Suggestions

[Daimondheart]

Edit: After seeing so many people posting their suggestions on this topic, I though I'd just turn it into a general suggestions thread for everyone. Hope to see more great ideas!

Now that I know this is where I'm supposed to post them, I have several suggestions for Dasaria 2 which I think would be great. Pretty much all of them I have seen implemented on other PWs, so I will list the servers where I have encountered them. I didn't see any rule that forbid the mentioning of the names of other servers, but forums mods are free to censor anything if they feel it necessary.

1. Remove Combat Expertise and Improved Combat Expertise

This one is technically the easiest to pull off but it requires a lot of tweaks. Now I know this initially may seem like a stupid idea, but Depths of Norhaven pulled it off and the end result was very nice. These two feats have caused no end of trouble to builders as they try to balance their monsters in a way that keeps them challenging to the world. Yet in doing so, this typically means that these two feats become a necessity for players in order to survive in the long run. So not only is the removal of these these feats a benefit to the builders, it's also a benefit to the players as well as they no longer are "forced" to get these feats to be on par with everything else.

The hard part about this is that a lot of tweaks need to be made to other feats that require this skill as well as the Weapon Master Prestige class. What the DoN staff did was simple add the int 13 requirement to all the feats that required combat expertise and just dropped the need for it from the Weapon Master PrC. Then there's the players who have already invested in these two feats and will need a way to replace them with new feats. I realize this suggestion is something that would have been better made at the beginning when the server first started, but I saw no harm in listing it here.

2. Paladin - Blackguard Merger

Here's another thing the DoN staff pulled off that was really nice! You know how a lot of people complain about how Smite Infidel from the Divine Champion class can't stack with the benefits from Smite Evil and Smite Good? They fixed this on that server by removing the blackguard class, merged it with the Paladin class, and gave the Paladin Smite Infidel instead of Smite Good.

How it works is that once the player picks the Paladin class at character creation and gets to the alignment screen, they now had a choice between being Lawful Good or Lawful Evil. If they choose Lawful Good, then they were your typical Paladin and their Smite Infidel would work just like Smite Evil for all intents and purposes. And if they choose Lawful Evil, then they became a Blackguard and Smite Infidel would work just as well as Smite Good. They also added the blackguard spells to the paladin spell list and trusted that the players would use the spells appropriate to their character's alignment. DoN actually made a lot of tweaks to this combined class, but it was the decision to use Smite Infidel over Smite Good and Smite Evil that stood out to me more than anything.

3. Paladin's get their Summon Mount Skill?

To my knowledge, this hasn't been pulled off on any PW yet, but as this server has implemented beta horses, I thought it would be great if the Summon Mount feature could be given to the class much like they had it in NWN. As it stands, Paladins are actually rather weak because we lack many of the special abilities we are supposed to be able to choose from. It's why Kaedrin decided to add the Divine Spirit feats to her class mods.

4. Hunger, Thirst, and Stamina System

This is something new I discovered when I checked out the Gray Isles PW. It's still very beta, but I loved how they incorporated a system that made it important for you to take care of the health of your character. They added a new GUI that displays your character's stamina, hunger, and thirst with three bars that would gradually decline as you played. It adds a nice layer of realism to the game and gives you more of a reason to do things like rent a room at the local inn or take breaks to rest and recover your strength.

Restoring these values was very much like how other games have used them. You need to keep your character well fed, carry plenty of water/drink, and be sure to rest often enough to restore stamina. Food and rations could be bought from stores (and eventually will be prepared by others players as they implement the cooking skill), water could be taken from wells, rivers, etc. or stored in canteens for later drinking, and you simple needed to find a safe place to rest such as a room you rent at the inn, or down near the fire in the tavern, and eventually in your own home if you acquired one.

