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3 years ago ::
Dec 11, 2009 - 1:03PM
#341
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Date Joined:
Apr 25, 2002
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He doesn't owe us anything, we don't pay for the RPGA benefits we receive, his job is the events guy etc, we really have very little insight into his day to day and none of us really have any right to criticize his free time activities. I mean, you aren't doing your day job when you're here posting about DND. Chris's day job intersects with our hobby, that doesn't mean that all of his free time belongs to us or Wotc simply because he is accessible. He doesn't get paid for 24 hours every day so you can't expect him to be "working" all the time.
I agree with this. But...
I think it would be a good customer relationship move to simply say something to the effect of: "We're still working on this - we want a permanent solution. If you feel your character has been significantly hurt, don't update until we implement that solution. But be warned, most of the update will be implemented as is and with no do-over."
NETH4-1 Containing Shadow (co-author) Handbooks
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3 years ago ::
Dec 11, 2009 - 1:04PM
#342
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Date Joined:
Mar 28, 2009
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So you went from Suck it up to I think I should get to remake my character so he doesn't suck in the course of 3 weeks just because wotc didn't tell us to suck it up?
Odd.
Yep, you are right. It didn't really strike me until last night when describing what I was trying to do to suck it up and fix my character within the retraining/reselling rules to another player that this was just getting to be more trouble that the enjoyment that I got out of the character. The fact that I've been playing this character for several months now, and each time I set down a course for it and make some progress wotc issues an errata makes me feel like I'm climbing a mountain of sand and simply sliding down more than I'm actually climbing.
I've gone from suck it up to considering remake in the course of 3 weeks looking at what it is actually going to take to be happy playing this character. As it is, I'm simply growing more pissed off. Pissed off that WOTC can't seem to playtest or edit a book and sell alphaware as though it were completed product. Pissed off that they cavalierly issue game-changing errata without a bit of notice or apology to the players who have invested time and money into their game. Pissed off that three weeks after issuing said errata, they still haven't said word one. Pissed off that the one person in WOTC who is apparently capable of making any such a statement or determination was sent to Europe to run a "learn to play" booth for Magic:The Gathering at the time the errata was issued. Pissed off that he either wasn't told about the errata, or didn't plan far enough ahead to see what a crapstorm would come from it and couldn't be bothered to email in even the most basic of "I'll get on it when I get back", or "I'm working on it, expect an answer soon.".
You're right. Chris can tweet whateverthehellhewants. A brief glance indicates that the overwhelming number of his tweets are about DND or wotc activities. Again, I don't know what his day job is, and I don't really care outside of the fact that it's been stated that he's the only person in all of WOTC that can make any kind of authoritative statement. And three weeks out, he still hasn't.
4e is a game. And a hobby. It's an investment of both time and money for its players. The fact that there has been no real response from wotc is probably simply indicative of the amount of respect that the hold for their customers.
"At Gencon 2010, WOTC will announce a new edition of Dungeons & Dragons." - crm(1/2010)
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3 years ago ::
Dec 11, 2009 - 7:11PM
#343
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Date Joined:
Oct 19, 2008
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Well I'm glad you at least can see how the suck it up and deal response is kinda of unfair to players, well I'm not glad you are experiencing the "why" it sucks part, but I'm glad you can see that it does indeed suck.
The part about Chris in europe etc, Chris was doing his Job in europe, DND isn't his only schtick at work. Unfortunately for the RPGA we are the ONLY group of players "required" to play by the most current rules on everything, eratta from wotc is not really aimed at us or planned for us etc. They look at their game, think things are out of balance and adjust the rules, anyone in any game other than an RPGA game can just ignore or work around these updates however they see fit, RPGA being the official MMO (and I'm using that as massive multiplayer organization, which fits entirely) has to follow the base rules, and there is where we run into all the problems. 3 weeks is a while to wait sure, but unfortunately 3 weeks is not that much time to a business especially around november/december and all the holidays. Did they screw up in our view for not having something ready for this occurance, yes, I think we can all agree on that. It's just that yelling at Chris isn't going to help matters.
