AMIA ARCHIVE • View topic

I've been wondering what the actual maximum useful amount of UMD skill points are in the server. Are there actually items that requite the full 30+ amount? How does that skill actually work in relation to item levels if there is any.

Lord-Hadeis wrote:

I've been wondering what the actual maximum useful amount of UMD skill points are in the server. Are there actually items that requite the full 30+ amount? How does that skill actually work in relation to item levels if there is any.

I've heard that you need 15 to use any wands and scrolls. Hard to tell more though.

Well the tables are in the NWNWiki. It's based on item value. Use something like the ATCF catalogue item to check highest item value?

Yes looking at the table... Not very useful unless I know the value of... Say the items sold in the abyss or gauntlet shop.

I've been told 30 UMD will let you use everything on the server. I've been told 25 should also. Never tested it myself.

25 almost does, there are a few you miss, and it's a bit tougher if you're on 8 cha.

Alright, that will probably save a few skill points then. I'll decide in probably a week or two.

Thanks

Gobbledygook wrote:

Can a PC Skinchanger also apply a VFX to the skinchange, or would this cost more/be more difficult?

And another question: Is is possible to change the in-game time of a single area, for a temporary duration, before reverting it back to the server's time?

First question: yes.
Second question: no.

Thank you!

To further Q2, is it possible to make an area change it's ambient events? For example, darkness of night time, rainfall, thunder storm, snowing, etc?

Gobbledygook wrote:

Thank you!

To further Q2, is it possible to make an area change it's ambient events? For example, darkness of night time, rainfall, thunder storm, snowing, etc?

DMs can make some areas dimmer or brighter, so I think it's possible.

Mechanically it's possible, yes.

I'm currently level 17 with something like 360k gold. However, I've been told that the 10% gold loss on death is uncapped - which means a death with 360k gold and another 500k in items is much less harsh than a death with 860k gold.

As a result, I've avoided selling decently valuable items (from my perspective, at least, meaning vendors pay >10k for them) and stored the more valuable items I have in the storage thing (and purchased 10 extra slots for 10k). This seems to be a rather silly workaround but I'm having difficulty coming up with a better solution. And it's going to get very annoying trying to figure out what the most valuable 30-40-whatever items I own are to keep those in the bank. Due to low strength as a sorcerer, simply storing them all in 80% magic bags isn't really feasible - bags of holding would help but I have not found any yet.

Am I missing something obvious here? What's the point of the 10% gold loss if people simply then avoid vendoring items to get around it and clog up their inventory with 50 magic bags or bags or holding filled with items?

Balkoth wrote:

What's the point of the 10% gold loss if people simply then avoid vendoring items to get around it and clog up their inventory with 50 magic bags or bags or holding filled with items?

The penalty exists if you choose to respawn after death (the price of death and rebirth); being raised by scroll/spell/players does not penalize a person. Hoarding worthy items to sell is wise if you expect to die [and respawn] a lot. Most of the time, we have our cohorts and acquaintances nearby to negate that penalty.

Right, I'm aware of the scroll/spell/player thing not giving a penalty. Like I asked, though (and as you quoted me saying), what's the point of it?

For example, let's say the guards at the front gate of a town charged 10% of your gold to enter...but you could avoid this charge by using the boat service to enter from the docks. Would be a bit silly, no?

Suhjet wrote:

Most of the time, we have our cohorts and acquaintances nearby to negate that penalty.

So TPKs aren't common in the hardest areas? That's...surprising.

Balkoth wrote:

Right, I'm aware of the scroll/spell/player thing not giving a penalty. Like I asked, though (and as you quoted me saying), what's the point of it?

For example, let's say the guards at the front gate of a town charged 10% of your gold to enter...but you could avoid this charge by using the boat service to enter from the docks. Would be a bit silly, no?

Suhjet wrote:

Most of the time, we have our cohorts and acquaintances nearby to negate that penalty.

So TPKs aren't common in the hardest areas? That's...surprising.

Told you. People who have a lot of gold rarely die.

Okay. Let's assume that is so.

That brings us back to where we started - why it is set up in this manner? Apparently it barely ever affects the people who "need" to be affected by it the most. Mainly just seems to punish explorers at the moment - is that the intent?

The point is, it's a penalty for dying. Instead of being perma-dead after dying to some trash mobs, we get to lose some money instead. Chances are, if you have lots of money, you are capable of farming up to such an amount. If you die in that endeavor, you pay the price. If you want a more elaborate explanation, wait for a DM response, I guess.

Suhjet wrote:

The point is, it's a penalty for dying. Instead of being perma-dead after dying to some trash mobs, we get to lose some money instead.

The point is, that doesn't explain why it would be 10% uncapped versus 100% uncapped versus 100% with a cap of 10k per level versus a flat 10k per level or whatever.

Suhjet wrote:

If you want a more elaborate explanation, wait for a DM response, I guess.

I will, thank you.

Balkoth wrote:

Suhjet wrote:

The point is, it's a penalty for dying. Instead of being perma-dead after dying to some trash mobs, we get to lose some money instead.

The point is, that doesn't explain why it would be 10% uncapped versus 100% uncapped versus 100% with a cap of 10k per level versus a flat 10k per level or whatever.

Every time you die, you are sent to the River Styx where a marraenoloth takes 10% of your gold as payment for his ferrying services, after which he uses animate dead on your body and drops you off at a designated planar transportation service. There, your alignment appropriate fiend checks to see if your soul is on route to being delivered, and if so, they send your body back to Amia.

As I understand it, you are encouraged to not use the respawn button at all. Most especially if there is anyone else around. This is mostly ignored when it is even slightly inconvenient, but that is the standard.

The respawn button is still enabled because lag (and the deaths caused by) can never be totally removed, and as a headnod towards the smaller playerbase and activity of the server. It's a courtesy. It costs 10% because it would totally be abused and ignored if it didn't cost something. I think it probably should be higher personally. I also think all the gold in player inventories should be evaporated in some epic villainous plot (we discovered the philosopher stone! oops.. it just turned every piece of gold into lead in a 100 mile radius!). Because very shortly, you will stop hording the higher value items as a bank substitute... gold will be so plentiful and easy that it won't mean a thing.

And it doesn't punish explorers, it punishes people that are acting solo. Which isn't exactly a bad thing on a social server, even with the lower population numbers. But seriously, the cost is negligible, and the other option is to remove it entirely.

