Messages

Jul 5, 2014 10:53:10 GMT -5 daphne said:

I like advancing in levels because it feels like I accomplished something. I don't get that nearly as much for Levels 3-8 because I can do that in two three days. A level that I worked for, that I did things more than just kill endless goblins - that meant a lot more to me. 

I mean no offense, honestly curious: given that you CAN just kill endless goblins and let the XP tick up, why does that level mean something to you?

Alternatively, given you can do nothing but stand around and talk about your day in the square and earn XP at the same rate, why does that level mean something to you?

I agree with your general principle -- going on a quest to discover artifacts before a lich finds them and then confronting him in his lair and gaining a level as a result is far more epic than "killed goblins for 10 hours" but how is that actually realized in-game?  Trying to understand your perspective here.

Jul 5, 2014 17:46:41 GMT -5 Mystic Warden said:

But if you are around lvl 10 you can already make meaningful contributions to a lvl 16 group, you just have to find out the way. For example you can cast buffs and heals instead of others, making it possible for the higher lvl characters to save their spell potential for offensive spells. On lvl 10 a Bull's strenght and others hold long enough to finish a dungeon. You might summon creatures just to provide one more target for the enemies, and reduce potential flanking situations against the frontliners. And so on, and so on.

How does that apply to a strength based melee fighter?

- Cannot cast buffs.
- Have no healing abilities besides Healing Kits but those are pretty awful with zero Heal skill.
- Cannot summon creatures
- Cannot contribute effectively with a ranged weapon
- Cannot disarm traps/open locks/find secrets

Sure, a level 10 mage has some things they can contribute to a group despite being lower level.  But how about a traditional fighter?

Jun 18, 2014 9:54:24 GMT -5 daphne said:

But all those level 16 characters you see on the server took that long to develop.   Some characters, who may not even be epic level, have been played for years.  From a brutally honest standpoint, how would -you- feel if you played a character for that long, got to this 'server midpoint' and then saw new players joining and getting 'caught up' in two weeks?

This thread went way beyond my ability to keep up with, but this comment stuck out to me and I wanted to comment briefly on it:

I wouldn't care.

Even if they hit level 16 in two weeks, they'd still lack a lot of special gear I'd possess and they'd still wouldn't know people IC and OOC like I do.  In fact, I'd generally be happy because it's someone new to play with and new blood is always welcome.  I'm far more concerned with a pool of available players to do fun stuff with than trying to make sure I'm immensely stronger than new players.

I do get your point in general -- if someone was able to join the server and catch-up to to the most advanced players in the course of a day then that would potentially be aggravating.  But there's a huge difference between catching up in a day and being able to catch up to the *average* in a month or two.  And you're looking at 6-12 months to catch up solely in terms of level.  To put this in perspective: the original NWN campaign took about 40 hours.  Even something like Dragon Age was about 100 hours (that was an insanely long and aggravating campaign on Nightmare).  Those same 100 hours of the XP ticker would yield 7500 XP (25 days at 4 hours per day and 300 XP per day).  That's not even enough XP to go from level 15 to level 16 alone (7000 from kills, 7500 from ticket, still 500 short of 16).

You could play all the NWN campaigns (80ish hours total), all the Mass Effect campaigns (90ish hours total), and all the Dragon Age series (170ish hours total) to get 25,500 XP from the ticker.  From 15 to 16 takes 8000 so that leaves 17500.  From 14 to 15 takes 7000 so that leaves 10500.  From 13 to 14 takes 6000 so that leaves 4500.  From 12 to 13 takes 5000 so that leaves us with -500.  So going from level 12 to 16 is roughly the same length as NWN + ME + DA all combined -- and that's just to get to the *average* level of the server.  And that's not even counting the time to get UP to 12 either, which still probably clocks in around 4000 + 3000 + 2000 + 1000 - 1000 (figure 1000 XP from quests if you're lucky) = 9000 XP = 30 days of 300 XP each = another 120 hours.

Obviously if you're happy with that, great.  But a new player seeing that if he plays 75 minutes per day and instantly started at level 8 that it would take him an entire year to hit level 16 (not max level, not highest PC level, just an *average level*) is probably not going to be thrilled.  And even someone playing four hours per day (28 hours per week) would still take a good four months.

So have fun, best of luck, I appreciate the efforts of the people I ran into in-game, and I hope the server stays strong in the future...but I don't think it's for me.

