1.67 Feature - Examine Effects on Creature

Talks that may or may not have anything to do with Hala or NWN

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Would you like to see the "Examine Effects On Creature" option turned on or off?

Turned On (magical effects will appear in creature's description)
3
19%
Turned Off (magical effects will not appear in creature's description)
13
81%
 
Total votes: 16

Druid523
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1.67 Feature - Examine Effects on Creature

Post by Druid523 »

NWNv167.txt wrote:Added a new setting to the nwnplayer.ini file under [Server Options] "Examine Effects On Creatures=1". If this option is turned off then any magical effects on a creature will not appear in the creature description when you examine a creature in the game (Note: DMs will still see the effects on the creature).
I was curious what people thought about this latest option. Do you guys think it would be a good idea to disable the ability to see magical effects on players and creatures when examining them? It would certainly help to prevent metagaming (inadvertent or otherwise). Feel free to vote and then reply with a pro and/or a con.

Pro: Helps to prevent metagaming.


P.S.: It'd be interesting to do this for maybe a month to see how people react to the change, and whether this would be a welcome change for Hala or not.
"The ways in which they are different are maybe more visible but less important than the ways in which they are alike." -Rudiki about Alexis and Sceluscio

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NWDuneAuron
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Post by NWDuneAuron »

This isn't something there will be a poll about. Examine effects will be turned off, unless someone gives me a real good reason not to.
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Post by darkserra »

This isn't something there will be a poll about. Examine effects will be turned off, unless someone gives me a real good reason not to.

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Post by Cat »

Does this option include the challange rating ?
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Post by NWDuneAuron »

Slave of Emotions wrote:Does this option include the challange rating ?
Yes, I believe so.

Examining a creature to see what they're immune/weak to and their CR is given as an example of bad metagaming that can get you punished, if you've read the rules. This would be turned off to help you not cheat.

That stuff is only IC once you've learnt it IC. You can't just look at a goblin and instantly know it's immune to death spells and weak against fire spells, so you better use Firebrand instead of Wail. The world doesn't work like that - with this function disabled, you'd have to learn that the goblin is immune to death spells via IC trial and error. Far better.
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Post by Starslayer_D »

Removing magical effects upon examine, I approve fully.

About removing the CR upon examine, I do ahve some thoughts, though:

I just fear that it will result in a lot of dead players who, upon encountering a cerature for teh first time, don't know they are in over their heads and get rushed by the mob.

The CR upon examine is a crutch, but it was put in for reasons into NWN. Mainly to allow people who haven't seen certain creature variants before to run in time.

EG given: You see a frost giant leader: Run, stand and try to talk, engage? 2 of three options can get you killed in one combat round, even at lvl 20. Without warning by examine, you won't even have option 1.

At least these are my thought about CR upon examine. Some may call it metagaming. I call it 'being nice ad allow people to avoid the death penalty by giving them cues the pure creature model won't be able to transfer. Unless someone goes over the creature descriptions and describes things like:
"The Frost giant before you carries a very wicked looking axe, Huge muscles and many scars betray the seasoned warrior. The dragon teeth in his neclace sure don't look like store bought."

Wich would be a good cue to run.
In place of such cues, and the fact that anyone may stumble into a place suddenly too tough (eg, lyncan caves, Cloudwalk, the mindflayer place, etc, etc. ) CR upon examine may not be ideal, but there are reasons for it's existence.

If it's removed, one might want to think for a removal of having to recover your corpse, and current high Xp death penalty, as trying to find out creature impossibility by experiment sure is going to lead to much more deaths than current state of things.

Please don't see this as a whine, just my thoughts about potential effects of CR upon examine removal.




my 2c
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Post by Aquilifer »

Starslayer_D wrote:Removing magical effects upon examine, I approve fully.

About removing the CR upon examine, I do ahve some thoughts, though:

I just fear that it will result in a lot of dead players who, upon encountering a cerature for teh first time, don't know they are in over their heads and get rushed by the mob.

The CR upon examine is a crutch, but it was put in for reasons into NWN. Mainly to allow people who haven't seen certain creature variants before to run in time.

EG given: You see a frost giant leader: Run, stand and try to talk, engage? 2 of three options can get you killed in one combat round, even at lvl 20. Without warning by examine, you won't even have option 1.

At least these are my thought about CR upon examine. Some may call it metagaming. I call it 'being nice ad allow people to avoid the death penalty by giving them cues the pure creature model won't be able to transfer. Unless someone goes over the creature descriptions and describes things like:
"The Frost giant before you carries a very wicked looking axe, Huge muscles and many scars betray the seasoned warrior. The dragon teeth in his neclace sure don't look like store bought."

