New Players and Low Player Activity

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teflor the ranger
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New Players and Low Player Activity

Postby teflor the ranger » Wed Sep 12, 2007 9:05 pm

As an idea, I would suggest better availability of larger, more intelligent/capable/focused pets and hires. With a low player base, new players often find themselves stuck after their early 20's with absolutely nothing to do, no one to XP with, and nowhere to go.

The few classes that might lend themselves to solo play are incredibly unpopular in groups, and useful characters in a group setting are nearly useless when on their own. A simple solution would be to make these pets/hires more available to players should they need something to keep them going.
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Postby Shevarash » Wed Sep 12, 2007 10:11 pm

That's not a bad idea, I'll see what we can do.
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Postby Guardias » Thu Sep 13, 2007 3:33 am

You know, Homeland had a good system of this in place, it might be simpler to use that system. Support casters, rogues, and tanks would be a good start. In mercenary camps near major locations players congregate; Waterdeep, Baldur's Gate, and Viper's Tongue would be good preliminary choices. Prolly best to make the mercenaries all human or at least not ultravison at first. No more than level 21 I'd say and like homeland base the spells on a mana system. I'm sure one of the Homeland gods could explain it better or even other Homelanders.
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Postby Kegor » Fri Sep 14, 2007 7:51 am

Homeland definately did have a good mercenary setup. Cure crits and wuss tanks can go a long way without being overpowered.

I also really liked how usefull charm person and dominate were there too. If you knew the mud really well as a level 50 enchanter, you could even find a very small number of clerics to charm that could cast heal (think I may have been the only one). Even that I wouldn't have considiered overpowered, just saved a little time and money vs vit potions and dispel.
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Postby Cordan » Fri Sep 14, 2007 2:33 pm

As an illu stuck in my low 20's, I concur. I mean, I have friends to help me xp and stuff, but they may not be on, or when they are, they're needed in zones more often than not, so xp is difficult at this level solo. This would be a sweet idea.

Of course, if anyone has any ideas as to good solo stuff to do at lev 22 with an illu, I'm all ears! Though I hear in 4 more levels I'll become more "usable". LOL.

:)
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Postby Arilin Nydelahar » Fri Sep 14, 2007 5:32 pm

I would like to point out, the idea of Mercs has been brought up repeatedly, and shot down or not commented on. Might I ask what's different at this point?
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Postby Dalar » Sun Sep 16, 2007 8:11 am

Cordan wrote:As an illu stuck in my low 20's, I concur. I mean, I have friends to help me xp and stuff, but they may not be on, or when they are, they're needed in zones more often than not, so xp is difficult at this level solo. This would be a sweet idea.

Of course, if anyone has any ideas as to good solo stuff to do at lev 22 with an illu, I'm all ears! Though I hear in 4 more levels I'll become more "usable". LOL.

:)


Here's another idea. Make lowlevel memtimes scale differently so they aren't as long and more damage on low level spells. Magic missile/shadow bolts shouldn't be better than your 4th circle spells imo.
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Postby Cordan » Mon Sep 17, 2007 8:00 pm

When my illus was 25 (now he's 26), I would solo one of the mercs in the north east corner of SSC. With gear I had 385hps. They con'd either match or lucky, can't remember. It would take 8 shadow bolts, and anywhere from 3-4 spooks to kill one, and I'd usually end up with around 50-100hps after the fight was over. They weren't on my trophy list, and I was getting around 1% xp on kill.

At 26, hps around 440 (new piece of eq), I get down to around 2-250hps with displace, having to recast it mid fight.

Just throwing this out as a typical scenario I've been dealing with. If that's the way it should be, guess I'll deal.
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Postby Ifin » Thu Sep 20, 2007 6:59 am

avg mem time 19 secs/spell * 12 = 228 secs.
avg cast time + lag/spell = 6 * 12 = 72 secs
heal time: forever, more long time maybe 240 secs

comes out to about 9 min/mob for 1%

7%/hr or so.

and that's constant hard casting, not bottable DS/Ship

Spell levels by circle have always been unbalanced, ie minute >> all til your forces cast 2x. needles >> all.

I personally think 1-3rd circle spells should receive a boost though. It's more like 20 min/mob if you use spells against a mob 2 lvls higher than you. Hell 1/2 the mobs heal faster than you can damage them w/spells. And that's to get like 4-8% off a mob when a plvler can get 10-15% off higher mobs easily. It's more efficient to melee if you're plvl'ing until lvl 20 anyways, so I don't see how this could help anyone but newbies.
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Postby Tasan » Thu Sep 20, 2007 10:22 pm

Speed up the entire game.

Memorization takes far to whacked out long.

Regen needs to be turned up across the board, at least 2x hp and 4x moves.

And I daresay cut down res/moonwell and other "out of battle" spells to be cast times that aren't ludicrous.

