Changes you don't like.

If you feel a change just plain prevented you from wanting to play/try out the character class or race (or if there are other things in the game that are like this), inform us about it. These are useful topics of forum discussion.

I don't like the tnl change, for me I like to see how much my group mate has left so I don't leave until he ranks if I want to take a break.

i am still not a fan of the weapon switch remove shield for warriors and zerkers, main reason I don't play them aside from a lack of over all skill.

The quest change im on the fence i haven't had a chance to use the points for a ranking surge.

Would be nice to see the change list updated in game, not everyone uses the website to find out what happened. Or may assume no changes are taking place.

Kudos to all the imms that have been visible and to all the players making that extra effort. It really has been a joy these last few weeks. All in all thanks for paying attention to your devoted subjects Dav.

I like the tnl change, but agree with ozaru. Then again, the point is to cause people to actually talk. I guess if it were just removed from the group as opposed to showing 8349734500 everytime you hit group. it just seems clunky.

yeah only thing i really dislike is the rem shield, dual weapon or remove weapon wear shield thing but meh.

Would a better change be :

allow you to get your shield on quickly (instant equip), but make you remove it first to get into more offensive combat styles? With exceptions.

- ranger. offhand alactriry allows ranger to instant swap shield to dual
- warrior. double grip for two handed fast.
- berserker. rage from defensive for surprise dual wield.

Meanwhile rogues = quick wield, nothing hampers them during weapon swap. They basically have no shield, so probably this just affects input lag.

I am concerned about turtling strategies. Thats why this got changed. I did not like the reliability of wield/overhead from shield block against a dual wielding opponent.

hmmm well would that mean that rangers would have to remove dual to wield a shield?
warrior seems good aside from the instant overhead that will be coming.
berserker rage does that already lol

I do like the idea of having to remove a shield to dual and so forth but it is annoying to see your hands are tied up in a pk when you want to use a two hander and only have about 2 seconds to input commands. and macros just seem cheap to me.

It just takes a little getting used to. Every once in awhile I forget, but mainly the weapon thing hasn't affected me too much.. It slows everyone down so you just have to realize that and it makes it seem not so bad I guess.

As of right now rangers can wield whatever they want whenever they want. They can go from shield to bow to dual wield to shield to dual wield to bow to whatever. There is no need to remove with a ranger at the current time. Rangers get camo, uber dirt, and quick wield like a rogue, and awesome defenses and double disarm and bow skills which are even better then a warrior, and then they get pets too. I don't think this needs to be changed to favor rangers. Because unless I'm wrong it hasn't affected them at all, except to give them an advantage.

The problem with double grip for a quick change is that double gripping in combat lags you two rounds last I tried it... and then overhead has a message warning it's coming, and another round before it shows up. So thats a THREE round period where you're completely immobile if you go for double grip then overhead. During that time you're getting your ass handed to you because they can INSTANT switch to a shield/counterbalance. And then when overhead misses you get another two round lag. Basically double grip overhead strategy is suicide... Unless there was a change to the way it worked that I didn't hear about.

Well if the flaming is about even on both sides, its probably ok. Seems double grip is an issue.

Seems double grip is an issue.

I've had that opinion since it was changed.. I understand how nice it is to be able to change combat styles while blind. But when there is a two round lag thrown on it, it doesn't help. I never double grip unless outside combat. Which ALMOST takes away it's purpose. Obviously it's still useful and a nice skill. But not to the degree it could be, or I think maybe that it was intended to be.

can't u lag someone automatically if you are double gripped and they are dual wielding like some sort of off hand thing, its happened to me before with concentration.

I don't like the TNL change either.

Well here's the thing about tnl/xp change. I figured that either way, you are seeing someone's character numbers, which are arguably private.

With the thing saying "tnl", you talk to your group less often because you know when they'll rank. I am sure you have seen by now that groups talk about when they're ranking. You can be creative and find a more IC-ish way to express you ranked (use emotes, pull out a small bell and ring it, i dunno), or how close you are... the obvious advantage to me is simply to bring an additional social interaction into the game. You can spot the true newbies to this game because they will say "100 to rank" instead of " will be allowed to the next guild circle for killing these rangers" or something simliar.

With the thing saying "xp", I feel what that is doing is educating you better about the game's pk ranges and exp costs. You may not know this, but us first ages probably remember well that an elf paladin was like 650k xp while a human shamans only about 440k xp to hit level 50. Players that share your PK range will have a similar total xp gained. I would like the game to be explicit about that. Is it an RP tool? Nope. But it serves the PK'ing side of the game well.

I'm not sure that I understand your point about how the tnl/xp links to pk, but I definitely see the social/ic aspect. And agree with it. I'll just have to get used to it. :)

I definitely do not like the quest xp change. A lot of my character bank on that xp to get to 50 because the boredom of ranking is so high that its nice to get a break and you can get about two ranks with questing. It really isn't worth it below lvl 30 because the 5 to 10 minutes it may take to complete a quest for 500 xp like the spider quest solo ranking I would get that in 3 kills...

Also it's not fair at 49 when you can just do 10 quests each giving 1.5k per return to reach 50 when it should take 2-3 hours for the same amount

I think you missed the point of the thread a bit. I'm looking for changes that say, to you, OK I will never roll that character. Example: mental vuln on giants. I don't know. Things like that.

[quote="Davairus"]I think you missed the point of the thread a bit. I'm looking for changes that say, to you, OK I will never roll that character. Example: mental vuln on giants. I don't know. Things like that.[/quote]

So we're not just supposed to start a bitchfest here? :)

I like that I'm seeing changes recently and more so that we're being asked for input on them. I think its important to make changes, the biggest thing right now is playerbase and I feel like continuing to make AR more balanced is one of the best ways to do that.

So, that being said. There are some things that I like and that I don't like.


Change to rage, allows berserkers to take no penalty for chance to rage with full health while doing PVE. Makes sense, no one will have complaints.

Cabal anti-gangbang change: obviously some people enjoy the challenge of two vs one (or more) but there are those who find it too unfair. Good change.

Quest change: makes sense, to an extent. There are a couple of quests (unless they changed) that can only be done at the higher levels, eg. dragon/wight quests. No go... Maybe make a level requirement so that some of the quests provide no experience past 30 with the exception of the tough ones. I do however like that there are perks to doing the quests. Keep that.

I haven't experienced the weapon swapping change, so I can't honestly say I have an educated opinion on that.

Thanks for all the hard work Dav.

I do not like part of the equipment restriction change. If a high xp cost race/class is at rank 42 they will have rank 50's in range. With the current set up, it is automatically an uphill battle in rank and equipment, and then, even if the 42 manages to win over that, all you can do is sacrifice all the gear. My fix to this is take all restriction off after 40.

well personally i never play a fire giant because of the sick bow vuln. I think my log is there when schist invaded at lvl 50 dual wielded and i had my rank 40 ranger with ice arrows and he died in two rounds because he didn't use sanc. Things like that happening really place me out of playing chars with vulns because one mistake and poof especially as a warrior when a lot of things need to fall your way.

Personally I would play a giant more if the learning wasn't so atrocious... I can handle only getting two pracs per level and not even getting 20 hp/lvl with 23 con, but damn it takes forever to master skills. Truthfully a change I would like to see would be to have the training rates increased for giants a bit.

btw the adrenaline change is there a way to minimize it if your group mate accidentally attacks your pet or you? it is such a pain to wait that out when using potions?

Well I believe I took out fireball AOE'ing other peoples pets.. but if you accidentally attack your groupmate, sorry, but that's really kinda stupid, and should be taken into consideration with RP also.

[quote="Ozaru"]well personally i never play a fire giant because of the sick bow vuln. I think my log is there when schist invaded at lvl 50 dual wielded and i had my rank 40 ranger with ice arrows and he died in two rounds because he didn't use sanc. Things like that happening really place me out of playing chars with vulns because one mistake and poof especially as a warrior when a lot of things need to fall your way.[/quote]


I think that giants are in a bit of an odd place although not really for the same reasons you do.


As far as bows go, basically everyone who is in the wrong situation is totally defenseless. There is a giant counter to bows though.. shields. If Schist wore a shield, he would be blocking in the region of 3x better than normal. Having attacked a ranger he should have definitely known better... However, maybe it is not right for rangers to be able to carve arrows that deal magic damage? I can see how given the severe potency of bows in the right situation, it means the magic damage / vuln arrows will need to be rare items. Let me know if I'm wrong about them being able to do that.


As for giants (and fire giants), I find it perfectly reasonable for them to be vulned because they have extremely high strength and large size, and 23 con giving them a lot of hp. Without the vulns, they would definitely be the most popular race... 25 strength gives them big damrolls, and strength is affecting key warrior skills like disarm, bash, hobble, and a bunch of other general stuff, like 25 str being your best possible shot at stopping parry (dodge is a problem, but not every class has dodge). They also make an interesting offensive cleric because of that. Some of the most successful characters played have been fire giants. Not to mention their ability to soak up physical damage being unmatched.


Other vulned races have similar advantages, and we've seen people playing vulned characters very commonly because of these advantages.


Giants seem to me to be an exception amongst vulned races because of effigies... they seem *easily* tooled by those weapons, despite the low avg (the biggest is only 21 ave), and their means of "protection" in the warriors case is limited to berserk, which takes 50% of mana and movement every time, causing them to run out of steam quickly regardless of having the protection. In the clerics case, that protection is non-existent. But then again... what protection do other vulned races have against their vulns?

I think we might just have a general problem with two-handed weapons hitting vulns being too buff. (This also applies to bows) I can't really offer any more comment on that without looking at some numbers, its just the sense I'm getting from the context of the post and my own experience.

well to throw my 2 cents in on giants i cant seem to play them. With a fire giant you have to worry about ice vuln which is nasty and mental vuln which is uber nasty.
Storm giants have a vuln to wood which hardly anyone uses and last time i tried it was so so.
Stone giants only have the mental vuln which still sucks.

As for giant warriors you pretty much have to one practice them and spend days upon days upon days with random rewards, surges and guild rewards to even make up for their lack of int and learning so 90% of the time you would be training or be wasting trains/practices to get every skill to 75% to be combat ready. Granted they have huge hp pools and the resists to physical attacks (sometimes players forget this) and they can do very well but get one guy with above par items and vuln weapon and they get smoked like a cheap cigar.

Some vuln races can easily shrug off their vulns avian invoker comes to mind with their magic shield. along with classes that can dampen damage and/or heal it. Other vuln race/classes just cant handle it even with the racial legacies. At least thats from my own experiences.

Also some vulns are not as harsh as the other vulns.

Maybe my math is wrong but it seems like the effigy damage output is only the same as dual wielded icicles, and that's for the level 50 one. This is because you get more attacks per round dual wielding, which makes up for the larger two handed hits. There might be other disadvantages to hitting multiple times that I'm not yet aware of, maybe hitting wimpy? The rod (mace, mental damage) looks a lot stronger than effigies. Although I think 2 hander may be unfair to have damage that high because that combat style is probably the safest... no overhead and no barrage/shielddisarm... and the weapon is easy to get. Rotdeath is a downside to any store-bought item, but this is one that you would not buy anyway besides for the special occasion of killing a giant.

The bow damage is another issue... bow ave dam comes from the weapon not the arrow. That's bound to get ugly. Vuln hitting may have to be controlled better on arrows. This issue is something I will think about. For what it is worth, will agree that I would not play a stone giant again because of this vuln, and the # of players that are actually playing stone giants seem to agree with that.

I don't know how many times I've tried to tell you guys that giants get stupid raped by their vulns..

The effigys aren't super bad.. but EVERYONE can get them and it takes them two seconds to grab them. It's seriously almost easier to get an effigy then to get a dream catcher. And that's just stupid. But they're not super over-powered damage wise. But still a huge pain in the ass. Bows on the other hand are crazy.. even with a shield.. Carve an icy girth and use your woodcrafted ranger bow and you drop four mangles a round through sanc. I don't even wanna know what the demoncage or whatever that avg 36 bow would do.

Also, there are rare ice arrows in the game.. but rangers can just carve them from easy items whenever they want. So that seems silly. Granted carving can fail, takes a second to do, and doesn't last permanently. But still..

I don't understand why the bash bash bash race is even being complained about. I've not seen a competent giant absolutely owned by any mental vuln. Fire's ice vuln sucks, but fire giants are ridiculously potent.. especially in damage gear.

The bow "issue" seems out of place to me because frankly, you deserve to get tore into if you dual wield against a ranger, especially as a giant. It's not out of the ordinary for a giant to outdamage their opponent in defense combat style. While there is a penalty to the chance of disarm when in inferior combat style a giant can usually get past that anyway because of his superior strength (and that playing a large factor into successful disarms). There isn't a counter for the attempt outside of 2 round lag versus rogues getting all kinds of pain dealt to them for trying a combat skill in inferior style, and a lagged rogue is a dead rogue.

Rangers can't really outdamage a warrior outside of them being dense enough to dual wield a ranger, so when you couple giant warriors into that understanding, I don't understand the problem with bows. Since you should never dual wield against one, they should never have the opportunity to wield one unless you get caught in some clusterfuck of being blinded and disarmed (but if you're overbear doublegripped reflex mode like you should be, that shouldn't even happen).

Now, I admit I find it easier to take down warriors as a ranger, but I attribute that to my style of play vs the mechanics in game. I don't play giants because there's too low int for my liking and the strength gain isn't worth it for my style of play, but I'll have to give it a go one of these days because giant war/zerk and dwarf warriors are king.

You're wrong Hrimo. While yeah it's perfectly plausible for someone good at the game to beat a ranger with a fire warrior, it's overly difficult and unbalanced. Have I beaten a ranger with a giant warrior? yes. More often then I've died? No. And I'm not a perfect example of how the game should be, by any means. But it's not perfectly dandy like you claim it is. Rangers can outdamage a defensive fire giant if they're dual wielding.. not that tough. They can and do do it. Rangers also get double disarm, the most retarded ranger skill ever. Which, despite strength differences, still lands with combat and weapon type advantages.. Promise.

I try to never dual wield against rangers and still get beat. Or, the best part is, when you're stomping a ranger and switch to dual wield to finish him off because he's using a shield. And then he wears a bow and in 1 round it goes from a 75% against a 20% to a 20% against an 18%. That always makes me giddy with joy.

Sorry but bash don't "work" anymore. The old school firegiants uberfeared bash and bodyslams are nonexistent - I remember a quote from Dav in chat saying he had time to cackle with a firegiant in between bash rounds because the enemy is lagged 3 while bash only lags 2.

I don't know the exact % chance, but it's so slim that to be chain bashed, you'd have to either be supremely (un)lucky or blinded, hobbled and in combat inferiority plus small size (dwarf/halfing/gnome).

The stacked mental AND ice vulns makes little sense now for firegiants. Tell me the last time you really feared any giant?

I just think it's not being taken into account that the overall skill level of pbase has declined greatly and that's not an insult, but there just doesn't seem to be many 5+ year pk vets making these complaints. I think if the things being complained about get implemented, and Slade/Pip decides to roll Fire war/zerk.. you guys will really experience pain.. uncountered pain because all the race's nuances have been scaled back to make it easier for the average player. Imagine a Fire giant Ygin. Better yet, imagine (for those of you that remember) Quar .. with lesser vuln. No thank you.

All I'm saying is that any pk accommodations made for the average player only makes the top tier that much harder to beat (who are used to much harsher settings) and I'm against that. Certain races are harder to play for the average player but pk vets can circumvent the race's cons and make its pros shine, to lessen the cons that a player has go through but get the same advantages sounds nuts to me.

I would make more of the case to scale back some of the race's pros too then if there is really a case being made for giants, but no one wants that I'm sure.

Vulns are bows are very powerful because bows are given the ave dam of normal physical weapons, which is then used in the calculation of damage. Its basically making vulned people into gnomes. If you've played a dwarf or duergar, you'd certainly know the water cube is a bit of a bitch... it mangles with mediocre damroll. That's from an ave 16 weapon. If you played a giant, you'd know about the *** from effigy... that's ave 21. The bows go up to 28-30 ave, no problem.

Now the guys you mentioned, who were they? Are you saying it is not broken because the best players on the game managed to succeed? I would like to see some real data if you don't mind.

Like this, for instance: http://ar.invokation.net/logs/view.php?id=3847

Massacres through sanc. Double water cubes damage. The arrows are just bought from a Timaran shop, and the bow is just crafted. Some of this log was being done vs shield block... which is supposed to own bow. Its totally unblockable in inferior combat style.


Balanced you say. People are just shittier players. Don't touch bows because rangers don't deserve any nerfs and giants deserve to be pwnt. Would you care to roll a giant and prove everyone wrong?

well to be fair what were gaarns skill % for shield block dodge and parry. I agree with hrimo that a well trained fire giant warrior is a pretty tough beast. with the height of my ranger career I fought innedeus sorry if I spelled your name wrong and it was a tough fight, both competent players and it went back and forth as it should. I am sure what saved him is not making a stupid mistake against a bow, having superior eq which he did and the length of time he was active i am sure he had a lot of masteries.

That is why I am calling for an increase in learning for giants, sad to say but its hard to invest the time to 1 prac or even 2 prac a skill with every tom dick and harry take the oath or die light walker with a wrath, ice , or mental weapon when your skills are at 75% if you are lucky....

Logs please.

Gaarn could have easily placed the smackdown even in these logs. There are several things wrong with that example, for one.. he had pure advantage from the next engage and could have pwned said ranger to nothingness via a simple sideswipe, but Gaarn was far too obsessed with bash-bash-hobble. That's a player skill problem in this instance of this fight.. that damage wouldn't have meant anything had he did his 1.5 round lag sideswipe nullifying all of the ranger's damage for the next consecutive round, not to mention it's pretty easily spammable.

That log isn't good enough for practical application. Is the damage outrageous? Yes. Is that damage beyond easily countered? Yes. There are def some contributing factors, such as gear ..in which he was primarily in damage gear.. including spell save bracers ?_? So he was definitely out hitrolled contributing to getting hit so much while in superior combat.

I know I'm an avid ranger player and it's easy to think I'm just defending the class from being changed, but I think this log very much supports my statement earlier that people just don't know what they're doing. Gaarn should have won this fight (even with his poor gear selection), or at least that last encounter.

Warriors have beserk which gives giants the resist to their mental nerf at the expense of a weaker parry and half current mana/move. If you want to scale back ice vuln or weaken rangers or whatever, that is fine. My main concern is that you're just making it easier for Pip/Slade/Jeos of the game to own, because if an average player doesn't know to sideswipe a bow wielding ranger when in advantage, no amount of vuln scale back is going to save him from a competent player.

Hitroll does not factor into shield block. I will give sideswipe / bash bugfix a chance to work.... the bash bugfix should be more encouraging for people who wanted to try giants but felt put off by the vuln. That is a pretty important fix for giants especially. This doesnt change the fact that bow vuln damage is enormous though. We can look at the half-elf ranger bow legacy and the carve arrow skill if it still seems too much down the road. For now, I see no immediate reason to take action.

It's not that people are shittier players (well maybe...) ar is just more of a thinking man's game now.

That Log of Gaarn, Was Me (Emilise) My first ranger, and then Gaarn (Corzen) I was still pretty much a noob then, was learning how awesome I think rangers are. Every other time we fought. He owned me. The next time we fought after that? Same situation, He fought better, I only won because a 50 healer walked in and started healing me when he was raged and I was nearly dead.

Here's some logs from some of my warrior/ranger fights.

http://ar.invokation.net/logs/view.php?id=4229
Me vs Arvar (Dwarf) - Actually, Tipplewise and him switched on fighting me, as you can read in their cb chat convo. He was owning me the whole time, and the only way I beat him was to capitalize on any opportune mistake he gave. It's a good fight, the double spacing sucks though.

http://ar.invokation.net/logs/view.php?id=4084
Me vs Vaelyn (Half-Elf) - This came down to the wire mostly, my snap shot finished it.

http://ar.invokation.net/logs/view.php?id=3964
Me vs Arvar(Dwarf) - I tried to rely on my bow skills because I never used leading shot.. it had been a year since I had last used it (Hrimo was mortal for over 2 yrs). It doesn't have too many applicable purposes for PK. Lag from lead shot gave Arvar time to hobble, so I wouldn't flee and sideswipe owned me to hell. I remembered why I hadn't used it lol, though I did miss my one opportunity to escape that fate by realizing his combat type when I fled post snap shot.

I was a bit surprised to see Gaarn pop up here. Gaarn was my first fire giant warrior ever, and I believe it showed in my pk. I was horrible with him, but I did learn alot. The vuln thing did make me angry most of the time, and I also fought before the mental vuln save was applied to berserk. Could I have owned him with sideswipe? Yes. Was I outdamaged/outgeared? Yes. Would I play a fire-giant again? Yes. (Krydus) Was I a noob with fire-giant warriors? YES. Lol.

Fire-Giant berserker is the way to go, but the fire-giant warrior is a challenge the way things are now, but I also think that's what 25 str/large size will get you.

Oops, I was thinking of guran vs emilise, my bad.

Wow that was fun reading those old logs Hrimo. But you've got to remember, Vaelyn was a beast and roxord everyone. So you winning actually almost proves rangers are op. lol. I know you're good also.. but Vaelyn had like 5 deaths.. so. Also it was in the arena where rangers are at a DISTINCT disadvantage. And you still beat arguably the best pker I've personally ever known.

Also, Arvar and Vaelyn both were like 500+ hour characters both with almost ALL skills mastered. Vaelyn and Arvar would rescue each other back and forth because it was one of the only skills they hadn't mastered.

Also treant thews was uber as hell back then and Arvar rocked that thing hard.

Dwarves also had more strength then they do now.

And the log with leading shot where you supposedly got beat up and owned by hobble. You still had Arvar down to 44%. I know there are logs in there where Arvar beat others(non-rangers) and still had >80% hp.

So moral of the story is rangers own hard.

Did you ever take into account he was a Justice? That plus him being skilled is enough to explain the good ratio count on its own. You've got to get more perspective on this game Volt.

Vaelyn was also a Half-Elf, it's pretty much guaranteed you'll master most of your skills and quickly.

What I think you neglected to take from my log against Arvar, was that had I not capitalized on his ONE mistake I'd have never any chance in winning that fight, I barely scratched him til he messed up.. with his 1k hp.

A while back Dav stated he wanted this game to be more brains than brawn, that's the mindset I took when I played the game regularly. Rangers are def beefy, and scaling them back as with anything/one else is fine, I'm just saying the vets will be the only beneficiaries of vuln scale back.

