Rest restrictions: An effect melee/caster balancing tool

Revenge · Post by **Revenge** » Sat May 01, 2004 3:49 pm

The suggestion is simple enough, only allow people to rest once every real world hour or so. What I've seen from other servers that implement this sort of stuff is that evocation spell spammers quickly run out of spells, and then are left completely defensless for upwards of 45 minutes to anybody or anything that wants to kill them.

What happens then is that you firstly see a lot less people taking caster classes, the majority become fighters/rogues/etc (as it should be). Those who have the brains and patience to work around the system though tend to stock up heavily on buffs, and you see very few evocation spells being flung around. What then happens is that casters become highly dependant on having melee fighters that they can buff nearby, and similarly melee fighters become dependant on having mages to buff them (because if everyone else has buffs going right across the screen and you don't have any, then you're going to get owned).

Non caster types wont too care about the rest restrictions too much because the only use they have for resting is to restore charges on items and to regain hp. At low levels it's going to be a pain, but medium level and high level meleers hardly ever need to rest. Unfortunately this does have the effect of making clerics god-like, as they are both able to buff themselves and then use the buffs effectively.

So yeah, by moving the focus of spell casting from offensive damage spells to buffs, you effectively remove the melee vs caster question because suddenly meleers and casters need to work together in order to defeat other groups of meleers and casters (OGM TEAMWERK OH NOES!!)

dond · Post by **dond** » Sat May 01, 2004 4:29 pm

wtf, a real world hour?

are you nuts?

this fighter vs caster thing has gone on far too long.

you want to be immune to hold? dominate person?

be a PLANAR fighter. it's right there. check under races.

you want to be the above, and brush off most spells, gith's your race.

you want to have high saves, immune to fear and be a fighter type?
PALADIN.
kender MONK.

you want to do insane damage from afar but not cast spells?
AA.
ROGUE.

want to be a mage killer?
MONK.

stop bitching about your simple 'one build to rule all' not working nonsense, and start utilizing the system and depth that the devs put in.
you can't have it all. by focusing in one aspect, sacrifice in the other.

oh, and you want your group to absolutely, positively love your char?
CLERIC.

Revenge · Post by **Revenge** » Sat May 01, 2004 4:40 pm

Wow that's the first thing I've said on the topic, and you're already getting your knickers in a twist?

Anyway I don't want an uber char, I want an uber group. I don't want to see one caster, or one tank, or one whatever being the "best". I want to see players being encouraged to team up into groups of 3 or 4 and hunting/fighting as a team.

Who the hell buys an online RPG in order to be hunting alone most of the time anyway?

EDIT: Oh, and by the way, did you actually bother reading the rest of my post? I'm sick of evoc spammers, rest restrictions make people focus on buffing tanks instead.

dond · Post by **dond** » Sat May 01, 2004 4:43 pm

Revenge wrote:Wow that's the first thing I've said on the topic, and you're already getting your knickers in a twist?

Anyway I don't want an uber char, I want an uber group. I don't want to see one caster, or one tank, or one whatever being the "best". I want to see players being encouraged to team up into groups of 3 or 4 and hunting/fighting as a team.

Who the hell buys an online RPG in order to be hunting alone most of the time anyway?

EDIT: Oh, and by the way, did you actually bother reading the rest of my post? I'm sick of evoc spammers, rest restrictions make people focus on buffing tanks instead.

the go play under PW Roleplay.

Revenge · Post by **Revenge** » Sat May 01, 2004 4:46 pm

heh you think the difference between action and roleplay is whether you cast a spell on yourself or on somebody else? you've got a lot to learn...

PS - Joran said this in the documentation forum. Still think that PW Action means you should be playing by yourself in some little dark corner with no friends?

Our goal was to promote party-style play as opposed to having the majority of players "going solo", as well as to tailor the rewards to the world of NS4, and reduce or eliminated possible XP exploits such as "power-levelling".

dond · Post by **dond** » Sat May 01, 2004 5:00 pm

ya know, maybe you haven't really played ns4?
dark corner with no friends? maybe you SHOULD play ns4.

who doesn't group?!

there's so much interaction in the mod. the faction system introduces you to a sect of people who have your (intial) similar interests.

the portal system allows you to come across tons of different people, and you can always find someone to group with. i've been adventuring with 2 other mages from MA since beta opened. we scribe spells for each other, and clear out dungeons (and die

as a group)

synergy bonus is very sweet in giving out xp. (and i can't wait for the synergy tactics to come in)

again, what mod are you playing where people do not group?
because it isn't this one.

Revenge · Post by **Revenge** » Sat May 01, 2004 5:06 pm

My "who plays alone?" comments were in response to all the people whining here on the forums that they can't kill spell casters 1 on 1.

I've played ns4 for about 3 or 4 hours total now, and yes I have been in groups for most of it, but I didn't know if that was the norm or not. From the way people were talking here it sounded like people stopped grouping all that much once they got self sufficient, kinda like it happened in ns3.

EvilIguana966 · Post by **EvilIguana966** » Sat May 01, 2004 5:58 pm

Rest restrictions are a very bad thing. An hour would be ludicrous. It's so easy to break/interupt rest, and if you don't wanna rest all you have to do is exit the game. The only effective way to limit resting is to make some areas simply not restable in, leaving specific rooms or camps that are "safe". It still detracts from the action atmosphere that is NS.

