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TormakSaber wrote:

(This isn't really an argument to keep Perma Freedom, mind you ...)

I'd assert that dungeon balance is a pretty fantastic reason to keep perma-Freedom available, myself.

Liz wrote:

I'd assert that dungeon balance is a pretty fantastic reason to keep perma-Freedom available, myself.

Exactly, because it's more comfortable to run around and be like "All right, now they are all going to cast some controlling spells that I don't need to care about because I have perma-immunity to such effects."
This is the reason why dungeons are so boring on Amia, when you can afford all the immunities, reduction etc. they are piece of cake, you can just spawn, click on one enemy and alt-tab, read forum, alt-tab back into the game and go on.

Quote:

Exactly, because it's more comfortable to run around and be like "All right, now they are all going to cast some controlling spells that I don't need to care about because I have perma-immunity to such effects."

I would assert that having three monsters firing Hold Person or Fear twice per monster, per single spawn, is a bit more of a numbers game than I want to play. I'm going to drink the Freedom pot/wear the item/drink the mindblank pot, yes. Being feared for 12 rounds or Paralyzed for 12 rounds isn't part of fun enconter design, it's just death, generally.

TormakSaber wrote:

Having helped a character level from 1-20 on an alt of mine I can say that if we removed freedom, there's a shit ton of dungeons that need to not have multiple monsters that spam Hold Person, Fear, and Hold Monster because seriously, fuck my life. The second you lose mindblank or Freedom you get hit and you're dead.

Yep, however, for "Fear" you have the immunity in the mindblank potion. The moment the mindblank potion wears off you're goner, so much is true.

For Hold person and Hold monster you have the immunity in Freedom. And Freedom is permanent, hence the disbalance. Same as you drink mindblanks potions you should be "forced" to care for your mobility as well and thus - buy yourself a potions of freedom. These potions exists too (although nobody buys them, and the reason why is obvious).

TormakSaber wrote:

Quote:

Exactly, because it's more comfortable to run around and be like "All right, now they are all going to cast some controlling spells that I don't need to care about because I have perma-immunity to such effects."

I would assert that having three monsters firing Hold Person or Fear twice per monster, per single spawn, is a bit more of a numbers game than I want to play. I'm going to drink the Freedom pot/wear the item/drink the mindblank pot, yes. Being feared for 12 rounds or Paralyzed for 12 rounds isn't part of fun enconter design, it's just death, generally.

Then drink a potion/use spell, but be careful and mind the duration.

And please, let me add, that Hold Person/Monster can be negated with mind-blank... :roll:

I said that, in my post. No need to be sarcastic.

As stated, diversification of 'all in one pack' FoM to:

Immunity Paralyze (only epic gear OR one bonus item like cloak/helm with only this immunity AND items usually considered not worse for base stats as small shield) -2 or 3 powers
Immunity Slow (for belts of freedom, armours and such) - 1 power
Immunity Entanglement (for boots and gloves) - 1 power
(yes, no to movement decrease)

with only ONE immunity available on ONE item.
This way, you can have all immunities still, but you are paying 3 items price, not one all problems solution.
This brings diversity and usability for utilities.
You will have to think about what dungeon you enter with this gear. Also there are potions with freedom which will balance it with mind black.
Also this gives value of spells and spell-like abilities (why even implement this for assasin?)

DC paid items change to Imm to Para.
Leveling toon without FoM? There are potions and this state by the way only harms new players, who doesn't know there is such easily accesible solution for problems on dungs between 1-30 lvls.

I'm not gonna lie, it does kind of irk me when I run into characters that seem to be immune to just about everything. With enough epic gear and a couple healing potions, your character can be almost mage-proof. Buuuut.. so what? Who cares. Epic gear is here to stay, as are the people that take the time to murder the same bosses 100 times a week to get it, so messing with just one of the many L33t item stats floating around isn't going to make much of a dent in anything.

Mages just need to find another way to kill those people....like 1 fishing. Or, as I learned in my character's fight against a barbarian with epic gear, stupid damage reduction, crazy saves, and massive health regen.... just understand that some characters just can't be killed by mages and run away.

Mages always have spells to work with to end people.

Quote:

Mages always have spells to work with to end people.

I'm curious to know what your idea is, apart from Bigby (8,9)?