The original arguments are fire giant vuln scale back, and bow/arrow vuln damage. Since fire giants are primarily war/zerks, I just think you'll regret it when the next Rigwarl shows up... because he benefits the most from it. I think Dav has the perspective that he wants to mitigate the nuances of low played races/combos for the avg player since that represents the majority of the pbase, and that's fine.. I just don't think it inspires these players to reach for the next level thinking wise. *shrugs*

Hrimoyan by now I have already stated I found serious bug in bash, and with that being giants thing, ("the bash bash bash race"), obviously we were going to come up with their vuln not being fair. Now lets wait and see.

Whatever Hrimoyan. I've always felt like rangers were buff. They've been my weakness since forever. So maybe I'm biased or maybe rangers are actually buff. Whatever. Just want to point out that you killing Arvar from his ONE mistake and his 1k hp is not fair. How many times does any normal person make a mistake? A lot. When does it result in a loss of 1k hp? Hardly ever. So that's bogus in my opinion. Mistakes need to be punished. But not a 1khp death sentence. Right? Or no?

Also, Dav's got it right. Bash got bumped up a little. So maybe they deserve the vuln now if bash is pwnzor.

Yes, moot argument, because bugged staple skill. Gee. Lets move on already.

I don't like the recent change to lock down cabal/coeterie grouping. It is too restrictive in this age of low playerbase imho. I logged on tonight to see just two peeps in my group range (as per WHO GR) but who I couldn't group with because of Cabal/Coeterie membership. I totally understand the RP behind a Knight and a Keeper not joining (though they do, and I have, in the past) but a Keeper and a Herald? That's too much imho.

I don't like the new ar screen, the first time I logged into mud and saw that castle with lightning I couldn't believe someone made that. I don't think any home screen could compare to that please change it back!

.....wow never thought someone would complain about the log in screen....

But anyways moving on I agree with Iolo cabals should be able to rank with coteries. I mean how is ranking with a Herald or a Mystic gonna hurt their own cabal? Strife on the other hand is kinda a so so thing cause helping them rank might bite you in the ass later on.

Cabals not ranking with other cabals are fine, Knight A ranks Keeper A, Keeper A gets in pk range sees that Knight A is a target Keeper fights Knight A. Same thing with the other cabals and well Legion has always been rank with Legion or protected people granted now a days not many people are buying protection unless they are Legion apps or the people that can't really pk.

So the basic point is Keep the cabal cant rank with other cabals.
Let Cabals rank with coteries.
And keep the new log in screen it freshens things up.

Actually there's 3 different ones, it randoms a new one every time there's a reboot. The lightning castle will eventually return. Its a great ascii for old farts. The grouping thing was unintended so I'll also fix that. Thanks for the feedback.

anytime Sir bossman imp/immortal of Thera/AR.

Great news, thanks Dav.

I noticed something relative to changing weapons in combat.

In combat, change weapons and it takes a round or two to have type/style change to what it should be, but is neutral in the mean time. (as it should be)

However, if I change weapons and initiate combat and it will take several seconds for my weapon type/style to change from neutral to the proper form, I thought that the lag was only supposed to occur while in combat.

Lag was replaced with a weapon neutrality to discourage switching in battle. rangers and rogues, have a lessenned duration of the neutrality.

At the moment I don't really know what direction that should be headed in. I would say its interesting but there's a couple things I dislike about it:

- it seems like you were supposed to force the other player to stay in the fight with either hobble or dirt. because these skills punish flee. Seems good in principle. i just dont' see it working in practice. in 90% of logs the players will flee and escape anyway, if they are prepared. that seems ok. but the problem is the immense gank value... if a sanc is down, you just get an easy kill. that's harsh on dirt kick, since it can be initiated with and lands very easily. it makes rangers very powerful gankers, just wear a bow and go dirt someone..derrrrr.

-disarms on these skills seems horribly overpowered in all instances. with or without the weapon lags. same story with the long lags. 1 round lags and rakes looks rewarding enough for the combat skills, with exception when you do both at the same time, which is too much. i don't really understand why the skills are so strong anymore. my impression of them was you want the warrior to have something to spam against combat styles so that they will overcome a gear disadvantage ...shutting out skill inputs or attacks is a great way to do that. if that is the case then barrage utterly sucks (it does neither + crap damage) and sideswipe is pretty overpowered (it does both) , while overhead is just rather overboard. throw javs in there for god knows what.

just my opinion of course, but thats why we have the delay for style changing, and things like wind-up times, which give competent players time to react, but something still needs to be done about dirt.

Personally I have been on both sides of the dirt winning and losing me the fight. Numerous instances, I have been dirted by high dex opponents and it just lasts forever, my experience was against Xenyar. As soon as my ranger was dirted it was over, staying in the fight was the only option because the flee lag was too much of a risk to try if I stumbled, but this was before I knew that if I fled immediately once dirted I could get away which doesn't make sense to me at all.

But if you really look at cases with dirt kick against rogues, most often they will rub it out quickly and they can either flee heal and try for a better rng round or stay in a fight toe to toe with a ranger and die, ie Ygin more likely due to vuln weapons than actually dirt kick.

I don't think you can single dirt kick out as a problem ninjas have assassinate which nullifies dirt since you can die instantly. Thieves can black jack rob you blind rinse repeat. Warriors have reflex and blind fighting, zerkers can rage it out paladins and dkns have spells to make you flee even if blinded or heal off the damage. Rangers can dirt each other and pwn. Mages and clerics have protective shield. My point is every class has a something that makes them special is every fight 100% balanced, of course not you did a great job getting it to this point but I don't think its broken, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.

I just wasn't sure if that was supposed to happen because when I changed weapons I was out of combat.

[quote="Vertas"]It's not that people are shittier players (well maybe...) ar is just more of a thinking man's game now.[/quote]

I think dav hit he nail on the head with this one recently. There has been so much change and missinformation that important bits of pvp info slip thru the cracks and most newer players never know or can even find any info and as such have no choice but to suck.

If All relevant pvp info was available like exactly how spears and dodge works or how hide is easier in the dark or w/e there would be a much leveler playing field wihout a doubt. Your only other choice if you want to get good is do as much research aa possible on the forums and hope u find some useful info burried in the annals.

But to the topic of thogs that should revert...I kno player names have at times gotten out of hand but unless a name is offensive or ooc but let's not let the fledging imms getall name nazi because they don't like the name... It is a major turn off espeially when you take time to develop a name and a story to match. Sure I could come up with something new but its so much easier to play starcrft 2 or diablo3

The anti-rename cowboys lost that war when I beefed up the report command for player usage. Now everybody just reports names like its their job. I saw one guy got thrown the rename dungeon because he was named after a Canadian hockey player (yeah, I had no idea) and he actually got multiple reports in a matter of hours before he was finally taken down and his brief run was terminated. Its like we have a name lynch mob. Imms are just following up on the names that players object to, and really its more closer to ideal than it ever has been, since you have a direct channel between players and moderators to make sure that the names that do throw people out of the moment are stamped out, while at the same time we no longer need to change names that nobody has made an objection about. But you do have to keep in mind that there are a lot of players from around the world and a lot of names are covered by those different cultures... if you don't do an obscurity test by googling the word, you're fucked, because that playerbase is out there. It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are renamed.

I always view people who require renames as equivalent to seeing naked streakers at the superbowl

I agree, and am thankful for the rename situation right now.

ascani deadzero? now really, thats just ridiculous.

The material vuln change is bad. This is an accurate log, of a 50 Elf invoker Knight with all spells up, prepared. Literally got off one dispel magic attempt and died because of an average 25 iron Trident



599hp 823m 221mv 27546tnl 3484g dusk city --- no opponent -- no opponent --- calm
You yell 'Help! I am being attacked by Hadleigh!'
Hadleigh's thrust DISEMBOWELS you!
Hadleigh's thrust DISEMBOWELS you!
[* ] You block Hadleigh's attack with your shield.
Your ice shield decimates Hadleigh!
Hadleigh has a few scratches.

507hp 823m 221mv 27546tnl 3484g dusk city --- shaft -- dual_wield --- evasive
Your luminous punch devastates Hadleigh!
Your luminous punch decimates Hadleigh!
Hadleigh's thrust MUTILATES you!
Hadleigh's thrust DISEMBOWELS you!
[* ] You parry Hadleigh's thrust.
Your ice shield decimates Hadleigh!
[** ] You parry a large wolf's bite.
[** ] You parry a large wolf's bite.
Hadleigh has some small wounds and bruises.

415hp 823m 221mv 27546tnl 3484g dusk city --- shaft -- dual_wield --- evasive disp $$
You failed.
Hadleigh has some small wounds and bruises.

415hp 808m 221mv 27546tnl 3484g dusk city --- shaft -- dual_wield --- evasive
[***] Hadleigh parries your luminous punch.
[* ] Hadleigh parries your luminous punch.
Hadleigh's thrust MUTILATES you!
Hadleigh's turmoil decimates you!
Hadleigh's thrust DISEMBOWELS you!
Your ice shield devastates Hadleigh!
A large wolf's bite injures you.
A large wolf's bite injures you.
Your ice shield maims a large wolf!
Hadleigh has some small wounds and bruises.

270hp 808m 221mv 27546tnl 3484g dusk city --- shaft -- dual_wield --- evasive flee
You flee from combat!
Bridge over the Bay of Sarich

[Exits: north south]

270hp 808m 220mv 27546tnl 3484g dusk city --- no opponent -- no opponent --- aggressive north
north
Bridge over the Bay of Sarich

[Exits: north south]

270hp 808m 219mv 27546tnl 3484g dusk city --- no opponent -- no opponent --- aggressive north
north
north
Bridge over the Bay of Sarich

[Exits: north south]
(Charmed) A blood fanged wolf is here, looking hungry.
(Charmed) A large, ferocious wolf is here.
(White Aura) Hadleigh is here.
A Valourian sentry stands on duty, guarding the bridge.

270hp 808m 218mv 27546tnl 3484g dusk city --- no opponent -- no opponent --- aggressive north

You yell 'Help! I am being attacked by Hadleigh!'
Hadleigh's thrust DISEMBOWELS you!
[* ] You parry Hadleigh's turmoil.
Hadleigh's thrust maims you!
Hadleigh's turmoil devastates you!
Your ice shield devastates Hadleigh!
Hadleigh has some small wounds and bruises.

155hp 808m 218mv 27546tnl 3484g dusk city --- shaft -- dual_wield --- aggressive No way! You are still fighting!
Hadleigh has some small wounds and bruises.

155hp 808m 218mv 27546tnl 3484g dusk city --- shaft -- dual_wield --- aggressive No way! You are still fighting!
[** ] Hadleigh parries your luminous punch.
[***] Hadleigh parries your luminous punch.
Hadleigh's thrust DISEMBOWELS you!
You sure are BLEEDING!
Hadleigh's turmoil devastates you!
You sure are BLEEDING!
Hadleigh's thrust DISEMBOWELS you!
You sure are BLEEDING!
Hadleigh's turmoil maims you!
You are incapacitated and will slowly die, if not aided.
You have been KILLED!!

[quote="Erlwith"][quote="Vertas"]It's not that people are shittier players (well maybe...) ar is just more of a thinking man's game now.[/quote]

I think dav hit he nail on the head with this one recently. There has been so much change and missinformation that important bits of pvp info slip thru the cracks and most newer players never know or can even find any info and as such have no choice but to suck.

If All relevant pvp info was available like exactly how spears and dodge works or how hide is easier in the dark or w/e there would be a much leveler playing field wihout a doubt. Your only other choice if you want to get good is do as much research aa possible on the forums and hope u find some useful info burried in the annals.

But to the topic of thogs that should revert...I kno player names have at times gotten out of hand but unless a name is offensive or ooc but let's not let the fledging imms getall name nazi because they don't like the name... It is a major turn off espeially when you take time to develop a name and a story to match. Sure I could come up with something new but its so much easier to play starcrft 2 or diablo3[/quote]

a level disparity that equates to instant kills for nuke skills/spells landed on someone lots of levels lower disagrees. This also disagrees when said lower player, who tries diverse tactics and attempts gets shut down, and then just comes in spamming one skill every time they see them killing said much higher level character with single skill spam.

Its a thinking man's game when things are equal. But if we all rolled human warriors it'd be boring.

[quote="Davairus"]At the moment I don't really know what direction that should be headed in. I would say its interesting but there's a couple things I dislike about it:

- it seems like you were supposed to force the other player to stay in the fight with either hobble or dirt. because these skills punish flee. Seems good in principle. i just dont' see it working in practice. in 90% of logs the players will flee and escape anyway, if they are prepared. that seems ok. but the problem is the immense gank value... if a sanc is down, you just get an easy kill. that's harsh on dirt kick, since it can be initiated with and lands very easily. it makes rangers very powerful gankers, just wear a bow and go dirt someone..derrrrr.

-disarms on these skills seems horribly overpowered in all instances. with or without the weapon lags. same story with the long lags. 1 round lags and rakes looks rewarding enough for the combat skills, with exception when you do both at the same time, which is too much. i don't really understand why the skills are so strong anymore. my impression of them was you want the warrior to have something to spam against combat styles so that they will overcome a gear disadvantage ...shutting out skill inputs or attacks is a great way to do that. if that is the case then barrage utterly sucks (it does neither + crap damage) and sideswipe is pretty overpowered (it does both) , while overhead is just rather overboard. throw javs in there for god knows what.

just my opinion of course, but thats why we have the delay for style changing, and things like wind-up times, which give competent players time to react, but something still needs to be done about dirt.[/quote]

also, remember when dirt was a tactical skill more along the lines of "if I dirt him, I can wreck his defenses, disarm, or flee and be safe from pursuit if I do it near a multi-exit area. I can prevent him from dirting me if I stand on water or a flying room, etc etc".

And this is pre: skills that autodisarm, faceplants from dirt/hobble flee.

now dirt is: "if I land this I know he won't be running away so I can follow up with a hobble and then he's fucked once sanc goes down. he cant run, he cant stand and fight (hobble Fs your dex over, and so your hitroll as well as taking away dodge), so I've got my free gank kill and now I just have to wait for the rounds to end to loot all". As per dav said.

Personally, I applaud the idea and reasons behind the combat skills, and they are very frustrating when used against you. However, disarm is a dust gathering skill now, except maybe for hybrids since they don't get a skill that auto-rakes or auto-disarms, and to actually manually disarm you require neutral or advantaged weapon type anyway, so unless you're playing like a rogue, you're not going to disarm. and then if you disarm, what?

you've caused the player to lose their weapon but then they also dont get overcome when trying to parry with a disadvantaged weapon. Parry does happen hand to hand, it just reduces damage, where as an overcome parry, to my knowledge, does not. So its more advantageous to NOT disarm, unless they're wearing some sort of super rare high avg.

I think the straw that broke the camels back is the auto-skills involved with some of the stuff, like sideswipes rake. you already get to lag them and force them to stay in combat not using skills while you have a combat advantage that shuts down their dodge. Adding rake to that? unngh.

its not like its a "great risk vs great reward" skill either. its a staple of advantaged style combat. its low risk gets great reward. I think that might be the core difference between "pre modules" and "post modules" for AR.

Pre modules, lag skills were deadly, but thankfully in small numbers. lag skills do NOTHING other than keep someone in a fight, yet they were still very deadly weren't they? How else do Fire giants of doom come around in 98-04'. dirt did NOTHING other than prevent a person from wielding a weapon after disarm, and lower their defenses and hitroll if they didnt have blindfighting.

to get the super deadliness that is blind and lagged, you had to successfully chain dirt into bash, and then they died. Now you chain dirt into hobble, because if they don't flee immediatately, they lag themselves trying to get away, and chain that into hobble, making them a sitting kill.

I used disarm to varying degrees of success on my gnome warrior. If you are two-handed and try for weapon advantage, you can disarm a dual wielder and attain combat superiority. Naturally, with the change to weapon wield lag, things are more difficult, but some players are overeager and will spam hobble when they see superiority, so disarm can come in handy there.

Im a little surprised to hear that, although it does make sense that you'd be able to carry and use the weapon selection to make this possible. Then again, what you're saying relies on the other player spamming commands, which is the opposite of skill and judgment (my web browser says this is correct spelling, while judgement is not. wtf..).

Anyway, the best chance of disarm is strength, advantage weapon type (that thing rogues are supposed to get, it seems like weapon type for superior manual disarms with the disarm skill would've been a mainstay fighting method of rogues), and if you're dual wielding.

I've felt that skills like disarm or something should've been the other way around. You gain some good advantages for having a weapon that destroys the parry of an enemy's weapon and does other stuff, and then you as defender can choose to disarm it to disable their advantage and gain one for yourself. Although I don't know how this would work without trying to pin down how to make it something you'd want to do as an option vs something that would be expected to be done 100% of the time because its so good, like hobble.

quest point rewards are godawful apart from condition and title.

~20 points to lose the chance to live longer or have a custom title, for a experience or learning only reward that doesn't last as long as a guild reward, is pretty worthless. It's far easier to just wait for a surge or get those 30 min a day.

[quote="Fireballer"]quest point rewards are godawful apart from condition and title.

~20 points to lose the chance to live longer or have a custom title, for a experience or learning only reward that doesn't last as long as a guild reward, is pretty worthless. It's far easier to just wait for a surge or get those 30 min a day.[/quote]

Unless you actually condeath your characters, your points are better spent elsewhere. Factor in that I (and some of the other immortals) already reward custom titles for those I/we think deserve them, and they're a legitimate way to spend your points. It's just another option to make ranking faster. If you prefer to save for those other things, go for it. They aren't hurting you in any way.

[quote="Olyn"][quote="Fireballer"]quest point rewards are godawful apart from condition and title.

~20 points to lose the chance to live longer or have a custom title, for a experience or learning only reward that doesn't last as long as a guild reward, is pretty worthless. It's far easier to just wait for a surge or get those 30 min a day.[/quote]

Unless you actually condeath your characters, your points are better spent elsewhere. Factor in that I (and some of the other immortals) already reward custom titles for those I/we think deserve them, and they're a legitimate way to spend your points. It's just another option to make ranking faster. If you prefer to save for those other things, go for it. They aren't hurting you in any way.[/quote]

I do think the quest mechanics could use a second look-at. I also don't like the change that the quest point system has brought about. The great thing about quests was being able to save them all up and get one of those really tedious mid-40s ranks done by yourself.

It's all great that quest points facilitate faster learning via experience rewards but the success of those rewards is predicated on the presence of groups. What the old system helped solve was ranking the higher levels without the need for groupmates. Under the new system, the grind from 45 to 50 became 20k exp longer.

[quote="Olyn"][quote="Fireballer"]quest point rewards are godawful apart from condition and title.

~20 points to lose the chance to live longer or have a custom title, for a experience or learning only reward that doesn't last as long as a guild reward, is pretty worthless. It's far easier to just wait for a surge or get those 30 min a day.[/quote]

Unless you actually condeath your characters, your points are better spent elsewhere. Factor in that I (and some of the other immortals) already reward custom titles for those I/we think deserve them, and they're a legitimate way to spend your points. It's just another option to make ranking faster. If you prefer to save for those other things, go for it. They aren't hurting you in any way.[/quote]

Ugula the warrior guildmaster says 'Here is what I offer in return for your hard-earned points:'

Ugula the warrior guildmaster says '3 guild favor  --- Long learning and greater experience boost.'

Ugula the warrior guildmaster says '5 quest points --- Short learning boost.'

Ugula the warrior guildmaster says '10 quest points -- Medium learning boost.'

Ugula the warrior guildmaster says '15 quest points -- Long learning boost.'

Ugula the warrior guildmaster says '20 quest points -- Lesser experience boost.'

Ugula the warrior guildmaster says '50 quest points -- Greater experience boost.'

Ugula the warrior guildmaster says '60 quest points -- Vitality Restoration.'

Ugula the warrior guildmaster says '110 quest points - A token of fame - Pinnacle ranks ONLY.'

Ugula the warrior guildmaster says 'Use 'accept guild' for guild rewards, or 'accept <amount>' to choose a quest reward.'

short = 30 hours.
medium = 60 hours.
long = 90 hours.
lesser = 30.
greater = ?? (but Im going to guess 90)


I will concede your point that not many people condeath, so perhaps con reward would be useless to most people, but the other rewards are nearly as useless in all circumstances, given that you can only buy around 8 long learning boosts or 6 lesser or 2 greater experience, and they provide less benefit than a guild reward. I just don't see the use of them unless its a caballed with a huge quest tally allowing them to dump and burn in a few days to shoot to 50 with some terribly penalized character, like mino zerks.

It is an added bonus to questing. People whine about the fact that they can't just quest from 49-50 anymore so this was implemented by popular demand and tbh I will take the two extra hours of exp at rank 48-50 as it speeds it up faster than the slow crawl it is otherwise.

It may also be relevant to note that while you do like 5 quests to get a medium learning, you'll probably be on for close to half an hour. The next day you can spend those points for a half hour learning boost to make ranking worthwhile, then you only have one more day to get your last guild point for your little mini surge.

I understand that, Vevier, as I took it into account when I was discussing it. It's still not very helpful, and just useful for powerranking, but/and it relies on groups to be useful.

another change I haven't really liked is the change to

 

Players found: 5

There are 5 characters on; the most on since startup was 9.

for invis and hidden people. for the ones who are clever, it's easy to get around the limitation by replying tells when they go hidden/camo/invis.

What it does do is convince people that not many people are playing if they can't see invis/hidden, and that leads to a negative reinforcement effect, that people believe the game is empty even if there's 5 or more unseeables, leading to people playing less and less.

[quote="Fireballer"]

for invis and hidden people. for the ones who are clever, it's easy to get around the limitation by replying tells when they go hidden/camo/invis.
[/quote]

That's only if they talk to you and no one else says anything to you in the meantime.

The changes to dirt, the auto switching for pressing a single button for rogues, which leads to switch/dirt/disarm/trip. its like 5 actions at once :\

Changes i dont like:

Year being 2013 instead of 2006.

I hate the potion addiction change so much. I quit playing for the last 3 weeks. Every time I wanted to log on, the thought of the potion addiction stopped me. Tonight I gave it another try but instantly having -2 con sucked. I appreciate that we got the chance to give our feedback on this change on the potion addiction thread, but I honestly do not understand it. To me it is just a negative, tedious thing that provides no fun whatsoever.