5. Dynamic Crafting System

This is the last one and it's one of the most awesome things I have ever encountered in a PW. This one in particular being the Rise of Sauron PW that used an advanced crafting system that required you to gather materials in the wild (or buy them from certain suppliers, other players, etc.) in order to prepare things. The PW used a new GUI crafting system that was very well detailed and, as you crafted items, your skill for that particular crafting would gradually improve and even level up once you got enough crafting XP.

Now, the Rise of Sauron still depended to an extend on stock crafting skills. You needed to have a certain amount of skill points in craft weapon to craft weapons out of higher quality materials, but I think it would be better if those skills were ignored entirely (even removed from the PW itself), and have your abilities at crafting depend completely on your crafting experience. This seems far more realistic to me because crafting should be something you learn by actually doing it or watching others do it. Not just popping a few points in a skill every time you level after bashing enough monsters over the head.

[Wired]

1. I don't see this as being a problem, although a stronger argument might be that it be banned for casters.
2. It is not possible to do a Pally/BG mix in Dasaria. If you are not LG, you will lose ALL of your Pally feats/spells on login.
3. I fully intend to implement summon mount for paladins. AFAIK, we are the only PW to have a real horse system anyway, vs. DMs just handing out cloaks or whatever to their favorites.
4. There is realism, and there is hassle for players. If I got my way, PCs wearing platemail would move so slowly it'd take them 45 minutes to cross North Cear, but wiser people intervened.
5. Dasaria already has a custom crafting system; In fact we have the ORIGINAL and BEST custom crafting system among nwn2 PWs and our recipes are secret; discovered only by experimentation or passed from player to player in-character. There are no recipe books that give Dasaria recipes. You do need to invest in skills and feats, but it is not automatic, like the OC; You need to apprentice to someone in RP or beg/borrow/steal/cheat/spy to learn recipes.

[Daimondheart]

1. I don't see this as being a problem, although a stronger argument might be that it be banned for casters.
2. It is not possible to do a Pally/BG mix in Dasaria. If you are not LG, you will lose ALL of your Pally feats/spells on login.
3. I fully intend to implement summon mount for paladins. AFAIK, we are the only PW to have a real horse system anyway, vs. DMs just handing out cloaks or whatever to their favorites.
4. There is realism, and there is hassle for players. If I got my way, PCs wearing platemail would move so slowly it'd take them 45 minutes to cross North Cear, but wiser people intervened.
5. Dasaria already has a custom crafting system; In fact we have the ORIGINAL and BEST custom crafting system among nwn2 PWs and our recipes are secret; discovered only by experimentation or passed from player to player in-character. There are no recipe books that give Dasaria recipes. You do need to invest in skills and feats, but it is not automatic, like the OC; You need to apprentice to someone in RP or beg/borrow/steal/cheat/spy to learn recipes.

1. Yeah, that's true.

2. Sorry, it's not that you mix the Paladin or Blackguard into a single class, it's rather that the class now covers both ranges of the spectrum. It's like how the cleric class covers all the alignments. If you are Lawful Good, you are a Paladin. If you are Lawful Evil, you are a Blackguard. The benefits don't stack up on top of each other, like how some people try to take Paladin and Blackguard levels so they can get the double charisma bonus to their saves.

3. Awesome!

4. Hehehe. I just liked how it required players to be prepared for travel by requiring them to by rations, keep a canteen, and get plenty of rest.

5. Sorry, I haven't made a crafter with a high enough level yet and I was given the impression that when it comes to smithing weapons, swords, etc. it's pretty much the same thing as the OC where you put the necessary components into the work bench and use the hammer. I thought only the enchanting aspect of crafting required you to apprentice to other people since all the recipes were new.

[Wired]

Dasaria's Crafting System

[kaincallavis]

Suggestions:

I am a fan of the hardcore. This server is exceptionally appealing and I love that conflict and lawlessness is encouraged here.
I love that RP is complimented and rewarded here as well.

