Time Sinks

Discussion concerning the upcoming Toril 2.0 update as well as general 3.5 edition D&D discussion
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Postby Tasan » Thu Mar 01, 2007 7:53 am

Jaznolg wrote:action packed adventuring with faster CR ability


I think the point of the game is NOT to die... why should CR's somehow be easier/faster(they are already exceedingly easy for the most part)?

Jaznolg wrote:slightly faster regen rates, more moves on mounts.


Yes, please.

Jaznolg wrote:No more KO, 5+ minute river ferrys


Boat times aren't really that bad except Turtle and boats going to MS. Justice needs to be removed entirely.

Jaznolg wrote:ress fx, failing relo, relo lag, only 5 potion quaff in 24 minutes


Are all in place to prevent the mass twinking that would result from their removal...

Jaznolg wrote:remove racail grouping restrictions


Why... because evils can't find a group? Removing the dayblind issue will go a long way to help that problem, also being able to choose race/class combinations instead of being stuck with some. We still have no idea how grouping is going to be after the changeover so assumptions are just that.
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Postby Kegor » Thu Mar 01, 2007 1:03 pm

I should know better than to argue with you Doug, cuz I know you just do it half the time for the sake of doing it. But wtf. I am bored anyways.

Tasan wrote:
Jaznolg wrote:action packed adventuring with faster CR ability


I think the point of the game is NOT to die... why should CR's somehow be easier/faster(they are already exceedingly easy for the most part)?


There have been improvements over the years to this, yes. But since deaths can, will, and do happen quite frequently, I think more improvements could be made for overall faster, and better gameplay.

Tasan wrote:
Jaznolg wrote:No more KO, 5+ minute river ferrys


Boat times aren't really that bad except Turtle and boats going to MS. Justice needs to be removed entirely.


I think all boats should move 1 room per second and pause for 20 seconds at each destination. Especially the Spirit Raven and the larger boats that take 20 minutes to get somewhere.[/quote]

Tasan wrote:
Jaznolg wrote:ress fx, failing relo, relo lag, only 5 potion quaff in 24 minutes


Are all in place to prevent the mass twinking that would result from their removal...


Well, lets take a look at this a little closer.

Ress FX: you die, you get ressed back into zone, you are down 5% exp, most likely still waiting for the rest of the people that died in your group to get ressed back in. If you aren't, they are waiting for you. Don't see the harm in eliminating this one because there is already a natural time sink, and exp penalty built right in.

Failing Relo: Not the worst time sink ever invented, but quite possibly the most ill concieved. We have lots of spells in the game, and sure they fail from time to time on the high circle ones. But this is the only one that gives you a little time out for failing a spell, as if the casting time and the memorizing time was not great enough already to make this difficult to use in emergencies.

Relo Lag: Once you have cast the spell, you have to stand there for another ten to twenty seconds before being able to participate in combat, follow your group leader, ready your spells to zone, whatever it is that you relo there for in the first place. Now granted this does kill people relocating into hostile fights etc from time to time. And that is probably the biggest reason it should be removed. Most of the time if you were going to die while in this lag, you will die anyways a short time later without it. Lets just give control to the players in this situation and take the very annoying lag factor death out of it. Dying because of lag is aggrivating, and not a good death. Going down casting in the same situation is 100% better for player morale.

5x Potion Quaff/Day: This is one of my favorites. Why do we have this one? Sure, twinking would be a little easier if this was not the case. But why is that? How much worse would it be? Is twinking really bad for the game? There are lots of important questions to ask when thinking about this topic.

How would I correct this problem? First of all I think potions that help give the player an edge by using more than 5 of them in a short period of time might be too inexpensive to buy in shops. Vit potions for 30 plat? Common get real. Make it 100 at least. Vigorize critical potions for 16? Make it 50 at least. There really are a few spots in the mud where you can buy mass quantities of potions at one time. I say turn the price up on them very significantly and remove the 5x per day thing. Will this allow for more twinking? Yes. Will twinking be done on higher levels of the sense? Maybe occasionally, but not significantly. Making it a little easier for people to twink stuff is not a bad thing. I might just use my warrior for more stuff and double up on vit and dispel potions now and then, even if it broke my bank just to have a little solo fun when bored at 4am. Fun, that is the goal of a game. Not more restrictions. If someone is hell bent on using potions to do something, nothing stops them from waiting 24 minutes to heal up fully again and give it another go, and another. This is just saving time for those that would not have that time to spend that others would.

