Hi everyone it is February 1st and you all know that means another day to give feedback. Instead of going by month, I will be doing every two months for the year. As always we are here to listen to how people feel about the current setting, what problems persist, anything you want to say goes :D .
As always be respectful of your fellow players.
*I've been feeling like I'm too late for every event for the past couple months which has resulted in high player counts online when I log in but no one to interact with when I walk and look around.
*It's good there are high player counts due to DM interactions bringing aspects of the server to life that are otherwise ignored or forgotten.
*There's been a single player that has taken significantly from 3x of my characters in a row. I need to stop acquiring good potions/gold amounts etc, it seems to be making me an OOC mark before I can distribute them.
(If the events have mostly been player-initiated ones ignore the first note)
-Disclaimer: All opinions are my own and written while suffering a headache which is lowering my wisdom & intelligence scores (and constitution).
I feel like the mechanical challenge around Sanctuary has become a little more traditional, in that I'm not seeing stealthed sneak attacking creatures with +20 AB or hordes of mind-affecting aberrations right outside the gates. Not that those were ubiquitous challenges, but I haven't died randomly to the Underdark in a while.
I have definitely been having trouble finding players out in the wilderness, and most meetups between characters seem to happen exclusively in and around Freedom Square. Would a secondary hub with some basic amenities (oil flasks, abj. nightshade, etc.) in one of the monstrous locations (Mur/the Mound) be viable?
This is not a complaint! If anything, I think the server is more accessible in every way to new players, or people whose mechanics are not the point of their play.
The characterization being done by the current player base is inspiring, and I'm still trying to catch up with the RP standards that have evolved in this fourth chapter.
If you do have any complaints or want to see something change, this is the place for you to say it
Red Star Defiant could just be linked into Hardcore mode and be available to every class with 1/2 brews/day if you're not a fighter.
Need some enchantment options for custom leather armors in the house of trade, yo!
A place in Sanctuary to turn in skinned pelts from animals for gold, for hunter-type PCs
The focus of the bi-monthly feedback is to ask:
How was your EFU experience last month? Was there anything in particular you enjoyed? Anything that you hated? Anything you want to see? Now is the time to let us know as a community. I would prefer individual mechanics implementations be used in our suggestion forums.
There's not many players or action in the mid afternoon early evening GMT hours. I don't think there's much that can be done about it, but for the past two months my primary playtimes during the week have been a ghost town.
Loving all the exciting plots I'm hearing about though it seems like the server is really heating up with a lot of action in a bunch of places
I love the amount of DM attentiveness of late. It feels like every other day I log in there's something going on, or something I'm doing is spiced, which is fantastic. I really like the idea of the surface rescue missions, and the warring allied factions too and having to choose one or the other.
I always like seeing things similar to the Bulwark, or the claim areas from Efu:A because they draw players from an ic and ooc place, all while being awesome, and not necessarily requiring direct supervision. Also, quests associated with multiple endings and consequences over time, (Like allowing you to rob a caravan or save it) that eventually close after a number of times and have repercussions that effect Sanctuary or the surrounding areas could be neat if doable.
Quote from: Hollow_Mage on February 02, 2018, 07:21:26 PM
I feel like the mechanical challenge around Sanctuary has become a little more traditional, in that I'm not seeing stealthed sneak attacking creatures with +20 AB or hordes of mind-affecting aberrations right outside the gates. Not that those were ubiquitous challenges, but I haven't died randomly to the Underdark in a while.
I've died twice in the last two days to Umberhulk Stalkers on the Low Road! Also died a few days back to a spawn of 6 Deep Midge Swarms on the Hidden Pond.
Not quite "Right out of sanctuary" Sometimes it's just the luck of the draw and you can certainly find things like Bandit Veterans, Blood Hunter Elites, etc.
I've enjoyed the past couple months immensely. A lot of player driven plots. Only thing I'd say is that the playerbase shouldn't be afraid to engage the setting a little more. Play on the outlined plot hooks. Don't be afraid to commit. Given that this is the ""Age of Heroes" This is the perfect time to shoot for the stars and try to leave your mark on the efuniverse.
I absolutely love all the player driven plots going on the last few months and strong willed councilors using their political authority and PVP privileges to get their way. It makes things really entertaining all the time. I also like the great characters everyone has been making with well thought out personalities and motivations.
I dislike people taking advantage of a subdued individuals they had no hand in subduing. I don't think there should be an OOC rule against this, it's an IC action and should have IC consequences. It's just a little frustrating.
Couple of bits and pieces from me.
I have noticed that there's a bit of an awkward area inbetween levels 6 and 7 where most of the quests are a significant increase in difficulty over the normal 5 max fare. This is all well and good and the extra challenge is definitely interesting, however it resulted in me running into a bit of a rough patch due to the limited numbers of players in my timezone who shared that level range. I know it's a lot of work, but perhaps it would be possible to have more scripted quests in that range that have reduced difficulty but also a reduced maximum player count? I'm thinking puzzles that require two people to solve, small encounters with bandits, that sort of thing. This might just be down to my playing times and lack of knowledge about available quests, however!