Abandoned Realms is an excellent game with excellent imms and players. So in fairness, I wanted to let you know why I have stopped playing and am going to look elsewhere. Thank you to Belja, Bladefury, Nadrin, Olyn and others who I do not know by OOC name for all the fun over the years. And thank you to the imms for making us such a great place to play (well, except for the addictions).

Tiqa, the imms will not let this stand with so many people unhappy with it. Sometimes things just take time for the right people to be able to talk with one another about it. Please have a little more patience with it?

Yeah ok time to pull it.

[quote="Davairus"]Yeah ok time to pull it.[/quote]

All hail Tiqa.

Dark-knights losing charm person. I remember when stallions were being added, the discussion in the Battlefield involved both being in the equation. More than anything, I feel like charm person was an integral part of what dark-knights, as I knew them, were. I miss cleave, also. Haha. But I know that THAT is definitely not coming back, and I completely understand that one. However, I think that Dark-knights deserve to be able to take that risk, with a charmie that expires so fast. It's fun, makes things exciting, and forces you to plan. It also adds another risk factor, dark-knights being safer than they were before.

We moved that gameplay onto vampires so I don't understand your issue. The option is there.

I find the new charge feature to be horrifically OP. Getting chase down? Need to run down 4 rooms? Oh, yeah, that let's them catch up AND you take a 1.5~ round lag. I don't mind much of anything except for the HUGE movement bonus. I find it to be completely unfair really.

[quote="sweet_canadian_mullet"]I find the new charge feature to be horrifically OP. Getting chase down? Need to run down 4 rooms? Oh, yeah, that let's them catch up AND you take a 1.5~ round lag. I don't mind much of anything except for the HUGE movement bonus. I find it to be completely unfair really.[/quote]

Seconded.

Having reviewed, I'm not sure if I would agree with this statement.

Charge lags flying opponents only. This skill is an intended counter to flying. In fact its fly that has long been considered "horrifically OP". Everybody using it. If charge counters it that HARD, then that quite obviously isn't the case anymore. What it is, in fact, is a solved problem, although I have to admit this is quite by accident.

Plus, you have all these options:

- keep weapon ward up
- wear a shield
- land (avian)
- use a recall potion
- don't use the fly spell

Its a little more complex to code, but I'm interested in seeing if I can make the dash part keep going if the charge misses the target. This way we can penalize a bit. It lets you charge yourself into a door and knock yourself out or somtehing. I don't believe this is a priority though.

[quote="Davairus"]
- wear a shield
[/quote]

I think this needs to cause charge to fail more. Tuston lands a ton of charges even against defensive style opponents.

It may be due to something with stallion, but I can definitely attest to this. I believe his also landed through weapon ward, but do not have the log.

well the idea of attacking from rooms away is a HUGE break from the game design in any case. :lol:

I thought the idea of charge attacks was to get a nice chunk of lump sum damage on someone bypassing their defenses, if your hitroll or level disparity is too awful.

I remember charge/flee killing a thief about 4-5 levels above me when a straight up murder/flee fight wouldn't work.

I don't like Legion not having to enforce protection. I think it's reduced what they do to squat. Sure, they kill contracteds and make people fear them, but now everyone's fair game unless you're an evil noble. I have yet to be killed by a Legion since this change was implemented and this is NOT me bitching about a death. On the contrary, Legion's not killing people as much at all unless they're lightwalkers. It's also a reduction on their coffers, though it's arguable that they should kill more then. Just when I was Legion it was always my goal for everyone online to have protection. Those who refused would (probably not) die. But it gave me a purpose. jm2c

I dont like the change to Cabal Warfare, and I think there needs to be some clarification to things. If I am invading on you, and I have killed both guards as well as began killing your item holder, you shouldn't be sitting in darkhaven asking when we are going to fight.

[quote="Nadrin"]I dont like the change to Cabal Warfare, and I think there needs to be some clarification to things. If I am invading on you, and I have killed both guards as well as began killing your item holder, you shouldn't be sitting in darkhaven asking when we are going to fight.[/quote]

Here is your clarification:

If you outgear someone then camp the path to force someone to fight you at a disadvantage, you are a douchebag. Results speak for themselves - if you were unable to kill the item holder because the guy is hovering nearby ready to kill you if you take too much damage from it, that's a successful defense. This kind of complaint raises my hackles because it essentially gets boiled down into "wah, he didn't give me a free kill, punish him". If you can't get the kill in the field you don't deserve to get the kill. Legion especially is ordered to do everything in their power to kill invaders no matter what, and risking death in a valiant struggle to eject an invader from their territory is not pursuant to that goal or very Legion like at all.

The cabal defense rules were originally made because people would actually run to the guardian and sleep on it. They'd use their cabals like guild guards, train spells in the cabal, store equipment there, all sorts of weird shit. What happened yesterday wasn't even remotely close to that.

I have been playing Ar for about 10 years. In the whole time I have been playing Cabal grounds have always been a holy place. You aren't allowed to go in there unless the cabal has actually been invaded on, or you are capturing/returning an item. Its a hard habit to break. Thing is, whether the situation was douchebaggery or not. It was group warfare, where they had three and Knights had two. It was an attempt to take out one so the knights could fight the two on a more even field. In the end, even though the Legon in question never once entered his cabal, the knights still technically won the day. Knights 1, Legion 0.

My biggest complaint is something like that is a pretty big change, and while it should not necessarily be announced to all the players, helpfiles should be updated to reflect that and the cabal members should know that hey, you don't have to Die at the Item guardian instead of letting your item captured. If not for the storm, the legion item would for sure have been captured without any attempt at defense. When Mkatos was there, EVERY single time you engaged in his cabal he was there defending, and usually even killing one of the defenders. Legion are supposed to be the badasses not sitting their taunting you while YOU are in THEIR holy ground.

I really never cared much for cabal guardians being super mobs that find and exploit your weakness so that it takes 5 hours to kill one. They should be bumps in the road compared to cabal members.

Easy to take, easy to retrieve, unless there's an opposing cabal member online.

I can see Nycticora's point. The goal of the defender is to ensure that the item does not leave the altar. The way cabal defenses are buffed almost guarantees that a single player will be unable to capture the item. The altar guardians have too much health, too much hitroll, too many attacks, and on top of it all hold aggro. In a 1v1 advantage clearly goes to the defender to the extent that they really don't have to do anything to "defend successfully."

Thus, if you're looking for a 1v1 fight against say a Legion ninja, you're not going to be able to pull them out of hiding via invasion.

This scale tips, however, in situations of 3 and 4 v 1. The "if you can't finish them in the field" argument seems to pertain even more in this situation. If you can't finish someone off in the field with a 3v1 or a 4v1 shame on you. But if you do run into a 3v1 situation where your caballed opponent refuses to fight you in the open field, which is really the smart play, then you have enough fire power to go take that item. That is where the strength of invasion lies: if you take their item not only did they fail at defending but now they are without access to all the buffs that their status gives them, and they now have to deal with a mob that is aggro against them.

Take Mkatos' death as the textbook way to deal with a craven douche (Mkatos was not a craven douche, he defended extremely well and made multiple attempts to retrieve against superior numbers before falling). But if you really wish to see punishment for lack of defense, you need to take the item.

The one issue with solo invasion then is on top of all the benefits of having a super duper altar guard, the door guardians will return before you can successfully take the item. This is true much of the time even when there is no defense--the guards will pop back up while you are inside the cabal.

My suggestions for cabal warfare:
(1) if you are inside the cabal, the door guardians should be unable to repop
(2) the altar guardian should scale with regards to how many people are invading as calculated by the number of people in pk range in the cabal grounds and area immediately outside;

I would suggest doing one of the following:
(a) when there is only one invader, the altar guard should perform second attack at its current hitroll
(b) when there is only one invader, the altar guard should have far less hitroll so that the 4 attacks per round might be defended against
(c) the altar guard should not hold aggro if there is a single invader.

This should scale up in the event that there is more than one invader. Having the scale ramp up according to the presence of pk'ers in the nearby area (possibly areas) would make it so that in order to have the "weaker" guardian, there is still the risk of getting finished off inside the cabal before your mates can show up to gank your target.

Helpfile changes arent an acceptable means to solve this problem. You guys need to understand them and see who is wrong.

crap like this makes me laugh because douche bags have no problem, i mean noooo problem killing you 3 v 1 when you try to retrieve your cabal item. But you raise hell because someone doesn't defend their cabal after they have been crushed by an outmatched opponent give me a break.

[quote="Ozaru"]crap like this makes me laugh because douche bags have no problem, i mean noooo problem killing you 3 v 1 when you try to retrieve your cabal item. But you raise hell because someone doesn't defend their cabal after they have been crushed by an outmatched opponent give me a break.[/quote]

This, too. I cant count the number of times people abuse other cabal members and then bitch and moan if the cabal member isn't just suiciding on them allowing them cheap kills.

I come off a little harsh and I don't want this to be the everybody pile on Nadrin thread. It's OK to be a douchebag sometimes and after a character like Rondak you've definitely earned the right to perform a little douchebaggery of your own for a change. I do want to point out that a literal reading of the current rules does not support the view that the death march is mandatory. 'Help cabal warfare' specifically says that the outlined scenario is an example by stating that it is "typical" and it "may flow as follows".


A 'rules lawyer' would tell you that there are two types of information found in helpfiles and rules. 'Primary sources' are explicitly stated definitions of rules, which in AR usually come along with a defined penalty. An example of a primary source is:
'help rules' states "no multiple logins, multi playing, or multi charactering". These things are defined in 'help multi', and have clear punishments defined in 'help punishment' (you get denied on first infraction).

'Secondary sources' are used to help locate and explain primary sources. In AR, these are usually posts by immortals in this forum, notes from immortals, example situations in helpfiles, or in-person bitchings-out from imms in the "you're in trouble now" room. An example of a secondary source is:
'help emote' states "Don't do OOC, force other people's actions for them, or show thoughts". This isn't located in 'help rules', and nothing but the tone of the line and the fact that it is imperative suggests that it might be a game rule.

Since there's only a secondary source for 'don't show thoughts', you might be able to show thoughts in emotes for quite awhile before an imm gets annoyed enough to smite you. Some imms might not smite you at all, and instead try to explain why it looks wrong. This statement mostly exists to tell you that you will probably look like a retard if you emote your thoughts, not to define a specific game rule with a specific penalty.

This is why if you submit a complaint based solely on a secondary source of information, you will often get a reply from Davairus that says "Please state the exact rule that was violated" or similar. If you can state the exact, specific rule, what you are stating is probably a primary source of information. If you cannot state the exact rule, what you have is probably a partially incomplete understanding of the game rules based on a misreading of a secondary source.

In the past, some imms may have flipped out on rule breakers without fully explaining the above. This is probably because we assumed the individuals involved aren't capable of understanding things to this level of detail. This shit takes kind of a long time to describe in depth. This may also be confused with some situations in which imms got mad over gross RP violations, such as a Knight acting like a dick to a neutral in an abnormally serious way or a character suddenly deciding to switch deities. I know for a fact that it's been perceived even by some veteran players as imms being nazi-like over the rules because they don't understand the nuances. These players just bend over backwards to observe the letter of the law and don't bother with the intricacies. This might be the direction you need to approach from as a player.

Other players are more adventurous, and take some risks. For example the character Solarius, a chaotic good human, decided that the most "good" thing to do in the war between good and evil was to minimize casualties. This player towed a dangerous line that almost got him exiled from nobility and outcast from his guild. He tried to make peace with the Legion and save the soul of Vella, who had been corrupted by evil, and refused to harm her or Gaelyn (who by this point was one of the most thoroughly evil characters in the game). This could easily have ended in a harsh gimping and public ridicule, but this dude was ready to throw his whole character away and say "fuck the police" to play the game the way he wanted to play it.

If you are the kind of guy who does not like to explore gray areas, or if you can't handle the heat, you don't want to play like Solarius. You want to stick to the letter of the law and take no risks. But if you want to tow the dangerous line and try something new, you can try to play like Solarius. Or Ona. Or Krixsis. Or Mikoos. It might end pretty badly for you if you don't have the mental chops to handle it. YMMV

When I was in Legion, I was told by an imm to defend the cabal or die trying and that there had better be somebody's corpse before it was all said or done.

BTW, why was Gaelyn not punished like Hecet? Both Half-Elves in Knight that betrayed Valour, one gets all lives but one removed, skills set to zero, title turned into a mocking "IS AN IDIOT..." and flamed on the gy. The other gets turned into Legion, is given a custom title and will be praised for excellent roleplay, an interesting character, all that stuff. Just asking for clarification, thanks.

Gaelyn = Imm sanctioned. Hecet = not Imm sanctioned.

[quote="Mummy"]When I was in Legion, I was told by an imm to defend the cabal or die trying and that there had better be somebody's corpse before it was all said or done.[/quote]

New management says kill the invader no matter what, idgaf whether or not you die. If you can't kill the invader you get the hose regardless of whether you tried to defend or not. You don't get a free pass for the death march anymore, and it is discouraged.

I'm not familiar with the background on Hecet. Several things were different about Gaelyn's betrayal compared to other characters:

[list]
he didn't initiate it, Mkatos did
he kept it a secret for a long time, even lying to knights
he was left in Knights with his cabal powers removed for over a week and didn't bitch or complain
immediately after converting, he was nerfed
he is still nerfed now (he can't even cast some of his spells)
[/list:u]

And lastly, some awesome rp on him, Vella, Mkatos and Nyct's part to make it happen.

Hecet was taking cabal funds, and sending legion information and doing things blatantly against cabal conduct as a knight. He was doing it without anyone knowing anything about the plan. In the end, he not only got booted but got his lives reduced to one didnt it?

[quote="Nycticora"][quote="Mummy"]When I was in Legion, I was told by an imm to defend the cabal or die trying and that there had better be somebody's corpse before it was all said or done.[/quote]

New management says kill the invader no matter what, idgaf whether or not you die. If you can't kill the invader you get the hose regardless of whether you tried to defend or not. You don't get a free pass for the death march anymore, and it is discouraged.
[/quote]

Ah, so the do or die trying is still in effect, just now a little more stringent ie, you can die, but still succeed... correct?

[quote="Nycticora"][quote="Mummy"]When I was in Legion, I was told by an imm to defend the cabal or die trying and that there had better be somebody's corpse before it was all said or done.[/quote]

New management says kill the invader no matter what, idgaf whether or not you die. If you can't kill the invader you get the hose regardless of whether you tried to defend or not. You don't get a free pass for the death march anymore, and it is discouraged.

I'm not familiar with the background on Hecet. Several things were different about Gaelyn's betrayal compared to other characters:

[list]
he didn't initiate it, Mkatos did
he kept it a secret for a long time, even lying to knights
he was left in Knights with his cabal powers removed for over a week and didn't bitch or complain
immediately after converting, he was nerfed
he is still nerfed now (he can't even cast some of his spells)
[/list:u][/quote]

If I'm not mistaken, Vella still can't commune 'prayer' which is one of the perks of being evil.

[quote="Mummy"]Ah, so the do or die trying is still in effect, just now a little more stringent ie, you can die, but still succeed... correct?[/quote]

Sort of. I *am* encouraging Legions to tiptoe around this area and create bad blood and piss people off. That's what they're supposed to do. However, they still have to weather the consequences of failure, which will be doled out in an in-character manner.

[quote="Mummy"][quote="Nycticora"][quote="Mummy"]When I was in Legion, I was told by an imm to defend the cabal or die trying and that there had better be somebody's corpse before it was all said or done.[/quote]

New management says kill the invader no matter what, idgaf whether or not you die. If you can't kill the invader you get the hose regardless of whether you tried to defend or not. You don't get a free pass for the death march anymore, and it is discouraged.
[/quote]

Ah, so the do or die trying is still in effect, just now a little more stringent ie, you can die, but still succeed... correct?[/quote]

basically it means if you dont kill anyone regardless of the circumstance, you're screwed as a legion member.

While I understand the mentality behind it, what if I really actually DO want to delete my character? Being locked out for 180 minutes is frustrating. I'll have to just login some day, delete, and wait another 10-15 minutes to login to a character that I do care about and hope no one noticed the time span and risk the mystique being lost.

Just let me delete my character. It needs to die.

More or less. You cant stop someone intent on rage deleting. If they really feel strongly enough to blast their countless hours of their real life into smithereens, a lock mechanism isn't going to stop em.

Thread derailment split into separate topic.

This thing where quests don't show you the next step when you finish a step so you have to constantly type questor to figure out what you have to do next. Gets pretty cluttered when you have like 50 quests started but not finished.

[quote="Ergorion"]This thing where quests don't show you the next step when you finish a step so you have to constantly type questor to figure out what you have to do next. Gets pretty cluttered when you have like 50 quests started but not finished.[/quote]

+1. Very annoying to not have quest updates, especially for someone who doesn't know what the fuck I am doing.

The quest thing is very true, mainly because not all quests have some kind of mob referencing what you have to do next. I have done all the motions of a quest just to realize that for some reason it didn't update at the beginning and had to redo it.

To build on this, certain questors need to be updated to account for changes.

Like returning the rune-covered knife to Kianna. This weapon has changed, but the questor won't progress past this step even though the in-game quest does.

[quote="Hrimoyan"]To build on this, certain questors need to be updated to account for changes.

Like returning the rune-covered knife to Kianna. This weapon has changed, but the questor won't progress past this step even though the in-game quest does.[/quote]


I thought I had fixed this. How recently have you tried?

Losing info, that bugs me, I liked to see how many people were in each cabal, and quite often the underdog would be who I choose at the time of creation. and losing "pinnacle"... how else are we supposed to describe being at the peak of our strength. or are we not supposed to talk in game about leveling at all. im really confused by this move and would appreciate some form of explination as to why

I believe the idea behind removing info was to make the rp interactions with characters more important. Not knowing the numbers of cabals makes everything more of a mystery to be solved in game, so to speak. Interacting with an evil and not knowing they are legion or how many of his friends are legion is kind of important. The same goes with keepers, they don't necessarily care if you know they are keeper or not. If it wasn't intentional to coincide with the cabal tag removal, I like that it does.

As far as pinnacle goes. In my head I don't see people who get to 50 at their pinnacle. Sure it is a goal, but not exactly their pinnacle. In fact, I would almost say that every cabal leader in the past was not at their pinnacle right when they hit 50 but much later on after they had achieved certain goals. It could just be a semantic thing, but a character's pinnacle, their peak, for sure isn't achieved right when you hit 50.

I don't like how the change to the color of your groupmates' damage makes it green. The same green as tells and the combat style/weapon advantage in prompt.

Is there a way to make all damage the same red?

Wow, is that a thing?

color friendly is the option to toggle that on and off.

That was the ticket, Vev.

I really miss the quest point system that recently went poof. Being able to spend a couple of quest points on a short training boost was downright awesome.

I think we're opening the option to spend relics on that soon, if you can't already. In theory, there's infinite relics out there. There were only like 120 qp. Your existing qp gets converted to relics.

yeah i am just too busy to program the boost items atm
migrating quest stuff for vev

learning boosts (i.e. skill %) are now on sale at thrad. Type LIST at thrad. its just gold.


Deciding to hold off on selling exp boosts. We are moving away from giving exp boosts because we find it just causes the character to get "power levelled" without being trained enough so people dont feel happy with their character.

Very cool, thanks!

fabulous

I think the tone of the thanks for this is not quite what it should be.


HOLY FUCKING GOD THIS IS FUCKING AWESOME.


A great idea and it is truly appreciated.

This underwater breath shit sucks ballz. Why does it exist?

makes it realistic, and you need an invoker to cast 'underwater breathing' on you.

It also offers dwarf/duergar an actual vulnerability instead of just taking much more damage from some weapon type. Kind of a questionable vuln now that I think about it. I never saw a dwarf melt due to water like the wicked witch of the west in any movie or book. Anyway, they get less breath or something.

I still don't like it.

I don't like it either, cost me a death way back when.

I don't like the change where the colored cabal prefixes no longer show in everyone's Who list. The realm seemed where more lively when we'd log in and see a bunch of colored sh!t about to get realz.

What the guy above me said.

I don't really see how underwater breathing would be a hassle. Are there are too few rooms not flagged "underwater"..? The eq mobs basically shouldn't be. The area can be tuned up a bit so that its kind of unimportant fluff (other than a little fluff being important).

As for the cabal tags, Justice is visible so you don't get flagged by accident, Knights have royal titles which makes sense. Legion definitely should be clandestine. Its important for the mystique of the game and helps paranoia in general. That leaves.. Warlords and Keepers? Do those really need visible titles? To me its one of those things where its obviously just form over function. I really hate that. Especially in Warlords, if you're joining a cabal which is clearly performance-based, you need to earn every bit of what you get. As a matter of fact, I'm going to change the Warlord rank names right now to reinforce this. Literally right now.

what happened to my skills list? im low level and can only see to my level.... do not like this change at all.

Nvm, Skill all, sucks no delete on posts

You're welcome.

I agree that too much form over function makes people lazy. Although I feel there is alot of merit-based rewards in the game now (tattoos, custom title ability, etc.). I think there's alot of benefit to get the flags back.

1.) I think some of the cabals are lacking very active members, and it's harder to promote your cabal that way to newer players. The veterans don't need promotion. They know which cabals they want to get in and when and how. But it's the first or second timers looking to venture into a cabal can easily find a member for guidance or gauge if it's the right thing for them. It shows the cabal has activity.

2.) Being apart of a cabal should be a big deal and you should be able to show that in the game proudly. Like you said if Knights already have the Blah of Valour after their name, why not just put the old flag in? They've earned that right going into the cabal.

3.) Most of the flags all show up in the Top Five Rated Killers board and player lists on the website anyways, it's not like the characters are being "hidden" (Legion for instance) to spread their fear. Only Warlord flags are not shown, I'm guessing this is because they weren't put back in too long ago.

The new miden'nir area change.

I also agree with what Lorne said above.

I posted a poll for the cabal Who list topic.

http://abandonedrealms.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9883

The new miden'nir area change.

what about it do you not like?

Why make a change to an area that you spend 30 seconds of your entire characters life to get enchanted bracers. This change makes sense for those people who really get into areas and looking at all the mobs room desc and backgrounds. Perhaps I am wrong but it seems most people just blow by that area to get to emerald and rank.

It makes me feel like a lazy old bastard. The shire area change was out of the way enough that I don't feel bad about not learning it. But this new miden'nir is the center of all things newbie and I don't like getting lost.

The reason we've changed this area is because it is a stock area.

