Lower the difficulty level of the Server

[scrappayeti]

As a returning player, I have enjoyed many years of EfU goodness, but get to look at all the new EfU:A stuff with fresh eyes.

I am enjoying the whole experience, the setting is interesting, the quests are interesting, the history is interesting.

But it's way too hard for me. And I say that with neither exaggeration nor anger, this server is just insanely hard.

We have the same crippling death penalties we had on EfU, we have a clear increase in basic quest difficulty over EfU, and inexplicably, we have a reduced XP per quest reward as well. Even the hardest of quests give 100-300 XP on completion.

Perhaps because the levelling is so slow, people seem to spend most of their time grinding quests. And with a high quest repetition comes higher chance of death. For example I was crit by a non-DM possessed endboss for 48 points of damage through blur and AC 28. The mob was attacking 3 times a round, so a 20 is going to happen in there every second or third quest run, and I doubt many level six (maybe seven is the cap) can survive that.    

And my own experience is reflected in the many PCs I see dying over and over again. One veteran said to me he hadn't had a character above level six in six months! I have seen two complete party wipes without restoration. That’s a lot of player work gone up in smoke for nothing.

Personally, I would never roll a deliberately antagonistic or inter-PC strife inducing character on this server (you know, the ones the DMs say they love). I wouldn’t simply because the thought of doing the beginner quests over and over again would make RP/conflict look too costly to be fun. The low level quests are really well made, don’t get me wrong, just it's hard to breathe life into them on the seventeenth run.

P.S. Before anyone else says it: "Don’t worry Scrapp, you'll get used to it". I am sure I will. As I learn the statics I will die less of course, but remember even though I am rusty, I am nowhere near a beginner. Imagine inviting a friend to play this server for the first time? They would be crushed.

[Drakill Tannan]

While in most places the dificulty is perfectly fine, IMO, sometimes fate and randomness just fuck you up. Like that time i was fighting a great lizzard, and a shargass diciple attacked me from behind, or simply, when the druegar of the purple mine quest land a critical on you twice in a round, this things are random, and usually one has to be paranoid to avoid them, but still force you to begin doing low level quests again because your character becomes 1 or 2 levels lower, and you don't enjoy playing a weak character.

Repeating the same quest over and over does get tiresome. Especially when the only purpose of doing so is gaining levels to be able to RP better, since most people don't enjoy a weak character.

Considering the focus of this server is Roleplay, i would agree it would be better to allow characters to level up fast, so we could focus more in the roleplaying, rather than the questing for future roleplaying.

All that said, i like how dificult EFU:A is right now. I just don't like a small slip of randomness forces me to go back to low level quests, or to be a wus in RPed events. I would certianly enjoy it more if monsters and quests gave more XP, and the penatly for death was slightly reduced.

also scappy, if it helps, i've never had a level 8 character

[putrid_plum]

I think it is fine.  Not too hard, yet challenging enough.  Infact I'd like to see more quests that were harder but that wont happen since most players shy away from them.

[Porkolt]

This ultimately boils down to the whole questing vs RPing point. It's the way it is, if characters never failed, the server wouldn't be nearly as diverse as it is.

[The Beggar]

My opinion probably is near yours Scrappy, this server is quite difficult. Part of that is fun, as I do enjoy exploration with some extreme pucker factor. The negative for me is that I find character advancement (yes, I really have fun seeing my character mechanically advance).

I've seen that the quests with the best reward to risk ratio get run quite often and among those the ones with gold payout get run more often than the others. Granted, I think this will happen in any PW as to the static repeating nature of the game design.

As to the quest vs RP, it's moot. RP while you quest, they are in no means mutually exclusive. Personally I despise sitting about hte keyboard for hours on end "RPing" without questy hack and slash goodness.

[Letsplayforfun]

Your PCs' goals shouldn't depend on your lvl, so that dying isn't a trouble.

Now sure there are times when it's necessary to be individually-powerful to accomplish some goals, but then just make a built that helps.

Even then, the aim of this server is to include people to make things happen, not to reach goals playing solo. The only tough part is rounding up a regular team, especially at dead-hours.

Anyhow, the server isn't hard everwhere: it's dead easy to lvl up to 5, easy till 6/7, then it's meant to be tough.

There are probably here and there some balance issues, but just report them if you think it's fitting.

[Drakill Tannan]

Your PCs' goals shouldn't depend on your lvl, so that dying isn't a trouble.