Tasan wrote:
Jaznolg wrote:remove racail grouping restrictions


Why... because evils can't find a group? Removing the dayblind issue will go a long way to help that problem, also being able to choose race/class combinations instead of being stuck with some. We still have no idea how grouping is going to be after the changeover so assumptions are just that.


No, not because evils can't find a group. Because the MUD in general has been hurt over time by this segregation. Good and Evil is what its all about, and the distictions that people make about thier own character. If my drow wants to go group with some neutral elves that are willing to have me, I don't see wtf the problem is.

Dayblindness has long plagued the ultra races. It is a highly exagerated and destructive interpretation of ultravision. Removing it would be a nice step toward balance, I fully agree with that.

I just hope to see some of the mistakes of the past corrected in the future. I would like to see this mud thrive with over 200 on at any given time again. These things mentioned above are neccessary developments toward that goal. I hope to see a game that people enjoy so much, that it would be much harder than it is now for them to move on to another one.
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Postby Tasan » Thu Mar 01, 2007 4:39 pm

Wasn't actually arguing, was pointing things out.

Jaznolg wrote:overall faster, and better gameplay.


I have no problems with that. 2.0 should alleviate a lot of already tedious things about the game. I fail to see why death should become any less of a hassle however since it is the ONLY detriment to zoning at all. You said yourself there have been many advancements over the years... like scry/spirit walk/soul walk/corpse glamor/fold? I think there has been enough forward progress by the game for the players. I think perhaps what you are complaining about is more due to difficulty involved in getting back into !teleport areas, which is somewhat of a separate issue than just plain CR speed.

Jaznolg wrote:I think all boats should move 1 room per second and pause for 20 seconds at each destination. Especially the Spirit Raven and the larger boats that take 20 minutes to get somewhere.


1/second is a bit fast is all I'm going to say.

Jaznolg wrote:Ress FX: you die, you get ressed back into zone, you are down 5% exp, most likely still waiting for the rest of the people that died in your group to get ressed back in. If you aren't, they are waiting for you. Don't see the harm in eliminating this one because there is already a natural time sink, and exp penalty built right in.


Of course you don't. I'm sure Toddrick could explain better why that particular time sink is in the game. 12 minutes is a long time I agree, but I wouldn't remove the time penalty completely. This may be moot since 3.5 has something like True Resurrection which maybe will be in here...

Jaznolg wrote:Failing Relo: Not the worst time sink ever invented, but quite possibly the most ill concieved.


I fail relo very rarely, so rarely in fact that I'm not even careful about it anymore. I don't understand why everyone makes a huge deal out of this... every skill(including spellcasts) takes forever to get to a certain point, but those that max their skills see the benefits. This is going to be another moot point in 2.0.

Jaznolg wrote:Relo Lag: Once you have cast the spell, you have to stand there for another ten to twenty seconds before being able to participate in combat, follow your group leader, ready your spells to zone, whatever it is that you relo there for in the first place.


This is the price of casting a spell that EXHAUSTS you. Says so right in the text... would you rather have ress fx style lag applied instead? Doubtful. The fact that you use an example of someone reloing back to a fight in which they've already died to help is the main reason it has the lag in the first place.

Casters have a power-curve for a reason. At high levels they don't even need equipment to fight effectively most of the time, whereas melee is dead in the water without it. If you die in a fight you aren't supposed to be able to help w/ that same fight. That's another penalty of dying(of the few remaining), consistant just a smidgen with reality.


Jaznolg wrote:Is twinking really bad for the game?


Can't believe you even asked that. If it has a negative connotation it probably has it for a reason.

Jaznolg wrote:Make it 100 at least.


I agree with this totally. If you are going to let people quaff everything they want to then up the prices on everything. Plat is plentiful and worthless atm.

