Taking Shelter

[Blystos Re]

Hey, everybody.

I can't speak for anyone else here, but things seem fairly shaky to me at the moment, as far as the game changing from day to day. I know that balancing a game as detailed as this one is hard work and about as rewarding as when your dad used to make you move that stack of cinder blocks from one side of the back 40 to the other, only to have you move them back again next weekend...you know, to build character and such...so please don't view this as a complaint.

I was (and still am) genuinely excited about the vault wipe. It gave me a renewed vigor to start over and not have half a dozen or so failed experaments, including my main character. I was excited to find new areas and changes to old ones...it was basically like Christmas, and my birthday with fireworks and a turkey dinner as far as gaming was concerned. I love it here.

That said, the prospect of building a cleric right now, or a paladin, ranger, CoT or bard, is looking like a bad idea. Build your house upon the rock, for the rock is sturdy and if you build your pally upon the nerf-sand and you will surely see it fall. My point, and yes, I do have one, is that druids and shifters are getting pruned pretty badly right now and I have heard rumblings of other classes being altered.

Then there are also the not-rumors, like the Dragon Knight summons losing their knockdown immunity, which made the summoner build I had planned a whole lot less appealing. Pure paladins lost their 1 time per day knock-you-on-your-tush a while ago, which dropped the appeal for me. There are a few of my more successful support builds from before that I just can't build in NC anymore.

Again, not complaining. But as I've got pretty limited time to play this game I prefer to keep my new builds as solid as I can, so that when I hit 21 after 3-4 weeks I don't find that class has had the strength that I was building around pulled out from under it like a cartoon oriental rug.

I don't presume to know what the devs are up to, and I certainly don't think all their intentions are "nerfarious"...that's a joke, son...but it makes me less and less sure of what's even going to be around in another few weeks. So I think I might take the same approach I'm taking with my department manager flailing about and not understanding his job - the sit back and watch approach.

I'm not leaving by any means, like I said above I love it here, but I think that I'm going to limit my time to near zero until we see Neversummer 4.1.69 come out of Beta. Until then, Ima hide in my nerf-shelter.

"Don't build a toon tonight
The dev's bound to take it's life
There's a nerf moon on the rise"

[Daltian]

HMM. First I made a shifter. After it got nerfed I made a druid. Today I made my CoT after I saw the stonehold thing. Don't tel me CoT is being nerfed?

Damn. I Should make RDD, wizard and sorc to transfer the nerf curse away from my faction.

[frogofpeace]

Well said, Blystos. I, too, have nothing but respect and gratitude for the work the staff does here; based on the current product, I have faith that the server after the current round of adjustments will be pretty special. I'm not the builder some of you guys are by any stretch of the imagination. I do like PvM levelling, kind of in the same way I like going to the driving range for a bucket of balls. That said, I'm pretty nervous about investing in anything that takes ... investment. The only toons I'm even thinking about right now are the plain vanilla, hopefully-not-fatally-flawed-but-not-gonna-be-special variety; books (the few I've found) are getting stocked, not used. Other side of the coin is, I'm doing stuff i don't know anything about (made my first wiz ever ) in areas I've never been (made my first toons in Garagoth and Menzo )

I hope that's setting the right tone of support for what you guys do and explanation for the frustration currently being voiced.

[Bargeld]

A was going to create a topic similar to this, so I might as well post here... although I do plan on playing thru the nerfageddon.

This is a serious post, not a complaint or flame, because like most players here I love everything about this server. Well, I *loved* everything about this server. This is called change. Change happens only when other change is introduced. The more change that you implement, the harder it is to deal with, especially here, on multiple levels when you have to deal with vets with high level toons and hours invested, but also for the newbie to the server who asks 'does devestating critical work here?' We used to be able to say 'go check out the wiki, because there are a lot of changes.' But that's not a viable solution anymore, for many reasons. It is also a larger barrier for them to overcome... a higher learning curve. And for the vets who are set in their ways, its a state of continual learning curve, which wears on you after a while.

What is the single most asked question while any server/software is in beta? 'When will it be done?' or in the case of traumatic, long term betas *cough* similar to now *cough* 'When will it be over?' Players don't mind change and we learn to deal, but it's not always fun. And the more drastic the change, the more people that will get PO'd and leave.

