Dyson wrote:Most likely it's that you are either too low or too high for the person to party with you. I'm not sure of the numbers but XP penalties get really horrendous when you are more than 2 or 3 levels away.
right, so that kinda makes people not want to party. i can understand that. but wasnt the addition of the synergy script to encourage partying? and why are higher levels camping out the lowbie hunting areas anyway? im sure a level 6+ has nothing to gain by fighting rats.
Dyson wrote:Most likely it's that you are either too low or too high for the person to party with you. I'm not sure of the numbers but XP penalties get really horrendous when you are more than 2 or 3 levels away.
right, so that kinda makes people not want to party. i can understand that. but wasnt the addition of the synergy script to encourage partying? and why are higher levels camping out the lowbie hunting areas anyway? im sure a level 6+ has nothing to gain by fighting rats.
Yeah, at level 6 you don't get *anything* for rat-hunting.
It's funny. I'm a Party animal, and I sure haven't had any trouble getting together parties in the NC. Most of the time, if someone else is hunting in my area, I invite them, and unless they are about to log out, they're more than happy to join.
I can see some nasty SOB enemy high-level camping low-level spawn areas to knock off newbies, but there's no benefit at all for someone 6 or higher sitting in a rat area except sheer boredom.
One thing that people don't seem to realize is that some of us (especially us goth freaks lol) just don't want to socialize sometimes and just want to be alone to do things our way. I'm not saying I don't party or make friends, in fact i still have alot of my old friends here from my year and a half in NS3 (and I prefer to party with them and other member of my guild when they're on). But sometimes I don't even want to be bothered by my best friend, or my wife... Sometimes I want to be just left alone, and people shouldn't take that personally or as in insult, it's just the mood i'm in. All my friends know that i'm like this, sometimes I'm open and sociable, sometimes i want to withdraw and keep to myself because I'm too cool for everyone else (lol j/k), and they just accept it (ex:"oh he's in the studio again, haven't heard from him in a week, he'll call when he's done") }: )
Another reason i sometimes like to solo is that i get tired of people who don't have the patience I have getting me killed. When I solo I do everything carefully and strategically, doing whatever I can to lead ememies away from groups, split them up, lead them into choke points like corridors, bridges/walkways, and doorways, to take them one at a time. I find alot of players don't bother with any of this and take a more cavalier approach, just charging in and getting surrounded and hacking away, at which point victory becomes a matter of whether you you can heal faster than you get damaged, and this kind of playing often gets the whole party killed. And being a patient person and an artistic perfectionist in everything I do, I don't always have the patience for impatience or for disordered, chaotic lack of thought.
I'm happy to party with most of you, but some of you need to just be cool and understand when I don't want to be bothered.... Maybe that guy you see soloing has something going on in his life, he's in a bad mood, and is simply trying to forget everything for a while and release some aggression on imaginary monsters... Maybe it's 4 am where that guy is and he's too tired to socialize or have a conversation..... Maybe I'm on the phone doing business while my character fights with the speakers muted on my computer }: )
I do think summons are a bit overpowered, both vs npcs and vs pcs. Mages also have a definite advantage in that they can deal high amounts of damage quickly, have eith easy access to haste (wiz/sorc) or high healing (cler/dru) and both get lots of buffs.
Melee warriors range greatly in terms of damage. Clearly not all are designed for combatting mages, such as a half-ling dex-based kukri fighter which prefers ac over damage. 1d6 + 1d8 +2 x 2 attacks with a chance to miss is still no match for a summon with that or close to that damage combined with spells.
As far as HP, I've made plenty of gnomish sorcs with 14, yes 14 hp per level. Pre-hotu i often made a sorc with 20 con and 17 cha to start and toughness. Many melee warriors, especially weaponmaster-bound ones, tend to use their attribute points so broadly or extremely that they sacrifice con: 18str, 13dex, 13int, 12con WITH toughness on barbarian or dwarven defender will only MATCH that. And while my 14hp/level mage is possibly extreme, i'm making a valid point that mages can have plenty of hp. Considering con helps conc checks, im surprised so many mages have it so low.
Overall I think melee warrior have it very difficult up to the early teens, where it MAY become easier due to having more attacks and many more feats. I don't see when it would be hard for mages, except possibly level 1 and 2. Maybe the armors with slashing/bludgeoning/piercing resist should have a small resist to elements, or a very small immunity to several. Maybe they could give a bonus to saves vs spells. I don't think I can come up with a good solution, but the problem is evident to me so im giving input.
Vile
There are 10 kinds of people in this world, those who know binary and those who don't.