Jaznolg wrote:Maybe occasionally, but not significantly...Fun, that is the goal of a game.


Apparently all the twinking has forced players not to have fun. Which is why many have left. The game stopped being fun when equipment became ubiquitous due to the auction system, the overabundance of plat in the game and the people at the high end w/ the time/know how to get items in small groups. These people took away the zoning aspect for people and gave them equipment that wasn't really earned. Eq devalued mightily to where you see items that were great a year ago that are absolute crap now.

I was one of the people that helped facilitate this problem and looking back on it now I'm pissed. Many of the people who left were my friends who logged in after work to find out that a few people who weren't working all day sniped the good eq from a couple zones so no one wanted to go. If you make it even easier to do, the casual gamers will disappear completely from this place.

Jaznolg wrote:Because the MUD in general has been hurt over time by this segregation.


You were around for DSR and CS fighting to be the best guilds in the game(w/ apologies to the rest), how can you say that wasn't fun/what the game was about?

Jaznolg wrote:These things mentioned above are neccessary developments toward that goal. I hope to see a game that people enjoy so much, that it would be much harder than it is now for them to move on to another one.


It's going to be really hard to keep any casual gamers here if they only log on to see the same 5 people twinking everything. If players policed themselves a bit better this place would definately be more fun. Doing crypts with a 6 man group is awesome... doing it every boot with the same 6 people is stupid. I am a hypocrite for saying that, but I've come to see the damage done.
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Postby Kegor » Thu Mar 01, 2007 5:13 pm

I fully agree with most of the stuff you said. But on the issue of twinking things, I disagree.

I think in a more flurishing MUD with hundreds of players on at any given time, making it a little easier becomes a non-issue. I think with only up to fifty or sixty people on a day, it is a huge issue, and should be made easier in a sense of the time sink removal and the petty annoyance, as should all things that fall in that category. I don't see how this is bad for the mud unless you take it to a very far off extreme that goes beyond just potion quaffing.

As for auction making the MUD worse, I would disagree also. I think the addition of more zones regularly and a better rate of rebooting would go a very long ways to help the problem that you were describing.
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Postby Shevarash » Thu Mar 01, 2007 5:18 pm

Split from Q&A thread - this is a good discussion, but it doesn't really belong in the main thread as the question has been answered.
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Postby Lilira » Thu Mar 01, 2007 7:07 pm

Tasan wrote:
Jaznolg wrote:remove racail grouping restrictions


Why... because evils can't find a group? Removing the dayblind issue will go a long way to help that problem, also being able to choose race/class combinations instead of being stuck with some. We still have no idea how grouping is going to be after the changeover so assumptions are just that.


The evil races are supposed to be harder to play, in for more experienced players. It says it right as you go to roll one up. Dayblind adds to the difficulty. As an experienced player rolling it up (yes, the ones that evil races were originally directed towards!) being dayblind requires you to know the mud! Can't tell you how many times I've done blind runs with one of my little drow, but then I've been playing for over 10 years and know the areas I'm running around fairly well. Hence the experienced player edge.

By removing the difficulties of playing an evil race, you might as well just remove the race because it will merely turn them into another.. remove dayblind and you might as well have a dwarven warrior.. admittedly one with enlarge and invis as innates. Drow.. oh look its an elf that can inn faerie fire, dark and lev... we're gonna play them just cus they get better innates! *yawn*

They're supposed to be tough.. evil is bad remember?
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Postby Tasan » Thu Mar 01, 2007 8:19 pm

Jaznolg wrote:As for auction making the MUD worse, I would disagree also. I think the addition of more zones regularly and a better rate of rebooting would go a very long ways to help the problem that you were describing.


How would rebooting regularly or god-forbid removing crashes entirely help the inflation of equipment?

The only thing that can regulate the flow of equipment is the players right now. There needs to be other ways for equipment to leave the game. Right now a lot of the high end quests ask for the same 5 or 6 items, they become overly coveted by too many people for things, people get frustrated by not being able to obtain them and leave.

