Some thoughts out loud and opinions required.

[Stark]

I would suggest that once you hit 4x40, Avatar levels provide the best gains, and the 5th-8th classes are just there to provide the occasional utility ability, but mostly to get another 40, to get more avatar levels (and another pet). People no longer count levels past 4x40, they count 40's and avatar levels.

Because the 5-8th classes are generally less desirable and less fun to level than avatar levels, we should drastically cut the exp required to level them. Maybe make up for that by requiring more exp to level avatar levels.

Right now, it takes about 14.5 billion to level fifth class, 22 bill for sixth, 44 bill for seventh, and 58.5 bill for eighth.
Avatar levels take 214.5 billion

I would say just make the 6th-8th classes cost the same as the 5th. This would cut about 80 billion exp required to level to 8x40, but I'd add another 40 bill to the cost of leveling avatars to offset that. This keeps the leveling focused on avatars, and less time leveling the uninteresting last couple classes in your classo. It also makes it easier for lower level toons to level up some of the essential utility abilities that might be on those lower classo's. I don't see a real problem with that.

This doesn't help the diversity question, but I think it would help some of the other issues raised in here.

[Dragoth]

So, not to be a prick or anything, but i've been playing for over a week now on my latest come-back and/

1) Where are the tanks ?

The issue was raised over 2 years ago - The whole mud relies only on a warrior class to tank and where are the high level warriors with good eq capable of tanking groups now? Nowhere to be seen.. As a result:

2) Where are the groups ?

Even if we skip the tank issue. Why is no-one grouping for anything other than epics?
I remember in sloth3 we always had small groups of 2-3 men doing stuff together, which quite often grew into larger groups.

Right now, It seems that there is a serious lack of character symbiosis, taking another player with you only reduces your exp rate.
Again, this was discussed on numerous occasions. Even the thief/mage groups that were so great before, just don't seem to work that well anymore.

So - no tanks leads to decreased availability of big exp groups, lack of character symbiosis leads to decreased availability of small groups, lack of groups of any sort leads to players leaving because the exp grind without groups is just ridiculous and boring, as we discussed here before.

Are we just going to pray for players old and new to just suddenly appear and shoot down any complainers, or Is something being discussed and in the process of being done about this ?

[alris]

"one of our creators made 9x40, Katie" - Katie is back, serious?
Some offense to our immortal team - i really do wish for our immortals to play the game more sometimes. Even if it would cost in less changes/new implementations. Let me remind you of something. Few monthes ago Juggleblood made around 30 or 40 new items, "avatar lights". More than half ot those were made pretty poor, either too weak or too powerful. Then he makes a thread about those items stats, but the first suggestion to change the bad ones is rejected. And then he dissapears for few monthes, leaving issue buried and forgotten. If you are not discussing most changes with players, then experience it yourself at least.

Ok, back to topic. Idea and problem A - letting player to have other prime class skills/spells isnt new, it was suggested back then, like allowing those in avatar shop. Dont see any problem with it, but i doubt it would really change things greatly. Besides, prime skills/spells are not equal in "value", mirror image is pretty much game making spell for mage, but reflection is not. So it is not very universal solution.

Idea and problem B - Cant say i agree to whole thing, but i probably understand what you are getting to. From my pov, its slightly different problem. Its not that "utilize only a few skillsets", but its very limited playing style options and skills/spells fitting those playing styles. Also some skills/spells would fit in one playing style, but would not fit in another. In itself its not a problem, really, its expected result. Some classes are better fit for some playing styles, some worse, but if you have all classes in class order, you generally can experience all of the playing styles, and thats what i like.At 5x40 i said to myself "jeez, why did i even pick that classo, nothing i really expected". At 7x40 i made a damage set for alris, forged kris of destruction and did my 100m/h lyme run. At 40 avatar with -10 and 20+ damage alris is stabbing better than most 5-6x40 prime thieves. Yes, only very experienced player knows what he is in for when he picks his first class in new player menu, but if you go through game, you pretty much can find not only disadvantes of your class picks, but a good things too. It almost 100% wont be what you expected, but there are no really dead-end classorders. Scaling everything to your class position? Stop with the prime-centric thinking, its a multi-class game and right now its unchangengable.
About boring grind. Yes, the kind of achievment is great to get. The 6x40 and 8x40 levels are pretty cool because of the trip40 item choices. Equipment is always something nice. And for start, no need to add new items, it can be rework of existing ones. For example:
Ars Magica is pretty big forge, with 7-8x40 tier stats and right now low requirements. To nerf stats or to boost level requirement both not very good options. But it can be turned into series of forges. Forgeone: original forge with 2x40 req and 5 mana +2mr stats, forgetwo, adding few comps and forgeone - 3x40 req and 10 +2mr mana, etc up to 9x40. And if someone wants to be creative, it can have a fork at 7x40 or something - one reforge adds +maxint, another +maxwis.
Talking about low diversity and huge game changes - i always wanted to see different kind of "builds" in the game. Example: one warrior gets all ingame/drachma armor items possible and we can see armor tank; another warrior collects all handdamage eq, turns off parry, adds flurry and strike and here we have great damage dealer. But i do realise its nearly impossible, because before chaning anything, it needs a complete builds concept for all the classes. A lot of work.

