[Fiverine]

Hi everyone.  While we are in a period of comparative quiet in Netheril: AoM, I think it would be a good opportunity for us to discuss what we want to see in our server.  By this I mean, what sort of events, gameplay, factions, and setting elements you enjoy most and would like to see more of, and which you are not so fond of. 

[ToxicWrench]

Yes please, give me some work to do 

[Vydaera]

Alright, you asked for it...

WE NEED MORE PLAYERS! This server has room for diverse groups, elves, monsters, nobility in the sky... even villains. We just don't have enough people to do all the different cool stuff.

Certain areas need fleshed out. Trading post, or hell, the entire Patrician Plains. I want to see more of the tribes! Druid grove in the Wonbrie could use a little love. It looks unfinished.

You know those scripts that put dialogue in your combat when you move into a certain area? Like right off the boat in Hadrian, stepping out in the Swamps, for example. More areas need that! And more, they can be used to give info about buildings and stuff on the world map, for example the ruined church in Wombrie. "A palpable sense of dread comes over you as you near the door to this place. The slow scrape of skeletons ambling about inside can be heard just past the doors- best be prepared before you enter." would be fantastic!

There needs to be more quests that give unique loot at low levels! Pumpkin goblins for example has a lot of stuff related to druids, especially evil ones. There could be new quests or tweaks to existing ones that cater to certain other classes or archetypes.

The questing could be re-balanced... I think level caps ruin the fun of people who like to help out lower level players (Like the amazing Uldur!) I get that this is a tricky thing to balance, but I would err on the side of letting players play how they want instead of restricting them. Maybe someone with a really optimized character could be helpful before the level cap, or someone who doesn't focus on combat won't feel comfortable in a quest until they are technically above it's level cap.

That being said, a lot could be done to tweak some existing quests to be more fun and less aggrivating. For example, the Haunted Inn behind Hadrian church has almost every single enemy with a 50% concealment rating. This... doesn't make it more difficult, just annoying. SOME of the enemies in a group, absolutely, just not 90% of them. There is also a darkness ooze that seems to be immune to physical damage, or highly resistant. Something like that needs a hint or a leadup, or maybe guarding an optional area with a chest or two. So that non-magic characters can progress, but won't get full benefit. The last part is the final room. A veritable SWARM of Shadows, that all drain strength, with touch attacks. Not so bad for a dex-based Monk, but any armored fighter types get WRECKED and their ability to fight is seriously compromised. A pair of Shadows with some other enemies would be threatening, but not absolutely overwhelming. With more scaling with the number of party members or something.

That's another thing. I like places where you need skills to get bonus loot. Like Trapped/locked doors. You could also block loot behind those little spots on the ground that check for like Acrobatics and stuff, right? To climb ladders or swim across a gap in Hadrian. How about a magical barrier with a Lore check? Or an NPC that shows you a secret passage if you Persuade/Intimidate/Bluff your way through dialogue. All things to let other skillsets feel rewarding.

That's all I can think of at this moment, and it was all off the cuff with no editing so take what I say with a grain of salt.

Cheers!

[Kalcibone]

Specialized areas for certain classes; like a special hidden doorway for rogues/shadowdancers/assassins that  needs a special password said near it to open, inside could offer some nice stuff, like blackmarket and evil things..

The wombrie druids selling more useful druid/ranger stuff, or heck, even selling  animal based Summon items (like the summon books, but for elementals and animals, like a book that turns all you summons into rats of sort)

A hidden spot using a 'poke this tiny spot hidden in an allyway' thing to get into a homeless  area with some cool low level stuff and a sleeping area

[FireballWilson]

Vydaera Caught the majority Player Concerns

Changing Level Caps on quests to not bar high level help.

Some more areas with a bit of flavor text

Personally, I say that we should allow people to have 2-3 monster characters/DM characters if for no other reason than to allow people to have off-characters that are evil to help mature evil characters. Sullivans is practically abandoned because Evil characters can't get anyone to help them quest, so they either leave or remake into a good character in order to progress.

Raen has some rather good ideas towards a restructuring of the XP system. Allowing for players to help with low leveled quests without absolutely stomping, while also barring power leveling low leveled chaps. What with the current state of grind necessary to reach levels where you can effectively help with the threats of Hadrian, I'd say a restructure to the XP is welcome by most.

