Holy swords / Grouping

[El_Furax]

Hi folks,

In my ongoing attempt to takeover the newbie section, here's a few more questions :

1) Holy swords.

According to eq list, holy swords are almost the best weapons out there, and are available to the utter newbie.
Will they stop being available after a given level ? If no, well, doesn't make the quest for a good weapon very motivating, does it ?
Since even with a holy sword, mokilling remains fairly difficult for me, the situation is straightforward : I xp if I can get the holy sword, If I can't, isn't worth playing (exploring is okay, but it's a flee/recall for every aggro mob I encounter..).
Any chance I can find something better before reaching 3x40 ?
Any insight welcome, and remember, I've only played a few days..


2)Grouping

I'm suprised by the very low number of group I see (at low level anyway).
What gives ? Any xp penalty levelling in group ? What will happen, for exemple, if a group of 3 chars of same level kills a 100k xp mob ?
Again, forgive me for recurrently comparing Sloth to to other MUD, but I used to think that grouping was essential for xping, and that solo xping was pointless. And dull.

3) 'Cons'-ing.

Not sure about what's the code like behind "consider", but I must say I got my ass handed by more than a few "fairly easy" mobs !! Painful...

4) Names command.

Do I get it right there : names -target- gives the names one can use for the target... Err... and when you can't target a mob because you can't find the right name ? Latest experience was the man which smiles warmly at you in boardwalk, but NB's town quester is another very good exemple (names : town quester valkyre, none of them can be easily guessed).
Thus is there a syntax i'm unaware of to get the names of a mob for which you don't have any name ?


++

[Alberich]

[quote="El_Furax":1gczmf2f]Hi folks,

In my ongoing attempt to takeover the newbie section, here's a few more questions :

1) Holy swords.

According to eq list, holy swords are almost the best weapons out there, and are available to the utter newbie.
Will they stop being available after a given level ? If no, well, doesn't make the quest for a good weapon very motivating, does it ?
Since even with a holy sword, mokilling remains fairly difficult for me, the situation is straightforward : I xp if I can get the holy sword, If I can't, isn't worth playing (exploring is okay, but it's a flee/recall for every aggro mob I encounter..).
Any chance I can find something better before reaching 3x40 ?
Any insight welcome, and remember, I've only played a few days..
[/quote:1gczmf2f]

well, when you remove a holy weapon, it poofs - since almost everyone switches weapons for regen mode if nothing else, this is a huge pain. Add to that the fact that noone wants to run to temples really, you cannot stab with a holy sword, and there can only be maybe 10-15 ingame at once, and past lvl 10 or so, most people just feel using holy eq is kind of silly (well, i do at least )

[quote="El_Furax":1gczmf2f]

2)Grouping

I'm suprised by the very low number of group I see (at low level anyway).
What gives ? Any xp penalty levelling in group ? What will happen, for exemple, if a group of 3 chars of same level kills a 100k xp mob ?
Again, forgive me for recurrently comparing Sloth to to other MUD, but I used to think that grouping was essential for xping, and that solo xping was pointless. And dull.
[/quote:1gczmf2f]

that's a matter of opinion Some people don't group because they do not like to - soloing is more challenging, and generally more interesting, than grouping. Groups are neccessary, to pop certain eq if nothing else, and it is not a bad way to gain xp as a lowbie, but personally, i think you learn a great deal more about the mud solo. As for grouped xp, I actually believe there is a bonus, rather than a pentalty (ie mob will be worth more xp when killed by a group than when killed solo, although I could be wrong on this - as I said, I don't really group much with any of my chars)


[quote="El_Furax":1gczmf2f]
3) 'Cons'-ing.

Not sure about what's the code like behind "consider", but I must say I got my ass handed by more than a few "fairly easy" mobs !! Painful...
[/quote:1gczmf2f]

con is based, as far as I know, on your level (and to a certain extent class) and mob level. It's really kind of useless, except as a general idea - I know mobs that con at 'chicken' that can pretty much splork my lvl 16 avatar, and I know mobs that con at 'Mad' that are pretty fun to solo

[quote="El_Furax":1gczmf2f]
4) Names command.

Do I get it right there : names -target- gives the names one can use for the target... Err... and when you can't target a mob because you can't find the right name ? Latest experience was the man which smiles warmly at you in boardwalk, but NB's town quester is another very good exemple (names : town quester valkyre, none of them can be easily guessed).
Thus is there a syntax i'm unaware of to get the names of a mob for which you don't have any name ?
[/quote:1gczmf2f]
generally, scan works to give you a general idea, and you can then use names command to get pingname for a mob, for pingtrackers and whatnot

[El_Furax]

Thank you Alberich, helpful answers.

