My oppinion on how incredibly unbalanced items are.

LoZen · Post by **LoZen** » Fri Apr 30, 2004 12:48 pm

I'm just going to relate a little story about an encounter my Barbarian had yesterday:

I was running along the Silver Road to meet a friend when I ran into a hostile enemy mage who nailed me hard with a fireball. I tried to retaliate, but I got stuck on a bridge and couldn't get past his 2 summons to get at him. He was higher level (Very Difficult), and he wound up killing me with fireballs, acid arrows, and something that stunned me. My reflex and will saves are very low, so mages can be trouble. I was unprepared for this one.

After respawning, I went back to the area where I had died. I used some glowing blue invisibility powder, and hunted him down. When I found him, I knocked him down and smacked him around a bit. When he ran, I drank a haste potion and chased him to finish the job off. Revenge is sweet in a PvP world

Use your head, change your tactics, or bring some friends along. I've been slapping mages silly. (and rogues, and fighters, and clerics....)

And the items aren't even remotely uber compared to NS3. I think it's more fun that way.

dond · Post by **dond** » Fri Apr 30, 2004 1:39 pm

^^ see above

there's TONS of potions available for most types of spells that can buff your fighter up

i've come across spell mantle pots!! those are incredibly useful, gives you that all important time to close the distance on the mage and beat him while he's grovelling. (you did take knockdown right?)

call shot is also sweet o prevent getaways

mumoogaipan · Post by **mumoogaipan** » Fri Apr 30, 2004 2:28 pm

I dont want to say that the original poster was wrong or that they should figure out better tactics because that is just plain rude. You have to admit that for right now, the mages in the game are at an advantage because they gain abilities quicker and can put on damage immunity items. This much is true. Yes there are ways around this, see the example above where characters used potions and the like to gain a strategic edge over the opponent. Even though this type of ingenuity is appreciated and flavorful, it should not always be the requirement. Yes i think this style of gameplay hightens the experience of NS4, but not all encounters should be sneak attacks on mages. I think there should be somewhat of a middle ground where damage for fighters increases to counteract the potent sting of a mage's spells.

Additionally, a character can always get a group of people together to go fight one person, but that could be considered unethical to both parties. Also, the death from the shadows approach may not be every player's cup of tea either beeing that you are attacking an enemy who is offgaurd and essentially unprepared.

I think that people need to respect each others concerns regarding the new NS4 build. There are still a lot of quirks to figure out and i dont think advice like, "change your class" helps. This type of response doesn't solve the problem at its roots but instead insists that the player should suck it up and do what is he/she does not want to do. Besides, changing your character doesn't help make the mod more balanced and fair but is a band-aid solution to a legitimate problem. More than that, during the beta test, all of us should be open minded to what other people have to say, and to the concerns brought up by each player so that NS4 (not beta) will be the best PW we can make it.

Lastly, i would like to thank the original author of this post because it is issues like these that help shed light onto the problems of the new NS4 beta so that we can help the devs help us. Remember, we are all one big community, why dont we try to make it fun.

^_^ The Buddhist ^_^

dond · Post by **dond** » Fri Apr 30, 2004 8:20 pm

if you want a 'im gonna rush in and win' thing, you aren't gonna get it.

the mage has to be prepared, why shouldn't you?

i'm playing a mage right now, and the biggest thing is spell durations. they're soooo short even at lvl 15.

they only way to have 'equal' footing, is to have everyone limited to 1 class and everyone in the same gear. that's not D&D, not nwn, and not ns!

just an addedum to 'whacking mages easily':

sneak attack hurts like hell when you're lvl 15 and only have 100 hp. (and those suckers have improv evasion too :/)

LoZen · Post by **LoZen** » Sat May 01, 2004 1:01 am

I dont want to say that the original poster was wrong or that they should figure out better tactics because that is just plain rude.

I hope I didn't come across this way. I was just trying to illustrate a point. If I'm a mage squaring off against a barb, I know that I have to stop him or kill him before he gets close enough to hit me. Therefore, as a barb my thoughts would be "how can I get close enough to hit that mage before he stops me or kills me?"

And yes, mages get fireballs and death magic, but:
1) I have enough HP that I can take a few fireballs before going down, whereas 1 hit from my axe and it's pretty much over for the mage.
2) Death magic is countered by fortitude saves, of which fighters (especially RDDs) generally have the highest in the game.

You have to be able to adapt to different situations (or keep getting killed). Like the weapon master example that was stated - yes, your weapon of choice can be countered by someone switching out armor, but I would just say that's a smart defensive tactic. It's the exact same thing as throwing on your robe of fire resistance if you're going to fight a red dragon.

