Direction

Feedback, bugs, and general gameplay related discussion.
Dugmaren
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Direction

Postby Dugmaren » Wed Sep 15, 2010 5:07 am

Stage 1: Build a team of awesome staff. - complete
Stage 2: Define problems, solutions, direction - in progress

I was originally just going to post this in the staff forums but heck, you guys are good at brainstorming too right? So, this is wide open and I'm hoping for a ton of spam, just brainstorm to your hearts content and we'll see what we can get out of it.

1. What problems do we have currently?
low pBase, slow response time, crash bugs, equipment inflation, equipment saturation, lack of truly challenging zones, you people aren't dieing enough for my taste, equipment loss, lack of competition, lack of politics, lack of god favoratism, lack of mid-low level pBase (although right now I see 6 between 20-40.. is it sad that I'm happy about that #?), exp is a grind, skill practice is a grind, not super immersive game play.. it's a little mechanical at this point, class imbalance, race imbalance (hage elves in the best possible way), lack of player archiving incase of file corruption, no alternative advancement, ineffective player-staff communication, not enough hours in a day, everyone should always have pie available.

2. What solutions can we brainstorm for these problems?
more advertising, easier low end game to get people hooked, coders, trade?, ability to improve stats, remorting, making upper tier equipment "bind" to your character (ie no alts), decrease tanking ability and or make players die easier, cap max effective bonuses from equipment (ie as a mage you can only get a maximum of level*5 hps from equipment?), can we make mid-low level playing more then just a grind, improve the trophy system so you HAVE to move around, reduce XP tables so you can level up faster, increase XP tables but reduce the difference in skill/power by level, get the RPQ sphere to join in during normal zones / exp to make it more interesting and rewarding (literally), class balancing, race balancing, new race-class combinations, new race class options, sysAdmin setup for pFile backups, zones that are locked until you achieve something, educate everyone about TRAC and actually use it, artifacts.. ya i just said that, make pie.

3. Direction
This is like solutions but in a much more broad sense - solutions would be chosen based on direction.
a. i want to increase mob defense and decrease offense so fights last longer.. epic battles are generally fun. I want to decrease player defense and increase player offense, more chance to die, fights become a little more exciting.
b. equipment should probably be capped out at a certain effectiveness so even if we DO make a +8damage wrist bracer.. you still can't crack +60 damage, and you might as well switch things up
c. i want to move away from difficult-annoying, and towards difficult-challenging. Skill practice and exp grinds are NOT fun, spanking (with quick recovery) generally is
d. i want to see Toril come alive - at any time your zone could switch up and become "staff-controlled".. ie the mobs might behaving abnormally so you really have to quick-step to keep up and not die. we could have invasions setup that are more lucrative then grinding duergar groups in CM AND way more fun
e. i want to see a return to WANTING to get more equipment.. everyone already has everything pretty much, nobody cares if they win bids or not in most zones
f. i want combat to be a engaging - i remember having a bag full of 5-6 different effective weapons as a warrior to combat different mobs based on their weaknesses. you're all laughing that i said warrior & melee in the same sentence at this point, let alone caring about what you're wielding.
g. i hate area spells. actually let me clarify - massive onslaughts of mobs and cremating the entire room, struggling to rescue the right guy or bash a caster, etc. is wicked fun. However, when it becomes the ONLY way to kill ANYTHING, something needs to change. Some of you remember how to target mobs right? :P
h. i want EVERY zone to have a reason to do it. what this means is 2-3 "best" items from each zone, ie, best boots from lava, best ring from SMi, best helmet from clouds whatever.. the point is it's not so much risk vs. reward. just because a zone isn't quite as hard as another one, doesn't mean it shouldn't be WORTH doing. i'd rather see "tiers" of zones low level, mid level, high level... maybe some elite only
i. i want to see multiple guilds all trying to be the best, competing, omg jot invasion race please! Corth, back me on politics & god favoratism plz :)


So - lets hear it everyone, what'cha got, what do we need. We have 10+ ACTIVE gods, we can make this happen.

Dugmaren
grundar
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Re: Direction

Postby grundar » Wed Sep 15, 2010 6:07 am

on:
3-
a--
i'm all for mobs having more defenses but artificially increasing this by giving them 999 agi and 10k more hps is not the way to go. certain skills need to be created that are for mob use only and those skill sets should be coded into mob ai. making mobs smarter is awesome. dont know about you but i really hate it when i see a cleric mob fighting just a warrior and quaking instead of doing something else. of course this improved ai should be a flag you add to certain mobs, since you dont want to make the low level game extremely annoying with it.
(some examples of smarter AI:
wimpy mobs with the flag set could flee/word/plane shift, heal up or spell up and relocate back to the attacker even if he was not in zone anymore.
psi mobs expanding/reducing on combat based on whoever is bashing them instead of treating it as random spellup like it is now.
enchanter mobs breaching rogues so they fry on shield or breaching tanks too.
antipaladins using lifetap on pcs.
rangers with wimpy fleeing and switching to archery.
bard mobs using song to overpower the pc's song.
mages casting higher than 6th circle offense if the pc is globed.)

d--
don't you guys already do this every now and then? :P i'm all for it being done on certain kinds of zones, and mostly at the start of it so you're not catching group dozing off and it becomes more of an annoyance than a fun factor.

f & g--
this can be done by making full use of the templates, adding resistances to certain weapons and elements into the mobs's template. with the enchantment code in place it helps. going a step further in this direction you could have random loading prefix/suffix weapons in chests at the end of zones of every level range to deal with this precise situation. these would have to obviously be tiered, and the enchantment system would need a lot more options. (paralyzers, vorpals, bodyfeeders, maladroit, etc or easily attachable procs that area writers can just copy and paste the format and just redo the text.)
this also requires that there be more spells with different side effects to make the spellcasters more than one trick ponies. there's nothing worse than just hitting f11 and f12 for meteorswarm and inferno. and as bad as spellcasters can be, psionicists are so much worse where they could be so much fun to play with so many useful skills based on the mob types.

h--
This is hard to do, and the reason why is because there's so much more to a zone than just having the best eq. some zones are just plain fun to do, like izan's.. even tho i have pretty much everything i could possibly need from it i'll always jump at the chance to do it. jot invasion is fun as hell with a good group as an illusionist too. SF does not have the greatest eq in the planet but doing it with a caster only group is tons of fun. what i'm basically saying is if the zone was designed as a complete and total bore, it doesnt matter if it has the greatest eq you're never gonna catch me in a group doing it (puke golem forge).. unless of course i get conned into doing it.

i--
only way this is going to happen is with a pwipe (and it'll be a more of a player vs player rather than guild vs guild competition) or an influx of players who form their own guild and start competing. with the state of things, there are so many players that are content enough to just be herded around in a 15 man group and able to get a bid on a 4dam ring which escalates their gear by 200% since all they had was a 2dam ring before if at all. apathy won. there's only a handful of people who lead zones and only another handful that will follow those other leaders into them.
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Re: Direction

Postby Dalar » Wed Sep 15, 2010 6:28 am

Relook at each zone. Target the zones for 1.5 hour maximum. For zones that are lots of gear for long duration, make it 1 hour and randomize what you get in the zone.

