Generel feedback on al the changes...

[Warchief]

Here is my own feedback that I can think of at this time:

Positive:

Beautiful Areas: I like the overall area design and even the sneakiness at some of the hidden stuff behind what look to be impassible terrain. The monster design also fits the areas well and the module is overall fun to explore.

Class diversity: The changes to classes make each class feel unique and useful in any party. Examples of this are very noticeable differences between different melee class i.e. a fighter is different from a barbarian, a paladin feels more unique etc. The mod is also designed so that each class has a need in a party and no class should feel left out. A caster needs their tank as much as a tank needs their caster and the new rogue stuff makes it so it is worthwhile to have a rogue as a trustworthy friend or even just to help offset the high costs of gear. This overall is fairly well balanced with more new ideas and tweaks being suggested as players want to try more classes.

Actively listen to feedback: It is always good when the module creator listens and responds to player feedback. This has lead to not only awesome changes but also some heated debates which all add to the enjoyment of the module.

Active Updates: The module is constantly improving which helps to keep the interest going as well as address any issues that happen. Many modules these days either don't update anymore or take forever for new stuff to come out.

Negative:

Rest Timer: Although this has been lowered somewhat, it still seems rather long. I do get the point that you feel that spells shouldn't always active or other abilities that have limited uses per rest but this really slows the adventure down or can halt adventures if things go bad. Casters rely on their spells to be useful to the party and if all spells are exhausted then they have to either use their unlimited use magic stick, be a cheerleader and watch everyone else fight and have fun while they wait to be able to rest or charge madly into combat and pray they survive. A melee class never runs out of weapon attacks so why limit a caster's fun to the amount of spells they have every 20 - 30 min. (I understand that in later levels or dropping a huge amount of gold will enable casters to have a huge amount of spells but that just means that they will actually be able to be useful until the rest time rather than a cheerleader until then lol)

Spawnpoints at low level: In the days of fighting rats and goblins in order to make the quota of bounties, these are super annoying to do because of the one way spawnpoint AND the active hiding. The hiding does add a uniqueness to the spawns, however if trying to do a bounty, you potentially miss a lot of respawns while running back through an areas, simply because they cannot be seen (plus on top of that, while they chase you, they move too slow to catch you until you reach the spawnpoint again anyway). Removing the hide feature or the secondary spawnpoint should fix this issue but I understand as well that doing this for all areas is a HUGE task and there are more important things to attend to.

Lack of direction in epic levels: I have mentioned this before in game but figured I would add it to the feedback so other players can get a view on it as well. Levels 1 - 20 have a huge amount of options available to them, from quests to bounties but once those mostly get done (which after grinding through all the bounties) this gets a player close to or just past level 25. At level 25 there seems to be just bounties, or the odd quest like the RSS guy, Dwarven Halls, the Talkash bosses and the Focus stone potion enhancing quest although this is technically level 20). Look forward to seeing what gets added to address this and put a balance between solo and party play. (I feel that players should have at least an idea of where to go whether solo or with a group rather than the current "now what" scenario) On a positive note though, when adventuring with Halande, the epic stuff is really fun to go through as a group just needs a bit of direction to guide groups to where the fun is.

Lack of interesting gear/progressive gear shops: I could just not have found more places to update gear or that we haven't been to a lot of the epic areas with special loot but gear seems to be either save up and buy your level 1 - 20 gear in town, save up your forge tokens for your awesome weapon (or slowly spend a large amount on your spell slots as a caster), then save up and wait until you can get to Tolmar for armour and helm upgrades. I personally like the forge items but it would be cool to be able to find more gear or boss loot drops. I do also like twilight's idea of being able to sell the stuff you find or outdated forged gear of course for a fraction of the price so that players cant become millionaires in seconds. For forged gear however, it would be neat to be able to "melt down" previously forged items (either destroying the item or just removing the enchantments so that they can be upgraded again) and get some of the forge tokens that was spent on the item back. This way the forge can be more of a progressive gear upgrade option rather than deciding whether upgrading gear to +4 for example is worth the forge tokens, or wait until you can get +5 or 6.

