Resting System Discussion

[Joran]

I swear I posted this exact message a while back....

We considered implementing resting restrictions for a while in closed beta. However, while testing them out we discovered that they were simply more annoying than anything. There are just way too many circumstances where you should be allowed to rest but can't due to the restrictions - after a tough boss fight, or levelling up, or switching out a spell or two...

The best thing we can do is drop the idea of having a "time limit" on resting, and look hard to see what problem exactly we'd be trying to resolve. What is wrong right now that requires some kind of resting limitation - and how else, besides a resting time limit, can we address that issue?

Splitting this post off into a new one and locking the old one - try not to cross flames over, thanks :)

[sep caldessian]

well rest restrictions are the only measure of curbing mages from blowing their spellbook, resting, moving 50 feet, repeat -- that I know of.

ns4 seems to be built with a powergaming feel to it, and rest restrictions are going to cause a lot of PGing players to either switch classes (thereby reducing number of mages) or switch servers (thereby reducing the number of mages).

the real issue about resting ( i dont consider "it slows down my game/levelling/pking/whatever" to be a valid issue), is that its easily interrupted. if one of your party members lags out, your rest gets cancelled and you have to wait for the restriction to be over. this is bad for the hardcore players and the powergamers alike.

the only suggestion i can make is to have some areas/maps flagged as no-rest. dungeons, caves, hostile faction areas, are all candidates for that. friendly outposts or camps or neutral zones should be rest ready. i havent been able to explore too much of the land so i have no idea which should be which.

[Æ]

It's no fun to play when you're a fighter, and mages, who have the same resistances and immunities as you, though they shouldn't, PLUS a thousand buffs (especially improved invis which makes you pretty much un-hit-able to low level meleers), PLUS whereas most things have physical resistances, most do not have magic resistances thereby allowing mages to do a ridiculously large amount of damage as compared to fighters. Not to mention summons, that, when buffed and invisable, are also impossible to hit, so a mage can stand there invisable while his summons rip you apart (anmd of course the average jerk random PKer doesn't even care if that makes you bug out and lose your inventory) Anyone who argues that mages DON'T have a huge advantage is just trying to keep their unfairly uber mage character. Serious restrictions need to be put on the caster classes, I don't know about rest restrictions, but they SHOULD NOT have immunites and resistances on their gear comparable to a fighter's defences. Fighters have no defense against magic, none at all, mages should not have these defenses against physical attacks, especially since they have buffs which fighters also don't have... That's always traditonally been the trade-off playing a mage in D&D, you get powerful magic, but less HP, AC, immunity and resistance -- just simply less physical toughness. I would also consider banning summons in PvP play, at least until the lose-everythng-you-have bug is fixed..... and those interested in fair play should also consider this and not summon for PvP (how would you like it if you lost everything to a bug because someone's summon came out of invisibility and proved to be unstoppable because of buffs). Alot of mages won't even wait til you're done with the monster you're fighting before they blast you, so sometimes the monster will get the last hit and you'll incur a respawn penalty (this should also be illegal like in NS3, in the interest of fair play). I'm getting rather fed up with mages abusing this unbalanced power and killing me when i'm just trying to level (there ARE NO high level places to level in LA, we have no choice but to hunt on other servers, and shouldn't always be killed for it, especially since everyone is allowed to enter our server at avendell) and if every time i go someplace to level, some ridiculously unstoppable mage is going to show up and waste all my time travelling, I'm going to get sick of playing NS4 very fast. I understand that this is a beta, but mages need work. Anyone that denies that mages have an unfair advantage is just trying to keep their mage to run around doing everythng alot more easily than everyone else and/or to grief other players, rather than keeping in mind that this is a test run and you're going to lose your character anyway when they fix all these things based on our feedback. Worry less about what gives you an advantage over others now, and try to help the developers refine the mod and balance the classes so that we can all make this a better playing world for all of us. If we're going to have a full PvP environment, there needs to be balance between the classes, and the players need to support this, not try to maintain the status quo just because it gives your caster an advantage... this is all goign to change anyway and you are GOING TO lose that character. Build up the world, not your personal power, the world will evolve and change, the characters will be deleted, then we'll all start again in a more fair and fun gaming setting. AS of now, this IS NOT fun being completely at the mercy of any caster that decides to go on a killing spree. And i shouldn't have to compete by making a caster... if i wanted to play a caster, I would have made one in the first place. Everyone should be able to play the class they have fun playing without it proving to be a weakness... If thing's continue as they are, more and more people will gradually get fed up and make mages then eventually this "low magic" world will be full of spell casters with hellballs exploding left and right and everyone surrounded by an epic wards and spell mantles... that would not be low magic, would not be interesting or varied, and would not be fun