A couple suggestions I think would ultimately make this server a great deal better:

1) Force a respawn timer and placement.
Allowing a PC to respawn at the beginning of a zone fully buffed with full HP is a little wacky. It is hard to imagine that as part of the RP lore.
Picture this sequence of mental thoughts from a player "Wow this (insert monster name here) is really tough! It is kicking my butt! ... I just might die before killing it, uh oh! ... Oh poo, I died. *hit respawn button - Poof back with full buffs, and full hp. I guess I dragged my pathetic nearly dead behind to the beginning of the zone where some magical powers gave me all my hp and buffs back!! Let's go finish that monster off!"
Essentially its hard to picture the lore. Not to mention if a player goes exploring in a high level zone and the monsters follow the player to the transition point but kill the player - when the player tries to respawn the monsters will spam-kill the player killing their XP as they try to escape.
What I suggest:
Make it so players can choose which town graveyard they respawn at, but don't allow them to respawn at the beginning of a zone. Player's should not respawn at full HP either, in my opinion; although I understand why they do here - to give them a chance to make it out of the zone. Don't let players respawn in the zone they died at all unless someone raises them through divine magic or items or unless the zone they died happens to be a town with a graveyard.

Suggestion #2: Another neat idea for death - maybe forcing a death timer of 1 minute per player level or something. Death should be something that people fear in character. A player should not run out there, die, and then immediately go back out there to try again or die again. That is very ooc for anyone.
Say after level 5 or 6 (or whatever level you choose) - a player should either be forced to stay on the ground dead for a given amount of time. 5 minutes, 10 minutes, or say one minute per player level -- before they are given the option to respawn. If raise magic or items are used then that allows the player to be raised immediately without the need to wait. That also inspires players to run in small groups instead of solo grinding. That way if they die someone can bring them back or at least run to town to search for someone with the skill or items to raise them. Though one could expect a recently revived player might role play that they are quite confused or even weakened by the death for a while unless a very powerful revival magic was used. Obviously if they respawn in the same zone and die again that would be frustrating to the player so this suggestion might rely on suggestion #1 being taken into heart.

If you do not like the idea of remaining dead for a while you could put in a temporary level drain. Say if a player dies and respawns after level 6 or so they lose 1 level for 10 minutes which reduces their ability to fight - perhaps convincing them to stay in town or find some RP to get involved in while they wait for their level to regenerate.
The higher level the player, the more levels they lose and longer they must wait. 10 or 15 minutes a level. Say the player loses 1/4 of their levels after level 6 or whatever you feel is fair.

These suggestions would inspire more role play and actually give players a reason to fear death instead of just having players yell "bonzai!" and go crazy running out there dying over and over. The xp/gold loss is appreciated; however, one little quest usually covers it so players don't have any real reason on this server to actually fear death and go out of their way to avoid it. It goes without saying that you don't want to scare low level players off so the timer/level drain should probably not start until the player has reached level 6 or whatever other level you feel is fair.

Thank you for your consideration!
I may toss a few more suggestions as time comes but I really feel strongly about these ones and I am confident that a lot of the player base will to

[Alterity]

I may toss a few more suggestions as time comes but I really feel strongly about these ones and I am confident that a lot of the player base will to

I disagree However, I disagree with death penalties in general because they encourage the opposite of good roleplaying options. NWN2 is incredbily unfair in how it works, and often deaths occur to bugs instead of any actual problem with skill, or actions. When you have to fear death as a player then it makes it harder to make good roleplay decisions. What if your character IS stupid an would run in? Should we punish players for that IC decision? I think its better to allow players the freedom to play as they want, and give them the RP tools to RP weakness and what not when they die. Or what if you sneaky character would sneak in and stab someone, but they get seen and floored by the rest of the group?

Make it so players can choose which town graveyard they respawn at, but don't allow them to respawn at the beginning of a zone. Player's should not respawn at full HP either, in my opinion; although I understand why they do here - to give them a chance to make it out of the zone. Don't let players respawn in the zone they died at all unless someone raises them through divine magic or items or unless the zone they died happens to be a town with a graveyard.