Blah blah blah
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3 years ago ::
Dec 11, 2009 - 8:17PM
#344
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Date Joined:
Mar 16, 2006
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In 3.5 the word broken came to mean using one item or power or feat in conjunction with another item or power or feat in order to gain an advantage through synergy that the designers probably didn't forsee. Apparently in 4e the word broken now means selecting an item that is useful just as written, all on its own.
I think this is essentially right, except that I'd state it more like "In 3.5 they allowed abusive stuff and only fixed broken stuff; in 4e they will fix abusive stuff too". There is definitely a harder line on anything that starts to edge towards abusive. You mention bloodclaw and riding lizard. They're clearly way better than they should be. The riding lizard in particular is just obvious (my son has one for his two-weapon melee ranger, I've seen it in play frequently). I do think that if you make a lot of your choices to maximize your character's power, you are indeed putting your character at risk -- precisely as you say, because you may get hammered several times by fixes. It's just risky. When my multi-wizard fighter took blood mage, I was pretty sure we were going to see errata -- but I figured I hadn't power-gamed much else for him (vicious weapon would be his next most likely nerfable) -- so it wasn't too risky. I would never try building a character I care about around a single high-power shtick. Again, too risky.
Wizards will continue to fix abusive items. It's clearly their plan. I personally like it as it means I can actually play the game past mid-levels (I never played optimized characters in LG and retired all my characters at level 8-9 when the abusive combinations dominated the game and made it absolutely no fun for me -- either to play or DM). It means that I can have some confidence that if I pick a mix of choices, some for power-game reasons, some for roleplaying, some for fun, then my character will not be useless at some point in the future. That's very important to the life of LFR and so I really don't see a change.
Last time I said in a post that if I was GMing for people who felt totally nerfed, I'd use DME to make it work, I got shouted out for some reason, so I won't make that suggestion again (God forbid DMs try and make the game fun when clearly they should just sulk and blame WOTC). But I do suggest you bring along your character and explain to the GM what's happened. My experience of GMs in LFR has been pretty good, so I would strongly hope that most would be at least somewhat helpful ....
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3 years ago ::
Dec 11, 2009 - 9:23PM
#345
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Date Joined:
May 19, 2004
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In order to keep being an effective defender-striker...
I basically stopped reading right there. In 4th edition D&D, a character can be effective with no feats, non-optimal powers and nothing more than vanilla magic items. Optimization does not make a character effective, it makes a character optimal. Just about every complaint that a character is no longer playable is simply bunk.
An avenger in non-magical cloth still does the primary job of an avenger (striker) effectively... though I will admit that the loss of treasure for magical leather that can't transfer sucks and deserves compensation.
A tempest dwarf fighter with an urgosh can pick up two handaxes (transfering the enchantment to one of them) and still be effective. The same is true for an eladrin.
Heck, I am currently playing an effective tiefling fighter that started with a 14 strength. Effective is EASY in 4th edition. If the complaint is that the character is no longer optimal, fine, I will acknowledge it. If the complain is that the character is no longer effective, that is simply false.
-SYB
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3 years ago ::
Dec 11, 2009 - 10:42PM
#346
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Date Joined:
Aug 14, 2006
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The part about Chris in europe etc, Chris was doing his Job in europe, DND isn't his only schtick at work.
That's kind of the point. There's only one RPGA guy. Why, when the RPGA is already suffering from backlogs and delays, does that guy have to go work a Magic booth? There must be a couple of dozen people working Magic: the Gathering full-time who could do it instead. Why does the RPGA have to suffer a three-week delay to give Magic a rather marginal benefit?
3 weeks is a while to wait sure, but unfortunately 3 weeks is not that much time to a business especially around november/december and all the holidays.
I'm far less inclined to give that line any credit after having seen it several times already, modified for whatever's current. A few months ago it was GenCon. Now it's the holiday rush. Next month it'll be DDXP.
It's just that yelling at Chris isn't going to help matters.
The yelling is directed at the position, not the person. After all, we've only got the one RPGA guy; is it surprising that all the complaints go to him?
More importantly, though, you're wrong; complaining does help. When Tulach goes to the penny-pinchers at WotC to request more [funding|time|minions|other resources] one of the first questions they'll ask is, "Has anybody complained about the way things are?" If the answer is "No," then they're apt to conclude that things are working just fine, and he doesn't need extra resources just now. With a bevy of complaints at hand, his request for additional resources will have a great deal more weight.