All of the DM interactions I have had since returning a few months back have been outstanding, there's defiantly a real sense at the moment that characters can work towards their goals in an active fashion. I also think there's a particularly interesting crop of characters around at the moment that I have enjoyed roleplaying with. One thing I would say, however, is that things are a little light on the GMT afternoon and evening timezone. This is likely something we can work together to solve as players, perhaps through forum posts or other methods that bypass the big timezone divide. It's almost impossible to have great activity across all timezones, but anything that starts and finishes early or late enough for players outside the US timezone to get involved with is always very much appreciated.
Final note: I really like the House of Knowledge and scholarly aspects of EFU, there's so much written history to be found and so many mysteries to solve. I think there's some confusion, however, over how a character can work towards earning a Cloak of Knowledge. Would it be possible for there to be a system where the current Councilor who has claimed the House of Knowledge is able to award them? Perhaps with some kind of requisite financial 'donation' to the House so they're a genuine investment in a scholar of promise. I think having PC scholars who are acknowledged for their contributions is excellent and gives other characters someone they can go to if they want to get involved with a particular mystery, or to find out about an aspect of the setting.
QuoteI'm thinking puzzles that require two people to solve, small encounters with bandits, that sort of thing.
Well, isn't that what random exploreables are? There are a lot!
It will be nice to see in future new neutral-hub for monsters and nature-theme characters as it was Mycopolys.
It is cool and nice what happened with Mycopolys and all understandable what it is sort of consequence for all actions and it is now hard time for wild characters but still in my opinion it will be nice to make even little place where monsters, wild, nature-theme characters may meet with each other for some RP and quests.
I really just want to applaud the efforts of the DMs lately. It's really made the game world come alive. It's even fun to get your ass kicked (usually) by an NPC.
Kind of my insight as being a councilor.
One) I wish the prefectures were a bit more defined or had more unique things granted to them. A few prefectures seem a bit bland / not as fleshed out as the others. Like the Blue Mushroom had this really dope room that you could invite people into; the Stadium doesn't have such a thing.
Two) More impact on passing / voting on motions. I know it's the last thing a dm wants to do, but considering we voted on several motions and agreed to them, nothing of them really went into law / were over looked as time went on. It felt kinda pointless to even look at the forum after a few weeks of seeing things written up but nothing really being done to show these things IG.
Three) This one's a bit more directed to players- don't be so scared to do crazy things. A thing that I focused on as Oliver was enable the villains to do their villain things. Most of the time, it was a slap on the wrist. Unless you're going full murder spree, most councilors will probably let you do what you want. Expand on that and exploit the current 'lawlessness' of Sanctuary!
Then for that matter, I've often encountered random exploreables as a solo PC. It might be nice for half of the XP to be from discovering the exploreable area, and the rest to be inside.
Found a post from 2014 recently that was bumped a few times about the expectations for the quality of the RP going up significantly in ch. 4. From my perspective I think I'm definitely in a server where that was taken to heart by 99% of players.
Things have been fairly awesome overall!
+ Good amount of DM activity
+ Players treating each other well OOCly (mostly speaking in terms of pvp, winning OR losing side)
+ Server running well
The only downside I could speak on is that the "meta" is still sitting mostly idle. There are a ton of moving parts on numerous plots, but they really don't seem to be going forward. I personally thought that the end of EFU:M was too cluttered and fear that happening in this chapter as well, whenever that may be. It would be cool to see some of these revelations prior to the last few weeks or month of the chapter. I'm mostly talking about things like Prassix and the machine, Man in the Mask, Mur vs Magnatz vs Sanctuary, Faussad (maybe?), and other such things that have kind of been scraped on for years. I'm sure there are more and I'm sure some folks have seen more than others, but they are not really "finished" .
On the other hand, it was really cool to see some resolution to things like Alqvin / Etorix and how he made a huge dent in the Dread. Even though he is not gone or finished, it was effectively resolution to some long standing questions :)
I feel like EfU is now, as in the past, a collection of celestial bodies growing or shrinking in mass proportional to the number of people interested in them at any given time. When the mass of any two bodies grows sufficient, they collide. But rather than one consuming the other, there is shrapnel and force and it explodes outward. Sometimes one body can create two, or disappear entirely, never to be recovered.
Factions. Factions are the celestial body metaphor in that one there.
In EfU:R, and correct me if I'm wrong: the emphasis is on the pre-established plotlines like it really hasn't been before. In-universe hooks and factions and personalities upon which a character is to lay their plans. Subversion of the dominant paradigms, besides factions for whom that is a stated goal, is rarer than in previous iterations.
-
GOOD!
We had 3 chapters worth of Player/DM interaction to get us here. Setting-wise, this is a culmination of a lot of IG events and lore. And just because we're here now doesn't mean we won't be somewhere else later! Most importantly, I see people proving every observation I've made wrong, by making active characters that pick a target and Change Change Change.
So what I'm anticipating is game-changing events, handled with fluidity by the player-base with the capacity to see the fun past the rickety-ass software.
Meanwhile we all sit praying that NWN:EE doesn't bungle the netcode.
VP nailed it honestly. I'd like to start seeing actual things happen, rather than made up dm quests.