This idea is interesting because it encourages people to work in groups and use bandages to get up (which is great for roleplay, and come to think of it would be awesome as a feat, instead of an item, incase you run out ((especially if the above is implemented))). However, it shouldn't replace the respawn at last checkpoint, because stuff does happen. Again, we don't want to actually force people to RP how we choose. Even in the current system, you can choose to walk out of the area and go to a graveyard

However, I would like the option to respawn out of area, that would be awesome. As you said, sometimes you respawn after having fled to an entrance and now are surrounded. It'd be a great way to get past that problem... And give some RP ideas for those that want it. However, it should only list the two nearest graveyards, so that its not used as a free teleport!

Suggestion #2: Another neat idea for death - maybe forcing a death timer of 1 minute per player level or something. Death should be something that people fear in character. A player should not run out there, die, and then immediately go back out there to try again or die again. That is very ooc for anyone.
Say after level 5 or 6 (or whatever level you choose) - a player should either be forced to stay on the ground dead for a given amount of time. 5 minutes, 10 minutes, or say one minute per player level -- before they are given the option to respawn. If raise magic or items are used then that allows the player to be raised immediately without the need to wait. That also inspires players to run in small groups instead of solo grinding. That way if they die someone can bring them back or at least run to town to search for someone with the skill or items to raise them. Though one could expect a recently revived player might role play that they are quite confused or even weakened by the death for a while unless a very powerful revival magic was used. Obviously if they respawn in the same zone and die again that would be frustrating to the player so this suggestion might rely on suggestion #1 being taken into heart.

I don't really see the point of this. If someone wants this, they can always wait it out. Personally I would be very very very annoyed if I had to wait 20 minutes after dieing, because I already -really really really hate dieing-.

Again, give them the tools to RP as they want, but don't force it on anyone. If this was implemented, I could see people 'bringing the body back to the entrance', and going off and killing the rest of the enemies to avenge them . Most people don't want to wait 10-20 minutes for a revive just because 'stuff happens'

These suggestions would inspire more role play and actually give players a reason to fear death instead of just having players yell "bonzai!" and go crazy running out there dying over and over. The xp/gold loss is appreciated; however, one little quest usually covers it so players don't have any real reason on this server to actually fear death and go out of their way to avoid it. It goes without saying that you don't want to scare low level players off so the timer/level drain should probably not start until the player has reached level 6 or whatever other level you feel is fair.

Overall, I think these ideas go against roleplay. The xp/gold loss is already a bad idea, and tacking on more penalties is even worse. As you said, one little quest usually covers it... But if you die twice on that quest you're behind. That makes many of the harder quests not done at all as it is. Those that don't fear death probably have more powerful build, I personally have a lot of RP sub-par builds that already die on occassion because they have those weaknesses (I have a char that can't wear armour, even though they don't have any monk/wizard/IB/duelist levels to boost their AC, so they sit at 13 AC(luckily they're ranged, and have stoneskins). Thats an RP decision I made, and I shouldn't be punished and have the game made unfun for me because of it.

If you're running in an yelling Bonzai, then don't. Don't go crazy runing out there dying over and over. If others are, and its disrupting you then ask them IC to stop, or OOC if its an OOC thing. And if they refuse to stop... Well, I have had more than one character walk off on a 'stupid character', because they were a danger to them. Walk away, don't let another ruin your fun, especially if your char IC wouldn't abide by such nonsense.

I've heard countless times from newplayers how they're thrown off by the unfair xp/gold loss. I hear from the occassional player how they like the xp/gold loss because it gives them that fear. But again, give people the tools to RP, but don't force it onto them! You can always roleplay a temporary level loss, (I actually like this idea, a lot better than an xp loss, however it'll encourage clerics whom can remove the level drain, and we don't want that), you can even roleplay a gold and xp loss (go delevel and drop some gold if you die too much! ), and if you want to wait 10 minutes to revive: http://e.ggtimer.com/ - And there are timers in the DMFI tools as well.