Back to the original post:
My point was that I've been playing a fighter class and haven't had any of the problems that Chimaira has been having. If you're an RDD tank with 32 Str and you're only doing 2-5 dmg against anything over level 1, then something is seriously wrong. What weapons are you using? Is there maybe a flaw in your build? I don't know....

And I think that the equipment is fine so far (just my opinion). Wearing armor is supposed to prevent physical damage, isn't it? It's certainly a lot more tame than the stuf in NS3...
+5/25 soak, 40/- resist fire/cold/acid/electric, +4 Str, +4 Con, Immunity: Knockdown, Immunity: Mind-Affecting, etc, etc.

And you could wear that at first level

Chimaira · Post by **Chimaira** » Sat May 01, 2004 10:31 am

LoZen wrote:
I dont want to say that the original poster was wrong or that they should figure out better tactics because that is just plain rude.
I hope I didn't come across this way. I was just trying to illustrate a point. If I'm a mage squaring off against a barb, I know that I have to stop him or kill him before he gets close enough to hit me. Therefore, as a barb my thoughts would be "how can I get close enough to hit that mage before he stops me or kills me?"

And yes, mages get fireballs and death magic, but:
1) I have enough HP that I can take a few fireballs before going down, whereas 1 hit from my axe and it's pretty much over for the mage.
2) Death magic is countered by fortitude saves, of which fighters (especially RDDs) generally have the highest in the game.

You have to be able to adapt to different situations (or keep getting killed). Like the weapon master example that was stated - yes, your weapon of choice can be countered by someone switching out armor, but I would just say that's a smart defensive tactic. It's the exact same thing as throwing on your robe of fire resistance if you're going to fight a red dragon.

Back to the original post:
My point was that I've been playing a fighter class and haven't had any of the problems that Chimaira has been having. If you're an RDD tank with 32 Str and you're only doing 2-5 dmg against anything over level 1, then something is seriously wrong. What weapons are you using? Is there maybe a flaw in your build? I don't know....

And I think that the equipment is fine so far (just my opinion). Wearing armor is supposed to prevent physical damage, isn't it? It's certainly a lot more tame than the stuf in NS3...
+5/25 soak, 40/- resist fire/cold/acid/electric, +4 Str, +4 Con, Immunity: Knockdown, Immunity: Mind-Affecting, etc, etc.

And you could wear that at first level

Im not having problems at all. Resistance and damage immunity in a server where PvP plays a large roll is plain wrong, I noticed this and anyone used to PvP will agree, most of the people that dont agree with me and replied had an excuse such as that i can switch weapons, use power attack, or even play a bloody cleric just so I can use buffs to hit harder. It puts a fighter at a major drawback(to say the least) to use a different weapon then the one hes chosen to focus in, its like putting spell immunity on items and then saying the mage should try hitting the fighter with his staff to see if he can hurt him. "If you cant beat em, join em" is what ruins fun, if you could only play a cleric, would you be playing NWN? Maybe if your one those unoriginal PGers that dont really care as long as they can win, but I for one, would not have. This is PvP, some classes are stronger then another, the people that think that a fighter should be exactly as strong as a caster(Which, for some reason, many people seem to mistake me for) aint the types I agree with. But the items now are making the weaker classes even weaker(Fighter-based classes), and the stronger classes even stronger(casters). Is that really neccisary? No it isnt, I have also thought about how anyone in his right mind would put resistances and immunities on the items the way they are now. So far the most logical explaination to me seems that he was smoking some good stuff.

and no Im not pissed off because im getting owned all the time and that Im a little kid that cant take a loss(Why the hell would I be playing a bard then anyway?) and most of the mages Ive seen so far cant tell the difference between fireball and burning hands, there was 1 smart enough(yes amazing, 1!!!!) to cast dominate person on me, and its edited for extra shitz n giggles(really it was hilarious, instead of dazed I auto joined his party and became his pet, LOL). Anyway back on topic, Im not saying there is no way except for divine intervention, or a meteor crashing on top of the caster, or anything similar that a fighter needs to beat a caster, the problem is the situation needed. Any skilled mage will beat any fighter, at any time, the only exception is when a 3rd party is involved, such as the caster running from a bunch of grizzly bears at near death and then the fighter kills him. If a mage is resting and has decent gear, and isnt a total newbie, then he aint gonna die cause a big fat half orc just happens to pass by. Why? Because the caster will probably have enough AC to avoid a nice amount of hits(not alot before level 21, because of the low AC bonusses on items) and apart from that hes resisting most of the damage, if he has no spells, then he can take the most tactical approach currently available: Run. If the caster is a newbie however, and has 100 hp at lvl 20...Then yea, my 5 damage has just been tripled as Im used to fighting mages with 300 HP at lvl 20, and he aint gonna stand up fast enough cause it takes me 5 crits and hes dead(and those 5 crits come by fast), if he had 300 hp however....I would need 15 crits, and i can probably pull off like 7 before hes ready and awake. And thats when hes resting, when hes buffed up I have no chance. Without these immunity and resistances, I would only need around 8-9 crits, which means hes still alive after standing up, but at near death instead of injured.