Wich would be a good cue to run.
In place of such cues, and the fact that anyone may stumble into a place suddenly too tough (eg, lyncan caves, Cloudwalk, the mindflayer place, etc, etc. ) CR upon examine may not be ideal, but there are reasons for it's existence.

If it's removed, one might want to think for a removal of having to recover your corpse, and current high Xp death penalty, as trying to find out creature impossibility by experiment sure is going to lead to much more deaths than current state of things.

Please don't see this as a whine, just my thoughts about potential effects of CR upon examine removal.




my 2c
This makes sense to me, though I would much prefer the option of actually describing the cues in a creature's appearance that tell an adventurer how tough it is, rather than the "very" rough guide of comparative CR, which can get you killed as often as it is useful because different charcters have different strengths versus different creatures. The fact is that the creature models are not accurate in the sense that the exact same model is used for creatures with very different fighting abilities.

For example, Ursadin has encountered one variety of creature with the exact same model and name that has two power levels. One type he can handle fairly easily, another type generally results in a bloody half-ogre mess. Once he is in combat it is too late, since using transitions to escape is metagaming. As the engine is currently configured, he can fight those creatures all day and memorize what works against each type, but he will never be able to tell them apart because their models and names are identical.

Of course, I understand that the team does not necessarily have the time to replace the current CR guide with the cues that adventurers would use. The question would then be whether the comparative CR information is an imperfact substitute that saves the team a lot of time.

just my 2 cp

[edit] forgot to mention that I agree that all information other than CR should not be shown
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NWDuneAuron
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Post by NWDuneAuron »

I'm not 100% certain it removes the CR, but I think it does.
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Post by NWDuneAuron »

I just checked and they're seperate lines. Effects will be removed for sure, CR we might keep around.
Odin Hammersong
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Post by Odin Hammersong »

Starslayer_D wrote:I just fear that it will result in a lot of dead players who, upon encountering a cerature for teh first time, don't know they are in over their heads and get rushed by the mob.

The CR upon examine is a crutch, but it was put in for reasons into NWN. Mainly to allow people who haven't seen certain creature variants before to run in time.

EG given: You see a frost giant leader: Run, stand and try to talk, engage? 2 of three options can get you killed in one combat round, even at lvl 20. Without warning by examine, you won't even have option 1.

At least these are my thought about CR upon examine. Some may call it metagaming. I call it 'being nice ad allow people to avoid the death penalty by giving them cues the pure creature model won't be able to transfer. Unless someone goes over the creature descriptions and describes things like:
"The Frost giant before you carries a very wicked looking axe, Huge muscles and many scars betray the seasoned warrior. The dragon teeth in his neclace sure don't look like store bought."

Wich would be a good cue to run.
In place of such cues, and the fact that anyone may stumble into a place suddenly too tough (eg, lyncan caves, Cloudwalk, the mindflayer place, etc, etc. ) CR upon examine may not be ideal, but there are reasons for it's existence.

If it's removed, one might want to think for a removal of having to recover your corpse, and current high Xp death penalty, as trying to find out creature impossibility by experiment sure is going to lead to much more deaths than current state of things.

Please don't see this as a whine, just my thoughts about potential effects of CR upon examine removal.

my 2c

Star, well put post. Doesn't seem like a whine at all. However I'm going to debate it with you. :)

CRs on Ysgard are not reliable. By thinking CR ranking/color will alarm you to your impending doom is unwise. There are plenty custom low HD monsters(Effortless to most PCs) that will utterly destroy a 20th or even 30th lvl char. I may be "old fashioned" in Hala terms, but I always found the CR ranking here to be utterly worthless, if not downright deceiving. :twisted:

The one exception to this is PC to PC examining, it seems to give a relatively accurate idea of where they stand power-wise to the PC next to them. This is what I want removed. No CRs on other PCs makes you look really close at who you're dealing with. It adds a lot of immersion IMO.

I say get rid of both and see how it works. :)

EDIT: I noticed I didn't say much about "Spell Effects" showing, because I think it's a given that they should go away. No way should you know what spells a critter has on them IMO.

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Post by Druid523 »

Good point, Odin. The CRs (aside from those on PCs) really are kinda worthless. Impossible usually means impossible...but I've seen some Effortless creatures that are impossible, too.

Might as well just take both the effects and the CR out.
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Slogth
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Post by Slogth »

I beleieve CR in NWN is based off the character's level and that is it.
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Post by Psye Shaar »

CR is based off a number of things. The creature's level, the abilities and the gear.

