Thinking!

[Shyla]

I know this might not be what you are looking for but I want to see more quests like the blaster toy box quest or the enea statue quest. They used to do these scatter quests where they would scatter parts and when you got the whole set you could trade it in for drachma and it was done from time to time. Enea even made it so he could repeat it when he felt like it and not have to be on. Once he started it he would leave and his guy would be there to give the drachma until the mud crashed/reset. These were a ton of fun because you would have them scattered all over the place and people would say i have an eye i need a leg anyone have a leg. and the whole mud would get involved and help each other out. The drachma scatters they do now are so freaking boring I don't care how much I want drachma it isn't worth it. Someone got the bright idea you shouldn't be able to locate the drachma tokens which for me took all the fun out of it. Heck half the reason I learned the mud was to try to figure out where that room was that had the drachma token. Now they have people just mindlessly wandering around. I would like to see more fun stuff implemented with drachma again.
If this is something you are interested in please feel free to talk more on line and i will now get off my soapbox
Thanks
Shyla

[blackmore]

I like most that I can log in, put the game in a corner of my screen, and afk as long or as short as I like, then play for as long as I like in between afking. Seeing as how you probably have no projects that are going to affect these, I'll focus on game play.

I like gaining power, and realizing that I can kill things I couldn't kill before. The problem is, those things are few and far between. Bard songs cap at level 40, so the mobs I used to kill at level 1x40 are the same ones I'm killing at 4x40. I have other skills from other classes that I can use now, which have increased my power, but I'm doing nothing with my prime class I wasn't doing before. One thing I'd like to see is for there to be something like supps, forms or summons for each of the classes. It might make the game more difficult to play, but the rest of us would like there to be some benefit to gaining levels.

My other issue is with the lack of benefit in gaining levels in NC classes. I have monk 5th, and from 26 - 40 I gain a total of 4 skills.

The other thing I like to do is find eq that nobody else has found before. It gets really tedious to cycle a mob for 2 weeks, though, with xp on that mob constantly decreasing, just to come to the conclusion that no, they don't really load anything. I would really like to see some way of obtaining vague clues about unlisted eq, even if it's area based and not which mob loads it.

[Shyla]

you know what i like what blackmore said about eq. It would be nice if every so often something is posted almost like a quest that i have heard rumors of such and such and give people a reson to try new mobs in new areas ..we have often been told how there is eq out there that no one has found yet we will waste months cycling a mob only to never have anything pop and no idea if the mob even pops anything.
SHYLA

[*juggleblood*]

Showing my ignorance here, but how well does wealth and glory work with regard to finding eq pops?

What kind of clue do you need to be able to use it properly? Part of the object keyname?

Also how do you go about finding new forges when a new zone goes in? Query mob about forge? Does that always work?

[Dragoth]

I remember trying to locate a heart of a sheolian with wealth and glory with a level 3x40 bard with nearly capped charisma. We knew the exact name and knew the area where it popped but didnt know who exactly it was that popped it. We spend 3 days and a few hours each day trying to sing wealth and glory and in the end we just gave up. That skill needs a slight boost for sure.

[blackmore]

W&G requires at least 2 keywords. Bard primes can use up to 5 or so keywords. The odds don't seem to increase, it just gives you more combinations to try. Each distinct combination of keywords can be sung once to a mob each reboot/crash, or you can kill/sing on respawn.

The odds of getting an exact area or mob is extremely low. It works best when you have a room full of mobs to sing to, but there aren't many of those in the mud (CF smugglers, centaur fillies type rooms).

[*Chobbs*]

Mornin' folks,

Thanks for the insights.

//
@jezer
Having an antagonistic tone ('i should have replied sarcastically, but I didn't') does not really accomplish anything productive. Try insulting someone then giving them advice, see how well that works. I addressed all your ideas, whether I like you or not.

- Regarding helpfiles: Wiki style would be amazing, but I think I brought that up briefly with Benq but I vaguely recall he doesn't like mediawiki. And given the then 'recent' web overhaul, I didn't really push it further). Took action regarding this though, stay tuned.

- Update for you regarding maps: talked to Isabo about this, seems folks complained about the time limit being too short, and lack of participation during December. Could be the holidays, who knows. Consult Isabo for more details.

@filk
- Druid mana drain: Hm. Not sure how the mana drain is now, but I hope shapeshift mastery way down the line helps. I honestly have no clue how it actually plays out, since my focus was on content generation. Testing things out, forms such as the spirit worm is absurd, good enough for a mob maybe, but I didn't do extensive tests. I hear good things about
lower level form maintanence. Hopefully jezer's response, as a more experienced druid than I, helps.