I think I have rambled on enough and this is pretty much what I could think of currently. Overall however, I love the module and all the hard work that is being put into it. I even enjoy the friendly/heated debates on stuff. It has been a lot of fun to play with my friends here and even solo to some extent. There are of course some things that could improve the server as a whole but that comes with designing a world. No place is ever perfect and the improvements are what keep the module fun and interesting.

[Noskard]

Rest Timer: Although this has been lowered somewhat, it still seems rather long. I do get the point that you feel that spells shouldn't always active or other abilities that have limited uses per rest but this really slows the adventure down or can halt adventures if things go bad. Casters rely on their spells to be useful to the party and if all spells are exhausted then they have to either use their unlimited use magic stick, be a cheerleader and watch everyone else fight and have fun while they wait to be able to rest or charge madly into combat and pray they survive. A melee class never runs out of weapon attacks so why limit a caster's fun to the amount of spells they have every 20 - 30 min. (I understand that in later levels or dropping a huge amount of gold will enable casters to have a huge amount of spells but that just means that they will actually be able to be useful until the rest time rather than a cheerleader until then lol)

Just to give a supporting perspective or rather my point of view, is that the module already has areas that makes you unable to rest, thus making me feel like rest timer being irrelevant honestly. If anything a hassle, as a pure wizard I can honestly say it is very. Very. Boring to having to stare at my hotbar whilst spamming my F1 button (Magic Staff) to deal X amount of damage, and then end up seeing at certain occasions monsters with complete magic immunity or fire immunity, or just the saves to render it doing only 60 maybe 100 dmg once per round.

(Mathematically let's look at a melee character that WILL never, EVER, fall behind on a consistent damage basis unless rolling 1's but that's 4 - 5 Attacks Per Round. With consistent 60+ damage unless crit then 120+. Whilst wizards can do that godly damage on a boss, if said boss has high hp or that flippin heal ability that I keep forgetting to dispel, I still do less then the warrior and he'll have to finish the fight alone essentially.)

Leading to me being a puppet like state of staring at everyone and saying, "So... Did that extended Mass Haste end yet? No... Okay." stares blankly while saving 10 spell slots of pure burst on a boss fight. If. We. Even. Make. It. Don't get me wrong, I also enjoy the idea of the rest timer, but at the same time it's probably one of the few reasons why I hated D&D 3.5 considering once I'm finished with all my spell slots with the first 4-5 encounters in a 30-40 encounter dungeon area. I am rendered useless. Utterly useless. It makes me stare at my lovely friend barbarian or fighter deal the final blow. Whilst the wizard, "Yo... Remember when I cast that Mage armor on you? I did." On top of it, it makes grinding even greater of a hassle. Whilst paladins/fighters/barbarians/maybe rogues at earlier stages of the game never needing to worry of when to rest to refresh said spell slots. And then later on it seems the same situation, at least from what I can conclude till they do party tier things.

On top of that point I'd like to state, can.. Can we seriously have some monsters not be immune to everything in epic levels? Like, even demi-gods on D&D aren't immune to everything, they just have high saves. The spells variety is absolutely horrendous, I'm essentially spamming only 3 offensive spells (2 really, Ice storm and Delayed Fireball, sometimes IGMS) and pure support spells to buff the party. I ain't against it, but I'd sometimes wish to have more offensive spells to make use of in boss fights. Sure death immunity, but not level drain, ability drain, poisons, etc... Yeeesh. It just makes me want to go Cleric to have more variety in my offensive spells and possibly spam implosion hope they get a 1 on their roll. I also think Warchief can agree he's tired of me spamming 15 Ice Storms in a boss fight hoping we can bring it down fast enough. Without alternative maybe use of tricks and studying the monsters. It was fun earlier on because I knew the monsters weakness and vulnerabilities to which I can prepare my spells at the convenience of the party. But as I am now at level 26, it's really just the same thing and dull.

(Side Note: Although I dislike the resting timer it is also a necessity considering certain circumstances of where people could abuse it if there wasn't. So really I'm in between, but man do I hate grinding and having to wait that extra 6 minutes.)