From my experience, I've noticed the following:
> Fear immunity on items / Paladin
> IE being available freely and mitigating almost all evo spells
> Freedom cancelling out many snares, paralyzes, etc
> PC's with 3 elemental immunities (or more). Most of the time, cold immunity makes ice storm (The only saveless evo spell people use) do nothing.
> Magic resistance removing the effectiveness of IGMS\Horrid Wilting
> PC's with all of the above, some being shifters. These PC's are legimitely impossible to kill, as Krin observed.
> PC's with UMD are essentially as good as a mage, if not better, as a result of all of this. You want bigby? just buy scrolls. You want spells? Potions are the quickest thing to use in NWN.

Even ones who have some of the above are pretty impossible for a mage to deal with.

Personally, I think Terra's post is right. I also think Krin is absolutely right as well. I feel that given the development of DC loot and spells in general, the community should really think about implementing a power ceiling. That is to say, a maximum of X effective powers per character, regardless of DC Loot. Without one, alienating alts, or new players is going to continue, as they will see the gap in power due to DC loot/spells as too large to invest into narrowing.

I also wouldn't stop at freedom, I recommend removing IE from items as well, replacing it with evasion, altering elemental resistance to max of 50%, and making IGMS shoot half as many missles at double the damage, to lower the effective scale of the magic resist killing mage damage utterly. Fear immunity is kind of a thorn in the mechanics, too, but less so, in my view.

tldr; In my view, item power creep has really killed the viability of mages. More, it has created a bunch of mini-godlike PC's on Amia who now also get to be a mage at any time they want.

Faded Wings wrote:

Personally, I think Terra's post is right. I also think Krin is absolutely right as well. I feel that given the development of DC loot and spells in general, the community should really think about implementing a power ceiling. That is to say, a maximum of X effective powers per character, regardless of DC Loot. Without one, alienating alts, or new players is going to continue, as they will see the gap in power due to DC loot/spells as too large to invest into narrowing.

I also wouldn't stop at freedom, I recommend removing IE from items as well, replacing it with evasion, altering elemental resistance to max of 50%, and making IGMS shoot half as many missles at double the damage, to lower the effective scale of the magic resist killing mage damage utterly. Fear immunity is kind of a thorn in the mechanics, too, but less so, in my view.

tldr; In my view, item power creep has really killed the viability of mages. More, it has created a bunch of mini-godlike PC's on Amia who now also get to be a mage at any time they want.

Well, you kinda skipped us here with Bernard. It was our plan to say quite possibly the same as you in case the freedom adjustment would pass. Because quite frankly, we thought the idea is going to be killed on the spot - what a suprise for us it was not. A pleasant suprise, mind you!

So yeah, I'm very much with what Fade said. Spot on.

Guardian wrote:

Faded Wings wrote:

Personally, I think Terra's post is right. I also think Krin is absolutely right as well. I feel that given the development of DC loot and spells in general, the community should really think about implementing a power ceiling. That is to say, a maximum of X effective powers per character, regardless of DC Loot. Without one, alienating alts, or new players is going to continue, as they will see the gap in power due to DC loot/spells as too large to invest into narrowing.

I also wouldn't stop at freedom, I recommend removing IE from items as well, replacing it with evasion, altering elemental resistance to max of 50%, and making IGMS shoot half as many missles at double the damage, to lower the effective scale of the magic resist killing mage damage utterly. Fear immunity is kind of a thorn in the mechanics, too, but less so, in my view.

tldr; In my view, item power creep has really killed the viability of mages. More, it has created a bunch of mini-godlike PC's on Amia who now also get to be a mage at any time they want.

Well, you kinda skipped us here with Bernard. It was our plan to say quite possibly the same as you in case the freedom adjustment would pass. Because quite frankly, we thought the idea is going to be killed on the spot - what a suprise for us it was not. A pleasant suprise, mind you!

So yeah, I'm very much with what Fade said. Spot on.

Yup, totally agree what Faded Wings said. And another thing you spoke of, the "DC loot" being a big problem here. I hate the idea of buying extremely strong items for roleplaying, sorry, for standing around in DM event. I've been to some DM events, and all went to "Just stay here for 6 hours straight while I talk here with some important PC who got the idea for this event". I mostly went afk only to return and see I got DC. That's why I stopped going to events.

What I'm trying to say is that this kind of currency shouldn't be valid for buying powerful items, stronger than end-game loot. It should be used for rp items or unique subraces or whatever they are used for now.

Bertnard wrote:

Guardian wrote:

Faded Wings wrote:

Personally, I think Terra's post is right. I also think Krin is absolutely right as well. I feel that given the development of DC loot and spells in general, the community should really think about implementing a power ceiling. That is to say, a maximum of X effective powers per character, regardless of DC Loot. Without one, alienating alts, or new players is going to continue, as they will see the gap in power due to DC loot/spells as too large to invest into narrowing.