Just a short timeline/perspective from someone coming up on their 1 year anniversary on the server in a couple months:
I came and learned all the changes, I embraced them, feeling that the staff had well maintained a good balance and worked toward that balance. Linux and co. implemented small changes here and there, both nerfing and booning. The key was small changes (check out the dates and the amount of changes in the changelog) over a long period. Everyone was happy and we were all so afraid of how 1.69 would effect the gentle balance we had all come to love. Keep in mind that someone will always complain, and the best level of success can be shown by having the least amount of complainers. Things were pretty good from what I've heard about the past. So then 1.69 comes and the server is wiped. A lot of unanticipated changes came along, from the movement issues with whirlwind fix to horses and even processor usage on the server side... the list is pretty long I'm sure. About the same time, Lokey (from my perspective, an inactive dev/dm from the past) shows up and says 'hi whats up.' Then the changes started. You were ill informed regarding the state of the players, the changes or the basically the day-by-day of the server. So you began a process of change to what *you* though was balanced. Code was tossed in the trash and rewritten from scratch (which is inevitable in some cases). I can't help but point out the backwards approach at the method of balancing being used. The community has been in state X. You are coming and saying 'State Y is balanced, so I will create State Y and then adjust it back to State X'. Shouldn't you be working within the existing balance and making slow changes to fix obvious imbalances? Not only will your method cause more inherant imbalances, but by making many at once, you are unable to really see if there is any balance occurring. I mean occurring for the 40 players that are actually playing the game... not whether it has fit the 'ideal' balance which has been envisioned spontaniously.

I hope there are a bunch of non-corrupted 'Neversummer Resore Points' and that you have more than 15% disk space free, because I think a rollback is really the best solution, and maybe take a different approach. You are going to lose your playerbase if this stays like this. People had the expectation that 1.69 was a final patch and that things would require some adjustment but that the finality would carry over to the way things were implemented. Unfortunately it has been entirely the opposite... there is more change in the past 2 months than in the previous 6. And we see no light at the end of the tunnel we are in.

[Bargeld]

I just had a trailing thought... as players get mad, they give up. And any players that were/are 'bad seeds' tend to react rather viciously once they have given up. Look forward to more shouting and exploit related bans as more players become disgrunted.

[Daltian]

I wanted to say that I will embrace the changes. Play trough the whole thing too. It's just that I like to plan my chars, so when big changes happen, like the ones happening now it puts me off balance so I come to the forums to express my thoughts on the matter.
If this was commercial product I'd be very angry with so many big changes right after the wipe, but hey its just a hobby so I am crossing my fingers with hope it all continues to be as good as it was up until now.
Although I have serious doubts with some of the changes I need to say that they were made by same people that made this server so good before changes happened, so I have faith, but of course it won't stop me expressing my thoughts on the matter!

[Celorn]

Hear hear!

I do agree... this server has been keeping me interested for over 4 YEARS, but first my beloved faction is removed, and now with these JARRING major changes, I'm finding that giant "HA HA!" signs are being put up everywhere I turn.... I do LOVE the new areas and gear, and some of the class/spell/feat changes do look promising... but at the same time the instability makes me have second thoughts about investing the time into a lvl40 toon when it could come crumbling down a month later in a sudden 180 degree turn or other crazy nerf.

Maybe it's time to form a 'Players Union' and sit down with the devs to discuss future changes before they actually get implemented... lol ;]

[LinuxPup]

I can tell you that I'm pretty much done nerfing... It startled some people to remove some immunities, remove LA, and do other changes, but these are things that I think will help the server in the long run.

[--Ashe--]

I'm biding my time and waiting to see whether the nerfs are done. Not really much point in investing time in play when the character you were planning on no longer is viable or just becomes not fun to play anymore. Not making this point as a means of complaining, merely pointing out that from a standpoint of getting irritated, its just not worth putting oneself in the position to get irritated over a game.

[Brionn_Unbound]

Im also on the hold list. Not sure if i'll return at this point. I guess we will see what comes up.