The biggest problem is always going to occur with multiple spawns because one at a time, they reflect their CR. 5 at a time, they mean death.

Unfortunately, you can blame players before, during and after your own time for the fact this is never going to change unless an anti-luring/manipulating/they can't shout their mates, code is found.

Certain classes will benefit against certain enemies. Finding out which? That can hurt.

Sorry to be blunt, but shit happens.
Last edited by Psye Shaar on Sat Jun 10, 2006 9:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by DM D'Artagnan »

I agree with Psye.

Both should go bye bye, for good.
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Post by Starslayer_D »

Avlis has some sort of Xp code wich gives adjusts a group of NPC's CR for being in a mob instead solo. I thunk the first and second one in the mob give Xp according to adjusted CR's. But I don't know how it works exactly, as they didn't post such workings anymore, unlike earlier XP code adjustments.
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Post by NWDuneAuron »

Starslayer_D wrote:Avlis has some sort of Xp code wich gives adjusts a group of NPC's CR for being in a mob instead solo. I thunk the first and second one in the mob give Xp according to adjusted CR's. But I don't know how it works exactly, as they didn't post such workings anymore, unlike earlier XP code adjustments.
Lol, the precise formula is on the Avlis forums. Each creature adds 1 to the CR of all other creatures within a certain radius for the purposes of caluculating XP.

Also, you forgot to mention that at high levels, 95% of stuff gives d2 or 0 exp. Want that, too? ;).
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Post by Public Enemy 1 »

No thank you,I'd enjoy seeing Hala stick around for a while. :shock:
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Post by Starslayer_D »

Hehehe.. well, we could take one part of it, and leave the 0-2 xp part out of itz.

Odin, I added the 'not a whine' part as some people seem to take anything I say about game mechanics as a whine. been that for a long time on another forum, mostly.
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Post by Asbendale »

I have to agree with Dune...i think its a good thing that we cant see what effects a creature have one em..it adds a lot to the rp and will also make players a bit more carefull. Also it will halp the guild im forming since the Circel of Knowledge will be working in thise areas aswell.

About the CR..well i made a post about a year ago to get it removed and then no one wanted to have it removed...i think we should have it removed but also the CR on other players...that way you have no idea it the one standing in front of you is a low bee or a high levelcharter...it ADDS a lot of rp. I have tryed it on another server and it works fine when players get used to it..:)

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Post by NWDuneAuron »

About the CR..well i made a post about a year ago to get it removed and then no one wanted to have it removed
Removing that information hasn't been possible without a dodgy hak that broke a whole tonne of stuff up to this point. Now bioware have added it as a feature.
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Post by Zombie »

Normaly people can make a spell craft check to determine the effects of any magical spell tey see in operation. It isnt an easy check (dc 25+spell lv or something) so, yes in pnp at least you can see what magical effects are on a creature, although normaly this happens when a spell fails and you check to see why.

Personaly I dont care either way if a creatures abilits can be seen or not, but it is always nice to get feedback about your spells. For example you fireball a salamander. In pnp the dungeon master says 'The salamander ignores your fireball and slithers towards you" NWN cant do this, so listing that the salamander is fire immune is a nice way around this as we cant pause the game to see how badly hurt the salamander was.

With the not seeing CR. I think it would work best if available up to lv 5 and turned off after that, which i dont think can happen.

Anyway, a few garbeled thoughts.
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Post by NWDuneAuron »

In pnp the dungeon master says 'The salamander ignores your fireball and slithers towards you" NWN cant do this
Uh.. so the big '0' that comes up when you cast a fireball on it isn't NWN telling you? Similar with immunities, you very definately get a line that says Creature: Immune to whatever.
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Post by Gregpooh »

I don't mind not being able to see the effects listed under the description. Some of the spell effects that are normally very visible in NWN don't seem to show up on characters in Hala. Stoneskin is one example I can think of. The only way in Hala to tell if someone has it active is to examine them, because the stony skin doesn't show up for some reason.
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Post by Idonia »

Greggy-pooh, they edited most spells to take away the visual effects, not sure why. Maybe they didn't want people to look totally kewl or maybe it just caused lag.

And I for one am usually too busy trying to fight for my life or run past to examine a creature...
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Post by albonia »

I rarely use the exhamine creature option. And even then i only use it out of curiosity. And i agree if some creature attacks me i dont have time to click on them and see what enhancements they have on them.

Does anybody really click on say a frost giant and then see what strengths or weaknesses he has and then plan their fight with Icegiants. You would be dead before you got halfway through it.
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