I Was Thinking . . .

[*DaftyXIII]

What if there where a place other than The Lake of Fire or any Group Adventure Areas located In This Link are added for a bit more diversity on who and what we face? all I seem to engage in those areas are Fiends or Undead (i have not been to them all so i could be wrong) I would love to see a more diverse NPC mob type to kill :) as i would like to use lets say poisons or perhaps have a sneak attack build without needing Epic Percison, its just a thought that perhpas there are lvl 25+ worthy NPC foes to go against that might have diffrent resistances and damage types offering more diversity to our builds to counter those possible new foes :)

We tend to get stuck in the "build outsider monsters" rut just because of the setting. I agree that more variety would be better at the end of the day.

fair enough :)

now if I may ask (because im about to say something i dont fully understand, so bear with me lol)

from this image
Image link of the great wheel cosmotoligy

It made perfect sense to have the ozze plane linked within the earth, so whoever did that you have my thanks as hopefully it'll encourage others to go to the plane of earth :) and i would love to see more done in that fasion

what if some one made a late game plane like Arcadia or Elysium, we only have one place to kill off Lawfull Good NPC as far as i'm aware of in Mount Celestia. SCoD has so many PrC's that are dominatly evil based (at least thast how i feel, which it could just be me) so why not give us players another taht are playing evil characters to kill off Good NPCs?

I mean i was playing a Barachina in the lake of fire killing both sides.. one Character asked "why do you kill your fellow Devils and these Demons"... i had to think for abit and the only thing i could think of is "we all have our place in this multiverse to do our part, and my part is none of your buisness" I could have said "my Devil Lord is in disagrement with those here" but I didnt know what layer the Lake of Fire was, so i played stupid and said its classified basicaly lol

Dont get me wrong outiders in late game make sense if I lok at it compared to the many other games. you work your way to hell in the end to destroy the big bad demon lord idea, it worked in the past why not keep the tradition /shug it could be a comfort zone thing (not to be degrading as i dont know if thast teh case or not) or somthing else i'm unaware of.

last question, if some one placed a poll on the forums of what we would like to see next with reasons other than "i want to kill more deva's add another devine plane" and be more explanitory would any builders out there hear us? I hope some would x.x but in the end I would hope that the polls would encourage a builder to assist us by adding a new plane in their own time. :)


EDIT : I dont know the setting all that well honsetly, thus i dont understand fuly why the setting has anything to do with outsiders late game. but... I like to think that SCoD is a sandbox in its own way making it uniqe to the other servers. So why not break the cycle? i mean some of us spark events all the time that can very well be considering breaking the cycle... SCoD is my prefered NWN2 server out there right now as, yes its like 90% of games where you kill get exp and loot at the same time, but thast not all sigil has to offer.. like i said it feels liek a sandbox to me as SCoD is what the player makes it really. if i'm amking any sense at all, its why i'm saying or feel i soudl say that waht has hapened in the past lore wise is not the present SCoD we make the story of SCoD everyday of what it is or what it will come to be :)

to be concise SCoD is player driven i feel, just like how EVE Online is to a degree :)

[*DaftyXIII]

So today it clicked, the possibility of how Sigil was designed to be played vs how we the players play it.

I'll explain . . .

Sigil has places such as The Outlands, Ethereal Demiplane, and Maldomini that no one ventures too. So I asked myself why is that? I assume its because we as humans (especially those considered to be western countrys) dont want to grind, because we want it now. So we power grind our way to lets say 25, we realize that around that time our EXP is doping of dramaticaly compared to before. That also made me wonder if perhaps each plane that exists in sigil was meant to be played on, but we dont because the exp isn't that great.

I have the hardest time with powering because surviability wise my gear aint up to par. but i do it anyways

So, for those like me who posted anything like this this not long ago link to post are possibly thinking about things in the wrong way, perhaps we the average player are missing something in the formula?

your thought's on this reader?

[*SigTerm]

So today it clicked, the possibility of how Sigil was designed to be played vs how we the players play it.

I'll explain . . .

Sigil has places such as The Outlands, Ethereal Demiplane, and Maldomini that no one ventures too. So I asked myself why is that? I assume its because we as humans (especially those considered to be western countrys) dont want to grind, because we want it now. So we power grind our way to lets say 25, we realize that around that time our EXP is doping of dramaticaly compared to before. That also made me wonder if perhaps each plane that exists in sigil was meant to be played on, but we dont because the exp isn't that great.

I have the hardest time with powering because surviability wise my gear aint up to par. but i do it anyways

So, for those like me who posted anything like this this not long ago link to post are possibly thinking about things in the wrong way, perhaps we the average player are missing something in the formula?

your thought's on this reader?

People venture to those areas, but less frequently.

Outlands are good at early (under 10) levels and contain nice maze with a cool combat encounter.
Ethereal demiplane works on specific builds around level 13 or 16.
Maldomini works at late teen/early 20s levels, but it heavily depends on your build. The area works well if you can't handle abyss, plus it has fairly tough temple in it. Cornugon hunting is fun.

Those are not "uber popular spots" (Rats -> Brux -> Stairs in Limbo -> Abyss), but they're being used.

The one really underutilized area is Khalas. I think last time I saw anyone go there was 3 years ago. Another infrequently used one is slags, but I saw people playing there recently.

There are also few elusive places like "Plane of Ooze" (no idea where it is), plane of water, etc., plus one portal in lady's ward I could never open.

Basically, a player that is not in a rush to get to 25 in 2 days will probably visit those areas eventually.