Jun 20, 2014 13:01:38 GMT -5 trylobyte said:

I'm thinking this might need to be split into two different threads.  It's gone rather askew of its original purpose.

Wow, this exploded.  More later, but wanted to quickly comment on this.  I'm honestly not sure it's gone rather askew -- I'm thinking it might more be two sides of the same coin.

On one hand, new players (and lower levels in general perhaps) are frustrated because they feel useless and babysat with no way to effectively change that situation in a reasonable time frame.

On the other hand, old players (and higher levels in general) are frustrated because they're too powerful for things short of world ending plots.

Kind of sounds like, for this server at least, the best times are between, say, level 11 and level 17.  Below that you're in really weak gear/low level and cannot contribute effectively and past that you start into demi-god territory.

Too late to change it now, I think, but it does make me wonder what it would be like if the server was capped at 17ish and level gain was rapid until 11ish and then tapered off.  Means you never have to worry about "losing" a character due to them being too high level to participate in things reasonably.

Jun 14, 2014 20:40:23 GMT -5 Garage Trashcan said:

You say that your problem isn't being level 9, it's being level 9 when everyone else is level 16.
Comparing yourself to others, especially those far away from you in terms of goals, is a very, very easy way to make everything you do unenjoyable. If levels and CR weren't listed anywhere on the server, which some people here support very strongly. My question is if you would feel the same if you didn't have this basis of comparison. You had no clue what level anyone else was without asking.

I would absolutely feel the same way.  I might not be able to tell that Bob is exactly 7 levels higher than me but I can absolutely tell he's substantially more powerful than I am due to how hard he hits, how little he GETS hit, his more powerful/available potions, and his higher health pool.  I might not be able to say his exact level advantage but I could easily guess he's 5-10 levels higher.

Which then brings up a question -- once I realize that Bob is massively more powerful than I am due to OOC game mechanics, does that mean I need to RP like Bob is stronger?  If I don't, then the game itself exposes the lie.  If I do, then levels and CR (OOC mechanics) are affecting things.

Jun 14, 2014 20:40:23 GMT -5 Garage Trashcan said:

Since NWN has dwindled, I can't really make any recommendations for you. I think 3 Towns had the more sort of action/adventure RP(lite?) environment, but I think they shut down a few years ago (at least not listed on NWN server list). If you want more action, Higher Ground PoA has some good stuff going for them with subraces and quasi-classes.

Three Towns still exists and I tried it a few months ago.  Higher Ground devolves into immunities (mostly elemental) at high levels which is not enjoyable for me.  It was basically "Get X and Y immunity for Z area and win easily, otherwise you'll be utterly wiped out."  For reference, here is a list of servers I can think of off-hand that I have tried and ultimately left for various reasons (might be forgetting a few):

Amia
Argentum Regio
The Awakening
Glorwing
Higher Ground
Isle of Thain
Kharindale
Legion of Darkstar
Three Towns
World of Aenea
World of Caenyr
World of Greyhawk
World Serpent Inn

Jun 15, 2014 5:06:57 GMT -5 The Red Mage said:

The feeling of "forever playing catch up" is a very, very common feeling new players have, and over the last several years, is the reason many of them have told me they have left.

While I obviously cannot speak for others, I would like to emphasize that it's not even so much "forever playing catch up" as "forever playing catch up AND being half a dozen or more levels behind everyone."  If coming in at this point meant I would never catch up to the highest level characters and that I would always remain a few levels behind, I could live with that -- because I can still contribute well in groups even if I'm the weakest in the group.  But being SO far behind the others for SO long is my concern.

Jun 15, 2014 5:06:57 GMT -5 The Red Mage said:

But if you don't like social roleplay, you won't enjoy playing here. This is a very social roleplay heavy server. Most roleplay when out adventuring is pretty mute since travel has almost been completely eliminated by only going to teleport friendly dungeons and using the new widgets to return to arabel. Other than the sparing battlecry when out and about, you'll find almost all your time in social RP.

Interesting.  I'm not even sure what a "teleport friendly dungeon" is.  I was also hoping there would be DM plot events that would be RP-focused without being "So, how was your day?"  Political drama, external threats, etc.

Jun 15, 2014 9:09:36 GMT -5 trylobyte said:

You're not going to catch up in a few days and, unlike action servers, you'll always be at a disadvantage (either in items, connections, experience, or knowledge of the server) compared to an older character.