To fully comprehend this change you need to first understand the difference between a "prospect" and a "customer". A customer is someone who already likes your product and repeat buy, whereas a "prospect" is someone who is giving it a try but isn't a customer yet. Low level areas are obviously aimed at PROSPECTS not long-serving veterans of the game that just power rank to 50. This game needs new blood, period, so we need to create something to appeal to new blood.


In order to promote the game on mud sites, we need to make sure we have a strong brand, and one of the ways to build a strong brand is to replace stock areas until we have an original world. Every time a mudder from outside of our community wanders into the realm, they are going to inevitably hit miden'nir (as you correctly pointed out - newbs go there), and they are going to see a stock area. When they see a stock area, what then applies is every stigma that has ever been applied to stock dikumuds. The stock areas we have are hurting the game's credibility as a customized game, and its obviously misleading our prospects how well written our custom areas are. That is going to cost us some new players.

If there was any doubt about that mattering, its why its taken until 2015 (from 1997) to replace the miden'nir. I personally did not think players could be superficial enough to "judge a book by its cover", so to speak, until we got shit on by topmudsites because their administrators banned the wrong MUD (i.e. us) after a vote stuffing incident. In trying to defend the MUDs reputation, one of the most obviously effective pieces of ammunition the other side used against us was that the game is just "stock". The community uses the presence of stock areas to quickly dismiss a MUD as not making an effort to improve.



As for the common, I'm sure, since we're still on opening day, there are problems. Vevier has agreed to spend time on this project for the greater good. I specifically wanted Vevier to work on it because I respect her ability to build and write and I think the cloud castle was a good showcase of that talent, but maybe you didn't all rush in there and see it like I did, I think a mainstream area done by her can only be good for us. Its obvious if you put the two areas side-by-side, one of them is far better. But, its obviously just opened. Are there issues? I think yes, obviously everyone can see that. But to say you dont like the CHANGE at all shows a self-centered view of the future of mudding that is not going to help this mud stay afloat. We have to evolve.

^+1 to what Dav said.

I think that it is a alright change, but I also think broad sweeping changes to areas like that don't do a lot for continuity or RP. Additional areas can always be written into the storyline, but suddenly poof miden'nir is a totally different place?

i know you're going for custom areas but i think another forest/field would have made more sense leading out of seringale than what is currently there. just as far as the layout the cave scheme doesn't really seem to make too much sense to me. and what is with all the chickens running all over the place...

Just to add: I think it's awesome. Good Job Vevier.

I think alot of the farm animals and interactive mobs are obviously for newer players coming out of the academy to get into doing quests for learning.

Obviously it'll take awhile to get use to it and memorize.

I had a quick view of it. I like, even though I'm not familiar with it. That'll change.

I hate it with every fiber of my being. It makes me way more sad than I thought it would

The area is awesome and adds a bit to chasing just like the east road and market square changes did (aging myself here). Great work

Faelon, every time I see your signature, I read it with a Scottish accent and have myself a good little chuckle. Thanks. Heh.

is emerald gone than?

All the areas originally connected to the Miden'nir are still there. The Commons just replaced it.

Plus a couple new items, new quest, some new secrets...what's not to like?

Tough to teach old dogs new tricks.. Lots of long time players are just use to the old area... We'll get familiar with the Common in no time.
I agree with the reasons to phase out all the stock mud stuff. It would look good for AR to be able to promote an "All original" mud.

There's too much overreaction here. Its just a remix of a "classic" area. Redesc, rename, and a few exits fixed because the minimap wasn't congruent, and a bit of salt+pepper on top. Vevier's clearly done a great job if she's convinced you guys that this is a new area

the problem for me is that Emerald is no longer due Southwest of the South Gate, and that there is nothing where the Traveller's Rest used to be. There used to be a big swamp south of Seringale and now there's a... field. I understand the reason for it but man, it's just too drastic.

fixed some room descs and stuff. nothing major
moved emerald entrance to feel more natural

thanks bro, that's a pretty ok christmas present in my book

If your goal is to replace the stock areas of AR, what percentage of the lands are still stock now?

My goal isn't to replace stock areas of AR, its to do just enough work that our prospective players don't superficially write us off as a stock game. I dont know about what percentage I'd put on it, but its pretty obvious that so much of the unoriginal content is focused around Seringale. You cannot leave the first area without hitting a stock area. Moria will be next.

Skill list/ Spell list. Please always allow veteran players to remain accustomed to the old way if they choose to.

#alias {sk} {sk all}

I feel this new berserker 'bug' fix is pretty weaksauce.

So right now you got mania which will attack any other opponent if the person you are fighting flees and now you got rage which will attack anyone else, including NPCs, if your opponent flees. So they can just basically flee and regene for like 3 hours at the priest while you twiddle your thumbs.

How is a berserker suppose to utilize their core class skill in a pk situation? Like if I'm fighting a necromancer or illusionist with full dupes/zombies. I gotta rage for the thunderclash...which they will flee right away. Then I'm kinda screwed if there's any bitching NPCs around. So I got a 50/50 chance on my relax. If I fail. I just gotta sit there. Not to mention if they summon me into anything. It just really narrows on where I can use rage.

Also not feeling this grim trophy thing. This is yet another active skill to use for combat, which requires alot of mana (60) at rank 50 to use. The bear regene doesn't help with mana, only hp. There's alot of active skills to juggle that's becoming hard to handle.

I get why you are upset Lorne, but on the same token, I've witnessed a few of your battles that only called for 'rage' and wait.

Lol. Although it may seem like I'm just sitting there. I'm waiting to move into the next room for murder.

After you rage you're pretty limited on your battle skills as a berserker. Depending if you're fighting vs a mage/cleric type. It's more advantageous sometimes to do nothing, unless I can hit that nice berserk (sometimes I don't like to because of the movement loss which I'm hindered already being a giant and using mania).

Sometimes I even do nothing pre-rage depending on what my opponent is doing.

its going to be updated.. it will require rage AND mania to aggress on npc, or maybe just not even agress npc. I will think about it. this was intended by whoever coded berserker so we should tread carefully.

I've been through the code with fine tooth comb and found that berserkers already did that. We didnt introduce it with the bug fix. Its been like that for years.

Mmmm ok. I really don't remember how it was before, I vaguely remember raging on a few npcs but not really because back then there wasn't mania as well and rage can get snapped no matter what you killed whether its dagnir or the bunny north of seringale. Which makes it less prone to getting owned by some stupid level 60 npc. Rage would just get snapped soon as you 2 hit a cityguard.

goddamit it really was broke, it was so subtle what fixed it. just some really confusing programming in the autoattack thing

anyway its rage/mania only now so you'd have to double down on your raging which i think is reasonable

Dirt kick needs to go back to the old days. Vets need to die. At least bring the stumble back.

or reduce the lag of dirt kick by 50%

Dirt kick stumble is definitely not the old days. I personally don't like the watery eyes and dirt immunity that goes with it, but I don't have another idea at this time.

Olyn have you considered making dirt kick more variable with different degrees of success?

1. light dirt kick - less rounds of lag/blind, no immunity, requires/allows another dirt kick sooner

2. normal dirt kick - old standard ratio dirt kicks nothing special, slightly reduced lag and/or durations, potential slight immunity 50/50 possible

3. heavy dirt kick - more lag, longer duration, immunity (watery eyes)

Players do not have any control over the efficacy of said dirt kick attempts, you get what you get and react accordingly.

Various sectors could be more inclined to do light, normal or heavy dirt kick successfully. AKA know where you are and what to expect more frequently.

I actually like ^that^ idea. Maybe even having a rare (say 1% chance) dirt kick that does make you stumble if you flee as the heaviest type of dirt penalty. Just my two cents.

I think the current setup works for some classes and not others...Maybe a Necro could stumble over his/her own zombies when they have 2 or more? Every time I dirt one, they're far gone by the time I recover from lag. They run it off and return ready for more. No progress.

Lagging mages through prot shield... "awesome" suggestion, thanks. You guys have clearly forgotten why we updated it and are attempting to take us around in circles right now as a result.

Yeah. Mages were never the ones to get lagged from dirt. If I remember correctly, rangers were the big reason the dirt lag was removed. Which bones high-dex warriors. But if you're not pip, why would you have a high dex warrior anyway?

hey now....little respect for the high dex warriors. *cough*
http://abandonedrealms.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6332&highlight=xenyar

I wasn't saying we should allow lagging with dirt through protective shield.

can't change dirt now, too many bugs. The entire game is balanced around the skills dirt and bash, every time someone changes either one it creates around 600 bugs. I am not exaggerating. It is that high. We will still be dealing with the fallout from too-hastily changing dirt kick several years ago several years from now.

It took months to change, it wasn't a rapid change. Also, I like it the way it is, and will defend aggressively. I'm not aware of any oustanding bugs. If they are, they have not been posted for fixing.

http://abandonedrealms.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7793

This skill seems fine to me.
edit: found a bug, annnnnd fixed.... no -hitroll penalty on blurry + other skill vision chance penalty corrected. Being blurry has some bite now

fear change, cant navigate the new forum :( didn't like the graveyard change either. I find myself actually cruising the graveyard drastically less since the change. Now all the categories are all jumbled I feel pretty lost

Don't understand reasoning for graveyard change, bring back the old way!

I agree that the graveyard is harder to navigate now.

The graveyard is harder to navigate, but I think it's a much better service to you as a player. Now characters, and comments on deaths are saved as part of our core website and part of our game history. You can leave comments in character to say your last farewells, or respond in character to say your last words. Now those things don't need to be forever lost in our rolling note system.

If there are specific issues that you have with how you're interacting with it, please let us know.

If your main concern is that you're taken over to our webpage, then I encourage you to make a daily visit to the homepage part of your forum routine. We've got a lot going on over there right now, such as log posting, change updates, and the livestream. It's how you can access the codex and how you can view and respond issues you've reported with a forum-associated character. I feel like the graveyard is a smooth fit into the rest of the updates that have come through for the website in the past view years.

"but I think it's a much better service to you as a player." Why not let the players make the choice, why is it not even thought of to open a poll to get the views of the players?

I like the new graveyard for what was stated above, but I miss seeing cabal tags (not hash tags, they don't count to me) and seeing they little icon that shows me new posts. The (deleted) (condie) (rage delete) etc... is also something I miss seeing.

Chars pk records are not accurate with the new graveyard stuff either. Just noticed that a couple days ago.

Explain. Be specific.

There is a * which shows new posts, and the cabal tag/condie/etc were there before but several people demanded their removal.

I think Vevier summed it up very well. At first, I think I didn't like the new graveyard section because of the color scheme. The dark background is sometimes hard to read. But after using it since it's inception, I think it integrates very well with the game and website alike. It does a much better job connecting your character when it deletes to everything else and makes it more interactive (log board etc.)

Remember the Imms are players as well, they are also apart of the players view. Most Imms having played this mud and many muds for a long time, so generally they have a reasonable understanding how to improve all aspects of the game. Of course, bringing up specific problems or issues you may have can tweak things for the better...most importantly it has to be specific.

I find the log links for gy posts an absolutely awesome feature. I would like to have a searchable graveyard though.
In regards to the forum reorganization, I found it a bit disorienting at first, but the new order of sections makes much more sense and feels better after a bit of poking around.

Are the log links for GY posts automatically generated? Some logs mentioned me and another guy, but it doesn't show up in some of the graveyard posts when they deleted...

I should start by saying I DO like the log link, background link, ability to reply in person, and whatever else they do to make the out of character graveryard seem in character. now, Why would we not want to know how someone died? first question I always ask when I here about someone irl that dies is how. I don't see this as being much different for the delete/rage/condie/denied/other as it saves people from having to ask on every graveyard post "how did you die?" and besides it (was imho) one of the best parts of the graveyard. Now it just looks like a list of names with that someone slapped on a wall and put some ridiculous hashtags that make no sense next beneath the names. (#juicy?) And who in their right mind demands the removal of those tags in the first place.

Sevaush - right now, log mentions need to be added manually after the log is posted (scroll to bottom of log, add your name and the other guy's). If you are mentioned in a log it shows up on GY (you can apply this retrospectively).

I think it would be neat to have a bell toll in-game anytime someone deletes/condies, not just when someone gets denied. I also think character age shouldn't be based on hours played but on creation, and keep hours played as a separate stat.

Not convinced about the hashtags either. I also liked seeing the cabal/other tags.

+1 on putting the player's cabal back in like in the WHO list. Hashtags are for Twitter. In fact I logged a bug about this some weeks ago.

Olyn, I was going back to see if some of my chars had a nemesis, seeing how that change came after their deletes. Euriah, Lurayel- both only showing like 10-12 kills I think, when they both had over 50 each. And I think Uvets might have been wrong too..

I do like the nemesis feature. Good add on.

Xenyar - Kills before January 1, 2014 will not show up on the new graveyard, which is when I overhauled the pkstat tracking system.

Davairus - Would it be possible to have characters created before January 1, 2014 migrated into the Graveyard Archive forum instead?

I'm getting pissed off by this. First you guys tell me you don't want the deleted/caballed tags because they made the forums hard to read (it doesn't "scroll well", even though the old graveyard was exactly the same. Whatever). Then you tell me the dark blackground sucks (aren't you reading on one right now?) Now you want it all back the way I originally had it.

Fuck it. I've been trying to please everybody and quite obviously I can't. You can tag the logs, tagging makes it possible to filter the graveyard by cabal e.g. by Knights. So if you don't like tags, eat a dick because they do something very useful. That doesn't "belong to twitter". Its used on all the social networking sites. ALL OF THEM. And it was also used on the invokation.net logboard. As for the rage delete/ condie / stuff, go find the thread with people complaining about it, and take it up with them, they were giving feedback when it came out and it was listened to, seems like a bunch of people are late to the party and trying to revert their arguments. I personally do not care, I had no problem with it, and I'm pretty sure its 5 lines of code for Olyn to comment out to fix

I added search functionality to the graveyard. This took me about thirty minutes. As for everything else, I don't care. I didn't care before, and I don't care now. the only reason I bothered to make this logboard because m1co stole everyones passwords, and it took me like 3 days, and I would rather work on druids or whatever other shit I would usually be doing instead of working on a logboard. I'm sure someone on the game can submit a css patch for Olyn or whatever. I definitely do not care enough to work on it anymore so its on Olyn at best now. I want to work on druids and finish some quest stuff

Wow it's almost like there are multiple people posting on this forum and they all have different opinions.

#justmyopinion #takeadeepbreathman

argh

The background is actually light grey for me...with light blue accents. It's like the normal black if you don't login. Not sure, maybe I got something custom going on. But that's beside the point, I'm use to the black now on the graveyard, it's fine.

Also, I believe this thread was started on specific changes in-game that may be preventing a player to play a race/class. Let's all try to keep on topic so we can focus on more in-game specifics and having efforts concentrated there.

Dav, chill. Obviously if more than one person is involved in a discussion there will be differences of opinion. The fact that we're speaking up means we care about this game and want it to be the best it can be.

Regarding the background color difference, I changed this forum to the silver color scheme because it's much easier on my eyes so when I hop over to the main site's dark background it's jarring.

Rather than just saying "fuck it" whenever there's feedback that you don't like or contradicts previous sentiment, just let us know the people's voices have been noted but there's more important stuff going on. Rather than be off-put by a confrontational tone, we'll be like "yeah, dude. The imms do donate their time to this game, don't they. I should maybe be a little grateful."

This is complaining and booing like six months after the fact and nobodys said a fucking thing until now. t happens all the fucking time with everything. This is immensely frustrating for me and telling me to "chill' just sounds like I'm being dismissed as crazy and only makes me feel even more irate and pissed off. I'm so tired of incessant complaining being passed off as "caring". Come to me with solutions not just problems. I'm quite capable of reading constructive criticims but all I ever feel like I read is "X sucks". Now be a good little troll and click your boo link and enjoy the rest of your day.

From my experience at work, it is very frustrating when staff come to me with complaints or issues many weeks/months after the fact of something being implemented. I think it becomes exacerbated when your staff size increases, as we can relate here with many players' different view points.

From my experience, the take-home message to relate issues with new changes should really be tiered. As an administrator, it's impossible to deal with so many issues of different view points at once in so many different departments. Perhaps we can assign certain categories of issues, or split up the issues somehow by race/class/areas etc., and escalate them if necessary.

And like Dav said, it's very easy to be critical and point out things you may not like but it should always be equally important to think of a possible solution to your problem in order to facilitate our improvement process.

Man you guys are viewing this all wrong. This is the same psychology and phenomenon that takes place when FB, Twitter, Google+ etc. make changes to their UI. Everyone bitches for a week then it goes away. Happens EVERYTIME. You can count on it like clockwork.

The old ways are /usually/ not best. ;)

Okay I'm stoned and this is completely off topic but you just triggered one of my rants.

I hate it when people shit all over "the way it's always been done". As if it's some big fucking sin to not constantly update and change things. No, changing things does not always make it better. Here are some things about the way it's always been done:

- It's what people are most comfortable with
- It's what everyone already knows how to do.
- It's already budgeted for
- We already have the stuff we need to do it

And most importantly:
- We already know it works.

If you try something new, you have no idea if it's going to work. So you better be fucking certain that the new way is way better than the old way or else you may fuck up a perfectly good, functioning system for no reason other than you felt like fucking with it.

It really irks me whenever someone says it's no good reason to do something a certain way just because it's the-way-we've-always-done-it. Yes it is a good reason, IT IS A PERFECTLY GOOD REASON.

*eats off a platter made of bread*

I think these changes are reasonable and I understand the "If it ain't broke don't fix it." type of mentality, but this isn't the case. Everything is working. Just some are experiencing anxiety with the changes.

If we don't try anything at all, we'll get the same results. We want NEW people.

Div, I understand where you are coming from, I've been playing this game since middle/late first age. As a player, I know it's hard to accept some fundamental changes to the game, especially if you are already a competent player and the changes force you to re-learn to be at the same level you are.

However, your mentality is a bit flawed. No one can give you a guarantee the "new way is way better then the old way" when they try to add/change content. The senior Imms don't implement anything without already careful thought and testing. But they can only do so much. They can't foolproof that it will work perfectly and always BETTER then what it was. Only with the players help and some more in-game testing can we tweak it for the better. If you think the Imms are implementing changes that are fucking up a perfectly good system with no reason...you're an idiot. Is your cellphone now better then it is 10 years ago?

Let's try to keep on the topic of this thread. If you got problems with certain changes, be specific about what you don't like and some possible solutions you may have in making in better. [/i]

I'm not talking about this game. Mostly I was just having Navy flashbacks.

What exactly was the reasoning for changing it in the first place?

...If you go back one page, Vevier's post gives a good summary why it was changed and the benefits.

http://abandonedrealms.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10765

Please nobody interpret my rant as some kind of criticism of our graveyard system either way. I don't really care. Either one is fine. I have an intense, burning indifference.

Yeah you couldnt say you dont care any clearer. Now please, fuck off.

Off topic a bit. Lorne- As for the cellphone comment- I do miss my nokia that would stay charged for 2 weeks at a time as opposed to these i-phones, galaxy bullshit. Same with social media, your posting your vacation date getaway, you should be robbed blind. Hate to see the future in twenty years.

I'd like to go ahead and say I'm glad Ceridwel is passed the suck up to dav everything he does is perfection phase. I'm just sorry Lorne has taken his place. sadface.


Anyway I do think this change is good But you really should have gone a little further. Why are people pre level 45 even ending up in the graveyard these days. As easy as it is to get to 50 if you don't make it you really aren't that noteable or shouldn't be considered as such.

When the boss tells me to eat a dick, I don't ask "how long?".

ehh. i can think of several characters who made themselves very notable to me way before 45 and who absolutely would deserve a gy post if they died early. you're making it sound like people don't rp before 45 which is false.

never said they don't vevier but frankly imms can commend them or elite them or whatever and they'll get an elite gy post. not sure why all these nobodies flood my graveyard i mean how often does someone pre 50 get any sort of commendations or kudos?

no, if there was no gy post, we wouldn't have them to commend or elite. just disregard them if you don't want to read them, that's pretty easy.

though it might be useful for a "mark all as read" button for monthly inact purges.

Ahem, that one was Vanisse. :)

I'm sure some of you have noticed that mob regeneration had a recent bug fix and now are reneging perhaps up to 4x what they use to be. After trying to "solo" alot of medium to high-medium bosses at pinnacle (no dungeon bosses or really elite ones (ie. Vlad, Sheundan etc.)), I've had a very hard time doing so. The mobs seem to be out-regening my ability to wear them down by myself.

Soloing medium/high ends mobs have always been a big part of my AR play time, as a way to gain better eq and prepare myself for pks. This has really effectively stopped me from doing so and turned my ways more to gambled eq. etc. Anyone have any similar thoughts?

Wow Lorne, I've had that opinion since it was implemented and here I thought I was the only one affected by this...

I thought it was a really bad idea to increase mob regen, especially with low player base. You literally need a group to kill solo high level bosses, and specific class/combos to do dungeons. Especially those swinging mobs that hits really hard and regens so much during down times. You literally cannot have down times fighting the mobs now.

If the pbase is low, it is really hard to find a decent group to hunt.

The regen change is something I do not like. 18 Purples into the drow queen, and I quaff another one just to walk in to her at a few scratches...again.
Soloing stuff IS a part of the game, and has been for a very long time. Taking that away, really is a major turn off.

^^ agree with above, I hadn't noticed this change but I don't agree with it

This is especially hard on classes with no way to quickly restore health and are forced to flee, sleep, repeat to kill high level mobs, i.e. warriors. I never had a problem with mob regen before. It was neither too high or too low. I don't understand why it was changed.

Well it was changed because there was a bug found in the code that could have contributed to too low of a regene and having a way to easily "cheese" high level mobs. It's not wrong to fix bugs obviously but the gameplay impact after should be looked at.

I do agree some boss mobs really shouldn't be soloed or a bit harder to, but medium to high level ones should be fair game.

I personally love it. I always felt that mob regen was WAAYYYY too low. It's dumb that you could sleep from 10% health to 100% over and over and over while a mob regened 70 hp. I do want to drastically nerf how mobs regen WHILE FIGHTING to offset this. This will probably cause you to adjust your strategy some when fighting hard mobs, but this recent change should've already done that if you gave it any thought. For what it's worth, I got out an old mort and didn't have any problem killing the wights solo using new tactics.