I sincerely dobut a party of level 4s & 5s can attack an orc camp and drive them out the island.

Or a level 4 can fight alongside the docksmen against the styigian and do anything else than look pathetic.

I don't think your average level 5 wizard followed by a party of level 3s & 4s can go deep into the sunken enclave to find out the origin of the nightrisers.

Or that mr. level 5 can kill, say iphegor canos to fulfill his revenge against thayans.

Bascially, if your character's story involves killing somone, chances are you're going to need to be a high level character, or the aid of a high level character to acomplish them, or even atempt them with a small chance of succes. I don't really think Horase Greely would come to be as importat as he is now, if he would have remained level 3. Levels and mechanical strenght are only not a faction when your roleplay consists of mostly talk, wich i find incredibly boring. Besides, NWN is about fighting and killing, that is what the game was designed for. Intresting RP will IMO always lead to an armed confrontatin with someone. And if you KNOW you are going to loose because you're level 6 and the oponent is level 9, unless you are looking for end your character, you really won't risk it. At least, most wouldn't, and with good reason.

Now i agree with something, it shoudln't, but it does. Allowing PCs to reach level 6 & 7 faster would reduce the significance of mechanical power in the roleplay.

[athousandyearsofpain]

If everyone could get high level and be a crusher a few days from creation there would be no feeling of success once you get there. And making the server "easier" wont change the fact that those who already are stronger still will be. Making the server easier for those who already find it easy seems like a bad idea.
As LPFF just said, getting to level 5 is a cakewalk, getting to level 6-7 is about as easy. But past that it gets slower, as it should be. I wouldn't want to see a server where everyone walks around at level 10 after a few days of playing. It would just be like a lowlevel arenaserver.

[scrappayeti]

@ Plum.

Yes, of course it isn't too hard for you. I have watched all the old power players cruise along through some absolutely mad non-DM quests. But I don’t want to feel that I have to hook up with a core group of oldies just to feel like I have a decent chance of levelling. I have always enjoyed partying with thrown together groups of people, I like meeting new characters and interacting with them.

@ Porkolt
   
"if characters never failed, the server wouldn't be nearly as diverse as it is".
I threw out a few character concepts when I returned, and one of them was a non-optimised build, a fun character that had a good concept that didn’t fit with a power build. Hah. Right, like that was going to work here. Not a chance.

Besides, I am not suggesting no difficulty, just a reduced difficulty. As Drakill suggested, if everyone loves the quests as the stand, just add some more XP, that way you can still get killed regularly but it isn't quite such a grind.

What really worries me is that other people might think like I do. If its so hard to level up, once you have a decent character who isn't going to blow over in the next strong breeze, the temptation is to hold on to it carefully, rather than throw the dice with some PC conflict.

@ Beggar.

For me it isn't the payouts on the quests that are the problem. All my characters have perfectly sufficient loot to do their job. Its just that so many of the quests seem to be one bad roll of the dice (or one bad line of pathing) away from death - well buffed with gold in pocket or poorly buffed and bankrupt, it makes no difference.

Like you, I enjoy RPing and hack and slash, but I think variety is the spice of life, an


@ Letsplayforfun

"Your PCs' goals shouldn't depend on your lvl, so that dying isn't a trouble."
Damn, I should have included this in my P.S., someone was bound to say it. This is certainly true if your PC's goals include stamp collecting and drinking ale in the tavern. But character power directly correlates with PC goals. Let's take a case in point. I rolled a ranger, but the character cannot even go outside until level five. I would just get eaten over and over. The first time I got into a good PC and DM storyline, I was knocked back from level five to level two walking back to the zig. How does that make for a better story? How can I complete the PC's goal when I cannot even reach the areas linked to them?

[Letsplayforfun]

Drakill, your examples are that of people doing unwise things, unprepared, and unmanned.

If a lvl5 wizard is foolish enough to investigate dire ruins that have poped undead for 2000 years without proper help, he deserves what's coming to him. Same if you side up with beggars fighting an elite mercenary army. Same if you think you're going to uproot a whole orc clan with 5 people at no loss.

As for taking out PCs, any buffed lvl 5 can do it, especially if it's a mage you're speaking of. Now maybe you won't do it alone, yes, especially if it's a powerbuilt you want to take down.

