Spot the difference,

[Dragoth]

Another special feature i just noticed.

<838hp 519ma 286mv>deathblow
You brutally gut a skeletal gate guard!
A skeletal gate guard looks down in terror as its curdled blood pours to the ground!
A skeletal gate guard is dead! R.I.P.Report: Armor:[36%] Wraithform:[55%] Dodged:[9%]
exa corpse
get coins corpse
Total exp for kill is 1645202.
Your blood freezes as you hear a skeletal gate guard's death cry.

<788hp 531ma 241mv><[-170]md>
Even in a skeletal gate guard's shape, a skeletal gate guard avoids your slash.

<788hp 531ma 241mv>Dodge expired!
You massacre a skeletal gate guard to small fragments with your slash.
A banshee massacres a skeletal gate guard to small fragments with her hit.
A banshee massacres a skeletal gate guard to small fragments with her claw.
A banshee massacres a skeletal gate guard to small fragments with her claw.
A banshee massacres a skeletal gate guard to small fragments with her hit.
A skeletal gate guard is dead! R.I.P.Report: Armor:[27%] Wraithform:[55%] Dodged:[9%]
exa corpse
get coins corpse
You received 1125513 experience points.
Your blood freezes as you hear a skeletal gate guard's death cry.
You sing another verse of 'gods of war'.

<790hp 532ma 248mv>Dodge expired!
You massacre a skeletal warrior to small fragments with your slash.
A banshee massacres a skeletal warrior to small fragments with her hit.
A banshee misses a skeletal warrior with her claw.
A banshee massacres a skeletal warrior to small fragments with her claw.
A banshee misses a skeletal warrior with her hit.
A banshee massacres a skeletal warrior to small fragments with her claw.
A banshee massacres a skeletal warrior to small fragments with her claw.
A wraith massacres a skeletal warrior to small fragments with its claw.
A skeletal warrior is stunned, but will probably regain consciousness again.
A massive Ju-Ju Zombie brutally massacres a skeletal warrior with its hit.
A skeletal warrior is dead! R.I.P.Report: Armor:[38%] Wraithform:[50%]
exa corpse
get coins corpse
You received 1527750 experience points.
You have redeemed yourself!
Your blood freezes as you hear a skeletal warrior's death cry.


<759hp 542ma 262mv>deathblow
You brutally gut a skeletal warrior!
A skeletal warrior looks down in terror as its curdled blood pours to the ground!
A skeletal warrior is dead! R.I.P.Report: Armor:[18%] Wraithform:[55%]
exa corpse
get coins corpse
Total exp for kill is 1878520.
Your blood freezes as you hear a skeletal warrior's death cry.


<552hp 550ma 172mv><---76---:286:>
You brutally gut a wight prison guard!
A wight prison guard looks down in terror as its curdled blood pours to the ground!
A wight prison guard is dead! R.I.P.Report: Armor:[47%] Wraithform:[27%]
exa corpse
get coins corpse
Total exp for kill is 2513666.
Your blood freezes as you hear a wight prison guard's death cry.


<650hp 389ma 104mv>You miss a wight prison guard with your slash.
A banshee massacres a wight prison guard to small fragments with her hit.
A banshee massacres a wight prison guard to small fragments with her claw.
A banshee massacres a wight prison guard to small fragments with her claw.
A wight prison guard is mortally wounded, and will die soon, if not aided.
A banshee viciously massacres a wight prison guard with her hit.
A wight prison guard is dead! R.I.P.Report: Armor:[31%] Wraithform:[62%] Dodged:[8%]
exa corpse
get coins corpse
You received 2077797 experience points.
Your blood freezes as you hear a wight prison guard's death cry.
A banshee falls quiet.
A banshee falls quiet.
A massive Ju-Ju Zombie grows a little, as it gobbles up the corpse of a wight prison guard.
get coins
A massive Ju-Ju Zombie spits out gold coins.
A massive Ju-Ju Zombie utters the words, 'candusgugh qare'

================================================================

Since necromancers primarily rely on their pets to get exp, why do pets give you 25% less exp when they kill the target ? As you can see, even Juju has this awesome ability to steal your exp

[*juggleblood*]

I admit to being a little out of the loop. I'm trying to catch up.

But are you telling me that necro's now get experience when their pets get the kill? If that is the case, it's not a 25 percent decrease, it's a 75 percent increase. I'm shocked that they would give this, more shocked that a necro would complain about it.

I clearly must be misunderstanding. Please straighten me out.