Mobs with too high of regen should be reported as bugs not complain about the regen of mobs in the complaint thread. The regen of mobs was insanely broken and to complain about the regen of mobs is appaling. We have a few bugged mobs that need to be found and fixed.

I've posted bugs but they were closed as being working as intended. I think the current regene of alot of mobs are too high across the board, not just one mob in particular.

I've seen other players post bugs about the regene and have gotten complaints in the form of notes from players.

Zzz can't edit my post, posted it a bit prematurely.

So I'm not entirely sure how much the mob regene was compared to now, I assume it was deemed to low and broken before but the current regene seems multiple times higher. Perhaps a happy medium in between? Obviously if like Olyn said a mob is regeneing like 70 hp while you go back to full is stupid. I do see the mob regene while fighting has been decreased...so we'll see how this plays ingame. Although it doesn't help much soloing still I think. As if you can't kill the mob in one or two tries, it will take just as long as they would heal fast while you're resting still.

After trying to solo mobs, that i have been soloing for over a decade, but cant even scratch the surface on now..really is a deal breaker for me. I hope there is a "happy median". It really does make me not want to play. Thats not a bs threat of I'm quitting forever blah blah.... i dont do that. But there is enough frustration for me to want to put the book back on the shelf for a while...

Gameplay wise.. how can a mob regen 1500-2k hp while standing, while it takes me the same amount of time to regain 750 hp while sleeping in a tent.

"Big boss mobs arent meant to be soloed"... if anybody says that.. then i ask why not? Whats the difference of me spending 3hrs on a mob, versus having a group of 3 or 4 to do it in 30 minutes?
This has really put the F U in fun for me.

You let warlords who are already pve op get healing now but then turn around and make npcs regen quicker. it always seems like the full picture is never considered these days with the changes

Please give me a specific mob that is now "impossible" to solo so I can watch you try. One of three results will happen: you'll beat the mob, you'll fail because you suck and refuse to strategize effectively, or you'll prove me wrong. Until then, I'll continue to call BS. I've been over most of the bosses and exactly one of them needed fixed. I spent a lot of time ensuring that the fix is working as intended, i.e. the area builder's intended regen is EXACTLY what it says it is. I've also solo'd a couple of mobs with my test character as a lvl 50 warrior in beast set with a darkhaven mace and as a lvl 50 invoker wearing all the phoenix stuff and avg 22 mace and had no problems with any of the mobs I tried: Aangrim, Crimmon, and Mordun.

I also watched that lvl 50 invoker Justice solo Phemios today (a good mob to observe invoker because he does consistent physical and magic damage). I thought it might be a good opportunity to gather some empirical data from another player who might use different tactics than me. Based on his pattern of fighting and resting, Phemios healed 54% faster than his 'old' regen. This amounts to an increase in hp regen of 4.8% of his total per skirmish post-bugfix. That's all.

tl;dr: I'm currently not buying this as anything more than whining, but open to being proven wrong. Provide me with specific mobs that you think are broken and I'll check them for you.

do sleeping players out-regen boss-level mobs with high hp?

No. Unless you mean by percentage, then very much so.

So it's still feasible to attack something, deal a lot of damage, sleep, then re-enter and attack again right?

Wait what. Did olyn just said he solo-ed mordun with a warrior in beast and darkhaven mace? That really happened?

one is much easier than the other, i did it with a ranger before. Just takes time can't remember which one was easier mordun or daryth, but one of them was surprisingly easy

Most mobs that are either ettin/troll/ogre etc should have uber regen's just to clarify. The giants is more about being damage resistant so their regen fucks you by virtue of taking forever to kill the bastards.

Autosneak taken off a race if it is wearing a two hand weapon. Its the same as if giants lose their physical resistance due to wearing too much damroll. I wouldn't like to play a fire giant and lose one of my racial abilities sometimes for wearing something.

do rangers maintain quiet movement with a two hander in the forrest?

For the record, I do not like the NPC healing change that happened. It is almost like it was silent change. NPCS heal way way to fast now. Can't even solo Mordun anymore. He heals way to fast.

I also don't like it. Emerald longsword is a bitch of a fight and now its impossible solo, and its a low level rare. Got killed at 36 due to impatience because any damage done was getting healed back too quick.

Just contract items you want for level 50's to kill those mobs for you and bring it back. That's the easy way. You can get the same amount of gold in the same time for less risk.

Sounds like the game got challenging. Too bad you have to try in order to get your rare items again. We're gonna put aggro in Winter, too. :)

It was already a challenge, or rather a test of how many hours you are willing to put in to kill a mob.

The guy has less than 1500 hp and two significant vulns. If you can't beat him at lvl 36, the problem is you. By the way, analysis on this mob indicates he regenerates 15 more hp per tick than he used to while standing and 11 less hp per tick than he used to while fighting, so yeah....blame the changes...

Please don't act like people don't know about its ice vuln.

Yes let us make the game more challenging for all 10 of us daily active users. When we don't even group up anyway. So make it more challenging so none of us want to do anything besides sit a the fucking north square and roleplay.

My solution is easiest. Just harvest gold from mobs and collect things to sell to shops. It takes the same amount of time as prepping to fight a rare holder and fleeing to sleep up to attack again, and it is far less "challenge", and you don't risk death. Let some level 50 do the work for you.

I don't agree that the mob who holds the emerald longsword is too hard to solo.

I think the complaint about autosneak being removed for 2-handed weapons is valid, however. Why did you bring this up? Can you explain exactly what pissed you off about it and how you discovered the change?

People seemed suspiciously good at tracking and when I double back with two handed and getting murders off before me if I enter the room.

so in the spirit of hp regeneration. recently I have tried to level up on the five in a few different groups. one was myself and 2 50s. both of them very geared. one a dps and one a healer. I am a class decently suited to take the hits so I tanked and we could only do one at a time and have to rest. that was with the healer spamming spells and me using potions to compensate. tried again with a paladin and the same healer. couldn't even kill the Pyro manner. I realise that getting to 50 used to be ridiculous to accomplish. I have ran "the gauntlet" as it used to be called and now we're just spoiled with surges and what not... but is it your intention to require a group of 6 50s to level at a decent rate? or maybe were doing something wrong...

The change to hp regen that you're referring to actually reduced the regen of mobs while they're fighting. Your ranking problem is likely imagined or self-induced.

Its normal to not be able to sneak with a giant staff wielded. People can see your staff sticking out broski.

might need a message on the wear to let a sneaker know he stops sneaking I guess

that's a good idea

This mob regen rate is fucking nuts. Thumbs down.

I tend to agree with ergorion on the mob regen thing. Some of it makes sense, some of it is literally insane.

I think in general these days the pbase is on such a low swing that we need to make it enticing for people to gear up without needing a Winter group. If that means looking at the regen changes again then maybe that's not a bad thing.

its NOT the code, the code was ignoring the values set by the builders before and now it isnt.. its all human error. so just let me know which ones are too high and which ones feel good and I will write a script to weed out all the too high ones

Too much across the board imo. Judge based on trying to kill the wights and Armageddon bosses.

Dav, I get it that the regen change is a human error. However, having it makes solo-ing mobs really shit. I have no idea how you tester do it, being able to solo down bosses, but in general across the board, it's really difficult to solo down bosses to get eq.

If I were to take some unlucky rounds, the boss will regen 2000 hp while I'm healing up to try again. That sucks, I'll just walk away and make do with other eq.

give me some that are fine

Soloing is the wrong direction for a MUD. Especially one where soloing rewards hoarders.

What!! Being able to solo a mob and gain such item desired is a huge deal. To be able to kill that creature for whatever item is a fun and challenging thing to do for me on any character. But I will say, I myself do not like the change to regeneration on mobs.

I just went through the code to make sure I actually understood how it worked. Then I went through a bunch of areas, checked the mob regen stats. Then I fought a bunch of different boss mobs using average and high end eq. These are some thoughts I have on the matter after poking around.

On my preliminary screen, there were a few cases where the mobs had slightly higher regen than default (Seringale guild guardians, which no one has apparently had a problem with), one rather egregious case of over-regeneration in Winter. I also found quite a number of cases where the regen is set laughably low. Since everyone has been used to regen being completely broken for years, one might find these currently broken mobs to feel "normal" while everything else seems "too high". Also, since regen was broken for years, builders who generated mobs manually rather than using default settings may not have applied the HP stats correctly during creation, since the mob HP came out the same in the end and there was no discernible difference.

I also found that right now mobs regen *exactly* the regen number set by builder, which doesn't seem very organic, but that's another matter entirely.

A level 50+ NPC currently default regens quite a bit more hp point per point on tick than a PC who is only sleeping (no cures or slow). It is usually a much smaller fraction of the NPC's total hp (which informs the condition description). Without using cures, hp recovery for a player can be around 10% per tick; the mob default regen is around 3-5% depending on the mob hp.

While testing, I found that the default regen amount is theoretically well within the damage that a player can do in a single round.

That said, the default algorithm generates a recommended regen level based only on the level of the mob. I think this may be dangerous as it ignores the effects of sanc and AC that a builder adds to the mob, which can heavily reduce the damage that a player can inflict. There are some boss mobs where the builder addressed this specifically (heavily reducing regen when boosting AC for example), but also I would expect many that simply have been left at default values, which passes a preliminary screen (and builder feels safe leaving at default) but may not feel balanced on the player's side.

Dav, if you do want to do a revision, I would suggest 1) instead of using a basic default regen algorithm, make a new algorithm that can account for applied sanc/AC, 2) apply this new algorithm across all default-set mobs, and 3) generating a list of mobs that currently don't follow the default in case they need review.

This would actually have second impact because the current default settings generator creates a mob with average AC and no sanc; so what really needs to be updated is the "Current: <regen> Recommended: <default_regen>" fields on OLC for the builder, and possibly an echoed reminder when they make any manual adjustments to AC or sanc. I imagine something like this:

> edit mob create <vnum>

> default <level>

> show

//stuff

HP:    [x d y +z] (regen: %default_val default: %default_val)

//

> aff sanctuary

Affect flag toggled. Note: Regen has been updated to accommodate.

> show

HP:    [x d y +z] (regen: %updated_val default: %updated_val)

> armor 100 100 100 50

Ac set. Note: Regen has been updated to accommodate.

HP:    [x d y +z] (regen: %updated_val default: %updated_val)

Then if you really want to you can set the regen manually, but it will still present the recommended level in case you want to use it:

> hitdice 1 d 1 5000

Hitdice set. Note: Recommended regen has been overridden.

> show

HP:    [1 d 1 + 5000] (regen: 1 default: %updated_val)

Also, if curr_regen doesn't match default_regen, then it wouldn't update that when you adjust any affects/AC (e.g. it would only update the settings if it was left at default).

Well, guild guardian goes unnoticed because they are lower level. The regen is not going to affect a level 50 player brute forcing it down. It'll probably affect when you're trying to enter the guild at level 35 probably, which in today's case is pretty rare for 35 to rush the guardian with another player sitting inside. The regen affects higher level mobs. 5% of 5000 hp is 250hp. Add in sanc and high AC, it's tough.

Anyway, I'm not intending for all the mobs in the realms to be pussy. In today's player base, it's really hard to find a group to hunt for eq. If every single creature regens so fast and you can't solo for the eq, i'm never going to get anything and it become frustrating. There has to be a balance of both sides. In the past when regen was broken, i can solo any mob, it just takes time. Now with such godly regen, I think the most broken mob is daryth. Seriously. Have you guys tested solo-ing daryth? His stupid rage/berserk heals him almost every other round. It's almost impossible. I'm not sure any class can do it. I personally felt it was so disgusting doing it in a group the last time I tried.

Oh btw, another perspective. The other mob I wanted to highlight was the Chieftain in dankbank forest that holds the huge iron sword. The last time anyone did it, I think I was there. We had what, 5 guys? we had a healer and a monk and we needed to flee and heal from his insane damage almost dying in the process.

I am not entirely sure how much regen that chieftain has now, but if u gonna add in 250 hp regen a tick, it's going to be a mad house killing him. How often are we going to get 5 man groups these days?

Daryth is insane.. when i had Krite, decked fire zerker sleeping in a tent and using trophy to heal quicker and i still could barely get a dent in him. If i rested more than 3 or 4 ticks he'd be back in excellent.

Daryth has to be broken, I found some of the higher end lone bosses to be laughable in comparison. dame valere and tiamat are super easy for example. but daryth... I ran into the same issues as said above, couldn't even get him to quite a few wounds with all his rage/relax bs. I've really been thinking about this since it was first posted and I solo'd quite a bit of npc's in the last month and to be honest Daryth is really the only one that I ran into that it wasn't able to slowly wittle down. but that's a fire giant warrior which is a npc machine. Im probably a terrible example because I have never been able to really solo shit until the fire giant lol.

IMO some of those guys I think you should be using a group for. I mean the chieftain with the huge iron sword, he literally has the best physical sword in the game. You shouldn't be able to solo him. Not too toot my own horn but I solo'ed him on Lorne when regene was still "broken". It did take me...I believe 2 hours, no exaggeration. And I did have a bit of help, Ysette was grouped with me at the time, and she took the agro away from the bodyguard and did other stuff for the two hours.

Daryth is a bit debatable, he was hard to solo before as from all the things you guys mentioned. He does carry one of the best bracelets. But yea, he needs to get looked into, the whole regene with rage and berserk does make him tough, even for groups.

But I think bosses like the wights, or the guys in riverwood come especially hard for people to solo. Even as an experienced player, I can struggle quite a bit if I'm unlucky. Aarngrim kicks my ass.

Vanisse has made a great post, but the rest of it really sounds like a mindless buzzing drone of boohoo everything stinks. Its coming across as mostly just whining to me. People have privately praised the extra challenge presented by mob regen as well. They have literally told me they see some outliers but dont' revert this change.

The builders ought to think of the regen when they decide to put sanc/resistances/armor on their mobs. In fact I specified that the trolls in tenebria would be higher regen and hp but have a lower AC. As someone who is able to choose a different approach AND has no time to go through 9000 mobs to look at this, my kind of solution would be to make the POISON spell severely limit a mobs regeneration, in the same way that it severely limits a players generation, AND ALSO write a script to catch outliers.

I have asked for examples of mobs that are working fine and I'm receiving more broken mobs reports. You've tried that. It hasn't worked. You guys have the opportunity to do that for months already now and guess what? It failed. Give me what I have asked for and I will make it the gold standard by which all others will be judged. We will make Serin great again

We don't have access to the numbers and have to resort to just feeling it out. I haven't played for months and just tried to start outfitting a toon but got so fed up with it that I said fuck it, it's not worth it.

I can't give you specific regen rates that I think are appropriate because I don't have that info. What I can say is I believe high level mobs that are out in the open should be able to be solo killed by a solid level 50 pve class with a reasonable amount of effort. By out in the open I mean the daryths, and master torturers, and the individual wights of dal kaddar. Mobs where you don't have to beat a bunch of henchmen to get there.

Winter and the underworld and those challenge areas should definitely have shit that requires a group and the division of booty so one pve class cannot just roll through it and get decked.

By reasonable amount of effort I would say 20 minutes to 30 minutes of real time.

Ergorion, I know you guys don't have the data behind the scenes, but you could give us stuff like your damage output vs different boss mobs. Either damage per round (from group command) or the range of damage verbs that you get. (Like, doing wounds and mauls on Xymeria vs. doing MANGLES on Aarngrim while wearing the same outfit.) That was what I was trying to do earlier today, except I can't perfectly simulate a situation that you'd be in. If we try my approach I'd need to figure an equation which decreases regen to partially offset cases of high damage reduction that the player might face, obviously without turning the mob into cheese.

Dav, I know that there is onus on the builders for this problem, but builders may not realize or know the math behind how much damage reduction is associated with all the AC or sanc or berserk or other affects they are sticking on their fancy boss mobs. Which is why I suggested that we could have that calculated behind the scenes and a nice guideline provided for them. (and me. I don't know the maths either unless I go into the code to look it up.) While having a poison effect on regen would be neat, it would only benefit those classes who have the ability to poison. Also what would your criteria be for outliers? Because to me it seems that doing a simple screen for actual vs default regen doesn't accurately address the actual trouble spots as reported by players. You could also track the number off/act/act2/aff/etc. flags but that wouldn't be simple anymore. That's why I think directly adjusting the default setting might be a better approach. It would be automatically calculated based on relevant flags already on the mob and any mobs with actual = default would be automatically adjusted which I think from my brief look earlier would be the vast majority of them.

By the way, I think the reports of "broken" mobs are useful, but as Dav said, it would also be good to report boss mobs that you feel are good right now, so that they can be assessed and compared.

I just checked Daryth and he's one of the cases where he has default regen but the sheer number of added affects causes him to feel imbalanced. There are probably more.

I don't know if this would be a start, but I can start to break down solo techniques that I've tried.

Illusionist/Necro: both rely super hard on dps from charmies to make up for shitty defenses and relative lack of heals. In certain circumstances, charmies can also tank to extend continuous rounds of damage dishing. Both slow and vampiric touch will be used to try to minimize time spent twiddling thumbs in between forays.

Invoker: mana shield/barrier used to maximize number of rounds they're able to stay in combat. Slow to regen that mana to minimize time spent twiddling thumbs in between forays. Damage mostly from spells but potentially melee though mitigtated by slow. More of a sustained effort deal as opposed to nuke them.

Healer/shaman: more of a guerrilla hit them and heal up tactic. Shaman with the more offensive cause spells to wear them down a bit faster.

I've never had success soloing high level mobs with warriors. And dark-knights have changed so much since I solo'd one anything I have to say would be irrelevant.

I feel like the illu/necro camp got boned because they have to spend more time resting in between forays. Whereas the invoker/healer/shaman camp got boned because they don't have the dps capabilities.

I guess, I don't know if damage per round is the best metric to use.

There would be damage per round, average number of rounds you're able to last per foray, and recovery time between forays.

I don't have specific numbers for those because I only have one level 50 right now and it's naked. But I feel like those are the values we should look at from the player side of things.

Sure. If you can give me both metrics that would be great. On a very general level, it's basically balancing:

If (mob regen) * (downtime ticks) >= (player damage), player won't win

If (mob regen) * (downtime ticks) < (player damage), player will win (eventually)

Once at second status, it's a matter of feeling out what kind of margin would be optimal for a boss mob vs. a lesser mob - that's what we would be able to find out from your current favorite bosses.

And yes, as you mentioned, those downtime ticks do rely on how much damage output the mob does and not just mob-side hp, buffs and regen. The issue is in reality pretty complex. But my objective would be to partially reduce regen so that it feels manageable.

Lorne, yes the chieftain should not be solo-ed. But if you make if such that even 5 man groups have trouble killing it, the sword is going to be unobtainable. I don't even see 5 PKs in my who list usually, much less 5 willing to group with me.

As vanisse said, I agree this is tough to balance.

It's different for each class actually. How are we going to test this

"damage per round, average number of rounds you're able to last per foray, and recovery time between forays."

What kind of creatures are we looking at? I don't mind doing it with my 50s.

I think just run around and fight a bunch of the mobs as you already do. Something like this could be helpful:

Mob name:
Your rank/class/race:
Are you (underequipped) (average equipped) (uber equipped)
Did it feel (too easy) (good) (too hard)
How much average damage did you do per round/tick?
Did you have to run away and sleep in the middle?
If so, how often and how many downtime ticks did you take each time?
Approximately how long did it take you to defeat the mob?

Actually, I should be able to estimate damage from the time taken to defeat so if you don't have damage stats that's fine if you fill out the rest.

great idea Vanisse, I'll post what things I fight to help with the data collection

It looked fine to me, and it even looks lower than before in general (Daryth and Aarngrim are notable example of mobs that regen less now than they did before the change). However, I've decided I'm just going to listen to the unrest the change has caused. To be quite honest, I don't see why we should suck up mobs regenning 50 hp a tick either. That seems like it would have the potential to be a very frustrating mechanic, and I think getting out-regenned by mobs - especially stationary mobs - should only be a problem for people who are doing something stupid like win by suiciding level 1's over and over.

Consequently, all standing/resting mob regen has been halved. Its still decided officially by the builders, but we are halving whatever they've set, which will probably be the defaults for the most part. The sleeping regen remains as it was, so if you have pets to recuperate you can rest easy knowing that those won't be affected. If there are any further problems let me know.

Thanks dav. Appreciate you hearing us out.

Vanisse, I checked out a few creatures. I went back to try Daryth.

Mob name: Daryth
50/illu/quasit
Pretty well equipped
good
I think 160
Did you have to run away and sleep in the middle? sleep up twice
If so, how often and how many downtime ticks did you take each time? 8hrs
Approximately how long did it take you to defeat the mob?

It took me 3 attempts, so prob around 15-20mins. Illusionist have it somewhat easier with sheer dps from the mobs. I'm not sure how others would rate it. Maybe it is a little easy for a frost burnt? I'm thinking other classes will have a harder time with Daryth.


The other mob...

Captain of Solace
50/Illu/quasit
Pretty well equipped
I think 70 or lower ( My illusions were hardly hitting)

I gave up fighting him after two attempts. He is hitting me like a truck. I can't solo him. It doesn't make sense for him to be harder than Daryth. Or maybe he does, I'm not sure.

If i'm not wrong, the Captain of Solace is having a higher regen than Daryth.

It this useful?

You are saying he is hitting you like a truck and yet you blame the regen? wtf mate

I don't think he was blaming regen. I think he was observing the captain with a higher rate of regen than the captain.

the captain was intended to be soloed by classes like invoker and warrior so it would make sense that his regen is low / correct and it may be intended that an illusionist with poor defenses can't solo him. That would be one of the mobs we specifically looked at.

It doesn't sound like Daryth is too hard to me, is there some reason we think Daryth's regen is too high? Is he raging or something?

The captain is supposed to be somewhat hard to solo and take a long time because he has pimp eq, is nowander so he doesn't hunt, and is in a safe justice-protected area.

someone should post a log of soloing the captain of the guard and include armor class values

it would be great to see it from someone who doesn't think regen is too high and also someone who does and look at the differences

nevermind guys no need, we found the bug with regen

I've taken the time to investigate regen today and found that the formulas we gave out as defaults to builders were just insanely wrong. We can't use these formulas to determine mob regen. They are just completely unacceptable.

