Long Term Goals for an Evolving Neversummer IV

[Glory07]

"For every 4 hour reset period, the first hour could be PvP focused. It would be impossible to join parties across factions during this period. Planar areas could be made inaccessible. PvP for relics and simply the fun of killing each other would be the focus. XP could be given for PKs instead of killing monsters."



Bad idea. Wouldn't be able to have a party run of mixed factions extend after resets.

Also, many times we have an opportunity to play only an hour or two, what we will be doing would depend on the reset schedule. "Give me Liberty, or give me death!"

[Bargeld]

PvP
-All factions should have 'outposts', and these outposts should be able to be taken over by a rival faction and 'owned' by them for purposes of respawning (bind points) etc. - This could also be tied into bonus XP for holding enemy outpost

I like this idea

[Celorn]

-Relics: possibly have relics 'lock-in' to the cradle for a certain period of time, so that the reward for capturing them is some un-interrupted leveling time.

This, I think, would be the single best way to improve and clarify the role of PvP on this server, while also allowing for fun leveling across factions.

For every 4 hour reset period, the first hour could be PvP focused. It would be impossible to join parties across factions during this period. Planar areas could be made inaccessible. PvP for relics and simply the fun of killing each other would be the focus. XP could be given for PKs instead of killing monsters.

During the last 3 hours before reset relics would lock in place, porting to party leader would be enabled somehow and the focus would be on leveling and gear runs.

The veterans with lots of 40s would probably rather see more time dedicated to PvP, but recruiting and retaining new players is becoming more important as NWN ages and the total player base declines.

Like the others have said, this would be no good.

First, scripting something like that would be a true nightmare and it would take away freedom rather than grant freedom.

The nice thing about NS4 is that it is very free, you can PK if you want, you can PvE and run away from PvP, you can solo or group up, you can farm, dual-log farm, pickpocket, compete for areas on the map etc...

Ever since the relic game was introduced, the entire server has gravitated more and more around the relics which has definitely increased the PvP on the server but it has also widened the gap between casual players and regular players due to needing to push the build envelope higher and higher, heavily using books and even insane ECL3 20 level de-leveling to accomplish builds that would otherwise be weak or impossible to make.

But the last thing I'd like to see is enforced pvp or areas being blocked off, or the need to have complex scripting causing lag and script errors, or DMs having to constantly police it all.

---
TO clairify my idea: It would likely require ALL relics to be captured into a single cradle, and when the final relic is put in, the counter would go for say.. an hour, or some number of IN-game-time hours/days. The point in this would be to give everyone a break from RELIC-PvP to focus on other things for some time, no other scripting would be needed.

I remember the days when people would steal one relic as soon as the defending faction captured them all and started their planar parties and run around with it for an hour just to waste their time. Sure, this in itself was fun (I did it myself on occasion out of spite) but does that kind of gameplay really increase overall satisfaction of the player base or decrease it? This kind of CTF nonsense used to happen in some of WoW's battlegrounds also, SO often that they had to put a time limit on the game to prevent marathon stalemate games that were for most people, not very fun.

[trickovthlyte]

one must ask one self "how do we get more ppl here and keep them here?" That is the question

Willow has posed The Question of Our Time!
I propose to answer The Question immediately because we may not have the luxury of finding the answer as a long term goal. I propose we proceed as though we have eternity at our disposal but do it quick!

[Monkey]

Bad idea. Wouldn't be able to have a party run of mixed factions extend after resets.

Also, many times we have an opportunity to play only an hour or two, what we will be doing would depend on the reset schedule. "Give me Liberty, or give me death!"

There aren't enough people to party with when you want to level with when you want a good leveling party.
There aren't enough people to fight with and against when you want good PvP.

Structuring the server into leveling times and PvP times would fix those any many other problems and make both leveling and PvP more fun for all. Why people can't understand that is beyond me. The inability of players and developers to take a long term view toward improving the server is causing the slow, steady demise of the server.

[mining]

Structure is just a bad idea - if you want to start organised levelling, make a thread for it - I'm sure people would love to have a good chance to level as a group, especially through 30-40.

The thing is, if I want to pvp, and the pvp is locked? I'm just not going to play. If I want to pvm (level or kill epic things), I'll be damned if I care about the relics.

Anyway, a brief note on what's on the way:

• Neat planar area. Bring your big party of 40s and contemplate whether or not you have enough XP/gold to pay for the respawn.
• Some druid stuff that should be pretty blah but actually make casters usable.
• XP for PVP. Lowbie pvp is cool, and this may well encourage it. (note: not enabled out of the box )
• Some nebulous stuff floating around to do with shapechange.

[frogofpeace]

XP for PvP is a great idea. Something like your current scaleshould work great - good reward for winning a fair fight, no reward for lowbie killing (which should be it's own reward).

[Lokey]

Well Shapechange and pvp xp are still in the what and how are we going to do things stage. So, hey how about input on that
Note from mining: Thats what you think

Oh yah, I'm supposed to be making areas.

Well, to clear some things up.

The reasons we didn't hak are mostly fixed, there's still some minor problems but it's not the exploit-fest it was. There's of course a number of ways to make them user-friendly-ish, idiot-proof is probably asking too much. Then of course there's millions of things that can be done, the problem being no one really has the time or interest to do them.

