Open Discussion

[jezer]

A race will only have the result of experienced players winning... probably not the result needed.

[Strago]

Something else that I would find useful, is a tool to make exploration of an area a little less of a crap shoot.

Most of the time when trying a new mob I don't know if it is going to be a piece of cake or the mob is going to wipe the floor with me.

With the high cost of dying it really makes you want to play things a bit too safe.

A couple of options, that might help this -

1. Improve the consider command. I have been demolished by mobs that con Perfect Match, and have destroyed some You ARE Mad mobs.

2. Give a better indication of the difficulty of an area, in-game command or updating the wiki. The wiki tries to address this with some areas being labelled with a difficulty, but they are a huge range, and somewhat inaccurate. Catacombs is labelled Lowbie and the graveyard is labelled mid.

[*Breeze*]

>snip<

1. Improve the consider command. I have been demolished by mobs that con Perfect Match, and have destroyed some You ARE Mad mobs.

2. Give a better indication of the difficulty of an area, in-game command or updating the wiki. The wiki tries to address this with some areas being labelled with a difficulty, but they are a huge range, and somewhat inaccurate. Catacombs is labelled Lowbie and the graveyard is labelled mid.

re: 1) no promises on this one.. it has been .. inaccurate.. for along time since it was never meant to handle 4 classes much less 8 + avatar

re: 2) the whole point of the wiki is that players can update it (not that any player who has created an account on the wiki has updated anything on it since forever ago..)

[*Idjit*]

To Cizin: a lot of the "strong individuals" left in 2009 (not that I don't sincerely mourn their departure).
Sadly, we need to deal with today, not yesterday.
And that means the World-of-warcraft generation with their level of ADHD. See below about putting "events"
closer together. Not that there aren't potential power players among them, just going to be a lot harder
to find them statistically as time wears on.
As regards Dragoth and prime-class abilities:

This could be tied to max-stat if we wanted, being as max-stat access is tied to the number of 40's we have.
What could be nice is a spell that *required* 22,23,24,25 wisdom/intelligence to cast.
Simple examples of these would be efficiency upgrades of things like firewind, frostbolt, restoration.
Things people *use* a lot.
This could obviously be carried to non-caster classes with skills requiring 22,23,24,25 dexterity/strength.
Brand new utility skills of some new nature are obviously hard to think up at this point, without creating
a new need (danger or hindrance to overcome) for the new utility skill that doesn't yet exist.
The spell/skill list is
pretty saturated as it is now. Rehabilitation of existing utility skills would probably be more attractive
to the administration -- think of spells that no one ever casts and bring them back into vogue.
What if magic missile was like an uber-disintegrate but ONLY if you had 25 intelligence. Turn
things upside down.
(by utility i mean something not dealing directly with combat, blast or heal..mindbar would be an example)
The point being: this makes max-stat more pertinent, the main reluctance for players is that they
have to displace an equipment which was providing direct bonuses (be that, for example
healbonus or spelldam) with a max-int or max-wis item that *doesnt* confer direct bonuses,
or confers smaller direct bonuses, say going from +10 healbonus to +1 max-wis +3 healbonus on the
same location. But if max-stat opened up actual new spells that can't be cast otherwise, that might spice
things up. I would have coupled minimal direct bonuses with max-stat anyway, had I been designing it,
say 1 or 2 healbonus for *every* wisdom above 18, and 2 spelldam for *every* int above 18, but I digress.
I'm not a big fan of having 23 in a stat do nothing over 22 either. The new spells could help us in that
regard.

Plateaus have, as a broader concept not limited to max-stat, been a source of trouble and I think the main
thing we have been trying to respond to: putting *events* closer together, so people are stimulated more
frequently (not to get clinical but in some ways muds are a psychological experiment).
As has been said the events (levels, etc) are nice and close together up to 4x40, then trouble starts.

To that end, I change the subject to necro pets. The recent changes have been great for necro prime,
but for a lot of the rest of us at necro tert or quad, we are stuck at..standard wraiths..for a long time.
My solution: subdivide wraiths into small wraiths, medium wraiths, and large wraiths. For the same pet-point
cost. The small wraiths would kick in at the minimum size of being able to make wraiths now: 2x40 or 80 total
levels. Then medium ones would start at..120? and large at..160? or perhaps closer to 200 total levels.
Those are probably bad dividing marks, I encourage the administration to find better total-level settings if
they choose to pursue this.
Now mind you, I am thinking of very small actual performance changes indeed for the wraith types:
small wraith = 0.97 regular wraith, regular wraith 1.00 and large wraith 1.03 in terms of ratio of power.
But at least increased *illusion* of progress.
Literally no more than a cosmetic change but it can mean a lot to a player if things at least LOOK different
once in a while. As to animate dead, a corresponding change to wights, again using total levels as a
filter, could prove to have equal benefit. This type of subdivision, although tedious in implementation,
could pay off. In a sense we had a subdivision of similar flavor when Druid forms got expanded to x40+32.

Another plateau: dark mace stays...a dark mace. It could at least use a name change somewhere. As it stands
dark maces top out at 3d6 +3 hitroll 3 mana_regen (offset by the creation cost of 45 mana) sancbuster. This
is attained at I believe 3x40 and then stays constant.
I have on occasion suggested attack dice changes at 6x40 and 7x40 for this weapon, by researching the smallest
average damage increment beyond 3d6, namely 2d10. Dark mace would be 2d10 at 6x40 and then 2d11 at 7x40 or
8x40, for a total of 1.5 average damage progress. Which I think is actually a pretty modest request.
But there've been no takers.
I would support rehabilitating the Hidden Mace of the Netherworld as a really tough multi-stage
forge, on par with Ars Magica, which results in a permanent dark mace with stats of 3d7 or 3d8 (again, less
average damage than the 5d5 Sword of Valor with the clasp I introduced, giving warriors their due credit
..after all, dark mace is also SancBuster). As an added dividend upon forging the permanent dark mace, you
would actually get to name it. Not a full restring, part of the name would be something like "Holy SancBuster
of X", where you get to input "X". This swings the pendulum to the opposite extreme for clerics who have
spent 1,000+ hours wielding a fairly anonymous weapon. I think in fairness with the mana cost for creating
dark mace taken away, then the permanent dark mace would not have mana regen either, just the procs, nice
attack dice and sancbuster.