Lack of direction in epic levels: I have mentioned this before in game but figured I would add it to the feedback so other players can get a view on it as well. Levels 1 - 20 have a huge amount of options available to them, from quests to bounties but once those mostly get done (which after grinding through all the bounties) this gets a player close to or just past level 25. At level 25 there seems to be just bounties, or the odd quest like the RSS guy, Dwarven Halls, the Talkash bosses and the Focus stone potion enhancing quest although this is technically level 20). Look forward to seeing what gets added to address this and put a balance between solo and party play. (I feel that players should have at least an idea of where to go whether solo or with a group rather than the current "now what" scenario) On a positive note though, when adventuring with Halande, the epic stuff is really fun to go through as a group just needs a bit of direction to guide groups to where the fun is.

Just a little supporting perspective, I'm currently just harvesting mushrooms because I don't know what to do, and not only that I really. Really. Hate. Grinding mobs.

Lack of interesting gear/progressive gear shops: I could just not have found more places to update gear or that we haven't been to a lot of the epic areas with special loot but gear seems to be either save up and buy your level 1 - 20 gear in town, save up your forge tokens for your awesome weapon (or slowly spend a large amount on your spell slots as a caster), then save up and wait until you can get to Tolmar for armour and helm upgrades. I personally like the forge items but it would be cool to be able to find more gear or boss loot drops. I do also like twilight's idea of being able to sell the stuff you find or outdated forged gear of course for a fraction of the price so that players cant become millionaires in seconds. For forged gear however, it would be neat to be able to "melt down" previously forged items (either destroying the item or just removing the enchantments so that they can be upgraded again) and get some of the forge tokens that was spent on the item back. This way the forge can be more of a progressive gear upgrade option rather than deciding whether upgrading gear to +4 for example is worth the forge tokens, or wait until you can get +5 or 6.

Rant on Epic Gears:
So, going off of this, I want to just say this is a perspective of just playing a pure wizard. At the current moment of their gear and progressiveness I'm honestly not surprised there isn't much for them if at all anything. Honestly the epic equipment for said casters are somewhat of a joke, I guess IMO maybe it's my inexperience with epic levels but currently I find nothing useful of them. My Green Whelp Dragon Boss Loot Robes essentially have almost the stats of the Tolmar armour if I remember correctly, except it doesn't give me +5 more Armor AC. (Let's be honest here, I'm a wizard. I do not and will not, have good AC in any epic level encounters. And if I wanted too, I could just dip a level in Fighter and throw on full-plate and take it off and on whenever I need to cast buff spells and before boss fights. I don't need said robes at that point or it's stat boost considering the circumstances of all other equipment giving me the necessary intelligence boost I require that caps it.) But my memory is a bit foggy maybe I'm mistaken, but the only epic level equipment for casters (Sorc/Wizards it seems) is the Amulet.

But this is just the wizardly side of things and I have yet to play any other classes. Currently I never even touched the Forge gear because I don't understand it, and well I never needed too. So I don't know if wizards can make armor such as full-plate acquire a 0% Arcane failure chance, perhaps even a sword or a weapon other than a staff with unlimited casting per day boosting your spells.

Rant on Progressive Gears:
I'll be honest I started a new character and... Yeah, the progression gear has a huge gap currently. Currently this is the thought process I'll be going through with my paladin. But, take in mind I don't know the levels but I assume you probably will knowing the leveled areas. At the moment the only weapons and gear he'll even have that is useful is +3 tier things. This is before level 10, and will be for quite awhile as it progresses these are the upgrades, at the moment. He'll be having the Belt that the orc drops in the Goblin Fortress tunnels and that won't change at all till I finally get to 15+ tier quests. The cloak from the crypt won't be changed till I attempt to kill the Polar Bear, A longsword from the green dragon whelp (Forgot his name seriously.) but my paladin is made for Bastard Sword's. (Is there... Any drops for BS's?) The Full-Plate/Helmet from Orcgate, Boots from Polar Bear area (maybe.) Rings from Nightchampions, Amulet in Epic Levels (But a +3 Natural AC amulet if I buy it.), +3 Shield don't know where to get gewd shields yet until epic levels buying from epic progression. And well, just epic shop overall for the rest.

I probably missed something, correct me if I'm wrong but that's all I can tell I'm going to be getting till I save up around 2 mil worth of gold to drop on epic gears alone. To upgrade all my things that's even worth it.