Casvenx wrote:

It costs 10% because it would totally be abused and ignored if it didn't cost something.

This doesn't mean anything, though.

"It costs 10k per level because it would totally be abused and ignored if it didn't cost something."

"It costs 20% capped at 20k per level because it would totally be abused and ignored if it didn't cost something."

"It costs 100% capped at 500k per level because it would totally be abused and ignored if it didn't cost something."

The two questions are 1, why a percentage versus flat rate of some kind, and 2, why uncapped? Curious about the reasoning.

For example, it could easily be something like 10% of whatever your equipped items are worth (picked that number out of thin air, not sure how valuable items get). It would scale up as you got better gear but you wouldn't lose 10 times as much for having 10 times as much gold. And clearly this isn't for realism's sake - no one is actually going to be carrying around millions of gold pieces.

Casvenx wrote:

Because very shortly, you will stop hording the higher value items as a bank substitute... gold will be so plentiful and easy that it won't mean a thing.

I've been told that there are epic items that go for 10+ million and that quite a few characters have <1 million. If you're trying to save up for a 10 million item, losing 900k on a death when you have 9 million gold would seem like it would hurt. Maybe I've just been misled.

Casvenx wrote:

And it doesn't punish explorers, it punishes people that are acting solo. Which isn't exactly a bad thing on a social server, even with the lower population numbers. But seriously, the cost is negligible, and the other option is to remove it entirely.

If I was playing here with a friend or two, we still would have all been killed (or some people would have had to flee and they wouldn't be able to rez) in many of the situations I've found. It punishes exploring into unknown regions - especially with no challenge ratings.

Balkoth wrote:

If I was playing here with a friend or two, we still would have all been killed (or some people would have had to flee and they wouldn't be able to rez) in many of the situations I've found. It punishes exploring into unknown regions - especially with no challenge ratings.

Agreed on this point, though it can be circumvented via invisibility or a particularly high stealth.

For the main point: I suppose that it's primarily because, in most circumstances, you'd be partying with others, and odds are that at least one of them can either run, go invisible, or HIPS their way out. Of course, then they must perform the mystical rite of "Wait for the mobs to despawn", but that's a whole other story. Amia can be horribly unkind to solitary or even small groups of explorers, and the lack of challenge rating gives you no means to "size up" a potential threat. Honestly not sure how this could be effectively resolved.

Back on topic, I'd wager that the cost penalty is a percentage in order to ensure that it never becomes "negligible". A flat rate would screw over low levels extremely hard. You could make a flat rate scale with level, but then that amount would still become negligible after collecting a certain amount of gold. This would also occur with a percentage based off equipped items; you'd eventually reach what could be considered your "final set" of items, and from that point, gather gold until that cost is negligible. A percentage works reliably no matter your level or wealth... Though wealth is somewhat easy to acquire on Amia, and we really need some more money-sinks. A percentage plus a percentage-per-level could do this, as higher levels have more means to generate larger amounts of gold, but really, losing gold due to dying to lag, or bad luck, would just be a kick in the pants. Hence why various donation areas are about. Stuff like that is interesting, and you don't feel as if the gold is "lost" or wasted.

Finally, this is Amia. I bet you there's people carrying around millions of gold pieces inside specially crafted magical codpieces, just because they can.

Garnith wrote:

Agreed on this point, though it can be circumvented via invisibility or a particularly high stealth.

Which is what I wound up resorting to pretty quickly. Be invisible at all times. If you see an enemy, summon a creature and see if it gets utterly wrecked. Also check the combat log to see the AB/damage/AC of enemies to try to figure out what general level they might be. If it's too high level, come back another time. If the mobs are trivial (and appearances are deceptive - a wolf in Forsstakkr (sp?) is pretty tough), go elsewhere.

Garnith wrote:

For the main point: I suppose that it's primarily because, in most circumstances, you'd be partying with others, and odds are that at least one of them can either run, go invisible, or HIPS their way out. Of course, then they must perform the mystical rite of "Wait for the mobs to despawn", but that's a whole other story.

Apologies in advance for being incredibly rude, but sitting around waiting for mobs to despawn to rez someone seems incredibly poor gameplay : /

Garnith wrote:

Amia can be horribly unkind to solitary or even small groups of explorers, and the lack of challenge rating gives you no means to "size up" a potential threat. Honestly not sure how this could be effectively resolved.

Strictly speaking, if the primary concern if people not able to gauge the level of other PCs, you could just mention it in the description of the creature and/or indicate the level of a zone in it's name - something like "Rat Infested Ship (2-4)." That way if you enter a zone at level 8 and it says "Terrible Evil Zone of Doom (28-30)" you know you probably don't want to be there.

Garnith wrote:

This would also occur with a percentage based off equipped items; you'd eventually reach what could be considered your "final set" of items, and from that point, gather gold until that cost is negligible.

Versus "storing" gold in the form of valuable items (in the bank or otherwise)?

I mean, fundamentally, I'm trying to understand why two level 30 fighters with identical gear/build/whatever with the exception that one has 1 million gold and the other has 100 million gold would have vastly differently respawn costs. Especially since the gold apparently isn't even giving the second fighter an advantage in the first place. It seems like a bit of a Catch-22. Those who are the least likely to need to hit the respawn are the people with the most gold.

I mean, clearly it's not acting as a gold sink in a general sense by people's comments...so it mainly just hurts newer players. Which has been mentioned as a general problem of Amia a few times.

Garnith wrote:

A percentage plus a percentage-per-level could do this, as higher levels have more means to generate larger amounts of gold, but really, losing gold due to dying to lag, or bad luck, would just be a kick in the pants. Hence why various donation areas are about. Stuff like that is interesting, and you don't feel as if the gold is "lost" or wasted.

As a random idea that I just thought of off the top of my head - give permanent immunity bonuses for paying gold to train with grandmaster monks or whatever. I don't know the scale of money in Amia at max level, but something like 1 million gold for 1% immunity (to all damage or you could even make people pay for specific damages - either individual or broad categories like physical/elemental/special). Then you can pay an additional 1.5 million gold to bring that to 2% immunity total. An additional 2 million gold for 3% immunity total. And so on, with the gold cost increasing each time for minor bonuses, capped at a certain percent immunity overall. If people are concerned about people getting too many defensive bonuses, could also change the formula from 100 - x% (meaning 50% immunity is 50% less damage taken) to 100/(100 + x%) (meaning 50% immunity is 33.3% less damage taken) in scripting.

