Light and darkness again

[kiryan]

I suggested about 4 years ago that we add degrees of light and affect in more degrees rather than in our very simplisitc can see, can see red shapes, or can't see.

right now we roughly have

6pm to 6am it is dark (ultras can see, infra red shapes, humans blind except they all carry a light so they are never blind)
6am to 6pm its light (ultras blind, infra and human can see)

Now lets not get into an evil race should be or shouldn't be harder, but there is a great inequity in that one group of players is beyond extremely handicapped for 12 out of 24 minutes (50%). This was really a huge headache for evil groups (especially for communication/consent).

I would suggest that we alter this to reduce the amount of time ultras are completely blind from 50% to 10-25% (3-6 minutes every 24). (I would say that we are doing the same for non ultra races but are blind only when they don't have a light).

4am to 10am weak light
10 am to 12 pm strong light
12pm to 4pm daylight
4 pm to 6 pm strong light
6pm to 12am weak light
12am to 4am dark

This would break the day up into 4 hours of dark, 4 hours of light and 4 hours of strong light and 12 hours of weak light.

I think this would be a good change

1. A reduction from being completely unable to see from 50% of a day to 16% of the day (12 minutes to 4 minutes).

This affects newbies more than experienced players who have backup lights and walk scripts. It MAY be more realistic to be blind half the day when you are naked, but its beyond not fun and usually is happening when you are already having a hard time (cring naked).

This affects evils more than goods because lit objects remove all vision penalties for non ultra races. seriously, would you zone if you could only play 12 minutes at a time?

side effect, a lot of the "vision" twinks that have been around for ages would be greatly lessened. You'd be surprised at which equipment/quest mobs don't have ultra and are blind at night.

2. gives you more variety and time periods to work with and tie features to in the future.

I had suggested that combat penalties be attached to different periods of time for different sights. For example, a -4 to hit in weak light for non ultras, a -4 to hit in strong light for ultras, a -8 to hit in dark for non ultras, a -8 to hit for ultras in daylight (plus any affects from being blind).

A non ultra with a light could halve the modifier, so a non ultra with a light would have a -2 in weak light and a -4 in total darkness...

Something similar could be applied to defensive bonuses, removing some of the agility defensive bonuses under different light conditions.

You could tailor these different light levels to show differing amounts of room information. Ultra maybe could see room name in strong light and have 50% longer book based memming, but not the description or objects and non agressive small sized mobs. Maybe what they could see would be based on a % chance. Similar in the reverse with added bonuses / negation of effects if carrying a light.

[zusuk]

really creative and cool idea :)

[Botef]

I can go both ways here. This idea would greatly improve the new player experience for ultra's, who still get the mighty shaft of discouragment 3 rooms after entering scarsdale during the day, get lost in the light and then delete out of frustration and never reroll, especially if they devoted a good amount of time to rolling an ultra only to get it lost.

On the flip, one of the things I like about being an ultra is taking advantage of mobs that can't see in the dark...But since those types of mobs/enviorments are in few numbers anyways, I don't think thats much of an issue.

I think what is proposed here does make a lot more sense though...Its very frustrating having to keep track of the current time, even with triggers, so as not to get 'stuck' in daylight while performing some kind of task (questing, killing, recovering a fumbled weapon, etc) when in a more realistic situation I'd have some 'adapting' time...The "sun rises" message is hardly what I'd call enough time, and the funky lapse that occurs (sudden daylight, than dark again, than daylight again) is annoying too.

[Asmaria]

I got one word for ya, drow boy... Sunglasses. =P Anyway, I don't see why ultravision races couldnt tie a black cloth bandanna around thier eyes or something. Or even utilize the true sight spell to grant sight during daylight hours perhaps. Wait.. IS there a true sight type spell in this game?

[malakwee]

It is not really fair in my opinion, that there are items that help races with no infravision to be able to partially see in the dark (flesh leggings/ petrified orbs etc), when there are none that addresses the need of the ultras to also see, even partially, in the light of day...

Mebbe an ebony goggles or something... am sure those evil drows want to have some style too, striding the world in their gucci shades.

For partial vision, mebbe what the ultras should see with such items that convey partial visioin during daytime, are just the room and shapes+sizes instead of red shapes .... and without details of course. Even then that item will still be better than nothing as it allows evil to move and still be able to navigate on the surface world during daytime without relying on speedwalks, or memorizing maps.

[Ambar]

In general I like the idea, Mike .. but...

I think the 6-10 AM thing is a little skewed. Driving to work sometimes at 8AM (damn I am lucky:P) I am often blinded by the sun. Sunset to dark, sure, muted light.

I think with the way eq has upgraded and changed, and they way our evils are unaffected (not harmed, no chip) by daylight, the idea of some piece of eq to assist the ultra in day vision would be GREAT :) Maybe something that loads in Tia. I can only see that type of item loading in the hardest zone. An oober rare item that is only duergar/drowable. (Also only warrior/rogu/priestable since mage ultras get some sort of see in dayblind spell/skill)

[Tasan]

I think you missed the point here.

It is not the experienced players who really have the worst time with this. It's the new players that aren't specifically told before they come here to roll goodie or an infra evilrace or be required to have the patience of atlas to navigate in the NEWBIE zone.

Why can't the newbie zone be coded to be lit for goodrace, and "unlit" for evilrace chars as a starter to this? Or perhaps make a mirror Scardale(i.e. Newhaven) for evils to thrive in? I think there are several quick-fix solutions until a better fix through game code can be adapted for the evilraces.

If you need someone to write the mirror, let me know, I'd be happy to.

[kiryan]

in terms of fairness, its not fair that the ultra races have innates... Its not really a discussion about fairness.

it is a discussion about whether or not its a good idea to have such a minimalistic approach to light / dark (off or on) especially in light of its affect on particular race/side and its affect on new players.

I'd say that you are heavily handicapped to the point of being unable to play for 12 minutes out of 24 minutes if you pick certain races which have a larger effect on the entire evil race side. Reducing the handicap or spreading a much lighter handicap over a longer period of time would be far preferable in my opinion.

I believe the original intention was to encourage the evil races to play in the UD and make forays to daylight zones very occasional. Unfortunately, there was great inequity between the content "available" to good and evil races in 2 areas.

1. goodies have way more zones with way more eq which is probably on average better. its still very very lopsided.
2. evils had a few zones with amazing eq for the effort, and for a long time eq that was better than what was available to good races. The eq calcr treated evil race zones the same as good race zones and eliminated the only "balance" to point 1.

... now part of this suggestion is a hack to address the game dynamic that has always crippled evil races... part of it is just a suggestion on creating degrees of darkness that can be used in future game dynamics / content. Either way, I think its a good idea because I don't see any other near or mid term ideas that would ease the evil doldrums.