RE: dear DEVs, thinking outside the box is not bad

[paraplegic]

DEVS.

This is a small suggestion for next time the team decides to do something awesome.
Insted of this is too powerful/cool, lets remove it, please ask to yourselfs, "is it another way that would angry the players not that much?" or what about "could i think of something better than ¨x¨?

well the solution is always outside the box.

Problem: proof against poison.
Dev given solution: Lets remove the "proof" and just make things resistent against poison
events that followed: Many players feel it a real pain, because they either put some dollars on WF or made some shiny proof against poison/cloakbracershelm or whatever.


Out of the box solution
Problem: proof against poison.
(hipotetical) Dev1 given solution; hey why not insted poison we use something else?
Dev2: Like what?
Dev1: Lets add some form of flesh disolver, after all its not "poison" neither disease.
Dev2: yea, and that could deal, either HP, or if it hits in face could deal wisdom, int, or cha damage. Heck if it hits body it could driven into Con Str or dex!!
Dev1: yea and we could just put some of the flesh disolver into the swords or bows or whatever! so we trick players into what they belive an upgrade of AI/challenge!

(hypotetical) events that follow: players will think as a challenge, sure some of them will complain, and cry. but guess what. at the end they will be happy. since this will add a dimension in their favorite game!

other examples could be. monsters that have bonebreaking maces (that could lead into Dex damage (yes emulation disease). or what about the "hey PM can solo everything" why not add monsters ( on higher diffs) with a lighting strike? ( bosses? with a thin chance?) that way melees ( that are build for Hp/aggro management, can play! and while PM are very durable they will die against those monsters!


bottom though, insted of griefing players taking things that we build for ( think of those large scales! ) why not just add more challenges.

i belive this is a game that the players must not see the GM as the enemy, but insted players must fight vs the challenges of the GM.

Once GM put something in the table massive nerfs must not exist ( i could accept "fixes" but not massive changes!), because players will say; why should i farm the Esos if they will change to 1 swing every 10 mins.


Please think about it.
note: i was a former GM and i know that once the consumer (player) see you (dev/GM) as a force that battle him. things will end badly.


note2: i do not speak english right. any correction is welcome. as any player that want to make things better.
do not feed the trolls.

edit: if for some reason a dev feel insultated. it was just a unhappy accident

[Galeria]

I am pretty sure they take a best-guess estimate at player outrage before making major changes already. To assume they did not would be insulting...

[Tid12]

I like how they handled poison/disease immunities.

[Thorzian]

I like how they handled poison/disease immunities.

you gotta be kidding. for a while pale masters were being poisoned. wafrorge still are. immunities previously took up a gear space, that gear space then could not be used for something else. there were many players running around without disease or poison immune. i mean really a simple potion got rid of it before and will again. but dont tell me you like what they did because the word is nerf. turbine has loved that word for 6 years now.

[Tid12]

you gotta be kidding. for a while pale masters were being poisoned. wafrorge still are. immunities previously took up a gear space, that gear space then could not be used for something else. there were many players running around without disease or poison immune. i mean really a simple potion got rid of it before and will again. but dont tell me you like what they did because the word is nerf. turbine has loved that word for 6 years now.

No, I'm not, sorry.

Pre U14, someone would just chug a Poison neutralization pot/craft a Disease Immunity item (GS) and you would be done for the rest of the life.

Now, when you are poisoned, you have to cure it manually meaning you will stop doing actions = more chances to be hit and die, more adrenaline. It's not like you have to spend 1h to cure it, it's just 1 click away. Put pots in a hotbar if you don't like it that much.

What I don't like is the spam of such poison abilities. If they make it like the curse of Suulomades (On a vorpal roll IIRC?), or just a natural 19-20, it would be much better. Right now, everyone just spam every kind of poision every hit.

[Scraap]

Better this than cooking up "pioson" to get around immunities at the top end.