[Alkapwn]

I share all your concerns.
Perhaps it was too much too fast for alot of us.
If I had an eternity to spend building and rebuilding toons it wouldnt bother me much. But the leveling here is long and ardous. A lvl 40 is hard to come by for the most part i'd say probably 100-200hrs of play depending on the toon not to mention farming of gear for said toon , defence/raiding and just muckin about. Prewipe on reflections and prime i had over 500lvls of toons and a horde of treasure and an armory that was outstanding. I love playing here obviously. All that said . I really just want to know the reasoning behind it all? The immunities i can understand. It opens up way more viable builds and interesting challenges. It hurt yes but I understand. The Shapers were Overpowered for sure. But it was great!!! Alls they needed was they're stats dropped a little bit not turned into insects!!! The only thing i ever saw that was Overpowered about a Druid was its dragonshape which I built to overcome as well. It was outstanding in PvM aswell. Was that they're worry? that a 40lvl druid could farm shadow plane solo? idk folks i just dont get it...........

[maibs]

I hear what you're saying psych, I feel kinda confused too.
I felt NS4 had a minimalist feel to it as it was, then even more was taken away, it's sort of like the server is heading toward much weaker characters, and much more (I wont say difficult) tedious player versus environment.

give not an explanation but perhaps an insight into the ideal ?
what ideal is ns4 striving for when these changes are made ?

to have all classes be worthwhile ?
to enourage group play ?
to fascillitate pvp ?
to have equality ?
to have all factions able to compete for relics in pvp ?

to make player vs environment more challenging ?
in some ways these changes make soloing very much a gamble, you can always roll a 1 on a save and find yourself flat footed and dead before the daze/stun/fear/dominate or whatever effect is over.
but it's never been easy to solo anyway.
bards have it a bit easier if they can arcane craft or have access to someone that can.

I dont want an argument or a debate, just a definition, what does ns4 strive for ?
what does it represent ?
where is it heading ?

[Korr]

I just wanna make toons to be nerfed... ';(


I agree alot with Bargeld on this one, I would much rather see a dynamic server than a static one. NS4 when I first started, and untill wipe was PRETTY static... I knew people that played so I stuck with it. Now that its much more dynamic its alot more interesting. It seems the devs are trying to make partying a more viable option for EVERYONE. I love that, I love joining other people and slaughtering other people and bending over for the high levels that drive by. . .

It seems no longer is a min/maxed toon a good idea to play... before you had a few ways to get around the horrible saves or skills or whatever downfall your toon had (from a min/max stand point). Now you have to build a toon that has a good balance for itself... it could take on 1-2 creatures in area X, but to take on any more you need a few others around to be able to pick up where you left off on saves or skills or whatever. Its the way D&D was meant to be, when you sat around your PnP games and made new toons you didnt all run in and say "im the fighter" and get anywhere. And for those sad groups that did, if you lived through the fight you spent a week resting to get all those lost HPs back. You learn to collaborate with eachother and say... "Ok we need a healer, a skills man, a tank, and a damage dealer" And you talked it through to wanted to play what, where you could lax and where you had to be strict.... In all honesty guys a party without a cleric never got very far.

Youre all complaining about spells being changed, looking at the builds on the login screen you all are lucky that they dont change something (that ive seen alot of other servers do) like : "The max skill rank of any skill possessed is total class levels of a class skill + 3, and half that for cross-class skills". I know the wording is weird but it breaks down to this. A sorcerer (35) / blackguard (5) would have a max discipline of 21, even with level 40 taken as a BG for the class-skill, because if you were just a level 5 blackguard it would be 8... but the 1/2 of 43 is 21. Spellcraft max would be 38, sorc levels + 3. This is just one easy "nerf" that I see, but I wont feed the fire any more than that!

I can also agree that there have been alot of "detrimental" (as you all put it) changes since 1.69. It would be nice to see things like "Change #65 : No more level+7 heal bonus for pure fighters and barbs" "Change #66 : Added new armor to formian slaves, which now drops".... A little give and take if you will. Take it down a notch, then add more flavor. I know those examples arent great but things like adding more armor that resist different elemental damage, or weapons that do different elemental damage, etc, etc, etc, etc. I say this because I see things like "no more mind-immunity" and then say to myself I better collect some + will saves helmets, then realize the lack of + will save helmets.


NOTE : Anyone who saw this as a complaint Im sorry. This is my constructive criticism about Neversummer 4. I like it here, and intend to play longer (but not as much with 16 credit hours starting next week in school). Im not trying to attack anyone, I am not flaming. I calls'em as I sees'em