Magic item diversity is rather scarce. While It's absolutely fantastic to have meaningful magic items with a bit of lore attached and a reason for existing, there is a consequence to this. Non-casting classes are completely incapable of leveling without some form of magical assistance, beit a pocket mage/cleric, egregious use of purchasable potions, aggregious use of AI exploitation such as "pulling", "transition despawning", or "disconnect safety net". While true that this is "an age of magic" we shouldn't bar people from playing monks or warriors, they need a bit of lovin, Nothing major, perhapse a few more great magic items for monks, warriors, and every other class that needs a bit of loving. Add them to the drop pool, merhcant pool, etc, allowing them to flow into circulation naturaly, perpetualy being created and accessible to new players rather than getting stuck within the inventories of high leveled badasses. Infact, I'm certain players would love to write flavor text for magical items, or suggest new magical items to be added to existing quests, Even make a whole sub-forum to talk of new magical item ideas, wether they'd be balanced or broken, which classes need more magical items, etc..

The Dms a fantastic and custom crafting system that is above and beyond, and to be frank, it's rather satisfying to progress through up till a point, but there's also allot of dead zones that need to be finished and "absolute grinds" that need a bit of a rework.
Scribing
Scribing has no flavor text as it stands, leaving people in the dark as to how to progress in it. Nobody knows the recipes for inks and from what Raul mentioned a few months back, the necessary time investment is egregious if your planning to level the skill.
Personally, I would like to see scribing changed from a crafting task that lets you create scrolls of spells you know for free, and transition into a costly way to learn new spells. Imagine a crafting task that lets you gather plants from all about the server, finding mushrooms, ingots, alchemical essences, dusts, etc, all for the end-goal of learning new spells. It's directly rewarding an intrinsically hard to exploit. If this was the case though, I would rather have it not directly tied to a "percentage increasing skill" per-say, rather being locked by level, and the amount of materials you need to complete the spell, barred instead by your ranks in other skills.

Jewelry Crafting/Gem-cutting/Tumbling
Get rid of Gem-cutting allowing polished gems to be used in jewelry crafting, lower the tumbling times from 30seconds tottal to 15, and add an "autotumble" feature. While Gemcutting is a good step in theory, it ends up being the bottleneck to the whole process. On average, you're going to fail more tumbles than you succeed until your at high tumbling skill. This is normal, though the problem comes from the fact that this is also true for Gem-cutting AND Jewelry crafting after.
As an anecdote: imagine if after you make an exceptional quality helm, you had to take it to a "fitting station" to get make sure it fits right, where you'll fail 90% of the time until you grind it absolutely. And if the armor is not exceptional quality, you can't use it to level your "fitting" skill.

Smithing
Smithing is fine as is. It's rewarding but time consuming. I'd personally say diversify the ores available to each of the major cities. The recent change to add copper/gold/mithril to Hadrian Northern Farms is a breath of fresh air to my weary heart. Makes Meteors sorta a "wow, a huge cache of Mithril just appeared, I should look for it" rather than, "The only way to get Mithril has appeared, I should hire a search-party to go and find it before server reset"
Adamantine is a sought after side-grade that players are looking to acquire, both for RP creations and Crafting tasks. Consider implementing it in some manner.

Leather working
I'd say the amount of Smiths compared to leather workers is rather telling of some issue. Compared to smithing, Leather workers have to deal with quite allot of intermediary steps, including Alchemy in order to get the acids necessary for certain steps. I understand an adherence to realism, but perhaps we could change the amount of leather you get from this whole process to something more worthwhile for the effort. Like say, you skin a hide of a dear, and after all the processes depending on your skill, you can get 6-28 usable leather bits for your leathers.
I'd also recommend lowering the skill cap necessary to skin tougher hides, as it is currently leading to high level characters scrounging around for pests and wolves in order to progress.

Gold Panning
Gold panning needs a rework. I'd say move the gold spots to harder to reach places and give a monetary incentive to finding gold.

Bit of a side note, If you wanted some additional man-power, many players have fantastic ideas for quests, level designs, etc. but lack the knowledge necessary to really help in any meaningful way. If you've the time, I'd recommend creating a handful of tutorial videos talking about how you guys create maps, how the crafting system is coded, and how the custom haks of Netheril are created. I for one would love to assist, I'm just not familiar with the tools necessary.

[Ritu]

Underdark and a functioning drow city. Vendors, dialogues, assigning stores to merchants WHICH ARE ALREADY THERE, and the building for trades with tge surface folk has no assigned area whatsoever. So much can be done, and it would take at most hour or two. Spent more time in nwn editor than actually playing. But either way, that place has monstrous POTENTIAL, and it's sad to go there with curiosity and wonder, ended up seeing only a make up skeleton.
Sone drow related utems are already in the base game so even the creation of a wide array if items will take shirt while to make.

That's the only thing I recall. Annnd the Malar's Hollow is a ghost town as well, should be brought to life.

And how about a reptile summoning book theme? Thunder monitor lizard summon etc, there is a ton of open possibilities with such theme.