JesterOI · Post by **JesterOI** » Sat May 01, 2004 6:12 pm

It would add realism to have a rest period restriction, but one real hour would be way too much.
I'm not sure what would be appropriate if this were to happen, but more than 30 minutes would be wrong.
What would be appropriate would probably be putting a timer in place that counts up to 24 game hours before that specific slot is available again after casting.

As for those ppl who think adding a time period between rests is abhorrent, SCRIBE A SCROLL DUMBASS!!! That is possible now. Or is that too much work for yer lazy [censored]???!!!

I'm all for adding a time period between rests, I personally think it would help balance out the classes, and would require some actual real thought by the people playing those classes other than evocation spam.

But if the time period is added, plz return Summon # to it's normal 24 game hours length, same with the length of all the other spells.

In fact the rest period restriction would affect fighters too in that they would have to wait for poison effects to run their course rather than resting right away and making those effects disappear right away after battle.

Besides I think we have the support of the item vendors of Neversummer, adding this rest restriction will increase sales of potions and health kits!!!
YEH PROFIT!!! IT'S THE AMERICAN WAY!!!

Throst54 · Post by **Throst54** » Sat May 01, 2004 6:15 pm

rest restictions wouldnt be too bad, but an hour is insane....

five minutes on the other hand, would be fine... infact... if they are applied to casting classes they shoudl also be aplied to 'tank" classes as well.

most people dont play for an our anyways....
alot of people get on and are only able to play for an hour or so...

and, everyone buff's thier tanks.. adn themselves...

most people do both! holy crap! what a concept!

JesterOI · Post by **JesterOI** » Sat May 01, 2004 6:17 pm

Throst54 wrote:rest restictions wouldnt be too bad, but an hour is insane....

five minutes on the other hand, would be fine... infact... if they are applied to casting classes they shoudl also be aplied to 'tank" classes as well.

most people dont play for an our anyways....
alot of people get on and are only able to play for an hour or so...

and, everyone buff's thier tanks.. adn themselves...

most people do both! holy crap! what a concept!

Don't forget the ability to scribe scrolls now and have spells available to you for the inbetween times!

JesterOI · Post by **JesterOI** » Sat May 01, 2004 6:18 pm

bump

JesterOI wrote:It would add realism to have a rest period restriction, but one real hour would be way too much.
I'm not sure what would be appropriate if this were to happen, but more than 30 minutes would be wrong.
What would be appropriate would probably be putting a timer in place that counts up to 24 game hours before that specific slot is available again after casting.

As for those ppl who think adding a time period between rests is abhorrent, SCRIBE A SCROLL DUMBASS!!! That is possible now. Or is that too much work for yer lazy [censored]???!!!

I'm all for adding a time period between rests, I personally think it would help balance out the classes, and would require some actual real thought by the people playing those classes other than evocation spam.

But if the time period is added, plz return Summon # to it's normal 24 game hours length, same with the length of all the other spells.

In fact the rest period restriction would affect fighters too in that they would have to wait for poison effects to run their course rather than resting right away and making those effects disappear right away after battle.

Besides I think we have the support of the item vendors of Neversummer, adding this rest restriction will increase sales of potions and health kits!!!
YEH PROFIT!!! IT'S THE AMERICAN WAY!!!

Revenge · Post by **Revenge** » Sat May 01, 2004 7:52 pm

Yeah an hour is a bit much now that I think about it, but 5 minutes is too short.

I'd suggest atleast 15 minutes if it's going to deter evoc spam.

Knightwing4 · Post by **Knightwing4** » Sat May 01, 2004 10:05 pm

Guys, go play mages, i don't see many of you "GIVE MAGE REST PENALTIES" playing as mages, DYK the current penalties mages have? And what is this evocation spamming you're talking of? Are you saying that mages are casting their fireballs, quickly resting in the blink of an eye? No, we have a roughly a minute rest penalty as it is waiting for your char to "rest from exerting themselves" and finally the resting. Oh and configuring the billions of spells you have, casting all of them (another half a minute because haste no longers allows extra spells).

BTW, what faction are you talking bout revenge? I rarely see any mages whatsoever (and i travel servers often), unless you're referring to the MA, in which you'd be a newb, but neways, even on MA i get teamwork 24/7 from melees, other casters etc.

And for the billionth time wtf is an evoc spammer? Is that a person who uses evocation spells? like a person who uses Knockdown? or rapid shot? are there rapid shot spammers? what about....

BTW, who buys games where all you do as a mage is be a personal servant to a melee.

a last btw, Jester, go spend 500 xp for 10 lvl 5 scrolls and get back to me, oh wait that's just waiting for one rest... looks like you aren't gonna lvl anytimes soon.

Seriously guys go play a mage instead of whining about how much they rule you, i have 20 builds off the top of my head that aren't even mage-killers that could defeat your dreaded "evoc spammers of doom" casters that you died to in the 3-4 hours you played

Post by **Lokey** » Sat May 01, 2004 10:20 pm

Sometimes that 30 second combat flag feels like forever too

Introducing a real time element to game time isn't the way to approach the problem.