Gondor vs Mordor 2 logo
Home Forum Wiki Map Downloads
Become part of the community!
 
 
User Info
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
Did you miss your activation email?
28 March 2024, 14:52

Login with username, password and session length

Search:     Advanced search
News Box
Welcome to (Gondor vs Mordor)².

Key Stats
13122 Posts in 1336 Topics by 1240 Members
Latest Member: azihohaloyen
Home Help Search Calendar Login Register
  Show Posts
Pages: [1]
1  Gondor vs Mordor 1 / GvM1 Future Talk / Re: Suggestions - Miscellaneous on: 14 February 2015, 13:35
Quote
1. Removing class alignment restrictions

Suggestion to remove this to allow a entirely new range of builds.

My response:
This has been bought up several times before with from what I can tell a 50-50 split in terms of positives vs negatives and people for vs people against. While it opens up a whole new load of possible builds, some maybe over powered. Also there is the whole thing around smiting.

I think the best answer to the smiting issue is to allow the alignment shifting to occur only in this way;

Possible Options: (usable as many times as a player chooses)
lawful to neutral
neutral to lawful
neutral to chaotic
chaotic to neutral
neutral to good (regardless of lawful, neutral, or chaotic)
neutral to evil (regardless of lawful, neutral, or chaotic)

Impossible Options:
evil to neutral (of any sub alignment)
good to neutral (of any sub alignment)
good to evil (of any sub alignment)
evil to good (of any sub alignment)

This way players can have expanded build options without avoiding a smite. They do however have the option of becoming good or evil to obtain those classes that require the alignment shift and then become vulnerable to smite, after which they cannot leave the good or evil alignment which they've become.

Examples:
Harper/Assassin is possible and the player is open to smite.

Champion of Torment^^/Blackguard is possible and the player is open to smite.

Palemaster/Paladin is possible and the player is open to smite.
PM/Pally is not really at much of an advantage this way as he couldn't shift back to neutral once going good so his low BAB classes would severely hinder is AB and attack schedule, pallys aren't that tough here in lieu of the other classes changed mechanics either, and I think should be looked at further to keep them up to par. How about for paladins only, the divine shield feat grants shield AC bonus instead of dodge which stacks with their highest shield AC, thus avoiding the +20 dodge AC cap which only takes 8 ability modifier to hit if a toon has 40 tumble and haste.


Quote
There was a decision a number of years ago by the DMs/Devs to tone the server down in terms of items and some NPC abilities as well as do a complete vault wipe to effectively 'start again'. Also back then it was possible to collect CE where by you could hand them into a DM and get custom items made (to an extent). It was decided that the new item set should consist of +4 weapons and +5 AC items as the norm, and +5 weapons and +6 AC or more would come from bosses or high level NPC drops. Also keen would not just be added to every weapon but be seen as a bonus, instead of the norm. So I guess this is a hard one to answer as it is the first steps back towards the old mod in terms of items. What do other people think?

If that type of forge is out of the question perhaps you'd consider +4 enhancement or ac being the maximum a toon could add to an item for say 8 million gold, which would still be good for some items I.E. the mords onhit dagger, or short guy syndrome boots. Or a modest +2 ability score and leave it restricted to only a handful of items, say belt or cloak for 2 million gold. Or a bonus spell slot for 1 million gold per spell (1-9 million) level restricted only to helm with a maximum of 2 being available to add. Or restricted to shield only a maximum of 1 5/- damage resistance of any of the basic elemental (excluding magical/divine/pos/neg) types for 5 million. Or restricted to gloves only a +5 skill bonus to any skill for 5 million. Those may be more feasible additions without imbalancing how the mod is already designed. I'm not sure how laborious of a project that would be but it would be something people would make use of.

Some other ways to make use of the excess of Gold:

Another option would be to provide tickets to use at the ticket system that takes you to less remote places based on faction for a nominal fee, say 300k to 500k a Gondor toon could buy a ticket to Edoras or Dale. Or a Mordor toon could buy a ticket to Helm's Deep, or Dol Guldur. Which would make some traveling a bit easier or aid someone in jumping in on an opposing faction performing a Raid and give more PVP opportunity.