[Dragoth]

You are, obviously, out of the "loop".

Summon undead is a necromancer's prime ability, as much as a backstab is a thieves prime ability. A necromancer without undeads, is just a lame ass mage with 50% decrease in spellpower.

By being so patronizing, regarding the issue of me complaining about something, that is so obviously unfair, you only show your ignorance on the issue.

Would you reduce mages experience recieved if he kills something with a firewind?
Would you do the same if druid kills something while he is shapeshifted ?

Why does this surprise you that i'am unhappy about it ?

[*Splork*]

Since the experience boost, apparently this bug is much more noticeable now. Insomniac brought it to our attention a month or so ago.

Here is where we stand regarding the issue: We spent countless years balancing the Necromancer class while this bug was in place. We had no clue regarding this difference until Insomniac pointed it out to us. We are NOT going to look for this bug, fix this bug, and then try to rebalance the class all over again. It took us years to get to a point where we feel this class is not too overpowered but is overall, pretty well balanced. Maybe, sometime in the future, we will examine the issue closer and figure out exactly what we should do.

When we have time, we will try to figure out where the discrepancy is coming from and go from there.

Splork

[Dragoth]

It probably comes from the fact that monsters gain experience for killing monsters too, so they steal their share.

[Insomniac]

Splork, as you know I totally understand that balancing the necromancer class took time and was a matter of carefully weighing up different options etc.

At the same time, there is no balance being maintained by not fixing this bug because:

a) you can kill the mob and not your pets in 90% of cases if you have a skill like deathblow
b) you can kill the mob and not your pets in 90% of cases if you have a spell like firewind/disintegrate/destruction

The only thing that is currently happening because of this bug is that low level necromancers are being punished for being necromancers and higher level necromancers have to work hard to get the full exp they should for their kills.

In other words, fixing this bug would not have any sizeable impact in terms of *balance*...it is simply a matter of convenience and fairness. (No other class has to work extra just to get the exp they should).

In addition, I have reported other bugs with pets kills, specifically:

1. In my experience, (I am almost 6X40) I have NEVER seen a gem pop from a kill by pets. I have popped 2-3 gems from the *death* of my own pets and have popped several gems from 1 non-pet mob killing another non-pet mob. This is despite the fact that until recently, when I became aware of the exp loss from pet kills, the vast majority of my kills were made by my pets.

2. Pet kills on mobs that give honor occasionally result in the bulk of honor points being lost (i.e. 250 honor mob gives 30 honor instead).

I know you guys are busy and I am not suggesting that these bugs are the most important thing to spend your time on, however if someone does want to fix them, I'm reporting them here, for the record.

Thanks for making S4 a cool MUD to play.

[*juggleblood*]

I'm still blown away by the fact that pet kills give you xp now. When did that happen?

I don't think you're getting the Dragoth. The class was balanced out over the course of years, with this 'bug/feature' in place. Therefore there is no unfairness. Changing it would simply be a big bonus for necro for no good reason.

Even as clueless as I am, I can see that.

[Insomniac]

I don't think you're getting the Dragoth. Changing it would simply be a big bonus for necro for no good reason.

I don't think you're clueless at all, Juggleblood but I'm afraid you're really the one not getting it. For most savvy necros, this bug isn't something that stops them from getting full exp, it's just something that makes it awkward for them to do so. Fixing this bug would NOT have a big impact on necro exping for the reasons I outlined in my previous post.

[*Splork*]

Ive already discussed this with you Insomniac and my opinion is not going to change.

I disagree with your guesstimate of 90% and firmly believe we are making the right decision by not looking into the matter at this time. Our energies are being spent on issues which are much more important than improving the solo exp of the necromancer class. Which by just about everyone's opinion, does not need to happen.

We appreciate the bugs being reported and plan on looking into the ones mentioned.

Splork

[*Splork*]

Ive tested the issue regarding necromancer followers and gems not popping. I set the rate for gem pops to 1/1. The followers killed the mob, and the gem loaded, as it should.

A short log is below, the line at the very end is my debugging to make sure we are inside the correct generate_gem function, which we were.

order polt kill pea
Ok.
A poltergeist massacres a peasant to small fragments with its pound.
A peasant is dead! R.I.P.
You received 446 experience points.
Your blood freezes as you hear a peasant's death cry.
A lone thunderclap rumbles past as a shiny GEM emerges from the void!!!
IN F******GENERATRE GEM .

This bug seems to be more of an urban legend than reality.