Make mobs below level 25 heal either not at all or extremely slowly.
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Postby Ifin » Thu Sep 20, 2007 10:55 pm

I agree partially some aspects can be sped up, ie memorization (but only for lower levels), regen & moves across the board I can see, and like rejuvenate major as I saw in another thread. Mobs < 25 !healing is good as well.

But I don't see ress and/or well as an example for change. Both of those are currently mainly "out of battle" *because* of their cast times - lowering their cast times might move them to be used strategically as an "in battle" spell which alters an aspect of what they were designed for. I can think of several twink items that already have high reward-to-risk ratio that would further be increased if res/well cast times were reduced.
Last edited by Ifin on Fri Sep 21, 2007 12:28 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby Lilira » Thu Sep 20, 2007 11:25 pm

Tasan wrote:And I daresay cut down res/moonwell...


Tosses in her standard Mud Theme excuse to leave them alone...

Two incredibly powerful spells both requiring 'communion' with a char's god to work properly should have long cast times.. but perhaps trim them to what you get when you hit QC since *laugh* most people I know that fail the QC abort, mem and recast in the time it takes to finish.
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Postby Zoldren » Fri Sep 21, 2007 3:36 pm

Ya mem times at lower level sucks.

not to mention when your a necro and trying to pres ... make each pres a constant value, not level based its dishearting to pres using your whole circle and the corpse is only preserved for 30 minutes.. when it takes you 5 just to pres it.
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Postby Ambar » Fri Sep 21, 2007 3:45 pm

then you lich and get embalm and your whole world changes :P
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Postby Dalar » Tue Oct 09, 2007 9:48 pm

Homeland had low memtimes at low levels. Was great. I think the max memtime per spell I had was 12 seconds. Just have them scale down in time slower if you have it that low.
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Postby moritheil » Tue Oct 09, 2007 11:13 pm

Lilira wrote:
Tasan wrote:And I daresay cut down res/moonwell...


Tosses in her standard Mud Theme excuse to leave them alone...

Two incredibly powerful spells both requiring 'communion' with a char's god to work properly should have long cast times.. but perhaps trim them to what you get when you hit QC since *laugh* most people I know that fail the QC abort, mem and recast in the time it takes to finish.


Of course, the entire purpose for those spells to exist is to cut down on time spent/annoyance. Saving time is what they are all about.

I don't even think that a 1* cast time for moonwell would really change game balance - after all, isn't wormhole instant, with just a bit of lag after? I have yet to have anyone tell me that wormhole is unbalanced.
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Postby Birile » Wed Oct 10, 2007 4:07 pm

Regarding moonwell, wormhole, relocate, shadow walk, life walk, (insert other transport spell here) and the requisite casting time/lag time after cast (not to mention failed relocates, etc): I think the long cast time/lag are there to try to cut down on someone twinking something and then running off to someplace safe, only to come back a couple minutes later--without any threat of being caught while trying to escape. *shrug*

Of course, that says something about word of recall and how it's instantaneous, but then, I also think word of recall should be, like, 8th circle or something--way too overpowered at such a low level (IMHO).

Regarding preserve: um, the cast time on that spell is simply insane for such a rudimentary spell, and yeah, it should really be cut down considerably!
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Postby Kegor » Thu Oct 11, 2007 6:39 am

Those types of lag are viable. You shouldn't be able to instantly transport away from a bad situation. That's called word of recall, and it's a cleric spell. I think we should do away with the minor annoyances associated with these tranportation spells, such as teleport on failed relocate. Just one more thing to slow a player down by making him cast gate first before relocating.

Little things add up to be huge. If someone had to calculate their last 5 or even 10 years of time wasted due to minor issues, it shouldn't add up to near the number that you would come up with now.
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Postby moritheil » Fri Oct 12, 2007 4:56 am

Jaznolg wrote:Those types of lag are viable. You shouldn't be able to instantly transport away from a bad situation. That's called word of recall, and it's a cleric spell. I think we should do away with the minor annoyances associated with these tranportation spells, such as teleport on failed relocate. Just one more thing to slow a player down by making him cast gate first before relocating.


So, for druids, who have both well and word of recall . . . I'm missing what the point is in having a long cast time. Heck even squids can shift out instantly. Sure, they have lag, but they're presumably in a safer place when that lag hits. It's still a viable escape option.

Are you trying to say that a druid could save a group by welling it out of danger? That's interesting. Normally when we think of balance we consider what characters in a group can do for each other, not what a 3rd party (who may be AFK) can do to save them. Hmm. I wonder how often groups have been saved that way.
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Postby teflor the ranger » Fri Oct 12, 2007 3:24 pm

Jaznolg wrote:Just one more thing to slow a player down by making him cast gate first before relocating.


Perhaps we should just make smoke more dangerous!
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Postby Ifin » Fri Oct 12, 2007 8:28 pm

Druids have vit/heal/pft. Squids don't. The defensive vrs. offensive skills matter a great deal in certain (small-group) circumstances.