I also wouldn't stop at freedom, I recommend removing IE from items as well, replacing it with evasion, altering elemental resistance to max of 50%, and making IGMS shoot half as many missles at double the damage, to lower the effective scale of the magic resist killing mage damage utterly. Fear immunity is kind of a thorn in the mechanics, too, but less so, in my view.

tldr; In my view, item power creep has really killed the viability of mages. More, it has created a bunch of mini-godlike PC's on Amia who now also get to be a mage at any time they want.

Well, you kinda skipped us here with Bernard. It was our plan to say quite possibly the same as you in case the freedom adjustment would pass. Because quite frankly, we thought the idea is going to be killed on the spot - what a suprise for us it was not. A pleasant suprise, mind you!

So yeah, I'm very much with what Fade said. Spot on.

Yup, totally agree what Faded Wings said. And another thing you spoke of, the "DC loot" being a big problem here. I hate the idea of buying extremely strong items for roleplaying, sorry, for standing around in DM event. I've been to some DM events, and all went to "Just stay here for 6 hours straight while I talk here with some important PC who got the idea for this event". I mostly went afk only to return and see I got DC. That's why I stopped going to events.

What I'm trying to say is that this kind of currency shouldn't be valid for buying powerful items, stronger than end-game loot. It should be used for rp items or unique subraces or whatever they are used for now.

This is a valid point, to be honest. Actually, in many cases, you receive Dream Coins for 'almost' nothing. I do not want to say anything against DMs here, or their events, but mainly it is focused on few characters. Others (for example fifteen players), are there only as bush behind the scene, so it will not look that much empty. I saw few events, where only two or three main characters did their job, (Spellcasters - mainly in hands of known players, for example) and the rest of them was like "Ohh, what is going on?". And after two hours, where this 'non-important character' said only *Takes a look around the gathering* - received Dream Coins after the event.

Again, this is nothing against DMs or events in general, more it is against the whole Dream Coins currency system - because as Bertnard said... Use it for Unique Subraces (with horns, tails, wings...) or spells. But definitely not for weapons and gear. This will force the notoric group of Dream Coins hunters to do something else, than sitting around Bendirs, talking aboun rainbow and butterflies. (Nothing against this style of Role Play though, if you like it - do it...)

Sorry, but I'd rather reward the people that are roleplaying and enriching the world we play in over those who sprint from boss to boss once a reset fishing for a 5% drop rate. DCs are a terrible currency, but they're better than mindless grinding for things. DM rewards absolutely should be the most powerful items.

We're heading massively off-topic!

Maybe we could lock this and discuss DC items in it's own thread.

Perma-freedom is just fine as is. The ONLY reason to remove it is to make classes that can inflict status effects that freedom protects you from, even more powerful. Which imho they really don't need because all of them are plenty strong already, not to mention classes that can cast freedom would benefit so much more than they are already. AND monsterspawns would have to be readjusted.. It just upsets a whole balance that's been in place since the dawn of time, the effort to do it isn't worth the minor payoff that it might have.

Hi there. I noticed the relevance of this post in lights of the nerfes provided to casters and their spells. A modification on Freedom as it was suggested seems fair mostly (in my point of view) because of the nerfe casters suffered. Also, a few comments about certain posts:

TormakSaber wrote:

Having helped a character level from 1-20 on an alt of mine I can say that if we removed freedom, there's a shit ton of dungeons that need to not have multiple monsters that spam Hold Person, Fear, and Hold Monster because seriously, fuck my life. The second you lose mindblank or Freedom you get hit and you're dead.

(This isn't really an argument to keep Perma Freedom, mind you, just a general lamentation of levelling an alt....

)

That's why you need a group to go farming levels, specially a mage or a sorcerer. That's not an excuse to nerfe monsters because your toon alone can't beat them with potions. People forget that potions should not be superior to spells per se. It reminds me that Bubbly potion cannot be removed by Mord spell, which is a terrible joke. Someone said it's a bug that cannot be removed but that's for another subject.

Bertnard wrote:

Terra_777 wrote:

Its already absolutely disgusting that you can use DCs to buy ingame power like you can with gear.

This is also truth.
As has been said already, it's like putting mind control immunity on items or immunity to spell school, it's just too wide and blocks many spells and effects which could work in really interesting ways.

I didn't know that freedom would be that powerful against the majority of control spells. And once again I prefer to think that spells should be always uber in comparison to scrolls, wands, potions and items.