So over all, while I think your ideas have merit, I also think they are too forcibly applied to players. We allow anyone that wants to play here and plays by the rules to play. This includes people that want to solo grind, and people that want to play OOC. But how your character is affected by events should be decided by you as the player, not by the server itself.

On a final last note; You did mention revive spells. But what about healing spells in general? Raise dead isn't even a high level spell, only level 5. If I cast the level 6 healing spell "Heal" on you, shouldn't it take away the problems of death just as well as Raise Dead? So it does make IC sense why after being 'raised from the dead' by bandages, how healing magic could heal you as well as a raise dead could. I usually play with 'dieing' as being knocked unconscious, unless its a DM event. This makes it make a little more sense how a bandage could bring you back to life, while a DM can raise you from the dead otherwise.

Just my... 50 cents
I think I might use that level drain idea on some future deaths, give it a try. I like the idea of feeling a bit weaker and perhaps not being at full strength for a while!

-Alt\

[QuitFightingCats]

I would like the option to respawn elsewhere than the beginning of the zone I just entered. I've came close to dying twice in a row to the same things because I was barely able to click on the transition in time. The round it takes to open a door and run is sometimes enough for creatures to land a critical hit.

Keeping the option to respawn in the zone is fine; there are times it'd be useful. But an added option to respawn elsewhere would be a boon, too.

[Wired]

From the sideline -- suggestions are always welcome, keep them coming. And don't feel chagrined if we don't act on a particular suggestion, we are indeed reading / listening and making note. However, certain types of suggestions are more likely to be acted on than others, I'll explain...

Do recognize that Dasaria2 is a very mature server -- online since 4Q06 -- and thus we are less likely to make changes in basic systems that have been in place and have worked forever in favor focusing on creative changes and content building.

For instance (and this really is just an example), we recognize there are different ways to go with treating death/xp-loss & etc and that other PWs will choose to treat it differently --Some even have perma-death. A decision was made here long ago to have a xp/gp penalty for using the OOC respawner (as opposed to being healed or raised by a party member, for which there is no penalty), to encourage people to play thoughtfully and to direct their characters as if their little lives mattered, a style of play we favor here.

Almost six years into the game, we're very unlikely to change something like that. It serves its purpose and well, and while recognizing there are other options, we'd rather put our energy into building new dungeons, quests, providing new character options & customizations & etc than to revisit decisions like that.

[Randomyze]

I noticed a few things here that I felt I should give my two cents on (RIP the Canadian Penny).

1. In regards to the Combat/Improved Combat Expertise feats I agree they are incredibly unbalanced. I use them on a number of characters with great success. I would understand the need to change how the feats work for casters however for characters who were built before the changes are made might be left out to dry. The best implementation I have seen for this skill was in D&D Online where they simply made it so if you started casting a spell the feat would deactivate.

2. I agree it can be hard to explain how when you are RPing and a party member dies then gets resurrected with a riase dead spell from another party member. It just seems to be a bit out of place. I would suggest making more options available to players to bring a fallen party member back from 'death' by instead making the situation more like "He got knocked out" or "she got dazed during the fight" and use thing like smelling salts that can only be used by those with the survival skill or bandages by those with heal or casters could use a scroll of mend flesh when out of combat. These would introduce RP and give different plausible explinations as to what happened and how to continue.

3. When it comes to respawning I agree the system is a little rough around the edges and I think an inventive new system unique to Dasaria could be a challenge for some creative minds to undertake.

[Daimondheart]

I was talking an idea over with Cats in game and thought it would be awesome if players could have "out door" homes. I first got the idea as I started thinking of a home for Hanali. Since she's a gypsy and thus a nomad, having a house in any city or town wouldn't make much sense. So how about creating a special area outside of any towns where players could make outdoor homes.