Maybe that's terrible for Amia, I don't know. But it seems it could sink a lot of gold and I suspect most players wouldn't obsess over trying to get as high of a bonus as possible (some might, but it obviously becomes a very low reward to time spent as you get a higher reduction). At a minimum it seems it would give gold a use for a very long time for everyone.

You'll figure it out eventually man, everyone else did.

Balkoth wrote:

Strictly speaking, if the primary concern if people not able to gauge the level of other PCs, you could just mention it in the description of the creature and/or indicate the level of a zone in it's name - something like "Rat Infested Ship (2-4)." That way if you enter a zone at level 8 and it says "Terrible Evil Zone of Doom (28-30)" you know you probably don't want to be there.

Let's not do that. Amia is already an incredibly easy server to level up on and there's no reason to make it even simpler. I understand perfectly well that it can be hard to find the right places when you're new here (I mean, I've barely been playing these last few years, and with all the changes I can't find my way around either), but being challenged is not a bad thing and, as you mentioned all it takes is an invisibility spell and a summon. What's wrong with that? Sure, if you're not a mage you'll have to check for yourself mostly, but that's the way it is. Use the means you have and you'll figure it out eventually. Or! Do something drastic, like find out IC where you should be able to hunt. Ask people in-game, put up posters, arrange for a seasoned veteran to speak of the isles and its dangers to new adventurers. There are plenty of possibilities that don't require gimping the challenge of the server, all it takes is a little step in the right direction.

Balkoth wrote:

As a random idea that I just thought of off the top of my head - give permanent immunity bonuses for paying gold to train with grandmaster monks or whatever. I don't know the scale of money in Amia at max level, but something like 1 million gold for 1% immunity (to all damage or you could even make people pay for specific damages - either individual or broad categories like physical/elemental/special). Then you can pay an additional 1.5 million gold to bring that to 2% immunity total. An additional 2 million gold for 3% immunity total. And so on, with the gold cost increasing each time for minor bonuses, capped at a certain percent immunity overall. If people are concerned about people getting too many defensive bonuses, could also change the formula from 100 - x% (meaning 50% immunity is 50% less damage taken) to 100/(100 + x%) (meaning 50% immunity is 33.3% less damage taken) in scripting.

Maybe that's terrible for Amia, I don't know. But it seems it could sink a lot of gold and I suspect most players wouldn't obsess over trying to get as high of a bonus as possible (some might, but it obviously becomes a very low reward to time spent as you get a higher reduction). At a minimum it seems it would give gold a use for a very long time for everyone.

Nooo, let's not do that. Ever. There are people who would run around with maximum damage immunity forever, and many of them are the ones whose builds are made for nothing but pure destruction as is. Fun idea to toy with, not something we'd ever want to do in reality. Well, "reality."

What someone should do is put up a general notice (In PC noticeboard) to all adventurers, detailing the most common hunting area's for what level and/or for what group size. It can be written wholly in-character, or it can have small OOC brackets detailing what levels and group size is advised for that area.

And if you're crying over a few hundred gold lost, try loosing over 500k because you forgot to use ONE spell immunity scroll.

Dakotaen wrote:

Let's not do that. Amia is already an incredibly easy server to level up on and there's no reason to make it even simpler.

If newbies are abandoning Amia in nontrivial numbers, I think that's a pretty compelling reason. I don't see it really as making Amia easier, just friendlier.

Liz wrote:

Dakotaen wrote:

Let's not do that. Amia is already an incredibly easy server to level up on and there's no reason to make it even simpler.

If newbies are abandoning Amia in nontrivial numbers, I think that's a pretty compelling reason. I don't see it really as making Amia easier, just friendlier.

Oh I'm not against helping out new players at all, but I don't think the way to be helpful is to hold their hand through everything either. 666WaysToHell just provided an example which would (partly, at least) be an excellent start. An IC thread in the PC Notice Board (which you could provide a mention of in-game somehow, I'm sure) that explains where to do your leveling. If people refuse to do any research as to where they should go, then that'll be their loss, pandering to people who want it all handed to them (and no, I'm not at all saying that this is what someone like Balkoth is calling for) won't bring people to the server who will make it better, or at least that's my guess.

Balkoth wrote:

Apologies in advance for being incredibly rude, but sitting around waiting for mobs to despawn to rez someone seems incredibly poor gameplay : /

That's not rude, it's true. It is a massive immersion breaker, and any RP that may have been going on beforehand is shattered. But it's the only viable way to bring back a party murdered in an area you can't possibly clear yourself, and respawning is just as immersion breaking, PLUS has a penalty. "Oh I was dead in a field but then my corpse magically got back to Cordor somehow." It's actually painful. Even if you try to put a "dragged my barely alive self back to town" angle on it, it's a massive, ridiculous, immersion break.

Balkoth wrote:

Strictly speaking, if the primary concern if people not able to gauge the level of other PCs, you could just mention it in the description of the creature and/or indicate the level of a zone in it's name - something like "Rat Infested Ship (2-4)." That way if you enter a zone at level 8 and it says "Terrible Evil Zone of Doom (28-30)" you know you probably don't want to be there.

Not sure if I mentioned this in this thread, but something similar is being worked on. From what I understand, it'll be using either a star or colour based system. Which is good, because flat-out giving people level ranges is far to hand-holdy for an already easy server, as mentioned by Dakotaen. An indication of the difficulty of an area without outright telling you? Could make for some interesting situations for new players (Sending in scouts, preparing tactics or traps, etc).

Balkoth wrote:

Versus "storing" gold in the form of valuable items (in the bank or otherwise)?

I mean, fundamentally, I'm trying to understand why two level 30 fighters with identical gear/build/whatever with the exception that one has 1 million gold and the other has 100 million gold would have vastly differently respawn costs. Especially since the gold apparently isn't even giving the second fighter an advantage in the first place. It seems like a bit of a Catch-22. Those who are the least likely to need to hit the respawn are the people with the most gold.

I mean, clearly it's not acting as a gold sink in a general sense by people's comments...so it mainly just hurts newer players. Which has been mentioned as a general problem of Amia a few times.

