AMIA ARCHIVE • View topic

While on the topic of HIPS take a gander.
http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=Sc ... il&id=3506

Looks nice.

May not work however, few hiccups apperently. Though maybe Disco can see a way around it that the original submitter couldn't. *Shrugs*

This is perhaps better.
http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=Ha ... il&id=7553

HIPS can have a cooldown timer without a hak.
30 or 12 seconds for a cooldown is too much. Too many fights end before that time can pass. 95% of the people will use a scroll to shift into an umberhulk, then own the shadowdancer, as opposed to the shadowdancer restealthing and preventing the DEV critter for example from catching and killing him after using Umberhulk form. HIPS as they are, are not fair of course, due to people abusing them and making it impossible for others to respond and fight the dancer, but something like a round of cooldown time would make sense.

Non-hak changes to HIPS requires heartbeat scripts.

Heartbeat scripts will never be on Amia due to how demanding they are.

If a change was to be made to HiPs it should be its removal, the feat has been the subject of many a discussion but no matter what you do it will remain something concidered overpowered by those who are unwilling to invest in tactics/detect.

Removing HiPs and increase shadowshield duration/conceal/DR per sd levels taken. Increasing the shade strength per levels and making shadow daze effective again. Would be a great advantage to the class, shadowdancer is a worthless class if you look at it without hips.

This would of course mean an increase of dex tanks, a good thing in my oppion, and of course cornorsneakers, another good thing. PvP,PvM encounters would require more thought about what areas are suitable and how exactly to carry out your encounters.

If you remove or limit Hips then you should also remove or limit Dev crit as well as many other overpowered feats.

And when you remove or limit all of those, there will be a thousand more to limit and remove.

Quote:

concidered overpowered by those who are unwilling to invest in tactics/detect.

Godo wrote:

If you remove or limit Hips then you should also remove or limit Dev crit as well as many other overpowered feats.

I personally dont concidere Epic dodge to be broken -if- HiPs is removed. A dex tank without HiPs has invested much to get the feat and cannot hide between rounds to recharde the epic dodge. This means high ab players can actaully defeat epic dodgers.

I also dont think Dev crit is broken, its a great counter for mages/low fort players. With the broken mythal system it is easy to invest in fort for even the high end devers, you roll a one? Tough luck its a chance game at times. When you have heal potions at your beck and call in mass stock something needs to be a game breaker.

If they roll a 20 to kd you it will be the same end most of the time. People will come to complain 20's on ikd if dev is removed. People need to toughen up, balance suggestions often come from a PvP point of view, if the amia populace knew how to PvP we wouldnt have as big a problem with regards to dev and edodge being concidered overpowered but instead be routing out the true broken villains, Heal potions GS and timestop.

Godo wrote:

If you remove or limit Hips then you should also remove or limit Dev crit as well as many other overpowered feats.

They are. Ill let one of the DMs give you the details.

Edit: Better yet I should clarify, they are looking into changing Dev Crit as well >.> And they have some damn good ideas from what ive heard.

Please... for the love of all that's good.... don't turn this thread into another nerf topic.... please. *begs*

There's already a 6 second rule in place for HiPS.

And it's perfectly reasonable.

Bioware broke the feat by making it a free action.

Mr Mago wrote:

There's already a 6 second rule in place for HiPS.

And it's perfectly reasonable.

Bioware broke the feat by making it a free action.

Didn't PnP break it by making it a free action?

Correct. You can full attack, rehide, and 5 foot step to conceal your positio from the enemy again if you succeed on your hide check.

TormakSaber wrote:

Correct. You can full attack, rehide, and 5 foot step to conceal your positio from the enemy again if you succeed on your hide check.

I love that strategy ... my DM was pretty annoyed when I kept doing that in a boss fight. When he eventually decided to fudge a die roll and charge at me, the boss killed itself on the mage's flame shield I think it was

(you can ask Theander about that one :wink:

).

As it is, is there a way to enforce the six-second rule mechanically with HAKs without it using up a huge amount of resources?

I have seen no 6 sec rule on Hips, what I have read is only use hips within 10 feet of a shadow not your own, and do not use it when a Light spell is on you. I have seen no problem with hips and under these rules, I have seen some use hips in the open areas though, away from anything that can give a shadow.

With the amount of TS users out there and allot of very high spot people as well why is there any talk about Hips anyways? When used with RP it is a great tool, run to the edge of trees and hide is like running into the tree line. With PvM its very needed since most that have hips are dex based and not power hitters.