Or for say 1-3 million with some restrictions, a toon could port back to their last death corpse, upon which they are completely debuffed.

Or give the infamous 20 million gold port book 10-20x uses before it goes poof, or reduce the price to 1-2 million for the 1 port.

Expanding the items available in the Elite Armory Vendors would also be good.

The main idea there is to give people something to spend their gold on, once a player is lvl 21 or so aside the few meek items that they might use in the Elite Armories the need for their gold is null and void aside buying healing kits and potions and raise dead or restoration scrolls.
2  Gondor vs Mordor 1 / Specialty Builds / Gnome: Wizard 23 / Druid 5 / Shifter 12 (Spectre) on: 02 February 2015, 23:39
I guess me and FC both got the same request, here is how I did my Spectre, not much different aside I went 23 wizard to grab the Epic Spells: Epic Mage Armor & Epic Warding and took Epic Spell Focus Abjuration for longer lasting buffs and damage absorption.

Layout: Gnome Wizard 23 / Druid 5 / Shifter 12 (Spectre Focus)

Race: Gnome - mainly for the +2 concentration skill bonus & make CON easier to pump, as well as favored class being Wizard for multiclassing, though not much leveling is done out of other shapes.

Starting Stats
Str: 6
Dex: 8
Con: 14
Wisdom: 18 (27)
Int: 16 (20)
Cha: 8

Progression:
01 Wizard (Generalist Wizard), Feat: Alertness
02 Druid
03 Druid, Feat: Blind Fight
04 Druid, +1 Wisdom
05 Druid
06 Druid, Feat: Spell Focus: Necromancy
07 Shifter
08 Shifter +1 Wisdom
09 Shifter, Feat: Greater Spell Focus: Necromancy
10 Shifter
11 Shifter
12 Shifter, Feat: Extend Spell, +1 Wisdom
13 Shifter
14 Shifter
15 Wizard, Feat: Spell Focus: Abjuration
16 Shifter +1 Wisdom
17 Wizard
18 Wizard, Feat: Greater Spell Focus: Abjuration
19 Wizard, Wizard (5) Bonus Feat: Empower Spell,
20 Wizard +1 Wisdom
21 Shifter, Feat: Undead Shape
22 Wizard
23 Wizard
24 Wizard, Feat: Great Wisdom 1, +1 Wisdom (26 Wisdom)
25 Wizard, Wizard (10) Bonus Feat: Geat Intelligence 1
26 Wizard
27 Shifter, Feat: Outsider Shape
28 Wizard +1 Wisdom
29 Wizard
30 Wizard, Feat: Epic Skill Focus: Concentration  
31 Wizard, Wizard (15) Bonus Feat: Great Intelligence 2
32 Wizard +1 Int (17 Wizard, 19 Intelligence: Opens up Epic Spell Focuses)
33 Wizard, Feat: Epic Spell Focus Necromany
34 Wizard
35 Wizard
36 Shifter, +1 Wisdom (27 Wisdom), Feat Golem Shape
37 Wizard, Wizard (20) Bonus Feat: Epic Spell Focus Abjuration
38 Wizard
39 Wizard, Feat: Epic Spell: Epic Mage Armor
40 Wizard +1 Int (20 Intelligence), Wizard (23) Epic Bonus Feat: Epic Spell: Epic Warding

Skills:
Discipline 0, You won't need discipline! Spectre has Immunity: Knockdown ;) and he's unarmed!
Concentration 43, Spellcraft 43, Cross-Class: Tumble 20
The rest is up to you, examples:
If you wish to use the Spectre's HIPS ability (Spectre also has Invisibility unlimited x per day):
Hide 39 (Max on Shifter Level 12 @ 36) and possibly Cross-Class: Move Silently (19-20)
Druid Spells: Camoflage & One with the Land help with this +14 Hide & +4 Move Silently collectively
The rest of your skill points could possibly go into Listen 39 or Spot 39 (Max on Shifter Level 12 @ 36)
Though I prefer Cross-Class: Search 23 and Appraise 23 for hidden doors and more gold.