New zones constantly coming in just adds to the escalation levels. Look at the trend of zones coming in over the past 2 years. SPoB, Izan's, GF... all use the idea of less rewards per trip to give higher overall stats, problem is when you can do the zone every boot it doesn't cut down on the amount of equipment at all. Then people only need to go to 2 different zones to get an entire set of decent equipment and again you are stuck with the boredom caused by the ad nauseum repitition of the same zone.

Yes new content brings a level of fun back to the game, but at what point do the players start doing new zones that must give diminishing rewards and decide that the rewards just simply aren't worth the time?

The main thing about auction is the artificial economy it creates. A player run trading community has less volatility and doesn't tend to inflate the price of things quite so much. Platinum has become nearly worthless because there really is no use for it. We need some sort of economy system here.
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Postby Thilindel » Thu Mar 01, 2007 11:03 pm

Just a thought, and not sure how 2.0 will be different if at all, but lets put dayblind vs. blindfighting. Now how can you blindfight? Experience! Bruce Lee had some nice and not practiced fights where he was blindfolded. It wasn't in movies, it was stuff that required timing. Anyway, as an evilrace gets higher in level, I'm quite sure a potential problem would be to give partial feedback or erroneous mobs, landmarks etc that an ultra possibly thinks (s)he sees. Just like listen for bard, it'd be somewhat ambiguous but helpful vs. nothing at all.

Also, we all know there are TWO types of blind for some reason. In 'dark' rooms you cannot offense, even when engaged-who knows why! Yet when you are blinded in combat, you see 'someone', cannot assist, but can area or target the engaged. The prior blind won't let you offense anything at all.

So if there are more than one blind out there, then there should be more versions of dayblind too - my 2 cents.
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Postby moritheil » Sat Mar 03, 2007 3:21 am

Fundamentally, twinking things presents a lose/lose situation: Either don't twink, and lose out now, or twink, and eventually lose out later. Add to this the fact that people don't really tend to take well to attempts to twinkproof zones (autosearching mobs, blocking fights, etc.) because such measures generally result in annoyance for full groups of 15 as well. Self-policing is a nice idea, but economically represents an unstable equilibrium, and those don't tend to last regardless of peoples' individual intentions. We as a community are going to have to think of a more definite way to deal with the erosion of zoning.

Regarding potions, the number one problem is that the bottleneck is currently at the consumption end, not at the creation end. That logically results in thousands of extra potions accumulating in-game because people get potions faster than they use them. It would seem that the best way to correct things would be to make useful potions harder to get so that they enter the game more slowly. One way to do this is by increasing the cost astronomically. Another method is to remove potions from shops and make them all quests.

Making potions quests would also equalize the field somewhat for newbies - after all, it's trivial for someone with a level 50 character to get the cash to buy 100 potions in Scardale in the time it takes a newbie to get the cash to buy 1 potion. If the potion becomes a non-farmable quest, it takes them both a similar amount of time (and the opportunity cost for the newbie is much less.)

Tasan wrote:
Jaznolg wrote:Is twinking really bad for the game?


Can't believe you even asked that. If it has a negative connotation it probably has it for a reason.

Jaznolg wrote:Maybe occasionally, but not significantly...Fun, that is the goal of a game.


Apparently all the twinking has forced players not to have fun. Which is why many have left. The game stopped being fun when equipment became ubiquitous due to the auction system, the overabundance of plat in the game and the people at the high end w/ the time/know how to get items in small groups. These people took away the zoning aspect for people and gave them equipment that wasn't really earned. Eq devalued mightily to where you see items that were great a year ago that are absolute crap now.

I was one of the people that helped facilitate this problem and looking back on it now I'm pissed. Many of the people who left were my friends who logged in after work to find out that a few people who weren't working all day sniped the good eq from a couple zones so no one wanted to go. If you make it even easier to do, the casual gamers will disappear completely from this place.

. . .

It's going to be really hard to keep any casual gamers here if they only log on to see the same 5 people twinking everything. If players policed themselves a bit better this place would definately be more fun. Doing crypts with a 6 man group is awesome... doing it every boot with the same 6 people is stupid. I am a hypocrite for saying that, but I've come to see the damage done.
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Postby moritheil » Sat Mar 03, 2007 3:37 am

Oh, I also want to point something out here:

Tasan wrote:New zones constantly coming in just adds to the escalation levels. Look at the trend of zones coming in over the past 2 years. SPoB, Izan's, GF... all use the idea of less rewards per trip to give higher overall stats, problem is when you can do the zone every boot it doesn't cut down on the amount of equipment at all. Then people only need to go to 2 different zones to get an entire set of decent equipment and again you are stuck with the boredom caused by the ad nauseum repitition of the same zone.

