AMIA ARCHIVE • View topic - That incident at the She'kats involving a DM

Last edited by lilmarcat on Thu, Feb 09 2017, 16:05 PM, edited 1 time in total.

Today we had the lovely pleasure of having a DM secretly run about following us -without any sort of communication- using console commands to increase the stats of monsters to utterly unrealistic levels for the sole reason so that the monsters would quickly be able to kill us, forcing us to use our own gold and XP to respawn or otherwise later revive our fallen party members.
https://ibb.co/bGhaTv - 55AB Shekat? / 2DMs online

Given the complete lack of communication and thus any sort of creative RP over this matter I'm only left with the assumption that one or both DM's online at the time were attempting to act like little school girls, giggling sadistically at the forced misfortune of others. This sort of unprofessional behaviour does nothing except hamper the reputation of the Server and DMs, both past and present, that strive to enrichen the community and experience of others.

Perhaps next time our child-like DM/s might consider a different approach that is at the very least, inclusive of others.
If your attempt was to drive us out of those hunting grounds, perhaps send a veteran NPC adventurer in to save us from the enraged spiders. Or capture us with a hoard of spiders and have them summarily deposit us (alive) outside the caves to spread the word of their strength.

Sneaking around and killing us, simply for the sake of killing us, without any sort of communication to even let us know it might be a joke, simply makes you look like a dick.

Sounds like burningoutbright.

lilmarcat wrote:

Today we had the lovely pleasure of having a DM secretly run about following us -without any sort of communication- using console commands to increase the stats of monsters to utterly unrealistic levels for the sole reason so that the monsters would quickly be able to kill us, forcing us to use our own gold and XP to respawn or otherwise later revive our fallen party members.
https://ibb.co/bGhaTv - 55AB Shekat? / 2DMs online

Given the complete lack of communication and thus any sort of creative RP over this matter I'm only left with the assumption that one or both DM's online at the time were attempting to act like little school girls, giggling sadistically at the forced misfortune of others. This sort of unprofessional behaviour does nothing except hamper the reputation of the Server and DMs, both past and present, that strive to enrichen the community and experience of others.

Perhaps next time our child-like DM/s might consider a different approach that is at the very least, inclusive of others.
If your attempt was to drive us out of those hunting grounds, perhaps send a veteran NPC adventurer in to save us from the enraged spiders. Or capture us with a hoard of spiders and have them summarily deposit us (alive) outside the caves to spread the word of their strength.

Sneaking around and killing us, simply for the sake of killing us, without any sort of communication to even let us know it might be a joke, simply makes you look like a dick.

This post is totally uncalled for.

You know the spiders are acting up. It's been all over and there are often signs.

So long the good old days when I walloped the poor things ten times over!

EDIT: Seriously though, it might be polite and save people from bother to emote something along the lines of "These spiders are MOOONSTROUS, fly you fools!"

This has happened to me as well.
Something like "the monsters seem more agitated than usual" would've been good enough for me.
Abnormal spawns out of nowhere with no explanation before or after isn't coolio imo.

I believe this is a moment when you should reflect upon how you are reacting right now.

You are level 5 in a level 15-20 hunting zone... died.. and are now throwing a hissy fit on the forums?

What ever happened with separating IC consequences, like hunting in a 15-20 zone as a level 5 and dying, vs OOC?

I will look into why it appears there was some mobs with 40+ AB. It could be that the area still has some of the higher mobs from the event in the spawns because it didn't get reset. I have talked to the team and no one buffed or spawned in new mobs on you.

Last edited by LunarBloom on Tue, Feb 07 2017, 18:13 PM, edited 1 time in total.

Abnormal spawns happened to a friend and I while hunting in the Burning Crypts. The DM online at the time raised us and explained it was a bug. Instead of pointing fingers, maybe ask on the forums. I know it's frustrating; having to fend off 30+ undead instead of the usual 6-7 per spawn got us killed, but we asked the DM and they fixed it for us.