Bioware's engine is extremely biased to the hider even if the spotter/listener has the superior skill score.

TS = True Sight? True Sight doesn't see HIPS on Amia, and anyone polymorphed into a red dragon or umberhulk will die to the SD without HIPS. A shifter in dragon form doesn't have the AB to overcome epic dodge and a large shield using or even a dual weilding SD.

PVM it's only needed to ditch aggro, something you don't need even then if you're in a competent party. Sneak attack more than amkes up for not being a "power hitter".

I dislike the idea of a Corner Sneaker for the reason of Lag. Its the only reason I dislike the idea of the a corner sneaker, but a bloody good one to. Corner Sneaking involves much more skill and timing with the buttons. It involves a need to be very very precise in how you do things. A little lag and boom, you die.

I don't think someone should be rewarded for having a better internet connection with a stratergy that relies on it.

Then how come when people use TS sees me when I use Hips? A umber hulk sure can easily die to a SD but not the red dragon. Also remember if you go with SD you lose allot of your sneak attack damage as well. There are some players who have built anti sneak builds also, high spots that I have yet to see fail. Do not forget also all those who have pseudo dragons that use them to see you also.

Its not all on PvP as well, there is allot of RP being used with Hips, its removal and or downgrade will also affect that. There are many other things that are allot more powerful then Hips, it is already moved to level 6 SD and that takes away 3d6 sneak attack damage by going to that level.

If some players are using Hips as not intended, like in the open and away from things that can cast a shadow then deal with those players, no need to punish everyone who uses hips.

Come on now, get off this anti Hips talk while at the same time others are defending Dev crit.

HIPS is more broken than Dev Crit. Epic Dodge is more broken than Dev Crit.

However, I suggest you get off the talk of abilities altogether.

Didn't I see this discussion somewhere else?
It works fine if you ask me. Just don't get why every class needs to come up for bitching ever few months... geez...

Sorry if I sound annoyed, but I just don't like having my well tuned builds being indangered all the time. The Black Guard thing is probably going to turn out re-build intensive enough for me.

No changes to HiPS plz. Thnx.

Yurell wrote:

TormakSaber wrote:

Correct. You can full attack, rehide, and 5 foot step to conceal your positio from the enemy again if you succeed on your hide check.

I love that strategy ... my DM was pretty annoyed when I kept doing that in a boss fight. When he eventually decided to fudge a die roll and charge at me, the boss killed itself on the mage's flame shield I think it was

(you can ask Theander about that one :wink:

).

As it is, is there a way to enforce the six-second rule mechanically with HAKs without it using up a huge amount of resources?

It was a blade barrier.

Also, I am propably speaking from a more biased point of view, but anyway. I believe HiPS is fine as it is, although a six second cooldown I could deal with. Although no more than that. I also disagree with the idea that we should rely on more corner-hiding, as one pointed out earlier, your internet connection plays a big role and one to low will see you biting the dust. Something I would rather avoid with new death penalties being thought up.

hadeismetirion wrote:

Didn't I see this discussion somewhere else?
It works fine if you ask me. Just don't get why every class needs to come up for bitching ever few months... geez...

Sorry if I sound annoyed, but I just don't like having my well tuned builds being indangered all the time. The Black Guard thing is probably going to turn out re-build intensive enough for me.

Just because you've learned to rely on thecrutch of a broken ability doesn't mean we don't get to fix it when we can.

My stance is this: The ability Hide in Plain Sight should be used exactly for that, to hide in plain sight. Not "Blink Dog Disciple". Not Spam and Break the Mechanics of Melee.

A full round of cooldown, 6 seconds, seems adequate.

hadeismetirion wrote:

Didn't I see this discussion somewhere else?
It works fine if you ask me. Just don't get why every class needs to come up for bitching ever few months... geez...

Sorry if I sound annoyed, but I just don't like having my well tuned builds being indangered all the time. The Black Guard thing is probably going to turn out re-build intensive enough for me.

Ideally, you got Shadowdancer because Shadowdancer fitted your character, not because it got you HiPS.

Ideally, you also got Blackguard because Blackguard fitted those characters, not because you wanted the bonus saving throws.

I know, I live in a utopia.

Selvec Darkon wrote:

I dislike the idea of a Corner Sneaker for the reason of Lag. Its the only reason I dislike the idea of the a corner sneaker, but a bloody good one to. Corner Sneaking involves much more skill and timing with the buttons. It involves a need to be very very precise in how you do things. A little lag and boom, you die.

I don't think someone should be rewarded for having a better internet connection with a stratergy that relies on it.