[Ender]

[quote="El_Furax":pe1ngf8r]Hi folks,
According to eq list, holy swords are almost the best weapons out there, and are available to the utter newbie.[/quote:pe1ngf8r]
Available is a very loose term. This is assuming that you can pray for it in the first place, and that no one higher on the sac list decides they want it later. It is incredibly annoying when a Holy item poofs on you, especially if you're in battle and your sword abandons you. Also, for thieves, the Holy Dagger is a decent weapon, but is literally welded to your hand, and necros have better things to do with corpses than try to keep their god happy.

[El_Furax]

Lol Ender, you just shed some light on a mystery for me : I was wondering how it could be that someone was just ready to pray for the sword [i:vkk6shu7]right[/i:vkk6shu7] after it poofed, since going back to temple showed it was "used somewhere else"....
Eh eh this is no random timer then =)

And now I know at least one use of sac'ing corpses.

Yay I 'feel informed'


Hmm time to find a decent weapon then

[Ender]

There's several opinions on decent weapons, but I've always found it ironic that one of the best starting weapons is the mithril axe. If I remember correctly, it's a random weapon and can be difficult to track down, however, you can usually buy it in the weapon shop or auction house on BH. Forget how much it costs, but 3d5 +1 +1 isn't too shabby for a straight hack and slasher. Another popular weapon of choice is the Staff of the Elven forest, which isn't quite as powerful, but is the lowest level proc weapon that I know of.

[blackmore]

Re: Grouping
There are 2 requirements to grouping: a leader, and followers. If you don't see any groups of the type you're looking for, then probably 1 of the 2 didn't exist. The xp for each mob increases with a group - I believe it's about a 20% increase in xp, although I don't know why that percentage comes to mind. However, the xp is spread across each group member, with your share based on total levels. I think the formula changes if you're following a group of players much, much larger than you. The idea of groups is that the group as a whole is more powerful than the sum of its parts.

Re: Con command
This has always been completely unreliable. It's useful for finding out if you absolutely should avoid a mob, but it doesn't really tell you for sure if you are capable of hitting a mob. The higher the mob cons, the more likely it is that it's accurate.

Re: Names command
In order to talk to, attack, or do whatever, you need to know at least 1 keyword that a mob has. In order to find out the keywords of a mob, you need to use names, which requires a keyword. It's part of an area design that they should be relatively obvious. Nobody should be putting a 10' tall ogre in front of your face that you can smell 10 miles away, screaming at the top of its lungs - that you can't attack because you don't know his name. However, in the case of some mobs, it's intentionally non-obvious. Sometimes, as in the case of the valk quester mob, if he had a keyword such as male, people would attack him on accident all the time.

[Altair]

* Holy eq:
not just weapons, is very good, but has the problems others have mentioned.
Mithril axe is good; most of my chars have thief somewhere so I like the blue glass dagger; staff of the elven forest is popular with caster-y types.

* Groups:
don't see one? Try to start one. Sometimes you don't get any response, but others, "gos anybody wants to group?" finds 10 people who didn't want to lead

Mind you, they will still expect you to lead and there are followers who make you wish for a nice, cozy precipice... you always have the option of kicking out of the group anybody who doesn't behave.

I'm on the same time zone as you; my work hours make it pretty much impossible for me to play during the week and Altair is quite big as newbies go, but on the weekend I'm usually hopping around. Any newbies who want to group are welcome to join me.

* Con:
has been tweaked many times, but taking into consideration
- classo
- levels
- armor
- weapon
- spells practiced
- spells memmed
- lag
etc. is kind of complicated
In general, if you're a lowbie caster avoid anything bigger than a chicken. Lowbie noncaster, avoid anything bigger than easy (unless you know your eq is darn good).

There are some posts about newbie locations in either the general boards or the VK Inn board (can't check it now).

[Ender]

[quote="blackmore":11gvow4v]Re: Con command
This has always been completely unreliable. It's useful for finding out if you absolutely should avoid a mob, but it doesn't really tell you for sure if you are capable of hitting a mob. The higher the mob cons, the more likely it is that it's accurate.[/quote:11gvow4v]

In honesty, there isn't a fair way of implementing 'consider'. Simply because each player has a different style and each mob is different. For instance, a splork mob can be incredibly simple... until you miss and become a corpse shortly after. Same with hack mobs, the difference of a single AC point can be the reason a level 20 can kill what a level 40 cannot. Firewind, liches, and other factors also skew the calculation. Not to mention the various skill levels and experience of the player's themselves.

Even at that, I'm still amazed at how often mobs that con as chicken manage to get the better of me, and then I have the added benefit of a dangerous mob that hates me in the area.