Pwipe.

Bind on equip and Bind on acquire items to reduce stupid alts.

Give a dummy price for each zone, such as points you can use to buy resists, spell focus etc. permamently.
Inama
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Re: Direction

Postby Inama » Wed Sep 15, 2010 8:56 pm

    - Add old adventurers to towns, "back in my day i'd hunt grumblewumps in the dark wood east of town" to help direct new players.
    - add more skulls outside places lower levels shouldn't go so its a standard warning sign
    - add npc's to group with at lower levels, maybe when comes to skulls stops and says "I'm not going in there"
    - on screen maps for walks between towns, would only be on roads
    - redo all hometowns, except the redone faang/ghore, by adding new mobs, quest mobs, helper mobs, information mobs, flavor mobs
    - make SM a hometown
    - caravans or merchants you can follow that move between towns, maybe with rest stops
    - remove training at instructors, you automatically gain the maximum trainable level when you level, else there's just one command that trains you to your new level and does all skills
    - advertise on web sites like Goblins webcomic that will attract the right kind of people, maybe play up the D&D/forgotten realms aspect, fight dragons, ogre, and demons...
    - web site quick start up guide
    - write web based client so people can play at work through web, no telnetting.
    - connect scardale to the mud, it connects way east of ashstone, would require a long road but at least its part of the world then
    - add ships to scardale habour that sails to the major towns, even SM can be reached by river.
    - in addition to random potions on mobs make low-mid level mobs randomly pop with wearable eq, maybe straight decent ac but little else so people can eq them selves and at least have ac.
    - new classes, in moderation, monk would be popular short term fix
    - personally i'm cautious about making old players even more powerful via remort, stat fixes etc, only in moderation, it only heightens the difference between new and old players marginalizing the latter.
    - rejig good races to have more clearly defined strengths and weaknesses, there's a reason to play dwarf, but not for everything.
    - possibly caps on hps, hit, dam, (based on level!, maybe easier exp to compensate) or maybe an in code diminishing returns from damage roll. You can only hit someone so hard with a dagger... but a two handed sword...
    - must get spell focus and resistance eq viable if other eq is capped.
    - maybe all +maxstat, high hp, high dam, should be diminishing returns
    - cultural changes to encourage zone leading, maybe leaders first pick of loot.
    - more new high-end zones that are short! few have time for 4 hour zones.
    - randomness in eq load helps zones get done more, but must be something worthwhile always loads.
    - maybe more special proc mobs in zones to give unique challenges to big zone fights
    - i'd like to see mobs able to headbutt, maybe new mob skills, spells, procs that can be added easily by zone makers to make things more interesting.
new races
new races have been feared too long, why? no one wants to be human we get to do that in real life, we wanna play exotic stuff, evil races fairly exotic but good races are mundane. Add something balanceable centaurs they are high str/con but lack slots, maybe easy to hit due to size?
kenku, aarakocra, bullywug, githzerai, maaybe thri-kreen, minotaur similar(neutral race?).
Nothing cheesy, no vampires, half-dragons, giants, etc.
Maybe goblins for evils as evil gnome so to speak. new races can be balanced.
The new races must have character and uniqueness, like rideable centaurs, minotaurs that can charge, thri-kreens get 4 arms but extremely suscepible to cold, maybe aarakocra can fly but not while wearing armwear, bullywug tongue attack etc.
Lilithelle
Adriorn Darkcloak
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Re: Direction

Postby Adriorn Darkcloak » Wed Sep 15, 2010 10:00 pm

Epic Quests: have generally horrible rewards. Who does Oakvale? Surt? CM (hahahah)? Finder's?

Standardize damage dice on all weapons. A dagger will always do 2d4 MAX. A sword 2d8, etc. Can then play with +hit +dam, stats, etc.

Zone rewards: Add a restring token to certain zones/random. Add an xp token to certain zones/random.

Remember when you made that list with Klandan of the top tier items per slot, etc? Refine/update that list and see if certain zones/quests are giving eq that is too good when compared to everything else that is out there. Downgrade the eq, or make changes to difficulty/length, etc.

BALANCE THE CLASSES. This will be the easiest one to do, or the toughest. There is almost no use for taking an anti/paladin to a zone over taking a warrior. What benefits/disadvantages should there be for one versus the other? Why do antipaladin spells generally blow compared to paladin spells (i.e. healing). Why take a ranger when you can take a rogue? (don't use Tia as a counter example) What's the use of the necromancer class (if any)? (don't use Tia as a counter example) Why take a psi to a zone instead of a voker? Eliminate MR resistance from psi attacks. Etc, etc.

This also involves looking at all spells/skills per class and seeing what the benefits and uselessness are to every single one. Eliminate moronic skills like unbind, missile snare, kick, etc. Eliminate or enhance moronic or outdated spells and skills (ventriloquate, call lightning, detonate, etc)

Basically, go class by class examining what changes need to be made, what needs to be removed or fixed, and how the class fits in a zoning group. The newbie who levels a necro to level 40 hoping to one day zone, only to realize his class is all but useless in zones, might decide to leave the mud out of frustration (I've seen it). The mentality that 'oh but it adds atmosphere' is all and nice, but it is also an ignorant mentality.

My mentality is that at any given time, a group leader has no problem picking between a paladin and a warrior. One will be somewhat better at doing x, the other somewhat better at doing y. Same goes for necro, invoker, ranger, etc. Give each class an actual use/purpose/niche/function or however you wanna call it. Saying 'oh but necros are good in Trune' is, again, ignorant. Being useful in 2-3 zones doesn't take into account the other 30 zones. A new player that only has a level 40 necro should have no problem being asked to zone in ANY ZONE instead of waiting till a voker logs on, or whatever.

I agree with Dalar 100% about maxing a zone's time at 1.5hrs-2hrs. Max. I don't care what zone it is (except Tia). Make the eq rareload, random, whatever. BUT: no big zone should have only 3 items to split between 15 players. All that creates is frustration. I'm thinking of GF, SPOB, etc. Instead, make the zones have 3-4 items, and then 3-5 random things; awesome potions, scrolls, xp tokens, restrings, etc. etc. Jot, musp, izans, hulburg, and several other zones are awesome in this regard. There might only be 3-4 good items there, but there's another 4-5 items that people can consume, give to an alt, mid-level player, etc.

BALANCE THE RACES. Right now, we all know certain races have all but niched a specific class (or more than one!) and in a big way in some cases. This should not be. Re-examine the bonuses/benefits/negatives of each races vs each class and see what should be changed/downgraded/fixed. The difference between a barbarian and a halfling hitting a beholder should be noticeable. The difference between a gnome and a barbarian at tanking, etc. The difference between a halfling and a human at stealing/being sneaky/backstabbing, etc.