This is kinda a weird one, so I'll give a bit more opinion on it. Quick list below.

- Gold is useful for things other than items. Pretty much any request involving construction is going to require both gold and the gathering of raw materials, as well as significant RP. It can also be used for player-made quests, especially with the job system; A wealthy wizard asks a few herbology-inclined new players to gather herbs for him, etc.

- Low levels don't really get hurt that much by it. A 10% penalty at low level might take, say, 1000 gold, which will easily be regained by finding a single decent magic item from loot drops. This may just be with me, however; I don't think I've ever bothered to specifically save up for anything worth more than about 4000 gold (Jenova ring, I love you. Even if they changed your name). Typically, if I see something I like, I'll just remember it and go on my merry way, until after a day or so I remember it, and go "Oh, yeah, that item. I wonder if-... Holy hell, where did all this gold come from!?!". A good RP hunting party will move slower than your average party, but it's so entertaining that you don't even remember that you're there for a reason. Which ends up with ludicrous amounts of gold and magic items filling your bags, and you only notice once you become encumbered.

- THE BIG REASON: Amia economy is utterly, utterly broken. The aforementioned need for gold-sink is only a part of this. A lot of suggestions have been made to fix it, and many of them were quite good, but it's not really a priority because dealing with it without screwing over all those who DO have a large amount of wealth is difficult.

Honestly, though, making it 5% of your total gold PLUS the value of ALL items owned would be a neat way to do it. But then you'd have adventurers running around with a bunch of magical items, and no gold. Which is more interesting than just being wealthy (bartering-and-trade-wise especially), but doesn't really solve the issue.

Long story short: Economy is a pain in the ass.

Balkoth wrote:

As a random idea that I just thought of off the top of my head - give permanent immunity bonuses for paying gold to train with grandmaster monks or whatever. I don't know the scale of money in Amia at max level, but something like 1 million gold for 1% immunity (to all damage or you could even make people pay for specific damages - either individual or broad categories like physical/elemental/special). Then you can pay an additional 1.5 million gold to bring that to 2% immunity total. An additional 2 million gold for 3% immunity total. And so on, with the gold cost increasing each time for minor bonuses, capped at a certain percent immunity overall. If people are concerned about people getting too many defensive bonuses, could also change the formula from 100 - x% (meaning 50% immunity is 50% less damage taken) to 100/(100 + x%) (meaning 50% immunity is 33.3% less damage taken) in scripting.

Maybe that's terrible for Amia, I don't know. But it seems it could sink a lot of gold and I suspect most players wouldn't obsess over trying to get as high of a bonus as possible (some might, but it obviously becomes a very low reward to time spent as you get a higher reduction). At a minimum it seems it would give gold a use for a very long time for everyone.

Nope nope nope. Just as Dakotaen says. Even with a crazy high cost curve, there would be SOMEONE who would do it, and they would be hated by everyone ever. However, you could do something similar with, say, a purely cosmetic item. Fancy hats, robes, etc, can already only be crafted by certain people with certain jobs. Perhaps make a special series of those items that require large amounts of gold to produce? Could lead to some interesting scenarios with your hired trader "misplacing" the gold. Make cosmetic item "sets", and perhaps have a vfx applied to the character wearing a complete set? Of course, eventually you'd get everything and then we're back to the start, but it's just a thought.

666WaysToHell wrote:

What someone should do is put up a general notice (In PC noticeboard) to all adventurers, detailing the most common hunting area's for what level and/or for what group size. It can be written wholly in-character, or it can have small OOC brackets detailing what levels and group size is advised for that area.

And if you're crying over a few hundred gold lost, try loosing over 500k because you forgot to use ONE spell immunity scroll.

Dakotaen wrote:

666WaysToHell just provided an example which would (partly, at least) be an excellent start. An IC thread in the PC Notice Board (which you could provide a mention of in-game somehow, I'm sure) that explains where to do your leveling. If people refuse to do any research as to where they should go, then that'll be their loss, pandering to people who want it all handed to them (and no, I'm not at all saying that this is what someone like Balkoth is calling for) won't bring people to the server who will make it better, or at least that's my guess.

Ya know what, just assume from now on that I agree with Dakotaen and 666 on almost everything.

Also: Just looked how big this post is. :I Apologies, apparently I've become extremely verbose as of late.

Garnith wrote:

Jenova ring

Jenova is a necklace, man. PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER.

Garnith wrote:

Balkoth wrote:

Apologies in advance for being incredibly rude, but sitting around waiting for mobs to despawn to rez someone seems incredibly poor gameplay : /

That's not rude, it's true. It is a massive immersion breaker, and any RP that may have been going on beforehand is shattered. But it's the only viable way to bring back a party murdered in an area you can't possibly clear yourself, and respawning is just as immersion breaking, PLUS has a penalty. "Oh I was dead in a field but then my corpse magically got back to Cordor somehow." It's actually painful. Even if you try to put a "dragged my barely alive self back to town" angle on it, it's a massive, ridiculous, immersion break.

How is it immersion breaking to IC wait for monsters to wander off after killing someone? It's not, you're over-thinking it :3

Strictly speaking, playing a dead character is kind of immersion breaking. There's no two ways about it, but it's also inevitable to almost any game where combat plays a significant role.

Naivatkal wrote:

Garnith wrote:

Balkoth wrote:

Apologies in advance for being incredibly rude, but sitting around waiting for mobs to despawn to rez someone seems incredibly poor gameplay : /

That's not rude, it's true. It is a massive immersion breaker, and any RP that may have been going on beforehand is shattered. But it's the only viable way to bring back a party murdered in an area you can't possibly clear yourself, and respawning is just as immersion breaking, PLUS has a penalty. "Oh I was dead in a field but then my corpse magically got back to Cordor somehow." It's actually painful. Even if you try to put a "dragged my barely alive self back to town" angle on it, it's a massive, ridiculous, immersion break.

How is it immersion breaking to IC wait for monsters to wander off after killing someone? It's not, you're over-thinking it :3

Depends on the monster, I guess? A crowd of trolls out in the wilderness might wander off. Windreaper in his own lair... not so much. I wonder, is it possible to control the interval it takes for various monsters to despawn? Or is that one of those goofy Bioware hardcoded things?

How many Bottled Companions can a PC spawn?