Spells:
Select mainly buffs as during battle deshifting to try some brazen attack with a spell like Ray of Enfeeblement might get you knocked down and wiped out rather quickly. Definitely grab all the Abjuration buffs if you choose to use Abjuration as a second spell focus like: Energy Buffer, Globe of Invulnerability, Spell Mantles, and Stoneskin as these will be greatly empowered, don't forget to give your party members some Protection from Elements and Stoneskin either since they will be the few Abjuration buff's not self-only. Oh, and of course Acid Sheath and Elemental Shield to give the enemy something to think about while they bash on you as you heal yourself about an average of 140-160hp per combat round.

Notes:
Epic Mage Armor Boosts my AC from 65 to 72 (with full buffs)

Epic Warding provides some extra damage buffer for when I'm taking an initial mob or wearing out a boss with Extended Acid Sheath or Elemental Shield.

Empower Spell Slotted: Negative Energy Burst (unlimited casting in Spectre form), Fox's Cunning, Bull's Strength, Cat's Grace, Endurance

Extend Spell Slotted: Mass Haste for Iron Golem Shape (it does seem to effect duration with this shape, I might have to test it more but it lasts a LONG time with only 12 shifter levels)

High Concentration is a MUST for this shape, the feat helps and you will need Items to boost it further, I think in the upwards of 80+ in Concentration via item buffs is a good call.

Tips:
You will preferably want to make this a Mordor toon as most bosses on Mordor's side are either immune to negative energy or Necromancy in general or Undead themselves. You could always play support of your favorite Mordor undead boss if he's under attack by healing him constantly Cheesy

Your going to want Concentration & Damage Reduction Items, Shifter has an inherent -5/cold & electricity so only +10s will stack there, all physical damage types Slashing/Bludgeoning/Piercing to -10/ if possible but anything is great and try to find something with -10/Divine if its out there ;)

Why go Outsider Shape: RAKHASA it will come in handy on quite a few occasions when an NPC or Player has buffed Negative Energy Protection or Shadow Shield to block your pleasant assault of Empowered Negative Energy Bursts, and Rakhasa will answer this with unlimited casts of Greater Spell Breach as well as spell immunity to all spells level 8 and below, not to mention unlimited Ice Storms and Mestill's Acid Breath which you can empower and spam unlimited times as well, I believe the Empowered Ice Storm on this build does in upwards of 100+ in combined damage more often than not. I find it a better method than shifting to your plain ole regular self to cast a Greater Spell Breach or Mords.

Why go Golem Shape: Uber terrific Iron Golem's Mass Haste which you will be using extend spell to bring to even more epic lengths.

Weaknesses: Dispells, 23 Caster levels helps some but everything and it's grandmother seems to have Dispell or Breach and it will get you, you can always HIPS or use your inherent Invisibility spell Spectra has to get away to rebuff, they usually only throw a Dispell at you once before beginning their other spells or attacks. I always load 2-3 of each of my buffs in spell slots to keep this problem at bay.

