Thayan Arena
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“My fault for picking RP and background over power“
My strongest PCs never started with above 15 in a stat. Mechanical Strength comes from what you acquire in game and knowledge of how to use it, builds only serve to limit how/what that strength is.
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I'm fairly sure I've seen amusing characters with terrible stat sheets been shown immense amount of mercy within the Thayan arena. Going as far as to pull away from them at near death when they get particularly crushed to give them a chance to recover and walk away with some lovely loot.
Though having a terrible stat sheet =/= an amusing character!
I've also seem quite apt mechanically people get demolished in the arena. I don't really see the issue with handing out loot to people willing to take the risk.
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@puffy said in Thayan Arena:
- If you lose, there should be a penalty such as risk of perma death, loss of limbs or loss of an item of importance. Aka risk
- Players should be able to opt for a longer fighter, in which they can use emotes to make the fighting entertaining
- Some items should only be possible to fight for, if the player/group has done X to earn the honour
- Groups should be able to get better rewards, than a solo fighter
- Clear write up of the Thayan Arena, its history, champions and how it works on the forums and IG
- More arena fights during a wider spread of TZs!
Some suggestions
- I tried to enforce this earlier, but the amount of salt really killed it for me.
- Hard to do in PvP. Only literally the fastest/best typers can make amazing emotes during an intense bout.
- How do you determine that?
- Already the case. Try solo fighting for a tier 3 or tier 4 item.
- Waaaaay to lazy to do that. If a player does it, I am quite happy to award them something nice.
- I have said time and time again, DMs can load the areas that are in resman and run an event whenever they feel like it. I run it during EST hours because...I am in EST. I've bent over backwards to make it Euro and aussie friendly as well.
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- The Thayan Arena has allowed villain concepts to come into their own. See: Lannister's fight with Phillip Randles (aka, the face of phillip randles) where his face was literally stretched over a shield.
- The Thayan Arena has allowed people to fight for 'freeing slaves' etc...
- The Thayan Arena has provided the means to tell cool stories/plots in the past (see the KEY TO GATE arc for FearMoho).
- If someone wanted to plant the Branch of Giving and turn it into some cool tree that drops fruit for rangers/druids if they perform some ritual by it, I'd be totally down for it.
at the end of the day, it's a DM event. It's up to players on how they react to it.
- As well, try PvPing for 3 hours straight over 10 players. You'll get sloppy, make mistakes, etc... It's hard. It's 10 adrenaline rushes, it's an addiction problem, and the withdrawals are worse man lol.
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I've also seen mechanically strong players/characters get the ease/thrown fight treatment and weaker or lower level characters get absolutely slaughtered by opponents that are well beyond their ability to fight.
Balancing things on the fly is very hard to do in the nwn environment. It's not like pen and paper where things flow slowly and a DM can tweak rolls and stats to make things balanced and fun. Even more so when the DMs don't know the capabilities of the character in question.
As I said I love the arena. Only suggestion I have is to maybe have a more streamlined setup of the difficulty of the tiers, and only scale that some to the power of the characters that are fighting. Watching a tier 2 item fight be more difficult than a tier 3 fight doesn't seem right and definitely adds to the feeling of "I shouldn't bother because I'm not strong enough."
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I admit there are problems. I could create 130 + monsters for each item available in the Thayan Arena and have their fights/strengths predetermined if it helps people.
I mean, but whether I will depends on motivation and a whole slew of other factors that comes down to wanting to do a bunch of other dumb shit instead.
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@spiffymeister said in Thayan Arena:
- How do you determine that?
Just this one point really.
In the same way we determine literally every single other reward for character in the game!
If characters are making stuff fun for the server in general, they get cool stuff. Generally this get's discussed if it's large rewards, or server changing things though.
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@spiffymeister The face of who now?
Also it's spelled with one L, get it right, geez
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@theminionofarabel said in Thayan Arena:
I rarely entered the arena in all those years. Usually I just watched. I watched fights I knew I could never win, because I did not understand the mechanics. Even today, I am trying to learn the mechanics, but I know I can't win in there, my builds are never strong enough. My fault for picking RP and background over power. Sure, we can go as a group. But its not that easy to get a group. Usually those you could ask are already going in for themselves, or already helping someone else. And you can only fight once.
