Thoughts on being new..and a lowbie

[Chongo]

I actually find it pretty annoying actually when experienced players memorize spawns

So that half the population of the server doesn't start feeling dirty inside - I'm going to add to this.  Everyone memorizes spawns if they play long enough.  We don't have dynamic spawns, and the brain is going to figure it out whether you like it or not.  Everyone will come to memorize spawns and it's a sad side-effect of how good this server is at actually retaining players.  We should be proud of this if anything.

I'm mostly just rephrasing it so the point can be made clear (as I'm assuming Dorg meant it) which is: You shouldn't be actively trying to figure these things out, nor play to them... because that ain' what the game's for eh?



And on a different note!

I'm happy to guide anyone around who asks.  There are hordes of folks here who will do the same. PM me,  PM them.   Ask in game, don't be afraid to send a tell if you're overwhelmed.  Click on the guide... hey wait - Acacea beat me to it!!

[Dorganath]

I'm mostly just rephrasing it so the point can be made clear (as I'm assuming Dorg meant it) which is: You shouldn't be actively trying to figure these things out, nor play to them... because that ain' what the game's for eh?

Exactly correct. I know it's unrealistic to not remember where the spawns go, but for some it doesn't become a game of challenges and victories but rather a recipe book of things that stand in the way of XP and loot.

But, to each his own on that one.

[SteveMaurer]

Well let me say for the record that I'll be happy to rewrite what I wrote to make it more acceptable.  The real issue I'm having trouble with is what to replace it with.

What exactly should I put in as a substitute for my current advice, which in OOC terms could be paraphrased, "fleeing is often useless, you are discouraged from doing it"?   Somehow a recommendation to "always stay, fight, and die" doesn't exactly fit a guide about How Not to Die.   Should I instead create some In Game explanation for Banning?  ("Once any creature has ever seen you, the Gods expect you to be brave and fight it, whether you live or not.   For if you flee you run the risk of having your soul ripped from your body and banished from Layonara forever.   And even death is preferable to that!").

Again, the reason why this comes up time and time again is that fleeing is rather natural, especially for low level players and PCs.  The Chicken thing may be humorous, but it was also real.  My character would have died if she hadn't run away from those chickens, you understand?  Died.  And she would have had a 4% chance of losing a Soul Strand.   4% is very close to rolling a 1 on a 20 sided die.   How many times have you rolled a 1?

Are you seriously telling people the policy is to die and risk losing a soul strand rather than run away from something you never intended to fight in the first place?

Maybe the best solution would be some in game admonition to "inform the Rolferein authorities" if a new PC might have left a spawn on the road.  I could add an OOC comment about putting something into the GM channel.  That way, a GM could clean up the spawn, admonish the PC not to make a habit of getting in over their head, and still have an acceptable in-character explanation.

Again - I'll change this to any rule you want.  But to make an In Character guide, I have to have In Character explanations.

[ycleption]

I would say something along the lines of "because fleeing can often drag creatures to chase you, and sometimes kill other characters or their animals, there are a wide variety of potions, stardusts, and items that can help you flee under the cover of darkness or invisibility, and a wise traveler always carries an assortment of these tools"

And on the memorizing spawns issue, I would just advise players to separate IC and OOC... its one thing that you know what a particular spawn is, its entirely different when your character says "wait! the orcs always have three sentries, one with a sword, and two with bows" - that's just cheesy, IMO.

Are you seriously telling people the policy is to die and risk losing a soul strand rather than run away from something you never intended to fight in the first place?

[. . .] I could add an OOC comment about putting something into the GM channel.  That way, a GM could clean up the spawn, admonish the PC not to make a habit of getting in over their head [. . .]

Yeah, my impression is that, in general, you should take the fall, rather than fleeing and possibly killing someone else, because why should someone else suffer for your mistake?

Now, I don't think anyone is going to fault a level 1-3 for running away from a skunk or whatever; it happens. Most of us have been in that situation when we were new here. But its a bad habit to get into once you get to a higher level, and can do a lot more damage when you drag creatures.

[Dorganath]

Maybe it's the text-only communications, but I'm sensing some hostility in your writing.  There's really no need for this.

Well let me say for the record that I'll be happy to rewrite what I wrote to make it more acceptable.  The real issue I'm having trouble with is what to replace it with.

What exactly should I put in as a substitute for my current advice, which in OOC terms could be paraphrased, "fleeing is often useless, you are discouraged from doing it"?   Somehow a recommendation to "always stay, fight, and die" doesn't exactly fit a guide about How Not to Die.  