With the variation posted by FC on this thread you could avoid having your Improved Invisibility dispelled more with the Epic Kobold Shape at Shifter 17 and do about 3d6 more damage with Negative Energy Bursts, I believe mine average around 78-90dmg per burst, you might top over 100 sometimes with his variation. More than one way to skin a cat and definitely more than 2 ways to build a Spectre. Cleric could also be used though the buffs don't match the Wizard, and could always go Druid 17/Shifter17/Monk6 or some variation thereof though you wont be able to empower your Negative Energy bursts, you could although MAX Hide and Move Silently, and move a bit quicker with more attacks and ?possibly? have higher AC. I haven't tested the damage of bursts on a straight druid5/monk6/Shifter29 with Greater Spell Focus Necromancy, so who knows...
3  Gondor vs Mordor 1 / GvM1 Future Talk / Re: NEW GvM Suggestion Thread~! on: 31 January 2015, 00:45
Yup thats why I left it as a final suggestion, main point is to retain playerbase and keep new players interested in getting into the mod and not dropping out. I seen 4-5 new players flake out after a few dats or weeks and I can see the reasons why. So the main focus should be lightening up the level process and opening up drops so people keep biting, you throw the chum out and people chum up, you let them get fattened up on the goods and they are 'hooked'. Right now we are left with a dated system designed to not give the previous pool of players everything so easy but these were highly populated days of gank mobs and there's an inherent DM tendency to try to thwart that. But in the aftermath when those players are gone and your getting new players trying out the mod with a lower population they are experiencing a mod that's quite harsh to get anything especially on a solo or 2-3 player level many times of opposing factions or whatnot that keep them apart further.

So yeah the priorities should be drop rate and xp boost, lets look at it like this if you can kill a boss 20x you obviously got it down pat you deserve the goods and you can move on, right now you can kill a boss 100+x and still not get all his goods or maybe even any at all. What is an initiate gamer going to think about that when lets face it this mod is about the gear to a major degree, I'd say the build has a majority of the makeup of what the toon can do but still about 30-40% is dependent on what they are wearing and also can serve as a crutch to a novice player if he lands 3-4 great items and distills that ever important human emotion 'hope' Grin. Same with leveling, the faster a new toon levels without it being ridiculous the better chances you have of them exploring more and more and henceforth becoming embedded in playing the mod. If a novice player creates 3-4 toons and begins to realize its a 5 day process of heavy grinding to get to their completion they are going to think, hey theres 400 other servers i could try this from scratch and never even get into the greater aspects of the mod itself that really makes it shine like pvp, territories, boss hunting. I've seen this in my short stint here and I always think 'they flaked out before they even got a taste of it'. Now that may be a question of their human character or whatnot but like I said, the more chum the fatter the fish gets for the hook and we need a playerbase, a server with 2-3 players looks much less appealing than 5-6 players from anyone browsing the nwn server lists, so every incentive to keep these new people around is worth it any way you look at it, the server itself is worth it. Lets do what we can to make these new players enthralled all we can thats where the servers heart continues to beat.

As with the rest of my suggestions I'd reiterate that on the alignment change thing, anything to shift from lawful to chaotic and vice versa would be good enough, and yeah agree with previous poster, race multiclass penalties should go, lets look at a gnome or halfling are they really THAT much more if in fact at any advantage to their tallfellow kin that they should have to level 20% slower. Its pretty simple to remove that. Another idea is giving half-elf the wild shape feat at character creation to open up any 3rd lvl spell caster the ability to take up shifter. The people left on NWN are either diehard vets are casual novice players or sons/little brothers etc of old vets and keeping character dynamics as fresh as possible is the way to get the foremost of these players interested. If you look at the more popular servers nowadays they all have greatly revamped dynamics, some albeit are cheesy *cough cough* the lameining *cough* but they genuinely attract players. The current mechanical changes here are top notch and consider the more you open up the options the more you can enthuse a creative mind, and who else would want to play this old game ;)
4  Gondor vs Mordor 1 / GvM1 Future Talk / NEW GvM Suggestion Thread~! on: 29 January 2015, 17:29
Suggestions from a new(ish) player's point of view

First and foremost I'd like to get across that I love this server, and have enjoyed my 5-6 weeks playing here. I would just like to express some ideas I've came up with from both the conversations I've had with old players and what I've seen from new players coming and going. Listing them in no particular order and hope they don't fall on deaf ears cause many of these could not only renew our player base but also retain some of the new faces I've seen come and go since I began playing.