Always keep in mind that this is a game and that here, you cannot always win.

Last edited by lilmarcat on Tue, Feb 07 2017, 18:21 PM, edited 1 time in total.

It's a level 10 area and we had a level 16 with us capable of doing the area easily. Under normal circumstances of course.
If this indeed is a bug and had nothing to do with a member of the DM staff currently online at the time then they have nothing to fret about.
I'm not throwing a "hissy fit" because I died. Im severely dissapointed in the DM members potentially involved in this. But again -if- it was a bug. Then no DM was involved.

Edit ~ I can't find a single recent IA/Bug thread relevant to this. Additionally, we had run plenty of circles around the area all day long. Amia, to the best of my knowledge, has no script that dynamically increases the individual power of mobs. Especially to such severe levels. This to me says that the mobs in question were altered on the fly by a DM using console commands as it unlikely that we would've missed the static spawn triggers for these overpowered She'kats.

i wondered if it was a bug. I had actually been running folks through there quite often over the past week. It's not a 15 - 20 zone. It's more suited for the 10-15 range to be manageable between a 'pair'.

The AI seemed to be acting pretty weird when I was fighting them... What ever happened happened all at once after I lvled up. It appeared as if the spiders had a mind of their own as I used some magic to kill them when hitting them stopped working. They also seemed to see through invisible through walls at some point and transitioned frequently... So Idk what could have caused what happened but I was there for a good few hours with two or three different groups.

I suggested it could have been a but but it seemed all too strange and out of the ordinary to be a bug as the mobs seemed to deliberately loose agro on my pc even though I was clearly the one engaging them..

It's hard to under stand how when you have a single pc that can mow through them pretty easy go down a minute or two after taking a lvl just instantly as if the ab and ac were boosted... St first it was an ab boost. On the re spawn I took it was an ac boost where I couldn't hit them at all... then the ab went up after a few minutes and then drastically up again.

We were trying to rp through it but it was kinda lack luster and was a not very great ending to what was other wise a great run and it made the group I was with loose exp and I lost a bit of exp and a good chunk of gold trying to sort through the mess.

If this is a bug I recommend it gets looked in to ASAP.

Maverick00053 wrote:

You are level 5 in a level 15-20 hunting zone... died.. and are now throwing a hissy fit on the forums?

BTW That zone is 8-15 easy, maybe 5 with good party.

Mav I don't want to sound cheeky or rude but dude, any semi-experienced Amian will tell you that the Spiders should be started at abour lvl9 for a strong build or a group of players, 12 at the latest. By 15 you should be somewhere else (Minos usually.).

I think DMs doing stuff like this (Meaning the making a dungle a bit tougher.) Is awesome! That said +55 AB against characters that tend to enter that area on about 35-40 AC, often much less. Is a bit insane. If this was a DM I have to say, they should be ashamed. Not for what they did, but for the lack of PC interaction they offered. A simple notification denoting the adjustment would've been awesome. Meaning the players could maybe go out, find more heads and come back to take on the significantly tougher challenge. That's assuming this was not an intended act of spite toward the players in the situation.

Though that said, I will point out that NwN is a very old game that has a lot of holes that never get fixed. Shit happens. Unless you're me. Then you're just absolutely fucking brilliant.

Also Lunar. I always win. Always.

#KahaDon'tRespondPlz

Broldi wrote:

Also Lunar. I always win. Always.

Mask Lowkey Gay.

That's all I have to say. I rest my case.

( <3 )

Yes, yes. 10-15 but that is really besides the point. I am not sure what you are expecting when you are level 5 in that area. If I was running a 20 around the Abyss I would expect death.

When there were events going on with the gnolls I just avoided the gnoll caves ic because it made sense my low level character would avoid a cave that gave "epic" adventurers pause.

Same deal with the spiders. It's a living world, stuff changes. React ic.

Last edited by lilmarcat on Tue, Feb 07 2017, 19:10 PM, edited 1 time in total.