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3 years ago ::
Dec 12, 2009 - 4:16AM
#347
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A good number of posters seem to think just about any update can be serious and should grant a complete/free retrain.
Which I see as one of the main problems which basically leaves them with no other option than to allow a complete/free retrain everytime one item/feat/feature on your character sheet get's mentioned in a rules update.
Otherwise, no matter where they decide to draw the line between "exception-rule-worthy" and "standard-rules-case" will have a lot of people just on the other edge of the line complaining loudly that it's unfair that they didn't drew the line just a little more in their direction.
Are the few people who decided to put affected characters on the back burner and who may end up being stuck with less generous terms than other people created for themselves going to get screwed? You bet.
Note that this also currently applies to the few people who did not buy any of the nerfed items when they had the chance solely for fear of suffering a loss if they were ever nerfed.
Will that make them less likely to follow even reasonable rules next time? Probably.
Personally I am willing to tick the period where I had to stuggle (and even died) against monsters we could have slain with ease a couple of rounds earlier if I had not been too chicken about the prospect of having them nerfed without compensation (thus never taking them in the first place) as earlier learning experience if they now release clear and strict rules they'll stick to in all future cases (which means that they better already cover possible PP and ED errate now).
I identified some changes that cause actual problems:
- Avenger armor (in case the current armor is a magic leather that can't be transferred to cloth)
- double weapon proficiency in certain cases (i.e dwarf urgosh)
But that's only your point of view which can (and does) drastically differ from other people's point of view.
I have not yet heard of any others.
Really? You have not heard/read the complains from people with bloodclaw/reckless weapons? Or for that matter from people with veteran's armor (which I would consider the same impact category than the respective weapons)?
Or do you just think these do not require a special-permission (to which I agree with you, but that doesn't make everyone agree with us, there a lot of complains about them)?
There's a rule in the CCG that if you use a playtest class - when the final version of the class is published you can then rebuild your character up from first level, on the presumption that material gets changed between playtest and final release and that players would make entirely different choices once the final version is available.
Yet even that is not quite complete. You are not allowed to change your class feature (unless you also spend your one-time-class-feature-retrain) and you're not allowed to change your ability scores (if the second build, formerly unknown during the playtest, is much more to your liking but requires a differen ability you're also SOL)
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3 years ago ::
Dec 12, 2009 - 9:09AM
#348
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Date Joined:
Nov 15, 2004
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Note that this also currently applies to the few people who did not buy any of the nerfed items when they had the chance solely for fear of suffering a loss if they were ever nerfed.
I don't think people should have to play like that. If we're offered an item at the end of an adventure, and printed right there in black and white is what the item does; we should be able to trust that that's what the item is, and take it or not based on that. We should be able to make a choice based on what we have in the mods and in the books we bought and paid for, not on what may or may not be changed a month or year down the line. We should ask "is this good for my character," not "is this too good to exist." Why should we play in fear that our choices are going to be invalidated or lost?
We should be able to trust that items are what they are. Unless we want to go back to the days of 1st and 2nd edition with cursed items, where you think you're putting on a magic belt, but you're actually getting a sex change. 
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3 years ago ::
Dec 12, 2009 - 11:29AM
#349
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Date Joined:
May 11, 2005
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I have not yet heard of any others.
Really? You have not heard/read the complains from people with bloodclaw/reckless weapons?
Imo, those changes do not make a character useless. These weapons can still be used effectively. They are useful, and still do extra damage 1/encounter. They are just not broken.
Changing them does not actually cause problems (as in: making feats worthless etc).
Btw I had veteran's armor befiore the nerf - and I still have it.
Gomez
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3 years ago ::
Dec 12, 2009 - 12:20PM
#350
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Date Joined:
Apr 25, 2002
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Btw I had veteran's armor befiore the nerf - and I still have it.
Ditto. My bard has had +1 Veteran for 8-9 levels - I've been holding out for +3, because none of the +2 armors really seemed worth it for just a mere +1 to AC and I really like the property of the Vet's armor.
Better yet, my bard, who has only found maybe 4-5 items offhand, used one of those choices on a +3 longsword, something almost strictly worse than a +3 bloodclaw longsword.
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