It's entirely IC appropriate to be horrified by the Withering, and I fully agree that we can do make things to make it more interesting/provide more counters.
But for those of you who have some kind of huge OOC fear about it...
I think in all of EFU:M we have had only one PC that was retired from it?
Very, very few PCs have ever even reached the half-way point... people think they are a lot more withered than they are sometimes.
Generally speaking with more withering you actually get some kind of nice mechanical bonuses, so although obviously IC your PC won't want it it is a little surprising to me that players have this kind of OOC dislike of it.
I don't like getting spammed with messages telling me all the different ways my character is becoming horrible. I've never gotten past "Touched by the Lichess: Infected," but the things I'm told are happening to my character would send any sane person to the hospital. No one would go to work when they're vomiting coffee grinds and sweating motor oil, much less adventuring with armor and a weapon.
Ever thought about the bowel movements message while you're wearing full plate?
Yeah.
Personally I'm not too worried about it, I've only ever reached the second stage on.. one PC?
Your mileage may vary with the messages. I let my character reactions to them vary from character to character. I will agree that they get pretty horrible as you advance and that some of those I've gotten at the far end of Moderately Withered totally freaked me out. Though partly in a "OH MY GODS HOW DO I GET A CURE!" sense.
I will say, what OOC reactions I do have have nothing to do with fear of character retirement. They are largely simple squick factor. River Walker is right, some of this crud would send anyone sane running screaming for medical attention. By the time I got messages like starting to get afraid of extremities falling off... we were reaching the limits of my personal comfort zone. >.<
Dont care for the messages, or the mechanic tbh. Although I understand what you're saying Howland, I dislike things that punish you for going outside into the world. I like wandering, and the spawns out there are plenty punishing enough.
having been a druid back in the day when we chilled in the withered unyielding pass, and our groves were withered, I do not see the withering as a huge deal for exploration.
There's also the factor that it feels like it gets exponentially harder to reduce. I'm not sure if that's the actual reality or player/PC perception but if you get to medium and find that you're having an incredibly hard time reducing your withering the natural IC reaction is "stay in the mists, stop going to the withered lands or else it's zombie time".
Which is perfectly IC, but tends to lead to people being bored and annoyed OOCly.
Another problem is since it seems to get harder to reduce, it actually does depending on the stage, much worse is the fact if you get out of moderate into heavily whithered you get shunned for it and have an even harder time finding ways to reduce it.
Personally i love the withering, it teaches caution, and really makes you think if what you are going to do in the withered lands is really worth it, however i dislike having withering in faction places, that potentially makes being a part of that faction over time condemn you to wither away, because a majority of time is spent serving your faction ,at least i hope so. Now factions that are purposely supposed to wither i understand. As to the messages I don't mind them, but if I see a message that would drive my pc insane or make them flip out as bad to seek medical attention: I ignore it, i love roll playing the messages out but if my character suddenly is puking his guts out every five minutes and feels like he is dieing, then i rp some of it out, maybe instead of doing the message every 5 minutes i do it every other message, because since my guy has touch of the maiden perk, im guessing the messages are more frequent because of that. But if i rp'd all these messages out it would greatly hinder playing my pc and even result in killing him in the moments when you need to be fighting for your life. Overall i like the withering, but if you don't like it then rp out some or most of it, and ignore the stuff you think would drive your person mad. Unless you are withered so much that you would have those things.
I don't understand why people are afraid of losing PCs to the Withering like that.
Characters die to PvP all the time. They die and kill because the two-month Mayor is doing stuff they don't like. Because they have mugged someone or been mugged and want revenge. Because it's Caermyn or Aberdenn. They also die permanently when you get annoyed after a silly fugue in a quest.
Losing them to the withering really seems that bad? Or even getting badly withered... no curiosity about what the process entails, OOcly speaking?
I hardly doubt there's a cure to the withering just waiting in the safety of Mistlocke, and while your character doesn't find it he'll still suffer from the curse, unable to leave the island, and a gigantic undead army closing into town as the mist grows thinner...
And the boredom of just sticking to town, heh.
If the IC apperance of the PC really becomes that terrible, it will make most players stick in town, and that'll be rather boring. NWN is about building storylines of heroic or villanous dudes slaying hordes of stuff, note the slaying part, i remember i had abandoned a server some time ago because all the players did was sit arround a campfire and chat.