Only one at the same time

Also, for those who don't like to risk gold or xp loss on respawns, there is the job system. some of them, particularly agricultural type jobs have unlimited opportunity for earning xp. As a Market Gardener or Dairy Farmer, for example, you just find a quiet space, set up you plants or cows and every 2 minutes you have a chance for xp. You can then sell said items to NPC merchants for decent gold. Better yet, there are a bunch of players who enjoy roleplaying their cooking jobs and need ingredients. Post in the Notice Board you are willing to fill orders.

Sure, it isn't as fast or glamorous as slaying wicked beasts and coming home a hero, but there is still a safe payout. I had a pregnant character in game for a while so IC she didn't want to risk her baby Hunting. During that time, she still managed to gain levels and gold.

It may not be for everybody, but I am pointing out there are options.

ChrisP wrote:

Also, for those who don't like to risk gold or xp loss on respawns, there is the job system. some of them, particularly agricultural type jobs have unlimited opportunity for earning xp. As a Market Gardener or Dairy Farmer, for example, you just find a quiet space, set up you plants or cows and every 2 minutes you have a chance for xp. You can then sell said items to NPC merchants for decent gold. Better yet, there are a bunch of players who enjoy roleplaying their cooking jobs and need ingredients. Post in the Notice Board you are willing to fill orders.

Sure, it isn't as fast or glamorous as slaying wicked beasts and coming home a hero, but there is still a safe payout. I had a pregnant character in game for a while so IC she didn't want to risk her baby Hunting. During that time, she still managed to gain levels and gold.

It may not be for everybody, but I am pointing out there are options.

Rank 3 Market Gardener willl get you -oodles- of XP. Not as much gold. But loads of XP.

O'Raghailligh wrote:

You'll figure it out eventually man, everyone else did.

Figure out what, exactly?

And from the sounds of it, a lot of people didn't figure it out, they just said "This isn't worth it" and left. I mean, keep in mind I'm the type of person who runs a guild that you have to *apply* and *interview* for and who uses voice communication in group events with people who are extremely skilled players and we've still died over 150 times to beat some bosses. I'm willing to put up with a *lot* of abuse and setbacks and frustrations - but most people are NOT.

What type of player are you hoping this server will cater to? Probably NOT me - I don't even care that much about RP - but that's basically who you ARE catering to.

Dakotaen wrote:

Let's not do that. Amia is already an incredibly easy server to level up on and there's no reason to make it even simpler.

No, it's incredibly, incredibly, incredibly, incredibly boring. Monotonous, tedious, and boring. "Hey, look at me, I'm going to spend the next 6 hours doing laps from Minotaurs -> Desert -> Ruins and repeat! Nothing says fun like grinding 20-30 XP mobs for hours! And if I go and fight mobs three times as tough, maybe I'd get 30-40 XP! Because the XP scale is horrible!" Quests are few and far between and often they don't even make any sense. I literally got a quest that nearly says word for word "We need you to beat bad guy X. Unfortunately, no one knows where X is."

Dakotaen wrote:

but being challenged is not a bad thing and, as you mentioned all it takes is an invisibility spell and a summon.

I would welcome challenge. Bring on some actual difficulty. That would be amazing compared to this incredibly boring, monotonous, tedious, and dull grind. But I've only found 4 cases of enemies on Amia so far:

1, trivial mobs that give like 1 XP - ignore

2, mobs that give like 20-40 XP - farm these

3, mobs that take 5-6 times as long to kill as type 2 but only give like 50-60 XP - ignore, not even worth the time

4, mobs that basically one shot you - ignore

The server is even set up to encourage players NOT to try to fight challenging enemies because the reward is absolutely terrible.

Dakotaen wrote:

Nooo, let's not do that. Ever. There are people who would run around with maximum damage immunity forever, and many of them are the ones whose builds are made for nothing but pure destruction as is. Fun idea to toy with, not something we'd ever want to do in reality. Well, "reality."

*shrug*

It seems you want a way for people to dump gold - but often the people with the most gold aren't going to care about some cosmetic stuff. You could make something along the lines of what I said and make it incredibly expensive for like a 20-30% bonus overall - which is already far less than the difference between many builds.

Not sure if you meant "100% immunity" by "maximum damage immunity" or just "whatever the cap is," but I certainly wasn't saying you should be 100% immune to damage. The second formula specifically avoids that kind of situation.

Anyway, this is kind of off-topic - point is that the server seems to be penalizing the wrong people with the current set-up.

666WaysToHell wrote:

What someone should do is put up a general notice (In PC noticeboard) to all adventurers, detailing the most common hunting area's for what level and/or for what group size. It can be written wholly in-character, or it can have small OOC brackets detailing what levels and group size is advised for that area.

Why is this so much better than having something in-game that gives some general indication?

666WaysToHell wrote:

And if you're crying over a few hundred gold lost, try loosing over 500k because you forgot to use ONE spell immunity scroll.

I've "only" lost 100kish so far on a really stupid respawn. Lost gold on other respawns, of course, but that's the peak thus far. I'd have lost more if I didn't have like another 500k tied up in items in the bank.

Liz wrote:

If newbies are abandoning Amia in nontrivial numbers, I think that's a pretty compelling reason. I don't see it really as making Amia easier, just friendlier.

Indeed. Imagine if there was a trap on the left side of the bridge as you left Condor that instantly killed you if you stepped on it. Once you died to it, you'd avoid it. Is that actually difficulty, though? No - it's just ignorance. Dying due to the inability to gather knowledge is not difficulty. Difficulty is knowing about something and *still* having a hard time accomplishing it.

Dakotaen wrote:

If people refuse to do any research as to where they should go, then that'll be their loss, pandering to people who want it all handed to them (and no, I'm not at all saying that this is what someone like Balkoth is calling for) won't bring people to the server who will make it better, or at least that's my guess.

A few points.

One, there is a MAJOR difference between not telling people where to go in epic levels and not telling people where to go when they're below level 10 and new to the server.

Two, most people who try new games tend to quit very early on. You probably have 30-60 minutes or less to get people interested in staying long term - and they're still likely to leave if they get frustrated early on. If you want to attract people, you want a really good starting experience that makes people say "YES! THIS IS AWESOME! I WANT TO PLAY MORE!" Hit them with the hard or obscure or whatever stuff LATER - AFTER they've been hooked and are invested in the game.

