item level restrictions

[Gil-Este]

if you have 100 HP and i deal you 1d8 damage per round, on average i will kill you in a little over 22 rounds. add a +1d6 to that and it goes down to 12.5 rounds. if instead of the 1d6 i added two points of damage per round...i would kill you in 15.4 rounds.

if you have 40 HP and i deal you 1d8 damage per round (i'm using the same weapon in both scenarios) i'll kill you in just under 9 rounds. add 2 damage per round to that and now its just over 6 rounds. using a +1d6 instead of the +2 damage, you will die in just 5 rounds.

so you see, the damage we deal is all relative to the monsters we're fighting. two points of damage is always going to be two points of damage, but whether that two points is 2% of your opponent's HP total or 5% of their total (doesn't sound like such a big difference but it is) is going to effect what those two points actually equal.

in NS3 the monsters we fought had lots of HP and lots of resists. the monsters in NS4 don't, and those two points of extra damage you keep talking about go a lot further than we might expect. oh, and nah i passed calc 3 a while ago so...i'm not in calculus

[Gil-Este]

WOW. Jiro you are mean and fogey, there is no mathematical means to determine the damage ratios from NS3 to NS4. There is no hard data like in economics. The numbers you gave are aribtrary unless there is some sort of rhuric you used to get them. At which point i would like for you to show me the rubric. Either way. It would be good to have +4 dmg (2 fire and 2 sonic) at lvl 9 since that would be a magic item and would be greatly appreciated.

absolutely right, but still good to illustrate my point

[ATI]

Hahaha, okay fine....but 15.4 rounds....so..... That just tells me that at higher lvls I kill Cr 4.0 monsters faster....isn't the way its supposed to work? As it is right know im lvl 7 And i kill monsters just as fast as I did at lvl 2.....hmm, something reminds me of lvling up...OH YEAH im supposed to get better when I lvl up! I wonder what happened there cause someone fell asleep at the switch. Okay, actually I do kill CR 4 monsters faster than lvl 2, god that would suck if i didn't. But still as you get higher in level shouldn't you also kill monsters quicker that are below your CR? And if CR 9 monsters can't take 2 fire damage and 2 acid that means that monster better run cause I'm dealing 4 more damage a turn to it. However, the chances are that lvl 9 monsters are prepared to fight a lvl 9 character, so they can handle the piddly amount of extra damage.

Even though you math is right, its hard to be alive when your logic is SO wrong

[mumoogaipan]

well that does make sense about the math thing. And generally i think the ILR is good. But it seems that there are no intermediary weapons between level 5-9. And the thing is fogey, characters are supposed to be rewarded with better items for level progression. I am not advocating crazy weapons. But weapons which makes fighting classes as a general whole better. I dont know what those items look like. But maybe gear for magic users should be toned down. I dunno. But i think there should be something to help out fighters besides partying. Because partying decreases xp

[Revenge]

i think his point was that the monsters generally have less hp and less buffs now, so an extra 2 damage actually makes a difference.

[Æ]

The DMs can remove the item restrictions without changing the items themselves at all... I just think that they shoudl be removed so that when you're level 13 character struggles for an hour and uses all his supplies to kill one monster that's far above his level so he can get some high level item, he can use his rewards immediately since he earned it the really hard way rather than getting it later when it was easier and not so special... getting that item at lower level makes it a prized posession the character clings too, in fact it becomes part of the character's personality...
(Consider this: at level 7--you go on a personal quest with a bag full of healing kits to struggle through a long and gruling battle taking down one tree smasher at low level and claim your prize, his most powerful staff raising it triumphantly and stumbling home to buy more heals, leaning on the prized weapon which would see you faithfully through your next 6 to 8 levels of adventuring [this is actually character development]....... Now consider this: at level 13-- you run up the mountain, kill some tree smashers, loot them and sell their staves for gold [who really uses staff unless it's just the best thing they found so far?]..... What's more interesting? or more fun?)

Furthermore, when we're all level 40 and making our second characters, we should be able to give them good stuff and have it be easier the second time around... it's only fun when it's a struggle--the first time-- the second time it's just needless tedium taking time out of all our real lives.

I don't think they should power up the items as i see how it would unbalance this new mod, but I think we should be able to use what we earn at any level

[TastyTreat]

There is always the option of a compromise where the ILRs would be more lenient. This would allow people to use items they worked hard to get but at the same time avoid the abnoxious abuse of giving uber items to new level one characters.

[Revenge]

How about allowing characters to use any item that is 5 lvls higher than them, but any equipped that are over your level are dropped on death. If all players then leave the area to respawn the items are gone for good, if you got PK'd then your killer just got a nice item or 10...

However players can easily guard themselves against such losses by sticking to their level. This means those who want to play it safe get it no different than it is now, and those that want to take a risk can do so at their own peril.

The only problem I see here is people unequiping everything before they die, but there are always ways to script around those sorts of problems.

[Keish14]

I said is elsewhere and I'll say it again, the mid range fighters are really gettting hurt by the ILRs. We get crap weapons and can't get any xp (can't do enough dmg solo, and get no xp in parties) while mages run around with their good dmg spells and can get xp through those levels without nearly as much trouble. It's just too hard to play a fighter through the mid range levels.

[Æ]

Yep

Indeed

Amen

Halleluja

[ATI]

Thats my argument...and the only way to solve that problem is to either make ILR's more lenient.... or to give more exp for partying with other players. IF you can group with 4 people and make at least the same amount of EXP you would from soloing, people wouldn't be complaining about ILR's.

The dev's should give it a try and see what happens. Also synergy tactics EXP increases would serve the alternate function of increasing the amount of parties in NS4, which i thought was a goal to the NS4 team.

Just my cents

[TastyTreat]

I agree with ATI that upping the xp slightly on synergy tactics would be benifical. It would promote more grouping, this was it's original intention, as well as alleviate some of the issues with ILRs.

[DeputyDog]

Good feedback.. Keep it coming

We had thoughts about mercenary npcs for hire perhaps to help melee types solo?

But I like the idea of upping the synergy bonus for parties.. I think its too low right now as well.

[Thanos]

Good feedback.. Keep it coming

We had thoughts about mercenary npcs for hire perhaps to help melee types solo?

But I like the idea of upping the synergy bonus for parties.. I think its too low right now as well.

Once you reach level 16 it is better to solo. That maybe because no higher level zones are in the game and we are hangin out in the same location trying to level. A higher grouping bonus would fix this.

[Gil-Este]

i think the party synergy bonuses could do with a bit of a bump, but i don't think two people of the same level should get more xp each for killing one monster than either one of them would have gotten for killing it on their own. that just doesn't make sense to me. especially since a party can kill harder monsters than a solo