[powerferret]

im pretty sure fighters have resistance to magic in the form of saving rolls varying from fortitude, reflex, will, and so forth not to mention the cloaks and things that give elemental resistance or +'s to saving throws. Now dont start on me about being a powergamer that wants to keep my ubermage because im a ranger and have only 1 character. I think the rest system is fine, and I don't really have a problem with mages seeing as how i can take them out at a farther distance than they can cast from.

[Æ]

yeah fighters have great saves lol, give me a break. even if they did, saveing for half of 80 damage is still 40 damage, 1/5th my HP, whereas, if I can even hit a mage through his improvd invis and other buffs, I do like 2-5 damage per hit because the mage has the same physical immunities and resistances as me, whereas i have no elemental/magic resistance or elemental immunities, and even if I did, he'd just switch element.... all the while his summon and famiar beat on me... I don't stand a chance, EVER against any mage...

did you even read all of what I said? I'm not arguing for rest restrictions, I think that physical immunity/resistance should be taken off mage gear and maybe that summons are left out of PvP, like they are on many PvP-only servers.

and were do you see things with elemental resistance? I'm lvl 17 and have explored ALOT and have found nothing of the sort (although it's partially because enemy equipment rarely drops)

[Gil-Este]

the problem should not be solved by making fighter gear stronger either by actually boosting it or making mage gear weaker in comparison. that doesn't solve the underlying problem of the mage who can unload their entire daysworth of spells, it just leads to an overescalation of gear power.

anyhoo, back to Joran's intended purpose for this thread:

Buffs: at the risk of being incredibly hated forever, they should be limited. I mean from an RP standpoint how many incredibly powerful magical auras can be maintained in extreme proximity to each other for extended periods of time? maybe limiting the number of buff spells or the number of different kind of buff spells on any one person at any one time would curb part of the problem. think of it like equipment slots only for spells, you can only have X number of buffs active on you at any time. (sorry clerics )

Super mega burning firy instant death barrages: i said this in another thread but i'll say it again here. what if mages started "overheating" after casting too many damaging spells in quick succession? sure you can do it but there is a price to pay...a price that could be scripted to go away after X minutes and not after a single rest. (think Mechwarrior overheating) or maybe a mage gets a number of "free" damaging spells per X minutes, dependent on the mage level. and after that they have to wait a little while. any spells they cast before that wait period is over invoke some kind of penalty on the mage's body (think channelling too much of the Power over the course of the day from Wheel of Time). Mages could still have the spells in the pinch and rest as much as they want, but they would be less apt to unload their entire spellbooks, walk fifty feet, rest, rinse and repeat.

[EvilIguana966]

First thing that needs to be done: remove physical immunities and resistances from all light and medium armor, and from most monsters as well. Only high level magical beasts or named monsters should have tons of damage absorbance out of the box.

Second: Make distinctions between caster gear and melee gear. Caster gear will have more + spells, + wis/int/cha and a few saves and skills, wheras melee gear will will focus on more melee stats and will have higher ac and resistance boni than casters can get. The custom item level restrictions should allow you to keep casters from taking 1 level of fighter and getting all the fighter gear. If an item has a req level of 9 it will require 9 total levels of any of the classes it is usable by. Or perhaps have groups of classes that all count as levels towards equipping any piece of armor in that set: ie Fighter/barb/Dwarven defender all count as a level to equip a level 9 fighter specific plate.