I don't think you understand... I'm perfectly fine dying. In fact, I spent most of my time sneaking about like a lovely coward whilst our level 16 did most of the work. The issue is the mobs, that in my opinion, we're secretly buffed up by a DM to ridiculous levels solely for the point of killing us without any sort of RP.

I don't jump onto the forums to complain every time I forget death ward and die to the loot after rolling a one. It's the "potential" power abuse here I'm complaining about.

Edit ~ We were in the caves for hours. It had the same old usual spawns everywhere. Until suddenly. A spider here and there, with the same usual name and appearance gets MASSIVE stat boosts mid fight after its been spawned. This to me, sounds nothing like any sort of event. Its either (unlikely) a bug, or (very likely) a DM doing stuff to the mobs post-spawn.

What anyone else expects, my friend. Vastly less than 55AB. It's just ridiculous.

Also I have ran around Abyss at level 18 with out too much hassle on a couple builds but then again, I'm a filthy power-builder.
Expecting to struggle in a higher area is fine, but when you're not even struggling but just getting by massively boosted mobs, then there's no room for this argument.

Pointing out now most end game builds have somewhere around 45-65 sometimes more AB. These spiders would be hitting epic players almost every time. As you said, 10-15. Not 29-30.

Alright. Let me step in here.

1. That the spiders do not just go after your one PC, but also attack others who are not invisible is making them acting realistic.

2. The DM involved said that they did 'not' touch their stats in the slightest whatsoever. This part is odd and we'll look into it.

Anyways, the AB stuff will be looked into, because it contradicts with what was said by the DM who ran this.

As an aside though, making NPC act a little more realistic in the way they move and not being blocked by glitchy mechanics is nothing bad, at all. I did this several times myself when people abused the AI of the Beholders.

This leaves the matter of why they were stronger, which as said we will look into. I assume some kind of accident.

In any case, rage logging immediately and then later making a forum post saying we are all childish, instead of approaching it and pointing out that something maybe went went wrong, is neither helpful, nor nice, nor a solution.

Akhlys wrote:

Sounds like burningoutbright.

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

More on topic though I feel like this has been pretty public of an event, she-kats are acting all fucky but at the same time it sucks that it's the best grind spot and even moreso that it messes up low levels, for what even? It's not like they get plot out of getting killed... just mad.

A warning, or an arching inclusive aspect to the DM intervention would've been cool.

The point is that the DM did not use those stronger She-kat so a warning was not needed.

Which begs the question why some had AB they should not have had. Which, again, we will look into.

We did however have weired bugs with other spawns yesterday night too. Though, of another kind.

And I wish you to cease making fun of former DM here now immediately. This has nothing to do with the problem at hand.

I didn't "rage log immediatly" I had to go work. Said that a good 5 minutes before I logged out. No DM made ANY SORT OF COMMUNICATION with us, even after we started talking about the mobs newfound power. And started instantly dying, despite Bowen having farmed their for a good few hours already without dying. This didn't strike the DM as odd at all?

If a DM wants to make them smarter, sure, go ahead. If a DM wants to make them absurdly stronger so that they kill the PCs... at least provide some RP? If you happen to do this by accident. Maybe try apologizing and giving people a raise? Maybe then they might not feel as if a DM is purposefully out to kill them with no apparent reason.

If you guys need or want the logs from this matter to help sort out what ever bug happened I have them saved.

Can't really raise ye if you log. And actually, it does take a few moments DM side to notice something is amiss and to try figure out what is going on.

And the Bristlebacks and Workers are not his event spawns, they have an entirely different name, I checked that. So something else went flunky here.

Yeah. Something definitely went funky. Post all of the logs if you would please.

I logged out a good 5 minutes after Bowen was forced to eat a re-spawn and then come save us all. This also happened 2-3 times over the course of 10 minutes as our progress was incredibly diminished due to dying from enhanced spawns. That's a good 15 minutes at least entirely lacking communication.

~ PS just went to bed, you'll have a wait a few hours for them.