With players, hit points per level and regen are both based on the same system. You have a roll which determined by your class (so berserkers get more hp than invokers for instance), a constitution bonus, and then levelling up means you have more hp and better regen.

we find this formula to be essnetially the following

level * ( dice between 1-20 + constitution bonus)
warriors dice has 11 sides and mage sides has 6


With mobs, it should be the same. And it kinda is and it isn't. The creators of ROM 2.4 have left us with an unfortunate incoherent mess. I suspect what they were trying to do was toughen up the game to make it require groups of 3 to rank, but they literally annihilated the beautiful simple mathematics underpinning the game in the process. While I would like to be able to travel back in time and fix this, but I just can't, and I can't fix it immediately today without alienating you guys from the gameplay of AR.

What I will do however is I will revert the change and present you with new mobs to fight that have fair hp and regen. I will follow up about that on the forums at a later date. We will make Abandoned Realms great again

edit: found out it was from stock rom. also found original formulas. they are weird

I was just helping you guys test out fighting certain mobs from a player's perspective and giving the input as per Vanisse's guidelines. Doing my part is all. I really could care less if I can solo the Captain of Solace. I picked him because I sort of knew he was tougher than what I expected and I had trouble not only as an illusionist, but with my other toons.

Thanks for the feedback Sevaush, and thanks for looking at the code Dav.

Regarding Daryth, he has a decent chance of raging or roaring if already raged when you are fighting him. But let's see, with the reverts he is probably fine now.

I checked, rage shouldn't be affecting Daryth's hp regen so after Davairus' change it should be good again.

I am curious as to the reason why rod of mind spectres is changed to anti good. So now goodies got nothing against stone giants?

that makes a lot of sense actually

There is also the dream catcher in elemental canyon. If you don't think that is a good weapon you need a sit down and the mechanics of the game properly explained to you. Happy to do this just let me know.

Lol, I am simply asking a genuine question. Isn't it what this forum thead is for? For feedback? You don't have to be so snide about it if you don't wanna answer it. That rod is obviously a better weapon than the dream catcher and this changes things, more or less, so I am asking as a concerned player. If you never wanted any feedback to start with in the first place, just say the word man. You won't hear from me ever again.

Its neither snide or rude, but you were in your over-reaction to perceived snide and rudeness. Pot, meet kettle, maybe?

Rod of mind spectres is an item we've had a long time. It was only usable by goods from July 2016- Feb. 2017.

Seemed like a nice response and offer to help to me.

Can someone please explain the game mechanics to me?? Is rod still one handed or is it or two handed? Also can we please get the old punch in the box back. The one that two rounded drow and elves.

Cabal Warfare. Anyone know what that is anymore? I don't. So the rules get changed for cabals. Below 50 cabal members do not have to defend or retrieve anymore. What happened to the gauntlet? We take it a step further. Path's and cabals used to be sacred. Now you can literally do nothing when someone wants to invade and take items and all that. You can not harm them unless they pick up an item. When was the last time someone captured an item? Yeah you can attack people who hold cabal items but unless you are gang-banging someone or have serious lag skills, I can basically guarantee escape while holding a cabal item. There is nothing you can do.

Then we take this a step further. To buy cabal supplies you now have to fulfill cabal duties. On top of that cabal supplies now decay where they didn't used to. So as our playerbase dwindles we take away the gauntlet, Check. We take away Cabal Warfare, Check. What's the point? I really don't like those changes.

Nadrin:

http://abandonedrealms.com/realms/cabals/

This page shows exactly how much people are capturing cabal items, as well as who they're from. It looks like (from that page) the Knights have been leading the activity. By the way, this is explicitly encouraged in the WHO command. We can see tomorrow if the pk stats tell a different story.

It seems like the main concern is being unable to easily pick off people as they rank up by forcing them to take a death march? I mean that looks like what I'm reading, happy to be wrong if I am. Reading over that, I feel I'm not left in doubt that its a change YOU really don't like, but I do wonder how EVERYBODY ELSE feels about that. Because maybe, when people actually do decide to take those death marches, they could actually be promoted for going above and beyond the line of duty. Did you consider this? We have written down some basic rules, these are what you must and must not do. They are minimal and easy, but minimal play shouldn't take a player very far. Players can earn promotions simply by exceeding expectations this way. The upper ranks of the cabals are intended for the elite who do so, and the lower ranks are purely provisional and the expectations are low (and quite frankly we have enough history of how players behave to back that design decision very strongly..). If people want to revert back to hardcore defending requirements then have a poll and we'll adjust the rules again.
The only thing I care about is those rules are exactly how everyone who is in cabals wants them. We used to have a lot of dingleberries trying to join cabals at level 50 to avoid that, as well, btw.

It sounded like there were some concerns about the gameplay mechanics but it didn't really come over very clearly, so if you wouldnt mind, please explain it again. For instance, I don't really see why cabal supply decay is an issue if you can have the currency easily on hand all the time anyways. Can't you get it by depositing gold in the cabal bank ? Or am I imagining that.

lol all I read is that you are butt hurt because you don't get to force low levels I to dieing? I assure you item retrieval is still numerous uno for level 50s to return. that hasn't changed. it's really hard to have warfare when only one side is playing though... like 4 knights and no other cabals. I really really like the cabal system the way it is now. I think it's perfect. you want more cabal currencies that. start sacrificing Rares off your kills. that's the easiest way to get them... aside from being a legion and doing their thing to get currencies. it's been a few weeks since I have been able to play but from what I remember depositing gold doesn't do shit for you except fill your coffer.

Dav, I mentioned the fact that players are not forced to defend/retrieve because of the part that is after that. I have no problem that lowbies are not required to do that. A level 25 cabaled stands no chance of retrieving against level 50s.

My problem is when your logged in and someone DOES decide to fuck with you, and your cabal. You can literally do nothing. You sit there and watch and wait to see if he is actually able to take your item and then try to kill him when he does. In the meantime, what you were doing was interrupted and he is sitting there laughing at the fact that he has just been able to fuck with you for however long with no penalty. THAT is what I have a problem with.

In short, you guys made the measure that before 50 cabaled are not required to defend or retrieve. Then to top it off, you took the penalty away if they decided to anyway. Bring back Cabal death zones. If someone wants to invade and fuck with you, or wants to log three legion in at level 40 and gank the level 50 knight, that should be possible.

So again to be clear. You protected the lowbies who want protection. Penalize the people who are going to fuck with you anyway.

lol you don't get it eh. It's working exactly as intended. dav pointed it out with the link. k ight are hands and feet above the other cabals for item possession. the Knights are constantly holding the legion and now keeper items. they deserve to be fucked with. your like playing a justice and complaining when people tell you to return to town. think though if knights weren't in power there wouldn't be a bunch of level 40 evils. there would be a bunch of level 50 evils and1 level 40 good. I'm actually for bring ing back the cabal zone open pk zone now that >50 doesn't have to invade. but that still doesn't stop someone from invading to bring you back and instant fleeing as soon as you recall. 100$says even with shitty flee luck I can get out of the grounds before you get to there from any temple. what than?

The fact that cabal members don't need to recapture an item, pre-fifty, is precisely why cabal grounds should be open PK.

Don't like a cabal on top? Rank up and fix that problem. There shouldn't a "Oh, watch me fuck with you, because I'm weak" button.

As far as the latter is concerned, you're right, you could absolutely do that old school and just walk off and on the grounds. But that isn't entirely without risk, where as the other way is. That is precisely the point that Nadrin is making. It shouldn't be without risk. Nothing in this game is or should be.

Personally I liked it when you inducted at 40 and it was actually a gauntlet to get to 50. We don't have the pbase for that anymore so it was a needed change. Regardless of that. If someone is inside your cabal, they should be in there knowing that there are risks to that action. My first pk death EVER was my first day playing AR. Justice cabal was still in Ofcol at the time and I wandered right past the sign exploring (but clearly not reading) The Justice in question came back and instantly killed me and then showed me a few things after he realized I was a total noob.

Cabal grounds are sacred, and Justice players are a different kind of player. I stopped playing Justices because I wanted to be able to kill people who were clearly a problem and needed to be killed. IE the thief who sits in the room clearly stealing from you in town and you can't do anything about. Or the guy who attacks you and then runs to town. As a Justice I hated it so I stopped making them.

If you invade a cabal for any reason. You should be in pk. With the way things are, if you hit the door guard, I feel you shouldn't lose your in range pk flag until your adrenaline wears off. There should be risk, Period. People complained about lowbie vulturing, that still happens btw, people grab a few things, and then run the fuck away. Its super easy to do. I have been on both sides of that. I have killed people who have looted my kills, AND I have gotten away after looting someone else's kills.

You say it's better like it is, but after what you have said in your previous posts it is clear WHY you are saying it. You like the thought of harassing someone and them not being able to do a damn thing about it. And in your case whatever, you will eventually rank up, or delete one of the two. Likely both.

Nadrin... I am one of the most active pker at 50... do you not know any of my chars ever? you really think I am what you just described? I am more often than not, the level 50 getting annoyed by a level 40 invading. I just think that the cabal warfare is pretty good where it is. the issue is with the playerbase and its current overpopulation in one alignment. If you don't want to defend your cabal than don't capture other cabals items. its as simple as that. If said person is after your own item well attacking the inner guardian is a lot different story than attacking the door guardian. I don't think that you should get open pk unless you attack the inner guardian, not the door guardian. too much room for abuse on walking onto the cabal grounds.

I disagree completely. Cabal grounds are ALL marked very well. If someone invades your cabal chances are it is intentional. Cabal warfare states you don't even have to come unless the inner sanctum is violated (means the door guard struck) The path is just an alarm zone and it is fine the way it is, even though there ARE warning signs. but if you invade a cabal you should be flagged for pk. This game is not meant to be super cheesy forgiving. That's why there are areas that if you accidentally wander into them you die. That's why you can teleport into end game mobs and have your items scattered across winter.

I disabled out of range pk in almost all circumstances because it's stupid, newbies were quitting the game over it, and you guys were just killing everyone who stepped on the path instantly if they were underleveled.

I don't understand what you want to change or why. It sounds like you're asking to be able to kill anyone who sets foot on the path again. Do you understand that you're asking for out of range pk? That guy has no chance to survive

and why? That guy has no chance to kill the guardians and take the item if he's that underleveled anyway

Don't generalize. Even with my Legion and Keeper I never murdered a newbie on the path. They always got a warning. When I led Knights, the rule was always "warning first".

I am saying open PK in the cabal grounds. Not on the path. You hit the guardian, it's open, you flee out and it's normal. That draws a fine line. And at level 40, I could kill a guardian with most classes. The interior guard is even easier, as all he does is bash and dirt.

they made the cabal guardians rare holder status so monster potions don't work anymore. they aren't so easy at 40. especially if you have a cabal member sitting there breathing down your neck. it would leave you rather hurt when you finally down it. it's fine the way it is... everything you say in this argument is I want to nuke a lowbie if they attack my cabal. the only time I defend is if my my cabal item is in danger. if a lowbie is going to go at my door guardian for no reason. he'll I'll let him. might check in see how things are going. but if you can't defend. you can't harm. they aren't going after an item why are you sitting there? goes back to what I said. if you don't want to have to sit there and defend captured items. don't capture them. you are literally complaining about people's reaction to situations you created. what do you expect?

Your argument "don't cap items" assumes no war, no level 50s roaming around to fight with. I can do you one better. Dont want to be in a level 50 pk at level 40? Don't invade.

How about this. Sub level 50 pk range, no access to cabal grounds other than your own.

You are literally asking for the ability to be a twat to people outside your pk range, just cause. No only the ability, but also to be able to do so with zero retribution or risk of it.

I think there must be something more worthwhile to spend development effort on.

How about this: Faelon and Nadrin, you have until the end of today to each submit one idea that will make the game more fun and if I can implement one of these ideas in one day I will do it.

But I won't be enabling out of range pk because it is not a net gain. If you get more fun from it someone else gets less fun. It's at best net zero

You know its been so long since I actually played a cabal character or looked a the system. It actually gives me a fresh perspective. I think its stupid that giving a cabal item to a guardian makes it into a level 50 mob. It should be held by a level 30 mob which can actually be killed by a new cabal applicant. Sure then you have the problem of lowbies sometimes retrieving right under the nose of a level 50. But thats better than being the lowbie and feeling useless. Plus, youre looking at that the wrong way anyways. If you cap a cabal items, you're inconveniencing the people who have to come and get it back. Its not an inconvenience for the people who do it, it is rewarded and you can just do it again and be rewarded again (it is cabal points right). Your wasting their time, and theyre feeding you more currency

To be clear, the path is an alarm zone. I don't care about it. But plain and simple if you want to be a douche and fuck with someone because you know they have too respond inside the cabal, you deserve what you get. At this point people who make it into canals know if someone is there to invade or there by mistake.

He'll you don't want to change zones don't. Bring back henchman. Allow cabal members to evict people from their canals with henchman. Something, but when an illusionist puts up dupes invades then goes to sleep inside your cabal while laughing at you something is wrong. I understand pk limitations in the game but there is no rhyme or reason inside your cabal.

Nadrin, again, correct me if I am wrong but it looks like you can get plenty of cabal currency for stealing other cabal items. So you've nothing but profit to gain from someone getting their item back - just capture it again. You can use the currency to kill someone that matters and watch them get chewed out by their OWN cabal for strengthening you. Like I said it would be better if they could actually stand a chance of getting the item back so that (a) you can rinse and repeat and milk for all its worth, and (b) a rule enforcing retrieval would be fair to impose and favorable for the capper.

I'm not opposed to going the opposite direction and lowering the level of the cabal guardian, in favor of a return to forced retrieval for all cabals.

The problem isn't so much that someone wants the ability to whack someone out of range. The problem is that a cabal member has to respond to an invasion, period. So someone out of range can simply run in and out to fuck with someone, with zero concerns of retribution.

Regardless, I'm still going to play. I'm simply tossing my two cents into the hat as for why I think a change may be a good thing.

Nyct:

http://abandonedrealms.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11439

If you'd like my suggestions on where placement could be, I am more than happy to offer it.

My problem is what Faelon said. If someone wants to fuck around, say an uncaballed who cant get to 50 because there is no one to rank with, or who just doesn't want to. He can invade over and over again and each time, I am forced to stop doing what I am doing and go respond. My response is to go stand there and make sure he doesnt get my item, because until he touches a cabal item, my hands are tied. That is the only thing I have a problem with. I do not care about the path, because hey mistakes happen. But if someone is actively invading I should be able to kill them. That is like saying

Hey Im going to go murder all these guys in front of you since you can't stop me to a cop. Meanwhile the cop is standing there watching these people radio in because his gun cant hurt this guy. Not realistic at all, and highly frustrating. I don't want to kill lowbies. It hurts my record to kill someone that much lower than me. But that said it totally breaks my rp and my immersion to stand there and watch someone invade my holy grounds and be impotent to stop him.

Cabal guard should be lvl 30 I agree with dav. And I think to Nycs point Druids are a much better use of time. I thought there was some suggestion I was against months again that was argued to be great because it was "one of the last things and druids are done." Well where they are

sry ottif, a couple of the druid ideas ended up being kind of shitty and it's still in progress so we can get something better

sometimes you can't know until you're halfway through coding it or start play testing

Actually, it will be better received if it is updated WITH druids arrival than in a larger update. Even if its a bad idea. The only reason not to wait is if this really is pissing a lot of people off and can't.

maybe healing the guild guard when you can't fight with it sucks and feels bad

maybe we could use a trap or some other way for the cabal to actively defend without enabling full on lowbie stomping

was just talking to olyn about this, it's kind of a tough idea to form because we tried npc henchmen already and they sucked

maybe you can just yell "release the hounds" or drop a killer bee hive in the room

KILLER BEE HIVE!!!!!!!!

Reviving part of this cabal discussion - cabal funds. The cabal banks are basically useless now that cabal supplies can only be bought with cabal currency. I'd like to see far more ways for the different cabals to earn their currency. Top of my head ideas:

Justices:
Killing certain chaotic mobs
Sacrificing wild weapons (off mobs or PK)
Someone pays off a fine that that Justice had gave them


Knights:
Sacrificing anti_good weapons (off mobs or PK)
Killing certain evil mobs.


Legion:
Sac'ing anti_evil weapons (off mobs or PK)
Killing certain good mobs

allow for conversion of mystic relics into cabal currencies? they are somewhat more difficult to get than warlord medals or Herald chips.

all of your stated sacrifice items are great ideas to me.

knights should get a decent amount of currency when they get someone to oath or when they stun someone off a crusade.
maybe even when they squire too

what about sacrificing gambled eq at a big pit full of lava and when you throw them in it fills a little bit more each time

and you can drain the lava and smelt it into cabal currency

or if the pool fills you can bathe in it to get +1 death

you have to start it up by melting down a rare

keepers can throw rares in instead of gambled and they count for more

I like that idea but from an rp standpoint that really only makes sense for keepers. How about making it different for each cabal? I like the idea of making it difficult enough to require multiple people so that it encourages people to actually stay online longer.

Okay, so requiring pets to have their own rafts. Yes it doesn't really make sense for all of us to be crammed on to a seashell, but this is a detrimental change to classes that go through charmies fairly quickly (illusionist/ranger).

This is a bug that has been reported. I identified a larger mob movement bug a few weeks ago whose fix likely altered mob movement in unexpected ways. We already fixed pets running out of moves. This is the only other related thing that has been identified.

Thank you!

New druid roll out. I know certain people can't ever admit to being wrong but ... Can you just test it privately and open the class to everyone like every other game ever? This roll out makes no sense and kinda makes me lose interest in returning to play the class. Or at least pick someone who plays regularly and can write a decent background, sheesh. 1/3rd into the month and only 15 characters have even logged an hour a day (druid not being one of them......) so far so I really don't think people are dying to interact with this druid guy. the druid is a mystic on page 2 of the pvp rankings too, what exactly are they testing... lol

and it's no shade but it just seems like every single change is to encourage people not to play, or to play less.

I got to agree with that. As much as I like not being purged, this change only encourages people to horde rares and have multiple characters that serve no other purpose than to have a sweet set of armor and never use it than to actually play the game and participate in pk

We're logging this to determine what it 'encourages people to do' with fact-driven data.

ottif:

[quote="ottif"]
New druid roll out. I know certain people can't ever admit to being wrong[/quote]

Did you really have to start your post with a finger-jabbing insult? I'm already not feeling inclined to respond in any sort of constructive way. I can't believe you actually opened with this remark. Terrible.

[quote="ottif"]Can you just test it privately and open the class to everyone like every other game ever? This roll out makes no sense and kinda makes me lose interest in returning to play the class.[/quote]

Well we launched monks and a lot of people were hyped and played, and monks are still going quite strong, but the fact is there was a lot of people complaining the class was too hard to play and that their time was wasted. Then we reworked shadows (fairly major not a "tweak") and people complained they were playing a "beta" of AR. Then we did berserkers and people complained "was this even tested?" Of course its already been tested privately. We can't get enough data that way alone. Every other game ever, is either not giving a shit or they have the resources to hire a large team of playtesters. We don't fall into either of those categories, so there you go, we went with the tried-and-tested vampire method of select a person who will perform in the role decently even if the whole class really sucks. That definitely is NOT 'something for everyone'. Naturally there are always complainers no matter what choice we go with. I feel most comfortable going this way because I don't get overwhelmed with more bugs than I can handle and I've chosen the player who posts the most bugs, actually.

As for your comment about "makes me lose interest in returning to play", you'll get your chance to play one, don't worry about that. It isn't 100% perfect if you hadn't gathered that from everything else I've said so far, and I have no desire to inflict a punishment on you, but if you really want to be involved in this phase of the class, you can apply for a druid the same way apply for a vamp. I will of course first warn you that our playtester had to literally START OVER because we found out treants were completely unplayable.

[quote="ottif"]Or at least pick someone who plays regularly and can write a decent background, sheesh.[/quote]

It is so, so easy to be an armchair spectator. We hear the same shit from people who aren't Justices and need to tell us how to behave as a Justice even though they'd never do it themselves (or want to even try). Fact is, he is trying to understand how to play a brand new class with no assistance. That player has a lot of focus on him because he is a druid, and of course, posts like these are going to be stuff he sees and feels pressure from. Pressure which is completely unnecessary. So maybe you could cut him just a little slack? We all have personal lives to get on with, and the most successful of us, we tend to be a little busier in those lives than the people who you see play AR all day, no offense meant, but if I'm handpicking somebody I'm not basing that pick on how many hours a day they can stay logged in before they delete their piece of shit in a month period. The only thing I can see this sentence adds to your post, is jealousy.


[quote="ottif"]1/3rd into the month and only 15 characters have even logged an hour a day (druid not being one of them......) so far so I really don't think people are dying to interact with this druid guy. the druid is a mystic on page 2 of the pvp rankings too, what exactly are they testing... lol
[/quote]

I've pushed him to go with Mystic because the Mystics having access to the helpfiles enables him to ask questions and edit the druid helpfiles on-the-go, which saves everybody a lot of time and ensures you guys hit the ground running with great helpfiles in the long run. Also this guy isn't really a renown pk'er or anything like that.. he's a roleplayer first and foremost, and that's how we're choosing to introduce the class to the game.. with roleplay. I'm sure there will still be plenty of balance issues left to exploit... isnt that the fun part of having a new class? Really its about just introducing it well and making sure we aren't crashing the game all over the place.

most of them have the resources to hire a team of testers and still don't give a shit

A player complaining about how a new class is being tested. Now I've seen it all. The entitlement complex on this guy is epic.

Actually I was thinking why not allow another tester who's a renown Pker? That way we test both sides of the class. A lot of flame on new classes usually comes from OP skills that shit on people when they roll out and they get looted from it.

Just a suggestion.

LOL.... That is all.

Sorry I couldn't appropriately respond with my last message but it was so hilarious... To think we have people complaining about the way a 'new class is released' is just funny. It's limited to ONE character, one of which is known to report even the minimal amount of bugs. From an outside perspective, this is actually a great way to test a new class.

"OMG HE/SHE MADE A MYSTIC"
As Dav already pointed out, perhaps it has a solid outside reasoning as to why, i.e. fix helpfiles and whatnot as it can as it levels.

"TEST IT OUT ON A PK'ER"
So you want someone who can run around and PK someone, at any time, with "Possible OP" skills? I don't even want to think about the crying endlessly about people died 'unfairly cuz OP'. Good lord the hilarity I would read about every single skill would be so amazing.

"TEST IT PRIVATELY FIST"
We actually did test it privately, checking for bugs and whatnot. However, there is only so much a person can do on a test port. Please tell us all, how amazingly you tested something out. Did you find an error? I can tell you hundreds, of which, I've personally run across on different companies ALPHA'S/BETA'S and whatnot.