Three, keep in mind Amia has competition. It's not a choice between "Amia or nothing" for people, it's a choice between "Do I want to keep trying Amia or go to another world?" You want to convince people with their starting experience that Amia is the world they want to play on - and that it'll be fun and worth sinking time into. A good starting experience is so important for new players - and it's very, very easy to forget this as a veteran.

Garnith wrote:

- Low levels don't really get hurt that much by it. A 10% penalty at low level might take, say, 1000 gold, which will easily be regained by finding a single decent magic item from loot drops.

Not sure how low level we're talking. I think I've had at least like 300k gold since level 12, at 750k in gold at the moment at 19 (dumped a bunch stocking up on potions and have at least another 500k in the "bank").

Garnith wrote:

Nope nope nope. Just as Dakotaen says. Even with a crazy high cost curve, there would be SOMEONE who would do it, and they would be hated by everyone ever.

You would be grinding your teeth over someone taking 20-30% less damage when there are already far, far greater gaps in character power?

Balkoth wrote:

Dakotaen wrote:

Let's not do that. Amia is already an incredibly easy server to level up on and there's no reason to make it even simpler.

No, it's incredibly, incredibly, incredibly, incredibly boring. Monotonous, tedious, and boring. "Hey, look at me, I'm going to spend the next 6 hours doing laps from Minotaurs -> Desert -> Ruins and repeat! Nothing says fun like grinding 20-30 XP mobs for hours! And if I go and fight mobs three times as tough, maybe I'd get 30-40 XP! Because the XP scale is horrible!" Quests are few and far between and often they don't even make any sense. I literally got a quest that nearly says word for word "We need you to beat bad guy X. Unfortunately, no one knows where X is."

Have to agree and say there is nothing more boring than grinding the hell out of a variety of locations for hours on end, I wish there was a decent alternative to gaining XP. Yeah you have the job system but it's still something you have to spend hours clicking away at (most likely on your own too) to gain experience points. I would rather spend my DC's on levels and maybe do the odd group hunt if it had decent RP supporting it.

In fact stupidly enough I do burn my DC's on XP because of my hatred for the grind, I have no use for DC's. The only two things I wanted to use with them I was told I could do it in game now.

Last edited by Naivatkal on Mon, Sep 09 2013, 20:29 PM, edited 1 time in total.

First:

Balkoth wrote:

What type of player are you hoping this server will cater to? Probably NOT me - I don't even care that much about RP - but that's basically who you ARE catering to.

Yeah we are definitely not catering to you seeing as how we are a RP server, and are listed as such. Go figure.

Moving along:
In terms of hunting, the server is set up to discourage soloing.

Balkoth wrote:

Dakotaen wrote:

Let's not do that. Amia is already an incredibly easy server to level up on and there's no reason to make it even simpler.

No, it's incredibly, incredibly, incredibly, incredibly boring. Monotonous, tedious, and boring. "Hey, look at me, I'm going to spend the next 6 hours doing laps from Minotaurs -> Desert -> Ruins and repeat! Nothing says fun like grinding 20-30 XP mobs for hours! And if I go and fight mobs three times as tough, maybe I'd get 30-40 XP! Because the XP scale is horrible!" Quests are few and far between and often they don't even make any sense. I literally got a quest that nearly says word for word "We need you to beat bad guy X. Unfortunately, no one knows where X is."

You are doing it wrong. Or soloing. Probably the latter.

Balkoth wrote:

Dakotaen wrote:

but being challenged is not a bad thing and, as you mentioned all it takes is an invisibility spell and a summon.

I would welcome challenge. Bring on some actual difficulty. That would be amazing compared to this incredibly boring, monotonous, tedious, and dull grind. But I've only found 4 cases of enemies on Amia so far:

1, trivial mobs that give like 1 XP - ignore

2, mobs that give like 20-40 XP - farm these

3, mobs that take 5-6 times as long to kill as type 2 but only give like 50-60 XP - ignore, not even worth the time

4, mobs that basically one shot you - ignore

The server is even set up to encourage players NOT to try to fight challenging enemies because the reward is absolutely terrible.

Actually, it's set up so that if you are in a decent party you can fight more challenging things.

Balkoth wrote:

Dakotaen wrote:

Nooo, let's not do that. Ever. There are people who would run around with maximum damage immunity forever, and many of them are the ones whose builds are made for nothing but pure destruction as is. Fun idea to toy with, not something we'd ever want to do in reality. Well, "reality."

*shrug*

It seems you want a way for people to dump gold - but often the people with the most gold aren't going to care about some cosmetic stuff. You could make something along the lines of what I said and make it incredibly expensive for like a 20-30% bonus overall - which is already far less than the difference between many builds.

Not sure if you meant "100% immunity" by "maximum damage immunity" or just "whatever the cap is," but I certainly wasn't saying you should be 100% immune to damage. The second formula specifically avoids that kind of situation.

Anyway, this is kind of off-topic - point is that the server seems to be penalizing the wrong people with the current set-up.

Yes, let's let people build up tons of gold and get immunity to damage. That won't be broken at all. The economy on Amia is broken enough, that will just break the economy further while breaking balance.

Balkoth wrote:

666WaysToHell wrote:

What someone should do is put up a general notice (In PC noticeboard) to all adventurers, detailing the most common hunting area's for what level and/or for what group size. It can be written wholly in-character, or it can have small OOC brackets detailing what levels and group size is advised for that area.

Why is this so much better than having something in-game that gives some general indication?

Why is it a bad thing to do what 666 said? He never said that doing it OOC is bad, just that doing a notice board posting is a good idea.

Balkoth wrote:

Garnith wrote:

Nope nope nope. Just as Dakotaen says. Even with a crazy high cost curve, there would be SOMEONE who would do it, and they would be hated by everyone ever.

You would be grinding your teeth over someone taking 20-30% less damage when there are already far, far greater gaps in character power?

Sigh.

Balkoth wrote:

Liz wrote:

If newbies are abandoning Amia in nontrivial numbers, I think that's a pretty compelling reason. I don't see it really as making Amia easier, just friendlier.

Indeed. Imagine if there was a trap on the left side of the bridge as you left Condor that instantly killed you if you stepped on it. Once you died to it, you'd avoid it. Is that actually difficulty, though? No - it's just ignorance. Dying due to the inability to gather knowledge is not difficulty. Difficulty is knowing about something and *still* having a hard time accomplishing it.