How about simply a warning about engagement and that often the creatures one may encounter are quicker, stronger and more observant than one may think.  Urge caution in favor of the borderline advocating of breaking rules and requests from the GM Team.

Should I instead create some In Game explanation for Banning?  ("Once any creature has ever seen you, the Gods expect you to be brave and fight it, whether you live or not.   For if you flee you run the risk of having your soul ripped from your body and banished from Layonara forever.   And even death is preferable to that!").

At first I wasn't even going to dignify this with a reply, as it seems inflammatory and over-the-top.  At no point did I nor another team member mention banning.  We don't, as a general rule, ban people on a whim or for something minor. I'm going to simply assume this was tongue-in-cheek and leave it at that.

Again, the reason why this comes up time and time again is that fleeing is rather natural, especially for low level players and PCs.  The Chicken thing may be humorous, but it was also real.  My character would have died if she hadn't run away from those chickens, you understand?  Died.  And she would have had a 4% chance of losing a Soul Strand.   4% is very close to rolling a 1 on a 20 sided die.   How many times have you rolled a 1?

Are you seriously telling people the policy is to die and risk losing a soul strand rather than run away from something you never intended to fight in the first place?

Again, we've heard this all the time.  No, we're not saying "stay and die" but that always comes in conflict with "be nice to other players."

And please, ease up on your tone.  I know full well the chances of rolling a Soul Strand, or the likelihood of rolling a 1 on a d20.  Anyone who knows my main character well enough knows he has, in fact, rolled that 1 in a really, really inopportune time. Right now, that same character is 31st level, and each death is like rolling a 1 or 2 on a d6, so yes, I'm very, very aware of how the chances fall. It happens to everyone.

It may not seem "fair" to stay and die (or at least go down swinging), but it's even less fair to go running off in a fit of self-preservation bringing your troubles to someone else.

Anyway, I know the issues very well, and my main character has lost a few of his Soul Strands to doing something silly, usually while soloing.

Again - I'll change this to any rule you want.  But to make an In Character guide, I have to have In Character explanations.

Great!  Keep it IC. I like everything else you had written there, at least in the intended spirit and purpose. Maybe even something like:

"Escaping your enemies by running is not as easy as one might think.  Creatures in this land seem to possess superior speed and cunning in a pursuit.  Be cautious when traveling in their lands if you go alone, or travel in groups to increase your chance of survival."

There's plenty of things you could say instead of making references that seem to advocate luring and fleeing.  You seem to be a very creative person, so I have full confidence you'll come up with something!

[miltonyorkcastle]

Are you seriously telling people the policy is to die and risk losing a soul strand rather than run away from something you never intended to fight in the first place?

Nah. What we're saying is don't drag them into an area they're not supposed to be.

Go ahead. Run away. Just don't use an area transition. Yes, you might have to run in circles, and yes, you might run into something worse elsewhere in the area. But you won't create the the OOC problems everyone else is referring to.

[SteveMaurer]

Dorganath, I'm not intending to be hostile at all.  I myself just started playing here, and am still trying to figure out all the unwritten rules of the place.  Coming from a gaming environment like Team Fortress and Counterstike, where banning from people's servers is absolutely routine, I didn't realize that you would take offense that I would suggest putting an IG explanation in for the procedure.  (And if you enter the words "banned site:layonara.com" into google, you get about 12600 hits, so it clearly isn't that uncommon.)  But I assure you that I'm not trying to be insulting.

In terms of why I emphasized the chicken thing, which I think is where you got the idea that my tone was bad, I was only trying to counteract your original view that I was merely "poking fun" at your directive.   I admit I was having a little fun at my own PCs expense, but I was just trying to point out that forbidding low level PCs from running does have a serious side too.

And I understand completely your point of view as well.  I recently lost my first ox because someone left a spawn on the road - and no, it's not fun.

I'll see what I can come up with in terms of the guide, but I'm coming around to the idea that the real rules are simply too tied up with the specifics of Out of Character characteristics of the NWN game engine to keep the guide entirely IC.   I'm going to have to put in a section specifically out of character to explain what you can and cannot do, and what you should do if you accidentally screw up.  

And I'm still not exactly clear what you want people to do, if they leave a spawn near a road.  Even if you stand your ground, fight, and leave a gravestone, that spawn is going to be there until it times out.   The next person along may very well be hit by it.  There really is nothing you can do.  This is true for all the near-road spawns.

[Nehetsrev]

Character deaths aren't the only inconvenience caused by fleeing/dragging either.  I've lost track of the number of oxen I've lost from other players dragging creatures through multiple areas, or into towns.