Drop Rate

I'm going to get this one out of the way cause I'm sure you've heard enough complaints about it so far. Let me give you some examples; I have farmed the graveyard bosses over 40x to yield 1 amulet. Spent 3 days parked in Cirith Ungol to attempt to get Shagrat's armor and double-axe and ended up with 3 Immolator Staffs, no drops from Shagrat or the Orc Thrall after 20-30 kills. I also have a friend who has been attempting for 1 item from a certain boss for a week straight to no avail.

Now look at it from the perspective of a new player trying to attain items so they can make build or gain power to be able to do more things on the server and the possibilities of doing so begin to look so slim that it's practically pointless to try unless you are willing to dedicate months to doing so. It makes one feel like it just isn't worth the time and with monotony of boss camping comes losing the flare of excitement being on the server when it becomes more so a job than a game to get anywhere. I understand these changes were implemented back when the server was more populated and you had boss ganking mobs running around getting these items and DMs wanted to make it more difficult to do so, but now with an average of 1-2 people playing and all of them aside 1-2 players are new players this is serving more of a purpose to discourage new players to want to try continue playing as they feel they aren't going to get anywhere.

Drop Rate Solutions

I personally feel an increase in base drop rate from anywhere to 5% to 10% as being a fair chance for a player. The idea of you will have to kill a boss 10-20 times for the drop you want is far more acceptable than having to kill him 100 times or more if you are unlucky. I like the idea of the drop rate crystal and do not think it should be removed, but with so little pvp how about some other ways to charge it, like the killing of Gondor or Mordor alligned boss giving it 125 points to use on the next boss and so on, as well as 125-250 for an opposing faction player still giving the crystal a max charge of 500-750 and only the ability to add 250 to a drop rate. Also a global faction rate increase for the faction that has control of Osgiliath and The Keep to say another 125 points each. This would actually promote more PVP and battle for territories there giving more player interaction. So then theoretically if we had a base drop rate of 500 + 125 for each controlled territory (250 max) + 125 for each faction boss & 125-250 for each faction player kill with a maximum of 250 we can use per boss on crystal we could have an effective drop rate we would have to work for resulting in a max of 1000 or 10%. I don't think any player would say this is too much or a bad idea and hope it gets considered.

XP and New Players

Being that this server is centered around boss hunting and PVP the leveling process is a bit tedious even when you are vet player you start to think "this is going to take me 3-4 days on average to get my next toon to 40 to begin what the server is meant for" and the more times you do it the more frustrating leveling gets to be.

An NPC in Eru's lounge that gives your toon some modest buffs, flame weapon, stoneskin, protection from elements, magic weapon, mage armor. This NPC being useable till around level 10 when it says sorry your now too high of a level for me to bother with i.e. so by the time the player has amassed some of it's builds own abilities it would no longer be of use.

An XP rate increase! As stated before the focus of this server is PVP and boss hunting, leveling is the means to that end, being able to level in a day or so is the norm for most servers focused on what this server is focused on. Let's say 30%-50% more xp aside boss/minibosses and certain creatures that yield the dividable 1000xp per kill. A 2000xp bonus for purple lettered boss kills would be a nice addition as well. The logic behind this is when you have a new player who makes his first toon and realizes a Fighter/DD isnt going to tank much aside a minibosses grandma doesn't feel so discouraged to try another build as the process is much less tedious to get that next toon built up to try again, and vet players can create their next toon with the same ease of mind. After all we are here to PVP and fight bosses not grind toons for 3-4 days to realize we wasted our time, this happened to me about 10x and yes live and learn but the burnout of doing it again wouldn't happen if it were easier to get back to 40 again.

Unlock the XP bank to allow XP to be given to build up to level 30 instead of 18-19 or so that it is now, and possibly reduce the penalty from 20% to 30-50%.

Provide an NPC in Eru's Lounge that allows complete toon rerolls at a 75% of current XP, with the exception of RDDs f'course for any toon lvl 10-40.

Give players either an inventory item or journal entry upon choosing faction or an NPC in MT or MM that gives tips on where to go to level from 1-20 so new players not oriented with server layout can find their way to a good start.