Yes new content brings a level of fun back to the game, but at what point do the players start doing new zones that must give diminishing rewards and decide that the rewards just simply aren't worth the time?


Tasan is absolutely right if his assumptions are correct, but I take issue with one assumption. Essentially, the idea is that new zones will inevitably have the best eq (otherwise who would do them?)

The point of eq, especially from what we've heard regarding Toril 2.0, is to have a lot of tradeoffs. You could make dozens of zone items based on one tradeoff and using a sliding scale. As an example, let's assume an earring is considered decent at 15hps, and equally decent at 5hps -10ss. In this (simplified) example, that means that 11 earrings can be put in the game without breaking balance, and depending on zone preference, group composition, color scheme, etc. different zones will be done by different people looking for earrings, all without ruining balance. (5hps -10ss, 6hps -9ss, running the gamut all the way to 15 hps 0ss.)

The problem with eq as it currently exists is that there aren't that many in-between choices. Instead, one item is usually flat out better than the other (same hps, but more saves or AC.) More nuanced eq would make it possible for dozens of zones to offer gear for the same slots without any one item being substantially more powerful than another. (Admittedly, the zones in question might have to be rebalanced, but IMHO that's well worth the effort to bring variety back to zoning.)

Of course, the Areas sphere may already have this or some other plan in the works. Ultimately it's up to them. But I want to point out that I don't see more zones as leading inevitably to eq inflation.
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Postby Kegor » Sat Mar 03, 2007 10:33 am

Lilira wrote:By removing the difficulties of playing an evil race, you might as well just remove the race because it will merely turn them into another.. remove dayblind and you might as well have a dwarven warrior.. admittedly one with enlarge and invis as innates. Drow.. oh look its an elf that can inn faerie fire, dark and lev... we're gonna play them just cus they get better innates! *yawn*

They're supposed to be tough.. evil is bad remember?


They are for more experienced players. Right, that is why every first time player that just read the dark elf trilogy logs on and rolls up a drow. Because they are for more experienced players.

You can go ahead and can that line of thinking. I have heard all the arguments before over the years of playing ultravision races as much as anybody has ever cared to. But after days of my life wasted on just waiting for the sun to go down to attack a mob or scout something I came to the conclusion that it is just a time sink and a false pretense of how ultravsion was intended. No matter how fun the novelty of it is for you playing your goodie most of the time, that is all it will ever be. It's not "harder", unless your definition of harder is standing around more.

The main arguement here is that it makes these races distant alt secondaries to thier goodrace counterparts for all logical zoning and scouting purposes. Period. I'm not saying that drow and duergar should own the universe. I am just suggesting that dayblindness is a harsh exateration of what ultravision is intended to be like on the surface from any logical interpretation of any matieral regarding the subject. This has definately not done anything to help people enjoy playing these races. Drizzt was not crippled by "dayblindness" in any book I ever read, and I don't believe it ever made him stand still for 12 hours waiting to look at something. There is no mention whatsoever in any of the D&D gaming materials of total blindness due to sunlight. Just that there are penalties to hitting etc. Why is that so hard for some people to understand?
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Postby Kegor » Sat Mar 03, 2007 11:06 am

moritheil wrote:The problem with eq as it currently exists is that there aren't that many in-between choices. Instead, one item is usually flat out better than the other (same hps, but more saves or AC.) More nuanced eq would make it possible for dozens of zones to offer gear for the same slots without any one item being substantially more powerful than another. (Admittedly, the zones in question might have to be rebalanced, but IMHO that's well worth the effort to bring variety back to zoning.)

Of course, the Areas sphere may already have this or some other plan in the works. Ultimately it's up to them. But I want to point out that I don't see more zones as leading inevitably to eq inflation.