Heck, just the other day I had brought my ox with me into the Spirit Dunes, parked it near the transition to the area outside Spellgard and went off to kill the scorpions in the area to make the way safe for my ox.  Only to return just in time to see my ox being killed by a gnoll from two areas away that someone else who'd fled the gnoll had drug there.

Just imagine how upset I'd be if that had happened to the horse I paid around 16,000 to 17,000 Trues for...

[Lynn1020]

*pokes her nose in*

I remember how upset I was when Emie lost a SS to Bugbears that someone drug out in a well traveled area.  I was not a happy player.

[Dorganath]

(And if you enter the words "banned site:layonara.com" into google, you get about 12600 hits, so it clearly isn't that uncommon.)

And because statistics do not exist in a vacuum...

Those 12,600 instances are due, in no small part, to every post by players who were banned (and who consequently have "Banned" under their forum names) being indexed by Google.  Some of those players had hundreds, perhaps even thousands of posts to their names.

In truth, we have less than 30 banned accounts configured into our game servers, and at least 3-4 of those are different accounts held by the same person. For as long as this world has been in operation, that's not a lot of people.

Everyone that I've seen so far has been banned for repeated and/or flagrant offenses, not simply being contrary, or for trying to survive with their character...or, perhaps the biggest misconception, for irritating a GM.

But anyway, we're hijacking the thread.

[SteveMaurer]

But anyway, we're hijacking the thread.

I think we crossed that rubicon long long ago.
Poor Kajun!  He was just writing a "where is everybody" thread, and this happened!    

Anyway, I'll start up a new thread with the changes you and others have suggested.   Probably in the General area, since of necessity, this involves so much meta-discussion it really doesn't belong in Rumors.

Though I do take back one thing - I think I have a way of putting the rules back into a fun in-character format.  (Though with my luck, that will just end up putting work onto Ed.)

[lonnarin]

Just a note.  While luring seems cheap, the monsters really should worry about their own area of effect spells which they cast on their own party.  AOEs are the reason for 75% or so of luring.  People just simply dont want to be hit with supernatural fireballs which only affect their party and not the other.  You can explain luring... you tricked a scout, one of their pack wandered off to investigate, etc.  What you cannot explain is why monsters will hellball or fireball or evards black tentacles or even entangle themselves 6 times in a row and remain unscathed.  Having just died within seconds after entering a room of hellballing, dark elf casters which should have by all rights immolated themselves, I would have to say that the monsters in many places MANDATE luring and using line-of-sight game mechanics as a necessity.  

Now if there weren't so many chokepoints with mages who acted as immortal suicide bombers, then players might be more willing to "fight fair".  But until the enemies start adhering to the basics of physics (ie: casting a fireball on myself and my friends will set them on fire, just as well as my targets), then the whole realism in their AI argument is somewhat moot.  The monster mages are already abusing their own AI and the game mechanics to a rather unbalancing degree.

[Hellblazer]

It's pretty hard to rewrite an Ai i think, would it even be possible for NWN?. in anycase I do agree to a certain degree of what Loranin is saying. I have always find it a bit frustrating that the npc casters would not hurt their own side, on a spell that -is- all creatures within the area, damaging.
 
 I think it was wierd that I saw used in the firestep once, by the enemy caster. While we had protected ourselves from it, the other npc foe had not. and yet they still lived through it, while would we have not protected our selves from it, we would have died and they would have feasted on our chubby hero carcasses.
 
 But at the same time the solo luring (luring one foe at a time) I am not particularly a fan myself.

[lonnarin]

It's pretty hard to rewrite an Ai i think, would it even be possible for NWN?. in anycase I do agree to a certain degree of what Loranin is saying. I have always find it a bit frustrating that the npc casters would not hurt their own side, on a spell that -is- all creatures within the area, damaging.
 
 I think it was wierd that I saw used in the firestep once, by the enemy caster. While we had protected ourselves from it, the other npc foe had not. and yet they still lived through it, while would we have not protected our selves from it, we would have died and they would have feasted on our chubby hero carcasses.
 
 But at the same time the solo luring (luring one foe at a time) I am not particularly a fan myself.

Indeed, much of the gameplay and AI limitations that we experience in NWN will hopefully be fixed when we carry over into the MMORPG version.  I'm crossing my fingers for monsters which give up pursuit of a player after he runs hasted off into the distance, and transitionless areas, and smart-luring AI like in Gothic 3, where enemies grouped together lure together.