Just my thoughts, and my thanks go our administration for their increased flexibility over the past few months.
--Zuzu/Idjit

[melechi]

Would it be at all possible to set up some sort of list for areas that a certain style of play could solo in? For example shadow playground in vk is geared more for mage style play, while bottle nose dolphins are a chop/pet style area.

I know one of the most daunting things for me is trying to figure out where to go to solo when groups aren't up, and the old answer of "just explore and see what happens" isn't a very attractive answer either, seeing as there are well over 22k+ rooms in hundreds of areas. I've been playing sloth off and on since 1994, and I've developed an understanding that this game is set up to be played over years, but maybe one of the things that keeps the new players from sticking around is the fact that it's hard to develop a knack for which areas certain classes/class orders are good for solo play, and a game set up to be challenging is only going to appeal to those that have a certain mentality.

Now I'm not saying give players runs or specifics on where to go to maximize their solo experience gain, but some sort of rough idea on what to expect in an area might be the difference between players going and trying a new area or them deciding to just stay in the same areas they've stumbled upon, getting bored and leaving to find something easier/more fulfilling to the time they invest.

I know that a lot of the areas in the cartographers corner have a very rough estimate set for their difficulty, but for new people a guide on where they might best utilize their different abilities/play styles might be just the thing to keep new players around for a longer period of time.

/shrug

just my .02

Melechi

[Tigris]

We all know each class has its prime only ability which makes that class special but what about maybe making those prime abilities prime/or 4x40 or even 7x40 for some of the stronger ones for example maybe ariel servant would be cleric prime or cleric 6x40.This might make people think about there classo a little bit more and would also help with balancing different classes withing ones classo. Also it might open up areas that otherwise would not be in someones usual killing cycle.

Just a random idea,
Maybe good maybe bad,
Take it as you will

[alris]

I agree that there is a problem with desirable eq for high levels.
Except trip40 eq, there is nothing i want to get starting with 6x40, 7x40, 8x40. And adding 1-2 items with any new area is going to take years to change things. Of course as a warrior i would be happy over any -.1 ac bonus i can get, but for x40 levels to feel significant it has to be 5-10 new items with overall bonus from -.5 to -1.0 for each x40. And as we don't want to add extra 5 points of ac to current ac cap, so instead of adding new "best ac items" we need to redo current ones, adjusting both restrictions and stats. In case of items like Ars Magica, we can adjust not restrictions, but stats, lower them and use current Ars as a cp for 6x40 and then for 8x40 versions. The forge itself not as hard as 8x40 forge should be anyway (now i expect complains from people who rarely do eq, saying its very hard). Thats going to be a lot of work for imms and you will still get a lot of complaints about stats dropping on items, yet you can at least avoid people not able to use eq they had.

[alris]

Just a silly idea, but i thought it might be fun. What about pet follower with not predefined, but generic stats player choose on his own before making pet? if the pet made like juju (special room, takes a time to make), there also can be fit some kind of options menu, where player chooses bonuses for a follower (+1 attack, auto assist, -3 ac, +3 hit roll, extra damage, resists or immunities - list can be very long) and disadvantages (pretty much same but with minus). If you played Master of Orion2 and seen generic race menu, you would get an idea Player starts with a 10 points to spend, each bonus costs some points to buy for a pet, and picking disadvantage gives you some more points, pet can be made when points are zero or positive. Can increase points player spends on making pet as player progresses and so on.

[Strago]

@melechi, yes it would be possible to setup a list of different areas for different play styles. This could be done in the Wiki.

I will start a new topic about this, as well as about better level descriptions, but it will require a good amount of additional support in order to actually accomplish.

[Stark]

How about finding some way to offset the "penalty" one pays in rent when logging in after some time? If I haven't played in a couple weeks (which is true for me right now because I got caught up in Skyrim, heh heh) and I'm trying to gauge what game to play tonight, the first thing I think of in regards to Sloth is "Awww, I'm going to have a crapload of rent to pay and I'll have to run some coins to make up for it before doing anything else".

I'm not saying get rid of rent because I know there's good reasons to have it, but at least provide some incentive to jump in the game. First thing that comes to mind is something like a "Rested XP bonus" as seen most prominently in World of Warcraft, but it's also a feature of many other games. Knowing that your character will have a small boost towards the next level is a good reason to encourage people to log in and use their bonus xp gain.

[Shyla]

maybe i am wrong but i thought after 2 weeks or so you didn't pay rent anyways.. someone please clarify if i am wrong HUGS
Shyla...

[Stark]

Yeah, I know after some length of time your rent is free, but I have no idea how long that is. Shouldn't encourage people to just "wait long enough till you don't have to pay it" though

[Tigris]

No rent after 30 days if I'm not mistaken. Seems like a rather long time if we are trying to encourage people to log in and play. I don't mind paying rent but i log in almost every day but if your logging in at that day 29 its probably studpid expensive. I like the idea of the rested xp.. maybe offset the cost of rent with a little xp would get people to log in more, and if you reach the point of not paying rent (over 30 days) you don't get the rested xp either.