I agree with this 100%. The zones are not the problem, it is the way the eq rewards from the new zones are balanced to the currently existing zones and eq. Cyric has known this for quite some time, and we have seen great improvement over the years making more balanced items. But the trouble is, you really have to be a very experienced player that is up to date with all the eq in the game. Every slot, all current varations of those slots, what zone its from, how hard it is to get, etc, etc. If you aren't someone with this kind of knowledge of eq, but you have to make these decisions anyways, then it is really hard to create balance. There are quite a few more items in the game than there used to be, too, making it even more difficult.
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Postby Disoputlip » Sat Mar 03, 2007 11:36 am

Removing relo lag would actually make the game less exiting.

The places relo lag comes into play is if you need to pull a rogue out of clouds, or pop the bridge in muspel etc.

I'm not saying it is overly difficult as is, but without relo lag there would be almost nothing to it.
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Postby Kegor » Sat Mar 03, 2007 11:45 am

Hmm yeah good point. I never thought of it like that. Probably because I only do that 1/100 relocates (to take a guess) anymore. It is pretty funny when people fail relo and teleport to the only real nasty agro mob in an entire zone too.

The way "lag" is tho (bash lag, relo lag, shieldpunch, name an offensive skill pretty much), it is just very unappealing and doesn't seem to be appropriate for the skill you just used. Not being able to enter any input whatsoever for however long it lasts is just unasthetic to gameplay. You should only not be able to do certain things associated with the skill being used.
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Postby Tasan » Sat Mar 03, 2007 6:17 pm

Jaznolg wrote:The way "lag" is tho (bash lag, relo lag, shieldpunch, name an offensive skill pretty much), it is just very unappealing and doesn't seem to be appropriate for the skill you just used. Not being able to enter any input whatsoever for however long it lasts is just unasthetic to gameplay. You should only not be able to do certain things associated with the skill being used.


Shev has already said he's addressed this. You will have skill related lag that will apply to that skill and perhaps other combat actions as well, but it will not be 0 command lag like it is now.
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Postby Ashiwi » Sun Mar 04, 2007 2:18 am

Oh my dear Lord, I should have checked this thread before.

Yes, please, PLEASE remove the 5xday potion quaff limit!

What could I twink without that limit? What COULDN'T I twink without it??? The sky is the limit. Add no potion limit to Tia gear and rogues rule the game, hands down. As it is, Inama/Lilithelle rules the game, but with no potion limit I could taunt her mightily!

Just the thought of no potion quaffing limit makes me misty.
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Postby Thilindel » Sun Mar 04, 2007 4:28 am

staves have no limit, actually, neither should potions. Someone paid for them, or someone collected them. There are tons of heal, stone, etc staves. Who gives a crap. If someone wants to 'ruin' the game by twinking the piss outta stuff, they'll eventually get bored and leave. You can only win on god mode so many times, before moving on to the next game.

I would agree, however, with making potion limits per hour or tick maybe instead.

You can't eat / drink as lich, yet somehow quaff potions. Then when you hit the limit, you get that silly 'blood' message. So many tangents you could go off on with that alone..
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Postby Drache » Mon Mar 05, 2007 12:28 am

Ashiwi wrote: As it is, Inama/Lilithelle rules the game, but with no potion limit I could taunt her mightily!


It's Lilithelle's skills that make her a mindblowing, intimidating force. Such skills but the gods have downgraded eq, rather than changing the way things can be done. Boo!
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Postby Gormal » Tue Mar 06, 2007 11:17 pm

You have to limit potions somehow. Cooldown, or a limit. Otherwise whats the need for a cleric at all? Tanks would NEVER die.
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Postby Kegor » Wed Mar 07, 2007 7:17 am

I do think healing type potions should be a lot harder to come by. Even make cure crit potions cost upwards of 30 plat or so. If that was the case, and you want to spend all of your resources collecting potions, and money for potions, for the ability to be "invincible" for small amounts of time, I say more power to you, and have fun with that.
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Postby Thilindel » Wed Mar 07, 2007 10:50 am

How about the potency of the potion costing points towards a duration that is similar to bards spells/day but on a smaller scale.