I think removing Freedom from items would be great for balance. Just maybe leave the Belt of the Hard Road with it since it's epic.

I have removed an unconstructive post. Dear poster of said post: This is your last warning about this. We are in the business of discussing and solving problems here, not making random accusations and hurling insults. Clear?

I'd say nerf the effect items with freedom/immunity effects so spells that counter/do that can just be a better version of items instead of an identical/faster version of a spell.

Just me though.

I'm against removing Permanent Freedom...it's like someone mentioned, removing that would merely boost the strength of classes that -are- strong as it is. This whole discussion is beginning to sound as if Amia is balanced around PVP, which it isn't and shouldn't.

Adding an epic belt that provides immunity instead of it being common would also be pretty unfair seeing as melees would have to invest those power points while Battle clerics, who are superior to melees, can just cast it on themself and save points (Additional to saving power points on Armors, shields and cloaks)

There are plenty of high level mages around, empowering them even more isn't really needed, from a mechanical point they can solo pretty much every boss with minor gold investment, so what if they have trouble in PVP because of Perma Freedom?

Don't make the life of a melee even more tedious by having him watch -another- buff duration, I think most of us know that moment when mind blank runs out in the middle of a fight while that succubus approaches you with her fear aura, the freedom belt allows me to focus more on the fight than having to watch all my buffs.

Hunting get's pretty expensive for me at times, adding -another- pot/item that I would need would be too much, Casters barely need an investment if any at all.

And whoever suggests finding a group: Most that know me are probably aware that I play during a time with max. 10 people, grouping isn't always possible, so that's really not a viable suggestion.

Another things that bothers me is that people seem to assume that most fights against mages happen while buffed, most pvp conflicts start unbuffed which means the caster, if he's good enough, can pretty much end that fight before it even begins, freedom be damned.

Karradon wrote:

Another things that bothers me is that people seem to assume that most fights against mages happen while buffed, most pvp conflicts start unbuffed which means the caster, if he's good enough, can pretty much end that fight before it even begins, freedom be damned.

And vice versa, my friend. Unbuffed mage is a dead mage.

Really this all is about "if" and "maybe". Attacking a buffed mage is just foolish, and if you do it you probably die. On the other hand, unbuffed mage gets smacked by a kid with the big lollipop.
Same goes for the famed battle clerics. Battle clerics are brutally overrated. Sure, once they buff, they're tanks, but catch them with buffs down and you can beat them with a tree branch.

Karradon wrote:

Hunting get's pretty expensive for me at times, adding -another- pot/item that I would need would be too much, Casters barely need an investment if any at all.

Another things that bothers me is that people seem to assume that most fights against mages happen while buffed, most pvp conflicts start unbuffed which means the caster, if he's good enough, can pretty much end that fight before it even begins, freedom be damned.

I don't know about that. I think on a RP server, finding groups to farm some gold is mandatory. Be the best mate of a mage then! Also, fighters shouldn't be so cocky on fighting a mage because they know they will lose without buffs. Especially if they don't even bother to be close enough to them. That's not a valid argument, IMHO. Freedom is a plus for fighters to threat a mage even from a distance. And when we say mage, we're talking about sorcerers with almost unlimited best spells to cast but a wizard would probably have 1 or 2 to best control his target.

krot wrote:

Karradon wrote:

Hunting get's pretty expensive for me at times, adding -another- pot/item that I would need would be too much, Casters barely need an investment if any at all.

Another things that bothers me is that people seem to assume that most fights against mages happen while buffed, most pvp conflicts start unbuffed which means the caster, if he's good enough, can pretty much end that fight before it even begins, freedom be damned.

I don't know about that. I think on a RP server, finding groups to farm some gold is mandatory. Be the best mate of a mage then! Also, fighters shouldn't be so cocky on fighting a mage because they know they will lose without buffs. Especially if they don't even bother to be close enough to them. That's not a valid argument, IMHO. Freedom is a plus for fighters to threat a mage even from a distance. And when we say mage, we're talking about sorcerers with almost unlimited best spells to cast but a wizard would probably have 1 or 2 to best control his target.

Even if a sorcerer had unlimited spells he'd still die to a not-terrible melee I'd bet.

But since CC lasts 100 million years and mobs instantly cast CC the literal second buffs fade a freedom item is mandatory equipment. The belt is a symptom of a problem and not the problem itself.

... what is CC?

Crowd Control spells/abilities; so like Acid Fog and stuff.

Freedom adjustment

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