So maybe it would be a good idea to remove the most visible changes (ICly speaking) and keep the rest the same?
Quote from: TwilightCircus;299131I don't understand why people are afraid of losing PCs to the Withering like that.
Characters die to PvP all the time. They die and kill because the two-month Mayor is doing stuff they don't like. Because they have mugged someone or been mugged and want revenge. Because it's Caermyn or Aberdenn. They also die permanently when you get annoyed after a silly fugue in a quest.
Losing them to the withering really seems that bad? Or even getting badly withered... no curiosity about what the process entails, OOcly speaking?\
For me at least, it's not that I'm not afraid of losing my character to the Withering.
I don't want to play a Withered PC. If I wanted to play a pale master I would apply for one.
rofl....
I love the answers.
The Withering's never been too much of a problem with me, even for my first character's duty to go thump whatever was around Marcail and the surrounding withered grounds.
Still, if the Withering is anyone's problem, there is a certain Shaundakulian Priest with a public Sis Laman/Mistlocke ad of doing cures for only a prayer. :>
My $0.02. This confuses me.
At one point we were told that we did not fear or respect the Withering enough, so mechanics and ambient messages were put in place to make us aware of it and fear it.
And now that there is IC & OOC reasons to fear it, we're being told we shouldn't.
I'm a wee bit confused ....
IC'ly it's a horrible curse that PCs should rightly be concerned about. The ambient messages are there to remind you periodically that you're getting messed up, but by no means do you need to roleplay/respond to each one.
OOC'ly it's intended to be a fun mechanic, a survival challenge, something to make the server interesting - a challenge to be defeated, or endured, and so on. I'd also add that the rates in many areas is basically negligible, but certainly some intense areas with loads of H'bala undead are a lot more dangerous in this way.
That actually makes me feel quite a bit different about the Withering Curse, Howland. I was never terribly concerned about it OOCly, but I always felt a bit bad about not RPing the effects. Glad to know it's more for flavor than to be portrayed by my char all the time.
I try to RP the effects when I feel it is dramatically appropriate. I actually feel it would be kind of awesome to be in the middle of some dramatic confrontation or duel only to be temporarily incapacitated by Withering, causing you to lose the fight. Admittedly that would be going fairly far as it might cost your character a lot.
Still, a better way to lose a duel than to drink a Bloodhaze potion thinking it is awesome >.<
Bloodhaze IS awesome. If you are alone and surrounded by enemies.
Quote from: The Old Hack;299176I try to RP the effects when I feel it is dramatically appropriate. I actually feel it would be kind of awesome to be in the middle of some dramatic confrontation or duel only to be temporarily incapacitated by Withering, causing you to lose the fight. Admittedly that would be going fairly far as it might cost your character a lot.
Still, a better way to lose a duel than to drink a Bloodhaze potion thinking it is awesome >.<
Reltching and vomiting while being asked about your faith is the best, the best I say!
I rather enjoy the messages myself, and the reactions you get from other players once flies circle over head. The panic expressed by all characters around makes any mechnical disadvantage worth the role play.
When I was playing EFU, the withering more often felt like a penalty for exploring the more interesting, father out areas. Maybe this is one of the reasons people don't like going out on the interesting exploration treks as much as they once did. Even just standing out in the wilds RPing/talking while exploring feels like you're wasting valuable withering time....
Nobody likes going out exploring and coming back with half their supplies, a lost level, and more withering to show for their trouble.
While I was in the Order it often got to a point where a lot of the factional members couldn't/wouldn't go out of town because they were slowly trying to get their withering reduced from the charity of clerics....but it takes forever because of the steep incline of withering the more withered you are (and the fact that lower remove curses from items/lower level clerics seems to do almost nothing).
I really think people should embrace the fact that EfU is different and challenging rather than worrying about it. I mean, I know nobody came here for a survival horror game but I think it adds so much ambiance and so much more of a constant presence of H'bala that it makes EfU:M one of my favourite environments for EfU. And think of how badass it is going out and getting withered up because your character refuses to stop fighting rather than hiding in the mist until they're better!
And think of how badass it is going out and getting withered up because your character refuses to stop fighting rather than hiding in the mist until they're better!