Thanos · Post by **Thanos** » Sat May 01, 2004 3:18 pm

I don't think fighter or monks are weaker than wiz/sorc. I see so many Okies running around and a bunch of them are fighter or rogues. They seem to be kicking plenty of [censored].

Reaver · Post by **Reaver** » Sat May 01, 2004 3:41 pm

ToxicOkie wrote:ima level 16 tank and i cant hurt axons character cause his robes soak so much, whats that say?

Doesn't sound like this okie is having much fun...

Thanos · Post by **Thanos** » Sat May 01, 2004 3:50 pm

Axon is also like 20+ level. Fighting any class 4+ levels higher than you is no fun. Axon killed my mage in like 1 sec. She came up to me and demanded I pay her tribute. So I attacked her. She was so high level I had no chance. I hit Axon with a couple spells and they had no effect. THen she killed me with a finger of death. When she came to our server she was 100% prepared to fight us. I was in leveling mode. She had the advantage, she had all her buffs on and ready for battle. I don't know his situation but if she came apon him while he was leveling she would probably beat anyone.

Chimaira · Post by **Chimaira** » Sun May 02, 2004 10:13 am

Thanos wrote:Axon is also like 20+ level. Fighting any class 4+ levels higher than you is no fun. Axon killed my mage in like 1 sec. She came up to me and demanded I pay her tribute. So I attacked her. She was so high level I had no chance. I hit Axon with a couple spells and they had no effect. THen she killed me with a finger of death. When she came to our server she was 100% prepared to fight us. I was in leveling mode. She had the advantage, she had all her buffs on and ready for battle. I don't know his situation but if she came apon him while he was leveling she would probably beat anyone.

You were level 8, the okies level 16.
The okie wouldnt stand a chance even if axon was level 16. Why? No not because axon is so damn good, the only reason is because hes a mage. His fighter couldnt even kill my summon. Why? No not because Im so damn good, the only reason is that Im a mage.

dond · Post by **dond** » Sun May 02, 2004 4:37 pm

uh, axon was close to lvl 23 or so when she fought that okie.

he's lvl 16

she's also has a paladin level. hehe discipline points there

to compare 1 on 1 fights is not something for this mod

it's PW action, not arena. pvp is an added faction based element, not the sole purpose of the mod. if you're looking for that kind of play style, then go play PW Arena.

so many of the areas are so much more fleshed out that in ns3. with quests coming in, and even more depth to gameplay coming (synergy tactics!), dumbing the mod down to just 1 on 1 pvp combat is idiotic.

HexxDaMillian · Post by **HexxDaMillian** » Sun May 02, 2004 8:43 pm

this is funny, you think weapons are overpowered. did you play ns3? some wepons for a fighter i was in ns3 my character would deal over 50 points normal dmg onany given hit.

shoot ive seen some people Dev.Crit for over 250 point of dmg.

my NS4 lvl 15 fighter has had a max crit of 69 and normaly does dmg between 5-25 points ona normal hit.

so no there is no way NS4 weapons are overpowered.

Gil-Este · Post by **Gil-Este** » Mon May 03, 2004 12:27 am

overpowering is all in relation to the mobs. 20 points of damage per round against something with 200 hit points is just as powerful as 1000 points of damage per round against something with 10000 hit points. its all relative. not saying ns4 is necessarily overpowered, but any damage figure is unimportant in and of itself, it needs to be looked at in comparison to monster and player hitpoints and resists.

Æ · Post by Æ » Mon May 03, 2004 7:26 am

I think the immunities and resistances should be completely removed from all mage armor and reserved for meleers, let the casters use their million spells for defense and let the fighters have the defenses they need for tanking

Psycho Dordt · Post by **Psycho Dordt** » Mon May 03, 2004 8:16 am

i think one of the bigg probs thus:

my lvl 17 cleric in knoll boss gear has slashing 10/- and 40% slash immume

LA guards cant dmg her unless they critt, and than they critt for like 8 dmg so my stoneskinn saves me. Would guards and PC's carry weapons of different types than some DMG would come true, IMP Power attack adds 10 p[oints of DMG, but with 40% immuem you sacrafice 10 AB(needed againsta tank) for 6 dmg.......