Make max_str, max_pow, max_cha useful. And I'm really referring to the human, etc 101 notch.

Make the torilmud.org main website more useful. I never, ever, ever visit it. I have no suggestions on this right now, sorry.
Botef
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Re: Direction

Postby Botef » Wed Sep 15, 2010 10:56 pm

I want to see more fights that present challenges that require some tactics beyond bringing the right classes, stuff that keeps everyone at keys and on their toes and gets people to be creative in how they win. Fights like Kartak in Twisted Rune are a great example I think. ChP is a lot of fun too, even if we can't beat the damn thing! Fights that are dynamic like this are almost always exciting, no matter how many times you've done them.
Malia
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Re: Direction

Postby Malia » Thu Sep 16, 2010 3:40 am

havent sat down to really go over all this but one thing i see that i STRONGLY disagree with is idea of giving out restrings as zone rewards. To be diced just like eq.

imo restrings are the end of game for most players.. having that unique item (even if its the same stats as everyone else) that everyone goes omg... WHAT is that?!. Its alot of fun. I dont want them just handed out as zone reward cuz given enough time everyone will have em.

People that RP consistantly should have chance to earn em as end result, people that lead and keep the mud pbase active (lilithelle, popinople, sikra) that lead zones consitantly when no one else steps up to lead should be rewarded somehow... restrings might be good reward, this might also encourage new leaders to step up.

Prestige might be a good reward... if you play enough with 1 alt you might earn enough prestige to buy a restring with prestige, or with rp, use prestige as a reward and set markers like restring at 15k, restring at 25k, restring at 35k. This rewards players that play that alt consistantly or rp consistantly for prestige. You could sit and exp forever and make 15k prestige yes... but hell if someones gonna put in that much effort... give em a restring!

Please do not just make them random or put them in zones, please make them mean something to the people that earn them.
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Re: Direction

Postby Corth » Thu Sep 16, 2010 4:49 am

Well it is refreshing to see an immortal laying aside all preconceived notions and taking a fresh look at the strengths and weaknesses of the mud. It should have been done years ago, but I suppose it's better late than never. My suspicion with this sort of thing is that there will be dozens of productive well thought out posts, some great ideas will be bandied about, and maybe one or two of them will be implemented to make it look like something was accomplished. I think it's obvious that more drastic steps are necessary to really accomplish anything here, so I hope that I am wrong.

I haven't played regularly in like 7 or 8 years, so I am not in any position to make specific suggestions. I would just like to make a few broad points that I think are applicable to all fun muds:

1. Artifacts, Politics, and God Favoritism. These three things were specifically refuted by Shevarash when the mud came back up in approximately 2000 or 2001. Look where that has gotten us. A mud where it's just about grinding away your 12th alt, equipped from the outset in perfect eq. For lack of a better way of putting it - a game that lacks soul. These three things were absolutely the essential elements of the transcendant game that I experienced when I first started playing in 1994. My friends and I absolutely aspired to reach a point where we garnered enough respect that we could justify having a great artifact bestowed upon us. It drove us to play more and play better. It was something to look forward to which exceeded just an ordinary split in a big zone. To the extent that these types of items tended to be handed out to elite guilds, it stoked competition between groups, and hence politics. To the extent that artifacts were handed out by a person, it stoked god favoritism or at least the perception of god favoritism. Say what you want about how it was unfair, it made the goddamned game interesting. If you wanted to succeed it wasn't enough that you play well - you also had to seek influence among the immorts, kiss some ass, talk some shit, etc. It gave the game an edge which it hasn't seen since the mid 90's.

2. Overly specialized classes suck. Splitting up sorcerors into enchanters and invokers gave you exactly the situation you are trying to get rid of now. Too much player defense, too much reliance upon area spells. Plus, neither class is particularly fun to play. Certainly less fun than playing sorceror which was in charge of defense but still had time to be a player on the offensive side as well.

3. Small groups are more fun than big groups. This is an area where you can actually take a weakness and turn it into a strength. The pbase sucks, so it is difficult to put together a large group that can take on a large zone. But large groups are boring anyway. It just takes too long to do anything. So the answer to this is emphasize zones that can be done by smaller groups, and in fact require smaller groups. For all I know this has already been done, but if not then it should be. Write a zone that is very challenging for 5 people at the top of their game, and then code the zone so only 6 people can enter. The quality of the EQ reward should be equal to that of the best big zones, but a lot less of it. There should be an emphasis on these types of zones rather than epic 15 person zones.

4. Real risk. I don't remember the last time a group actually lost their equipment. Somehow or other, through increased skills and otherwise, the mud got to a point where there really was never much of a concern about whether you could CR. Perhaps more convenient for our older mudders that actually need to carry a job and spend time with their family, the sad fact is less risk means less reward. I was part of two famous roots groups. The one lead by Tavon that did it for the first time in years and the one that Mikar lead which got spanked to hell. Each one was unbelievably exciting in it's own way. With Tavon's group, all of us honestly believed that the chances were perhaps greater than not that we would end up dying and losing our EQ. And it made it freaking exciting. Remember - the conventional wisdom at the time was roots was UNDOABLE. I never saw a group of mudders that were more alert and ready for whatever might come at them. With Mikar's group, we almost did lose all of our eq. And I can tell you that just about everyone who had their items sitting on the floor in the last room was going through a whole range of emotions that you don't experience when doing your 203rd completely safe run through scorps or whatever zone people do these days. If the mud lagged for a second, you were sure that months or years of accumulated equipment rewards were gone for good. Nobody who was part of that group will forget it - and in retrospect, that's a good thing.
Dugmaren
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Re: Direction

Postby Dugmaren » Thu Sep 16, 2010 5:29 am

Awesome responses, lets keep 'm coming!

Grundar - fully agree on how to and how not to make mobs more difficult, as for zones PART of the reason should be equipment. Ideally all zones would be "fun" to do but unfortunately people have different tastes as to what makes a good zone so everyone, won't like every zone. PWIPE - interesting.

Dalar - how do you propose making zones 1.5h's long? I think SOME zones should be longer, but agree that I have the most fun in the shorter ones.. remember doing 3-4 zones in a row? Good times.

Inama - awesome ideas in general, good point on not making players even more powerful, but what if they were as powerful.. with less equipment? Also would love to see the cultural changes

Adriorn - good point, quests have needed revision for a long time, good though on standard weapon damage.. i wonder how much that's going to mess up which weapons are the best. Great idea about doing an overhaul on skills/spells that are useless.