NS is there, make of it what you want, within the bounds of not pissing too hard in anyone's cereal repeatedly. As long as someone is willing to host it'll be there, as long as there's someone willing to dev there's a chance things could be cooler.

[Monkey]

Well Shapechange and pvp xp are still in the what and how are we going to do things stage. So, hey how about input on that

Shapechange currently useful for:
Dragon Breath weapon when you need to damage something with fire
Dragon/Balor/Giant when you're on fire and need immunity

Those benefits may be overpowered and prone to exploit. Maybe reduce the damage and immunity.
The shapes themselves aren't very good. Perhaps turn them into something stronger with Transmutation focus. Barkskin is a great druid buff elsewhere, but +5 Natural amulets are too easy to get here, making the buff irrelevant at higher levels. Perhaps provide Transmutation focus benefits for Barkskin, Mass Camouflage, Nature's Balance, Awaken & Shapechange as a way to make druids relevant.

PvP XP: Works great if there's a time for PvP and a time for leveling. Otherwise you'll be rewarding veterans for killing newbies who are trying to level their first toons and ensuring the death of the server by driving away the next generation of new recruits.

NS is there, make of it what you want, within the bounds of not pissing too hard in anyone's cereal repeatedly. As long as someone is willing to host it'll be there, as long as there's someone willing to dev there's a chance things could be cooler.

That sums things up beautifully.

[mining]

Kind of what I want out of shapechange rework:

Shapechange characters viable* and playable^, but still a gimmick - they shouldn't be overpowering pure fighters, but they should be able to hold their own, especially against similarly gimmicky builds.

*: Not full melee status, but not 'why didn't I just make a pure rogue and get on with dying' status.
^:Playable means you can play it without wishing you weren't playing said toon constantly

For PVP, lowbie pvp should actually be fun. With no buffing going on (;)) lowbie pvp is pretty balanced, and tends to resolve around player skill and specific counterplay. Maybe it'll incline players to level off the beaten track a little more too, or perhaps aggressive players will stick to it.

[Alkapwn]

The thrill of the kill has always been enough pvp incentive for me. Red=Dead, was alot more fun on full server days but still I hope when other players see our DD tags they know they're in for a fight.

Shapechange spell? or Shifted in general? Shifter forms are really well balanced now IMO got 5 under my belt and thought they were all super fun to level and got to pvp with them a bit and thought they performed beyond expectation
Shapechange spell I could see adding DR 10/8 a little sprinkle of Phys stats 50ish ceiling ,maybe have it range through with spell focuses,caster level so you wouldn't be able to cheese it out so bad.
e.g. 40 CL with all focus similar bonuses as SHifters +disc+DR+epicForm stats
18 CL as is maybe a couple stat bonuses with TransFocus
All in all keeping it Mordable would be wise

[mining]

Shapechange specifically, balancewise will tend towards the less potent than the 'haha, did that guy just kill 5 enemies in straight up pvp?' side.

[Rufio]

Based on what I've seen on irc, it seems that shapechange is going to be balanced with heavily multiclassed shapechange builds as a measuring stick. High caster level builds can benefit, but they already have a lot of effective spell options and don't need to be killer tanky meleers as well. Remember that shapechange can be dispelled, and a shapechange build is going to be more screwed by dispels than almost any other build. It would be a trade-off between cheesing out a low caster level build and being dispel bait or building in caster levels for dispel resist. I don't know specifics, but it seems the main focus is offensive and duration improvements corresponding with spell focuses (no bonuses for scroll casting hopefully).

I'm pretty excited about the changes to shapechange, I want to see what sort of funky class combinations get used. It should be an interesting alternative to all the 35 caster level mages.

Regarding Monkey's concern with pvp exp:
I don't think people are going to go around hunting newbies for exp. If it is 300 exp for killing someone at your level, that isn't enough incentive to go spend an hour trying to hunt someone down in DE or something. It would still be far more efficient and faster for both parties to team up and kill monsters. On the other hand, it is incentive to raid and defend because there is much more killing happening and people won't feel like they are losing out on exp by logging to attack or defend.

[Monkey]

If there's a clueless newbie on the mountain are you going to invite him into your party, take time to show him the ropes and let him roll against you for books or are you going to just kill him for XP along with all the ogres?

One of my original suggestions for Lowbie PvP was quests that involved mini-raids or attacks on other factions. Other lowbies could defend against those and get good xp for PKs. Much higher XP for defense would be a good thing.


Heart of Winter has a PK policy that makes some sense to me because it offers protection for newbies who haven't joined factions:

"Heart of Winter is a full-PvP action server and lowbie (player ranked effortless to the killer) killing (PKing) is allowed and even encouraged between factioned players. There are no restrictions associated with PKing a player who is officially part of a faction. PKing factionless levelers is frowned upon in general, and there are rules governing how unfactioned players may be targeted for this.

PKing an unfactioned player more than once while the victim is still the same character level is illegal if the victim has moved to a new location. A location for this purpose is determined as being new if either a different monster CR or monster type can be found there, that cannot be found in the previous area the victim was PKd in. PKing rules extend to the entire faction involved; when an unfactioned leveler is killed. no one else in the associated faction may kill that leveler until the victim has levelled up (the current levels of all players can be examined through the player menu or via the "#lp" command)."

[Amoenotep]

we took the effortless<>impossible ratings out because you should know what lvl they are when you examine them