If you might recall, I gave numbers earlier that showed how it would take 40 days of playing 4 hours a day just to hit level *13.*  If I played 10 hours a week on the server it would take *over 5 months* to hit level 13.  And level 13 is still well below the average.  My concern isn't about catching up in a few days -- if we assume that level 16 is "caught up" in general (below average still but high enough to be able to hold your own) then at 10 hours a week it would take 33000/(75 * 10) = 44 weeks.  That's just for level 16.

This isn't counting DM events, of course, so presumably would be a bit faster but you still get the general idea.  It's not even a matter of a few days or even a few months, it's potentially nearly an entire year.

If you're happy with the set-up by all means keep it but, as Red Mage said, I think you're losing a *lot* of players that way.

Jun 15, 2014 10:08:44 GMT -5 Ogre Time Yay said:

and considering how much faster one can level up on this server than other servers I've seen

I can safely say this is the slowest server for leveling up that I have seen by at least an order of magnitude, possibly two (keeping in mind the average level is like 16-20 and the cap is 30, bit different than a server with a level cap of 7 or something).  Out of curiosity, which servers are you thinking of?

Jun 15, 2014 10:08:44 GMT -5 Ogre Time Yay said:

Most raids that I'm in these days are through faction, especially since as of recently I have been avoiding Central more often.

I suppose this would be a bad time to ask something along the lines of "what in the world is a faction?"  Because to me that sounds like Zhentarim (sp?) versus Cormyr versus Drow versus whatever but I have a hunch that's not what you mean.

Jun 15, 2014 10:08:44 GMT -5 Ogre Time Yay said:

This is usually something you can find in most online RPGs or MMOs, there are the players who just joined in and are getting started, and there are the higher level players who have been at it for awhile now, there's not much that can be done about that honestly without sacrificing other aspects of the server...

Two big differences there, though:

1, the lower level players don't interact with the higher level ones 99% of the time, at least not in terms of combat.  They don't do dungeons or quests together.  The lower levels effectively have their own "sphere" of interaction which is people +-3 levels or whatever with plenty of people in that range to do stuff with.  That's quite different from here where it's being suggested a level 9 could be in a group with a level 21+ character.

2, the lower levels tend to "catch up" massively, massively faster than here.

As you might guess, it's both of these existing at the same time which I find problematic.  If I had plenty of stuff to do with lots of PCs my level I'd mind a lot less that it would take me a year just to be average on the server.  But instead I mostly find people 6+ levels higher, which is a rather big deal when you're only level 9.

Jun 15, 2014 10:08:44 GMT -5 Ogre Time Yay said:

From my experience leveling my character up it went so much faster when I took the time to role play with other characters, the time in between was a blast and before I knew it I was at level 16.

Out of curiosity, do you happen to recall how many days it took you to go from 10 to 16?  And how many hours per day you averaged?  I suppose I'm having a hard time believing that "before I knew it" equates to 10+ months but maybe we have very different timescales.

Jun 15, 2014 10:08:44 GMT -5 Ogre Time Yay said:

If you're not someone who is into the role playing thing, or if you really just can't bring yourself to come back to the server, that's fine. It just means it's not your cup of tea.

FWIW my first server was World of Caenyr, which is an RP server, and the server I played on the longest before leaving (which was part of a mass exodus where half the server left due to drama).

Jun 15, 2014 20:17:20 GMT -5 ClockworkMayhem said:

If you stick around, no matter your opinion of square RP (and while I don't mind it, I get tired of it quick and find a way to get a dungeon-run going), you rarely have to do it for very long before you'll have a group who's willing to run with you, and that won't make you feel entirely useless. If you're willing to give this server another shot, just drop me a line in game or here, and I'm more than willing to run with you.

I'll definitely keep that in mind.  Won't possibly happen for another week or two, though, too busy with other things right now (RL, guild I lead in an MMO going through a major transition, NWN building project).

Jun 16, 2014 7:09:22 GMT -5 Fire Wraith said:

-By design intent, there's not a lot of content designed for solo play, i.e., you're not meant to solo your way to the top.
-If you're worried about being too low-level, and not being able to contribute... well, that's mostly on you, in the end.

Out of curiosity, do you view being escorted through a dungeon by a massively more powerful character actual group play?  Feels to me like solo play on part of the higher level -- at least in terms of combat mechanics, which is what we are discussing at this exact moment.