Botef - agree.. heck i wrote ChP to be a super hard 1.5h failable zone.. obviously i agree :P

Malia - agree !restrings as standard zone rewards.. hopefully they'll be available (like for reals lol) through RPQ. For prestige.. should extra XP grant prestige that allows a reward? Wouldn't that promote grinding.. *ick*

Corth - thanks - it's a possibility so lets all support each other and make it happen? 1. Agree, with the addition that competition is what we're talking about. We need more then 1 group battling for stuff, racing jot whatever.. maybe this ties into 3. and having smaller groups which leaves people out who have to form their own? Also there has been a lot of trend that way, there are quite a few new zones that are for small groups, heck I wrote all kinds of backdoors to Musp so that small grouping was a viable option. 2. Ya.. but I think merging everyone back to sorcerer at this point.. ugh.. I dunno.
4. Agree - but, how do we propose making it happen? Should dragon breath start nuking stuff regardless? How can we make people spank and need crKits again? Further to this point CRing has to be THE most boring flippin part of zoning.. all you do is wait for the rogue? Bollox. Should we remove the HIDE skill? :P

Keep it coming,
Dug
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Re: Direction

Postby Naled » Thu Sep 16, 2010 7:21 am

Time/groupsize: The ONLY reason I still play here, apart from the people that is, is that we do a lot of content small group. I log on and we twink stuff, 3-5 people, hour max per zone. Anyway, I agree with Dalar that all zones should be 1.5 max. Preferably not all zones should need 15 people. Most of us are old farts now, and we don't have the time we used to. I play the hell out of all the small group stuff, and if we had enough to keep going all boot, it would sure liven up the mud.

Apart from Tiamat, I'd either redesign zones to take less time, or split zones into subzones. Give each subzone a token at the end with which you can enter the next part without doing the start. For instance for Troll King, have a rentable+one-use key load at the end of each level with which you can enter a supply tunnel from the start to the each level. I've played LOTRO for a while, and the instance system saved your progress at certain points for 48 hours, so we'd do one part on saturday evening and finish it the next day. Worked great.

In terms of new zones, I'd aim for each to take 10 people max, unless it's an epic zone like BC or Magma. Group limits should reflect the lower pbase, if it's easier to zone, if zones are shorter, I'm sure we'd zone more.

Classes/Skills/Eq: I'd have to agree with Corth that less classes might be the way to go. A chanter just does defense, a voker presses F5 all the time to launch inferno, shaman spams groupheal. At best you are forced to decide which of your 2 spells to cast first. Player skill is mostly determined on how well he can conserve spells, and how fast he can get them up. And with a tia circlet the first is becoming less important already. In small groups that is often less the case, I remember muspel invasion runs, where my chanter doubled as the voker, because we didn't have one. Our cleric had to groupheal, and our rogue actually needed poisons to reduce switching for our single tank, who had to actually think when to bash, when to rescue etc. THAT is fun. I't been a while since we did that last time, but we are still talking about how fun that was.

For eq, for each class there is roughly ONE top tier eq set. No matter what zone, what tactic, the same eq is always best. The only exception is Tia perhaps where you might want some extra sv_bre. I'd advocate removing saves alltogether and making the new resistances more important. Also increase the usefullness of spellfocus. A weak cleric that heals better might be useful, but then the tanks would have to take care who to rescue first.

I would like to see more options for building skill and spell sets. Now all my casters more or less have a fixed spellset I use. I change around 1 or 2 spells for some zones, but that's it. It would be nice to have more options, especially in combination with the resistances. Apart from fireplane, where we cast cold spells, it's not happening much. Apart from having spells feedback, it would also be cool to have spells combo. Casting a fireball into a cyclone, you'd get a firestorm. Lastly skill/spell trees are fun, as a chanter sacrifice some spells to become more powerful, or get more different spells. Can also use this to overlap classes again. Give chanters the option for more offense, vokers for some defense, etc. With smaller groups, that makes for some interesting tactics. Take a voker with stoneskin, or a chanter with incendiary cloud?
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Re: Direction

Postby Malia » Thu Sep 16, 2010 1:36 pm

Dugmaren wrote:Malia - agree !restrings as standard zone rewards.. hopefully they'll be available (like for reals lol) through RPQ. For prestige.. should extra XP grant prestige that allows a reward? Wouldn't that promote grinding.. *ick*


I agree through rpq is a great way. I was just trying to use something to measure other players as well so that you can earn them other ways too.

Everyone knows Lilithelle, she leads 3-4x a week her prestige is around 32k - 33k that should be 1 way to earn it. Damet grinded exp on pirate ship for months and months has like 13-15k prestige doesnt mean anyone knows him any less, I think 3/4 of the mud exped on ship with him at one point or another. My point is that i think there should be multiple ways to earn a re-string. If RPQ isnt your bag, try leading, if leading isnt your thing... grind exp. Whats fun for you and me maybe not fun for someone else. You and I might hate exp grind but damet enjoyed doing ship exp every day i think.
Malia
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Re: Direction

Postby Malia » Thu Sep 16, 2010 1:46 pm

Just got done talking with Lilithelle too, and i couldnt see why she wants to make changes to WD and other dead home towns... but her point is the fact that its one of the first places new people see. The log in, WD is a ghost town and they figure mud is as well (which it is). I think making VT, and SM, default home towns so that when people log in they at least see other players active people moving around. I think this would be a big help on keeping the newer players.
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Re: Direction

Postby Gormal » Thu Sep 16, 2010 3:33 pm

Pwipe.
Malia
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Re: Direction

Postby Malia » Thu Sep 16, 2010 4:12 pm

Pwipe wouldnt help even you gormal.

I would be strongly against a pwipe btw... We would still have same issues and all the major zones that have come in (based on current equipment) would be undoable for a very long time. I think what tiny pbase we do have would be gone. I think there are other avenues to fix current problem first if the pbase ever got over 100+ again maybe then think about a pwipe.
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Re: Direction

Postby grundar » Thu Sep 16, 2010 5:07 pm

risk and eq loss:

i fully agree that we're overflowing on eq right now but i dont think lengthy crs with possible eq loss from that are the solution. people hardly have the time to do a 3 hr zone, and if that zone takes 18 hours with a bad cr then people are simply not going to do it regardless of if it has the best eq in game.
dragons nuking eq are great, but having them nuke eq regardless of prots is a bit harsh with the amount of dragons that exist in so many zones. if anything this should be left to a handful of mobs (which in all likelyhood people will continually avoid doing so they dont lose their eq)
what we need to make this viable is 2 things:
a) a heavily controlled and supervised set of eq nuking procs (for beholders, and rust monsters and other mobs which make sense in d&d style) which can be added only to certain mobs via balance and which rarely trigger. and,
b) a durability/hardness rating for eq to be hardcoded. 1-10 10 being the most durable and hardest to nuke.