And a way to make wands of the server-added spells (like Scorching Ray)

Now, that's all probably, gotta do some other stuff

[Vydaera]

Some other thoughts I had after reading others... Magic items that cast spells 1/2/3/day! From a bit of healing, to useful buffs, to attack spells to help out on tough fights/monsters that resist physical damage. Ivy Ring and Pumpkin in a Pot are amazing items... that stop being accessible after a certain level. So that means to be useful, my characters are gonna farm that as much as possible at lower levels just to have a safety net before they are unable to do so anymore. I would rather have a permanent 1/day item that doesn't run out of charges than fill my inventory with differently-shaped wands.

Worried about people  stockpiling them? Put these effects on gear. It takes up a slot to use, its bulky, and I think you can't change equips except for weapons in combat. (Armor for sure, boots/belt/etc not sure yet.)

This would also help diversify the gear selection and have people make choices. Do I want a +2 Nat Armor Amulet, or a +1Will that can cast Shield at 10th level twice per day? Choices, choices.

I got a ring with +5 Poison Saves and a casting of Keen Edge. I thought it was a 1/day thing, but NOPE? The one time I remembered to use it, the ring was destroyed. And I have never seen it since. (In wasp quest)

To help circulate items, and to reduce the need for constantly re-running the same stuff every day, how about an option to select ONE of the unique drops as a reward for quest completion instead of gold? As quests get updated with new loot tables, it would encourage people to go do DIFFERENT quests instead of the same couple over and over.

I love the idea of themed quests, like the Pumpkin goblins... they can be tailored to highlight strengths. For example, monks are great at: getting a lot of attacks, free cleave, bludgeoning damage, stunning fist. So how about a quest that features larger amounts of easy-ish-to-hit Brittle Skeletons that are weak to bludgeoning, with a boss or occasional tough enemy that would be a ripe target to stun? The quest-giver could be a kindly monk that hints at a dangerous foe with a strong attack and a reminder to use the tools at your disposal.

Just more stream of conciousness. Grain of salt an' such.

[Vydaera]

FARMING QUESTS!

And other cool quests related to the professions. What if there was a quest line to obtain cool versions of profession gear? A watering can, blessed by Jannath, that never runs out (or holds more than 5 uses at a time). A mighty, unbreakable shovel, so that one may Strike the Earth! without fear. A smithing hammer that imparts extra success chance or something.

Crafting/gathering isn't for everyone... but most people do SOME crafting. I think it would be super interesting and my characters would absolutely pursue something like this if it were implemented.

[CursedNecrosis]

Farming and cooking's pretty lackluster at the moment, i wouldn't mind seeing it expanded to include some non-meat cooking recipes using some of the foods acquired from farming like the bundles of wheat, wintersqaush, popcorn, spring onion etc. From my knowledge, only meat can be cooked so having cookable non-meat items would give farming a further, better use. This would allow PC chefs to make some of the foods provided at the inns like sweetcake and let vegetarian/vegan PC's to eat something for those who wish to RP that aspect of life. This suggestion is mostly just from a RP perspective and doesn't serve much mechanical change, it would be nice to cook a variety of things from an RP perspective.

[Fiverine]

We've had a lot of ideas about mechanical changes, but what about plots and events?  Anything you really want to see? 

[FireballWilson]

It'd be a nice change of pace to Have Hadrian work towards it's betterment rather than continue treading water. Like, we deal with problems as they come up, but it'd be nice to take establish something unequivocally "successful" in a way.

Something like "getting a foothold into the fallen enclave and starting expeditions into the dark fortress, only to find that with the ever increasing dangers comes ever increasing rewards". Making it into less of a "daily quest" and more of a "see how far you can press into the enclave with your party, the deeper you go, the bigger and better the loot!"

That's just one idea of course, but seeing Hadrian start to become something "more than a shit-hole" would be rather nice.

[Vydaera]

I agree! More ways for people to go out of their way to make Hadrian better in a more permanent sense!

I have been hearing about this Mist since I started, and only recently have become strong enough to brush the outside of the fallen enclave. (With help)

There has got to be some small ways that lower-level players can help- maybe clearing out some of the zombies by the river in the swamp. Maybe there is a way to cleanse the mist in east farms, by the little graveyard? Just little things that would give us a sense of doing something. Like cleaning up the blood/scorchmarks in Hadrian, or fixing that broken sign by the boat. (I realize anyone could pursue these if they wanted, but I don't think anyone knew it was a possibility)

[Kalcibone]

Maybe the mist can have mini quest for it; clearing out infected dirt/water, etc.

[Fiverine]

ooh good idea... maybe a bounty collection on claws from mutant crabs? 

[Vydaera]

And Seagull feathers... those dirty birds are just Zilta's spies, you know!