Jun 16, 2014 7:09:22 GMT -5 Fire Wraith said:

Sit in the back, use missile weapons, use healing kits on people - you may not do a lot, but you're doing something, and you can usually roleplay a bit (I've yet to see anyone complain about others RPing during a dungeon run).

How do you see this working out for someone who's playing a frontline melee character?  An archer missing extra shots and/or being more fragile isn't immersion breaking.  A mage not being as good at spellcasting is believable.  But a traditionally sword and shield warrior hiding in the back with missile weapons and using healing kits with -1 or 0 Wisdom modifier and 0 Heal skill seems...rather odd, no?

Jun 16, 2014 7:09:22 GMT -5 Fire Wraith said:

Thanks for the feedback though - I do hope you change your mind, though as you said, the server is very RP/story focused, ultimately, and if that's not your interest, then you may well be better off playing something else.

I'm actually *very* story focused, massive lore nerd for games ranging from Mass Effect to Warcraft to Lords of Magic to Half Life and beyond.  Perhaps it would be more accurate to say care less about my own character's background and more about what's actually going on in the world.

Jun 13, 2014 8:13:13 GMT -5 Ogre Time Yay said:

On that server it would take you months to get to level 9, and level 9 felt like it was a -big- thing on there.

To be clear about something -- my objection is not that it's extremely hard to hit level 10.  My objection is that it's extremely hard to hit level 10 AND most PCs I see are 16+.  If the level cap was 14 and most PCs were 11-13 I wouldn't mind being level 9.  The actual level is not what matters, it's the difference in levels.

Jun 13, 2014 8:13:13 GMT -5 Ogre Time Yay said:

Stepping away from that certain mention however, another thing I agree with you on is that you shouldn't have to sit in Arabel Central and have pointless conversation for the sake of waiting on the 300 XP the ticker gives... So don't. Seriously though, if you see a group massing up to go do something like an orc raid, it doesn't matter what level you are, just tag along man.

How do I know a group is massing to do an orc raid unless I'm hanging out there for the sake of pointless conversation, though?  Bit of a Catch-22.

Jun 13, 2014 8:13:13 GMT -5 Ogre Time Yay said:

Let's see, what'd I miss...
Ah, DM run quests can be spotty depending on the time of the year, most DMs have things they must attend to IRL and need to wait until a calmer time of the year before they can put up something. I've seen it get really dry on the server when it comes to DM events, then I've also seen it pull a flip with 3-4 DM events a week, it really depends on the time of the year.

I certainly understand that DMs are busy.  But when it's the only way to gain XP to try to even halfway catch up with the AVERAGE PC level then it's frustrating depending on them.

Jun 13, 2014 8:13:13 GMT -5 Ogre Time Yay said:

Lastly is the mention of many "pointless" areas on the server, for example... The Semberholme forests with many areas that seem to have no point to them. I realize you said you don't really care for RPing, and you seem to acknowledge you're not the target audience, but these empty areas are a normal, regular thing on RP server only to offer scenery and opportunity for characters to role play on a trip to some where, each place is a special place to one character or another.

I get what you're saying to some degree, but 3+ areas dedicated to "on the northwest/north/northeast shores of Lake " seems...unusual.  Not saying empty areas for that kind of scenry/RP are a problem, saying there seems to be too many of those empty areas, if that makes sense.  Not the biggest deal in any case.

Jun 13, 2014 9:18:31 GMT -5 Arya Kalarathri said:

If you ever give the server another shot, I would be happy to direct you to the corners with activity.

I'll keep that in mind, thanks.

Jun 13, 2014 10:54:46 GMT -5 vaesi said:

Lastly - I agree as well that leveling is too time consuming here, not saying everyone should be able to power grind... but with such a small player base we want to be able to do things together and that means someone gets babysat which isn't fun for anyone or... they simply don't interact which means we log off bored and then leave the server further amplifying the issue. 

Indeed.

I began playing on this server a little under a month and played here for about two weeks, at which point I stopped playing.  I was originally going to make a more detailed thread but couldn't work up the energy to do it and wound up saying nothing.  I was thinking earlier today, though, and decided I owed it to Fire Wraith especially and a few other people who were extremely helpful and patient to mention why I decided to stop playing here.