I will look into the honor issue tomorrow.

Splork

[Stark]

Ive tested the issue regarding necromancer followers and gems not popping. I set the rate for gem pops to 1/1. The followers killed the mob, and the gem loaded, as it should.

A short log is below, the line at the very end is my debugging to make sure we are inside the correct generate_gem function, which we were.
...
This bug seems to be more of an urban legend than reality.

I will look into the honor issue tomorrow.

Splork

Thanks for being awesome and actually testing and showing results of suspected issues and urban legends from players

[Dragoth]

I'm sorry but, Necro class, balanced ? In what universe is necro class balanced ?

The last balancing of necro pet point system took place on 17 september 2009, that is the time when we went from 3 wights being the best pet at 3x40 and only 1 wraith being available for summon at 4x40 and moved back the old slothmud3 system. Since then ( late 2009, early 2010), we had a slight tweak to the pet points awarded per level ( balanced to prime and not prime ) and then there was a tweak to banshees, where they were made worthwhile and had their stats increased slightly to become better than wraiths ( since you could only summon 2 banshees against 4 wraiths)

Since then, there have been numerous complaints on this forum, that any necro pet past banshees and wraiths is a waste of time, so what is the point of leveling a necro when you do not make any worthwhile progress with your primary ability ? Necro class's selling point for me, is the constant progress with your pets and experimentation with situations in which different pets could be used.

Necro class project is NOT finished and while it may seem balanced, it was simply put on pause 1.5 years ago because immortals stopped caring, and i can see why from your many posts Rick "you get enough exp as it is, so deal with it". But as i have told you many times before, it's not about exp , it's about keeping your players interested by giving them something to look forward to.

Right now, at 4x40 you might as well stop playing your necro, as it's just going to become a mindless grind for northing afterwards.

And as Insomniac is saying, it's not a big whoop that our pets steal our exp, but it's an inconvinience that other classes dont have when they kill something using their main abilities, why should we also get the short end of the stick, because we get good enough exp as it is ?

[Dragoth]

Your biggest problem is that you are too concerned, about how much experience your players are getting, while in reality, it should be the least of your worries; numerous complaints regarding the game becoming too slow and grindy after 4x40 is an obvious giveaway.

What you should concern yourself with instead, is whether your players are having fun and whether they are involved enough with the game, to log back in every day and make all that time you spent developing this game worthwhile, both for you and your players.

[*Splork*]

Dragoth, are you serious right now?

Read my posts regarding experience and the changes I/we have made in the last few months. Read my posts regarding kill history, exp bonus days, improving exp by 15% across the board, about improving aged exp, etc. In all seriousness, you have either not been playing the game, not reading the crier, not listening to gossips, or all of the above. Hell, my post regarding 3 more extra bonus days where no kill history will be used was posted BEFORE your post claiming " Your biggest problem is that you are too concerned, about how much experience your players are getting"

Whatever, Its bs posts like this which drives Immortals away.We realize the issues we have and have been addressing them constantly the last year or so. If you don't want to realize this, and toss out ridiculous comments which are easily proven incorrect, than continue to do so.


In all seriousness, listen:


Complaint: instability, too many reboots
Fix: uptimes are huge, rarely crashes, rare reboots

Complaint: Kill history is too harsh
Fix: several reductions in kill history

Complaint: exp is too slow, sluggish
Fix: several fixes to exp calculator, numerous additions to bonus days, higher group exp rate, exp increases across the board, decrease in kill history

Complaint: stagnant mud, no new areas( 2-3 new areas in all of s4)
Fix: Rita added area, Neptune added area, Idjit added area, Tox has area ready to go in, Akasha has a massive 250 room area ready to go live. Neptune has another area ready to go live

Complaint: not enough Immortal interaction, quests
Fix: 3 area openers recently. 200 drachma worth of quests run. Akasha, Juggleblood, Pbx have all returned

Complaint: Avatar shop and avatar lights have not been addressed
Fix: An awesome avatar shop and an awesome automated Avatar light have been introduced.

Hell, all of these have been added in the last few months. Times are changing, involvement is at an all time high for S4. Join in the fun, stop taking this game as life or death, relax and take a deep breath.

Hell, if Insomniac and I can get along and enjoy conversations with each other, anything can happen.

I could probably go on and on. Yes, we are not able to get everything in but we are doing our best and making some awesome progress lately.

Splork

[jezer]

The real question is has Akasha redone the coliseum yet?

Is the 250 room area Atlantis?