on removing part of the grind:
as it is right now you have to spend x amount of time before your char is useful both by leveling up and 2 by either spamming skills or endlessly practicing them. I dont propose you take either of those out completely i do however propose that we code a way to increase skills via quest.
the .qst file already supports the increase of experience, prestige and the shift of alignment. why not go one step further and add the ability to increase skills via quest in the way of R S [skill number] [points] (i bet segojan & corellon can do this in their sleep).
taking this into consideration we add the chest with random load system to the end of zones at every level. chests which will be tiered [wooden chest/iron chest/copper chest/silver chest/gold chest/platinum chest/etc]. Inside these chests you have a set of random loading things like consumables of every kind, experience tomes, skill tokens and other stuff. all based on the chest tier.

on saves:
part of the reason why the mud isn't as hard is the existance of the nosleep and nocharm flags, as well as a lot of people having ginormous saves. shev had already coded most of the toril 2.0 system according to his posts years ago. if that held true for the save system we could in theory move away from the current -svpara -svspell -svrod -svpetri -svbreath system into one that would make more sense, that being the reflex/will/fortitude save system. that system would effectively allow us to get rid of nocharm/nosleep and actually make fighting the mobs that do that a bit more challenging and fun. hell might even drop the whole 8 stat system and go towards the 6 stat system too if thats been coded.
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Re: Direction

Postby Dalar » Thu Sep 16, 2010 5:53 pm

You make zones "1.5 hours" by reducing trash. Either clump up the trash into big fights or make trash harder but fewer.

1. Make platinum worth something.
Durability repair should cost pocket change like it does in DDO, but it still sinks platinum.
Item enchants.
Luxury. Teleports, reduce res sickness on next res buff, etc.
+Spell focus or +dmg potions and other fun consumables
Mercenary pets for lowbies to help level.

2. Make gear worth platinum as well to vendors. IE make a malevolent stone amulet worth 2.5k platinum.
3. Put in some sort of system where you can get points at the end of a zone and use the points for things like permanent upgrades to character (resists, +dmg, +hit, hp, spell focus, with max limits of course).
4. Artifacts but in a PVE way. Duris you could find artifacts from dead players late game, but they came from zones at first. Put artifacts in game, limit them 1 per player, and make it so they need to be "fed". To feed artifacts, you need to do zones. Put something like a shrine to XXX god and the shrine gives you points. Force the artifacts to be bind to character as well and unbindable with points.
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Re: Direction

Postby Dalar » Thu Sep 16, 2010 5:53 pm

Oh and let me design the system i just said too. GREAT IDEA.
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Re: Direction

Postby flib » Thu Sep 16, 2010 6:06 pm

First and foremost, Pwipe. Getting everyone back to the same level, staleness occurs because everyone has everything. The game has been at a level 50 base for what, 7 or 8 years? if not more?

second, easier quest interface. the ask 40'000 questions routine isn't fun. remove rares needed for quests, make quests less secretive. give xp rewards from completing quests. If rares are needed for a quest make sure that the quest reward is really top notch and worth the time invested.

third, we had trade for awhile and it was really fun. re imp some type of trade system so people don't just idle in vt all the time. the road guards were a cool little twist so it wasn't just a up and back.. stuff could get dangerous.

The rp sphere seems to be coming up with cool ideas and that definetely adds a cool element to the gameplay. Continue that, make new scenarios. There's mud's that still have a pbase of 200.. figure out what they do right.. and.. well don't copy it because this is a quality mud.. but their must be something about their game that we aren't doing.. I think a pwipe would get alot of people excited into playing the game again.. I'd definetely roll a new character.
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Re: Direction

Postby Adriorn Darkcloak » Thu Sep 16, 2010 9:56 pm

I find it ironic that the people who most want a pwipe are the ones who don't actually play or zone on a regular basis.

I have a good friend who stops playing games whenever he realizes he can't be the guy with the best eq.
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Re: Direction

Postby Disoputlip » Thu Sep 16, 2010 10:21 pm

My advice would be to do something about the homepage.

I think the game is fine, and I don't see why new players shouldn't enjoy it. Especially if we got small batch of new players at once.

All the suggestions about changes to the game fail to attract new players. But could ofcourse lure old players back.

I have before gone to homepages for a mud, and decided to try it based on the homepage. But once I start playing somewhere I agree the homepage isn't that important.

I think we should focus mainly on the fact that it is Toril, and links to external AD&D wikies etc.
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Re: Direction

Postby Corth » Thu Sep 16, 2010 10:27 pm

Dug,

I'm not sure you have to get rid of Hide to make CR's more difficult. You could simply make the sneak/hide skills combo failable, much like other high level skills and spells are failable. And of course, if you fail it and are hit right away, it might result in a short stun period. And maybe you make sneak items uber valuable again by allowing a !fail sneak/hide combo - but limit it to artifacts.

I think you are right on the money as far as using small groups to create more competition. If the group limit on the mud were severely decreased, for instance, from 15 down to 5, you would immediately create a much more competitive environment. Obviously that is not very feasible - just a for instance. Perhaps the RP sphere, in conjunction with god distributed artifacts and small groups is the way to foster competition and give the mud an edge. Have several small teams formed on the basis of guild allegiance or otherwise, with the expectation that at the end of a long RP story, one of the teams will be richly rewarded. Another thing you could perhaps do is make guild limits severely smaller... like 8 or 9 people.

As for merging enchanters and invokers back into sorcs. That isn't quite necessary. You can just change the existing classes to make them more alike. You want to take away defense from enchanters and take away area pwnage from invokers anyway. At the same time give the enchanters some rudimentary damage and invokers some basic defense. Voila -two sorceror classes with slightly different specialties.

Disoputlip - I think at this point anyone who is reasonable will agree that the big problem is the game itself, not the way it is marketed. You don't know why the mud can't retain new players. I don't know either - but the fact of the matter is that the new players come here and don't find it interesting enough to stick around. That has nothing to do with the homepage.
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Re: Direction

Postby Dalar » Thu Sep 16, 2010 11:03 pm

Adriorn Darkcloak wrote:I find it ironic that the people who most want a pwipe are the ones who don't actually play or zone on a regular basis.

I have a good friend who stops playing games whenever he realizes he can't be the guy with the best eq.


I've wanted a pwipe everytime I came back and quit. It's not fun just rolling around with all the best gear. I actually quit games when I finish my gear set. I am excited about new MMOs because I get to build a character.

Another alternative to pwipe is to have all gear turn to bind on equip. This will force people to pick and choose what they want to put on alts, put on their "mains" and create the feeling of building a new character for their 10th alt.
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Re: Direction

Postby Adriorn Darkcloak » Fri Sep 17, 2010 12:32 am

I actually agree with Diso about the homepage. It needs more graphics, more colors, maps, etc. If done right it can lure people to come play. A generic blog might not.
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Re: Direction

Postby Disoputlip » Fri Sep 17, 2010 1:20 am

Adriorn Darkcloak wrote:I actually agree with Diso about the homepage. It needs more graphics, more colors, maps, etc. If done right it can lure people to come play. A generic blog might not.