- Druid eq: Will look into druid eq. Honestly, adding/balancing eq is a real chore, even more so when dealing with shapeshifting. I have provided mechanisms to increase specific druid skills, so you might have something that is say, +3 damage on felid pounces or maybe +20 heal bonus for unicorns.

- Druid pets: Awakens, were put on the backburner. There were some, 'complications', with the code, namely trying to make custom webs as per the most common complaint. Don't want too much debuffing, since the primary char is already such a monstrous beast hp and damage wise. They may show up sometime in the future, time/interest permitting. No promises nor timeline.

- 100% Drachma refund: personally I'm against this, but I only speak for myself and not the entire staff.

@Thraxas
- Progression: With 9 classes it's quite hard to add content everywhere. Necro pet balance is a pain, and would require such an extensive overhaul it's overwhelming. I am not a fan of just making the pets grow according to a stiff mathematical formula as you have suggested several times (look how well it worked with exp tables). Like with the druid forms, I prefer creating specialized entities with differing functions. Of course, this takes more time to develop, so I'm still thinking upon it. Only time will tell.

- Links: Thanks for the links, an interesting read. Those truisms are quite applicable to Sloth, namely the second. Remember the tweakening? What a reaction that got for a such tiny changes.

@Atwell
- On emergent behavior: Nod. We've discussed this before, but like you say, can't really create emergent behavior intentionally. Usually. What kind of new abilities would you suggest?

@juggleblood
- On quests: More quests!? Those things take time!

@norks
- Early S4: Yeah, cramming too many people into the same few areas made sloth feel a bit cramped. That and everyone was suffering from heavy 10+ year avatar withdrawal. Better now!

- Supplicant pets: Agree regarding supplicants. Wrote a few, but problems trying to pair each tier. Neutral alignment supplicants seems a bit... odd. Will think more upon it later. Still working on it, though.

@Shyla
- Stay tuned, maybe a week or so.

@blackmore
- Finding new eq: I agree. I'll see how to facilitate finding hidden items/adding hidden eq here and there. One problem is that most folks are just content with their current set, and won't take the effort to explore unless the eq is better. Kinda creates a problem when designing new eq for areas: "How do you make desireable eq that people would want without simply tacking on a modifier to a spot that has never had it before, or tiny tiny hp/ma boosts that usually isn't worth the trouble to cycle for". Yeah, it's rough. Some old eq could use updating too.

//

Concluding remarks:
Sense of progression/milestones seems to be the big thing concentrated on pets and honor. Rest seems to be desire for more content. Will be keeping those two truisms in mind.

Appreciate the input, but remember, we don't know what needs fixin' unless folks say something, and a little bit of politeness goes a long way.

/tldr
Chobbs

[Filk]

@filk
- Druid mana drain: Hm. Not sure how the mana drain is now, but I hope shapeshift mastery way down the line helps. I honestly have no clue how it actually plays out, since my focus was on content generation. Testing things out, forms such as the spirit worm is absurd, good enough for a mob maybe, but I didn't do extensive tests. I hear good things about
lower level form maintanence. Hopefully jezer's response, as a more experienced druid than I, helps.

- Druid eq: Will look into druid eq. Honestly, adding/balancing eq is a real chore, even more so when dealing with shapeshifting. I have provided mechanisms to increase specific druid skills, so you might have something that is say, +3 damage on felid pounces or maybe +20 heal bonus for unicorns.

One thing about shapeshift mastery. In S3 you was getting it muuuuch ealier. Now its almost ungetable for most ppl. If we can get it at start of avatar levels, on its 4x40 part, that would be more correct, i think. Jezer expirience is nice, but he didnt played with current form changes. And now mana cost is very heavy, and higher we go, the more heavier it becomes. Something should be done with it.

About eq, i guess eq that gives some basic stats, and then adding some effects only when shifted, whould make sense to balancing. But in my post i only meant that we have only 1 ingame item for several slots, some with only 1 drachma item, and few slots have none items at all. Filling these holes would be nice to start with. And adding some specific form items after it.


Btw, we still lacking reworked eq list. Just small addition, that shows what can be forged from item. Now its very hard to understand value of item, if its cp and you dont know that, since you cant see it, until you catch exact forge on that list. That should not be very hard, since that info is in the db already, it just should be shown

[*Breeze*]

You have no idea on the structure of the DB or the eqlist code so you cant comment on the difficulty of adding to it

I enabled the testcode i had set up, but if its broke, its broke and will stay broke til I have time to fix it
and no i am not linking the components back to the main items for now.

Btw, we still lacking reworked eq list. Just small addition, that shows what can be forged from item. Now its very hard to understand value of item, if its cp and you dont know that, since you cant see it, until you catch exact forge on that list. That should not be very hard, since that info is in the db already, it just should be shown