[Noskard]

Won't let me edit D; forgot to add this in
--
Anyway I still love the server, ain't nothing wrong with it. Well maybe a little bit, but it's enjoyable none the less and t'is just my opinion/perspective currently on the state of things. I usually don't have anything to say or give feedback considering I just farm mushrooms, so apologize for going off from Warchief's statements. Also, be cool if there were more non-killing things to do rewarding XP had a blast of fishing and gathering plants.

[tarashon]

Howdy Noskard and Warchief

I've seen your comment on the wizard issues but currently have my mind elsewhere. Some spells may need additional tweaking or the like. The concept of casters however having more or less endless damage spells though seemes outright stupid to me and will never happen. What casters COULD do is stop memorising everything to BUFF melee and use their spell offensively. Obviously though when one use most spells to make melee stronger then one will A be fast out f spells and B feel melees are much stronger.

I saw how powerfull casters could be "back then" and since then everything made has improved for casters. Casters will never have very short rest timer as it basically will ruin the intire server balance.

But really let's look at this after the server is up and running and I have finished my huge labor on the upcoming " EPIC UPDATE"

Until then casters or caster interested people are welcome to look at our custom spell changes here on the forum and see if they can come up wth a better balance of things

/tara

[Warchief]

I agree that your focus should remain in the epic update but I only brought up all the points that I did about mages vs melee toon since Rose and I talked about it in game recently and the topic got brought up here on the forums. Ultimately the issue just boils down to the balance between solo play and party play. The more members there are in the party, the less the mage has to rely on using up multiple spells on one spawn group and then having to wait 20 min to continue playing. Also spell variety can be discussed and leaves things open for further customizing wizard/sorcerer damage spells so that they are the caster classes designed to bring the burst damage where it is needed rather than be a support class like the druid or cleric.

On a side note, that since the player base these days has next to no knowledge of "back then" could be why the issues are coming to light and also because of the player base now being smaller, that party play might have been a lot more common. Each class in a party has HUGE potential in a group but suffer a lot solo currently because of the way the server was designed. Not saying there is anything wrong with that since it promotes an active community just means that the balance has shifted due to the age of the game/community. It is probably more difficult to balance everything now than it was back then because now there has to be a bit more balance between solo and party play without throwing the balance of the entire server completely off. I feel that the server is pretty much balanced for the most part when it comes to party play, where groups of 3 -5 or more players can really have fun and enjoy the fullness of the server (or even two if a good melee and caster combo). There is just the issue now that all of us are at separate places with our characters (and built more for enjoyment of character rather than gave much thought to building for a group) and the times we all play that it is hard to fully get into the party aspect the server was designed for and thus need/want for a bit of rebalance to being able to progress a character solo and having fun while doing so, then being able to come together as a group to take on the stuff that was designed for players to face back then.

[Li'l Rose]

Well, if the server is balanced for large groups, then for me that means playing with characters that are 5 to 10 levels above me. This means playing in epic areas, and thus getting 1 xp per kill, and lots of dying, which is not very fun. I had planned to make a sorcerer, but after reading the comments about casters and resting, I no longer wish to make one. Perhaps some quests are needed that can be done with smaller groups, but with smaller rewards.

[tarashon]

Howdy

Yes the focus now is on epic level content and quests less tough as to have something to do and level up with not needing big battle groups.
Resting timer will not be lowered more than now but generelly spells may be changed and tweaked to be suitable for balance.

/tara

[Incartus]

I don't think you should change anything, instead, plan, execute, and deliver a new epic experience that is parallel to what we enjoy now.
If build's are such an issue perhaps some template's could be posted on the forum's.
To me in my limited understand of this world and its system's; I would say a wizard could be overdone with spell slot's, Ac from con or dex.
I'm also going to go out on a limb and say because it's a hardcore world, a rest timer or needing help isn't as bad as say a permanent death system.
Perhaps it's not even as bad as say a low magic item world?
In term's of balancing my personal opinion is that Tarashon had a lot of time to do a great job.
Now it's up to us as the player's to help him perfect this next batch of goodness.
O.O Then again post is purely a matter of opinion, and subject to flames O.O

[BenevolentDevil]

From my experience ( pre big update/changes ) ,:

Forge System/items - Personally, I like it because of variety reasons, I can somewhat customize my used or favorite weapons as on a needed basis.