So basic low level prot spell type potions are 0 points - bark/armor/pfe/..heck teleport even.

Cure potions could be:

Cure light - 1
Cure serious - 2
Cure critic - 4
Heal - 8
Full Heal - 12
Stoneskin -depends on level of spell


So how bards spells reset per 24 minutes, have potion use reset for how long it would take the dumbest class to cast and repray the spells. Also add the lag after a potion, maybe, in quaffing another relative on the potion quaff's spell's casting time. So quaffing a full heal would take 4 seconds to try quaffing, but you could do other commands such as bash.
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Postby moritheil » Wed Mar 07, 2007 6:46 pm

Jaznolg wrote:I do think healing type potions should be a lot harder to come by. Even make cure crit potions cost upwards of 30 plat or so. If that was the case, and you want to spend all of your resources collecting potions, and money for potions, for the ability to be "invincible" for small amounts of time, I say more power to you, and have fun with that.


That would make for interesting balance, since every once in a while, it's going to actually be worth it to blow tons of plat worth of potions. Remember Mplor's run on Tia, where he burned through a bag of potions just to ensure that he finished her off before dying?
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Postby Ssnyss » Fri Mar 09, 2007 6:41 pm

time sink = having to remake backup copies or normal copies of spells as a mage, especialy when you are doing all the spells up to lv 46+. Its a a pain in the @$$ to sit there for over 2 hrs scribing, WTF fix plz. Scribing should NOT take this long. Why do mages have to pay such a heavy price for keeping spells, when wis castrs dont even bother with books at all.
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Postby Tasan » Sat Mar 10, 2007 11:46 am

Ssnyss wrote:Scribing should NOT take this long.


http://www.torilmud.org/phpBB2/viewtopi ... ht=#176863
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Postby moritheil » Wed Sep 26, 2007 2:21 am

That actually reminds me - Shev said 2.0 would have nonswappable books. Does this mean if you get a rare spell and scribe it into your book but subsequently lose your book, you're SOL?

Are quest spells no longer going to assume spell mastery?

If so, is that good or bad? We've debated EQ sinks and cash sinks, but this is a Spell sink.
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Postby Mirlantharn » Wed Sep 26, 2007 6:34 am

I just really never understood why my suggestion of letting players be able to carry out "actions" in town only while offline was ignored. Such actions could be one of "scribe spellbook with spells A, B, C, ....".
When you logged back on, you would have a finished spellbook (either in hand or else in storage).

-Mirlantharn

PS. It could also have cost little to nothing: basically you are training your profession while visiting the town.
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Postby Ragorn » Wed Sep 26, 2007 6:16 pm

The only point that scribing spellbooks ever had was literally to waste your time. The scarcity of backup books adds weight to dying as a mage... but only if you're unable (or unwilling) to produce disposable backup books which could circumvent the problem.
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Postby Tasan » Sat Oct 06, 2007 2:11 am

Ragorn wrote:The scarcity of backup books adds weight to dying as a mage... but only if you're unable (or unwilling) to produce disposable backup books which could circumvent the problem.


Except that rogues can CR basically anything... hence why backup gear basically became obsolete at all.
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Postby moritheil » Sat Oct 06, 2007 6:31 am

Tasan wrote:
Ragorn wrote:The scarcity of backup books adds weight to dying as a mage... but only if you're unable (or unwilling) to produce disposable backup books which could circumvent the problem.


Except that rogues can CR basically anything... hence why backup gear basically became obsolete at all.


I'll have to disagree with you on this one, Tasan, though you have made some good points elsewhere. A mage can't just wander around naked and gear-free after death. Memming spells back is essential to not dying right after you get reunited with your group, and/or being useful right after you get soul walked. Nothing annoys a group more than waiting 15 minutes for a mage to get CRed, then having to wait even longer because that mage did not have the opportunity to mem while waiting. (This is most pronounced if the lone enchanter in a group dies; progress completely grinds to a halt because fights are not doable without crucial spells.)

