Dragon Buff

[Subutai]

Yes, thank you, ActionReplay!

[Mr_Rieper]

Here's a good video.

(It's Extra Credits on game design principles)

Basically, if you don't have time to watch the video, it discusses how some games are challenging because both the player and their enemies are operating under the same rules - where other games are punishing (and therefore cheap or cruel) because the enemies are able to "cheat" or subvert the rules to gain an overwhelming advantage.

It's annoying when enemies are able to instantly buff themselves with several abilities all at once. It's annoying when they are able to cast powerful dispels that strip you of all of your buffs , making you extremely vulnerable or even when it doesn't, it costs you a lot of time and energy to replace just to get hit with it over and over. It's annoying when monsters have infinite uses of a particular ability. It's annoying when creatures have arbitrary stat boots that are far outside the range of anything you were expecting or prepared for.

Thankfully many of these annoyances have been fixed. NWN has its limitations and fixing problems isn't easy. But I think it helps to ease people's minds to acknowledge that these things are annoying and less than ideal, even if it will take a while to fix them.

[Ecthelion]

I don't think most of us want to see dragons less deadly. I think we just want to see them less cheap.

I honestly think this goes for a lot of different enemies. Dragon KD is probably the biggest offender, but there are a lot of enemies that have stun/old fear/etc., attacks that just last forever. My WM got hit with the Orc Citadel's demilich's fear spell and just stood there immobile from the beginning to the fight, to the end of the fight, to at least a minute+ after the fight. The same WM failed some save against a stun attack from the black orc chief or one of his mages while soloing, and the fight went from a breeze to slow, gradually dying over the course of several minutes as the stun just would not end.

It's not that any of those fights should be easy to win, or that it's not fair that people can't solo them. It's that stuff like constant KDs or super long immobilizing spell effects just aren't a fun challenge. In fact, they're the opposite of a challenge. Even if you gear for them, and make sure your saves are sufficient, all you need is that 5% roll sometime in the fight, and you're out for the rest of it because some spell effect won't end, or because the dragon knocks you down all the time.

It's a bit like stun locks in a lot of games. You get hit by an enemy, go into an animation, and before the animation is done, they hit you again so you're stuck in the "getting injured" animation until you die. It's not fun, it's not challenging, it's just frustrating because all the skill in the world is out the window as soon as you make one mistake, or get unlucky one time.

I'd really like to see challenging fights made more challenging, and fewer (or no) instances of absurdly long over overused immobilizing abilities. No one likes to just be stuck in one place with no ability to do anything for most of the fight.

All the stuns effects and so forth should probably be shorter than they currently are, yes.

[Nobs]

-pray

[Ecthelion]

-pray

Numbers are not randomly generated and we know it. I can't tell you how much times in a row I have rolled 1s to Erynies in Baator (confusion), or to Thrallmasters in the Guldorand crypts. Or to wingflaps, which's the topic at hand ! I rarely die to all that, but it can be super annoying. Like the thrallmasters stun is, seriously, literally 5 minutes long.

[Sockss]

-pray

Numbers are not randomly generated and we know it. I can't tell you how much times in a row I have rolled 1s to Erynies in Baator (confusion), or to Thrallmasters in the Guldorand crypts. Or to wingflaps, which's the topic at hand ! I rarely die to all that, but it can be super annoying. Like the thrallmasters stun is, seriously, literally 5 minutes long.

Rolling several ones in a row doesn't prove it's not random, at all.

Though technically it's pseudorandom - which is as good as.

It might seem like you roll a lot of 1's when it's real important but that's negative bias for you.

[Ecthelion]

-pray

Numbers are not randomly generated and we know it. I can't tell you how much times in a row I have rolled 1s to Erynies in Baator (confusion), or to Thrallmasters in the Guldorand crypts. Or to wingflaps, which's the topic at hand ! I rarely die to all that, but it can be super annoying. Like the thrallmasters stun is, seriously, literally 5 minutes long.

Rolling several ones in a row doesn't prove it's not random, at all.

Though technically it's pseudorandom - which is as good as.

It might seem like you roll a lot of 1's when it's real important but that's negative bias for you.

Yeah, pseudorandom is what I meant. Successive rolls of 1s/20s occur fairly often, and rolling 1s/20s in itself too.

[Sockss]

They occur as often as any other 2-number outcome, at least as far as anyone can predict (1/400).

1's occur (for all intents and purposes) 5% of the time. Same as 20's or any other number.

They might seem like they occur more but it's only because you notice them because of the effects (like a double crit scythe WM or a fail to a death spell).

Unless of course you mean fairly often given the amount of rolls that you make in an hour. Then yes, the 1/400 double crit will come about a few times in an extended period!

[ReverentBlade]

NWN's pseudorandom number generator is based on seeds that do not change nearly frequently enough. The streakiness is not perception bias, it's a real phenomenon.