I notice in the screenshot here

https://ibb.co/bGhaTv

17 xp for one mob, then 55 for the mob I assume was the one rolling +50ish.

Perhaps the queen consort spawned the event one by mistake.

Part one
http://pastebin.com/3MK2RUEm
Part 2
http://pastebin.com/Pf05ByXK

I went through my logs and pulled out the most recent session where the incident happened. If you need logs from previous group runs on this day I have several hours worth but I don't want to spam the paste bin.

Hope this helps.

Edit:

I think -start - getting wierd around the 2216 line on paste 2.

is that your cd key in chat

It's just her half her Amia portal/quest database CD key, not her NWN cd keys.

Regardless, it's not good to put that stuff in a public pastebin that never expires....

Maverick00053 wrote:

I believe this is a moment when you should reflect upon how you are reacting right now.

You are level 5 in a level 15-20 hunting zone... died.. and are now throwing a hissy fit on the forums?

What ever happened with separating IC consequences, like hunting in a 15-20 zone as a level 5 and dying, vs OOC?

I will look into why it appears there was some mobs with 40+ AB. It could be that the area still has some of the higher mobs from the event in the spawns because it didn't get reset. I have talked to the team and no one buffed or spawned in new mobs on you.

I'd also like to state for a moment that throwing out the "IC consequences" trope is not really apt to the complaint being leveled here. I don't really have anything else to add to the conversation that hasn't already been said.

Ok, so I'm going to (finally) make a response here.

I am the DM overseeing what was going on. When I noticed in your party, that PS' character was tanking everything and the two lower levels were hanging back, I thought I'd make it a bit more challenging for you guys and started sending some of the spiders in each spawn to go near the back row and attack, meaning PS' character would have to change focus to help you guys out. I noticed this didn't really happen, including in one part when lilmarcat's PC got separated from the group and died.

We're still not sure how some of the Shekat ended up getting Higher BAB. It's very clear from the combat logs that some of the spiders were rolling like 30+ their normal rolls towards the end of the encounter. As said, my own special Shekat have different names and stats, you'd know if you fought them as opposed to normal mobs. We're still looking in to it at the moment and for this, I can only apologise that they became OP, which leads to my next point.

We don't have the combat log in our DM client. I can't actually see when rolls occur, when people use spells or when people use items. This meant that when you guys noticed something wrong, I was completely unaware we had increased AB from the spiders.

While I can only apologise the experience was negative, the title of the thread and baseless attacking doesn't really help with the matters. I did not get to speak with your 3rd player (who's login does elude me, so I'm sorry) but PS seemed to handle it well ICly and OOCly too. Lilmarcat, you're welcome to voice your concerns to the DM team, but doing so in a way that airs your laundry in public doesn't help the DM team and doesn't help yourself as much as a private conversation would.

We'll look to move away from this topic now and we'll inform you when we find out what caused the BAB jump, because some other things have acted weird on the server lately.

The combat log is available on the DM Client.

PS might be putting on a brave face publicly, but after that incident she has so far outright refused any attempts to try and level again. Citing this incident.

@ Kamina

I appreciate you having the courage to post here considering the over all 'vibe' this thread has had over all.

I also appreciate your forwardness and transparency here. I understand that you wanted to try and make things a bit more difficult for us. I'm happy to heard you were trying to make things a little more interesting.

From a personal note of experience as it stands mobs tend to go after pc's that have lower AC as it is.
Icly Bowen had given the some invisible potion earlier in case issues like that arise. Bowen wouldn't think much of it if a few splinter off and go for the others. He works best when focusing on on and the closet by him before 'cleaning' what I'd like to call 'stragglers' or those that have splintered off the group.