There are also a great many non-group situations where you have to CR yourself. You need CR books in case you die alone.
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Postby Teyaha » Sat Oct 06, 2007 7:08 am

Lilira wrote:
Tasan wrote:
Jaznolg wrote:remove racail grouping restrictions


Why... because evils can't find a group? Removing the dayblind issue will go a long way to help that problem, also being able to choose race/class combinations instead of being stuck with some. We still have no idea how grouping is going to be after the changeover so assumptions are just that.


The evil races are supposed to be harder to play, in for more experienced players. It says it right as you go to roll one up. Dayblind adds to the difficulty. As an experienced player rolling it up (yes, the ones that evil races were originally directed towards!) being dayblind requires you to know the mud! Can't tell you how many times I've done blind runs with one of my little drow, but then I've been playing for over 10 years and know the areas I'm running around fairly well. Hence the experienced player edge.

By removing the difficulties of playing an evil race, you might as well just remove the race because it will merely turn them into another.. remove dayblind and you might as well have a dwarven warrior.. admittedly one with enlarge and invis as innates. Drow.. oh look its an elf that can inn faerie fire, dark and lev... we're gonna play them just cus they get better innates! *yawn*

They're supposed to be tough.. evil is bad remember?


i found this interesting

how many of you play snakes?



bottom line: regardless of what some of you want to turn the mud into - pnp, purely rp, etc - what drew many people to it in the past wasnt necessarily that it was forgotten realms, but that it was a good GAME

so whatever can be done to improve the game and bring in more players -even if it means goodies grouping with evils - is good for the GAME in the long run

it's a fact that people will gravitate towards the most rewards with the least effort. there is no advantage to playing evil - just a lot of disadvantages. that's not a good argument for 'advanced' players when the part that makes it for advanced players - the hardships - has no balancing effect of a reward of greater power

letting goodies and evils group, and making ultravision not create a nearly unplayable or dependent on a squid experience still wont remove trying to get out of ghore or hyssk as a naked level 1 (or any level snake actually).

evils have the greatest disadvantages right now - dying is simply not allowed there are no clerics or - often- anyone on to help you get back to your corpse from hyssk or ghore or even bloodtusk depending on where you were. and cr's for evils generally need help for evils.

yes yes yes..some of you are ubermudgods that have it all memorized and written down and can do it your sleep. you dont represent everyone

i see a lot of hypocritical posts actually. in the same posts a poster can say they want the game to stay as hard or make it harder, and at the same time you want more players

i hate to say it, but harder doesnt generally generate more players. not anymore. the casual revolution is here.

it's also interesting how many times WoW was brought up. one of the reasons why the alliance raiding guilds outnumbered the horde raiding guilds overall was...why? because they were goodies? that's part of it. another part of it before they were completely nerfed this summer was paladins, and how extremely easy they made raiding in general.

people will gravitate towards taht which gives the best rewards with the least amount of effort. wasnt there just a discussion the other day about evil human female rogues and khanjari's?

there will be some people who will try to re-create their pnp chars they loved so dearly - but the mass exodus of people from evil to goodie just solidifies my point
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Postby moritheil » Sat Oct 06, 2007 8:04 am

Teyaha wrote:it's a fact that people will gravitate towards the most rewards with the least effort.


Some people, but not all people.

i see a lot of hypocritical posts actually. in the same posts a poster can say they want the game to stay as hard or make it harder, and at the same time you want more players


There's nothing hypocritical about it. Just as having harsh hazing ensures bonding amongst fraternity pledges, the harshness of low levels on Toril used to ensure camaraderie amongst initiates. The problem here is that we don't have a critical mass anymore. You need people you can talk to to help get you through it and make you think of it as a positive experience, and right now we have the harshness but not the peers.

Suffering with friends = heroic story. Investment worth protecting.
Suffering alone = sucks, I want my time back.

Remember, the player retention paradigm on Toril is based on addiction, not on superior graphics or ease of use. It's the same powerful urge that causes a gambler to throw $10,000 after his $5,000 failed bet.
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Postby Tasan » Mon Oct 08, 2007 2:46 am

moritheil wrote:There are also a great many non-group situations where you have to CR yourself. You need CR books in case you die alone.


You're right, how silly of me. I'd forgotten that equipment meant nothing compared to spells.

Withdrawn.
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