It's all about getting the right people to help you. Recruitement is the hard part. The factions that succeed or at least that are feared are the ones started by at least two/3 people, usually a leader, and a powerful side kick.

To take those down, you might want to do something else that take them front on if you're not in the same league. Make them do something that'll get some exiled, frame them, seperate them, buy them, ...

EfU is not about epic heroes that succeed all the time, it's about weakling isle-stranded people trying to survive. If your goals are epic battles, you'll need epic preparation and epic relationships.

[VanillaPudding]

As he stated, you can't really push an agenda and create PC conflict very well and have any hopes to achieve success at low levels. That seems to be a big misunderstanding these days and while I agree that people should -begin- pushing their agendas early, a PC simply won't be able to back that agenda up without some levels and power.

With the rate of PC turnover being so high you are really stuck grinding the quests daily to earn any status before you die off. That however is the only real option because making it easy or offering some silly XP system as mentioned in other threads would only be worse and still comes down to raw time investment. The only advice I can offer anyone is to try and 'learn the system' we have to make it easier on yourself and success will come hand in hand with it.

[The Beggar]

With the rate of PC turnover being so high you are really stuck grinding the quests daily to earn any status before you die off.

QFT. It's the game design dilemma of a harsh death, conflict oriented server.

[Paha]

I play a character that could die from one good crit. Even a crit you mentioned would have one shotted me to death when I was lvl 5.

The server is difficult, but not as difficult as many want to see it. It also portrays some level of situation, setting and the time and place where your characters live.

You can never avoid a place where one bad roll can get you killed. Never, unless every monsters and foe is made being a vanilla-candy-version. I've thought many, many things are quite hard. I also like to think that currently I am playing by those experiences and learning how to counter these misfortunate chances and situations.

Even if this isn't right in most occasion, I still like to vaguely present the idea "what you see is what you see IG", being the idea that if you see something, if you exprerience something being difficult or dangerous - it probably is. In many parts I see these matters being purely that, a matter to be solved with IC manner. Nothing is perfect for everyone, but I don't see too many awful imbalance anywhere.

There has to be difficult opportunities. That orc warrior with big axe and chance to crit your head off, can't always be having -5 str and wielding a small mace. Dangerous chances excist, and they should, or there will soon be nothing but boredom in our daily playing.

[Ebok]

I've left for months and come back to this server multiple times now. I know my statistical gameplay, and I'm very very capable when it comes to working through hard quests. I've been playing forever, so those types of things are natural.

However, I still get creamed if I make a single mistake in a group that doesnt all fight near or above my skill level. Leveling takes a long time anyway if you start to die, if you don't die and you're questing with the same team then its a cake walk to 8th.

However I have heard ~many~ people just get disspointed in the grinding, and other compare the battle system here to wow. No idea how true that is, but It didnt sound like a compliment. For a server that really needs a larger player base, I think Scrappy has made some good points. I agree fully that while the quests may be challenging to us oldies, they are cripplingly difficlt to anyone that wanted to LEARN nwn. Which would be an of us trying to oocly recruit players into an old game. I've brought three people here, and all three have left due to either the "oldies" hostility to those who aren't as good as them at the game, iirc assholedom, or simply getting sick of the level grind.

If increasing XP decreases the grinding nature of the serer, I'm all for it. I'd like to see some consistent characters staying alive now and then. I personally will not do certain quests without a perfect party, and -that- is metagamey. This game is to be fun, to inspire people, and if something this small would help that then I'm all for it.
--------
edit: I not suggesting make it easy, or reduce the odds of them killing you. Increasing exp would simply reduce the number of quests you have to survive before being that strong again. I dont like quest grinding at all, many share this opinion. This is not going to change the world, merely make it more tolerable and fun for those who are not ~as~ adept.

[Mort]

The post is actually well in line with the Zeitgest of my own mind toward server difficulty. I'll make a few tweaks, but-

Please note that some quests are hard simply because of level design. In invasions, you don't decide the pace hence why it is hard.

Some quests are also harder if played with 3 and become easier with 5 above+ so three manning isn't always a solution.

XP gains from quest that are regarded as difficult will be increased.

Some quests might get a resting zone added to them, however, if used, monsters may attack the party which will have to defend itself adding a pseudo risk, fun event to it.



I think the duality in mind comes that the easy part of the server is easy (Trogs, harpies), but the hard part is hard. So I will tweak that hard part of it, xp wise, difficulty wise.