Now I personally absolutely hate and DESPISE lvling... I just hate it and on top of that I hate trying to figure out what I'm 'okay' to go after and what I'm not. Having to judge your party's power base don differences also come in to play here. It's always terrible when you think you may be able to take on something and the party ends up dying out. So this time I invented a reason to stick to once place due to the character's limitations and started to build 'quirks' for the pc around what was happening. I tried again recently to lvl and even lvl there.. I kinda felt really bad about the whole thing and it didn't help when other players told me we shouldn't be there because we weren't lvl 30. For me... I was finally starting to get the hang of the grind and how it felt to hammer it out... I was starting to have fun I felt like there was change personally but having to go through that it felt a little like we were being messed with and despite the few attempts at talking when we thought a dm was present we didn't really revive any text... I kinda felt really bad afterwards thinking that a dm really was there but not really writing anything made me find it hard to understand what the intent was, if indeed there was a dm present. In my recent attempt to lvl there I couldn't really get in to the rhythm I had finally found before and with other players who were tiered / not interested in roleplay at the time I decided it wasn't fun to be there and logged off... I don't really want to lvl anything at the moment and I feel rather disinclined to start anything new like my friends have all started on. I can't even get this special request character lvled or going so I'm a little shy I guess.

To be honest I'm a little disappointed this turned out to be a bit of a sour event for both our parts. I know you are a new addition to the team and I really hope this doesn't discourage you from doing what it is you signed on to do. I believe it's important for our dm's to enjoy what they do and to keep going even if there are hiccups along the way.

By the time you showed up I had personally been at the spiders for quite a while and through a reset as well before returning. I had been with a few different groups of lowbies and not every one likes to rp when lvling. When playing Bowen the first go about through spiders on the out side by the road transition to the area from the forest he was trying to lighten the mood with funny and rather quite cheesy jokes.

When you go at something long enough your mind sort of shuts off and you go on 'auto pilot' at times. Some times when this happens folks wont notice small changes in monster behavior. Imo I understand your goal was to enrich the playing environment but my humble suggestion would be perhaps giving some sort of written nudge or some such and let those there be come aware. It might wake them up from the mind switched off circle grind. It may for future reference make things a little more seamless transitionally if players are made aware they should not be mind switched off.

I hope you don't mind but I didn't see any threads in DM events and stories so I made up a thread for what my PC has been up to. I realize that I as a player have been hesitant on creating forum stuff as of late and I should fix this. My main concern is quality and wondering if what I put out there is worth reading or not. I'm very tentative on what content I want to make as on one hand if I put it out there as soon as it happens it can allow for ooc knowledge to bleed over IC and I'd rather not give the temptation at all in some manners. On the other hand if you wait too long it can feel like what you wanted to post up has been made redundant and irrelevant. As in the matter of seeking out a mage to enchant an area or going through several hours of rp to get a few bunnies and end up releasing them. When work becomes redundant or worthless or meaningless it can make it hard to be encouraged to create something new. I still went through the trouble and time to take screenies of things yet haven't had the chance or courage to post them just yet but now they are rendered useless because ic happenings were pushed forwards.

I believe that a good handful of folks on the server have trouble finding them selves content with what they are doing and they tend to make various other character or builds and the work of having to lvl those character or builds up is already rather frustrating and wearing. To have to grind it out because there's this perceived ideal that one must be lvl 30 to be acknowledged as something or to gain recognition as a concept can be quite harsh as most concepts do not even make it to completion. Especially when it's a new character being played in a time zone where it is relatively hard to find groups or parties to get on with that are your lvl.

I feel there was a clear misconception made due to poor communication or transparency on what was happening. I'm certain the frustrations voiced in this thread stem from a lack of knowledge as to what was going on paired with poor communication. I don't think the intent was to hurt any one's feeling but draw attention to a matter that to some one felt like they were being abused or picked at due to this poor happenstance.

I sincerely apologize if you have been made to feel un at ease by this and I hope that you don't feel discouraged to get out there and have fun with the honor of being a dm and bring fun to the players on the server. Technology isn't perfect, people aren't perfect. Frustration mixed with lack of understanding one another can lead to hurt feels, We are all here to have fun (or at least I hope we are) So I hope that moving on from this we can take to playing the game and getting on with having fun once again and perhaps be better at communicating between the great divide and help bridge the gap between Players and Dms

Curious.. did you possess the critter in question, or did it get any attributes or stats from a hide/item? Did you spawn any extra?