I'll say up front that I certainly realize I'm not the target audience of this server because I, quite frankly, don't care about RP at all.  That doesn't mean I dislike RP, it means I care about story and adventure regardless if it's IC or OOC.  If the server is interesting and there are things happening that are fun, I don't care if it's IC or not.  I play an adventurer, that means I want to adventure -- which could be anything from trying to find a long-lost temple in order to restore it to tracking down a dragon and slaying it to participating in some political drama to figuring out a murder mystery.  But I generally like *doing* things most of the time, not just chatting about my day, if that makes sense.

The Good
- A lot of the areas are gorgeous.  Seriously.  Believe me when I say I'm not normally the type of person to just sit there and drink in an area, but I went BEYOND that to actually take screenshots of some areas like this:



- The people are extremely helpful.  Well, I can't vouch for everyone, to be fair, but everyone I had contact with was quite nice.  Particular mentions to Fire Wraith for amazing patience, Dagesh, and someone who plays a very orderly cleric of Helm who I unfortunately do not remember the name of off-hand.

- Area layout was generally quite interesting and not just the "tunnel with mobs in the way" that you often find.

- Some of the commands like "/leap" were impressive.

- Some of the mobs had some kind of health percentage sign, which I haven't seen elsewhere.  How did you do that, if you don't mind me asking?

The Bad
- Experience.  Experience experience experience.  Experience.  Specifically at level 8+.  I completely understand that you don't want players to arrive on server and a week later be caught up with people who have been here for years.  I completely understand that you want progression to generally be about characters rather than a mechanical race to level cap or something.

But at the same time, I think you've gone too far the other way.  I randomly did a check one night and was thrilled when I saw this:



The fact that I was ONLY the lowest level PC by 2 levels and most other people were ONLY 6ish levels above me seemed MUCH better than average.  The thing is, and it's easy to forget this, it's not fun to be useless.  For reference, I'm sitting here with +2 gear at level 9 with Cure Critical Wounds potions being used in emergencies only due to cost and that level 14 is running around with 5-6 more AC, 6-7 more AB, 70-80% more HP, better saves, and likely plentiful access to more powerful potions (if they're a warrior type).  And that level 14 is still below the median level AND average level, so just imagine what those level 16+ characters are like.

I don't want to be dragged along on DM events and shepherded because I'll die constantly without attention or be forced to hide in the back.  I'm certainly not expecting to be the strongest character in the group, I don't even mind being the weakest.  But I want to be able to actually contribute something rather than be a complete liability.

And this isn't a problem I can solve in a few days or work or even a week of work.  Even if I was level 10, I would need 12000 non monster XP to just reach level 13.  I recall reading how the XP ticker gives 300 XP per day in around 4 hours of being active.  So if I spent 4 hours being active each day then I could hit level 13 in...40 days.  120 hours of playing just to get the XP ticker bonuses.

When I realized this problem, I decided to see if I might be able to attend a scheduled DM event that would even be open to me.  At the time, there was nothing.  I just looked again and apparently a single event was held on June 5th that I could have gone to if I was still playing here at the time.  But that's it.  Quests are shot too as you'll see below.  So I'm left without any reasonable options here to actually play with the vast majority of players here.

- Quests.  I killed the bandit leader in the sewers and got 200 XP as I recall. I spent like an hour and a half exploring every inch of the Haunted Halls and finding a painting.  My reward?  Less gold than the painting vendors for and...drumroll...200 XP.  I've also done the goblin eggs and wizard's tower quests.  400 XP each as I recall.  I couldn't manage the bandit hideout for the mirror (more below).  These XP amounts are pitiful.  My original idea was that I could do one quest per level to get the non-monster XP required to level.  So, in theory...

Bandit Leader lets you hit 9.
Haunted Halls lets you hit 10.
Eggs lets you hit 11.
Wizard's tower lets you hit 12.
Mirror lets you hit 13.

And then at that point I at least have +3 gear and am high enough level to be able to contribute reasonably to most groups.  But that plan was completely shot with the fact the quests give an incredibly tiny amount of experience.  I've done all but Mirror and am still well short of 10.

I originally thought the point of the quests was to prevent people from finding an efficient spot to grind mobs for fast XP and instead force them to travel the world and go different places...but that evidently isn't the case at all.

- Lack of information for new players, such as:

Shops apparently have multiple tiers.  There's no reason a new player would think this and I would never have returned to a shopkeeper at a higher level solely to see if he offered something different.  I only found out this existed because I couldn't figure out how to kill trolls here and someone told me to buy a fire damage weapon -- which led to me asking "Er, from where?" and the person explaining that a better store would be available from the weaponsmith on my next level if I went back to see him.  Never would have guessed.