Third: Fix enhancement boni on items and from spells so that it does damage too, simplest fix would be make all enhancement boni +x attack and +x magical (non resistable) damage. Currently enhancement boni and physical damage aren't stacking.

Fourth: Include a wide range of monster resistances at each level. One of the best times i've had was on a server where one zone was filled with helmed horrors. Half were called Metal Men, and they were completely immune to melee but vulnerable to any magic. Other half were called Magic men and they were completely immune to magic but vulnerable to melee. Putting a few interesting challenges for each class that require cooperation couldnt hurt.

[Revenge]

Yes, if we can fix the problem without using rest restrictions I'd still be happy. Especially since I noticed that monsters are resting as soon as all hostiles clear the area, it puts them on even ground with players.

The only problem I have with the current system is the exact same thing the others have been saying, which is that a caster of any sort is able to sit back and just go through every single quickslot and empty out their spell book on every single enemy before going back and resting again. The problem with this is that the spells were taken directly from PnP rules, and in PnP you really did pass 8 in-game hours while you rested up and restored your spells. This meant that the spells had to be extremely powerful emergency usage sorts of things. You would let your party do most of the fighting, and cast the occasional fireball as neccesary when things started getting pear shaped. If you left the dungeon to rest you'd simply wipe all your work and have to start over, and if you tried to rest IN the dungeon you'd simply get attacked by a wandering patrol during that 8 hour span.

Adding in resting restrictions brings the game back more inline with the above, where you have uber powerful spells that you use only when absolutely neccessary. If that's not an option, simply do the opposite: Tweak every spell for regulary use.

Yes, this is going to get me flamed even more, and yes I really am suggesting that you nerf every single spell in the game to fit in with the near infinite ammo system that bioware put in. A lvl 10 wizard could easily do over 50 damage around. A lvl 10 fighter with 2 attacks per round might be able to do that only if he got 2 criticals in a row, and that's before damage immunity is factored in.

Ofcourse this wasn't a problem in NS3 because fighters could do damage at the same rate as casters, but in NS4 everything has been brought down a notch. Everything except casters... Fighters do a fraction of the damage they used to, and monster hp has been reduced to remain proportionate to thate. However we can all plainly see that caster spells haven't been reduced proportionately. I'm quite sure if monster hp and spells had been reduced and PC melee weapons were just as powerful in in NS3, you'd see every caster in here jumping up and down and demanding change.

For the record, i really love that most things aren't so overly exagerated anymore, it's just that not everything was proportionately changed...

[Psycho Dordt]

Super mega burning firy instant death barrages: i said this in another thread but i'll say it again here. what if mages started "overheating" after casting too many damaging spells in quick succession? sure you can do it but there is a price to pay...a price that could be scripted to go away after X minutes and not after a single rest. .

Than i want tanks to get tired muscles after like 2 rounds of combat, resulting of a culumative -1 to hit pet attack after the first. and only gooing away after 10 min of massage by a succubus (incubuss for females)

no rest zones have a large tendency to be ran past/despawned, and since HoU the area one cant rest around enemies is quit large.


IMNSHO
all this BS about mages beeing to strong is doen by PPL who 1 Play tanks, 2 have a verry limited idea of how it is to play a mage. they see [~]Axon cast a WoB and start crying. ive seen enough +deathmagic gear so that my lvl 17 cleric only fails a WoB save on a 1.

this game is based on D&D like in DnD a tank stands no chance in PvP against a mage, unless he is in mellee range in witch case that mage is dead.
in NS4 mages have no AC mobs my cleric could kill unbuffed and AFK will kill my mage. the only thing i really want to be changed about mages in NS4 is dmg mantles, like death armor, elemental shield and mesticels acid sheath, i think they should be removed from the game,

[Æ]