Im jumping in to give my few silver pieces about this and please there is no insult or disrespect meant in this post, i am sorry if i offend any one with it.: (and please ignore spelling/grammar mistakes i don't have the time to write properly atm)

LunarBloom wrote:

a friend and I while hunting in the Burning Crypts..

weee friends ^^ *cough* now to the serius part

lilmarcat wrote:

Edit ~ We were in the caves for hours.

sinds my return the past few 4 weeks, more often then i like to admit i grinded places to dust for hour on end (seriously, i spend 12 hours in the burning crypt at the incident mentioned before)

What i noticed from my endless grinding (and lvling characters up way to fast) is some of the older (at least i think they are older) like frost giants, sel'kats, goblin gave,burning cryp, FoDt just to name a few

in all these i noticed when beeing in then in one reset in one go (no return trips or atleast not to often) after about 2/2.5 hours they all start to .. get spooky, and with this i mean odd things happen in increasingly large rates.like duel or triple spawns, spawns with way to high ac, or spell casters with spells they are not suppose to have.

I always wrote it of as.. i probably broke the numeric server script for the location for that moment (as in the location can no longer handle the numbers) or something the like, as it is a always around the same time frame it happens.

When it was to bad (like the burning crypt thing where the spawner kept spawning 1 mob type endlessly, and we died, i indeed report it to a DM, and first i also asked if it was their doing (in a friendly way) and then had a lengthy discussion to see what went wrong, and indeed the DM raise me and deactivate the spawn for that moment)

So my credits: i think when odd things happen in older (or any) location especially after beeing there for hours.. things tend to go wrong (even a top notch pc, will eventual stop saying "1+1=2" and add a random error of "1+1=open word perfect" and this game is a very very old pc with duck tape and tyreps (developers and dm's) holding it together for what we are asking of it.

And the moral.. and experience if dm's fuck with you (and it happens to me often

) they will always rectify the issue if they went to far) If you think something is amiss, especially if you see dm's online, do "/dm Hey did you do something or is there a bug that just caused XXXX)

I understand the Frustration and the suspecting the DM's (they can be wacky or sure) believe me i do, but i doubt any DM who has been made DM wil do this on purpose with out a solution. Talk with them, give them some DM Flakes, and they are quite nice beings really!

EDIT: Removed the suggestion you rage quite, i misunderstood that part

We periodically left the area.

Also there was no 'rage quit' immediately after death. It took quite a while to be able to kill the mobs and raise everyone.

Mobs behaved in a manner where a DM had to have been possession one.

No communication was given in turn at the event. Nothing was said to initiate any sort of awareness and nothing was said when some one showed displeasure in the thought of being messed with. A simple ' I'm sorry what do you mean?' or 'What happened?'could have sufficed but we received radio silence completely.

The DM client Does also have a battle log and when logged in as a DM you can see party chat. There was very few others on line on the server at the time.

16k exp lost on my lvl 16 as I was forced to eat the re-spawn.

Some DM's came on to try and find the bug but couldn't. I appreciate that.

There is still this this feeling of disappointment and general not good when thinking about lvling now for me at least.

I had -just- started to enjoy something I previously hated with a passion then this happened it kinda ruined it for me...

Nothing was really done to help fix the ramifications I received due to an ooc problem of it being a bug...

Just kinda feels like it was the worst time for a dm to intervene and the most in opportune...

Especially with how the fight progressed and appeared to get tougher in to impossible territory only when the mobs were out smarted. It kinda felt like we were being punished for lvling...

While you can see party chat as a DM, it's not uncommon for it to be moved to the side the battlelog is on, since you see all party chat from every party simultaneously. This means when fights break out it can be drowned out in the slew of combat messages.

That incident at the She'kats involving a DM

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