I dont think you are reasonable Adriorn.

"Anyone who is reasonable will agree that the big problem is the game itself..."

Lamest comment ever to a good suggestion.
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Re: Direction

Postby grundar » Fri Sep 17, 2010 1:30 am

Adriorn Darkcloak wrote:I actually agree with Diso about the homepage. It needs more graphics, more colors, maps, etc. If done right it can lure people to come play. A generic blog might not.


remember homeland's homepage? it had a gif scrolling with images of fights and some rooms full of mobs. that should in theory be easy enough to do and adds some visual crap to the homepage.
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Re: Direction

Postby Adriorn Darkcloak » Fri Sep 17, 2010 1:44 am

Brian, another option is to just delete your own characters/eq and start from scratch. I know some guys who have done it. I DO know what you mean about that "new" feel though, and building a new character.
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Re: Direction

Postby Corth » Fri Sep 17, 2010 4:35 am

Come on Dis. You really think that the declining pbase is due to the web site? Get real.
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Re: Direction

Postby Dugmaren » Fri Sep 17, 2010 5:45 am

Does Tiamat gear need "balancing".. which would mean nerfing?
Webpage suggestion would HELP. Maybe not much but that's not the point, it's a valid idea.
PWipe.. man I dunno, starting from scratch is pretty fun, especially if it were coupled with some other draws like mebee new classes/races?
I know removing hide wouldn't help.. it would just make the rogue die more and the CR take longer.
Awesome idea on removing the "general fodder" found in zones to shorten them up.
Maybe we can make "spellup" spells last longer.. maybe even "longer + random" so it basically forces rolling spellups instead of waiting them out to go in fresh so it forces continuous battle in zones.
Don't agree on removing rares but it IS pretty frustrating rare hunting so something needs to be done. What if it loaded rarely, but repopped once it loaded. The major reason for having rare loads is to have equipment enter the game more slowly.
If zones are "jot style" and have a couple 2-4 good rewards then a bunch 5-8 so-so rewards, doesn't that just fuel having too much equipment in game?
I love the bind on equip idea.
Good idea artifacts & equipment decay + repair for platinum.
...
yup, good brainstorming so far
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Re: Direction

Postby Nilan » Fri Sep 17, 2010 7:15 am

Pwipe...I sure wouldn't be back again if there was a pwipe. Not interested in playing this game all over again after all the time and energy spent so far. That be it for me. Those that wanna pwipe just delete and start over.

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Re: Direction

Postby Nilan » Fri Sep 17, 2010 7:25 am

Question on God Favoritism....

What exactly does that mean? Does it mean whatever Gods have mortals in guilds get to give out artifacts to their respective guildie buddies?

What happens to folks in guilds without Gods? Or folks that are not guilded?

Just a question on what that means to Gods and people since I read it lots in this post.

I do think it be cool to add some new races/classes to this game. I really miss Monks. Perhaps new classes / races might bring some new life to the game and add alil more adventure and stuff.

Nilan
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Re: Direction

Postby grundar » Fri Sep 17, 2010 8:40 am

Dugmaren wrote:Does Tiamat gear need "balancing".. which would mean nerfing?
....
Maybe we can make "spellup" spells last longer.. maybe even "longer + random" so it basically forces rolling spellups instead of waiting them out to go in fresh so it forces continuous battle in zones.
...
I love the bind on equip idea.


considering tiamat is a zone that takes more people & time to get done than the hardest epic zone i wouldn't touch the eq there yet.

on spellup: a lot of the timesink during zones comes from pre fight spellup and all spells being cast in single target mode. why dont we change this, bring in more spell components which can be used to cast these spells in a group version very much like group bark, or group fly. spells that can only be cast if there's no combat in room. dont really need spells to last longer then since spellup will be faster and it also produces one more plat sink right there.

as for the bind on equip idea, I'm sorta lukewarm on it because i see many drawbacks to that system (people only wanting to play the class that has the best bound toys to it. trade/auction system dying because of it etc) if it is implemented it needs to have its own special command, otherwise it could lead to costly mistakes.. like group leader wearing all after a spank and accidentally binding some of the zone loot. if anything should be bound tho its restrings and artifacts.

as for artifacts i really dislike the idea of them being just handed down by imms to players. the named artifacts should all be obtained via questing or zoning or via rp _events_
examples:
first group to do jot invasion gets twilight loading for them (still to be split between the group members or claimed or whatever the system in place for that may be), the other groups just get a black longsword of destruction.
first person to complete kern's/ambran gets deathknell/ambran the rest of the people to complete it just get /a holy avenger enshrouded in light/an unholy avenger pulsing with blood
a group going through a hard, failable and bloody rpquest campaign gets an artifact to split between them however they see fit.

also to go with the above you add the artifact command which shows the artifacts and the names of people currently holding them.

*If these artifacts are not fed, they are destroyed, and once again they get a chance to load back into the game for someone else to get them. Also, they are bound, so you cant just hand it to your buddy to keep it fed while you go MIA for a year.*
what makes a named artifact better other than +style and being famous(pc name up on the list ftw!)?
it can be a number of things, ranging from better rate of procs to extra procs to better hit/dam, an extra dice, extra flags like haste, better hps. you name it.

now for obvious reasons this can't be applied to existing artifacts like twilight, ambran and deathknell but hey, new zones are coming in often enough as well as quests, so yeah. and there's also the homeland artifacts (orcsplitter, tyranny, wyrmfang, vengeance, malevolence) and their quests for which i'd gladly take myself out of the running (at least till the artifact is first destroyed :p).

watch guild competition and player competition soar to get the named artifacts, and it also fixes the problem of dead artifacts (artifacts which sit in storage on people who never bother to log in)

-edited to clarify named vs unnamed
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Re: Direction

Postby dem » Fri Sep 17, 2010 10:11 am

Equipment is the ultimate drive. The social aspects of this game is great. But equipment is what really matters. I think a good idea to get new people to stick around is to introduce equipment at lower levels. Overhaul the lowlevel zones and fill them with low level eq so that people feel like they are getting something else then just the hp increase when they level. It can prolly be balanced in some simple system like lvl 1-10 ac increase, lvl 10-20 ac +1 hit or some hp, lvl 20-30 ac +1 dmg or some hp and start introducing stat eq and saves as they start getting needed in zones. And build lots and lots of lowbie "eq zones". Duris has alot of lower level zones thats actually worth doing while you level up and most of them can be done with few people.

/Koxa
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Re: Direction

Postby Malia » Fri Sep 17, 2010 1:32 pm

Pwipes with big pbase is fun.. all the racing and challenge of doing it again being #1.

1) The issue is we wont fix any problems and couple years down the road we are still here.
2) all of the new content in the game that was put in based on our current eq wont be doable for a very long time if ever
3) i think with the current pbase of active 30, the mud would die, if we had 100-150 players like some current muds a pwipe would be fine if you look at any mud that pwipes they always lose a few players over a pwipe here and there... we cant afford to lose players when we cant even make zone groups now.