A few more Suggestions to freshen up gameplay and spark new interest for new and old players

The tweaks to mechanics here are great and well thought out, much better than other servers I've seen that lack imaginative innovation. Now here's a few ideas to broaden build possibilities; An NPC or widget for with the exception of Paladin or Blackguard going from good or evil to neutral unless moving to unlawful toward middle neutral row. Allow alignment changes from good to neutral, evil to neutral, lawful to neutral, chaotic to neutral. Which would give players a plethora of new build options like Bard/Monk, DD/Barb, Barb/Monk, Assasin/HS, Paladin/Shifter, this would give people who love to build toons and play with mechanics many more opportunities aside making cheesy Paladin/Blackguards. This can only be useable once per character so if they wish to give up give up good or evil (Aside Paladins or Blackguards who will be stuck to Neutral Good etc) will not have a chance to change back. This is an old game and fresh build options always sparks enthusiasm to play.

All the running around

The server is large and sometimes it takes up to 25 maps and 30-40 minutes to get to a destination, how about a player tool function that enables a "run mode" of sorts in the form of a permanent expeditious retreat that cancels in the event of combat, or simply give expeditious retreat at a higher level unlimited times per day on the starter boots found in cities so players aren't discouraged to make the trek to bree for instance. I know a ticket system is being worked on, this is also a good idea, and what about that book of porting that costs 16 to 20 million that only works 1x before going poof, how about 10-20 times before its gone. Which brings me to...

Something useful to do with all that gold

I have 45 million in my bank I do nothing with but if I could do this with it I would be collecting more: A forge in MT and MM that for a large sum say 10 million gold can add +5 ac to any item or +5 ab to any weapon so some weapons and armors and boots etc become more useful and give us something to save up gold for. Many of these items are merely +4 but when crunching numbers for ab/ac or wanting to make that dagger with only sleep on hit +5 as well it would be worth it and give u a reason to save that gold up. If you wanted to take it further for 10-20 million add Keen to any item, +4 of an ability score to any item, or even +6ac for 30 million (with a maximum of only one upgrade for that item ever.

A final suggestion

Level 60 servers are immensely popular in NWN because of reasons I stated in the last paragraph, it changes mechanics enough that it makes the game and building toons fresh again. This script is easily customized to suit your needs as well. A relaxed leveling system of 1 new legendary level every 40k xp could be easily done to not make attaining 60 an overkill, as well as adjusting how many ability increases and AB increases you could get. Say for instance you were given a feat every 3 legendary levels, an ability increase every 4 levels, no AB progression or simply 1 per 10 leg levels, and standard skill point allotment (you could disable tumble on the list which would yield and extra 4ac if you wished). this would yield an additional 5 ability points, another 20 skill points in each category, and about 7 extra feats which could be used for Great Strength or other Epic or Basic feats allowed by primary class. So with a little tweaking the maximum bonuses a character could get would be roughly 6 or so more AB/AC/DC via ability bonuses, some extra skill boosts, a few more feats. This would not imbalance the challenge of this server drastically, on the contrary it would make with the current population much more of a chance to fight certain bosses with 1-2 toons, and give many more options to build a toon that can tank/hit/stay alive vs some of the bosses and if we ended up with a higher population you could always give the bosses a little boost to rebalance things. LVL 60 will bring new players I can guarantee that and probably bring alot of old players back (along with the drop rate increase fcourse).

Thanks for taking the time to read over my input on things I feel would get this server booming again, they are only suggestions but I hope some of them do get implemented especially drop rate and xp increases. I have never been a player that felt like they should be given everything they want on a server, servers like that are cheesy and this one is not. But we are now playing with very few old players and a seemingly revolving door of new players trying us out some and dropping out soon thereafter, I think alot of these ideas will bring people back and keep some of these new faces around, thank you!
Pages: [1]
Powered by SMF 1.1.21 | SMF © 2015, Simple Machines
Theme by Nesianstyles | Buttons by Andrea