I think, again, the problem could be solved simply by taking the physical resistances off mage armors, that stuff is for meleers. Why shoudl a mage resist my sword when i can't resist his magic? it's not fair, simply put. At least if you took away the physical immunities and defences from mages, fighters would have a chance of getting off a few good hits while he unloads his spell book on him. When a mage has buffs on, a fighter can rarely hit him, so when we do get through their defenses, fighters should do normal damage against the mage. As it is, there's no chance of disrupting his spell or damaging him enough to kill him before his magic kills you. If you take away the physical defenses, mages will have to move so they don't get damaged and have their spell disrupted or get killed, rather than standing there invulnerable because of buffs, unloading spells as the fighter makes a futile effort to damage him fast enough as a summon beats on him too....... NO one in their right mind could deny that the situation is unbalanced, and I don't see how anyone could deny that the physical immunities and resistances should be for meleers ONLY

[Alexiagold]

As has been said before, NS4 encourages you to use different weapons. A caster at best can resist 2 damage types, us the 3rd if you insist on meleeing them. But ranged is a better approach, use a bow. My WM Scyther 1 hit killed 2 higher level mages today, and they were fully buffed and coming for me, there is nothing wrong with the balance of mages and fighters, what's wrong is that most players are refusing to switch weapons, gear or tactics to overcome an opponent.

The only problem I have with the current system is the exact same thing the others have been saying, which is that a caster of any sort is able to sit back and just go through every single quickslot and empty out their spell book on every single enemy before going back and resting again. The problem with this is that the spells were taken directly from PnP rules, and in PnP you really did pass 8 in-game hours while you rested up and restored your spells. This meant that the spells had to be extremely powerful emergency usage sorts of things. You would let your party do most of the fighting, and cast the occasional fireball as neccesary when things started getting pear shaped. If you left the dungeon to rest you'd simply wipe all your work and have to start over, and if you tried to rest IN the dungeon you'd simply get attacked by a wandering patrol during that 8 hour span.

As I've said before, only with the removal of all forms of potions, healing, heal kits, etc. would it be truely fair to restrict resting, because a fighter doesn't need to rest ever, if they don't want to. Seriously, with heal potions the way they are, a mage/fighter duel is realyl easy for most fighters, because you can chug heal potions untill you get close enough to land that KD. If you cna't see invis, and that's why you're dying, get a helm with charges of true sight or see invis, and use the dang thing. Same goes for your own invis, use it, and surprise the mages! That's how I killed my two mages, I chuged a few heals, then went invis, came back and KD them and killed them in 1-2 blows each. Maybe its me, but I've seen only 2 other arcane casters above like level 5. What this tells me is that arcane casters are already limited a bit.

Yes, this is going to get me flamed even more, and yes I really am suggesting that you nerf every single spell in the game to fit in with the near infinite ammo system that bioware put in. A lvl 10 wizard could easily do over 50 damage around. A lvl 10 fighter with 2 attacks per round might be able to do that only if he got 2 criticals in a row, and that's before damage immunity is factored in.

A level 10 mage, fighting anthing with evasion will likely do 25 damage a round tops. A level 11 fighter will do around 60-70 damage a round to a mage, without crits and after immunities and resists, if the fighter bothered to use a weapon the mage's robes don't resist/immune.

A level 11 WM, will do around 400 damage to a mage, if the mage has no resists/imunities and no soak, with crits in one round. Mages are not hard to hit, and mages do not resist things like Knock down, called shot, etc. Using KD, any fighter worth his salt will slaughter a fully buffed mage of any level if he can only get that initial KD to hit.

[DeputyDog]

If resist were removed from robes. mages would wear cloth.
If we removed from cloth they would wear hide and get a whoping 5% failure and so and and so forth.

Im hesistant to raise dmg on weapons. It is already high. NS3 none of the elemental dmgs mattered at all and the mid lvl gear was maybe 2d6 extra physical and +4.

Perhaps we should reduce duration on the buffs and summons to counter the effects instead.

Id rather fix the problem then over compensate other things int he world.

--

Maybe give magic types an ECL penalty.