I dont think i would be back if it wiped no matter what new content was brought in. Fix the problems grow the pbase then talk bout doing a pwipe.
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Re: Direction

Postby Malia » Fri Sep 17, 2010 1:50 pm

also suggest maybe a sub forum in general for political talks. I know i dont even bother going into general just cuz I dont want to look at more political crap. I get enough of it on tv, radio, wherever. This game for me is an escape.

I think they have right to post and discuss whatever they want, I'd just like to see it moved to its own forum so general posting can be a bit more fun again =)
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Re: Direction

Postby Pril » Fri Sep 17, 2010 1:54 pm

I'd like to see Lilithelle's characters wiped. I think this would improve the mud. Also Ban her! :)
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Re: Direction

Postby Inama » Fri Sep 17, 2010 3:42 pm

On eq repair, no freaking way, that stuff is a boring waste of time. They tried that on Duris, might still have it, who knows. And we don't want people grinding for plat either. BORING!
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Re: Direction

Postby dekat » Fri Sep 17, 2010 5:14 pm

Malia wrote:Pwipes with big pbase is fun.. all the racing and challenge of doing it again being #1.

1) The issue is we wont fix any problems and couple years down the road we are still here.
2) all of the new content in the game that was put in based on our current eq wont be doable for a very long time if ever
3) i think with the current pbase of active 30, the mud would die, if we had 100-150 players like some current muds a pwipe would be fine if you look at any mud that pwipes they always lose a few players over a pwipe here and there... we cant afford to lose players when we cant even make zone groups now.



I dont know How much fun a Pwipe would be, though I can agree that the problems with the mud, player eq and zonage, if not fixed, would in my opinion be made even worse by a Pwipe.
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Re: Direction

Postby Dalar » Fri Sep 17, 2010 5:43 pm

Tiamat items need a downgrade. 12 hours for what, 20 items? Some of them are so good you wouldn't ever use another item in it. It's the WoW equivalent of legendaries... items that are so good they won't be replaced (until next xpac of course).
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Re: Direction

Postby Botef » Fri Sep 17, 2010 9:42 pm

On the subject of Tia items, I wouldn't do a whole lot to them. One point I would make is that the Tia eq out there, particularly the ones with procs, have made the game a heck of a lot more enjoyable for me over the last few years and kept me logging in. Chimera, magi staff and fheal sleeves have made playing a mage class a blast and I'd be disappointed to see that toned down. If anything I think those kinds of pieces of eq have demonstrated how much the pbase wants a little more dynamic to playing - and having a handful of 'special' abilities to make use of fits the bill nicely.
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Re: Direction

Postby dekat » Sat Sep 18, 2010 12:12 am

As I see it, for the most part we would need three (3) basic improvements.

(1) Improved mob AI so that mob casters, tanks and hitters will work more like players in zones fights, and be nastier and meaner. This with improved resistances for special mobs like undead, dragons etc... so weapon damage types IF they aren't already in, can go in and be a factor in game play.

(2) Caster spell diversity. All people cast in zones is as much damage/heals as fast as possible, retreat, mem repeat. If casters had counter spell capability, or a mixture of spells with other casters, the overall spell effect would or could be greater and added dynamic would be awesome.

(3) Equipment shouldn't last forever, or at least should have some sort of maintenance requirement. magical enhancement as well as quested mobs for added lasting power should be available, BUT nothing should last forever, and If items are delicate, then their use would be, especially for the more powerful ones, a use as needed thing. Instead of I have all the best eq, im done, move on to next alt, it would be a more pressing matter of keep what I have to maintain my ingame prestige, or ability to zone at all. It would make wear and tear something that would make a dragon fight, or a trip to the inner or lower planes a BIG deal, as it really should be. Not an everyday occurrence. armor and weapons that were ineffective against certain mob types, or a lot less effective would help balance other things as well.
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Re: Direction

Postby Malia » Sat Sep 18, 2010 1:41 am

I disagree with weapon/armor degrading and maitenance. You dont spend months questing a khanjari or dragon fang dagger, or muspel sword, or oakvale epic, or whatever major quest it is, to have weapon breakable/degrading. That just creates time sinks so people have to re-do same thing over and over to maintain that they continue to have the item. You think rares are bad now, imagine if everyone had to horde quest stuff cuz their dagger was gonna degrade and they would have to do it again. NO THANKS
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Re: Direction

Postby dekat » Sat Sep 18, 2010 3:17 am

Malia wrote:I disagree with weapon/armor degrading and maitenance. You dont spend months questing a khanjari or dragon fang dagger, or muspel sword, or oakvale epic, or whatever major quest it is, to have weapon breakable/degrading. That just creates time sinks so people have to re-do same thing over and over to maintain that they continue to have the item. You think rares are bad now, imagine if everyone had to horde quest stuff cuz their dagger was gonna degrade and they would have to do it again. NO THANKS



not saying you would have to redo quest, just that you would have to maintain. It would be alot more realistic imo
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Re: Direction

Postby Malia » Sat Sep 18, 2010 3:26 am

I just disagree with you, i feel it will be total waste, an unessesary time sink and create alot more hoarding of quest items.
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Re: Direction

Postby dekat » Sat Sep 18, 2010 3:41 am

how much of the new damage resists are in on mobs and damage types on weapons so far, does anyone know?
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Re: Direction

Postby Gagrag » Sat Sep 18, 2010 4:15 am

a) One thing I'd personally like to see is more small group content. Ancient Oak and Clockwork are both killer little zones. Same with chessboard. You can still get good items from them if you do the zones enough times. I always liked the heroic token system from WoW that you can buy stuff related to your class with badges. With the pbase as small as it is, I'd like to do more than exp all day and wait for one zone to happen at night. 5-8man skirmishes would be killer and reward with tokens that can be saved to make gear.

b) I agree that lower level zones should be revamped. There should be some sort of game progression. By the time a character hits 50, it should be at least semi geared for lvl 50 content. Instead of just grinding exp until 50 then praying that you'll hit your bids so that you can upgrade slots, make the lower level content actually achievable by lower level players and tier the eq system a little more. Hopefully by the time a player will hit 50, they might know how to play their class a little better and not be a burden to the rest of the group. i.e.: As a cleric, running exp means following a tank casting heal on a single target; make small zones that force the cleric to healing multiple targets (within reason) to sharpen skills. Small stuff, 2-3 bosses. Exp tomes and other random load stuff at the end to keep people coming back.

c) I remember when we first nerfed xp in hometowns in attempt to force people to explore. Now you can essentially run a character to 50 in SM. I personally enjoy the zone and find it VERY entertaining, but somewhat purpose defeating at the same time. I'd like to see WD and BG get some attention. I agree with someone who had mentioned earlier that your starting cities are ghost towns. I don't know that I'd set VT and SM as hometowns, but it'd be nice for people to have a reason to be there. There's very little xp and nothing to do. WD & BG Chamber of Tourism is epic fail.

d) At this point, I think that a pwipe would be a nail in the coffin. Without some sort of progressive building system, I think you'd see a lot of people leave.