The arena is fun for people who got the guts to get in, win or lose. Me, I'm just too scared of having my character ruined, even though I wish I could fight too and get that awesome loot. I just don't have the skills for it and its how it is. If I want loot like that, I have to push plots and RP. Takes longer, and sometimes it doesn't work. Like the arena, in a way. You win some, you lose some.
The tier thing is interesting. You get a better idea if you can make it or not. I know I'll never get top tier gear, but maybe I can manage the lower ones.
Means to be able to RP more would be nice. When you are trying to survive in there, you don't really have the time to type anything to make it entertaining...LOL: You remember Krystia Kross. You remember how bad she was at mechancis? But a great, absolutely great roleplayer. She entered the arena to win something once, we had her fight a dragon and gave it 3 STR/3 CON so she could win. (She actually still lost, but then another player rushed into the arena in a loincloth and killed the dragon to get her the plate).
When I run arenas, I make sure its not JUST mechanics that wins the event. Sometimes, its where I give people perks for just being fun players. I'd hope our Thayan Arenas are run with the mentality of "fun" foremost.
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I really try to make it fun. I don't like killing players- though sometimes people go down in amazing ways.
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i have always viewed the thayan arena as a quasi ooc place tbh, that people go to to learn how to fight.
the crowd always throw comments in about what potions to use, in which order, etc etc
it has taught me a decent amount, but tbh only once i juoped in there rather than watching
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@SpiffyMeister I actually did use the giving branch in a druidic ritual.... which eventually lead to Girik becoming Arch Druid.... I suppose there are indeed some good stories which can come from the Arena. For example... it was part of Lancel the Lancer's quest to become the best halberdier... Some really good stories did come out of there. I guess sometimes it comes on the people to make a good story out of it and it's not always just up to the DM running the Arena.
It could go with the "Poetic Justice" risks upfront on the table though. That would be the only thing I would like to see changed. Death and Maiming being on the table wouldn't really turn me away but I'd like to gauge if it's worth it "THIS TIME" for example.
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@SpiffyMeister I have no doubt you are sincere in your efforts. I'm happy to see others having fun. The Arena to me always felt like "What happens in Thay, stays in Thay" no consequences back in Arabel, yada yada yada. I just suck at fighting too much to compete lol.
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@spiffymeister said in Thayan Arena:
- The Thayan Arena has allowed villain concepts to come into their own. See: Lannister's fight with Phillip Randles (aka, the face of phillip randles) where his face was literally stretched over a shield.
- The Thayan Arena has allowed people to fight for 'freeing slaves' etc...
- The Thayan Arena has provided the means to tell cool stories/plots in the past (see the KEY TO GATE arc for FearMoho).
- If someone wanted to plant the Branch of Giving and turn it into some cool tree that drops fruit for rangers/druids if they perform some ritual by it, I'd be totally down for it.
at the end of the day, it's a DM event. It's up to players on how they react to it.
- As well, try PvPing for 3 hours straight over 10 players. You'll get sloppy, make mistakes, etc... It's hard. It's 10 adrenaline rushes, it's an addiction problem, and the withdrawals are worse man lol.
Pfffff more like MY Gate Key SCREEEEEEEEEEE
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@spiffymeister said in Thayan Arena:
- If someone wanted to plant the Branch of Giving and turn it into some cool tree that drops fruit for rangers/druids if they perform some ritual by it, I'd be totally down for it.
I WAS GOING TO DO THIS. DAMMIT SPIFFY. It's silly that the only supply of flameberries is on Bat Man or out in the desert, and I was going to fix that :(
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I've always loved the thayan arena. Some of my most memorable character situations have come from the arena.
Whether it was Thifur slowly mining a mountain sized elemental to death, Jaques duelling a Hard Castle retainer, or my tempan cleric being slain by a pile of animated sewage.
Half the fun is watching the fights because they are entertaining rather then just mechanical challenges.
Next thing we need is an official gambling ring setup if you ask me. Good idea for a character concept.