"PICK SOMEONE WHO PLAYS ALOT"
We all have personal lives, Mortals and Immortals alike. Crazy to think this shit gets in the way every once and a while. I'd rather have someone, with minimal hours, who calls out EVERY bug they can see, reliably, over someone who puts in a shit ton of hours and doesn't log a damn thing. I have no idea who Dav picked, but that's exactly what I would look for. I have a feeling he went with something along the lines of someone who reports shit. I naturally know, the people who are most prone to complain about everything, are the ones I wouldn't want to test a damn thing, personally. Stuff may not be perfect on release, but we are 100% trying our best to work out all the kinks.

Sorry you all weren't picked. I wasn't either. I should complain more maybe and I might get my way.

I do understand the complaint, I would probably feel a little put out or overlooked myself. Everybody who plays AR is quality. I know there's going to naturally be a little jealousy. Just remember that's why I worked on this for a long time on my own. I'm not the person who removed it from the game. I'm the person who is bringing it back, as well, so watch where you point that anger. I've travelled to multiple countries and read books in my quest to do so and make sure its thematically correct - and fun. So now we're just ironing out some of the huge obvious game-breaking bugs so at the end of the day it isnt just spamming moonbeams and casting 500 hp heals without using the staff at all. :/ "Balance" will come from review beyond that effort, just like how we do it with every other class. There's no reason why not to.

Not long now my friends.

honestly this a better way of doing it instead of making whole sale changes to a class then multiple abuse it and ruin the characters of other people with a clearly unbalanced character

I am in the middle about this. At first I was all for it, but now having interacted with this person, not only do they seem not to interested but they also seem completely clueless. I guess that is the RP?


So we have to wait for a Player to "figure out" how to play a new class without help files before the general population can even try? Also being a Mystic you really think they are going to try to PVP hard and dunk everyone? Is that not what this game is about?

if you prefer I could roll up a pk druid and rape you mercilessly with a completely unbalanced class. If that's what you really want, dude

LOL When was the last time you even pk'd someone? Lets not throw empty threats around :P

Just be patient and watch the narcissism, theyve been gone 9 years and there's really not much long of a wait at this point, or you owuldnt even see a druid in the who list would you

Aryel has helped us catch several bugs so far. We're getting close and this class looks soooooooo fun to play. In other news, the grand mistress seems to have blown up the entire High Tower of Sorcery with an errant spell. What could it all mean?

I think with an 800hp heal I could make it happen tayyah :twisted:

Lol. ^who can't with a 800hp heal? That cost what, 30mana? Hahaha. That dervish too. Ouch.

lemme be as civil as i can be without getting this deleted b/c i think some o ya fucks need to read this

eatmedrinkme cakes suck b/c a char is boosted when a char is boosted they neglect other chars an more importantly their char development and further n more importantly pc encounters

the rewarding feeling massively dwindled b/c mate A creates and immediately asks mate B to rank him this use to happen to me all the time

ya mates need humbling shits way to easy to boost to 50 now and i had somethin up there a while back and its like a buncha deadheads b/c they never developed their char or they all obviously knew each other irl

this n 6 hours deadline is what turns me off b/c u wizzies know just as well as i those who do not wish to be confiscated shall never be confiscated catch them in-game when during 1 of thea 6 30 min intervals somewhere during 28-32 days? was it made for a few select ppl or somethin?

Arunore I like you but I cannot really understand your message. Is the sentiment that levelling should now be more difficult to promote character development? Was it even doing that before? I thought we were all bored of levelling and wanting to skip past it to max level to begin playing the "real game"? Levelling slowly may make a character feel more valuable and discourage deleting to some, but for others we're told its such a turn-off that discourages playing completely. What I often think to myself is actually why not just have the levelling soloable and let people decide if they want help, instead of forcing them to reach out for assistance (not everybody wants the co-op multiplayer experience). There also didn't have to be a group exp multiplier, it could have just been a fixed experience per kill and split between all the available groupmates, instead. It seems like the bonus is what really encourages people to play mindlessly, and maybe also to OOC.. and it seems lazy.. good group composition and good play would then be what make groups better than soloing and that would build strong relationships and cliques. But that would probably ruin the game for some. It seems like worthy of discussing more but I don't think we should just react on this one. I'd say surges and cake is just magnifying the real underlying flaw myself though, but it also makes it last less time. then you hit 50 and you need group comp to do the end game for equipment (which is working well)
I do remember people used good group comps (especially the ones that minimized downtime) before surge but that wasn't really necessary then either, the game has always had the option of face rolling on dark timbers or something with a big vuln like that, and that sort of conscientious play becomes pointless once those mobs are found out. I liked it more when people cared about efficiency, but is it right to bring back in 2017?

It might be fun to make leveling really hard again. You guys might not have noticed but there is something you should really know about this.

Eat Me, Drink Me, regeneration and protection monster pots, and surges are papering over some balance issues we have in the low and mid levels right now. I don't think it would be wise to suddenly make leveling hard again, because it would expose a lot of serious issues with niche PK. I think it would not be very fun if we reverted some of those changes now.

You should also know that as the amount of character investment increases, the amount of damage a PK does to a player increases a great deal. Right now if you get killed at level 35 or 40 it's not really all that big a deal. If it was like old times again and took groups of 3 some hard core keyboard pounding to get to 50, it would take a lot longer to get to 35 or 40 and the PKs that happen there would mean a lot more. Since we have fewer players now, there won't be as much of a chance for you guys to gain PK skill at level 15 or 25 as there was when leveling was hard. Newbies are going to get to the 30s and then get mercilessly pk'd.

If this is something you guys think is a problem and we decide to tackle it, we'll have to put it on the road map and make gradual changes to make ranking more difficult again.

I can tell you what though, I would have more fun myself if it was a lot harder to level.

There are some mitigating factors that make it not so bad, like pets being able to freely group and invokers being able to sustain. Those changes take a lot of the edge off leveling the most difficult classes. It might be fun to see that matter more than surges and cakes.

if we make a change we should sync it with druids opening so the druids all have the tough gauntlet

i just meant the cakes and drinks the surges n pots are good. the cakes n drinks is how ppl get blasted to pinnacle at least with the other methods there is still a window of "oh just a few more lvls!' and it always seemed weird to me shrinkin lvls to help others out isnt that in itself breaking some fourth wall in the realm of Thera?

but lemme tell u i agree dont change it just b/c im flappin my gums, but lemme also say this. I use to be one to delete over first death but i grew out of it, i thi k its the person making the choice influenced by rng

to me the quick 50 with cakes is like a finish without the race, like what even is the point if ur just going to burn thru chars all the time but if thats what ppl want have at it mates ;<

If the player base gets decent i wouldn't mind making it more difficult. It would suck for me if you log in and see 1 player online, nobody to rank with then you log out. You wait a week and oh, finally a group. Then because it is more difficult you rank 8 levels. Then oh shit. Back to 1 week of waiting and hoping.

Most race class combos can solo rank without monster pots. It sucks ballz but you can do it.

I think the ranking issue is this: because people are so used to getting 1200xp per kill in groups of three with rewards/surges, they use that as their baseline and assume the 80-200xp per kill grind is not worth their time whether it's solo or with one other group member.

Removing monster pots and potions/cakes would be an easy A/B test. It would not be too difficult and I would say not harmful to do two weeks on, two weeks off of monster pots and cakes. If anything clerics would get a boost from off-potion weeks.

Personally I think the monster potions are good and fine. Eventually you just run into mobs that hit way to hard and you're going to need some sort of aura/healing if you are solo ranking(especially depending on your race/class). I've always felt pretty MEH about the cakes and potions. While I haven't completely solo leveled a class, I have gotten it solo to 42 more then quick enough to group with the 50's.

I've never liked the eat me/drink me stuff. The only benefit I see from it is when someone like a helpful mystic lowering levels to help a newbie do some leveling or showing them areas to grab some common equipment. I've seen Goron/Varliv do this alot before.

Other then that I think it encourages alot of bullshit OOC perma-groups. Don't need to be an Imm to see which people are perma-grouped. Also it really accelerates the ranking a bit too much, people getting to 50 in less then 10 hours is just pretty retarded. I think that definitely is one of the reasons the turnover at level 50 is so high and the fact alot of people don't really care about their characters, as they can easily just flip and rank another one.

With the monster pots, learning boosts, you can really adequately solo train/rank a very decent character with almost all popular race/class combos quite easily. You reach a very decently trained character at the end, and it is still really fast imo.

You can argue that newbies get a bit more margin of error pking at 50, being more balanced and having just more health but I think it really deters people from improving when they get spanked by a couple of vets in 5 rounds when they haven't even learned how to use half their skills appropriately.

this is just a silly conversation to me. it benefits absolutely no one. this change will not make anyone's game play any better but will hinder some... so you want to make a change that doesn't do good. but bad. I don't understand that's all. this won't make.me want to hold onto my characters longer I gaurantee. but it will make me less and less likely to roll another when I do delete, the harder it gets to level

The game is pointless below level 50.

All the content is catered for the end-game.

The only thing you can do on 25 is train and have overly unbalanced PK experience.

I absolutely loathe the idea of grinding exp in this game, simply because it SHOULD NOT be about levels, but the RP and PK.

I don't see anything wrong about blasting to 50 in less than 10 hours. 10 hours is still a lot of time to spend from your REAL LIFE, hours that you never get back in your life. Ten hours simply to do something utterly mindless, like killing same mobs over and over again.

Exping should NOT be the focus of the game, AT ALL.

--------

RP is what makes this otherwise "average" (when it comes to countless of other ROM derivations) mud stand out/be playable in the first place.

Levelling with the current playerbase is a nuisance. It stops a lot of people from rolling more interesting chars. Even if they are a flash in the pan and don't work out as planned, then at least hey, people can try different ideas/approaches as they develop their RP.


TL;DR In a RP-enforced, PK-focused mud, levelling should be the least of priorities when DEVELOPING a char. RP should be developing your char, not endlessly killing same mobs over and over again.

Can we create a vote to just ban vinther

all it takes is one vote and you just made it

ranix' new pet Ozaru lol.

You two deserve each other. Hypocrite fucks.

Ozaru got DENIED for busted multiplay just recently and it's ok for him to play, but not ok for someone else to play.

And you say it's not personal nor favoritism lol.

I'm just gonna spend some rl money to get this server DDOSed 24/7 until ranix is banned.

Enjoy. RIP

Not that it matters, but I have openly admitted to what I did and never denied it. Yes I used a cell phone to create a char and rank my main. What I did not do is rank an illusionist and monk to level 50, get a bunch of rares, auction them for 10 minutes then log in with Duneran a level 25 fire warrior and buy them all. But yes Ranix and I do love each other I am sorry you are jealous of our relationship. No soup for you

i think the point here is if ozaru can be rehabilitated anyone can. give vinther some time

The auto-mania is terrible... It honestly makes me not want to play a berserker... All of a sudden losing the ability to relax (and therefore not able to flee, quaff a potion, anything) is too detrimental. You're already rolling the dice on relax working when you want it to, any chance this can get changed?

Yeah, I guess that one can be chalked up to venting. From an RP standpoint it makes sense too, you lose your shit when something doesn't go your way so you enter mania.

you went mania on the forums dude

I've been back for a bit now and I just ran into something that is anti-fun.

The guy in Darkhaven who sells wild weapons now requires relics instead of gold. It seems way harder to get relics than it is to get gold, and if I recall correctly, the idea of these weapons was to provide someone with decent weapons rather easily.

My guy is up there for levels and I've done training, leveling, killing mobs for rares, questing, etc and I have a whole 2 relics. Why does this thing even sell items at level 40 or 45 when you have to be able to kill a mob with level 50 rares in order to get the weapons?

I'm sure that there have been some changes elsewhere tied to this that I just don't know about, but as soon as I found this out I was really disappointed and thought immediately "well that is anti-fun".

Kalist, I am not sure why you are killing level 50 mobs for that, because you can get enough relics from doing the most brainless of quests, cant you? Since you asked why, I think we decided the wild weapons weren't part of the easy to reach chaotic gear arrangement anymore. its caused an overpopulation. If we're talking about the weapons we think we are. I've also got a decent argument for why those weapons should be on sale in Valour to lightwalkers only. Maybe the mob defects to the knights at some point, and then our answer to that same complaint will be sac requested equipment to help re-circulate it

Idk, the relics helpfile says to kill the level 50 eq mobs or do quests. I have done a bunch of quests and again, 2 relics total. There might be some quests that give a pile of relics but I don't know them. I'm sure I will have lots of relics when I am level 50 but then I will probably have better weapons than the wild ones. It would have been nice to get those to help get the better ones..

I will make an effort to figure out more quests but would have had a lot more fun buying some weapons and fighting some stuff. Maybe that's just me though.

I think those weapons have always been intended for a quick equip for a lvl 50 after a full loot, not necessarily as a handout. As you pointed out, they're a bit of an investment for an up and comer, and that feels right to me too. Note that there are daily repeatable quests on the Herald Boards to keep relics stocked if you've already completed all of your quests until you can kill endgame mobs. I'm not sure there's a need to increase relic farming potential for sub-50 characters beyond increasing the quest rewards from 5 relics per quest instead of 2, which sounds appropriate to me.

For an average level 40-45 schlub, elemental canyon weapons seem like a good fit to start up. I would find it hard to believe that a lvl 40 character cannot easily find and obtain avg 22 rare weapons in guild issue with fiery daggers or an earthen mace. No offense, but this feels like laziness.

How did Kalist get to 50 while doing quests and only have 2 relics?

A couple things, first, I don't think its every quest, when I do them, it feels like maybe half, alot of them grant experience and not relics. This is also the shittiest and slowest way to grind them. Using the drink me pots while leveling with people is a very quick way to get relics. You don't have to be 50 to use them, but the higher the people you are helping the more relics you receive. Another way is to kill someone who has rares and sacrifice them for 30 to 50 relics per (this only works if you are not in a cabal as sacrificing said rares will grant you your specific cabal currency) Than the age old adage of killing the "bosses" for relics.

Now that that is out of the way, I would like to just point out that for Kalist, this would seem kind of like a dick in the face, he wasn't around for the two intermediate attempts at balancing them which ultimately led to the situation we are in now. You see Kalist, the simple go and buy them for a few thousand gold seemed like it was just a hand out, which to me, I get it, kind of feels that way too. So they tried this way where you bought a "wild weapon" and true to its nature you got a random one, it was cheaper but man did it fucking suck. As a shaman I remember buying a dozen and getting all axes and swords. So that caused a bunch of stink which made them go back to the drawing board which ultimately led them to where it is now.

I personally like the idea behind the relics, It makes them more difficult to acquire which suites them as they are rare strength weapons, easily purchasable. It does have its down sides as you are facing right now, but it really is only temporary and seems to only affect a very small window of folks, as you'll level up, get relics and have them all readily available to you shortly anyways and they can be what they are intended for, a quick re-armor after being full looted.

Thanks for explanation Tayyah.

I don't know a lot about questing anymore and have just done some pretty basic stuff (sewers stuff, gnome prisoners, guy north of Timaran, etc). Last time I did a long/complex quest I died at the end, so I haven't sought out questing much (didn't know a herald board was a thing).

I felt like my comment was more of 'it seemed a lot easier/better the way it used to be' but if that comes across as lazy, I won't argue against that.

I wasn't trying to kick up a huge fuss or melt the world down. I just ran into a brick wall that stopped my fun in it's tracks and thought I'd point out something that was anti-fun (I thought that was the point of this thread).

I didn't realize there were so many attempts at changing the whole wild-weapon shopkeeper thing and that this was the best solution. I'll go back to sitting in my corner quietly. Don't mind me.

I think you should get relics for ranking with people regardless of whether or not you're caked

Yep, to me this sounds like we just need more ways to earn relics.

I would like to just point out that for Kalist, this would seem kind of like a dick in the face

ehem and whats so wrong with that??? hrimoyan amirite

Kalist, don't let my response on the Darkhaven weapons discourage you from giving us more feedback. We are always interested in hearing from players, old and new. If I came across as a dick there, I apologize. For my part, I didn't do a good job of laying out where we're coming from with the changes made to those weapons. As Tayyah pointed out, there were a couple of missteps as we worked on correcting the lack of investment in obtaining those weapons. The current iteration, which I'm really happy with, is the developing black market in Serin. The smugglers are openly mocking the Mystics by adopting their relics as the de facto currency of the underground. An important thing to note here is that other players cannot loot your cabal currency, so your efforts here are not lost on death the way gold and eq tends to be. Your post highlighted an issue that a lvl 40ish dude who's done a handful of quests currently cannot afford even one of these weapons, and that's my real concern here. It's going to get fixed as a direct result of your post.

As an example of relics being awarded, I just checked a random boss mob and found that you get 300 relics for killing Schwartzer. Obviously that's a job for a level 50, but it does highlight the problem that killing Schwartzer is equivalent to completing 150 quests at 2 relics a piece and that's ridiculous. Granted, the quests give nice xp if you do them at the appropriate levels and raising the relic reward of these quests to 10 feels right to me. This means a solo 50 can play it safe and repeat 5 easy quests on the Herald Board for a total of 50 relics a day or take on more risk to bring down a big baddie for a bigger score.

Again, sorry if I put you off with my response. As a builder/developer, it's easy to read a forum post or bug report and extract the information I need to improve the game without conveying that the player who posted just improved the game, too. As for the lazy comment, I was just picturing a character lining up at the Darkhaven welfare office for a savage weapon handout instead of killing Sorrow or the giant mercenary for the rare equivalent that's always available.

Other side of this, if you need decent weapons, there is always the armorer in platforms who sells ave 22 weapons that fit in your sack!

Thanks for the feedback Olyn. I didn't take your comment personally because I understand you guys have a ton to do and are super busy and my initial post may have looked more like whining than pointing out something anti-fun. Thanks for taking the level 40ish access to these weapons into consideration.

I appreciate the work you guys put into AR and will keep providing comments/suggestions - feel free to call me an idiot if they are dumb though, I can take it.

I feel that sneak/hide has been nerfed too much in the name of realism. I know that fighting against a rogue sucks, but it's fun as hell to play one.

Must have missed if this was in patch notes, or a change, but I am missing DPR being in the GROUP command. Instead it now has kill count?

Kornhole, I understand your concern, I'm just asking you to please give that DPR to kills change a bit of time. I think it'll grow on you. Perhaps we could just use the training dummy to check damage.

What was the point of total kills?

last hit talk shit, brag hard get pk'd

Redhorne Mountain, wtf guys, those soldiers outside the main gate are leaving their post and wandering around. This place is bad enough and pain to get into, but more soldiers respawning and wandering in to attack is miserable.

Humbly requesting the Jotun Soldiers stay in their guard post and you add a secret door/shortcut to the red dragon there.

Wyvern tower, the portal there took me somewhere new, can we change that back to the tower entrance? It is not the worst shortcut, but if it is going to change, can we get a short list of random locations?

Hahahahahahahhahahaha

I heard rumor the guards were reminded/remanded to guard their post. Thank you Resatimm.

This new warlord medals change is crap. And whoever's idea it was

what warlord medals change?

he's referring to some efforts to curb scripting which are necessary because easy training leads to quick deletes

I dislike this change that us all.

its an evolving situation is my point. just watch and comment toward next update

medals gain is 99% perfect now. probably even 99.9%. apologies for the bumpy ride. i made some vicious cuts to stop exploit and olyn/vanisse healed it for normal use cases. it feels very fair from my own testing.

So. Is three months time? The D P R change to kills (in group command output) Did not grow on me at all. It actually makes me more mad each time I look at my group output, I have found myself using other commands to get the other information there......SCORE, just for a HP check!?!?!?!? Fuck "kills"! Also, I thought we don't ninja change, but no one told me that they were taking tenacity out of NOEXP. I ABHOR this change. If you liked where levelling was at, you just FUXED it imo. Now 36 - 50 means OOC, wait forever for a sanc'er, or gl hf c u in a month or so. Sorry, exaggeration, but the point stands. I don't know if the difference in price is supposed to make people have a much harder time gaining? Sorry, I should have split these topics, and thought about each, and not posted high, AGAIN!

The noexp losing tenacity thing also fucks me in the regard of making gold. And I do not like the "go and get some shit and sell it" approach. Also, if I am not gambling, the shoppies always run out of gold. I am not a gear mule. And what if I want to play a low str char, then it works for me even less. I much prefer to kill the shit out of some shit so that I can loot its coins.

So... You are making changes in response to people scripting (not against the rules) Making it much more difficult for players who don't run scripts. How does this make any sense at all?

"he's referring to some efforts to curb scripting which are necessary because easy training leads to quick deletes"

This fucking pisses me right off. Again, Scripting is not against the rules, why do you asshats continuously try to force me to play your way, I won't at all. I will play my way, or I won't play at all. No crappy stealth change that you make to try to coerce me to play your way will ever work. You could make it take 1000 hours to level to 50 and have it so that no skills will go passed 75% unless you play for 500 hours first, I will still delete on my first death. Fuck off with these changes to try to make those of us who enjoy flash in the pans, play your way.

What about ofcol though

you know, maybe you guys just need an idea of making gold. its not as difficult as you think it is. Not at all. Youre welcome to play however you want of course. I just dont see me playing a game where you can get rushed from level 35 to 50 in 40 minutes. AR levelling shouldnt feel like a stupid d2 rush. That is some carebear shit. Just get pushed right through the gauntlet without having to worry about anyone nuking your ass. also, tenacity gold my ass. in my day we used to turn autosplit off and give people the middle finger

wow, it has been that long since your day!

So boiling down your response....Yes I did make this change and not announce, it, no I dont give a fuck that you ABHOR it, fuck you for not liking my way of getting gold, and yes, fuck your way of making gold so you can level. If I was looking for "carebear" shit, I would not be complaining that I find it MUCH more difficult and disinteresting to gain enough gold for ....... my supplies to rank myself?!?!? Imma stop since I'm a bit heated, I will organize my thoughts, and try again, although I am certain the response will be similar, if not the same.

Also, change DPR to kills still sucks a lot, DPR was a tool I loved for tracking my numbers, but, oh well, it doesnt matter what I like. Also, both of these changes didnt hit logs so we wouldnt even know, until we notice sacred parts of our gameplay are missing?! Nice!