Up the synergy bonus perhaps..

Lots of ways to do it.

A mages gear wouldnt change much at all.

If they have pierce immune, which most robes do, use a hammer.
If they have stoneskin use knockdown.

If they death spell get a potion of death ward or put more points into wisdom.

There are alot of checks and balances in place to over come. The mage just has the advantage of buffing before a fight.

Perhaps we should lengthen the duration on potions so fighters can buff.

--

there are lvl 20 weapons that drop right now that are +4 keen 2d6 physical 1-2d6 elemental and 2d6 crits.

[EvanFallen]

A fighter, normally, should NOT be able to stand toe to toe with a mage. People with arcane and divine spells will always be more powerful than those who do not possess such abilities. Get over it. If you want to kill a few mages, get a few warriors together and gang-bang the poor buggers. All it takes is 'one' knockdown and the mage is toast.

All I see is this sense of "hey, they are more powerful than us, not fair!" Its frustrating to see and I sincerely hope that the developers are not listening to these whining voices.

However, I can recommend one thing. When I get "up there" with my clerical levels, I will begin creating stoneskin, death ward, elemental DR, clarity, and freedom potions. I suggest buying them. I will only be charging 2x of the price it took me to make them.

[Æ]

all i can say is it's rediculous to force a wepon master to switch weapons in any situation, that class in particular NEEDS an all purpose weapon

and i switch my gear all the time, doesn't make a damn difference when a I have no resistances against magic at all

and maybe I'm playing by old rules, but usually it's not cool at all to use heals or even summons in a duel... I don't heal when i'm dueling, if you could do that then every duel would be endless because both parties could just keep healing forever

Ever hear of good sportsmanship?

Furthermore, we are talking FANTASY, EPIC characters, why should a god-like fighter NOT be as powerful as a godlike mage? You're speaking these "rules" (a mage will always defeat a fighter) as if they were laws of physics. A fighter CAN easiloy be as powerful as a mage if he has the right equipment available to him, and damn well most CERTAINLY should be equally powerful in a PvP setting! It should not be as simple as "be a caster or you don't stand a chance" this is a game and games have rules so that they can be played FAIRLY. Anyone who opposes the balancing of classes opposes fair play, and people like that just want to have power over others, and they WILL abuse that power and ruin everyone's fun by not only killing everyone but purposely taunting them and trying to piss them off... like Axon... and this is nothing but accepted griefing........ that's what NS4 is all about now it seems -- sanctioned griefing... oh boy what fun!

[Revenge]

A lvl 10 wizard can cast an empowered fireball, doing 10d6*1.5 each. This comes out to max 90 damage, 45 if they make the save. All the immunities are physical, so that tank WILL take the full brunt of the 45.

I did underestime the figher's damage however:
A lvl 10 fighter will have only had 2 ability increases, meaning a max of +1 str bonus applied to damage, on top of the +4 or +5 str bonus they already had. Even if you some how manage to get +4 str (+2 damage) off gear at lvl 10, that's still only +7.

Give that a fighter a longsword 1d8 + 1d8 slashing, and that's an amazing 23 max damage on a non crit, twice a ronud is 46. Then take off that 10-40% damage immunity and you're doing anywhere inbetween 28-40 non crit damage a round. Then slice off another 10/- per attack and you're down to doing inbetween 8-20 non crit damage per attack. If you double it on a crit you are still only doing 16-40 on a 2x threat range and a crit on 19-20.

Yes I know you can take WM levels and increase your threat ranges, but I'm facing off a normal wizard against a normal fighter here, I don't want to get caught up on special cases when the basics are at fault.

In this situation above, the fighter is doing anywhere inbetween 8-20 damage per round with a 5% chance of doubling that damage every now and again. Meanwhile the caster is doing up to 45-90 damage per round and against a fighter with low reflex saves so chances are he'll be failing the majority of those saves...

EDIT: Note that I have maximised all figures for both the fighter and wizard. In reality both sides will be doing on average half of what I stated above.