And is then forced to become one of her undead minions, and fighting on the other side.
That sir, is living the dream!
Better to actually play your character than play a villager, tbh
i would prefer to play my character than a zombie
The Withering is pretty cool and rightfully feared, but the fact that PC treatments seem so ineffective might be a large disincentive to folks.
I mean, they're 150 XP a hit. Multiple applications ought to be a tad more noticeable.
Currently, NPC treatments are far more cost effective than the player interaction based alternative.
I rather second this, at least as far as PC attitude to PC treatments goes. I recently attempted to treat a character for Withering, one who had arrived at the stage with flies. I used two of the gnoll powder packages, feeling that it was IC to attempt to aid and taking the 300 XP hit in stride. Another PC then informed me that I was an idiot to even try and that it was a waste of effort. *sigh* So much for enjoying the roleplay anyway.
Quote from: SkillFocuspwn;299235Better to actually play your character than play a villager, tbh
My character is a villager
Better to actually play your character than tell other players how to play theirs, TO BE HONEST.
What might help perceptions of it is if the DMs could confirm a few things that will make Remove Curse more effective, so that players wanting to deal with Withering could make PCs able to do so. I understand that there's meant to be an air of desperation and mystery with regards to full cures, but if some things are known to help a bit, a PC can focus on using them as treatments.
Does Spell School: Abjuration help? What about SF/GSF? You can't really experiment IC to see how much it removes, as Diagnose Withering is a vague tool. I think that knowing what helps Remove Curse be more effective would make game for PCs as they could focus on how they're going to get more Prayers/Spellcraft Gear/whatever else might help in this example.
As for ignoring the fact someone is heavily Withered, general NPC responses have been on the lines of treating them as pariahs from what I've seen. So if you want to be able to hang around Mistlocke, you want to keep it below the stages where there are obvious effects.
Talking to players of Watcher PCs, I've heard one who mentioned pretty much all their XP was going on Remove Curse because they were fighting on withered areas, and it still wasn't helping. As a side note to that, possibly more PCs would be willing to offer Remove Curse if the XP loss was split between caster and target. Obviously with a Do You Accept This Curse Removal dialog.
I'm not telling people how to play their characters, I'm just saying if you're not exploring / rocking EfU because you're afraid of dying you're clearly doing something wrong! That's like nobody going out because of all the scary monsters. People just need to chill out when it comes to the harsh side of EfU, it is difficult and demanding and your character will vomit, wither, and slowly die, he will be battered and butchered by monsters, he'll be backstabbed and betrayed in politics. Roll with it, make it fun, enjoy the game!
We see that some quests out there in the Withers do indeed offer some withering regressing artifacts; someone already mentioned the tribal powders.
I think one incentive for players -as this is without doubt an issue which is keeping people back- would be to have more of the deep Withers locations offer some manner of curse removal reward. It really is self-balancing too, since those areas are often more dangerous (thus less traversed) and add Withering points to begin with.
Items with Remove Curse spells on them aren't that hard to come by, or even clerics willing to offer treatments, by that matter.
But the real tough issue is using five PC treatments on yourself and not even leaving Lightly Afflicted.
I think the main concern is that PC treatments are just too weak.
Remove curse potions are not that expensive to make either and periodically clerics are made who will sell them cheaply. The XP cost from the potion comes from the drinker, not the brewer.
That is the only really effective way to treat the Withering I know of.
The effects of cure depends on variety of factors, and there are stronger and weaker cures and means to enhance it.
Quote from: TheBarmaid;299263My character is a villager
[ohsnap.gif]
It appears to be nothing more than an xp/gold sink which few seriously seek a cure for because there probably isn't one, and it's attached to the npc which everyone also knows will not die until it's scheduled to.
If there was some sort of rare and risky way to get cured, if a few pcs got cured that would change. Until then it seems like another drain on a pcs' resources in an already increasingly difficult server.
There already has been ways, and there definitely are means to get cures. Even immunity.
That said, nobody said it's supposed to be easy. It wasn't a short work to release H'bala, it wasn't fast to even find a way out of the Underdark.
But there are those that chase these cures or different means to avoid withering. And there's a whole lot of them. Frankly I don't want to start listing them, and I'd expect to see creativity in handling it.