Players would be given the choice between several template homes such as Camp, Caravan, Cave, Grove, etc. and then be able to decorate their home much like the regular player homes. Players would also still have to "purchase" the home they wouldn't pay any sort of legal NPC. Rather they would just give up some crowns to represent the time and effort it took for the character to discover their outdoor home and/or build the foundation.

I think this would be awesome for nomad characters as well as nature based characters such as druids and rangers.

[Mad Dog Reno]

Well Daimondheart we have all ready housing system and you can buy house from Bank.

[QuitFightingCats]

The houses purchased from the bank are interiors. They are also IC located within cities.

DH is suggesting exteriors or exterior-like areas that are IC located outside cities.

[Mad Dog Reno]

Well some players have a house too but think them cost alot so its not easy get? And some dwarf clan live in cave/hall too. But aye think there is not so many house free to buy and dont now how many is ready to pay 1 million to get house?

And suggestions is always okey, good & welcome but some thing can be harder to change?

[Alterity]

Well some players have a house too but think them cost alot so its not easy get? And some dwarf clan live in cave/hall too. But aye think there is not so many house free to buy and dont now how many is ready to pay 1 million to get house?

And suggestions is always okey, good & welcome but some thing can be harder to change?

The Stormbeard clan has faction housing, which is different from player housing. DH means to extend the player housing to include other habitats, housing beyond those limited by walls and doors... Or atleast city boundaries.

The lack of walls and doors might present a bit of a challange though, at least for forest type ones, where does your house 'end' and other ones 'begin'? I suppose you could probably have trees signify the end of the house, or they could play a little more for a log cabin.

I personally would like this, I have a couple chars that have made nests for themselves outside of the cities. Although, perhaps the houses would be significantly cheaper than regular housing, to represent that you're not paying inflated city prices

If cheaper, maybe wild animals sneak in

[Zaxis]

3. Paladin's get their Summon Mount Skill?

To my knowledge, this hasn't been pulled off on any PW yet, but as this server has implemented beta horses, I thought it would be great if the Summon Mount feature could be given to the class much like they had it in NWN. As it stands, Paladins are actually rather weak because we lack many of the special abilities we are supposed to be able to choose from. It's why Kaedrin decided to add the Divine Spirit feats to her class mods.

Actually, Myths of Atalan has a working Summon Mount feature for Paladins. However, they do not have a working ride system, so you basically walk around with your horse at your side.. In a sense it's just a really weak animal companion.

Suggestions:1) Force a respawn timer and placement.

Suggestion #2: Another neat idea for death - maybe forcing a death timer of 1 minute per player level or something.

(Sorry for cutting out the juicy parts, but I just wanted a quick reference. )

I agree completely about the whole death system.. To me, being able to pop back into existence in an instant and be completely and fully regenerated--not to mention still powered up by your wards--is very difficult to roleplay. Death in any PW should always be seen as "Noooo, I don't want to die!" as opposed to "Oh well, I'll just farm the XP back." Death should certainly have the XP loss as it already does--and the gold loss is a bonus too!--but it should also be accompanied with some sort of way to prevent people from jumping directly back into the fray. Be it a temporary and unrestorable (playerwise) level drain that wears off over time, or just a severely lowered set of combat abilities.. anything that would prevent the suicidal adventurer from just going "Oh boy that did hurt lots! Weeee back into the fight!".

A decision was made here long ago to have a xp/gp penalty for using the OOC respawner (as opposed to being healed or raised by a party member, for which there is no penalty), to encourage people to play thoughtfully and to direct their characters as if their little lives mattered, a style of play we favor here.

Well, I certainly like the bandages in this server.. They act as a "poor man's raise dead", and allow players to RP the fallen comrade having been seriously injured instead of vanishing. However it doesn't soften the XP/Gold penalty that you receive normally. It's also fairly difficult to RP getting your butt kicked, being patched up by your party, and then going "Huh! A big chunk of my gold seems to have walked off!".