Looks like we are having the debate all over again!

Lag is not a valid arguement to not play a cornorsneaker, lag can result in the death of any build, no matter the tactics used. In the old days of amia when lag was at its peak for the server parties would go to the abyss and die all the time, no matter build. Im sure you remember heal potions going off 5 seconds after death due to lag.

In my oppionion skill, tactic's and an understanding of a build and its pro's and cons should decide if it wins, not whether or not a feat is overpowered or not.

Hips is only changeable when I get nwnx to properly hook stealth mode. Which probably won't happen in awhile.

Godo wrote:

Then how come when people use TS sees me when I use Hips?

TS gives a bonus to Spot, so someone with high spot + TS are probably going to see you unless you have an even higher hide (and it'd have to be higher by 20 in order to ensure that they cannot possibly see you).

Craig deathwalker wrote:

Selvec Darkon wrote:

I dislike the idea of a Corner Sneaker for the reason of Lag. Its the only reason I dislike the idea of the a corner sneaker, but a bloody good one to. Corner Sneaking involves much more skill and timing with the buttons. It involves a need to be very very precise in how you do things. A little lag and boom, you die.

I don't think someone should be rewarded for having a better internet connection with a stratergy that relies on it.

Looks like we are having the debate all over again!

Lag is not a valid arguement to not play a cornorsneaker, lag can result in the death of any build, no matter the tactics used. In the old days of amia when lag was at its peak for the server parties would go to the abyss and die all the time, no matter build. Im sure you remember heal potions going off 5 seconds after death due to lag.

In my oppionion skill, tactic's and an understanding of a build and its pro's and cons should decide if it wins, not whether or not a feat is overpowered or not.

Yes, bt then there's the lag that results from one's own connexion to theinternet, rather than the server lag.

SD and Assassins are already very very nerfed.

Place cooldown on HiPS and you will perma-kill it. That is my oppinion.

Who was it that wrote “concidered overpowered by those who are unwilling to invest in tactics/detect.”?

Invest in spot if you wish to keep a eye on the shadow dancer, after all I was told by another to invest in fortitude items if I didn’t like Bigbies. As far as someone spamming Hips to stop Melee in PvP then talk to those people instead of also punishing us who do not do such shameful tactics.

If Hips is used by the rules then it should not be a problem, unless you decide to chase that shadow dancer into or near shadows and if you do then oh well, after all isn’t that even the RP part of a shadow dancer? Deadly within and around shadows?

Hips is not broken on Amia when the rules are of it are met, its only broken when the rules are ignored and abused so speak to those abusers rather then nerf the feat.

Dead wrote:

SD [...] are already very very nerfed.

Place cooldown on HiPS and you will perma-kill it. That is my oppinion.

Quote:

after all I was told by another to invest in fortitude items if I didn’t like Bigbies.

Are you sure they said/ment Bigbies? They're all saveless, other than Vs. SR and STR (Forceful).

Mr Mago wrote:

Dead wrote:

SD [...] are already very very nerfed.

Place cooldown on HiPS and you will perma-kill it. That is my oppinion.

Would you care to explain :roll:

?
Maybe I missed something?

I think that's to say it's an exageration, which it likely is, I hear it works perfectly fine on NWN2 which has the cooldown timer. One round it much more reasonable than two, two rounds is a long time if you are talking about PvP.

The cooldown wouldn't really affect me as I try to stick to not HIPS'ing more than once in the same round, anyways.

Godo wrote:

Who was it that wrote “concidered overpowered by those who are unwilling to invest in tactics/detect.”?

That would be moi

Dead wrote:

Mr Mago wrote:

Dead wrote:

SD [...] are already very very nerfed.

Place cooldown on HiPS and you will perma-kill it. That is my oppinion.

Would you care to explain :roll:

?
Maybe I missed something?

HiPSing every six seconds, given you use half a round to go in and out right now only means 3 seconds or so. Add to that time for targeting from another player, IKD, Spamming Bigbies Scrolls from HiPS, GS reading and Epic Dodge and the six second cooldown means jack shit.

Dead wrote:

Mr Mago wrote:

Dead wrote:

SD [...] are already very very nerfed.

Place cooldown on HiPS and you will perma-kill it. That is my oppinion.

Would you care to explain :roll:

?
Maybe I missed something?

How is SD nerfed?

And if you rely that heavily on the broken free action HiPS, you need to learn your class better.