Its more like, I literally dont know what the fuck it is you are complaining about. You said you wanted to get gold by killing shit. Then do it? kill ofcol shopkeepers? Kill harpies? Kill butlers in mansion? Kill mummies in keep of d'al kaddar? All of these are solid choices for gold, and 3 out of 4 are easily scripted pre-level 35. What is the problem Kornhole? Are you trying to level over level 36 and finding the mobs that give you exp dont drop enough gold to sustain the potions

I've added DPR onto the scarecrows and training dummys. there is a training dummy in mudschool which can be entered at any level via the miden'nir cave. This means you have several ways to see your raw damage any time you want to.

Thank you very much Davairus. Both those last posts were very helpful. Yes, I find this to be very true 36-50, I find the gold needed to solo or duo (unless you are a certain class, or classes, I would venture to say less than half) very unsustainable. I have gained a lot of experience on a lot of characters over a lot of years, and "in my day" there were far more available groupmates, and noobs to steamroll who forgot how to use the bank, but that is not the point. I think moreover I was butthurt that these seemed like very significant changes, that were attempted to be implemented with no announcement. I am over it, thanks for the tip on DPR, and I will learn to gold.

Yeah, the next tier of potions is 5 times more expensive. I would hazard a guess they'd feel a lot more reasonable at half the price

You already get a discount on those potions with overlord favor buff active, btw.

If you can script you can figure out DPR. Regardless I don't understand the concern for it. Is it really that hard to tell?

I think those changes are good for character interaction. The gods forbid you have to sell things for gold.

"I am not a gear mule." Try being one for a while. Your cabal will thank you and opponents will hate you. Again, character interaction.

Potion relief has arrived

1) I've reduced the expensive monster potion costs by 25%.

2) I've also enabled your character reputations to lower the costs in stores further. The reputation I mentioned applies to whatever area you are in, so if you are shopping in Seringale it will check your Seringale reputation. The better the reputation, the bigger the discount.

3) I've made buying Ming's glorious prize (100 relics) increase your Timaran reputation by 100, and completing the Jemira quest increase your reputation with Timaran by 1000. It is rather easy to get at least a friendly reputation with Timaran. Thats an additional 5% discount on all stores in Timaran. So, if all you did was the elemental canyon quest, these expensive monster potions are already 30% cheaper, and you can work it down even lower if you sacrifice relics for that (100 relics for 100 rep won't feel so ridiculous once the smuggler is back on gold again).

4) the bard song "let it be known" increases the bard reputation and this now applies a decent discount to all stores instead of just being an invisible haggle buff.

This all stacks with the overlord buff. All this stuff will be presented again in the patch note so dont worry about having to keep up with the whole forums, notes etc. Its just an early advance notice and I'm not going to delay until a patch when its hurting you right now

Good change I think.

Is reputation something you have to upkeep? That is, does it decay over time if you don't do things to keep it propped up? Or once you do something to raise your rep it stays there?

As far as I know, reputation stays. Ways to lower it (like killing guild guardians) could be added

Oh, I like that. Give people a little bit of pause before invading with no Justice around. But what about all the other cities that don't even have guild guardians? Invading cabals associated with that city should lower rep too.

Higher rep could give better task rewards.

Maybe exclusive items for high rep people.

Maybe the suburbs could have some fringe benefits too.

Lots of possibilities here, I like it.

maybe start a thread for reputation xerties. i can only think of lowering reputation by killing the towns guards atm

I am not sure when this "bug fix" was done, but for a time you could give a weapon to the trainee in your guild and they would give you their weapon' in return.

I told someone this a while back and it stopped working.

This was a bug because at low level you could trade a goblin weapon for nice upgrade, but I like you could get the weapon without killing someone from your guild.

Could we update the guild trainees in Seringdale so like after level 15 they will swap with you? The weapons become obsolete shortly after the low levels.

Preface this with I absolutely love the Arachnid updates overall. However, the Donjonkeeper which held the blue potion and could be summoned for the last couple decades no longer exists, and the unicorn that has the blue potion now can't be. Could a blue potion be added to someone that can be summoned, also?

is that different than the queen spider blue potion kento? I didn't mean to remove a potion

It is the exact same potion, just got removed from a summonable mob and put on an unsummonable mob the unicorn, I think, if we could find some way to get that back on a summonable mob.

What in the FUCKALL happened to cabal warfare??!?!?!? Shopkeepers now hold the captured items????? Because of the same shit that has been going on forever, but enough drama revolved around one instance of it happening????

Giving dirt kick to mobs used for levelling that ALSO have a lag move is terrible. At least hold off until we have a constant pbase over 25. Mid-high level grinding is difficult alone or even with two.

This is a few years late so maybe more of a wishlist item, but I think favored weapon should either no longer depend on lore or lore should be significantly easier to train.

I think shrunken heads need balanced. The stats they provide are completely incomparable to anything in the game. Very very strong. Also preventing combat styles is insane. It is particularly bad for monks who rely on it to activate stances.

Ham, isn't weapon ward the same for neutral combat styles?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought weapon ward only did weapon type, not combat style. Just checked the helpfile and it appears to agree with me?

I was about to ask if combat style mattered against shamans when I remembered what Hamsandwich just mentioned: monks rely on superior combat style to make full use of their stances. Also, it stops Warlords from doing things like the swirling sandstorm in combat (which is a "free" dirt kick done without lagging basically).

In conclusion, I have to agree that preventing combat styles is over the top.

There are ways around it, you.just have to be ready to capitalize.

Post removed for discussion of cabal skills. Here is the rest of what BlackWidow said:

I was about to ask if combat style mattered against shamans when I remembered what Hamsandwich just mentioned: monks rely on superior combat style to make full use of their stances. 



In conclusion, I have to agree that preventing combat styles is over the top.

Whoops, sorry. My point was that I agreed with Hamsandwich regarding combat style negation being too OP.

Definitely don't like:

Elf eradication paladin not getting dagger and hunt evil.

The whole idea I assume to give something extra/different to Elf was because who the fuck ever would play elf paladin.

But now 2 of the strongest skills are only for vengeance.

(Yes, dagger is a strong weaponskill for paladin because of nice daggers available and it's best dual wield weapon and hunt evil is just great with removal of golden road)

I would just like to reiterate that shrunken head negating combat style is over the top. I'll offer an additional perspective though in that it makes fighting a shaman even less fun than it already was. As a warrior class or monk, essentially forced to skirmish them, which is not the most fun way to play the game, and it's easy for them to play around it. Shield disarm would just be a waste. Haven't trie it against the head, but it probably has a negative effect. Plus most shamans keep prsh up, which means you can't kick dirt in their eyes before landing the shield disarm. So your time is wasted more or less.

Also don't like that Dark Knights don't have dual parry, but pallies do. Please take back cure light and give DK dual parry instead. Brand of Ilythir will still work on Drow... like an extra defense. But they're feeling a bit left out in the dust right now.

Just out of curiosity, does crane kick work on the shrunken heads (shield)?

I believe if you keep doing combat skills into the head, it will explode. :twisted:

Lion protective shield doesn't protect against dirt fyi. It stops things like bashing and arrows.

I think some pushback against headshrinking is understandable. Shamans are a very good class, which is primarily because they are loaded up with disabling spells and solid healing. However they went from being a crippled class. So I'd recalibrate your expectations of what fighting a shaman is like. That doesn't mean we are finished but I think there is going to be a sort of "stages of grief" over shamans not being an opponent you can just overwhelm easily with barrage, hobbles and tons of free concentrate damage anymore. The bread and butter of fighting shamans is same as always. Also we have a bunch of very experienced players on shamans at the moment. It'll swing.

DKNs feel gimped with the change to abyssal bulwark for the fact that is is a 'shroud' type and thus has no AC associated with it. This allows much more powerful hits to land, draining it faster than if you simply never used it. Even if you have 1 mark to abyssal bulwark, you're gonna get smashed into the HP part as well since it doesn't pop like an invoker's shield. Cure light is ok, but it is not sustainable either way. I'd say remove abyssal bulwark and return vamp touch. I'd much rather have the AC and health on my char than a shroud that really is only useful in the very beginning of a fight due to the 100 free 'HP' at level 50.

I get where you and the Imms are coming from, Dav. You guys gotta care for / balance 16 classes, and when there are skilled PKers sitting behind a class that just got a buff it really shows. I'm definitely not arguing for a full overhaul here, as the shrunken head is a nice flavor. But the fact that a shaman now can negate most combat abilities coming at them and continuously heal themselves while bludgeoning you to death (because you're wearing your saves gear and they're rocking 40+ hit-dam) seems like a bit much.

getting owned by skills isnt shamans department. You are looking for the mage department, to the left. Dispel magic. Be sure to stop by and browsw the gap closing team. Shouldnt be hard to find, just look for the big group of failed shamans outside it complaining they couldnt sleep ticks because of shadow lance

Does anyone other than me not understand what Dav was trying to say ^^

- Wearing the severed head as shield prevents weapon or combat disadvantage.
This is from the patch notes.

Weapon ward was taken away from Clerics for balance or whatever reasons, and the primary function of weapon ward (aside from blocking disarm attempts, etc) is to prevent weapon style disadvantages which impacts parry chance greatly. Weapon ward requires upkeep at least, so how does it make sense that shamans now get a permanent weapon ward that also blocks a variety of skills from across multiple classes?

Don't forget it also adds more AC and saves than any shield in the game. By a significant margin. Also remember it deals damage to your opponent if they do anything to it.

And Merlandox I am with you. Not sure what he meant. I think maybe he meant dispel magic and shadow spear are more complain worthy than shrunken heads?

Ok here's a thought. If you think sidestep is ineffective vs a shaman, you should go try that on a prepared warrior with 50-60 damroll and its bash mastered. All I ever see thieves doing vs warriors is blackjacks and then pissing their pants as they run off with a sack of worthless trash. The point is your class doesn't own every other class, some are good matchups and some are not, and you can pick races (or specs) to further refine that.

How about inspiring presence (or all of the presences) don't give their benefit to the paladin itself? Instead it affects only their groupmates.

Do they really need 6 extra damroll, with no cooldown, no cost, and infinite duration?

The paladin having the effect doesn't strike me as particularly gratuitous, hamsamwich, I wonder if there is something else you are trying to get at? What I'm actually concerned about is that we are stacking inspiring presence upon similar effects (presences/berserk/frenzy/battle hymn and, in the eradicator spec, errantry). I could definitely be persuaded that stacking any of those affects is too overboard. Divine sacrifice (eradicator spec) +10 damroll is one that seems to turn a paladin from being pretty douchey into pretty nasty.

That's what I was getting at Dav. +6 damroll all by itself isn't too crazy. But we all know that paladins have insane high damroll and do shit loads of damage. So if you don't want to nerf errantry, or divine sacrifice, or fencing, or whatever the hell other dozen things, then take away that. It's at least something.
No other class gets 6 damroll for free on no cooldown and infinite duration.

Plus, they're inspiring themselves? That seems silly.

I don't know. I'm not going to sit here and say my idea is awesome. It's a boring idea lol. But it's a new idea, so I thought I'd voice it so others can bounce it around in their heads and decide how worthless it is/isn't

We'll need to focus on addressing the root of the complaint which is increasing challenge for the eradication paladin spec. That offering is a band-aid which nerfs all the other paladins specs. More ideas toward eradication paladin is what we need.

This change to the auction house is pretty much the end of a large part of my use for it. I dont need to buy stuff off the AH at level 50 and from 42 to 50 I'm not worrying about eq. I'm just worried about how quickly I can get through the gauntlet. Than. I'm into exploring for EQ and or pking. Than getting eq. Afterwards I want to sell on the AH preferably to a low level dude who keeps it away from my enemy.

What I like to do as far as purchasing. I like to buy cheap rares at low levels to help level up.

I'd like to point out that the very system you have setup. With most Cabals having you wait at level 25... You are punishing people for going along with the system? I know There is dickheads who horde. But honestly... I've never once seen the rare circulation an issue. I didnt even notice that dude who had 20 characters hording until it was brought up here.

If someone is cheating... than rules are being broken and than that's easy to deal with... if no one is cheating than, why are we all being punished? Because we are not playing a certain way?

I mean isn't it just bladefurry buying all the rares from his friends then dying anyway? what is the big deal?

There is no punishment here. I've just chosen to make the auction house respect the PK ranges. You guys know why we have PK ranges.

I agree with the change 100%. It's utter garbage to see people sitting at 25 with full sets of rares. It was abusive to the point that they had uniques and we're tying up even basic rare weapons from level 50's. Before the last rare purge it was a HUGE issue because you couldn't get something as mundane as a thin bladed axe or a skull headed mace etc. Since the purge it has been better because literally everything returned, but you still see one or two kitted out in full dragon scale or other top tier things which hugely unbalances the lower levels.

Well lets be realistic. Some disappointment is understandable. We would never have been in this auction house mess if I had just thought it through well enough in the first place. If I could go back to day 1 this is exactly what i would build.

The AH is just a middle man that can be removed from the sale.

Make unique stuff enchantable again please.

It creates an effect where greedy people would blow up their weapons re-releasing them into the game and also a lot of unique weapons become borderline shit right now because 0 hit/0 dam making them outperformed by rares that can be enchanted to 5/5 easily.

If you have 5 to 40 damage unique with +0/0
or 4 to 38 damage rare with +5/5 then obviously the rare is better in first place.

Engraving is one thing but enchanting really needs to still work imo

Not sure why you make changes the same day the complaint is made, obviously you put zero thought into it. The lag from weapon changing is a retarded idea, it is super clunky. Can we have this reverted? No one asked for this

agreed, combat should be fluid, smooth.

makes you feel like you are lagging is no fun gameplay

its not a knee jerk to ozaru. Its just you guys exposed the scripts on the logboard, and we've already talked about what follows when people dump a bunch of scripts. code arrives to mitigate everybody installing them.

I give it the same lag as there already is for just moving rooms, which factors in the time required for a human to type 4 letters. Otherwise, everybody would be forced to move around with numpads and have the realm totally memorized. literally dont care if you use macros. but its something we need to have in place to factor in typing time so we dont now all *have* to use macros just because a macro list was dumped

if you dont like it, cool you have an opinion thats fine, but you shouldnt have exposed your macros.

anyway i'm surveying and I dont hear exactly a huge outcry

WARLORD] Davairus: 'Sorry I got a bit distracted.  Are you liking the lag? Not giving a shit about it?'

[WARLORD] (Proven) Shaghroth: 'It makes no difference to me, I still can juggle weapons.'

[WARLORD] (Proven) Shaghroth: 'I can see the slight delay but it's not a big thing.'

so...yeah

truthfully, i can write a PK bot to conquer all manual play by just push button and let the script figure out what to wear/attack moves and i can make a second key cause it to hobble right after wield and i will beat all your macros, while i just sit back and keep a bored eye on how many ticks are left on your purple so i can stick the trip in while your brain is occupied with trying to wear correct weapons, which i wont be thinking about, i'll just be thinking about whatever piece of eq i'm looting first. and whether wearing a weapon lags for 1 pulse or not wont make a bit of difference to that 100% chance of deleting after that script has terminated you

yeah well, pretty sure everyone competent has used aliases for weapon wielding, dual wielding, shield wearing. I don't call them macros, because the word doesn't seem to fit when it's really just the same aliases you can make ingame or use any mud client to work with.

They are different from triggers/actions. They are just aliases. Perhaps add a delay to "hold recall;quaff recall" also because its being used plenty and Ozaru himself is one of the most notorious users of that alias?

There's a lot of shit you can use alias 1|alias 2/alias1;alias 2 with that speeds up the process of manual typing.

Just like I would assume any shaman would have alias to wear male-break ring I would expect fighter class to have alias to wield sword...

None of this makes sense, but whatever, not my call. Just voicing my opinion because i dont like lag.

Also, I assume that indeed for a serker who with enough hitroll has ZERO need to care about weapon/combat advantage swapping and can just dual wield rage win it wont really matter much or make a difference :P

Clunky laggy combat is the worst for classes that actually are super-reliant on combat styles.

whats "smooth" about being unable to type your commands out properly because your hands are shaking too much from adrenaline? that is why you are using macros. only reason why your ass ends up sitting waiting to do commands is because you arent actually typing them. PERIOD

i can type 100 wpm. thats 500 ish keystrokes in 60 seconds, 8 characters per second, 2 characters per pulse, plus i have to press enter. you fucks aliased it to just pressing "1". so that means that your macro is like typing 200 wpm manual typing. thats guiness world record speed. the pulse lag is completely reasonable

according to your argument, all aliases have an unfair advantage. Having 1 letter alias for cast hellstream target should also be punished then?

Hold recall, quaff recall. I typod trying to type this right now more than i'd typo wield sword, dual dagger, where's the pulse lag on that?

Why mess with something that has been used for years and was literally not an issue. Coulda just brought back the after-delay of weapon/combat style effect to prevent from pretyping dual dagger and hobble in the same 2 seconds? You removed it to make combat more fluid, fast etc.


All of this makes as much sense as a 16 dex fire giant shaman having exactly the same chance to proc 2nd attack as 22 dex warrior. Somebody is taking an underdog class and making it work and suddenly it's only way to beat better performing classes (with speed and actual skill, not with an alias that everyone can make ingame) has to be nerfed because it should not work and everyone should play paladins, serkers and DKs because they are all superior to begin with thanks to the recent buffs?

to quote your examples, hellstreams and quaffing potions both do significant lag already, needing no explanation

Also, take a look at the graveyard and try to find 1 warrior with positive K/D ratio that's not Thoom (pimp giant that can cheese bash and brute force) over the last couple of years? I can't remember/find any.

And I assure you everyone of them who even tried to PK competitively has been using aliases for weapon wielding. Did it make such a huge difference? Obviously not because the game is dominated by other classes.

Don't think we can ever agree on anything so i'll just leave it at that.

hold potion, quaff potion has no lag, just like wield sword dual dagger had no lag

wrong on both counts:
(A) quaffing potions has always had a 1.5 seconds lag from doing that
(B) dual wielding had a pulse lag BEFORE this patch which i just REMOVED today for daggers and quick wield skills. so if you want a revert guess what? its going to literally get worse.
do your homework before arguing with me

So just remove aliases and triggers period. That's the fucking response. Remove them then if they are a fucking issue. Derrrr let's ask someone who doesn't need to switch weapons if switching weapons is an issue. Are you fucking serious??? WOW. Good fucking investigating boss. Sometimes you make the most assinine comments

General

* added minor weapon/held wear lags for in-combat only. goal is to help everybody keep up with alias use in combat vs human typing

Okay. This is what you put. Link to me where the discussion is had other then ozaru bitching. There isn.t this is a knee jerk reaction and you know it

To get more than tayyah and twerp's voices into this, it feels like overkill. Part of the fun of rolling a warrior are those split-second victories where you nail combat style advantage and dirt/hobble/bash, then reap the rewards. Slowing that down literally un-funs these classes, and I'm sure that's not what anyone was looking for.

Also, I saw the exchange of aliases as one of the healthiest and well-meaning exchanges I've seen on the logboards in months. It's been pretty toxic lately, but that seemed like good-hearted fun as people talked about their tips and tricks with this mutual hobby we all enjoy.

I got better at the game once I learned how to leverage aliases. Taking that away is just going to make a select few people who don't use aliases feel better, while making a WHOLE LOT of people who use them feel much worse.

Or let's just keep rolling cleric and hybrid classes, people, and not worry about it I guess.

Give warriors quick wield. They should have it anyways they are the Masters of weapons anyways.

Rangers was already a seriously uphill battle for warriors they will have a serious advantage now

actually thats a good idea especially if we make it more dex based

These delete timers are fucking juvenile. Turn them off. I just tried to delete a level 5 and got told I can't for 5 minutes, this is ridiculous. [/code]

I don't like that I have to manually remove an item from my hand to wear a shield but it doesn't work the other way around. Please let us automatically remove items in offhand to wear a shield outside of combat.

Not a fan of creatures being able to parry sidestep.

This being a maneuver of opportunity and it is like being able to parry hell stream or harm spell.

Those spells have limits, ie mana or a cool down time, but for shadows you are already limited by ki.

I don't like the master torturer can now see invisible.

Used to be a dark knight could peek on that basterd to see if he had another skin cloak without being attacked, now he is all agro.

Locate object is powerful and could be a nice side hustle, like 300 gold for 3 tries on an object and no refund for no locate objects, you were warned.

My lost point is I liked him better not seeing me when invisible.

No locate object for dks if palas have locate object? It's more of
Mage spell to begin with...

Regarding parrying sidestep... Remember thieves have sidestep too, not just shadows, and they're not limited by ki. Just felt like pointing that out because an argument regarding changing sidestep due to ki isn't taking into account what else would be affected by a direct change to the skill itself...

So is that a change you don't like? Please try to stay on topic.

I don't like that pink potions no longer uncurse worn items.

Back before you could smash urns and easily get pink potions you could fight a baby purple worm and get a pink potion to uncurse items. Now the pink potions prompt "you are not cursed".

You can pay the 6k or whatever at the temple but I like the idea of removing a curse with a little effort.

My guess is this was changed because people purposely curse weapons, but you should know the potions you drink.

Grayden, I have to assume that its due to the level of remove curse vs the level of the curse. I mean, by number chances eventually you might be able to, but imagine how skewed it would be in actual pk. Curse is a powerful effect that drops hit and saves, as well as preventing recalling.

I think there many have been a change which requires curse to target items specifically, otherwise it tries to remove curse on the person. Level does factor into success rate for sure, but thats always been the case.

No longer being able to shard old monster resistance vials.

This change is recent and probably because some jealous god saw the fireforge being touched...

When you level out of these potions it was a good idea to shard them, I suppose the issue being you could buy potions and shard them, but you could also quickly kill for ofcol rings, so again I must ask why.

Why did this change?

Hah, I never knew you could shard potions, but I guess the why, is because how are you going to get shards out of liquid?

Shards are made from the magic essence, only items with a "magical" flag can be used, so I don't believe solid/liquid is the issue.

Also it appears this change is very specific because I can still shard a blue potion.

Is the blue potion a beneficial bug or are the monster potions being specifically targeted?

Web Client AutoMap

This will be unpopular I am sure, but the automap feature on the webclient is a built in cheat code. You can see directions in most cases multiple rooms away. You can use the where mob for the yellow brick road for a really easy escape. If you get really good at it, you aren't even looking at the screen ur just following the map. Would be nice to see that if you have pk adrenlaine the automap feature doesn't work so when the nerves hit and you hit west one too many times and ur banging against a wall its more realistic.

Tying the map to pk adrenaline is an awesome idea.

There's already a few ways to prevent that.