[Magi]

I love the diversity in our current class system. I love my character who successfully stands the warrior archetype on its head and gets away with it. I love using my ridiculously large undead control to summon ghosts because they happen to be the most cost effective pet for my build.

I admit there's a lot of advantages to picking a perfect classo or buying the right drachma eq, but there's also a wealth of information available to any newbie who asks. For every response on the newbie channel, there's 2-3 people also having private conversations with them, helping them figure out how things work.

As far as additional variety is concerned, I'd endorse, or at least utilize, an option to grab a skill or spell from another class. There's some things that probably shouldn't be spread around (Juju), but others that would provide decent diversity. Just for example, some thieves might like shield of thorns (no piasa for you!), others might favor picking up massive crit, and a third might decide Adaptation to Circumstances is the best use of his talents.

An alternate idea to increase diversity is to offer an opportunity to master one or two skills. Having to choose between a variety of good alternatives is a pain that I happen to enjoy in most games. Consider the impact of improved success on ONE of: Double/Triple Attack, Parry, Critical Hit, Improved Attack, Swordsmanship, Squirm, Sneak, Hide, Palm, Strike, Circle, Adaptation to Circumstances, Tumbling Defense

I'd like to see something new personally, not just a re-use of what we've had for the last two decades. Maybe one of Breeze's top secrets projects. Hmmmm

Unrelated: I'll be available for tanking at least one night a week.

[Dragoth]

No offense to some of you guys.

Telling everyone else that every class is ok and there are no bad classes is a fallacy, because it can only be ok if you know certain things.

And i'm not just talking out of my ass here, i know how this works. While i was struggling as a lowly necromancer at the very beginning, where necromancers pet points and pets were so screwed it was impossible to accomplish anything with them, i was always consulting Wimpy because he was a few dozen levels ahead of me and seemed to always do well with EQ and exp; the guy would always smile through his teeth and tell me that he feels that everything is o.k from his end, well i knew things were NOT ok, how could things be o.k, when level 40 pets are better than level 3x40 pets ??
AND while i was bugging Splork every single day and begging him to check out necro pets as they were broken beyond belief, Wimpy would tell me to stop asking Splork to change stuff, because changes are never good and he hates when imms pry into his business.
I did find out eventually, exactly what Wimpy was doing to get such nice exp and knowing now what he knew then, i wouldn't give a rat's ass about necromancer pets either if i was in his position all that time ago, but what would necromancer's pets be like now ? Why waste countless hours arguing with immortals and writing angry letters when i've got my own little thing going that allows me to sidestep ALL of the problems in one go. Not a care in the world, the mud could stay broken, who cares.

So, please, when a person who does 10 billion exp in a week at 3x40 when everyone else can barely get 20% of that, tells everyone that the game is not broken in any anyway, it just makes me smile. Some people are utter hypocrites that's what it is about, telling people one thing and then doing the other thing when no-one is looking and hoping that it stays that way.

This game became a trick-fest, where no-one cares for anything, as long as they abuse their favorite "feature" to better than everyone else, while everyone else "who is not in the know" is just struggling with day-to-day stuff.

[cyprimus]

Wow, I leave for a couple weeks and everything goes to hell...

Lol, personally I feel its more a matter of allowing characters to actually achieve the classo determined caps... as it is, since I am a dedicated ac tank, I can never get anywhere near cap in most other stuff, since I already spent most my dracma to get my ac etc.. It seems to be, dracma is the limiter... specially for new players.

To me I am seeing eq diversity as more a problem than classo. For example, my tank can get 120 or so heal bonus ....but there is not enough eq available to actually do it.. same with max stats, though I think I can reach it, if I run with -.2 ac... making it useless..

I spent about 250 days playing Cyprimus... imo I should be able to at least get near cap in all the abilities I spent so long to earn. I also feel I should be able to change eq and become something different... instead of just a tank with less ac, and a few more points of damage..

Jb seemed to be adding lights, allowing me to get closer to caps, but, got interrupted. Get back to work!.. p

At any rate, I am off till Monday, may stop by some, but trying to take a break from daily grind. I still check and see if any groups are going, so far, just not been able to get one during them... either not when I am available, or I cannot get a decent link...