Downtime from group-welling is also largely a factor of leader coordination.
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Postby moritheil » Sat Oct 13, 2007 1:19 am

Ifin wrote:Druids have vit/heal/pft. Squids don't. The defensive vrs. offensive skills matter a great deal in certain (small-group) circumstances.

Downtime from group-welling is also largely a factor of leader coordination.


I'm not really trying to make this a squid vs. druid debate. I'm just pointing out that wormhole is a precedent for a fast transport skill that takes less time to activate not being imbalanced.

Nor am I saying that druids absolutely need this change. Just that if you're trying to make travel faster for people that's a good place to start.
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Postby Kegor » Sat Oct 13, 2007 1:11 pm

moritheil wrote:
Jaznolg wrote:Those types of lag are viable. You shouldn't be able to instantly transport away from a bad situation. That's called word of recall, and it's a cleric spell. I think we should do away with the minor annoyances associated with these tranportation spells, such as teleport on failed relocate. Just one more thing to slow a player down by making him cast gate first before relocating.


So, for druids, who have both well and word of recall . . . I'm missing what the point is in having a long cast time. Heck even squids can shift out instantly. Sure, they have lag, but they're presumably in a safer place when that lag hits. It's still a viable escape option.

Are you trying to say that a druid could save a group by welling it out of danger? That's interesting. Normally when we think of balance we consider what characters in a group can do for each other, not what a 3rd party (who may be AFK) can do to save them. Hmm. I wonder how often groups have been saved that way.


You are comparing 2 very different classes by similar abilities. Squids don't get near the amount of tools that druids get. Shift and word of recall operate on similar levels, except shift requires you to specify a target, which isn't always as easy as it sounds. Squids don't get pass without trace. The closest thing they have to that is synaptic static, which is extremely difficult to apply to aggressive mobs (granted you even managed to figure out how this can even be attempted with any success).

Now I'm not saying that I don't think the casting time on moonwell is ridiculous, because it is. But it shouldn't be less than 4 stars though. Standard with any other high circle teleportation SPELL. Wormhole can save groups. But in those situations involving groups starting to spank, it won't work much better or faster than moonwell does as an end result. If you have a mob chasing you around with nobody to rescue you, then your group is pretty screwed already and the damage will be done. But yeah, wormhole is obviously better for other people, due to the 10 seconds of lag coming after the wormhole is opened. And yes I have wormholed individuals on the run out of harms way quite a few times.

I know you're not saying you want to downgrade squids and wormhole, cuz that would be really, really funny. I know what you're getting at, but I just wanted to point and laugh at a couple examples of how pathetic a squid matches up against a druid since you brought it up.

I think any high level teleportation SPELL, no matter what it is, should have a casting time of more than 4 stars. Teleportation spells for individual use that would be used for escape should have the highe casting times of any spells, just for those realtime situations like being chased down.

I'm not sure if druids get lag after they cast moonwell or not, like illusionists get dimensional fold lag. If not, you might have had a better case 3 years ago trying to make a trade to get that put in to get the casting time lowered. Since "that has been addressed in 2.0", all we are really doing here is going off topic talking about stuff that is going to be non existant, and bragging about mastering the very secret usage of the quasi-mega-uber skill, synaptic static, in the current version.
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Postby moritheil » Sun Oct 14, 2007 4:39 am

Jaznolg wrote:You are comparing 2 very different classes by similar abilities. Squids don't get near the amount of tools that druids get. Shift and word of recall operate on similar levels, except shift requires you to specify a target, which isn't always as easy as it sounds. Squids don't get pass without trace. The closest thing they have to that is synaptic static, which is extremely difficult to apply to aggressive mobs (granted you even managed to figure out how this can even be attempted with any success).


OK, I don't disagree that squids remain hosed while druids have gotten good spells, but I'm not trying to compare the classes to see which is in need of an upgrade. I have no doubt that squids need help more. I just wanted to point out that if you want to make transport take less time (as above posters were talking about with ferry waits) moonwell wait times are part of the picture.

Now I'm not saying that I don't think the casting time on moonwell is ridiculous, because it is. But it shouldn't be less than 4 stars though. Standard with any other high circle teleportation SPELL. Wormhole can save groups. But in those situations involving groups starting to spank, it won't work much better or faster than moonwell does as an end result. If you have a mob chasing you around with nobody to rescue you, then your group is pretty screwed already and the damage will be done. But yeah, wormhole is obviously better for other people, due to the 10 seconds of lag coming after the wormhole is opened. And yes I have wormholed individuals on the run out of harms way quite a few times.


OK, that's valid. As for me, I have saved one ungrouped person via well between now and 2003.

I think any high level teleportation SPELL, no matter what it is, should have a casting time of more than 4 stars. Teleportation spells for individual use that would be used for escape should have the highe casting times of any spells, just for those realtime situations like being chased down.


OK, again, I don't really ever see it making a difference to those outside the group, but I'll take your word that it happens.
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