Better not over-relying on poison so much that it undercuts utility from racial and hefty-grind itemization to function, but they chose that route, so best folks learn to deal from day 1, not day 1000.

[TrinityTurtle]

No, I'm not, sorry.

Pre U14, someone would just chug a Poison neutralization pot/craft a Disease Immunity item (GS) and you would be done for the rest of the life.

Now, when you are poisoned, you have to cure it manually meaning you will stop doing actions = more chances to be hit and die, more adrenaline. It's not like you have to spend 1h to cure it, it's just 1 click away. Put pots in a hotbar if you don't like it that much.

What I don't like is the spam of such poison abilities. If they make it like the curse of Suulomades (On a vorpal roll IIRC?), or just a natural 19-20, it would be much better. Right now, everyone just spam every kind of poision every hit.

I agree with you also. The way it was, there really was no point to having disease and poison in the game at all. Players never gave it a thought beyond grabbing an item and moving on, the chages did add a new dimension to the game without adding a lot of new stuff to break worse.

I also think they need to balance the amount of poison going on a bit better, it should be a real threat one has to be ready for, but not and endless hurricane floodwater.

[Dagolar]

I like how they handled poison/disease immunities.

I agree with you also. The way it was, there really was no point to having disease and poison in the game at all. Players never gave it a thought beyond grabbing an item and moving on, the chages did add a new dimension to the game without adding a lot of new stuff to break worse.

I also think they need to balance the amount of poison going on a bit better, it should be a real threat one has to be ready for, but not and endless hurricane floodwater.

Ditto.

[Lifespawn]

can't chug a pot when you get paralyzed by poison it needs to be toned down it's the new annoying trip

making it on a nat 20 vorpal effect from them would go a long way

[Dagolar]

Well, I feel I should mention that my Warforged caster has only gotten poisoned twice, and that only in the new content.
With that in mind, it seems unlikely a Warforged melee'd have any problems with general poisons, and supernatural poisons take that 'special new substance' role those having trouble with the change argued for as an alternative, so..

I'm enjoying it. If nothing else, it actually makes playing Warforged MORE meaningful- if not in general feel, in how they compare to non-WF. (After all, if poison effects are more potent.. then potent benefits against them are..more potent as well.)

[Orratti]

I believe this is a game that the players must not see the GM as the enemy

I believe our relationship with the DMs is one of wary respect (maybe weary respect). We defeat them in their intentions, they weaken us in return. We put forth our wishes, and like Djinn they turn them against us. There is a samurai saying that you measure your greatness by the greatness of your enemies.

Perhaps they should play their game more often and better or maybe they should tell us to shut our cakeholes because they WANT such and such to completely suck and this over here to be unstoppable. Maybe they should say we intend for the game to work like so and explain their intentions for their product. Maybe they should answer all suggestion threads with "We are no longer taking requests at this current time".

It would work out a lot better than thx for the suggestions now we'll implement something completely different because we want to feel like it was our idea more than yours. Unfortunately once something is changed it becomes like a temporary tax, the only part that is temporary about it is the word temporary, the tax itself becomes permanent. Changing something back to it's previous state and then reworking it again is beyond unlikely.

The last thing I would want them doing is thinking outside the box. In fact I'd rather they recognize the box, define the box to the rest of us and for the love of all that is holy STAY IN THE BOX!

[paraplegic]

I believe our relationship with the DMs is one of wary respect (maybe weary respect). We defeat them in their intentions, they weaken us in return. We put forth our wishes, and like Djinn they turn them against us. There is a samurai saying that you measure your greatness by the greatness of your enemies.

sure your point is valid, however we must fight "their challenges" not the DMs. thats my point.

this is like saying, we are sword playing, we play by their rules, then the DM lose control and now DM bring a handgun.

[Vellrad]

My WF caster get diseased so many times in bastion, I stopped counting after I used up all my fingers and toes.