Having played god-knows-how-many SDs, Cornersneaks, Countersneaks (both magical and mundane variants), and mixtures of all of the above;

6 round Cooldown on HiPS won't kill anyone. If you need to use it more than once a round, you really have alot to learn.

From a Party PvM Aspect, a Shadowdancer who's spamming HiPS is useless. They're likely doing next to no damage, and their extreme amount of AC is being wasted because the AI simply isn't targetting them anyway, thus the AI is going for your more fleshy meatbag friends who will likely die.

From a Solo PVM Aspect, you're a flailing kitten. No sympathy for people who solo, so...

From a PVP Aspect - if you really, really, really need to hit that HiPS button more than once every six seconds, you need a heavy work out on your tactics.

HiPS does have quite a few damn good perks to it, and even with the timer it'll still be worth going Shadowdancer if it fits your character. If it doesn't fit your character and you only took Shadowdancer for the Broken HiPS and the RP in regards to your class selections have absolutely mo bearing then I will simply say that your opinion means zip in the context of an RP Server that facilitates action (as opposed to focuses on). RP should be coming first, people.

Btw. The people who suffer from Lag so extremely that they 'can't' Cornersneak or use other techniques for stealth are in a extreme minority. I can only think of two players who fit that descriptor. I can't see that as justification to not fix a balance issue that we may have the power to do so.

That's all a maybe, mind. I dunno if Disco's touching mechanics with the HAK's or sticking to cosmetics.

TormakSaber wrote:

Just because you've learned to rely on thecrutch of a broken ability doesn't mean we don't get to fix it when we can.

To be fair, there are so many other crutches on amia beside the SD that are glaringly obvious, that warrant attention and for some reason, unnoticed.

Not to say that HiPS shouldnt be changed. Its still broken.

Still, patching up all the crutches would take a while and at this late stage in amias development, one would have to question whether its really worth the effort.

Edit:

Wonwon wrote:

From a Solo PVM Aspect, you're a flailing kitten. No sympathy for people who solo, so...

Probably should make it harder for all classes to solo then

If I could sit down and fix up every balance imperfection and make every class varied, but having different attributes (likely by using a load of mathematics to ensure that every class is even but with different specialities that counter an equal amount of people as they're defended against), I would.

Sadly, I can't.

However, if a situatoin comes by such as this where we can fix one of those, and it's the PvM Anti-Social Solo'ers who suffer... I'll smile. Just alittle.

Blackdragon12121 wrote:

To be fair, there are so many other crutches on amia beside the SD that are glaringly obvious, that warrant attention and for some reason, unnoticed.

Such as?

Last edited by Riddle on Tue, Dec 29 2009, 16:32 PM, edited 1 time in total.

Quote:

This means high ab players can actaully defeat epic dodgers.

Since when the high ab players couldnt kill the epic dodgers?

Quote:

easy to invest in fort for even the high end devers, you roll a one? Tough luck its a chance game at times

If you want to have well balanced gear on a HIPSer or any other low fort build, youll be looking at having to put 30 fort on gear to reach 40 fortitude. Its like getting your barbarian will save up to 40. Good luck.

Quote:

HiPSing every six seconds, given you use half a round to go in and out right now only means 3 seconds or so. Add to that time for targeting from another player, IKD, Spamming Bigbies Scrolls from HiPS, GS reading and Epic Dodge and the six second cooldown means jack (censored).

A skilled player in those 3 seconds can click and do much more than you think. And even 1 second in a good pvp match means everything. The 6 second cooldown will make it harder for HIPSers, thats for sure, but its nothing to whine about. Plus, maybe we will see more tactical and fun fights vs HIPSers and perhaps people will actually bother to learn to pvp instead of just using 2 actions. HIPS - Attack, HIPS - Attack. My main is gonna be a HIPSer, but I always played tanks and I know how annoying and stupid a fight can be with HIPS spamming. I know everyone should not be punished because some people don't abuse it, but DMs are not going to login and watch every HIPSer and see if hes using the ability by the rules, and theyre not gonna deal with a thousand reports per day of HIPS being used in the wrong way. They deal with enough drama as it is. Its not fair for those that use it by the rules? Perhaps so, but if most of us cant be trusted to follow those few simple rules then we will all suffer as one. Thats what we get for being children. And yes Ive broken rules myself, Im no exepetion.

Well maybe you are right. I know that my SD was disaster and although I was really enjoying it, I had to remake becouse I could do nothing but HiPS. I guess that both my build and my tactics were bad. Perhaps I could give it another shot.

If you want to truly balance Amia then I suggest to make it a only fighter class server, otherwise there will be no true balancing.

