Suggestion: Remove Challenge Ratings from Examine. For good.

[Edge]

I guess if you enjoy that, good for you? I personally find it either extremely boring (because I have to stand in the back and barely do anything) or extremely frustrating (because despite my fellow travelers' best attempts I still die every other fight) to go to a dungeon that's well above my character's level, especially if I'm also several levels behind my party-mates. Having recently done just that - Shezzarin (level 12) went with Bass, Rhea, and a handful of other people all in that near-epic to epic bracket to go fight the red dragon, and while the RP was good as usual, the actual questing was boring - I'd like to avoid it when I can, and have the ability to find people more around my own level bracket to travel with.

Yes, you can RP it, but you can RP anything. For some people that might be entertaining. I'm not one of them. And yes, RP can be fun, but sometimes you want to RP while going out and adventuring - and if the adventuring itself isn't fun, sometimes the RP doesn't make up for that, or worse the not-funness of the adventure ruins what fun their could have been in the RP.

We have a dungeon guide for OOC purposes to give a rough estimate of dungeon difficulty.

Yes we do, and that's great. That's kind of useless though if you don't have an idea of where you or your party are. I don't know about you, but my usual method is to look at myself and my party's strengths then go find a dungeon that fits what we're about (presuming someone doesn't already have a destination in mind), rather than seeing a dungeon I want to do and then finding a group of PCs that may or may not be in the right range to tackle it.

[The Red Mage]

Well, how you handle yourself in a dungeon above you comes down to how well you know what you can contribute, and that's another discussion. My level 11, probably did the most overall damage and kept the front line the most safe at the frost giants.

Cherrypicking parties for a dungeon seems more frustrating and boring than not dungeoning at all. How often to you amass these parties? Do you want to goto a dungeon, type /listpcs, see there's no one in your range, then get bored and log off? There should be greater reasons for meeting up and roleplaying with people other than they are in your level range. Sometimes you don't get to know a character well until you've fought beside them.  

[Edge]

I usually don't bother with listpcs (mostly because I tend to forget the command exists), but I will hang out in Central, or the Inn, or other common gathering places and see if I run into anyone that's around my level range (not necessarily straight-up at my level, but within a 2-4 level span either above or below me) who's interested in going places. If I find them and RP interaction starts to lean toward "we're bored/this thing needs doing/etc." hints of "let's go adventuring somewhere", and the people saying it are within a reasonable gap from my character at the time, I'll offer to join in; if I'm too low or too high, I'll tend to bow out because I know I probably won't enjoy the trip.

[The Red Mage]

I just don't agree with promoting that sort of RP division between adventuring with PCs. But I'm more concerned with removing it from monsters.

[Edge]

Dec 20, 2013 16:19:20 GMT -5 The Red Mage said:

I just don't agree with promoting that sort of RP division between adventuring with PCs.

So how is this different from other forms of what I've come to call "harmless metagaming"? Things like noting where your fellow party members are so you can "arrange" to meet up with them somewhere, or using Theavos to reach them (which, in an actual game setting, would require at the very least for Theavos himself to scry on the person in question, them to fail the save, Theavos to note where they are, then him to mass teleport the party to the location then teleport himself back to Arabel)? Other things that we do for the sake of convenience because trying to do it "realistically" quickly gets boring and frustrating and lonely?

But I'm more concerned with removing it from monsters.

I'm against that as well, if only because it's one of the few ways I can gauge where I am as far as getting in over my head. See below.

Well, how you handle yourself in a dungeon above you comes down to how well you know what you can contribute, and that's another discussion. My level 11, probably did the most overall damage and kept the front line the most safe at the frost giants.

That's the other thing. Believe it or not, I am not very good at this game. The "building characters" mechanics side of it, anyway. I don't tend to know how to build really powerful characters in NWN's engine. I have a few builds that were decent that I managed to stumble into - mostly RDD characters, of which I only have one here, and she's not using either of those "super effective build combinations" since she's straight bard otherwise. Caprice's build is effective really only because I copied it from Peldszar, and had him around for most of her early levels providing her with spell and tactics recommendations. I can at least avoid most of the pitfalls that make a character utterly useless, but compared to the bell curve of characters of my level on the server, I imagine most of the time mine are slightly below average.

So instead I tend to focus on knowing who I can travel with safely (both on IC "this person is dependable, skilled, and/or good at this job" and OOC "this person is around my level, this class(es), and knows how to play well" levels) and having a decent understanding of what my characters can tangle with and get out in one piece when dealing with monster challenges.

[The Red Mage]

Then it seems we're at a stalemate! Is this the part we kiss and make up?

[Edge]

Heh. Not so big on the kissing but handshake and polite nods of recognition I can do.

[Ebola Lola]

I don't really use it to look at other players, But I do use it on monsters. Being a new player and staying low lvl for awhile its helpful. There are not always people around to go off in a hunting party with so for me there is a lot of SOLOing. I really hate lvling but it has to be done because there are A LOT of higher lvl toons and they go out hunting in places I would like to see at some point to.  So I think the rating needs to stay so us lower lvl people can see monsters.

[Vincent07]

Even if it were disabled, you can still check player level (and class build) in the Player list when you connect to the server.    So no point in removing it really.

[The Red Mage]

There's a way to hide that as well.

[Ebola Lola]

Ok guys.. Who freaking cares? If it happens it happens. If it becomes a problem report it. But to tell you the truth.. There are only a few nice IC pcs around. There is no shortage of mean and nasty lurking about. Just ignore them and go on your way that is all you can do. Yes it sucks but it is what it is.

[The Red Mage]

...Wot

-edit- Sorry if it seems there was animosity in this thread. This isn't a new subject, and we're all kind of vommiting the same opinions. No one's angry with one another, it's just an a feature some other servers have, and some players would like to see it here too. But no one is going to throw in a towel if something like this is shot down.

[dom101]

Dec 20, 2013 22:44:48 GMT -5 Ebola Lola said:

Ok guys.. Who freaking cares? If it happens it happens. If it becomes a problem report it. But to tell you the truth.. There are only a few nice IC pcs around. There is no shortage of mean and nasty lurking about. Just ignore them and go on your way that is all you can do. Yes it sucks but it is what it is.

IE: Bass.  What a dick.

[Ebola Lola]

Na hes just weird.. I was just getting at people arent always nice and there isnt anything you can do about it besides be on your own.

[morwen]

There is no penalty for 'death' but losing some cash, so I don't see a downside to removing challenge ratings from the monsters. I don't have an opinion about removing it from players' characters.