I don't think anyone disagrees with what Liz said, and as it's been stated they are working on it last was heard.

Naivatkal wrote:

are an RP server

Learn to grammar.

And if you're going to continue this discussion, best do it in another thread, rather than clog up the General Questions thread with bitter arguing and complaining.

Yeah, I was going to write are-peas but switched back to RP. Scumbag brain insisted grammar was okay after.

And yeah, definitely take this out of GQ. I only just noticed this was the GQ thread haha.

Naivatkal wrote:

Yeah we are definitely not catering to you seeing as how we are a RP server, and are listed as such. Go figure.

And yet, to a new player, it feels like you're catering to someone like me. Which is a problem, no?

Incidentally, I was told the following here and here(and maybe they were both mistaken):

"I had tried out Amia a few months back and played quite happily for 3-4 weeks until RL took over. There are a lot of players who are there primarily for in-character RP (doesn't mean not adventuring though), but there are also plenty of people who go out "hunting" (adventuring) and since there generally seem to be ~30 or so people on between the 2 servers, a good mix was usually there. I generally never had a problem finding someone in party range, whether it was level 3 or 23 and there's a "looking for party" tool that helps out.

I never felt pressured to RP at all, although you do need to stay in character in regular talk chat, and I had a few fun encounters with some drow PCs in underground areas."

"Amia is heavy RP but you can play for action and no one will give you any grief, as long as you stay in character most of the time. That place is really good. "

Incidentally, since it seems you took that the wrong way (though perhaps I am wrong), I'm not saying I dislike RP. I literally meant I don't care about it one way or other. I'm perfectly fine with staying in character and I'm also perfectly fine with being completely OOC - I care more about the world, exploration, and gameplay than whether it is listed under RP or Action.

Naivatkal wrote:

Actually, it's set up so that if you are in a decent party you can fight more challenging things.

Let's try an experiment. I'm level 19. Tell me a zone where a group of level 19s would be expected to go to fight challenging things for "good" XP. Either server.

Naivatkal wrote:

Why is it a bad thing to do what 666 said? He never said that doing it OOC is bad, just that doing a notice board posting is a good idea.

I got the impression he was trying to indicate doing it OOC was bad and doing it IC on the forums was good. If I'm wrong, apologies - hard to read intent on the internet.

Naivatkal wrote:

I don't think anyone disagrees with what Liz said, and as it's been stated they are working on it last was heard.

Er...

Dakotaen wrote:

Let's not do that. Amia is already an incredibly easy server to level up on and there's no reason to make it even simpler.

There's at least one person, apparently.

Oh! It must be fall again!

Amia is set up for RP and Adventures. It is open style RP. Wanna be a boss runner? Awesome! There are bosses for you! We only ask you don't use Smilies when talking in character!
Want to take on a corrupt government? Huzzah! We've got plenty of towns to find corruption in! Just be aware some folks passing through a town aren't required to be inclined to care about your intrigue unless it has a direct effect on them!

You won't convince every player that there is a right way and wrong way on Amia. That is because there isn't. The only "wrong way" to Amia is by breaking the rules, and those merit uncomfortable awkward talks with one of us DMs. No need to worry until something like that happens!

Balkoth wrote:

What type of player are you hoping this server will cater to? Probably NOT me - I don't even care that much about RP - but that's basically who you ARE catering to.

I could've stopped reading right here, because Amia IS an RP server so yes, that is exactly who this server caters to; Roleplayers. I did keep reading, though.

Balkoth wrote:

I would welcome challenge. Bring on some actual difficulty. That would be amazing compared to this incredibly boring, monotonous, tedious, and dull grind. But I've only found 4 cases of enemies on Amia so far:

1, trivial mobs that give like 1 XP - ignore

2, mobs that give like 20-40 XP - farm these

3, mobs that take 5-6 times as long to kill as type 2 but only give like 50-60 XP - ignore, not even worth the time

4, mobs that basically one shot you - ignore

The server is even set up to encourage players NOT to try to fight challenging enemies because the reward is absolutely terrible.

This isn't an MMO though, and NWN is an old game that has a series of limitations. The devs are figuring out ways to enhance the experience and challenge of leveling, but it doesn't happen over night, certainly not with a server the size of Amia. As for the reward of fighting tougher creatures, I disagree. Sure, if you want to run around alone you'll be in trouble, but if you party up, just two people, you can do a lot more damage in a much more efficient way. For example, I'm leveling a wizard these days with a friend who is playing an arcane archer. We're running around 50-60+ exp areas because it's more than possible. We get into trouble at times, but we manage.

Balkoth wrote:

*shrug*

It seems you want a way for people to dump gold - but often the people with the most gold aren't going to care about some cosmetic stuff. You could make something along the lines of what I said and make it incredibly expensive for like a 20-30% bonus overall - which is already far less than the difference between many builds.

Not sure if you meant "100% immunity" by "maximum damage immunity" or just "whatever the cap is," but I certainly wasn't saying you should be 100% immune to damage. The second formula specifically avoids that kind of situation.

Anyway, this is kind of off-topic - point is that the server seems to be penalizing the wrong people with the current set-up.

Oh I meant whatever the cap is. Again, this is a roleplaying server and, not to take away from the people who hunt a lot, but it would reward hunting > RP, and I doubt that's something Amia would want to promote.

Balkoth wrote:

Why is this so much better than having something in-game that gives some general indication?

Once again, because this is an RP server. IC > OOC, always.

Balkoth wrote:

Liz wrote:

If newbies are abandoning Amia in nontrivial numbers, I think that's a pretty compelling reason. I don't see it really as making Amia easier, just friendlier.

Indeed. Imagine if there was a trap on the left side of the bridge as you left Condor that instantly killed you if you stepped on it. Once you died to it, you'd avoid it. Is that actually difficulty, though? No - it's just ignorance. Dying due to the inability to gather knowledge is not difficulty. Difficulty is knowing about something and *still* having a hard time accomplishing it.

In the end, whether you call it easier or friendlier doesn't matter that much. You're achieving something with means that are entirely unnecessary to use in an OOC manner, because it could all be done as an IC thing. Again, IC > OOC.

Balkoth wrote:

A few points.

One, there is a MAJOR difference between not telling people where to go in epic levels and not telling people where to go when they're below level 10 and new to the server.