OP's suggestion would be much better :P

[Orratti]

I have no problem with the changes they did to the subject that your op was about. Immunities were never good to have in the game on the monsters or the players. I just couldn't help responding to that particular line in your op. What you are discussing may need a little (or a lot of) work to be acceptable to those attached to their immunities in regards to saves but were or will be overall an improvement.

My particular beef is with the ac system. What has been done if it were converted to a d20 type of system is increasing the low end auto miss chances while increasing the high end auto hit chances and the ideal 50% miss chance ac to be reached in this system basically converts it to a 1d2 roll. On a 1 you get missed on a 2 you get hit. This is what out of the box thinking will get you. A simple idea that can be quickly implemented to affect everything at once with little work well hidden inside of a cryptic and seemingly impressive formula. Instead of staying inside the box and putting in the effort to make it work.

Yes it is much like the DM losing control and bringing a handgun.

[morticianjohn]

It's one thing to criticize the decisions they make but to say they are not "thinking outside the box" is taking it too far.

These developers have great imaginations and it has translated into some very good things. Criticize these decisions if you like but here are a few out of the box things which have been implemented over the past year.

challenges - Like them or hate them it was a pretty creative idea to introduce challenges to the game
spellpower - seems to be working pretty well and is a pretty creative design
artificer - they couldn't create druid fast enough for us so thinking outside the box they came up with a different class to bridge the gap to druid.
forgotten realms - ok, probably an obvious evolution of the game however, I think the way they did it via expansion was pretty creative.

I don't think creativity is a problem for these developers so I disagree with the OP that they aren't thinking ouside the box even though I don't like the poison/disease changes.

[morticianjohn]

The last thing I would want them doing is thinking outside the box. In fact I'd rather they recognize the box, define the box to the rest of us and for the love of all that is holy STAY IN THE BOX!

I enjoy out of the box creations from the developers but this is my thoughts also. The problem we have currently is not that the developers don't "think outside the box" but that they aren't doing enough within the box. Just as an example one thing I've been in disagreement over:

Heal/mass heal get 50% spellpower from items and enhancements.

This is "out of the box thinking" because they figure they can balance spells by giving them + or - some percent of spellpower. Spellpower is a new system which gives them flexibility and they can take full advantage of it.

If they were thinking within the box they would adjust the spells via the 4 ways they've always used (spell cost, casting time, cooldown timer, or base output)

IMO this out of the box thinking will only serve to make things more complicated. Currently a player might have +120 spellpower from an item. If they introduce a new item with 150 spellpower that would nerf any spell that receives -50% spellpower. In otherwords if they want to keep the spells balanced as they are currently they will have to rebalance them each time they introduce higher spellpower into the game. Also it makes a simple new system increasingly more complex as they've talked about the possibility of increasing a spells output by giving it 101%+ spellpower.

An example where thinking outside the box went a little too far IMO. So I STRONGLY disagree with the OP if he accuses the Devs of failing to think outside the box.

[Vellrad]

For me, lack of thinking outside the box for people making content, is desinging where DPS=absolute_true_and_only_king, and everything else is cr@p.

Is DDO going in this direction? IDK, judge it by yourselves.

[morticianjohn]

For me, lack of thinking outside the box for people making content, is desinging where DPS=absolute_true_and_only_king, and everything else is cr@p.

Is DDO going in this direction? IDK, judge it by yourselves.

It doesn't seem to be. As much as I dislike the change mentioned in the OP it certainly helps to make your save score an important part of your character. The changes to AC/PRR/Dodge have made people work on those scores. IMO they think outside the box plenty.

[Vellrad]

It doesn't seem to be. As much as I dislike the change mentioned in the OP it certainly helps to make your save score an important part of your character. The changes to AC/PRR/Dodge have made people work on those scores. IMO they think outside the box plenty.

I was thinking more about devs urge to nerf some instakills, while leaving DPS sorcs 2-3 shotting everything in sight intact.