Okay, since the time when i originally posted this forum i hvae been quite engaged by the ideas that have been flowing though this forum. I think there is adequate discussion on a broad range of issues and I welcome the civility people have shown one another. As time has passed and I have journeyed out into NS4 more i have somewhat changed my stance. I no longer believe that the 7-9 level items are an issues, WHY you might ask? Well it is simple and alexia and sep explained this to me. If you have a fighter vs a soc at lvl 9 the soc is only going to be able to fire off one spell. The fighter will get 2 attacks and will do about the same amount of damage as the soc. It is all even but it seems to be uneven, my explanation for this is that enemies in NS4 are resistant to the types of weapons that fighting classes receive and are not resistant to spells. Thus the issue is not really weapons or low vs. no magic. The issue is the type of defense beig afforded to creatures which negate certain types of attack damage.
So what do we do about the mobs being able to resist damage. My answer is that we shouldn't do a thing. I think that realistically a fighter wouldnt ask their opponent to change their tactics so that he can fight better. That is just nonsense. The fighter would have to be prepared and would have to have done enough research against his enemy to have prepared correctly in order to fight against his/her foe.
Additionally, i think that there should be a little bit of a bigger incentive to want to join parties but that is on another thread. ^_^
As per making spell casting limits that damage int or con. That is just silly. I think that if you want to play a mage a character should reap the benefits of the class. I would never ask the devs to make it so that the mages can't be as powerful, i consider that to be petty whining in order to get a competitive edge. besides, messing with basic game dynamics isnt really that fun and is not a solution which solves the problem's roots but instead superficially claims to solve the issue. I think that mages right now are powerful, tough, learn to either A) not encounter mages by runing like you would in the PnP version of the game or B) research your enemy and put a lot of thought as to how you want to be playing your character in the future of the game and try to imagine what types of monsters you will fight in the begining, mid, and end game. If that doesn't work then C) don't be so attatched to these characters, they are just for testing purposes only, they will surely be deleted. Just try to find as many issues as possible and use each example that you see wrong with NS4 and try to figure out a way to positively approach the issue and present it to the Devs, Mods or whoever is listening.
My last thoughts on the matter:
The weapons set is equalled with the amount of damage that a mage/sorc (spellcater) could cast when all attacks are acounted for. Thus, it is not the weapons that need tweaking but better character tactics. LIke Alexia and Sep stated before, knocking down a mage really makes that mage inefficient. Additionally, if the weapons and spell damage is equal at the end of the day the only thing making a real difference is that armor is soaking most of hte damage that a fighting class can deal out. Note that most armor is resistant to some type of attack. But no armor at the begining is resistant to magic attacks. (I am not saying that this is a bad thing but this is the reason why it seems that fighting classes are having a hard time). Maybe the Devs should make it so that mobs dont get protection against certain types of attacks. Just a suggestion. Lastly, the system is okay, and i think that an easy way to solve the problem is to just provide larger incentives for people to party up together. Not necessarily force them to party, but to provide better bonuses for fighting with one another. Imagine a barb, monk, ranger group fighting a Sorc, Pale master, Dragon Disciple. It may not be fair but so what it would be fun to see these types of tactics in a game.
This is my actual last point: People, NS4 is a great game but we shouldn't get so attatched to our characters. Maybe we should create a test character to get a feel for the game and then create a character that we really enjoy because we took the time to research the game.
My two cents, and thanks for the discussion everybody
can't have a sorc/pale master/red dragon disciple in NS4, Pale master is restricted to MA and RDD is restricted to AO, and a character can't join both }: )
Æ wrote:but some of you need to just be cool and understand when I don't want to be bothered.... Maybe that guy you see soloing has something going on in his life, he's in a bad mood, and is simply trying to forget everything for a while and release some aggression on imaginary monsters... Maybe it's 4 am where that guy is and he's too tired to socialize or have a conversation..... Maybe I'm on the phone doing business while my character fights with the speakers muted on my computer }: )
Thats about how I feel about it.
in addition:
Too bad we cannot come up with things like a mirror on a stick to see around corners... hmm. Oh, thats right. This game has 'zones' where monsters appear. So I don't see how that could be implemented.
Mumoogaipan, thats one big azz post as killingsheep would say.
What tactics does using death magic on each mob you encounter require? To switch to hold spells when they just happen to have death immunity? How about you make every single mob 50% immune to magical/fire/cold/acid/electrical and 10/- resistant to magical/fire/cold/acid/electrical and immune to mind/death magic? I dont think a mage would like that and I would be an idiot if I said that its good to encourage them to party with a tank that way. Well now that same is being done to fighters. And Im just as against changing game mechanics just to balance classes or reflect PnP more, which is why I dont like all of the durations nerfed(well except disabling spells) and why anyway? To balance? Look at the items for christs sake. Editing every single buff, or putting in casting restrictions is just wasted scripting time to me while a much easier solution would have been to put some thought into how items would affect PvP and what the best way to keep some sort of balance would have been. Maybe the devs should change the mobs to non resistant isnt a solution, either they do, or do not, there is no maybe</yoda>
id like to chip in another pearl of wisdom (love that voice set):
everyones talking about fighter v mage...
what about monk v mage?
free IKD, free spell resistance starting at level 12, 1d20 base damage at level 16. at level 16 a mage on average will have around 60 HP and cant take too many monk fists in the face (with thier special attack progression, and flurry)
sneak attack rogue v. mage?
level 15 rogue doing 7d6 on a sneak. thats half the mage's HP gone at the start of the battle.