Having to look up maps of Cormyr to try to figure out where to go for some quests because there are no signs or NPCs who can give directions to something your character should know IC.  I understand Fire Wraith has updated at least some of the signs as a result of our conversation on this matter but things like that could be a problem.

Fishing for area transitions.  Especially in forest areas, trying to figure out where an area transition is hidden due to lack of map note.  Originally I just made my own map notes...lots of them...and then discovered these disappear on server reset.  I understand Fire Wraith is at least considering enabling map notes for those and hopes to have "seamless" area transitions enabled in the future, but it was/is a problem for new players.

- Excess areas.  I mentioned before that many of the areas are beautiful.  There also seem to be way too many of them at times with no apparent use, an example would be the forest near Semberholme.  So many areas that consist of "yet more forest" or "lake area #3."  Most of them look great, mind you, but it feels like there's just a ton of empty areas that serve no purpose and like half of them could be eliminated without losing anything.

Conclusion
The actual moment I quit came while trying to do the bandit mirror quest in an attempt to be able to hit level *10.*  This was my third attempt at doing so, trying to figure out ways to survive things like a DC 19 Slay Living (wound up using potions of Constitution for the +2 fort and Intelligence for the another 1 bonus from spellcraft plus buying a +2 fort ring).  You see, all of a sudden every spawn consisted of a level 13+ cleric and 11+ mage (or the other way around, forget) along with 4+ bandits.  And it turns out these spellcasters are happy to dispel you as well.  Massive step up in difficulty from previous quests, especially considering these were just trash mobs, not a boss or even sub-boss.  Even being level 10 would have made no difference, I'd get a whole 1 AB and 1 Reflex.

Maybe the next tier of gear at level 11 would be enough but that was another full level away AFTER I hit level 10.  And so I sat there stuck.  The next quest I could do was impossible for me, there were no DM events listed as coming up (or even recently happening) that I could participate in, and it would take me another 13+ hours of the XP ticker just to hit level 10.  So I said "That's it, this just isn't worth it" and haven't logged on since.

So apologies to the people I mentioned who were extremely helpful and very patient, but I just couldn't justify continuing to play here.  I know the server as a whole actually has a very good population, but I very much doubt you're going to attract many new players with some of the current policies.  Best of luck to you all regardless and happy gaming.

Two minor thoughts:

1, CR is no more artificial than the other rules of the *game* being played.  You can RP an 20 strength half-orc as being massively muscled and immensely skilled at melee combat, but if he's a level 4 fighter with mundane gear then he's going to whiff at things a level 10 human fighter with +3 gear that started with 14 strength will easily hit.  That's likely an extra 9-10 AB from levels/feats/weapon enhancement alone, not even looking at more Strength on gear.  It doesn't matter how convincing your RP is or how fervently you want your level 4 fighter to be a master of melee combat, he's still pitiful next to the level 10 fighter.

I'm curious -- would you say the half orc RPing as being immensely skilled at melee combat is good RP because it matches the player's vision of the character or bad RP because it cannot be backed up in game terms?

2, if anything I worry more about losing the effect list since different servers often had weird properties on enemies that you wouldn't expect -- which is purely a mechanical issue.  Why are these bandits immune to Death Magic?  Dunno.  Why is that Demi-lich vulnerable to Divine damage?  Dunno.  Why is that Red Dragon 50% immune to Electrical damage?  Dunno.  I'm not saying that's necessarily the case here but it's one of my biggest fears on a server that tries to hide effects -- because weird stuff happens and trying to read the scrolling combat log with a party of players attacking a group of enemies is impossible.

I remember an amusing situation on another server where a builder made a prismatic dragon with high reflex saves, Improved Evasion, immunity to level 4 spells and under...and massive vulnerability to cold.  Except the only level 5+ spell that deals Cold damage is Cone of Cold which was simply evaded and Ice Storm is level 4.  I pointed this out to the builder who said "Oops" and fixed it.  But if I had not been able to see the cold vulnerability there would have been no way to know there was a problem because the builder wanted cold damage to be used but set it up so that was impossible for a caster.

On top of that, this server has minimized spell visuals -- which means if you hide both the Shadow Shield visual AND the examine effect then that seems a bit weird because there's no way to tell off-hand.

What do you see as matching Elemental Shield with a longer duration?  Mestil's Acid Sheath is also rounds/level, no?  And Death Armor is very weak.