As I realize that everything that's been discussed up to this point would be a ton of work, I think it'll pay off in the long run. I'd like to see things get "repaired" and improved upon instead of just getting "fixed".
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Re: Direction

Postby Roklam » Sat Sep 18, 2010 5:31 pm

I've just come back from a long hiatus and I gotta say one of the bigger things keeping me around is a couple of particular players and their friendliness, and SM. There's stuff to do there that isn't just sitting by myself with only my elk to keep me company killing the same halfling over and over again. I can go kill halflings till i get bored, then go work on a quest or two, hoping somewhere along the way someone says "hey, anyone wanna xp?"
If you're brand new to a game like Toril, and you log in and see no one, have no one to interact with, and no real goals to strive for, you're going to leave. How many people that play now started less than maybe 2 years ago? And logging into scardale these days... you MIGHT see an alt of a current player there, but they are decked out and level out of scardale in a day or two...

1. Ditch Scardale. Or put it very close to SM. OR make SM the starting point with Scardale a nearby town and turn it into a little zone for newbies to get a "zoning" experience right from the start. It doesn't suck by any means, but we should find a better way to utilize it.

1a. Make low level quests approach the chars. When a new player, level 4, walks into a room, have the quest mob approach him with a proposition. That lets the player KNOW there's a quest there without having to ask bird hi, ask ferret hi, ask dude hi, ask woman hi, over and over and over just to find a quest to do. SM kind of addresses this because nearly EVERY mob has a quest, lol.

2. Write zones based on level and put eq in them. Yes, this was suggested, I'm backing it. But to actually make this worthwhile and make people zone them....

3. Level based eq. Why do those low level zones when your alt is already decked out in high level stuff?

4. And/or higher xp gain from doing these zones gives more reason to group up and do them. If we want to get away from the grind of xp, give us players a method of getting great xp WHILE grouping up to do these lower level zones. Gotta make it worthwhile though, or it will never work. Spam killing will just continue.

5. Make fights change. I haven't done any zones in a long time so this might already happen, but my idea is simply when you're creating the mobs for a big fight, maybe write three-four versions of the same boss guy, each version having the same descrip, but different skills or protections and whatnot, then each boot just random load one of them, each with same percent chance to load. And make it so you can't tell till you get TO the fight which "version" you're fighting. I mean, once you know a fight, you pretty much know a fight, right?

6. BOE eq. Eh, kinda sucks, but then again, necessary evil, imo. Maybe only on higher level stuff.

7. Partial Pwipe? All exisiting players get to pick two chars, one char, whatever, to hang on to, and only keep what they can wear - IE bound equipment and whatnot. I understand some people are like "groan, i'll loose years worth of work and I'll never come back...." but what do you actually do on this mud to begin with? You log on, you've got the best stuff.... do you actually zone and quest? Or just chill out lookin at your char in the mirror? Maybe a partial would placate everyone. And frankly the statement "If you pwipe I'll leave forever" sounds like some kind of threat, and we don't need people with that attitude if we're going to keep the mud alive. If a pwipe will lose us one or two old chars yet maybe suck in 4-5 new chars, peace.

8. Extend/add to the end game. I agree with the one who said most of the fun in these games is building, leveling, growing characters. WOW survives only because they keep increasing levels, increasing difficulties, etc, giving people stuff to work towards. If it just stopped at WOTLK, I know quite a few people who would have quit already. There's so many that went mia for a while and once cata was announced now they're back getting ready for the expansion. No expansion and they would have stayed gone.

9. I concur that eq should be damaged, maybe repaired, destroyed by dragon breath, etc. It shoul d happen because even the best crafted stuff fades with time. Unless we use the idea that every piece of eq we have is magically enhanced.... Add some risk other than "oh no, i have to grind more xp cuz of a failed res"

I know I use wow as an example, and that's like a dirty word, but i've been playing it for a few years and I can see why it succeeds. There's something there for a lot of different types of people to do. It's not geared towards only a couple of play styles.

Remember when we're coming up with ideas that it's not just about us, it's also about people we want to start playing this game. New players need interaction and structure to grow, just like kids!
I know some already supplied some of these ideas, Just adding my thoughts.
Malia
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Re: Direction

Postby Malia » Sat Sep 18, 2010 6:04 pm

no offense to those that like wow, im not really trying to have a bad attitude, but if you all want to keep saying ohhh bring this from wow and bring this from wow and oh do this cuz wow did this... go play wow... this is a diffrent game entirely.

I'm not saying im threatenning to leave cuz of a pwipe, but if polled i asked 10 people all 10 said they wouldnt come back. if even 3 of those 10 did actualy leave and 7 moaned and goaned and came back, we are still down 9 people from our current 30 pbase. down to 21 players. and thats dead mud.

Im even agreeing that pwipe would eventualy help but you have to get the current pbase up to 100-150 before you can even think bout doing a pwipe or the wipe will kill the mud. Get new players keep new players then look at a fresh start. Do that out of order and your going to lose older players and not get new ones will see no one on and leave which means you have no players.

weapon degration again will create a time sink and quest item hoarding and farming... no thanks!

ohh gotta start another khanjari quest cuz mines going to rot soon. Another 6 months of hunting rares and stuff... not alot of fun.
Botef
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Re: Direction

Postby Botef » Sat Sep 18, 2010 6:47 pm

Another thing to consider with degrading eq...what about people who rent for a few years, are they going to come back to a broken char? Are they even going to bother repairing all their gear so they can play again? We don't want to discourage old players from coming back with time sinks that keep them from logging in and playing.

Which brings up another fix to make. Get rid of aging while rented. Coming back after a hiatus, or logging an old alt to zone with evils for a night only to find that your char needs to sit around and get rejuvs is a pretty lame way to return to the game.
grundar
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Re: Direction

Postby grundar » Sat Sep 18, 2010 11:25 pm

when i mentioned hardness/durability as a stat for eq i did not intend for it to be associated with eq degradation from time/tanking normal crap/whatever. i was merely suggesting the need for an areas flag to determine what is easier/harder to nuke by certain mob procs.
Ardessa Moonblade
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Re: Direction

Postby Ardessa Moonblade » Sat Sep 18, 2010 11:40 pm

I like the Scardale connecting to the main world idea. Particularly somewhere close to SM.

I don't think adding a durability rating to items to make them burnable is a positive step. I echo Lil and Malia on the time/plat sink and general crappiness of that.

Small group zones are a good idea. Finn's Keep is a good example. 7 max in group, 2-4 decent items(depending on load).

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