However, I don't like it ... because I'd rather be able to shop and/or find descriptive and interesting items of the like... depending on my level ranges or areas traveled to.
With some characters the forge doesn't help at all, especially when you have one main already, and everything else is an alt character.
Anoksuna for example , needs more forge tokens than she can legally use, only to make her armor improved. Adding things, to her already DM-Crafted and awesome bow , doesn't make sense to me ,and taking a risk of a forge bug destroying even would prevent a try anyways.

Item Progression - I have to agree that soft-shell characters ,tend to get the short end of the stick there. There is just not any real variety outside heavier armors. Other than Xymoria ... I hadn't even really seen any decent helms or shields for epics to be honest.

Spell Resting-Timer: I think it works well as intended.
All my characters ,Sorcs or Wizards , have used it from day one ... and it isn't bad, especially in a party. Just make allowances for your casters to be able to stop and rest,or before you go into a non-resting dungeon. Other than that, you got potions, rings, staves/wands and rods to help offset any rapidly depleted spell slots ... which some btw are unlimited in use per day. Yeah it's not like your full on spell you can cast, but it beats swinging a +2 stick right in the face and up close to a very dangerous monster or boss.
It's not a "perfect" system ... but it does work well enough.

What I dislike about NWN and spells are those that are offensive spells that don't really do actual damage, but an effect are pretty much worthless.
Even in Low levels, the Daze cantrip was useless more or less. Undead are immune, and the goblins are beefed up to consistently make that save.
Spells like Charm Person, don't really do anything. So,you spam Ray of Frost.
Most monsters passed the low level areas, are immune to mind effects, and illusionary magics. You can't put them to sleep, stun them, or trick them ... eventually most have True sight so even Imp Invis and Sneaking don't work well either.
So all you are left with as a caster, is Buffing spells and a handful of attack spells , and some baddies are immune to those too.

Summons do help in many occasions, and I consider them a offense/Defence spell ... ,but even at Lev 9 or 10 summon, with tweaks ... either they mow through bad guys easily,or get mowed down themselves easily.

Which becomes kind of a issue with DnD itself ... the magic system doesn't scale right. By the time one becomes epic, the 1-5th level spells are worthless save for buffs. Almost none of your attack spells are going to dent a monster or boss in those level ranges.
One would think ... to cast level 8 or 9 spells ... you'd be a super expert at casting your level 1 and 2 spells, and know how to cause more effect/damage with them ... because you develop that skill by using them so much.
But DnD sadly , limits magic in such a way , it has this static , not useful side to it.

Other than all that ... the changes I've seen have been neat ... and I like them. My only real thing is having to retrace all the old quest I had done before, to find some new content , and re-attune to the portals again. Null gets my gold twice now ... hahaha. He extorts the database wipe , for his own evil agenda! ( I know Null is not evil,lol. )

[tarashon]

Howdy

Well as for the spell balance try take a look on the spellchanges on forum. WHat I allready ahve done is to make severel spells progress to level 30 or 40 and fx firebrand actually have +15 to casterlevel is you use the new staff III from magics and mysteries making its a possible level 55 spell at level 40.

Basically those playing casters are more than welcome to use the time to try and setup a list here on forum with spell damages; and ill look it over and if I find it resonable implement it.

Basically i am PRO maybe tweaking down damage per level abit on the lowe level spells and uppong it abit on the higher level spells but then making it all cap at level 40. I personally am 100% FOR a level 40 mage casting a spells more powerfull than a level 15....

As for death magic and mind effecting "back then" what we wanted and still do is to get rid of "instant kills". What might however be interesting is to cut down on immunities but instead considerably lower duration on the mind effecting spells. As for death magic im not really sure i honestly fullheartely dislike instakilling and what is worth considering is that with the new AI i've started to use casters much more for NPCs . SO far I havent given them death magic for the very same reason that I dont like instant killing players either...

Problems with NWN and fx deathmagic is a 1 on the save is still a 1 and if you remove that then some can suddenly be imune or all casters must be made tweaked strong and then others will die horible over and over. Balance is not that easy, especially with spells and this server is not one of those where casters can run around being "small gods" like in many low to midlevel magic servers abd it never will be.

This being said ( again ) , It is very possible that severel spells needs their damage tweaked on the positive side...

/tara