[*Mr_Otyugh]

The problem of SCoD has currently, is that it is a server that has gone through several different building philosophies. You could probably ask most builders/players/DMs how they view that SCoD should be played, and get different answers almost every time. You can see those everytime new areas are added by new people and they tend to gradually shift focus or give an idea of shift of focus. In short: what's the baseline to design around?

The general vision of SCoD's difficulty is that it should be manageable without powerbuilding, but should not be absent of tactical thinking. With tactical thinking I do mean utilizing terrain, consumables, change of spells and general approach to fighting. You can brute force through it, definitely. And people are of the opinion that 200+ experience is the norm, but technically by the experience scripts 50 is the true norm ^{(levels 1-5 and 25-30 are exceptions, as they have modified experience gains)}, SCoD rewards for facing tougher challenges however giving incentives to push the odds. Anything above that is technically a tougher challenge than meant for you. Of course RP experience muddies the calculations on that count. For most players there even exists no different difficulty except gatecrasher, but that can often make you fight against creatures meant for 4-5 levels higher player characters, so should that be used as a baseline for players considering difficulty? Of course not, you get what you're asking for with the difficulty setting.

Now a more recent theme has been getting ever tougher areas, which I think is a concerning trend honestly. Krigala and the latest additions to Carceri are in my mind about those, they inspire the idea that powerbuilding is a thing that should be, but I'd contest that they should be the exception, and that exception should probably be capitalized more clearly, while better supporting the more wanted venues.

Don't get me wrong, I don't claim that all other areas in SCoD are blame-free, there is definitely room for improvement, but it should be done with the reasonable sense that you should be able to manage without powerbuilding, but it shouldn't be completely trivialized.

Outlands and Ethereal Plane are both rather outdated and haven't properly kept up with the times in terms of spawn design, not for the lack of trying. Outlands have always been an issue and while the area design is quite interesting (though I abhor the texture work there), they are up for singular fun adventure, but after that they kind of lose their charm as they simply aren't competitive to other alternatives.

[*Nimiane]

I think adding these areas to the Infinite Staircase would aid in them seeing more traffic, also.

[*Sinlinara]

And people are of the opinion that 200+ experience is the norm, but technically by the experience scripts 50 is the true norm ^{(levels 1-5 and 25-30 are exceptions, as they have modified experience gains)}

My first NWN2 experience was on a low-XP server. I considered 12-16 XP per kill to be actually great XP gain.

The one time I got 50 from a mob I freaked out and started sending tells to friends explaining how amazing it was.

Perspectives are interesting. And everyone comes to the server with different ones. My perspective meant that I was levelling incredibly slowly (playing a pure crafter before the Golem Master expansion update didn't help either) and only ever got to 25 two or three months into my gaming. As a result I also got to go and visit a lot of places that no one goes to normally.

I remember having a system worked out where I would clear out Umber Hulks in the Plane of Earth by shooting them with a Staff of Blasting from the bridge where the big ones would run up and block the way of the little ones, and then I'd pick them off one-by-one with the 2d6 Eldritch Blast from the staff. It was slow, and painful, and far more difficult than it normally would have been. But it was also really memorable and engaging.

[*cryptc]

The one time I got 50 from a mob I freaked out and started sending tells to friends explaining how amazing it was.

I once played a server that just gave xp to everyone in party split equally and took no note of character level. Levelled up from a single monster since epic party member killed something far, far above my level.

It did teach me what not to do for when I designed the xp script for SCoD though...

[*DaftyXIII]

"Plane of Ooze" (no idea where it is)

its in the plane of earth, you'll know it when you se it... i stumbled upon it by acident thast the only reason i know.

The problem of SCoD has currently, is that it is a server that has gone through several different building philosophies. You could probably ask most builders/players/DMs how they view that SCoD should be played, and get different answers almost every time.

I dint know the wheal was reinvented so to speak in SCoD, but yes I agree with if i asked some one how SCoD should be played i'd get so many diffrent answers i'll probably be sick.

Overall the reason for this post is about us who think something needs to be buffed/nerfed as we all have our on way of playing as you said because of our wants/needs. If we all perhaps had a idea on how it was ment to be played. as in not going from the rats in the swers to brux, then to Astral Planes or plane of ice. basicaly playing hop scotch around the planes because we are pushing the envelope just to get more EXP faster. In the end of all that, I genraly do a rebuild atleast 2 times till i get to max level becasue my gear is bad. heck I got a character who is ECL 14, she has no magic gear on her but the weapons gained from the quests because reasons that upset me greatly.. and she has almost no gold because she keeps dieing, like less than 1k poor.

now, as said many diffrent results are gunna happen, but i'm sure there is a average common ground that stuff can be based of of i assume?

I apoligize for not quoting you all with a response but thank you for your input it helps me gain a bit of understanding I hope :)

[*Darkrob]

It's currently designed for most playstyles. Those who want to powerlevel their characters quickly will use the Brux/Limbo/Astral/Abyss. Those who want a slower experience will use the other areas more freely, taking their time and exploring as they RP. Thos with no real interest in levelling (or wanting to do so slowly) will use the RP areas and the lowest XP areas as they see fit.

This allows inclusion for most player types.

[*WhenWizardsWar]

I think adding these areas to the Infinite Staircase would aid in them seeing more traffic, also.

I think this is the heart of the matter. I personally don't think it comes down to XP generation at all as much as it matters about awareness. We have great influx of new players and even old players, who are often lead to certain specific areas for "wealth making and challenges".

If people don't know a place exists, how can they have the desire to go there?.

Giving planeswalkers incentive to travel to certain spots for reasons other then xp certainly could not hurt on any level.