Sure, there's a massive difference. That doesn't mean that the solution should be to hold people's hands and guide their every step. Again, this isn't an MMO, adventuring, exploring and searching for things is part of the game. Could/Should there be improvements to the quest conversations to improve the difficulty of finding the target of the quest? Absolutely, but all IC.

Balkoth wrote:

Two, most people who try new games tend to quit very early on. You probably have 30-60 minutes or less to get people interested in staying long term - and they're still likely to leave if they get frustrated early on. If you want to attract people, you want a really good starting experience that makes people say "YES! THIS IS AWESOME! I WANT TO PLAY MORE!" Hit them with the hard or obscure or whatever stuff LATER - AFTER they've been hooked and are invested in the game.

I think you're exaggerating wildly on how hard Amia is here. To take out the two quick insta-quests, Speedy's packages all have explanations of where to deliver them (my biggest issue with this quest is that I find it dull, to be honest), and all maps of Cordor are marked so you can find things. The kobold quest might be slightly difficult to catch, but it says "north and east," go north to the next area, then easy, and you're where the kobold cave's entrance is. If you can't be bothered searching for it you're just lazy, in my oppinion.

Balkoth wrote:

Three, keep in mind Amia has competition. It's not a choice between "Amia or nothing" for people, it's a choice between "Do I want to keep trying Amia or go to another world?" You want to convince people with their starting experience that Amia is the world they want to play on - and that it'll be fun and worth sinking time into. A good starting experience is so important for new players - and it's very, very easy to forget this as a veteran.

The competition is extremely limited. You want more "hardcore RP?" There's a big alternative. You want social RP? Sure, big one or two there as well. If you want the kind of RP and freedom that Amia brings with it, there really isn't much of an alternative out there. To add to that, Amia should never give up what it is to attract people. The day it does that, it stops being Amia.

Garnith wrote:

Nope nope nope. Just as Dakotaen says. Even with a crazy high cost curve, there would be SOMEONE who would do it, and they would be hated by everyone ever.

Balkoth wrote:

You would be grinding your teeth over someone taking 20-30% less damage when there are already far, far greater gaps in character power?

Many people would, because of the simple fact that 20-30% less damage is huge.

It really feels like you want Amia, or NWN even to be an entirely different kind of game than it is. This server is a roleplaying server, so the main goal of it should be to cater to roleplaying. I can agree that it lacks quests, a lot of them even, but it certainly doesn't need to be overwhelmed by unnecessary OOC messages about where to go when you're level 6, when it can all be done in character and made freely available to everyone.

And now, just as I wanted to post this, I see that there have been more posts. I'll leave this as my last post on the matter, so as to not clog GQ.

Balkoth wrote:

Naivatkal wrote:

Yeah we are definitely not catering to you seeing as how we are a RP server, and are listed as such. Go figure.

And yet, to a new player, it feels like you're catering to someone like me. Which is a problem, no?
(snip)
Incidentally, since it seems you took that the wrong way (though perhaps I am wrong), I'm not saying I dislike RP. I literally meant I don't care about it one way or other. I'm perfectly fine with staying in character and I'm also perfectly fine with being completely OOC - I care more about the world, exploration, and gameplay than whether it is listed under RP or Action.

I see, easy enough mistake on wording. It sounded as if you meant 'forget RP'; being that's not the case I take that back. We aren't 'RP nazis', so long as someone's not acting like a troll we don't care much haha. There's varying degrees of RPing, after all!

Balkoth wrote:

Naivatkal wrote:

Actually, it's set up so that if you are in a decent party you can fight more challenging things.

Let's try an experiment. I'm level 19. Tell me a zone where a group of level 19s would be expected to go to fight challenging things for "good" XP. Either server.

Well, if you have a wizard I would suggest Brogendenstein orgs (B server). They can be sort of a PITA to find (I can't get used to the new maps), and you have to be careful if you run into giant or barbarian territory (frost giants tend to be easier than barbs because barbs use axes with those nasty crits, and stay away from the Fire Giants). That's the range that I get iffy in, Beastmen (A server, outside Kohlingen in Tristam's Pass is an entrance to their cave) is decent xp for 19's, I think, btu I believe their CR is just before the orcs.

Balkoth wrote:

Naivatkal wrote:

I don't think anyone disagrees with what Liz said, and as it's been stated they are working on it last was heard.

Er...

Dakotaen wrote:

Let's not do that. Amia is already an incredibly easy server to level up on and there's no reason to make it even simpler.

There's at least one person, apparently.

I didn't mean literally

Hah. Can't please everyone, silly DakoTako.

Okey Doke... Looks like this is a good time for a breather kids! Take five. I'll unlock this in an hour or two.

Breath deep, and carry on.

Naivatkal wrote:

Well, if you have a wizard I would suggest Brogendenstein orgs (B server). They can be sort of a PITA to find (I can't get used to the new maps), and you have to be careful if you run into giant or barbarian territory (frost giants tend to be easier than barbs because barbs use axes with those nasty crits, and stay away from the Fire Giants). That's the range that I get iffy in, Beastmen (A server, outside Kohlingen in Tristam's Pass is an entrance to their cave) is decent xp for 19's, I think, btu I believe their CR is just before the orcs.

Only have a few minutes atm:

Found and fought against the orcs a few days ago (was level 17 or 18, forget which). They were more annoying (shaman like to banish summons) than both the frost giants (easy) and the fire giants. Couldn't seem to find the actual main barbarian camp while roaming around, did a level or two of Fire Giants which weren't too bad. Wound up dying to a group that spawned on top of me, decided to ignore my invisibility due to proximity, and immediately crit me. Could have been prevented if I had redone a defensive buff which had fallen off and made sure I was at full HP, so semi my fault there.

Maybe it's just because I'm a supremely overpowered sorcerer or something with summons but aside from the orc shaman banishing (or a similar spell), didn't seem bad at all. The male bears and mammoth things that absorb 30+ physical damage a hit via reduction or resistance took ages to kill, though.

If the Fire Giants are supposed to be terribly hard or something I'll probably go back to though - I bound myself to the crystal at the peak so I can easily port back anyway. Does it really normally take a full group of 19s to do those when I was doing it at 17-18 solo? Not trying to be insulting here, honestly trying to understand.

Will respond to rest later.

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