As far as the hips bigbie or any other scroll reading, you come out of hiding when you start to read a scroll.

If Bigbie is saveless other then SR or strength then why aren’t they being discussed as over powered? Same as with Dev crit, perhaps that should have a limitation as well, say like only on the first attack per round has to be a crit instead of having 4+ chances per round to get a instant death hit? Lets not all forget all those instant death spells out there as well.

With the amount of power builds on Amia you can not say if it doesn’t fit with your characters RP then it shouldn’t be done is nonsense unless you plan on doing that with every single player that power builds.

As far as soloing, not all characters are meant to be in parties as well as many many times there is no one around to party with that your character can party with according to RP. How easy is it for a epic cleric to solo, the epic mage? The RDD? Start looking at magic users over powered things rather then always wanting to punish the melee types.

[quote="WonWon"

Ideally, you got Shadowdancer because Shadowdancer fitted your character, not because it got you HiPS.

Ideally, you also got Blackguard because Blackguard fitted those characters, not because you wanted the bonus saving throws.

I know, I live in a utopia.[/quote]

Not if it involves me

But well, I think it was an unwritten rule of the 6 second and that you need a shadow near you.

Granted, most people don't abide by them.
Fortunately I prefer to stay out of PvP, mainly because I play by the rules and am rather on the safe side than being alive.

But well, whatever.

Also, please stop comparing classes and tactics to builds that got the outmost out of everything.

As riddle said

Quote:

Since when the high ab players couldn't kill the epic dodgers?

Most Melee's have about 26 BAB at level 30. Add to that weapon Focus and EWF for another +3 bonus.
Then add the blade enhancement for another +4/5 . Plus the +12 Strength Mod they most probably will have for dev crit.
That adds up to +44 AB.

In comparison my Sd only has 40 AC.
The AC of my friends SD is only 33.

I know that there are SD builds and others that can easily reach up to 60.
But not everyone has these.

Godo wrote:

As far as soloing, not all characters are meant to be in parties as well as many many times there is no one around to party with that your character can party with according to RP. How easy is it for a epic cleric to solo, the epic mage? The RDD? Start looking at magic users over powered things rather then always wanting to punish the melee types.

Well they changed paladin and bg saves, unfortunately to Sorcerers. Cut deving and you will make spellcasters even stronger. I agree completly about bigby's.

I can actually rather easily say 'Make your Build match your RP' (As opposed to making your RP to match the build you had in mind).

I won't enforce it, sure.

But I know for a fact that it affects my DC output significantly. That is - I simply don't DC People who I don't see RPing their classes and race fully, especially if it becomes obvious they were only taken for the build.

On the inverse, I'm extremely 'free' with DCs when I see people RPing the above properly. It makes me giddy.

That's a sidetangent, though.

First off, the mage spells (or rather, the major ones) are being looked at. They've been in discussion for quite a while now by our Balance Team. We know they're an issue. We just don't do the discussions where the Peanut Gallery can get to it. Likewise, other 'balance hits' are being examined .Some have been determined unfixable, which is the only reason they weren't touched - such as Dev Crit.

And secondly, it's not punishing anyone. That's senseless drama whoring, tbqh. Yes, it negatively affects how an ability works. Rebalancing does that. Are we punishing people any time we perform a fix, or are we simply evening the slate -a little-. We don't want perfect equality, but there are effects which are quite heavily broken which need a tweak. The effective of a statistical outlier.

If you know the exact mechanical workings of HiPS, and you've pulled it apart, tested it alot, and all the rest - you will readily notice that most 'standard' counters for it, while effective in some contexts, do have alot of bugs that can't be fixed in its current incarnation. NWN handles Stealth rather poorly, and the ability to hop in/out of it at will only maximizes this problem.

Hence the proposed timer.

HellScourge wrote:

Most Melee's have about 26 BAB at level 30. Add to that weapon Focus and EWF for another +3 bonus.
Then add the blade enhancement for another +4/5 . Plus the +12 Strength Mod they most probably will have for dev crit.
That adds up to +44 AB.

In comparison my Sd only has 40 AC.
The AC of my friends SD is only 33.

I know that there are SD builds and others that can easily reach up to 60.
But not everyone has these.

A build that uses a full BAB progression class level 1-20 gets a maximum of 25 BAB.

Focus, EWF and Epic Prowess. +5 AB on weapon. +14 str mod.

48 AB.

It's easy to get 65+ AC on an SD using a large shield.

Using Shadow Evade you can quite easily hit 75+ AC.

HiPS stuff

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