only for double-weapons to give them damage resistance of the base weapon type equal to the item level. i.e. A level 9 Greatsword has 5/- resist slash, a level 30 Greatsword has 20/- resist slash. This is more to change up what people build instead of sword'n'board - rare to see a heavy-flail exponent - does go against the build vs gear point i made but not everyone plays for the same reasons.
• Individual screens embellished - so they actually interact more with the player e.g. the Wold given some cave maps - so new and old players alike have something new to investigate. It does not have to be more than 1-3 screens using some new monster types from 1.69 as well as expanding on some ideas like the Evenshire Halflings, Nirigawa and some placeables usable such as towers, crypts, cave entrances dotted around the countryside (Some of which require open locks skill/search skill to find/enter)
• Traps should affect level 9 and up - my feeling is level 6 is a tad low - pretty tough when you're hit with a life threatening trap as you close with a mob and your new to the server, makes levelling a chore especially if you keep dying - not saying the server should be a walk in the park but at low levels it shouldnt be "watch your step - lest you die!" There's enough opportunity for the player base to create havoc with traps than to have them server-side as well
• Agree low-levelling is slow (more so if ECL) due to lack of party members in and around faction cities. Perhaps provide an xp boost of 1.5 up to level 5 to make the journey quicker and feel like your getting somewhere. This may see a move away from dual-logged buffing clerics simply to power level a lowbie from 1-20. Though there will always be that immediate gratification element.

Like I said at the top, I'm happy to contribute in some way to keep things fresh. I suspect there are others who would as well. The Devs can send me a PM

Thanks

[Shadowalker]

love the place.. never leaving.. hope you all do the same.

A L1-5 thought just occured.. Hierable henchmen in each faction that require more than gold. But effectively reduce the xp you gain as you lvl with them, much as the ecl system works. You may not level much faster than normally solo, but it does make late bloomer builds a better chance of survival in the start.

[mining]

I've played in all of the factions at least once (RK least of all though), and I've done the 1-Ave grind way too many times for the number of builds I have, but ATM, IMO:

TC has the best start up, followed by SL, RK, MA (though it takes ages to get to Ave unless you know about the portal, only reason why it isn't no. 2), NC, AO.

The AO start up sucks. Rats are worth almost no XP, and there's nothing much to do, your faction guards kill you.
In contrast, in TC, you have a great array of jobs, you can pick up buffs from forest walkers, and, if you're a druid/ranger/2nd level Empath, you can pick up a grizzly with (didge)/DC 25 check. You can 'take 20' that at level 2.
SL jobs are pretty nice too, and it has a pretty decent set up.
RK, I haven't played too much, but it has jobs, is nearby Ave, and has monsters to kill that are challenging, but not too hard.
MA gets the best jobs IMO, and a pretty good area start up, its just a long way from Ave if you don't 'get' the portal.
NC, (My opinion) just doesn't have that great a start up.

What I'd suggest is jacking up the rats XP a bit, so they're as viable to train as goblins, and having the MA/TC set up the golden standard for Distant (MA,SL,maybeNCabit), and close (TC,AO,RK).

[Amoenotep]

What I'd suggest is jacking up the rats XP a bit, so they're as viable to train as goblins, and having the MA/TC set up the golden standard for Distant (MA,SL,maybeNCabit), and close (TC,AO,RK).

eh?