Druid w/ army v. mage?
druids get summons, empathy, and a companion. plenty of targets and attackers.
lets not develop too much tunnel vision while trying to tweak the classes. i have seen the spell durations and damage already reduced, and its accomplishing its mission of making me not want to play casters anymore.
Yeah great all those classes have a chance against mages, but fighters only have the same chance if we have gear which grants us powers comparable to those other classes' defences, and we aren't being provided with that and are being left as the absolutely weakest class..... again i should not have to change classes to compete or even survive, the mod should be balanced so all classes have a relatively equal chance in this war.... and everyone has a chance to have fun playing whatever class most appeals to them. For instance, I don't want to play a mage, because they bore me, even though in the current state of the mod they dominate anyone without spells... I may make a cleric, as I always have fun with them, but not as my first character, and i'm certainly not making more than maybe two characters for a beta test and have all that effort wasted when the server is whiped
Æ wrote:Yeah great all those classes have a chance against mages, but fighters only have the same chance if we have gear which grants us powers comparable to those other classes' defences, and we aren't being provided with that and are being left as the absolutely weakest class..... again i should not have to change classes to compete or even survive, the mod should be balanced so all classes have a relatively equal chance in this war.... and everyone has a chance to have fun playing whatever class most appeals to them. For instance, I don't want to play a mage, because they bore me, even though in the current state of the mod they dominate anyone without spells... I may make a cleric, as I always have fun with them, but not as my first character, and i'm certainly not making more than maybe two characters for a beta test and have all that effort wasted when the server is whiped
well, it comes down to rock-paper-scissors. one character is not going to be optimal in all situations. and if youre asking for an overhaul of the items, thats also going to change the balance of clerics, paladins, etc.
Last edited by sep caldessian on Tue May 04, 2004 10:02 am, edited 1 time in total.
My mage has 159 HP.
woot thats considering I dont use endurance since im too lazy to use heal kits before resting, and altho exploding when u wanna take a nap is funny, alot of nasty bugs exist with it and Id rather not get a respawn penalty while I normally wouldnt if I just got killed by a PC. A rogue cant damage me even on a sneak, he will pretty much screw me up if I dont have SS up because of str decrease(even so I just become vulnerable to being overwhelmed by other casters, rather then the rogue), once I know where he is he can HiPS all he wants because *evil grin* once I get the summon, Ill just pop down a gate.
A lvl 16 monk has an amazing 26 SR, my caster lvls towards spell penetration is 16(caster lvls) +4, the monk has a 30% chance of resisting the spell. He cant damage me when I got my buffs on, and he wont do any decent damage when unbuffed, while I got all the time in the world to FoD, or just order my summon to chop him apart. So far it took a cleric dispelling and spamming CL and a monk spam KDing(and the monk didnt do damage..)to kill me, why? because the monk wasnt hostile(so half my spells, including FoD, didnt work) and when I said attack nearest the bloody celestial went after an effy THAT WAS ACTUALLY FURTHER AWAY THEN THE CLERIC(just so everyone reads that part) so I was screwed to say the least by my weakling disc and AC, aswell as the artificial stupidity that is the summon surrounded by 6 effies. Later however, when mages get epic levels that will change, and the imbalance will only be worse then.
i'm not saying that i want an all purpose character, or an optimal one, i'm just saying that each class should have a fairly equal chance of survival in this world... as it is, fighters dont' stand a chance against, well against really anyone of any other class of equal level, and it takes forever to even kill another fighter.
Just being a fighter has become so totally boring because of the current state of things and I'm tired of losing every encounter with a hostile player and being sent back to the bind point... it gets very annoying. And don't tell me I don't know how to make a strong character, because I've had one of the best characters on every server I've ever seriously played on, I know what I'm doing... My character's fine, just his gear sucks for circumstances in NS4
Oh, and chim, if you issue the "defend me" command instead of the "attack" comman, the summon will attack whichever enemy is attacking you... if you say "attack" it will usually attack whtever is closest to IT, not you (and sometimes it even wanders off after something far away for no reason lol)
Actually, if monk takes every single spell resistance feat. He would stand a chance against a caster. His SR would be 70, and mage needs some luck to overcome it after mordakaining it. (Restoration removes decreased spell resistance of mordakainen, so few potions actually take care of that).
The problem is. Wiz can have 50% bulgeoning and 15/- bulgeoning.
Not even strenght based monk can go trough that. And usual dex monk can only dream to damage a mage. Ad stoneskin/premo to that and changing to kamas will have no effect.
Lol, wiz would actually bash the monk to death faster then monk killing him with fists!
